Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (51 page)

 
          
But
the biggest surprise was the man seated beside the gunnery stranger—none other
than Fire Chief, Police Chief, Chief of Community Services Joseph Hokum. He did
not have his hands on his head like Edward or Salman, though he too was being
covered by a gunman. “What the hell is going on in here, Joe? Who are these
people—?”

 
          
“Silence,”
the man in the flowered shirt told him in Spanish. “Not say a word.”

 
          
“What’s
going on—”

 
          
Van
Nuys was instantly slumped over the billiards table, his head ringing, his
vision blurred from a blow from one of the gunmen behind him. He felt as if he
were going to black out.

 
          
“Herve
will crack your skull open next time,” the man said. “I will not warn you
again. It is only because I am intrigued with you and your little operation
here that you are still alive—I was told to come here, cut you up into little
pieces and scatter you across your front lawn for the pleasure of your fine
neighbors.”

 
          
“Bullshit,”
Van Nuys said. “Whoever sent you wants something.” He heard a rustle of
movement behind and prepared for another shot to his head, but the man in the
flowered shirt raised a hand.

 
          
“I
have killed men for less than calling me a liar, Van Nuys—”

 
          
He
doubted it. “You’re a messenger boy. Now let’s cut the gangster crap and tell
me why you broke into my house.”

 
          
“I
do indeed have a message for you, but if I shot you and yours right here and
now I wouldn’t be blamed for anything but making a mess. Do you understand me?”
He said it quietly.

 
          
Van
Nuys’ face was pushed hard into the green velvet of the pool table, but he
managed to look up enough to say, “If you’re going to shoot me, goddamn it,
then do it. Otherwise, give me the message and get out.” Bravado, of course,
but he’d lived by the bluff his whole life.

 
          
He
heard the metallic
snik
of a safety
being removed from a weapon, and he closed his eyes and prepared himself. But
instead of a bullet crashing into his brain he heard the man in the flowered
shirt laugh, then was hauled upright, the gunmen backed away and the guy sat
back in his chair by the wall and smiled at Van Nuys.

 
          
“How
did you get in my house?” Van Nuys said, continuing his own show of
machismo
and with more confidence
now—whoever had sent the men didn’t want him dead or he would have been. He
could challenge them, so long as he didn’t overdo it . . . He glanced at Hokum,
who seemed to withdraw under his gaze.

 
          
“You
are right to be displeased,” he was told. “It was the chief of police here who
told us about your secret corridor from the garage. I would have that
deficiency corrected, if I were you.” Hokum sat motionless in his chair.

 
          
“You
got
cojones,
I’ll say that for you,
mister,” the man in the flowered shirt continued. “But I also know they’re in
your mouth right now . . . yes, I was sent here to check on you, Mr. Van Nuys.
My associates and I learned about your apparent association with both Sandra
Geffar of the Border Security Force and Hokum, the chief of police here. But
imagine my
surprise,
Mr. Van Nuys,
when my informants tell me
you
are
running a million-dollar-a-month smuggling operation. Truly I was shocked,
impressed. Importing cocaine right under the lady’s lily white nose.”

 
          
“I
don’t know what you’re talking about—”

 
          
“Now
it is you who are lying. That is no way to do business, senor. We know you have
managed to fly as much as a hundred kilos a month from
Grand Bahama
Island
right to this place. Senor Hokum here has
been most cooperative with us. He has told us how his men have unloaded the
drugs just before Customs arrives to inspect your plane, and how he alters the
records to hide your money. Ingenious, I must say.”

 
          
Van
Nuys gave Hokum a look that amused the man in the flowered shirt. “Do not be
angry at Senor Hokum. He has managed to keep your operation a secret from us
for all these months even while he was working for us, helping us transport
weapons and money into and out of south
Florida
. At first he was most reluctant to tell us
anything about you. We are generous, but it took a surprising amount of money to
convince him to talk. After that, however, I must admit he could not have been
more cooperative. That was good for him, it kept him alive.”

 
          
“What
do you want? Money? Drugs? I don’t have either. Go ahead and kill us
—M

 
          
“I
have
never
met a man so willing to
die, Senor Van Nuys. A gratifying change. No, as you know by now, what we want
from you is information. We want you to tell us everything there is to know
about Commander GefiFar, and we would like you to distribute a few of these.”
He held out a black plastic case, then tossed it onto the pool table in front
of Van Nuys. “Open it.” Van Nuys did and found several items that looked like
stick-pins and small thick buttons with thin wires trailing.

 
          
“You
want
me
to bug her house?”

 
          
“Her
house, her cars, her office, the Hammerheads platform,
everything.
Our agents cannot penetrate the Border Security Force’s
security screen at this time. But you seem to be in the enviable position of
having access—to GefiFar. You are such friends. We would also like you to
report any unusual movements, projects, special activities, operations.”

 
          
“You’re
crazy. I don’t have that kind of access to her. I see her occasionally, mostly
at public events. I haven’t even been on her damned platform.”

 
          
“Then
we expect you to turn on your noted charm and get closer to her, Mr. Van Nuys.
After all, she
is
still a woman. If
you provide her with companionship and trust, surely even she will let you into
her world.” He patted the cellular telephone on the bar. “We will even provide
you with a telephone, Mr. Van Nuys—untraceable, unbuggable, and no cost to you.
As a businessman you should appreciate this offer.”

 
          
“Offer?
What do I get if I go along with you? A bullet in the head?”

 
          
“There
you go, so melodramatic, sir. You will find that my employers can be very
generous. Ask the chief here. Cooperate, live, and prosper. My employers could
always use another shipping and distribution outlet. Even a small one such as
yours.” He examined his sunglasses, deliberately put them back on. “My employers
are not pleasant with those who disappoint them, or cheat them. You seem to be
a man with a good deal to lose, Mr. Van Nuys—nice house, reputation, business.
A shame if you were obliged to spend the rest of your life in prison. Perhaps
if you asked for death then, someone would be kind enough to give it to you.”

 
          
Van
Nuys knew he had no choice. He might avoid prison by going to the Hammerheads
or Customs, but how long would he live then? “What if I can’t get you any
information? What if she won’t confide in me?”

 
          
“I
have more faith in you than that, Mr. Van Nuys.” He stood. “You have a
reputation with the ladies—I feel you will want to uphold it. If for some
reason you do not, we will be back to visit you. And we will proceed to cut off
your balls. We will ruin your career, your reputation, and your sex life all in
one visit. And then we will kill you.

 
          
“Now,
tell me a story, Mr. Van Nuys. Tell me what you know about this Sandra Geffar.”

 
          
San Diego
,
California

 
          
The Next Afternoon

 
          
Customs
Service Chief Inspector Roger Bolan had to acknowledge the efiFect the
Hammerheads were having on his own agency—something he did not like to
admit—all the press the Hammerheads were getting, good and bad, caused a surge
in applicants for the new agency, and the overflow meant more good men and
women for Customs. The resulting manpower made possible increased inspections,
which were finding more drugs than ever before. This, in turn, bolstered
morale, which made the whole process run more smoothly. Things were snowballing
in a very big way—a development even Hardcastle hadn’t anticipated.

 
          
Bolan
was the commander of the
Port
of
San Diego CET
, or Contraband Enforcement Team. The CET
was responsible for finding contraband—narcotics, stolen goods, cash, and any other
illegal or non-declared items—in cargo containers or vessels entering the huge
port at
San
Diego
.
Bolan was a thirty-eight year old fifteen-year veteran of the Customs Service
who had taken command of the San Diego CET three years earlier as one of the
youngest chief inspectors in the country. The reason why he was placed in
command was obvious—he took his job very, very seriously, and he expected all
those assigned to him to do the same. As an ex-Army officer, he ran his CET
with military-like enthusiasm.

 
          
In
the past few months, the number of inspectors assigned to him had nearly
doubled, allowing him to do much more with his operation than ever before.
Because of his increased manpower, they could inspect more ships in port, and
(partly because of the effectiveness of the Hammerheads, something Bolan did
not often admit) because of those increased inspections, they were finding more
drugs than ever before. Their success in finding huge caches of drugs increased
morale, and subsequently increased his manning and increased his detection
rate. Things were snowballing, and in a very promising direction.

 
          
Bolan
put his feet up on his cluttered but (he told himself) organized desk, shifted
the bulk of his .44 Magnum revolver under his left armpit, and looked over a
Customs Form 1302, a cargo declaration of an American freighter due in port in
a few hours. Bolan was short but wiry, with short brown hair and dark brown
eyes. His wife had complained about his moustache and he had shaved it off at
her gentle persistence, which only made the CET chief look even younger. Like
most of the CET members, who had at one time or another worked the docks and
warehouses as inspectors, he had a trim, muscular build from carrying crates
and lifting barrels, with thick, veined forearms, big biceps, and thick,
powerful thighs. His attention to more mundane desk duties, however, had
resulted in the inevitable “executive spread” and spare tire. His wife had
already started bugging him about
those
as well.

 
          
The
cargo declaration he read was about thirty pages long, so he grabbed a cup of
coffee from the outer office before retaking his position and looking it over.
It was a typical “milk run” freighter cargo, with a cargo manifest as varied
and unusual as you could get. The freighter, the
Maria Star Kelly,
the largest freighter of the Kelly Steamship
Company of Alameda, California, had made six ports of call in the past three
weeks: Valparaiso, Chile, loading tomato products, grape juice, lumber, wine,
furniture, and fish; Callao, Peru, loading personal effects, cars, copper wire,
and lead shot; Guayaquil, Ecuador, loading glass bottles, balsa wood, coffee,
frozen shrimp, and banana puree; Buenaventura, Colombia, loading coffee and
automobile tires; Balboa, Panama, loading ceramic bricks, melons, and
electronic goods; and Puntarenas, Costa Rica, loading bamboo furniture and
ceramic pottery. The
Maria Star
had
all this packed into 52 twenty-foot containers resembling the big cargo boxes
on interstate tractor-trailer rigs, and 56 forty-foot containers, some
refrigerated, all with registered steel seals on the locks with the seal
numbers logged onto these manifests.

 
          
The
manifest also showed the ship’s master’s name, the date of each port call, the
shipper’s name, the consignee’s name, and the NF name, or the person to be
notified of the cargo’s arrival if it was to be picked up by an agent. It
described the contents of each shipping container, how the goods were packaged,
what state they were in (if the tomatoes were whole, crushed, sauce, puree,
etc.), if the goods required refrigeration, and the total weight of each
container.