by Hilton, Matt
He thought he might have a solution to the problem.
If he helped recover the little brat, it would calm Molina and bring him back to the negotiating table with a clearer head and considerable gratitude. What better way to have Jorge in his pocket than have the man indebted to him for bringing back his son?
He took out his cell phone and punched in buttons.
At the other end a man answered curtly.
Regis didn’t bother with formalities, he simply went into business mode – after all, that was the language mercenaries understood.
‘There’s a change in instructions if you’re interested in naming a price. Yes, indeed. That is agreeable. Good, then we have a deal?’
Receiving an affirmative, he smiled, his face taking on the death’s-head grin that so perturbed those who saw it.
‘Bring back the child,’ he said. ‘Oh, one more thing, Marshall. I will pay double – call it a bonus – if you also bring back the heads of Kirstie Long and Joe Hunter. Their delivery is the only way to appease Señor Molina.’
Chapter 24
Ten miles north of Hermosillo wasn’t far enough from Jorge Molina’s house to feel safe, but it was where we’d earlier agreed to rendezvous. After our run-in with Marshall, Rink had led me back to our car, while I checked the route behind us in case we’d picked up a tail. All seemed clear and Rink drove us away from the hillside, avoiding the main routes, until we discovered a highway out of the city, leaving behind both the police and Molina’s soldiers. It took the best part of two hours from blasting our way out of the compound until we arrived at the meeting place: a parking lot at the rear of a derelict diner that was a dilapidated, graffiti-scored eyesore on the roadside.
Harvey was first out of the panel van when we pulled in alongside it. He seemed his usual cool self, but couldn’t hold the mixed emotions in check. He was both relieved to see us alive and worried for what was still to come.
‘Jesus Christ, guys, don’t do that to me again.’ He came forward to grab each of us in a manly hug. ‘I was worried you hadn’t made it out.’
Slapping him on his shoulders, I said: ‘We made it. It was a close call, though.’
‘I can see that.’ He appraised my dishevelled state, taking in the blood, dirt and slivers of glass. I looked like crap but at least I wasn’t full of bullet holes. ‘The guys wanted to go back for you but I told them we had to keep to the plan . . .’
‘That’s exactly what you should’ve done,’ I reassured him.
‘Wasn’t an easy decision.’
Velasquez and McTeer joined us, and hands were shaken and shoulders slapped. The guys had done as asked and all had ended well.
‘OK,’ Rink said, ‘now we have to get moving again. We need Kirstie and Benjamin in the car with you guys; me and Joe will take the van.’
If the panel van was being tracked it was time to dump it. The car Rink had purchased was large enough for the three men, woman and child, plus the few pieces of clothing, supplies and equipment they required. We could now replace the van with something less obvious. Time was an issue, but there was something I wished to do first.
‘Just give me a minute with Kirstie.’ I caught a brief glance from Rink, but he knew I wasn’t planning on ‘canoodling’ with Kirstie again, I only wished to check on her and the boy. He nodded at the others to give me some space. They walked away a short distance, while Rink related what had happened after the gates were rammed and they took off. Old soldiers love to tell and hear war stories.
Feeling some trepidation, and with no idea why, I opened the back doors of the van and looked inside. Kirstie was lying down on a bed of jackets, her small son held in the protective circle of her arms. She was murmuring to him, but as the doors swung wide she blinked up at me. Her face was a pale oval in the dimness, but her grey eyes – sparkling with tears of relief – shone. I climbed inside and went towards her, sinking to my knees despite the prickle of glass against my skin, and peered down at the boy.
‘How is he?’
‘He’s fine. Sleeping naturally now.’ Kirstie used her fingertips to brush a stray dark curl off Benjamin’s forehead. How often had she repeated the gesture since taking Benjamin in her arms? Many times, I guessed.
I raked through my pockets and came out with the bottle I’d grabbed from the nightstand in Benjamin’s bedroom. ‘Either Jorge or someone else was feeding him this.’
Kirstie’s features relaxed as she eyed the bottle. It was as I’d assumed: the formula was nothing more sinister than a paracetamol suspension, a syrup used to treat pain and fever in small children and infants. This was further confirmed when Kirstie drew down Benjamin’s bottom lip to show where his gums appeared red and swollen.
‘He woke up as we were driving here. I . . . I’m not sure that he remembers me. It’s been so long, Joe. How do we ever get those years back? How do I become his mother again?’
‘Love.’ My answer stated the obvious, but what more was there to say? ‘He’ll get to know you soon enough, Kirstie. Once you’re home the bond will grow again. Trust me.’
‘Do you have children?’
I shook my head. I’d never been as lucky.
‘You were married, though, weren’t you? Harvey said you and your wife split up.’
‘We did. I was married to Diane for fourteen years. Sadly, things didn’t work out as we’d planned.’
‘She didn’t love you?’
‘Quite the opposite. She loved me too much to stick around and watch me self-destruct. She couldn’t take the violence that constantly surrounded me. She didn’t want to end up a widow.’
‘Do you miss her?’
‘With all of my heart. There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think about her. Sometimes it’s just for a second or two: I’ll see a face in a crowd that reminds me of her, or someone says something that brings her face to mind.’
‘Is there any chance that . . .’
‘We’d get back together? No. Diane has a new husband. She’s happier with the arrangement than I am, to be honest.’
‘But you’ve moved on, right?’
‘Yeah.Took me a while. I found someone else, but then I lost her too.’ I had no desire to go over the past. It hurt too much.
‘Kate Piers,’ Kirstie said. ‘Harvey told me about how she was killed.’
‘Harvey seems to have told you quite a lot.’
‘Don’t blame him; I wanted to learn more about you. He also told me that you and Imogen were together for a while. Imogen was Kate’s sister, right?’
‘Sounds a little sordid when you say it like that,’ I said, tempering my words with a smile.
‘No . . . not at all. I’ve heard how you got together, but, Joe, you must see it was a relationship destined never to last?’
‘Yeah, that’s clear to me now.’
‘My marriage to Jorge was always going to fail. The trouble was I was too blind to see that. I was young, stupid, dazzled by love. Perhaps I was dazzled by his wealth and status as well. Jesus, how shallow does that make me?’
‘We’re all wise in hindsight.’
‘We are.’ Then she asked the question she’d been building up to. ‘Do you regret kissing me, now that you’ve had time to think about it?’
‘No. You needed comforting, I comforted you: where’s the harm in that?’
‘That’s all it was? Mutual comfort?’
Scrubbing a hand through my hair – slivers of glass and blood clots notwithstanding – I looked down at her and her sleeping boy. ‘No. OK, I wanted to kiss you. Have done since I first saw you at the airport.’
Kirstie looked down, as though to check on Benjamin, but she couldn’t conceal the tiny smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. ‘Would you kiss me again if I asked?’
Hell, yeah, but this was neither the time nor the place. We needed to get moving. ‘Maybe if you ask me another time?When we haven’t half the gunmen in Mexico chasing us.’
‘Rink doesn’t approve of me,
does he?’
Her question came out of left field. How had she been party to a conversation that even Harvey couldn’t have told her about? But then I got it: she’d been picking up on Rink’s attitude all the way here.
‘Trust me, Kirstie. Rink doesn’t disapprove of you. Hell, he’d die for you. It’s something else that’s troubling him about your—’
I caught myself before blurting out the secret of Walter and her lineage.
Kirstie proved she was no fool though.
‘Rink thinks it’s inappropriate for you to have a relationship with Walter Conrad’s granddaughter. It’s OK; you don’t have to confirm anything. I’m no longer the naïve young woman that fell into bed with a drug-dealing murderer. Walter Conrad is my grandfather. It’s as plain to see as that Benjamin is my son.’
It was pointless denying the truth, so I didn’t. Neither did I confirm anything, so my pledge to Walter was safe. Instead, I explained about my connection to Walter. When I’d been with Arrowsake, he’d been my stateside handler, but more than that he’d become a friend first, then something much more important. My real dad died when I was a child, and my mother’s second husband, a cold, humourless man who barely tolerated my presence in the house, raised me. I grew up without the love of a father to guide me, and had turned to the Army for somewhere to feel like I belonged. But it wasn’t until a few years later, when I was recruited to the specialist counter-terrorism squad, that I’d found the surrogate father I’d been seeking. Walter Conrad was a scheming, twisted manipulator, but despite that I loved him. And I knew that he loved me too. I understood now that I was the surrogate child he’d been seeking to replace his own that he could neither touch nor hold. Also it was plain why he’d sworn me to silence about Kirstie and Annie’s bloodline. His fears that they would be targeted by his enemies had been borne out, and that was before they even knew that Kirstie and Benjamin were his kinfolk. To what ends would his opponents in the CIA go should they ever learn the truth?
‘It’s not like we’re blood relatives or anything,’ Kirstie said, teasing me with a flutter of lashes. ‘At worst we’d be kissing cousins.’
‘Let’s talk about that another time,’ I said, resting my hand on her shoulder. When Imogen and I fell into each other’s arms it had been through survivor guilt syndrome on both our parts. A relationship based on such raw emotion could never amount to much other than sex; there was plenty of passion but little love. Right now, Kirstie was caught in a stressful, confusing situation and I didn’t want her to regret throwing herself at me once this was over with. ‘We have to move you and Benjamin to the car, and get you on your way again.’
‘OK.’ Even in the dimness the blush flooding her features was evident. She stood, holding Benjamin close to her chest, and I steered them to the open doors. Benjamin was stirring.
‘Are you my mamma?’ The little lad’s voice was sweetened by his drowsy state.
Tears beaded on Kirstie’s cheeks.
‘Yes, I’m your mommy . . . and I love you very much, Benjamin.’
‘I’m not Benjamin any more,’ he said, pouting his bottom lip. ‘I’m Benny. That’s what my papa calls me.’
‘No sweetie, you’re my Benjamin.’ Kirstie used a finger to tease that forelock again, and the boy squirmed against her touch.
‘I’m Benny,’ he said, trying to twist out of her grasp. ‘I don’t want to be your Benjamin.’
Then the boy was howling, and inside the van it was like an emergency siren going off. Rink and McTeer appeared at the open doors, but I waved them away, signalling I had everything under control. Kirstie was distraught, and I took her into a hug, holding them both until the medication sent the boy back to a shallow doze.
‘Oh, God!’ Kirstie was disconsolate, the tears on her face now rivers. ‘This is my worst nightmare. That bastard Jorge has already begun to change him. God damn him! Benny Molina . . . it even sounds like the name of a mobster!’
I touched her face, tracing the tears with a fingertip. ‘He’s just confused, Kirstie. Once he’s been with you a few days he’ll begin to see things more clearly. He isn’t Benny Molina. He’s Benjamin Long. And if I have anything to do with it, that’s the way he’ll stay.’
Chapter 25
The van burned brightly, belching oily smoke into the night sky, but from the distant highway it would look like yet another bonfire off in the gullies, where farmers often set fire to garbage, or to brush scoured from their fields. I doubted that anyone would come to investigate the flames, and even if they did, it would be unlikely to be any of those men working on behalf of Jorge Molina.
It was an hour since we’d waved off the packed car, and Rink had taken care to go across country to a remote spot nearer to a different highway. Had we been tracked via device or satellite, it would look as if we aimed to leave Mexico via a more north-westerly route than the actual one we’d chosen. As it was we’d decided on showing our faces nearby, more or less staking ourselves out like bait to draw any hunters away from the others, but not while we were still on foot with no hope of escape from more mobile enemies. Neither of us was comfortable with the idea of boosting a car, but it was a case of needs must.
When I was a boy of fifteen, I knew a lad called Simmy. I don’t even recall his actual name; he came into my small circle of acquaintances as a friend of a friend, and I only ever knew him by his nickname. Back then kids were defined by their musical tastes and you banded together with like-minded individuals. Often you didn’t care much for some of those in your group, but they became your pals nonetheless. At the time there was a resurgence in mod and skinhead culture, and I was in among it simply because I preferred the older styles of music to the New Romantic stuff that was all the rage. Simmy was a hardened skin; he had the suede head, the black Harrington jacket, skinny jeans and braces, and ox-blood Doc Marten boots. He also sported a self-inflicted tattoo across the knuckles of his right hand. ACAB, it said. I recall falling out with him when he revealed what the acronym stood for: All Cops Are Bastards. In his bigoted opinion, anyone in a police uniform was the enemy.
We had to ensure that we didn’t make the same mistake now.
The Mexican police are often on the receiving end of a bad reputation as being corrupt, uncompromising and violent. It was unfair, because there were more selfless people who only wished to uphold law and order and raise the quality of life for their families and neighbours, than there were the greedy pigs who took bribes from criminals. The officers responding to the shootout at Molina’s home might well be those that were in his pocket, but now that we were out of their immediate jurisdiction any police we met needed to be thought of in the former category: good guys doing a difficult job. No way must we engage the police in battle until their actions dictated otherwise. The only problem was that by stealing a car we were inviting trouble from the local peacekeepers.
We jogged out of the gullies and across a parched field, keeping a low profile as we passed a small adobe farm. The crop had been harvested, and only the stems of plants jutted from the earth. I’d no idea what the crop was, but it was tough going underfoot. We made it back on to a dirt trail, deeply rutted by tracks formed by the massive tyres of a tractor. As we progressed it began to rain. Ordinarily that would have brought a curse from me, but I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to clean up, so it was a blessing in disguise. The blood and dirt began to wash out of my hair, and from my face. As I followed Rink down the trail, I teased some of the longer shards of glass from my clothing, dropping them on the earth.
We stayed off the highway, keeping to fields and untilled ground. At a previously dry wash, now trickling with muddy rainwater, we were forced up on to the road, but as soon as we were past the obstruction Rink led us inland again. Another adobe farm was outlined as a series of squat geometrical silhouettes against the gently undulating horizon. A single light burned above the door of the main house, but none beyond its windows. The family there had most likely retired, preparing for an early start an
d hard day of labour the following morning. This family didn’t look to be as poor as at the first farm we’d avoided, but that didn’t make me feel any better about stealing their vehicle. Even so, our needs were greater than theirs: lives depended on us taking their car.
The car was an older model Dodge pick-up that sported a hard plastic shell on the back. A few agricultural tools and a pile of empty sacks lay on the cargo bed, nothing of real importance to the running of the farm. It opened to Rink’s touch and no alarm began to yelp. The keys were even hanging from the ignition barrel. Still, he didn’t turn the engine over. The last thing we wanted was for the farmer or his family to come to investigate; neither of us had any desire to hurt anyone. Rink released the steering lock, and also the handbrake, then together we pushed, free-wheeling it down the slight hillside to a point a couple of hundred yards away from the house where any noise would be drowned by the drumming rain. When we had gone far enough for there to be little fear of confrontation, I scrambled inside and Rink turned the key. The engine coughed, whirred, then caught, and blue smoke erupted into the heavens. He took it easy down the rutted trail until we found the highway.
‘Gonna have to find a gas station soon,’ Rink said, noting that we were practically riding on fumes. Perhaps the farmer hadn’t bothered to secure the pick-up because he knew a thief wouldn’t get far with their ill-gotten gains. Adding validity to this thought, Rink said, ‘Can’t get more than fifty miles an hour out of the old girl, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’
