The Trafficker: A Michael Thomas Thriller

by Gavin Reese

  “I will be back out to check on you in three hours, which would be about two-am here. Please pick up the intercom phone if you require anything else, Father.” The pilot motioned to the in-cabin phone that hung on the wall to Michael’s left. The flight crew retreated into the cockpit and the engines sprung to life.

  After five minutes and a very aggressive takeoff, Michael felt the jet gain lift and ascend a few hundred feet into the night sky. Unlike his previous travel on behalf of his clandestine organization, the pilot stayed low to the ground and flew below the crests of the low mountains surrounding them. Michael felt additional, unexpected anxiety as it seemed the crew tried to avoid ground radar and detection by aviation authorities. That’s not good. What the hell happened in the last few hours to make that necessary?

  Michael waited until the plane ascended higher and leveled off before attempting to call his boss. He connected his smartphone to the plane’s Wi-Fi and waited for the device’s VPN to confirm the information it would display on his behalf. No, I don’t wanna route through Sweden. I want this call to look like it came from another continent. He manipulated the VPN until it resurfaced in Australia. Michael dialed John’s phone number and glanced back to the VPN readout. When the call connected, it appeared that his boss was in Singapore. None of that’s true. Perfect.

  “What the hell happened out there, shithead?” John’s gruff baritone sounded even less cheery when he was angry.

  “A lot of things went sideways on this one. There were at least two outside groups I didn’t have the resources to identify.”

  “So what happened? How’s that end up with all the damned soap opera drama I’m readin’ on the Internet about your little op? The local media there’s talkin’ all about your target’s apparent drug trafficking, a murder, and a botched fake suicide that was supposed to cover it all up. Oh, yeah, and a goddamned gunfight in the middle of the city! Sky News and C-N-N are salivatin’ all over themselves!”

  Michael sighed and offered the most concise explanation. “The target had partners, and they had partners, apparently. Or rivals. I didn’t stop long enough to ask, I was too busy surviving.”

  “Any cops, medical personnel, anyone like that get hurt or injured in this shit-show?”

  Michael sighed and feared his uncertainty. “I don’t think so. After it all went off the rails, I called the police emergency number to warn them. Told ‘em the scene was contaminated with fentanyl and they needed to keep their people safe.”

  “How’d you go about cleanin’ that up?”

  The question stumped Michael, and he searched his memory for the answer. “I took the phone apart after I hung up, put the pieces in the pockets of my cassock, and I don’t know what happened to them after that. I don’t have them now, and I don’t remember getting rid of it. It must still be in the pockets, I guess.”

  John’s growing displeasure was apparent in his voice. “So, are you clean or not?”

  “I think so.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I lost the coveralls in the fight and had to come back into the hotel in my cassock. The staff at the Sacher might connect the beat-up priest they saw with the drama across the street, and that’ll be easy for the cops to tie back to the Holy See passport I used at check-in.”

  “Yeah, well, we gotta expect some blowback from all this. It’s too goddamned public to avoid all of it. Don’t use that passport again until we know it’s clean. I’ll actually be surprised if the staff opens their mouths at all, those kinda places aren’t known for airin’ their guests’ dirty laundry. Anything else you wanna tell me?”

  Michael weighed the difference between what John’s question meant to each of them. He wants a heads-up on potential problems, and I’m paranoid that he’s gonna find out Stefanie’s now a security risk for us. I don’t think John would do anything to her, but I don’t know who gives his orders. Hard to trust what you can’t see, and I can’t help thinking they’re a bunch of scared old men who might someday take extreme measures to mitigate their perceived problems. She risked her life to save mine without a need to do so. If I tell John we oughta keep an eye on her, I’ll have already betrayed her trust and put her in jeopardy.

  “No, I think that’s it,” Michael replied. "Everything else got resolved. I dumped my luggage at an anonymous donation shelter, and my cassock’s somewhere on the bottom of the Danube. I think we’ve already got my medical needs addressed.” What’s one more secret between us?

  “So, you think that damned phone’s in the Danube, too, then, huh?”

  “I guess so, John, I’m sorry. I was just trying to stay alive at that point.” It’s no wonder criminals get caught, Michael thought. It’s too damned hard to tie up all these loose ends. Did I leave myself and the other Absolvers too exposed?

  “Get some rest, if you can.” John had softened the tone of his voice. “We gotta do a full debrief on this, and you don’t get to wait four or five days like last time. Call me when you wake up tomorrow, I don’t give a damn what time it is.”

  “Okay.” Michael heard the call end, and he put the phone away in his pants pocket. He realized most of the day had passed without his usual prayers. I’ve neglected most of the liturgy today. Hope God understands I was a bit preoccupied.

  Michael bowed his head and closed his eyes, but unusually began his nightly prayer recitations. “Father, I must first ask you to watch over the cops and first responders who came to König’s office today. I ask you to protect the men and women who are surely preparing for the dangerous work of meeting his cargo ship in Slovenia. Its arrival is imminent, Father, and I’m certain they’re already awake and preparing. Please keep watch over them, keep them safe, and bring them home to their families.”

  He inhaled a deep breath and began reciting his favorite Saint Michael’s Prayer, the one written for cops and law enforcement. “Saint Michael, Heaven’s glorious Commissioner of Police, who once so neatly and successfully cleared God’s promises of all its undesirables, look with kindly and professional eye on your earthly force...”

  February 20, 05:04am

  Port of Koper, Slovenia.

  Captain Bernhard Brünner carefully piloted his massive König International container ship, the König der Meere, and inched it closer to the dock. This is simple, it’s just a matter of parallel parking two soccer fields that weigh tens of thousands of tons on a rolling three-dimensional surface. Even without directly touching a single control, Bernhard precisely commanded his crew and their influence on his ship’s every movement. “X-O, are we in position?”

  The Executive Officer, Tomas Steiner, brought his high-powered binoculars up and gazed out at a distant flagger on the dock. Approximately a quarter mile from the elevated bridge, the flagger provided the first signals to the ship’s crew, even before they could be relayed by radio. “We are, Captain.” He brought the binoculars down.

  Bernhard called out the final command of this voyage. “All stop.”

  “All stop.” Tomas relayed the order and shook Bernhard’s hand. “Another voyage well done, Captain, and another precise parking job, just like always.”

  Bernhard smiled and relief washed over him. No matter how many times he did this, the stress of possibly wrecking hundreds of millions of euros of property put him in knots. “Cue it up!”

  On command, the bridge staff began blaring The Ramone’s “Blitzkrieg Bop” over all the ship’s loudspeakers.

  “Hey! Ho! Let’s go!”

  König der Meere’s enormous diesel engines fell silent and the rumbling, barely noticeable on the bridge, subsided. Joey Ramone had barely gone to work when flashing blue police lights lit up all over the surrounding docks.

  Bernhard heard helicopters racing toward his container ship. What is this?? Seconds later, three blacked-out MH-60R Blackhawks, which displayed no running lights, tail numbers, or insignias rose up from just above the water, hovered over the main deck, and expelled gunmen from their open bay doors. Clad in heav
y body armor, helmets, black tactical clothing, and balaclavas, they fast-roped down onto the ship’s deck. Once down, one group moved in a tight, fast formation to a ladder and descended belowdecks. The second group secured the main deck while a third contingent hustled to the bridge to take control of the ship. Several among the latter element pointed carbines up toward Bernhard as they closed in on their target.

  Bernhard stood aghast, totally surprised by the apparent military boarding and utterly unaware of any possible reason for it. Realizing his mouth was agape, Bernhard looked left, to Tomas, and panic replaced his surprise. His XO looked like a child who’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He stared in disbelief, his lower lip quivered, and a growing urine streak descended the front of his grey trousers. “Tomas, what is God’s name have you done?”

  The XO stumbled back and caught himself on the control panel behind him. He gazed back at Bernhard. “I’m so sorry, Bernie. I never, never thought it would come to this.” He slid another few half-steps farther down the console.

  “What the hell are you talking about?! What’s happening aboard my ship!?”

  Tomas absentmindedly stared out the bridge’s forward windows. “I don’t know where, where it all went wrong.” Another few unstable steps away from Bernhard. “It doesn’t matter why. I suppose, just that it happened. They aren’t the forgiving type of men.” With sudden, resolute confidence, Tomas stood upright and looked back at Bernhard. “Goodbye, old friend.”

  Unable to intervene, Bernhard watched in horror as his colleague retrieved a Glock pistol concealed beneath his uniform shirt. Tomas placed its barrel under his chin, pointing up, and ended his life.

  February 20, 10:03am local

  43,452 feet above Western Portugal.

  Rogelio sat in a plush loveseat aboard a private jet registered to a front company that owned nothing but that aircraft and a post office box on Grand Cayman. Its extravagant, custom red leather interior surrounded him in luxury, but did little to alleviate his concerns over the failed operation.

  He replayed some of the last day’s events in search of the linchpin, the one screw-up that had ensured their failure. There’s always a series of mistakes, but they all lead back to a single decision that must be analyzed and reprimanded.

  Rogelio realized how little he knew. I became so busy trying to recover the cash and the shipment that I never stopped to ask why this had happened. I returned to the Sacher and saw the chaos in König’s office. I called Tirador to bring the men, but the cops showed up long before they did. We left immediately and drove through the night for Slovenia, for the port in Koper. Leaving was the right decision. A shootout with Western authorities is suicide, especially in cities where surveillance cameras are so common. Austria isn’t like Mexico, and I don’t have the right influence there. At least, not yet.

  Once we arrived near the port, word came from the advance team that dozens of cops and military were already hiding on the docks. They got there well in advance of the ship, so they must have been tipped off somehow. König’s ship didn't even finish docking before they raided it. With only fifteen men, we had no chance to prevail and recover our shipment. No, we had no chance at all. Those fucking pigs knew what was there, and they knew where to find it.

  While Rogelio’s men fled south to meet their plane in Croatia, he’d specifically diverted his aircraft to the nearest usable airstrip. Two hours after leaving Koper, they were still on a foreign highway and Rogelio was safely airborne. Best not to leave witnesses or paper trails that Interpol and the D-E-A can put together later.

  Rogelio didn’t understand what led to this total loss, much less how to explain it to the other four men who helped him govern the Santa Lena cartel at the moment. I don’t know how König managed to screw this up so bad, but he somehow did nothing right. He lost the drugs, the cash, the network, and exposed all of it to the public and the cops. Dozens of law enforcement agencies from all over the world will fight for some piece of jurisdiction on this, and D-E-A will be very near the front of that group.

  Wait...of course...

  Rogelio pulled out his laptop. It didn’t stream online yesterday, some loading error after I left for the brothel. He booted the device and brought up the video surveillance files from the hard drive. It opens fine. Skipping ahead, he found the approximate time he left his hotel room yesterday afternoon and confirmed the camera had continued recording. Rogelio clicked toward the end of the timeline, and thermal images showed numerous people in König’s office and hidden room. Must be after the cops arrived and stole everything.

  He clicked on the time control and pulled it left, back to 3:31pm, at about the time he had been at Stockerau Airfield picking up his men. The image froze for a moment, but then displayed two bodies inside the hidden room. One was on the floor in an awkward position, and it didn’t move. The second sat nearby. Rogelio leaned forward in his seat. “That one’s gotta be tied up, must be König…”

  The video played for several seconds. The person sitting down appeared to be showing something to the one lying next to them. An epiphany struck as he remembered a directional microphone had been attached to the camera. If it worked...

  He turned up the laptop’s speaker volume to 100.

  “...failing business, and how you scchhhht it. We know about the partnership with the drug cartels, about the shipments, about sccchhhhhhhhht that you chose to both ignore the deaths as they happened and to import more death before the la--”

  Although the video continued, the audio file did not. Rogelio clicked through the few minutes after that last audible moment. He then clicked on times before the audio segment dropped. The two bodies were in roughly the same position as before, but the one knelt over König and touched his chest.

  “Herr König, there is much that I must now try to explain to you. The two most imscchht them are, first, we are very short on time, and, second, I am not here to negotiate with you in any way or for any thing. I am only here for one sccchhhhhtt that is the eternal salvation of your soul.”

  click

  Rogelio paused the replay and sat back in disbelief, away from the image before him. Real, intrinsic fear crept up through his body, like that he’d known as a child. “What, the fuck is this??”

  February 21, 10:56PM local

  San Miguel Chapel. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  Michael sat in an aging, rickety wood chair in the living area of the small residential quarters attached to the back of San Miguel Chapel. With his back to the wall and a square bistro-sized dining table between them, he and Monsignor Hernandez drank beer together to close out their day. Ira, the black-and-white heeler-collie mix he’d rescued from the abandoned camp in Wyoming, rested his head on Michael’s legs. The dog closed his eyes and smiled while Michael petted him.

  “He missed you, ya know?” Hernandez took another pull from a coffee mug filled with Belgian Trappist ale.

  Michael nodded and smiled. He sighed and drank his ale from a Mason jar. His entire body hurt and the bruises on his face, chest, and arms had worsened since he’d wrestled his life away from the African delivery driver in Vienna little more than forty-eight hours ago. What a difference a day makes...

  “The whole time you were gone, he didn’t wanna sleep in my room. He stayed in your bed and curled up on your old W-N-M-U sweatshirt. I covered him up with the fleece blanket you brought back with him, but he wanted that sweatshirt. Must stink like you do.”

  Michael laughed, which made him hurt again. “Easy, H, you’re killin’ me.”

  “Oh yeah? So, three priests walk into this bar--”

  “Stop it,” Michael begged, “seriously, it all hurts right now!”

  “That’s the first time you’ve smiled since you got back from gettin’ your butt kicked. Anything you wanna talk about, or do I gotta keep tellin’ bad priest jokes until you do?”

  Michael stopped petting the dog, so Ira looked up at him and pouted. “Good boy, Ira, go lay down.” The dog reluctantl
y moved over to the small couch. After climbing up, he turned three tight circles, flopped down, and sighed.

  Hernandez laughed and took another swig of beer. “With a name like that, all the elders are gonna wonder why their Catholics priests are keeping a Jewish shepherd.”

  Michael chuckled again. “Seriously, stop it, H. It’s Latin, not Yiddish.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that,” Hernandez explained. “Oh, wow! Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “You named your dog, ‘Wrath?’”

  Michael fidgeted in the chair and tried to get comfortable. Not possible right now, everything’s bruised somewhere. “Gotta be the most Catholic name ever, right?”

  “That’s no shit,” Hernandez agreed and finished his mug of ale. “So, you wanna talk about it or not?”

  Michael nodded and crossed himself. H did the same. “Forgive me, Father. It’s been two days since my last confession.” The memory of his recent, Lazarus-like return from the dead came forward. God sent Stefanie to give me the exact second chance that I failed to give Isadore, and that König refused. Michael inhaled and continued, knowing he had to confess his failures, no matter how painful. “I fear that I’m not fulfilling God’s intended purpose for me, and that, along the way, I’m condemning men to hell and adding grave, mortal sins to my eventual judgment.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Michael recounted a summation of his perceived shortcomings on the Vienna operation, as well as how he still felt he’d failed in Rome with Pietro Isadore. “Basically, H, I believe in the divine intent of what I’m doing, but I’m terrified that I’m mucking it up. Those two nights haunt me, and often make me question my decisions. I’m, actually, kinda terrified that those two dead men are gonna drag my soul down to Hell with them.”