The Watchman

Seven

In my line of work you rarely get to choose who you work with. I pick up most jobs by word of mouth, some via a loose network of former military personnel, spooks and private security contractors trading information on intelligence or security assignments around the world. I vet as many as I can beforehand, but you can’t always be too selective. Other times the chemistry simply isn’t there and you either suck it up or say no.

It certainly wasn’t there with Parillas. But by the time I found that out, I was already in.

Right from the start he made it clear he didn’t like working with an outsider. By that he meant non-DEA. When he heard Beckwith mention that I was a contractor, he got all bug-eyed and stared at the intelligence specialist as if he’d gone nuts.

‘What the hell — are you kidding me?’ He leaned across the table and hissed, ‘Since when do we bring in outside help?’ He had no trace of a Latino accent, I noticed, although he looked the part for where we were going. Dark eyes, thin face and skin like coffee, a few pockmarks around his cheeks.

‘Since we decided the situation demanded it.’ Beckwith’s response was friendly, but beneath the words, layered in steel. I got the impression he wasn’t going to stand having a fight with his colleague about it. ‘We brought you in for the same reason; because you won’t be known faces. Mr Portman here has never been down south, never mixed it with the drugs gangs, but he’s got an excellent record in similar work, so we’d like you to go along with this.’

‘What kind of work was that?’ Parillas wasn’t looking at me, but his hostility rippled across the table in waves. ‘Is Portman your real name?’

‘He’s done stuff you’ve never dreamed of. Trust me.’ Beckwith’s voice had gone flat; end of discussion. ‘And Portman’s the name we’re using.’

Parillas nodded, but he wasn’t happy. His face had gone tight and I could hear a foot drumming on the floor beneath the table. I put it down to the stiff-shirt attitude of some special agents I’d worked with before, who thought anyone from outside their own sphere of activities was deeply suspect and not to be trusted. I ignored it.

‘You read the file?’ Parillas asked once Beckwith had said his goodbyes and left.

I nodded. Maybe he’d warm up a little once we got to know each other. Somehow I doubted it. I stood up, eager to get the show on the road. The sooner we moved, the easier it would be to focus on what we shared rather than what we didn’t.

Parillas led the way out to a dusty white Land Cruiser that had seen better days. It had some damage to the panels and some flecks of rust here and there, but by the smooth sound of the engine, it had less time under the hood than it looked. I’d seen plenty of similar vehicles in the area already, and had used one or two myself.

Parillas climbed aboard and we took off at a clip, heading south.

‘This is an in-out job,’ he explained briefly. ‘We get to Tijuana in less than an hour, pick up the equipment, then split up. I make the rendezvous and you stay on the outside. Shouldn’t take more than an hour, then we leave.’

‘What time is the rendezvous?’

‘Four thirty on the nail.’

‘Suits me,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed close?’

‘No. Believe me, in Tijuana two guys moving around together attracts too much attention; the cops down there operate in teams and pairs for safety, and the gangs are aware of that. Single guys looking like they want to make a score or pick up a short date, not so much. You hang back but stay within phone contact and hope this isn’t a set-up.’

‘Is it likely?’

He shrugged. ‘Anything’s likely in Tijuana. It’s that kind of town.’

‘You sound like you’ve been there before.’

‘A long time ago. Problem?’

I shook my head. ‘No problem.’ Beckwith had told me Parillas was an outsider, like me. ‘Give me your guy’s name and description.’

He considered it for a moment, and evidently thought it was OK to tell me.

‘His name’s Louis Achevar. Why do you need to know what he looks like? You won’t be eyeballing him.’

‘Because if something goes wrong and I have to pull him out, I need to know who I’m looking for. We’ll let Beckwith worry about getting him across the border afterwards.’

He looked reluctant, but he couldn’t argue with the logic. One of the main points of any operation is having a fall-back plan in case it doesn’t go as expected. Beckwith had talked only of success, not failure, and while we were going to be within a short spit of the US border, I was still thinking about ways out if the balloon went up.

‘He’s a forty-two-year-old runt,’ he said. ‘Skinny, with glasses, and about five-six. A Mexican Woody Allen, but bald as a coot. If he sees you, he’ll run. I ain’t kidding — the guy’s paranoid. Anybody but me and he’ll think it’s the cartel come to waste him.’

‘So he knows what you look like?’

He hesitated. ‘He has a rough idea, sure. He’s been told to take a room in the hotel and wait for me to show up.’

‘What number?’

‘Jesus, you want his inside leg, too?’ He puffed out some air, then said, ‘Thirty-four, on the second floor. But you’re not to go near him, understand? Stay out of it.’

‘Fine. I won’t go near him unless I have to.’

The idea seemed full of holes to me, but I had no way of knowing what stress this Achevar was under, or what hoops he’d had to jump through to come even this far. All I knew was that insiders, especially middle-ranking insiders who knew too much and who decided to rat on organizations like the cartels or the mafia, were treading a fine line between life and death. And that was enough to get to the strongest individuals.

Parillas nodded and drove on in silence.

We reached the border on the I5 and joined a queue at the highway inspection gate. It was hot and dusty and full of noise and the acrid smell of car fumes hanging over us like a thick fog. Some of the vehicles heading south were beyond the low end of road-worthy, packed with families and pumping out carbon monoxide in clouds. The border agents kept us moving, although it was slow enough to make it uncomfortable. Parillas seemed edgier the closer we got, but he probably knew the risks involved more than I did. Eventually we cleared the border control and were on our way.

‘After we pick up the stuff,’ he said, swerving to avoid a beat-up and overloaded truck wallowing in the nearside lane, ‘I’ll drop you off before we get downtown. You head for the hotel and call me when you’re close. I want to know exactly where you are.’

‘What will you be doing?’

‘Checking out the area, watching for Achevar, what do you think?’

I shook my head. He was departing from the plan. ‘No. Checking the perimeter is my job. I’m the escort, you’re running the meet. I’ll scope the area and call you to confirm if it’s safe to go in.’

He was ready for that one. ‘No way, man. I know this place better than you. You’re meant to be in the background, so stay there.’ It was odd, but the more uptight he got, the more a trace of an accent came out, accompanied by a faintly nasal tone.

‘You know the place? How well?’

‘Enough. Believe me.’ He clamped his jaws shut.

‘What if there’s someone there who knows you?’

‘There isn’t. Trust me. It’s been too long.’ He refused to look at me and was gripping the wheel like he didn’t want to let go. The temperature in the car had gone up noticeably in the last few seconds and Parillas was sweating heavily.

Something wasn’t right here. ‘Like how long? Like a lifetime? A couple of vacation trips?’ Then I had it. ‘You used to live here.’

‘No. Yes — when I was a kid. So what? It’s been years.’ He was angry and defensive.

‘Can you guarantee there are no old school friends who never moved on? Neighbours who remember the kid even though he grew up?’

He said nothing and I got the feeling he was wishing he hadn’t started this.

‘You can’t,’ I said calmly. ‘Which means the quicker you get in and out, the less likely you are to be made by a random passer-by, and the sooner we’ll get back on the other side with the information we’ve come for.’

He shook his head, unwilling to give way. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I do.’ I stared hard at him. ‘I’ve done this before — a lot. So how about you trust me?’

He looked resentful, but he must have known it made sense. Random was the biggest enemy of planning; a chance encounter, a face from the past — anything like that could put a bomb under the most carefully thought-out scenarios. I wondered if he simply didn’t like handing over control, in which case he should have come in by himself. It made me wonder whether Beckwith knew what he was doing.

We followed the highway into Tijuana and Parillas took a turning off which dropped us into a residential and commercial district. He pulled into the car park of a mid-size motel and sat waiting, checking out the few cars around us.

‘Our contact will be here soon,’ he said, and checked his watch. He still wasn’t happy.

Moments later, a pickup with tinted windows slid up alongside us and the driver climbed out. He was fat and friendly looking, with a heavy beard, a man in his fifties. He didn’t look at us, but went to the back of the pickup and lifted out a polished wooden box. He placed it on the ground by the back of the truck.