Failed State (A James Winchester Thriller Book 1) (James Winchester Series)

by James Samuel

  Jack screwed up his face. “I’ve worked with him for a long time. Killing him wouldn’t feel right, no matter what he’s done.”

  “I agree with you. Romero’s a problem. He’s rich and a big flight risk. For now, we need enough to nail the former majority leader’s son. We want that whole family behind bars now his father’s dead. If the senator is willing to serve up Phelps on a plate, we can bargain with him.” Scott stopped as he mulled it over. “The problem he’s isn’t getting any younger. He will see jail time. He’s in too deep. If he doesn’t think he’ll ever get out, why would he cooperate at all? You must help me with that.”

  “May.” Jack screwed his face into a dark scowl, “I’m not a lawyer. How can I know whether he’ll ever have a hope in hell of getting out?”

  Scott shrugged. “Make it happen. No deal and we’ll have to kill him. The Bureau will move on Romero soon. We have to make damn sure he doesn’t make a run for it. We have Newton, Black is finished. Now we only want Phelps before he can get into Congress.”

  Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Scott only glared at him. He was prepared to kill both if it meant taking down this whole rotten circle. The FBI had given him a blank check. If the means led to the right end, nobody would make a fuss.

  They returned to George, who sat mute.

  “Hewitt,” Scott prompted.

  “George, this is me speaking from the heart.” Jack squatted down in front of his former boss. “I’m not going to promise you that you’ll never go to jail. No, you’re going to go to jail, but the way I see it is you have a choice. You can spend the rest of your life there or you can get out and enjoy a few years in retirement.”

  Scott inclined his head when Jack looked back at him. He wasn’t a lawyer, either, but he’d been on enough cases to know what happened to white-collar criminals.

  “You won’t get to keep any of what you took. The Feds will take the second home, the cars, and the boat. You’ll get to keep your primary home and a little money. As long as your wife and family had nothing to do with this, they won’t be touched, that’s all I can guarantee.”

  Jack looked away for a moment at the abject fear on George’s face.

  “It’s worth a shot,” said Jack. “It’s something. All you have to do is cooperate with us. Tell us everything and they’ll give you a great hearing in front of the judge.”

  George raised his head to the sky, like he hoped God would come and strike him down. Tears still flowed from his bloodshot eyes and down his cracked cheeks.

  Jack tried to raise a smile. “Hey, and remember, politicians always get off light.”

  George croaked like he was on the edge of laughing through the pain. He nodded in submission.

  Scott stepped forwards to begin his questioning.

  “What do you want to know?” George swayed like he was about to faint.

  “We already know a lot about you, Newton, Romero, and Phelps. Romero’s going down sooner or later. We’re just waiting for the right moment to strike. The Bureau doesn’t want to do this quietly. It wants to send a message. Do you have anything that can prove Phelps’ influence in Congress? Phone messages you’ll give up willingly. Emails? Anything on paper?”

  George nodded. “I never delete anything. You can have everything.” He paused. “Actually, I have a burner account on Kranex, the email server based in Russia. Phelps has communicated with me on there before when we couldn’t talk. It’s yours.”

  “Interesting, Senator. Anything incriminating?”

  “Phelps made sure this state of emergency was declared to put pressure on Romero. He’s using those same friends in Congress to make sure he takes his father’s old seat in the next special election. They feel like they owe his father everything, so they’ll cooperate.”

  “Is that illegal?” asked Jack.

  “Shaky ground,” Scott confirmed. “Favours aren’t illegal, but there’s a limit. Declaring a state of national emergency and misleading Congress and the public to accomplish a vendetta won’t be easy to defend in court.”

  “How long am I looking at inside?”

  “You’ll need to speak to my colleagues. It all depends on how much useful information you can provide us and whether they lead to convictions.”

  George looked disappointed.

  Scott didn’t have the heart to lie to him, even though he could get away with it.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” said George. “Just keep me and my family safe.”

  “We’ll do that. They’ll all be taken into the Witness Protection Program, and you’ll join them after your jail sentence. Romero won’t be able to touch you.”

  George looked grateful.

  “May I?” asked Jack.

  “Yes.”

  Jack went to untie George and give him what little comfort he could, given the situation. Scott took his second cell phone out of his pocket and put in a call.

  “Agent May?” his handler said.

  “It’s over. Senator Black will cooperate with us. We should have enough to take down Phelps. You can move on Romero.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  James watched as Sinclair skidded away from the rental lot of Miami International Airport. He lingered, dwelling on everything he’d done to get to this point. He missed Jessi. He felt like he’d played her to satisfy his own selfish desires. Had she truly fallen for him? He would never find out the truth now.

  Sinclair pulled up to the curb and leaned out of the window. “Alright, we need to equip ourselves and get set up before we can go after Romero. Luckily, I have plenty of contacts in the States, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

  James didn’t say anything as he made his way around the rented silver Mazda and got into the passenger seat. They’d left everything they had in Mexico. Travelling on fake passports was risky enough without alerting US immigration with Sinclair’s computer systems and James’ tactical equipment.

  Sinclair cranked up the air conditioning to banish the heavy, oppressive Florida weather. He manoeuvred into the line of cars battling to escape the airport.

  “You’re quiet today. What’s wrong with you?”

  “You know what’s wrong.”

  “Forget about her. It would have never worked anyway. You’re a private contractor and she’s the sister of one of Mexico’s biggest drug lords. You best hope she doesn’t tell her brother that you dishonoured her. See it as a victory.”

  James deduced from Sinclair’s playful tone that his partner wanted to cheer him up, but it didn’t help. He wondered whether she’d followed through on her desire to take what money she had and leave Mexico. He remembered in brutal detail how she’d begged him not to drag her back to her brother and the slamming of the front door.

  “Okay, then,” said Sinclair. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “We’re not robots.” James reclined in his seat. “We shouldn’t pretend we are.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re only human. I felt something for Jessi. I really did. We spent a lot of time together in that hacienda.”

  Sinclair scoffed. “I bet you did.”

  James narrowed his eyes at Sinclair. “We never slept together. We stayed in separate rooms the whole time.” He paused. “I know she wanted me to stay with her, but I tried my best to keep things purely professional. Only when we got back to Guanajuato did anything happen.”

  Sinclair shrugged as he pulled onto the freeway. He put his foot on the accelerator and the Mazda responded with a growl.

  “I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake not taking her back to Montoya.”

  “Don’t let it bother you,” said Sinclair. “Our only goal was to deal with Quezada, at least before all this happened. We don’t need Montoya now.”

  “Of course.”

  “This lasted less than a week. It’s not as if you were with her a long time. Let it go. We have a job to do. Once we kill Romero, we can clean up the rest of
this mess.”

  James agreed with the logic, but as they neared Downtown Miami and the golden sands of South Beach, James couldn’t ignore the hole in his heart or the black mist clouding his mind.

  South Beach bustled with bikini-clad women and fat, suntanned men plying the sidewalk bars and restaurants. The faint whiff of salt floating in from the Atlantic contrasted with the thrum of the small two-seater aerial advertising planes flying overhead.

  After ditching the car, James rolled his sleeves up and adjusted his sunglasses. They passed the Art Deco Breakwater Hotel in the centre of Ocean Drive, squeezing between the minimum wage workers competing to drag hapless tourists into their bars.

  “Why are we here?” asked James as they passed a black Ferrari parked outside the hotel. “I didn’t come here for a holiday.”

  “You ever been to Miami before?”

  “No.”

  “Then you should know that South Beach is so much more than Ocean Drive.”

  Sinclair led him away from Ocean Drive and into the boulevards behind it. The further they got from the beach, the grittier the area became. The homeless, muttering obscenities to themselves, reclined in the back alleys next to dumpsters on the unforgiving concrete. A Latino with matted hair splayed out at all angles shouted about Castro in Spanish as he waved his arms around for willing listeners.

  “Over here,” said Sinclair. “Go up the stairs.”

  Sinclair led him to a shop selling tacky tourist tat. At the side of the shop, a set of steps led up to what James assumed was the owner’s home.

  Sinclair reached around him and knocked on one of the sea blue doors. “It’s actually a motel, but most of the people living here have been here for months. Let me do the talking.”

  James nodded.

  A shirtless old man wearing a pair of long linen shorts answered the door. A rumpled scar ran down his bronzed belly.

  “Sinclair?” said the old man in a half-American, half-Cuban accent.

  “A long time.” Sinclair gripped the man’s hand. “Three years.”

  “Yes. You look whiter than ever.”

  He grinned at his friend as he awkwardly hugged him with one arm draped over the man’s mole-encrusted shoulders.

  “This must be your friend. Come in, a drink? I have some rum if you’d like.”

  “We’re on the clock, Raul,” said Sinclair. “This is James Winchester, by the way. We need you to get us everything we need as I told you on the phone.”

  “I see. Come in.”

  The old man hiked up his shorts and limped inside. A large double bed dominated most of the room. The furniture seemed as worn as its occupant. The TV played a rolling, repeating newsreel of NFL highlights. A small bathroom offered little more than crawling mildew and rust.

  “I’ve got everything you need in those bags.” Raul pointed at three black duffel bags on the floor next to the bed. “Everything you had on your list is there.”

  Raul took out a cigarette and perched himself on the edge of the bed. His swollen feet glowed purple beneath the tanned skin.

  “James, go and look through it. It’s mainly for you, after all,” said Sinclair.

  Sinclair sat on the bed and accepted a cigarette from Raul. James rooted through the three duffel bags. Raul’s haul impressed him. He found a couple of high-end laptops, together with the hardware he would need to take on Romero and whatever he could throw at him.

  James reached down and picked up a long metal cone. He smiled as he discovered Raul had even managed to come up with a suppressor for his pistol. For a man who lived in a crappy motel room, he’d far surpassed expectations.

  “Everything there?” asked Sinclair.

  “Everything for me at least.”

  Sinclair sighed and pulled the duffel bag with the computer equipment onto the bed. “You really don’t understand a thing about computers, do you?” He pulled out the computers and gave them a cursory glance. “Yes, these are the models I wanted.”

  Raul cleared his throat. “You boys better get out of here, then.”

  James threw the duffel bags over his shoulders. “Thank you.”

  “Wait, wait.” Sinclair struggled to zip up his duffel bag. “I wanted to ask you if you had any intel on Roberto Romero. Remember, that was another request of mine.”

  Raul smirked. “What do you want to know? He lives in a big mansion. That’s no secret.”

  “That’s all you got?”

  “That’s all I got, for now.”

  Sinclair’s face dropped in disappointment. He gestured to James and they said goodbye to Raul, who closed the door behind them the moment they stepped over the threshold.

  When they reached the bottom of the steps, James pulled Sinclair back by his free arm. Sinclair spun around.

  “That’s not enough to go on. Can’t you do better than that? At least I need to know the layout of the mansion and something about his habits. I can hardly drive up to the gates and start shooting, can I?”

  Sinclair sighed. “Look, I wasn’t asking about where he lived. Raul was being coy about what he knew. There was something I didn’t tell you about Romero.” He looked from side to side. “Look, let’s talk about it in the car. You never know who’s listening.”

  They threw their new set of toys onto the backseat of the Mazda and clambered out of the scorching heat. James cursed as the searing interior hit him. The hot leather upholstery felt like it would burn through the seat of his trousers at any moment.

  Sinclair fumbled with the air conditioning system, releasing a cool blast of air into their faces. “Look, Romero won’t be in his mansion for long. We need to make a choice. The FBI is planning to swoop on Romero. They haven’t moved yet, but they will soon.”

  James shrugged. “What? How do you know that?”

  “I have lots of friends.”

  “Mystery man now, are you?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Great.”

  Sinclair drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “There’s no need to go through with this. We can let Romero go down without lifting a finger.”

  “No,” James snapped. “Think about it. Romero has how many millions? He’ll be out of the country before they can touch him. Even if they do get him, he’ll have the best lawyers in the country. Plus, I made a promise to Quezada. He let Jessi go in exchange for me killing Romero.”

  “Are your promises that important to you?” asked Sinclair. “Jessi is safe. Who cares about Quezada? If Romero is in prison, it still makes Blake look stupid.”

  “I do. I’m a man of my word. Besides, Jessi might not be safe for long. Quezada still has powerful friends. I’m not going to risk her life or break my word by not doing what I said I would. Romero dies, FBI or not.”

  Sinclair gulped and turned the ignition on. The shiny Mazda hummed as it pulled away from the curb and back into the busy South Beach traffic. James’ mind had nothing but Romero swimming around it.

  For Mexico, for America, for Jessi, and for himself. Romero had to die.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  James and Sinclair set themselves up in an expansive resort at the end of South Beach. Rich Americans brought their families here to lounge by the pool and enjoy all-you-can-eat buffets. They walked with a carefree step James envied them for. Two enormous towers offered sweeping views of the golden sands and turquoise waters of Miami. Better to blend in with ordinary tourists than sneak around in the shadows, Sinclair had said when they checked in.

  James grumbled as Sinclair summoned him to his room far too early on their first morning. The ultra-modern hotel room looked out onto a quiet and unassuming dark grey panorama. It wasn’t that which Sinclair stared at with a frown, it was the wide-screen TV.

  “You see this?”

  James rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he found himself looking at CNN’s 24-hour news coverage. The headline flashing at the bottom of the screen made him stop. The FBI had set the wheels in motion. Senator George Black
and Harrison Phelps IV had been arrested on a myriad of charges. The talking heads discussed their connections to organised crime in Miami.

  James held his tongue between his teeth. “Shit.”

  “Shit indeed. The FBI has started moving. Romero will be next, within days.”

  “Won’t Romero run back to Mexico?” asked James.

  “He might.” Sinclair tapped his chin. “Romero might be packing now for all we know. If he gets away it won’t stop.”

  James slumped down on the bed.

  “I’ve been following this for a few months. They’ve been discussing criminals in Florida and their links to the Mexican drug war. The news people were always talking about how many people speculate that it could also have a political theme. This must have been it.”

  “You think they’re guilty?” asked James as official pictures of Black and Phelps in happier times popped up.

  “Nobody needs a trial to know that.” Sinclair pointed a finger at the screen as another picture came up of an older man. “This is Governor Newton, the state’s governor. He was taken down not long ago. Don’t be surprised if it comes out that they were working together.”

  James folded his arms as he shook his head at the television. Stories like this didn’t surprise him anymore. The roots of corruption descended far deeper than the general public could ever comprehend. The link between Romero and Florida finally became clear. Black and Newton had to have helped Romero move his products in and out of the country through Florida. Phelps offered a level of political muscle through his father. The house of cards crumbled. Without political backing, Romero’s days were numbered. His chances of stopping Romero before he fled declined with every passing hour.

  “You know,” said Sinclair. “They could get away with everything. Lawyers in the US can get you off even if you kill someone in broad daylight. Romero will have the best lawyers, and the FBI will know that as well.”

  “All the more reason to kill him before it comes to that. We’re doing the world a favour.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you, but we have to do it fast. We can’t wait.”