The Sacrifice

by Peg Brantley

  As Juan walked away, Mex signaled with his hand to Darius. “Talk to me.”

  “Vicente Vega, Jr., known as VV to his friends, holds dual-citizenship between the United States and Mexico. He was actually born in San Antonio when his parents were on vacation. He’s single, and although he’s frequently seen with his father and his father’s friends, he also runs his own business.”

  “Let me guess. Import and export?”

  “Old school. VV buys and sells construction equipment.”

  Mex thought for a moment. “They’re laundering money.”

  “Yep. A cartel operative buys the equipment for cash. Someone else fronts as the seller and the equipment gets sold at auction.”

  “And if they lose a little on the deal, who cares? The cost of doing business. And because it’s clean money, they can send it right back to Mexico through the banking system.”

  “You could’ve been a crook.”

  Mex almost smiled. “It depends on who you talk to. Some people probably think that’s exactly what I am.”

  “Why did you need this

  information? Is he in danger too?”

  As much as Mex trusted Darius, telling him about Sedona’s abduction wasn’t going to help, and might even add to his sister’s danger.

  “VV is a player. He contacted me directly and made some threats. Told me not to say anything about our

  conversation to his father. Right now he just wants to make sure I’m on board to save his little sister. He must have thought I’d turn down the offer from his old man to find Dia.” Mex took a sip of his beer. “Apparently he wasn’t aware of the extra enticement of information regarding the murders of my family.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “He wasn’t interested. The kid has his own plan to be a hero and that’s all he cares about.”

  “Have you told Vega?”

  “Not worth the time.”

  “Do you think he’ll get in our way?”

  Mex considered. “Our primary focus has to be Dia. Not who might or might not be a problem.” Mex thought about Sedona and his heart hardened. “But we need to learn as much as possible about VV and his equipment business. His private life. His habits. His vulnerable spots. I don’t want to be surprised.” I don’t want Sedona harmed, he thought. Because if she is, I will kill the little bastard and show no mercy.

  “Could VV be behind Dia’s disappearance?” Darius asked.

  “I thought about that, but to what end?”

  “Rattle the old man?”

  “Why?”

  “So he could take control?”

  “Unlikely. First, VV is already being groomed, and pretty fast. Second, Vega wouldn’t hesitate to kill his own son if he even thought VV was making some kind of power play.”

  Darius nodded. “What do you need me to do first?”

  “Right now, it’s all about Dia. We need to interview all of the household members of the Vega family. Full-time and part-time staff. Also all of her friends, or as many as we can find.”

  “Are the staff Hispanic?”

  “Probably, but from what I can tell in the family videos, most of them are black.”

  “I should interview them. They might be more willing to talk to me. You take the friends.”

  “Your Spanish up to speed?”

  “No problema.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. We fly to Monterrey tomorrow.” Mex looked carefully at his friend. “Your wife good?”

  “She will be.”

  * * *

  Dia’s head bounced against the backseat window. At first she thought she was still dreaming, but gradually her memory returned. How long had they been driving? They’d spent the first night at someone’s home, sleeping on the floor. Then they’d gone to the pretty farm house with the trees and the river. It had been dark when they’d left that place and it was still dark.

  She was lucky to have such good friends who were willing to do anything to keep her safe from her father. They understood her. They got how terrible it had been to lose her mother and live under the iron rule of a man who didn’t love her. A man who would kill them if he knew they’d helped her leave. She’d heard enough to know her father had done bad things and worked with people her mother never would have allowed in their home.

  Her father must suspect Pilar. If anything happened to the nanny who had become her best friend, it would be all her fault. Dia squeezed the thought away.

  Pilar and Luis spoke quietly in the front of the car, and Hector gazed solemnly out his window on his side of the backseat. Pilar and Luis were speaking English, probably so Hector couldn’t understand them. She was proud of the English she’d learned, both at school and from watching American movies.

  No one noticed she’d awakened so she closed her eyes and tried to listen. She’d learned that often adults were more likely to tell the truth if they weren’t talking to someone they

  considered a child. Noise from the dirt road they were on made it hard, but she picked up a few words here and there. Enough to know that they’d be at their new destination for at least a few days and maybe longer. Someone was expected to join them. They kept saying the diviner, like it was a person’s name. The Diviner. And someone else they knew had prepared the place for them. Dia thought that was a funny thing to say. Prepared how? Probably just cleaned it up a bit and brought in some food. Pilar and Luis probably didn’t know another English word for what they meant. Who cares? They were going to be at one house for a while. She could hardly wait.

  Her head bounced again. Hard. She’d gone back to sleep even while she’d been trying to eavesdrop. The fuzzy kind of silence from the

  background noise filled her head when the car was finally stopped and the engine turned off. Car doors opened and closed.

  She felt a nudge on her shoulder from Hector.

  “Despiértese, estamos aquí— wake up, we’re here.” Hector opened his door, but looked over his shoulder to make sure she’d heard him and was moving.

  Dia’s awareness of her

  surroundings grew as she walked to the back of the car to take a bag from the trunk. Green. Everything was some shade of green. Or brown. Even the air looked green. It felt heavy and without a breeze of any kind, it sucked up close. It smelled like an old, unclean fish tank, with undertones of wet wood and old, rotting lettuce. She wrinkled up her nose and swatted at a mosquito that lit on her arm.

  Hector met her at the trunk. “Here. Take this one. The others are too heavy for you.”

  She hauled a duffle toward her. “I can handle my regular bag, Hector. You’ve seen me carry it before. What are you talking about?”

  Hector pointed. She glanced toward the house and gaped in surprise. Long poles held it high above the ground. Who would build a house that way? It was kind of like a giant tree house without the tree. A set of steep rickety-looking wooden steps climbed to a porch. It looked like those steps were the only way in. Without another word she exchanged loads with Hector.

  “Stay with me,” Hector said. “There are dangers here and you’re not familiar with them.”

  “Are you?”

  “Not really.”

  Pilar and Luis were already inside the house. Dia heard them laughing and calling out to one another in a language she’d never heard before. For the first time since Dia had known Luis, he no longer sounded like a grump.

  She stuck right behind Hector as he picked his own way toward the structure. He seemed to be as much in awe of their surrounding as she was. The ground stretched flat with odd-looking slime toward equally odd-looking trees with seaweed hanging from their

  branches. Birds called from the distance. They sounded wild. More wild than any birds she’d ever heard back home in Monterrey.

  Dia saw something and stopped in her tracks. The slimy covering on the ground was moving. Dios!

  “Hector!”

  Hector turned around and looked surprised not to see her at his heels. Then he saw the shifti
ng water. The angle was away from them, toward the back of the house.

  “Hector!”

  A wide arc of movement indicated a change in direction for the monster beneath the smelly water. It was now coming right at them.

  “Hec—”

  “Hush, Dia. Silencio. Hurry now, in front of me. Quick. Get up those steps.”

  Dia couldn’t move. She wanted to run but her legs—her feet—held her firm to the spot where she stood.

  Hector dropped the two duffels he carried and ran back to her, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of feed. Dia was aware of his sweaty smell and the way his shoulder dug into her stomach. She lifted her head and

  watched the water part, faster now as the monster closed in on the path. A sharp jolt caused her to grab Hector’s shirt. He’d hit the stairs and begun to climb them quickly. Before they reached the top, Dia watched the alligator emerge from the murk, break the water in one swift move and grab one of the duffels before disappearing deep under the surface. The slime settled quickly, as if nothing had ever happened. But Dia had seen the jaws open, teeth like sharpened cones.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The plane touched down at Monterrey’s General Mariano Escobedo International Airport only about five minutes behind schedule. Mex and Darius had taken a puddle-jumper out of Aspen to Denver International early that morning, then transferred to a major carrier to

  Monterrey. Mex hated airports. It didn’t matter how much they tried to cater to travelers, he found them sterile and completely lacking in imagination. Even their VIP lounges could use some improvement. The rest? Like herding cattle.

  He thought about Sedona—what she must be going through. He would have helped find this young girl

  regardless of who her father was. There was no need for VV to bring his sister into this. To put her life at risk. He would deal with VV when this was over. He would make sure nothing like this would ever happen to Sedona again. Vicente Vega, Jr. didn’t know who he was messing with.

  Mex and Darius grabbed their carry-ons and made their way through customs without incident. Mex had made arrangements earlier through an old and trusted friend to pick up a couple of weapons. His contact was meeting them at the Safi in a couple of hours.

  The Safi Royal Luxury Towers were thirty minutes from the airport, in the heart of the city. The security was superb. The hotel had a strict “no visitation” policy. No one other than registered guests were allowed into the rooms. If you wanted to see someone, you arranged to meet them in the lobby bar or restaurant. Perfect for Mex’s needs, but he still wouldn’t put it past someone to circumvent the stringent safeguards.

  As they walked into the reception area, Mex saw a man in a chauffeur uniform carrying a sign that said “MEX ANDERSON” in huge block letters. Vega had apparently sent his driver. On one hand it could prove convenient, on the other it could prove intrusive or even worse. Deadly.

  Mex considered his options. He could approach the driver and risk that Vega had his own agenda, or completely ignore him and plead ignorance if the question came up. But maybe the driver had some insight he could use to find Dia. After all, she was the mission.

  Darius had clearly seen the sign but waited for Mex to make a move. Satisfied that his journalist friend was more than just a pretty face, Mex

  decided to get a feel for this employee of Vicente Vega. He waited until they made eye contact, the uniformed man clearly recognizing him, then angled his walk to meet the driver. Darius followed.

  “Hello. I’m Mex Anderson,” Mex said in English.

  The man nodded, but his eyes squinted in the direction of Darius, obviously an unexpected surprise. A second man when there should have been one—and a black man at that. Mex knew what the driver must be thinking. Anything out of the norm was a threat— to both him and his employer.

  “This is Darius Johnson. He’s working with me.”

  Darius gave a little nod, but remained silent.

  “Un momento.” The chauffeur pulled away a few steps and pulled out a cell phone. No doubt to call Vega.

  Mex looked around. Most of the passengers from his flight had gone to baggage claim, the others had either been reunited with their families or hooked up with other limousine

  services. The area around them was almost deserted.

  Except for two men. One on either side of the reception area. Two men who were not there to meet passengers and who quickly tried to focus their attention elsewhere in the terminal when Mex looked in their direction.

  Mex turned his back to the driver and got Darius’s attention. A quick flick of his index finger, side-to-side, and he knew his friend had also picked up on the surveillance. This wasn’t good. Especially since Vegas’ man didn’t seem to think anything was out of place.

  A motion to Darius to follow, and both men made a quick exit out of the airport.

  “I’ll call my weapons contact and arrange to meet him somewhere else. In the meantime, you go to the hotel. I’ll meet up with you there. It’s best we travel separately, at least for now.”

  “What about Vega? Won’t he wonder why we didn’t ride with his driver?”

  “I didn’t like the way his driver looked. If Vega is offended, he can go screw himself. He needs to know that I’m running this operation, not him.”

  * * A masked state police officer, standing in the middle of the road, signaled Mex’s cab driver to pull over.

  Monterrey, the wealthiest city in Mexico, had once been considered among the safest. Now roadblocks and checkpoints were a part of daily life. The drug lords who once kept their families safe in Monterrey had instead made the entire city a target. More than eight hundred people had been killed in the state of Nuevo Leon in the first six months of the year. Not a huge step up from the previous year, but a definite upward trend. Law enforcement was doing their best to stay on top.

  The driver complied and rolled down his window. “Buenos tardes.”

  The driver was probably innocent of any wrongdoing, but Mex watched as he began to cough nervously anyway.

  Shit. This guy was gonna delay him even more. Mex resisted the impulse to lean forward and dive into the conversation.

  The police officer, dressed all in black, from combat boots to hooded ski mask, stuck his head in the window and stared hard at Mex. “Who is this?”

  The cab driver shrugged. “Just a fare.”

  “Where are you taking him?” “Starbucks.”

  The officer circled the vehicle. Mex was acutely aware of the long automatic assault rifle that dangled casually at the officer’s side. He looked like he was about to ask more questions when his radio crackled to life. A moment later, he extended his arm. “Go.”

  Monterrey was far from the modern, wealthy enclave he’d

  experienced when he’d visited here in the past. There was a bite to the air. A certain current of electricity that held power over the residents. Any sign of a potential threat and people withdrew. Some behind front doors that barely kept out the cold winter air, and others behind eight-foot tall brick walls topped with razor-wire and including armed guards and trained dogs protecting their property. The city had exchanged its veil of affluence for one of fear—or worse, resignation—the idea that this was just the way things were. Get used to them or get a new life somewhere else.

  The cab ride took Mex past ghost structures. There was the boarded up hotel where more than fifty people had been murdered, makeshift memorials still beckoning with their piles of wilted and dead flowers from family members who had nowhere else to grieve. The Casino Royale was the death site of fifty-two people who had been killed after suspected drug traffickers had torched it several years ago. But it remained standing, another ghost to haunt the city and a monument to greed. For some, a monument to loss.

  As the cab drove through various neighborhoods, Mex could hear some of the new music, a fusion of old and new, defiant and hopeful. The electronic beats melding with Columbian cumbia to form tribal guarachero resulted in it
s own element of urgency. Some compared it to reggaeton. Mex reflected that as long as music served as an expression of the people, Mexico would not be lost. At least he hoped.

  Mex went through one more checkpoint before they reached the Starbucks where he’d meet his contact. He and Darius had been on the ground less than two hours and already their mission had run into complications. Mex hoped the early glitches with the

  chauffeur and the checkpoints weren’t a sign that they’d be unable to accomplish what they’d come to do.

  As the cabdriver pulled up to the curb, Mex searched for anything out of place. Two women were walking into the coffee shop, a man holding the door for them as he exited. No one was sitting in a car in the parking lot, but he needed to be sure.

  “I want to sit here for a minute, if you don’t mind.” Mex spoke in rapid Spanish.

  “It’s your dime.” Somehow that phrase was the same the world over.

  Mex watched the street traffic for a car passing more than once. After about five minutes, he was satisfied and handed the driver some cash. “Keep the change.”

  “You want me to wait?”

  “No thanks.” The fewer people who could track him here and then to his hotel, the better. He could even walk from here if he chose.

  He took his duffle and slung it over his back. Mex had already spotted a familiar old car in the parking lot. Where the vehicle wasn't corroded and rusty, dull red paint—almost a sepia tone, like dried blood—struggled to hold on to whatever primer might still be there. Mex smiled. The car had looked the same for the last fifteen years. Underneath the hood was where the real muscle slept. This dilapidated looking, deathtrap-looking vehicle could

  probably outrun anything on any track in America today. Among certain groups of people, it had its own reputation for speed, control, and endurance. The antitheft mechanisms the owner had installed kept anyone curious about the car from getting too close.

  Mex swung the door open and watched the now breast-less Starbucks mermaid smile at all her customers. He wondered what she had to smile about. Mex savored the smell of rich coffee and moist air.