Kirk Russell - Redback

Marquez knew there was no point to a tit for tat with this Internal Affairs agent, but he couldn’t leave it there.

‘You forced out one of the best to ever walk through here, Murkowski. But you wouldn’t know that, and what’s more, you’ll never see it. You’ll never know the difference. You’re working for the wrong side.’

‘That’s the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me.’

‘Then never forget it was me that said it. I’ll see you later.’

His mood was dark that night. Katherine was gone three days on a business trip. She had taken Maria with her. He talked with both, and then sat outside slow drinking under the stars. The impunity with which Emrahain Stoval moved and did what he did reached to the core of Marquez. He didn’t feel anything at all for Rayman, but he kept thinking about the way Terri Delgado’s life was discarded.

He couldn’t sleep that night. The house creaked and moved. His phone rang a burred half ring at 4:00 a.m. and when he checked it was Sheryl. He called her back and there was no answer. He drove to her house in San Francisco early the next morning, couldn’t find her, and then he got the call from Desault.

‘ Stoval is moving,’ Desault said. ‘He’s in the air headed to Italy. Last time he went from there to Africa. Do you want to follow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, it’s your call, but are you sure? There’s no lead. There’s no tip he’s going to hunt. There’s nothing.’

‘I’m going to stick with him, and I’ve been thinking more about the hit squads, his relationship with the Zetas, and what he gets out of it other than he needs them for business. He may get the same thrill out of ordering a hit as bringing down a lion.’

‘Where are you getting that from?’

‘He didn’t have any reason to kill Terri Delgado. Without a bighorn case she wasn’t a threat to him.’

‘You’re having a real hard time with her murder, aren’t you?’

‘Of course, I am.’

‘How much is it affecting you?’

‘Don’t even go there. I’m fine.’

Some say insight is just pattern recognition at a subconscious level. Marquez guessed that Stoval was due for a hunt. The periodicity, the past frequency, the timing was right. He packed his go bag. When Stoval’s pilot diverted to the Bahamas, ostensibly with a mechanical problem, and then filed a flight plan to go from there to Argentina, Marquez called Desault and asked him to book a flight for him to Buenos Aires.

Four hours later he was off the phone with Katherine and on his way to the airport. In Buenos Aires he bought another ticket, this one on Aerolineas for a flight to Bariloche where Stoval owned a hacienda in what the Argentinians called the Lake District. His FBI contact in Buenos Aires, an agent named Jose Verandas, met up with him at the US embassy in BA. Sometimes Stoval stayed in Buenos Aires for several days at the home of an old friend, a retired general named Trocca. He was there now according to Verandas, so they drove out to scout Trocca’s house.

‘We’ve got a liaison, an Argentinian military attache, a colonel, but we’re not cleared yet for any active surveillance in Buenos Aires,’ Verandas said. ‘In Bariloche the rules are a little looser, mostly because there’s no one to keep track of us. There’s a lot of open country down there. You’re a game warden, you’ll like it there.’

‘I’ve been there. Tell me about General Trocca.’

‘He’s a hunting partner for Stoval and was a lieutenant in the Dirty War thirty some odd years ago. There’s a scar that runs the length of the left side of his face they say he got throwing someone out of a plane over the ocean. A bad guy, but a survivor who got rich peddling arms to African rebels.’

Marquez thought of Billy Takado’s tape, the riff on Argentina and wing hunting. But that was fall hunting and this was the southern hemisphere and early spring, barely spring. Verandas had a photo of Trocca for him. He was tall, thin, and white-haired. He had a large nose, dark eyes, and the unmistakable scar. Trocca accompanied Stoval to the airport the next morning.

The airport in Bariloche was built on a plain with snowy mountains in the distance. Marquez got there ahead of Stoval and Trocca. Cover was sparse, and it was windy and bright in the late morning when he trailed the gray BMW carrying Stoval and Trocca up a road into mountains southwest of Bariloche. Five miles later, he watched a heavy gate swing open and the car disappear up the road to Stoval’s hacienda.

Verandas flew down that night. So did a second FBI agent named Taltson, who like Verandas was also working out of the US embassy in Buenos Aires. Late in the afternoon Marquez sat with Verandas in a car in heavily wooded country half a mile from the estate entrance. He felt jet-lagged. He felt weighed down by Terri Delgado’s murder, but was glad he’d flown down. That Trocca was a hunting partner ramped up the chance something would happen, and there wasn’t any large legal game Stoval could go after. He had the phone number of the local game warden but hadn’t called him yet. It was all very loose. They were looking for opportunity based on Stoval’s patterns. Verandas and Taltson followed his leads and simultaneously second-guessed him.

Marquez worked out a rolling surveillance plan, and then took the first leg alone. Verandas spelled him just after midnight. When he left Verandas he drove the road around Lago Nahuel Huapi toward the hotel. From the road he looked out over the lake in moonlight. It was cold still and felt like winter. The lake was quite large and in many places fingers of water reached in deep into the shoreline. He remembered a lot more of the country than he thought he would. The big hotel that didn’t seem much changed at all. He slept deeply and was standing at the window of the room at dawn looking out over the lake when the call came that Stoval had just driven through the hacienda gates.

‘He’s coming your way, Marquez.’

Stoval picked up a man in Bariloche who looked dressed to be out in the raw weather, and now they were north of town in open country running out a dirt road muddy from spring runoff. Marquez waited five minutes before following. The rental car bounced in the potholes. His wheels spun in mud. From a wooden sign Marquez knew the road led to trailhead parking, but he didn’t follow them all the way in. He watched the odometer and when he guessed he was a third to a half mile from the trailhead he pulled over. Brush scraped the passenger side as he parked. He gathered his gear and walked the last stretch quietly through the trees.

Stoval and the other man stood outside the Range Rover looking like they were getting ready to hike into the mountains. Marquez focused binoculars on Stoval and saw the hollowing of the cheeks and deep creasing at the corners of the eyes, but in many ways he looked the same. He looked fit and lifted a soft gun case out of the back of the Range Rover, and then unzipped a silver-plated bird gun and dropped shells into the big pocket of his coat.

The other man didn’t carry a gun. He slipped a pack on, looked like a local and moved like a guide, a gold-skinned, dark-haired man smiling in anticipation. He wore a red bandana and sunglasses and led Stoval into the cold raw morning and chill in the trees.

After they hiked out, Marquez went back for his car. He drove into the trailhead lot and parked it where it couldn’t be missed, then radioed Verandas.

‘They hiked in and Stoval is carrying a shotgun. I don’t know what he’s going after this time of year, but I’m going to follow.’

He pulled on another layer and a windbreaker and ski cap, but once he set out to catch them he warmed up fast. He figured they had twenty-five minutes on him and that it wouldn’t take him long to catch up. He doubted they were more than three quarters of a mile ahead of him, and when that turned out to be true he hung back far enough to make it unlikely they would spot him.