by A. C. Fuller
The fourth video was a black man, younger, standing in front of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He spoke the exact same words as Wragg.
There were a dozen more videos. Likely all the same.
She quickly checked the homepages of the major news organizations. CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, Yahoo News: all had published the manifesto. The BBC in England. The Times of India out of Bombay. Yomiuri Shimbun out of Tokyo. Even News24 out of South Africa had the story.
Men around the world had gathered together to unleash a coordinated attack. Their plan had the scope of a terrorist attack and the precision of a serial killing. Their operation was better funded and better coordinated than anything since 9/11. She’d been saying for days that this would become the biggest story in the world. She hadn’t known the half of it.
Ahead, a car veered into a rest area and she caught sight of the Camry, which brought her back to the moment. Not only was this the biggest story in decades, but she and Warren were at the center of it.
A long, low patch of wetlands appeared in the distance. “You sure we want to follow him deep into the preserve?” Cole asked.
Warren frowned. “No. But we don’t have a chance if we don’t. How’s your cell reception?”
Cole checked her phone. “Zero bars. If the FBI is trying to call me back, or track my phone, they’re out of luck. Same with Miami police.”
They stayed two cars behind the red Camry. Whenever she lost sight of it, Cole’s heart skipped a beat. Her mind raced. If Warren was right that The Truffle Pig knew he was being followed, he could be luring them to a remote area to kill them. She shifted in her seat uneasily, hoping Warren knew what he was doing.
Short boardwalks jutted from scenic areas on the side of the road, leading to marshes populated by giant white herons, red-shouldered hawks, and owls. Alligators sunned themselves along the banks of the marshland. She’d been all over America and never seen anything like it. The landscape was unique, and stunning.
She sighed. The drive on US-41 was one she and Matt had always planned to take together. One of the many things they said they’d do, but never did.
In Ochopee, they passed a tiny white shed adorned with a U.S. flag and marked with the sign: “World’s Smallest Post Office.”
Just past the post office, the Camry pulled off to the side of the road. Fifty yards off the road, a decrepit wooden church sat in high grass. Both the building and the yard looked like they’d been neglected for decades.
“I’ll drive by, then circle back,” Warren said. “Don’t want to make it obvious we’re following him, if he hasn’t noticed already.”
As they passed the church, Cole tried to catch a clear glimpse of the The Truffle Pig, but he was looking the other way, so all she saw was the back of his head. Shifting her gaze to the side mirror, she caught a glimpse of the Camry’s red door as it opened.
18
De Santis stuck the Beretta in his waistband as he stepped from the car. After grabbing the duffel bag from the trunk, he crossed the grass and paused on the rotten, crumbling steps of the church, checking for the airport shuttle through dark sunglasses. It had been behind him for at least an hour—probably more—though he was only ninety-percent sure it had been following him.
It didn’t make any sense. Law enforcement—both local and federal—would have stopped him if they thought he’d been involved in a shooting. And they wouldn’t be in a shuttle van. Perhaps whoever was in the van had been hired by his employer to ensure he got out of town safely. Either way, his money was inside and the Tampa airport only a couple hours away. He’d disappear to Toronto for a month or two, get the first couple surgeries, then return to Miami as a flat-nosed blond man. The beaches were sublime, but in the end, the food made him settle on Miami. The combinations of salt and lime and spice were addictive. So what if Miami would be under water in thirty years? He wouldn’t be around that long anyway, and he liked to swim.
He’d even settled on a name: Hector Alvarez. An ode to his mother, who’s maiden name had been Hannah Alfonsi.
The old wooden door was unlocked and he walked through the vestibule and into the nave. Pews were covered with moss. Vines grew through broken windows, encircling the crossbeams of the vaulted ceilings. The old missionary church had been abandoned for decades.
In the pulpit, a large cross still hung on the wall. He took it down, revealing a patch in the sheetrock. With a single sharp punch, he busted through the sheetrock and reached into the wall. As expected, it contained a package wrapped in plastic. It was around three and a half pounds. As it should be.
He returned the cross to its place of honor, though it only partially covered the hole he’d left in the wall. He stowed the money in the duffel bag and took the back door into an overgrown graveyard.
After turning the car around, Warren stopped at a turnout a hundred yards from the church. “Don’t want to get too close.”
The Camry was still parked out front. “Think he’s inside?” Cole asked.
“Assume so.”
Cole lowered the window, eyeing the door. “Don’t want to go in after him?”
“Better just to watch. Chances are it’s a pickup. Best thing we can do is stay close until we’re back in cell phone range.”
“What if he knew we were on him and ditched the car, disappeared through the back of the church and into the woods or the marshland? Or, worse, got picked up by another car while we were turning around?”
“Unlikely. I’m guessing it’s the final payment.” He waved a hand toward the empty road and expansive marshland in every direction. “I doubt he’s meeting anyone, or would try to escape from here. There’s nothing. No one.”
Cole sighed and interlaced her fingers, twisting them to crack all her knuckles at once. “Then we wait.”
After a long silence, Warren said, “That CI I met. I called him SG, short for Sea Glass, because of his bright green eyes.”
“I noticed them.”
“He said something when I left, the first time I met with him. Something…” He let out a long sigh. “Never mind.”
“What is it?”
“Said his mother called him Harold Jackson, and that’s what he preferred to be called now.”
“And?”
“Don’t know. Stuck with me.”
“Why?”
“When I knew him in New York, dude was an addict. Not a killer, not a rapist. Broke the law, but never hurt a soul, far as I know. Years later I’m still calling him ‘SG’—like he’s still the same guy. Still just using him to get what I need.”
“Using him to get the info we needed. To stop a crime.” She caught herself. “Well...try to stop a crime.”
“I guess I’m thinking about whether any of us can escape our past,” Warren said. “He’s years sober, a new life in Florida, and I’m still calling him ‘SG.’ I’m still trying to outrun some of the stuff that happened in Afghanistan, and now I’m gonna be known—forever—as a brutal cop. Talked to Sarah about it and what she said was right. Even if the video leaks showing why I did what I did, the version of me you wrote will be etched in most people’s minds.”
Cole held up a hand, ready to apologize and defend herself at the same time.
Warren didn’t let her. “I’m not trying to get into that again. It’s true of you, too. Your husband died and, you said it yourself, that’s what drives you now. And The Truffle Pig—just like SG—has a name, a past, a future. To us, and to the world, he’s just Maiale Da Tartufo. Always will be.”
They watched the door in silence until Warren said, “Something else SG said has me thinking. ‘The deeper the water, the bigger the fish.’”
“And?”
“He was talking about wreck fishing. Deep sea fishing. Ana Diaz was one of the most powerful financiers in Florida—respected, honored in her community—and at the same time, the most powerful drug kingpin in the region.”
“Don’t go there.”
“Where?”
&nb
sp; “You were headed back to the ‘Maybe these terrorists are on to something’ argument.”
“Ana Diaz was a killer, a criminal. I’ll shed exactly zero tears for her, but that’s not where I was going. I—”
Warren cut himself off as a line of tour busses passed, blocking their view of the church temporarily. As the last bus disappeared, he cleared his throat. “Like I said, zero tears for Ana Diaz, but that’s not where I was headed. The manifesto promised six more murders. And we’ve already seen the murders of one of the most powerful businessmen on earth, a former VP, and now Diaz. You just know it’s going to turn out that they’re all connected somehow. I mean, you know it, right? What the hell does that say about our world?”
“You’re saying the water is going to get deeper. And the fish are going to get bigger.”
“Exactly. We have no idea how big the fish are at the bottom of this ocean.”
Sitting cross-legged on the graveyard’s mossy ground, De Santis pulled the rifle from his duffel bag. Next he took out a 4-inch hand grinder with a metal cutting blade. Weapon resting across his thighs, he began to saw. First he took off a 5-inch piece of the barrel. Next, a chunk of the stock. The high-pitched screech of the saw filled the graveyard, causing birds in the surrounding trees to take flight.
After cutting the rifle into eight pieces, he stowed the grinder in the bag and dug a small hole in the dirt beside him. He buried a piece of the rifle barrel.
He stood and moved methodically around the graveyard, burying the pieces one by one.
As he did, he read gravestones. Most of the names were too eroded to make out, but he assumed they belonged to members of the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes, who’d lived in the region for centuries. When missionaries came in the 1930s, the tribal members who converted had worshipped, and been buried, here.
One headstone he could read struck him because the date on it was only a day away from his birthday: June 18, 1959. The name was Viola Davis, and she’d died just before her first birthday, May 31, 1960. His mind jumped to the morning on the boat. While waiting for Ana Diaz’s head to appear in his crosshairs, he’d puzzled over the fact that he’d shot the woman in the belly when she was already dead. Why had he done this?
He didn’t think of himself as sick or vindictive. He was all business. He’d been forced into this life by circumstance, never killed for any reason other than necessity. Just doing his job—a job he’d never applied for. And yet, that shot had been unnecessary. A cruel exclamation point.
But why? Maybe it was about the happiness he imagined the woman and her husband were feeling at the upcoming birth of their child. Or had it been a mercy? Perhaps the child would have suffered more, dying slowly as the mother bled out. He didn’t know, and he didn’t like where his reflections were taking him.
He buried the last piece of the weapon and walked around the side of the church.
Warren pointed.
“That’s him,” Cole said.
It was their first good look at Maiale Da Tartufo. Short and wiry, he was deeply tanned, and his black hair matched his sunglasses. In his white Bermuda shorts and red floral shirt, he looked like a typical tourist.
“Is that a duffel bag?” Cole asked. “Do you think he was out back the whole time?”
Warren shrugged.
The Truffle Pig stowed the bag in the trunk and got in the car.
“What now?” Cole asked, taking out her phone.
“We keep following him.”
As Warren started the van, she took a few photos of the church, capturing the red Camry as well. They were crummy shots from far away, but something told her she needed to remember this place.
The gas light illuminated when De Santis started the car. He’d been so preoccupied with his last target and his retirement, he’d screwed up. He hadn’t filled the tank yesterday. A rookie mistake he’d never made before, but not a big deal. He’d grab some gas at the next station and be in Tampa with plenty of time to have a glass of Chianti at the terminal before his flight to Toronto.
19
Giving the Camry plenty of space, Warren followed until it pulled off at a small gas station—probably the last one in the park. He stopped at a turnaround on the other side of the highway.
“How’s our gas?” Cole asked.
“Still three-quarters of a tank.”
“So we just wait?”
Warren nodded. “I assume he’s headed for an airport. Tampa, or maybe Atlanta. We’re almost out of the park. Cell coverage will pick back up.”
De Santis started the pump and walked inside, checking the airport shuttle van in a window reflection as he walked in. No movement. He was being followed, but it didn’t matter much as long as they left him alone.
He used the restroom and bought a bottle of unsweetened iced tea. He checked the airport shuttle van through the window as he paid. It hadn’t moved.
He allowed himself a smile. Must be guys hired by his employers. More an escort than a tail. They probably wanted to make sure he got his money and left the state safely. This had been one of the best operations he’d ever worked for. He had no idea why they wanted Alvin Meyers or Ana Diaz dead—that was none of his business—but he’d been paid well and on time. Despite the nagging feeling about the woman he’d shot in the belly, he felt blessed that his last job had gone so well.
Warren pressed his hands into his cheeks and let out a long breath.
“Stressed?” Cole asked.
“I’ll feel better when we hear from the FBI and get the hell away from this guy.”
The Truffle Pig came out of the gas station. Sipping from a bottle, he strolled toward his car like he didn’t have a care in the world.
The hot sun warmed De Santis’s face as he crossed to the gas pumps. He crouched to pretend to tie his shoe, checking under his car just to be sure. No one.
He replaced the pump, wondering how soon he could safely return to Miami. He could almost taste the Bistec Empanizado. He’d ordered the dish from room service last night and it had forever changed the way he saw food.
His mother would roll over in her grave if she knew he’d eaten a deep-fried steak. Steak, she’d taught him, should be seared medium-rare and topped with a subtle sauce. White truffle butter, or a red wine demi. Tougher cuts of beef were to be braised. One never deep fried beef.
But the thinly-sliced sirloin, marinated in sour orange and doused with adobo, then breaded and fried, had been a revelation. And he couldn’t get enough fresh lime juice on it. The thought of it was enough to push away the lingering thoughts about the woman, the child in her belly, and what it said about him that he’d put an extra bullet through both of them.
One last look: the airport shuttle van hadn’t moved.
As he opened the door of the Camry, he caught his reflection in the tinted window of a large silver SUV that was pulling up to the pump opposite him. Before it had stopped, a man leapt from the back seat. De Santis’s hand dropped to his Beretta, but he was too late.
He knew it in an instant. Distracted by the airport shuttle van, the thoughts of food, and his reflections on the woman, he’d missed something.
The last thing he ever saw was a young man in a black suit holding a silenced Glock 19.
—End—
FREE PREVIEW of Episode 4 of THE CRIME BEAT
Saturday
Cole’s hands shot up to cover her mouth, a scream caught in her throat. The Truffle Pig fell, his bottle of iced tea shattering beside him on the oil-stained pavement.
A man had emerged from a silver SUV and stopped ten feet from the gas pump. He’d taken four large strides toward the assassin, then shot him once in the chest and once in the head. It happened in a surreal instant.
Still sitting in the passenger seat of the stolen airport shuttle van, Cole froze. She stared at the blood that streamed slowly from the dead man’s chest, pooling around the broken glass.
Warren opened the door suddenly.
“Wait,” Cole said, gra
bbing his forearm. “No.”
He closed the door.
Thirtyish, the man who’d shot The Truffle Pig was tall and handsome in a black suit with a white t-shirt underneath. A large gold cross hung from his neck. After standing over his victim for only a moment, he slid into the back of the SUV before it pulled out of the gas station and turned right.
The gas station attendant ran out of the store and stood over The Truffle Pig’s body. A woman a few yards away filmed the scene on her phone, narrating like a reporter. Another woman spoke into her phone rapidly. Still another walked in circles around her car, talking to herself.
Cole had seen plenty of crime scenes, plenty of dead bodies. She’d been to gruesome murder scenes within hours of the crimes, but she’d never seen anyone killed in front of her. It was all so fast, it didn’t seem possible. The man they’d tracked from Washington, D.C. to Miami, then found only minutes before the fatal shot on Ana Diaz, had walked out of the gas station holding an iced tea—the same brand she drank. Now he was losing blood by the pint. He was gone, just like that. She’d never forget the sound of the gunshot, followed by the shattering glass. Never be able to unsee the pink brain matter splattered on the gas pump. Her mind went fuzzy—spinning—the gray static ready to take over.
She pressed her feet into the floor to steady herself. “We have to follow. We’ll be back in cell range as soon as we exit the park.” She turned to Warren, whose eyes darted back and forth between the body and the SUV as it disappeared around a curve a couple hundred yards away. “We have to follow,” she repeated. “I don’t think they noticed when you opened the door, but I have to think that, if they were following him, they noticed us following him as well.”
