Perez threw his elbows at the men on top of him. He caught one in the center of the face. The room resounded with crashes, thumps, and profanity. Perez clenched a fist, threw a massive backward punch at one of his assailants and caught him in the throat. The man staggered and loosened his grip. But there were five of them, Perez now realized. He was outnumbered and outmuscled. From the blow to his head, blood flowed into his eyes. He could barely see.
Two men started to yank Perez’s hands upward behind his back. One of them shoved a Taser to the base of Perez’s neck and unleashed several seconds of current. He was aware of the numbing pain and the buzzing, zapping sound. His body convulsed. He howled again, then gagged. At the same time, the two men worked his hands upward and handcuffed him.
Perez lay on the hotel carpet, stunned but still not unconscious. Someone grabbed him by the hair, lifted his head, and slammed it down again. He was breathing hard, more blood flowing from his brow. He wondered how he could have walked right into this trap.
He could hear someone unleashing a strand of tape with a ripping sound. From behind, someone wrapped the tape firmly across Perez’s mouth. Then they sat him up on the floor. One of the assailants, a burly man with a gray crew cut, pushed a gun to Perez’s throat, and the Mexican was convinced that he had less than a few seconds to live.
“You’re coming with us, Manuel,” the man said in Spanish. “If you resist, we kill you. If you cooperate, you live to work again. How’s that sound,
Perez barely had the stamina to give a nod, but he found enough to do so.
“Get him to his feet,” the leader said.
His legs throbbed where he had been hit, and he stood with great difficulty. Then he heard the hotel door open again. A shaft of light from the hallway burst into the room and into his eyes. Someone dropped a black hood over his head, prisoner-of-war style, and they pulled him out into the hall.
At first he thought these men were police, but now he realized they weren’t. They were something else, but he didn’t know what. They frog-marched him down the hallway. Then, another note of absurdity: they spoke to each other in a language he didn’t understand, an Eastern European language of some sort, Czech, maybe, or Polish or Hungarian.
Where was he being taken? Out of the country? Had some foreign intelligence service grabbed him for their own inventory? Or worse, did this have something to do with the shots he had fired a few nights earlier? Was it payback for some previous mission, in Croatia perhaps … or Afghanistan or Russia? He heard an elevator door open and he was pushed inside. The doors closed, he staggered again. Strong arms on each side of him held him up.
The elevator reached the ground floor. He felt cool air, air conditioning. The sound of automobiles. He sensed one pulling close to him. Vehicle doors opened. There was a hand on his head, and he was forced into a backseat. He could barely breathe. He was pushed low at first, then fixed upright. He guessed the windows were tinted. No one could see in. He had previously done operations like this himself, but he had never been on the receiving end. Until now.
By the sound of the tires, he realized that the vehicle was outside the garage and on the city streets. Then suddenly the hood was lifted. He had fewer than five seconds to notice the inner trappings of the van. A huge fist came directly into his face with a rag in it. The rag stank like kerosene, but he knew better. It was ether. He resisted it out of instinct, but his efforts were to no avail.
He felt himself starting to slump, then lost consciousness, having no idea who these people were or where they were taking him. And once everything went black, he no longer cared.
TWENTY-NINE
Toward 7:15 the next morning, Alex emerged from the townhouse on 38th Street. Two black Cadillac Escalades with tinted windows were waiting. Alex’s bodyguards ushered her to the first one. She climbed into the backseat, and Ramirez, the looming gunman, slid into the seat on the other side. MacPhail rode shotgun up front.
They had a young driver today, a young blond man with a crew cut. He signaled to two other men in the second Escalade, and they all started to roll. Soon they were cruising through the morning traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel, and within half an hour they were barreling down the New Jersey Turnpike.
Alex attempted small talk with Ramirez and MacPhail, but they weren’t talkative. She got the impression that they’d been out late. So she retreated into a book, a fantasy ghost story called
Being back in the Washington area brought back a flood of memories, some of them happy, others bittersweet.
They arrived at CIA headquarters in Langley shortly after noon, passed security, and took a light lunch with a case officer who’d been assigned to babysit her until her meeting at 1:30. His name was McAdams. He was cordial, talked a lot, but said almost nothing. Alex knew that the important talk would be held behind closed doors.
She returned the small talk through lunch and waited.
The meeting was in a conference room on the second floor, east. Her babysitter led her to the door, but her bodyguards were asked to wait outside. Alex entered and waited.
Inside was a rectangular table with six empty chairs. The walls were light green, normal CIA decor, with, surprisingly, a window that overlooked an inner courtyard. Near it was an American flag in a stand. In less than a minute, Alex heard voices. The door opened and three men entered. All three wore dark suits, ID badges in plastic holders dangling across their neckties.
“Agent LaDuca,” said the leader, extending a hand. “I’m Maurice Fajardie, Assistant Director/DCA, Central American Affairs, Caribbean Division. These are my associates who will also be involved in this case.” He then introduced her to Curtis Sloane, in charge of overall covert intelligence pertaining to Cuba, and Tom Menendez, whose title told her that he oversaw pursuit of fugitives in the eastern Caribbean.
After handshakes all around, they sat at the table.
“So, Alex,” Fajardie began, “I hear someone took a shot at you. How are you holding up?”
“The good news is they missed,” she said.
“We’ve all been briefed on what’s going on,” Sloane said.
“You’re quite a trooper,” Menendez added with admiration.
“I feel more like a head case than anything … that or Bambi in deer season.”
There were faint smiles. She looked around the table. The two associates had their eyes fixed on her, like a couple of foxhounds waiting for a bugle.
“It was a long drive from New York,” Alex said, “so let’s get to it, shall we?”
THIRTY
Fajardie began, “The powers-that-be feel we can coordinate you into a fluid situation we’re having right now in Cuba. Part of the plan is to keep you away from whoever might be sniping at you while putting you to work in an operation.” Fajardie glanced to the others. “What do we hear from the FBI in New York?” he asked. “Anything on Perez?”
“They have a trail,” Menendez said.
“Hot? Cold?” he asked.
“Getting warmer by the day,” Menendez said. “I talked to someone on major cases just before lunch.”
“Good,” Fajardie said and turned back to Alex. “Meanwhile, we need to keep you safe and get you out of the country.” He paused. “We’ve read the background on Paul Guarneri. There’s plenty on his old man, but not much on
