the Viking Funeral (2001) (37 page)

"Who were those guys?" Shane asked.

"Marxist rebels," Alexa said. When Shane looked surprised, she added: "We take help wherever we find it."

Soon they were back on the dirt road, heading out of Maicao. The old English lorry creaked and groaned and bounced through potholes. A few miles farther they hit pavement. The heavy sand tires vibrated on the two
-
lane concrete road that announced the beginning of Maicao's unconventional airport.

Shane saw a small blue and white Citation jet with U
. S
. tail markings taxiing on the ground near them, already turning around, and readying itself for takeoff. The lorry swung under the starboard wing and stopped.

Somehow, they got Shane out of the back, carrying and dragging him to the waiting plane.

"Will you guys let go of me?" he demanded. They ignored his request and pushed him roughly up the ladder into the jet.

"Okay, 'Darker Than Me,' let's do this dust off," Rosario said to Jo-Jo Knight, who was pulling the Citation's cabin door closed behind them.

Almost before the door was latched, th
e j
et was rolling. They hurtled down the poorly lit runway, engines screaming to rotation speed, and then the small executive jet lifted off the tarmac. The strange, six-lane runway fell away beneath them as the government pilot banked right, heading north toward the Caribbean Sea fifteen miles away.

"Thank God you found me,
"
Shane said.

Alexa grinned. "I told you that pill would locate you within a meter." Shane smiled and took her hand.

"We found out from a CIA internal briefing in Washington that this garrison was being used to billet a right-wing Colombian death squad, commanded by an ex--Argentine colonel named Raphael Aziz," Alexa continued.

"Aziz?" he said. "Is he the White Angel?"

She nodded. "We knew from the satellite tracking that you were on that base. Rosario has some very interesting contacts. He got us hooked up with that band of Marxist guerrillas through a drug source he has in Medellin. So we made a deal with Aziz's guerrilla enemies, who were already near here. They agreed to give us some backup in return for finding out where Colonel Aziz was. We surrounded the place, but before we could move, out you came."

"He skinned Tremaine Lane alive," Shane said softly.

She didn't answer but squeezed his hand. "You need a hospital."

"I'll settle for a kiss."

So that's what they did until Luis Rosario and Jo-Jo Knight dropped into the two seats facing them.

"Is this what white people do after a gun
-
fight?
"
Rosario asked. "Cubans just drink and sing.
"

"I thought Cubans drank and made love to sheep.
"
Knight grinned.

"Okay, okay.
"
Alexa grinned. "Knock it off, you guys.
"

Jo-Jo said, "Unless you want this bird to circle over the water, we need to figure out where we want to go. Here's what me and this little freeway dancer figured out: your buddy Jody tried to cash in the escrow account in Aruba, but Sandro and Papa Joe beat him to it. By the time he showed up, they already cleaned it out. I think Papa Joe also set up the Vikings to be killed by the San Andresitos in Maicao after you delivered the product up there. You guys were just donkeys; he was never gonna share that money with you.
"

"After Jody went to Aruba and discovered the money was gone, he disappeared on a charter flight to Florida,
"
Rosario said. "We lost the trail in Miami. Can't figure why he
'
d be going to Florida, anyway."

"Jody's not going there," Shane said. "He might have filed his flight plan for Miami, but trust me, he's going wherever Papa Joe and Sandy Mantoor are. Jody's gonna kill those two for setting him up and taking his money." Shane ran it over in his mind for a minute. "Papa Joe's got a house in Palm Springs. Maybe there."

Alexa shook her head. "After we broke the code book and found Jose Mondragon's name, we hit that desert house looking for clues to where you might be. I'm afraid that site got burned. Jose won't be going back to the Springs."

Shane gave it some more thought. "L
. A
.," he finally said.

"Why L
. A
.?" Alexa frowned. "That's the hardest place for him to hide. Three thousand cops there know he's alive and what he looks like."

"Because that's where Lisa told me she was going, and Lisa's his only contact to Papa Joe. I know this guy. It's personal.... Jody is gonna get his money back, or die trying."

Alexa went forward to tell the pilot while Shane put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He was bone-tired. Sleep came in seconds.

They were at Ryder Field..
. B
ack in the sixth grade. Jody in his Pirates uniform, smiling at Shane..
. S
lamming a ball into his pitcher's mitt, pulling it out, throwing it back again. "Good game. Hot Sauce... Way t'call the hitters. "

"You threw the Ks," Shane answered, his own voice bright and happy.

"We're a team. Nothing can ever change that." Jody grinned.

Shane suddenly felt the need to tell Jody how he really felt: how much his friendship meant..
. W
hat it was like to have been left a
t a
hospital..
. T
o have never known his own parents..
. T
o be raised by strangers. How he never knew his mother. How he would lie in bed wondering why she had left him. Who was she? Why didn't she care enough to keep him? "You're all I have," Shane finally said. "You're the only one who ever cared about me."

Little Jody grinned and dropped the ball, throwing his arm around his ten-year-old buddy. "Don't you forget it, Hot Sauce."

"I'll never forget," Shane said, with all his heart. "You have my solemn promise."

Chapter
47.

THEY MADE A fuel stop at Love Field in Dallas. Alexa had radioed ahead and arranged for a medical team to take a look at Shane's leg. The bullet had passed through the lastus laterus muscle, barely missing the abductor canal.

So much for karma.

The slug had threaded its way through a complex maze of potential disasters while doing very little damage. They stitched and bandaged him up, gave him a shot of antibiotics, then told him to check with a doctor in L
. A
.

They took off from Love Field an hour later.

Los Angeles was in the middle of a horrible inversion layer that trapped the city's smoggy pollutants like smoke under a blanket.

The Citation landed at Van Nuys airport at three-thirty in the afternoon, taxied up to the small Customs shack at the end of Runway 2-6, and shut down.

Tony Filosiani was waiting for them beside the grandfather of the Crown Vies. The old beige and brown Ford fit the funky L
. A
. day.

"I'm sorry about the way this went down, Sergeant," the chief said as they deplaned. "I know we mind-fucked ya, but I didn't know what else t'do."

"It saved my life," Shane admitted as he limped over to the car and stood leaning against it. "It fooled me, so I fooled Jody."

"We been trying t'get a fix on this Lisa St. Marie person you radioed me about," Filosiani said, getting right to business. "We finally got an address from the whadda-ya-callit..
. F
rom the taxes."

"The State Real Estate Tax Board?" Alexa corrected.

"Yeah. She bought a condo in Century City two years ago. The address just came in. I got a five-man jump-out squad stationed over there. They say, according to the doorman, she's upstairs. They got the place covered till we get there."

"Let's go. I'll fill you in on the way," Shane said through punched and swollen lips. The
n h
e turned to Jo-Jo and Luis. "Thanks for the backup, guys." He shook hands with Knight.

When the fed pulled his hand back, he found that he had the STD transmitter in his palm.

"I found that floating in the airplane toilet," Shane said. "Guess it's yours."

"Damn... I hope ya washed it off," Knight said, glowering at the little white pill.

Shane shook hands with Rosario. "Stay in touch, amigo," he said, then turned and opened the rear door of the plainwrap. As he slid into the chiefs musty car, Shane could see that true to form, the Day-Glo Dago had cut himself no slack when it came to the perks of office. The backseat was torn, and the car smelled of stale tobacco.

Alexa paused to say good-bye to Jo-Jo and Luis, kissing both of them lightly on the cheek. "You guys are the best," she told them.

"Hear that, you little Cuban faggot?" Jo-Jo said, grinning. "I'm the best."

"Ain't what she told me," Luis said, winking at Alexa. "She told me she thinks you're the biggest, slowest sack a'shit this side a'the post office."

"At least I don't roast no live chickens in motel bathtubs, you greasy Santeria."

Chief Filosiani shook his head in mock distress, but he was grinning as he settled behind the wheel. Alexa followed, and Chief Filosiani pulled away from the Customs building.

"Them two..
. J
esus," he said, shaking his head. "They never stop with that shit."

Filosiani turned onto the 101 Freeway, took it to the 405, then over the hill into West L
. A
.

In less than twenty minutes they were in Century City, pulling up to a twenty-story high
-
rise with a huge marble monument sign out front that announced the building: CENTURY PARK WEST.

The tall steel-and-glass tower poked up through the afternoon sky, its top-floor mirrored windows disappearing into the brown L
. A
. muck.

They were met by Lieutenant Lincoln Heart, who was leading the team of jump-outs. Heart was ebony black, and his short-sleeved Class C uniform barely concealed a physique of rippling muscles.

There were two blue-uniformed officers waiting in the lobby. They learned that two more were already up on Lisa's floor, watching her apartment.

"You got a floor plan?" Filosiani asked.

"Yep, got it from the building manager. Ms. St. Marie's got an east view, two-bedroom," Lieutenant Heart said as he opened a folded Xerox of the plan. They studied it while Heart continued: "According to the doorman, she came home last night 'bout midnight. Her car's still in the underground garage. Far as he knows, she hasn't left and nobody's been up to see her." Lieutenant Heart reached into his pocket and produced a key. "Here's the master to that floor."

"How you wanna do this, Lieutenant
Hamilton?" Filosiani quizzed Alexa. It was his management style to be a coach to his officers but let them run the operations.

Shane smiled when he called her "Lieutenant," realizing that in his absence, her promotion had come through.

"We need to get Ms. St. Marie to cooperate, and I think Shane has the best chance of turning her. We may need to use her as bait to lure Jody. If she knows where Papa Joe is, we'll need to get that, too." Alexa looked over at Shane. "For all those reasons, Shane should be on point," Alexa said.

"Good analysis," Filosiani noted. "I agree."

"How's the leg feel?" Alexa asked.

"Okay," Shane said, and surprisingly, aside from some occasional throbbing and muscle weakness, he had very little pain. "Lemme give it a try. But I have to do it alone. If we do a SWAT-type entry, she'll clam up."

Filosiani nodded.

"Anybody got a piece I could borrow?" Shane asked.

"Here," Alexa said, "I have a backup." She handed him another Astra 9.

"What is it with you and these little Spanish Astras?" He grinned.

She smiled. "Great little purse gun, eight
-
shot clip, no hammer, doesn't snag coming out. Stop complaining..
. Y
ou still owe me four hundred for the last one."

He chambered the Astra and stuck it into his belt, zippering his light windbreaker over it. Then the four of them stepped onto the elevator.

They rode in silence, listening to the innocuous elevator music and light chimes that announced each passing floor. As the elevator stopped, Lieutenant Heart gave Shane the master key.

They exited on sixteen--Lisa's floor. As they got out of the elevator, they saw two more of Lieutenant Heart's blue shirts watching Lisa's door from the stairwell up the hall.

"You're up," Filosiani said. "Number sixteen-twelve."

Shane limped on his bad leg across the plush carpet to Lisa's apartment while Filosiani motioned to the men in the stairwell to stay back.

He rang the bell next to a pair of massive oak double doors. He could hear the chimes inside, waited, then tried again.

Nothing.