by Mike Maden
The men and women working on the floor hardly looked up.
Guzmán watched Järphammar wipe the blood off his Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife, a double-edge stiletto designed for surprise attacks, first made famous by the British commandos in World War II.
Guzmán nodded with an approving smile. “You are fast with that blade, amigo.”
“You should see what my wife can do with it.” The big Swede laughed, referring to the brunette “cook” who was now on the other boat.
And definitely not cooking.
* * *
—
The TALL BLONDE peeked around the corner of the door into the patrol boat’s bridge and called out, “Hello?”
The XO stood by the helmsman, trying to reach his commander on the radio. When he heard her voice, he turned around, frowning.
The blonde flashed a big toothy smile and came out fully from behind the wall holding out a bottle of chilled beer with her right hand, her left hand held casually behind her back.
“Commander Phan wanted you to have this.” She tossed the bottle at the Vietnamese officer. He instinctively reached out and caught it.
The bottle exploded in his hands as the frangible nine-millimeter round plowed through it and into his gut. The lead bullet dragged microscopic shards of glass along with it as it shredded his bowels. Two more shots barked out of the blonde’s cold, wet pistol as he fell backward.
At the same time, thirty .45-caliber hollow-point slugs tore around the confined space, ripping into the unprotected flesh of the helmsman and three other crewmen, their eyes wide with shock.
The bridge quickly filled with bitter blue gun smoke, the ice-chilled grip of the Heckler & Koch UMP machine pistol clutched in the brunette’s hands. She stood just behind the blonde, a wisp of smoke still curling from the crown of her SIG 365XL pistol.
The blonde’s ears rang from the deafening noise. She touched her own cheek with the barrel of her SIG, telling the brunette, “You’ve got a little blood . . .”
The brunette reached up and wiped off the arterial spray that had splattered on her face after knifing the young Marine escort and the killing spree belowdecks that followed.
“Call it in,” she said to the blonde. The Don Pedro’s assault team had boarded the Vietnamese vessel after the first shots rang out in the galley. The assaulters killed the rest of the crew as the women worked their way toward the bridge.
The blonde radioed over to Guzmán on her comms. She shouted loudly, nearly deaf from the ringing still in her ears. “We’re clear. Send the sappers.”
One of the Don Pedro’s assaulters scrambled up behind the brunette, breathing hard, his carbine in hand, his face anxious.
“What’s the problem?” the brunette asked.
“Your man Sablek. He’s gone.”
* * *
—
Later that night, Guzmán leaned over the rail on the stern of the ship, smoking one of the fat Cohibas, the copper blades of his boat’s single propeller frothing the dark water behind them like a ribbon of light.
Järphammar stood next to him with his pipe, nursing a beer, commiserating.
“These things happen in war, my friend. He was a good soldier and died doing his duty. That’s an epitaph I’ll take any day.” The Swede took another puff on his pipe.
The thin moonlight exaggerated the deep puncture scars in Guzmán’s round face, making them look like shadowed craters on a brown, fleshy moon.
“Sablek was just a kid. And we’re not at war.”
“He was a 2nd REP para with the Legion”—the French Foreign Legion—“and tough as nails. He knew what he was getting into when he joined with them. And he knew what he was getting into when he joined with us.”
“He was only twenty-six.” Guzmán took a long pull on his cigar and exhaled. The blue smoke wafted away into the dark behind them. “That’s too young to die for money.”
“He didn’t die for money. You know that. He died for us, as we would have died for him.” Järphammar took another swig. “We were his family. That means something, doesn’t it?”
“Not to his widow.” Guzmán examined the stub of his cigar, turned up his nose at it, and tossed it overboard. “I will see to it she gets a double share for his trouble.”
“That’s good of you, patrón.”
“A family takes care of its own.”
Järphammar worried for his boss. He’d seen these dark moods before in his years as his number three in the Sammler organization. He knew not to try and talk him out of his despair.
“Still no word from Bykov?” Guzmán asked.
“No, sir.”
Guzmán was now certain that Ryan was connected to van Delden’s death. Bykov had been sent to kill the big American for that but he hadn’t reported back in. This was worrisome as well.
Guzmán took the loss of one of his people like it was the loss of one of his own children, of which he had none. But van Delden’s death hit him hardest. The big Dutchman had been Guzmán’s first European recruit and a close friend.
“Did Harte make the AIS swaps?” Guzmán asked for the second time in the last ten minutes.
The Swede didn’t know if his boss was being extra cautious or if he was just distracted by his grief. It wasn’t like him to repeat himself.
“As you ordered. He swapped ours out and put it on the Vietnamese boat and killed their VDR before we scuttled it. The world will think the Don Pedro sank with all hands lost somewhere in the South China Sea.”
“And our new AIS is online and broadcasting?”
“You are now the proud owner of the Lupita, under a Panamanian flag.”
“And what did you do with the Vietnamese AIS?”
“Harte decided to put a battery on it and launch it on a weather balloon. At last report, it was traveling due east at fifteen knots.”
“A weather balloon? Won’t that be a problem?”
“AIS doesn’t measure altitude. It’s strictly GPS. Longitude and latitude only.”
He clapped Guzmán on the arm as his broad face broke into a wide smile. “But it would be funny if the Vietnamese thought their patrol boat was sailing along at seven thousand feet.” The Swedish captain swore that a small grin was tugging at Guzmán’s troubled face but in the dark it was hard to know for sure.
“I’m heading for my bunk. Notify me when we reach the next waypoint.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Järphammar watched Guzmán climb the ladder toward the bridge and his private stateroom. The Swede polished off the last of his beer, then tossed the empty into the churning wake behind him, knowing it would sink eventually somewhere out in the dark.
OCTOBER 29
53
BARCELONA, SPAIN
Jack’s ankles were cuffed and shackled to the steel chair bolted to the floor. His hands were cuffed and shackled to an iron bracket in the middle of the steel table, its top scratched with graffiti. He wondered if the jailhouse artists got their justice, whatever that was.
His wrists hurt where they cuffed him, a little too tight—on purpose, no doubt. Jack had taken a swing at the first cop who approached him in the alley with a drawn gun, not realizing it was a cop. Thank God he only put the man on his ass instead of on an autopsy table. The other cops that swarmed him didn’t seem quite as grateful. They rang Jack’s bell pretty good, putting him on the ground and cuffing him, even after Jack had surrendered and apologized for hitting the other cop.
Jack’s ribs still hurt, too, where Crooked Nose had kicked him. The image of that fuck-you smile looped in Jack’s brain like a bad movie trailer. He’d punched him hard, but not hard enough to kill him. Why the smile?
But the other image that wouldn’t leave his mind’s eye was Brossa, dead on the pavement, her lifeless eyes wide to the steel gray sky. She deserved better. So did he
r father, wherever he was.
It had all happened so fast. He’d replayed the scene in his mind a thousand times. What could he have done differently? He should have let her lead the way. He should have been more aggressively searching for Crooked Nose, after the fight he’d had with him in his parked car. But he never suspected the man would try to kill him and Brossa. Jack assumed he was just a surveillance guy. Had he wanted to kill Jack earlier, he could have done it easily instead of planting the bugs he never got to use.
Brossa’s death dragged his soul down even deeper as Liliana’s horrific death clawed at his heart. He’d failed her, too.
A hard Spanish face appeared in the steel door’s small, wire-reinforced window. The dark eyes scanned the room, then fell on Jack, holding on him for a while. Maybe the cop wanted to come in there and tune him up while no one else was around.
If he did, there wasn’t a damn thing Jack could do about it.
Keys jangled in the lock and the door swung open.
Dellinger spoke in Spanish to the guard, who shrugged and shut the door behind the CIA man, then locked it. Dellinger approached the table where Jack was shackled but remained standing.
“Jack, how you doing, son?”
Jack raised his shackled wrists a few inches, as far as they could go. “Good thing I don’t have to pee.”
“Well, if you do, don’t ask me to hold it for you.”
“Not part of your cultural affairs responsibilities, I take it.”
“No. But getting you out of here is.”
“That’s why I called you instead of a lawyer. Speaking of which, didn’t you bring one?”
“You don’t need a lawyer. I’ve made all the arrangements. A Guardia Civil escort is going to drive you and me straight to the airport and put your ass on a plane to fly you home to Dulles. You can pay for your own damn Uber back to wherever you want to go after that.”
“I’m not going anywhere until this case gets fully and finally resolved.”
“I guess you’re not hearing me. This isn’t optional. There are three dead people lying in your wake today, two Spaniards, including one of their federal officers. They intend to hold you for questioning as a person of interest—and here’s the fun part—they’re going to hold you without bail for as long as they need until they wring everything out of you.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill the Spaniards. That other guy did.”
“Which is what you say. Right now, there are witnesses that think you were responsible, since you were the one standing closest to both victims.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the nature of eyewitness testimony. Just about the most unreliable kind of testimony there is. But it’s out there, and the Spanish authorities have a legal obligation to take it under advisement.”
“And the third guy? The one with the crooked nose?”
Dellinger leaned on the table like a bad cop. “The one that could have proven you innocent if you hadn’t killed him?”
“Yeah.” Jack smiled. “That one.”
“As far as I know, smartass, the Spaniards are still trying to identify him. So far they’ve come up with at least seven aliases and four nationalities for this joker. The last alias he used was Bykov. And do you know what the real head-scratcher is?”
“I have a feeling I can’t stop you from telling me.”
“Turns out, you killed a dead man.”
“Run that by me again?”
“Bykov was reported dead three years ago. Interpol ran his photo. They think he was ex–Russian military and ex-Wagner, but they can’t be sure. Do you know what Wagner is?”
“Russian mercenaries.”
“You know a lot about the world for a finance guy.”
“I know how to read a newspaper. I also know that most cultural attachés don’t carry.” Jack nodded at the shoulder holster underneath Dellinger’s sport coat.
Dellinger frowned, frustrated he’d been that careless. He straightened up.
“You must throw one helluva punch, kid, to kill a man with one shot to the mouth.”
“Lucky, I guess. Well, not for him.”
“Or you. Look, the bottom line is that the Spaniards are very curious and very unhappy with the situation, and the only fall guy they can find within arm’s reach is you.”
“I’m not guilty of anything. I’m not worried about what their investigation might turn up.”
“I knew you weren’t listening to me. I believe you when you say you had nothing to do with the death of the two Spaniards, and that the death of this Bykov character was accidental because you were just trying to defend yourself. Okay? I’m on your side here. Do you believe me or not?”
Jack nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Good, because I am. So, please, pay attention.” Dellinger pulled on his own ear. “And listen to me. You might not be worried about what the Spaniards might turn up on you. But you need to be very worried about how long it will take them to find you innocent. It could be months. It could be years. And if they decide to link you up with the L’avi bombing, that makes you a terror suspect, and then all kinds of new rules and procedures come into play.”
“If the Spaniards think I’m the prime suspect, why are they willing to cut me loose?”
“Because, like the rest of us, they’ve discovered you’re a real pain in the ass.”
Jack fought back a laugh. That’s a title he’d take any day. He’d been a pain in the ass to tangos and shitbirds for years, and he was damn proud of it.
“Ass pain notwithstanding, you need to be a little more clear.”
“Somehow this boss of yours, Gerry Hendley, has gotten involved in this, and apparently has a lot of pull with the State Department. You are just about to cause a minor international crisis between our governments, which means a crisis within NATO, and that’s something nobody wants.”
“Sounds like I have leverage.” Jack wasn’t referring to his dad. He would never use his relationship with POTUS for personal advantage, even if that meant getting out of this jail.
Dellinger pointed at Jack’s handcuffs. “Yeah? You got so much leverage, try standing up right now.”
“Then how come you can get me out of here?”
“Because our two respective governments have worked out a deal. But there’s a time stamp on it. If you agree to leave with me right now and let me take you straight to the airport and you return immediately to the States, the Spaniards are willing to accept your version of events. But if I walk out of here today without you, you’re on your own, back alley garbage stink and all.”
Jack sat back as best he could. He blew out a long sigh, thinking. “I just need to know what really happened to Renée Moore.”
“You and I both know what really happened to her. She was killed in an explosion from a bomb detonated by a member of Brigada Catalan.”
“But this Bykov guy. He’s connected to it, too. And if he’s ex-Wagner—”
“Bykov’s dead. You killed him, remember? Case closed.”
“But he was tied to Brigada—”
“Brigada’s all dead. Believe me, I know that because I was there when it happened. Case closed.”
“But—”
“Case fucking closed. Don’t you get it?”
“Yeah, I get it. I know it’s closed. Laia said the same thing. But there was another American at L’avi who was killed. A guy named Runtso. Dr. Dylan Runtso.”
Dellinger’s face flinched. “How do you know about him?”
“He bumped into me as he was coming into the place and I was going out. He said, ‘Sorry, man’ as we passed.”
Dellinger’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you worry about Runtso. And by the way, there were a lot of other people killed and wounded that night, not just two Americans.”
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“Yeah, I know. I was there, remember?”
“One more thing you haven’t considered. There’s another corpse that’s attached to your name, at least by extension.”
“Who?”
“Do you know who Gaspar Peña is?”
“Never heard of him.”
“He was with the CNI. Brossa’s boss. They found him a few hours ago, extra crispy. He was handcuffed to the steering wheel of his burned-out Audi R8 Decennium, which is one helluva car and about as shitty a way to die as I can think of.”
“You know I have nothing to do with that.”
“I know it. You know it. And wherever the hell Peña is, he knows it, too. But how long will it take the Spanish authorities to figure it out as well?”
Jack shrugged, Dellinger’s logic falling on him like a heavy woolen blanket.
“So, what’s it gonna be, Jack? Sit on your ass in a Spanish gray-bar hotel for the next six months and get your gringo ass molly-whopped by local talent until they finally cut you loose? Or do you want to walk out of here a relatively free man and get back to your life in the good ol’ US of A?”
Jack folded his hands together, rattling the chains, thinking. He knew the moment he left Spain, the case really was closed. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there were still a few loose threads that he needed to tug on to get closure.
But Dellinger was right. All the cards were stacked against him. The best possible outcome was that he’d waste the next several weeks, if not months, in jail, unable to do any kind of investigative work anyway. The worst case was too terrible to consider—somehow convicted of one or more killings, even if only by association or intent. False convictions weren’t exactly a myth, even in Western democracies.
Worse, several weeks in jail—innocent or guilty—meant he’d be off the shelf as far as The Campus was concerned. And for what? The case really was closed. Renée’s killers were dead. So were Brossa’s. And knowing his father, there wasn’t any chance he wouldn’t get involved at some point to get his oldest son out of the hoosegow, especially if he was innocent. If POTUS got involved, that surely meant his identity as the son of SWORDSMAN would be revealed. That would definitely kill his future as an undercover operative with The Campus.
