Standoff: A Vin Cooper Novel (19 page)

One of Apostles’ men opened the door for us. Daniela stood aside to let me go first. I climbed in and slid onto a bench seat, which ran the width of the fuselage, next to Green Dragons. She looked at me disdainfully, the way a traveler on a train who’s enjoyed the seat to themselves looks at an interloper settling beside them. Daniela took the other window seat.

“Vin, this is Lina, Daniela’s sister,” said Apostles sitting opposite in a soft chamois-leather bucket seat, his back to the pilot. The guy was no longer in fancy dress, having changed into tan shirt and gray cargo pants, a similar get-up to Daniela’s.

I glanced at Lina, who again turned her head vaguely in my direction, but only for an instant out of deference to her boyfriend’s introduction. She was dressed exactly like her twin, even down to the sidearm.

Sitting on Apostles’ left, also with his back to the cockpit, was the Tears of Chihuahua, his glass eyes hidden behind those square-framed Ray-Bans. Come to think of it, even though I could feel those obsidian marbles boring into me I preferred them shielded from view. At least then I didn’t have to look into the soulless void behind them.

The helicopter ride was short, taking us to
José María Córdova
Airport, Medellín, where we transferred to a private jet, a fast Gulfstream G650. Apostles, accompanied on each arm by Lina and Daniela, immediately went aft to a compartment that took up two thirds of the aircraft and hung a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door. I sighed deeply.

I took a seat up the front and the Tears, who could have sat anywhere, chose one directly opposite me. I swiveled, and he changed seats to maintain this frontal attack. We sat like that for the duration. I tried to sleep without much success, so feigned it much of the time. As far as I could tell Perez stared at me the whole way, probably unblinking.

I kept half an eye on the sun. It stayed more or less on the right-hand side of the plane and toward the front as it slowly dipped to the horizon. That meant we were flying roughly northwest. The pilot told us to fasten seatbelts a little under four hours after departure. At just under seven hundred miles an hour, the average cruise for a jet like this, I guessed that would put us somewhere in northern Mexico.

As the aircraft descended, I ending the sleeping charade and took in the view through the window. We were over tan desert beneath a cloudless cobalt-blue sky. The city coming into view below appeared to be pinched together in its center by two sets of gray mountains. We were coming into Juárez.

We taxied to gates with a neon sign announcing
A
EROPUERTO
I
NTERNACIONAL
B
ENITO
J
UÁREZ
.

Once inside the terminal, I witnessed the kind of fawning and obsequiousness usually reserved for powerful members of state as Apostles and his entourage, of which I was one, breezed through customs and immigration. Once out in the arrivals hall, we were met by a man in a chauffeur’s outfit, accompanied by a couple of bodyguards. He and his escort led us through the crowds. We passed an ATM without a queue so I stopped, fumbled with my wallet and fed the card into the slot.

“What are you doing?” It was Perez. He was right behind me.

I punched in the four-digit PIN.

“What does it look like?” I said, pressing the key for “English”. “Who passes up a chance to shop duty free, right?”

“Welcome, Mr Cooper,” the title on the ATM screen read.

“Get away from the machine,” Perez said as I pressed the key for 2000 MXN – around a hundred and sixty bucks – then the key for savings.

A sharp pain in my ribs made me jump. “Hey, what’s your problem?” I snapped at Perez.

“My problem is you,” he said, showing me the pearl-handled blade hidden in the palm of his hand. “Move.”

“That’s twice you’ve cut me,” I said, taking my card from the slot.

“You think I can’t count?” he replied, his Ray-Bans revealing nothing.

“Do it again and I’ll kill you,” I told him.

“Yes, I would like you to try.”

The cash appeared in the slot and I grabbed it. I could see Apostles and the rest of our party heading out the exit and hurried to catch them up, the blood welling from Perez’s jab sopped up by my black polo shirt, which also hid it.

Killing this nasty little fuck was something that needed to be done, but not before I found out what Apostles was up to.

Almost directly outside the exit was our ride, a Hummer stretched almost to breaking point. A small army in Lakers, Bulls and Celtics T-shirts and sweats, packing FN assault rifles, accompanied it, crowded into a pickup. Maybe they were there to stop the Hummer’s wheels being stolen. Pairs of
Federales
securing the area, armed with H&K MP-5s and wearing ski masks and sunglasses, ignored our party completely.

The drive in the Hummer was mercifully short – Perez’s little hurry up hurt like a bitch. I hoped stopping at that ATM had been worth it. The destination turned out to be a gated community around the other side of the airport called the
Campestre
, the entrance guarded by more
Federales
in ski masks with assault weapons.

Inside the gates, the traffic disappeared completely. We drove through a block with Applebee’s, Starbucks, Chili’s and other familiar names nestled beside various strip malls. All pretty normal – almost reassuring. And then the houses began: big, flashy homes with heavily barred windows and doors, more than a few showing neglect along with signs announcing that they were for sale. Buyers weren’t queuing. Ahead, the pickup swerved around a rock half the size of a small car sitting in the middle of the road. The Hummer took a slower, more careful detour around it.

“I can see you’re intrigued,” said Daniela, noting my eyes fixed on the obstacle.

She had me there.

“Boulders like that are all over the Campestre. The residents put them there to slow down the kidnappers so their guards could shoot them.”

I guessed that accounted for all the
FOR SALE
signs.

Ahead, the armed escort pulled over to the curb while the Hummer scribed a big quarter circle and came in behind it, bouncing into a wide driveway. A heavy steel gate closed behind us.

“We’re here,” said Daniela.

That was a relief. I wanted to see what damage Perez’s knife had done to my ribs and also change my shirt, though the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

“Here” was a sprawling monument to concrete and glass humming with air-conditioning motors, crawling with more of Apostles’ NBL-branded security. I followed Apostles and the twins inside where the temperature dropped into the temperate zone. “Lina, why don’t you show Vin to his room,” he said, his arm around her. To me, he said, “We’ll meet later. We must talk.”

Lina led me through the place, which echoed like a dungeon with every footfall. We climbed a curved staircase to the mezzanine level. Down below, I watched Apostles, Daniela and Perez mingle with various lieutenants and their spectacularly augmented girlfriends. I spotted a man among the party wearing an expensive suit and a mask. It was
El Bruto
, the
lucha libra
wrestler from the back page. Different suit but I’d recognize those jagged silver teeth and the scowling, angry expression anywhere. Hands were being shaken, backs slapped.

Lina cleared her throat.

“You’re here,” she said as I turned around, opening a door and revealing a king-size bed beyond it.

I walked past her into a room. It smelled of dead air. On a chest of drawers was a bottle of Glen Keith, a glass and an ice bucket. I licked my lips and picked up the bottle.

“
El Santo
looks after his guests,” she said reacting to my expression, which was probably close to rapture.

Seeing that bottle waiting for me was good and bad: good because Glen Keith was my favorite brand of single-malt scotch whiskey; and bad because Glen Keith was my favorite brand of single-malt scotch whiskey. Apostles’ intelligence had to be first class for him to know that. He’d been digging pretty deep. I cracked the seal on the screw top and savored the aroma. “Care for a belt?”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait for a martini.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“Downstairs,” she said, smiling. Up to that moment, I didn’t know she was capable of it. “There’s a bathroom through that door.” She nodded in its direction. “Everything you need.”

“And my bag?” I asked her.

“Coming.”

“Where does everyone else sleep?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“It’s not a loaded question.”

Loaded or not, she ignored it. “Leave your door unlocked.
El Santo
doesn’t like locked doors.”

“Can I go out?”

“Why would you want to go out?” she asked.

“Get my bearings. Stretch the legs. Have a steak at Applebee’s.”

“You’re in Juárez, that’s all the bearings you need. There’s a gym in the basement and we have a chef on staff. If you go out, you’ll be accompanied.”

“For my own protection?”

“Of course. And anyway, we’re going out soon.”

“Where to?”

“You’ll see.”

I let it go. “So tell me, what do you get out of this?”

“I’m sorry?”

“He likes twins. You and Daniela are not the first and you won’t be the last.”

“You’ve been listening to his wacko daughter.”

“She might have mentioned it.” It had also been part of Chalmers’ briefing, but I wisely kept that to myself.

“Arturo doesn’t like you or trust you.”

Arturo? And then I remembered: Arturo Perez. Arty. I had to smile. Someone named him when he was a baby, his mother most probably. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine the guy having a mother, or for that matter being anything other than a mean, tattooed, blade-wielding psychotic with dead eyes. “Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual.”

“You’re bleeding.” She nodded at my arm.

The blood had finally seeped through the shirt and slicked the inside of my bicep and elbow.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

She shrugged and looked around the room. The fact that Lina was satisfied with the lack of an answer told me folks bleeding profusely in her orbit was not so unusual. And if I wasn’t mistaken, the woman was lingering. She had questions, or maybe she wanted to tell me something. “There are clothes in the drawers,” she said. “They’re your size.”

If they could land my brand of sauce, I supposed a thirty-six-inch waist was a cinch. “I’ve got clothes in my bag.”

“It’s coming.”

“So you said.”

“I did.” She leaned against the doorjamb. I sat on the bed and bounced, testing the springs. Firm. The energy in the room was odd to say the least.

“You know, when we were kids, Daniela would pull the wings off butterflies and laugh about it as their little bodies quivered and curled up in agony,” she said.

I wondered where that had come from. “Meanwhile, what did you do?”

“Watched.”

“If you’re warning me off your sister, you don’t have to. I’m here to get work, not get laid.”

“I’ve seen the way you look at her; the way she looks at you.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Are you always so full of yourself?”

“I like to test the limits,” I said.

“You’re way past them.” Her lip curled. “The point is, if I noticed it, so have others. Arturo, maybe. You should be careful. Otherwise that –” she pointed in the direction of my punctured rib cage – “might not be superficial next time.”

Before I could respond, a kid arrived with my bag. He wore ridiculous oversize convict jeans belted so tight around his knees that he was forced to walk funny. He placed the bag inside the door and waddled off with a sly backward glance at Lina.

“I have to go,” she said. “Don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”

“What idea is that?” Lina pushed herself off the doorjamb and walked away. No glance over the shoulder, not from her. I closed the door and wondered what had been the point of the visit, then put it out of my mind.

I picked up my bag and dropped it on the bed. Next stop, the bathroom. I stripped off the polo shirt, heavy with blood, and angled the cut toward the mirror to get a look at it. The jab in my side was around a centimeter deep between the eighth and ninth ribs. Cartilage had stopped the point of the blade from entering further. Perez was a craftsman. The prick had known exactly where to stick the blade and how much pressure to use. The wound was painful and it had bled profusely for a short period of time, but it was more of an inconvenience than a danger. With the slice on my hand, Perez had left his mark on me twice. I told myself I’d do what I could to return the favor.

I turned on the shower and went back into the room to get the phone charger and plug in my cell and, in so doing, confirm with CIA that both my Visa card and cell were in Juárez. And, of course, to throw back a couple of fingers of you know what. I took the glass into the bathroom and rested it on the basin while I checked the shower’s water temperature. There was a knock on the door. I turned the shower off, threw on a clean polo shirt before opening it and saw the kid in the jailhouse jeans.
El Santo
wanted me downstairs. I tossed back the rest of the scotch and followed.

*

“There have been developments,” Apostles said, reclining on a sofa away from the partying going on down the other end of the room, folks getting their groove on to Latino sounds. Apostles’ hands were behind his head, an ankle resting on his thigh. The body language was relaxed, but he was frowning about something.

Arty also sat on the sofa, but rigid and upright like he was skewered on a poker. Something was up.

“Your former fucking friends across the border have intercepted more of our product,” Apostles continued, like maybe I’d had something to do with it. “A significant amount – eighty million dollars’ worth.” He paused, took a deep breath, then screamed, “That’s over two hundred million fucking dollars your country has stolen from me in just two months!”

There wasn’t much I could say but I was thinking: “Go team.”

No one moved while Apostles got himself under control. He glared at me, his eyes red-rimmed with fury. “Tell me more about your plan to put my sales targets back on track.”

“What you need is a pilot,” I began.

“I have pilots.”

“I mean like the pilots who guide ships through difficult waters.”

Apostles was impatient. “And … ?”

“From what I’ve seen, your aircraft are state of the art. With proper planning, I can get your planes on the ground without detection almost anywhere in the States. And because US air defenses are aimed out and not in, the further you get from the border the less likelihood there is that your aircraft will be deemed hostile. Civilian airspace control has tight corridors, ceiling and base heights. You just need to know when to fly low, when to fly high and what areas to avoid. As I said, with the right navigation systems and a little professional finesse, your aircraft can thread the eye of a needle and land somewhere more convenient to your contacts on the ground. Then we offload and return the way we came in.”

“You make it sound simple,” said Apostles.

“’Cause it is.”

“Do not trust him,” said Perez.

I ignored Arty. “I can do a trial run. Maybe land close to Austin or Houston – anywhere you’ve got people on the ground who can take delivery.”

“I don’t like it.” Perez wasn’t going to let it go.

Addressing Apostles, I said, “Okay, yes, you risk losing a plane and its cargo, but I’ll be on board the aircraft. It’ll be my ass going to prison if things land in the toilet. If it works, and I know it will, you can start flying in tons of product securely, a regular service virtually door-to-door. But there’s a catch.”

Perez glanced at Apostles. “And that is?” the boss asked.

“No one gets killed. If we leave a mess for the authorities to clean up, they’ll figure it all out and do whatever it takes to close any loopholes I find and you’ll be back where you started. The deal is we tiptoe in and leave the same way. We can’t have anything happening like the shit that went down at Horizon Airport.”

“We had nothing to do with that,” said Apostles. “I’m a businessman. That’s all I care about – business.”

“I don’t trust him,” said the broken record beside him, glaring at me with those unblinking pits.

“What do you need, apart from the airplanes and crews?” Apostles asked.

“A check on the navigation systems your aircraft use, charts to plan the route, a departure point, the delivery destination and a briefing session with the pilot.”

“And what do you want for this?” asked Perez.