The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake

by Sam Lee Jackson

  “What if there are more guards inside at first?” Emil asked.

  “Surprise is on our side. We set off two more flashbangs and use the diversion to go through the doors. These interior doors are easy. If there is trouble outside, you’ll take care of it.”

  “What if the girl isn’t there?” Elena asked.

  “She’s there,” Emil said.

  I looked at Emil, “Do I need to get you the rifle or silencer?”

  “Got it covered.”

  “When do we do this?” Nacho asked.

  “Next shipment should be Wednesday night at 10:30.”

  58

  Blackhawk’s Rolex read 10:37 before the van rolled in. We had spent seven anxious minutes wondering if this was the night the pattern would be broken. It rolled around the corner and I heard two muffled coughing sounds, and simultaneously the surveillance cameras exploded into pieces.

  We moved. Blackhawk and I lifted the twenty foot ladder and laid it against the upper barbed wire. Behind us was an asphalt parking lot stretching back to a large metal industrial building. The building and the lot were vacant. There was a wide retention area from the parking lot to the fence and it was completely full of waist-high mallow and tumbleweed. At the back of the lot was a large Penske rental truck. Emil was on top, prone. From this distance you couldn’t tell what he was.

  I went up first, and without hesitation I went over the top. I hit the ground and rolled, and despite the foot it was just like paratrooper training. In a second I was behind the van and Blackhawk was beside me. We were both wearing ratty old jeans and a short sleeved shirts over the typical ribbed sleeveless wife-beater tee shirts.

  I had a short barreled .38 in a holster off my right hip, under the unbuttoned shirt and a seventeen round 9mm Glock and three grenades in the middle of my bundle of old clothes in case I needed to fight a war. Both pistols were unregistered throwaways. I had a Ka-Bar knife strapped to my right leg, above the prosthetic. I had split the pant leg to just below my knee for easier access. Except for the Ka-Bar Blackhawk was armed similarly and just as anonymously.

  Without hesitation, we stepped out and around the van. The last of the illegals were unloading and we joined them seamlessly. One looked over his shoulder at us, but they were hustling everyone into the building so he just kept moving. There was a guard on either side of the door. They looked just like the men that had come off the van, except they held automatic pistols. With our heads down, Blackhawk and I walked right by them.

  Once inside, the bay was large and filled with trucks and SUV’s. The door the blueprints had told us we needed was to our back right. We mingled in with the others, slowly angling toward it. If the door was locked, the plan was to throw grenades and then use the Ka-Bar to jimmy it. These interior doors were cheap, like any interior door in any house. I could pop the lock in seconds.

  We reached the door and I tried the knob. It turned and the door opened. Blackhawk grinned at me and I went through with him right behind. It was a locking door handle and I locked it. We stood and waited for cries of protest but there were none. They hadn’t even noticed.

  We were in the hallway just as the blueprint had shown, and the door to the stairs was a dozen feet down. Now we both took the pistols from the bundles, put the grenades in our pockets, and tossed the clothes aside. There was no one in the hallway. Holding the pistols at our sides, we moved quickly to the stairway door and went through it and up the stairs two at a time. At the top the door had a window in it. It revealed a long empty hallway with a dozen doors along it. Most of them were open. The hallway was wide and carpeted. There were mirrors and paintings on the walls. It looked like a hotel corridor.

  We went through the door.

  Blackhawk took one side and I took the other. We walked purposely down the corridor, looking in each open door. They were mostly large rooms with desks and cubicles and electronic equipment with clerical types working away. Not one looked up or noticed us. If they did, they didn’t care. They were in their safe little world doing their safe little jobs. Up here no one had automatic pistols.

  We paused to gently test the doorknobs on the shut doors. They were locked. We made it to the end of the hallway, and on the back wall there was a door facing back at us. It was unlocked.

  Blackhawk went in first. It was furnished like an apartment. The living room had a couch and chairs and lamps and a TV, but no people. Blackhawk moved to one side, I took the other. We stood, silent and listening, pistols extended, each of us locked on the front site, lingering on the doors that led off the room.

  There were two doors, one to our left which was closed and one in front which was open. We could hear someone in that room talking.

  We looked at each other and Blackhawk nodded at me. I moved to the open door and went swiftly through it and angled right, my back against the wall. Blackhawk slid in on the other side.

  Frank Bavaro sat at a desk, his back to us. Diego sat in a chair against a side wall reading a newspaper. He looked up and froze. Bavaro was on a landline phone. He sensed Diego’s alarm and turned.

  “Hang up,” I said.

  He looked at me, then to Blackhawk, then back. “I’ll call you back,” he said. He cradled the phone.

  He stood up. Facing us, he leaned forward, placing his hands on the desktop. He did not seem afraid. “I won’t ask how you got in here,” he said. “I’m finding that you are a very resourceful young man. Did you bring me the girl?”

  “He doesn’t have her,” Diego said and I looked at him and he was looking at the doorway. I turned my head and Romy and Gabriela stood in the doorway. Romy’s arm was firmly around Gabriela’s waist and was the only thing holding her up. Gabriela was stoned.

  “Lucienda?” Bavaro said. He was very surprised.

  “Gabriela,” I said.

  Romy laughed, “Jackson, you are such a Boy Scout. He’s talking to me. My name is Lucienda. Lucienda Anabell Tachiquin Alvarado. You misunderstood on the boat and thought she was calling herself Lucinda. She was talking to me. I thought it was funny. You also assumed I was his wife.” She looked at Bavaro, “But this bastard will not marry me. He thinks the church will condemn him if he divorces his cow of a wife. With all the blood on his hands, he worries about a divorce.”

  “Lucienda, now is not the time,” Bavaro said.

  Diego stood and Blackhawk said, “Don’t move.”

  “Don’t anybody move,” Lucienda said, moving her free hand from behind her. She held an ugly little pocket pistol and put it against Gabriela’s head. We didn’t move.

  “What do you think you are doing?” Diego said. “She is worthless to us dead!”

  “I don’t want to kill her,” Lucienda said. “But I will if I have to.” She nodded at me, “You and Tonto throw your guns aside.”

  “Cochise, goddammit,” Blackhawk muttered under his breath as he tossed his pistol. I let mine drop.

  I felt like Wile E. Coyote with a big fat light bulb above my head.

  “I have a Boy Scout question,” I said.

  Lucienda smiled, “I’m sure you do.”

  “Why was she at your boat?”

  “It’s Frank’s boat. I’d been there enough to know who the neighbors were,” she said. “Roland was impatient, he brought the girl to meet me and Diego to sell her. But there was a bad accident that closed the Carefree Highway and Diego and I had to go all the way around. When we didn’t show on time, the stupid shit panicked, thought it was an ambush, and had his assholes dump her. You pulled her out and I got there just as you did.”

  She was looking at Frank, then she glanced at me. “Good luck for her, but none of that matters now.”

  “You’ve had her all along,” I said.

  “Right next door.”

  “Right under my nose,” Bavaro said.

  “The safest place for the fly is on the flyswatter,” I said.

  She looked at Diego, “Now we trade the girl for the Valdez money.”

  “So Roland go
t nothing and lost his head for it,” I said to stall her.

  Bravaro said, “That was his Excellency the Ambassador, we had nothing to do with that. That was Valdez. Sometimes harsh methods are used when seeking information.” He looked at Lucienda. “Why do you do this? You know we will pay much more for the girl.”

  “So the girl went back to Roland?” I continued. I looked at Diego, and he was looking at Blackhawk. “And Diego shot four of the Diablos and got her back, and let me guess, he wanted to shoot five to clean things up, but somehow Roland escaped.”

  “I got what I went for,” Diego said.

  “The girl,” I said. “And you showed me the girl outside the club to draw me out and get a shot at me.”

  “You were in the way.”

  “That, and I took your gun away from you and hurt your pride.”

  “You were very lucky. The little girl cop saved your ass.”

  “The little girl cop would kick yours.”

  Bavaro was looking at Diego, “This has been your plan all along? I have treated you like a son.”

  “Et tu, Diego?” Blackhawk said.

  Diego shrugged, “You would not pay me for the girl. You would expect me to be a good soldier and just give her to you. It is a lot of money.”

  I laughed, looking at Bavaro. “So Lucienda has been banging Diego and she’s been banging me and that makes you a three time loser. It would have been easier if you had married her.”

  “That’s two, what’s the third time?” Blackhawk asked.

  “Oh, yeah he probably hasn’t heard," I said. “Valdez has $100,000 bounty on his head, dead or alive.”

  “He knows. You should have married me, Frank,” Lucienda said. “Shoot them, Diego,” she said and shot Bavaro.

  The bullet sliced through his chest. He looked down in surprise at the widening stain on his shirt. He fell backwards. She pointed the gun at me.

  I am very fast, but Blackhawk is faster and I hesitated. Never sleep with someone you may end up having to shoot. He barely seemed to move as he pulled his hidden pistol and shot Lucienda center chest, and she went backwards pulling the girl with her. Diego had his pistol out of his jacket and I shot him once, then twice more as he went down. The explosions rang in our ears. Gabriela was sprawled on the floor, half on top of Lucienda, moaning.

  “That’s for Boyce,” I said to Diego’s body.

  I looked at Romy or Lucienda, or whoever the hell she was. I don’t know what I felt. Blackhawk knelt and checked for a pulse. He went to Diego, then to Bavaro.

  He looked at me, “Dead, dead and dead.”

  I went to Bavaro’s body and put my pistol in his hand, and closing his fingers around it I fired into the wall where Diego had been standing. Blackhawk took Diego’s pistol and put his pistol in Diego’s hand.

  “These love triangles are tragic, wouldn’t you say,” Blackhawk said.

  “Tragic,” I said.

  We each took one of Gabriela’s arms and lifted her and took her out of there.

  59

  Emil thumped the top of the boat twice with the butt of his rifle. Blackhawk was on the stern with one of the shotguns and Emil still had the .22 rifle with the silencer. They both had 10 x 50 binoculars.

  The signal meant someone was coming down the dock. I glanced down the hall to the closed door of the middle stateroom where the girl was sleeping. I parted the black-out curtains and stepped out on the bow with the Kahr in my hand. It was Escalona. He was alone.

  I stepped back inside and Blackhawk was watching me from the stern doorway. I signed Escalona and he nodded and turned back to watching the water.

  I heard Escalona say something to Emil, then the boat moved slightly as he stepped aboard. It was bright outside. He stepped in and waited as his eyes adjusted.

  “Emil called to say you have the girl,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “How is she?”

  “Strung out, they kept her doped up. She’s sleeping.”

  Escalona looked around the room. I knew down the hallway he could see Blackhawk sitting on the stern watching the water.

  “His Excellency is at the top waiting. Do you think she could go home?”

  Before I could answer, the door to the stateroom opened and Gabriela came out. She was rubbing her eyes. Her hair was mussed but clean. Elena had wrestled her into the oversized shower and scrubbed her to within an inch of her life. She wore one of my white tee shirts and it hung on her like a tent. The bones on her shoulders were two sharp points poking against the fabric. Her thighs were concave and there were dark smudges under her eyes.

  “Who’s here?” she said. She peered at Escalona, then said, “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Someone would have to be with her around the clock,” I said.

  “Yes,” Escalona said softly. “That has been arranged. And, we are bringing her mother back from Bogota.”

  He turned to Gabriela. “Are you ready to come home? Your grandfather is at the top of the hill waiting for you.”

  “I ain’t staying here,” she said glaring at me. “That bastard won’t let me smoke.”

  Escalona looked at me and smiled, “Such cruelty.” He took a phone from his pocket and dialed a number. I could hear someone speak on the other end.

  “She’s here,” he said. He listened, then, “Yes, yes she appears to be fine. Should I bring her up?” The voice said something. “Yes, fine. We will wait here.” He hung up. “His Excellency will come down.”

  “Do you have a cigarette?” Gabriela demanded, looking at Escalona.

  “I’m afraid not, my dear,” he said.

  She glared at him. “Bastards,” she said under her breath. She turned and went into the stateroom, slamming the door.

  “Does she have anything else to wear?” Escalona said, smiling.

  “We had to burn everything,” I said. “But we bought some things.”

  He moved to the sliding doors and moved the curtains to look down the walkway. “Of course,” he said.

  He stood there waiting till finally he said, “Here he comes.”

  I moved beside him. The Ambassador was slowly making his way down the dock. There were two men with him. These were men that looked very capable. They walked easily, their eyes roaming, missing nothing. They wore their shirts outside their pants to cover the pistols on their belts. One of them carried a leather valise with brass buckles that looked very expensive. When they reached us, Escalona and I stepped out on the bow.

  The Ambassador looked up at me. “Mr. Jackson, It is so good to see you again. I hear you have something for me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “And I have something for you.” He turned and the man handed him the valise. He handed it up to me.

  “I am very grateful for the life of my granddaughter,” he said, his eyes beginning to moisten.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said, “I’ll get the girl.”

  60

  It was dusk when Blackhawk and I walked into Safehouse. We had lucked into a parking spot, snagging it as a peculiar looking square vehicle pulled away from the curb. We were in Blackhawk’s Jaguar, and on this street it stuck out like a super model at a monastery.

  The hallway was empty, but Father Correa’s office was occupied. She was a big woman. Not big as in fat, but big as in broad of shoulder and strong muscle tone. She had skin of ebony and a cascade of hair pulled back and fastened into a chaotic riot that somehow looked good on her. She could have been the direct descendant of Shaka Zulu. She was at Father Correa’s computer working on something. She looked up and studied us coolly.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  “Looking for Father Correa.”

  She leaned back, making the spring in the chair creak.

  “The good Father is busy right now. Can I help you?”

  “Is he here?”

  She looked at Blackhawk, then back to me.

  “He is here, but he is busy” she said spacing the words. />
  “We’ll just take a minute of his time.”

  “He doesn’t have a minute. It’s bath and bed time and he is cleaning the kitchen. That is, if he has finished mopping the community room and fixing the toilet that one of the girls flushed a diaper down. She kept flushing. She thought that if she flushed enough times the ten-pound sack of poop would miraculously go down the five-pound hole. Why don’t we see if I can help you?”

  “Is it okay if we go back and find him?”

  “Only if you are handy with a mop. What is it you want?” She eyed us both. “You realize this is a female facility. If you need a place to sleep tonight you can go to the flophouse on Madison. Just a few short blocks away.”

  Blackhawk stepped back and looked at me, “She’s obviously talking to you,” he said.

  “My underwear is clean,” I said. I looked at her. She wasn’t smiling. I lifted the valise I had in my hand, “We have something for him.”

  “What is it?”

  “It is personal.”

  “You can leave it with me.”

  “Will it be safe?”

  She looked at me.

  We left it with her.

  61

  It was in the late spring and I had moored the Tiger Lily off an island in Scorpion Bay. We had topped off the freshwater tanks and the gasoline, and loaded the oversized refrigerator with delectable tidbits and red prime beef and stocked the bar with fine things. There were two very large white Igloo coolers filled with ice and cold, cold beer. It was our second week out, and I was sitting in the shade up top in the captain’s chairs with a fresh Dos Equis by my side. I was repairing the tip on my fly rod where I had shut the door on it, snapping it right off.

  I also was watching with great amusement as Blackhawk and Elena were fifty yards off the port side on Swoop, and Blackhawk was attempting to teach Elena to handle a fly rod. Surprisingly, her natural rhythm came through and she soon got the hang of ten to two. Letting the line out a little at a time, whipping it back and forth, longer and longer. Then release and she hit her target and let out a whoop and pumped her fist, waving at us. I lifted my bottle in salute. Another fly fisherperson was born.