John Gilstrap - Damage Control

Venice clicked to a different screen and typed the information formlessly, as stream-of-consciousness words.

Then she clicked back to the business of getting Gail and her new friend out of harm’s way. She started with the easy stuff, cross-referencing Crystal Palace with security companies, but that produced nothing. Then she found the Scottsdale building permits office. Most jurisdictions required that building plans be submitted to the public record. If she could find those, and the schematics for the Crystal Palace, then she should be able to find a way out for them.

The problem was the lack of time. Even with the highest of high-speed connections, it took time for “Shit,” Gail said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They’re on the floor. The lights just came on.”

“Keep the phone live,” Venice said. “Whatever happens, don’t hang up.” She glanced across her desk to make sure the recorder was running, and the green light assured her that it was. She looked to her keyboard, but realized that with the clock run down to nothing, she had no options available that would help.

The sound in her ear rustled as Gail put the phone down. That’s what Venice assumed she was doing, anyway.

“I want you to lie flat on the floor,” Gail whispered. “If I tell you to do something, do it. But if I don’t you just stay put till it’s all over.”

“Are they here?” another voice asked. Venice assumed that to be Harriett.

“Shh.”

Then things went silent. Venice froze at her keyboard, hands poised over the keys as she leaned closer to the screen, as if by doing so she could get her earpiece closer to the action. She closed her eyes, trying to turn the sounds into images, but the electrical connection combined with the fuzziness of the cellular service made it almost impossible to discern nuance.

A minute passed, maybe two. Twice, she heard Harriett ask something, but both times, Gail responded with a long, soothing shhh.

More silence.

Then a crashing sound, loud and tinny through the phone line.

“Here!” a man’s voice yelled, but a gunshot cut it off.

Then there were a lot of gunshots. One weapon was louder than the others, and it hammered long and hard in three-round bursts.

Gail was shouting something, but over the cacophony, Venice couldn’t make out words. Men shouted, too, and in the background, a woman screamed. It was the sound of panic.

The maelstrom continued for fifteen or twenty seconds before it finally ended in a silence that lasted for a few seconds, then erupted again for a few shots and then fell silent again.

Venice sat riveted in her chair, her eyes closed, trying to see through her ears what was going on.

“Are they down?” a man’s voice asked.

Venice’s eyes filled with tears.

“What is this?” the voice asked, and then there was a shuffling sound again in Venice’s ear. “Hello?” a male voice said into the phone. “Anybody here?”

Venice wanted to hang up, to run away, but she didn’t. If the phones hadn’t been encrypted, this would be the time to break the connection, before the bad guys could trace it back. As it was, the phones and their signals were untraceable, and it therefore posed no harm for Venice to remain on the line.

“Who are you?” she asked. She winced at the tremor in her voice.

“That’s a stupid question,” a man said. “If you’ve been listening, then you know I’m the guy who just killed your friends. Have a nice day.”

The line went dead.

By the time Captain Ernesto Palma arrived at the site of the massacre, all but one of the bodies had been pulled back up to the road. They were twisted and horribly burned, but he was able to recognize a couple of the faces. The stench in the morning heat nearly overwhelmed him. The others on the scene-a couple of local police officers plus the three soldiers he’d brought with him-stood silently, clearly waiting to see how he would react. Their silence somehow amplified the noise of the flies.

Despite the damage done by the fire, they’d obviously been shot. Each in the head, for sure, but in at least one case, he saw blood on a soldier’s shirt that indicated a back wound as well.

“It appears they were executed,” said Cayo Almanza, the police corporal who commanded the local authorities.

“Does it?” Palma asked.

“I believe so. Clearly they were shot in the backs of their heads.”

The erupted foreheads told him that much. “Execution is a loaded word, Corporal.”

“How else to explain it? They appear to have been shot and then shoved into the vehicle to cover up the murder.”

Palma knew that the corporal was wrong about the execution, yet he decided to let the misperception lie unchallenged. “As you say,” he said. It was a sentence he’d found to be useful over the years to leave people in a kind of limbo, wondering whether he’d just agreed or disagreed with what they’d said. Palma enjoyed keeping people on edge. Nervous people were easier to work with.

“I believe that this was the work of the American missionaries,” Almanza said.

On that, the corporal was almost certainly correct, but again Palma said nothing.

“The alternative would be that it is the work of the cartels.” For whatever reason, it seemed important to Almanza that he impress Palma. The idiot had no way of knowing that the work of the cartel and the work of the missionaries were one and the same. Even the missionaries didn’t know that.

While no one but their families would mourn the loss of the soldiers who had been killed in the past two days, the rising body count could begin to project weakness, and the perception of weakness could unnecessarily complicate everyone’s lives.

“Who found the bodies?” Palma asked.

“A businessman on his way over to Santo Miguel. His name is Emilio Madrigal. He was driving-”

“Is he still here?” Palma had no interest in hearing what had been told to someone else. He wanted to hear the details firsthand.

“Of course, Captain.” Almanza pointed back toward the road. “I knew that you would want to speak with him.” He started to lead the way, but Palma wasn’t quite ready.

“Sergeant Nazario?”

A young, handsome, and impossibly fit young man took a step closer. “Yes, Captain?”

“I believe that your comrades have been gawked at quite enough. There are disaster pouches in the back of the truck. See to it that the bodies are treated with respect.”

“Yes, sir.” Nazario turned to the remaining soldiers and set them to work.

Palma watched them for a few seconds, and then started for the road, grateful to have a reason to turn away from the carnage. Corporal Almanza led the way out of the jungle and across the road toward a rotund middle-aged man whose posture and pallid skin color spoke of profound illness or crippling fear. Under the circumstances, Palma favored the latter. The man sat on the ground near the edge of the jungle on the opposite side with his legs crossed, and his arms outstretched behind him to allow for his substantial girth.

“Mr. Madrigal!” Almanza called as they approached. “On your feet.”

That was easier said than done. Madrigal rolled to his side and then onto his knees in order to find his feet. By the time he’d arisen, Palma was only a few feet away. He offered his hand. “I am Captain Palma.”

“Emilio Madrigal.” His handshake was wet.

“Tell me,” Palma said.

Madrigal spoke quickly, as if anxious to free himself from the memory. “I was on my way to Santo Miguel. I am a manufacturer’s representative for auto parts, and I was on my way to pay a service call to several of the car dealers up there. When I turned that curve over there, I saw the smoke billowing up over the rise, so I stopped and looked. I saw the path that the vehicle had cut through the bushes, and then as I got closer to the edge, I saw that a car was on fire, and I thought I saw that people had been thrown clear of it.”