The Wrong Hostage

78

OTAY MESA

NOON, MONDAY

RAIN CAME DOWN IN drenching curtains blown apart by gusts of wind. The windshield wipers beat like a frantic heart.

No, Grace thought. The wipers don’t care. They’re just machines doing a job.

It’s my heart that’s frantic.

She was swimming through a mercury landscape laced with dull diamonds where industrial lights tried to penetrate the stormy gloom.

Franklin sat in the backseat, saying nothing.

Faroe drove the Mercedes slowly along slick streets lined with square, windowless import-export warehouses and used-car lots surrounded by sagging chain-link topped with coils of razor wire. If there were any employees around, they were tucked inside away from the weather.

“It reminds me of a war zone,” Grace said. “Fortresses without windows and stockades without prisoners.”

“Close enough,” Faroe said. “This used to be rye fields and tumbleweed, but even then it was crisscrossed by smuggling paths and pockmarked by foxholes. The border patrol had to come out here once a month to shoot the packs of feral dogs that crossed over every night from Mexico to hunt.”

“They shot dogs?”

“Rabies. Distemper. You name it, the feral dogs had it. Shooting them was the only way to keep them out of San Diego.”

Grace couldn’t disagree, but she didn’t like knowing about it.

“There it is,” Faroe said.

She leaned forward and saw a boulevard sign: EL REY MEXICAN FOODS. The sign was in front of an oversize tilt-up slab building that backed up to the border fence. Except for a faint light in one of the interior rooms, the building was dark.

The warehouse was barely a block west of the Otay port-of-entry buildings.

Grace looked at the front of the building, where the offices would be.

Nothing moving.

“It looks deserted,” she said uneasily.

“It probably is,” Faroe said. “Galindo did a little touch-up work after the tunnel was finished. He said Hector always made sure no employees were around when the tunnel was being used. Even the family members who humped the drugs through the tunnel only knew the one end of it.”

Faroe slowed and turned into the darkened parking lot beside the warehouse. “Galindo should have guessed what Hector planned for the tunnel rats. Dead men tell no tales.”

“So he killed the miners,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Hector makes the feral dogs look sweet.”

“That means he’ll try to kill us,” Franklin said in a rising voice. “He will!”

“Take it easy,” Faroe said. “The place is already surrounded by a dozen of the best sharpshooters and fast-entry troops in the business.”

He braked to a quick stop in the parking lot and shut off the headlights.

“I don’t see them,” Franklin said. “I don’t see anyone!”

“Neither will Hector, until it’s too late,” Faroe said, looking around. “I’ll bet there are at least two in that Dumpster over there by the back door and another one or two under that oleander hedge along the back of the property.”

Franklin made an unhappy sound. “But they can’t see us when we’re inside.”

“With the transmitter that’s wired to Grace’s bra,” Faroe said, “the FBI will be able to hear someone break a sweat a hundred feet away.”

Static popped twice through the speaker of the small handheld radio on the console beside Faroe.

“What was that?” Franklin asked sharply.

“One of the assault team keyed his microphone,” Faroe said. “It’s the standard silent signal that a transmission was received.” He picked up the radio and clipped it to his belt next to his phone. “When I go south, you’ll be in communication with the backup team via Grace’s bra.”

She shot him a sideways look.

He smiled. “So just holler if things go wrong and the Bureau powder monkeys will blow every door on that box and come down on Hector like acid rain. They want that bastard bad enough to taste it.”

“I thought they were after the money,” Franklin said.

“They’ll take that and be glad,” Faroe said. “It might just cover their expenses plus the five million they’ll have to fork over for the capture of Hector.”

“You really expect to collect on that?” Franklin asked.

“St. Kilda will collect. It might keep Steele happy for a whole week.”

“But-” Franklin said.

“Later,” Faroe interrupted. “Now it’s quiet time.”

He drove a slow circle around the square, blank warehouse, checking concealment spots and potential countersurveillance locations. The place looked abandoned, but there were more than twenty federal agents within a hundred yards.

And there were three St. Kilda operators facedown somewhere in the rows of the strawberry field that lay between the warehouse and the border fence.

The only sign of the surveillance team was a faintly glittering puddle of broken glass just outside one of the warehouse’s rear doors. Someone had used a silent pellet gun to break the glass housing on the automatic light inside. More than once, Faroe had done the same kind of thing for the same reason.

He pulled up in the dark shadows of a ten-foot-high oleander hedge and watched a border patrol Suburban cruise slowly by on the dirt road immediately adjacent to the twelve-foot boundary fence. The vehicle slowed even more, then stopped. The driver lowered his window and peered through the rain at the field.

Damn, Faroe thought. He must have spotted a movement.

Faroe leaned over Grace’s breasts. “Which mutt forgot to tell the border patrol that there’s an operation going down here?”

Static popped from the radio on Faroe’s belt.

Message received.

The border agent opened his door and stepped out. Obviously he was taking a better look at the rain-swept field a hundred feet away. He stepped off the roadway, an agent on the way to flush a band of illegal immigrants.

Then the man stopped and reached for his belt radio.

“Yeah, Cook,” Faroe said against Grace’s shirt. “Hector probably has someone watching from the other side, so tell the border patrol to haul ass out of here like he just got a hot call on Dairy Mart Road.”

The border agent held the radio to his face long enough to acknowledge. Then he tossed the radio back into the truck and climbed in. The red and blue lights on the roof snapped on. The green and white vehicle left a rooster tail of mud as the agent raced down the boundary road in the direction of Chula Vista.

“Good job,” Faroe said. He nuzzled against the transmitter. “Thanks.”

Grace took a startled breath. Then she smiled.

“Okay, Central,” Faroe said, his lips less than a half inch from her shirt. “We’re going to the warehouse now. We’ll be inside in about thirty seconds. I’ll play it loose until I make sure that nobody’s waiting. And we’ll need a sound check to make sure the body bug works inside the walls. Do you copy? Pop once.”

A single burst of static whispered from the radio on his hip.

“Did you get the inside wired for sound?” he asked.

Another pop.

“Remember,” Faroe said to Grace and Franklin, “there are TV cameras inside the warehouse, so expect Hector to be watching.”

“Can he listen, too?” she asked.

“Galindo didn’t know about any microphones, but we can’t be certain. The task force will be listening for sure, even if your wire shorts out.” Faroe pointed to the warehouse. “The rathole is in the washroom beside those offices. Knowing Hector, he’s probably got shit smeared on it to blow out the noses of customs dogs.”

“Sweet,” Grace said.

“That’s our Hector.”

Faroe let the vehicle coast silently across the blacktop to the side door. He shut off the engine. Silence built around them.

“You have that thing Harley gave you?” he asked Grace softly.

“Yes.”

“Remember when to use it?”

“What are you two talking about?” Franklin demanded.

“The gun in my purse,” she said.

“They gave you a gun? Why didn’t I get one?”

“It didn’t go with the handcuffs,” she said.

Franklin slumped back against the seat.

“Stop worrying about all the ways I can screw up,” she said to Faroe. “I know the rules of engagement. I do nothing unless someone is in immediate danger of being killed. But if things fall apart, I won’t stand by and scream. I’ll start shooting and save the screaming for later.”

Faroe’s radio popped once. He smiled. “Dead or alive, just like the posters said?”

“Exactly like that.”

Faroe breathed against her neck. “Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to appear in an after-action report.”

“I’m just stating the obvious,” Grace said. “Hector is an old-fashioned fool. He doesn’t think women are a personal threat. I’ll have a better chance of getting a shot at him than all the ninjas in the parking lot.”

“Are you a good shot?” Faroe asked.

“From six inches who isn’t?”

“Don’t do anything to make Hector mad,” Franklin said nervously.

“I was thinking more like dead,” she said.

“Uh, Cook, you’d better back up that real-time tape and start over again,” Faroe said, pulling out his shirt to cover the radio.

A single pop.

Faroe reached for the door handle. “Showtime.”