Resurrecting Midnight (33 page)

From where I sat, I had a clear view of both the stairs and the elevator.

I saw the mechanisms on the elevator move. That elevator should’ve been on STOP so there would be only one way in and out. I held my weapon and watched the empty glass carriage ascend. A minute later it descended, no longer vacant.

I saw the lone passenger appear inch by inch.

Low-heeled shoes. Fashionable pants. Swollen belly.

It was Arizona.

Her brown hair was pulled back from her face. She was dressed in all black, a loose blouse over her pregnancy swell. She had a black purse over one shoulder and was carrying the same black briefcase she’d had when I met her at the Starbucks in Aventura, Florida.

I’d gone to Powder Springs, and a lot of emotional damage had erupted since then.

Emotional damage that had been caused by a woman who was just like Arizona.

Catherine was nothing more than a con.

Arizona’s heels clicked across the wooden floor as she walked into the room.

She saw us and nodded.

Konstantin nodded in return. I offered no reply. Neither did Shotgun.

Then she said, “Gideon.”

“Arizona. Anything changed?”

She said, “We have a signal.”

“Are they tracking you at the same time?”

“They stole the computers, took the dedicated trackers from La Boca.”

“So they have a signal too.”

“We can only hope so.”

“You told me they compromised one of the satellite operations.”

“La Boca. They destroyed the small site we had used to track the package when it was in Uruguay. They killed seven
Porteños
. Slaughtered them. Same as they did the Uruguayans.”

“They killed everyone.”

“Slaughtered. Like they were animals.”

“I stand corrected.”

“One escaped. He is in critical condition at Alemán. He was stabbed and shot. He saw them. Said there were two younger ones. A man and a woman. She had marks on her face.”

“Tribal markings?”

“Not sure. She was with a Latin man. Then two older men came. Said they spoke English.”

“British or American?”

“He thought they had American accents. Their leaders.”

Konstantin paused. “The list of things Gideon requested, where are they?”

“Still working on a few items.”

“You’ve had three days.”

“So has Gideon. If he had been here, maybe the La Boca operation . . . never mind.”

“You want us to walk away? You show us respect, or we walk. This is your operation, not ours. If people died, that is blood on your hands, not ours. Remember whose problem this is. And remember who we are.”

She smiled. It was a bitter smile.

She said, “Apologies. Guess this load I’m carrying is having an effect on my disposition.”

Konstantin returned a cruel Russian smile.

He was unaffected by the swell underneath her blouse. Unaffected by her beauty.

I asked, “That other matter, do you have that information?”

Arizona’s eyes came to me. “Not at the moment.”

“Did you reverse-engineer that information and find out what I needed to know?”

“I did what I could do with what you gave me to work with.”

“Well, can I get the information? I can put someone on it while I’m here.”

“Sorry. Not at the moment.”

Her obstinate expression told me she had me in checkmate.

My glare told her to not confuse being in check with checkmate.

She gave me the face of Queen Scamz. I offered her Gideon.

Arizona put the briefcase down in a chair two tables over, put her purse in a different chair. She sat on the piano bench next to Scamz and joined in the Beethoven melody. She was better than the new Scamz. Much better. Played effortlessly.

The music was intense, beautiful, a duet that sounded like controlled madness.

She glanced my way and I saw what I wanted to forget.

I saw the Parker Meridien in New York.

I saw the Carolina Inn in North Carolina.

I saw us together.

I saw a million reasons I needed to stand up and walk out of this country.

Chapter 32

Three identical Peugeots
and two local delivery trucks were out front.

The vehicles were parked on the one-way street in front of the hotel, spaced between the hotel and El Sanjuanino Café. A
farmacia
, newspaper stand, blocks of high-rises, and a mall for the rich were in that direction; embassies, cafés, dry cleaners, and more apartments occupied the two-lane, one-way street behind us. Five-star hotels sparkled and added prestige to the area.

Cold winds blew frigid rain and dampened everything.

Every corner, every window, was a potential ambush.

I told Konstantin, “I don’t like this.”

He nodded. “Same here.”

“This is a mission for a thousand or a mission for one.”

Shotgun was right there, listening, nodding, his hand on his loaded weapon.

We went out first, walked the strip, checked the windows in the apartments, spied the roofs. If they were out there, they were stealth, had blended in with the rain and wind.

They weren’t here. Because if they were, we’d all be dead.

All the vehicles were less than two years old, and none had GPS. That didn’t surprise me. Argentina was about five years behind when it came to high-tech luxury devices.

Scamz said, “Hopefully, these vehicles will suffice.”

“Since you don’t have a Challenger Battle Tank, I guess they will have to do.”

“I was hoping something less conspicuous would work in our favor.”

I nodded. “Considering what we’re up against, based on what I’ve seen, a Humvee with a 240 Gulf machine gun mounted on the rear and another mounted on the passenger-side door, that would’ve been more appropriate. I don’t give a shit about conspicuous.”

Before we loaded up, Arizona’s muscular brother did a sweep of the vehicles.

We stood underneath the red awning of the Melia Boutique Hotel, freezing air fogging our breath as we carried lead-spitting heaters underneath our clothes. We looked like businessmen in suits and overcoats. I preferred jeans and Timberlands, and a matching Kevlar vest.

I told Scamz, “You’re a little paranoid.”

“Hopkins should have been paranoid. A lot of men like you are out there.”

I nodded. “Lot of men like me. And people like you know them all.”

“That wasn’t meant as an insult.”

“It wasn’t taken as one. A fact is a fact. You steal money from wherever you can steal it, and when all goes south, when someone steals from you, that is when you dip into your stolen funds and finance your own revenge. That’s when my phone rings. That’s the cycle of the business of revenge. You come to people like me for a reason.”

“You’re here begrudgingly.”

“I’m here, that’s all that matters.”

He glanced at Arizona, then he nodded.

I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t care.

Shotgun looked around, then up at the European architecture.

I said, “You okay?”

“Winter in summertime. These some beautiful buildings. Like in the movies.”

I nodded. “Not too late for you to go back home to your family.”

“How far am I from home?”

“Over five thousand miles.”

“I didn’t come this far to go back home. That’s a lot of gas to burn up and turn around.”

I nodded. “I could always send you to a hotel. You could go look around.”

He shook his head. “Didn’t come here to see the sights. Came here to work.”

Konstantin and Shotgun went together.

Scamz and Arizona’s siblings stayed together.

I took one of the Peugeots. I wanted to ride and let The Four Horsemen track me. I needed the package to make that happen. That meant I had to face Arizona. All business.

Arizona said, “The package is with me.”

“Give it to Scamz. Let pretty boy ride with me. We’ll be the sitting ducks.”

She paused, then shook her head. “The MacGuffin remains with me.”

“You don’t trust Scamz with it? Then give it to your brother. You and your man can—”

She cursed in Tagalog, said other things just as harsh, then snapped, “This thing you do with me . . . the irritating thing . . . please . . . don’t do it now. Not now.”

I paused when I knew I didn’t have time to hesitate. Not with the package being tracked.

I didn’t need a pregnant woman slowing me down. I didn’t want the smell of her perfume and old feelings creating an anchor. Or resentment. And I didn’t want Konstantin and Alvin to be the first line of defense. If anyone was shot at first, I wanted it to be me and somebody else from her team. But we didn’t have time to argue. Not when Arizona was already getting inside the car. I didn’t want her to become my burden, and I didn’t want her unborn kid on my mind. The pregnant grifter kept her purse on one shoulder and held the briefcase like it held the codes to activate a nuclear bomb.

I despised her.

We took to the streets. All of us were together at first. Then Konstantin and Alvin broke away. They had their assignment.

We rode the area for a while, then Scamz and his crew vanished from the rearview. They had to track the other package.

It was just Arizona and me.

Veins popping in my arms, lips tight, eyes checking traffic behind me and traffic in front of me, I drove Avenida Alcorta at a high speed, the same fast and furious tempo all the locals drove in the rain. That video of The Four Horsemen played in my mind. I changed over to Bullrich and Justo, Belgrano, ended up at 9 de Julio, cut over to Rivadavia and rode the avenue that ran aboveground on top of the A line of the subte, the oldest line, which had wooden cars that looked at least a century old.

Arizona asked, “Why are you taking these streets?”

“I don’t want those madmen to know if we are aboveground or down below, not right away. Thousands of cars, hundreds on every block, so if they are gunning for what you have, if they want it bad enough to kill everybody in sight, we have to be on the lookout for them. They will have to figure out what we’re riding in. We’ll have to do the same for them.”

“What if they don’t take the bait?”

“I’m just a guy with a debt and a gun. The rest is your problem.”

I kept to the big streets, the long avenues, lots of traffic, droves of people. We had ridden the almost seventy-block length of Corrientes, had started this leg of the drive at Avenida Federico Lacroze up in the Chacarita barrio, rode it from that barrio’s cemetery down through the Jewish barrio named Balvanera, went back toward the former boxing arena named Luna Park, and ended up in Puerto Madero, the most expensive Latin neighborhood in South America.

Nothing was happening. My anxiety was in the red. Calmness was always the prelude to madness. I got back in traffic, drove Justo. It was like driving from Harlem down through Times Square then heading up Park Avenue. Bodegas and shops every step of the way.

I told Arizona, “Keep your eye on that BMW. Two lanes over.”

“I’m watching. It’s changing lanes a lot.”

“It’s been behind us since we crossed Gascón.”

The BMW was there for about another mile. Then it was gone.

Arizona asked, “Think that was them?”

“Look for another vehicle following us now. And cops. Be on the lookout for cops. Down here, the only thing more corrupt than a criminal is a cop.”

Arizona took her gun, held it on her belly, made sure her weapon was loaded.

She said, “There are two motorcycles back there. They’re matching our pace.”

I adjusted my gun. Arizona did the same with her weapon.

The motorcycles she was worried about sped by, both drivers glancing at cars as they changed lanes, searching before they cut in front and turned. Then the motorcycles were gone.

I said, “A woman was on one of those motorcycles.”

“What gave it away? Her nice ass?”

I wanted to curse her. But I didn’t. The BMW and those motorcycles had me on alert.

Arizona said, “They’re out there. They want this package. Without what I have, there will be no access to the funds. They want the money as bad as Hopkins did.”

I asked, “How does it feel to have fifteen mil?”

“Having it feels a lot better than losing it.”

I moved though the epicenter of the financial district. More restaurants than I could ever eat at in three lifetimes. Flower- and newsstands on every corner. Passed ten women for every man. The lingering scent of coffee and grilled beef filled the damp air.

I didn’t see the BMW. Didn’t see the motorcycles we had seen before.

As far as I knew, they were following us like we were on Twitter.

I paused in Puerto Madero, near the Prefectura Argentina Edificio Guardacostas. It was the building that housed Argentina’s coast guards. Lot of security. Lots of guns. I cruised the area, kept my driving in a small radius, parked in front of the bricked businesses near Farmacity. The drugstore faced where Corrientes ended. I saw the Obelisco in the distance.

Arizona called her brother and Scamz, checked in and tried to find out if they had pinpointed the signal for the other package. The signal had gone from green to amber. That meant the other half of the package was mobile, being relocated to another area.

They would be able to tell if the blip was in Puerto Madero, sitting somewhere around the row of bricked businesses that housed five-star restaurants, an area that used to be a warehouse district, now the area of the new rich. The warehouses ran up Justo for miles toward Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve. Corrientes ended here. Like it was the End of the World.

There was a steady stream of buses and taxis. The bus lines were across the street, dozens upon dozens of buses loading up, lines more than fifty long at most stops this time of day. Across the street, four train tracks led to Instituto Tecnológico Buenos Aires.