The Grey Man- Partners Page 11

  Jesse shook her head, “Reformed? What does that mean?”

  Darlene interrupted, “Where’s Aaron?”

  Jesse said, “At home. He took some meds to knock the pain down and help him sleep.”

  “Mike needs him to call in ASAP. Apparently Goss and the colonel have decerted the teams. Something about bad leadership and lack of physical fitness.”

  Jesse pulled out her phone, dialed Aaron, but didn’t get an answer. She didn’t leave a message but wrote a quick text, CALL BRILL ASAP.

  Lissa jumped in, “Yeah, Mac is pissed about that too. They are no longer two teams. Apparently, there will be a new order, and better… what was that damn word… Alignment of skill sets. What does that mean? They’re Marines for God’s sake!”

  Darlene said, “We need to get you back to your car, so you can get home and have Aaron call in. Lissa, tell Mac to cool it until Aaron and Snake find out what is going on. He’s a staff sergeant now, and he needs to be stepping up and taking a leadership role. Especially with Aaron out right now.”

  Lissa nodded, “I can do that. He listens most of the time with the right persuasion.” Jesse snickered at that, but Marlene honked one of her laughs and that cracked everybody up.

  Lissa turned to Jesse, “Can you let me know what you find out?”

  Jesse nodded, “I will. I’ll go down the call tree as soon as I know something.”

  “Thank you!” Lissa said with a quick hug.

  They quickly piled in the car, with Darlene updating Jesse on what she’d heard from Mike, and most of it went over Jesse’s head. She realized how little she really knew about the inner workings of the Marines, and she sat quietly in the back as Marlene and Darlene went back and forth about Colonel Mitchell and tidbits about their knowledge of him.

  Getting back to Darlene’s, Jesse jumped quickly in the car and headed home, figuring she could get Jace later, making sure Aaron was awake and talking to Mike Brill was more important. Sliding to a stop in her parking space, she jumped out and ran in the house.

  As she came in the door, she saw Aaron hobbling down the hallway on crutches, his phone held in one hand on speaker. Brill was saying, “Goss got to Mitchell. No other way to put it. He went around Finch completely. Mitchell is going to let Goss have his head, realign the teams, and put two second looies in charge. It’s all tied up in some shit Goss was involved with at MCCDC for 21st Century Marine.”

  Aaron flopped ungracefully on the couch, dropping the crutches on the floor, causing Boo Boo to dodge them. Putting the phone back to his ear, “What the hell are we going to do Mike? I mean Snake and me?”

  Jesse didn’t hear Brill’s reply, but got Aaron’s attention and mimed drinking. Aaron nodded, and Jesse got a pot of coffee started. She took Boo Boo for a quick walk, came back and gave Aaron a cup of coffee, then mouthed that she was going to get Jace.

  Aaron nodded distractedly, still deep in conversation with Brill.

  ***

  At supper, Jesse listened to Matt and Aaron discuss what was going on. Matt said, “That’s just totally fu… hosed. I cannot believe they decerted y’all. That has to go all the way to the general for approval. And it was supposedly for lack of leadership?”

  Aaron replied, “Yeah, that and lack of physical fitness. BS all the way around. We just finished a FTE[14] and maxed the scores with all four teams. The only thing I can figure is Goss is pulling some shit and this is payback.”

  Matt said, “Then you need to take this to the IG. Hell, I’ll take it to the IG. It’s not like he doesn’t know who we are.”

  Aaron smiled, “Yeah, there is that. But the ones it hurts are the troops. They’re confused and pissed, and I don’t blame them. They went from the top to the bottom and the only change is Goss coming in. I just hope the colonel and Captain Grazio get back in battery before Goss and Magnificent destroy our teams completely.

  “Yeah, that would suck. So, you going to try to go in tomorrow?”

  Aaron grimaced, “Yeah, no choice. I can’t leave the guys hanging. Snake’s good, but I’ve got a history with the teams.”

  Jesse started to protest, then subsided. Aaron looked at her, “What?”

  Jesse remembered she owed Lissa a call, “Uh, Lissa McKenzie was at the luncheon today and I owe her and the other wives a call. What can I tell her to tell Mac?”

  Matt and Aaron both started to speak, and Aaron finally said, “Tell all of them there is some stuff going on at a higher level. Tell them we, Snake and I, are working to get the truth. As soon as we do, we’ll put it out. Just leave it at that. Speculation isn’t worth a damn.”

  Jesse cocked her head, “That makes sense. One question, what is this decertification thing? Is that like losing your qualifications? Or losing your license?”

  Matt smiled with a touch of irony, “Yeah, that’s losing your license to go to war. That’s what it is in simple terms.”

  Aaron sighed, “What it means is all that training we did before deployment?” When Jesse nodded he continued, “Well, it’s basically having to do all that all over again.”

  Jesse winced, “Ouch. That’s a lot of time gone.”

  Aaron said grimly, “It is, especially when we’re supposedly in a down training cycle.”

  By the time Jesse had finished calling all the wives in the call tree, she was hoarse, and Aaron was already in bed asleep. Felicia had put Jace down, and Matt had taken Boo Boo for a walk. Jesse hugged them both wordlessly, and walked wearily down the hall, wondering what tomorrow was going to bring.

  The Meeting

  Cronin, dressed in faded gray Dickies, stood on the front porch looking at the blue sky, feeling the soft breeze as puffy clouds built in the West. Yogi romped playfully in the front drive, chasing whatever he’d scared up out of the grass. Trepidation was not a feeling he was used to, but he really didn’t know what was going to happen in the next hour or so, and at this point he really didn’t care.

  He hadn’t told anyone what was happening today, and had sent Ricky down to Guilfoile’s with the colt as an excuse to get him away from the house, just in case. The old man was debating calling Billy, so if he got killed, as least Billy would know who did it. He started to go back in the house when a newish Ford Taurus turned into the drive, and he resumed his stance. Without thinking his hand went to the 1911 on his hip, ensuring it was free in the holster if he needed it.

  The car turned into the yard; he called Yogi back and put him in a stay. The car stopped well away from the house, and Montoya, the number two man in the Los Zetas cartel, climbed from the car, then walked slowly around the front of the car. As he stepped into view, the old man realized Montoya had stripped to his underwear. Shaking his head, he called out, “Put your damn clothes back on. If you came to kill me, you’ll have ample time in the house.”

  Montoya ducked his head, and stepped back to the side of the car as the old man watched. He reached in and carefully took out a white shirt, put it on, and reached back in for a pair of dark pants. Lastly, he reached in and pulled out a pair of fancy cowboy boots with silver roach killer tips and Conchos on the side, then walked to the front of the car and finished dressing in plain sight.

  The old man motioned him forward and Montoya stepped lightly across the drive and up the steps. “Sheriff Cronin, I thank you for seeing me. I am Carlos Montoya.”

  “I’m not the sheriff, I’m just a deputy. John Cronin, but you already know that. Hold out your hand palm down to the dog.”

  Montoya did so, and Yogi sniffed it interestedly, but remained in his stay position. The old man said, “Friend Yogi.” Now why in hell did I say that? This sumbitch has tried to have me killed at least twice!

  “Come on in, there’s coffee if you want some.” The old man opened the door and waved Montoya through ahead of him, calling Yogi to heel. As he did so, he noticed Montoya tense his shoulders, then visibly relax when he wasn’t shot or arrested as he entered the ranch house.

  He could see Montoya’s head swivel as t
hey walked into the kitchen, and he pointed Montoya to a seat at the table as he walked over to the counter, “Yogi, kennel.” Yogi obediently trotted off down the hall and the old man asked, “Coffee?”

  “Si, con leche, milk if you have it, Senor.”

  The old man set the two cups of coffee on the table and pulled a quart of milk from the fridge, “Help yourself.”

  Montoya gingerly poured milk and stirred it, then closed the milk carton back up and handed it to the old man, who replaced it in the fridge.

  “Thank you. First, let me apologize for the attempts to kill you Senor. That was a business decision that I was not involved in, and I also apologize for the deaths of your family and workers. Those I knew nothing about, until Zapata reported he had made the attempt.” Montoya said contritely.

  The old man thought, Jesse is free and clear! Oh God, how do I keep it that way? “What about the attempts that missed me?”

  Montoya hung his head, “Those were precipitated by a former bodyguard that you killed, Roberto. I should have stopped that, but I was upset about having to refund money to the Arabs.”

  The old man goggled, “You were upset?”

  Spreading his hands solicitously, Montoya continued, “Senor, I am an accountant, that’s all I’ve ever been. It was the loss of money and the attitude of the Arabs. They are not like us. They have no couth.”

  The old man thought, This is a helluva thing to be hearing from the number two in the cartel. Lack of couth? What the fuck? These people kill at the drop of a hat! Switching the conversation, the old man asked, “An accountant? How did you end up where you are, if you’re only an accountant?”

  Taking a sip of his coffee, Montoya thought for a minute, “Well, I graduated from Baylor in nineteen sixty-nine, and got my masters in nineteen seventy-one from Austin. I went back to Mexico and worked for a few years as an accountant for the State of Tamaulipas, out of Ciudad Victoria, and met my first wife there. She was from Campeche, and convinced me to move over there. We did that in around seventy-eight. In the early eighties, I was asked to form a company to do accounting for the construction at Cancun, after the previous group had been caught embezzling. I started that in eighty-four, and moved to Cancun in eighty-seven. My Rosa was killed by a drunk driver in eighty-eight…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Montoya shrugged, “It was a long time ago.” Taking another sip of coffee, he continued softly, “I went loco for a while. Drinking, trying to forget. Drugs… I moved to Playa Del Carmen and that’s when I began working for the Medellin cartel. They were expanding into Mexico, and needed an accountant to keep track of the drugs going north and the money coming south. They basically stole my daughter Eva, took her to Columbia, where one of the cartel underlings raised her in Bogota. That was the hold they had over me.”

  The old man leaned back in amazement, thinking My God, what would I have done if that’d happened to me? I don’t think I could possibly be as calm about it as Montoya is. “What happened to her?”

  “Once they had their hooks deep enough into me, she was shipped back, that was ninety-five. She was nine and had no memory of me. I remember her crying and wanting to go home to her daddy! I had remarried by then and Eva had a little brother, Luis, and sister, Rosa. Sofia welcomed Rosa and she is the one who made Rosa a part of our familia. Can I use your bathroom?”

  “Down the hall on the left.”

  As Montoya walked slowly down the hall, the old man wondered where all this was going. The conversation was strange enough now, but what was coming next? Montoya still hadn’t said what the problem was. Realizing his coffee cup was empty; he got up and refilled it, topped off Montoya’s cup, and got the milk out of the fridge.

  Montoya came back and smiled, “Thank you. I know you’re probably bored with what I’m telling you, and probably don’t believe it. But I am an honest man. I never stole a penny from the cartel, and I maintained a real accounting practice all these years. The drug business was a sideline, until Los Zetas came in and took over. Do you know their story?”

  “Yeah, I know what I’ve been told and briefed by various people. Zetas are basically a bunch of ex-military and Federales who saw an opportunity and took over the eastern drug trade using their military background and killing anybody that tried to stand up to them.”

  “That’s the short story; they co-opted me, again forcing me to handle the money for them. I’ve ended up where I am because I don’t steal, and I have some legitimate business activities. But there are things going on now that I don’t want to deal with. Smuggling people into America, charging them five to twenty-five thousand dollars, then raping the women and young girls. My Eva is now safely in Texas going to school, but my heart breaks every time I hear them laughing about the young things, as they call them, that they take and use. They force them to take birth control pills, and use them until they tire of them. Then, and only then, are they pushed across the border.” Montoya stared at his coffee cup for a minute, then looked directly at the old man.

  “Now they want to smuggle Muslims into the US; they have made some kind of deal with somebody in the Middle East, I think some of the terrorists over there. And to make it even worse, they are also trying to smuggle shoulder fired rockets into Mexico and the US.”

  The old man leaned forward, “Rockets? RPGs? Or MANPADs?

  Montoya replied, “Not RPGs, they already have them, what is MANPAD?”

  “MAN-Portable Air-Defense systems. Shoulder-fired surface to air missiles, they can be shot at aircraft and helicopters,” the old man answered.

  “Si, yes. Those. One has the word bow, and others are… Oh, the Dr. Seuss character.”

  “Crossbow?”

  “Si, Crossbow, the other is…”

  The old man thought of all the MANPADS he could remember, and couldn’t come up with one named for a Dr. Seuss character, “Dr. Seuss? Which character? I’m drawing a blank.”

  “The one that stole Christmas… I…”

  “Oh shit, you mean a Grinch? Those damn Chinese Crossbows are bad enough, but how the hell did they get Grinchs?”

  “That’s it, Grinch. I don’t know where they got them, and I think it’s only a few. They are trading drugs for the Crossbows, apparently at least truckload of them coming in the next four to five months. Sinaloa is buying them from the same people.” Montoya replied.

  “Sinaloa? Aren’t y’all sworn enemies? How did you come up with that information?”

  “I have someone on the inside over there. And our people wanted to buy some too, but I have delayed that for now. I don’t want them shooting at helicopters, either in Mexico or on the border. I tell them that will bring too much attention down on us. But if Sinaloa gets them and uses them, then I don’t know if I can keep them out of our hands.”

  The old man leaned back, “Why tell me? I’ve spent my career in law enforcement trying to put you out of business.”

  Montoya looked directly at the old man for the first time, “Because you are an honest man. You have done what is right, and you are well thought of by our people that live here. Drugs are one thing, but terrorists and missiles?” Slamming his hand down Montoya said, “No! I will not be a part of that!”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell whomever you need to tell, I will help you stop them and provide information, but only to you. No one else.”

  Shaking his head, the old man replied, “You know what kind of spot you’re putting me in?”

  “Si, yes. But you also know how big a chance I am taking here also.”

  Grimacing, the old man asked, “Fine. Deal, now how do you want to do this?”

  “Burner phones and an email address on yahoo. I have phones in the trunk, and I will show you how to log into the email. No messages will be sent, they will only be drafts.”

  An hour later, with communications nailed down, Montoya drove out of the yard leaving the old man shaking his head in wonder at what he’d just committed himself to do. As he
turned to walk back in the house, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Spinning around, he drew his 1911, then slowly lowered it as Eddie Guilfoile came walking up from the pasture, his old .22 rifle in hand.

  “Eddie, what the fuck are you doing? I just damn near shot your dumb ass!”

  “Well, when you called last night to say you were sending Ricky down with the colt, you sounded kinda upset. You know, like something was coming down…”

  The old man holstered his 1911, “Come on in, Eddie. You want some coffee?”

  “If you don’t mind, I need the bathroom first. Been out there all morning.”

  “Here, I’ll hold your rifle, you know where it is,” the old man said.

  Propping the rifle by the door, he pulled down another coffee cup, checked the pot and decided it was too cold. As he dumped the old coffee and started a fresh pot, Eddie came into the kitchen, closely followed by Yogi.

  Yogi hit the water bowl and lapped at it like a starving man, prompting the old man to say, “I’m sorry Yogi, I completely forgot about you. You probably need to go out don’t you?” Yogi whined in response, and padded over to the back door, so the old man let him out and left the door open.

  He was trying desperately to figure out how and what to tell Eddie, until Eddie said, “That was one of Zetas’ honchos wasn’t he?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve heard him described in Huntsville by some of the cartel boys. I guess having actually seen him is a big thing for the Zetas. And the way he was undressed is how bigwigs from opposing cartel people meet.”

  The old man poured two cups of coffee, setting one in front of Eddie, “Eddie, I’m going to have to ask you to trust me. I’m not going into the drug business…”

  Eddie waved him off, “Never thought you were, I just thought they were going to make another try, and you were trying to get everybody out of range. Whatever you’re cooking up with him is your business.”

  “Then why in the hell did you come up here Eddie?”

  “I figured if they killed you, I was going to get at least a couple of them before I went down.”