We hang up just as Amon pulls the car into our driveway. When he doesn’t continue into the garage, I shoot him a quizzical look. “Aren’t you coming in?”
He gives a terse shake of his head. “I wish to return to the scene. I have sharper eyes than the others. Perhaps I can find a clue they missed.” His lips are pressed into a tight line, but the concern in his icy blue eyes gives him a warmth I never knew the quietly efficient man possessed.
“Please call me if you find anything,” I say with a nod before heading inside.
In Papá’s office, I rush to Mama’s portrait, which swings open on silent hinges to reveal a wall safe behind. Inside, I find a stack of manila folders, some cash, our passports, and a handgun. On top of the files rests a small key, which I grab, but the label on the top file catches my eye. Operation Broken Heart.
My heart pounding, I reach for it and sit down at the desk, opening the file and glancing at the first page as I fit the key into the lock on the desk drawer.
The drawer is quickly forgotten as the contents of the file become clear to me. This is Papá’s agreement with the feds to act as informant in exchange for immunity. As I read, I discover that the deal extends to me as well.
My mouth goes dry as I find even more. Behind the agreement are pages of intel on the Amador cartel, including timelines and counts of all the various RICO offenses Amador has engaged in. Behind that is a list of team leaders with multiple intelligence agencies involved in mounting a case against Amador and coordinating a planned surgical infiltration of the man’s compound in Cancún.
They’re evidently already building a black-ops team in Belize but are awaiting intel before deploying them for an attack. I turn the page and find records of a previous operation that failed, leaving an entire team of soldiers dead. I wince at the grim report of the operation’s outcome. The men were captured, tortured, and their bodies left in the jungle to be picked over by animals. That failed operation must have raised Amador’s standing on every “Most Wanted” list. At least enough to give Papá the leverage to make this deal.
There’s a phone number at the top of the page next to the name Katherine Longo, who is tagged as the head of the committee assembled to coordinate the operation. My eyebrows shoot up at her title. She’s a United States senator.
I sit back and stare at the number, processing all this information. A senator would have the power to mobilize more than just a unit of mercenaries to find Gustavo. And considering he’s linked to the very man they’re trying to bring down, the promise of capturing him might be enough of a lure to make them move fast.
I hesitate, my heart in my throat. Should I take matters into my own hands this way? I shift my gaze to the portrait of Mama, her soft smile as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa, a look in her eyes filled with secrets. She would not wait to let him decide for her, and neither will I.
With that thought, I pick up the phone and dial.
37
Leo
Hard, cold concrete chills my cheek, chest, and belly as I come to. The acrid scent of diesel fuel permeates the air. I blink to clear my wobbly vision but can’t make sense of my surroundings. A horizontal band of gray light illuminates the immediate area, and I stare for several seconds until it coalesces into the windows in a huge garage door. The air around me is frigid, and the sound of falling rain on corrugated aluminum tells me I’m in some sort of hangar or barn.
Somewhere nearby are the rhythmic thuds and grunts of someone being beaten. I remain still, and when footsteps approach I shut my eyes again, not wanting to give away that I’m conscious until I get my bearings. My wrists are bound behind my back, and the barest flex is enough to tell me I’m zip-tied, but my feet are unbound. The footsteps fade into the distance and I open my eyes again, listening, then turn my head to face the other way.
Maddox lies a few feet away, bound on his belly with his hands behind his back like me and his eyes closed.
“Mad Dog,” I whisper. When he doesn’t respond I try again. His eyelids fly open and he stiffens, then sees me and relaxes, scowling.
“Gustavo,” he whispers.
“Yeah.” I narrow my eyes. “Did you know he was alive?”
He nods, his shoulders flexing as he tests his bindings the way I did. He turns his head, craning to look around. The place rumbles with the deafening noise of a plane taking off outside, an obvious clue to where Gustavo brought us. The twin-prop plane parked at the opposite end of the building is another.
“Is it clear behind me?” he whispers. I nod, and he rolls onto his side, then levers himself up to his knees and looks around. I follow suit to gain a better vantage.
The sounds of beating have stopped and now only low voices come from somewhere to our left, from beneath a set of stairs and a catwalk not unlike the one in Maddox’s garage, rust brown with flaking paint. A door there leads to some kind of office. Between us and the office is a stack of crates—the guns we just unloaded into his garage. A black Mercedes and a pickup truck are parked nearby.
Just outside that office, half a dozen thugs are huddled together, attention fixed on something, then they burst out laughing. One peels away and turns, chuckling to himself as he continues looking down at his phone, then slips it into his pocket. We drop back down where we were and
