hostages.
“Uh-oh,” he said aloud, drawing a look from Boxers.
He keyed his mike again and got Mother Hen’s attention. “Do you still have ICIS up?” he asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Do me a favor and run the names of our intended PCs.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Whatever pops up.”
It only took thirty seconds or so. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I ran your guy Tristan and he comes up as an accomplice to murder. Same victims.” A pause. “What’s happening here?”
“I’m thinking big-time conspiracy,” Boxers said. “Too many moving parts to be the work of some drug lord.”
Jonathan agreed, but only to a point. The way this operation was playing out-with lies planted about not just him and Boxers, but about Tristan, too-the police had to be a part of it. If not the police, then the people the police reported to, which would be the Mexican government. By extension, the Mexican government meant the controlling drug lords.
“Is Gunslinger there?” Jonathan asked over the radio.
Gail’s voice chirped in his ear. “It’s Lady Justice now, remember?”
Of course. She’d specifically rejected the handle Jonathan had assigned to her after that unpleasantness in West Virginia. She’d chosen the new nickname herself, and while Jonathan thought it sounded stupid, he wasn’t going to fight that battle.
Jonathan said, “I need you both to start asking the right people the right questions and see how we can undo this nonsense before it spins out of control.”
As if it weren’t out of control already.
He went on, “In case we can’t clear the record in time, we’re going to need papers for our PC, too, so the quicker you can find me a reliable craftsman, the better off we’re going to be. Advise when you have an answer. Meanwhile, have our Special Friend contact Wolverine and see what he can dig up.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the blood-spattered apparition that had once been a healthy, stable young man. Now, he had that faraway look that never meant good things. The kid needed a break, and with a thousand- mile slog lying ahead for them, they all needed rest.
“Set the craftsman for tomorrow,” Jonathan said. “For tonight, see if there’s not a town somewhere nearby with a church. We can hole up there, gather our wits, get a shower and a change of clothes for the PC.”
A pause. “Are you looking at the same map I am?” Venice asked. “Your location defines the middle of nowhere.” Another understatement. They were driving through endless jungle, somewhere near where the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero met each other-in an area where the prominent feature was a lack of prominent features. Jonathan had heard that people actually take vacations out here. Amazing.
A couple of minutes passed before Venice contacted him again. “All right, I think I’ve found a place for you to go to ground tonight. Let me know when you’re ready to copy map coordinates.”
The easiest way was to enter them into his handheld GPS. “Go ahead,” he said.
Venice slowly read off the minutes and seconds of longitude and latitude, enunciating carefully while Jonathan punched in the numbers. When he was done, it took a few seconds for the map to materialize, and when it did, he had to look carefully to see the village that lay camouflaged beneath the canopy of leaves.
Venice explained, “That large building on the far northeast corner of the village is a Catholic church, Santa Margarita. I crossed that with church records and I found there’s a priest attached to it, a Father Jaime Peron. Beyond that, I don’t know much of anything.”
Actually, considering how little time it had taken, that seemed like a lot.
Jonathan checked the stats. “I show twelve-point-one miles as the crow flies, nearly due north, but I don’t see any roads. Can you help out there?”
“That’s affirmative,” Venice said. From the smile in her voice, he suspected that she’d been waiting for him to ask. “Churches need to be built. I found directions for the construction materials. Let me plot the route and upload it to you. Give me ten minutes.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jonathan took the opportunity for them all to stretch their legs. Given the weaponry and equipment, the Toyota’s front seat got awfully small. It felt good to stand. It had to be over a hundred degrees out here, and the humidity topped the charts. And now that they’d stopped moving, word had traveled to the vast population of biting insects that it was dinnertime. The foliage on either side had a predatory, man-eating look to it. Stories abounded of soldiers who became separated from their units for a minute or two, only to get hopelessly lost when they tried to reconnect. Perhaps not in Mexico, but as far as Jonathan was concerned, all jungles shared the same primary danger: they removed him from his slot at the top of the food chain.
As Jonathan adjusted his vest and weapons to get them to set more comfortably, he kept an eye on Tristan, who walked to the edge of the road to pee. He noted that there wasn’t much of a stream.
When the boy returned to the vehicle, Jonathan pulled a water bottle from a side pocket of his ruck and handed it to Tristan. “Here,” he said. “It’s important to stay hydrated.”
Tristan shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”
“You’re in the jungle,” Jonathan said. “I can tell you’re dehydrated. You need to drink this. Sip it, don’t gulp.”
Reluctantly, Tristan accepted the offer and stripped the cap off the bottle. He took a sip. As he lowered the bottle, Jonathan handed him a package of Pop-Tarts, also from his ruck. “Give yourself some calories and carbs, too.”
The kid looked like he might turn those down, as well, but then accepted them anyway. “Please tell me what’s happening,” Tristan said as he ripped open his package. “I know there’s something wrong.” He sat on the Toyota’s back bumper.
Jonathan sighed. There were advantages and disadvantages to honesty when things went bad. For Jonathan, truth was always the easier option. As harsh as the truth may be, at least there wouldn’t be feelings of bitterness down the road.
“I’ll start with the good news,” he said. “You’re alive, and my single mission right now is to make sure you stay alive. You can call me Scorpion, and my friend is Big Guy.”
“Those are code names,” Tristan protested. “They’re not real names.”
“True enough,” Jonathan said. “But that’s the way it’s going to stay. Our mission is to get you home to your family. I’ve never once lost a precious cargo.”
“Until today,” Tristan said. “You lost a lot of them today.”
Jonathan bristled, yet fought the urge to equivocate. He said, “You’re right. And I’m sorry about that. I wish I could have done more.”
“So, is that what I am?” Tristan asked. “Precious cargo? I’m the ‘PC’ I hear you talking about on the radio?”
“Exactly.”
“You talked about me a lot,” Tristan said. Jonathan interpreted the statement as his request to hear details.
“That brings me to the bad news,” Jonathan said. While he caught the kid up on the recent revelations from Venice, Boxers continually scanned the surrounding jungle, his hand never leaving the grip of the rifle that he wore slung across his ample belly. Boxers had the kind of gut that looked like fat from a distance, yet would doubtless break your entire arm if you tried to hit it.
When the story was done, Tristan gaped. “So you’re telling me that the Mexican government thinks that I killed the people you killed?”
It wasn’t exactly the way Jonathan would have phrased it, but he conceded the basic point.
“But why would I do that? I mean, why would they think that I did that?”
