Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3

by Swartwood, Robert

A woman in the lobby screamed.

  Another person shouted, “What was that? What was that?”

  In her ear, Hayward spoke again, asking what was wrong, but she disconnected the call and hurried past the man in the suit. The man called after her, telling her they needed to evacuate, but she ignored him and pushed past the people moving toward the exit, running in the direction she’d watched Cortez head only minutes ago.

  A few police officers hurried past her, their guns drawn, and one of them tried to stop her from proceeding, but once she explained—shouted, really—that she was President Cortez’s aide, he relented but told her to stay back.

  Around the corner was a short hallway, and the emergency exit door at the end of the hallway stood open. One of the bodyguards was shouting at the police to hurry.

  Imna followed them out to a side street and found one of the bodyguards still on the ground, though he was trying to pick himself up; blood ran down his face from his broken nose. The third bodyguard was standing but had his hands up. A gun lay at his feet; he was the one who fired it and wanted to make sure the police knew he was unarmed.

  He pointed down the street.

  “They went that way!”

  Imna turned to the first bodyguard, the one holding the exit door open.

  “What happened?”

  The man’s face was red and tight. He had one job, and he had failed to do it.

  “Once the alarm sounded, President Cortez came out of the bathroom and ran for the door. The woman from outside—the one President Cortez was speaking to on the line—was waiting. She”—he paused, swallowed—“she attacked us. She grabbed him and put a gun to his head. They got into one of the SUVs. We fired after them, but—”

  She turned away from him, wanting to scream out her frustrations.

  One of the police officers had a radio to his ear. He turned to them, and shook his head.

  “They’re already on the freeway.”

  Forty-Seven

  This portion of the 110 has six lanes heading south, and I use all of them, swerving back and forth between cars as the speedometer ticks up to from 70 to 80 to 90.

  I eye President Cortez in the rearview mirror, the man sitting in the back holding on to the “oh shit” bar.

  “I suggest you put your seat belt on, Mr. President.”

  I spot flashing lights a quarter mile back, what may be two or four or six police cars. President Cortez notices me looking past him in the rearview mirror, and glances back through the rear window.

  Turning back as he clips in his seat belt, he says, “What do you think they will do?”

  “Nothing right now. They’re just going to chase us. They won’t intervene as long as they believe your life is in danger.”

  “Where are we going?”

  The answer is I’m not sure, but that won’t ease his worry. The fact is, everything had happened so fast—Cortez agreeing to trust me, me hurrying around to the side of the hotel where the SUVs were parked, giving Atticus the signal to remotely set off the hotel’s fire alarm, and then waiting until Cortez and his bodyguards burst through the side door.

  Now we were in one of those armored SUVs, a half-dozen police cars chasing us with more on the way, police helicopters no doubt headed in our direction, and the morning traffic on the 110 busy but not too congested, the speedometer now inching up to 95 mph.

  I spot a sign for the 10 interchange, and keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I flip open Tweedledee’s cell phone and dial Atticus.

  He says, “Where are you now?”

  “On the 110, almost to the 10. What’s my timeline?”

  “I’m still waiting to get confirmation from one of my contacts.”

  “Goddamn it, Atticus. We’re running out of time.”

  “There’s nothing I can do to pressure him. This is a big ask.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like I can pull over to save us some time.”

  Atticus is quiet for a moment.

  “Perhaps you can.”

  He tells me his idea, and directs me onto the 10 headed east. I cut off a bus as I take the turn, and soon we merge onto the 10.

  Two helicopters are in the air, headed in our direction. At least one of them is a news chopper, and for the first time I’m thankful for the tinted windows.

  I ask, “Have we made the news yet?”

  Atticus tells me to wait a moment, then says, “Yes, they’re already running the coverage. They don’t appear to know President Cortez is with you. Once that happens, the coverage will go international.”

  “I don’t have GPS on me. What’s my route?”

  Atticus relays the directions, and they’re straightforward enough that I disconnect and toss the phone onto the passenger seat.

  President Cortez leans forward in his seat to look up at the helicopters in the sky.

  “Are you sure this will work?”

  Keeping both hands on the wheel, my foot pressed to the gas, still swerving from lane to lane, I decide to tell him the truth.

  “No.”

  A couple minutes later we pass through the 405 interchange. Now there are a dozen police cars following us. The traffic becomes a bit more congested, and for the first time, I lift my foot off the gas. At the last second, I jerk the wheel and steer us over to the right lane to the next exit. We’re going so fast it feels like the SUV comes up on two wheels as we take the turn. Going south on Bundy Drive now, there’s a red light up ahead, but I tap the brakes, scan the traffic, and then breeze through it, nearly clipping the rear end of a pickup truck.

  Swerving through more traffic, some of it oncoming, people leaning on their horns and shouting out windows. I make a hard turn onto Ocean Park Boulevard, the SUV almost fishtailing, and then ride the brake as I jerk the wheel once more, onto a side street, and press all my weight down on the gas pedal.

  The SUV’s needle ticks up, going from 60 to 65 to 70, and in the back President Cortez spots the fence ahead of us and shouts.

  “Stop. Stop. Stop!”

  We crash through the fence. I’m prepared for the airbag to deploy from the impact, but it doesn’t. The SUV is large enough that we barrel through and continue out onto the airfield.

  “Mr. President, welcome to the Santa Monica Airport.”

  Forty-Eight

  More news choppers fill the sky, three of them, as well as a police chopper. At least a dozen police cars have ringed the airfield. A few unmarked police cars, too. A few black SUVs. Two ambulances. Three fire trucks. The only thing they haven’t sent yet is a tank, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one’s on its way.

  Not even ten minutes have passed since we crashed through the gate, so that’s a pretty impressive response time.

  I eye President Cortez in the rearview mirror.

  “That’s a lot of people. You must be somebody important.”

  He doesn’t smile at the joke. He stares out his window, watching all the flashing lights, his face tight.

  “Where is he?”

  He doesn’t look at me when he asks the question, but that’s okay. It’s the question I’ve been expecting him to ask.

  “All in due time.”

  “No”—his voice loud, his teeth gritted—“tell me now.”

  I keep watching him in the rearview mirror, waiting for him to shift his gaze to meet mine. When he does, I wait for a beat, and then nod.

  “We buried him in a woods near the Chihuahua, Sonora border.”

  “Who do you mean by we?”

  “An associate of mine was with me. He entered the country to help me stop your son. You have to understand, Mr. President, at the time I didn’t know his story.”

  “How did you learn it?”

  “Father Crisanto.”

  President Cortez shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath.

  “I had heard Father Crisanto was murdered. Gunned down in the street in front of his church. How did you know to speak to him?”

  “That’s a long story. But the main thing is w
e tracked him down, and he told us about your son. About how the cartels wanted to hurt you, and so they targeted Alejandro and his family. Can I ask you a question?”

  The man shuts his eyes again, and nods.

  “When did you discover your son was the Devil?”

  The Devil was what the news media had dubbed Alejandro Cortez. El Diablo. A serial killer who had targeted the wives and children of cartel bosses, abducted them, and burned them alive.

  President Cortez looks out his window again. He doesn’t speak for a long time, and then he tilts his face to meet my gaze again in the rearview mirror.

  “Not for several months. I believed his body was among those found in the fire. My wife did, too. It … made it easier, having that closure. But then the murders started happening, to those women and children, and part of me began to suspect.”

  “How so?”

  “At the time I believed nobody else could be so brazen. Not if they had anything to lose. And clearly by then my son had nothing to lose.”

  From the cluster of police cars, a man begins to approach. He wears a Kevlar vest with his badge hanging from a chain around his neck. He has his hands raised, holding a bullhorn in one of them.

  “This must be the hostage negotiator.”

  I wait until the man is ten yards away—moving slowly, one cautious step at a time—before I lower my window a few inches. By now I figure a half-dozen snipers have set up all around the airfield, and I don’t want to give them an easy shot.

  “Take one more step, and I’ll shoot him in the head!”

  The negotiator freezes.

  “Turn your sorry ass around and head back to your friends!”

  The negotiator doesn’t move. He’s here to negotiate, and so far he hasn’t had a chance to properly do his job.

  Before the man can say something, I shout again.

  “If you don’t back away in the next five seconds, I’m going to blow his fucking brains out!”

  The negotiator doesn’t move at first, at least to my liking, so I start a countdown.

  “Five!”

  The negotiator takes a quick step back.

  “Four!”

  Another step.

  “Three!”

  Another step.

  “Two and you better turn your ass around and get moving!”

  The negotiator complies. He doesn’t hurry, though, instead walks at a measured pace, probably to try to save face with his colleagues.

  President Cortez shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

  “How much longer?”

  “I don’t know. Hopefully my associate’s contact comes through. If not …”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re screwed.”

  The man doesn’t answer, though he does smile, and stares out his window again. I watch him in the rearview mirror for another moment before I speak.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Why did you believe me?”

  He thinks it over for a few seconds.

  “I saw the truth in your eyes.”

  “What truth?”

  “That you knew my son. That you were the one who … stopped him. It’s been almost a year now. I have thought of him more often than usual the past couple days.”

  I watch him in the rearview mirror for another moment, then lean forward to check the SUV’s glove box. I find a scrap of paper and a pen, and jot down several numbers. I pass it back to President Cortez.

  He looks at the paper for a moment. Frowns at me.

  “What is this?”

  “GPS coordinates to where we buried your son. If something happens to me, I want to make sure I followed through with my end of the deal.”

  Without a word, he folds the paper and slips it into his jacket pocket.

  “I need to know something, Mr. President.”

  He looks at me again.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Besides the cartels, who benefits most in your government if you’re assassinated?”

  He thinks about it for a moment, then smiles.

  “Quite a few people. I am not a popular man. My policies have been hard on the cartels, and in turn, the cartels have stopped contributing their blood money to many of those corrupt in my government.”

  “Mexico doesn’t have a vice president, does it?”

  “No. If something were to happen to me, the Secretario de Gobernación, or Secretary of the Interior, would assume executive powers provisionally.”

  “Who’s the current Secretary of the Interior?”

  “A man named Felipe Abascal.”

  “Any bad blood between you and Felipe?”

  “None I am aware of, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Besides, he would not take over permanently. As I only have two more years in my term, Congress would select a substitute president by a majority of votes in a secret ballot. That person would be president until the end of the presidential term.”

  “So we know for a fact if you were assassinated, Felipe would take over, but it wouldn’t be for long. Congress would need to elect somebody else.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that could be anybody.”

  President Cortez shrugs.

  “I would not say just anybody, but there is no telling who may be elected.”

  “Would you say the majority of your Congress is corrupt? As in they would do whatever the cartels tell them to do?”

  “I would like to think not, but I do not know for sure.”

  “Who was the woman that was with you when you arrived at the hotel?”

  “My aide. She’s been working for me for almost seven years.”

  “So you trust her.”

  “Yes.”

  “She goes with you everywhere.”

  “Yes.”

  “Knows your schedule.”

  “Yes.”

  He pauses, seeing where I’m going with this, and shakes his head.

  “No. It … it cannot be her.”

  “Let me ask you this: when you arrive somewhere with your aide, who typically gets out of the vehicle first?”

  He says nothing, staring out his window.

  “I watched you motion for her to get out first. She didn’t. Almost like she knew something bad was supposed to happen.”

  Still President Cortez says nothing.

  “You understand why we’re here, don’t you? Somebody close to you has been feeding inside information to the people who wanted me to assassinate you. That person was providing up-to-the-minute intel. And that same person, if this goes as planned, will want to make sure I never get a chance to tell my story to the authorities. The last thing they want is for their plot to become known. Do you understand?”

  He nods, his expression pained, the knowledge that he was betrayed too much to accept.

  I ask, “What is your aide’s name?”

  “Imna Rodriguez.”

  I watch him in the rearview mirror.

  “I hope I’m wrong about this.”

  He meets my stare again.

  “So do I.”

  That’s when Tweedledee’s cell phone buzzes.

  Forty-Nine

  The police had set up a perimeter around the airport of a couple blocks, mostly to keep the news media away. The security detail had driven her there once word reached them that that was where the woman had taken President Cortez, and she had to speak to several different police officers before they were allowed to drive through the barricade. Even then, more police cars were lined up outside the fence, making it difficult to see the SUV out on the airfield.

  She stepped out of the SUV and was immediately met by an older black man with salt-and-pepper hair. He flashed his badge at her. FBI.

  “Hello, Ms. Rodriguez. I’m Special Agent in Charge Bryan Rhodes. I understand you were with President Cortez before he was abducted.”

  She stared out at the airfield, trying to get a glimpse of the SUV. Above them, helicopters hovered in the
sky.

  “What is happening?”

  “It appears we have a hostage situation.”

  “President Cortez is a guest in this country.”

  Forcing anger into her tone, the proper amount of outrage.

  The man nodded, his face tight.

  “I understand that, Ms. Rodriguez. And right now we’re doing everything we can to ensure President Cortez’s safety.”

  Her primary concern wasn’t Cortez, of course. It was the woman. The woman who knew way too much. If somehow this ended without her being killed by the police, she would be arrested. Imna couldn’t have that.

  A radio on the agent’s belt crackled, and a voice came through.

  “Jones is approaching now.”

  Imna asked, “Who is Jones?”

  The agent said, “He’s the hostage negotiator.”

  She raised herself up on her tiptoes, like that would help her see over the barricade of police cars, but it didn’t do much good. She could just glimpse a man walking toward the SUV on the airfield.

  The voice came through the radio again.

  “Driver’s window coming down.”

  The agent unclipped his radio and spoke into it.

  “How much?”

  “Only a few inches. The target looks to be talking to the negotiator.”

  A moment of silence from the radio, the sound of the helicopters in the sky the only thing she could hear, and then the radio crackled again.

  “Jones is falling back.”

  The agent said, “Repeat?”

  “He’s walking backward, returning to the cars.”

  The agent shook his head as he muttered under his breath.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  A few minutes passed in silence from the radio. Imna, growing impatient, tried seeing past the cars again, and she wondered how she was going to handle this, just how much power she could exert in this country—not to mention how much power the country would allow her to exert—when they heard the gunshots.

  It sounded like distant firecrackers, almost lost under the noise of the helicopters, and immediately the radio crackled again.

  “We have gunfire. I repeat: we have gunfire.”

  Her heart began thumping in her chest, a rush of adrenaline shooting through her, and she realized she needed to continue her act as the frantic, concerned aide.