‘Where were they?’
‘They claim they had two officers there who witnessed the shooting but didn’t see anyone hand you papers. They saw Miguel Salazar shoot Takado and then you drove off. When they called us we told them you’d reported in and would wait on a pass in the Juarez. But you didn’t wait and we couldn’t get a hold of you, and that doesn’t work in this department.’
Holsten paused, drew a breath and said, ‘Here’s what I want today. I want the name of everyone who knew about this bull ring meeting, and I want everyone on your squad to voluntarily take a lie detector test over at the FBI office this afternoon. When you get there, ask for Ted Desault. He knows you’re coming.’
‘Why is the rest of my squad getting hooked up to a lie box and why at the FBI?’
Holsten picked up the copies of the 52s off his desk and shook them.
‘There’s a leak and we’re going to find out where it is and I don’t give a damn whose feelings get hurt in the process. Javits has already tested. I’m sending her tomorrow to back up Osiers. Since you won’t be visiting Mexico you’ll work leads here while I figure out what to do with your squad. You shouldn’t have driven on with the goddamned body, John, and you should have answered the phone and called in from the village, not the pass. What did I tell you was the most important thing when I hired you?’
Holsten did his riff on chain-of-command, the glue speech, and it occurred to Marquez that Holsten always referred to Mexican pueblos as villages. Maybe that was about Vietnam where Holsten did three tours. Holsten stood up as he finished, adding, ‘I want the Group Five analyst tested along with the rest of you. I’ve forgotten her name. What’s her name?’
‘Rachel Smith.’
‘And when you leave the FBI office you come back here and sit with a sketch artist. I want something we can work with on the man in the bull ring.’ Holsten’s tone changed slightly as he asked, ‘Where do you think he’s from? Could he be South African?’
‘Could be.’
‘Educated?’
‘Yes.’
Marquez sat with the artist late in the day. He had a very good memory for faces and the artist was quite intuitive. With the second sketch she got the man and that sketch faxed east before Marquez left for home.
Two days later, a Kerry Anderson from the Intelligence Division out of headquarters in Virginia showed up to interview Marquez. They sat down in a conference room. Anderson had the faxed sketch with him and a name for the man, Emrahain Stoval. He also had photos but he didn’t show those yet. He pulled them from a manila file and laid them facedown on the table. He wanted Marquez’s eyes drawn to the packet of photos. Wants to control the conversation, Marquez thought.
‘Stoval is a money man and a connector who sits in the background and helps organize and fund various criminal enterprises. He supplies both long and short term loans. If you’ve already got a track record and you need five million dollars to buy cocaine you’ll sell to distributors in the States, you might go to him for a three-week loan. In some cartel operations we believe he gets a percentage of everything. He’s woven in, but at your level you won’t necessarily see him. I don’t mean that derogatorily. I don’t mean any offense.’
‘None taken.’
Marquez took in Anderson’s look, the coat, the starched shirt, receding red hair, bony face, a freckled scalp he touched periodically.
‘He also deals in arms and maintains direct links to hit squads. He’s got a reputation as ruthless in the way that defines the meaning of the word.’
‘Why hit squads if his business is loaning money?’
‘Think about the people he loans to. They aren’t always the most honorable. We think he wants his clients to remember he’s dangerous.’
‘Who’s the “we” you’re talking about?’
Anderson shrugged. ‘I think,’ he answered. ‘I’m the Stoval expert.’
‘Did you fly out here just for this interview?’
‘No, but I would have.’ Anderson flipped over the stack of photos now. ‘Take a look. Some are of poor quality.’
Marquez flipped through twenty or more and returned to one of the early ones, a grainy profile shot at a distance of a man looking at monkeys in bamboo cages. He flipped through them all again before going back to the monkey photo, telling Anderson, ‘Only this one.’
Marquez slid the photo over and watched Anderson slowly nod.
‘Very good,’ Anderson said. ‘That was taken at an animal market in Indonesia. He’s a passionate big game trophy hunter and a constant wing hunter. He’ll travel all over the world to hunt. He also traffics in animal parts.’
‘What doesn’t he do?’
Anderson smiled at that.
‘Who took that photo?’ Marquez asked, and reached for it.
He studied the small dark shape of the monkey behind the bamboo slats. Wildlife had its back to the wall. We treat the earth like we own it, but why would the DEA follow Stoval to an animal market in Indonesia? They wouldn’t.
He slid the photo back and Anderson said, ‘It’s a CIA photo.’
‘What are you doing with it?’
‘Sometimes if it’s in their interest they share with us. Not often, but sometimes. Stoval has provided information to them. They won’t tell me exactly what, but I gather in Mexico it’s been about the Salinas government. The CIA considers Stoval an intelligence asset.’
‘Great.’
‘He gets unobstructed passage in and out of the United States, and knowing what I know about him, that turns my stomach.’
Anderson put his glasses back on. He seemed agitated. He tapped the photo forcibly and his voice rose with emotion, something Marquez didn’t see often from an analyst.
‘Do you know what this is a photo of?’ Anderson asked, and then answered his own question. ‘This is what the devil looks like in the twentieth century. You’ve never met anyone like him.’
When Marquez didn’t respond fast enough Anderson gathered up the photos and snapped his briefcase shut. He handed Marquez a card.
‘We’ll talk more and I’m going to warn you, there’s probably a reason he made contact with you. It’s not chance that he was there in the bull ring. With him, there’s always a reason.’ He tapped his briefcase. ‘Always.’
FOUR
For one hundred thirty years Loreto was the Spanish capital of Baja. Now it was a fishing and tourist town with an airport eight hundred miles from LA. After landing it was fifteen minutes from the airport to the DEA safehouse. The dry spine of the Sierra La Giganta rose behind Loreto and the highway and on the other side where the safehouse was, long beaches faced the Sea of Cortez. Sheryl Javits didn’t know if it was true or what it really meant, but Marquez told her that this part of the Sea of Cortez had more biodiversity than anywhere else on earth. She loved coming here. She called it her vacation assignment. She liked to watch the whales and the birds in the early morning. The flight wasn’t long and the house the DEA leased was simple, small, and on the beach. Weather was usually good.
The problem was Jim Osiers. Osiers pretended he was glad to see her, but he was obviously disturbed Holsten sent her to back him up. Ten minutes after she arrived, he told her he didn’t need her and then acted like he owned the house, like she was some sort of uninvited guest. He didn’t loosen up until she helped him catch up on overdue paperwork. She was killer on paperwork and now they were outside with cold Pacifico beers in their hands, sitting in the lawn chairs, bug zapper on, the night warm and soft, and the only light on the Sea of Cortez starlight. They drank and speculated as they had all evening about Billy Takado’s murder and what had happened to Marquez. She never liked Takado but knew that Marquez did, that he and Billy became friends, so when Osiers said Marquez got too close, she nodded.
‘Never get close to a confidential informant,’ Osiers said, repeating the axiom.