Ryan was staggered.
“Michelle, believe me, this isn’t just a ride in the park. This is the big time, these boys play for keeps. Five of our guys have ended up in the morgue because of this man,” he said.
Michelle turned to him and gave him a very sad smile.
“Do you think my life has been a ride in the park? I have spent the past twenty years or so knowing I’m trapped in the wrong body. My family don’t want to know me. I have no friends, no real home, nothing. I have no job, no security, no one to go home to and to love me. The risk of being exposed is ever present, and the dangers I face daily would be enough to put the fear of God up most really strong men. Just how unhappy do you think I have been?”
Both men began to realise just how hard life could get for a transsexual.
Sean gave her all her documents and car keys. He handed her a piece of paper with an address on it.
“Be here tomorrow morning at eight. Welcome to the good guys’ side.”
She took them and looked at both men.
“Will everyone have to know about me?”
“No, as far as this side of the operation is concerned, I intend not to disclose your part to anyone except Ryan and myself. Even my boss is not going to know everything.”
She smiled and Ryan could not help liking the girl. She was gutsy and very attractive. He still couldn’t actually believe she was not a real girl.
“I will in all probability regret this, but to be honest, I’m so tired of being a non-person.” she said.
Ryan went with her to her car.
She looked up at the tall agent. She’d noticed his limp and for some obscure reason she felt safe with him.
She got into the car, aware that he was looking at her with a strange expression.
“Thanks,” she said.
“What for, I haven’t done anything?”
“Your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Yes, you have nice eyes. You see, they tell me the truth.”
“What truth?”
“You care, I can tell,” she said, smiling as she drove out of the parking lot.
Ryan watched her go, his mind in a whirl. Her smile seemed to reach his heart. He returned to the office. Sean was standing at the window staring across the city.
“She’s gone.”
“Ryan, what do you make of her?”
“Make of her?”
“Yeah. As a young and single guy, how does she come over to you?”
“Shit, I dunno. I guess I don’t, or can’t believe she isn’t a girl.”
Sean turned round.
“Yeah. I feel the same. What a fucked up world this is.”
Chapter 4.
Luis took the phone call in his luxurious study that served as an office. His limbs seemed to turn to lead, and his stomach churned in anguish.
“Dead?” he asked.
“Si.”
His aide told him how and where, but he wasn’t listening. Tears started to roll from his eyes and he sat in his leather armchair.
She couldn’t be dead. She was his life.
Slowly his loss dawned on him like a thick black blanket and he hurled the telephone at the wall. It smashed.
His head dropped into his hands and he wept for the love he had lost. Nadia had been everything he wanted. To the world she had been a beautiful woman and his image was enhanced and his stature increased. However, in bed she was a beautiful boy and he was able to enjoy the pleasures he so loved.
It was several hours before his personal assistant, a dark Spanish-looking girl called Maria, summoned enough courage to interrupt his grief.
“Luis. How do you want for me to deal with this?” she asked.
Luis looked at her.
Maria was of medium build, but at thirty was running a little plump. She was an attractive woman, with long black hair and dark Spanish eyes. Her husband had been killed in a dispute between drug warlords and Luis had exacted very painful and satisfying retribution, allowing her the option to fire the coup de gras. She’d accepted this honour, thereby ensuring acceptance to his inner sanctum.
She had been with him for six years and she knew his every secret, so treated him like a brother. She was actually a cousin, but she was also a graduate of business school and was very astute indeed.
“If I try to go to the mainland, they’ll be waiting for me,” he said.
‘They’ were the DEA.
“So, what do you want to do?”
“Is there any family?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming about her life before you met her. Did she talk about anyone?”
“No. She used to say that her life began when she met me.”
Maria was well aware of her cousin’s predilection for pretty boys, but Nadia had been the perfect compromise. In the macho world of the Hispanic drug culture, homosexuality was not so much frowned on, as violently despised. So, Nadia’s presence with Luis maintained the perfect image and now there was a danger that the truth would be leaked to the media and his standing amongst his peers would plummet. Not that he cared that much.
“I am going to Florida and see if I can claim the body and keep the press from getting the full details of her gender,” she told him.
Luis nodded, his grief made him almost uncaring as to the important things of life any more.
Maria walked out and went to see the pilot about a flight to Florida.
* * *
The small Sheriff’s office had never seen so many people; particularly at seven-thirty in the morning.
Sean had his entire team there and the Sheriff was telling him exactly what had happened.
“Once the body was removed, your man told me that the victim was subject to a DEA enquiry, so we put a total news blackout on the whole incident. Luckily, we were able to recover the vehicle and clean the whole scene before daybreak. There was only one enquiry, from an official with the DA’s office in Miami.
“As per your instructions, we simply said that a female was involved and no identification had yet been made. I also said that the injuries were so severe, identification was going to be difficult. I said the body was a real mess and it seems that the head was the only part not completely mangled.”
“Good. What about the press?”
“We released that an unknown female died at the wheel of her rental car. It was an accident and no other parties were involved. The rental company were informed and that once the accident investigator had finished with the vehicle, their insurance company could assess it and arrange removal. It is a total write-off.”
Sean seemed relieved. So far containment of the truth was looking good.
“Ryan, what do we have on the victim?”
“Okay, I’ve been on this since three am. Luckily the Germans were already up, so I have been able to cover a lot of ground.
“His name was not Nadia, but Marcus - Marcus Heinrich Heber. Aged twenty-five, born near Bonn. Parents; Walter and Mathilde Heber; still alive and living in the same home into which he was born. Three siblings; one brother, Hans, an automotive engineer living and working near the main Audi plant. Two sisters, both married, and living reasonably close by.
“Marcus was always the black sheep; a real exhibitionist and known to be a transgendered from an early age. We spoke to his primary teacher and she says he used to dress as a girl at the slightest opportunity. He always played with the girls and was teased unmercifully by the boys of his age.
“He dropped out of school at fifteen and left home after a massive argument. His parents have disowned him, as he started working as a teenage male prostitute in Berlin dressed as a girl. He started hormone treatment and underwent breast enhancement and some cosmetic surgery when he was around nineteen. He even went to South America for a while and lived amongst the Travesti.