Darien
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I own no cattle. Wait. Is that right? Rating? K maybe? Time: After Alexis Castle, MD.
"You aren't going with me." He said.
"Of course not, dear." She replied.
"Then why are you packing your suitcase?"
"While you're gone, I thought I'd visit some friends."
"Who?"
"I haven't decided yet."
"Your passport isn't in the safe."
"It isn't? Dear me. Where could it be?"
"You know you can't go with me."
"And why is that?" She said with a very sweet smile.
"" They" won't allow it."
There were times that the United States government wanted to do things that they absolutely, positively did not want the rest of the world to know about. Whan that happened, someone would suggest, "Perhaps "They" can do it." "They" had absolutely no connection with the US government. At least none that anyone had ever been able to find. There was no paper trail that could lead from the US government to "They". All communications were face to face. There were no financial records of payments to "They". Payment came from a worldwide series of safes filled with untraceable cash. How exactly that much cash got to those safes was a mystery to most people. Those who knew, weren't talking.
""They" haven't thought this through." She said.
"Oh?" He wondered what she'd come up with. She was very smart.
"I saw that you're going to Panama City, Panama to meet with the law offices of Waldeman and Llanes, a very high-end law firm. You're supposed to be a regional vice president for Hortalez et Freres, a Swiss based multinational corporation. Your wife would naturally want to go with you to someplace exotic where there was excellent shopping."
"Sorry. My legend says I'm single."
In tradecraft, a legend is a believable cover identity for an agent that will pass all but the most thorough scrutiny.
"Single?" She smiled. "Wouldn't that sort have a young, sexy secretary that he's banging? He wouldn't leave her at home."
He sighed. Why had he married her?
He knew the answer to that. "They" had sent him to a bank in New York to make a deposit. A crew of bank robbers had shown up to make a withdrawal. He and a redhead had been taken to the safe deposit boxes to open them up. The robber with had decided to rape the redhead. He'd made the mistake of taking off his mask. Criminals don't like to leave witnesses behind that could ID them. While the robber was busy with the redhead, he'd drawn his own gun and killed the robber. Nothing personal, just business. He'd allowed the rest of the crew to complete the robbery. It wasn't his money they were stealing. He had noticed that the redhead hadn't fallen completely apart, which he thought was unusual, but didn't worry about it, but had made his escape. "They" wouldn't want him being interviewed by local police.
He was coming back from a mission when he hopped a small commuter airliner in Arizona. The plane had been hijacked by two fleeing drug smugglers and flown to Mexico. Once there, the smugglers had made the mistake of telling the male passengers they were dead weight. He had killed both of them. He tried to fly the plane back to the US, but they ran out of gas and crashed, still in Mexico. The only other survivor was the redhead from the bank job. He had wondered if she'd be too much of a burden to him, but she'd proved useful. She'd killed a sicario, a hitman for the cartels, when they got into a firefight. Sure, she'd had to fire the entire clip from her submachine gun to put one slug into his head, but the sicario was dead. After that, he'd decided she was a partner on their little sojourn. A junior partner, but a partner.
"They" had sent him to command a brigade of rebel troops in the eastern Congo. She had gone to med school was working for an NGO in the Congo. He'd discovered she was a lot tougher than he'd ever thought. He also found she was a lot softer. His career ended in the Congo when he took a machine gun slug in his hip joint. He'd gotten a new artificial hip joint, but "They" decided his days with them were over.
"They" set him up with a nice tourist bar and restaurant in the Florida Keys. He even had a new name, Rick Blaine, from Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca. One day the redhead had walked into his place, the Conch, and told him she was the new town doctor. It hadn't exactly been like Rick and Ilsa from Casablanca, but they'd eventually married.
Now she wanted to go to Panama with him.
"You can't go. Panama's too dangerous."
She gave him a look.
"Oh? I thought you said they weren't going to have you do anything dangerous. So, Panama is dangerous? That's one more reason you need me along."
'I need you along?" He said.
"I do pretty good in karate and kickboxing."
"And I still wax that tight ass of yours."
She glared at him.
"And I'm pretty good on the firing range."
"Shooting at little pieces of paper that don't shoot back. Panama is dangerous. Banks in New York are dangerous. Airports in Arizona are dangerous and so is cartel country in Mexico. The Congo is dangerous. For that matter, the Florida Keys are dangerous. You are not going to Panama with me. Period."
"Of course, dear."
"Look. With all of my training and skills I still got shot up by some Congolese child soldier firing a machine gun that was bigger than he was. That could happen to you. Or worse."
"Oh, but I'm not going to Panama, am I?" She said sweetly.
He said something that might have sounded like "Duck" but wasn't.
The desk clerk at the Hotel La Compania in Panama City looked at the young woman walking towards the desk. Her skirt was too short and too tight. Her high heels were too high. Her blouse was too low cut and too thin. He could easily see the pushup bra she wore. She was not the kind of person that the hotel wanted around.
"Hi, my name is Alexis Blaine and I work for Hortelez et Freres." She held out a passport to him.
"May I help you, Miss Blaine?"
She reached into her very large purse and brought out a folder with the logo of Hortelez et Freres.
"Mr. Henry Stanley is here from our New York office, and they sent me here to deliver some very important data to Mr. Stanley. Can you please call him?"
The desk clerk was a man of the world and knew that men had certain needs. If the needs were data, that could be sent by email or overnighted. Other needs could be provided for by someone like Miss Blaine. He sighed and hoped that Mr. Stanley and Miss Blaine wouldn't embarrass the hotel.
"Excuse me while I call Mr. Stanley."
He stepped away from the redhead and called Mr. Stanley.
"Sir, this is the front desk. There's a Miss Blaine here. She says she has some documents for you from your employer. Should I send her up?"
Long years of training allowed Mr. Stanley to reply casually, "Sure. Send her up."
"Miss Blaine? Mr. Stanley is in suite 205. The elevator is there." He pointed.
As Miss Blaine walked away, he reflected that he hadn't needed to ask if Miss Blaine would require her own room.
As soon as Alexis got to the door of suite 205, the door opened and Mr. Stanley grabbed her, picked her up and headed straight for the bathroom. Once there, he turned on the shower and both taps for the washbasin. He also flushed the toilet.
"Are you worried the place is bugged?" She whispered in his ear.
"I'm always worried I'm being bugged. What the hell are you doing here?" He whispered back.
"I just came to see my husband. I hear Panama is great this time of year."
"How in the hell did you find me? The La Compania is known for protecting its guests' privacy."
"Oh, that? Nothing to it."
"Explain."
"Well, you being an important executive, I knew "They" wouldn't put you up in a Motel 6 or something. I started looking through the five star hotels in Panama City."
"You didn't go to every one of them asking if I was there, did you?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Of course not. Most of the were too flashy. The kind of places that Russian oligarchs go when they visit their offshore accounts and show off their teenage "nieces". Somebody might recognize you there. That brought the number of hotels down to three."
"Three?"
"Then I remembered how upset "They" were when you hurt yourself playing tennis. Doctor Alexis Blaine wasn't good enough for them. They sent you to an overpriced specialist in Miami."
"I did not hurt myself. That young punk tripped me."
"He did not. The ball was out by a mile. There was no reason for you to go charging after it. You were just showing off."
"That kid had the hots for you."
She shrugged.
"Maybe. But John was a nice young man. He wanted to go to Columbia when he graduated from high school."
'I still never trusted him."
"Anyway, I assumed that they'd want you as close to Waldeman and Llanes as possible. And here I am."
"And here you are indeed."
"Whatever. So, what are we doing here?"
"We?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"I'm here to escort a Mister Chen back to the US. Chen was a big deal in artificial intelligence in China. The People's Republic. He called us up and said he wanted to defect to us. We agreed, naturally. He'll fly in, I'll meet him, and we'll all fly back to the US. "They" will provide the aircraft to go home."
'That's it?"
"In fact, I do have some business with Waldeman and Llanes. And no, you can't come with me. Waldeman and Llanes are very particular about who they discuss things with. I go and you stay here. Understood."
"Understood. Oh, by the way. This place does have a bed, right?"
He picked her up again and carried her to the very large and very comfortable bed and tossed her onto it. She toed off her shoes and began unbuttoning her blouse.
"I hope you don't expect me to do all the work?' She said, pulling off her blouse and unhooking her bra.
He quickly undressed and joined her on the bed.
After some very satisfying sex, they cuddled for a while, went to dinner, then back for more sex.
The next morning, he got up, showered and shaved and then dressed. He wore a light and comfortable white linen suit, a light blue silk shirt with a conservative blue necktie. He even wore a Panama hat, made in Ecuador, of course.
She kissed him goodbye and had a late breakfast. Then she dressed in the tiniest bikini she'd ever worn, lathered herself with sunscreen and went to the pool. She noticed that the other guests, especially the women, ignored her completely. She decided that her reputation had definitely preceded her. She thought that she should probably flirt with some of the men, preferably those with the least attractive wives. Then she thought it would be more fun to flirt with the wives. In the end, she took the latest Nikki Heat novel out and began reading it.
Mr. Stanley returned in the late afternoon.
"How was your day?" She asked.
"Lawyers get paid by the billable hour. They made sure they made a nice profit out of today. I could use a drink."
"By an odd coincidence, I have the makings of some margaritas here. Care for one?"
"I knew there was a reason I keep you around."
She stuck out her tongue at him but made the margaritas.
It was early in the morning when his phone rang. He picked it up. She woke up as well and listened. The only thing she heard him say was the word, "Shit.
TBC