5.
 “What’s going on?” She filled the round glass coffee pot, poured the water into the top of the coffee machine, and set the empty pot on the shelf in the machine. Almost immediately, water made bubbling and popping noises in the machine, and the first wisp of steam trailed out. As he spoke, she took down the key that lay hidden on top of the cabinet in which dish soap, a scrub brush, coffee filters, old cups from people who no longer worked here, and bags of ready-to-go popcorn were kept. She washed a cup, found the tea bags, and dropped one into the cup.
“I called you in to work because we have been tracking a bunch of suspicious syndicate signal traffic, and it looks like we have two gangster outfits that are going to cut a deal about taking over the whole territory starting someplace in the desert southwest.”
“For real?” She walked across the darkened wood floor in strong, measured steps.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands on his wrinkled forehead. “This is really bad. These guys aren’t some small time hoods. These are major operators with huge assets, big enough to challenge the government. Hell, maybe they are the government. We may have to call in the military, but I think we just have a chance to cut these guys off at the ankles if we take out their key people here, now, while we have a critical chance.”
“Sounds dreadful.” She, feeling both excitement and fear, opened the large cabinet on the opposite wall, flashing her palms again to help the ultra-secure system relax. Huge safe doors whispered as steel hinges made light smacking noises on their packing grease. The interior of the cabinet winked alight, revealing an arsenal of rifles and handguns—all the stuff that might be associated with a contemporary police department in, say, rural New Mexico.
“Either way,” Dorio said, “looks like retirement for you and Sparto.”
She said nothing, feeling icewater in her gut.
“That’s what you dream about, isn’t it?” He looked down at his hands. “I’m too old, so I get to stay at a desk and let young people like you run point. If you do good, I get my retirement finally thanks to you. You know I wish you well.”
“I know you do.” She wanted to run around the desk and put her arms around his shoulders but didn’t. Protocol was protocol.
They stood in the mutual silence of their sincerity for a reverent moment and thought of their dreams. She thought of the dream cottage with Sparto, that they’d talked about, and a blessed child or two, on some balmy sunny beach where they would be safe, and where they could run to the curling sea without looking over their shoulders constantly as they did here in the field.
“I want you and Sparto to go in first,” Dorio said as she surveyed the goodies in the gun closet again. After all, she and Sparto were trained soldiers first, husband and wife second. “You know I don’t have any other human resources on the ground. You two are my only hope. I’ve called for backup, but it will take a bit of time to get anymore feet on the ground.”
The note of fear in his voice stopped her, and she turned toward him. “It’s really that bad?”
“The worst. This could be the big one, Korinta. War. These aren’t just two-bit crooks. These are dealers in drugs and weapons and anything else illegal, and they don’t respect borders or laws or treaties or lives. They are syndicates that are much greater than the sum of their parts. When they meet like this, the decisions made by their point people can make governments fall.”
“But our government is very powerful.”
“These syndicates have power beyond imagining. NBI is powerful, but we aren’t omnipotent, and this time we are up against enemies that make me shake to think about them. We could be blown away like stray leaves and the balance of power could shift in ways we can’t even imagine. We have to stop them.”
“Then stop them we shall,” Korinta said, taking down a double-barrel twelve gauge shotgun and a cardboard box of red plastic shells with shiny brass bases. She had her eye on one of Dorio’s prize .44 magnum matte-black hand-cannons with redeye laser aiming and computer-assisted after-shot tracking...
...Now, wearing a baby blue pajama top and flimsy bubblegum-pink panties, she stood in her bare feet on a carpeted floor in the Western Sunset Arroyo Motel. She had trouble believing there could be anything more troubling in this county than a holdup at a gas station or a speeding auto on some dirt road. “Look, Sparto,” she said, “It’s like the sunlight in one of those Edward Hopper paintings.” Pulling open her pajama top, she flung herself into a reclining position on the bed, head back on the pillow, and mimicked a pose she’d seen of Hopper’s wife naked on a bed in a motel room with that featureless, water-clear far west sunlight streaming in devoid of any European mythology or baggage. Just raw American sunlight as if the west were forever a new world being explored for the first time that very day.
“Let’s not call attention to ourselves,” Sparto said drily, waggling a finger.
She laughed and snapped her pajama top shut, covering two small jutting breasts. “They’d have to have microscopes to see anything.”
“Anyway—“ Sparto said.
“Anyway,” she said, bouncing from the bed and walking to the coffee maker, “we need to check the area out. We’ll use our cover of being artists and journalists. Let’s just hope NBI is watching every moment, ready to bring in troops and equipment if necessary.”
|
Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Thank you (JTC).
|
TOP
|
MAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
|
