hubris meant. “Is this the problem?”
“It is a problem, a discussion for another day. It is not the problem.”
Encarnación savored a draft of the chilied chocolate foam, sweet and spicy. “Yes,” he said, licking his lips. “The problem.”
Extracting a pen and pad from his breast pocket, he scribbled something on the top sheet, tore it off, folded it in half, and passed it across the table. The Aztec looked at him for a moment, then lowered his gaze as his fingers took hold of the folded sheet and opened it to read what Encarnación had written.
“Thirty million dollars?” he said.
Encarnación bared his teeth.
“How could this happen?”
Encarnación, rolling the hot chocolate around his mouth, looked up at the ceiling. “This is why I asked you to meet me at the airport. Somewhere between Comitán de Dominguez and Washington, DC, the thirty million disappeared.”
The Aztec put down his cup. He looked distressed. “I don’t understand.”
“Our partner claims the thirty million is counterfeit. I know, I couldn’t believe it myself, so much so that I sent two experts, not one. Our partner is right. The real thirty million that started its journey in Comitán de Dominguez ended up counterfeit.”
The Aztec grunted. “How did the partner find out?”
“These people are different, Don Tulio. Among other things, they have a great deal of experience counterfeiting money.”
Don Tulio wet his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration. “The thirty million changed hands a number of times over many thousands of miles.” Comitán de Dominguez, in the south of Mexico, was the first distribution point for the drug shipments originating in Colombia, transshipped through Guatemala, crossing the border into Mexico. “It means there is a thief inside.”
At that, Encarnación’s fist slammed down on the table, upsetting his cup, spilling hot chocolate over the embroidered lace tablecloth, a present his paternal grandmother had received on her wedding day. The Aztec’s eyes opened wide even as his body froze.
“A thief inside,” Encarnación echoed. “Yes, Don Tulio, you have caught the essence of the problem in its entirety. A very clever thief, indeed. A traitor!” His eyes blazed, his hand trembled with barely suppressed rage. “You know who that thirty million belongs to, Don Tulio. It’s taken me five years of the most delicate, frustrating, and nerve-racking negotiations to get to this point. Our buyers must take possession of that money within forty-eight hours or the deal, everything I’ve worked toward, will be flushed. Have you any idea what it took to make those people trust me? Dios de diablos, Don Tulio! There is no reasoning with those people. Their word is ironclad. There is no wiggle room, no elasticity whatsoever. We are bound to them, and them to us. Till death do us part, comprende, hombre?”
His fist came down again, rattling cups and saucers. “This does not happen in my house, this cannot happen. Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely, Don Maceo.” The Aztec knew when he was being dismissed. He rose. “Rest assured this problem will be solved.”
Encarnación’s eyes followed the Aztec as a predator will its prey. “Within the next twenty-four hours you will bring me both the thirty million and the head of this traitor. This is the solution I demand, Don Tulio. The only solution possible.”
The Aztec, eyes as opaque as those of a dead fish, inclined his head. “Your will, Don Maceo, my hand.”
When Bogs reached the area surrounding the Treadstone headquarters, he pulled the car up to the curb but restrained Dick Richards as he was about to get out.
“Where d’you think you’re going?” Bogs said.
“Back to work,” Richards answered. “I’ve already been away from my desk for too long.” He glanced down at Bogs’s meat-hook hand on his arm. “Let me go.”
“You’ll go when you’re told to go, not before.” Bogs looked at Richards intently. “It’s time for you to go to work.”
“Go to work? I have been working.”
“No,” Bogs said. “You’ve been sleeping. Now you will create. I will give you specific instructions. You’re to carry them out to the letter. You do what I tell you, in the way I tell you, no more, no less, got it?”
Richards, his insides suddenly turned liquid, nodded uncertainly. “Naturally.”
“What we have in mind isn’t easy.” He leaned toward Richards. “But what in life ever is?”
Richards nodded again, even more uncertainly. He had not expected this. Up until now his life as a triple agent had gone relatively smoothly, settling into a pattern that was easy to follow. Now he knew that he had been lulled