“Do you really think you can do better than the police can do?” Anna asked.
Hunt turned in his seat to face her. “Listen, Anna, the police are pretty good at what they do, and, to be honest, very few things grip an officer with more urgency than a missing child. There’s something about this type of call that drives the officers to respond with everything they’ve got.”
“But?”
“They excel at finding missing or runaway children,” Hunt explained. “But Sophia and Leila, they were abducted by one of the most ferocious and powerful drug cartels in the world. The police are ill-equipped to deal with that, and with the red tape associated with a criminal investigation—”
“And you would know about these things, right, Terrance?” Tony asked, not hiding his sarcasm.
Hunt didn’t take the bait. Instead, he looked at Anna for support. He didn’t get any. It had been an exhausting day for everyone, and tensions ran high.
Hunt glared at Tony. “Yes, I know how to run a criminal investigation and how hard it is to successfully prosecute someone like you. I tried, and I failed, remember? We both know you were as guilty as your father. But here you are, reigning over his organization.”
“What’s your point, Pierce?” Anna demanded.
Hunt had long ago made up his mind about what he was willing to do to get Leila back. So when he replied to Anna, his voice was chillingly even. “I have no intention of following the rules. There’s nothing I won’t do, nothing I won’t say, to get the girls back. I’ll hurt as many people as I need to.”
Flashbacks from his actions in Gaza flooded his thoughts. They came as short but violent bursts that shocked his brain with images so vivid that it was hard to dissociate them from reality.
A man is tied to a chair. Hamas terrorist scum. He’s pleading—pleading for his life. A dark, reeking stain has already spread across his dirty combat trousers. His right kneecap has been shattered, and a finger is missing from his left hand.
Hunt pressed his hand against his forehead in an attempt to dislodge the brutal images.
“Pierce? Are you okay?”
Slowly, he managed to claw out of the images in his head. Once they were gone, he focused on Anna and said, “I’ve been through a situation like this before. Let’s just say that in the Rangers, I acquired a particular set of skills. This skill set could come in quite handy in the next day or so.”
“Where will you start?” Anna asked. “And what about the warrant against you?”
He looked at her, then at Tony. “Just give me everything you have on the Black Tosca’s operations in Florida, and I truly mean everything. Together with whatever Carter sends me, I’ll figure out something.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
South Beach, Florida
Hunt glanced at Anna from time to time as he weaved through the South Beach traffic. She was looking straight in front of her, her head resting against the plush leather padding of the headrest. She wore a thousand-yard stare, the same one he had seen on the faces of soldiers right after they had lost a friend in combat. She hadn’t exchanged one word with him since they had left Tony’s compound, and Hunt was sure this was because he had told her and Tony—in no uncertain terms—that he didn’t want Anna to accompany him. Tony had then volunteered, but Hunt had flat-out refused. Anna he could control. Maybe. But Tony—he was Sophia’s father. There was no way he would keep his cool if they came close to finding the girls. The odds of Tony killing someone before Hunt could extract every bit of intel out of him were too great. Besides, the Black Tosca might well have Tony under surveillance.
Mercifully, the intelligence Simon Carter had sent his way was of great assistance in helping Hunt find a place to start in locating the girls. Cross-referencing it with the intelligence the Garcia family had gathered on the Black Tosca since her rise to power had been easier than he had originally assumed. The late Vicente had identified the Black Tosca as a potential threat early on and had kept close tabs on her, which surprised Hunt.
When he asked Anna how Vicente had recognized the menace Valentina Mieles could become years before she would appear on the DEA’s radar, Anna had no idea why this would be so. Tony also denied knowing the reason behind his father’s suspicion, but he wouldn’t look Hunt in the eyes. Hunt had the feeling Tony knew why his father was interested in the Black Tosca but had deliberately decided not to share that reason, and it irritated the crap out of him.
What he did know, though, was that two years ago, Édgar Pomar, a cousin of one of the two dead assaulters Carter had identified through fingerprints, had been a person of interest in a DEA money-laundering investigation. No charges were ever brought against Pomar, but the DEA had spent a week following him around, trying to figure out his role in the scheme. Due to limited resources, they’d had to drop their surveillance, but not before two addresses were linked to Pomar’s name. One was a two-bedroom condo in South Beach; the other was a luxurious oceanfront home in Hallandale Beach. The condo and the house were both rented through BlueShade Rental, an LLC owned by Graham Young, a Harvard Law School graduate and one of the most renowned criminal defense attorneys in the state of Florida.
Hunt wondered if Young was the real reason why the DEA had backed off of the investigation at that point. Young was well known for successfully defending controversial clients in court. His success rate was extraordinary. Though it was said he didn’t have any political ambitions—something Hunt doubted very much, since most high-profile scumbags seemed to have some—Young’s regular and generous contributions to the two main political parties made him almost untouchable.
This was all fine with Hunt, but if Young had anything to do with Leila’s kidnapping, there would be no hand-wringing, no second-guessing about what Hunt would do to him. Untouchable or not, Hunt would break the man.
Since the condo was located on Ocean Drive, a major thoroughfare in Miami Beach consisting of ten city blocks of neon-infested, art deco overindulgence, Hunt decided to start with that property. Because Young’s other property was tucked in a wealthy enclave of Hallandale Beach, he would have to be more cautious about his approach. Here on Ocean Drive, there was no such issue. It was almost midnight, and the streets were still filled with tourists and locals alike. Every hotel and restaurant was brightly lit, and the bars were packed so tightly that people were lining up on the sidewalks for the privilege of buying overpriced cocktails. The upbeat sounds of a rumba and the scent of delicious food made it to the interior of the red Grand Cherokee SRT. The Jeep wasn’t the only thing he had borrowed from Tony. Three additional burner phones had found their way into his backpack. Just in case Tasis had “played” with the pistol he’d kept in the boat’s cabin, Hunt checked to make sure the firing pin was still there and went through each of his three magazines to confirm all his rounds were still properly loaded. Tasis grinned the whole time, but Hunt didn’t put it past him to try to fuck him up like that.
Hunt drove past the Colony Hotel, a 1935 art deco boutique hotel recognized around the world as the undeniable symbol of South Beach, and kept going for another quarter of a mile until he reached the address he was looking for. Parking in South Beach was slightly less difficult than getting a reservation at the Prime One Twelve, a bustling steak house not too far away, which meant it was almost impossible.
Hunt turned left and went west a couple of blocks until they stopped at a red light. A young man came to their window and waved a board that said, Hungry. Not dangerous.
Hunt slid down the window and gave the man a handful of one-dollar bills.
“Get something to eat.”
“With what?” the man said. “What do you want me to do with five dollars?”
Most times Hunt gave money to homeless folks, they were grateful. This one was clearly on drugs—his pupils were as big as saucers. The sight saddened Hunt. He could easily replace the man’s face with his brother’s; he knew, just like he’d known with Jake, that the man would likely use the money for drug
s, not food, but it was impossible not to try to help in some way.
He raised the window and mouthed sorry to the man just as Anna hit the automatic door-lock button. The click of the lock mechanism seemed to enrage the man. His expression changed into one of uncontrollable anger.
Hunt looked at the traffic light. Still red. He sighed.
“You know the doors were already locked, right?” he said to Anna.
“Sorry,” Anna said sheepishly. “It’s an old habit.”
With a horrid roar, the man smashed the wooden end of his board into the driver’s side front window. The window cracked but didn’t break. The light turned green. Hunt slowly accelerated away just as the man lunged again; the SRT’s side mirror clipped his shoulder. Hunt looked behind him and saw the man give him the finger.
The exhaust sound of the SRT V8 echoed over the nearby buildings as the car picked up speed. Hunt made a left on a street parallel to Ocean Drive.
“Tony lied to you,” Anna said bluntly.
“About what?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure what her answer would be.
“Why my dad had a file on Valentina Mieles.”
Hunt just grunted a noncommittal hmm-hmm.
A car pulled out of a parallel parking spot half a block away, and Hunt hurried to take its place.
“Don’t you want to know why?”
He turned off the engine and looked at Anna. Shadows shifted in her eyes. Whatever she was keeping bottled up inside her, it was about to come out.
Anna was just a little girl when it happened. She didn’t understand what her father did for a living. She knew people were scared of him, though, and that he commanded respect, because nobody bothered her at school. She had good grades, and the teachers never yelled at her. Her brother, Tony, was the most popular kid in the entire school. Everybody wanted to be friends with them for a chance to get invited to the next birthday party at the Garcias’ mansion. Birthdays and Christmases were a big deal when she was growing up.
More often than not, her family vacationed at their large Colorado estate, less than a fifteen-minute drive from the Vail Ski Resort. Anna and Tony spent most of the days with their ski coaches while Vicente and their mother, Graciela, stayed behind doing whatever adults did.
One cold February weekend, her father had invited four friends from Mexico to spend a long weekend with them. The four men were well dressed and looked important. There was also a teenager with them. Anna still recalled how beautiful she was. An argument had flared up during dinner, and voices were raised. At some point, her father had sent her and Tony to their rooms with one of his bodyguards. Even from their rooms they could hear the yelling from the grand dining room. She remembered Tony holding her in his arms and how afraid she was. Then she heard the first shot. Three more followed in quick succession. She was screaming by then, terrified.
The bodyguard opened the door and told them to stay there, before running down the stairs with a gun in hand.
After he left, Tony had looked at her and said, “Daddy is in trouble. He needs me.”
“Don’t go, Tony,” she pleaded. But he was already gone.
“So what happened next?” Hunt asked.
Anna was crying now. “I didn’t know. He just . . . Tony just told me before we left.”
Hunt searched for a box of tissues but didn’t find one. “Tell me, Anna.”
“Vicente, he . . . he forced the girl to set fire to her dad with her own hands,” she finally said before bursting into tears.
Hunt was appalled. Of all the worst ways to die, this was the cruelest. He couldn’t even begin to understand the damaging psychological effect this must have had on the young woman. No wonder the Black Tosca was a twisted witch.
Things were starting to fall into place in Hunt’s mind. He was now convinced that even if Tony were to commit suicide, the Black Tosca would murder Leila and Sophia. It wasn’t the Garcias’ criminal organization she was after—though that was a nice bonus. She wanted revenge.
His throat had turned dry; finding the girls soon felt more urgent than ever. He grabbed his backpack from the rear seat and pulled out his 9 mm Glock. He screwed a silencer onto the end of the barrel and chambered a round. The bottom of his backpack had a sizable pocket, and Hunt used it to slide the pistol in, silencer first, before he unlocked the SUV’s doors.
“Get in the driver’s seat, Anna,” he said, climbing out of the SRT.
At this point, Anna was going through the motions like a preprogrammed zombie. She exited the SUV and walked around to join Hunt next to the driver’s door. Her eyes were puffy from all the crying. Small lines of tension creased her forehead.
“We’ll get through this,” Hunt said, even though he was barely holding himself together.
He put the Jeep’s keys in her hand. “I’ll let you know where to pick me up.”
He was already across the street when she called his name.
He turned to glance her way.
“I’m glad you couldn’t save my father,” she said. “I’m happy the son of a bitch is dead.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
South Beach, Florida
Hunt approached the condominium building. It was four stories high, and the developer’s website indicated there were only four condos, all of them sprawling across two floors. The building had a minimalist look that Hunt didn’t like. He noted two security cameras aimed to cover the area around the front door. From the real estate files he had downloaded at Tony’s house, he’d studied the layout of the building carefully. The unit he was interested in occupied the third and fourth floors on the north side of the building. This was both a blessing and a curse. The unit would be more difficult to access since it was on the third floor, but the upside was that more people left their doors unlocked on higher floors than on the first or second floors.
Especially drug dealers looking for a quick exit.
There was no point waiting outside and trying to slip in behind someone. With only four condos, the owners or tenants knew each other and wouldn’t hold the door open for someone they didn’t know. So Hunt continued to explore the exterior of the building while making sure to keep his face away from the cameras. Since the front of the building was sleek and contemporary with lots of glass and steel, and the pedestrian traffic showed no sign of abating despite the late hour, climbing the facade on the east side or the wall on the northern side of the building was out of the question. The back of the building was a different matter. It was accessible through a small path between the building and the restaurant next door. The path led back toward an alleyway with no sidewalk. It was darker in the alley than on Ocean Drive, and the smell was different too, thanks to the open lids of the two dumpsters.
Hunt didn’t care about the reek coming out of the dumpsters; he had found a drainpipe. He scanned his surroundings. He was alone. He grabbed hold of the drainpipe and pulled himself up like a spider. By the time he reached the third floor, his arms and lungs were burning, and his neck was slick with sweat. Hunt cursed under his breath. There were no entry points on the third floor, only a large window ten feet to his left. He had to keep going. His arms started to shake, but he continued, grimacing through the pain, until he reached the fourth floor. Three feet to his left was a small balcony overlooking the alleyway. A ledge—maybe three inches in width—ran from the drainpipe to the balcony. Hunt had his left foot on the ledge when he heard the back door of the restaurant open. He looked down and to his right and saw that a cook had lit up a cigarette. That couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Any sudden movement he made could attract the cook’s attention and prompt him to call the cops. Who wouldn’t?
The fingers of his left hand struggled to maintain their hold on a small protruding brick while his left foot kept sliding off the narrow ledge. His right wrist and shoulders were cramping, his back was tensing up, and his shoulder blades were getting tighter by the second. The cook only had to look up to see Hunt hanging between the balcony and the
drainpipe.
Hunt was stuck. He couldn’t move left, and he couldn’t move right. And he couldn’t hold on much longer.
Édgar Pomar couldn’t sleep. There was too much on his mind. Nothing that couldn’t be handled, but he was a perfectionist. You had to be when you worked for the Black Tosca. The slightest slip could cost you your life and those of your loved ones. It made him anxious and in need of a cigarette. He thought about lighting up in bed, but his bitchy wife could come back at any time, and there was no chance of a late-night blow job if she caught him smoking inside. He opened his nightstand drawer and pushed aside the SIG Sauer to grab the pack of Marlboros and the lighter underneath. He stopped in the bathroom to relieve himself, thought about washing his hands but decided against it, and made his way to the second floor. Thank God for that small balcony. His wife hated it. “It fucking smells like shit in the alley,” she kept complaining. But he didn’t mind. It allowed him to smoke without having to go all the way down to the sidewalk. He slid the glass door open and stepped outside.
Damn! The missus was right. It did smell like shit. Maybe he didn’t need that cigarette after all. He was about to shut the door when he saw movement to his left. His heart leaped in his throat, and he involuntarily took a step back before he dashed back inside to get his SIG.
Someone yelled from within the restaurant. The cook cursed out loud and replied with something Hunt couldn’t make out. The cook tossed his cigarette in the alleyway and ground it under his heel before heading back inside the kitchen.
The sound of the balcony door sliding open next to Hunt momentarily caused his heart to pound even more violently than it already was. He’d be exposed to anyone stepping onto the balcony, and in this position, he was defenseless. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so vulnerable. He had less than a second to take action and only one move he could make.
Hunt Them Down (Pierce Hunt Book 1) Page 14