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San Juan, capital of Puerto Rico and oldest city under the Stars and Stripes, was known more for its fabulously restored sixteenth and seventeenth century buildings and El Morro Fort than for the role it played in choosing American Presidents.
Residents of the laid-back Caribbean Island didn’t get to vote in Presidential elections, but they did have a say in primaries, sending 23 delegates to the Republican convention.
The island’s winner-take-all election was normally held earlier in the cycle, but this year had been shifted to the penultimate spot to give the territory more time to recover from a hurricane. Which thrust San Juan front and center of a political maelstrom.
Ped was squinting out over the Atlantic from the backroom of his suite in the Intercontinental, wondering if any of the people on the beach below were eligible to vote. And how they’d react to what he was about to unleash.
If and how he used the information on Hunter’s abortion was arguably the most important call of the entire campaign, given the context of the race.
He was desperate to nail Puerto Rico to avoid going to the final primary in DC where Hunter, a Beltway insider, would have home advantage.
Which is why he’d brought Jin and Amanda together for the first time. He knew they’d have differing views on how the information should be used. Ped could taste the tension in the room behind him, the stakes were so high.
In the blue corner, Amanda was thinking long-game, arguing caution. News of Hunter’s abortion might work for Ped in Catholic-dominated Puerto Rico, not in DC.
In the red corner, Jin was gung-ho. Play the abortion card for all it was worth to lock up Puerto Rico’s delegates. Then if DC was still in play the following week, shift the messaging away from the termination and a woman’s right to choose to Hunter’s hypocrisy.
On one matter the two women agreed. Ped I-don’t-run-negative-ads Garland had to stay a million miles from whatever was released.
Ped sniffed, turned to face the two women.
‘Y’all both got some valid points. Let me mull it over for a spell.’
Once they’d left, Ped grabbed a tissue, blew his nose, sat on the sofa opposite Carl.
‘Couldn’t have picked a worse time to catch a cold, huh?’
‘You sure that’s all it is?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Running nose, sensitive eyes... this would also be a terrible time to start using again, Ped.’
‘Don’t be absurd. Probably just the weather shift down here.’
‘I hope so, my friend.’
Ped changed the subject.
‘You heard what those two message-crafters had to say. What’s your take on it, Carl?’
‘Always been one for takin’ care of what’s in front of me. Worry about other bridges when and if you must cross ‘em.’
‘How we goin’ on the other matters in front of us?’
‘Stable on both fronts. Rodrigo’s in Auckland, taking care of business. The Archbishop and the Commissioner have both received the packages, so we’ll hear from them soon enough.’
*****
Mike fingered the receipt card in one hand as he scrolled through his social feed with the other. He was leaning against the pay station, ready for a quick exit.
He’d dropped Bec and Jay off at a Vietnamese restaurant in a heritage warehouse near the downtown ferry terminal, offering to stake-out the airport for the Air New Zealand and Jetstar flights – to give them some time to themselves.
Mike had mixed feelings – lurching between hope and dread – about Bec’s deepening relationship with Jay. There was a lot to like about the Kiwi, who obviously cared for Bec as much as she did for him. But her growing reliance on a guy who attracted danger like a moth to a flame had alarm bells ringing. The intensity of Bec’s borderline emotions, her fear of abandonment, meant the risk of heartbreak – or worse – was forever lurking just below the surface. The higher the mountain, the greater the depth and darkness of the valley.
Mike checked his phone. The departure window for Air New Zealand had come and gone with no sign of a limo. He was beginning to wonder if they needed to change their approach when he saw a black Lincoln town car pull up outside the main arrivals door.
The license plate was AVENT3.
He stuck the receipt card into the slot, paid with his credit card, then ran over to the rental, keeping one eye on the limo. It swept past him as he waited for the barrier arm to rise, but he caught up with it before leaving the airport precinct.
Driving on the left was easier at night, with fewer distractions, traffic lighter. Mike kept two places behind the limo as it merged onto the highway. It took the first exit after the Mangere Bridge, looping the ramp onto a road the navigation app identified as Onehunga Mall.
He had to run a red to stay behind the limo when it turned into a road lined with wheelie bins, blue and red tops glowing under the streetlamps.
Mike lost contact when he was held up behind a truck and trailer, then caught sight of the limo again as it crossed an intersection on a yellow. Fortunately, the road it entered – Beasley Avenue – showed up on the app as a dead end.
Up ahead Mike saw the limo’s turn signal blink. He waited for the green, then shot through the intersection and parked opposite a business called Charteris Woodturners. He got out and walked up to the where the limo had gone – just in time to spot the tail-lamps before the roller door reached the ground.
The building was towards the rear of a flood-lit yard surrounded by a high wire fence. Mike noted four security cameras, signs warning of guard dogs.
He returned to the car, noted the location on his phone, then went on TripAdvisor to choose somewhere to eat.
*****
They’d given themselves the night off, and Bec was thinking about making love. It had been more than three weeks since Jay’s rib was broken in Ubud. When he made it clear over dinner at Café Hanoi he was good to go, they skipped dessert and virtually jogged the short distance back to the terminal on Quay Street.
Aristotle was sashaying in the undulating blue neon of The Cloud function center as the ferry left the dock, cast in a honeycomb of lights from a cruise ship berthed at Princes Wharf.
The late fall evening in Auckland was a world away from the swelter of Bali. Bec spooned into Jay’s embrace as they stood on the deck, taking in the floodlit cranes and containers at the port, the distant arc of the harbor bridge. By the time the ferry neared Devonport, the glitter of downtown, the chatter of passengers, thrum of the engines, had receded into a soft fuzz, pierced by a single blue beam from the Skytower shimmering across the water.
Green had become such a rare sensation for Bec, she would have missed the faint glimmer from the beside clock if Jay, undoing his belt, hadn’t pointed out most people associated the color with the word go.
She crossed her arms, pulled her top over her head.
Three cracks like gunshots torpedoed the desire, an instant before the front door to the Airbnb exploded inwards. Shouts of Police, put your hands in the air ushered dazzling white-hot lights as the bedroom convulsed with dark shapes in helmets, goggles, yelling, pointing rifles, prying...
Before she could begin to process the intrusion, Bec was snatched and whipped onto her stomach, face planted into the duvet, arms pulled behind her back, wrists cuffed.
She was pulled into the living room, behind Jay who was being dragged, unable to walk because his trousers were around his ankles.
Bec focused on the yellow stripes on the tie of the smug asshole standing over her.
‘What the fricken hell is this about?’
‘We have reason to believe there are drugs on the property.’
‘That’s absurd. Who the hell are you anyway?’
‘Your worst nightmare lady.’
‘I need a name asshole. You picked the wrong... I’m gonna splash your name...’
‘Detective Robinson. Max Robinson. Friends call me Robbo. You can call me sir.’
‘Let’s see some ID. For all we know you could...’
‘Just shut the fuck up. This isn’t an episode of CSI, Corelli.’
‘You got a warrant to show us Robbo?’ It was Jay, who could have been sharing vacation snaps at a party instead of surrounded by cops, his hands cuffed behind his back, trousers round his feet.
‘Don’t need a warrant lover boy. Reasonable grounds for believing there’s controlled drugs. S’all we need.’
The cops were searching the room, opening cupboards, drawers. Bec screamed when one of them reached for her bag.
‘Take them outside. Search them as well.’
A beefcake in Kevlar shoved her into the porch, pushed her up against a wall. He started patting her down. She shuddered when his gloved fingers lingered on her breasts.
He leaned in closer, the bristles of his goatee scratching her neck, the aftershave all masculine wood and hay.
‘What’s the matter bitch, didn’t your boyfriend have time to get it up?’
‘Don’t let him goad you, Bec.’
The cop’s hands moved from her breasts down her sides and squeezed the cheeks of her butt. Bec tensed. When his hand reached around her stomach and he slid a finger inside her panties, she snapped.
She wriggled free of his grip and spun round, aiming her knee at his groin. He anticipated the move, twisted, took the strike harmlessly on his padded thigh.
The cop laughed as Bec was thrown off balance. Infuriated, she turned to lunge again. The blast of pepper spray lashed her flush in the face, like the juice of a million lemons. Her eyeballs convulsed, bursting to explode from their sockets, as suffocating, choking gunk cascaded from her nose.
Laughter nearby made her to refocus, rationalize. She’d written about this. The mucus and tears were her body’s defenses kicking in, flushing out the contamination.
She tried to focus on sounds, a voice...
‘...arresting you for possession of a class A...’
Bec forced her eyes open. The detective was holding a plastic bag the size of a brick, containing white powder...
‘... right to stay silent... talk to a lawyer... noted down and used as evidence against you...’
She opened her mouth to protest, but the words were lost in a fit of gasping, coughing, wheezing, until she succumbed to the pain – to Aristotle dancing in the fires of hell – and collapsed to the ground.
*****
Corelli’s screams reached the ears of Rodrigo Montoya and his brother, even though the windows of Mauricio’s Peugeot were closed. They were watching the arrest from the parking lot of a school, across the road from the Airbnb.
The street was ablaze with the flashing lights of four cars with yellow and blue police markings, beside a black Holden, presumably belonging to a detective.
Rodrigo couldn’t understand why the cops were so restrained.
‘Things are different here. Most of the cops follow the rules. It’s nothing like in Bali or back home.’
‘So how much did this pequeño truco cost us?’
‘Enough coke to put them away for a long time.’
Rodrigo watched as Duggan was led to one of the police cars.
‘I’ve only seen two of them brought out. What about the other American, Bullard?’
‘Relax. If he’s not there, I’ll find him.’
