Angel - A novel by Thomas A Hall - Part one
"She used to work for the government. She just killed her husband. She’s in bed with drug dealers—and she may be the only person left who can save the world"…
Today
Angel turned as she heard the creak of the front door. Slipping the safety off her Glock 9mm automatic, she didn’t bother to wonder how they’d gotten the key.
Stepping silently back into the shadowy corner of the room, she waited for the assailants. “How many?” she wondered.
A small red dot appeared on the wall to her right. “Ha! Thanks.” she thought grimly.
She watched the hallway entrance to her left and, both hands gripping her gun, prepared to fire at the first sign of the intruders. Her eyes narrowed as she realized the laser targeting sight wasn’t moving. Either the attackers knew where she was or were quieter than she thought possible.
Figuring that both possibilities could be true, she turned toward the only other access to the room, the door opening into the bathroom. As her head swiveled, she caught a brief movement. Was it light on a gun barrel? It was in the air conditioning vent!
Without a moment’s hesitation she aimed two quick rounds at the soffit containing the ductwork behind the vent and then squatted, compressing her lithe body into the corner. There was a grunt and then a terrible scream. She turned back to the hallway to see if anyone else came toward her. After waiting a full sixty seconds, she decided to move toward the laser light. Grabbing a compact from her purse on the nightstand, she opened it and carefully held its small mirror to her left and gingerly moved it into the hallway. There on the floor, propped up with what she recognized was her own wadded-up hotel bathrobe, was a pistol with its laser targeting sight switched on and pointing to the far wall.
Lowering her own gun, Angel thought, “Good idea, but you let it play too long.”
She quietly moved through the hotel room, checking the bathroom, living room and closet. “Okay, time to see what I can see,” she said to herself.
Moving back into the bedroom, she noticed that there was now a pool of blood gathering on the floor and an ooze of red dripping from the new holes in the soffit near the ceiling.
Pulling a throwing knife from its hiding place under her right sleeve, she pried open the air vent. There, to her surprise, was her ex-husband, blood and foam lining his lips.
“George, what the hell are you doing here?” she wondered as she replaced the knife in its sheath.
With no sign of emotion, she checked his neck for a pulse. There was none.
Obviously, if George was in the air conditioning ductwork, someone else put the pistol in the hallway. So, where were they?
Cautiously moving to the door of the room, she looked to see if the door was truly closed. Without touching it, it appeared so. She then moved into the living room and, with the lights off, looked out the corner of the window. There was no one in sight, still, that didn’t mean someone wasn’t waiting for her. She thought about her options. She could sit there until someone came looking for her—someone who may, or may not, be a friend. On the other hand, she could go out the window and, perhaps, find whoever sent George after her and set the pistol as a diversion
“The pistol,” she thought, “I’d better take a look at it.”
Moving back to the hallway, she risked turning on a light so that she could examine the weapon. It was a Colt .45 automatic with a laser sight mounted on top of the barrel. She looked at it, but didn’t touch it. Kneeling down with her head nearly on the carpet, she looked at the clip in the butt of the grip. It wasn’t a clip at all! There was an almond smell coming from the grip and what appeared to be putty where the clip should be. With a start, she realized that the gun was actually a bomb.
“Pretty devious,” she said, admiringly.
Well, that sealed it. She was going out the window before someone grew impatient and set off the bomb.
The hotel was one of those modern designs, a beige box with only minimal ornamentation, which depended on lush landscaping to provide relief from the severity of the architect’s “vision.” “Another victim of the Bauhaus movement!” she had thought to herself when checking in. Now she examined the window and, determining that it wasn’t designed to be opened, aimed downward and shot it in the left corner. The window shattered but didn’t fall from its frame. Picking up a small chair from the desk in the room, Angel threw it at the window. That did it! A glistening stream of glass followed the chair to the lawn below. Wasting no time, she slipped over the windowsill, using the curtain as a guard to avoid cuts. She dropped lightly to the ground and rolled immediately to the side and hid behind a large hibiscus bush.
She was glad her room was on the second floor. It would have been tougher, though not impossible, for her to drop from a higher room. Looking around, she surveyed the side yard of the hotel and the parking lot beyond it. Nothing..
“Okay then, let’s do it,” she said to herself.
She tucked her pistol in its holster under her jacket and walked nonchalantly away from the hibiscus and towards her car. The purple Mini Cooper was parked at the far end of the parking lot where she could see it from her room and where, due to the distance, no one else parked. She pulled the remote from her pocket and triggered the doors to unlock, the windows to go down and the engine to start. Everything seemed normal. She looked through the window into the interior. So far, so good.
Looking around first, she bent down and peered under the car. There, behind the driver’s side front wheel, was a packet of C4 explosive taped to the axle with wires extending up into the engine compartment. Seeing no one’s booby trap other than her own, she opened the car door and flipped the front seat forward. Reaching down, she pulled up the back seat. Under the seat cushion, there was a short-barreled AA12 fully automatic shotgun and a round canister containing thirty-two 12-gauge shells. In addition, there was another Glock 9mm automatic and four clips of ammo, burglar tools, handcuffs, a retractable metal nightstick and a small gun cleaning kit. Missing from their places were the Glock in her holster and the Evo 9 silencer she kept on it.
Feeling better after completing the inventory, Angel put the seat cushion back in place and, moving the front seat back, sat down in the car and turned off the engine. She adjusted the rearview mirror so that she could see the front door of the hotel and waited.
It had been ten minutes since she first heard the creak of the hotel room door.
Surveillance
As she watched the hotel entrance, Angel allowed herself to think about George in the air conditioning vent. “Poor George,” she said out loud, “He was always better at talking than doing.”
She wondered who it was that put him up to such a task. She never considered that he might have thought of it himself. First of all, he wasn’t a tactical agent. Second, he was always inclined to recruit others to do the difficult tasks. That was how, she thought ruefully, she had come to be in this business in the first place.
“In the end, he wasn’t much of a husband,” she mused, and then thought, “and not much of an assassin either.”
She did a quick scan of the area, letting her eyes drift, almost unfocused, across the landscape seeking anything out of place. Seeing nothing, she returned to watching the hotel entrance and thinking about George. Two years of married life in Colombia had begun reasonably well but, by the time the assignment was over, the marriage was done—too many deceptions from George had taken the joy out of the marriage. Still, she had been grateful when, at the airport, George had kissed her on the cheek and said, “You’re the best partner any DEA agent ever had, Angel.”
“So what made him try and kill me?” she said to herself.
Without an answer, she looked at the hotel’s reflection in the mirror. A man in a custodian’s uniform walked through the door and stood, lighting a cigarette and idly glancing around the entranceway. In the mirror, he was too small and indistinct to make out clearly, but there was something about the way he moved that caused Angel to sit up. She knew that too casual manner. Apparently doing nothing, he was, in fact, surveying the entire parking area. Moving away from the entrance, he strolled towards the side of the hotel where Angel’s room was. As he rounded the corner, he saw the chair and broken glass on the small lawn. Looking up, he saw the blown out window opening and abruptly turned and started to walk back to the entrance. Instead of going into the hotel, however, he walked toward a black Cadillac Escalade.
Angel said to herself, “A custodian with expensive tastes in vehicles. Gotcha!”
She started the engine of the Mini and waited. The Caddy pulled out of the parking space and headed towards the hotel exit.
Angel allowed the Cadillac to pull onto State Road A1A before she backed out of the parking space and followed. Staying several cars back, she tailed the big vehicle through the tourist traffic, paying scant attention to the beach on her right. As they drove north, both she and the “custodian” she was following left the City of Sunny Isles and entered the rich beachside community of Golden Beach. The Cadillac turned into the driveway of a large Mediterranean Revival mansion near the beach pavilion in the middle of town. Angel drove right on past, turning in at the pavilion and circling the Mini around.
As she sat, watching the traffic pass by, she again considered her options. She could, of course, simply kick in the mansion door and start shooting; however, she was unlikely to get answers to her questions and could end up meeting more resistance than she was prepared for. Opting for a more patient approach, she opened her laptop and entered the address of the beachside mansion into the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser’s on-line database. According to the database, the house belonged to a corporation, Granada, LLC. A search for the company led to a private-investment fund based in the Cayman Islands.
Angel wondered if anyone in South Florida directly owned their own property. Everyone seemed to go through various tax shelters, with the Cayman Islands figuring prominently as a base for the shelters. So, what was the game here? Drug laundering? Terrorism? Both?
Googling “Granada, LLC,” she searched for any published accounts of the business. There was only one reference, a small article in El Herald, the Spanish language version of the Miami Herald newspaper, noting that the firm had provided start-up funding for a bioscience research firm in Miami. Another Google search for the research firm, Halpan, led to several articles noting the firm’s beginnings, announcements of promising research, and a brief article noting the closing of the firm two months earlier. The owner of the firm, and the subject of one article’s interview, was Juan Arvelo, of Golden Beach and Bogota, Colombia.
Angel gasped, “Juan Arvelo?”
She increased the size of the photo accompanying the article. There was “Juan Arvelo,” otherwise known by her as George Ramirez, her ex-husband and recently expired attempted assassin.
Yesterday
Angel was at home in Hollywood feeding her long-haired Maine Coon, Oscar, when the phone rang. Grabbing the phone while setting down Oscar’s food, she answered, “Hello?”
A young woman’s voice was on the line, “Ms. Arvelo? Will you hold for Mr. Wilson?”
Angel stood up and said, “Mr. Wilson?”
She stared out the kitchen window at the heliconia and wondered why “Mr. Wilson” had sought her out. She hadn’t been hiding but, on the other hand, she hadn’t expected to hear from Don Wilson again after leaving the Drug Enforcement Agency the year before.
A quiet masculine voice came on the line, “Angel?”
She said, “Hi there, Don. What’s going on?”
Don Wilson, Caribbean Region Director for the DEA, said, “I don’t know, Angel. Maybe you can tell me. This morning, we received a call from George Ramirez telling us he was resigning immediately. He sounded peculiar. You know how George was always a talker—always going on about anything and everything? Well, he was telling me that everything was going to get better and when I asked, “Better than what?” He said the “virus” was going to fix everything.”
After a pause, Don asked, “Angel, do you know anything about a virus?”
Angel said, “No, Don. I sure don’t.”
“Okay. I just thought, you know, he might have spoken with you?”
Angel said truthfully, “Don, I have hardly spoken to George since we left Colombia five years ago. He went on to other assignments up north and I kept working in South America. I heard that he was moving up the ladder in Washington, but that was second hand info. I think the last thing I heard was that he was working on a task force that was planning another action in Colombia.” Don sighed and said, “Yes, he was working on another project in Colombia and had been there for the last six months. However, that project was put on hold when two of our undercover agents in Bogotá were found dead two weeks ago. It became clear that the operation was compromised.”
Angel said, “Really? Wow, I guess I got out at the right time. “She thought to herself, “That’s the truth. If I was still in the agency, I would have been there.” She also wondered why she hadn’t heard of the agents dying.
Don said, “Yes, I suppose you did. You really haven’t heard from George?”
Angel said, “No, Don. I really haven’t heard from George.”
The conversation continued through brief pleasantries, with Don inviting Angel to join him for lunch someday soon and her promising to do so. After they hung up, Angel set the phone down and idly pushed Oscar off the counter where he had jumped, “That was weird. What was George talking about? The virus? And why didn’t the deaths of two DEA agents in Colombia make the news?”
She brushed back her shoulder length red hair and stood there, silhouetted in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. She thought of how George had showed her around in Colombia, she the brown-skinned, red-haired tomboy. Lean and outdoorsy, she was the kind of young woman who looked as though she would be more comfortable camping than hosting dinner parties. Still, she had created quite a stir in Colombia with her looks and her fluent Spanish.
Determining to go about her intended schedule of daily events, Angel put on some cross trainers and headed out for a run. Her favorite route took her by the bulge in the Intracoastal Waterway called “South Lake.” The “lake” was carved out to provide the fill needed to turn swampland into buildable dry land back in the 1920s. There was an exact duplicate a third of a mile north, on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard, appropriately, if unimaginatively, called “North Lake.” She jogged past the kids fishing under the “No Fishing” signs and laughed to herself at the eternal constant of kids ignoring adult’s rules. Making the turn onto 12th Avenue, she heard a car coming up behind her. Glancing back, she saw that it was a black Bentley swinging wide to avoid her, or so she thought. Suddenly, the vehicle swerved and screeched to a halt just in front of her. Angel tensed and prepared for a fight.
“Angel Arvelo?” asked someone through the car’s open rear window.
“Who wants to know?” she responded.
“That’s not important,” said the voice in the car.
Angel thought she recognized the voice, but she couldn’t be sure. She was, however, sure that the accent was Colombian.
The man said, “There’s someone who wants to meet you. Can you be at the Tropic Resort in Sunny Isles tomorrow?”
Angel replied, “Who are you and why would I go anywhere for you?”
“Because I’m told that you are for hire, former DEA agent Arvelo.”
Angel nodded and said, “I’m kind of picky about my clients.”
The man laughed and Angel knew who he was. Victor Cruz, the most wanted man in the Colombian cocaine trade. Unlike so many others, he was well educated and had once traveled in well-regarded circles of society in South America. She thought of all the effort she and others, George in particular, had spent trying to catch this monster and how many times they’d failed. Failed and died, in some cases. How many times had she listened to the tapes of his voice, watched the fleeting video footage documenting his appearance? It seemed a lifetime ago, yet, here he was, three feet away. Outwardly, she showed nothing.
Again, the man laughed and spoke to someone inside the car. The front passenger side window came down and there, on the passenger seat, was an open attaché filled with bills. Victor said, “That’s $50,000. Consider it a retainer with more to follow.”
Angel looked at the money, then looked at Victor and said, “Hand it here. For $50,000 I can go to a hotel. What am I to do when I get there?”
Victor’s voice was mocking as he said, “Yes, I thought you would agree. As to what you are to do, you are to do nothing. I will contact you there tomorrow.”
The driver closed the attaché and held it up for Angel to grab the handle. She did so and noted that it had a pleasingly full feel. She said, “I’ll be there after 2:00 p.m. I’ve got a nail appointment at 12:30.”
Again, Victor laughed. She recoiled inwardly at the mocking sound.He said, “Of course, Agent Arvelo You must look your best tomorrow.” He nodded to the driver and the car pulled away.
Angel stood there, holding the attaché and watching the car as it turned the corner onto Harrison Street and headed west. She wondered to herself, “Angel, what are you doing?” and turned back towards her house.
When she got home, she stashed the money from the attaché in her floor safe hidden under the dining room table, keeping out $3,000 in hundred dollar bills, poured herself a shot of Johnnie Walker Black over ice, and sat down in the living room to think. What was going on? Why did Victor Cruz want her to be at the Tropic Resort tomorrow, or anytime? She thought back to Don Wilson’s call. Was any of this related? She considered calling Don and telling him about Victor’s unexpected appearance but thought better of it. She didn’t work for the DEA any longer and felt no responsibility to bring them to the party. “No,” she thought, “I’ll just follow this for awhile and see what happens.”
Thomas A. Hall
Angel turned as she heard the creak of the front door. Slipping the safety off her Glock 9mm automatic, she didn’t bother to wonder how they’d gotten the key.
Stepping silently back into the shadowy corner of the room, she waited for the assailants. “How many?” she wondered.
A small red dot appeared on the wall to her right. “Ha! Thanks.” she thought grimly.
She watched the hallway entrance to her left and, both hands gripping her gun, prepared to fire at the first sign of the intruders. Her eyes narrowed as she realized the laser targeting sight wasn’t moving. Either the attackers knew where she was or were quieter than she thought possible.
Figuring that both possibilities could be true, she turned toward the only other access to the room, the door opening into the bathroom. As her head swiveled, she caught a brief movement. Was it light on a gun barrel? It was in the air conditioning vent!
Without a moment’s hesitation she aimed two quick rounds at the soffit containing the ductwork behind the vent and then squatted, compressing her lithe body into the corner. There was a grunt and then a terrible scream. She turned back to the hallway to see if anyone else came toward her. After waiting a full sixty seconds, she decided to move toward the laser light. Grabbing a compact from her purse on the nightstand, she opened it and carefully held its small mirror to her left and gingerly moved it into the hallway. There on the floor, propped up with what she recognized was her own wadded-up hotel bathrobe, was a pistol with its laser targeting sight switched on and pointing to the far wall.
Lowering her own gun, Angel thought, “Good idea, but you let it play too long.”
She quietly moved through the hotel room, checking the bathroom, living room and closet. “Okay, time to see what I can see,” she said to herself.
Moving back into the bedroom, she noticed that there was now a pool of blood gathering on the floor and an ooze of red dripping from the new holes in the soffit near the ceiling.
Pulling a throwing knife from its hiding place under her right sleeve, she pried open the air vent. There, to her surprise, was her ex-husband, blood and foam lining his lips.
“George, what the hell are you doing here?” she wondered as she replaced the knife in its sheath.
With no sign of emotion, she checked his neck for a pulse. There was none.
Obviously, if George was in the air conditioning ductwork, someone else put the pistol in the hallway. So, where were they?
Cautiously moving to the door of the room, she looked to see if the door was truly closed. Without touching it, it appeared so. She then moved into the living room and, with the lights off, looked out the corner of the window. There was no one in sight, still, that didn’t mean someone wasn’t waiting for her. She thought about her options. She could sit there until someone came looking for her—someone who may, or may not, be a friend. On the other hand, she could go out the window and, perhaps, find whoever sent George after her and set the pistol as a diversion
“The pistol,” she thought, “I’d better take a look at it.”
Moving back to the hallway, she risked turning on a light so that she could examine the weapon. It was a Colt .45 automatic with a laser sight mounted on top of the barrel. She looked at it, but didn’t touch it. Kneeling down with her head nearly on the carpet, she looked at the clip in the butt of the grip. It wasn’t a clip at all! There was an almond smell coming from the grip and what appeared to be putty where the clip should be. With a start, she realized that the gun was actually a bomb.
“Pretty devious,” she said, admiringly.
Well, that sealed it. She was going out the window before someone grew impatient and set off the bomb.
The hotel was one of those modern designs, a beige box with only minimal ornamentation, which depended on lush landscaping to provide relief from the severity of the architect’s “vision.” “Another victim of the Bauhaus movement!” she had thought to herself when checking in. Now she examined the window and, determining that it wasn’t designed to be opened, aimed downward and shot it in the left corner. The window shattered but didn’t fall from its frame. Picking up a small chair from the desk in the room, Angel threw it at the window. That did it! A glistening stream of glass followed the chair to the lawn below. Wasting no time, she slipped over the windowsill, using the curtain as a guard to avoid cuts. She dropped lightly to the ground and rolled immediately to the side and hid behind a large hibiscus bush.
She was glad her room was on the second floor. It would have been tougher, though not impossible, for her to drop from a higher room. Looking around, she surveyed the side yard of the hotel and the parking lot beyond it. Nothing..
“Okay then, let’s do it,” she said to herself.
She tucked her pistol in its holster under her jacket and walked nonchalantly away from the hibiscus and towards her car. The purple Mini Cooper was parked at the far end of the parking lot where she could see it from her room and where, due to the distance, no one else parked. She pulled the remote from her pocket and triggered the doors to unlock, the windows to go down and the engine to start. Everything seemed normal. She looked through the window into the interior. So far, so good.
Looking around first, she bent down and peered under the car. There, behind the driver’s side front wheel, was a packet of C4 explosive taped to the axle with wires extending up into the engine compartment. Seeing no one’s booby trap other than her own, she opened the car door and flipped the front seat forward. Reaching down, she pulled up the back seat. Under the seat cushion, there was a short-barreled AA12 fully automatic shotgun and a round canister containing thirty-two 12-gauge shells. In addition, there was another Glock 9mm automatic and four clips of ammo, burglar tools, handcuffs, a retractable metal nightstick and a small gun cleaning kit. Missing from their places were the Glock in her holster and the Evo 9 silencer she kept on it.
Feeling better after completing the inventory, Angel put the seat cushion back in place and, moving the front seat back, sat down in the car and turned off the engine. She adjusted the rearview mirror so that she could see the front door of the hotel and waited.
It had been ten minutes since she first heard the creak of the hotel room door.
Surveillance
As she watched the hotel entrance, Angel allowed herself to think about George in the air conditioning vent. “Poor George,” she said out loud, “He was always better at talking than doing.”
She wondered who it was that put him up to such a task. She never considered that he might have thought of it himself. First of all, he wasn’t a tactical agent. Second, he was always inclined to recruit others to do the difficult tasks. That was how, she thought ruefully, she had come to be in this business in the first place.
“In the end, he wasn’t much of a husband,” she mused, and then thought, “and not much of an assassin either.”
She did a quick scan of the area, letting her eyes drift, almost unfocused, across the landscape seeking anything out of place. Seeing nothing, she returned to watching the hotel entrance and thinking about George. Two years of married life in Colombia had begun reasonably well but, by the time the assignment was over, the marriage was done—too many deceptions from George had taken the joy out of the marriage. Still, she had been grateful when, at the airport, George had kissed her on the cheek and said, “You’re the best partner any DEA agent ever had, Angel.”
“So what made him try and kill me?” she said to herself.
Without an answer, she looked at the hotel’s reflection in the mirror. A man in a custodian’s uniform walked through the door and stood, lighting a cigarette and idly glancing around the entranceway. In the mirror, he was too small and indistinct to make out clearly, but there was something about the way he moved that caused Angel to sit up. She knew that too casual manner. Apparently doing nothing, he was, in fact, surveying the entire parking area. Moving away from the entrance, he strolled towards the side of the hotel where Angel’s room was. As he rounded the corner, he saw the chair and broken glass on the small lawn. Looking up, he saw the blown out window opening and abruptly turned and started to walk back to the entrance. Instead of going into the hotel, however, he walked toward a black Cadillac Escalade.
Angel said to herself, “A custodian with expensive tastes in vehicles. Gotcha!”
She started the engine of the Mini and waited. The Caddy pulled out of the parking space and headed towards the hotel exit.
Angel allowed the Cadillac to pull onto State Road A1A before she backed out of the parking space and followed. Staying several cars back, she tailed the big vehicle through the tourist traffic, paying scant attention to the beach on her right. As they drove north, both she and the “custodian” she was following left the City of Sunny Isles and entered the rich beachside community of Golden Beach. The Cadillac turned into the driveway of a large Mediterranean Revival mansion near the beach pavilion in the middle of town. Angel drove right on past, turning in at the pavilion and circling the Mini around.
As she sat, watching the traffic pass by, she again considered her options. She could, of course, simply kick in the mansion door and start shooting; however, she was unlikely to get answers to her questions and could end up meeting more resistance than she was prepared for. Opting for a more patient approach, she opened her laptop and entered the address of the beachside mansion into the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser’s on-line database. According to the database, the house belonged to a corporation, Granada, LLC. A search for the company led to a private-investment fund based in the Cayman Islands.
Angel wondered if anyone in South Florida directly owned their own property. Everyone seemed to go through various tax shelters, with the Cayman Islands figuring prominently as a base for the shelters. So, what was the game here? Drug laundering? Terrorism? Both?
Googling “Granada, LLC,” she searched for any published accounts of the business. There was only one reference, a small article in El Herald, the Spanish language version of the Miami Herald newspaper, noting that the firm had provided start-up funding for a bioscience research firm in Miami. Another Google search for the research firm, Halpan, led to several articles noting the firm’s beginnings, announcements of promising research, and a brief article noting the closing of the firm two months earlier. The owner of the firm, and the subject of one article’s interview, was Juan Arvelo, of Golden Beach and Bogota, Colombia.
Angel gasped, “Juan Arvelo?”
She increased the size of the photo accompanying the article. There was “Juan Arvelo,” otherwise known by her as George Ramirez, her ex-husband and recently expired attempted assassin.
Yesterday
Angel was at home in Hollywood feeding her long-haired Maine Coon, Oscar, when the phone rang. Grabbing the phone while setting down Oscar’s food, she answered, “Hello?”
A young woman’s voice was on the line, “Ms. Arvelo? Will you hold for Mr. Wilson?”
Angel stood up and said, “Mr. Wilson?”
She stared out the kitchen window at the heliconia and wondered why “Mr. Wilson” had sought her out. She hadn’t been hiding but, on the other hand, she hadn’t expected to hear from Don Wilson again after leaving the Drug Enforcement Agency the year before.
A quiet masculine voice came on the line, “Angel?”
She said, “Hi there, Don. What’s going on?”
Don Wilson, Caribbean Region Director for the DEA, said, “I don’t know, Angel. Maybe you can tell me. This morning, we received a call from George Ramirez telling us he was resigning immediately. He sounded peculiar. You know how George was always a talker—always going on about anything and everything? Well, he was telling me that everything was going to get better and when I asked, “Better than what?” He said the “virus” was going to fix everything.”
After a pause, Don asked, “Angel, do you know anything about a virus?”
Angel said, “No, Don. I sure don’t.”
“Okay. I just thought, you know, he might have spoken with you?”
Angel said truthfully, “Don, I have hardly spoken to George since we left Colombia five years ago. He went on to other assignments up north and I kept working in South America. I heard that he was moving up the ladder in Washington, but that was second hand info. I think the last thing I heard was that he was working on a task force that was planning another action in Colombia.” Don sighed and said, “Yes, he was working on another project in Colombia and had been there for the last six months. However, that project was put on hold when two of our undercover agents in Bogotá were found dead two weeks ago. It became clear that the operation was compromised.”
Angel said, “Really? Wow, I guess I got out at the right time. “She thought to herself, “That’s the truth. If I was still in the agency, I would have been there.” She also wondered why she hadn’t heard of the agents dying.
Don said, “Yes, I suppose you did. You really haven’t heard from George?”
Angel said, “No, Don. I really haven’t heard from George.”
The conversation continued through brief pleasantries, with Don inviting Angel to join him for lunch someday soon and her promising to do so. After they hung up, Angel set the phone down and idly pushed Oscar off the counter where he had jumped, “That was weird. What was George talking about? The virus? And why didn’t the deaths of two DEA agents in Colombia make the news?”
She brushed back her shoulder length red hair and stood there, silhouetted in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. She thought of how George had showed her around in Colombia, she the brown-skinned, red-haired tomboy. Lean and outdoorsy, she was the kind of young woman who looked as though she would be more comfortable camping than hosting dinner parties. Still, she had created quite a stir in Colombia with her looks and her fluent Spanish.
Determining to go about her intended schedule of daily events, Angel put on some cross trainers and headed out for a run. Her favorite route took her by the bulge in the Intracoastal Waterway called “South Lake.” The “lake” was carved out to provide the fill needed to turn swampland into buildable dry land back in the 1920s. There was an exact duplicate a third of a mile north, on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard, appropriately, if unimaginatively, called “North Lake.” She jogged past the kids fishing under the “No Fishing” signs and laughed to herself at the eternal constant of kids ignoring adult’s rules. Making the turn onto 12th Avenue, she heard a car coming up behind her. Glancing back, she saw that it was a black Bentley swinging wide to avoid her, or so she thought. Suddenly, the vehicle swerved and screeched to a halt just in front of her. Angel tensed and prepared for a fight.
“Angel Arvelo?” asked someone through the car’s open rear window.
“Who wants to know?” she responded.
“That’s not important,” said the voice in the car.
Angel thought she recognized the voice, but she couldn’t be sure. She was, however, sure that the accent was Colombian.
The man said, “There’s someone who wants to meet you. Can you be at the Tropic Resort in Sunny Isles tomorrow?”
Angel replied, “Who are you and why would I go anywhere for you?”
“Because I’m told that you are for hire, former DEA agent Arvelo.”
Angel nodded and said, “I’m kind of picky about my clients.”
The man laughed and Angel knew who he was. Victor Cruz, the most wanted man in the Colombian cocaine trade. Unlike so many others, he was well educated and had once traveled in well-regarded circles of society in South America. She thought of all the effort she and others, George in particular, had spent trying to catch this monster and how many times they’d failed. Failed and died, in some cases. How many times had she listened to the tapes of his voice, watched the fleeting video footage documenting his appearance? It seemed a lifetime ago, yet, here he was, three feet away. Outwardly, she showed nothing.
Again, the man laughed and spoke to someone inside the car. The front passenger side window came down and there, on the passenger seat, was an open attaché filled with bills. Victor said, “That’s $50,000. Consider it a retainer with more to follow.”
Angel looked at the money, then looked at Victor and said, “Hand it here. For $50,000 I can go to a hotel. What am I to do when I get there?”
Victor’s voice was mocking as he said, “Yes, I thought you would agree. As to what you are to do, you are to do nothing. I will contact you there tomorrow.”
The driver closed the attaché and held it up for Angel to grab the handle. She did so and noted that it had a pleasingly full feel. She said, “I’ll be there after 2:00 p.m. I’ve got a nail appointment at 12:30.”
Again, Victor laughed. She recoiled inwardly at the mocking sound.He said, “Of course, Agent Arvelo You must look your best tomorrow.” He nodded to the driver and the car pulled away.
Angel stood there, holding the attaché and watching the car as it turned the corner onto Harrison Street and headed west. She wondered to herself, “Angel, what are you doing?” and turned back towards her house.
When she got home, she stashed the money from the attaché in her floor safe hidden under the dining room table, keeping out $3,000 in hundred dollar bills, poured herself a shot of Johnnie Walker Black over ice, and sat down in the living room to think. What was going on? Why did Victor Cruz want her to be at the Tropic Resort tomorrow, or anytime? She thought back to Don Wilson’s call. Was any of this related? She considered calling Don and telling him about Victor’s unexpected appearance but thought better of it. She didn’t work for the DEA any longer and felt no responsibility to bring them to the party. “No,” she thought, “I’ll just follow this for awhile and see what happens.”
Thomas A. Hall
