Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (33 page)

He envied her, sort of. She saw life very simply: What a person chose to do was either right or wrong. For him, life’s options had always seemed more complicated. You had to balance your needs with those of others. Sadly, they rarely were the same. So you had to be true to yourself. Right?

He checked his rearview mirror. The headlights of the car directly behind him were only pinpricks of light. As he turned off the highway and neared Toluca he prayed that whoever had snatched Mercy wouldn’t spot his entourage, freak out and kill her. If she was still alive.

“I can see the cantina up ahead,” he said to the cop in the back. “The neon sign is lit. I don’t see anyone hanging around though.”

“Do as the letter said. Drop the bag and turn back toward the city without getting out of the car.”

“Aren’t you going to do anything? Like to protect my money?”

“I’m here to make sure they don’t try to grab you, Consul,” the cop said. “One of the other cars will pick them up, along with the cash. We catch them, as you say, red-handed.”

Peter slowed the car and flung the bag through the open driver’s window. The vinyl overnight bag rolled once then stopped on the cement stoop littered with rotting fruit peelings and shattered beer bottles. The place spooked him. Shouldn’t it be open and jumping this time of night? He turned the car, put his foot on the gas, retraced his route—this time heading east on 15D.
Cripes,
he thought,
she better appreciate this. Two freaking hundred thou!

When they'd returned to the house the back-seat cop took a chair beside Peter in the living room, as if he thought that might comfort him. Peter sat beside the phone. Waiting. He was wiped, wanted to go to bed. But he guessed that might look bad—sleeping when your wife was in the hands of desperados.             

After another hour the phone rang. He picked up, his hand shaking. A voice on the other end asked for his cop.

“It’s for you.” He held out the receiver.

The man nodded several times, as if in agreement with whoever was on the other end, as if that person could see him. Peter thought he caught the cop fighting back a smile. The cop put the phone down.

“My men have picked them up,” he said.

“The kidnappers?”

“The extortionists.” The cop’s face remained perfectly straight. No sign of emotion.

“Huh?” Peter said. His stomach turned sour. He could use a whole handful of Prilosecs.

“Two ranch hands who work for Sebastian Hidalgo. They claim your wife told them she had lots of money and offered to hand it over to them if they let her go. Their orders were to bring her to their boss, nothing more. Which was what they did. They handed her over to Hidalgo but then decided—why not take advantage of the situation?”

“The situation? What the hell are you talking about?” Peter jumped to his feet and glared at the man. The cop didn't answer. “You're telling me Hidalgo is behind this? What has he done to her?”

The cop lit a cigarette, taking his time.

Peter swallowed. Suddenly he thought he understood what was going on. The police, at least in the U.S., they always tried to break bad news gently. That was it. Mercy was dead. Hidalgo had killed her and they’d found her body.
Sweet Jesus!

“What did Hidalgo want with my Mercy?” Peter moaned, throwing his head back in bitter remorse.

When he looked back down the Mexican was studying the glowing end of his cigarette. “Don Sebastian has a reputation where women are concerned.”

Peter lost it. “What the fuck are you talking about?  Like he’d have his thugs haul her out into the bush so he could force himself on her?”

“The Don does not need such extreme measures to get a woman.” The fucker was actually smiling now. Like this was all a big joke and he was teasing Peter in preparation for delivering the punch line. “The lady is usually willing. I doubt your wife is being held against her will, if she ever was actually kidnapped.”

Peter glared at him, his chest heaving, face burning. He felt he might explode. Literally explode! No, it wasn’t possible. Mercy would never choose that Latino bandit over him. Never.

The cop rose slowly to his feet and lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Don’t you worry, Consul, she’s safe enough. I expect she will come home to you.” He grinned. “Eventually.”

40

Two military helicopters arrived during the darkest hours of the night, engines roaring like the dragons of Mercy’s childhood nightmares. Floodlights strobed down over the compound as they hovered then landed. They carried the Mexican equivalent of a SWAT team, President Emilio Juarez’s personal squad. There was little for them to do except round up a few stragglers hiding in a storage shed—cartel members who tried to pass themselves off as prisoners—then watch over the lot of them until medical help and transport arrived.

The compassionate side of Sebastian was glad that Mercy had forced his hand. A true and brave heroine, she had saved innocent lives today. But the single-minded, dedicated-to-the-cause Sebastian that had forced him to eat and drink with his father’s killers, to win their trust and fear—that side felt like kicking holes in walls and smashing heads. Because his mission was a bust, his cover undoubtedly blown. The elusive kingpin of the cartel he’d hunted for years had eluded him. The cartel would simply hire more men to replace those killed or imprisoned, and run their business from another location.

Another hour passed before an ambulance reached the remote compound. By then one of the wounded guards had died and all of the prisoners had been freed from crowded, filthy holding cells in the huts and trailers. Word spread of the daring raid by the handsome Don and the American woman. Soon, neither Mercy nor Sebastian could walk a dozen steps without being seized in a tearful embrace or their hands grasped and wrung in gratitude.

The woman who was being attacked when Mercy rode into the Quonset waved off her concern and refused to be examined by the medics.

“I show the swine!” She spat on the ground, her eyes wild and defiant. “Do they not go away bleeding and dead, while I stand here strong?” Her expression softened. “And I be strong for you, my brave warrior-lady, who come to our aid.”

“It’s not weak to let people help you,” Mercy said. “Please, allow a doctor to make sure they didn’t seriously hurt you.”

At last the woman relented, but only after showering Mercy with kisses and embracing Sebastian, calling him names that made him blush. Mercy grinned and laughed at him.

An hour before dawn, someone started singing a hymn. Others softly joined in. Soon the canyon brimmed with the joyous sound.

41

Sebastian and Mercy stayed at the compound until the last of the 268 refugees had been helped onto buses sent by the Mexican army to transport them to temporary shelters in the city. The Red Cross had already been contacted for help with feeding them, providing clean clothing and other basic needs until they could be returned to their home countries. Interviewers would find out how and where each person had been captured. The information to be used to protect others and aid in tracking down slavers.

Sebastian’s cell phone rang. He moved away from Mercy to talk. Five minutes later he walked back to her, feeling as if he’d been wrung dry. Lives had been saved, but more might be lost as a result of their impromptu raid.

“What was that about?” she asked. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“That was President Juarez. I filled him in earlier, about what happened tonight. He just called back to tell me his decision about the other compounds. Under the circumstances his men have no choice but to raid them immediately. Word will travel fast that we’ve hit this place. If we wait, they’ll move whatever they’re hiding there—drugs, weapons, slaves—to a safer location. What they can’t move they’ll destroy to cover their tracks—and that includes people. Juarez says the one thing he won’t risk is a massacre.”

“At least if there
are
any more people like these, they’ll be freed.” She obviously didn’t understand why he felt so despondent. And he wasn’t sure how much he should explain to her.

“
Si
. Freed. Unfortunately the smuggling will go on until we capture the lead men in the cartels and totally disrupt their organizations.”

“Unless the big boss happens to be at one of the other compounds being raided. You might get lucky.” She smiled encouragingly, as if hoping her mood would rub off on him.

“It might happen. Probably won’t.” 

“This is at least a start.”

Did she never give up? Couldn’t she see that he’d put years into this mission and risked everything he cherished. And now it had all been for naught. Yes, tonight they’d saved a couple hundred sorry souls from a hopeless future. But the greater good he might have achieved on behalf of his country—that was over. Done. Lost.

He felt her grip his arm, step closer so that she could look up into his eyes and hold them with hers. “Returning these people to their families is a wonderful thing, Sebastian. Closing down the holding compounds
will
interrupt their distribution system. Maybe some of the captured guards will rat on their bosses in return for shorter prison sentences.”

He grumbled noncommittally. This was all true. But his personal struggle, Sebastian knew, was far from over. At least one of the men at this compound must have recognized him. He'd caught a glimpse of a familiar face, and only now recalled where he'd seen the man before. Luis's nephew, Chico, the new hire. What was he doing here? Unless this was where he really worked, and the gang had planted him at Rancho Hidalgo to spy on him.

Or maybe even one of President’s own would leak his name to the press. Once word got out of his allegiance to Juarez, the cartels would put a price on his head. And it wasn’t just himself he had to worry about. How long would he be able to protect Maria? These people were ruthless. They held grudges. They punished anyone who stood in their way. And if they couldn't get to their enemies directly, they went after their loved ones. Entire families had been murdered in their beds.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said when Mercy finally stopped trying to manipulate him into a good mood. “Maria might like to study art in America.”

Mercy raised a brow at him. “This is a sudden change in parenting philosophy.”

He forced a smile. “Perhaps you could recommend a good school. In a small,
safe
community.”

Understanding suddenly brightened her eyes. “Where she could register under a name other than Hidalgo?”

“It might be necessary.”

“Yes,” she said. Then, “I think I know the perfect place.”

“Good. I fear things may become complicated here.”

She laughed. “Become?” Something caught her attention and she turned away from him.

He looked around to see the three women who had been at the center of the action when he and Mercy first rode into the hut now behind them. They were waving through the open windows of a tan-colored military bus.

“I have to go wish them well.” Mercy ran off beneath the harsh glare of the halogens. He followed her with his eyes, without wanting to. She was truly a remarkable woman. Tonight, when she came galloping toward him through that hut at breakneck speed, his heart had thundered at the sight of her. Such fury unleashed on behalf of the innocent. Such determination to see justice done. Why had he thought that only he felt these things?

He looked up at the mountains, ghostlike sentries just visible in the moonlight. Perhaps within his daughter’s or his grandchildren’s lifetimes, this proud country of his would heal and take its rightful place as a world leader, a modern-day peacemaker. But the struggle promised to be a hard one.

Sebastian walked out through the gate and away from the place that was a stain on his people’s soul. Alone now, he climbed the slope of sandstone and scrub grass, up and out of the gully, until he found a good place. Folding his long legs, wrapping his arms around his knees, he sat down, exhausted. Sebastian gazed up at the heavens as he used to, for hours on end, when he was a boy.

“Mother Moon,” he whispered, “you looked after us tonight. Thank you.” He’d been raised Catholic, but the superstitions of his ancestors—those who had built thriving, sophisticated cities thousands of years before the Spanish invaders came—they still called to him. He confided in her, the mother of her earthly children. She shone down on him, her silver beams soothing his soul. He couldn’t have said how long he sat there, sharing his heartbreak with the moon.

“Who are you talking to?”

He had heard steps from a distance, feet slipping against the grit of the steep incline. He guessed it might be
her
. Wanted it to be her.

Mercy sat down beside him, gathering what was left of her shredded skirts around her thighs.

“Mother Moon. She is steadfast, our protector.” He laughed softly. “Or so my grandfather used to tell us.”

He looked toward the eastern horizon. Only a blush of pink showing above the peaks of the Sierra Madres. “Father Sun will soon join us. It will be a hot day. See how the sky’s colors deepen already?”