She was close by. She was watching him right now. He could feel her eyes on him.
‘You mean, like an agency?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not with anyone. I’m a private citizen,’ he said.
‘A bounty hunter?’
‘No.’
‘What do you want with Mendez?’
‘I told you already. Listen, I was contacted by one of his victims, a young woman he had raped. She asked me to return him to serve his sentence.’
There was silence. He thought of how his words must have sounded to someone who didn’t know him. Absurd. A madman on a suicide mission on behalf of someone he hadn’t even met a week before. He scanned the crowd, trying to guess what she looked like from the sound of her voice. ‘Hello? Are you there?’
‘If you’re not a bounty hunter, then who are you?’
‘I work as a close-protection operative, a bodyguard. Will you tell me who you are? Hello?’
‘Be quiet. I’m thinking.’
Lock was searching with his eyes for a woman on a cell phone. If she had a clear line of vision to him, which he was sure she did, he had to have the same.
The mall had a semi-circular walkway with an atrium that extended the full height of all five floors. He looked up and saw movement as someone who had been leaning over a glass barrier looking down suddenly retreated. He had a flash of a tailored black suit, bright red lipstick, long brown hair, and then she was gone.
‘That was you,’ he said, into the cell phone.
‘I’ll call you back,’ she said, and hung up on him.
He walked across to the escalator and rode it up to where he had seen her, all the while scanning the crowds. Looking down he saw Ty doing the same, searching for him. He found the spot where she had been standing. She was long gone. All he could do now was wait and hope that she was as good as her word.
Thirty-three
While they waited for the woman to call back, Lock and Ty drove around Santa Maria, using the time to get a sense of the city. Outwardly, as far as Lock could see, it didn’t look like the most dangerous city in the world but, then, on a good day neither did Kabul nor Baghdad. Violence came in spasms, and then it was gone, leaving wounds that were mostly invisible to the naked eye: broken hearts and minds. In between times, people worked and ate and made love and went to school and raised their kids, all the while hoping they wouldn’t be sucked into the swamp.
They drove round a rectangle of main roads, first heading north, then east, then south and then back west. They were on Hermanos Escobar Street, passing a Pemex gas station, when Lock noticed a black and white Policia Federal Dodge Charger moving up to overtake them. Ty eased off the gas to let it pass but it stayed directly in front of them.
Immediately Lock had a bad feeling. In the labyrinthine world of Mexican law enforcement, where most cops were lucky to clear five hundred dollars a month, the cartels had infiltrated certain sections of the police to the extent that the government tended to rely on the army when it needed to get things done. There were clean cops but there were a lot of dirty ones too. Once you added into the mix the fact that this part of the world had a history of suspects disappearing before they even made court, his bad feeling had some foundation in fact.
‘What d’you want me to do?’ Ty asked.
The Policia Federal vehicle had slowed slightly, almost willing Ty to try to go round it. ‘Sit tight where we are.’
They weren’t going to outrun them and even if that was a possibility it would have been a bad idea. The city was saturated with police and army units. They could turn off and hope that they weren’t followed but this was a busy main artery with lots of people around and that was good, as far as Lock was concerned. If they were going to be stopped, he wanted witnesses.
He reached down, unfastened his holster, and threw it into the back of the vehicle. Ty did the same. Glancing into the side mirror, Lock saw two more Policia Federal vehicles bearing down on them. One was an SUV, the other a pick-up truck. Both had their lights on. The pick-up tucked in behind them as the SUV moved out and pulled up alongside.
It was a textbook stop, leaving them nowhere to go. The Dodge in front slowed and Ty braked, easing their vehicle to a halt. Ty, with his upbringing in Long Beach, was well versed in being stopped by the law. He switched off the engine and kept his hands on the wheel.
The door of the Federal pick-up snapped open and the barrel of a Heckler amp; Koch UMP popped through the gap between sill and door to cover the rear of their vehicle. More doors opened. More cops emerged, all of them kitted out in black body armour. They began to move in, slowly at first, then more rapidly.
A cop faced Lock, who had his hands at shoulder level, palms open, fingers wiggling in the air to make it clear as crystal that he wasn’t carrying. The passenger door was wrenched open, and before he had a chance to step out, a gloved hand gripped his shoulder and hauled him out, forcing him face down on to the blacktop. Boots kicked at his feet, forcing his legs apart. His hands were grabbed and pulled painfully behind his back, then cinched with cuffs so tight that the metal was crushing his wrists. Hands delved into pockets, fingers jabbing against thighs and chest, before his wallet was taken, along with his cell phone and the picture he had been carrying of Charlie Mendez.
He lifted his head long enough to glimpse Ty getting the same treatment. His friend followed his lead, not saying anything and offering zero resistance. The sole of a boot squashed the back of his neck, forcing his back down on to the road. He heard their vehicle being opened, and shouts of excitement from the Federales as they went through their bags.
Pain screaming from his wrists and up into his shoulders, he was hauled to his feet and marched across to a black and white meat wagon. Two bench seats ran either side. He slumped down into one, his back to the metal panel. At least now he could get a better view of what was happening. Above, he heard chopper blades thrashing the air. The metal cage door of the wagon swung open and Ty was pushed in. He sat opposite him and flashed a smile.
‘We’re screwed, ain’t we?’ he said.
Lock took a moment to think it over. ‘Pretty much.’
The cage door was shut and two bolts slid across to secure it. The rear door slammed. The engine chugged into life and the wagon trundled forward, slowly picking up speed.
They had to brace their feet against the opposite bench to avoid being thrown on to the floor. Bouncing along in the back, Lock wondered if Brady had enjoyed a ride like this on the day he had died.
Thirty-four
Fifteen minutes later, the police wagon began to slow. Then it came to a halt. The engine died. Car doors opened and closed and excited voices were speaking in Spanish. The next few moments would give Lock some clue as to their fate. If the rear doors opened to fields or a disused warehouse, it was all over.
In the next moments that passed, he felt strangely calm. Normally he would have been going back over what he might have done differently, how he might have avoided the situation. But he found himself feeling supremely indifferent to everything. No one had forced him to come here looking for Mendez. He had done it because it was the right thing to do and because someone had to. If it ended in his death, he could accept that.
What did he have to live for anyway?
The words appeared from the ether. They felt simultaneously juvenile and right. He looked at Ty, who had closed his eyes. The man sitting across from him was his only cause for regret.
