by Blake Banner
He shook his head. “I’m not. I’m on the side of the valkyries.” He laughed, like he’d told a joke, but his long, pale eyes were watching me. He stood and patted my shoulder. “Pack a bag and make whatever preparations you need to make. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
An hour later, he rolled out a gray Wrangler Moab and we put the Zombie away in his garage. I threw my bag in the back, climbed in and slammed the door, and we set off through town. He didn’t talk much until we’d joined the I-15 at Etiwanda and we were headed north out of town toward Victorville. Then he said, “Are we being followed?”
“No.”
“Njal is at a place called Cadiz. It’s about ninety miles east of Barstow, in the Mojave desert. We should be OK there. The few people he comes across, he tells them his name is Pierre and he’s from Paris, the French one. That explains his accent.”
“He has a Norwegian accent.”
“You think they can tell in Cadiz?” He grinned at me.
“I guess maybe not.”
“I want to put some flesh on the bones of our plan there. I think we might need to strike sooner rather than later.”
“Why?”
“Why do I think that, or why do we need to strike?”
“Both.”
“Njal has some intelligence that suggest Omicron may be active. And if he is, we may have a problem.”
“Active how?”
“I’ll let Njal explain that.”
FOUR
Shortly after eleven that morning, we turned east at Barstow, onto the I-40. The road was long and straight, flanked on both sides by scorched desert and gnarled shrubs as far as the eye could see, with only distant ridges of purple-tinted mountains to break the endless prospect. The air was dry and, in the growing midday heat, it shimmered and warped above the ochre dust.
“You might want to close the windows and turn on the AC,” Jim had said at one point, “but personally I prefer to sweat and let the desert air cool me as we drive.”
We drove on for almost an hour, until we came to Ludlow and there turned south and east along the National Trails Highway, going ever deeper into the desert. An hour after that I spotted an hacienda, surrounded by tall palms and eucalyptus trees, enclosed within yellow adobe walls, about a half mile from the road, on the left. Jim slowed shortly after and turned off the road onto a pitted, dirt track which we followed, trailing a great plume of red dust, on a winding course to the hacienda gates. Those gates were steel and electronically controlled, set in walls that were some ten feet high. Jim smiled. “It might look like a quaint adobe hacienda, but this place is a high-tech fortress. Make no mistake.”
Tall palm trees towered over the walls and as the gates rolled back I could see sprawling gardens with yucca plants, aloe, Saguaro cacti and tall eucalyptus groves. Set among the palms and the eucalyptus, at the end of a dusty driveway, some eighty or ninety feet from the gate, was a white, two story house with a veranda completely shrouded in vines hung with huge clusters of purple flowers, and to the left, also in the shade of the trees, a vast terrace with a gleaming, turquoise swimming pool.
Three steps rose from the drive to a covered arbor outside the front door, where Njal sat on a step, smoking and watching us.
We pulled up in the shade of a palm, Jim killed the engine and we climbed out. Njal approached on his long, thin legs, smiling, with his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He embraced me and then Jim, and we made our way up the steps to the house.
“We are alone, my friends. We have much to talk. I have couple of chickens in the oven, beer in the fridge, we eat by the pool in half an hour. Lacklan, I show you your room.”
We were in a large hall with deep terracotta floors and white walls. A dark wooden staircase rose to a galleried landing on the upper floor. Jim said he was going to get a drink and Njal led me upstairs to a heavy oak door. There he slapped me on the shoulder.
“Have a shower, change your clothes. I see you downstairs in twenty minutes.” He said that but he didn’t walk away. He stared at the door, sucking his teeth, then added, with a nod, “Maybe this is the big one, you know? Maybe we die this time.” Then he gave his head a small twitch. “But it’s a good way to die.”
I didn’t know what to answer, so I watched him make his long, lanky way to the stairs and descend them two at a time at a slow run.
The room was large and bright, with a large window overlooking the desert, heavy beams on the ceiling and a large, comfortable bed. I took a fifteen minute cold shower, dressed and went down to join Njal and Jim by the pool. Jim had stripped down to some tropical Bermudas and was in the turquoise water. Njal was by a brick barbeque with a tray of roasted, quartered chickens which he was dousing with herbs and olive oil from a stone jug.
In the dappled shade of some trees there was a table set up, and beside it a large metal bucket full of ice, encrusted with bottles of beer.
“Take a brew, Lacklan. Bring me one, too, yuh?”
He said that and dropped a chicken leg on the iron grill. It hissed and flames leapt and soared, licking at the flesh and singeing it. Seven more pieces followed as I pulled two bottles from the ice, opened them and set one down on his work table as he poured more of the sauce over the dismembered fowls. More flames leapt and seared their flesh. I heard the slosh and slap of water behind me and Jim pulled himself out of the pool. For a moment, I had a strange sensation that I had stepped into an especially weird chapter of Alice in Wonderland. As Jim toweled himself dry, I said to Njal, “What’s the intelligence you’ve got?”
He pointed at the table where I’d put his beer. There was a terracotta dish with an aluminum lid. “There you got potatoes fried in olive oil, with cayenne pepper too. Take that to the table. I bring the chicken. Then I tell you about these guys.”
I sighed, picked up the fries and carried them to the table. He followed with the quartered chickens. Jim had finished toweling himself and was pulling the cork on a bottle of wine. As Njal set down the chicken and sat, he said, “We godda kill these guys.” He looked up at me. “And we godda kill them soon, man. Siddown.”
I sat. He reached into the dish and pulled out a chicken breast and a wing. I helped myself to a leg while Jim spilled fried potatoes onto his plate and passed the dish to Njal. He helped himself and passed it to me as Jim filled our glasses with rich red wine. Njal drained his glass of beer, sat back and belched, then tore into the meat with his hands and teeth. As he chewed, he spoke.
“I’m gonna take these guys one at a time and tell you what I have found out. Some of this shit you know already, some of it will be new, but what I tell you about Felipe Gonzalez, Samuel Zapata and General Francisco Ochoa, this is all gonna be new to you. That’s Nu, Xi and Omicron. This is bad shit, man.”
Jim said, “Tell us.”
“OK, first, Lambda: Raul Rocha, Minister for Mines and Energy in Brazil, lives in Brasilia, Shis QI 12, Conjunto 15, that’s how they are making addresses in Brasilia. Crazy shit. It’s on Lago Paranoa. He works at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Esplanada dos Ministérios. He gets driven every day to work in his Bentley by his chauffeur, who is also his personal body guard. The car is bullet-proof and bombproof, but latest intelligence suggests he is not on red alert. Security at his house is high, security at the ministry is moderate to high. My source tells me that morale is complacent. Every Wednesday evening he goes to see his mistress at her house on Shis Qi Conjunto 6.”
Jim raised an eyebrow at him. “Complacent? That is surprising given the fact that Omega I and II have recently been put out of action. We must be sure not to be the same.”
I nodded. Njal grunted. “We can view footage later in the house. Initial analysis suggest the ideal spot for a hit is at the gate, as he exits in the morning, or in his office. But we need to do some brainstorm for this.”
He picked up his chicken and bit into it.
I asked, “How secure is your source?”
He looked at me with no expres
sion for a moment, then said through a mouth full of food, “Dead, so pretty secure.” He shrugged and swallowed. “He was drunk, driving his car. You shouldn’t drink and drive.”
I sipped my wine. “OK, what about Mu?”
“Narciso Terry, Minister for Scientific Development in Argentina, works at the Ministry of Scientific Innovation, Avenida Cordoba, Buenos Aires. Lives at 42 Calle Parera, penthouse apartment, five minutes from the ministry on the other side of the Avenue 9 de Julio. Status of morale, again, complacent. Level of security moderate both at the ministry and at home. Wife, fifteen-year-old daughter, seventeen-year-old son, both at boarding school.”
I narrowed my eyes. There were alarm bells going in my head. “Why are they complacent?”
He shrugged and shook his head.
I said, “Mistress?”
He stuffed fries into his mouth and shook his head again. “No. More like random, occasional trips to clubs and whorehouses.”
“Recommended hit?”
He thought about it while he chewed, then picked his teeth with his tongue. “My personal opinion, at home. Kill the wife too.”
Jim stopped chewing, with the chicken breast in his hands, and watched Njal. “Why?”
“Because she will probably be a witness, and also it is probable she is involved with the organization.”
I said, “I don’t like it. We’ll discuss it. What else?”
“We look at the details later, in the house. Now, Nu, Xi and Omicron: Felipe Gonzalez, Samuel Zapata, el Vampiro, and General Francisco Ochoa. They all in Mexico, all in the Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa.”
Jim grunted. “Sounds like the HQ is in Sinaloa.”
“You ain’t kidding. Gonzalez is based in Culiacán, the capital city of Sinaloa State, in a walled, gated fortress on the Avenida Alvaro Obregon. Zapata and Ochoa are living in Mazatlán, a luxury beach town, hundred and twenty miles south of Culiacán , at the mouth of the Gulf of California. They are like an hour away from each other and they are always in touch, by telephone, using telegram, or visiting each other in person. And once a month they get together. And more or less once a month, they go to Zapata’s country villa. It’s like a palace, yuh? In the mountains near the border with Durango, near a small village called Cosalá, where the Sinaloa have a big fuck off airfield in the middle of the goddamn village.”
I said, “Let me get this clear in my mind: we have Lambda and Mu, respectively, in Brazil and Argentina, working in the government and living in the capital cities. Meanwhile , Nu, Xi and Omicron live in Mexico, not in the capital, but in the region of Sinaloa; Nu, the governor of the state, lives in the capital, Culiacán, while Xi and Omicron live an hour’s drive away in the coast town of Mazatlán. They stay in touch with each other and once a month they all get together at Zapata’s—that’s Xi—country villa in the mountains near a large landing strip in the village of Cosalá.”
Njal nodded. “You got it.”
“What about security?”
“Kind of lax…”
“Them too, huh?”
“Yuh, they have bodyguards and basic security at home and at work, but it is not great high tech stuff, you know? Basically electronic alarm systems and guys with guns. It’s like they feel, so long as they are in Sinaloa, nobody is gonna touch them.”
We all ate and drank in silence for a few minutes while Jim and I assimilated the information. Finally, I said, “OK, so why the urgency?”
He reached for another leg and broke it in half. “Because the word I get from my contact is that there is a lab at the house in Cosalá, in the mountains. They bringin’ equipment in, regular, you know? To the airstrip, takin’ it up to the house in boxes, doin’ some kind of work up there. They don’t let nobody into the lab, but they got some scientists workin’ and livin’ there.”
“Developing drugs?”
“That’s what I said. But my source says they don’t think so. Is something different. Something more than that.”
“Something more, like what?”
“The equipment is all electronic.”
Jim said, “We can only speculate. You need to go and get eyes on it.”
Njal shrugged. “I agree. My contacts don’t know what it’s about, but just that fact, that they don’t know? That means it is something out of the ordinary. Something that they are spending big money on. We need to see it, and we need to destroy it.”
I sighed. “OK. So we start with Mu, Narciso Terry in Argentina. We make it convincing as an accident, or natural causes. We arrive in Argentina separately, we meet up for the kill, we leave separately. Same thing in Brazil, one of us goes to a five star hotel, the other to a hostel, backpacking, whatever. But it’s not enough to make Rocha’s death look natural. Nobody in Omega is going to buy two deaths by accident or natural causes so close together. So we have to keep it quiet for at least a week.”
Njal nodded. “We can do that.”
“Then we travel to Mexico. That’s going to be more complicated. Sinaloa is not a place you go to as a tourist or on business, unless you’re buying drugs.”
Jim was stroking his beard. “So you have to make your approach as somebody interested in buying large quantities of heroin and cocaine, with something very valuable to sell in return. We’ll have to arrange fake IDs, too.”
I said, “Yeah, fake IDs are essential. Buying drugs may attract too much attention. We could be naïve journalists for Rough Guide, something like that. Whatever we decide, we’ll have to strike fast, because news of Terry and Rocha’s deaths are going to come in pretty quick. We’ll have just a few days to make the three hits and get out.”
Njal said: “So we time it for when they are all at the villa, and at the same time as we take them out we check out the lab, see what the hell is going on there, maybe destroy it, yuh?”
“Yeah, that’s good. We are going to need a lot of firepower and explosives. Getting that into Sinaloa is not going to be easy.”
Jim said: “We’ll have to bring it down from Arizona by plane or by boat from California. Leave it to me. I’ll sort it out. We’ll need a drop and collection point, and a place where you can store the stuff till the hit. Maybe…”
He looked at Njal. Njal nodded with his mouth full. “Sole. We fly the material down by sea plane. She can meet the plane in a boat and bring it ashore.”
Jim looked at me. “Make a shopping list.” Then to Njal, “You too. Let me have it by tomorrow morning.” He wiped his mouth. “OK, that’s good, we have the makings of a plan. I’m going to make some calls and have a sleep. I’ll see you gentlemen this evening.”
He stood and we watched him walk back across the terrace, through the glaring sun, toward the shade of the house. Njal refilled our glasses with wine.
“Now he’s gonna…” He paused, gave his head a shake. “I don’t know, maybe he’s gonna sleep or maybe he’s gonna meditate, but he’s gonna process the whole thing in his mind. It’s like his mind is a computer, you know? He inputs the information, leaves it while he sleeps or while he meditates or some shit, and then it comes out couple of hours later: ‘OK, you got this problem, that problem, the way we do this is like this and that…’ He’s an amazing guy.”
“How long have you known him?”
He shook his head. “Need to know, man. I like you, I trust you, but information is the weak links in security, right?”
I nodded. “Before we go, I need to talk to Senator McFarlane.”
His face went hard. “You need to clear that with Jim.”
I spoke calmly, but there was an irrational pellet of anger in my belly. “I don’t need to clear shit with anybody, Njal. There are no ranks here and no bosses. This is not the army.”
“You talk to the wrong person you put all our lives at risk.”
“I’m aware of that. McFarlane is not the wrong person.”
He spoke to his glass, and there was something dangerous in his face. “Do me a favor. Lacklan. Talk to Jim before you talk to anybody els
e, yuh?”
FIVE
Njal went to have an afternoon sleep. I swam in the pool for an hour, then had a cold shower and went for a run in the desert. After that I spent a couple of hours training in the shade of the palms by the pool.
When the white walls of the house were turning copper and pink, and the shadows of the eucalyptus were lying long across the terrace and the turquoise pool, Jim emerged from the house again.
“Let’s talk.” He said it and his voice seemed to echo slightly in the evening. I didn’t answer. I dived in the pool, touched the bottom and erupted at the far end. There I pulled myself out, showered in cold water and toweled myself off while he stood waiting. I walked past him toward the house.
“I need to get dressed. Give me ten minutes.”
“Lacklan.”
I stopped and turned to face him. “Yeah.”
“No rebellion is required here. What’s eating you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve got people’s lives in your hands. I need you stable.”
“I need me stable.”
“Of course you do. But so do I and so does Njal. You fuck up on your own, that’s your fucking problem. You fuck up while we depend on you, that’s our problem. If something’s eating you, I need to know about it.”
“Nothing’s eating me.”
“Ten minutes, in the study.”
Fifteen minutes later, I came down the stairs, crossed the terracotta hall, through the large, modern drawing room and found the study through a solid, dark wood door. There was a heavy Castilian desk, the walls were white lime wash, there was a six foot fireplace and several free standing, low bookcases. There was also a nest of gray, thick linen armchairs and a sofa set around a coffee table. Jim and Njal were sitting there looking at me as I came in. I joined them and sat.
Jim spoke first.
“What I’d like to get resolved this evening is a concrete plan detailing how you intend to make each hit, and how you intend to transition from one hit to the next without alerting the remaining members of the cabal. Of course we might alter and amend the plan as we get closer to execution, but I want the basic structure down this evening, with the essential details.”
