Hollow Point

by Robert Swartwood

  A woman steps out of the SUV, dressed in a pantsuit and glasses. She looks confused, like she isn’t sure why President Cortez has stopped. His security detail looks just as confused. One of them steps close to him, whispers in his ear. President Cortez blinks, shakes his head, and looks like he’s ready to keep moving forward into the hotel.

  So I repeat the name, not shouting it like before but still saying it loudly and with force.

  “Alejandro.”

  President Cortez pauses again. Stands there staring at me. I hold his gaze, aware of his security detail and the police all around me, and the Beretta digging into my back. There’s a good chance I’ll be thrown to the ground and arrested. But I’ve decided I have no choice but to take that chance.

  The same bodyguard whispers again to President Cortez, touches his arm to try to get him moving, but the older man waves him off.

  President Cortez approaches me, slowly, still holding my gaze. When he’s only a few feet away, I speak again, this time not as loud but still with enough force so he’ll hear it over the crowd noise.

  “I knew your son.”

  The man says nothing, studying my face.

  “I was there that night.”

  His eyes go flat with understanding, but still he says nothing.

  “I can tell you where to find him.”

  He’s only a couple feet away now, his security detail hovering on both sides, ready to draw their weapons if need be. The crowd keeps shouting and chanting, but all of it has become background noise, a soft distant humming like a fly at a screen door.

  I lean forward, slowly raise my hand and motion with a finger for him to come even closer.

  He does, despite another warning from his security detail. The bodyguard who tried moving the president along has had enough. He tries to intervene, to step between me and the president, but Cortez holds up a hand, stopping him.

  “It’s okay.”

  “But, sir—”

  “I said it’s okay.”

  He’s so close to me now, I could easily reach out and touch him. If I were indeed here to kill him, I could do it within a second. But I’m not here to kill him; I’m here to save him.

  I speak into his ear, not a whisper but still loud enough so he can hear me over the noise.

  “Somebody close to you wants you dead. They tried to force me to kill you.”

  President Cortez doesn’t move for a long time, and then he tilts his head to speak into my ear.

  “Did you kill him?”

  Not looking at him, I nod.

  “Did you bury him?”

  I nod again.

  “Will you tell me where you buried him?”

  Another nod.

  President Cortez is silent for another moment, then asks a final question.

  “What do you need from me?”

  I look up and see the security detail hovering, just feet away, as well as the aide still lingering back by the SUV. I lean forward again, this time my lips almost touching the man’s ear.

  “I need you to trust me.”

  Forty-Six

  Imna Rodriguez was doing everything she could to remain calm. She had her cell phone out and was staring down at the screen as if reading an email or text message when in reality it was so she could focus her attention on something other than the fact President Cortez was supposed to be dead.

  She was squeezing the phone so tightly she wouldn’t be surprised if the thing cracked, and she had to take a moment to breathe, to try to center herself, and figure out what the fuck this girl was doing here.

  Imna knew just as much as had been passed on to Oliver Hayward—the girl’s name, her location in Alden, the fact she had once been a non-sanctioned assassin for the United States government, and that she was the one who killed Alejandro Cortez last year.

  The cartels were certainly happy that Alejandro Cortez was no longer in play, but his father remained a thorn in their side. Which was why they’d wanted him dead for several years now. And which was why once they tracked down Holly Lin and then learned that President Cortez would be visiting California, everything seemed to fall into place.

  By now Cortez should be dead on the sidewalk, blood pooling from his head wound, police going into overdrive to secure the scene and try to determine from which direction the bullet had come. One of the sicarios who passed through Hayward’s only days ago would have been ready to take out the girl and the rest of Hayward’s men, just like the sicario they sent to D.C. would have taken out the girl’s family, as well as the men watching them.

  No loose ends—that was the trick in a situation like this, the kind that was supposed to eliminate the head of state in another country, but something was wrong. She’d sensed it when their convoy made the detour to avoid the hotel with the fire trucks and police cars. The police were to swarm on the hotel eventually, but that was after the girl had taken out Cortez, not before.

  Speaking of the girl, where did she go?

  Imna realized President Cortez was moving again, heading into the hotel lobby, and she hurried to keep up with him, scanning the crowd as she went.

  The girl was gone.

  Sidling up next to Cortez, she asked, “What was that about?”

  President Cortez shook his head. He looked pale. She couldn’t begin to imagine what the girl said to him. Had she told him anything close to the truth, surely he would have had the security detail detain her, or have the police arrest her, or something. But none of that happened, and the girl was gone, and now they were in the lobby and a man in a gray suit approached them, some bigwig whose name Imna momentarily forgot, the man’s shiny shoes echoing on the marble floor as he strode up to them with his hand extended.

  “President Cortez, thank you for coming today.”

  The man spoke in Spanish, though it was clearly not his first language, and Cortez smiled and responded in kind, and then Cortez asked where the closest restroom was located.

  The man in the gray suit pointed down the hallway. Cortez thanked him and said he would be back soon. Before he could head in that direction, though, Imna touched his arm.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  He forced a smile at her.

  “Just a little lightheaded. I’ll be right back.”

  Before he could take a step, she tried again.

  “Who was the woman outside?”

  Another forced smile.

  “I’ll be right back, Imna. Wait here.”

  She watched him depart, three bodyguards trailing him. The man in the gray suit turned to her and started speaking, again in that faltering Spanish. Part of her wanted to ask him who he was, but she knew she should already know his name, that it was her job to know such things, and before she knew it she cut him off with a curt smile.

  “I need to make a phone call. Please give me one minute?”

  The man smiled and nodded, and she stepped away, using the encrypted app on her phone.

  Oliver Hayward answered after two rings, his tone wary.

  “Why are you calling? Isn’t it done yet?”

  She wandered over to the corner of the lobby, by a table and some potted plants, and made sure nobody was nearby when she dropped her voice to a harsh whisper.

  “No, it’s not done. The girl’s still alive.”

  This got Hayward’s attention.

  “What? No, that’s impossible. That—”

  She cut him off.

  “We had a deal, and you fucked it up.”

  “I didn’t fuck anything up. It’s not my fault—”

  “Cortez is still alive. And the girl just spoke with him outside the hotel.”

  Haywood didn’t respond, thinking about it. He hadn’t heard from any of his men, which had concerned him, but now hearing that both the girl and President Cortez were still alive, he began to panic.

  Obviously, Hayward didn’t know the two sicarios who passed through his place only days ago had been tasked with taking out his men. Imna had looked forward to t
elling him about it once Cortez was dead and she stepped away to cry in private—in an empty bathroom, perhaps, just herself and the cell phone and Oliver Hayward on the other end, at first happy that he had come through and then crestfallen once he learned about his men. She hadn’t imagined he would be too angry—they were freelancers, from what Imna understood—but he would still feel betrayed. He should have known any trace to this hit would need to be eliminated; the cartels would want nobody left alive as witnesses, maybe not even Hayward himself despite the other service he provided.

  Imna wanted to say something else, something to rub the salt in Hayward’s fresh wounds, but that was when an alarm went off and strobes all around the lobby began flickering.

  Hayward said, “What is that?”

  Before she could answer, the man in the gray suit hurried over to her.

  “Fire alarm, Ms. Rodriguez. We need to head outside.”

  She opened her mouth, not sure what to say but wanting to say something, when along with the blaring alarm and flashing strobes came a series of sudden gunshots somewhere in the hotel.

  A woman in the lobby screamed.

  Another person shouted, “What was that? What was that?”

  In her ear, Hayward spoke again, asking what was wrong, but she disconnected the call and hurried past the man in the suit. The man called after her, telling her they needed to evacuate, but she ignored him and pushed past the people moving toward the exit, running in the direction she’d watched Cortez head only minutes ago.

  A few police officers hurried past her, their guns drawn, and one of them tried to stop her from proceeding, but once she explained—shouted, really—that she was President Cortez’s aide, he relented but told her to stay back.

  Around the corner was a short hallway, and the emergency exit door at the end of the hallway stood open. One of the bodyguards was shouting at the police to hurry.

  Imna followed them out to a side street and found one of the bodyguards still on the ground, though he was trying to pick himself up; blood ran down his face from his broken nose. The third bodyguard was standing but had his hands up. A gun lay at his feet; he was the one who fired it and wanted to make sure the police knew he was unarmed.

  He pointed down the street.

  “They went that way!”

  Imna turned to the first bodyguard, the one holding the exit door open.

  “What happened?”

  The man’s face was red and tight. He had one job, and he had failed to do it.

  “Once the alarm sounded, President Cortez came out of the bathroom and ran for the door. The woman from outside—the one President Cortez was speaking to on the line—was waiting. She”—he paused, swallowed—“she attacked us. She grabbed him and put a gun to his head. They got into one of the SUVs. We fired after them, but—”

  She turned away from him, wanting to scream out her frustrations.

  One of the police officers had a radio to his ear. He turned to them, and shook his head.

  “They’re already on the freeway.”

  Forty-Seven

  This portion of the 110 has six lanes heading south, and I use all of them, swerving back and forth between cars as the speedometer ticks up to from 70 to 80 to 90.

  I eye President Cortez in the rearview mirror, the man sitting in the back holding on to the “oh shit” bar.

  “I suggest you put your seat belt on, Mr. President.”

  I spot flashing lights a quarter mile back, what may be two or four or six police cars. President Cortez notices me looking past him in the rearview mirror, and glances back through the rear window.

  Turning back as he clips in his seat belt, he says, “What do you think they will do?”

  “Nothing right now. They’re just going to chase us. They won’t intervene as long as they believe your life is in danger.”

  “Where are we going?”

  The answer is I’m not sure, but that won’t ease his worry. The fact is, everything had happened so fast—Cortez agreeing to trust me, me hurrying around to the side of the hotel where the SUVs were parked, giving Atticus the signal to remotely set off the hotel’s fire alarm, and then waiting until Cortez and his bodyguards burst through the side door.

  Now we were in one of those armored SUVs, a half-dozen police cars chasing us with more on the way, police helicopters no doubt headed in our direction, and the morning traffic on the 110 busy but not too congested, the speedometer now inching up to 95 mph.

  I spot a sign for the 10 interchange, and keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I flip open Tweedledee’s cell phone and dial Atticus.

  He says, “Where are you now?”

  “On the 110, almost to the 10. What’s my timeline?”

  “I’m still waiting to get confirmation from one of my contacts.”

  “Goddamn it, Atticus. We’re running out of time.”

  “There’s nothing I can do to pressure him. This is a big ask.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not like I can pull over to save us some time.”

  Atticus is quiet for a moment.

  “Perhaps you can.”

  He tells me his idea, and directs me onto the 10 headed east. I cut off a bus as I take the turn, and soon we merge onto the 10.

  Two helicopters are in the air, headed in our direction. At least one of them is a news chopper, and for the first time I’m thankful for the tinted windows.

  I ask, “Have we made the news yet?”

  Atticus tells me to wait a moment, then says, “Yes, they’re already running the coverage. They don’t appear to know President Cortez is with you. Once that happens, the coverage will go international.”

  “I don’t have GPS on me. What’s my route?”

  Atticus relays the directions, and they’re straightforward enough that I disconnect and toss the phone onto the passenger seat.

  President Cortez leans forward in his seat to look up at the helicopters in the sky.

  “Are you sure this will work?”

  Keeping both hands on the wheel, my foot pressed to the gas, still swerving from lane to lane, I decide to tell him the truth.

  “No.”

  A couple minutes later we pass through the 405 interchange. Now there are a dozen police cars following us. The traffic becomes a bit more congested, and for the first time, I lift my foot off the gas. At the last second, I jerk the wheel and steer us over to the right lane to the next exit. We’re going so fast it feels like the SUV comes up on two wheels as we take the turn. Going south on Bundy Drive now, there’s a red light up ahead, but I tap the brakes, scan the traffic, and then breeze through it, nearly clipping the rear end of a pickup truck.

  Swerving through more traffic, some of it oncoming, people leaning on their horns and shouting out windows. I make a hard turn onto Ocean Park Boulevard, the SUV almost fishtailing, and then ride the brake as I jerk the wheel once more, onto a side street, and press all my weight down on the gas pedal.

  The SUV’s needle ticks up, going from 60 to 65 to 70, and in the back President Cortez spots the fence ahead of us and shouts.

  “Stop. Stop. Stop!”

  We crash through the fence. I’m prepared for the airbag to deploy from the impact, but it doesn’t. The SUV is large enough that we barrel through and continue out onto the airfield.

  “Mr. President, welcome to the Santa Monica Airport.”

  Forty-Eight

  More news choppers fill the sky, three of them, as well as a police chopper. At least a dozen police cars have ringed the airfield. A few unmarked police cars, too. A few black SUVs. Two ambulances. Three fire trucks. The only thing they haven’t sent yet is a tank, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one’s on its way.

  Not even ten minutes have passed since we crashed through the gate, so that’s a pretty impressive response time.

  I eye President Cortez in the rearview mirror.

  “That’s a lot of people. You must be somebody important.”

  He doesn’t smile at the joke. H
e stares out his window, watching all the flashing lights, his face tight.

  “Where is he?”

  He doesn’t look at me when he asks the question, but that’s okay. It’s the question I’ve been expecting him to ask.

  “All in due time.”

  “No”—his voice loud, his teeth gritted—“tell me now.”

  I keep watching him in the rearview mirror, waiting for him to shift his gaze to meet mine. When he does, I wait for a beat, and then nod.

  “We buried him in a woods near the Chihuahua, Sonora border.”

  “Who do you mean by we?”

  “An associate of mine was with me. He entered the country to help me stop your son. You have to understand, Mr. President, at the time I didn’t know his story.”

  “How did you learn it?”

  “Father Crisanto.”

  President Cortez shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath.

  “I had heard Father Crisanto was murdered. Gunned down in the street in front of his church. How did you know to speak to him?”

  “That’s a long story. But the main thing is we tracked him down, and he told us about your son. About how the cartels wanted to hurt you, and so they targeted Alejandro and his family. Can I ask you a question?”

  The man shuts his eyes again, and nods.

  “When did you discover your son was the Devil?”

  The Devil was what the news media had dubbed Alejandro Cortez. El Diablo. A serial killer who had targeted the wives and children of cartel bosses, abducted them, and burned them alive.

  President Cortez looks out his window again. He doesn’t speak for a long time, and then he tilts his face to meet my gaze again in the rearview mirror.

  “Not for several months. I believed his body was among those found in the fire. My wife did, too. It … made it easier, having that closure. But then the murders started happening, to those women and children, and part of me began to suspect.”

  “How so?”

  “At the time I believed nobody else could be so brazen. Not if they had anything to lose. And clearly by then my son had nothing to lose.”