It made sense to me.
“So,” he announced, turning to Taggart, offering his hand. “Your men have passed my test, you have cleared my background check, and guys I trust vouched for you. So tonight I’ll take you to see Wilson so you two can talk business.”
“Excellent,” Taggart agreed. “What time would you like us here?”
Cano squinted at him. “You’re already here. We’ll spend the day together and then go for dinner at his place out in Cave Creek.”
So he trusted us… just not enough to let us out of his sight.
“That sounds fantastic,” Taggart said gamely, rubbing his hands together. “I didn’t get breakfast. Can we have some brunch?”
Cano seemed very pleased with “Huber” being so agreeable.
IT WAS easy for Ian and me to cover our lack of eating and drinking and flirting with the fact that we were on duty.
“My men are also here to protect me,” Cano said suggestively. “You need to loosen up and partake.” He was offering food, alcohol, pot, and blow. “Only you two are sitting here ready to shoot.”
“Begging your pardon,” Ian explained, “you live here, sir. Our boss does not.”
Cano nodded, the logic was sound. “You look like ex-military to me.”
Ian scoffed. “Do I?”
“Yes, and I know the breed well. I have many of them working for me at home.”
Ian had an opening, but to ask any more questions, to say oh, so where do you call home would not have been received well. There was no such thing as an informal chat with a drug dealer.
We spent the day watching people swim, drinking bottled water, and refusing lines of blow, highball glasses of whisky, and frosty mugs of beer. Cano passed out joints, and to not get busted, Taggart had to smoke one. He also had to imbibe a few drinks to keep his cover in place. The good news was, he had taken the pills to help keep him sober and focused, but it was up to Ian and me to watch his back. Neither of us took our eyes off him.
We caravanned out to Cave Creek about six; turned off on 26th Place, twisted and turned down other roads I couldn’t see the street signs for, and finally hit a private paved road before arriving at open gates guarded by men armed with AK-47s. A guy in a suit with an iPad looked like he was checking names on a guest list. I really hoped that the tracer Taggart had somewhere on his body was working.
“Here we are, gentlemen,” Cano announced as the car stopped and the driver rolled down the window so words could be exchanged.
It seemed so serene and quiet at the gate, but once we reached the house, it was lit pools and an enormous bar outside, and strobe lights and a dance floor inside. A bar stood at each end of the ballroom we walked through.
“It’s like a Roman orgy in here,” Taggart commented loudly, laughing and clapping, Cano’s arm slung over his shoulder as they moved through the crowd together.
Then we filed out one of the doors to another pool and a quieter area, then through an underground grotto that emptied out into a private area.
Ian and I kept pace with them, and when we were finally at the end of our quest, I was not surprised that the man himself, Wilson Roan, was sitting with a small group of men watching three very beautiful women have sex. Now I understood what Sodom and Gomorrah had probably looked like. It was definitely as close as I would ever get.
As we neared, Taggart was obnoxious—as he was supposed to be, it was the part he was playing—and catcalled and clapped. It changed the ambience from sultry and sensual, more art than fucking, to flat-out porn. The women themselves were clearly not amused.
Roan was older, handsome, with lines on his weathered face and sun-bleached hair shot through with strands of silver. He was clean-shaven and wore a gorgeous black bespoke suit with a black dress shirt underneath. He was sitting between two younger men, and as we approached, he glanced up, saw Taggart, saw me, saw Ian, and then returned to Taggart, the guy he was supposedly ready to do business with.
They made small talk as Ian and I took up flanking positions on either side of Taggart, and as soon as Roan clarified that the drugs were on the property and ready to go if the money was, in fact, also in play, Ian turned the dial on the dive watch he was wearing, triggering the signal for the breach.
We had been wanded and searched when we entered the compound, our weapons had been confiscated, and we had been patted down just on the off chance someone missed something—which they had. Everyone watched a lot of TV and actually thought the bad guys were as well equipped as the good guys. It was really not the case. Government to government, that was problematic. Had Ian and I been sneaking onto some base in Moscow or in Beijing, they would have caught us. But this operation was not high-tech. It looked like an episode of Miami Vice—not that any of us were cool enough to be Don Johnson from back in the day.