by Lee Goldberg
Healy frowned. “With all due respect, sir, this is a law-enforcement and immigration problem. I don’t understand what I am doing here.”
The president glanced at Douglas. “Tell Mike what you told me.”
The attorney general cleared his throat. “No Americans got hurt last night, but the Mexicans were killed. The dead men were carrying guns that the ATF sold to the Vibora cartel, which is run by Arturo Giron, who escaped from a Mexican prison into a quarter-mile-long tunnel that was lit, air-conditioned, and had an electric-powered rail system. It was well engineered and must have cost millions.”
“I’ve followed the story in the news,” Healy said.
“Then you know that Giron is a rich, smart, calculating son of a bitch who has half of the Mexican government in his pocket,” Douglas said. “He’s smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of heroin and cocaine into the United States using elaborate tunnels, homemade submarines, tricked-out speedboats, and private jets. He’s trucked his heroin directly across our border as frozen orange juice and shipped cocaine into our ports disguised as bathtubs and ceramic tiles.”
The president faced Healy. “What Ritchy is saying is that the Frito Bandito wouldn’t tape kilos of cocaine to illegals running into Texas.”
“It’s amateurish and makes no financial sense for him,” Douglas said. “The quantities are too small and the odds of his drug mules getting ripped off or caught or dying on the journey are too high.”
“Maybe it’s not Giron,” Healy said. “Maybe it’s some small-time operator.”
Douglas shook his head. “The Viboras own that corner of Mexico. Anybody who crosses them would end up with their head on a spike. And there’s more that doesn’t fit. Giron’s stuff is pure. It doesn’t get recut until it hits his dealers. Those bags were mostly baking soda and flour with a bit of coke. You’d get a bigger high snorting crushed Cap’n Crunch.”
“You’re saying it’s a setup,” Healy said.
“I’m saying it’s not about drugs. All I know is that someone is going to a lot of trouble to humiliate the Justice Department, the Border Patrol, the ATF, and this president,” Douglas said and looked at the president, who looked at Healy.
“It’s a hostile act against our country by a foreign agitator,” the president said.
Now Healy understood why Douglas seemed uncomfortable. It was Healy who was being set up now. The attorney general knew the president’s logic was an outrageous stretch and that the CIA had no business getting involved in this. But the attorney general couldn’t really go to the FBI or DEA for help, not after declaring war on the ATF by announcing that he was going to prosecute the agents for being accessories to murder in the San Diego homicides. Healy hated politics. Espionage seemed so much more ethical and bloodless by comparison.
“I don’t see what Mexico has to gain from this,” Healy said. “It’s more likely that someone in the United States is trying to inflame tensions at the border for their own nationalist, political agenda. That makes it a problem for the FBI to deal with.”
“I disagree,” the president said. “Whoever is behind it, the problem came from the Mexico side of the border and that makes this a national security matter involving foreign agitators. That’s CIA territory. I want your spies in Mexico to find out who is shaking the maracas on this. And while you’re at it, the DEA hasn’t been able to pinpoint exactly where the Frito Bandito is. I’d like your boys on that, too.”
“To what end?” Healy asked.
“You give the info to Ritchy, who passes it along to the DEA,” the president said. “And then they use it to apprehend or kill Giron and shut down his operation.”
Healy nodded. “Even if we can locate Giron for you, the DEA is going to have to work with local law enforcement, or even the Mexican military, to make a move on him. What are the odds you can do it without someone in Mexican law enforcement tipping him off hours before you get there?”
“The odds are against us,” Douglas said. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
Healy turned back to the president. “I’m not a politician, but in the likely event that the operation goes wrong and Giron gets away, how is that failure going to improve the situation?”
“It changes the narrative,” the president said. “The story will be about us taking decisive, righteous action and being undermined by the corrupt Mexican government. It’s better than the story that’s being told now.”
But that was all they were, just stories, Healy thought, that were about as real as the ones Ian Ludlow told, only a lot less fun to read.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Porto, Portugal. November 12. 6:00 p.m. Western European Time.
After spending an hour or so sampling port served with nuts, cheese, and chocolate at one of the wineries, Ian and Margo had spent the rest of the day on a whirlwind tour of the sights of Porto. They didn’t see anything unusual, but Ian took pictures along the way to compare to the couple’s shots in case they missed something in their haste to keep to the schedule. Ian felt it was important to be where Rolfe and Clemens were, at the same time they were, in case whatever the couple might have seen or heard that got them killed was based on something that occurred each day.
Thankfully, Stan Rolfe and Briana Clemens returned to the hotel for an hour and a half before going out again for dinner. That would give Ian time to take a long, soothing shower and change out of his sweat-soaked clothes. But when he reached the door to his room, he discovered that he’d lost his key. He figured it must have fallen out of his pocket when his wallet was lifted at the river.
Ian went back down to the lobby and was pleased to see Beatriz working the desk. It meant he wouldn’t have to go through the effort of proving he was a guest.
“I’ve lost my key,” he said as he stepped up to the counter.
“Really?” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, I did,” Ian said, not sure why she doubted him. “I can’t get into my room.”
She pulled a blank card key from a drawer and set it on the counter while she typed something on her computer. “You really are following every step that poor couple made.”
“Why do you say that?”
Beatriz slid the card through a reader on her keyboard and then handed it to him. “Because the gentleman lost his key, too.”
That was interesting, but Ian wasn’t sure what to make of the coincidence. He checked his card. The only information it had on it was the name and address of the hotel, but no room number, so it was useless to anybody but him.
“I’m sure people lose their keys all the time,” he said.
“They certainly do,” Beatriz said. “Would you like a glass of port?”
She held up the bottle and a glass. Perhaps his Straker scene could still play out in real life.
Ian smiled. “I would, but I never drink alone.”
“No problem.” She set down the bottle and the glass. “It will still be here if you want to return with someone.”
He might be able to accurately imagine global espionage plots, but foretelling the behavior of a woman was obviously well beyond his creative powers. Ian went back to his room and took a cold shower.
Porto’s signature dish is the Francesinha, sliced pork, steak, linguiça, and ham jammed between two thick pieces of peasant bread that was pressed, covered with cheese, grilled until it was a gooey brick, then topped with a fried egg and slathered with a sauce of tomato, beer, wine, and anything else that happens to be handy. It was cheap, hearty, industrious, and proudly working class. It was the character of the city and its people distilled onto a plate.
So Ian was looking forward to trying the Francesinha for dinner, and that was what he was thinking about as he and Margo left the hotel and headed single file up the steep, alley-like Rua do Dr. Ricardo Jorge on their way to the restaurant.
He didn’t notice how dark the street was, or that they were all alone, until a huge man dressed in black stepped out in front of Margo from betwee
n two parked cars. The big man held a fourteen-inch hunting knife and he towered over her like a grizzly bear. Ian’s stomach cramped with terror.
Something moved behind him and Ian whirled around to see a woman marching up the street, holding a claw hammer at her side. It was the woman Margo had pushed in the river and her eyes blazed with fury.
There was a fight coming. Margo was unarmed but at least she had some self-defense training. All Ian had was prayer and the Rick Steves Portugal guidebook in his hand. Ian was sure that he was going to get very badly hurt, assuming that he even survived. He wondered if begging for mercy was a viable strategy.
The big man lunged at Margo with his knife out in front of him and Ian jumped aside with a yelp of fear, slamming his back into a wall.
Margo smoothly sidestepped the knife, grabbed the man’s wrist, and pulled him past her, using his height, weight, and the steepness of the hill against him, and stuck out her leg in front of his ankles. As he tripped on her leg and fell, she slammed her elbow hard into the spot where his skull met his spine and that was that. He hit the sidewalk facedown and out cold, his knife skittering to a stop at Ian’s feet.
Ian kicked the knife between two parked cars, and that was when the woman swung her claw hammer at his head. He ducked, the hammer’s iron claw scratching the granite wall, and then he came up swinging, slapping the woman’s face with the Portugal guidebook. She staggered back, lost her footing, and tumbled head over heels down the street before coming to rest unconscious against a lamppost.
“This has not been her day,” Ian said, stunned by the way the fight had played out and that he’d emerged without even a scratch.
He turned to see Margo smiling. “That’s a Clint Straker line.”
“It’s mine now,” he said, though the line would have come off a lot cooler if he wasn’t trembling.
Margo pretended not to notice. They stepped around the big man on the ground and continued walking up the street.
“How did they find us?” she asked.
“My room key,” he said, remembering the pickpocket scooping something up from the ground at the river before he fled. “I think it fell out of my pocket when they took my wallet.”
Margo stopped abruptly beside a parked car and peered inside. Ian stepped up beside her and saw the pickpocket cowering in the back seat, his wrist in a cast.
She gestured to the Portugal guidebook in Ian’s hand. “Can I borrow that for a sec?”
He gave the book to her. Margo placed the book against the car window and then punched the book. The window cracked, but it held together. She punched the book a few more times, then used it to clear away the pebbled glass, which fell on the pickpocket like snowflakes. She reached inside the car, opened the door, and leaned over the wide-eyed man.
Margo spoke evenly, her face tight, as if she was fighting to control herself. “I am in Portugal because it’s all I dreamed about while I was in prison. They put me away for breaking my boyfriend’s arms and legs, setting his house on fire, and eating his puppy for dinner. I did it because he irritated me.” She grimaced, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “But now you are irritating me. If I ever see you or your friends again, I will kill you all. Understood?”
He nodded frantically.
“Good.” She straightened up, closed the door, and shook some bits of glass off the guidebook before handing it to Ian. “What a practical book.”
“I’ll be sure to let Rick Steves know,” Ian said and they resumed their walk to the restaurant. His hands were still shaking. “You didn’t check if the car door was unlocked before you broke the window.”
She shrugged. “I wanted to make an impact.”
“You certainly did,” Ian said. “That was quite a story you told him.”
“I wasn’t sure whether to go with the boyfriend thing or that I gouged out a woman’s eyes in a bar fight.”
“Did you eat her cat afterward?”
Margo gave him a look. “Why would I eat her cat?”
“You ate your boyfriend’s dog,” Ian said.
“The two stories aren’t related,” she said. “She doesn’t have a pet.”
“Sorry, I thought you had a theme going.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I thought you went a bit over the top.”
“What part?”
Now Ian gave her a look. “Isn’t it obvious? The eating-the-dog part.”
“I thought it added character,” she said. “And twisted menace.”
“You almost blew the whole thing,” Ian said. “You’re lucky he didn’t start laughing.”
She nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”
“Next time?” Ian said, but she let his question go unanswered.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ian and Margo sat at an outdoor table at Café Luso, facing Carlos Alberto Park, a triangular plaza of limestone and basalt tile mosaics and patches of shrubs over an underground parking structure. It seemed to Ian that every park was just a parking lot with a lawn on top.
They devoured their Francesinhas, which tasted delicious despite looking like sandwiches that someone had vomited their breakfast on. For dessert, they had dark chocolate cake and port.
“I haven’t beaten up anybody in months,” Margo said, licking some chocolate off her lips. “It felt good.”
“You beat up some muggers the first time we visited a foreign country together.”
“I remember,” she said. “I still miss that dildo.”
“They turned out to be Chinese intelligence agents.”
“That’s true,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Maybe these pickpockets are actually assassins from Portuguese intelligence.”
They looked at each other for a moment and then burst into laughter. When their laughter ebbed into shared smiles, Ian took a sip of his port and sighed. “Can you believe how our lives have changed since the day we met?”
“No, I really can’t.”
“We’re secret agents,” he said.
“On assignment in Portugal,” she said.
“Investigating whether two idiots who got killed taking a selfie were actually assassinated because they discovered a plot that threatens our national security.”
She shook her head. “It’s unreal.”
“Everything is lately. I’m not sure whether I’m losing my grip on reality,” he said. “Or if reality is losing its grip on us.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
Ian finished his port and set the glass down. “Nonsense is the new sense. To truly understand the world we are in today, you have to be a writer, or an actor, or a lunatic.”
He signaled the waiter for their check, paid it, and they took the same walk around the neighborhood that Rolfe and Clemens did after their dinner at Café Luso. But as they walked past the many bars and cafés, all of them bustling and crowded with students who spilled out into the streets, Ian and Margo kept their eyes open for anybody who might be following them.
There was no sign of their attackers and nobody was waiting to ambush them when they walked down Rua do Dr. Ricardo Jorge on their way back to their hotel, though Ian noticed Margo had stolen her knife and fork from the café and had them in her hands, ready to use as weapons. She noticed him noticing and pocketed the cutlery again.
“Souvenirs,” she said.
When Ian got to his room, he turned on the TV and clicked through the stations until he found CNN, where he learned about a gunfight in Dunn, Texas, between a citizens militia and a group of drug smugglers armed with weapons tracked back to the scandalous Guns & Roses sting operation.
This led an obviously outraged Chris Cuomo, the CNN host, to launch into a blistering recap of “the ineptly conceived” Guns & Roses scandal from its earliest days on up to Gustavo Reynoso murdering two women in San Diego with one of those ATF guns.
“The only good news out of Dunn, Texas, is that this time no Americans were killed with guns that
cops sold to a Mexican drug cartel,” Cuomo said, taking a dramatic pause before staring into the camera and saying again: “This time.”
Cuomo switched to a related story about the hunt for Arturo Giron, the Vibora cartel leader, who’d vanished after his escape from a Mexican prison.
Ian turned off the TV and went to bed. As he was drifting off to sleep, he thought it would make a great Straker story if Arturo Giron was hiding in Porto, and what got the couple killed was unknowingly capturing his face in the background of one of their selfies. But the CIA’s facial recognition scan for terrorists and fugitives in the photos had already ruled out that possibility in reality.
Okay, he thought, what if it was Giron’s bodyguard or his girlfriend in the picture? And what if Giron was in the shot, too, but with his new face? This could pit Straker against an international drug cartel trying to spark a war between the United States and Mexico.
But why? What could the cartel possibly gain from that?
Ian had no idea. Yet. All he knew was that he might have found the concept for his next Straker novel. He fell asleep satisfied that the trip wasn’t a complete waste of time after all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Somewhere in Nuevo León, Mexico. November 12. 4:00 p.m. Central Standard Time.
Arturo Giron was pumped full of Vicodin and lying in his king-size bed, recuperating from the brutal beating he’d allowed a plastic surgeon to inflict on his face. Bones were broken and shaved, implants inserted, skin stretched, fillers injected, and hair implanted so that when everything healed, he wouldn’t look like Arturo Giron anymore but he might be mistaken for one of the Hemsworth brothers, either Thor or the one who’d been married to Miley Cyrus for a few months before she decided she liked women more than men. Or was that the same Hemsworth? It was hard for Arturo to tell the movie stars apart.
He was in his bedroom in a compound made up of two houses, a six-car garage, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a putting green, and a helipad all atop a graded butte that was surrounded by a high wall topped with shards of broken glass and coils of razor wire that he could see from his bedroom window. When the sunlight hit the glass shards just right, they glimmered like diamonds, and he thought it gave the wall a magical quality, or perhaps that was just the opioids talking.
