CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER
STEERS’S HOME WAS SITUATED IN the hills about two miles from the Temple estate along a winding road. Nash had been in Hong Kong for a long while, and when he’d left America he hadn’t been certain he would ever return.
When they passed through the estate’s broad gates in a passenger van, Nash asked her how long she had owned it.
“Sixteen months, Dillon-san,” said Steers. “It required renovation, which is now completed.”
Neither of them noted that Masuyo appeared jolted by her calling him Dillon-san.
“Why so close to Rhett Temple?” he asked.
“Because he and I have further business. And I like to watch most carefully over my investments.”
Nash had never observed this estate while he lived with Rhett Temple at his home because it was well hidden off the road behind high walls and mature trees.
The place had a Tuscan feel to it, with a stone exterior, towers and turrets, and a cobblestoned motor court.
In the rear was a large pool, a tennis court, an outdoor grilling area, a sprawling guesthouse, and several smaller cottages serving as staff quarters.
There were also sculptures, fountains, and waterfalls, and outdoor spaces with seating areas connected by flagstone pathways arrayed around the manicured grounds.
The plants and shrubs were in full bloom, lovely and fragrant.
Nash and Thura were assigned to the luxurious five-bedroom guesthouse. When Thura walked into the place he spread his arms wide and cried out, “I am in America. No shit.” Then, like a kid, he went into his room, jumped on the bed, and just lay there beaming at the timbered ceiling.
Along with the attendants they had brought with them, the estate came with a staff that Steers told Nash she had thoroughly vetted. However, he and Thura intended to keep their eyes and ears peeled for any sign of a traitor in the ranks.
Nash swam in the heated pool early each morning and then ran around the grounds until his shirt was soaked and he was breathless. Thura often came with him, to both keep in shape and tell Nash what a fabulous place America was, until Nash had grown weary of hearing about it.
Nash also walked the grounds admiring the hardscapes and fountains and secluded areas, where there were inviting benches and the sounds of water falling softly.
He had seen Steers several times tucked away in one of these nooks, with a canvas on an easel, and painting away.
He never disturbed her during these moments, but he did linger and watch her.
She usually wore a loose-fitting smock but always with her arms fully covered.
Sometimes she also wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, which made him smile because it looked so incongruous on her, or at least the person the world saw as Victoria Steers.
But then his mind would go to that box in the basement with his dead daughter’s things in it, and his happy expression when observing Steers the artist rapidly turned hard and bitter.
He had been given a vehicle to drive—a Range Rover, ironically, like the one he had owned as Walter Nash—and he would drive into town some days when Steers and Masuyo did not need him.
Either he or Thura always remained on guard.
Nash had continually pressed Steers to let him hire additional protectors who could also stay in the guesthouse or staff quarters, but she had steadfastly refused.
“I do not know if one of them will contain another Hao,” she had said, referring to the man who had tried to kill her. “This is a worry I do not have with you and Thura.”
Her comment had made him feel guilty, since he was working against her. But then he had told himself that Steers had brought this on herself. He certainly hadn’t asked for any of it.
Since he’d gained Steers’s trust she had been less restrictive on his actions, and now as her head of security he had even more freedom.
Driving into town one day he called Morris on a burner phone, and the agent answered.
“So you’re back in America?” Morris said.
“Come on, Reed. I’m sure you tracked our movements every step of the way.”
“Of course we did.”
“I’m actually surprised you didn’t arrest her when we were going through customs.”
“While we might be able to get an indictment on Steers with what we have now, the rest of her partners would go free. The Bureau has decided it’s all or nothing on this sucker.”
“I can understand that.” He paused. “How is. . .Judith?”
“She’s adapted better than most to being in protection.”
“Can you tell me where she is?”
“I don’t even know. That’s US Marshal jurisdiction. But I can tell you it’s nowhere near your old home.” Morris paused. “By the way, she knew it was you.”
“Excuse me?”
“That night when you killed those men in your home. She knew it was you.”
“How do you know that?” asked a stunned Nash.
“I said you were quite capable and she said something like, ‘What do you expect from a fucking Eagle Scout?’ I take it you were an Eagle Scout?”
“Yes, but why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“What good would it have done?”
Nash couldn’t come up with an adequate response to that.
Morris said, “But there has been a development that you need to know about. I have no idea how you might be able to use it, or us either, for that matter.”
“What is it?”
“It’s good news for the country overall, but it needs a deeper dive for our purposes.”
“I’m all attention, Reed.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but over the last eighteen months, fentanyl and related deaths have plummeted in this country. And over the last six months or so the decline has really accelerated.”
“That is good news. Do you know why?”
“Lots of reasons. Some really depressing, like so many have died there aren’t that many users left.
But on the positive side treatments have helped, as have counseling and public awareness campaigns.
Making Narcan free and widely available has also been a real boost. Lots of people who would be dead aren’t. ”
“That is really great to hear.”
“And young people, thank God, aren’t using drugs like older generations did.
And those that do are doing it smarter. Smoking instead of injecting, for example, and not using it alone so there’s someone to bring them back from the dead if they OD.
Related to this development, China has started to be the supplier for cursors and precursors as opposed to the finished fentanyl.
We believe China has begun exporting the raw materials to the Steers organization, probably to evade detection and to also allow themselves plausible deniability. Smoke-and-mirror sort of things.”
“But when they put all the stuff together you still get a drug that can kill people.”
“The other reason, which has been borne out by testing of seized shipments of pills, is that the use of pure fentanyl in pills coming into this country has fallen through the floor.”
“What are they using instead? I mean, don’t they need some drug like fentanyl to make the product work and give addicted people the jolt their brain tells them they need?”
“They do. And what we’ve been finding lately is the presence of animal tranquilizers like Xylazine and Medetomidine.
Now, they are toxic to humans but they are also not as immediately lethal as fentanyl.
Still gives the user the pop they want, but the risks of death are less.
And law enforcement in this country has been putting the squeeze on Mexico and China to get fentanyl out of the illegal drug supply chain, with mixed results.
It’s still there, but not as much as before.
Now we’re seeing more complicated street cocktails with less fentanyl.
The Mexican cartels still churn out meth and cocaine and make a lot of money off that, but they don’t give you the pop that the synthetics do.
But the synthetics are ever evolving. When we think we have a handle on what’s out there, they throw new, more powerful ones into the mix.
It’s like Whac-A-Mole, only with deadly results. ”
“So fatalities are going down. But you said the Chinese controlled that market and they want to use it to destroy this country from the inside out. That’s why you recruited me.”
“That hasn’t changed, according to our sources, even with the law enforcement squeeze I talked about.”
“Well, stop beating around the bush. If China still wants lots of dead Americans, but the drugs aren’t as deadly, then something has changed. What?”
“Apparently, Victoria Steers has. Over the last fourteen months or so drug trafficking that we suspect is tied to her operation has heavily invested in labs in Mexico and Central America, as opposed to ones in China and Southeast Asia. That’s where we are seeing the less lethal synthetic opioids and animal tranquilizers being used to make the pills.
It could be that she is addressing the cartel’s concerns of killing their own clients or it could be something more. Do you know anything about that?”
Nash thought he might. “Around that time she left Hong Kong for an extended period. I mean, well over a month. When I asked one of her protection detail where they had been he wouldn’t tell me, but later I saw one of them had a box of Padrón cigars.”
“From Nicaragua, right. And one of her jets landed in Guadalajara and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, and León and Managua in Nicaragua around that time.”
“But clearly the Chinese don’t want less lethal drugs out there. So what’s going on?”
“We believe Steers has gone rogue and the Chinese are not happy about it.”
“Was that why the attempt was made on her life?” speculated Nash.
“Could very well be. The Chinese have been working hand in glove with the Steers org for a long time. Well before Victoria took over.”
“Well, considering her mother was a Chinese spy, that makes sense.”
“But why the change with Steers now? Any ideas, Walter?”
Nash thought about some things that alone didn’t mean much, but together might mean a lot. “Let me dig into that before I give you an answer.”
“Fair enough. Now, you emailed me about the box with your daughter’s things?”
“Yes, including a ring we gave Maggie for her high school graduation.”
“But why would she keep that stuff? I mean, it’s evidence!”
Nash had given that a lot of thought too and had never arrived at a good answer.
“I’ve been with Steers for long enough to discover that she is.
. .a complicated person, Reed. Far more complex than I initially thought.
Like I told you before, I believed she had shot someone right in front of me, but turned out it was a setup to fool me. ”
“Right, Lynn Ryder. You messaged me about that before.”
“But she sells drugs around the world, and I know people have died on her watch, including three people who worked at companies I acquired while I was at Sybaritic.”
“I sense another but coming.”
“But there’s another side to the woman. I let you know what her former nanny, Hiroko, said about Steers’s mother, Masuyo, convincing Steers that she killed her siblings in this insane competition to succeed her in running the empire.
I mean, that has got to screw you up big-time.
But Hiroko also told me that Steers was a very different person growing up.
She wanted no part of this criminal empire stuff. ”
“This Hiroko person might not be telling the truth. And she no doubt cares for Steers, so she might be trying to paint her in a favorable light.”
“Even Steers said that Hiroko thinks she can do no wrong. But Hiroko also said she saw Masuyo manipulating Steers. And I’ve found that she can be kind and empathetic and sensitive. But she can also get depressed about her life. I told you about her nearly killing herself.”
Morris didn’t reply right away. When he did, his voice was tight. “Which shows the woman is not stable. But regardless who is saying what, Walter, Steers is a criminal that we need to bring to justice. She had your daughter kidnapped and murdered.”
Nash barked, “You think I don’t know that! You think I’ve forgotten about my own daughter and what happened to her?”
“Well, then? What are you going to do about it? Because I thought we were working together to bring Steers to justice.”
Nash was about to snap back at the agent again, but he reconsidered. “I’m on my mission to the end.”
“Okay, but whose mission, the Bureau’s?”
“My mission. If that coincides with your agenda, so be it.”
“Walter, we made a deal.”
“No, you roped me into this whole nightmare and it cost me everything. Now I’m out here alone trying to survive and get this done. So don’t tell me how I’m supposed to do it, or what I’m supposed to think. That part is over, Reed. Over.”
He clicked off and stared down at his phone. His hands were actually shaking. Then he closed his eyes tightly, which forced his face into a grimace.
Okay, I just cut off the FBI, which means I’ve got nobody to support me.
So, I’m really alone in this now. But hell, in reality, I’ve always been alone.
Nash drove on, feeling as hopeless as he ever had.