The Jaguar (5 page)

Again that look from Bradley. “They can’t help officially. You have to know that, Charlie. All they can do is get her killed. The more noise we make the faster she’ll die.”

“They’re some of the best law-enforcement people in the world.”

“Gringo law enforcement means nothing in Mexico. The government doesn’t want us, and the cartels hate us. We’re ants. You should know that better than anyone, after what happened to you with the Zetas.”

That last word sent a breeze of nerves across Hood’s scalp. The Zetas were military defectors, special forces men who had thrown in with the cartels and then become their own cartel. Hood had seen their violence, their beheadings, and their torture in Mexico and in the United States. “Calderón’s government helped us get Jimmy back.”

“Yeah, after he was tortured and broken. Jimmy was federal. Erin’s a singer. How much help are they going to give her, Charlie?”

“So you’re going to run that million dollars to the Jai Alai Palace in Tijuana tomorrow afternoon at three, and wait for a call from a guy named Gonzalvo?”

“Those are the orders.”

“Then what?”

Bradley looked over at Hood. “When I show the money I get to hear her on the phone. Proof of life. Then I wait for the next order.”

“When do you deliver the cash?”

“Ten days. I told you.”

“After they run you all over Mexico.”

“Probably.”

“I hate your chances,” said Hood. “But you don’t seem to. Why?”

“I have a plan.”

“Explain it.”

“I’ve been working narcotics for almost a year now, right? Jack Cleary is my boss and he’s smart and tough and he’s taught me a lot. We’ve got friends in Mexico. Counterparts. They’re smart and tough too. They’ll help, but not through official channels. And I’m going to use my ten days and these guys to find her because you know what?
There’s a good chance that the minute Armenta gets the money he’ll kill her anyway.”

Hood knew that this was more than possible. It was happening more and more in the narco kidnappings—murder left less witnesses and ignited even more terror in the living, more submission and compliance.

“How are you going to find her while you lug forty pounds of cash from California to God knows where?”

Bradley looked at Hood and offered a small smile. “I love your optimism, Charlie. I love your can-do attitude.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Bradley marched out and a car door opened then slammed and a moment later he was back, pulling a piece of wheeled luggage across the pavers behind him. Daisy’s head was up and she was watching. Bradley stopped in front of Hood and pushed down the handle and flipped the luggage over at Hood’s feet. He squatted and unzipped the flap and threw it back.

“The answer is teamwork,” said Bradley. “You and me. You deliver this while my friends and I are coming in the back door. If I can find the back door, that is. When Heriberto’s men contacted me late this morning, I told them I have the money but I don’t have the stomach for delivering it. This produced great laughter and witty insults. I am now a fag without balls with a kidnapped wife who desires real men. And many other things almost as bad. But I can dispatch a brave friend to deliver. Because money is money, after all. So, what do you say, Charlie? What do you say?”

Hood thought. He knew Bradley was brash, fearless, and lucky. Knew that he was strong and bright and tainted. Hood suspected him of murder and lesser crimes but could prove none of them. Bradley’s highest allegiance seemed to be to himself. He studied the young man’s face. In it he saw Bradley’s mother, Suzanne. He and Bradley
had been trading blame and suspicion for the three years since her death, and now Hood wondered if he should just forgive and help him through the harrowing future.

“Why me?”

“Because you love my wife. In a chaste and honorable, Charles Hood kind of way. I know you wouldn’t do it for me. But I think you’ll do it for her. Will you?”

Hood looked down at the suitcase. Daisy sat beside it looking at him. He pictured himself waiting for a call in the parking lot of the Jai Alai Palace in Tijuana, three
P.M.
the next day. He thought of Gustavo Armenta, Benjamin’s innocent, college-bound son, killed by an errant ATF bullet during an undercover buy that went bad. He thought of Armenta’s vengeance upon ATF agent Jimmy Holdstock, of his own bloody journey across the border to Mulege, of the carnage enacted by the Zetas, of Sergeant Raydel Luna, his counterpart, slaughtered by his own countryman to prove that honesty and bravery and integrity were weaknesses in their world. And of course he thought of Erin.

“There’s fifty grand extra in there,” said Bradley. “Yours for trying. And another fifty for expenses. Fifty more waiting here if we actually get her back alive.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“Donate it to Save the Dinosaurs or something. Her passport is in there, too. I’m bullish. It’s all I can afford to be.”

“This is all wrong, Bradley. How did Benjamin Armenta know where you live? And that you and Erin would be home? How did he know about the hidden room? How did he know to pick a night when the dogs were kenneled and you didn’t have guests? How did he know that your gate was wired for security but the fence wasn’t? How did he know the security code for your house? Or that you had a million in cash just kind of handy? Why did he take such huge risks and lose two men for a million dollars? He makes that in an average
week. So why the pyrotechnics? What did you do to him to deserve all the special attention?”

Bradley gazed down at the money and toed the suitcase with his boot. “Maybe we’ll find out. But I’m not going to beg. If you don’t want to help, don’t.”

“Where were your homies last night—Stone the car thief and Clayton the forger?”

Bradley looked at him sharply. “Stone is a car
salesman,
Hood. There is a small difference. And Clayton is an artist. You know that.”

Hood stared at him.

“Anyway, Erin encouraged them to find other lodging after we got married.” Bradley walked to a window and looked out at an orange sunset. When he turned back Hood could see his silhouette framed in the falling light. “Hood, if I don’t make it back but Erin does, I want you to take care of her. She’ll be a mother by February and she’ll need help. Take good care of her and of my boy. The ultrasound showed him healthy. There’s plenty of money in the bank. She’s the most wonderful person you will ever know.”

“You can’t pass her like a football.”

“But I couldn’t protect her, either, could I? It was my number-one thing to do in this life and I didn’t. I’ll do anything to get her back. I’ll die down there to make it happen.”

“You know I’m in.”

Bradley pulled a cell phone from his belt and tossed it to Hood. Daisy watched its flight. “Their phone. Pre-paid Mexico minutes, non-traceable by Mexican law enforcement. Just answer it when good old Gonzalvo calls and do what he says.”

Hood pictured himself alone in Mexico with a million dollars and maybe a handgun, lined up against the Gulf Cartel. He felt the dread leaking into his brainpan like rainwater through an old roof.

“And here’s a phone just for you and me.” Bradley unclipped the
satellite phone and handed it to Hood. “Best satellite job money can buy. I’ve signed us up for unlimited Mexico calling for the next two weeks. My number’s already programmed in. They promised reception in all thirty-one Mexican states, plus the federal district.”

Hood considered the two phones, the million in cash at his feet, and bright, lovely Erin McKenna in the hands of killers. “We’ll make it work.”

“It has to work. By the way, I thought the name Charlie Hood might get Armenta buzzing after what ATF did to his son last year. So I told them your name was Charlie Bravo. Charlie the Brave. That okay?”

“It feels like an unfair advantage.”

Hood watched Bradley’s smile go from wicked to haunted. “Deliver her, Charlie. And if I don’t come back, well, you three figure it out.”

They stood outside on the stone porch while the bugs slapped against the light and the mantids walked their elongated shadows on the adobe.

“Any luck with Mike Finnegan, Charlie?”

“No luck with him.”

“He’ll turn up. He always seems to. Crafty little guy.”

“Tell me if you see him.”

“You bet. That’s a promise, Charlie.”

Bradley walked down the gravel path toward his Cayenne, then stopped and turned. “Thanks for doing this, man. I knew you would. I’ll pray to God in heaven for you. And to anyone else who might help.”

L
ATER
H
OOD
TOOK HALF OF
the extra fifty grand and distributed the cash among his wallet, his shave kit and his Expedition.

Out on his patio in the dark he felt the temperature finally drop. He called Frank Soriana, his managing ATF superior in San Diego, and cleared the next eleven days for personal time. He also talked Soriana into issuing him a diplomatic pouch to carry his gun into Mexico.

“Personal, huh?” asked Soriana. “Sounds like you should be on ATF time.”

Hood laughed quietly. He pictured Erin in the hands of cutthroats. He wondered if the million dollars was all Armenta really wanted from Bradley Jones. “See you tomorrow early, sir.”

Next Hood called his mother in Bakersfield. She was a talker. The Buick was making a funny sound and the strawberries at the market were plenty big but almost tasteless. His father was doing okay in assisted living but he had tackled an orderly that morning. He was an Alzheimer’s sufferer and his mind was nearly gone but his body was fit and strong. His mother was trying to forget the man he was now, but to remember the man he used to be, trying to steel her heart, but Hood knew that this was breaking it instead. He invented a story about going back to D.C. for ATF meetings.

“Then I’ll see you in a week?” she asked.

“A little over.”

“Less than two, though?”

“Less than two, Mom.”

He called Beth and left a message on her home phone. He rarely called her at work because she was a night-shift emergency-room doctor at Imperial Mercy in Buenavista and she was almost always busy. In the last year Hood had been working more and more assignments for the ATF Blowdown task force so it wasn’t unusual for him to be out of touch. He told her he would call just as soon as he could. Although Beth had never said so, Hood knew that absences like this were taking their toll on them. She wanted more closeness not more distance, but he could only give her what he had. Thus he felt bad. The cool fog of disappointment had begun to settle down upon them. And Hood had started wondering if he worked long and sometimes dangerous hours so he could remain a distance from the demands of love and family and friends.

He told Beth’s answering machine that he’d be gone ten days and asked her to come get Daisy if she could. He promised her he would call and write. As he rang off he pictured her face and his breath caught achingly and he doubted that he knew even one thing about love. He set a box of stationery and an elegant pen she had given him in his duffel, beside his gun and holster and three plastic wrist restraints, and the CD slipcase for the most recent release from Erin and the Inmates.

When he was done packing he sat on a bench in his home office—a picnic table in his dining room. He checked his website, Facebook page and Twitter, hoping for a tip that might lead him to a man he had been trying hard to find for the last year. The man had introduced
himself as Mike Finnegan, a bathroom-products wholesaler based in L.A. But as Hood came to learn, Mike had also gone by other names and claimed other occupations. It was very possible that he was insane, as someone close to him had said. And it was likely that he had done some very bad things to some good people—good friends of his, in fact. Then Mike had vanished.

Because of his dual citizenship with the Los Angeles sheriffs and the ATF, Hood had many contacts in law enforcement. Once a week he would blast:

But no e-mails back today. And no messages on the website. There were several useless postings to his Facebook page, where he trolled the general public, and some more irrelevant tweets.

A year ago, his opening inquisitions had led to some promising “tips” about Mike. But these had trailed off quickly and Hood had been forced to face a numbing truth: not one of his hundreds of contacts had anything at all on the Mike Finnegan he had met in L.A. He was in no database. Not the IRS, not the DMV, not the Social Security System. No one in law enforcement, intelligence or security had anything
. No fingerprints, no dental records, no DNA. And apparently, the world outside of law enforcement knew even less about him.

Hood sat straight-backed on the hard picnic bench and looked at his wall, where he had tacked copies of the eight photographs he had of Finnegan. Three were extracted from security video, and showed a small, thick, middle-aged man and an attractive younger woman. Possibly his daughter, as Hood knew, but likely not. The video was taken a little over two years ago as they were leaving Imperial Mercy Hospital in Buenavista. Finnegan had been critically injured in a car accident just weeks prior and had checked himself out of the hospital against doctor’s orders. His “daughter,” Owens, had picked him up. In the three pictures Mike looked pale and relaxed and maybe a little tired after having half the bones in his body broken, his skull cracked in two places, life-threatening internal damage, and being in a full body cast for almost three weeks.

Hood studied the other pictures, one at a time, still hoping to dredge out some helpful detail he had missed, or achieve some insight that only repetition could spark. One was taken by a German bird-watcher in an eco-resort on the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica, where Mike was billing himself as Joe Leftwich, an Irish priest. And Arenal, Hood had learned, was where Leftwich had commenced the almost unimaginably cruel destruction of two of Hood’s closest friends.