by Don Mann
Chapter Eighteen
A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.
—Rudyard Kipling
As Crocker limped back to his room, his mind sifted through the things Mrs. Clark had just told him and settled on what he considered were two significant points. One, she had not seen either Olivia or the Jackal during the last four or more hours at the ranch. Two, the Jackal appeared to be in failing health.
What the two things meant, and how and if they were related to one another, he didn’t know but hoped to find out.
Entering the room, he spotted four familiar faces: Akil’s, Mancini’s, Captain Sutter’s, and Jim Anders’s. The last was the one he least expected.
They all seemed to be mentally engaged in the same problem.
“Jim,” Crocker said, addressing the deputy director of CIA Operations. “You come to try to help us save our jobs?”
“That’s not my agenda. No.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“We just received a preliminary report from the Mexican minister of the interior,” Anders said. “The results of the forensic exam were inconclusive.”
Crocker leaned his back against the wall and let the implications of what he’d just heard process through his mind.
“When you say inconclusive, what does that mean exactly?” he asked.
“It means that the remains they recovered were in such a deteriorated condition that a definite conclusion couldn’t be reached even with Olivia Clark’s dental records.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“The question is, what if anything can we do now?” Sutter said as he rubbed his chin.
“I for one never thought it was Olivia Clark,” Crocker declared.
“Me, neither,” added Akil.
“Why not?” Anders asked.
“Because she wasn’t at the ranch when we raided it.”
Anders: “What are you basing this on?”
“What I just learned from Mrs. Clark and my own observations,” Crocker explained. “Mrs. Clark told me that she didn’t see either her daughter or the Jackal during the last day she was at the ranch, and according to the satellite photos, the plane they had flown in on had left. Once we secured the ranch, we searched the house and grounds thoroughly. Unless the guards disposed of Olivia’s body, or locked her in some hidden underground chamber, she wasn’t there.”
“I agree,” Mancini added. “She wasn’t in the house. The Jackal wasn’t there, either. I believe he moved her somewhere else.”
“Where?” asked Anders.
Crocker shrugged. “Don’t know.”
As Crocker related what Mrs. Clark had told him about the last hours in the house leading up to the raid, Senator Clark entered silently and sat on the edge of the bed.
When he finished, Anders turned to the senator and asked, “Senator, what’s your opinion about this?”
Clark raised his left hand, which held a rolled-up document. He said, “I’ve had the forensic report translated and read it carefully several times. It states that the fire was so hot and burned for so long that the jawbone the Mexicans recovered had almost completely incinerated and the front teeth were destroyed. All they had to go on were some badly cracked molars.”
“That’s a professional translation?” Anders asked. “Can I see it?”
“Of course.”
As Anders perused it, Crocker asked, “What about DNA?”
“The high heat destroyed any DNA, which means we might never be able to ascertain one way or another,” Clark answered. “But I’ll tell you something that I believe is just as important: We’re almost certain the Jackal escaped alive. And as long as we know that, there’s a strong possibility that he took my daughter with him.”
“Okay,” Anders agreed. “But under what circumstances?”
Senator Clark seemed confused by the question. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m not sure how to put this delicately,” said Anders. “Did she go willingly?”
“Olivia?”
“I mean, are we talking about a possible Stockholm syndrome condition here?”
All eyes turned to Senator Clark, who rubbed his forehead and seemed to struggle to find the right answer. “If you’re asking if my daughter has somehow bonded with that criminal and even become his lover, that’s a hell of a difficult question for me. My response is, I doubt it, and the prospect frankly sickens me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. Those are the kind of questions that need to be asked.”
“If we’re able to ascertain the reason they went off together and under what circumstances, we might begin to narrow in on a destination,” Sutter suggested.
“Maybe.”
“What do we know about the Jackal’s movements since Guadalajara?” asked Sutter as he poured himself a glass of water.
Anders shrugged. “We know from the same source that told us about the ranch that he was with the two women in Tapachula, and we also know that the private jet he flew in on left sometime yesterday afternoon.”
“The day of the raid.”
“Correct.”
“How do you know that?” asked Senator Clark.
“From satellite photos,” Crocker answered. “The last one we saw taken at 1600 yesterday afternoon showed no jet on the airstrip.”
“Maybe it was hidden in a hangar,” suggested Anders.
“There was a hangar on the property, which we checked and found empty. It looked like it hadn’t been used in weeks.”
“How certain are you of that?”
“Ninety percent.”
“Has the Jackal made a statement of any kind?” asked Sutter.
“Since the raid on the ranch?” Anders shook his head.
“So no one’s seen hide nor hair of him, or heard from him, since Mrs. Clark spoke to him yesterday morning in Tapachula?”
“Based on the knowledge we have now, that’s correct,” Anders answered.
“What do we know about the plane?” asked Clark.
“It was a private jet.”
“I found this,” Crocker answered, opening the door to the closet and reaching into the dirty, blood-stained utility pouch for the documents he had recovered from the hut by the runway. They listed the plane’s serial number (N662MS), purchase price ($8,950,000), and seller (Maxfly Aviation).
“Can I have them?’ asked Anders.
“Of course.”
“I don’t know that these will do us any good, but I’ll inquire.”
Upon receiving the order from the Jackal, Nacho Gutierrez activated three of his best young sicarios—Guapo, Osito, and Stallone. Dressed in designer jeans, tight T-shirts, and leather sneakers, they looked like hip young men out for a night of clubbing. But the savage expressions in their eyes spoke to a more serious agenda.
High-level hits like this one were worth lots of plata—tens of thousands of dollars each, as well as perks like sports cars, SUVs, expensive watches, and their pick of beautiful girls kidnapped from Mexico, Texas, and California. It was a results-reward, high-stakes business.
Good results, lots of money. Bad results, a kick in the ass, or maybe a bullet in the head.
These three former members of the Mexican navy boxing team took pride in their speed and cold-blooded efficiency. The first thing they did was locate Bob Marion of Global Banking & Investments, which took a couple of calls and a visit with his secretary as she was getting her nails done in a hair salon across the street from the office.
They caught up with Marion and a female companion two hours later as they were enjoying the salmon tartare amuse-bouche with a slightly chilled French rosé in the modern, atmospherically lit dining area of the chichi Lula Bistro in the Jardines de los Arcos area of downtown Guadalajara.
Guapo (“handsome” in English), who had a pleasant, boyish face and looked like a young businessman, waited in a café across Calle San Gabriel until Marion and his date
exited arm in arm on their way for a nightcap and dancing at the nearby Ibiza Club, which featured nude dancers covered in gold paint and feathers in cages that hung from the ceiling. The Dutch record producer and DJ Tiësto was performing a set there tonight, and Marion had scored two very expensive and hard-to-get tickets from a friend who worked for the promoter who had booked the DJ into the club.
Outside on the rain-slicked sidewalk, he kissed his Versace-clad companion, then slipped a tab of Ecstasy into her sweet mouth.
“I feel like letting go tonight,” he whispering, swallowing one himself.
“We only live once, Bobby.”
Her name was Selvina and she was slim and model-tall with a mane of wavy hair and toned arms and shoulders. She was the only child of an Estonian mother and a Mexican father and had recently entered the intern program at the audit and risk review division at Banamex, which was the Mexican affiliate of Citibank.
Guapo put away his iPhone, crossed the street, and called, “Hola, Bob. Johnny Valdez.”
“Who?” Marion asked.
“Johnny Valdez. We met at a party last month.”
Marion, who was terrible at remembering names but good with faces, examined the young man’s smooth features, ears that stuck out slightly, and defined jaw against the databank of images in his head. He noticed but wasn’t alarmed by the black Cadillac Escalade that slid by and stopped at the curb.
“Don’t you remember?” Guapo said, smiling and keeping up the false charm. “Tony Alvarez’s house in La Florida?”
At the mention of the coworker who worked the Jackal’s account and had recently been roughed up by a group of U.S. intelligence officers, Marion grabbed Selvina’s arm and started to pull her across the street. As he maneuvered around the Escalade, the back door opened and Guapo pushed them both inside.
One of Selvina’s new Prada high heels fell off in the process, causing her to release a stream of Russian curse words into the dark interior. She stopped abruptly when a silenced Glock 9mm was pointed at her face.
As the vehicle moved quickly, Marion sat determined not to show any fear. He explained to Guapo that he had nothing to do with Tony Alvarez and demanded to know who the men were and what this was about.
Guapo reached past the girl and slapped the back of Marion’s head so hard that it jolted him out his cocoon of security and privilege. Marion started to worry that maybe he had been arrogant to think that playing both sides of the fence—Ivan Jouma and the FBI—wouldn’t catch up with him.
But there was nothing he could do now but wait for an opportunity.
As the vehicle turned into an alley between two office towers, Guapo asked for their phones and Selvina’s purse.
She was reluctant to hand it over but relented soon after Stallone grabbed the front of her dress and pulled so hard that the cotton-Spandex-blend shoulder straps snapped.
A very tense six minutes later, the Escalade entered the underground garage of a dark office building and wound down four levels to the bottom, which was being used as a storage area for desks, partitions, chairs, and other furniture and equipment. As he was dragged roughly from the vehicle, Marion said, “El Chacal is a close business associate of mine. He won’t like this.”
Without saying a word in response, Guapo duct-taped Marion’s wrists behind his back, then taped him to an executive chair.
Marion watched dry-mouthed and trembling as Selvina’s dress and bra were ripped off, revealing the tattoo of a dragon on her lower stomach. The three men made a series of lewd comments about the meaning of the tattoo; then Stallone punched it hard, causing her to double over and fall to her knees.
“Tell me about the dragon,” he said, grabbing her by the hair. “What’s it mean, bitch?”
“Nothing,” she whimpered.
“It’s silly, like you. Isn’t it?”
He grabbed her by the hair, lowered his zipper, and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Guapo snapped pictures with his iPhone, then took a turn. She spoke to herself in Russian and blubbered, causing black mascara to streak down her face.
How far are they going to take this? Marion asked himself as he stared at the ceiling and scolded himself for staying in town.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, “and I’ll give it to you now!”
Osito, who was the shortest and most muscle-bound of the three, ripped off Selvina’s panties, leaned her over a desk, and started to sodomize her, which made Marion throw up over the front of his suit.
He tried to ignore the sound of Osito’s pelvis smacking against Selvina’s butt and the little squeals of pain that sometimes issued from her mouth. But that was impossible.
By the time Osito was finished, Selvina resembled a rag doll, stripped of will, humanity, and dignity.
Osito pulled out of her, shouting “¡Olé!”, spun her so that she faced him, and shot her in the head. As Selvina crumpled to the cement floor, Marion lost control of his bladder. He decided he didn’t care what came next, he just wanted it to end quickly.
Without asking him a single question, the three sicarios took turns beating him with bats and sections of pipe until all his teeth were dislodged or broken, blood dripped down the front of his suit, and his head was a throbbing, swollen mass of pain.
Then Guapo pointed a Glock to his smashed nose and asked him for descriptions of the four gringos who had executed the raid on the house in Puerto del Hiero. All Marion could remember was that they were Navy SEALs from a base in Virginia.
Slipping in and out of consciousness, he repeated that information twice and described the four men as best he could.
“Should we do the guiso?” Osito asked, pointing to some empty oil drums along the wall. The guiso was the practice of putting a victim in a fifty-five-gallon drum, pouring gasoline over him, and setting him on fire.
“Not here,” Guapo said. “Too much smoke.”
Instead, they stripped him naked, shot him in the groin, carved the word “rata” into his stomach, then used rope to string him and Selvina by their ankles from a pipe that ran along the ceiling.
The staff at what was now called the Hospital Santo Tomás needed the room, so Crocker, Sutter, Akil, and Mancini moved to a suite at the nearby Balboa Palace, where Akil and Mancini were staying. Despite its designation, it wasn’t luxurious at all. Two and a half stars on Hotels.com with a slew of negative comments about the rudeness of the staff and the filth.
Crocker was too tired and preoccupied to give a shit about the peeling green brocade wallpaper, the stained pewter carpet, or the smell of mildew. It had beds and running water, which was all he wanted. In the shower, he remembered Mrs. Clark and her distress, which made him think of Holly. So he wrapped himself in a towel, closed the door to the bedroom, and called home.
“Holly. It’s me.”
“Tom?” she asked brightly.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“You here in the States?”
“No. But I’ve been thinking of you.”
“Really? That’s nice. You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just mad at myself for missing your birthday.”
“At least you remember that you missed it. That’s something.”
“You deserve better. I’m sorry. I was tied up.”
She sighed. “I’m forty-two, Tom. I feel old.”
“You’re more beautiful than ever. I’ll make it up to you.”
“That’s so sweet, Tom. How?”
“I’ll surprise you.”
“I’d like that.”
“When I’m finished here, I’m taking two weeks’ leave. And once Jenny is out of school, which won’t be long, I’m gonna take the two of you to a beach somewhere where we can decompress and relax.”
“Sounds great. She still wants to talk to you about colleges.”
“Colleges, yes. I didn’t forget,” he lied.
“What about that place in the Yucatán, near Tulum?” Holly asked.
“Not Mexico this time. Someplace else.”
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Holly said, “I love the idea, Tom, but your timing stinks.”
“Why?”
“I started back at work on Monday.”
Crocker had forgotten that the six-month leave of absence she had taken from her job with State Department security after her ordeal in Libya had ended.
“So you decided to return?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And how did that go?”
“It’s really good to be back among old friends who know me and appreciate what I went through. And it’s nice to feel useful, too.”
He had a lot of things he wanted to tell her but for the time being said, “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. I really am.”
“Thanks. Tomorrow after work, I’m driving Jenny to a soccer tournament in Charlottesville. Her team made the state finals.”
“That’s fantastic. Is she there?” Crocker asked. Between recent missions in Venezuela, Israel, Syria, and Mexico, he’d missed every single game of the spring season.
“No, she’s at her friend Leslie’s working on a biology project, and sleeping over,” Holly answered.
“Say hi to Leslie for me and tell Jenny I’m proud of her. I wish them both good luck.”
“I will. You hear about the rescue of the senator’s wife in Mexico?”
“Not really. No.”
“I know you can’t tell me where you are, but if you’re near a TV, you should turn on CNN.”
“I will.”
They talked for ten more minutes about the new Great Gatsby movie, which she’d liked, and replacing some worn-out screens on the doors to the rear patio, which Crocker promised to take care of as soon as he got back. Feeling as though they were living in different dimensions of the same reality, he told her he loved her and Jenny and hoped to see them soon.
Then he turned on the flat-screen opposite the bed and found CNN International. The banner across the top of the screen read THE RESCUE OF LISA CLARK. As various correspondents spoke excitedly, the TV broadcast helicopter footage of the charred wreckage of the house. Then they interviewed local authorities and various drug cartel experts.
Most of it wasn’t useful, but Crocker paid attention when one of the commentators pointed to a chart of the house that showed where Mexican authorities claimed they had found Olivia Clark’s remains—near the front door. The theory forwarded by a former FBI cartel expert speaking by video feed from Memphis was that Olivia had attempted to escape when the fire broke out and was overwhelmed by smoke.