“And what are you doing in Ensenada, Senorita Fitzpatrick?” the man beside her asked, as he eyed the suicide note, then shoved it into the backpack, before he took out Arturo’s phone, pulled it apart, examined it. He dropped it back into the pack, not bothering to put it together.
“Searching for that boat,” she said, nodding out the window, thinking about the picture of it that was in her coat pocket, something her captor didn’t appear too interested in at the moment. “You don’t happen to know the owner, do you?”
No one answered her. Instead the driver shifted into gear, took off. She watched for street signs, tried to remember the direction, in case she was able to call for help. Several minutes later, as he wound his way in and out of the narrow streets, around corners, it was clear he was trying to keep her from recognizing a location, or keep someone from finding them. Or both.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
As if in answer, he slowed, checked his mirrors, then made a quick left turn into an arched drive that led into the courtyard of a salmon-colored villa. A tall blond man stood in the center of the brick-paved courtyard, holding what looked like an old leather bank pouch. His bearded face was deeply lined, darkly tanned, his collar-length hair bleached from the sun. She put him in his mid-fifties. The car slowed just long enough for him to get into the front seat, and the moment he did, they exited.
“Were you followed, Tomas?” he asked the driver as they pulled out.
“I think we lost them. She says she came alone.”
The blond man turned in his seat, looked right at Sydney, his gaze searching her face. “You look like him. Your father.”
She eyed him for a moment, decided that the sun had aged him more than she’d expected, but he was probably the man in the photo. “You’re Robert Orozco?”
“I am.”
“Boston?”
He smiled. “Not a name I’ve heard in a while. So, little Sydney, why is it you are here, asking about Cisco’s Kid, a boat that I sold twenty years ago, after your father was killed?”
“I remembered it from a photo of my father’s, a trip we took.” She removed the scanned photo from her pocket, showed it to him. “You disappeared the year before he was killed. I think you have answers.”
“That will only lead to more questions, I’m afraid.” “And I’m willing to take the time.”
“Which we don’t have. You think that no one knows you are here? You came to my charter boat office. Do you not recognize my driver, Tomas?”
She glanced over, and this time the driver turned, looked right at her. The man from the pier who had thought the boat looked like something from Puerto Nuevo.
“You were being followed even then, which is why he sent you into the fish market. The men approached him, asking about you, what you wanted. Tomas sent them on a wildgoose chase in the opposite direction that he sent you. They are, we hope, checking out a boat to the south in Punta Banda, no doubt wanting to get to it before you. We hope they don’t figure it out too soon, since we did not expect you to stop for tacos.” His eyes sparkled, despite the concern that laced his voice.
“Do you know who these men are?” she asked. “Who they work for?”
“I can only surmise.”
She had so many questions for him that she wasn’t sure where to start. “You heard about McKnight?”
“Yes.”
“He mailed me a photo of all of you. And he left a suicide note.” She took that from her backpack, gave it to him.
Orozco looked at it, handed it back, and she saw a glint of red from the ring on his right hand, one like her father used to wear. “So that’s what started it. Twenty years of peace gone because some guy wants to clear his fucking conscience. Iggy and company have got to be sweating bullets right about now.”
“Iggy?”
“Iggy Ignoble. Your senator.”
“About what?”
“I assumed you knew.” He held up the pouch. “Why else did you come down if not for this?” he asked as Tomas whipped the car around a corner, then accelerated. “Everything you wanted to know about just how dirty your government really is.”
“And just how dirty are they?”
“You’ve heard of companies like TriAmeriCon? “Aren’t they into construction?”
“Multibillion-dollar worldwide construction and shipping firm, based in the good old U.S. of A. They’re the superman of global companies, able to leap U.S.-imposed sanctions and embargos with one simple phrase to the country they need to enter: Look the other way and we’ll make it worth your while.”
“BICTT? Part of the scandal twenty years ago?”
“It wasn’t a scandal, it was the tip of an iceberg so large, they didn’t dare let the American public know the truth. With companies like TriAmeriCon, Blienett Subsidiaries, KeenAnex Oil, to name a few, it was in their best interest to whitewash the entire affair. This pouch has key information that would literally cripple corporate America if the public knew what these companies were really involved in, and end treaties between a number of countries. It’s like the little black book of corrupt governments and corporations. If there’s a country that needs to be rebuilding due to war, or a war that needs starting to drive economy, or drugs traded for arms, arms traded for oil, or money paid to revolutionists to protect foreign enterprise, you name it. One of these companies has their hand in it, all with the blessings of the government, sometimes even the manpower of black ops teams, and the public has no idea.”
“So if they closed down the bank, exposed those involved in the Senate hearings twenty years ago, made laws that prohibited dealing with terrorists and the like, why the interest now?”
“Because BICTT was only one small part of this, like I said, the tip of the iceberg. BICTT’s Black Network is still operating today, still has ties to governments around the world. In here is a peek at what’s below the surface. What’s still going on.”
She looked at the pouch. “In there?”
“ If you can break the code. The government prefers to whitewash it all to keep the economy stable. Just like they did the first time. Because in the end it’s all about money. And don’t expect a miracle if you get this information back home. They’ll pick some schmuck of a corporation, force it to pay a hefty fine once it’s discovered they were playing with countries in the evil axis, invite the press to watch, and that’ll be the last you hear of it until some other idiot blows his brains out, leaving incriminating letters behind.”
Tomas said, “I think we’re being tailed. They either have more than one team, or they didn’t buy my story.”
Robert looked back, eyed the cars behind them. “What are our options, Tomas?”
“The boat is still the best option. It’s fueled and ready.”
“Get us there,” he said, then pulled a Beretta from beneath the seat. “Return her weapon, Jose. She’ll need it.”
Jose withdrew her weapon from his waist, handed it to her. She checked to see it was still loaded, then glanced behind her. A black Mercedes was gaining, then had to back off as another car changed lanes. “This is going to sound like a dumb question, but who are these guys?”
“My first guess? The Black Network. If not them, maybe a team from the CIA, trying to get this info. Either way, they’re men who can follow orders and not ask questions. That was part of the problem for Frank and your father, too. Didn’t like going into anything blind. If your father hadn’t been killed in that robbery, chances are he would’ve ended up dead anyway, because he balked at keeping it quiet. He got emotionally involved after the explosion, then insisted it was no accident. Didn’t help that he blamed McKnight for his sleepless nights and missing digits.”
“Was my father blackmailing him?”
Robert scoffed. “Your old man was guilty of a lot of things. Nature of the job. But blackmail? I don’t think he saw it that way. His problem was that he started a family. Changed his way of thinking. Same with Frank, though his old lady was smart and never married him to begin with.”