Rosarito Beach

by M. A. Lawson

  Kay nodded, feeling a knot begin to grow in her stomach.

  He tapped the mouse and the screen came to life, and Kay could see Jessica sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair. She wasn’t bound, but a man was standing behind her and holding a gun to her head. Kay couldn’t see the man’s face. Jessica looked all right; her hair was a bit mussed and her eyes were red from crying, but she wasn’t bruised or bleeding. At least no place that was visible.

  “Say something to your daughter, Agent Hamilton, so you’ll know the transmission is live and that you’re not looking at a recorded image.”

  “Jessica, have they hurt you?”

  “Oh, God, Kay, help me.”

  She didn’t think she’d get an answer to her next question, but she asked anyway. “Where are you, Jessica?”

  “I don’t know. Some guys threw me into a van when I got off the bus. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what they want.”

  Jessica got off the bus almost three hours ago. She could be almost anywhere, and the wall behind her was a gray concrete surface, no windows, no pictures, nothing on it.

  “Kay, what do they want with me?” Jessica said, and as soon as she said this the man sitting in Kay’s living room closed the laptop.

  “If anything happens to my daughter, I’m going to kill you,” Kay said.

  “Possibly,” the man said. “Now, please sit down.”

  Kay took a seat, keeping the Glock in her hand.

  “My name is Raphael Mora and I work for Caesar Olivera. I tell you this because I know my name and photo are in DEA and Mexican police databases and I don’t want you wasting time trying to figure out who I am. You also need to know who I am and who I work for to understand the . . . the capabilities of the people you’re dealing with.”

  Now that he’d said his name, Kay did remember him from the DEA’s files. He was one of Caesar’s top people and as smart as they come.

  “You are going to assist Mr. Olivera by helping his brother escape from the brig at Camp Pendleton,” Mora said. “If you don’t do what Mr. Olivera wants, we won’t kill your daughter. What we’ll do is turn her into a heroin addict and place her in a whorehouse in a large city in Mexico or Central America. I imagine she’ll die in a few years—heroin addicts tend to have short lives—but before she dies . . . well, you’re an intelligent woman and I’m sure you can imagine what her life will be like.”

  Kay started to come out of the chair she was sitting in, intending to smash the Glock into Mora’s smug face. She stopped when she was halfway up and settled back into the chair. If she knocked him unconscious, she’d have to wait until he recovered to question him.

  Seeing her reaction, Mora said, “Good. I can see that you’re starting to think instead of reacting emotionally. You need to be in control of your emotions to do what needs to be done.”

  “If you don’t tell me where my daughter is, I’m going to start shooting you. I’ll start with your kneecaps. I’ll torture you until you tell me what I need to know.”

  “I’ll be happy to tell you where she’s being kept,” Mora said. “She’s in a house in Tijuana. But knowing where your daughter is won’t do you any good, Agent Hamilton. The house is being protected by Caesar Olivera’s men, and as you probably know, Mr. Olivera essentially controls the Mexican police as it relates to his business ventures. Assuming you could even mount an attack against the house, and assuming further that you could overwhelm Mr. Olivera’s forces, your daughter would be killed. In fact, if I don’t report back to Mr. Olivera in the next half hour and tell him that you’ve agreed to cooperate, then we’re back to the scenario where your pretty young daughter joins a popular brothel.”

  “How do you expect me to get Tito out of Camp Pendleton? He’s in a military brig, guarded by marines as well as federal marshals. There’s no way to break him out of there.”

  “I know exactly how Tito is being guarded. I’ve had months to acquire that information. And you won’t be breaking him out. You’ll simply walk out with him.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “I take it by that question that you’ve decided to help Mr. Olivera. Is that correct?”

  “No. If I get Tito out of Pendleton, how would the exchange be made for my daughter?”

  “An excellent question. Once Tito has been freed from the brig, you’ll transport him to the San Diego border crossing in a specially designed vehicle we use for moving people in and out of the United States. I came here today in that vehicle, as a matter of fact. As soon as you and Tito are clear of Camp Pendleton, you’ll meet the transport vehicle, Tito will be placed in a hidden compartment in the vehicle, and you will proceed to the border alone with Tito. In other words, you will have Tito and we will have your daughter; thus you’ll be somewhat able to control the exchange.”

  “If I break Tito out of the brig, they’re going to be looking for me at the border crossings.”

  “No, they won’t. I’ll explain why later. So, as I was saying, once you reach the border crossing you’ll get into the far left-hand lane and you’ll see your daughter accompanied by two men. There will actually be many men in the area to deal with any sort of trouble, but you’ll see two of these men with your daughter. As you begin to cross the border, the men with her will let her go and she’ll start walking toward the American side. You’ll be able to see her walking. Your daughter is of no value to us—not even as a young whore—and we have no desire to keep her once we have Tito back. As your daughter walks into the United States, you will drive into Mexico with Tito. If you get out of the vehicle before you cross the border, or if anyone else attempts to interfere with the exchange, a sniper will shoot your daughter.”

  Kay tried to think of some way out of this. She knew Mora was right: There was no way to mount some sort of SWAT attack against a house in Tijuana to free her daughter—assuming she could even find the house. She also knew Caesar Olivera wouldn’t exchange her daughter for Mora if she threatened to kill or arrest Mora. She knew Mora was a vital cog in the Olivera machine, but in the end, he was just an employee. She also suspected that she was Plan A. That if she didn’t do what Olivera wanted, Mora’s Plan B would be to kill her and her daughter and find somebody else to execute his plan. She figured that her being a federal agent was critical to Mora’s plan, but there were a lot of other federal agents Mora could force to cooperate by kidnapping their spouses or children. She didn’t immediately see a way out of the box she was in—and the thought of Jessica servicing men in a Mexican whorehouse was just too awful to contemplate.

  Kay didn’t bother to ask what would happen to her if she did what Mora wanted. She knew if she asked, Mora would lie. Kay knew she was going to be killed, and most likely in a very bad way, as soon as she handed Tito over.

  She also knew, in that instant, and she was surprised by her certainty, that she was willing to sacrifice her life to save her daughter.

  The only good news was that she’d have time to think of a way to screw up Mora’s plan before she reached the border crossing. There was no way in hell she was going to make the exchange in the manner Mora had described.

  “How do I get Tito out of the brig?” she finally asked.

  30

  Jessica came to in a small, windowless room with bare concrete walls. The only furniture in the room was a bed; there was a mattress on the bed, but no sheets or blankets. Her watch, her cell phone, and her shoes had been taken from her. She had a headache and her mouth was very dry.

  She was still wearing her school clothes—the pink polo shirt and knee-length khaki shorts she’d worn to school. She didn’t think they’d done anything to her. Yet.

  She didn’t understand why they’d kidnapped her. The guys who snatched her had been young, in their late teens or early twenties, with shaved heads and lots of tats; they looked like gangbangers, and Jessica initially thought that they were going to rape her.
But as soon as they got her into the van, a woman who was older than the men, maybe thirty, gave her an injection while the gangsters held her still. Then she woke up in the windowless room, which she suspected was in the basement of some building.

  She didn’t think they’d kidnapped her for ransom. Kay wasn’t rich; she worked for the government. Jessica wondered if they’d mistaken her for the daughter of some rich kid who went to her school. Another possibility occurred to her, one that made more sense than kidnapping her for money: Kay was a cop, and maybe this was somebody’s way of getting back at her for someone she’d arrested.

  No, this wasn’t about money, and she didn’t think it was about revenge. She thought it more likely that this was about sex. She’d read about young women in foreign countries being kidnapped and sold as sex slaves and turned into prostitutes. It happened all the time in places like Asia and South America and Mexico. She’d seen a movie a couple years earlier called Taken, in which Liam Neeson’s daughter in the movie, a girl about her age, is kidnapped and sold for an enormous price to some pervert because she’s a virgin. Jessica was still a virgin. But how would they know that? Had they done some kind of exam on her while she was unconscious? The thought made her want to throw up.

  The fact that no one had worn masks really bothered her, too, neither the guys who grabbed her nor the woman who gave her the injection. They obviously didn’t care that she’d seen their faces—and that meant that either they were going to kill her or send her someplace where they were sure no one would ever find her.

  She started to cry.

  Half an hour later, the door opened and she moved into a corner, her back up against the wall. There was nothing in the room to use for a weapon, but she was going to fight them with every ounce of strength she had.

  The guy who opened the door was her worst nightmare. He was about forty, Hispanic, a huge gross guy with a beer belly, greasy hair hanging down to his shoulders, and a week’s worth of black beard. Behind him was a younger guy, in his twenties. He was short and wiry, a weaselly little guy, also Hispanic. He had dark hair tied into a ponytail, a sharp nose, and a stupid little strip of hair under his lower lip.

  She might be able to fight off the little guy—the Weasel—but the big one was like a bear and weighed well over two hundred pounds. This was not the way she’d ever expected to lose her virginity.

  Jessica knew several girls her age who had already had sex, but she didn’t feel ready for sex just yet. And now, knowing how Kay had gotten pregnant at fifteen, she felt even less ready. But she’d always figured that when she did have sex for the first time, it would be with a nice guy, someone a little older than her and someone she really liked, even if she wasn’t in love with him, and it would occur in some romantic setting and not in the backseat of a car. What she had never imagined was losing her virginity by being raped by two men like this.

  The men didn’t approach her, however. They stood in the doorway, and the big one rattled off a bunch of words in Spanish. Kay spoke Spanish like she’d been raised in Mexico City, and Jessica was taking Spanish in school at Kay’s insistence. Kay said if you lived in California, speaking Spanish made sense, particularly when it came to finding a job. But she couldn’t follow the big guy; he was talking too fast.

  Seeing she didn’t understand, the big one turned to the Weasel and said, “Carlos,” and the little one said, “My cousin asked if you are thirsty. Do you want some water?”

  Hell, yes, she wanted some water. Her mouth was bone dry, probably from the drug they shot into her. But just like the men who kidnapped her not wearing masks, it bothered her that these two weren’t wearing masks and that the big one had used the other one’s name.

  “Well?” Carlos said. “Do you want water or not?”

  “Why am I here?” Jessica said. “Why did you kidnap me?”

  “That will be explained to you later,” he said.

  “Yes,” Jessica said, “I want some water.” Then she added, “Please.”

  Carlos turned and left the room. The big one continued to look at her, his eyes showing nothing. He wasn’t leering at her, nothing creepy like that; he was just staring at her in a dull sort of way, and Jessica got the impression he wasn’t too bright. A moment later, Carlos returned and handed her a bottle of water.

  “You can scream if you want,” he said. “No one will hear you. If you need something, pound on the door. We’ll feel the vibrations. But don’t be a pest, or I’ll hurt you.”

  And Jessica knew—even if she couldn’t explain how she knew—that Carlos would enjoy hurting her. He might enjoy hurting her even more than having sex with her.

  He closed the door, and she heard the lock being turned—and she was alone again to wonder what was going to happen to her.

  —

  Jessica drank the entire bottle of water and, half an hour later, wished she hadn’t; now she needed to pee. She waited another ten minutes, then gave up and rapped on the door, softly at first, then harder, and Carlos finally opened the door.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

  “Come,” he said, and stepped aside so she could get by him. He stunk from some kind of cheap cologne. “Down the hall,” he said, and pointed.

  She stepped out of the room and saw she was in a narrow corridor with concrete walls and overhead fluorescent lights and several closed doors along the corridor. She took a few more steps and came to an open door, the bathroom. There was a toilet and a small sink, and she was surprised to see they were clean. She started to close the door after she entered the bathroom, but Carlos said, “No. You must leave the door open.”

  “I’m not going to pee with you watching me,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Then go back to your room.”

  This couldn’t be happening to her. She wasn’t going to let this guy watch her pee. She’d pee on the floor of her room rather than allow that. She walked back to her room—her cell—and she heard Carlos laughing as he locked the door.

  She didn’t pee on the floor; she didn’t want to have to live with the mess and the smell. She simply tried not to think about peeing, but she didn’t know how long that was going to work. She tried to think of other things, pleasant things, good memories from the past. She tried to remember what her mother had looked like before the cancer had eaten her alive; her mother hadn’t been pretty—not like Kay—but she had the kindest, sweetest face. She remembered a trip they all took to Yellowstone and how her father, who was the smartest man she knew, couldn’t figure out how to pitch the tent and had to ask some guy camping next to them for help. But it didn’t work. The only things she could think of were all the awful things that might happen to her.

  Five years earlier she’d had a perfect life: good parents who loved her and protected her, a nice house, a nice school. Then it was almost as if God woke up one day and said Let’s see how this kid does when things aren’t so nice. Her father dying, her mother getting laid off, the move to Cleveland, her mother dying. And now she was living with a woman who may have been her biological mother but who didn’t really want anything to do with her. Her family—her real family—had never been churchgoers, and Jessica had always felt that it was hypocritical to pray only when you were in trouble. But she’d never been in this kind of trouble before; what could she do now but pray?

  —

  The door opened and both of them were there again, the big, gross one and Carlos. What did they want now? Were they going to rape her now?

  “Come,” Carlos said. “Señor Perez wants you.”

  Perez? Was he the one in charge? she wondered; Carlos had called him Señor. And what did he mean when he said Perez wanted her? Jessica didn’t move.

  The big one cursed in Spanish and stepped toward her, and she came off the bed swinging. She hit him in the left eye with her right fist. He cursed, grabbed her arm before she could hit him again, then got a o
ne-handed grip on the nape of her neck, the way you’d grab a puppy, and dragged her out of the room, her bare feet skidding on the concrete floor. The big one was fat, but he was incredibly strong.

  He took her down the hallway, past the bathroom she refused to use, and into another room, where there was a man sitting in a chair in front of a small table. On the table was a laptop and behind the table was a second chair. The Bear forced her to sit in the vacant chair and then held her in place by pushing down on her shoulders.

  The man sitting across the table from her was in his thirties, clean-shaven, short hair, also Hispanic. There was something military about him. Maybe because he had a light green shirt with those little button-down flaps on the shoulders like epaulets. This must be Perez. And where Carlos and the Bear looked like they might be laborers, this guy looked like management.

  In English, with only a slight Spanish accent, Perez said, “Sit there and be quiet or I’ll slap the shit out of you. In a couple of minutes you’re going to have a Skype conversation with your mother.”

  For five minutes they sat looking at each other, the man smoking, flicking the ashes onto the floor, his eyes glancing frequently at the computer screen.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Jessica finally said. Her bladder felt like it was going to burst.

  “Why didn’t you go earlier?” he said.

  Pointing at Carlos, she said, “Because he said he had to watch me go.”

  “He does. Those are his orders. We have to make sure you don’t do something to harm yourself. He’s not going to do anything to you, and as soon as we talk to your mother, you can go to the toilet. If you’re too modest to pee in front of him, piss your pants. I don’t care.”

  She’d just learned something really important: They needed her alive and uninjured—at least for the moment.

  Then Jessica heard a man’s voice, coming from the computer, say, “Are you familiar with Skype?”—and Perez turned the laptop so Jessica could see the screen. The time shown in the upper right-hand corner of the screen said it was six-fifteen p.m. She wondered if that was Pacific Standard Time; if it was, she’d been kidnapped about three hours before.