the ever-present fear of betrayal, torture, and violent death hangs miasmalike over the milieu.
A trafficker seeks to up his odds of survival any way he can. That includes help from the beyond, the domain of spirits, ghosts and phantasms; the dark world of devils, demons and dark gods. Many pistoleros take to the practice of magic, witchcraft, the invoking of presences and spirits for supernatural protection against earthly foes.
Paz's guardian spirit was Saint Barbara, traditionally the patron saint of gunpowder, a Christian icon who in the realms of voodoo and Santeria stood for Ogun, the god of war.
Around his neck, strung on a thin chain, Paz wore a medallion stamped with the image of the saint, a vital protective talisman that had been blessed by a powerful bruja, or witch.
Paz reached into the top of his shirt, wrapping a hand around the medallion of Saint Barbara and squeezing it as he made a sacred vow to the deity.
'I, Martello Paz, give thanks for deliverance from my enemies. I will send many souls to serve You in the afterlife, I promise You that, and You know that is one promise that Paz never fails to keep. There will be blood… '
Paz set about turning sacred vows into secular reality. He had already been surprised once today; it would not happen again. Gun in hand, he prowled around the site, making sure it was as lonely and abandoned as it looked. Doors remained locked; the plywood boards covering plate-glass windows were intact and untouched.
He'd just completed his survey when he glimpsed a blur of motion to the north.
He ducked behind the rear of the building, out of sight, peeking around the corner.
Instinct had proved right, as he now observed a police car driving south along the road.
Paz at this moment was in no mood to be trifled with by anybody. If the lawmen were on his trail, it would be just too bad for them. However few rounds he had left in his machine pistol's clip, he'd put them to good use. When the bullets ran out, he still had his bare hands. He was Paz, Martello Paz.
The stolen car was parked behind the back of the station, which should hide it from casual observers passing by along the road.
The oncoming police car was in no hot pursuit; its emergency lights and flashers were dark. It rolled past the Jiffy Pump ghost station and kept on going, not slowing down, rolling southbound and away until it was out of sight.
'Lucky for you, bastardos,' Paz said to the rear of the police car as it dwindled in the distance, becoming a blur, then a dot, then winking out into nothingness. He spat in their direction.
He lingered long enough to note that there was a light but steady flow of traffic on the road. Generally, at any one time, it was never empty; there were always a few vehicles following it north and south. He saw no immediate threat implicit in that fact.
Restless, he prowled around the back of the lot, making sure there were no homeless derelicts, winos, or bums encamped in the brush, and no youngsters exploring the nearby polluted creeks and fields. If any witnesses saw him making use of the station hideout, he'd kill them. Which bothered him not at all, but hiding the bodies afterward would be real work, especially in the suffocating heat, already oppressive at this hour of the morning.
The station building was a flat-roofed blockhouse consisting of two parts, an office/convenience store area and the larger section, a two-bay garage. The outer shell of the station was faced with white ceramic tiles, now faded to a dingy gray, set in a grid pattern. The plate-glass window display area was encased behind sheets of nailed-up plywood. All other windows, large and small, were also boarded up.
Paz went around to the rear door. It was made of solid metal, with a door handle but no keyhole.
He reached around to the left door frame, at about chest height, probing and feeling around the tiles and the grouting until he felt one tile move under his touch. He pushed in on it, hard. A metallic clicking sound came from within; he'd tripped some kind of concealed internal locking mechanism.
The tile under his fingertips was mounted on a hinged metal square plate. With the release tripped, the hinge-mounted tile flipped up, jutting at right angles to the wall. Beneath it lay a hidden recess containing a numerical keypad.
Paz's stubby, strangler's fingers punched out a six-digit numerical code number and pressed enter. Triggering an electronic impulse that released a concealed locking mechanism in the door. The bolt retracted, unsealing the door.
Paz opened it, stepping aside as a blast of hot, stale air wafted out. It reminded him of the 'hot box' cells he'd used back in the Venezuelan jungles, penning prisoners in them for days and weeks at a time to break them; or, having broken them, to let them rot in their own filth.
Light shone through the doorway, illuminating the office side of the building. A long wooden counter ran down the long axis of the space, dividing it in half. The countertop bore a faded imprint of where a cash register had once sat, back when the station was actually a going concern.
The front of the building had featured a large plate-glass window front and glass door. They'd been painted black and encased from within with metal grilles. Thieves would need heavy-duty equipment to break in, deterring kids, crackheads, and all but the most determined burglars.
A pall of dust covering the floor was undisturbed. No one had entered the hideout since he'd last been here over a month ago.
He set his gun down on the counter. Stacked under it were supplies, boxes of dried foods that would keep forever, stacks of half-gallon containers of bottled water. Not to mention other, vital creature comforts, such as a humidor of top-quality Cuban cigars. And adult beverages.
He hauled out a cardboard carton containing four bottles of rum. Dark Jamaican rum. He pulled one out, broke the seal on it, unscrewed the cap, and took a long pull from it. It poured liquid fire down his gullet into his belly, then all through the rest of him. It felt good, nerving him with energy.
He followed up with several more solid belts, leaving the bottle half empty when he set it down. He let out his breath in a long sigh: 'Ahhhh… '
For the first time since the gunfire at dawn, he finally felt like he had time to catch his breath.
Martello Paz had come up in a hard league and had never forgotten it. He'd come far and risen high, but it could all vanish in the blink of an eye. The wheel of fortune throws down as capriciously as it lifts up. The regime that prized his services today might seek to liquidate him tomorrow.
Paz was careful. He always left himself a way out. The gas station was a safe house known only to him. A bolt-hole, a safe house to hide in if things went sour.
Nemesis, he knew, could come knocking for him in the form of any of his colleagues at the New Orleans consulate, virtually all of whom were involved in Venezuela's spy services. Military spies, secret police spies, even political spies. When they weren't spying on the Americans, they were spying on one another. Sometimes they spent more time spying on one another than the opposition, monitoring their fellows for loyalty to President Chavez and his 'twenty-first-century socialist' regime.
Opposition there was aplenty. Emissaries of Chavez's socialist state were radioactive as far as the American intelligence agencies were concerned. All consulate staffers were on the Yankees' watch lists. So were their contacts, colleagues, chance acquaintances, friends, family members, and mistresses, their cooks and servants and gardeners.
Handicapping the U.S.'s military intelligence apparatus was the fact that it was stretched and stressed to the breaking point. So many persons of interest were wandering loose and abroad in the nation that it was impossible for the home team to keep track of them all at any one time. America's open society provided an incredible advantage for the aggressor.
Paz swam in a sea of treachery. Betrayal was endemic to his profession. It could come from any direction. Therefore, real security could come only from relying on oneself. He had established this little bolt-hole early in his tenure at the consulate. It presented no great difficulty to a man in his position of power and trust.
Oil was the motive force of Venezuela's move to center stage of world power plays. The state oil company's overseas division, LAGO, was politicized from top to bottom. More than merely politicized, it had become a vehicle to insert an entire espionage infrastructure within the United States and every other nation where it was in
