Debris Line (Gibson Vaughn) Page 8

  “There’s rust on the mounting bolts,” Gibson explained.

  Tomas looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Right? That’s exactly what I thought,” Gibson said.

  It had been a good theory. Gibson couldn’t imagine why Baltasar would need a laser bridge, and didn’t want to know. It wasn’t relevant to the task at hand, and it was probably best if he forgot he’d ever seen it.

  Gibson finished his search of the roof but found nothing else of interest. Whichever way the hijackers were communicating with the shipment, it wasn’t via the roof.

  They went back down the ladder, where Tomas was reunited with his shotgun. Damn touching scene. Hendricks was on the loading dock, sorting through paint cans. Tomas went over to talk to Anibal in Portuguese. Probably telling him about their tour of the roof.

  “Where’s the network closet?” Gibson asked Anibal, who looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Small room? Computers?”

  Anibal nodded that he understood. “Near the main offices. But I can’t let you in.”

  “Why the hell not? I thought this was your territory.”

  “You would need Luisa’s permission,” Anibal said, and Gibson could tell that it hurt to admit.

  “Then get it.”

  “And we would need Dani Coelho. He runs the computers. No one goes in there without him.”

  “What the hell kind of sardine cannery is this?”

  Anibal shrugged.

  “Well, where is he? Can you bring him here?” Gibson asked.

  “No, he is at the Hotel Mariana. Luisa wanted him kept safe.”

  “Then I need to go to him.”

  “Your equipment will be here soon.”

  “It’s not much good to me if I don’t have access to the network closet. Will you make a call?”

  “I will make a call,” Anibal said, sounding mightily put out.

  Gibson and Hendricks watched him walk away before exchanging a look.

  “Like this chump is doing us a favor,” Hendricks said.

  “No argument,” Gibson said.

  “Come take a look at this,” Hendricks said. He’d laid the paint cans out in a row. “What do you see?”

  Gibson looked at the empty cans. All the stickers indicating point of sale had been scraped away. Hendricks saw that he understood and nodded approvingly. He flipped the last can over. A receipt for the entire order was stuck to the bottom. It had gotten wet, and peeling it off would destroy it, but the address of the store where the paint had been purchased was still legible. The date was only two days earlier.

  Anibal returned to say that Luisa had okayed a face-to-face with Coelho. He leaned in to get a better look at what Hendricks and Gibson were discussing. The receipt caught his eye, and he picked up the can excitedly, as though he’d spotted something that they’d missed.

  “There’s an address,” Anibal said.

  “No . . . really?” Hendricks said.

  “Yes, on the bottom of this can. We should investigate.”

  “That’s some good thinking, boss.”

  Anibal didn’t catch Hendricks’s tone, too busy shouting for Tomas to fetch the car. Hendricks stood and dusted off his knee while Anibal called Baltasar to announce his discovery. It was an opportunity to remind Baltasar that he was indispensable, and Anibal took full advantage of it.

  “This shit is exactly why I retired,” Hendricks joked. “Boss man always swooping in to take credit where credit ain’t due.”

  “What about the hotel?” Gibson demanded when Anibal got off the phone. “I need to see Dani Coelho, remember?”

  Anibal dismissed Gibson with a wave of his hand. As if Gibson were a selfish child for putting his own needs ahead of the interests of the group. The receipt was real. An actual lead, and all Gibson could think of was the cannery’s computers.

  “Then I’ll stay here and wait for my gear,” Gibson said.

  “No, you come too,” said Anibal. “Both of you.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A quarter mile from the Faro Airport, the old hotel seemed like a last-ditch option for those on a budget holiday. It rose out of the ground and sloped sleepily to one side. Jenn felt sure that if God reached down, he’d be able to wiggle the hotel back and forth like a loose tooth. Over a low wall, trash floated in a dingy pool. The only guest in sight was a man sprawled in a lounge chair that sagged almost to the ground. Empty beer cans lay scattered around him. His skin was the red of a fresh slap and covered from neck to ankles in curly chimney-black hair. Jenn doubted that image would be going in the brochure.

  The hotel lobby wasn’t much of an upgrade. The waiting room of a used-car dealership offered more ambiance—linoleum floors the color of a coffee stain, backless metal benches lining the walls, and a pair of vending machines that served as the hotel restaurant and bar. Luisa’s men outnumbered the hotel’s staff so badly, and looked so out of place, that the guests took one look into the lobby and left the way they’d come.

  Marco Zava hustled over to Luisa and updated her in rapid-fire Portuguese on their missing man. Luisa halted him with a raised palm and made him switch to English for Jenn’s and George’s benefit. She might not want them there, but Luisa was obeying her uncle’s instructions to the letter.

  “Is he still up in the room?” Luisa asked Zava.

  He confirmed that no one had been in or out.

  “Good. And where is the manager? Is he here yet?”

  “I’m right here, cousin. Relax.” Fernando, still in his tuxedo, strolled over. “You’re upsetting the guests.”

  “What are you doing here?” Luisa said, even as she put it together. “This is one of our hotels?”

  “They can’t all be five stars,” Fernando said with a shrug.

  “This puto is hiding out in one of our hotels?”

  “You have to admit he’s got style.”

  “I’m going to skin him alive,” she said, neither a threat nor a boast, but the casual decision of a woman picking her entrée.

  “Feel free. I doubt it will ruin the décor.”

  “What room?”

  “A312. He booked the room a week ago. For one night. Paid cash and checked in under a false name—Willie Sutton.”

  George gave Jenn a look, and she raised an eyebrow. The name meant nothing to Luisa or Fernando, but as Americans, they both recognized it. Willie Sutton had been one of the most successful bank robbers in US history. All while carrying an unloaded pistol. When asked why he robbed banks, Sutton answered famously, “Because that’s where the money is.” As he’d been dead since the 1980s, it seemed an odd pseudonym for a Portuguese to choose.

  “And his real name?” Luisa asked.

  “João Luna,” her man said. “He is the captain of the Alexandria, one of our boats.”

  “I thought Abílio captained the Alexandria.”

  “This is his son. Abílio retired.”

  “Ah, yes,” Luisa said. “So yesterday was his son’s first run for us? He has some balls.”

  “I doubt for long,” Fernando said.

  Luisa did not dispute it and turned to grill Zava about security. He assured her that every exit was covered and that João Luna would need a cape to escape the hotel. Satisfied, she praised his quick work securing the hotel.

  “Thank you, Marco. You’ve done well.”

  Since this morning, Jenn had seen signs that the hijacking had eroded morale. A moment’s recognition from Luisa wouldn’t magically fix that, but it did help settle her man. It was smart leadership. Jenn didn’t care for Luisa Mata, and it forced her to question her assumptions. Disliking someone didn’t mean they were incompetent.

  “You have the room key?” Luisa asked her cousin.

  Fernando held it out as if offering a treat to a waiting puppy. Luisa plucked it from his hand and told him to wait in the lobby. “Better yet, go back to the Mariana. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Try and keep the noise down?” Fernando called after her. “It’s a family hotel.�
�

  Jenn and George packed into a coffin of an elevator with Luisa and Marco. It had an old, manual gate that Zava had to wrestle closed. The elevator jerked into motion, pausing momentarily at each floor as if working up the will to go on. Luisa had wanted to take the stairs, but George couldn’t manage it. She stared up at the slow blinking floor lights through narrow, impatient eyes. Jenn had been a lot of things in her life, but the weak link had never been one of them. It made her thirsty.

  She tried to push the thought out of her head, but now she’d had it, she couldn’t think of anything else. She’d been drinking too much; she knew that. But she’d told herself that when the time came she could control it. A voice of golden honey asked, Why would you want to fight something that feels so good? Problem was, she didn’t know that she did.

  At the third floor, Luisa was first off, Zava on her hip. George and Jenn followed behind like forgotten children. Down the hall, two guards flanked the door to A312. They dropped their cigarettes at the sight of Luisa and crushed them out in the carpet. Fernando was right—it didn’t affect the décor any.

  When they were all in position, Zava took the key while everyone formed up behind him, Jenn and George at the rear. Luisa told them, “Stay back, say nothing, do not interfere.”

  Jenn didn’t know what options that left them.

  Zava eased open the door and listened. The hotel room was silent, air heavy and stale. Jenn flinched, aware of how tightly grouped they were around the door. If it had been booby-trapped, they’d have all been dead. Use your head, she chided herself. Don’t prove Luisa right.

  Zava slipped inside, gun drawn. The two guards and Luisa followed while Jenn and George hung back in the hall. Methodically, they cleared the hotel room. First the bathroom, then Zava slid along the short corridor and peered around the corner into the main room. He looked back, nodding that it was safe, and waved everyone forward.

  João Luna lay sleeping on one of the room’s two twin beds. He was fully dressed and hadn’t bothered to pull back the covers. On the nightstand, an old flip phone rested atop a passport. A plane ticket jutted guiltily out of its pages. On the other bed sat a leather satchel. Zava brought it over and, lifting aside a layer of clothes, showed Luisa the bundles of euros at the bottom. Luisa thumbed through the bills and arched an eyebrow at Marco.

  “Wake him.”

  There was no need. At the sound of Luisa’s voice, the captain of the Alexandria sat bolt upright in the exaggerated way people woke from nightmares in movies. Unfortunately for him, this was no dream. Disoriented, he looked back and forth between the six faces crowded around his bed. He didn’t look much like what Jenn imagined when she heard “fishing boat captain.” She’d envisioned someone older, weathered, with a thick beard. João Luna was young and gangly, no more than twenty or twenty-one, almost pretty in a boyish way. If he owned a razor at all, it was a sharp one. He mumbled a question in Portuguese and then made a panicked break for the door without waiting for an answer. Zava backhanded him across the face and sent the boy crashing against the wall like a Ping-Pong ball. Luisa tsked at Zava, who shrugged apologetically.

  The two guards hoisted the dazed boy by his armpits and set him on a chair. He sat rubbing his cheek in a daze. Zava searched the bed and found a pistol under the pillow. He held it up to show Luisa, who pulled up a second chair and sat facing the boy. For all her threats of violence, she looked calm and relaxed. It would be tempting to think the storm had blown itself out, but Jenn sensed that they’d merely entered the eye. Luisa spoke softly in Portuguese, and one of her men went to the bathroom, wetted a hand towel, and gave it to the boy, who held it against his face.

  “Do you speak English, João?” Luisa asked, smiling.

  She got no answer, so Luisa asked again in Portuguese. The boy shook his head. Luisa glanced back apologetically at Jenn and George before continuing in Portuguese. Jenn understood most of what followed—and George’s Portuguese was better than hers—but standing in the doorway, neither felt sure of their roles beyond witnesses. Leery of what they might be about to become complicit in.

  “It’s been a busy morning,” Luisa said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “What?” the boy asked, confused by the question. “Why am I here?”

  Luisa smiled patiently. “Do you know who I am?”

  He shook his head.

  “My name is Luisa Mata. Do you know who I am now?”

  He paled and nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  “You are the niece of Baltasar Alves.”

  “Good. I’m glad. That should save us considerable time. And saving me time is our only chance of becoming friends. Would you like us to be friends?”

  Luisa reached into a pocket and took out a travel alarm clock. She wound it and set the hour and minutes, then placed it where they both could see it. João Luna looked like a scared kid, lost, and way out of his depth. If it was an act, it was a hell of a good one.

  “My time is valuable, João,” Luisa said. “I must account for every minute of every day. I cannot appear to waste time while my men work hard. You captain your own boat, so you know how important it is to set a good example for your crew. To take time out with you? That is an extravagance I cannot afford. So much is happening today that I should be attending to, but instead here I am. It is unfortunate.” Luisa stopped so that João could consider exactly how unfortunate it truly was.

  “I’m sorry,” João said simply to fill the silence.

  “I appreciate that. I do. I don’t like to feel taken advantage of. It gives me a bad feeling, you know? Here,” she said, tapping her heart.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So, to help make things right between us, I will need you to compensate me for my time.”

  “Compensate?”

  “Every five minutes that I do not have the answer to my questions, you will pay. The longer you drag this out, the more you will owe. Do you understand?”

  “Pay with what?”

  “With whatever you have that is worth something to you,” Luisa said and made it sound almost tender. “Do you have anything that you value?”

  João looked on the verge of tears as he nodded that he did.

  “Good,” Luisa said. “I would hate to charge you more than is absolutely necessary.”

  “Answer to what questions?”

  Luisa held up the plane ticket. “Why are you going to Brazil?”

  João’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  Luisa pressed on as though he’d answered to her satisfaction. “Who hired you to betray my family?”

  “What?” João said again. “No one! I would never do that.”

  Luisa nodded, but she didn’t raise her voice or even repeat her question. She didn’t badger João with the evidence stacked against him or pretend to commiserate with his situation. She didn’t threaten him or offer him an out. There were dozens of tactics a seasoned interrogator could choose from to soften up an uncooperative subject. Luisa didn’t try any of them. Instead, she looked over at the small clock. João followed her eyes. Together, they watched the time pass. Jenn could see the tension building in his body and on his face. He began to babble helplessly that he didn’t know what she wanted. Luisa continued to stare impassively at the clock.

  Jenn had worn several hats in the CIA, including spending long stretches in Afghanistan as an interrogator. Taliban responded poorly to women in control, and that had given Jenn an edge over her male counterparts. Luisa might be unorthodox in her approach, but Jenn admired her technique. She had established control of the room. Given the boy simple parameters for his continued survival and let her reputation work on his imagination. Jenn guessed that when five minutes had passed, Luisa would escalate the stakes and give João something more to fear. The anticipation of torture could be more productive than the act itself.

  Still, something about this didn’t sit right with Jenn. One of her interrogations in particular kept coming to mind, and it wasn’t one of the do
zens that she’d conducted for the CIA. Instead, her mind went back to a storage locker in Pennsylvania. During the hunt for Suzanne Lombard, she and Dan Hendricks had taken a suspect who they’d both been sure was their man. Kirby Tate. They’d found both circumstantial and hard evidence linking him to the girl’s disappearance.

  At the time, you couldn’t have talked Jenn out of his guilt. He was her guy. She had felt it in her bones. She’d gone to work on him with a righteous fury, the memory of which ate at her to this day. She’d crossed lines she never thought herself capable of crossing, and, in the end, although the man had been far from innocent, he wasn’t guilty of anything to do with Suzanne Lombard. He’d been served up to her on a platter, and Jenn had swallowed the setup whole.

  That was what bothered her now. How neat this all was—the money, the plane ticket, the gun. All laid out for Luisa to find. So perfectly staged. Jenn knew what Luisa must feel. Her desperation to show Baltasar progress—emotions clouding her judgment. The need to prove herself to the father figure who had placed so much faith in her. Luisa was beating on the wrong door, but Jenn didn’t know how to stop her. Diplomacy wasn’t her strong suit. She was more of a breaker than a fixer. Putting aside the fact that Luisa despised her, she really had no idea where to begin.

  “I don’t like this,” she whispered to George.

  “You read my mind.”

  “This kid doesn’t look like a thief to me.”

  “Remind me what those look like again?” George asked.

  “How did they know he was here?”

  “If he was under an assumed name, you mean? What do you want to do about it?”

  Jenn didn’t have an answer for that. Unlike Gibson, she didn’t want to openly defy Baltasar’s request for help. That would not end well for them, and she still saw value in Alves’s hospitality. It didn’t mean, however, that she intended to go out of her way to involve herself. Gibson wasn’t wrong that proving useful might be dangerous in its own right. Baltasar Alves was a pragmatic man, and if he came to see them as an asset, then Gibson’s paranoia might prove prophetic.

  Five minutes came and went.