Kidnap & Ransom

by Michelle Gagnon

  “Gracias, señora.” The woman’s lips cracked wide in a toothless smile. “Gracias por habernos salvado.”

  “De nada.” Syd watched the woman shuffle off, gingerly mounting the bus stairs with the assistance of one of the PGR soldiers. Funny. She could count on one hand how many times she’d been thanked for her work in her life. Back when she was with the Agency, it was more likely she’d be put on a death list.

  Isabela emerged from the barracks. After spotting Syd, she headed over.

  “We’re pulling out,” Syd said. “It seems like you’ve got things under control.”

  “More or less,” Isabela agreed.

  “Don’t take it personally, but I hope we never see each other again.”

  Isabela laughed. “In our line of work, you never know.” She watched as the bus doors swung shut. The engine started with a growl. Cheers erupted inside as it rattled toward the gate.

  “So you really think this will make a difference?” Syd asked, skeptical.

  Isabela shrugged. “It is like battling the Hydra. You stop one cartel, a dozen others appear. But for these people it made a difference. And we might have gained a few weeks of peace. Los Zetas were particularly dangerous, thanks to their training and level of organization. So whoever takes their place might not present such a challenge.”

  “Seems futile,” Syd noted.

  Isabela smiled thinly. “Es México. Most of our humor revolves around the futility of it all.” She shuffled her feet, avoiding Syd’s eyes as she asked, “How is Mark?”

  Syd shrugged. “No idea. Jake hasn’t called. He’s at the Hospital Ingles in Mexico City if you want to check up on him.”

  “I will.” Isabela extended a hand. “Sorry for the…confusion.”

  “Making sure my people don’t encounter any trouble at the border would mean more than sorry at this point,” Syd said.

  Isabela nodded. “No hay problema. It will be handled.”

  “Great. Adios.” Syd mock saluted, then headed for the gate.

  Forty-One

  Kelly steeled herself. But rather than come after her, Stefan headed back to the corner where his supplies were stacked.

  Kelly watched, her stomach filled with dread.

  Stefan rummaged inside a large duffel bag. Apparently satisfied with the contents, he hauled it over one shoulder and came back to her. Stopping five feet away, he dumped it on the ground. “Here is where we part ways, Agent Jones.”

  “Are you going to try to kill me?” She eyed it, wondering what was inside.

  “Try?” He barked a laugh. “It would not be difficult in your current condition. But I’m on the verge of an important ritual—I can’t directly sully my hands.” His eyes lingered on her throat. “Although it’s a shame, since it would undoubtedly be enjoyable. You’ll have to reconcile yourself to a much slower demise, I’m afraid.” He looked regretful.

  “You’re not doing the ritual here?” she hedged.

  Stefan seemed surprised. “Of course not. These things can’t be done underground.” He gestured to the chamber. “This is where priests cleansed themselves before performing the rituals. The murals say as much.”

  Kelly doubted any of that was true. “You can’t possibly be planning to kill someone back at the Templo Mayor. It’s in the middle of the city.”

  His eyes glinted as he said, “Goodbye, Agent Jones. It was lovely chatting with you.” He nodded, turned and walked away.

  Kelly was taken aback. Was it possible that he was just going to leave her there? Her heart leaped at the thought. Perhaps he had underestimated her, and assumed she wouldn’t be able to free herself. Rodriguez would hopefully be showing up soon with help. The bonds around her wrists had loosened slightly. Reinvigorated, she tugged at them. Her hands separated a fraction of an inch.

  At the entrance to the tunnel, Stefan stopped and held something up, showing it to her: a stick of dynamite.

  Kelly’s heart sank.

  He called out, “I hope for your sake the air runs out quickly.” Then he whirled and vanished from sight.

  He was going to cause a cave-in, trapping her here. Kelly cast her eyes around the chamber. It might not survive the blast, the entire ceiling could come crashing down. Even if it held, how would anyone find her? Panic set in, a vise grip tightening around her chest.

  Kelly rolled over. After struggling for a minute, she swung her good leg under her and sat. Using her foot, she pushed herself backward toward the tunnel, but her progress was slow. She made it five feet, then ten. Maybe she could get out in time. Stefan probably wasn’t familiar with explosives; there was a whole host of things he could have done wrong….

  Kelly was ten feet from the entrance when an explosion ripped into the room. It began as a rumble on the far side, then a torrent of rocks and flames spewed from the tunnel mouth.

  They both froze at the sound of an explosion. “What was that?” Rodriguez asked. “Earthquake?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said, but his stomach filled with dread. Stefan was ruthless. During the campus case, he’d beheaded a man he considered a friend. The thought of what he might be doing to Kelly right now was almost more than Jake could bear. “Stay with the boat if you want,” he said, getting up on his knees. “I’m going in.”

  Before Rodriguez could stop him, he dived over the side. Even though he was already drenched, the shock of the water hit him hard. He spit out a mouthful, pulling a face at the foul taste.

  “Christ, Riley,” Rodriguez called out. “Be careful.”

  Jake was already swimming, the current swept him along. He held the flashlight in his right hand, so the light panned up and around in an arc as he swam. After ten strokes, he shone it in the direction the river was flowing. There was another opening up ahead, even smaller than the one that had torn their boat. He was racing toward it at a steady clip. Five feet away, he took a deep breath and dived beneath the surface. The water roiled, his flashlight illuminating rocks on either side. Jake did his best to avoid them, pushing off with his hands, but one still clipped him hard on the shoulder. He kept his legs locked out straight behind him, resisting the current’s efforts to drag him down. After less than a minute, he broke the surface, gulping air. Rodriguez isn’t going to enjoy that, he thought…but the life preserver should bear him back to the surface. As long as he didn’t panic, he’d be fine. The current ebbed. Jake shone the light around.

  He was in a larger chamber, similar to the first one they’d entered. The walls were covered with drawings. It looked like there was a spit of land on the right. Jake made for it, carving a path through the water with strong strokes. His knees brushed bottom and he stood. Jake staggered on to dry land, shivering.

  There were drag marks on the ground—someone had managed to get a boat there, although after what they’d come through he had no idea how.

  Movement caught his eye. Jake panned the light toward it. A few feet away, something flesh-colored bobbed in the shallows. His heart clenched. Part of him didn’t want to see what it was, especially not after the explosion they’d heard. He approached slowly, as if it might attack.

  Kelly’s prosthetic. A wave of relief washed over him, replaced almost immediately by concern. What the hell had happened down here?

  Jake swiveled. There was a pile of rubble against the far wall. Coming closer, he saw dust settling around it. The air hung thick with a pungent chemical smell.

  He pressed his ear against the rock closest to him.

  “Kelly?” he called out.

  A long moment passed. Then he heard Kelly’s voice, faintly calling for help.

  Kelly strained her ears. For a second, she thought she’d heard Jake. She waited, then shook her head. Ridiculous. He was miles away.

  The blast had snuffed out the candles, leaving her in the dark. The right side of her body felt hot. She’d probably suffered some burns. Chunks of stone had fallen off the surrounding walls, one landing what sounded like inches from her head, but her fears of a large
r cave-in proved unfounded. All things considered, it could have been worse.

  At the thought, Kelly laughed. She was stuck in a forgotten Aztec chamber hundreds of feet below Mexico City. Hard to imagine a worse scenario.

  Kelly managed to reach the tunnel entrance. From what she could tell, the only way out was now a wall of stone. She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax, organizing her thoughts. First things first: she had to free her hands.

  Kelly made her way back to Stefan’s supply pile. Facing away from it, she managed to unzip the closest duffel bag and reached in, praying it didn’t hold something awful, like human skin. Her fingers fumbled across what felt like more rope, then a water bottle, a small shovel…something caught her finger and she inhaled sharply. Carefully she felt her way along it: a knife. She leaned forward, straining her arms as she moved her wrists back and forth. The knife nicked her wrists a few times, but after a minute the rope loosened.

  Kelly yanked her wrists apart as hard as she could, and the last of the rope gave. She shook out her hands to get the blood flowing again. It was a small victory, but having her hands back made her feel better.

  Now she had to find some light.

  A few more minutes of groping through Stefan’s stash produced a box of kitchen matches and a large candle. She lit it on the third try. The wick flickered to life, sweeping the shadows away. Kelly nearly cried from relief. She turned back toward the tunnel.

  What remained of the entrance was nearly a solid wall of stones. Still, some looked small enough for her to move. She had nothing to lose by trying. Kelly dug through the pile and extricated a shovel. Holding it in her right hand, the candle in her left, she made her way back across the room, supporting her weight on the shovel handle. It took five minutes of arduous effort to get there. She panted from the exertion as she examined the cave-in. Stefan’s dynamite had done its job well. The center of the tunnel had collapsed completely, leaving only a few feet clear on her side—and who knew how much damage the far end had sustained. The entire outer chamber might have come down. Maybe Stefan had accidentally buried himself in it. Comforting thought, but she doubted it. Not with her luck.

  Kelly found one stone at the top that looked small enough to move. She worked on it for a minute, wiggling it back and forth, grunting slightly from the effort. It finally gave, triggering a small avalanche of rubble. Kelly hopped back, narrowly avoiding having her foot crushed. She’d have to be more careful with the next one.

  Getting back into position, she slid her hands into the cracks around a rock the size of a basketball.

  Kelly stopped and cocked her head to the side. This time she had definitely heard something. Maybe Rodriguez had finally arrived with help—if he wasn’t in jail for setting off an explosive at the Templo Mayor. She pressed her ear against a large boulder dead center in the tunnel. A scratching sound, murmured conversation—there was definitely someone on the other side. Her heart leaped—maybe she’d be getting out of here after all.

  “Hey!” she called out.

  A pause, then a muffled response.

  “I can’t hear you,” she yelled. “Can you get me out?”

  Another muffled shout through the wall. The voice sounded male.

  “What?” Kelly moved closer, closing her eyes to try to hear better.

  She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like they were yelling for her to get out of the way.

  Rodriguez appeared, huffing as he staggered toward Jake.

  “Thanks for the help back there,” he said. “I almost drowned.”

  “I figured the vest would save you.” Jake dug frantically at the wall of rocks. “Give me a hand. I think Kelly is on the other side.”

  “How the hell did that happen?” Rodriguez stepped back and perused the wall.

  Jake didn’t answer. His fingers were already cut and bleeding, his breath came in short gasps. He slid his fingers into the cracks surrounding a particularly large piece of rubble, pushing with his foot against the rock below it as he heaved. After a second, it shifted. He hauled it out, dumping it on the ground next to the three he’d already removed.

  “It’ll take forever to get her out that way.” Rodriguez surveyed the damage.

  “You got a better idea?” Jake snapped.

  “Actually, I do.” Rodriguez dropped the dry bag to the ground. Sifting inside, he brought out a chunk of gray putty. “I happen to have some C4 left.”

  Jake examined it. “I don’t know much about munitions.” He scanned the ceiling. “We don’t want to bring this down on top of us.”

  “We start with a little and work from there,” Rodriguez said. “Either way, it’s easier than digging through this mess.”

  “She might be pinned in there. Blowing it up might kill her,” Jake said.

  “That’s a risk,” Rodriguez agreed. He rubbed his chin. “I’m just worried that our federales friends will be here soon, and they’ll be less interested in helping than arresting us. If we were home, I’d say wait. But here…”

  Jake thought about it. Rodriguez was right. Plus they had no idea how much air Kelly had left. They had to chance it. He pressed his mouth to the wall and yelled as loud as he could, “Kelly, get back and take cover!”

  As soon as she heard the order to get clear, Kelly scrambled away from the tunnel mouth and shielded her candle. Rodriguez probably had some C4 left, hopefully enough to penetrate the rubble. A puff of dust coughed out the entrance. Kelly held up the light. There was no discernible change on her side of the rock wall.

  “It didn’t work!” she called out.

  “Stay back, we’re trying again.” The voices were more distinct. Kelly stayed to the side of the opening, knees curled in to her chest. She covered her ears with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut.

  The rumbling was louder this time. More chunks of rock broke free from the ceiling above, one landed with a crash in the center of the room. A smaller one bounced off her head, scraping her cheek on its descent.

  She ignored the pain, scrambling forward as soon as the rumbling ceased. Still no change, but she distinctly heard voices on the other side. She called out, “Did it work?”

  As if in response, the rock wall facing her suddenly shifted. One of the smaller stones at the top drew back and a hand appeared.

  “Oh, thank God.” Kelly exhaled. She crawled up the wall with her hands, getting unsteadily to her feet.

  The wall crumbled before her. The roof of the tunnel seemed stable enough, but the quicker she got through it the better. When the rubble was cleared to shoulder height, a head poked over the top. At the sight of her, Rodriguez’s face flooded with relief.

  “Jesus, Jones. The situations you get yourself into.”

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Kelly said. “Stefan has some sort of ritual planned.”

  “One thing at a time.” Rodriguez passed something through the gap. “This should help.”

  Kelly almost cried with joy at the sight of her prosthetic, a sentiment she never would have imagined a few days ago. Leaning against one of the larger boulders, she refastened it. Despite the pain in her stump, it reinvigorated her. “I’m coming over,” she called.

  Kelly eased herself into the opening. She froze as the movement sent smaller stones shifting beneath her. A pair of strong hands grabbed hold beneath her armpits, yanking her through just as the rocks gave way.

  “Thanks,” she said, looking down as she brushed herself off.

  “Anytime.”

  Kelly raised her eyes slowly to find Jake staring down at her. He didn’t look pleased. “How did the mission go?” she asked tentatively.

  “Later. Right now I want to know what the hell you were thinking.”

  “We should really—”

  “You didn’t even call to tell me what you were up to.”

  “I…lost my phone,” she said weakly, figuring this wasn’t a good time to bring up her brief stint in jail.

  “You can get a phone in any corner store in Mexico
City. You managed to call him.” He jerked a thumb toward Rodriguez, who stood off to the side looking wildly uncomfortable.

  “I didn’t, actually. McLarty called Danny.”

  “So you decided to go after this lunatic alone, even though—”

  “Even though what?” Kelly demanded, eyes narrowing.

  He wasn’t backing down, though—she saw it in his eyes. “Even though you’re crippled now. You can’t do the things you used to do. Christ, look at yourself. You’re beat to hell.” He reached out a hand and gingerly wiped her bleeding cheek. She winced.

  “I almost had him,” Kelly retorted, trying not to flinch at the word “cripple.” She scanned the spit of land: the raft was gone and she couldn’t see her gun anywhere. Stefan had a fifteen-minute head start, minimum.

  “We can fight about this later,” she said. “Right now we have to get out of here.”

  “Back in there?” Rodriguez asked, shivering. His suit hung lank, pant cuffs dripping around his ankles.

  “Unless you two found another way out,” Kelly said, looking back and forth between them. Jake was clearly enraged, she recognized the set of his jaw.

  There was a groan overhead. They all froze, eyes drawn upward.

  “I don’t like the way that sounded.” Rodriguez examined the ceiling. “Believe me, I hate to say it, but Kelly’s right. We have to get out of here.”

  “Let’s go.” Kelly avoided Jake’s eyes as she marched back to the water’s edge.

  He didn’t reply, but she heard him fall in behind her. Without giving herself time to think about it, she waded back into the current.

  Forty-Two

  Kelly shuddered as the water licked at her shoulders. Jake floated behind her; Rodriguez paddled clumsily in the rear. The current carried her toward another opening in the wall. Jake shone a flashlight forward, illuminating it. It was wider than the one they’d entered through.

  “How long is this river?” Jake asked. “It feels like we’ve gone miles already.”

  “We’re probably not even outside the city yet,” Rodriguez called from the rear. “I think it’s leading south. It’ll probably meet up with the Panuco River. Most of the city’s water drains into there.”