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We closed the door on Dave, and Judey rolled his eyes.
“Wouldn’t touch him with a long stick,” Judey said, “but I couldn’t resist scaring him one more time. Now if you’ll all get comfy, I’ll make some coffee, and we can sit down and plan out the rescue operation.”
“We need help,” I said when we were at the table. “We need someone in government that we can trust.”
“I know a guy,” Hooker said.
Hooker called his assistant and minutes later had a phone number. Hooker dialed the phone number, made some required small talk when the connection was made, and then got to the point.
“I found something that might be dangerous,” Hooker said to the person on the phone. “I want to turn it over to the authorities, but I’m not sure how to go about it. I think giving it to the local police isn’t the route we want to go.” There was some talking on the other end. “I don’t want to go into details on a cell phone,” Hooker said. “Let’s just assume the government would like to gain possession of this item that’s chemical in nature. I’ve been approached by two losers who claim to be feds.”
“Scala and Martin,” I said. “Working out of Miami.”
Hooker repeated the names to his connection. “And something else,” Hooker said. “I want to get someone out of prison in Cuba. Maybe buy him out.” There was some more small talk, and Hooker hung up.
“He’s going to get back to me,” Hooker said.
“He have a name?”
“Richard Gil.”
“Senator Richard Gil?”
“Yeah. He’s a real good guy.”
“And a NASCAR fan?”
“That too.”
“Let’s make a list of everything we have to accomplish,” Judey said. “We have to rescue Maria. We have to get the gold and use it to buy Maria’s father out of Cuba. We have to give the bomb over to the authorities.”
“It would be good if we could neutralize Salzar,” Hooker said.
“Neutralize?” Judey said. “You mean like whack him?”
“NASCAR Guy doesn’t whack people,” Hooker said. “NASCAR disapproves of whacking. Neutralizing is broader in scope.”
Brian was whining at the powder room and sniffing under the door. He wanted the cookies.
“Now let’s review what we know,” Judey said. “We know the location of the garage on the Tamiami Trail. We know what it looks like inside and that there are always four guys there. We know they have the gold crated for shipment to Cuba.”
“We know the helicopter can land in the parking lot out back of the garage,” Bill said.
“I think my man can help facilitate things like swapping out an old Cuban guy for a shitload of gold,” Hooker said. “And I think he can coordinate this with canister pickup. What he’s probably not going to be able to do is round up the goods. We’re going to have to round up the goods. And then we’re going to have to deliver them.”
“I don’t want to be left out,” Bill said.
“You look awful,” I told him.
“I can deal,” he said.
It was midafternoon, and by six we had a plan pretty much in place. It sounded ridiculous on paper. Straight out of a bad movie. But it was the best we could do. We couldn’t move on the plan until we heard from the senator.
The phone rang at seven-thirty and Hooker answered. It was Senator Gil. Hooker took notes while he talked. His face was flushed when he got off the phone.
“It’s a go,” he said. “Everything will be in place tomorrow at ten AM.” He turned to me. “NASCAR Guy’s a little flummoxed.”
We were all flummoxed.
