When he turned the muzzle around and placed the grip in her hand, she stared up into his smiling face, knew deep down he was laughing at her. “Wouldn’t you be surprised if I did pull the trigger,” she said, still wary of his peculiar form of courtesy.
“Frankly, yes. I don’t think you have it in you to shoot a man in cold blood.”
She lowered the gun, afraid she might accidentally do exactly what he said. “You know all that from a thirty second meeting?”
He chuckled. “You had the opportunity and the means, yet instead of using this…” he took the gun from her hand and ejected the bullet, “you drugged my courier and escaped. You are a very resourceful woman. What is your name?”
It didn’t appear that he was going to kill her. Either that, or he was merely toying with her. “Lillian.”
“You may call me Manuel.” He bowed slightly. “At your service.”
Was he? And was that his real name? “The gun isn’t mine. It belongs to your… courier.”
“Belonged.”
Another death. Lillian’s stomach churned, but she refused to faint in front of this man. “So, Manuel, what are you going to do with us?” She raised her chin, nodded toward the carrier.
He shrugged. “I could help you and your little one get back across the border, provided you say nothing of our meeting here today.”
Would he really let her go after what she had seen him do? She glanced in the direction of the dead man.
“Or…”
He left the rest unsaid, but she could easily fill in the blanks. What could she say anyway? He would dispose of the bodies, and it would be her word against his.
“I mean you no harm, Lillian. That you are involved at all is due to another’s mistakes.” His gaze followed hers to the dead man. “Carlos isn’t worth your pity. He would have killed you, so I think you should thank me for saving your life.”
Another man had made a similar request. Was Sam alive or lying dead in her living room? She had to get back to him, to her family, and if this man could help her do that, she would gladly boost his ego. “Very well. Thank you for saving my life.”
“There is just one other thing.” Manuel skirted the body of the man he had killed and knelt in front of the carrier. He lifted the crying baby and handed him to her.
“What are you doing?”
“Retrieving my package.”
While Lillian watched, he took out an ugly looking knife and cut along a line she had thought merely decoration. Once the seal was broken, he applied a small amount of pressure to the area, and a hidden door sprang open. “It appears young Jorgé was telling the truth,” he said, extracting what looked to Lillian like an artifact.”
“What is it?”
“A Mayan Jaguar mask.”
“You killed him for that?” Lillian stared at the man currently kneeling at her feet.
“I did not kill him.” He nodded toward the dead man. “Carlos did. But men have died for much lesser things, Lillian. This mask is priceless.”
Manuel reached into the back of the cavity and pulled out an envelope. After a quick glance, he stuffed it into his pocket and shut the door, then rose quickly to his feet. He picked up the carrier and indicated she should go ahead of him toward the road. As she picked her way along the rocky pathway, she had a vision of him shooting her in the back.
He chuckled behind her. “I’m not going to kill you, Lillian. Why did you stop here?”
“I ran out of gas,” she admitted, attempting to soothe away Joey’s tears.
“I can remedy that for you.” He buckled the carrier in place, then walked to the back of his SUV and returned with a five-gallon gas can. “This should get you to the border.” He emptied the contents of the can into the gas tank, then turned to face her. “If you can, get into the outside lane and look for Gil Benson. He will help you cross back into the United States.”
Since she didn’t have her passport with her, she would need all the help she could get. “Why are you helping me when I know who you are?”
“You have no idea who I am, Lillian, and it would be very unwise for you to mention me to anyone. Including the man whose ring you wear.”
Lillian clutched her left hand to her chest. Though courteous, his voice held just enough warning to set her heart racing.
“Good-bye, Lillian.” He held the driver’s door open for her, his smile cold and calculating. “Who knows? Perhaps someday in the future, you can be useful to me.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lillian was thankful for the twists and turns in the road and the ever-changing landscape that kept her mind occupied. Another thirty minutes and she would be in Ensenada. Had she actually escaped the specter of death, not once, but twice? Though Jorgé Molina had displayed a killer’s bravado, she didn’t think him capable of pulling the trigger. Manuel, if that was his real name, killed with the cold efficiency of an assassin. Would Carlos have defied him, had the man ordered him to stop? She didn’t think so. And yet Manuel had shot and killed him, allegedly to save her life. Why?
Don’t question his motives, Lillian. You’re alive, and you’ll soon be home.
Outside Ensenada, she stopped at a gas station. Manuel had told her to fill the tank because her wait at the border could be several hours. She considered the car wash, but he’d advised her to leave the car dirty so her story would be more believable. No one paid her car the slightest attention as she drove from Ensenada into Tijuana, then through the city toward the U.S. border crossing. She tried Sam’s cell phone, but the battery was dead, and she had no way to charge it.
Though the line at the border was long, she moved forward at the rate of one car every five minutes. Heart in her throat, she eased her car into the lane farthest to the right. You will have no problem at the border as long as you remember what I’ve told you to say. She smiled hesitantly at the two border patrol officers who approached her car. One held a clipboard, the other man controlled a handsome German shepherd with a nose for drugs.
“Identification, please.” His name tag read Gil Benson.
Lillian withdrew her driver’s license from her wallet and handed it to him. Her heart was beating so loud she was certain he could hear it. He glanced at the license, then lifted his gaze slowly to her face. Unconsciously, she licked her lips, nibbled at the bottom one. He turned away to inspect the car, walked to the front to check the license plate, then returned to her window.
“Your name is Lillian Moore?”
Lillian merely nodded, afraid her voice would crack if she spoke.
“We have a report that you were kidnapped this morning.”
“I was,” Lillian whispered, clutching the steering wheel for courage. If someone had reported her missing, that could only mean Sam was alive. “I escaped.”
“Well, ma’am, there are some people over in Homeland Security who would like very much to talk to you.”
Officer Benson directed her where to park her car, then escorted her and Joey into the building where he knocked on a door marked U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He received a terse, “What is it?” and opened the door.
“Detective Wilson, I’d like to introduce you to Lillian Moore.”
A toothpick fell out of the man’s open mouth, bounced off his desk and landed at his feet on the floor. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He stood abruptly, his chair cascading into the bookcase behind him with a loud thump. Without taking his thunderstruck gaze from her face, he hurried around the desk to greet her. “Come in, Mrs. Moore. Beat it, Benson, and shut the door.”
Taking a deep breath, she stepped across the threshold and into the room. After everything that had happened, she was surprised that she had the strength to hold onto the carrier and remain standing.
“Have a seat.” Detective Wilson removed the carrier from her hands and guided her to the couch along the wall. “You haven’t changed much.”
“Excuse me?”
Once she was seated, he placed the carrier on the flo
or at her feet and addressed her clearly mystified stare. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
She studied his freckled face, blue eyes and sandy hair while he took the seat next to her. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. “I’m afraid not.”
“Pearl Harbor, 1998. I was a Petty Officer, 2nd Class assigned to Captain Russell Moore, commanding the USS Independent. I escorted you to the Senior Officers’ Club Dinner when your husband was called to Washington.”
“You were younger and thinner then…” Lillian glanced casually toward several framed certificates on the wall. “Detective Wilson.”
“Desk job.”
Of all the gin joints in all the world… a face from the past. A face that obviously meant to put her at ease, then find out everything he could about her kidnapping. “I don’t believe I saw you after that evening.”
“Your husband was tough. I lasted two months. Guess I wasn’t combat material.” Funny he should say that. Neither was she, at least not until today. The detective gazed down at his folded hands. “I was sorry to hear about Capt. Moore’s death,” he said softly.
She nodded, surprised he would know about it, considering the two men obviously hadn’t been close. “I’m getting on with my life. How did you find out I was kidnapped?”
His lopsided grin bordered somewhere between blameless and calculated. “I met a couple of people who are pretty worried about you.”
Sam! “Is Sam okay?” Fighting tears of relief and joy, she reached out to touch his arm. “Please tell me he’s okay.”
“He’s in a holding cell at the moment along with your daughter.”
“What?”
“I told them not to cross the border, but it appears they don’t follow orders very well.”
Lillian could well imagine Sam coming to her rescue. But Amanda? “May I see them?”
“As soon as you tell me what happened on your trip into Mexico.” When the detective reached toward the baby, little Joey captured his forefinger and tugged it toward his mouth.
“I’m afraid he’s hungry. You don’t happen to have access to a bottle of formula or a clean diaper, do you?’
“I imagine we can come up with something.” He stepped over to the desk and spoke into an intercom. Minutes later another officer entered. “Maria, can you see to…”
“Joey,” Lillian offered, handing the baby to the woman with a Warrant Officer’s badge on her sleeve. “Thank you.”
“He’ll be fine. I have a six-year-old at home, so it hasn’t been too long since I did this.”
Joey didn’t cry when Maria carried him from the room, so Lillian assumed the little guy was getting used to being bumped around from place to place. “He’s been awfully good through this whole ordeal.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Stick to the truth, Lillian, Manuel had said. Just not the whole truth.
She started at the beginning with the home invasion and a description of her kidnapper, then relived the trip south across the border and into the interior along a dirt road. “When we stopped, I slipped four sleeping pills into his beer, and after he fell asleep, I retrieved my car keys, took his gun and the cell phone he stole from Sam and drove away. The gun and the phone are in my purse.” Lillian offered him her handbag. “I’m afraid my fingerprints are on them.”
Detective Wilson pulled several tissues from a nearby box and reached into her purse. “This it?” he asked, holding up an automatic pistol by the butt end. When she nodded, he removed the magazine and pressed his intercom again. He handed Maria both items. “Have these dusted for fingerprints right away,” he said, then waited until she left the room. “Can you remember where you left him?”
“He gave me driving directions. We left Ensenada at around 9:00. It was 1:00 when I asked if we could stop so I could feed the baby.”
“So, you left him asleep against a tree and returned along the same road?” He led her to the map of the Baja peninsula and the southwestern portion of the United States hanging on the wall opposite the couch. “Can you show me which road you took?”
Lillian studied the detailed map. “We went east from Ensenada on a paved road for maybe an hour. Then we turned off onto a dirt road that headed south with mountains and desert on both sides.” Guessing his next question, she beat him to it. “About sixty. He was in a hurry. I had the feeling he was supposed to meet someone and didn’t want to be late.” At the detective’s frown, she continued. “He called someone from Tijuana using Sam’s phone.”
Tell them about the call. They will find nothing at my end but an untraceable burner phone.
Detective Wilson rummaged through her purse, withdrew the cell phone and set it on his desk. “And this man was alive when you left him?”
“He was snoring. I did leave him the rest of his beer.”
No one will fault you for escaping from a man who kidnapped and threatened to kill you. Your border patrol will only want to notify the Federales of his last known whereabouts.
She hoped Manuel was right about that. He seemed to be right about everything else.
They will probably not think to ask how you managed to drive over six hundred miles on a tank meant for only four hundred fifty, but in case they do, tell them a man drove by in a truck and stopped to help, that he siphoned a couple gallons from his truck, and sold them to you for the outrageous price of $10.00 per gallon. They will believe you.
However, Detective Wilson didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer.
“Please, may I see Sam and my daughter now?”
While she waited silently on the couch, he made two calls, one in English and the second in fluent Spanish during which she assumed he was notifying the Mexican authorities. They would find nothing. No footprints, no beer bottles. Nothing that did not belong in the natural landscape between mountains and desert. Manuel would see to that.
And one day, he would contact her.
What will you do then, Lillian?
She had no idea. Only that she would never be able to tell Sam how right he’d been when he’d told her she could one day become a woman of the world. Today had been that day.
* * *
Manuel drove into the courtyard at Casa Rojas and parked next to his apartment. While he shaved and showered, he rehearsed his lines, then changed into clothes fit for an audience with the master of the house. The Mayan mask sat silent and solemn in the small box on the table. How could such a thing bring life when already there was so much death attached to it? It was not his place to speculate, only to follow orders.
When he entered the house, Manuel was shown directly to the master’s bedroom. Standing in the hallway, he could smell the pungent odor of sickness. Death was close by, hovering in silence. Watching. Waiting. Manuel knocked softly, heard a hoarse voice bid him to enter.
“Is that you, Manuel?” Javier Rojas pushed himself into a sitting position, waved the nurse away, and did not speak again until she had closed the door behind her. He pointed with shaking fingers to the small box in Manuel’s hand. “Have you brought me the mask?”
“Si, Senõr Rojas. It is the true mask of Ahau B’alam.”
“Come. Come.” Javier motioned Manuel forward and patted the mattress. “Give it to me.”
Manuel approached, then sat carefully beside his patron and removed the mask from the box. Javier’s sunken eyes grew bright as Manuel placed it into his hands. Rough and heavily abscessed fingertips caressed the Jaguar head gently. “I have waited so long for this moment.”
Manuel hesitated, his heart aching for the old man, yet knowing he would have to relay the news. “There is something I must tell you.”
Javier gazed into Manuel’s face through eyes clouded with cataracts. He held out his hand. “I already know the news you bring. An angel told me in a dream. My nephew was a good boy, just not very smart. If you had not killed him, someone else would have. Has the woman returned safely to her home?”
Manuel was always amazed at h
is employer’s ability to know the unknowable. It was the reason he did not want to deceive him and had gone to such great lengths to obtain the real mask. “Yes, I am told she was allowed to leave custody yesterday with her fiancé and her daughter. Also, her kidnapper has evidently disappeared.”
“Then all is well?”
“You have the mask, Carlos is no longer the bane of our existence, and we may have gained a valuable ally in America. So yes, for tonight, all is well.”
* * *
Javier Rojas died during the night, clutching the Jaguar mask to his chest. Summoned from a sound sleep, Manuel stood silently beside his master’s bed. “Perhaps instead of a long life, this mask has brought you a peaceful death, my friend,” he whispered, then closed the old man’s eyes and smiled. “And a new beginning for me.”
Epilogue
Thanksgiving, the perfect day for a wedding, Lillian thought, while she stood before the full length mirror in the ladies room, admiring the dress she and Amanda had picked out two weeks ago. The aqua linen mid-calf sheath with its matching bolero jacket was accompanied by white satin pumps and a saucy white satin, barely-there hat with an aqua and white net veil that covered the upper half of her face.
“You look beautiful, Mother. I mean, Mom.” Amanda handed her a bouquet of white roses, the smile on her face shining in her blue eyes. “Sam is a very lucky man.”
Lillian laughed. “He is, isn’t he?”
Amanda had begged to plan the wedding, and so far she had stuck to Lillian’s request for a small “family and close friends only” gathering in one the smaller country club banquet rooms. So much had changed in the past four weeks. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something significant had transpired between her daughter and Sam the day she’d been kidnapped. Though neither of them had spoken of it, the outcome had resulted first in a truce, then a polite civility, and finally a quasi friendship which had ignited a surprising chain of events.
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