Devil's Playground

He turned off the laptop and disconnected from his headphone and contact mike. Anibella Brujillo would want an update, and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

BLANCA ASADO LOOKED at the business card that Agent Matt Cooper had flipped her in their brief encounter. Armando Diceverde took a sip of warm beer as he sat in the corner of the hotel room. The handsome little journalist had his laptop out and was hooked to the Internet via a satellite-capable modem.

“I’ve got nothing on Agent Matt Cooper of any agency,” Diceverde announced. “All results on his Justice files come up as access denied. Whatever he does is shoved into a deep hole that I can’t pull up.”

“There’s no doubt of that,” Asado returned. “But he has a voice mail and an e-mail contact.”

“Probably a secure drop he can tap when he needs to,” Diceverde mused. “Nothing we could actually use to check up on him.”

“Your implication?” Asado asked.

Diceverde took a deep breath. “He’s a spook.”

“Oh,” Asado answered, rolling her eyes. “That’s news to me.”

“Sarcasm will get you nowhere,” Diceverde mumbled. He took another sip.

“Beer and painkillers don’t go well together,” Asado warned for the third time.

“Says you,” Diceverde answered. “I’m feeling a nice buzz here.”

Asado looked at the arm that hung in the sling around the reporter’s neck. If the bullet had struck any closer to the joint, he’d have needed a serious hospital stay, and amputation would have been an option. The little journalist had been lucky, and she couldn’t begrudge him his minor alcohol-and-painkiller-induced high.

“Want one?” Diceverde asked, motioning the base of his bottle toward the remnants of a six-pack she’d brought him.

“I’m good,” Asado answered. “E-mail him.”

“Cooper’s people would be able to track us easily in that case,” Diceverde warned.

“He could have put a bullet in my head instead of giving me his calling card,” Asado countered. “I’ll trust him. For now.”

“You type, then,” Diceverde said. “I’m good at using a search engine typing one-handed, but doing anything more is testing my limits.”

Asado patted him on his good shoulder. “Take a rest from typing. I’ll send the e-mail.”

Diceverde sucked down a long pull of his beer before getting up and plopping on the bed, letting the woman take his place at the desk.

“Establishing contact,” she typed into the header and body of the e-mail. She sat back and waited for a response. Considering Cooper’s mysterious air, he obviously had a large organization behind him. They’d be watching for any e-mails to his contact address.

She wasn’t surprised when the phone rang after a minute. Plucking it off the cradle, she put it to her ear.

“Blanca Asado?” a woman asked on the other end.

“Speaking,” she answered.

“You made an attempt to contact Agent Matt Cooper by e-mail.”

“You’re his secretary?” Blanca inquired dryly.

From the sound of Barbara Price clearing her throat, Asado knew that she’d struck a nerve. “I’m a liaison.”

“I figured he’s busy elsewhere,” Asado continued. “Perhaps you can arrange a meeting for us, if you’re not going to drop a team of federales into my lap.”

“You’re a Fed yourself, Blanca,” Price countered. “And we’re talking a Mexican Fed to boot. We’ve got, what, a fifty-fifty chance that you’re crooked?”

“If that’s the case, then why didn’t I just take out the governor and his wife with the rest of those Commie soldiers?” Asado asked.

“A different faction,” Price mused. “You’re an unknown quantity to us.”

“You’ve done a lot to earn my trust so far,” Asado said, not bothering to keep the sneer out of her voice.

“If your sister was anything like you, no wonder she ended up dead,” Price answered. “Don’t trust authority, free-thinking, looking for what’s right. It’d be a real wrench in the works of anyone trying to run something crooked.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Asado retorted. “So how are we going to arrange contact with Cooper?”

“Do you have a cell phone?” Price asked. “Using the hotel’s landline is secure, but it’ll limit your mobility.”

“I tossed mine last night,” Asado explained. “Too easy to track.”

“The airport’s only a couple of miles away. Locker 171J will have something we can establish secure communications with.”

“You have a key?” Asado asked.

“It’s locked, but the key is in a secure area. Section D of the parking lot, space 44,” Price answered. “We have the key lodged in a disguised box in the concrete pylon. The patch of concrete over it is marked with a rather large smear of bird crap.”

“That’s one way to keep someone from feeling around on it,” Asado returned. “This would have been Cooper’s ‘backup’?”

“There is a cell phone and a few survival tools in a handbag,” Price explained. “We have secure communications with you.”

“And a GPS tracker presumably,” Asado added.

“Actually, it’s deactivated. The GPS signal could possibly give his position away on a stealth insertion,” Price told her. “The tools are clean, as well. We’ll contact you when you recover what you need.”

“Very generous with someone else’s equipment,” Asado stated.

“This was a redundant supply drop,” Price said. “He has other means of reequipping. Call us on Autodial 1 when you retrieve the phone.”

Price hung up and Blanca Asado set down the receiver.

“Well, they got the e-mail,” Diceverde said. “You going to take them up on their offer?”

“What choice do I have?” Asado asked. “You’re hurt, so if we get into trouble, you won’t be able to effectively protect yourself.”

“Rosa was my friend, too,” Diceverde protested.

“Kicking ass isn’t your specialty, though. Finding things out, that’s where you’re strongest. I need to follow this conspiracy smearing my sister, and you can cut through that mess far better than I could,” Asado explained. “I need a source of information that isn’t tied to Cooper.”

“You don’t trust him?” Diceverde asked.