Smoke Signals (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 4) (9 page)

Two of the airplanes that had been forced to circle Seattle-Tacoma Airport because Freddie Strait Arrow’s 737 went to the head of the line were Mateo Trujillo’s Dassault Falcon and an Air Canada Airbus A321 out of Calgary. Forty-five minutes beyond scheduled arrival time passed before both planes arrived at their gates and all the passengers from both flights had disembarked.

An hour and a half went by before Trujillo met with four fashionably bearded men who’d flown down from north of the border. All of the visitors from Calgary had trained with Joint Task Force 2, Canada’s elite special operations unit, until they’d all washed out. Not for lack of physical ability or combat prowess but because of conduct contrary to good order and discipline.

More simply put, they had proved adept at killing but lacked respect for the chain of command. They’d run afoul of the rules and regs to the point where each of them had been locked up in Club Ed, the Canadian Forces Service Prison and Detention Barracks in Edmonton. Each had served a sentence of one day short of two years, the point at which they would have had to be transferred to the civilian prison system. Instead, they were released from confinement and military service.

They were warned before they departed confinement that they would be back behind bars quickly if they ever talked in public about their training or the types of missions they would have participated in had they not proven to be such incorrigible pricks.

Mateo Trujillo, with his CIA connections, knew all about those missions and these four men as well. Their names were Able, Baker, Charlie and Dog. Not really. But that’s how they referred to themselves when working. Old school phonetic military alphabet. It also delineated their pecking order. Along with other non-governmental talent scouts to whom military etiquette was secondary to a confirmed kill, Mateo had made contact with the four men shortly after they’d been cashiered. He’d used their services previously and found them satisfactory.

As luck would have it, their schedule was open when he called them en route to Seattle. They were able to head out at a moment’s notice, once Mateo agreed to meet their fee. He thought it spoke well of the mercenaries’ preparedness that they could be ready on short notice … that or they hadn’t been hired for a while and were getting desperate for work.

Mateo met the mercenaries in Gig Harbor, a cozy suburban hamlet near Tacoma where a dispute over the high school reading list was considered high drama. No one at the brew-pub where they gathered at a corner table ever would have suspected that the actual shedding of blood was being planned in their midst. To Mateo’s eye, his hired guns were clear-eyed, neatly dressed and well behaved. Business men in their casual clothes, getting an early start on a Saturday evening of good-natured camaraderie.

The capitalist imperative of making money had succeeded in teaching the men good manners and civil behavior where the military had failed. The difference in incentive was easy to measure. Thousands of dollars a dollar a day versus the same amount per month.

Mateo was happy to see none of the men seemed at all desperate.

He’d just caught them at the right time.

After their drinks and meal orders had been served and the waiter had departed, Mateo said, in a voice lower than the babble of neighboring conversations, “My hope is we will have an easy time with this chore. All we need to do is make sure that a business that is relocating from Point A to Point B continues to operate in an equally productive fashion.”

Able spoke for all the mercenaries in every business occasion short of life-or-death necessity. “What might prevent that from happening?”

Mateo enumerated four possibilities, extending a finger for each one.

“Management might need to be thinned by half; the workers might need to be reminded of their obligations; the security people will need to be vetted for wavering allegiance and … let’s just say we’ll have to check for industrial saboteurs.”

Baker caught Able’s eye and sent a silent message.

Able told Mateo, “My friend wants to know if you mean a cyber attack?”

Mateo shook his head. “Not at all. This is strictly within your area of expertise.”

All four mercenaries understood the briefing: They’d have to scare some people, maybe pop a few, and hunt down someone else, his fate also likely being terminal. In other words, no big deal. Easy money.

“You’ve made the travel arrangements?” Able asked Mateo.

“Yes.” Meaning he’d provide their wheels and knew where to go. “You’ll bring all your equipment?” Meaning weapons, ammunition, body armor and survival gear.

Able nodded. “We’ll do our shopping right after we eat.”

Putting a military level assault on a credit card was easier in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.

Mateo was pleased, sure they would succeed. He would complete the last job he’d ever do for Fausto Zara and neither the cartel boss nor anyone else would suspect him of the treachery he had in mind. And if anything went wrong …

Well, assuming that no one at the table in the brew-pub went toes up, the Canadians could race across their border and had wilderness to hide in that extended into the Arctic, and the survival skills to make do in such primal conditions. As for him, he could run south of the Mexican border as far as Tierra del Fuego, if need be.

Mateo wouldn’t live off the land but would pay off anyone necessary to survive.

Between them, they could leave the length of two continents for any pursuers to search.

He liked his chances. Everyone at the table was feeling good when the waiter returned.

“Anybody in the mood for dessert?” the waiter asked.

Julián thought his idiot cousin, Basilio, would never get within a mile of killing Freddie Strait Arrow, and if he tried he would surely be gunned down by the billionaire’s security people. Julián had done a research paper on the ten richest people in the United States to see how they protected themselves. The original intent of the paper was to reveal the strategies they used to safeguard their fortunes. How they hedged their financial bets, that was.

His professor liked the idea but told Julián to broaden his focus and to see how the truly wealthy also insulated their holdings politically. What was the extent of their influence on the passage of advantageous laws and the formulation of favorable federal rules that might add to their wealth? Discover the extent to which these activities might be considered legitimate and what strategies were clearly, if covertly, corrupt.

Julián had liked that angle and ran with it. Getting inside information on those titans was not easy, of course, but Julián knew people who knew people. The information he included in his paper made his professor’s jaw drop.

“This is astounding,” the prof said. “These people not only influence the government, they
own
parts of it in everything but name. But you didn’t name your sources for this information.”

“They’d kill me if I did,” Julián said. “I’m not kidding about that. I just wanted you to see what I found out. I’m going to omit that section from the final draft I submit to you.”

The professor had dealt with all sorts of student subterfuge when it came to schemes for grade boosting, but that wasn’t the feeling he got from this young man. Julián was a Mexican national. Seemed well heeled, too. Hadn’t asked the university for a penny in financial add. He might have personal experience in what the wealthy in his own country did to protect themselves.

If that was the case, it wouldn’t be such a big jump to find out how others did it. The professor said, “Well, thank you for this personal glimpse of how these things work, Julián. Maybe someday you’ll be able to publicly source your material. You’d have the foundation for a best-selling book here.”

Julián edited his paper and still got an A. He thought he’d scared his professor a little bit.

Would have terrified him if he’d known Fausto Zara’s people had provided the information. It was no big deal to them. Julián was a member of the family and he’d paid them for what he wanted. If what he did compromised the lofty perches of a bunch of fat
yanquis,
well, that would be good for a laugh.

Zara’s
compadres
were able to provide the information in the first place because the filthy rich around the world, regardless of where they lived or how they came by their money, used the same security strategists: former military, intelligence officers and federal police. Men with expertise in violence who wanted to make some money of their own.

The security men knew about the bankers, lawyers and influence peddlers who sustained and enlarged the holdings of their patrons. They were all leeches bleeding the common man, who rarely if ever realized he was being sucked dry. They kept that sad creature anesthetized with sports, gambling, sex, video violence, alcohol and, of course, drugs.

Writing that paper had changed Julián’s life. He had thought of going into investment banking, but even those
cabrónes
didn’t make their money as quickly as someone who could prove himself valuable to Fausto Zara. Julián became someone who had developed a new channel for making
El Jefe
large sums of money. Better yet, he’d done so in the face of the new and daunting challenge of competing with legalized marijuana.

The reward for his ingenuity and two years of hard work was $20 million in his Cayman Islands bank account and the growing esteem of the most powerful drug boss in the world. His future should have been ever more golden, and it looked to be …until that
pendejo
with his camera showed up out of nowhere.

In that moment, Julián experienced an epiphany: He realized his downfall hadn’t been a random event. The photographer hadn’t simply wandered into Julián’s life. Freddie Strait Arrow had
sent
him. For what purpose, he didn’t know, but —

He was snapped out of his reverie when Basilio shook his shoulder.

“Have you gone deaf, Julián? I’m trying to talk to you.”

Julián slapped Basilio’s hand away and got to his feet. “What do you want? There had better not be any trouble.”

Basilio shook his head. “Not with the
campesinos.
”

“Then what?”

“It’s me. I … I forgot something. Back at the old camp.”

“
Ay, mierda.
You can fetch it tomorrow. You’ll take the others to bring back our tents and other necessities.”

“Yes, yes, I can do that. But I would like to go tonight. What I forgot is important to me.”

Julián knew his cousin liked to carry an absurd amount of money around with him. He stuffed his wallet fat with cash. Such a stupid thing to do. Basilio had $2 million in his own Cayman account. But he liked flashing gringo dollars. It made him feel important. Never mind that so much currency would be a lure and a windfall for street thugs. It would also make any cop who stopped him suspicious. How had this
cabron
come by so much money?

For all his love of tangible buying power, though, Julián felt it was more than money that motivated his cousin. Made him want to set off through the wilderness in the gathering darkness.

“Is it that picture of you and those four
putas
you can’t do without?” he asked.

Basilio’s jaw dropped in surprise. “You know about that?”

Julián rolled his eyes. “I know you jerk off
el pene
every night. I can’t help but hear you. I saw the photo sticking out of your wallet one day, so I looked.”

Basilio’s face turned red with indignation — and then he relaxed.

Which was all the giveaway Julián needed. “There’s something else.”

Basilio shook his head. “No, no. Nothing else.”

“Yes, there is.” The answer came to him intuitively. “Jesus, did you manage to get a picture of Valeria Batista?”

Knowing there was no point in trying to deceive his damnably smart cousin, Basilio confessed. “Only with her clothes on. Just her face, really. But I’d trade the other four for her.”

Expecting a rebuke, Basilio was pleasantly surprised when his cousin laid a compassionate hand on his shoulder and said, “If the picture means that much to you, if Señora Batista has such a hold on your heart, go get the picture. This moment, if that’s what you want.”

Basilio embraced Julián. “You will be the best man at my wedding someday.”

“Of course.”

“Is there anything else I should bring back or just wait for the others and then bring everything?”

“Use your best judgment,” Julián said.

Basilio kissed his cousin’s cheek and was off.

Julián watched until Basilio was out of sight. He’d known from the beginning that Basilio was on hand not just to keep the
campesinos
and the guards in line. If Fausto Zara ever decided Julián had outlived his usefulness, he would need someone nearby to kill him.

Basilio.

That was just good management. Zara should have known Julián would see that.

So in the face of the present potential calamity it was only wise for Julián to allow Basilio to head off into the forest in the dark where he might fall and break his neck, encounter a wild animal that might devour him or come face to face with Ernesto Batista, who had to be far more resourceful than he appeared, and would defend his wife to the death.

Basilio’s death.
Adios,
cousin.

Rebecca was still worried about the bear, but she sucked it up and told John she’d be alright occupying an ambush site by herself. “I can do it.”

She kept her bow and the MK14 sniper rifle. She also accepted a spare Glock G43 compact semi-auto sidearm the John said he’d forgotten he had brought along.

“Forgotten, hah,” Rebecca said.

“If you wind up shooting someone with it, you’ll have to give me credit,” he told her. “Special Agent Mulgrew slipped it to me on the way out the FBI’s door.”

“Nice guy. If I use it to bag the bear, though, credit for that is all mine.”

John kept the MP5 submachine gun and took up his position. They were hiding in darkened tents at the base points of a right triangle. The apex was the tent with the two bunks and the wallet with the money and the Polaroids. They’d left that tent as they’d found it with the exception of turning on a battery-powered lantern.

In the darkness of the mountain night, a yellow magnet of light flowed from the open flap of the tent, as welcoming as a lover’s embrace. Or the dead giveaway of a trap, if you had the least bit of a suspicious nature. John and Rebecca had made allowances for the fact that not all of the bad guys might be gullible.

They’d also agreed on the likelihood that some of the people who’d abandoned the marijuana processing camp would be back soon. They’d made off with all of the dope and the workers, but they’d left behind a wealth of infrastructure: tents, bedding, cooking equipment and all the paraphernalia needed to grow and process cannabis on a commercial scale.

They’d found barrels of natural soil nutrients, biopesticides with a low adverse soil impact, and a large stove-like device with a huge chimney-form rising out of it.

“What the heck is that?” Rebecca had asked.

John looked at a label affixed to the metal beast. “A drying and curing machine.”

“Damn, this making dope stuff is getting to be big business, if someone’s designing that kind of equipment for it. But where the heck do you plug that thing in?”

John looked behind the device. “Portable generator. Looks like solar powered.”

“So no bad chemicals in the fertilizer and pesticides, and no gas fumes expended in the processing. The grass grown here was environmentally green.”

“Produces a lot of money, too, so that’s another kind of green. And making electricity from sunlight is silent, so no racket from a fuel-powered generator either. This is one slick set-up.”

“Somebody’s going to come back soon,” Rebecca said, “if only to scavenge.”

John nodded. “I can’t think of a better place to spend a night in the woods, and if we can nab a bad guy or two in the process so much the better.”

“You think they’ve got some organic bear repellent here?” she asked.

“Maybe they just sacrificed malcontents to the predators. Tied the whiners to a stake to keep everyone else in line.”

Rebecca winced. “Human sacrifice? Is this your Aztec side finally coming out?”

“Too
outré?” J
ohn asked. French for outlandish.

“Encore plus.”
More than. Canada being a bilingual country, Rebecca could more than hold her own in French.

“Désolé.”
Sorry.

They’d let it go at that and set up their ambush points.

Two hours later, as it was getting hard for John and Rebecca to fight off fatigue, a woman crept into camp, stepping into the cone of light coming from the target tent. Looking around, she revealed herself to be young and pretty. She stepped into the tent.

By John’s silent count it took ten seconds before she cried out,
“¡Dios santo!”
Dear God!

John, playing home-country advantage, had told Rebecca he’d make the first move. She would act only if it looked like he’d stepped in the poop and might get buried in it. Now, he hoped she’d follow the plan.

The woman continued to cry out,
“Ay, dios!”

Her voice tread a fine line between agony and ecstasy.

John was sure that someone waiting just out of sight was with the woman, but it was only when she stopped addressing the Almighty and called out,
“¡Ernesto, venga aquí!”
that a man carrying a rifle finally appeared. He ducked into the tent.

But he didn’t exclaim at whatever had excited his companion.

And she fell silent, too.

John waited, exercising a hunter’s patience, hoping Rebecca would, too.

She did and their forbearance was rewarded.

A second man, holding a handgun, slipped out of the darkness and dashed into the tent.

Within the space of a heartbeat, a gun was fired.