“Tough day, huh?” MacPhail said.
“I’ve had worse,” she said.
“We all have, I guess,” he said. “You okay, Jorge?” he asked.
Ramirez gave a thumbs-up gesture.
“Hey, look, Alex,” Ramirez said. “I can call you ‘Alex,’ right?”
“Sure,” she said.
“We got this,” he said. “Gets us through more than a few days.” He motioned to a small compact cabinet between the seats. He opened it to reveal a compact mini bar as the SUV started to move. “We can’t join you; we’re on duty. But you can unwind.”
“Have one on the taxpayers,” MacPhail said. “They’ll never know.”
Ramirez was helpful, pulling some ice out of a small chest. There was an array of half-size liquor bottles – Irish, Scotch, Canadian, Vodka, and gin – and soft drinks, water, and mixer.
“Mineral water would be fine,” she said.
Ramirez poured her a glass.
“Taxpayers’ money?” she asked, motioning to the bar.
“Sure. But they don’t know,” Ramirez said.
Then the vehicle left the ramp and crept into the Wall Street traffic. Alex drew a breath and eased back. She looked out the window and longed to be one of the normal people, with a normal job, not someone with a target on her head.
The SUV accessed West Side Highway and began the crawl uptown through the rush-hour traffic. If she could choose, she thought to herself, she would have donned a pair of walking shoes and hiked. The exercise would have done her good. But not today, she told herself. What about tomorrow? How long was she going to be under informal house arrest?
She opened her laptop to distract herself. More documents from work. Various agencies from South and Central America were sending her information that she already knew. She clicked the first one open and scanned.
The Government of Panama should continue implementing the reforms it has undertaken to its anti-money-laundering regime in order to reduce the vulnerability of Panama’s financial sector and to enhance Panama’s ability to investigate and prosecute financial crimes, including money laundering and potential terrorist financing.
She moaned. She went on to the next. More bureaucratic claptrap:
Colombian narco-traffickers are perhaps the most adapted and prepared for work in Panama. They thrive on the ability to constantly change routes, members of their network, and technology, such as cell phones and other communication devices.
“Really, Einstein?” she grumbled silently. “I never would have known.”
At a red light, she glanced out the window. They were on Eighth Avenue at 45th Street, west of the Broadway theater district. Down 45th she could see the glowing marquees of the theaters. She realized that what she really wanted to do more than anything was to tell her driver to pull over so she could jump out and run over to the TKTS booth on Broadway and score a ticket to anything.
Another thought. Two million clams in the bank. Did she really need a job where she could get zipped any minute? She tried to go back to work, bury herself. More bull from some South American police agency:While Panama offers a wide range of options for smugglers, geography is only a fringe benefit. Colombian boats that pass through Panama must stop along the route to refuel or transport the shipment from one boat to another. This practice invariably requires that individuals in other Central American countries become involved in the race to move drugs from Colombia north and money and guns south.
Man’s greed and nefarious nature could always trump the good that other men and women were trying to do. Two centuries earlier, over the same routes, it was slaves, rum, and molasses. Now it’s coke, guns, and contraband currency. Maybe she was just being a fool to think she could make a difference. A fool, a fool, a fool.Nicaragua is the next stop for drug shipments moving north along the coast and has a plethora of guns left over from a lengthy civil war. Guns make for perfect currency. And like Panama, much of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast is a semi-autonomous area with little to no government presence. Small towns like Bluefields, Nicaragua, have become perfect stop-off points for Colombian traffickers, who bring with them not only the bounty of what local fishermen have begun to call the “white lobster,” but also the devastation of addiction that comes with it.
Great. And indicting the Senora and Senor Dosi was going to stop that? Whatever had possessed her to go into law enforcement? She smelled career change. It’s not like she needed to work for a few years, maybe a decade. Federov had seen to that. But what would God have her do? Mission work? Where? The answers didn’t come easy.
Traffic ground to a halt near Columbus Circle. On impulse, she grabbed her cell phone. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she felt like talking to Paul Guarneri. Not Ben, but Paul. Maybe because he had grown up around violence and greed. Maybe because she sensed, in a funny sort of way, that he grasped the world better than she did.
Older? Wiser? More cynical? All of the above? None of the above? Who knew?
As the car broke free from congestion, Alex dialed Paul’s cell phone. Two rings, three. Then it kicked to voicemail.
“We’re here, Alex,” Ramirez said.
She looked up and saw the canopy of her building. She cut off her phone call and left no message. She dropped the phone back into her purse.
SEVENTEEN
Unlike Alex, Paul Guarneri had had an excellent day.
He had used his contacts at the New York Police Department to find a woman to accompany him to Cuba. She was a city detective on leave, named Ramona Galvez, Puerto Rican by ancestry, fluent in Spanish, adept with weapons. She could easily pose as his wife. He had interviewed her that day and was inclined to make an offer. Ramona was tough. Five-eight, a hundred and fifty pounds, much of it brawn. She looked like she could throw people through walls and that could be an asset for this kind of trip. So Guarneri was pleased.
Alex remained his first choice, but it was evident that that wasn’t going to happen. So all that remained was for Guarneri to phone Alex, withdraw his offer, and explore things further with Ramona. Sometimes, he told himself, second choices work out well. Sometimes even better. Anyway, he mused, you have to play the cards life deals you. His father, the casino guy and occasional philosopher, used to tell him that.
At his home on Long Island, sitting in his den, he wanted to give it a few more minutes of thought. He glanced at his watch. Normally, Alex worked late. Should he call her at her office or at home?
Home might be better, he figured. Or, for that matter, her cell. His housekeeper would be serving dinner soon. Better make the call sooner rather than later.
He reached for his cell phone and realized it was turned off. When he clicked it back on and allowed it to boot up, he looked at the calls he had missed and recognized Alex’s number. Strange, he pondered. What did she want?
EIGHTEEN
Eleven stories above 62nd Street, Alex unlocked her apartment door and then stepped aside. Special Agent Ramirez drew his weapon and entered. She waited in the corridor.
Ramirez threw on the light, stopped, and listened. He went to the bedroom and looked. No one. He checked the closets. He returned to the living room, moved swiftly through the dining and kitchen area, then moved to the extra bedroom that Alex used as a study and guest room.
He checked every closet and any other place someone might be hiding. He looked for any signs of tampering or disruption. He saw none. It was a quick eyeball search, but he was good at it. He placed his gun back in its holster and went back to the front door.