Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (14 page)

“
Then we can find it,” Clint
said.

“
Yeah. We can get a wideband scanner
and find it.”

“
Do that and I’ll help – if just to get
the type who brought this to the Indios out of here.”

Mittermann didn’t say anything. He made a
call on a somewhat large cell phone, then said a man would meet
them in one hour in the parque. He would have the bugchaser, as
they called it.

Clint and Mittermann had the delicious meal
and chatted, then went to the parque where a bum came to sell them
contraband CDs and DVDs. Mittermann looked through his cooler of
CDs and bought three. The bum put them in a bolsa and slipped a
package in, took the five dollars and latched onto a passing
gringo, saying he had all the latest CDs and DVDs from the states
at just a dollar apiece.

Clint and Mittermann went to Peter’s place
and had a Balboa, then went out to take a cab that happened to be
passing. The CD salesman was the driver. They went to Quiteño and
used the bugchaser. There was one transponder in Ann’s purse, made
into the clasp. She said she bought it in Haiti from a stand on the
street. She didn’t know how they could know it was her who would
buy it.

“
They didn’t,” Judi said. “They saw
which one it was and substituted when you were out or
something.”

Cori also had one. It was in a necklace she
bought in Haiti.

“
Okay. I’m convinced I can work with
you, but I don’t believe one word of the crap explanation,” Clint
said.

“
Fair enough,” Mittermann replied.
“I’ll take you back to the Costa Rica and meet with you tomorrow.
We can figure some angle. I’m with you about getting those kinds
out of here.”

He dropped Clint off and the taxi took him on
to his hotel, the Alcalá. Clint went inside the Costa Rica, talked
with the owner, Lee, and Bob for awhile, then went to his
room..

That was successful! Now to find out who
Armand Gault was and what was really going on.

He called Judi and warned her Mittermann had
probably put some kind of fancy spy device there so be careful. She
said Cori was watching him in the mirror from the bathroom when he
slipped a cute little thing behind the toilet. They checked and
found one behind the refrigerator and another in the master
bedroom.

“
And one under the server shelf to the
kitchen from the sala,” Clint said. “I saw that one. He wasn’t too
subtle. I was probably expected to be watching and wouldn’t know he
planted others. Pick them all up, say goodnight into them and go to
bed. There’re probably more of different kinds. I suppose they’re
listening to this.

“
You people need new methods. TV’s
already exposed all of this. If we knew anything we’d be damned
sure you wouldn’t learn about it unless we decide there’s a reason
you should know. This just means we won’t trust any of you an
inch.

“
See you tomorrow, Jude. Tell everybody
good night for me.”

They hung up. Clint went to bed.

“
Good morning, Clint!” Clint heard when
he answered the phone. He was sitting in the little open-air
restaurant across from the taxi stand by Romero’s. It was ten to
six and not much else was open in David.

“
Good morning,” he replied.
“Mike?”

“
Uh-huh. We caught some crud sneaking
around by the bodega. Obilio decided that, seeing he’s so
interested in it, we would lock him in until you come to ask him a
number of polite questions.”

“
What does he say?”

“
Nothing, except he’s with the US
government and is here to protect us. He said to call you and to
have you talk to somebody called Oscar.”

“
He’s from the CIA and isn’t there to
protect anybody. You shouldn’t need any protection, but ... you
might. Tell him to let you know what he’s looking for and maybe
you’ll help him find it. I’ll call Oscar and let him know how much
we appreciate all this crap.

“
I think the most dangerous one where
we’re concerned is the witch woman, Claire. I haven’t a clue as to
what they’re doing. The explanations don’t make sense. All I know
is that they’re doing something that will ... I’ll be
damned!”

“
What?”

“
You know something? I think we’re just
a distraction. Cori happened to be at a place at a time that ...
That makes no sense, either. It’s too complicated to have a hope it
will work. Antoin wouldn’t be dead if that was it.

“
Christ! I can’t make anything make
sense! I suppose you can let your guest go. There will be someone
from the other side lurking around. Be careful. If there’s any kind
of attack shoot to kill.”

“
We already decided that. Call after
you talk to that Oscar character. We’ll keep this one on ice until
we hear from you.”

Clint agreed and hung up. The phone buzzed
almost immediately. “We don’t have anybody out there! Don’t let him
go!” Mittermann almost screamed.

“
Good morning. You can get a car that
can get us there fairly fast?”

“
Is there a place a chopper can
land?”

“
A small one.”

“
Airport. Fifteen minutes.” He hung
up.

What in HELL is going
on?
Clint thought as he dropped some money on the
counter and flagged a taxi from across the street. He was at the
airport eight minutes and twenty dollars later. He told the cabbie
there was twenty in it if he was there in less than ten minutes. He
was. Mittermann came about five minutes later and they went to the
private chopper sitting near the terminal. They were landing on
Obilio’s mountaintop nine and a half minutes later. On the way,
Clint told Mittermann one more lie and the cooperation was gone for
good. He had no authority in Panamá. This turkey was Obilio’s
capture, on the comarca, and Obilio would decide who and when
anyone else spoke to him. Mittermann said the sad fact was that
they were trained to never tell the truth about
anything.

“
That’s your reputation. This guy said
to talk to you.”

“
So connect the dots, but it’s from the
wrong direction. Mike said he wanted you to talk to Oscar. Nobody
in the outfit or out calls me Oscar. It’s always
Mittermann.”

Clint nodded and said that was what make him
suspicious from the first. What was the object?

“
You almost did it. You almost said to
let him go. By the time you found out he wasn’t from the agency
he’d be in Paris or somewhere.”

“
Port au Prince.”

“
I don’t think he’s with them. I really
don’t. We’ve identified all of them who are here. That scares
me.”

Clint was surprised. He said they would find
out who he was with. Mittermann said he would be trained against
telling them anything true. He wouldn’t react to pain.

“
We have an expert on making people
talk,” Clint said.

“
I think it won’t work. We have
everything and we have counters for everything. Built
in.”

“
You just think you do. You badly
underestimate the resources on the comarca. You underestimate these
people – again.”

Mittermann grinned. “You know something? I
think maybe you can get answers.”

Mike and Obilio came out to the chopper. Mark
and Matt were inside and had rifles pointed at anyone who got off
the chopper they didn’t know already. Obilio pointed to the bodega
and said someone tried to come to it from in back. A couple of
shots that missed less than an inch seemed to have convinced him
that wasn’t a good idea. It was too dark to see much of anything
about him.

Obilio took the heavy board holding the door
shut off and opened the door.

“
Armand?! In person!?” Mittermann
cried, almost screeched.

“
Hello, Mittermann. It would seem these
people are better at this kind of thing than either of
us.”

“
Shall we go to the house and have a
cup of hot coffee?” Obilio suggested.

Clint laughed, then Mittermann, then
Armand.

“
Might as well be civilized about it,”
Armand said. “Armand Gault. You’re Faraday. I know who the
Campbells are.”

“
Obilio, comarca councilman and boss,”
Mike introduced. “This gets weirder and weirder!”

“
You can say that again,” Mittermann
said.

“
This gets weirder and weirder.” Mike
shot back, looking innocent. Mittermann giggled and waved at the
house.

There was a shot from above them in the
forest. Gault staggered and dropped.

Matt stepped out of the house and scanned the
area with binoculars, then carefully shot at a spot in the
forest.

“
Probably didn’t hit, but it will be
close. There was a spot of smoke from that shot.”

Gault had crawled a few feet to a large rock
Lila had planted terstrial orchids around. He sat up and swore
steadily. There was blood coming from his right shoulder.

“
Come on!” Mittermann said. “You’ve
been shot before!”

“
Asshole!” Gault said and stood
unsteadily.

Matt was watching the spot where he’d shot
through the binoculars. He grunted and said someone was running
through the meadow toward the path they had followed already two
times. He waited another few seconds, then said, “Damn! It’s
Maria!”

That really got Gault to swearing.

“
You were working for her, huh?” Clint
asked.

“
WITH her, I thought.
Bitch!”

They went into the house. Mittermann made a
bandage for Gault’s arm. He said they would have to get him to a
hospital.

“
After while,” Clint said.

“
It could be critical. I can’t stop the
bleeding.”

“
Then it would be wise for Mr. Gault to
answer Clint’s questions quickly,” Obilio said. “You may not leave
the comarca until I say you may leave the comarca.”

“
I think Armand has a strong incentive
to answer the questions,” Mittermann said.

“
Ask away,” Gault said.

“
Who and what?” Clint asked.

“
A group. To establish a control of
banking in Central and South America, including all the islands in
the gulf and Caribbean.”

“
You’re part of the group?”

“
Apparently not. I thought I
was.”

“
Maria is. That’s obvious.”

“
No. She is a sociopath who’s being
used by a woman known as Claire Auber. Claire Auber is one of the
twelve people who are running things. Eleven. I’m obviously going
to do what I can to end them. Dr. Freud would make a big case study
of someone like her!”

“
Maria’s a sociopath who may have been
acting on her own,” Mittermann pointed out.

“
Or not,” he replied. “I’ll cooperate.
I don’t know if you can do anything if Auber is behind
it.”

“
Oh, I can,” Clint said. “Obilio, I
think we can allow Mr. Gault leave to go to a hospital.”

Obilio nodded. Mittermann took Gault to the
chopper and they took off. Clint would have to stay. The chopper
was a two-seater.

The Missing Clue

“
Why did you not ask him what he came
here to find?” Obilio asked.

“
I caught that,” Mike said. “Good
question!”

“
Because I want to find it.” Clint went
to the bodega. They took everything out. Obilio said it was a good
time to clean the place so he cleaned everything and they put most
of it back. They didn’t find anything.

“
Gault and Maria think it’s here. Maria
was here. Whatever it is has to be here,” Clint said stubbornly.
“It wouldn’t make sense that she would go to that trouble to find
something she ... so we locked Gault up in this bodega. Damn! How
stupid!”

“
I think he did not take anything away
with him,” Obilio said. “I assure you I would have found it when we
made the bandages. I know how to find anything on a
person.”

“
Then it’s still right here. It’s why
he was so unconcerned when everything happened,” Mike said. “He
seemed a little bit smug to me the whole time.”

“
There wasn’t any time since we let him
out that he could have hidden anything,” Mark argued. “He hid it
somewhere in the bodega. It’ll be a paper or something very small.
He slipped it under a floor ... there aren’t any. It’s a stone
floor. It’s under a stone.”

“
No stone was moved. I would know,”
Obilio said positively.

Clint laughed. “I wonder, why did he crawl
around after he was shot when none of us were concentrating on him?
Hmm? Want to bet?”

They went to search along the six feet Gault
had crawled. Clint searched among the orchids and around the rock.
He found a small plastic bag with a couple of sheets of paper in
it. It was shoved under the rock behind a large sobralia with a
little bit of dirt piled on top. The sheets contained a number
code. It would take some decoding – If Clint could find a base for
the code.

“
This means he’ll be back,” Matt
suggested. “We can jump out and yell surprise!”

“
I think he’ll feel safe enough that he
won’t come unless he knows none of us are here. He can wait.,” Mike
suggested. “Maybe we should all go to David for a couple of
days?”