“Keep your distance,” Moore warned him.
“Corrales has a lot of enemies,” Torres said. “His enemies need to be our friends, but they’re not. They’ve stolen our cash cow!”
“Yeah, ain’t that our bad luck,” said Moore.
“We’ve got nothing,” Torres spat. “What the hell will I tell the boss?”
“Easy does it, big boy. I told you the group I work for is very powerful, much more powerful than a bunch of fucking punks with guns.”
Moore looked at Fitzpatrick, who almost cracked a smile.
“If we lose them, someone will have to pay for this,” Torres warned. “And it won’t be me.”
Moore snorted. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to kick your fat ass out of this car and make you walk …
Torres smirked and leaned forward. “Just don’t lose them,” he told Fitzpatrick.
Look, I demand to know where you’re taking us,” said Miguel. “If this is just a simple kidnapping, my father will pay the money and we’ll be done with this by the end of the day, all right?”
The driver, whose dark complexion was hard to read as they passed into the shadows of the taller buildings, glanced back and smiled. “Okay, boss, whatever you say.”
“Who are you guys, and where are we going?”
“If you keep talking, we will put a gag in your mouth,” said the driver.
Sonia put a hand on Miguel’s, while the guy in the passenger’s seat kept his pistol aimed at her. Another carful of men had joined them, and they were following.
“Miguel, it’s okay,” Sonia said. “They won’t tell us anything, so don’t waste your energy. Let’s focus on staying calm. Everything will be all right.”
“How do you know?” he said, tears welling in his eyes. “They’re going to torture us and kill us. Fuck this shit! Fuck it. We need to get out!”
“No,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll be okay. They just want money. This is just what your father was afraid of. I just wish Corrales had done a better job.”
“I’m going to kill him when I see him.”
She shrugged. “He might be dead already.”
Corrales had managed to call the hotel and got Ignacio on the phone. Ignacio, in turn, had run off from the front desk and had found Maria. Corrales babbled somewhat incoherently to her, told her he needed her and some guys to come down and pick him up. Said he was going to find a hospital, that he’d been shot.
He staggered out of the building, walked about a block, then didn’t remember anything else.
“There you go, Dante. There you go,” said Pablo.
He flickered open his eyes, realized he was back in his hotel room, and there was a man he didn’t recognize standing at Pablo’s side. This man had long gray hair, a thin beard, and thick glasses.
“This is going to be very expensive,” said the man.
“Dante, he’s a doctor, and he’s going to get the bullet out of your shoulder — no questions asked.”
“How did you get away?”
Pablo breathed deeply. “I got one of them. I don’t know what happened to Raul. Then I found you on the street, just in time, too — but don’t worry about that now. He’s going to give you some drugs to put you out. Then you’ll feel better. I talked to Maria and some of the boys. They’re flying down to get us like you asked.”
“We can’t leave. We lost the boss’s son!”
“Easy, easy. We’ll find them.”
“No, we won’t. The fucking Guatemalans have them!”
Pablo recoiled. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t pay them, and now I have to tell Castillo what’s happened. He’ll have me killed.”
“No, don’t tell him anything. I’ll take care of it. Rest easy now, my friend. Everything will be okay.”
But it wouldn’t, and as the old man put a mask across Corrales’s face, Corrales saw the fires of his youth rage once more, and his parents, their faces burning, the skin melting off, walked out of their old hotel, and his father raised a finger at him and said, “I told you never to join the cartel. They killed us. And now they will kill you.”
25 IF I RETREAT, KILL ME
Moore, Fitzpatrick, and Torres followed the blue car and a green-and-white van that seemed to be leading the car, out of San Cristobal de las Casas and into the foothills, toward the small town of San Juan Chamula, about ten kilometers away. It was there, Moore had read, that the indigenous Tzotzil Mayan people were preparing for an early-summer carnival that attracted tourists. Dancing, singing, live music, fireworks, and a long parade through the village would not only entertain visitors but bring much-needed revenue into the otherwise poor town.
Torres repeatedly ordered Fitzpatrick to get closer, and Moore struck down those commands, saying that if they were spotted, the hostages could be killed — and there’d be no cash cow for Senor Zuniga, nor any negotiations to open up border tunnels for use by the Sinaloas.
What neither Torres nor Fitzpatrick knew was that Miguel’s girlfriend, one Sonia Batista (whose real name was Olivia Montello), had a chip embedded in her shoulder that would allow the Agency to track her position. Moore needed to find a moment away from Torres when he could fill in Fitzpatrick on what was happening; for now all these two guys needed to know was that they should keep their distance. In the meantime, Towers and the rest of the Agency were doing everything they could to positively identify these men, yet Moore and Towers agreed that they were more than likely Avenging Vultures, the Guatemalan death squad that had, for some reason, double- crossed the Juarez Cartel. Moore and the others were, after all, just a few hundred kilometers from the Guatemalan border, and the relationship between the Guatemalans and the Juarez Cartel was well documented. What had soured between the groups Moore did not know, but these guys weren’t your young, dumb, off-the-shelf thugs. Back at the first briefing, Towers had said these guys made the
Even more notable was their ability to exercise great reserve. They dressed like civilians, carried only pistols, and had kept their operation simple thus far. But that wouldn’t last, Moore assumed. Not now, when they were ready to negotiate and expected retaliation. That thought chilled Moore as he considered Sonia being touched, abused, and tortured by them. He shuddered.
Moore tugged out his smartphone, and within a minute he was studying a satellite image of the town with Sonia’s GPS beacon marked as a slowly shifting blue dot superimposed over the road.
“You looking at maps now?” asked Torres, leaning over Moore’s shoulder.
“No, porn.”
“Why do you have to be such a wiseass?”
Moore snorted. “Don’t make me answer that.” The fat man was already taxing his patience.
Another data screen on the town indicated that Chamula had its own police force and that no outside military or law enforcement were allowed inside; moreover, tourists were, for the most part, forbidden to take pictures while visiting. Very strict rules indeed, but what if the Vultures had a deal with the local police? What if they’d planned this capture all along and now had a perfect safe house from which to conduct their kidnapping negotiations? That they were not driving back toward Guatemala made that even more probable.
Fitzpatrick guided them along a poorly paved road that snaked its way up near the church of San Juan, a modest structure of dusty white walls, green parapets, and an ornate tile archway. Moore told Fitzpatrick to park along a row of tourist cars and taxis opposite fifty or more booths shaded by colorful umbrellas. Overhead flapped long lines of pennons that swooped down from the church’s steeples. This was the marketplace, and several
