Troubleshooter Read online

  Tim felt the rush of blood at his ears, in the heat of his face. Reading his reaction, Bear hopped to his feet and came around the table to his shoulder. The others gathered behind him.

  Figure 1 showed a sketch of a balloon nestled inside a stomach. The corporate logo was an abstract take on the same image, circles floating within circles. Tim pulled Aaronson’s half sketch from his pocket, taken from the ripped shipping label crumpled in the bottom of Diamond Dog’s cup of tobacco spit. He folded the piece of paper over where the sketch terminated and held it to the screen. The logo completed the image, filling out the circles. A perfect match.

  A few excited murmurs. Someone grabbed Tim’s shoulder and shook it. He clicked the “Track Your Shipment” tab. Glancing at his notepad, he typed in the code he’d copied from the shipping label:

  “TR425.”

  A clock icon spun and spun. Finally a new screen flashed up.

  Your package shipped on September 3 to Funeraria Sueño del Ángel, 3328 San Juan Delamonga, San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, 23400, Mexico.

  46

  Navy SEALs with catchy monikers closed in on a compound, spraying fire from automatic weapons. A hostage taker took a head shot, sending out a simulated burst of PlayStation blood. Whelp hooted and raised the cordless control triumphantly in the air, almost spilling the liter of tequila between his legs. Whelp and Toe-Tag wore UBS headsets so they could communicate like soldiers over the action theme blaring from the TV speakers. They sat on the floor, shirtless, backs to the couch, guns within reach. They had on a bizarre smattering of Afghan jewelry—tribal necklaces, coin chokers, sterling cuff bracelets, Gypsy nose rings. After eating their first round of tequila worms, they’d gotten into the shipping crate that had stored Allah’s Tears. Whelp sported a beaded veil, looking like Disney’s idea of an unsavory belly dancer. Toe-Tag had forsaken his trademark adornment, a lapis teardrop dangling from the pierced nipple.

  Behind them on the cushions, Gustavo slept a blissed-out sleep. Just beyond the darkened windows, an AFI Spec Ops group crept forward in olive drab fatigues. They arranged themselves tactically along the funeral home’s wall, M16A1s angled low-ready across their chests. Up ahead a gust rattled the screen door’s hook in its eyelet.

  The video-game SEALs died gruesomely, and Whelp started up a new game. He and Toe-Tag leaned as they fired, spilling tequila across their thighs.

  Outside, the commander inched to one side of the screen door. The column of tightly stacked men behind him halted, boots shoved into the mud. The commander raised his gloved hand for the countdown.

  One by one, his fingers descended back into his fist.

  47

  All eyes were on the black octopus of the speaker unit dominating the conference table. A mound of Rich’s cigarettes grew from a Styrofoam doughnut plate like an ashen artichoke. Early-morning light filtered through the shades, pale and weak, losing itself in the fluorescents. At last a clicking issued through the unit as Roberto García returned to the phone on the other end. A liaison from the Mexican attorney general’s office, he spoke clear English, unaccented and formal. “Ricardo, are you still there?”

  Fingers drumming on his knee, Rich leaned forward over the speaker unit. “Still here, bud.”

  “The raid was a success. The Special Operations Group killed two Laughing Sinners in a shoot-out. We took the mortician alive.”

  Whoops and cheers and a smattering of applause.

  García said proudly, “My girl is sending the faxes through now.”

  As if on cue, the machine behind them whirred to life.

  “Next time you come, my friend, bring some of that single-malt.”

  Rich smirked. “That stuff ain’t free, compadre.”

  “I will supply the Cubans. Our customary arrangement.”

  Guerrera held the fax paper impatiently as it printed, then held up the crime-scene photos of the late Toe-Tag and Whelp to the others. Excited nods and high fives.

  Tim slid the speaker unit to his side of the table. “Did you find the bodies?”

  “Bodies? No bodies. The funeral home is disused for many months now. But we did find two cadaver tables with fresh fluids.”

  The celebratory mood dissipated immediately. Bear’s shoulders sagged as if he were deflating. Jim swore sharply, his legal pad landing on the table with a slap.

  Rich made a ticking noise with his tongue against his teeth. “I need another favor, Roberto. There are two corpses we gotta track down. Is the funeral director talking?”

  “Not a word. He’s loaded on heroin. He knows enough only to be terrified of the biker network. He will not talk.”

  In the background Maybeck said, “Even if the bodies shipped, we’ve got eyes at LAX. We’re covered.”

  “We have to be sure,” Rich said, at the same time Tim said, “We’ve got to question him.”

  “Can we get him extradited?” Guerrera asked.

  “He’s a Mexican citizen,” García said.

  Tim’s tone was bitter, discouraged. “They can’t deport him, and a Mexican court won’t extradite.”

  “So let’s get country clearance from OIA and go interview him,” Guerrera said.

  The D.C. Office of International Affairs was notoriously bureaucratic. Tim spoke what everyone was thinking: “Won’t happen within our time frame. That takes weeks, not hours.”

  Guerrera pressed on. “Maybe we can reclassify him as an international fugitive.”

  García’s voice came through clearly: “Gringo? Relax.”

  Wearing a sour face, Guerrera mouthed, “Gringo?”

  García said, “We have our own ways of dealing with matters such as this.”

  Rich’s smile came fast, the gleam of his teeth standing out from his scruff. He reached across the table and pulled the speaker unit back in front of him.

  “Our usual spot?” he asked.

  48

  They rattled along the desert in Tim’s Explorer, Bear riding shotgun, Rich and Guerrera in the back. Yet another Border Patrol jeep drove past, slowing until the flash of Tim’s badge hanging from the rearview came visible. The patrol officer lowered his assault rifle and waved.

  The sun bleached the ground to a near white and made the border fence gleam. They were east of Tijuana, so the expensive fence had given way to a rougher design—runway metal used in Kuwait during the first Gulf War, stripped and rammed into desert sand. Each post went deep into the ground to discourage burrowing. They were in a desolate stretch—no houses, no bushes, just a floodlight every hundred feet, countless jeeps, and the endless barrier.

  Twenty-six times as many CBP inspectors occupied this fence line as the one at the U.S.-Canada border. Since NAFTA and 9/11, the Mexican border had tightened up, the initiative propelled, as always, by a set of nifty designations. Operation Gatekeeper firmed up matters in California; Arizona needed its own Operation Safeguard, whereas Texas required Operation Hold the Line.

  It was a few years since Tim had spent time along the southern seam, and the rise of militarism took him by surprise. He studied the dead, cracked land on which so many Mexicans died trying to get to paradise. Looking around, it was difficult to see the appeal of the side north of the fence.

  They passed a tanker truck spraying water to keep down the dust along the sandy road. The hum of the power lines remained audible. A few miles back, when a corralled mustang had passed under the swaying lines, the static bleed-off had raised the hair of his mane.

  “Right … here,” Rich said.

  The Explorer skidded off the road, angling for the fence. Rich got out and headed for a three-armed cactus. The deputies followed suit, Tim looking around at the miles and miles of sand.

  Though they’d just exited the air-conditioning, Bear was already sweating through his shirt. “You want to tell us what the hell we’re doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Are you getting us across to interview the guy or what?” Guerrera chimed in.

  “No,”
Rich said. He counted off a few steps along the fence line from the cactus, stopped, and let out a whistle.

  A figure sailed over the barbed wire, dark against the sun, screaming. He landed hard, sand sticking to his cheek and neck. The man was hogtied, arms and legs bound behind him with cloth. His gag had come loose.

  Tim put his face to the fence, making out the AFI insignia on the transportation-unit van on the other side. The agents on the roof offered Tim casual, two-finger salutes and went back to their game of cards.

  Rich cut the prisoner’s restraints and hauled him to his feet. “Gustavo Alonso?”

  The man remained bent over, sucking wind, fighting to catch his breath. He managed a nod. “Y-yes.”

  Bear frowned and nodded, impressed. Guerrera’s eyes were like coasters.

  A Border Patrol jeep slowed, and they all waved except for Gustavo. The driver waved back and kept on.

  Gustavo trembled, going at the scabs on his arms with his fingernails. From his urgency it was obvious he’d been waiting a long time to scratch. He looked terrified.

  “Now, listen,” Rich said. “Closely. I know you don’t want to roll on the Sinners. Hell, if I was only up against some shaky aiding-and-abetting bullshit, I wouldn’t want to either. But things are different now. You see this?” He toed the sand. “This is American soil. Congratulations. You just reached the promised land. So the problem is … the problem is, you were dicking around in an operation that threatens—as the song goes— this land that I love. Big time. Not just Laughing Sinners on their tricycles but terrorists. Muji motherfuckers, straight off the hijacked plane from Buttfuckistan. Comprende?”

  Sweat streaking his face, Gustavo nodded. But he looked baffled.

  “Now, on that side of the fence, you’re all a bunch of big-family-having, God-fearing Catholics. You know what that means?”

  “No.”

  Guerrera launched into a Spanish clarification, but Rich cut him off.

  “It means no death penalty. But on this side of the fence, we’re a bunch of pissed-off-cuz-we-got-caught-with-our-pants-down, vengeance-wreaking infidels. Guess what that means.”

  “Death penalty.” Gustavo sounded sure, but he was looking at Guerrera, who nodded gravely.

  “Very good, Gustavo. Now, you can play tough guy and prolong your visit to America for, say, the rest of your will-be-shortened life. Or you can talk and go back over the fence. Choice is yours.”

  Gustavo’s eyes darted about. The tip of his tongue inched out and poked at his dehydration-cracked lower lip. “What we talk about. You won’t give to them?” He jerked his head at the fence and the AFI agents beyond.

  “We can consider this an unofficial powwow.” Off Gustavo’s blank look, Rich added, “No, we won’t.”

  “What you want?”

  “You prepared the bodies?”

  Gustavo nodded.

  “Stomach balloons full of Allah’s Tears?”

  Rich’s question seemed to catch him completely off guard.

  “But only I know my end. I am skilled, prepare well. The bikers mess up the bodies, wreck the estómagos before. They need to learn.”

  Made of silicone, the intragastric balloons were durable, designed to remain inside patients for months at a time and, by extension, able to withstand embalming chemicals for a few days. Under ordinary circumstances they were filled with saline to make overweight people feel full and promote weight loss. When their utility was exhausted, the balloons were simply popped, the saline was digested, and the balloon passed. There was no proper way to extract a balloon’s contents. The Sinners probably weren’t going to risk the exposure of getting involved with physicians and endoscopes to finesse out the AT. Trying to improvise was not only difficult but it required skill and a coroner’s stomach. Thus Diamond Dog’s botched work on the dry-run corpses. And Den’s neater job on Marisol Juarez.

  “They talk about new guy, better with scalpel,” Gustavo said. “I am done with all this. I want no more.”

  “So the bodies already shipped?” Rich asked impatiently.

  “I don’t know. They leave in morning for two hour. They talk about airport. I hear phone call when they talk.”

  Tim’s shoulders lowered with his exhalation. At least the AT would be picked up by Jan on the other end.

  “American Airlines?” Rich asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “For LAX? Los Angeles International Airport?”

  “No LAX,” Gustavo said, and Tim felt the sweat on the back of his neck go clammy. “They decide not to risk.”

  Tim screeched up into the gas station, hopping from the Explorer before the vehicle stopped rocking. The others were at his heels as he ran to the occupied pay phone. His badge tapped the glass enclosure, but the woman inside turned her back. He took her by the elbow, gently steering her out as she screamed at him and even went so scripted as to hit him with her purse. Of course, they’d been out of cell-phone and radio range when Gustavo had blindsided them with the change of plans. There had been an uncharacteristic dearth of Border Patrol jeeps after they’d sent Gustavo flying back over the barbed wire, so Tim had floored it to the nearest gas station.

  Bear and Guerrera talked the woman down while Rich crammed into the phone booth with Tim. Jan picked up her cell phone on the second ring.

  “Hold all bodies coming into Burbank, Ontario, Long Beach, and San Diego.” Tim said. “Right now.”

  “Okay.” No questions asked, Jan put him on hold. He waited, baking in the refracted sun and getting an earful of “The Girl from Ipanema.” He worked a hangnail with his teeth. About five minutes later, she came back on.

  “You’re not gonna like this.”

  “What?”

  “Two caskets came into Burbank Airport on an American Airlines flight from San José del Cabo this morning. They were picked up less than an hour ago.”

  “Damn it.” Tim hit the phone booth’s siding with the heel of his hand, the plastic cracking. The woman, still arguing with Bear, got quiet and hurried to her car. “Caskets aren’t spot-X-rayed at Burbank?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Burbank’s not on bin Laden’s short list.”

  “And we all know terrorists strive for predictability.”

  “Our resources barely cover the high-profile airports.” Rich shoved out of the booth, his palms to his forehead. Tim heard Bear ask him what was wrong.

  “Sorry,” Tim said.

  In a quiet voice, Jan replied, “I’ll track down the paperwork, get it over to the command post.”

  “Thank you, Jan.”

  Tim racked the phone gently and stared at it a moment before stepping back into the hot desert wind.

  49

  Tim asked Bear to drive; he had to sleep. His body ignored his intention. Every time he drifted off, lulled by the hum of the Explorer’s wheels over asphalt, he jerked awake and ran through the string of tasks they had to begin when they returned. They were all weak suggestions; the others at least did their desperate musing silently. Rich sat in the back, watching the freeway roll past. He hadn’t spoken since his cell-phone update to Malane.

  They arrived in the city shortly after noon. Bear parked in an alley so Tim could get the cuffs on Rich before they cruised into Roybal. No telling where the Sinners had eyes. Though Rich said nothing, Tim kept the cuffs loose so as not to grind his raw wrists. Tim took back the wheel. He pulled into the underground lot.

  “You coming back to the post?” Bear asked.

  “Nah,” Rich said, “can’t keep me out much longer. We gotta get me behind bars again, keep things looking normal.”

  The men all sat as if there were something left to say. Finally Bear headed out. At Tim’s nod Guerrera reluctantly followed, leaving Tim and Rich in the Explorer. Tim looked in the rearview. Rich was doing the perpetrator hunch in the backseat, leaning forward to accommodate his cuffed wrists.

  Rich checked out the dashboard clock. “Dana Lake’s supposed
to come by in the next few hours, get me processed out.”

  “Need anything in the meantime?”

  “Nah,” Rich said.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Catch up to the boys again. Christ, we need me in there now more than ever. I’ll start with some of the hangs, see if Den and Kaner send word. A lot of dirty work to be done yet. They’ll need an extra set of hands.”

  “Be safe.”

  “I will.” Rich jerked the hair off his face, blowing at a stubborn bang that clung to the band of his eye patch. “Listen, that fake door kick at the warehouse the boys set up for the news? After you guys got Goat? That was chickenshit. I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s not your fault. We can’t regulate the games the desk jockeys play for funding.”

  “Yeah,” Rich said. “Guess not.”

  Across the lot a few Secret Service agents left a Bronco and headed upstairs. Business as usual. Cheap suits and bad coffee. Trying to think five moves ahead to stop the drugs, the murder, the terrorist action. The chess match continued, one big game except for the live ammo. How many of L.A. County’s 10 million lives were at stake if the Prophet got his revenue stream up and running? How many lives in the state? Beyond? Once the drugs and cash dispersed, it would be nearly impossible to stem the flow. The agents and deputies could add their efforts to the great ash heap of unsuccessful wars: The War on Poverty. The War on Drugs. The War in Iraq. It would persist, the slow-motion planning, the subterranean simmer. And one day they’d awaken to find that the forces had erupted once again and all they were good for was cleaning up the mess. Jim’s rambling eulogy had been embarrassing, but it wasn’t entirely off the mark.

  Rich cleared his throat, and Tim’s focus sharpened. The band of Rich’s face in the rearview mirror looked pallid, drained of blood.

  “I never answered your question,” Tim said. “Dray is the pregnant deputy who got shot in Moorpark. She’s also my wife.”