COLLATERAL CASUALTIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series) (20 page)

            Garcia sat back, covering his face with a meaty hand. “You are quite right, Mr. Franklin.” Then he lowered his hand and looked at Skip. “My deepest apologies, Mr. Canfield, for all of this.”

            “I’m afraid apologies are an inadequate response at this point,” Skip said.

            “What then do you want from me, sir?” the ambassador asked, straightening his back.

            “Let’s start with a description of your staff.”

            “I am hardly personally acquainted with all of the people who work at the embassy.”

            “With all due respect, sir, that’s bull hockey. You’re a man with a secret and a lot to lose if that secret comes out. You’re not going to let just anybody wander around your home. You may not know them all personally but someone senior on your staff has carefully vetted them, and probably has reported to you in a fair amount of detail regarding their backgrounds. Who’s in charge of security?”

            “There are two people in that role. Captain Juan Martinez of the Colombian Army is in charge of the military guards. Raul Pérez, my personal bodyguard, supervises a small staff.”

            “How small?” Rob asked. He was taking notes on a legal pad he’d removed from his briefcase.

            “Normally six men, but that number has been increased to twelve in anticipation of the upcoming visit by
el Presidente.
The military guard has also been doubled.”

            “Housekeeping staff?” Rob asked.

            “Five Colombian women, carefully vetted as you put it, Mr. Canfield. Three cleaners, a cook and her assistant. They all report to the housekeeper, Ingrid. I do not recall her last name. She is Scandinavian. She answers to my wife. I also have an aide, who has two assistants, and my wife has her own secretary. They have all been with us for some time.”

            “We’ll need their names,” Skip said. “Housekeeping staff hasn’t been increased due to the impending visit?”

            “No.
El Presidente
and his wife will bring their own personal staff. They will be housed in a separate wing of the embassy specifically dedicated to their use.”

            “So what do you know about the new people on your security staff?” Skip asked. He noticed the ambassador hesitate, his eyes shifting for a moment.

            “Nothing. They are Raul’s responsibility. But they have all been sent from Colombia. They are not just hoodlums he hires off the street.”

            “Did you know any of them before, in Colombia?”

            Again the slight hesitation. “No.”

            “Ambassador Garcia, the only thing keeping us from telling the world who the hell you really are is my wife’s conscience. I personally voted for just shooting you and being done with it. So I’d suggest you stop lying to us. What do you know about the new members of your security staff?”

            Garcia sighed, then stood up and paced across the room away from them. Skip’s hand went to his gun at the small of his back under his windbreaker.

            Garcia turned and paced partway back to them. “I am not at all sure, but one man looks familiar, although I did not recognize his name when Raul gave me his report on the man.”

            “Who does he look like?”

            This time the ambassador’s hesitation was more straightforward. He looked at Skip for a long moment, then took a deep breath. “He reminds me of someone I encountered in my rebel days.”

            “You fought with him?” Rob asked.

            “No, against him. He was an officer in the military at that time. Later he joined one of the paramilitary groups organized by certain wealthy citizens to combat the rebel forces.”

            “What’s his name?” Skip demanded.

             “We called him
El Diablo
. He was quite ruthless. His actual name was Ricardo Delgado.”

            “Any relation to your in-laws?”

            “A cousin. My father-in-law was one of the main backers of his organization.”

            Silence reigned for a moment as Skip digested that information. Then he said, “We need to talk to Raul Pérez.”

            Garcia bristled. He opened his mouth.

            “That was not a request.”

            The ambassador started to reach into his pocket.

            Skip’s hand was back on his gun. “Bring it out slow.”

            Garcia carefully pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He hit a speed-dial number, spoke a few words of Spanish, then listened. He held the phone out to Skip. “Please tell your associate to let him come in.”

            Skip took the cell. “Bring him in,” he said, then disconnected and handed the phone back to Garcia. “Sit down, Mr. Ambassador, and keep your hands where I can see them at all times.”

            Skip strode to the door and opened it halfway. A moment later, Raul, his hands out to his sides, palms up, nudged it the rest of the way open and entered the room. Rose was behind him, her gun in her hand.

            “
Señorita
, since you have disabled my bodyguard, would you be so kind as to stand guard outside the door?” Garcia asked.

            Skip pulled out his pistol, then nodded at Rose.

            Once she had stepped back outside, Garcia said, “Raul does not speak much English. I will question him. I am as anxious as you are, Mr. Canfield, to get to the bottom of this.”

            Skip just nodded.

            Garcia and Raul exchanged several spates of Spanish. Finally Garcia said, “
Gracias,
Raul, you may go.”

            “Not so fast,” Skip said, waving the .38 in his hand. Raul didn’t move. “What’d he say?”

            “The gentleman in question checked out when Raul looked into his background. He is who he says he is, one José Gonzales. He was sent ahead as a liaison between my staff and that of
el Presidente
. His resemblance to the man I once knew is coincidental, it seems.”

            Rob stood up and handed his pad to the ambassador. “Have him write down the names of all the embassy staff.”

            The ambassador passed on the pad and the instructions. Raul wrote for several minutes, then held the pad out.

            As Rob took it, he said, “We want to be certain that Raul understands the consequences if anyone near and dear to us should come to harm. Please inform him, in our presence, of the insurance policy we’ve taken out regarding that.”

            After only a slight hesitation, Garcia nodded. He spoke to Raul in Spanish for several moments.

            Skip stepped over to the much shorter bodyguard. Looming over him, he said, “Additional attacks against my friends or family will have the opposite effect of the desired result. And I’ll come back and dismember you very, very slowly. I’ll start with eyelashes and fingernails, then move on to larger appendages. You understand,
hombre
?”

            Garcia started to translate. Skip held up his hand. “I think Raul gets the picture, don’t you, Raul?”

            The man had remained expressionless throughout Skip’s speech. He now nodded.

            Skip stepped away from him and looked at Rob. “You have something for the gentleman?”

            Rob pulled a clump of papers from his briefcase. “The trust. It requires your signature, and that of two witnesses. I believe Mr. Canfield and Mr. Pérez will serve for that. Then you merely transfer the assets into the trust.”

            Rob handed the papers to the ambassador who looked them over quickly.

            “Please sign all three copies. One is yours, one is for Ms. Gaston, and one I will take and file with the court for you.”

            As Garcia and then Raul signed on the lines Rob indicated, Skip walked over to the front door and opened it. Rose entered the room.

            “Raul’s done here. Escort him back to the car please.”

            Once they were out the door, Skip picked up the pen with his left hand and made an indecipherable scribble on the witness line of each copy as Rob flipped through them. Rob handed two of the copies to Garcia, then headed for the door.

            Skip followed him out.

            Once they were back in their vehicles and several blocks away, Rob called Rose and put the throwaway phone on speaker.

            “Rose, there’s a new guy on the security team at the embassy,” Skip said. “Names supposedly José Gonzales, liaison with the Colombian president’s staff for the upcoming visit. The ambassador thought he looked a bit like a guy by the name of...” Skip looked at Rob, who was leafing through his notes.

            “Ricardo Delgado,” Rob said.

            “This Delgado chap was in one of those paramilitary groups, this one supported by Garcia’s father-in-law.”

            “So he could be just another Colombian,” Rose said, “trying to remake himself in the new regime–”

            “Or he could be in the U.S. for another reason,” Skip finished for her.

            “I’ll check him out.”

            “Garcia never mentioned his secret to Raul
per se
,” Skip said. “He referred to our having some ‘detrimental information’ so Raul may or may not know the ambassador’s true identity. Also, Garcia lied to us, twice. One, Raul speaks English just fine.”

            “Ah, thus the elaborate threat,” Rob said.

            “Yup–”

            “He understood Mac the other day,” Rose said.

            “Yeah. Garcia also claimed Raul had already checked this Gonzales guy out,” Skip said. “Raul actually said he’d examined the man’s papers and had contacted someone to verify his identity. He rattled off a name too fast for me to catch it, but I assume it’s someone back in Colombia. Then Raul said he would dig deeper. Garcia wasn’t happy with him.”

            “So Garcia wants to clean his own house,” Rob said.

            “Can’t blame him there,” Rose said. “We already know too many of his secrets. Manny and I’ll swing by Kate’s office and relieve her guard.” She gave them the address of the new safe house Mac had arranged for them. “See you there tonight.”

~~~~~~~

            Janice got out of court much earlier than expected that afternoon. She figured the judge was just looking for an excuse to take off early on a Friday. Standing outside the courthouse, she glanced at her watch. Three-fifteen. Debating whether to go back to the office or go home, she was leaning toward the latter. It had been a long and gruesome week.

            Her bodyguard approached and pointed out that she shouldn’t be standing around in the open.

            “Very well. Home, James,” she said in a fake British accent.

            The twenty-something Hulk Hogan wannabe gave her a confused look. “Ma’am?”

            “It’s an expression.” When his face remained confused, she added, “An
old
expression apparently.” Suddenly she felt every one of her fifty years.

            As they headed for her new home, Janice was having mixed emotions. The sense of relief that she no longer had to concern herself with Richard’s moods had not diminished. But the thought of returning to a bare apartment, without even the cat for company, did not have much appeal. She would have no furniture but the bed, no food in the house, no television or other form of entertainment except her laptop.

            When she entered her building, she was greeted by the concierge who assured her that her bed had arrived. “Also, Ms. Browning, a lad from the wine shop brought this in.” The young man held up a bottle of a relatively expensive Merlot, not her favorite vineyard but a decent one. “He said the sender gave him a message to deliver as well. I wrote it down. ‘Let us part amicably and with fond memories, Richard.’”

            Janice narrowed her eyes. She pulled out her cell phone and found the message, the earlier call from Richard that she’d ignored. She played it.

            “Janice, darling. There’s no need for us to fight, not after all we’ve meant to each other. We can come to an agreement ourselves, without outside interference. Please call me.”

            Janice frowned while Phillip, the concierge, waited, a neutral expression on his face.

            What did Richard mean by
outside interference
? Was he referring to Kate and Skip, or to lawyers? Probably the latter. The man was too cheap to spring for a divorce attorney, so he’d try to sweet talk her into a settlement. Except she wasn’t susceptible to his sweet talk anymore. Why hadn’t she noticed before just how smarmy his voice sounded when he was trying to sweet talk her?

            Janice smiled. The evening might not be a total wash after all. She’d enjoy Richard’s wine, and then she’d trounce him in court. Taking the bottle from the patient concierge, she thanked him, then headed for the elevators.

            Lilly was leaning against the outside of her apartment door. Janice raised the wine bottle. “Wanna join me?”

            “Can’t, ma’am. On duty,” the young woman replied. “But thanks for asking.”

~~~~~~~

            Sitting in the waiting room while Kate finished up with clients, Rose put the time to good use composing a draft of an anonymous letter on her laptop.

            Finally, Kate and her last client came out of her office. Kate escorted the client across the waiting room, then locked the outer door behind her. Turning to Rose, she said, “Sorry about that. An earlier client was feeling suicidal. I ran overtime with her and it threw my whole schedule off. I had to give her the number of one of my throwaway cells, in case she starts feeling worse over the weekend.”

            Rose winced inside while keeping her face neutral, a skill she’d learned in the Army and fine-tuned as a police officer. She didn’t like the idea of a phone number being out there that could be traced back to Kate, since the phone would have to stay on in order for her to receive emergency calls. “Okay, but if she calls you, then you have to destroy that phone right away.”