Rosarito Beach (17 page)

C
aesar walked into the conference room in the operations center wearing a mud-splattered T-shirt, jeans, and scuffed cowboy boots. On his head was a blue, sweat-stained New York Yankees baseball cap. He'd been riding ATVs in the mountains near his Sinaloa estate with his daughters.

One of the things Mora had always admired about Caesar Olivera was that he didn't allow business to interfere with his personal life. Caesar would delegate a task, expect his people to perform, and he didn't—unlike Raphael Mora—pester them every few hours asking for progress reports.

The only ones sitting at the conference table were Mora and Juan Guzmán, the man who had been Tito's second-in-command in San Diego and who was now managing Caesar's U.S. operations. Guzmán was a heavyset, brutal-looking man about Caesar's age, and although he looked like a thug, he was quite intelligent. Mora was surprised, however, that Juan was still among the living; Caesar was still angry with the man for his failure to know about Tito's plan to kill Cadillac Washington.

Caesar took his seat at the head of the table and gestured for Mora to begin.

“We're ready,” Mora said. “We have everything we need to know about the Hamilton woman and her daughter. We know where María Delgato is located, and I have a ten-man team in Washington State standing by for your command to proceed. The actor's ready and—”

“Are you sure he's ready?”

“Yes, sir. I've conducted numerous drills with him, so he's prepared to deal with a variety of scenarios. He's not a courageous man, but he knows what's at stake. And it's . . . I don't know how to describe it, but he's an
actor
and he really gets into the role during the drills. I believe he'll do fine, and, of course, if things go well he won't have to do anything but stand there.”

Caesar nodded. “Continue,” he said.

“The identity documents for the actor have been prepared. They're perfect. I have arranged for transportation to get Tito across the border and will have a team at the border to expedite the crossing and deal with any unforeseen issues we might encounter there.”

Caesar wasn't worried about the border crossing. Moving people, drugs, and weapons back and forth across the Mexican border was something the Olivera cartel did every day. “Who's going to meet with Hamilton?”

“I am,” Mora said. “That's not a job I feel comfortable delegating.”

“Good,” Caesar said. “How will you monitor the American response when Tito is freed?”

Caesar knew the American reaction to Tito's escape would be massive, involving marines at Camp Pendleton, the California Highway Patrol, DEA agents, federal marshals, Homeland Security personnel at the border, and the police departments of every city between Camp Pendleton and the border.

Answering Caesar's question, Mora said, “We'll obviously be monitoring the American media. Our informants at Camp Pendleton and in the San Diego Police Department will provide intelligence updates, and Juan will have people in several locations monitoring radio traffic. The operation will begin at midnight, when there will be less chance of traffic congestion and delays at the border crossing. If everything goes as planned, Tito will arrive in Tijuana an hour and a half after he departs Pendleton.”

“And the Russian chemical?” Caesar asked.

Mora smiled, a rare sight. “It works exactly as I was told it would. I've personally tested it on a dozen men.” Then, knowing how Caesar felt about Juan Guzmán, he said, “If you'd like, I could give you a demonstration using Juan for a subject.”

“I think I'd like that,” Caesar said.

“Really, sir, is that necessary?” Juan Guzmán said, terrified of being used as Raphael Mora's guinea pig.

“Yes, it's necessary,” Caesar said. It wasn't necessary, but he was going to enjoy the demonstration.

“Do you intend to carry out the operation on the Delgato woman before you free Tito?” Caesar asked Mora.

“No, sir. I believe that would be a mistake. If we kill her first, the marshals might change the security procedures at the brig, which is the last thing we want to happen at this point. The woman is of secondary importance to freeing Tito.”

“No, she's not,” Caesar said. “I want her to pay for what she did, and I don't want to wait any longer.”

“I realize that, sir. I just believe it would be prudent to get Tito out of Camp Pendleton before we begin the operation against the woman. She'll be taken care of as soon as Tito is free.”

Caesar sat for a moment, going through everything in his head one last time. He couldn't think of any more questions.

“Raphael, have you seen my condo in Tehuantepec?”

Mora frowned, not understanding the connection between the operations he was planning and Caesar Olivera's oceanside condo in southern Mexico. And Caesar knew that he'd seen the condo; he had been there a dozen times with Caesar. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“If both operations are successful, it's yours.”

Mora immediately said, “You don't need to do that, sir. I'm just doing my job, and you pay me very well.”

“Consider the condo a well-deserved bonus,” Caesar said. “Now, the demonstration. Are you ready, Juan?”

—

C
aesar looked down at Juan Guzmán. He was lying on the floor of the conference room, sprawled on his back, an expression of shock frozen on his face. His eyes were open, and Caesar almost told Mora to close them, the way you'd do with a corpse. Caesar couldn't tell if the man was breathing or not.

“That was impressive,” Caesar said.

“Yes,” Mora said, “and the chemical could be useful in the future, but there are problems with it. About one person in ten thousand has an allergic reaction, and it's fatal.”

Caesar kicked Guzmán's shoe; the man still didn't move. “But for this operation it doesn't matter if it's fatal, does it?” Caesar said.

“No, sir,” Mora said.

J
essica walked toward the bus stop, thinking that it had been a pretty good day. She'd gotten a ninety-eight on a math test—the only one in the class who scored a hundred was that freak, Jacob Goldman—and she had been invited to a pool party at Taylor Campbell's place on Saturday. Taylor was a bit full of herself—probably because her dad owned half the real estate in downtown San Diego and she was the only kid who drove a Porsche to school—but Taylor was all right, and someone like Wolfgang Puck would probably cater.

The important thing about the party, however, was that Jessica had heard that Bobby McGuire was going, and he was going alone. She had a serious case of the hots for Bobby McGuire. Right now he was dating Judy Reeves, who was beautiful—and dumber than a box of rocks. But Bobby was her lab partner in chemistry, and Jessica could tell he liked talking to her and appreciated the fact that she had a brain in her head. Yeah, he'd eventually come around—and letting him see her in a bikini couldn't hurt.

She knew if she went to the party, Kay would grill her about Taylor's parents and check to make sure they were going to be there. Hell, knowing Kay, she'd probably look them up in some FBI database. She'd also give her the usual lecture about how she was going to kill her if she did any dope and, in her stumbling, mumbling way, Kay would tell her not to screw anybody at the party. Kay had a hard time talking about sex, and Jessica wondered if getting pregnant at such an early age had messed her up for life. Whatever the case, she hadn't had a date, as far as Jessica knew, since she'd moved in with her, which struck her as really strange.

It was possible that when Kay said she had to go out at night on stakeouts or to arrest someone she was really sneaking off to meet some guy. She didn't think so, however. For one thing, when Kay went out at night she was usually dressed all in black—black pullovers, black jeans, even black tennis shoes. One time she came back in the morning with camo paint on her face. And when she did have to work nights, she also usually called about two dozen times to make sure Jessica had set the alarm. Or maybe she called to make sure Jessica hadn't left the house. One other thing she noticed was that Kay always looked really happy when she was wearing her night stalker clothes and strapping on her Glock; she really seemed to get a kick out of what she did, like it was all a big game to her.

Thinking about Kay's midnight ninja outfit made Jessica wonder if she should get something new to wear for the party. She'd looked in Kay's closet one time when Kay was out of the house—maybe she shouldn't have, but she was just curious—and Kay had a lot of really neat, sexy clothes, most of them with Miami labels. None of Kay's clothes would fit her unless she grew four inches, but she could tell Kay had a sense of style and she knew that she didn't. Kay had offered to take her shopping a bunch of times, and now Jessica thought maybe she should take her up on the offer before the party.

There was something else she found in the closet that day. In a box on the top shelf were a bunch of old photos, mostly pictures of Kay at parties, or skiing, or dressed up in combat fatigues at one of those stupid paintball-shooting places. There were a lot of pictures of one guy in the box—a real stud—and Kay looked like she was in her early twenties when the pictures were taken. She wondered who the guy was. But there was one other picture in the box, way down at the bottom, in an envelope. The return address on the envelope was from a Marilyn Hamilton, who Jessica knew was Kay's mother, and it was postmarked fourteen years earlier. Inside the envelope was a faded snapshot of a chubby-cheeked blond baby who Jessica was certain was her. What hurt was that the picture was on the bottom of the box and Jessica could tell that Kay hadn't looked at it in years.

Aw, it was too nice a day to think about stuff like that.

The bus, for once, was on time, but the only seat she could find was next to an old guy who had to be at least sixty and whose breath smelled like he'd gargled with garlic. She was surprised when the old guy started playing a game on his smartphone. As the bus ride continued, she thought about summer. School would be out in a couple of days, and so far she hadn't made any plans other than surfing. There was a two-week DNA class at UCLA for high school kids who had the science prerequisites, and she'd applied and been accepted, but she hadn't talked to Kay about it. She was thinking it would be nice to spend some time on a college campus—and it would be good for both her and Kay to be apart for a while—but the class started just a couple weeks after the school year ended and she wanted to take a little break from studying.

She got off the bus, strolling to their house, wondering what she could have for dinner. She couldn't count on Kay for dinner. Some days she'd get home and fix something—spaghetti with Paul Newman marinara sauce was Kay's idea of a gourmet meal—but most of the time she'd just bring home something she'd picked up at a fast-food joint. And unless Jessica nagged her about it, there was never anything in the house to eat.

But Kay was . . . well, she was okay. Maybe she didn't want to be a mother, but Jessica could tell she was at least trying to make an effort to act like one. The problem was they really didn't have anything in common. When Kay was at home, she usually worked on the house, doing little carpentry projects, and when she wasn't doing that, she watched TV. Jessica had yet to see her crack open a book. She asked once if Jessica wanted to go to the firing range with her to shoot guns, and she could tell Kay was offended when she said she had absolutely no interest in learning how to kill. She probably should have been a little more diplomatic.

One thing she was really grateful to Kay for was introducing her to surfing. She just loved to surf. Which made her think about Randy Schommer. The guy was going to college next year, he was a hunk, and he should have been totally out of her league, but he spent more time with her than anyone else in the class. She also noticed Kay giving him the evil eye when she saw Randy talking to her after class the previous Saturday. For a woman who had never wanted anything to do with her since the day she was born, Kay was
way
overprotective.

The van stopped so fast its tires skidded. She turned to look at it—and then just stood there, paralyzed, when two Hispanic guys jumped out of the van and ran toward her. They were on her so fast she didn't even have time to scream before one of them clamped a hand over her mouth and muscled her into the van.

Oh, Jesus. She was going to be raped.

K
ay got home at six, thinking she should have stopped along the way and picked up something for dinner. She just hoped there was something in the house to eat.

Kay opened the front door—and immediately smelled cigarette smoke.

I'm gonna kill that kid.
“Jessica!” she yelled.

She stepped into the living room and saw a man sitting on her couch, looking completely relaxed, his legs crossed, smoking a brown cigarette. She whipped the Glock out of its holster and pointed it at his face. “You move and I'll blow your head off.”

The man dropped the cigarette into a coffee cup he'd been using for an ashtray and showed Kay his hands, palms outward, a gesture to convince her he wasn't armed. He wasn't big, not much taller than Kay, and he probably didn't weigh more than a hundred and fifty pounds. He looked Hispanic, medium-dark complexion, short dark hair, a thin mustache. He was wearing a brown suit, a tan shirt, no tie.

Kay was about to tell him to stand so she could frisk him, when he said, “I'm sure you could blow my head off, Agent Hamilton, but if you do, your daughter will die.”

“What?” Kay said.

“I'd suggest you put the pistol away and sit down so we can talk. We don't have much time.”

Kay took two long strides toward him and pressed the muzzle of the Glock against his forehead. Just the way she'd done with Tito Olivera the day she arrested him. “What did you say about my daughter?”

“You heard what I said. If you don't cooperate, she'll die. Now, rather than waste more time, please open the laptop.” He gestured to a white MacBook that Kay hadn't noticed sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

Kay backed away from him and, still pointing the gun at him, said, “You open it.”

“Very well,” the man said, as if she was being childish. He opened the laptop and turned it so Kay could see the screen. “Are you familiar with Skype?”

Kay nodded, feeling a knot begin to grow in her stomach.

He tapped the mouse and the screen came to life, and Kay could see Jessica sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair. She wasn't bound, but a man was standing behind her and holding a gun to her head. Kay couldn't see the man's face. Jessica looked all right; her hair was a bit mussed and her eyes were red from crying, but she wasn't bruised or bleeding. At least no place that was visible.

“Say something to your daughter, Agent Hamilton, so you'll know the transmission is live and that you're not looking at a recorded image.”

“Jessica, have they hurt you?”

“Oh, God, Kay, help me.”

She didn't think she'd get an answer to her next question, but she asked anyway. “Where are you, Jessica?”

“I don't know. Some guys threw me into a van when I got off the bus. I don't know where I am. I don't know what they want.”

Jessica got off the bus almost three hours ago. She could be almost anywhere, and the wall behind her was a gray concrete surface, no windows, no pictures, nothing on it.

“Kay, what do they
want
with me?” Jessica said, and as soon as she said this the man sitting in Kay's living room closed the laptop.

“If anything happens to my daughter, I'm going to kill you,” Kay said.

“Possibly,” the man said. “Now, please sit down.”

Kay took a seat, keeping the Glock in her hand.

“My name is Raphael Mora and I work for Caesar Olivera. I tell you this because I know my name and photo are in DEA and Mexican police databases and I don't want you wasting time trying to figure out who I am. You also need to know who I am and who I work for to understand the . . . the capabilities of the people you're dealing with.”

Now that he'd said his name, Kay did remember him from the DEA's files. He was one of Caesar's top people and as smart as they come.

“You are going to assist Mr. Olivera by helping his brother escape from the brig at Camp Pendleton,” Mora said. “If you don't do what Mr. Olivera wants, we won't kill your daughter. What we'll do is turn her into a heroin addict and place her in a whorehouse in a large city in Mexico or Central America. I imagine she'll die in a few years—heroin addicts tend to have short lives—but before she dies . . . well, you're an intelligent woman and I'm sure you can imagine what her life will be like.”

Kay started to come out of the chair she was sitting in, intending to smash the Glock into Mora's smug face. She stopped when she was halfway up and settled back into the chair. If she knocked him unconscious, she'd have to wait until he recovered to question him.

Seeing her reaction, Mora said, “Good. I can see that you're starting to think instead of reacting emotionally. You need to be in control of your emotions to do what needs to be done.”

“If you don't tell me where my daughter is, I'm going to start shooting you. I'll start with your kneecaps. I'll torture you until you tell me what I need to know.”

“I'll be happy to tell you where she's being kept,” Mora said. “She's in a house in Tijuana. But knowing where your daughter is won't do you any good, Agent Hamilton. The house is being protected by Caesar Olivera's men, and as you probably know, Mr. Olivera essentially controls the Mexican police as it relates to his business ventures. Assuming you could even mount an attack against the house, and assuming further that you could overwhelm Mr. Olivera's forces, your daughter would be killed. In fact, if I don't report back to Mr. Olivera in the next half hour and tell him that you've agreed to cooperate, then we're back to the scenario where your pretty young daughter joins a popular brothel.”

“How do you expect me to get Tito out of Camp Pendleton? He's in a military brig, guarded by marines as well as federal marshals. There's no way to break him out of there.”

“I know exactly how Tito is being guarded. I've had months to acquire that information. And you won't be breaking him out. You'll simply walk out with him.”

“How would I do that?”

“I take it by that question that you've decided to help Mr. Olivera. Is that correct?”

“No. If I get Tito out of Pendleton, how would the exchange be made for my daughter?”

“An excellent question. Once Tito has been freed from the brig, you'll transport him to the San Diego border crossing in a specially designed vehicle we use for moving people in and out of the United States. I came here today in that vehicle, as a matter of fact. As soon as you and Tito are clear of Camp Pendleton, you'll meet the transport vehicle, Tito will be placed in a hidden compartment in the vehicle, and you will proceed to the border alone with Tito. In other words, you will have Tito and we will have your daughter; thus you'll be somewhat able to control the exchange.”

“If I break Tito out of the brig, they're going to be looking for me at the border crossings.”

“No, they won't. I'll explain why later. So, as I was saying, once you reach the border crossing you'll get into the far left-hand lane and you'll see your daughter accompanied by two men. There will actually be many men in the area to deal with any sort of trouble, but you'll see two of these men with your daughter. As you begin to cross the border, the men with her will let her go and she'll start walking toward the American side. You'll be able to see her walking. Your daughter is of no value to us—not even as a young whore—and we have no desire to keep her once we have Tito back. As your daughter walks into the United States, you will drive into Mexico with Tito. If you get out of the vehicle before you cross the border, or if anyone else attempts to interfere with the exchange, a sniper will shoot your daughter.”

Kay tried to think of some way out of this. She knew Mora was right: There was no way to mount some sort of SWAT attack against a house in Tijuana to free her daughter—assuming she could even find the house. She also knew Caesar Olivera wouldn't exchange her daughter for Mora if she threatened to kill or arrest Mora. She knew Mora was a vital cog in the Olivera machine, but in the end, he was just an employee. She also suspected that she was Plan A. That if she didn't do what Olivera wanted, Mora's Plan B would be to kill her and her daughter and find somebody else to execute his plan. She figured that her being a federal agent was critical to Mora's plan, but there were a lot of other federal agents Mora could force to cooperate by kidnapping their spouses or children. She didn't immediately see a way out of the box she was in—and the thought of Jessica servicing men in a Mexican whorehouse was just too awful to contemplate.

Kay didn't bother to ask what would happen to her if she did what Mora wanted. She knew if she asked, Mora would lie. Kay knew she was going to be killed, and most likely in a very bad way, as soon as she handed Tito over.

She also knew, in that instant, and she was surprised by her certainty, that she was willing to sacrifice her life to save her daughter.

The only good news was that she'd have time to think of a way to screw up Mora's plan before she reached the border crossing. There was no way in hell she was going to make the exchange in the manner Mora had described.

“How do I get Tito out of the brig?” she finally asked.