Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) (8 page)

Another towel, this one clean. A toothbrush and toothpaste. A bottle of shampoo and a bar of men’s soap. A large and warm sweatshirt with a soccer team logo on the front. A pair of pants, too long, but close enough for her to wear. She dug into the box and checked every corner, but that was all she found.

Gathering the items, she stood and walked to the bathroom. At least she could wash the smell of sweat and fear and vomit from her skin. Her belly was full, and she would soon be clean and could maybe, for a moment, not feel like a caged animal.

Maybe.

•      •      •

Lenny watched through the glass as the lawyer spoke with his new client. The conversation was slow and often interrupted by the oxygen mask. Lenny kept waiting for the man to choke and drop dead, but his wish was never granted. He smiled and waved when Oscar indicated him with a bony finger through the glass. The lawyer followed the gesture and offered a toothy grin to Lenny.

“Smug little bastard, isn’t he?” the current Federal Marshal guarding the door commented.

“Yes. That he is,” Lenny agreed.

“It’s almost like he doesn’t believe that he’s caught.”

“He doesn’t. He and his kind know how screwed up our justice system is here. He thinks he can beat this and walk away. They all do. They’ve been buying judges and lawyers and politicians their whole lives. He thinks that he can throw some money at the right people, threaten a few others, and this will all go away. He may be right. His little finger pointing gesture was just another veiled threat. Pretty soon that lawyer will try to come out here, in his million dollar suit and fake teeth, and threaten me with all kinds of legal action. He doesn’t care, as long as he gets paid. But I got a little surprise for him.”

“What’s that?”

“Patience, grasshopper.”

•      •      •

A few hours later Lenny sat across from Jack in his office at the FBI. They both had their feet up on the desk.

“So he’s talking?” Jack asked.

“He’s singing loud. We’ve been arresting people by the droves. We have names of dealers, wholesalers, pilots, boatmen, guards, drivers, mules, lab men . . . you name it. Tunnel locations, ship’s names, money launderers. We’ve got a grand jury working extra shifts, and the FBI and DEA have every interrogator they have pounding them with questions. Everyone gets the when, where, why, how, and from whom they moved or produced the drugs. The tree has a lot of branches, but the key is Angel. Without him it would all be hearsay. He ties all the others to Hernandez. The transcripts are going to be in the tens of thousands of pages. We may have to cut down some more trees.”

“Excellent. I understand Oscar has a new lawyer?”

“Yeah, the Attorney General felt he deserved expert council, so he called Gordon Liebowitz and asked him to serve. He jumped at it. Flew down in his private jet and met with Hernandez this afternoon. It didn’t take long.”

“I know him. He represented the Mob bosses I dealt with a few years back. He’s slick. We’ll have to watch him carefully.”

“The key will be how the jury comes to view Hernandez. When you look at him, he looks like your ordinary forty-something male. I mean he’s even less threatening. He’s short, he’s got a belly on him, and he’s going bald. On top of all that, he’s going to die of heart failure soon if he doesn’t get a transplant. That’s going to garner some sympathy right there. Not to mention he’s up against the entire U.S government. Americans love an underdog. How do we convince twelve good men that he’s the Spanish Al Capone? And if we do, how do we keep them from being too scared to find him guilty? We’re going to present evidence of murder, extortion, assassination of government officials, human trafficking, drug production, and smuggling. This guy had an airliner blown up just to kill three people! He had a soccer player killed for missing a goal in the World Cup! If anybody deserves to rot in hell, it’s him. If the jurors aren’t scared after hearing all of that, then they’re too stupid to be on a jury in the first place.”

“So what do you suggest? Send him back to Columbia and let them try him?”

Lenny sighed and reached for his drink on the edge of the desk without taking his feet down. He almost lost his balance, but after grunting with the effort, managed to retrieve the scotch. He knocked it back before replying.

“Three years ago they caught Ruiz, the head of the Medellin cartel. He had a mistress he couldn’t stay away from and they caught him with his pants down. He had two judges killed and blew up the courthouse before he miraculously escaped. He sits in his mountaintop mansion now and never leaves. Evidently some kind of deal. We’ll never know.”

“Mexico?”

“Even worse. So far we have three names in the AFI, the Mexican FBI, and a few more in their government all involved with protecting shipments or outright assistance. Their government is so heavily infiltrated by the cartels they’ve become a joke. The Mexico border states are like the old west, the only law there are the cartels and their gangs.”

“It’s a battle,” Jack acknowledged. “I’m working on some changes you’ll soon see proposed in some bills.”

“I hope they’re serious changes. Anything else is just a waste of time and money.”

“What do you think of the legalize drugs theory?”

Lenny grimaced at that and leaned even farther back in the chair. He sat for a moment before dropping his feet to the floor and sticking out his empty glass.

“I’m gonna need more scotch if you want to talk about that.”

Jack poured another finger in his glass without a reply.

Lenny squirmed in his chair while he formed his thoughts. He had known Jack for a little over two years or so, but they had developed a good friendship and a mutual respect for one another. This wasn’t their first time drinking in his office, and he’d had dinner with him and his wife a few times. It was long enough to know that Jack wasn’t a political creature. All of which meant he could speak freely and it wouldn’t leave the room.

“We’re going to have to legalize dope.”

Jack’s expression didn’t change. He had come to that same conclusion himself since he had gotten involved in the homeland security project. To those who had never really educated themselves on the problem, it was blasphemy, an idea so outrageous it was immediately dismissed as ludicrous. To those in the know, it was the only way to win the so-called War on Drugs.

“We have to get the big money out of the equation, and the only way to do that is to legalize it, tax the hell out of it, and stiffen the penalties for offenses related to the use of it. Once the money is no longer a factor, you lose the turf wars, the gang warfare, the theft and robbery associated with it. The purity levels can be regulated, and that’ll diminish the threat of overdose. We could take the forty-plus billion we waste every year fighting the war and put it toward education and treatment. We could fund testing for employers, and they can keep their policies on hiring anyone found to be using. If we mirror the alcohol laws, it would be hard to set any court precedence that didn’t already exist. It’s actually hard to find a reason
not
to do it, other than the associated stigma and the general lack of knowledge on the subject by Joe the voter.”

“How much would we gain by taxing it?”

“It’s estimated to be as high as forty billion a year. Add that to the forty billion saved in police and prison costs and you have a sum that gets the attention of the politicians. And right now the country could use an extra eighty billion or so.”

“Wouldn’t there be an increase in the number of users?”

“A very small one, maybe, comparable to the slight increase in drinkers following the repeal of Prohibition, but people aren’t going to run out and start shooting heroin just because it became legal. The recovered addicts will say we’re idiots.”

“And the treatment centers will say they’re treating them anyway. What would the cartels do?”

“Fight it. It’s the last thing in the world they want. They would funnel all the cash they could to anyone willing to speak out or vote against it. It would destroy their business overnight and they know it.”

“Wouldn’t there still be a black market?”

“Nah, do you see a black market for beer? How about liquor? Legalization would just pull the price so low that there would be no reason for a black market. There’d be no profit in it, a waste of time. No huge profits means no business. There’s no need for dealers, no more shoot-outs over territory, no cops or judges being corrupted. All of the inner city kids who fall into the business now have to find legitimate employment. And we could refocus the prison system to boot.”

“How so?”

“The last numbers I saw said something like sixty percent of federal prisoners were in for drug-related offenses. But you and I both know that hardly any of them serve their full sentence due to overcrowding. With the drug related prisoners out of the way, the rapists, murderers, robbers, sex offenders, child molesters, drunk drivers, and thieves can actually serve their full time. We can also make the penalties for drug related crime really stick. Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol can now have a penalty that’s worthy of it. Commit a crime under the influence and some time can be added. It would work to change the mindset of the casual user, which should have been our target all along.”

“You think we should hit the demand side of the equation more?”

“Absolutely. Even if we don’t end up legalizing dope. We’ve been gearing everything toward the supply side since we started. The casual user accounts for the largest portion of drug money by far. They’re the people putting the big money into illegal drugs. You will
never
make any headway if you ignore the demand side. If the casual user knew he’d lose half his assets, his car, his career, and a serious chunk of his freedom, he’d think twice about those few lines he does on the weekend.”

They sat in silence for a few moments and sipped their scotch. Both of them were thinking the same thing. The politicians would never have the balls to propose it.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Lenny stated, not really expecting an answer.

“Yup.”

“If it was 1920, we’d both be committing a federal offense right now.”

They both fell silent as they contemplated the drinks in their hands. It seemed silly, yet it was true. Jack broke the silence.

“What do you think we should do with the extra eighty billion?”

Lenny didn’t have to think about it.

“Spend it fighting big tobacco. Fucking things are killing me.”

•      •      •

The Major watched through the window again as the nurse injected something into the boy’s IV line. Miraculously, he was still alive and even showing some signs of improvement. He made a note in his ever-present notebook before spinning on a heel to return to his small office. There he saw the company mortician waiting for him. He shut the door behind him and rounded the desk to his chair.

“What is it?”

“Do we have anything?”

“Not right now. What’s your hurry?”

“I only signed up for a year in this mountaintop hell. I’d like to make my pile before the time runs out.”

“You and me both, but the customers just aren’t placing orders. This isn’t fucking McDonalds here, ya know.”

“I know that. But you’re telling me we got nothing pending?”

The Major pulled out the notebook and leafed through it.

“We need a liver, type A, but the only one we got in there is damaged. If he dies we can harvest what’s left and sell it maybe. But the customer is at the edge of the time allotment. It’d be a gamble. The kid is AB negative and I’ve got a few customers with that blood type waiting. We need a heart and two kidneys. Problem there, is he’s improving also. There’re only five Afghans on the ward right now. Not a lot to choose from.”

“There’re about a dozen Americans.”

“No way. Don’t even think it. Every troop that leaves here dead gets an autopsy as soon as he hits the ground at Dover. Afghans are our only choice. I want to be able to enjoy my money when I get back to the world.”

“Yeah . . . I guess. Just hate the waiting.”

“Look at it this way. It’s a war, you shouldn’t have to wait long.”

The mortician thought about it while he contemplated the notebook lying on the desk.

“Maybe we can speed up the process another way.”

•      •      •

The senator and his wife waited in the surgical waiting room with all the other worried people. Most were there for surgeries that had been planned for some time. They read magazines and watched the TV mounted on the wall. A corner table held a large puzzle, and a father and his son worked the pieces together while they waited for news of the boy’s mother. There was little conversation, and the elderly volunteer sitting in the corner quietly fielded call after call from family members looking for updates on the progress of their loved ones. He was an expert at telling them nothing, as the new privacy laws prevented him from easing their tension and worry over the phone, but he managed to do it in a way that was both polite and respectful.

Rita Lamar contemplated the carpeted floor while she waited and managed to form the opinion that it was the most dreadful pattern she had ever seen, before her thoughts returned to her daughter lying in the room down the hall. She had gotten the call from the paramedics who had found the number in her daughter’s recovered cell phone. Thankfully she had been out shopping with a friend who drove her straight to the hospital. There she had not even seen her daughter as Tessa had already been rolled away for emergency surgery. Rita had clung to her friend until her husband’s arrival, and despite who he was, they were unable to get any more information. The nurse had simply replied with what she could read off the chart—chest and head trauma. Just what did that mean? The hours crept by agonizingly slow, and their cell phones never stopped ringing until they both finally just turned them off.

The phone in the corner rang again, and after a short and quiet conversation, the volunteer hung up and approached them.

“Senator Lamar?”

“Yes?”

“Your daughter is out of surgery. The doctor will be here shortly to talk with you. If you would just follow me, please?”