Mike Smith Is Dead—Pt. 22 and 23

The fax machine whirred and a well armed grizzled faced man looked up from his nap, the heat and the beer from his shack in Brazil made him heavy eyed. He snatched the paper off of the machine read the description and stared at the picture.

“One million American for a Gringo? Hey, this guy must be something special.” He laughed. “It’ll be a turkey shoot. Fax went to us.” The fat stomach from his diet of fried meat made it hard for him to stand without holding on to the table

“Who you talk’n to?” A skinny man with rib bones showing through a sleeveless t-shirt sipped on a beer between puffs of cigarette smoke.

“Fax from Miami, says a guy in Costa Rica, or points thereof, a terrorist, wanted termination proof for million of one American.”

“What’d we have to do, where is he?”

“Don’t know. But, it might pay us to find out. Let’s start where he was last seen. Find out how he travels, who he trusts, we’ll find him.”

“Okay,” the skinny guy snidely uttered. “Where’s he usually staying?”

“Costa Rica.” The grizzled bearded guy finally fully stood and stretched his six foot two frame and walked into a larger room.

“Snakes, girls, ants, and rain, sounds like fun.” The skinny man followed his partner into the next room. “I’ll get us a plane, we’ll just be sightseers traveling down the coast. I know where there’s a Piper I can get. We can get a cheap room in Limon or wherever, find your boy, and fly out richer. This’ll be easier than the wiring on that government plane.”

The fax machine whirred and paper began spitting out.

The skinny guy picked up the sheets and then laughed. “We’re going to be rich. Look at these names.”

The bearded man glanced at the sheets. “Write the code, then burn’m. I’ll tell Poncho we’ll be back in a couple of weeks or so, not to give up our place.” The bearded man opened the door and before he slammed it shut he said, “Wonder if I bring him in alive what he’s worth?”

“Why’d ya wanna do that?”

Chapter 23

Rosa and Kip made it to seacoast town of Turbo without incident. After an eight hour drive on bad road they didn’t mind paying for a luxury hotel room suite on the beach.

“I’ll call my cousin tomorrow morning.”

Kip grinned. “You can try to call your brother again.”

“I don’t know why he hasn’t answered. But, I’ll call Linda, maybe she can get up with him.”

They crashed in the room without hardly looking around. The next morning they woke to the sound of the pounding surf.

First Rosa called her cousin, but found he had left for work, but she left her cell phone number. Next she called Linda.

“Rosa, where are you?” Linda demanded. “We’ve been worried sick about you. Paulo and a group of people went looking for you. But, he came back this morning and said they couldn’t find anyone.”

“Linda, we’re at a cousin’s or so will be in Turbo, Columbia. It’s a long story, but Kip feels that there are people trying to find us for the wrong reasons.”

“Well, Paulo will be relieved. We haven’t had phone service since the bad storm went through. We were out of power almost a week. So, are you coming back to San Jose?”

“Not immediately. You can tell Paulo where we are, but swear him to secrecy.”

“Oh, okay. I guess he knows the cousin?”

Rosa laughed. “Yeah, they used to play together before his parents moved to Bogota.”

“Okay, I’ll try to contact him. The storms really tore up a lot of houses and businesses. We were lucky with no damage, but like I said power was out and phone lines down.”

“Well, we will stay here until I don’t know when. Kip is still hurting from the airplane crash, but he will be okay I hope in the next few days. If we see strangers coming we may head for a cave somewhere though.”

Linda laughed. “Oh, don’t do that, we’d never find you again.”

“I’ll call again in a couple of days, after Kip is up and around, I think we are safe here. I have a rental car and can get to the store if we need anything.”

“Okay, I’ll try to get up with Paulo. Miss you.”

They disconnected.

“Linda will talk to Paulo,” Rosa repeated Linda’s conversation. “I imagine Paulo will call back later, she said there were terrible storms around San Jose last week.”

“Rainy season.” Was all Kip said. “You mentioned a cave? There’s no caves around here, that I am aware of.”

“I was kidding.” Rosa nudged Kip.

“I’m not, a cave sounds safe.”

Rosa looked worried. “We can’t stay here long. I used my own name for the rental car, sooner or later somebody might visit the rental company and will figure that out.”

Kip laughed. “You’re starting to sound like me.” He shifted his position. “I’ve thought about. If there’s anyone in the world I can trust other than you and Paulo it’s Marcos. Try to call him.”

Rosa picked up her cell phone and dialed the now memorized number. As usual a recording came on. “Trente, Trente (Thirty Thirty),” she said and disconnected. “Hopefully he calls back.”

Two hours later there had been no returned call from Marcos, but the cousin called.

“Rosa, the dock security has a an Interpol notice posted to arrest you and Kip. What’d you do, kill the Pope?”

“No, nothing like that. Kip’s in possession of some sensitive information. We think that’s what they want, or they want us dead so we can’t tell anyone.”

Rosa spent several minutes filling him in with enough information for him to suggest they leave Turbo. “Rosa, I know a captain of a freighter going to Santiago; he’s very discreet. I can get you a cabin, but it will be expensive. It’s leaving tonight, with stops in Quito, Lima, and then Santiago; I can probably get you passage for $3200 American or nine million pasos. At least that’s what he once told me about another situation.”

Rosa quickly accepted and agreed to meet the tanker by ten that night. “We’ll be there.”

Kip cleared his throat. “We will?”

“Kip, did you listen to the conversation?”

“Well, bits and pieces, my Spanish is getting better but far from ready for a speedy conversation. I guess we’re going to Santiago?”

“Six days at sea on a tanker.” Rosa said. “I need to get some clothes and take the car to a rental place that will return it.”

“Go get your clothes, then tonight we’ll call the rental agency and tell them it is at this hotel. You probably won’t be able to rent a car in Columbia again, but it’s better than being trapped.”

“Cool.” Rosa picked up her purse. “You sleep, I’ll shop. I’m going to meet Carlota, my cousin’s wife. I’ll bring you some local food.”

---

Twenty four hundred miles north of Turbo a plane touched down at Reagan International Airport and a tall blond woman with a briefcase hurried out of first class and rushed to a waiting taxi. “State Department, 2201 C Street.” Twenty minutes later she paid the cab and marched into a lower door of the concrete and plaster imposing building, presented her ID and credentials and headed for the elevators. She reached the seventh floor and waited in the hallway for someone to open the door from one of the office suites. “Disadvantage of misplaced bathrooms.”

She only waited a minute before a young woman rushed out of the suites and ran toward the restrooms door. The door hung open and Juanita Giles walked in and directly to Field Manager Mitch VanHorn’s office. He was on the phone staring out the window but must have seen her curvaceous form in the window reflection. He quickly turned and motioned for her to come into the office and sit down. “Giles, what a surprise.”

She knew he was lying; she had sent an email to let her superiors know she was traveling to Washington DC.

“I thought you’d call.” Mitch continued.

Giles sat on the edge of a chair. “You would have been out if I called.” She was sitting in front man who exuded traits of a typical Marine. He had square shoulders and a squared, close- cropped haircut. His face was hard with deep lines, a dimpled chin, and narrow slits for eyes.

“Well, you got here and my guess it has to do with the Mike Smith case. We killed Mike Smith years ago. That whole scenario is now only an annotation in some graduate thesis. Right? Or are you here because it looks like Sessions went off the reservation, then bit the bullet, another casualty in the scope of things.”

“Sessions didn’t die.”

“What?”

“He missed the plane.” Giles leaned forward toward the desk. “He took $475 million and skipped with a bank employee.”

“Oh? You know this how?”

“Banking commission in Costa Rica.” Giles could feel her temper rising.

“So is that the hidden money that was being held in San Jose, or something else?”

“That’s what we think, I thought it was more, but Sessions cleaned out the account where Mike Smith, aka Kip Waller had been storing it. Note, I said storing. He told me and several others that he never intended to keep it, but send it back to the US as soon as a vehicle was available. And by that I mean a way of sending it to the treasury without a question. Remember the funds were unaccounted for in the first place. And I understand he and a banker had been doing just that repatriating funds.”

Mitch laughed. “What funds?”

“Exactly. But, here’s the situation. Apparently, Sessions issued or had the Justice Department issue an Interpol Terrorist warrant out on Kip Waller.”

“That’s strange. He got the money, why would he go to that extreme?” Mitch leaned back and chewed on a pen.

“Kip Waller told me himself, he had photos, documents, emails, memos, directives, accounting records and everything imaginable on a series of discs and jump drives—all of which describes the clandestine operations of the United States in Latin American affairs. Including a series of murders and assassinations.” Giles took a breath. "I understand that the list of names involved is pretty inclusive of many members of Congress and the current and past administrations."

Mitch leaned forward on his desk. “I might shoot him myself, this is worse than Snowden, there might be questionable acts in that material.”

“Mitch. What he describes are criminal acts of many of the most important influential people in the United States; plus the general wrong doing of the nation. It’s not about current spies and operations; it’s about the outrageous criminal activities of the great United States. You, me, and a number of people including Mike Smith and Ivan Sessions are in these writings.”

“So where does Waller keep this supposed material?”

Giles shook her head. “I don’t know. If I were keeping that kind of data I’d put it in a bank vault at Ft. Knox. He might have had it in bank boxes.”

“Did Sessions look into the bank boxes?”

“Had them all drilled. According to the banking commission he took out gems and Tico money, nothing else. Waller had cleaned out one box before the audit.”

“So, you think Waller is in possession of the information right now?”

“Yeah, Mitch, afraid so. But, he hasn’t threatened to use it. I think he just wants to be left alone.”

“Do you know where he banks now?”

Giles thought for a second. “Yeah, Scocio Bank, in San Jose.”

“He and his wife? He has a wife now I understand.”

“My guess is his brother n’ law, and maybe their lawyer have some or all access. The lawyer is also a partner in the real estate company that his wife owns.”

“I need to make some calls. Go get a cup of coffee or something. You know where it is, around the corner and between the suite walls. Meet me back here in ten minutes.”

Giles stood and slid out of the office and toward the break room. A sea of government employees huddled over PCs and documents and did not look up as she passed. Ten minutes later she returned to the office. Mitch was typing on his computer.

“Good you’re back,” he said when she entered. “I want you to tell this story a bit higher up, but it’s not like you can march into his office. We need to get you in a little differently. After all you’re not really a citizen.”

Giles laughed. “They had a chance to make Panama an official Territory.”

“Mitch shook his head. “Let’s not go down that road again.”

Giles nodded. “Right.”

“Come back here tomorrow morning and be ready to sit in high places. In fact, come here to my office first, I’ll get gate passes.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan.” Giles didn’t want to leave but if Mitch could her a higher level meeting she would take the chance.

The next morning she used the same access and eased into Mitch’s office before he arrived therefore without him seeing her.

He walked into his office. “Oh, you’re here.”

“You have something for me.” Giles spoke directly, hoping to get her point across.

Mitch nodded. “I’ll call now and let them know you’re coming. Go to Union station. Have a coffee on the veranda, someone will come for you probably in an hour.” Mitch stuck out his hand. “Your info is unnerving to say the least. I think a couple of higher pay grades need to be in the loop.”

Giles shook his hand and quickly walked out of the State Department building and hailed a cab. Minutes later she was seated at a café table on the veranda at Union Station. For forty-five minutes she sat and watched people and traffic until a man in a gray suit approached her table. She noticed he was exceptionally tall, maybe two meters or more but very thin.

“Juanita Giles?”

She cringed at the mention of her first name but answered, “Yes.”

“Come with me,” he said.

Giles stood leaving a half consumed cup of coffee.

The man walked swiftly into a parking garage and to a parked blue Buick. “This one,” he pointed.

Giles walked around to the passenger side and the man followed to unlock the door but instead pushed the barrel of 9mm silencer against her neck and fired twice.

She felt the first slug break her skin, but felt nothing more.

The man dumped her purse on the concrete, took money out of her wallet, picked up her Panamanian driver’s license ID, passport and State Department papers and left her slumped between two cars as car alarms began blaring.

---

Two mornings later the soft breeze in Florencia was a welcome mix from the hard storms the country had imagined. Paulo and Maria were working around the new house doing general cleaning and some minor repairs to a window. A car with a government sticker pulled up into their driveway. Paulo stood from his work and walked over to the car.

“Can I help you?”

“Do you know Kip Waller?” A heavy set bearded man asked.

“Yeah, he used to work here, hasn’t be around in months,” Paulo said cautiously.

“Do you know where we can find him?”

Paulo hedged. “I heard he was killed in a plane crash in Columbia. You might check with Columbian officials.”

The man in the car thumbed through some papers. “Okay,” he said and began to pull out then returned.

“Yes,” said Paulo, leaning into the car. Maria followed carrying a garden hoe.

One shot from a silencer quieted the air and struck Paulo between the eyes. Maria screamed before two bullets hit her in the upper chest. The car backed out into the street. Blood ran down the concrete driveway.

An hour later Linda pushed papers aside as a extremely tall thin blue suited man walked into her office. Without saying a word the man lifted his right hand with a long barreled 38cal. and silencer and fired twice. The first bullet struck Linda in the chest, the second to her forehead. The man closed the door and departed.

To be continued...