Doubleback: A Novel (34 page)

“You had a Glock, too.”

“It was Raffi’s. He loaned it to me.”

“Raffi?” He stroked his beard, as if pondering the fact they were on a first-name basis. Streaks of red ran through the blond. He dropped his hand. “Maybe you had an assault rifle but ditched it before we found you.”

“Sure. And I was just hanging around the crime scene for a good time.”

“What’s your tie to Peña?”

She shook her head again. Her temples throbbed. Her wrist was on fire. But this was her last shot. “No. First we deal.”

His eyebrows rose. “You’re in no position to deal.”

“Sure I am. I have nothing to lose.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. Then he smiled wearily, conceding the point. “Okay. What do you have?”

“The man who killed Raffi is missing part of his index finger. He kidnapped a little girl, then killed her mother and her mother’s boss in Chicago. He tried to kill me too.”

“Why?”

“Because I was getting too close to Geoff Delton’s secrets.”

“Which would be?”

She sensed his interest. “No. Nothing more till you tell me who you are. And how
you
know Raffi.”

Whit shook his head. “You haven’t given me anything useful.”

She sighed. She was tired of the games, the lies, the circles of suspicion. Becoming dependent on people, their contacts, even their weapons, was never a good idea. She’d thought—incorrectly, it turned out—Raffi was more or less a loner like her. Yet, whoever these people were, hiding out in the mountains, they weren’t Raffi’s enemies. And while she wasn’t at all sure they could—or would— help her, her options had dwindled. Like it or not she was at their mercy.

So she told him about Molly Messenger’s kidnapping, the bank accounts and cashiers’ checks, the deaths of Chris, Art Emerlich, and her efforts to protect Sandy Sechrest. She told him she suspected that Raffi, despite working for Delton, was involved in drug trafficking and murder. Enough to have warranted a million dollars in hush money. In a way, it felt good to finally lay it all out. When she finished, she motioned to Whit. “Your turn.”

Whit took off his glasses, polished them on his sleeve, put them back on. His face revealed nothing. Maybe that was why he was their leader. Finally he spoke.

“We are part of a movement to take back our country.”

“Are you Minutemen? Some border watch group?”

“No. We are the front lines—the infantry. We are committed to securing the borders. Saving our society from destruction.”

“Why are you hiding out up here?”

“Because we’re prepared to go further than anyone else. At least the ones who haven’t been corrupted by the cartels. And they— well, let’s just say the authorities don’t like our attitude.”

Georgia’s stomach knotted. Just her luck to be hooked up with some wacko right-wing group. But aloud she said, “So you’re allies with Delton Security and Lionel Grant—is that how Raffi got to you?”

Whit tilted his head. “Oddly enough, I doubt Lionel Grant— or Delton—knows we exist. Peña came to us on his own.”

Georgia frowned. “Raffi’s Mexican. Most likely working at cross purposes from you. What could you possibly have in common?”

“There are times that diverse people have mutual goals.”

Whit was obviously an educated man. He was also clever and charismatic enough to have fashioned a bunch of ragtag weirdos into some semblance of order. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t crazy. He could be a latter day Charles Manson. Or a Unabomber who was off the grid. She had to tread carefully.

“Those mutual goals—what would they be?”

“Raffi had had enough.”

“Of what?”

Whit looked around the room and waved his hand. Without a word, the two women and the man who’d been eating canned beans left the room. She and Whit were alone. “What I’m going to tell you,’ he said softly, “no one knows. No one. Except the players themselves.” He paused. “And me.”

Georgia nodded.

“Peña’s team
was
compromised.”

“How?”

“Delton started out doing what Lionel Grant wanted. Trying to stop the flow of drugs across the border. They were mostly backups to the border agents. After a while, they became more confident. They did some reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, even made some forays across the border.

“But cartels are powerful organizations. They effectively control the government of Mexico, and they’ve made inroads here as well. More people are killed along the border than in Iraq these days. The cartels are the biggest threat to the American way of life. To our survival. And no one’s doing anything about it.”

Georgia didn’t need a political rant. “What does that have to do with Delton? Or Raffi?”

Whit gazed at her. “It doesn’t take much to flip someone. You know that. No matter how strong or powerful they are, everyone is vulnerable somewhere. The cartels make an art out of discovering what those vulnerabilities are. Of course, if they can’t find any, they create them. Once they do, they own you.” Whit rocked forward. “It’s happening in U.S. border towns all over the Southwest. The cartels have infiltrated the police, civic organizations, even political groups. It’s the beginning of the Armageddon. But no one will admit it. The degree of denial is—”

Georgia cut him off. “How did the cartels infiltrate Delton?”

“Given their MO, I would imagine they bribed them. If that didn’t work, they probably planted drugs, weapons, or other evidence that was conveniently discovered by authorities.” He paused. “I heard rumors that the body of a murdered whore turned up in someone’s bed.”

“Jesus.” She winced. “Are the Stevens police involved?”

“This is a major border crossing for drugs. They have to be.”

She nodded, not surprised. There wouldn’t be much help from that quarter.

He went on. “As far as Delton is concerned, deals were made. Money changed hands. Lots of it. They are, after all, mercenaries. Up to the highest bidder. After that it was just a case of how far and how high Delton jumped.”

“And Raffi was one of the jumpers?”

Whit held up a hand. “I’m getting there.” He leaned back. “There are four major cartels. Their names don’t matter. What does matter is that they are always trying to expand their turf. Usually at the expense of each other. They’ve been at war for years.”

“What does that have to do with Delton?”

“Many illegals who want to cross the border don’t have enough money to bribe custom officials or pay coyotes. So they become mules. Ferrying drugs for one of the cartels in return for safe passage. When Cartel A wants to take down Cartel B, Cartel A’s soldiers target Cartel B’s mules. Round them up and execute them. As a warning.”

Like Diego’s parents, Georgia thought.

“Authorities have found mass graves on both sides of the border.”

“And you’re saying Delton was killing those mules?”

He nodded. “Once the cartels have infiltrated an organization, they can force it to do whatever they want.”

“But Raffi refused?”

“He discovered that some of the mules who were targeted were people from his village in the Sonora. He called Delton and threatened to expose him if he—Delton—didn’t do the right thing. Instead, twenty-four hours later, three million-dollar checks were sent to Raffi’s team.”

Why was Whit telling her all this, she wondered. What was
his
agenda? She wanted to ask but didn’t want to risk having him clam up.

“Wrobleski and Brewer deposited their money,” he went on, “but Raffi tore his check up. And told Delton he did. Two days later the other two were dead and their records were scrubbed.”

“The ‘training’ accidents.”

“It’s the cartels’ way. Assassinate the soldiers. Then go after the leader. So Raffi ran. To us.”

Georgia thought about it. “That’s why Chris manipulated the bank records.”

“What?”

She held up her hand, thinking it through. After Raffi refused his bribe, Delton must have told the cartel he had a mess on his hands. So they sent the man with the missing finger to clean it up. He kidnapped Molly Messenger and forced her mother to close Delton’s dummy account at the bank, thinking that would erase the evidence of the hush money. But Chris had to have warned Delton—maybe the man with the missing finger as well—that it wouldn’t work. That someone at the bank would discover what she was doing. They told her to go ahead anyway, and since they had Molly, she had no choice. Sure enough, when Sandy Sechrest found the discrepancies and reported them to Art Emerlich, the man with the missing finger was forced to cover their tracks by killing Emerlich and Chris. And try for Sechrest as well.

Georgia fixed her eyes on the floor. Usually she loved this part of a case, the part when the pieces resolved themselves into a pattern so clean and yet so obvious that it couldn’t have happened any other way. This time, though, she felt no satisfaction. For the cartels a rising body count was just a measure of progress. The cost of doing business. Killing men, women, even children, came easily. Even the mob in Chicago had more compassion. And Geoff Delton, too weak to control his own men, was complicit in the carnage. Lionel Grant, too, who’d underwritten Delton in the first place.

“Why didn’t Raffi expose Grant, too?”

Whit shook his head. “Lionel Grant was not a part of this.”

“But Grant hired Delton. It was his truck they used in the desert.”

“It wasn’t him,” Whit said firmly.

Georgia spread her hands. “Why should I believe you? You and Grant have similar missions. And you said yourself diverse people can work together.”

He stared at Georgia for a long minute. Then he said, “There is a tunnel under the border.”

“A tunnel?”

“Drugs flow in one direction, arms in the other. The collaborator you are looking for is not Lionel Grant. Your collaborator is the man who manages the flow of ‘traffic’ through this tunnel. Raffi decided the only way to stop him—and the traffic going through it—was to destroy it.”

“Where is this tunnel?”

“That I don’t know.”

Georgia didn’t believe him.

“There are more than seventy-five tunnels under the Mexico-Arizona border,” he explained. “More are built every day. Raffi didn’t tell us where this one was.”

“Why not? Was he protecting you?”

Whit nodded. “He was.”

“Why?”

“Because we were going to give him the supplies to blow it up.”

chapter
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G
eorgia spent the night at the camp. Although she was more or less under house arrest, they fed her, loaned her some bedding, even let her walk around the compound—albeit with a guard. Still, when it was time for bed, she tossed fitfully.

She had questions. For one, she recalled how Sandy Sechrest said that Delton’s accounts at the bank, the ones Chris closed, were technically unfunded. That Delton had persuaded the bank to temporarily loan him the three million dollars. But Geoff Delton wasn’t stupid—didn’t he know the bank wouldn’t let it slide? Unless he’d been planning to shift the blame to Chris all along. Her fingerprints were in the system. Maybe he thought he could convince the bank she’d embezzled the three million and written bogus cashiers’ checks as retribution because he refused to leave his wife. He could slip in the fact that she’d become pregnant as proof.

Still, Delton should never have ended up in this situation. He should have anticipated his men would be tempted by the cartels. They were mercenaries, after all. Did he think his men were immune? Rumors of arms smuggling by mercenaries were nothing new. Unless Delton, the former Boy Scout, panicked when he discovered his own men were involved. Maybe he was just plugging holes—or letting the man with the missing finger plug them for him.

But Delton’s motivations would have to wait. Georgia’s most pressing question was figuring out who Delton was collaborating with. Geoff Delton was in league—willingly or not—with someone who could run drugs overland across the border or underground through a tunnel. Which meant that individual controlled key pipelines along the supply chain. And that made him a powerful person.

Yesterday she’d been ready to go to the police. But according to Whit, the Stevens police had been corrupted by the cartel. And Javier Garcia thought the mayor’s brother ran a drug tunnel underneath his property. Going to the authorities, civil or law enforcement, wouldn’t get her anywhere. It might get her killed.

She thought about the lives that had been snuffed out. The men who’d turned from soldiers into murderers. The children like Molly and Diego, whose world had been blown apart. The people who’d been coerced or corrupted.

Raffi had wanted to strike a blow for the powerless.

What did she want?

•   •   •

She woke to the aroma of coffee and the clarity that comes from making a decision. One of the women was scouring the pot that held last night’s stew. The other was rolling up sleeping bags, putting things away.

“What’s happening?” Georgia asked.

“We’re breaking camp. We rotate between three or four places,” the woman said. “It’s safer.”

Georgia couldn’t see herself living a gypsy existence. She liked having a home base, her apartment. Even if the walls were bare.

She poured coffee and waited for Whit. She realized now why he’d confided in her. She thought she had an idea where the tunnel was. And whose property it cut through. The problem was she needed proof. She sipped her coffee, remembering the call that Raffi got from his buddy confirming that his “package,” a videotape, had arrived. Someone or something important was on that tape. Was it the proof she needed? If so, the man with the missing finger might already have it. He’d taken Raffi’s cell and could trace the call. She didn’t have much time.

At length Whit came into the room, dressed in black, smelling like soap. He was carrying something under his arm. Her blazer, which she’d used to cover Raffi’s bloody body. Someone had washed it. He handed it to her, then went to the coffee pot and poured a cup.

She folded the blazer, then turned to him. “Let’s go outside. We need to talk.”

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