John Puller 02 - The Forgotten

by David Baldacci

  His gaze ventured upward to the high ceiling of the place where exposed air ducts and electrical lines were revealed.

  This was a warehouse of some kind, Diego had already deduced.

  But where it was he had no idea. He had no idea if he was still in Paradise. Or even still in Florida.

  He thought of his abuela and his eyes grew heavy with tears. He thought of Isabel wondering where they were and his eyes grew heavier still.

  Then he thought of the big man who had asked him to find the two men in the car. He seemed interested in Diego. He had helped Isabel and Mateo. He could beat people up. He was big and strong. He had driven a fancy car. Perhaps he was rich. Maybe he would come and find them.

  But Diego maintained this hopeful thought for barely a second. That was crazy, he told himself. The man would not come. No one would come.

  He looked around at the other cages again.

  This was obviously a big business. They were organized and had lots of money behind them. They took people and sold them all over the place; he just knew this to be true.

  He looked at Mateo.

  Would they sell them together? Or would Mateo go off alone?

  Without me?

  He knew Mateo would cry and cry. And maybe the secuestradores de personas would get angry and kill him to quiet him.

  He reached out and gripped Mateo’s arm so tightly that the little boy let out a small gasp.

  I will never let you go, Mateo, Diego promised himself.

  The lights grew dimmer still. Diego looked around, fear gripping him.

  All the other prisoners in the cages were doing the same thing, looking around, but also trying to shrink themselves so as not to draw attention.

  They could all sense that something was coming. And that what was coming would not be good for them.

  The man slowly came up the metal steps and stopped in front of the line of cages. Peter Lampert’s image was not clear enough for Diego to make out who it was. But he had never seen Lampert before, so an identification would not have been possible in any case.

  There were other men behind Lampert. One was James Winthrop. The men were dressed elegantly in blazers, white shirts, and slacks that looked professionally tailored to their bodies. Thousand-dollar shoes were on their feet. They could have been investment bankers going to a meeting.

  Winthrop held an electronic tablet and was making notes on it as Lampert inspected his product and made certain decisions. He walked up and down in front of the cages pointing to people inside and giving instructions to Winthrop, who dutifully inputted them on the tablet. They could have been inspecting cattle in slaughterhouses or cars rolling off an assembly line. There was a clear air of business being conducted here, even though the product was human and breathing.

  Breathing fast.

  Two other men came toward them. They carried packages wrapped in plastic. Lampert snapped his fingers and the men hurried forward.

  Lampert examined the packages and slit one open with his finger. He pulled out four blue shirts, looked at the list Winthrop had compiled, and pointed at four people in three different cages. The shirts were taken to these people and they were forced to put them on.

  Red shirts came out and were given to all men who were larger and more muscular than the others.

  Green shirts were pulled out and placed on the younger, good-looking women and some of the younger, angelic-looking men and boys.

  All the shirts were given out, except for two in a separate package.

  Lampert slit this package open and pulled out two yellow shirts.

  He glanced at Winthrop’s tablet, running his eye down the list.

  Then he turned and looked up and down the row of cages until his surveillance finally came to a stop in front of Diego’s cage.

  He looked down at the two boys and smiled. He said something to Winthrop that Diego could not completely catch, but it sounded like, “New product line.” Then some more words were spoken he could not hear, and then he caught another snatch.

  “Family unit. Lower scrutiny. Fetch a good price on the market.”

  He gave the yellow shirts to another man, who went into the cages and forced Diego and Mateo to put them on.

  A few moments later, men, hardened evil- looking men, came through the cages and told each of the prisoners what would happen to them if they uttered one word about where they had come from once they reached their final destination.

  “Everyone you love, every family member you have—and we know where they all are, indeed we have many of them in cages like this— will be slaughtered. If you speak one word to anyone we will bring you their heads as a reminder of what you have done.”

  They had looked down at Diego and Mateo and asked them if they would like to hold the severed head of their abuela.

  Mateo had started to cry but had instantly stopped when one of the men struck him in the mouth.

  Diego had stood between Mateo and the man, but the man had laughed.

  “Do you want your abuela’s head?” he asked again.

  Diego had said nothing but had shaken his head, and the man had moved on.

  A similar encounter had happened to all the others, demonstrating that the men had inside information on each of them. Thus there was not one person in any of the cages, even the older, stronger men, who did not believe every word of this. None of them would talk. None of them would even think of trying to tell the truth.

  After this was over Lampert came back to Diego’s cage. He slipped something from his pocket and held it through the bars of the cage.

  As Diego focused on it he saw that it was a necklace of some sort.

  “Take it,” said Lampert.

  Diego did not move.

  “Take it. Now.”

  In Diego’s peripheral vision a man with a gun edged forward, the muzzle of the weapon pointing at Mateo’s head.

  Diego reached out and took it. He looked down at the disc of metal attached to the end of the chain.

  Lampert said, “It’s a Saint Christopher’s medal. You know who Saint Christopher is, don’t you?”

  Diego looked up and slowly shook his head.

  Lampert smiled and said, “Saint Christopher is the saint who protects children from harm. Put it on. Do it now.”

  Diego slipped the necklace over his head and the medal came to rest on his chest.

  “Now nothing can harm you,” said Lampert, still smiling.

  Winthrop snorted with laughter.

  Lampert turned and walked off, Winthrop behind still chortling.

  Diego stared at their elegant clothes hanging on their well-nourished, fit physiques. He lifted off the necklace and let it drop to the floor. Then he stared at the silver ring on his finger, the one with the lion’s head that his papa had given him.

  His courage came flooding back as he looked at the lion.

  He looked up, slowly raised his hand, made a gun with his finger, aimed, fired twice, and killed both Lampert and Winthrop over and over.

  CHAPTER 75

  Mecho was on the phone once more.

  It was his “friend.”

  Details were gone over. The latest encounter with Chrissy Murdoch had convinced Mecho that his schedule had to be sped up.

  The “friend” was sympathetic and agreed to be ready. But he reminded Mecho of their deal.

  Mecho impatiently answered the man. It would be done.

  He clicked off the phone and looked down at the floor of his room at the Sierra.

  He stiffened when the paper was slipped under his door. He didn’t move for a few seconds, wondering if something or someone was going to follow the paper in.

  He reached under the bed and pulled out the pistol from where he had slid it between the springs. He rose, inched toward the door, touched the paper with his foot, and moved it toward him. Keeping his eyes on the door, he knelt and picked up the paper. He moved away from the door and opened the folded page.

  Two words. Two meaningful wor
ds.

  “They’re coming.”

  Mecho folded up the paper and slipped it into his pocket.

  He could attempt to follow the person who had given him this warning.

  But he chose not to.

  They’re coming.

  Twenty minutes later he didn’t hear or see anything coming.

  He sensed it with something other than his ears and his eyes. Perhaps it was their smell. The smell of death coming. It could be quite potent.

  He reached under the bed, snagged two more items, rose, opened the door, and moved to his left with a speed that was belied by his immense frame.

  There was too much light here for what he wanted. He entered the stairwell and moved down one flight at a time, pausing at each landing.

  Waiting.

  Sensing.

  He was using faculties that most people would never discover they had.

  But when you had lived as Mecho had, those faculties rose to the surface.

  At least for those who survived.

  He left the building at the ground floor and headed west.

  The people were good.

  Not because they had found him at the Sierra. That would take no skill at all.

  No, they were good because they had followed him from his room down to here. Even now he could sense their approach, one set from the left, one set from the right.

  He slipped his gutting knife into his waistband and then spun the suppressor onto the end of his pistol.

  He kept walking, zigzagging his route and moving closer and closer to the water.

  These back streets were deserted. Not even the duenos were out. He wondered about this. But then he thought perhaps they had been told to stay off the streets tonight.

  The duenos considered themselves tough until they ran into those who were truly formidable. Then the street toughs melted away into little balls of dough and found places to hide in the darkness, like the mice they were.

  Mecho was not and never would be a mouse.

  He walked on, instinctively varying his route but heading inevitably to the water, to the Gulf.

  It had carried him here from a position of slavery, though the last part of his journey had been as a free man swimming for his life.

  He would go back to the sanctity of the water tonight.

  It would either be his final resting place or simply one more bump in a long road of them in his life. Sometimes all a person could do was not good enough. So be it. He had never been one to regret. Not when it came to survival.

  He passed some late-night stragglers who were too drunk to see that he was walking along with a pistol. He turned down one more street and the deepness of the ocean stretched ahead of him.

  It was secluded.

  It was completely dark.

  There were no people around who could see or be harmed by what was about to happen.

  And the tide was coming in.

  Tides were often handy.

  He quickened his pace.

  In a few more seconds he was on his scooter, which he had hidden behind a trash receptacle, and was flying down the sand.

  This had surprised the men following him.

  That was his intent. His other intent was to draw them farther down the beach, away from the town, away from any eyes, drunk or not.

  Two miles later he was away from all such eyes except for the ones still chasing him. He had not gone fast enough to lose them. Mecho’s thinking was simple. He could deal with this now or he could deal with it later.

  Might as well get it over with.

  Mecho calculated he was facing six men.

  They would be trained, armed, cagey, cautious, but with enough close-quarter combat skills to size up the ever-evolving battlefield.

  The dunes were up ahead. He left his scooter behind and set out on foot. A minute later he skirted a narrow cleft between two dunes. His front flank was now a funnel his pursuers would have to breach. But it was only wide enough for one man to come through at a time. A classic defensive measure. The same one the Spartans had employed to hold off the far larger Persian army so the Greeks could escape destruction. That same technique had been taught in war colleges ever since.

  If your opponent has far larger numbers, make it as difficult as possible for them to employ those numbers to their advantage.

  Mecho knew this sort of confrontation might happen, so he had hunted for this sort of tactical advantage shortly after he had arrived in Paradise. And then he had spent time doing something to it that would hopefully work to his advantage.

  The dunes were thick enough to stop any ordnance unless they were going to attack him with shoulder-fired missiles, and he doubted that was the case.

  Mecho only had two worries now.

  His rear flank.

  And something coming through that opening other than a man.

  His next steps would address both issues at once.

  The men after Mecho fanned out in a classic attack formation. With a numerical advantage of six to one it would be successful against just about any foe.

  The cleft in the dunes was just ahead.

  A funnel. These men had seen that one before.

  One way in and one way out.

  None of them had any plan or desire to breach that opening with Mecho waiting to pick them off as they came through.

  But they had come prepared for just such a scenario.

  The first man approached, keeping well back of the cleft. He lifted the fist-shaped metal object from his pocket, engaged it, and tossed it through the opening.

  It wasn’t a grenade, but it was as good as one.

  He turned away from the cleft and used his hands to cover his ears as additional protection over the plugs he wore.

  The flash-bang went off.

  Blinding light, paralyzing sound.

  And a concussive-force kicker.

  Anyone in the dune would now be immobilized, easy to kill.

  The six men swarmed through the cleft. Sand dislodged by the flash-bang was swirling everywhere. They had guns ready to fire into the paralyzed man who should now be resting on the sandy floor.

  He would never know how he died.

  The space between the dunes was barely ten by ten. The space had resulted from erosion, wind, and different compactness levels of the sand. The men crowded in, but there was no one lying immobilized on the ground.

  What the leader of the squad did see was a now visible knotted rope dangling in the center of the space. He looked up to where the rope was attached to the thick limb of a tree twenty feet up.

  None of the men had looked up before coming in here. They had focused on the cleft.

  But what was currently up was now coming down.

  Mecho landed on two of the men and they broke his fall by breaking their necks.

  A third man was gutted by Mecho’s knife, the bodies of the first two kills covered with blood from his dissected belly.

  Number four caught two rounds in his face from Mecho’s pistol.

  Number five tried to run.

  One big arm around his neck stopped that retreat and the snap of the spine was followed by the man collapsing to the sandy ground.

  Number six got lucky, however.

  Mecho had stumbled over number five as the man’s legs involuntarily kicked out as he went through the last spasms of death.

  Six drew his bead on Mecho with his MP5. Shot selector on full auto, thirty rounds fired in a couple seconds, if that.

  Not survivable.

  Pistol and knife useless against that.

  Mecho looked at Six.

  Six looked back at Mecho.

  A triumphant smile, a finger on the trigger, ready to finish the job.

  Mecho had a millisecond left to live and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  One shot erupted.

  But it didn’t come from the MP’s muzzle.

  A hole opened in number six’s forehead. The MP had no chance to do its killing b
ecause its owner had just died.

  Six fell headlong into the sand, some of his brain splattered along the wall of the dune behind him, because the shot had come from in front of him and behind Mecho.

  Mecho whipped around in that direction, pistol and knife up and ready.

  Chrissy Murdoch stood there. She was not outfitted in Hermes and Chanel tonight. Nor a bikini.

  She wore all black. Dark smudges were under her eyes and over her thin, high cheeks. The eyes looked very different from the pampered ones of the person lounging around the pool at Peter Lampert’s estate.

  They were hard and dark and cold.

  They are like mine, thought Mecho.

  She held a pistol. It was pointed at Mecho’s heart.

  She looked at him and he looked back at her.

  She slipped the gun into a belt holster and said, “We have to get rid of the bodies. I have a boat. Let’s move.”

  As she came forward to do just this, Mecho could only stare.

  She struggled to lift one of the men.

  Mecho still hadn’t moved.

  She glanced sharply at him. “I said, let’s go.”

  “You were the one who warned me?”

  “Who else?” she snapped.

  He put the pistol and knife away and started

  to help her.

  CHAPTER 76

  Puller eased out from behind a tree and did a sweep of the area with his night-vision goggles. He had picked the surveillance spot with the same care he would on a battlefield. It gave him maximum observation coverage with minimal exposure to prying eyes.

  Carson sipped on a bottle of water and watched him. It was hot, muggy, and the sulfur smell was nauseating.

  It was also two in the morning and they had been here for three hours.

  He sat back next to her.

  She said quietly, “Anything?”

  He shook his head, kept his gaze moving. “How much longer do we wait?”

  He looked at her. “As long as it takes, General. These things don’t run on a schedule.”

  “So all night?”

  “Daylight comes, we’ll leave. They won’t be doing anything in the daytime, even at a place like this.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  Puller shrugged, leaned back against the tree, but remained tensed, ready to move in an instant if need be. “Drugs. Guns. The Colombians have lost the drug pipeline to the Mexicans. But the Gulf is still full of traffickers.”