Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) Page 4

  Jimmy waited while Manuel tightened the strap on his ankle holster. Only when he was through and they both had their seatbelts on did he pull the car out of the garage.

  “Where we headed?”

  “North, up the east coast, Baltimore or DC. I’m not sure yet.”

  Jimmy turned the car in the desired direction and headed for the highway.

  “What’s the job?”

  Manuel tilted his head forward to look at Jimmy over his expensive sunglasses.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  Jimmy said nothing and gripped the wheel tightly with both hands, the blood leaving them made the multiple scars stand out.

  • • •

  Lenny Hill had been a cop since he was five years old. At least that’s when he remembered getting his first badge and gun. A gift from his father, he had worn it for weeks, roaming the neighborhood, arresting his friends and the occasional dog, writing tickets on a notepad and issuing them to neighbors as they drove down their suburban street, and chasing down his friends and having shoot-outs till they were all dead. Born into a family of policemen, he had sat quietly and listened to them talk of investigations and captures, stakeouts and chases, even the occasional shooting. It was no surprise to anyone when he graduated college with a criminal justice degree and applied for the Detroit City Police. A year with the SWAT team and a few more of hard experience followed. Somehow he found the time to complete a master’s degree and with his father’s encouragement applied for the FBI. Excelling in languages, he soon found himself stationed in the Miami office and working with other government agencies in all types of investigations. A natural diplomat, Lenny was often called upon to negotiate with foreign police forces when their help was needed on a particular case. His linguistic skills expanded to include Spanish, French and German, and he soon caught the interest of Interpol. With some pressure from above, he accepted the position of liaison with the international organization, which ironically involved a move of only a few blocks. That was several years ago and he had worn out four passports since. But the job was never boring for long, just sometimes inconvenient.

  “Why does this crap always have to happen at night?” Lenny asked himself.

  Even as he grumbled, he knew it wasn’t true. The late night calls just seemed to stick in his memory more. He could also argue that the later the call came, the bigger the headache that came with it. Most of his colleagues would readily agree. He was into his twenty-second year as a cop and it was definitely showing. His once dark hair was now peppered with streaks of gray, and the stubble on his face had long since matched. Despite regular trips to the gym, his muscular frame was now showing the beginnings of a spare tire. The scars had weathered a little from the years, but still served to remind others of his days on the force. Despite the damage, he retained the weathered-yet-rugged look that suburban moms found enticingly attractive. Something he would have been surprised to know if he ever took the time to meet one. Work as an Interpol agent just didn’t leave much spare time, and after a failed marriage, Lenny had accepted the truth—he was married to his job.

  He now gazed through the glass at the man seated alone on the other side. He was the reason he had been awakened at home by both his pager and phone going off simultaneously. That was over three hours ago and Lenny was now on his third cup of coffee. The file he held was thick and still warm from the printer. He had taken all the time he needed to review it carefully while the Marshals, state, and local cops had watched him impatiently from across the room. What they were in such a hurry for, he didn’t know. Was he supposed to burst into the room and run a good-cop-bad-cop approach or something? He’d ignored them while he took careful notes on a legal pad. A cigarette burned on the desk next to him despite all the no-smoking signs. It was three in the morning and they had called him, not the other way around. Besides, the man in the interrogation room wasn’t going anywhere, at least not soon.

  He now took careful stock of the prisoner. The file he had in his hand wasn’t entirely new reading to him. He had read it once or twice before. Unfortunately, there were several of its kind and the review was necessary before he spoke with the man.

  Angel Sanchez was one of the higher-ups in the Cali cartel. Born in California to illegal immigrants, he was first arrested at the age of fourteen for drug possession with intent to distribute. Getting the usual slap on the wrist three more times before finally serving some time, he eventually graduated to smuggling. Low on education but very street-smart, he was soon moving more product across the border than most men twice his age. Recognizing early that greed is what doomed most of his fellow smugglers, he spread his money around, buying protection and information. When the Mexican Army joined the fight, he was pulled out of the trenches by Oscar Hernandez, head of the Cali drug cartel. He was elevated to chief negotiator with the Mexican gangs that moved product across the border. He also developed the many new methods the DEA had discovered the cartel using over the last couple of years. Tunnels. Cruise ship employees. Submarines, even. The man had a capable mind, which also meant he had to know the depth of his problem right now. Lenny watched him closely. Angel sat quietly without fidgeting. No drum of his fingers on the table or tapping foot under it. The cast on his lower leg was apparent, sticking out of the oversize prison jumpsuit. He had reportedly refused any pain killers after the leg was set. He didn’t gaze around the room at the bare walls or stare into the mirror with his tough-guy look as the ignorant gang members often tried. He was simply waiting, Lenny decided, for him.

  “Said nothing to nobody huh?”

  “Not a word, not even to ask for his lawyer.”

  “Camera running?”

  “Yup.”

  Lenny took a healthy swig of his coffee before opening the door and walking in. He shut it behind him and nodded at the prisoner as he sat down.

  “Hello, Angel.”

  Angel took his time sizing Lenny up. Even bending down to see what kind of shoes he was wearing. Evidently Lenny passed whatever test he was being subjected to, as Angel chose to speak.

  “Who are you?”

  “Lenny.”

  “Lenny,” Angel repeated with a smile. “I guess I should say what are you, you don’t work here.”

  “Here? No. You could say I work everywhere. Kinda like you.”

  “DEA?”

  “Interpol.”

  Angel swallowed that information and Lenny let him digest it for a minute. He could see the wheels turning. He looked at his watch before turning his wrist to show Angel.

  “It’s been six hours since you crash landed. You think Oscar’s worried?”

  “Fuck you,” Angel deadpanned.

  “Not me. You know who’s gonna get screwed here, and it sure as hell isn’t me. You’ve had a few hours to think about it. I don’t need to explain your options to you, you already know ’em. That’s why you didn’t ask for a lawyer. You’re in the States, so they get you first. After that it’s Mexico and then Columbia. But you and I both know you won’t last that long. Oscar knows what he has to do. Question is, do you?”

  Angel broke eye contact and Lenny had his answer. He kept his poker face on until Angel met his gaze again.

  “You’ve got that kind of pull?”

  “Yeah, I can have a federal prosecutor here within the hour and we can cut the deal. You get retirement in witness protection. A new face probably. Some cash. That’s it. Beats the alternative by a long shot.”

  Lenny had the prosecutor sitting outside the door already. The smart ones knew when they were caught. They also knew they were major liabilities for their bosses. Talking down to Angel would just irritate him and really served no purpose. He could already tell that Angel had come to the same logical conclusion that he had. Cutting a deal was the only way that Angel had any hope of living. Even if he were held in solitary, somebody could always be found to get to him. He had to eat. He had to sleep. If he went to jail for any length of time he would quite simply be dead soon after, and he knew it.

  Angel stewed for a minute before raising his head to ask a question.

  “My wife?”

  “Get a new one.”

  “My money?”

  “Gone.”

  Angel stewed some more.

  “I have to stay in the States?”

  “That’s how it works. the Marshals will take care of all that.”

  Some more silence. The people on the other side of the glass held their breath.

  “What do you want?”

  Lenny smiled. “You know what we want. We want Oscar.”

  It was Angel’s turn to smile.

  “You already have him.”

  Organ Transplant Waiting List Reaches High In U.S.

  11 Apr 2008—Medical News Today

  —FOUR—

  The sun was just beginning to show in the eastern sky when the cars descended on the hospital from every direction. Officers entered every entrance and fanned out down every corridor. The parking garage and doctors’ lot were blocked off by city police, while the Federal Marshals and FBI agents, plus one, entered the main entrance. A bewildered security guard rose from his position behind a desk full of monitors to see multiple badges thrust in his face and a parade of windbreakers bearing the letters of every law enforcement agency he could think of flowing past.

  “Critical Care?”

  “Fourth floor.” He reflexively pointed.

  “How about you take us there?”

  “All right.”

  The man led them away through the twist and turns of the old building until they reached a bank of elevators. They filled two cars to capacity, leaving two men behind, and rode up in silence.

  “Can you tell me what’s going on?” the guard asked.

&
nbsp; “You’ll know soon enough. Is your hospital chief of staff here yet?”

  “I doubt it, but I can call him if . . . .”

  “Not yet. We’ll tell you when.”

  “Okay.”

  The doors opened and they followed the man past another desk and through some double doors. A small waiting room was seen with two Hispanic men sleeping in chairs. The lead man just pointed and four men broke away from the group to detain them. They woke with a startle and the looks on their faces gave them away. The group hurried on, and after several twists and turns came to another set of double doors. Here the security guard hesitated.

  “Do all of you really need to go in?”

  The lead man pushed past him without a word and they all entered the darkened ward. He was met by several staff members who stopped and stared. The names of the patients and their doctors where written on small dry erase boards outside every glassed-in room. He began scanning the names as he walked along, comparing the picture in his head with the faces behind the glass.

  J. Hernandez

  M. Dayo

  This was it. He looked inside to see a rather ordinary man of about fifty sleeping comfortably in the bed. The monitors hanging from the ceiling providing proof that he still lived. He spotted the man’s wife sleeping in a chair off to one side. Pulling a picture from his pocket, he held it up as he slid the glass back. The men followed him in and the wife awoke with a start to see the room full. One of the men motioned for her to remain silent. She did.

  The man on the bed seemed to sense their presence and slowly opened his eyes. They were all the proof the lead man needed. It was always the eyes. Surgery could change some things, but the eyes were always the thing that gave them away. The man didn’t blink or speak, he simply looked from man to man as if he had been expecting all of this, and they were late.

  The lead man reached out and grasp the man’s chin, turning his head to the side. The scars behind his ears were plainly seen. He smiled.

  “Hello, Oscar. I’ve been waiting to meet you for some time.”

  Oscar Hernandez said nothing, but the look on his face was one of intense hatred. It was all he was capable of and he ignored the technician who moved forward and began taking his fingerprints. He instead focused on the man who had addressed him by his true name.

  Lenny returned the look without a word.

  • • •

  Tessa ran the hairbrush through her hair while also talking on the phone and picking out what shoes to wear. Her Facebook page was open in front of her and she stopped brushing long enough to scroll through the new pictures on her friend’s page.

  “He’s so cute! You sure he’s not with that bitch Megan anymore?”

  This produced a long explanation of the steamy and very public break up witnessed the night before. All caught by someone’s smart phone and uploaded soon after. The pictures were making their way around the web at lightning speed.

  “Has he updated yet?”

  “No, his page still says he’s hitched. He may not have gotten on yet today. He works for his dad, you know.”

  “He has to work? That sucks. I would just die if my dad made me work. Where’s he at?”

  “You don’t know? At the grocery store on Vogle Avenue. He like, stocks shelves or something.”

  “Yuck, his dad makes him work there?”

  “Well duh, his dad owns the place, and about a thousand others just like it.”

  “Oh, I get it.”

  “So come pick me up and we’ll get some groceries.”

  “No way.”

  “Why not? You better get there before that slut Jennie does. You know she’ll just flop on her back in front of him if she decides she wants him first.”

  “I know . . . she thinks she’s Paris Hilton or something.”

  “So come get me and let’s go!”

  “It’s the opposite way, why don’t you come get me?”

  “My dad took my keys. I scratched my BMW.”

  “Again?”

  Tessa grabbed the keys to her Mustang and bolted from the room. She still had her iPod nubs in one ear with the phone to the other. The hairbrush stayed in her hand long enough for her to check the results in the hallway mirror before she stuck it in a back pocket and ran down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out to the garage. Her travels did nothing to stop the conversation.

  “Okay, that’s like twice in two months you’ve wrecked your car. You’ve only had your license what, five months?”

  “It was the damn mailbox. I didn’t see it in the dark, and the garage door thing was not my fault. I didn’t know my brother had closed it!”

  “Right.”

  “Like you can talk!”

  Tessa ran past her father’s Mercedes and her mother’s Volvo before getting to her new Mustang. It was blue with a white leather interior—just like she had asked for. Her mother had insisted they buy her the car despite her father’s reservations. Her mother had actually tried to talk her into a BMW or a Mercedes, but she’d had her heart set on the little convertible ever since she saw one in a music video. Tessa didn’t understand that her mother was trying to keep up appearances through her daughter. So her daughter was now being seen in an American-made car. It was disgraceful.

  “It was parked. I didn’t hit anything!”

  “That’s what you told your parents, maybe.”

  “Shut up!”

  She jumped in the car and impatiently waited for the door to open. She used the time to check her makeup in the rearview mirror. The breeze blowing in the open door whipped her long blond hair around her face, and she had to pull the stray strands out of her eyes before putting the car in reverse and backing out. The Maryland suburb was quiet as she pulled around the circular drive and through the gate at the street.

  As usual, the car’s CD player came on despite the phone in her ear, and she raised the volume of her voice to be heard over it. Turning it off never crossed her mind. She punched the accelerator to get to the stop sign at the end of the street in record time, as was her usual driving habit. After a rolling stop, she punched it again and sped through the curving streets on the way to her friend’s house.

  “So what’re you wearing?” her friend asked.

  “My Lucky jeans and those new boots I got last week.”

  “That’ll work. If not, he’s blind. He’s always checking out your ass in the hallway.”

  “No way!”

  “Yes he does! You’re so clueless sometimes.”

  Tessa laughed and pulled more hair out of her face. The wind was whipping it around constantly. She fumbled with the phone while she searched for her sunglasses in the center console. She braced the steering wheel with her knee so she could use both hands.

  • • •

  Carl was just pulling his truck up onto the curb to park. It was his fifth year in the landscaping business and he was doing well. So well that he had been working Saturdays just to keep up with the workload this summer. He parked his truck halfway over the curb and lowered his ample frame out with the use of the handle. At least all the extra work was burning off a few pounds, something his wife had commented on yesterday. He stood with the door open while he reached under the seat for his clipboard. Finding it all the way in the back, he was forced to stretch to reach it.

  “Let’s go, Carl. I told Dawn I’d be home by two,” he heard his partner Nick call from the grass on the other side of the truck.

  “I’m coming, just a second.”

  Carl pulled back and looked up the street as he straightened his sweat stained hat. Another truck was approaching from around the curve. It was Kurt Johnson, his competition. They had a friendly rivalry, as there was plenty of work to go around in this upper class neighborhood. They would often get a beer together after a long day and do a little under-the-table price fixing. He waited for him to get closer so he could give him the finger and a smile. It was their traditional greeting.

  • • •

  Tessa looked up just in time to see the truck parked up on the curb with the driver’s door open. She let the car drift to the left to pass without letting up on the gas. Her hair flipped into her eyes once again, but she was too busy with the phone to bother with it.

  • • •

  Johnson flipped Carl the bird as he rounded the curve. He punctuated it with a honk of his horn as Carl returned the gesture. He returned his gaze to the road, but it was already too late.