The Night Charter (11 page)

C
AMARO RETURNED HOME
long enough to get behind the wheel of her truck and head out again. The street was completely still in the heat of the day. No one liked to move around in the humidity if they could avoid it.

She used the GPS stuck to her windshield to find Parker's house and drove by when she saw his truck parked on the curb out front. A part of her had hoped for Matt's Charger, but the yellow-and-black muscle car was nowhere to be seen. Reflecting further, Camaro thought that might have been a good thing.

An empty parking space two houses down and across the street provided a good view of the house. Camaro stopped there and put the windows down. Within minutes it was stiflingly hot. Sweat prickled at the back of her neck and between her shoulder blades.

Parker was at home for almost two hours. It occurred to Camaro he might not move at all that day, but finally he appeared from behind the front door and made his way down his little walk to the battered pickup. A visible cloud of pollution belched out of the tailpipe when he started up. Then he was on the move.

No one had ever taught Camaro how to tail a car. What she knew she'd learned from television and movies. In the end, she chose to hang back four car lengths, enough to let traffic intervene, but not so far back that she would lose him entirely. She didn't dare pull up directly behind him lest he spot her in his rearview mirror. This would have been much easier if he knew she was with him, but she did not trust he could keep the secret if pressed.

They drove a long while, the better part of an hour, headed south and farther south. In the end they passed through Homestead, the last finger of urbanity stretching out into the Everglades, and into the outskirts where only a few had settled in to live or run businesses. Camaro supposed land was cheap there, and so long as gas prices stayed low it wasn't a problem to drive a long way.

Eventually they were on a road alone, with no other cars for Camaro to hide behind. She fell back farther and farther, until Parker was at the limit of her vision. When she saw him come to a stop, it was so sudden that she almost forgot to pull off to the side of the road.

There were binoculars under the truck's seat. Camaro used them to look ahead through the flat glare of the day. She saw a small collection of buildings, warehouse or workshop spaces of various sizes, and a stretch of fence. As she watched, someone, maybe Jackson, came out to the gate and let Parker through.

She put the binoculars away and approached on foot. By the time she reached the fencing, Parker's truck was nowhere in sight, but she knew he hadn't left. Camaro studied the curling barbed wire blocking an easy climb over to the other side, and then she walked along the perimeter, checking all the way. Almost a hundred yards down she found what she was looking for: a place where the wire securing the chain link to the post had snapped from rust and age and the fencing could be rolled back.

Claws of metal caught at her shirt when she ducked through the hole. Then she was inside. She dashed to the nearest warehouse and walked quietly to the corner before peering around. There was nothing.

Venturing deeper into the little complex, she came upon Parker's truck first and then the Charger. Both were parked haphazardly in front of a large structure stained with corrosion. No one moved.

She went to the truck first, then crept to the Charger. When she heard nothing, she stole across the last few yards to the building itself and pressed her back against the hot aluminum. This close she could hear the murmurs of raised voices but not the words themselves.

There were three sets of windows on the long side of the warehouse, and they were wound open slightly to allow some breath of air inside. Camaro crept along the building until she was level with the first set, and she risked a peek inside.

Chapado was framed between twin stacks of wooden crates, fixed to his chair with duct tape. Matt was just visible, and his voice was the clearest. Camaro knew immediately that he was talking to Parker, and when Parker's replies carried to her she was proven right.

“I
told you
to get me that money! Where's the money?”

“I'll get it! I hid it somewhere that's closed today. I'll have it by tomorrow.”

“This all happens tomorrow night, asshole,” Matt said. “I'm not gonna be standing around with my dick in my hands waiting for
you
to cough up the rest of the cash! You better
get it,
and you better get it in a hurry!”

“It'll happen. I swear.”

“I swear to God, I'll shoot you next time you bullshit me, Parker.”

“It won't happen again.”

Camaro heard the sound of metal grinding against metal. A door midway down the side of the warehouse jerked against its frame, someone trying to force it open. There was nothing but fifteen yards of open space in every direction.

She fled, arms pumping, making for the Charger. As the door came open, she slid on the gravel across the nose of the car, then scrambled out of sight as Jackson emerged into the sunlight and blinked, momentarily blinded. A thin cloud of dust slowly settled around Camaro.

Jackson brought out his penis and urinated against the side of the warehouse. It was a loud, rattling, metallic noise, and Jackson sighed audibly while he did it. When he was finished, he took one long look around before going back inside. He did not pull the door completely shut.

Camaro prepared to move, but then another, closer door opened, and she heard Matt speaking as he stepped outside. “You remember what I told you,” he said.

“I remember,” Parker said.

She peered underneath the Charger and saw their feet. Neither pair was pointed at the car. Parker's sandals crunched on the gravel.

“You can find your way to the spot?” Matt called after him.

“Yeah, I can do that. What time?”

“I told you: two o'clock in the morning. And you goddamned well better have that money.”

“I promise, Matt.”

“Screw your promises, okay? Just do it.”

Parker got into his truck. Camaro heard his door open and then close.

“You could have saved yourself the drive and just called me with your excuses, bro.”

“I'll call next time,” Parker said.

“There's not gonna
be
a next time. Now get out of here.”

Parker started his truck. Camaro watched the wheels turn on the gravel and then listened as the pickup drove away. She looked back toward Matt's feet, which stayed where they were. She and Matt were no more than twenty feet apart.

Matt spat on the ground and then went back inside.

H
UGO
E
CHAVE WAS
sixty-five years old. When he was nine, his parents took him from their house in Matanzas in Cuba and fled to the dock where his uncle's boat was waiting. He had not been allowed to bring his favorite toys, but only what could fit in a single suitcase. He had cried on the whole trip to Miami.

His parents had nothing in America. He had nothing. And it was all because of Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement. They had ruined his life.

That was 1959, and 1959 was a long time ago. Even so, Echave sometimes woke in the night expecting to be taken from his bed by his parents and whisked away to a country where no one wanted him and he did not speak the language. The sensation made him angry, and the anger simmered in him constantly. The name
Castro
in the wrong context could send him into a black mood that lasted for hours or even days. Things were different, better, for him now, but there was always the hatred. And now his government, the leaders of this land where he made a new home, had betrayed the old cause. They did not see the real face of Castro's Cuba, or they pretended not to. That was the worst thing of all.

They convened the meeting in his house in Hialeah. It had only one floor, but it was capacious and comfortable. He met with his people in the paneled sanctuary of his study, where the mementoes of lost Cuba were displayed among the record of his American experience.

There was Pablo Marquez, one of the young ones in the movement, and Álvaro Sotelo. Carlos Molina was his closest friend, the one who'd left Cuba at the same time as himself, and the one with whom he shared a birthday, though they were five years apart in age. The four of them together would make the necessary plans.

“How is Javier?” Echave asked Carlos when they were all seated with cold lemonade or tea in their glasses. The door was firmly shut.

“The wound is bad, but he will survive,” Carlos told him. “The man, Clifford, he knew where to put the bullet.”

“Or maybe he was simply lucky,” Echave said. “The man is trash.”

“I warned against using him,” Carlos said. “You remember what I said.”

Carlos was the eldest of their inner circle, seventy, his hair almost completely white. His mustache was thick and streaked with some remaining black, and his eyebrows gave him a perpetually grave look. Only now he
was
grave and his judgment obvious. Echave could not dismiss him. “He was available. He said he could deliver. There were not many options.”

“There are always options,” Carlos said.

“Perhaps sometimes, but not this time. If we hadn't gotten Chapado out when we did, he would be in prison at this very minute. Tortured. Maybe even executed. And the fools at the State Department would close their eyes to it. We had no choice.”

“It's done now,” Sotelo said in a conciliatory tone. “We must deal with the situation as it exists, not as we wish it did. This man has Chapado now, and he will not give him up unless we pay. Can we manage it?”

“It hurts, but it can be done,” Echave said. “I've been in touch with some of our larger donors, and they've indicated that they can be relied upon. Only, I have no intention of paying this
cabrón
anything.”

Carlos' eyebrows went up. “What? What are you talking about, Hugo?”

Echave looked to Marquez. “Tell him.”

The young man cleared his throat. When he spoke, he spoke respectfully. He was a good boy and a former soldier, and he understood the way things were meant to be. “I've made arrangements to take Chapado from Clifford and his people by force. There will be four of us, all armed, and we'll stage an ambush at the exchange site.”

“But why?” Carlos asked. “Chapado might be killed!”

“This man intends to kill Chapado anyway. And who's to say he won't simply try to double-cross us again? Ask for one hundred thousand
more?
Or two hundred thousand? It can't be risked. He's a dog, and he needs to be put down like a dog.”

“This is risky,” Carlos said.

“It must be done,” Sotelo said.

“So you're in on this, too? Am I the only one who doesn't know?”

Echave put a hand on Carlos' arm. “It's all right. Pablo knows what he's doing. He was a Ranger, remember? We'll get Chapado, and we'll take this man's balls in the process. It's the best way.”

P
ARKER CALLED AT
close to eight o'clock with the news. “It's happening,” he said.

“Where?” Camaro asked.

“Liberty City. I have the address.”

He told her, and she wrote it down. “When?” she asked.

“Two o'clock.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight.”

Camaro looked around her kitchen. All was still, though outside somewhere a person was using a gas-powered weed trimmer to edge their lawn. Soon they'd fire up a leaf blower, and the racket would be that much worse. “What's your plan?”

“I can't bring the money there,” Parker said. “If I hand it over, I have nothing to hold over him. As soon as he gets it, he can do whatever he wants to me. I got to hold out for Lauren.”

“He might kill you for that,” Camaro said.

“No, he won't. It's too much money. He can't afford to lose it.”

“You're playing right up on the edge,” Camaro said. “Don't let him push you over.”

“I won't. But if it…if things don't go right, you're still going to help?”

“I will.”

“I hope everything works out and I can say thank you myself.”

“I do, too. Take care of yourself, Parker.”

They hung up, and Camaro was quiet. The buzzing of the weed trimmer was in her ear, bothering her like a particularly insistent mosquito. She wanted to smash the thing to pieces.

Camaro owned a gun locker. In the back of her bedroom's closet, it lurked blackly and was made of high-grade steel. Camaro went to it, dialed in the combination, and opened it up.

There weren't many guns inside. Only another, smaller .45 for when she wanted to carry something truly inconspicuous and a semiautomatic rifle chambered in .308. It was made by Colt, one of their civilian versions of an assault weapon, right down to the flash hider and the bayonet lug. Camaro brought the rifle out and laid it on the bed. She put two magazines on the mattress beside it, and then locked the safe again.

Afterward, she took the rifle to the dining room and stripped it down. She checked the components for dirt or grit and found none. When she put it back together again, she worked the action and found it smooth. Then she sat down in her living room with the rifle across her knees, listening to the noises of the gathering evening.

Around midnight she decided to eat something, even if it was only a sandwich and a glass of milk. Without turning on the lights in the carport, she stole outside with the rifle and its magazines, loading everything into her truck before backing out of the driveway and heading on.

Liberty City was north, and the city changed faces with practically every mile, nice blocks giving way to shady blocks giving way to grass-choked empty lots. Liberty City itself was poor and almost entirely black, and Camaro knew why Matt had chosen this place for the exchange. A gun could go off here, and no one would call the police.

She wound her way around the ugly blocks, passing apartments and convenience stores and clothing shops with bars on every window. Restaurants looked like they were prepared for a siege. Once she got within a quarter mile of the address, she pulled the truck over and parked in the lee of an abandoned building.

The Glock in her boot was loaded. She checked the chamber and found a round already in place. Now she fed the Colt rifle a magazine and put the spare in the back of her jeans. She got out of the truck in the dark, locking it tightly behind her and setting the alarm. There were thieves here, but she hoped they would go for easier pickings.

No traffic moved along the streets. Camaro jogged along the sidewalk with her weapon, making the rendezvous site within minutes. No one was there. It was one o'clock in the morning.

Matt had picked out an auto yard scattered with ailing cars. At one end of the yard, a wall of crushed vehicles rusted into dust. On both sides of the street there were square, bunker-like buildings with roller doors, marked out as metal shops and moving companies and other businesses that had a lot of in-and-out traffic of heavy trucks.

The crushed cars provided a natural firing position, but it was closer than she wanted to be. She searched across the street and behind the buildings. Each of the structures had a metal ladder to the roof. She slung the rifle over her back and climbed. On the flat top of the building, heat radiated from the black painted surface beneath her feet. Camaro crouch-walked to the raised rim at the edge of the roof and looked over. The spot offered her complete coverage of the rendezvous area. She'd have to fire at no more than thirty yards or so.

She checked her watch again and then settled in to wait. Whenever a car cruised down the lonely street, she tensed and peered out. But it was never Matt or Parker or anyone who seemed at all interested in the auto yard and what was meant to happen there.

It was fifteen to two when she heard the Charger's 440 grumbling through the night. Camaro raised her head only enough to see, and she watched the yellow-and-black shape clear the corner and roll down the street. Parker's truck was close behind, and together they moved cautiously along until they came to the auto yard.

Jackson got out of the Charger and opened the yard's gate to let the Charger through. Parker stayed on the street and came in on foot. One at a time the rest spilled out, Matt from behind the Charger's wheel and then Soto and Chapado. They stood in a loose group in the center of the yard's open space.

She saw Matt light a cigarette before he turned on Parker, shouting something she could not hear. Matt berated Parker for nearly five minutes, and Parker stood and took it. The others studiously minded their own business. Chapado looked around for salvation and found nothing.

Headlights drew Camaro's attention, and she turned away from the scene. A single black Mercedes cruised down the street from the opposite direction the others had come. It slowed as it approached the auto yard and then slowed some more, until it was barely at a crawl as it turned into the gate and stopped. The Mercedes blocked the only egress for the Charger.

Matt saw this, too, and he waved the Mercedes' driver on angrily, urging them farther into the yard. The driver obeyed unhurriedly, pulling forward until his car was parallel to the Charger but ten yards away from it. The car's quiet engine went silent.

These men, these two Cubans, were the opposite of Matt and Parker and the rest. They did not wear T-shirts or loose-fitting button-ups and shorts. They were in suits as black as their car, and they were well groomed. They seemed young, none of them older than thirty-five. Camaro had expected someone older, someone senior.

Matt went out to greet them. There was inaudible talk. Camaro watched them. She watched them so closely that when the movement came, she very nearly missed it.

The three gunmen crept along the fence line behind the wall of crushed cars. They were also in black, but this was combat gear and not tailored suits. Each of them carried a rifle. When they were nearly opposite Matt and the lead Cuban, they stopped and set up their fire arcs, using the honeycomb of the crushed cars as cover and opportunity.

A briefcase was taken from the Cubans' car, but wasn't handed over. There was more talk. Matt gestured broadly in anger, waving his cigarette around and drawing glowing lines in the dark with the orange coal.

Camaro looked to the gunmen. They were ready. One balanced his rifle on the lip of a compacted window and raised his free hand. The others steadied.

She brought up the Colt and took aim across the span of street and yard. Her thumb edged the safety off. In the red-dot sight on the rifle, she had the first gunman zeroed in. She pulled the trigger.

A .308 round crashed into the side of the gunman's head, and he went down. For a long moment there was nothing but the echo of the rifle's report, and everyone was frozen. Then they moved, and the gunfire began in earnest.

Matt and Jackson and Soto drew weapons, as did the Cubans in suits. Matt shot the man closest to him before a burst of rounds from the gunmen drove him back and into cover. Jackson was caught out in the open, and his chest burst apart before he could lose a single bullet.

The second Cuban dropped the briefcase and it burst open. Scraps of plain white paper exploded from within, scattering like heavy snowflakes in the dirt. He sought refuge around the back of his Mercedes, but he was exposed to Camaro on his flank. She shot him twice in the back, then shifted her aim to the gunmen, who laced the Charger with gunfire from their impregnable position.

Matt and Soto were still shooting, but Camaro could not see Parker. Pops and rips split the night. Camaro poured fire into the gunmen's position until the magazine went dry. She dropped the empty and swapped it out for the second.

She was firing again as Matt made it behind the wheel of the Charger and started the engine. The wheels spun as he geared into reverse and stomped the accelerator, then bit down. Matt shifted again and peeled out, swinging the car around in a rough circle, back tires burning in the dirt and kicking up a cloud of choking dust. Camaro could barely see as Soto hustled Chapado back into the car and boarded himself.

The Charger leaped forward, catching fire as it went. The two remaining gunmen moved out of hiding to pursue, shooting at the Charger as it fishtailed in the street. Its rear window turned white with holes and cracks. Camaro ignored the car and concentrated on the men, dropping one with three rounds to the chest and head and putting the other on the ground with a pair of bullets that ripped his shoulder.

Now she could see. The two suited Cubans were dead by their car. The gunmen were all dead or dying. Parker lay still on the ground.

Camaro gathered up the spent magazine, ran to the ladder, and descended fast. She dashed from between the buildings and across the street, into the yard where Parker remained.

His shirt was deeply stained from the wounds in his chest and stomach. He breathed only shallowly. Camaro ripped his outer shirt open and lifted the undershirt beneath. He'd taken one in the right lung, the hole sucking air, and another in the liver. The third entry point was two inches below his heart. He should have been dead.

She cradled his head. “Parker,” Camaro said.

He could not focus his eyes, and when he tried to reach for her, his blood-sticky hand missed her face completely. More red was on his lips, bubbling up with every breath. The hideous sucking noise of the lung wound continued.

“I can't save you,” Camaro told him. “You're going to die.”

Parker found the energy to nod once. He closed his eyes. His body stopped.