by Chad Zunker
As the van exited the parking garage, she tried to listen to the sounds of the city streets, maybe gauge where they were going. It was nearly impossible. Her eyes grew wet, but she immediately fought off the tears. No way in hell would she give these guys the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She was pissed about getting captured. If there had been only two guys, she was sure she would’ve gotten away. As a kid, she would put on boxing gloves and duke it out with her older brothers in the barn, once breaking Gary’s nose with a right hook. She’d taken self-defense classes when she first got to DC and could handle herself well. Maybe they knew that about her, which was why there were four of them. That was a lot of guys to send after one little reporter girl.
She heard a quick muffled conversation from the front of the van.
Maybe the driver’s voice. Sounded like he was on the phone with someone.
She tried to block out all distraction, listen closely.
“We got her. We’re twenty minutes out . . . yeah . . . time to send Callahan the message.”
Callahan?
She felt her stomach drop, her mind immediately switching gears.
This wasn’t about Janey and Barnstorm. This wasn’t about Senator Hansel.
This was about Sam.
FIVE
Sam rode in silence in the back of a Policia car.
Two uniformed cops sat in the front. Only one spoke any English. Sam had given his statement to two different officers, but there was a lot of confusion, a lot of suspicious stares, a lot of off-line conversations with other Mexican police officials. They’d finally led him to a police car and ushered him into the backseat. He wasn’t handcuffed, but he wasn’t sure if he was being considered a witness or a suspect, as the cops seemed leery of him and his version of the story. He still wore only one dress shoe, his pants were gashed and grass stained, his white dress shirt soaked in sweat and blood. He’d tossed the tie. One of the cops was nice enough to give him a dirty rag to wipe the blood off his face. He could still feel gooey clumps of blood in his hair. No one offered him a medic, even though he was wincing in pain with each breath, and there were two ambulance crews on the scene.
That made him feel more like a suspect.
His whole body ached from head to toe, and his side now throbbed something fierce. Maybe a broken rib. He wasn’t sure. Every time he tried to clear the phlegm from his throat, he felt like someone was jabbing him with a needle. He ran his tongue over his front teeth—one of them had a small chip in it. He shook his head as he took his own physical inventory. A train wreck, but he was alive. Considering the events of the past hour, and the fate of his firm’s newest client, Sam felt fortunate. However, he did feel completely lost without his cell phone or his wallet. No American citizen ever wanted to be sitting in the back of a police car in the heart of Mexico City without his passport or any proper identification. That was a recipe for disaster, especially when that American had just jumped from a hotel-room balcony and driven a stolen SUV into a city lake, right after having caused at least a dozen car wrecks all along the way.
The cops weren’t talking to him, so he just sat quietly, went for the ride.
Thirty minutes later, Sam found himself in a clean, though dimly lit, holding room on the sixth floor of a federal police building. He was still hobbling around on only one shoe and getting irritated. Could someone at least get him a matching pair of shoes? He’d explained to three different officers that he had a bag back at the Hyatt with extra clothes and shoes, but they were in no hurry to get him back over there. They either pretended to not speak English or, more likely, chose to ignore him altogether.
Although it was hot as hell outside, it was freezing inside the building. A female federal agent had noticed him shivering and had given him a black windbreaker to wear a few minutes ago, right before they’d stuck him in the holding room. After Sam sat there for a few minutes, a man probably in his early forties in a brown suit finally entered the room. He spoke with a heavy Mexican accent, but his English was very good. Sam was grateful for that. The man was neat and proper and articulate. He was clearly in charge, to Sam’s relief. He wanted to talk to someone who could actually do something for him. The man shut the door behind him, stared at a manila folder in his hands.
“Sorry for the wait. My name is Agent Mendoza.”
Sam was sitting in a metal chair opposite the table, hands in front of him. He already knew from the fact that he hadn’t been hauled to a dumpy local police station and instead was in a shiny federal police building downtown that this thing had escalated to the next level. It was like the FBI taking over a local investigation back in the States. Now he was speaking to a high-ranking Mexican federal agent.
Again Sam wondered what exactly he’d walked into this afternoon.
“Can you tell me what’s going on, Agent Mendoza?”
“I get to ask the first questions here, Mr. Callahan.”
“Call me Sam.”
“Okay. And you can call me Raul.”
Great, they were buddies now. “I’ve already told them everything in detail.”
That wasn’t totally true. He’d left out a lot of what his client had shared with him in his sudden panicked state. Understandably, Sam didn’t completely trust cops.
“Sí. I just need to follow up on a few things,” Mendoza replied. “Get our facts straight.”
“Sure.” He tried not to huff.
“When did you say you arrived in Mexico City?”
“This afternoon. Three o’clock. Delta flight. I have the ticket stubs back at my hotel.”
“You’re staying at the Hyatt in Polanco?”
“Yes. One night. Then back to DC tomorrow. At least, that was the plan.”
“You say you were here to meet with a client?”
“A man named Tom Hawkins. I’m a lawyer.”
“Had you ever met or spoken with this man before?”
“No. This was my first time to meet him.”
“Why here in Mexico City?”
“I don’t know. I’d say ask Hawkins. But you can’t—he’s dead.”
“When was your first contact with Mr. Hawkins?”
Sam shrugged. “He called our law firm yesterday, asked for the meeting, paid the retainer. That’s about all I know. I met with Hawkins a little over an hour ago at his suite at the Four Seasons. We talked for maybe ten minutes. Next thing I know, a man in a black suit broke into our hotel room, shot and killed Hawkins, and then chased after me. I was fortunate to get away. It should all be in the report. I’ve told this same exact story to four people already, including two of your agents when I got here.”
“There is no record of a Tom Hawkins booking a hotel suite at the Four Seasons for today. We checked with the registry.”
Sam thought about that for a second. “I had nothing to do with the booking of the hotel suite. I just showed up for the meeting that he requested. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know he was there at the hotel. Used a different name. Makes sense to me now, considering what happened.”
“Yes, maybe.”
“Have you checked his body for ID?”
Agent Mendoza slowly sat across from him, put the folder down, and folded his hands. “You see, amigo, that’s the biggest gap in your story. We’ve been unable to locate any body in the hotel suite, like you’ve suggested. And there have been no reports of a shooting or a disturbance from anyone else on the floor.”
Sam was stunned and having serious déjà vu. No dead body? “That can’t be right. I’m telling you, a man came into our hotel suite and began shooting. I saw him put a bullet into Hawkins. Did you check the hotel-room door? He shot through the damn door!”
“So you say. We checked all the floors, just to be sure.” He glared at Sam from across the table. “You want to tell me what really happened?”
Sam stood suddenly, knocking his chair back. “Are you kidding me? Why the hell do you think I would jump from a four-story balcony and almost break my neck? Just for kick
s? Look at me. I’ve been beat up to hell. You think I did this to myself? There was a guy with a gun inside the hotel room. He was going to kill me.”
Mendoza raised a palm. “Sit down, Sam. Now. Before I have you handcuffed.”
Sam reluctantly obliged. Mendoza stared at his folder again.
“You caused a lot of damage at the hotel,” he continued. “And then a lot more destruction out on our streets driving around recklessly. You took our local police with you on quite the run. You’re lucky no one was killed. Including yourself.”
“I don’t feel so lucky. Did you find the guys in the Mercedes? Or let me guess. There are also no reports of a Mercedes chasing me through the streets?”
“We’re looking,” Agent Mendoza replied, but he didn’t seem convinced. He stood, turned toward the door. “You say you have proper paperwork back at the Hyatt?”
“Yes. Room 414. Unless someone made that disappear, too.”
“You’d better hope not,” Mendoza warned. “Sit tight. I’ll be back.”
He shut the door, left Sam alone again in the small holding room.
Sam stood, paced in a slow circle, thinking. This was not going well. He needed to get in touch with David. The last thing he needed was to be stuck in a federal police building with an agent who didn’t believe his story, and with no way for him to personally verify any of it. A body had disappeared. Impossible. Although he knew after last November, when another dead body had disappeared on him, that anything was possible. Apparently, no one from the hotel was coming forward to corroborate his version of events. Why? There were people everywhere. Someone had to have seen the guys chasing after him. He felt his chest tighten up, cursed again. He had sudden visions of being dumped into a dirty Mexican prison cell for the next twenty years, never to be heard from again.
Standing there, Sam felt a vibration come from the left pocket of his police windbreaker. He reached in and pulled out a small black smartphone, something he’d noticed earlier when he’d first entered the holding room. It was not his phone, of course, so he’d assumed it belonged to the female agent who had loaned him the jacket. He had been pondering using it to call David when Agent Mendoza had entered the room. Sam glanced at the phone’s screen and was shocked by what he saw. A text message clearly intended for him.
Sam, do not say another word to the police. Get out of the building. ASAP. Keep this phone. Wait for further instructions.
He wasn’t sure how this was possible.
He hesitantly typed a reply: Who is this?
A new text appeared a few seconds later.
Do exactly what we say. If you don’t, Natalie dies.
He squinted at the phone. Natalie dies? What were they talking about?
Seconds later, a third text arrived, along with a five-second video attachment. His eyes narrowed. He pushed Play, opened the video, and suddenly felt like someone had violently swung a baseball bat straight to his chest—a feeling that was much worse than falling from the balcony or diving out of the SUV roughly an hour ago. He slowly sat, his legs wobbly, his mouth dry.
The high-quality video showed Natalie sitting in a chair, alone in a dark room, her hands bound in front of her by the wrists and a strip of duct tape covering her mouth. Her eyes were puffy, and he could see the fear in them as she stared directly at the video camera. He immediately recognized she was wearing her favorite hoodie. She wore it almost every night. A hand reached in from out of view and tugged the duct tape loose from her mouth. Natalie yelled, “Sam!” and then the video abruptly ended.
Panic rippled through him. Someone had taken her.
Who did this?
What the hell was going on?
His fingers were trembling. He typed: Please don’t hurt her.
The reply was swift: Get out of the building now. Don’t say a word to anyone. We’ll be in touch.
SIX
A wave of rage gripped Sam, his breathing growing rapid and heavy. Clearly this was somehow connected to his being in Mexico City and to the events that had transpired this afternoon. It had to be connected to Tom Hawkins’s death, to the assassins who were chasing after him, to Sam now being stuck inside this federal-police holding room. How else could someone have planted the cell phone on him? He thought about the black-haired female agent who’d given him the windbreaker. She’d barely said a word. She’d just appeared from out of nowhere while he was standing in the hallway, offered him the windbreaker, and then disappeared. He really couldn’t remember that much about her. Who was she? Was she really a federal agent? What was happening?
Sam hesitantly watched the video of Natalie again. When she screamed his name, he felt bile surge up the back of his throat. He had to take several deep breaths to keep from vomiting and try to regain control of his emotions. There was nothing distinguishable about where they held Natalie. He checked the time on the cell phone. Did she just get home from work? That would explain her blue jeans and the gray hoodie. Did they break down the door and drag her from her apartment?
He took another deep breath, exhaled, and tried to calm down.
He knew he couldn’t focus on the details of her abduction right now. He had to move quickly, as instructed. He had to protect Natalie at all costs. They’d endured so much. After he’d cruelly broken her heart nearly two years ago, Natalie had somehow summoned the courage last November to give him another chance. It had been anything but easy between them—mainly because of his ongoing struggle with abandonment issues. However, if Sam dreamed of any possible future with her, he had to get out of the building immediately.
He moved to the door. Locked. He cursed. Bolted with a sophisticated electronic card-key system. He couldn’t just walk out. And he unfortunately couldn’t use the expert lock-picking street skills of his youth. By the time he was twelve, he could pick a standard lock within seconds. An older street kid had shown him the engineering of a lock system, and Sam had practiced for countless hours. Because of the way his mind worked, he was a natural. At one point, he used the skill to steal from the back storage room at the local grocery and keep food in his stomach. He did what he had to do to survive life on the streets. But that wouldn’t help him now. There had to be another way. He looked around the near-barren room, more panic flowing through him. How the hell did they expect him to get out of the building when he was stuck inside a small room on the sixth floor with an electronic lock sealing the door? He had his answer a second later when a white card key suddenly slid under the tiny crack beneath the door and bumped up against his socked foot.
Sam cursed again, reached down, snagged it, and swiped it in front of the black box on the lock system. He heard the electronic lock release. He quickly cracked open the door, peeked out, searching for his unknown accomplice. The holding room was in a hallway lined with several other rooms. To his left, the hallway dead-ended into another cross hallway, one that he knew led to the main elevators. To his right, the hallway led to a large open space filled with dozens of cubicles where officers and agents were milling about. He thought he saw the back of a black-haired woman disappear into the office space to his right. Was it the same woman who had given him the windbreaker? Did she also slide the card key under the door? He wanted to go after her, but that path would take him straight into a swarm of federal agents.
Instead, he stepped out, shut the door behind him, and walked to his left. If Mendoza came upon him unexpectedly, he’d simply say he was looking for the restroom and plead ignorance about how he got out of the room. From there he’d have to figure out plan B. He tried to be casual, cool, but his heart was pounding. As he passed by others, he kept his eyes up, so as not to draw extra attention to himself. He certainly didn’t want anyone looking down toward the floor and noticing that he was wearing only one black shoe. He entered the cross hallway, paused, looked both ways. More offices, more conference rooms. Sam desperately needed a wardrobe change. That was always the first rule of survival on the run. He needed something to blend. He glanced inside an open
office door, found a man who looked up at him curiously from behind a desk. Sam nodded, smiled, kept moving, and looked for more options.
He peeked inside another open office door on his left. The light was on in the office, but no one was currently sitting behind the desk. Sam noticed an item that he wanted right away. He stepped inside, gently shut the door behind him, quickly peeled himself out of the police windbreaker—the last thing Agent Mendoza had seen him wearing. He grabbed the black sport coat that he’d spotted hanging on the back of the desk chair, pulled it on over his arms. The sport coat was maybe a size too big but nothing obvious.
He noticed a blue duffel bag in the corner. He took another glance back at the door, felt sweat on his brow. He was unsure what he’d do if someone returned to the office and caught him in the act. Take a swing and run for it? However, he knew he had to take risks. He had no choice. He unzipped the duffel bag, began rummaging through the contents. Inside, he found a pair of blue running shoes. He kicked off his one black shoe, slipped the running shoes onto his feet, felt relieved. The shoes were tight—his toes were jammed all the way up in the front—but they would definitely work. He also found a gray bath towel, running shorts, T-shirt, and a brown leather toiletry bag. He peeked inside the toiletry bag, took quick inventory, and then he packed everything up, slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, and headed for the office door. On his way out, Sam grabbed a random manila folder off the desk to use as cover and stepped back into the busy hallway.
Still no noticeable eyes on him. No one coming around the corner as if he’d been reported missing. No Agent Mendoza. Now that he’d done a wardrobe change, Sam knew his initial defense of looking for a restroom was no longer valid. He had to make his way out of the building ASAP. As he started walking again, he opened the manila folder and pretended to be scanning paperwork, as if he was in the building on official police business. He didn’t want to stand out. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only white guy there. He could blend in if he kept moving. He knew half of pulling a successful con job was simply acting like you belonged, with brash confidence and bold movement. He was trying to find that confidence right now. It was difficult surrounded by hundreds of police officers.
