The Crisp Poleward Sky Page 5

  Inside, Luis felt very little. He knew he was different and clever, and he was driven not by emotion or desire, but by his secret need to be superior. He often laughed to himself about the people who had trusted him, and how easily he had gained their friendship. Human beings were a needy lot.

  In the end, though, he was a loner. He worked alone and preferred his own company. For his work, his preparation was impeccable, and his reputation grew quietly. Eventually he’d been sought out by some of the richest men in the world. Like his current employer, the man he had just spoken with.

  Luis returned his rental car to the airport, entered the terminal, and took an Uber ride to downtown Phoenix. He checked into a Marriott hotel and began to make plans to meet with Benito Diaz.

  * * *

  In the hotel, Luis thought back over the recent past. Almost four months ago, Benito Diaz’s brother Raul had contacted him with the assignment. Luis had been considering a brief retirement, a respite, but the phone call had reminded him that he was attached tightly to the Diaz brothers. He didn’t like the feeling.

  “So, Luis, you need to come out here,” Raul had said tactlessly. He was Benito’s younger brother, and he assumed Benito’s power as if it were his birthright.

  Luis clenched his jaw and said nothing.

  “Do you hear me, Luis?” he asked.

  Luis sighed. “I do hear you, Raul,” he said.

  “So you can come here now,” said Raul. It wasn’t a question.

  “Of course,” he said.

  * * *

  “Come in,” said Raul, who was sitting alone at a dining room table and cutting a papaya with a steak knife. He glanced up, and then went back to his task.

  Luis waited, standing just inside the door.

  “So I want you to kill someone for me,” said Raul.

  Luis said nothing.

  The room was decorated with Mexican knickknacks, painted bowls and glazed flower pots. There was a yellow and red bowl of fruit on the table, heaped full of papayas and avocados. The ceiling had large wooden beams affixed to it, running laterally. The single window looked out onto a large area covered in stone and bordered in shrubs and small fruit trees.

  “Do you hear me, amigo?” Raul asked, not looking up. “I was in prison, you know. It’s not just my brother you must respect.”

  “Yes, I heard,” said Luis. It would be so easy to gut this pig, he thought. One day I will.

  Luis stepped into the room and walked to the table. The house was a beige low-rise that sprawled across an oversized lot. It was one of many in this upscale development.

  “Who is it?” Luis asked.

  Raul looked up for a moment. “Bruce Narber. He testified in L.A.,” said Raul. “Carlos was sent to jail because of him. He is an informador.”

  Luis nodded. He remembered the headlines. The trial had resulted in two leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha being sent to jail for kidnapping and drug trafficking. The government’s key witness had been an airport employee, an air traffic controller on a break, who had seen drugs and illegals being loaded onto an airplane late at night.

  “And now he is in witness protection. He thinks he’s safe there.”

  Luis nodded, thinking, Here comes the rant.

  “But he cannot hide from us. We are everywhere! We have eyes and ears everywhere! This man is already dead!”

  By my hand, thought Luis. Then he interrupted, “How do you want me to do it?”

  “An accident,” said Raul. “We don’t need to send a message with this one. The right people will know what has happened.”

  “Certainly,” said Luis. “I’ll see to it. I’ll request my usual retainer.”

  “Of course,” said Raul. “Fifty percent. It will be deposited into your account in small increments over the next two weeks as usual.” Then he looked up. “You are paid too much for this work.”

  Luis said nothing and stared down at the man. His black eyes were empty and ominous. He was as still as a snake.

  Raul looked up and saw something in Luis’ face that suddenly made him feel uncomfortable, nervous. He began to look around the room, to fidget with his knife. And then he was suddenly preoccupied with his papaya, taking a slice, looking at it, putting it in his mouth. After a moment he said, “OK?” He didn’t look up again.

  Luis stood still for a moment longer, then turned and left the house.

  * * *

  “Were you followed here?” asked Benito Diaz. It was a sincere question asked without emotion.

  “No. No one knows I’m in Phoenix,” said Luis Cruz. “I arrived last night, after we spoke.”

  “Very well.” Diaz’s use of Castilian Spanish had the affect of extracting a proper response from those around him. It also lent a sense of formality to his meetings.

  Diaz asked, “How did the last project conclude?”

  “There was no problem,” said Luis. He looked directly at Diaz as he spoke.

  Diaz nodded slightly. “He had to be taken care of. He’d seen too much at the airport, and he testified about it.” He paused and looked at Luis. “This next is a more difficult project.”

  Luis nodded, patient.

  The two men were sitting on the back deck of the Scottsdale home where he had last met with Raul Diaz. They were sitting at a small table that held two plastic water bottles. Camelback Mountain was visible in the distance. The yard was entirely enclosed by a five-foot high concrete block and stucco privacy wall painted desert brown. A series of patio misters surrounded the porch and sprayed constantly, the water evaporating before it reached the ground. It was over 100 degrees outside and very dry.

  “It involves law enforcement,” Diaz continued.

  “Alright,” said Luis. “I was told that your men have control of the local authorities. That you have men in place.”

  “You were told that?” asked Diaz. “By whom?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Luis.

  Diaz waited, watching quietly.

  “By your brother Raul,” said Luis.

  Diaz nodded. “Yes,” he said to himself. “Well, this is a special situation.”

  It was Luis’s turn to listen.

  Diaz thought for a moment. “We anticipate interference from a contractor. A man who has been hired to help the Federales find us and close us down. His name is Zeke Traynor. He was involved in the recent raid on our Phoenix warehouse.” Diaz smiled to himself. “And it seems that they are determined to cause trouble between us and our suppliers.”

  MS-13, thought Luis. He was very still, patient.

  “And so we would like to send him away,” Diaz continued. “Dispatch him.”

  “As you wish,” said Luis. He waited.

  “Some men made an attempt to do so last week,” said Diaz.

  “Yes?” Luis was interested. And why am I here?

  “But they were not effective. They failed,” Diaz continued.

  The Mara’s, thought Luis. “The victim is aware, then? Of the attempt?”

  “Yes.”

  “So they would be expecting another?” asked Luis.

  “Most probably. But you will be successful.”

  Luis thought for a moment and then nodded slowly. He simply said, “Yes.”

  * * *

  “The body had been there for most of the day,” said the voice on the phone.

  Chief Ranger Donnelly nodded as she said, “Yes.”

  “It’s likely he fell last night and was on the bottom for fourteen or fifteen hours.”

  Donnelly was talking with the office of the medical examiner for Coconino County.

  Poor bastard, she thought. “Anything out of the ordinary? Cause of death?”

  “It was a hell of a fall,” he continued, ignoring her questions. Harold Shiner had been Chief Medical Examiner in the county for almost forty years, and he used every opportunity he could to draw out his own importance. He wasn’t a man to be hurried along. “Looks like he hit every rock on the way down. Till he got to the edge, of co
urse. Then it would pretty much be a free fall.”

  “Died of the contusions, then?” asked Donnelly.

  “Hard to tell, exactly. Broken ribs that pierced some vital organs, a concussion, broken legs and multiple contusions. He was a mess before the birds got to him.”

  “Hmm,” said the Chief Ranger.

  “Have you figured out who he is?” asked Shiner. “Anybody come up missing in the park?”

  “Not yet. There’s been a lot of traffic since yesterday. Could you identify him from the body?”

  “Not much chance of that. The birds did a number on his face while you were trying to get to him,” Shiner said. He made it sound as if it were Donnelly’s fault.

  She paused. “We’ll keep looking,” she said.

  Chapter 5

  “I suppose we’ll need to pay some attention to the Cambridge thing soon,” said Clive. “The colleges.” He had called Zeke in Phoenix from The Agency’s Washington, D.C. office.

  “All right,” said Zeke.

  “Ramirez seems intent on self-destruction,” Clive continued. “Let’s leave him alone until I chat with his superiors.”

  “OK,” said Zeke.

  “Meantime, we need to take a close look at this student loan fraud. It appears that there are literally millions of dollars being stolen through institutions of higher learning in the Boston area alone.”

  “That sounds like a well-oiled machine,” Zeke commented.

  “Indeed. It been going on for quite some time, you know. I’m sure it didn’t happen overnight.”

  “Who’s our client for this?” Zeke asked.

  “Actually, it’s the Executive Branch. The U.S. Department of Education.”

  Zeke paused for a moment. “How did they get your name?”

  “They didn’t say. Very mysterious and all that. But I’m fairly certain that it came from the FBI.”

  “What’s our next move?” asked Zeke.

  “Well, I’ve arranged a meeting on Tuesday with the Assistant Deputy Director and we’ll get a feel for the problem from him. Fellow named Cy Stiles. Assistant Deputy Director Stiles to us, I suppose,” he said with a smile in his voice.

  “What time Tuesday?” asked Zeke.

  “Mid-afternoon. It’ll give you enough time to fly into D.C. on Monday. From Atlanta, I mean,” Clive said, tongue-in-cheek. “And we’ll bring you up to speed Monday afternoon.”

  Zeke shook his head and smiled. “I guess it’s time for another layover. I’ll be in your offices Monday noonish.”

  “Looking forward to it,” said Clive.

  * * *

  “Told you I’d be back soon,” Zeke whispered softly in Tracy Johnson’s ear.

  She shuddered lightly, pulled away and smiled. “So glad you’re here,” she said.

  “The last time I was met in an airport by a beautiful woman, eight assassins came after us,” said Zeke with a smile. “We should be careful on our way back to your place.”

  Her place was a Midtown Atlanta condominium, close to the Secret Service office where she worked. Tracy and Zeke had met while protecting a counterfeiter-turned-informant who had escaped from a Mexican Cartel. They’d been maintaining the long-distance relationship for a couple of years.

  “I packed spare riot guns under the seats,” Tracy assured him. “And a couple of hand grenades. We should be OK.”

  Zeke gave her a kiss on the nose before letting go of her upper arms. “Oh, good,” he said.

  Tracy was wearing distressed jeans with low boots and a heavy, colorful cable sweater in various shades of blue and white.

  “You’re not wearing anything under that sweater, are you?” Zeke whispered.

  Tracy gave him a quick smile and took his hand as they walked through the airport concourse. They then took the train to baggage claim and ground transportation. Her Mazda Miata was parked on the third floor of one of the concrete parking garages, marked ‘South Terminal Parking.’

  “New wheels, nice,” said Zeke, admiring the MX-5.

  “Thanks, it’s fun to drive,” she said.

  “Take me home, then.” He tossed his carryon into the back seat.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “That was my plan all along.”

  * * *

  “I’ll need to fly to D.C. tomorrow morning,” said Zeke. “I have a meeting with Clive.”

  Tracy had lost the sweater and jeans, and was lying on the couch with Zeke modestly covered by a light blanket they shared. “Hmm,” she said.

  “That sounded happy,” said Zeke. “What did you like?”

  “Hmm,” she said again. Then, “All of it. Every. Single. Moment.”

  “Good. Me, too.”

  She snuggled closer, absorbing his body heat. He smelled her clean, fruity scent.

  “What are you wearing?” he asked.

  “Well, nothing. You know that.” she purred.

  “No, your cologne, what brand is it?”

  “It’s El Nihilo,” said Tracy.

  “Out of nothing,” Zeke said to himself.

  “What?” she asked lazily.

  “El Nihilo. Latin. It means ‘Out of Nothing.’ Like, ‘God created it out of nothing.’”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” said Zeke.

  “Odd. Because the name of the scent is ‘Devil Tender,’” she said.

  “That’s clever. I won’t forget it,” said Zeke as he smelled her neck. And then he kissed her again.

  * * *

  “It sounds like your Phoenix trip was pretty dangerous,” said Tracy Johnson. “Those Mara guys are bad news.”

  “They are,” said Zeke.

  They were seated at an outside table at The Lawrence, a popular restaurant well known for its cocktails. It was an easy walk from Tracy’s midtown condo.

  Tracy was working on something that contained Lavender Mint Tea Vodka, and Zeke had a house Old Fashioned, made with small batch Bourbon.

  “And there were eight of them, just waiting to kill you?” Tracy asked.

  “Well, I assume they were there to kill us. They were pretty fierce. And they didn’t hesitate.”

  “Do you think you’re safe now?” she asked.

  “I do. I think they were there to stop the ICE raid. I’m pretty sure Benito Diaz hired them to break up ICE’s efforts and cause some confusion. But I’m not sure how they knew that Kimmy and I were on our way to help.”

  “Sounds like they may have an inside guy,” she thought out loud.

  “It does,” said Zeke, and took another sip. “How’re things at the Secret Service?”

  “Not bad. But we don’t have anybody shooting at us in the streets right now,” she said.

  “It was a parking lot,” he said with a smile.

  Tracy pulled a face, feigning exasperation. She sipped her drink.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “No, not really,” said Zeke. “You?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let’s stop at a market on our way back to your condo, and I’ll make us a dinner later, when we get hungry.”

  “OK,” said Tracy. “But what will we do in the meantime?”

  “I vote for soft music, a low fire in the fireplace and a glass of wine while we get to know each other again.”

  “That sounds romantic,” she said.

  “I hope so,” said Zeke.

  “What else do you have planned?”

  “Well, I was thinking about the quickest way to get you out of those clothes…” he said.

  “These clothes?” Tracy looked down at her knee-length dress and smiled. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

  * * *

  “Every time we’re together it’s like magic,” said Tracy.

  They were sitting on the couch in her condo, sipping wine and listening to “Of Monsters and Men” on the sound system. The small fire was warming the air-conditioned room.

  “It is,” said Zeke.

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  Partially the
dopamine, he thought. But instead he said, “It’s almost electrical. When I’m away, I can’t wait to get back here to you.”

  “Now I’m a magnet?” asked Tracy with a grin.

  “You certainly are,” said Zeke.

  “What’s next?” she asked.

  “The clothing, I suspect,” he smiled.

  “No silly, I mean what’s next for us?”

  “You’re in a hurry?” asked Zeke, tongue in cheek. “Are you going somewhere specific?”

  Tracy looked at him for a moment with a blank face. Then she smiled a spectacular smile.

  “The only place I’m going is Cape Cod,” she said. “I think I’d like it this time of year.”

  “You will,” said Zeke. “And so will I.”

  * * *

  “Tell me, old boy, just what’s up with the ICE agency in Phoenix?” asked Clive. Zeke and Clive were meeting in Clive’s Washington, D.C. office, across from the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was rush hour, about 6:15 in the evening, and through the large window they saw the streets were filled with an assortment of slow moving vehicles.

  “What do we know about Jorge Ramirez?” asked Zeke. “Have we done a credit check on him?”

  A ‘credit check’ by The Agency included a comprehensive and thorough review of a person’s school records, criminal records, military service records, and a variety of other information, including an actual credit check.