will pay you anything if you will take me.”
Samad thought about that. It’d be very useful to have a local guide, someone expendable as well. “You’ve done enough already. I will take you. But only you.”
“Will you talk to Mullah Rahmani for me as well?”
“Of course.”
He gasped and cried, “Thank you, senor! Thank you!”
Samad nodded and refocused his attention on the computer screen.
They’d finally made it to Mexicali, despite the flat tire and their less-than-agreeable drivers. His men had marveled over how densely populated the city was and had found it ironic that there was, in fact, a small but bustling Chinatown district. In fact, one of Felipe’s men, Zhen, had been born and raised in Mexicali and was the descendant of Chinese immigrants who’d gone to work for the Colorado River Land Company, which had come to the area in the early twentieth century to build an extensive irrigation system in the valley. Samad knew this because Felipe was a man who loved to talk, to the point of utter annoyance.
Samad continued reviewing the photographs and reports while the rest of his men were eating, changing, and chatting within the small three-bedroom home. Yes, they were jammed into the house like canned fish, and Samad was determined that they wouldn’t spend more than a few days here. Felipe had already briefed him regarding his group’s findings: They were certain that the Juarez Cartel was involved in a major tunneling operation at a construction site for a new Z-Cells production plant. The photographs depicted five buildings in various stages of construction and a small warehouse within the facility that had already been finished. Interestingly enough, large quantities of soil had been moved out of the warehouse and loaded onto dump trucks. Moreover, Samad noted the presence of work crews coming and going at regular intervals and in shifts that kept teams working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And Samad knew that where there was a major tunneling operation, there was always a foreman and/or engineer who controlled the operation. Of all of the men who’d been photographed, one in particular stood out because he was older and better dressed than most of the crews and because, according to Felipe, he arrived in the morning and left in the evening, although his schedule had more recently changed, moving up his arrival time to the wee hours of the morning. He had never been followed home, though, and so Samad made that a priority.
Within an hour, Samad, Talwar, and Felipe were sitting in a beat-up Honda Civic driven by Felipe. They waited until the first crew left the warehouse. Their man did not yet leave. They waited until sunset, and then, finally, Samad spotted him, climbing into a black Kia as old and battered as their car. They followed him away from the site and south, past the city and toward the suburbs along the southeast corridor.
Within twenty minutes they’d located the man’s house and watched him park, and then, with a call made by Felipe, they had a man placed outside the residence to alert them when he thought that everyone had left in the morning.
“He will help us cross the border. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is a servant of Allah,” Samad said.
Talwar, who’d been working on his smartphone, looked up and said, “If the information is still good, this house belongs to Pedro Romero. I Googled him, and he was an engineer, but the company he worked for went out of business.”
“Construction has been very tough here,” said Felipe. “I know many good men who are out of work.”
“Well, he found a good job, didn’t he?” Samad said. “He’s our man. But we need to move very carefully. We need to make sure he is very cooperative, so we need to know everything about Senor Pedro Romero.”
Rojas lay in his bed, staring up at the crown molding that spanned the far wall, long lines of expensive hardwood extending off into the shadows. The ceiling fan whirred, the blades turning slowly, the moonlight coming in from the window cutting through those blades and casting a flickering shadow across his bedspread and across Alexsi’s cheek. She slept soundly beside him, and Rojas closed his eyes once more, then snapped them open and looked at the clock: 2:07 a.m.
His emotions had wreaked havoc with him during the past twenty-four hours. An assassination attempt, a kidnapping attempt of Miguel and his girlfriend …he decided he needed an immediate vacation from his real life.
With a shudder he rose, donned his robe, and, using his cell phone as a flashlight, ventured down the stairs in the cool darkness. He entered the kitchen, switched on a light, and crossed to one of three stainless-steel refrigerators to fetch some milk, which he planned to heat up and sip slowly, a regimen that often helped him sleep.
By the time he had the pot on the gas stove and had poured the milk, a tiny voice came from behind him. “Senor Rojas?”
He turned to find Sonia standing there, her black negligee covered mostly by her own silk robe. He had to blink because he thought he had imagined her.
“Senor Rojas, are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sonia, I’m still half asleep, I guess. What are you doing up now?”
“I heard someone down here. Miguel took the pills like you said, and he is sleeping very well. I don’t like to take any medication, and now I can’t sleep. I keep seeing what they did to that man over and over.”
“I’m so sorry. Tomorrow I will make some calls and we can help you with some therapy.”
“Thank you, senor. I don’t know if there’s a way to forget that. They wiped his blood on my face.”
He nodded, pursed his lips, then blurted out, “Do you want some milk? I’m just heating it up.”
“That would be nice. Thank you.” She moved into the kitchen and slid effortlessly onto one of the stools. “I guess you couldn’t sleep, either, after what happened to you.”
“I’ve been expecting something like that for many years. That’s why I’ve taken so many precautions, but you never know how you’ll react when the day comes. You can never plan everything.”
“That’s very true.”
“Sonia, I love my boy very much. He’s all I have left in this world, and I can’t thank you enough. He’s told me how strong you were. He couldn’t believe it. But you know something? I could. When I first met you, I could see something powerful in your eyes, that same light I saw in my wife. You were very brave.”
She lowered her head and blushed.
He’d gone too far, he knew, and his tone was a little too alluring.
“I just wanted to thank you,” he suddenly added.
“I think the milk is boiling,” she said, lifting her chin at the stove.
He whirled and lowered the heat, but the milk foamed over the pot, and he cursed and brought it off the flame, the milk hissing and spitting.
“Senor Rojas, may I ask a very personal question?” she said, after he’d gotten the milk under control and had fetched two mugs from a cabinet.
“Sure, why not?”
“Are you entirely honest with your son?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does he know everything about you and your companies? I mean, would he be able to step into your shoes if something were to happen?”
“That’s a rather morbid question.”
“If we stay together, and we decide to get married, he would need to know everything.”
“Of course.”
She had trouble now meeting his gaze. “He just seems rather naive about some aspects right now.”
“And with good reason,” said Rojas, growing a little suspicious of her prying. “Some of my businesses are too petty for his concern. I have people running them and reporting weekly or monthly to me. When he’s ready, I will teach him everything.”
“Would you teach me everything, too?”
He hesitated. Indeed, she was a powerful woman, perhaps too powerful, and he had never allowed his dear wife to know even five percent of exactly what he did. “Of course I would,” he lied, handing her a mug of steaming
