Cartel (32 page)

"Why are we going to Mexico?" Victoria Greene asked in a high, tight voice that betrayed her fear.

"That's where your husband is," Jones said. This was going to be the tricky part, getting her and the two brats across the bridge without a fuss.

"Why is Scott in Mexico?" Victoria asked at the exact same time her daughter said, "Mommy, why is daddy in Mexico?"

"Dad's in trouble, isn't he?" Jake said.

"No, he isn't," Victoria snapped at her son, then turned to her daughter. "I don't know." She looked at Jones, who was looking over his shoulder at them. "Why is my husband in Mexico?"

"I can't tell you that, Mrs. Greene. Not right now. But rest assured that your husband will explain everything to you when you see him."

"So the news was wrong." She glanced at her son, then back at Jones. "About what they said. The reasons."

"What was on the news, mom?" Jake said.

"Was daddy on TV?" Samantha asked.

Victoria ignored them and kept her eyes on Jones.

Jones nodded. "The news reports were exaggerated."

"So he's working on a case then," Victoria said, a note of hope creeping into her voice.

Jones glanced through the windshield. They were half a mile from the bridge. "Yes," he said. "Your husband is working on a sensitive case. That's why he's in Mexico." But when he turned back to look at Mrs. Greene, instead of the relief he expected to see in her eyes, he saw them knit to-gether and her brow furrow with suspicion.

"But if he's working on a case," she said, "especially a sensitive case, why are you taking us to Mexico?"

"That's the part I can't tell you, Mrs. Greene," Jones said. "Not until we meet with your husband."

"When you say sensitive, you mean dangerous, don't you?"

"Yes," Jones said. "That's exactly what I mean, and for your protection, and that of your children, your husband wanted you to-"

"Then why aren't we going to a safe house?" Victoria asked. "I've been through this before, Mister...I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"Jones. Special Agent Jones."

"With the Justice Department."

"Yes."

"What agency?"

Jones hesitated. The credentials he carried only said De-partment of Justice. They didn't list a specific agency. DOJ had dozens of separate agencies, offices, and divisions with-in its massive organizational structure: FBI, DEA, ATF, Marshals Service, Bureau of Prisons, Office of Justice Pro-grams, Office of the Inspector General, Civil Rights Divi-sion, Anti-Trust Division, and on and on.

The small section at Langley that printed fake creden-tials for case officers operating illegally on U.S. soil pur-posely left those credentials vague. The fact that the creden-tials didn't identify a specific agency was usually an asset. Except with Victoria Greene, who, as the wife of a career Justice Department employee, knew more than the average person about how the Department was organized.

"What agency are you with?" Victoria asked again. She was clutching her purse in her lap.

Jones could see the suspicion in her eyes. His brief hesi-tation, no more than an instant really, had done it, had been enough to make her realize that something was not quite right. He sighed. Things were always so much harder than they needed to be.

Victoria dug her cell phone out of her purse and was starting to punch in a number when Jones reached over the seat and snatched it away from her. She let out a short yelp of surprise and tried to grab the phone from him, but he pushed her back against the seat. Then the boy sprang up and tried to take the phone from Jones, so Jones shoved him back also, and in the process banged the boy's head against the side window, making him cry out in pain.

Mrs. Greene wrapped her arms around her children. The little girl started crying again. The boy glared at Jones, trying desperately to be brave. His father would be proud, Jones thought.

"Who are you?" Victoria Greene demanded.

Jones turned away to look through the windshield. They were in line in the OFFICIAL USE ONLY lane, with two cars in front of them. A CBP officer was checking the ID of the driver stopped at the security booth. When Jones turned back, he saw Victoria was also looking through the wind-shield at the CBP officer.

"Mrs. Greene," Jones said. "Your husband is in Mexico, and I am taking you to see him. What you need to do is sit back and remain calm. You will be with your husband short-ly."

She nodded at him. Then she lunged to her right, across her daughter's lap, and yanked on the door handle. The door didn't open. Jones had instructed Gavin to engage the child locks. Victoria pulled on the handle again, then reached over her son and yanked the handle of the other door. It didn't open either.

"Mrs. Greene," Jones said in as reasonable a voice as he could muster under the circumstances. "You need to calm down."

But she didn't. She looked at the CBP officer just two car lengths ahead, leaning out of the security booth and handing back the credentials of the driver he had been talk-ing to. She screamed and banged her open hand against the window on the left side.

Jones slid his pistol out of its holster and laid it on the console between the front sets. Victoria didn't see it, but her daughter did. Samantha screamed.

Jake saw it too. "Mom?" he said.

Victoria kept pulling on the door handle with one hand and banging her other hand against the window.

"Mom," Jake repeated. "He has a gun."

Victoria stopped and turned toward Jones. She stared at the pistol, the muzzle pointed back, more or less at her stomach. The car at the booth pulled away and Gavin eased the Suburban forward. They were one car back from the booth.

"Mrs. Greene, if you do or say anything to attract the at-tention of that Customs officer, I'm going to shoot one of your children. Then I'm going to shoot the other one. Then after you've seen them both shot and bleeding to death, I'm going to shoot you."

Both kids were crying now. The girl in great snuffling sobs, the boy more quietly, still trying to hold it back. Victo-ria Greene stared at Jones. "Who are you?"

"I really do work for the federal government," Jones said. "But not the Justice Department. And I am, in fact, taking you to your husband. I'm hoping your presence and the presence of your children will persuade him to...cooperate with me."

"And do what?"

"Your husband stumbled over a piece of information that could compromise an important arrangement between the United States government and other parties. If he gives that piece of information to me, I'll let you go, all of you."

"Bullshit," Victoria said.

Both kids stopped crying and stared at her. Apparently, they weren't used to their mother using such language.

"I've seen your face," Victoria said. She nodded at Gavin. "Both of you. Who are you, CIA?"

"Why would you say that?" Jones asked, impressed by this woman's intuition.

"You're a little too pale to be with a cartel, and I believe you when you say you work for the government. Something my husband always told me was that every time he ran into the CIA on a case, they were always trying to do the exact opposite of what DEA was trying to do, which was put bad guys in jail."

"I think your husband oversimplified the situation, Mrs. Greene."

"You sure about that?"

Jones nodded. "There are a lot of nuances to our foreign relationships that law enforcement agents don't fully under-stand. Ultimately, however, we are all working toward the same goal, which is the protection of the United States."

"And you work toward that by what, kidnapping chil-dren?"

"This is not a kidnapping, Mrs. Greene."

"What is it then?"

"An exchange."

The priest's mobile phone rang. The number was blocked. Larios answered it. "Hola."

"It's me," Benetta Alvarez said.

"Why did you hang up?"

"I shot an American DEA agent in a car in the middle of the street," Alvarez said. "Would you rather I was arrested and somebody else got the video?"

Larios bit back the first response that came to mind. Although Alvarez was disagreeable and didn't always do as she was told, she had a good point. Besides, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Contrary to what the me-dia reported, particularly the American media, not every po-lice officer in Mexico was on the payroll of the cartels. Some weren't important enough to contribute anything useful. Oth-ers refused to take the money. And you simply couldn't kill everybody. It wasn't practical.

"Are you there?" Alvarez said after the long silence.

"I'm here."

"Did you hear me? The American is dead, and I have the video."

"I heard you."

"I want to speak to my daughter."

"Not now," Larios said.

There were several more long seconds of silence. Then Alvarez said, "You must not want the video."

The words were confident but the voice that carried them was not. Larios heard a slight catch in it. "Don't do an-ything stupid," he said. "Not while I have-"

"If you hurt her-"

"Your daughter is fine, but she wouldn't stop crying. I can't stand the sound of crying children, so I sent her outside with the priest to look at some of my horses."

"How is my uncle?"

"He's all right," Larios said. "Both of them are. For now."

"I'll bring it to you."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"I've been to your hacienda," Alvarez said.

"You've been to one of my haciendas."

"Where then?"

"San Judas Tadeo."

"Why there?"

"He was a martyr, you know."

"Who?"

"San Judas Tadeo," Larios said. "He was killed in Bei-rut, in the Roman province of Syria. He and Simon the Zeal-ot both had their heads chopped off with an axe."

"I didn't know that."

"I'm surprised your uncle didn't tell you about it," Lari-os said. "Especially since his church is named after a mar-tyred apostle of Christ."

"Maybe he did when I was a little girl."

"Maybe you forgot."

"Maybe," Alvarez said.

"San Judas Tadeo is the patron saint of the hopeless and the desperate."

"I know that."

"He can also help you find things that have been lost."

The policewoman didn't say anything.

"Have you lost something?" Larios asked.

"I want my daughter back."

"And I want the video."

"When?"

Larios looked at his watch, a Bulgari Octo he had bought in Rome. "Two hours," he said. Then he hung up.

Benny put the phone down on the front seat of the Oldsmo-bile and stared at Scott.

"What did he say?" Scott asked.

"He wants to trade," Benny said. "The video for my daughter and my uncle."

"You believe him?"

"What choice do I have?"

Good point, Scott thought. It wasn't like there was any possibility that Humberto Larios was bluffing when he said he would kill the little girl and the priest. Last year a couple of bloggers had insulted him in an online post. Larios had them kidnapped and tortured, then had their naked, mutilat-ed bodies hung upside down from a bridge in downtown Nuevo Laredo. "He won't hurt them as long as he gets what he wants," Scott said, although he had no idea if that was true.

"Will he?"

"Will he what?" Scott asked.

"Get what he wants?"

Scott pulled the flash drive out from under his shirt but left the lanyard looped around his neck. "Yes."

Benny let out a long breath. "Thank you."

"Where are you supposed to meet him?"

"My uncle's church."

"Why there?" Scott asked.

"He wants me to think he chose it because he's a man of God," Benny said.

"What's the real reason?"

"You saw the neighborhood," Benny said. "The gangs own it, and Los Zetas own the gangs. The police won't go there."

"Is there some play we can make, some way to get an advantage over him?"

Benny laughed, but there was no humor in it. "No. And I don't expect you to go with me. This is not your problem."

"I told you I would get your daughter out of Mexico."

"It's different now," Benny said. "They have her."

Scott shook his head. "No, it's not different. The reason you wanted to get out of Mexico is because you were afraid Los Zetas would hurt your daughter. You were right to be afraid. I was wrong. I should have paid more attention to what you were saying. We should have...I should have fig-ured out a way to get her across the first time."

She laid a hand on his arm. "I can't ask you to go with me."

"You're not asking."

Benny looked at him. And smiled. "Thank you."

The cell phone rang.

They both stared at it. It lay face up on the seat between them. The screen showed the word BLOCKED.

"He's calling back?"

"I called him on tío's phone."

As the phone rang a second time, Scott reached for it, but Benny beat him to it. "Put it on speaker," he said.

Benny took a deep breath and answered the call. Then she pressed the speaker button. "Hola," she said.

"Hola yourself," said an American voice, a voice Scott recognized immediately as that of the man who called him-self Jones. "Am I on speaker, Señorita Alvarez? Is Agent Greene there with you?"

"I'm here," Scott said.

"Good, because I have someone here who wants to speak to you."

"Scott?" It was Victoria's voice. Scott grabbed the phone from Benny's hand. Then he heard his wife cry out in surprise or pain, or both. Then his son, Jake, shouted, "Leave her alone!" His daughter, Samantha, was crying.

"Victoria," Scott shouted into the phone.

"Scott, a man has us," Victoria shouted. "Me and the kids. He says-"

"That's enough," Jones said as Victoria's voice was cut off.

"Victoria!" Scott said again, squeezing the phone so hard it shot out of his hand, bounced off the seat, and fell to the floor. He and Benny bent down to pick it up at the same time and knocked heads. Scott got his hand on the phone first. He picked it up and shouted into it, "If you hurt my family, I'll burn you at the fucking stake."