Better off Dead

Chapter 8

We had been climbing gradually since we left The Tree and just at that moment we crested the hill and the town came into view. It was spread out below us, maybe half a mile away. I could see clusters of buildings with pale stucco walls and terra-cotta roofs. It was hard to make sense of the layout. It looked like the place was made up of two rough ovals. They partially overlapped, like a Venn diagram drawn by a kid with a shaky hand. The buildings in the segment to the left were lower. Mainly single level. Their walls looked a little rougher. They were scattered around a little more randomly. The ones in the other part were taller. Straighter. More evenly laid out. The section in the center had buildings that were taller still. I could see arches and curves and courtyards. Maybe it was the municipal district. Maybe the bars and restaurants were around there, too. If the place ran to that kind of thing.

On the far side of the town a row of tall metal ribs rose out of the ground and extended east and west as far as the eye could see. They looked solid. Permanent. Unwelcoming. They were set close together and their tips were pointed and sharp. I guessed the land beyond them belonged to Mexico. It looked pretty much the same as the land on the US side. The incline picked up again and there was a slope a few hundred yards long that was undeveloped, like a kind of no-man’s-land. Then at the top of the rise the buildings began again. I could see another set of pale stucco walls and terra-cotta roofs stretching far into the distance.

“What do you think?” Fenton said.

“I think I’m missing something.”

Dendoncker had just ordered Fenton killed. He had at least three others on his payroll. Fenton had talked about him like he was the second coming of Al Capone, only with added craziness. That meant he must be based someplace that could sustain a decent level of crime. Protection. Drugs. Prostitution. The usual staples, most likely. But this town looked like nothing more than a sleepy backwater. The kind of place you would come to get over insomnia. I’d be surprised if they’d ever even had a shoplifting problem.

I asked, “Was Dendoncker born here?”

Fenton didn’t answer. She seemed lost in thought.

I asked her again, “Was Dendoncker born in the town?”

“What?” she said. “No. He was born in France.”

“So out of the entire United States, maybe the entire world, he chose to settle here. I’m wondering why. What else do you know about him?”

“Not as much as I’d like.” Fenton stared at the road ahead without speaking for a moment, then dragged her attention back to my question. “OK. His full name is Waad Ahmed Dendoncker. His father was German. His mother was Lebanese. He lived in Paris until he was eighteen, went to high school there, then was accepted by the University of Pennsylvania. He was a bright enough kid by all accounts. He got through his Bachelor’s and stayed on to do a PhD in Engineering but dropped out after eighteen months. He went back to France, bounced around Europe and the Middle East for a couple of years, and then I lost his trail. I couldn’t find any other trace of him until 2003, when he resurfaced in Iraq. He started working for the army as one of those general translator/fixer/facilitators. Then in 2007 the government started a program to bring a bunch of those guys over to the States to save them from reprisals. Dendoncker applied in May 2008. The vetting process is pretty thorough so he didn’t get his visa until April 2010. The government set him up in a town called Goose Neck, Georgia, and got him a job in a chicken processing plant. He kept his nose clean. His attendance record was perfect. He traveled a fair bit, but only in the lower forty-eight, and he spent a lot of time in the library. Then after a year he quit and moved here.”

Fenton took a left after the first couple of buildings on the outskirts of town and started to thread her way through a warren of meandering streets.

“I can understand him not wanting to chop up chickens for the rest of his life,” I said. “But it doesn’t explain why he picked this place.”

“I have a theory.” Fenton pulled through an archway and into a courtyard that had been converted into a parking lot. “Right after he arrived here Dendoncker set up a business. On the QT. He owns it through half a dozen shell corporations. That implies a strong desire for secrecy. So it follows that he wouldn’t want his operation to attract a whole lot of attention. This place is perfect for that. It’s on its own, tucked away at the ass-end of a single road, in or out. The population’s been declining for years. The locals say it’s turning into a ghost town. Plus there’s no border crossing for miles. Official or unofficial. The fence is secure. There have been no reported breaches in more than ten years. So there’s nothing for any department or agency to take an interest in.”

“What kind of business did he set up?”

“Catering. A company called Pie in the Sky, Inc.” Fenton stayed to the right and continued to the far end of the row of spaces. She took the final spot. It lay between a dull white panel van and a blank wall and she pulled all the way in so that the Jeep was pretty much hidden.

“So why would he need to stay out of the limelight? You think he’s hiding from the health inspector?”

“It’s not what he cooks. Or how. It’s who for. It’s a specialist company. It makes in-flight meals, but not for mainstream airlines. For private jets only. Dendoncker has contracts with half a dozen operators. His people pack up the food. Put it in those special metal boxes or trolleys, depending on the quantity. Take it to the airport. Load it right onto the plane. And retrieve the containers afterward. He provides the flight attendants, too.”

The setup could be totally innocent, of course. People who fly on private planes need food and drink just the same as if they were stuck in coach on a 737. Dendoncker could have hidden his involvement because he has a bunch of ex-wives he owes money to. He could be shy about paying his taxes. Or the setup could be something else altogether. The kind of airports most private jets operate out of aren’t like JFK or LAX. Security is minimal. For the passengers. And for the support services. I could see how that kind of setup could provide a guy like Dendoncker with certain opportunities. And why he would want to keep his comings and goings out of sight.

Fenton shut off the Jeep’s motor. “He could be moving drugs. Diamonds. Weapons. Pretty much anything.”

I asked, “Any proof?”

“Just suspicion at this point. But it’s not unfounded. Take my first day on Dendoncker’s crew. I got sent to cover for another woman. As a flight attendant. It was a last-minute thing. She was out sick. Or she knew what was in store. The whole experience was gross. There were two of us and four passengers. Rich assholes. They were constantly trying to grope us. Making suggestions about extra services we could perform. One guy was obsessed with my leg. Kept trying to touch it. I nearly took him to the bathroom and beat him to death with it. Not even the food distracted him. Or the drink. It was obscene. The most expensive stuff you can imagine. Caviar – Kolikof albino. Ham – Jamón Ibérico. Cheese – pule. Champagne – Boërl & Kroff. Brandy – Lecompte Secret. There was a ton of it. A dozen containers. Large ones. And here’s the thing. We only used ten of them. Two went untouched.”

“Maybe they over-ordered. Or Dendoncker was padding the bill.”

“No. I was going to take a look inside the spare ones while the other woman was in the bathroom, but they had seals on them. Tiny things. Little blobs of lead on short skinny wires. Partly hidden by the latches. I almost didn’t see them. So I checked the containers we did open. There were no broken seals on any of them.”

“What happened to the sealed ones?”

“They got off-loaded at the destination airport. Two more got put on in their places. Same size. Same shape. Same kind of seals.”

“What would have happened if you opened one by mistake?”

“I thought about trying that, but the plane flew back empty. No new passengers got on board, so there was no need to open any of the containers. And when I thought back to the outbound flight I realized something. It was the other woman who always picked which container we should open. At the time it seemed reasonable. I was new, she had experience, she knew where things were. But later it felt different, like she had been steering me away from the sealed ones. And it was the same basic picture with all the other flights I worked on. Different passengers. Different destinations. But there were always containers that weren’t accounted for.”

Fenton climbed out of the Jeep. She started toward a door at the center of the long side of the courtyard. I followed. I saw that the buildings on all four sides had originally been separate. Now they were joined together. Some were sticking out. Some were set back. But they were all the same height. The roof that connected them was continuous and uniform. It must have been added later.

Each original section of the building had a sign mounted on its front wall. I guessed they stated the initial occupant. There were lots of names. Lots of different businesses and services. A blacksmith. A cooper. A hardware store. A place to buy provisions. A warehouse. One whole side had been a saloon. Presumably the places had originally been independent but now their signs were all the same shape. They used the same colors. The same font. The doors and windows were laid out in different configurations but they were the same style. They used the same materials. They looked the same age. And each one had a glass rectangle mounted on the wall near the door, the size of a typical security keypad but with no buttons.

I said, “What is this place?”

“My hotel. Where I’m staying. Where we’re staying, I guess.”

I looked around all four sides. “Where’s the office?”

“There isn’t one. The place is unmanned. It’s a new concept. Part of a new chain. They’re in five cities. Maybe six now. I don’t remember.”

“So how do you get a room?”

“You book online. You don’t see anyone. You don’t interact with anyone. That’s the beauty of it.”

“How do you get a key? They send it in the mail?”

Fenton shook her head. “There isn’t a physical key. They email you a QR code.”

I said nothing.

“A QR code. You know. Like a two-dimensional bar code. You display it on your phone and the scanners by the doors read it. It’s excellent.”

“It is?”

“It is. Particularly if you happen to book with a false ID. And a false credit card. And a made-up email address. That way, no one can ever trace you.”

“This isn’t going to work for me. I don’t have a false ID. I don’t have any kind of a credit card. Or a phone.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Well, never mind. We’ll figure that out later.”

“There are cameras.” I gestured to a pair of them. They were mounted on the wall near the Jeep’s parking spot. A mesh cage protected them. “Someone could trace you that way.”

“They could try. The cameras do appear to be working. But if anyone tries to access their files, they won’t see anything. They’ll just get snow. That’s the beauty of the training they give you at Fort Huachuca. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”