Kidnap and Ransom (37 page)

On three, they swept into the shack, guns panning along the inside.

“Nothing,” Kelly said, puzzled.

Another small moan.

She whipped around. Tucked in the corner behind her, a pair of scrawny legs jutted out from under the fallen roof.

Kelly moved cautiously, keeping her gun up. She lifted a corner of the wood. An enormous pair of eyes gazed up at her.

“No me moleste,” he whispered faintly.

“It’s the kid.” Rodriguez tucked his gun away.

“Help me get this off him. I think he’s hurt.”

Together they lifted the junk off. The boy was no more than five or six years old, wearing a light blue T-shirt and a pair of ragged jean shorts. Both were soaked in blood.

Rodriguez murmured to him quietly in Spanish.

“What happened?”

The boy’s voice quavered. As he spoke, Rodriguez checked him for injuries. Carefully lifting up a corner of his shirt, he exposed a deep gash across the boy’s abdomen.

“He says the bad man brought him here and cut him. Then he left.”

“He just left?” Kelly asked, puzzled.

Rodriguez was still listening. The boy’s voice was weak. “He even told him to call for help once he was gone, but the kid was too scared. He’s just been waiting here, terrified that the guy was going to come back.” As the boy fell silent, Rodriguez met Kelly’s eyes. “He wants his mother, he’s begging us to take him to her.”

“I’m not sure we should move him,” Kelly said uncertainly. “Give me your phone, I’ll call for help.”

Rodriguez dug out his cell phone while maintaining a reassuring chatter. The boy’s eyes followed his hands. His lids started to drift closed.

“Crap, I think we’re losing him.” Rodriguez tossed her his phone. “Dial 066.”

“There’s no signal,” Kelly said, frustrated, as she examined the screen. “Try to stop the bleeding. I’ll go back to the boats for help.”

“Be careful. Stefan might still be out there.”

“If he’s smart, he bolted.”

“Why does something make me doubt that?” Rodriguez grunted. The boy whimpered in pain and his eyes rolled back in his head. Rodriguez stripped off his dress shirt and pressed it to the wound. “Hurry, Jones. We’re running out of time.”

Jake stuck close to the river, following its twists and turns as he trotted upstream. As he went, he brooded over what Kelly had said. The irony of it was almost overwhelming. After all this time, she was herself again. She’d regained that glint in her eye, the passion that had drawn him to her in the first place. And on top of everything else, she was suddenly ready to get married.

Meanwhile, he’d just betrayed her in the worst way imaginable. He flashed back on the motel room, Syd’s legs wrapped around him. He felt a pit in his gut. But if he was honest, it had been a long time coming. He had feelings for Syd, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

But he loved Kelly. On the boat, he’d realized that more than anything, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He’d just have to see if she felt the same way once he came clean about what happened.

The riverbanks had flattened outl reeds clustered in clumps along the shoreline. Jake heard voices upriver, a distant stream of chatter. He must be getting close to the main docks, where the restaurants and cafés were located. Most of the gondoliers were probably downstream searching for the missing boy, because the canal remained empty.

A roar off to his left. A police boat appeared, jets kicking up a two-foot wake, three armed cops on deck. Jake dived to the ground and pressed his body flat, hoping the reeds concealed him. The cops probably only had a vague description of the perpetrator, and any big white guy walking along the canal would have some explaining to do.

The engine roar receded. Good, he hadn’t been spotted. Maybe Stefan had been found, and they were on their way to assist. His mind flashed to Kelly. He hadn’t heard any gunshots yet. Part of him hoped Stefan was stupid enough to resist arrest. The bastard had tried to kill Kelly twice. Jake would put a bullet in his head if he could. At the thought, he felt a twinge of guilt for leaving her. He hated when she put herself in danger, but she was right, that was the life they’d both signed up for. And she was probably a lot safer out here, backed up by a partner and an angry horde of locals, than she had been driving through the streets of Mexico City with him and Syd.

Jake glanced at his watch: nearly 9:00 a.m. He got back to his feet and broke into a jog. From Syd’s tone, Mark probably didn’t have much time left. If his brother died alone, Jake wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.

Around the next bend he caught sight of a cluster of buildings balanced above the canal on stilts. Jake picked up the pace. Every muscle ached, and his head throbbed. He pushed through the pain, spurred by the thought that he was only a few minutes away.

A series of connected docks formed a boardwalk. It resembled a kind of poor-man’s Venice. The first few piers were empty, then he hit one thronged with people in front of a rickety ticket booth. Jake was forced to slow his pace as he made his way through the crowd. The vast majority of them appeared irritated.

As he pushed past, he overheard one woman complaining, “This is just so typical. Does it mean they’re canceling the reenactment, too?”

Jake kept moving. The next dock had café tables set inches apart, each packed with tourists examining maps and loudly discussing alternate plans for the day. Forced to weave between them, he stopped a harried waitress. “Taxi?”

She pointed farther up the dock.

“Gracias.” Jake forged through to the next pier. Up ahead, he spotted a break between the buildings. The street was probably on the other side, he thought with relief. He skirted a large crowd that had formed outside the next building. He was almost at the alleyway when a voice intruded on his consciousness. It was a man, calling out as though preaching. And unless he was mistaken, the guy was speaking Danish.

Jake stopped and pivoted in the direction of the voice.

He’d lost the beard and long hair, but Jake still recognized him immediately. Stefan stood on the deck of a trajinera tied to the closest dock. He was wearing a soiled white robe and his arms were spread wide.

A young guy in a baseball cap held up his phone, taping it. “Man, this guy is great!” He nudged Jake with his elbow.

“What’s he saying?” Jake asked.

“No clue. But it must be part of the show.”

“What show?” Jake scanned the scene. Not a cop in sight. They were probably all downriver.

“This is like Aztec New Year,” the kid said. “They’re supposed to do a big show, fake a sacrifice, that sort of thing. You hear they’re not taking anyone on the boats?” The kid shook his head. “Total bullshit, man. I took three buses to get here.”

Stefan’s head was tilted back, face to the sun as he spoke in a booming voice. Suddenly, as if sensing Jake, he lowered his head. Their eyes met. Stefan’s face slowly split in a leer.

“Crap,” Jake muttered. It had been years since they’d seen each other, but apparently he’d been recognized, too. And he’d given his gun to Kelly. All he had was a butterfly knife clipped to his belt.

“You know him, man?” the kid asked. “He’s looking right at you.”

“What kind of sacrifice?”

“What?”

“The sacrifice,” Jake said impatiently. “What is it?”

The boy shrugged. “I dunno, something about drowning people.”

Jake took in the scene. There had to be a few hundred tourists clustered on the docks, more in the surrounding buildings. Stefan had had months to plan whatever he had in mind. And he’d used dynamite to cause the cave-in that trapped Kelly.

“He’s going to blow the docks,” he said, realization dawning.

Kelly raced back to the river. Approaching the shore, she saw their gondolier on the opposite bank, arms crossed over his chest. When he spotted her, he waved a fist angrily and yelled, apparently unhappy about the fact that his boat was now across the river.

“We found him!” she cried, frantically searching her mind for the right words. “El niño!” she shouted, pointing behind her.

They seemed to understand. The gondoliers scrambled down to the boats en masse. Within minutes they were across the canal.

“This way,” she said. “Come with me.”

As she was about to lead them away, a police boat roared around the bend. The three officers on deck spotted them and tore to the shoreline. One jumped onto the cluster of trajineras. He engaged in a brief conversation with the nearest gondolier, then made his way up to Kelly.

“Where is the boy?” he asked in a thick accent. A patch on his bulletproof vest read Landa.

“There’s a shack across the field,” Kelly said. “He’s cut, do you have a medical kit? He’ll need a doctor soon, he’s lost a lot of blood.”

Landa called out instructions to his men. One pulled a medical kit from below deck. He jumped off the boat aned the steep embankment, vanishing after the gondoliers. Landa stayed where he was, examining her. “Who are you?”

“Special Agent Kelly Jones with the FBI,” she said. “The boy was stabbed by Stefan Gundarsson. He’s wanted for murder in my country.”

He eyed her uncertainly, taking in the gun tucked in her waistband. “Identification?”

“I lost it in the water,” Kelly lied, hoping he’d wait to call and check on her. “I’ve been pursuing Gundarsson for a few days now.”

“Did the boy say where he went?”

“No,” Kelly said. “He just left him there.”

The police boat’s radio suddenly crackled. The cop at the wheel answered, then exchanged a few terse sentences with Landa.

“What’s going on?” Kelly asked.

“We’re needed at the docks,” Landa said, climbing back on board his skiff.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Kelly said, mentally kicking herself. She’d fallen for the bait as surely as everyone else. He’d deliberately taken the boy and injured him, knowing that would draw any authorities downriver. Then he’d be free to carry out whatever he had planned at the docks.

Aztecs murdered thousands a day, she remembered. It wasn’t about one victim.

Stefan was planning to kill many, many more.

Forty-Five

Stefan stepped off the gunwale and into the boat. Keeping an eye on Jake, he untied the bowline, casting off. The boat drifted away from the dock.

“Stop him!” Jake called out. A few curious tourists looked his way, probably thinking this was part of the show.

“Dude,” the kid said. “What’s the issue?”

“Get out of here,” Jake said roughly, shoving him back. “Get clear of the docks. Go!”

“Chill, man.” Shaking his head, the kid tucked his phone away and moved off, muttering under his breath.

The crowd was dispersing: still, Jake found his way blocked. His attempts to push through were met with nasty looks and curses in several languages. Entire families grinned wide as they posed for pictures in front of the docked trajineras.

Jake watched helplessly as Stefan drifted down the canal.

“Hey, he’s stealing a boat!” someone yelled. A cheer went up.

By the time Jake arrived at the edge of the dock, the boat had drifted too far away for him to reach. Stefan cocked a hand in a little wave, then crossed his arms over his chest as he floated downstream.

“Crap,” Jake muttered. He got on his belly and peerhe dock. Nothing but boards. He braced his hands along the edge and scooted forward until his upper torso hung all the way off.

“Cuidado!” a voice cautioned from behind him.

Craning his head from side to side, he spotted cord wrapped around a bundle on the pier’s concrete piling. It extended away to the next dock support, then the next. Jake looked in the other direction and saw the same thing. Probably Primacord, a type of fuse that detonated explosives in sequence. Used in mining, it was easy to get hold of and worked even when wet. The closest length of cord was set too far back for him to reach.

He had to get the docks clear before they blew. Jake waved his arms and yelled, “Bomb! Bomba!”

A few tourists examined him curiously, but no one moved. Either the bulk of the crowd didn’t speak English, or they thought he was just another nut trying to get attention.

“Get off the docks, there’s a bomb!” he yelled again.

Stefan’s boat had come to rest in the middle of the canal, about twenty yards downriver. Looking back at Jake, he raised both hands toward the sky as if in supplication.

Jake jumped into the water. He broke the surface and swam to the nearest piling.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Once they did, he saw a bundle of dynamite bound to the piling with Primacord. If he cut the wire, it should stop the sequence. He’d slice each one, trying to make it back to the source before they ignited. Primacord burned fast, the detonations would only be seconds apart. And if he was close to one when it blew…

There was no other option. The detonating cord stretched away from him, extending into the shadows beneath the dock like a grim clothesline.

Unfortunately it was just out of reach overhead. Jake scissored his legs together, propelling himself out of the water as he grabbed for the cord. He missed, and fell back in with a splash. Grunting, he tried again. This time his fingers latched on. He pulled the line down to the surface of the water as he fell. It cut into his hands, and he swore.

Suddenly a bright flash to his right drove away the shadows. Jake’s retinas burned from the glare. An explosion, then the sound of something large hitting the water. Screams and panicked feet running above him. A spark danced along the fuse a dozen yards away, approaching as fast as a train.

Jake frantically sawed at the cord. Another explosion to his right. More screams, followed by another crash. He didn’t dare look at the swath of destruction racing toward him. In his panic, the knife kept slipping. He slashed his thumb, winced, but kept going. The final strands were separating.

Just then, fire darted into his line of vision and the cord suddenly burned hot. His fingers reacted, dropping it in the water.

The piling ten feet away exploded. Jake was momentarily stunned by the blast. The boards above him rolled and split. An instant later an enormous wave lifted him up, slamming him hard against the underside of the dock before sweeping him away.