To The Lions - 02 (29 page)

He
lightly rapped the single barrel of the shotgun, a tactical Benelli that
Navarro would have once enjoyed shooting, on Navarro’s knee and said, “No, Señor
Navarro, we only knew you had a home in this
area
.
 
Other duos like us are
stationed in other areas in Spain where you are rumored to have homes...homes
that you hide in like a scared little
niña
.”
 
He motioned to Valentin.
 
“And, before I sliced that piece of shit’s
tongue, he gave me just about all of the information I needed.
 
Tonight, because of your death, Julio and I
will be heroes.”

Navarro
squeezed his eyes shut and arched his head back to the heavens.
 
This was the end.
 
Seventy-four revolutions around the sun.
 
A poverty-stricken child taken advantage of
by a perverted uncle.
 
An anonymous
escape into the military, followed by an awakening that revealed the world as a
treasure box just waiting to be opened.
 
After
he came home and killed his uncle, the pesetas turned to hundreds turned to
thousands turned to millions.
 
Navarro
had spread innumerable pairs of beautiful legs, all while raising a mostly-charming
family.
 
Three daughters went their own
way before Cesar defied logic as he went his.
 
Then Francesca, his doting wife, had died in a twitching, agonal
breathing mess that Navarro had prayed daily he might someday forget.
 
But he’d had an eventual, glorious rebound,
followed by many enjoyable years.
 
And
now it had to end like this.
 
Why did the
ending have to be so awful?

A
strange thing occurred, as the sadness and great melancholy was swept out with
one blast of wind from the sea that had meant so much to Navarro in his seventy
four years.
 
It was a burst of joy, and
resolution, over one final challenge.
 
A
chance to write a fitting ending to his story.
 
Resigned to his death, recalling a spurt of his impassioned youth, his
constitution crackled as he pondered the exclamation point he might place on his
denouement.

Because,
though he’d grown far too comfortable in his life these past years, he recalled
the tour Valentin had given him when the villa was brand new.
 
There was something about two guns, deftly
placed underneath the bed, able to be reached with one arm from a sleeping
position on either side.

“I
placed them myself,” Valentin had proudly said on that rainy morning, lifting
the heavy bed skirt to show the drop brackets.

The
kneeling man had been talking all the while.
 
He smacked Navarro across the face, bringing him back to the present,
the challenge now cemented in Navarro’s mind.
 
Though it wasn’t hard to do, Navarro made himself cry more, truly
weeping.

“Ayeee,”
the standing León said, aiming his Glock 19 at Navarro’s torso.
 
“He has no self-respect.
 
Crying like a little bitch.”

“Wait,”
Navarro blubbered, putting his left hand out. “Please wait.
 
I know you must kill me; I’m at peace with
it.
 
But, in return for your making it
fast and painless, I will tell you where I have a store of cash nearby.
 
You two can keep it for yourselves.
 
It’s millions…
millions
in untraceable American dollars.”

The
one with the shotgun narrowed his eyes and stared coldly at Navarro.
 
“You will tell us whether your death is slow
or not.
 
I can see to that,
pinche
.”

Navarro
lifted his chin.
 
“You can’t be sure of
that.
 
I’ve a bad heart and I may die as
soon as you begin torturing me.
 
And
then,
mi amigo
, all your efforts will
have been in vain.
 
Because, I can assure
you, you will not find that money on your own.”

Again
the two Leones exchanged glances.
 
The
one with the pistol said something unintelligible, continuing to hold his Glock
on Navarro as the one with the shotgun stood to confer.

And
that’s when Navarro gripped the weapon.

Seasoned
by years of shooting, Navarro recognized the shotgun by touch alone.
 
He and Valentin had practiced with this model
years earlier, entranced by its compact size and close-range firepower.
 
The shotgun was made by Serbu, its moniker
the Super Shorty.
 
Not much larger than a
long revolver, it packed a deathly, close-range wallop with its 12-gauge
shotgun shell.
 
Navarro said a three-word
prayer that Valentin had left the 2+1 shotgun cocked.
 
He jerked it from its banded mooring, hoping
the blast would take both men in the process.

But
the man with the pistol had never fully let his guard down.
 
He twitched at the sight of movement, falling
away from his shotgun-toting partner.
 
As
Navarro unleashed a round whose spread would have definitely taken both men
down, the man with the pistol fired, catching the elder mobster in the neck.

The
very last thing Navarro saw, providing him with a brief moment of satisfaction,
was the León with the shotgun flying backward, spun by the ripping lead shot, his
silk shirt dotted by flowers of fatal blood.

Ernesto
Navarro, longtime don of Los Soldados, slumped down onto the floor of his
villa, dying in a matter of seconds.

Chapter Eighteen

Port
Hercule, Monaco

The
early evening lights of the tiny principality beckoned Xavier Zambrano as the
captain piloted their yacht to its mooring.
 
Xavier enjoyed a cold beer at the bow of the rented yacht, the water
below him audible as its gentle swell kissed the bladed centerline.
 
Xavier nodded his thanks at the galley attendant
who told him his meal would be ready in fifteen minutes, after which time he
would launch into the quartier of Monte Carlo for a night of gambling and debauchery.
 
Glancing to the southwest, seeing the
remnants of tangerine light disappearing in the sun’s westward race, Xavier was
pleased with his decision to get away.
 
The leisurely cruise from Barcelona had taken a full day, around 240
nautical miles according to the yacht’s Greek captain.
 
Xavier had slept for more than half of it and
now felt as refreshed as he had in weeks.

While
not the finest yacht he’d ever rented, the 95-foot Farocean Marine provided him
adequate comfort, especially since he was traveling alone.
 
But it was the crew that set this cruise
apart.
 
The specialty charter company Xavier
used exclusively catered their crew to the renter’s tastes; in this instance,
they’d sent only the harmless old Greek captain and five beautiful, capable
shipmates.

As
he stood from the bow’s chaise lounge, the attendant returned, carrying Xavier’s
mobile phone.
 
“This was ringing, señor,”
she said, allowing her hand to brush his as she handed the phone to him.

Realizing
he was now in Monte Carlo’s cellular range, he appraised the number, cocking
his eyebrow because his lieutenants knew not to disturb him during his one-week
vacation.
 
He’d even given Fausto the
week off, sending him back to his hometown of Rubi to attend to his dying
mother.

The
girl, a galley helper and the lowest ranking of the crew, lingered, eyeing him
hungrily as she gnawed on her lower lip.
 
“Señor, would you prefer your meal in the dining saloon or the
afterdeck?”

Xavier
was still staring at his phone before blinking his thoughts away.
 
The girl, probably no more than twenty, was
short and voluptuous.
 
Her face wasn’t
incredibly pretty but her body was built like a tempered five-kilo hammer.
 
Pulling in a sharp breath through his nose,
Xavier convinced himself to wait for the evening in Monte Carlo to play
out.
 
He still had four days of fun ahead
and could bed this one all the way back to Barcelona if the mood struck
him.
 

He
moved close, touching her chin as he said, “I’ll dine on the afterdeck, my
dear.
 
And please see that my dove gray
Dolce y Gabbana
suit is steamed and
ready, and along with it my white McQueen shirt and black Gucci points.”

“Of
course.”

“Until
later.”
 
He sent her on her way.

Xavier
watched her go, waiting for her to look back.
 
When she did, he puckered his lips in a kissing motion, satisfied as she
covered her smiling mouth with her hands, racing into the galley to brag to the
other girls that he’d paid her significant heed.

He
hurriedly swigged the rest of his beer, a damn good German pilsner called
Licher, and touched the number that had just called him.
 
When lieutenant number two, Vasco, the
scarred sixty-year-old in charge of Contratos, answered, Xavier could tell he
was out of breath.

“This
better be good, Vasco,” Xavier warned, eyeing his nails and wondering if he
should have them done before taking the launch over to Monte Carlo.
 
Perhaps he could have the voluptuous one do
it.
 
No,
because you’ll end up taking something from her, and that will ruin some of
your motivation tonight in the casinos
.

“Señor,
you know I wouldn’t bother you if it weren’t important,” Vasco said, his voice juddering
with barely restrained emotion.

“What
the hell is wrong with you?” Xavier snapped.
 
“You sound like you just ran wind sprints.”

“Nothing
is wrong, señor.
 
Nothing!
 
In fact, all is perfect!”
 

There
was something different about this call.
 
Vasco never yelled.

“Perfect,
you say?”

“Claro!”

Xavier
blinked, unwilling to believe, after all this time, that it might have finally
happened.
 
No…it can’t be.

He
gripped the brass rail to steady himself.
 
“Tell me, Vasco…tell me without any preamble.”

“El
Voltor, señor…he is
gone
.”
 
El Voltor is Catalan for “the buzzard”, the
code name that had come to represent Navarro.

“Are
you certain?”

“Oh…quite,
señor.
 
A small amount of collateral
damage on our end, but El Voltor, as well as his adjutant, have been brutally dispatched.”

Xavier
allowed the news to sink in.
 
When he
felt steady again, he padded across the teak deck, surprising the feverishly
working women as he entered the galley and retrieved another beer, biting off
the cap.
 
He stepped back out into the
chill early evening, viewing spangled Monte Carlo as his chest swelled from the
shatteringly good news.

“Señor?”
Vasco asked for the third time.

“I’m
here…just basking in it.”

“It
was the help from
above
that did it, señor.”

“Finally…”

“Should
I dispatch payment to the yankee jingoist and the acusador?”

“Absolutely.
 
In fact,” Xavier said, feeling magnanimous,
“pay them an extra ten percent as a bonus.”

“Garcia
won’t like that.”

“Piss
on Garcia.”

“Very
good,” Vasco chuckled.
 
“A few more
items, señor.
 
The one we’d lured in, the
baby vulture in Berga, what about—”

“End
that with prejudice,” Xavier said with a snort, the thought of Cesar Navarro’s
agonizing death warming him.
 
“And make
sure he suffers.”

“I
know our friend El Toro will enjoy hearing that,” Vasco said.
 
“And, I realize I’m getting in the weeds
here, but what of the other man, the
gabacho
who El Voltor sent in?”

Xavier
laughed openly, arching his neck to the indigo sky.
 
“Tell El Toro to do as he pleases with that
one.
 
Our Berga-Bull deserves a chance to
have some fun after all this cat and mouse.”

“There
is one thing…”

“Yeah?”

“He
was paid in advance.
 
Word is, it was a
very large sum of money.”

“Who
was?”

“El
Voltor paid the American.”

“Then
just get the money before you kill him.”

“You
want El Toro to do that?”

“He’s
not bright enough.
 
Use Angelines,
instead.”

“The
warden?”

“Yes.
 
I’ve got to go.”
 
Xavier thumbed the phone off.

Surveying
the sea, Xavier suddenly realized he’d finally, after all the years of trying,
reached the summit.
 
Then, relinquishing
his self-control as a point of celebration, he strode back into the galley,
taking the voluptuous galley helper by the hand and hurriedly escorting her to
his stateroom, ejecting the stewardess who was busy steaming his suit.
 
While she, too, was quite comely, he had his
mind set on the tight little package who stared at him as if he were the last
man on earth.

When
they were alone, he destroyed her clothes, ripping them from her body before he
took her without preamble.

His
boiler had redlined and the excess pressure had to be relieved somehow.

Fifteen
minutes later, ignoring the miffed expressions of the rest of the female crew,
Xavier, smelling of fresh, wanton sex, dined famously on prawns and seasoned Argentinian
steak.
 
He skipped the wine and downed
four more of the German beers between his ravenous ingestions of the heavily
seasoned food.
 

That
evening, while getting stinking drunk on complimentary Jean-Marc XO over ice,
he lost nearly fifty thousand euro at Monte Carlo Casino, eventually passing
out alone in the Winston Churchill Diamond Suite at the exclusive Hotel de
Paris.

The
next morning, despite his gambling losses, saddled with a splitting headache
and a room bill of more than 15,000 euro, Xavier couldn’t stop smiling.
 
He imbibed a loaded Bloody Mary on the
penthouse’s sprawling terrace, afterward enjoying a hot oil massage from two
lovely Swedes.

And,
though he knew he’d be best suited to rush back to Spain and claim all that was
his, Xavier decided to remain in Monte Carlo for the weekend—he felt he’d
earned it.

* * *

When
the following morning and early afternoon came and went with no word from
anyone about his release, Gage decided to go ahead and make satellite phone
calls to Colonel Hunter, then to the Catalonian acusador, Redon.
 
Pushing the fear from his mind, Gage wouldn’t
allow himself to consider the possibility that Navarro had been located after their
satellite phone call.
 
Because if Navarro
had followed Gage’s instructions, it was highly unlikely that they could have
closed in on him that quickly.
 

But
this useless charade had to end, and end soon.

As
Gage walked through the main bay, headed back to his cell to get the satellite
phone from its hiding place, he heard a commotion coming from the top
terrace.
 
Glancing up, he witnessed a clustered
mob in one of the straight areas of the uppermost hexagon.
 
They were shouting and chanting, facing
inward to one of the cells.
 
Everyone on
the floor of the bay stared up at the scene except for the three guards.
 
They were each at their posts, studiously
ignoring the commotion.

Gage
stopped before a prisoner he’d spoken to a few times—he was Gage’s “neighbor” from
two cells down.
 
A Frenchman of
approximately Gage’s age, he was tall and lean, with tan skin and a tight mat
of black hair.
 
With a spare, dour face
and dark eye sockets, the Frenchman looked like a tough customer who was
terminally bored.
 
Today he stared upward,
but without emotion.

“What’s
going on up there?” Gage asked in Spanish.

The
Frenchman placed an unlit cigarette between his lips as he said, “A betrayal.”

The
mob was almost directly above Gage’s cell.
 
As Gage considered the location, he realized the horde was gathered
close to Cesar’s cell.
 
“What kind of
betrayal?”

“Do
you know who Cesar Navarro is?”

Gage’s
head snapped around.
 
“Yes.
 
What’s going on?”

The
Frenchman glanced around before whispering, “It’s Los Leones…they’ve turned on
him.”

Oh, no…

At
that very moment Gage knew that Ernesto Navarro was dead.
 

He
thought back to the men who’d been here before him, with the mission of
protecting Cesar—the men who were all dead.
 
Los Leones had probably tried to locate Navarro through each of them,
but somehow they weren’t able to close the deal.
 
But yesterday in the yard, as soon as Gage
saw those signals being passed, he was certain they were trying to track down
the source of the communication.

And
all Navarro’s precautions, they’d done it.
 
Somehow, someway, they’d tracked the signal.
 
Gage knew that tracing a satellite phone was
no small task.
 
It would take serious
coordination, government help—and a great deal of money.

These are no rank amateurs,
Gage.
 
You’re dealing with an advanced
organization
.

“Why’ve
they turned on him?” Gage muttered, looking up at the pulsating mob.

“Who
knows?” the Frenchman said with palpable disgust.
 
“Los Leones are hyenas.”

“Have
they killed him?”

“Oh,
no,” he said, poking out his lip.
 
“He’s not
dead yet.
 
In my seven months here I’ve
come to know that this is a common practice of theirs.”
 
Hitched his head to where the nearest guard
stood.
 
“The pigeons have been paid
off.
 
This Leones’
extracción
could go for days.”