The Forgotten (john puller)

by David Baldacci

  “So we wait until we get the okay from this Bullock guy? And what about Ryon?”

  “We can check her out. But while we’re here I want to find out something else.”

  She followed him down the street and away from the beach. The sun seemed to be fighting its way to the top of the sky with astonishing speed. Carson wiped a bead of sweat off her brow and picked up her pace so she was walking next to Puller.

  “What’s this place we’re heading to?” “Diego’s.”

  They passed the Sierra and Puller arrived at the building with the blue awning. He marched up to the second story and knocked on the door. No one came.

  He knocked again.

  And then a third time.

  He heard footsteps and relaxed slightly as Carson looked at him expectantly.

  The door opened. Puller had thought it would be one of two people. Diego or Isabel. Well, maybe three if one counted little Mateo.

  It was none of them.

  The woman standing there was in her sixties, short and plump with brown hair streaked heavily with silver. Her face was thickly lined and a prominent mole had grown in the crevice between her cheek and nose. She was dressed in sweatpants, cheap sneakers, and a dark top. She looked curiously from Puller to Carson.

  “Si?”

  So this was the abuela, thought Puller, the grandmother.

  “Habla ingles, senora?” asked Puller.

  “Yes. Poquito”

  “My name is John Puller. I know Diego and Isabel and Mateo. I helped them out the other day. They might have told you.”

  “Yes, they tell me.” Then her face collapsed and her shoulders started to shake. Puller put a hand under her arm to keep the woman from

  slumping to the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  “Los ninos, they no here.”

  “Where are they?” asked Puller.

  “Donde estan los ninos?” amended Carson.

  “No se. Desaparecido.”

  Puller looked at Carson. “They vanished?”

  Carson nodded. “That’s what she said.”

  Puller said, “Have you called the police? He llamado a la policia?”

  She shook her head. “No policia. Nunca la policia.”

  Carson said, “Doesn’t sound as though she likes the police very much.”

  “She could be undocumented. And the kids too.”

  “Right.”

  Puller looked at the sobbing woman and said to Carson, “it could be the guys I beat up. But something feel me it’s not. But Diego did help me track down the two guys.”

  “So the two guys made them disappear?”

  “I guess that’s the most likely answer. Diego was following them. Maybe they spotted him and Isabel and Mateo were with him.” Puller felt sudden guilt for involving Diego in this.

  “Unless the two guys are lying dead at the Plaza.”

  “Still could have been them. Diego and his cousins might have escaped from them.”

  “After killing the two guys?” Carson said skeptically.

  Puller looked at the woman again. “Lo siento. Podemos ayudar de alguna manera?”

  The woman shook her head and told Puller that only God could help her now. She shut the door and Puller stood staring off over Carson’s shoulder.

  “Should we report it?” she asked.

  “We might do more harm than good if the kids are okay. They might end up getting deported.”

  “Better than being dead, John.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “We can ask around. Maybe someone has seen them.”

  “That’s a good idea. Diego has some friends around here. They might know something.”

  It took them twenty minutes to locate two of Diego’s friends. The first had not seen Diego for two days. The second one had seen him yesterday.

  “Was he with anyone?” asked Puller.

  The boy held out his hand.

  Puller put a five-dollar bill in it.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?” asked Carson.

  The boy held out his hand again.

  Carson put a dollar bill in it. The boy said nothing.

  Puller said, “You tell us something useful there’ll be more. Otherwise, the ATM is shut down for the day.”

  The boy looked around and said, “He is with the duenos de la calle.”

  “The street kings?” said Puller.

  “Yes. The street kings.”

  “What is he doing with them?”

  The boy held out his hand and Carson put another dollar bill in it.

  “I think he is trying to join. If he is, he is stupid. They are a very bad gang.”

  “What about Isabel and Mateo?” Puller asked. The boy withdrew his hand and put the cash in his pocket. He shrugged. “I do not know about them.”

  “Where do we find the street kings?” asked Puller.

  “You do not want to find the street kings, sewor,” said the boy.

  “Actually, yes, I do. Where?”

  Puller held out a twenty. “Ahora!”

  The boy gave them an address and then ran off.

  Puller looked at Carson. “You don’t have to go with me.”

  “The hell I don’t. This is just getting interesting.”

  “You have any weapons?”

  “You’re asking a one-star if she has any weapons? Other women might like shoes and nail polish. I grew up on Winchesters and Colts on a farm in Oklahoma. So I brought some goodies with me.”

  “Okay. So we might want to gun up for this.” “Hell, John, I don’t think there’s any ‘might’

  about it.”

  CHAPTER 57

  The small shack sat behind an abandoned- looking building ten blocks off the water. It was in an area that would be discreetly described as in a transitional stage, meaning don’t go there at night and also try to avoid it during the day. The place looked dead and wasted and nothing like Paradise and its emerald beaches relatively close by. It seemed that the town’s beauty was only skin deep. A few layers under the surface it became quite ugly.

  Three young men were standing outside the building and taking turns tossing knives at tin cans set atop a Dumpster. They were good enough that each one consistently knocked the cans over from a distance of ten feet.

  “Decent aim.”

  The men whirled, their hands dipping to the guns in their waistbands.

  And then they stopped reaching for their guns.

  Puller stood there holding an MP5 set on two- shot bursts. Carson had not been kidding about weapons. And flying on military transport had allowed her to bring whatever guns she wanted.

  “Wise decision,” said Puller, coming forward and lifting his gaze past them and to the windows of the shack. They were covered and he saw no one trying to peek through to get a sightline on him with a weapon.

  “Got a question.”

  The men looked at him warily. Puller could tell they were trying to think of some way to turn his tactical advantage into a disadvantage.

  But he wasn’t worried because the MP5 at close quarters was a difficult nut to crack.

  “His name is Diego. He has two cousins. Isabel and Mateo. Where are they?”

  The men said nothing.

  Puller moved closer. “Diego, Isabel, and Mateo, where are they?”

  The men remained silent.

  Puller moved a foot closer. With one sweep of the MP he could lay all three down for eternity.

  He shifted the fire selector on the MP to full auto. “I’ll ask one more time and then I won’t ask again.”

  “We don’t know where they are,” said one of the men, staring at the muzzle of the MP.

  “But you did know, right?”

  The three men looked at one another. The man who had spoken shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “No, it’s really not. You just have to say it.”

  Puller moved another foot closer.

  The men smiled.

  Puller
thought he knew why.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Puller. “I’m not the only one here.”

  The men stopped smiling.

  It was in the comer of Puller’s eye. A fourth man.

  He’d come around the building’s east side. He had a slim compact pistol aimed at Puller’s head.

  “Check your chest,” said Puller.

  The man flinched, looked nervous, but didn’t look down, obviously suspecting a trick.

  The other men glanced over. The one who had spoken swore under his breath as he saw the red dot squarely over the man’s heart.

  He said something in Spanish. The man with the gun looked down, saw the dot. He swore too, lowered his gun.

  Puller pointed his MP at him. “Why don’t you lose the gun and join the discussion group.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  The man dropped his gun and walked over to the others, the red dot following him the whole way.

  “Diego and his cousins,” said Puller. “They were here and now they’re not. So where did they go?”

  The four men glanced nervously at one another.

  “Glancing and not talking tends to make me very angry,” said Puller. “And when I get angry I do unpredictable things.”

  He put the fire selector back on two-shot bursts and fired some rounds above their heads. They all instinctively dropped to the dirt.

  Puller eased his finger off the trigger and said, “Where?”

  The men rose on trembling legs. One of them said, “They took them.”

  One of the other men glared at him and looked ready to punch his colleague.

  The speaker sensed this but hurried on. “They were taken last night. The man paid one thousand dollars for them both.”

  “Both? Which both?”

  “Los ninios. Diego y Mateo.”

  “Who paid one thousand dollars?” Puller said sharply.

  “Like I said, un hombre.”

  Two of the other men hissed, but the speaker looked defiantly back at them.

  Puller said, “What was his name? What did he look like?”

  Before the other man could answer there was a roaring sound. Puller looked to his left and saw the pickup trucks coming. In the truck beds were men standing and holding a lot of firepower and looking ominously in Puller’s direction.

  In Puller’s earwig Carson’s voice crackled. “I think retreat is the order of the day,” she said.

  Puller grabbed the man who had answered him and they ran off.

  The trucks veered off to give chase, but several shots rang out and both trucks ground to a halt with flattened tires. Two men fell out of one truck bed as it screeched to a stop.

  Puller turned the corner with the man in tow and saw the Tahoe up ahead. He double-timed it and saw Carson coming down from her high perch on another building carrying her scoped rifle. She jumped into the passenger seat. Puller threw the man into the rear seat and leapt into the driver’s seat as he heard feet pounding down the road and men yelling in Spanish.

  He hit the gas and the Tahoe sped off, turned a corner, and disappeared in the maze of streets.

  Carson had her rifle pointed at the man in the backseat. She studied him calmly. “What man took the boys?”

  Puller glanced at her.

  She said, “I heard over your earwig.”

  She looked at the man in the backseat. “We need some details.”

  The man shook his head.

  “You’ve come this far,” said Carson. “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”

  The man looked at Puller. “You are big. Like the other guy.”

  Puller glanced at him in the rearview. “What other guy?”

  “The big guy. Bigger than you. He can fight.” “Is he staying at the Sierra?” asked Puller.

  The man nodded. “He picked up one of our guys like he was nothing. Threw a knife twenty feet point-first into a wall. El Diablo.”

  Puller glanced at Carson. “The same guy who saved my butt the other night.”

  Carson looked at the man. “El Diablo have a real name?”

  The man shrugged. “No se.”

  “Is he the one who took los ninos?”

  “No.”

  “Who did, then?”

  “Nose.”

  Carson moved her finger closer to the trigger of her rifle.

  A smile crept across the man’s face. “You won’t shoot me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are military. A general.”

  Carson looked down at the one-star ring she had on.

  The man said, “I was in the military once. Not yours. From my country.”

  “Sorry to see you’ve fallen so low,” snapped Carson.

  Puller said, “We want to help Diego and Mateo. That’s all. Help us do that. They’re just kids.” “They are beyond help.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know that. And I don’t care. They’re not my problem.”

  Carson looked at Puller and shrugged. “Open the door,” she said.

  The man said, “What?”

  “Open your door and jump.”

  “What?”

  “Jump!”

  She pointed her gun at his crotch. “General or not, you jump now or you’ll be missing some very vital parts.”

  The man kicked open the door and leapt out, tumbling along the road and then coming to a stop. They watched as he picked himself up and slowly limped off.

  Puller said, “I like your style.”

  Carson eyed him with a stern gaze. “What?” he said.

  “Next time you go on R and R, pick a safer place than Paradise.”

  His phone buzzed. He answered it and listened for a bit before saying, “Okay.” Then he clicked off.

  Carson said, “Talk to me.”

  “I’ve been officially invited to join the murder investigation.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Mecho studied the police officers.

  He was bagging yard debris and the police officers were bagging the remains of a very expensive automobile.

  Mecho wondered if they had found the bits of the license plate with “The Man” on it. He hoped not. He hoped it had been blown into the water and swallowed by a shark.

  As he used a rake to collect some dead branches that had fallen to the ground, he watched the maid Beatriz walk across the lawn with a tray of lemonade and snacks. She was headed to the pool where Lampert and James Winthrop and Chrissy Murdoch were lounging. Her eyes were puffy and she kept her gaze downcast as she served the drinks and food. He watched Lampert eye her as she walked back across the lawn.

  As she neared the house and was out of sight of the others, Mecho hoisted the bag of debris and used his long legs to reach a spot that would cross her path. She pulled up when she saw him. He was well over a foot taller than her and more than twice her weight.

  He spoke to her in Spanish, asking her if everything was okay.

  She mumbled that it was and kept walking. He kept pace beside her.

  He asked more questions, and finally queried Beatriz about her employer. Her features hardened.

  Mecho pounced on this vulnerability.

  “I understand that your boss is leaving the country soon.”

  She looked sharply at him. “How do you know that?”

  “One of his guys told me. Asia?”

  “And Africa. At least that’s what I overheard.”

  “When does he leave?”

  “Why do you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I was thinking of asking you out. It would probably be easier if he weren’t around.”

  Whether she understood the significance of his words or not it was impossible to tell from her features.

  “You want to ask me out?” she said slowly.

  “I wasn’t always a laborer,” said Mecho truthfully. “I treat women with respect and courtesy.”

  “It is impossible.”

  “I understand.”

  She pu
t a hand on his arm. “No, you do not understand. I am not allowed to leave the premises.”

  “You cannot leave here?”

  She shook her head and said in a low voice, “It is not permitted. I should not even be talking to you.”

  “I am a nobody. They do not care about nobodies.”

  She glanced up at him. “I think you are somebody,” she said hopefully.

  “Is it the guards that keep you in here?”

  “Not just the guards.” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the pool.

  “You could call the police.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is not just me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There are others.”

  “Your family?”

  She nodded, tears trickling from her eyes. She picked up her pace and hurried across the lawn and into the house.

  Mecho slowed his walk and ambled over to the truck with his load of debris. He dumped it in the vehicle’s rear bed and watched as Lampert walked down to the gate that led to the pier and unlocked the gate. The walls back here were wrought iron, six feet high. Lampert obviously didn’t worry too much about prying eyes from the water. There was enough foliage to block the main house and guesthouse from observers on boats.

  Mecho continued to watch as Lampert walked down the pier, climbed on board the yacht, and disappeared belowdecks.

  I could kill him. And maybe I should.

  But Mecho didn’t move toward the boat. Part of it was practical. He counted five security men within his sightline.

  He had no way to easily get through the gate. And he also had no weapon. Each time they had come here every man on the landscape crew had to walk through a magnetometer and then was wanded by the security detail. Lampert was a careful man. Before he even got to the big boat they would have shot him, and what would that have accomplished?

  No, better to let the plan play out the way he had envisioned.

  As he continued to work under a hot sun he thought about what the man Donny had told him last night at the hotel.

  The shipments came nearly every night. The last platform used as a staging area was twenty miles off the coast and to the west. Mecho believed that was the one he’d been on.

  Mecho had also been told that the plan was to start smuggling even more people in beginning next month. This would include people from Asia and Africa. That made sense if Lampert were planning to travel to those continents.