Blond Cargo (23 page)

It explained the function of the two women Mateo had taken photos of entering the club an hour before Malic and Raul arrived. Both men had seemed in a jovial mood as they exited their cars. Maybe they were looking forward to more than a cocktail before heading home for the night.

One of the women had jet-black hair, Mateo had explained, giving Jack and Cruz a blow-by-blow of who was entering and exiting the club. The second woman was blond and a ringer for Angelica. Could have been her sister.

Jack continued down the hallway. The second room on the right was the spitting image of the first. Only it had a small closet where a few pieces of men’s clothing hung haphazardly. Men’s toiletries were strewn about the sink in the bathroom.

“It looks like someone might be crashing here. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Jack hadn’t expected a twofer as he and the team sat surveillance on Malic outside the KPMG Tower earlier. He’d placed a call to the front desk to confirm that Malic was indeed in the building and clicked off when the receptionist put through the call.

Mateo had been sitting across the street in a black Ford Explorer with black-tinted windows that totally obscured the identity of the driver. Jack and Cruz were posted farther down South Grand Avenue in his rental BMW.

At six o’clock sharp a Lincoln Town Car had pulled to the curb, and Malic exited the building with Raul hot on his heels. A terse exchange occurred between the two men as red-bearded Hassan jumped out of the car and opened the rear door for his boss. Malic slid in and Raul double-timed it down into the parking structure.

Jack tailed the limo, and Mateo, with his computer opened on the seat beside him—showing the GPS icon of Raul’s car bleeping—followed at a safe distance.

They realized in a very short amount of time that both men were headed south, in the direction of Orange County. The fact that both men were traveling to the Iraqi social club in Costa Mesa, Jack’s ultimate destination, was pure unexpected gravy.

Jack opened the single red door on the left and stepped in. He found himself in a stuffy, overcrowded office. He could see from the doorway that the room was clear, and he holstered his weapon and went to work. He turned on a PC with a twenty-seven-inch screen that dominated the wooden desk and slipped in a flash drive, tapped a few keys, and downloaded the hard drive.

The file cabinet next to the desk was filled with papers written in a language that meant nothing to Jack. He flipped through the top and bottom drawers—all the same round scribbles.

He had better luck with the small drawer under the top of the desk. He pulled out what appeared to be a handwritten ledger. He spread it open and took photos with his iPhone. He’d discover if any of the entries were of interest when he found someone to translate the info on the hard drive.

As he was closing the drawer, he noticed a refrigerator magnet stuck to a small compartment that held pens, paper clips, and rubber bands. He shone his Maglite on the plastic gimmick. It was embossed with the logo of a sailing yacht plus the name of a marina with an address and a phone number. It advertised dock rentals. Ballpoint-penned on the magnet was the number 207.

Jack knew from experience that many people hid their passwords somewhere near their computer in case they forgot. If an accountant or a gang member was paying the bills for a rental at the marina, they would have to include the slip’s number on the check. That’s where 207 came in. Just in case they forgot. Jack texted the information to Mateo and Cruz. Carefully, he placed the magnet back into the drawer in the exact place he had found it.

“Get out, Jack, now,” Mateo suddenly announced, trying to sound calm.

Jack instantly sprang into motion. He pushed the drawer back in, pulled out the flash drive, turned off the computer, pulled out his gun, closed the door silently behind him, and headed for the rear entrance.

“It’s the Yukon and a silver Porsche. They’re parking, and one man is already out of the Yukon, headed for the door. Get the fuck out, Jack. Let me know when you’re clear.”

Cruz, still on the pole, listening to the exchange, was a whir of motion. He had to reattach the wiring, or whoever was entering the club would know the alarm had been breached.

The driver of the black GMC Yukon, a dark-haired Iraqi, put the key into the front door lock and turned. It stuck. He muttered something under his breath, pulled it out, shoved it back in, jiggled it—and the key turned.

Cruz respliced the cut wire and wrapped it in electrical tape with the precision of a surgeon.

The front door yanked open as Jack ducked out the back, locking the door behind him.

The red light on the alarm box began flashing and beeping. The man punched in a code and the blinking red light turned to a solid green. The heavy lacquered door slammed shut.

“Talk to me, Jack,” Mateo implored while he checked the load in his automatic.

“Clear,” was all Jack needed to say. Mateo let out his breath and holstered his nine-millimeter.

Jack waited in the shadows while Cruz wrapped up his tools and shimmied down the telephone pole.

“They’re on the move again, Jack.”

Mateo watched as the dark-haired man locked the front door, jumped back into the Yukon, did a three-point turn, and with the Porsche dangerously close on his bumper, headed out.

“Follow them,” Jack said. “Stay in touch. We’ll catch up with you later.”

Mateo waited until the two luxury vehicles hung squealing lefts onto Pomona Avenue before putting the Ford into gear and following a safe distance behind.

“Scared the shit outta me,” Cruz said, smiling nervously as he hugged the pole, tossed Jack his bag of tools, and jumped down the last five feet. With the state of Jack’s back, that jump would have sent him to the chiropractor, he thought. He’d already downed four Excedrin with cold coffee while sitting surveillance. He shied away from Vicodin when he was doing this kind of work, but he’d pay in the morning for not staying ahead of the pain.

The two men walked to the BMW, parked on the suburban street that ran perpendicular to the alley and had afforded them an unobstructed view.

“You did real good, Cruz. Real good. You saved my ass.”

The neighborhood was closed up and fast asleep. No movements or sounds except for the distant thrumming of a helicopter’s rotors, a wailing siren in the distance, and the odd bark of a family dog.

“What now, Jack?”

“Gotta talk to a man about a boat.”

Both men piled into the Beemer, and Jack swung a U-turn and powered off into the night. Jack had a strong feeling that if they could find berth 207 at the marina, it would give up its secrets.

Mateo followed the Yukon and Porsche to an upscale parking company that shuttled business travelers to John Wayne Airport, filled their gas tanks, and detailed their cars, all for a hefty fee. It was situated in the Irvine Towers, next door to the Irvine Marriott.

Both cars entered the garage, and after fifteen minutes the Porsche exited the building with the dark-haired man in the passenger seat.

Mateo texted the info to Jack and then followed the men back to the club, where the passenger got out of the car, patted the roof of the Porsche, and disappeared inside the club.

The Porsche peeled out of the strip mall lot, laying down twelve feet of black rubber and smoke before rocketing away.

Good riddance, Mateo thought as he headed back to the parking structure to keep an eye on things and wait for his crew.

The number 207 wasn’t marked on the six-foot fence meant to keep out anyone who wasn’t a member of the yachting community, but rusted plaques for 205 and, farther down, 206 were still attached to the chain links. The next number in line was conspicuously missing in front of the last slip. Coming closer, Jack noticed a clean rectangular space on the weathered fence where a plaque had once been attached. Definitely 207. Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. You’re one hell of a detective, Jack thought, almost laughing through his fatigue.

He powered down the windows, clicked off the car’s lights, and took in the scene. The heady smell of salt water was mixed with the chemical odor of gasoline that bled off the motors, leaving an iridescent sheen on the brackish water.

Slip 207 had easy access from the parking lot, yet it was far enough away from the retail stores and restaurants to be safely hidden from prying eyes. The clacking of halyards against aluminum masts and water lapping on the sides of the yachts, cabin cruisers, and high-end powerboats that filled the marina was all they could hear. At three o’clock, the lot was empty, but live-aboards might well be sleeping on their crafts.

A canvas enclosure hid whatever was docked in slip 207, but Jack could see what looked like a hydraulic lift sticking out of the far edge. The last time Jack had seen a rig like that, he was chasing down go-fast boats bringing cocaine into Miami in the dead of night.

A corrugated metal shed the size of a cargo container stood just beyond the canvas tent. It was secured with a heavy-duty Master Lock padlock.

As Jack stepped out of the car, the safety light on the bottom of the door panel illuminated a small pile of cigarette butts. He picked one up and examined it. The ash was still intact and the paper was clean. Jack knew it had been smoked in the past few hours. Cruz vaulted over the low fence on a one-count. Jack followed suit and stopped in place to make sure they were still alone. He gave Cruz the all-clear sign and walked over to the canvas enclosure as Cruz headed for the shed.

Jack pulled back the canvas flap. He wasn’t surprised, but he still got a thrill when he was in the hunt and downwind of his prey.

A tricked-out cigarette boat with three thick stripes, all shades of blue that ran the length of the boat, was perched on the hydraulic lift. It bristled with power and looked like it was doing forty knots standing still. Jack gave the boat a once-over, being careful not to leave any prints. If he could tie the boat to Malic, he’d let forensics check it out. See if any traces of the dead women had been left behind.

Jack snapped some photos of the boat using his iPhone. He felt certain this was the boat Maggie Sheffield had seen powering out of Paradise Cove after someone had orchestrated a young woman’s sadistic murder. She had been chemically paralyzed, wide-awake as the boat she sat in crashed onto the rocks. She was an unwilling witness to her own brutal death.

That’s some sick shit, Jack thought.

He stepped out of the canvas enclosure and found Cruz standing just inside the opened door of the compact metal shed.

Cruz had a silly grin on his face when Jack passed him on the way in.

“Ganja,” Cruz said.

“I defer to your wisdom,” Jack answered, but after twenty-five years chasing down drug dealers, he had no doubt that the shed had been used to store marijuana. And very recently, from the thick pungent smell. Other than a few life jackets, fuel tanks, hoses, and fire extinguishers, they discovered nothing more of interest.

“They were here tonight. My guess is, the Yukon is gassed up, loaded, and ready for a trip to Detroit. It’s time to bring in the law.”

35

“You know if I bear witness to what you’re doing, I’m gonna have to run you all in,” Nick Aprea said with an early-morning rasp.

“Where are we, on the Ponderosa? You’re gonna have to run us all in?” Jack said, straining to extricate himself from the back end of the Iraqi’s GMC Yukon without touching anything. The car was heavy with marijuana ready for transit.

Cruz laughed and then stifled it when Nick leveled his dark gaze in his direction.

“I’m really tired,” Cruz said by way of explanation, and immediately focused back on his laptop, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

The men were standing inside the parking structure, watching Cruz work his technical wizardry. He had already broken into the vehicle electronically and disarmed the alarm. While Jack searched the car, Mateo drank 7-Eleven coffee the guys had brought along while they waited for Nick to arrive.

“From what I could see, there’s gotta be at least twenty bales,” Jack reported while he stretched to one side, then the other, trying to loosen his back. “What are we talking? Five fifty, six hundred pounds. Depending on the grade, it could be a quarter million? Three fifty?”

“Sounds about right,” Nick said, anticipating the righteous bust to come. He was giving off the sweet smell of tequila, and that was the only thing sweet about him. He’d been roused from a liquor-induced sleep and the warmth of his young wife, and he wasn’t an early-morning person.

“I was a little surprised Dick Trammel answered the phone,” he said. “His wife—how should I say it?—was less than pleasant when I knocked on their door. Although at four a.m., who could blame her?”

Dick Trammel was the LAPD’s resident electronic genius and gadget-meister, to whom Nick could reach out in times of need.

“We got lucky,” Jack said.

“Tell that to Trammel,” Nick shot back. “He’s married to the woman.”

Chuckles from the guys.

“I owe him one, and now you owe me a major one, and it’s you who’s gonna pay first. Trammel said if the bust goes bad, I should tell that Bertolino fuck that he doesn’t want any blowback.”

Laughing, Jack grabbed a container of coffee and burned his lip on the fucking plastic top.

“You know what I say. If the door’s open, step on through. The drugs will be halfway across the country if we wait on a search warrant.”

No argument from Nick, who turned his cranky gaze in Cruz’s direction.

“So, where did you acquire this particular skill set?”

Cruz thought before he spoke, afraid if he said the wrong thing he might incriminate himself.

“Self-taught,” he ended up with. He quickly changed the subject to what they were trying to accomplish here. “Okay, I finished hacking the OnStar system. So now I’m gonna hijack the ECU—”

“English,” Nick said tightly.

“The electronic control unit.”

Cruz felt Nick’s eye roll from behind the mirrored sunglasses and pushed on.

“So with the scrambler Dick Trammel provided and my laptop, we now control any function OnStar provides.”