by Matt Lincoln
“Are you saying that we haven’t?” I asked calmly, careful to maintain my tone neutral and unaffected.
“You have no idea who you’re speaking to,” Sandoval replied arrogantly. “I have friends, powerful friends, both inside and outside of Venezuela. Do you think you’ll be able to keep me locked up? I’ll be out of here by the time you’re on the plane back home. And you should be careful when you get there, as well. I have contacts in the United States. The two of you will be dead, and I’ll be back at home, rebuilding what you’ve just destroyed!”
It was clear from the smug grin on his face that he genuinely expected us to be shocked and awed by these claims. He was clearly a man that was used to getting his way by flexing his power and authority around.
“I see.” I chucked derisively as I looked back at him. “That’s why you feel so confident? When you say ‘friends’… you wouldn’t be talking about Maduro, would you?”
Sandoval didn’t reply, but the shocked expression on his face told me enough.
“Or maybe you meant those guys from California,” I muttered as I watched Sandoval grow more and more shocked. “Heck, it’s been so long since we arrested them that I don’t even remember half of their names.”
“You’re lying!” Sandoval snapped as his shoulders tensed.
And there it was. Sandoval’s Achilles’ heel was the fact that, without the rest of his big scary friends to back him up, he was just a single man without a shred of power. Now that he was coming to the realization that he was truly on his own, the mask started to slip.
“I’m afraid I’m not.” I shrugged. “All of your friends are behind bars as we speak. How exactly do you think we even found you? Your so-called partner Maduro sold you out.”
“He wouldn’t!” Sandoval hissed through tightly clenched teeth. “He and I are equals. He wouldn’t stab me in the back like that.”
“Funny you use that phrase,” I replied as I leaned toward him, resting my elbows on the table as I did. “Because that’s exactly what Maduro thought you were doing. That’s the reason he went to pick up the latest shipment personally this last time around. He thought that you were betraying him. He didn’t even hesitate when we offered him a deal in exchange for giving up your location.”
“But that’s…” Sandoval trailed off, his eyes glossed over as he stared down in disbelief.
“You know I’m telling the truth, don’t you?” I pushed. “How else would we have found the exact location of your little secret base? Granted, you almost got away from us thanks to that crooked cop, but the fact of the matter still stands. Your friend betrayed you. No one is coming to rescue you, Sandoval, so why don’t you just stop with the games and just tell us the truth?”
“And what truth do you want to hear?” he asked bitterly as all the fight left him, and his shoulders drooped in resignation. “You already know everything, right? If you’ve arrested everyone else, then what do you want to know?”
“So you admit it’s all true then?” I asked. He was right that we already had confirmation from pretty much everyone else, but it would be ideal to hear it straight from him as well. “You and Maduro worked together and came up with this plot to smuggle drugs into the United States via human drug mules?”
“Yes,” he replied weakly, still staring down at the table. “The Americans were the ones who supplied the girls, and we produced the drugs. Maduro was the one with connections in Aruba that allowed everything to come together. It was a flawless system… Why would he betray me like this? I thought we were partners, friends even. After everything we worked so hard for…”
He lapsed into silence, staring down at the table in numb disbelief. For a second, I almost felt sorry for him. It seemed that, despite Maduro’s crazed misgivings, Sandoval never had any intentions of betraying him. Instead, Sandoval had been the one betrayed by his own partner.
Of course, they were both criminals committing atrocious acts, so I didn’t feel all that bad for him. Ultimately, it was what he deserved for getting into business with someone like Maduro.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Sandoval,” I noted quietly as I pushed my chair back to stand. He didn’t give any indication that he’d even heard me and, in fact, just continued to sit there, a completely broken and lonely man.
Holm followed me back out of the interrogation room, shutting the door tightly once we were both out.
“So that’s it?” Captain Jacinto smirked as he stood up from his chair. “Seems like a pathetic way to end after everything he did. Look at him in there, sniveling like he’s the victim. In any case, well done, agents. It was a pleasure working with you.” He thrust his hand out toward us.
“I’m glad we can pull this case to a close,” I replied as I shook his hand.
“So am I,” he replied as he turned to shake Holm’s hand as well. “Anyway, I’ll send someone to take him back to his cell. Will you two be staying in Caracas any longer after this? I know a great place where we can grab a beer if you are.”
“We actually need to head back ASAP,” I lied. Truth be told, we probably didn’t have to go running back right away, but after everything that had happened, I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.
“Well, that’s too bad,” Jacinto replied. “Give me a call if you’re ever back here then.”
“Will do,” I replied. Holm and I turned to leave after saying goodbye, and I felt a sense of elation as we walked briskly through the second floor of the station, down the steps, and into the lobby before finally making it back out onto the street.
The weather was a little cooler now that darkness was starting to fall. The sun no longer felt like it was baking my skin, and the sky looked pretty as we rapidly approached sunset, streaked with soft purple and orange tones.
“That was a heck of a case,” Holm snorted as we ambled calmly down the street.
“It was definitely stressful,” I admitted. “Though it wasn’t all that complex in the end, was it? It was a pretty straightforward plan if you think about it. Get the victims to Aruba, pump them full of drugs and then send them back to the States. It only fell apart because Maduro couldn’t trust his partner and started making decisions on his own.”
“No honor among thieves,” Holm quipped in response. “Well, among drug traffickers, I guess, in this case. It’s hard to trust someone when you’re all doing something illegal in the first place. It’s no surprise that it all ended up falling apart.”
“They all eventually do,” I mused as I looked out at the setting sun. It was casting long shadows over the city as it sun below the horizon, making the ground below look sinister despite the pretty sky above. “And we’ll be ready to catch them the moment they slip up.”
35
Holm
Holm tried to keep a straight face as he watched his partner, but it was hard when Marston was standing on the deck of the ship, acting like a little kid in a candy store.
A chuckle slipped past his lips as Marston grinned, practically bouncing with excitement as they waited eagerly for the crane to come back up.
A week had passed since they solved the drug mule case, and they’d returned to Aruba in order to retrieve the figurehead that they had located during their dive a few weeks prior. Normally, it would have taken much longer to arrange the kind of setup required to dredge something that big and heavy out of the ocean, but Marston had been adamant that they do it as soon as possible, as though the figurehead might get up and leave if we waited too long.
Then again, Holm supposed that it wasn’t all that unusual that he’d be anxious about it. After all, it was a part of the ship that Marston had spent years looking for. And even if the thing didn’t walk away on its own, it was always possible that it might be damaged by other divers or even just by the elements. The fact that it was in such good condition to begin with was already miraculous enough.
Even though Holm and Marston were both divers, their expertise didn’t span quite this far. Removing the figurehead f
rom the wreck and recovering it to the surface required specialized skill and equipment that neither of them possessed, so in the end, Marston had decided to hire the most skilled and competent crew of professional salvagers that he could find.
Still, Holm couldn’t help but laugh as he continued to watch his partner’s reactions to everything the men on the ship did. They were professionals that Marston had hired himself, at no small expense, and yet he kept micro-analyzing every action they took.
Holm wondered vaguely if Marston had any idea just how open his expression became any time the Rogue was involved. During interrogations and in the heat of battle, Marston was always as cool as a cucumber, with a solid poker face that Holm had only seen broken a handful of times. When it came to the Rogue, though, it was a completely different story. Holm could tell just how happy or excited or upset he was just from his expression.
“Did you say something?” Marston asked Holm absently as he stared down at the water expectantly. He was still holding the monitor that had allowed him to watch as the divers carefully removed the figurehead. He wasn’t watching it anymore, though. Instead, Marston was staring straight down at the water, his lips nervously pursed together as he waited.
Naturally, the crane had to move slowly in order to avoid accidentally damaging the artifact, and Holm could tell that Marston was getting impatient, even though he was the one that had told the workers, several times, to make sure they were extra careful handling it.
“No,” Holm coughed to cover up the snicker that Marston had mistook for talking. “Just wondering where you’re going to put this thing once they get it back to Miami. It’s not going to fit on your houseboat. Wait-- Are you going to mount it to the front of your boat?”
Holm was mostly kidding, though the thought of the figurehead jutting out over the front of Marston’s houseboat did sound pretty awesome.
“No!” Marston replied incredulously, staring back at Holm as though he was insane. “Expose it to the sun and air like that? No way. Besides, my boat’s probably too small to support the weight. It would snap off.”
“That’s true.” Holm shrugged.
Now that he thought about it, the figurehead would probably have to stay in water pretty much permanently. Small things like coins were one thing. Usually, they could be restored enough to take out of the water safely, but something as big as the figurehead would probably crumble if it was exposed to open air for too long. That fact alone made it all the more impressive to Holm that Marston was going to all the trouble of bringing it up since he’d probably have to deal with its restoration and upkeep for the rest of his life.
“It’s coming,” Marston suddenly exclaimed as he looked down at the surface of the water. It was rippling and bubbling as something large broke through. Even Holm had to admit that he was pretty excited watching it come up, so he could only imagine how Marston felt.
Holm got his answer as he turned to look at his partner, who appeared to be experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion within the span of a minute. Excitement, joy, worry, and even fear all flashed across Marston’s face in the blink of an eye as he watched the bright blue container rise out of the water. The salvage divers had put the figurehead inside the water-filled container so it could be safely transported, maintained in the exact conditions that Holm and Marston had initially found it.
This time, Holm couldn’t help it, and he laughed out loud at his friend’s reaction.
“What?” Marston turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow at Holm in confusion.
“You look so nervous,” Holm chortled. “This has all gone exactly to plan, exactly the way you told them to. Why do you look so anxious?”
“I just want them to treat her right,” Marston retorted sheepishly as he looked back down at the steadily rising crate with a grin. “It’s a part of the Rogue, after all. The biggest part of her we’ve found so far. Can you blame me for wanting to make sure the figurehead doesn’t get broken or something? It’s been down there for centuries. I’m sure it’s gotten pretty delicate.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Holm agreed. Marston was so excited about it that he didn’t want to rain on his parade, no matter how fun it was to tease him.
Out of the water, the crate was bigger than it had seemed on the live video that the salvagers had streamed to the tablet. Even though it was completely encased inside the blue plastic crate, it was still a pretty awe-inspiring sight to behold.
“Okay, everyone, make sure you stay clear of the deck,” one of the crewmen yelled as the crane began to lower the crate down onto the flat, roped off part of the deck that was especially dedicated to holding cargo. “It’s coming down! Get outta the way, or you’re gonna get squashed into a pancake!”
Holm was pretty sure the man was just joking, as everyone had already moved far away from the area in question, and in fact, the entire crew had been pretty stringent about safety protocols for the entire trip.
“There it is,” Marston sighed as the crate finally came down onto the deck with a soft thud. The crewmen moved in a moment later to unhook everything that was keeping it latched to the crane.
“There it is,” Holm agreed as he clapped a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “You did it, brother. It’s yours now. I’m still not sure where you’re going to put it, but it’s yours.”
“I’ll figure that out later,” Marston replied nonchalantly.
Holm just snorted in response.
“Hey, fellas,” the man who’d made the announcement to steer clear earlier got their attention as he walked up behind them with a camera in his hands. “How about a photo to commemorate the event? It’s not every day you pull up this kind of find.”
“Sure.” Marston beamed. Holm could practically feel the joy radiating off of him. To be honest, he thought it was a little silly to take a picture in front of a blue plastic tub when they couldn’t even see the figurehead inside, but in the end, he supposed they would still always know what it was when they looked at the picture. They always remember it as the day they pulled up the Dragon Rogue’s figurehead.
“Yeah, why not?” Holm replied as he and Marston turned around and posed for the photo.
Epilogue
Mac and Ty were both looking down at the photo in Mac’s hands with almost reverent wonder. I smiled as I looked down at it too, fondly remembering the day that it was taken. It seemed like a lifetime ago now that Holm and I had headed out to Aruba with a group of salvagers to retrieve the figurehead.
“So that’s what that is,” Ty mused as he looked up at me. “I’ve seen that photo before. You always have it pinned up behind the bar, right? I wondered before what that blue thing was. I always thought that it looked like a giant cooler.”
“That was the figurehead,” I replied proudly. “And ‘giant cooler’ isn’t a bad way to describe it, actually. It’s a specially designed container that’s meant to perfectly preserve the conditions of what’s inside. They’re used a lot for underwater recoveries. It’s the same kind that was used to recover lost artifacts from the Titanic.”
“Wow,” Mac noted as he observed the photo. “You’ve mentioned before in your stories that stuff needs to stay in ocean water in order to be preserved. That must suck, having it but not being able to look at it.”
“Well, I did eventually solve that problem,” I replied. “That blue crate was its home for a while, though. Robbie turned out to be right in the end. I’d been so anxious to get my hands on it that I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to do with it once it was actually mine. Lucky for me, those guys did a great job of sealing it up nice and tight. It stayed in the exact same condition for years in that container.”
“So, where is it now?” Mac asked as he handed the photograph back to me. “The figurehead, I mean. When did you take it out of the crate?”
“Oh, that wasn’t for a while,” I replied. “I do still have it, though. It took some time for me to find someplace that I could put it safely where it wouldn�
�t be damaged.”
“And that would be…?” Ty pried.
“A story for a different time, maybe.” I smirked, knowing it would annoy him.
“Really, Ethan?” Ty groaned. “Always with the cryptic hints. You know, one of these days, we’re going to get sick of it and stop coming back.”
“The cryptic hints are the reason you keep coming back,” I shot back.
“Dammit, you’re right,” he sighed as he rested his elbow on the bar top and leaned his chin against his palm.
“So, how’d I do?” I asked as I got up to grab their empty glasses. “Did I help make your day a little less boring?”
“You always do,” Mac replied with a smile. “But yeah, that story was insane. I think I would panic if I was on a boat and people just started dropping dead.”
“That was how it all started.” I nodded as I recalled the bizarre circumstances that drew us to the case in the first place.
“Do you know what happened to that girl?” Ty asked. “What was her name…? Gabby! From the hospital. Was she okay?”
“She was,” I confirmed. “She had some pretty extensive injuries, but she ultimately recovered from them completely. Robbie actually stayed in touch for a while, following her progress until she was all better.”
“Right,” Mac replied. “He was the one who stayed behind to help save her. That was amazing.”
“It really was,” I agreed.
“What about Diego?” Mac asked, her face twisting into a grimace as she said his name. “What happened to him?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” I replied. “There was, unfortunately, a lot of corruption within the police in Venezuela back then, so it’s not surprising that he was working with the bad guys. Holm and I weren’t keen to stick around after finishing the case, so I never followed up on it. Hopefully, he’s behind bars right now, where he belongs.”
“I’m guessing you’re not up for another story tonight?” Ty ventured.
