And one reputed walking dead man in particular.
He didn't buy the tale of Pablo Escobar pulling a Lazarus routine, but he'd agreed with the Mahoney brothers that if somebody was trying to impersonate the late King of Cocaine, the case deserved further examination. And if DEA headquarters claimed its hands were tangled in Colombian red tape, why shouldn't SFX cash in.
Hardy lived simply for the most part, but two hundred grand would tide him over nicely while he handled independent operations on his own. For starters, it would help support his anti-poaching campaigns overseas, perhaps expanding into western India, where Maharashtra Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam had ruled that injuring or killing tiger poachers was no longer seen as criminal.
About bloody time, too, thought Hardy.
Let the human predators try living in a constant state of fear, knowing their lives were forfeit every time they set foot in the field to prey on nature's "lesser" species in the name of superstition or "tradition." It was time for idiots around the world to learn and understand that powdered rhino horn or tigers’ penis would not boost some E.D. victim's potency in bed, that fluids drawn from bears' livers had no impact on kidney failure, and that "trophy" heads mounted on walls were unconnected to the killers' self-styled manhood.
Never mind that now, he thought, and focused on the job at hand, standing in line for his connecting Avianca flight to Medellín. Whatever happened next, Hardy knew he could trust the other members of the SFX team to perform their tasks professionally and efficiently.
He simply wasn't sure if that would be enough to get them home alive.
José María Córdova International Airport
Stan Dartnell missed glimpsing Blake Mahoney and Nat Karpin on arrival, not that he would have acknowledged seeing them in any case. His flight's arrival followed theirs by ninety minutes and they should have been long gone before he cleared Passport Control.
His car was booked through National and he signed the necessary forms, then passed out through glass sliding doors to find it waiting in the nearby parking lot. A map came with the ride, and he consulted it, although he had already memorized the shortest route to El Poblado and the curiously named Click Clack Hotel. He couldn't say who christened the hotel or why, but it was mirrored by another one in Bogotá, which made it an abbreviated chain of sorts. Each room featured a flatscreen television, en suite bathroom, and the upper rooms facing on Calle 10B boasted balconies. His distance from the airport to his lodging came to 1.7 miles.
He was expected to check in under the name on his passport—"Allan Delayne"—and wait until he heard from Grant Mahoney via in-house telephone. From there, the SFX team members would convene to plot their strategy for reaching out to DEA man Preston Chandler's local asset for a briefing on the crazy situation as it stood.
Chandler had named his contact as Camilo Román, age twenty-six, native to Medellín. He had not volunteered to serve the DEA, precisely. Rather, if they could take Chandler at his word, Román had been arrested at Miami International Airport, while smuggling two keys of cocaine in the false bottom of his suitcase. When confronted with the choice of rolling over on his jefe, versus ten to fifteen years in prison with the reputation of a loser who had cost the syndicate some sixty thousand dollars, which immediately pinned a bullseye on his back, Román had flipped without a second thought to spare himself. The flake had been returned to him for passage of the pipeline, while a sealed indictment coupled with a signed confession etched the deal in stone.
Except it didn't really.
Dartnell knew that mules caught in a sting were prone to shopping anyone they could, but once they got back home the deal could still go up in smoke. Worse yet, as Chandler might himself suspect, Román could just as easily be acting as a double agent now and feeding crap to DEA headquarters while he lured gringo agents into an ambush.
Thinking of that reminded Stan of Vegas and the havoc he had wreaked there, operating on his own initiative without consulting the Mahoney brothers. Grant seemed to be onto him but hadn't mentioned it so far, apparently content to let the feuding between Yakuza and Triads run its course, so long as SFX was left out of the mix. Team members were at liberty to spend their free time as they chose, for profit, vengeance or amusement, if their pastimes didn't blow back on the team.
So far, so good. And if it came around to bite Stan on the backside—if one of the Asian syndicates or both got wise to what he'd done, he would accept the consequences, face whatever happened on his own, and leave his four friends strictly out of it.
For some time after quitting SOCOMD, when he shopped his mercenary skills freelance, the concept of a "friend" would have been alien to Stan Dartnell. He'd lost a few before that, during secret missions for his government, and over time had learned to do without companionship that lasted longer than a few hours in some low-rent hotel. Today, with SFX, his life felt more well-rounded, although not precisely balanced—something that he realized would likely never fall within his grasp again.
And he had come to terms with knowing that each mission he accepted could—and someday would—turn out to be his last. Dartnell had slain enough men that the act of killing held no further mystery for him.
As for what happened after death…well, he would have to wait and see. No "holy book" that he had ever read convinced him that a given sect possessed the final, irrefutable answer. Just think how many earnest preachers—and how many frauds—had trumpeted the "Second Coming" over time, many selecting not only its date but a specific hour, all proved fools or charlatans when nothing happened but another sunrise on another humdrum day.
Since he had faced that recognition, Dartnell trusted no one other than himself and his comrades at SFX. If that relationship broke down, he could and would fade back into a solitary life, take each day as it came, and see where life took him.
Approaching the Click Clack Hotel, an angular construction with parts of each floor protruding, other sections set back as if in retreat from traffic and pedestrians below, Darnell thought it resembled life itself. You went along from day to day, then turned a corner and were shocked out of your socks.
And when it ended—possibly tonight, maybe tomorrow or the next day—it would likely come as a surprise.
Click Clack Hotel, Medellín
The hotel's lobby was an atrium of sorts, its centerpieces two large trees rooted in concreted planters ringed by benchers of the same material, flanked by seven-foot-tall lamps, the floor inlaid with elaborately patterned bricks. All around, bars and cafés were open to the central area, their entries topped by porch-type roofs, supporting planters filled with ferns, flowers and shrubbery. Above, four stories high, skylights kept out inclement weather while admitting rays of sunlight to the floor below. The rooms without street-facing balconies had inner windows with a clear view of the lobby and its occupants—dining, drinking, or simply passing through. The smells of cooking food and alcoholic drinks came close to overwhelming Grant Mahoney's senses as he signed the hotel's register, using his passport name of "Sheldon Grant," then homed in on a bank of elevators to his left.
As "Grant," he was supposed to be a California software mogul—no Bill Gates, but on the rise—hoping to outsource factory production if he made an advantageous deal. It wasn't much in terms of cover, no appointments booked with local manufacturers, but if his plan worked out, the SFX team wouldn't be in Medellín that long. The Click Clack's staff cared nothing for his errand in the city, if he paid his bill on time and didn't cause any disturbances.