“Isabel was acquainted with the young woman who was the target of the rave kidnapping. It seems obvious that there’s a link of some sort between the victims, some thread that will give us a clue as to how the kidnappers knew where their targets were going to be. These were well-planned grabs, which means they had to know ahead of time so they could prepare.”
A heavyset man in his thirties with thinning hair and a sheen of sweat on his face closed a file that he’d been studying and looked at Briones. “We interviewed a handful of Isabel’s friends, and they weren’t particularly helpful,” Inspector Guillermo said. “But when I drilled down, they all said that they shared their party information on Facebook.”
Briones nodded. “Then that’s how they’re doing it.”
Guillermo shook his head. “That’s what we originally thought, but the problem is that they’re part of a private group, and you have to be a member to see the information, so it’s not visible to the public.”
“What about other social media? Twitter? MySpace?”
Guillermo smiled. “Nobody uses MySpace anymore. But to answer your question, a few of them tweet back and forth, but just in general terms. No specifics on locations or times.”
Briones turned to a reed-thin man with thick glasses and a buzz cut. “How hard would it be to hack into a private Facebook group, Márquez?” Márquez was their resident tech expert.
Márquez thought about it for several long moments and shrugged. “Depends on the level of sophistication of the person trying. I could probably do it in a few hours. But a layman? It’s pretty bulletproof.”
“What about a virus or something like that? A key logger? Could they have planted one on one of the group’s computers and gotten in that way?” Briones asked.
Márquez shrugged. “Sure. Anything’s possible. They could also have hired a hacker. There are hundreds of them out there if you know where to look. Or they might have cracked one of the cell phones. A lot of kids use their phones to access social media these days – if one of them had a phone stolen or lost it, even if they got a new one and canceled that device, the info would still be on it. Or as you posit, they could have somehow gotten one of the kids’ IDs and passwords. That’s all it would take.”
“Let’s go down that road, then, because from what I can see we don’t have much else. Somehow, the kidnappers have tapped into this group and are using the information they glean to choose not only their victims, but also the venues. That would explain a lot, because they’re going from social media photos, which would account for the case of mistaken identity on the rave kidnapping. The victim looked similar to the target, which tells us that the kidnappers didn’t know her personally and weren’t helped by anyone who knew her at the rave.”
Guillermo sat back in his chair. “Makes sense. But how does that help us find Isabel? The clock is ticking on that one, and the senator is extremely concerned about her safety, even if he pays the ransom. He’s pleaded for time to get the money – the ransom’s three million – and they gave him a few days to round it up, but they won’t wait forever.”
“How much time did they agree to?”
Guillermo frowned. “Three days. The senator had to liquidate some stocks and arrange for wires. They came to terms the day before yesterday, so the countdown’s already started.”
Briones turned back to Márquez. “Can we set up some sort of a site that would capture IP addresses of whoever looked at it?”
Márquez nodded. “Sure. Easy to do. What do you have in mind?”
“It this is how they’re targeting their victims, even though they have one in play, they’d probably still be thinking about the next one, right? Using that logic, if we set up a site for another big event and have one of the members post it to the Facebook page, then we could log the IP addresses of whoever was looking at the site, correct?”
Márquez smiled. “Ah, I see. Sure. That would work, assuming that they weren’t using an IP mask or accessing it from a mobile device.”
“If it was from a phone, we couldn’t track it?”
Márquez shook his head. “I didn’t say that. It’s just more heavy lifting.”
Briones eyed Guillermo. “How many members does that group have?”
“Couple of hundred. A Who’s Who of Mexico City’s spoiled and pampered.”
“We’ll need to cross-reference everyone’s IP addresses so we can filter out the members,” Márquez said. “It’s doable.”
They discussed the minutiae of the scheme and, by the end of the hour, had a plan. Márquez would create a site for an event the following weekend, and Guillermo would prevail on one of the members of the group he’d interviewed to allow them to post a link. Then they would sit back and wait, and hopefully the kidnappers would be drawn to the site.
It wasn’t foolproof, but they were running short on time. With the senator breathing down the task force’s neck, they needed to do something – because if Isabel was returned raped or tortured, heads would roll, Briones had no doubt. And as the acting director, his would be the first on the chopping block.
Chapter 42
Cancún, Mexico
A cacophony of music from car stereos and poorly muffled exhausts echoed down Boulevard Kulkulkan, the main artery of Cancún’s tourist zone, which was clogged with vehicles crawling to the nighttime entertainment epicenter of the town’s party central. The booming bass of a reggaeton beat throbbed from the neon-framed entry of Coco Bongo, where a line of celebrants wearing scandalously little waited to get in. Street performers painted gold and silver stood on milk crates to the delight of the inebriated revelers as midnight rolled around, the party just starting on a strip of the Yucatán that never slept. A throng of drunken American women celebrating a bachelorette outing stood by a massive red statue of a Fender Stratocaster guitar, taking pictures of each other with their phones, woohooing as they hoisted their beers at passersby, who smiled indulgently at the crazy gringas.
Originally a largely uninhabited island that was part of the second largest coral reef in the world, the Hotel Zone had been created by Fonatur, the Mexican government agency chartered with building attractions to lure American money south, and thus a desolate spit of sand and rock had been transformed into the Mexican equivalent of Las Vegas, where nothing was off-limits and anything was available for a price. And lure them it did, millions of tourists each year, making it a perfect place for Indalecio to get lost, just one of many faces in a town that had the memory of a gnat.
Inside one of the discos, the farmer had made a remarkable transformation since hitting town. His bucolic cowboy togs had been exchanged for black dress slacks and a white silk shirt, and he’d quickly gotten into the swing of things, availing himself of the willing young company that catered to lonely gentlemen of secure means. Two young ladies from Veracruz sat on either side of him in one of the VIP booths he’d paid for, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Scotch on the table, half-filled glasses before them along with a crystal bucket nestling a bottle of champagne in the ice.
“Oh, Indy, you’ve got a filthy mind,” one of the women giggled as the farmer’s hand fondled her ample thigh.
Indalecio grinned sheepishly, his gaze unfocused; hours of drinking had taken their toll on his vitality after multiple nights of exploring the town’s many offerings. He’d decided on his first night to try to enjoy himself, and had committed to treating his time in town as a long-overdue vacation. And with pocketfuls of dollars and nothing to do, he’d quickly discovered that the tourist zone came alive after dark, with thousands of locals from the nearby city center making their way across the bridge to celebrate.
“You girls are a lot of fun, you know that?” he slurred, raising his glass in a toast. The second woman winked at him playfully and downed her champagne flute in two gulps before sliding an arm around his neck and massaging his shoulder.
“You have no idea how fun we can be,” she assured him with a seductive purr.
“Maybe we find out t
onight, eh?” he tried, and was delighted that his companions found the idea appealing, judging by their wiggles.
He was under no illusions that they were anything other than paid company, working girls who’d come south, following the money to the mecca of Mexican sin, but he saw nothing wrong with that. He was willing to part with a few of his hard-earned dollars, and they were more than eager to make his time in town memorable. It was a transaction that was notable for its efficiency and one in which he felt everyone benefited, his stance pragmatic after years of living as a widower. He’d been ecstatic to discover two nights earlier that his appetite hadn’t completely disappeared during his sabbatical from romantic pursuits, and he was determined to now make up for lost time.
“Both of you?” he leered. “You are naughty, aren’t you?”
“We’re as naughty as you can imagine,” the first woman assured him, squeezing his thigh again in unmistakable promise.
Indalecio signaled the server and settled the bill, and after leaving a generous tip and taking a last swallow of the expensive scotch, he stood unsteadily, one miniskirted woman on either arm for balance, and made his way to the door, his steps as tentative as a sailor’s on the deck of a pitching ship. The doorman and a black-clad bouncer acknowledged him as he brushed by with his entourage, and then they were out on the sidewalk, which was thronged with youngsters hopping from club to club.
“I’m just down here. A block away. I have a beautiful room overlooking the ocean,” he said, aware the women didn’t require coaxing but enjoying the illusion that they were with him for any but financial reasons.
“Lead the way, Papacito,” the taller of the pair crooned, and the women giggled good-naturedly, their income for the night guaranteed.
They walked south together, away from the garish lights of the mall and its night spots, the sidewalk uneven as they left the well-lit main tourist area. They passed a darkened stretch near a dumpster filled with construction debris, and a pair of men wearing leather jackets and baseball hats sprang from behind a cluster of plants. The older of the two, a twitchy, emaciated man with sallow skin, wielded a knife, while his accomplice, an equally strung-out youth, waggled a length of rusty pipe.
“Give us your money, pops,” the junkie with the knife snarled. The women reared back in fright, leaving Indalecio to face the men down.
“Pops? Screw you, you little prick. Get out of here before I take you apart,” he growled, his courage fueled by alcohol as well as fury at being robbed within yards of his hotel.
“You crazy, old man? Give us your cash, or I’ll filet you like a fish, cabrón.”
“Do what he says, Papi,” the woman on his right said, further infuriating Indalecio.
“The hell I will,” Indalecio slurred, and swung a fist at the nearest punk.
When the police arrived five minutes later, alerted by a security guard leaving work for the night, Indalecio was already fading, lying in a black pool of blood, the tapestry of stars overhead a stippling of cosmic light as his troubles receded with his consciousness, his earthly concerns eliminated by the four punctures of a six-inch blade and two punishing blows from an oxidized length of iron.
Chapter 43
Mexico City, Mexico
Beatriz left the file she’d been asked to get in the in-box and choked back the fear that blossomed in her stomach. Her thoughts were racing as she checked the time – only an hour to go before she left for the night. She resisted the urge to run from the building, aware that maintaining a cool composure was essential, and made her way back to her station, outwardly calm as she weighed her alternatives.
Carla hadn’t picked up the last three times she’d called. Her phone defaulted to an automated message that said she was unavailable. Of course Beatriz had seen the headlines, and she’d never been more worried, but there wasn’t much she could do other than commiserate. Nobody at CISEN knew that she and Carla were related, so she couldn’t even get emotional support from the few colleagues she was close to at work.
And now a file with every detail of Carla’s life had been requested. By the same office that had asked for the files on the other three – all of whom were now dead. Ostensibly from innocent causes, but she had her doubts.
Beatriz sat and focused on her busy work, pushing her speculations from her mind. It was entirely possible that someone had exerted pressure on CISEN to do something to defend Carla against the cartels. She was a national treasure, after all, and it wouldn’t do to let criminal elements appear to have control over the country, which was how it looked if even Mexico’s most prominent celebrities weren’t safe.
Yes, that was probably it, she told herself as she finished up the expense reports, one eye on her computer clock, counting the minutes until she could leave and try Carla again. Beatriz suspected it was hopeless – she was in hiding, so of course she’d have her phone off – but she had to try.
The minutes dragged by, and then it was six o’clock and the rest of her peers were packing their things and donning their jackets. Beatriz joined them and rode the elevator to the ground floor, where she was parked in the employee lot, walled and guarded to keep prying eyes from identifying CISEN employees. Her Chevrolet Chevy started with a grudging cough, and she scolded herself for putting off getting it serviced – she just never found the time, somehow, with life continuing to intrude on her best intentions.
The guard waved to her as she pulled out of the driveway and into the snarl of cars heading home. Mexico City was home to some of the worst traffic in the world, and the commute to her apartment less than five miles away could easily take an hour and a half each way.
She would get home, have a stiff drink, and then go to the nearby internet café and use the pay phone to try Carla. Other than that, she had nothing to go home to, other than a grumpy cat and an empty house since her husband had moved out a year earlier, after deciding that his twenty-something airhead secretary was better company.
Beatriz switched on the radio and listened to the bark of the rapid-fire announcer recounting the day’s tragedies and soccer scores, interspersed with overly cheery ads for desserts and hygiene products. Four mutilated bodies had been found in one of the southern barrios, victims of an ongoing territorial dispute between drug gangs. The governor of Baja was being investigated for tens of millions gone missing on his watch. The president was explaining why Pemex, the government-controlled petroleum company, had to be bailed out again after losing five billion dollars the last quarter – the only oil company in the world that managed to operate at a huge loss on a consistent basis, well understood by the population to be a massive theft scheme for its management.
Beatriz rolled to a stop at a red light and barely registered the movement near her rear fender before a snarling man with nylons pulled over his head was pointing a revolver at her head and screaming.
“Get out of the car. Now,” he yelled. “Do it, or I’ll shoot. I swear I will.”
Her heart raced as she debated flooring the gas and ramming the car in front of her, pushing her way into the intersection, but she discarded the impulse – her little Chevy would never make it, and it might enrage the carjacker and cause him to shoot her. She held up her hands and tried to speak calmly. “Okay, okay. Take the car. I’m opening the door.”
She reached over and unbuckled her seat belt, keenly aware of the can of mace in her purse, but spray versus a handgun at close range was no contest – she’d be dead the instant she went for it. The man was probably a drug addict on his last legs, desperate for a fix, because nobody in their right mind would choose her little crackerbox to steal if they were thinking clearly. Her shaking hand moved to unlock the door, and the gunman fired three times. The window shattered in a shower of safety glass, hollow-tip rounds taking most of the top of her head off at the point-blank range.
He was gone before what was left of Beatriz’s face hit the steering wheel, the strident blare of her horn like a death scream as the gunman darted between the cars and
down a side street, where he vanished into the bowels of the city, leaving her to be another statistic on the nightly news, missed only by her cat, who would persuade the neighbors into adopting her within a day of missing dinner.
Chapter 44
Cancún, Mexico
Heat waves distorted the steaming asphalt as El Rey rode in the back of a taxi from the airport. Lush jungle edged the road and the air smelled of ozone and moisture, as clean as Creation Day following a passing tropical cloudburst that had dropped two inches of rain in fifteen minutes. Off to the west, lightning seared the sky with glowing branches through a dark curtain of retreating thunderheads as the storm surrendered the morning to the sun’s scorching fury.
After the moderate temperature in Mexico City, the ninety-percent humidity and heat were unbearable, but El Rey ignored the discomfort as the sorry car’s air-conditioning struggled in vain against the elements, his gaze distant as the landscape rushed by. He was there to kill a man, probably an innocent one. Instead, he hoped to interrogate the farmer and learn what he had in common with the others on the list, and then secret him away after staging another death – probably a boat explosion or a disappearance after swimming out to sea, the undertow having gotten the better of him.
The car rolled over the bridge on the southern end of the island, and the verdant underbrush gave way to miles of gleaming white hotels lining the sea side of the land spit in an endless symbol of man’s encroachment. Groups of tourists waited at bus stops along the only road north, pink as freshly boiled shrimp. The driver glanced at the assassin in the rearview mirror and smiled, revealing teeth pocked with decay.
“This your first time here?” he asked.
“No.”
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