She peered into the adjacent room, where her suggestion was greeted with enthusiasm by both Alex and Jules.
A few minutes later, they were all in Jules’s car and on their way there.
Twenty miles north of their position, the black Chevy Tahoe emerged from the gates of a beachfront villa and breezed down the quiet residential street, headed for the freeway.
In it were three well-groomed, casually dressed men in combinations of chinos or cargo pants, sports shirts or polos, and Timberlands or Merrells. They also all sported sunglasses that masked the resolve in their eyes and light Windbreakers that hid the silenced handguns in their upside-down underarm holsters.
One of them, the one riding shotgun, had his eyes trained on the Android-powered HTC phone that he held in his hand.
He’d just downloaded a custom app that had been emailed to him, one that worked off the phone’s embedded Google Maps feature. The phone’s browser was open on a live map of San Diego, and the map had two live markers blinking on it: a standard one that used the phone’s built-in GPS function to display its current position, and a second marker—a white, blinking one that the app had overlaid onto the map.
The marker, they’d been told, was accurate to within ten feet of the target’s true position.
The three men were about to put that claim to the test.
40
Pennebaker waved away the duty nurse—who was wearing a look of genuine concern now that she knew we were there to talk to her boyfriend—and handed me back my phone. He closed his eyes and took a breath, clearly still of two minds about whether he wanted to go back to the part of his life that Walker’s death evoked. After a moment he opened his eyes again and looked straight at me.
“What happened?”
I told him about how we found Walker and the Eagles. How the two bikers had tailed me. How they kidnapped scientists from the Schultes Institute. And how Torres had been taken, most likely by whoever killed Walker.
When I was done, he said nothing for a long moment. Then a look of righteous anger took hold of his face and his calm demeanor evaporated in an instant.
“You don’t care about what happened to them. No one gives a shit about any of us. You fight an unwinnable war and kill innocent civilians for your country, then you come home and people are either terrified of you or they hate you for what you were ordered to do.”
I shot Munro a look. He kept his mouth shut, though I could tell it was a struggle. Last thing we needed was a pissing contest. However vehement Pennebaker turned, it was crucial I kept things even. We couldn’t afford to alienate him any further or risk him clamming up completely.
“It can’t have been easy. Adjusting to civilian life after Iraq.”
He ignored me and plowed on, his tone growing more bitter with each sentence.
“We had to rely on each other. But we couldn’t do that either, because the pain and the violence ran so deep we just didn’t know how to leave it behind. If anything, putting together the Eagles just magnified it. Turned it inward. Each one of us ended up fighting himself. And losing. And you want to drag me back to all that? Drag me back to the shit that killed Marty and almost got me killed? Screw you.”
He sat there, with a look of total defiance in his eyes. The kind that could be backed up by physical force if required. In that moment, I saw how Pennebaker and Walker had become the go-to guys when they worked together. The pairing of Walker’s blunt force with Pennebaker’s more coherent rage must have been a formidable combination.
“But you got out, and by the looks of things”—I couldn’t resist turning my head back to the space that Pennebaker’s girlfriend had recently vacated—“you’re doing okay, right? Look, we have no interest in messing with what you’ve built here.”
“But we will if we have to,” chipped in Munro, having designated himself bad cop whether I liked it or not.
“We need to catch these bastards; that’s all we care about,” I countered. “Whoever they are, they’re out of control. And you know what that’s like. You know how destructive that can be.”
Pennebaker’s eyes narrowed as he studied me for a moment, but said nothing.
I held up my phone to him. “You like having these guys running around out there? Killing others? Maybe someone else’s kid brother?”
I caught a twitch in his expression as my words dug in, and waited for them to settle in deeper. After a couple of seconds, he let out a rueful breath and his shoulders sagged, then his expression softened a touch.
“Marty wasn’t cut out for the three-patch life. But I couldn’t talk him out of it. I saved Wook’s life in Iraq, that’s why he let me walk away, but I couldn’t save Marty. I could hardly live with myself the first few months. If I hadn’t done time, if I hadn’t been forced into that structure, hell, I’d probably be dead by now.”
“But you found a purpose.”
“I’ve been through some shit. And I know there’s a way to get past it. But you need to be strong. And you need people to care. And to keep caring. A lot of these guys come back from Afghanistan or Iraq and the first thing they do is stick a meth pipe in their mouths. No better friend, no worse enemy.”
He chortled at the irony.
I knew where that haunted grin was coming from. No better friend, no worse enemy was the motto of the Marine division Pennebaker and Walker served with in Iraq.
“Anything to dull the pain,” he resumed with a slow shake of his head. “But it just makes the problem worse. Covers up what’s broken so you don’t have to face it. So we get them off the drug and then we try to deal with why they’re on it in the first place. It’s a long road, and there’s no quick solution.”
“And now that the Eagles have been wiped out you can never go back. Even if you want to.”
“It was only a matter of time. That’s why I turned my back on them when I got out.”
“I can see the why. Just can’t see the how. Matthew Frye is watertight. How did you manage that?”
“When I got out of prison, I needed a fresh start. Wanted to leave the past behind. A new name will do that for you. Someone owed me a favor is all. He even arranged to get me vouched for. Hired someone to play the part of Frye’s sister. Frye’s sister—the real one—is a crack whore. She doesn’t even know what day it is, let alone whether her brother’s alive or dead. If I could force her here, I would, but she doesn’t want to get clean. That’s the killer. You have to want to get clean, even if you don’t think you’ll make it. Some of our patients go back, but most of them make it. Eight out of ten, in fact. Better than any government program.”
“Looks like you’re winning your own little war on drugs, huh?” This time Munro made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.
Pennebaker cocked his head. He could do sarcasm, too.
“Walker and me, we were part of a total bullshit war. And this War on Drugs is no less bullshit than the war for oil. Criminalization and incarceration don’t work, but no one has the guts to change anything. A quarter of our prison population is doing time for minor drug offenses, but no one gives a damn, do they?”
I’d heard all these arguments before, but I didn’t have an answer for him. It was the kind of moral conundrum that could really make your head hurt. All I knew, all I was convinced of more and more each year, was that the system we had in place wasn’t working and that the so-called War on Drugs was unwinnable. There was way too much demand and too many people making easy money by supplying the stuff, and no matter how many of them we put away, there were always going to be plenty of others ready to step into their shoes. It was an undefeatable, omnipotent beast. I knew this as someone who’d been a foot soldier in that war. It was as if we didn’t learn any lessons from Prohibition. More money than ever was being spent on fighting this war, and yet the production, distribution, and consumption of drugs like coke, heroin, and particularly meth were increasing every year. I knew the statistics—the real ones—and the sad irony was that the global War on Drugs—God, I hated that expre
ssion—was now causing more harm than drug abuse. All we’d done was create a massive international black market, empowered armies of organized criminals, stimulated violence at home, wrecked a few foreign countries, and destroyed countless harmless users’ lives. Which isn’t to say that I wanted everyone to be out there shooting up and ruining their lives with crack and meth. Then again, I didn’t much like the pain and suffering that alcohol or oxycodone were causing either. Someone needed to step up and acknowledge that this prohibition wasn’t working. Someone needed to break that taboo and put it firmly on the table and lead an open-minded, clear-headed, unprejudiced discussion about alternative approaches. But I wasn’t holding my breath on that one. History didn’t look kindly on those who acknowledged losing a war, even when it was already long lost.
Pennebaker scoffed and threw up his hands in resignation.
“We had a woman in here who spent six years in prison for selling thirty bucks worth of weed. Her kids were taken away from her and she fell into crank as soon as she got out. Her way to drop out. Chalk one up for the system, right? Even the UN’s Global Commission on Drug Policy is now admitting the ban has been a failure and calling for legalization. That’s the same UN that sent us out to the Gulf. You think anyone in Washington’s got the balls to listen? The only way to deal with it is to confront why we do it and educate people about their options. Then maybe they can make better choices. I’m happy with my choices now. First time ever I can say that.”
I figured now was a good time to prompt Pennebaker to tell us what we’d come here to learn.
“Help us with one thing and we’ll leave you in peace. We know you and the boys ran security for some Mexican narco back in the day. Who was it?”
Pennebaker’s expression clouded. “Why?”
“Might be the same person that hired the Eagles to do the grabs—then burned them.”
Pennebaker grimaced. As though this memory was somehow worse than all the others put together.
“Guy was a real whackjob. You could see it in his eyes. I know that look. He always hired ex-soldiers. American and Mexican. Thought it gave him an edge. And I guess it did. We did what he asked and he paid us well. Our government may be deluded, confused, incompetent, badly advised, and sometimes just plain stupid, but this guy was just pure evil.”
“What was his name?”
“Navarro. Raoul Navarro.”
41
They were back in Balboa Park—Tess, Alex, and Jules, wandering across the plaza, hordes of people all around them, out making the most of another gorgeous Californian scorcher and taking in the wealth of attractions the park had to offer.
Tess hadn’t found any psychologists in the area called Dean. So she’d given up and decided Alex could use another excursion, this time to the Air and Space Museum.
They left Jules’s Ford Explorer in the lot behind the Starlight Theatre, and as they walked alongside a bank of colorful flowers that bordered the walkway, Tess’s mind drifted back to her chat with Alex’s teacher and the flower that kills. Her first thought when she’d heard it was that it had to come out of some cartoon Alex watched, maybe something some dastardly alien with a Dr. Evil laugh was trying to unleash on an unsuspecting world, only to be thwarted right in the nick of time by Ben and his wondrous Omnitrix. But here she was, still thinking about it and wondering why her earlier easy dismissal of it wasn’t staying down for the count.
“Alex, do you remember that flower you drew for your teacher, in the park? The white one?”
He nodded, not really interested. “Uh-huh.”
“Where did you see it? Was it in the park?”
“No.”
“Where then?”
He slid her a curious sideways glance. “I don’t know . . . I just . . . I know it.”
“But you said something about it. Do you remember?”
He nodded.
She stopped and crouched down so her face was level with his, and put her arm softly on his shoulder. “Tell me why it’s special.”
He stared at her like he was sussing her out, then said, “It can fix people. But it kills them. So it’s not good.” He paused, then he added, “I told them that.”
“Who, Alex? Who’d you tell that to?”
“People. Brooks, and the others. But they didn’t like it.” Tess felt completely lost by his words—then something behind her seemed to catch his eye and his face lit up like a bank of stadium floodlights. “Look!”
Tess followed the direction his little finger was pointing in. Up ahead was the Air and Space Museum, with two sleek fighter planes flanking its entrance. Alex slipped out of Tess’s grasp and scampered off.
She couldn’t compete with that.
She glanced at Jules, shrugged, and they both trotted off behind him.
The murderous flowers would have to wait.
42
Navarro.
The name hit me like an arctic wave.
Pennebaker and Walker ran drugs for Navarro?
I was swept up by a storm of colliding thoughts, associations, theories—and unease, and I was only half-listening as Pennebaker went into more detail about the bikers’ work for the Mexican.
It was pretty much as Karen Walker had told us. They used to ride shotgun on drug shipments—Navarro’s shipments—once the goods had crossed the border. It was easy money until the day they got wind of a rival cartel that was plotting to move in on the Mexican narco’s territory via a mole within his inner circle.
“Navarro, he sets up a meet with us all to talk about a new shipment, so’s not to tip the guy off,” Pennebaker was telling us. “So we head south of the border and all meet up in this quiet bar down in Playas. And it was just weird, man. One minute they’re talking and it’s all cool, then the guy just falls to the ground like he just got the Spock nerve pinch, only he’s still wide awake. He’s just, like, paralyzed. Navarro’s pistoleros use the surprise to whip out their guns and take out the guy’s two bodyguards. Then Navarro brings out this knife and just calmly goes to work on the guy. He cuts his belly open, he starts pulling out intestines and shit and cutting them up in front of him, telling him in detail how he’s going to die while chucking the pieces he was cutting out to a couple of dogs. It was insane.”
Munro smirked. “And you threw up.”
Pennebaker shook his head with a combination of discomfort, embarrassment, and awe. “Yeah, I puked my guts out. The guy was gutting him like a fish. I mean, that was some weird shit, right? They didn’t call him El Brujo for nothing.”
“The wizard,” Munro added.
“Wizard, sorcerer, whatever,” Pennebaker shot back. “El Loco would have been more appropriate. The guy was a total freak. I could see the writing on the wall and started to think we needed to end our little arrangement with him and seek greener pastures, but then I didn’t have to ’cause Marty got killed and that was that.”
I wasn’t really focusing and was just getting bits and pieces of it. My mind was elsewhere, hurtling down some dark trenches.
I had to interrupt.
I told Pennebaker, “Just give us a second, all right?” and motioned for Munro to join me. Pennebaker looked at me with a mix of disinterest and confusion as I led Munro out of the room.
“This is about what happened in Mexico,” I told him once we were out of earshot.
Munro frowned, thinking about it. “I agree, but—how? And why now?”
It didn’t help having the bastard here with me. I never really liked him anyway, and it only got worse after the bloodbath in Mexico. Looking at him now, I could feel a sting in my finger from pulling that trigger, and even though the blame was entirely mine, I still resented him for it, too.
Still, I had to put that aside and stay focused.
“I don’t know, but think about it. We took out a chemist who was developing a new superdrug. The guys who came after Michelle grabbed two chemists, maybe more.” My brain was racing ahead, playing a speed-game of mental connect-the-dots, and I
was already sensing what the final picture was going to look like. “The drug McKinnon was developing. We didn’t get it that night. What happened, after I left? All I heard was that it was never recovered.”
Munro nodded. “His laptop—”
“I know, that I heard. Two strikes and it fried itself.”
That night, we’d managed to bring back the two things McKinnon had packed: a laptop and a tattered old leather-bound journal. The journal had apparently proved worthless—according to Corliss and some agency analyst, it held the ramblings of a Jesuit missionary called Eusebio something from God knows when, handwritten in Spanish and half-faded. The laptop, where his research was presumably stored, turned out to be not only password- and fingerprint-protected, but with some heavy-duty 256-bit Blowfish protection software on top. The software fried its hard drive at the second incorrect password attempt. Two attempts. Not five, not ten. Talk about ruthless. The agency’s top techies couldn’t break it beforehand or recover anything off it after it was wiped. That level of security wasn’t surprising, given that these chemists are often working on new drugs that can be worth billions of dollars—but it didn’t help our cause.
“But you guys went after Navarro in a big way after he came at Corliss,” I told him. “You didn’t get anything then either?”
“Dude, Navarro didn’t have it either. Why do you think he came after Corliss? The formula for the drug died with McKinnon. That’s what made Navarro freak out. That’s why he went berserk and moved on Corliss—a move he knew would bring the DEA down on him like a ton of bricks and make him the cartel enforcers’ number one target at the same time.”
It was all crystallizing, but I could also feel something urgent close by, clawing away at me from some deep crevasse in my mind, desperate for my attention.
“Okay, so the formula is gone—but they think we have it,” I said. “Someone does. That’s why Navarro came after Corliss back then. That’s why whoever’s behind all this got the bikers to kidnap the scientists. And that’s got to be why they went after Michelle.”