by M C Rowley
Rose stood up straight. “Now, look, I didn’t mean any offense, Officer.”
“Well, I’m gonna have to check this out up top.”
“By all means,” said Rose. “Look, this is on the down-low, though.” He leaned over the desk to be closer to the cop and lowered his voice. “Homeland Security matter. Mr. Duran is going to lead us to some bad hombres down south, if you get my drift.”
The guard looked back at Rose, clearly still put out by the “all Feds being dicks” comment.
“Still gonna need authorization, sir.”
“Alright,” said Rose. “Alright. I can’t believe I have to do this. But fuck it.” He drew out a business card and passed it to the cop. “That’s Senator Conner’s direct line. He’ll back it up. Just give him the details and we’ll be good to go.”
The cop stood for the first time and took the card from Rose’s hand. “I’ll need your ID, too.”
“Go ahead,” said Rose.
The cop took the card and Rose’s ID and went out back.
Rose span around and winked at me for a millisecond. The other guards had stopped talking and were watching us cautiously. Rose was enjoying this. He was in his element, I could tell.
After five long minutes, the cop came back and sat down at the desk once more.
“It checks out,” he said. “The prisoner will be ready in thirty.”
He handed back the business card and Rose’s ID, and Rose shook his hand vigorously.
“Thank you, Officer, thank you very much.”
Rose turned to me and flicked his head toward the door, a smirk on his face. “Let’s go wait outside for their heavies to bring Señor Duran.”
Outside, the sun blared down on us and I was sweating in the suit. We waited for the designated thirty minutes, and sure enough, on the dot, the main doors swung open and two big cops, clearly assigned as guards for the small jail, strode out into the sunlight.
Rose stepped forward. “Where’s Duran?”
The guards exchanged glances and then stared back at Rose. “Come inside, please, sir.”
I stood still, watching Rose start to come to the boil.
“Where is he?” Rose squared up to the two cops, who together had two feet in height on him. “What the hell is going on?”
The cops didn’t flinch. “Please, sir. Come inside.”
They turned and headed towards the door. Rose followed, and I followed him.
Back inside, the cop who had been behind the desk before walked over to us. “There’s been an incident.”
Rose looked at him like he had spoken Mandarin, his face contorted like an angry clown’s. “What is it?”
“The prisoner,” said the cop. “Miguel Angel Duran, right?”
“Yes,” said Rose.
“He’s dead,” said the cop.
Rose said nothing. The tension could have been cut with a knife. I waited for Rose’s explosion, but the cop spoke again.
“We checked the records. Yesterday you brought a Jairo Morales in, Right?”
Rose’s head shot up and he glared at the cop again. “What about him?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” said the cop. “I don’t get why you’re here.”
Rose seemed as perplexed as I was and he even shot me a glance.
The cop continued, “One of yours signed him out this morning. He’s gone.”
Chapter Twenty-One
After shouting at the cop and his team for ten minutes, Rose stormed out of the station and I followed. The cops promised to send CCTV footage of whoever it was who’d released Jairo. We knew that it was Reynolds. But would he have been so stupid as to get himself filmed at a cop shop? I doubted that.
The SUV drove fast, under Rose’s orders, to the office through the DC streets while he filled Jean in over the phone on what had happened. My mind was doing backflips as it attempted to process what Jairo had done. Had he been working with Reynolds all along? Would he sign off on killing the mother of his child? And as was always the case with my son, I remembered that he had been brought up a killer, by the cartel. Nothing was impossible for them.
We arrived at the faux frontage of the office and I followed Rose’s stomps to the door, through the lobby, and up into the hidden part, where Jean and Eleanor were waiting for us.
We all kept quiet. I went to Eleanor and hugged her, and we all sat down on the sofas around the coffee table and stared into nothingness.
Then, after five minutes of silence, Jean spoke. “We have to wait to see if Reynolds sends another message.”
Rose grunted. “Regardless,” he said, looking at Eleanor and me, “your son is now a prime suspect, to be treated as an associate of Mr. Reynolds until we catch the son of a bitch.”
Eleanor bristled. “You can’t prove that. Maybe he was taken by Reynolds.”
Rose sneered and then laughed at the notion.
I had to admit, not without a little shame, that I was more on Rose’s side here. Jairo had shown nothing but contempt for our worries about finding his daughter. He had not helped at all. And as soon as he got his chance to flee, he had done so.
Jean sensed the tension building. “We wait for Reynold’s next message. Until then, we know nothing.”
“And until we get the CCTV footage from this morning,” said Rose.
Jean nodded.
It didn’t take long. About thirty minutes later, Rose called Jean over to his laptop.
After they’d chatted in hushed voices for a while, Rose called over, “Reynolds sent me an encrypted email. I tried tracing it, but it’s too buried for us to find anything.”
Eleanor got up first. “And what does it say?”
Jean stepped forward. “It says that we must keep working on capturing the Sons. He doesn’t mention Duran or your son. He says if we don’t get another Son within three days, there will be more attacks.”
“And we can’t have that,” said Rose.
Eleanor nodded.
I said, “So? Where is the next guy?”
Rose stood. “Mauricio Solano. He’s in a Mexican jail. Jairo was our way in.”
I said, “So?”
“So,” said Rose, “we’re going to send you instead.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What do you mean, send me?”
Jean said, “We still have the cover that Luciana provided you with before, in Topo Chico. We can use that to create an ID that’ll hold up in Mexico City.”
“What kind of ID?”
“CIA.”
Rose spoke now. “We can’t operate there. But we can’t stop a guy going rogue and faking it as a CIA agent to get his son back.”
Jean said, “We can get papers ready for you to extradite the American prisoner, Eric Lammy, there. We’ll make his ID to fit Mauricio Solano’s photo. A bit of smoke and mirrors. We fly you down there. You go in and out. Whole operation’ll take less than 24 hours.”
I nodded—as if I had another choice.
“But,” said Rose, “if you get busted, you’re on your own. No help from us. Nothing.”
Eleanor looked at me. Her face was sad but pleading.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “But I want you to help us find Estrella.”
Rose dropped his head.
Jean nodded. “We will, Scott. I promise.”
“Okay then,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
The plan was that I’d travel to Mexico City that afternoon, go straight to the prison, and escape with Mauricio Solano back to the States. Unofficially backed by the CIA.
What could go wrong?
Rose assured me that Mexico was in such a state right now that a little explosion outside a prison would hardly interest the authorities. Jean would come, of course.
I asked Rose why Reynolds wouldn’t just order Código X to break this guy out, and he told me Mexico’s capital was the only place the Mexican federal authorities still had under their control.
Before I left I walked Eleanor into one of the empty
rooms adjoining the office area.
“This is our best chance of finding Jairo, and Estrella,” I said.
“He’s innocent,” said Eleanor.
I couldn’t lie to her, so I kept quiet and held her tight.
“Push Rose to find leads on Estrella while I’m gone.”
Eleanor nodded and kissed me.
Two hours later, Jean and I were on a military plane headed to Texas. There, we disembarked and got on a small twin-prop with a single pilot and flew over the border into Mexico.
After another three hours, we landed in Mexico City, on a private runway away from the main two terminals. Jean and I got down from the plane, and I waited away from it while Jean gave instructions to the pilot. She finished and walked to me and nodded.
“We’re on our own.”
“Yep,” I said.
Jean carried the papers we needed. Rose had asked a friend in Langley to help, and within two hours he’d managed to get a fake passport for me and Jean and the forged extradition papers.
I looked around us at the parked private planes of various sizes and styles.
“How do we get out of here?”
Jean scanned the perimeter. “Not sure yet. Hold on.”
She jogged in the direction of the nearest fence, and I stood there like a lemon, waiting.
I thought about Jairo the whole time. I felt betrayal. I felt anger at him for getting Eleanor and me drawn into this mess. And for his coldness at leaving his own daughter motherless and abandoned. And then I felt the familiar guilt: it wasn’t his fault he had been abducted by a gang just one hour after he was born. What chance had he had? I kicked a stone on the pavement as Jean came running back to me through the shadows. Her face had changed. She looked half excited, half worried.
“Change of plan,” she said. “Quick, come.”
I followed her through the private jets, parallel to one of the terminals, until we reached an old 737 parked to die.
“Stop,” she said. “Look.”
I peered around the nose of the plane and saw a hangar with the lights on. A small plane not dissimilar to our own was being prepped. The pilot was in the cockpit already. And then, from behind the plane, came a younger man holding an older man by the scruff of his neck. The older man had his hands tied together and looked distressed.
I didn’t recognize the older man.
The younger man was my son, Jairo.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I turned back to Jean. “What do we do?”
Jean smiled. “The guy Jairo had was Solano. We follow them. ”
“In the air?”
Jean looked at me like I’d suggested swimming would work better.
“Let’s go,” she said.
We ran back through the jets to our plane and hopped aboard. Jean went into the cockpit and spoke quickly to the pilot.
After ten minutes, the engines were rolling and we were taxiing to the private runway. Jean clambered back into the cabin with me and sat down.
“This is our best shot of getting Reynolds.”
I nodded.
“And if he figures out it’s us behind him,” she said, “we follow him anyway. Dyce?”
I looked up at her as the plane came to a halt in the parking zone before the runway. “Yeah?”
“If your son is working with Reynolds, you know what that means, right?”
I did.
Jean shouted to the pilot, “Sit tight.” And he did.
We waited for nearly an hour before Jairo’s plane came into view behind us.
“Hold it,” shouted Jean to the pilot.
We watched Jairo’s plane pass us and move onto the runway. It stopped briefly, then accelerated and lifted slowly into the night sky.
Jean leaned toward the pilot. “Go!”
We taxied onto the runway. I watched the lights outside whizz by and then get smaller as half the metropolis of Mexico City came into view.
Jean gave the smile of a hunter when the deer first shows. I leaned into the aisle and saw, through the pilot’s windscreen, a small cross flying ahead of us—Jairo’s plane.
I turned to Jean. “We can’t shoot him down.”
Jean chuckled. “No, we can’t.”
Immediately, I felt stupid for saying it. The Cessna wasn’t fitted with machine guns like some fighter jet.
“Let’s see where he leads us,” she said.
Much like on the journey here, I noticed how much lower we flew than on a regular aircraft. I could see the sprawl of concrete roofs reaching into the distance. The night was lucid and clear. I looked up front again and saw we had leveled out. Jairo’s plane was ahead of us. Three hours back to the United States border.
The cabin barely had enough room for the two of us. The pilot was under my nose, and that afforded a full panoramic view of the front. We had passed Mexico City’s burning yellow sea of lights and were now over countryside. The moon was full, and even in the dark we could make out the small mark in the sky that was Jairo’s plane.
Jean said, “Maybe Reynolds is onboard.”
I doubted that.
She continued, “They need these guys for some reason or another. Who knows if he trusts Jairo?”
Jean was right. These ex-cartel members were the puzzle in all this. Reynolds had had five already, who were now in private CIA custody. One was dead, presumably killed by Jairo, and now there was this one in a plane. Would Reynolds trust Jairo with bringing Solano back alive?
“Maybe,” I said, “Reynolds is using Estrella to make Jairo do this.”
Jean shrugged, her eyes remaining fixed on Jairo’s plane. “Maybe.”
We flew for another two hours before the pilot told us the border was about thirty minutes ahead. We would have to go low and turn off the radars and lights to cross.
“Fuck it,” said Jean. “Get us closer to our friend.”
The pilot turned round to her, and I could see his eyebrows raised under the headpiece and black cap.
“You heard me right,” said Jean. “Get us as close to him as possible.”
The pilot nodded and pushed a lever, and I felt the engine kick and then thrust us forward. The sound increased and, like zooming in on a digital image, Jairo’s plane began to get bigger.
“That’s our cover blown now,” said Jean. “Not that he has any way of knowing it’s us.”
We drew closer, to the point I could make out the form of Jairo’s aircraft—the small wings rocking in the oncoming wind, and the taillight.
We watched the plane in front of us in silence for another fifteen minutes. The pilot announced again that we were close to the US border.
And we saw it happen in a flash.
Jean grabbed my arm. “Look!”
I squinted at the plane. Something had moved. The door? Yes. The door had opened.
A cold panic rushed over me. I knew what was coming. And I hoped it would not be my son who was sacrificed. But I knew it would not be him.
A man tumbled out of the door and plummeted into the night. Then the door shut and Jairo’s plane lunged to the right.
“Ascend!” Jean shouted and we went up. “Circle round and track him.”
I grabbed the seat back and held on tight as the plane rocked backward.
“What was that?”
Jean was staring out of the window, keeping an eye on Jairo’s escape.
“That, I am pretty damn sure, was Mauricio Solano.”
My son, the killer, had done it again.
I thought of Eleanor and her hope and love for him.
And felt my own fading faster and faster away.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Our plane banked hard to the right. Jairo’s was below and in front of us, doing a 180 turn.
“We have to cross the border now,” shouted the pilot.
Jean looked at me and then out the window again at Jairo’s plane fading into the distance, flying back into Mexico.
“Damn it,” said Jean. “Where the hel
l is he going?”
“We have to cross now,” said the pilot. “We can’t risk being seen.”
“Take us home,” said Jean. And the plane banked back left to face the United States, leaving Jairo and his plane behind us.
Two hours later, we were at the military base in Texas boarding a 747 to DC. We didn’t discuss the failed mission; we didn’t talk at all. Jean was sending messages from her phone—to Rose, I assumed. I looked out of the window into the dark blue sky over the clouds.
By 3 a.m. we were back in the office with Rose and Eleanor. Rose had the pictures of the remaining Sons from the photograph laid out on the table.
“Where do we go from here?”
Rose sighed. “Not sure. Reynolds will know that Jairo got Solano before us and then killed the guy. None of this makes sense anymore.”
Eleanor went to speak, but I held her arm gently and squeezed. Now was not the time to defend our son. I had seen his crime with my own eyes. He’d gone rogue.
“To be honest,” said Rose, “I think this operation is finished. I’ll meet the bosses in the morning. Then we’ll know.”
Our heads went down in unison.
“You two sleep here with Agent Santos. I’m afraid your son has put you in a difficult situation.”
Eleanor stood. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” said Rose, “We might not be able to help you find your granddaughter.”
Eleanor went to argue back, but Rose grabbed his jacket from the peg, walked to the door, and left.
“Leave it,” said Jean. “We can’t do anything until tomorrow morning.”
We slept on the sofas. Or at least tried. I couldn’t get the picture of Jairo’s plane and the falling body out of my mind. In one sense, I wanted Eleanor to have seen it, so she might understand that our son was on the other side. Not ours. But Reynolds’.
Next morning, at around 10:30, Rose arrived from his meeting at Langley.
We stood around waiting for the news. But he stayed quiet and unpacked his laptop bag. He withdrew a yellow file and put it on the table. We all looked at him.