Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“Do you have a cracked rib, too?”

The line of Gimpy’s mouth was thin and tight. “Just get in the car, okay?”

Slick grinned. “It’s his back. He tore a muscle when he tried to get off the gurney to choke you.”

I did more milk shake sucking. “Tell me about Calflex.”

“Salzar has been negotiating a Cuban land deal for Calflex. Prime real estate that will be used for a variety of purposes. The deal is being made with a member of the Cuban politburo who has large aspirations.”

“Large aspirations?”

“He wants to be king.”

“Would he be king through the normal chain of events?”

“He would not.”

“A coup?”

“Possible. He needs money for the coup.”

“This would be supplied by Calflex in exchange for the land?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, this is not an individual who would be a good neighbor. In addition to Calflex money, he’s demanded an item that would give him military leverage. Salzar has been shopping for such an item without much success. These things are available, but the purchase requires time and connections. When the agency learned Salzar was making inquiries, we got involved. We’ve spent the past year penetrating Salzar’s organization.”

“A year’s worth of work shot to hell,” Gimpy said from the backseat. “Shot to hell by a blond in a pink skirt.”

Slick helped himself to some of my French fries. “Just for the record, you look great in the skirt.”

“What’s the Salzar connection to Calflex?” I asked Slick.

“Salzar is Calflex. It’s not widely known. The ownership goes through holding companies and filters back under his wife’s maiden name. If the deal goes through, Salzar will not only get land, he’ll also get significant behind-the-scenes political power. Maybe even a seat on the politburo.”

“Scary.”

“You bet. He’s a ruthless sociopath. And he’s not aging gracefully.”

“The Maria connection?”

“Maria arrived in Miami four years ago. Just another boat person washed ashore. Only it turns out she’s more than that, and she blipped onto Salzar’s radar screen a couple months ago. We had a man on the inside, and he said Salzar saw Raffles mentioned in a newspaper article. Salzar asked around Little Havana and found out Raffles came to Miami when her mother died. And then he found out she was a diver and that she had charts of Cuban waters.

“I don’t think Salzar knew anything for sure until Maria took off in Hooker’s boat with her charts. Once she took off, his gut instincts told him she was going to the wreck. He had the helicopter working overtime looking for her. And somehow, he knew there was more than gold down there. Our man inside overheard Salzar talking about the canister. Salzar knew the canister went down with the gold. The gold is worth millions, but it’s the canister he really wants. With Russian help we were able to identify it. And it’s not good. It’s exactly what Salzar’s politburo friend needs.”

“Why didn’t you go to Maria and get the canister first?”

“We want to catch Salzar with his hands dirty. So far, Salzar’s been careful not to directly involve himself in anything illegal. And the few times when he has become involved, people who might have been helpful have disappeared. Forever. Probably encased in concrete two miles off Fisher Island. Persuading Maria to help us get the canister is only part of the problem. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad shit out there, and if we don’t nail Salzar, he’ll keep looking and eventually he’ll find something.”

“Yeah, and anyway, we tried and she wouldn’t cooperate,” Gimpy said.

Gee, let me help you out with some charges against Salzar, I thought. Kidnapping, murder, assault with a deadly weapon.

“We had a man in place on the boat when Maria was brought on board. We could have gotten Salzar on a number of charges and recovered the canister if only Maria had stayed on board. They wouldn’t have killed her until after the wreck location was confirmed and the canister brought up. We had a team ready to move in before anything bad happened to her. Once your brother got involved things went downhill fast.”

I was thinking Slick was pretty cavalier about risking a civilian life for his operation.

“Unfortunately, we no longer have a man on the inside, and there’s something I don’t understand,” Slick said. “Maria and Bill brought the gold up. And they brought the canister up, too. I dove down to the wreck site after you left. It was picked clean. Salzar tracked Bill and Maria, shot Bill and took Maria. I got a police report. So here’s what I don’t understand. Why did they take Maria? Why not just take the gold and the canister? Why not kill Bill and Maria on the spot? The obvious answer is…because they didn’t get what they wanted. So they’ve got Maria. They encourage her to talk to them. Why don’t they go get what they’re after? Why do they grab Bill and Hooker?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why?”