Smoke Signals (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 4) (15 page)

Chief Superintendent Edward Bramley, who was both Rebecca Bramley’s uncle and her godfather, sat with Deputy Commissioner Eileen Murphy at a corner table in a private room at The Dominion Club, a members only establishment for the elite of business and government in the province. They’d just finished a late lunch, the table had been cleared and, given the occasion, they were allowing themselves a
digestif,
a Talisker single-malt scotch for each of them.

After taking a first sip, Murphy told her friend, Bramley, “The Minister of Public Safety Canada, in his weak-kneed wisdom, has decided to go along with the suggestion of his deputy minister.”

“Theo Blanchet,” Bramley said, curling his lip. “No doubt after that bag of guts had dined with Jules Marchand.”

Murphy nodded. “That is what my spies tell me.”

“You have spies, Eileen?” Bramley asked.

She laughed. “Just like you, Ed.”

Bramley grinned. “Good intelligence is essential to police work, all right. So you will find Rebecca to be in the right, but she will nonetheless be sent to the rough and remote hinterlands along with that swine Serge Marchand.”

The deputy commissioner took another pull at her glass. “Not
with
Marchand but in parallel fashion, yes.”

“She doesn’t deserve it,” Bramley said. “She’s a good cop and she was only defending another member of the force and our family, while Marchand threatened a superior officer.”

“All true, and you know what? It doesn’t matter because both of the pricks making the final decision can empathize at the most basic level with Sergeant Marchand’s loss.”

“Well, I can’t,” Bramley said. “Men with balls, in terms of their character, don’t bully women.”

“I know, Ed. That’s why you and I have always been friends. There’s more to the story, though, my spies say.”

“What’s that?”

“While Rebecca and Sergeant Marchand will both suffer in equivalent fashion, soothing both sides of public opinion, Theo Blanchet intends to rehabilitate the sergeant professionally at a much quicker pace.”

“Sonofabitch. I won’t stand for that, Eileen. My family won’t stand for it.”

The deputy commissioner held up a hand, stopping Bramley before he said anything she didn’t want to hear.

“I’ll have my friends watching, Ed. The moment Blanchet starts showing favoritism to the sergeant, I’ll land on him like Mount Logan.”

Canada’s highest mountain, fittingly in the far reaches of the Yukon.

“Embarrass the bastard enough to make him resign? That’d be good.” Bramley smiled. “For both of us, I think.”

Murphy smiled. “I think we can cast a wide enough net to snag Jules Marchand, too, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It’s only part of what I mean. If I know you, Eileen, and I think I do, you’re looking ahead for yourself as well.”

“Well, with Theo Blanchet out of the way and the new Prime Minister in Ottawa, I thought it might be time for me to move to the civilian side of government.”

From his seated position, Bramley offered a small bow. “Madam Minister of Public Safety Canada.”

Suddenly, Edward Bramley’s path to becoming commissioner of the RCMP looked a lot clearer, and his dear god-daughter, Rebecca, would be well cared for, too.

As if reading his mind, Deputy Commissioner Murphy said to her dining companion, “All this will go much more smoothly if Rebecca doesn’t object to her temporary banishment.”

“I’ll speak with her,” Bramley said. “She’ll understand.”

“Do so without delay, Ed.”

“Just as soon as she returns home.”

Murphy frowned. “Where is she?”

“My brother told me she went to see her fiancé in Washington.”

“That large First Nation fellow?” DC Murphy knew a thing or two about the private lives of all her important people. She made a point of it.

“John Tall Wolf, yes. He’s rising quickly through his country’s BIA bureaucracy from what I’ve heard. Even worked a case with James J. McGill recently.”

Not much got by Chief Superintendent Bramley either.

He thought dropping the name of the president’s husband would impress his friend, but a pensive look settled on her face.

“What is it, Eileen?”

“Just a thought. If Tall Wolf has connections all but inside the Oval Office, he might have more to offer Rebecca than we do.”

Bramley’s first impulse was to laugh off that idea. Family was family and tradition was tradition, after all. But once Rebecca was married, Tall Wolf would
be
her family.

“I’ll sound her out as soon as I see her,” Bramley said.

“Please do.”

The two of them tossed down their drinks.

The trek through mountain forest proved demanding for Mateo Trujillo. He still had the strength and stamina to make the hike, but the temperature was falling and his thin blood, used to the milder weather of Mexico, didn’t provide the necessary insulation to keep him from starting to shiver.

The Canadians, Baker, Charlie and Dog, moved with no visible signs of discomfort. For them the weather probably felt balmy. It was all a matter of acclimation, of course. The conditions you knew best always pleased you the most. That simple insight had given Mateo direction for where he would hide once he turned on Fausto Zara.

The weather, for one, would have to be warm. The native tongue, though he spoke four languages, would have to be Spanish. That was his linguistic home, where he could express himself with both precision and feeling. The political structure would have to be relatively stable but the social hierarchy needed to be stratified enough to have a privileged class whose members could buy their way out of trouble.

There were enclaves in the U.S. that were balmy and one could get by using only Spanish. The rich there were certainly privileged, but the justice system sometimes took perverse pleasure in showing the masses that even the wealthy were not beyond its reach. Such uncertainty did not appeal to Mateo. He wanted a new home where the authorities respected the power of a bribe.

He wasn’t sure he’d be able to find all the qualities he desired in a new home. So far, he’d been working by process of elimination. Staying in Mexico was definitely out. So was the United States. Those seeking vengeance for Fausto Zara would have too easy a time finding him in either place. The same could be said to varying degrees for the countries of Central America and South America.

Mateo had briefly considered the Philippines. The country had some gorgeous islands. The southernmost of them were where Spanish was most common, but they were also the places where Muslim guerrillas were the most active. Taking hostages and so forth. He didn’t need that kind of trouble.

Looking at Europe, there was Spain, of course, but that would also be an obvious place for Zara’s avengers to look for him. However, one of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities was the Canary Islands. Lying just off the coast of Morocco, the Canaries possessed many of the qualities Mateo was looking for and were probably out of the way enough to be overlooked by his pursuers.

Especially after he left misleading clues pointing to other distant places.

Baker interrupted Mateo’s reverie. “Hey, stop daydreaming, we’re here.”

That they were. They’d arrived at the new camp. Mateo’s reverie of a new life had spared him a measure of discomfort from the weather. Which had grown even colder with a chill drizzle just beginning.

Charlie looked up at the sky. “Rain now, snow before long.”

Baker smiled, telling Mateo, “A little cold for you, huh?”

Mateo rebutted the man’s insolence. “All’s quiet? You haven’t found any more farmers to shoot?”

He’d told Baker who he had killed, a farmer. Made him feel like the fool he was.

Embarrassed him in front of the other two.

Baker’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Wasn’t any damn farmer that killed Able.”

Mateo couldn’t argue with that. None of them could explain the savage attack on the mercenary team’s leader. Their best guess was some freakish mutation of a wolf. There were wolves in the mountains, but none of them had ever seen anything with the size, speed and power of the thing that had killed Able.

Still, they all said wolf because if they didn’t assert some plausible explanation they’d all have to admit they might meet Able’s fate. There’d be no going forward if they did that.

Things were bad enough as it was, having nothing to show for their efforts.

Dog jogged up with an envelope in his hand, after taking a quick look around the new camp. He handed it to Mateo. “Got your name on it. Found it in the one tent that’s been set up. Nothing else here worth mentioning.”

Baker gave Dog a questioning look.
You read what’s inside the envelope?

Dog shrugged.
Yeah, but I don’t read Spanish.

Mateo did. His face twisted in rage. He crumpled the message, was about to toss it away, changed his mind and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Bad news from home?” Baker asked.

“We’re done. We’ll head back to Seattle and you can go home.”

“After you pay us, we’ll go home.”

“Yes, of course.”

Dog said, “We should bury Able, too.”

“Yeah, we’ll take care of that,” Baker agreed. Still, he couldn’t help but think,
If that damn thing, whatever it was, hadn’t come back and eaten the rest of him.
“Let’s get going.”

Charlie, who’d been watching the perimeter, let off a burst of fire. Baker and Dog brought their weapons to the ready and clicked off the safeties. Mateo had his sidearm in hand.

“No problem,” Charlie said, waving to the others.

Baker gave him a look.
What the hell did you shoot at?
He hoped it wasn’t another farmer.

“Just a bear,” Charlie said aloud. “Big fucker. Grizzly. But he ran like hell as soon as I raised my weapon. Didn’t have a chance of hitting him. Just wanted to tell him to steer clear.”

After what had happened to Able, Baker wasn’t going to criticize.

“Let’s head out,” he said.

They’d let
Señor
Greaser walk drag. Maybe the damn bear would pick him off if he fell too far behind. That’d be worth losing the rest of their money.

Mateo had other worries. The note had to be from Julián, even if it was unsigned.

Compañero Trujillo, I can only think things are very bad with Jefe Zara if you have come all the way to my little operation in the yanqui forest. As smart a fellow as you are, you must have made plans to look after your own interests if things went bad for the big boss. You undoubtedly think the few million dollars I have on hand would make you more comfortable wherever you intend to go.

I’m afraid I took all that money, what I didn’t already give away to my workers. Maybe I’ll also be the first to tell the yanquis everything I know about Fausto Zara. Then they won’t need to bother with you so much. Buena suerte.

Good luck.

The smart little shit had figured out exactly what Mateo was going to do.

As the rain increased, Mateo felt he was going to need all the luck he could get.

If he had great good fortune, he was going to ram Julián’s note down his throat.

The
campesinos
were exactly where Ernesto Batista predicted they would be, standing at the side of the road leading out of town, waiting for — hoping and praying — a bus would come by and take them to a city big enough to allow them to blend in with their own kind.
Méjicanos
— Mexicans — preferably, but the poor of any ethnic background would do.

They were a sad lot, shabbily dressed and looking all the more forlorn as the rain soaked them, but for once in their grindingly hard lives they had money in substantial amounts. The plan was that two of the more comely younger women would stand at the forefront of their cluster and wave thick sheaves of money at the bus driver.

This plan would have been foolproof in Mexico, as far as getting the driver to stop. The problem at that point might become: Would the driver give them a ride or try to rob them? In
El Norte t
hey were uncertain of what difficulties they might face. Were the drivers there paid so well they would laugh at a handfuls of dollars and drive on by? Or would they stop and try to rob the would-be passengers, too?

All but two of the guards had abandoned their rifles behind one of the pretty little houses in town. Several of the women and a few of the men looked at that particular dwelling, so clean and bright with new paint, and their hearts ached with longing. But no one said a word. Homes like that were not meant for such as them. Better to leave your yearning unexpressed.

The two guards who retained their weapons stood at the back of the crowd. If a bus stopped and a fair amount of money was all that was required for passage, the guards would leave the rifles behind. If any thievery was attempted, however, they would defend their
compañeros
.
The mere thought of shooting a
yanqui
was enough to make them all ill, but they would not be victimized — ever again, they all said.

As an act of compassion, before standing to the side of the road, they had brought the body of Gustavo Morales out of the forest. It wouldn’t have been right to leave him where the animals might consume him. He was the only one of them who would remain behind, buried in the backyard of the beautiful little house where they’d found a shovel in a gardener’s shed.

By acclamation, they’d decided to send Gustavo’s money to his family in Mexico. They would do so anonymously so as not to draw the attention of
la migra
— immigration — or of anyone else. The gift would seem to Gustavo’s family as if it fell from heaven, and when it came time for God to judge them, their honesty and generosity would be a mark in their favor.

They all agreed it was easier to be unselfish when you had some money of your own.

Benevolence was one thing, patience was another.

The rain and their shared anxiety wore on everyone, and still no bus came. Many eyes began to look at the row of houses and shops. So pretty, warm and dry, and as far as they’d dared to look, all of them empty. The idea of spending the fast approaching night indoors was shared by most, if not all, of them and was about to be raised as a topic of debate.

Until a young man walked out of the house at the far end of town. He was not like them. His clothes were too good; his skin was too pale. A
yanqui
.
That immediately raised the question:
Were there more like him around?

The next question, of course, was:
What did he want?

“Paz,”
he said. Peace. He raised his hands as if offering a blessing.

He stopped ten feet away from them.
“Tengo solo un poco de español. Me llama Bruno.”

I have only a little Spanish. My name is Bruno.

He thought his formal name would sound better than Beebs.

One of the young women holding money stepped forward, extended her cash to him.

Beebs shook his head.
“No quiero dinero.”
I don’t want money.

He saw a wave of relief roll across the crowd.
“Habla inglés,
anyone?”

The woman who had offered Beebs her money said, “I do,
un poco.”

Beebs smiled. “Good.” He took a satellite phone out of a pocket, showed it to the crowd.
“Ernesto y Valeria Batista dicen hola.”
Ernesto and Valeria say hello.
“Vengan conmigo, por favor.”
Please come with me.

To get out of the rain, he wanted to say, but his Spanish didn’t extend that far.

Beebs turned and walked back toward the house at the far end of town.

He was hoping he’d been taken as friendly, and the two guys with the assault rifles would leave their weapons on the front porch, if they came. The sound of the rain kept him from hearing any footsteps following him. So he jumped a foot in the air when someone took his arm.

His alarm turned to relief when he saw it was the young woman who’d offered him the cash.

He felt even better when she told him,
“Paz, Bruno. Me llama Luciana.”