“Yes, sir.”

“Wish him good luck for me. I think he will need it.”

chapter twenty

Late Friday morning, Adams walked into his office building. He stood for a moment and glanced at some of his co-workers. Few acknowledged his presence. He noticed Davidson sitting in Weber’s office, drinking coffee. Weber looked over his cup, saw Adams, and said something to Davidson, who then turned and used his foot to kick the door shut.

Adams should have felt like a leper, but at the moment, he really didn’t care. There was nobody, outside of Greg Patton, in the office he ever felt close with. He strode over to the board where the keys for the covert cars were hung. His favourite, a new metallic-silver Camaro with dark-tinted windows, was there and he snatched the keys. The drug trafficker it had been seized from was from New Orleans and had tried to use it to smuggle two kilos of cocaine back home.

An hour later, Adams was parked a block away from the same house Chico had used to sucker Patton into following him. A couple of the low-level hoods were still using the house, but with Chico’s untimely death, Adams knew they would likely be feeling a little nervous and would be moving to a new location soon. He hoped he could follow one of them to find out where.

At noon, Adams received a call on his cellphone.

“Get back here,” ordered Weber.

“Do I need to call a lawyer?”

“It’s not about that,” Weber replied and hung up.

Weber waved for Adams to enter his office and pointed to a chair across from his desk. Adams took a seat and quietly waited while Weber took his time to shuffle through some papers, pausing and pretending to read some of the daily bulletins, while casting the odd furtive glance at Adams.

Yeah, make me wait, asshole, just to let me know you’re the boss. Does it make you feel important? Hoping to see me get pissed off? Well, two can play that game …

A soft snore from Adams caught Weber’s immediate attention and he saw Adams’s chin resting on his chest.

“Adams! You son of a bitch! Wake up!”

Adams head jerked and he yawned, looking around.

“Are you drunk? You are, aren’t you? I can smell it.”

“Nope. Was up late last night on surveillance. Maybe spilled a beer on my pants when I got home. Did you call me in here to help you read those bulletins? There are some pretty tough words like alias and stuff.”

“Fuck you, you degenerate bastard. If I wanted any lip from you I’d rattle my zipper.”

“That’s original,” replied Adams, sarcastically.

“You’re a real piece of work, do you know that? What you did … you’ve gone against everything we stand for. Flushed our values down the drain.”

“Do your values include the right to a fair trial? Or innocent until proven guilty? You’re condemning me without —”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” growled Weber. “You’re just lucky you got away with it. What you did was totally wrong.” He waved his hand in the direction of the general office and added, “There’s not one guy out there who is willing to work with you now. What you did is totally against the values of what we stand for.”

Adams glanced at the men in the outer office and said, “Maybe if the Mexicans started killing off their family members they’d think different. I’m hoping the head honchos in the cartel do think I killed Chico. It’ll make them think twice about ever doing what they did again.”

“Don’t lay that crap on me. You’re really fucked up.”

“Is that why you called me off of a surveillance? To tell me that?”

“No,” replied Weber, tapping a file on his desk with his index finger for emphasis. “I called you in here to let you know the Mounties in Canada are interested in some Mexicans who are running coke from here up to there.”

“Wow,” said Adams lamely. “I can just imagine the hell they must be going through up there. A bunch of coked-up Eskimos tossing their spears all around. At least it will give the seals half a chance.”

“It’s a little bigger than that. Some cartel from here sent a hit team up and whacked someone in Canada who was one of their runners.”

“Which cartel? Guajardo or the Sinaloa?”

“They don’t have a clue.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they don’t.”

“They’re trying to identify some Mexican who goes by Tio.”

“You’re joking, right?” replied Adams with a laugh.

“No. They’re also looking for the guy’s girlfriend who was snatched here in El Paso.”

“Yeah, well you fly with the crows —”

“They’re sending a Mountie down to investigate. His name is Jack Taggart and his flight arrives at the airport Monday morning at 9:57. I want you to pick him up and babysit him for a few days.”

“Fuck that! Get one of them to do it,” replied Adams, gesturing with his thumb to two men in the outer office who were both reading the newspaper.

“They’re busy.”

“Yeah? Well, so am I. Greg and I have busted our asses on these cartels. The two of us have done more damage to them than everyone else in this office put together.”

“So what?”

“So what? After what they did to Greg, it’s all the more important that I don’t back off. I don’t need to have some hick cop from Canada slowing me down or fucking things up if I need to do something. What if I get some info from a CI and have to do immediate surveillance? I sure as hell don’t need some jackass burning me.”

“It’s only for a few days. Find him a place to stay, too.”

“But —”

“Forget the buts. You’re not being asked to do this, you’re being ordered.”

“Well ain’t that just lovely.”

Weber pushed the file across the desk toward Adams and said, “Here are their reports. Read ’em and pay attention where it says Taggart has been ordered to stay out of Mexico.”

“Good. Guess they’re not completely clueless. The Mexicans would probably shoot him as soon as he crossed the bridge and sell his red jacket to the doorman at some whorehouse ten minutes later.”

chapter twenty-one

On Saturday, Vancouver RCMP Drug Section conducted surveillance on Slater’s apartment building and saw a Mexican arrive. The man parked his car — which was registered to a numbered company — out front and went inside. Moments later, he drove out of the underground parking lot in Slater’s pickup truck.

The man was followed to an auto-body shop where the bay door was opened by another Mexican and the pickup was driven inside. Half an hour later, the truck was returned to Slater’s apartment building.

Late Sunday morning, surveillance on Slater was terminated when he was seen driving through U.S. Customs in his pickup. It was decided not to risk jeopardizing the investigation by trying to follow him all the way to Texas.

A decision was also made to curtail surveillance of the Mexicans at the body shop in the event the Mexicans spotted it and blamed Jack for the sudden police interest.

Early Sunday evening, Jack caught a flight from Vancouver to Houston, Texas, where he had to overnight. On Monday morning, he arrived on schedule at the airport in El Paso. He had been told that a John Adams would pick him up, but was also given a phone number to the general office if there was a problem.

The El Paso airport was relatively small compared to some, but several flights had arrived within minutes of each other and the crowd was shoulder to shoulder. Jack retrieved his two suitcases from the luggage carousel and glanced around. He spotted another man who was lanky in appearance, sporting about a week’s worth of beard, and dressed in blue jeans and cowboy boots. He quickly breezed through the crowd while glancing around a couple of times and then made his way to the exit.