Anthony Somoza stood up to speak and shot a quick, meaningful look at Carlo indicating him to stay silent:
“Thank you, Mr. Aster, for the trust you have placed on us; we are certain that projects such as Synchro will also become useful in the struggle to clean the city’s streets of drugs”.
“May God hear you, boy, may He hear you”.
***
Cristina drove an expensive, high-end car while Álvaro Guzmán watched the sunset through the window. They had dressed up elegantly, at the expense of the department’s budget. They had to infiltrate and send the signal for intervention to the units that were waiting under cover.
“How’s your new place?”
“Good, it’s kind of small but that’s what I was looking for”.
She lied. She hated herself for abandoning the place that held the memories of her son. The house had been full of them and their loss tangled with the feeling of his absence. Her eyes, immersed in a dense fog, hardly managed to hide the nightmare that she had experienced in the last couple of months.
“What about you? How are you feeling?”
“Good, considering that the whole Police department is listening into our conversation”. Cristina brought her hand to her ear.
That was another lie; she did not have a life outside the office doors, not with all the crying and the fog that permeated everything. In every corner, she found a reason to drop it all and welcome death. Only two nights ago, she had undressed and lowered herself into the bathtub. She had kept her underwear on; if she died, she didn’t want to be found completely naked. She had stared at the cutter for a long time, its open blade pointing defiantly at the edge of the full and warm bathtub. She had pictured cutting her own wrists, dropping her arms in the water and bleeding to death, just like falling asleep. She had not done it; the sound of some children in the street dragged her out of the fog and she had noticed that the water had grown cold.
Guzmán touched his right ear to check that his earpiece was placed correctly. He wasn’t very sure that having Cristina in the firing line was such a great idea. Something about her eyes told him that beneath the calm appearance, that woman was gun powder threatening to explode at any second. She was his friend, but she had not recovered yet.
“Can you hear us?” checked Guzmán.
“Yes, we can hear you loud and clear”. TJ was following the signal from an undercover van from the company Spectrum, only a few houses away from the objective.
“I expect it will be a fun night for all of us”.
Inside the van were four agents, all eyes were fixed on the monitors transmitting the cameras’ signals and the sound of the agents in the other car. TJ was among them, a recycled computer technician and technology expert that had ended up in the police force; behind him, wearing headphones and a mic, stood commissioner García, in charge of the operation:
“Be very careful over there. We are ready”. The commissioner watched the car’s radar as it approached the map’s central point.
Cristina, who, that very morning, had banged her hand on the commissioner’s desk, nodded dutifully. She had not wanted to be left out of the operation and made her opinion clear with shouts:
“If you’d like to kick me out for being unwell, fucking do it, but I’m going to continue being unwell at home and this is the only thing I’ve got; and if I’m going to stay, then I want to participate in the same way I did before the death of Lucas”.
To which the commissioner replied:
“OK, lieutenant Herrera, dress up fancy and prepare for tonight. But I want you to go through a psychological evaluation tomorrow, understood?”
Cristina had left without giving any signs of agreement.
Guzmán watched his colleague out of the corner of his eye.
“Let the show begin”, he said theatrically looking at the trees they had to their sides and the sea beyond. “If I weren’t on duty, I would have a smoke right now”.
Cristina and Álvaro’s car drove past a piece of open ground where three camouflaged police assault vehicles waited ready to intervene; each car had four agents dressed in black, completely armed and ready to go.
The car with the two dressed up agents drove through the entrance gates; they were arriving at a mansion of colonial style at the top of the Jardines de la Montaña.
“Well… the party is about to start”, said Álvaro. “How are you feeling? Ready?”
Cristina looked at her reflection on the rear window and saw the fog in her eyes.
“Yes, and that’s the third time you’ve asked me in the last ten minutes. What’s up?”
“Being at your level is tough. I’m worried of looking like an old perv with a girl that’s way too young for me”.
The commissioner, from the camouflaged van:
“Álvaro, you don’t look bad at all at your… what is it, fifties, fifty-something…?”
“It’s no secret that I’m fifty-five and have a daughter who’s a youtuber”.
Cristina laughed. It had been months since she had last laughed; only Guzmán had that sense of humor that was capable of opening cracks of hope in the middle of her fog.
The intervention had been planned that very morning. They received a tip about a drug shipment that would be delivered at the luxurious mansion during the party. Cristina thought it strange; in these cases, the operations were usually simple, they arrested the drug dealers as they entered or left the party, end of story. What they were about to do was going to make a lot of noise and would set to work the whole of the Police judicial machinery during the following days. The rich people living in these mansions had many resources and had contacts high up.
From the undercover van, commissioner García intervened:
“Actually, you look like a very congenial couple”.
“Right? I keep telling her… Cristina, I’m the department’s most desired bachelor, don’t miss your chance”.
Cristina smiled again as she stepped out of the car assisted by a valet that was holding the door open for her.
For a moment, she stood still. It was her son Lucas who was holding the door to help her step out.
Guzmán saw his colleague’s expression and knew that something was wrong, he offered his arm and told her:
“Our department is a nest of gossips”.
Inspectors Herrera and Guzmán were entering the welcome marquee that had been installed for the party; three security people examined the guests’ credentials at the entrance. Everyone had to walk through the metal detector arch. In a corner, a woman with short, blonde hair supervised the security check operation; her grey coat could not hide the bulk of a gun on her side. Next to her, hung a ‘gun-free party’ sign, the new trend among the cosmopolitan and eccentric: the picture of a gun with a cross on it emphasized the ban to carry weapons into certain events.
Guzmán stopped on his tracks and stepped intentionally on Cristina’s foot, who looked angrily at him. He pointed forward with his chin.
“OK, we have a small problem. There is a security control right ahead of us and a metal detector. Nobody mentioned there would be anything of the sort”.
“If we leave our weapons, everyone is going to notice us”.
Cristina