by Taylor Smith
He felt proud that he could do this to help Travis, who did everything to provide for their little family. It was Travis who had insisted after 9/11 that they purchase a couple of throwaway cell phones, and Travis who had programmed the phone they kept in the earthquake emergency kit to play a blaring rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In” that could be heard from anywhere in the house. After they adopted Melanie, Travis began to insist that if Ruben went out during the day, he check the phone for messages the minute he returned. The plan was that if Travis got wind of an impending terrorist attack on Los Angeles, he would call the earthquake phone and leave a coded message, Ruben’s cue to grab Mellie and head to his family’s cabin outside Cedar City, Iowa. If the worst happened, Travis wanted his family to survive.
Sitting in the market parking lot, Ruben dialed Hannah’s cell phone and hoped it went to voice mail. He wasn’t sure he could pull this off if she answered. He was in luck. As he listened to her away message, he ran a finger along the bright chrome console between the Mustang’s black leather seats. It was a little crazy, keeping this car. It barely accommodated a child seat in back, and getting a handicapped child in and out of a two-door sport car would only get more difficult as she grew bigger. One day he might have to break down and sell it, but it would feel like abandoning an old friend.
When the beep of Hannah’s voice mail sounded in his ear, he shifted his voice into a falsetto impression of his sister so dead-on that it could fool their mother. “Hello, sweetie, it’s Monica.” He pronounced the name with the Spanish long o. “My kittens are ready to leave their mama. They’re going fast, so if you want one, you gotta call me before you go out of town. Okay, sweetie? You be sure and call me before you leave town, please.”
Ruben disconnected, and then got out of the car and walked into the market, grinning. Finally, this talent of his might be coming in useful. He was a big man, built like a football player, but the female impersonations he’d been doing since his teens could bring down the house. He’d led a colorful life before Travis, but he’d toned down things in recent years. He didn’t march in Gay Pride parades anymore, didn’t wear such bright clothes, and didn’t do the impersonation thing except with family and very close friends. But Hannah had been at a party at their house one night when Ruben had grabbed his sister’s shawl and burst into full-on Monica Hernandez before segueing into Peggy Lee. His finale had been an imitation of Hannah herself. Their neighbor had laughed until she cried. He felt sure she’d recognize the name of the sister she’d met that night and put it together with Ruben, who called everyone “sweetie” when he did the act.
Hannah would understand that Ruben and Travis were trying to warn her, he told himself. She’d call back on this number to let “Monica” know. After she did, Ruben would ditch the phone and buy a new one for the earthquake kit.
Hannah would get the message. She had to.
Nine
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Hannah’s day had gotten off to bad start with the call from her ex-husband and the hasty detour to Dahlby Hall to meet with the assistant headmaster, but when she got to LAX, things began to look up. As she approached the e-ticket check-in kiosk, a woman on a nearby bench folded her newspaper, stood up and headed toward her.
“Hannah Nicks?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Joe Towle had another commitment this afternoon, but he got your message. I’m here to walk you through security, just in case anyone challenges your air marshal’s identification.”
“That’s great, except since I didn’t hear back from him, I left my weapon and his toys locked in the trunk of my car.”
“No problem. I’ll wait here while you go and get them.” The woman shook out her newspaper and turned back to the bench. As she did, a sheet of white copy paper slipped out. She caught it deftly as it wafted down, but not before Hannah caught sight of the digital image of a woman who looked remarkably like herself.
Sprinting back to the parking lot was a minor inconvenience that proved well worth the effort when the agent walked her past hellishly long security lines that snaked from the departures area back to the check-in counters and out the door onto the sidewalks. Spring break travelers probably accounted for most of the congestion, but Hannah also recalled hearing something on the radio about a change in the feds’ rainbow threat system—to orange? Crimson? Chartreuse? She couldn’t remember and didn’t really care. Like most people, she was beginning to tune out the hysteria. The American public wasn’t as stupid as its government liked to think, and they got it that fearmongering these days had less to do with new terrorist threats than with politicians trying to knock their own shenanigans off the front page. But security at LAX was never less than a snarl, so getting a walk-through anytime was a gift.
When the pre-boarding for her flight was announced, the attendants fell over themselves to help her stow the padded art portfolio safely in the same closet where they kept their personal items, and her roomy leather seat at the front of the plane allowed her to keep a watchful eye on it. Working for the rich and powerful had its advantages, Hannah thought, taking a regretful pass on the champagne in first class while the rabble tried to shoehorn themselves into coach. She could have used a drink after the morning she’d had, but there’d be time for margaritas on the beach after the painting was delivered. In the meantime, it was better she kept a clear head.
The two-hour flight down the West Coast passed quickly. On its final approach into Puerto Vallarta, the plane circled out over the Pacific, then banked inland again, allowing a view of miles of pristine beaches, a yacht-and cruise ship-studded harbor and dozens of lush, sprawling resorts. This was her second visit to the city. She’d come down for a weekend getaway a couple of years back with a guy she was dating at the time. The resort had been great, the guy not so much when she realized his insatiable tequila thirst brought out a loud redneck disdain for any culture not his own.
At Mexican Customs, a cagey agent examined her documents, glanced around to make sure his supervisor was well down the line, then leaned over and murmured that the goods she was carrying might have to be impounded for further examination. He changed his tune when Hannah held up her import permit and inquired in flawless and very audible Spanish whether his superiors approved of him soliciting bribes from visitors upon whom the local economy depended. Apparently not, judging by the speed at which he stamped her passport and waved her through.
Outside the secure arrivals area, she spotted her name scrawled on a piece of cardboard. Actually, it said “Ana Nix,” but close enough. The man holding the placard was an inch or two shorter than she was but built like a Humvee, with blunt, powerful hands and a broad barrel chest. His leathery features were broad and flat, his nose displaying evidence of having been broken more than once.
“I’m Hannah Nicks,” she said. “You’re expecting me, I think?”
“You are late, señora.”
She nodded. “Sorry. Family emergency. I had to take a later flight.”
He grunted and reached for the portfolio, but she handed him her backpack instead. “Please, this is so much heavier.” Better to play the helpless female than to let the painting out of her hands.
The driver hesitated, then took her bag and turned on his heel.
Outside the air-conditioned terminal building, a wall of hot, humid tropical air slammed into her. The sun was brilliant, turning the low stucco buildings of the airport and surrounding neighborhood into a world of bleached bones—a pleasantly ocean scented world, though, tinged with the spice and charcoal smells of a nearby taqueria. In the blistering heat, she was tempted to slip out of her lightweight jacket, but the gun holstered at her back made that inadvisable.
The driver led her to a late-model black Cadillac. At the chirp of his key fob, the trunk lid rose. He dropped in her backpack, but by the time he turned to reach for the portfolio, Hannah had already slipped it into the backseat and climbed in behind. Frowning, he closed her door
and moved around to the driver’s side. The car’s interior was stifling. Why drive a black car with black leather seats when you lived in a tropical climate?
The car dipped as the stocky driver got into the front.
“Excuse me, what’s your name?” Hannah asked.
He started the motor, then glanced in the mirror. “Sergio.”
“Would you mind turning on the air-conditioning, Sergio?”
“Broken,” he muttered. Shifting into gear, he peeled away from the terminal building, narrowly missing a hotel bus taking on passengers.
The window buttons on the door handle didn’t work any better than the AC, she discovered. Child locks, maybe? “I can’t get this window to go down.”
“Broken.”
Great. She slid across the seat, but the window on the other side was also on the fritz, it seemed. She leaned back on the headrest and closed her eyes. If Moises Gladding was such a rip-roaring success in the arms trade, you’d think he could spring for better wheels—or at least a good mechanic. The driver’s window did work, however, and Sergio opened it now, letting in a little breeze. It mightn’t have been so bad if she’d arrived earlier in the day as planned, but this was the hour when sensible people took siestas. Might explain Sergio’s crankiness.
He turned north up the coast highway, but after a mile or so, they veered east. If the coastal area was a tourist playground, then inland, Hannah recalled, was the domain of the working and farming population that supported the booming vacation industry in what was called the Mexican Riviera. Palm trees gave way to market gardens, cattle rancheros and chicken farms, the terrain dotted with yucca trees and prickly cactus. After about thirty minutes of ever-increasing speeds and ever-diminishing signs of population, paved highway gave way to potholed macadam. A few miles after that, they were on dusty washboard gravel.
Hadn’t Rebecca Powell said Gladding had a vacation home down here? Was it obsession with security, Hannah wondered, that would lead the arms dealer to build so far from the coast?
A flock of chickens flapped irritably as the Cadillac roared around a curve in the road and past a small red adobe farmhouse. A boy herding goats shaded his eyes to watch them pass. Soon, even farms seemed to peter out, leaving nothing but rock-strewn, sandy soil and the occasional spindly eucalyptus or cactus as far as the eye could see.
Warning bells began pinging in her brain. Unless the scenery changed fast, this was no place for a vacation villa. She glanced at the driver in the rearview mirror. His sunglasses obscured his eyes, but he seemed intent on the road ahead. Her hand reached out for the door handle and she did a test pull. No give. She tugged harder, but it was undeniably locked. Also “broken”? Or designed like the back of a police cruiser, keeping the occupant in until someone decided to let him out.
With a watchful eye on Sergio, she slid her hand behind her back and unsnapped her holster, taking comfort in the hard steel of her Beretta. Slipping it from the holster, she tucked it under her right thigh, her thumb on the safety, ready to flick it off at the first sign of trouble.
Damn.
She was tired. The day had started badly, and pleasant flight notwithstanding, she was now tense and primed for trouble. Maybe she was wrong about the way things were going here, but she hadn’t kept herself alive this long by ignoring her gut. If old Sergio there tried to pull anything while she was locked in, she’d shoot the little schmuck. If he pulled over and hauled her out of the car for whatever reason, she was pretty sure she could take him down, despite his blocky build. A win-win scenario, she decided, although her bravado did little to soothe the unease in her gut or the tension building in her shoulders.
She was ready, however, when Sergio suddenly yanked the wheel to the right and careened off the road and into a sandy clearing. He climbed out with scarcely a glance back, but by the time he opened her door, he had a pistol in his hand and a nervous stance that told her he hadn’t necessarily done this before. Not good. Amateurs were often the most dangerous adversaries because anything could set them off and their aim was pretty random.
Hannah tried to come across as fearful and unthreatening. “What’s going on here? What are you doing?”
“Get out.”
She calculated the odds of getting the drop on him now, but her range of motion was limited, as was her line of fire. He had the tactical advantage for the moment, but that could change quickly, especially if he underestimated the gringa in the backseat. She decided to play to that scenario.
“Please, why are you doing this?” The tremble in her voice was a nice touch, she thought. “What do you want?”
“I want you to get out of the car, señora. Now.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Not if you do as you are told.”
“All right. Just don’t hurt me, please.”
Sergio waved the gun barrel. “Get out. Now, if you please.”
She kept her body between him and the Beretta as she climbed out. Her brain was racing. This made no sense. If this guy really worked for Gladding, it had to be a double cross. Gladding had already paid for the Koon, so he had no reason to steal it. But if Sergio wasn’t working for Moises Gladding, then how had he known she was coming and what she’d be carrying? Or, she suddenly thought, was it about the painting at all? Could it be the guy was just your garden variety rapist?
Sergio scowled, keeping the gun trained on her. But then, she caught a break. He turned the weapon sideways, the way he’d probably seen street thugs do in movies. She resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. No professional ever held a gun like that. You shoot a semiautomatic in that position, you get peppered with red-hot casings as they eject skyward from the side of the gun—assuming they eject at all. Gravity works, so more often than not, the slide jams as the bullet casings try to clear and the weapon becomes useless.
Playing gangbanger was Sergio’s first mistake. His second was taking a step back without looking where he was going, narrowly missing a snake that was coiled around a rock near his feet. The snake moved just enough in his peripheral vision to draw his glance away for a split second.
It was all the time she needed. Her boot connected with his gun arm, sending the weapon flying into a clump of dusty sagebrush. As he wheeled to grab for it, her left hand chopped the side of his neck. Sergio crumpled to his knees, his face filled with pain and bewilderment. She kicked the fallen gun further out of his reach, then raised her own weapon where he could see it.
“Get up.”
He stumbled to his feet.
“Turn around and face the car.” She slammed him down on the hood, securing his arm in a hammerlock. “Who are you working for?”
No answer.
She wrenched his arm until he whimpered. She leaned forward and murmured in his ear. “Do not make me ask again, Sergio.”
“No one.”
Hannah elicited a little elaboration.
“Ow, ow! Please, señora! Señor Gladding sent me. He told me a courier was arriving with a painting that he had bought.”
“So then what are we doing here? I don’t see Mr. Gladding anywhere, do you?”
“A man,” the driver panted. “My cousin knows a man in Mazatlán who will buy this painting.”
“A fence? Someone who buys stolen art?”
He nodded. Made sense, she thought. Assuming the fence paid ten cents on the dollar, Sergio could still expect a $25,000 payday on a quarter-million-dollar painting. Even splitting it with his cousin made for a decent return in a country where most people earned a few thousand dollars a year.
But was it worth crossing a character like Gladding?
“Please, señora, I have a family.”
“You should have thought of that before, my friend.” Did he even know how his erstwhile boss earned his money, or the reach of the man’s tentacles? No way. Nobody could be that stupid.
She glanced around. A eucalyptus tree stood a little way off, its bark peeling and rough. She used her jacket sleeve to wipe h
er forehead. The day was excruciatingly hot and the back of her T-shirt was plastered to her skin.
“Lift your foot onto the hood of the car,” she told him. When he did, she pressed the muzzle of her gun into his neck, then used her free hand to work the laces out of his well-worn Puma sneakers. “Now the other one.” She took the lace out of that one, too, then used one hand and her teeth to knot the laces together. She gave him a shove toward the tree.
“No, please,” he said, as she had him lean against the tree and bring his wrists together around the back. “No one comes down this road. I will die if you leave me out here.”
“Yeah, like that wasn’t just what you had planned for me.”
She looped the laces around his wrists, then yanked tight. The slipknot she tied would take him at least an hour to work free, but it wasn’t impossible. As she lifted the car keys from his pants pocket, she remembered the bottle of water she’d carried off the plane. Retrieving it from her backpack, she brought it back to him and held it to his lips. After he’d taken couple of swigs, she set the bottle at his feet.
