In the Belly of Jonah (36 page)

Doug Brandt jumped in with Doughty, and Martinez jumped into the FBI sedan. Mills called out to Martinez, “I’ll work the subpoena with the technicians. Go, go!”

The three cars fell in line, Doughty popping a bubble out his window and placing it onto the top of his unmarked as they sped away.

Streeter punched the numbers on his cell phone. “I need an ambulance.”

“Address?” the woman at the emergency services asked.

“Sweet mother of pearl,” Streeter cursed. “Hold on.”

Streeter keyed his two-way, hoping they were close enough to Doughty for reception. “Doughty, I’ve got the hospital on the line. Can you give them directions to the mine?”

Andy said, “Yeah, sure.”

Streeter held the cell phone down by the two-way clipped to his belt while Doughty gave directions. When Andy Doughty was done, the hospital employee said, “Got it. They’re on the way.”

“Wait,” Streeter called, pulling the phone up to his ear. “We need an antidote for heroin. You got something like that? A magic pill?”

The hospital employee was calm. “No magic pill, but the paramedics usually carry Narcan.”

“What does that do?”

“If it’s injected in time, it blocks the heroin from acting on receptors. Receptors for opioids.”

“English?” Streeter asked.

“Revives the person almost immediately. If it’s injected in time,” she repeated.

“Will you make sure these guys have it? Lots of it,” Streeter pressed.

The woman sighed, as if frustrated by Streeter’s urgency. “All the vehicles are equipped with respiration devices. The OD will likely die because of an inability to breathe.”

“I’m not talking about an OD,” Streeter argued, angry at the operator’s accusation. “This is Special Agent Streeter Pierce, lead investigator for the de Milo murders. This is an emergency situation. It’s attempted murder, homicide. I need this on the q. t. And make it fast. Without sirens and lights. Detective Brandt’s escorting us to the potential crime scene as we speak.”

Her voice became more animated. “Oh, sorry, Agent Pierce. I didn’t know. I’ll get right on it.”

WE DROVE FOR NEARLY
thirty minutes into familiar territory for me, although I wasn’t going to share that realization with Dr. Jay. I drive this way to work and back home every day.

I stared out the window, noticing the beauty I’d never slowed down to see before. God’s gifts came ever closer into focus. I guess facing death will do that to you. I would have thought I’d been more scared, but knowing what I had on the other side gave me peace.

And an odd sense of clarity. “You cut the middle out of Jill with water.”

He turned toward me and cocked his head. “How did you know that?”

“I’ve seen carpet cut the same way. It leaves a different impression than other instruments do.”

“I thought you worked at a mine,” he admitted. “Not as an undercover agent.”

“I do,” I said with no further explanation. “You’re posing all of us like models in a Salvador Dalí painting. But I haven’t figured out why.” I had hoped Dr. Jay would fill the pregnant pause that followed, but he didn’t. “You talk as if you admired Salvador Dalí, but now you’re mocking him with cheap imitations.”

That earned me a busted lip. His backhanded punch to my face stunned me, his words even more so.

“I’m not
mocking
Dalí,” he grumbled. “I’m
honoring
him. Besides, what would an ox like you know about it?”

“I know that imitation is the highest form of flattery but art is supposed to imitate life, not the other way around,” I added, enjoying the contorted expression that appeared on Dr. Jay’s face, which I glimpsed through my peripheral vision. “I believe the brilliant Dalí would have seen this as unadulterated mockery.”

“Shut up,” he growled.

I didn’t. I realized I was having some effect on him. I didn’t know what, exactly, but it was something. He was off his game, losing his composure, which I sensed must have felt like being caught flat-footed and letting me score an easy layup.

I dug deep into the recesses of my mind trying to find the words Dalí himself had used and which I had skimmed through in the introduction to the first art book I had pulled off the shelf earlier today.

“You have tried to make reality out of fantasy, whereas Dalí was all about tapping the world of fantasy, not reality,” I said, seeing Dr. Jay’s knuckles grow white as he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “What is it he said? Something like ‘I’m always perplexed by why man should be so capable of so little fantasy.’ I think he was talking about you, Jonah.”

He backhanded me again in the face. This time I saw stars, my world darkening into shades of gray. I almost missed the significance of the familiar turn right and the rumbling beneath the wheels of the truck as we rolled over a cattle guard. When I regained my bearings and recognized that we were just inside the entrance of my quarry, panic narrowed my throat.

“What are you doing?”

“I told you we were going somewhere special,”he said, turning into the quarry entrance. “Ever hear of Dalí’s ‘Figure on the Rocks’?”

I shook my head. I didn’t remember seeing anything like that in the books. I knew I was to be the “Figure,” however. And I knew “the Rocks”would have something to do with my quarry.

“You will,” he added. “Soon enough.”

My heart pounded in my chest, knowing it was Sunday and no one would be in the quarry, shop, or offices. I prayed that one of the three plant people might be taking a load out to the quarry or might see Dr. Jay’s truck as we ducked over the hill into the quarry before disappearing.

He parked his truck on the edge of a highwall and offered a heavy sigh. “Figure on the Rocks. Perfect.”

STREETER CLOSED THE PHONE
and tossed it on his dashboard, struggling to keep up with Doughty, who knew the streets of Fort Collins better than did Streeter. What if he was wrong about where Jonah Bravo was taking Liv Bergen? It would be a deadly mistake, he realized.
Instincts, don’t fail me now
, he told himself.

Kelleher’s cell phone rang.

“Kelleher,” he said, Streeter straining to hear what it was about. “Just a minute. Let me put you on speaker phone so Streeter can hear.”

The voice on the phone sounded tinny and distant. “Hi, Streeter. Jon Tuygen here.”

“Tuygen,” Streeter greeted the caller brusquely, focusing on the road and all the hazards flashing by.

“What have you got, Jon?” Kelleher asked.

“Pandora,” he said. “What a box you found this time, guys.”

Jon Tuygen was one of the most brilliant at computer forensics Streeter had ever come across, not only in the Bureau but anywhere. A shy, cordial young man, humble about his incredible talent for data mining, Tuygen was likable and approachable, unlike so many computer geeks Streeter had crossed paths with over the years. Unlike Misty Asante.

“Pandora. Really?” Kelleher asked. “Tell me about it.”

“Where do I start?”Tuygen asked.

“From the beginning,” Streeter said. “And make it snappy. We’re right in the middle of something.”

Streeter was instantly remorseful. He had no business being curt with Jon. It wasn’t his fault that Liv was missing or that Jonah was a step ahead of them. It wasn’t his fault that Streeter had just gambled on a person’s life based on his instincts. Tuygen was one of the good guys and didn’t deserve the way Streeter had treated him. And he should be doubly grateful that it was Tuygen who had called and not Asante again.

“Sorry,”Tuygen said.

“No, it’s my fault, Tuygen,” Streeter interrupted him. “We need your help and I appreciate you coming in today. What’d you learn about Jonah Bravo?”

Kelleher nodded his approval at Streeter’s contrition.

“Well, starting from the beginning,”Tuygen said. “Born in the Municipio of Colón in Matanzas, Cuba, thirty-two years ago.”

“What’s a municipio? A city?” Kelleher asked.

“No, more like a county. He’s from the barrio of Guareiras, a town of about three thousand. There’s only about thirty thousand in the whole county. It appears his father met Jonah’s mother sometime while he was temporarily detained in Cuba after being arrested as an unauthorized driver of a rental car.”

“So Jonah’s Cuban?” Kelleher asked.

“He’s been an illegal immigrant, technically, since he was three. He’s lived like an American.”

“How’d he get to America?”

“Looks like the mother’s family was deep into farming. The father’s name was Maury Bravo and he married into the Este family, the mother’s family in Guareiras. Maury was gunned down in Miami when Jonah was three and his sister, Jacan, was eighteen months old.”

“Miami? That’s a long way from home in Cuba, isn’t it?” Kelleher asked.

“Not really,” Tuygen explained. “Only a little over two hundred miles, as the crow flies. Or as the small, unidentified aircraft flies,” he corrected.

“Smuggling?” Streeter asked.

“That’s apparently why Jonah’s father was killed. Overstepped some boundaries into someone else’s market. The execution of Bravo senior was supposedly a message to the Este family. Threatened to kill the rest of family too, so the mother abandoned her post as loyal daughter and sister to the patriarchs of the Este family and fled with little Jonah and Jacan, using her married name and Maury Bravo’s American status to relocate in St. Petersburg.”

“She wanted out,” Streeter stated.

“Yep,”Tuygen confirmed.

“Let me guess, they were farmers growing poppies?” Kelleher asked.

Tuygen ribbed, “They were farmers, but not of opium poppies. Instead, they were using their crops to legitimize the exports to the States as middlemen from Columbia. Connect the dots.”

“Heroin,” Streeter growled. “That’s the connection. His mother’s family must have recruited Jonah at some point. Probably when he came of age. They’ve been using him as a mule to transport drugs from Cuba, the transition point from Columbia to the U. S.”

“Or to distribute,” Kelleher added.

Streeter nodded. “Jonah Bravo. Family member who’s an American professor. The perfect conduit between students who would be using and an abundant supply from relatives in Cuba. That explains the four thousand square feet of home, custom-made clothes, and a Maserati.”

“Only, he’s not really a professor,”Tuygen added. “He went to school at St. Petersburg College and obtained a teaching certificate, but he never got a master’s anywhere. Looks to me like he bought it from somewhere.”

“How the hell did he get past the administration?” Kelleher asked.

“Well, right out of college he got a job in a couple of vo-tech schools near St. Petersburg. Skipped along quickly, staying only a few months to a couple years at the most in any one place. Looks like he gravitated up to junior colleges, then on to a college or two, and eventually the university in Fort Collins. Probably once someone hired him, they never really checked out his background. The hiring was likely based more on the reputation of the schools where he taught than on his credentials.”

“Probably,” Kelleher agreed.

“What’s your gut tell you about how he got into the business, Tuygen?”Streeter asked, curious about the psychology of this man since he was about to meet him face-to-face. At least he hoped he would.