came back because she couldn’t reserve the flight without knowing his real name. The ticket needed to match his ID. When he returned, she asked him for his passport.
“So you’ve finally figured out a way to get my name.” He had reached into his pocket and pulled out a pristine tourist passport, tossing it to her. “Here you go.”
She was surprised at its new appearance.
“I thought by the way you talked you were some sort of world traveler. This thing hasn’t ever been used.”
“I’ve traveled quite a bit, but not on that passport. You’ll be the first to use it.”
She opened the passport and looked at his personal information.
He said, “Yeah, I know, it’s a damn strange name. Just get the tickets.”
She went through the procedures for buying the tickets, typing in “Nephilim Logan.”
“You don’t have a middle name?”
“No. Before you ask, my parents were good people, but children of the sixties. When I was born, they had a lot of New Age, weirdo crap going on in their heads. When they married, they were full of hopeful ideas about how they were going to change the world. They ended up owning their own house-painting business, but I was stuck with the name.”
“What’s Nephilim mean? Something out of Norse myth or a type of laundry detergent?” Seeing him scowl, she backed up, saying, “I’m just kidding. Surely it has some special meaning.”
“Yeah, it’s from the Old Testament. It’s supposed to be the name of a race of half god/half man people who roamed the earth during Adam and Eve times. They were supposed to be some sort of badass heroes, but all the name ever got me was a fight as I grew up. I’ve always hated it.”
Jennifer had had no answer to that.
Now that they were actually in Guatemala, she wondered if she was placing too much faith in a complete stranger.
She watched him pace the room, finally peeking out the window, causing her to wonder if she’d made a bad choice.
“Is this place okay?”
“Yeah. Just like I asked for. I’m just concerned that this place is some sort of local gem and will be under the eye of whoever was on the phone. Nothing we can do about it now, since we had to hand over our passports to check in. If he has this place under his thumb, we’re made. At any rate, we don’t have a lot of time before he starts to wonder where we are. Every minute takes away from your uncle’s chances, so I think we had better get moving.”
“Are you sure that going to his house is smart?”
“Look, let’s get something straight right now. I’m the one who knows what to do here. I’m the one who can get your uncle back. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t start questioning me at every turn. I know you’re putting yourself out on a limb and want to feel some semblance of control, but that ain’t gonna happen. You don’t have a clue about what you’re doing, and you’re a damn menace to this whole operation just by being here.”
I saw Jennifer recoil at my outburst, which made me feel like an asshole. Like I did outside her car at the Windjammer. My anger wilted, and for the second time in nine months, I felt like apologizing instead of ripping off her head. Before she could say anything, I held up my hands.
“Okay, okay. Sorry. That was a little overboard. I want to conduct a recce”—seeing Jennifer scrunch her eyebrows at my terminology, I scratched the shorthand—“reconnaissance of his house just to get a feel for who we’re dealing with. He told us how to find his house on the last phone call, and we would be stupid not to use that information to get some insight into the enemy. All I want to do is a drive-by.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Look, we’re wasting time. Can we talk about this as we go?”
Jennifer backed down. “All right. Let’s go.”
33
The contact from Santa Elena said, “She came through here. She and her companion rented a Jeep here about ten hours ago. No information on where they were headed.”
Jake swore, aggravated that he had missed the Santa Elena embarkation point. While no flights from the U.S. landed there, plenty of flights from neighboring countries did. He had thought there was little chance his targets were smart enough to transfer at another country and didn’t like being outwitted.
Intent on getting any information he could on his prey, he asked, “Did you get the name of her companion?”
“No. He didn’t speak and didn’t fill out any paperwork. They paid in cash and the girl used her license. I did get a description. The rental man remembered him pretty well because he said the guy scared him. He’s a white guy, about six foot two, one hundred and ninety to two hundred pounds, brown hair cut short, and blue eyes. He said he looked hard. He has a scar on his face that cuts down his right cheek. The rental guy said he didn’t look like someone who took a lot of shit.”
Jake took this in. This man was shaping up to be a greater threat than they had anticipated. He was smart enough to have figured out a route that would evade Jake’s net and had been strong enough to kill Miguel’s men in the U.S. He was someone to watch out for. Jake decided to quit underestimating the man. He called Miguel.
“I found them. They came in through Santa Elena. They rented a Jeep and are now probably inside Guatemala City. Current whereabouts are unknown.” Jake then relayed the description of Pike, ending with his assessment of the threat.
Miguel said, “I knew that fucker wouldn’t call when he arrived. He might be as dangerous as you say, but look on the bright side: He’s no professor — he’ll live a long, long time before his body quits. I assume that since you know they’re inside the city, it’ll only be a matter of a few hours until you bring them to me.”
“Consider it done. If you would do me the favor I ask that you leave the man alive long enough for me to kill him.”
“Of course. He is yours.”
Abu Bakr noted the information they had just overheard and thought through the ramifications.
“This man Pike doesn’t sound like someone to trifle with. I’m inclined to forget about the treasure hunt and execute the mission given to us by The Sheik.”
“Please,” Sayyidd said, “he’s only one man. An infidel at that. We can defeat him just as we defeated the soldiers of the Great Satan. We now know what he looks like. God willing, the rest will be easy.”
Bakr didn’t believe it would be as simple as Sayyidd said. They still had to beat Miguel’s enterprise to the punch.
“We’ll need to be quicker than Jake. Once he finds the location of the package we’ll have little time to intercept it. Does this scanner work on batteries?”
Sayyidd said, “No, it doesn’t, but it has an adapter for a car cigarette lighter.”
“That’ll work. Let’s wait inside the car Miguel gave us. Once we hear the location, we’ll need to move immediately while Miguel and Jake are coming up with a plan. You’d better pray that Allah is really looking out for us, or we’ll be the ones begging for the pain to end.”
