wanted me to kill you.”
Jonathan gave a wry chuckle. “With the people I hired to help me?”
Josie closed his eyes against another wave of agony. “It would have pained me,” he said after it passed. “He had pictures of my family. He was going to kill them.”
“What makes you think we won’t?” Boxers asked.
Jonathan didn’t like the question, didn’t like the tone, and didn’t like the implication. But he showed none of it.
Jose smiled. “You are here to rescue a child,” he said. “People who rescue children don’t kill them.”
Bingo, Jonathan thought. In fact, a Silver Star citation posted on the wall at Unit headquarters at Fort Bragg gave testimony to the lengths Boxers would go to protect children.
Jonathan cranked his head to look up at Boxers’ silhouette. “Get on the horn with Mother Hen and have her scan the screens. Make sure we’re still alone.”
Boxers backed off a few feet and keyed his microphone. Jonathan tuned him out. “I need to know everything, Josie. Every detail. Start with his name.”
The little man squinted against the sun. “I knew who he was as soon as I saw him. They call him El Matador. He is very feared by the people here in the mountains, and he is allowed by the policia to do whatever he wants. He kills people, Mr. Jones. His last name is Ponder. First name Michael, I think. No, it’s a different name that sounds like Michael. I don’t know.”
Jonathan didn’t know what to say. This mission had barely begun, yet the battle plan had already been shredded.
“I did it to save my family,” Josie repeated. Another wave of pain rolled through his gut. And he tensed against it. “It was never my plan to betray you, Mr. Jones. You must know that.”
Boxers’ shadow returned. “We’re alone,” he reported.
“Good to know,” Jonathan said. To Josie: “Did you even look for the boy we’re trying to find?”
Jose’s eyes cleared. “ Si. I found him.”
Jonathan shot a look to Boxers, and the Big Guy retreated to one of the ancient Chevy Blazers that Josie had brought for transportation. He returned with a plastic laminated map that was covered with grease-pencil markings. Jonathan unfolded the map and held it so Josie could see it. “Show me.”
Josie took a moment to study it and orient himself. “We are right here,” he said, leaving a bloody dot on the map. He pointed to another spot. “This is where the boy is. You cannot drive to it, and you cannot fly to it. You have to walk.”
“How do you know this is the place?”
“The boy you are looking for has very blond hair, yes?”
“Yes.”
Josie pointed to yet another spot on the map. “Everybody knows that Ponder has a permanent camp here. It’s a-how do you say it? — stage area.”
“Staging area,” Jonathan corrected. “For what?”
“For food and supplies for his factories. They gather the materials there, and then move them out into the mountains to the factories.”
“How many factories are there?”
Jose shrugged. “I don’t know. No one knows. Many. But one of the men who works there is easily bought. He told me that a blond-haired boy was brought to this staging area two days ago. He was-how do you say it? — asleep, but not normal sleep.”
“Unconscious,” Jonathan helped.
“Yes, exactly. When he woke up, they put him in a truck and drove him into the woods.”
“To one of the many factories.”
“ Exactamente. This one here.” He pointed back to the spot where he said Evan was.
“How do you know it’s this one?”
“Because of the white hair. Word of such things travels quickly among the Indian villages. This one here”-the spot he pointed to this time had no marking at all-“has been treated particularly badly by Ponder’s men. Many rapes and murders. No men left in the village at all. No boys, even, beyond ocho anos. They have all been killed or put to work in the factories. Slave labor. So when a boy who looks like the boy you seek comes through, he is noticed. He was there yesterday. Only one factory is close by. That is where you will find the blond boy.” Jose gave a weak smile, clearly proud of himself.
Then it disappeared. “When Ponder discovers that you’re still alive, he will kill my wife and children.”
Jonathan sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Harvey offered, “Lie to him. Call and say that you killed us. That would buy time.”
“I wish it would,” Josie said. He closed his eyes. “I was supposed to deliver your heads to him,” he said.
Ten minutes later, they were ready to go. While Jonathan and Boxers managed the business of loading two vehicles, Harvey made final preparations with Josie. As gently as possible, he dragged the man to a shady spot and propped him against two rucksacks whose owners no longer needed them.
“Are you comfortable?” Harvey asked.
Josie looked terrified. As promised, Harvey had given him an injection for the pain, but it hadn’t touched the man’s fear of dying. “Please take me with you,” Josie begged. “Don’t make me die out here.”
Harvey avoided eye contact. “Boss says no.”
“Please. You can talk him into it. You look like a nice young man.”
“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving.”
“Please.”
Harvey’s stomach churned. “I can’t,” he said. He stood.
“Then kill me,” Josie said. “Give me another shot. Give me five shots. Make me go to sleep and-”
Jonathan stepped into Harvey’s space. “We’re not assassins, Josie,” he said. “He won’t drug you to death, and before you ask, I won’t shoot you to death. It’s not what we do.” He put a hand on Harvey’s shoulder. “Go ahead and mount up. We’ll be in the Range Rover.”
Jose tried to sit up more, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. “Mr. Jones. All those years.”
“They’re all in the past. I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t done what you did.”
“But my family.”
“They’ll be killed, I suppose.”
“You could help them.”
Jonathan paused. He didn’t want to rise to that bait. The man was dying, for God’s sake. He was desperate for some thread of hope. Behind him, one of the Blazers rumbled to life.
“Good-bye, Josie.”
Jose took a huge breath and seemed to focus all his energy. “I don’t want to die here!” he shouted.
Jonathan turned his back on his old colleague and walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As the sound of the approaching chopper grew louder, Navarro pulled an AR-10 rifle off the rack and hovered it in the air for Gail. “You know how to shoot?” he asked.
Gail swallowed her annoyance. He had no way of knowing her past. “I’m actually pretty good,” she said.
“I hope so,” he said. “Take this.”
Gail accepted the weapon. She recognized it for what it was-a 7.62-millimeter monster that would put a hole through anything. “Aren’t we overreacting a bit?”
“Overreacting would be shooting at a news helicopter,” Navarro quipped, reaching back to the rack. “Repelling an airborne assault is quite the opposite.” He grabbed a pristine 1950s vintage M-14-the precursor to Gail’s rifle, and by most estimates one of the finest weapons ever manufactured for the military.
“I need ammo,” Gail said.
But Navarro was ahead of her. He handed her two full magazines. Including the one that was already
