Bouncing along this dirt road is a red van.
I get three seconds of view, but it’s enough.
I reach to the screen, give the van a quick touch as it, too, disappears from view.
All I can see now is the fuselage of the Learjet.
It stays still.
I know why the earlier system, CYCLOPS, didn’t pick up on the van. It was too far away, fuzzy, indistinct.
But now I’ve seen it.
And I know who is in it.
I touch the screen again.
The Learjet starts to taxi out and—
There!
I freeze the view and I catch the registration numbers, painted on the near engine nacelle. The letters and numbers aren’t sharp, but they’re sharp enough.
I quickly write them down.
NS-28312.
I let the video play again, and the jet gains speed, goes down the runway, and lifts off, and within seconds, it’s gone from view.
“Fly safe, you bastards,” I whisper. “You’ve got my family in there.”
Then I clear everything, shut down, log off, and push my chair back.
I need to get moving, but I also need to do something else. On my way out I catch a red-faced Sue Judson’s attention and put a reassuring hand over hers.
“Sue, I’m so sorry I snapped at you back there. Work…I’m under a lot of pressure, and there are things going on at home. I’m sorry you had to take the brunt of it.”
She smiles wanly. “I understand. We all have problems like that, here and there.” Sue’s face brightens up. “Someday, I’m sure you’ll look back on this and have a good laugh, am I right?”
I head to the doors.
“No, Sue, you’re very wrong.”
CHAPTER 14
PELAYO ABBOUD makes a slurping sound with the straw and the last of the Coca-Cola, and passes the empty bottle over to Casper Khourery, who cocks his head a couple of millimeters, a gesture just large enough so Pelayo knows what’s next.
“Ah, yes,” he says. “One more errand to undertake. Are they ready?”
Casper nods and takes the lead, still holding the empty glass Coke bottle with the straw sticking out as they maneuver their way across the filthy basement, cluttered with construction materials, pallets of packaged food and drinks, and boxes of open tiles and polished wood. The air is hot and muggy, pierced with the sound of hammering, power tools buzzing, and shouts of construction workers.
They head down a wide corridor, freshly installed Sheetrock on either side, little metal screw heads still visible. There’s a pallet with empty Coke bottles in open wooden crates, and Casper withdraws the straw, puts the bottle in with a little clink, then drops the used straw on the dirty floor. A few more meters and there’s an open door to the right, which they both enter.
The two men who successfully kidnapped the two Americans are sitting on a large black folding table, both wearing gray jumpsuits. When Pelayo comes in, the two men stand up, looking intently at him and Casper. Pelayo nods, gives them a slight smile. No need to overdo it, for these two men have grown up in blasted and destroyed areas of the Middle East that Pelayo doesn’t even want to think about.
“Gentlemen…Amir, Hakim, you’ve done exactly as you were hired to do,” Pelayo says. “My thanks once more.”
The older, harder one—Amir—says in an accented voice, “We would like to depart now. After we are settled.”
“But of course. Casper?”
Casper leaves and then quickly returns with two gym bags, each marked by the blue-and-yellow insignia of the El Tigre football club. Amir steps forward and there’s a small knife in his hand. Not bad. A good man with a good knife can close in on any armed man and slit his throat before a trigger is pulled. Amir is prepared and suspicious, a good man to hire.
“You…open them up. Show me what’s in them.”
Casper looks to Pelayo, and he nods. Both bags are unzipped, displayed, showing mounds of banded American one-hundred-dollar bills inside. Amir says something sharp, and Hakim comes over, takes the bags, examines a few sample bands, smiles and laughs.
Amir takes one of the bags, and Hakim takes the other.
“We are finished here,” Amir says. “Show us where to go.”
Pelayo extends an arm, Casper backs out, and the two men slowly walk out into the wide hallway. Casper takes the lead, and Pelayo walks beside the two men. He says, “Outside there will be a van, with a change of clothing, and it will take you to your friends at the airport. From there, vaya con dios.”
The two men say nothing as they approach a wide ramp leading outside to the even hotter, muggier air. The younger of the men says something, and as Amir replies, Pelayo steps back. The two men are now walking across a heavy green plastic tarp. Pelayo takes a 10mm Glock out of an open cardboard box to his right marked GOYA and shoots both men in the back of the head.
A minute later, after walking away from the two dead men and back into the basement, Pelayo and Casper enter a wide construction-scale elevator. As it grumbles its way up, Casper—with both bags of cash slung over his shoulders—takes the Glock from Pelayo’s right hand and gives him a moist cloth, which he uses to wipe the gun oil and powder residue off his hands.
“Ungrateful, weren’t they?” he says to Casper. “I wished them well on their journey, with God at their side, and they didn’t even say thank you.”
Casper says, “Too greedy, too eager to leave.”
“Lessons learned, eh?”
“Well, perhaps they suspected there was no one waiting for them at the airport.”
Pelayo emits a loud sigh. “Suspicious lot, weren’t they?”
The elevator door opens up to another hallway cluttered with construction equipment, and Pelayo walks to the corridor’s end. Casper opens one door, closes it behind them as they enter a very short hallway, and then opens another. From there, it’s like going from a slum to a rich man’s estate in less than two meters.
Pelayo feels the tingle of appreciation and gratitude as he enters the top-floor suite, with its curtained floor-to-ceiling windows, balconies overlooking the rest of the complex and the nearby Gulf of Mexico, luxurious furniture and big-screen televisions, as well as cool, air-conditioned air, so unlike the hot and humid basement. Two of his men are sitting at a low table, heads bowed, cleaning two American-made M4 automatic rifles. The table is covered with a work cloth. Good boys.
He looks around, sees two of his other boys sitting on a leather couch, reading magazines. They are magazines about guns and cars, which is fine. No porn lying around, no adult DVDs, no young women lounging about with thong bikinis, laughing and touching too much. Those are distractions he will not allow.
It is through very hard and dangerous work, pure focus and discipline, that Pelayo has gotten here, and he will never, ever forget those lessons, including never, ever sampling the merchandise, whether its smuggled cocaine, opium, marijuana, Fresca soda, or frightened teenage girls from Eastern Europe filled with lying promises about a new life in the New World.
He goes down a short, wood-paneled corridor and then to the left. This room is his own little communications hub, stuffy, the windows taped with thick cardboard against the glass. There are banks of communications gear, keyboards, and computers. One man looks up and Casper goes to him, leaning over, the two of them softly talking.