CHAPTER EIGHT
New York City
December 2
Cam got out of the Uber and scanned the block. He didn’t know Spanish Harlem well, but he knew one of his former colleagues in Dario Sava's organization, Luis, had moved here after Sava's death to live with his cousins. Cam didn’t even want to guess at the nature of his current employment. Luis had instructed Cam to meet him at a bar called El Vaquero. Cam rounded the corner onto 115th street and spotted it. Two Latin men were smoking out front listening to a third man playing a guitar and singing. Cam pulled out his wallet—Miguel Ramirez's wallet—and dropped a few bills into the musician's open guitar case, nodded to the men, and pulled open the door.
It took a second to adjust to the lighting—or lack thereof. A half-lit neon Corona sign buzzed over the pitted bar to the left, and a handful of round tables filled the remaining space. Luis was sitting at the back table with a white guy with blond hair Cam had never seen before. The man wore an expensive suit and had the bearing of an operator. Despite the alarm bells clanging in his head, Cam shifted his mind to his cover, Miguel Ramirez, crossed to the table, and took a seat.
“Eres el pendejo que me está buscando?” Are you the asshole who is looking for me?
“You are Miguel Ramirez, correct?” the blond man asked.
Before Cam had confirmed his identity, the door opened, and two more white guys entered and hovered by the entrance. Cam silently cursed.
Luis answered for him, “He's Miguel.”
The man withdrew a thick envelope from the breast pocket of his jacket and tossed it across the table.
Cam went to take the money, pulled a bill from the stack, and held it up to the light. At the same time, Luis withdrew a syringe from his jacket and swung it. Cam felt the prick of the needle in his neck and grabbed Luis's forearm as he compressed the plunger. Cam jumped from his seat, knocking his chair over in the process. He rammed Luis's head into the table then stumbled to the filthy floor. Luis held his bloody nose, snatched up the envelope of money, and ran out the back.
Cam tried to stagger to his feet as the two men each took an arm and hauled him up. He reached for the cell phone on the table but fumbled, and the device clattered to the floor with a crack. One of the men holding him raised a booted foot and crushed it.
It didn’t matter. The phone was an untraceable burner Twitch had given him for the New York trip. When the front door to the bar opened, everything got very bright, then very black.
The buzzing cell phone had The Conductor setting aside the well-worn copy of Tolstoy's Master and Man.
“You have news.” It was not a question.
The voice on the other end did not bother with a salutation. “Your puppets are dancing.”
The Conductor waited in silence.
“As you suspected, Camilo Canto, a.k.a. Miguel Ramirez, is no longer with The CIA. He's working for some bodyguard business in the States. We provided the information as instructed. Luis Flores made contact, and Canto was acquired in New York.”
“And Señor Flores? Is he still with us?”
“I took the liberty of trimming that loose thread,” the voice on the line explained.
“Very good. You’ve done well.”
“Thank you,” the voice replied.
“Keep me apprised.”
Now, with Camilo Canto otherwise occupied, it was time to uncover the CIA officer's secrets.