by Jay Giles
It would be difficult to control them both without a weapon. A handgun would be best. She doubted it would be hard to purchase one. Tomorrow, she’d start looking in pawn and gun shops on the fringes of town. She was in no hurry. There was time to find a gun, sight it, wait for the right opportunity to capture Albrecht and the woman.
CHAPTER 99
The ringing of the bedside phone woke Hanna. “Hello,” she answered groggily. Her wristwatch told her it was 9:00 a.m.
“Chief Soto calling, Señorita Chance. I have good news,” he told her in a chipper voice, “I have found your man for you.”
That perked Hanna up. “Wonderful,” she exclaimed. “So quickly, too. I’m impressed.”
“Honestly, I got lucky. My cousin Ruis is a police officer in Nuevo Vallarta. He knew this man.”
“So where is he? Where is Nuevo Vallarta?”
“Just north of here. It’s a newer area—newer resorts, newer houses.”
“Okay.”
“Here’s what I would suggest. Let me take you there, we can observe if he is the one. If we are correct, and I am certain we will be, Ruis will arrest him for you. This is acceptable with you?”
“Yes, I appreciate your assistance, Chief Soto.”
“No problem.” A smile came into his voice. “What we call professional courtesy, yes?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“I will pick you up at your hotel at 10:30. Is that good?”
“Yes, that will work.”
“I suggest you look like tourists, wear swimsuits, cover-ups. That will make you less conspicuous.”
“Okay,” Hanna said a little hesitantly. “We can do that.”
“Good. I will see you in front of your hotel at 10:30.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Hanna said, pressed the receiver button, dialed Miles’ room. “Soto found him,” she said excitedly when Miles came on the phone.
“Wow, quick.”
“He said yesterday it would be, I didn’t believe him, but I’ll take it. He’s picking us up at 10:30. Oh, and we’re supposed to wear swimsuits.”
“Swimsuits? Why?”
“Soto wants us to look like tourists. Fit in.”
As they walked out of the hotel lobby to meet him, Miles thought they looked sufficiently touristy. Hanna wore a tank top, shorts over her suit, had a canvas carry bag looped over her shoulder. Miles wore a Tampa Bay Bucs tee-shirt, cargo shorts over his suit. Hanna had started to wear a pair of flip-flops, but Miles had her change into her running shoes. He had on a comfortable pair of trail shoes.
They spotted Soto standing in front of his car, a beige VW Jetta. He was wearing a straw hat, flowered shirt tails out, beige slacks, sandals. He definitely looked like a local. With him was a thin, wiry man with a wispy black moustache, black hair gelled back. He wore white pants and a green and brown bowling shirt. Soto introduced him as his cousin, Ruis Fernandez, of the Nuevo Vallarta police.
“Ruis doesn’t speak English good as me,” Soto said smiling. Ruis nodded in agreement. “So he’ll drive, I’ll talk.” Again, Ruis nodded.
Miles and Hanna got in the back seat. Ruis started the car, pulled into traffic. Soto put his arm on top of the seat, looked back to talk to them. “We’re going to drive to Nuevo harbor, maybe a thirty-minute trip.”
“To his house?” Hanna asked.
Soto smiled. “Ruis tells me he lives in a big yellow palazzo on top of the cliff. But no, that is not where we are going. We are on our way to the Marina where he keeps a boat. Most days, he works on the boat or takes it out fishing.”
“Red snapper,” Ruis said. He looked in the rear view mirror at them, grinned.
“A good eating fish,” Soto added, “plentiful right now.” He turned, faced forward in his seat.
They drove through the countryside. Miles watched out his window, taking in the people, houses, billboards. He knew they were near the water when he started seeing elaborate hotel entrances. He heard the clicking of the turn signal, the car slowed, Ruis turned left into a driveway, stopped at the gate. The guard came over to the car, Ruis said policia, showed his badge, the guard waved them on.
They drove slowly down a road lined with expensive houses. Ahead Miles could see sailboat masts poking up into the bright blue sky. Ruis parked. Soto turned in his seat to face them, his expression serious. “Does he know either of you by sight?”
“No,” Hanna answered.
“Good. Then we will all go, see if the boat is there.”
They walked through the parking lot to the wooden dock, a long affair, with branches at regular intervals on either side, Miles estimated the dock might have had as many as a hundred slips, half of which held boats. Ruis led them to the third branch on the right, pointed to an empty space.
Soto verbalized the obvious. “He’s out.”
“Now what?” Hanna asked.
“No problem,” Soto said easily, “we go by boat. Ruis knows where he fishes. You can look at him through glasses. That is acceptable, yes?”
Hanna didn’t see that she had any choice. “It’s going to have to be.”
They followed Ruis to a thirty-foot Cris-Craft sportfisher. “This is a boat Ruis seized from dope smugglers,” Soto explained as they got on. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, “I must help Ruis get us underway.”
It didn’t take them long, however. In just ten minutes, the boat pulled away from the dock. In five, it was out of the no wake zone. The engine noise, wind increased as Ruis opened the throttles, headed out to sea. Hanna and Miles sat in captain’s chairs on the aft deck. Behind them, land grew more and more distant.
Soto came over, pointed further out to sea, shouted to be heard above the engine noise, “See that spec? That is a small island. That is where he will be fishing.”
Miles nodded. When they were closer to the island he could see it was uninhabited, little more than rock and scrub vegetation.
Ruis throttled down, the nose of the boat seemed to settle in the water.
Hanna got up from her seat. “Chief, I don’t see any his boat?”
“Neither do I,” Soto said as he drew a pistol from under the tail of his shirt and pointed it at Hanna.
CHAPTER 100
Dennis Casper flew to Puerto Vallarta a day later on the same flights Miles and Hanna had taken. Casper was in good spirits, glad to be on the road. He’d just finished a two bags of airline peanuts and a plastic thimble full of soda. In forty minutes, the plane would be landing in Mexico.
Casper’s jovial mood stemmed from the turn his meeting with Shuloff had taken. Casper had gone into the meeting thinking it was the first step in a disciplinary action. Instead, Shuloff temporarily reinstated him.
Casper could feel O’Neill’s hand at work. Shuloff wouldn’t have reinstated him, sent him to Mexico. It had to be O’Neill giving him one last opportunity to resurrect himself.
Casper was equally happy about what hadn’t happened at the meeting. He’d had three hours of exposure to indirect sunlight, which should have given him a bad burn. It hadn’t. In fact, he’d exposed himself to direct sunlight for twenty minutes before returning to his condo and only had the slightest color to show for it. Casper was convinced the change in his blood pressure medication had worked.
The travel department had booked him into the hotel where Chance and Marin were staying. His plan was to get settled, connect with them, reinsert himself into the investigation.
To look good for O’Neill, he needed to do something impressive, something newsworthy. He imagined a video clip of him taking Albrecht and Silber into custody, playing on all the cable news and talk shows. Of course, that would mean stealing the credit from Chance. Casper abhorred the thought of doing that to a fellow agent, but what choice did he have? Without something tasty, O’Neill would either cashier him out or let him whither away in some God-forsaken meaningless position.
Casper steeled himself. When the opportunity presented itself, he had to grab it.
CHAPTER 101
Marike worked out in the hotel’s fitness center, showered, had a light lunch, before she found a cab and negotiated with the driver to take her shopping. Once the fee had been agreed to, she had him take her to the straw market, where she bought a straw shoulder bag.
Back in the cab, she leaded forward, said to the driver, “I need to buy a gun. Do you know a good place?”
He turned, looked at her, puzzled.
“For protection. I need a handgun. Can you take me someplace where they sell handguns?”
His puzzled expression became knowing. He nodded, put the car in gear, drove her to a low, one-story stucco building, its walls covered with faded posters, its windows covered with bars. He turned off the ignition, pointed at the building. “This is the best place to buy a gun, señorita.”
Marike got out, pulled open the building’s heavy wooden door, stepped into a large, dimly lit room. Display cases were set away from three of the four walls. There were five men, no women, in the room. All were Mexican, three behind the counter. The other two might have been customers, might have been hanging out. All stared at her.
She walked to one of the display counters, said to the man behind it, “I’m interested in a Glock 27.40 or a HK 9mm. What can you show me?”
He watched her, his eyes wary.
“Do you want to sell me a gun or will somebody else get my money?”
“I have several, señorita,” he said in passable English and led her to another display case. He placed a towel on the glass counter, placed two guns on the towel. Both were Heckler & Koch models.
“No Glocks?”
He shook his head.
Marike didn’t touch either gun. “How much?”
He gave her the price in pesos.
“In dollars.”
He got a calculator, figured the conversion, held his hand over the first gun. “New. Fifteen hundred U.S.” His hand moved to the second one. “Slightly used. I make good price. Eight hundred U.S.”
Both guns were used, the second one, in poor condition. Neither was worth half what he was asking. She pointed to the new gun. “I’ll want to fire it.”
He nodded, picked it up. “Follow me.” He walked to a firing pit, put a shell in, handed the gun to her. Marike felt the heft of the gun, let her hand get comfortable on the grip, brought her other hand up, held the gun in the correct two-handed stance, fired into the water. She was prepared for the recoil, but not for the loudness of the explosion. Her ears rang.
She handed the gun back to the man. It would do. “Show me what else you have,” she said.
She looked at five more handguns. None as good as the one she’d fired, but good for negotiation purposes. She ended up with the HK she’d fired, two boxes of ammunition for a thousand US. Not too bad.
CHAPTER 102
Hanna looked at the gun. “What's going on, Chief?”
Ruis now had his gun out, too, pointed at Miles.
A smile appeared on the Soto's face. Ruis took a camera phone out of his pocket, handed it to him. Soto took a picture of Ruis holding the gun on them. He checked the picture, put the phone in his pocket, waved the gun toward the side of the boat. His face turned serious. “Out of the boat. On the island.”
Hanna and Miles climbed over the side, landed in waist-deep water, waded ashore. Ruis followed them, carrying duct tape and rope. He led them to an area where they'd be hidden by brush. He tied Miles’ hands and feet first, put a piece of duct tape over his mouth. Hanna got the same treatment. When he was finished with Hanna, Ruis checked Miles' ropes one more time, gave a satisfied grunt and left. Miles and Hanna heard the gurgle of the boat's exhaust decrease as they rode away.
Lying on her side on the sandy soil, Hanna strained at her bonds, found them tight. She turned over, faced Miles. If his were as tight as hers, there wasn’t any hope.
Miles tested his bonds. He'd flexed his shoulders, tensed his arms, hoping to create a little play in the ropes. After a half-hour's effort, he decided that hadn’t helped.
He rolled close to Hanna, pushed, grunted, got her to roll over so her back was to his. He maneuvering his body so his hands were next to hers. He felt the ropes around her wrists with his fingers, tried to form a mental picture of how the knots were tied.
He found an end, began working it as much as he could. His fingers didn't have much range of movement and had even less leverage on the ropes. The knot was stubborn. It simply refused to budge.
Miles found another end, tried it, was rewarded for his efforts with the slightest hint of movement in the rope. Encouraged, he worked harder, his fingers straining to loosen the rope further. But no matter what he did, how hard he tried, the knot stayed tight.
He stopped, rested, thought about what to try next. If he couldn't use his fingers to loosen the knots, maybe he could use his teeth. He scooted in the sand, until the tape over his mouth was right by Hanna's fingers. He rubbed the tape against her fingertips, trying to help her find the edge. Miles knew she understood what he was trying when she began picking at the edge of the tape with her fingernail. After a couple of tries, she got enough of an edge loose that she could pinch two fingers together and hold it. She made a garbled sound that Miles took as a signal. Slowly he began to turn his head, gently pulling loose from the tape. It took more than five minutes, but finally, he was able to completely pull loose of the tape.
“It's off,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I'm going to use my teeth on those knots.” He wiggled in the sand, until his mouth was right by her wrists. Now that he wasn't working behind his back and could see what he was doing, he found the right knot, bit down on it, tried to tug it loose.
The effort hurt his teeth, bruised his lips. His jaw ached painfully by the time he felt the first knot loosen. “I got the first one,” he said between breaths. Hanna mumbled encouragement. Miles licked his tender lips, began working on the second knot. It proved more stubborn than the first, took much longer, but ultimately loosened. “The second one's loose,” Miles told her.
Hanna could tell. The tension had relaxed. She moved her lower arms, was able to free her wrists completely. As soon as those ropes were off, she went to work on the ropes binding her arms to her chest. She got those off, pulled the tape off her mouth.
“Oh, my God, you're amazing,” Hanna said as she worked on Miles' wrists. With his wrists free, Miles untied his chest and feet.
They stood, hugged. Hanna had tears running down her face. “The ropes were so tight, I didn't think there was any way we could get out.”
Miles held her tight, felt her body against his. “There's always a way,” he assured her. His gaze was on the mainland, off in the distance. “How good a swimmer are you?”
“Not very.” She pulled away from him in alarm. “We can't swim that. We'd never make it.”
Miles looked at her, smiled confidently. “If we're here when they come back, they'll kill us.”
Hanna protested. “But I'll never be—”
“I'll help you,” Miles told her. “We'll do it together.”
“It's too far.” There was fear in her eyes.
Miles tried to gage the distance. It was two miles, possibly three. “It's going to take us a while, and it won't be easy, but we can do it.”
What worried Miles wasn't the swim. When they reached land, it would be at the base of a steep cliff. They'd be exhausted from the swim, and still need to battle currents intent on smashing them against the rocks.
CHAPTER 103
Soto docked the boat, while Ruis made the phone call. He grinned when it was picked-up after a lone ring. They must have been waiting right by the phone.
“Hello,” the woman's voice said.
“It is Ruis, señorita, I have news, but I do not wish to tell you over the phone. We come by the house, yes?”
“Yes. That's fine. We'll be expecting you.”
Ruis clicked off, helped Soto finish cleaning up the Cris-Craft. They drove to house, rang the bell. Monique opened
the door, her face anxious. Albrecht was two steps behind her. “Come in, come in.” She closed the door behind them.
“We have captured the FBI agents,” Ruis told them. He took the phone from his pocket, held it up so they could see the picture.
Albrecht leaned over Monique's shoulder, squinted at it. “How do we know those are FBI agents?” He asked.
Soto handed him the badge he'd taken from Hanna's purse. Albrecht glanced at it quickly, handed it back.
“These FBI agents--” Ruis began.
“Yes,” Monique said nervously.
“--they've made us a offer. $200,000 each, to let them live.”
“You'll never see that money,” Albrecht scoffed. “They'll have you arrested,”
Soto shook his head. “No, not the way we would work it. We would be far away.”
“This is preposterous,” Monique snorted. “This isn't an auction—”“Oh, but it is, señorita,” Soto said smiling. “And you are low bidder.”
CHAPTER 104
Marike rented a Jeep at the hotel. She drove away with no specific destination in mind. She was counting on the road to guide her. And it did. It led her out of town on four-lane blacktop. In fifteen minutes, it shrank to two lanes. Forty-minutes later, the blacktop gave way to crushed rock and dirt. Marike bumped along the dirt road for another twenty-minutes, until it disappeared into a grassy field.
She stopped the car, got out, surveyed the area. No houses. No noise. No people. Perfect. She took two empty soft drink cans, her newly purchased gun and ammunition from her straw shoulder bag. She placed the cans on a rock, twenty yards from the car, loaded the gun.
She took her time learning the gun. Over the next half-hour, she fired twenty rounds. By the time she finished, she knew it fired slightly low, slightly left. She made adjustments, fired five more rounds. Each round hit one of the cans.