“Where the fuck you been?” Corrales asked, marching up to the man, whose gaze widened.
“I was at home, then I came here.”
“You don’t know how to answer your cell phone?”
“My battery died. I was recharging it in the car. Did you try to call me?”
“Uh, yeah. They told me you come in at eight a.m. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
Corrales smacked the man hard across the face. Romero recoiled and raised a palm to his cheek.
“Do you know why I did that, old man? Do you? Because you are a digger! You are not a fucking banker! You get here when the sun comes up, and you leave when the sun goes down. Do you fucking understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to save your daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to collect your money?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you get here when I say! Now, tell me right here, right now, that we have broken through to the other side and will be ready to begin shipping tonight.”
“I need a few more days.”
“What? ‘A few more days’? What the fuck is that?”
“I will show you how far we are, but we’ve had some trouble. As I told you in the beginning, the water table is very shallow here, and we’ve had to pump water out of the tunnel quite a few times already. It is a complicated operation.”
“Maybe if you got to work earlier, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Señor Corrales, I want to assure you that my being here one hour earlier would not make a huge difference. It takes all night to pump out the water, and we cannot dig while that’s happening.”
“Don’t challenge me, old man. You better make me a believer. Let’s go.”
“All right, but you must know that these men are working as hard as they can. I have two shifts, as you ordered, but I cannot remain here around the clock. I have my family to take care of, and my wife needs help.”
“Then you’d better find her some help, because I want this tunnel opened up and ready to go by tonight.”
“Tonight? There is too much dirt and rock left to remove. It is physically impossible.”
“No, it’s not. You’re going to make it happen. Trust me.”
Corrales’s smartphone rang. Fernando Castillo was calling. “Hello?”
“Dante, the boss has another job for you. We need you back right away.”
Miguel Rojas and Sonia Batista sat in two of the three backseats of a twin-engine corporate helicopter whose cabin boasted utility seating for up to seven passengers in addition to the pilot and copilot. The helicopter was one of several Jorge used for short business trips, and while it was merely a corporate transport and not armed like a military craft, his pilots always carried pistols. As with all of Jorge’s other means of transport, no expense had been spared in regard to accents and trim: rich Italian leather and exotic hardwoods, along with small flat screens and headphones to watch corporate presentations and/or movies. Miguel and Sonia had forgone the idea of watching a film in favor of taking in the views. They had donned their headsets and microphones so they could hear and speak to each other over the drone of the aircraft’s powerful Rolls-Royce engines.
In front of them were the dour-faced bodyguards/chaperones they’d been forced to drag along: Corrales, Raúl, and Pablo. Well, it could be worse, Miguel thought. Jorge had said he was sending a team of twelve men to travel with them, and some members of that team would arrive ahead of them. They would rent four SUVs to move in a caravan everywhere they went. Miguel had pleaded against this. He wanted a nice, intimate vacation with Sonia — not a security spectacle/parade everywhere he went. Besides, per his father’s insistence, he’d kept a low profile for most of his life, and the average citizen in Mexico could not identify him the way they could identify Jorge. There was no reason to believe they needed such a big team, which would, in fact, call a lot of attention to themselves and perhaps even invite criminal activity as local citizens pointed their fingers and said, “There he goes, the rich guy with all his bodyguards.” Jorge had finally agreed to send along three men, and Miguel thanked his father profusely for reaching a compromise. What Miguel hadn’t counted on was Corrales’s attitude. Miguel had made it quite clear to the man — the most arrogant of the bunch — that he needed to keep his distance and stop ogling Sonia. Even Corrales’s simple “Yes, señor” sounded sarcastic. Miguel was certain that the man hated the fact that he’d worked for nothing, been handed everything on a silver platter — while Corrales had probably been a street punk who’d been lucky enough to get a job working for Jorge Rojas.
“How long will it take to get there?” Sonia asked, staring out the window.
“About three hours or so,” Miguel answered. “But we have to make one stop to refuel. Have you ever been on a helicopter before?”
“A few times with my father. There was this famous cyclist — I can’t even remember his name, because I was only ten or eleven at the time — but he’s like a living legend and had his own helicopter. He took us on a vacation.”
“I’ll tell you something funny. There’s a big nut on top of the rotor, and you know what the pilot calls it?”
She shook her head.
“He calls it the Jesus nut, because if that nut falls off, then you better start praying to Jesus …”
“Gee, that makes me feel better,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Are you scared?”
She shook her head, her hair gleaming in the light filtering in through the window.
“It’s worth the flight, trust me,” he told her. “And we’ll be getting there during a special carnival they put on for tourists. You’re going to love this place.”
She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “I know I will.”
It was pretty damned obvious that Moore, aka Scott Howard, couldn’t return to the hotel owned by Dante Corrales, as he’d have some explaining to do about why the men following him had been killed. He’d smiled inwardly over actually going there anyway, walking nonchalantly past Ignacio, who might ask, “How was your day, señor?”
“It was great. I got kidnapped by this sicario from the Sinaloa Cartel, but thank God Corrales’s two boys were following us, because they killed my kidnapper, but then they got killed by more guys, so maybe it wasn’t so great — because I was really hoping to be kidnapped by the Sinaloas. Long story short, it all worked out. Have I received any calls or packages? And also, I’d like the maid to leave me some extra towels.”
Instead Moore chose the safer and far less audacious route of finding another hotel, but why scour the streets for a nice one when Johnny Sanchez had found himself a little slice of heaven right near the U.S. Consulate? Thus Moore got a room three doors down from Johnny’s and rented himself a new car. Johnny wasn’t happy with the arrangement and threatened to check out. Moore warned him about that.
JTF leader Towers sent a text message: Rojas’s son, Miguel, had just left with his girlfriend, in a helicopter heading westward. Dante Corrales and two others were with them.