A Touch of Malice (4 page)

“You really want to know the truth?” Trent said, stretching forward to rub his throbbing leg.

Padilla stopped and turned to face him.

Trent forced himself to a sitting position, then slid his wounded leg over the side of the cot. Padilla stared, but said nothing. The candles flickered inside the dome structure while a gentle rain began to ping on the thatched roof.

“You know by now I make documentaries for a living, right?” Trent asked.

Padilla gave nothing away.

“Well, if you haven’t already done it, then put my name in any computer search engine and you’ll find that out pretty quickly.” Trent rubbed his leg, finding a patch of blood along the side of the splint. “I’ve been down here in the Amazon to document the Maruto tribe of local Indians. They’ve been almost completely quarantined in their remote part of the rainforest for the better part of three hundred years. They’ve been entirely unexposed to the outside world until recently when some of the cartels have been destroying the rainforest in order to cultivate coca bushes. The level of deforestation has been accelerated, moving in on their territory. I was simply scouting their perimeter when I came upon your . . . uh, meeting.”

Padilla stood there as if waiting for more, his eyes creased into a mixture of skepticism and distrust. When it became obvious Trent was finished, he said, “That is the story you will begin with?”

Trent understood the suspicious nature of a cartel leader. Padilla was conditioned to hear whatever version of reality would keep a detainee alive the longest.

“That’s the truth,” Trent said.

Padilla frowned. “Okay,” he said. “Then we will start with that one and move on from there.” As if the incident were a malleable piece of clay to be molded into whichever shape the Camenos would like it to resemble the most. When he slid around the mosquito netting, Padilla left the candles quivering in his wake. The shadows danced a sinister dance on the walls. Outside, the jungle sounded more alarming than peaceful. The rain now pounded the roof overhead with a menacing beat.

Trent was experienced in the art of criminal behavior. He’d produced documentaries on the elephant poachers of Indonesia and the pirates of Somalia. He was acutely aware of the tactics a cartel like the Camenos would use on him. The one thing cartels peddled even more than drugs was fear. They would administer it aggressively and often. What cartels lacked, however, was patience. They were impetuous and capricious in nature. It had caused them to kill irrationally and create enemies from every outside entity, giving them an us-against-the-world mentality.

The Camenos would keep Trent alive only as long as he brought value. His brother would do his best to retrieve him, but Trent knew him too well. President Merrick wouldn’t even give the appearance of negotiating with terrorists. He would shuffle his feet and dance a bit to seem like he was moving, but ultimately there would be no concessions. The Camenos could be asking for an Egg McMuffin in exchange for Trent and his brother would have to pass on the deal. Which meant the Camenos would discover rather quickly that their prisoner had little value.

Trent Merrick knew more than anyone on the planet—his clock was ticking.

Chapter 5

Jaqui Merrick woke to a sound she couldn’t recognize. Ever since the second trimester of her pregnancy began, she was having trouble sleeping and woke up constantly through the night. From outside her bedroom door she thought she’d heard movement. Footsteps.

She leaned forward; the creaking of her mattress caused her to pause. Her stomach felt queasy. Maybe from the baby, she couldn’t tell. Their home was a small row house on the east side of Baltimore, but her security system was the finest money could buy. The Secret Service. A bonus when your husband’s brother was the president.

Jaqui got out of bed. The noise was soft, but there. She reached for her robe hanging over the side of the headboard and quietly pulled it on, one arm at a time. From under her door, the hallway light came on. She froze. Her stomach was definitely churning now with nerves.

A soft knock on her door.

“Jaqui?” came a familiar voice.

The smile instantly grew on her face as she’d realized her husband had come home early from his trip. Relief flooded over her as she hurried to open the door.

“Trent, honey, I had no—”

The man standing in the doorway wasn’t her husband, but there was a good reason why his voice sounded the same.

“John?” She pulled her robe tight around her neck. “What are you doing here?” She suddenly realized the magnitude of the president of the United States coming to her home in the middle of the night. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

President Merrick wasn’t alone. Behind him were two men. One she’d recognized as the Secret Service agent assigned to her. The other she’d never seen before. All three men wore dark suits; Merrick’s was rumpled and he wore no tie.

“Come,” Merrick said, gesturing her to follow him to the living room. “Sit down.”

Jaqui didn’t like this one bit. She just knew she’d become a widow and her heart began pounding feverishly in her chest.

“John, please just tell me,” Jaqui uttered as she chased him into the room.

Merrick was all business. He waved for her to sit. Jaqui’s hand was pressed against her lower abdomen, as if protecting her baby from hearing the dreadful news.

Once she sat at the edge of her couch, Merrick sat across from her on the ottoman. He rolled up close and took her hand. Her nose began to swell and her eyes glossed up.

“Is he dead?” Jaqui squeaked.

“No,” Merrick said. “He’s been captured by a drug cartel.”

Jaqui lowered her head into her hands. “Isn’t that the same thing?” She felt like she’d been punched in the gut and couldn’t catch her breath. There was movement around her and in just seconds a box of tissues appeared on her lap. She pulled a handful from the box and buried her face into the wad.

“He’s alive,” Merrick said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to get him back.”

Her entire body trembled. She could feel Merrick’s hand rubbing her arm, then cradling her head into his embrace. She thought of the damage she might be doing to her baby, but the harder she tried to calm down, the more uncontrollable she became.

“Here,” Merrick said. “Take this.”

She pulled away and saw Merrick holding a small white pill and a glass of water. It was almost like these people had made so many of these visits, they were prepared for every possible reaction. Even the box of tissues was theirs.

“It’s okay.” Merrick nodded, a comforting expression on his face. “I got doctor’s approval. Just a little Ambien. This won’t harm the baby.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Try.”

“No.” Jaqui sat up and took a few deep breaths. “I’m fine,” she said with a shaky voice.

Merrick shut his hand around the pill and handed the glass of water to the Secret Service agent. He took hold of her quivering hands. “I need information about Trent’s documentary. Where was he going?”

Jaqui tried to remember. “He never told me exactly. I know he flew into Bogota, but he took off in an off-road vehicle from there. Somewhere in the rainforest.”

“What was the documentary about?”

“It was about these Indians. They’d had little to no contact with the outside world, but their habitat was being encroached by the Colombian government or cartels . . .” Jaqui shrugged, squeezing the tissues until they were just a tiny ball the size of a marble. “He wasn’t quite sure who, but he was trying to stop them. He felt the film would bring enough attention to their cause to protect them.”

She thought about how much Trent cared about helping the underprivileged. Just the notion made her shudder again. Her voice cracked when she said, “He has such a big heart.” She blinked back a new set of tears and saw Merrick staring at her expressionless. Then it dawned on her. They were talking about his brother.

She reached out and touched his knee. “Oh, John, I’m so sorry.”

He nodded, but kept stoic. Keeping it all in like he always would. She thought she could smell Tanqueray gin on his breath.

“How many people went with him?”

“No one. He went by himself. He paid for a guide to get him within ten miles of their territory, but that’s as close as he’d go. Trent took a small digital camera, but his cell phone was loaded. It cost like five thousand dollars. He said it had everything he needed, a camera, a recorder, a satellite feed for calls. He records the images, then does the voiceover back here when he’s done editing.”

“Did he ever call you?”

“Just once when he got to Colombia, but he texted me the rest of the times.”

Merrick nodded, seeming satisfied with her responses. “How much did he tell you about what was going on, or where he was?”

“Very little,” she sagged in her seat. “Most of our messages were about . . .” She felt her body begin to tremble again, her tear ducts flooded her eyes until everything was blurry. She pulled another handful of tissues from the box and wiped. “We talked about how much we missed each other . . .”

Merrick gathered her into his arms and let her sob on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “We’ll get him back.”

She wanted to believe him so much she almost found comfort in his words. “What do they want?” she murmured.

“It’s only been a few hours. They’ll come up with something.”

“Ransom?” Jaqui lifted her head. “Because if it’s money they want . . . John, we don’t have any money. You know that.”

Merrick wiped her wet cheek with his thumb. He tried to smile, but failed. “I doubt it will be money, but if it is, we’ll figure it out.”

“But . . . but . . .”

Merrick caressed her face with the back of his hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got my best people on this.”

She collapsed back into his shoulder and he gently patted her back as she let her agony come out in a mixture of sobs and hiccups.

“Listen, Jaqui,” he said into her ear as she sniffled back her misery. “I need you to be strong. You can be very helpful. I’m going to have these guys look through your phone and your computer. They’re going to scrounge around for anything that could help us find him.”

Jaqui nodded.

“Also,” Merrick said, “there’s going to be reports in the paper about Trent’s disappearance. He’s going to be reported missing. Don’t believe anything you read or hear on television or radio. They’ll be a lot of misinformation fed to the media, okay?”

She squeezed her wad of tissues and watched Merrick get to his feet. He gestured to the other two men. “You know Stephen,” he said, pointing to her Secret Service agent. The agent nodded. “This guy is Mac. He’ll examine your phone and computer.”

Merrick touched her shoulder. “You going to be okay?”

Jaqui kept a hand on her abdomen. “John, why do you need to know where he is? Can’t you just give them what they want?”

Merrick’s disposition changed. He looked presidential, standing there in the dimly lit room, his shoulders back, his face severe.

“I’ll try,” Merrick said. But even as the words came out of his mouth, she could tell he was unsure. There was a lot he wasn’t telling her.

Jaqui looked at the two other men and realized she could make a difference. “I’ll help.”

“Good,” Merrick said, then the door opened for him and he was gone. As if someone anticipated his exit right down to the second. His entire life becoming a choreographed political dance. As much as Trent despised politics, she felt it her duty to bring her husband home without relying on dignitaries to negotiate over his life. That tactic was simply too unreliable.

Jaqui Merrick came to her feet and looked at the computer technician. “Come on, Mac. We have work to do.”

* * *

Manuel Padilla sat under the large tent and tapped a foot while contemplating the fate of his latest prisoner. The tent was covered with leaves as was every structure within the Camenos’ small outpost in the Amazon basin. It was a surplus of camouflage since the rainforest canopy was so thick even the tiniest of sunlight barely reached the jungle floor. It also made the complex impossible to locate even under the finest satellite technology.

He sat alone beside a rickety wooden table thrown together by his men in this makeshift camp, made to be moved in a moment’s notice. His hand was thick with humidity and his brow gathered sweat as he stared at the cell phone which belonged to the US president’s brother. It was turned off to elude tracking.

One of Padilla’s lieutenants, Carlos Garcia, swiped aside the mosquito net and walked over to Padilla. He wore fatigues and a thick black belt with a gun holstered on his hip.

“The men are restless,” Garcia said, acting like he’s reporting something Padilla didn’t already know.

Padilla sat expressionless, making Garcia squirm. He knew what was coming next and simply waited for it.

“El Presidente,” Garcia said, continuing his reporter tone, “he wants the American dead.”

Padilla pursed his lips and tried to maintain his composure. “You see, this is the reason President Santoro is not running this mission. He is a crazy, two-faced maniac who needs pills to keep him from crying.”

Garcia shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Padilla saw the anxiety on his lieutenant’s face. “Let me ask you something, Carlos. The prisoner said he has been filming a movie about some local native Indians. Do you believe him?”

At first Garcia tensed up. He acted like he’d been asked a trick question, but then he appeared to make a decision. “No,” Garcia said. “There are no Indians for over a hundred miles from here. Not that I know of, anyway.”

Padilla worked hard at controlling his emotions. “Good. I just thought I would ask your opinion.”

Garcia gave a childlike smile, as if getting approval from his father.

Now Padilla wanted to offer his lieutenant some solace. A consolation prize.

“We will kill the American. In time,” Padilla said. He didn’t tell him about his orders to keep the man alive until further instructions from Pablo Moreno.

Garcia’s face brightened.