Treaty Violation (11 page)

“Cesar Gomez,” Nicholas said to the security guard in the lobby.

The security guard inspected him. He stood about four foot ten
of pure Kuna Indian descent. “Please, your name,” he said.

“Nicholas Lowe,” he said. “He’s expecting me,” he added and gazed up to see an oscillating security camera. He looked away casually. The last thing he needed was a video clip of his visit to a major drug trafficker.

The guard picked up the phone. After a few seconds, he spoke, nodded, and hung up. He turned to Nicholas and pointed toward the elevators. “Penthouse,” he instructed.

Nicholas pressed the button for the penthouse. His heartbeat surged with the progressing
LCD
numbers for the floors. Anxiety about
the mission, hatred for what Cesar had done to Tyler and Helena, his own future—they all clumped together in his throat.

He felt relieved when the gravitational force reversed and the elevator stopped. Cesar was waiting for him when the door opened.

“Welcome to my humble home,” Cesar said.

“
Gracias
,” Nicholas said and admired the plush palace: polished marble floors, leather furniture, a colorful display of Inca artwork, and a wall-to-wall window providing a panoramic view of the city and the Pacific Ocean. Wealth, it appeared, civilized even the vilest of men. “I spoke to my pilot. The plane is on the ground and your men are loading the goods.” He removed the satellite phone from his coat pocket. “If you’re ready, I’ll wire the money.”

“Eddy,” Cesar said and snapped. A frail, wiry man rushed over.

“Confirm the wire transfer,” Cesar instructed Eddy, then turned to Nicholas and gestured to a man who walked in from the patio holding a drink. “Allow me to introduce my associate.”

“Good evening,” Manuel said.

Nicholas shook his hand and observed him carefully. “
Mucho gusto.
”

“
Mucho gusto
. I recommend your plane not wait on the airstrip for too long,” Manuel said and extracted a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket.

Nicholas removed a lighter from his pocket and lit it. Cesar shouldn’t have introduced a new person, but at least no one was using names.

“
Gracias.
” Manuel exhaled a cloud of gray smoke into the spinning ceiling fan. The smoke dispersed. “The Colombians will launch their
A
-
37
s if the Americans track it on radar.”

Cesar lifted a finger. “My men can prep a plane in twenty minutes at the new airstrip,” he said calmly. “The pilot shouldn’t have any problems.”

“They should be airborne soon,” Nicholas said, noticing a dramatic
change in Cesar. He seemed a different animal away from cocaine and whores, very businesslike. “Do you have any information about U.S. air assets tonight?” he asked Manuel.

Manuel nodded. “Good news. There are no airborne early-warning aircraft tonight, only two Citations and a Navy
P
-
3
. Your men should be in good shape if they take off undetected.”

Manuel’s knowledge of U.S. detection and monitoring assets was frightening proof the drug dealers had a competitive advantage in the war on drugs.

Cesar slapped Manuel on the shoulder. “As you see, I
have my own spy agency.”

Nicholas had been trained to appear oblivious each time he heard the word spy.

“Any recommendations for the next shipment?” Nicholas asked.

“I’ll look into it,” Manuel said and checked his watch. “Hate to spoil the party, boss, but I have to take care of some business. Pleasure to meet you.” He waited for Cesar’s nod of approval and strolled to the elevator with a cautious glance at Nicholas.

Nicholas leaned closer to Cesar. “I’m going to have to check that guy out.”

Cesar laughed and shrugged. “His name is Manuel Espinosa. Knock yourself out. He knows I’ll kill him if he betrays me…and trust me, I’ll find out.”

Nicholas dialed his phone and looked at Cesar. “I’ll send the money.” An electronic voice answered and led him through a sequence of steps to process the transaction. He entered the numbers, confirmed his options, and then just like that,
$1.5
million transferred from one account to the next. “Done.”

“You can wait on the patio while I verify receipt,” Cesar said.

Nicholas nodded as two bikini-clad beauties walked past. The
topless blonde wore a leopard skin g-string, the brunette a mauve bikini.

The brunette touched her chin inquisitively. “Who’s your new friend, Cesar?”

Cesar cleared his throat nervously. “Ladies, this is a friend.” He turned to Nicholas. “Allow me to introduce Adriana and Maria, the loves of my life.”

Nicholas kissed their cheeks.

“Show him to the patio,” Cesar said. “And keep your hands off the ladies,” he added with a nervous chuckle.

“That could be difficult,” Nicholas said, seeing through Cesar’s forced laughter. He offered each an arm. “Ladies, I hope you didn’t get dressed up for little old me.”

The ladies led Nicholas to a poolside table. Maria poured him a scotch on the rocks. He admired the swimming pool, the stocked bar, and, well, Adriana and Maria. Their flirtatious smiles, however expensive or phony, were nonetheless flattering.

“How long have you been the loves of Cesar’s life?” he asked.

“Please,” Maria groaned as Adriana rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how much longer I can put up with his shit.”

“Ladies,” Cesar said from behind with a loud clap, “put on some clothes!”

The ladies said good-bye with seductive winks.
Nicholas waved to the ladies and admired the setting sun as Cesar arrived.

“I verified the wire transfer,” Cesar said, all businesslike. He gestured to the skyline. “I love the view from up here.”

Nicholas didn’t acknowledge him. He had a job to do, but he had a few words to say first. “I doubt Helena Hernandez thought the same thing before she fell to her death.”

Cesar lifted a finger in anger but managed a smile. “I wasn’t responsible for that. I left two hours before she fell. She was here alone when it happened. Ask the police.”

Nicholas remembered the photograph of Helena and wondered why a woman with a bright future would jump to her death.

“Tyler was murdered soon after her death. How do you explain that?” He’d just violated an important rule—don’t get personal—but seeing Cesar living in luxury while two people were dead was an injustice he couldn’t ignore. “And Helena was raped—here—during your party. How do you explain that?”

Cesar whistled at Eddy and gestured with both hands as if swinging a baseball bat. He walked to the ledge and gestured for
Nicholas to follow.

Nicholas rested his arms on the ledge and observed the cars below.

“I won’t bullshit you,” Cesar said. “I gave cocaine to Helena.”

Eddy handed Cesar a wooden baseball bat and waited for Cesar’s
nod of approval before returning to the penthouse.

“The irony,” Cesar continued, “is I refused to give her cocaine twice. The first time was the day she was raped.” He stepped back and swung the bat forcefully.

“What’s with the bat?” Nicholas asked, stepping back to a safe distance.

“I used this bat to bust open the skull of the man who raped her,” Cesar said and swung it again. “I refused to give her cocaine. She asked my friend, who got her high and raped her in one of my bedrooms during a party. I killed him and rushed Helena to the emergency room. No one tells that version of the story, but I saved her life.”

Nicholas scoffed. “You addicted her to cocaine.”

Cesar nodded repentantly. “That was the day I quit trafficking cocaine, six months ago. I won’t waste your time with explanations, but the only reason I’m running these shipments with you is so that Dirk will take
me off that damned Linear list.”

Unfortunately, Cesar had a good point. Nicholas had suspicions about Dirk’s agenda from day one. Curiosity compelled him to ask a question. “When was the second time?” he asked. “You said you refused to give her cocaine twice.”

Cesar folded his arms. “The day she died. She came here asking for cocaine. I refused and begged her to quit. To my surprise, she agreed. I thought it was safe to leave her alone. She seemed happy about her decision.”

“How did she fall off the building?” Nicholas asked. The numbers weren’t adding up.

“I don’t know,” he said. “And I want you to know I wasn’t responsible for Tyler’s murder. Given our arrangement, I stood to gain nothing from his death.”

As much as Nicholas resisted the notion, Cesar might be telling the truth. He wanted Cesar to be a caricature of evil, an easy target of his hatred…but he had forgotten one important detail. “Let’s suppose Tyler was planning to arrest you. In that case, you would have had a motivation to kill him.”

Cesar chuckled. “You can’t be serious. Tyler couldn’t have arrested me in his wildest dreams. I have every judge and politician in this country paid off.” He stood tall, suddenly confident. “I’m sure Tyler blamed me for his problems with Helena, but he was in over his head with her, and with this operation.”

Nicholas glared at Cesar, who lifted his hands defensively.

“Don’t get me wrong. Tyler was a good man—perhaps too good. He was working in too many shades of gray.”

Nicholas’ first impulse was to hit Cesar with the bat, but he checked his anger and concluded that Cesar was merely projecting his own insecurities and fantasies of grandeur.

“I recognized your name when we talked on the phone,” Cesar said,
changing the subject. “I called some old friends to check you out. Guess what I found?”

Nicholas shrugged indifferently, suddenly curious.

“You had quite a reputation in El Salvador about ten years ago. Many people knew you and still say good things about you.”

Nicholas resisted a smile as he remembered his soldiers in El Salvador. He’d recruited them, trained them, and suffered with them through many bitter battles against the FMLN guerillas. They were passionate men who sang songs of love and courage around the campfire at night while cooking whatever food they’d scrounged during the day in the mountains of Chalatenango. Each night ended with a solemn remembrance of those who’d died fighting the communists. One evening, after a particularly bloody battle, they invited him to this sacred event, called him one of their own, and offered him a drink of wine from a dented tin cup. The flavor still lingered in his mouth when he thought of them.

Cesar continued: “They said of all the Americans, only you showed a genuine interest in them. You wanted to help them forge their own destiny, and actively fought against giving vast resources to the oligarchs as part of the peace process.”

“I guess I have friends in low places,” Nicholas said and faced the city.

“I was surprised, to say the least,” Cesar said. “Some spies are members of The Order, all of them bastards—Dirk, for example—so I did more research and learned you’re not a member. That made sense, given your moral fiber, so I asked myself why you associate with them. Why do you play their petty games if you’re a virtuous man?”

“Sounds like you’re doing too much abstract analysis,” Nicholas said.

“Then how about some specifics,” Cesar said. “Most of your men died. You almost died. All because some corrupt members of The Order wanted to make some money and steal land. My guess is they never expected you to make it out alive.”

Nicholas had reached the same conclusion a thousand times, but he couldn’t agree with it now, not with Cesar saying it. “That’s not what happened.”

“Why do you work for those bastards? The Order doesn’t care about justice or the common man.” He gestured to the horizon. “How many people have they killed in the name of progress? How many more must die?”

Nicholas shook his head. “Spoken like a good communist.”

Cesar was suddenly calm. “Don’t tell me you’re so naïve as to believe we live in a just world.”

Nicholas and Cesar looked at each other sternly as Eddy stepped outside carrying a tray with two drinks.

“Hold that thought,” Cesar said. “Let’s toast to our first successful shipment.”

“To our first successful shipment,” Nicholas echoed and closed his eyes as the Aguardiente flowed down his throat.

Captain Tony Price, U.S. Air Force, the Senior
Watch Officer, gestured across the operations floor for the intelligence and weather officers to come front and center. He looked confusedly at the computer display as the two officers approached. He’d tracked many suspect aircraft during his tenure at the
24
-hour operations center at Howard Air Force Base, Panama, but never one that turned south before delivering the drugs at the drop site. “You said this aircraft correlated with your intelligence tipper, right?”

Staff Sergeant Chris Collins nodded assuredly. “We received a report about two hours ago,” he said. “It indicated the exact takeoff time and location. The aircraft is carrying five hundred kilos of cocaine to a drop site in the Bahamas.”