Chapter Sixteen
Annabel and I were eating breakfast at IHOP on Main Street in Alpharetta. When our food came, she said, “How did you get here?”
I pointed to a lovely young woman who was sitting at a table toward the front, “Alex brought me,” I said.
Annabel looked over and stared for a few seconds. “You had an old girlfriend bring you to breakfast and now she’s sitting by herself at a table?”
“Wow, I didn’t think about how it would look to you. So let me explain a little.” I told her about what happened this morning and how Mac was in a hurry to leave so I told him to take off. “Alex served with us, but she’s more like a sister than she would ever be a girlfriend. So when I can, I give her work. I can trust her and right now I am not able to really take care of myself if something happens and I needed someone who could if needed.”
“Is she a nurse?” She interrupted.
“Oh no, not that kind of care. She has multiple black belts in different disciplines. Plus, she’s a great shooter.”
Annabel looked over at her, “That little girl? She doesn’t look like she can hardly lift a fork.”
“Yeah, she considers that a plus.”
“And why is she sitting over there alone?” she asked.
“She didn’t want to bother us, plus she can see anyone coming in and be the first to interact with them if needed.”
“So she’s like a bodyguard?”
“I guess that’s a good way to put it,” I said.
We sat there for a few minutes in silence eating. I knew she was having a hard time processing it. “I am sorry, but I didn’t even think about how it would look to you. These people are my friends and there are only a few people I trust with lives. I don’t think about appearances, I just make calls to those I trust.” She still wasn’t convinced. “Would you feel better if I invited her over to eat with us so you could talk to her?”
“Yes, but mostly because I don’t like the idea of her eating by herself.”
I sent her a text, within seconds she had her plate and was standing at the table. I pointed to the seat next to me, she sat. She reached over the table and introduced herself to Annabel.
Annabel started, “So how do you know Raph?”
Without taking her eyes off the front of the restaurant. She got more food on her fork and put it in her mouth. She chewed a little, “We served together some years back. Mac and he were the only ones who treated me like an equal. They didn’t give me a slack and they trusted that I could do the job without thinking about it. You know how it’s like, you want to do the job as well as the guys. They never think you can, so you always have to prove yourself to them. Well, these two were believers after our first mission together and since then, they have been my biggest supports. It made a big difference with the rest of the company. Because these guys were so respected, everyone else just pretty much fell in line.”
Annabel was interested, she hadn’t touched her food since Alex started talking. She was looking straight at Alex, but Alex only met her eyes a couple of times. She never looked down at her food once, but she managed to eat every bit. She was like a machine, it was great to watch. Then Alex stopped talking and put her fork down, her hands disappeared under the table. That got my attention and I noticed why she did that.
“Annabel, will you do me a favor and don’t get scared. You just keep your eyes on me. Don’t look away,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” She cut herself off when the guy got to the table. She looked up for a second and then did just what I said. She turned and just looked at me.
It was the guy who was leading the group of idiots at my house. I had given Alex a picture just in case in the car. He noticed us as soon as he turned the corner and put his hands up a little, but not enough to get everyone’s attention. When he got to the table, he clasped his hands together in front of him so we could see them. He nodded at me, “You who I am?” I nodded. “Can I sit?” He pointed to the seat next to Annabel.
“Nope.”
“Okay, fair enough.” He had a thick Mexican accent, but not so bad you couldn’t understand him. “My name is Luis Ortega, do you know who I represent?” I nodded again. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
Alex was not having fun, “If you don’t get to the point really quickly, I’m going to shoot you in the femoral artery and escort these people out of here while you bleed out.”
Luis finally acknowledged her by looking at her. “I don’t think you can aim that well from under the table.”
She pulled the hammer back on her gun, “In one minute we are going to find out.”
Luis tried to hide it, but that made him nervous. He turned his attention back to me. “You let this little girl fight your battles?”
I brought my left hand above the table and looked at my watch. “You are down to 45 seconds. You might want to get to it.”
He looked back at Alex and noticed she had not taken her eyes off him. He swallowed and said, “Hector would like to meet with you and hopefully come to an understanding. He says anywhere you want to meet, he will be there under a flag of truce.”
“Okay, noon at Centennial Olympic Park. Just south of the fountain of rings,” I said.
He nodded, “We’ll see you there.” He turned and walked out of the restaurant.
Alex put the hammer down on her gun and in a couple of seconds, she had her hand back above the table. She finally looked at her plate, “Crap, I ate everything already.”
Annabel just started laughing, “Amazing, like this happens every day.”
I turned to Alex, “You want more food?”
“Maybe just some more toast,” she said.
I turned to Annabel, “You okay?”
“I might feel better if I were wearing a diaper. This way I can just pee myself without anyone knowing.” She stood up to go to the bathroom. Alex looked at me and I nodded. She followed her.
I ordered her toast and the server asked if everything was okay. “Oh yes, old friend playing a joke on us.”
The ladies returned with smiles on their faces, this worried me. “Did I miss something?”
Alex said, “Not for you to worry about, just girl talk.”
Annabel sat down, still with the grin. I just looked at her. “Okay, she was telling me about the bar fight.”
“Which one?” I asked. I knew of several of them.
Annabel turned to Alex, “There have been more?”
“Oh sure, I work there most weekends and some week nights. And no one sees me as a threat, so…” Alex turned to me, “I told her about the first day on the job you got me.”
“Oh yeah, that was a pretty fun night,” I said. “Alex, can you pay the check and call Mac and tell him what happened, please?” I handed her my credit card.
When she left the table, I moved closer to Annabel, “Are you okay? I know that could have been kind of scary.”
“This has been a lot to take in, but surprisingly, I am still interested in you and what you do. Everything points to you being a good man and Lord knows I could use something like this in my life.”
“Okay then, but if you are ever scared just let me know,” I said. We left the restaurant and Alex and I followed Annabel home. She wasn’t happy about us leaving her out, but I couldn’t take the chance of something happening to her. On our drive, I called James and he was sending over a team to watch her house for me. That team was there when we got to her house. She was even less happy about that.
James walked over to Alex’s truck, “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Not really. At least not yet.”
“Well, I’m supposed to meet Mac at Centennial Olympic Park. Do you know what that’s about?” James asked.
I looked at Alex, she just shrugged.
“I guess you’re with us. You want to ride?” I said.
He walked over to his car, got a duffel bag out, and got in Alex’s truck. On the ride, I explained what was going on.
/> “That explains why he asked me not to show up as an FBI agent,” James said.
“Yeah, we really just need cover.”
“Then that’s what you’ll get,” James said without even thinking about it.
When we got to the park, Mac was already there and he met us at the truck. As he helped me out of the truck he told me, “We have nine people spread out all over. Do you know what he wants?”
“The only thing I can think of is he brought us here to tell us how good looking we are and he wants a threesome,” I said.
James and Alex chuckled.
“So you have no idea?” Mac said.
I shook my head.
“You find levity at the most awkward moments.”
“I know, it makes me pretty special.”
“Well then let’s hope he’s ready for a gang bang,” Mac said without even a grin.
Alex and James chuckled again. This time a little louder.
Mac asked James to go to a certain location. James picked up his bag and headed out without question.
I asked Mac, “Who all is out there? And how did you get them here so fast?”
“People I know will not do anything until I tell them to.” He said.
“Okay,” I said. “I guess it’s just a waiting game now.”
Alex asked, “Where do you want me?”
I almost forgot she was here. I didn’t like the idea of her being here, but if there was any woman who could take care of herself, it was she.
Mac said, “If the shooting starts, I need you go get him out of here as fast as possible.
“What the hell Mac? Since when do you give me the girl’s job?”
“Girl? Is there a girl here? You are a bonus; I wasn’t expecting you. However, since you’re here, I could use some help if something happens close up. I can’t have a shoot out and get him in the truck at the same time. But with two of us, we have a better chance of the three of us surviving a gun fight,” Mac said.
She thought about it for a second and then said, “Well, when you put it that way.”
It was barely eleven in the morning and we still had another hour before they were supposed to be here. “I hate waiting around not knowing what the hell is going on,” I said.
“Better than showing up to an ambush,” Alex said.
Mac said, “Get your damn phone out and do something. I have everyone set up to let us know if they show up.”
“And what you are just going to stand there like a statue?”
“Unless you want me to sit in your lap,” Mac said.
I just shook my head, got my phone out, and started reading a book I had downloaded, since I have spent more time than I would like sitting on my rear end.
I could hear Mac’s phone vibrate in his pocket, he answered with his headset on and tucked in his shirt. He said, “Okay.” He hung up. Then he turned to me and said, “They are trying to setup shooters like we have, but our folks are on higher ground than them. We should be fine.”
“Do you know how many they have so far?” I asked without looking at him.
“Just two right now.”
“Okay, then maybe they really just want to talk.”
“Let’s hope,” Mac said. “There are a lot of people walking around here. I would not like any of them getting hurt because of us.”
“I agree,” I said. Five minutes later, his phone rang again. He hung up again.
“They are here,” Mac said.
A minute later I could see Luis Ortega walking our way along with four other guys and in the middle of the sort of circle must have been Hector Matias. His clothes were too nice for it to have been anyone else. They finally got to us and Luis nodded at me. Then he turned and introduced Hector to me.
I did the same to them for Mac and Alex.
Hector looked at Alex and back at me, “Why would you bring such a lovely looking lady to something like this?”
His English was perfect, but he did have an accent. I pointed to my leg, “She’s my nurse,” I grinned at him.
Alex bumped the back of my head.
Luis chimed in, “She’s no nurse, Hector. She’s a shooter. And she has little patience.”
Alex was standing behind me and I could hear the hammer click on her gun, but she did it so slow it was like a whisper.
Hector looked at Luis, “No, it can’t be. She’s too pretty to play with guns.”
Luis said, “I promise, she probably has one in her hand right now.”
Hector looked at Alex, “Is that true, mi amor? please say it’s not.”
Alex didn’t move or say anything.
Hector looked at me, “Does she speak?”
“Only when it’s meaningful,” I said. “Hector, not to be an ass, but I have been sitting in this chair a while today and I don’t really like it. I would rather be anywhere else right now. So if you don’t mind, please get to it.”
Hector looked at Luis, “They really don’t like small talk, do they?”
Luis just shrugged his shoulders.
Hector turned back to me, “You understand that you have interrupted a large portion of my business here. And the attempt on you was for that reason.”
“Of course I understand, but that doesn’t mean we are going to just lay down and take it,” I said.
“The problem I have is that you brought the Feds in.”
I cut him off, “Actually, they called us and warned us you were coming. Therefore, you might have an internal problem you need to address. As you can tell, we are not in a good position to be fighting with anyone, and we accomplished what we wanted to. All we wanted was to get the girl home. But we weren’t going to leave the others there.”
Hector looked at Luis, “Do we have a problem I need to know about?”
“Hector, how can you believe anything these guys say? How could the Feds know what we were doing?” Luis’ voice was not sounding so sure.
Hector whispered into one of the other guy’s ears and that guy started to reach into his jacket.
“Hector, that’s a bad idea, don’t let him pull out anything. You don’t want to do anything here,” I said sternly.
He looked at me and put his hand on the guy reaching for his gun. Then he looked at the rest of the guys. And nodded at Luis. They surrounded him and one of them took his gun from him, pointed it at his kidney, and walked him to the car.
Hector looked around, “How many people do you have out there?”
“More than you, but the main problem is one of them is not a civilian,” I said.
He kept looking around. “I have some people out there too.”
“Not really, two people is not really much. Our folks have them covered.”
“Why would you not just shoot us down? We would have.”
“Hector, I am not an assassin; besides, you asked for the meeting. Did you even get to ask what you came to ask?”
“No, but I have my answers. You seem to be a man of integrity. I want you to know I will not make another attempt on your life for this,” Hector said.
“Thank you, sir, but I have to tell you if we are asked about sex trafficking again, we will start with you. I appreciate your letting this go, but I cannot give you a complete pass on all sex trafficking that involves you,” I said.
“Not to worry,” Hector said. “I have already reported to my upper management that I will no longer be involved with that. I never liked the business. I have daughters also and was never a fan of the idea.”
“How will that work out for you?” I asked.
“It should be fine. I do good work and can make more somewhere else. They will give me a trial period and if things work out, I’ll be here for some time,” he said. “I would like to thank you for meeting with me and helping me.”
“I can't say it has been a pleasure, but I’m glad we can come to an understanding,” I said.