Back at the Mangrove Swamp they were clearing up. It was nearly three AM and the last customer had long gone.
In a small dressing room, Michelle was putting her costumes away, when Grant, the manager, knocked on her door.
“Come in.”
Grant opened the door and looked at her.
She was wearing jeans and an old tee shirt. Her long hair was brushed and she had pulled it together with a scrunchy at the back into a ponytail. She had only a little make up, but still she looked stunning.
“You did well again tonight,” he said and she smiled her thanks at him.
“Thanks.”
“Are you sure you are okay for another month?”
“I need the money, Grant, so I have to keep going. Why, am I boring the customers away?” She had a husky and very sexy voice, and there was an elusive accent in there, which Grant knew came from the Netherlands.
“No, not at all. In fact, I think some people come here just to see you.”
“They’d be in for a shock if they knew the truth,” she said, slipping on her high-heeled sandals.
Grant laughed.
“They’d never guess, not in a million years. Shit girl, I know, and I don’t believe it!”
She slung a shoulder bag over her shoulder, stood up and walking up to him, gently kissed his cheek. He passed her a roll of banknotes.
“I still think you ought to go legit. You’d get a green card easy.”
“I know, but there are too many complications. I’d have to pay taxes and shit like that. I need to make the cash and then I can get things done. After that, hell, I’ll marry a rich American and get my citizenship that way.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“When it’s all over, I’ll come back and let you buy me dinner, okay?”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he said, and she laughed.
“Mrs Grant wouldn’t like that.”
“Hell, she can come too.”
She smiled and walked out of the club, opening the door of a beaten up old Chevrolet.
She drove slowly home, aware that the Miami streets were not the safest place for a single girl at this time of the morning. She parked outside her apartment block and went in.
She managed to reach her small apartment unmolested and slung her bag on the settee. She checked her answer-phone and undressed, gratefully stepping into the shower a few moments later. She looked down and silently swore.
“Soon, my little friend, soon!” she said.
Chapter 2.
The conference room was full.
Twenty agents and affiliated officers were seated round the large oval table.
Carl Oberon, the Director of this particular section, was not a happy man. They had seen five separate operations fail and five men lose their lives, and for what?
“We’re back where we started, ladies and gentlemen. We have nothing.”
He stared round the table.
Sean, his deputy, was slumped in his chair, his head in his hands. He had taken this last failure very hard and Carl was worried about the man.
“Uh, sir. That’s not quite true,” said a voice at the back.
Carl looked but did not recognise the man. He was tall and clean cut, looking like a cop. His eyes displayed a confidence and competence that Carl liked immediately.
“What?” he asked.
“Sir, I’m Ryan Hobbs, I’m the analyst sent down by Washington.”
“Analyst?”
“Uh, yes sir.”
“Well, go on. You were saying we do have something?”
“Uh, yes sir. It’s about the man himself. We’ve been plotting his movements, and although he seems to command such loyalty, we never can get reliable information on his or his organisation, there is one weakness.”
“A weakness?”
“Sir, I’ve been looking at every single movement on and off the island. There are strict times for all transports and they rarely vary. Except for one person,” Ryan paused.
“Well, go on.”
Ryan, seemingly a little bolder, took the remote unit. He pressed a button, and the blank plasma screen that took all of one wall, suddenly displayed the head and shoulders of an attractive woman.
“Sir, this woman is Nadia Heber. She is believed to be of German birth, but has a Guatemalan passport. It is unknown whether she has, or indeed ever had, a German one. She has been Luis’s live-in lover for three years and they are reputed to be very close.
“They met in Europe, but her presence has caused the intelligence about Mendoza to be rewritten.”
“Why?”
“Well sir. Five years ago, Mendoza was rumoured to be a homosexual. Although uncharacteristically discrete, he was suspected of having a series of boys from all over the place as sexual partners. Then he seemed to have a time as a celibate. He met Nadia in Italy, when he went to Naples allegedly on a vacation, but we were aware that he met with various European organised crime figures.
“From that time, she has been his constant companion and we suspect his only sexual partner. She has complete freedom to come and go as she pleases. Her last jaunt was to Vienna, when she spent two weeks shopping and attending the opera. She spent nearly $100,000 in that time,” he said, changing the picture to one of Nadia taken in the street in Vienna.
“What is known about her?”
“There’s the problem; virtually nothing. There is no trace with the Germans, or any other European Police forces. I have even checked the German registrations of births. No one of that name with her date of birth or other details has ever been registered. So, assuming her name is false, I have managed to acquire her fingerprints, but none of the Interpol databases contain a match.”
“But, there wouldn’t be, unless she’s been arrested,” stated Sean, who was staring at the photograph of Nadia.
Sean was frowning, as she reminded him of someone and he couldn’t remember whom.
“Quite. So we crosschecked with the Germans again and managed to locate nine hundred and sixty three families of the same name. The German Passport office has never issued a passport to a Nadia Heber. Each of the families has been checked and none have a daughter of her apparent age.”
“How old is she?”
“Her passport says she is twenty-four. Date of birth, August 11th 1987.”
Sean stood up and approached the screen staring at the girl.
“Sean?” his boss asked.
“It’s okay. She reminds me of someone. I can’t remember who. But it’s like I’ve seen her recently,” he said.
“Her passport was issued by Guatemala and has a legitimate US visa. As I stated, although a German, she has not ever produced a German passport to US Immigration officers. Nadia has been to the US on frequent occasions. She has some friends in Miami, and went to Disney World with some of them last year. In fact, she often stays with some friends just to the south of Orlando.”
“These friends she stays with, is this independent of Luis?” Carl asked.
“Yes sir. It seems that for all their closeness, he trusts her completely, so she spends most of the time he is in South America or Europe staying with such friends. She and Luis went to Hungary together last year, but she flew home alone, as he had some business deals to discuss. We know now, courtesy of Interpol, that he met with some of the Russian Mafia.”
They all stared at the picture on the wall.
She was a very attractive woman, although she had quite a strong jaw line, giving her a tough or hard appearance she also had a lovely smile, and it compensated for the other.
“So, Ryan, why is she the weak point?” Carl asked.
“Sir. Two things we know. One, the security on the island becomes lax when Luis isn’t there, and two, she breezes in and out without hindrance. This gives us various options. Now, I’m not the expert in these sort of operations, but say we wait for the couple to leave the island individually and then using a double, we can return our Nadia to initiate the operation to neutralise the security. The security will never check her and as she comes and goes without anyone’s prior knowledge, we can be in and waiting for him before he gets back. She only need get in and switch off the power.”