Kirk Russell - Redback

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.

But both of them knew Marquez had a way with people that neither of them had. People like Billy Takado wanted to trust Marquez. Sheryl trusted him and liked working under him. So did Osiers. She took a pull of her beer and thought about her feelings for Marquez. Complicated and private, but with a couple of beers in her and this far away from LA she didn’t have any problem asserting, ‘If the brass blames John, I’ll quit. I’ve never worked under anyone as good as him.’

‘You’re not going to quit.’

‘The fuck I won’t.’

‘And then do what?’

When she didn’t answer, Osiers rolled his eyes. Sheryl went inside to use the bathroom. She left the bath door ajar as she sat down to pee. She felt the beer, her head swimmy, the last few days catching up to her. On her way back out, the phone rang.

A voice said, ‘ Hola, chica,’ and Sheryl, who never forgot the voice of an asshole, said, ‘What’s going on, Rayman?’

‘Something is going down tonight.’

‘What’s that?’

She waited. She listened and part of her turned alert. Baja was one happening place. The sleepy sun-drenched peninsula was very busy and the DEA often worked joint operations with both the ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Mex Feds. Sometimes the US military kicked in and helped track a large transport boat clearing Colombian waters. The Sea of Cortez, the water between the Baja peninsula and the mainland, was the big cocaine pipeline between Colombia and the United States.

The latest thing was a phosphorescent chemical called NK-19 that smugglers used to mark the water for plane drops. They put a big X on the water and a transport boat or a plane dumped a load. Tricked-out speed boats or fastboats picked it up and moved it north. Tonight, at dusk the Sea of Cortez had been smooth as polished glass. Thousands of birds gathered to feed on a school of fish. Carmen Island was a brown line hovering at horizon, and then the darkness came and night was when it happened around here.

Rayman was Raymond Mendoza. More and more the cartels were picking up kids who already held an American passport and spoke Spanish and could move at will back and forth over the border. Rayman grew up in Santa Monica and attended UCLA where he got most of an undergrad degree in economics before he got bored and quit. Now he was low level inside the Salazar Cartel and either he wasn’t sure about his career choice or the Salazars were behind Rayman contacting them. For her money, it was the latter. Twice they’d given Rayman tip money, but the drops he’d tipped them to were shipments of rivals of the Salazar brothers, meaning so far his tips only hurt the Salazars’ competitors. Still, as long as he delivered they’d keep dancing with him.

‘The shipment coming in tonight is going to get taken,’ Rayman said. ‘It’s big, as big as me, chica.’

‘You’re such a geek. Is it coke?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time and where?’

‘You’re going to take care of me?’

‘Of course.’

Sheryl wrote down the name of the beach, went over it again with him, hung up, grabbed the map and walked outside. Osiers had opened two more beers. Hers was sitting on the patio concrete next to a leg of her chair. He pointed it out so she wouldn’t knock it over and at first he didn’t ask who called. But when he saw the map he put his beer down.

‘Rayman says there’s a load coming in tonight that will get ripped off by the Salazars.’

Osiers frowned and leaned over the map as Sheryl ran her finger up the road from Loreto. She tapped the spot.

‘Looks like that beach at the hook in the road, the one that has the bar and kayak rentals.’

‘Whose drop is it?’

‘Some other Sinaloans, some enemy, some rival, not a name I recognize. I wrote it down. I’ll go get it. He claims it’s going to happen right around midnight.’

‘There have been a couple like that, lately. How did he sound?’

‘I don’t know, like an asshole, like he always sounds.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I just got here. You’re the Baja guy, what do you think?’

‘You should have put me on the phone with him.’

‘You heard it ring. You heard me talking. Why didn’t you get up?’

Osiers picked up his beer again. He took a small sip and then set it on the table as if he was done with it.

‘He told you the Salazars are going to steal the load?’

She nodded.

‘Then that’s the first time he’s given us anything where the Salazars are in action.’

Sheryl got it. She didn’t need it typed out for her. If the Salazars were standing behind Rayman as he talked to her, then the plan wasn’t to let the DEA follow a load they were stealing. Start with that and you could go a bunch of places with it. You could even start believing Rayman. Or you could go really dark and guess that the Salazars knew the standing order right now in the DEA Baja operations was to minimize contact with the Mex Feds until everything got sorted out. Without the Mex Feds they could only follow the stolen load so far. Or even darker, all of the above was true and Rayman was calling to lure them into some plot the Salazars cooked up. Play with that in your head and you have to think about the threat made to Marquez.

‘Should we call home?’ she asked.

‘Call who?’

Osiers knew full well she meant Marquez. This was just male pride, but if she said Marquez’s name now Osiers would scoff.

‘No, we gear up and go,’ Osiers said. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

An hour later they were in the car driving slowly through little Loreto, then out on to the highway and north into the night.

The moon threw just enough light to follow the dirt road without headlights. They parked and then for hours watched the ocean and the waves breaking on the crescent of beach below. The dark shapes of moored fishing boats rocked gently. The beach bar with its blue neon sign and rose-colored lights leaked music. Two vehicles sat out front of the bar, a battered Toyota pickup and a light-colored minivan. Javits studied each again. Nothing had changed and she was tired and doubting Rayman’s tip.

But she did not doubt that Rayman knew she was in Baja before he made the phone call tonight. She brought it up again.

‘Who passed the word that I was coming down here to double up with you?’

‘You’re paranoid because of what happened to Marquez.’

Osiers was weary of talking about it but she kept worrying away at it, trying to get at what she was missing, and they kept watching the dark sea with the arrow of moonlight across it. Her thoughts jumped to John driving back to Tijuana with Takado’s body in the seat next to him.

‘Hear that?’ Osiers asked.

At first she only heard the music and the waves breaking, but now heard the low thrum of a plane, a vibration as much as a sound. Osiers pulled on the night vision goggles, plastic straps snapping against his skin. Whatever was out there was flying without lights. The sound grew closer.