The Wrong Hostage

54

BROWN FIELD

MONDAY, 2:30 A.M.

GRACE AND STEELE SAT at the motor coach’s built-in dinette. Across from them, Faroe and Quintana conferred over a map of Baja California del Norte, orienting the journalist on All Saints School.

In the background the three operators checked firearms and ammunition, set the defaults on cell phones and pagers, and inventoried the equipment that had already been laid aboard the coach. Their movements were economical, quick, and relaxed. They slid through the small space between Steele’s wheelchair and the cupboards with the casual grace of the physically fit. Every time they passed, they looked at the map, noting anything new that had been added by Quintana or Faroe.

Grace was getting more and more nervous. Everyone was paying way too much attention to what everyone agreed was the most dangerous option.

Brute force.

She put her hand over the map. Both men glanced up at her.

“I know I should shut up and let you do your thing,” she said, “but I can’t. I have to be certain we haven’t overlooked some other way to get Lane free.”

Faroe put his hand over hers and curled their fingers together. “What angle do you think we’re missing?”

“Politics.”

“Whose?”

“Start with Hector,” she said, looking at Quintana.

“Hector smokes enough crack to put an elephant on the moon,” Faroe said.

Quintana lifted his thin shoulders in an elegant shrug. “May he smoke too much and die soon.”

“Someone else will take his place,” Faroe said.

“It is the curse of American drug habits feeding Mexico’s political corruption,” Quintana said.

“Somehow I can’t see Hector running for president,” Grace said. “And that’s the kind of politics I’m talking about.”

“Very few traficantes care about politics,” Quintana said, “except to understand who to buy in order to be left alone. Traficantes have no interest in a director of public works, or a provincial secretary of education. They are only interested in the police. As long as they control the police, they are safe.”

“Don’t forget the people who appoint men to direct the police,” Steele said.

Quintana sighed and looked like a man who wanted a cigarette. “Important appointments are made in Mexico City. That is why men like Hector Rivas own jet aircraft that depart weekly with millions of gringo dollars headed for the corrupt bosses in our national capital. There was a time when the national power structure was as addicted to those weekly payments as Hector is to his cocaine. That is how one president ended up in exile and his brother in prison.”

“But it’s better now?” Grace asked.

Quintana hesitated. “At the highest levels, it is better or at least more discreet. But the corrupt relationship between trafficking and law enforcement still remains. Hector Rivas is the boss. Four of his nephews participate in the daily activities of payoffs and corruption. Several nieces are said to be involved.”

“What about Hector’s own children?” she asked. “Does he have any?”

“Si. It is not well known, but they are in the United States with their mother. He loves them very much. We know he visits them often, but we don’t know how. No one sees him crossing the border.”

“They live in the U.S. so they can’t be taken hostage,” Grace said bitterly.

“It is a way of life,” Quintana said.

“It must be,” she said. “Carlos Calderon acted like it didn’t matter that his son was enrolled at All Saints.”

“Oh, it matters. Many million times it matters.” Quintana pursed his lips. “Think of the narco dollars as a river. The river flows out into the desert and disappears into the ground. But down there, beneath the surface, everything still flows, yes? Underground rivers.”

Grace nodded.

“Then, hundreds of miles away, the water surfaces again. Carlos Calderon is where the dollars reappear. He is not a traficante, he is a facilitator, one of the principal links between the traficantes and the politicos. That is politics.”

“Is it something we can prove?” Grace asked.

Faroe shook his head. “We don’t have time for courtroom proof.”

“But we have time to mount an attack that could get Lane shot?”

“Contingency planning only.” He released her hand, pushed back against the seat, and rubbed his face wearily.

“Can’t we leverage Carlos’s political need to have a clean public image into a way to help Lane?” she insisted.

Faroe reached for a cup of coffee and emptied it in three long swallows. “We don’t have enough time to convince anyone who matters.”

“But-”

“Your ex is trying to save his ass by handing a U.S. federal task force a gift-wrapped, high-level money-laundering case,” Faroe said impatiently. “Whatever he says about Calderon is tainted. Lane is hacking his way into the closest thing we might have as proof of Calderon’s complicity. The money trail. That’s what Hector wants, and he wants it enough to kill.”

Steele fiddled with the joystick on his wheelchair and closed in on a cup of coffee. “Why would Ted Franklin put that information on a teenager’s computer?”

“Because he didn’t trust his own accountants,” Faroe said. “But he still needed a record of money transfers, passwords, accounts, and the banks that hold them. All the hundreds-thousands-of details that go into money-laundering buttloads of money.”

“Where is the money due to surface?” Steele asked.

“As the funds to purchase the bank Ted peddled to Carlos, who peddled it to Jaime, who talked his uncle into buying his very own personal laundry,” Faroe said.

Grace looked at Quintana. “Do you know anything that would give you leverage over Hector?”

“Short of a sawed-off shotgun?” Faroe muttered.

Quintana smiled rather grimly and concentrated on Grace. “Do not waste your son’s life trying to reason with ROG. They kill because they can.”

“Listen to him, Grace,” Faroe said. “How many drug murders a year in Tijuana?” he asked Quintana.

“Perhaps five hundred, mas o menos. These are savages. You cannot bargain with them. You can only stop them with overwhelming force.”

“And before you think of going to Ted’s senatorial buddy,” Faroe said to Grace, “think about this. At the end of the twentieth century the U.S. investigated Mexican money laundering. Investigators posed as drug traffickers and implicated a number of Mexican bankers. A classic sting. The Mexican bankers were lured to Las Vegas and arrested. Want to guess what happened?”

“No. Yes. Tell me.”

“Within three days, the entire Mexican political establishment closed ranks. American drug agents in Mexico were threatened with arrest, or worse. Our ambassador was recalled. The American attorney general apologized publicly about our outrageous conduct.”

“Why?” Grace asked flatly.

It was Steele who answered. “Mexico treated the entire matter as an attack upon its national honor. The administration in Washington, in its effort to avoid upsetting the fragile Mexican financial structure, acquiesced. It takes no great genius to imagine what a well-placed and powerful man like Calderon could do if he felt seriously threatened by a U.S. senator.”

Grace looked at Quintana. “What if you threatened Calderon with exposure?”

“I can attack a known traficante like Hector Rivas and survive. There is an element of public theater in my coverage that ROG understands and often enjoys.” Quintana smiled thinly. “But even my armored car and my dozen bodyguards cannot guarantee my safety or that of my family and employees if I attack the Calderon family. I am sorry.”

Grace looked to Steele. “Aren’t there any politicians here or in Mexico who would be willing to help?”

“That was my first thought,” Steele said.

“And?” she asked.

“I rejected it.”

“Not enough time,” Faroe said. “Not enough secrecy. That’s why you came to St. Kilda, Grace.”

Steele nodded. “Sometimes the only swift, sure way to untie a knot is with a sword.”

“However…” Faroe said. He looked at Quintana. “Do you know where Hector’s family is in the U.S.?”

“One. A daughter. Yes.”

“We should explore that,” Faroe said quietly.

For a moment there wasn’t any sound but that of the diesel generator powering the vehicle’s lights.

“No.” Grace’s voice was emphatic. “Joe always thinks in straight lines. Isn’t there some indirect way? Doesn’t Hector Rivas have an enemy who wants to get even, someone who would help us?”

“Hector has killed all his enemies and many of his friends,” Quintana said.

“You’re saying that there isn’t a single person in northern Mexico who wants Hector and his gang stopped and could help us do just that?” Grace said.

Quintana thought for a moment. “Perhaps, yes, perhaps. Ascencio Beltran.”

“Beltran?” Faroe asked. “El Tiburon?”

The Shark.

“You know him?” Quintana asked.

“He was a major marijuana smuggler sixteen years ago. Then he dropped out of sight. Some say he was killed. Some say he was in jail.”

“He is alive,” Quintana said. “He is living in the only place in Tijuana that Hector Rivas does not control. It is the place no one controls. La Ciudadita.”

Faroe smiled oddly. “The little city within the city. I’ll be damned.”

“What is La Ciudadita?” Steele asked.

“The street name for the federal prison at La Mesa, in south Tijuana.”

“Will El Tiberon help us?” Faroe asked.

Quintana’s shoulders shifted in a shrug. “He might, but first you must convince Sister Maude.”

“Who is she?” Grace asked.

“The unsainted saint of La Mesa,” Faroe said. “Will she see me?”

“Us,” Grace said instantly.

“You don’t want to see La Mesa Prison,” he said, his voice flat.

“Haven’t we had this conversation before? What does want have to do with any of this? Sister Maude might feel better about your intentions if you have a woman with you.”

“She’s right,” Steele said. “There are times and places where men alone just can’t get the job done.”

Quintana said, “I will call Sister Maude.”

What Faroe said made Grace wince.