Chapter 6 Denver
A year later Bob decided he had enough of the Marshals and retired. He wanted to move to Colorado and start his own security company. I was asked to join this crazy venture. With only two years with the Marshal's and no great love or hate for the job, I accepted. Truth be told, I had grown fond of Bob and his wife Alice, they were like…parents to me.
I was ten when I first went elk hunting in Colorado's mountains, but opening the hotel curtains and seeing the sun reflecting off Mt. Evans to the west, I was excited for the first time in years. I spent the day driving around Denver, then on to Boulder and the large slanted rocks named the Flatirons, down the central corridor far south to Pikes Peak and back to Denver via a mountain route through the foothills, South Park and once near ghost town now a major ski area, Breckenridge. Such diversity crammed together. I was surprised at the number of people. I thought Colorado would be empty, but the traffic reminded me of the Long Island Expressway. It felt like home, at least on the roads.
The name on the door read Bob Simon Security though I had money invested in this deal. We considered Simon-Castillo Security but figured people would be looking for a Mr. Simon Castillo. I was happy being a silent partner. We located in southern section of the giant metropolitan area where growth was crazy. As the company grew, so did our staff. New employees came mainly from the military or government law enforcement, but we also had a few "brains" to keep us technologically sharp.
One Wednesday morning Bob called me to his office. "Do you remember Carlos Manoso?"
"Yes of course, Kuwait, West Virginia and Fernando's nephew." Bob knew Fernando Manoso took care of my money and suspected there was more to our relationship. He was right.
"Carlos' company, Rangeman, is expanding. He's looking at a silent partnership with us instead of a new Rangeman office here. We need to talk about this."
I knew Carlos had recently expanded his Miami and Trenton based business to include Atlanta and Boston, but was surprised he was interested coming west. There are a few major cities between Denver and Trenton he could have expanded to first. So we talked, negotiated, talked, paid lawyers, and finally decided yes. Rangman became another silent partner.
The money influx allowed us to expand operations further into the Denver market and mountain communities. Also from time to time, we picked up Rangeman's bond skips in the Rocky Mountain area and shipped them back home to Atlanta, Miami, Boston or Trenton. Of course when our skips went east, we had the appropriate Rangeman office round them up.
During one return to New York to visit my money and Fernando, we had dinner with his nephew Carlos. Fernando raised a wine glass in a toast, "Congratulations, you two are partners."
Carlos' eyes got hard, almost like a predator. I had seen those eyes in Iraq. I'd didn't know who is prey was this time, me or Bob Simon Security. Carlos and Fernando were cut from the same cloth, one an older version of the other. Both made me hot; one set me on fire, the other was sexually dangerous and perhaps business dangerous, I wasn't sure. I looked at Carlos, "You make any move at a hostile takeover I'll kill you." I left it as a double entendre.
Ranger's eye crinkled in humor, "Never crossed my mind." Fernando gave his nephew a strange look. Was he remembering the night years ago in the bedroom?
After leaving Fernando's condo the following morning, I planned on a day of shopping. As I opened the door to leave, Carlos was outside, waiting. He was leaning against the far wall, one foot resting on the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing dark trousers, black shirt, and black blazer. If it wasn't for the unshaven face and hair pulled into a pony tail, he'd be hot. I really prefer clean shaven, well-trimmed men.
He walked up to me and tried to pull me into a kiss, but I blocked him, "Oh no you don't, mister," I scolded him.
"You, or actually Bob, didn't give me a chance to reciprocate in West Virginia."
I pushed him back across the hall and slammed him into the wall. He looked surprised I was refusing his advances and taking the offensive. "That was part of the operation, there is nothing between us."
"That's not what your eyes were telling me in the bathroom after you hurled the moonshine."
"I was whirling, you were holding me. I don't know if I saw you or Fernando in those eyes."
"But Iraq..."
I took a deep breath, "What about Iraq? Your assignment was to kill Almarta, there was nothing about me."
"Do you think I was to leave you there?" He asked.
"We did no prior planning, you skipped all briefings. If I had been part of your unit, we would have trained together, known each other's skills, had at least a little camaraderie. You didn't know my skill level because you didn't care. Your job was to kill Almarta; to hell with the woman."
His eyes got hard, "I was told you were expendable."
"And you were fine with that? A fellow officer was to be sacrificed for the sake of a mission. Have you no honor?"
The look I received was somewhat scary, but I wasn't backing down. "When the mission went to hell, we were soldiers trying to survive. Yeah, if we had stopped for the nights instead of the days, I would have been hard pressed to stay away from you...but only to seek warmth, nothing more. Whenever I got any thoughts of getting close you, I remembered the 20 year old SOB in his uncle's apartment watching two people in what should have been a very private time. You are Fernando's nephew, one hell of a soldier, and minority owner of Bob Simon Security, but that's it. "
I pushed off of him, "You really have a dead soul. You'd better be working on your karma mister, because right now it is in serious condition."
I started down the hall. From behind me I heard, "So it's my uncle?"
"Yes. Different universe, it could have been you, but not this one."
A year or so later...
"Cathy, we have a skip out of Miami," Bob spoke through the office intercom system.
"Rangeman?" I asked
"Contraband cowboy, guns, few drugs. They are sending a Marc Manoso."
"Marc Manoso, where does he fit in the family?"
"Cousin. Ranger wants you to work with him, refine his skills."
"We have others who can work with him," I said dismissingly.
"That's what I told Ranger, but he specifically asked that you work with Marc. Ranger said after the Murphy case last year in Pennsylvania, with Lester Santos, he feels you'll take good care of another family member."
I sighed, Lester was a very good soldier/bond apprehension agent but someone needed to castrate that stallion. "Bob, you said 'refine his skills.' What does that mean?"
"Marc is their technical guru down there, but isn't field-savvy. He needs to understand actual field surveillance to refine his technical work. Manoso said to call if you had questions."
You better believe I called him, like immediately.
"Yo," Ranger answered his phone.
"Manoso, what the hell?" I shot back.
"Nice to hear from you Catherine, I didn't think you'd call this quickly."
"So what is really going on?"
"You know me well. I've got a bad feeling about this one. Both Danger and I told Marc not to bail him out as it seemed…off."
"And he did anyway."
"Yeah and the guy rabbited immediately."
"So why me? Between your offices and ours, we have a platoon of military trained apprehension agents."
"As I said, there's an odor that someone with special skills needs to decipher. You are former Intelligence and ferreted out problems others missed. You have advanced 6th sense."
"What are you defining as 6th sense?" I asked.
"Intuition." Ranger answered simply. There's a woman here who has some talent, less than you, but I still never question it."
"A woman? Has Rangman Trenton's bastion of testosterone been breached by estrogen?" I snickered.
"Never mind, back to business," he snapped.
"Intuition occurs only every other Saturdays immediately after a full moon," I joked. "It is more gathering as much info as possible, throw in past history, and human psychology. Finally be slow to for opinions, nothing to it."
"No, there's more and you've got it in spades. You have enough to know what's fishy with this case. I can't pin point it."
"What, a Manoso admitting vulnerability?"
He growled, "Don't let anybody know."
"Send me the files, I'll look at them," I said.
"Check your in box, I sent them when you called."
"Presumptuous ass aren't you? I'll get back to you." And I hung up.
I went through the file twice and called Manoso back.
Instead of a "Yo" I got a "Your opinion so soon, I thought you were slow to form opinions?"
"I read fast. Your FTA has a wide variety of friends and associates. How technical is Marc? Does he have toys?"
"Yeah, a whole array including prototypes," Ranger answered.
"I wish you could send just the toys and not Mark. This has the markings of something…..what did you say, smelly? Send both, I'll try to send Marc home alive."
"Damn, damn, damn," I muttered. I did not like where my "intuition" was running.