The Wrong Hostage sk-2 Read online

  A clean-shaven young man in Levi’s and a loose cotton guayabera stood in the center of the road. A lethal-looking black submachine gun hung across his shirt from a long leather shoulder strap. He supported his elbows on the weapon as he watched her SUV approach. Except for the casual shirt, he looked just like the dark, sweaty men on the toll road.

  The gun was certainly the same.

  Grace hated guns. She had one, knew how to use it, and hated it just the same, hated what it implied: law alone couldn’t protect everyone in all places, all of the time.

  In addition to the armed man in the middle of the road, she noted a black Suburban with heavily tinted windows parked off to the side. The driver and passenger-side doors were open. There were two more guards in the vehicle. One wore Levi’s and a T-shirt, the other had on a black suit with a white shirt and tie.

  Both men held assault rifles across their laps.

  Uneasily Grace stopped and rolled down her window, holding out her passport. “I’m here to see my son.”

  The guard’s eyes widened when he read her passport. His right hand dropped to the receiver of the submachine gun. His index finger curled around the trigger guard. He turned and whistled to the men in the Suburban. The man in the suit picked up a hand radio and started talking.

  Face carefully blank, Grace waited. Card players weren’t the only people who needed poker faces; judges did too. Hers was as good as any and better than most.

  Beneath it she was scared spitless.

  It is not something to be discussed over the telephone.

  “Windows open, por favor,” the guard standing in the road said.

  Despite the polite tone, it wasn’t a request.

  Grace punched buttons until Ensenada’s hot, humid air filled the vehicle. The sun was hidden behind a gunmetal haze of monsoon moisture, and the temperature was hovering near one hundred.

  That’s why I’m sweating. It’s hot.

  But her sweat was cold.

  The young guard circled the Mercedes, peering carefully through the open windows, making sure the cargo space was empty.

  The man in the suit continued to talk into the radio. Grace couldn’t hear him, but she knew from the way he watched her that he was talking about her.

  The guard with the submachine gun completed his inspection and looked over his shoulder. The man in the Suburban listened to his radio, then nodded.

  “Go ahead, senora, but drive immediately to the soccer field,” the guard ordered.

  “Why? Is there something-?”

  “Soccer field,” he cut in, curtly waving her forward. His right hand was still curled around the trigger guard of his weapon.

  The implied threat turned Grace’s anxiety into anger. Just as she started to tell the guard what a rude jerk he was, she saw past his weapon to the square-cut tails of his loose shirt. The tails had caught at his waistband, exposing a shiny badge on a leather holder tucked into his belt.

  She recognized the badge. It was issued by the same agency that had provided her Mexican identity card-the Mexican Department of Justice.

  “Are you a federal policeman?” she asked quickly.

  The guard followed her glance. He yanked the shirttail over his badge.

  “Go,” he said fiercely. “Andale. Ahora. Now, quick!”

  When Grace hesitated, the guard shifted his weapon. The muzzle described an arc that came very close to her face. Close enough that she could see into the black eye of the barrel.

  She punched the accelerator.

  Grit and dust shot in all directions as the SUV’s big tires spun in response to the sudden power. The guard leaped back and shouted something Grace chose not to understand.

  All she wanted was to see Lane, to hold him, to find out what was going on.

  It took her less than a minute to reach the soccer field. It was just inside the school grounds on a shelf of land between the administration building and the sandy bluffs that fell down to the ocean. Large, energetic crowds were gathered along both sidelines of the well-groomed grass, shouting and hooting at the action on the field.

  Grace shot into a vacant space behind one goal and shut off the engine. Her dark glance searched the field, frantic to see her son.

  There! Thank God.

  To his mother, Lane blazed like a torch in the center of the field. He moved with such quickness and poise that he looked more like twenty years old than fifteen. Coolly he tap-tap-tapped the soccer ball between two converging defenders. At the last instant he leaped over their sliding tackles, made contact with the ball again, and headed for the goal.

  Maybe it was the smell of the air, hot, humid, heavy with the coming storm. Maybe it was Lane himself, lean and fluid, confident in his own body. Maybe it was the time of the month. But suddenly Grace found herself remembering what she’d worked so hard to forget, the days sixteen years ago when she’d slipped her self-imposed leash and spent a long weekend with Joe Faroe, the only man she’d ever met who seemed worth any risk.

  The rhythms of the monsoon storm surge pounding on the shore, on her, through her, and Faroe’s long, lean body fitted so perfectly with hers, driving her, driving him, and the unleashed woman in her demanded more, gave more, took more…

  Grace shook her head harshly, denying the memories. When she’d married Ted, she truly hadn’t known who was the father of the baby growing in her womb-Ted or Faroe. But she’d known that the odds were heavily with Ted.

  And when she held the baby in her arms, she didn’t care who the father was. For the first time in her life she was completely in love. Lane’s tiny hands, perfect fingernails, and beautiful, blissful hazel eyes were her world.

  He’d grown so fast.

  Too fast.

  She hadn’t wanted him to play soccer, but she’d given in, figuring it was safer than football. Now she was glad she’d allowed her son to compete head-to-head with other healthy young males. Like his biological father, Lane was a natural athlete.

  Lane zigzagged deeper into the attacking zone, playing the ball like an extension of his body. Suddenly defenders raced at him from all directions.

  My God. They’re so much bigger than Lane. Older, stronger.

  Even when his own teammates fell back, Lane pushed ahead. A defender wearing a red bandanna rolled into a sweatband threw himself in a sliding tackle that was clearly aimed at Lane, not the ball. Lane leaped, but the other “boy” stuck out his feet, tripping Lane in midair and slamming him to the ground.

  Grace was reaching for the car door when the referee’s whistle sliced through the air. While his teammates gathered around Lane, the referee drew a yellow card from the hip pocket of his shorts and waved it at the tackler. The player came easily to his feet and loomed above Lane, daring him to get up.

  Lane rolled over onto all fours, shook his head, and scrambled to his feet. He stepped around the referee, trying to get at his attacker. Standing face-to-face with Lane, the tackler was clearly older and bulkier. His red bandanna held his black shoulder-length hair from his blunt, handsome mestizo features. He could have been a warrior as easily as an athlete. His smile was calm and cold.

  The referee stepped back between the two players, waving his arms and speaking quickly.

  After a moment Lane turned and jogged away, joining his teammates to wait for the corner kick that had been called.

  Grace felt herself begin to breathe again. Her son had a temper. It made him brave but not always smart.

  Like Joe Faroe.

  As play resumed she heard a gentle tap on the passenger-side window. She looked over and saw the genial brown face of Carlos Calderon. He grinned around his customary black Havana cigar and gestured for her to unlock the passenger door.

  More men with more weapons-long guns slung over their shoulders or submachine guns held casually, muzzles toward the ground-flanked Calderon. They had the same easy insolence and edgy eyes as the gate guard.

  Do they have federal police badges too?

  But Grace did
n’t say anything aloud. She touched the switch that unlocked the vehicle doors and picked up her purse from the passenger seat. When Calderon opened the door, she thought about asking him to leave his cigar outside. Then she decided to keep her mouth shut and be the deferential female Calderon expected in Mexico. It grated, but not nearly as much as seeing Lane illegally tackled, tripped, and slammed to the ground.

  She extended a cool hand to prevent the more intimate Mexican greeting. “Hello, Carlos. How are you?”

  “So nice to see you, Your Honor,” Calderon said in unaccented English.

  With a nod of his head that was just short of a bow, he took her hand in his own soft, well-manicured one. He held on to her fingers moments longer than necessary. It could have been an accident. It could have been a silent reminder that he was a man of power.

  He set the limits of politeness, not her.

  “I’m very disappointed that you couldn’t persuade Ted to come with you,” Calderon said.

  Grace withdrew her hand. “I told you that Ted is away.”

  Calderon gave the graceful shrug that was the hallmark of the Mexican male. He lived freely on both sides of the border, but he’d been born in America. He and Grace had even gone to the same private high school in Santa Ana. Yet here, south of the line, he was todo mexicano, formal in the way a Mexican businessman might be.

  Grace preferred the American version of Calderon.

  “I’ve been very busy,” she said evenly. “I haven’t spoken to Ted in quite a while. I haven’t had any chance to pass on your message.”

  Calderon puffed on his cigar. “How disappointing.”

  “You’re a very important client of Edge City Investments,” Grace said. “Why don’t you just call the firm and ask for Ted?”

  Why lean on me and make me afraid for my son?

  But she didn’t say that aloud. Her Kazakh grandmother had been very clear on that point-never show fear.

  “Oh, I’ve tried many times,” Calderon said with a rueful smile.

  Thick blue smoke swirled around the interior of the vehicle.

  Grace put on her courtroom face, the one that wouldn’t notice the smell of sewage if it was shoved up her nose.

  Calderon glanced over toward a group of men who stood beyond his bodyguards. He took another deep puff on the cigar. The tip glowed hot and red.

  She realized that he was nervous.

  Not good. Not at all good. She didn’t want to know what it took to frighten a man of Calderon’s wealth and power.

  “You called me down here to talk about Lane,” she said. “Ted isn’t necessary for that.”

  Then she snapped on the ignition switch and ran down every window in the SUV. Cigar smoke had made her hurl when she was pregnant. She didn’t like it much better now.

  Calderon drew hard on the cigar and blew a plume of smoke toward the windshield. “I’m sorry. I didn’t make myself clear. There are some aspects of your son’s welfare that only Ted can address.”

  Grace’s heart hammered hard beneath her ribs. “Then speak clearly now. Why is one of Ted’s oldest friends and his most important business associate threatening me?”

  Calderon looked at her, surprised. “Threatening?”

  She gestured toward the armed men. “Telling me to come here among all the men with guns. They weren’t here before.”

  “The guards? They’re just a precaution. Some very wealthy people send their sons to All Saints. Unfortunately, in Mexico there are kidnapping and other security issues that rarely trouble American parents.”

  “Interesting, I’m sure,” she said evenly, “but what does that have to do with Ted?”

  And Lane.

  “Since Ted is the parent who signed Lane into All Saints,” Calderon said, “the people who run the school asked me to contact Ted.”

  “I’m as much a custodial parent as Ted is. Either of us can speak for Lane’s welfare.”

  “Custodial. Such a nice term, a legal term, one that sounds good in your American courtroom. But the legal system isn’t quite the same here in Mexico. Other, more realistic considerations hold here.”

  “Are you saying that I can’t speak for my son’s interests in Mexico?”

  Calderon blew smoke. “At this moment, no. Only Ted may do so.”

  “In that case I’m taking Lane out of All Saints right now. When you find Ted, you can have a long talk with him about custodial parents.”

  “Taking Lane with you isn’t possible,” Calderon said, refusing to meet her glance. “Because Ted signed the papers admitting Lane, only Ted can remove him.” Calderon threw her a quick, nervous smile. “So now you understand the importance of bringing Ted here, yes?”

  Sweat gathered along Grace’s spine. She’d seen that kind of anxious smile before, in the barrio, when young vatos curried favor with gang leaders. At that instant she understood that Carlos Calderon, a very, very powerful man in Baja California and all of Mexico, was acting as someone else’s messenger boy.

  Someone violent enough to make Calderon nervous.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Will I never get free of the gutter? Grace asked silently.

  She’d spent her adult life forgetting the gutter, ignoring it, not looking back, climbing high and fast to a place where the air was clean and the nights were safe and women didn’t have to be arm candy to be allowed into the halls of power.

  “Carlos.” Grace’s voice was quiet and calm, that of a judge presiding over her court. “Are you telling me that Lane is a prisoner here and only Ted can set him free?”

  Calderon looked out at the field, where the referee had just blown the whistle, stopping play. Then he looked toward Grace without meeting her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This isn’t the way I would prefer to do business.”

  He got out of the vehicle and gestured in the direction of the sidelines. Two men separated from the crowd and strode toward the Mercedes.

  “Please,” Carlos said urgently, “stand with me to greet him. It is simple respect, something a judge understands, right?”

  Reluctantly Grace got out of the car and stood an arm’s length from Carlos. One of the approaching men was a black-haired Mexican in clean, creased blue jeans, ostrich-skin boots, and a crisp white pearl-buttoned shirt. Around his neck hung a heavy gold chain holding a large, diamond-crusted medallion.

  It was hard to guess the man’s age, except that he wasn’t young. He had too much sheer macho confidence to be under forty. He walked with a faint limp, like a retired rodeo cowboy with narrow hips and old injuries. His dark face had the strong, blunt features of the people who had lived in Mexico long before Cortes rode roughshod over the land. The man squinted in the shimmering, hazy light. His left eye was milky. He was no taller than Grace.

  Understanding went through her like an icy spear. I know him.

  Hector Rivas Osuna was head of the most powerful, most violent crime family in Tijuana. Grace had seen his face in newspapers and in U.S. post offices on the ten-most-wanted broadsheet.

  No wonder Carlos is sweating.

  5

  ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

  SATURDAY, 12:25 P.M.

  THE MAN WALKING NEXT to Hector was a younger, more polished version of the rough-edged crime lord. He wore a silk shirt, Italian slacks, and thousand-dollar loafers without socks. His hair was styled and blown dry. His skin was lighter, his body less beaten. He hid his eyes behind aviator sunglasses.

  But the family resemblance was marked, right down to the narrow hips and swagger. Father and son, perhaps, or uncle and nephew.

  “Who is the younger one?” Grace asked quietly.

  “Jaime Rivas Montemayor,” Calderon said very softly. “He’s the heir apparent to the Rivas-Osuna Gang. The ROG. Very violent. Very dangerous.”

  Grace didn’t answer, but now she understood why the federal policeman had been eager to cover his badge. He and his buddies were dancing to a tune called by either Calderon or the most corrupt crime boss in Mexico.
Seeing Calderon’s nervousness, she was betting on Hector Rivas Osuna being the man in control.

  Hector stopped a respectful distance away and bowed his head formally to her. “Your Honor.”

  There was only the faintest trace of derision in his tone.

  Grace nodded in return and kept her mouth shut.

  “You tell about her son?” Hector asked Calderon.

  Hector’s English was close to Spanglish, the border creole, rough but useful. As he spoke, he watched the banker with his good eye, tilting his head in a way that pulled apart the lids of his blind eye. It was obvious that he’d been injured-scar tissue puckered whitely in a ragged line all the way to his thick hair. Most men would have worn a patch to conceal the eye’s ruin.

  Hector wasn’t most men.

  “Not completely, Carnicero,” Calderon said. “I thought some of the details would be more convincing if they came from you.”

  Carnicero.

  Butcher.

  Grace was surprised that Calderon would use such a nickname to Hector’s face. She glanced beneath her eyelashes at the nephew. He was watching his uncle with an expression of distaste. Either Hector didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  Hector looked at Grace again, examining her the way the Mexican customs inspector had, but Hector’s expression was more complex. Some traditional Mexican males were fascinated by powerful women, so long as that power didn’t extend south of the Tia Juana River. Apparently Hector was one of those men.

  Grace couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

  “I hear you ver’ important woman, a judge,” he said to her. “That mean you smart, so pardon me if I speak plain. I am a plain man. Do you know me?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Bueno. Tijuana is my world,” he said calmly. “I make law. I enforce it. ?Claro?”

  She nodded again.

  “Your husband stole my money. Mucho dinero.”

  Grace’s eyes widened and her stomach knotted.

  “He don’t give that money to me,” Hector said, “I kill el nino, the son. Is simple.”