Plans and Certainties #2
Dean arched his eyebrows. “If the rules made any sense, I’d obey them,” he said.
“For example, our current immigration policy only makes sense if you’re a fascist or criminally insane, and my moral compass says I don’t have to listen to those people, which is why it’s a good thing they backed off Marcus. ”
Bailey shuddered. “You almost went for your weapon,” he said, and suddenly the play was sucked out of the room.
“Don’t worry,” Dean said seriously. “If I’d gone for my weapon, they would have been dead before they had a chance to use theirs.”
“True story,” Marcus said, equally sober. “Which is why I know he wasn’t going for it.”
Dean met his eyes and shook his head. “The guy who was going to dump you out almost went for Mom. I almost did.”
Marcus shuddered. “So, yes. Our government is the bad guys right now. And the bad guys are the bad guys. Which is why we’re all eating pizza in your mom’s kitchen and you made everybody else stay away. What are your thoughts on this matter?”
Dean grunted and took a big bite of pizza, humming in pleasure. He chewed and swallowed and then sought Reg out across the table. “Okay, guys, I have a plan, sort of—but first I need you, Reg, to tell me what you know about these two kids that Anthony didn’t.”
“Well, they’re good kids from the art club. Ilia’s family is apparently Bratva, because the guy who was looking for Reynaldo was his uncle Lem, and Reynaldo told us his father is Gael Barrera—”
Dean spit out his soda. “I beg your pardon?” he coughed as he mopped up his face… and his pizza.
“Gael Barerra? I guess his dad, uhm, runs a—”
“The Corazones de Sangre cartel,” Marcus supplied grimly, handing Dean a napkin. “Yes. We know him. Or rather, Dean knows him. I was doing something else at the time.”
“I told you this,” Anthony complained. “I remember very clearly texting you that we had Romeo and Julian of the Bratva/cartel underworld in the back of your brother’s hybrid!”
“Understood,” Dean said grumpily. “But I didn’t realize which cartel. I have history with this particular cartel, which may….” He chewed is lip thoughtfully. “Did he say why he wasn’t in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert with his father? The boy, I mean.”
“Because he’s gay,” Reg said. “And he was already getting bullied. His father sent him to live with his aunt, who hasn’t been part of the family for years. I, uh, did not know his aunt was that Adelle Barerra, as in Gael’s sister.”
“Oh, that nice art teacher?” his mother said, sounding delighted. “The one you volunteer with? What a coincidence!”
“You know about that?” Reg said, and Anthony made some sort of snorting sound that indicated he was not surprised.
Dean and Marcus were having work spouse eyeball wars over the dinner table.
“Yes, Mom,” Dean said, “that is a coincidence.” He broke off the eyeball war and added, “In this case, a very helpful one. So, uhm, how close are the boys?”
“Second base,” Anthony said promptly, and Reg shot him a flustered look.
“How far is that again?” he asked, cursing his very limited experience in this matter.
“Kissing,” Anthony said, giving him a very personal sort of glance. “First base is holding hands, second base is kissing, third base is groping―”
“Petting,” Julie said primly.
“Petting,” Anthony corrected without a hitch in his stride, “and a home run is a home run.”
Reg thought about that and felt his ears burn. “I’m sure there’s nuances,” he muttered, and Anthony’s low laugh had absolutely nothing to do with the mission at hand.
“There are,” he admitted. “We’ll discuss them later.” With that he glanced up at Dean and smoothly rerouted the conversation. “Why is this a thing, Dean? I mean, they’re sweet kids, but, you know, star-crossed lovers don’t necessarily rate special treatment from men with AK-47s.”
Dean snorted. “No, but whether the boys get along or not will matter when it comes to relocating them someplace safe.” A sort of profound grief crossed his features.
“Ten years ago I would have said my own country was safe, but we know that’s not true anymore.
I’ve got some ideas. You two eat up, then Reg is going to take me through his sign-in protocols, and I’m going to, uhm, dance with a porcupine. ”
Marcus grunted. “Do you really think he’ll dance?”
Dean shrugged. “Look, I know he’s a bad guy.
I can’t defend any of the ways he makes his money.
But his family—that’s important to him. He sent Reynaldo here because he wanted him to be safe.
I mean, he sent Reynaldo to a sister who had disowned him.
That says something. Some bad guys are bad through and through.
Some bad guys have a few redeeming qualities.
Barrera has a few redeeming qualities, and he’s already proven he’ll go to lengths to keep his family safe. Let’s see what we can do with that.”
Reg nodded and stared at the last three pieces of pizza on his plate, torn between finishing them and a salad and getting right to work.
“Eat your dinner,” Anthony said softly, taking his own bite. “We’ll get to the rest of it soon enough.”
Reg gave him a small smile and took a bite, but he was actually thinking about something completely different.
Nuances? What kind of nuances? I would very much like to get to the bottom of that word.
Anthony winked at him like he knew exactly what Reg was thinking, but he kept eating.
It was almost like he was shoring up his strength.
AN HOUR later, as Anthony and Bailey helped with cleanup, Marcus and Dean watched over Reg’s shoulder as he wove his way through layers of security and pinged the leader of one of Mexico’s most feared cartels.
The result was instantaneous and violent, but Reg had been expecting retaliation, and he had safeguards in place to rebuff the virus that someone on the other end had shot his way.
He pinged again, but this time with ASCII art and a code phrase from Dean that he didn’t even want to interpret.
The ASCII art was a white flag of truce.
The code phrase was Give me three steps.
He sent it, tapping furiously so his code would be in place to reject another malware incursion, and he almost squeaked when a message appeared, plain text format.
We are sorry about your plane. That was not planned.
Oh my God. Reg turned to glare at Dean. “This is the guy who shot down your plane?”
Dean and Marcus both sucked air in through their teeth.
Given that Marcus was still in a wheelchair, with his leg held together by bolts and rods, and Dean had a hairline fracture in his skull that had barely healed from the same incident—a plane crash—the sound was less a wince of pain than a grunt of culpability.
“It was sort of our fault,” Dean said. “Giving orders on the fly. Our pilot didn’t understand a double reverse… here… let me—”
“Not on your life,” Reg muttered. An alarm sounded that told him a probe had been sent to figure out his whereabouts, and he hit a redirect beacon that rerouted his signal through twenty-six different places.
It gave him about three minutes.
“What should I say?” he asked when that was done.
“Tell him it was our fault,” Marcus said promptly.
Our bad, Reg typed. Bygones.
And there was another probe. Reg rerouted this one through another series, but he only had so many of those.
What can I do for you, Spanish-with-Russian-Accent?
“Well, he remembers us,” Dean muttered. “Are you sure I can’t—”
“Quit wasting time,” Reg said. “I don’t have unlimited protection here.”
“Okay. Tell him about Bratva and his son.”
Reg sort of wished for more direction than that, but he tried.
Your son is in danger—a Bratva tried to abduct him today. They failed because he has a friend in the same situation who kept the men from firing.
There was a long pause—but no more probes or malware, so Reg was hoping Gael Barerra was taking this seriously.
What do you suggest I do?
Reg glanced at Dean, who shrugged and sighed. “Tell him about ICE,” he muttered.
The Bratva tried to sic ICE on both boys, he sent. We have them safe.
Boys?
Reg snorted. Code name, Romeo and Julian.
There was a long sequence of ellipses and then, Dios mio.
Same. But they’re good kids. We want to keep them safe.
The next word was eloquent.
How?
Reg looked at Dean, who said, “May I?” with a pointed glance at the keyboard.
“Sure, but if I say move, move,” Reg said. “They almost made us, like, six times in the last five minutes. We don’t want the Corazones de Sangre to descend on Mom and Dad’s house like the plague, do we? We’ve already had ICE!”
“No, no,” Dean muttered, muscling in on Reg’s space in front of the computer, using his own office chair. “Don’t go far. I hear you.”
How? The word repeated.
How do you feel about Canada? Dean typed.
Is very cold.
Yes, but it still has less ICE than here.
Again that blinking cursor.
You need me to come?
No. Believe it or not, we just want them safe.
I believe you. I was very glad to hear that plane crash didn’t end you. Honorable men are hard to find.
Agreed. We’re glad to be alive. We’ll keep being honorable if you will.
Same. Let me know when the sweaters arrive up north.
I will. But they should be allowed to get lost up there.
Blinking cursor, blinking cursor, blinking cursor, and Reg realized what Dean was saying. At least by sending his son to his sister in California, Gael Barerra had known something about how the boy was doing. Dean was proposing cutting off all contact.
Please tell him to be safe.
I promise.
Use the same handle to contact me when it’s done.
Dean chuckled.
Give me three steps.
Take the north door.
Done.
Dean shoved the keyboard at Reg, and this time when the alarm pinged, Reg shut the whole thing down and killed all ethernet and internet access with a few quick keystrokes.
“Did he get in?” Dean asked.
Reg shrugged. “I mean, he knows, sort of, where we are anyway, but I don’t think he pinpointed here.”
Dean and Marcus nodded. “Okay,” Dean said. “Now how do we contact Reynaldo’s aunt and the other boy’s mother?”
“One word,” Reg said. “Undercover.”