Rising Phoenix (33 page)

DiPrizzio shook his head as he listened to the sound of the door going down again. “Let’s go.”

“Juan! It’s good to see you.”

The man standing in front of the rusting ice cream truck parked in the middle of the warehouse looked confused and a bit worried. He stood flanked by two of his own men, who were wearing the same surprised looks on their faces.

“Mr. DiPrizzio. What are you doing here?”

DiPrizzio stopped a few feet in front of the three, careful not to let his eyes wander to the men who were quietly positioning themselves around the truck. “Oh, you know how it is, Juan. Every once in a while they let me out of the office.”

Juan’s expression didn’t change, and he stayed rooted to the floor.

“Why don’t you show me what you’ve got?” DiPrizzio asked.

“Sure, Mr. DiPrizzio, sure.”

Juan and his companions walked to the side door of the truck and opened it, producing a wooden crate that looked something like an old army footlocker. They carried it with some difficulty to the front of the truck.

Juan took a key from around his neck and unlocked the box. He opened it, revealing that it was completely
filled with one-kilo bricks of cocaine, each individually wrapped in plastic and duct tape.

DiPrizzio bent over the box. He reached out a gloved hand and grabbed a brick, closed the trunk, and placed it on top.

“Chris?”

Panetti leaned over and handed him a pocket knife, which he used to put a small slit in the top of the package.

Juan smiled. “It’s top quality stuff, Mr. DiPrizzio, you got my word on that.”

DiPrizzio continued to stare at the brick, focusing on the white powder oozing out of it. “I appreciate that, Juan, but I’ll tell you what would make me feel even better.”

Juan was starting to look nervous again, as were his companions. They were surrounded by no less than twenty of DiPrizzio’s men.

“Sure, Mr. DiPrizzio. Anything you need,” Juan said.

“Why don’t you just try a little.” He pointed to the brick.

A look of horror flashed across the young Hispanic’s face and then disappeared.

“I’d like to, Mr. DiPrizzio, but you know, I gave it up. It was fucking with me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and winced to illustrate the point.

“Do it for me, Juan. Just this one time.”

Juan and his two companions began slowly backing away. DiPrizzio’s easy smile disappeared. “I insist.” The last syllable of the word “insist” was drowned out by the clatter of rounds being chambered.

The three men looked around them. DiPrizzio’s enforcers, who had been standing so casually a
moment before, now each had a gun trained on them.

“This stuffs good, Mr. DiPrizzio. I swear. I wouldn’t try to sell you no product that was mickey.”

“I know you wouldn’t, Juan. This is just for my peace of mind.” He nudged the open bag toward him. Juan looked around. He seemed uncertain about what to do for a moment. His companions were frozen.

Finally he walked up to the brick and dug a tiny amount of coke from the slit with his finger.

“No, no, don’t be bashful. Get some on there,” DiPrizzio said.

Juan reached back down, pulling out some more of the powder. He brought his hand to his nose and inhaled deeply.

“Get it all… good.”

DiPrizzio put his arm around the quivering man. “Thanks Juan. I’ll be able to sleep well tonight.”

Juan didn’t reply, he just wiped hard at his nose.

DiPrizzio turned and headed toward the office. “We’ll hold on to this stuff for a while, Juan. I want you to come back here at the same time in two weeks. I’ll have the money for you then. Don’t send a messenger. I’ll only give it to you.”

One of Juan’s companion’s spoke up for the first time. “Hey! We delivered. We don’t work on credit.”

DiPrizzio stopped and turned around. “There’s been a change in the way we do business. Is there a problem with that?”

The man looked around him and down the barrels of the guns trained on him. He grabbed Juan, who was still standing next to the footlocker looking dazed, and pushed him toward the truck.

R
obert Swenson burst through the apartment door without knocking. “You watching this?”

Hobart sat silently on the sofa, fixated on the television. The muscles in his jaw rippled as he slowly ground his teeth back and forth.

Swenson took an indirect route across the room—keeping himself from getting between Hobart and the television. He sat in a chair to the right of the sofa and turned his attention to the screen.

CNN was replaying the events of last night. Mark Beamon’s sad face was supernaturally pale as he walked by the cameras. He looked like the eye of the storm as he strode slowly toward a large brick building in the background. The camera pulled back and panned right, focusing on the victims splayed out across an asphalt playground. Swenson ignored the voice-over, focusing on the eerie scene captured on the screen.

Finally the images faded, replaced by a well-dressed anchorwoman. Hobart punched the MUTE button on
the remote in disgust. For a moment neither of the men spoke.

“What the hell happened?”

“Karns,” Hobart answered simply.

“You gave him the okay for this?”

“Fuck, no. Piece of shit did it himself. I knew he was a loose cannon—but I sure as hell didn’t think he’d go off and do something like this.” Hobart was rubbing his temples now. “Shit, shit, shit,” he whispered. Finally he raised his head and looked squarely at his partner.

“We’ve gotta pull him out. The FBI’ll trace that stuff back to him eventually.”

With operations like the one that Karns had set up, it was a one-shot deal. Then you pulled up stakes and set up somewhere else. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the one shot that he had planned on.

Swenson arched his back slightly, imitating what they had just seen on the television. “What was the deal with those reactions?”

Hobart shook his head miserably. “You know how we figured we’d use cyanide-based rat poison on the downstream stuff—save what’s left of the orellanin for big hits?”

Swenson nodded.

“Well, it looks like that stupid son of a bitch used the wrong thing. I did a little reading on my own when I was researching this operation. That,” he pointed at the now soundless television, “was strychnine poisoning.”

“Should be good for our image,” Swenson said sarcastically. They had been enjoying the positive public reaction to their activities. The heart-wrenching suffering
of the people on the playground was bound to turn people away from their cause.

Hobart grunted and began dialing Bill Karns’s number on the small cellular that was resting on the sofa next to him.

Luis Colombar wasn’t known for his punctuality. Reed Corey had been waiting for almost fifteen minutes. He began playing nervously with his hair, twisting it back and forth and pulling until it hurt. He pulled harder, using the pain in his scalp to clear his head and to try to return to a mindset he hadn’t had in years. The man who had fought bravely in Vietnam seemed to slip further away every year, the memory obscured by drugs and liquor and time.

Corey felt only fear and anticipation, sitting in the expansive living room. The guilt that he expected to wash over him never came.

John Hobart had cold eyes—like a shark in a National Geographic special. They were less windows to his soul than cameras taking in everything around him. Despite this, Corey had come to know his old friend better than anyone. And looking into his eyes the last time they had met, Corey knew that Hobart intended to kill him.

He had made the right decision, leaving the house and spending the last few weeks taking a tour of the sofas of Bogotá. He had first heard of Colombar’s offer three days ago in a run-down bar not far from where he and Hobart had met. He had been in unfamiliar territory and unsure whether or not to believe
the people he was sitting with. The next day he confirmed the story. Luis Colombar had put up a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar reward for information leading to the capture of the person or persons inquiring about certain aspects of his cocaine refining activities.

The memory of his first meeting with Hobart was a bit clouded, but his questions regarding refinery locations and chemical suppliers stood out in Corey’s mind. He wasn’t sure what this was all about, but he suspected that Hobart was the man Colombar was looking for.

Though he had been expecting them, he was startled by the footsteps coming up behind him. He turned quickly to face the sound, pulling his hand quickly away from his hair and wiping it absently on his dirty trousers. Two men appeared at the far end of the room and walked down the wide steps. Both were impeccably dressed, but the younger one was much more formal. He walked silently behind the older man in a calculated expression of his subordinate status. The older man walked around Corey, not looking at him. The younger one moved toward him.

“Mr. Corey, my name is Alejandro.” He didn’t offer his hand.

“Hello,” Corey stammered. The act of speaking dislodged the sweat that had been collecting on his upper lip, sending a few small drops into his mouth. They tasted salty.

“We appreciate you coming here so quickly. You have information for us?” His smile was warm and calm.

“Uh, yes, sir.” Corey hadn’t heard the other man
coming up behind him but he knew he was there from the gentle tinkling of ice in a glass. Alejandro raised his eyebrows, signaling that he wanted Corey to continue.

“Um, a couple of months ago, a guy that I fought in ’Nam with came to town. Hadn’t seen him in years. Anyway, he and I met in a bar and did a little drinking and he starts asking questions about drugs and stuff. I knew he used to be DEA but got kicked out, so I’m thinking he’s just interested in talking about the old times. So we talked for a while about coke in general. You know, how big a business it’s gettin’ to be. That type of stuff.” Corey paused and patted his forehead with his sleeve.

“Can I get you something cold?” Alejandro asked. His smile was still warm but there was something in his eyes that told Corey it was a rhetorical question.

“Uh, no thanks.” The hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the sound of tinkling ice as the man behind him, who he assumed was Colombar, took another drink.

“So we’re gettin’ pretty drunk, and we do a little blow, and he starts asking some pretty specific questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, he starts asking about where stuff is getting refined exactly. This is what I thought was weird—he asked about the chemicals that go into making coke and where you get ’em. Like he was kinda specific about that. He wanted to know names of companies that distribute stuff like kerosene.”

Something flashed across his inquisitor’s face at the word “kerosene” but Corey wasn’t sure what it was.

“And you told him?”

“Hey, no way, man,” Corey replied too loudly. His voice echoed off the walls.

“You know, he and I are old buds and I didn’t mind talking with him about the general state of things, you know, but I didn’t want to get into talking about any specifics. I know when to keep my mouth shut, you know”

Alejandro nodded. “I’m sure you do. Please go on.”

“So, anyway, I pretty much told him that, you know, I wasn’t gonna tell him anything like that. Lot of the stuff I didn’t know, anyway. He got pretty pissed off and, you know, just kinda blew outta the bar. Didn’t see him again, but I heard he was around for a while longer, you know, a couple of weeks or something.”

More jingling ice.

“Now, who might this old friend of yours be?”

Corey was silent as he looked around the room and then finally back into Alejandro’s eyes.

“Don’t worry, my friend, well get you the money. I think you know we are good for it.” His hand waved about the room, putting forth the lavish surroundings as proof of their wealth. “I hope you understand, though, we don’t keep two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash lying around. We can either have it delivered to you in cash or deposit it into a bank account. Of course, we want to check your story out first.”

Corey let this sink in, finally deciding that it seemed reasonable. He mopped his brow again.

“His name’s John Hobart.”

Alejandro pulled an expensive gold pen out of his breast pocket. He wrote down the name.

“And where might we find this Mr. Hobart?”

Corey was silent for a moment. As sure as the sun
rose tomorrow, he knew that Hobart had intended to kill him before he left Colombia. Despite that, an inexplicable twinge of guilt grabbed him in the stomach. Memories of their time together flashed jungle-green across his mind. There was no going back now, though. Besides, he wasn’t so sure that his old commander wouldn’t come out on top in the end, anyway. Son of a bitch could probably teach Colombar a thing or two about cold-blooded killing.

“Last I heard, he was in Baltimore, Maryland, working for some TV evangelist. Blake, I think, is his name. Hell, he’s probably in the phone book.”

Alejandro smiled and scribbled into his notebook. He looked up and past Corey, nodding conspiratorially. Corey stiffened. He tried to see the man behind him through sheer force of will.

Instead of a knife in his back, he got a grateful smile. “We appreciate your help on this. I hope you understand, we don’t want anyone knowing about our conversation or about the information you’ve given us. I assume that you haven’t told anybody?” Corey shook his head.

“Well, as I said, we want to check out your story. I assume that we can contact you at the same number?” Corey nodded.

The butler appeared like magic at the far end of the room. Alejandro stepped aside and motioned toward him. Corey mumbled a good-bye and headed for the door His gait was unnatural. His entire being was focused on his back, still expecting to be attacked.

He felt a great sense of relief as he passed through the front door and into the hard Colombian sun. He decided that he had made the right decision. Two hundred
and fifty thousand easy dollars. And Alejandro didn’t seem like such a bad guy.