Nine
His voice came at such a low whisper I could barely hear what he was saying.
“Hey, grandma. There’s, like, something weird going down at SerMart.”
I rubbed my eyes and turned on the bedside lamp. My back twinged in protest of being forced to move after a few hours of lying still.
“What’s that?” I asked, keeping my voice low so it wouldn’t carry too far on his end.
“There’s some people who came up from the loading dock I haven’t seen before. Usually, nobody comes up on the freight elevator, but these three Mexican dudes came up, and they’ve been doing stuff around where you said the body fell from.”
“What are they doing?” I shifted in bed, propping a pillow under me to try to relieve my back.
“Dunno. They’ve been moving boxes, but I don’t think they’re actually working. It’s, like, two of them keep moving stuff, but they seem to be doing that to keep anyone from seeing what the third one is doing.”
“How long have they been there?”
“Only a couple of minutes. I ducked out and got away to call you. Oh, gotta go. Manager’s coming.”
The phone cut off.
I was in my car and driving to SerMart in less than five minutes.
It doesn’t take long to get ready when you sleep with your clothes on. I didn’t sleep with my shoes on, though. I am retired, after all.
I had even left a bottle of painkillers in the glove compartment. I popped one. It reminded me of the time when I had typhoid in the Western Sahara and I had to march twenty miles through the desert. I just dealt with the pain and soldiered on.
Cheerville is a sleepy town, and it’s even sleepier at night. The empty streets gave me a chance to calm my quick breathing and take stock of the situation.
We had three “Mexicans” coming into the building and doing something right where the body had been lying. Obviously, these were my Panamanian friends. They probably got access to the loading dock by showing their Escudo Security badges. No one would have questioned that. But what were they doing? Cleaning up the scene? Shouldn’t they have done that already?
They must have left something there. Something they didn’t want us to find.
The question was, had we already found it or not?
I felt that prickly little thrill I always got when I was hot on the trail of a case. This time, though, it was ten times as strong. This time, it wasn’t some local mafia or jealous rival crossing the line into violence. This time, it was international. This time, the CIA was involved somehow.
Which brought back something that had nagged me ever since I had spoken with Gary Wycliff. He hadn’t warned me off the case. Well, he had said I’d be in danger if I pursued it and safe if I didn’t, but he knew me well enough to know that was like waving a red flag at a bull. He was assistant head of the Latin American desk now. He ranked me. He could have ordered me to steer clear, and I would have had no choice but to grumble and salute. He hadn’t ordered me.
So in effect, he asked me to pursue the case.
But he hadn’t told me what it was all about.
There’s government work for you.
Parking at SerMart proved to be a problem, not because there weren’t enough spots but because there were too many. SerMart was a huge building with an equally huge parking lot. The twenty or so vehicles of the night-shift workers looked forlorn sitting under the harsh lamps in that vast space. If I drove in there, I would stick out like a sore thumb, and the people watching the surveillance cameras were the very people I was trying to spy on.
So I drove past. I had remembered from my one and only visit to the store that another street passed behind it. That street was also a commercial district but was much less built up and had only a few stand-alone shops. If I drove along there, I’d get a glimpse between the buildings of my target.
Yes, I notice these things when I’m out shopping for my grandson. It’s called situational awareness, and it’s saved my life on a number of occasions.
So I drove around the block and took the street behind SerMart at a much slower speed. Here, the stores were much smaller and stood alone. Some looked like they were old converted homes. All were shut, and I ignored their signs as I peeked through the space between the buildings, past a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, and into the back lot of SerMart.
I only got a few quick glimpses, but they were enough. The gate to the loading dock was open, nearly filled by an eighteen-wheeler that had backed into it, harsh light shining out around it and casting a sinister silhouette.
Parked next to it was a four-by-four with a logo painted on the side. My eyes aren’t up to reading at that distance under those light conditions anymore, but I did see a big red shield emblazoned next to the words. That told me all I needed to know.
The Panamanians were still inside.
What to do? I couldn’t enter the parking lot, and there was no way to sneak in even for someone of my abilities. I did have one thing working in my favor. I remembered from checking out the security video that the cameras only covered SerMart property. They did not capture the roads around the building. I could circle without being seen and wait for them to come out.
So that’s exactly what I did, and I didn’t have to wait long.
I only made a couple more slow circles around the block before I came around back again and my heart did a little flippy-flop.
The Escudo Security four-by-four was no longer parked by the loading dock.
I put the pedal to the metal as much as my practical little suburban two-door would allow
