Bloodline (24 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

Eugene sipped the coffee and cut into his over-easy eggs. They were a little too runny for his liking, but he didn't feel like causing a scene by complaining. The waitress already had it tough enough, working in a run-down diner that served breakfast twenty-four hours a day. He finished his meal and left a twenty-dollar tip on a seven-dollar tab. Hell, it was Rastano's money.

There was a stiff breeze from the north, off the lake, and he buttoned his coat against the chilly air. He darted across the almost empty street, amazed at the cold. He had seen television shows on the Arctic, and Rochester in the spring reminded him of those shows. He jumped in the cab and, after the dry heat of El Paso, appreciated the warmth of the back seat. He had time to kill, so he asked the driver to give him a tour, promising a good tip if he kept things interesting. He wasn't let down. The man was Robin Williams with a good tan and a Pakistani accent.

At ten to eleven the car pulled up a block from the intersection of State and Andrews. Eugene waited until three minutes to the hour, paid the driver, then walked briskly along State until he reached number 125. He pulled open the door and slipped inside, out of the wind. The shop was long and narrow, with rows of shoes against both walls, each one with a white tag tied to it. The odor of adhesives and thinners was strong, and it tickled his nostrils. It reminded him of the shoemaker who lived a few blocks from his parents' house in Venezuela, and for a moment he felt an intense longing to be with his family. He shook off the feeling and approached the small wooden counter. A dark-skinned man in his late fifties or early sixties was writing a number on one of the white tags. His stubby fingers had trouble grasping the pencil, and he carefully formed each number before looking up.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice heavily Italian.

“I was supposed to meet my cousin at your shop,” Eugene replied. “His name is Mario.”

“He's here,” the shoemaker said. “In the back.” He motioned to the door behind him. “He's waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” Eugene said. He walked around the counter and through the door into the rear of the shop. A row of machines—insole and outsole stitchers and a Sutton 2000 finisher—were crowded into a small space on the right of the long, narrow bay. The smell of acetone and contact cement mingled with the burnt odor of rubber and leather. A small, stained table covered with dyes and preparer sat next to the finisher. On the other side of the work area was a desk covered with receipts and bills. An adding machine, a telephone and a desk lamp were half buried by the paper avalanche. Mario Correa was sitting in a ratty chair. The casters squeaked when he rolled it back from the desk.

“Hello, Eugene,” he said. He did not look great. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and his lips were drawn tight across his teeth, revealing age lines. Mario was older than Eugene by a few years, but his hair was still dark, with no signs of gray. He was well dressed, in Armani dress pants and alligator loafers.

“Mario,” Eugene replied, wondering why the man had worn such nonfunctional shoes to northern New York State.

“Let's take a walk, shall we,” Mario said, moving toward the back of the shop. Eugene followed him into the alley. It was narrow, sheltered on both sides by multi-story brick buildings, and garbage was overflowing from the Dump- ster a few feet from the door. Mario turned to his right and set a quick pace. They exited the alley, then branched off the sidewalk onto a path that ran parallel to the river, only a few yards from the water's edge. Naked trees, with tiny buds that had yet to open, lined the path. The only sign that heralded spring was a hint of green in the narrow band of grass between the path and the water. Eugene was surprised to find that there was even more of a chill to the air close to the water.

“What do you need, Eugene?” Mario asked.

“I need to find Pablo.”

Mario took a quick stutter-step. Then his pace returned to normal. He looked sideways at Eugene as he walked. “You sound pretty sure that Pablo is alive, Eugene.”

“Let's not play that game, Mario. We both know he's alive. My wife and daughter have been kidnapped. The guy who has them says he'll kill them this weekend if I don't deliver Pablo or the code to a Swiss bank account. The person holding my family is Colombian. He moves a lot of cocaine to the States, so I don't think he's bluffing.”

“Probably not. Who is it?”

“Javier Rastano.”

There was a noticeable hesitation in Mario's stride at the mention of the name. “Definitely not,” he said.

“You know Javier Rastano?”

“Yes, I know him.” They reached a bench by the water's edge and Mario sat down. The translucent water was shallow at this point and it rushed over the rocks, creating a wall of background noise. Eugene realized that Mario had chosen the spot in case anyone was trying to listen. “Everything we talk about today stays confidential, Eugene. You agree to that on your family honor?”

Eugene nodded. “Of course.”

Mario looked at the water rushing past, heading for the Great Lake just to the north. “Pablo and I were a lot tighter than anyone ever knew,” he said quietly. He looked back at Eugene. “Not so much in the earlier days when he was getting established, but later, in ‘89, when the cartel started to run into problems. When Pablo called me for help, our government didn't even know who was running the cartel. They thought the number one man was José Rodríguez Gacha, but when he got killed the cartel didn't even blink. Col. Martinez caught on real quick after that, that Pablo was the man. And once they'd pegged him, his days were numbered. That's when he called me.”

Mario paused, then asked, “This team you're working with. Who's in it?”

“Mainly American agents who were chasing Pablo in Colombia, in the '80s and '90s. Alexander Landry, Bud Reid, Cathy Maxwell, Irwin Crandle.”

“Eugene, these guys, along with a handful of others, were responsible for
destroying
the cartel. There were lots of soldiers running around with guns, but not many chiefs. The group you've assembled were the chiefs.”

“And one of them is in bed with Pablo. Otherwise how could you have known we were on our way to Miami to visit you? Unless they called Pablo and he called you.”

Mario did not dispute Eugene's remark. “He's got a source all right. And whoever it is, their information is extremely accurate.” He paused as a woman pushing a baby carriage walked by. She smiled at the two men and said good morning. They both returned the salutation, then waited until she was well out of earshot before continuing. “Is there anyone else in your little team?”

Eugene shrugged. “A junior DEA agent I met when I arrived from Venezuela to ask for help. Eduardo Garcia is his name.”

“He works out of EPIC in El Paso,” Mario said matter-of-factly.

Eugene just stared. “Yes. How did you know that?”

“You're talking about the DEA here, Eugene. I've been sitting on the fact that Pablo Escobar is alive for the last twelve years. I know who the opposition is.”

“But Garcia is just a kid. He's too young to have been involved with the DEA in the early ‘90s.”

“He is, but his uncle isn't.”

“Garcia has an uncle who was in Colombia with Landry and the others twelve years ago?”

“Yes, he does. Fernando Garcia. Just ask any of your team about Fernando and you'll get a response.”

“What does that mean?”

“Garcia had little respect for laws or statutes. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. I'm sure the others would describe him as a loose cannon. It's unfortunate he died while on the job.”

“So Eduardo Garcia isn't as lily white as he appears,” Eugene said under his breath.

Mario ignored the comment and continued describing his involvement with Pablo. “I was his ears and eyes for the year and a half he was in hiding, before he surrendered and moved into La Catedral prison in June '91. I kept him in the loop as best I could, but the cartel was reeling from his absence. Finally, he decided to broker a deal with the Colombian government and turn himself in. He thought that living inside a prison would be safer and more comfortable than living on the lam. He was right. All the guards were on Pablo's payroll, and he had a huge cache of guns buried on the grounds. La Catedral provided Pablo a safe haven from which to run his business. Once he was inside La Catedral, he was back on top. Gacha was dead, the Ochoa brothers in custody, Carlos Lehder extradited to the United States, and the Galeano and Moncada families were working with him. The long list of people who wanted him dead were out of luck. It was a brilliant move.”

“Did you still help him after he moved into the prison?” Eugene asked, buttoning his coat tight to his throat against the cool wind.

“A bit, but not much. He knew that he could trust me and he would ask me to do things or get things on occasion. But mostly, he left me and my family alone. And he would have been fine if he hadn't killed Fernando Galeano and Gerardo Moncada. But he couldn't leave well enough alone. And the Galeano and Moncada families were some kind of pissed at Pablo. And so was the government. He had made them look stupid by killing two people who were in visiting him.”

“He had another visitor about that time,” Eugene said. “Cathy Maxwell went to see him about the death of her parents.”

“That was before he killed Galeano and Moncada. But yeah, she saw him while he was in prison. Anyway,” Mario said, continuing his story, “after he killed Moncada and Galeano he had to get out of La Catedral. When he made his getaway from the prison, he began to rely on me again. I arranged for safe places where he could hide and supplied him with the latest communication technology so he could stay in touch with his cartel buddies and his family. Like I said, he trusted me.”

Eugene sat back on the bench, watching Mario closely. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Mario was quick to answer. “If not you, Eugene, I'll be in front of a grand jury with a subpoena in my hand. I want you to find Pablo. But I don't want you to have the DEA or the CIA with you when you do. They'll get the press involved, and I'll be up the creek. Get the code to the bank account and give it to Rastano. Maybe he'll give you back your family. I hope so.”

“Where is he, Mario?” Eugene asked.

Mario shrugged. “I honestly don't know. This is where I always met him. Rochester, New York. That's why I wanted you to meet me here. This is the closest I've been to where he lives.”

“Where did you meet him in Rochester? At the shoe repair shop?”

“Christ, no. That's just someone I pay to use his shop as a meeting place. Pablo always stayed at the Clarion Hotel Riverside.”

“What name did he register under?”

“No idea. We met in the lobby. He was always waiting for me in the chairs by the restaurant. I never had any reason to ask for him at the front desk.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Mario was thoughtful. “About four months ago. He called me and dragged me out of Miami into this snow- encrusted hole because he wanted a new Renault. I could have killed him. I had someone else drive the car up a couple of weeks later.”

“How is he?” Eugene asked.

“He's okay, Eugene, but he misses Colombia more than you could ever imagine. And he's changed a lot, both physically and mentally. You wouldn't recognize him if you walked past him on the street. He exercises every day, eats smart and doesn't touch drugs. I think he drinks a bit, but not to excess. He's lost a lot of the arrogance and ego. He's even a little bit likeable.”

“But he still kills people,” Eugene said, thinking of Jorge Shweisser, the Zurich banker with no carotid artery.

“He's a survivor, Eugene. And if and when you do find him, don't expect him to welcome you with open arms.” Mario stood to indicate the meeting was over.

“Hardly,” Eugene said, also standing. “Thanks, Mario. I appreciate the help.”

“Not a problem. Just remember, no DEA on my doorstep.”

“Got it,” Eugene said. He watched Mario walk back along the same path by the river, and disappear around a corner. Eugene was now alone in Rochester with precious little information, and little time to make something out of it. One thing was certain, though. He was close to Pablo now.

Very close.

Chapter Thirty-nine

NSA was having a devil of a time with the encrypted files on Jorge Schweisser's computer. The problem was that they couldn't identify the language the data was written in. It wasn't English, German, Swiss or any of the other modern languages that used the Roman alphabet. They tried the Cyrillic alphabet, but again nothing. Then Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese with no success.

Irwin Crandle set the fax from his contact at the National Security Agency on his desk and rubbed his eyes. He glanced at his watch. Eleven o'clock, Wednesday morning. Maxwell and Landry would be arriving in Pittsburgh right about now. The team was disintegrating: Eugene on the run, two agents in Pennsylvania and three of them still at EPIC. And time was running out. Saturday was less than seventy-two hours away, and they weren't exactly knocking on Pablo's door. He stopped rubbing his already-red eyes and swiveled around in his chair to face Bud Reid.

“What was in Shweisser's apartment?” He was on a fishing expedition. “His selection of music, furniture, books, that sort of stuff.”

Reid leaned back in his chair, coffee in one hand, the other scratching his bald dome. “His furniture was leather, the kind with studs in the arms, and the tables were heavy wood with glass tops. He had mostly classical music. Bach, some Beethoven and an extensive collection of Chopin: mazurkas, sonatas and both concertos, if I remember correctly. Lots of books on art, especially the Impressionists. He had a few really good framed prints on the walls: Pissarro, Monet, Degas and Caillebotte. One entire row on his bookshelf was computer programming texts, a few hard covers on anatomy and some pulp fiction paperbacks. He had a lot of DVDs, all English…”

“Whoa,” Crandle said, stopping him in mid-sentence. “The books on anatomy. Were they written for the medical professional?”

Reid thought for a moment. “The one I glanced in was highly technical, if that's what you mean. Written by doctors, for doctors.”

“That's exactly what I mean,” Crandle said, grabbing the phone and dialing Hyram Ockey's direct line at NSA. It rang twice, and the computer expert picked up. “Hyram, this is Crandle. That disk you're working on, try Latin.”

His other incoming line started blinking. He cut the connection to NSA after he secured a promise from Hyram to run the programs with a Latin-based language and call the results back to EPIC immediately. He answered the other line. “Hi, Chris, what have you got?”

Chris Bisiker, the CIA agent Cathy Maxwell had brought in to check the Freeport connection, was on the line, long distance from the Bahamas. “Irwin, what's going on?”

“What do you mean?” Crandle asked.

“Whoever owns this account has the branch manager in fear of his life. At first the guy refused to say a word, just told me to get out of his office.”

“But you persuaded him?”

“Subtly, yes. There's a restaurant on the tip of the island where they throw food over the balcony to the sharks. I took him to lunch, and we sat at a table next to the railing.”

“The view must have been spectacular,” Crandle said, a smile creeping across his face as he envisioned Chris Bisiker casually telling the banker that he was going over the edge if he didn't cough up some information.

“Wonderful. Anyway, about halfway through our main course the guy decides to tell me what's going on. It seems that the money in the account has ties to Colombia.”

“Why do you say that?” Crandle asked, gripping the phone hard.

“This manager has been at the Freeport branch for years. When the account was first opened, he had a visit from none other than Carlos Lehder.”

“What?” Crandle said, sitting upright in his chair. “Lehder himself was in the bank?”

“Yeah. Lehder opened a different account, but he made it perfectly clear that if any questions were raised about either of the two new accounts the manager's family would disappear. The manager cooked the books, then sent the doctored ledgers to the head office in Canada and made the deposits look like clean money. Lehder's account has languished since he was imprisoned in the U.S., but the other account has remained quite active. Irwin, this looks like money from the old days when the Medellín and Cali cartels were operating.” He was silent for a few moments, but Crandle didn't respond, and he continued. “I got a printout of the deposits and withdrawals over the past few years. I'll fax it to you.”

“Please do.” Crandle gave Bisiker the dedicated fax number that would direct the document to their small command center. “Thanks a million, Chris. I appreciate it.”

“All right. But this little jaunt had better not count against my holidays.”

“I'll talk to someone over at Langley,” Crandle said, and hung up.

Eduardo Garcia and Bud Reid were watching him, having caught the name Carlos Lehder. Crandle sipped his coffee, and shrugged. “Bisiker might be on to something. He's sending a fax through. We'll see.”

 

The Learjet was given priority in the landing queue, and once they were on the ground in Pittsburgh, Alexander Landry and Cathy Maxwell headed directly for the main terminal, creds in hand. Their plan was to hit the regional airlines first and then the taxi and limo services. Eugene had to leave the airport somehow. They hit pay dirt at the seventh counter, U.S. Airways, a local airline with its head office on Commerce Drive in Pittsburgh.

“One of our gate agents scanned his passport when he boarded,” the counter person said, looking at her screen. “He flew to Rochester on our early morning flight. It departed Pittsburgh at six-seventeen and arrived in Rochester at seven-ten.”

“That's quick,” Cathy said.

The woman smiled. “We use a Boeing 737 for that flight, even though it's only about two hundred miles. It's really popular with business people who want to be in Rochester for an eight o'clock meeting at Eastman Kodak or Xerox. Bausch and Lomb has its head office in Rochester as well. It's a great route for our airline.”

“Thanks,” Landry said. They returned to the Learjet, asked the pilot to file a flight plan for Rochester, then called Crandle at EPIC to give him the news.

“What the hell is he doing in Rochester?” Crandle asked.

“Meeting Mario Correa, I bet,” Landry replied.

“Well, it's better than New York City. What's Rochester's population, maybe a quarter million? Not a bad size center for a search.”

“We'll find him,” Landry said. They finished the conversation. Landry hung up just as the Learjet 45 got clearance from the tower. He paced the cabin, his six-four frame hunched over, pausing occasionally to drink some fruit juice and munch on the muffins laid out in the front refreshment center. They were less than twelve hours behind Eugene Escobar; his trail would still be warm. The airport staff would probably have gone through a shift change, and they would have to wait until the evening to show Eugene's picture around and see if anyone recognized him. But in the interim, they would work the taxi and car rental companies to see if he was careless enough to rent a car under his own name, or take a cab to some strange destination. Most of the business travelers arriving in Rochester on the early flight would be downtown fares. He and Maxwell would look for something out of the ordinary. Then the hotels and motels, bars and restaurants, nightclubs and dives until they found Eugene and followed him to Pablo. At least, that was the plan.

Crandle's jet cruised at almost six hundred miles an hour at 33,000 feet, and soon Rochester came into view out the starboard windows. Somewhere in that maze of buildings and houses was Eugene Escobar—their key to Pablo.

Find Eugene. And then they would find Pablo.

And this time, they would end the job properly.