The Fixer

Season 7:

Complete

A JC Bannister Novel

Rex Carpenter

Rex-Carpenter.com

Contents

The Fixer Series

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Epilogue One

Epilogue Two

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright © 2020 by Rex Carpenter

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher and copyright owner of this book.

This is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. For information contact:

rex@rex-carpenter.com

Rex-Carpenter.com

Facebook.com/RexCarpenterWrites

The Fixer Series

Joan: Portrait of a Vengeful Young Woman

Duke: The Education of an Assassin

The Fixer, Season 1: Complete

The Fixer, Season 2: Complete

The Fixer, Season 3: Complete

The Fixer, Season 4: Complete

The Fixer, Season 5: Complete

The Fixer, Season 6: Complete

The Fixer, Season 7: Complete

The Fixer, Season 8: Complete (Coming in 2021)

Receive your free copy of The Fixer Starter Library by visiting Rex-Carpenter.com/newsletter.

This includes:

The Fixer, Season 1: Prologue - Indonesia (unavailable anywhere else)

Joan: Portrait of a Vengeful Young Woman

Duke: The Education of an Assassin

WARNING: The Fixer is for mature audiences. It contains strong language and violence. If it was a movie, it would be rated R. If it was on TV, it would be on cable. If it was an album it’d have a Parental… you get the picture.

Chapter 1

Ohan Gazarian wasn’t quite motionless. He wasn’t trying to not move, but neither was he trying to fidget. Fidgeting led to nervousness which led to a lack of concentration. Right now, concentration was the most important thing he needed to be doing. So he didn’t move.

He was posted up in his rented Pacific Blue Chevy Malibu, eyes glued on the door up the street. It was the second entryway in the five-story brick apartment building, the first entryway to the organic bakery that some of the other guys said made surprisingly good bear claws. The patio of the bakery stopped just shy of the entryway to the apartments above it, a small wrought-iron fence separating the two from each other, but the short flight of five stairs matched on either entrance. Beyond the wood and glass security door was a small vestibule with mailboxes and then a long flight of stairs heading up to the back of the building, breaking off at each floor to allow for doors to the apartments in the building and then, he was told, doubling back on itself on up to the top floor.

Ohan hadn’t looked into the building, hadn’t seen what the vestibule or stairs looked like or if the information was correct. He wasn’t even concerned with which floor the principal lived on, despite the speculation of the other men on the detail.

It didn’t matter. He had one job and one job only: report to the boss when the principal exited the building. Ohan wasn’t told the name of the principal either, just given a picture. He’d committed it to memory and made very sure his attention didn’t waver from his appointed task. Aside from looking otherwise occupied when the occasional police vehicle drove past, his entire being was focused on the entryway to that building. He ignored the other people on the street, didn’t pay attention to the early-morning joggers or the dog walkers, no matter how hot the guys said the women in the neighborhood were. He literally had one job and that’s all he cared about.

Two things were bothering him. The first was what might happen to him if he screwed up. The boss was nice enough, but the man’s reputation for anger at stupid mistakes was enough to keep Ohan awake and alert, even after nine hours into his shift. And if Ohan’s fear of the boss wasn’t enough, the fear of the man’s family was more than enough. Simply enough, they were brutal. If the boss was a killer, his family were butchers. And Ohan didn’t want to get on the bad side of either.

The second thing that was bothering him was the man they were watching. Although Ohan wasn’t told the principal’s name, it only took a few weeks on the job before word spread amongst the other guys he was working with. People talk. A memory hidden somewhere of a whispered conversation about someone they thought they saw or a name they thought they overheard and the rumor mill spread.

If the rumor mill was right, the man Ohan was currently watching for was more fearsome than the boss or his family. And the people he ran with?

A shiver of fear ran up his spine. Ohan was no stranger to violence, neither giving nor receiving. He was a big man but that didn’t mean he was stupid. And he was increasingly wondering if it had been a mistake agreeing to the surveillance job.

A woman jogged past Ohan. His eyes flicked to her long enough to identify who she was and what she was doing before he looked back at the door. The woman was on the shorter end of the spectrum, slim and that was about it. Capri-length skin-tight shorts, over-sized wind breaker and baseball cap with ponytail bobbing out of it completed her outfit. As she passed far enough away, he flicked back to register that she was indeed nothing more than she appeared to be, but then his eyes were back on the door before his thought process put her in the “non-threat” category in his head. Cops were threats, so were security guards and anyone nosy enough to give him a second glance. But she was just some lady, pushing thirty, jogging to keep herself in shape.

The door opened. Ohan didn’t move, didn’t get excited. It was an apartment building with maybe ten to fifteen tenants. As the man walked out from the door into the mid-morning sun, Ohan knew the truth. It was the principal. The man was wearing the same clothes as earlier this morning and carrying the same bag. But Ohan was no idiot. His boss made it extraordinarily clear that he was only to report if he had visual confirmation of the man’s face.

As the man exited the building he was looking up the street, the opposite from Ohan’s direction. The man then swiveled his head towards Ohan, back up the street, then back to Ohan’s direction. Ohan saw the man’s eye pass over the vehicle, pause on the dog walker, then continued looking around, apparently scanning for danger.

Ohan picked up his phone. There was no doubt.

It was JC Bannister.

As the principal hit the sidewalk and turned to his right, walking away from Ohan’s location, Ohan punched the speed dial on his phone, making sure the microphone on the wired earpiece was close enough to be heard clearly but not so close as to create too much static.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Ohan, boss,” he said. “The principal is on the move again. He just left the building and turned right, walking up the street.” Ohan and his team had followed the principal earlier this morning up to a machine shop and auto repair place in Watertown, then back here.

“What’s he wearing?” his boss asked him, movement of some kind audible in the background.

“Navy suit, white shirt, brown leather shoes.”

“Is he still carrying the bag?”

“Yup,” Ohan said, silently cursing himself for missing that detail. “Large brown leather duffle bag. It’s not as full as his return trip from Watertown, but it’s not empty.” Took a breath then said, “Should I follow him?”

The voice on the other end of the line paused. Ohan knew better than to push. He had offered, indicated his willingness to perform a particular action. Now he waited for the boss to make a decision.

“Coordinate with Kalo and Levon and their teams,” his boss said, what sounded like an accelerating vehicle on his end of the call coming through Ohan’s earpiece. “Report back to me if anything drastic changes or if you lose him.”

“Got it, boss,” Ohan said, pulling out into traffic. He voice-dialed the other two men as he drove, wondering where his boss was currently and what he was doing. The organization had bases in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well in Europe. This action in Boston, though, was new territory for them.

As Ohan drove past the man they were watching, he felt safe in the knowledge that Levon’s team of a dozen people on foot and Kalo’s team of eight vehicles wouldn’t let him out of their sight. Which would mean the boss would maintain his good demeanor.

Ohan didn’t look at the man as he passed. There was no point. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to have his face register in the mind of JC Bannister.

*****

The jogger slowed to a stop across the street from the bakery, jogging in place, her Bluetooth earphones firmly in place. With her generic baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, sports sunglasses in place, two-inch dark-brown ponytail bobbing below the edge of her hat, windbreaker on over athletic clothing, she looked like virtually any other early-morning jogger as she pulled her cellphone from a zippered pocket on the left hip of her skin-tight running tights.

Glancing up the street then back to her phone, the jogger tapped furiously for ten seconds then slid the phone back into its previous pocket. She unconsciously checked the positioning of her other pocket, the Sig Sauer P365 9mm handgun still strapped exactly where it was supposed to be. The polyester pants were specially made with a dual purpose: one, carry up to a compact pistol safely and securely while jogging or exercising without having the pistol fall out or be exposed and two, not looking like they were hiding anything. They were expensive, but it was money well spent.

The woman stopped jogging in place, pulled her windbreaker down to make sure the slight bulge at the back of her waist was hidden, and started kicking her legs out, slowly walking back up the street away from the bakery. She was a hair under five feet tall, but she had the air of a larger woman. More importantly, with her early-morning jogging attire, she was nearly indistinguishable from the other people on the streets, which meant she was largely invisible.

Exactly as she, and her employer, wanted it.

Before she got half a block up the street a white mid-sized SUV pulled out from its parking spot up the street, pulled a U-turn and stopped in the middle of the street in front of her. The short-statured jogger was in the front passenger seat in an instant, the SUV taking off before her door was even closed.

She swore softly as she buckled her seatbelt.

“Everything good?” the driver said. “We set?”

“He saw me.”

“So what? He’s got no idea who you are.”

“You’re not hearing me. He saw me. He saw me this morning and he saw me again just now.” She shook her head. “Take the next left,” she said, pointing at the turn ahead. She was kicking herself as the man piloted the SUV into traffic. She’d told him to bring three changes of outfits so they could rotate their surveillance sweeps of the teams watching Bannister’s house, but he’d only brought one. She had been forced to circle several times in the two outfits she had brought, the baby stroller and jogger outfits, increasing the chances of being recognized.

She knew Bannister didn’t know who she was. That part didn’t matter. But he had seen her, recognized her from before which meant that, if he was as good as she was, her face was catalogued and in his mind.

That was the one place she really didn’t want to be. Not yet at least.

Chapter 2

It was the right call then, JC said to himself as walked swiftly down the street, trying to find the balance between all out running and walking like someone busy and in a hurry. It’s still the right call now, he said, not the first time, as he looked over his left shoulder, using the ruse of watching a car pass by him to check his six.

Spring in Boston and her suburbs was like spring in most large cities and sprawling suburbs; natural beauty mixed with the manmade beauty and ugliness of the city to create something that gave people hope. People wore less and less clothes, shedding the layers that kept them warm and dry like the skin of a snake and soaking up the sun where they could. Allergy sufferers cursed the pollen, non-allergy sufferers commiserated but didn’t fully understand. And the bright new green of the trees gave the city a hue of beauty that, despite the ugly parts of it, always made JC smile.

He knew in his heart when he disbanded his team that he wasn’t actually going to hang up his own hat. At least that’s what he told himself. But as the months passed and he turned down any work that came his way, he realized that not owing anyone or endangering anyone just because they were close to him was, to a degree, rather freeing.

It also meant he was alone. And when things started to get tense, he had no one to lean on for backup. Like now.

Bannister pulled his phone out of his pocket, glanced at it, slid it back in and sped up, breaking into a jog. The phone was just a ruse for anyone who might be watching. He moved the strap of the duffle bag from his shoulder to cross over his body, making sure both sides of his jacket could open freely as he did. He glanced over his right shoulder as he crossed the street at the corner, twisting his body as he did, checking for pursuers as he always did.

Something was off. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was the jogger and dog-walker this morning who’d drawn his attention, maybe he’d seen a face once more than he should have, maybe it was just the spring air hinting at something coming. He didn’t know the exact who, but he knew the what.

Someone’s hunting me, he said to himself, jogging, the leather soles of his shoes hitting the pavement in a hard clap as he ran.

He’d taken the commuter train from the Newton Highlands station near his house into Boston, avoiding the struggle of finding parking and being stuck in traffic. Despite wanting to take a bicycle for speed, he’d eschewed that as well. That particular method of transportation, in addition to being his favorite, provided a number of advantages, chief of which was maneuverability combined with more speed than walking or running.

It was a decision he was now regretting as he jogged down the street, doing his level best to look like a businessman late for a meeting.

It’s not paranoia, he said to himself for the hundredth plus time, it’s precaution.

*****

“He’s on the run, boss,” the voice said over the radio. “Jogging up the street, dodging in and out of traffic, taking all kinds of crazy turns.”

“Thank you, Levon,” the man said, his wide left hand holding the mic of the headset up to his fleshy lips, his even wider right hand on the wheel of his rented maroon Ford Explorer. Ohan, the de facto leader of the morning team, had been sent back to the hotel along with his men to rest up for their shift that started at midnight.

“What’s our next step?”

“Post sentries at his apartment, the place in Sudbury as well as the Eliot, Newton Highlands and Newton Center stations,” the man said, pulling out into traffic and heading into Boston proper.

“But what about the principal?” the voice persisted.

“I’ve got him. I know where he’s going,” the man said, his blinker turned on to hit the expressway and save some time on the drive into Back Bay.

*****

JC slowed to a walk. He’d been jogging for the past five minutes, the high-tech polyester underwear doing its job very well but in impending danger of being overwhelmed by the muggy late morning weather. The light rain of the early morning was still steaming off and making his clothes threaten to stick to his skin like it was already summer. He wanted to get something to eat and change his clothes, but his meetings were backing up and the weather wasn’t helping him.

“Beats the hell out of Bolivia, though,” he said as another taxi passed him. He checked the street names he saw on the signs against his mental map of downtown Boston and realized he was only about a dozen blocks from his next meeting. A quick check of his watch and an even quicker mental calculation told him he had enough time to walk the rest of the way. He settled into a quick walk that would get him to the offices of his banker a few minutes early.

The meeting with his realtor hadn’t gone well. Too many questions, both pointed and vague, about sources of funding and how to reinvest the profits from the sales. The woman came highly recommended by his banker, Arthur Phillips, but that didn’t mean she was infallible.

You’ve gotta fire her, he said to himself, the decision made as soon as the words were formed in his mind. He’d need another realtor, but he guessed Arthur knew of someone else who was less inquisitive and more content with a greater commission on the work than required.

Bannister settled into the walk, always aware of who was in front of him and passing him, glancing behind himself often enough to not raise suspicion in order to see who was behind him. Wishing, like he always did when he didn’t wear one, that he had put on his bulletproof vest before he left the house.

Joan, he said to himself, wanting his partner there to watch his back. Or to be precise, that he was with her so that he could watch hers.

He heard the revving sound of the SUVs before he saw them. He glanced over his left shoulder to see three black SUVs swiftly approaching. He swiveled his head back around, eyes sweeping the street and sidewalks, searching for the pincher move that would hem him in, looking for anyone paying more attention to him than the SUVs. Of the dozen or so people on the streets, all eyes seemed to be on the three vehicles tearing up the street. “Still,” he said quietly as he slung the duffle bag across his body, his now free left hand sliding into a pocket in his jacket, withdrawing an extra magazine for the pistol at his back. There was no need to draw the weapon just yet, but nothing wrong with getting more ammo at the ready just in case.

The stretch of sidewalk he was walking on had no cars parked on it, just trees, commercial storefronts and people walking. The black SUVs barreled up the street and screeched to a halt around him, one behind him, one to the left and one in front of him, trying to box him in.

They mistimed it. There was a two-foot gap between the front bumper of the lead SUV and the wall of the dry cleaners they almost hit. JC slid between it, placing his right hand on the butt of the Glock 19 under his jacket as he twisted his upper body to prevent the duffle bag from catching on the bull bumper of the SUV.

As he stepped past the grill of the lead SUV, the engine still hot and running, he released his hand from the pistol, sliding the extra magazine in his left hand back into its pocket. A quick scan of the vehicles told him he was unlikely to die in the next few seconds. The driver of the lead vehicle banged his hand on the steering wheel, pointing and yelling at JC through the windshield as his passenger opened the door and stepped out. The front passengers from the other two SUVs were exiting their vehicles.

Nobody was holding any weapons. One of the men, the man who just exited the SUV closest to JC and was now barking at him to halt, had his hand on the pistol at his hip. He still hadn’t drawn it and JC had a couple meters head start up the street away from him.

They’re cops, JC said to himself, not killers. While some may call it a fine line, the difference to JC was night and day. Killers would have exited the vehicles with heavier artillery than a handgun at the ready, fingers on triggers, dumping rounds in his direction.

As he continued to walk away from the growing group of government agents of some sort in dark suits and sunglasses, the noise they were making was increasing. It seemed like every man and woman from the SUVs felt the need to shout out to him, hoping their voice was the one that cut through the noise and actually produce the desired effect of forcing JC to stop. None did.

He jogged across the crosswalk in front of him, the red hand flashing at him. Up ahead there were cars parked against the curb, forming a more restrictive funnel. He wanted a little more space between himself and the people beginning to follow him up the street. Despite their yells at him, he had no desire to stop and find out what they wanted without a clear reason other than their orders to compel him to stop.

The hand clamping down on his left shoulder took him by surprise. He hadn’t heard the person running up behind him, hadn’t felt their presence. Regardless, he reacted, the momentary flash of fear making his movements faster and likely more aggressive than they would have been otherwise. His left elbow pivoted high in the air as he spun towards the person, his left forearm and hand snaking around the person’s arm, immobilizing it and trapping the limb. He slammed his right fist into the middle of the person’s gut, doubling them over as he kicked their feet out from under them.

The person fell to the ground, their arms still wrapped up in JC’s. JC bent over at the waist as they fell, his fist raised high in the air to slam into their stomach again the moment after their back impacted with the ground, wanting to drive all air out of their lungs, taking the fight out of the person so he could focus on other potential attackers. Hard to fight when you’re struggling for air.

“Bannister!” a voice barked from across the street, sounding more like the bark of a bulldog than a human. JC stopped, crouched down over the agent on the ground, his fist poised, still ready to drive it into their stomach, eyes searching for the person who called his name.

“That how you treat a lady these days?” the man said, shaking his head as he walked up the sidewalk.

JC tore his eyes from the white-haired man walking towards him to look at face of the agent on the ground. She was probably late twenties, short blond hair, her Ray Ban Aviators slightly askew but the anger burning inside the half of one blue eye that he saw was readily apparent.

His right fist unclenched as he stood, his left hand releasing the arm of the female agent he just assaulted. More yelling ensued as the agents from the vehicle caught up with them, running past the white-haired man, guns drawn and pointed at JC.

JC offered his right hand to the agent as a mea culpa. The agent on the ground took his hand and he helped her to her feet. She leaned over, hands on her knees, catching her breath and taking off her sunglasses. JC looked at her, the anger fading from her eyes.

“You alright, agent?” JC asked, giving his voice the best “no hard feelings” tone he could muster.

“Next time I’ll just rabbit punch you,” she said, the air coming back into her lungs.

JC chuckled as the agent straightened, the other agents still surrounding him, guns pointed at his torso, although it kind of felt like they were all pointed at his head.

“Knock that off,” the white-haired man said as he made his way through the semi-circle of agents surrounding JC. “He’ll take those things and slap you silly with them.”

Senator Christopher Holstrom stepped forward, hand extending to Bannister. JC took it, shaking it warmly, keeping his eyes focused on his friend, trying to not initiate eye contact with the men pointing their guns at him.

“Are you injured, Agent LaRocca?” a man said, his gun and attention still directed at JC.

“I’m fine, sir,” the blond agent said, stepping back away from JC and melding into the crowd of agents surrounding him.

Holstrom looked towards the man who spoke. “AIC Forster?”

“Yes, sir?” Forster was the agent closest to JC. Tall, an inch or two above JC’s six-one frame, his long arms held the gun about three feet from JC’s chest.

“Holster your weapons or Agent LaRocca will be the only one still on my detail by the end of the day.”

Before Holstrom finished his sentence Agent Forster and the rest of the detail were holstering their weapons.

“You look well, Senator Holstrom,” JC said. “Looks like you survived your primary relatively unscathed.”

“Thanks,” Holstrom said. “Sorry for the rigamarole,” the inclination of his head indicating the agents and SUVs.

“You could have just called, Chris,” JC said with a shrug.

“Aww, but then I wouldn’t get out of the office then, would I?”

JC looked around at the agents slowly, registering each face, then back to Senator Holstrom.

“What’s this all about, Chris?”

Senator Holstrom stepped forward, putting his arm around JC’s shoulder and guiding him up the street with a practiced politician’s ease. “Let’s take a walk, JC.”

Chapter 3

“That’s it,” JC said. “You need a favor?”

“Slightly more complicated than that,” Holstrom replied, his eyes scanning the park in front of them.

They had walked up the block they were on, took a left and, after a few more twists and turns, found themselves a decent local park, complete with park benches and play structures, to have their conversation in. The agents on Holstrom’s protection detail followed them at a discrete distance, weapons holstered but completely obvious with their dark suits, sunglasses and earpieces.

“Well, Chris, you’ve gone to all this trouble,” JC said. “What’s up?”

Holstrom sighed, nodded, then began. “The founder and CEO of a certain telecommunication firm is heading down to South America in the next few days. His company is initiating a friendly merger with a local telecom there and he’s coming in to finalize it and sign the papers.”

Holstrom paused. JC fought the urge to say something, choosing to let the man continue at his own pace.

“There have been more than a few threats against his life over the past few months,” Holstrom continued. “Apparently nothing serious, more probes than anything, but they’re becoming… worrisome. The board and his family want a security detail for him down there, more than what they usually have, and they reached out to me.” He stopped and turned to JC. “So, I’m reaching out to you.”

JC looked at him, then back out to the same park Holstrom had just been looking at. So many questions, he said to himself, the lack of other voices at this moment a boon. Where to start?

“No,” JC said.

“I was afraid of that,” Holstrom said.

“You remember what happened the last time a senator asked me a favor in a park?”

“Figured you’d bring that up,” Holstrom said. “This is nothing like Katherine’s death, and I think you know that.”

JC ground his teeth together, his jaw flexing.

“Did you talk to Ingrassia?” JC asked. Frank Ingrassia, Director of the CIA.

“I did.”

“And?”

“Too much on his plate, he said. Suggested I contact you.” Holstrom paused. “And he’s less than pleased you are not as vigorous in your hunting down of Williams as he would like.”

JC shook his head. Director Ingrassia had unofficially co-opted JC and his team into the CIA to hunt down and kill former Deputy Director Ted Williams. The man’s entire network was destroyed and, while he would more than likely rebuild, JC had no desire to become an unofficial killer for the CIA. After The General’s death some months ago, JC had done everything he could to avoid that task: unofficially disbanded his team, stopped pursuing Williams, even stopped returning Ingrassia’s phone calls. It was a job he neither asked for nor wanted.

“And Mr. Douglas?” Third-in-command at the CIA and occasional adjunct member of JC’s team.

Holstrom shrugged. “Neil’s busy with CIA work,” he said. “You two seem to always be on good terms.”

JC nodded. “So, this is really a favor you’re asking?”

Holstrom nodded. JC knew he was waiting it out, waiting to see who spoke first. He still had some more questions, though, before he would turn it down a second time.

“And if I pass,” he asked, “refuse you this favor?”

Holstrom shrugged. “The people I’m asking for will find someone less qualified.”

“There’s no national security angle here?” JC pressed. “I pass and the nation is under attack, none of that sort of thing?”

“Nope,” Holstrom said. “His wife and my wife are, well, were sorority sisters and are still close. They’ve talked on the phone several times a week for decades.” He paused. “This is straight up a favor. For a friend.”

JC didn’t bother to ask if the friend Holstrom was talking about was him or his wife’s old sorority sister. He didn’t need to, because the answer to that question would have no impact on JC’s answer to the larger question at hand.

“Then, no offence, but I pass.” He wanted to say more, explain to his friend why he wasn’t helping out, but he kept his mouth shut. That’s my business, not his.

Holstrom nodded. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he said, looking out to the park, “what’s filling your hours?”

“Training,” JC said, his hand unconsciously straying to the leather duffle bag sitting between them, his boxing gloves and gym clothes inside. He kept the real reason why he passed under his vest. He didn’t want to get dragged back into that life again. He was doing his level best to make as clean of a break as possible and doing favors for friends and their friends wasn’t a clean break. It was a rocket sled back into more death than he wanted on his ledger.

Holstrom smiled but there was more disappointment than joy in the movement of his mouth. “You keep telling yourself that, JC,” he said. “Mike Tyson may have been the baddest man on the planet, but it was some washed up Irish guy who knocked him into retirement.”

JC held his tongue. His recent boxing and jiu-jitsu practice had done two things - increased the testosterone running through his system and subsequently his aggression. It had also made him clearly aware of his age.

“I understand what you’re trying to say,” JC said, “no matter how rudely you may be saying it.”

Holstrom sighed. “I’m sorry, man,” he said. “I don’t mean to be impolitic.” Chuckled. “They say it’s in your blood. Being a politician. But I step on my dick so often, I wonder if they’re right.” He shrugged. “I’m just worried for my friend in New York. And for the friend in front of me.”

JC said nothing. He’d long ago learned when there was nothing to really say it was far better to keep his mouth shut. It made the other party feel compelled to keep talking.

“Alright,” Holstrom said, standing up. JC stood as well, the meeting apparently over. “If you change your mind, you know where you can find me,” he said, heading out of the park.

JC followed him, exchanging pleasantries as they headed towards Holstrom’s waiting SUVs. In two minutes they were gone and he was walking up the street again, shouldering his duffle bag. He glanced at his watch, confirming to himself that he would be late to his two o’clock appointment.

JC stopped on the street, pulling his phone from his pocket to call Arthur to reschedule their appointment. As he was dialing the number, a maroon Ford Explorer passed him, then parked up the street. The driver sat inside, waiting.

*****

Holstrom took out his cellphone. To be precise, it was not his main cellphone, it was a burner picked up for him by his daughter. As a consequence of being a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and numerous committees, sub-committees and secret committees people outside of its members didn’t know about, he had a security detail. His daughter, currently in her senior year at Duke University, did not have a security detail, and was able to pick up and hand off a twenty-dollar pay-as-you-go phone to her dad whenever he needed one. Like now.

“Stop the car,” Holstrom said, “I need to make a call.”

AIC Forster opened his mouth to say something, but one glance from Holstrom and he turned to his sleeve mic instead and relayed Senator Holstrom’s order.

Two minutes later they were parked on a random side street in downtown Boston, Holstrom walking away from his security team, the phone to his ear, the dialed number ringing.

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice; kind, cultured, but brittle.

“I’m sorry, but he didn’t bite.”

Holstrom waited as the bad news was digested.

“Please,” the woman said. “I’m desperate.”

He sighed, regretting it as soon as he did.

“I’ve got one more play I can make,” he said. “Let me get back to you.”

After hanging up his first call he made another. It wasn’t so much of a play as a last down, ball-almost-in-their-endzone Hail Mary play of no chances. But she said she was desperate.

“Hello?”

“This is Holstrom,” he said, cutting to the chase. “I’m hoping you could help me out with something.”

“Keep talking,” the voice said after a long pause.

“I need a favor.”

“You must be hurting if you’re calling me.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m hurti-”

“Then we got nothing to talk about,” the man said, the sound of clothes brushing against the phone indicating the impending termination of the call.

“Alright,” Holstrom said quickly, letting go of his pride, the desperation in the woman’s voice he just hung up on still resonating in his ears. “I’m not hurting, but someone close to my wife is.” Not willing to go into more details just yet, no matter how bad the statement sounded.

“Let me guess,” the voice said. Holstrom could see the man’s wide smile as if he were standing right in front of him. “You already asked him and he said no.”

“Dead on.”

“Lay it out.”

Holstrom ran down the basics, giving more details than he gave to JC, partially because it was necessary to convince the man to help him, partially because the man was asking to clarify and make sure what he was getting into.

“Alright,” the man on the phone said. “I’ll talk to him. See what I can do.”

Holstrom breathed out a sigh of relief he didn’t realize he was holding in.

“Thanks, Theo,” he said before hanging up the phone.

*****

Theo clicked the button on his wireless to hang up the call, watching as JC walked past his maroon Ford Explorer, on the opposite side of the street, head on a swivel. The tinted windows did enough to hide Theo from his old friend and former boss, but as the man’s eyes swept past the Explorer, something in Theo’s core told him he knew.

“Probably does,” Theo chuckled, waiting for JC’s eyes to continue their sweep and land on another vehicle, person or target until he moved. He dialed a number from memory as he watched JC continue on up the street.

“Yes, boss,” Ohan answered. Theo could hear the sleep still in his voice and he felt bad for what he was going to ask but there weren’t many other options.

“I need you at Fairland and Winthrop,” Theo said, “near the park. How soon can you be there?”

Ohan paused a second before saying, “Forty minutes,” he said. “Maybe ten more if traffic is bad or the rest of the team is slow to wake up.”

“Make it thirty,” Theo said. “And just you, not your team. You’re taking over Levon’s surveillance crew today.”

“He alright?” Ohan asked, the background noise changing from interior to exterior, the jingle of keys coming through as well.

Theo normally would have just hung up, but his appreciation of Ohan’s work ethic and his increasing concern for Levon made him loosen up a bit.

“Hasn’t answered his phone in almost an hour and I don’t have time to call everyone on his team to coordinate their surveillance of the principal.”

“Got it, boss,” Ohan said, punctuated with the sound of a car door closing. “I’ll be there in twenty-six minutes.”

Theo hung up, nothing more needing to be said. JC was far enough up the street, but he waited a beat before he pulled out and re-parked just out of sight of him again. As he drove he dialed Levon again. It wasn’t like him to be out of communication like this for this long, especially on a job.

He called Levon’s number two, a man named Edgar. Kid was more like it, and a big part of the reason why Theo was moving Ohan over to run Levon’s team in the short term. Ohan’s number two was older, a veteran in Theo’s organization and would have no problem running the surveillance team without Ohan’s help. Edgar was a hothead who thought he knew better than most. Ohan would take care of him, but the kid needed to hear it from Theo first.

He pulled into an empty spot right before JC glanced over his shoulder. Edgar picked up the phone with a “Yeah, boss,” as Theo put the maroon SUV into park, once again wondering where the hell Levon had gone.

Chapter 4

It was beyond dark. There was no difference between when his eyes were closed and when his eyes were open. He was experimenting, opening his eyes, then closing them shut tight, testing which one was darker. He stopped about the time he began to think that his eyes closed provided more light than when they were open. That was a step too far and he knew he’d need his wits about him if he was to get out of this prison alive.

He’d spent time in prison before, in the US, Mexico and Turkey. He preferred Mexico. There was a lot more flexibility to the system there. The US was too rigid and Turkey was a nightmare. Still, he thought, I’d rather be there than here. At least there I would know what’s coming.

He shook his head as he stood, replaying his mistakes once again. He’d been posted up near the Newton Highlands station, just as the boss had said. That sexy female jogger had gone past his position, then about fifteen minutes later, came back around on the return leg of her run. She’d stopped on the sidewalk next to his car, jogging in place and looking hot doing it. He’d glanced at her too long to notice the big dude walking up to his car from the back until the guy started knocking on the driver’s side window. Scared the ever-loving crap out of him, both because of the sudden sound and the fact that he knew he’d messed up. By the time he’d looked back to the jogger, his eyes confirmed what his gut was screaming at him - he was screwed. The compact pistol in the jogger’s hand pointing at him sealed it.

He’d driven, the jogger in the passenger seat, the big dude following in a white SUV. At one point he’d tried to punch the jogger in the face when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. She was. A lightning-fast counter to block his punch followed by the top of the gun’s slide being smashed into his face was all he got from his efforts. That and blood streaming down his face from his nose.

“Wipe it off, idiot,” the jogger said after a block. “You run a red light, get caught by a traffic cam or draw attention to us and your heart will stop before I’m ten feet down the street.”

Levon stood, wanting movement now more than rest. He started walking again, slowly, following the interior perimeter of the storage container they’d dumped him in hours ago, wondering who they were and, more importantly, what they wanted. His right hand brushed the corrugated steel of the interior wall of his temporary prison, keeping him from wandering around and giving him a tactile sensation that grounded him in the near-sensory deprivation he was in the middle of. His left hand was outstretched, arm bent, ready to find the end of the container, but he’d done enough turns inside this holding cell long enough that he could judge where it was within a couple of paces. Still, there was no need to add a smashed face to the bill he’d collect from his captors.

He could hear the drone of traffic on the outside of the container, which made sense. They’d guided him to an abandoned construction site under a number of overpasses near a random body of water. If it were LA, Levon would know where he was, but as he’d only been in Boston a few months and focused on either watching the principal or sleeping, he had no idea. He’d used the GPS in the rental car for directions and as a result he’d done a poor job of learning his way around the city.

Gotta be the principal, Levon said to himself, refusing to call him by the name he and most of the guys on his team knew him as. Question is why.

The opening sounds of the locking bar on the outside of the shipping container’s door screeched through the cavernous interior, putting Levon’s teeth on edge. He briefly thought about running at the door and making a last stand, but he’d never been one for suicidal jobs or grand gestures. Plus, he didn’t know what was in the middle of the container. Instead, he kept walking, his fingers tracing the wall.

As the door opened and the light spilled into the completely empty container, he saw the jogger and the big dude walk in, or to be precise, their rough outlines. His eyes were smarting from the sudden onslaught of brightness. Must be midday or just after noon, he said to himself. I haven’t been here that long.

He stopped to see what they were doing. The jogger brought in a wooden chair while the big guy stayed near the door, putting supplies just inside the door: a work light mounted on a tripod standing about eight or nine feet in the air, a long stretch of extension cord and a small duffle bag.

This isn’t going well at all, he said to himself, then forced himself to burst out laughing, rounding the corner and walking slowly towards the jogger, the big guy and, more importantly, the door.

The jogger ignored him, continuing to bring in the equipment and set up what was obviously a makeshift interrogation room, while the big dude stopped to look at him.

“What’s so funny?” the big dude asked, plugging the extension cord in while the jogger placed the tripod six feet from the chair and turned it on.

“I just realized I know who you two are,” Levon said through his forced laughter.

“Impossible,” the big dude said, although his voice held the slightest hint of doubt.

“Seriously,” Levon said, his laughter dying off as he took a couple steps closer to them but angling for the door. “I’ve seen you guys before.”

“No way,” the big dude said. “You’re bluffing.”

“I’m not,” Levon said, still moving towards the door. “You’re the famous international crime team,” he continued, “Boris and Natasha. You’re Boris,” he said to the jogger, “because you’re so damn short, and you’re Natasha,” he continued, pointing at the big dude, “because you’re the tall one.” He smiled. “And you’re so damn pretty.”

The jogger’s compact pistol was in her hand, pointing at Levon.

“Hilarious,” she said, “now sit down.”

“I’d rather stand, Boris,” he said cheerily.

“She’s not asking,” Natasha said, his hand going into the pocket of his jacket pocket and coming out with a jumbo-sized set of brass knuckles to match his jumbo-sized hands.

Levon shrugged then ran for the door as fast as he could. He’d gotten four steps when the shot rang out, the noise of it crashing into his ears as the bullet crashed into and passed through his calf, making him crumple into a ball on the floor. He held his tongue, keeping the bellow of pain he wanted to release bottled up.

“Pick him up, tie him down and tape him up,” Boris said, the sounds distant through his ringing ears. He felt Natasha’s strength lift him up and drop him on the wooden chair. Levon decided to take a passive aggressive approach and pretended as if the injury had knocked him out. In truth, it hurt like hell. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot but at least this time it was a through-and-through. He could tell there weren’t any broken bones which meant, barring the chances of the bullet nicking anything vital in his calf, he’d end up with a nicely puckered scar on each side and decent story to tell at the bar.

That scenario, of course, required him making it out alive.

Natasha manhandled him into the chair while Levon kept forcing his body to go limp and slide down the chair. Natasha’s meaty paw slapped him hard across the face, snapping his neck to the right. He blacked out for what seemed like a second, but by the time he’d come to, his hands and feet were duct taped to the chair, the pant leg where he was shot slit to his knee and more duct tape wrapped around the wound.

He looked up, forcing the grogginess to abate. Saw Natasha standing above him, the man’s mean mug glaring down at him.

“Well, hey there, beautiful.” Levon managed to say it without slurring any of the words, a fact he was momentarily proud of.

Natasha’s sneer turned into a grin. The man chuckled as he turned away.

“I like this guy,” he said to the jogger who was putting an open bottle of water on the floor as she stood, swallowed the water in her mouth and came over to Levon.

Desperation and fear splashed into his face and washed over him like a wave down by the Santa Monica Pier in his youth. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach as the reality of his situation settled into his consciousness.Boss, Levon said to himself, I’m sorry I screwed up. The self-pity was gone in as soon as the words passed through his mind, followed by resignation. Theo’s a good man, he said to himself. I don’t make it out alive, he’ll take care of my wife and two daughters. Make sure they’re educated, not in the life. He’s good like that.

Boris stopped in front of him. He was right before. She was a good-looking woman. Five foot or so, medium-length brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail. But those eyes? Didn’t matter how sweet the smile, the eyes were cold and hard.

“Here’s the problem,” Boris said. “You’ve already shown your hand.”

“How so?”

“By trying to escape, by pretending to be passed out when we knew you weren’t.”

“But I-”

The back of Boris’s hand slapped him across the cheek and mouth. Her hand wasn’t large, but the force she put into the backhand made his head jerk back, his eyes water and, by the taste of copper in his mouth, the inside of his mouth bleed.

“You’ve shown yourself to be an uncooperating partner in this enterprise, this exchange, which is unfortunate.” She stepped back, went into the small duffle bag and came out with a three-foot or so length of coaxial cable. She wrapped one end of it around her right hand a couple of times as she walked back to Levon, positioning herself to his left, about even with his shoulders and two feet or so away. Just far enough away so he couldn’t reach her, no matter what he did.

“This is going to hurt like hell,” Boris said. “But the sooner you tell us what we need to know, the sooner the pain will stop.”

As she laid the length of coaxial cable across his back, cutting through the shirt and splitting his skin, he knew he’d crack. Sooner or later, everybody did. His experience in Turkey taught him that. The only thing he could do between now and then would be to give them as much misinformation as he possibly could.

That and bleed.

Chapter 5

Sweat was dripping off JC’s forehead and into his eyes but he ignored the sting. He kept ducking under the slip rope, popping up to the left, then the right, throwing a quick punch, then under and over to the other side.

He felt rather than heard the presence of another person in the abandoned gym. There was only one person it could reasonably be, so he kept up his training. Under the rope, up, punch, under the rope, up, punch. He didn’t look at the entrance to the gym, off to his left and shrouded in semi-darkness, just checked that his SIG MPX K was standing in the corner of the ring where he’d put it and kept working the slip rope. He only had wraps on his hands, not gloves, and he knew that, should the need arise, he’d be able to work the MPX enough to handle most threats coming in quietly. Those coming in heavy would require more manpower than he currently had, so he didn’t worry about that possibility.

“Hey, boss,” the person said. “You need a sparring partner?”

JC reached the end of the slip rope, stood and bounced on his toes while he watched a five-foot-six bulk of a man come walking towards the ring through the semi-darkness.

“About time you showed up, Petrosian,” JC said. “I was starting think you forgot where Boston was.”

“Naww, man,” Theo said, coming into the light. “I’ve just been busy. Figured I’d let you have some space.”

“Is that right?” JC said before coming down from the ring. The two old friends walked towards each other, embraced, then went towards the heavy bag hanging in the corner of the small gym. JC grabbed the SIG as they went, putting it on a bench not far from the equipment.

“Ol’ Donny Taylor finally shutting this place down?” Theo asked, looking around at the boxing gym that looked like it had sat unused for forty years. It only looked that way: wave after wave of kids had come through these walls up until the past year, learning how to box, how to carry themselves, and maybe how to deal with life a little better through the process.

“Closed for renovations,” JC said, keeping his arms loose by throwing some shadow punches. “His new investor requested access, so Donny agreed and gave me a key.”

Theo nodded in appreciation, pausing to look around as JC slipped on some gloves and started punching the heavy bag, warming up with some light jabs and combos. “Boxing gyms historically don’t make a lot of money,” Theo said. “I’m guessing it’s not about the money.”

JC said nothing, just continued with his work. The air was stale, the dust on the equipment from disuse rising as JC’s punches increased in speed and velocity.

“What brings you around, Theo,” he said through the workout.

Theo moved behind the bag, holding it from swinging back further, giving JC a harder workout.

“Just checking in,” he said. “Glad to see you’re training.”

“That it?” JC said through puffs of air.

“That’s it,” Theo answered, holding the bag steady, his strength and bulk providing a potent backstop.

“But,” JC said, through puffs of air.

Theo said nothing, holding the bag as JC worked it.

“But...” JC said again after a flurry of punches forced Theo to take a step backwards.

“But you’re hiding.”

JC ignored the comment outwardly, but he threw it on the fire in his belly, his punches coming harder, faster, fueling him to push past what he thought was his limits. A minute and a half later he dropped his arms and walked away, moving towards the speed bag mounted high on the wall. He planted his feet and started working the speed bag, building up a cadence of punches until the bag was a blur.

After Joan left, Theo hung around in Boston, trying to keep JC busy, keep his mind occupied. It was unnecessary and, frankly, a burden for JC after a while. It felt like a nanny watching his every move. JC knew the man’s heart was in the right place, but it was suffocating. Theo had left for LA a few months ago and, aside from a few phone calls, JC hadn’t spoken much with him since.

He had, however, seen the surveillance teams Theo put on him. JC knew it was for his protection, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to check them out. Or pass up the opportunity to rib his friend about it when the time was right.

JC dropped his arms, the past hour and a half of exercise and training making his arms feel heavier than lead, and turned to his old friend. Theo was watching him, saying nothing. A combat medic and nurse, Theo helped JC in the field hospital he was in after being trapped in a burning ammo depot in Kandahar. The mental help he gave was more therapeutic and necessary than the physical and they had been friends ever since. Theo was the first person JC turned to when he began contracting out his military experience for clients. The man may have been short and wide, but he was quick with a gun and smart as hell.

“You want to go a few rounds?” JC said, catching his breath.

Theo smiled. “You don’t want to get in the ring with me.”

“Think you could go toe-to-toe with me?” JC said, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, throwing a quick succession of jabs in the air.

“Nope,” Theo said, slowly cracking the knuckles of his left then his right hand. “But I’ve got a neck like a bull and I can take punches all day long. I’m patient as hell and when I see my opening?” He smiled. “My right cross hits like a Mack truck. It’ll tear your damn head off.”

JC chuckled but he didn’t doubt it.

“Spill, buddy,” JC said, his smile fading, taking his gloves off on the way to the bench holding his duffle bag, Theo following. “What brings you by?”

Theo said nothing for a moment, following JC o the bench, hands in his pockets. He exhaled slowly, audibly. JC waited him out.

“You want to be out,” Theo said finally, “then be out. But what happens if Joan calls?”

JC said nothing, his gloves off, pulling the wrap from his hands. It wasn’t a question that deserved an answer.

“You go running,” Theo said, correctly answering his own question. JC nodded. “But what if you’re not up to the task?”

“Really?”

“A tool in the shed gets rusty, man, you know that.” Theo paused as JC undid the Velcro on the wraps and tossed them into his bag. “Out in the field, it’s sharpened to a razor’s edge, put to work, ground down and sharpened again. But let it sit for too long?” Theo shrugged.

“I don’t need the work, Theo,” he said.

Theo laughed as JC walked over and took a jump rope down from a peg. “You haven’t needed the money for years,” Theo said, his laughter subsiding as JC started to jump rope slowly, one foot then the other. “But don’t ever lie to yourself that you don’t need the work.” Paused. “Besides,” the big man continued, “Holstrom’s job? It’s a cakewalk.”

JC said nothing, his mind forcing his feet and arms into a rhythm. In truth, Theo wasn’t wrong. He had been hiding to a certain extent. The reason was clear to him, if maybe not to others. He didn’t want to keep being a fixer, a solutionist. Too many years and too many dead bodies. Too many people he was close to who might suffer if things went sideways. Back when he started selling his skills for a dollar, a mistake meant maybe he died. Any blowback could be contained. But now? He was close to far too many people: friends, family, acquaintances. People who helped him, people he’d helped.

People he loved.

Joan.

Theo’s not wrong, he said to himself as the rope slapped against his feet, forcing him to restart. She calls and I’ll come running. But if I’m off my game, how much help could I really be?

JC knew the truth. Warriors like him operated at a higher level than the average person. When the line between success or failure was as wide as a bullet or the edge of a knife, there was little room for error. Or luck. Being at the tip of the spear meant he needed to be operating at peak efficiency, not slowly rusting in the shed as he told himself he was training.

He stopped jumping rope, the sweat pouring from his body, his chest heaving.

That lady agent , he said to himself, what’s her name? You never saw her coming.

“A cakewalk?” he asked Theo.

Theo nodded.

JC looked at him for a second, his chest heaving, waiting for a hint from his friend that it might be something different than he’d been led to believe. Theo was rock solid. JC hung the rope on the peg he’d taken it from several minutes ago.

“Alright,” he said as he headed towards the locker room, “I’ll hear them out.”

Theo picked up the man’s duffle bag, smiling and nodding as he followed JC to the locker rooms in the back of the gym.

“Tell me something,” JCs said as they walked, “how much are you paying your team?”

“What team?”

“The three surveillance teams you’ve got watching me ‘round the clock,” JC said, glancing over his shoulder to see his friend’s face fall. “Levon, Ohan and Kalo, something like a dozen plus cars, about that many people.”

Theo sighed as JC stopped and turned, a big smile on his face

“How long?”

“Since, like the day they all rolled into my neighborhood, looking like tough guys but trying to blend in.” JC chuckled as his friend’s face fell even further.

“Sonofabitch,” Theo said.

JC stopped. “I appreciate the support,” he said, taking his duffle bag from Theo and handing him the SIG 9mm submachine gun. “But it wasn’t necessary. I’ve got things covered.”

Theo took the weapon from him. “Always got your back, man,” he said, “you know that.”

“Yeah, well,” JC said, hoisting the duffle bag or his shoulder, “you may think I can’t take care of myself,” he continued, “but I’m pretty damn sure I don’t need your help in here,” nodding he said with a nod of his head towards the locker room.

Theo unfolded the buttstock of the weapon, posting up at the locker room door as JC walked into the barely lit room, a solitary locker opened with his clothes hanging just outside it.

“Unless of course you want to come in and give me a massage,” JC said over his shoulder.

“Go to hell, man,” Theo said without turning around. “You give me an assignment like that again, you can go straight to hell.”

JC chuckled as he dropped his duffle bag on the bench, pulling his sweaty clothes off and heading for the shower.

Chapter 6

Levon faded back into consciousness. Everything hurt and he wished, momentarily, for the pain to go away, to fade back into the land of blissful nothingness. But he pushed that away. He knew the only way out was rescue or death, likely death. And he wasn’t quite ready for that.

As the pain coursed back into his mind, he began to breathe heavily. The deeper his breaths were, the more it pulled at the raw, cut and bloody skin across his back. He thought he could actually feel the air on the torn, exposed muscles of his back that bitch Boris had spent the past several hours whipping with her length of coax cable. The thug Natasha had cracked him right in the jaw with his brass knuckles and he was pretty sure it was broken. They’d destroyed both of his knees with a lead pipe and probably fractured his left tibia as well.

Thoughts of vengeance mixed with the self-pity but he shut them all down as well. All he could do was breathe and drool. Blood mixed with the saliva in his mouth and dripped down onto his chest, stringy and embarrassing but he was powerless to stop it. It was still possible to move and close his mouth with his broken jaw but he avoided it whenever he could. It just hurt too damn much.

Boris was standing in front of him, watching him come back into the moment. She pulled a phone from her pocket and dialed, continuing to stare at him as the line rang. Levon’s eyes darted around, searching as much as he could in his limited field of vision. He saw Natasha leaning against the door to the storage container in the shadows cast from the work light.

“We’ve got the guy, boss,” Boris said into the phone, the other side apparently picking up. “Yeah. Based in Los Angeles. He and his team have been posted out here for months. Always following the same guy. Yeah, JC Bannister. Yeah, he gave us all of the locations they’ve been watching him at.” She chuckled. “He even pointed them out on a map. He’s been immensely helpful.” She stopped smiling. “No, he doesn’t know why. They’ve never been told why the hell they’re watching him. Just they need to track his every move and report back if they see anything out of the ordinary. Yeah, hold on.”

Boris pulled the phone away from her ear, tapped the screen and held it out.

“So, you have no idea why you’re watching JC Bannister?” a man asked from the phone, his voice clear in the shipping container prison.

“No,” Levon managed to mumble.

“But Theo Petrosian is the man who commands you? The man who you report in to every day?”

Levon mumbled something more than yes or no, but it was nearly unintelligible.

“What was that?” the man asked.

Levon mumbled it again, but before he could finish, Boris said, “I think he was trying to say, ‘Like clockwork.’”

Levon nodded his head.

“And Petrosian receives your intel reports personally?”

Levon nodded his head, the effort of his earlier statement draining him momentarily. Boris reported his head nodding to the mystery man on the phone.

“And has there been anything out of the ordinary that you noticed?” the man asked. “Anything outside of Bannister’s regular movements that you reported back to Petrosian?”

Levon shook his head. Boris reported the movement to the man on the phone.

Levon dug deep into his energy reserve. There wasn’t much left, but he needed to use it.

“Hey,” he said to the man on the phone.

“Now he speaks?” the man snarked.

“Bannister?” Levon managed to say clearly enough. “Theo? They’re gonna kill you.”

Levon wanted to force a laugh, but he used all of his energy to issue the empty threat to the man on the phone. Despite the hope that the threat would possibly spark fear in the man, perhaps anger, yelling, maybe even the delaying of what Levon knew was coming, none of that happened.

“They’ve already tried,” the man on the other end of the line said.

Levon sighed. Tried to throw a profanity or two towards the man on the phone, but only managed to moan, growl weakly and spit.

The line was quiet for a long time. Levon stopped moving, keeping his breaths shallow to limit the pain coursing through his body.

“Ronnie?” the man finally said.

“Yeah, boss.”

“We’re done with him.”

Ronnie hung up the phone, sliding it back into her pocket as Levon looked around. Natasha, the big man who was obviously known by some other name moved away from the wall he was leaning on and started walking towards him.

Levon’s breaths came faster and faster, the pain on his back ignored. He knew what was coming, been on the giving end of it a few times in the past. He’d never much thought about it from the receiver’s end. All the men he’d killed had earned it, deserved it. But he was damned if he could figure out what he did wrong other than watching a man who literally did nothing other than eat, exercise and live his life.

He tried to move, tried to fight as Ronnie nodded to Natasha. As the big man picked up a plastic bag from their duffle bag of torture and move towards him, Levon’s efforts became frantic, but there was nothing he could do. He’d been taped to the chair too well and the torture over the past several hours had taken all his strength. He moved and wriggled but it wasn’t long before the bag was over his head and Natasha’s big hands had it clamped around his neck.

He struggled, tried to hold his breath, but soon enough, his body tried to breath, desperately sucking the thick plastic of the bag into his mouth, again and again, searching for the faintest molecule of oxygen to extend his life. But nothing worked and he soon ran out of energy, his entire body aching for air.

All he could do was say sorry to the faces of the people he felt he’d let down as they flashed through his mind. His wife, his oldest daughter, his youngest, his brother, their children, Theo, Ohan, some of the team. As he faded into blackness, it was the photo of his family that he kept on the lock screen of his cellphone that he focused on. It was at Elysian Park, near the arboretum, a beautiful spring day a few years ago. The cherry trees were in bloom and he and his wife had a picnic at the park with his daughters, eight and ten at the time, complete with the checkerboard blanket and a picnic basket. Levon had a new phone and was taking all kinds of pictures. It was one of his happiest moment and he kept it on his phone so that he could always remember it.

If that’s heaven… was his last thought before he lost consciousness and, soon after, his life.

*****

The car was fully engulfed in flames.

After Levon stopped struggling, Ronnie sent Walsh out to bring back a gallon or two of something flammable. That left her to clean up the scene which meant moving Levon into his rental car in the driver’s seat, buckling him in and making it seem like he just stopped there for a minute, complete with arm perched on a rolled-down window. The chair, the work light, the extension cord and the bag of simple torture devices they brought with them were placed just outside the door to be loaded up when Walsh returned.

Forty minutes later he was back with three gallons of camp stove fuel from the closest outdoor store. Ronnie splashed one gallon around on the inside of Levon’s rental. She poured the entire second gallon over Levon’s lifeless corpse, the third gallon splashed around inside the shipping container and on any surface she or Walsh may have touched.

“You ready?” she asked him, lighter in hand. He nodded, everything already loaded, SUV turned on and running, far enough away from the scene of the impending fire to be safe.

Ronnie walked over, lit the gasoline-soaked floor of the shipping container on fire, walked out as the flames coursed over the scarred wood and lit the little gasoline she’d put on the handles on fire. She would have preferred to mix up some sort of napalm or call in a real cleaning crew, but there wasn’t time or, apparently, enough resources to do so, although she secretly doubted that. The boss was trying to shoestring the operation, which she understood. However, she also knew he had access to a helluva lot more money than he was letting on.

She walked over to Levon’s car, the smell of gasoline nearly knocking her over. She flicked the lighter to life, leaned back and extended her hand out to Levon’s gasoline-soaked elbow and touched the flame to the cloth of his shirt.

It caught quickly as she backed away. The fire ran up his arm and in seconds the interior of the car was engulfed in flame with a soft whoomp sound. It wasn’t enough of an enclosed space to explode, but the camping fuel burned fast. The flames shot up higher and higher, the fabric and plastics in the vehicle beginning to burn as well. Smoke began to billow from the vehicle.

“Let’s go,” Ronnie said after a beat, turning and walking past Walsh.

There was no need to keep watching. Their DNA and fingerprints would be burned away, leaving only footprints and tire marks. Ronnie would require Walsh to give her his shoes by the end of the day. Both his shoes and hers would be thrown in dumpsters across the city, one by one, as they headed out of town to their hotels and then the airport. They would go over the rental SUV with isopropyl alcohol and oxygen bleach before they turned it in.

They didn’t need to stay in Boston. Their work was done. They would fly to separate cities, unknown to each other, and wait instructions from the boss.

Ronnie smiled as Walsh drove, watching the city speed by. She remembered when the boss was building an organization: offices, warehouses, company shirts and teams of workers.

Then it all turned to hell.

Now the plans had changed. Small organization, mobility and secrecy were prized above all. No central location, no place that could be targeted, a smaller workforce and everything outsourced to a handful of on-call trusted individuals.

As far as she knew, she was the only person the boss kept around permanently. Things had been busy the past several months, but she appreciated the work, the planning, the rebuilding and the focus of what they were trying to do.

The new organization had one goal, one singular purpose: tear down the man who nearly destroyed them all.

Tear down JC Bannister.

Chapter 7

JC glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight. After his shower, a pitstop for gas, Theo driving like an old woman to Logan International, the wait for their charted jet to be cleared and the hour and a half flight to La Guardia it was seven by the time they landed. The limo ride to the offices of Visionary Worldwide, Inc., was twenty minutes of leather-covered luxury and quiet; JC and Theo rode in the back of the limousine, barely speaking out of an abundance of caution. Despite Holstrom’s assurances that it was simply a protection detail for a fat-wallet executive, in both their experience, things never really were as simple as that.

“This is bullshit,” Theo finally growled. The conference room they were waiting in was standard fare: wooden table consuming half the room, side table with real flowers changed out daily, tastefully large LED monitor mounted on one wall at the end of the room, leather and chrome chairs with glass walls facing the hallway and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the now dark city behind them outside.

The research they’d done on the flight to New York told them that the principal they were meeting was famously self-involved and mercurial. Apparently that meant keeping them waiting for just over thirty minutes and counting.

“Naww, man,” JC said. “You said it was a cakewalk.”

“That’s gonna bite me in the ass, isn’t it?” Theo said, his irritation dissipating.

“Hopefully not,” JC said.

A woman came into view in the hallway, walking toward the door in the center of the room. She was white, tall, slim, likely late forties but with the air of someone very interested in taking care of herself. JC’s first inclination was the woman was an assistant to their principal, but after two seconds of watching her, he knew that was wrong. She had a tightness in her movements born of stress, but not the kind that comes from helping someone else run their life. If he had to guess, it came from being second fiddle for too many years.

“Thank you for waiting,” she said as she opened and walked through the door. “My apologies, Mr. Braun will be here shortly.”

JC nodded, waiting for anything more. The woman stood there, right hand clasped over her left, held together in front of her toned midsection, elbows bent ninety degrees, diamond tennis bracelet hanging from her thin left wrist.

She nodded to them, turned on her heel and moved for the door.

“Ma’am?” JC said before she got to the door. She stopped and turned at his word, her face flashing something before she composed herself.

“Yes?” she said, her hands now by her sides. They were long, well-manicured and looked as if they hadn’t seen hard work, or any work, in twenty years at least.

“Could you bring us some water?” JC said, his tone bordering the line between request and order. “It was a long flight and we’ve been waiting almost an hour.”

“I’ll have someone bring you water,” she said with a slight head nod. “If there’s nothing else?” she continued, her tone indicating that if there was they knew exactly where they could shove it.

“Thank you,” JC said.

Theo turned to him after she left. “Wife?”

“Ain’t no assistant,” JC said, standing and stretching. “You see the way she covered the rock on her ring finger?”

“Dunno about that,” Theo said, “I just know she’s all kinds of high-society hot.”

While Mr. Tyler Braun was a recurring subject of news reports, entertainment shows and red carpets, there was next to no information regarding his wife outside the rare mentions that she existed. JC knew her name was Olivia, she was tall and a fixture on the charity circuit, although she generally shunned the cameras unlike many of her contemporaries. Content to help, not court the attention as other socialites did, there simply wasn’t much to know about her.

JC didn’t need to wonder long. Instead of bringing water, Mrs. Olivia Braun returned with a number of people in tow. As the entourage filed towards the door, Theo leaned over and whispered hurriedly, “I know her, dude.”

Before JC had a chance to ask who he was talking about, the first person came through the door, a medium-height black woman he thought he recognized. His attention was quickly drawn to the second person through the door: Taylor Braun, owner of Visionary Worldwide, Inc., a telecommunication conglomerate with fingers in all sorts of other profitable pies. The man was just under six feet tall with an easy smile and a flowing mane of seventies-inspired brown hair. He came around the table to meet JC and Theo, obviously comfortable being the center of attention in most situations.

“Glad to meet you,” Braun said, standing at the head of the table after shaking hands with and introducing himself to JC and Theo. The unknown woman, Mrs. Braun, and another man who followed Mrs. Braun arranged themselves on the opposite side of the table from JC and Theo. “This is my head of security in New York,” Braun said, pointing at the unknown woman, “Hailey Gibbons.”

Ms. Gibbons leaned across the table, hand outstretched. “We never met,” she said as JC shook her hand, “however I was stationed in Kandahar around the same time you were.” She glanced at Theo then back to JC as JC released her hand. “Glad to finally meet you.”

The realization came to JC in a millisecond. If she was stationed in Kandahar when he was there, that means she probably knew about his accident in the ammo depot. It was also the most likely place where Theo met her. And the way Theo reacted, along with her furtive glance to JC’s current right-hand man likely meant they were romantically involved.

Great.

“Glad to meet you, Ms. Gibbons,” JC said with a nod, turning back to Braun at the head of the table. He tabled that bit of info for later because right now it truly had no bearing on the matter at hand. Later, however…

“This is Kevin Dobkin,” Brain said, indicating the other man in the room, “he’s my number two, my consigliere, my Tom Hagen, my-”

“I think they get it,” Dobkin chuckled, leaning over the table to shake JC’s hand. The man looked to be about three to four inches taller than JC, his huge hands dwarfing JC’s own. “Nice to meet you, and pretty much everyone calls me Kev.”

JC nodded, the smile, laughter and easy style from Dobkin feeling artificial as a toupee.

“Which leaves my better half, Olivia” Braun sighed, “whom you’ve already met.” He paused as JC nodded to the woman, her hands staying clasped together in front of her as they had before. “Matter of fact, she’s the reason we’re all here today,” he continued, sitting and indicating the others they should sit as well.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Braun,” JC said, “but my partner and I have little actual information on the nature of the protection detail we’re being requested to provide. If we could…”

“Of course,” Braun said. “Hailey?”

“Mr. Braun is finalizing a deal with ArgenTelCo in Argentina three days from now. We have our own security team down there, but they are more equipped for facilities than executive protection. We’ve got an arrangement with the largest security contractor in the country, however the death threats continue to pour in.”

“Is this something new?” Theo asked.

“The death threats?” Braun asked. “Hell no. Crazies are always phoning them in. We’ve got state of the art mail searching facilities because lunatics keep sending us ‘presents,’” using air quotes around the last word.

“He means letter bombs and powder-laced letters,” Mrs. Braun said, her voice brittle.

“Actual anthrax?” JC asked.

“Laboratory grade,” Hailey said. “There’s been other things as well. Ricin powder, cyanide powder, fentanyl, a few other things.”

“Can’t even open a birthday card,” Olivia said under her breath.

“But the threats have increased?” JC pressed.

“There’s been a few incursions,” Ms. Gibbons continued. “With a company as large as ours, break-ins at offices are expected. But over the past three months since the merger was announced, there’s been a two-fold increase in physical actions against our facilities in the US and Argentina along with a ten-fold increase in cyber-attacks and denial-of-service brute force attempts.”

“Ten-fold meaning there was one last year and ten this year?” Theo asked.

“Ten-fold meaning the attacks used to number in the dozens per day, now it’s hundreds per day,” Dobkin said, “and it’s costing us millions.”

“Why the opposition to the merger?” JC asked, turning to Braun.

“Jealousy,” Braun said.

“Of?”

“Of Visionary becoming the largest telecommunications conglomerate within the next five years.”

JC looked at the man. His jaw was fairly jutting out to JC, challenging him. JC said nothing, waiting for more information.

“Some of the financial backers of ArgenTelCo didn’t want to sell,” Dobkin said. “We outmaneuvered them and they’re none too happy about it. Latin machismo being what it is, they feel the need to lash out.”

JC waited. The conversation flagged. He looked at Braun, then Dobkin, then Gibbons, then Mrs. Braun and back to Mr. Braun.

“Alright,” JC said. “Cut the shit. Somebody pulled a fair number of strings to get me and my associate into this room. Either lay it all out now or we’re on the next flight back to Boston.”

He started a slow countdown in his head from five. He hit the empty space between two and one when Braun opened his mouth.

“My wife doesn’t want me going down there,” he sighed. “I need to go down there to sign the papers for the merger but since she’s a controlling member on the board, she’s rallied enough people to her side to stonewall this merger unless I agree to her extra security.”

“You know that’s not what this is about,” Olivia said, her voice rising. “There is no need for you to go down to that pissant little country to get this deal done. For God’s sake, Tyler, Cairo TeleSat was three times the size of this deal and you finalized it from the back of a yacht.”

“If I don’t go down there,” Braun shot back, “I look weak. The entire world equates Visionary with Tyler Braun. If I look weak, then we look weak, then we become weak, and then where would you store all your gala gowns once we’re living in some shitty three-bedroom on a cul-de-sac in Larchmont?”

“Let you tramp down there and become a martyr?” Olivia said, icy. “Never in a million years. You go down to sign those merger papers, I’m making damn sure you’re coming back in one piece.”

“So you can tear me apart yourself?”

“So I can have my husband back!” she said, her voice catching on the last word.

JC said nothing. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in the middle of a warring couple. Although he could see the discomfort on Gibbons’ and Dobkin’s faces, he was completely fine letting the husband and wife continue to fight it out if it gave him more information.

“Tensions are high,” Dobkin said, cutting in with his chuckling, false-easy manner, “as you can see.” He sighed before continuing. “Truth is, they’re both right. Tyler’s staked the future of the company on this merger and wants the world to know we’re viable and strong. The owner, a Señor Mercado, claims to be ill and can’t travel to the US, but it’s not true. Regardless, that leaves Tyler going down to Buenos Aires.”

“The threats against Mr. Braun are real,” Gibbons said. “I fully believe if he doesn’t have someone of the highest caliber by his side, he won’t make it back in one piece.”

“Why don’t you go?” JC asked her.

“No way,” Braun said. “She takes care of New York, our offices here and the homes of the top executives on the board, which includes my lovely wife.” He shook his head. “Hailey stays.”

JC sighed. “If you’ll give me a minute to converse with my colleague?” he said, standing, indicating Theo should stand and accompany him. Before anyone could object, JC was halfway to the door with Theo two steps behind him.

They stopped twenty feet up the hallway. The floor was mostly abandoned as it was after eight on a Tuesday evening.

“What do you think?” Theo asked him, the two men standing close so as to not be overheard.

“You tell me.”

“I think Hailey looks damn fine,” Theo said with a smile. “She was hot back in Kandahar, a little too skinny, you know, all GI Jane and shit. Now?” He whistled low. “You think she’s married?”

“I think Joan will literally slow roast you over a spit if I go down there and get shot up,” JC said, “so focus.”

Theo’s smile didn’t waver, but his eyes were darting as he accessed the various parts of his brain to answer JC’s question.

“Helluva lot more going on than what they’ve told us,” Theo said. “The cyberattacks don’t make sense unless you’re trying to bring the company down. Perhaps a hostile counter-merger from the people in ArgenTelCo that are against the deal in the first place?”

JC nodded, letting him play out his thoughts.

“Whatever it is,” Theo continued, “that room could use a good six months of couple and individual counseling,” nodding his head at the conference room. “And Kev?” Chuckled. “What a douche. He snaps the heads off of the serfs in the kingdom in his spare time.”

“Can we pull it off?”

Theo shrugged. “Would be a lot better with the team on our side, or at least a few other guys.” Paused. “If we get total access, total submission from Braun, complete control over the schedule and routes?” Shrugged again. “Better than even chance of him coming back alive.”

“You think Mrs. Braun will be happy with better than even?”

“I think if Mr. Braun doesn’t come back, she’ll fricassee our balls and feed them to her hounds as snacks.”

JC smiled. “You said it was going to be a cakewalk.”

“Holstrom said that,” Theo protested. “I only repeated what the good senator told me.” Chuckled. “Best I can tell, this is going to be a goat rope of epic proportions.”

“So we pass on this?”

“Oh, hell no,” Theo said, speaking JC’s thoughts out loud. “We pass and Braun’s a dead man. Guaranteed.”

“Good.”

They were back in the conference room inside thirty seconds.

“We’ll do it,” JC said, looking at Braun first, then his wife. “There are a few stipulations.”

“Name ‘em,” Braun said, a huge smile spreading across his face. “One percent of the final merger price will grant you all kinds of leeway.”

“No,” JC said. “The fee is half a million dollars plus expenses.” Paused. “All in advance.”

Any sound in the room stopped. Braun leaned forward, an eagerness in his eyes.

“You’re leaving a lot of money on the table,” he said. “And all in advance? Not sure how you figure that.”

“It’s simple,” JC said. “The job doesn’t require millions of dollars. It requires men of our skill,” nodding towards Theo. “Our price is half a million plus expenses. We don’t work on percentages.”

“Why not?” Dobkin asked.

“Because, frankly,” JC said, his eyes never leaving Braun’s, “working off of a percentage requires that I front all of the money. Too often the principal or his survivors decide to not pay once the work is done. So if I don’t know someone, it’s all up front.”

“What guarant-” Dobkin started before JC cut him off.

“None,” he said, turning to the man, his face hard. “But we wouldn’t be having this conversation if I was either unreliable or not good at my job.” He stopped, letting Dobkin stew for a minute. The over-sized executive wasn’t used to being spoken down to by anyone except Braun. That needs to change.

“Listen,” JC said, turning to Olivia and Mr. Braun. “This is obviously a delicate internal issue. Gibbons must have recommended me otherwise I don’t imagine we’d even be in the room.” He paused, letting them hang on his hard sell. “You said you trust her? You trust the security of your company and your wife to Ms. Gibbons?” he pressed, directing his pitch to Braun himself. “Then trust her with this. The price is the price. If you want to quibble or haggle, go find yourself someone else to bring you back alive.”

JC leaned back. He’d only known these people for less than an hour and any dynamics they’d built up over the years were out of his reach or desire to understand. A few things were clear. Braun really wanted to go down to Argentina. His wife was determined to make sure he comes back alive. Braun trusted Gibbons to protect his family and home base, which likely meant he trusted her all the way. And Dobkin?

Dobkin’s a problem.

“Alright,” Olivia said after a nod from Braun. “We’ll hire you. I’ll make some calls to the board and get it approved.”

“Pay the man!” Braun said, standing. “The bean counters downstairs will love it. One thing, though,” he said as he walked around the table to shake JC’s hand again. “I don’t want it turned into a circus. Low-key is important. Get in, get out, no muss, no fuss.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Fantastic,” Braun said, slapping JC on the shoulder and heading towards the door. “We leave tomorrow at eight. Be at JFK by-”

“No,” JC said, still sitting, his word stopping Braun in his tracks. JC stood slowly. “We leave the day after tomorrow. I have some business to attend tomorrow.”

“Put your business on hol-” Braun started.

“Mr. Petrosian here will be gathering intel tomorrow,” JC said, cutting off Braun’s order. “I understand this is a rush job,” he continued, “but we’re not going to half-ass it.”

“If you can’t get on our timeline,” Dobkin said, his finger jabbing through the air at Bannister, “you won’t be doing it at all.”

JC turned to him, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. Dobkin was closer to six five than JC’s six one and while the executive’s former crew body may have grown a little soft over the years, he was still a big man.

JC knew he should back down from the fight that was brewing. But the testosterone flowing though his system was telling him to jump on the table and kick Kev’s teeth down his throat. It took most of his will to not do it. Backing down was out of the question.

“Knock it off, Kev,” Braun said, heading for the door, his hair bouncing with the effort. “You so eager to be number one you want to drive away my best shot at coming back alive?”

Although he wanted to rub Dobkin’s face in the order, JC let the smile on his face fade away as the number two at Visionary International mentally backed down from the fight. JC nodded, trying to give back a measure of what was taken from Dobkin.

I’ll know later if it worked, he said to himself as Dobkin turned and left the room, following Mr. and Mrs. Braun. JC walked around the table, Theo behind him. Ms. Hailey Gibbons blocked their path.

“You’re right,” she said, arms crossed. “I did vouch for you, which means my sweet ass is on the line here, too. You pull shit like that again, I’ll be out of a job, so keep that in mind.”

“I’m simpl-”

“Not that,” Gibbons said, cutting him off, her finger jabbing towards his chest. “That macho crap with Dobkin.” She shook her head. “He’s a real prick, but figure out a better way to deal with him than going all ‘law of the jungle’ and staring him down. That noise barely worked in the Army, it works even less here in the real world.”

JC nodded. She was right and arguing with her would make him look like even more of an ass.

“Received,” he said. “You okay working with Petrosian over the next twenty-four hours or so on logistics?”

“You mean Strawberry?” she said, her voice slowing down and dripping with liquid sexuality as she looked at Theo. “I’m all right with that,” she continued, smiling, “if he is.”

Gibbons turned and walked towards the door of the conference room. JC looked at Theo as the man’s face turned into an even bigger grin, his eyes glued to the Visionary Incorporated’s head of security’s fine womanly form.

“You see-” Theo started.

“Don’t even want to know,” JC said, walking after Ms. Gibbons.

Chapter 8

Salvador Porras stretched and yawned, rubbing his eyes and face. The pile of paperwork strewn out in front of him on the conference room hadn’t changed when he finished his stretch and looked back at it. He sighed, stood and walked to the bathroom, edging around the conference table that was ever so slightly too big for the room it was installed in. He washed his hands in warm water, switched it to cold, let it run, then splashed his face and neck, trying to refresh a little for the long night he knew was ahead of himself.

Dried off and refreshed, he walked back through the small office, stopping at the front desk. He leaned over and flicked the switch to turn off the “Seguridad Universal” neon sign mounted on the wall just to the right of the entrance. It was an eyesore and he hated to see it, but his old friend, brother-in-law and boss of the company, Manuel Varela, loved it. Porras, despite starting the company with Varela, being responsible for much of the actual security work and being officially second-in-command at the company, was overruled.

The call from Ms. Gibbons, chief of security at their biggest client, came in twelve hours earlier: Mr. Braun was bringing two security consultants with him. Orders were they would never leave his side. Porras smiled through his teeth to give his voice the appropriate sound of gratefulness and said, “No problem.” He neglected to mention the monumental amount of work that would be required to rework all angles for Braun’s in-country visit. Not to mention the professional insult implicit in the request: if they thought SU couldn’t protect the principal, why not hire someone else instead of bringing in two guys. “What good will two guys do?” Porras muttered to himself in English on the way back to the conference room.

Every job has last minute changes and, by and large, Seguridad Universal was happy to accommodate them. But delaying the principal’s arrival by a day yet sending the support staff on the expected arrival date wasn’t part of the plan. Adjustments needed to be made. And then adding two more guys last minute? Even more adjustments

He edged round the conference table again, careful not to disturb the arrangement of papers, reports, maps, notes and invoices. Varela, of course, was nowhere around. He usually breezed in during the day, all two meters of slim handsomeness and white teeth, made some phone calls and was gone. Through all the years growing up together in one of the poorest, most crime-infested slum Buenos Aires, through their military service and through the founding of this company, Porras was never jealous of his friend’s good looks and height advantage over his own more moderately sized and less handsome visage. While Varela may have looked down on him, literally and figuratively, Porras knew that in men, like women, beauty fades eventually. What’s left after the beauty is gone is what a person builds over the years through hard work.

So, Porras worked hard while Varela played, brought in business and, increasingly, slummed it with the old criminals they grew up with. To his benefit, Varela came in at quarter past one more often than not to at least check on the business. Today he’d taken the news of the extra security personnel with an uncharacteristic frown and gotten on the phone with Ms. Gibbons. While he seemed subdued when the phone call was finished, he was swiftly gone, leaving Porras and a handful of other men to juggle the last-minute arrangements of a billionaire American coming into Buenos Aires to meet with a billionaire Argentinian.

By seven sharp most of the men were clocking out. Pierre, one of the rising talents in SU and the Varela’s current favorite, had stuck around for an hour or two past the others who, but his efforts declined until he was just sitting in a corner, checking his phone. Porras sent him home. He didn’t need the extra baggage.

Plus, I need a little quiet, he said to himself as he reached over and picked up the handset from the phone in the middle of the conference table, dialing the number by memory and then sitting down as the other end rang. And rang. He knew it was late, but he prayed she’d pick up.

“Hello?” his wife said as his heart and stomach simultaneously leapt and flip-flopped inside him

*****

Ten minutes later and he was beginning to wonder why he’d even called.

“You quit and get a job as a software engineer, then we’ll talk,” his wife said.

“Honey, I can’t ju-” he started to say, keeping the sigh from his voice.

“You can and you will,” she said. “Until that happens, there is no us.” It was said with a finality that Porras knew she didn’t actually mean.

“Why can’t you just come back for a li-”

“Because I’m not going to see you continue to piss away your dreams and talents.” She paused, jumping back in before Porras could form a thought or rebuttal. “You should be a software engineer by now but instead you’re working as a security consultant, slaving day and night to make that sonofabitch stepbrother of mine rich.”

“We’re getting rich, too,” Porras said, avoiding agreeing with her that her stepbrother, his boss and brother-in-law, Varela, was a son of a bitch.

“But he’s making the bulk of the profits and you’re never around.” She paused. “I miss my husband,” she said quietly and it damn near tore his heart in half.

“Then come home,” he said just as quietly.

“When you’ve got a coding job, I will.” She hung up the phone as he squeezed the receiver in his strong hand, the plastic creaking as he willed it to break. Of course it didn’t so he slowly replaced it in the cradle, picked up a pencil and once more looked at the piles of paperwork in front of him, the quiet and solitude of the office right now more comforting than being surrounded by friends.

It was a circular argument that drove him insane. She was right, of course, as was he. The money he earned with SU was monumental compared to an entry-level programmer, which is what he’d have to be if he pursued his dream and what he studied at junior college, just after he and Varela ended their six-year bids in the army. He and his wife were working hard to save everything they could. It was an important step to someday transition into the life and career he truly wanted. If they could build up a nest egg, he wouldn’t have to see his wife and son suffer in the same near-poverty he endured as a child. And that was worth the risks he took, the insults from Varela, the liberties the man took with the company books and the long hours away from his beloved wife and son.

His father had always said, “As long as we’ve got each other and love...” without finishing the thought. His mother response was always the same: a sigh, a rolling of her eyes and then going back to work taking care of their five children in the hovel of a house that they wrongly called home.

Porras had seen what love bought and he’d be damned if he allowed his wife to live like that.

But if this job pays off like it’s supposed to, he said to himself, then my cut plus Varela’s promised bonus is going to double our nest egg and put us close enough we might be able to risk it. He started doodling on the yellow legal pad, drawing pathways to different visualizations of their dream life mapped out ahead of them. We’ll have to sell my car, keep her Toyota. It’s older, but it’s paid off, in good condition and gets good mileage. Probably have to move into a smaller apartment a little further from the city center, into one of the up-and-coming neighborhoods instead of where we are now. Make sure we have stable internet, he continued, making notes, using symbols instead of actual words that could be deciphered by someone else, s o I can maybe telecommute most days. But if everything comes together? He blew air softly through his mouth, in a “phew” sound. Then there may be a good cha-

“Hey, Limon! You daydreaming again?”

Porras started, the sound of Varela’s voice yanking him back to the present. He hadn’t heard his SUV outside, hadn’t heard him come in which meant he was either deep in thought or falling down on the job. He ground his teeth together to keep himself from charging around, kicking Varela in his bad knee and smashing his face against the corner of the conference table. Instead, he forced a smile.

“Here to help out, Manolo?” he grinned, using the old nickname that Varela hated almost as much as Porras hated the nickname of “Limon.” “I could use the extra set of eyes.”

“I’m sure you’ve got it under control,” Varela said, his sixty-watt smile dimming a bit, shaking his head. “I’m just wondering how many times I’m going to have to ask you to stop calling me Manolo before you actually remember to do it.” Varela stood there, staring at Porras, his smile becoming more pained by the second. “We left that world behind, Limon,” he said, “many years ago. We’re on a different path now.”

Porras nodded, looking back to the paperwork in front of him. He kept to himself the question why it was okay to call him Limon, a nickname from their days of grade-school poverty in one of Argentina’s most desperate slums but calling him Manolo was off limits. Kept to himself the knowledge that Varela still cruised through the old neighborhood more often than was prudent and was rumored to still be doing dirt with a number of gang leaders there and across the city.

He swallowed all that and said, “What do you think? These guys coming in with Braun — couple of creampuffs or some real GI Joes?” When Varela didn’t answer, Porras looked up to see the man staring down at him. It was a rare moment of quiet from the man as opposed to his usual bravado.

“I think they’ll do their jobs well,” Varela said, the words sounding forced or strained, “as long as we do ours.” He paused, then glanced at the paperwork strewn across the conference table. “I’m gonna turn in. It’s been a long day,” Varela said turning for the door as Porras’s jaw hit the floor.

“Make sure to lock up,” he said over his shoulder, “and I’ll see you tomorrow night at the airport for the meet and greet.”

Porras clamped his jaw tight until he heard the Seguridad Universal SUV that Varela drove roar to life and tear off down the street. He let the air out of his lungs, letting the anger abate with the air, forcing himself to put it aside.

Although he was willing to eat shit sandwiches to provide a better life for his wife and son, that didn’t mean he liked the taste. There would be time later for the various ways he was going to tell Manuel “Manolo” Varela to shove it. For now, the focus was on getting Braun into the country and then back out of the country equally as safe.

Quitting the company, getting his wife back and getting Manolo out of their lives forever would have to come later.

Chapter 9

JC stood there, like a statute, watching box after box being loaded onto the Dassault Falcon 7X. The sun was low but rising over the hills of Westchester County Airport, an hour or so north of Visionary Unlimited’s offices and where Braun had a special understanding with both the vice-chairman of the airport advisory board as well as the man who ran the customs house. Essentially Braun could do what he wanted, when he wanted, as long as he wasn’t involved in any outright smuggling. Since the cargo they were carrying down to Argentina wasn’t going to be left there or sold, nobody involved in the operation considered it smuggling so they were safe.

Despite both Tyler Braun’s and JC’s desire to keep things relatively low-key during their time in Buenos Aires, the loadout that Gibbons and her team were stuffing into the aircraft was looking more and more like a military operation than anything else. Boxload after boxload of weapons and ammunition, computers and bulletproof vests. JC didn’t say anything, mostly due to Braun standing next to him, but it was a far more visible profile than he wanted to present.

“So, I gotta know, man,” Braun said, standing next to him but moving. “What was so important you needed to fly out to L.A. to take care of?”

“Personal business,” JC said with a slight emphasis on “personal,” irritated both because the man kept bringing it up and Braun had somehow found out JC had flown to L.A.

“I mean, was it some hot broad you’re banging or some big deal you’re trying to clo-”

“Braun,” JC said keeping his eyes on the Visionary men loading the plane instead of looking at their boss standing next to him, “you can keep wasting your breath or you can go do something useful with it.” It wasn’t the most politic thing he could have said, but he’d had about enough of the man’s needling. It started when Braun rolled into the hangar exactly twenty-seven minutes late with a chip on his shoulder and hadn’t let up for the past thirty minutes. Everything Braun said eventually came back to the fact that JC had delayed the departure to Buenos Aires by a day without telling him exactly why.

Braun uncharacteristically said nothing for a solid two minutes before walking off to the executive lounge sandwiched between this hangar and the adjacent one.

“Thank God,” Theo groaned as Braun was almost out of earshot. “Thought he’d never shut the hell up.”

A crash from one of the trucks elicited barks and profanity from Ms. Gibbons. She was in charge of loading the aircraft and making sure everything was ready to go before Braun flew down to Argentina.

“I’d better go calm her down,” Theo said, moving towards the commotion.

“You’re that good?” JC said with a smile

“Yeah, man,” Theo said over his shoulder. “I’m that damn good.”

JC watched as Theo jogged over, stopping before he got to the formidable Ms. Gibbons, the two men she was chewing out and the spilled box of ammunition. Theo pulled his phone from his pocket, leaned into the call, glanced at JC, then jogged off towards the hangar. JC didn’t know what it was about, but the dark look on Theo’s face in the glance he threw JC’s way wasn’t good.

JC looked back to the trucks to see Ms. Gibbons marching towards him, the clipboard she’d been using held out in front of her like a dirty sock.

“We’re overweight if we keep going,” she said as JC took the clipboard from her.

“By how much?” JC said, glancing at the list, not really seeing anything.

“Thousands of pounds,” she said. “Where’s Theo? I told him we weren’t going to be able to load all of this on.”

“He’s busy,” JC said without looking up, finally focusing on the items on the list. “Maybe you and I can work together to get this winnowed down?” JC paused as he saw some items that weren’t loaded yet. “Rocket launchers?”

“Exactly what I said,” Gibbons replied. “I know you guys roll heavy, but…”

“Not that heavy,” JC said, continuing down the list. “At least, not usually.”

“Not usually?”

“Come on,” JC said, looking up, “let’s put this bird on a diet.” He moved towards the cargo hold, wondering what the phone call from Theo was about. Unlike Braun, he wouldn’t intrude on his friend’s private life.

Not unless it compromises the job, JC said to himself as he handed the clipboard back to Ms. Gibbons and reached for a box of hand grenades that were already loaded on the Dassault. He was fairly sure they weren’t going to need boxes of hand grenades for an executive protection gig.

*****

Three hours later and the plane was cruising comfortably at thirty-five thousand feet over the Atlantic, off the eastern coast of Florida. The flight crew had introduced themselves and retired to the forward lounge, leaving JC, Theo and Mr. Braun mostly alone. JC had laid down the law before leaving New York: as much as possible, Mr. Braun would be accompanied by only people that were absolutely necessary for the immediate operations they were involved in. Since the baker’s dozen or so of other executives, lawyers and assistants weren’t absolutely necessary to the flight down to Buenos Aires, JC required them to fly on a separate plane.

While Ms. Gibbons told them that the majority of the executives and lawyers they sent on ahead were pissed and barky, Mr. Braun seemed surprisingly okay with it. His behavior in the air followed that narrative; he busied himself in the front of the plane with paperwork that JC assumed consisted of contracts and documents related to the merger. JC and Theo were equally knee-deep in paperwork, but theirs revolved around satellite maps, routes, security reports and dossiers on the people involved with the security of the company in Argentina, all prepared kindly by Mr. Gibbons.

“Honestly,” Theo said quietly, leaning back and sighing, “what do you think the chances are of someone trying to off him on this trip? Or kidnap him for the ransom?”

“We plan for one hundred percent,” JC said, looking at the routes they planned out once again. “That way we’re ready for anything.”

Theo sighed. “I know that, boss,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “But realistically?”

JC shrugged, pushing aside the paperwork. “Too many variables to judge. Who’s coming after him, who’s been running the cyberattacks, who’s been issuing the death threats. One group or multiple? Are they serious or just venting? Are they funded? How well funded? Are we gonna screw up and leave them an opening? Who on the local security team is compromised?”

Theo was nodding along with him as he ticked off all the possible variations of what they were going up against.

JC leaned forward suddenly and started rifling through the paperwork on the table in front of him.

“What’s up?” Theo asked

“Does Braun have kidnapping insurance?” JC said, still looking through the pile.

“Dunno,” Theo said. “Can’t remember Hailey mentioning it.”

“It’s Hailey now,” JC asked without looking up, “not Ms. Gibbons?”

Theo smiled, then half-turned in his seat. “Braun!” he called. “You got kidnapping insurance?”

“What’s that?” Braun asked, looking up from his own paperwork.

“Do you have kidnapping insurance?” Theo said again, a little slower.

“Yeah,” Braun said. “Olivia and I have ten million each that we pay for and the board has another hundred million policy on me.”

Theo whistled.

“Who knows about it?” JC asked.

Braun shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Most likely every board member, upper echelons of the security team, maybe more?”

“What about the security team down in Buenos Aires?” Theo said. “Do they know?”

“Not sure,” Braun said. “It’s possible. Why?”

“Just checking,” JC said, going back to his laptop and typing notes.

Theo turned around. “Well that sucks,” he said softly. “Everybody and their brother knows he’s worth ten mil at least?” Shaking his head. “Exponentially increases the chances of someone at least attempting a kidnapping.”

JC looked up to see Braun walking back to them. He resisted the desire to sigh. The man wasn’t the type to be told where to go and what to do, to be dismissed at the speaker’s pleasure. It took grit to build a company the size of Visionary. JC just hoped the man’s grit did not take the form of bullheadedness and arrogance.

“Why do you ask about the kidnapping insurance?” Braun asked, taking a seat at the table. “I always thought it was a good idea, but the looks on your faces tell me, maybe, not so much?”

“Trying to figure out if you’re more valuable to the company dead or alive,” Theo said, smiling but looking through the paperwork.

JC did sigh this time. “Always the diplomat,” he said to Theo. Having Braun on their side would make things much smoother. Despite his usually sarcastic but genial demeanor, Theo had been more on edge since leaving New York. The phone call? JC asked himself, compartmentalizing it until later. He needed to deal with Braun first. “If people know that you’ve got kidnapping insurance plus a lot of money, then it’s pretty easy for them to make a fat payday for themselves. Grab you, the family pays, gets reimbursed by the insurance company… no muss, no fuss, they’ve got ten mil in their pocket.”

Braun shook his head. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Most don’t,” Theo said.

“Why, because I’m rich?” Braun said, smiling but not pleasantly.

Here it goes, JC said to himself. The tensions that started in the boardroom and had been bubbling under the surface were getting closer to breaking through. Defuse it if you can, crush it if you can’t.

“No,” Theo said, “because most people who have kidnapping insurance don’t think about it from the side of the kidnapper, just from protecting themselves or their family. It’s natural.”

Braun nodded his head, still looking at JC. JC could tell by the set of his jaw that Theo’s attempt to placate the man hadn’t worked.

“You should be a little more careful with people you don’t fully know,” Braun said to JC. “I may have built this company, but Kev has been my number two in command since nearly day one.” He paused, giving JC a chance to glance at him. The man’s face was flush, his breathing harder. He’s spoiling for a fight, JC said to himself, and he thinks now that we’re alone he can call us on the carpet. JC went back to his paperwork, determined to let Braun get whatever was bothering him off his chest. Don’t get suckered into this.

“He’s the one who has always done the heavy lifting,” Braun continued. “He may look like any other former athlete turned executive, but he’s gotten his hands dirty more than a few times when I needed it.”

Theo turned to him. “Are you trying to warn us off?” he said, leaning forward in his chair, “or are you trying to be one of the cool kids, telling us you had to commit a crime or two to get where you are today?”

“I’m tr-”

“It doesn’t matter,” JC said, cutting Braun off. “Thanks for the warning, but truth be told, once we get you safely back to New York, I don’t imagine I’ll have much to worry about.”

“You’d be surprised,” Braun said, leaning back, an odd grin on his face, “the man’s reach is long.”

“Why, because he’s got orangutan crew arms,” Theo asked, “or because he’s some sort of under-appreciated criminal mastermind?”

“It may not be as long as that of the Armenian underworld, bu-”

“Enough,” JC said, wanting to avoid a further escalation of the arguments. Theo was no longer the head of the Armenian gang his father and uncles founded, but he was still their family. Discussions of that world could quickly turn into condemnations which could, rightly or wrongly, be interpreted as insults. JC didn’t want Braun knocked out cold with Theo sitting on him for the rest of the flight.

“All I’m-”

“Listen,” JC said, facing the problem he imagined to be behind Braun’s animosity, “it can be hard for some men to accept protection from other men. Especially when you’ve built a company this big and you’re worth billions.” He paused, letting the first part sink in, watching Braun’s face as what JC was saying registered. “But we’re no different than the firemen rushing into your house or office to save it.” Paused again, letting the analogy sink in as well. “We’re only trying to help.”

Braun nodded, saying nothing in return. JC could tell the situation was moving towards being defused. He just hoped it would stay that way.

“While you’re here,” Theo said, “we’ve got some more questions for you.”

“Ms. Gibbons gave you all the intel we had,” Braun said, nonplussed.

“There’s just a few more… delicate things we need to ask,” Theo said. JC hoped he would actually be delicate but could tell by the irritation on Theo’s face it was unlikely.

“Do you have a local girlfriend,” JC said, taking the lead. “Is there someone down in Buenos Aires you see regularly?”

Braun’s eyes half-closed as he froze for two seconds before transitioning into an aloof state that JC couldn’t tell if it was real or manufactured. As it was, Braun leaned back, arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t have to-” Braun started, incensed, before JC cut him off again.

“Yes, you do,” JC said. “Your company hired us, not your wife. We’re not judging you; we’re trying to keep you safe.”

“Are you going to be picking up high-dollar whores,” Theo said, sitting back as well, taking notes on a yellow legal pad with a pencil, “or slumming it with the streetwalkers? Are you planning on going to clubs to pick up bar girls? Happy endings at massage parlors or just going to rub one out in the hotel bathroom by yourself?”

Theo looked up, face the picture of innocence, looking like he was simply taking notes instead of accusing the man of all sorts of infidelity.

“We’re not judging you,” JC said again as the silence between Theo and Braun grew. “We’re trying to keep you safe.”

“I have a regular girlfriend,” Braun sighed after a beat. “I provide an apartment for her. It’s in an upscale neighborhood in Puerto Madero. She says she stays there when I’m not in country, but I think she spends most of her time with her mother in her childhood home deep in some slum or another.”

“She stays with her mother on this trip,” JC said, turning to his notebook and typing notes. “We’ll schedule you some alone time at the hotel if possible, but our entire goal is to-”

“The hell you will,” Braun spat, jolting forward, his elbows on his knees but his fists balled up, ready for the fight. “I spend the night with her every night I’m down here or you’re fired,” he snarled.

JC didn’t bother looking up from his notebook. “Again, the board hired us,” he said, “not you. Keep it up and I’ll slip a rufie in your after-dinner scotch and soda and you won’t see her for even an hour or two. Am I clear?”

Braun sat there for another ten seconds. JC didn’t bother to look at him. Braun stood up and walked past JC and Theo, towards the executive suite in the rear of the plane. He opened the door slowly, walked inside and slowly closed the door behind him.

JC and Theo exchanged glances before going back to their paperwork. It wasn’t long before JC decided now was as good of a time as any.

“The phone call at the airport,” JC asked without looking up “What’s going on?”

Theo said nothing for a beat but JC heard his pen stop moving. He looked up.

“Levon,” Theo said. “He didn’t meet the guys at the airport, didn’t turn in his rental. His clothes are still in the hotel. It’s like he’s just vanished.”

“How can I help?”

Theo shook his head. “He’ll turn up,” Theo said. “Not the first time he’s done this. I just figured that was behind him now.”

Theo turned back to the paperwork in front of him. JC wasn’t convinced by what he said about Levon. When he saw Theo’s men in the neighborhood running surveillance, he’d surreptitiously photographed them and checked out each one of them. Partially or his own protection, partially for Theo’s.

Nothing in Levon’s files indicated to JC he’d be the type to flake and disappear. He was a loyal soldier for the Armenian gang Theo’s father ran, doing jailtime in the US, Turkey and Mexico for gang-related smuggling and other activities. Indicted for murdering a confidential informant in the organization, he was never convicted. Theo’s father took the rap for the crime before anyone else could, earning him a life sentence and Levon’s loyalty forever, passed down from father to son.

Something’s wrong, JC said to himself, tabling it for later when he had time to think about it.

Theo started to chuckle quietly. “You said you weren’t judging Braun,” he said softly.

JC, grateful for the pressure relief, chuckled as well. “Totally judging him.”

“Totally judging him, man,” Theo said as loudly as he thought he could get away with. “I gotta say, though. His wife being as hot as she is, I can’t wait to see his mistress.”

They both returned to their paperwork as the laughter dissipated. Neither said what was on their minds - the client was a handful and what started out as a cakewalk was turning into a more complex and complicated mission than either imagined.

Chapter 10

“Have a good night, Mrs. Braun,” the tall, well-muscled tennis pro called after her as Olivia Braun walked to her car, her white tennis shoes with green trim squeaking on the polished granite of the country club’s entryway.

“Good night, Christopher,” she said over her shoulder, waving the towel in her hand at him, continuing to dab at her neck and upper lip as the younger man made his way back into the club, looking for another married woman to hit on. She didn’t bother to look at him. There was no point — while he helped her with some of the finer points of her game, he was disposable and, frankly, not interesting enough to spend much thought on.

The towel slung over her shoulder, Olivia Braun, nee Hedlund, fished the keys from her Louis Vuitton bag, pressed the remote start button, the engine on her Audi Q8 starting, the air-conditioning programmed for this time of night as she liked it, the driver’s side door unlocking and the music playing from her favorite 80’s classics radio station.

It was insulting, really, Christopher’s attention, she said to herself as she opened the door, the bag deposited on the passenger’s seat, her own door closing automatically as she checked herself in the rear-view mirror then buckled her seatbelt. Christopher only hit on her because he thought it was part of his job, not out of any sense of true desire. That’s what made it all the more degrading. Over the years, some of the constant rotation of tennis pros actually desired her. The bulge in their shorts brushing against her when they happened to get too close or were too eager to demonstrate a particular serve or return or strategy told her all that needed to be said.

Not that I’d ever, she said to herself as she drove through the parking lot and into the night, past the front entrance to the club. Every time she drove past, the same thought entered into her mind. If they only knew.

The club was upscale, home to other billionaire families on the east coast along with maybe a few hundred of other multi-millionaire families as well. It was the kind of club that, it was whispered, only allowed verifiable WASPs into its midst until just the past decade or two. Blacks and Asians were of course, historically excluded, Hispanics only good enough to tend the grounds. Italian, Irish, Greek and Jewish people were excluded as well until recently, following the trends of popular opinions.

Olivia absently rubbed her belly with her right hand as she drove. It was trim and flat, but there was always stress about that, as well as the occasional ulcer. And the history. As the light poles protected by guardrails whipped past on the highway, she glanced at the GPS. She didn’t need to, more a habit than anything else. The drive from the country club took anywhere from thirty-two to forty-seven minutes depending on which route she took.

For a time she explored the various ways home, looking for a good place to crash the car. It was a personal low point for both her marriage and herself and she was trying to find a location for a plausible and fiery end to everything. Unfortunately, the life that Tyler had constructed for her included not having any place where she could realistically crash her vehicle and die from the ensuing injuries.

As she pulled into the driveway of their home, the sensors installed by the entrance way picked up the movement and lit up the grounds and the house per the pre-programmed status. While the security teams stayed on the street, patrolling the area and within a minute response time to any alarms triggered from inside the house, Olivia drew the line at having them actually standing outside the house, or inside, for that matter.

Twenty-seven minutes later and she was resting in the upstairs master bedroom, showered, a towel wrapped around her wet hair, a Turkish Cotton bathrobe wrapped around her naked frame, a light dinner on the glass-topped table next to her and already halfway through her third gin and tonic, heavy on the gin. The maid was gone, per Olivia’s orders, the cold cuts and cheese sitting next to the salad prepared to her directions. She sat in her favorite leather club chair, looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window and over the half-acre perfectly designed and manicured backyard, lit by the tasteful security and accent lighting, and sighed.

She knew. He didn’t think she knew, but she did. “I’ve always known,” she whispered to her reflection in the window, “every time, for the past seventeen years.”

Olivia sipped her drink, realizing she wasn’t going to actually eat the food Yareli prepared for her. It was late and she had another drink or two in front of her before she fell asleep. She knocked back the rest of gin and tonic, went downstairs, prepared a Manhattan to smooth out the buzz that was starting to overwhelm her, and walked out to the garage, her long, toned legs leading the way as they parted the folds of the white cotton robe. Buried in the back of one of Tyler’s tool chests, the tall kind with the red sliding drawers, was a collection of burner phones, their charged-up lithium batteries waiting to be used.

She pulled one out, turned it on and then pulled out the hard plastic case that held a dozen SIM cards.

“No,” she said to herself, her hand hovering over the hard-won collection of postage-stamp sized plastic-and-circuitry black chips. “He hasn’t even landed.”

She turned the phone off, replaced everything in the back of the drawer, slid it closed on its oiled hinges and turned the light off as she went back in the house and headed upstairs.

The house was entirely empty. She could hear the gentle padding of her feet on the rough-hewn tile of the kitchen, then the hardwood of the living room, then the slower shuffle as she climbed the stairs, the drink she scooped up from the kitchen island making no sound. No soul was present in the house. The quiet beyond her own movements was all-consuming.

For the first time in an exceedingly long time, she wasn’t filled to the brim with loneliness and despair.

Because, my dear, she said to herself, you’ve finally got a plan.

Chapter 11

Theo was snoring. He didn’t know he snored, at least, JC didn’t think he did.

Why would he, JC mused, he’s sleeping. And you’ve never told him…

Regardless, the noise was not distracting him. The hum of the plane as it flew over the equator was quiet and Theo’s snoring joined it, creating a wall of background white noise, allowing JC’s mind to race around, checking everything that needed to be checked, then triple checking it.

Braun hadn’t come out of the stateroom in the back of the plane. Maybe he was sleeping, maybe working, maybe pouting. What he wasn’t doing was currently occupying much of JC’s mind other than the fact that he was one of the factors in the puzzle that was waiting for them when they landed in Buenos Aires, seven hours from now.

JC sighed, stretched and stood, walking down the length of the plane once, then twice, swinging his arms to loosen his shoulders. He stopped, laid down on the sofa near the forward lounge and stretched out his lower back. His back had healed after the burning wooden ceiling joist pinned him to the ground in the ammo depot fire in Kandahar, seemingly ages ago. But the muscles beneath the twisted and scarred skin were in a constant state of spasm, according to the doctors. What that meant for JC was he needed to regularly stretch out the muscles of his back, especially when he was travelling or expecting to get little in the form of rest.

Like now.

One thing JC learned early on after leaving the Army and struck out on his own was to evaluate his assets and connections he might be able to call on for help, should the need arise. Unfortunately, going down to South America wasn’t a bed of roses. Joan was out, Duke was busy, Cespedes was in the wind according to Theo, his old teammates all busy with their increasingly domestic lives. JC had burned most every South American bridge behind him when he left the employ of The Mexican years ago. Any connections he might have had left were used up when he came down and killed The Mexican.

Has it even been a year? he asked himself, his left knee pulled tight against his chest. Exhaled as he released his knee, letting the leg lay on the thin pile carpet of the private jet and pulled his right knee up against his chest. Must be getting old. He smiled, his smile fading as he remembered the people he lost due to The Mexican. And those he found.

He sat up ten minutes later, one thing that had been bothering him isolated, a solution in hand, a possible helpful connection identified.

He walked back to the worktable, reached into his carry-on bag at the foot of the table and pulled out his cellphone. The crew told them there was Wi-Fi available on the plane and, despite his reluctance to use it, he needed to make a phone call. Not to the person he wanted to talk to most right now. She was unavailable. It was time to call a different kind of friend. Do a little fishing.

The line clicked and clicked, connected and began to ring.

I may not have many connections, said to himself, but I do have a good friend who has an uncle with a wide network.

“Hello?”

“Neil,” he said, “it’s JC.”

Neil Douglas, third in command at CIA, good friend and occasional helping hand to JC and his team.

“How’s Argentina this time of year?”

JC chuckled. “I dunno,” he said. “I’ll tell you when we land.”

There were muffled sounds as if Mr. Douglas were putting the phone against his clothing to block sound coming from or going into the phone. JC waited. Ten seconds later and it sounded like there was movement, like Mr. Douglas was walking.

“Listen, JC,” the CIA man said, “things are a little… fuzzy right now.” Paused. “I need to pull back a little. There’s some trouble coming.”

“What kind of trouble?” JC asked, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“None for you,” Mr. Douglas said quickly. “Or yours. It’s on our end. Congressional inquiries, special counsel and prosecutors. Whistleblowers who don’t know their ass from their elbow flapping their lips.” He sighed. “It’s bad for business. Makes people nervous. And when they get nervous?”

“They start second-guessing themselves,” JC answered, old conversations between them about this very subject coming to mind.

“Exactly,” Mr. Douglas said. “Then they start dragging their feet, making decisions slowly, afraid to make the wrong one.”

“And sooner or later that inaction and indecision is the wrong choice.”

“Regardless,” Mr. Douglas said, “we need to tighten things up around here. Hunker down and play things close to the vest.”

JC smiled. He knew what the man was saying - any help he needed would likely be turned down in the near future. But he liked to push Mr. Douglas’s buttons sometimes, just for fun.

“So, what are you trying to say, Neil?”

Mr. Douglas sighed. “Until I reach out, it might be better to not call.”

JC’s smile disappeared. He wasn’t expecting that clear of a shut down. Thought there’d be at least a little wiggle room. “How is Duke?” he asked, testing to see if Mr. Douglas’s shut down was due to internal CIA problems as he suggested or because of personnel issues.

“He’s good,” Mr. Douglas chuckled. “The boy thrives on conflict. He doesn’t seek it out, but...”

“It hones him,” JC said. “Hardens him like a wooden spearpoint in the fire.” JC and Duke worked together a little more than three years. He owed his taller, younger friend his life multiple times over.

Mr. Douglas said nothing for a beat. “He’s weaving a unique path between his father’s inclinations and his mentor’s.”

Duke’s father was former Ambassador Norman Ellsworth, master statesman and self-defeating politician who repeatedly damaged his career by indelicate comments at the exact wrong time. Or falling in love with and seducing the wrong wife of the wrong fellow statesman. However, when he was sober and not trying to poke everything that moved, he was the consummate statesman. It was good to hear that Duke was following in his footsteps.

“I once told him he had the potential to be president,” JC said.

Mr. Douglas neither agreed nor disagreed. JC didn’t expect him to. His comment was designed purely to drop the seed in the fertile mind of the third-in-command at the CIA.

Mr. Douglas sighed and listed off a string of ten numbers. “Can you remember that?”

“Sure,” JC said, not bothering to write it down. In his business, remembering phone numbers and bank accounts was as vital as breathing. “Who is it?”

“Your Hail Mary.”

“Call that number and the cavalry comes riding in?”

“Nope,” Mr. Douglas said. “Not even close. But the person on the other end will have a solution for your problem.”

JC smiled. While most people called him a fixer, he preferred to consider himself a solutionist. It was a rare occasion when he found himself backed into a corner and needing a helping hand. Hopefully Mr. Douglas was right and this number would provide that, should things get that far out of control.

“What’s his name?”

“Susan,” Mr. Douglas said.

JC paused for a beat, trying to find a way to dig for more information. “Is Joan going to be jealous?” Is she young, old, operator, advisor, politician?

“Sue told me she wants to meet Joan.”

That’s no damn answer. Still. A sudden thought popped into JC’s head, a series of unrelated connections springing into sharp relief in his head.

“Last thing,” JC said quickly before his friend had a chance to hang up. “Theo was keeping tabs on me the past month or so. One of his guys, Levon Mirzoyan, has gone missing. If you get the chance, take a quick dive into it?”

“If I have time, I will,” Mr. Douglas said quickly and quietly. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Watch your six and I’ll be in touch.”

The line was dead before JC could say a word. He sighed and sat there, trying to classify the information he just received, compare it to the existing situation and extrapolate it out to potential other situations and solutions.

Most of all he was trying to figure out who the hell the mystery woman he saw near his house could be.

Thirty minutes later and he was laying on the soft leather of the sofa, stretched out and sound asleep.

Chapter 12

Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Argentina is often referred to as Ezeiza International Airport, so much so that its International Airport Transport Association airport code is EZE. Located in Ezeiza Partido in Greater Buenos Aires, EZE is about fourteen miles south of Buenos Aires proper.

Also, like much of Buenos Aires and, indeed, the world, there were different rules and regulations for people with the means and desire to separate themselves from the larger and poorer section of the populace. While Terminal C was solely for domestic flight and Terminal A solely for international flights, Terminal B, the largest, was for both international and smaller domestic flights. As such, it was the place where private airplanes were directed to. A smaller, less-travelled section of the terminal, Hall C, was reserved for the people who had the means and wherewithal to travel privately, out of sight of the general public.

However, for those with the means, the knowledge and the local connections, private international flights could be routed to the cargo terminal, northeast of the main public terminals. While it was highly uncommon it could be done, complete with customs agents and immigration officials, all paid handsomely to make the appearance of everything being legal but paid even more handsomely to turn a blind eye to whatever passed in front of them.

Porras stepped away from the charcoal grey Ford Expedition he was leaning on, just outside of Hangar B in the cargo terminal, stretched in the lessening heat of the late evening and yawned, loud and long up at the darkened sky.

“Tired, Limon?” Varela asked him, still leaning against the Expedition.

Porras looked at him. Varela smiled back, his easy grin full of glistening white teeth.

I hate that nickname.

“No, Manolo,” Porras replied, looking back out to the runway, “just an early morning. While you were recovering from your late night, I was at the office at four o’clock this morning, dutifully preparing for the arrival of our illustrious clients.”

“Listen, Porras,” Varela said, coming off the Expedition to lean close in to Porras. “I told you not to call me that anymore, especially when the others can hear. I’m sick of it. If we can’t get on the same page here…”

Porras bit back the retort that was on the tip of his tongue. Porras and Varela were speaking English, not Spanish, which decreased the likelihood that they’d be understood by their security staff. The men who worked for them were at least a dozen meters away.

Stick to your exit strategy, he reminded himself.

“Understood, Señor Varela,” Porras said, pacifying the man.

Varela paused before he too stretched, adjusting his crotch when the stretch was over. He looked at the runway, waiting for a plane to taxi by. “Listen,” he said, “we get this maricon checked in over at the Sofitel, your off shift. I’ll stick around, get him all tucked in.”

Porras smiled. It wasn’t like Varela to volunteer for work or to let Porras off the hook for anything. Still, Porras was no fool. If the man was offering, he’d certainly take him up on it. Besides, he hadn’t slept more than ten hours total over the past four nights and was running on fumes.

“Alright, boss,” he said, reverting back to the familiar name all Seguridad Universal personnel used for Varela.

Varela clapped him on the shoulder. “Go home, spend some time with your son and then send him to bed so you can treat your wife like a real woman.”

Porras clenched his jaw and put on his best fake smile. The remark cut deep considering she was currently staying with a cousin on her side of the family. The fact that Varela didn’t know this brought scant comfort. It always put his teeth on edge when Varela spoke about his own stepsister in that way, something he did far too often in Porras’s opinion.

Varela glanced at his watch, looked at the plane coming in for a landing, then nudged Porras, pointing at the incoming flight. “Right on schedule,” he said. Porras waited as Varela went to the four other SUVs, checking assignments with the men on their detail and providing last minute adjustments.

As the plane touched down, the stress released from Porras’s shoulders. While most men in their industry became more stressed as the job progressed, always worried as the protection detail wore on that some bit of bad luck would befall the client right at the end, Porras was the opposite. He was a perfectionist, an excellent strategist and planner, and so far over the past decade every client they had protected came through the other side unscathed. Sure, there were some close calls, an assassination attempt or two avoided, but Porras knew that once the principal was under their care, they simply could not be in better hands.

The private jet taxied towards them, the other men moving the SUVs in a box formation around the plane, the pilot instructed to pull up into the formation as much as possible. Several of the men positioned themselves near where the back of the plane would be, waiting to unload any and everything from the cargo hold. Although none of the men were holding guns, all were armed with twin guns on their hips hidden beneath the navy blue windbreakers with the company name emblazoned on the back. Each SUV held another man with an AR-15 variant waiting and watching. Any attempt would likely be instant death for those trying their luck against the crew of mostly former soldiers.

Varela came back to his side, standing as the plane came to a stop. Porras had one last chance to ask his boss a question that had been avoided or danced around for the past four days.

“Did you ever find out the names of the security personnel the principal is bringing into the country?” he asked Varela.

Varela didn’t look at him, but Porras could see a little sag in his posture.

“Petrosian was the name of one of them,” Varela said, walking towards the plane as the door opened. Porras walked in step with him.

“And the other?”

Varela sighed.

“JC Bannister.”

Porras grabbed Varela’s arm, spinning him as the profanities hissed from between his curled back lips.

“You knew?” Porras finally managed to get out. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

“Ms. Gibbons told me when she called in for the change,” Varela said, not looking at the shorter man, “and I didn’t feel it mattered so, yeah, I didn’t tell you.”

“Didn’t matter?” Porras blurted out, incredulous.

“See, I knew you would act like this, little brother,” Varela said, gently pulling his arm away from Porras’s grasp. “Bannister is merely here as an advisor, a way to placate the principal’s wife and board of directors.”

Porras’s family on his mother’s side was from Bolivia. While nobody in his family was a victim of Bannister’s reign of terror while running security for The Mexican, the hired gun’s expertise, reach and lack of willingness to follow any standards or generally accepted rules were both legendary and frightening. The man Porras now needed to work together with had literally tore Bolivia apart for years before disappearing.

“Rumor has it,” Varela said, “he’s the one to actually put a bullet in the heart of The Mexican.”

Porras shrugged. “He’s a murderer and deserves to be put to death.”

“What would the families of the people you’ve killed over the years say about you?”

“That’s different,” Porras protested. “That’s a-”

“It’s a matter of perspective,” Varela said, cutting him off as the stairs extended from the plane to the ground. “But for now, he is the point man for our client’s security team and I expect you to work with him.” Varela paused, glancing at the plane and back to Porras. “We’re getting paid ten times what this job is worth, so don’t screw it up.”

“Hold on,” Porras said, his breath catching in his throat. “Is Joan with him?”

“No, thank God,” Varela said, crossing himself, “she isn’t. Besides, she can’t come in the country legally after Mauricio.”

Just over two years ago, Joan had assassinated Mauricio de la Rua, known pretty much everywhere he went as just Mauricio. He was one of Argentina’s favored wealthy elite and the head of a billion-dollar telecommunication company. Eyewitness reports, true or otherwise, put her in the area around where he was shot in the head and she was, either officially or unofficially, barred from ever setting foot in the country again. The fact that Mauricio was rumored to be a pedophile before his death with evidence discovered and released afterwards proving it made no difference.

“You should have told me,” Porras said as the two walked towards the plane, the stewardesses descending the steps. As the stewardess’s low heels touched the tarmac, Porras and Varela stopped. All thoughts of the client were pushed from his mind as he waited to see the devil himself step from the plane and onto Argentinian soil.

“You’re protecting one of the world’s worst killers,” Porras said just loud enough for Varela to hear.

His boss didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Sometimes that was the job and, despite the depravity of the client’s hired security team, they were tasked with getting the client safely to their meetings and back on the flight to New York in three days’ time.

Porras shivered as a cool wind blew through the night and across the tarmac. It had been a warm day and a warm evening and, despite the wind he knew exactly why he shivered.

It was actual fear, something he hadn’t felt in quite some time.

Chapter 13

JC gently insisted the flight crew leave the plane ahead of him. It wasn’t chivalrous, he knew. Some might say he was using them as human shields. However he much preferred to hang back and catch a glimpse of the reaction of those waiting on the tarmac. It wasn’t much of an advantage, maybe a few seconds, but sometimes that’s all it took.

This time, however, there was nothing to be gained by it. As he walked through the opening in the fuselage, he stopped, stretched and looked around even more. The two men waiting for them just beyond the steps were more than likely the leads of the operation. He had their names and photos from the files Ms. Gibbons prepared for him and he guessed he was right but until introductions were made he wouldn’t be sure. He glanced around; perhaps a dozen men, maybe up to a dozen and a half, scurried around looking busy. Handful of SUVs, all charcoal grey, American but he couldn’t tell from this angle which make or model. He doubted they were armored. They didn’t look like it and, although Visionary was paying top dollar, he didn’t think it would buy that many armored vehicles.

“Any problems?” Theo said behind him.

“No, just a little stretch,” JC said. “We’ve got the cavalry down their waiting for us,” he said over his shoulder before making his way down the steep stairs.

“Great,” Theo said, blocking the fuming Tyler Braun from edging past them and heading down the stairs. They had wanted a low-key operation, in fact had insisted that Ms. Gibbons communicate that to the security agency here in Buenos Ares. The message had either not gotten through or was ignored.

JC took each step deliberately and slowly. He didn’t want to tumble end over teakettle before he even stepped foot in Argentina. Plus, he was sizing up the two men waiting for them.

The closer one was tall, probably a few inches over JC’s six-one but a little slimmer. Although JC had what was routinely called a swimmer’s physique, his last few months hitting the gym and boxing more had filled out his upper body more than usual. By quick estimates, JC figured he had about twenty pounds on the tall man.

The shorter of the two, however, was the one that concerned him. At about five-nine he was about halfway between JC and Theo in height and weight. The man wasn’t stocky, wasn’t slim, but was solidly built. JC guessed he came from farming stock or a family lineage that put bread on the table through the strength of their arms and the sweat from their brows.

That didn’t really bother JC. What bothered him was the man’s obvious blind anger and what seemed like near hatred written all over the man’s face. As he got closer the man put a damper on it, smoothing it out, but by any estimation he was less than pleased to see JC and, were he to see him across a bar or crowded plaza, JC would pin him as the one who would pull a gun and starting pumping bullets in JC’s general direction.

As his foot hit the tarmac, the taller of the two moved towards JC, his broad smile growing even bigger as he extended his hand.

“Welcome to Buenos Ares, gentlemen,” the man said. “I am Manuel Varela, head of Seguridad Universal and this is my second in command and right hand, Salvador Porras,” indicating the shorter and stockier man to his right.

As hands were shook, and JC introduced himself, Theo and Braun, he watched Porras do a far better job of hiding his anger and contempt for JC. It was still there, but at least he was more professional about it.

Good, JC thought. Maybe I won’t have to worry about him putting a bullet in my back.

“My men are unloading the plane and will have everything delivered to the Sofitel,” Varela said. “If you’re ready, Mr. Braun?” he continued, indicating the grey SUV right behind him.

“Yes,” Braun said, “let’s get to it.”

As Theo went around to the passenger side of the vehicle, JC pulled Braun back a second.

“You follow our lead,” he said the telecom giant in a low growl. “While your company may have hired these guys, your wife and the board hired us.” He paused as Theo settled in and closed the door on his side. “Clear?”

Braun nodded once, tersely, in reply. JC let him go and followed him into the vehicle as Varela and Porras got into the passenger’s side and driver’s side, respectively.

“We good to go?” Varela asked, his neck craned around, his big smile of white teeth flashing in JC’s direction.

“Good to go,” JC said, returning a smile that was a fraction of Varela’s brilliance and intensity. He didn’t know what bee was under Porras’s bonnet, but sooner or later he’d need to find out. Whatever it was, he needed it neutralized sooner rather than later in order to make things as smooth as possible on this trip.

As Porras stepped on the gas and the American engine powered them across the tarmac, JC hoped his plan to tamp down that problem would work.

Chapter 14

“Reason for visiting Argentina?” the immigration officer asked.

“Pleasure,” the woman said. “Just taking a little vacation from work.” She smiled, treading the line between overly friendly and dismissive.

The immigration officer, a man in his mid-forties glanced up at her quickly, his trained eyes searching for the data points on her face that would be unlikely to visibly change without major reconstructive surgery: the space between her eyes, shape of her forehead, cheekbones, and chin. All that was taken in within the space of a hair over a second, stored in his memory, then evaluated against the photo that was laminated into her American passport.

It was a match. The passport must have been recent. He could tell by the crispness of the cover when she handed it to him, further confirmed by the lack of stamps on the interior pages of the little blue book. Plus the photo on the second page of the book looked like it could have been taken a month ago. It was an exact match.

Still he needed to follow protocol. He typed her name and nationality into the system. While he waited for the computer to search its multiple databases and spit back nothing of importance to him, he held the passport up in the air so he could visually, obviously, compare the face against the photo.

It was a ridiculous gesture that he hated doing but it was protocol. The camera behind him had already analyzed her face far more completely than he could have, comparing her face to millions of other images and sifting through them all to determine if this short, attractive woman was a threat to la Republica Argentina.

The woman smiled again, warmer this time. She wasn’t trying to come onto him, just being friendly and understanding that the man had a job to do. He knew the difference. The ones who tried to come onto him he always suspected. He wasn’t that good-looking, he knew, which meant they were trying to hide something. Those were the ones who he took an extra-long time to approve or, rarely, send off for further questioning regardless of what the computer said.

“First time out of the US?” he asked.

“No,” the woman claiming to be Veronica Acardi said. “Just a new passport. Lost my old one in a fire.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the immigration official said, trying to thread the needle between too concerned and not concerned enough. He glanced at his screen, her information pulled up. No red flags, no detention orders, nothing that the cameras, facial recognition software and databases would recognize as a problem.

Still, he had his job to do.

“What work do you do?”

“Account manager,” the woman said, matching what was in his database. He could tell by her records she’d spent time in the military. She’d worked at the FBI, then CIA, then moved to the private sector. He resisted the desire to widen his eyes at her impressive career. Still, just because someone had an impressive career didn’t mean they would continue on that trajectory. Could be any of a dozen reasons why she’d now be an account manager of…

“Banking?” the man asked, fishing.

“Marketing,” the woman said, her smile broadening. “I’m good at convincing people,” she said with a shrug.

The hairs on the back of the man’s neck stood up. It wasn’t what she said but the way she said it, combined with her military experience and her time at the FBI and the CIA. He had nothing to go on except his gut, however, and despite his love for his country and his job, his gut didn’t match the intel given to him about this woman. Which meant his superiors would nail him to the wall if he red-flagged a visitor for no good reason again.

Gut instinct was no longer a good enough reason, something he’d learned the hard way. Aggressive flirting for no reason was acceptable. The hairs on the back of his neck raising based on the way a visitor expressed a perfectly reasonable answer was not. That had been very clearly delineated to him in his last performance review, the spittle flying from his superior’s mouth driving the point home when he yelled at him.

“Welcome to Buenos Aires,” the immigration officer said, stamping her new passport and handing it back to her.

As she smiled, said thank you, picked up her bag and headed for the baggage claim area, the immigration officer took a quick moment to flag her record for further review the next time she passed through immigration. He might not be able to pull her aside for further questioning based on a hunch, but he’d be damned if he got his ass nailed to the wall because he let the next female assassin into the country without so much as a note in her file.

He shivered as he waved the next tourist to come forward, remembering the poor immigration officer who allowed Joan Green into the country. After she assassinated the head of the largest telecom company a few years ago, that poor bastard was literally assigned to watch over a goat trail on the Argentinian border with Chile, a good day’s drive from the closest thing that could even be called a town.

*****

It was thirty minutes into the bus ride headed to downtown Buenos Aires before Ronnie stopped silently kicking herself.

It was an offhand comment about marketing, something she was actually good at, that had made the immigration officer’s eyes almost pop out of his head. By the time she’d picked up her small rolling bag from the conveyer belt in baggage claims she had put two-and-two together. Her record must have listed her time in the military plus her stints at the FBI and CIA.

As the backpacker in the seat across from her kept sketching on a piece of paper and not-so-subtly looking at her to check his work, Ronnie decided to chalk it up to bad luck and an overly suspicious immigration officer. While he may flag her file, there was nothing else that he could do. She’d committed no crimes in the country, or any country, that could be connected to her.

So instead of continuing to worry about it, she made a mental note to be more careful in the future and set her mind to why she was actually in Buenos Aires to begin with.

The call came when she was waiting by the gate in Logan International to catch a flight to Dulles International just outside D.C. She could fly to D.C. but the next morning he wanted her on a flight to Buenos Aires. No word of her mission there, just that she needed to travel light and be mobile.

Which is exactly what she did. The rolling duffle at her feet contained a backpack with only the essentials she would need for three days. Her carry-on could strap onto her backpack if needed or be carried by its shoulder strap, the rolling duffle easily discarded or replaced. Anything else she might need could be purchased or acquired in-country. She had reservations at a two-star hotel just off Avenida Santa Fe. It was set back from the street, small, cheap and quiet. She knew she’d be sleeping light, traveling light, moving fast because that is what her boss wanted and he was pretty much always right.

Not always, she said to herself as she pulled out her phone and started scanning the news, looking for hints of what might be coming her way. Whatever it was, JC Bannister was involved and she was fine with furthering his destruction.

Ted Williams, former deputy director of the CIA, had almost come unglued when she told him of Bannister catching a glance of her outside his apartment. The job was surveillance, he had reminded eloquently reminded her, not being identified. While neither of them expected him to know who she was or who she was affiliated with, it limited somewhat what she could do. She had apologized and Williams had accepted, but she knew his actual acceptance was conditioned upon how she could perform her appointed tasks in the near future.

The sound of paper tearing snapped her attention across the aisle to the backpacker. He was leaning forward, a piece of heavy sketching paper held in his hand, offering it to her.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, early twenties, sun-tanned and skinny with long hair and beach bum written all over his casual demeanor. Ronnie took the paper from him, looking at it. “You were just so beautiful, sitting there in the light of the passing streetlights, I had to sketch you.”

Ronnie glanced up at him, then back to the paper, continuing to be lit by the passing streetlights. It was better than she expected. She’d never been good at art or sketching. Her forte was music and sports, then later shooting and martial arts as she progressed through the ROTC program at Columbia. But she could tell he was good.

She handed it back to him.

“No, no,” he said, putting his hands up, smiling. “I want you to have that.” He paused as she continued to hold it out to him. “Maybe later, if you have time, I can make a more detailed sketch of you. If you like.”

Ronnie sighed and set it on the seat next to her. The kid was coming on strong and while he wasn’t the worst person she’d been hit on by, she had other thoughts, other plans for the trip. “Thanks, but I’m married,” she lied as she focused back on her phone.

“Look,” the man said, his voice coming closer as he presumably leaned towards her even more. “That doesn’t have to matter here, you know.”

“It does to me,” Ronnie replied with a practiced iciness.

She heard the sound of the paper being lifted from the seat where she left it. She didn’t look in his direction but she could hear the beach bum moving his stuff around, likely putting it and his sketch pad away. She kept her eyes on her phone, scanning for something that might help her anticipate any upcoming actions or disruptions, allowing her to focus on why she was in Buenos Aires anyway.

Ronnie had narrowly escaped the assault on her boss’s warehouse in Virginia with her life only a few months ago. She’d managed to save the hard drives of their computers along with several duffle bags of cash, gold and diamonds that allowed Williams to restart a far smaller but more nimble version of the agency he was previously building.

Is that it? she asked herself as she scrolled past a news story about a merger between an Argentinian and American telecommunications conglomerate. She stopped to read the story. The merger was a year plus in the making and had faced all sorts of regulatory hurdles: lawsuits from both American and Argentinian officials, stockholders and competitors. Even some of the governments in the European Union protested about it. Regardless, it was going ahead and the deal was supposed to be signed in a matter of days.

That’s gotta be why I’m here, she said to herself, putting her phone away and settling in for the last twenty or so minutes of the bus ride. Williams had been increasingly focused on the concept of information as opposed to actual boots on the ground. He had tried running an extra-national force and it blew up in his face. Information and influence were much easier commodities to trade in, assuming you had the right information for the right person to influence at the right time.

If her supposition was right, Ronnie had no idea how Williams had managed to work his way into the middle of a deal between the two international companies, but she kind of didn’t care. All she wanted to know is how could she be the most ready for whatever he needed her to do.

He’s almost always right, she said to herself, her body tense from the fight, the immigration official and the apprehension at what might be coming. Regardless, her mind forced her body to try anyway as the bus rocked its way through the streets of Buenos Aires.

Almost always.

“Does it work?” she said after about five minutes, her eyes still closed.

“Does what?” the beach bum replied.

“The drawing come-on,” Ronnie said, actually curious.

The man said nothing for a beat. Just as Ronnie’s defensive nature was going to order her to open her eyes, the guy said, “More often than you think.”

Ronnie smiled, appreciating the man’s answer but doubting its honesty.

“Then best of luck to you,” she said, keeping her eyes closed and trying to let sleep overtake her. The man was harmless, she said to herself, just a kid backpacking across South America.

She set her mind to fulfilling her boss’s mission. The first step, after checking into the hotel, was finding out where she could buy a gun or two in Argentina. She didn’t know if she was going to need them, but in her experience it was always better to have them then to be without.

“Are you really married?” the guy asked.

Ronnie said nothing, allowing the tiniest hint of a smile to creep across her face as the bus continued on through the night into Buenos Aires proper, the smell of diesel and old vinyl filling her nostrils, the passing streetlamps registering as bright spots against the darkness inside her closed eyelids.

Chapter 15

The Dassault Falcon 7X with Visionary Telecommunications emblazoned on the side landed just after eight on Thursday evening. The drive from the airport to the Sofitel in the Recoleta neighborhood took exactly forty-three minutes with traffic. By the time Porras piloted the charcoal grey Chevy Tahoe XL to the front of the hotel, four camera crews from four television stations were already set up and broadcasting with three more crews jostling to get into position.

“Go around them,” Varela said to Porras. “In the back, by the delivery entrance.”

“The hell you will,” Braun snapped before JC had a chance to say a word. “I’m not sneaking into this hotel like some celebrity crawling into rehab. You pull up front and stop in full view of those damn cameras.”

Varela looked at JC and received a shrug for his efforts. JC agreed with Braun. There would likely be camera crews around the back as well. The arrival of the man was no secret thanks to the gaudy paintjob on the private plane. News of the impending merger had been in the business press for close to six months and in the local press here in Argentina for the past three. It was no surprise that press crews would be here already. JC and Theo had already prepared for it and decided to do exactly what Braun had told Varela to do.

If Varela hadn’t planned ahead or prepared for it, that was on him.

“It’s alright, boss,” Porras said to him in Spanish as he turned into the five-star luxury hotel’s driveway. “We expected this,” he continued as he stopped the vehicle.

Covering for his boss, JC said to himself as he glanced over the few people standing outside the lobby near the brass-encased glass doors. Smart.

Varela jumped out, speaking quickly to the doormen waiting on them. Theo followed, clearing the area visually, his very expensive, very well-tailored navy-blue sport coat hiding the two Glock 18s in shoulder holsters and the other pair of the fully automatic pistols on his waist. While there was likely to be no threat, neither JC nor Theo believed in coming to the party under gunned. In a protection detail in another country, it was always a thin line on how much firepower to show and how much to conceal. The Austrian pistol with its select-fire capability bridged the gap between concealable and international incident nicely.

Braun was out next, turning to the cameras and waving as Porras jumped out, coming around the vehicle to protect him from both the cameras as well as any shooters on the street. JC was last, his face never turning to the cameras. While he wasn’t exactly known, he wasn’t exactly unknown either. He didn’t want his presence by Braun’s side to be a distraction so he did what he could to keep his face and identity hidden from the public eye.

As Bannister exited the vehicle, the first of the four other charcoal grey SUVs in the entourage pulled into the hotel driveway, setting off a flurry of camera flashes as both the news people and the cameramen turned to capture the latest development.

Thirty seconds later and JC was inside, his own tan suit jacket unbuttoned, his own pair of Glock 18s in shoulder holsters and a matched pair just behind his hipbones perfectly hidden thanks to his very astute, very discrete and very expensive tailor on Saville Row in London.

*****

Three short hours later and JC and Theo’s work for the day was finally winding down.

The plane full of Visionary executives, lawyers, accountants and marketing geniuses all felt they needed face time with Braun when, in fact, none of what they felt they needed to share was pertinent. JC corralled them all into a conference room for an hour with Seguridad Universal men guarding the entrance. At an hour exactly, JC knocked on the door, went in and whisked Braun out to more than a few complaints.

More than anything JC wanted his eyes on the man. Braun was getting squirrely and impatient. Perhaps it was because there was a massive merger happening between his baby and a hostile company. Perhaps it was something else. But the more JC controlled access to the man, the safer he felt and the more likely for Braun to make it out alive.

Two hours later and Braun was tucked in for the night save for a late-night meal of sanguche de milanesa, a popular beef sandwich Braun said he’d been craving for weeks. While Braun waited in his room for the sandwich to be prepared, JC and Theo set to meshing what they required with the security personnel on the ground.

Coordinating with the Seguridad Universal personnel about the schedule and travel plans for the next three days took far longer than JC and Theo imagine or hoped. While Varela seemed to not care much beyond the initial ten minutes and had quickly excused himself, Porras kept arguing about any change in timing or the driving schedule or route that JC and Theo presented.

The text message JC received from Mr. Douglas right after Braun was tucked in didn’t help matters. Levon’s body had been found on a construction site not far from the N. Beacon Street bridge. Preliminary evidence pointed to torture, murder and torching the body to hide the evidence. As much as JC wanted to save Theo the pain, he had to tell him. Doing so caused a ten-minute emotional outburst and tirade, followed by a cold, slow burn. Theo was functioning but the sooner he could have some time to himself and process the grief, the better.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t now. As Theo’s anger turned into a pressure cooker, repeatedly flying off the handle and matched tirade for tirade by Porras, JC was finally able to see through Porras’s stubbornness and continued recalcitrant reactions.

He’s proud of his work, JC said to himself as Theo and Porras yelled at each other, nose to nose, both of them pounding the map in on the table in the conference room on the second floor. He’s genuinely concerned about doing the best job he could possibly do.

“Theo,” JC said, bringing his partner back from the brink of an actual fistfight. “Why don’t you go down to the kitchen and check on Braun’s meal. He doesn’t get that sandwich before long he’ll pitch a fit and step in it.”

“The chef is our private chef, contracted especially to prepare the principal’s meals,” Porras growled, his eyes still inches from Theo’s.

“Regardless,” JC said, stretching and yawning. “I want him to go down there and verify that SU’s chef is the man actually preparing the meal.”

Theo stood up, pulling back from the nearly inevitable fistfight. Straightened his back to his full five-seven height, his belly sticking out in front of him, executed a perfect military about face and walked for the door, never looking back. JC half expected him to slam the door closed behind him, but to the man’s credit, it closed as quietly as it could.

“He’s wrong, you know,” Porras said, trying to lure JC into continuing the fight with Theo. “That route is going to cost us ten minutes.”

“What I know,” JC said, stretching and yawning again, “is that the amount of time and energy you spent on these plans must have been monumental.”

Porras paused a second. JC could see the flash of confusion on his face, quickly hidden. He’s getting better.

“Thank you,” Porras said stiffly. “We try to ensure the safety of all our protectees.”

“But this is a pretty big gig,” JC said, standing up and going to the refreshment table on the side of the room nearest the door that Theo just left from. “It must mean a lot for Varela to score such a lucrative job.”

“I don’t-”

“Come on,” JC said, walking back with a bottle of water for both himself and Porras. “Visionary throws money around like they don’t even know how much it’s worth.” Sat back. “I would have thought Varela would be here.”

Porras shrugged, looking down at the paperwork and maps. “He’s coordinating with the other members of the team. Besides,” he said, opening the bottle of water, “the scheduling and operations around route planning are my responsibility.”

There it is, JC said to himself, watching as Porras took a swig from the bottle. The disgruntled employee. Wonder for how long, or if it’s a ruse.

“Varela’s more of the ‘corporate face of the company’ type of guy?” JC asked, using air quotes. “The kind that leaves the heavy lifting to his lessers?” Took a drink from his water bottle as the anger swept across Porras’s face.

“We started this company together,” Porras said, “built it together. We’re equal partners in this.”

JC nodded as he swallowed, putting that bit of information in the vault for later. He had something more important he wanted to air out.

“Fair enough,” JC said, standing and moving to the plate glass window on the outside of the room, looking down on the street below, his back to Porras. The camera crews were still outside even though the sun was beginning to set. Some of them were attaching battery-powered lights to the tops of their shoulder-mounted cameras. “Tell me something,” he said, turning to Porras as he did. “Do you have family in Bolivia?”

Porras squinted his eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a simple question,” JC said, his face hardening, his voice deepening, knowing a fight with Porras could be brewing before the man even knew it. “You dodging the answer tells me quite a bit.” He stepped forward, placing his water bottle on a chair that was against the wall. “Do you have family in Bolivia?”

“I don’t see how that has any-”

“Because you’ve been giving me nothing but side eye since I got off the plane at Ezeiza. I haven’t harmed or injured you in anyway, other than giving you some extra work due to our late addition to the trip.” JC paused, his arms at his sides, hanging loose and ready to deal with the rising tension. “Only thing I can figure is you’ve got family in Bolivia because while I may have done some dirt in Argentina, I did a whole ton of horrible shit in Bolivia back in the day.”

Porras stared at JC for a second, his eyes shooting daggers at him. He looked into the water bottle, slowly put the top back on it and set it down without looking on the table directly behind himself, away from the paperwork and maps on the table. JC watched, waiting, knowing the man had a Bersa TPR9C handgun on his right hip. JC’s jacket was off, thrown over a chair at the head of the table, and his twin Glock 18s were ready for him to counter with any potentially deadly move Porras made, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“My mother’s family comes from Bolivia,” Porras said.

“Did any of them die by my hand?” JC said, as harshly as he felt necessary.

Porras slowly shook his head. “No,” he said, “but the terror you struck into their hearts still effects their actions today.”

He looked down at the ground and sighed. Forced his adrenaline away, lowered his shoulders, making all the right body movements to disarm Porras and let him know that the fight he wanted wasn’t going to happen.

You know what your dad would say, he said to himself. There’s a way… if you’re brave enough to take it. He sighed. Miss you, dad.

He looked back up to Porras, saw the fear and hatred on the man’s face, not covered or disguised. JC pointed at him. “I’ve earned that look,” he said. “But I have to tell you, I’m not the same person I was back then.”

“Easy to say,” Porras spat.

JC put both open hands in front of him, chest level, palms open. “I’m going to draw a gun,” he said, “with two fingers from the pocket of my slacks.” His words and actions were slow and measured.

Porras’s hand went to the gun on his hip. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“To make a point,” JC said, his right hand moving slowly to the pocket of his pants, reaching in with his thumb and forefinger, the remaining three fingers awkwardly outside of the pocket. “Watch what I do carefully,” he said. “I won’t make any sudden movements if you don’t.”

Porras’s eyes were flashing everywhere, from JC’s right hand and pocket to his left, to his eyes, to his chest, trying to take in every bit of information and read every action as it happened.

JC’s right hand pulled away from his pocket, the butt of a small gun pinched between his thumb and right forefinger. He moved it slowly between he and Porras, the gun perpendicular to the both of them. He inched his left hand above the gun. His left thumb and forefinger held onto the slide, his right hand releasing then repositioning itself.

“I’m going to drop the magazine,” he said, pushing the magazine release button just after he said the words, the steel and polymer magazine falling from the gun onto the floor between them.

To Porras’s credit, the man didn’t flinch or jump as the magazine hit the floor. He kept watching, his hand still on the Bersa at his hip.

JC repositioned his hands once again, racking the slide, the small bullet flying from the ejection port and landing on the floor as well. He gripped the barrel and slide of the gun in his left hand and presented the butt of the weapon to Porras.

“What is this?” the man said, confused, his hand not moving from his own gun.

“It’s a Kahr CW380,” JC said. “Two-and-a-half-inch barrel, shade under five inches long, shade under four inches tall. Weighs a hair under twelve ounces fully loaded with a trigger pull that doesn’t stack and is as smooth as butter.”

“I know what it is,” Porras said, his eyes glues to JC’s face. “What are you doing is my question.”

“I’m giving you my personal backup gun,” JC said. “Yes, I have another in my bag over there,” he continued, nodding to the stack of luggage that hadn’t been moved into his and Theo’s room just yet, “but I’m giving you the one from my pocket.” He nodded towards the gun. “Come on, it’s a sweet pistol. Nearly disappears in your hand, let alone your pocket. Try it out.”

Porras looked down at the gun, then back to JC. He slowly reached for it. JC couldn’t but help thinking the man was like a raccoon reaching for food while a human was watching, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice but eager to take the proffered treat.

Porras took the gun from JC’s hand and began to examine it. Within ten seconds his hand was wrapped around the grip, checking the sight profile of the unloaded weapon and testing the trigger pull.

“Again,” he said as the firing pin clicked onto an empty chamber, “why would you do this?”

JC bent down and picked up the loaded magazine from the floor as well as the bullet from the Kahr’s chamber, pocketing them was he walked over to his luggage.

“To make a point,” he said over his shoulder as he opened one of the bags and started rummaging through it.

“What point is that?” Porras said as he pulled the trigger again, pulled the slide back to reset the striker and pulled it again, looking for the breaking point in the trigger’s travel.

“That the JC that worked for The Mexican in Bolivia is not the JC that I am now,” he said, walking back to Porras. “Would you ever imagine in a million years that JC would give his personal backup gun to a man who might possibly want to kill him?”

JC stopped and placed a stack of four boxes of ammo with fifty rounds each on the table along with a zippered plastic bag containing two metal barrels and a few other small parts.

“That’s two barrels, two replacement firing pins and two replacement extractors.” He paused. “You know, just in case you ever need to use it and want to keep the weapon.”

Porras looked up at him, to the stack of bullets and bag of gun parts and then back to JC. JC sat down, elbows on his knees, tiring of the incredulity on Porras’s face but knowing that the only person he could blame was himself.

“What is this,” he said, placing the Kahr on the table next to the parts, “some kind of Bannister trick? Give me a gun that’s already connected to crimes? Or maybe one that will fail when I need it the most?” He leaned in towards JC. “You trying to get me killed?”

“I’m a lot of things,” JC said, his eyes hard at the accusation Porras leveled at him, “but a sneaky cheat isn’t one of them. If I’m coming for you, you’ll know it.”

“Did the kids in that school bus you blew up in La Paz know it?”

JC sighed and leaned back as Porras stood, a smug look on his face.

“I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anybody else,” JC said. “That school bus? I triggered the bomb myself. I planted the bomb, I followed the bus through the city, watching each and every person who got on and off. And when the bus was traveling through an industrial area of the city with no people or traffic around, I pushed the plunger down myself.” He leaned forward, pointing at a faint scar above his eyebrow. “This is from a piece of the axle that came flying through the windshield of the truck I was driving.”

“But the news…”

“Was controlled by Calvo and his cartel. They did everything in their power to make every action we executed look worse than it was.” Paused, sitting back, shaking his head. “Give twenty bucks each to five people on the street and suddenly you’ve got five witnesses, three of whom somehow lost their elementary school son or daughter on a bus explosion that had no children.” Shook his head. “The only people who died that day were a driver, three cocaine chemists and the hired guns of a Bolivian drug lord.” Smiled. “That and about a year’s worth of his organization’s cocaine.”

Porras shook his head. “You think that absolves you of everything? Of the reputation you’ve earned over the years?”

“No,” JC said, shaking his head as well. “That reputation was well earned.” He paused a moment, hoping both sides of that statement sunk into Porras’s brain. “But you and I share a common goal, do we not?”

Porras nodded slowly.

JC could tell his words were having an effect. Truth be told, he didn’t care if Porras liked him or not. However, the man’s hatred of him could definitely have a negative impact on the job he and Theo were hired to do. And since there was only the two of them versus a whole bunch of Seguridad Universal personnel, he needed to put out the fires where he could. And if that meant giving up one of the four Kahr P380s he had in his luggage in addition to telling the truth to a man nobody would likely ever believe, then so be it.

“Now,” JC continued, “whether you take that gun and carry it, use it to protect your life or the lives of the ones you love or just put it in a drawer and tell stories of how the arch-criminal JC Bannister gave you a gun once upon a time, the choice is yours.” He stood, picking up the empty gun and held it out to Porras once again. “However, for the next three days we’re on the same mission, best I can tell, and I’d like to know the guy I’m riding with isn’t planning on putting a bullet through the back of my head.”

He paused, waiting for Porras to take the gun.

“Can I count on you at least that much?” JC said, pushing the matter.

“Of course,” Porras said, taking the gun from JC’s open palm and sighting down the slide again. “It is a sweet little gun.”

JC smiled and handed over the clip and the extra bullet from the chamber to Porras along with the slim pocket holster the weapon rode in. It was a small price to pay in order to not only figure out where the source of Porras’s animosity sprang from, but to also defuse the situation and get at least one of Varela’s teammates on his side.

The door to the conference room swung open followed immediately by a swearing Theo Petrosian. He was halfway around the conference table before he stopped, the radically improved mood of the room finally filtering through his brain.

“We good?” he asked.

“I dunno, Porras?” JC said with a smile as he clapped the shorter man on the shoulder. “Are we good?”

Porras loaded the magazine into the Kahr CW380, racked the slide, ejected the magazine, loaded the last bullet into it, reloaded the slide, holstered the weapon and slid it into his pocket. “Your route will only cost us a minute, at the outset, but will actually be safer than the one I chose.” He paused, smiling. “So yeah, we’re good.”

Theo nodded, smiling as well. “Alright,” he said, “let’s get this thing put to bed, make sure Braun is fat dumb and happy with his sandwich, and then let me go get drunk.”

JC chuckled, knowing that he would have a long conversation later with Theo about why he did what he did and the dangers inherent to it. But for now, the big man followed his lead and the three once again gathered around the maps and schedules and paperwork involved with keeping Tyler Braun alive in Argentina long enough to complete his multi-billion-dollar merger.

Chapter 16

Theo glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was just past one. The principal, Tyler Braun, was likely asleep upstairs in the executive suite while the exceptionally gorgeous five-foot-ten woman with beautiful blonde hair, a skintight dress and boobs the size of cantaloupes who had spent the last twenty minutes falling all over him was probably a prostitute.

Theo knew he was a grower, not a shower. He had a surprising ability to consistently date women three to four levels of hotness above himself. It wasn’t because he was loaded or had the biggest swinging dick in the room. It was because when he wanted to he could be one devilishly charming bastard, enough so that a majority of women, even ones who could be mistaken for models, would be willing and able to look past his five-seven height, the extra forty pounds around his middle and be intrigued and excited by the man he was.

But this woman didn’t have a chance to get past all that other stuff. She didn’t have a chance to have her natural defenses wooed by Theo Petrosian’s legendary humor and rakish wit. She could wake up in the morning and be a solid nine and, after spending time to make herself look fantastic, she’d be somewhere around a nine point five or full-on dime piece, which is exactly where she was now. Snug blue dress, small black leather clutch under her right arm, black leather flats that looked out of place with her dress and hair and makeup.

Theo laughed at the joke she just made, her English far better than his Spanish, raised his glass and pretended to drink, keeping his lips closed as he did. It had been drummed into his head by his father and later by the Army — if someone approaches you who wouldn’t normally do so, figure out what the scam is.

No way would she normally come up to me, Theo said to himself, not in a million years. On the outside he was telling her a story about one of his cousins knocking off an armored truck when the kid was just seventeen. On the inside, he was saying, Time to figure out what her angle is. Is she a pro looking for a payday, a local girl looking for an escape, or something worse?

His story finished, he leaned over and half-whispered in her ear. “I’m a little tired,” he said. “How about you come up to my room and put me to bed.” He paused as she laughed. “You can join me if you like.”

“I don’t know,” she said, smiling as if it were a foregone conclusion. “You seem like all sorts of tough guy. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe you’re a bad man, like your cousin and your other family members.”

Theo shrugged. “I’m bad,” he said with a smile, “but not that bad.”

“Maybe you are,” she continued, teasing. “Maybe you’re so bad you’ll end up in prison like your father and uncles.”

Theo froze, his brain suddenly on fire but his veins filled with ice. All possibility of this being some random woman disappeared in a nanosecond. He worked hard to keep the smile on his face, knowing he was losing the battle, so he forced a yawn and a stretch, looking around the bar as he did. In the brief instant he was able to survey the place, he saw nobody obviously eyeing him, but it didn’t quiet the screaming from the instincts deep in his sinking stomach.

You’re in danger. Run.

His rational mind won the battle. Yes, he was in danger. But he needed to discover from who. There was only one way to do that.

“Listen, Sonya,” he said, “I’ve genuinely enjoyed this conversation with you tonight. But, all joking aside, I am supremely tired and these drinks aren’t helping.” He leaned in again. “I would love to spend the rest of the evening with you, getting to know you better. But I’m about ready to fall off this bar stool. I need to go upstairs and get comfortable.” He paused, letting the fact that he was leaving one way or the other sink in. “Would you like to join me?”

It wasn’t an amazing hard sell, it wasn’t a masterful come on. It was, however, nearly an ultimatum. If the woman wanted to join him, for whatever reason, she would have to say yes.

Theo had a strong suspicion she would.

“Do you snore?” she asked, still flirting.

“I don’t know,” Theo said, forcing a smile that he didn’t feel. “I’m asleep, so I don’t really know.”

“I guess I’m going to find out for both of us, then,” she said, linking her arm in his.

Bar tab paid, Theo and Sonya were in the elevator two minutes later. Sonya was doing her level best to meld her body into his. Theo was doing his level best to figure out his next move while not alerting her.

Chapter 17

He was running. Out of breath. Always out of breath. The places changed, sometimes it was London, sometimes Paris, sometimes Pyongyang or Seoul or Kandahar or any of the other places he’d been where he’d lost people or almost lost people. Tonight, it was La Paz. Again.

Dammit, he swore in his dream. I hate La Paz.

He looked over his shoulder, saw someone getting closer, never their face, just the shape. But he clearly saw the double-barrel shotgun in their hands. He turned the corner just as it blasted behind him. And again. And again.

Something was off. The shotgun he saw the figure holding was a double-barreled shotgun and he’d just heard three blasts in quick succession. That ain’t right. He looked over his shoulder again. They were there, closer, too close. He had no corners to turn, but there was a burned-out sedan on the street. He dived for it.

Too late.

Four blasts from the shotgun.

He felt the skin on his hands and arm peel back from the gravel and rocks on the pavement as he landed behind the husk of the vehicle, but nothing from the shotgun.

What’s going on?

The figure came into view. He looked up at it.

“JC!” the figure yelled, coming into focus.

Theo?

“Open up!”

Dream Theo pointed the double barrel shotgun in the sky and started firing off shell after shell after shell without reloading.

JC opened his eyes. They weren’t shotgun blasts. They were fists pounding on his door and they didn’t stop.

“Open up, JC!” he heard Theo bellow again.

They had gotten separate rooms, however the hotel had given them adjoining ones with a shared private door between them. As JC shook off the sleep, slipped on a pair of shorts and grabbed a t-shirt and a pistol, he heard a female voice arguing with Theo.

“What the hell,” he muttered as he opened the door between their rooms.

A tall blonde in a skin-tight dress and heels was tumbling through the door before JC had a chance to step back. The girl bounced off of him, forcing him to drop his shirt but not his pistol. As he caught her and stepped backwards into the room, Theo was right behind her, pushing her again, slamming the door between the rooms behind himself.

“Get the hell in there and sit your ass down,” Theo barked at her.

As JC backed up even more, letting go of the girl, she jerked her arm free, turned and spewed an ugly volley of Spanish profanity at Theo, then turned back around and did the same for JC.

“No way,” she finally said, switching to English. “No way am I doing both of you tonight. Not at once, you sick bastard.”

“Who sent you?” Theo yelled at her as JC backed up even more, checking to make sure there were no weapons laying around where this unknown woman could get easy access to.

“What the hell are you talking about?” the woman spat back at Theo.

“Ain’t no way a pro like you approaches a guy like me in a bar on a friggin’ Thursday night.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, tell me something I don’t know.”

JC let the two yell at each other a bit as he walked back to the second queen bed in the room, the one nearest the door, and picked up another t-shirt from his open suitcase. He placed his pistol next to the case, put the shirt on, then headed for the closet, gun in hand, and put his shoulder holster on over his t-shirt. Glock secured, he went back to the two still-arguing recent arrivals.

“I’m outta here,” the woman said, heading for the door.

Theo stepped in front of her. “You ain’t going nowhere.”

The blonde tried to muscle past Theo and while she had a couple inches of height on Theo even without the heels, the man was close to two hundred and forty pounds and if he chose, he could literally toss her around the room like a ragdoll. As Theo and the woman engaged in a lop-sided pushing match, JC stepped forward, determined to get the situation wrapped up before it spiraled even more out of control.

Before he could say anything, the woman literally spat in Theo’s face, the unfocused spittle spattering on the man’s wide cheek. Theo’s wide hands wrapped around her biceps and in one swift movement he lifted her up, stepped forward and threw her onto the bed JC was sleeping peacefully only two minutes ago.

“What the hell, Theo?” JC said, putting his arm out to restrain his friend.

“Where’s my father?” Theo yelled at the woman now struggling to get off the bed, her fear beginning to overtake her anger and indignation.

“I don’t give a damn where the hell that sonofabi-”

Before she finished, Theo slid past JC and was moving towards the woman, his left hand raised up by his right cheek, ready to pimp-slap her back onto the bed.

JC caught his arm.

“Cool it,” JC said to his friend, letting go of his arm once eye contact was made. He turned to the woman. “Where’s his father?”

She let out another stream of profanities as she stood, this time in English, but made no move towards the door or to answer the question.

“Tell me where his father is,” JC said, “and you can go.”

“He’s in prison, alright?” She blurted out. “He’s rotting in jail for some damn thing or another. That fat bastard told me because he thought it would make him sound tough, but all he is… is… fat… and miserable and stupid.”

JC looked at her. Crossed his arms high on his chest and sighed, deep and heavy.

“Can I go now?” she half-whined to JC, recognizing who was controlling the situation.

“No,” JC said.

“You sai-”

“I lied,” JC said, still staring at her. “Sue me.”

Her eyes started darting around the room, looking for escape routes. JC watched her, his mind on other problems.

“What’s your problem, perv?” she said, sneering at him. JC could see her fear taking hold and she was trying to cover it up with bravado.

“Theo never tells anyone his father is in prison,” JC said, laying out the problem to her, “not unless it is pertinent to the mission or he totally trusts them.”

“Bullshit, he-”

“And despite your attractiveness,” JC continued, cutting her off, “it wasn’t pertinent to the mission.”

“And you can be damn sure I don’t trust her,” Theo growled.

JC looked at the woman a second longer then nodded to Theo as he walked towards the main door of his hotel room. Theo followed, standing close to him but angled so they could communicate quietly but still watch the woman.

“Tell me,” JC said.

“Sitting at the bar,” Theo said, “enjoying a drink, not five minutes, I turn and she’s falling all over me.” He shook his head. “I’m handsome but not that handsome. Within ten minutes she’s hinting about coming upstairs, within twenty she’s mentioned my father.”

JC strode past Theo, marching over to the woman as she stood over the telephone between the beds, the receiver against her ear, her right index finger hovering above the keypad. Before the was able to press nine for the front desk, JC pulled the receiver from her hand, slammed it down and jerked the phone hard enough away from the wall the phone cord ripped free from the jack. He tossed it across the room, the bell ringing as it bounced off the low pile carpeting.

“Sit there,” he said to the woman, his right index finger pointing to the bed, “don’t say a damn word and you’ll walk out of here in one piece.” He paused as she did as ordered. “Do anything other than that and all bets are off.”

“You’re a liar,” she said, cowering, tears in her eyes, her voice raw.

“I am,” JC said, no compassion for her. Not yet at least. “But not about this.”

The woman said nothing, but her deflating posture told JC he had a minute or two until he needed to deal with her again. He walked back to Theo.

“You see who sent her?”

“She appeared at my elbow and after she shit the bed I was trying to get her up here. Nobody interacted with her or signaled her as far as I could tell, but who knows, right?”

JC nodded. Glanced around the room.

“We can’t question her here,” he said absently.

“Too noisy, too many people saw us together, too many potential problems,” Theo said, nodding in agreement.

JC was still looking absently around the room when the answer came to him. He pulled out his phone, dialing as soon as the screen lit up.

“Porras?” Theo asked.

JC shook his head. “This is Varela level,” he said.

“You trust him?”

“No,” JC said as the phone started ringing on the other end. “But if I call Porras first, he’ll know I don’t trust him, and that’ll be worse for us.”

JC waited, the phone ringing and ringing. It was late but if Varela was a professional, he wouldn’t be far away from the hotel where a big payday principal like Tyler Braun was staying.

Chapter 18

“No problem,” Varela said, reaching forward and shaking JC’s hand. “I’ll take care of this.” Dropped the handshake and stepped back into the hallway. “Probably just a hooker. Unfortunately, this hotel has a reputation for it.” Shrugged and smiled, flashing his pearly white teeth. “I’ll ask her a few questions. If someone sent her, I’ll find out who it was.” Paused, his smile disappearing. “One way or another.”

“Thanks, Varela,” JC said, closing the door with a nod.

Varela nodded back, his eyes glancing over JC’s shoulder into the room to see Theo glaring at him. It doesn’t matter, Varela said to himself as he turned and walked toward Sophia, waiting for him two meters up the hallway towards the elevator. Theo’s opinion is of little importance. Only the job.

“That fat sonofa-” she started to say in their native Spanish but clamped her jaw shut when Varela grabbed her arm hard and pulled her violently close to him as he strode swiftly down the hall. Sophia had to take three steps for each stride of Varela’s. He knew he was bruising the hell out of her bare arm but he didn’t care. She already had bruises showing, likely from Theo, and the ones he was causing would blend right in.

“Don’t say another goddamn word,” he said under his breath, releasing her as he stopped speaking. She stumbled forward, caught herself against the wall and continued pace with him. Her high heels were a detriment, but he knew she was used to them. She’d been a streetwalker since she was fifteen. At twenty-three she was an old pro.

The phone call late at night hadn’t woken Varela up, but it had pissed him off. His suite in the Marriott two blocks away was comfortable, the bed just the right hardness, the two women he’d hired for the night just the right softness and the champagne had given him just the right amount of buzz.

He stopped, pressing the down button on the elevator. He wanted to kick it through the wall, but he held his temper in check. There would be time for that soon enough. For now he waited.

The bell dinged softly. It was just after two in the morning and, luckily, there were no other people walking on the floor. However, there were always cameras. The doors opened and he walked into the empty box, Sophia right behind him. He pushed the button for the second floor, saying nothing.

He knew all the approaches in the building, all the angles. There was simply no way for him to get he and Sophia out of the building without being seen. However, there was an alcove on the second floor that opened up to an access point that got them down to where he needed to be without too many eyewitnesses at this hour. The tapes would, unfortunately need to be erased but that was easy enough with a thousand or two US dollars in the right palms.

The body, however, he said to himself.

He looked over at Sophia and gave her a simple “I’m sorry” smile. “It’ll be okay,” he said.

“Promise?” she asked, sniffling.

He allowed his smile to get just a fraction larger, nodded and then looked back at the doors in front of him, his smile disappearing.

*****

“I really don’t know what happened,” Sophia said, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. Varela had already raised his hand against her when she was too loud and she wasn’t about to risk that again.

“Walk me through it,” he said, leaning against the railing.

Sophia began recounting the story until she got to the point where JC ripped the phone out of the wall.

“Hold on,” Varela said. “None of that makes sense. Why would Theo get so upset? I mean, was it something you said? Did you call him fat? Did you laugh at his little pecker or something?”

“I really don’t know what it was,” Sophia said, knowing full well why Theo had lost his temper but keeping it to herself. She could see Varela was keeping the lid on his anger and if she could keep it on a little longer then all the better for her.

He stood and walked over to her, getting uncomfortably close. She backed up against the wall behind her, the two meter by two meter alcove they were standing on stinking because of the garbage dumpsters right beneath them. The rough stucco of the wall she pressed herself against poked into the bare skin on her upper back and shoulders but she ignored it. Something was changing in Varela. She could feel it just like she’d felt it before in other men. It usually signaled she was about to catch a beating.

He’s my friend, she said to herself.

But she knew.

“The other one told me you mentioned his father,” Varela said, his breath warm on her face. “I remember very explicitly telling you not to bring that up.”

Sophia was shaking her head slowly. “No, Manuel,” she whispered. “I swear I didn’t.”

“I only told you that,” Varela continued, “to let you know how dangerous these men were, to protect you. And I told you to never ever mention to them that you knew.” He nodded. “You remember me saying that, right?”

Sophia nodded along with him. “I remember,” she breathed.

“But then you went ahead and said it anyway, didn’t you?”

Her nodding continued for a split second before she stopped and reversed course, going back to shaking her head “no.”

“I caught you, Sophia,” Varela said, pointing his finger at her like a teacher would to an errant student. “I knew you did.” Sophia shook her head even more vigorously but was unable to speak. She was focused on his eyes and saw nothing but violence in them.

Varela stepped back and his beautiful smile came into view. She looked at it, wondering if maybe she misread him. How could someone who was going to hurt her be smiling so comfortably?

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said with a sigh, his smile disappearing. “It’s my fault, really, expecting a ten-peso whore to be more intelligent than a ten-peso whore. Despite the fancy clothes, you’re still too stupid to not be a whore.”

Sophia wanted to slap him across the face but knew better. She tried that once with a John when she was just seventeen. She’d spent over a week in the hospital.

“I wanted you to trap Theo one way,” Varela sighed, “but since you messed that up, I guess there’s one way you could still help me out.”

“Anything,” Sophia breathed, seeing her one chance at salvation.

Varela’s hands shot out and clamped around her neck, slamming her head against the wall behind her as they tightened painfully around her airway. The shock of the assault caused her to try and take in a breath of air, but his hands were already causing damage to her throat.

She fought back. This was no beating from a John and she knew it. She tried to reach his face, tried kicking him, but he was tall enough that his arms kept her at bay. Sophia scratched at his arms, attempting to dig her nails deep into his flesh, but he ducked down and lifted her up into the air by her neck, pinning her against the wall. Varela’s thumbs moved from their position on either side of her neck and pressed directly against her trachea, right below her voice box.

Sophia wanted to say something, plead, kick, fight, something. But she couldn’t breathe and although she tried to kick, her vision was getting dark at the edges and her legs were feeling like lead weights. Her throat was on fire, the pain from Varela’s thumbs radiating through her neck and body. The last thing she saw as she lost consciousness was Manuel’s beautiful teeth stretch into a smile.

*****

Varela held Sophia against the wall for three more minutes, leaning into her, his thumbs pressed so far into her ruined trachea he thought they were going to plunge through her now-dead skin. They didn’t, of course. He stepped back and let her body fall to the concrete beneath them, catching his breath. He wanted a cigarette more than anything, but he’d given up smoking five years ago. Briefly thought about looking into her bag but realized he didn’t want his fingerprints on it.

A few minutes after allowing the adrenaline to dump from his system and his breathing to slow down, he leaned over the body to check for a pulse. Nothing. Waited another long minute. Nothing. Moved his hand to her mouth, putting the back of his hand millimeters from her lips, waiting for the slightest hint of air against his skin.

Nothing.

He stood and went to the railing, looking down at the parking lot beneath them. Good, he said to himself, seeing the open dumpsters beneath. He turned, picked up Sophia’s body and hurled it over. She fell, tumbling in the air, and landed in a heap on top of the black plastic bags inside. He didn’t bother to look for anybody who might have seen him. If someone was there, he didn’t want them to get a good look at his face, let alone make eye contact with them.

He turned and opened the door behind him, leaving Sophia’s black clutch on the concrete where she dropped it. Covering up the murder wasn’t his goal, just his part in it. He made his way to the stairs, heading for the security office on the first floor. If his memory served, a man by the name of Rodrigo was on duty. A quick conversation, a few thousand dollars and he was sure the tapes would be erased. Rodrigo was married with two boys finishing high school soon. Not too hard to spin the tale of a whore out to besmirch the good name of a wealthy client and their security team.

Of course, Varela said to himself as he shuffled down the stairs to the first floor, we’ll leave the footage of Theo and Sophia going to his room in the system. Smiled, composing himself and adjusting to the shift in his plan. No point in letting a dead body go to waste.

Chapter 19

All of JC’s, Theo’s and Porras’s planning was tossed out the window by ten twenty-five that morning.

The original plan was for Tyler Braun’s team to spend all day hunched over paperwork and final contracts while Mr. Braun went about the city in order to give off the air of nonchalance that he was so famous for. In the evening Braun would have a very late, very public dinner with his counterpart in ArgenTelCo, S.A., one Señor Leopold Mercado. The entire purpose of the dinner was to let everyone who saw them and every photographer who snapped their photo to broadcast to the world that the two men were in the best of spirits and they were both obviously happy about the merger moving forward. This was, despite being a lie, designed to serve only one purpose: keep the stock prices of both companies from either spiraling downward or from artificially being inflated at the last moment.

However, when the markets opened at nine-thirty am New York time, the run on Visionary Worldwide started early and turned what was a fairly stable performing stock into a rollercoaster. It spiked by twenty percent, dropped by thirty, then spiked by fifty percent before beginning a downward spiral that threatened to drag it down to half its value from the previous day.

All the lawyers and accountants and analysts that Braun flew down to Argentina with him had no answer as to why this was happening. The board and senior management were assembled in the Visionary Worldwide headquarters in NY but all they could do was watch.

“I don’t give a good goddamn why it’s happening,” Braun bellowed into the secure line he had with VI headquarters, “figure out how to make it stop!” He took a breath and, instead of hurling his phone across the room, hurled a volley of curses both at the world and at his board in New York before taking another breath and calming himself. “You’ve got five minutes,” he said and clicked off the call.

Theo looked sideways at JC who just shrugged. Both men were in Braun’s penthouse suite along with Varela and Porras. While Varela lounged on the sofa, JC, Theo and Porras were positioned around the conference table in the corner of the main room.

JC watched Tyler walk into the bedroom and come out seven seconds later.

“Screw it,” Braun said, approaching the men at the glass and polished chrome conference table. “We’re making the deal now.” He stopped at the head of the table, sliding his phone into his pocket and tenting his fingers on the smooth glass surface of the table.

JC didn’t move, just watched the man while Varela jumped up from the sofa.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Varela said, muting the news channel that had been playing on the television.

“It means we’re heading across town to ArgenTelCo, S.A., to sign the paperwork with Mercado now before this leaky boat turns turtle and drowns us all.”

Varela began rattling off orders to Porras in Spanish. Porras, to his credit, nodded in response but didn’t move.

“We’re not doing that,” JC said.

Varela stopped talking and stared at him while Theo and Porras both closed their mouths and watched.

“What?”

“It’s a ruse, Tyler,” JC said. “Whoever, however they’re doing it, the stock price volatility is designed to rattle you. Put you off your game. Make an unexpected move that they’ve already planned for.”

“Do you actually think I don’t know that?”

“But you’re looking at it from a market value and stock pricing point of view,” JC said, still leaning back in his chair, legs crossed casually. “I’m looking at it from a bullet-in-your-head point of view. We go off running around the city, there’s no telling what might happen.”

“If I don’t find a way to plug the bleeding, my company will be swallowed up by ArgenTelCo which is the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen,” Braun said, pointing at the television news and the chyrons running across both the upper and lower parts of the screen. He dropped his arm, his shoulders sagging momentarily as he did. “If that happens? A bullet in my head will be equally preferable.”

JC waited for the man to pass through his self-directed misery and come out the other end. He saw it when Braun’s back straightened, his shoulders rotating back to their rightful place.

“Perhaps your advisors will have an answer?” Porras suggested helpfully.

Braun shook his head. “It’s on me,” he said, “one way or another.”

JC smiled. Good, he said to himself. Maybe he’ll listen to reason now.

“Then don’t run over to Mercado with your balls in your purse, hoping he honors what would be a terrible deal for him,” JC said, a smile on his face to soften the harshness of what he was saying.

Braun’s eyes snapped to JC. He pulled out a chair and sat as he, too, smiled to hide the anger at JC’s words.

“Alright, Bannister,” he said, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “You’re the fixer, the solutionist. Fix my problem for me.”

JC shrugged. “Can you figure out who’s behind the run on the stock?”

“Not before it’s too late.”

“Then go on the offensive.”

“How?”

“I’m guessing you know a way to make a dent in a rival company’s stock, should the need arise?”

Braun nodded slowly, seemingly unwilling to admit to the ability and knowledge.

“Great,” Bannister said. “Set that in motion. Then leak to the press that your dinner with Mercado has been moved up to a late brunch at a place across town in the opposite direction. When you leave, tell everyone about it so it’s all over the local news.”

“And?”

“And he’ll be there. Because you’re also going to tell the local news that the honorable Señor Leopold Mercado has seen through the market manipulations by hostile forces for what it is — a blatant deception designed to derail what is obviously in the best interests of both companies.”

Braun smiled. “So not only do I initiate a run on his company and set off the same kind of volatility in his stock prices that is currently happening with ours, stripping away any leverage that may have given him, I essentially call him a coward and dare him to not honor his word?”

JC nodded. “In so many words, yeah.”

“Just like a schoolyard fight,” Braun said, smiling as he stood and pulled his phone from his pocket.

“Or a campaign of disinformation against an enemy force,” Theo said.

As Braun was walking back to his bedroom, his phone pressed against his ear, he said, “Find a place to meet Mercado and plot a course there.”

“At this time of day?” Varela protested. “It’ll take two hours to get anywhere respectable.”

“Then make it unrespectable,” Braun said, “or I’m taking a cab.” He stopped and turned, eyes fixed on Varela. “But if I take a cab, you’re fired.” He turned and walked into the bedroom closing the door behind him. “Now you’ve got five minutes,” his voice barked from behind the door.

Varela looked at Porras first, then JC.

“You heard the man,” JC said. “It doesn’t have to be pretty, but it has to work.”

Chapter 20

“I don’t care how long she’s been waiting,” Mercado growled through the phone, “she can grow old and die out there. She’s not gett-”

The door to his office flew open, banging against the wall behind it, rebounding as a short woman with medium length brown hair stormed through it, cellphone in hand.

Señor Leopold Mercado, president and CEO of ArgenTelCo, S.A., was out of his chair and coming around his desk, chest out, full of bluster and righteous indignation at someone having the unmitigated gall to burst into his office on the tenth floor of the ArgenTelCo Office Building on Avenida de Libertador. Security had increased since the beginning of the merger but the fact that this woman had made it up here at all bothered him, let alone having her barge into his office.

“I will not have-” he bellowed before being cut off by the intruder in his office.

“My apologies, Señor Mercado, however this cannot wait any longer,” the short woman said in English, continuing to walk towards the desk, arm extended with the cellphone held out to him.

Mercado stopped, his hand hovering on the side of his desk near a statue of a dancing woman. It was a gift from his wife, bronze, with a base that, given enough of a swing, would neatly cave a person’s skull in.

“Who are you?’ he asked.

“A messenger, sir, nothing more.”

“For?”

“Someone who needs to speak with you.” She nodded to the phone, unnervingly calm.

Mercado took the phone slowly. His office was, of course, in the corner of the building and had views of both the Plaza Holanda and Paseo El Rosedale behind him. It was magnificent on most days and today was no different.

However today, the day before he was supposed to sign the contract that would ensure the survival of his business long into the future, he had no interest in the view from his office. He had only concern as to why his soon-to-be partner’s company’s stock was shakier than a rickety old chair and, more importantly, who was behind it. His real fear was that they, whoever “they” were, might be coming for his company next.

“Hello,” he said cautiously as he put the phone to his ear, holding it far enough away that it wouldn’t touch the side of his head.

“Señor Mercado,” the man on the other end said, “Ted Williams here. How are you this fine morning?”

Mercado’s eyes narrowed slightly. The woman was watching him and he was loathe to provide her with too much intel to report back to whomever she answered to, presumably Williams.

“What can I do for you, Williams?” Mercado asked, irritated that a consultant would have the impertinence to go about contacting him in this way.

“I needed to make sure I had your undivided attention,” Williams said. “It is a time of flux and easy to get distracted.”

“You have it,” Mercado said, sitting back in his chair, eyes scanning the young woman in front of him, evaluating her on numerous levels. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end and all his instincts were telling him he was in danger. He wasn’t, however, about to let Williams or this attractive, pint-sized intruder know that. “What can I help you with, Mr. Williams?”

“I know you’re busy, so I’ll try and make this short,” Williams said. Mercado thought he could hear indistinct voices or movement in the background. “The woman standing in front of you is Ronnie Acardi. She is essentially my right hand and I am providing her to you in order to assist you through these troubled times.”

“Is she a financial genius?” Mercado asked, his eyes evaluating Ronnie as she did the same to him. “Some bi-lingual super lawyer or negotiator to help me squeeze every last nickel out of Braun after his company tanks?”

“You were in the Army, Mercado,” Williams said, his jolly demeanor sharpening. “Does the woman standing in front of you look like a lawyer?”

Williams was right. From the moment she walked through his door to the way she was able to simply stand motionless to her strong glare, she looked more security than boardroom.

“I have my own security team,” Mercado said.

“Ronnie’s good with a gun but that isn’t her main advantage,” Williams said. “She is an excellent strategist as well. More importantly, she has a direct line to me.”

Mercado stifled a sigh. He was wasting time. This wasn’t the first time someone came knocking on Mercado’s door with a great plan on how to help him grow his business while putting their hand in his wallet.

“Listen, Ted,” Mercado started.

“Don’t ‘Ted’ me, Leopold,” Williams shot back. “We’re not that close. If I say Ronnie’s going to be on your hip until this deal’s all sewn up, then that’s exactly where she’s going to be.”

Mercado kept a lid on his anger. If he was correct about his secretary, Valentina, she would already have called security. They should be here shortly, Mercado said to himself.

“Three months ago I came calling,” Williams continued, his voice rising as he talked. “I delivered the Russians to you on a silver platter. ArgenTelCo swallowed the Philippine’s UltraFon whole based entirely on intel I provided. And let’s not forget your growing foothold in India’s telecom market.” Williams paused, getting himself under control. “Billions into your coffers thanks to me. And that’s before your deal with Visionary.”

“I’m not about to let-”

“Yes, you are, Leopold,” Williams said, cutting him off. “The volatility in Visionary this morning? That’s all me. I set that rollercoaster in motion in order to help you leverage it and gain hundreds of millions of dollars on this deal.” Williams said it so off-handedly, but it was a stunning admission; if any financial regulator figured out the connection, Mercado would be stripped of his company and, likely, his freedom. “So if I say Ronnie is on your hip, I’m pretty damn sure I’ve earned that much at least.”

Mercado said nothing, waiting. Williams had stopped talking for ten seconds when he looked up. “You were finished?” He stared right at Ronnie, the real focus of his venom a disembodied voice on an open telephone line. “Here’s what’s going to happen. My security team is on its way up. If… Ronnie is it?” Ronnie nodded. “If this intrusive bitch doesn’t go quietly, they’ll crack her head wide open and dump her at the dirtiest filth-ridden clinic across town they can find.” He stood, just getting warmed up. “I built this company with my own sweat, with years taken from my life and I’ll be damned if some interloper is going to come in, threaten me, and risk the BCBA, the CELAC, the OAS or even the IMF to come digging their fat snouts into my business! ”

Mercado’s voice had been rising through his diatribe, the last words delivered at a near bellow.

“Tell me something, Mercado,” Williams said. “Did you build this business by rolling over and licking your balls at the slightest whiff of trouble? No, you grabbed ahold of trouble and bent it to your will and gnawed on its bones. Today, I am your hands and I am your teeth, ready to help you bend this adversity to your will.”

Mercado paused, setting the insults aside, hearing the bigger problem the man wasn’t actually speaking of yet. “This adversity? That you created?”

“Braun’s brought two American killers with him as his personal security,” Williams said, flat. “They go with him everywhere. He’s either trying to send you a message or knows more than you do. Either way, Ronnie stays by your side.”

Mercado said nothing for a long break, his mind calculating at warp speed. The elevators in the lobby of the executive floor opened and half a dozen men came streaming through, moving to the open door of his office, guns drawn. He put up a hand to stop them. They slowed, still coming forward and entering the executive suite, fanning around Ronnie. Their guns were drawn but pointed at the floor as they approached. Ronnie, to her credit, kept her eyes glued on Mercado.

He picked up Ronnie’s phone from his desk, activating the screen. “You’ll receive the agreed upon fee,” Mercado said, “and in fact, I’ll double it. After the merger, our business is finished. Do not contact me again until I reach out to you.”

He terminated the phone call, handing the device back to Ronnie. “These men will escort you to the curb outside this building. If you feel the need to watch over me, do it from a distance. If you approach closer than twenty meters without my explicit consent, expect to be fired upon.”

“I wish you luck, Señor Mercado,” Ronnie said with a nod, then turned on her heel and headed for the elevators.

Mercado stood there, shaking off Valentina’s concerned questions. He absently motioned for her to close the door then turned and walked to the floor-to-ceiling, his mind churning over the new developments.

Williams came to him about three months ago, long after the deal with Visionary was in motion, presenting himself as a consultant with unique connections. It was true. Greatly beneficial deals had been made with telecom companies in Russia, the Philippines and India. Deals which helped bolster ArgenTelCo’s position in the eventual deal with Visionary.

“This is something altogether different,” he muttered under his breath.

If Braun is bringing in two hired killers as security either he knows something I don’t or he’s being duped. It was possible they are just security consultants and Williams was lying. But…

Neither one bodes well for me.

He went back to the phone, picked it up and dialed Valentina.

“Have Rossi come in as soon as he can,” Mercado said, hanging up the phone as he sat back down at his desk.

He turned his mind back to the problem of the impending merger and the run on Visionary’s stock. If Williams was willing to do that to Visionary, who was to say he wouldn’t force a run on ArgenTelCo’s stock.

He sighed as he picked up the phone. What was once a mega-merger, the culmination of his life’s work, had suddenly turned into something much darker.

I’ll be damned if I let this slip away, he said to himself as he dialed the number to his personal lawyer, not the corporate one.

*****

“It was always a longshot with Mercado, Ronnie,” Williams said, the words designed to both soothe as well as project a feeling of calm he most definitely did not feel. “That’s all. In some ways, this actually helps us.”

“How so?”

Williams knew she was alone, in the dark, pretty far out on a shaky limb and he was forcing her to keep inching forward. Although he’d tested her loyalty a number of times and she’d always passed with flying colors, right now he needed to give her comfort, not the stick.

“It allows us flexibility,” he said as he paid the driver and exited the taxi into the cool spring afternoon weather in Kavala. The Greek town was an ancient hub of commerce, picturesque and a tourist attraction on the northern Aegean Sea. The colorful houses rising up the hills almost directly from where the hills intersected the sea was the source of many a tourist selfie over the years.

None of these, however, were the reasons why Williams was currently walking towards a café near the waterfront. “If you were on Mercado’s hip, that would have exposed you to Bannister sooner rather than later. Now we’re able to marshal other forces in the country and apply a different kind of pressure.”

“Fair enough,” Ronnie said. He could hear her walking, presumably on the street. “What’s the next step?”

At some point she needs to stop waiting for instructions and start doing things on her own, Williams said to himself as he walked towards the café on the waterfront of the town’s central port, the seawall and the small beach off to his right.

He’d kept his cards understandably close to his chest since Bannister, Joan and their little team of miscreants and bandits had destroyed The Veracious Group, General Robinson, secretary Grey and Williams’ own nascent defense contracting company along with his house. He’d had to. There were simply too many people looking for his head, starting with Ingrassia, his old friend and now chief of the entire CIA. The man had sworn he’d put Williams’ head on a pike if he were ever to get involved in the intelligence world again. While what he was doing was simply collecting information and operating on said information, he was quite sure Ingrassia would see it differently.

“Get some rest,” he said. “Watch the news, track what’s happening on the ground. I’ve got some analysts going over a number of reports and sifting through some raw intel right now and, if they check out, we should be moving on to the next phase by this time tomorrow.” He stopped across the street from the cafe he was going to, scanning the people seated outside. None were the man he was meeting.

“Which is?”

Williams stifled a sigh. He needed Ronnie right now. Her pushback, although subtle, had been increasing over the last few weeks. If he had a larger agency with a stable of formidable talent, he would either cut her loose or chew her out. But he didn’t have a deep bench. It was just Ronnie, some mindless freelance thugs and a couple of contracted data geeks.

“The goal is the same, Ronnie,” he said as a long BMW four-door sedan pulled up to the curb in front of the café. “Bring about the destruction of the man who tried to destroy us.”

It was a dodge and he knew it. Worse yet, he had a sneaking suspicion she knew it as well. But it was the best he could give her today.

The truth was, he didn’t know what to do at this exact moment. He’d inserted himself in the Visionary deal because he knew that, in the end, Bannister would be sent down to Argentina to take care of the problem. And while assassinating Braun under Bannister’s care would be sweet, it wouldn’t help him like he needed it.

Braun alive and hating Bannister was a far more preferable outcome.

“Call me if something comes up,” he said, “and I’ll be in touch in fourteen hours or less. I have to take a meeting.”

Williams hung up the phone without waiting for Ronnie’s response and said, “Henri!” as the man he was meeting stepped out of the BMW. Andrej Stipetic was known in certain circles as a covert money launderer for both governments and high-level international criminals. While Williams had no need of the man’s money laundering services yet, he was interested in the man’s other talents.

Williams jogged across the street, shaking hands with the man and putting his arm around the smiling and portly middle-aged criminal. “Come, Andrej,” Williams said, ignoring the man’s two guards who exited the vehicle as well and posted themselves on either side of the café’s door as Williams guided the man through it and into the café. “Let’s discuss how our little South American venture is going.”

Stipetic’s true talent, despite being an extraordinarily talented money launderer, lay in manipulating stock markets on an international level for whomever was unscrupulous enough and bold enough to require it. While he typically charged a flat fee of ten percent up front, he agreed to take his percentage on the back end for Williams. The reasons were simple: Williams had not only captured photographic evidence of Stipetic’s trusted second-on-command attempting to seduce his wife, he’d also shown Stipetic the shallow grave he’d buried the man alive in, a neat 9mm hole in his forehead. The fact that Williams had blackmailed Stipetic’s advisor into making the move on Stipetic’s wife was of no consequence and known only to Williams.

What mattered to Williams was the man was helping him both make tens of millions of dollars and also destabilize the situation around Bannister.

And if what his data geeks reported back to him was what he was expecting, it might bring about Bannister’s end much sooner rather than later.

Chapter 21

The 42nd floor of the Visionary Unlimited World Headquarters building was largely devoted to the senior executives and board members. While most of the executives had offices elsewhere in the building, the board members typically did not. That was why there were two executive lounges, equipped with the finest over-stuffed leather furniture and fully staffed by waiters and a gourmet kitchen, as well as numerous open offices dotted around the edge of the building for anyone to use should the need arise. Additionally, there were three conference rooms on the floor as well: one small, holding approximately six people, one holding double that, and one designed for annual meetings with room for approximately fifty people to sit comfortably around the massive table.

Olivia Braun watched from the corner of the largest conference room as people milled about, joining groups, splitting up, rejoining and everyone dropping conversations to a whisper when someone thought the newscaster on the big screen was ready to make an important announcement.

She had risen early as was her custom. Despite their differences, she never slept that well when Tyler wasn’t home. When he was home she slept well but matched his five am wakeup time which set the pattern for her to follow when he wasn’t there as well.

With nothing really to do that early in the morning and considering today and tomorrow would be the biggest days in the history of the company, Olivia got ready and came down to the offices of the company she and her husband built from when it was simply an idea in his head. She was the one in the early days who took care of his schedule, guided him, was his sounding board, prepared his meals, washed his clothes and, later when they had more money, managed his house so that he could do all the monumental things he did. Despite the world saying what a visionary the man was, Olivia Braun knew the crucial part she played in helping the world see his vision.

Kevin Dobkin was one of the few board members or senior executives who treated her as an equal or anything more than a trophy wife. Olivia had equal voting power as the other senior executives and double that of each of the board members, yet not one of them bothered to speak to her as they milled about the room. Dobkin, however, walked right over to her as soon as he saw her.

“Have you spoken to him?” he asked, stooping his shoulders slightly in order to allow his head to be closer to hers as was his custom. It kept an intimacy they’d always had as well as made it slightly more difficult for others to hear what they were saying.

She shook her head. “He called the board a few minutes ago and was screaming at them,” she said. “He said we’d need to call him back in five minutes with answers.”

“Do the illuminati have any?” Kev joked, cocking his head to the assembled multi-millionaires an Ivy League graduates behind him.

Olivia smiled, the first time of the day. “Not yet.”

“Don’t worry,” Dobkin said, stretching his back to allow his muscles a full extension. “He’s already got a plan.”

“You think so?”

“Hasn’t he always gotten us through the difficulties?” Kev said absently, his eyes scanning the crowd.

“I suppose so,” Olivia said.

“And do you really think he’d sit on his hands for five minutes while this brain trust dithered?”

Olivia smiled again. Despite his dismissive attitude, Kevin Dobkin was firmly rooted in the brain trust. Born in the right family with the right family lines going back generations, he pretended to be an outsider when he couldn’t have been more of an insider. That was one of his greatest assets to both Tyler and herself in the early days: he could move in and out of the world of boardrooms and back-door deals that were necessary until Tyler and Visionary gained enough of a foothold to allow Tyler to do so himself.

“Call coming in,” one person called out loudly.

The room hushed as the call was patched through to the secure sound system that was installed at great expense to both keep conversations private and to avoid huddling around a tinny speaker in the middle of the conference room.

“Is Kev there yet?” Tyler Braun said over the sound system.

“Here, boss,” Dobkin called out.

“We’ve got a new plan, buddy. Get on the horn and make things shaky for our Argentinean friends.”

Dobkin said nothing for a beat, a genial smile frozen on his lips but his eyes showing concern.

“What do you mean, boss?”

“I mean tank their goddamned stock!” Braun bellowed. “Make sure whatever you do is legal and doesn’t blow back on us, but I want their stock prices unstable within the hour and swirling the toilet by the end of the day.” He paused, his next words calmer. “And if anybody in the room has a problem with that, hand in your resignation at the front desk on the way out.” He took a deep breath. “Make no mistake, we are under attack and I am not about to allow some unknown bad actors take away all we have built over these years. Now is our time of courage. Now is our finest hour. If you don’t want to be a part of the greatest chapter in the history of this company, then you’re dead weight so please deselect yourself from the leaders around you.”

Olivia looked around. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t directed at Dobkin. It was, however, inspirational and bracing, designed to fire up the people assembled. She could see by the nods and looks exchanged between the board members it was working.

“You got it, boss,” Kev said, standing a little straighter.

“What else can we do?” a man asked. Bernard Nagahashi, Esq., was a billionaire real estate investor by the time he was twenty-eight, leveraging his father’s modest shipping company to make everyone in the family rich beyond measure. Now in his mid-fifties, he was an angel investor and one of the earliest board members to join Visionary Unlimited. Olivia smiled. Bernard had always been a good friend to Tyler and herself.

“Keep your mouths shut to the press until the news changes and when it does,” Tyler said, chuckling, “act as if it was supposed to be that way all along.”

His cavalier attitude in the face of impending doom broke the tension in the room, many of the assembled laughing along with him. Leaks were one of the things the company luckily didn’t need to deal with too often.

“I’ll call you a little later, Bernard, to speak with you personally.”

“You got it, Tyler,” Nagahashi said.

The room began milling about, people obviously thinking the situation was improving if not resolved.

“Liv?” Tyler said. “You there?”

Silence enveloped the room again. While Olivia may have been an active member of the board, her vote weighted double that of other members, Tyler rarely discussed things with her in an open business setting.

“I’m here,” Olivia called out crisply, thankful her voice didn’t catch at the wrong moment.

“Thanks,” Tyler said, “for everything. You’ve been my backbone when I thought I couldn’t carry on. Things might be a little rough over the next few days until we get this deal wrapped up, but I need you to carry on a little longer. After this it’ll be smooth sailing.”

“Of course, Ty,” she said, using the nickname he hated because he’d used Liv, the one she deplored. He’d been promising her things would be smooth sailing since their honeymoon and, despite the luxurious lifestyle, nothing had ever been as smooth as he’d promised.

“If any of the board members get out of hand,” Tyler continued, “remind them who’s boss.”

She smiled, all eyes on her. Practiced over the years, there was no difference between her natural smile and the one she was using now. Even her eyes danced the same. The pit in her heart, however, grew deeper every time.

“That would be me,” she said, eliciting laughter and chuckles from the assembled elite.

“You got it, babe,” Tyler said. “And thanks for the security team you sent down. They’ve been immensely helpful.”

“Any problems, boss?” Dobkin asked.

“Nope,” Tyler said, “but full of good ideas. Talk to you all real soon,” he finished before hanging up.

As the call was disconnected, everyone in the room huddled together in the same groups they’d been in before, some gravitating to Dobkin as the second-in-command of the company. Nobody, however, came over to speak with Olivia, leaving her entirely alone in the company she helped craft and mold and guide from the very moment Tyler shared his idea with her in their first shitty studio apartment on Stanton on the lower eastside New York.

She glanced around and slowly headed for the door of the conference room.

“Do you need anything?” Ms. Gibbons asked her as she walked out.

Olivia was surprised. She hadn’t seen their head of security earlier, although it made sense.

“No, Hailey,” she said absently as she passed her. “Just a little air, that’s all.”

Ms. Gibbons nodded and didn’t pursue her or challenge her further. Olivia went to the far elevators, pressed the up button and waited until the executive’s private elevator doors opened. She pressed the PH button, the elevator silently taking her to the top floor of the building.

There was no penthouse but instead a rooftop garden, an oasis in the middle of the city. Decorative cherry trees, stunted pine trees and a small pond with an artificial stream that went nowhere, Tyler had envisioned it after an early trip to Japan and the gardens they visited there. Olivia hadn’t dissuaded him, despite her preference for English-style gardens, and he included it when they built their world headquarters. But now, although few executives utilized it’s purported calming effects, it served her purposes very well.

She sat on one of the rough wooden benches near the stream, opened her purse and took out a metal tin of mints. Inside there were no mints but instead a single square of tissue paper wrapped around one of the SIM cards she’d taken from their storage place in the tool chest in the garage at the house. She set the open tin next to her and pulled one of the burner phones from her purse, picked up this morning as well on her way out. Olivia knew she would need to make a private call this morning and now was the perfect time.

Within two minutes the phone, virgin SIM card installed, was powered up and the phone number she’d committed to memory ringing.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end said.

“It’s me,” she said.

“One second,” the man said. Olivia waited, phone pressed to her ear as the sound of movements, muffled voices and footsteps came through the line. Twenty seconds later she heard what sounded like a heavy door closing and latching shut.

“Yes?” the man said again.

“I want an update,” Olivia said, ice in her veins and tone.

“The update is your husband has made a complete mess of our plans.”

“Can you adjust, Señor Varela?”

Varela sighed. “It’s not just that,” he said. “It’s also the extra security team you hired.”

It was Olivia’s turn to sigh. Varela had been complaining about the two men she’d sent down since she mentioned it. She was tired of explaining her reasons to the man hired to kill her husband: the two men provided her cover, provided a means for her to show she’d done everything possible to ensure Tyler’s safety so that when the inevitable inquisitions began after his death, she would be blameless.

“It’s not a security team,” she scoffed. “It’s just two guys the husband of one of my friends happened to know.”

“My God,” he said quietly. “You have no idea who you sent down here, do you?”

“Some washed-up soldier and his tubby friend,” she said, the cruelty coming easy to her.

“You’ve ruined us all,” he said.

“What?” she said, a sliver of doubt piercing her mind, puncturing her bravado.

“Listen,” he said, the sound of movement in the background again, “if we’re successful you will triple my fee.”

“I’ll do no suc-”

“The hell you won’t,” he snapped. “If I happen to pull this off, then I will have murdered not only your husband but also one of the most fearsome hired killers in the world today.” He paused, the grunting of effort coming over the phone. “His partner will be coming for me and I will need to swiftly and expertly disappear.”

“Partner?” Olivia said. “You mean his sidekick? What’s his name, Theo?”

“No, you fool,” he said, “Theo I can handle.”

“Then who?” she asked, setting aside the fact that the hired help just called her a fool.

“Joan.”

“Who the hell is Joan?

“La cuca,” he said.

“You’re not making any sense,” she said. “It’s just two guys, and… some chick?”

“Joan’s no chick,” he said, contempt dripping with every word. “She’s mother bear, boogeyman, cage fighter, expert marksman and a horribly brutal killer rolled up into one package.” He paused. Olivia waited, hanging on every word he said. “But first I have to get rid of Bannister and Petrosian.”

“Why do I know the name Petrosian?”

“Because his father runs the entire Armenian mob from a jail cell,” he said. “You’ve probably seen him on some TV gangland special or another.”

“My God,” she breathed. “You’re right.”

“And he’s the sidekick,” he said. “Imagine the type of man who would have him as a sidekick, and you’ll start to figure out who you actually sent down here for me to kill.”

Olivia took a deep breath. “What happens if you fail?”

“If we’re lucky?” he asked before answering his own question. “I’ll be dead and you’ll be safe.”

“And if we’re not?”

“Best case?” he asked. “Bannister will know you hired me and you’ll have to deal with him.”

“And worst case?” she asked even though she didn’t want the answer.

“You don’t want to know about worst case,” he said. “I have to go. I’ll call you every twenty-four hours with updates. If my phone call is one hour late, then I’m dead or soon will be.”

“What do I do then?”

“Disappear,” he said. “One way or the other, never be found alive.”

The line went dead. Olivia’s left hand was shaking when she long pressed the phone’s power button, turning it off. She set the phone down and gripped her left hand with her right, trying to make it stop, only to discover they were both shaking. She reached in her purse, pulling out the mini bottle of alcohol she’d taken from the bar at the house. Although she’d prefer to have a nice drink, perhaps even a cocktail, right now she needed the bracing effects of the alcohol and knew that right then, had she tried to actually prepare a drink, the majority of it would have spilled all over the bar as she prepared it.

She tilted her head back, letting the nearly two ounces of whiskey slide down her throat, burning with its rawness. She closed the bottle and put it back in her bag along with the powered-down burner phone.

Every twenty-four hours, she said to herself, repeating the timetable Varela had given her.

Although the senior executives hadn’t known it, Tyler had insulted her in front of all of them by calling her Liv. She’d told him countless times she hated it, that her parents granted her the name of Olivia and that was the only name he was to use to address her. But he always either forgot or used Liv intentionally to set her off.

In fact, she’d almost decided to call off the hit before he did that. Perhaps she could live with his lack of love, their lack of children, his infidelities, his lies. But when he called her Liv in front of all their friends, it took her back to elementary school, to middle school, to the bullies, male and female, calling her that name as they teased her for being different. For being half-Jewish instead of fully WASP like them. For being taller and prettier and smarter than they were.

No, she said to herself, placing the tissue paper back in the empty tin and the tin in her purse. My course of action is the correct one.

She pulled three mints from the other tin in her purse, this one full, popped them in her mouth and crushed them to dust with her teeth as she walked towards the elevator.

Chapter 22

JC eyes scanned the sidewalk, people, vehicles and buildings on the left side of the road the Chevy Tahoe was cruising down. They weren’t exactly speeding but they were certainly going faster than the speed limit, the lead vehicle clearing traffic for them, the follow vehicle bearing the brunt of the curses the startled drivers threw at them.

The past hour had been a flurry of activity. Tyler Braun was on the phone numerous times working to put “his” plan into action. JC didn’t care. He neither desired nor would have accepted any accolades for helping the man. It was good for the client, therefore it was good for him. Besides, having the man focused on forward-moving actions kept him from dwelling on the fact that he had yet to see the mistress he planned to visit as well as the fact that his company might be headed to the poorhouse faster than he thought.

From seven twenty-five, when Tyler got off the phone with his board, until just after nine, Theo, JC, Porras and Varela were pouring over maps and intel reports. They found a suitable restaurant early enough, named La Pobre Elena, situated along the waters of the natural bay formed by the Rio de la Plata in the Acassuso neighborhood. While not entirely upscale, the neighborhood was up and coming, the restaurant had recently changed hands and the new owners were making the appropriate moves for the gourmands of Buenos Aires, garnering positive press in the process. More importantly, it was the perfect mix of secure but also open enough for photographers to be able to take photos of Braun and Mercado entering and leaving the restaurant.

Soon after Braun announced to the board the implementation of their new approach, news reports were coming in about the change in the meetings. “Insider” reports from both companies were competing; Braun’s company said the change in timeline and venue was requested by Mercado’s side, Mercado’s side said they made no such offer and were considering refusing both the offer of brunch and the deal.

The gambit worked. Visionary Unlimited’s stock stopped short of corkscrewing into the earth, pulled up and, despite still being shaky, was trading close to where it was at the open of business. ArgenTelCo’s stock, however, went from rising to shaky. It wasn’t exhibiting the same behavior as before, but it was enough to make any CEO on the edge of a merger nervous.

“And that nervousness is what’s going to get Señor Mercado to meet me for lunch at La Pobre Elena,” Braun had confidently announced to his board members on the phone in his third conference call of the morning.

Theo had caught JC’s eye and smirked. JC nodded for Theo to get back to work, smirking as well. JC knew that Theo was simply being Theo. They were both leaders; JC of the team, however big or small it was and Theo of his family’s crime syndicate. Sometimes you had to show unwarranted bravado to the troops when facing impossible odds in order to make the impossible plausible, and then even possible, before securing a victory that many would later claim to be a foregone conclusion.

“We good, Theo?” JC asked without looking across the vehicle to his partner.

Theo, positioned on the right side of the vehicle, took a second to respond. “All good, boss,” he said. “Just lots of pissed off commuters.”

Porras drove with a practiced ease, his left hand piloting their SUV through the morning traffic with minimal movements. His right hand held a walkie-talkie to his mouth, communicating their movements with Varela. Varela had decided to split up the team slightly: while JC, Theo, Braun, Porras and another Seguridad Universal solider named Pierre were in the middle vehicle, Varela rode in the lead SUV with three of the Seguridad Universal team. The follow vehicle was filled to overflowing with other SU personnel.

“Let ‘em be pissed off,” Braun said quietly, parked in the middle between JC and Theo. “They’ll be grateful in six months when their cellphone bills are half what they are now and they can afford a new handset every year.”

JC said nothing because there was nothing to respond to. His job was to keep this man alive, not get into a debate about the finer points of market economics.

Not that I even could, JC said to himself, keeping his smile inside.

Porras’s voice rose higher, becoming sharper. Despite the conversation being all in Spanish, which JC had a miserable command over, JC could tell whatever was happening wasn’t good. He glanced at Theo, the question unspoken.

“New route,” Theo said.

“What’s going on,” JC asked Porras, forcing the man to explain the details.

Porras said something to Pierre in the front passenger seat before glancing at JC in the rear-view mirror. “We have to take a detour. Varela received intel that our planned route is cut off due to an accident.”

JC said nothing for a beat, waiting for Porras to explain more. He didn’t, just kept his eyes glued to the road in front of him.

“What’s bothering you?” JC asked him quietly after a quick glance at Pierre. The lead vehicle took a left turn, the vehicle they were riding in following.

“The route is faster,” Porras said, “but it takes us through one of the most dangerous parts of the city. It’s completely controlled by Los Interesantes, one of the more violent gangs in the city.”

“Any chance Varela paid them for safe passage,” Theo asked.

Porras looked over his shoulder at Theo then back to the traffic in front of him. He didn’t move for two seconds as they continued to barrel down the road before he lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

“English, please,” JC said. The tone of his voice made it clear it wasn’t a request.

“Boss,” Porras said, glancing again at JC in the rear-view mirror. “I don’t see the accident on my GPS.”

“Did you update the software? Varela asked.

“Last night.”

“I updated mine this morning,” came Varela’s response. “It should show up on yours in a minute. Until it does, follow my lead.”

“But this part of the city is-”

“Please, for one day, stop second-guessing everything I do, Limon, hunh?” Varela said, his exasperation clear. “God, how my sister eve-”

He stopped, pausing a second before clicking off.

Porras didn’t respond, just dropped the hand that held the walkie-talkie to his lap, his left still flicking the wheel around the traffic.

“I think I’ve been here before,” Braun said, looking out the front window. “It’s not that bad of an area.”

Everyone else in the vehicle ignored Braun’s comment. His estimation of a good or bad area held exactly zero value for them at this moment in time.

As the vehicles took another left turn followed by another right, JC realized the streets were getting smaller and smaller, the buildings closer, and the houses, cars and businesses that lined the streets more than a little rough.

“Can we get out of here?” JC asked, his voice low. “Get out of this area, this part of the city?”

Porras shook his head, turning his head slightly to the right to speak to JC. “It’s bordered by the river on the left and the railroad on the right. It’s a half-kilometer wide funnel.”

“That’s still a lot of wiggle room,” Theo said.

“How long is it?” JC asked. “From here to the exit?”

“Five kilometers or so,” Porras said.

Theo’s head movements out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He watched Theo looking up at the roofs, scanning them as they drove past. JC looked up on his side.

“You see ‘em?” Theo asked, eyes still glued to his window.

“What?” JC asked, the word just escaping his lips as he saw what Theo must have been looking at.

Approximately every sixty to eighty meters there was a kid on the rooftops, their eyes riveted on the passing vehicles below, talking into a cellphone. As sure as JC was sure the sun would rise tomorrow and gravity would continue to operate as expected, he knew those kids were calling in the convoy’s location to someone else.

“Spotters,” Theo said. “They’ve got kids as spotters on the rooftops.”

“Spotting for what?” Braun asked, finally paying attention.

“We’re turning this vehicle around,” he said over Braun to Porras as he reached his hand under his jacket and drew his Glock 18 from its holster, muzzle pointed up and to the right. Both he and Theo had briefcases stowed at their feet with compact short-barreled carbines inside, but JC wasn’t ready to break out the stronger firepower, nor the bigger guns in the cases in the back of the SUV. Not yet at least.

“Goddamn right,” Theo said, craning his neck around to check on the progress of their follow vehicle. “Uhhh, boss?” Theo said, turning back around, drawing his own weapon.

One glance behind them and JC’s mind was made up. Their follow vehicle was nowhere to be seen.

“Get us out of here, Porras,” he said, holstering his pistol and unzipping the soft-sided briefcase at his feet. “It’s an ambush.”

“What?” Braun asked, turning around, his head whipping side to side as the vehicle started to slow. No longer focusing on the upcoming meeting, he was playing catchup with what was currently going on around him. “What’s happening?”

JC had no time to answer. As the vehicle slowed even more, putting distance between them and the lead SUV, there was a more immediate problem.

Pierre unfastened his seatbelt, turned toward Porras, swiftly drew the pistol on his right hip and placed the muzzle against Porras’s right temple. Without thinking, JC let go of the now-opened briefcase, the collapsed AR-15 variant now easily accessible, and drew his just-holstered pistol, placing it flush against Pierre’s left temple, pressing forward. JC’s Spanish was far from perfect, but he quickly got the gist of what Pierre was saying.

“What’s up ahead?” he demanded, speaking over Pierre. “What’s waiting for us?” He repeated it again in his poor Spanish, but answers were not forthcoming.

“Theo,” JC said, the muzzle of his pistol unmoving, his eyes glued to Pierre’s face.

Theo drew his own Glock 19 and reached over the seatback, placing the muzzle off his weapon against the crown of Pierre’s head at a forty-five degree down angle.

“Why are we still driving forward?” Theo’s Spanish booming through the vehicle. “Stop this vehicle now!”

“I stop it, I die,” Porras said.

“Right,” Pierre said in heavily accented English.

“Then divert it,” JC said.

“I do that,” Porras said, “and my friend here pulls the trigger.”

The SUV was slowing down. JC wanted to look around, check on the spotters, check their current speed, check the distance between their vehicle and the lead vehicle, in fact do everything possible to gain more information on their present situation. But he did none of that. He kept his eyes fixated on Pierre’s face, watching for every tick, every movement of every muscle on the man’s skull.

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, you can see the moment on a person’s face when they make a decision. The hooding of the eyes, the tightening of the jaw, the resignation settle ever so briefly into the features; JC saw all those play out on Pierre’s face. The man holding a gun to Porras’s head had made a decision.

But he didn’t lower the weapon. JC tore his eyes away from Pierre’s face to look at the man’s trigger finger. He saw the pad of his finger flatten ever so slightly as pressure was applied to the trigger.

JC pulled his own trigger.

Chapter 23

The 147 grain hollow point entered Pierre’s left temple at 990 feet per second and exited his right at roughly three-quarters of that, blowing bits of bone, chunks of brain and a fair amount of blood against the windshield behind him as the expanded bullet punched a nickel-sized hole in the windshield.

The noise was deafening in the confines of the vehicle. Pierre’s body shut down instantly, his hand holding the pistol dropping towards the floor of the vehicle. An unfortunate muscle spasm of his dying body coursed through his muscles as his hand dropped, pulling the trigger one time. The single round creased across the surface of Porras’s left thigh, cutting a half-inch deep furrow in the muscle and flesh.

The pain caused Porras’s body to lean towards the wound. Even though the vehicle was decelerating and Porras’s foot was on the brake, his natural reaction forced the SUV towards the left side of the road and a line of parked cars.

“Hold on,” JC yelled out, his hearing temporarily ringing but not permanently damaged. The Chevrolet was veering to the left and a crash, even a minor one, was imminent.

It wasn’t as bad as JC expected or feared. Porras managed to slow the vehicle to under twenty miles per hour before the driver’s side front corner punched into the side of a Mini Cooper, rocking the smaller vehicle up onto the curb.

There was a brief moment of silence as the vehicle came to a rest. It was quickly gone.

“Go,” JC commanded Theo even though his partner and friend was already moving, opening the rear passenger-side door. He peeled around the open door, heading for the front passenger door, wrenched it open and pulled Pierre’s dead body from the car, unceremoniously dumping the body on the ground.

JC half-stood in the SUV, holstering his Glock as he did, leaned over the front seats, released Porras’s seatbelt and began pulling the man from the driver’s side over to the passenger’s seat.

“What are you doing?” the younger man said, working hard to apply pressure to his thigh. “Trying to dump me out as well?”

“I’m moving you over,” JC grunted with exertion, “so Theo doesn’t get his ass shot off.”

“Do you think-” Braun asked, largely forgotten in the moment by JC.

“Hell, yes, Braun,” JC yelled at him, “we’re under attack.”

Theo stood on the doorsill and leaned into the vehicle, helping JC move Porras over to the passenger seat. It wasn’t gentle but it was fast. Three seconds later and Theo slammed the door shut, peeling around the back of the vehicle. Despite Theo’s bulk and girth, he was one of the most agile and physically strong men JC knew

JC pulled his pistol free from its holster again and shoved the butt of it towards Braun.

“What the-”

“Take this,” JC barked at him. “Shoot any person coming towards us with a gun.”

“I don’t… I can’t-”

“Everybody fights,” JC said. “Take the goddamn gun or I’ll shove you out in the street myself.”

Braun wrapped his hand around the weapon and gingerly pulled it from JC’s hand. One minor problem solved, JC jumped over the back of the seat towards the cargo area as Theo yanked the front driver’s door open and hopped inside. The SUV had died when it crashed into the Mini Cooper. Theo started it back up, threw it in reverse and slammed on the gas.

The backwards movement unbalanced JC but he braced himself and kept digging. He had a bleeding man in the front and despite no bullets being fired other than Pierre’s, JC knew they were coming soon and fast.

“Talk to me Theo,” he yelled as he found the first aid kit and sat back down, ripping open the kit and digging for the equipment that would stop Porras’s bleeding and get him back in the fight that JC felt in his bones was coming.

The SUV stopped moving backwards, the tires screeching on the pavement. Theo threw it in Drive and stomped on the gas again.

The first bullet pinged against the roof, followed swiftly by others. It wasn’t obvious, it could’ve been a rock, in fact. But it wasn’t the first time JC had been shot at inside a vehicle. Rocks had an almost lazy sound to them compared to the slam of a bullet.

“This thing bulletproof?” JC asked Porras as Theo continued up the street, looking left and right, trying to find an alleyway that would provide a viable exit. They needed to get out of the area before anything worse happened than a few bullets raining down on them.

“Small arms fire,” Porras said as JC tore open a packet with his teeth, moving Porras’s hands away from the wound and pouring a white powder on the blood that pulsed out of it. “It’ll take up to about a fifty caliber.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have that to deal with,” JC said, placing a hemostat-infused gauze pad over the wound, designed to swell with any blood it came in contact with. He pulled a small roll of duct tape from the kit, awkwardly wrapping it around Porras’s leg to hold the battlefield ER hack job in place.

Theo slammed on the brakes hard at the same time as Porras’s walkie-talkie crackled to life, spitting Spanish through the small speaker.

“We’ve got a problem boss.”

Chapter 24

JC looked through the windshield, past the blood from Pierre and the spiderwebbing from the bullet that ended his life.

“Backup,” JC said. “Slowly.”

The lead vehicle was reversing course towards them, dodging and weaving between the vehicles that were now getting out of the way as best they could. The city, and apparently this neighborhood, were not immune to violence. The commuters were doing what most rational people did at times like these. They were getting out of the way.

Theo did as ordered, twisting his body around to fully view their retreat, bracing himself with his right hand on the back of Porras’s seatback.

“How’s the leg?” JC asked Porras.

“Bleeding’s stopped, I think,” Porras said over the squawking of the walkie-talkie.

“Good, JC said, his face grim. “Then answer Varela,” he said, drawing his second handgun with his left hand. “Speak English,” he continued, “and any codes will get you a bullet in the other leg.”

The briefest hint of gratitude in Porras’s eyes disappeared with a cold glare.

“What’s that?” Porras said into the walkie-talkie. “Could you repeat?”

“What the hell happened?” Varela said clearly in English. “Where are you going?”

“We saw spotters,” Porras said, “on the rooftops, calling in our positions.”

“They’re with us, Limon,” Varela said, “you stupid sonofabitch!”

“Pierre tried to kill me.”

Varela swore. “What did you do?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Never mind, Limon, you stop your vehicle and stand your ground.”

More bullets pinged into the armored plating of the SUV as Theo’s speed increased.

“Our tail vehicle disappeared,” Porras said, his increasing anger apparent in his voice. “Pierre tried to shoot me in the head and we’re taking fire.” Paused as he glanced up at the roofs. “We’re falling back.”

“You stand your ground!” Varela ordered.

Porras said nothing, just looked around up at the buildings. JC was doing the same. The spotters from before were replaced with shooters, men holding AK-47s and handguns, firing down at them.

“You hear me, Limon?” Varela yelled through the walkie-talkie. “Stop your vehicle and stand your ground.”

“I see an exit,” Theo said.

“Take it,” JC replied, his eyes scanning the same rooftops as Porras.

“Those are your people on the rooftops?” Porras asked quietly into the walkie talkie as Theo slammed on the brakes and jammed the steering wheel to the right, the front of the vehicle swinging to the left.

“Yes,” Varela sighed. “Now stand your ground.”

Movement from the right alleyway opposite the wider road Theo was aiming for drew both JC’s and Porras’s eyes. A door flew open and three men stormed out not twenty yards up the street and to the right. One had an AK-47 trained on the armored vehicle, one carried what looked like a collection of fat baseball bats over his shoulder.

The third had an RPG launcher on his shoulder trained at the SUV.

“Get us the hell outta here!” JC yelled, reaching for the back of the vehicle for another, bigger bag, this one a backpack.

“What did you do, Manolo?” Porras asked the walkie-talkie. He didn’t expect an answer.

Chapter 25

“Holy shit!” Theo yelled as the engine of the Chevy Tahoe roared in response to Theo’s foot slamming against the floor of the cab.

JC looked past Braun, checking their situation as he tossed the backpack he was looking for over his shoulder towards Porras. In about 1/200th of a second his eye saw and his mind was able to process the exhaust blast of an RPG being fired and, more importantly, the sight of an RPG speeding directly at them.

Only two things saved them from dying in the alleyway of the Argentinian villa. The first was the power and glory of the behemoth engine inside the American SUV propelling it enough forward at a split second’s notice.

The second was the person firing the grenade was slow off the line.

As it was, even with 355 powerful American iron horses and a lazy trigger finger, the RPG managed to clip the very edge of the rear door frame of the SUV. While the arming tip of the miniature warhead didn’t detonate, actually saving everyone inside, as the angled head hit the curved steel of the SUV’s back end, it angled off slightly to the left, still travelling at 651 feet/second, and slammed into the wall just beyond the SUV.

Then it detonated.

The explosion peeled the back half of the SUV back like a tin can being ripped apart by a gorilla. The point of separation was just behind the back seat, the cargo area being torn and thrown towards the driver’s side of the vehicle. The entire rear of the vehicle, including the rear tires and axle, were flung toward the passenger’s side of the vehicle, traveling in an arc, towards the side of the vehicle. There were only a few shreds of sheet metal holding it to the rest of the vehicle as it pivoted.

Theo was desperately trying to keep the vehicle moving forward as what bags they had were scattered in the street behind them. JC shoved Braun down with one hand as he pulled the compact AR-15 free from the briefcase at his feet. Without the protection of the now crippled vehicle, he wanted the principal protected as much as possible, even if it was just the back of a car seat.

It was a losing battle for Theo. Despite what the cartoons and movies tell you, there is no way to drive a vehicle that’s been torn apart by an RPG. The only thing that kept them moving forward was the residual kinetic energy from the throaty push of the American engine and the forward movement of the grenade’s blast. The hanging end of the vehicle pulled them to the right and fought their forward movement, dragging them right towards a telephone pole.

“Hold on!” Theo yelled out, unable to steer the Tahoe away from it.

As the tarred wood of the pole slid against the passenger’s side of the vehicle, the rear of the Tahoe, riding far to the right of the vehicle, caught on it and tore free.

As the back of the ruined vehicle slammed to the ground, Theo kept trying to press on the accelerator, steer the vehicle, do something to control their outcome. But there was no longer a gas tank, which meant no fuel and therefore no energy. As the vehicle sputtered to a stop and died, Theo was turning in his seat, reaching for the briefcase sitting in the right passenger footwell, right behind Porras.

JC already had it open, thrusting it into Theo’s hands. Theo pulled the short-barreled rifle from its enclosure, swiveling the buttstock into place, throwing the strap of the briefcase over his shoulder, opening the door and exiting the vehicle in one swift movement.

As Theo advanced back up the alley towards their attackers, providing cover for their exit, JC scrambled up to the front seat.

“Can you move?” he asked Porras the bullets thankfully no longer pounding into the vehicle for the moment.

“Yeah,” Porras said, the shock from the betrayal, his injury and the car crash overwhelming him.

“Hey!” JC said, snapping his fingers hard in front of Porras’s eyes.

“I’m good,” Porras said, focusing.

“Take Braun,” JC said, putting the AR-15 into Porras’s hands and unzipping the large backpack at his feet. “You and Theo go that way,” he continued, pointing in the direction the SUV was pointing, “find a vehicle and get out of here.”

“What are you doing?” Porras asked as JC pulled a large weapon from the backpack.

“Buying you time,” he said, exiting the vehicle, the backpack hooked over one shoulder. “Move now.”

*****

The passenger side of the vehicle was damaged enough by the telephone pole that the door was jammed shut. Porras looked in the back to see Braun hunkered down where JC had shoved him. He said nothing to him, just scooted over to the open driver’s side door as best as he could.

His feet hit the ground, forcing a wince and half a groan as the wound on his leg made itself known. He turned, shouldering the AR-15 and making his way towards what was left of the back of the vehicle.

“Boss,” Theo hissed at JC as the man jogged back towards the direction they came from, his backpack firmly in place. Theo swore as he pivoted to Porras.

“You good?” Theo asked, curt.

“I won’t hold us back.”

“Good man,” Theo said, clapping him on the shoulder, the answer visibly giving him some relief. They were, after all, professionals. “Get us a car and do it now.”

Porras nodded, turning up the street, moving in the opposite direction of JC, searching for a vehicle that was old enough to be able to hotwire. He spied it inside two seconds: a light blue and rusty Ford F150 that was about twice as old as Porras. He limped and shuffle-ran towards it, knowing they had little time before either Varela’s crew or the shooters from the roof found them and finished off what they started.

Later there would be time for him to dissect all the issues and problems surrounding his brother-in-law betraying him and setting him up for death. Right now his biggest concern was hotwiring the ancient American truck he was almost at.

The first explosion shook the ground, forcing Porras to stumble and catch himself on the bed of the truck. He turned to see what was happening. All he saw was Theo running towards him with Braun in front of him, smoke rising behind them. Theo’s big hand was clamped on the back of Braun’s neck, forcing the man to bend over as they ran. It took Porras a second to realize what Theo was doing; he was putting the bulk of his body between the principal and any attackers. If someone took a shot at them from behind, they’d hit Theo.

“Get that goddamn truck started!” Theo bellowed as he ran past Porras towards the front of the truck. More explosions shook the ground behind them but Porras had a job to do and it wasn’t rubbernecking at whatever battle was happening up the street. His only job was to get the transportation up and moving.

He pivoted and half-stumbled, half-ran around the bed of the truck. He saw Theo posted up on the front right corner of the vehicle, Braun shoved down behind the hood of the truck. Theo had his rifle against his shoulder, sighting down the alleyway, covering their rear. The explosions stopped, creating an eerie silence in the street.

The truck was mercifully unlocked. The owner had, likely from experience, determined the cost of replacing the window was greater than the value of anything locked inside. Although it had been a while, Porras was no stranger to boosting a vehicle in an emergency, even if said emergency was a ride home on a late Saturday night in his youth. Twenty seconds and the truck roared to life.

He hopped out, running around the front as Theo shoved Braun into the truck through the now open passenger-side door. Theo continued around the back of the truck, his rifle still pointed down the street as he backed up to the driver’s side and jumped in. Porras was barely inside the vehicle when Theo threw it in drive and slammed on the accelerator. The old truck jumped forward, clipping the rear quarter of a Volkswagen Sirocco and shoving it into an orange sedan in front of it.

Another explosion shook the late morning air. This one was much larger.

Theo slammed on the brakes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Braun half-squeaked.

Theo looked at Porras.

“You ever leave a man behind?”

Porras shook his head, knowing in his heart the path before them.

“No way in hell.”

“Me neither,” Theo said, “and we’re not starting today.”

The worn tires of the fifty-year-old truck spun against the dirt and gravel on the top of the pavement as Theo threw it into reverse and slammed his foot on the accelerator again, the old truck shooting back up the street in the direction of the explosions. The very same direction that JC told them not to go.

Porras put his hand on Braun’s neck, forcing the billionaire to scrunch down into the seat of the beat-up old pickup truck as they barreled in the exact opposite direction of safety.

Chapter 26

There was no way JC was going to try and run and gun through the streets with a superior force. He was outmanned, outgunned and outmaneuvered. There was an exceedingly small window that would allow him to change the dynamics of the situation by doing what the other side didn’t expect him to do.

Attack.

He swung the large backpack onto his back, swooping his other arm through the strap. Theo was covering them from the rear of the ruined vehicle, the undercarriage dropped down to the ground, forcing the vehicle to sit at a thirty-degree angle. JC stopped just behind him, snugging the buttstock of the weapon in his hands against his shoulder.

“Take Braun and Porras, get a vehicle and get out of here,” JC said loud enough for just Theo to hear.

Theo glanced at the weapon in JC’s hands and then back up the street.

“The hell I will, boss,” Theo said, looking back up the street.

“We’re out of options, we’re about to be pinned down, your Spanish is better than mine and all our exits are currently blown.” He paused, the enormity of the situation hitting him as he spoke it out loud. “You got a better idea?”

“Than suicide?” Theo scoffed. “Gimme a second.”

JC took him at his word, waited five seconds and said, “Time’s up.”

“Forget it, JC.”

“Get Braun back home safely,” JC said, clapping Theo on the shoulder as he headed towards the site of their attack at a quick jog.

He heard Theo swear at him as he moved past him but he knew Theo realized the wisdom in his plan. Didn’t mean he had to like it. Hell, Bannister didn’t like it. But it was the only thing that made sense.

Besides, he said to himself, there’s always the chance this is going to work.

He started to chuckle, then focused on the work at hand. He knew it wasn’t a suicide mission. Well, not exactly. There was a limited window for it to work and a lot of things would have to go right in order for it to do so. He had, however, pulled off riskier and even stupider plans with even less of a chance for success in the past. He just needed the same holy guardians of man’s inherent stupidity protecting him once again.

As he jogged forward, he snugged the buttstock of the Milkor M32 multiple grenade launcher against his shoulder and aimed it at the direction he expected Valera’s crew to be coming from. While the M32 fired explosive grenades, among other things, those grenades were far slower than a bullet. He needed to be quick on the trigger in order for his plan to work.

The silence of the neighborhood was almost eerie after the crash of battle. All he could hear was the slap of his four-hundred-dollar leather oxfords on the ground. Up ahead there were echoes of movement coming from the cross street, but nothing yet. He knew it soon would be.

The three-man team who fired the RPG at JC’s SUV rounded the corner. JC planted the red “X” of the sight square in the chest of the man holding the rocket launcher and pulled the trigger. One problem solved, he glanced up to see shooters spreading out on the rooftops. Two more grenades fired within a second.

Just as he fired the third grenade, the first one found its mark. The man holding the RPG had seen JC, seen what he was holding and had fired, and attempted to backpedal away from the fist-sized munition of death lobbing towards him. The man holding the AK-47 hadn’t seen what was happening and put the battle rifle against his shoulder, the action of the weapon chattering as it threw bullets in JC’s direction.

The grenade struck the man holding the RPG launcher just below the left knee. The explosion vaporized his mid-legs, blowing his feet off in different directions and turning what remained of his legs into ragged bloody stumps. The blast did the same for the men to either side of him. The AK shooter dropped, the rifle clattering on the pavement away from him as he howled in pain. The man holding the extra RPGs fell down, already dead from the shock of the blast. The man who fired the grenade at JC’s team struggled, grasping for the RPG as if it might somehow help him now.

As the grenades exploded on the upper floors of the buildings, right below where the shooters were posted up, JC rounded the corner, passing the men who were dead or dying in pieces on the ground. His target was still up the street, far enough away he wanted something with a larger blast radius than the M32.

He dropped the bulky weapon and turned back to the carnage behind him, picked up the RPG that lay just out of reach, scooped up one of the long grenades laying on the street and ducked down behind the wall of the coffee shop on the corner to load the weapon. Two seconds later and he was out from cover, the launcher on his shoulder as he cleared the parked cars on the side of the street and stood in the middle of the road.

“Manolo!” he roared at the top of his lungs. Varela’s SUV was stopped in the middle of the street about fifty yards ahead. The man was standing there, coordinating with his Seguridad Universal personnel and others who seemed to be extraordinarily well-armed civilians.

At the sound of his nickname, Varela swiveled, glaring up the street at who would dare call him by that name.

Three things happened at once. One, Varela’s brain began processing the information his eyes relayed to him about the man he saw standing up the street. While his brain was computing, his more instinctual side was screaming at him to move. Two, he and the dozen or so SU personnel and local gangsters who controlled this portion of Buenos Ares started to move their bodies away from the area, looking for cover or simply running in the opposite direction to get away from what they knew was coming.

Three, JC pulled the trigger.

The RPG snaked out of the launcher and shot up the street at its target. Luckily for JC, Varela’s SUV was sitting at about a fifteen-degree angle, the rear of the vehicle towards JC. He aimed the RPG just above the rear bumper of the vehicle and about a foot to the left of the right rear taillight. If things were going his way and whatever spirit was watching over him at that moment in time, then the RPG would slam into the vehicle, explode and ignite the fuel in the gas tank.

Luck was with JC. The angled nose cone of the RPG hit dead on where JC was aiming. It crumpled the body inwards, the armored plating doing little to stop the rocket-propelled munition. Once inside the vehicle, it detonated, causing an almighty and glorious explosion, the gasoline inside the vehicle vaporizing and turning into a gigantic, ballooning ball of fire.

The force of the blast lifted the rear of the SUV about three feet in the air before letting gravity do its work, bringing the ruined vehicle smashing back down to the cobblestone street.

It looked like an exploding cigar from the cartoons: the skin of the vehicle was peeled back in all directions, the insides charred and burning. JC wasn’t sure if anyone was inside or not, but he was most definitely sure if there was they were no longer living and unlikely to be in one piece.

He slung the RPG launcher over his shoulder, bent down to quickly pick up the three remaining grenades from the ground, scooped up the M32 grenade launcher and ran as fast as he possibly could back up the street away from the carnage.

JC knew there was little he could do with the munitions he was carrying. By now Theo, Porras and Braun were long gone, he was on foot, barely spoke Spanish and was carrying visible weapons of war in what could only be described as a hostile neighborhood.

But neither did he want to leave them laying in the street to help Varela or his forces or, worse yet, to be picked up by some civilian and, due to their lack of experience, harm someone else.

So he schlepped up the street, the heavy backpack snug against his suit jacket, the empty RPG launcher slapping against his back, the three RPGs tucked under his left arm threatening to fall onto the street and the two-thirds empty M32 multiple grenade launcher clutched in his right fist, bouncing against his thigh as he ran. His short-barreled AR-15 rifle was slung across his chest but he would need to drop at least one of the heavier weapons to access it. Not an ideal situation.

The neighborhood, like most he’d experienced in Argentina, was quite attractive, despite the poverty and over-riding influence of a gang running things. The streets were fairly neat, the buildings a nice mix of modern and historical, lots of color and mixed-use areas.

But he and his team had turned it into a war zone. Well, to be precise, Varela did that and we simply responded. He briefly wondered if they were safe by now. Probably, if Theo did as I told him.

The sound of a vehicle filtered through his hearing about the same time as his eyes recognized movement on the ghost streets ahead of him. He pivoted and ducked down behind a car, dropped the M32, swung the RPG launcher in front of himself, roughly laid the three remaining RPGs on the rough pavement, loading one into the launcher, then placed it back on the ground as well. He gripped the AR-15, wedged the shoulder stock against the strap of the backpack and waited.

He couldn’t wait. He poked his head out to see what looked like an old pickup truck reversing up the street towards him. He ducked back under cover and put a little distance between himself and the vehicle he was hiding behind. It exposed him a little more but gave him more maneuverability. The streets were devoid of anyone not fighting, the various vehicles that weren’t parked just pulled roughly over to the side, the occupants scattered to buildings and storefronts. The neighborhood was no stranger to violence and people who lived here knew what to do. Those who weren’t from the neighborhood wisely followed the lead of the others who scattered.

Which meant the truck reversing up the street and almost on JC’s position was either plum crazy to be driving towards the sounds of explosions or the occupants were with Varela’s team. Maybe they were from Seguridad Universal, maybe they were support from the gang that Varela affiliated himself with. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t be JC’s team because JC clearly told Theo to take off.

A realization clicked in JC’s mind, like a mini led lightbulb turning on. He leaned out from the protection of the car just enough to be visible, barrel of his rifle pointed at the ground. The truck, mostly white but with all sorts of rust, slid past, then slammed on the brakes, the cab level with his position.

JC stood, shaking his head.

“Where to, boss?” Theo asked with a nod.

Braun was crouched down in the middle between Porras and Theo, Porras’s hand on his head pushing him further down. JC realized for a brief instant how emasculating that must be for a man like Braun, but in the next instant he figured it was preferable than dead, so he mentally kept moving.

Porras wasn’t smiling, but he was very much working with Theo for the moment, which was better than working against them, so JC decided to take it on face value.

He scooped up the weaponry and headed for the truck bed, dumping it all inside. JC had no sooner deposited the weapons than the whizz of bullets passing by him, followed by the sound of gunfire from up the street, made him realize they were out of time.

“Hop in!” Theo roared from inside the vehicle at the same time that JC rolled his body over the truck bed’s siderail, landing painfully on the backpack. Theo stomped on the gas, the old American truck powering away down the street. It may have looked like hell, but the engine and drivetrain were strong.

Probably a farm truck or working man’s truck, JC said to himself. No other choice but to keep it in good working order.

His thoughts re-focused quickly. As Theo tore through the quiet streets, four vehicles careened around a corner behind them, giving chase.

“We got company,” JC yelled towards the cab, his voice carrying through the open driver, passenger and rear sliding windows.

“If only we had something that could cause a big explosion to discourage them, right boss?” Theo yelled back.

JC chuckled, staying low and bracing himself as Theo swerved both around the remaining abandoned cars in the street as well as to give their pursuers a more erratic target. For the most part it worked. Their bullets either missed or hit the tailgate or rear quarter panels. But everyone in the truck knew it took only one hitting the principal and they were done.

“We got an exit ahead?” JC yelled, gripping the M32, still ducked down behind the edge of the tailgate.

“Yeah,” Porras yelled back. “Second left up ahead.”

“Get ready,” JC replied.

He kneeled in the back of the truck, his torso clearing the tailgate, the M32 sighted at their pursuers. He pulled the trigger once, then a second later again, sending two 40mm grenades hurtling through the air down the middle of the street. He ducked down, making his body as small of a target as possible, wanting to see if he hit the mark.

The first grenade flew in a low parabola, slamming into the grill of the lead vehicle, a Subaru Forester loaded with men. The explosion tore the front end of the vehicle to pieces, igniting gas lines and motor oil. The ruined car slid off to the right, on fire, the front axle broken from the force of the blast. Men tried to exit the vehicle, some on fire themselves, before the vehicle exploded as they likely feared. It didn’t, at least not yet. It just sat there burning, blocking half the road.

The second grenade flew in the same low parabola, this one sailing over the roof of the Subaru as it slid off to the right and landed just beneath the front bumper of the second vehicle, a Chevy Tahoe. For a brief second JC thought it malfunctioned as it didn’t explode. Instead, it ricocheted up into the front drivetrain of the vehicle and then exploded. The upward momentum and the blast from the high explosive munition launched the SUV upwards into the air, also on fire as the Subaru, and brought it crashing back down to the pavement shortly thereafter.

“Take the turn!” JC yelled back to Theo who responded by cranking the wheel so hard to the left JC lost his balance and rolled, slamming against the right side of the bed. He reached for the RPGs to keep them from rolling around too much. As Theo righted the vehicle, JC hoped the confusion would be enough to distract their pursuers from knowing exactly where they turned. If not, there were other options, but as they left the gang-controlled neighborhood behind, JC knew gunfights in the streets would more than likely bring a much larger police presence.

He could hear the sirens in the distance. Maybe police, maybe fire trucks; what just happened would bring attention of all kinds. I’d bet a million dollars it’ll be all over the news within two hours, JC said to himself as he reloaded the M32, knowing that nobody would take the bet.

“You know a place to lay low?” he asked Porras through the open sliding rear window after the weapon was reloaded and back inside the backpack.

“I know a place,” Porras said.

JC nodded as Porras gave directions to Theo. He sat down, pulling his ruined suit jacket and tie off, placed his AR-15 next to him and covered it with the jacket. He was doing his best to look like some guy riding in the back of a truck, not a soldier of fortune cruising through Buenos Ares trying to lose their pursuers.

As Theo followed Porras’s directions onto the expressway and the wind battered around JC’s head, he relaxed a little, looking around the back of the truck. Theo and Porras had managed to salvage a number of bags from their ruined SUV, giving them a fair bit of equipment. With Porras, despite his injury, they were up a man which was always preferable. Plus, he knew the city and could, hopefully, help them get out of Argentina alive.

JC leaned his head against the cab of the truck. He didn’t close his eyes despite the adrenaline dumping from his system and telling him to close them for just a minute. He watched, scanning the road behind them for pursuers, for police, for landmarks and to get a perspective of where they were and where they had been. Despite Porras being on their side, he wasn’t about to rely on anyone besides Theo. Unfortunately, Theo had never been to Argentina before.

That’s not true, he said to himself. He was here once. A minivan drove past, the girl in a booster seat in the back waving at him as they passed. JC waved back, an easy smile on his face. Last time you were in Argentina you were poisoned and left for dead. Theo managed to save your life that time.

He sighed again, for two reasons. One because he realized Argentina may join the short list of countries he never wanted to return to. And two because of the person who poisoned him.

He let his mind drift back to her, to Isabella, wondering if he’d ever see her again. Five minutes later he gently pushed those thoughts back down into the locked box in the secret depths of his heart where they resided. Any more than that was dangerous.

JC stretched his back, trying to stave off the stiffness in his lower back he knew was coming. A brief image of Isabella popped into his mind unbidden. She was walking on a sandy beach in Australia, wearing jean shorts, flip-flops and a white tank top. She turned to him as she walked ahead, reaching her severely burned and scarred left arm back to him, hand open to him, welcoming him, beckoning him.

She smiled.

JC’s eyes flew open. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. It might have been five minutes, maybe twenty. They were still on the freeway. He checked the vehicles, searching for pursuers. Thirty seconds later, satisfied he hadn’t royally screwed up, he relaxed slightly.

JC had never been to Australia and it bothered him that he was dreaming of her, in Australia, as if they were there together. He shook his head, gritted his teeth and focused on their current situation. Within twenty seconds his mind was back on point, looking for a possible way out of the mess they were in.

Who was it? he asked himself. Who ordered Varela to hit Braun?

As the truck drifted to the right and Theo guided it towards an offramp and off the freeway, JC’s mind moved past the immediate problem of getting out of the country and focused on trying to figure out who paid Varela. And how were they going to exact revenge on both the person who paid Varela and the man himself.

Chapter 27

“Mrs. Braun,” Ms. Gibbons said, “you need to come and see this.”

And with that, Olivia Braun’s entire life shifted.

She rose from the high-backed leather chair in her personal office on the executive suite floor. By the time she’d smoothed the front of her skirt and picked up her cell phone to carry with her, Ms. Gibbons, the head of Visionary Worldwide’s security, was already gone down the hallway.

Olivia knew where she’d gone: back to the conference room. Over the past several hours it had become the de facto operations central for Visionary. As her Jimmy Choo asymmetric pumps dug into the low pile carpeting with every step, she felt like she was somehow floating. At the same time that she felt the cushioned jolt of her heels hitting the floor, it felt like her chest was both constricting and hovering about a foot above her shoulders while her head felt so light she thought it might fall off of her neck.

Of course, she made it to the conference room without that happening. Like everything else in her life, she simply kept up appearances and pushed on through, no matter the difficulty. As she opened the door, it seemed like every face in the room turned away from the big screen television to look at her. Most looked down and away, some staring at her with what seemed like pity.

The anger began to rise inside her but she pushed it down. Forced her face to be calm, to conform to what they would likely expect her to do.

“What is it,” she asked gently, a perfectly timed hitch in her voice.

The crowd parted and Kevin Dobkin, Vice-President of Visionary Worldwide, was there in a second, stooping slightly at the shoulders to compensate for their eight-inch height difference. For one exceptionally long petrifying second, Olivia thought he was going to hug her. Instead he leaned down even more and softly said, “There’s been an incident in Argentina.”

Olivia’s heart leapt into her throat and she swallowed hard to force it back down. She turned on the ice queen mode she’d practiced over the years and had already decided she’d utilize at this moment.

“Tell me,” she said. Then, looking at the faces of the executives in the room, she continued with, “Everything.”

“There was an attack,” Kevin began before another man said, “There’s an update,” from the far end of the room and turned the sound on the television up, the voice of the female newscaster on-the-scene piping through the room.

“…reports say that Tyler Braun’s motorcade came under attack while diverting through this neighborhood,” the woman said, gesturing behind her without pulling her eyes from the camera.

Behind her, in the distance was what looked to Olivia like a warzone. Plumes of smoke rose from multiple vehicles, some of them torn to pieces. She could see more than a few bright orange tarps over what had to be bodies lying in the street. Police officers were directing traffic and people away from the area while armed soldiers patrolled behind them. The reporter had to stop while an ambulance wailed past.

“Oh, my god,” one woman in the room said.

Olivia ignored her, eyes glued to the television.

“While reports are still coming in, this man was an eyewitness and has agreed to speak to us,” the reporter said, walking to her left as the camera panned to follow her.

Olivia kept her calm as Manuel Varela came into view.

“That’s the guy running our security down there,” one person said. Olivia thought it sounded like Ms. Gibbons, but wasn’t sure.

“Which security,” someone else said but was shushed by a handful of others.

“You saw the attack, sir?” the reporter asked Varela.

“My company was providing security for Mr. Braun,” Varela said, glancing at the camera once but addressing the reporter. There was soot on his face and what looked like might be blood as well. Olivia had never seen him before outside of a headshot on the company website but had spoken to him many times on the phone. So strange to see him for the first time, she thought, keeping her face an icy mask.

“Could you tell us what you saw?”

Varela nodded bravely. “Traffic caused us to take this diversion route. We were attacked by well-coordinated terrorists using small-arms fire and spotters in multiple vehicles. Tyler Braun’s vehicle was hit by an RPG.”

“In Buenos Ares?” the reporter gasped. “It sounds like Afghanistan.”

“I’m as shocked as you are,” Varela said with a straight face and a nod. “It’s possible whoever took him was working with local criminal gangs for the ransom.”

“Did Mr. Braun make it out alive?”

“We believe so,” Varela said, “and we’re hoping so. He hasn’t been seen since the attack and neither has my second-in-command nor the security team Mr. Braun brought with him from America.”

The reporter turned to the camera, signaling the end of the interview, saying, “And with that we go back to the studio. Naomi?”

The shot cut to a news studio, all flash and lights and seriousness with serious people doing serious work in the background. Naomi, apparently, turned to a man sitting on the opposite side of the news desk.

“Joaquin,” she said, “do you think the missing security personnel are in on the kidnapping, or are they simply caught up in the same catastrophe?”

“Good question, Naomi,” Joaquin said, his perfect teeth and chin on par with Naomi’s even more perfect makeup and hair. “It wouldn’t be the first time a security team had a hand in the kidnapping of their principal. I’d be a little surprised, to be honest, with such a high-profile target. Once when I was embedded with a strike team in Afgha-”

“Turn it off,” Dobkin snapped. “Listen,” he continued in the ensuing silence, “the FBI will be contacting us in a minute if we don’t contact them first. Tyler’s too high-profile for them to not do anything. Danny, get on the horn and see how high up the chain you can get. I don’t want to be dealing with some regional deputy director.”

Olivia saw a head at the back move towards the door, likely Danny to go make the phone call.

“Hailey?” Dobkin said loudly, looking for Ms. Gibbons.

“Here, sir,” Gibbons said, stepping forward from the door Olivia was standing by. She was almost at Olivia’s elbow.

“I hate to ask this now, but how reliable are the men we sent down there?”

“Excuse me?” Gibbons said, the incredulity clear in her voice.

“Any chance they would be involved in this kidnapping?” Dobkin said, not pulling any punches. “Perhaps even orchestrating it?”

“No chance in hell,” Gibbons said with a curt shake of her head.

“Would you stake your career on it?” Dobkin pressed.

“I already have, sir, by vouching for them in the first place.” She paused, her jaw clenching. “If Mr. Braun’s in trouble, ma’am,” she continued, turning to Olivia, “there is no better team on the face of the earth to help him get out of it than JC Bannister and Theo Petrosian.” Her back straightened as she spoke, her voice thickening with pride.

That’s what I was afraid of.

“My apologies, Hailey,” Dobkin said. “I had to ask and I wanted your answer clearly heard by everyone in this room.” He turned to the assembled people. “Make no mistake,” he said, his voice rising even though unnecessary in the confined space, “we are going to get Tyler back. He’s our friend, our fearless leader, and our family,” he continued, pausing to place his large hand on Olivia’s shoulder for a brief second. “He would do the same for us, so let’s get out there and beat those bushes. Any contacts you have in law enforcement anywhere in the world, private or governmental, reach out and let’s get this man back home.”

“He won’t come home,” a young man at the back said, pausing long enough for everyone to look at him. “Not until he signs the papers on this merger.”

A few in the crowd chuckled, then the laughter spread, breaking the tension.

“Then let’s get him back so he can sign those goddamn papers and then come back home,” Dobkin said loudly.

As the crowd’s laughter grew, someone started to clap. Within twenty seconds the whole room was clapping. As spontaneously as it started, it died out and most of the crowd went to their offices or pulled out their phones to make inquiries with any contacts they had who might help the situation along.

And like that, my moment’s taken from me, Olivia said to herself. She could have spoken out, could have made some stirring proclamation, taken back her agency and stepped onto the stage to lead the company when her husband was inevitably found dead. But she did none of that. Instead she let others do that and, in doing so, threw another log on the twin fires of both her hatred of everything around her and her own self-loathing.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Braun?” Ms. Gibbons said.

The woman was still at her elbow and the surprise of it made Olivia jump slightly. She played it off with a nervous chuckle, and a fluttering of the hands.

“I’m sorry, Hailey,” she said through the chuckle as Dobkin hovered near her. “I guess this whole thing has made me a little more high-strung than usual.”

“Nobody would blame you, Olivia,” Dobkin said, “if you took some time, maybe went to see a doctor and got some rest.”

Olivia saw the flash of anger in Hailey’s eyes mirroring her own. She turned to him, the ice queen mask slamming into place.

“Why, because you think being high-strung about your husband being kidnapped and possibly dead in the gutter in some third-world shithole is out of character? Unacceptable, perhaps?” She seethed as Dobkin made placating movements with his hands, taking an unconscious step backwards. Olivia waited until he opened his mouth to speak before she barreled on. “Am I being hysterical? Does my anger at this affront make me too emotional? Should I go off somewhere to be drugged up with pills so the responsible people can make the decisions and take care of the problems?” Her voice rose with every sentence until she was doing her thunderous non-shrilly best to cause a scene.

“Olivia, if you’ll ju-”

“Just what?” Olivia growled. “Sit down, shut up and look pretty?” She stepped forward, her nose jutting into his face. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re going to do to get Tyler Braun back here in one piece?”

Dobkin had gathered his wits. She could see it by the coldness on his face. Still, she waited.

“If you don’t mind?” he asked motioning for the hallway just outside.

“Here is good,” Olivia said without blinking.

“I’ve got some contacts in Argentina,” Dobkin said, swallowing a sigh before he did, his voice low. “I went to prep school with a couple of high-ranking officials down there. I’m going to call them up, see what they can do.”

“What kind of officials,” Gibbons asked, apparently part of the conversation now.

“One is an aide to the president, another a deputy minister at the Ministry of Security, the third a general in the Argentine Air Force. It’s not the Army,” he said with a nod to Gibbons, “but it’s the best I’ve got.”

“I’ll reach out to some of my contacts,” Gibbons said. “A lot of the people I served with ended up in South America. They might be able to rustle a few bushes, maybe kick in a few doors.”

Olivia absorbed what they said, secretly hoping that their attempts were entirely and hopelessly unsuccessful.

“We’ll get him back, Olivia,” Dobkin said as Hailey nodded in affirmation.

“Good,” Olivia said, her voice pitched to carry through the room, “because he’s my husband and this company is just as much mine as it is his.” That was said for the ears of those executives still left in the room. She leaned into Dobkin, the next words just for him. “You are one of our greatest friends and the vice-president of Visionary Worldwide,” she said, her voice low but full of icy barbs, “but the next time you presume to speak for me or this company without my authority in this time of trouble, I will put your balls in a vice and squeeze them until you’ve nothing left and you’re washing dishes in some shitass diner just to make the rent.”

She turned and headed for the door on the way back to her office. Gibbons was behind her; she could feel the woman’s footsteps and smell her perfume as she walked down the hallway. Dobkin was likely still standing there, pissed as could be but unable to say a word.

Olivia knew she’d gone too far, but she didn’t care. If Varela was successful, then Tyler would be dead and she would be free to start over in any place, doing anything she wanted.

And if he was unsuccessful, apparently, she would be dead.

Either way, there was no turning back. A burned bridge or two wouldn’t matter.

*****

“I know,” Kevin Dobkin said, his six-four frame hunched over, his shoulders folding in on themselves as he tried to make himself as physically small as possible. He’d long ago learned he wasn’t a terribly effective actor and the changing of his body position to match the attempted feeling was the best way for him to achieve the emotion he was going for. Right now he was trying to sound contrite and penitent even though he felt neither.

“I mean, I can only guess you’re calling because of that mess your boss brought down here,” the man on the other end of the line said.

“You’re right,” Dobkin said, gritting his teeth at the word “boss.” “I was hoping you might be able to help me out with that.”

Gaspar Rivas, the youngest Brigadier General in the history of the Argentine Air Force, sucked air through his teeth, an annoying habit he developed when he and Dobkin were friends in prep school in Connecticut. It set Dobkin’s teeth on edge back then and it still did.

“How might you envision that type of help playing out?” Rivas asked.

Dobkin stood up, stretching his tall frame to its fullest height. The time for timidity was over.

“I want you to get involved in the search,” he said, speaking slowly, wanting every word heard and understood. “Make it your personal mission. And when you have recovered him and have him in your custody, I want you to put a bullet in Tyler Braun’s head and blame it on his kidnappers. Or better yet, his security team.”

Rivas said nothing for a beat.

“That would be extraordinarily difficult,” he finally said, equally slowly.

“You didn’t say impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Rivas said, “for the properly motivated.”

There it is, Dobkin said to himself, the negotiation.

“And what would properly motivate you, Gaspar?”

Rivas waited for another beat before saying, “Five million dollars. US.”

Dobkin smiled. He wanted to pounce, but he needed to wait, so he did. Ten seconds later he said, “That’s a lot of money, Gaspar.”

“Tax free, set up in accounts across Europe and the Bahamas,” Rivas continued. “Untraceable.”

Dobkin waited a bit longer before agreeing to the terms of their agreement. After some pleasantries and wrinkles to iron out, he hung up the phone and sat down in the leather club chair in his office. He tossed the phone on the maple slab coffee table in front of him and leaned his head back, exhaling slowly.

He didn’t feel an ounce of guilt or compunction for ordering the murder of his old friend. All Dobkin felt was overwhelming pride that he was able to set in motion the chain of events that would end in him gaining control of a multi-billion dollar a year company for a measly five million.

He stood, stretched, and walked over to the small wet bar hidden behind a glass-encased bookshelf. He carefully and fastidiously mixed himself a highball, walked over to the view of Manhattan down below him and sipped the slightly fixing alcoholic drink.

“Behind every great fortune is a great crime,” he muttered, smiling past his reflection as the whisky from the classic drink warmed his insides. This was just the first salvo in his scheme. There were quite a few more proportionally evil steps required before he would be able to completely take over Visionary Unlimited.

Chapter 28

“I gotta say,” Braun said, stretching as he leaned back on the Italian leather sofa, “this is a helluva lot better than I expected a hideout to be.”

“Yeah, well, enjoy it because we’re out of here in a few hours,” Theo said, hovering over Porras’s leg, his combat medic training coming to bear as he cleaned and properly closed the wound from Pierre’s dying gunshot.

“We should’ve gone to my girls’ place, though,” Braun said. Theo didn’t respond, just focused on attending to Porras’s injury.

JC walked back into the main room. “We’re set. There’s a balcony off the master bedroom with stairs leading down to the street, but there’s a gate blocking access.” He looked out the window with a view of the numerous parks, the river and the pricy neighborhood they were holed up in.

Using the vacation home-sharing app to find a hideout had been Theo’s idea. As they drove down the freeway, he and Porras kept bouncing ideas off each other on where they could stay without being found. Every place Porras could think of Varela somehow knew about it. Every idea Theo had required far more public exposure than they were comfortable with or was in a poor enough neighborhood they would be targets simply for carrying a number of bags into whatever abandoned warehouse or broken-down hovel they could find.

With many of the higher-end vacation home rentals on the app requiring nothing more than a government-issued ID and a credit card with enough space for a hefty refundable deposit, Theo volunteered his. The thinking was whomever was going to be looking for them would flag Braun’s cards for sure, definitely Porras’s and likely Bannister’s. Theo’s would be an afterthought and that afterthought would probably let them fly under the radar, at least for a little while. It wasn’t a great plan, but right now it was all they had. They needed a place to lay low, get their bearings and plan their next move.

“If only we had room service,” Braun said. “I’m getting hungry.”

“We’ll get food later,” Theo said, finished with Porras’s leg. “Right now we need to figure out how to get out of the country in one piece.”

“What we need to be doing,” Braun said, “is getting to that meeting with Mercado, sign those papers and then getting me some quality time with Mariela.”

JC swore. “You were almost killed not an hour ago,” he said. “This man’s team and best friend set him up to be killed,” he continued, pointing at Porras, “and you’re angling to get yourself some local tail?” He shook his head. “You’re some piece of work, man.”

“I told you I wasn’t leaving the country without seeing her,” Braun said, still relaxed but with an edge to his voice.

“You’ll do what we say,” JC said without looking at him, “when we say it, or I’m gonna knock you in the head and have Theo carry you over his shoulder everywhere we go.”

Porras tried to stand as Braun stewed at the insult, the Argentine stopping as he put his foot on the ground and winced.

“You gonna be able to move much on that?” JC asked.

“It’ll be fine,” Porras said. “Just a scratch.”

JC knew it was much more than that but decided to take the man on his word. They needed Porras’s intel and access throughout the country, assuming it wasn’t all burned. But before that was of any use to them, JC needed to get Porras’s wife and son safe. JC had read the files Ms. Gibbons collected on Varela and Porras. The two had grown up together and Porras’s wife was Varela’s stepsister. If Varela cared so little about Porras, who knows what he would be willing to do to the man’s wife and son.

But getting them safe might require a little convincing.

JC caught Theo’s eye, glanced at Porras and nodded to the sofa. Theo nodded, moving to Porras.

“Sit down for a minute,” Theo said, helping him sit back down.

JC sat down on the coffee table in front of him, close enough to make Porras slightly uncomfortable, but not so close as to have him put his guard up.

“We need to have a come to Jesus moment,” JC said.

“A what?” the man asked, his guard coming up despite JC’s intent.

“Just a phrase,” Theo said, calming him. “Means a close examination of your situation, your motivations, and where you’re headed next.”

“We need to be headi-” Braun started to say before JC cut him off.

“We’ll get to you in a minute,” JC said over his shoulder, dismissing Braun. “Porras,” he said, focusing on the one man in the room who could impact their very near future. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did back there.”

“I got shot and betrayed,” Porras said. “Didn’t really help you, nor did I have a choice.”

“Not true,” Theo said. “You could’ve taken off a number of times. You hot-wired that truck, kept Braun’s head down, protected the principal.”

“Yeah, well,” Porras said, shrugging. “I do thank you for saving my life, JC.” He looked back and forth between Theo and JC. “But I need to call my wife. She’s visiting with her family while Braun’s in town, but…” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.

“Think hard,” Theo said. “I know we went over it on the drive over here, but is there anyone you know who doesn’t have a connection to Varela or your family? Anyplace your wife can hold out in?”

Porras looked from Theo to JC and back to Theo. He shook his head gently, his eyes sinking to the floor. Theo looked at JC.

“Listen, Porras,” JC said. The man continued to look at the floor. “Hey,” JC said, sharper, getting the man to look at him. “Listen, Salvator,” JC said, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, “you did the right thing by us. You saved our bacon when you could have served it up to be cooked. The way we operate,” he continued pointing between himself and Theo, “that gets you into all kinds of good graces.”

JC took out his cellphone, searching the internet for a phone number.

“I don’t have a lot of pull in Argentina,” he said as he searched. “Never did. But I know one person who may be able to help”

Chapter 29

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Varela asked, his pearly white smile gone, a feral snarl in its place. He stared down into the woman’s eyes and, uncharacteristically, he saw no fear in them, only fire.

“I told you. My name’s Ronnie and from now on you do what I say, when I say it, if you want even half a chance at this operation’s success,” the woman said, nearly a foot and a half shorter than Varela but spoiling for a fight. “Starting with,” she continued, “if you don’t back up off me I’m gonna drive your balls straight up into your throat.”

“What’s one more?” Varela growled down at the short American.

The entire day had been one massive kick in the nuts after another. Pierre had one job to do and he’d managed to not only get himself killed but also not do the one single thing he needed to do: put a bullet in Porras’s head.

The overwhelming firepower Varela had assembled in the kilometer-long funnel designed to stop, immobilize, then pick off Bannister, Theo and, more importantly, Braun, had failed to do the job. Braun had escaped, Theo was probably alive, as well as Porras, and all thanks to JC Bannister.

A handful of Seguridad Universal’s men were either dead or injured, making him look bad to the surviving men. That didn’t even account for the vehicles and weaponry they’d lost in the battle. He’d been interviewed on TV and as much as he’d tried to put the blame on Porras and Bannister, enough of the men looked sideways at him that he knew they knew. If he didn’t start handing out bonuses like it was Christmas, he figured they’d mostly be gone within the week.

Roberto, the leader of the gang that controlled the part of Buenos Aires where the attack had taken place, had been calling him every twenty minutes for the past four hours. Varela expected him to show up at the offices with a contingent of well-armed shooters and take back in vengeance what Varela had promised him in cash.

Instead, this little firecracker of a brunette was standing in front of him, barking orders at him while his men watched him take it. His heart was telling him to crush her but something in the back of his head was telling him to listen to her.

“Clear out, men,” he said. When nobody moved, he looked at the closest man and said quietly but slowly, “I said clear out.”

Within thirty seconds the headquarters of Seguridad Universal was empty save Varela and the woman who called herself Ronnie. He continued to stare down at her as the door closed behind the last man.

“I told you to back up off me,” Ronnie growled, the violence in her voice bubbling right near the surface.

Varela waited a beat, then stepped back.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked, heading towards the small kitchen that was next to the bathroom. There was nothing more than a small refrigerator, a sink, a coffee maker and a garbage can. He reached into the refrigerator, grabbing two bottles of super sugary iced coffee and went back to the conference room.

Ronnie was sitting at the head of the table, an all-black pistol in her hand. Varela wasn’t sure of the model, but he always felt that the person behind the gun mattered more than the caliber or maker of the gun that shot it.

“Put that away,” he said, sliding one of the iced coffees towards her as he sat at the other end of the table. She let it slide almost next to her before laying the pistol on the table. “You won’t need it,” he continued, opening his own iced coffee and taking a drink. “Now,” he continued, “do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Shoot,” she said, “but we’re on the clock here.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Not hard,” Ronnie said, “especially when you’re on TV flapping your gums about being betrayed and all that.” She reached for her iced coffee, opened it and took a sip, all without her eyes leaving Varela once. “Have to say, it’s not a good look. You couldn’t control your own men, got outwitted and betrayed and then got your ass handed to you.” She paused, staring him down. “In your own city. By a couple of interlopers.”

Varela chuckled as he leaned back in the chair, iced coffee in his left hand, letting his right drop into his lap. Ronnie’s gun was in her hand in a split second.

“Hands on the table,” she said, “nice and friendly like.”

Varela froze, his hand hovering near the hidden Taurus G3 9mm handgun secured to the underside of the table in a holster, put there for the possibility of this exact scenario. He slowly moved his hand away from the gun, rising it back into Ronnie’s view and laying it flat on the table.

“What are your other questions?” she asked, the gun still in her hand but not pointed directly at Varela.

“Only one, really,” he said. “Why the hell do you think I’d let you work with me at all? I’ve got everything under control here and I don’t understand what some…interloper… can do to help me when I need to mop up internal messes, not bring in outside help.”

Ronnie smiled and chuckled, infuriating Varela. He wanted to grab the gun and kill her where she sat, but with her pistol already in her hand it was suicide for him. So he took a sip from his coffee.

“Under control?” she said. “You got your ass handed to you on a truly international level today. The dream client you thought would propel you into the worldwide security consultant limelight is now lost somewhere in big, bad Buenos Aires and you’ve got no idea where. The criminal gang you paid off to allow your assault likely wants your head, your second-in-command is either dead or working with the opposition and worst of all,” she said, looking briefly at her watch, “you’ve got to report to Olivia Braun in about twelve hours.”

Varela’s eyes narrowed. “How the hel-”

“Would you like that call to be a positive one or a negative one?” Ronnie asked. “Would you prefer to tell her everything is resolved? Or would you rather tell her things are ‘under control’ when they’re anything but?” She sipped her iced coffee, eyes still glued to Varela.

Varela sat there, ping-ponging against the emotions inside his head, trying to make his heart stop hammering in his chest. He had no idea how this woman knew Olivia Braun hired him to kill Tyler Braun. Maybe she didn’t, maybe it was a bluff. But he had the distinct feeling things were getting further out of control for him.

“If you think you’re going to slide in here and take a cut from my-”

“We don’t want any of your money,” Ronnie said, cutting him off. “Your deal with Olivia is your deal and we won’t get in the way of that.” She stood, holstering her pistol, picking up her iced coffee and moving halfway around the table towards Varela. “But to kill Braun, you need to neutralize Bannister. That is our goal. And that is what we will help you achieve.” She took a sip of her drink. “Working together, you get what you want, we get what we want.”

“A win-win?”

She nodded. “You could call it that.”

“What do you bring to the table?” Varela asked, trying to buy time before he had to decide to draw his weapon and kill her or not.

“Money, experience, skill, strategy, expertise, intelligence, ideas. Take your pick. You’re going to need all of them to pull off this hat trick.”

“I’ve got enough of those,” he said, leaning back, trying to play hardball.

“Listen, Varela,” Ronnie said, leaning forward. “You screwed up. You thought that if you brought enough firepower you could cut Bannister down. I don’t know what story you heard about him or what file you read, but it takes more than firepower. It takes an understanding of the man and a willingness to back him into a corner. Leave him no options. Only then will you begin to get close to destroying JC Bannister.”

“Like you did?”

“Excuse me”

“If you know so well how to destroy this man, why is he still running around?” Varela said, feeling his oats. “Why isn’t he dead?”

“We don’t want him dead,” Ronnie said returning to the head of the table and sitting again. “We want him destroyed. And our organization came closer to that than nearly anybody.” She paused, evaluating Varela. “If you want to play a part in the culmination of that goal, we are happy to extend a hand.”

Varela said nothing, evaluating this woman across the table. Waiting. In truth, everything she said was right. He needed help of some kind, and if this American had actually gone up against Bannister before and had even some measure of success, he would be wise to join forces with her, even temporarily.

Still.

“You know Buenos Aires,” Ronnie said. “Who do you think is looking for Bannister, Braun and Petrosian right now?”

“Police, national and local, probably the Army, the intelligence community, the AFI if they’re aware he was involved.” Varela shrugged. “Likely most law enforcement in Buenos Aires.”

Ronnie smiled, playing with the upside-down cap of her iced coffee on the table, spinning it around and around, faster and faster, then letting it loose to go shooting towards Varela.

“How about we make it the entire city,” she said. “Everybody, young and old, eyes peeled, looking for JC Bannister.”

Varela watched as her smile broadened, the florescent light shining off her teeth, giving a glow to the feral smile that unnerved him.

Chapter 30

Five minutes later and Annalisa, a real estate agent who JC had worked with before, was on her way to pick up Porras’s wife and son and stash them at a high-rent location that not even JC knew the address of. While it wasn’t a foolproof plan, there would be nearly no way possible for Varela or anyone else for that matter to track them down. The young Mrs. Porras and Porras junior hightailing it to a neutral country would be preferable but sheltering in a secure location was good enough to let Porras focus on getting Braun safely out of the country.

“Thank you,” Porras said with a sigh.

“Can we finall-” Braun started but stopped when JC snapped his fingers and pointed at the man without looking at him.

“What do you want to do next?” Theo asked Porras.

“What do I… what do you mean?”

“Lots of paths in front of you,” JC said. “Go hide out with your family, go to the police, try and hunt down Varela on your own.”

“No way,” Theo said, shaking his head and answering for Porras. “Hunting down Varela? On his own? That’d be just like putting a bullet in his own head.”

“What are you saying?” Porras asked, confused and slightly exasperated.

“The way we see it,” Theo said to him, “you’re at least two steps ahead of the bad guys. Like it or not, right now Seguridad Universal are the bad guys.”

“This is two steps ahead?”

“They don’t know if you’re dead or not,” JC said, counting off on his fingers, “they don’t know where you are, they don’t know what you’re going to do or who is on your side.”

“By my counting,” Theo said, “that’s four steps ahead.”

JC stopped, letting the man think for a minute.

“So pitch in with us,” he said softly.

“What?”

“Pitch in with us,” JC said again. “Join forces with us. One team.”

“One fight,” Theo said.

“Oh my God,” Braun said, standing up from the sofa and heading for the kitchen, throwing his hands up as he went, “why are we wasting time with this?”

JC stood, pivoting on his heel and stormed over to Braun. JC knew Braun was used to neither being ignored nor made to wait. But right now there was only one boss in the room and he’d had about enough of Braun’s bellyaching. It was time to put him in his place.

JC shoved Braun hard enough to make him stumble backwards, catching himself hard against the oak and granite island in the middle of the kitchen.

“You may not give a damn about your own life,” JC said, forcing himself to keep his voice down as his left finger jabbed in Braun’s direction, “but that man saved my ass when he didn’t have to as well as the ass of my good friend. You’ll shut your mouth until the grownups are done talking or I’ll break your damn jaw.”

Braun said nothing as he righted himself and got his feet under himself. JC’s fist was balled up and ready to crack him in the mouth.

Theo’s eyes never left Porras’s.

“Come on, man,” Theo said. “Say yes.”

Porras looked between Theo and JC as JC walked back and sat on the coffee table in front of him, leaving Braun to stew in his anger and humiliation.

“It’ll be fun,” Theo said, his grin widening. “Go on the run, rain down vengeance on your enemies. Come out the other side a winner.”

Porras said nothing, but Theo’s infectious grin caught hold of him and he started to smile as well.

“I think he’s in, boss.”

“You two are crazy,” Porras said, “you know that?”

“That ain’t a no,” Theo said.

“You in?” JC asked.

Porras shook his head. “Yeah, you crazy sonsabitches,” he said, his grin spreading to match Theo’s, “I’m in.”

JC reached forward and shook his hand, glad they didn’t have to leave the man behind. If he wasn’t in and committed to the team, at least temporarily, then he was a liability who couldn’t be trusted.

Theo clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a bear hug, lifting him up from the sofa before dumping him back on it. The motion caused Porras to wince in pain from the jostling his leg received, which caused Theo and Porras to laugh even more.

“Alright,” JC said, “we need to figure out where we can lay low. This place is only good for an hour or two more and then we need to be moving on.”

“Seriously,” Braun said, “we should go to Mariela’s place. It’s out of the way, it’s quiet. We could lay low there for days.”

“What part of Buenos Ares is it in?” JC asked.

“In Villa Soldati, on Laguanda and Plu… something.”

“Laguna and Plumerillo?” Porras clarified.

“Yeah,” Braun, said, snapping his fingers. “That’s it.”

JC turned to Porras. “You know it?”

Porras nodded and asked Braun, “Have you ever been to her place?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you,” Braun said, a little surprised.

“How many times?”

“Five, maybe six.”

“Then we can’t go there,” Porras said, shaking his head.

“Why the hell not?” Braun protested.

“You stand out.” Porras said simply. “From your expensive clothes to your fancy shoes to your soft hands.”

Braun spread his arms wide, looked at his hands, his clothes and down to his shoes.

“These are deck shoes that cost, like, a hundred bucks,” he said, incredulous.

“In this country they’re almost triple that,” Porras said, “and the neighborhood she lives in? If you’re not a gangster you’re wearing ten-dollar generics or, if you’re lucky, your parents splurge for the twenty-dollar knock-off Nikes.”

Braun dropped his arms to his sides, his brain not really processing both the fact that, despite trying to blend in, he still stood out and the very real possibility that he wasn’t going to end up seeing his girlfriend on the trip.

“Tyler,” JC said, “either Mariela’s under surveillance or we’d bring it with us the moment we drive into the neighborhood. Which means she’d be in danger.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “If we can get to her, we will. But keeping you apart from her now is the right play.”

Braun frowned, shook his head and threw up his hands. “I’m going to get some rest,” he said, heading for the master bedroom. “You come tell me what our next steps are after you figure it out.”

JC, Theo and Porras watched him go into the bedroom and close the door behind him. Theo gave the other two a goofy thumbs up once the door was closed. Porras muffled a laugh while JC, used to his partner’s sense of humor, only smiled. The three of them gathered around the kitchen table in the luxury vacation apartment to plan the steps they’d need to take to get out of the country.

Chapter 31

An hour later and everything was sorted out.

JC would babysit Braun for the next hour while Theo and Porras went around collecting supplies, chief amongst those some new burner phones. Once they had everything assembled, including a new vehicle they would boost from a shopping mall nearby, Theo and Porras would swing back by the vacation house, pick up JC and Braun and head out of the city.

Once assembled, their biggest problem was getting out of the country. Porras claimed he knew of a private airport where a friend Varela didn’t know about worked at. They would be able to fly out from there and cross over Uruguay into Brazil. While Uruguay was an independent nation, they were small enough that Porras wouldn’t put it past Argentina authorities attempting to bully the country into handing them over if it came to that. He felt that Brazil would be far less likely to do so.

“So,” Theo said, standing and stretching, “let’s get going.”

Porras was already standing, the gunshot growing stiff the longer he sat. He started walking towards the front door of the apartment with Theo right behind him. JC stood as well, going for the bedroom door. He knocked once then opened it.

“Braun,” JC said, going in, “here’s the plan.”

Porras was halfway out the door when a torrent of profanity came from JC, exiting the bedroom right before he did.

Theo was already moving back into the room, gun in hand.

“Braun’s gone,” JC said, going for their bags stacked next to the fifty-five-inch flat-screen television.

Theo was in the bedroom and out ten seconds later, gun holstered.

“He went out the balcony,” Theo said to Porras as the man came back in the room, shutting the door behind him.

“He’s been gone an hour, could be anywhere.”

“He’s going one place,” JC said, searching through bag after bag.

“Mariela,” Theo said, already in the kitchen and opening one of the laptops still on the table.

“But that neighborhood is a half-step above the favelas of Brazil,” Porras said. “He could literally be anywhere. And who knows if he really went there. Maybe he went to the police. Or to finalize that deal with Señor Mercado.”

“It’s Mariela,” Theo said, tapping away at the computer. “I’ll find her.”

“You’re not listening,” Porras said, walking over and closing the laptop. “That place is literally a rabbit’s warren of streets and side streets and alleyways. Google mapping vehicles refuse to go in there. Satellite photos help, but unless you have access to that, the streets are useless. Besides, didn’t Braun mention her grandmother? The girl likely lives with her and unless you know her name, or her grandfather’s name, you’ll never find out who the property belongs to. And that’s assuming she owns it, not renting it or sub-leasing it.”

Theo’s face was growing redder with each body blow to his plan.

“There’s one way to find out,” JC said, pulling a black hard-sided case from the bag he was digging in and depositing it on the coffee table.

“Tell me there’s a magic wand in there,” Theo said, getting up from the table and coming into the living room, his face coming back to its normal color.

“Better,” JC said, pulling a device about the size of a cellphone from the case. “A tracker.”

“A what?”

JC powered on the device, set it on the table, then pulled open a compartment. Inside were half a dozen small electronic devices about the size of sliver from a pencil eraser with a tiny wire only millimeters long leading from them. There were empty slots for perhaps a dozen more.

“While you were snoozing on the plane ride down,” JC said to Theo, “I placed one of these in each of his watches, in each pair of shoes, in his wallet and his cellphone.”

Porras leaned in close. “This looks like some real CIA-type tech.” He sat down on the sofa still transfixed by the equipment. “Where did you get it?”

JC smiled, not looking at him. “The CIA.”

“No,” Porras said, not believing the man.

“Duke?” Theo asked.

“Mr. Douglas,” JC said. It was left over from JC’s last meeting with The General. He’d asked Mr. Douglas or it, and, although he hadn’t actually used it, he hadn’t seen the need to return it.

“You’re telling me you know someone from the CIA… who would just give you this technology… and his first name is mister?” Porras asked incredulously.

JC chuckled, picking up the tracking device. “It’s Neil, actually, but it’s much more fun to call him mister.”

Porras sat back, shaking his head. After a couple taps, JC laid the device back down on the table. A satellite map of the city was visible. There were two small clusters of red dots, one bigger than the other, then a single red dot close to the smaller cluster. It was moving away from the smaller cluster towards the Rio de la Plata river.

“That’s the hotel,” JC said, pointing at the large cluster, “and I’m guessing that’s where we are now,” pointing at the smaller cluster.

“Which means that’s Braun,” Theo said pointing at the moving dot.

“How close can this zoom in?” Porras asked.

“Almost up his ass, but not quite,” JC said. “No real time imagery, but real time movement and location.”

“He’s probably in a taxi,” Porras said, nodding. “He’s almost to the neighborhood where Mariela lives. With traffic it’s about an hour away.” He stood. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on,” JC said, closing the case and putting it back in the bag it came from, the tracking display device still laying on the table. “I need you to stick with your part of the plan.”

“What do you mean?” Porras said, looking between the two men. “You think you’ve got a better chance at getting in there and back out without me?”

“No,” Theo said, digging in another bag and removing various weaponry. “But we still need that list of equipment if we’re going to get done what we need to get done and make it out of the country.”

Porras started shaking his head but JC stepped forward and place a hand on his shoulder.

“Salvator,” JC said, his voice softening, “we’re on the same team here. You’ve got a wife and a son.” Porras started to protest but JC gently cut him off. “That doesn’t mean you sit everything out. But going in there,” he continued, pointing at the tracking display, “we’re unlikely to get out with zero blood on our hands. Because we’re on the same team that may blow back on you. But if you’re one of the shooters? It definitely will.”

“Besides,” Theo said, four automatic pistols of various sorts laying on the coffee table in front of him, “JC’s Spanish is terrible and mine’s only good. One of us goes around asking for that list of equipment? We’ll get tailed faster than Braun. In this exact situation, we’re the hammers here, man. You’re the scalpel. Let us do the hammer work.”

Porras sighed, nodding his head.

“Meet us by the entrance to the neighborhood here,” JC said pointing at the tracking display, “and be there as soon as you can. Once we’re out, we’ll get to your wife and son and then we’ll get out of Argentina.”

The plan made, they all headed to the door, Theo scooping up the tracking display and putting it in his pocket. It was risky plan, JC knew, but they needed Braun back. Saving his life was important, but what was more important to JC right now was the information inside Braun’s head. They still hadn’t taken a good hard look at who set them up.

After getting Braun back under control, that was the first thing on the list.

The second was making whomever it was pay dearly.

Chapter 32

The further Varela piloted the Seguridad Universal SUV into the abandoned warehouse, the more his gut told him this was turning into a really bad idea.

Per Ronnie’s urging, Varela arranged for the meeting in Villa Cardoza, one of the poorest slums in Buenos Ares. Varela and Porras grew up here, on the slightly affluent edge of the neighborhood, meaning their houses had toilets and running water. While they had both largely escaped, Manuel still liked to live dangerously and engage with the gangs he was never a part of in his youth. The neighborhood as it was now was run by Los Interesantes, The Interesting Ones, a dual-purpose gang. One side ran the barra bravas, the Argentine version of soccer hooligans who are half criminal enterprise, half fervent soccer fans. The other side of Los Interesantes ran the drug and prostitution trade in Villa Cardoza and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Both sides were directed by the man they simply called Roberto. He was in his early thirties, five-eight, once wiry now slightly doughy and, when the mood suited him, completely unhinged. Some said he was a psychotic who pretended to be a businessman, others said the reverse. But for Varela, what was most important was making it out of this meeting alive and, based on the look of anger on Roberto’s face as Varela pulled up to the man, backed up by a dozen armed henchmen, Varela wasn’t so sure that was going to happen.

“What the hell was that?” Roberto bellowed at Varela, his voice echoing off the walls and abandoned cargo in the warehouse. “You said it would be a nice, easy job. You said the guns my teams had were just for show. You said it would be a simple hit.”

Roberto was so close to Varela now that he could smell his morning coffee and cigarette on the shorter man’s breath.

“And now I’ve got the damn police crawling all over my neighborhood, the goddamn news crews running everywhere getting ‘B roll’ whatever the shit that is, I’ve got dead bodies of my own guys, not yours, my own guys laying on the street and the whole goddamn place looks like friggin’ Afghanistan.”

The passenger door to the Seguridad Universal SUV opened, causing Roberto to simultaneously shut his mouth and pull a pistol from his waistband. Varela said nothing. There was little chance of Roberto shooting anyone. Yet.

“Who the hell is this?” Roberto spat at Varela as Ronnie walked around the front of the SUV and came to stand next to him.

“I’m his partner,” Ronnie said, using far better Spanish than he thought she could speak.

“A partner?” Roberto asked, switching to heavily accented but effective English.

“I was a silent partner until Varela turned a simple hit into an international shitshow on Channel 5 news.” Ronnie didn’t bother looking at Varela, just stared at Roberto. “Now I have to show myself to help him clean up this mess.”

“And who do you represent?”

“Myself, cabrón,” Ronnie growled. “If you need a name, call me Ms. Smith.”

Roberto looked between Varela and Ronnie again and again, the gun in his hand forgotten.

“So?” he finally said, putting the gun back in the waistband of his track suit and accepting Ronnie as the one running the show, “how are you two going to make me whole again?” he asked, sitting back down on the single rickety old chair in the warehouse. “Because after this morning, I’m feeling very empty inside.”

Varela wanted to roll his eyes at the man’s obvious greed, but he kept his composure.

“We have a plan,” he said instead.

“And a backup plan,” Ronnie said.

“Who am I talking to,” Roberto asked, irritated, as his head bounced between Ronnie and Varela. “You? Or you?”

Varela took a slow deep breath, forcing down his own irritation at not only everything going sideways this morning, but having to show up here, emasculated, with this runt of an American by his side to deal with the problem. He raised his hands to try and calm Roberto down. “Tranquilo, mi amigo.”

“Tranquilo?” Roberto shouted, jumping from the chair and shoving Varela backwards as he said it. “Tranquilo is what you say to me when I was supposed to be up a quarter million by this time today and all I can see is almost a million dollars in damages to my neighborhood and my people!”

Roberto’s finger was pounding on his own chest to make his point. Varela wanted to grab it and break it off to a bloody stump, but he knew the right play here and that definitely wasn’t it.

“Listen,” he said instead, “you can stand there and keep yelling at us, or we can work together and come out of this with fatter wallets than either of us imagined.”

Roberto cocked his head sideways, folded his arms together across his soccer warmup jacket and said, “I’m listening.”

Varela knew he would. The two played soccer together when they were kids, Roberto the older one, and while he would lose his temper more than most, he was an excellent strategist back then, which is why Varela chose his neighborhood for the attempted assassination of Tyler Braun.

“I was willing to give you half the money for the hit on Braun because I needed your help to do it,” Varela said, stepping closer and lowering his voice so none of the half dozen men backing Roberto up could hear. “Now, my guy turning rogue and kidnapping Braun could turn out in our favor.” Varela kept the lie about Porras being the one to kidnap Braun going. It was useful and, right now, nobody could prove different.

“Keep talking,” Roberto said.

“We track him down, Porras and Braun, snatch Braun back, and then turn him in for the ransom.”

Roberto nodded, smiling. “Grab the cargo and turn it in for the reward? Just like a hijacking.”

Varela knew he needed to couch it in terms the criminal thug would understand. “Only this time, the cargo’s worth a cool four million dollars.”

Roberto’s eye grew wide at the thought of so much money at once.

“We split it fifty-fifty,” Varela continued, “just like we did the failed hit on Braun.”

Roberto continued to nod his head, warming to the idea. “Only problem I see,” he said, “is finding this guero.”

Valera smiled. “No worries,” he said. “I know exactly where he’s holed up. If you’ll give me two dozen of your best men, we’ll go over to Villa Soldati right now and grab him.”

“Woah, woah,” Roberto said, stepping back and putting his hands up. “Soldati? Are you a fool?” He stepped back into Varela’s face. “You know none of my guys can go in there. We get caught it’s a war.”

Varela shrugged. “Then don’t get caught.” He smiled. “Or use your half of the four mil to finance a takeover of Villa Soldati once it’s done.”

Roberto’s eyes glazed over. Expanding his empire was his one dream. He’d spoken about it to Varela over the years as their paths crossed. This was the hook Varela needed to get him to do his bidding.

“You’ll get twenty guys,” Roberto said, “and I’m getting seventy-five percent, not fifty.”

The negotiation continued for another five minutes, but they settled on a sixty-forty split in Roberto’s favor. Deal struck, hands shook, Roberto turned to Ronnie.

“Now, Mrs. Smith,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “What’s the backup plan.”

“Simple,” Ronnie said. “You spread word throughout your neighborhood, through every neighborhood across Buenos Aires. There’s a price on the head of JC Bannister.”

“And who the hell is that?”

“The man that tore your neighborhood apart earlier today,” Ronnie said. “The man who handed Varela’s ass to him. And the man you’ll pay a million dollars for.”

Roberto stood there, blinking. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“Because right now you look weak,” Ronnie said. “Your neighborhood was torn apart. How can you keep your position at the top of the slippery shit pile if the people below you think you’re weak?” She smiled. “And if you’ve got enough scratch to pay out a million-dollar bounty on the man who came into your neighborhood? Well, who else in Buenos Aires could do that?”

A hint of a smile tugged at Roberto’s mouth. Even Varela had to admit it sounded good. The girl could sell. There was still one problem that Varela was wondering if Roberto would get to.

“But I’m not about to pay a million dollars for some guero I don’t give a shit about.”

Ronnie’s smile didn’t dim. “Understood,” she said. “But I’m willing to pay you, and only you, two million dollars for that man.” She paused. “But he has to be alive.”

Varela watched Roberto do the calculations in his head. He was sending men after Braun anyway. If this Bannister was guarding Braun they would likely encounter him when they captured Braun. And if they could keep him alive long enough to get paid?

“You’ve got a deal,” Roberto said with a nod as he shook hands with Ronnie.

Five minutes later and they were going their separate ways, Varela and Ronnie back to Seguridad Universal headquarters, Roberto back into the neighborhood he ruled.

As Varela drove away he smiled. The ransom for Braun was going to be at least ten million. Olivia had once mentioned the kidnapping insurance company would pay ten million no questions asked. More than that would require some bigger hoops to jump through to get the funding.

For Varela, it would be enough. Giving two point four million to Roberto to use twenty of his men as cannon fodder in order to secure more than seven million dollars for himself?

Fair trade, he said to himself, resisting the urge to smile or laugh. He took out his phone to dial Herve, his new second-in-command at SU after Porras.

“You think Roberto will ever figure out you lied to him? Cheated him?” Ronnie asked as she looked out the window at the poor neighborhood going past.

“I don’t imagine he ever will,” he said cautiously as the phone rang, wondering if Ronnie was now a liability.

“I ever discover you’re cheating me in any way,” she said absently, still looking out the window, “I’ll cut your damn tongue out with a pair of children’s safety scissors.”

As Herve picked up the other end of the line, the thought of what Roberto would do to him if he found out about the lie-by-omission was in the back of his mind, but he pushed it down. Varela was simply too smart to be beaten by some gutter punk who preyed on his own neighborhood and local soccer fans.

And Ronnie?

Ronnie was a different animal altogether. He needed to be very careful with her.

Chapter 33

JC stopped their stolen Mazda 323 about a block away from where the tracking software told them Braun was hiding out. The tracker hadn’t moved in twenty minutes and, unless he lost his watch and right shoe at the exact same time, he was inside. The door to the house was on a fairly main street, sandwiched between a laundromat and a small bar. It could’ve been any kind of storage room or garage or some sort of business, but JC knew it was the right place for one reason only.

There were about half a dozen armed men standing outside, readying themselves to kick the door down and charge inside.

Theo swore. JC wanted to but needed to focus on a solution to the problem. Running in guns blazing would likely get them both killed. He needed to take them by surprise and at the moment could think of only one approach that would work.

“Quick,” he said, “look in the glove box.”

“What for?” Theo asked, opening the glove box.

“Should be a map in there.”

“What do you need a ma-” he stopped speaking as he sat back. “Oh hell, no. We are not doing tourist again.”

“You got a better idea?”

“I got shot last time we did tourist.”

“Good thing you’ve got body armor,” JC said, slapping Theo on the upper chest. “Now give me that map.”

“Let me guess,” Theo said as he handed the map to JC. “I’m lefty.”

“I’m the boss,” JC said, grinning, “so yeah, you’re lefty.”

Theo leaned forward, unzipping the bag at his feet and reaching inside. “If I’m lefty I’m taking the MAC10.”

“You’re not using the MAC10,” JC said, unfolding the map, laying it on the dashboard quickly.

“Lefty always gets to choose their weapon.”

“Since when,” JC said, unholstering the Glock 18 in his shoulder holster, ejecting the magazine and inserting a thirty-three round magazine. He wasn’t sure if he’d need it but would rather not have to reload in the immediate future, despite its unwieldy length.

“Since the last time I was lefty. I listened to you and got a bullet through my chest for it,” Theo said, checking the magazine on the MAC10. “Collapsed lung, nicked clavicle, damn near nicked my spine…”

JC chuckled, but he knew how long it took Theo to get back on his feet after taking one to the chest the last time they used the tourist gambit in Belarus. He opened the door to the car and got out, letting the unfolded map hide his weapon, walked around to the passenger side and waited for Theo to exit the vehicle.

“You know the scar tissue looks like an inverted third nipple?” Theo said as he got out, the two of them holding the map between them. “How sexy is tha-”

“Quit your grousin’, lefty, you’ve got the MAC10,” JC said, making adjustments to their ruse. Despite Theo being “lefty,” he was on the right and JC was on the left. JC held one side of the map with his left hand, Theo holding the other side with his right. Behind the map, JC held his Glock 18 with his right hand, pointed in the direction of the men who were now just getting into formation outside the door to Mariela’s place. Theo held the MAC10 in his left hand, his non-dominant shooting hand, hence the position of lefty.

“You make it sound like you allowed me to have the MAC10,” Theo continued his theatrical complaining as the two hustled up the street, getting into character for the tourist play. “You didn’t allow a damn thing, man,” raising his voice.

It was a longshot if they made it out alive. But with the team of shooters just a few dozen yards away, armed to the gills with no cover from here to there, meant they had little in the way of choices.

“Watch your backdrops,” JC muttered to Theo as they marched on towards the armed men, holding the paper map between them.

“Yo,” one man said to them in Spanish when they were just ten feet away, “you can’t be here.”

“Listen, man,” JC started in loud, imperious English, “I’ve told him we’re lost and we should’ve made that right turn back in Albuquerque, but we’re trying to get to the-”

His nonsense was lost as the men started swearing at them to leave.

“Hold on,” JC said, eyes growing wide, “are you the police? Policia?”

The man who was speaking to them and giving orders to the rest turned to JC fully. JC could see no bulletproof vest on him or the others, but it could’ve been hidden under his shirt.

“Policia?” he sneered, followed by a few colorfully choice insults. “No!” he said.

“Good,” JC said, calm as he pulled the trigger on the Glock in his right hand, the bullets punching neat holes through the map as the travelled into, then out of, the man’s body.

A split second later, Theo pulled the trigger on the MAC10 in his left hand. As the .45 caliber bullets poured from the short muzzle at three hundred and thirty-three rounds per minute, they shredded the map, caught one guy in the throat, another in the face, and winged one of the remaining men.

JC was right. They weren’t wearing bulletproof vests. The leader crumpled to the ground with three bullets in his chest and heart, already dead. He followed up with two shots to each man’s torso in quick succession, moving to the left and towards the cover of the armed men’s own vehicle while Theo moved to the right, dropping the empty MAC10 and drawing his own Glock 19 from the shoulder holster hidden under his garish Hawaiian shirt.

Only two men weren’t wounded in the initial barrage of bullets from JC and Theo’s guns. It didn’t take long for them to pivot and raise their guns to the unexpected threat to their right. It was, however, too long for them. JC landed three bullets in one of them and Theo knocked the other one down with half a dozen.

Almost as soon as it began, the assault was over. The six men lay on the ground dead as their blood and bodily fluids emptied onto the sidewalk. JC and Theo quickly holstered their weapons. While JC walked over to hammer on the green door, loudly asking for Braun, Theo quickly picked up the rifles and pistols from the men on the ground along with any spare magazines he saw. It wasn’t just about scavenging the weapons for their own use. They also didn’t want to leave weapons for any of the friends of the dead who might come along and decide to avenge their deaths.

“Bannister?” Braun said, opening the door a crack.

JC kicked it in, jumped inside and held the door open for Theo before closing it swiftly but quietly behind him. Theo deposited the weapons on the kitchen table and did a quick inventory, handing two rifles to JC along with extra magazines.

“You ready to go, Braun?” JC asked, speaking quickly. “Like right damn now?”

“I’m not leaving without Mariela,” he said, beckoning for a woman standing in what looked to be the bedroom door to come to him. She did, her face scared but defiant. JC glanced at her. She was a shade over five feet tall, pretty, but she wasn’t his concern now. Getting Braun out was.

“We’ve got six dead bodies outside,” Theo said, “and I don’t want to be around to find out who’s pissed about it.” He stepped closer to Braun as Mariela went to peer out the window at the street. “So you move your ass and I mean right now or I’ll move it for you.”

“Oh my God,” Mariela said, turning back to the room. “Do you know who you killed?” her voice a harsh whisper.

“People who won’t be missed?” JC said, the adrenaline of battle still pumping through his body, looking around the house as he quickly walked to the back rooms, looking for exits. Finding none, he came back out to see Mariela staring at him.

“That was Tinto and his top men,” she said, distress clear in her voice. JC and Theo looked back at her as if she were speaking in tongues. “He’s second only to Baca in La Izquierda.” JC actually shrugged. “Baca and La Izquierda runs this barrio,” throwing up her hands as the intruders in her house should know what that meant. She paused as she heard voices outside. “Oh my God, they’re going to kill me. They’ll think I’m involved. My grandmother!” She ran at Braun and pounded him on the chest as he tried to hold her. “What have you done?” she said, keeping her voice down but not the intensity of her emotion.

Theo walked past the drama and peeked out the front window. He stepped away in a second.

“That’s out,” he said, looking around the apartment and keeping his voice low. “Half a dozen people and they look angry.”

“It’ll be a minute or two before they get reinforcements,” JC said, turning to Braun and a somewhat subdued Mariela. “Is there a back way out of here that we can’t see?”

Braun and Mariela looked at each other, thinking.

JC stepped forward, less than a foot away from the couple, his jaw clenched. “Listen,” he said, the words strained, “Tinto, was it? He was going to kill you both, no joke. We saved you. Now this place is getting hotter by the second and if you want to make it out alive I need you both focused and on the same page.”

Braun nodded while tears sprang from Mariela’s eyes, swiftly turning into full-on blubbering.

“Are there any back ways out?” JC asked again.

Braun shook his head.

Theo came up to them. “Chill her out,” he said to Braun, “or I will.” He looked at JC next. “We could always Pablo it.”

“I hate it when we Pablo it,” JC said, looking up at the low ceiling of the likely hastily constructed building. “Pablo died.”

“Who’s Pablo?” Braun asked, looking up from the comforting words he was whispering to Mariela.

“Pablo Escobar,” Theo said absently, walking around and looking up at the roof. “Died in a rooftop shootout without any shoes. Or a gun.”

“What?”

“Oh my God,” Theo said, coming back to Braun. “Listen closely. We can’t go out the front, there’s no way out the back, we don’t have any C4 to blow a hole in the sides, so we’re going up.”

“You find a spot?” JC asked, checking the front window. There looked to be about a dozen people by now. Some were scavenging the bodies of the dead men.

“Here,” Theo said, dragging the kitchen table in front of the stove. He handed the two remaining rifles to Braun who took them like they were poisonous snakes. The rest of the equipment on the table Theo swept onto the floor before hoisting himself onto the table. Theo reached down to Braun for one of the rifles. He unloaded it, storing the loaded magazine in his back pocket, cleared the chamber then used the weapon like a crowbar to knock out the ventilation fan above the stove. As the fan fell out of the hole and clattered on the tile rooftop outside, Theo proceeded to punch holes in the thin plaster around the opening with the barrel of the rifle before reversing it and using the buttstock to widen their escape route.

As Theo worked JC took one of the kitchen chairs and propped it against the front door. It wouldn’t slow people coming in for long, but when even seconds counted, he’d take any advantage he could get.

Theo jumped down from the table.

“It ain’t pretty but it’ll do,” he said, propping the nearly ruined rifle against the wall at a forty-five degree angle and stomped on the receiver three times, completely ruining it.

“I can’t,” Mariela said, her sobbing restarting.

“With or without her we’re leaving,” JC said to Braun. “Now.”

Theo placed one of the remaining kitchen chairs on the table, clambered up on the table, up the chair and squeezed his body through the opening. Despite the man’s girth, JC was constantly astounded at his ability to push his body further and harder and through smaller spaces than most other people would be able to.

Theo’s face appeared at the hole, his hand and arm extending down through the opening as the pounding began on the front door. It snapped Mariela from her spiral of anger and fear, allowing her to scramble onto the table, up the chair and through the hole with Theo’s help.

Braun held the rifle out to JC.

“Keep it,” JC said, nodding to the opening as Theo’s face reappeared. “Everybody fights.”

“Mariela?” Braun asked.

JC shook his head. “I don’t trust her,” he said, “and to be clear, you manage to shoot me or Theo? I’ll shoot you in the goddamn head.” The pounding on the front door was now accompanied by yells. JC nodded to the table and chair. “Move your ass.”

Within twenty seconds Braun had managed to wriggle and hump his way out through the hole in the roof. JC was right behind him, purposely kicking the chair over on his way out. No need to give them a roadmap.

As he cleared the ragged hole, a quick look around told him a few things. First, the rooftops were a jagged landscape of red-baked tiles that threatened to slide out from under them quickly and easily. Second, there was left or right or forward, but no going back. The street behind them was too wide for them to be able to jump over, but the majority of the buildings in front of them were packed closely enough to allow them to potentially jump over the gaps.

“This is such a bad idea,” JC muttered, smiling at absurdity of it as he did.

The sound of the door being kicked in beneath them tore the smile from his face. He slammed his left hand down on Braun’s right shoulder, propelling him forward over the rough rooftops, his hand both the guide and the support keeping him from falling. Theo did the same with Mariela, his pilfered AR-15 held in his right hand. The tiles, while uniform looking from a distance, were like trying to walk across a sandy hill with each grain of sand about the size of your foot and every third one you stepped on slipping away. They hadn’t taken half a dozen steps when the sound of gunshots rang out behind them.

JC reached over with his right hand and jerked the rifle from Braun’s, turned awkwardly and fired. There was only one person sticking their head up but JC knew it wouldn’t be long before more came. He wanted that delayed as long as possible.

Up ahead, Theo had stopped, shoved Mariela to the roof and was firing behind them. One scream followed by wails indicated he’d found his mark. Theo turned, fell to his knee as he lost his footing and was up in a flash, the rifle slung over his shoulder, Mariela being driven before him.

While not doing the same bothered JC, Theo’s thought process was right on; Braun was the client, not Mariela. As harsh as it seemed, Theo was the support, which meant Mariela’s safety was secondary to Braun’s.

JC half-threw Braun over a small gap between two buildings. It was maybe a foot wide, something he could easily step over, but he yelped as he landed. JC kept his profanity on the inside as he hauled the man up, pushing him forward into a slow run. He glanced over to Theo. Mariela was slung over Theo’s left shoulder, his battle rifle still in his right hand.

Theo glanced over to see JC checking on his progress.

“Woo!” Theo yelled at the top of his lungs.

The sound of clattering tiles behind them preceded the sound of gunshots. JC ducked down behind a stone chimney rising from the roof they were on, dragging Braun with him. Braun tried to shrug off JC’s hand, but JC dragged him close, shoving him behind the protection of the chimney.

“Don’t move,” JC growled at him before letting go. Braun did as ordered. JC stuck his head out quickly, saw three men scrambling over the rooftops with a fourth coming out of the hole. He ducked back and waited a few second as their bullets either slammed into the chimney or flew past harmlessly. Popping his head and torso back out, his AR-15 at his shoulder, JC fired six shots. Two shots slammed into the chest of the first pursuer, killing him as he dropped to the rooftop. Two more slammed into the stomach and leg of the second pursuer, dropping him as well but not killing him, his cries piercing the late morning. One of the remaining two bullets from JC’s gun hit the third man in the shoulder, the final one missing him. The man was partially incapacitated but could still fight.

JC ducked back behind the chimney, reaching for Braun with his left hand to grab him and run through the opening created by death and pain behind them.

JC grasped only empty air. Braun was already on the move, trying to run across the rooftops like a drunken sailor, his slip-on deck shoes giving him purchase but not stability.

JC swore and chased after him. As he glanced past Braun, scanning the ragged sea of rooftops, chimneys, staircases and now-useless antennas, Theo and Mariela were nowhere in sight.

Probably fell through, JC said to himself as he reached Braun, once more latching onto the man’s shoulder to guide and propel him forward. He was concerned about his teammate, but not so much as to go searching for him. In more ways than he could count Theo could take care of himself.

“Let go of me,” Braun protested. JC ignored him, focusing instead on finding their way away from the men chasing them. For a brief second, he wished for more than just a bulletproof vest. His tailor had once mentioned bulletproof pants, but as the two laughed over the joke, a voice in the back of JC’s mind told him it wasn’t a bad idea. Like, now. All he could do is hope any bullets that got close to them would hit him in the back and be stopped by the vest. That and look for an exit off this roof.

JC didn’t see Braun’s foot break through the gap between the tile roof and the corrugated sheet metal but he did see and feel Braun suddenly drop through the roof. JC gripped the man’s jacket even harder, trying to hold onto him or at least break his fall. It was no use. The effort pulled JC off balance and he tumbled in after him, nearly landing on top of him. He missed, landing on and smashing a wooden coffee table to splinters instead.

As Braun lay there moaning, his body trying to recover from the fall, JC rolled over and popped up, his eyes scanning the room for danger. It was a small living room, dingy sofa to match the dingy walls, old TV on a milk crate and the now broken coffee table.

A stream of angry Spanish came from the apparent resident of the hovel. The source was about five-four, wiry but skinny as a rail in his boxers and baggy white V-neck undershirt. He held a pan of food, still steaming as he walked from the combined kitchen and dining room into the space between the two areas.

JC raised his left hand in a placating manner but the man began to yell even louder. As he turned back to the kitchen, likely to put the meal he was preparing back on the stove, JC took three steps to look out of the window by the front door, the only window he could see in the place besides the one visible through the open bathroom door. He saw nothing. He opened the door slightly and leaned his head out, listening for a second.

Above the sounds of the man still yelling at him from inside the house, he heard the sounds of other people yelling, both above them and echoing through the narrow alleyways between the houses. La Izquierda, if Mariela was to be believed, was searching for them. It wouldn’t be long before they were found.

“Bannister,” Braun whined behind him. JC turned, closing the door softly, raising his hand again to try and placate the resident as he turned back from the kitchen. “I think my shoulder’s dislocated.”

JC glanced over to the billionaire. His left hand hung about four inches lower than his right. “Does it hurt like hell?”

“You’re godda-”

“Alright,” JC said, coming over to him. He laid his AR-15 on the sofa behind him, making sure the old man in the kitchen couldn’t grab it. Felt around on Braun’s arm and collarbone, making sure not to jostle the arm. “Did that hurt?”

“No, but don’t move it,” Braun said.

JC nodded, positioning the man with his back against the wall. There was a chance more internal damage was done to the shoulder. Without pain on his bicep or collarbone it was unlikely anything was broken. An ER would be the best path, but right now the greatest danger was being discovered and shot by the men hunting them. An ER was out of the question.

With Braun’s shoulders and head firmly against the wall, JC said, “Let me check something.” Luckily, the man who lived there had quieted. JC glanced behind him to see the man watching them. In one swift movement, JC turned back to Braun and clamped his left hand over Braun’s mouth while simultaneously reaching down and lifting the man’s arm in an upward arc by the wrist.

The shoulder popped back into place as the arm rotated up. Braun’s eyes opened wide and he yelled in pain, the majority of the sound being caught by Bannister’s hand. After a beat JC let go of Braun’s mouth. The man was coughing through the shock, every movement sending jolts of pain through his damaged shoulder. JC knew what it was like. He’d dislocated each shoulder twice over the years and not once had he the luxury of an ER. Popping it back in hurt like a sonofabitch, but sometimes there was no other option.

JC grabbed the rifle from the sofa, slung it over his shoulder along with the others and moved to the bathroom, looking for a towel to create a temporary sling for Braun’s arm. As he passed, the old man who lived there watched him with wide eyes. Whatever his personal inclination, JC didn’t think it would include keeping quiet or helping the men who crashed through his roof and upset his life.

JC returned with a towel and started tearing it into long strips.

“Why the hell would you do that?” Braun asked.

JC didn’t bother to ask exactly what he was referring to. He just kept working. The man behind them was beginning to protest again. JC wanted out of the small two-room shack and on the move before the resident got loud again.

Braun reached out with his right hand, grabbing at JC’s arm to get his attention. In one swift motion, JC pulled himself loose, gripped the fingers of Braun’s hand, reversed them so the palm was facing upwards and lifted them up into the air. Braun’s good hand and forearm rose up, his breath coming in sharp bursts as the pain of JC’s compliance movement coursed through his limb.

JC let go of him after a few seconds and returned to his task.

“You ran off to bang some local,” JC said to Braun without looking at him, “no problem. You run off and leave my team and I hanging?” JC shook his head, tying the ends of the towel together tightly, trying to keep his anger under control. “And we have to kill half a dozen guys to save your dumb ass? Maybe more?” He threw the completed sling at Braun as he stood. “That’s a problem.”

The man who lived there had apparently had enough. He pulled a cellphone from his pocket, his voice rising higher and higher. JC could get the general just of what he was saying. He heard “policia” and “la izquierda” and “muertos” as the man dialed a number on his phone. JC took two steps and slapped it from his hand. It bounced against the crusty tile wall of the kitchen and landed on the floor.

As JC walked over and stomped on it, the man leapt for the door, jerking it open, his high voice even higher with fear. JC was on him in two seconds, kicking the door closed and grabbing him in a choke hold. His left arm was bent, his bicep and forearm pressing in on both sides of the man’s neck, compressing the carotid arteries and dramatically reducing the blood flow to his brain.

“What are you do-”

Before Braun could process what was happening and formulate the question, the man was unconscious. JC released the controversial sleeper hold, picked the man up and laid his slack body on the sofa.

“Give me your wallet,” JC said, looking around the broken-up home.

“Why do-”

In a flash JC was standing nose-to-nose Braun, looking slightly down at him, fists cocked back before Braun could finish the sentence.

“I know you’re used to getting your way,” JC growled, ready to knock Braun on his ass, “but this is my world, my expertise. I have to explain myself or even repeat myself to you again, I’ll leave your dead body for the police to find later, assuming your corpse doesn’t make it onto social media first.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” JC said, eyes still staring daggers at Braun as he imposed his will on the billionaire. “There was literally nothing we could do. He brought this on himself and despite all our best efforts, it was ultimately his actions that led to his demise at the hands of the kidnappers.” JC paused. “You tell me. You think I could sell that story?”

Braun said nothing, his eyes darting back and forth between JC’s. Braun reached his hand into his back pocket, removed his wallet and held it up for JC.

JC snatched it from his hand, backing away. “That’s what I thought,” he said. He opened it up, pulled all the cash from it and handed it back to Braun.

“That’s almost five thousand dollars,” Braun said quietly.

“Small price to pay to keep this man quiet when he comes to in the next ten seconds, isn’t it?” JC said, placing half of the stack of hundred-dollar bills on the man’s TV, the other half on his small kitchen table under the glass of water that was next to the clean plate and silverware. He turned back to Braun.

“We’re going out that door and finding a car. You’re going in the trunk because your face is literally all over the news. Then we’re going to find Theo and Porras and hole up somewhere to figure out our next steps, which you’ve already made infinitely more difficult than needs be.” JC was probably being too harsh with Braun, but he didn’t care. JC needed him following orders, not running off or questioning everything that needed to be done. “Are we clear about that?”

“No,” Braun said, defeated but not broken.

“Good,” JC said, ignoring his insubordination, “follow me.”

As they closed the door behind them, he heard the sounds of the man waking up from the chokehold. JC stood in front of the door for a few seconds, waiting. There were no cries for help so he must’ve found the money. A delighted cackle drifted through the door. They were not only safe but there was one less unnecessarily dead face to haunt him in the night.

JC turned to his left and walked away from the street they could see up the alleyway. He could hear the sounds of people on the street but not behind him. In his experience most alleyways usually lead somewhere. He just hoped that along the way they didn’t run into anyone who would raise the alarm at their passing.

As he took the first left turn, he thought of Theo. The fact that there were no gunshots ringing out through the neighborhood was an encouraging sign. Once they were safe and mobile, they’d call him and arrange a rendezvous point. Until then, JC knew the man could handle himself.

Chapter 34

Gaspar Rivas strode down the concourse of the Ezeiza International Airport. He would have preferred if the floor were tiled because then the sound of his heels hitting the ground would be more commanding. The utilitarian low pile carpeting seemed to suck all the force out of his practiced walk.

That’s okay, he said to himself, head held high, back straight, arms swinging appropriately. The cadre of armed airmen marching behind him carried a weight all their own, as did the star on the collar of his uniform.

Comodoro Mayor Gaspar Rivas, son of a former Fuerza Aerea Argentina Brigadier General and a well-bred socialite from one of Argentina’s wealthiest families, was the youngest man to ever be awarded the golden star of the Commodore Major. Roughly equivalent to a Brigadier General in the US Air Force, despite the man’s proven military acumen and political ability, the appointment was due in no small part to Gaspar’s political connections and his loyalty to the Fuerza Aerea Argentina which, in fact, was a cover for his raw, naked ambition.

As he unconsciously smoothed the front of his dress uniform against his trim belly, he ignored the salutes from the other military men he encountered on the concourse. He learned long ago that those who would be saluting were lower in rank than he was and thus of no consequence. Those who were superior in rank would either make themselves known or overlook his rudeness as the by-product of a man driven to serving the FAA.

The men ahead of him turned crisply and headed down a narrower uncarpeted hallway. The white tile rang out as Gaspar’s heels hit it and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He slowed his steps almost imperceptibly as his men ahead of him approached the office door of the man Gaspar came to see. As his personal assistant Capitan Godoy jerked the door open, Rivas slowed even more, allowing the sounds of his footsteps to echo into the office of the general manager of EZE, Alberto Spampanato.

Alberto was already on his feet, moving from around his desk, his mouth open to bark at whomever had the impetuousness to barge into his office unannounced when Gaspar stopped in the doorway and turned on his heel to face the general manager. Gaspar watched as the shorter, older man’s face quickly morphed from irritated to surprised, then worried, then falsely pleased to see the military man who could command the civilian manager at a moment’s whim.

“Comodoro Mayor Rivas!” Spampanato said, moving forward his small hands outstretched in kindness. Gaspar allowed him to shake his hand, saying nothing as the manager’s clammy palm pressed against his own. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Spampanato continued, ushering Gaspar to one of the two metal and leather chairs in front of his desk. “I would have prepared something for us, Comodoro.”

Gaspar said nothing as Spampanato made his way back to the leather chair on his side of the desk and sat down. He resisted the desire to look around with disdain at the general manager’s small office. The man didn’t even have a secretary. Instead, Gaspar kept his gaze focused on the man in front of him. What he was about to do was both out of his jurisdiction and highly suspect.

“No need,” Gaspar said, glancing at his pants and brushing off an imaginary speck of dust. “I am a simple man with simple Argentinian tastes.”

Gaspar glanced back up as the smile dropped from Spampanato’s face, the subtle dig at the man’s Italian heritage registering and taking its toll.

“How can I help you today, Comodoro?”

“We need to shut down the airport.”

Spampanato said nothing for a beat. “And the reason?”

“Surely you’ve been watching the news?”

“My staff updates me.”

“And are you aware that the kidnappers of this American businessman Braun are likely to attempt to fly out of the airport?”

“Our security is top notch and ready for any attempts at illegal flights coming in or out of the Aeropuerto Internacional Ministro Pistarini.” Spampanato paused, allowing his own dig to register on Gaspar’s psyche before continuing. “Our president and your own brigadier general went on record saying as much only last month.”

Gaspar said nothing but inside he was seething. Rumors of his profitable side business of allowing smugglers to utilize the planes under his command or his section’s call signs when landing had grown so great a joint task force investigation was launched three months ago. The closing of said investigation and the statements issued by the commander of the FAA, the Argentinian Air Force, and the President of Argentina, required no small amount of bribes and promised political favors. The fact that his name had been mentioned far too many times in conjunction with the investigation was still a sore point, as was the loss of revenue from the curtailed flights and the bribes he was forced to shell out.

“That is true,” Gaspar said, recovering, “however this kidnapping was carried out by criminals who arrived here from the United States just a few days ago.” Gaspar paused, letting the point sink in. “Our intelligence indicates they brought a virtual arsenal into the country with them.” He shook his head for a second, but then fell silent, waiting for Spampanato to respond.

“You know we cannot investigate every single flight coming into this country.”

Gaspar grinned. It was exactly what he wanted to hear.

“Of course, General Manager Spampanato. Which is why we are shutting down all outgoing flights.”

“You can’t do that,” Spampanato said, defeated.

“The order has been given and as your airport falls under my jurisdiction,” Gaspar continued, rising and adjusting his uniform, “the order will be carried out.” He paused as Spampanato sat back in his chair, refusing to rise at the man’s leaving. “My personal assistant, Capitan Godoy, will stay here posted outside your door with a handful of trusted airmen to insure there are no problems.”

One glance backwards as he walked out the door insured Spampanato was not pursuing him with a letter opener aimed at his back and was, in fact, temporarily beaten. However, Comodoro Mayor Gaspar Rivas held no illusions. Alberto Spampanato was politically connected to the upper levels of Argentinian government, military and society, despite his grandfather’s Italian birth. It wouldn’t be long before Spampanato began working the phones in order to counterman Gaspar’s over-the-bounds order. This gave Gaspar a very small window of opportunity to grasp a measure of success he could use in order to stave off the blowback that would inevitably be coming his way.

He paused and whispered to Capitan Godoy before continuing up the hallway and back onto the muted carpet sounds of the concourse. The captain remained behind with half of Gaspar’s entourage, the H&K HK33 battle rifles that were slung on their backs as they walked in now in their hands, buttstocks at their shoulders but barrels pointed at the ground. Godoy would be on his phone, calling into the appropriate departments in the airport to electronically limit Spampanato’s reach. His phone calls would be redirected and intercepted. His internet access would be curtailed and within about three minutes, Godoy would be confiscating the man’s personal cell phone.

While EZE wasn’t exactly under his official command, Gaspar had control over a large swath of the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires. To be precise, he had control over the skies above the area with the authority to back up on-the-ground operations with his own troops, given the proper authority of course. With the airport closed to all out-going flights, there was no chance of Braun and his security team escaping by air. If that was their plan, they’d need to put a new one in place which should give Gaspar enough time to put the second phase of his own plan into place.

Five million dollars, Gaspar said to himself as he took out his phone and called the cyber-terrorism task force in the FAA. While he wasn’t exactly looking for cyber-terrorists, their help would be beneficial with phase two.

And then you can start your own phase two, he said to himself as he waited to be transferred to the colonel who would do what he asked for a price.

Chapter 35

Every step took Theo away from the firefight on the rooftops above was one step closer to freedom. But every step was burdened by the fact that he was carrying an unconscious woman over his shoulder. No matter the prevailing attitude towards relationships between men and women, having a female slung like a gigantic bag of potatoes over your shoulder was likely to be looked on with a fair measure of suspicion.

Luckily for Theo the sound of gunfire from mere moments before had sent most people running for safety. A majority of the places in the world where violence was both real and occurred regularly produced a decidedly different reaction in the residents who lived there. Instead of rubbernecking and pulling out their cellphones to record the goings-on, they wisely ran for cover and hid. While the walls of their poor houses weren’t bulletproof, they provided a measure of protection, as did not being visible witnesses to the people who perpetuated the violence.

Which all worked in Theo’s favor as he jogged through the alleyway, trying to both put some distance between the pile of dead men outside of Mariela’s home as well as find an exit that would get them access to a vehicle. JC was perfectly able to hijack a car and its driver, but Theo knew he wouldn’t for fear of accidently harming the innocent driver. And, despite Theo’s most patient tutelage, the man was still surprisingly incapable of hotwiring an older car.

As they were running across the rooftops, pursued by Los Interesantes or Baca or whomever Mariela believed them to be, she had started fighting Theo on every movement, pulling and scratching and pleading to be let go. While Theo was more than happy to do so, he knew three things. First, he had been charged by JC, his boss and friend, to take her with them. Second, letting her go would provide a security risk to the team and mission should she be caught. Third, whomever would catch her would likely kill her.

But Mariela didn’t make it easy. As they shimmed down a narrow, rusted ladder, the woman nearly fell on Theo, complaining more and pulling away from him as soon as they were on the ground level and running.

“One second, honey,” Theo said, spinning her around to him and punching her hard and quick on the jaw. It wasn’t a blow designed to injure or damage, just to twist her head enough to force her brain to bounce against the inside of her skull and force it to shut down in self-preservation.

It worked. She dropped like a marionette. Theo bent down, silent as he gently picked her up, and placed her over his shoulder, her torso laying on his back, her legs in front. Theo knew the majority of people who saw him just thought he was fat. The truth was he worked out regularly and was more muscular and stockier than he was fat. He’d never be fit and slim like JC was. It was a genetic impossibility. But he knew that in a brute strength contest he’d defeat his boss in every way. For him, carrying the five-foot, maybe buck-ten, Mariela while he jogged down the street was really no big deal.

He made his way roughly back towards the main street that intersected the street where the dead bodies lay one. While there was safety in the rabbit warren of alleyways, there was also less chance of finding a vehicle to easily get them out of there.

He turned the corner, hoping to see the main street a short distance ahead and saw something far better. Just outside what looked to be a florist shop there was a delivery van with its rear doors open and full of boxes of cut flowers and several arrangements.

Theo didn’t hesitate. He jogged up to it, tossed several boxes onto the street, laid Mariela in the back and closed the doors. As he jogged around to the driver’s side door, he half hoped someone would drive off with her before he got around front.

He wasn’t that lucky. As he climbed in, he knew he had three likely outcomes - someone comes out and kills him for stealing the van. someone comes out and he convinces them he needs their help, or he gets away scot free.

The cocking of a revolver just as the barrel screwed into his ear told him it wasn’t going to be the last one.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Theo raised his hands slowly. He didn’t see who spoke although the voice was female and sounded a little older. The muzzle of the gun pulled away from his ear as the door next to him was flung open.

“Get out with your hands in the air,” the voice said. “Move wrong and you’re done.”

Theo did as she asked. There was an MP5 on the bench seat of the van where he left it as well as a couple rifles in the back with Mariela, but it didn’t matter. The woman holding him at gunpoint currently held all the cards.

Theo turned towards his captor. She was about the same height as he and looked to be somewhere in her sixties with grey hair. Slim with simple jeans and a t-shirt with a flower shop name on it, she looked as if she had a fair amount of German or European ancestry. She also looked completely comfortable with the revolver in her hand.

“Move it,” she said, waving the gun to indicate he should step away from the van.

Theo took a deep breath. He didn’t have time to deal with this, but neither would he take a chance at a bullet in his gut trying to disarm this grandmother. He needed to try something else.

“I can’t,” he said to her in English. “My sister is in the back. She’s been shot and I need to get her to a hospital.”

The woman paused, pursed her lips, looked Theo up and down and said, “Bullshit.” Her English was accented, sure, but it sounded more European than Argentinian, as did her Spanish. Theo’s gambit of using English hadn’t produced the desired effect, however. Her revolver was still pointed at his gut.

“Look in the back,” Theo said, pointing with his still raised hands. “She’s hurt and we’re being chased. I’ve got to get her out of here.”

The woman backed up, quickly opened the back door of the van before appearing again from the back of the vehicle. Theo hadn’t taken the brief moment of opportunity to rabbit, a fact not lost on the woman pointing the gun at him.

“That young woman is not going anywhere without me knowing what is going on,” she said, staying at the back of the van and beckoning Theo to come towards her. “And you’d better explain those rifles as well.”

“There’s no time,” Theo implored her as he slowly walked forward. “If they find us...” His mind was calculating all the permutations of how he could get away and in none of them could he see him not getting shot, this woman walking away and Mariela going with him.

The woman looked Theo up and down. “You look like you can handle yourself,” she said. “Stop right there,” she said, freezing Theo in his tracks. “Where was she shot and what’s her name?”

Theo sighed. “Mariela,” he said, “and she hasn’t been shot. I lied trying to get you to act faster.” A barrage of gunfire went off not too far away. “I’m going to put my hands down now,” he continued. “If those people get here and we’re not gone,” he continued, “she will be shot, along with you and me and the man she loves who I am ultimately trying to protect.”

As Theo was talking the woman sat down inside the van next to Mariela, decocked the revolver and placed it on the floor next to her. She checked Mariela quickly for bullet holes, despite Theo telling her the truth, and then attempted to wake her.

“This man’s name?” she asked, gently shaking Mariela.

Theo sighed again. There was no point in hiding anything right now. All that was needed was moving and it seemed that right now required the truth.

“Tyler Braun.”

The woman’s eyes shot to Theo for a split second before going back to the unconscious Mariela as she stirred awake.

“My name is Sophia,” she said to Theo as she looked at Mariela. “If what you say is true then we can come to an arrangement.” She paused as Mariela’s eyes opened. “If not, then all bets are off.”

Theo sighed, hoping he wouldn’t have to murder this senior citizen in the next five minutes.

Chapter 36

JC leaned out from the dumpster, checked up and down the alleyway then scooted back against the rough brick wall, covering he and Braun up with the tarp amidst the piles of trash. While Braun was fully covered, JC left his eyes just above the edge of the tarp, doing his level best to force his nose to stop working.

“I’d give anything to not smell like garbage right now,” Braun whispered.

“Soon,” JC said, adjusting the grip on his AR-15 variant under the tarp. “Soon.”

Braun was mobile but was fading. The stress, the worry about Mariela, the adrenaline entering then leaving then entering his body again, the dislocated shoulder — the man needed to rest, if only for a few minutes.

It wasn’t like they could just take a breather on a curb or in a coffee shop. Braun’s face was all over the news. They were being pursued by the local gang which was, apparently, well-armed and ready to murder people on the streets with impunity. Their small team was split and JC’s part of it had no method of transportation.

Even though it was risky, JC did what he felt was best. He texted Theo their rough location, found a place not too far from a major street and hid.

“Will Mariela be with him?” Braun asked quietly.

“If I know Theo,” JC said, biting back his desire to scold the man, “she will be.”

In truth, JC didn’t know. Maybe she was dead, maybe Theo dumped her, maybe she was taken — the possibilities were wide. But if it was in his power, Theo would have Mariela with him.

JC just hoped he would get to their location, or at least close, before they were discovered.

He heard a vehicle turn into the alleyway, accelerating hard. Could be anybody: police, La Izquierda, delivery, local. The chances of it being Theo were small.

The white delivery van shot past their location. The glow of the brake lights matched the sound of it decelerating hard, then backing up. As much as JC wanted to expose himself, he didn’t move. There was still the chance that it was some random citizen looking for a place to deliver boxes of bread.

The van stopped, the driver’s side door level with the opening between the dumpsters.

“Y’all need a ride?” Theo said with a huge grin, waving the tracker at JC and Braun’s position through his open window.

JC threw back the tarp, helping Braun to his feet.

“Is Mariela with you?” Braun grunted as he rose.

“She’s in the back,” Theo said quietly. “I had to knock her out to help us get away. Sorry.”

JC grinned as he led Braun around to the back of the flower delivery van and bustled the man inside.

Fifteen seconds later and they had backed out of the alleyway and were on their way down one of the main arteries of Buenos Aires.

“Where we going, boss?” Theo asked with a grin.

“Dunno,” JC said, pulling his cellphone from his pocket and taking the tracker display device from the dash where Theo put it. “This thing stolen?”

Theo shook his head. “Borrowed,” he said, “with an understanding.”

JC glanced over, saw Theo’s grin and decided to not push. At least they were mobile in something that didn’t need to be dumped in an hour or so. He dialed a number as Braun and Mariela caught each other up in the back. Soon he would need to switch places with her. It would be better to have a native speaker sitting in the front seat than himself. But for now, he let the two catch up.

“Hello?” The person he was calling picked up the line.

“Porras,” JC said. “How are we doing with that list?”

“Complete,” Porras said. “Where are we meeting?”

“You tell me.”

Porras gave him an address which JC relayed to Theo. As his friend took a right turn, JC hung up the phone. The van smelled like flowers and greenery. He needed to think for a minute. Since the attack they’d been on the run simply trying to survive. While his analytical brain was processing data and suppositions in the background, he needed to focus on them and see what it had come up with.

“Mariela,” he said, turning in his seat, “I need to you come up here just in case we need your language or directional skills.”

She nodded with a side glance to Braun who smoothed back her hair. As Theo pulled over next to a supermarket, JC wondered how long it would be before Braun needed to make a decision on who he was going to spend his days with.

JC was damn sure Olivia wasn’t about to share him.

Chapter 37

Varela strode down the sidewalk of Recoleta. It was midevening and the outdoor cafes and restaurants were filled up with office workers looking to avoid cooking or going home too early. The area was a growing hotspot, as it seemed like all areas of Buenos Ares were, and what was once run-down hardware shops and auto-repair garages had been gentrified into mixed-use high-rises.

The news on the big screens of the sports bars he passed matched what the radio, the internet and the intelligence-gathering efforts of Seguridad Universal had been telling him all day. Braun was still in the wind. There was, inexplicably, a growing gang war across the entire Buenos Aires metro area. Incursions were being made into long-established territory by rival gangs and upstart ones. The police were beginning to claim it was under control. Varela knew they were wrong, as did most of the populace. Gang wars would peter out when a truce was reached or the gangs tired of the bloodshed and not before, despite the best efforts of the police.

The more important news, the actual word on the street, was that the bounty Ronnie put on Bannister’s head had spread throughout Buenos Aires like wildfire, just as anticipated. A million dollars was a lot of money anywhere. While most people were content to keep their eyes open and report his position to Roberto in a hope for a fraction of the reward money, a number of outfits had not only geared up for war but were also patrolling the streets actively looking for him.

Varela stopped in at a bar for a quick beer. He paid for the beer and walked out with the bottle, despite the protests of the bartender. He needed air, not company, so he walked, sipping the refreshing drink as he did.

Sophia, his stepsister and Porras’s wife, had disappeared. He’d reached out or visited every family member on his side of the family, her side and Porras’s side. She had been visiting a cousin with their boy but had taken off after a phone call from Porras. After that, she was a ghost: she wasn’t at their apartment, she wasn’t at her work, Nicolas wasn’t in school, nothing.

It was like she had fallen off the face of the earth. That wasn’t easy to do and required resources, which meant JC Bannister was to blame.

The other niggling thing that was in the back of his head: Herve. His new number one was the only person he had told Mariela’s suspected location to. Yet Baca from La Izquierda had gotten there first, before the news of the bounty on Bannister was spreading through the city. He had also died there, which created a power vacuum for Roberto to step into, but that benefitted Roberto, not Varela.

He pulled a burner phone from his pocket, powered it up and dialed the number that he had committed to memory by this point. As it rang the strange North American ring, he wondered how long it was going to take. The men Olivia had sent with Braun were far better than she realized. In fact, they were just about the exact opposite of what she had sold him on. They’d escaped a carefully laid ambush and were now rabbiting through the city. While EZE being closed to outgoing flights was a boon to him, there were always ways around that. Private airports inland, jetboats across the Rio de la Plata into Uruguay, caravans across South America to friendlier countries or even the Pacific Ocean — the possibilities of getting out of the country were endless.

He needed better intel. Nobody’s going to stand between me and millions of dollars. I don’t care who it is.

“Hello?”

“Good afternoon,” Varela said, walking down the street away from the cluster of restaurants and cafes.

“Is it done?” she asked before he could say another word.

“Not yet,” he said. “I’m calling to update you per our twenty-four-hour arrangement.”

“Oh,” she said. He could hear her disappointment. He didn’t care.

“The men you sent with him have been far more capable than you first told me.”

“My apologies,” she said. “If it’s more money you need, then just tell me.”

Too quickly, Varela said, his teeth grinding at the rich person’s assumption that money can solve everything.

“That’s not needed yet,” he said, “however do not forget my price has tripled.” he briefly thought about tripling it again, but that would be excessive. And premature, considering the men he needed to kill were still on the run. “Right now, I need intel.”

“What kind of intel?”

“Anything you can tell me,” he said, pausing as he thought to try and narrow it down for her. “What’s most important to him?”

“Most important?” Olivia asked, thinking.

Varela waited. The seconds ticked by as he imagined her digging through the motivations of the man she’d been married to for over two decades in order to betray him to a man she’d never met face-to-face.

“This deal,” she said finally. “His company.”

“Nothing else?” Varela pushed. “Not another woman, not gambling or alcohol or a secret desire to travel the world?”

Olivia sniffed. “I told you. This deal is the most important thing in the world to him. There are other things that are important to him, but growing his company is all he’s ever genuinely cared about.”

Varela stopped walking and waited for Olivia to say anything else as his mind churned the information over, looking for an angle that he can use to his advantage.

“Nothing else?” he pushed.

“The deal is everything to him.”

Varela could tell there was something she wasn’t telling him. It might be important, it might not. But as his strategic brain processed what she told him, he realized whatever she was holding back might not matter. He turned around and started walking back to his vehicle.

“Did that help?” Olivia asked.

Varela assured her it did, thanked her and hung up. He realized that Braun and subsequently Bannister had two potential plays. One was easy; cut and run. Hightail it out of the country and retreat back to the Great White North to lick his wounds.

The other play was likely going to be the hardest thing Braun had ever done.

Varela pulled out his cellphone again. He needed to be ready for both.

*****

Despite the late hour, Vice-President of Visionary Unlimited Kevin Dobkin was in the gym. He’d just spent an hour playing a game of pickup basketball with other high-level executives and was dripping with sweat. Some were like him, former athletes, and some were simply rich men who liked the game. Regardless it was fun and distracting, allowing him to clarify his thought process, his decisions and his next steps.

After the game he got on an elliptical machine for another twenty minutes to cool down, then showered and headed for the entrance. Twenty-five stories up in the Houseman building, the Energy Fitness Club was only a dozen blocks from Visionary Unlimited’s world headquarters but it suited Dobkin far better than the in-house exercise rooms.

The primary reason? It wasn’t crawling with Braun’s spies. It felt like everywhere he went in Visionary or Visionary-affiliated properties or events he had someone looking over his shoulder, breathing down his neck, watching every move he made just to take word back to Papa Braun.

But here, there was nothing. Sure, people knew who he was. There was even the occasional Visionary board member or employee. However by and large he felt free. Free to exercise, to think, to plot and to plan.

As he walked through the automatic glass doors and into the cooling New York night, the smells hit him. Exhaust, steam, the falafel food cart from up the street, the traces of tar from construction down the street and the lingering scent of the gym. He breathed it in, smiling, as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

This city will soon be mine, he said to himself as he dialed a number.

It was all he was really thinking about at the gym. Braun was on the run, soon to be dead, and it was coming at a friggin’ bargain. He just needed to make sure the guy working for him was actually coming through on his end.

“Hello?”

“Gaspar,” Dobkin said as he stood a dozen feet away from the entrance of the Houseman Building. “How’s tricks?”

“Tricks require a down payment,” Gaspar replied, the call obviously taken outdoors.

“What?” Dobkin said, the anger he felt clearly coming through in the single word.

“I am progressing as we have discussed to secure the conclusion that we discussed,” Gaspar said, the sound of what could be helicopters in the background nearly obscuring his words. “However, there is increasing resistance to my course of actions. Certain people need to be persuaded with a little greenery.”

“That wasn’t the deal,” Dobkin said, keeping his cool despite the attempt at an advance payment. “Your end comes once the deal is finalized.”

Gaspar said something in Spanish to another person, irritating Dobkin at the lack of attention. “Kev,” Gaspar said to him after a beat, “I’ve shut down the largest airport in the nation to outgoing flights. I’m coordinating flights over a city of fourteen million in order to find your man. It’s moving forward and will achieve the desired result.” Gaspar paused as some kind of machinery roared past. “But I need twenty percent now.”

That’s it.

“You listen to me, Gasper,” Dobkin said, the slight change in pronunciation bringing back an insulting prep-school nickname for the Argentine, “if you need to grease some palms and cover your ass, you do so out of your pocket. You’ve got enough cash reserves built up from your smuggling operations, I’m sure.” He paused, waiting for a denial. There was none. “That’s right, Gaspar,” he continued, biting back the insult, “I’ve checked you out. You escaped arrest for your extra-curricular activities by the skin of your teeth, but you’ve got your war chest still intact according to my sources.”

“Kevin,” Gaspar retorted, “I’ve alread-”

“I don’t give a shit what you’ve done, Gaspar,” Dobkin barked into the phone, looking around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear, lowering his voice into a growl. “I’m not giving you a goddamn penny unless you bring me incontrovertible proof you’ve shot him in the head. Am I clear on that point?”

Gaspar said nothing for a beat. “Crystal,” he managed after five long seconds.

Dobkin hung up the call. The point had been made and understood. There was nothing more to say. As he walked to the curb to flag down a taxi, he glanced at his phone and swore. The endorphins from the exercise and the playback loop of the possibility of actually succeeding had made him slip up. Not only had he made a phone call on a company phone, not a burner, he had neglected to run the app that encrypted the phone call and then deleted it from not only the phone’s memory but also from the carrier’s log. It was a special, off-the-books project he put together last year with some of the engineers which should protect him in case of any blowback from illegal phone calls.

And he’d forgotten to use it to cover his tracks.

“Soon enough it won’t matter,” he muttered as he opened the door to the yellow cab and got inside, wondering exactly who he would use to funnel the five million dollars to Gaspar.

*****

Williams listened to the recording of the phone call between Varela and Olivia Braun mere minutes after it was made. The intercept he’d put on her main cellphone had paid off handsomely and continued to do so.

In truth, she wasn’t the first target of his wiretapping. Bannister and his team continually swapped SIM chips and numbers, so it was next to impossible to listen to their conversations without actual, physical listening devices planted on or near them. Mr. Douglas was impossible to tap or track or bug as well, same as Senator Chris Holstrom.

However, there wasn’t as much scrutiny on the phone calls of a senator’s wife. With just a little digging and surveillance, Williams was able to find a cellphone company employee with more than a little gambling debt. In exchange for paying off said debt, the employee ran a little code in the company’s computers that made copies of each phone call made to and from Mrs. Holstrom’s phone and emailed them to whomever Williams designated.

The regular phone calls from Mrs. Holstrom to Mrs. Braun, old sorority sisters, led Williams to look into Mrs. Braun. He soon found exactly what he was looking for: a situation he could exploit. Before long he as financing numerous cyber-attacks and actual attempted physical incursions against their physical locations.

His plan was simple: create enough chaos to make either Tyler or Olivia nervous enough to reach out to someone they knew with pull and leverage to create extra security. Olivia had buckled first. It was a short step from being nervous about security to asking her old friend Mrs. Holstrom if her husband, the illustrious senator from North Carolina and member of chair of half a dozen different committees, if he might know someone who could help.

The plan hadn’t been foolproof, however differing variables that fell his way had made things much more interesting as they developed. Such as Olivia Braun hiring someone to kill her husband.

Although she used different phones with different SIM chips, the gambling degenerate at the phone company had uploaded a Trojan Horse program to her phone that allowed it to act as a microphone and record any activated phone calls or SIM cards nearby. While the data dump was massive, that’s what Williams paid his geeks to dig through.

His job was the sifting of the data, the examination of the players involved, their motivations and what they might likely do. Varela calling Olivia for help was desperation. He wanted and needed the job to succeed and he was out of ideas.

If Williams interpreted what Olivia said correctly, that meant that Braun was going to be laser-focused on closing this deal come hell or high water.

Which meant a face-to-face between Mercado and Braun.

And if Braun was there, then sure as hell JC Bannister would be, too.

He closed the app on his laptop that played the audio, picked up his phone and dialed Ronnie’s phone number. She couldn’t be there. Bannister had ID’d her as surveillance outside his apartment. Mercado had rejected their attempt to put her as surveillance on him. Her being at any impending meeting between Braun and Mercado would be a disaster.

As her phone rang, he was mentally paging through all the different actions he could have her perform down in Argentina.

There were many.

Chapter 38

The list of things JC and Theo asked Porras to secure for them wasn’t long, but it was exceedingly important.

First on the list now seemed like the least important but could come in handy later: passports.

JC and Theo usually traveled with a set or two of legitimate papers and documents hidden in their luggage. Unfortunately, they’d been ambushed unexpectedly and only had a single passport apiece with them; the others and the full set of accompanying driver’s licenses and credit cards were stashed back at the hotel.

Porras was charged with collecting those if possible as well as making sure he got an extra set of forged documents locally for JC, Theo and Braun as well as himself. The Sofitel hotel was crawling with police and Seguridad Universal agents when he drove past it so that left only the illegal passports from the Argentinian black market.

Nobody expected the papers to be stellar quality, simply good enough to fool a sleepy guard or something that a crooked agent with some greenback inducement could justify looking the other way on.

The second item they needed was an SUV large enough to carry JC, Theo, Braun, Porras and Mariela. While JC wasn’t happy about it, they were stuck with the woman for the time being. The vehicle didn’t need to be bulletproof or the latest model. It just needed to fit everyone, but mechanically sound and not likely to raise any red flags. They still had the flower van, but it was obviously a delivery vehicle. Having a gang of people pile out of the back of a delivery vehicle would draw unwanted attention.

Third was to get a bag full of charged-up burner phones, just in case.

Fourth was for Porras to make sure he brought everything from inside the rented vacation home when he left it. There was nothing to be left behind: no guns, no clothes, no suitcases, nothing. It wasn’t for fear of leaving a trail but more because they needed everything that they had.

The last item was perhaps the most important. JC tasked Porras with finding an abandoned warehouse deep in the industrial section of Buenos Aires. Something neither too far from EZE airport nor the Rio de la Plata formed by the conjoining of the Uruguay and Parana rivers. Although called a river, it in many ways looked like a bay with Buenos Aires and Argentina on one side and Montevideo and Uruguay on the other.

JC wanted a place where they could lay low for a few days without being tracked while he could figure out their next move. With the news that EZE had shut down all outgoing flights, their situation was infinitely more complex and the warehouse equally as important. It didn’t matter to JC if Porras needed to rent it for a month and pay twenty grand — they had the money and the importance of using it for just a night or two couldn’t be understated.

As Porras drove the ten-year-old golden-brown SUV through the open double-doors with Theo following behind in the flower delivery van, JC closed the doors behind them, smiling. The warehouse had an office with a bathroom, shower room, a hot plate and small refrigerator according to Porras. The dust rose from the tires as Theo drove it into the center of the cavernous warehouse and stopped. JC walked behind, letting the smell of old grease and gasoline from forklifts long gone waft up and mix with the dust of months of no traffic, either foot or vehicle.

It’s perfect, he said to himself. Porras may be a keeper after all.

*****

Four hours later and the sun was down, their bellies were full and Mariela was sleeping soundly in the office on an inflatable camping mattress.

Porras had done more than well, he’d performed outstandingly. He’d brought camping equipment and food with camp stoves along with gallons of water just in case the warehouse water wasn’t potable.

As they’d prepared everything for the night and gone through their inventory, Mariela was increasingly fragile and on edge. Eventually Braun needed to take her into the office and promise that they would be leaving the next day for the United States before she was able to stop the shrill yelling and calm herself enough to sleep.

Braun walked quietly out of the room to join JC, Theo and Porras. They were sitting around an extinguished camp stove, sipping instant coffee with the two vehicles about ten yards away. Braun sat in the chair he used before without a word. The other men fell silent.

“How’s Mariela?” JC asked.

“Resting,” Braun said quietly. “This has been a little hard on her.”

JC waited for a minute, trying to figure out if there was a nice way to broach the topic. There wasn’t.

“Does your wife know?” he said, trying to keep his voice down. “About Mariela?”

“She’s a tennis-playing, charity-whore,” Braun said, “who self-medicates with three-hundred dollar bottles of scotch.”

JC glanced at Theo then back to Braun. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means,” Braun said without looking up from his cool cup of instant coffee, “that she goes to the country club, bounces around and flirts with the tennis pros, spends most of her nights dressing up and going to charity auctions and assuage-her-guilt-for-being-rich charity events, then comes home and drinks herself to sleep.”

JC kept staring at Braun. The amount of vitriol the man held for his wife was staggering.

“Do you know the last time she even tried to give me a blowjob?”

“Don't even want to kn-” Theo started to say before Braun cut him off.

“Seventeen years ago,” the billionaire said. “It was right before she got pregnant with our son.”

“You don’t have any children,” Porras said, more confused than accusatory.

“She had a miscarriage,” Braun said, his voice flat. “Our marriage has been dead ever since.”

JC shook his head. He brought up the point to find out if Mrs. Braun was likely to be a suspect. The intel he was processing made him think it more likely that Braun wanted his wife out of the picture than ice-versa.

“Parents I know who suffered a tragedy like that,” Theo said, “they always say ‘we’.” JC knew Theo well enough to hear the edge in his voice.

“Yeah, well,” Braun said, “it was her drinking that did it.”

Theo shut up. He was medically trained enough to know that although alcohol consumption increased the chances of miscarriages, it was next to impossible to pinpoint that as the particular cause of a miscarriage. He was also wise enough to know that if the man had been lying to himself about this for seventeen years, telling him now that he as wrong wouldn’t change his mind.

“So... a bad marriage,” he said instead.

“I provide for her,” Braun said, “give her all the things she requires.”

“Husband of the year,” JC said. He’d already looked away in distaste and didn’t see Braun’s eyes snap towards him.

“I'm guessing you don’t quite give her everything she requires,” Theo said, not even attempting to hide the insult.

“Listen, you sonofabitch,” Braun said, leaning forward as his he jabbed his index finger in JC’s direction.”

“Cool it, hoss,” Theo said. “We're trying to figure out who wants you dead and it sounds like the missus is at or near the top of the list.”

Braun looked back to Theo, backing off of the brewing fight with JC. “Why?” he asked, nonplussed.

“Because you’re a grade-A prick,” Theo said with half a laugh. “Maybe she's tired of living under your thumb, figures the best way out is to have you killed.” He shook his head. “Wouldn't be the first woman of wealth to attempt killing her husband.”

“She doesn't have the balls,” Braun said, his shoulders rounding and hunching over.

“Married to you for twenty years?” Theo said. “Pretty damn sure she does.”

JC watched Braun as the realization that perhaps his wife was behind the murder attempt slowly sunk in.

“Who else could it be?” JC asked, trying to remove all hints of accusation from his tone. He, Theo and Porras may think Braun a less-than-stellar husband, but driving that point home right now wouldn’t get them any closer to a solution. “Who else stands to gain?”

Braun shrugged. “Shareholders, Dobkin, Mercado, board member with a grudge, journalist with an axe to grind.” He shrugged again. “It's a pretty long list, I’d imagine.”

“I bet it is,” Theo snorted.”

“What was your plan?” JC asked.

Braun said nothing for a beat, looking down at the extinguished camp stove between them. “Run away for a few months after the deal was done. Reappear in Europe, divorce Olivia and live out our lives in happiness.”

“And now?” Theo asked.

Braun sighed. “Make it out of here alive and then figure it out.”

“Mariela has to come with us,” JC said. “We can send people to pick up her mother later, but right now we can’t just let her go.”

Braun looked up, teeth clenched. “Why?”

“Because she’s a security risk,” Porras answered for JC. “She knows where we are, what we’re doing, what our plans may or may not be.”

“But if we keep her in the dark,” Braun said, “can we drop her off in a safe location?” He looked between the men. “She won’t know anything.”

“She’d be dead within a week,” JC said, the words harsh but his tone kind. “Varela, the police, any local gangster who saw you on the news, hears a rumor and puts one and two together — somebody will snatch her up to get at you or just for ransom. And when they realize she can’t help?” JC shook his head so he didn’t have to get into the grisly details. He didn’t need to know if Braun planned to stay with Mariela or was just looking for a way to keep the woman he loved safe. Despite JC’s feelings on the matter, leaving her behind was the same as putting a bullet in her head.

“So, what do we do?” Braun asked after a beat, defeat clear in his voice.

Porras and Theo both looked slowly to JC. While every man had their own ideas, he was the boss.

JC checked his watch as a helicopter flew overhead. There had been an increasing number of helicopter flights over the city after the airport was closed to outgoing traffic. While he had no proof, his instinct told him they were recon flights, likely searching for them.

“It’s just after midnight,” JC said, “which puts it just after ten on the East Coast.” He looked up. “Flights out of EZE are obviously out. We need to get out of the country, but it’s not Europe. We can’t just drive over the nearest border.”

Porras nodded. “Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay would be the closest borders, followed by Bolivia and Chile.”

“Which would be easiest?” Theo asked. “The least watched?”

“Chile more than likely,” Porras said with a shrug. “It’s the longest border with my country but it’s also the most difficult to access because it’s high in the Andes.”

“Uruguay is going to be our best bet,” JC said, “but it’s also likely to be the most watched. We’ll just have to punch a hole.”

Porras shook his head. “Uruguay is very friendly with Argentina,” he said. “It would be very likely they would turn us over the first chance they get.”

“We’ll have to make sure they don’t get that chance,” Theo said.

“Can’t we just go to the embassy?” Braun asked.

“You could,” JC said, “but Mariela would be turned over to the authorities unless she could apply for asylum, and that’s a risky proposition.”

“We’d be arrested,” Theo said.

“And Porras and his family would still be in hot water,” JC said.

JC watched Braun. Watched him nod and accept their rejection of the plan. He’s making progress, JC said as he watched Braun’s selfishness evaporate. He’s in this together with us now. Good.

“Take the night,” JC continued. “Theo, you take first watch, I’ll take second. Sun comes up tomorrow we’ll put an escape plan together.”

The men nodded, standing and stretching as Braun went back to his camping mattress in the office with Mariela and Porras to his mattress near the SUV. JC lingered near the camp stove, the de facto meeting point in the warehouse. Theo hadn’t moved as he had first watch.

“Uruguay?” Theo asked quietly.

JC shrugged, looking around. “Best choice now,” he said. “Over land or by boat, we get there it’ll give us some breathing room before we can put together another out.”

Theo nodded. Truth be told, they had other options. But those options were Hail Mary’s, the equivalent to going nuclear when it wasn’t necessary.

For now.

“Wake me at four,” JC said to Theo, walking over to his camp mattress only ten feet away.

As he laid down fully clothed and put the lightweight sleeping bag over himself to ward off the cool night air inside the cavernous warehouse, the thought that he was missing something kept tickling the back of his mind.

He listened to it for a minute but couldn’t solve it, so he pushed it away. Started cataloging their supplies, starting with the bricks of C4 and hand grenades, continuing on down through the camping supplies Porras had brought for them. By the time he’d gone through their supply list twice he was asleep, the droning of nearby helicopter flights helping to send him off to the land of Nod.

Chapter 39

JC’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t know the cause instantaneously, but his mind was on full alert and, within seconds, had processed a fair amount of information. It was still dark. Theo was patrolling a perimeter between the office and the SUVs. Porras was snoring and Braun and Mariela were likely still in the office sound asleep. He checked his watch: three after three in the morning. He wasn’t due to switch with Theo for another hour. His internal clock was usually fairly good and he didn’t need to use the bathroom. What was it that woke him up?

JC got up, an AR-15 in his hands as we walked off in the opposite direction of Theo. He wanted to check things out for himself. As he walked towards the back of the warehouse, he heard a low whistle from Theo. He turned, waved and kept walking.

Two minutes later and his circuit of the rear perimeter of the warehouse was complete. The barn doors at the rear of the warehouse were secure as were the regular doors next to them. He met back with Theo at the camp stove.

“What’s up?” Theo asked.

“Dunno,” JC said. “Woke up. Something’s off.”

“I’ve checked all entrances,” Theo said, pointing to the three near the front of the warehouse. “All secure, nothing visible in the night beyond.”

“What else?”

“Porras got up to pee at two,” Theo continued. “Helicopters increased their flight patterns and frequency around one.”

JC nodded. “And now?”

Theo listened, thinking. “Haven’t heard one in the past half hour.”

The two men looked at each other as the realization of what might have just happened hit them both at the same time.

“You think they just folded up shop and called it a night?” JC asked Theo.

“Could be any number of reasons why,” Theo said, his tone far from convincing.

“Wake everyone up,” JC said, moving to the back of the SUV. “It’s time to move.”

Chapter 40

“No,” Gaspar Rivas said into the radio telephone, “I already told you. Keep the helicopters grounded. We know where they are, it’s been confirmed and there’s no need to keep wasting fuel.”

He hung up the radio, smiling. He was about twenty minutes away from being five million tax-free dollars richer than he currently was. Although they’d been searching the city for Braun and his security team, it was a hunch by Gaspar that led them to this quick success.

All of Braun’s items were brought to Gaspar’s command post near EZE. After searching through them and finding nothing of interest that would help them find the men they were after, Gaspar asked one of his men to scan the pile of clothes and weapons with a radio frequency scanner. It was an offhanded request, just a hint of an idea. But it picked up a signal.

The signal wasn’t extraordinarily strong, and it was on a frequency the Argentinian Air Force didn’t use regularly, but it was there and in multiple locations. A little digging produced a number of tracking devices in watches and shoes. They were small and very advanced, but if they were hidden in the personal items of Tyler Braun, there was a good chance they would be in other items of his, perhaps even items he was wearing at the time.

Although the signal couldn’t be tracked that far, with unlimited helicopter flights over the city, it didn’t take long for Gaspar’s squad to find the location of Braun. A few thermal imaging flights over the supposedly abandoned warehouse and they had all the intel they needed. Caspar sent the majority of his command home. According to the plan Gaspar had put together, they only required two dozen men to complete the raid and zero air support.

Truth be told, he said to himself as he emerged from the FAA’s mobile command vehicle, we probably don’t even need this many men. As he saw them suiting up and donning their night-vision goggles, he knew this was overkill.

It’s only five people.

Captain Morales appeared at his side. “The men are prepared and awaiting your command,” he said, saluting crisply.

Gaspar nodded as he put his own night-vision googles into place, checked the magazine on his rifle, and walked over to the assembled men and their four SUVs.

“Gentlemen,” he said, addressing the men in a low voice. Although their command post was half a kilometer away from the warehouse, voices carried in the cool night. “The job is simple. We are performing an armed incursion against this warehouse. Those inside are armed and likely to fight back. Do not hold your fire, do not hold back. You are no mere soldiers. You are airmen in your country’s FAA and trained for this very instance!”

It wasn’t totally true, but it was enough to get the men fired up for the very illegal action they were about to take part in. The FAA had no authority to perform on-the-ground actions inside Buenos Aires without the joint permission of at least one land-based branch of the military. However, these men were hand-picked by Gaspar. They had proven themselves morally ambiguous by their involvement in Gaspar’s extra-legal import/export side business and he felt they could be trusted.

“Captain Morales,” Gaspar said, locating the man, “you are in charge. Begin your assault.”

Morales silently whirled his hand in the air and the assembled men went to their SUVs. Twenty-four men, including Gaspar and Morales, and four SUVs meant six men per SUV: one driver, one passenger, four riding outboard on the vehicle, two on each side. As Gaspar jumped on the front passenger outboard side on the second SUV, the adrenaline of the moment overwhelmed him. He almost whooped in joy at how close he was from being able to retire from the damn Air Force.

Maybe I’ll stick around, he said to himself as the SUVs drove the short two-kilometer drive to the warehouse where Braun was holed up in total darkness. Five million could be the kickstart for me to become the landed gentry, just like my father. Imagine all the money I could make.

The SUVs pulled up to the front of the warehouse. It was old, built in the late sixties, with huge sliding double doors in the front, two smaller standard doors to either side and lots of windows at the top of the walls, near the veiling, to let light in. At three-thirty in the morning there was no chance of light, so everything was dark.

Luckily for Gaspar’s team, the area in front of the doors was devoid of any curbs or structures to block their SUVS. Set approximately ten meters back from the street, what was once likely hard-packed dirt had been paved over years ago. Although now broken, the asphalt provided a good surface for their men to disembark and approach the building.

The drivers arrayed the SUVs in a staggered “V” formation, allowing the vehicles themselves to provide cover should there be resistance of any significance. The men who rode outboard, save Gaspar, would be the men breaching and entering the warehouse. The drivers and passengers of the SUVs would be backup. While Gaspar knew there was a rear entrance to the warehouse, he refused the advice of Captain Morales to have it guarded. There was simply no way five people would be able to put up enough of a fight to get away from the overwhelming numbers and firepower that Gaspar’s squad represented.

“Sir,” Morales said under his breath to Gaspar as the two watched their men position themselves outside the smaller, standard-sized doors. “We still have time to post a guard or two at the rear. Just for possible negative outcomes.”

“Your lack of faith borders on disloyalty,” Gaspar replied. “Commence the breach.”

Morales stiffened at the rebuke but executed the order. Gaspar’s only current regret was not having air support with thermal imaging cameras to tell them in real time what was happening inside. The squad only had night-vision goggles which, now active, provided them amazing ability to see in the dark. They didn’t, however, allow them to see through the old wooden walls of the warehouse.

“Sir,” one of the men at the doors reported. “We hear movement inside.”

“Hold,” was Morales’s command.

“I want them charging in their now,” Gaspar growled. “Weapons free.”

“If the five people in there happen to be coming out,” Morales replied, “better to have them see our superior firepower and give up without firing a shot.”

“Move in!” Gaspar yelled out in the night at his men, his patience with Morales at an end.

At Gaspar’s command, the night exploded with activity

It wasn’t what Gaspar was expecting.

Chapter 41

The large sliding door was thrown open, or to be precise, ran open. As soon as the door began to open, gunfire poured from inside the warehouse at the men outside. Before Gaspar’s FAA squad could respond or find cover, two men were down, both dead.

The initial barrage lasted less than ten seconds. Gaspar was well-protected behind the engine block of the vehicle he rode in on. As he popped back over the hood of his SUV, he heard a sound from inside that hadn’t been heard before. It sounded like a vehicle, probably started during the fusillade of gunfire.

“They’re on the move,” one of the men at the front of the warehouse yelled as the sound of an accelerating vehicle filled the quiet of the night.

Headlights from inside slashed through the dark, blinding the night-vision goggle-clad force. As the vehicle drove for the open entrance, Gaspar managed to yell out “Fire!” as he ripped the goggles from his own head and tried to adjust his eyes to the dark lit by the vehicle.

He was able to see a white delivery van charging for them as gunfire erupted again from inside the warehouse. The difference this time was it was no barrage. It was targeted fire. As his eyes adjusted to the night, he saw man after man fall, their cries echoing through the night and their communication devices. Some of the FAA squad were firing at their assailants inside the warehouse, some firing at the vehicle making its escape. Gaspar didn’t have eyes in the warehouse and therefore didn’t know the size of the force they were facing or if his airmen were making a dent. He did know, however, that his own men were being picked off faster than he ever expected. Man after man fell, some with holes he could see, many with holes he couldn’t.

Two simultaneous explosions ripped from just behind the doors of the warehouse. The shockwave from the blast killed two men in an instant, several more being shredded by the ball-bearings thrown forward by the blast. Gaspar saw one man go down with a shard of wood two feet long speared through his throat.

“Sir!” Morales yelled, running at him, pushing him backwards as the white delivery van continued to accelerate towards their position. As men in his squad had switched on the fore-mounted flashlights on their rifles now that night visions goggles were useless, Gaspar was able to see the markings of a flower delivery company on the side of the van.

That’s odd, he thought to himself as Morales continued to push him out of the way, the van on a collision course with the center of the “V” the SUVS were arranged in.

Gaspar was still watching the van over Morales’s shoulder when he realized there was no driver.

What’s going on, he asked himself as the van ripped to pieces in a violent fireball explosion, throwing shrapnel and burning gasoline in every direction.

*****

JC’s orders were iron law in the twenty-eight minutes before the attack.

The first order was to get everything they needed into the SUV. It was their escape vehicle and they were leaving the van behind. While Tyler brought Mariela to consciousness and got her mind focused on the danger the needed to escape, JC instructed Theo and Porras how to booby-trap the van.

Water jugs were emptied and the gasoline was siphoned from the tank of the van, leaving just enough for it to run at full speed for under a minute. The rest was positioned around two claymores strapped to a chunk of wood they found in the warehouse. Porras came jogging out from one of the storage rooms in the back with a box full of spare parts for some piece of machinery long gone.

“Can we use these?”

JC looked at Theo who already had a smile on his face. A quick trip to their dwindling supplies and Theo had half a brick of C4 fashioned into an improvised incendiary device that they planned to set up at the back door as they left.

The arrival of soldiers at the front changed their plans. The claymore bomb was left in the truck, two more Claymores placed at the doors to the warehouse and the C4 IED was loaded into the van as well. Porras had the idea of hanging it from the ceiling of the van.

Everything rigged to blow on Theo’s command, Braun and Mariela were ushered into the back seats of the SUV. Porras was in the driver’s seat of the SUV, a rifle in his hands to fire at the soldiers outside when JC threw open the door. Theo stood next to the van, an M4 battle rifle in each hand, set to full auto.

The plan wasn’t complex. JC would run the door open as Porras and Theo fired on anyone outside. Theo would drop the rifles as JC peeled off from the door, firing at anyone he could see as he ran towards the SUV. As JC ran and provided covering fire, Theo would start the van, put it in gear, turn on the lights, drop a chunk of slag metal on the gas pedal and jump free as the van shot towards the men coming in at them. As the van was moving, JC would be in the passenger front seat as Theo jumped in the back of the SUV to provide covering fire should there be any pursuers.

It worked perfectly. JC had no idea who the men outside were but there was no way they were anything close to good guys. As he peeked out, there were only a handful of men assembled, maybe two dozen or less. If they were somehow actual police or military forces, there would be a lot more and they wouldn’t come under the cover of night like this. They’d come in full force, dozens and dozens of men and helicopters.

As the van exploded outside, Theo hopped in the back of the SUV and slammed the rear barn doors of the vehicle closed. Porras slammed on the accelerator as more gunfire exploded behind them. Bullets pounded against the left side of the SUV, shattering windows and puncturing sheet metal. Porras swore as a bullet whizzed past JC’s shoulder and hit the windshield, punching a neat hole through it.

The only solution was to leave faster. As they crashed through the rear doors of the warehouse, Theo let loose with the Milkor MGL and dumped about four grenades into the warehouse. The grenades landed near the front doors of the warehouse, some exploding on contact, some bouncing off the floor and further out towards their pursuers before exploding.

JC was focused on the alleyway behind the warehouse and their escape route up the street ahead. Shockingly nobody was there. In truth, this was the weakest part of their plan. JC half-expected them to be cut down in a hail of bullets as they escaped.

We won’t get lucky like that again, JC thought as Porras turned right, then left, then right again, heading for the freeways that would take them to an entire other part of the city.

“Mariela?” Braun said behind him.

Even though he turned at the sound of Braun’s voice, JC knew what had happened before he even looked. His stomach sank.

“Mariela?”

“Braun, switch with Theo right now,” JC ordered. The man didn’t move, still trying to shake his lover awake. JC turned back around, leaning his back towards Porras so he could reach Braun with his right hand. He shook the man, drawing his attention away from Mariela and the nickel-sized hole in her upper chest that was leaking pink blood. “Tyler, switch with Theo. He was a combat medic and is her best chance right now.”

Braun moved as asked, Theo jumping over the seat in a flash, quickly examining the exit wound and then finding the entry wound. He ordered Braun to find the first aid kit, flashing a look at JC as Braun searched.

“Porras,” JC said, sitting back, “find a hospital right now.” As much as it pained him there was literally nothing else he could do right now except let Theo work in the confined space. Braun handed Theo first-aid kit, Theo’s hands flying over the kit, finding the exact right piece of equipment and supply for the mission at hand.

Porras swerved off the road they were on without a word. He had his mission and didn’t need to report their proximity to the hospital he was desperately trying to reach. No amount of talking by him would change how fast the vehicle could drive.

As they hurtled through the night to the hospital, JC did something he didn’t often do. He closed his eyes and prayed.

Chapter 42

“No,” JC said, placing himself directly in front of Braun’s rage and between him and the two other men in the small room. “It’s my fault. It was my escape plan, she sat where I ordered her to sit.”

Braun seethed, his chest heaving the agony of having the woman he loved die in his arms, his rage at the world focusing on JC Bannister. JC watched him, flat-footed, waiting for anything the man had. He watched Braun slip into a feral mind state but then claw his way back to logic and rationality.

Braun let his balled-up fists relax and forced his breathing to slow.

“No,” he said finally. “Her death is on my shoulders. Not yours.”

JC shook his head, attempting to argue his way into the blame for Mariela’s death but Braun stopped him.

“I failed to heed your orders or listen to your warnings,” he said heavily. “I imagined myself above… whatever.” His shoulders sagged and he sat down on the ground, the sobs coming finally.

Mariela had passed less than two minutes away from the hospital. Best Theo could figure the same bullet that whizzed past JC’s shoulder and through the windshield had passed through Mariela first. It likely came in just behind her left arm, managed to miss every bone but passed through her left lung and nicked her brachial artery. As her lung collapsed, her heart kept pumping from the adrenaline, the blood accumulating pooling inside the thoracic cavity left by the collapsed lung.

Despite her lack of pulse and breathing, the team still pulled up to the emergency room entrance and carried her into the hospital, making sure she was attended to before they left. There was no hope, everyone knew that. But they weren’t about to just not take her in, either.

As they drove away, JC told Porras to find a small hotel room for the rest of the morning. The sun was coming up soon and JC, Theo and Braun were covered in blood. They needed to wash up before they could continue.

As Braun sat on the floor of the forty-dollar hotel room and grieved for the loss of the woman he had planned to leave his wife for, JC motioned Theo to clean up. The man’s rage had passed and now he would be either in the bargaining stage or passing straight to depression.

Whichever stage of Braun’s grieving process was next they still needed to leave the country. As Braun pulled himself together, Theo emerged from the bathroom looking like he hadn’t just performed field medicine on a gunshot victim. JC sent Braun in next as Theo, JC and Porras sat to confer on the best course of action.

Flying was out of the question, at least not from EZE. There were other smaller airports but after the failed assault on the warehouse who knows if they would even be open. They could try and suss out the situation, reach out to Porras’s contacts to get some intel, but there was no way of knowing if Varela or the airmen responsible for the assault or even just the regular police had gotten to them first. Besides, as the sun rose the entire city might be on lockdown. Escaping by boat was a possibility if they could somehow get out into international waters without being captured or killed. As they went round and round, they kept coming back to the same conclusion.

All options were bad.

“This is all academic,” Theo finally said, “until we figure out who is after us.”

Porras nodded, looking at JC.

“Alright,” JC said. “We can all agree that Varela is first on the list.” Porras nodded, as did Theo. “But why? Who paid him?”

Theo shrugged. “Half a dozen options.”

“Table that,” JC said, nodding. “Porras, is there any way you can find out how and why those guys were outside Mariela’s door when Braun was holed up at her place?”

Porras nodded, heading for the bag of burner phones. “A couple guys I know that Varela doesn’t.”

“I think it all goes back to New York,” Theo said.

JC nodded. “It doesn’t make sense that all this set off since we got in country.” Paused as Braun came out. “And those soldiers? They had to be connected to the helicopters which means they’re likely connected to the airport shutting down.”

“That’d be the Air Force,” Porras said, looking up from his phone. “The helicopters had to be Air Force and I think some or all those guys outside the warehouse were airmen by their uniforms.”

“Does the Air Force have control over the airport?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Porras replied.

JC finally looked up as Braun stood there, the pain from his loss writ across his face. Something was different, though. His back was no longer bent, his shoulders no longer hunched forward. More importantly, he had changed clothes like Theo and didn’t look covered in dried blood. JC looked down at himself and stood, heading for the bathroom.

“Two things,” Braun said. “First, hot water’s almost out.”

“Not a problem.”

“Second, I have an idea.”

“I do, too,” JC said. “Let’s compare notes when I’m done.”

Braun nodded and turned to Theo as Porras started speaking into the phone.

*****

Seven minutes later and JC emerged from the bathroom refreshed, clean and not likely to draw the attention of the first policeman who saw him. He also had a bit more of a plan in place, however he wanted to hear what Braun was cooking up as well.

Porras was off the phone, waiting. Theo was sitting on the bed with a sour look on his face while Braun paced back and forth on the thin, worn carpeting. The TV was on but muted. Braun stopped when JC emerged from the bathroom, still toweling his hair.

“I don’t think you’re going to like my idea,” Braun said, “but it’s the best thing we can do.”

“We’ll see,” JC said. “First. Porras?”

“Mariela was right,” the former second-in-command at Seguridad Universal said. “The men we killed were led by Tinto, Baca’s second in command. Now that he’s dead, Baca looks weak and the neighborhood is in turmoil.”

“I can see that,” JC said, pointing at the TV as it silently showed scenes of shootouts in poorer Buenos Aires neighborhoods. “That’s just because he died?”

“It created a power vacuum,” Porras said with a shrug. “Now his number three and number four are fighting each other for dominance. They’re recruiting other gangs to supplement their numbers, forming new alliances. And that,” Porras continued, pointing at the mayhem on the TV, “is clear across the city.” JC looked back to the TV. It was war, pure and simple, and it while not directly his fault, he felt a measure off responsibility. “Every gang with a grudge and some weapons is taking it as a chance to jump in and get what they can. Also, Roberto jumped in with both feet. He decided it was time to enter La Izquierda’s territory and start a war.”

“Roberto? He’s the guy that runs the gang who worked with Varela?” JC asked, looking away from the TV and back to Porras who nodded in the affirmative. “They decided to enter the same neighborhood where Braun was holed up and start a war?”

“Strange coincidence, no?” Porras said with a smile.

“No,” JC replied, the plan he cooked up in the bathroom more solidified. “Did you get us a way out of the country?”

Porras cocked his head sideways. “I think so,” he said. “It won’t be cheap, comfortable or quick,” he said, “but there’s a goat farmer who sometimes smuggles people over the Peruvian border in the back of his truck. I’ve arranged a meeting for this evening.”

“As long as you ride up front with a gun trained on him,” JC said, “I’ve got no problem.”

Porras nodded, his gratitude for the trust JC placed in him unspoken.

“Braun,” he said, turning to the billionaire. “What’s your idea?”

“I’m going to finish my deal.”

The room was silent for a full ten seconds as the enormity of what he just proposed sank into everyone’s brains.

“What?” Theo said from the bed.

“I’m going to finish what I came down here to do,” Braun said. “I’m going to meet with Señor Mercado and sign a deal. Or at least agree to one.”

“Why would you do that now?” JC asked, no hint of negativity in his voice. “Won’t your stock price be in the toilet by now? You’ll be giving away half the company.”

“We checked the news when you were cleaning up,” Porras said. “It’s actually right about where it was before he came down.”

Porras’s on board with Braun’s plan, JC said to himself.

“And I have a way to make it even more to my advantage,” Braun said, his eyes bright.

“I gotta hear this,” Theo snorted.

“Hold on,” JC said. “How do you think we’ll even be able to get close enough to Mercado to make this deal?”

“I know where he is,” Braun said. “Right now, I know exactly where he is.”

“There ain’t no way you could know that,” Theo said.

JC ignored Theo. Braun didn’t become a billionaire by being wrong too many times. He sat on the edge of the brown overstuffed leather sofa, tossed the towel he was drying his hair with back in the bathroom and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

“I’m listening.”

Braun smiled. “I know where he is,” he repeated. “I’m going to make a video and post it to social media. Señor Mercado will welcome us with open arms.”

JC looked at him, blinked once and smiled.

“Perfect.”

Chapter 43

It was just after eight in the morning and Olivia had been at Visionary Unlimited’s head office for the past thirty minutes. As Tyler’s disappearance stretched on and on, she’d felt more and more at home at the office for a variety of reasons. After her outburst in the conference room the other day, she had been included in more activities and decisions. It was as if they were finally seeing her and considering her as a contributing member of the company, a position she was glad to step into.

Another reason she felt more at home in the office is precisely because it wasn’t her home. While Braun’s presence and touch extended to all parts of the company, at home there was nothing to distract her except television or alcohol. The past few days she’d been relying far too much on the later and at the office it was much more difficult to hide her drinking. She wanted as clear of a head as was possible.

Sitting at her office she heard the sound of running footsteps towards her office. The third reason she enjoyed the office these days, the possibility of a buffer between her and the police or the press, flashed in her mind but as her assistant Kim Tepper stuck her head through the door, all fear evaporated.

“He’s alive,” she said breathlessly. “He’s on TV. Come on.”

Olivia was on her feet and around the desk after the first two words, following Kim to the main conference room. There were likely an even dozen people already in the room, eyes glued to the TV screen. As she ran after Kim, a sense of dread overcame her. If he’s really alive, what happens next? Before she could find the answer, she was in the conference room and the volume of the TV was raised high enough to drown out her thoughts.

“…repeat this is unverified video of Tyler Braun. It was emailed to the news desks of all major TV news outlets just moments ago and subsequently posted to his social media accounts. We’re showing this in its entirety for the first time anywhere.”

The anchor stopped talking as the face of Tyler Braun came into view behind them. The screen zoomed into the cellphone video as it began to play.

“This is Tyler Braun, founder and CEO of Visionary Unlimited.” A cheer filled the room, quickly shushed by the others so they could hear. “I came down to Buenos Aires to complete a merger with ArgenTelCo. I was ambushed on the way to a lunch meeting. My local security team was in on the ambush and may even have coordinated it with local gangs or paramilitary groups. Not everyone on the local team was involved. I don’t know how many people were killed in the attack, but it wasn’t small. One team member, a high-ranking member, literally risked his life to save mine and took a bullet for his efforts. He’s still alive, but… (shakes his head, wipes a tear from his eye). I cannot express my gratitude for the people who are protecting me.”

Olivia continued to listen while taking in the information behind the video He was in a vehicle of some sort, traveling but the scenery behind him was all a blur. There were no other people visible and he didn’t seem to be under duress. More importantly, there was no sign of the woman she knew he was seeing.

“Allow me to be clear,” Braun continued. “Despite news reports, the security team I brought with me from the US are not, I repeat, not involved in the kidnapping attempts. They are working extremely hard to protect me from the people who would kill me.”

Board members congratulated themselves and literally slapped each other on the back, the possible blowback and lawsuits arising from sending the very men who attempted to kidnap Braun vaporizing with his words.

“Which brings me to the bigger question,” Braun continued. “Who is trying to kill me? I don’t have much evidence, although we are afraid to go to the police for help. We were ambushed and almost murdered by a military force of some kind.” He looked around, the phone’s camera still trained on him. “Currently the airports are closed in Buenos Aires and we are trying to secure passage to a nearby city where we can fly out of.”

Braun looked back at the camera, settling his gaze directly into the lens. Olivia smiled in spite of her dread at being discovered as the bank account and driving force behind the kidnapping attempt. Tyler always knew the power of spectacle and of playing to the audience.

“I wanted to get word to my team in America, my stockholders, my customers and most importantly my wife: I’m still alive. I’ve got good people working their asses off to keep me that way, and I’ll be back soon to help Visionary rise to even greater heights.”

Cheers rose in the room again but this time weren’t shushed. Several people congratulated Olivia, their words hollow to her ears. She looked to her left to see Kevin Dobkin standing next to her.

“And to the people who coordinated this attack against me?” Tyler continued, pausing for dramatic effect as he looked around past the camera before fixing his eyes directly on the camera one last time. “Give up. Now. Run and hide. Because we’re coming for you.”

The video shut off and the news desk anchor started talking as soon as it was over, praising the power of the video and the bravery of the man who made it. The conference room was filled with voices, some of them talking to Olivia, some of them talking to each other, many of them just talking to be heard.

“Sonofabitch,” Dobkin said. “He actually pulled it off.”

“Pulled what off,” Olivia said absently.

“Apparently several attempts on his life,” Dobkin said, his voice flat. “Aren’t you glad you sent those two guys down there with him?”

“Yes,” Olivia said as people milled about her, showering her with congratulations and platitudes. As she slowly made her way back to her office with Kim’s assistance, she glanced over her shoulder to see Dobkin still standing there, his face impassive.

Would he have been happy had Tyler died? she thought absently, the concept not only making sense but resonating with her. Apparently, I’m not the only one who hates him.

Chapter 44

Señor Leopoldo Mercado stood inside his great room, looking out on the wilderness between his residence and greater Buenos Aires. Built upon an artificially constructed hill made from the leftover rocks and dirt from a nearby limestone quarry, Pereya Estate was actually nearly one hundred years old. Purchased over a hundred and fifty years ago by a wealthy industrialist, the original plot of ground covered roughly twenty square kilometers. The industrialist spent the next forty years developing it into a world-class retreat. Split in half at the original owner’s death to create a nature preserve and chipped away at over the years to make ends meet, Mercado bought the land for a cool million dollars twenty years ago.

Mercado forced himself into a simple life years ago. As a young ambitious man, he knew that deprivation early would both allow his fortune to grow faster as well as sweeten the taste of success and wealth later. His first wife didn't agree and neither did his second. His third, however, understood the decision and endured with him. Truth be told, at that point, it wasn't as much deprivation as his first wife endured. Mercado was smart enough, with his third wife’s understanding and agreement, to structure both his company and is life so that much of what he needed or wanted was provided by the company, allowing himself to save much of his salary or invest it as the case may be.

When Pereya Estate came on the market, Mercado's company was only the sixth largest telecom company in the country. Purchasing it was an extravagance that seemed out of place but which actually fit in with his plan. Truth be told, it nearly bankrupted him personally. But he rode it out, his wife and young children turning the decrepit mansion into a game for the two years it took to rebuild it to a livable condition.

By that time, ArgenTelco was the fifth-largest telecom and by the time they were the fourth, Pereya Estate was a rebuilt jewel and destination for the nouveau riche in Buenos Ares, the parties his wife hosted becoming the stuff of legends.

And when Maruicio was shot and killed for the despicable, debauched parties he threw, it was in Pereya Estate that Mercado told his wife the plan to leapfrog over everyone and take the top spot in the country. It took the mortaging of Pereya Estate to do it, but on the one-year anniversary of becoming the top telecom comany in the country, Mercado and his wife shut down the company for three days and held three successive nights of parties. The only invitees were the employees of ArgenTelCo and their families. It too three nights to schedule everyone in - Pereya Estate could, realistically, only hold about 250 people tops over the course of a night. And for each of those nights, Mercado treated every single one of his employees and their kin not only as honored guests, but friends and partners in what his company had achieved.

It cemented his reputation with his employees, but also with the people of Argentina. No executive would have dreamed to do such a thing before Mercado, and none had since. But it made his employees devoted to him and the people of Argentina willing to support a man as humble and dedicated as himself.

It was good business.

Like now. The deal with Visionary Unlimited that he was against from the start had become increasingly attractive over time. Braun was less international corporate raider and more like Mercado than the Señor originally thought. The rare occasions they communicated directly rather than through lawyers made Mercado realize that, were the two to meet in a clubhouse or on the golf course, they would likely have a great affinity for each other.

The great room in Pereya Estate was the central room in the expansive house. Now with three separate dining room and nearly a dozen bedrooms, it was the room that Mercado spent most of his time in. Part library, part multi-media center, part expansive living room and den, the thirty-foot curved window overlooking the nature preserve and Buenos Aires gave Mercado the greatest sense of ease. It was where he retreated to in times of trouble and where he made his best decisions.

As he stood there, sipping his morning coffee, he saw a vehicle approaching on the long and winding gravel road to the entrance of the house. Designed to make sure any approach was visible, Mercado watched it come up the road.

He weighed his options. If the man who appeared at his door just before breakfast was correct, he had a great decision to make. The man presented both an interesting offer and a conundrum.

Mercado had, of course, seen the news this morning. Braun’s video was a master stroke. While Mercado was not behind Braun’s recent troubles and, in truth, wondered who was, he knew Williams was working hard to manipulate the stock market. The man had, however, been strangely silent since their confrontation, a fact that Mercado was glad for.

Despite his distaste for what William’s stock manipulations, he was he was not about to complain about the drop in Visionary’s share prices. It made what was once an equitable arrangement tilted much in ArgenTelCo’s favor. But the video showed Braun to be well in control. It not only appealed to the inherent anti-authoritarianism in most people it also showed him to be, well, visionary. In his moment of deepest public trouble he was promising great things to come.

“Aieee,” Mercado said softly. “Threatening those who tried to kill you when you are trapped in a hostile country and on the run?” He chuckled. “That’s one set of brass balls, my friend.”

Of course, the news about the assault on the FAA squad led by that slippery bastard Colonel Mayor Gaspar was probably connected to Braun. How many rogue airmen were killed? Nearly all of the two dozen who were there? And Braun had, what, half a dozen men? More or less?

“Maybe I can convince them to train my men,” Mercado said, dismissing the idea instantly. While he had security, he’d never imagined a fighting force to be what would protect him. Information, planning and intuition is what he built his fortune on and it was what he relied on to keep him and his family alive.

“And a fair amount of guns,” he chuckled as he walked back to his desk with the empty coffee cup.

As his security team informed him of the approaching SUV, Mercado continued working on some of his papers. He was still trying to decide what to do when the man who came knocking on his door early this morning walked calmly into the great room.

“They’re here, Señor Mercado,” Varela said as he took his pre-determined position on the far side of the room. Varela wasn’t exactly hiding in the gap between the floor-to-ceiling octagonal column, the wall and a well-lit statue, but he certainly wouldn’t be seen by accident.

Mercado watched him move with un-earned ease across the room where billion-dollar deals were made and his children played.

Something’s not right, he said to himself as he went back to his paperwork as agreed upon.

Chapter 45

“What do you see?” JC asked Porras as the men drove up onto the roughly hundred-yard cobblestone circular driveway in front of the main entrance to Mercado’s palatial Pereya Estate.

“More money than we’ll ever have,” Theo snorted.

“Perhaps a dozen armed men,” Porras said, “largely a show of force. He’ll have about a dozen more inside and around the grounds, maybe two dozen.”

“Anyone look familiar?” Theo asked, getting to the point of what he knew JC was asking about.

“Meaning?” Porras asked, eyes still sizing up the force arrayed against them.

“Meaning are any of them from Seguridad Universal?” JC asked.

Porras didn’t react, just looked closer.

“None that I see.”

Theo turned the vehicle to the left and drove around the circle, avoiding the two SUVs that were parked on either side of the main entrance and stopped.

“Anybody look like a gangbanger to you?” Theo asked. “Maybe someone Varela brought in?” He paused before looking at Porras. “Maybe an airman or two left over from last night?”

Porras took it all in stride, not reacting to what could have been interpreted as accusations. “None,” he said with a shrug, “although they could be in the building or other parts of the grounds.”

Theo looked in the rear-view mirror at JC. After a beat, JC nodded and Theo opened the door, stepping outside the vehicle with an M4 battle rifle in his hands.

“We’re about to find out,” he muttered as he stepped away from the vehicle, leaving the door open behind him.

The plan was simple. Drive up, get out armed and see their reaction. If they started shooting then JC, Theo and Porras would force their way into the residence, take Mercado hostage and Godfather his signature on the contracts that were delivered to him hours before.

Nobody had any illusions about their chances for success with that plan. “Slim to none” was the phrase that bounced around in JC’s head. But with the country shut down for flights and apparently a splinter group of the Argentinian Air Force gunning for them, not to mention Varela, Los Bacas, La Izquierda and anybody else wanting to get a ten-million-dollar payday for grabbing Braun, the team was running out of options fast.

As JC stepped out of the vehicle, the buttstock of his M4 snugged into his shoulder but the barrel pointing at the ground between him and the assorted men arrayed in front, his eyes were pivoting faster than they ever had. The rods and cones behind his pupil were a mainline of information to his battle-trained brain, producing observations, evaluations and decisions faster than the fastest analytical computer.

He took a step, then another and another. He snapped his fingers at Braun to exit the vehicle while his eyes continued to scan the men. As Braun put his right hand on JC’s shoulder, their pre-arranged signal, JC slowly moved forward.

The men were of varying size, varying skin tone, but all wearing the same black slacks, white shirt and navy jacket that security guards seemed to be birthed with. Each one held an AK-47 variant at the port arms position across their chest: buttstock resting against their shooting shoulder, barrel pointed at a 45-degree angle to the ground, just like JC.

Only these men were largely relaxed. They didn’t seem to have the adrenaline dumping through their system like JC did and he was sure the rest of the team did. One of them slowly checked the fingernails on his left hand, chewed an errant piece off and spat it away.

JC snapped his fingers again, the signal for Porras to bring up the rear behind him. Theo was already moving onto the main walkway into the house, his heavy frame moving cat-like across the broken granite walkway.

“Amigo,” the last man he passed said, causing JC to pause in his approach. “They’re on the lower level,” the man continued after JC’s head nod. “Straight in, take the stairs on the left, just last the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” JC said. He didn’t move for a fraction of a second, wondering if he should push his luck. “What’s waiting for us in there?”

The man sucked on his teeth as he looked back into the distance away from the house.

“Only what you take with you,” he said.

JC nodded, trying to be polite for the non-answer. As he moved forward, he knew the man wasn’t talking about physical things. He was talking about trouble. Baggage. History and mistakes and the things he’d done and the enemies he’d made over the years. That is what was inside, waiting for them.

Which could mean anything.

JC’s low whistle stopped Theo, the big man pausing to wait for the rest of the team to catch up. As JC got to him, he checked over his shoulder, confirming Porras’s approach as well. The man’s limp seemed to be gone, if only from adrenaline.

It would have to do.

“What did he say?” Theo asked without looking back at his friend and boss. “What’s inside?”

“Trouble,” JC said. “Eyes peeled.”

Theo nodded once as his hand moved towards the doorknob.

Chapter 46

Dobkin was seething in his anger. Generally well-disciplined from his years spent in crew, a sport that generally rewarded temper tantrums with a swim in the drink, there were times, unique, particular times, where he let his anger get the better of him. Like now.

It had been all over the news when he woke up. A crew of airmen had been torn apart in an early-morning assault on the suspected location of the group of kidnappers in Buenos Aires. Of the fourteen men, seven were dead, four were in the hospital with critical injuries, one with massive burns, and three were treated and released.

In other words, not a single man who went up against JC Bannister walked away uninjured.

Dobkin had reached out to his contacts, the ones he could reach, and initial reports about Gaspar weren’t good. He had three degree burns over his hands and arms, his lower legs and his face. His body had been shielded by one under his command. That man died from his burns and the explosion. Gaspar lived, but one of the people Dobkin spoke with hinted that it might have been better for Gaspar if he had died.

Dobkin kept it together until he got to the gym in the basement of his apartment. Some of the younger men had assembled a CrossFit, spartan style of workout space. Lots of ropes to shake, chains to hang off of and on, earthmover tires and sledgehammers to hammer them with, that type of thing. Dobkin rarely used it, but on a day such as today, there was no better thing.

He spent about an hour exhausting himself to the point where he couldn’t lift his legs and could barely shuffle his feet enough to take him back upstairs. The elevator took him back to his three-bedroom apartment on the seventh floor. He managed to drink an energy drink and collapse on the sofa.

And he was still seething in anger.

There was a path to recover what needed to be recovered. But it would be expensive.

“It’s worth it,” he muttered as he picked up his phone and dialed the number. It rang and rang. He remembered he hadn’t changed the SIM card but he was just too damn tired.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jon,” Dobkin said, closing his eyes to concentrate on the initial stages of the call.

“Kev?” the man said, his accent when speaking English long ago abolished in the boarding schools of the northeastern US. “How long has it been?”

“Too long, my friend,” Dobkin said, not believing a word of it, “too long.” He paused, not wanting to start the ask but not wanting to be on the call any longer than necessary. “Listen, Jon,” he said. “I need a favor.”

Jonatin Puga, deputy to the Minister of Security, a civilian position which, in some situations, controlled federal police forces, chuckled. “I’ll bet you do,” he said. “Let me guess. Gaspar was doing your bidding, bit off more than his arrogance could chew and now the doctors say thirty eight percent of his body is covered in third degree burns, not to mention the bullet hole in his lung, a centimeter below his heart.”

“Jon, I-”

“They didn’t mention that bullet hole on CNN, did they?” Puga said, cutting Dobkin off. “I’m gonna guess you called Frederic next and he told you to take a flying’ leap. So now, in your moment of need, you turn to good ole Jon, hat in hand, asking me to save the day.” He paused. “Sound about right?”

“And if it is?” Dobkin asked. “If I am coming to you, hat in hand?”

“Then I’m your guy, Dobkin,” Puga said, full of magnanimity. Dobkin opened his eyes and clenched his left fist in a momentary victory. “I always liked you, man. But it’s gonna cost you.”

“Good work always does,” Dobkin said, trying to smooth the waters.

“Don’t bullshit me, Kev,” Puga said, flat. “How much did you promise Gaspar?”

“Two mil,” Dobkin lied.

“I said don’t bullshit me, Kev,” Puga said. “Gaspar told me it was five.”

“You’re right, it was,” Dobkin said, silently cursing Garcia for his loose lips. “Listen, I’m at my wits end here.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I need Braun found and killed,” Dobkin said. “I need his team dead. Nobody from that little band of ragged ex-soldiers survives.”

Puga chucked again, irritating Dobkin. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll play. But you’re paying me fifty mil up front.”

“The hell-”

“Half of that,” Puga said, cutting him off, “goes to Gaspar or his widow if he doesn’t make it.” He paused. “The man’s face is all melted, Kev. He looks like a friggin’ monster, so he’s getting twenty-five mil off the top. The other twenty-five is for me to make happen what you need to have happen.”

“And the backend?

“Another hundred million.”

“Half for Gaspar?” Dobkin asked, surprised at both Puga’s audacity and at the value it would bring him if his plan worked.

“All mine,” Puga said. “You don’t scrimp on the cleanup man, Kev, you should know that.” He paused. “You may not have known the name of JC Bannister when you unleashed him on this fair city of ours, but I know the name well.” He paused again, all mirth gone from his voice. “I pull this off, I’m a dead man. Simple as that. But I want my kids to have a good life. A hundred million US dollars will do that nicely.”

Dobkin paused but he’d already made up his mind. He wasn’t the kind to engage in partial steps or half measures.

“Alright,” he said. “Where do you want the money sent?”

Chapter 47

Señor Leopold Mercado could tell uninvited people were in his house before he heard the quiet footsteps, even before he heard the creak in the doorknob it always made when released, no matter how quietly a person tried to do so. Perhaps it was from the change in the air pressure when the door was opened. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew. He wanted to believe that he knew because it was his house and of course he would know what happened inside it, but he pushed that idea away. It wasn’t important now.

What was vitally important were the next few minutes, or even seconds, of his life.

Mercado heard the near silent footsteps above him. He sent his wife and children away once Varela appeared on his doorstep with the dozen or so men he brought with him. While he didn’t know exactly what was about to happen there was no way he was going to risk the lives of his much younger, much-better-looking-than-he-deserved wife and their three little girls. He knew a small part of the reason his wife was with him were the billions of dollars he was worth, despite her appearing on the scene before he made them. But what was the point of that money if not to be used to protect the family he fiercely loved when trouble came calling?

He guessed by the muffled footsteps and the creaks in the wooden flooring there were six or less men upstairs making their way to the edge of the kitchen. Mercado’s great room was on the floor below, but the entire home had an open floorplan that he instituted when he remodeled it. The kitchen formed a curving edge to a large space it shared with the dining area that had seating for twenty. A line of low bookshelves formed the barrier between the kitchen and dining area and the oval expanse below. Two curving staircases, one at each end of the kitchen and dining area, curled around twin thirty-foot octagonal columns that ran from the teak-floored great room to the cedar planked ceiling above.

He knew the men would be coming down the stairway to his left, the first one by the kitchen. It made the most sense. Beyond the dining room and kitchen area there was nothing but floor to ceiling windows and then the stairway. Mercado listened as the feet paused briefly and then began their descent to the great room.

His work area was between the two columns, set back about eight feet, directly under the kitchen and dining area above. Centered in the area, on top of a matched pair of blue and cream hand-knotted vintage Persian rugs laid end-to-end, Mercado sat behind a massive custom-made wooden desk. In truth, the desk was a bulletproof miniature panic room with enough space for him and his family to huddle inside. A drop-down plank of Kevlar-reinforced ceramic and steel sealed the opening, allowing them to, if the need arose, escape through the hidden opening to another, larger, fully equipped panic room beneath the great room.

Mercado kept his eyes glued to the papers in front of him, hoping that wouldn’t be needed today. The papers were contracts delivered thirty minutes before Varela arrived on his doorstep, telling him things that the man couldn’t know, asking Mercado to do things that went against his very nature. But force on force, Mercado knew his security team would lose. Which would mean he would be dead, his family soon after him, and all the work and measure of his life he’d put into his company would be pissed away for nothing.

And there was no way Mercado would allow that to happen.

He looked up to his left, pretending surprise at the men descending the staircase. At first he started back in surprise, then stood, his face turning from the faux shock of seeing unknown armed intruders to the indignation and anger of unknown marauders invading his home. Upon seeing past the two men with guns and recognizing Braun, Mercado changed his entire demeanor.

“Tyler,” he said, walking forward, his hands held up to his business rival, “I’m so glad you came.”

The first man, slightly taller than Mercado, took his left hand from the front of his gun and held it up to Mercado, silently indicating he should stop. Mercado froze in his tracks, arms still raised.

“Apologies, Señor Mercado,” the man said, letting his gun swing to his back as the second, shorter and wider man behind him, stepped to the right and around them, the barrel of his gun sweeping the room. “If I may search you for weapons?”

Mercado looked at Braun. “Will it make you feel safer?”

“It will make them feel safer,” Braun said, “so yes.”

“Please,” Mercado said, allowing the man to step forward, patting him down briefly and completely. If Mercado had a gun or weapon on him, he knew the man would have found it as he ran his hands over nearly every inch of his body. Satisfied, he stepped back.

“Again, my apologies,” the man said as he stepped back, his gun magically appearing in his hands again. “If you knew the past thirty-six hours we’ve had, you would understand.”

Mercado’s gaze lingered on him a brief second, the information in front of him sinking in. He glanced at the man bringing up the rear of the procession. Blood was leaking through the thigh of his left pant leg. That must be the man who Braun said was shot, Mercado said to himself, which means these two are the men from America. Mercado looked the men up and down briefly. Professionals. His own security team were professional and hard, but these men seemed… different. He realized that they would pull the trigger and kill a man with the same level of emotion that Mercado signed the papers of a contract and that made him shiver once again.

He turned back to Braun.

“What can I do for you?”

Braun smiled, easy and comfortable in an entirely unique and uncomfortable situation. “I dunno, Leo,” he said, the smile growing. “Our deal still on?”

Mercado pursed his mouth and cocked his head sideways. “I dunno, Tyler,” he said, aping the man’s easy manner, “maybe I’ll just wait a little until your stock drops some more.”

The two men chuckled and then embraced. Every interaction between them up to this point had been professional and somewhat cold, but it was hard to maintain that when the man was standing in his own house, flanked only by killers instead of an army of lawyers and accountants.

“Come,” Mercado said, indicating the chairs near the window, “sit. I have a feeling you’ve got a story to tell.”

*****

Something was off.

Braun and Mercado were sitting on the deep, overstuffed brown leather sofa pretending as if they were old friends. There was no movement or intrusion from Mercado’s guards, no sounds of footfalls in the place that told him danger was running towards them.

But the knot between his shoulders was growing and spreading. That was never good.

He nodded to Theo, watched him as the man came over to him.

“You think this shit’s as peaceful as they’re making it look?” Theo growled, JC the only one who could hear him.

“How long you think Mercado had to set something up?” JC asked. “Since Braun released that video?”

“Could’ve been since before we left New York, man,” Theo said. “We don’t know nothing right now.” Theo looked over his shoulder at the men on the sofa, at the view beyond, then back to JC. “This whole thing’s setting’ my teeth on edge, man.” Shook his head. “We’re sittin’ ducks here. We could’ve just walked into the biggest trap in the world and we won’t know until the damn thing’s sprung.” Theo stepped away, his eyes scanning everything in the room for the hundredth time.

Porras made his way slowly over to the two men, no desire on the team to raise the suspicions. “When are we pulling the plug on this circle jerk?”

“Right now,” JC said, moving towards the sofa. If we all feel this is a ba-

“Hands!” Theo bellowed, the barrel of his M4 popping up to point just over JC’s shoulder. “Hands!” Other profanities poured from his mouth, but they were only used as spice to the meat of his “Hands!” command that he repeated again and again.

JC pivoted, his brain screaming that he was too late anyway, the rational part of him knowing that Theo had his back and would save his bacon once again should it be necessary. As he turned, the barrel of his own M4 rose instinctively, his eyes scanning for what it was Theo saw.

Varela stepped from the shadows of the column on the right side of the great room, hands open and palms forward at his shoulders.

“I’m unarmed,” he said, stopping just away from the column. “I’m here to talk, nothing more.”

Despite the colorful vulgarities coming from Theo’s mouth, the barrel of his battle rifle didn’t waver. JC doubted that Varela was actually unarmed but Theo had the man covered. If Varela made a dodgy move, Theo would ventilate his chest and heart in an instant. JC’s real concern right now was sitting on the sofa.

He walked around the back of Theo, glancing at Porras as he made his way over to the two billionaires who were now standing, looking back at what was happening by Mercado’s desk. To Porras’s credit, the man turned his back on Varela and watched the stairs at their back. Good, JC said to himself, the decision to have Porras at least temporarily join the team looking more and more like the right play.

“What’s this?” Braun said to Mercado, backing away from him slightly. “Why the hell is the man who tried to kill me standing in your office?”

“I know how this may loo-” Mercado started to say.

“You’ve got no idea how it looks, Leo,” Braun said before JC had a chance to jump in. “That man was responsible for the deaths of I don’t know how many innocent civilians and was actively trying to kill me not twenty-four hours ago.” Braun the reserved billionaire businessman was giving way to Braun the man and JC was liking what he heard. “He nearly killed Porras there and is responsible for the chain of events that ended up in the death of my Mariela.” Braun’s voice was rising, but he was keeping it under control, despite his embellishment of the truth. “And now he’s standing in your office while I’m here in good faith attempting to finalize our deal?” Braun stepped forward to Mercado, his right fist clenched at his side, his body squared up and ready for the fight. “You’d better tell me what the hell is going on here, Leo, and I mean right damn now.’

Braun’s got some balls on him, JC thought, pleasantly surprised. But in truth, Varela’s presence wasn’t what bothered him the most, nor the fact that he hadn’t seen the man when he scanned the room. What bothered him was where the other Seguridad Universal personnel were.

“I offered him a deal,” Varela said to Braun. “My protection and expertise should you come charging in here with your hired band of killers.”

“Bullshit,” Theo said, his gun still trained on Varela. “Mercado’s got a dozen men outside.”

“Not one of whom knows the depths of what you’re capable of,” Varela continued, his own voice rising with what appeared to be real anger. “You orchestrated Braun’s kidnapping,” Varela said to JC, “you betrayed your wife and son,” he said to Porras, “left them defenseless to join sides with these murderers, and you,” he continued, turning to Theo, “murdered a poor working girl in your swanky room at the Sofitel and threw her body in the trash.” Varela had worked himself up into a lather at this point, his eyes turning to Braun. “And you. You thought you could come down here, take advantage of our little country like a virgin in some back alley and get away with it. But instead, you got your girlfriend shot and then dumped her still-breathing body at some hospital and drove away to safety while she died.”

JC was impressed, keeping his own council as the accusations and recriminations flew between Varela, Theo, Porras and Braun. Varela had managed to hit all of them below the belt in the space of a few breaths, twisting the truth and raising all sorts of questions that, were the situation different, they’d have time to sort out. But the one thing they didn’t have very much of was time.

JC’s eyes never left Mercado while Varela was talking. Despite Varela’s unexpected appearance, Mercado was the decision maker here, the one man in the room they needed to convince. And with all the lies and salacious accusations Varela just unleashed, Mercado hadn’t blinked or changed his demeanor. He isn’t scared, JC said to himself.

Why?

“My wife and son?” Porras yelled, his voice rising above the cacophony behind him. “You sent men after my wife and son?” There was a noted difference in the timbre, one he’d heard before in other situations. As JC turned, he saw Porras walking towards Varela, his left hand going into the pockets of his slacks, a small gun with a nickel-plated slide in his hand when it emerged. While one part of his heart was pleased that Porras was putting the gun JC gave in good faith to use, the larger part of him knew that murdering Varela right now was the wrong call. And especially by Porras.

Eyes and barrel still fixed on Varela, Theo moved his body between his target and Porras, his hand reaching out to Porras to block him from pulling the trigger. JC turned back to see Mercado and Braun watching the proceedings. Braun had backed away from Mercado, the fight leaving him as the chance of actual murder increased in the room. But Mercado was still standing strong, back straight, chest out. This was his house and, despite the chaos around him, he looked to still be very much in control.

Interesting, JC said to himself.

He felt the change in the room about half a second before he heard the sound of footsteps in the kitchen above, traversing the same path JC and his team just had. It sounded like perhaps a dozen men running in. JC didn’t wait to see who would react to it and how that might change the dynamics of the situation. He still had a job to do, the only reason he was in this shitshow to begin with it, and he’d be damned if he dropped the ball now.

JC took two quick steps and vaulted over the back of the leather sofa Braun and Mercado were standing behind, his body moving towards Braun. As his feet touched the ground he pivoted, his left hand securing the principal behind him, his right raising the barrel of his gun towards the staircase, his eyes scanning the room.

Half a dozen men in Seguridad Universal’s signature black polos and khaki cargo pants were rushing down the curving stairs to his right while another half a dozen or so were heading down the opposite staircase. All held M4 variants to their shoulders, all yelling, all pointing their guns at any and everyone in the room.

JC continued the sweep of his gaze, his left hand still in contact with Braun’s midsection, holding him physically in place behind himself. Porras had both hands on his M4 now, the Kahr CW380 back in his pocket apparently. Barrel pointing at the floor, Porras obviously didn’t want to start a shooting war with an overwhelming force of his old employees. Theo was like an unmoving statute, his barrel still pointed at Varela’s head.

And Mercado stood there, watching as his great room filled with even more angry armed men.

What’s his play?

JC continued to back up, Braun moving behind him. Half a dozen shuffle steps and Braun was sandwiched between JC’s back and the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked out onto a gently-sloping lawn that emptied into a wilderness far below.

Three of Varela’s men peeled off from the group, approaching JC and Braun, their weapons pointed at JC’s head, yelling in Spanish and English for him to put his gun down. JC ignored them, looking past them to Porras, then the back of Theo’s head, then back to Porras.

Porras looked back at him.

JC heard a voice over the noise, quiet at first but growing louder.

“Boss?” It was Theo. “Boss?” he said again, louder. “Boss!” he finally bellowed, quieting the belligerent yelling of the SU personnel.

“What?” JC said.

“Let me do him,” Theo yelled. “Give me the go.”

“You’ll know it when you hear it,” JC said. There was a hint of a plan forming in his mind and he needed Theo to know that when the time came it would be weapons free.

“You hear that Varela?” Theo said, his voice more of a growl but still audible in the now quieter room. “I’m gonna be the one.”

“The hell you are,” one of the Seguridad Universal men said as he stepped towards Theo, drawing his sidearm with his left hand and placing the muzzle of the Taurus G3 against Theo’s right temple.

Before the man had finished the motion, the muzzle of Porras’s battle rifle was against the back of the man’s head.

“Have you lost your mind, Emiliano?” Porras said.

“Have you?” Emiliano said over his shoulder, the confidence he had when placing the gun to Theo’s head draining away. “Varela told us you betrayed us all,” he said.

“He ordered Pierre to kill me,” Porras said.

“After you threw in with these mercenaries,” Emiliano said.

“Before, my friend,” Porras said, the sadness clear in his voice. “He ordered Pierre to kill me before. These men saved my life. From Varela.”

“Enough!” Varela barked in English. “Follow your orders. Eliminate the hostiles, secure the package.”

JC could guess what Varela meant by “secure the package” but he was a hundred percent sure what “eliminate the hostiles” meant. He wasn’t about to wait, but he wasn’t about to sign his death warrant by just opening fire.

“Reach your hand inside my left front pocket,” he said over his shoulder in a growl to Braun, “and take out the gun you find.”

Braun, to his credit, didn’t hesitate, but moved his hand smoothly into JC’s front pocket, retrieving the diminutive .380 that matched the one he gave to Porras, palming it so it remained hidden. The chaos that Varela’s order created, combined with Theo, Porras, Emiliano and Mercado yelling at everyone hid the movement and the sounds.

“I say when, you place the barrel flush against the glass and pull the trigger.”

“Gentlemen, please,” Mercado said, trying to avert the bloodshed everyone in the room felt coming.

“Hey, Mercado,” JC said, getting the man’s attention. “This glass bulletproof?” he asked with a nod of his head to the floor-to-ceiling window behind him.

“No,” Mercado said, “but just-” The yells of the men behind him took his attention away.

JC’s plan wasn’t great. But if it worked, the gunshot and shattering of the glass would distract the Seguridad Universal personnel enough that, combined with his own shots at the three men in his immediate area and Theo and, hopefully, Porras’s barrage of gunfire, they just might make it out alive.

This is such a bad plan, JC said to himself, unable to even argue internally because he knew he was right.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” Mercado called out, the timbre and force of his voice trying to quiet the room. “this is my house,” he said, his arms raised in a placating stance, trying to calm the men with the will of his persona. It was a move JC had seen lots of other men and women try before. It rarely worked. But this time, it seemed to have the desired effect. Nobody really wanted to die or be the first to kick off the bloodbath that would result in their own death and the deaths of their friends. They’d rather listen to reason and if that meant listening to the unarmed man in the middle of the room with his arms raised, then so be it.

Mercado nodded his appreciation at their attention and lowered his hands. Standing just behind the leather sofa, surrounded by armed men, some of them real killers, most just hired thugs with guns, he stood up to his full five-foot eight height, straightened his back and cleared his throat as if ready for a world-changing pronouncement.

He opened his mouth and said one word.

“Begin.”

Chapter 48

JC raised the barrel of his rifle towards the men arrayed in front of him as he pressed backwards against Braun, turning his head to tell him to shoot out the glass. The words “Do it now,” had already formed in his brain and were traveling through his synapses and neural pathways towards his mouth.

He never got the chance. They stuck in the back of his throat as every movement of his froze as if in amber.

Each of the four-foot-wide mirrors between the bookshelves along the back wall of Mercado’s study pivoted on their centers. From the previously hidden but now open doorways streamed armed men in full SWAT gear: bulletproof vests with multiple spare magazines for their M4 variant battle rifles, balaclavas covering their faces, goggles and helmets and tactical gloves, everything black. As the men streamed through into the great room, it took less than a second to realize the new power players were an overwhelming force. By JC’s estimation there looked to be two or three men for every one of Varela’s men.

As the SWAT team fanned out across the room, JC watched them move past Theo and Porras as they approached and disarmed Varela’s men only.

“Your name is JC?” Mercado said to JC. JC’s eyes snapped to him, the fact that he had turned towards JC missed in the quiet takeover of the room.

“I am,” JC said.

“Please don’t shoot out my front window, JC,” he said, smiling. “It’ll take two weeks to replace and it is supposed to rain in three days.”

JC’s eyes narrowed at the odd request but, as it no longer seemed like there would be a firefight, he stepped forward away from Braun, lowering his rifle to a forty-five degree towards the floor. He nodded to Mercado, acknowledging the request as Mercado returned the nod.

In less than thirty seconds, the men in SWAT uniforms had disarmed Varela’s men and were marching them up the stairs, towards the kitchen and out the front door. The only man left behind approached Mercado, removing his goggles, helmet and balaclava. It was the philosophical guard from outside Mercado’s house earlier in the day.

“All clear, sir,” he said to Mercado. “We are taking our guests to the… guesthouse.”

“Good,” Mercado said, turning to walk over to Braun and JC. “This is Rossi, my head of security,” he said, indicating the fireplug of a man standing behind him.

“You’re all dead,” Varela blurted out, his voice shriller than JC had ever heard it. Theo finally lowered the gun, took two steps forward and cracked the taller man in the jaw with a right cross that dropped him to the floor.

“When were you going to tell us?” JC said to Mercado, skipping the niceties as Varela picked himself up.

“When I needed to,” Mercado said, “and not before.”

“Why is he here?” Braun asked, stepping away from the protection of JC and approaching Mercado.

“That’s a good question,” Mercado said, nodding to Rossi. Rossi turned and walked back to Varela as he pulled some zip ties from his belt. “Señor Varela showed up on my doorstep this morning,” turning to Braun, “promising that he could not only guarantee you would show up here this morning, but he and his team would be able to keep me safe and neutralize your armed friends.” The men were walking slowly over to Mercado’s office while Rossi was zip-tying Varela to the chair. Theo and Porras were standing on the other side of the desk, waiting.

“That’s no revelation,” Braun said. “I posted that video early in the morning, plenty of time for him to-”

“He was at my door telling me your plans before you posted that video,” Mercado said.

JC took a breath as they stopped, arrayed around Varela and Mercado’s desk in a rough semi-circle. For the first time in what seemed like a week, they weren’t behind the eight ball. For the briefest moment, it might seem like they actually have the upper hand.

“And you listened to him?” Braun asked.

“I needed to keep him around,” Mercado said with a shrug. “Find out what I could.”

“Who hired you?” JC asked Varela. “To kill Braun,” he continued. “Who paid you and ordered the hit?”

Varela smiled and shook his head.

“He’s the fattest fly to ever come into my web,” Varela said. “Ain’t no way I’d let him waltz home without my cut of the ransom insurance.”

It wasn’t the truth. JC knew it from the bottom of his heart. Varela was an opportunist, a worker. He wasn’t a risk taker or a planner. Someone paid him to kidnap and/or murder Braun. Extracting the who from Varela would take time. In front of the eight ball or not, JC had the sneaking suspicion that time is one thing they had precious little of.

Theo walked around the left side of the desk, stopping and half-bending over at the side in front of Varela. Theo held his right fist about two feet in front of the man’s face.

“You see that?” he said. In the blink of an eye, Theo’s fist slammed into Varela’s nose, rocking the man’s head back. Theo walked back to his spot as blood flowed down Varela’s nose, mouth and chin.

As much as JC wanted to join in and work Varela over, right now he was more interested in Mercado’s information. Varela would only be telling lies at this stage.

“What raised your suspicions?” JC asked Mercado as they all continued to stare at Valera.

“I’ve studied Tyler for over a year preparing for this deal,” Mercado said. “Trying to understand his motivations, his moves, his history, all his possibilities.” He paused, looking at Varela. “Even I didn’t know Braun would be coming here to finalize this deal. Varela correctly predicted Braun’s behavior, which means one of two things. One, he’s better at my job than I am, which I sincerely doubt.”

Porras turned, walking over to the windows behind them. JC didn’t bother to ask him what was happening. He needed Mercado focused and talking.

“Or?”

“Or he had insider information,” Mercado said with a sigh. “From someone who knew Braun better than he knew himself. However, he doesn’t strike me as the type of person to travel in those circles.”

No, he travels in different circles, JC said to himself. He wasn’t sure if Braun was picking up on what Mercado was trying to not say, but to JC it couldn’t be more clear.

Someone very close to Braun hired Varela to kill him.

Finding out who was going to be less than easy. Torture worked but at this stage, JC didn’t think they had the time.

Varela smiled. “You’ve got no clue,” he said, his bloody grin stretching across his face, then chuckling. “You’ve got the Argentinian Police after you for murdering that whore in the Sofitel hotel.”

“That was you,” Theo said. “You sent her after me. She walked out of our hotel room untouched and alive. With you.”

“The video footage tells a different story,” Varela chuckled through his bloody smile, “and I’m sure it’s in the hands of the authorities already.”

“Boss?” Porras said from behind him.

“After that it’s literally a take-your-pick of horrible things the authorities want to run you down for.” Varela laughed. “The shootout in Villa Soldati? Kidnapping Braun?” His laughter rang out through the room, bitter and sharp. “You think torturing me is going to give you answers? You think the military or the police are going to arrest you without shooting you dead first?”

“Boss?” Porras said a little louder.

“Welcome to Argentina, motherf-”

“JC!” Porras said, turning away from the window and running back to get the attention of the man he now called “boss.” “We’ve got trouble.”

Everyone but Rossi walked halfway over to the windows, but it didn’t take long for what they saw to match up with the sounds now reaching their ears.

An attack helicopter approached the estate from Buenos Aires, flying in a direct line of sight to the men in the room. As soon as the profanities from Theo’s mouth stopped, two unseen helicopters behind the leader spread out in a vee formation.

“We’ve gotta go,” JC said, turning back to Varela. He wanted the information in the man’s head, but there were higher priorities, like making sure the client was safe and getting out of the damn country in one piece. The best way to tie off the loose end of Varela would be a bullet in his head.

“You won’t get far,” Varela chuckled through the blood in his mouth.

“I’ll keep him here,” Rossi said. “We have… rooms. He will be turned over to the proper authorities.” He paused a beat then said, “Eventually.”

“Fair enough,” JC said as the wompwompwomp of the approaching helicopters grew louder and faster. He turned, grabbing ahold of Braun’s shoulder. “We’re leaving.”

Braun threw his arm in a short quick arc, breaking JC’s hold on his shoulder. “No. I came here to sign a contract.”

JC wanted to wind up, knock Braun senseless and throw him over his shoulder. But he kept his temper in check.

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Theo bellowed in Braun’s face as he pointed at the window and the helicopters.

“Back off, fat man,” Braun growled. “I came down to this goddamn country with everything. I ain’t leaving with nothing.”

“You’ll have your life.”

“No, I won’t,” Braun said. He turned and stepped towards Mercado, hand extended. “I don’t think I have the time to sign all the papers,” he said, changing from the man willing to back down a killer like Theo to a billionaire wheeler and dealer, “but do we still have a deal?”

Mercado smiled, shaking Braun’s hand. “You’d better believe it. You are by far the most interesting person I’ve ever struck a deal with.” He glanced at the window as the trio of attack helicopters flew over the top of the estate, the sound nearly deafening. “Now will you please leave?” Mercado said as the two men released their handshake. “I’d hate for this to fall apart and it surely will if you’re dead.”

“One condition,” Braun said.

“Seriously?” Theo growled.

“This man’s wife and son are holed up in a residence somewhere in Buenos Aires,” he said, indicating Porras. “They are estranged, but are very likely in danger from Varela’s men or the firefights across the city.”

Mercado turned to Varela, disgust clear on his face. “Despicable.”

“I’ll send my second in command, Acevedo,” Rossi said to Porras, stepping in to solve the problem. “He looks like a monster,” he continued, tracing his finger down his cheek, “but he is a sweetheart. He has seven children of his own and is a demon to anyone who would harm them. He’ll keep your family safe, protect them as if he they were his own.”

Porras nodded his grateful thanks as Braun turned to JC and said, “Let’s go.”

JC headed for the staircase, not waiting to see if his team was behind him or not.

“Señor Bannister,” Mercado called after him, stopping him. “Rossi will show you a less conspicuous one,” he said, his hand indicating the back wall of his office and the open mirrors where his security team came streaming from.

Rossi was moving to the mirrors and the hidden corridors beyond before JC had a chance to say anything or choose another path besides following the short, strong security lead. Braun was in front of him but stopped at the mirror, turning and speaking over JC’s shoulder.

“Leo?” he said. “Your SUV?”

JC didn’t turn, just pushed Braun forward. He heard Mercado’s chuckle behind him. “Rossi will show you where. Keys are in it. Consider it a signing bonus.”

As they made their way through the narrow concrete corridor, Braun turned, chuckling also.

“SUV?” JC asked.

“You’re gonna love it, Theo,” Braun said over his shoulder.

“Maybe,” Theo said, as he maneuvered sideways down the corridor, “but you call me fat man again, you’ll be shitting teeth for a week.”

Braun’s chuckle turned into laughter. Before long JC, Theo and Porras joined in.

Chapter 49

“WHOO!” Theo yelled at the top of his lungs. “I gotta get me one of these!” It wasn’t the first, or the second or even the third time he’d done it since Rossi had shown them Mercado’s “SUV.” The vehicle was an INKAS Huron APC and was essentially a bullet proof armored personnel carrier outfitted to be a luxury ride on the inside while being as bulletproof a vehicle a civilian could buy on the outside. From gun ports in the doors to blast-proof floors and run-flat tires built to withstand blast from more than thirty pounds of dynamite, the beast was impressive.

While Theo was having the time of his life driving the Huron through the countryside back to the metropolis of Buenos Aires, Bannister, Porras and Braun, were doing their best to search for any attack helicopters that might be either coming at them from Mercado’s estate or from the direction of the city. It was only a matter of time before the crews at Mercado’s house realized the men they were looking for weren’t there and returned to base. Or, worse yet, called in for reinforcements.

As he scanned for helicopters and tried to block out Theo’s whooping and hollering, his mind kept trying to piece together all the parts and groups that were after them. Varela he understood. The man was likely paid to kill Braun by someone close to him. If JC were a betting man, it would be Mrs. Braun or Dobkin, his second-in-command at Visionary.

But the attack helicopters? And the airmen the previous night? Those two had to be connected to each other, but unlikely to Varela and his attempts. Varela had served time in the Army, as did Porras, and the likelihood of Varela connecting to or contracting out to the Air Force was slim at best. Additionally, JC didn’t know of any country that would deploy their Air Force internally in that manner, which led him to the conclusion that they also had to be on the payroll of… someone. The question again was who.

Add in the million-dollar bounty that was, apparently, spreading through the criminal underworld and, according to Porras, had made its way onto social media as well and JC realized they were looking at more than one group of aggressors. Maybe even more than two.

“Boss?” Theo asked from the driver’s seat, this time his voice at a normal volume. “You want to tell me where we’re going? I can’t stay on the open road like this forever. As much as I dig this ride it kind of sticks out.”

It was a question JC had been grappling with and, unfortunately, didn’t have a good answer for. They were too undermanned to decently fight their way out of their situation. They couldn’t just catch a flight out with the Buenos Aires airport locked down. While there were other airports, there was no way to ensure they wouldn’t be surrounded while they were waiting on the tarmac to take off.

He had few friends in Argentina and likely a number of people who wanted him dead. That was aside from the people who were looking to collect the bounty on his head.

“Boss?” Theo asked again.

Come on, man, he said to himself. You’re the solutionist. Figure it out.

“Uhhh, boss?” Theo said again. There was something different in the tenor of his voice.

“Would this even stand up to gunfire from a helicopter?” Braun asked looking out the small, thick polycarbonate windows.

Braun’s question landed in the middle of the armored vehicle like a wet fart in the middle of church. It was something that nobody wanted to deeply contemplate but it was, in truth, something else that needed to be solved if the men inside the APC wanted to live through the day.

“Hold on!” Theo bellowed from the driver’s seat at the same instant he cranked the wheel to the right. The tires protested and whined as they reached the edge of traction. The top-heavy vehicle, designed more for protection than quick maneuvering, pitched to the left as JCs stomach rose towards his throat, the very real feeling of tipping over registering in his mind and inner ears. The tires bit into the dirt just off the edge of the road and the vehicle righted itself, crashing through the low bushes that lined the road and into the trees and underbrush beyond.

“What the-” JC tried to say before Theo hit an almighty bump and everybody who didn’t have a seatbelt on bounced two feet into the air and then crashed back to the ground. JC, Porras and Braun picked themselves up from the well-carpeted floor of the luxury armored personnel carrier, crawling to the nearest seat and buckling in.

“Pretty sure I saw emergency vehicles of some kind heading our way up the road,” Theo said. “Figured this thing could handle a little off-roading. Didn’t figure we’d want to be seen by anybody in an official capacity.”

He was right, of course, JC said to himself as the trees whipped past the big, unwieldy rig. While the vehicle was great on city streets and could likely make it through some forested areas, JC knew it wouldn’t be long before they were either stuck or discovered. Slow and steady and taking small arms fire, this thing would win every time. Trying to drive through the off roads of Argentina like they were running the Baja 500 would get them bogged down and turtled up faster than they knew.

“How long to Buenos Aires?” he hollered at Porras.

“On the roads, maybe fifteen more minutes,” Porras replied. “Like this? Who knows?”

The sounds of gunfire pinging against the bulletproof skin solidified their immediate course of action in JC’s mind. He undid his seatbelt, diving towards one of the duffle bags of weaponry Rossi had so graciously added to their vehicle as they left Mercado’s estate. He ripped it open, grabbing the first rifle he found, an AK-47 variant. Although not JC’s first choice of weapon, partial as he was to the AR platform, it would do the job.

“Where are they?” he yelled at Theo, checking the weapon to make sure it was fully loaded.

“Eleven o’clock, coming in hot, about a half dozen SUV’s,” Theo yelled back.

“I’m on your left,” JC said, moving towards the rear of the vehicle on the left, heading towards the rearmost gunport. “Get me a good shot, Petrosian.”

“Oh, yeah!” Theo said, turning the vehicle to the right, looking to get on a perpendicular intercept with the six black SUV’s with red and blue lightbars on top and some sort of official seal emblazoned on their doors.

As JC opened the gun port, he glanced over his shoulder to see Porras retrieving an AK battle rifle from the bag full of guns. He turned back to the side of the vehicle, looking out through the small, thick bulletproof window above his gun port, the mesh embedded in it obscuring his view. They weren’t going to have too many chances to disable the vehicle chasing them, but they didn’t have much of a chance if they wanted to make it out of Buenos Aires alive.

As Porras appeared to JC’s right without a word, JC heard movement behind him again. He looked over his shoulder to see Braun reaching into the bag as well, looking completely out of place but making an effort to help out.

Finally, JC said to himself.

“Braun,” JC said. The man didn’t register that he’d heard him. “Tyler,” JC said a little louder, catching the billionaire’s attention. “In that other bag,” JC said with a head nod, “there should be plenty of loaded magazines for Porras and I.” Braun located the bag, opened it, looking inside and then confirming to JC his suspicions. “You lay down flat on the floor,” JC said, “and when we call for it, hand us one of those, ok?”

Braun nodded and did as instructed. While the vehicle itself was bulletproof, opening the gunports provided the possibility, however small, that a bullet could manage to slip inside the port. JC didn’t want all their efforts to be thrown away this late in the game by Braun catching a bullet inside a bulletproof vehicle. If he was laying down, the vehicle would provide better protection for him.

“Here we go,” Theo said loudly.

JC turned his attention to the battle they were heading into. He figured their armored vehicle would just about even the odds from their opponent’s greater numbers. The real test in JC’s mind would be how Porras would perform. Up until now he’d fought clearly defined bad guys. Now he was about to fire on suspected bad guys that could actually be the good guys.

It wasn’t something you could really prepare for.

“Aim to disable,” JC said to him as he watched the incoming vehicle hit their brakes to avoid the impending collision with the APC. “We’re just trying to get some breathing room here, not turn into international fugitives.”

Porras nodded, pulling the trigger as he did. JC joined him a split second later, the bullets pounding into the ground around the lead vehicle’s tires, then the tires themselves. As Theo hit the brakes himself and turned to the left, allowing JC and Porras to continue firing, three more of the vehicles were taken out of commission by Porras and JC’s gunfire.

The rearmost vehicle and one on the opposite side of the SUVs that JC and Porras were firing at were the only two still moving. As the driver of the rear vehicle threw the transmission into reverse and punched it, his tires throwing dirt, rocks and bits of underbrush until they found purchase and propelled them backwards, JC yelled at Theo to turn left.

Theo did as ordered, turning left and stopping the APC as JC and Porras switched to the right side of the vehicle, opening gun ports on that side and firing at the fleeing vehicle. To the driver’s credit, he went straight backwards, providing as small of a target as possible.

It did no good. JC didn’t know if it was his bullets or Porras’s, but the effect was the same: blown tires, steam rising from the grill and the vehicle drifting backwards through kinetic force until it bumped against the trunk of a tree.

“Go!” JC yelled at Theo, his hand reaching for another full magazine proffered by Braun prone on the floor, trying not to be stepped on as the empty shell casings rolled around him. Theo took off, turning to the left around the disabled vehicles to chase down the last remaining vehicle.

As the APC was built for protection and defense, not speed or attack capability, the far more agile SUV was escaping from them at a faster pace. It didn’t take a genius to realize they’d never catch them at this rate.

“If only this thing ha-” JC muttered, looking up at the ceiling. He smiled. “A gun turret.”

It wasn’t quite a gun turret, but the next best thing: a circular firing port mounted in the roof.

“Keep it steady, Theo” JC said as he unlocked the hatch, the hydraulic supports opening it to vertical and emerged through the opening. He laid forward on the roof of the vehicle to get as much stability as possible and opened fire at the fleeing vehicle. It was maybe two hundred yards away and pulling for more.

The barrage of bullets JC aimed at the low rear end of the vehicle hit something important. He didn’t see a tire blow out but the SUV slowed, then slowly stopped. As the Huron APC overtook it, JC could see some kind of liquid pouring leaking out from the undercarriage of the vehicle.

“Theo, pull up but not too close,” JC said as he ducked back into the vehicle, closing the firing port. “They’re leaking fluids.”

“Is it gasoline?” Braun asked, worried.

“Could be, unlikely to ignite,” JC answered, going back into the bags from Rossi for more weapons, taking out multiple rifles. “Better to be cautious.”

Bullets pounded against the side of the Huron closest to the SUV. After the earlier confrontation, the team inside was decidedly blasé about the gunfire. JC handed two rifles to Porras, unloaded two more to and handed them to Braun.

“On my command, shove those out through the gunports on that side,” he said.

“Why aren’t we hightailing it out of here?” Braun asked, looking from his unloaded rifles to JC and back. “Why are we even sticking around?”

“Do you know if they’re actually bad guys,” JC asked him gently, “because I don’t. We’ve got the only functioning vehicle and if they need assistance, we’re going to give it to them.” He rose as he spoke, opening the roof-mounted firing hatch. He looked at Porras and Braun as he stood. “Now.”

JC popped up from the roof as Porras and Braun shoved four rifles out of the gunports in the side of the APC. One second it was calm inside, the next the vehicle was bristling with guns like a porcupine. The men standing outside of the vehicle, all wearing dark suits, raised their hands, handguns still in their hands but the weapons pointed at the sky, not the vehicle.

“Is anyone hurt?” JC yelled down at the five men standing in front of their disabled vehicle, his AK-47 variant pointed at the ground between them.

One threw profanities in JC’s direction but was quickly silenced by a bark of a man with a gray-haired crewcut.

“We are okay,” the crewcut said in lightly-accented English, “but you are not, my friend. You have attacked the Agencia Federal de Inteligencia, equivalent to your FBI, and have made some serious enemies in the process.”

JC set aside the threat, silently glad that they were not officially part of the Air Force that seemed to be targeting Braun. He also set aside the fact that the man already knew he was American by his FBI comment.

“What about the other vehicles?” JC pressed. “Does anyone require medical transport?”

“Why do you care, puto,” the aggressive younger man spat at JC. “You attacked us!”

JC ignored the young man and looked at the crewcut who shook his head. “I checked,” the older man said, pulling an earpiece from his ear and showing it to JC, “we are okay.” He nodded to the vehicle. “Is your principal safe?”

JC paused. The man was smart, putting two and two together and actually coming up with the right answer. “He is,” JC said, dropping back into the APC.

“One more thing,” the crewcut said, making JC pause, then stand back up. “My name is Rachid,” he said, “in case you need… assistance.”

JC looked at him, the man’s face a blank canvas. If JC had to guess, the man was mid-fifties, about the same height as JC and fit. While he may have been actually offering his assistance, there was no way to know if his offer was genuine or if it was a delay tactic to put him off guard until reinforcements arrived.

Regardless, JC couldn’t stay. The corruption inside the Argentine Federal Police was legendary and JC had no reason to suspect the Federal Police Intelligence Agency was any different. Even if Rachid was on the level and not looking for a payday or was already on someone else’s payroll, there was no telling if the gunships currently at Mercado’s house wouldn’t find them and simply gun them all down.

JC nodded to the shot-up SUV behind Rachid. “Your vehicle is leaking fluids,” he said as he ducked back down into the APC and closed the hatch.

“Let’s go,” he said to Theo, the vehicle moving before he had finished those two short words.

As JC and Porras took the weapons from Braun’s hands and reloaded them, JC felt Porras’s eyes on him.

“What is it, Salvador?”

Porras said nothing for a beat, placing the weapons back in their bag.

“You are a different man,” he said slowly.

JC nodded, silently thanking him for the compliment, his critical mind filling in the other side of the coin to what Porras said: he had been a monster before.

“What does he mean?” Braun asked, sitting down and buckling up as Theo increased the speed of their bouncing ride back to the highway.

JC sighed, zipping the duffle bag of weaponry closed and buckling in as well.

“It means that ten years ago I would have probably killed those men where they stood,” he said, no emotion in his voice, “just in case.”

The ride back to the highway was bouncy but quiet.

Chapter 50

About the time the wheels of the Huron bounced over the asphalt edge of the highway and turned again towards Buenos Aires, Veronica Acardi was flagging down a taxi on Avenida de Santa Fe, just a quick fifty-meter walk from her hotel. Her rolling carry-on was left behind at the hotel, the backpack she stored inside slung on her shoulders. The gun she’d acquired was in the pocket of her oversized hoodie and the professional-looking clothes she’d flown down with were still on the floor of her hotel room.

As she got into the taxi, she pulled her phone from her pocket, searching for the number of the airport. Within five minutes she was connected to a private plane rental company that, for a price, would be willing to put the plane she just rented to the front of the queue and ready to depart twenty minutes after she arrived in their offices. The soonest flight they had would take her to Miami, not Virginia, but it didn’t matter. Out of Argentina was enough of a destination for her at this moment. She relayed the new location of the company to the driver, leaned her head back and took a deep breath.

She softly cursed, swiped her phone to life and tapped of a quick text to Williams. He likely wasn’t going to be happy but there was no way she was going to stick around in Argentina any longer.

Her phone buzzed a predictable two minutes later. She answered without even looking at who might be calling. There was only one option.

“Yeah, Ted?”

“What’s going on?” Williams asked, voice uncharacteristically full of concern.

As much as Ronnie wanted to fall prey to it, she knew Williams was the boss, not her friend or confidant. She needed to provide a sitrep to the man, not dump her fears out onto him.

“The situation has gone from bad to worse,” she said, ignoring the glances of the driver. “You’re aware of the shootout with the airmen earlier today?”

“I am.”

“JC and his crew,” Ronnie said. “There was three of them and they killed ten, wounded about a dozen more. Every member of the assault team was shot, burned or otherwise seriously injured.” She paused, getting her anger and fear in check. “Every single one.”

“Corroboration?”

“I watched the news, read the papers and bribed a guard at the hospital,” Ronnie responded, making up the one about bribing the guard. The information was all over the internet and airwaves for free.

“Varela?”

“Got a wild hair up his ass to go out to Mercado’s place with a dozen men, cut a deal with Mercado then either kidnap Braun or kill him there.”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know,” Ronnie said, acidic, “I wasn’t stupid enough to go out there with him. Mercado is a billionaire in a country where the cops are the criminals and kidnapping for money is just good sport. Mercado was armed to the teeth at his office. You think he doesn’t have double that at his house?”

She heard Williams sigh and while she realized she shouldn’t push it too far with the boss, she’d had it up to here with his lack of direction and lack of trust. If she was going to be in, she needed to be all the way.

“And now you’re going to cut and run?” Williams asked.

“That’s what you call it?” she said, keeping a lid on her anger.

“The job isn’t finished,” Williams said. “Bannister makes it back to Boston ali-”

“Listen,” Ronnie snapped. “You didn’t send me down here as a hitter. You sent me down here as an agent provocateur. I’ve provoked about all I think I safely can. We made contact with the team that dropped the ball on the initial assault. We set a million-dollar bounty on his head. I even reported a Bannister sighting at Mercado’s house to the Air Force unit that was torn apart by him. They sent attack helicopters out there, I saw them fly over the city myself.” She paused. “I don’t have contacts here, Ted. My Spanish is quite good, but I can’t go around attempting to bribe random cops and military personnel. Short of hunting Bannister down myself I’ve done about all I can do.” She paused again. “Unless, of course, you think I’m expendable.”

If Williams didn’t think her valuable enough to bring closer into the planning and execution of the missions, she was done. She didn’t hand over all of the money and diamonds that she rescued from the warehouse attack and subsequent. That combined with her savings and her contacts that Williams didn’t know about should allow her to disappear forever. New identities, investments, vanish to a country she’d never mentioned, like maybe Austria or even Thailand. He’d never find her.

Williams sighed. “Of course you’re not expendable,” he said. “You’re my number one, Ronnie. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we have damaged him enough.” She waited, not saying anything. “I’m sorry,” he continued, “come on back, let’s regroup, see what happens and figure out our next steps. Are you flying into Arlington?”

It was what Ronnie wanted, a simple mea culpa from the boss who had halfway screwed up. After another minute or two of small talk and vague planning, she hung up the phone, pulled the back off, yanked the memory chip, broke it in half and tossed it out of the window. She wasn’t about to meet up with Williams until she had a few more insurance policies in place. The man was dangerous and while she accepted that and continued to work with him, it didn’t mean she was doing so blindly.

She also hadn’t told him the real reason why she was leaving. She’d seen the backpacking sketch artist in the city, near her hotel. However, the second time she saw him he wasn’t looking like an early-twenties backpacker. He looked much more like a young Russian gangster. Maybe it was the slicked back hair, maybe the Adidas track suit, maybe the oversized tinted glasses. Or maybe it was the contingency of other Russian gangsters hanging out next to a half dozen Mercedes Benz coupes outside a dance club at half past midnight, Mr. Hippie Artist Backpacker laughing and joking with them as if he’d known them all his life.

Regardless, she knew it was him, which meant his appearance on the bus was a disguise. The only thing she didn’t know was why. In an effort to learn that, she’d crossed the street towards the club, holding her phone as if she was texting someone but instead, she was taking high-def video of him and all his buddies.

She didn’t have access to any friends who could help her search for him at the moment, but once she returned to the United States she would reach out to the people who could.

And maybe she could find out who sent him.

The biggest problem? She couldn’t rule out the possibility that he was sent by her boss to keep an eye on her.

Or maybe kill her.

*****

Williams hung up the call slowly, disappointed. His mind was already bouncing ahead the six, ten, fifteen moves into the future where he replaced Ronnie. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had the sneaking suspicion it needed to be done.

“Bad news, baby?” the prostitute on his arm mewled in English, her native Catalan adding a heavy accent to the three words.

Williams leaned over as the two walked up the street of the Gothic Quarter and whispered in her ear in Spanish, “Don’t say another word the rest of the night and I’ll double your fee.”

The woman wisely clamped her mouth shut and hugged herself closer to Williams arm, the ruse that they were a couple out for the night passably believable.

Williams knew she wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of the night in silence, no matter how long it lasted. None that he’d made that offer to had managed it. Yet still he tried. He found prostitutes useful for surveillance work. A man walking alone on the streets of a town is suspicious, especially in the evening, most especially at night. A couple is decidedly less so. And when the woman is attractive, or at least sexy, the eyes of men would be on her to drink in whatever men felt they could by leering. Women, too, would more likely observe the competition than the man their competition had chosen.

Williams stopped, turning to the slightly shorter woman, whispering in her ear and kissing on her neck. She laughed and pretended to be appropriately turned on by his advances. The three BMWs driving up the street towards them passed and parked at the night club just fifty meters up the street on the opposite side. It was the same place that Williams and his hired help had been walking back and forth in front of for the past hour or so.

Williams heard them stop, heard the doors open, the loud Russian jeers and rough conversation between the men as they got out and the whump of the doors being closed. He heard the noise from the nightclub get louder as the doors were opened to admit the group, then mostly disappear as they were admitted.

He knew what had driven Ronnie from Buenos Aires. Maksim, William’s on-again, off-again Russian partner, had called him the day Ronnie landed in Buenos Aires and told him the hotel she was staying at. Ronnie had not made a reservation known to Williams, ruling out the possibility of some sort of electronic surveillance, leaving only the human kind.

In Williams’ mind, and most assuredly in Maksim’s, it was a threat. In a not-so-subtle way, Maksim was letting Williams know he and his team were being watched. His comings and goings were known, and, more importantly, he and the people he was close to could be gotten to at a moment’s notice.

“Have all the men gone inside?” he whispered in the ear of the woman.

She made a movement with her head. Williams couldn’t tell what she was trying to indicate and, impressed by her ability to remember not to speak, moved back, holding her face in his two hands as if he was very much in love with her.

“You can speak,” he whispered, then kissed her on her cheek before going back to her neck.

“Two are outside, the rest are inside.”

“Are there others standing outside? Bouncers?”

“None.”

Perfect, Williams said to himself.

He smiled, pulling his wallet out and handing her two thousand dollars, quadruple the amount they initially agreed on and double what he just promised her. She greedily took it, folding it and shoving it into her bra. Williams put his wallet back, leaning into her ear his hands halfway between cradling her head and wrapped around her throat, and whispered, “We will walk across the street, then walk towards those men. When I begin shooting at them, you turn and run without a word. Disappear into the night and forget my face. If you do anything but what I have said, I will kill you once I have killed them. Understand?” She nodded, the fear clear in the clammy sweat on her skin in the cool evening. “Remember, I have your ID. I can find you and all you hold dear.”

She nodded again. Her handing over her ID was a requirement for the arrangement he made with her. He said it was necessary if he was going to pay her the sum they agreed on. Williams hated to make the threat, but he needed her to understand.

“Good,” he said, switching to English as he drew his silenced Beretta from its shoulder holster, hiding it behind his back as he turned and took the woman’s hand in his left hand. “Then let’s go.” He briefly let go of her hand to adjust the briefcase, slung crossbody across his chest, the bag itself resting low on his back and helping to hide the pistol behind his back. It held not only extra magazines for the Beretta but also a handful of timed explosives that he planned to attach to each of the black BMWs that Komarov, Maksim’s number one man in Spain, had arrived at the club in.

It was William’s message back to Maksim. If the Russian gangster oligarch tried anything against Williams or his team again, the repercussions would be monumental. Although he couldn’t exactly say that to the man, he imagined this action would at the very least put Maksim on his best behavior for a while. The man was still an uncultured monster, but he was no idiot.

Williams let go of the woman’s hand, gripped the back of her head and leaned down to give her an almighty, knee-weakening kiss. As he broke the kiss, she looked up at him, slightly confused. It was the first time he had actually kissed her tonight. There was hope mixed with fear in her eyes.

“Go,” he said to her quietly. “Now.”

Her eyes changed, overcome with fear at the man she saw. She turned and ran without a word.

Williams swiftly raised his right hand, his left coming to support it. The first two bullets slammed into the head and chest of the Russian gangster closest to him, the third and fourth bullets hitting the second man almost before the blood from the first had spattered onto him. Within seconds the two men were dead on the steps of the nightclub, their bodies blocking the entrance, their blood pooling into the cobblestones they lay upon. The only sounds that were made, aside from the bullets slamming into the Russian guards and the sounds of their dying, were the four reports of the silencer, not much louder than a soft handclap.

Williams quickly holstered the Beretta, reaching into his bag and attaching an explosive device under the door sill in the middle of each vehicle. He stood, walking down the street, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was there.

Nobody was.

While he may have looked like a semi-fit man in his early fifties with graying hair, he was also a former CIA field agent who rose up through the ranks, only to be unceremoniously kicked out based on shifting political winds. There was a lot of anger and a lot of skill to back up that anger.

As the explosives all detonated at the same time, ripping through the night air, shattering the windows of the storefronts around the club and flipping the Russian gangster’s vehicles into the air and on their sides, Williams smiled.

“It feels good to be back,” he said, low and under his breath, as he took a left turn, crossing the street as the wails of the people exiting the club competed with the wails of the distant sirens across the rooftops of Barcelona.

Chapter 51

Porras was right. Fifteen minutes later and Theo was wheeling the Huron APC through the streets of Buenos Aires.

Unfortunately, like in most cities around the world, a thirty-foot long truck that looks like it should be in a warzone instead of a metropolitan, cosmopolitan city is going to garner a few glances, quite a few stares, and more than a few people filming it as it drove past.

“We gotta get rid of this thing, man,” Theo growled as yet another person started filming them with their cellphone cameras.

“I’ve got an idea,” Porras said, looking at JC, “but you might not like it.”

*****

“Up those stairs, take a left, then up two more flights,” Porras said, trying to make sure they knew the directions as he kept his voice down.

“Go,” JC said, hoisting the half-empty bag of weapons over his shoulder, “don’t get caught.”

“You know us,” Theo said, hitting the accelerator as Porras rolled the window up.

JC turned, scanning the alleyway for anyone who might be taking an untoward interest in the proceedings, then nodded to Braun.

“Let’s go,” he said, leading the way to the back entrance of the apartment building. The sun was getting closer to going down, the sky starting to dim a little, but not anywhere close to the dark JC would have been more comfortable with.

They weren’t halfway up the first flight of stairs when Braun’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

JC said nothing, hoping the man had the sense to either not take the call or at least answer it quietly.

“Yeah?” Braun said under his breath. “Hold on,” he continued, paused then said, “It’s for you.”

JC stopped at the top of the stairs, took the phone as he tried to hide his surprise, then kept walking according to Porras’s directions.

“Yeah?” he said, not kindly.

“It’s Mercado, Mr. Bannister,” the man on the other end said. “I trust you are enjoying the SUV?”

“Saved our bacon,” JC said absently. “Thanks.” He paused as he found the second stairwell then went up it. “What can I do for you?”

“Two things,” Mercado said, “and they’re what I can do for you. First, the three helicopters just left here. We delayed them as long as was prudent. I trust you are somewhere not very visible.”

“Working on it,” JC said, hitting the second flight of stairs as he checked over his shoulder to ensure Braun was following him.

“Good,” he said, pausing before continuing. JC could have sworn he heard him take in a deep breath as if he was worried about what he was going to say. “About three months ago,” Mercado said, “a man came knocking, promising me the world. He was able to deliver a number of very lucrative contracts and partnerships for us as a consultant.”

“I don’t mean to be impolite,” JC said, reaching the top of the stairs and turning as instructed by Porras, “but this affects me how?”

“Three days ago, Mercado continued, “an associate of his came to my office to warn me of how bad of a man you were. How dangerous it could be for me, potentially.”

“And do you think I’m a dangerous man?” JC asked, finding the door he was looking for. He nodded to Braun to punch in the code Porras had told them.

“You most definitely are,” Mercado said, “but not for me, at least not while our interests coincide.” He paused. “Which makes me wonder about the information or agenda that drove my consultant’s actions.”

A synapse fired deep within JC’s brain, triggering another and another, creating a feeling, making connections that were unspoken but somehow intuited. He needed to know who the consultant was, but somehow his brain combined with his intuition already told him who it was.

“What was the associate’s name,” he asked, knowing it was going to be a woman. A woman whose face he’d seen outside his apartment one too many times and catalogued as a hunter.

“She called herself Ronnie,” Mercado said. “No last name.”

That’s one, JC said to himself.

“And the consultant?” he asked.

“Ted Williams,” Mercado said. “It sounded like an alias however I was unable to track down who he actually was.”

Braun opened the door on the third attempt at the code, but JC stood there, his head spinning a little.

“Former Deputy Director of the CIA,” JC said to Mercado, recovering and entering the apartment, keeping his profanity internal. “Forced out because of all kinds of dirty dealings. He and I have crossed paths before. It didn’t end well for him.”

“It seems he still carries a torch for you, my friend,” Mercado said, pausing before he said, “I hope you’ll forgive me for asking, but should I be worried? For my family?”

How much do I tell him? JC asked himself before realizing Mercado was likely a friend and a good man to have on his side in the future

“Have Rossi double your security,” Bannister said, dropping the bag of guns on the floor as he drew a Glock 19 from his waistband and went room to room in the apartment, making sure it was empty and safe. “Bring in protective consultants, people who know what they’re doing, and make sure you’re fully protected.”

“That bad?”

“It’s precaution,” JC said, “because you were straight with me when you didn’t have to be. I’ll have people I know reach out to you.” He paused, the last room checked, and went back to the living room to see Braun standing there, waiting. “I appreciate the heads up.”

“Anytime.”

“One more thing?” JC asked at the last moment. “Do you happen to have a photo of this Ronnie woman? Perhaps from your security feed?”

“Text me your number and I’ll send it as soon as we’re off the phone.”

“Thank you,” JC said. “And what about your guest?”

“Very uncomfortable,” Mercado said flatly. “He’ll stay here for a day or two, then he’ll be dropped off at his final destination.”

JC hung up, handing the phone back to Braun, his mind already churning through the possibilities of what needed to be done, who needed to be contacted and warned and, of more immediacy, what the hell was Williams trying to achieve.

“Who’s Williams?” Braun asked, “and why is he after you?”

“It’s a long story,” JC said, brushing him off. “For now, we’re safe and secure.”

He looked around the apartment, actually seeing it this time. It was spartan, looking more like a waystation for someone who always spent their time somewhere else. But it was safe, secure and, if Mercado was telling the truth, its owner would likely be dead or in prison in the very near future. Regardless, JC and his crew wouldn’t be needing it for more than a day or two tops.

“So,” JC asked Braun with a grin he didn’t feel, “what do you think of Varela’s apartment?”

Chapter 52

The black hood was ripped off Varela’s hood, the brightness in the dirt-smelling room stabbing into his eyes, forcing him to slam them shut before the pain increased.

“Open your eyes,” a voice said near him.

Varela tried but was in no hurry.

He heard the whistling of something through the air right before he felt the sharp smarting whack on his leg, the skin hurting first, followed by the dull pain radiating through the muscle that told him it was a pretty heavy stick swung just enough to hurt like hell but not cause any permanent damage.

He opened his eyes to see Rossi, Mercado’s head of security, with a three-foot-long stick, an inch-or-so diameter, that was, presumably, the cause of the pain in his leg.

Rossi lowered the stick, stepped away from the door to reveal Mercado, the telecom billionaire, sitting on a wooden chair. Varela’s eyes flashed around, taking in as much as he could. The room looked like an old prison cell, underground, with one light in the center. The cell was maybe a little over six feet tall, probably eight by eight total space. The floor was hard-packed dirt, the roof supported by ancient wooden beams. Varela thought he saw dark claw marks in the wood but looked away before his mind could go too far down that path.

“This is an old prison,” Mercado said. “They say slavery was abolished in Argentina in 1853 and in Buenos Aires in 1861 when we joined the Confederation.” He looked up and around at the cell. “To my knowledge this estate was built in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s and this cell along with a dozen or so more were here, so…” He shrugged as he trailed off.

Varela watched the man watch him. There was nothing in his eyes, no malice, no anger, just a flatness that unnerved Varela.

“I underestimated you,” Varela said slowly. “I apologize.”

“I want you to listen very carefully. To every word I say,” Mercado said, continuing to stare at Varela. “Are you listening?” Varela nodded yes. “Good,” Mercado said, getting comfortable. “I run the largest telecommunication company in Argentina and the seventh largest in the world. I didn’t achieve that by being a schoolboy. I had to crack a few heads along the way.” He paused. “Do you follow?”

Varela nodded again.

Mercado looked behind Varela and nodded curtly.

The pain engulfed his head, causing his vision to dim. A secondary wave of pain radiated outward from the point of contact with Rossi’s stick. Varela had an instant headache. He knew the man was holding back. One real windup from him and Varela would be more than seeing stars. Unfortunately, he was sure there would be more coming from Rossi.

“You brought armed men to my home. You implicitly threatened my life and the life of my family.”

“I never-”

Rossi’s stick cracked Varela in the head, on the same spot, with the same amount of force. He could feel the lump swelling already.

“You came to my home with armed men. Did you think my family would not be in danger from this action?”

Varela decided to keep his mouth shut. If he was going to be punished for saying nothing, then he would need to change his tactics, but right now it seemed like a favorable course of action.

“Good,” Mercado said. “You’re learning.” He looked at his knee, smoothing the tan fabric that covered it. “Who hired you?”

Varela said nothing. Rossi came from behind Varela and placed the stick on the ground, leaning up against the doorframe. He turned and stood behind Mercado.

“I’m not a monster,” Mercado said. “I won’t torture you for the information.” He paused, watching Varela. “But understand. The attack helicopters were not here to help you. I have sent them away. They will not be coming back. Nobody knows you are here, or at least, nobody who is coming to rescue you or report your absence to the authorities.”

Varela watched the man speak. He had a smooth style, likely practiced and refined over the years, becoming smoother as his wealth and power increased.

“Your men are being held here as well,” Mercado continued. “Nothing is being asked of them. Only you. If you tell me who hired you, I will let them go. If you do not, I will not.”

Varela’s mind was looking for any out, any angle, trying to think his way out of the problem and still come out on top. Unfortunately, every twist and turn in his mind ran into dead end after dead end.

“And me?” Varela asked. “What happens to me if I tell you?”

Rossi swore as Mercado smiled. Rossi reached into his pocket, took out a money clip, peeled off two five-hundred peso bills and handed them to Mercado.

“My friend bet me one thousand pesos you would be more concerned about your men than yourself,” Mercado said, still smiling as he folded the money and put it in the breast pocket of his shirt. “I told him you would be most interested in saving your own skin as opposed to the hired help.”

Varela watched as these two men laughed and joked while he was tied to a chair in a basement beneath some building on the property of a billionaire. The reality of his situation began to sink in.

“Remember,” Mercado said with a smile, “We have your phone. There is one number that calls you periodically. We’ve traced it and found nothing.” His smile faded. “According to your call history, they are due to call you soon. Once they do, we will track them. Then we will have no need to speak with you anymore. Or your men. And we will go about your business as if you weren’t even here at all.” Mercado paused. “Unless you tell us who it is first.”

The prospect of starving in ancient slave quarters was about as attractive to Varela as it would be to anyone. Although he knew the right path, he was still careening around his own mind, looking for angles or possible ways out. Mercado watched him for almost a minute.

“Have it your way,” Mercado said with a shrug as he stood.

Rossi moved to the door, opening it for his boss. As Mercado stooped to walk out the door, Varela heard the buzzing of a cellphone. Mercado stopped, coming back into the room.

“Forgive me,” he said. “It is my estate, so of course I have service everywhere.” He pulled his phone out of his left front pocket, but the buzzing remained at waist level. He looked confused, then acted as if he remembered something, put his phone back in the same pocket and pulled another phone from his right.

It was Varela’s phone.

Mercado looked at him. “Well, look. Right on time.”

“Olivia Braun,” Varela blurted, his mouth not moving fast enough for his tongue, the words stumbling over each other. “Olivia Braun, it’s Olivia Braun. She is the one who hired me to kill her husband.”

Mercado feigned surprise then nodded as the phone continued to buzz. “It makes sense.” He looked to Rossi then back to Varela. “I am going to answer this call,” he said, “but if you make a single sound, I will cut the skin from your body and you will die in that chair.”

Varela nodded his head vigorously in agreement.

Mercado answered the phone, said nothing for a pause, then said, “So-ry I ca- -ear yo…ad connec… Can you he…”

He was pretending as if the connection was bad, only saying parts of the words. Varela hoped that the person on the other end of the line would be smarter than he imagined she would be.

“Hello? Manuel?” he heard Olivia Braun say as clear as day. “Are you there?”

“One se-” Mercado said with a smile, his eyes locked on Varela’s.

“Manuel,” Olivia said again. “Can you hear me? I think the connection must be bad. Can you get to somewhere with better reception? Do I need to call you back?”

“Just give me a-” Mercado said. “I’m just goi-”

Olivia waited for a beat before she said, “I need to talk to you,” she said then waited. “Call me back.”

The call disconnected.

Mercado hung up the phone then put it into his pants pocket again.

“My men?” Varela asked.

“They will be released today,” Rossi said. “Right now.”

“And me?” Varela asked quietly, the defeat clear in his voice and posture.

“Once we track the origin of the call and run it through some voice-matching software, then we will decide your fate,” Mercado said. “Trust but verify, no?”

As the door to the cell closed behind the billionaire and his chief of security, Varela felt very much alone. Before Braun came to Argentina, Varela was set to be a rich man. Now, if he was lucky, he might live.

Still, he thought to himself, at least you’re trying to do the right thing.

He closed his eyes and said a silent, very penitent prayer to a deity he hadn’t addressed in over twenty years. He was attempting to make a deal, like most men do when times are bad. This deal was simple, like most in times of distress are. And like most men, Varela meant every whispered, tear-streaked word.

“Dear Lord God in Heaven above. If you grant me life and rescue, I pray and swear that I will do the right thing at every juncture, to the best of my ability, from this day forward.”

God listened, like He always did. And like He always did, He heard the qualification, the out that men always tried to insert in their bargains with Him: to the best of my ability.

The Lord was decidedly undecided.

*****

Olivia pulled the back off the phone, her hands trembling, removed the battery and then the SIM card. It took her twice as long as it usually did. She broke the card in half, dropped one half in the toilet, flushed it, then did the same to the second half. She reassembled the phone, her hands shaking slightly less, put it back in her Hermes handbag, flushed the toilet again for good measure, then exited the bathroom stall at the Cloud Bread Café and rejoined her friends.

It wasn’t three minutes until Chloe stopped the story she was conspiratorially telling and looked at Olivia.

“Are you okay, Olivia?”

The three other women at the table chimed in with their chattering agreement.

“I don’t know,” Olivia said, allowing her heavy breathing to be more visible, dabbing at the sweat on her upper lip. “I feel flush all of a sudden.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know,” Olivia said, playing it up, “I just… I don’t know. Maybe the Greek yogurt this morning was off, maybe Mariela didn’t wash the fruit bowl completely.”

“Good help is so hard to find,” one of the women interjected knowingly.

Seven minutes later and she was in her Audi SUV, screaming at the top of her lungs as she drove down the busy New York streets back to the office. Hot tears of rage and embarrassment ran down her face, ruining her makeup but she didn’t give a damn. She pulled down an alley, stopping the SUV next to a dumpster.

Before she got out of her vehicle, she pulled the phone from her handbag. She quickly opened the door, dropped the phone on the broken asphalt, stepped out of the Audi and stomped on her phone again and again and again. Any pieces bigger than a quarter she tried to stomp on again.

Her rage slightly allayed, she kicked the pieces under the dumpster, up the alley and down the alley, got back into her Audi and stomped on the accelerator.

Olivia forced herself to calm down. Now more than ever she needed to be in control or at least exude the appearance of control. Although it was easy to fool her self-absorbed friends, the staff at Visionary would be more difficult.

Varela had very explicitly told her that if he didn’t check in she should vanish. He was an hour late and, despite his clear instructions, she decided to call and check on him. Spotty coverage was understandable, however, she got the distinct impression the man she was speaking to wasn’t Varela. He sounded different, despite the poor connection and, if she had to guess, older.

“That was stupid,” she said to herself. “But now you have to cover.”

If Varela was captured or dead, the question was what she should do next. His words to her were “Never be found alive.” That wasn’t very helpful and, in truth, unless there were recordings, she could always play off her phone calls as the concern of a wife for her husband. If pushed, she could say she felt Tyler was having an affair and she wanted him to look into it.

There were half a dozen ways she could explain both her calls to him as well as the money she sent. It wouldn’t look good, might get her tossed out of the country club, maybe end her marriage and status in polite society, but all that was preferable to being convicted for conspiring to murder her husband.

“But what if he talks?” she asked herself as she drove through the security checkpoint to Visionary Worldwide, the guard waving her through. As she drove down deep into the secure parking facility, level after level underground and finally parked in the well-lit section reserved for top management, she realized the worst thing about this entire fiasco.

If Varela talks, I’m done for.

Chapter 53

“I wasn't always such an asshole,” Braun said quietly, the main lights off in Varela’s apartment. “We used to have wonderful times, Olivia and I.”

They’d been in the apartment for close to fifteen minutes now. Small talk attempts added after two minutes, each man casting off into their own private worlds. As Braun restarted the conversation, this time on a much more personal level, JC said nothing.

“But as the company grew,” Braun continued, “and after the death of our son, I just immersed myself in work and I guess all the stress kept piling up.”

JC stifled the sigh that was dying to get out. The man obviously had something on his mind and needed to get it out. But that didn’t mean JC was going to let him off easy.

“And then you banged some younger, hotter woman,” he said.

Braun started to retort but swallowed it. “Yeah, I guess you're right,” he said.

“People react differently,” JC said with a shrug as he looked out of the window into the night of Buenos Aires. “Some rise to the top. Some don't.”

“I built a company worth billions of dollars,” Braun said. “We help millions with our products and employee tens of thousands of people at above market rates.” His stats were impressive but the delivery was hollow.

“And yet,” JC said, seeing through Braun’s screen of statistics, “I'd bet your wife would trade all of that to have you make dinner for her one time. To have you sit across the table from her, look into her eyes and ask her how her day was. And then actually listen to her.”

JC stopped talking it was easy for him to sit on the outside, judging Braun when his own love life and relationship was just as convoluted.

“You know so much about women?” Braun asked. “How’s your wife?”

“Not married,” JC said, regretting getting involved.

“Then how's your girlfriend?”

“Halfway across the world,” he said, “probably killing people.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” Braun said.

“Don’t judge me,” were the words JC almost let slip but he bit them back at the last moment. That's exactly what he'd been doing to Braun since he met him.

“Listen,” JC said after a beat or two. “It's easy to make split-second decisions when your life is on the line. You have no choice. You do it long enough, you get good at it. But the day-to-day?” He shook his head, not knowing why he was still talking. “That's my struggle.”

“Look,” Braun said with a smile, “he's human after all.”

JC resisted the urge to match Braun’s smile, but relented. They weren't buddies, obviously, but maybe this moment of sharing might help Braun. The next time JC needed him to do something, he might do it without fighting him every step of the way.

The sound of the locks on the door sliding back jolted JC from the comfort of the living room and into action. He was moving from the sofa to the hallway with his Glock already in hand when Theo said, “Anyone home?” loud enough to be heard but not by the neighbors.

Five minutes later and everyone was settled in. Acevedo, the man guarding Porras’s wife and son had reported in. Everyone was safe and secure. Porras had spoken with his family and they had verified Acevedo’s information.

As much as JC wanted to, he avoided the conversation that needed to take place with Braun about who contracted with Varela. He had a fairly good idea of who it was. He had no idea if Varela would be alive long enough to tell who it was or if Mercado would relay that information to himself or Braun. He did, however, have a backdoor way to find out.

But first he needed to ask Porras a question.

“Porras,” he said, turning to the newest member of the team. “Varela is friendly with at least one gang in the city, yes?” JC asked Porras.

“Los Interesantes for sure,” Porras said. “We grew up there.”

“What gang would he never ever do business with?”

“Easy,” Porras said with a shrug. “La Familia de la Plata. Sworn enemies of Los Interesantes.” He shook his head. “Terrible people. Degenerates, into all sorts of bad things, mostly smuggling. Even smuggling people. Sex slaves.” Porras’s distaste was apparent. “They’re horrible.”

“Perfect,” JC said, standing and moving to the duffle bag of equipment they had. “I need to make three phone calls,” he said, “and I’m sorry but I’d like a little privacy.”

“Three phone calls?” Braun asked. “To who? Friends?” he continued, putting air quotes around the last word.

“One I wouldn’t quite call a friend,” JC said, pulling one of their last burner phones from the bag and tearing the package open. “One’s a bulldog.” He smiled. “And the third I’ve never spoken to in my life.”

As Braun opened his mouth to say something, Theo put his hand out to calm him down. “Cool your jets, Fat Pockets,” he said. “This is what he does.”

“Hold on,” Porras said, rising, disbelief clear on his face and in his voice. “You’re not seriously going to make a deal with those La Familia psychos, are you?

“You bet your life I am,” JC said, walking to the door as he powered on the phone.

Within seconds he was gone. Porras turned to Theo, confusion and not a small measure of fear in his eyes. “Why the hell would he do that?” He paused and said, “Why the hell would they do that?”

Theo chuckled and went to Varela’s refrigerator, looking for food. “You forget,” he said, taking out an unopened bottle of water, his grin stretching wider and wider across his face. “He’s JC Bannister.”

Chapter 54

JC lied. He had actually four calls to make, however, the remaining three hinged entirely on how the first one went. It was the linchpin to his entire plan. It was also the call he dreaded the most.

As the phone rang, he looked out over the part of the city that Valera lived in. It seemed alright: younger middle class, lot of apartment buildings, most topping out about six or eight floors. The one Varela lived in was seven so JC could see in some of the building around. Although the sun was setting he hunkered down under the ledge of the building, a three-foot wall that ran around the entire edge of the building to prevent people from falling off. He hoped it would prevent others from being seen. It was a chance, but he needed to make these calls without having to field questions from Braun, Porras and, more importantly, Theo.

“Hello,” the man on the other end of the line said right after picking up.

“It’s JC,” he said and then waited.

There was a long pause. JC thought he heard movement of some kind. Perhaps the man was getting to a quiet place, perhaps ushering people out of his office or maybe just turning on recording equipment. Truth be told he wouldn’t be surprised if every phone conversation held on this line wasn’t recorded and stored in some deep, hidden vault.

“You’re the last man I expected to call me,” Frank Ingrassia, Director of the CIA, said.

“Things have changed.”

“You’ve decided to stop ducking my calls?”

“Something like that.”

“How’s Argentina?”

“Complicated.”

“That’s what CNN tells me.”

“You watch CNN?”

“What do you need, Bannister?”

JC had neither the time nor the inclination to bargain with or attempt to maneuver Ingrassia. The man was the head of the CIA, had been an agent for most of his adult life and probably was one helluva poker player. The direct approach was the best here for many reasons, chief of which JC’s bargaining position was quite strong and he knew it.

“Woman named Ronnie,” JC said. “Works with Ted Williams.”

Ingrassia was quiet for longer than JC expected. “Yes?”

“She’s in country, or at least she was,” he said. “Tried pushing into ArgenTelCo and riding Mercado’s hip to get at me.”

“And you’re telling me because…”

“Because that long-ass pause when I mentioned her name means you know who she is and who she’s working for. Ted Williams is back. I thought we’d cut him down to size enough after The General, but he’s regrouped.”

“Evolved is closer to what he’s done.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’ve been hounding me to gun him down for months. I’ve been dodging it because I wanted out. But William’s playing a long game and he’s coming for me which means I’ve got a window to cut him off at the pass.” JC paused. Trying hard not to audibly swallow before he said the next words. “You want me to hunt him down? I’m in.”

JC waited while Ingrassia chewed on the words he’d just managed to say. The deeper implications and manifold complications with being the CIA’s outsourced hitter for one of their own, former or not, was something he was trying not to take too deep of a mental dive into. It would blow back on him in multiple, unexpected ways, of that he was sure. But right now getting into bed with the CIA meant going after Williams with a bigger budget and wider permissions than he currently had.

It also meant his ticket out of Argentina.

“We’ve got people for that,” Ingrassia said slowly.

“Maybe,” JC said, standing, his back beginning to cramp sitting on the cooling roof, “but not like me and my crew. And I’m pretty sure William’s doesn’t have a hardon for any of your people like he does for me.” JC paused, smiling. “Except of course, maybe you.”

“A good point,” Ingrassia said. “What’s the catch?”

JC heard sirens in the distance. He was fairly certain they weren’t for him, but it reminded him of the constraints he was working under.

“There’s two,” JC said. “First, we do it my way with my people, no budgetary constraints and access to everyone and everything.”

“Carte blanche?”

“Your words, not mine, but yes, carte blanche.”

“And the second?” Ingrassia asked.

“Are we good on the first?” JC replied.

“We are,” Ingrassia said, “what’s the second?”

“I need a hot ticket out of Argentina.”

Ingrassia was quiet for longer than JC was comfortable with. “We have a safe house not far from your location,” he said finally. If JC wasn’t imagining things, he could have sworn he heard computer keys being clicked and perhaps even the movement of people or the soft whispers of others in the room.

“I’m sure you do,” JC said, ignoring the fact that Ingrassia had pinpointed where he was. “But safehouses can be outed or overrun, sometimes both. I’m sure there’s an ambassador or two who can attest to that.” He paused, wondering briefly if that had cut too close to the bone, but barreled ahead nonetheless. “Braun has a ten million price tag on his head and apparently somebody’s put a million-dollar bounty on mine. I’m not resting until we’re on a chopper, preferably US, headed out over the Atlantic.”

It was a bold ask, but JC knew his position was strong. Ingrassia had not only fired Williams, he had also told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he were to be involved in the intelligence field again his head would put on a pike at the corner of entrance gates to CIA Headquarters outside Langley, Virginia. Involved in intelligence seemed to be exactly what he was doing so Ingrassia’s threat needed to be enforced. JC was just the man for the job.

“We won’t be able to break sovereign airspace for any nation,” Ingrassia said. “You know that. You’ll need to be well past the mouth of the Rio de la Plata before we can pick you up.”

“Let me worry about that,” JC said, ducking behind the small rectangular protrusion that housed the door and stairwell into the heart of Varela’s apartment building. JC wasn’t sure but he felt eyes on him from somewhere. It was the last thing he wanted or needed right now.

Three minutes later and the deal was struck. JC’s ride would be appearing in approximately twenty-one hours, just past six in the evening, at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The widest river in the world, the mouth where it meets the Atlantic Ocean is close to one hundred and forty miles wide, creating for all intents and purposes, a bay as opposed to anything resembling a river. While JC appreciated the limitations of running a gunship into Buenos Aires proper, he also knew getting out that far was going to take more than a little juggling.

Another fifteen minutes and he’d made two more calls putting the various pieces of the puzzle in place. There was one more piece but he’d felt he’d been both exposed on the roof and away from Braun as long as was prudent.

Still, he stayed up top. The last call was everything, even more than the first. He’d been working backwards, getting the pieces of the puzzle put in place from the outside in.

Now he needed to get through Argentina and down La Plata faster than any Mi-17 gunship helicopter could fly.

That was no easy task and as he dialed the last number, he prayed he was right.

*****

Ingrassia called his assistant. “Hold my calls,” he said through the intercom.

“Sir, we have a meeting of the-”

“Reschedule it or apologize,” he said, cutting her off, “but nobody is to disturb me for the next thirty-five minutes.”

He punched the disconnect button with his thick fingertip before ushering the staff that was in his office out of it. They were some of his most trusted advisors and workers which was why he let them stay to listen and assist when Bannister called. However he needed a moment alone to savor the coup that had just fallen into his lap.

“The one that got away,” he said to himself quietly as the walnut burl covered door behind him locked in place.

JC Bannister should have been in the CIA long before. Ingrassia himself had approached General Marvin O. Robinson after he read some of the reports on what the young man could do. In truth, he’d been angling to bring JC Bannister into the CIA ever since the man executed a local Al Qaeda chieftain by shooting him the head with a .50 caliber rifle at three hundred yards just to save one man in his company.

The General had always shined Ingrassia on, somehow managing to keep JC just outside the grasp of the CIA. Before they had a chance to focus in on him, he had quit the Army because of some trumped up internecine squabble between himself and The General. After everything went down the way it did over the years, Ingrassia often wondered if The General orchestrated the whole thing to kickstart Bannister working for the Bolivian cartels.

The report Bannister filed on that head shot told Ingrassia everything he needed to know about the man. It was a helluva shot, a helluva risk and indicative of the type of person he wanted more of in the CIA: loyal, willing to risk everything for their fellow man and didn’t give a damn for the personal or professional repercussions that all too often came with telling the truth to the paper pushers in DC. Too many of the upper management in the agency had been advanced time and again without enough field experience to properly evaluate the intel coming across their desks. More importantly, they couldn’t make the hard choices that needed to be made. They just covered their asses over and over again, resulting in long, illustrious careers that amounted to absolutely nothing.

Except the backsliding of this great nation, Ingrassia said to himself as he opened the hidden cabinet behind his desk. He took out a cigar from his private humidor, a Montecristo No. 4, poured himself a glass of Elijah Craig twenty-three-year-old single barrel bourbon and set to lighting the cigar. He went behind his desk, flicked the switch that allowed the secondary ventilation system to kick in, bypassing the fire alarms, and sat back on the tufted leather sofa, enjoying his moment.

With Bannister on board, with Duke in play and Mr. Douglas running them, we might actually achieve something.

He knew how it would look. Congressional oversight would call it his own personal hit squad. The press and some of the more faint-hearted would probably use the words “death squad.” However, there was deniability built into the entire thing. If Bannister and Duke reported to Mr. Douglas, that’s where it stopped. Sure, there was the off chance that if everything were to somehow go tits up at the wrong place and wrong time, there would be repercussions or blowback.

But for right now, for the next thirty-one minutes, Francis Marion Ingrassia was going to celebrate the successes, not focus on what losses may or may not be coming down the pike.

He gently pulled the cigar smoke into his mouth, letting it roll around his palate, tasting all the nuances and flavors in the Cuban cigar, then slowly let his air leave his lungs, the breath flowing through his mouth and out between his lips, taking the cigar smoke with it.

The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency sipped his bourbon then leaned his head back and laughed long and deep and hard, overwhelmed with his good fortune.

Chapter 55

The door to the tech department in the security office just two floors beneath the main executive offices at Visionary Worldwide flew open, Director of Security Gibbons marching through it as she slid her phone into her pocket. Everyone in the office sat up a little straighter. Although by and large she was a chill boss, she was also one to rip your world apart if she caught you falling down on the job.

She strode to the far end of the room, making sure there was nobody inside the conference room, then came back to the bullpen. The entire office was laid out like a sales floor: half-height partitions allowing free exchange of communication and ideas throughout the office.

Gibbons scanned the room, apparently looking for someone.

“Koerber!” she barked. “Rantilla! Conference room.” Before she was finished, she was moving to the room, Koerber and Rantilla up from their desks and moving double time to the conference room.

As they walked in, Gibbons quickly shut the door behind them. Koerber sat nearest the door, setting the bottle of water in her hand down on the desk while Rantilla decided it was better if he stood.

“We need to do some digging,” she said to them quietly as she sat, looking over both shoulders.

“What do you mean?” Koerber asked.

Gibbons took a deep breath, calming herself. “We’re trying to find a rat,” she said. “The actions against Mr. Braun may be internal.”

Both security techs said nothing, but their eyes widened. They looked at each other then back to Gibbons.

“I have received intel that points to it,” Gibbons said, unwilling to go into more detail. “But for right now you two are lead on this.”

“On what exactly?” Rantilla asked.

“Dig into the phone calls of all the upper-level executives on down to idle management,” Gibbons said quietly. “Find out who they call, where the calls initiate and are routed to and from. Track everything. Look for patterns but more importantly, look for things that stand out from the established patterns.”

“Text messages?” Rantilla asked. “Emails?”

“Phone calls only,” Gibbons said, shaking her head. She looked at both of them. “Koerber, you’re lead, Rantilla, you’re second when she’s sleeping. You two don’t leave the office until we find what we’re looking for.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“A smoking gun,” Gibbons said, “or at least a hint of it.” She paused, looking back and forth to them. She wanted to tell them how important it was, how much was riding on this, how the lives of people she cared for may rest on discovering this exact information, but she kept that to herself. “Bring in whomever you need from the team, but you report only to me,” she said instead, standing. “You find what you’re looking for, you call me, day or night.”

“Where are you going?” Koerber asked, standing with her.

“I’ve got a second mission,” she said, heading to the door.

“What if anyone comes down here?” Rantilla asked. “Like the execs, poking around?”

“You tell them I am in command of security for this company,” Gibbons said, “and if they have a problem with anything, they can take it up with Mr. Braun or myself.”

She opened the door to the conference room and strode out, heading to the elevators which would take her to the basement where a vehicle was waiting to whisk her off to the heliports on South Street. There a Visionary Worldwide helicopter would take her down to a private airfield just outside of Washington DC for the second part of her mission.

“I’m coming, Theo,” she whispered as she willed the elevator to move faster.

Chapter 56

Christopher Holstrom, United States Senator for the great state of North Carolina, hung up his cellphone, picked up his office phone, curled the receiver into his fist and punched the button for his secretary with his index finger before bringing it to his ear.

“Yes, Senator?”

“Find Agent LaRocca and tell her to be in my office in two minutes,” he said quietly into the phone, an old habit from his days as a district attorney in Charleston where the walls were notoriously thin. “Then find out where Secretary Kensel is by the time LaRocca gets here.”

He hung up the phone without waiting for an answer. Despite his kind demeanor on the outside, Holstrom was a hard-working, dogged prosecutor when he was young, turning into the same kind of senator in his middle years. His assistant, Brenda had joined him when he made the move from North Carolina DA and was both aware of the way he worked and also thrived under the pressure.

A minute and a half later, Brenda poked her head in the door.

“Secretary Kensel is currently playing racquetball at the gym on 4 th and D,” she said.

Holstrom was on his feet, reaching for the coatrack before Brenda finished. “And Agent LaRocca?” he asked, putting his suit jacket on as he turned.

“Here, sir,” Special Agent Diane LaRocca said, slightly out of breath and standing behind Brenda.

“You’re with me,” he said, walking past them and out the door.

LaRocca, about the same height as Holstrom but with longer legs, caught up with him a few yards after he turned right and strode down the hallway of the Hart Senate Office Building.

“You got a car?” Holstrom asked.

“Nissan Xterra, second sublevel, gassed up,” LaRocca said. “I check the oil and tires twice a week.”

Holstrom and LaRocca turned left, heading for the elevators that would take them to LaRocca’s vehicle. He said nothing as they walked, nothing as they waited for the elevator, and nothing as they walked along the second sublevel of parking, the smell of oil faint in the air.

The lights of a 2015 Nissan Xterra blinked on and off twice in quick succession ahead of them. Holstrom turned toward it.

“You were in the Army?” he finally asked as they approached the vehicle.

“Yes, sir,” LaRocca said as Holstrom went to the passenger side, opened the door and got in.

LaRocca closed the driver’s side door behind her but did not turn on the vehicle, waiting as Holstrom turned to her.

“Were you in the real Army,” he asked, “or the squishy one?”

“Only one Army I know of, sir,” LaRocca said, her jaw jutting out bit in challenge.” She paused, watching him. “Nobody here but two people in green, sir. You can speak your mind.”

Holstrom stared at the young agent, evaluating her, weighing her and measuring her. Truth be told, his decision was already made, at which point he realized the rest was just theatrics.

“4th and D,” he said, turning and reaching for his seatbelt. The SUV was started and in motion before his belt was buckled. “The gym.”

“Who are we meeting?” she asked as she put the SUV in drive, piloting it and buckling her seatbelt at the same time.

Holstrom said nothing for a beat, deciding to let Agent LaRocca’s use of “we” slide. As they rounded the corner to the first sublevel and headed for the exit, he said, “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut in the presence of others. Observe everything, report later. We get to where we’re going, you guard the door. People come out but they don’t come in. Clear?”

“Clear.”

As they exited the parking structure into the late spring evening, the last tendrils of light disappearing with the coming night, Holstrom glanced over to her then back onto the streets of DC.

“One more thing,” he said, his eyes watching the vehicles and people as they moved past them. “Try not to look like you’re having the time of your life.”

LaRocca forced the grin that was on her face to disappear.

“Working on it, sir.”

*****

Holstrom opened the glass door to the racquetball court and stepped inside in one swift movement. The hollow blue ball was speeding towards his position. He briefly thought about attempting to catch it but instead sidestepped it, the two players inside stopping play at his intrusion. The ball bounced off the back wall, then bounced a few more times before coming to a rolling stop against the front wall.

“What the hell, Holstrom?” Secretary of State Raymond Kensel said, his chest heaving, his breath ragged.

Holstrom looked at the man as he bent over at his sizeable waist, catching his breath, the sweat dripping through his soaked headband and onto the floor.

“Hate to do it like this, Ray,” Holstrom said, his jacket unbuttoned and his hands on his hips, “but I need a favor.”

The man Kensel was playing against looked past Holstrom to the guards outside. LaRocca was between the two DSS agents and the open door to the racquetball court. Everyone had their hands on their service weapons, low threats and ultimatums being exchanged and drifting in through the open door.

“You want me to remove them, sir?” the younger, taller and far fitter man asked.

“No, David,” Kensel said, catching a portion of his breath and standing. “Go calm the angry people with guns and close the door on your way.”

As the door closed behind the man, the court became far quieter. While it wasn’t soundproof, at least Holstrom could quietly ask what he needed to.

“This is how you do it, Chris? Interrupting the single hour in my day where I’m not worrying about work?” Kensel asked, dropping his racquet to the ground and placing his hands on his glistening bald head. When Holstrom neither took the bait nor answered the question, Kensel sighed. “What now?”

“I need someone assigned as a deputy to the ambassador of Argentina,” Holstrom said, the words coming out quiet but clearly.

“You’ve got to be shi-”

“With full diplomatic immunity.”

The barrage of profanities and anger Holstrom was expecting didn’t come. Secretary Kensel stared at him for fifteen long seconds, his hands dropping down to his sides.

“Have you lost your damn mind?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re not going to drag me into the middle of that Argentinean clusterf-”

“I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important, Ray,” Holstrom said. “You know that.”

Kensel took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks out as he slowly exhaled, making his head look far rounder than it was. Holstrom waited as they slowly deflated.

“I know, Chris,” the Secretary said eventually, then nothing more for a long time.

Holstrom waited.

“I don’t thin-”

“It works out,” Holstrom said, jumping in to cut Kensel off before he actually decided, “then you take all the credit.” It was the only real thing he could offer of any value in the world of DC politics.

“All the credit?” Kensel asked, intrigued.

“All of it,” Holstrom said. “You’ll never hear me mention it, not to the president, nor in any subcommittee or in my memoirs.”

“You’re going to turn this into an international incident, aren’t you?” Kensel said, angling for a way he could say “no.”

“It already is,” Holstrom said with a shrug. “The question right now is simple: how big of an international incident does it become? Is it the kind where State comes to the aid of US citizens on the run from reactionary and corrupt local forces bent on destruction, rescuing them from the jaws of certain death?” He paused, wondering if he should be laying it on this thick and hard. “Or the kind where US citizens are hunted down and killed by rogue military or paramilitary forces in a foreign country while the State Department sits on its hands?” He paused, letting the scenarios and past fiascos sink into Kensel’s head. “I think we’ve had too many of the latter these past few years and not enough of the former. Don’t you?”

Kensel shook his head. “And what happens when this whole thing turns into some floater in the pool that nobody wants to touch?”

“Then you can crow loud and long to your cable network of choice about how I exceeded my authority as a senator and should likely be in prison.”

“I wouldn’t be wrong by saying that.”

Holstrom said nothing. The hard sell was done. All his cards were on the table. All he had to do was wait and hope Kensel couldn’t hear his stomach flipping and flopping inside his belly.

Kensel sighed. “You wouldn’t be asking if you thought this was going to go tits up, would you?”

Hell yes, I would, if it meant giving my friends half a chance at making it out alive.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said.

“One person,” Kensel said, “diplomatic immunity.”

“Two, on a State Department jet within an hour headed to Uruguay, then a DEA helicopter to the point of their choosing.”

“No fu-”

“All the credit,” Holstrom reminded him. “This thing is already international news, Raymond.” He paused, then put added the final cherry on top. “Might play nicely come election season.”

Kensel stood there, shaking his head. Most importantly right now to Holstrom, he wasn’t saying “No.”

“You owe me some Scotch,” Kensel said slowly.

“I’ll bring you a bottle of forty-year-old Bunnahabhain single malt,” Holstrom said, “straight from the shores of Islay, Scotland.”

Kensel’s eyes widened in appreciation. “Make it a pallet and you’ve got a deal.”

Holstrom smiled and crossed his arms on his chest. The deal was done, just a little final horse trading to finalize it, something he was comfortable with. “Now you’ve lost your damn mind,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll bring you two bottles with a guarantee that I didn’t piss on ‘em before I give ‘em to you.

Kensel smiled and laughed. “You’ve got yourself a deal,” extending his hand for the shake that was required for both men to know they would hold up both ends of the bargain.

*****

Holstrom said nothing the entire trip back to the Hart Senate Office Building and Agent LaRocca, to her credit, didn’t ask.

As they were pulling into the second sublevel of the parking structure again, Holstrom said, “Questions?”

“Your plan worked?” she asked after a beat.

“It did,” he replied.

“The price?”

“Couple bottles of scotch,” he said, leaving out the four thousand dollar per bottle price tag, “and a whole raft of favors to come.”

“Is this about Bannister?” LaRocca asked, pulling the SUV into an empty spot and turning off the vehicle.

“It is,” he said as the quiet from the lack of engine noise grew. “You ready to go to Argentina?”

LaRocca smiled. “I’ve got my go bag in my desk.”

“Then go,” he said. “And bring them back home.”

Chapter 57

The report from the shot rang out through the empty warehouse. The man’s body crumpled and fell, dust rising as limbs flopped around on the floor, his central nervous system still active for a few seconds before his life left him.

“Anybody else have a problem?” Roberto yelled at the men and boys assembled before him.

He heard nothing but a fearful silence for a long five seconds until Moco, one of his most trusted men, yelled, “We follow you, Roberto!”

The rest of the men cheered loud and long, many of them raising their weapon of choice, be it handguns, automatic rifles or machetes, into the air as they exhibited their fealty to Roberto, The Unstable One.

Roberto nodded and smiled, soaking in the adulation. It was all false bravado and fear of being killed. He knew it but didn’t care because it served his purpose.

“Tonight, my little assassins, we rid Buenos Aires of the scourge they call La Izquierda once and for all,” he said, warming to the role as he always did, as well as to the insanity of the task he was asking them to pull off. “And tomorrow, when the streets are cleansed of their cowardly blood, we turn to Los Andes and then La Familia de la Plata.”

The cheers increased as his underlings finally understood Roberto planned to take over the whole of Buenos Aires.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, making it sound as casual as possible. “Call your piggies, call your bitches, and tell them this man is worth one million dollars.” He held his phone aloft, showing them the picture of Bannister that had been circulating on social media. It was fuzzy, but it was good enough.

“I want him alive!” Roberto screamed, calming himself as he did. “I want to show him the way of Los Interesantes before he dies.”

The way of Los Interesantes wasn’t complex. It was just torture and cruelty, but like most other things Roberto said and did, it was mostly for theatrics and fear.

“Now go, my brothers,” he yelled, the Smith and Wesson revolver he used to murder one of his own men still in his hand, “go and take Buenos Aires for Los Interesantes!”

The men and boys assembled in the warehouse cheered with a fervor bordering on insanity. It was carefully calculated. They couldn’t be seen cheering less than the man next to them and they surely didn’t want to be seen as cheering too much, either. The reason was simple: their life depended on it.

As the assembled men dispersed, five of them moved towards Roberto. His trusted lieutenants, they knew the truth. His insanity and instability was a carefully cultivated image designed to keep his enemies off guard. Behind it was a cold, calculating man who ran one of the roughest gangs in Buenos Aires. His plans for taking over the city were no joke. He’d been angling for that since he and Moco ran their first scams in elementary school.

“Izquierda falls tonight,” Roberto said quietly. “Tinto’s dead, Baca’s men are squabbling, Mosquito is the only one with the balls to run it, so target him first. Luis,” he said to a pale, sallow young man with bad teeth and half a dozen murders to his name, “take your team and finish the job.”

Luis nodded and peeled off to assemble his crew that was milling around and waiting for him. Robert repeated the same thing for three of his remaining lieutenants, the assemblage of men in the warehouse getting smaller each time he dismissed one more.

Finally he turned to Moco, his last remaining lieutenant.

“Varela,” he said, following the name with a few choice vulgarities. “He came in here with that bitch and promised me a lot of money. Has he been seen since?”

“Not by me or my men,” Moco said with a quick head nod. The same height as Roberto’s five foot ten, Moco weighed half again as much as his boss, all of it muscle.

“How many roll with you tonight?”

“Thirteen,” Moco said. “Lautoro’s appendix burst yesterday and Hernan’s mother is on her death bed.” He shook his head. “The cancer. She won’t live through the night.”

Roberto crossed himself at the mention of a loved one near death, an unconscious remnant from his youth. “Then I ride with you,” he said, the religious action finished, “We find Varela to start. From there, perhaps we pay his little friend a visit.”

Moco nodded as Roberto started walking for their vehicles and Moco’s crew.

“Where are we going first?” Moco said as Roberto unlocked the remote alarm on his pristine Arctic White Pearl 1995 Nissan 300ZX.

“Varela’s place,” Roberto said, getting in the classic sports car, closing the door, starting the engine and rolling down the window. The custom installed exhaust system filled the nearly empty warehouse with a throaty purr. “Follow me,” he said, punching the accelerator and spinning in noisy, smoky donuts while Moco’s crew loaded up the dead body in the back of one of their trucks and piled into their vehicles.

Roberto cut loose, the back end of his 300ZX fishtailing for a minute, then catching traction and shooting out of the warehouse. In his mind he was already at Varela’s apartment, the empty, boring apartment the man was so proud of. Varela was there, bleeding, and Moco was standing over him, pounding on him to tell him where to find not only Bannister and Braun, but that woman Ronnie as well.

“You are so dead, Varela,” he whispered as he took the next corner at speed, his tires squealing for purchase as he hurtled through the fading light to Varela’s apartment.

Chapter 58

The phone rang. He glanced over his shoulder at the closest apartment building to Varela’s. He kept feeling eyes on him and he was trying to find where they were coming from. The phone rang again. He expected it to ring and ring, but it was picked up halfway through the second ring. “Talk to me,” a woman’s voice said on the other end, fast and crisp.

“Is this Susan?” JC asked after a moment’s hesitation, crouching down behind the low wall around the edge of the roof.

“Depends.”

“On.”

“On who’s asking.”

He took a deep breath. “JC Bannister is asking.”

The laugh on the other end started as a low chuckle, then grew into a full-throated laugh, long and hard, before descending into a hacking cough.

“You alright?” he said finally.

“I’m right as rain, kiddo,” she said. “I was wondering when you would get around to calling me.” JC thought he heard a cigarette lighter rasp in the background.

“You were expecting my call?”

“Everyone who gets in trouble in South America calls me sooner or later,” she said.

“Everyone?” he said, standing. The cool of the night plus the uncomfortable position was making his back seize up and he needed to be as limber as possible in the coming twenty-four hours.

“Everyone of consequence,” she said. “Plus, the news keeps telling me how bad things are down there.”

The silence grew. JC waited, pacing on the rooftop, the old idea of the person who speaks first losing guiding his actions. But Susan was just shy of seventy and, if Mr. Douglas could be believed, she was an intelligence agent beyond par. Former, current, it didn’t matter. She could wait him out.

And he didn’t have the time.

“I need an out,” he said, looking down onto the streets below, absently tracking vehicles that drove past.

“Ain’t no official way out of the country for you,” Susan said.

“That’s not what I said I needed.”

“I like the cut of your jib,” she said, exhaling. JC imagined her in some smoky bar, lots of brown leather, dark wood and brick walls. “Keep talking.”

“I need a number.”

“A number will be enough?”

“It will be if it’s the right number.”

“And what number are you asking for.”

“Henri Rodriguez, leader of La Familia de la Plata,” JC said, unconsciously holding his breath after he spoke.

Susan said nothing for a beat. JC swore he could almost hear her smiling. Then he heard her low chuckle again.

“Smart,” she said, exhaling her cigarette smoke. “But you think he’s going to play ball with what you have planned?”

“I’m looking for passage,” JC said. “That’s it.” He looked back over the side of the building, scanning the streets. Something was off.

“The hell you are,” Susan scoffed. “I heard what you did to Alfonse in Holland. You go to Henri just for passage? I don’t think so.” She paused. “Your instincts are correct, though. If you play it right, you might make it out alive.” JC heard her draw in a deep breath of cigarette smoke. “What’s your plan?”

“I’ll make him an offer,” JC said, trying to avoid explaining the rickety house of cards he’d constructed that would lead him, the principal and his team safe and sound out of Argentina.

“And if he refuses?”

“He won’t,” JC said with a confidence he didn’t necessarily feel.

“When he does-”

“I said he wo-”

“When he does,” Susan said, cutting him off, her voice as sharp as steel, “tell him his auntie says hello.”

“His auntie says hello?”

“Use those words exactly.”

“And that will open the door to the magic kingdom?”

Susan chuckled again. “It’ll keep him from slicing off your balls and feeding them to you as you bleed out.” Paused. “And it might make him more inclined to accept your offer.”

Although what Susan was offering was more ephemeral than what he would have preferred, she came highly recommended by Mr. Douglas and that needed to be good enough for him now.

“I owe you,” he said.

“You’re damn right you do,” Susan said. “I just gave you the biggest trump card in all of Buenos Aires.” She paused. “You can buy me dinner tomorrow to start making up for it.”

“Excuse me?” JC said. “I thought you were in Bogota.”

“I am,” Susan said, laughing, “but if you’re going to see Henri, I want to be in country.” She continued to laugh. “Buenos Aires is going to be on edge. Electrified. I wouldn’t want to miss that energy crackling beneath the surface for anything.”

“You’re coming to Argentina?”

“He said you were a little slow sometimes.”

“Mr. Douglas?”

“But you get there sooner or later.”

JC sighed. He was used to be spoken of as young and inexperienced by people older or much higher up the food chain than himself. But that didn’t mean he liked it.

“When we eat, you can tell me all about your cherie,” Susan said.

“Joan?”

“Yes,” Susan said slowly after a pause, “that’s the one. I’m dying to meet her.”

JC hung up the phone and sighed. A lot of moving parts, a lot of reliance on others, but the plan itself wasn’t a bad one.

A flash of light behind him made him turn around. He knew what it was halfway through his turn but he couldn’t stop himself in time. Another flash from someone’s cellphone camera on the adjacent rooftop lit up his face, blinding him.

He swore as he turned, the person clicking off more rapid-fire shots in quick succession. He figured they were shooting video as well. JC turned for the door that would lead him down to the stairwell, kicking himself for staying up there and visible for too long.

A commotion on the street reached his ears as he hammered his feet down the stairwell. He stopped at the next floor, heading to the open-air passageway that all the doors of the apartment building were accessed from. He glanced over the railing to see a perfectly white Japanese sports car tearing up the street towards the building followed by three dark SUVs of various makes and sizes.

JC didn’t bother to see where they stopped. He wouldn’t need more than one guess and he knew he’d get it right.

It was time to leave.

Now.

*****

Susan smiled as she pushed the “End” icon on her phone.

“Neil was right,” she said quietly to herself as dug through the piles of papers, books, pens and weaponry on her desk, looking for a paperclip. Finding one, she unbent it, pushed it into the hole on her phone, ejecting the sim card. She bent the card in half, breaking it, and put both pieces in her pocket as she stood.

“Little bastard’s got a set of balls on him,” she said, smiling, as she slid her phone into the back pocket of her chinos. She headed towards the bedroom, bending down to open the floor safe hidden underneath the rug next to her bed with a speed and agility that belied her sixty-seven years.

Safe open, she took out several stacks of cash, her favorite Seecamp LWS380 and an automatic knife that disappeared in her waistband. She also grabbed a custom-made single-shot .410 derringer and a handful of shells for it.

“Girls gotta be prepared,” she muttered as she grabbed a brown leather duffle bag from her closet and started filling it with the cash, the guns and two days’ worth of clothes and sundries.

Five minutes later and she was heading out the door, a new SIM card in her phone and hailing a taxi. If JC was in enough trouble to call her with his Hail Mary, and if the news channels were right about what was happening in Buenos Aires, she’d need to get there quick before it was all over. It was a six-hour flight to Buenos Aires or Montevideo, depending on how adventurous the private jet pilot would be.

Of course, if things went south for Bannister and she found out Henri sold him down the river, she’d make sure that little gangster was sent to hell with a .410 load of shot through his chin and right into his brainpan, regardless of their past history.

Chapter 59

JC was taking the stairs three at a time, momentarily grateful for his six-one frame and longish legs. He turned hard on Varela’s floor, cursing himself and himself alone for not foreseeing that someone might not be happy about Varela’s disappearance.

He stopped at the door, punching in the entrance code from memory, the release of the door locks taking an impossibly long time in his brain, and burst into the apartment.

“Gotta go boys,” he said, running for the living room and the bags of guns. He turned to the sofa to see Braun half-rising, glancing at the door. JC stopped, looking around then said, “Where’s Theo and Porras?”

“They wen-”

JC picked up the zippered-shut bag and threw it at him, grabbed the open one, ran to Braun, grabbed him by the shoulder and was pushing him for the door before the billionaire had time to finish his sentence. The entire time, profanities were streaming from JC’s mouth.

At the door, JC pushed Braun against the wall, jerked the door open, popped his head out, a Glock 19 appearing in his hand. Nobody on the floor, JC slung the bag he was carrying over his shoulder, reached back with his free hand and grabbed ahold of Braun. He was pushing him back down the corridor towards the stairwell he’d just came down from, glancing over his shoulder, when he heard the elevator ding on the floor behind them.

The apartment building was essentially a long “L” shape. The center of the L held the elevators while each end had a stairwell for additional access. Each floor was a long, open-air L-shaped corridor with the doors of the apartments emptying onto the corridor. And from the center of the L, from the elevators, anyone had a clear view of both well-lit corridors.

“Move,” JC growled at Braun under his breath, realizing as he said it that Braun was already moving faster than before. Maybe he was starting to understand their situation a little more.

As they crashed through the access door at the end of the corridor, JC didn’t bother to check if anyone was pursuing him or not. They simply had to go. Braun headed downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. JC noticed the man was barefoot, his shoes probably comfortably under the coffee table back in Varela’s, but there was nothing that could be done about that now.

Commotion from above carried into the stairwell, followed by yells and soon gunshots. JC surmised they were trying to break the door down. Although the lock was secure, the door was not particularly well reinforced. A couple of well-placed shotgun slugs on the door’s hinges would render it useless. The thought that whomever it was might not be there for Braun passed through his head. Regardless, upon sight of Braun’s multi-million-dollar face, or even JC’s with the million-dollar bounty, and the intruder’s mission could very easily switch to cashing in on what was right before them

“Hold on,” JC said to Braun as they reached the first floor. Braun moved off to the side of the exit door, glancing back up the stairwell they just came down. JC didn’t bother to look. He heard nothing and, had Braun seen something he would have alerted him about it.

“Listen up,” JC said, putting his duffle bag on the dusty ground and digging through it in the dim light of the exit sign. “Best I can figure those guys are after Varela, not us, but they see our faces, that’ll change in a hot second.” He stood, an AK-47 extended, muzzle up, to Braun. “Sling that bag over your shoulder and take this.” Braun did as commanded. JC dropped back down, taking out two H&K MP7’s, hanging them off the front of his body on their single-point slings, and placing two FN P90’s on the ground. He zipped the bag shut, stood, slung it over his shoulder and picked up the two rifles, one in each hand.

“You ever shoot a gun in real life?”

“Skeet shooting once, revolver at some investor’s house.”

“Concept is the same. Stock against your shoulder, try to aim at what you want to hit, one pull of the trigger is one bullet.”

“Are we really doing this?” Braun asked.

“How long do we have until they take off?” JC asked. “If you were looking for someone would you send men down the stairwells? You want to trust our lives to them being lazy?”

“How many out there?” Braun asked with a nod.

“Let’s find out,” JC said. “Open the door with your free hand about two inches, slowly.”

Braun did so, giving JC a sliver of a view. He saw what he had seen from the roof. One sports car and three SUVs. Luckily he only saw two men standing near the SUV’s, but that didn’t mean the other men weren’t standing just beyond his line of sight. The best thing for JC and Braun — all the vehicles were running.

“Close it,” he said, moving back.

He glanced over his shoulder, listening for anything coming down the stairs. If he was right, then the men who came for Varela were likely ransacking the house, looking for valuables, but they’d be just about done. They had to move now.

“You open the door,” JC said, “then get behind me and grab ahold of the strap on this bag. I turn, you turn. We’re heading for that rear SUV. Anybody comes at us from the right that I don’t see, you shoot. We get to that SUV, we hop in and take off. Clear?”

Braun stood there, nonplussed. “I don’t have any shoes,” he said.

“You’ve got a gun,” Bannister said, “and that’s better than shoes. It’ll save your ass and keep you alive tonight and that’s enough.”

Braun nodded. JC could see him screwing up the mental courage and intestinal fortitude to make it through the next few minutes. Of course JC would prefer a team of at least two more and bulletproof vests for everyone, but that wasn’t in the cards.

“When I say ‘Go’ you open the door swiftly but not violently and then do as I said.”

Braun nodded.

JC took a deep breath.

“Go.”

Chapter 60

Braun opened the door exactly as JC asked. As soon as he did, JC was moving through the opening, angling for the last SUV in the row. The night was cool, cooler than expected and the smells of the city were muted. JC glanced to his left and, luckily, the two guards he’d seen before were the only two guarding the vehicles. JC knew that as soon as he fired it would alert the ones above to their presence which was something he wanted to avoid as long as possible.

They walked closer. He tried to keep their pace to that of a swift walk, not creeping or running. He wanted their actions to mirror the actions of a regular person out for the evening. The longer the two were unaware of them, the better. And maybe, just maybe, they might not see them.

They weren’t that lucky. The rearmost guard turned to them, his pistol grip shotgun pointed at the ground near his feet and, luckily in his right hand, away from JC. He glanced at the two men, then back up at the corridor above where, apparently, his team was still tearing things apart.

A half second later, the guns in JC’s hands finally registering in his brain, the guard turned back to JC, attempting to swing his unwieldy pistol grip shotgun up and forward, turning as he did. He was trying his damnedest to somehow get ahead of the curve he found himself behind.

There was no way. JC let off a three-round burst at the man without bringing the FN P90 above his waist level. All three bullets caught the man in his chest, dropping him to the ground, his shotgun clattering on the ground.

The forward guard flinched at the sound of gunfire behind him, turning towards it as he moved for cover to the vehicle closest to him. As he turned, he pivoted his body as well, pulling the trigger on the AK-47 he held almost casually in his hands.

JC turned towards him as well, pulling the triggers on both of the bullpup rifles in his hands, sending three-round burst after three-round burst at the man. The further he got away from the man and the closer JC got to the SUV, he raised the weapons higher, getting them closer to his line of sight.

The man fell, six bullets ripping through his body in various points, tearing up what they encountered and taking his life with them.

JC ran as best he could, the SUV only a few yards away. If there were men on the corridor above, they likely heard the gunfire, would be looking down to see what JC really hoped they couldn’t.

The barks and yells above him told him his hopes were dashed. As he rounded the corner of the SUV, he knew they were out of time. A fusillade of bullets rained down on the SUV as JC and Braun ducked down behind it. Glass shattered on them, the bullets coming close to tearing up JC and Braun as well. Too much open space between them meant there wasn’t enough metal to stop the bullets.

They couldn’t stay but if they moved they’d be cut down. JC knew it was only a matter of time before that happened anyway. If the men above had half a brain, a handful would stay up there, taking advantage of the high ground, while the rest would come down either the stairwell or the elevator and flush out their attackers.

JC didn’t have time to figure out if they had half a brain or not. He took Braun’s bag from him, put it on the broken asphalt in front of them, digging through it. He knew what was in the bag on his back, but he was hoping there was something else they could use.

“Yesssss,” he hissed, finding exactly what he needed. He laid the three M67 hand grenades on the ground along with the single M84 flash bang grenade, zipped the bag back up and slung it onto his back again.

“Woah,” Braun said over the noise of the assault, staring at the grenades. “What the hell?”

“Can’t shoot at them because of the people in the apartments behind them,” JC said, “But we can take out their vehicles, turn this into a foot pursuit and pick them off one-by-one.”

He grabbed one of the FN P90’s, leaned forward and fired at the lead SUV, trying to poke as many holes in is as he could. He did the same to the SUV closest to them, finding the gas tank in the process just as he hoped. He poked his head up and fired at the white sports car. He heard a blood-curdling howl from above.

“Must be the bosses’ car,” he muttered, seeing fluids leaking from it before he ducked down. He looked past Braun to the rear of the SUV and saw what he needed to see.

“Braun, open the gas tank and unscrew the gas cap.”

Braun glanced behind him, saw the door to the gas cap, popped it open and did what JC asked. While he was doing that, JC was banging the flashbang against the ground, hoping to loosen the Loctite on the threads holding the protective casing onto the active incendiary inside.

Braun looked back to see what he was doing. “Stop that, please.”

JC wrenched hard on the grenade and the casing broke loose. “Awesome,” he said as he unscrewed it and threw it away. He turned to Braun, the bullets still pounding into the SUV they were hiding behind.

“Listen, you ready to go?” he asked Braun.

“I can’t…”

“I can’t do all of this on my own,” JC said, turning to the man, aiming for a balance between scolding and exhortation. “You’re doing a helluva job and I need your help.” He nodded up and down, hoping it would encourage Braun to agree. “Are you with me?”

After half a second, Braun nodded as well.

“This is a flashbang,” JC said, holding the remains of the cylindrical grenade in front of Braun. “Makes noise and light but won’t hurt us. You put it in there and it might ignite the gas in the tank, making an almighty explosion like the movies.” Braun was following but looked incredulous. “Pull the pin, let the spoon pop off and instantly shove it into that hole,” JC said, pointing at the gas nozzle receptacle. “Then we run like hell. There’s a five second delay on that grenade so we’ll have enough time to get out of here.”

“Now?” Braun asked.

“Hold on there, cowboy,” JC chuckled. “When I say “Now,’ you do it, you run like hell and don’t stop until I catch up with you.”

Braun nodded, the only sign JC needed at that moment. He picked up one of the grenades, pulled the pin and lobbed it towards the white sports car. It landed perfectly, bounced and rolled under the rear of the car, landing right in the pool of fluids still leaking onto the ground from the shot-up vehicle.

As it did, the door to the lobby of the apartment building opened, five men running out in a line towards JC and Braun’s position.

The grenade exploded, igniting the gasoline on the ground and turning the entire vehicle into a fireball. The shrapnel from the grenade cut through all of the men’s legs, knocking them all to the ground. The shockwave of the explosion and the fireball killed the first two, the last three with varying degrees of injuries.

JC could hear the howl from above once again, the apparent owner of the vehicle watching it turn into twisted, scorched wreck.

JC pulled the pin on the second grenade, throwing it towards the first SIV in the line. It came close, rolling almost under the passenger door. The explosion wasn’t as phenomenal or visually exciting, but it wrecked the vehicle which was all JC needed.

He scooped up the last grenade, pulled the pin, turned to Braun and said, “Now.”

Braun did exactly as instructed. He pulled the pin on the slim remaining mechanism of the flashbang, let the spoon pop off, slammed it home in the gas tank and took off running like a bat out of hell with JC right behind him. JC tossed the grenade in his hand over his shoulder at the middle SUV, hoping it found its mark but not figuring it would.

Bannister lied to Braun intentionally. The delay on the flashbang fuse was somewhere shy of three seconds. JC knew that if all things went their way and the flashbang actually managed to ignite the gasoline in the gas tank, turning the SUV into another explosive device, the ensuing explosion would likely just knock them down with the shockwave. The men who were coming out of the apartment were killed by the shrapnel and explosive force of the grenade mostly, not the explosion of the gasoline in the tank. While spectacular, a gasoline explosion has a rather short blast radius.

He was right. They got about twenty yards away before the jerry-rigged device exploded inside the gas tank of the SUV and the entire vehicle turned into a magnificent ball of fire. The concussive wave from the explosion knocked them both to the rough sidewalk. JC recovered first, helping Braun to his feet. He noticed Braun’s bare feet were now bleeding a little. While he felt for the guy, there was literally nothing he could do to help him with that now except keep going.

“Was that five seconds?” Braun said loudly, his ears likely ringing just as JC’s were.

“Something like that,” JC said, quickly checking him for injuries. Finding none, he hooked his arm under Braun’s and helped him down the street.

“When was Theo supposed to be coming back?” JC asked.

“He said maybe thirty minutes,” Braun said.

“How long was he gone before I came down?”

“About fifteen.”

“We need to find a car,” JC said as he heard shouts behind him. Although they had no vehicles and were down by at least seven men, JC had no idea how many they brought with them. More importantly, he had no idea how many they had at their disposal.

The whine of a bullet ricocheting off a vehicle they passed made JC turn left down an alleyway. They had to find either a mode of transportation or a place to hide fast or they were dead.

*****

Roberto stood next to the still-burning husk of his beloved car. He fell in love with the mid-nineties Nissan 300ZX sports cars as a kid. Once he accumulated enough money and power, he tracked down the exact model he wanted, the 2+2 Twin Turbo Slicktop manual. He spent years and thousands of dollars tricking it out exactly like he wanted to, no expense spared.

And now it was on fire.

“Find them!” he roared to the men standing around. Moco was hurt in the blast but he limped forward, rallying the five remaining men and leaving Roberto to stare at his car and plan how he was going to kill the men who did this.

Chapter 61

Olivia was floating. That was the closest feeling she could assign to it. It felt like her head was disconnected from and floating above her body by about a foot and a half. Additionally, her feet felt like they floated slightly above the surface of everything she walked on, making her feel like she was gliding with every step. Everything sounded as if it was being filtered through a long tube, making the source of every sound slightly further away than it really was. Her vision was clear, as was her sense of touch, but other than that, everything was of.

She’d felt various parts of her current situation over the years based on various prescriptions, but she was currently not taking any medication of any type and she’d never had anything that made her feel all these things at once.

Gibbons was gone. Her number two, a man named Hanrahan, was answering all questions, but two things were clear. First, Ms. Gibbons wasn’t around and he didn’t know when she would be coming back. Second, nobody outside of security staff were allowed on the executive suite floor.

Had she not been involved in the murder-for-hire plot against her husband she would have thought nothing of this. But she was, and her fear was overtaking her. Once, earlier in the day, she had even looked out over the edge of the Japanese garden on the roof just to see if she could “accidentally” fall over. She couldn’t. Well, she could, but it would very clearly be deliberate.

Olivia sat in the executive lunchroom picking at a Cobb salad. She sat alone while a handful of other executives huddled at another table. Nothing really mattered right now. Everything was a holding pattern until they heard from either Tyler or Mercado and neither one was saying anything. Nobody knew if they had met, what they had discussed, was Tyler still alive, was Mercado. It was total radio silence except for the constant news of nearly open warfare on the streets of Buenos Aires.

A presence behind her startled her, moving to sit at her table. She glanced up to see the sharp features of Bernard Nagahashi as he pulled a chair out from the table and sat, smiling.

“How are you holding up, Olivia?” Nagahashi asked.

Olivia smiled. He was one of the first backers Visionary had and, while he always had his own agenda, he helped guide their company through many a rough time. About fifteen years older than she and Tyler, he had that ageless look some men get when they hit their late forties. Besides his deepening tan and a little more salt than pepper in his hair, Olivia struggled to see if Bernard had aged much at all since she first met him. Whenever they had needed help over the years, he had been there. If there was anyone she would trust outside of Dobkin, it would be Nagahashi.

“Tell you the truth,” she said with a wry smile, “I’d rather be home right now, self-medicated to the gills with a good book.”

Nagahashi chuckled as he inclined his head to her and away from the other table. “Tell you the truth,” he said, “I’m already self-medicated to the gills.”

The two shared a laugh which actually helped her feel a little more grounded. While her medication of choice was alcohol, Nagahashi’s was marijuana and he’d made a fortune backing some early winners in the cannabis industry.

“Any news from Argentina?” he asked.

“Gang war, apparently,” she said, waving her hand at the big screen TV mounted at the end of the dining room.

“No real news?”

“None yet.”

Nagahashi reached over and took the multigrain roll that came with her salad, absently picking pieces from it and eating them slowly.

“You seen Kev around?” he asked quietly.

“Not for a few hours,” she said. “Last time was in the evening scrum we seem to be having lately.”

Nagahashi nodded. “I’m impressed with how much you’re stepping up lately.”

Olivia waved his compliment off, suddenly wishing she had a double of anything strong in her hand and moving down her throat.

“You want to know why I invested in Visionary back in the day?”

“Tyler’s good ideas?” Olivia asked, her guard dropping a little around Nagahashi as it always did.

He shook his head. “Good ideas are a dime a dozen. So is enthusiasm and even the backbone he showed early on.” He tore off a chunk of the roll and ate it. “No, it was you.”

“Why, Bernard,” she laughed, “I’m a married woman.”

He joined her in her forced laughter but stopped sooner than she did.

“You believed in his ideas,” he said. “You weren’t blindly following him; you were invested in the success of the company. I checked your background as thoroughly as I checked his. I said to myself, ‘If a woman as great as Olivia Rensselaer backs him, then maybe I should too.’”

Olivia didn’t know what to say. The floaty feeling was returning and all she could do was think about how to get a drink in the next twenty minutes without anyone knowing.

“When he comes back,” Nagahashi said, “I want you two to sort out whatever the hell it is that’s grown up between you over the years.”

“Excuse me?”

“Take some time,” he said, “go to counseling, figure out a way. But if you can’t?” he put the roll down. “Then divorce that sonofabitch, never look back and start a business of your own.”

“Why would I?”

“Because the mind inside that head,” he said, pointing at Olivia’s, “was destined to be far more than some trophy wife.” He ate a piece of the roll but his eyes never left hers. “You’ve been hiding long enough. I’m impressed with the leadership you’ve shown over the past few days.” He continued to search her face and eyes as he spoke. “I’ll back any venture you start with a hundred million of my own money. I can probably drum up five times that in the first round of financing.”

Olivia knew that in his own way he was trying to show how much he was there for her. It was sweet, but what she really needed now was a way out from this floaty feeling that she knew at any minute would be ripped away as the enormity of what she had done crushed down upon her.

“You’re sweet,” she said finally. “Don’t think I am not appreciative of your offer. I am,” she sipped the sparkling water she had with her salad. “And yes, Tyler and I have some things to work out. I’m sure we’ll be okay. But if we’re not?” She put her hand on his forearm, a simple gesture she’d learned that was far more powerful for the man that it ever was for the woman. “I know I’ll have your good counsel to fall back on.”

Nagahashi patted her hand, far too gentlemanly to think anything untoward of her touch and stood. “Let me know,” he said, walking away. He stopped, turned and looked at her again. “And if you see Kev, let me know as well, please.”

Olivia smiled and nodded but inside an alarm bell was quietly ringing

That was twice he mentioned Kevin. Why did he need to see him so badly? And more importantly, where the hell was Dobkin?

Chapter 62

JC had to stop. Braun was slowing down and he knew they were running out of time.

His best guess was there were up to seventeen men at Varela’s apartment based on the seating possibilities of the vehicles. Probably a little less, so maybe fifteen in reality. He’d dropped two earlier and the grenade under the sports car had taken five more out of commission, leaving, realistically up to eight men pursuing them.

Not particularly good odds, he said to himself as he helped Braun limp along the darkened alleyway they had turned down. JC had no illusions about them being pursued by the remaining men of whomever it was they just fought against. The type to come to a man’s apartment in such force didn’t seem like the type to just let go of an ass-kicking like the one JC and Braun just delivered.

“How you doing, partner?” JC asked him.

“I’m fine,” Braun winced. “Walk in the park.”

“Tell me straight,” Bannister said.

“I just did,” Braun said, grimacing as he did.

“Gut it out,” Bannister said. “I see a resting spot up ahead.”

The plan hadn’t changed. He needed to pick off these guys one-by-one and it wasn’t going to happen if he had to schlepp Braun all along the way. The man had to rest a bit in safety and let JC do his work.

The alleyway they were in was perfect. Not a lot of lights, a long string of cars parked against the curb with what looked like a restaurant or some kind of business at the end. JC’s nascent plan was to put Braun just outside of the cone of light from the lamp in the back of the restaurant. Hide him behind a set of stairs or between cars or under a pile of trash then come back up the street to eliminate the threat to them from the men pursuing them.

They made it to the spot JC was looking for. Seven stairs went up to the back door of a small apartment building. A solitary light above the stairs was easily broken, leaving enough darkness for Braun to hide in.

As the man settled in, JC handed him one of the MP7s that was still dangling near his waist.

“JC,” Braun said as Bannister took the AK-47 he had been holding from him and laid the two bags of guns down next to him. “I…”

“Look,” JC said, “this is set to burst fire. One pull of the trigger, real quick, three to five bullets come out. Squeeze it real fast then release. Grip this fore grip when you use it. Make sure they’re up close.”

“I…”

JC needed to get back up the street, but he needed Braun in as stable a headspace as was possible. And that required a little coaxing.

“Look at me,” he said, getting Braun to focus. “The start of this whole thing? You were a flesh covered heavy bag I needed to drag around and make sure it didn’t get shot up.” Bannister smiled as Braun laughed and rolled his eyes. “Now? Now I am counting on you to watch my back.” He paused, hoping the words he used were able to sink into Braun’s head. “Can I count on you for that, Tyler?”

JC held up his hand in a bro-shake position. Braun clasped JC’s hand. Bannister released it quickly, glancing over his shoulder.

“Now, huddle up, pretend your drunk, and don’t shoot anybody unless you see their gun first.”

JC took off as Braun did as ordered, the sub-machine gun hidden in his lap and between his legs.

One problem solved, he said as he crouch-jogged back to the entrance of the alleyway. Now I have to figure out how to kill a bunch of guys without being shot myself.

His plan was formed by the time he made it back to the first car at the alley entrance. He’d wait until the first group of guys was close, fire on them from a covered position until they were all dead or he was under too much fire and then he’d fall back, rinse and repeat as necessary.

As Bannister checked the AK-47 to make sure it was good to go and set the fire selector to semi-auto, he saw the first men come walking into the alleyway. They weren’t even trying to be subtle about it, walking three abreast, guns held at their waist.

Fish in a barrel, he said to himself as he raised the barrel of the AK-47.

Despite his preference for AR-15 variant rifles and battle rifles built on the AR platform, JC was familiar with the AK-47 family of weapons and had no problem or prejudice against them as some might. In his mind it was a tool to be used for a job. Right now it was the most effective long-range tool at his disposal, so it was what he used.

He pulled the trigger once, adjusted the sight image, pulled the trigger again, then pulled the trigger three more times as the third target ran. The runner didn’t get that far. All three men who walked into the alleyway lay within five yards of each other, dead or dying. While part of JC wanted to go out and scavenge their weapons, he knew it would expose his presence and position more than he needed the weaponry. He would have preferred to make sure the men he just shot were dead, but that lead to the same thing — exposing his position.

Two more men were walking into the alleyway. They had at least learned from their teammate’s deaths. They were spread out, AK-47’s to their shoulders. JC looked beyond them into the dark and saw three more men hanging back.

Best odds he’d be able to knock down the first two before the remaining three unloaded on his position. He’d be overrun if he didn’t move or cut the rest down. They had reserves and he had none.

Make ‘em suffer, he said to himself as he clipped the guy that was furthest from him in the chest, dropping him instantly. Before he had a chance to take out the second man in the alleyway, the first guy had turned towards him, firing his AK-47 as he ran in the direction of the guy JC had just shot. He was running for cover, spraying at where the shot had come from and, unfortunately, pounding the green sedan that JC was hiding behind with gunfire.

It had also drawn the attention of the men just beyond the edge of the alleyway. They were firing on his position as well. JC took a second, exposed a sliver of himself as he sighted down the barrel of the rifle and took out one of the men coming towards the alleyway with a headshot.

He had to move. He stayed crouched down and half-ran two cars back, coming out between the front of a small truck and the back of a compact Japanese hatchback. He looked for the man who was already in the alleyway, the surviving member of the second wave. He found him, still firing at JC’s previous position. A single shot to his head took his life, removing him from the fight.

He leaned imperceptibly into the street. He saw the remaining two men rushing towards his position. As soon as he poked his head out they opened fire, pounding the truck and hatchback with bullets. The glass of the hatchback exploded behind him, showering him in tiny pieces of glass.

JC had no time to take any shots. While the AK-47 could empty its magazine in under a second, he needed each round to count. He ducked back under the cover of the truck and headed off running up the sidewalk, back towards Braun. He couldn’t see the man which, although he would have liked a visual confirmation he was there, was kind of the point. Unless you were looking for him, he was invisible.

Whistles behind him meant the two men were coordinating. He ducked behind a cargo van. If they had any sense, they would split up, one man in the street, the other walking up the sidewalk. They’d walk up each side of the row of cars, looking to flush JC out.

JC lay down on his belly and wriggled under the cargo van. There was enough room for him to roll to either side should it be necessary, which was a relief. All he had to do was wait.

It didn’t take long. He saw two sets of feet approach on either side. He waited until they were close then shot the man walking on the street in the legs, dropping him to the ground. Another three shots removed him from the equation.

The man on the sidewalk wasted no time in firing upon JC’s position. JC started rolling into the street as soon as the first bullet hit the pavement next to him. Although the man had no direct line of sight, a ricochet could kill JC almost as easily as a direct shot.

JC cleared the edge of the van, popped up and ran up the street towards Braun’s position. While it might have been advantageous to run in the opposite direction, he didn’t want any of his own bullets to be headed that way. So he ran directly down the street, twisting over his shoulder to look behind him as he pumped his legs, slamming his feet into the street to push himself forward harder and faster.

In the distance he saw a pair of headlights turn into the alleyway, shutting off as they did.

Great, Bannister said to himself, reinforcements.

It didn’t matter. He needed to get rid of this one guy.

The man rounded the edge of the van. JC got a glimpse of him. He was a little shorter than JC but heavily muscled. Not muscle-bound or a genetic freak, just a large, seemingly strong man who was holding his own AK-47 at his shoulder and ready to fire at JC.

JC dropped down as the bullets hit the vehicle he was in front of. He tucked and rolled towards the sidewalk. JC popped up again, trying to fire at the man, but the guy had the drop on him. All he could do was run, firing back at the sole pursuer.

In the background, JC thought he heard a vehicle accelerating faster and faster. He really wished they wouldn’t do that; it was only going to make things harder for him. As he ran he switched the AK-47 to full auto and began firing bursts at the man on the other side of the cars. There weren’t many options left for him. He was getting closer and closer to Braun’s position, he couldn’t stop and set up for a shot or else he’d be killed, he couldn’t not fire at the guy, he just had to keep moving forward. All his choices were bad, so better to choose one than to fail to choose.

JC stumbled and fell at the edge of the last car. The AK-47 was empty as it clattered to the ground in front of him. He struggled to gain his footing, falling backwards, the H&K MP7 at his waist flopping around on the single-point sling. He tried to grab it and put it into action, but he was too slow and he knew he was out of time.

The man rounded the corner of the last vehicle in the line, a Volkswagen sedan of some kind, pulling his AK-47 around as he twisted his body. JC was out of time. As his hands fumbled to get a purchase on the MP&, the man pointed the barrel of his gun at JC’s chest and his finger dropped from the trigger guard towards the trigger.

The only sounds of gunshots were behind JC. He flinched instinctively thinking the bullets were going to be entering his own body, but he opened his eyes just as quickly to see the big man with three red leaking dots in his midsection.

JC snapped his head around to see Braun sitting there, MP7 extended with both hands, his eyes wide, but mouth set in a firm line.

Bannister looked back to see the big man drop his rifle as he looked down to his midsection, his hands coming up to touch the holes that were there and leaking more red. He looked back up to JC, the shock on his face turning to anger. He started to reach for his waistband at the same time as he took a step forward.

The front of a white cargo van slammed into the man, throwing him a dozen yards down the street, as it came to a screeching halt in front of JC and Braun. The shooter rolled into a crumpled, twisted ball of arms and legs, not moving.

JC looked up at the interior of the van. Theo was hopping out, glancing over JC, seeing no holes and moving to help Braun. As JC struggled to wrap his brain around exactly what just happened, Theo walked past him with Braun carried in his arms like a child. “You wanna get the bags, boss?” Theo said, snapping JC back into the moment and action.

A minute later and they were driving down the street, swerving around the still crumpled body of the man who almost killed JC. Braun was in the back of the van, as was JC and their ever-dwindling supply of guns and weapons in the two duffle bags.

“So,” Porras said from the driver’s seat. “Where to, boss?”

JC looked at Theo who nodded to Braun’s feet.

“We need supplies,” JC said, “medical supplies. Can you take us somewhere safe for that?”

“You got it boss,” he said, putting the blinker on to turn left at the next light.

Theo moved from the passenger seat to sit back with Braun.

“Don’t worry, man,” he said, inspecting his feet. “We’ll get you fixed up and on the mend sooner than you know. I’ve seen worse from a walk at the beach.”

JC looked over to see Braun staring at him. Theo knew what was wrong with Braun on the outside, but he couldn’t guess what was behind that deep, heavy, nearly catatonic stare. JC did.

He went over to sit in front of him, almost falling due to the turn Porras made. He caught himself and sat close to him.

“I counted on you,” he said to Braun. “I asked you if you had my back, you said yes and when the time came, you stepped up.” He paused, knowing how hard it was for Braun right now. “You saved my life.”

“I…”

“Literally saved my life.”

“I just pulled the trigger, like you said.”

“You took action,” Theo said, figuring out what had happened in the seconds before they drove up, “when many would shrink from fear. That action took the life of someone intent on doing harm to you and to my friend. Your action saved the life of a man I hold dearer to me than any family.”

JC picked up Braun’s hand, placed it in his own in the bro-shake, leaned over and put his arm around Braun’s shoulder, his forehead against Braun’s.

“Thank you, Braun.”

He released him and sat back.

Theo clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get a hug from me later when you can really appreciate it.”

“I don’t think I want that,” Braun said, still slightly in shock at taking a man’s life.

“Nobody does,” Porras said from the front seat.

“But everybody gets one!” Theo said, grinning like a maniac.

JC sat back, relieved that for the time being Braun was back from the mental edge of taking someone’s life. In truth, the big man might have lived through it had he gotten adequate gunshot trauma care in time. But there was no guarantee of that. Besides, being hit by the van hadn’t helped his situation very much.

He glanced down at Braun’s feet. They were chewed all to hell. Theo was lying. It would take some time before they could fully heal. JC saw bits of glass embedded in the flesh along with the gravel and detritus from the street.

He didn’t once complain, JC said to himself. Maybe this rich man’s got more grit in him than I thought.

*****

Moco was broken. He could feel numerous bone ends grinding against each other that shouldn’t be whenever he tried to move. He could feel his belly getting bigger from the blood leaking into his gut from some perforated something somewhere. Sooner rather than later he was going to go into shock and, if he didn’t get put into an ambulance in the next few minutes, he was likely going to die.

But there was one thing he could do. He could reach out from the grave to the bastard who did this to him. He closed his mind to the pain his every movement brought him and pulled his cellphone slowly from his pocket. He pressed and held the “1” button. Put it to his ear as best as he could. Waited until the man on the other end picked up.

“Moco!” Roberto yelled at him through the phone. “Did you get those sonsabitches?”

“Roberto,” Moco managed to say. “Bannister.”

“What?” Roberto said.

“It was Bannister,” Moco forced out, losing strength with every syllable. “He did this.”

“Bannister?” Roberto said. “That little bitch that Varela put us on to?”

Moco couldn’t answer. He was losing strength quickly. Maybe it was the bullets, maybe the van, but he knew he was running out of time. While Roberto kept yelling questions at him through the phone, Moco tried to make the sign of the cross that his mother taught him back when he was five but his body was shutting down. He didn’t have the strength or the power.

“Chingalo,” he said with a cough as his body wheezed its last breath and his life drifted away into the night.

Chapter 63

It was a long night.

Porras and Theo found and then ran into an all-night pharmacy while Bannister and Braun stayed in the van. By the time they got back, Braun was sound asleep with JC watching over him. They made a series of stops at 24-hour grocery stores for some food, water and any extra warm clothing items they might have inside. Another stop at newspaper boxes and the team was feeling halfway homeless but warm enough for the night.

Theo and Porras took turns driving while Braun rested and JC kept watch over everyone. The cavalry was supposed to roll in the following day around six in the evening. While the penultimate step in the plan required a meeting with the leadership of La Familia de la Plata, nobody thought it wise to go in there early. A few hours was a risk. Overnight and most of the day was a good way to get turned over to someone else for the reward.

The reward kept churning in JC’s mind. The longer the hours got, the more he figured it had to have been Williams. Varela wasn’t inventive enough; he was just about the muscle and brute force. Maybe one of the local gangsters put it out as a way to snag Braun in their dragnet as well, but it didn’t seem likely. The only purpose for it was to tighten the noose around Bannister’s neck and life, which is what Williams seemed bent on doing.

They’d talked about going to the US Embassy. Truthfully, it was Braun asking. The consensus they came to was the embassy staff would eventually have to turn them over to the local authorities due to their crimes in the country. None of them had diplomatic immunity which meant they’d fry. Although JC and Theo didn’t mention it, were they to go into the embassy, Porras would be left out in the cold which, based on what they’d done, would likely be a death sentence.

Braun rolled over next to JC. It was coming up on four in the morning. They’d found an isolated spot in a decent neighborhood and parked around two. Daybreak was still a few hours away. Porras had bribed the pharmacy for some local version of oxycontin to help Braun past the pain and let him sleep through the night. After he was knocked out, Theo told JC the truth. Braun’s feet would heal but some of the cuts were deep into the small muscles on the feet and, if not healed right, might continue to cause trouble walking afterwards.

JC and Theo discussed convincing Braun that it wasn’t his bullets that killed the man. Porras squashed their idea. He was right. In the moment of life or death, he decided to live. Nobody could tell if he was protecting JC or in fear for his own life. But by telling him his actions had no appreciable result, it made them impotent and misguided.

Porras had used a lot more profanity than that, but his idea was right. Braun had earned both the good and bad that comes with protecting your life from someone intent on taking it. By taking that away from him, he might be left with only the bad and none of the good which would be just as psychologically damaging, if not more.

“Hey, boss,” Theo said from the front seat. “Catch some z’s. I got this.” Porras was fast asleep in the passenger seat.

“I’m good,” JC said without looking up.

“I ain’t asking,” Theo said. “We need you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow. So sleep. That’s an order.”

JC looked up at the man that had nursed him back from the edge of death more than once. Theo wasn’t smiling but JC knew his words were said from a place of concern, not usurpation.

JC sighed. “I’d love to sleep, but I’ve got this knot in my shoulders,” he said, “I just can’t get comfortable. You think you could, you know give me a massage or something?” Before he’d even gotten halfway through, Theo had turned back around and was cursing at him.

“Don’t sleep, then,” Theo said. “Go into the belly of the beast tomorrow off your game, see what it gets you.”

“Just, like, five minutes, man,” JC said, trying not to laugh, “you know, work out the knots.”

“It’ll get you shot the hell up,” Theo said, “that’s what it’s gonna get you. You’re laying there, leaking, looking up at the sky you’re gonna ask yourself, ‘How did this happen?’” Shaking his head in half anger, half humor. “It happened because when you had the chance to rest up, you thought it’d be better to come with the jokes.” He turned back to JC. “Jokes won’t save your ass, and I’ll be damned if I step up for that job… again… tomorrow, not after the way you’ve treated me.”

JC wanted to keep lobbing jokes and jabs back and forth with his old friend like they did in the old days when it was just them, nobody else, but the crushing need for sleep was overwhelming him.

“Sorry, Theo,” he said. “Just having some fun. Wake me up in three hours, would you?” JC laid down, putting some of the newspapers over him for a little extra warmth.

He didn’t know what Theo said after that. As soon as his arm was tucked under his head, he was asleep.

“I got you, James,” Theo said as his old friend’s light snores filled the van. “Rest easy, brother.” He silently triple checked the H&K MP7 sitting in his lap, making sure it was loaded and set to select fire. “Old Theo’s on watch, nothing’s going to happen. Nobody’s that stupid.”

*****

The sound of helicopters overhead woke JC up. He popped up, the feeling of motion telling him they were driving again. The light streaming in through the windows told him he’d been asleep much more than three hours.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Theo said from the driver’s seat. “You hungry?”

JC looked around, getting his bearings. “Trackers,” he said, moving to Braun.

“Don’t worry,” Porras said, still in the passenger’s seat. “We got them all.”

“How could you?” JC said, scanning a still-sleeping Braun, looking for the places he planted the trackers back when they flew down from New York, the very trackers that the airmen used to locate them earlier. “I’m the one who put them on him.”

“Only thing he had on his body from NY was his watch,” Porras said, trying to calm JC. “We took it off and tossed it.”

“Billionaire comes down to do business in Argentina and ends up wearing convenience store t-shirts and slippers,” Theo said, shaking his head. He turned to Porras. “Your country’s a tough SOB.”

“You got that right,” Porras chuckled.

“Did you call your family?” JC asked Porras, settling back, realizing they were right.

“Happy and safe,” he said. “Eager to get out from under the threat of danger,” he said.

JC sat there for a minute, his mind wading through the cobwebs and catching up with what was happening around him. Nothing’s wrong, he told himself. He took a deep breath. Except, of course, being stuck in a foreign country with an array of forces against you.

He smiled.

So what else is new?

“Hey, boss,” Theo said. “Speaking about getting out of danger, you want to let us in on your master plan?”

“That way we’re not standing around with our dicks in our hands come go time,” Porras said.

JC turned to Porras. “What did you say?” Although Porras’s English was excellent, he didn’t often utilize that type of slang. “Did Theo teach you that?”

Porras looked at Theo. “Did I say it right?”

“Perfect,” Theo said, giving him the “OK” sign.

Porras looked back at JC. “Yeah, no dicks in our hands,” he said with a smile. “I don’t think I’d like that very much.”

JC shook his head, dodging Theo’s question. “What I want to know,” he said, “is where’s a good place to get some breakfast around here? You know, sausage, eggs, potatoes, some bread, some tea?” There was time to tell them all about his plan later.

Porras nodded. “I know what you need,” he said. “I’ve got just the place.”

Braun sat up slowly. “Did somebody say something about breakfast?”

Chapter 64

The elevators to the executive suite floor of Visionary Worldwide opened and Kevin Dobkin strode through like a champion returning to the field. He stopped at the front desk, checking for messages, packages or mail.

“Everyone’s looking for you,” Duncan Wagner, the front desk majordomo said.

“Who’s everybody?” Dobkin smirked as he glanced through the handful of envelopes.

“Nagahashi, Barendsz, Scorel, Pourbus,” Duncan said, ticking them off his fingers one by one, “Mrs. Braun.”

“Is Gibbons around?” he asked.

“Haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon,” Duncan said. He glanced around conspiratorially. “They’re all looking for your head.”

Dobkin winked at the young, slim man. “I think my head will be just fine,” he said, walking past the man’s desk.

Dobkin made his way to his office. Although he knew he’d done nothing officially wrong, he did choose to avoid walking past the conference room. No need to start that fight with whomever wanted to call him on his absence just yet.

At about three o’clock the day before, Dobkin had left his cellphone in the office and taken the back stairs down to the parking structure. He’d left his BMW in its assigned spot and hailed a taxi, heading down to Chinatown. He’d stopped by his favorite noodle shop, gotten a bowl of pan-fried noodles with shrimp and a paper bag that held the first part of his recharge cocktail: a bottle of promethazine and codeine syrup, a handful of Wellbutrin and some Viagra.

He headed off to find the closest four-star hotel bucking to be a five-star and rented out the penthouse. He used his secret alias, Tony Bregman, complete with credit cards and a driver’s license, as he didn’t want anyone hunting him down. He called his favorite escort service and had them send the final part of his recharge cocktail: two high-class escorts, one Eastern European and one Asian, both tall, both without surgical enhancements, both clean and without addictions and both as close to a ten as possible.

The cough syrup was to give his head a fuzzy, disconnected feeling, the Wellbutrin was to counter the sedative effects of the syrup and the Viagra was for what Viagra was for. The women were there to complete the final piece in his personal jigsaw puzzle designed to relieve himself of all tension and wake up early the next morning refreshed and ready to charge hard back into the world.

Which is exactly how he felt at seven twenty-three in the morning when Bernard Nagahashi, Esq., walked into his office. The man did not look happy.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Dobkin looked up, feigning surprise when what he really wanted to take his giant fist and pound the man into the floor.

“I felt ill,” he said. “I needed to recharge.”

Dobkin knew nothing really important was going to happen while he was gone. Puga had relayed nothing of value the day before. His forces were looking for Braun, nothing more to report. Mercado was, oddly, also on radio silence. In truth, the only news that might come up while he was gone was news of the contract being signed or Braun being dead. Neither one required his presence in the intervening hours. He carried no guilt about his actions or absence whatsoever.

Nagahashi stared at him, still standing in the door of his office.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You went and got a bowl of noodles and a paper bag. What’s the place? 88 Noodle House on Doyers?”

Nagahashi knowing the place where Dobkin got his “refresh cocktail,” as he called it, hit him like a punch to the nose. He’d been punched in the nose before, however, and he moved past the shock.

“Nothing was going to happen, and nothing did happen,” Dobkin said, taking his phone from his desk and scanning through the messages he’d missed over the past sixteen hours.

“But how would you know that?” Nagahashi asked, the wheels turning in his head. “How could you know that?”

Dobkin ignored him. While Nagahashi was on the board and he technically could organize Dobkin’s removal from the company, he wouldn’t dare, not in this delicate time. If Braun turned up dead, the desired outcome Dobkin was paying millions of dollars to achieve, then he’d have enough power to counter anything that Nagahashi might have on him, 88 Noodle House or otherwise.

“Why are you so cavalier about this?” Nagahashi asked, his voice deepening with his concern. “You are the vice-president of this company. In times like these, you disappear for nearly eighteen hours?” He shook his head. “This borders on malfeasance.”

“Then assemble the board and do something about it, Bernard,” Dobkin said, tossing his phone on his desk as he swiveled his chair to face the man. “Nothing has changed with Braun’s situation, we’re all playing a waiting game and I needed to unwind.”

“If Tyler were here,” Bernard said, “you would be gone by week’s end.”

“But he’s not, and you don’t have the votes,” Dobkin smirked. “Listen, Bernard, you’re the old guard. Tyler comes back, and he will, he and I are going to restructure a few things, one of which is you out of the picture.”

Nagahashi glanced over his shoulder and took two steps into the office. “You think I won’t spit on my hands and raise the black flag?” he asked, a dark twinkle in his eye. “I was one of the first investors in this company. Outside of Tyler and Olivia, I control the largest block of stock. The board? I know all their secrets, just like I know yours, and I know how to make them come around to my side of the fence.”

Kevin stood up and walked over to Nagahashi. The man was a shade under five foot ten while Dobkin was almost six foot five. He towered over Nagahashi, his bulk and muscles intimidating to most men. He stood there looking down at the smaller, older man. Sure, Nagahashi was fit, but he was no match for the physicality of Dobkin.

“You can bark all day, little doggy,” Dobkin said, “but you’re never going to bite a damn thing.”

Nagahashi gritted his teeth together, his upper lip curling back. His right hand slammed up into Dobkin’s crotch and grabbed hold of the man’s testicles in a death grip. Dobkin gasped and bent over at the waist, his eyes wide and his hands desperately yet delicately trying to remove Nagahashi’s hand from the extremely sensitive place it was latched on to.

He couldn’t. Nagahashi’s wrists were weathered oak, his fingers the talons of an eagle. The more Dobkin tried to disentangle Nagahashi’s hand, the harder Nagahashi squeezed.

Dobkin was now at Nagahashi’s eye level and the man was staring deep into his eyes with pure malevolence.

“You’d better hope I never bite,” Nagahashi snarled, “because I won’t just nip at your ankles, boy. I’ll tear out your goddamn throat and bask in the glory as your blood runs down my chest.” He squeezed a fraction of an inch harder, eliciting a half-groan/half-squeal from Dobkin. “I find out you did anything to go against Visionary or Tyler Braun and I’ll rip your balls off.” He leaned in close to Dobkin’s ear. “Literally,” he growled.

And like that, he released Dobkin with a small backward shove, turned on his heel and walked out of Dobkin’s office.

*****

Fifteen minutes later and Dobkin was sprawled out on the leather sofa in his office, the door closed, a bag of ice on his testicles, dialing Puga for an update.

“I’ve paid you a helluva lot of money for ‘nothing yet,’” Dobkin growled.

“I’ve got every friendly police captain pounding the streets looking for anyone that might fit Bannister’s or Braun’s description,” Puga said. “The ongoing gang war holds back our ability to move freely but also grants us the freedom to check any and every one we want to.” He paused. “The money you’re paying gives the captains a lot of incentive to find them.”

“Understand one thing, Jon,” Dobkin said, wincing as a twinge of pain shot up into his stomach. “You don’t find them, there’s nothing else.”

Puga said nothing for a beat. “You think threatening me will spur me to further action?”

“It wasn’t a threat,” Dobkin said, “simply reminding you of the details of our arrangement.” He paused. “However, if I feel you’ve taken all this money from me and did nothing with it, I might be inclined to drop a little more money, send down somebody to take back a measure in retribution.” He paused again. “Now that’s a threat.”

“Not very friendly at all, is it?” Puga said. It sounded like he was smiling.

“It’s business, amigo,” Dobkin said, the Spanish word sounding like an insult, “nothing more.”

Dobkin hung up the phone and tossed it to the other end of the sofa. He switched hands on the ice bag, trying not to jostle it too much.

*****

“There it is again,” Rantilla said.

“You’re right,” Koerber said, looking at the phone numbers streaming up the screen. She paused the feed, highlighting the target number and the phone number that called it. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.”

“Believe that,” Rantilla said, pointing at the screen in minor triumph. He turned to Koerber. “Who’s gonna call her?”

“Nope,” Koerber said, raising her hands. “It’s all you. You bet me, I was wrong, you’re right, so you call her.”

The triumph of being right fell from Rantilla’s face as he realized the implications of what he’d discovered hit him like a fist to the gut.

“If I’m right, why do I feel like dirt?” he muttered as he picked up the phone and dialed Gibbon’s phone number.

Chapter 65

Roberto stood there, watching as the bodies of twelve of his men lay on the rough wooden table he’d put together at the last minute. It was really just five four-by-eight sheets of thick plywood supported by sawhorses, but it did the trick. Scores of people were crowded around them, moving past to pay their respects and to be seen paying their respects. Many of the dead had been part of La Izquierda for most of their life. There were a lot of tears.

Family members were excluded. After Moco’s call, Roberto had ran over to the source of the gunfire to find his soldiers laying on the alleyway battlefield, dead. Moco had insisted Roberto stay back during the initial assault and now he owed his life to his dead childhood friend. It was a debt he planned to repay, but first he needed to use the corpses of his men, including Moco, to inspire the living to greater action.

“Follow me,” Roberto said, moving for the front door of the bar he’d set up shop in. It was owned by the gang and served as their principal meeting place. It was, however, far too small for the speech he needed to make. He needed to be heard and, more importantly, seen by all those assembled. The spectacle was as important as the words.

He climbed up on the roof of his burned-out Nissan 300ZX. He had it towed here soon after the bodies were delivered. The neighborhood identified him with the vehicle. However, if he could use it to show them that he was still standing, still fighting, still willing to go into battle, he could prove himself invincible in their minds.

“Last night,” Roberto said, his voice loud enough to carry to most of the people assembled. He estimated a hundred and fifty, but it could be closer to two hundred. “Last night, we were attacked. Just some good, Los Interesantes boys minding their business and we were cut down in the street.” He shook his head, disgusted at the turn of events. He saw a number of the women and some of the men cross themselves.

“My best friend,” Roberto yelled, “side-by-side since the first day off school!” He paused, pretending to be overcome with emotion. “Moco!” he howled to the sky, the false emotions squeezing real tears from his eyes. “He died in my arms, in these hands!” he said, raising his hands to the crowd. He dropped them to his side in defeat, heaved a heavy sigh from his chest then looked up. “With his dying breath,” Roberto said, “he told me who committed this heinous act of cowardice.”

“Who?” yelled one man from the crowd, the cry taken up by others.

“We’ll kill ‘em!” another young bravado-filled cry rang out in the street, affirmed by others.

“Chino,” Roberto said, “Paco, Bigoton,” he said. Three men limped forward, one on crutches, the three surviving members of the previous night’s assault. “Did you see who attacked us last night?”

The three men all looked up to Roberto, nodding.

“Si, Roberto,” they all said.

Roberto nodded down to them, granting them permission. As they turned to the crowd, Roberto said to the assembled, “Tell them who brought down this travesty on our good, kind, boys.”

“La Familia de la Plata,” Paco said then spat on the ground to get the name of the now-hated enemy out of his mouth. He steadied himself on his crutches and stared out at the people assembled before them, the truth off the lie buried deep in his heart.

“La Familia de la Plata,” Bigoton said through his heavy moustache, followed by Chino with his high-toned yell of the gang’s name.

Roberto shook his head. Paso was chosen to speak first because of the crutches and because his delivery was the most believable when they practiced earlier. Bigoton and Chino were the last two men coming out of the apartment complex when Roberto’s sports car had exploded. They hadn’t seen who was involved and were willing to believe whatever Roberto told them.

“La Familia de la Plata,” Roberto said, “comes into our neighborhood, kills our men, our boys, and slithers in the way like the river snakes they are.” He shook his head, his mouth curling down into a frown. “They think that because they control the waterway, they control the smuggling, that they control the city? Well, no more!” Roberto’s voice had been rising slowly into a full-throated yell of defiance against the gang that had never hurt them once. “No more will we suffer under the crush of their booted heel.” He dropped his voice low. “For today,” he said, his voice beginning to rise again, “this very hour, we flood into their neighborhood, take over Palermo, and drive La Familia de la Plata into the river they call home.”

The crowd cheered in their adulation of the man. Even Paco, who knew the truth, raised his crutches in the air in celebration of the plan that would get more men killed and likely achieve little. La Familia was too well funded and too well-armed to justify going against in any normal time. But if there was a time, it would be now when the streets were wracked with daily gunfights and mayhem across Buenos Aires.

In two minutes, Roberto was off of his burned-out car, walking through the throng of men and women who adored him as a leader and protector and only wanted to touch him, perhaps catch a fraction of his greatness.

Within five minutes he was alone in the bar with Flaco and the three other men in the gang he trusted. It was a war room, a time for planning the assault they would commence within the hour.

Twenty minutes later and the men were all out in the streets, gathering their troops, save Flaco.

“You have a special, mission, Flaco,” Roberto said, going behind the bar and grabbing a bottle of whiskey along with two glasses.

“Anything, Roberto,” Flaco said.

“La Familia didn’t kill those men,” he said, nodding to the dead bodies still laid out on the plywood.

“But…” Flaco said, fading wisely before he accused Roberto of being a liar. “Who?”

“Bannister,” Roberto said.

Flaco nodded, the name widely known as the target of the rumored million-dollar bounty. “How many men did he have with him?”

“None,” Roberto said. Pouring a shot for Flaco.

Flaco downed the shot, placing the glass back on the bar for another, which Roberto poured.

“Your mission, Flaco,” Roberto said, “is to get Bannister and bring him back alive.”

“I am just one man,” Flaco said. “It won’t be easy.”

“Which is why I choose you,” Roberto said, lifting the glass and tipping it towards Flaco before downing the shot. “You have friends, family connections throughout the city and La Familia de la Plata. With the airports closed, if this sonofabitch is going to leave the city, it has to be by the river,” Roberto stared at him long enough to be uncomfortable. “You must be the one to bring Bannister to me.”

Flaco nodded and downed his shot, waiting as Roberto refilled the glasses.

“And it is also why the million-dollar bounty will be all yours,” Roberto said.

“That is too generous, Roberto,” Flaco said. “Even for you.”

Roberto shook him off. “I will gladly pay it to bring back the dog who did this to our men.”

Two minutes and two empty shot glasses later, Flaco walked from the bar with Roberto staying behind to watch over the men who died under him. He stared at each one, but his mind was on the future, on what could be done if they actually succeed in taking over just a part of La Familia’s territory.

And also what he would do once Bannister was broken and kneeling before him.

*****

As Flaco drove down the street in his four-year old Ford Fiesta he pulled out his cellphone. Roberto was an amazing speaker and a good leader. He was fair with his men, but he was also a liar. He lied to cover his ass, which was understandable, but he lied about things he didn’t need to lie about. And nearly every time Flaco had seen him set up or kill one of his own men, he’d lied to him right before about something that could have just as easily been taken care of with the truth.

The number he called rang so much he almost hung up.

“What?” the voice on the other end said.

“Don’t hang up, just listen,” Flaco said quickly. “How close are you to the big man?”

“Ain’t none of your business, dog.”

“If you can bend his ear, I need a meeting with him,” Flaco said. “Right now, cousin.”

“Don’t call me that,” his cousin Leandro said. “We share blood but nothing else.”

Flaco and Leandro grew up together, inseparable to the point people thought they were twins. That is, until Leandro’s father got a better job and was able to move his family into the more upscale Palermo neighborhood. It was the poorest part of Palermo and a scant half mile out of the Villa Crespo neighborhood that Los Interesantes ran, yet it was worlds apart. As both boys grew older, joined gangs and grew even more polarized, they rarely talked.

“Roberto is blaming La Familia for murdering twelve of our men last night in La Izquierda territory,” Flaco said, laying it all on the line and ensuring his slow, painful death should anyone in Los Interesantes hear of his betrayal.

“We didn’t.”

“I know,” Flaco said. “It wasn’t La Familia. It was someone else.”

“Who?”

“Bannister,” Flaco said.

“The guy with the bounty on his head?” Leandro asked. “Let him come, we’ll happily take the million dollars.”

“You’re not listening,” Flaco said. “ Los Interesantes is crossing your border within an hour.”

“Because?”

“Because Roberto stepped on his dick and needs to blame someone else instead of admitting his failure of leadership,” Flaco said. “He’s pinning the deaths on your heads and he’s crashing the gates to try and take you over.”

He heard movement on Leandro’s side. It sounded like he was walking somewhere.

“Let them come,” Leandro finally said into the phone, his voice low. “We’ll tear you apart.”

“Bannister is coming, too.”

“What?” Leandro said, his voice slightly less full of bravado.

“Roberto thinks La Familia is Bannister’s ticket out of the city and I think he is probably right.” Like clockwork, a helicopter flew over Flaco’s car. “The airport’s closed down, no way a couple of gueros are heading over the Andes.”

“We’re ready,” Leandro said.

“Bannister took down Moco and his crew,” Flaco said, turning left onto Avenida Juan B. Justo and heading towards Palermo. “Eleven of the hardest killers in our neighborhood, plus Moco, cut down by one guy.”

Leandro finally shut up with his rejoinders of how ready La Familia was. While Flaco had more total kills under his belt, Moco was a legendary tough guy in Buenos Aires. His death sobered Leandro. Flaco could hear Leandro’s thoughts because the same thought kept running through his own head: If Bannister could take out Moco, what chance do I have?

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Flaco said. “Less if traffic is good.” He paused, the words he was about to say heavy on his tongue. “I think I need to speak with El Viejo.”

Leandro was quiet for so long that Flaco almost thought he’d hung up. He could, however, still hear his cousin breathing, then moving.

“I think you’re right,” Leandro said.

Flaco kept driving. He’d taken enough lives to know when his time was coming. In general, he felt there was no point in running from it, but you didn’t have to actually run to it with open arms.

When Roberto told him he’d give him all of the reward from Bannister, he knew it was a lie. There was no way a boss like Roberto would give his underling all of the reward and, frankly, it made no sense to promise it.

By Flaco’s reckoning, if he somehow managed to achieve his mission, to bring Bannister in alive, Roberto would be grateful. However, it wouldn’t be long until Roberto would be looking for a way to push him out from the gang or even murder him outright.

And if he failed to bring in Bannister alive?

Roberto would kill him for the failure.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized there was no upside to remaining loyal to Roberto when the man had already decided to cast poor Flaco out into the cold.

Within fifteen minutes, on the edge of Palermo territory, after convincing himself of it for the entire time he’d been driving, Flaco knew he’d made the right choice.

Chapter 66

About the same time that Flaco was betraying his gang to their rivals, Theo piloted their stolen cargo van into the parking lot of a deserted children’s park. To be honest, deserted wasn’t quite the right word. While it had once been a children’s park complete with rides and snack vendors and photo booths, the owners went bankrupt years ago. The property had been passed from corporation to corporation, nobody quite willing to put the money into it to bring back the grandeur of years gone by. Instead, each successive shell company held it as long as they could until the losses outweighed their investment and, after a few years of that, they sold it to the next shell company looking to either make millions or utilize it as a guaranteed tax write-off.

That didn’t mean the place was deserted. Seven years ago La Familia de la Plata had taken up residence and somehow never left. The park was situated right on the Rio Plata with a dock already built into the river. Originally designed to provide children and families a place to pilot swan boats and various paddle boats around a closed off section of the river, the dock provided La Familia with a convenient place to offload their illicit cargo. It was also an excellent place to load up their outgoing shipments. Big ships would never be able to dock there, but it was fine for a wide variety of smaller boats.

The parking area was large, built for record-breaking crowds in the summer, but instead there were about three dozen vehicles of all makes and model, old and new, busted and cherry, all mixed together. Theo didn’t bother looking for a space. He drove right up to the front entrance and put the vehicle in park.

Within seconds they were surrounded by a crew of maybe a dozen hard-looking young men, every one of them with a gun pointed at the van. Theo glanced over his shoulder to JC.

“You ready, boss?”

JC nodded, putting all the weapons they had back into the two duffle bags. Theo looked at Braun who also nodded. Theo leaned over and clapped Porras on the thigh, eliciting a grimace from the man as the movement pulled at his healing gunshot wound. Theo chuckled, his infectious nature forcing Porras to do the same.

“Then let’s mount up, boys,” Theo said, opening his door very slowly, his hands raised so as to not cause any off the gun-toting men to be any further on edge. Porras did the same while JC slowly opened the cargo door of the van, letting it slide back while he and Braun had their own hands raised as the door revealed their locations.

There were two men stationed outside the cargo door of the van. Their eyes grew wide as they realized who was in the back of the van. They both smiled toothy grins as they began counting the possible financial windfall that just fell into their laps.

“We’re here to see your boss,” Porras said to them.

The men looked dejected. While there was no way they could somehow turn Bannister and Braun in for the reward money, they obviously had briefly thought of it.

“And bring our two bags,” Theo said over his shoulder while the men walked them past the offset Jersey barriers and into the park.

JC and Braun said nothing, as planned. They were the bosses and neither one of them spoke Spanish very well. As they walked down the overgrown pathways, nature taking back what man intended to keep, JC hoped the meeting went as he planned. There were a lot of balls up in the air, all waiting to either be caught successfully by him or to come bouncing down around him.

It just takes one slip, he said to himself, so make sure everything is on point.

As he walked into the belly of the beast, he smiled.

Everything’s going to turn out just fine, he said to himself.

Chapter 67

The Department of State Gulfstream G550 came in for its final approach at Carrasco International Airport in Ciudad de la Costa. Adjacent to the capital Montevideo and part of the Greater Montevideo Metropolitan Area, Ciudad de la Costa sits on the Rio de la Plata and is bordered on either side by two smaller streams. Primarily a resort town, it is often overlooked by the vibrant cultural hotspot of Montevideo. It is however, quiet and surrounded by lush greenery, despite being known for its fine sand.

Diane LaRocca looked out the window. The land was fairly flat with lots of green, but it wasn’t like she expected much of anything else. All she was really itching to do at this point was get the hell off the plane and moving in the direction of the action.

“What do you see,” the other passenger on the plane asked her.

“Nice place,” LaRocca said, glancing back out of the window.

“Great,” the woman said. “Now, what do you really see.”

“Whole lotta nothing,” Diana said after a beat.

“That’s a relief,” the woman said, leaning back from the window. “Thought maybe they gave me the shit seat. Looks like they gave it to both of us.”

LaRocca smiled and held in a chuckle.

The two hadn’t spoken a dozen words between them since they’d gotten on the plane outside of DC. LaRocca had waited in the hangar for almost an hour until a limousine pulled up, the woman popping out and heading to the plane with an assistant carrying her bags after her.

The woman stopped at the stairs to the plane, looked around, saw LaRocca and said, “Come on, let’s go. We’re taking off.”

LaRocca knew who she was, or at least her name. Holstrom sent her a photo with the name of Hailey Gibbons but nothing other than that. The only words she’d heard Gibbons speak was when she got a call a few hours outside off Uruguay. Despite trying to not listen to Gibbon’s side of the conversation, it was impossible not to in the confines of the narrow jet.

“Hello? You’ve gotta be kidding me… No, you did right. Listen, I need you to call someone directly and tell them this… No, someone else.” She read off a phone number then said, “Call them and tell them exactly what you told me. His name’s Ingrassia.”

Director of the CIA Ingrassia, LaRocca had asked herself at the time. Interesting.

“Tell him everything, answer his questions, give him your number for any follow up, both you and Koerber… Yes, you can go home, but tell Roa and Toender they’re in charge until you two get back… Yes, we’re still on lockdown… Everything continues as normal but you do not answer to anyone but me and the Big Man… Is he on the list? The list is two people, Big Man and myself. Little Big Man isn’t on the list, so you do not answer to him… After what you just discovered you even have to ask? Stall him, dodge him, ignore him, straight up tell him to go pound sand, I don’t care what you do but he or anyone else is not to get one scintilla of information about anything you’ve discovered until I or the Big Man authorize it… I just authorized you to speak to Ingrassia, John, so yeah, it means you can talk to him about it…Get some rest… and good work, Rantilla.”

After Gibbons hung up the phone, she looked over to LaRocca and said, “Sorry, work.”

And that was the sum total of any and all communication between them until now.

“You know what we’re doing down here?” Gibbons asked LaRocca.

“Kind of,” LaRocca said. She wasn’t avoiding the question, but neither was she trying to get trapped into revealing mission details she wasn’t supposed to.

Gibbons fully turned to her, staring her down, evaluating her.

“You bring your swimsuit?” Gibbons asked.

“Doesn’t everyone when they come to Uruguay?” LaRocca said with a smile.

Gibbons stared at her for a beat, turned to her bag, took out an envelope and waved it in the air in front of her. Even though Gibbons was moving it, LaRocca could see the Department of State seal on the upper left-hand corner. The hand-printing of Gibbons’ name on the envelope matched the style of the hand printing LaRocca’s identical letter.

“You get one of these?” Gibbons asked.

“One of what?” LaRocca asked, squinting her eyes. “What’s that?”

Gibbons stared at her for three seconds, then broke into a grin. “Oh, you think you got jokes?” Shook her head as LaRocca grinned and laughed as well, the ice finally breaking between the two. Gibbons put her letter of diplomatic status back in her bag then turned back to LaRocca.

“So, you ever do one of these?” Gibbons asked.

“Seen ‘em done,” LaRocca said with a smile. “You?”

“Same.”

“So…” LaRocca said. “Rock, scissors, paper?”

Gibbons smiled and laughed. “Why not?”

LaRocca lost.

“Thank God,” Gibbons said. “I’ve got a bad knee and this would probably screw it up again.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Pussy out in front of the new girl?” Gibbons scoffed. “Hell no.”

“Oh, I’m the new girl?”

“New to me,” Gibbons said with a side smile. “I’m Hailey Gibbons,” she said, extending her hand.

“Diane LaRocca,” she replied, glad that the two were actually talking. The next few hours would likely be intense and she at least wanted someone friendly on her side.

“So,” Gibbons said, “how do you know Theo?”

“Theo?” LaRocca said, nonplussed. “I don’t know anybody named Theo.”

“Good,” Gibbons said, settling back into her seat with a satisfied smile on her face as the seatbelt light came on.

Chapter 68

A helicopter buzzed overhead again. It was the second in the past ten minutes. Theo glanced up then over to JC but JC shook his head slightly. Nothing to worry about. Theo shrugged. Alright. JC nodded to the group of men walking up to the stage. Game time, this is what we need to worry about. Theo nodded once, slightly. You got it, boss.

After being brought into the repurposed children’s park, JC, Theo, Porras and Braun were brought to the stage area of the park, near the river. JC imagined this was where the mascot-wearing dancers and the singers with the children’s songs entertained the visiting kids. Probably multiple shows per day with special numbers in the mid afternoon and late evening when the place was closing for the night. There might even have been a fireworks show.

Now it was simply a stage with a canopied shade high above it. The metal benches that served as seating went up the tiered hillside for perhaps two dozen rows. It was protected from the sun with a cool but humid breeze coming in of the river. Honestly, it seemed like a nice place to spend an afternoon.

I can see why Henri uses it, he said to himself. He guessed it was where Henri entertained most of his guests. The man probably had a secure facility where he lived nearby and, if JC had to guess, what would serve as offices behind the stage area that were once dressing rooms.

But right now he needed to focus on the next few minutes of his life. A lot of the things he was juggling were about to come crashing down if he didn’t have the dexterity to catch them all. And everything started with Henri Rodriguez.

JC couldn’t remember seeing a more unremarkable baby-faced person before. He stood perhaps five eight, light complexion, was neither thin nor chubby, handsome or ugly. He did have a very young-looking face, but the eyes behind it were clear and dangerous.

With Henri were four other men. Two looked like thugs, one was tall and skinny and being shoved forward by the thugs. The other was about the same height as Henri but looked to be in his late twenties.

“Welcome,” Henri said, bringing a folding chair from the stack near the stairs he just came up, JC and his team were already sitting on folding chairs several feet apart. At each of JC’s shoulders was an armed guard, the same courtesy repeated for his other team members. JC tried to stand to greet the man, but was held in place by his guards, each one placing their hands on his shoulders and reseating him.

“You’ll have to forgive my men,” he said. “They both have families in Bolivia. In fact, when I heard it was you walking through my gates, I called them up in order to keep a special eye on you.” Henri winked at him. “What do you think about that?”

JC waited a beat and said, “I think your English is very good.”

Henri threw his head back, laughing. “Deepest, darkest moment of your life and you’re cracking jokes about my English?” He nodded. “Alright. Third through eighth grades in some dumpy small town south of Seattle.” Henri shrugged. “We done with the pedigree? Can we get to the part where I thank you?”

“Thank me?” JC said. “For what?”

“For the present, obviously,” Henri said, pointing at Braun. “Guy’s gotta be worth several million in kidnapping insurance, easy.” Henri scooted his chair closer to JC. “Maybe more if I push it. So again, thank you.”

“He’s not a present,” Bannister said. “He’s my partner, my friend, and he’s leaving with me, as are the other two men I brought here with me.”

“Is that so?” Henri said, trying hard to conceal his smile.

“It is,” JC said. “Not only that, you’re going to give me that boat of yours I see out there.”

Henri turned to look at the dock. While there were some smaller boats tied up to it, there was also a very sleek, very fast boat that looked exactly like the kind a smuggler would not only use but enjoy.

“That boat?” Henri said, turning back to Bannister, pointing over his shoulder to the dock. “My Cigarette Marauder 50 SS? My million-dollar boat? I’m just going to give it to you?”

Another helicopter buzzed in the distance. JC noticed that they weren’t actually coming over the children’s park. In fact, they seemed to be avoiding it. While that was good, that could all change in a matter of minutes.

“Yes,” JC said, “you are. You’re also going to load it to the gills with weapons, ammunition, rocket launchers, whatever we ask for.” He paused, smiling. “We’ll give you a list.”

Henri leaned back, looking at the men around him. He forced out a few peals of laughter, but it sounded false and his men didn’t join in with him.

“So I’m going to give you all this weaponry, my million-dollar boat-”

“Come on, dude, it’s half a mil, tops,” Theo said. “That thing’s, like, five years old. Don’t front that it’s something it ain’t.”

Henri looked over at Theo, surprised but obviously enjoying the insanity of what these men were doing.

“I paid a million dollars plus for it, so if I say it’s a million-dollar boat,” Henri said, “it’s a million-dollar boat.” He turned back to JC. “So I give you these things… is there anything else? My firstborn son? Pint of my blood?”

“No,” JC said, trying to make his voice as simple and disarming as possible. “Just you being out of human smuggling. Forever.”

The smile on Henri’s face faded. He picked up his chair and moved it closer to Bannister. The man, while playing at magnanimity, was on the edge of real anger. JC knew he needed to be cautious. Better for Henri to think he was crazy or simple in the head than a threat. At least until it was too late.

“Why?” Henri said slowly. “Why would I do that?”

“The days of smuggling being an honorable tradition are over,” JC said. “It’s a modern world and a modern man such as yourself should change with the times.”

“Over?” Henri said, gaining back a measure of his theatrics. “I’m feted by politicians and titans of industry. Why would I give that up?”

“Politicians?” JC asked. “Titans of industry, like, Mauricio?”

“He’s dead bu-”

“I know,” JC said. Kept to himself his knowledge of how the man died.

Henri leaned back for a few seconds, then leaned in again.

“So, let me get this straight,” he said. “I give you a million-dollar boat,” he said, looking at Theo who gave him a disinterested shrug. “A million-dollar boat that is going to be shot up, seized or more likely sunk.”

“Yes.”

“And I have to divest myself of all my traditional businesses?”

“Not all of them, just the ones that are connected to human trafficking and sex slavery.”

“So, the most profitable ones,” Henri said. “And what do I get in exchange for this?”

“My good graces,” JC said, smiling the smile of a simple man.

“That’s worth far less than you think it is,” Henri said.

“And the good graces of my friends.”

“Your friends?” Henri said, his gaze going from JC to Theo then to Porras and Braun then back to JC. “I doubt their good graces could help me after they’re dead.”

“You ever hear of the Alfonse family in the Netherlands?” JC said.

Henri nodded. “Of course. Everybody in my business knows of them. They were legendary.”

“Did you know that after the police received an anonymous tip, they were dredging parts of him out of the canals for weeks.”

“And you know this because?”

JC pointed at himself. “Anonymous tip.” He paused. “I put him there. Well, the pieces of him.”

“Bull.” Henri said. “No way.”

“Mauricio? One of those titans you were talking about?” JC said with a smile. “You know why he was assassinated?”

“Bad blood?”

“Human smuggling. The universe decided it was time for him to retire.” JC leaned forward. “Wanna know who pulled the trigger?”

“Let me guess,” Henri said, leaning forward conspiratorially. “You?”

“It was Joan.”

Henri visibly gulped. The men standing next to JC took a step back, removing their hands from his shoulder, looking around.

“She’s my good friend,” JC said. “In fact, she’s the one I tore apart the Alfonse family with.”

“Bullshit,” Henri said. “Everyone knows that was a crew of killers took that family down. Most say it was Spanish rivals.”

“Nope,” JC said. “She killed old man Alfonse. Reggie, the degenerate brother? Him, too. But it was our combined efforts that cut the Chinese pipeline off from the family and then dismantled it piece by piece until Alfonse was hiding out in a villa about fifty miles outside Strasbourg, deep in the Alsace.”

“No,” Henri said, “that’s a rumor.” His voice was losing both the theatrics it had earlier as well as the supreme confidence he walked onto the stage with.

“He tried to pass himself off as a worker,” JC said, leaning forward, “but the real villagers ratted him out within hours of our arrival.” He paused, staring into Henri’s face, watching the fear grow. “It was his hands,” JC said, reaching forward and grabbing Henri’s left hand, looked at it briefly before throwing it back just as the big men with guns grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back into the chair. “They were soft and his language was far too cultured.”

“Strasbourg is a long way from the canals of Amsterdam,” Henri preened thinking he’d found the catch in JC’s story.

“Joan drove the van,” JC said. “She was too emotionally involved. I was the one who tortured him and removed pieces of his body as we questioned him for information about his smuggling operation.”

“But you kept the pieces of his body to throw them into the canals?”

“It was his final request,” JC said, “that he be returned to his beloved Amsterdam.” He shrugged again. “I’m no monster.”

“Not like Joan?”

JC nodded. “Or my friends in the CIA.”

Henri roared in laughter, standing and shaking his head. The men around him joined in as well except for the skinny man. He looked increasingly nervous.

“This story keeps getting better and better,” Henri said, sitting back down. “You have friends in the CIA?”

“I do,” JC said.

“Are any of these people in the CIA?” Henri asked, his tone as if you were dealing with a small child.

“No, but my protégé is,” JC said. “And his new mentor.”

“And they are?”

“The mentor is number three in the CIA,” JC said.

“And your protégé is number four?”

“Hardly,” JC said, surprised at Henri’s ignorance. “He’s just started.”

Henri could barely contain his laughter at every word out of JC’s mouth. JC looked over both shoulders as if to make sure nobody was listening.

“But here’s the best part,” he said, his voice lowering.

“It is?” Henri said. “Then by all means, tell me.”

“You’re going to give me the things I ask, not for the reasons I’ve just outlined,” JC said, “although they are quite compelling.”

“Really?” Henri said, playing along. “Then what is the reason I’m going to do these things? Because you’ve appealed to my better nature?” He burst out laughing, the men around him joining in once again.

JC leaned forward. “You’re going to do the things I’ve asked,” he said, his smile disappearing, “because your auntie says, ‘Hello.’”

Henri’s laughter stopped in the blink of an eye. His jaw went slack and all the color drained from his face until he was ashen. JC didn’t move, just kept looking at the man, his outward face as calm and non-committal as possible while his insides were doing flip-flops, hoping against hope the trump card he just played wasn’t going to blow up in his face.

It took Henri a full twenty seconds to regain his composure.

“Everybody out,” he said, standing and throwing his chair off the stage into the bleachers.

One of the men protested, saying something to Henri in Spanish.

“Now!” Henri bellowed.

The men started moving for the exits without further question. JC saw the thin man start walking for Henri but the Bolivian men guarding him moments ago picked up the skinny man and carried him to the exits.

Henri stalked around the stage, going to the edge of the stairs and walking back and forth. He stopped, standing at the top of the stairs, scheming and snapping his fingers in a nervous tic. Finally he looked up to JC and beckoned him over. JC looked around him briefly as if to make sure Henri was indicating him, then walked over. Henri was agitated and he couldn’t look at Bannister directly, just out of the corner of his eye.

“You have powerful friends,” Henri said with a nod of respect. “Do you know the meaning behind what you said?”

“I didn’t ask,” JC said, “and wasn’t told. It wasn’t important to my purposes and the person who told me to say those words didn’t deem it necessary for me to know.”

Henri breathed a visible sigh of relief, the tension in his shoulders releasing. “You will get everything you asked for and more,” he said, shaking JC’s hand. “Now I have to ask,” Henri said, releasing the handshake and turning JC around to go back to JC’s crew, “did you really take out Moco and his boys by your lonesome?”

JC heard the helicopters buzzing in the distance but close. He needed to get out of there but still be respectful. Henri was the first step in a series of events that resulted in him and his men safe and sound far from the reach of the Argentinian military and police. He wasn’t there yet.

“Truthfully, Henri,” JC said, “I had help.”

“I knew it,” Henri said, giving JC the finger guns like they were old friends or office coworkers instead of two men with opposing agendas temporarily aligning for each of their advantage. “But still, that’s impressive.”

“I do appreciate that,” JC said, something telling him to get moving sooner rather than later. “But I’m pretty sure those helicopters you’re hearing are looking for us, so... if you don’t mind…”

“Of course,” Henri said. “Boat and some guns are what you need right now, correct?”

“Correct,” JC said, leaving the other issues off the table for now.

“Then come with me.”

Two minutes later Henri was opening the doors to a storage container near the dock but hidden under the cover of two old trees and a camouflage ghillie tarp.

“Take your pick,” Henri said, “as much as the boat can carry.”

The container was a veritable showcase for weapons of war. Battle rifles, hand grenades, claymores, rocket propelled grenade launchers, pistols, boxes of ammo and crates of explosives; everything JC needed to complete the next part of his plan.

A smile spread across Theo’s face. He hit Porras in the arm, then stepped forward into the storage container, rubbing his hands together.

“Looks like Christmas came early, Porras.”

Chapter 69

“You’re not hearing me,” the man with the pale skin and the mustache said again. “That bird’s not flying anywhere.”

“And you’re not hearing me,” LaRocca said, her nose inches from Mustache Man’s. “That helo’s in the air in three or you’re sipping margaritas in a stone hut a hundred miles from nowhere in the middle of Pakistan by next Tuesday.”

Mustache Man had been trying to undermine LaRocca and Gibbons’ mission since he’d picked them up at the airport. It had been a nonstop line of negativity from the man who introduced himself as Mr. Morris. He’d alternated from taking phone calls to making phone calls to telling them how bad things were right now in the area. By the time they’d gotten to the hangar where the Sikorsky Seahawk was currently sitting, the man had gone from negativity to straight up telling them they couldn’t take the helicopter up at all.

“We’re wasting time,” Gibbons barked, leaning over LaRocca’s shoulder. “We should have been in the air ten minutes ago.”

“Come on, Morris, what’s it gonna hurt?” Cisneros was the chief pilot of the Seahawk and had been trying to play peacemaker since the group arrived. His co-pilot and the two other crew members stayed back out of the fray, letting their pilot deal with the issue.

Morris turned his icy glare on Cisneros. “What’s it gonna hurt?” he said. “You boys landed not six hours ago in our illustrious DEA hangar,” Morris said, using air quotes around the last two words. “As you can see the DEA aircraft are a thirty-year old Cessna four-seater and that old Huey that hasn’t flown in at least a decade. You guys fly in what the vice-president of Uruguay has called a ‘combat helicopter,’ bringing it in low over the city with a full loadout and everyone from the president of the country on down is shitting themselves about what it means and what is going to happen.”

LaRocca wanted to reach out and wring the man’s pasty white neck. If she was right, he was likely CIA but more than likely a desk jockey instead of a field agent or anyone who actually did anything CIA-related outside the four walls of his particular office. He didn’t like people entering his fiefdom and upsetting his applecart. While she did understand where he was coming from to a certain point, they simply didn’t have time.

“Listen, Morris,” Cisneros said, “somebody had the pull to fly us in from the Seventh Fleet for this. Somebody else had the pull to get both of them diplomatic immunity.” He shrugged. “I mean, whatever the mission is, if it’s important enough to send these two civilians dow-”

“Pardon me,” LaRocca said, interrupting Cisneros, “but I’m Secret Service.”

“And I’m former Army,” Gibbons said, “currently a private security contractor.”

Cisneros nodded and turned back to Morris. “Like I said, if it’s important enough to send these two civilians down here, maybe it’s important enough to let them do their job?”

“It’s my ass on the line here if-”

“Then put it on the goddamn line instead of trying to cover it,” Gibbons barked.

Cisneros sidled up to Morris as the man stood there, steam nearly coming out of his ears. “At least call into HQ,” he said to Morris. “Get as high up the chain as you can go, try to confirm this. Sound fair?”

Morris pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialing a number. “You don’t know what kind of shitstorm you’ve started here.”

He put the phone to his ear, walking back inside the building. As soon as the door closed, Cisneros snapped his fingers at his men and started walking swiftly back to the helicopter. LaRocca and Gibbons followed after them, carrying their minimal bags with them.

“You’re not waiting?” LaRocca said as everyone piled into the aircraft, the pilot and co-pilot taking up their appointed positions while the two crewmen helped LaRocca and Gibbons get strapped in.

“We can wait if you like,” Cisneros said as he began readying the aircraft to fly, “but we’re taking off. JC Bannister’s in trouble and I’m not about to stand around while some pencil pusher tells me we can’t do our jobs.”

“Who told you about Bannister?” said LaRocca, the engine noise drowning out her words. The crew member closest to her handed her a headset. She put it on, plugged it in and repeated her question.

“My CO.”

“How did he know?”

“Apparently the little birdie who whispered in his ear to send us over here divulged that bit of info,” Cisneros said. “I heard that, I volunteered.”

“You know JC?”

“His father, Sergeant Thomas Bannister, saved my dad’s bacon once upon a time. He didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have been born.” He flicked some more switches and the rotors started to turn slowly, then faster and faster. “His son needs a helping hand then I am grateful to be in the position to lend it.”

“Your men?”

“Needed the practice,” the crewman next to her said with a smile

“We wouldn’t let him run some fool’s errand without backing him up,” the co-pilot said. “Right, Cap?”

The two men fist-bumped without looking at each other. LaRocca sat back to let them do their work. She had bigger things to think about.

The crewman next to her handed her a Ziploc bag as the Seahawk lifted into the sky and Morris ran out of the hangar, waving at them

“What’s this for?”

“Your letter,” he said, focused on making sure everything else was set for the work they were about to engage in.

Chapter 70

The Cigarette Marauder 50 SS is named, partially, because it is fifty feet long. While it doesn’t look that big from a distance, the closer you get, the bigger it looks until you get next to one and realize how massive they really are.

This was good for JC and his team. The large size meant there was plenty of room for the weapons they would need. It also meant that there was plenty of engine for the power they would need to, hopefully, make it through what they needed to blast through.

Theo, Porras and JC were loading the boat while Braun stayed on board, hidden in the cabin. He was still a target for kidnaping and nobody wanted a pair of wandering eyes to rest overlong on his face and start getting visions of sugarplum fairies dancing in their heads. Plus, his feet were still chewed up as a result of the escape from Roberto’s crew.

JC made sure he was comfortable then handed him an H&K MP7 and said, “Anybody comes through that door that isn’t us, you know what to do.”

Braun had checked the select fire button on the left side of the firearm and sat back, feet raised to keep the pressure off of the bandages. He said nothing, just nodded at JC.

“So,” Theo said to Porras as the men worked together to load their getaway vehicle. “You ever drive a boat?’

“No,” Porras said, “never.”

“You’re perfect for the job.”

“I just said-”

“I hear it’s just like driving a hot rod with slick tires over a gigantic sheet of ice. Piece of cake.”

“I don’t think you’r-”

Theo clapped Porras on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine. I have full confidence in you.”

“You really are insane.”

“Insane would be trusting you to shoot your own countrymen out of the sky with these bad boys,” Theo said as he handed Porras a RPG launcher to stow in the boat.

“I wou-

“Hesitate,” Theo said, all congeniality gone from his voice and face. “The word you’re looking for is hesitate. You’d hesitate and that moment of indecision would cost us everything.” Theo stepped forward. “I’ve never driven a boat before in my life. But shooting helicopters out of the sky? I’ve done it once or twice.”

Porras blinked at him once, then twice. “You are probably the oddest man I’ve ever met in my life.”

Theo smiled and gave him a bear hug, then, with Porras still in his arms, he leaned back, looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Wait ‘till you meet our friend Duke,” before dropping him back to the boat.

“Don’t worry, boys,” JC said as he handed over another crate of rocket propelled grenades. “I’m driving.”

“Come on, dad,” Theo whined. “You never let me borrow the car.”

The men chuckled, taking the edge off the building tension. What they were planning was no small thing and it weighed on them. The pile of armaments they brought down to the dock from the storage container was almost entirely on the boat.

JC was glad. The sooner they were moving down river the better. Every moment spent in Argentina, he felt, brought them closer to arrest by the police, the military or capture by some gang or another that he couldn’t influence or fix his way out of. The helicopter flights seemed to be getting closer, but that could have been his paranoia setting in.

He heard a pop, then another, then a volley of the sound that was remarkably familiar.

“You hear that?” Porras asked as JC and Theo sped up the pace, getting the last of the weaponry on the boat.

“Yup,” Theo said, “means it’s time to go.”

Henri was running towards the boat, trying to hail them. He was surrounded by four heavily armed men although Henri himself carried no visible weapons. JC tossed the keys for the boat to Theo. Theo gave him a wordless thumbs up then directed Porras to hand him a weapon and get one ready for himself. The twin engines of the go-fast boat roared to life. There simply was no telling what might be happening and they weren’t about to let anything prevent them from getting out of there. If that meant JC had to jump for the boat as it took off from the dock, then so be it.

Henri’s men stopped about thirty feet from the boat, standing just on the land away from the dock. They were looking everywhere or danger. The sound of gunfire in the near distance continued and, in fact increased.

“Be safe,” Henri said, approaching JC with his hands open to indicate he was no threat. “You must leave now. The men you fought against last night, their gang is here to take over my territory.”

JC shook his hand.

“Did you really catch Alfonse?” Henri asked.

JC nodded. “Two-story house in Kolbsheim, southwest of Strasbourg,” he said, every word of it true. “Found him in the basement, crying like a little girl.” Bannister paused. “Don’t be like Alfonse,” he said with a quick shake of the head. “Be smart and remember our deal.”

“Don’t worry,” Henri said. “Everyone in my organization will understand and follow my lead.” He clapped JC on the shoulder then released the handshake. “I’d prefer you consider me a friend rather than a loose end.”

JC nodded, turning towards the boat.

“Come by and check in a month or so,” Henri called after him. “You can bring my auntie.”

JC waved over his shoulder, wondering if he would ever get to the bottom of that. He heard footsteps behind him and he whirled to see Henri running up to him.

“I forgot,” Henri said, hands outstretched again, nearly yelling to be heard this close to the boat’s engines. “The patrol boats on the Plata. Some will let you pass, some will not. This beauty can outrun them all, but they will swarm you and attempt to get in your path.” He smiled. “Just remember — they will move.”

JC hopped on the boat, getting into the pilot’s chair as Theo moved to the copilot position and Henri threw off the two ropes that held it to the dock.

“I’ll see you in a month,” JC yelled to Henri as he turned the wheel into the river and pushed the throttle forward. The boat shot into the river, the sounds of gunfire behind them disappearing as they moved into the flow of the river and the sound of the engines drowned out everything but what was close to them.

As they sped up, Porras reached forward from behind JC and Theo to tap Theo on the shoulder, pointing when the big man turned to look at him. Theo scanned where he was pointing, saw what he was indicating, then got JC’s attention.

“Company,” Theo said loudly as JC looked over his shoulder to see a phalanx of five Prefectura Naval Argentina fast patrol boats approaching them from behind.

Chapter 71

In truth, JC’s plan wasn’t complex. It wasn’t designed to be immune from legal challenge and he knew that it would likely get him and everyone involved in a fair amount of courtroom drama and diplomatic wrangling once the dust began to settle. He also knew it would get swept under the rug sooner rather than later as long as they managed to make it successfully through the maze of obstacles in front of them. The important thing wasn’t withstanding judicial scrutiny, it was getting the hell out of dodge.

The best iteration of his plan would be to slam the throttle of the Cigarette Marauder completely forward and take the go-fast boat down the Rio de la Plata at its top speed of more than a hundred and thirty-five miles per hour. It wouldn’t take long to be out into international waters and from there find a way to get a ride home.

But that was, in truth, wishful thinking. There was more than likely to be a fair bit of resistance from either a branch of the Argentinian military or police forces. Even if there wasn’t, floating around in the shipping lanes would be a great way to get chewed up into tiny pieces. But before they even had to worry about that, the needed to worry about running the gauntlet of whomever was arrayed against them, whether it was legitimate forces, a rogue Air Force squadron looking for payback, corrupt police forces or just the Coast Guard.

The second-best option would be to head over to Uruguay and try to escape under the protection of their laws simply because they weren’t Argentina. However, despite Uruguay’s fairly chill international reputation, there was no guarantee they would accept JC and his team into their loving arms and let them transition, consequence free, on towards New York.

It was just as likely they would either kick them back into open water or, even worse, arrest them and hand them over to Argentinian forces of some kind.

No, the best course of action would be to avoid all of those unpleasantries and still make it back to New York in one piece without legal issues.

However, the three patrol boats cruising down the river towards them made that possibility seem increasingly distant.

“What do we do?” Porras asked nobody in particular.

“Keep the weapons out of sight,” JC said over his shoulder. “They might be looking for someone else or just going for a ride.”

For about ten seconds it seemed like that might actually be the case. But when Theo pretended to be busy and turned around to check on the patrol boats without looking like he was checking on them, he said to JC, “They’re gaining on us.”

JC didn’t react immediately. There was every possibility the boats were just moving from one location to another. Maybe they were looking for someone else, maybe a lost boater. Perhaps they were simply on patrol and JC freaking out and slamming the throttle forward would be the thing to attract their attention.

“You gonna slow down?” Porras asked over the wind noise.

“Not yet,” JC said. He needed to see what happened in the next few minutes. Slowing down might be a good way to get them off their guard before dumping everything down the pipe and making the run he needed to make. The patrol boats had a fair amount of armament and he didn’t want to try to see if he could outrun their shelling.

He also didn’t want to get buck fever and pull the trigger before he had the shot.

*****

“Isn’t that Henri Rodriguez’s boat?” Lieutenant Silvio Molina asked.

“El Viejo?” Hidalgo, his second-in-command, said. “I think it is.”

“Does anybody on it look like Rodriguez?”

The men to his right and left both put binoculars to their faces, searching the million-dollar boat for a glimpse of the famous smuggler. Henri Rodriguez was protected by highly ranked and well-paid government agents and, as a result, the man was largely considered to be untouchable. His face was burned into the memories of all the men who patrolled the Rio de la Plata, or at least the honest ones.

“Doesn’t look like it, sir,” the man to his left said with the man to his right concurring.

One of the men on the smuggler’s boat turned around, pointing in the general direction of the patrol boats. A second man looked at the patrol boats then the pilot glanced over his shoulder at the three boats, all of which was within the bounds of what was reasonable action. Still…

“Hidalgo,” Molina said, “increase speed to intercept and overtake. Please let our fellow patrol boats know we’re going to pass Rodriguez’s boat without incident.”

Molina’s crew did as ordered, their actions taking place as if the entire boat and everyone on it were functioning as one smoothly oiled machine.

Nothing happened for about a minute other than the typical actions, reporting of said actions and chatter inside the wheelhouse of the patrol boat. Henri Rodriguez’s boat continued down the river on the path it was on

One of the men, a young seaman by the name of Bermejo, said, “Skipper, if Henri isn’t on the boat, shouldn’t we check? Interview the men on it? Make sure it isn’t stolen?”

All talk in the wheelhouse ceased. Nearly everyone, Molina included, turned to look at the young man. He glanced at some of the other men, but to his credit, he locked eyes with the skipper and said, “It would be our civic duty, yes?”

“We could make sure they have everything they need for a day on the river,” Molina said with a smile. “Offer our assistance, ensure they are not carrying any contraband.”

“It would be the polite thing,” Hidalgo said with a chuckle.

Molina knew about half his crew was on the take. That was the half that did not hold any leadership positions, and for good reason. The men who were higher ranked were anti-corruption crusaders, like himself.

“Alert our fellow patrol boats,” Molina said to the radioman. “We’re going to hail The Falcon and pull alongside.”

As his radioman did as requested, Molina felt an excitement he hadn’t felt in some time with his job. What had been just a simple tour of the river had suddenly turned into something far more interesting.

*****

“They’re catching up,” Porras said, pretending to watch something on the other side of the river but actually watching the patrol boats out of the corner of his eye.

“Probably going to pass us by,” JC said, hoping that by speaking the words out oud it would give it weight and maybe make it real.

“Falcon,” one of the patrol boats loudspeakers blasted through the early evening, “cut your engines. We are coming alongside.”

JC did nothing for a second, a smile tugging at his lips, wondering for a split second if he should just gun it and make a run for it. But he needed more information. Besides, the guns on the decks of each of the patrol boats were a formidable deterrent.

“Boss,” Theo said, “they said w-”

“Don’t need a translation, Theo,” JC said, shaking his head. “Didn’t figure they were saying ‘Have a nice evening.’”

He didn’t slow the engines, waiting to see what they might do, pushing it as far as he could. Every extra second, extra meter they were down river was beneficial to them. He counted to three in his head and then slowed the engines. He didn’t cut them as demanded, but slowed them quite a bit, maybe down to ten miles an hour.

“Should we move the weapons into the cabin?” Porras asked, his eyes glued on the arsenal collected in the cockpit of the boat.

JC shook his head. “The movement will only make them suspicious.” He looked at Porras and saw the concern on his face. “Relax, man,” JC said, smiling. “What have we done wrong?”

“You wanna hear the list?” Theo said, swiveling his seat to the side and putting his feet up on the gunwale of the boat. He put his hands behind his head and started laughing.

JC joined him, turned and waved to the three patrol boats swiftly approaching and moving to encircle the high-seas racing boat.

*****

“Did he just wave to us?” Hidalgo said.

Molina laughed. “The balls on this one,” he said. “Maybe they’re really just out for a late afternoon cruise.”

He checked their speed then glanced at the rear of The Falcon. There was still chop coming from the back of the boat. They hadn’t cut their engines, not completely.

“What should we do?” Bermejo asked.

“Wave back,” Molina said as he moved to the door of the cockpit. He wanted to get as close as possible to these men, take a measure of them with his own eyes and senses.

The sailor next to him slapped Bermejo’s hand down as the young recruit actually raised his hand to wave at the million-dollar smuggler’s boat they were approaching. The rest of the men save the skipper chuckled as the man’s neck and cheeks grew red.

“No shame in making a mistake, Seaman Bermejo,” Molina said, “just in repeating it.”

“I think I know one of them,” one of the men with their binoculars trained on the boat said.

“What’s that?” Molina said, stopping with his foot on the stairs leading outside.

“I think I recognize the pilot,” the man repeated, his binoculars still glued to his face.

“Keep me appraised,” Molina said as he opened the door and exited the wheelhouse. He walked forward to the bow of the boat, gripping the railing with a practiced grip like steel. The Falcon was nearly ten meters away but still there was wake behind them.

The pilot waved again at him.

Molina waved his arm back and forth, somewhere between a wave and a hail. “Cut your engines!” he yelled at the boat.

The pilot put his hand to his ear as if he couldn’t hear what was being said. Molina yelled it again. One of the other men, the thinner one, came to the stern and yelled back, “We can’t! The engine is damaged and we’re taking it in for repair.”

It was a common ploy but one that was so effective because sometimes it was true. These men taking the boat in for repair would explain a lot of things. While he was against corruption, Molina was also against having his career sidelined and eventually derailed. He was about ready to wave them on, but he glanced downriver and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“Cut your engines,” he yelled again, heading back into the wheelhouse.

“Match their speed and pull alongside,” he barked at his second-in-command as soon as he was inside. “get ready to board that vessel. And someone want to tell me why the hell there are five patrol boats heading upriver towards us?”

As soon as he’d said the words, their radio crackled.

“River patrol,” the voice said, “this is Skipper Buzon. Stand down and do not approach that boat.”

Buzon was widely known as a corrupt and viciously efficient boat captain. He had as many enemies as friends in the service and he was not easily ignored, even if the men were of the same rank.

“Pull alongside The Falcon,” Molina said, “right now.” He turned back from the door of the cockpit, grabbing the handset and raising it to his mouth. He opened a channel, ready to verbally duke it out with a man who not only outmatched him in boats and firepower, but likely had no compunction about using them.

*****

“You see that?” JC asked Theo.

Theo looked past the bow of the boat downriver.

“You mean the five other patrol boats coming this way?” Theo said. “Yup. Seems totally normal right? Eight patrol boats in a river converging on one boat with little ol’ us inside?”

“These guys are freaking out,” Porras said, glancing over his shoulder to Theo and JC. He turned back to the patrol boat that was closest to them then turned. “I don’t think they like the new guys.”

JC watched the boats approaching, not wanting to make too big of a show of whipping his head back and forth, but he needed to confirm Porras’s information. He glanced over his shoulder to see the man who waved at him earlier yelling into what looked like a CB handset.

The lead patrol boat closest to them was almost alongside them. Several of the crew had come onto the deck with ropes to throw over so they could tie up to The Falcon. One of them looked over The Falcon to the city, dropped his rope and rushed back into the wheelhouse. Before JC could turn and confirm what his instincts were telling him, Theo said, “Uhhh, boss, I think we have more company.”

*****

“Sir,” the young seaman said, “there are helicopters approaching from the south.”

“What?” Molina exclaimed.

“Helicopters, sir,” the seaman repeated, “Air force attack helicopters if I had to guess.”

“Stand down or prepare to be fired upon,” Buzon commanded through the radio.

“What the hell is going on?” the young seaman asked rhetorically.

“I’ve got it!” the young man with his binoculars glued to his face exclaimed, pulling them down and turning to his skipper. “The pilot of The Falcon. I know who he is.”

“Who is it?” Molina asked, knowing deep in his gut he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“JC Bannister, sir.”

The sound of the helicopters firing on their position matched with the water around them exploding upwards in mini-geysers.

“Battle stations,” Molina bellowed as his commands were repeated and relayed to the others on the small ship. “Man those guns and return fire!”

“At who?” one of the gunners yelled as he ran past to the aft gun.

“Anyone who fires on us, Seaman,” Molina replied, not believing that he was going to be firing on his own countrymen.

Something told him that before the day was through he was going to regret hailing The Falcon.

He glanced over to the boat to see the pilot who was, apparently, JC Bannister, one of the most hunted men in South America by corrupt policemen and drug dealers alike, turn to him give him a quick salute then turn back to the river ahead.

*****

JC turned to the skipper of the boat that was now alongside them. He could just see inside the wheelhouse. He quickly found the man, smiled and gave the man a jaunty salute as the helicopters opened fire around them.

Although there was always the possibility that The Falcon wasn’t the target of the bullets strafing the water, JC wasn’t about to find out. His plan suddenly changed. They had to get downriver fast.

He turned back to the bow of the boat and slammed the throttle forward.

Chapter 72

The Seahawk cruised over the Rio de la Plata while everyone inside was scanning the river for JC Bannister. The only complication was they didn’t know what the boat the men were in looked like.

Being further downriver from Buenos Aires and, subsequently, closer to the Atlantic, there was less smaller boat river traffic near Montevideo. There were still larger ships that would fare better in the heavier seas and able to travel greater distances, but there were less of them. The closer they got to Buenos Aires there were fewer ships and more boats, making it increasingly difficult to find who they were looking for. Getting closer to the surface of the river, at least right now, would be counterproductive because they would be less able to identify boats across the width of the widest river in the world.

“Any idea on what we’re looking for?” the copilot asked over the intercom system.

“Knowing Bannister, you’re probably looking for trouble,” Gibbons said, causing the other men in the helo to laugh along with her.

LaRocca didn’t crack a smile. Although she had no problem with the levity, the fact of the matter was she’d had only one interaction with JC Bannister in her life and couldn’t claim knowing him in any sense of the word. So instead of faking laughter to fit in with the cool kids, she kept her eyes peeled, looking for the men they were sent to rescue.

She saw five patrol boats heading upriver and was about to say something when Cisneros said, “You mean, like that?”

Everyone in the helicopter strained their necks to see what he was talking about. Up the river there was a single boat surrounded by three patrol boats. Off to the south by about two hundred yards and maybe a hundred feet in the air were five attack helicopters, one of which was firing at the long, sleek boat.

“Looks about right,” LaRocca said as the go-fast boat shot forward from the phalanx of patrol boats.

“Where the hell’s he going?” Gibbons said.

The smuggler’s boat was actually turning around.

Chapter 73

JC slammed the throttle forward.

The boat leapt downriver and JC simultaneously eased back and cranked the wheel in a tight left-hand circle around the patrol boats. While he was loathe to use the patrol boats as cover, he figured the Air Force helicopters would be less inclined to shoot at their own countrymen.

He was wrong. The mini-gun tore through the boat on the outside of the group, the one closest to JC. He’d planned to simply turn a circle around the boats but now he needed a slightly different plan, doing as he expected would expose them to too much gunfire.

“Theo!’ JC yelled over the noise of the wind and the gunfire.

“Whooo!” Theo yelled back, moving to the pile of weaponry at their feet.

Behind them the center boat, the one with the skipper who waved at him, was returning fire to the helicopters. There was no way to know who was really good or bad in this situation, but the easiest benchmark was whomever was firing at them was bad. And if someone was firing on the bad guys, that meant they just might be good guys.

JC turned the boat to the left again, curving to pass the patrol boats on the Buenos Aires side. If the helicopters were firing at the patrol boats or The Falcon, they’d find out soon enough.

The water in front of JC started shooting upwards, giving him the answer. He flicked the steering wheel to the right, the boat deftly dancing around the gunfire.

“Give ‘em hell,” JC said as Theo stood up, an M249 light machine gun in his hands. He gripped the twenty-pound weapon with both of his thick, powerful hands and put it to his shoulder, pulling the trigger as soon as he had a helicopter in his sights.

As much as JC would have liked for him to hold down on the trigger and cut the helicopters down, in truth, they were just inside the edge of the M249’s effective range. Any more than a few bursts would be a waste of ammunition, something they couldn’t really do.

“Get me closer,” Theo yelled as the helicopters began turning towards them. A flick of the wheel to the right and a burst of speed put them much closer within five seconds. Theo fired again and again as they got closer. One of the helicopters began to pour smoke from its engine compartment. JC didn’t know if it was Theo’s good shooting, the patrol boat behind them or a fortuitous mechanical failure but he’d take anything he could get right now. The smoking helicopter peeled away.

He glanced over at Porras, hunkered down in the most protected part of the cockpit. He held a pouch of ammo for the M249 in each hand, waiting undercover until Theo needed them. Porras nodded to him. While he wasn’t about to engage in shooting at his own countrymen, he recognized the utility of fighting back at the people trying to kill them and wasn’t about to shirk from that.

It was enough for JC.

A flash to the left caught JC’s eye. While they were engaged with the helicopters, the five patrol boats were able to get closer to them. The lead patrol boat was firing on them, leading JC to cut to the right to avoid the gunfire.

Porras suddenly stood up, pointing at a wide spot in the river that looked like it emptied into a small port.

“Turn there, turn there,” he yelled.

“You sure?” Theo said, switching to the other side of the boat, grabbing one of the ammo pouches from Porras, reloading the light machine gun and opening fire on the patrol boats.

“Goes through downtown,” Porras yelled, nodding his head. “Just what we need.”

JC didn’t have time to discuss it. He trusted the man and it seemed like a decent idea to get space between the factions pursuing them.

He turned the boat into the port, driving way too fast for the conditions, hoping both that he didn’t wreck the powerboat and that the people shooting at them decided to stop doing so with so many civilians around. The wide spot didn’t empty into a port, it emptied into what appeared to be a yacht club with boats wielding price tags that would put The Falcon’s to shame.

The helicopters didn’t care. They just kept firing.

Porras dove into the cabin, coming back with a massive piece of weaponry. He put the Barrett XM500 bullpup .50 caliber rifle to his shoulder, laid the forestock on the engine housing and began shooting at the helicopters following them.

JC said nothing. While he’d rather the man hadn’t, there was no mistaking that they were out gunned.

The yacht club was a dead end save one relatively narrow opening to the east. While it looked narrow compared to the river, in truth it was plenty wide enough for the Cigarette boat to go through. The bridge overhead provided enough clearance for the boat to shoot through unimpeded, but it was still unnerving going through such a confined space.

They shot through, Porras and Theo stopping their gunfire and taking the brief moment to reload. The waterway was peaceful and likely used most of the time for ferries, tour boats, yachts and sailboats gently sailing from one place to the other in leisurely fashion.

JC was probably going about forty-five miles an hour at this point. He saw the waterway ahead was clear, so he pushed the throttle faster and faster, the bow of the boat rising even higher as the skimmed across the surface of the river.

Off to his left he saw a flash of color. They were passing what, according to the sign, was another yacht club of some sort. There were a number of boats of various sizes moored there. And then, standing at the end of the dock, raising what looked like a beer in one hand and waving a small American flag in the other, was a short, gray-haired woman.

“You see that?” Theo asked.

“I think I know her,” JC said, his laughter lost to the wind.

It had to be Sue. Nobody else it could be. Should he make it out of this whole thing alive, he had a whole bunch of questions for her.

But for now, he needed to focus on not only making sure they didn’t run over some errant guy on a jet ski, but also keeping an eye on the helicopters that were still following them.

*****

“What the hell are they doing?” Cisneros said as the men in the boat were firing back at both the patrol boats approaching their position as well as the helicopters strafing the water.

“Fighting back against hostile police forces in a civilian watercraft with barely adequate weaponry,” LaRocca said. “You need to get me down there.”

“I can’t even come close under that kind of fire,” Cisneros said.

“Then fire back, goddammit!” Gibbons yelled.

Cisneros didn’t respond, but the helicopter dove forward, accelerating, getting in closer to the fight.

“Wait a second,” the co-pilot said. “Where’d the hell they go?”

“Get some height, guys,” LaRocca said. “Only reason we’re here is to save their bacon.”

The helicopter rose up in the air for several seconds.

“There,” the co-pilot said, pointing at something.

“I see it,” Cisneros said, leaning the stick to the left, the helo following his movements.

“Where are we going now?” Gibbons said.

“There in some sort of waterfront waterway,” the co-pilot said. “The helicopters aren’t firing on them anymore and we’re not about to follow them in there.”

“That’s it?” Gibbons said. “We’re done?”

The helicopter flew downriver, seemingly leaving the men they were supposed to be rescuing behind. LaRocca knew that wasn’t it, but she sure would like to hear the pilot’s plan.

“That waterway has to exit somewhere,” the pilot said. “We’ll find the exit, make sure they come out okay.”

Gibbons turned to LaRocca, her displeasure clear on her face. LaRocca felt the same but right now, at this moment, there was nothing else they could do.

“There,” the co-pilot said, more for the benefit of their passengers than his pilot. “There’s where they’ll be coming out.”

LaRocca nodded to Gibbons. Waiting was always the worst part, but right now, that’s all they could do.

Chapter 74

Jonatin Puga was on edge.

While the city had been wracked by gang warfare and gunfights the past week or so, they were not too far out of the ordinary. The only thing that was odd about them was the duration. Most gang wars lasted half a day, two at the outside.

However the sounds of actual warfare coming from the Rio da le Plata were most definitely out of the ordinary.

Puga could put what was happening together in his head. Gaspar’s rouge outfit, or people loyal to him and looking for a measure of justice for him, had somehow found Braun and his security team escaping down the river. It was the smart choice. With the airport still in relative lockdown, despite Gaspar’s hospitalization, the river was the best way out of Buenos Aires.

Still, the sounds echoed over the city and were unnerving most people, even those with military experience. Argentina wasn’t supposed to sound like this.

He took a seat at the outdoor café on the edge of the Mariano Moreno Plaza, not far from his own office in the Montserrat neighborhood. His chosen seat was far enough back from the street that he could at least have a bit of warning should anything happen. He also made sure his back was up against at least one wall.

Puga checked the time on his phone. He was meeting a deputy commissioner in the Buenos Aires police force who controlled a large swath of Buenos Aires. The man was known to be more than a little slippery and, despite there being no corroborating evidence that Bannister or Braun had even been to his part of the city, he’d been feeding Puga a steady diet of tips and sightings. Puga knew it was designed to extract more money from him and the meeting today was, whether the commissioner knew it or not, set up in order to put a stop to it.

A woman walked down the street, looking at her phone, just one of many doing the same. However, this one was different. She seemed a little more focused, a little less feminine, and when she turned to look at him, he could tell she was likely from North America. He was not, however, expecting her to walk up to him directly. As she did, he thought he saw a bulge on her hip indicating a sidearm.

“Are you Jonatin Puga?” she said, her sunglasses staying on her face, hiding her eyes.

“Who are you?” Puga said, alarm bells ringing in his head.

“Maxine Harris,” the woman said, “specialist assigned to the US Embassy here in Buenos Aires.” She paused for a second, then said, “But I was never here.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means this is a phone call you need to take,” she said, handing her phone to him.

Puga stared at the phone for three seconds, then back to the woman. She took her sunglasses off. There was clear determination written there with a hint of violence bubbling beneath the surface. He reached out to take the phone while the sounds of warfare in the distance ceased for a moment.

“Hello?” he said as Maxine sat at his table.

“Jonatin Puga,” the man on the phone said, “this is Frank Ingrassia, head of the CIA.”

Puga sat there, his brain refusing to process the information received. He looked at Maxine who nodded her head in the affirmative once.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Ingrassia said. “I understand you took over for Lt. Gaspar Rivas after he was laid up in the hospital.”

“I…”

“You will call off your helicopter attack squad currently flying over the city,” Ingrassia said, “and you will call off the patrol boats currently attacking a civilian boat on the Rio de la Plata.”

“They are not under my command,” Puga said, his mind catching up to his current situation.

“Do you have command of any helicopter squads powerful enough to go up against the ones currently in the air?”

“Yes.”

“Then you get those damn birds in the air and force the rogue elements in your country’s Air Force to stand down,” Ingrassia growled. “And if the patrol boats don’t get the hint, you send them to hell at the bottom of the river.”

“I… I don’t think I can do that,” Puga said, staring at Maxine. She shook her head slightly in dismay.

“Fine,” Ingrassia said. “This time next week you will likely be held in prison on bribery charges. I know corruption is like a national sport down there, but you’ve fattened your wallet to the tune of twenty-five million dollars for the murder of an American businessman.” Ingrassia paused. “You got greedy, Puga. Belly up to the trough all you want but you have to know the fattest pig is the one that gets slaughtered.”

Puga gulped. The threat wasn’t clear but Maxine made it clear. She didn’t place her hand on her service weapon but was awfully close to it.

“I get my team in the air,” Puga said, “assist in forcing these helicopters down? Get the river patrols to stand down? What then?”

“Then you’ve got a friend at the top of the CIA,” Ingrassia said.

“And if I don’t?” Puga asked. He was pushing his luck, he knew it, but he had to hear the alternative. Ingrassia said nothing or long enough that Puga held his breath.

“You know what happens,” Ingrassia said, flat.

Puga didn’t need to hear any more.

“Nice to make your acquaintance, Ingrassia. I feel honored to call you a friend. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to help the federal police regain control of the city.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Ingrassia disconnected the call and, after looking at it to confirm, Puga handed the phone back to Maxine. She nodded to the table, indicating he should set it down. As he did, he wondered briefly if her name was even Maxine Harris.

His insides were dancing behind his stomach wall, halfway between the giddiness of what this might mean for his future and the mess-in-your-pants feeling of getting caught but not getting punished.

“What are you waiting for?” Maxine said. “Go.”

Puga stood quickly, knocking over the chair he was sitting in and heading for the street to hail down the nearest taxi. He had phone calls to make and, while he could do them here, he suddenly felt the need to be far away from this woman who was, now, obviously CIA.

As his taxi sped off down Avenida Rivadavia, he didn’t look back. He couldn’t see Maxine Harris, which was definitely not her name, take out a plastic bag, gently pick her phone up with and just as gently wrap it up and place it in her pocket before she got into a black SUV that pulled up at the curb long enough for her to get in before taking off again.

Chapter 75

Powered by two 1350 horsepower Mercury Racing engines, the Cigarette Marauder produces not only a whole lot of power, but also an ungodly amount of noise. While on the open water it is most definitely a loud craft, when shooting through the confined space of the Puerto Madero Waterfront, it is eerie and deafening. The sound bounces off of the seawalls, funneling up and over across the pricy cafes and even pricier open-air restaurants that line the upscale shopping and dining neighborhood. The sound of the 2700 horsepower watercraft then bounces off of the buildings, echoes across to the buildings across and creates a resonating, growling howl that draws the attention of everyone in the area.

As JC pushed the go-fast boat up past sixty-five miles an hour, the entire promenade on both sides of the waterway became crowded with people. Some were jeering, some were cheering as if it was an event or a movie. Many were filming with their cameras as the boat powered through an area that did not see that type of action. Porras and Theo stayed hidden just forward of the stern. While a rich man’s boat screaming through the sedate waterfront was one thing, the same being done with armed men standing watch would create an altogether different impression.

JC heard the helicopters over the cacophony the Cigarette boat was creating in the concrete canyon. He was hoping they wouldn’t fly through the area, deeming it too dangerous for the low-flying aircraft, but he was wrong. A quick glance over his shoulder told him how pissed off the pilots were and how willing they were to chase them down.

About three hundred meters behind them and a hundred meters up, the remaining four attack helicopters pursued them. They were in a staggered two-by-two formation. Luckily they weren’t firing on them. Yet.

The waterfront area of Puerto Madero was broken up into sections, each of them separated by a concrete and stone abutment into the waterway, cutting it off but connected by a small bridge that allowed both vehicle and foot traffic to pass. JC didn’t know how many more sections there were and didn’t want to ask Porras. The process would take too long. All he knew was he needed to get through and back out onto open water. They’d lost the patrol boats temporarily, which was good, but he needed space and speed to lose the helicopters.

It was just a guess, but he didn’t think the helicopters could keep up with a smuggler’s go-fast boat and nearly three thousand horsepower on the open sea. They did, unfortunately, have other options, such as an exceeding amount of firepower that JC couldn’t match shot for shot.

“Boss?” Theo said. “I think we’ve got a problem.”

“Use your words, Theo,” JC said over his shoulder without taking his eyes off the waterway in front of them. Too easy to make a minor mistake that turns into a major one skimming across the water at over sixty-five miles an hour.

“Helo’s gaining altitude,” Theo said, “but still tracking.”

JC swore. It was the one thing he was afraid of.

The next bridge was approaching quickly. The Cigarette boat shot underneath it. As soon as the boat cleared the structure, JC shut the throttle down, paused a half second for the gearbox to stop turning, threw it in reverse and slammed the throttle full out, trying to stop the boat as soon as was possible. The bow of the boat dipped into the river as the laws of fluid dynamics took over.

“Go Theo,” JC said, his voice suddenly loud over the lack of wind rushing past them. Theo was moving before JC said anything, shooting his way into the cabin.

“What are you doing?” Porras asked, rising up from his safe spot wedged between the gunwale and transom.

“Sit down,” JC said, looking overhead for the helicopters. He could hear them, but lost sight of them. He would have rather turned into the protected space off to the left, slightly less visible to the helicopters, giving them a little more time to get set up, but, as his father used to say, you can’t have everything.

Theo popped out of the cabin with two rocket launchers and a handful of grenades, dumping them all on the floor of the boat and picking up one of the already-mounted grenade launchers. He went to the edge of the boat, looking up at the sky.

“Uhhh, guys?” Porras said.

“There,” JC said, pointing and yelling as the four helicopters overflew their position.

Theo stood, aiming the RPG at the lead helicopter. JC ducked down, joining Porras in the safety of the rear of the boat.

Porras’s eyes were wide, disbelief on his face at what was about to happen. He started to stand up, reaching for Theo to stop him from downing a helicopter in a highly populated area, potentially killing dozens or even hundreds as the burning wreckage crashed into one of the most popular areas of Buenos Aires. The monster of Bolivia was now in Buenos Aires, directing his partner to potentially kill hundreds and Porras had a front seat to the devastation and havoc the man would wreak.

The helicopters, seeing that the boat was no longer shooting down the waterway stopped their forward momentum, hanging in the sky, turning as their onboard crews searched for the prey they had been shooting at not that long ago.

Porras was almost to Theo when JC reached forward, grabbed twin handfuls of the man’s clothing and slamming him back into the transom. JC grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him, then gripping both sides of Porras’s face, forcing him to focus.

“I’m not the same JC,” he said.

Theo lit off the rocket propelled grenade, the device shooting forward into the sky, the back blast washing over where Porras had just been. As soon as the RPG was airborne, JC was up and moving to the pilot’s seat. Theo dropped to the floor, out of JC’s way, as the man grabbed ahold of the wheel and slammed the throttle forward to full power.

The engines howled like a horde of angry tigers, rocketing the boat forward.

Porras glanced up, his eyes glued to the path of the RPG, snaking through the sky. The lead helicopter had turned partially but not completely. Its side was fully exposed and by the look of horror on Porras’s face, he seemed to know in his heart that the RPG would slam into it.

It missed. The RPG flew just under the attack helicopter, missing it by what seemed, from this distance, as only feet, but was in all likelihood much more. The RPG continued on its path for a few hundred more feet and exploded harmlessly in the sky beyond the helicopters.

“You missed,” Porras said, his snapping to Theo as the man reached for another RPG to reload the weapon. Above them the helicopters were both trying to regroup while also keep their distance.

“No, I didn’t,” Theo said. “Shot across their bow, so to speak. Wake them up, hopefully get them to back off.”

“I told you,” JC yelled to Porras over the sound of the wind and the engines.

Porras picked himself up, stepped over the weaponry on the floor of the boat and plopped himself in the chair next to JC, leaning towards him.

“You were right,” he yelled at JC, “and I was wrong.”

JC acknowledged the admission with a nod. Later he knew he would reflect on it, but right now, they still had a whole lot of things that needed to go right in order to make it out of the country in safety and one piece.

“How much longer is this waterway?” JC asked as they shot under another bridge.

“That next one is the last one,” Porras said. “Beyond it you’ll turn to the left and back into the Rio de la Plata.”

“Good,” Theo said behind them. “JC, you wanna get me an angle?”

JC looked back to see the helicopters attempting to broach the distance between them. Theo was leaning against the gunwale behind JC, his feet bracing him to prevent any possibility of falling down while he held one RPG launcher to each shoulder.

JC cut the engines, turned the wheel to the left and let the boat drift as he ducked down, joining Porras on the floor of the boat as Theo let off two more RPGs at the boat.

The helicopters responded with gunfire of their own, the two RPGs missing the aircraft again, exploding over the city but causing no damage. JC leapt back to the pilot’s seat, accelerating the boat as fast as was prudent and heading for open water. There was no way to outrun a bullet, but one can at least make it difficult for the shooter to aim accurately.

“We’re going to have to make the next ones count,” Theo said as Porras helped him reload the RPGs. “They barely flinched on those.”

JC was hoping they wouldn’t have to.

“What the hell is going on out there?” Braun yelled, poking his head out from the cabin.

“Just some party favors,” Theo said, making everyone laugh.

JC smiled but didn’t laugh. He was still the boss and the lives of these men were in his charge. He had to make sure they made it out of danger and back into safety.

Then he could relax.

Chapter 76

Keeping her mouth shut was damn near killing Special Agent Dianne LaRocca. And from the look of things, it was doing the same to Hailey Gibbons.

The Seahawk hovered about four hundred meters above the surface of the water, perhaps a mile off the coast of Buenos Aires and XX miles off the coast of Montevideo. All eyes were glued on the confluence of the Matanza River and the Rio Darsena Sur which formed the waterfront area in Puerto Madera. It was the one place that the Cigarette boat could exit from and the one place where they weren’t about to go into.

An explosion occurred perhaps half a mile up the coast, seeming to come from inside the waterfront area. While they couldn’t see what happened, it seemed to be higher in the air, not down at the water level. It only served to put everyone even more on edge.

Soon after, two more explosions occurred, this time both visible and closer to the exit area where everyone’s eyes were glued

LaRocca had enough.

“We’re just going sit here?” LaRocca said to Cisneros through the intercom. “Can’t you see what’s happening? They’re gonna get cut down!”

“We don’t know what’s going on in there,” the co-pilot said.

“You saw four attack helicopters chase them in there,” Gibbons said, “same as I did.”

“Tell me,” Cisneros said, addressing both LaRocca and Gibbons, “would the US stand for Canadian Navy helicopters doing battle with NYPD helicopters in the skies over New York?”

LaRocca didn’t want to say anything, but the man had proven his point.

“No,” she said sullenly.

“Let us do our jobs,” Cisneros said. “It’s not just your asses on the line, here. We’re hanging way out over the line as well.”

LaRocca nodded, understanding. She didn’t like it, but that didn’t mean it was wrong.

“I see them,” van Welbergen said.

All eyes in the helicopter snapped back to the miniature bay to see the go-fast boat come around the corner, hauling ass. Seconds later, four attack helicopters rounded the same corner only about three hundred feet in the air.

“We need to wait,” Cisneros said, more for the civilians in the helicopter than his crew, “until they at least are fully in the river and not right up against the coast.”

“Do they know that?” Gibbons said.

LaRocca turned to see her head craned out the right side of the craft, looking upriver.

“Who?”

“Five patrol boats steaming hard towards our position,” she said, eyes not leaving the window. “Followed by about three more.”

Cisneros swore as he pushed the stick forward, the nose of the aircraft pitched down as their airspeed increased.

LaRocca watched everything as they dipped down to intercept the go-fast boat coming at them hard. She had only a second before Cisneros said, “Get ready, LaRocca.”

Just as the command registered in her mind, the man to her left was tapping on her shoulder to get her attention. She turned to see him with a very large, very orange life preserver in one hand and a harness of another type in the other.

“Buckle up,” he said, handing her the harness first.

As she was wriggling into it, van Welbergen said, “You see that?”

“See what?” Gibbons and LaRocca said at the same time.

“They’re taking fire,” Cisneros said. “You need to be ready in about twenty seconds, LaRocca,” he continued. “We’re out of time.”

As she hurriedly put on the harness followed by the life vest and gave the door gunner a thumbs up, she was very much regretting winning the game of rock, scissors, paper.

Chapter 77

As the boat rounded the corner and JC saw open water, he pushed forward on the throttle. He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the boat if there was much turning that needed to be done, but full-out and straight ahead he could likely keep under control. The river they were on and the river they were going into were fairly calm and what they needed now more than anything was distance from their pursuers.

Theo swore next to him, pointing above them and ahead about a mile or so. JC looked up, his entire attention on the river in front of them, not what was up in the sky.

For the first moment since the ambush perpetrated by Varela, JC felt a brief moment of hope.

“We’re screwed man,” Theo said. “They’ll catch us in a crossfire.”

“Take another look,” JC said as the helicopter dove forward on an intercept path with the boat. “Stars and stripes, baby!”

Theo whooped and threw his fists in the air, the image of triumph.

“Guys?” Porras said behind them. “We’ve got company.”

JC turned to see the five patrol boats from earlier speeding downriver at them. They must have figured out where he went and made the plan to cut them off at the pass. JC pushed the throttle forward even more, taking things up to the dangerous level. He had to. There weren’t many ways he could see making it out alive with both the Argentinian Air Force and Navy gunning for them.

He heard and saw the explosions in the water from the deck-mounted Oerlikon 20mm cannon in the lead patrol boat before he heard the rapid-fire bang-bang-bang of the anti-aircraft gun. For a split second he thought it was aimed at the Seahawk that was swooping in low towards them, but as the miniature geysers in the water got closer, he realized they were gunning for The Falcon. He dropped the throttle and swerved, but a couple managed to hit the rear of the boat.

He glanced behind him to make sure Porras was fine. He was. The man was reaching for a rocket launcher to pay back the patrol boat. JC appreciated the man’s instinct, but the simple fact was they couldn’t compete shot for shot with the forces arrayed against them. They had to run. It was their one distinct advantage over all other aircraft and watercraft on the current battlefield.

JC turned the wheel of the boat downriver and pushed forward on the throttle.

Nothing happened.

He turned around to see smoke pouring from the engine compartment.

JC wanted to swear and rail and kick something and scream at the universe, but there was no point. It was time for plan B.

Problem was, he had no plan B.

The mini geysers started walking up the river at them, the bang-bang-bang of the Oerlikon drifting over the water to him. Swimming was the only option now, which was fine, but there wasn’t time to get Braun out of the cabin and into the water before the twenty-millimeter wide shells pounded into The Falcon and into them.

The Seahawk stopped moving towards them and pivoted in the air. JC couldn’t see what was happening on the far side of the helicopter, but there were two things he could see. First, the mini-geysers from the patrol boat topped. Second, he saw hundreds and hundreds of brass shell casings cascading down from the far side of the Seahawk. Their door gunner must have opened fire because the shell casings continued to pour into the river water below.

*****

“Light ‘em up!” Cisneros commanded as he pivoted the helicopter to give the door gunner, a man named Tavras, a clean shot at the river patrol boats.

Tavras did as ordered. The helicopter was filled with the buzzsaw brrrrrrrrrrrrrrap of the mini-gun, the smell of gunpowder permeating everything in the cabin. The 7.62mm rounds weren’t much good against the hull of the boat, but they would be more than effective against the men currently firing from the foredeck-mounted weapon.

“Watercraft is disabled and drifting,” Lewis said. Instantaneously the other crewman in the cabin threw open the door on his side of the helicopter.

“LaRocca,” Cisneros said over the intercom, “you ready?”

LaRocca answered with a “Yes” that sounded shakier than she wanted it to be. But she stood all the same, making her way to the open door. She sat on the floor of the craft, kicking off her shoes and letting her feet dangle out the side.

Cisneros maneuvered the helicopter closer to the now smoking boat below them. The rotor wash below them was heavy, breaking up the surface of the water on the river. He didn’t bother to look at the people in the boat. He just needed to get as close to it as possible and prudent.

“Tarver?” he said, “We good?”

Tarver removed his finger from the mini-gun trigger, the silence surprising. “Clear.”

“When you’re ready, Agent LaRocca,” Cisneros said, keeping inside the desire to roar at her to “Go!”

LaRocca looked down at the water below. Pike, the crewman next to her, took her headset off and buckled a helmet on her head.

“You got your letter?” he yelled.

She nodded once.

“Then cross your arms on your chest,” he yelled at her, “body rigid, and punch through the water!”

She looked up at him. He was grinning ear to ear.

“And have fun!”

She nodded once, then jumped.

“Swimmer in the water,” Pike yelled.

Cisneros moved the helicopter closer over to the boat, allowing Pike to throw down a bundle of life vests and harnesses to the men in the boat below. Package away, Cisneros repositioned the rescue helicopter to protect the people beneath him from anybody who might be foolish enough to take the next step. The mini-gun was a warning and it wouldn’t be used again.

He activated the weapons system of the Seahawk that allowed him to deploy the torpedoes and missiles they carried. And then he waited.

Behind him, Gibbons said, “Open a channel to every one of them sonsabitches that can hear me.”

Chapter 78

LaRocca hit the water with the heels of her feet and, for a split second, it felt like she landed on a trampoline. It almost felt like the water was a solid, clear surface that gave with her as she landed on it. Of course, it then tore in half and enveloped her in the icy coldness of its embrace as she plunged into the middle of the Rio de la Plata.

Before she was even at the bottom of her trajectory she was kicking for the surface, clawing with her hands and looking upwards for the light that would take her to safety and away from the darkness that was trying to kill her.

LaRocca was a good swimmer because she hated the water. She knew that if she let her guard down for one second on the water it would shove her under and never let her up. Over the years she worked hard to face her fears and became a good swimmer but she never enjoyed it, not for one second.

Her head broke the surface and as she was casting about, looking for the boat, she saw it. It was closer than she thought it would be. Immediately she started kicking her legs, doing her best to make her arms part the water and push it behind her so she could get there sooner. The life jacket, necessary as it was, hindered her, as did her shoulder-length hair, getting in her mouth nearly every time she had to take a breath.

After what seemed like twenty minutes, she was at the side of boat. It was probably only twenty seconds, but time was slowing down and her every motion was hindered as if she was moving through molasses.

A hand reached down and she grabbed it, strong, pulling her onto the boat, the other hand grabbing for the back of her life vest while she scrabbled and scrambled onto the expensive boat that was little more than a glorified raft at this point. She tumbled over the gunwale into the cockpit of the boat, landing on pointy tubes. She glanced down to see RPG launchers, RPGs and battle rifles. She looked up to see JC Bannister standing over her, offering his hand.

“Welcome aboard, Agent LaRocca,” he said, smiling. “Glad you could join us. Did you, by chance, bring that letter?”

Chapter 79

“Fire on that boat,” Cerati said, dropping the helicopter he was piloting forward, pivoting his aircraft so that his gunner could open the door and blast the smoking boat. “Send them to the bottom of the river.”

Two things happened simultaneously. First, the definitely non-Argentinian helicopter that had just dropped a person in the water moved to protect the boat in the water. Second, audible alarms coinciding with flashing lights on the instrument panel blared throughout the cockpit.

“Sir, they have missile lock on us.”

“What the-”

“Hold your fire,” his copilot said to the door gunner.

“Are they insane?” Cerati said out loud. “Who do they think they are?”

“Attention all Argentinian aircraft and watercraft in the vicinity,” a voice came through over the radios. “This is the United States Naval aircraft, call sign N87342, attached to the Seventh Fleet. I have on board a deputy diplomatic specialist attached to the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires. On the watercraft below us, there is also a deputy diplomatic specialist, also attached to the Embassy in Buenos Aires.” The man paused. “As such, these vehicles are protected under treaties between your country and ours as well as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Any act of aggression would be considered an act of war and will be treated accordingly.”

Cerati looked at his co-pilot as the man on the radio began to repeat the same thing in Spanish. As his copilot shrugged, Cerati shook his head.

“No way are those bastards getting away with what they did to Gaspar Rivas,” Cerati said. “Open a channel.”

His copilot nodded once to indicate the channel with the American helicopter was open.

“Bullshit,” Cerati spat into the microphone attached to his headset.

Nothing was said for a beat, just the slight static and the silence of waiting.

“This is Deputy Diplomatic Specialist Gibbons,” a different voice came over the radio, this one female, “and I can assure you this is not bullshit, as you can tell by the missile lock we currently have on you.” She paused. “I recommend you stand down your defensive posture and return to your base.”

Cerati signaled to cut communications, then said to his co-pilot, “Hail the lead patrol boat down there. Let’s see who our friends are.”

*****

As soon as LaRocca was on the boat, she was motioning to the Seahawk to drop the hoist hook. JC wasted no time either. Everyone was already wearing their life vests, the only thing to sort out was who was going first. JC knew it would be a problem for Theo and Porras. Nobody wanted to be the first to cut and run, but they were literally out of time. If the patrol boats or the helicopters decided not to push through the stalemate and open fire, then the black smoke pouring from the engine bay would get them. He handed the two bright orange rescue strops to Porras and Braun.

“You two are going first,” JC said, “back-to-back.”

Porras looked up, ready to protest.

“Somebody needs to go first and I picked you,” JC said quickly. “It’s got nothing to do with your convictions or my faith in your abilities.”

Porras nodded, knowing the man was right. He and Braun took the strops, adjusting them under their arms as LaRocca and Bannister clipped them into the hoist hook.

“Thank you,” Braun said to JC, looking somewhat ridiculous with the orange loop under his arms.

“Thank me when you’re back on the 42nd floor of Visionary Worldwide, Tyler,” JC said, shaking the man’s hand as the winch in the Seahawk lifted Braun and Porras up and into mid-air.

JC, Theo and LaRocca ducked down in the boat. While the stalemate was currently in place, they didn’t want to be an easy target if someone decided to fire a shot. With The Falcon visibly disabled and pouring smoke, they were already sitting ducks. No need to make things worse.

“Always thanking the boss,” Theo said, checking the SAW to make sure it was loaded, “not the guys who did the actual heavy lifting.”

“Speaking of heavy lifting,” JC said, handing the third rescue strop to him, “you’re next.”

Theo paused before taking it. “Cold, man,” he said with an appreciative nod. “Cold.”

LaRocca picked an AK-47 from the pile of weaponry on the bottom of the boat, checked the magazine, and stayed out of sight behind the gunwale, the smoke cloud thankfully going above their heads and not enveloping them or making them cough.

Theo looked over at her. “You wanna go first?” he asked, holding out the rescue strop.

“I’m good,” she said.

Theo looked at JC. “She’s good,” he said, shaking his head, putting the strop under his arms and waiting for the Seahawk’s current load to be safe and sound before they lowered the hoist hook for the next.

*****

“You here because of Rivas?” the man identifying himself as Cerati asked over the radio.

Buzon, the skipper of the boat, stared straight ahead at the enemy aircraft floating above the Rio de la Plata. Four other Israeli-made fast patrol boat were arrayed behind him, each one at battle stations, ready to go to war with these bastards invading Argentinian waterways. All he had to do was say the word.

“Rivas,” Buzon growled, his voice far deeper than his thin frame would at first indicate, “and for the protection of La Republica.”

“Then we are of like minds.”

It was code between the corrupt and the corrupt in Argentina, a set of phrases used to suss out if the person you were speaking with was ramrod straight or easily bent. They both passed the test, but that did not mean they were allies, simply not currently in opposition. While corruption took many forms, chief amongst its various ugly heads was the willingness to accept money or favors in return for certain actions being taken or not taken.

Buzon’s benefactors were numerous. He had no political ambitions, only the desire for more money which could most easily be squeezed from the various warring factions amongst the gangs continually vying for control of the Buenos Ares streets. A call from Roberto, the head of La Izquierda, this morning put him on the trail of The Falcon and the murderers aboard. The bounty was fifty thousand dollars, US, to put The Falcon on the bottom of the Rio de la Plata and Buzon wasn’t about to part with that kind of money, interlopers be damned.

“You draw their fire,” Buzon said, “and I’ll sink that dinghy.”

“Fair enough,” Cerati said. “Good to make your acquaintance.”

“And yours.”

As Buzon clicked off the mouthpiece and ordered his co-pilot to move their boats closer in range of The Falcon, he committed the name Cerati to memory as a fellow in the Air Force he could rely upon should the need ever arise.

Friends are as important in the criminal world, after all, as in the real world, he said to himself, congratulating himself on his intelligence and prescience to know early in life there was only one true path for someone such as he.

“When we are within range,” he told his co-pilot, “fire on that boat.” He didn’t move his head, just his deep voice booming throughout the wheelhouse. His second-in-command relayed the order to everyone else while Buzon kept his eyes on the two men dangling from the thin cable as they ascended into the aircraft hovering a dozen meters above the water of his river.

*****

“Are they in?” Cisneros asked his crew.

“Almost,” Pike said, his harness clipping him into the aircraft as he leaned out the door, both guiding the cable into the winch as well as watching over his charges being lifted into the air.

“Are those boats coming closer?” Gibbons said.

“Which?” van Welbergen said, “the five or the two?”

Gibbons didn’t bother to look for the two. All she saw were five boats which appeared to be moving faster than drift speed with men on the foredeck, standing right behind the Oerlikon cannons, readying to fire.

“Does it matter?” she replied, her voice loud with concern.

“Pike?” Cisneros said.

“There here,” Pike said, the winch stopping with both Braun and Porras hanging in midair mut level with the open door of the helicopter. Tavras scrambled over to help guide the two men into the relative safety of the helicopter. Gibbons joined in. guiding first Braun then Porras to empty seats and helping them get buckled in.

“Good to go,” Pike said, letting the hoist hook drop for the next passenger as Tavras went back to his position on the other side of the rescue helicopter to man the gun that was sometimes required. He looked out of his window to see the two patrol boats he mentioned earlier doing something odd. They were circling wide around the Uruguayan side of the five other boats and appeared to be flanking them.

“I think we’ve got something going on, Cap,” he said as all hell broke loose.

Chapter 80

Buzon and Molina, on different boats and with radically different targets, both said “Fire” to their respective crews at the exact same time.

JC saw the cannon on the front of the lead patrol boat start pounding out round after round. While the patrol boat was maybe two hundred yards upriver, there was no question what or where he was aiming at and, from this distance, it sure felt to JC like he was looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Nobody on The Falcon needed to tell the other what to do. They all dropped beneath the gunwale, huddling as best they could behind the engines despite knowing the 20mm shells bring fired could likely punch through it.

Almost as soon as it started, the sound of the Oerlikon was joined by a nearly identical sound coming from somewhere to the right. JC poked his head over the edge of the boat to see the first patrol boats that hailed them firing on the five other boats that approached them earlier.

He ducked back down, surprised that his earlier evaluation of the enemy of my enemy is my friend was correct, at least as far as the patrol boats went. He wasn’t about to waste a second questioning it as answers would likely never be forthcoming. All that was left was to leverage the momentary advantage.

JC looked up to see the Seahawk hovering above them, the rescue hoist hook almost to The Falcon. He rolled back over toward Theo, checking the rescue strop that was still around his body and positioned correctly under his arms. As the hook got within reach, JC grabbed it, guiding it even lower and hooking it onto Theo’s rescue strop.

“Now?” Theo yelped as the firing upriver continued.

JC rolled back over and edged his head above the gunwale of the boat. The sounds he’d been hearing matched what he was seeing.

The lead patrol boat had stopped firing and was listing to one side. The renegade patrol boat must have scored some direct hits below the waterline and taken it out of commission. As the two boats closest to it turned to attack, the renegade patrol boat kept firing.

As nightmarish as it was, there wasn’t a better way to get out of the situation fast. JC signaled to the Seahawk to take Theo up. As the cable pulled him upwards, Theo scrabbled on the floor of The Falcon frantically, grabbing for something.

JC had to laugh. Theo cleared the boat, holding what he had been scrambling to get. The man held an M249 light machine gun in his right hand, a loaded RPG launcher in his left with two spare rocket propelled grenades clenched between his legs.

“I ain’t goin’ out like some punk bitch!” Theo yelled with a maniacal grin on his face.

JC saw through the bluster to the very real fear in his friend’s eyes.

“Does he know how insane he is?” LaRocca asked, laughing

“No, but he knows exactly how big his brass balls are,” JC said, quick to defend his friend who could be shot at any secogasparnd, “and I’m hoping that Seahawk can withstand the extra tonnage.”

Before LaRocca could say anything, the shelling from the patrol boats resumed. They both had to duck down again, giving them a clear view of Theo as he rose up in the air looking not unlike a heavily armed, violent, profane cherub.

*****

The SAW is a heavy weapon by any definition. Weighing just over twenty pounds fully loaded, it is usually a stationary or at least a squad-based weapon due to its size and weight. While it can be carried by one man, the sheer weight of it makes this an irregular occurrence.

While not a squad in and of himself, Theo was incredibly strong. His weight hid a surprising amount of muscle. As the patrol boats recommenced their shelling, he tightened his hand around the grip of the weapon, tucked the buttstock into the side of his ribs and pointed the barrel at the patrol boat firing in their direction.

He held the trigger down in short bursts, trying his best to hit something but knowing he likely wasn’t going to. As he rose higher and higher in the air and the ammo pouch ran dry, he dropped the weapon into the river below. He brought the RPG around to bear on the boat, firing it, reloading with one of extra grenades between his legs, then again with the final one. Grenades spent, he dropped the launcher, drawing his Glock 19 from its holster at his waist and firing as quickly as he could, reloading and continuing to fire. The entire time guttural profanities were streaming from his mouth.

It did the trick. Well, the RPG’s probably did, not the handgun fire. The patrol boats ceased firing. A voice from above made him look over his shoulder at the Seahawk to see the rescue dude hanging out of the helicopter open door, one hand guiding the cable, one hand giving Theo the devil horn and laughing himself silly.

As Theo was loaded on board the Seahawk, he saw the relief he felt mirrored in Hailey’s eyes. They shook hands, holding a fraction longer than prudent, then released. Any affection between them could wait. For now, they needed to get the rest of the team to safety.

Theo nodded to both Porras and Braun, grateful for their good wishes, but the entire time his thoughts were on the people down below and how damn helpless he felt right now, strapped into a helicopter, outnumbered and outgunned.

But he kept a smile on his face because that’s what Theo did.

The man at the door, Pike, apparently by the nametag on his uniform, started to lower the hoist hook once more when the pilot said something that sounded an awful lot like “Hold on!” right as he banked the helicopter hard and to the right, away from the boat and his friend down below.

Despite his stomach coming up halfway into his throat, Theo swore, not at the pilot, but at his frustration from not being able to do anything more than swear.

Chapter 81

Buzon watched the fat man with all the guns be pulled to safety without a word. His patrol boat was thankfully safe from the cannon fire of that sanctimonious prick Molina. The man was a pain in the ass and a joke amongst those who both knew better and had a hand in keeping his career right where it was. While one of Buzon’s patrol boats was sinking, the men on board were safe and being pulled out of the water. That left Buzon’s boat and three others to do battle with Molina, his limping two boats and a helicopter from another country where it most definitely should not be.

He hailed Cerati on the main helicopter that was, to his view, hovering there not doing a damn thing. To his right, towards Buenos Aires and the Puerto Madero, boats were beginning to emerge. With his binoculars, Buzon could see some of the people on the boats filming what was happening with their cell phones. While the quality likely wouldn’t be good enough that far away, it was more exposure than he wanted or usually allowed. It was time to move things up.

“That’s all you’re going to do?” he growled at Cerati. “Sit there?”

“You want me to fire on the boat?”

“You’re a helicopter,” Buzon said, his tone withering, “deal with the helicopter.”

As soon as he clicked off the conversation, Molina started up again to his left. A minute of aimed fire and another one of Buzon’s boats was sinking. If this kept up, he’d be out fifty thousand dollars and maybe even his career.

Neither was acceptable.

“Prepare to fire on that smuggler’s boat,” he said to his co-pilot, the word spreading through his command to the person that needed to hear it.

All he needed was the cover of the stupid birds in the sky shooting at each other and he’d be a richer man with The Falcon at the bottom of the river.

“Fire on my command,” he said, making sure nobody was to do anything beforehand.

He watched as Molina’s boats broke off and steamed downriver towards The Falcon.

All the better, Buzon said to himself, waiting for the helicopters to finally do something useful. Caught in the crossfire is a much better story anyway.

*****

Cerati hated being goaded into action. He hated being bullied or pushed, but there were times when the bullying and the pushing were not in opposition to his own line of thinking. And right about now he’d had enough. The fat man on the string had fired rocket after rocket in the peaceful waterfront of Buenos Aires, Cerati’s hometown, and now was firing rockets at members of his sister military forces, putting them in harm’s way?

There was no way he would let that stand, goading from Buzon or no goading.

As the hoist hook was being let down once again, he decided he’d had enough. This farce was over, diplomatic immunity be damned.

“Fire one missile at that bastard helicopter,” he said.

His co-pilot, a man named Gardel, turned to him. “Sir?

“You heard me,” Cerati barked. “Fire one goddamned missile. Make it damn close but make sure it misses.”

Gardel hesitated just long enough that Cerati opened his mouth to yell at him when Gardel flipped the appropriate combination of switches.

“Firing one,” he said, pausing again before pushing the button.

As the rocket whooshed out of its tube and streaked through the sky to the foreign helicopter operating illegally in Argentinian airspace, Cerati was wondering who he would need to sidle up to in order to catch a portion of the rumored millions that Rivas received for his part in the assault on that warehouse that turned out so badly for him.

*****

All JC and LaRocca could do was keep their heads down, curled up into a fetal ball as small as possible, their hands over their heads. He’d seen the two boats steaming down the river towards him but didn’t calculate them to be a threat as they’d just spent the past five minutes sinking two of their comrade’s boats.

The helicopter that just fired a missile at the Seahawk was his biggest concern. If they were willing to throw diplomatic immunity to the wind, there’s no telling how far they could go.

As the shells from the boats upriver began hitting the water around them, JC wondered how much longer this could go on. It was a no-win situation and the people most likely to lose were huddled together in the bottom of a smuggler’s boat.

However, there was one option.

“You hear that?” LaRocca yelled at him over the sounds of warfare.

JC looked at her, listening intently. For a second he heard nothing different.

There it was. Engine noise. A lot of engine noise. He poked his head above the port gunwale to see the patrol boats upriver holding steady. Their firing had stopped. The Seahawk was roughly back above them but the seaman on the door wasn’t letting the hoist hook down yet.

Instead, he was pointing off to JC’s left, towards Buenos Aires, towards the engine noise LaRocca had already heard.

He turned his head and his stomach sank. Six gunships painted different colors from the ones currently arrayed against the Seahawk were flying in low over the river towards their position.

LaRocca popped her head up next to him, watching as the six helicopters swooped in and positioned themselves between the Seahawk and the other helicopters, forming a protective wall between them.

Their guns and cockpits were all pointed at the Argentinian helicopters. They were protecting the Seahawk and subsequently, Bannister and LaRocca. Although a surprising turn of events, it still didn’t ratchet down JC’s level of tension. It didn’t matter how many guys were on your side in a firefight, it just took one bullet to turn out your lights.

“US Seahawk, are you in need of assistance?”

“We are,” Cisneros said after a surprised beat. “We have a diplomatic specialist in the civilian watercraft below us who is in need of rescue.”

“Are you carrying any diplomatic personnel?”

“We are.”

Not even a second went by when the speaker switched over to Spanish and said, “Argentinian watercraft and aircraft, do not fire on this helicopter or this boat. They are carrying United States diplomatic personnel and are under the protection of the government of Argentina.”

“Who the hell do you think you are,” Cerati spat through the radio. “They are smug-”

“I am Commander Altamirano from the Gendarmeria Nacional Argentina and under command of Deputy Puga.” He paused, the names he just dropped silencing all dissent. “Anyone who attacks these craft will be fired upon.”

It was a stalemate that Bannister and LaRocca watched from below. The helicopters hovering between the Seahawk and the other Argentine vessels had switched on their loudspeakers, apparently for the benefit of Bannister and LaRocca as well as the people watching from boats that were coming closer and closer. Regardless, it was appreciated and only solidified in his mind what they needed to do.

One thing JC was damn sure of. The men who had been attacking them weren’t the kind to just stand down and skulk off to lick their wounds. They’d finish the job they started, even if it meant being blown out of the sky or the water.

He quickly scrambled for something on the bottom of the boat, finding it and clipping it to his waist.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Plan B,” he said, waving his arms to get the attention of the seaman manning the door in the helicopter above.

It didn’t work. The man was transfixed on what was happening above them.

“You know his name?” JC asked LaRocca.

“Yeah, it’s Pike,” she said. “Why?”

“Pike!” JC yelled with all his might again and again until the man looked down. Some makeshift hand signals repeated several times to ensure he understood and JC was feeling a little better about Plan B.

He just needed people to start shooting again which, based on his experience and the growing tension on the battlefield, was about to happen.

Chapter 82

“Fire!” Cerati yelled, the anger and fear and panic all combining into one overwhelming urge to destroy.

“Sir?” Gardel yelled back, trying to tread the line between disobeying a direct order and asking for confirmation.

Cerati yelled the same command again and again, laced with enough profanities until one of the door gunners behind them, unable to access the missile controls to complete their chief’s order, threw open his door and started firing his light machine gun at the Seahawk. Of course the weapon would be unlikely to damage the craft, but it was all that was needed.

Gardel folded, firing missiles at the Seahawk, The Falcon and the Argentinian patrol boats attempting to guard them. He fired at everyone except the newly arrived GNA helicopters and the patrol boats upstream. Whether due to stress or intention, Gardel had not engaged missile lock and every single thing he fired at he missed.

Down below, Buzon took the onslaught from the helicopters above as yet another chance to put enough holes in The Falcon to make it sink. “Fire,” he bellowed at his men, the gunner on the foredeck hearing him through the glass of the wheelhouse and making the Oerlikon at his command go bang-bang-bang-bang-bang over and over again.

Molina saw this, expected it and returned fire on Buzon. Despite the fact they were not being directly fired upon, he had chosen a side and it wasn’t Buzon’s. The six helicopters coming in had bolstered his belief in his choice as well as the confidence of his men. At least they weren’t out here all alone, siding with some foreigners against their own countrymen.

The GNA helicopters returned fire on Cerati’s helicopter and the patrol boats firing towards The Falcon down below. While they were new to the field, it was pretty obvious to them who the bad guys were. They avoided using their missiles and stuck to their machine guns which were, still, devastatingly effective.

The explosion of gunfire above was all JC needed.

“Go now,” he yelled at LaRocca, straining to be heard.

She popped up, scooting fast to the starboard gunwale, the one furthest away from the fighting and least visible to the people shooting, and rolled smoothly over the edge into the water, her life vest keeping her afloat. As soon as she was in the water, she began swimming downstream as fast as she could.

JC glanced up to Pike and nodded to the man. Receiving a thumbs up in reply, JC performed the same move as LaRocca. He fought the shock of the water, colder as they were closer to the Atlantic than upriver, and kicked away from the boat. He rolled on his side, taking the hand grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and threw it overhand into the cockpit of the million-dollar go-fast smuggling boat.

As soon as he saw it land, he rolled back over and swam as hard and fast as he could away from the boat. Two seconds later the grenade exploded, blowing a hole in the bottom of the boat. He was far enough away from the blast to avoid any damage or shrapnel from it.

JC kicked and swam downriver, aiming to catch Agent Diane LaRocca. Assuming that Pike understood JC’s instructions, the Seahawk should be pulling back from the battle soon, turning around and heading downriver to pick them out of the river. That mission accomplished, then it would likely be headed to the DEA hangar at the Uruguayan airport for their quick transfer to the Department of State jet that brought LaRocca and Gibbons down or a very quick refuel for the Seahawk and an even quicker flight out to the Seventh Fleet in the Atlantic, far beyond the reaches of Argentina, Uruguay or any other country or person in South America interested in taking a piece out of them.

“Hey!” he yelled at LaRocca. She was only a few yards away from him at this point but was still pulling strong through the water. “Where you headed, Agent?”

LaRocca stopped, floating with the aid of the life vest, turned in the water and said, “What?”

“I said where you headed all fired up, Agent LaRocca?” JC said to her again, floating about ten feet away from each other, the width of the river making it feel like they weren’t moving very much yet still at the mercy of the current. “Our ride’s gonna be coming any minute. More distance isn’t going to help them or you.” He glanced over his shoulder to confirm the Seahawk had indeed disengaged from the battle and headed their way. “Just relax,” he said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head, floating with his feet up like he was in a pool at a luxury resort, “kick your feet up.”

LaRocca stared at him, dumbfounded. “I hate the water,” she said. “Can’t stand being in anything over my hips. Terrifies me.”

JC focused on her, evaluating. She was telling the truth. “But you’re such a good swimmer,” he finally said, nonplussed.

“Because I’ll be damned if I let that watery deep get the best of me,” she said.

JC watched her for a few seconds more and started to laugh, long and hard. LaRocca stared at him for ten seconds before she started to laugh as well.

“You are one weird duck,” JC said through the laughter.

“Me?” LaRocca said, her laughter subsiding as the Seahawk hovered over them, forcing them to nearly yell to be heard. “Diplomatic immunity? That was your escape plan? And I’m the crazy one?”

“It worked didn’t it?”

“Doesn’t make it not crazy.”

JC laughed, looked up at the Seahawk to see Pike lowering the hoist hook to them. He looked back at LaRocca.

“You’re gonna fit right in!” he yelled at her.

“What?”

JC shook his head. “Later!” he yelled back, knowing that would be a discussion had in quieter circumstances.

As the Seahawk cruised the short distance back to Carrasco International Airport in Uruguay, JC realized a few things all at once. First, he wasn’t out. No matter how much he told himself he was out, the truth was he loved what he did far too much. Promises he made to Ingrassia and intended to keep required him to stay in for some time, at least until Williams was dealt with. That would give him time to take care of the second thing.

The second thing was there needed to be a little restructuring done with his crew. He had a good idea on how to make it work and make it work long term. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was a newer idea for him, something he’d been percolating on for some time and now might be the exact right time to make things work as he wanted them.

But first he needed to get back to the good old U.S. of A. and have some conversations with aa number of people both in the US and out in order to make sure his idea was going to take off like it was supposed to.

And, most importantly, to make sure his idea didn’t turn into what The General or Williams had tried to do.

Chapter 83

“So, seriously,” Theo said as the entire plane was laughing, “what the hell is up with Limon?”

Porras rolled his eyes and leaned back in the leather-covered, US State Department appointed chair, a monumental sigh escaping his lips.

“Come on, man,” LaRocca said, “spill.”

Porras sat up, shaking his head and pulling an imaginary zipper across his mouth.

“Chicken,” Gibbons said, laughing.

“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to tell the story,” Braun said with a laugh.

Porras shot forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees, face animated and hands ready to help with the story. “You see,” he started to say which set off laughter amongst the rest of the team.

While Morris had been screaming up a storm at the DEA hangar, pretty much everybody ignored him. He finally stopped talking when Pike had stripped off his own shirt, tattooed muscles and pale belly bulging, and challenged Morris to a fight. Morris wisely consigned himself to the air-conditioned desk inside the office. Cisneros flagged down and bribed an airport shuttle driver to drive all the civilians over to the jet which was ready for takeoff. Citing diplomatic immunity, the tower allowed them in the air within minutes, waving to the Seahawk crew as they headed back to their helicopter to scoot out of Dodge as quickly as possible.

There had been a flurry of phone calls once they were in the air to tie up a few loose ends. While the phalanx of Visionary lawyers, accountants, PR executives and pencil pushers were flying back on the airplane they took down, that left Braun’s private aircraft cooling its heels on an Argentinian tarmac.

A few phone calls later and retired Army friends of Hailey Gibbons were quietly moving from around South America into Argentina privately to rendezvous with Mercado’s head of security, Rossi. Rossi would direct them to one un-sold, high-security estate in the ritziest neighborhood of Buenos Aires where the former American soldiers would join up with Acevedo and escort Porras’s wife and son to the waiting private jet of a billionaire. Said jet would be flown with an on-board armed escort to a private airfield just outside Washington DC. Waiting there for them would be Porras, several armed men and an immigration official with temporary papers allowing them in the country as refugees. JC was fairly sure he would be able to angle for new identities for them in the coming weeks, but for now, safely out of Argentina would have to be enough.

Varela was dropped off at the Hall of Justice in downtown Buenos Aires, literally trussed up like a Christmas turkey. While they couldn’t get information about Varela’s situation directly from anyone official, Mercado assured them that he would never set foot outside of prison as a free man again.

Henri Rodriguez, El Viejo, beat back Roberto and his Los Interesantes crew to keep control of the lucrative Palermo region of Buenos Aires. With the help of a man named Flaco, a turncoat in Roberto’s operation, Henri was able to even expand into Roberto’s territory, cutting it in half. Henri promised JC that he would honor his promises to JC and looked forward to seeing him within a month.

A phone call from Gibbons, backed up by the word of Braun, had Kevin Dobkin, former Vice President of Visionary Worldwide, confined to his office with no phone, no computer and no way to call anyone. Bernard Nagahashi, Esq. stood guard outside his door along with three security team members hand-picked by Gibbons. FBI agents were en route to take him into custody on suspicion of arranging a murder-for-hire plot, conspiring with foreign governments and criminal elements as well as any other Patriot Act violations the lawyers could cook up.

Those were the majority of the loose ends, save one or two, so the team decided to sit back, relax and try to relieve some of their stress.

“Back when we were kids,” Porras started up, apparently eager to pocket the ten grand promised by Braun, “there were periodic outbreaks of lice.” As the rest of the cabin cringed, Porras waved their squeamishness away. “Believe me, nobody there thought it was a picnic. But it was one of the poorest areas in the city and there wasn’t much we could do. One time, it was so bad, like eighty percent of the neighborhood had it. My family didn’t, at least not yet, but word came down from somewhere that shaving your head would help. It was the worst with the boys, so, we did what any right-thinking Argentinian would do. We shaved our heads.”

He stopped, looking around at the group, waiting, as if they could guess the rest. Theo looked at JC, then LaRocca, then Braun and Gibbons.

“And?”

“And my shaved head looked exactly,” Porras said, “ exactly like a lemon sitting sideways on the top of my neck.”

Everyone on the plane tried not to laugh but before long they were laughing so hard even Porras joined in.

“It was all wrinkled and lumpy,” he said through the laughter. “My ears were at the peaks of the lemon; it was just horrible.”

“That’s it?” Braun said through his laughter. “That’s the story.”

“I was twelve!” Porras said. “I may be devilishly handsome with a full head of hair, but I’m never the tallest or the strongest or the smartest guy in the group.” His laughter died down, as did everyone else’s. “And to have everyone from your best friend to the teachers in class mocking you day in and day out?” He looked up at his new friends. “It was horrible.”

Nobody said anything for a good long while. They’d just gone through too much to dish out empty platitudes. Finally Bannister stood, green bottle of sparkling water in his hand.

“I don’t know about all that,” he said. “But I do know I wouldn’t hesitate to go into battle if you were by my side, Salvador. Not for a second.” He paused, looking to Theo, then Gibbons, then LaRocca, then Braun. “Matter of fact, that goes for everyone here on this plane. Every one of you has gone above and beyond, and I thank you for it. You’ve shown more loyalty, will and flat-out grit than I expected or required.” He paused, looking at Braun. “That goes for you, too, Braun. The world may think we saved your bacon, but I’ll never forget that you literally saved my life.” He paused again, his voice momentarily thick. “I owe you.”

As the others in the plane turned to Braun, the man simply nodded to JC and raised his own glass in honor and respect.

“But I am quadrupling my fee,” JC said.

As the rest of the plane laughed, Braun said, “And I’ll quadruple it on top of that.”

JC knew the man would likely pay him any amount he asked, but eight million would be close to enough. Much of that would be spread amongst the people on the plane, whether they knew it or not, but there were also people in Argentina he needed to thank for their help.

“As for everyone else,” JC said, raising he glass, “a toast, for Limon.”

Porras nodded as everyone stood, grabbed their drinks and raised them high.

“Screw ‘em!” JC said.

Theo picked up the call first, a favorite phrase amongst Bannister’s old team, and it was quickly echoed by everyone else on the plane, along with laughter.

Hugs and handshakes followed with everyone soon sitting back down, lost in their own private thoughts on the flight back to America.

JC sat as well, his mind turning over a myriad of feelings, emotions and plans. He missed his old friends, his old teammates. That was true. But there might be something said about making new acquaintances.

Chapter 84

Despite all that had happened, he was almost more frightened to have this conversation than he had been the entire time in Buenos Aires. Of course, that was an exaggeration, but not by much.

Braun had been watching the front drive of the house for nearly forty minutes straight, waiting for Olivia’s Audi to pull into the driveway. As soon as it did, he ran back into the kitchen, turning the water on to boil and sweeping the chopped vegetables and shrimp into the frypan. By the time she had parked and walked into the house, the oil and garlic pasta was halfway to being done.

He could have made the food and then warmed it up. He could have tracked her phone or asked security to provide him with an ETA. But he knew this dinner needed to be as authentic as it could be, warts and all. A friend had given him the germ of an idea back in Buenos Aires and he’d realized over the ensuing days since their return how good of an idea it really was.

Since he’d landed back in the US everything had been a whirlwind. News shows, entertainment shows, doctor’s visits, psychologist’s visits, an interminable amount of time spent with lawyers and some very deep conversations with both the FBI and the CIA, although the CIA conversations were unofficial.

Mercado had signed the papers. They had agreed to sign contracts based on share prices of their respective companies on the day before Braun went down to Buenos Aires. While the stock prices of their companies had stabilized since their volatility started, both Braun and Mercado felt it was the fairest thing to do.

As the week plus had continued since his return, Braun and Mercado had come closer. Stress and a near-death experience will do that, sure, but they kept finding more and more things that they had in common. While ArgenTelCo was officially being absorbed into Visionary, at Braun’s insistence the company would largely continue to operate exactly as it had with Mercado at the helm. It would simply have a new name and color scheme.

“What’s this?” Olivia asked as she walked in the house. It was just after eight and she ahd returned from the country club. A quick glance and Braun confirmed she’d already showered. While she may have eaten something at the club, to Braun’s recollection it wasn’t her habit. Their maid usually left a plate of cold cuts, cheese and crackers for Olivia in the evening but Braun knew she drank most of her dinner from a highball glass.

“Oil and garlic pasta,” Braun answered his wife. “I came home early, thought I’d make something.”

Olivia stood there staring at him. Braun hadn’t cooked in probably ten years. Back when they were just married and living in a small studio, he had cooked often, oil and garlic pasta being one of his staples and the one Olivia said she liked the most. But that was a long time ago and tastes changed. Still, he gambled on it being close enough.

“Did Vera leave anything?” Olivia asked.

“There’s a plate of cold cuts in the fridge,” Braun said with a nod of his head. He dumped the spaghetti into the colander, draining the water from it. He glanced up at Olivia who still stood there watching him cook as if she had seen Bigfoot riding a unicorn. “Why don’t you go change your clothes,” he said gently, trying to make it sound less like a command and more like a suggestion. “Pasta’ll be ready in about ten minutes. I could use some help choosing the wine.”

Olivia didn’t say a word, she just walked past the kitchen and towards the stairs.

Braun took it as a good sign. She didn’t argue, didn’t fight, didn’t move directly to the refrigerator for the plate of cold cuts. She could, of course, still choose that. But still, he took it as a good sign.

Since he came back he’d either been sleeping at the office or in the guest bedroom of their house. They had managed to keep passing each other and avoid talking about everything that happened, but that needed to change. Word of his relationship with Mariela had leaked to the press and, despite his insistence to not speak about it officially or publicly, the media had still gotten it mostly right.

It was, however, high time that they had a difficult conversation. Tonight was just as good of a night as any.

The fact that Olivia Braun had hired a man to kill her husband was a more difficult problem to unravel than the merger with ArgenTelCo. Not many people knew the details of it, but enough did that it needed to be addressed by a number of groups and agencies. Braun had no interest in pressing charges and had lobbied heavily in her favor. Numerous meetings were held, concessions promised on the part of both Braun and Visionary, and the consensus came down to letting the whole thing slide for her.

While Bannister and pretty much everyone else had been concerned Braun was simply looking for his own brand of retribution and justice, he agreed to both psych evals and allowing his house, cars and office being bugged in order to ensure Olivia’s protection. After passing the evals with flying colors but with some lingering signs of PTSD after his time in Argentina, and with the bugging and monitoring of said bugs, everyone felt at least partially appeased there would be no blowback for Mrs. Braun. Plus, with Gibbons there to protect her, things seemed to be s taken care of s was possible short of putting her under protective custody, which would aise all kinds of other questions.

The truth of it, in his mind, boiled down to the fact that her actions were a reaction to and result of his actions. While he was a firm believer in personal responsibility, he was also not so naïve to believe that everything happened in a vacuum. Had he not spent the past decade philandering around the world, Olivia likely wouldn’t have taken things this far.

The biggest question, he said to himself as he mixed the pasta back into the frypan with the garlic, onions, shrimp and olive oil, is what she wants to do from here.

As he apportioned the meal into two wide, flat bowls, he heard her bare footsteps coming down the stairs. His heart hoped it was a good sign.

*****

An hour and a half later and the pasta was unfinished and cold. The bottle of wine was gone and Olivia had opened a second. But she hadn’t left.

“If she hadn't died,” she asked, “would you have come back?”

It was one of many cutting questions that Braun had endured over course of the dinner. But every one of the questions he had answered with truth and absolutely zero resentment or anger. She’d earned both the right to ask the questions as well as hear the honest answers.

“I honestly don't know,” he said. “In time, perhaps.”

“What was your little plan, anyway?” she asked. “What did she give you that I didn’t?”

The question was a minefield. It wasn’t the first of the evening and he didn’t imagine it to be the last. But he needed to navigate it to the best of his abilities nonetheless.

“She wasn't you,” he said with a sigh, the truth neither convenient, sensical or designed to ease anyone’s pain. “She wasn't there, judging me, evaluating me, weighing my measure every time you look at me and deciding I come up short.”

“Is that what you think I do?”

“Isn't it?” Braun said, keeping his voice as even as possible. “Every time you look at me I feel your hatred.”

Olivia shook her head, frowning. “Every time I look at you I see a great man who has spent the last twenty years pushing me aside and making me feel like one of the help.”

Braun said nothing, trying to find the words. “I never felt that way,” he finally said. “I treasured you. You were… everything.”

“Second only to the business,” Olivia said, “which was your actual everything. Nothing could be closer than Visionary for you.”

Braun said nothing for a long time. She wasn’t wrong and he wasn’t about to try and tell her she was. Instead, he picked at his food, moving it around the bowl. Olivia finished her glass of wine, poured another, the second bottle now empty.

“Kev’s gone,” Braun said finally. “Visionary will continue humming along while the merger is put in place. Bernard can stand in while I'm gone.”

“What?” Olivia said, irritation clear in her voice. “What are you saying?”

“We have a lot of things to work out, Li-” He stopped himself, looked at his pasta, then back up to her eyes. “We have a lot of things to work out, Olivia. I’ve worked most of my life to build that company. We worked most of our lives. It isn't important now. We are. You are.”

“What are you saying?” she asked again.

“I'm taking a leave of absence,” Braun said, leaning back. “I'll move into the apartment in Manhattan, give you some space. I'm going to go to therapy. I obviously have some things to work out. Lord knows I haven't been the best husband. I am deeply sorry for that.” He paused, picking his fork back up to stir his pasta. “But I'd much rather repair what we have, if it's possible, than throw it away.”

“What are you proposing?”

“I'm proposing, Olivia, that we not throw in the towel, not matter how easy that may seem. I’m proposing that we work together to save and rebuild what we have,” Braun said. When she didn’t immediately disagree, he continued. “As long as it takes until we're at least on the road to being a little more whole than we currently are.”

“And the company?” she asked.

“Can survive without me.”

“Can you survive without it?”

“If I have you? By my side? Together, as partners? I can survive anything.”

Tyler Braun’s wife of twenty years sat across from him, watching him, her eyes searching over his face again and again.

*****

Olivia went back to the bar but came back with a small green bottle of French sparking water. There were two things she hoped he could see. The first was she wasn’t drinking. While her tolerances for alcohol had grown over the years, she was rather tipsy from the wine and the martinis. But she’d made a decision in the past hour. If he was willing to try, so was she. For her, a big part of that meant she needed to be sober more often than not. The little green bottle was the first step towards that and she hoped he could see it.

The second thing as the fact that it was already after ten and she was still there. Despite all the pain and hurtful answers he’d given her over the past two hours, she hadn’t left. Hadn’t walked away. Hadn’t stormed off as an emotional response to something he said, no matter how much that may have been her right.

She wasn’t giving up. They’d gone through too much. If he was willing to look past her attempts to murder him, which it seemed like he was doing, then she might be able to work past his chronic cheating and lying. If, in fact, he was willing to leave it behind.

It would take ungodly amounts of work. But if he was willing, then so was she. She sipped her sparkling water in silence for a full ten minutes. She screwed the metal top back on the bottle, stood up and took the dishes of half-eaten pasta back to the kitchen, placing them in the sink.

Then she went back and sat down across from her husband. His eyes were fixed on the center of the table and slightly damp. She opened her bottle of water and sipped from it again, wondering when he would notice it and understand.

Tyler looked up at the bottle as she sat it on the table. His eyes focused on it, then widened slightly in recognition. He looked up at her. After a long ten seconds, she nodded once.

Tyler nodded as well, a hint of a smile on his face.

Olivia didn’t smile. It was too early for that. But she nodded her head again and took another drink of the sparkling water, draining the bottle.

She set it down and then stood, moving towards the stairs. She placed her hand briefly on his shoulder as she passed. As her bare feet passed the sixth step of the staircase to their bedroom she said, “Goodnight.” It wasn’t loud but in the quiet of the house it was audible.

By the time she was nearly asleep, Tyler hadn’t moved.

It’s a start, was her last conscious thought as she drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 85

“Soil specialist?” JC said, laughing, “really?”

“Soil scientist,” Sue said, correcting him on the nomenclature. She held her hands out and shrugged. “I had to have a believable cover to be in the places I was being sent to. All kinds of equipment, truckload full of measuring devices, tools… enough things that a modified sniper rifle could be hidden amongst them.”

“But did you know anything about soil?”

She nodded. “Eventually I did. Ended up getting a PhD in it just to make it look more plausible.” She picked up a roll of bread, picking a piece off and tossing it in her mouth. “I may have been the president of the IUSS on more than one occasion.”

“International…” JC said, trying to figure out what the acronym stood for.

“…Union of Soil Sciences.” Sue said with a laugh. “Real lively bunch. Get a couple of drinks in them, though, and they get dirty.” She laughed at the stodgy double entendre as JC rolled his eyes. “Sorry,” she said, chewing on another piece of bread. “Soil scientist humor.”

JC nodded, looking around at the restaurant she’d chosen. Although based in Colombia, she’d decided to meet JC in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. He hadn’t asked why and she hadn’t disclosed the reason. He was just enjoying the fact that, as far as he could reckon, this was the first time in his life he had come south of the US border and wasn’t on a mission.

It had been a busy week since they landed at the small airport in Westchester that Visionary liked to use. Dobkin was deep in some rendition hole somewhere and JC didn’t lose a wink of sleep over his disappearance. The best anyone had been able to determine, Dobkin’s contacting his old prep-school contacts in Argentina was down to raw, naked ambition. Understandable, but equally understandable to care little when someone decides to kill others simply to advance their own career or fatten their wallets, gets caught, then disappears into a black hole of pain and deprivation.

JC had been called in to debrief Bernard Nagahashi, Esq., the new VP at Visionary, about everything that happened in Argentina. He did so without holding anything back. When it was done, the man shook his hand and told him if there was ever anything Visionary or Nagahashi personally could do for JC or any of his friends, he should not hesitate to call.

Ingrassia had called once. JC was at the boxing gym, training, and hadn’t picked up. An hour later there were four black SUVs outside waiting for him. They had driven JC to a local high school football field where a Bell 525 helicopter was waiting. Three of the men joined JC for a short trip over Boston to a private hangar on the eastern edge of Logan International airport. JC was passed off to three different men dressed in dark suits and bundled onboard a waiting Gulfstream G550.

Once the plane landed at a quiet runway in the executive Hyde Field airport outside DC, an identical Bell 535 whisked him and his minders off to a heliport on the Washington Channel of the Potomac River. Three waiting SUVs with the commensurate number of dark-suited agency men escorted JC to a neighborhood not far from the White House. The only one who spoke with him the entire trip pointed at a small, nondescript coffee shop and said, “In there.” Ingrassia was waiting for him and, for the next three hours, they were the only people there. They spent their time wisely, discussing and planning how to go about bringing Williams to heel.

While Ingrassia had made it clear that Bannister had the full backing of the CIA, he also had made it clear this was, understandably, a non-official mission and while JC was under the umbrella of the CIA, that umbrella did not provide any sort of official protection or cover should things go unofficially sideways.

It didn’t matter. Having the backing of the CIA, even in a reduced capacity such as this, gave JC far greater resources. He knew it wouldn’t be too long before Williams was sewn up and he could move on with the next stage of his plan.

The next stage was simple: it was time to rebuild the team. He’d been dancing around it for some time, but the fact was he enjoyed what he did. Yes, he had a responsibility for the people on his team, but they were adults who chose to do what they did, same as JC. The fear of someone choosing to do right in the world but getting hurt in the process shouldn’t restrict them from attempting in the first place. If that were true, firefighters would cower in their stationhouses and police would never leave the safety of the patrol car.

He spoke with Theo about it the night they landed in DC and his old friend was on board. JC knew he would be. Theo’s consigliere, a man named Grigor Hakobyan, was essentially running the family business anyway. They had largely turned away from organized crime and would likely be completely legit in the next year or two. Theo didn’t need to be there and preferred to be doing what he and JC always did anyway.

Despite the best efforts of the Boston PD, Levon’s killer was still at large. The second set of investigators that Mr. Douglas sent over hadn’t come to any clear conclusions. JC, however, had his suspicions on who was involved.

A joint conversation with Porras and LaRocca and they were on board, as he expected. State Department had come through with new ID’s and citizenship for Porras and his family. Although State had originally balked, a short three-way phone call between Holstrom, Mr. Douglas and Secretary of State Kensel got things sorted out. Sending Porras back to Argentina would be a death sentence, pure and simple.

LaRocca was still officially part of the Secret Service but was granted an extended leave of absence. Holstrom had a hand in it, Bannister was sure of it, but neither Holstrom nor LaRocca was forthcoming with the details. Which was just as well. JC didn’t need to know everything. He did know, however, that the woman was good in a pinch and braver than most. It would be enough until it wasn’t and then she’d be out.

JC offered a spot to Gibbons but she turned him down. She was happy where she was and, frankly, didn’t think traipsing around the world playing GI Joe and blowing things up would wind up being nearly half as good as it sounded. Her words. She also hinted at not being able to make a commitment to a team with Theo on it when, were things to go bad, her primary point of concern would be making sure the man she cared about was safe.

There were other people he needed to get on board as consultants, but they would come in later on down the road. Right now he wanted to feel out the possibility of Sue joining the team. While she was a verifiable senior citizen, the woman was far tougher than most people, men or women, half her age. Mr. Douglas showed him her records in the CIA, at least part of them. While the vast majority were simply redacted sheets of straight black, there were enough open spots to show that at fifty-three, when she officially retired, her physicals were that of someone literally thirty years younger. JC couldn’t beat her in a five-mile run or a sprint, based off of the numbers she put in. Although that was twelve years ago, nothing indicated that she had slowed down, especially the fact that she’d had three beers and seemed to be completely lucid.

“So,” JC said, “I’ve been dying to ask ever since you said it on the phone.” He leaned forward, pushing the remains of his steak aside and putting his elbows on the table. “What does ‘tell him his auntie says hello’ mean, anyway?”

Sue picked up her bottle of La Mera Belga, leaned back, took a big swig and set it back on the table. It was the third time she’d done the same set of movements that night and each time it had preceded a fantastical story. JC had no reason to believe this was any different, so he did the same with his bottle of sparkling water. He’d chosen sparkling water instead of the rare, for him, beer because something told him he needed to keep his wits about him tonight.

“Henri is a CIA asset, deep undercover” she said as JC’s jaw dropped. “Or at least, was until I left and Mr. Douglas stuffed it up.” She picked her beer back up, sipping it but keeping it close. “I turned him back in the day when I worked for the agency.”

“How?”

“Wiretaps,” she said with a shrug, “combined with listening devices planted in his vehicle and house. I discovered he had a thing for older women but was too embarrassed by it to act. Kept calling mature women sex lines with burner phones.” She smiled then sipped her beer. “So I seduced him.”

JC watched her, trying to see if she was making the story up or not. He couldn’t tell, but Sue must have misunderstood and taken his evaluating stare for one of condemnation.

“Hey, I was this side of fifty and he was an energetic twenty-one-year-old.” She smiled. “It was my pleasure.” She sipped her beer then shook her head again. “Not everyone takes the high road like your friend Joan.” Chuckled. “Some of us quite enjoy the low road.”

A connection clicked in JC’s mind and he felt loose enough to ask it, despite the potential pitfalls. “Is that why they call Henri ‘El Viejo?’”

Sue nodded. “After his time with me, he felt less concerned with the appearances of dating older women.” She picked at the label on her bottle of beer. “Of course, he keeps it in the bounds of respectable, only dating women twenty years older than him.” She smiled. “When you’ve had the best, there’s no point in trying to replicate the experience, no?”

JC smiled as she took a long pull on the beer. “But Mr. Douglas couldn’t keep him around?” he asked.

“He didn’t have the skills,” she said, putting her bottle down. “Neil’s always been a bit too much of a boy scout,” she continued. “It serves him well, but sometimes the bending of the rules is when the real progress is made.”

JC decided to play a hunch. “Do you know Director Ingrassia?” he asked.

“Francis?” Sue laughed. “Of course. Who do you think trained him?” She picked up the beer, drained it, then put the empty bottle back on the table. “Pay the check and I’ll tell you a story about him.”

*****

“Turns out, he got the name ‘Limon’ as a kid,” JC said. “His whole neighborhood shaved their heads because of lice and his head looked like a lemon.”

“I know,” Sue said, laughing along with JC.

JC stopped and looked at her. A lot of the things she had said during the dinner and the hour-long stroll through the surrounding neighborhood bordered on the unbelievable, but JC had both seen and done enough improbable things in his life that his understanding of what might be possible was likely broader than the average person. However, there was absolutely no way in hell this little old lady could not only know about Porras, a guy working at some mid-level security company in Argentina, but also know the backstory to his nickname.

“Bullshit.”

Sue smiled. “I was wondering when you were going to call me out on something.”

She took his arm and continued to walk down the street, JC in tow.

“You know how some people love baseball?” she asked. “The stats, the numbers, the players, the games won and lost, the possibilities and eventual results? They’ll talk all day about this number and that number and how this player got this many runs in this game and how it affected this outcome down the road and on and on?” She looked up at JC to let him know it was time to answer.

“Of course,” JC said. “Some people are into sports.”

“No,” Sue said, shaking her head, “that level of dedication is beyond just ‘into’ something.” She stopped talking as a young couple passed them. “It’s borderline obsession and if they start talking about it, they can chew someone’s ear off and drive them nuts.”

“Okay,” JC said, wondering where she was going with the analogy.

“Well,” Sue said, “that’s how I am about the security and espionage field.” She said nothing as a young woman passed, arms weighed down by plastic bags from the grocery store. “That knowledge has allowed me to become a broker of sorts after my retirement from the agency.”

JC stopped at an ice cream cone stand, buying two chocolate cones while his mind was processing what she had just said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, pretending to check his messages but actually using the move as a pretext to start the recording app he set up before. He put his phone back in his pocket, handing her the ice cream cone as they continued to walk down the street, the cool ice cream steaming in the warm night air. He knew he had to test her, but there was only one way to find out if she was real enough and that was checking her answers afterwards.

“You’re telling me you know all about the players in the game?” he asked. “All of them?”

“From the major leagues all the way down to the minors,” Sue said, slowly licking her ice cream. “Even the unaffiliated sports clubs that aspire to join the minors someday.”

“And that’s how you know that not only is Porras’s nickname is Limon,” he said, probing, “but also how he got it?”

“I know his wife was his high school sweetheart,” she said. “Also, his son is named after her uncle Nicolas, not his.”

JC shook his head. The woman sure knew how to spin a story. But now it was time for the test.

“So, if I needed a hitter in Vancouver, BC, you’d know who to call?”

“Who’s the target?”

“Iranian-Canadian businessman,” JC said, pulling ideas out of thin air, “hand in the till, accountant caught him and now his investors have had enough.”

“Messy or clean?”

“Messy.”

“Sasha Liu,” she said, taking a bite of her ice cream and continuing to talk around it, “born and raised in Vancouver but his dad was a big fan of Lenin. Sasha runs the 8th Street Young Boys, smash and grab mostly, dabble in ID theft, but will do drive-bys from time-to-time if the money’s right. They have this neat habit of using four teams, from opposite sides of the road, creates this buzzsaw effect.” She smiled. “Quite effective.”

“Clean?” JC said.

“Francois Rodier,” she said without thinking. “Based in Montreal but operates all over North America. Former JTF2 sniper, retired early because the special forces psych techs decided he ‘liked killing a little too much,’” she said, putting air quotes around the last part. “He runs a medium-sized construction company now, building houses and small apartment complexes, but has a special talent for long-range contracts.” She huddled up to JC like a young girl, excited about a story she was telling. “He once filled a contract on a visiting Chinese diplomat-slash-billionaire who the Party thought was a little too big for his britches,” she said, chuckling. “Francois put a bullet through his left eye at just over two thousand meters.”

“Alright,” JC said, warming to the game and hoping to trip her up somehow. “I need an explosive expert in Germany with zero connections to the old Baader-Meinhof Group. Who’s my guy?”

“Needs to be German?”

“Yes,” JC said, trying to make it as narrow as possible.

“Used to be, Hans would be the man to call.”

“Hans?” JC said. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Sue said with a laugh, “Hans. Hans Schauble, but he got tired of having his door kicked in after your friend Duke used Hans’ devices in his killing spree before he joined up with you lot, so old Hans got out of the business. His client book was taken over by his niece, who, oddly enough, also goes by Hans.”

JC laughed along with her. The stories she was spinning were entertaining, true or not.

“Okay,” he said, trying to stump her. “I need a hacker who speaks English, Hindi and Farsi.”

“Where do you want them?”

“Europe.”

“Easy,” she said, “Javad.” She paused. “But I think you knew that one, didn’t you?”

JC shrugged, playing it off, but slightly irritated that he got caught out. He took a bite of his ice cream cone, thinking.

“Alright,” he said. “I need a sniper, good out to at least a mile.”

“Where?”

“Papua New Guinea.”

Sue laughed but JC didn’t. He was serious. He needed to know if Sue was what she was pretending to be.

“You’re really trying to stump me, aren’t you?” she said. “It absolutely has to be Papua New Guinea?”

“Sniper,” JC said, “one mile plus, and it most definitely has to be Papua New Guinea.” He wagged his finger at her. “Don’t try dodging it.”

Sue stopped next to a trash can, tossing the soggy remains of her ice cream cone in the trash. She turned to JC and looked up at him, hands in her pockets like a teenager.

“Alright,” she said, smile fading from her face. “Salamo Eri would be your man, formerly based in Port Moresby. He was poached by the Australians once he became head of the PNGDF special forces.” She shook her head. “It was a ruse and, had he asked me, I would have told him so. The man was an outspoken leader for PNG independence so the gutless twats in Canberra decided to ruin him. Six months after he joins up to teach at the SOTE Centre in New South Wales, some fresh-faced pixie who knew nothing about war or war fighters drops a claim of sexual harassment on Salamo.” She paused, staring JC in the eye. “The man’s gay.” She shrugged. “Still, Canberra was all too happy to bounce him out and, if my sources are correct, this was the plan all along.” She sighed. “His life in ruins, he now sells his skills to the highest bidder. That being said, he’s been hitting the bottle a little too much and his last three contracts were abysmal failures.”

She stopped, looking up, thinking while JC marveled in her ability to either recall the details or create them out of thin air. “Best bet now would probably be the Taumata twins, brother and sister, out of New Zealand. It’s not PNG, but close. They’ve got no army training, just country kids who know exactly what the hell they are doing. Mid-twenties, father is Maori, mother is English and the kids blend in everywhere. String of successful contracts over the past four years, the brother good with a knife and poison, the sister with the heavy weaponry.”

JC started to clap slowly. “Bravo.”

“You wanna turn your damn phone off now?”

He laughed, taking the phone from his pocket and stopping the app.

“Although,” Sue said as she took JC’s arm and guided them back to the restaurant they started in, “if you’re looking for someone in Oceania, I hear there’s this one woman hardly anyone’s ever heard of. New to the area, good with a knife and a gun, they say.”

“Alright, Sue,” he said, “is there anything you don’t know?”

Sue walked for a bit before she said, “Yes.” She waited a beat before she continued with, “I don’t know when you’re going to ask me to be on your new team.”

“New team?”

“Yeah,” Sue said. “The one you’re going to take Williams down with.”

JC stopped, sitting on a bench outside a coffee shop. He had already planned to see if Sue was willing to work with him in some capacity. Her experience and connections, as well as her newly revealed encyclopedic knowledge of players in the game, wasn’t something he wanted to be a phone call away. He wanted her out there with the team. He was concerned about her age and fragility, but the way she’d been gripping his arm all night, he knew she had plenty of strength to go out in the field.

“You feel like you can step up to the plate?” he asked.

Sue nodded. “I’ve still got a few at bats in me.”

“You ready to travel?”

“Which passport should I use?” she said, pulling three from her back pocket, none of them the dark navy of the United States passport covers.

JC smiled. He had consulted with Theo and Mr. Douglas about using Sue. Both of them left it entirely up to him. He knew where he fell out on the question.

“So, Susan Reznik,” JC said, “are you in or out?”

Sue smiled, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m in,” she said, “but if you ask me that stupid bicycle question, I’m gonna lie, so just don’t ask it.”

Epilogue One

JC exited the small, dark coffee shop, his eyes blinking against the bright light. He yawned and stretched, his body tired from the workout he had almost finished before he was summoned, his mind tired from the three hours of talking, planning, positioning, parrying and maneuvering he had just gone through.

He looked at the half dozen men in dark suits standing around. There were only two SUVs when there had been four that picked him up at the gym earlier.

“You guys still here?” he said to one of the men, trying to balance between nonchalant and gentle ribbing.

“Those were our orders.”

“Any chance your orders include dropping me back at the gym?”

One of the men opened the door to the closest black SUV for JC. “Per our orders.”

JC nodded but didn’t move to the door. “Any chance you’ll let me drive?” As the man started to shut the door, JC said, “Alright, alright.” The man stopped and JC got into the SUV.

The rest of the men piled into their respective SUVs, thankfully letting JC sit in the back seat without a person sitting next to him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his mind spinning with information and fatigue. By the time they’d take a right and then a left at the next light, JC was asleep.

Had he been aware and looked over his shoulder when the SUV took the first right, he would have seen Mr. Douglas cross the street in front of the coffee shop and enter, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t followed or that the two SUVs hadn’t stopped.

As Mr. Douglas walked in, the woman behind the counter nodded and removed her hands from under the counter. The last time he had seen what was back there, Patrice Roberts had twin Micro Uzi mounted on pivoting hardware along with other, more serious weapons that were holstered, not mounted. He knew because he helped her build it. While it had been some time, he continued to funnel money to Patrice and the operation of this coffee shop. It was essentially an off-the-books SCIF that only very few people knew about. And, in this day and age, Mr. Douglas wouldn’t be surprised if Patrice had a mounted a 5.56mm microgun under the counter. Or maybe more than one.

“Neil,” Ingrassia said, standing and shaking hands with the number three man at the CIA. “You have a safe trip?”

It was code, even in this place, asking if he’d been followed.

“Clean as a whistle, Frank,” Mr. Douglas said, sitting and signaling Patrice for a cup of coffee. He’d been coming here long enough that she remembered he liked his with room for sugar and cream and lots of both.

Ingrassia and Douglas spent the next ten minutes dancing around what they needed to talk about. It was the purpose for this clandestine meeting, away from any possibility of the wrong person overhearing. Just as Mr. Douglas’s coffee had cooled to the perfect point for drinking, Ingrassia sighed and leaned back against the leather-covered booth seat.

“You think he’ll play ball this time?” he said.

Mr. Douglas blew across the milky, caramel-colored coffee in the cup. It was cooled, but he was buying time to think about the answer.

“I think he’s sufficiently motivated,” Mr. Douglas said, taking a sip of his coffee then putting it on the table. “He and his team kicked Williams pretty hard in the nuts last time and, metaphorically speaking, the guy essentially just shook it off.”

“Is he scared?”

“Bannister?” Mr. Douglas said, shaking his head. “He’s professional enough to not be. In truth, he has no reason to be, at least not yet. Williams is still rebuilding. He’s making bold moves, but they’re the right moves. As long as Bannister can put a team together and they get on the stick, he should have no major problems.”

“Is LaRocca on board?” Ingrassia asked.

“She’ll report back to us for the time being,” Mr. Douglas said, nodding, “but it’s only a matter of time before she goes over to his side.”

Ingrassia nodded as well. It was common. An agent reported on the activities of the people they were tasked with watching. Eventually the guilt of snitching on their friends would outweigh their desire to do the “right thing.” Unless of course, they were more of a professional intelligence officer as opposed to a newly recruited agent.

Ingrassia asked Patrice for a pastry and some sparkling water. He’d been drinking coffee for the past three hours and he needed something else in his belly to keep himself from getting jittery. After the food came and he’d eaten half of it, carefully slicing it up with a knife and a fork, he focused back on Mr. Douglas.

“How long do we have?”

“Until Williams is taken down?”

Ingrassia nodded.

“There’s a window of up to ten or twelve months,” Mr. Douglas said. “Eighteen at the absolute outside. If Bannister doesn’t neutralize Williams by then, it’ll be too late and we’ll have to send the whole agency after him.”

Ingrassia shook his head. “And all the dirty laundry that will entail.”

Mr. Douglas said nothing for a second, then reached over with his hand and took the remaining half of Ingrassia’s pastry with a smile. “Your fault,” he said as he stuffed the locally made delicacy into his mouth.

“Excuse me?” Ingrassia chuckled as he watched his underling literally eat his lunch.

Mr. Douglas swallowed the pastry, drank some coffee and said, “It’s your fault we’re in this mess anyway. You should have put a bullet in Williams’ head when you fired him.”

Ingrassia shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You go in alive, you come out dead, and it’s your best friend that does it.”

Ingrassia rolled his eyes at the Donnie Brasco quote as Mr. Douglas wiped his fingers with a napkin. “Duke is rubbing off on you.” JC’s former protégé and now underling to Mr. Douglas in the Agency had a penchant for not only spectacular assassinations but also incessantly quoting dialogue from movies.

“Maybe, but he’s a hell of an officer,” Mr. Douglas said.

“You think JC will co-opt him to his new team?”

Mr. Douglas shook his head. “He wants Duke to branch out on his own. He’ll find others.” He paused, then smiled. “You know JC once told me he thought Duke could be presidential material someday?”

Ingrassia snorted but said nothing else on the matter. Mr. Douglas didn’t need anything more from Ingrassia. He just wanted to plant the seed, the same way Bannister did with him.

“You know what would be ideal?” Ingrassia said, leaning forward and taking a sip of his water. “If Sue joined up with Bannister, we’d have even more control over him.”

“Sue?” Mr. Douglas chuckled. “You think that gets you control?”

Ingrassia shrugged.

“Well, she must have made a good impression on Bannister because he is meeting her for dinner in San Salvador in a few days at La Hacienda Real,” Mr. Douglas said. The restaurant was Sue’s favorite and part of her recruitment process. Both Douglas and Ingrassia had eaten there with her at various times over the years.

“That would be beneficial,” Ingrassia said, intrigued. “It gets us a trained intelligence officer next to him,” he said, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth that the idea was futile. “Too bad she’s such a gigantic, free-thinking pain-in-the ass,” he said. “And she left the agency over a decade ago now.”

“Pain in the ass?” Mr. Douglas said, laughing. “How dare you say such a thing about our former training officer,” Mr. Douglas said, causing both men to chuckle. He leaned over his shoulder bag on the chair next to him, opening it and digging through the reams of paperwork inside. “Only one thing,” he said, pulling a massive manila folder from the bag and unwinding the string that held it all together.

“What’s that?” Ingrassia asked, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

Mr. Douglas dropped the file on the tile-covered wooden table with an almighty whump. Papers of all sorts spilled out to the right of the file’s opening. Ingrassia reached for it, his mouth dropping open. It was a personnel file, but there were no redactions whatsoever. He picked it up, his mouth dropping even further as he read information only a few people in the intelligence community had ever seen gathered in one place before.

He looked up to Mr. Douglas, regaining his composure, his mouth closed, his eyes asking if what he was seeing was true.

Mr. Douglas nodded.

“Sue never left.”

Epilogue Two

An hour and seven minutes after Mr. Douglas walked into the coffee shop, he walked back out the front door. There were no government SUVs waiting for him, no armed guard, just a three-minute walk to his two-year-old Dodge Charger. He opened the door, put his computer bag into the back seat, closed the door, then got opened the front driver’s side door and got in. The entire time he was looking around, his eyes taking in everything.

As he started up his car and drove slowly away, his eyes still searched. He was looking for the delivery or construction van that looked somehow out of place, a woman pushing a stroller who was more interested in who was driving past than her baby, a car that he’d already seen today. But he saw nothing.

That didn’t mean, however, that he wasn’t seen.

Ten minutes later, Ingrassia exited the coffee shop from the same door. He crossed the street to his Volkswagen Touareg, the white one with the limousine-tinted windows, got in and drove away.

As Frank Ingrassia drove down the street, a maroon Chrysler Town and Country minivan started up, pulled slowly out from the curb and drove down the same street in the same direction. While Ingrassia turned right to head back to the Agency, the minivan kept driving straight. The driver, while he wanted to turn and look at Ingrassia’s vehicle, almost by instinct, he didn’t. He kept his eyes fixed, his posture relaxed, his demeanor calm. He wanted nothing to alert his former friend, colleague and boss that he was watching him, that he was this close to reaching out and touching him.

Williams smiled as he kept driving, turning left three blocks away and heading onto the expressway to get the hell out of Maryland. Back when they were both up and coming in The Agency, he and Ingrassia would joke about assassinations. The phrase they used was “reach out and touch someone” as in, “The warlord keeps asking for more money, but we just shipped him three million. I think I’m going to have to have someone reach out and touch him.”

But that was a long time ago. And as easy as it would be to assassinate Ingrassia, it would be far better to make sure he not only knew it was coming but also who was bringing it to his doorstep.

Ronnie made it back to the US safe and sound a day before Buenos Aires nearly devolved into civil war. The international news channels were showing nothing else while the US channels kept watch on things they determined were of interest to US viewers. Williams had given Ronnie a day to decompress then showed up outside the hotel she was staying in and called her. She hadn’t told him where she was staying. He could tell both on the call and in their subsequent meeting that it rattled her that he could track her down.

He knew it was an insensitive, slightly stalkerish thing to do, but he needed her to see both the extent of his reach, but also how important to him she was. As much as he tried to project otherwise, his nascent organization was only a personnel issue or two away from folding into being just him.

His techs were a couple of former CIA workers bounced out for graft. Both of them, separately, thought they could use CIA time to freelance for themselves. One even went so far as requisitioning a hotrod computer and data-crunching setup for his home office on CIA funds. While they were able to provide Williams with what he needed, he knew it was a matter of time before either one or even both would stab him in the back. He had provisions for that eventuality of course, but he’d rather not have to put bullets in people’s heads unless necessary.

Williams’ muscle was cut from the same cloth. Former CIA knuckle draggers with one too many marks against them in their records, their experience made them formidable and able to do what Williams needed. Their personal proclivities and demons made them unhireable by most decent organizations in the US. Williams’ organization wasn’t on anybody’s radar right now which made these guys perfect for what he needed. Truth be told, the price was right as well.

Correction, Williams told himself, sitting at a stoplight. Your organization just got on someone’s radar. Bannister, Douglas and Ingrassia all meeting together like that after Ronnie’s failure in Argentina could only mean one thing. Not only was Williams back on Ingrassia’s radar, he was number one with a bullet.

Ronnie hadn’t actually failed in Buenos Aires. In some ways she had. It would have been much more preferable to get on Mercado’s good side, have him jumping through hoops and allowing access to the backdoors in his communication networks. But in some ways it didn’t matter. The deals Williams had brought to him over the past months had all provided backdoors of their own, unbeknownst to Mercado.

While part of him wanted her to put a bullet in his head, he knew from experience the satisfaction was far greater when the one chasing got so close they could literally taste the victory on the tip of their tongue only to have it ripped from their grasp. Watching that change, watching the person attempt to pivot to defense and eventual defeat was, in many ways, far sweeter than simply murdering them.

Of course he knew about the coffee shop. He’d been there on a number of occasions to speak with Ingrassia himself. The fact that both Ingrassia and Douglas seemed to forget that fact was almost insulting had it not given him a huge advantage. All he needed to do was see them working together and he knew what his next steps would be. If that required sitting on the same street day after day until the two current CIA officers happened to walk into the coffee shop on the same day at the same time, so be it.

He clicked the blinker, the left side turn signals flicking on and off to warn other drivers that he was merging into traffic. He pushed the accelerator down harder, just a touch, and the old girl was up to speed in short order, cruising down the expressway back north to New York. He’d decided that NYC provided no better location for his organization. Halfway between DC and Boston, it allowed his pursuers to get tantalizingly close, yet also allowed for a plethora of escape routes to other countries from the dozen or so airports and heliports around the city.

Williams smiled as the Chrysler Town and Country settled into the cruising speed of seventy-two miles per hour. They’re bringing all their arsenal and power to bear on a single guy? he said to himself, chuckling. My organization doesn’t even have a name or office yet.

He drove for another ten seconds before he realized he was wrong. There was a name he’d been bouncing around in his head for some time, always on the edges, never deciding, but he realized that with these three men coming against him, there was no better time to decide.

Your organization does have a name, he said to himself.

He waited, letting the whine of the tires on the dry freeway fill his ears.

Cerberus.

*****

The tall man stood there, motionless, his eye glued to the eyepiece of the spotting scope. He was just far enough away from the window that neither he nor his equipment was visible to anybody who might glance at the third-floor window. The window wasn’t as wide as he would have liked, but he didn’t have a lot of choices. He had a single, defined place he needed to watch and not very much time to set up in. The only thing what was required was he not be seen. A quick perusal of available rental spaces on the street showed him the ideal place to watch from. Breaking into it was a piece of cake, as was having a colleague call up the real estate agent in charge of showing it and keeping him tied up all day looking at other properties.

It was his hunch that took him there. When Mr. Douglas said he was going out to get some coffee, a phrase he hadn’t uttered before, it could only mean one place. Duke had heard of “the coffee shop”, of course. It was legendary, a rumor whispered amongst new recruits to the Agency. Nobody had ever figured out where it was or dared find out. It was Duke’s supposition that there were potentially as many as three of these off-the-books SCIFs in the DC area, or at least places that could function as such in order to throw the scent off of nosy young recruits.

But Duke was both motivated and patient. He’d seen the discord happening in Buenos Aires. A few phone calls and he knew to an almost certainty it was his old boss, friend, mentor and brother JC Bannister stirring the pot south of the border. Mr. Douglas being on edge helped confirm it. But him continuing to be on edge and having numerous phone calls with Ingrassia after Tyler Braun’s well-publicized return and the calming of unrest in Buenos Aire led Duke to believe that something was still up.

Duke wasn’t stupid. He knew trailing and spying on two of the top three men in the CIA, no matter how friendly he may have been with one of them, would only be forgiven if he was successful. He also knew that by Ingrassia and Douglas trying to keep it under their hats it had the potential to spin out of control faster than they thought it would.

So, when Mr. Douglas said he wasn’t going to be around midday the following day, Duke checked Ingrassia’s schedule. Ingrassia’s assistant, a young man named Perkins, had a crush on Duke and while Duke hated to use that to his advantage, sometimes you had to do things you were uncomfortable with. Besides, Perkins knew Duke was dating Vedika Singh, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. It was no secret. When Duke pushed the man for a meeting with Ingrassia only to hear his schedule was blocked off for most of the same time as Mr. Douglas, it wasn’t rocket science to put them together in a secret meeting.

As he set up shop in the unrented loft apartment with the smell of dead bodies coming from somewhere in the space, likely the reason such a prime location was still unrented, Duke saw Bannister go into the coffee shop, confirming what he suspected. The rest of the next three hours he watched. Every car he saw was recorded and entered into his notes to be checked and cross-referenced later. And as the minutes turned into hours, he focused in on one vehicle.

Every other car on the street moved. While some may be there for a little while, some for a longer while, sooner or later they all left. But from the time Duke got there to the time Ingrassia left, there had been only two vehicles that hadn’t moved. One was a late-model white SUV with dark tint on its windows that he suspected belonged to Director Ingrassia. The other was a non-descript burgundy minivan parked half a block north of the coffee shop. While every other vehicle had changed position at some time or another, save the director’s SUV, this minivan hadn’t. Duke couldn’t see the license plate, couldn’t see into the vehicle, but he knew that with the way the sun was moving, eventually when it did pull out and drive away, he would have an unobstructed view of both the driver and the license plate.

All he had to do was wait.

So he waited.

Eventually JC Bannister came out and was escorted into the two SUVs and driven away. Duke wanted to call him but the timing would have been far too suspicious. Ten minutes later Mr. Douglas came into the coffee shop. He hadn’t seen the man drive up which meant he snuck through some building or alleyway. A little more than an hour later and Mr. Douglas left, his vehicle still unidentified. Ten minutes later and Ingrassia got out, getting into the white SUV, the only other vehicle on the block that hadn’t moved, and drove away.

Duke half-expected his vehicle to explode either when he got into it or when he drove away. That’s how he would have done it, or at least one of the ways. But it didn’t and Ingrassia kept driving which was, frankly, more ominous.

As the burgundy minivan pulled out, Duke was ready. The digital camera attachment he had hooked into the spotting scope’s lens began taking both photos and videos. Duke guided the spotting scope with its built-in handle, making sure to get both photos of the license plate and the driver.

The vehicle traversed the entire distance Duke was able to watch and track before it then went out of sight behind a shorter building. He swore quietly. It was as he feared. The minivan driver was Ted Williams, former Deputy Director of the CIA.

Duke, as part of JC’s team that included Joan, Theo and, recently, the Bolivian sniper Cespedes, had taken down The General and his personal army hundreds deep. At that time, Williams was a new member of The General’s team and had hitched his future and fortune to the former army man’s idea of security contracting across the globe. It went up in smoke, thanks to JC and his team.

They’d also brought down the corrupt Secretary of State Russell Grey who was aligned with both The General and Williams. That action was a little more vindictive as Williams had kidnapped Joan and nearly forced JC to assassinate a Supreme Court Justice. They decided to send Williams into the dark ages, even going so far as to blow up his house. Williams had responded by killing some peripheral members of the team: the co-captain of the bike team that JC’s old friends coached and the manager of one of the front businesses JC owned.

The man wasn’t one to take defeat sitting down. He wasn’t one to go quietly or gently into that long good night, to pick up an old man’s hobby and live out his days grateful to have survived a short, violent, painful and grisly death.

But neither was JC. Or Duke. Or Theo or Joan or Cespedes or any of the other people they aligned themselves with. And if there was even the hint that Williams was going to be doing anything that might put the United States of America in danger, then Mr. Douglas and Frank Ingrassia would be queueing up to help burn him down as well. The series of meetings he had just witnessed told him that much.

Duke now had more information than the men who just met in the coffee shop had. He knew that Williams was aware of them. And if he was wily enough to consider that they would be meeting, sit at that location for possibly days on end, only to drive away after confirmation of his likely suspicions, it hinted at one thing. Williams was not only playing the long game, but he probably thought he had one up on the opposing team.

Duke packed his equipment up. It wasn’t much, just the spotting scope, a collapsible tripod, more tall than stable, and a collapsible chair. They all compacted down and fit into a non-descript backpack that he slung over his shoulder as he opened the door to the apartment, wiping off any fingerprints as he did, and then closed it behind himself. As he walked to the elevator, he was already calling another colleague at the agency to track down the license plate of the vehicle, its expected direction of travel and to see what he could do to activate any traffic cams in the area in order to get photos. He was, ideally, looking for something that could get him photos of both the driver and the license plate with the location data imbedded into the photo, but he’d take whatever he could get.

Simply going to Mr. Douglas and saying, “I saw Williams outside your meeting,” would be a fast way to an assignment in the cornfields of Iowa or worse, the ice fields of Norway. The photos he had in his digital camera would support his allegations, but the more proof, the more actionable intelligence he had, the better.

As he climbed into his own non-descript vehicle, a four-year old Ford subcompact, he put his Bluetooth earpiece in and dialed a number.

If Williams knew what was going on then they were all in danger.

The phone rang and rang. It was that European ring, strange to most American ears but familiar to Duke as he had lived much of his life abroad.

It finally picked up. The person on the other end said nothing, waiting. Duke wasn’t surprised. His own number was blocked, so the person had no idea who was calling.

“It’s Duke,” he said

“Hey,” the man said. Surprisingly short.

“You busy?”

“Little bit.”

Duke waited for more information, but none was obviously coming. It had been months, but he was hoping for a little more warmth than this.

“You working?”

“Unh-hunh.”

“We’ve got a problem.”

“Yeah?”

Duke opened his mouth to say something when Cespedes said, “Hold on.”

The phone went silent for a second, then came back, the echoing sound in the distance telling him what just happened. Cespedes had likely just killed somebody. Cellphones weren’t able to transmit the entire bandwidth of sound and sharp sudden sounds, like that of a sniper rifle, overwhelmed the circuitry, creating a momentary silence.

The sound of rushed movement and Ces’s heavy breathing indicated he was on the move. Duke had little time, but he knew the man was professional. If he needed to be off the call, he would be.

“Williams is back,” Duke said, needing to keep things short.

“That’s not good,” Cespedes said. “You guys after him?”

“JC is,” he said.

“Well, then,” Cespedes said, “Williams is as good as dead.” His voice was echoey now and Duke thought he heard the sound of footsteps as if his friend was going down a stairwell.

“Williams knows,” Duke said.

Cespedes said nothing for a beat. Duke heard the sound of a door opening and then the soundscape changed to outside. He could hear traffic sounds and people speaking.

“Which means we’re all in danger,” Cespedes said.

“Watch your six,” Duke said. “Can you get word to Joan?”

“Yup,” Cespedes said.

“How long?”

“Five minutes,” Ces said. “Maybe ten.”

“Tell her to call if she needs anything.”

“Will do,” the Bolivian said, clicking off the call. Right as he did, he heard a woman’s voice say, “Who was tha-”

It was Joan.

Duke was conflicted. On the one hand, he should have called Joan directly. They had been friends and teammates for a long time. On the other hand, he was concerned that calling her might put her in danger. And while Cespedes was just as much a part of the team as Joan, the simple fact was he’d feel a lot less devasted if his phone call somehow interrupted things with Cespedes and put him in danger.

Plus, to be honest, he was a little bit scared of Joan.

He put that aside and turned his mind to how he could unofficially help his old team. His position at the Agency allowed him both access to things they didn’t currently have as well as a certain amount of flexibility under Mr. Douglas’s tutelage. However, he still had duties and obligations and right now he was knee-deep in two investigations and planning actions and neck-deep in another. He couldn’t just break free and run help his old teammates.

But help is what they’ll need, Duke said to himself. John Wick was just a fictional character, no matter how much Duke liked to think he was a little like him. In truth, JC was the closest he’d ever seen to match the fictional character in real life and, truth be told, Joan was a close second.

Despite his love of movies, Duke knew this was real life and people died from knife blades and bullets, not just got wounded. And if Williams was coming at them, he was damn sure there would be plenty of both. The only solution was the one thing they’d avoided so far and the one thing that JC had to do now, with or without his help.

Kill Williams.

THIS IS NOT ACCURATE - PLACEHOLDER ONLY

The End of Season 7…

Season 8: Complete coming in 2021…

Thank you for reading this series. Living with these characters, they almost feel like old friends. I hope you have enjoyed it as well. The Fixer Series is now seven books deep (nine including the Origin books) and no sign of stopping.

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Rex Carpenter

Other books by Rex Carpenter:

Joan: Portrait of a Vengeful Young Woman

Duke: The Education of an Assassin

The Fixer, Season 1: Complete

The Fixer, Season 2: Complete

The Fixer, Season 3: Complete

The Fixer, Season 4: Complete

The Fixer, Season 5: Complete

The Fixer, Season 6: Complete (Coming Fall, 2018)

Acknowledgements

This book is for my wife and daughter. I love you both. Never give up.

Thanks to the following: Craig for being Craig. Doug, as always. Marie, for pointing out the nature of liars and making sure I understood what she was talking about, Otto for his detailed eye and ease with html, Bill for being first out of the gate and Mr. Southern for being extensive. Trish for coming in hard. David for stepping out of the corner and raising his voice. B Penny, my man up North - two weeks, I promise. Christian - always there, man - just click “send.” Bob - no tiny typos, man, only gigantically humongous mistakes. Thanks for havin’ my back. Sue for her advice and kindness, the other Sue for her general awesomeness, Betty for helping out and because her name rocks and Yumiko for being cool and all the other people I have corresponded with. Thanks for reaching out.

Thanks super much to The Advance Team. I was up against the wall on the timeline and you guys always come through. Appreciate it.

Thanks to The Team for getting on board and your support, spoken and unspoken. The times when I didn’t want to write, when I thought I’d rather veg and watch TV, I put fingers to the keyboard because I knew you fine folks were waiting.

About the Author

Rex Carpenter was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. When not writing heart-pounding action thrillers, he loves skateboarding, snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking, reading, watching good television as well as both good and bad movies and spending time with his wife and daughter. After fifteen years in Asia, they currently live in the sunny climes of Cascadia.