President Cortez shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“How much longer?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully my associate’s contact comes through. If not …”
“Yes?”
“We’re screwed.”
The man doesn’t answer, though he does smile, and stares out his window again. I watch him in the rearview mirror for another moment before I speak.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“Why did you believe me?”
He thinks it over for a few seconds.
“I saw the truth in your eyes.”
“What truth?”
“That you knew my son. That you were the one who … stopped him. It’s been almost a year now. I have thought of him more often than usual the past couple days.”
I watch him in the rearview mirror for another moment, then lean forward to check the SUV’s glove box. I find a scrap of paper and a pen, and jot down several numbers. I pass it back to President Cortez.
He looks at the paper for a moment. Frowns at me.
“What is this?”
“GPS coordinates to where we buried your son. If something happens to me, I want to make sure I followed through with my end of the deal.”
Without a word, he folds the paper and slips it into his jacket pocket.
“I need to know something, Mr. President.”
He looks at me again.
“Go ahead.”
“Besides the cartels, who benefits most in your government if you’re assassinated?”
He thinks about it for a moment, then smiles.
“Quite a few people. I am not a popular man. My policies have been hard on the cartels, and in turn, the cartels have stopped contributing their blood money to many of those corrupt in my government.”
“Mexico doesn’t have a vice president, does it?”
“No. If something were to happen to me, the Secretario de Gobernación, or Secretary of the Interior, would assume executive powers provisionally.”
“Who’s the current Secretary of the Interior?”
“A man named Felipe Abascal.”
“Any bad blood between you and Felipe?”
“None I am aware of, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Besides, he would not take over permanently. As I only have two more years in my term, Congress would select a substitute president by a majority of votes in a secret ballot. That person would be president until the end of the presidential term.”
“So we know for a fact if you were assassinated, Felipe would take over, but it wouldn’t be for long. Congress would need to elect somebody else.”
“Yes.”
“And that could be anybody.”
President Cortez shrugs.
“I would not say just anybody, but there is no telling who may be elected.”
“Would you say the majority of your Congress is corrupt? As in they would do whatever the cartels tell them to do?”
“I would like to think not, but I do not know for sure.”
“Who was the woman that was with you when you arrived at the hotel?”
“My aide. She’s been working for me for almost seven years.”
“So you trust her.”
“Yes.”
“She goes with you everywhere.”
“Yes.”
“Knows your schedule.”
“Yes.”
He pauses, seeing where I’m going with this, and shakes his head.
“No. It … it cannot be her.”
“Let me ask you this: when you arrive somewhere with your aide, who typically gets out of the vehicle first?”
He says nothing, staring out his window.
“I watched you motion for her to get out first. She didn’t. Almost like she knew something bad was supposed to happen.”
Still President Cortez says nothing.
“You understand why we’re here, don’t you? Somebody close to you has been feeding inside information to the people who wanted me to assassinate you. That person was providing up-to-the-minute intel. And that same person, if this goes as planned, will want to make sure I never get a chance to tell my story to the authorities. The last thing they want is for their plot to become known. Do you understand?”
He nods, his expression pained, the knowledge that he was betrayed too much to accept.
I ask, “What is your aide’s name?”
“Imna Rodriguez.”
I watch him in the rearview mirror.
“I hope I’m wrong about this.”
He meets my stare again.
“So do I.”
That’s when Tweedledee’s cell phone buzzes.
Forty-Nine
The police had set up a perimeter around the airport of a couple blocks, mostly to keep the news media away. The security detail had driven her there once word reached them that that was where the woman had taken President Cortez, and she had to speak to several different police officers before they were allowed to drive through the barricade. Even then, more police cars were lined up outside the fence, making it difficult to see the SUV out on the airfield.
She stepped out of the SUV and was immediately met by an older black man with salt-and-pepper hair. He flashed his badge at her. FBI.
“Hello, Ms. Rodriguez. I’m Special Agent in Charge Bryan Rhodes. I understand you were with President Cortez before he was abducted.”
She stared out at the airfield, trying to get a glimpse of the SUV. Above them, helicopters hovered in the sky.
“What is happening?”
“It appears we have a hostage situation.”
“President Cortez is a guest in this country.”
Forcing anger into her tone, the proper amount of outrage.
The man nodded, his face tight.
“I understand that, Ms. Rodriguez. And right now we’re doing everything we can to ensure President Cortez’s safety.”
Her primary concern wasn’t Cortez, of course. It was the woman. The woman who knew way too much. If somehow this ended without her being killed by the police, she would be arrested. Imna couldn’t have that.
A radio on the agent’s belt crackled, and a voice came through.
“Jones is approaching now.”
Imna asked, “Who is Jones?”
The agent said, “He’s the hostage negotiator.”
She raised herself up on her tiptoes, like that would help her see over the barricade of police cars, but it didn’t do much good. She could just glimpse a man walking toward the SUV on the airfield.
The voice came through the radio again.
“Driver’s window coming down.”
The agent unclipped his radio and spoke into it.
“How much?”
“Only a few inches. The target looks to be talking to the negotiator.”
A moment of silence from the radio, the sound of the helicopters in the sky the only thing she could hear, and then the radio crackled again.
“Jones
