“Jayj! Stop being a baby. Cark just looked. No touchy!”
This time, when no reply was forthcoming, they began to look around. After checking all the bedrooms, the office, and kitchen, they walked toward the front entry hall. Tony saw the note first. “Oh, shit,” he said upon realizing what his sister had done.
“Why ‘oh, shit?’ I don’t think I like ‘oh, shit.’”
“Looks like my big sis may have kinda borrowed your car.” He handed the note to Marc, who took it and read it. Several times. When he looked up again, there was an expression on his face unlike any Tony had seen him produce thus far. It was not a happy look.
“When you ‘borrow’ a car without asking, I usually use a different word. In this case, it would be three words. ‘Grand Theft Auto.’” He looked at the note again, and his visage grew even darker. “Is this the sort of shit your sister normally pulls? Meet a guy, make him start to really like you, then steal his car?”
“First time, as far as I know.”
“This is not good, Tone,” Marc said, calling Tony by the family’s long-standing nickname for him.
Tony was about to start ribbing Marc in hopes of lightening the mood, but his instincts told him that might not be the way to steer the conversation. So instead, he went into defense-mode.
“Look, like I said this isn’t the sort of thing Jayj does, and the only reason I can think of that she would is that she had to do something important and there was no time to waste. What that is, I have no idea. But, come on, man. You two spent the entire drive talking. You should have some idea about her character after all that.”
“No, I guess I don’t. I thought I did but… what the fuck, you know?”
“Yeah. I’d be steamed too. But remember what I said. She’s not a joyride kinda girl. I’m sure she’ll bring it back in one piece. Now, if I’d lifted it…”
Marc chuckled, the first crack in his gruesome mask since they’d found the note.
“I’m not really worried about her being careful. I’m just hoping she doesn’t look under the seat.” As he spoke, he walked back toward the table where the keys should have been and pulled open a drawer.
“Under the seat? What’s under the seat.”
“One of these,” Marc said turning around to show that he was now holding a nickel-plated Ruger Super Redhawk .38 revolver.
“Holy fuck!” Tony exclaimed, putting his hands halfway up reflexively.
Marc was mentally preoccupied, and Tony’s exclamation seemed to snap his attention back. He looked at the gun absently and then laughed self-consciously.
“Heh heh. Oops. Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Oh, good. Then you won’t mind helping me clean the shit out of my underwear right now.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Why is there a gun in your car? Why is there a gun in your hand?”
“Protection.”
“Okay. I can see having one to protect us on the road, but you’re safe now,” Tony said, indicating with a hand gesture that he’d feel more at ease of Marc lowered the weapon.
He did.
“I don’t really know if that’s true.”
“What in the entire landscape of hell are you talking about? Why wouldn’t you be safe? There’s only you and me, man. And although you just pointed a gun at me, I’m not going to do anything harmful.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about, Tone.”
“Who then?”
“Have you ever heard of Conrad Barker?”
14
Cole-In-The-Box
J.J. drove them ever closer to the location indicated by the Nicole-shaped blip on Dan’s phone; the location where she hoped she would find her mother.
She was once again entangled in her mom’s Cleanup Crew shenanigans, without really having had the benefit of enough time to determine if she ever wanted to be again. Because she’d shown the skills and instincts that she had, Nicole had gently introduced the idea that working for Cleanup Crew might be an option for her to consider when she finished school (without ever directly mentioning the subject. It was a trick of Nicole’s with which J.J. was most familiar… the ability to impose her will with barely more than an off-hand comment.). As she’d be entering her senior year at Notre Dame in the coming fall, she’d allowed herself the luxury of not obsessing about it much during her final two semesters in West Bend.
Nicole had been very careful not to push her daughter to hurry her decision, but she’d let her spend a few days with “Auntie” Darlene earlier in the summer, and based on what the controller had heard about her cool handling of all she’d been through, she, at least, was a little more enthusiastic about the possibility of J.J. exploring the option, casually working some gentle tactical training in with the discussion of the boys of Indiana vs. the boys of Colorado. But even Darlene knew this was not a decision J.J. should be corralled into, and certainly not one that needed to be made instantly.
That was not to say that she hadn’t done plenty of thinking about it all. Those events, even those for which she’d been mercifully unconscious, had changed her. Well, she thought now, perhaps not changed so much as made me aware of new things about myself.
It was true. Her perceptions about herself and the world in which she lived would never be the same. That was an undeniable fact. For Jennifer June Porter, childhood was rapidly becoming something to be remembered, not experienced.
As she drove through the arid hills of Baja California toward the stationary image of her mother, J.J. pushed the “big picture” considerations aside for the time being and focused on the here and now.
Everything about what was happening at the moment felt different from her past experience. She was not going into the situation empty-handed, as she had before. The gun she’d found under the driver’s seat in Marc’s car had been returned to that place, but she drew comfort from knowing it was there.
Also, this time, she was a wild card. She had to believe it was unlikely that whoever had her mother would expect a rescue team consisting of a retired software exec and a college student was even a thing, let alone barreling toward them as fast as she dared push the Lincoln on the uneven terrain of the pavement-challenged roads. And she planned to stop well in advance of the location indicated and close on foot, so unless there was something she hadn’t considered, they should have the advantage of surprise.
Finally, she wasn’t being pushed into a dangerous situation, though she might well be putting herself and her father into one. But not being behind the eight-ball felt good to her.
“From the looks of things, we’re about two miles from Mom,” Dan said, interrupting her reverie.
J.J. slowed the car and looked around for a good place to park. There was not much in the way of cover in the area, and the Navigator was a large SUV, literally designed to be noticed. About a hundred yards ahead, however, was a large and somewhat anomalous collection of good-sized boulders.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” J.J. said aloud.
“What doesn’t?” Dan asked.
“Those rocks. Granted, we’re still in some hilly terrain here, but I think that formation is probably man-made.” She scanned the horizon, but the road dipped into a depression ahead, which made seeing into the distance a limited proposition. “Fishy, but I guess it’s our best bet for something to hide this beast behind.”
As she pulled the vehicle off the unpaved road, J.J. thought to herself that only the blind or stupid wouldn’t see the Lincoln behind the rocks. She didn’t really expect those would be the sort of people that were in the area, however, and hoped she didn’t have to tell her dad that he had to buy Marc a new car when all was said and done.
In a recent global politics class, a considerable amount of time had been spent examining the art and science of the administration of what her professor called “Cartel Governments.” They looked first at several Central American nations where cocaine exportation was the most important and lucrative
part of the GDP, but the majority of the section was spent examining Mexico. She learned that the illegal drug trade in that nation alone made up over ten percent of every peso earned, more than was made exporting oil, which was the single biggest legitimate enterprise. But that number didn’t consider the many other businesses in Mexico that were involved in the trade peripherally. She had read a Reuters article that contended even genuine pharmaceutical companies often worked with the cartels, suppling chemicals for meth production in addition to the antibiotics and other medicines they boasted about on their website. And the laundering of all that drug money meant the cartels had to invest in numerous other businesses. And that meant the resort at which you were staying was probably helping the illicit drug industry, as did the beauty parlors in the suburbs of Mexico City, and damn near everything, down to the lemonade stands in border cities like Tijuana.
Her professor, hoping to drive home the point that having an economy predicated upon a criminal operation was fraught with inherent danger, spent an entire class just on the tactics of the cartels.
So she had some idea of what to expect.
“Come on, Papa. We need to go on foot the rest of the way.” She gave him a head-to-toe inspection. Dan was definitely not dressed for scurrying across the badlands. “That Balenciaga jacket of yours is going to get trashed. And why the hell do you still have it on? It’s got to be three hundred degrees out here!”
Dan stripped off the jacket and tossed it into the car. His light-blue Versace shirt was soaked through. J.J. chuckled and shook her head.
“At least Neal was dressed like he was going on an expedition. You look like you’re dressed for dancing.”
Dan ignored the prickly part of the statement and, turning the barb into a dad-joke, said, “Let’s dance on over and get your mom back, whaddaya say?” He was smiling as well, but it was tempered with some very grim determination.
J.J. caught all the nuances of the expression and gave a curt nod. “Let’s go.”
After being bounced around for the entire drive from Uruapan to the area indicated on the GPS-driven app, J.J. was less than thrilled to see that once she left the minefield that was the road… things got decidedly worse.
But after a quarter-mile hike, they reached the edge of a small valley. J.J. crouched low and Dan did the same. In the distance, still about a mile off, was a smallish house with a few sheds and other out buildings. To J.J., it looked somewhere between a safe-house and a compound. Far too small to be the lair of a drug lord, but bigger than she thought a down and dirty hideout would be.
Still, it looked like they might be able to handle whatever surprises the place held. Granted, there were only two of them, with only one weapon between them, but if she was careful and worked out as many of the details and contingencies as she could…
They were too far from the house to see if there was anyone milling about outside, but Dan did catch a glint of sunlight off metal, and he flattened himself out, motioning to J.J. to do the same. They were well out of earshot, obviously, but Dan whispered anyway. “Just saw a reflection off something shiny. Just a flash, so I think whatever caused it is moving.”
“Most likely,” J.J. replied, also in sotto voce. “And I’d tell you that you were paranoid for whispering, but if someone was going to spy on the place, this would be a logical place to do it from. There could be some listening devices.”
Dan held a finger over his own lips to indicate he’d be quiet.
J.J. looked at the area surrounding the buildings and quickly realized why the location had been chosen. It was virtually impossible to approach unseen from any direction. The compound was roughly an acre in size, almost directly in the center of a circular dip, which gave the impression of being a large bowl. She let out a sigh. No matter how many times she tried to plot an approach that wouldn’t get them shot before they were close enough to see that there were shooters, she came up empty. The place was unassailable.
And now the sun was about to set.
“Ha!” she said aloud, startling Dan.
“Jesus, you scared me! What?”
“The sun is setting. If we drop back a little bit, we can hike down into the depression right there, do you see?” She pointed due west
“Where the wall cuts back on itself, you mean?”
“Exactly. If we hurry down, and if the cosmos smile upon us, we may be able to use the sun as our cover. We’ll be walking right out of it, so to speak. The brightness of it behind us should allow us to get closer than we’ll get coming from any other direction.”
“Close-er,” Dan said, emphasizing the second syllable. “But not necessarily close.”
“We’ll have to see what we see at that point, Dad. Every minute we take could be a minute more than Mom has left. We’re going to have to improvise a little.” She looked to the west again, doing some mental calculations.
“Okay, we’re going to have to improvise a lot. Come on,” she said, leading the way.
Dan caught up to his daughter. “You know how much I hate that you’re in danger again?”
“Daddy, what are you talking about? I’m not in danger. Not yet. Right now, this is just a nature hike.”
Dan stumbled over a rock and swore. “I hate nature,” he said.
“Yeah, okay, Dad.” J.J. laughed. “That’s why you live in the Rocky Mountains.”
“Yeah, in a city!” Dan protested as they reached the spot where J.J. indicated that they should climb down into the depression. As she looked down the slope, she realized that although this would allow them to enter the lower land unseen, the descent in this spot was probably the most challenging approach she could have picked. But as she began to walk downhill, she reckoned that it wouldn’t call upon too much in the way of advanced mountaineering skills.
“I wish I had a gun,” Dan said, struggling just a little to keep up with his daughter. In fact, at that moment, he tripped over another rock, falling this time. He rolled down the slope a bit, coming to rest against the only flora visible, a young elephant cactus.
J.J. hurried to him, but Dan was already sitting up and brushing himself off by the time she got to where his acrobatic display had come to a pointed halt. “Kinda glad you don’t have one right now, Daddy,” she said, holding out her hand to him. He took it and she leaned back, helping him hoist himself up.
Dan stretched, quickly determined he’d suffered nothing worse than a few scratches and a severely contused ego.
“Hurry, Dad. Timing is pretty important right now,” J.J. called back to him as she began to move toward where the terrain would no longer hide them.
“Just once, it would be nice to not be the comic relief,” Dan mumbled as he quickened his pace in pursuit of his eldest child.
J.J. held up a hand for him to stop as she’d reached the last bit of cover. She looked to the sun and saw it was only a smidgen lower than she’d hoped. They were still okay. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed Dan’s hand, unable to risk him falling behind (or falling, period), and took about twenty quick paces. There she stopped and turned again to the west. The sun, though now starting to redden the rough terrain, was still intense enough that she had to shade her eyes. This is as good as it is gonna get, she thought. She turned her back to the falling star. Still holding her father’s hand, she began walking toward the buildings.
“We have to move as close as we can, as quickly as we can,” she said quietly. As soon as she felt certain he was matching her pace and on steady legs, she released her grip. “At some point, we’ll become visible in spite of the backdrop. Before we get that far, we’ll slow down and crouch.”
“Okay,” Dan said.
“I don’t know if that will actually give us any advantage.” J.J. laughed. “But it will make me feel better while I try to figure out what to do next.”
Dan smiled as they approached the end of their invisibility. I have an amazing daughter, he thought. But I really wish she’d already figured out what to do next.
Nicole was pissed. Piss was also the prevailing aroma of the place in which she found herself now, and she hoped she wasn’t the source.
She used that term “place” to describe it, because she didn’t really have any point of reference to allow her to call it anything more definitive. It was completely dark, and there was very little room for her to move. In fact, that was one of the reasons she was pissed.
There were many other reasons for her anger as well, but they all came down to the same basic issue, the same root problem: herself.
For the third time in as many missions, Cole was being held against her will, facing, more than three times in as many missions, almost certain death.
It was getting very fucking old.
Nicole was surprised as a sudden, single sob escaped her, as the obvious question formed in her mind: Or is it me? Am I getting old?
Cole’s hands were still tightly zip-tied behind her back. Very tightly, she realized as she became aware that her fingers were starting to tingle.
That alone did not prevent her from moving, however. Her feet were not bound, but that did not help her. The main hindrance to motion was that the space was barely big enough to hold her. She felt as if she’d been folded into place. The only thing she could tell for sure was that the parts of the floor she could feel were metal.
She processed this information with the analytical portion of her psyche while the near-Jewish Mother level guilt center a few floors higher up continued raking her over the coals. Coals she would have gladly traded for this metal matchbox.
Thirty years, she thought. Damn near thirty years I’ve been doing this shit, and in the first twenty-nine of them, I was held prisoner exactly… zero fucking times. Never. Then Danny finds that dead piece of shit family killer in my trunk, and in the same year it happens, three different times. She tried to kick the far wall with her foot but was unable to move it enough to generate anything more than a scuffling sound. The anticipated kinetic release of anger was coopted by even more anger.
The Terror of Tijuana Page 13