Black List

by Brad Thor

  He also liked the idea that they would meet someplace where he wouldn’t have to get out of his car. It made him feel better about traveling into McAllen.

  Conducting a quick search for Casa De Palmas, he learned that it was a three-star hotel in the heart of the city. Next he pulled up satellite imagery and got a good feel for the layout of the property. Once he was familiar with the location, he began planning his routes to and from the hotel—as well as likely locations for an ambush. He was taking nothing for granted.

  CHAPTER 10

  McAllen, Texas, sat only five miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, and just beyond that was the highly dangerous Mexican city of Reynosa. Nicholas had both stolen from and sold information to some of Mexico’s worst organized crime figures. He could envision a million scenarios, none of them good, whereby the meeting at the Casa De Palmas was only a ruse to draw him across the border to an undesirable end, so he had made sure to take appropriate precautions.

  Because of his size, even weapons designed for children were usually too large and unwieldy for him to handle. They also fired only lower-caliber ammunition that didn’t have enough knockdown power for his taste. To remedy the situation, Nicholas had all of his equipment custom made by some of the finest gunsmiths and engineers in the world.

  His favorite weapon was a three-shot, .45-caliber handgun with a tiny grip and a dramatically ported barrel that helped significantly reduce the pistol’s recoil. Despite the clever design, it took everything Nicholas had to control the weapon and bring it back on target for follow-up shots. Nevertheless, it was an incredible equalizer—an elephant gun that put the mouse on equal footing.

  There was an array of other gear that Nicholas never traveled without, and he took his time loading up the Denali. If he couldn’t return to the ranch, if he had to run, or if any of a million other things happened, he always wanted to be prepared. He had learned at a very young age that no one else was going to look out for him. Only he was going to look out for him. And for him to survive, he needed to think of everything and be as prepared as possible. The problem, though, was that no one could be prepared for everything.

  Be that as it may, Nicholas hadn’t come all this way to allow himself to be paralyzed by his doubts. He had come to repay a favor.

  Once all his gear was loaded, Nicholas gave the dogs a few minutes of exercise and then had them hop into the cargo area. He closed the tailgate, walked around to the front, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  A white-tailed hawk spun circles in the sky above as the Denali made its way across the ranch and out onto the county road, south toward McAllen.

  Had he wanted to, Nicholas could have enlisted the help of Knight’s security team, but he had decided against it. This was personal. He refrained from involving others in his affairs whenever possible. The less people knew about him, the better—even Knight’s security team.

  And while Caroline hadn’t specifically asked him to come alone, the message had been clear. She was in trouble and didn’t want anyone else to know that she had reached out to him. Fair enough. He could understand that. He had his dogs and more than a few aces in the hole, just in case.

  As he drove, he was gripped by a tumult of emotion. There was apprehension, of course. It was always that way when he traveled outside his comfort zone. There was also a twinge of excitement. It had been so long since he had last seen Caroline. She was not only brilliant, she was beautiful, and much like that evening at the hacker conference years ago, he had found himself changing clothes multiple times before settling on the right thing to wear for this meeting.

  Even he knew the effort was ridiculous. Their relationship had never been anything more than friendship, but still, she mattered to him and he wanted to look his best. In a sudden bout of impulsiveness, he had even shaved off his neatly trimmed beard in the hope that along with it he might be able to shave off a few years. It was ironic that a soul dealt such a miserable hand and treated so cruelly by life could possess such hopefulness; his insecurities were both heartbreaking and incredibly endearing to those closest to him.

  To his credit, Nicholas was no fool. He knew how the world saw him. He was well aware that romantic entanglements were not something he would ever have to worry about. And, as he grew older, he began to make peace with the idea of spending the rest of his life alone. This had caused him to place even greater value on the handful of friendships he did have. It also played a significant role in deciding to answer Caroline’s call for help.

  His mind was drawn back to the task at hand as the rugged, rural landscape of south Texas began to give way to the outlying residential communities of McAllen.

  Just over one hundred years old, McAllen was one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. It had benefited tremendously from the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, as well as the Maquiladora economy that allowed Mexican factories to import raw materials tariff free and produce goods to sell back to the United States. McAllen was in essence a boomtown catering to Americans and Mexicans alike. International trade, cross-border commerce and health care, on top of drug running and human trafficking, were making a lot of people in the Lower Rio Grande Valley very wealthy.

  And for every wealthy person the border towns of south Texas produced, there were a thousand more who would do anything just to become wealthy. It was just this category of person Nicholas was on the lookout for as he rolled into McAllen.

  One of the most common get-rich-quick schemes in Mexico was kidnapping, and it had already spilled across the border into the southern United States. While holding victims for ransom meant big paydays, “express” kidnappings were starting to come into vogue. Express kidnappings were a step above a mugging. Kidnappers first cleaned out your wallet, then forced you to the nearest ATM, where they made you withdraw the maximum amount allowed by your bank. Victims were normally then released, although some were held until the next day in order to make a second run. Nicholas didn’t plan on falling prey to either crime.

  Every time traffic slowed or he was required to stop for an intersection, he made sure to keep enough space between vehicles so that he could always see the rear tires of the vehicle in front of him. That meant he would be able to drive around the vehicle and not be boxed in.

  He was well aware of the minor “accidents” carjackers orchestrated in order to steal high-end vehicles right off the street, and he was on his guard, constantly monitoring not only what was happening in front of his SUV but also along the sides and behind.

  South Main Street was lined with old-fashioned streetlights and mostly single-story retail shops that looked like they had been built in the 1950s, their signs written in English and Spanish. Parked at an angle to the narrow concrete sidewalks was a mixture of pickup trucks, minivans, and cheap American sedans, cheek-by-jowl with BMWs, Porsches, and Mercedes. The contrast couldn’t have been more stark.

  Crossing from South Main Street to North was to literally go from one side of the tracks to the other. Instead of single-story shops, majestic palms now bordered each side of the street. There was a small, green square called Archer Park and across from it, the Casa De Palmas hotel.

  Nicholas drove past slowly, taking everything in, including the adjacent parking structure.

  A device sitting on the armrest next to him chimed and he glanced down at the screen to see “Casa De Palmas WiFi acquired.” Smiling, he continued on, familiarizing himself with the neighborhood and the different routes he might have to take on his departure.

  Half an hour later, he pulled into the McAllen Convention Bureau and Visitors’ Center parking lot and found a spot facing Archer Park and the Casa De Palmas beyond. It was now time to do what he did best.

  CHAPTER 11

  Casa De Palmas had been built in the Mission style, with archways, a mock bell tower, red Spanish roofing tiles, and a cream stucco façade offset with brilliant white trim. The original structure dated back to the early 1900s, and as far as Nicholas was co
ncerned, so did its security.

  Using the hotel’s own WiFi service as his access point, he had the Casa De Palmas’ firewalls defeated within minutes. And once he was in, he owned everything inside the hotel. Anything that touched the Casa De Palmas computer system now belonged to him.

  Nicholas began the next stage of his reconnaissance by scrolling through the guest registry. He searched for Caroline Romero’s name but came up empty. He searched credit card transactions at the hotel bar and restaurant and also came up empty. He remotely searched the concierge’s computer and still found nothing. As far as he could tell, Caroline had left no electronic “fingerprints” at the Casa De Palmas. He wasn’t surprised.

  He next shifted his attention to the hotel’s less than impressive CCTV feed. Pouring himself a small cup of espresso from the thermos he had brought, he took a sip as he clicked back and forth, studying the different images.

  All of the closed-circuit cameras were placed exactly where he expected them to be. There were feeds from the lobby, the loading bay, the different levels of the garage, and so forth. All the footage was recorded on two inexpensive, motion-activated DVRs located in the security office. As far as Nicholas could tell, they kept the footage for a week and then purged it, possibly making a hard-copy backup on a DVD or a removable drive of some sort. It didn’t make a difference. One week’s worth of footage would be more than enough.

  After studying the live camera feeds, he tapped into the DVRs and scrolled backward through the day’s traffic. He had plenty of time until his meeting with Caroline, so there was no need to rush. He was looking for anything out of the ordinary; anything that suggested he might be walking into a trap.

  When he finished scrolling through with the current day’s footage, he scrolled back and reviewed the footage from yesterday, paying particular attention to who arrived and who departed. While there were some visitors that gave him pause, most notably security men accompanying wealthy women to lunch with their girlfriends, there really wasn’t anything that set off any alarm bells. So far, so good.

  Just to be sure, Nicholas scanned one more day’s worth of footage. Content for the time being, he moved on to the next phase.

  There wasn’t anything a business did these days that wasn’t done on computer, and Casa De Palmas was a perfect case in point. Locating the HR director’s computer, Nicholas was able to figure out which security guard would be on desk duty for the evening and when he had last been off. With that knowledge, he was able to select the garage footage from which he would build his loop.

  Once he had partitioned a portion of the DVR and copied the garage footage over from two nights ago, all he had to do was rebuild the timestamp data and make sure that when the switch took place, everything synched up. It wouldn’t do any good to have the true feed to the guard be nighttime while the bogus feed from the garage still showed daylight outside.

  At best, the work was tedious, but that was all. Soon enough, Nicholas had built himself a virtual cloak of invisibility that would cover the garage. Even better was the fact that while the guard inside the security office of the hotel would be unknowingly watching footage from two nights ago, Nicholas would be able to monitor the live feeds from the garage cameras. Sitting in his SUV on the upper level, he’d be able to watch all the comings and goings from the garage and would still have access to all the footage from the remaining hotel cameras. It gave him the edge, and that edge could make all the difference between life and death.

  Checking the time, Nicholas reviewed the recent spate of arrivals at the hotel. The Casa De Palmas shuttle had recently disgorged a group of guests, presumably from the airport, and several expensive sports cars had dropped off groups of attractive, well-dressed women, many of whom seemed to know one another and had proceeded to the hotel bar.

  Watching the mostly dark-haired, Latina women arrive at the hotel, he realized that he had no idea what he was looking for. Caroline could look exactly like she had the last time he saw her or she could look completely different. It was amazing how women could so easily change their appearance. She could be a blonde for all he knew or she could look exactly like any of the women who had entered the hotel over the last half hour.

  Exercising his talents by taking over the hotel’s camera system had made him feel empowered, but realizing that he didn’t know what he was looking for began to put him on edge again.

  He thought about pouring himself more espresso but decided against it. He was amped up enough already. “Focus,” he told himself as he continued to scan the faces throughout the Casa De Palmas. Nobody was like Caroline Romero. If she was here, he had to be able to pick her out.

  He watched the video feeds for another forty-five minutes, until it was time for him to get in place. Removing the custom pistol from inside the armrest, he placed it in his lap and covered it with a jacket. It was showtime.

  Placing the Denali in reverse, he backed out of the parking space and pointed it toward the street. At the edge of the lot, he sent the “bump” to the monitors of the hotel security office. There was a flash of snow and then everything was fine. If the guard had been watching and not distracted by paperwork or texting on his cell phone, it would have appeared as if the power had momentarily dipped before coming back full strength. Unless he was attentive enough to notice that the valets taking cars at the front of the hotel weren’t driving those same cars into the garage, then everything would be fine.

  Nicholas wasn’t worried about the guard. He had enough camera feeds to keep him busy without making distinctions among the separate feeds. Besides, from what his personnel file said, the guard was a twenty-eight-year-old single male. With all the attractive women in short dresses climbing out of low-slung sports cars at the front door, it was easy to determine where his attention would be focused.

  With a quick SDR to make sure he wasn’t being followed, Nicholas rounded the corner, passed the entrance to the Casa De Palmas, and drove into the parking structure.

  He kept his eyes open for any vehicles that didn’t belong there or might portend trouble, such as a delivery truck or a large windowless van. As he wound his way to the third floor, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  After conducting a slow crawl of the upper deck to examine the other cars, he found a spot toward the center and pulled in. The sun had set over an hour ago. A smattering of lights on tall poles cast an incandescent pallor over the exposed roof of the parking garage.

  In his rearview mirror, Nicholas could make out the pedestrian bridge that led back to the hotel. As he was studying it, a chime rang from his computer.

  He looked down and clicked on one of the windows he had left open. Caroline had just posted a message for him: Coming out.

  Nicholas looked around. Was she in one of the cars? The hotel? He couldn’t be certain.

  When none of the car doors opened, he assumed she meant she was coming out from the hotel itself. Bringing up the live camera feeds from inside the hotel, he began searching for her.

  Near the bar area on the ground floor, a woman stood waiting for an elevator. Was that her? She wasn’t facing the camera. Her head was down and she seemed to be looking at her phone. She was about the right size, but so was every other woman who had walked into the hotel that night. When the elevator doors opened, she stepped inside and disappeared.

  Less than a minute later, the elevator arrived at the third floor and the woman walked out. Once again, he couldn’t see her face. She seemed to know where all the cameras were. Nicholas’s heart had begun beating faster but not because he was excited to see Caroline Romero. He had a bad feeling something wasn’t right.

  Even so, he tried to tell himself to calm down. Caroline was an exceedingly intelligent woman. If she was in enough trouble to call him for help, she was very likely in enough trouble that she didn’t want her face captured on a security camera. Nicholas wanted to believe in her abilities, but he was having a hard time. Instinctively, he reached down and wrapped his hand ar
ound the butt of his pistol. The dogs could sense their owner’s unease and leapt up in back, their eyes scanning out the cargo area windows as they tried to figure out what was going on.

  Suddenly the woman appeared on the pedestrian walkway. She stopped when she got to the parking area and looked around, unsure of where to go.

  Nicholas took a deep breath and tapped his brake lights. The woman began walking forward.

  She was attired like the other women he had seen entering the hotel that night, in heels and a short dress that clung to her body. A small cocktail purse hung from her left shoulder. The phone now gone, both of her hands appeared empty. His eyes flicked from her hands to her face, which he still couldn’t see. She walked with her head tilted down. Was she trying to throw off the cameras? Or was this all about throwing me off?

  The woman was closing in on the Denali, and Nicholas’s trepidation was going through the roof. As she neared, alarm bells started going off inside his head. Everything inside him was yelling that danger was approaching. Put the truck in gear and go—drive and don’t look back, the voices told him. Yet he ignored them. Argos and Draco had started growling.

  Any time he may have had to react was now gone. The woman was so close she could touch the vehicle. And as quickly as that, he lost sight of her.

  The dogs were now barking as they lunged at the back window. Nicholas craned his tiny neck from side to side as he tried to figure out where she had gone. A trap. He should have known.

  Revving the Denali, he prepared to slam it into gear, when a face suddenly appeared at the passenger-side window. Without even thinking, Nicholas raised his pistol to fire.