Redback (33 page)
Authors: Kirk Russell
‘They’re looking at everything and I was looking for what happened to Group Five and this recent thing with Sheryl. You’re listed as a Washington Senator, yet you’re under law enforcement, US government. I put it together from our baseball conversations over the years. I’m guessing your season tickets came every year from him.’
‘Very good.’
‘Four FBI agents are on their way. I called when I changed planes in Miami.’
He left Anderson on the deck and figured he’d run into the FBI crew at the airport, but it turned out they passed him on the road around the island before he got there. He called Desault after turning in the rental car and Desault told him he’d scored big with the Anderson hit.
‘If you want to keep the wildlife angle going, this is your chance to push it.’
‘Yeah, I want to keep it going, but I’ve got some ideas.’
The flight home took him to Mexico City. He had a layover there and a bad encounter with two Customs officials who detained him and led him to a room. They left him there for fifteen minutes, and then returned and explained that the questioning would not be here, but at a police station. They still wouldn’t say what it was about, but asked for his passport and as he got it out, he realized he wasn’t going to give it up.
‘I’m going to keep this until the police station.’ He opened it for them. ‘You can take another look, but you can’t have it.’
A third man arrived, a big guy who walked behind them as they went outside toward a police van. The van driver was in a
federales
uniform. He was an older guy with a gut, a black mustache, and a vertical scar right down the middle of his nose. Marquez remembered the scar and as the Customs men closed behind him to force him into the van, he pushed his way back on to the sidewalk. The driver was an old Salazar man.
He knocked away the arm of the one who tried to grab him and got back inside the airport with them following, trying to catch him but not drawing their guns. Nor did they yell or call for help. They didn’t want to attract attention and that told him all he needed to know. The third man who’d showed up late dropped away as Marquez walked up to the airline counter. He made the connecting flight.
On the plane a stewardess handed him a large manila envelope with his name and seat number on it. Someone wanted to make sure he got it. As the plane taxied toward the runway, he opened the package and pulled out three black and white photos. He guessed he was looking at a dry wash in Baja. They had dressed Billy Takado in the Hawaiian shirt and the old cotton slacks he liked so much. They didn’t bother with shoes. The last photo had a handwritten message,
‘Nos vemos pronto.’
We’ll see you again, soon. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, he thought.
He slid the photos back into the manila envelope, tucked the envelope into the seat pocket in front of him, and as they flew over Baja, he thought of Billy and his dreams of a beach cantina, and of Brian Hidalgo haunted by Vietnam and trying to take it to the cartels. He remembered Sheryl as they walked the almond orchard in the night so long ago, and a dawn on the north coast when the sun rose red through fog as the SOU busted a big ab poaching ring, and how they celebrated later on a deck above the ocean in the gold light of fall. You fight the fight even if it’s bigger than you, and keep going, and meet them head-on at the next spot, or outsmart them and buy time for a grizzly to get away or a herd of bighorn to disappear into the rocks.
The stewardess returned and he ordered a beer. When it came, he drank slowly. He looked out the window at the line of the Sierras floating in the distance. Group 5 was gone and his years running the SOU were over. In the end, it’s all gone. In the end it’s what we cared about and how we lived.
Table of Contents
The John Marquez Series by Kirk Russell
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine