by M C Rowley
She drew them out and stood and spread them on the black mattress. I stood next to her as she organized them into a fan shape.
They were old photos somewhere rural. Groups of strangers, arms around each other, at parties and gatherings. Photos of men mainly, although there were some women dripping off them in a few. Most of the photos were clearly taken in the same location, a ranch by the look of it. Everyone had shades on—it looked like a hot place.
We spread them out and began going through them. I started recognizing the same faces in a lot of them: macho men with cowboy hats and dark glasses, thumbs inserted into tight Levis with big belt buckles. Some of the photos had children in them, too. Running around the men, enjoying the party. I was studying one in particular when Eleanor let out a gasp.
I turned to her and she seemed to be swaying, like she was going to faint. She had never fainted in all the years I had known her, but I swore this was the time it might happen.
“What is it?”
Eleanor said nothing. Her hand, holding a photo, was shaking rapidly. She passed it to me.
It was a photo of three kids, two girls either side of a boy. The girls were about sixteen, I guessed. The boy was about ten. He was smiling at the camera, clearly proud of sharing the moment with two older girls. His grin was wide and beautiful. It was like looking at the mirror image of one of my own childhood photos.
Because I knew the boy I was looking at.
I was looking at Jairo.
Eleanor grabbed the photo back. She had never seen our son as a child. I knew what it was doing to her. I put my hand on her back and rubbed.
“Jesus Christ,” was all I managed to say.
“Why would Reynolds have this?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, El. Keep it. Let’s keep all of this.”
Eleanor nodded—then froze like she had heard something.
I had heard it, too.
Footsteps, slow and deliberate. Light and measured.
Eleanor’s finger shot to her lips.
But it was too late. The footsteps had made it to our floor. They were coming down the hallway towards this room.
We didn’t have a gun. We didn’t have a way out. There was nothing to do but wait.
The footsteps reached the door and stopped. Then the door began to open and a woman with black hair walked in and looked at us.
She was holding a gun in her right hand. She was dressed in the same black combat gear I had seen her wearing in the jungle.
It was Luciana.
Chapter Twelve
Jean sat on the other couch across from Jairo. She had wanted to shoot him after helping Scott and Eleanor escape the night before, but she’d resisted the urge. Technically, they had done nothing wrong and if they felt the need to go on a solo mission, what could she do to stop them? She had decided to sleep at the office, keeping an eye on Jairo though. He had apologized for what he’d done. She’d said nothing. She sipped some of the coffee she’d prepared and looked at Jairo.
He was still dressed in the gray t-shirt and pants from two days ago. His beard was four centimeters in length now and his cropped hair was more of a mini afro. She looked at his tattoos. On his right arm was the Statue of Liberty, mono-color, with a skull for a face. Around it were hundreds of micro symbols and shapes etched into his skin. On the other arm geometric patterns were entwined with each other. Jean decided none of them held any particular meaning.
“Rose is a hard-ass,” she said. “But he’s a good man. He knows your daughter is out there.”
Jairo snorted. “Doesn’t seem to give much of a shit to me.”
Jean went to answer but decided to stay quiet. Jairo was right.
“But I give a shit,” she said after a long ten seconds of silence.
“I know how this works. You’re the CIA. You don’t care about the collateral damage, as long as your government is satisfied with the results.”
Jean ignored the attack. “Jairo, have you ever met Reynolds? You can tell me.”
Jairo shook his head and took a sip.
Jean could tell he was hiding something. A lot of things, in fact. But getting anything more than a few words at a time out of Jairo Morales was a miracle of sorts.
“When was the last time you saw the Sons? The men in the photo with you.”
“Dunno,” he said. “Five years, I guess.”
“And if you had to say,” she continued, “what does Reynolds want?”
Jairo shrugged. “The cartel worked with a lot of people with a lot of different motives. Politicians who would suck dick to get a new position. Business owners who’d take on a loan at three hundred percent interest. Kids. Like me.”
Jean purposefully took a long sip of coffee. She waited for Jairo to say more. But he didn’t.
“You saying the Sons worked with Reynolds before?”
“I ain’t saying shit.”
“But you said they worked with different people with different motives.”
“We pissed a lot of people off.”
Jean leaned back, trying to relax Jairo, who was doing the opposite, fidgeting in his seat, legs bobbing up and down like pistons.
“Could all this be about revenge?”
Jairo stayed quiet but stared back at Jean.
Come on, she thought, urging him with all her might to tell her something. He went to open his mouth. This is it, she thought. Come on.
But as Jairo went to speak, the door slammed open and they turned to see Rose bowl into the room, accompanied by two heavies dressed in shirts and slacks. They were at least six foot four each and towered over Jean’s boss.
She said, “Sir?”
“Take Morales downstairs,” said Rose, pointing at Jairo, who had twisted on the sofa, his right arm against its back now. “Lock him up in the cells.”
“Cells?”
Rose glared at Jean. “Should’ve done this from the start. Yes, we have cells. How else would we have held the gangster friends of Morales here? He’ll be safe. But right now he’s a risk. And I am not having him around this operation any longer. After what he did last night? He’s a danger. Take him.”
The two heavies walked either side of the sofa and Jairo got up, teeth gritted, ready to fight.
Jean argued with her boss. “Sir, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Take him now,” repeated Rose, and the heavies grabbed each of Jairo’s arms and began dragging him to the door. Jairo didn’t fight but he didn’t make it easy for them either. Rose followed them out of the door and Jean followed him.
They walked quickly down the stairs, through the secure door, to the lobby and to a door at the back that Jean had supposed led to other office spaces. But it didn’t. Beyond the wooden door was a second metal door with a keypad. Rose punched in the code and it opened.
“Same code as upstairs. I’ll get the lights,” he said.
Then the room flooded with white light. Ten cells, five either side of a passageway in the middle. A toilet in each, and a bed formed out of cement with meager blankets on top.
“Here,” said Rose, punching another code into the first cell’s keypad and opening it up. The heavies threw Jairo inside and walked back as Rose activated the lock.
Jean said, “You can’t do this, sir. He isn’t an official prisoner.”
“Can’t I, Agent Santos?”
Jean knew he was right. Guantanamo Bay was a prime example of how the Agency did whatever was deemed necessary to protect the motherland.
“We need Morales,” she said.
But Rose ignored her and walked away. She followed him as he closed the main door again and ordered the heavies to return to Langley, who walked to the glass doors and out onto the street. Jean then followed Rose back upstairs, where he began looking for his own cup of coffee.
“We need Jairo, sir. At least three of the Sons are totally out of our reach. But I’ve been thinking, and Jairo, he could—”
Rose held up his hand to cut her of
f. “I don’t think so,” he said. “We won’t be meeting Reynolds’ demands. He can stick them up his anonymous ass. Finchley and the bosses upstairs don’t want to take such risks based on such flimsy intel.”
Jean stepped back, aware that her arms were crossed. “Reynolds is for real, sir.”
Rose had found a cup. He poured some coffee and took a sip. “We can get Reynolds ourselves. He screwed up.”
“Huh?”
“He screwed up,” said Rose again. “Local cops found a John Doe in the Providence Hospital a few days back.”
“So?”
“He had been poisoned. Same shit Reynolds was using with Luciana in Mexico.”
“Jesus,” said Jean.
“Turns out the stiff was Peter Cassidy. Ex-director of Lehman Brothers.”
“From the crash?”
Rose nodded. “Cassidy was banned from trading years ago. But he managed to keep a lot of his personal assets, and somehow he’s been able to buy five houses in the last five years, and even rent one of the most expensive offices in downtown Manhattan. Way out of what his price range should be.”
“So Reynolds was using his funds? Cassidy was an investor in Reynolds and Código X?”
“Yep,” said Rose. “We’ll keep Jairo locked up while this blows over, and Dyce and his wife will be arrested as fugitives once we report them to the FBI and all this goes away.”
Jean stood up straight and walked toward her boss. She had to control her fists. “What about the girl, Estrella? She’s six years old.”
Rose shrugged. “If we get her, it’s a bonus. But the priority is Reynolds and his business with these founders. Americans funding the biggest cartel in Mexico’s history. This is a coup for us, Agent Santos. A fucking coup!”
“You can’t do that.”
Rose slurped coffee from his oversized mug, “Watch me."
Chapter Thirteen
I shifted my body in front of Eleanor, but she raised an arm and moved me to the side. Luciana stood across the room from us, four meters away. She looked tired but still alert, like a soldier. I supposed she was a soldier, Reynolds’ soldier. Eleanor’s hand trembled on my shoulder.
I said, “We haven’t seen anything. Let us go.”
Luciana remained still, her dark eyes staring right into mine.
“Listen, we’re just trying to find our granddaughter. Nothing more.”
Luciana stayed quiet.
Eleanor said at my side, “This bitch killed Jairo’s girlfriend, Vanessa. What did you do with our Estrella? If you’ve hurt her, I will make you pay for it—you get that, bitch?”
I shushed Eleanor. Luciana’s mouth twisted into a half-smile, more of a smirk.
“No, El,” I said. “Listen, Luciana. We haven’t found anything here. We’re looking for Estrella, that’s all. The CIA, they don’t care about her. We’re on the run from them, too. Like you.”
Luciana said, “I’m not running.”
I took a deep breath. Eleanor’s hand was going into pneumatic mode, drumming my shoulder.
“We haven’t found anything. You’re not compromised,” I said.
“Yes, you did,” said Luciana, pointing at the photos spread out on the bed, and the one I was holding of Jairo and the two girls.
“Well…they’re just photos.”
Luciana stepped sideways, not towards us, but across the doorway. “I knew him. Your son.”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew Jairo.”
“Look through the box. You’ll find one of us.”
We glanced at her.
“Or maybe you already found it. Take a closer look.”
Eleanor reached a hand across my chest and dragged the photo toward her without taking it from my grasp. We peered at it.
The girl to the right of Jairo, as we were looking at it, was sneering at the photographer in a mocking way, sticking her tongue out in jest, eyes screwed up. The hair, the frame—they were the same. We were looking at a younger version of Luciana. She was skinny and tall, her t-shirt hanging like a tent. Her arm was around Jairo’s shoulders, her hand linking with the other girl’s.
Eleanor stepped back and looked up at Luciana. “Where was this taken?”
Luciana said, “At the ranch. Where they kept the kids.”
Eleanor gripped my arm tight. I thought she might faint. It was all too much for one day.
I said, “The ranch?”
Luciana nodded. “The ranch. That’s what we called it. Where the kids grew up. Jairo, many others. Me.”
I breathed deeply. I realized what that meant.
“You were abducted, too. As a child.”
Luciana’s head didn’t move, but her eyes said yes.
“Christ.”
Eleanor sat down on the bed behind us, on top of the spread-out photos. I gave her the photo of Jairo and Luciana and she stared at it, tears accumulating in the corners of her eyes, and then she pocketed it.
I turned back to Luciana. “Are you here to kill us?”
Luciana walked sideways again, circling the room but maintaining the same four-meter distance between us. “I was supposed to,” she said. “Well, kill you at least.”
“But you’re not going to?”
“No.”
My instinct was telling me to believe her. Her tone of voice, her movements, her posture—nothing suggested an impending sudden attack. And besides, if she wanted me dead, she could do it. I’d seen her operate, and Jairo wasn’t here to save our asses.
I said, “Why?”
“I know who Reynolds is. I won’t tell you, as that knowledge is my only insurance in this move. But I know who he is, and I realized that I was recruited under false pretenses.”
Luciana stepped sideways once more, moving anti-clockwise around the room. I stepped to my right, clockwise, to counter it.
“Go on,” I said.
“I was one of the babies taken by the Sons of No One to be brought up by their doñas on the ranch, like Jairo. Occasionally, they abducted a baby girl by accident. It happened. The other girl in that photo was such a case.”
“What happened to her?”
Luciana looked down. “Sold into sex slavery.”
I said nothing.
“I was one of the few who made it. The boys are treated like little princes. The girls…well, they’re put to use. First, it’s cleaning and cooking, and then…” She paused and looked back up at me. “Then they find other uses for us.”
Eleanor was looking at Luciana now. She knew what went on. She’d dedicated decades of her life to trying to find Jairo and learned a lot about the horrors of the cartel and what they were capable of.
“My doña helped me. Kind of. She knew of the abuse. The rapes, the parties. And she knew what awaited me—the market for young girls is profitable. So she got me out. One afternoon she took me on a bus to Oaxaca City and left me in a McDonald’s. I was eighteen. And I was homeless.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“The rest,” said Luciana, “is my life. What I became. I only knew the cartel way of life, and you can take the girl out of the cartel but you can’t take the cartel out of the girl. Same for the boys. Same for Jairo. You know, the boys are made to murder their doñas when they turn eighteen. Jairo did that. His was Doña Morales, a good lady. He loved her. She was his mother. He shot her in a cornfield.”
I felt Eleanor bristle. It was its own type of abuse. Not what Luciana had suffered, but brutal abuse all the same.
“Reynolds, as he calls himself, found me two years ago. He promised me revenge. Against the men who had stolen my life. I accepted. And now we’re here.”
I said, “So if you won’t tell us who Reynolds is, what will you give us?”
“You’re working with the CIA. They can catch Reynolds. But I want immunity, a visa, a new identity. The whole lot. If you can get me that in writing, I’ll reveal his true identity.”
“Okay,” I said. “What will you give us now?”
<
br /> “I know where he is,” she said. “Where he’ll be for the next two days, at least.”
Chapter Fourteen
“He’s no good to us locked up down there,” said Jean.
Rose waved a hand at her. “I’ll be the judge of that.” He walked around the table and sat down, letting out a huge sigh. “I told you, he’s no use to us up here either.”
Jean stepped back, at odds with herself. She didn’t know where to go with this next.
“We can catch Reynolds,” said Rose. “We found this.”
He tapped on his laptop a couple of times and spun it around to face Jean. She got closer to it and looked. It was a Wikipedia entry for a company called Reynolds Shipping Co.
“So what? Reynolds isn’t exactly an uncommon name.”
“You’re right,” said Rose. “But there aren’t many shipping companies called Reynolds that have a direct connection with the Sons of No One.”
Jean leant against the wall. “What do you mean?”
“We looked for every reference to the name Reynolds and then cross-checked it with the ten guys we’ve got in the photo, including your boy Jairo. Reynolds is a shipping company, or rather was—it’s closed now. Went bankrupt five years ago. But around two decades back it was one of the biggest operations in the Americas. They used to launder money for the Sons of No One cartel. Nothing was ever proved because the case was dropped, we think after a massive payoff outside of the courts. But look at it and you can see the connections are pretty sturdy.”
“Okay,” said Jean. “But what does that prove about the man who calls himself Reynolds?”
“Nothing yet. But it can’t be a coincidence. That and the boxes he used to bury Jairo’s girlfriend. Remember? The shallow graves where we found Vanessa? The makeshift coffins had Reynolds Shipping Co. printed on them. They mean something to him.”
“We need to run checks on every employee who ever worked for Reynolds Shipping.”
“Already on it.”