Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
AT LAST, WE were getting to the bottom of this whole mess. I was convinced of it. But the turmoil in my head? That still had a way to go. After overcoming my shock at finding Black’s double, I tried to work out why the Ramos family wanted my husband dead in the first place.
“They probably thought Black was trying to put them out of business,” Seb said as he watched me pacing from his position on a floral-print chaise longue, stretched out with his arms folded behind his head.
“But he’d barely got anywhere. I saw his notes.”
“If they found out his reputation, they’d have been worried that would change.”
“I guess.” I dropped the rounds out of the revolver I’d borrowed from Eduardo, spun the chamber, and reloaded them. “Do you reckon they knew what he looked like? That he was Carlos’s double?”
“If they did, perhaps they got worried he might muscle in on them. You know, imitate Carlos and get inside information or something.”
“Black running a drugs empire?” I scoffed. “Like that would ever happen. No offence.”
“Then they could have feared the opposite. Maybe they thought Black would take Carlos out to protect his own reputation?”
“That’s crazy. They should have tried negotiating.”
“Men like the Ramos family don’t negotiate.”
Didn’t I know it? The whole situation made me feel sick. I cursed them under my breath for forcing me into this position.
“When we see them, perhaps we can ask why they did it,” Seb suggested.
“I’m planning to.”
I didn’t have the network in South America that Eduardo did, so I was reliant on his team doing my legwork. At least by being in Colombia, I could speak freely with the Garcias, something that wasn’t so easy from the United States due to Eduardo’s paranoia that big brother constantly monitored everyone’s phone calls.
Which, to be fair, he most likely did. The NSA was the only part of the government that actually listened to its citizens.
Snippets of information came in, and I set up an old-fashioned corkboard in one of Eduardo’s many living rooms, pinning record cards on it in groups to try and arrange my thoughts. Nick got over his initial anger at me, probably because he was dead wrong about Eduardo even if he wouldn’t openly admit it like Nate did, and we stayed in almost constant contact. He had an electronic version of my board in one of the operations rooms at Blackwood and added information to that from all the sources we could unearth.
Eduardo took care of me in his own special way. He realised how miserable I was and tried to cheer me up. And Eduardo’s way of doing that involved spending money, stacks of it. His wives usually responded well to that approach, I gathered, and he didn’t see why I should be any different.
His current wife, Floriana, was a tiny, quiet woman with surgically enhanced assets and impossibly white teeth, and he’d obviously sent her out shopping on my behalf. When I returned to my room that evening, I could barely get through the door from the amount of bags on the floor, and I counted no less than eighteen bunches of flowers spread all over the place.
Over dinner, which Alejandro turned into a work of art, Eduardo presented me with a tiara. A flipping tiara! What on earth was I supposed to do with that? If I ever happened to re-marry into royalty it might come in handy, but it wouldn’t be much use while I scraped around in the jungle, would it? Unless I used it to dazzle the bad guys into submission.
Still, it was very sweet of him, and I appreciated the gesture. I felt a pang of jealousy for Camilla, completely irrational given that she wasn’t even alive anymore. Why did I feel that way? Because her father cared so much he’d put her needs first, far above his own, even though she never knew him.
We had that much in common—my father wasn’t part of my life either, although I doubted his motives were as noble as Eduardo’s. My mother always claimed she didn’t know who he was, but I’d never quite believed her. When I was a little girl, I used to fantasise that my daddy would come sweeping in to save me from whatever dingy squat we happened to be living in at the time and take me to live in a proper house. A home where I ate a hot meal every evening and he helped me with my schoolwork then read me a story before I went to sleep.
One day, I’d stupidly told my mother I hoped he’d come back so we could be a real family. Big mistake. Huge. I choked on her cigarette smoke as she blew it in my face, and she laughed before she slayed me with her words. “You really are a stupid little cow, aren’t you?”
Although I didn’t get my fairy tale, I did get Eduardo, and also Jimmy, the ex-boxer who’d looked after me between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. So I hadn’t done too badly, after all.
And now? Now I had a tiara.
The next day, Nate called mid-morning. Maryland was an hour ahead of Cali, and he’d just got out from visiting Arthur.
“The old guy’s away with the fairies most of the time. He called me Caroline twice. But he seemed to have moments of lucidity, and if it’s true, what he had to say was interesting.”
“Go on.”
“It seemed like he’d been waiting to get this off his chest for years. Either that or all the medication he’s on loosened his tongue. Once he’d started talking, he wouldn’t stop.”
“Hurry up and tell me, would you?”
“Apparently the circumstances of Black’s birth were a little unusual.”
“In what way?”
“Well, John and Audrey Black were stationed in Colombia for a year before baby Black’s arrival. John was a diplomat, but we all know enough about Black’s father to understand there would have been more to his role than that.”
“Colombia? Black never mentioned that.”
“He probably didn’t know. Anyhow, John asked for a six-month sabbatical rather suddenly, an unusual request according to Arthur, but John had enough clout for it to be granted. When he and Audrey sailed out of Cartagena on their yacht, they told Arthur they were heading back to Florida via the British Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. Five months later when they turned up in Naples, Charles was with them.”
“Holy cow. So it’s possible Black could have come from Colombia, and they smuggled him onto the boat with them?”
“John claimed Audrey didn’t realise she was pregnant when they left Cartagena, and that she gave birth three months into the voyage. When Arthur first saw Charles, he was supposed to be two months old. But Arthur had kids himself, and he swore the baby was older than that.”
“Which would fit with Black having been born in Colombia.”
“Yes. Arthur said he didn’t question it too much because of how happy John and Audrey were. They’d been trying for a baby for years, and Audrey miscarried at least four times. Arthur said the stress of it almost tore them apart.”
“So, what? They stole a baby?”
“Stole it, bought it, came to some sort of arrangement with a surrogate. That’s what Arthur reckoned, especially as Black got older. He shared his father’s build and his mother’s colouring, but he didn’t look like either of them. Arthur kept his mouth shut because John and Audrey were his friends, and he could see Charles had a comfortable life. But now they’re all dead, I think he was just glad to tell someone about it.”
“If it’s true, it answers some questions. Maybe he and Carlos Ramos really were twins, and for whatever reason, the Blacks took one baby and left the other. That would make Hector Ramos his dad.” I shuddered. “What a horrible thought.”
“Yeah, it defies belief someone who’s spent his life fighting for good could have such a pig for a father.”
“And also that a father could kill his own son.”
Nate shrugged. “The whole family’s whacked though. There’s probably something in the water down there.”
“Or they believe in taste-testing their own products.”
“That too.”
I left Nate to travel back to Virginia and went to update Eduardo on the latest developments. He was as shocked as me at the news Hector Ramos might be Black’s father.
“How could the man kill his child? His flesh and blood? That is like me shooting Sebastien or Marco.”
“Well, clearly he’s wired up wrong.”
“I would rather put the gun in my own mouth.”
Seb walked in, snacking on an empanada. “What did I miss?”
I told the story for the second time, but even as Seb shook his head, incredulous, he had a proposition for me.
“I have just heard Diego will be a guest at a party tonight. It’s a fundraiser for a new drugs rehabilitation centre in the city. Would you like to go? I thought you might be interested to see him in person.”
I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t stop one snort escaping. “Hang on. You’re saying that you and Diego Ramos, representatives of two of the largest drug operations in the country, will be raising money to get people off drugs? For a moment there, I thought I misheard you.”
“Hey, don’t be so judgmental. Your politicians do exactly the same. They attend dinners and parties to raise money for victims of war, and then the next day they send more soldiers to create more wars. Besides, it is like your ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ If one cartel attends, we all have to.”
“I still think it’s crackers.”
“Tell me about it.” Eduardo nodded his agreement. “I went to one of those dinners once, and I was seated opposite the head of the Medellin cartel. I had to be nice to him and his wife all evening. Then the next day we were involved in a shoot-out, twenty men on each side. I hit him in the arm.” He sighed. “Those were the days.”
“All right, I’ll go. We can’t get too close, though. He might recognise me.”
“I doubt it,” Seb said. “He thinks you’re dead, and even if he didn’t, the last place he’d expect to see you is on my arm.”
I knew it was all too easy to miss things if you weren’t looking for them. Seb was probably right.
Seb made the arrangements for the evening, and Floriana brought ten different dresses, all silver, all expensive.
“So you can choose your favourite,” she said.
I discounted anything tight and picked out a halterneck gown with a strappy back and a full skirt so I had somewhere to hide my gun. Priorities. Floriana did my hair and make-up too, heavier than I’d normally wear and I nearly choked on the hairspray, but it looked all right. And what do you know? There was a use for that tiara.
I’d been to fundraising dinners the world over, and the one in Colombia wasn’t any different. I plastered on a smile and balanced on my stilettos while Seb whispered “doctor,” “lawyer,” “drug dealer,” “drug dealer,” “politician,” “drug dealer” as we worked our way through the crowd. The bambuco band playing away in the corner looked as bored as I felt, but at least they were getting paid to be there. A waiter swept past, holding aloft a tray of champagne, and I stared longingly at it before taking another sip of my orange juice. Vitamin C made a poor substitute for alcohol on an evening like this.
Half an hour after we walked in, Seb nudged me and cut his eyes towards the door. “Diego.”
Ramos junior stood shorter than I’d imagined, about five feet seven, and sported a bit of a potbelly. The living Barbie doll at his side would have towered over him even if she wasn’t wearing five-inch heels. Someone needed to give him a box to stand on.
He headed clockwise around the room while Seb and I went the other direction, and eventually, our paths crossed. The little toad shook hands with Seb then looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on my chest. Good. While he stared at my cleavage, he wasn’t paying attention to my face.
Seb introduced me out of politeness. “This is Maria.”
Diego stepped forward to kiss my cheek, and I leaned back slightly, holding out my hand instead. My fingernails jabbed him in the chest. Oops. He looked surprised but shook, his hand clammy.
“Diego Garcia,” he told my cleavage. “Delighted to meet you, Maria.”
“The pleasure’s all mine, Diego,” I replied in Spanish after I’d managed to un-grit my teeth.
Unfortunately, Seb had made me leave my gun in the car and when I denied having any other weapons, he’d patted me down and pocketed the knife I’d hidden in my bra. Git. Even so, I considered strangling the man in front of me with my bare hands—the right angle, a little leverage, and I could snap his neck like a chicken. Actually, not quite like a chicken. I’d feel remorse over the bird. Diego, not so much.
He kept talking, his serpent-like tongue darting out to moisten his little sausage lips. I was tempted to cut it out, or better still, make him wear it as a Colombian necktie. It was important to preserve local traditions, was it not? Perhaps Eduardo could give me some tips.
“This is Lucia,” he said, introducing the bored-looking blonde.
Oh, right, this was the part where I was supposed to be nice. I managed a grimace that might have passed for a smile and shook backwards-Barbie’s proffered hand.
Seb took over the conversation and went through the full repertoire of waffle—business, the weather, tourism, the usual. Finally, he got to the good bit. “Your brother didn’t come tonight, then?”
I held my breath, waiting for the answer. Where was that son of a biscuit?
“No, Carlos stayed behind. He had things to do.”
Maybe a bombing, shooting, last minute execution, something like that. Still, at least Diego had confirmed his whereabouts.
“And give my best to your father. Is he busy too?”
“He’s also at home.” Diego patted his stomach. “Food poisoning. He ate some bad shellfish a couple of days ago.”
Aw, my heart bled for him. I hoped he pooped himself to death.
Lucia interrupted to ask where I got my shoes, and by the time I’d lied and told her I got them shipped in from Paris just for the occasion, Diego was turning away to talk to the next couple. Rats.
We hung around for another hour or so, watching Diego until he left. Seb managed to win a deep sea fishing trip for two in the charity auction before we went back home ourselves.
“Do you like fishing?” I asked as we drove off.
“I don’t even like fish.”
“Why did you bid for a fishing trip, then?”
“I felt I should put something back into the community.”
In addition to an endless supply of coke, obviously. How selfless. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Seb, but the whole thing was so two-faced it left me cold.
I wanted to reply “How very noble of you,” but I bit back the sarcasm. “At least we know where Carlos and Hector are.”
“Yes, and the old man is ill, even better. What did you think of Diego?”
“Arrogant. Short.” Dead.
Seb laughed. “You’ve summed him up perfectly.”
As soon as we got back to Eduardo’s estate, I kicked my heels off gratefully before slipping out of my dress and between my silver sheets to get some sleep. I needed a clear head the next day.
Why?
Because tomorrow I’d start planning in earnest how to make Colombia a Ramos-free zone.