The Cartel Takedown Read online

  Well, her bag and safe passage back to the states.

  She settled for searching through the items in the dark. Touching each one, verifying it was still there and unbroken. Night vision goggles, a mini winch, her passports, credit cards, and disguises. At the bottom of the bag was a wig and a knife with a twelve inch curved blade. Those two items held the most painful and shameful memories of her life, but she wouldn’t trade them for the world.

  A noise, a mix between grating and squeaking alerted her to the door being opened. She remained silent and hidden in the shadows beneath the stairs.

  “I was afraid of this.”

  “We’ll have to replace it.”

  “Just the steel. Some of this may be salvageable. We’ll start by clearing this out.”

  “I’ll add it to the list.”

  “Top priority. We can’t fix the upper floors without stairs.”

  The door closed. Brandie found herself clutching the large knife so hard it was hard to release it and straighten her fingers. She set the knife aside. Violence hadn’t got her into this mess and it would not get her out.

  The whole mess was nothing more than a con gone wrong. More accurately three cons had gone wrong. She had walked in bold as brass, bluffing the whole way. If they were going to escape alive, they would have to walk out the same way.

  Now all she needed was to come up with a plan. And fast.

  Her fingers closed on the wig. That was her epiphany. But would it work? Did she have enough gear? Could she pull off a convincing disguise?

  She should tell Akhim and Charlie but if she failed, it was probably better they didn’t know. She slipped off her climbing shoes, which were more like heavy duty ballet slippers, then shucked her black sweatshirt and baggy black pants. If this was going to work, she needed to sell it and for that she needed to look the part. Grunge goth wouldn’t cut it.

  And she needed to make an entrance. Opening the stairwell door would make enough noise to draw attention to her, but that wasn’t enough. There was a grand staircase in the lobby. If it was still standing, that would do. All she needed to do was get back to the second floor which no longer had a floor. Sighing, she dressed in her work clothes again, shouldered her designer purse, and started climbing back through the maze of steel. Going up was slower.

  On the second floor she was faced with a dilemma. Should she change into her costume now and then try to make it to the stairway door, or cross first and change later. Noises from below her helped make the decision. She tried to open the door. It was a steel door, and apparently the heat had warped it and the frame. It wouldn’t budge.

  Frustrated, she punched the wall beside it. It gave way completely. The fire had apparently destroyed the structural integrity of the drywall too.

  Moments later she was through and picking her way through the charred ruins of two floors. Each step held the risk of falling through to the ground floor twenty feet below her, and each step held the risk of covering her in soot and ash. But she made it. Now all she had to do was change, wait for the right moment, and make her entrance.

  4. 4

  General Flores and Starbuck stood facing each other in the lobby of the cocaine factory. They were surrounded by their men. The soldiers and factory security held their weapons ready, eyeing each other with open hatred and distrust. The two leaders hid their emotions slightly better, but only slightly.

  Starbuck smiled. A feral look at best. “Six of my men are dead. Many more are wounded, and millions of dollars has been destroyed. I pay you to protect us from such abuses and yet you do them yourself.”

  The General crossed his arms. “Eleven of my soldiers are dead and dozens more are wounded. Some will not survive the day. Their wounds were not self-inflicted.”

  “Tell me, Flores. Who ordered these soldiers to come here and attack this building?”

  The General reddened. “When I was told your compound had been taken over, I came, as you yourself have ordered me to do.”

  “I ordered you? I told you “please, come and kill my men, destroy our livelihood”? When did I say this? It seems to me your casualties did die from self-inflicted words and you are the… gentleman who did it!”

  There were murmurs of agreement from the guards. The soldiers either spat in disgust or shook their heads no.

  “I called you before we came but you did not deign to answer.”

  “I received no call.”

  “Do not blame me for your phone problems.”

  The General’s nephew stepped up, interrupting. “Sir nobody’s phone was working. You ordered me to-”

  “Silence!”

  Starbuck crossed his arms and grinned. “No. Let him talk.”

  “As you wish.”

  “My uncle, that is, General Flores, sent me on a mission to see where I could find cell phone reception.”

  “Oh did he now. How interesting.”

  The General smiled. “He was in the way. I, of course, was using a military satellite telephone, so my service was fine. How about you? What cellphone plan do you use.”

  Starbuck clenched his fists. “I was rather busy rallying my men, and tending to the dying. When you arrived did you not consider driving up to the entrance and perhaps knocking on the door to see if everything was all right? Did you hear any gunfire from inside the building? Did you see my people fighting or fleeing? Were there any signs of an invasion? Troop carriers, Toyota pickups, anything? Did any of your crack troops think of any of these things?”

  “Because that is not how battles are fought, which is why you have guards, and I have soldiers. However in the spirit of cooperation and more open communication I will assign my nephew to act as your personal liaison.”

  “How generous of you, but I must decline. My standards for staff are higher than the army’s.”

  The two men silently glared at each other. The surrounding men grew restless.

  ~*~

  Pacing in a janitor’s closet is impossible, as Akhim had discovered. It wasn’t really pacing so much as turning around which was far less distracting.

  “Have you found her?”

  Charlie sighed through Akhim’s phone. “She’s taken the battery out of her phone and power to the building including the security system is still out.”

  “So that’s a no.”

  “I’ll find her.”

  “And I’ll kill her.”

  “You won’t get the chance.”

  “You? Need I remind you she’s one quarter your age and adept at kicking the shit out of men three times your size.”

  “You of all people discounting intelligence, planning, and guile?”

  “No I am not. I am merely discounting your abilities in such matters.”

  “Charlie were you not such an agoraphobic old boor I would be hurt!”

  “Says the old man hiding in a janitor’s closet.”

  “At your insistence.”

  “At my request and for your own safety.”

  “Oh please. Maybe Brandie was correct. I should disable my phone and get the flock out of here.”

  “No, Akhim. No you should not.”

  That decided it. Akhim stood, popped the back off of his smart phone, and removed the battery. He turned out the light, opened the door, and left the closet and Charlie behind.

  ~*~

  Charlie’s office stank worse than the janitor’s closet. He’d spent two weeks setting up this con. Two weeks of staring at a dozen large computer screens and hammering on half a dozen keyboards twenty hours a day. No showers, no walks, little food and less sleep, but he had planned and created the perfect cyber-con. Well, to be fair, not perfect, as in just moments Brandie and Akhim had knocked it all apart.

  But he wasn’t mad at them. Well, he was mad at them, but he was mostly angry with himself. He should have seen through their little schemes and known it was a scam on all sides. He had been an idiot not to see it. In hindsight there were signs. Obvious signs. Lots of them. And he had failed to recogni
ze them, and for that he was angry and ashamed.

  So he was working feverishly to make it right and he needed the boots on the ground to listen to him and do exactly what he told them to do, which was not happening at present.

  He had bankrupted banks, destroyed corporations, brought down governments, and caused the deaths of countless bad guys while saving the lives of thousands of innocents, at least they were comparatively innocent, and yet he couldn’t get two tech blind petty criminals out of a jam he had designed.

  He rubbed his eyes. They burned. His stomach hurt from too much coffee and too little food and he desperately needed to pee but he didn’t dare leave his chair for even a minute. What he wouldn’t give for ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. No nightmares, no nagging tasks, plans, or concerns. Nothing but sleep. His eyes grew heavier at the mere thought and his chin dropped to his chest.

  He snapped his head back. His heart was racing and for the moment, at least, he was awake and alert. There was a red light blinking on the second monitor on his right. Brandie was finally putting the battery back into her phone and turning it on. He smacked the icon for Akhim’s phone.

  “Brandie’s back online. I’ll forward her audio and video feeds to your phone.”

  He played two keyboards at a time while he issued vocal commands to launch various subroutines. Moments later a set of dainty toes peaked out of a pair of high heeled women’s sandals. The audio consisted of grunts, sighs, and a mix of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean curses.

  Charlie muted his mic. “Hello Brandie. Welcome back.” He knew better than to interrupt her, especially if she was cursing in three languages.

  ~*~

  Akhim sat once more on the upturned bucket. Making his way through a bombed out building in the dark wasn’t as easy as, perhaps, it once had been. He was hunched over his phone concentrating on the video stream on the screen and whispering to himself. “Please don’t do anything stupid please don’t do anything stupid please -”

  The video swung wildly, showing a charred door and a burned out room, and a flash of… pink hair. Pink hair?

  “Oh no. Oh no no no no no! Charlie I know what she’s going to do!”

  Akhim jumped up and examined himself in the tiny dirty mirror above the sink. His hair was askew. So was his shirt, tie, and jacket. His face was smudged with dirt. He held the phone between his cheek and shoulder while he turned on the water and washed his face and hands.

  “Am I going to like it?”

  “I hate it.”

  “All right then. What is her plan and what countermeasures do we need to take?”

  “No time! Just watch, listen, and respond appropriately.”

  “Respond appropriately? What the hell does that mean?”

  Akhim dropped the phone into his jacket pocket then took out a blue covered passport and took the jacket off. Passport in hand, he reached inside the lining and fumbled around. The passport he took out was dark red, and he had a dozen business cards. He pocketed everything, put on his jacket and rushed out the door.

  ~*~

  Time for a final check. Pink wig straight, lipstick, makeup, finger and toenails painted, colorful leggings and her pencil skirt was now a mini. An artfully tattered jean jacket and tube top finished off her costume. Looking around she spotted a dusty pair of sunglasses on the floor. They cleaned up nice. Brandie put them on, threw back her shoulders, put her phone to her ear, and opened the door.

  “Brandie whatever you’re thinking of doing don’t do it. I’m begging you.”

  The guards and soldiers looked like the Sharks and the Jets facing off, except the guns were real and they weren’t singing or dancing, let alone acting. Brandie needed to fix that.

  “Charlie!” She practically screamed into the phone as she glided down the steps. “You said this was just a location scout. Just look around, you said, it will be quiet, nobody knows you’re coming. Well they hired extras and squibs and staged a complete battle scene.”

  She pointed her phone around the entrance, and ignored the people at the bottom of the steps until she reached the first guard. She handed him her bag and kept moving. The startled man looked to Starbuck who shrugged and nodded. The man handed off his machete, tucked his handgun into his belt, shouldered the bag, and fell in behind Brandie as she stepped onto the floor.

  “Charlie I don’t do explosions. It is in my contract but this is the third time you’ve sent me into bomb sites and the other time I got kidnapped! I am beginning to feel that you may not have my best interests at heart.”

  “You’re damned right. I’m setting up a web trail for your upcoming project.”

  “No I haven’t seen Akhim.” He disappeared right after the boom booms began.” She stopped between the General and Starbuck, checking them out. “Nice costumes but they feel a little over the top. You know, on the nose, cliched. Sometimes less is more.”

  The General and Starbuck shared a look. The General shrugged. “We shall take your comments under advisement.”

  “Just drop a hint to wardrobe. They’ll know what to do. Say do you know where craft services is? I’d kill for a pumpkin spice mocha latte with an extra shot of espresso.”

  There were exactly one hundred eleven soldiers who were using their cellphones at that moment. Just three guards and five soldiers in the entryway were using theirs. Half of them were snapping pictures or taking video. Others were logging into their social media accounts. The rest were looking at the news, and they saw several articles about Lea Kalani’s new movie, “The Jungle Has Teeth”.

  The General’s nephew was the first to click on it. The article began with a red carpet photo of Brandie as Lea. The photo wasn’t real. Charlie had used state-of-the-art software to create it, and it looked real. The kid grabbed his uncle’s arm.

  “Uncle!”

  “Not now!”

  The General pushed him away, but he didn’t budge, shoving his phone into the General’s face. The General went cross eyed, and grabbed the phone. His eyes grew large, and mouth fell open. Starbuck leaned over his the General’s shoulder and had to hold on to keep from falling over.

  Hostilities stopped. The men formed groups around the nearest cell phone with photos of Brandie as Lea. Soldier or drug guard, it didn’t matter. Such distinctions were set aside, at least for the present. Brandie kept walking.

  5. 5

  Everyone knew her simply as Betty. Betty was Earl Graham’s secretary and he ran Graham Enterprises. She had been the executive secretary to the Graham heir for as long as anyone could remember. She had begun working for Earl’s grandfather as a teen-ager and she was still working for Earl long after both of them could have retired.

  Visitors and employees alike saw her as a quaint, cute, doddering old woman, a throwback to another era where employer/employee loyalty was a two way street. Loyalty was part of the reason she worked there, but there were other reasons. She knew more about the Graham empire than Earl Graham himself. What was more, she knew where all the bodies were buried and skeletons hidden. If there were secrets she knew them.

  So when Deadspin and Variety called wanting to speak with Earl Graham about their websites being hacked and fake stories being planted in their online archives she sighed and handled it. She apologized profusely, promised swift and certain punishment for any subcontracting miscreants involved (for surely no Graham employee would behave in such a fashion), and promised hefty advertising ad buys to mollify the offended websites.

  Satisfied, the website owners had gone away. She typed personal letters from Earl, and a requisition for advertising. She scanned the articles, sent links to all executives in Graham’s movie production and distribution companies, followed by a more pointed email to all key assistants in the same companies instructing them get their stories straight and keep them that way.

  Finally, she clicked on the cartoon puppy icon on her computer’s desktop display. The puppy animated itself immediately.

  “Hello Betty, I’m kinda busy.”

/>   “I’m sure you are but next time you’re creating a fake movie kindly let me know.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Betty – I’m sorry about that. This really is an emergency and it wasn’t my idea.”

  Betty pursed her lips. “I’m guessing Brandie and Akhim have managed to entangle themselves in some Central or South American drug enterprise and now they are trying to bluff their way out and have enlisted you in creating the online version of a Potemkin village.”

  Charlie laughed in response. “Can you get the studio art department to put together a movie website? I’ll send you the domain name, web address, and password.”