The Night Charter (25 page)

N
OW THERE WAS
only silence between them. Camaro watched the late-night show, and Lauren watched it with her. Camaro thought for a moment about insisting that Lauren sleep again, but there was only so much she could force on the girl before Lauren pushed back. Teenaged girls were like that. Camaro thought of her sister when she was that age.

Lauren did not look at her when she spoke. “I called my uncle.”

Camaro turned the sound down on the TV. “When?”

“Earlier today. I told him my dad was dead and that I needed him. He said he would come for me.”

“Is he flying in?”

“No, he has to drive because he's broke. It'll take him two days to get here.”

“We can wait two days,” Camaro said. “Two days is perfect.”

“I'm afraid to go to Texas,” Lauren said.

“Why?”

“I've never been out of Florida.”

“There's nothing in Texas that'll hurt you.”

“Nothing or nobody?”

“Nobody,” Camaro said.

“Do you really think they'll let me stay with Uncle Richard?”

Camaro shrugged. “It doesn't hurt to try. And the important thing is that you'll be far away from any crap that comes down after all of this is over with. It takes a lot to get things done between states. I figure they'd rather let you go than do the paperwork.”

“Do you think you'd like living in Texas?” Lauren asked.

“I don't know. I've never really thought about it.”

“Do you know where Del Rio is?”

“No.”

“I hope it's near the coast. I like the water.”

Camaro nodded slowly. “I like the water, too. But it's more about how you live than where you live. Wherever you go, you'll settle down. You're not like me.”

“What are you like?”

She considered her words before speaking. “Wherever I go, I'm always looking out behind me to see what's coming up. I may not even stay here after this. I'd like to change that someday. Just live and not worry.”

Lauren was watching her now, and Camaro did her best to ignore the stare. “You don't worry about anything,” Lauren said.

“I worry all the time.”

“Do you have people who want to hurt you?”

“Now, or always?” Camaro asked.

“Whenever.”

“It's complicated,” Camaro said. “I've done some things in my life that put me in front of some bad people. I always tried to do right, though. That's all you can do.”

“You told me you've killed a lot of people.”

“I have.”

“Was it when you were a soldier?”

Camaro looked at her. “Who told you I was a soldier?”

“I heard you talking to that man.”

Camaro turned back to the television. There was a comedian on the couch next to the host's desk, cracking wise about something. It was only half-audible, and Camaro didn't care anyway. “I killed people when I was a soldier. I killed people after that, too.”

“Did you like it?”

“Nobody in their right mind likes killing anyone.”

Lauren's voice was solemn. “When is Matt going to die?”

“Very soon.”

“I wish I could be there to see it.”

“That's nothing you want to see,” Camaro said.

“He deserves it.”

“He does, but that doesn't mean you have to be a part of that. By the time it happens you're going to be gone from here. And that's a
good
thing. A girl like you shouldn't have to deal with that kind of thing.”

“What do you mean a girl like me?”

Camaro shook her head. “You aren't like me. You're just getting started in your life. It might not seem like it, but you have a long, long way to go, and you're never going to make something of yourself if you get caught up in the life that brought your dad down. All of that starts by you getting out of here and not looking back. You leave Matt to me, live or die. That's how it should be.”

“What about that man in the bathroom? Is he going to die?”

“Not if I can help it. You get to go to your new home and he does, too.”

“Where is he going?”

“I don't know, and I don't really care,” Camaro said. “As long as he's out of my life, that's all that matters.”

“That's not what you think of me, is it?”

Camaro turned to her again. “No,” she said. “It's not.”

“I wish I knew you before. I wish my dad had brought you home to meet me.”

“I'm not really the kind of girl who gets brought home to meet the kids,” Camaro said.

“I wish it anyway.”

“You go ahead, then. I won't stop you.”

Camaro got up from the bed and stretched. “Where are you going?” Lauren asked.

“I'm going to walk around outside for a little bit. If you need something, come get me. I won't go far.”

“Okay.”

She let herself out onto the long porch that ran the length of the motel and waited a long minute before stepping off onto the gravel of the parking lot. Out here, away from the clustered lights of the metro area, it was possible to see the stars in a sky that retained its darkness. Camaro turned in place and sought out the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt, but couldn't find the latter. She found Venus and Mars and the North Star. Doing it reminded her of late nights out on the sea with her dad, waiting for their fishing lines to be drawn tight and the fight to start, learning the constellations and the planets and even the features of the moon. In that moment she missed her father more than she had in a long time, and she felt the threat of tears before she pushed them back down inside herself.

Now wasn't the time for crying. Not now and not anytime. She was grown, and the past was the past. If she kept it away, it could never overtake her.

“T
HIS IS JOHN
Mansfield.”

Ignacio held the phone to his ear and ignored the day-shift talk going on at the desks around him. “Agent Mansfield, this is Ignacio Montellano over at the Miami PD. How are you doing?”

“I'm doing just fine, Detective. How are things going with your case?”

He took a breath and steadied himself. “I got a chance to meet face-to-face with Hugo Echave,” he said.

“How did that go?”

“He told me everything,” Ignacio said.

Now it was Mansfield's turn to pause. Ignacio thought he heard the riffle of paper on Mansfield's end as the man hurried to find something to take notes with. “He was up front with you?” Mansfield asked.

“Totally. I couldn't have asked for a better interview.”

“I assume you're calling me because something came up that's outside your purview.”

“A little bit,” Ignacio said. “Echave told me that his group was involved with an illegal entry into the United States of a Cuban citizen and that this guy they paid to bring in has been kidnapped by the people who were supposed to deliver him. As soon as I heard the word
kidnap
I knew I had to let you in on it.”

“We talked about this, but I can see why you'd get in touch with me,” Mansfield said. “Tell me about the victim.”

“I didn't get a whole background on him, but his name is Sergio Chapado. He was some kind of Alpha 66 mover and shaker in Cuba, so they had to get him out before the government could find him and arrest him.”

“Or kill him.”

“Yeah, that, too. Do you know anything about him?”

Mansfield made an affirmative noise. “I've heard the name here and there. If I recall correctly, he was behind some embarrassing pro-democracy activism over there. Not exactly blowing up government buildings, but still more dissent than the authorities are used to. I can see why they would want him gone and why Alpha 66 would be hot to get their hands on him. A real live revolutionary is worth big bucks if he's put in front of the right donors.”

“What about the whole illegal entry thing?” Ignacio asked.

“Oh, that? That would be glossed over. A man like Chapado would get asylum status easily. Pretty much anyone who asks gets a free pass into the system unless they turn out to be a straight-up criminal or a minor with parents back in Cuba who want him returned. You remember that whole mess from back in 2000.”

“Elián González,” Ignacio said. “I remember.”

“You and every Cuban in the country. People who didn't even care about Cuba before were turning out to protest Elián's repatriation. Once you get the average citizen stoked up about communists, they'll go wild. Lots of Cuban exile groups made serious money off that disaster. Alpha 66 as well. Of course, someone like Chapado isn't anywhere near as cute as a seven-year-old boy, but like I said, he has value.”

Ignacio flipped through his notes, hastily scribbled down as Echave unburdened himself in their interview. Now that he was on the phone with Mansfield, he felt strangely reluctant to part with all the details, knowing that his homicide cases could be caught up in an expanded FBI investigation and wrested from him. If they went, Matt Clifford went, too. He wanted to put the cuffs on Clifford himself. “Alpha 66 offered a hundred thousand dollars to an independent contractor to bring Chapado out of the country. Now he's holding out for another hundred thousand. They're paying through the nose.”

“Who's the bad guy here?”

Now he must tell. “His name is Matt Clifford. He's a convicted felon with a pretty hefty sheet. I think he's good for a triple homicide that got pulled off four years ago, and he's
definitely
on the hook for the deaths of seven Alpha 66 guys, plus a higher-up in the organization and his wife. Maybe he didn't kill them all himself, but he's up to his neck in it. He has at least one accomplice: a guy named Sandro Soto.”

“Can you send me what you have on Clifford and Soto?”

“Sure. I'll email it all to you.”

“Where are they now? Did Echave have any idea?”

“
Nada
. Clifford's been in touch, but the number is for a disposable cell we haven't been able to pin down yet. Echave asked him for a current photo of Chapado, but Clifford wouldn't give it up. Chapado may be dead.”

“Then he just bumped himself up to the death penalty,” Mansfield said. “That's not a problem with me. Listen, Detective, what would you like me to do with this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know as well as I do that given what you've learned from Echave, the Bureau can take control of this entire thing. You'd be consulted, but we'd be the lead. All the credit would flow our way. And depending on the way the political winds happen to blow, it might get filed away somewhere in a dark place and never see the light of day again. Are you ready to give this thing up?”

“What's my option? This is federal stuff. I'm just a cop in the Homicide Unit.”

“The federal end can be handled eventually. You have what you need, right? You can send me what you have, and I'll sit on it for seventy-two hours. I can make an excuse for not getting on it right away. Lost in all my emails, you know? Do you think you can clear this thing in three days?”

“I know I can,” Ignacio said.

“Good enough for me. You follow the rulebook, and I'll pretend I did, too. This phone conversation didn't happen.”

“Right. I never talked to you.”

“Good luck, Detective.”

“Thanks.”

Ignacio hung up the phone. He checked around to see if anyone had overheard the conversation, but no one looked his way. He gathered up the files pertaining to the case against Matt Clifford and Sandro Soto and zipped them before attaching the compressed folder to an email and sending it off to Mansfield.

He had three days. And even if Mansfield chose to go back on his word and push his way in, he did not have what was in Ignacio's head and not written down. He'd made no notes that mentioned Camaro Espinoza's name. She was a hidden asset, and she promised him results in two days. The clock was running. If she could not deliver, he'd be out and the feds would be in. The whole thing would be lost.

The screen on his phone had gone dark. Ignacio saw himself reflected in the glass. Camaro was a phone call away, but she was the one who decided when and if it happened. He poured his will into the phone, wishing it to ring and produce her on the other end. She did not call.

G
ALDARRES WALKED FROM
his hotel to a restaurant with a view of the beach. All the buildings along the drive were painted in pastel colors and by night they were alive with neon. The sidewalks crowded with tourists and locals alike, the young ones clad in as little as they could safely get away with, the old ones draped in summer clothes that conspired to hide the frailty of their bodies.

They seated him on the patio. The morning sun pelted down around him, though the umbrella shaded him at his table. He ordered eggs, ham, and potatoes and coffee as well. Every table was served a pitcher of juice, either orange or grapefruit. Galdarres chose the orange.

He'd been waiting five minutes for his food when the cell phone Davíd had given him trilled in his pocket. He brought it out, flipped it open, and pressed it to his ear.
“Bueno,”
he said.

“Señor Galdarres, it's Davíd Ocampo.”

“Good morning, Davíd. I was enjoying your Miami sun.”

“We have word from our man inside.”

Immediately Galdarres was alert. He sat upright in his seat and spoke quietly into the phone. “What has he learned?”

“The group is in disarray, just as you hoped. Accusations between the man who took Chapado and Alpha 66 are flying. They're holding him responsible for Marquez's death, but he's denying it. They don't believe him.”

“Then this man, Matt Clifford, he must be anxious to make his deal quickly.”

“No,” Davíd said. “Something else has happened.”

Galdarres scowled. “What has happened? Both sides have been pushed to make the exchange as soon as possible.”

“It's happened the opposite way. Clifford is asking for more time.”

“More time? For what?”

“Echave and the others suspect he might be hiding the fact that Chapado is hurt, perhaps even dead. If that's the case, he has no choice but to make delays.”

“Delays,” Galdarres cursed. “The man is a fool. This only gives Echave's group more time to find him. This is not what was intended.”

“I know, señor. We're all very upset.”

“Is our man inside pushing for a quick resolution?”

“He doesn't have that much authority, though he's doing what he can and is putting pressure on Echave to act decisively. He hopes to convince Álvaro Sotelo to push Echave into violent action. But there's worse news.”

“What could be worse?” Galdarres demanded.

“A policeman spoke with Echave. Our man doesn't know for certain, but he thinks Echave may have talked. How much he revealed to the authorities, we don't know. But there was definitely a meeting, and it lasted for more than an hour. The suspicion is that Echave gave up details about Clifford and what he's doing.”

“The last thing we need is the authorities being involved,” Galdarres said. “This puts us under a heavy time constraint. You tell our inside man that I want to be informed
to the minute
about changes in this situation. No waiting. We have to be ready to move the moment we have an idea of Chapado's location. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand, señor.”

“Good. See to it.”

Galdarres snapped the phone shut and stuffed it into his pocket angrily. He took a glass of orange juice and downed it in two swallows, then poured himself another, the juice slopping over the edge. All the while, he fumed and swore to himself every swear word he knew in Spanish and English.

It would have been so much easier in Cuba. In his country, everyone was an informant, and the mechanism of the state a powerful and omnipresent thing. If a situation like this arose in Cuba, all it would take was the distribution of subtle pressure in the community before someone would break and tell the DI everything. After that it would only be a matter of swooping in to gather up the wrongdoers and see them to imprisonment. Once they were there, other forms of persuasion could be applied, resulting in still more information and still more arrests, until the entire, festering sore was cleaned out and only healthy flesh remained.

He did not know with whom he was angrier, the invisible Matt Clifford or the fat pig Hugo Echave. Echave styled himself a revolutionary, but he was too soft and too used to having his whims indulged to make truly hard choices. Had it been Galdarres in charge of Alpha 66, his people would scour the city looking for any sign of Clifford until they had either come up with the man or exhausted all possibilities. Instead, Echave kept himself hidden away in his palatial home, afraid to do anything but wait for orders from a common criminal.

Perhaps Matt Clifford had killed Chapado or allowed him to die. If that were the case, Galdarres still had to know. But it would also mean that he would not have the pleasure of dealing with Chapado and Alpha 66 in the same action. Gathered all in one place, the whole knot of them could be disentangled with bullets, with no one left to cause trouble in Cuba again. Poor, frightened Echave would never dare flex the diminished muscle of Alpha 66 in the face of such a crackdown.

The food came finally. Galdarres ate without tasting any of it.