New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) (36 page)

Mathew scrambled back up to turn his attention to
communications with the team led
by
the
Albuquerque office, struggling to keep control over the situation.
 
With their efforts not coordinated with the
DEA, only the government-issued garb and SWAT gear kept the FBI and DEA agents
from killing each other.
 
Some of the
gang went
down.
 
O
thers
chucked
out their
weapons, standing with their hands up.
 
The volley on the right stopped.
 
Agents began disarming and handcuffing the thugs, herding them into a
line near the cars.

Two ambulances screeched up. Steve waved them over to where
he now stood with Ivy, brushing the
dirt
off her back.
 
At least three of the
goons and one agent suffered bullet wounds.
 
Callie broke away from Moll when he helped her up and bent over Annetta
where she lay motionless on her back, a large red stain soaking her
tailored
white shirt.
 
Mathew pulled Callie away, calling Ivy over
to her.
 
He turned and directed one emergency
truck to Gerkasky, where he was trying to stand.
 
The other one he
sent over
to the injured men over on the right.
 

Mathew wanted the Fuentes bodies loaded up and taken
away.
 
He yelled into the microphone to
mobilize Lenny,
Brian
and Moll.
 
Just then, a man who he recognized as the DEA
team leader from earlier in the Fuentes case jogged over.
 

“You got the missing brother,” the DEA agent said to
Steve.
 
“Who’s the other guy?”

Despite his discipline, Mathew noticed a slight reaction
from Steve.

Steve said, “Accomplice.
 
Dealt
in
information.
 
Masqueraded on the circuit as Julio.
 
Like Prince or Madonna, no last name.”

The DEA agent grunted.
 
"We got a big score over there.
 
Better get back."

"Good job in messy circumstances.
 
I'll be sure to write
a particular
account of your excellent performance in my
report.
 
One word of advice," he
said, nodding over at Gerkasky.
 
"While I was impressed by your astuteness in how you managed a guy
working both sides, you should pick your associates with more care next
time."

The agent followed Steve’s gaze to the wounded
Gerkasky.
 
For a moment he looked stunned
as the words sunk in, then he said, "Understand.
 
I’ll go over his financials to find proof of
his duplicity.

He turned to walk away and then turned back to Steve and
said, “Think you might give my boss a call on how my team performed?”

Steve nodded, “Sure.
 
You all did more than a respectable
job,
and you were exemplary in how you set this up.”

Energized by the unexpected praise, the DEA leader sprinted back
to where the gang members were getting handcuffed.
 
Steve sagged, seeming much older than a few
minutes before in the powerful stance of his shooting posture.
 

Ivy pulled Callie away and held her, standing to one side,
both women horrified.
 
Ivy was pale but
stalwart with an arm around Callie, who was crying and shaking.
 
Mathew wanted to go over and take her in his
arms.
 
To Callie and Ivy, he and Steve
must appear to be
antiheroes
.
 

Mathew accepted that he carried
the responsibiity for what happened here today.
 
He
owned this operation.
 
He had devised this plan with Cruze during their conversation on the
plane as they flew to Miami from London.
 
Neither of the Fuentes could stand imprisonment.
 
Ivy stared over at
Steve.
 
A
dawning of
comprehension came on her face.
 
She
leaned over to whisper to Callie.
 
Even
when the two women came to understand what happened today, would either of them
fully trust him or Steve again?
 
Why did
Callie have to come back to witness this horror?

The ambulance with the Warthog started moving out of the
cemetery, abandoning all reverence for the dead by turning on its lights and
siren.
 
Brian and Moll loaded up the two
Fuentes, scrunching their thin frames on to one stretcher and loading them into
Lenny’s unit.
 
Brian stroked Julio’s
cheek
befo
re easing back into the medic's
seat, his face both stressed and sad.
  
Moll closed the rear doors, peered around, put up two fingers in a peace
sign and pulled himself into the passenger seat, riding with his door
cocked
open and his foot dangling out on the
running board.
 
With Lenny driving, the
emergency truck carrying the Fuentes trundled out to the road, pulling over to
let three other medical vans fly in.

“Ivy, take that assault tank and drive Callie out of
here.
 
Stay at the FBI offices.
 
We’ll join you when we can,” Mathew said, the
words coming out in a harsher tone than he meant.
 
Hearing his voice, which sounded so like
Steve’s, he realized the harshness came from the responsibility he carried on
this operation.
 
Steve had built up his
abrasive
, cold exterior to project toughness to
the world, as well as to protect himself.
 
For the first time, Mathew appreciated the weightiness of this degree of
obligation.

Ivy regarded Steve with an anxious expression.
 
He stared back at her, his eyes changing from
their hard coldness as an FBI agent to those of a man pleading for the
indulgence of forgiveness.
 
Her face
softened,
and she nodded.
 
Then Ivy turned to help a dazed Callie into
the passenger seat, buckling her in and shutting the door.
 
Walking to the driver’s side, she turned to
scrutinize them for a long moment, pulled herself into the seat and prepared to
drive out.
 
Trying not to look intimated
by the threatening gear in the assault vehicle, Ivy started it up
and slowly
drove away.

While unsure how much Ivy understood about what transpired,
he perceived she comprehended that they chose the only way out
Julio
and Cruze could handle.
 
From what he could tell, she forgave Steve
for his role in today’s events.

With their departure, Mathew became aware that his shoulder
was throbbing.
 
He went to put his arm
back in the sling, hoping the hard
thump
from the Warthog’s bullet into his Kevlar body armor did not do consequential
damage to his shoulder.
 

Steve saw him wince and said, "Let me examine your
injuries."

With tender motions, Steve removed Mathew’s protective vest
first from the right shoulder and then from the left.
 
He opened up Mathew's top and walked around
behind him.
 

"One dandy bruise forming on your left pec,” Steve
said.
 
“No blood from the old
wound,
but a medic should assess the area.
 
I’d say the bullet that stupid ass launched
at you tore a muscle still fragile from the surgery.
 
Would like to know what was going through that
acorn-sized brain of his."

Mathew nodded.
 
The
muscles in his chest burned from the impact of the gunshot.
 
The hot pain in his aching shoulder worried
him, given the nature of the injury from the restaurant incident in
London.
 
Steve slipped the shirt back
over his shoulders and slid the protective vest into place, leaving them open
in the front.
 
They walked over to where
the arrested hooligans stood.
 
Three lay
sprawled on the ground, dead.
 
Medics
loaded two bleeding men on stretchers, along with an agent who took a slug in
the arm.
 

In the next hour or two, they would give statements and
answer questions to transition the case wrap-up to the Albuquerque office that
would assume the FBI’s actions from here.
 
Gerkasky’s suspected double-dealing by working with one or more
underworld gangs while also working for the
DEA
would be disclosed and would need additional substantiation.
 
Gerkasky tipped both sides off about the
Fuentes visit here.
 
Mathew suspected
Gerkasky collected money from the DEA as a consultant and from one or more
criminals.
 

He wondered again why Gerkasky pointed his piece at Steve
and then took aim at himself.
 
Had he
wanted to score the arrest of the Fuentes or did he want to quash any
negotiated deal or was he holding a grudge over their time at the Bureau?
 
Depending on what Gerkasky was willing or not
willing
to confess to, they might never
know his motivations.

This business with the Fuentes could now be wrapped up.
 
Moll had the thumb drive with the list of
criminals disclosed by the cousins.
 
The
agreement signed that morning would go on file at the Bureau, protected by the
District Court from access.
 
The Fuentes
would be declared dead on arrival, blood samples would be taken and secured
with the DNA results.
 
Mathew intended to
set up a memorial fund for the upkeep of the four Fuentes graves.
 

While
he
needed to
attend to wrap-up tasks, Mathew wanted to be back with Callie and hoped she
could find in her heart the capacity to understand and forgive him, as he also
wished
Ivy
could
with Steve.
 
If only Callie had stayed at
home with Susannah as he wanted, she would have been spared bearing witness to
the Fuentes’ deaths.

Mathew squinted over at his
big
friend.
 
The morning’s events took their
toll on him.
 
They debated hard
over taking
on this task with the Fuentes and
who should take responsibility for it.
 
Steve had expressed reluctance to carry out the required duty.
 
However
with Mathew’s damaged
shoulder,
Steve
agreed to take the lead on what they ominously numbered Scenario 13.13.
 

They would never forget this morning.
 
What they did went against what they
committed their lives with the FBI to
doing.
 
Nevertheless
they agreed justice had
been served.
 

Weeks later on
the Monday
after Ivy and Steve’s Holiday party, Rick stopped over just as Ivy finished up
the breakfast dishes.
 
He walked in like
an old friend now, poking his head in the back door and calling out a greeting
as the corgis rushed noisily up to him.
 
After
petting
each of them, they
walked as a group into the kitchen where Ivy and Steve were planning their day.

“
Hi,
Rick!
 
Mathew is at his house, working as best he
can with his bad shoulder.”

“I came to see all of you.
 
I have a dilemma.
 
Maybe it could
turn into
an opportunity
.”

“What’s up?”

“I think I told you I made reservations across the pond for
Christmas, for four rooms for Sassy and me, Callie and
Susannah and my two kids and their spouses.
 
Damn kids have backed out.
 
I
already paid for their rooms and the four days of celebration.
 
You and Mathew wouldn’t want to join us,
would you?
 
We’ll make a fun table
of six at night, or seven with Susannah.
 
We are planning to stay at the country house hotel you raved about last
year.”

“Days of champagne, mince pies, hunt meet on the lawn,
scrumptily
-delicious meals, comfy bedrooms,
wood fires, villages to visit and those cozy pubs?”
 
Ivy remarked, glancing over at Steve.

“We’re in!” Steve said.
 
“I want to spend a few days in London too. Perhaps we’ll go drink scotch
in Edinburgh on New
Year’s Eve
.
 
I hear those Scots celebrate what they call
Hogmanay with a fervor that is ferocious!”

“You in a kilt?” Ivy said and giggled.
 
“No
boxer
shorts
on and legs so long the skirt will just about cover your, um,
cheeks?”

Steve turned bright red at her comment, but he also
chuckled.
 

Ivy laughed so hard it was some time before she could
continue.
 
“I can’t wait to see
that!”
 

 
“Rick, would you mind
if we ask Brian,
Moll
and Terry along?”
Steve asked.
 
“They need a break from
their
business,
and I don’t think they
have any plans for the holidays other than to hole up at home and recover from
the long hours they put in.”

“Great idea!
 
Sassy
grew very fond of Terry when he stayed with us last month while you were off
on
that case.”

“I’ll check and see if the hotel has space first,” Steve
said.

“We do have an issue,” Ivy said, frowning over at Rick and
Steve.

“You mean Mathew and Callie
not
talking?” Rick asked.

“While I don’t like interfering, this is one time where the
lovers need a push,” Ivy said.
 
“Except
for Steve, we have each tried to make Callie see why the sting went down as it
did, but Callie has shut us down.”

Steve was quiet as his wife and friend stared at him
hopefully.
 
He thought for a few moments
and then said, “Been thinking about this.
 
I might have an idea.
 
Mathew is
going to France for a few days, leaving the middle of next week.
 
We can reroute his return home through
London.
 
Let me think on it further,
consider the timing and discuss it with you both before we fly out.”

Steve and Rick went out to talk with Mathew about Christmas
in England while Ivy rushed to the bedroom to consider her wardrobe in light of
the trip.
 
Each of them wore a smile of
anticipation about the upcoming sojourn.
 
The prospect of spending the holidays in England was just what they
needed.
 

About twenty minutes later, Steve joined her and started
going over his own things, methodically moving the ones he would take with him
to one section of his closet.
 
He had his
laptop on his dresser to keep a running list.

“Been a hell of a year,” he mused as he worked.

“Another one,” Ivy said.
 
“Think we are finally done with the Fuentes?
 
No more brothers or cousins?
 
Sad that Annetta and Cruze had to die.
 
I know, we have been through all that, but I still
find it sad.
 
They each had better sides
to them.”

“A lot else happened too,” Steve said as he pulled out a
worn pair of corduroys, shook his head and put them aside.
 
“Mathew started a relationship with Callie
that remains in jeopardy, which is unfortunate as they are so well matched.”

“What is your idea
for
bringing her around?”

“Need to think
about
it more,” Steve said, his tones muffled as he moved deeper into the
closet.
 

Ivy walked in to hang up some clothes she would not take
with her.
 
“Darling Susannah was
kidnapped and, along with Callie, is still struggling to rebuild her shattered
life.”

“Yeah and thank heaven, Callie left the oppressive John
Henry and got divorced.
 
I heard he has
not embraced sobriety so no visitation rights with Susannah.”

“Might be just as well . . . By the way, sorry to ask again
but did you ever hear back from your son?”

“Not a word.
 
I
emailed
Jeremy
but nothing.
 
Think I’ll call him at the office and try to
corral him.
 
Maybe in the new year.”

“Mathew ever hear more from his birth mother?” asked
Ivy.
 
“She sounded so dreadful that I
have feared she would become a problem.”

“Think he found a way to head her off.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.
 
In my opinion
Mathew
is
too kind to her.
 
He
researched the level of her income from the trust his father set up.
 
Since Mathew neither wants nor needs any
money remaining in the trust fund upon his birth mother’s death, he plans to
authorize his father’s attorney to disperse an additional annual amount to
her.”

“I guess he wants to honor his father’s life-long love of
the woman, dreadful though she sounds.
 
Ivy said as she pulled out a much loved red cashmere sweater from its
shelf near the front of the closet.
 
She
gave it a shake and decided it would do for the trip, so she walked it over to
the bed.
 
Tweeds, wools, evening clothes
– not an easy trip when it came to luggage to wrestle with at airports.
 

As she turned back, she watched Steve put his black tie with
his
trip
clothes and remembered the first
time he had worn it a year ago at the Christmas Party following their
wedding.
 
He, Mathew, Brian and Moll had
all looked so handsome in their evening attire as they waited for their guests
to arrive – friends, other FBI agents, the
Chief
and neighbors.
 
She wanted each of the
three younger men to be as happy in life as she and Steve were.
 
Would Steve’s idea, whatever it might be,
for
turning Callie around work?
 
Could Steve get her to forgive Mathew for the
deaths of the Fuentes cousins?

A few days before Christmas, Mathew and Moll parked a
rental car in the town of Versailles and walked with purpose to a nearby
bistro.
 
Mathew stayed three days in the
Languedoc
region, tasting wines before picking
up Moll at the Charles De Gaulle airport.
 
He carried a black case with two boxes inside.
 
Moll lugged along a laptop and official
papers.
 
A few subjects needed to be
covered over their scheduled lunch.

They escaped the damp cold of an early Parisian winter by
entering the white table-clothed restaurant.
 
A woman with shoulder-length straight blonde hair and tinted glasses
bent her right wrist to raise her hand two inches off the table.
 
She sat facing the door across from a man
with auburn hair.
 
He turned his head when
Mathew walked
up,
and he noticed the
man’s green eyes and smooth forehead.
 
The
two people shook their hands, saying their names as Nicola and Maxim.
 
A bottle of Roederer
champagne
was chilling in an ice bucket next to the table.
 
Moll rapped his knuckles on the arm of the
woman named Nicola, as he did before with Annetta.
 
Mathew no longer found the memory painful.

He sat down and put the small case between himself and
Maxim.
 
Maxim nudged the suitcase with
his foot and nodded in understanding.
 
The waiter came over to pour the bubbly wine at the slightest of signals
from Nicola.
 
She made a toast to new
friends, took a tiny sip and smiled a more generous smile
than
Mathew had seen from her before.
 
Moll pulled out a sheaf of papers, pushing
one packet to Nicola and one to Maxim.
 
They walked through the two addendums even though drafts had already
been circulated to the Fuentes.
 
Nicola
and Maxim signed the four signature pages, kept one set each and handed the
others to Moll.
 
He placed the copies in
his briefcase and moved it to the floor between his feet.
 
Nicola took Maxim’s copy to secure the
documents in her slim attaché.
 

“I’m glad we are together once again,” Nicola said with
sincere softness in her voice, reaching out to touch Mathew and Moll on the
arms.
 

“As we are happy to see each of you well and alive,” Mathew
said, leaning forward to whisper.
 
“Steve
sends his regards.
 
He so appreciated the
email you sent him.
 
I think shooting you
two is the toughest thing
Steve
ever
did.
 
He claims he checked the revolver a
dozen times.
 
He even put red tape on the
cartridge with the blanks and on the
blank
gun.”

“Not easy being on the other end of a pistol held by the man
Cristo called our nemesis,” Maxim said with a bare smile.
 
“His intense concentration made me think the
charade had turned into
an execution.”

“Get real.
 
The big
guy is totally cool,” Moll said with conviction in his voice.

“We believe he is now,” Cruze replied.

“You two sure die in a realistic way,” Mathew said.

“We played games as kids – shootouts where we pretended to
die although we over-acted to amuse each other.
 
Brian went through the setup with us in Albuquerque and demonstrated how
to work the blood pouches. With his help, we figured out how to die at least as
convincingly as the actors do on TV.”
 
Nicola said.

She straightened in her chair, appearing shapelier than
Mathew remembered.
 

“Padding,” she said, following Mathew’s gaze.
 
“Trying out this new body to determine if I
will like silicone implants.
 
What do you
think?
 
Is this better than skinny
Annetta?”

He chortled at her words. “You will be stunning and elegant,
whether as Julio, Annetta or
Nicola, but
I
prefer the thinner, more real, you.”

She smiled slightly.
 
“How is your sweet Callie?”

“Not willing to forgive me,” Mathew replied.
 
“My failure to forewarn
her
shocked and injured her.
 
I destroyed her belief in me by not taking
her into my confidence.
 
She just wasn’t
supposed to be there.
 
She and Ivy still
think you are dead.
 
Ivy has forgiven
Steve, understanding that you each agreed to die rather than be captured by the
perps who showed up or imprisoned by the FBI or DEA.”

“Their surprise made the scene have the impact of
reality.
 
Callie’s screams sounded
genuine because they came from her heart.
 
I thought Ivy guessed, didn’t she?”

“Not exactly.
 
Ivy is
not the screamer type,” Mathew
said.
 
”When she
guessed
, she thought we had agreed on a mercy killing.
 
Steve had asked her to trust him, and his
words led her to explore other possibilities than the obvious.”

Nicola took another
minuscule
taste from her flute and asked, “You want to be married?”

“If Callie will one day exonerate me.
 
She still won’t go out with
me,
and she speaks to me as little as
possible,” Mathew said.
 
He tapped his
blazer pocket.
 
“Perhaps foolishly, I
bought an engagement ring for her a few days ago and had it resized.
 
Picked it up this morning in Paris.”

“May I see it?” Nicola asked.

He slid the box out of his pocket to hand to Nicola.
 
He decided on a single striking solitaire
flanked by smaller diamonds inset in platinum from the Cartier’s 1895
line.
 
The engagement ring resembled the
one he and Steve had picked out for Ivy, yet side-by-side, each would be as
unique as the woman who wore it, each one classy and a keepsake.
 
While he struggled to stay positive about
Callie, he feared he might be dooming the diamond to a safety deposit box for a
time or even forever.
 
After returning
home, days had turned into weeks where Callie refused to talk with him, even
staying away from neighborhood gatherings and parties.