A Touch of Greed (2 page)

Garza took the phone and smiled as he sat down and stretched his feet up on the desk. “How are you, my American friend?” he asked.

The man on the line didn’t sound like he appreciated the comment. “I have your information.”

“Please,” Garza waved his hand in a wide circle, “tell me everything.”

“His name is Nick Bracco,” the man said. “He’s been the Bureau’s top anti-terrorist agent for over a decade. He has a wife and an infant son. His partner’s name is Matt McColm. McColm is a sharpshooter who used to be with Special Forces before joining the Bureau. Neither of these men are stupid. They should not be taken lightly.”

“Excellent,” Garza said. “How motivated are they to come get me?”

“Very. You just killed two of their friends. They will retaliate.”

“Fantastic.” Garza’s eyes sparkled. “What else?”

There was a silence, which meant the American was considering how much to contribute.

“My friend,” Garza said. “Now is no time to be shy. We have much too much at stake. No?”

The line remained quiet for a few seconds. Garza waited.

“There is one other thing you should know,” the man said. “Bracco comes from a Sicilian family. His cousin, Tommy, has connections within a particular crime family out of the Baltimore area. No one knows how deep these relationships run, but there’s been rumors throughout the Bureau that Tommy has actually helped the FBI capture terrorists. He supposedly has informants all over the place. Maybe even below the border.”

Garza pulled his feet down from his desk. “You mean the FBI is using criminals to help them? Is that legal in your country?”

“Technically they’re informants, but they’re treated like consultants. The information flows both ways, however. There’s certainly some questionable ethical debates, but no one within the government is anxious to prosecute someone who’s rounding up bad guys.”

Garza twisted his chair to get a good look out the window. In the distance, past the airport hangar and the two-mile stretch of high desert landscape, was the border. He had so many good ideas roaming in his mind, he couldn’t help but smile.

“Where does this Agent Bracco live?” Garza said, pulling a notepad from his desk drawer.

“In Payson, Arizona,” the man said.

Garza found a pen in the same drawer. “And exactly what is his address?”

The man gave it to Garza and he wrote it down. El Carnicero circled the address and leaned back and sighed. “I have many surprises planned for this agent.”

“I’m sure you do,” the man said with no emotion in his voice.

Garza disconnected the call and placed the phone in his lap. He considered his next move. After a few minutes, he pushed a button on his phone. When a man answered, he said, “Expect company.”

“We’ve been waiting,” the man said.

Garza hung up the phone and went over to his window. Just below him, within the secure walls of his compound, his seven-year-old son Julio was waving a baseball at his dad.

“Papa,” he screamed. “Play with me.”

Amidst the soldiers with assault rifles, Julio was tossing the ball in the air and catching it with his baseball glove. It was a lonely existence for the boy, not being able to play with friends like a normal child. Since his mother was shot during a drug bust, Garza had been the boy’s sole friend.

Garza smiled. Julio was the only person who had received his unconditional affection. The boy’s attitude and zeal for life was the antidote to the daily stresses of his work. He picked up a worn baseball glove from a side table near the door and opened the window. “I’ll be right down,” he yelled.

Chapter 3

It was only 6:15 AM in the Bracco house, but infants couldn’t read digital clocks so Nick’s son, Thomas, was up and ready to go. Thomas was on his back kicking his legs in the air with a playful smile. Julie Bracco changed his diaper on one side of their bed while Nick threw underwear into a canvas bag on the other side.

Julie tickled her son’s tummy while she asked Nick, “How long will you be gone?”

“A few days,” Nick said, acting as casual as possible about his treacherous assignment. He tossed some shirts into the bag and caught a reflection from the lake in their backyard.

From their second floor bedroom window, Nick could see the lake glistening in the early morning sunlight, while pine trees cast long shadows across its shoreline. He’d moved his family to Payson, Arizona, to escape the threat and stress of dealing with terrorists, but the move hadn’t changed the landscape. It certainly didn’t dissuade a Kurdish terrorist from tracking him down and attempting to murder him and his wife. It was the final act of the terrorist’s career and prompted Nick to install a high-tech security system just for times like these. 

Nick decided to remain in the mountain community hoping his wife and infant son would be safer, while he operated the west coast division of the Bureau’s anti-terrorist task force. Now, he wanted his wife to feel secure while he left and found revenge for a couple of his close FBI teammates.

As if she could sense the tension in Nick’s mind, Julie looked up from the bed with a worried expression. “What’s going on?”

Thomas kicked his tiny legs in the air and giggled while Julie patted his bottom with powder.

Nick grabbed a few shirts from the closet, then sat next to her. “Ricky and Jim are dead.”

Her mouth opened and her face scrunched up into a combination of horror and confusion. “But, how?”

Nick locked eyes on her and kept them there. “They were outed while working undercover.”

Julie glanced down at Thomas and secured his diaper.

“Where?”

“Mexico.”

Julie glanced at the open canvas bag, then back to Nick. “That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?” She scooped up Thomas and clutched him to her chest as if he might need extra security.

“No.”

“Nick.”

He gave his son a soft kiss on his smooth cheek, then brushed back an imaginary hair on Thomas’s head. “I’m not taking any chances,” he said with as much conviction as he could.

Julie looked up at the ceiling with glossy eyes. “It’s been so quiet. Have you been keeping things from me?”

“No,” he lied.

She looked down at Thomas wiggling in her arms. “Are we in danger?”

Nick stood up, folded his shirts and shoved them into his bag. He tried to act casual for this one. “I don’t think so, but I’m going to have Jennifer stay with you just in case.”

Julie examined his demeanor while he opened a dresser drawer and grabbed some socks. Having the lone resident FBI agent from Payson staying at your house would seem like an extreme measure for an average family, but Jennifer Steele was no ordinary FBI agent. She was Matt McColm’s girlfriend. The same Matt McColm who’d been Nick’s partner for the past decade. Jennifer and Matt were regular visitors to the Bracco home and many times had spent the night in the guest bedroom when the beer and wine flowed in abundance.

Thomas became fussy, maybe sensing the anxiety between them. Nick went over and took him from Julie. He smiled at his son and received a smile back.

“Who’s my good boy?” he asked Thomas.

Julie put her head on Nick’s shoulder and seemed to accept her fate. “How long will you be gone?”

“A week, maybe less.”

“You take your pills?”

“They’re packed,” Nick said, referring to the medication to keep his PTSD in check. He’d been diagnosed with the disorder a year back when the stress of battling terrorists had become too much for his brain to handle.

She sighed, the two of them now staring jubilantly at their proudest possession.

“Jule,” Nick said, still looking at Thomas.

“Yeah?”

“He has your eyes.”

He could feel her face smile.

A car pulled up in the front of the house. Nick went over and glanced out a side window to catch a view of the vehicle.

“Hey, check this out,” Nick said, calling Julie to the window. “You’ve never witnessed the good-bye ritual before.”

Julie came over and leaned into the window to get a better view. They could see Jennifer Steele grab a bag from the back seat and move around to the driver’s side and duck in through the window. She gave Matt a kiss, then dropped her bag and wrapped both arms around her boyfriend, while Matt pulled her halfway into the car, the two of them voraciously going at it, time seeming to be no option.

Julie sighed. “Remember when we were like that?”

“C’mon, Jule,” Nick said. “We’re still like that. Only difference is, we aren’t as insecure about our relationship.”

“So that’s what this is,” she said, watching the two lovers keeping the embrace alive. “Insecurity?”

“Of course,” Nick said, grinning now, because the kiss didn’t seem to have a shelf life. “I mean, who needs that long to express their feelings?”

Julie reached her free arm around Nick’s waist and gave him a long kiss. Thomas gurgled up spit on Nick’s neck and the expulsion quickly ended the romantic interlude.

Nick handed Thomas back to her and grabbed a towel from the dresser. He returned with a disgusted expression while wiping his neck. “Maybe, there’s another reason for our lack of romance.”

The front door opened and footsteps came up the stairs.

“Knock, knock,” Jennifer Steele said from the foyer.

“We’re in the bedroom,” Julie called out.

Jennifer came in wearing jeans, a Phoenix Suns T-shirt and a baseball cap with a ponytail hanging from the back. She dropped a heavy duffle bag on the floor and rubbed her shoulder.

Nick lifted the bag, then quickly returned it to the floor. “What kind of protection are you packing, Agent Steele?”

“The usual,” Steele smiled and left it at that.

A car horn honked. Steele pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “He’s waiting.”

Nick quickly threw his shaving kit into the bag, then kissed Julie and Thomas before heading for the door.

“I’ll text you when we get there,” he said.

Steele held his arm, a little longer than necessary. She looked at him with a deadpan stare. “Be careful.”

Nick nodded casually, not wanting to add to the tension he could see in Julie’s eyes. “Of course.”

He left the house and tossed his bag into the back seat of his partner’s Ford Expedition. Matt McColm handed him an apple as he strapped himself into the passenger seat.

“Thanks,” Nick said, taking a bite from the apple.

Matt drove to the end of the driveway and stopped, looking over his left shoulder at the house.

“Julie okay?” Matt said.

“As okay as she’ll ever be.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, she doesn’t want to know where I’m going, but she asks anyway. Then she frets about every possible scenario.” Nick ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, buddy. These days I wonder if a job with the postal service isn’t a good choice.”

“Yeah, well, they’re laying off a lot of postal employees these days,” Matt said. “So you’d probably be out of work and scrounging around for mortgage money. Be grateful you haven’t had the financial stress most Americans have had to face.”

Nick sighed, thinking of what lie ahead of them.

“Stevie coming?” Matt asked.

“Uh, huh.”

“It’s going to get ugly,” Matt said.

Nick glanced back at his house where both of his prized possessions resided. “It always does,” he said.

* * *

After picking up Stevie Gilpin at the airport, Nick and Matt debriefed him on the way to Tucson. Gilpin was a slim young man with thin, frameless glasses and an insatiable penchant for all things technical.

Nick looked over his shoulder at Stevie who was playing with one of his mechanical toys. “Are you listening to me?”

“Of course,” Stevie said with an easy smile. “Unlike some older agents, I can multitask.”

Matt grinned from behind the wheel. “I’m not even forty, so don’t go shoveling dirt on me just yet.”

Nick pointed to an abandoned building in the center of an empty parking lot. “There,” he said. “Park in the back.”

The building was the size of an enormous superstore with no other marking but the faded letters where the original sign covered the paint. In the rear of the building was a row of cars parked under a strip of metal covering to protect against the Arizona summer heat. Matt pulled into one of the empty spots and turned off the car.

Nick twisted in his seat. “Stevie?”

While still pushing buttons on a small electronic device, Stevie said, “I know. Stay close to you and don’t talk to anyone.”

Nick got out of the car satisfied his instructions were heard. When they approached the white metal door, Nick spied the miniature camera above a wall light. To the unobservant eye it would seem as if this were a vacant building instead of the Southwest’s largest Homeland Security office.

Before pushing the button on the wall next to the door, Nick turned to Matt and said, “You ready?”

Matt stuck a piece of chewing gum in his mouth and nodded. “Uh huh.”

Nick hit the button next to an employee card scanning device and waited only a few seconds before the door opened. A chiseled man in fatigues with an assault rifle strapped around his neck stood waiting for them.

Nick held up his FBI shield and received a nod from the man who stepped aside and allowed the three agents to pass. Without a word spoken, they entered the building. The place was an enormous hollowed out warehouse with a high ceiling and no walls to separate anyone. To their left was a large cage where several German Shepherds paced around each other, prancing on their toes, anxious for action. On the opposite side of the massive facility was the only closed-in room, the size of a volleyball court. That’s where all the impounded drugs would be stored.

Throughout the gutted warehouse were dozens of desks with computers and small lamps. Border Patrol agents banged on keyboards and moved around the facility with an organized choreography which denoted years of practice. The floor had been stripped down to the cement so an echo rang out with every phone call and every conversation. A concrete stairway led up to a second floor loft with just enough room for a secretary’s desk, a couple of waiting couches, and the one large office which would be the command center. Nick knew the Deputy Director would be working up there.