able to tell them Rocker, Dusha and De Wine were not involved in anything illegal. If anyone says we were, they’re going to be looking at an action for business disparagement that will take their house, their dog, their wife, and their retirement, not necessarily in that order.
“I’m coming with you. The Gulfstream is already fueled, at the airport,” he continues. “It would take us about four, four and a half hours flight time. We can leave tonight. In fact, there’s a firm we do business with down in Mexico City, security and investigations. I’ve used them before. I could arrange to have their services available. One of the biggest drug rings in the world operates out of the Yucatan Peninsula. Hell, I’ve read that half the resorts in Cancun were built with drug money. Given the kind of people we are dealing with, I think it would be wise to have some extra ‘insurance.’ ”
This sounds good but incredibly expensive. “I don’t want to cost the firm a ton of money.”
“Nonsense. I may not be as adventuresome as you are, but I like to have an edge before I go sticking my nose in.”
He looks at his watch. “I think Cancun is Central time zone. We wouldn’t be able to do anything down there until tomorrow anyway. Say we meet at the airport in Carlsbad at nine o’clock tonight. McClellan-Palomar, that’s where we keep the plane. Do you know where the field is?”
“I’ll find it.”
The waiter brings our lunch. Adam picks up the envelope with Ibarra’s letter so it doesn’t get splattered with soup.
“In the meantime, I’ll have the secretary touch this a few times and have it delivered to the police by courier in the morning, after we’re gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Three hours in and the sleek Gulfstream is knifing through the night sky on its way south. I gaze out the tiny oval window and listen to the drone of the twin jet engines as we skim above humid thunderheads, wondering where we are and what is beneath us.
Adam is asleep on the couch across from me, a seat belt loosely draped over his midsection and buckled on the outside of a blanket that covers him. Shoes off, his stocking feet are sticking out beyond the end of the blanket.
He is a man grown accustomed to the finer things. It’s what a life of privilege can do. He has no sense of airport security lines that look like a scene from Gandhi. If I told him they stopped serving meals on trays with real silverware, I don’t think he would believe me. If you suggested that security now prevents even the use of plastic utensils on airliners, his first question would be, “How are you supposed cut your steak?” Man out of touch with the world.
His mouth is open, sleeping like a baby. I suspect he is snoring, though with the sound of the engines, I can’t hear it.
I look at the stars, holes in the dark sky, and finally doze off.
The next thing I know, Adam is shaking me by my good arm. Fully dressed, his shoes back on, he is straightening his tie.
“We’re descending toward the airport in Cancun. You might want to freshen up.”
Twenty minutes later we’re on the ground, rolling down one of the taxiways toward a hangar with its yawning door open, all lit up inside. The pilot pulls right in and shuts the engines down.
As he does, three large SUVs, dark and gleaming under the bright lights, drive up and park in an arc around the wing on Adam’s side. I start to get my bags from the back.
“You can go ahead and leave the bag,” says Adam. “They’ll get ’em for us.”
I follow him to the door. Adam slaps the pilot on the arm. “Good flight. Very comfortable. Now, you guys are heading back to San Diego, as I understand it, tonight.”
“Right. Be back here tomorrow night. Then we’ll be on the ground here ’til Sunday evening.”
“Great,” says Adam, and he heads down the stairs with me right behind him. Before I get to the ground, he is already shaking hands, smiling at two men who have gotten out of one of the cars. He motions me over.
“Julio. Like you to meet Paul Madriani. Paul. This is Julio Paloma. Julio’ll be our guide while we’re down here. I hope you don’t mind. Our firm has used Julio’s company for security on trips down here before. I took the liberty.”
“Not at all.” We shake hands. Julio is a big man, I’d say six-foot-five, a broad grin, white even teeth, and a hand that swallows my own. Neck like a bull, shoulders like an NFL lineman, he’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen except for the one standing next to him.
Adam introduces me to Herman Diggs, an African-American mountain who I am told is from Detroit. I look up at him. His top front tooth is chipped like a jagged piece of ice. I don’t ask how it got that way. I’d like to have my hand back. Both of them are decked out in slacks and dark blazers, enough cloth to sail a good-sized ship, each with a patch sporting a company logo over the breast pocket.
Adam tells me they are specialists in corporate security. They conduct some small talk with Adam while their minions gather our luggage.
We head toward the second car in line, followed by the Julio and Herman show, guys with our bags taking up the rear like a safari. These they pile into the back of the last car in line while they huddle to call signals on the best route to wherever it is we are sleeping tonight.
“You sure you have enough vehicles?” I ask Adam.
“Never be too careful down here,” he says. “Julio can tell you. He chauffeured me around Mexico City last time I was down. That was about two years ago, wasn’t it?” His voice goes up a notch to be heard over the blast of a jet throttling up off in the distance. He turns to look at Julio, who is too busy at the moment, making arrangements for travel, to hear him.
So Adam turns back to me. “May as well get in,” he says.
Oversized tires with lots of aggressive rubber. We could use a ladder to climb up into the backseat of the huge Suburban. We settle in and find the seat belts. Adam closes the door to keep the air-conditioning inside. The engine is still running.
“Anyway, it was a meeting on gas and oil leases for one of our clients.” Adam’s going on with his story even if nobody is listening. “And son of a bitch if somebody doesn’t try to grab one of our briefcases. Two kids on a motorbike.”
“Really?”
“That’s what I mean. You’ve got to be careful.”
“Did they get it?”
“Hell, no,” he says. “Herman there saw it all in his side-view mirror. He opened the driver’s door just as they were accelerating. Made a real mess. Blood all over the inside of the door, broken bones. Nobody killed, so I guess it could have been worse.”
“Yeah. They could have run into Herman,” I say.
Adam laughs, takes off his glasses, and wipes them down with a handkerchief. The car’s air conditioner is working overtime with one of the front doors still open.
“Beginning to fog up. I hate the humidity down here.” Adam checks his watch, then taps it with a finger. It’s stopped. He takes it off and taps it gently against the metal frame around the inside of the passenger window, then listens to it close to his ear to make sure it’s going again.
“This old Hamilton’s an antique,” he says. “Like me. It keeps great time, but it doesn’t like humidity. Makes two of us.” He wipes perspiration from his forehead with the handkerchief. “What time have you got?”
“It’s a little after one-thirty.”
“Add two hours,” he says. “Central time. We’ll sleep in the morning. Otherwise we’ll be wasted.”
Herman and Julio finally get everything together and we head for town, Herman behind the wheel and Julio riding shotgun.
Out of the airport, within two minutes we’re on a dark four-lane highway traveling at high speed for a few minutes before we reach an overpass. We turn off and head toward what looks like open water behind flat terrain
