The Grey Man- Changes Page 10

  As Jesse worked through the reps on the Nautilus she thought to herself, these guys are like my family now. They’re the brothers I never had, and I didn’t realize how badly people can be injured and survive, much less be considered not badly wounded. What is badly wounded? I’m not sure I ever want to find out.

  Christmas was just around the corner, and Jesse decided she would figure out some way to put on a feed for the guys. She looked around with an appraising glance and tried to estimate how many people she could possibly feed, and where. The one nice thing, if there was one about therapy, was she could let her mind run free. It’s Friday, Felicia’s coming for dinner. Maybe I can get her to help. Maybe some of her tamales even. Yeah, that would work!

  Smiling softly, Jesse finished her workout, signed out and walked slowly out to the truck, carrying the crutches and soft cast, reveling in her newfound freedom. Climbing into the truck, she threw the hated soft cast in the back, and slid the crutches into the passenger’s seat. She decided to stop by the commissary, stinky or not, as this day deserved a steak. She picked up enough steaks and trimmings to feed all of them. Whistling as she shopped, she filled half the shopping cart with, as she thought of it, comfort food.

  Jesse knew she still needed to lose fifteen pounds, but thoughts of being able to actually run and work out made that a doable goal. Maybe not in the three weeks before Aaron came back, but definitely by the time deployment was over. A bagger helped Jesse get the groceries to the truck, and she drove back to the apartment in a great mood. Boo Boo met her at the door, having escaped once again from her kennel, but even that couldn’t dampen Jesse’s mood. After the groceries were unloaded and stowed away, Jesse took Boo Boo down to the dog park and let her run and chase the ball. After a half hour, Jesse realized she should have brought the crutches, as her leg wasn’t as strong as she thought. Jesse limped back to the apartment, and felt lucky Boo Boo didn’t drag her over or trip her. She put kibble out and refilled Boo Boo’s water before she booted up the computer and started making a list.

  Jesse also logged into her email, and saw an email with attachments from Marlene, both invoices and payments for services. She logged them into the accounting software for their company D&M and smiled as she remembered the first days trying to sort out what Marlene and Darlene had done and not done. By the time she finished, it was almost five, so she started the oven and prepared the potatoes for baking, then brought the steaks out to let them come up to room temperature. Popping the potatoes into the oven, Jesse started making a salad, and sliced the French bread to add to the meal.

  Half an hour later, Felicia rang the doorbell and Jesse yelled for her to come in. Matt arrived about ten minutes later.

  Felicia immediately picked up on the lack of cast. “You’re out! Um, you are out of the cast, right? I mean the doc-”

  Jesse laughed. “Yeah, finally. Doc told me I can start trying to walk normally again, and I’m supposed to use crutches and not a cane.”

  Felicia hugged Jesse. “Oh, that’s great news! I know you’ve been suffering with that cast, and you haven’t been yourself.”

  Jesse shrugged. “Yeah, I know I’ve been a bitch a lot, but that damn thing was annoying! Anyway, we’ve got steak for dinner, kind of a celebration.”

  Felicia laughed. “Steak is good. It has been a shitty week for me.”

  Matt came into the kitchen, now dressed comfortably. “Did I hear somebody say steak? Hey, where’s the walking cast?”

  Jesse smiled. “I’m out of it! Doc told me I can start trying to walk normally again, and I’m supposed to use crutches if my leg starts hurting. And yes, there is steak as soon as you fire up the grill.”

  Matt grinned. “Yowza, boss. I be grilling over here, boss,” he said as he headed for the patio, meat in hand and Boo Boo in trail.

  After dinner, they all relaxed with a cup of coffee as Boo Boo played with a Kong toy filled with treats. Jesse broached her dinner project idea and Felicia said she’d be happy to do tamales; she just needed a number to shoot for. Matt said they’d be better off using one of the picnic pavilions down by the beach as there wasn’t enough room at the apartment, and there were grills there.

  They started trying to figure out an invite list, and the list kept growing, making Jesse wonder if this was such a good idea after all, but Matt and Felicia both pitched in to convince her that this would more or less be a coming out party for her. Jesse threw up her hands as the list reached thirty people, and said, “Okay, enough already. I think we’ve got everybody but the commanding general on the list. Matt are you sure it won’t be a problem if you or Sergeant Major Eberhart is there?”

  “Jesse, you’ve met him multiple times now, you know he’s only an asshole at work, that’s his job. He’s a pretty laid back guy for a Sar’major, based on my experience. And you’re inviting a full Navy captain, so I think your concerns are slightly misplaced.”

  Jesse grinned ruefully. “Doc doesn’t seem to be like the few officers I’ve encountered, so he doesn’t count as far as I’m concerned.”

  Felicia laughed and Matt shook his head. “A senior officer is a senior officer. Flakey or not, he’s still higher ranked than all but about four or five officers on this base.”

  Matt and Felicia decided they were going to a movie, and Jesse declined, realizing she was tired and still hadn’t gotten a shower yet.

  Shower? Hell, I’m going to take a long hot bath! I deserve it! Jesse thought.

  Reports and more reports

  The old man leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, prompting Yogi to sit up and whimper. “Yeah, you need to go out don’t you dog? I need to go, too.” Getting up, the old man rolled his shoulders to try to relieve some of the tension and picked up Yogi’s leash. Snapping it on, he took Yogi out to his tree in the parking lot. As he waited for Yogi to finish his thoughts ran back over the last two days. I guess we were meant to be there for Sparks and Edwards. The man upstairs was looking out for them. If I hadn’t been at Clay’s and had a rifle, I think we’d be planning to bury those two kids. Either that or Clay would have tried some wild ass stunt to get those kids out of there and we might have lost all three of them. A few more nightmares to add to the list, but I don’t regret those shots. Not at all.

  Yogi, finished now, wanted to play, but the old man needed to finish his report and get it off to Bucky. Yogi sensed the old man’s mood and went quietly when the old man walked back into the office. He dropped Yogi off with the dispatchers for a break, and got himself another cup of coffee. Back at the desk, he looked at his report and compared it to Clay’s, noted a couple of minor changes he needed to add, and quickly finished typing it up. He printed it off, walked down the hall and knocked on the sheriff’s door. “Got a minute, Jose?”

  The sheriff motioned him in. “Sure, what have you got?”

  The old man laid the report on his desk. “Here’s my report on the incident with Clay. Bucky’s been hounding us for it. Apparently, he thinks there is something fishy going on.”

  The sheriff asked, “What does he mean ‘fishy’?”

  The old man said, “Well, Bucky thinks the cartel might be expanding into trafficking in bodies. According to Clay, all but two of the bodies they grabbed on our little incident were OTMs.”

  The sheriff said, “All but two of them were other than Mexican?”

  The old man nodded. “Yep, Middle Eastern. And apparently they haven’t said shit about why they were trying to get in the country.”

  The sheriff winced at that. “Oh, that isn’t good. Sleepers maybe?”

  The old man replied, “Don’t know. And the names don’t indicate COO[18] in the Middle East, and with no documents, we don’t know shit. Hell, they could all be Muslims or Christians, but we just don’t know and probably will never find out. One of them spoke decent Spanish, but the rest of them didn’t. So can I push this report out to Bucky?”

  The sheriff said, “Sure, do it. And get the hell out of here John, you need to take a
break.”

  The old man went back to his office and transferred the report to a CD, then went into dispatch and posted the report to Bucky on the RISS terminal. He called Clay and left a message for him, saying his report was on RISS, and grabbed Yogi and headed for the ranch after reminding the sheriff he’d be gone for the rest of the week teaching in Laredo, then spending the weekend in Houston with Billy.

  ***

  Montoya read the final lines of the encrypted email from Oklahoma and snapped his fingers at Raul. “The commandante phone.” Raul hurried to the bookcase and dug through the box of burner phones, finding the one labeled commandante. He brought it back and handed it to Montoya.

  Montoya flipped it open, hit redial and speaker, as he said to Raul, “Record this.”

  After three rings he heard a quiet, “Si?”

  Montoya said, “You know who this is?”

  Commandante Ruiz walked quickly away from the formation of Federales, saying softly, “Si, Senor.”

  Montoya continued, “The packages were not delivered yesterday. I want to know why.”

  Commandante Ruiz made it to the side of the parade ground and sat wearily on a bench, “When Ort-”

  Montoya hissed, “No names.”

  Ruiz grimaced. “When they did not return from the escort, I sent- I sent people I trust to find out what happened. The truck was damaged, and Or- one was dead there. The others are missing.”

  Montoya spat, “Obviously. The pickup driver said the Nortes were there in force when he drove by. He saw the packages being loaded into a different vehicle. I want to know what happened!”

  Ruiz nodded to himself. “Si, Senor. So do I. I lost three good-”

  Montoya interrupted, “Pay the families five thousand. And dispose of any evidence. And get me answers!”

  Ruiz started to answer and realized he’d been hung up on. Leaning back, he looked up at the chapel’s steeple. Aieee. It was much easier when I only had one master, but much poorer, too. Elena and Jose like the new TV and the air conditioning. And unlike the government, the cartel pays on time.

  Ruiz climbed slowly to his feet, shoving the cell phone back in his pocket and strode back toward the formation. Looking over the Federales standing patiently in formation, he reminded himself that care was needed, since part of the group here did not want to have anything to do with the cartel and just wanted to be poor, dumb Federales. Dismissing the formation, he waited until most of the people left the parade ground before he called to the sergeanto mayor, “Walk with me, if you would, Eduardo.”

  The sergeanto mayor joined the commandante as he walked back toward the administration office. “Eduardo, we have a problem. Apparently the Nortes found out about the coyotes bringing the people across yesterday. It now looks like they arrested them and the people.”

  Eduardo replied, “Do you think this means Santiago and Lopez were arrested?”

  Ruiz shook his head. “No, I think they are dead. If they were alive, we would have heard something. Can you query your counterpart in Marfa and see what they have? And maybe set up a visit? I heard they have a new supervisor up there.”

  Eduardo said, “I will do that right now. The usual reason? Deserters?”

  ***

  Two days later, Raul heard one of the burner phones in the box ring, and rummaged through until he found it, it was the commandante one. He saw the number and handed it to Montoya, as he clicked the recorder on the desk on. Montoya flipped it open and hit speaker, “Si.”

  Ruiz was sweating as he started his report, “Senor, I have visited the Nortes, all of our people were killed in a shootout at the river. It appears to be a random chance that they happened to have officers there just as our people started crossing.”

  Montoya swore, making Ruiz even more nervous but he plowed on doggedly, “The new supervisor of the Nortes is a pompous ass. He would not release the bodies to us, saying they had to do an autopsy and then they would decide. He would not give me a copy of his report either. Apparently he is personally supervising an investigation into what happened and until he is satisfied, no one will get a copy.”

  Montoya asked, “Did you find out who the Norte shooters were?”

  Ruiz rolled his eyes, knowing that question was coming and hating what he had to say. “No Senor. I could not get that. It is apparently in the report that is not released. But I did find out there were two shooters.”

  “Find out,” Montoya said. “I want to know. They will die!”

  “Si, Jefe,” Ruiz said. “I will find out.”

  Montoya replied, “You’d better if you value our relationship.” He hung up the phone and flipped it back to Raul saying, “This son of a bitch is useless. He has no balls!”

  Raul only nodded, knowing better than to comment when Montoya was in a foul mood.

  Ruiz’s hands shook. He didn’t know what to do next. He sank slowly to the bench and put his head in his hands. Think! How do I get those names? I need a copy of that report; it should have them in it. But how?

  ***

  Bucky called the old man a couple of days later and gave him a rundown on the DEA’s side of the problem. Interestingly, it appeared the two dead so called Mexican Special Forces guys weren’t really SF. But they were apparently, depending on whom one believed, either ex or current Federales that had deserted. The old man had laughed at the deserted comment and told Bucky if he believed that, he wanted some of whatever Bucky was drinking.

  But it got the old man thinking about the Federales he and the others had killed in Mexico and the old man figured it was just another set, or maybe part of the same set that were taking money from both sides and playing the middle.

  Houston

  The old man was once again teaching a surveillance class for CBP in Laredo. He finished the last lecture he was scheduled for just before noon, and he and Bucky left the CBP offices at Laredo to grab some lunch. Bucky drove to his favorite little Mexican restaurant and they settled into a booth in the back, enjoying the end of yet another class of trainees. Bucky said, “Man, I’m glad we were able to get you down here to teach the search and surveillance lessons John. Without your expertise I don’t know where we’d be.”

  The old man waved the compliment off. “Hell, you’ve been there and done that as much as I have, Bucky. You’re now a highly ranked muckity-muck with DEA. You should be the instructor not me.”

  Bucky shook his head. “No, honestly I can’t hold a candle to you. If you’d come over to DEA when you had the chance, you’d be running this place and a lot of others. But you decided to go home, and honestly I admire you for that. To be able to turn it off is a gift. Crap, I still want to get out in the field and mix it up, even if I’m almost fifty-five. Then sanity kicks in and I remember why I got out of field work.”

  The old man chuckled. “Yeah, we’re not twenty-somethings anymore. And those young folks have better reactions than we do, and they actually understand the technology, unlike us old farts. Speaking of which, any more info from south of the border? I’m wondering when the next hit is going to come.”

  The waitress interrupted their conversation as she delivered the food, refilling their glasses and leaving. Bucky continued quietly, “Nope, looks like the cartels are low key for now. Zetas are still trying to figure out who hit Zapata, and Sinaloa thinks the Zetas hit their folks at the river, and both of them are looking at LFM[19], maybe trying to expand their base. Ever since they broke off from the Zetas, they’ve been a thorn in everybody’s sides. We also haven’t heard anything about any more hit teams coming across the border. That hit on you looks like it was a one off, probably some word that got out about you before Zapata went down. So you heading back to the ranch now?”

  The old man replied, “Nah, I’m taking a weekend off and going over to Houston. Billy wants to talk about some changes on the will and I need to meet with the oil folks on leases.”

  “Which way are you going to go?”

  The old man pushed his plate away. “I�
�m going up fifty-nine. Kinda for old time’s sake and its damn near quicker than going all the way back up to ten. It’s about five hours either way. I’ll get there in time for dinner and I’m gonna make Billy feed me.” The waitress returned and the old man grabbed the bill. “This one’s on me, Bucky.”

  After they squabbled over the tip, which Bucky finally left, the old man paid the check and they rode back to the office. Bucky had to go teach one more class, so he and the old man parted ways in the parking lot with a handshake. Getting into his car, the old man hit the road for the Houston suburb of Bellaire, and spent most of the ride remembering the times he’d driven this road when there was no I-10 running across Texas.

  Five and a half hours later, he drove into Bellaire and turned onto Braeburn Avenue. Winding through the quiet streets, he finally pulled into Billy’s house and got out slowly. It was days like this he truly realized he wasn’t a young pup anymore. Rolling his shoulders, he saw the blinds in the mother-in-law suite out back move, and he figured Momma Trần had seen him. Billy’s car wasn’t here, so he was running late as usual. Walking around for a few minutes loosened him up to the point that he felt like he was almost human again.

  As he turned back toward the house, he saw Momma Trần, all four-feet-ten inches of her, standing next to his car. He walked quickly back, and bowed slightly to her, realizing she’d aged a lot since the last time he’d seen her. She’s gotta be late 80s at least, if not older. Poppa Trần died, what, three-four years ago now? Hell, she’ll out live us all. Reaching out, he took her hand. “Momma Trần, I didn’t mean for you to have to come out.”

  Mrs. Trần replied, “John Cronin, you I like. Billy, he useless. Never on time. He always busy busy. I let you in and fix you tea. You look tired. Come with.” Leading him by the hand, she took him in the back door and sat him at the kitchen counter. She started the water boiling and continued, “Billy called, he say he be here by six. Don’t know when he actually show up.”