The Rescue

27

One of Strickland’s first Apex clients, Mike Lineberger, is a successful young captain with a gleaming 46 Billfish docked in Dana Point. The sleek, blue-hulled Game On is outfitted for big-dollar marlin tournaments. It rolls gently in the water, bristling with antennas and outriggers.

Like Strickland, Lineberger is a gringo who has spent years in Mexico, building his fishing skills, winning more than his share of the lucrative Mexican and US West Coast contests. He’s around a lot of cash — the marlin tournament hunters are by definition well-off and careless with their money. There’s always the latest robbery in the host port, sometimes violent. And no end of desperately poor men willing to stick up a wealthy, distracted tournament angler obsessed with catching the biggest fish. So some years ago, Strickland showed Lineberger how to defend himself if things went truly, well, south.

One night in Cabo San Lucas, things went very south, but Lineberger was able to get himself out of it, thanks to Strickland’s brand of hyper-efficient Krav Maga.

Which left the captain indebted to his self-defense instructor.

So now they sit on the deck of Game On, the dark afternoon clouds admitting just enough sunlight to put a shine on the calm harbor water.

They’ve had a beer and caught up on their few mutual acquaintances. Strickland has filled him in on the Apex Self-Defense improvements; Lineberger has admitted that the virus knocked his tournament business down for most of 2020. But things are roaring again now.

Lineberger asks how he can help.

“Something you said one day after class,” says Strickland. “We were with Christy and Gayle at Morton’s, and you were talking about the big Bisbee win you’d just had in East Cape. The winner was a Mexican guy from Los Mochis but you wouldn’t say his name. Said you couldn’t say his name. Los Mochis is on the coast of Sinaloa, so I got a strong whiff of narcotics.”

“Miguel Villareal,” says Lineberger. “A serious angler, and a very badass man. He’s the only narco I’ve captained who doesn’t touch drugs or alcohol. We were the two Mikes in that tourney. We hit it off and won the contest. He took to me, bragged about his murders over seafood and fizzy water.”

“Can you put me in touch with him?”

Lineberger frowns. His face is leather dyed by the sun. “Jeez, Dan.”

Strickland says nothing for a long moment, letting the captain process.

“You don’t mean talk to him in person, do you?”

“Just phone, Mike. Then, if it goes well, face-to-face.”

“He’d put the screws to you,” says Lineberger. “I mean, you’d be helpless down there.”

“I have something good for him.”

“You better.”

“Something he’ll appreciate. No screws required.”

“Dan, I don’t want to read about another gringo from San Diego missing in Mexico. I don’t want to be the guy who hooked you up down there. You taught me a lot about protecting myself. We had some cool times with the ladies. I like you. Maybe I’m helping you protect yourself.”

“Tell him I have some information about El Romano of Tijuana. This is very important, Mike, El Romano.”

Lineberger gives Strickland a dispirited look, shakes his head. Stares at the brooding sky for a moment as if it might offer some advice.

“I’ll make some calls,” he says. “No promises. Miguel could have been... retired since then. Four years is a long time in that business.”

“Thank you, Mike.”

“Can I tell you just one thing, Dan? Some things aren’t worth risking your life for.”

“Amen to that,” says Strickland, thinking: Joe and Bettina Blazak are.

By evening, Lineberger has given Strickland a number for a Miguel Villareal lieutenant, one Jesús Narciso.

Sitting in his living room on the third-floor suite of Apex, Strickland uses a Walmart burner, claiming to be the infamous El Romano, the scourge of the Sinaloans in Tijuana.

He gives Narciso a partial rundown of what he hopes to soon be pitching up the chain of command to Miguel Villareal, then to El Gordo himself.

Minutes later, Narciso gets back with an okay: he’ll meet El Romano at the train station in Los Mochis tomorrow afternoon at two.

Strickland books an aisle seat round-tripper on Volaris out of Tijuana, departing 7:21 a.m.

Then, roaming his living suite with its views of the big harbor hotels and the Coronado Bridge and the silver Pacific beyond, he calls Bettina.

“I saw you last night in that green show-off car of yours,” she says. “Up at Moulton Meadows Park, where the DEA blew away Joaquín Páez. And made off with Valeria Flores. They picked up Joaquín like a piece of litter and washed his blood off the road with a fire extinguisher. I didn’t get the impression they were going to book the woman into the Marriott. Where’s the nearest federal lockup?”

“Santa Ana,” says Strickland. “But they’ll question her in San Diego.”

“Nobody will know what happened up there, will they? Unless I tell the story.”

“Why do that? Bad things happened to bad people. They might have killed Joe, you know. And possibly you.”

“Things like that don’t happen in this country, even to cartel thugs. We have due process. People have the right to know. It was murder by government agents, Strickland. They used silenced guns. They shot him down without even an arrest or charges. You think he didn’t have a family? People he loved and was good to?”

“But did he draw a weapon?”

“With twenty commandos coming at him, and snipers in wait.”

“Well...” Strickland feels little real sympathy for Páez. About the same as he felt for the three men he killed that night in Furniture Calderón. Or the fighters in Helmand. They were in the line of fire by choice. Live by the sword.

As Strickland listens to her silence, he pictures Bettina driving her Jeep from the La Quinta to the Laguna Beach Library parking lot, Joe in the front seat beside her. He remembers the joy that was in him then, the way it came over him suddenly, just seeing them. Now he watches the matchbox cars creeping over the Coronado Bridge.

“I’ll be out of the country for a few days,” he says.

“I’ll miss you following me everywhere I go. But thank you for last night. It made me feel safer. It meant a lot that you’d risk yourself like that. You did kind of creep me out, there by the hotel pool.”

“I told you I’d do anything in the world to protect you and Joe. Personally, I’m glad Joaquín is out of business and Valeria Flores is being detained by DEA. They’ll squeeze her dry, try to set her up as an informant and deport her.”

Another silence from Bettina.

“Put the phone to his ear, please,” Strickland says.

He hears the shuffle and scratch of contact, then tells Joe hello. “Hope you’re taking good care of yourself and Bettina. She’s a good reporter with lots of talent, and she’ll probably be on TV someday. I hope to see you again soon. And your woman too. So long for now.”

“He listened,” she says. “And so did I.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“I told you all of that.”

“Your life was on the table last night, just like mine.”

“You need me by your side.”

“You’re a story with holes in it,” she says. “Intriguing and mysterious.”

Strickland’s silent time now. He’s in his bedroom — the view of the harbor and a bit of the Gaslamp, the cool photos on the walls. The unmade bed. Joe’s crate and all his plush toys.

“I can tell you that story.”

“Okay.”

“Good stories aren’t short,” he says.

“True.”

“We have time. We’re young,” he says.

“Women dis twenty-six, but I like it.”

“I’m fine with thirty-three,” says Strickland. “I see a good future out there. Just now shaping up.”

Bettina sighs. Just kind of can’t believe this guy, but likes him.

“Strickland?”

“Blazak.”

“Safe travels.”