by Hilton, Matt
It wasn’t the time to tell her that Walter had been hiding a secret and that his reticence was for fear of revealing it, perhaps placing all four generations of his family in a worse predicament.
‘He’s a complicated man,’ I reassured her. ‘He was probably just thinking about the right people for the job. Don’t worry, Kirstie, we’ll do everything in our power to get Benjamin back.’
‘You’ve done similar work before?’
‘Yeah, you could say we’ve had experience of dealing with dangerous people.’
She studied each of our battle-scarred faces in turn. ‘I suspect you’ve seen nothing like the kind of animals Jorge could set loose on you.’
Chapter 6
The wall-mounted air-conditioning unit roared along on its lowest temperature setting, periodically dripping condensation on the floor. Lying on the bed with a sheet pulled up to her throat, Kirstie Long watched the moisture build, tremble in place then make the drop to the carpet. The regularity was almost metronomic, hypnotic in its way. She began to count the drips and was well into triple figures before she realised what she was doing and made a conscious effort to stop. Within half a minute she was counting again. Counting was something she did as an unconscious stress-reliever, and she often wondered if she had a mild case of OCD. The dripping of the A/C unit was only one of many things she’d counted in the past few hours. She’d tapped the tip of her tongue on each of her teeth, making continuous circuits of her mouth. She had counted the small geometric patterns in the carpet. She had also counted the slats on the window shades, calculating if she’d be able to break her way through them before Hunter or the others entered the room.
It was wrong to think of the three men as her guards, because she was not a prisoner. Not in the usual sense. But if she was not allowed to leave this house, then what else could she be? She had asked to go back to her original hotel for her belongings, and been refused. She had insisted but her harsh words were rebuffed as easily as her pleading. All the men would say was that it was for her own safety. Perhaps her warning that Jorge had some of the nastiest killers at his disposal had not helped her cause: it put the men more on edge. After some further discussion, Kirstie had left them to their planning and availed herself of the shower in the en suite bathroom. Washed, and her hair dried by a sputtering dryer that was little more than a flexible tube hanging from the wall, she had climbed into the bed. Not because she was tired, but to force herself to relax. She was impatient to get started, to bring home her son, and if she didn’t lie down she might claw her way through those window slats and run all the way to Mexico.
She wished now that she’d kept her mouth shut about Jorge’s resources, but she’d told Hunter and the others how he’d been hiring mercenary fighters, and had built himself a small personal army culled from branches of various Special Forces groups. His reason for doing so was that there was much infighting between the major cartels, all of them jostling for predominance and control of the narcotics and human trafficking routes into the US. Kirstie knew what task he’d put his army to when she tried to grab Benjamin. Conrad struck her as someone with similar assets at his beck and call, and she didn’t think Hunter or his pals were any less capable than Jorge’s men, but they would be wholly outnumbered and in unfamiliar terrain. She’d contemplated contacting Conrad and requesting further assistance: more men and a support network, but evidently the three men here were all that she was getting.
She thought about the old man and how he’d presented two faces to her. One was cold and hard, the other surprisingly tender. When discussing the detail of snatching back Benjamin, he’d been as cold and soulless as a snake. Yet, afterwards, when he’d done with the planning, he looked as if he wished to embrace her and his eyes had twinkled with unshed tears. Kirstie had recoiled, not so much from fear as from recognition. She knew those eyes. They were her mother’s eyes and those of her own child. They were the eyes she saw staring back at her from the bathroom mirror each morning.
Could it be true?
Was that old man – the soulless CIA man – her grandfather?
When she’d grown old enough to wonder about her heritage, Kirstie had asked her parents about her grandfather. Her mom, Annie, explained that her own mother had always refused to name her father. Embittered by the secrecy surrounding her birth, Annie had stifled any desire to discover his identity, and encouraged Kirstie to do the same. Yet Kirstie had always wondered who the mystery man was. In her teens, she’d attempted her own sleuthing, but her attempts had failed. It was through her search for her grandfather that the investigative journalism bug had bitten her in college, and that was what had led her to her chosen career. Through her work as a fledgling journo she’d made acquaintances of various celebrities, some of whom she’d helped with promo ideas. From there it was a natural step to her current vocation. She had met Jorge Molina through one of her clients at a celebrity dinner, falling for the handsome smooth-talker over margaritas in the bar afterwards. They’d enjoyed a whirlwind romance; one where she’d been carried along on the crest of excitement afforded her by his wealth and associations with many powerful individuals. She’d fallen pregnant by him in the third month of their relationship, was married in the next, and that was when everything had gone downhill. Jorge had shown his real face, something that she had grown to fear more and more as the date of Benjamin’s birth approached. As soon as the boy was born, Jorge had dissociated himself from Kirstie, and the next three years had been stifling as she’d been made a prisoner in their home. Rather than a lover, or mother to his child, Jorge had used her as little more than a nanny to raise Benjamin until he was old enough to be cut loose. He took the boy to his homeland, with threats should she follow. It would be ironic if the loss of one family member should lead to the discovery of another. If she had not met Jorge then there’d have been no need for her grandfather to come to her rescue.
Jesus, she thought, if I’d have known finding him was as easy as this I’d have attracted the attention of a sadistic monster long ago.
It was a black joke.
But how could she laugh when Benjamin was still in the clutches of her evil ex-husband? Not for one second did she believe that his father physically threatened Benjamin – Jorge’s heir was important to him – yet Jorge inhabited a world where dangerous enemies might target his son at any moment. Worse, she feared that Benjamin would be raised to emulate his father . . . something she had no wish to contemplate. As soon as Jorge had returned to Mexico Kirstie had initiated proceedings for the return of her child. Jorge had countered with a plan of his own. One night two thugs had grabbed her off the street and forced her at gunpoint towards a waiting vehicle. They had taken her to her apartment on the outskirts of Washington DC – the home she’d shared with Jorge and Benjamin – and told her to say goodbye to everything she held dear. Then they’d surprised her by introducing a third man to the mix, this one a lawyer working on Jorge’s behalf. Under duress Kirstie had been forced to sign the divorce papers served upon her, and also a backdated pre-nuptial agreement endorsed there and then by the lawyer, giving up all claim to any share of Jorge’s estate in Mexico. She’d gladly signed the papers; she had no interest in anything but her child. She had been handed the deeds to the apartment, with a warning that should the men have to visit her again her next place of residence would be a casket.
Kirstie wasn’t a coward; no mother fighting for her child is. But the warning had rung loud and clear, and she’d waited months before summoning up the courage to resume lawful proceedings to retrieve her son. However, as history had shown, none of her efforts had born fruit. She had practically given up hope until her grandmother had put her in contact with Walter Conrad. Her grandfather?
She’d wondered where he’d been all of her life, but more than that she now wondered where the hell he’d been for the past two days. It was over forty-eight hours since Walter had told her that for Benjamin’s sake she must trust him and those that she was about to meet
. That was a big ask, when the man was so secretive about his motives. And, by virtue of association, so were Hunter and his friends. But then, to recover her son, she’d sign a deal with the devil.
The A/C unit was struggling to maintain the low temperature. It had begun to roar. She threw off the sheet and stood. She was fully dressed, wearing the same blouse, but had exchanged her skirt and heels for cargo pants and sneakers from her carry-on bag. She glanced up at the labouring unit, but only to time her step under it to avoid one of those icy drips getting under her collar. She waited for the drip, then quickly exited into the short hall alongside the en suite bathroom and approached the exit door. She placed an ear to the wood.
Voices were mingled in conversation, and she could make out more than the three she’d become used to hearing. She thought there were at least five or six men in the room next door. Because there were no sounds of anger or recrimination, the newcomers must have been expected.
Kirstie raised a palm to open the door before second thoughts caused her hand to drop. The murmur of muted conversation had stopped. Kirstie listened hard and caught the soft pad of approaching footsteps. She moved back, and stood with her hands fisted at her sides as someone rapped on the door.
‘Who is it?’
The handle turned and Kirstie opened her mouth to challenge the intrusion into her space, but the recrimination fell short. Hunter stared back at her and something about the intensity of his gaze stopped the words in her throat. Colours seemed to shift in the depths of his eyes, blue, green and brown, as he tilted his head to study her. She felt him analyse and catalogue everything about her within a split second.
‘We need to talk,’ he said, appraising her. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve dressed more appropriately.’
She had an equally analytical eye and took in Hunter’s appearance in a rapid sweep from head to toe. He wasn’t exactly remarkable to look at, being slightly less than six feet tall and probably in his late thirties or early forties. He had a basic barbershop hairstyle, light brown flecked with grey at the temples, shaved close at the sides and back, a little longer on top. Under a battered brown leather jacket and black shirt, black jeans and boots, she could tell that his body was hard, but unlike those of the muscular sportsmen she was familiar with. But when her gaze returned to his eyes, she sensed something unusual about him that set off a flutter in her belly. She recognised the gaze of a remorseless warrior, but wasn’t that exactly what she required? Hunter extended an open hand.
‘We’re leaving sooner than we thought,’ he said.
His wrist was thick, and on the tanned skin of his hand she could make out tiny white scars that hinted at others on his body. Such a hand had likely killed and was capable of inflicting further death.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘You already know that. Trust me, Kirstie, I’m here to help you.’
She didn’t move.
‘Let me rephrase my question: what are you?’
‘Someone prepared to help. Do you need to know more than that?’
‘And the old man?’
‘I think it’s better that he tell you himself.’
‘Walter Conrad,’ she said, pouting at the name. A childhood memory came to her. She’d been visiting with her grandmother and had snuck up to the bedroom and eavesdropped on a telephone call. She didn’t understand what the conversation was about, but she recalled how her grandmother had signed off. ‘I love you, Walter.’ Kirstie had forgotten that conversation, but now it came crashing down on her in a moment of epiphany.
‘Is he really . . . ?’ She couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘Like I said, it’s best that he tells you everything.’ Hunter held out his hand again. This time the image of a killer’s hands had disappeared and she saw the strength as something else entirely. She allowed him to lead her from the bedroom.
The room they entered was still clean and neat, but it now smelled of coffee, and the fan struggled against the heat of so many bodies. Back in her bedroom she hadn’t dialled up the A/C because she was hot, but to move around the stale and cloying air. Here the men who’d made the room their temporary home hadn’t thought to do so, but had sweated through their plans while downing strong coffee and deli sandwiches. Kirstie registered the smells, but did not dwell on them; she was too busy examining the men gathered round her.
‘Where’s Walter?’
‘He won’t be joining us,’ Hunter said. ‘In the meantime I thought it best that you get to know our friends here, seeing as you’re going to be spending some time together.’
The newcomers were a middle-aged Latino with gel in his slicked-back hair, wearing a loose shirt over chinos and sneakers, and a slightly older, grey-haired guy in a sports jacket and slacks, who had ex-cop stamped all over him.
‘Raul Velasquez and Jim McTeer, they’ll be looking after you while the rest of us fetch Benjamin.’
Kirstie was still holding Hunter’s hand. Gently she extricated herself. ‘What do you mean, “looking after me”? I’m going with you.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll be coming to Mexico with us. Once we have Benjamin out of Jorge’s hands we’ll need you to take care of him. But you can’t be in on the actual snatch. You’ll be at a safe staging area with these guys. If all goes to plan, and we get the boy back, then it’s important that he’s with his mother. Otherwise there’s no way we can bring him across the border without raising suspicion.’
‘You’re assuming that Benjamin will be at Jorge’s house. If so, I obviously can’t be involved, but that might not be the case. If he was elsewhere, say a public place, then it makes sense for me to be there. It would be easier for me to get to him than you guys.’
‘Kirstie,’ Hunter’s eyes were cold chips of ice. ‘If Jorge’s men are as capable as you say, then you won’t get within a hundred yards of Benjamin. He’ll be heavily protected, I’m guessing, with operatives watching out for him at all times. They might not even bother warning you this time, but just shoot you dead at the first opportunity.’
‘What’s to stop them doing the same to any of you?’
‘We’ll be shooting back,’ Hunter said.
Chapter 7
As we barrelled towards the Mexican border, Kirstie travelled with me and Rink in the rental car I’d collected from the airport, while Harvey, Velasquez and McTeer followed close behind in the van. Now that we were on our way, Kirstie had fallen silent, and in the rear-view mirror I occasionally caught her chewing her lips or tapping her tongue on her teeth as she frowned out of the window.
In hindsight, perhaps I should have chosen my words with more care. Kirstie was fearful enough of her child’s welfare without my suggesting there’d be a firefight over him. But I was never one for offering false hope, and it was best that she understood the implications of trying to snatch a child from under the watchful eyes of footsoldiers primed against the unusual. They were waging constant war with neighbouring cartels, all of them jostling for the largest slice of pie, and it stood to reason they’d be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. Recently one gang had slaughtered thirty-plus members of a rival outfit, gunning them down during a daring raid on their headquarters, the story making the international news due to its brutality and efficiency, so I didn’t doubt that we were facing dangerous and capable enemies who were likely to launch a counter-attack.
After I’d said my piece, Kirstie had looked shocked, and had agreed to remain at the staging post we’d set up on our arrival in Jorge Molina’s hometown of Hermosillo. That made me feel a little better about the arrangement. If I’d had my way, Kirstie wouldn’t be coming into Mexico at all, but Harvey, and then Rink, had argued that we needed her to look after Benjamin. None of us could care for a small child – not while possibly fighting all the way back to the US. At least Kirstie was no shrinking violet, no damsel in distress requiring saving by one of us. She was tough, I could tell, and determined, and also trained in the use of small arms. Apparently her gran
dmother had instructed both Annie and Kirstie in firearms, a skill that Kirstie had kept up since being manhandled off the street by Jorge’s henchmen. The grandmother had perhaps foreseen a day when it would be necessary for her family to take up weapons, but she could never have guessed it would be under these circumstances.
I checked in the rear-view again. Kirstie had hidden her auburn hair under the cap I’d given her at the airport hotel, and had her chin tilted down so that the peak concealed part of her face. Her gaze was hidden in shadow, but it was as if she sensed my scrutiny and looked up. I caught a flash of pale grey, before one eyelid flickered in a wink. My response was to wink back, and Kirstie nodded at my weak attempt at offering support.
‘You OK back there?’
‘As well as anybody could be under these circumstances.’
‘You should eat something,’ I said. We had dined on coffee and sandwiches but Kirstie had had no appetite while going through our final plans. ‘Grab something from the cooler back there.’
‘I’m not sure my stomach would take food just now.’
‘Nervous?’
‘No, anxious.’
Beside me in the passenger seat, Rink stirred from a light slumber. Despite snoring gently, he’d been aware of our brief conversation. ‘It pays to eat and drink when you can: you never know when you’ll next have the opportunity.’
‘Do you want something?’ Kirstie flipped open the lid of the cooler box we’d prepared.
‘Yeah, toss me some mineral water and one of those taco wraps, will ya?’
‘What about you, Joe?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ll get something once we swap drivers.’
‘Yeah. Best you don’t distract him.’ Rink accepted a bottle of water and his food, while glancing around at the scenery. It was featureless desert on one side, with only a few stray spindly bushes dotting the hilly horizon, while on the other there was a narrow strip of tilled land that was surprisingly green. ‘Good to see you’ve managed to drive this far without killing us all,’ Rink said. ‘I’ll take over soon, before the traffic grows any heavier.’