Slowly, I turned.
“Are you okay?” Aubrey said.
I wasn’t sure how to answer her. I was covered in blood but it wasn’t mine, so I supposed I couldn’t complain much.
My eyes fell on the young women as Aubrey began to tell me more about them. Most of the girls were from Central America—Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama. Two were from the Dominican Republic. One was from Colombia.
Aubrey said, “They were taken all over Costa Rica to turn tricks. Not just San José, but Guanacaste, Limón, Puntarenas. They’d get picked up at that clearing—two or three girls at a time—and get taken to a certain province for the night.”
My gaze remained locked on the girls, a single thought circling: One of them could have been Hailey.
“How old are they?” I managed.
“About half are in their early twenties. The rest are teenagers. The youngest is sixteen.”
The field around me seemed to be spinning, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I hadn’t killed those men.
“They’ll be okay now?” I said.
Aubrey bowed her head. “I’ll take them to my hospital, then we’ll need to get them out of the country as soon as possible. It won’t be safe for them here.”
I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my wallet, removed the AmEx I’d used to break into Kellen’s apartment. “Here,” I said. “Take this. Make sure each girl gets home safely. Hire bodyguards if you need to.”
“Thank you, Simon.” She placed the palm of her hand gently on the scruff of the left side of my face. “I’m sorry you didn’t find Olivia.”
“It’s not over,” I said.
“Where to next?”
“Back to California.”
“Why don’t you wait until tomorrow, Simon? You’re exhausted. Come with us to the hospital and get that ankle X-rayed. Tonight, stay with me in San José, then fly out fresh in the morning.”
I stared into her eyes and it was like staring into the past. A place where it was warm and comfortable and familiar and our cares were much simpler.
“I’d love to,” I said. “But I can’t.”
“Excuse me?” came a small voice from behind us. “I am sorry if I am to interrupt.”
She was tall, clearly one of the older girls. Her accent was thick and South American.
“My name is Mariana Silva.”
She was from Colombia. Big brown eyes; long, straight, jet black hair. Even gaunt, she was beyond beautiful.
“I did not speak up before,” she said. “Because I was afraid. But after the courage you have shown to us, how is it possible I can remain silent?”
I took a painful step toward her, the fog in my head lifting. “Remain silent about what, Mariana?”
She hesitated. But she’d already made this decision.
She looked back to be sure none of the other girls was listening and struggled to relate her thoughts in English. “I possess information that may help you to find this girl, Olivia Trenton.”
Chapter 34
Mariana Silva led me farther away from the others so that she could speak freely.
“I can tell you nothing with absolute certainty,” she said quietly, holding her narrow arms tightly as though to protect herself against some chill only she felt. “But the men who held us, they spoke just yesterday about a mara—from Honduras, I think—that sent some men to the United States and made a great sum of money.”
“Mara?” I said. “A gang?”
“Yes. The reason I listened so intently is that I heard them speak of my country. This mara, it is known for kidnapping women and selling them to the cartels in Colombia to work as mules.”
“Drug mules.”
“Yes. Since the 9/11, it has become more and more difficult to hire mules even from the poorest parts of my country. Security increases and more and more young women from South America are caught and imprisoned in the United States.”
“So the cartels kidnap women to smuggle drugs.”
“It has become a very, very dangerous job. Because it is so difficult to succeed, they make the women carry more and more drugs. Sometimes one hundred, maybe one hundred fifty balloons inside their bodies. If just one balloon bursts or leaks, the mule, she will—”
“She will die,” I finished.
“These maras, they threaten to kill the family and friends of the mule if they are to say anything once they reach the States. Once they are a mule, they are a mule for life. There is no escape. Except suicide.” She pointed to the group of women standing around the Land Cruiser, all of them still visibly shaken. “We are the lucky ones. The Caucasian women, they are not so lucky, because they are much easier to get past customs.”
“Do you know the name of this mara these men were talking about?”
Mariana shook her head. “There are so many. They did not even know for sure this mara was from Honduras. Only they think this. Could be they are from Guatemala or El Salvador.”
“Do they have anything in common, these gangs? Any tattoos or markings?”
“Yes, this is true. They wear tattoos, almost all of them. They read, La vida por las maras.”
“‘The life for the gangs.’”
“Yes. The life for the gangs.”
I held up a finger. “Excuse me one moment, Mariana.”
I hobbled toward the other side of the lot, my heart racing. I dialed Edgar’s number on my BlackBerry.
“Simon,” he answered, “your flight back to the States is booked. You’re going to be flying directly into Van Nuys Airport. It’s used only for private, chartered aircraft. Nicholas will be there to pick you up. Your flight—”
“Change of plans,” I said. “I need to fly into Bogotá instead.”
I considered the fact that Olivia’s U.S. passport was in my pocket. It made sense. She couldn’t use it, of course. They’d have to create for her an entirely new identity.
“Bogotá? Tell me, what’s happening, Simon? Do you have a lead?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. One of the women here overheard something her captors were saying about a Central American gang making a big score in the United States. If that’s the case, it’s possible that they then sold Olivia to the Colombians to work as a drug mule.”
Edgar remained silent for nearly a minute. I twice checked the connection to be sure I hadn’t lost him.
“But why, Simon?” he said. “Why? They got their money. Why didn’t they just release her?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” I admitted. “Maybe they knew Olivia could identify them. Maybe there were other parties involved from the beginning. Maybe they’re just greedy. There’s no telling until we get our hands on them.”
“All right,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’ll arrange a flight for you from Upala to Bogotá, Colombia.”
I looked in the direction of Mariana Silva, called out to her. “Do you need a lift home?”
Mariana nodded hopefully.
Into the phone I said, “Make it for two.”
Since Mariana had no identification, I tried to provide Edgar with instructions on how to take care of customs and immigration agents in Colombia, but he assured me that he and his people were well-versed “in the law.”
After hanging up, I joined Aubrey out of earshot of the women. I passed on what Mariana had told me.
“The cartels?” she said, her lower lip suddenly trembling. “Simon, we’re not talking now about a few men with guns holed up in huts in the Costa Rican rain forest. These cartels, they’re like armies.”
“I know, Aubrey.” As beautiful a country as it is, if there was one place in the world I could have lived without ever returning to, it was Colombia.
“But then—”
“This is different, Aubrey. I’m one man, not a platoon. I’ll be able to use stealth. If Olivia’s in Colombia, I will find her and bring her home.”
“I’m going with you,” she said.
I smiled. Touched her face. “N
o. You’re going to stay here. You’re going to help these women get treatment at CIMA, then you’re going to make sure each and every one of them gets home safely.”
She sighed heavily, wrapped her arms around me, and I held her as closely as I had held anyone in a long while.
“Good-bye, Simon.”
“Adiós, Aubrey. I’ll be seeing you again when this is over.”
She smiled despite the tears in her eyes. Said, “I guess that means I’d better not abuse your American Express too badly.”
I winked. “Just be sure to leave enough for the two of us to sit down and enjoy a good strong cup of Costa Rica’s finest coffee when all this is over.”
Part Three
THE LORDS OF BOGOTÁ
Chapter 35
Everything I knew about Colombia I’d learned while I was a U.S. Marshal.
The South American country was in a state of perpetual conflict. Since the mid-’60s, guerrilla insurgents calling themselves the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) had sustained attacks on the Colombian government. Just what the bloody civil war was being fought over was a matter of perspective. The peasant revolutionaries claimed to be fighting for the rights of the poor and to protect all citizens from government violence, while the government claimed to be fighting to preserve order and stability. Meanwhile, far-right paramilitary groups such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) had joined the fight against the guerrillas; their specialty: slaughtering peasants, labor union leaders, and anyone else suspected of having ties to the left. Other powerful neo-paramilitary groups, such as Los Urabeños and Los Rastrojos, specialized in killing each other in an attempt to gain complete control of Colombia’s multibillion-dollar drug trade.
Tens of thousands had died; millions had been displaced. And the country remained the world’s largest producer of cocaine.
When Mariana and I touched down at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá and exited the plane, I was surprised to find it cold and rainy. It was Colombia’s warm season, its dry season. Yet everything I could see from the tarmac was colored gray with fog and frost.
So much for Tommy Bahama. In Colombia’s capital city, I would need to dress a bit warmer, preferably head to toe in black attire so as not to stand out.
I’d slept through the entire flight, as had Mariana, so it was only now on the tarmac that I was able to ask her about her family, whether she had a place to stay.
“I do not,” she said, but didn’t elaborate. And there was really no time for questions.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s take a taxi. My client booked me a room at Casa Medina; I’m sure he’ll pay for a second room for as long as necessary.”
“Thank you, Señor Fisk.”
“Call me Simon.”
Once we reached the hotel, I went straight to my room and laid out a map of Colombia. Kidnappings in the country were very common. FARC, ELN, the M-19, and other guerrilla groups regularly used the hideous tactic to demand ransom in order to raise funds to sustain their war. Paramilitary groups kidnapped in order to intimidate their adversaries, while the cartels used the practice in order to coerce politicians and judges who might otherwise deign to legislate and enforce harsh drug laws.
Colombia continued to boast one of the highest numbers of kidnap victims in the world.
Since the guerrillas and the paramilitary groups also financed their endeavors through the trafficking of illegal drugs, if Olivia was indeed sold by a Central American gang to a Colombian syndicate in order to act as a smuggler, the field was wide open. No organization could be counted out. So I’d need to determine which part of the country each group was based out of, then attend to them one by one.
Problem was, Colombia’s a large nation, roughly the size of Portugal, Spain, and France combined. The country has a population of over 45 million, and its land is ecologically diverse. Between Colombia’s Atlantic and Pacific coastlines lay not only the thick Amazon jungle, but also vast flatlands and burning deserts and high mountain peaks capped with snow.
I moved the map from the desk to the table to the bed, but the country appeared no less imposing. I knew then that I couldn’t tackle this alone.
The U.S. Marshals had recently opened a foreign field office in Colombia, but I didn’t know anyone there. I did, however, have a contact at the DEA’s Bogotá Country Office.
All incoming calls to the office were recorded, so unfortunately, I couldn’t just pick up the phone and dial. I’d have to stake out the U.S. Embassy and wait for my contact to come out. Of course, if someone recognized me and saw us together, there would be questions, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to count on his assistance. So I’d have to get a message to him to meet me at a location where we could talk. For that, my new friend Mariana Silva would come in handy, and I knew she’d be more than happy to help.
But first, I needed a shower. Then I had to head downstairs to buy some clothes befitting an American in Bogotá. And most of all, I needed an espresso. Because if there is one thing Colombia is known for—besides its cocaine, cartels, kidnappings, and killings—it’s high-quality, rich, delicious, full-bodied coffee.
Chapter 36
Two hours later, Mariana and I sat at a table at an outdoor café down the street from the U.S. Embassy. I was on my third espresso of the day and feeling recharged. The sun had replaced the rain, but the air remained chilled. I wore a black suit over a black shirt and tie and felt wired yet comfortable as I watched the entrance to the embassy, hoping to catch a glimpse of Special Agent Samuel Greyson.
“How does he look, this man?” Mariana said.
“African American. Around my age, maybe a few years older. Good-looking guy.”
I’d met Greyson—or Grey, as he preferred to be called—shortly after I finished Basic Training at FLETC, when we were both assigned to the nation’s capital. We’d hit it off right away, and I’d never forget one of our first conversations.
We’d been mocking interagency squabbles, which we thought were worse in D.C. than in any other part of the country. FBI versus DEA versus Secret Service versus ATF versus the U.S. Marshals—it was all nonsense, as far as we were concerned. After a few too many beers, we decided that we, the new generation, would be the ones to put an end to it; we’d be the pair to unite all the federal law enforcement agencies to boost morale, communication, and above all, cooperation, to make America a safer and better place.
Toward the end of the night, Grey set his beer down and said, “You know, Simon, dismiss everything I told you tonight. Forget interagency cooperation.”
“Forget it?” I said, still smiling, waiting for the punch line.
“Forget it. Maybe we at the DEA can hash things out with ATF, maybe even the FBI. But the U.S. Marshals, no way.”
“No way, huh?” I tried to set the joke up for him. “Why’s that, Grey?”
He looked me in the eyes, his mouth a single flat line, and said, “Because y’all are a bunch of goddamn racists.”
The music in the bar was low, and he’d said it loud enough for other patrons to hear. We were still fairly new to D.C., and we didn’t know who was there—there could’ve been some up-and-coming congressman, a cabinet member, even a director, sitting right behind us.
Aside from being a new friend, back then Grey was also the perfect male specimen. I didn’t want to tangle with him; that much I knew. And I still couldn’t tell if he was serious.
“What?” he said, reading my face. “You going to deny it, Simon?”
“The Marshals Service was on the front line of the civil rights movement in the ’60s,” I argued. “We provided protection to civil rights volunteers, accompanied that kid James Meredith when he registered at the segregated University of Mississippi. We protected black schoolchildren during the integration of the public schools in the South. Hell, we’re even depicted in that Norman Rockwell painting, for Christ’s sake.”
“You also recovered fugitiv
e slaves in the nineteenth century.”
There was nothing I could say to that. The Marshals were the oldest federal law enforcement agency in the United States, around since 1789. When Wyatt Earp was sworn in as a Deputy U.S. Marshal in Tombstone, the agency was already nearly a century old. The Marshals had a history, for better or worse. Often we’d like to think of history as something detestable that happened to other people. But when you join a law enforcement organization like the U.S. Marshals, in at least some capacity, you adopt its history, the good right along with the bad.
Grey added, “Then there’s this lawsuit pending against Janet Reno and the Justice Department. How do you feel about that?”
“I don’t know enough of the facts,” I admitted.
Once the facts did come to light, the jury found the Marshals Service to be a racially hostile environment and to have demonstrated a pattern of discriminatory behavior against blacks in its promotion practices. Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Matthew Fogg won $4 million as a result of the Marshals’ Title VII race discrimination and retaliation violations. And for months, I hung my head low when I walked the streets of D.C.
As for Grey, when I brought the conversation up to him over beers at the same bar a year later, he confessed that he had forgotten the entire discussion. “Must’ve been drunk,” he readily admitted. “Blacked out, no pun intended.” He laughed. “But I’ll tell you, Simon, there isn’t anything in this world that I hate more than racists.” He threw back the rest of his beer, added, “Except maybe for Hispanics.”
That time, Grey had made it abundantly clear he was joking, and he went on to talk about how great it was that we could finally openly discuss race in this country (at least here in D.C.), and he predicted that the American people would elect the first black president in his lifetime. I admit, I wasn’t so sure at the time. Then, lo and behold, ten years later I shook the hand of a young presidential candidate named Barack Obama during a campaign stop in Orlando, Florida, where I’d been voluntarily searching for a missing two-year-old girl named Caylee Anthony. Obama, of course, went on to win the presidency, and little Caylee Anthony was found dead in a wooded area near her home six months after her disappearance. Her mother, Casey, was tried and acquitted of her daughter’s murder three years later despite a mountain of evidence against her.
Payoff Page 13