Ready to Kill (12 page)

“Sounds good,” Estefan said. “I’ll get the highlighters from my office. I’ll also grab a stapler for any letters with more than one sheet.”

After Estefan left the room, Nathan shook his head. “He wasn’t kidding about these letters.”

“Looks like there’s several hundred, and some of the envelopes look kinda thick. This might take a while.”

“Hopefully, we can knock it out in a couple of hours. Not all of them will have what I’d consider tactical info. Most of them will probably have a mix of personal and tactical; we’ll just have to sort through them.”

“I’ll start opening the sealed envelopes.”

It took about fifteen minutes to get the letters in chronological order. They ended up with three stacks, each stack spanning a one-year period. Everyone grabbed a pile and began reading.

“Let’s look for common elements,” said Nathan. “If you see a name or place, like Macanas or general store, write it down on your pad. Every time you see the same name or place again, put a check mark next to it with the letter’s date in parenthesis. With a little luck, we’ll find people and places that are mentioned with some frequency. There’s got to be someone in these letters we can talk to. It’s reasonable to assume your father had the confidence of someone who fed him information on Macanas. Either that, or he overheard stuff. People love to talk.”

“I remember reading some pretty detailed letters. I can’t remember any specifics, but there were definitely names mentioned.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Nathan said. “After we’ve got them color coded, we’ll use our notepads to make lists of names and places. Each of us can take a stack.”

An hour later, a pattern emerged. Most of the letters expressed Tobias’s concern for the safety of the mill workers and miners. Several key people and places were mentioned over and over. The two people mentioned most often were the general store’s owner, Mrs. Perez, and the work bus driver, a man named Mateo. The three most referenced locations were the church, the general store, and the lumber mill. The open-pit mines north of town were chronicled with some frequency as well. About a third of the letters made some kind of reference to Macanas’s bootleg operations and the periodic helicopter visits. Everyone in Santavilla seemed to know that gold was being flown out of there on a regular basis.

Mateo appeared to be a semiprominent figure in town. Although Tobias hadn’t actually said so, it was clear he thought Mateo knew a fair amount about Macanas’s gold-mining operation. If Mateo would be willing to talk to Estefan, they might get somewhere.

“Did you guys see a telephone number for Mateo anywhere?”

Neither of them had, but Estefan had seen Mrs. Perez’s home number written on the back of one of the letters. He’d written it down in his notes.

“Apparently, Mrs. Perez and Pastor Tobias were close friends,” Estefan said.

Nathan thought he heard a little resentment. He wanted to question how close but decided discretion was the right play. Besides, it didn’t matter. “Let’s give her a call,” Nathan said. “She’s probably got Mateo’s number. Think she’ll talk to you, Estefan?”

“Based on everything I read, I’m pretty sure she will.”

Estefan put his phone on speaker and made the call. Mrs. Perez answered, and a minute later they had a phone number to Mateo’s house. During the call, Mrs. Perez’s biggest concern was over secrecy. Estefan assured her they were both in the same boat and that their conversation would never be repeated to anyone. Mrs. Perez also told them Mateo should be home, but it would be better to call him earlier than later. It seemed Mateo suffered from severe alcohol impairment after 7:00
PM
. When Estefan called Mateo’s house, a young woman answered. A few seconds later Mateo was on the line. They heard him issue a muffled command, presumably to the same young woman to go outside and give him some privacy. It took some convincing, but Mateo agreed to meet Estefan late tonight, especially after Estefan referenced some monetary compensation. No surprise there.

Nathan had no doubt the young woman who answered the phone was Antonia, Mateo’s daughter. She was frequently mentioned in Tobias’s letters. Tobias hadn’t said anything too specific about her, except that she seemed to be somewhat reserved. One of the letters from last year mentioned Mateo’s concern about some creepy looks Antonia had received from one of Macanas’s white shirts.

One thing became clear from Tobias’s letters: Estefan was right about Macanas controlling the town. It had little to no police presence, and even when an NNP officer cruised through town, no one spoke to him. It seemed like Macanas and his men maintained an iron-fisted reign over Santavilla.

It surprised Nathan to read that for the most part, the residents of Santavilla seemed somewhat content. Tobias often wrote about their indifference or lack of ambition. It seemed they’d given up and resigned themselves to a life of poverty. Antonia, however, was one of the few exceptions. She’d argued with her father extensively about wanting to leave Santavilla. But where could she go? Without money, her options were limited. Many of Tobias’s letters mentioned her resentment about the situation. She seemed unwilling to accept the idea of living the rest of her life in a crappy little town full of losers and drunks. Quite honestly, Nathan didn’t blame her. Life in Santavilla lacked any kind of excitement or change. It had to be tough, feeling like things were hopeless with no way out.

It seemed many families were being torn apart by substance abuse, and it wasn’t always the men who were the problem. Some of the women in Santavilla could drink and smoke their men under the tables. Since Mrs. Perez and her husband owned the general store, most of the letters containing her name also referenced their store. Many of them mentioned how devoted Mrs. Perez was to Pastor Tobias’s church. She was one of its biggest donors.

After they had a fairly clear picture of the key players and locations, they turned their attention to the aerial photos. Over the last five years, Estefan said he’d been to Santavilla fewer than ten times but had a pretty good idea where the major buildings were. He’d always stayed in the local motel rather than his father’s hut. Nathan didn’t think it was a statement of Estefan’s social status; he simply preferred having running water and a functioning toilet.

Estefan grabbed the cardboard tube containing the aerials, pulled them free, and laid them on the dining room table. There were three, each map was about one meter square. All of them were centered on the small church. The 1:500-scale sheet offered the best detail, but it didn’t include the lumber mill to the north or the wooden bridge to the south.

“Estefan, I’m a little rusty on this stuff. What distance does one inch cover on this 1:500 aerial?”

Estefan closed his eyes, concentrating. “Let’s see . . .”

“Your phone should have a calculator,” Harv told Nate. “We need to be as precise as possible. Since these maps use the metric system, we’ll make some conversions. A meter isn’t much longer than a yard.”

Nathan pulled it from his pocket. “Give me the numbers, Estefan.”

“Okay, like Harv said, one meter is 39.3 inches. So divide five hundred by that number.”

“Got it. It’s 12.72. So every inch equals 12.72 meters. One meter is 1.1 yards, so each inch equals
. . .
13.9 yards.” Nathan crunched a few more numbers. “Okay, so on the 1:500 scale aerial, one inch equals forty-two feet. The 1:2000 aerial is going to be four times that. Each inch becomes 168 feet or so, or just over
. . .
fifty-six yards. Let’s be conservative and say it will take seven seconds to run one inch on this aerial. That means it will take one minute to sprint from the church due east to the river. The lumber mill is just over a one-minute dash. Let’s calculate and memorize some additional numbers using the church as the anchor point.”

They spent a few minutes marking the aerial with an orange highlighter and wrote the sprint times in black marker next to the colored lines. They allowed for changes in direction and unforeseen obstacles like fences and walls by padding the numbers slightly.

“As you can see, the topographic lines are only on the 1:10000 aerial. These are Macanas’s open-pit mines.” Estefan pointed to the top edge of the map. “As the crow flies, they’re about one mile from the church and about half a mile from the lumber mill. I should be able to identify some of the prominent buildings in town.” He moved his finger along the main road bisecting the town on the 1:2000 aerial. “Pretty much everything’s along this road.”

“That’s definitely the church,” Nathan said. “You can see the shadow of its steeple on the roof below. Let’s study the basic layout of the town, so when we get there we can minimize our radio chatter.”

Nathan was a quick study. Based on Estefan’s input, he had a pretty good idea of the town’s layout within a few minutes. The valley containing Santavilla was mostly flat. Although much larger in scale, the basin below the surrounding mountains was roughly the same shape as a football stadium field—a giant oval. The river followed the east side of the valley along the base of a sickle-shaped mountain. Everything had a gentle slope toward the river. Santavilla basically sat atop a thick alluvial buildup—higher on the west, lower on the east. Small farms and ranches surrounded the buildings near the center of town. Houses were interspersed across the valley like randomly thrown pebbles. It looked like a thousand other small towns nestled in mountainous valleys. The topo map indicated the town’s elevation was two thousand feet. The open-pit mines were about five hundred feet higher, and the wooden bridge to the south was two hundred feet lower. As Estefan had indicated, the town was bisected by a thirty-foot-wide dirt road running north and south. Beyond the town to the north, the valley pinched down to a narrow gorge where the road wove its way up the canyon to the open-pit mines.

“Okay,” Nathan said. “Let’s make sure we’ve got this right. On the right side of the road, the prominent buildings are the church, some larger homes, Mateo’s place, a vacant lot, the general store, and then the motel. On the left, we’ve got the Laundromat, the post office, the tavern, an abandoned building, and a small gas station. The northeast quadrant of town is where the ore-processing plant and lumber mill are located. Farms and ranches surround the outskirts all the way out to the river. It may only be a stream by most standards, but let’s call it the river. At the river’s south end, about two hundred yards from the wooden bridge, it looks like there’s a sizable pond created by a dam that doubles as a crossing. It looks kinda marshy in these photos near the water’s edge, so let’s be sure we check that out before getting bogged down in the mud. Although the church isn’t the commercial center of town, it’s the geographic center, so let’s call it our zero and vector all other buildings from there. Everyone aboard with my assessment?”

Nathan received nods.

“Estefan, anything you want to add?”

Their friend pointed to a curved line heading away from the river to the ore-processing plant. On the other side of the plant, it curved back to the river, but it looked wider on the south side. “That’s the supply canal to the sluice boxes in the ore-processing plant. Freshwater enters the plant; silted water leaves. The exit canal has to be constantly dredged to keep the flow going.”

“Can we get across the canal?” Harv asked.

“Yes, but I don’t advise going across the exit side—it’s muddy and soft from the constant supply of silt runoff. Lots of miners pan for residual gold along the exit side because the sluice boxes don’t catch all of it. Some slips through.”

“When we enter the valley, drop us here.” Nathan pointed to a spot below the wooden bridge. “Harv and I will head up this mountain to the east and find a place that overlooks the town. The trees look thick down by the water, but the north-facing slope higher up looks less dense. We’ll find a good spot to hunker down and watch your back. We’ll be in constant radio communication with each other. We’ll wire you for stealth—”

Estefan’s cell rang. “It’s my wife. I asked her to call around six thirty. I should take this. I’ll be right back. Two minutes.” With his phone still ringing, Estefan left the dining room.

“What do you think?” Harv asked.

“If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, I’m not real thrilled about this op.”

“Me either.” They remained silent for a long moment. “Look,” Harv said, “I know you don’t want to interrogate anyone, but we need a lot more information than we found in the letters. If greasing some palms doesn’t work, we should consider
. . .
alternatives.”

Nathan didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. Harv was right. There was more at stake than either of them wanted to admit. Even though no national security issue existed, it didn’t diminish the fact that Raven was a product of their training. They created him, and they now needed to destroy him. He was their responsibility. Why else would Cantrell have sent them down here? As Nathan had noted in the armored SUV after they’d landed at Dulles, Cantrell had Central American assets available to her. Younger and better trained—

“What are you thinking about?”

“Huh?”

“You were gone,” Harv said.

“I felt a brief lapse of faith. It was unsettling.”

“Cantrell?”

Nathan nodded. “I dismissed the thought. She’s not withholding anything we need to know. I’m certain of it.”

“I admire your resolve, even though I don’t share it. Don’t get me wrong, she’d never betray us, but she’ll never be completely honest either. She can’t—her job description doesn’t allow it.”

“On that, Harv, we agree.”

Estefan reentered the dining room and apologized for the interruption. He said his wife was coming home around 7:30
PM
, which gave them another half hour to study the aerials.

Before leaving, they grabbed a few more things that might come in handy. Estefan’s camera and telephoto lens topped the list. They wouldn’t be taking any photos until daybreak tomorrow, but it couldn’t hurt to bring it along. They split up the grenades Sergeant Lyle had given them and secured everything in their packs. To make room for all the tactical stuff, they removed their civilian clothes and put them in one of two spare backpacks that Estefan had. They loaded the other spare pack with canned food, fruit, and bottled water. Finally, Estefan added a few more camping items, including a charcoal water-filter kit and a small folding shovel.