by M. A. Lawson
When Perez turned the laptop toward her, the Bear, keeping his left hand on her shoulder to keep her in the chair, pulled out a big black pistol and placed the muzzle of the gun against the right side of her head. Oh, Jesus, were they going to execute her? She thought they needed her alive.
The laptop screen flickered and she could see Kay. She was sitting in the living room of their house in San Diego. Then she heard: “Say something to your daughter, Agent Hamilton, so you’ll know the transmission is live and that you’re not looking at a recorded image.”
“Jessica, have they hurt you?” Kay said.
“Oh, God, Kay, help me.”
“Where are you, Jessica?”
“I don’t know. Some guys threw me into a van when I got off the bus. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what they want. Kay, what do they want with me?”
Then the screen went dark and Kay was gone.
“What do you want with me?” Jessica asked Perez, struggling not to cry. She wasn’t going to let these people see her cry.
“We want your mother to do something for us, and if she wants you back, she will. If she’s successful, you’ll be set free tomorrow. If she fails or refuses to cooperate . . . well, there’s no need to burden you with what will happen next.” To Carlos he said in English, “Take her back to her room. Bring her some food, no forks or spoons. And let her go to the bathroom, and don’t be a creep about it.”
In the bathroom, with Carlos staring at her, she pulled down her shorts as little as possible, giving him the barest glimpse of her thighs. She was embarrassed to hear her urine tinkling into the toilet, and he could tell she was embarrassed and he smiled. She finished urinating, pulled up her shorts, didn’t bother to wash her hands, and Carlos grasped her upper arm to lead her back to her room. She noticed again that he wasn’t much taller than she was and he didn’t seem very strong; his hands were small. He said something to her in Spanish, something that he must have thought was funny, because he laughed. Then he locked the door.
She thought she might be able to take Carlos if she had the chance. After her dad died, and before her mom got breast cancer, her mom insisted they take a self-defense class together. Jessica didn’t know if her mom was feeling vulnerable or just wanted to do something the two of them could do together. The main thing they were taught in the class was that if you couldn’t just run away screaming your head off, then strike fast and hard and someplace where your attacker would feel a lot of pain: gouge his eyes, smash his nose, kick him in the nuts. Jessica had never had the opportunity to use what she’d been taught, but she figured she could do it if she had to. She was fast, she was pretty strong for her size, and the biggest thing she had going for her was that Carlos wasn’t that big. The other guy, however, the Bear—she’d never stand a chance against him. But if it was just her against Carlos . . .
Now she also had some idea of what was going on. Kay was DEA, and these guys had kidnapped her to force her to do something, probably something involving drugs in Mexico. Maybe they wanted Kay to help them sneak heroin or grass into the U.S. Maybe they wanted Kay not to arrest somebody she was planning to arrest. The thing was, she didn’t know if Kay would do what they wanted. She knew Kay liked her—but like wasn’t the same as a mother’s love.
She started to cry again, wishing more than anything that her real mom were still alive. Her real mom had loved her.
31
Mora explained to Kay how she was going to get Tito out of the brig—and Kay was impressed. She was impressed not only by the audacity of his idea but also by the fact that he had access to the type of materials she would be using. The reach of the Olivera cartel was clearly global. Whether or not Mora’s plan would work, however, was something Kay couldn’t be sure of until it was too late to back out.
“Your partner will be here at ten p.m.,” Mora said. It was seven-thirty. “I’m leaving now. I need to get back to Tijuana. I would suggest you eat and sleep a bit if you can. You have a long night ahead of you. I realize that after I leave you might call the people you work with, the FBI, or the marshals. I can’t stop you from doing that. But remember, I’ll be with your daughter. If you don’t follow my plan, you’ll never see her again and she’ll suffer incredibly.”
After Mora left, Kay sat for a while thinking about how terrified Jessica must be, but she knew thinking about Jessica wasn’t going to help. Instead she thought about her options. Should she call her boss or the FBI? The problem with getting either the DEA or the FBI involved was that these were federal agencies, and no way would they agree to exchange Tito for Jessica. The other thing was that Jessica was in Mexico and no federal agency was going to go into Mexico to attempt to free her without involving the Mexican government—and if the Mexican government got involved, Caesar Olivera, with his contacts, would know and her daughter would die. Kay finally concluded that she was on her own and the only option she had was to do what Mora wanted: break Tito out of the brig. But once she had Tito, things would be different. Then she’d have some leverage.
She thought about what she should take with her. She would need her passport to cross into Mexico—if she crossed into Mexico. She also had a second passport and a Florida driver’s license issued in the name of Elle McDonald; McDonald had been her cover name in Miami when she was living with Marco Álvarez. She decided to take those documents, too, as much cash as she had in the house, and a pair of handcuffs.
She also decided to take one other item, a little surprise for Tito. She placed the item in the pocket on the driver’s-side door of her Camry, the place where she usually stored a few CDs.
—
Kay left San Diego in her own car at ten-thirty p.m. It was about forty miles to Pendleton, and by the time she got through security, it would be close to midnight, and that’s when Mora wanted the operation to begin.
Following Kay’s car was a minivan driven by a Hispanic man wearing a white cowboy hat. The minivan was the specially designed vehicle that would be used for transporting Tito Olivera across the border. Mora had told Kay that she was to drive her own car to the brig, since it had government decals on it and in case the marines asked to see her registration and proof of insurance before allowing her onto the base. They sometimes did that.
Before they reached the town of Oceanside on I-5, Kay watched in the rearview mirror as the minivan took a right onto Highway 76 heading east. Kay was going to enter Camp Pendleton through the main gate off I-5. But when she had Tito—once she’d freed him from the brig—she was going to leave Pendleton via the San Luis Rey Gate, the southeast gate, and meet the minivan on a road called North River Road. The reason for this was that they didn’t want to put Tito in the minivan near the Pendleton main gate or on the I-5 freeway, as these areas were too populated, even after midnight. North River Road, however, was a two-lane road passing through tracts of farmland—tomato and avocado farms and small orchards—and no one would see Tito slipping into the hidden compartment in the minivan.
Once Tito was in the van, Kay would drive to Escondido and take the I-15 freeway south forty-five miles to the San Diego border crossing. The minivan driver would take her car and drive north—in the opposite direction—for about fifty miles and abandon it. The idea was that once the various law-enforcement agencies began looking for Kay and Tito, if Kay’s car was found north of Pendleton, it might confuse the searchers for a while.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Kay’s car was her “partner”—a man with a full head of neatly trimmed blond hair, a blond mustache, and blue eyes. The minivan driver had dropped him off at Kay’s house precisely at ten, as Mora had said. He wore black-framed glasses, a lightweight jacket over a blue polo shirt, khakis, and loafers. Like Kay, he was dressed casually but in a manner appropriate for their supposed assignment.
She didn’t know the man’s real name. When she met him, he introduced himself as Doug Kirk—DEA Agent Douglas Kirk. He spoke Engl
ish without an accent—he sounded like any other Californian—and his DEA credentials, which he showed her, appeared to be identical to hers; if they were forgeries, they certainly would have fooled her.
Kay was wearing a blazer over a white T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes. She was dressed for running or fighting—but also appropriately for the mission. On her hip was her .40 caliber Glock in a holster. Mora had told her to dress as she normally would for a visit to Camp Pendleton, and he hadn’t said anything about her taking or not taking her sidearm. Mora didn’t care if she had a weapon; he knew she wasn’t going to shoot anyone—not if she wanted Jessica back. Kay didn’t know if Kirk was armed or not.
Kay and Kirk didn’t speak during the drive—there was no reason for them to speak—until they were about a mile from Pendleton, when Kirk said, “Please pull over. Immediately.”
“Why?” Kay said.
“Please. Pull over. I’m going to be sick.”
Kay pulled her car onto the shoulder of the road and Kirk opened the door, spun sideways in his seat, and vomited. He sat there for several seconds with his head down between his legs, then closed the door.
Oh, great, Kay thought. Her daughter’s life depended on this clown; he’d better get a grip on himself.
“Do you have any gum or breath mints?” Kirk asked.
“Fuck you,” Kay said.
—
They passed through the main gate at Pendleton without any problem, showing the guards their DEA credentials and explaining where they were headed, then drove approximately seven miles until Kay saw the sign for the brig. She made a right-hand turn, passed a couple of barracks that looked like college dorms, a fitness center, and an enlisted men’s club before reaching the second checkpoint, the one blocking the access road to the brig.
They showed their IDs again, and one of the marines at the checkpoint called the brig to let the guards there know that Kay was headed their way. As she passed through the checkpoint, Kay noticed the machine gun mounted on a tripod near the concrete vehicle barriers—and she couldn’t help but think how their bright idea for putting Tito Olivera on a military base, surrounded by thousands of marines, had turned out to be no obstacle at all for Raphael Mora. It was like the Maginot Line in France during World War II: The Germans just waltzed right past the fortifications and fixed artillery.
The brig was at the top of a small hill about a quarter mile from the checkpoint: a two-story brick structure painted an off-white color with green trim and surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. Two of the four guard towers were visible from the lot where Kay parked.
Kay placed her Glock on the floor beneath the driver’s seat. To Kirk she said, “If you have a gun, leave it in the car. They won’t let you bring a weapon into the brig.”
“I don’t have a weapon,” Kirk said.
Kay then took her badge case out of the inside breast pocket of her blazer, where she normally kept it, and put the case in the left outside pocket, where she could reach it with her left hand.
From this point forward, her right hand couldn’t touch anything.
Kirk stepped out of the car, pulled latex gloves from a pocket of the jacket he was wearing, and pulled them on. He then went and stood on the driver’s side of the car, in front of the driver’s window, so anyone walking by the car would have a harder time seeing what Kay was doing.
Kay reached back and grabbed a plastic Walgreens bag sitting on the backseat and placed it in her lap. From the bag she took a surgical mask and placed it over her mouth and nose and inserted her left hand into a latex glove. Mora had said that cloth and latex were adequate barriers.
Next she took a four-ounce sky-blue aerosol can of Secret deodorant/antiperspirant from the Walgreens bag. As near as Kay could tell, the can was identical to cans of Secret she’d seen in stores. She took the cap off the can and sprayed her bare right hand, front and back, making sure every square inch of her hand and wrist was covered. She looked at her watch and waited for three minutes to pass; the three minutes felt like an eternity.
Using her left hand, she reached into the Walgreens bag again and took out a second aerosol can, this one labeled as VO5 hair spray for “hard-to-hold hair.” Kay didn’t use hair spray, but she was willing to bet the can matched an actual VO5 container. She popped the top off the hair spray can using her thumb, then placed her right hand deep inside the Walgreens bag and sprayed the palm of her right hand. The clock was now ticking. According to Mora, she had fifteen minutes. God help her if the marines inside the brig slowed her down.
Using her left hand, she rapped on the car window, and Kirk opened the driver’s-side door for her. Kirk then removed the surgical mask from her face, stripped the latex glove off her hand, and pulled off the gloves he was wearing. He tossed the gloves and the mask into the car, onto the floor in front of the backseat. Acting like the perfect gentleman, he opened the door for her when they entered the brig.
—
The guys on duty, a couple of jarheads who were probably eighteen or nineteen years old, were at the desk. Behind them was a sergeant in his thirties with a prosthesis for a left hand. Iraq or Afghanistan? Kay wondered. Using her left hand, she took her ID case from the pocket of her blazer and flipped it open.
“Kay Hamilton, DEA,” she said. “This is Agent Kirk,” she added, jerking her thumb toward Kirk—or whoever the hell he was. Kirk, just as she had done, flipped open his badge case and showed it to the marines. She was relieved to see that he seemed okay, like he was just a little bit bored, and not like he was going to puke again.
“We’re here to see Tito Olivera,” Kay said.
“At this time of night?” the one-handed sergeant said.
“Hey, what can I tell you?” Kay said. “We work for the fuckin’ government.”
This got a laugh out of everybody, even Kirk.
“I gotta call the marshals and let them know you’re coming,” the sergeant said.
“So call,” Kay said. She’d already wasted two minutes with these guys.
“Are you armed?” the sergeant asked.
“No, we left our weapons in the trunk of the car. We knew we couldn’t bring them into the brig.”
The sergeant picked up a phone and told the marshal who answered that DEA Agents Hamilton and Kirk were here to see Tito. There was a pause, and the marine said, “Yeah, of course I checked their IDs,” sounding irritated that the marshal would even ask.
The sergeant hung up the phone and said to Kay, “I’ll escort you down to the corridor where they’re keeping Olivera, so you don’t get lost. When you’re ready to leave, use the marshal’s phone to call me and then return to the cage outside the control point.”
Kay didn’t know what he meant by the cage, but all she said was “Gotcha.”
Her back and underarms were soaked with sweat. It was a good thing she was wearing the blazer.
Kay and Kirk passed through a metal detector without it alarming, then the sergeant walked her and Kirk through two sets of locked doors, the first door only about ten feet from the second. The two doors formed the cage the sergeant had mentioned, and prisoners and visitors would be trapped between the two locked doors until one of the marines at the control point hit the electronic lock-release, permitting them access to the guard station. Above the first door there was also a camera, so the guards could see who was in the cage before opening the door.
After they passed through the second door, the sergeant walked them down to a tee in the hallway, turned left, and pointed. “Tito’s down there,” he said, and turned to go back to the control point.
Kay could see a guy standing down at the end of the corridor dressed in civilian clothes: one of the two marshals guarding Tito. The marshals, the poor bastards, had been living in an unlocked cell next to Tito’s, and Kay figured they had to be going out of their minds with boredom.
As Kay walked past several empty cells toward the marshal, she noticed that there were no cameras in the corridor—just as Mora had said. When she was about ten feet away, the marshal, a powerfully built black guy—not a guy Kay would have wanted to arm wrestle—said, “Why in the hell did they send you two out here so late at night? Nobody told us you were coming.”
By now Kay had reached the marshals’ cell. The second marshal was inside the cell and lying on a cot, reading a paperback. He sat up when he saw Kay. He wasn’t as big as his partner—he was a lanky guy who looked like he might run marathons—but Kay knew he’d also be a handful in a fight.
In the marshals’ cell was a TV set, a stack of paperbacks about a foot high, and a bunch of magazines. There was also a microwave—Kay got just a whiff of popcorn—a laptop, a cribbage board, and some free weights for doing curls. The place looked like a college kid’s dorm room—except for the two pistols sitting on top of the microwave.
Kay stuck out her right hand. “Kay Hamilton,” she said. The marshal responded, saying, “Bill Lincoln,” and shook Kay’s hand. Kay held on to his hand just a bit longer than she normally did when shaking hands. Releasing Lincoln’s hand, she pointed at Kirk and said, “My partner, Doug Kirk.”
Kirk, as he’d been told to do, stayed outside the cell and far enough away from the marshal that the marshal made no attempt to shake his hand. Kirk just gave a little wave and said, “Hey.”
Stepping forward, Kay said to the second marshal, “Kay Hamilton,” and again stuck out her right hand, and the second marshal automatically took it.
“Cal Rivers,” the marshal said. “Glad to meet you.”
Now, Kay hoped, it was just a matter of time.
“The reason we’re here is we need to talk to Tito,” Kay said. “We executed a warrant this evening on one of his scumbags and found a file in a computer that we need to ask him about right away.”