The Geronimo Breach (26 page)

Richard weighed his choices and made a decision. The operative again emerged from bungalow two and moved to the entry of number one, expertly jimmying the lock. He quickly opened the door, slid into the room and extracted a penlight flashlight. A quick survey revealed it to be empty, as they’d suspected. Another scan, and he found the pink cell phone on the floor under the bed.

He exited the room and returned to his own, calling Richard even as the door closed.

“It’s empty. The phone was under the bed,” he reported.

“This is bad,” Richard said. “It means he’s on to us. Might have been for some time.”

“What do you want us to do?” the man asked.

“Stay in position,” Richard advised. “You’re already in-country, so let me evaluate our options and get back to you. Try to get some sleep. This could be a long one.”

Back in Sam’s office in Panama, Richard scratched his head and contemplated the air duct on the ceiling. Well shit. Now they had a full-blown crisis. The country was hostile enough to operate in and they were pursuing an obviously skilled target – evading the best they could throw at him. True, they didn’t know if the target had the camera, but Richard couldn’t think of a lot of alternative reasons for the man to be on the run.

Richard called for Sam, who was preparing to leave for the night – he could see him packing his briefcase at the secretary’s station.

“Yes, sir?” Sam said, entering the office.

“Tell me everything you can think of about this Al Ross. Everything,” Richard demanded.

“There’s nothing else to tell, sir. He’s a drunk, is usually either wasted or hung over, has a bad gambling problem, and is a complete write-off as a human being,” Sam summarized. “Oh, and he’s always broke,” Sam added.

“Sam, Sam, Sam. I get the feeling you’re leaving a lot out. His file says he has a purple heart and a bronze star – he’s a decorated combat vet. That’s incongruent with the guy you’re describing,” Richard observed.

“Twenty-something years ago he got into a firefight, walked away with a nick and got honored for it. The guy worked in the mail room, sir. He’s never had a decent explanation for what he was even doing off the base, much less with other armed soldiers. That was a fluke,” Sam insisted.

“I sense we aren’t seeing the big picture here. He may have been working for military intelligence, or an offshoot, even back then. That would explain a mail clerk being in a gun battle with enemy insurgents,” Richard speculated, making a note on the desk pad by his phone.

“Not a chance, sir. The guy has been a loser as long as I’ve known him...”

Richard narrowed his eyes at Sam. “This loser has so far been instrumental in getting the cook out of Panama after evading your team, and escaped being incinerated in the jungle from a surprise aerial attack – assuming he was with the cook then – and has avoided detection for days. Not to mention that he likely crossed an impassable stretch of the most dangerous jungle in the world. He probably has the camera with him, or knows its location – we can’t rule out that he’s stashed it someplace safe, or that the cook did before he fried. And now he’s behaving in a manner that’s consistent with a trained operative. He hid the phone, knowing we would trace it, buying himself enough time to be anywhere in the country by now – if not on a plane to God knows where.” Richard stopped and shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like a stupid man to me.”

“But he called me from a pay phone! Asking for help. Sounded scared and half in the bag...” Sam said.

“He’s been playing us, Sam,” Richard warned. “This guy has far more going on than meets the eye. That’s obvious. We need to get ahead of him or this could blow up.”

“Al’s a sloppy, drunk zero, sir. Really,” Sam tried one last time.

“For all we know,” Richard mused, “he wanted to lead us to Turbo for some as-yet unknown reason. He could easily have paid someone to ditch the phone in the room, and we have to expect he’s conversant enough with technology and infrastructure to know that calls from Colombian pay phones wouldn’t be traceable to a specific location. He could have made the call from Medellin, for all we know – this could be a brilliant bit of deception to have us chasing our tails.” Richard’s face darkened. “I’m thinking it’s possible he’s working with another intelligence service – presumably hostile. Who’s the most active in Panama? Chinese? Russians? Mossad?” Richard asked.

“Uh, the Chinese definitely have a large presence, sir, but not so much the Russians. Mossad is more Costa Rica, I think...” Sam answered, doubtfully.

“I want everything you have on all three,” Richard ordered, “as well as any other potentially hostile groups in the area. Just assume Al has been playing you for years and is a double agent, if not a triple. Maybe I’m wrong, but there are way too many coincidences.”

“Okay, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, sir,” Sam warned.

“And let’s get the Madame back in and grill her,” Richard instructed. “She’s our only connection to Al now, and probably knows more than we first thought.”

“What about the field team?” Sam asked.

Richard looked at him oddly.

“That’s need to know. I want the intel on the Chinese within the hour, Sam,” Richard ordered.

It looked like another long, sleepless night. All because of Al.

Sam’s hatred of Richard was ballooning to monumental proportions but Al was running a close second. He’d be comfortably home in bed or rolling around with the sisters if it wasn’t for these two shit-grubs.

He threw his briefcase onto his secretary’s desk and settled in for more thankless hours of honest work.

Al woke to the sound of a loud conversation and laughing outside his room. Evidently the service staff enjoyed storytelling at an early hour, and every other comment elicited howls of laughter from the gathered maids.

Normally, Al would have been furious, but this morning he wasn’t nursing a hangover, and he remembered he was on a short timetable – so he was actually glad to be awake. His watch said nine o’clock, so it wasn’t that early, anyway.

He quickly showered, laundering his socks yet again while making the mental note that he had to get new ones today, and checked his appearance in the mirror. Sort of an ageing Rob Halford look, with a lot more padding though. Oh well, he wasn’t getting any calls from GQ to be their cover model, so he wasn’t that worried about a couple extra pounds.

Packing his satchel, he made a mental note that the first order of business would have to be getting on the internet to find the name of the PI he’d used to locate Mari. There weren’t many private investigators in Cartagena and he’d located this one on the web, so it should be simple enough. He figured he’d call the man, get the address, and then...

And then…precisely what?

That was the hole in the short term logistical plan so far. But he’d figure it out. His gut leaned to calling Mari and feeling her out before he barged into her life begging for help – again. He had no idea what she’d been up to for three years; and a thousand days was a long time. Al hoped she wasn’t married, but you never knew – he couldn’t blame her if she was. He’d completely dropped the ball so it was Mari’s prerogative to replace him however she saw fit.

Al checked out of the hotel and crossed the street to an internet cafe that served coffee and non-specific bits of fried, sugary dough. He ordered one of each and settled behind a monitor. His coffee arrived within moments and he savored the strong, rich Colombian roast as he munched on his health nuggets.

After ten minutes of searching the web he had the PI’s information. He used the voice-over-IP phone in the corner to call him. After some back and forth, the man remembered Al and looked up the number and address he’d filed away for Mari. Al scribbled away frantically, repeating the information back to him to ensure he’d gotten it right before he hung up.

He had the lady at the cafe call him a taxi and soon arrived at the seedy downtown bus terminal’s ticket window. Still, compared to Turbo this was Club Med. The roads were paved and there were actually relatively new cars on the streets, and stores that looked as though they stocked reasonable goods. The next bus to Cartagena left at eleven a.m. and arrived at three. Al bought a ticket and went across the street to a store that featured mannequins posed in jeans and T-shirts in the window display. He bought another shirt, a pair of underwear and a package of three pairs of white athletic socks. Satisfied with his shopping expedition, he returned to the station and sat in the waiting area, prepared to board when they announced his bus.

A group of soldiers carrying machine-guns and accompanied by a tired-looking beagle walked through the terminal, eyeing everyone suspiciously. Al was relieved that they gave him no more scrutiny than anyone else. He supposed that given the country abounded with armed homicidal factions intent upon inflicting as much chaos as possible, a nearly-bald Gringo with flamboyant facial hair didn’t really rate a second glance.

The bus was three quarters full but in better shape than the one from Turbo – this one had leather seats and appeared to be only a decade old. When the driver started the engine, meager air conditioning even wafted down from the broken overhead vent – an unexpected luxury.

He busied himself with applying ointment to his feet and changing his socks, to the considerable disgust of the woman across the aisle from him, and then reclined his seat to watch the scenery go by. From what he could make out, Colombia, like Panama, mainly consisted of tropical jungle punctuated by large cleared farm tracts and the occasional city. The road wasn’t terrible, and aside from several more inspection stops by armed soldiers the trip was uneventful.

As he dozed on the slow-moving bus, Al went through a mental list of actions he needed to take when he arrived in Cartagena. First he’d grab a late lunch, and then see about buying a temporary cell phone. In Panama you could get a card with a certain amount of airtime on it, then you entered in the phone number and an access code, and the system credited the phone with the airtime. He hoped it was that straightforward in Colombia. It would be a lot easier than trying to find pay phones and carrying around pounds of coins.

The issue of how best to approach Mari was tougher. He just hoped that any affection they’d shared during their year together had created at least a small amount of residual glow.

No point in agonizing over it. He’d know where he stood with her soon enough.

~

Carmen had been released on Monday evening, after routine questioning from the police. Her attorney had gotten her out, with the promise of charges to be pressed over the shooting – but everyone involved knew the threat was hollow, as Carmen’s contact list read like a roster of past and current government luminaries. There was slim-to-no chance she would actually be prosecuted for defending her place of business from known violent drug lords engaged in a killing spree on the premises.

She’d put out feelers to see if there were any rumors on the street about her having double-crossed the Colombians, and there weren’t. So as she’d suspected, the threats of the man who’d questioned her about the cook were empty. As connected as she was, she would have heard within a few hours of them being circulated – so it all had been just bluster and bluff.

Carmen had an opulent apartment in a condo development along the waterfront, and had resolved to take several weeks off while she had Esperanza cleaned and repaired. She’d contacted the contractor who had done the renovation and he’d been more than happy to get the job of repairing the bullet damage and restoring the interior to its prior glory. Work was sporadic since the economic crisis and a lot of projects had been put on hold, so he had a full crew he could throw at the brothel – they’d be back in business within ten days, he had assured her.

Several of the girls had quit and moved to other establishments, but most stayed with Carmen, as they made more money with her than they could anywhere else. Carmen’s clientele was the higher end of the audience that paid for love, and tended to tip a lot bigger than the poorer locals or economy tourists.

Many of Carmen’s young ladies came from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; where beautiful peasant girls with no future at home were lured by the draw of easy money to be had in the north. Carmen went to great lengths to ensure they were treated well at her place, and not subjected to the kind of danger and violence that often accompanied a life in the trade. Still, many of the girls had drug problems – a function of plentiful, cheap cocaine. But that was true of working girls in most countries – Carmen’s weren’t any better or worse than average in that respect.

Carmen didn’t do drugs herself and denied ever having been a hooker. She was vague on her reasons for operating a brothel, however, the prosperity she enjoyed couldn’t be denied. From her perspective she was merely tendering a service for which there was substantial demand. She was like a high-end restaurateur or an exclusive disco owner, only there was a guaranteed happy ending associated with time spent at her place.

The girls came to her willingly – she made it clear she wouldn’t do business with the cartels that traded in human flesh. Carmen’s girls were there because they liked money, enjoyed sex, and had no other options. She had a doctor on call who routinely did health inspections, and she even helped those who were interested to open up savings accounts and calculate their career earnings required to retire. That was the dream; to work a few years, and either hook up with a wealthy regular who wanted full-time companionship, or amass enough money to open a legitimate business and go straight. Many actually did wind up with older men looking for willing, youthful beauty, although it was far from an everyday occurrence. And some did retire and open clothing stores or coffee shops.

True, the majority eventually drifted to other establishments or to other towns, but the life was what it was. Carmen didn’t pass judgment – she simply catered to the wants of some of the most powerful men in Panama, many of whom were involved in writing or enforcing the law. So her appreciation of morality was understandably colored. There was a complete double standard for the powerful and rich. Being a woman in Latin America was like being a second class citizen to begin with. Being a poor woman was even worse. Money was a kind of power, and there few ways for a single woman of limited means to acquire any. Carmen had chosen her road and it had made her wealthy and relatively untouchable.