Black Onyx Duology Read Online Free PDF

that so difficult?”
    The man looked to the two men seated to the right and left of him. “That’s it? You’re just going to accept the first figure I give you?”
    “I don’t argue over pennies. Forty-five percent is fine. Miguel will see to all the details.” He rose and walked over and shook the man’s hand before leaving.
    When they were outside, he glanced back to see Mr. Park staring at him from the windows. El Sacerdote smiled and waved before getting into the car. Once his men were in, they pulled away.
    “El Padrino,” Miguel said, “may I ask something?”
    “ Yes.”
    “Forty-five percent to this pig of a man, that seems high.”
    “It is. It should be somewhere around ten percent. But I just need one shipment for now. Once he sees how easy it is we’ll renegotiate. And if he doesn’t want to we’ll take one of his three sons until he does.”
    “What is to be delivered?”
    “Death, Miguel. Death.”

7
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Assistant Special Agent in Charge Dana Gladstone sat in her well-lit office at the Drug Enforcement Agency’s field office in El Paso. Special Agent Michael Cobb, one of the men under her command, sat across from her as they listened to the tapes of El Sacerdote’s meeting with Jim Park.
    “I don’t know who the hell you are and you want me to risk my business, everything I’ve worked for, smuggling your shit into my country. Well, fine, but I need assurances. And a larger piece of the pie.”
    “How large?”
    “Forty-five percent of any load.”
    “Deal. Now see, was that so difficult?”
    “That’s it? You’re just going to accept the first figure I give you?”
    “I don’t argue over pennies. Forty-five percent is fine. Miguel will see to all the details.”
    She shook her head as she paused the media player on her desktop. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Forty-five percent for shipments? He’ll barely make a profit.”
    “New market,” Cobb said. “Maybe he just wants to hook a lot of people up north and then renegotiate?”
    “Maybe. His product isn’t any better than anyone else’s though. He doesn’t have any competitive advantage. This just doesn’t make any sense.”
    “They’re drug dealers, Dana. Since when do they have to make sense?”
    “You haven’t done this as long as I have. These guys are smart. Not typically in the way some turd at Harvard Law is smart, these guys have the scariest type of intelligence. They can read people and understand when a profit is being made and when it’s not. El Sacerdote’s increased the cartel’s profits by almost two hundred percent in four years. That’s unheard of. He wouldn’t be making this move lightly unless there was a big upside for him.”
    “Well, do we have any of his men in custody we could talk to?”
    “They don’t talk. There was a young guy once, Adrian I think his name was, he cooperated with us in exchange for witness protection. His entire family was murdered the next day. Not after the trial or years down the line, the next day. That means someone in our office informed El Sacerdote about it the moment it happened.”
    “Shit. He’s got that much pull?”
    “You have no idea.” She leaned back in her wheelchair, tapping a pencil on the desk. “John Larson is in charge of the El Sacerdote investigation. Why’d you bring this to me?”
    “Jim Park. He’s a shipping magnate, Park Shipping and Towing. He’s a new player in this we haven’t seen before so I thought I’d run it by you. You’ve got the experience…sorry, that came out wrong.”
    “Why? Cause I got shot by these assholes I’m now an expert?”
    They looked to each other a moment in silence.
    “Mike, I’m kidding.”
    “Oh, man, sorry .”
    “ It’s fine. No, this is a big move for the Priest. You were right to bring it to me.” She glanced outside her door to the cubicles outside. “Mike, can you shut my door?”
    He stood up and closed it before sitting back down. “What’s