Kidnap & Ransom Page 12

  “I know he’s one of your men,” Linus said, “but what makes you think—”

  “I don’t trust him, either. Friends close but enemies closer, right?”

  “I suppose. But what if he reveals our plans to the Zetas?”

  “He’ll be under surveillance the whole time, without a functioning radio. If he is working with them, he could be a valuable source of intel.”

  “What about Riley?” Linus asked. “I know he hasn’t been with Tyr long—”

  “As far as I’m concerned, every one of those men is a liability,” Brown said. “When we find them, they’ll be treated as hostiles until proven otherwise.”

  Flores scraped the bottom of his plate with a rusty spoon, making sure to get every last morsel of the sparse cornmeal. He definitely preferred the hospitality of the Zetas’ city branch. The food was a hell of a lot better, and there had been more of it. With these rations, no wonder Calderon was a sack of bones.

  Calderon had already finished and was carefully rinsing his plate and spoon. They were only allotted two small water bottles apiece per day, so every drop was precious. Suddenly one of the guards appeared outside their pen.

  “Venga conmigo,” he said, gesturing toward Calderon.

  Calderon stood, his expression tough to read.

  “What do you think they want?” Flores asked.

  “Tough to say. Proof of life, possibly? This might be the beginning of negotiations.” Calderon smiled thinly. “Hopefully I will return with good news for both of us, amigo.”

  “Good luck.” Flores shook his hand, then watched as he was led down the aisle.

  Next door, Ramon Tejada monitored Calderon’s departure, but he didn’t say anything.

  Flores paced as he waited. He’d already quietly begun planning their escape, familiarizing himself with the guards’ shifts, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the camp from what he could observe from their cell. That morning Calderon had mentioned that periodically army helicopters skirted low overhead. It was the only time the guards seemed distracted, he claimed. Perhaps enough to mask their escape, if they timed it right.

  But what if they were actually moving him to a different pen? If Calderon didn’t come back, Flores would be forced to leave without him. Anything else was too risky. Not a decision he relished making.

  A siren blared, and there was a commotion at the end of their row. A line of guards appeared. In ragged formation they trotted forward, each breaking off to stand in front of a different pen. One stopped directly across from Flores. The guard raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed for his chest.

  Flores’s heart nearly stopped. His mind raced as his field of vision narrowed to the guard’s finger, watching pressure increase on the trigger. He’d never know his child. His body would likely never be found. Maryanne would have no idea what had really happened to him. He wasn’t going to get a chance to say goodbye.

  “Tranquilo, amigo,” Ramon muttered in the next pen. “It’s a drill.”

  “What?” Flores examined the guard facing him. The man had frozen, as if awaiting an order.

  “They do this a few times a week. It’s to prepare the guards, in case the camp is ever invaded. They’re to make sure none of the prisoners survive.” Tejada’s words dissolved into another coughing fit.

  “So how do we know this isn’t going to be the time they shoot us?”

  “We don’t.”

  Flores shifted his head. Tejada hadn’t moved at the guard’s approach. He remained seated near the door, face tilted up to catch the thin ray of light that sliced across his cell.

  The siren issued a staggered series of bleats, and the guard outside Flores’s pen lowered his weapon. A moment later, he trotted back toward the end of the row, falling in line with the other guards.

  Flores breathed out hard and wiped a line of sweat from his brow. He resolved to be long gone before the next drill.

  More coughing from next door. Flores turned to see Tejada bent double, hacking into a soiled handkerchief. “Cómo estás?” Flores asked.

  Tejada waved a hand. After a moment, the fit passed. He took a sip of water, then collapsed on a pile of matted leaves. Despite his condition, he produced a cigarette from the pocket of his shirt and lit it. Lying on his back he nursed it, a thin trail of smoke rising like a wraith above his head. “This place is hell,” Tejada said after a moment. He shifted to squint at Flores. “And you’re living with the devil.”

  Before Flores could ask what he meant, Calderon reappeared, the guard shoving him from behind. The door swung open and he stepped back inside. Calderon looked shaken, face pale, hands trembling.

  “What happened?” Flores asked. “Did they take a proof-of-life photo?”

  Calderon sank into a crouch, clutching his knees to his chest. “No, my friend,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “They wanted something else.”

  “What?”

  Calderon didn’t reply. Flores figured he was waiting for the guard to leave, but the door to their pen hadn’t been closed yet.

  “Venga conmigo.”

  Flores turned to find the guard pointing at him.

  Sixteen

  Jake grunted as the guard delivered a sharp kick to his ribs. He’d slipped again, and apparently falling wasn’t permitted. The guard yelled, waving his free arm wildly for Jake to get back up.

  “Not my fault,” Jake said through gritted teeth as he slowly rose to his feet. “It’s damn slippery.”

  The only response was another jab in the back from the gun muzzle. It wasn’t helping that the second guard hadn’t reappeared. As he propelled Jake forward, the guy cast glances back over his shoulder, obviously increasingly worried. They’d already traveled about a half mile. Jake wondered where the hell this camp was, and why the guards wandered so far afield to take a piss. Maybe they were assigned the outer perimeter, or some prisoners had escaped and they’d been tracking them down.

  The jungle was even thicker here, enormous ferns rising up to meet dangling vines. Steam covered everything, a fine mist that wrapped around trunks and dripped off leaves.

  A sudden crashing sound behind them, something large tearing through the undergrowth. They both froze.

  “Hector?” The guard called after a second.

  There was no response.

  The guard shouldered his rifle, aiming at some rustling bushes a dozen yards away. “Quien es?” he called out. “Sal de ahí!”

  There was no response. The jungle had fallen silent. A bead of sweat rolled down the inside collar of Jake’s shirt. Syd and Mark, he thought. Has to be. His relief at the fact that they hadn’t abandoned him was accompanied by annoyance: what the hell had taken so long? Counting Decker and his team, they had six people trained to intervene in this exact situation.

  The guard swiveled back around, pointing his gun at Jake’s head as he spat out a stream of commands. Jake’s Spanish was limited to finding bathrooms and ordering beers, but he got the gist of it.

  Still, he shrugged in response. “No hablo español.”

  The guard stepped closer, jabbing the weapon threateningly. “They come out,” he said, “or you die.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Jake said slowly. “I’m alone.”

  The guard hissed in frustration and muttered to himself. He prodded Jake in the chest, nudging him forward. Jake turned slowly and kept walking, eyes scanning either side of the narrow path. It was a sea of green and gray.

  Wait…he caught a flash of something brighter to his right. Jake covertly focused on it as he walked.

  There was definitely something out there that didn’t belong in a rain forest.

  Jake took a deep breath. He let his left foot slide out on the next patch of leaves, dropping to his belly in the mud.

  A sharp crack from the right, and something wet hit his back. Looking up he saw the guard lurch sideways, a bullet hole near his hairline. Jake grimaced. More rustling, and Syd and Mark emerged side by sid
e through the trees, followed by the rest of the group. Jake was relieved to see Isabela among them. At the sight of the guard’s body she went pale and averted her eyes.

  “Took you long enough,” Jake muttered.

  Syd jerked her head toward Mark. “He wanted to let them take you all the way into camp, figured that would be the easiest way to find it.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Jake said. “I’m glad cooler heads prevailed.”

  “We would have gotten you out,” Mark said without looking up. He was patting down the guard’s pockets, relieving him of a hunting knife and ammunition.

  “Remind me not to come save you next time.” Jake stood and brushed himself off as best he could. He avoided looking at the guard, too.

  “Guess we’re even now,” Mark said. “Not that you really saved me.”

  Jake opened his mouth to retort, but Syd interrupted. “The camp can’t be far, can we hold off on the arguments? It’s almost dark. We need to find a safe place to regroup.”

  “Agreed,” Mark said. “Let’s move out. Follow close. Stay a little off the path, but in sight of it. Decker, you take the rear.”

  “I got it,” Maltz interjected.

  Mark appeared ready to argue, then thought better of it. Syd led the way, tacking off the path twenty feet, then beating a trail parallel to it. Mark stayed close on her heels.

  Jake followed him into the brush. It was harder going off the path. They weren’t using the machete anymore, wary of leaving a trail. He followed in Mark’s wake as carefully as he could, but he swore his brother was intentionally setting branches to snap in his face. He yelped when one hit his cheek, drawing blood.

  Mark glanced back and raised an eyebrow. Jake just glowered and motioned for him to keep going. As he watched his brother’s broad back move smoothly through the trees, Jake couldn’t help but remember being in this exact same formation many times before. Throughout their entire childhood, he’d followed Mark. The gullies and sagebrush surrounding their house had been their personal playground, host to endless rounds of cowboys and Indians. At school, he’d taken over as quarterback when Mark graduated and relinquished the position. The only place he hadn’t followed him was into the Navy SEALs.

  They’d always been close, much closer than he and Chris ever got. Chris was definitely the odd one out in a family of adrenaline junkies, a nerdy kid who preferred books to BB guns, the school year to summers. Meanwhile Mark and Jake had been nearly inseparable, sharing a bedroom and constantly getting into trouble—nothing serious, but the local cops knew them by sight.

  And then Mark left, and everything changed.

  Mark suddenly stopped short and held up a closed fist. Jake halted a foot behind him. Finally a signal he recognized: the military gesture for “Freeze.”

  Mark dropped to the ground and crawled forward. After a second Jake followed, figuring what the hell, he had chosen to be here. No reason he shouldn’t be privy to whatever Mark had seen. He inched forward, sodden clothes chafing uncomfortably against his skin as he came up alongside Mark and Syd.

  They were on the edge of a small cliff. The path the guard had been leading him down transformed into a series of switchbacks that descended at least a half mile to the valley floor. And tucked inside the valley was the prison camp.

  Mark scanned it through a pair of binoculars. Jake held out his hand for them. Reluctantly Mark passed them over.

  Jake adjusted the focus. His heart sank at what he saw.

  Isabela had told them the camp was big, and connected to a military base. But either she hadn’t known, or hadn’t accurately conveyed, the size of the thing. Jake had been picturing something far more ad hoc, similar to the FARC camps in Colombia. The FARC were masters of building temporary bases, leaving a trail of abandoned shelters strewn through the jungle as they played cat and mouse with the Colombian army.

  Apparently Los Zetas had no such qualms. The prison camp sprawled off into the distance. It was huge, covering a few hundred acres. The tree canopy shielded it somewhat from overhead view. Still, there was simply no way the Mexican army was unaware of its existence, Jake thought. Syd was right: Los Zetas had to be aligned with powerful people in the government.

  Syd and Mark edged back from the lip, staying on their bellies. Jake followed. Ten feet away, Mark stood. He walked back into the underbrush, then squatted down. “All right, we’ve got our visual,” he said. “We’ll regroup a few clicks away, then do our recon tonight.”

  “How the hell are you going to find your men?” Jake asked. “It’s a lot bigger than I thought.”

  “We’ll find them,” Mark said.

  “My father, too,” Isabela interjected.

  “Right,” Mark said, meeting her eyes. “We’ll try to find him, too.”

  “And then how do we get them out? I saw guard towers, dogs…” Jake turned to Syd. “Even you have to admit, this is crazy. We’re not dealing with a few guys at an outpost here. They probably outnumber us a hundred-to-one. Plus they know the terrain, we don’t.”

  For the first time in recent memory, Syd looked hesitant. Not a good sign.

  “We need to create a distraction, get some guards out of the camp.” She turned to Maltz. “Kind of like what we did in Syria.”

  Maltz was already shaking his head. “Jake’s right, there are too many of them. Won’t work.”

  “We could fly in more men,” Kane suggested. “Pull some teams off other jobs.”

  “That’d attract too much attention,” Mark argued. “We’re already here. We’ve got surprise on our side.”

  “Surprise won’t be enough,” Syd said. Mark started to argue, but she cut him off. “Jake’s right, we go in like this, it’s a suicide mission. And I for one am not in the mood to die. Or to end up in some godforsaken Mexican prison camp.”

  They stood in silence for a moment.

  “What about the Tyr team?” Syd said after a pause. “We could join forces.”

  “Don’t trust ’em,” Decker chimed in.

  “Maybe if we had more C4,” Maltz said, thinking aloud.

  “Getting in is easy,” Syd said. “It’s getting out that’s the problem.”

  As they debated, dusk swept in from the uppermost branches, bringing with it a slight chill. Jake shivered in his wet clothes. Isabela looked as miserable as he felt. He wondered again what the hell he’d been thinking. He should be on a plane home with Kelly right now. Mark seemed dead set on getting himself killed. Beyond that, he’d made it clear that he’d prefer having no help. Now Jake had put the lives of his business partner and some of his best employees at risk.

  “We’ve got another problem,” Maltz said after a minute. “Chances are they’ll come looking for the guys we took out.”

  “He’s right,” Decker said. “We stashed them pretty good, but still—”

  “They’ll find us,” Syd finished. “We should fall back to a safer location to figure out a plan.”

  “I think we should stay,” Mark said.

  “No way, not all of us. I’m pulling my men,” Syd turned to Jake. “Right?”

  Jake nodded. “There were a few motels in that village we passed through, we can book some rooms and try to keep a low profile while we regroup.”

  Mark’s face clouded. Before he could say anything, Decker laid a hand on his arm. “She’s right, Riley. You and me can scout the camp. But all of us, together—there are civilians here.”

  Mark’s gaze settled on Isabela. “You should head back with them,” he said, sounding defeated. “We’ll gather as much intel on the camp as we can.”

  “Here.” Syd handed him a radio with a fat antenna. “Stay in contact and use the satellite encrypted channel to report what you find. Maybe you’ll spot a weakness we can use.”

  “We’re leaving?” Isabela interrupted. “What about my father?”

  “I’ll get him out,” Mark said. “I promise.”

  Isabela looked ready to argue, but before she could speak a siren blared from the cam
p.

  Syd cocked her head to the side. “Far as I’m concerned, that’s our cue to go.”

  Kelly sat on a park bench rubbing her leg. All of the walking today had exacerbated her condition. She considered popping a Vicodin, but decided against it. On the off chance that she did find something, she needed to be sharp. Unfortunately, so far she’d had no luck.

  An internet search had turned up five foreign-language bookstores in Mexico City. She’d started with the two that focused on European languages. Unfortunately they’d proved fruitless. Neither owner recognized Stefan’s photo.

  According to the P.I., the money had arrived in Mexico City almost three years earlier. Even if Stefan had been a regular at the time, they might not remember him. Or maybe some of the bookstores he frequented had closed in the interim.

  Still, Kelly dogged on. After all, she mused, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. The next store was on the eastern side of the city, not far from where they’d spent the past few days. She stopped for lunch in the Zona Rosa before heading back to the grim and dangerous section of town.

  Kelly checked her watch: nearly 3:30 p.m. No matter what, she didn’t want to be walking around there after dark. Time to get a move on.

  It took nearly a half hour for her cab to weave its way through the glut of traffic. The heat wave was holding fast, the sidewalks thronged with people in T-shirts milling in and out of stores. The neighborhoods deteriorated as they drove. Entire blocks were boarded up, gangs of young men hung out on apartment building stoops. Kelly swallowed hard. Maybe this had been a mistake.

  The cab pulled up to a lone storefront in the middle of a devastated block. Kelly peered out the window—it was hard to tell if it was even open, it looked just as dingy and abandoned as everything else.

  “Espere, por favor,” she said, handing the driver some cash.

  He looked around nervously, but nodded.

  A tinny bell rang when she opened the door. The interior was dark, books stacked on every available space. A tiny man scurried out of a back room and approached her with a toothy smile. “Sí, señora?” he said hopefully. “Hola. I’m looking for someone.” Kelly dug Stefan’s file photo out of her backpack. The man’s face fell at the realization that she wasn’t a customer after all, but he took it from her and adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose.