by Jack Mars
“Good,” Don said again. “Trudy, tell us about our new guardian angel from the Bureau, who will look after our men and keep them on the straight and narrow path.”
“At first glance, he looks okay,” Trudy said. “Henry Bowles. Thirty-five years old. Yale graduate, Army ROTC, with honors. Did his military obligation with 1st Special Forces, joined 1993. Four years, in and out, then went straight to Quantico. He’s been with the Bureau nine years. He’s had a handful of high-profile busts, a couple of commendations. He looks like a guy on the way up.”
“Then why is he babysitting us?” Ed said. “Seems like he’d have something better to do with his time.”
“Good question,” Trudy said. “You’ll have to ask him that yourself.”
“Where do we meet Henry?” Luke said. “Is he going to come here to the hotel?”
“No, you’re going to meet him tonight in Florida.”
“Florida?”
“A house in Fort Lauderdale is the last known residence of Felix Cienfuegos. Real estate records suggest it’s an eighteen-hundred-square-foot one-story bungalow. An old Florida house from the days before air conditioning. It’s owned by a company called Gold Coast Property Management, who rent about a thousand homes on the east coast of Florida. Nothing much there. Cienfuegos probably rents from them for the anonymity of it. Just another guy in a rented house in Florida. Swann checked satellite imagery of the place. There’s recent activity at the house. Swann?”
“Yeah,” Swann said. “Actually, I borrowed a drone for a brief flyover earlier today. There were two cars parked there. It’s a place on a canal. Swimming pool in the backyard, fresh clean water in the pool. There’s also a boat tied up in the back. The boat is nothing special.”
“The place looks lived in is what Swann’s trying to tell you,” Trudy said.
“Yes,” Swann said. “Someone is home.”
“The two of you and your new friend Special Agent Bowles,” Don said, “are going to stop by there for a little chat.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
12:45 p.m. Central Standard Time (1:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)
La Sierra de San Simon (St. Simon’s Saw)
Near Honduras
The Caribbean Sea
“I’m afraid you’ve stepped in it this time, Darwin.”
Darwin sighed. He was already aggravated. It had taken the operator half an hour to connect, and reconnect, and then re-reconnect this call from the United States. While waiting, Darwin had poured himself another vodka tonic.
The call itself, apparently connected for good now, just made everything worse. The caller spoke with a quaint Southern accent that was supposed to remind the listener of genteel plantation times gone by. Just sitting on the porch, sipping mint juleps on a hot day, and watching the slaves pick cotton.
“Do tell,” Darwin said.
“Is this line secure?”
Darwin shook his head. “Who cares?”
“I do,” the voice said.
“In that case, it’s secure as can be.”
It grew tiresome, dealing with these people. Politicians, always conniving, maneuvering, self-dealing. They thought they were smart, and they were, in a sense. They were about as smart as chimpanzees. Chimps were our close cousins, and they spent their time screeching, fighting, and plotting against each other. Darwin King had studied chimpanzee society. People would be surprised to learn how similar it was to human society. The United States Congress could easily take place in the forests of Africa.
“The girl. The newest one.”
Darwin shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
And this man, this Southern fried cracker, was prone to making phone calls like this. Bill Ryan, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. An ambitious man. A man with plans.
He was not Darwin King’s friend. He was no one’s friend, but especially not Darwin’s. He had never been a guest at one of Darwin’s homes. Unlike so many of his peers, he had never partaken of Darwin’s… gifts. He scrupulously avoided entanglements like that.
But other sorts of entanglements were not a problem for Bill Ryan. In other ways, the man was an entanglement factory.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, my friend. You steal young girls to feed your warped, perverse desires. You’re a sick man, Darwin.”
“Judge not,” Darwin said, “lest ye be judged.”
“I don’t judge you. Time and the Lord will take care of that. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. In the meantime, I will use you as I see fit.”
Darwin felt the rage rise within him. No one talked to him in this way, no one on the entire Earth.
“How dare you?” he said. “You and your Lord. Save your moral judgments. Do you know what I could do to you? Do you know the things I know about you? Sir, I keep you in my back pocket, all your little dirty deals, all the bad actors you’ve been to bed with. In the unlikely case I ever find myself in an awkward position, do you know how I’ll get out of it? I’ll give them you.”
“Darwin, be careful what you say to me. I may take you seriously.”
Darwin took a long, slow sip of his drink.
“Why are we talking right now, Bill?”
“You made a mistake,” Ryan said. “You overstepped.”
“I don’t overstep. It is not possible for me to overstep.”
“All right,” Ryan said. “But something happened, something that has your fingerprints all over it, and a powerful but desperate man asked me for a favor. Do you know who the man is?”
Darwin shook his head. The guessing game. The question game. “Of course I know. He and I go all the way back. But this wasn’t personal between us. It was just the repayment of a debt, and not his debt. He had nothing to do with it. Tell him so, if you think that will help him any.”
It was a kind thing to say, Darwin thought. It made him seem like a reasonable man. But the truth was this little move was doing double duty. It was absolutely delicious that the theft of 21 hurt Miles Richmond. Delicious wasn’t even the right word. Euphoria-inducing… was that a word?
God, when he was finished with her… When he was finished…
“It’s too late,” Ryan said. “I granted him the favor he asked of me, and now people are coming for you. They are people you do not want to meet. I have no idea how long it will take them to find you, but I imagine not terribly long. In a very real sense, they are already on their way. I did this to you. Yes. It was me. I want you to know that.”
…he would leave her somewhere for Richmond to find her.
Darwin took a deep breath. “You have no idea how many times I’ve been threatened like this.”
“You have never been threatened like this.”
“What do you want, Bill? Please. I’m about to hang up.”
“Well,” Ryan said. “The way I see it, there are only two ways you can get out of this. One is to give the girl back, immediately and unharmed. Just drop her off somewhere. In front of a police precinct somewhere anonymous, in Florida or Texas, say, and direct her to walk inside and introduce herself. Easy enough.”
“Impossible,” Darwin said. He caught an image in his mind of the girl he had just sent back to her dungeon. She was too perfect to ever surrender to anyone. If it came down to it, if it ever happened that he couldn’t have her, he would see to it that no one could have her.
“I’ve already grown attached to her. She’s quite precious to me. Like a diamond.”
“I imagined you would say that. So here’s your second option. You give me two people that I want. You probably know who they are without my having to say their names. One is a senator from my home state, a good friend of yours, but not one of mine.”
“You have no friends,” Darwin said.
Ryan ignored the comment. “This man is the wrong party, of course, but everything about him is wrong, and I’m trying to cleanse my state of vermin like this. His weaknesses are a disgrace. A scandal would clear the way for some
one better, younger, more in touch with the constituents.”
“Someone you control,” Darwin said.
This was Bill Ryan in a nutshell. He wanted power. It was all he seemed to want. Power for power’s sake, as an end in itself. His lust for it was single-minded and all-encompassing. Darwin supposed he could respect that. Himself, he wanted more than that, much more, but Darwin King was well-rounded, much more so than your typical politician. Strip away the veneer, the pomp and circumstance, and Congress was a long line of one-trick ponies.
“The second person I want is the erstwhile former governor of Pennsylvania,” Ryan said. “Another good friend of yours, and a frequent party guest at your apartment up in Manhattan, as I understand it.”
Darwin smiled, in spite of himself. The vodka had settled into his system, and he was finally beginning to enjoy this conversation. Bill Ryan wanted dirt on Thomas Hayes, the Vice President of the United States.
“Not that frequent a guest,” Darwin said. “It was quite some time ago, and it happened less than you probably think. I suspect he was just tasting the forbidden fruit, as so many do. He moved on pretty quickly.”
There was silence over the line.
“He has higher ambitions, doesn’t he?” Darwin said. The governor of Pennsylvania had stumbled into the vice presidency. There were only a handful of offices higher than the ones he had already held, and only one that the man in question would even want.
“Most people do,” Bill Ryan said.
Darwin nearly clapped his hands. “That’s it, isn’t it? My, my, my. I told him that would be a terrible mistake. I told him the best thing for him was to stay in his lane.”
Hayes should have declined the vice presidency, not because of the office itself, but because being that close to the throne would be such an irresistible temptation. Clement Dixon was old. He had just survived the hijacking of Air Force One. He probably wouldn’t run for a second term. Hayes could probably just walk in the door, especially if the crusty, popular, straight-talking and tough-minded outgoing President endorsed him.
“I’m not the only skeleton in his closet,” Darwin said. “But you must know that already.”
“You have the goods on him though, don’t you?”
Darwin’s shoulders slumped a bit. “The goods?”
If photo and video evidence, as well as sensual love letters the man had exchanged with underage girls, were the so-called goods, then he did indeed have them.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “The goods.”
“Of course I have them. But I don’t sell my friends out quite that easily. What am I supposed to get out of this arrangement?”
“Well, it’s too late to call the dogs off,” Ryan said. “If you won’t give the girl back, then they’re coming for you. Even I can’t stop that now. Too many forces are in motion. But I can let you know when and how they’re coming, so you can be ready.”
Darwin didn’t like this. He didn’t like Bill Ryan. Who were these fearsome dogs that supposedly couldn’t be called off?
It wasn’t as if Darwin King didn’t have resources he could draw on. It wasn’t as if Darwin didn’t have friends in high places. Darwin King had his own attack dogs. He had his own spies, and they were everywhere.
In the end, a dog was just a dog. The help was the help. And a hired killer was a hired killer. In Darwin’s experience, they were all more or less the same. They canceled each other out. Ten elite killers on each side was a wash. They’d be lucky if any of them survived.
“I’ll look into the situation and get back to you,” he said.
“That’s fine,” Bill Ryan said in his insipid drawl. “But don’t take too long now. My philosophy is it’s better to be weeks too early than a second too late.”
* * *
She was back in her room.
Her room.
It was dreary and dark, though now she knew that a bright, hot sun was shining right outside. Everything about this room was wrong. She did not want to get used to it, or somehow be associated with it. She did not want to settle down in it. She did not want to become comfortable here.
Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed and waited. She had to be ready for the time when she would be rescued. Soon, this would all be over and she would be heading back home. Her mom would forgive her for running out that night. They would go out to dinner and pretend it never happened. They would laugh about things that happened when she was a little girl instead.
She had to remain strong—she would not cry again, she would not beg—she would just wait a day, or maybe two. Her mom would find a way to pull her out of here. Or maybe her grandfather on her dad’s side would do it. He was a powerful man. She just had to wait, be patient, be strong, and stay ready to escape.
For a moment, the hall outside filled with men’s voices. Deep voices, laughing voices, menacing voices—all just on the other side of that locked door. The gunmen, the guards from Honduras. Their sudden presence changed everything. All her thoughts transformed in an instant. She was not going to escape. She was not going to be rescued. A wave of helpless fear surged over her. Her heart pounded in her chest.
She couldn’t stay living down here. Eventually these gunmen would decide that Darwin didn’t want her, that she hadn’t made the cut, that she wasn’t worthy to live in another part of the house. She was down here, left out, forgotten.
Then they could have her.
She crept to the door and listened—she could not understand a single word they said. The voices brought back memories of the attack on the beach, then the darkness, waking up on the plane… waking up here in this room.
She had to get out of this room. She had to get out, into the rest of the house, the property, the sun. She’d had a small taste of it this morning, at breakfast on the patio with Mistress Elaine.
The place was amazing. They were at the top of a mountain, overlooking a wide blue ocean. Lush plants were all around them, with gigantic green leaves and flowers in red and blue and yellow. There were hummingbirds here the size of her hand. They drank nectar from feeders left out for them, and their wings made a loud whirring sound.
This was an island near Central America, close to Honduras. Darwin owned the island, and for some reason the country of Honduras gave him soldiers for his protection. Maybe Darwin and Honduras were allies. Maybe Darwin owned the soldiers now.
Darwin also owned her, apparently.
That couldn’t be right. How could he own her? There were other girls here—she saw three of them hanging around sun tanning by the swimming pool—and Darwin owned them. That seemed possible, but not for her, not for Charlotte.
Charlotte, my name is Charlotte.
It was odd. The 21 thing was starting to creep in. She was beginning to have strange thoughts. Thoughts like: 21 needs to find a way out of here.
They were doing this to her. They were making her think this way.
Darwin had told her he bought her from her parents, but that was definitely wrong. Her father was dead, and had been since she was young. She remembered him, so skinny, so pale, his eyes so sad when he saw her. Her father was like a bad dream to her now. She loved him, and she remembered a different version of him when she was very young, but he was fading. The healthy, happy dad, and the sick, dying dad, both were almost gone now. But either way, he couldn’t have sold her to Darwin. He wasn’t even alive.
And her mother would never sell her. Not in a million years. They’d had their problems, more recently because her mother never wanted her to go out, but nothing to the point where her mother would sell her.
Jeff.
Jeff would sell her. Her mom’s boyfriend. He didn’t like her. Or maybe he just didn’t care about her. He didn’t seem to pay attention at all. She had overheard him sometimes, though. He wanted to travel, to go away, to take vacations. But they were stuck because Charlotte was in school. Plus all the money for college was going to be a drain. Jeff didn’t like that. Her mother said her grandfather would probably pay
for her college, but Jeff didn’t believe it.
Jeff would be happy to get rid of her. And if he got money for it? All the better. But how could he convince her mother to do it?
How could he?
21. Your number is 21.
It was crazy. She wasn’t a number. She wasn’t someone’s slave. 21 was no one’s slave.
Darwin had seemed almost nice. He told Charlotte she was perfect, an angel come to life. He might have been handsome once. He was old, but not old the way a lot of men got. He seemed like a young man with an old man’s head attached at the top of the neck. He had white hair and blue eyes.
She knew what he wanted. She saw the way he looked at her. It was scary. She wasn’t ready for anything like that.
He knew that, too. And he seemed okay with it.
But then he put her back down here in this dungeon. They were beating her down, that’s what they were doing. She saw it. She wasn’t stupid. She could do what Darwin wanted, be his happy slave, jump through hoops like a trained poodle, or she could live down here in the dark, surrounded by gunmen from Honduras. Gunmen she had to ask to let her out so she could go to the bathroom.
A lump welled up in her throat. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry again.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. It’s okay.
It wasn’t going to work. It was NOT okay.
Suddenly, her heart was racing. She couldn’t breathe. She gasped for air. Her hands and face went numb. She seemed frozen in place. This couldn’t be real! It couldn’t be real! It wasn’t happening. She would not believe in it.
She was still wearing the plush white robe that Elaine had given her to wear. She wrapped the robe around her body, hugged her knees, and sat there trying to think. What should she do? She did not know.
She sobbed silently. In her mind, she howled in agony, like a wounded animal. She shrieked in despair. But in the real world, she did not utter a sound. She wanted to be quiet, so as not to bring attention to herself.