Chapter Eighteen
When the phone at Esai Osuna’s house rang shortly after midnight, the message cryptic and urgent, he and Peter raced to a condo on the far north side of San Antonio, knowing all hell was about to break loose.
Everything had turned to shit. Salazar had dropped Pendera’s lifeless body in the dumpster and positioned himself in the garage. But then he’d shot Kathryn by mistake. Pendera’s body was likely to be found any moment and Salazar was somewhere on the loose. Kathryn was either dead or dying, and in any event, surrounded by so much protection a fly couldn’t get through.
And it was a certainty the feds had the all-important flash drive. The one thing that could sink them if they didn’t work fast.
The cartel operations had literally ground to a standstill. The key players were gathered for a council of war at the home of the leader who had returned to San Antonio filled with wrath. Miguel had flown in on his jet from Florida and was staying in one of the guest suites at el jefe’s condo. Peter and Esai had been summoned to join the happy group.
Peter wondered if he closed his eyes and wished very hard as he’d done when he was a young child, would he be transported to another place where none of what was happening was real.
A tall, striking woman, jet black hair swept back in a French twist, lips a bright slash of scarlet, smoked furiously as she paced the thick carpet in the lavish living room. The air was thick with rage and frustration. She stared viciously at Peter.
He stared back, said simply, “Hello, Mother.”
“I can’t imagine what possible explanation there can be for this fiasco.” Eva Osuna Fleming Gallagher Burke’s voice was cold and hard, her eyes filled with rage as she looked around the room, first at one person, then another.
“There is none.” Esai Osuna looked as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Your son lost the girl, and the feds have the flash drive, also thanks to Peter. I don’t imagine things could be any worse.”
“You know this isn’t all my fault,” Peter protested. “I tracked the car and pinpointed the area she was in. Can I help it if the incompetents you people sent out there couldn’t find her in such a small area?”
“That does not change the fact that the government now has that flash drive,” Esai reminded him, “with all the details of our operation. All of them.”
“The drive is encrypted,” Peter reminded them. He was sure he’d repeated the same words a thousand times over the past few days. “I wrote the code myself. It won’t be one they can break.”
“Don’t delude yourself,” Eva told him. “Today the government has cryptologists who can break any code ever written. We just have to hope it takes them long enough that we can restructure ourselves first. The physical process is already underway. When they start looking for money and merchandise, they’ll find nothing but empty warehouses and bank accounts with zero balances.”
“I think we all need to step back a bit and take a deep breath,” Peter told her. “Stop pointing fingers at each other. That doesn’t do a damn bit of good.” God, anything to shut her up. He was getting tired of being the evening’s whipping boy.
“Peter, in case the degree of your stupidity has escaped you, let me spell it out for you.” She lit a cigarette and blew out a thin stream of smoke. “You of all people know the lengths we went to in creating a dummy corporate structure that mimics a multi-national operation. It allows us to move goods and supplies and exchange money all under the guise of corporate business. People might suspect, but there was no way to prove anything.”
“Yes,” he interrupted, “but—”
“I’m not finished.” She inhaled another lungful of smoke. “Now, in a blink, all of that has changed, putting us at an extreme disadvantage. I wouldn’t think you’d need me to point this out to you. Every bank account we set up so painstakingly. Every supplier and distributor. Everything is on that little piece of technology you so stupidly left out in plain sight. Now we have to recreate everything from scratch.”
“And that doesn’t include what could be our biggest problem,” Miguel interjected.
Eva whipped around. “And what would that be?”
“The people on the payoff list. When they discover they’ve been exposed, they might turn on us to save their own necks.”
“Cristo!” She stubbed out her cigarette with vicious strokes. “Too bad we can’t kill them all. We’re exposed in a way I never thought we would be. Well, let’s start with the most important names and figure out how to handle them”
“I’ll take on that responsibility,” Miguel said. “I think we can safeguard most of them. The others will just have to be smart enough to keep their mouths shut.”
“If you’ll just let me explain something,” Peter tried again.
“There is nothing for you to explain. I am ashamed to think that a son of mine is so brainless he’s put us in this position.” She paced, her skirt swishing around her legs as she moved from one side of the room to another. “And the bodies that keep piling up in plain sight. Can no one carry out a simple assignment anymore? The fiascos in Charlotte and Los Angeles were bad enough, not to mention the library debacle. But what happened at the federal building is a disaster. We should have gotten rid of Salazar long ago.”
The Osuna brothers sat quietly, listening. Esai shifted in his chair, watching his sister. What would the reaction be, Peter wondered, if the world knew that this woman was the true brains and power behind their cartel? That it was her money that seeded it, her brilliant idea to create a phony law firm to cover all their activities? Her idea to educate the brightest sons and daughters of their distributors as lawyers to do the grunt work?
He often wondered where the loyalties of their people would lie in the event of a power struggle. Whose side would they be on? His? Miguel’s? Eva’s?
“At least he also took care of Pendera,” Peter pointed out. “You can bet there’ll be a full scale rout in the prosecutor’s office tomorrow. We won’t have to worry about him cracking under the pressure.”
“Pah!” She waved a hand in the air. “Pendera was a flea. But now any chance at the female is lost. The data transporter is gone. All we have to show for our poor efforts is a string of dead bodies and a Herculean task ahead of us.”
“Regardless, we need to get busy regrouping,” Esai said. “We still have an operation to run. We can’t just stand still.”
Miguel turned to Eva. “How long do you think it will take before they are at our door with warrants in hand?”
“I won’t even speculate. But I’m preparing for anything. Remember, they still have no idea I even exist, so this condo is our safest place.” She blew another stream of smoke. “Peter, you’ll be setting up shop in the den for the foreseeable future.”
“Here?” Please, no. He had to get out of here. He dug two antacid tablets from his pocket and tossed them in his mouth.
“Meanwhile,” Eva said, ignoring him, “we’ll go about our business quietly. As long as the basic system still functions we’re in business, and no one will be the wiser.
“How will we keep track of things?” Miguel asked.
“Peter can set up an encrypted file just to keep a running list. As he gets the new structure in place he can plug in the information.”
“And the people on the payoff list?”
“I leave that in your hands, Miguel. Handle it however you see fit. Warn them. Eliminate them. Whatever works best and fastest. Peter, you’d better get started on this immediately. The new bank accounts are critical.”
“Of course, Mother.” He made no effort to hide the sarcasm. “Whatever you say.”
“This is your mess,” she spat at him. “Clean it up.”
Peter said nothing, just poured himself a drink from the bar against the mirrored wall. What shocked him most was the news that Kathryn had somehow hooked up with the legendary Quinn. How the hell had that happened? What an incredible piece of bad luck.
How in God’s name had everything fallen apart like this? He’d had such a sweet deal. Now he saw his cherished lifestyle disappearing like a wisp of smoke. But he had an ace in the hole, which was why he was here rather than exiled to some godforsaken mud hole. He was the only one who could rebuild the corporate structure and encrypt everything.
Taking his drink with him, he quietly slipped out of the room into the den. Once he was finished with his work, he absolutely had to find a way out of this.