Innocent as Sin (14 page)

Royal Palms
Saturday
9:50
P.M. MST

F
aroe shoved an unlabeled DVD into the TV player, handed the controller to Kayla, pointed to the pause button, and said, “Grace and I have to go wrestle with the Krebs cycle. Knock on the door if you have any questions Rand can’t answer.”

As Faroe and Grace left the room, a Scots-accented voice came from the TV speakers.

“My name is John Neto. I am an intelligence official employed by the government of Camgeria. My small country is in the heart of the conflict zone of equatorial West Africa.”

The screen showed a montage of beautiful seacoast, vivid green jungles, wild scrubland, and slender, very dark people who looked into the camera with indifference or hostility.

“I’ve been there,” Kayla said. “I spent a week trying to get a bus to Niger.”

“There aren’t any roads from there to Niger,” Rand said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t speak the language. It took me a week to give up and take a Russian-made passenger plane flown by the
most drunken pilot who ever got off the ground. Landing in Niger was…an experience.”

“What did you think of Camgeria?”

“Amazing. Appalling. Yet so vivid in spite of the poverty. Smiles everywhere. Kids laughing.”

“Have you seen it lately?”

“I read the papers and surf the Net,” Kayla said.

And even if she hadn’t, the images on the TV in front of her would have told her all she needed to know. Photos, headlines, web site content from Camgeria and other West African nations.

Armed insurrections, genocides, and refugee camps, all played against a backdrop of green and blue. And red.

Blood.

Agony.

Death.

Whoever had put the DVD together was a master of the PowerPoint presentation. Kayla felt herself drawn back to her youth, to a time when her world was wide open, when optimism was the rule rather than the exception, when all possibilities were equal. Camgeria had been a kind of paradise then. Now it was a kind of hell.

Maimed children.

Starving babies.

Mothers with empty eyes and breasts.

“God, such misery,” Kayla said. “What happened?”

“Andre Bertone.”

The TV showed a still color photo of a white man standing in the middle of a group of black men. Behind them was a dirt landing strip.

“East Camgeria?” she asked.

“You have a good eye.”

“I spent a lot of time trying to get out of there,” she said dryly.

A large twin-engine transport plane whose tail numbers had been painted over crouched on the dirt strip, props turning, dirt and grit flying. Shirtless black men carried off armloads of assault rifles from the cargo hold of the aircraft. In the foreground, another group of laborers stacked heavy, lumpy burlap bags.

“Coltan,” Rand said before Kayla could ask. “It’s vital for modern electronics. There’s been a worldwide shortage of coltan for the last decade. Each of those bags holds fifty kilos. That would make them worth about five thousand dollars apiece.”

Kayla stopped counting bags on the screen when she passed a quarter million dollars.

The camera zoomed in on the white man.

“That’s Bertone!” Kayla said.

“Aka the Siberian,” Rand agreed.

Bertone was wearing a white expedition suit he’d sweated through at the arms and back. Red dust clung to the wet places. He was smiling.

“Like a vulture at a carcass,” Rand said.

“When I was backpacking, we called Bertone’s costume a ‘bwana suit.’ He looks like he was born for it.”

“A gunrunner in a bwana suit. As far as I know, this is the only photo that shows the Siberian in action.”

“Why do you call him the Siberian?”

“A few years ago Bertone, aka Victor Krout, aka a lot of other names, was one of the most successful arms merchants in the world. He imported a quarter million small arms, twenty million rounds of ammunition, at least a million antipersonnel land mines, fifty thousand heavy machine guns, give or take, and numerous military vehicles, including at least a hundred armored personnel carriers and twenty decommissioned Soviet
assault helicopters. All of it was used to attack native villages in four separate African countries.”

“That’s how he made his money? Running guns?” Kayla asked. “According to what he told the bank, he’s an oil broker.”

“He is, now. Before that he was the gasoline that turned centuries of smoldering ethnic and tribal conflict into a hellfire that killed thousands of innocent people. They’re dead because Bertone poured a flood of modern military weapons into primitive tribal politics.”

Rand started to say something more, then let John Neto’s voice talk over the savage images.

“My people have been killing one another for a long time, yes, but Bertone and his ilk made it possible to murder with ruthless modern efficiency. The losses were horrifying. We were a primitive people delivered into the hands of modern warfare, warfare driven by gunrunning opportunists like Andre Bertone.”

Kayla hit the pause button. “I thought diamonds were the bloody item of barter.”

“Bertone took whatever was offered—exotic hardwoods, illegal ivory, minerals. His favorite was bargeloads of oil siphoned from government pipelines by rebel thieves.” Rand smiled thinly. “He is one smart son of a bitch. When other arms runners demanded cash, he pioneered the barter economy. Really widened the killing field.”

Before yesterday, Kayla wouldn’t have believed it. Arms dealing in the upper crust of Phoenix? No way. That sort of thing was reserved for third-world outlaws.

She hit a button on the controller and continued her unhappy education.

“Bertone has a genius for turning a profit on a transaction with one group of combatants, then reinvesting that profit in more arms, which are then sold to the first customer’s enemies.”

The picture on the screen changed. No longer a voice-over, the camera pulled back to reveal Brent Thomas and John Neto.

“Yet today,”
Thomas said,
“Andre Bertone has UN diplomatic credentials and is a respected international oil dealer.”

“Yes. Enough money buys respectability. As we speak, Bertone is an intermediary for shiploads of Eastern European weapons that will be paid for with long-term oil concessions the Camgerian rebels will grant to oil companies owned by Brazil and France. Even your own government deals with Bertone for oil.”
Neto smiled thinly.
“Like gold or diamonds or dollars, oil can be laundered to hide its source. Andre Bertone is brilliant at just that. Oil-hungry governments, or governments wishing to arm the enemy of their enemy, are willing to overlook Camgerian deaths. We are a pawn in the larger global game.

“And we are being sacrificed.”

More images of butchery, starvation, disease; vultures thick on the ground.

Kayla didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to think she lived in a world where war was a commodity like any other.

And worse, that she’d handled blood money for the bloodiest butcher of all.

Rand grabbed the controller just before it dropped to the floor. He paused the DVD. “You okay?”

“No,” she said. “I feel sick. Dirty.”

“Bertone will do that to anyone with any decency in them.”

She thought of the glitz and glamour of the Fast Draw, canapés paid for in children’s blood, politicians paid for the same way, everyone lining up like cattle to be serviced by the merchant of death. It had happened only hours ago, hours that felt like days, months.

Another life she had lived in another time.

And now she had hit the bottom of the rabbit hole hard enough to break her soul.

Rand saw the tears streaming down Kayla’s face and wanted to swear. Only the decent felt another’s pain. Only the decent could be corrupted. Only the decent could be made to feel dirty.

He didn’t think about smart or stupid, should or shouldn’t. He just gathered her into his arms, tucked her face against his shoulder, and held her. The hot silence of her tears reached him as nothing had since Reed’s death.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, stroking her hair, kissing her eyelids gently, tasting her tears. “None of this is your fault.”

“I helped him.” Her voice was as bleak as her tears.

“You didn’t know.”

“I do now.”

“I’m sorry,” Rand said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” he asked against her hair. “I brought you to St. Kilda.”

“It’s not St. Kilda’s fault. They’re just the messenger.”

“Yeah, well, we all know what happens to messengers.”

She smiled sadly at him, sighed, and took the controller back. But when she moved to separate from him, he held her close.

“I’m okay now,” she said.

“I’m not.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry some more. So she leaned against him and started the DVD again.

“How can you stop it?”
Thomas asked seriously.
“You’re a very small nation whose supposed allies are very close to Andre Bertone.”

“Camgeria and some of the other small African nations victimized by Bertone have come together to establish the West African Regional Tribunal.”

“How will that help?”

“The tribunal is an investigatory body that is accumulating evidence against Bertone and his ilk. We will prove that the peoples of West
Africa have been victimized by some of the most unscrupulous men on the face of the earth. Then world opinion will force that money to be returned to the people from whose blood and bone it was squeezed.”

“That sounds like a huge job.”

“It is. Interviews like this are just the beginning. We need help. We need friends. We need people who haven’t been purchased by Andre Bertone.”

The DVD ended with the stylized logo of the channel.

Kayla let out a long sigh, relieved that no more images of suffering would be burned into her conscience. “How did I miss this show? I’m a fan of
The World in One Hour.”

“This segment is still in production,” Rand said, tossing the controller aside. “It won’t air at all unless we get more evidence against Andre Bertone.”

“More? What I saw was devastating. Bwana-suited gunrunner becomes Phoenix socialite and benefactor to state, national, and international politicians.”

“You and the guy who took that picture are the only ones on earth who can link Bertone to the bwana suit.”

“You’re kidding.”

Rand looked at her.

“You’re not,” she said quickly. “I knew that. I just didn’t want to know it.”

She swiped the back of her hand against her eyelashes, taking the last of her tears, wondering if she’d really felt Rand’s lips moving so gently over her skin.

“Pictures are powerful, but they can be Photoshopped,” he said. “Anybody who saw President Bush supposedly giving the world the Roman salute knows all about digitizing photos.”

She started to object, then sighed. “And the first thing Bertone’s lawyers would scream is Photoshop.”

“Yeah.”

“So even if
The World in One Hour
airs that show, Bertone will still have deniability.” Kayla’s mouth turned down. “Like my bank, shifting the responsibility somewhere else.”

“That’s where you could help.”

“How? After what Bertone did to me, I’m already compromised. And my boss. Let’s not forget the golden bastard.”

“I’d rather bury him,” Rand said under his breath.

“What?”

“Your reputation will survive if
The World in One Hour
beats Bertone’s lawyers to the press.”

“Big if.”

“Not as big as it was before you signed on with St. Kilda.”

“How so?”

“Easy. Under the charter of the West African Regional Tribunal, Neto can seize any money, anywhere, that’s connected to illegal activities. But first he has to know exactly where said dirty money is.”

She got it. “Cue Bertone’s private banker.”

“Bingo.”

Phoenix
Saturday
10:01
P.M. MST

T
he Jumping Cholla bar on Indian School Road was as close to home as it got for Gabriel Navarro. The taste of beer was mother’s milk. Tequila was the sting of his father’s hand across his mouth. The smoky air was a familiar blanket. Taverns, cantinas, blue-collar bars in white-trash neighborhoods, they were all places where men were men and any women present ran from soft hookers to hard pros.

When Gabriel had been a kid, men in his knee-breaking line of work had to hang out in beer bars and strip clubs and sports joints. If he was a regular, he could give clients the phone number and know that the bartender would put his calls through or take a message.

For a price.

Cell phones had really cut into a bartender’s income. With his own phone, Gabriel was never more than a ring away from his clients, no bartender required. But he still liked to hang with his Phoenix homies in the bars north of downtown and west
of Central Avenue. Despite his slight, ropy build, he didn’t have to fight every night or every week to prove himself. The thought made him smile.

Here, everyone knows that Gabriel Navarro is a stone-cold mother-fucker.

It had been three years since he’d killed anyone in the Jumping Cholla, and that hadn’t been done to polish his reputation. The dude had needed to die. Gabriel had taken care of it.

The mixed clientele of the bar—Indian, Indio, Mexican, the odd gringo—reflected his own heritage. He could drink here and shoot eight-ball with the cross-eyed Cajun from Baton Rouge for a hundred bucks a game and nobody bothered him. Well, the bar girl asked every half hour if he wanted another schooner, but she always came close enough for him to grab her ass, so it wasn’t really a hardship.

The last thing Gabriel expected to see as he chalked his cue stick was Andre Bertone walking in through the open back door.

Ay,
chingón!
He has my cell number. What is he doing here?

Immediately Bertone stepped into the shadows and stopped to size up the bar. He didn’t have to take a deep breath to know what kind of place he was in. The mixed odors of tobacco, beer, male sweat, and a urinal more often missed than hit were familiar. By comparison to places he’d been in around the world, the Jumping Cholla was almost upscale. At least someone had tried to cover the urinal’s stink with a pungent disinfectant.

Even if the bar hadn’t been relatively genteel, Bertone wouldn’t have worried. Once he’d delivered a million-dollar cash bribe to an African defense minister in a place far worse than this. Another time he’d shot to death a Bulgarian helicopter pilot who had hijacked a load of rocket-propelled grenades. Another time it
was a knife and a fool who had tried to step on Bertone’s shoes. Never had any of the bar patrons tried to stop Bertone.

If he decided that Gabriel had lied to him about the girl’s escape, no one would stop the death Gabriel deserved.

The bartender spotted Bertone and made him as
wrong.

Bertone almost smiled. Maybe it was his white silk shirt open at the throat, his heavy silk slacks, and his thousand-dollar loafers. Or a haircut that cost more than most men in the place cleared in a week.

With a sound like a pistol shot, the bartender slammed the heavy glass he’d been polishing on the bar.

Heads raised, looking first at the bartender, then in the direction of his eyes.

Gabriel didn’t look up from the shot he was setting up at the pool table. “
Bienvenido
my house,
esso,
” he called out in sliding, slurred English. “I thoug’ I see you soon. But no here,
esso.
You ’ave good sources.”

“I found you once a long time ago, Gabriel. After I have found you once, I can always find you again.”

With that Bertone turned away and walked back through the door into the deeply shadowed parking lot.

To the surprise of every man in the room except himself, Gabriel racked his cue and walked toward the back door.

The Cajun had hair the color of chili colorado and a rough voice. “Hey, bro, you forfeitin’?”

“It’s a draw, asshole,” Gabriel said without looking back.

The Cajun didn’t argue.

Gabriel found Bertone leaning against the gleaming black flank of his bulletproof Humvee, puffing on a cigar he’d just lit. A gold-plated Zippo gleamed in his thick fingers.

“Tell me what really happened,” Bertone said.

“Like I told you,” Gabriel said, shrugging. “Bitch had a knife. She opened it with one hand, like maybe she knew how to use it. You tell me no blood, so I hadda think. Then the fuckin’ guard turned on the light. I figure I wait for a better time.”

Bertone puffed on the cigar and watched Gabriel through the smoke. The man wasn’t smart, he wasn’t worldly; a primitive, really.

But a useful, ruthless one.

“So you climbed the wall and came back to the main house,” Bertone said.

“Guard had a gun. If I don’t book on out of there, he make a big noise you no like with all those fancy guests around.”

“What happened to your gun and the rest of the gear?”

Gabriel’s mouth opened, then closed without a word. He lit his own cigarette with a match scratched across the butt of his jeans.

“I got my own gun,” he said finally. “I can use rope when I find her again.”

“If you find her, you cretin.” Bertone’s voice was a lash.

“I know Phoenix. You watch the airport. I find her.”

“You lost your gun, tape, and handcuffs. If she found them, she’ll run to the police. If the guard found them, he didn’t mention it to me, probably because I haven’t seen the guard since Kayla disappeared.”

Despite the cold fury of Bertone’s voice, Gabriel forced himself to shrug. “You want I find the dude?”

“His name is Jimmy Hamm,” Bertone said, stuffing a sheet of paper in Gabriel’s hand. “This is his employment application form. It has his last known address. Find him. The girl may be with him. If she is, kill them both.”

Gabriel shook out the sheet of paper and frowned.

“You do know how to read, don’t you?” Bertone snarled.

“Yeah. Sure. Got my GED, no sweat.” But some of the words were puzzling just the same.

Knives were much easier to use.

Bertone pushed into Gabriel’s personal space. It was a silent threat. Both men knew it.

Gabriel took it.

Bertone slapped an envelope against Gabriel’s chest. “Here are copies of the records in Kayla Shaw’s employment file and the files of her closest friends at the bank. Don’t bother to check her ranch or apartment again. She’s not that stupid. Concentrate on the friends. Look for her car near their driveways, see if there are any signs of her inside their houses.”

“Shit, man. I prowl a banker’s house in the middle of the night and the cops come screaming.”

“Use some of your homeboys,” Bertone said, jerking his head toward the bar. “If they’re surviving out of the joint, they must be good on the prowl.”

He tossed a round cylinder into the air.

Faster than a cat, Gabriel’s hand flashed out to catch the roll of fifty-dollar bills.

“Bring her to me,” Bertone said.

“Breathing?”

Bertone opened the driver’s door of the Humvee and looked across it at Gabriel.

“Find her, kill her, and bring me proof of death.”

The door slammed and the big engine fired up. Bertone backed out quickly, then flipped on the bright headlights, spearing Gabriel. Bertone held that position for a few moments, making the hit man feel exposed, vulnerable.

“Chigna tu madre, cabrón,”
Gabriel said under his breath. “But maybe you don’ even have a mother.”

The Humvee rushed off into the night, leaving Gabriel standing alone with papers in one hand and a roll of fifties in the other. He stuffed Jimmy Hamm’s address into the envelope, stashed it under his shirt, and went back into the Jumping Cholla.

Smiles flashed through the smoke when he started spreading money around.