By edRogers
[Reviewed here on the novel’s publication day, October 6, 2018: “Coming soon to a Barnes & Noble store near you?”]
Charlie took a giant step over the body and into the shower and washed the blood off of himself, trying not to look at the mess that covered the bathroom floor, which had been a man but a few minutes ago. He stepped out and inched along the wall, finding it hard not to step in the pool of shiny red fluid. The gun was lying against the wall. He picked it up using the bath towel and taking care not to smear the blood.
The wound no longer added to the pool it had created, but was now a pale white, gaping hole that exposed tendons and muscle, like an open eye into the soul. Charlie wanted to look away but it felt as though a magnet were pulling him toward the eye.
By the time Charlie inched his way out of the bathroom he was covered in sweat and ready to throw up. The warning from agent Morris still rang in his ears: “There could be another shooter.” He put the gun in the plastic bag that had lined the garbage can and stuffed it into the small backpack he had brought as his only luggage.
He left the key inside, locked the door, and hung a do-not-disturb sign on the knob. He descended the stairs slowly and waved at the desk clerk as he exited the hotel. He waved his arms wildly at the first taxi he saw, feeling that at any moment he might take a bullet.
With the door of the taxi closed and the taxi moving, he allowed his body to relax. He called Morris. “I’m in a cab, where do I go?”
Charlie repeated the instructions he was given to the driver, “Hotel San Juan.”
At the hotel he found Nowak and Morris standing on the street waiting for him. Instead of him getting out, they got in and directed the driver to take them all to a private Army airfield just outside of town. No one spoke until the driver was paid and on his way back to town.
Charlie couldn’t keep it in any longer. “That room is a mess and I had to check in with my passport. The police will be looking for me.”
Morris placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him gently toward the helicopter. “Don’t worry about it, we have somebody taking care of the room and the body. You’ll never hear about this again.”
Morris’s cell phone rang and they all stopped as he listened and mumbled replies in Spanish. Charlie understood only the ending, where Morris said, “Thank you for all your help, General.”
They started toward the helicopter once more, and Morris shouted to Charlie over the noise of the chopper’s engine, “What the hell did you do to piss off the Morales Cartel? That was one of Victor Morales’s enforcers you killed, a guy named Papo Romero.”
Charlie’s answer was lost in the wind from the blades overhead. The door closed and they buckled down in their seats as the chopper lifted off. It was a forty-minute flight and talking was out of the question. The radios in the helmets they wore were not secure, and Charlie needed some time to get his head back on straight in any case.
He was just realizing the implications of the killer’s having been sent by Morales. It meant that Morales knew he was the one in the warehouse, and if Morales was after him, then Morales would be after Juan. He had to get in touch with Juan.
Juan had been working on his house ever since he had walked away from the zoo, as he had begun to call Charlie’s crew. A weight came off him after he quit, a weight he hadn’t known was pulling him down until it was gone.
Juan opened the gate, picked up an armful of trash, and headed to the curb. A black sedan that was new in the neighborhood pulled slowly in front of him. Too late to duck, Juan saw the gun come out of the rear side window, saw the fire jump from its barrel, and felt a brick hit his chest, and then another one. He fell back down the incline of the yard. He rolled head over heels, throwing thrash straight up and across the yard.
He heard his wife scream and felt her raise his head to hers. Then darkness came down and he neither heard nor saw anything else.
Inside a hangar at Emerald Coast Airport, Charlie tried one more time to reach Juan, but once more had to leave a message. He turned toward Morris and sighed. “Okay, a friend and I broke into Tai’s warehouse. A security guard was killed and Tai blamed Morales for the break-in and killing. Tai and Morales went to war for a short time, until the storm hit and everything stopped.”
Nowak laughed. “You fool, Morales knows it was you that set him up.”
“Hell, I didn’t set him up. I had never heard of Morales. The big question is how does he know?”
Nowak was shaking his head and still laughing. “It doesn’t matter. If it looks like a duck then Morales will think it is a duck.”
Morris had sat in one of the folding chairs that had been placed around a card table. “Take a seat and tell us about this plan. It had better be one hell of a plan, because your life will depend on it. If we walk, you’re a dead man.”
Charlie decided to come out with the big gun right at the start. It wasn’t how he had wanted to present his idea, but now his life was on the line. “While in the warehouse I found out how Tai is getting the drugs into the States.”
Both Morris and Nowak leaned toward him. Nowak asked in barely a whisper, “Are you saying you can give us Tai?”
“I can give you his delivery point in the States and tell you how to shut it down.”
Morris was smiling and he slammed his open hand onto the table. “Well, don’t keep us in the dark, how do we get the S.O.B.?”
“Not so fast, I want something in return.”
Nowak made a funny sound and said, “Have you forgot the dead man in your bathroom?”
“No, I haven’t, but it will cost more than that.”
“Name your price. If it works out and we get Tai, I’ll gladly pay it.”
“I need to set up a man in the Costa Rican government. I want you to open a bank account in his son’s name and start feeding money into it through the U.S. Embassy in San Jose. Then alert the Embassy that you will be asking for a family visa. The party will be named on a moment’s notice and must be cleared at the top of the list. In other words, you have someone employed by you that you’ll be needing to get to safety.”
Morris shrugged his shoulders. “That’s simple enough. Who is this man you want to be set up?”
“Alejandro Salas.”
Nowak reacted with surprise. “Man, you do aim high.”
Morris looked worried. “Charlie, you know that it’s impossible to keep a secret in the Embassy. You’ll be signing Salas’s death warrant. Tai, Morales, and any number of others will tag Salas as a D.E.A. mole. There’ll be no time to get him out.”
Charlie looked down for a moment. “And when Morales or Tai kills the Chief of Staff to the President, how do you think the government is going to react?”
Nowak looked at Morris and smiled. “They’ll go nuts.”
“I’m hoping it will bring about a house-cleaning and Costa Rica will end up with a government its people deserve.”
Morris put out his hand. “You’ve got a deal, Charlie. Now, how does Tai bring in his drugs?”
“The pallets have a false bottom that is spring-loaded and can only be opened by pressing four spikes into holes, one in each corner of the bottom. And the pressure must be applied at the same time.”
Nowak threw up his hands. “That doesn’t tell us how he gets it out of Customs.”
“Whoever brings the pallets into Customs, watch them. They’ll place the pallet on spikes at some point, and I will bet the floor under it will open to catch the packets of drugs as they fall out. What happens next I have no idea.”
Morris shook his head with satisfaction. “We’ll need you to let us know when the next shipment goes out. Can you do that?”‘
“If they don’t kill me first.”
Morris smiled. “I’ll take care of that. Victor’s father does favors for us once in awhile. This will be one of those times.”
Nowak waved at a guy in a golf cart that was parked by the entrance and said to Charlie, “He’ll take you to the local terminal and you can catch a flight to Liberia International. That will get you most of the way home. One more thing, we can keep Victor off you, but your friends, you need to tell them to keep their heads down.”
Morris stood up and shook hands with Charlie. “The minute we take down Tai’s ring in the States we’ll move on your man.”
Charlie thanked them and got aboard the golf cart. He felt very old and tired.
| Copyright © 2018 by Ed Rogers |
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