A Cell in San Antonio
A John Rain Fan Fiction, Episode 5, Part 2
A pawn used as a weapon…
By the time I’d reached my hotel room in Rio, all hell had broken loose. The concierge had left a copy of The Rio Times outside my door. I found it waiting for me when I answered the door for room service. The scents of strong coffee, poa frances – a small loaf of fresh bread popular in Brazil – margarine, and the sweetness of papaya greeted my senses. The young man pushing the cart noticed the paper and reached down, picking it up as I stood aside to allow him clearance to enter. He was thin, with a youthful face and wide smile. His starched black pants and white jacket with the hotel emblem embroidered on the front, right pocket seemed to overwhelm him, but I could tell he wore the uniform with pride. I tipped him, and nodded as his grin grew wider still. He thanked me in Portuguese, backing away, before turning to leave.
I poured myself a cup of hot java and picked up the paper. Flipping it open, my eyes were greeted with a bold headline.
DRUG CARTEL HEIR DIES ON FLIGHT.
Of course, that was the extent of my Portuguese. I went online quickly, pulling up the newspaper’s webpage and clicked translate to English.
I sat, quietly, reading.
Juanito was put onto the flight by federal agents. Midway to Mexico City, he began to seize, according to a passenger seated nearby. Air Marshalls and flight crew attempted to save him to no avail. Juanito Narvaez Morales Jr. expired in spectacular fashion, foaming at the mouth, eyes bulging, as the aneurism, aided, no doubt by the cabin pressure, exploded in his brain. The flight was turned around, and now his body was back on U.S. soil, and back in the custody of the FBI. Separate reports from Mexico City stated Juan Narvaez Morales Sr. was now calling out the American government, demanding answers. In the interim, the Sinaloa cartel decided this was a good moment to strike at Las Manos de la Muerte to eliminate the upstarts. War had broken out over the last eighteen hours amid this international incident; a real clusterfuck for the Feds seeking to gain a strong foothold into Morales’ business, and a real-time danger to the civilians in and around Mexico City.
This was the lead story, but another headline further down caught my eye.
DEA INTERCEPTS BIG RIG CARRYING TWO MILLION IN HEROIN CROSSING TEXAS BORDER.
It wasn’t so much the headline that grabbed me, but the picture beneath. In it, DEA and ATF agents swarmed like bees around the opened 18-wheeler. The boxes inside the trailer were all labeled with a familiar logo. A red rose. It was the same logo over the door of the Damask Rose, one of Yamaoto’s hostess bars, one I’d visited recently to assess Yukiko, a woman Harry thought he was in love with. The business was also connected to Murakami, a dangerous man I’d been tasked with eliminating thanks to Tatsu and the CIA. So much had happened, culminating in Harry’s death. But the article brought me back to the present, explaining the DEA suspected that the yakuza were taking advantage of the cartel war between Sinaloa and Las Manos de la Muerte, and trying to further invade Mexico, infringing on cartel territories. More damning was the link to a month older article investigating a shadow war between the yakuza and the Hands of Death, a new cartel on the rise in Mexico. This was all counter to what Tatsu had told me. Worse, if my growing suspicions were accurate, I’d just allowed myself to be used to take out Yamaoto’s competition in the yakuza’s bid to gain new business beyond Japan.
I needed to contact Tatsu.
I looked around, locating my newest burner phone. I dialed the number given me by Tatsu via the online chat board. It rang three times before a familiar voice answered.
“Hai.”
There was a wealth of information in that one word. Usually, Tatsu answered by acknowledging me straight off. Instead, I heard no such verbal acknowledgement although he knew it could only be me. The phone number itself had been established specifically and only for my usage. There was a ring of defeat in his tone, and it was telling.
“You lied to me.” My anger was barely in check.
“I did not,” he said, sighing.
“You told me the Hands of Death were killing Tokyo’s kids with inferior product, that they were insinuating themselves into yakuza territory causing the local police and the Keisatsucho more problems. You promised me this was not about helping the yakuza but protecting kids.”
“I did. It was the information I had at the time.”
I heard the truth in his words, but the acid slow dripping into my soul would not let me accept it. Tatsu was many things, but I knew he was no liar. Yet, here we were.
“And you couldn’t have waited until you had better intel? Just exactly when did you discover your government had been manipulated by the yakuza to do their dirty work?”
“Last night.” I heard papers shuffling. “Rain-san, I am sorry. After your flight took off, we received new information. An informant came forward, a friend of the seventh victim who told us where he and his friend purchased the drugs. The dealer was known to us. One of the yakuza bosses’ nephews. He’d told the kid that it was some new blow from Mexico, told him to tell his friends, and he did. Two of the other victims were from this boy’s circle of acquaintances. You remember that lead I told you about, the point of entry into Tokyo by the cartel?”
“Yes. I remember everything you said.” An edge of anger hardened my words.
Tatsu cleared his throat. “Yes, well, we hunted it down. The ship in port was not Mexican in origin, although it did contain what we now know to be heroin out of Mexico City. The problem is that it was not Las Manos de la Muerte’s.”
“Whose was it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Sinaloa’s,” he answered.
An elaborate set-up.
“It was three-hundred kilos worth, but we tested the product and not a trace of arsenic. But that was not the strange part.” Weariness crept into his tone.
“What was the strange part?” I asked, knowing I was not going to like the answer.
“Well, first off, there was no one on that ship. No guards, no alarms. Nothing. Who leaves a ship containing heroin with a street value of nearly eighty-four million yen unattended? And then…” His voice trailed off. I could sense his hesitation.
“What?” This was the part I was not going to like. I tensed for the blow.
“Three weeks ago, a story was leaked to the press about three-hundred kilos of heroin confiscated in a raid during a joint Federale/U.S. DEA raid on a Sinaloa outfit in the southeast of Mexico City.”
Gut punch.
“So, who is setting who up?” I felt my blood boiling. Either the yakuza had made a deal with the American DEA to start a massive drug war, one sure to fuel the U.S. government’s hard-right hard-on for all things drug war related, which could only help their candidates in the upcoming general election, or corrupt Japanese government officials helped set up the scene in concert with their allies, the American government, to repay the yakuza for political favors. The latter made more sense, but either way, it all stunk to high heaven. Tatsu had been a pawn who had then inadvertently used me as a weapon. Teenagers died, all so that the corrupt and politically rabid conservatives could continue to profit. It was too much. After everything I’d gone through, all that I’d lost, it was more than I could bear.
“Tatsu, I’m done.” I could tell he was about to say something, but I hung up before he could dislodge the words.
It was time for me to disappear. I popped open the back of the burner phone, pulled out the SIM card, snapping it in half, and then slammed the phone down onto the tiled floor, breaking it. Picking up the pieces, I put them into the pocket of my trousers. I finished getting dressed and left my room. As I strolled down a narrow side street, I mentally ran an SDR. It was ingrained. I could not help myself. Around each new corner, I tossed a piece of the broken phone. Some into a sewage drain, and some parts into open dumpsters behind restaurants where fragrant aromas billowed out of open doorways. I thought about Harry and how short his life had been. I blamed myself even though I knew there was nothing I could have done to prevent his death, more so than I’d already attempted to do, anyhow. Harry was careless despite all my instructions, my warnings not to let anyone know his whereabouts. He wasn’t meant for this life. He was too kind. Too caring.
My thoughts turned to Midori. I wondered if, even in this moment, she was sitting at her piano, stroking the ivories, making them quiver with the magic of her musical gift. The elegance of her hands moving over the black and white keys seemed like a long-forgotten poem from a past life. Maybe it was.
An hour passed lost in old memories before I arrived at the beach. By then, my pocket was empty. I felt the sea spray tickling my face, smelled the salt on the breeze. The sound of waves rolling onto the shore soothed the frayed threads of my spirit. Along the sand, families played in the sun, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. The simplicity of it all happening right before my eyes seemed like a cruel reminder of the life I could not have, a life denied by my own choices. My solitary lifestyle was the only life I knew, and old habits refused to die. In fact, they were comforting, although I could conveniently put them aside for a while. But never for long. Inevitably, to this dangerous existence in the shadows, I would always return.
I hope you enjoyed this John Rain fan fiction. Be sure to check out Barry Eisler’s work at the link below. Thank you for supporting my substack! More short stories, works in progress, and scenes coming soon. ~ Michele
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Also, check out my fantasy series, the Angelic Hosts, books 1 - 4, which begins with Camael’s Gift, offered free on my Substack here.
Check out the original world of John Rain, as written by New York Times Bestselling Author Barry Eisler here. Begin with A Clean Kill in Tokyo.
