As he dropped off to sleep with his head between two musty pillows, he decided he would try the beach again at sunset. Crimmins had described the sunset during the hypnosis session. Maybe he would be on the beach then. If not, McCaleb decided he would begin looking for Crimmins in the scattered neighborhood above the village. McCaleb was confident he would find him. He felt no doubt that he had found the place Crimmins had described.
He dreamed in colors for the first time in months, his eyes darting under tight eyelids. He was on a runaway horse, a huge Appaloosa the same color as the wet sand, galloping down the beach. He was being chased but his unsteady mount prevented him from turning to see who it was behind him. He only knew that he must run, that if he stopped he would perish. The animal’s hooves were throwing great clods of wet sand in the air as it galloped.
The rhythmic cadence of the horse’s gallop was replaced by the pounding sound of his own heart. McCaleb came awake and tried to calm his body. After a few moments he decided he should check his temperature.
As he sat up and put his feet down on the carpet, his eyes checked the bed table by habit. He was looking for the clock that was on the table next to his own bed on the boat. But there was no clock here. He looked away and then his eyes darted back to the table as he realized the gun was gone.
McCaleb quickly stood up and looked around the room, an eerie feeling of dislocation coming over him. He knew he had placed the gun on the table before sleeping. Someone had been in the room while he slept. Crimmins. He had no doubt. Crimmins had been in the room.
He hastily checked the windbreaker and duffel bag and found nothing else missing. He scanned the room again and his eyes came across a fishing pole standing in the corner of the room next to the door. He went to the corner and grabbed it. It was the same model rod and reel combination he had bought for Raymond. As he turned it in his hands and studied it, he found the initials RT had been cut into the cork hand grip. Raymond had marked the pole as his. Or someone had marked it for him. Regardless, the message was clear. Crimmins had Raymond.
McCaleb was fully alert now, his chest filling with the constricting ache of dread. He punched his fists into the arms of the windbreaker as he put it on and then left the bungalow after studying the door and finding no sign that the lock had been tampered with. He moved quickly to the motel office, the bell ringing loudly overhead as he shoved the door open. The man who had taken his money stood up from the chair behind the counter, an uneasy smile on his face. He was about to say something when McCaleb, in one unhesitating motion, stepped to the counter, reached over it and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt. He jerked him forward until his body was prone over the top of the counter, the edge of the Formica digging into his substantial gut. McCaleb bent down until he was in the man’s face.
“Where is he?”
“Que?”
“The man, the one you gave the key to my room. Where is he?”
“No habla -”
McCaleb pulled down on the man’s shirt harder and put his forearm on the back of his neck. McCaleb could feel his own strength flagging but pushed down harder.
“Bullshit, you don’t. Where is he?”
The man sputtered and moaned.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Please. I don’t know where he is.”
“Was he alone when he came here?”
“Alone, yes.”
“Where does he live?”
“I do not know this. Please. He say he your brother and have surprise for you. I give him the key so he surprise you.”
McCaleb let go and pushed the man back over the counter so hard that he fell backward right into his chair. He held his hands up in a beseeching manner and McCaleb realized he must be truly scaring the man.
“Please.”
“Please, what?”
“Please, I don’t want to have trouble.”
“It’s too late. How did he know I was here?”
“I call him. He pay me. He come here yesterday and say you might come. He give me phone number. He pay me.”
“And how did you know it was me?”
“He give me picture.”
“All right, give it to me. The number and the picture.”
Without hesitation the man reached to a drawer in front of him. McCaleb quickly reached over and grabbed his wrist and roughly jerked it away from the drawer. He opened the drawer himself and his eyes held on a photograph sitting on top of a clutter of paperwork. It was a photo of McCaleb walking along the rock jetty near the marina with Graciela and Raymond. McCaleb could feel his face turning red as the anger pushed hot blood into the tightened muscles of his jaw. He held the photo up and studied the back. There was a phone number written on the back.
“Please,” the motel man said. “You take the money. One hundred American dollars. I don’t want trouble for you.”
He was reaching into his shirt pocket.
“No,” McCaleb said. “You keep it. You earned it.”
He yanked the door open then, hitting the overhead bell so hard that the twine it hung from snapped and the bell bounced into the corner of the office.
He went through the gravel parking lot and over to the phone at the Pemex station. He dialed the number on the back of the photograph and listened to a series of clicks on the line as the call went through at least two call-forwarding circuits. McCaleb cursed to himself. He would not be able to trace the number to an address, even if he could get someone in local authority to do it for him.
Finally the call reached the last circuit and started ringing. McCaleb held his breath and waited but the call was not picked up by human or machine. After twelve rings he crashed the receiver down onto its hook but it bounced off and dropped, swinging erratically back and forth beneath the phone. McCaleb stood frozen by anger and the impotence of his position, the light sound of the still-ringing phone buzzing from below.
After a long moment he realized he was staring through the glass pane of the phone booth at the motel parking lot. His Cherokee was there and one other car. A dusty white Caprice with a California plate on the back.
Quickly, he left the booth, crossed the parking lot to the trail and headed down to the beach. The trail cut between rock outcroppings and obscured any view below. McCaleb didn’t see the beach until he got to the bottom and made the final turn to the left.
The beach was empty. He walked straight out to the water’s edge looking both ways but the sand in both directions was deserted. Even the horses had been taken in for the day. His eyes were eventually drawn to the pocket of deep shadows beneath the rock overhang. He headed that way.
Beneath the overhang the sound of the surf was amplified to a magnitude that sounded like the cheering in a stadium. Moving from the bright light of the open beach into the deep shadows temporarily blinded McCaleb. He stopped, closed his eyes tightly and reopened them. As his focus returned, he saw the outlines of the jagged rock surrounding him. Then from the deepest pocket of the enclave stepped Crimmins. He held the Sig-Sauer in his right hand, the muzzle of the weapon pointing at McCaleb.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “But you know I will if I have to.”
He spoke loudly so that his voice would carry above the din and echo of waves.
“Where is he, Crimmins? Where is Raymond?”
“Don’t you mean, ‘Where are they?’ ”
McCaleb had assumed as much but the confirmed knowledge of the terror Graciela and Raymond were feeling at that moment-if they were still alive-cut into him. He took a step toward Crimmins but then stopped when Crimmins raised the aim of the weapon to his chest.