AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was reliable and smart. Asoldadonot asicario.
Jorge Marin de Herrera put down the phone –landline conversations were less vulnerable to interception than cells – and became Blake Rutherford again. Jorge Marin was on track to accomplish perhaps the single most deadly attack on US soil in a generation while making enough money to live out the rest of his days in supreme luxury. He could possibly buy his own small country.
Blake Rutherford would continue to live his life as the last of a long line of patricians who’d been in California for generations. Thanks to his mother’s genes prevailing over his father’s, he very much looked like an Anglo patrician – tall, slender, fair, facial features straight out of the English peerage.
Jorge Marin de Herrera was a Mexican criminal who ran a drug cartel and whose identity was a closely held secret. He was El Quìmico, specialized in fentanyl. But across the border, he was his alter ego.
Across the border, Blake Rutherford was a respected U.S. citizen who as far as anyone knew, lived off a trust fund and had a spot on several corporate boards. It was a pity that the Rutherford money ran out in his mother’s generation, and he basically inherited fair skin, fine features and dark blonde hair instead of a trust fund.
Luckily, Jorge Marin de Herrera took care of the money.
And all his men had been promised small fortunes, so they were motivated. A successful end to this ‘mission’, as he liked to think of it, and his men would all retire rich.
It was his secret, his superpower. The ability to think ahead to the end game. To not be distracted.
Marin leaned back in his reclining office chair, pleased with everything. He often wondered whether it was the American in him that had allowed him to look at the drug trade and realize that all the cartels and cartel bosses were doing it wrong.
So shabby and downmarket. With mindless thugs as employees. Using terror and not money to incentivize. So much money to be made and they did it in the dirtiest, bloodiest manner possible. Making the entire thing untenable in the long run. The life expectancy of the cartel bosses was short and they usually died horribly or in a cell.
So stupid.
Well, he wasn’t stupid. Neither of his personas were stupid.
He was Jorge Marin de Herrera, El Quìmico, head of the Cabo Cartel, about to make a stunning financial coup and become, quietly, one of the richest men in the world.
He turned a little in his Tuscan leather office chair, on thetwenty-fifth floor of the Heiman Building, head of a small successful business that would disappear on thetenth of June. As would he.
He would sell his fentanyl manufacturing business – labs and all – and retire. Not too sure where. Maybe Switzerland, where the food was good and the streets were orderly and the police protected the rich. It was an expensive country but if you had all the money in the world, it didn’t matter, did it?
Marin prided himself on his speed. From gaining precious intel from a captured DEA agent to a plan to make more money than God had been the matter of a week.
And he could do it only because he had a cadre of intelligent soldados under him. And, of course, because he knew a very greedy banker.
* * *
Colin was waitingfor them downstairs, as promised. He was an entirely new man this morning. His eyes were less stoplight red and he’d shaved and was dressed soberly in dark pants and a light blue shirt. Above all, he’d lost that traumatized look and was now sober and serious. He looked every inch a physician.
“Hey,” he said as Raul and Emma walked up to him. “I spoke with the porter and explained the situation. The porter knows me, so he’s good.”
“When was the last time security saw Toby?” Raul asked.
“Saturday evening, coming in. I was on night duty at the hospital and Toby said he was going to stay in and go over some work stuff. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
Raul nodded. “Can we have a look at the security tapes after we’ve seen Toby’s apartment?”
Colin looked startled for a moment. “Ah, sure. I think so, anyway.” He thought for a moment, then nodded sharply. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Sorry I didn’t think of it first.”
Raul didn’t smile. “Why should you? That’s not your business, it’s mine. Your business is saving lives.”
“Your – your business?” Colin glanced at Emma, who nodded. “Sorry?”
Emma touched his elbow. “I was really worried about Toby, Colin. So, I called in a – a friend of friends who works for a big security company. One of the best. If anyone can help us figure out where Toby is, it’s Raul.”
Raul had completely morphed from charming dinner companion and passionate lover into serious security guy. Everything about him was vastly reassuring. Face sober and serious, seemingly aware of everything around him, that tall broad-shouldered body ready for anything. Emma realized how safe she felt with him. How anxious she would have been searching for Toby on her own. Something about Raul made her feel that they would solve the mystery of his whereabouts, no matter what.
Poor Toby. He’d been missing for six days now. A long time if he was sick or in distress. Enough time for him to be …
Nope.Not going there.
