The vice president of the United States had fathered an illegitimate daughter. It explained a lot of things, including why Davis had been getting such focused help from Washington. He wondered if the president himself could be involved. Davis would bet against that idea. He’d met Truett Townsend, and everything about the man seemed aboveboard. The Montanan, fed up with congress, had declared he would not run for a second term unless the two parties found common ground. Gridlock continued, and Townsend kept his word. America’s loss, in Davis’ opinion. Now his apparent successor was being blackmailed by someone hiding in the headwaters of the Amazon.
With Jen caught smack in the middle.
When he caught sight of El Centro, Davis stopped on the roadside and stared. He’d already spent two hours there today, scouring maps and surveillance photos, asking searching questions and getting blank stares in return. The building glimmered under the high midday sun, but to Davis it suddenly seemed a dark place, an investigative black hole where evidence went in but nothing came out. Since arriving on scene he had pursued the standard practices of investigation, none of which had brought him closer to Jen. Marquez had done the same, and it had gotten him killed.
The sun beat down on his back. It pounded everything in sight. People, cars, airplanes landing on the nearby runway — all seemed to move languidly, as if time itself was overheating. A truck barreled past raising a cloud of dust, and El Centro disappeared in a swirl of brown. In that moment, Davis realized he needed a new direction. He studied the city around him, slow and observant, and then the mountains beyond. He considered a scarred plot of jungle eighty-nine miles south. Was that where the solution lay? Or was it in a plush D.C. conference room? He wondered if there was a military transport speeding south at this very moment, full of hard men and exotic weapons, prepared to settle a score for the man who would soon be king.
It dawned on Davis that the most useful piece of evidence he’d discovered was on the bedside stand in his room — Jen’s iPod, which held an audible record of the abduction. Voices that could be analyzed. The gunshots that ended the life of a Secret Service agent. Kristin Stewart imploring Jen to act as her double. With fresh lucidity, he realized that Jen’s recording was his best weapon. He turned on a heel and started back to the hotel.
By the time the weathered three stories of Hotel de Aeropuerto edged into view, he was breathing hard and his shirt was matted to his back. Davis was almost to the parking lot when he saw the door to his room. He scuffed to a stop on the road’s gravel siding.
The door was ajar. There was no maid’s cart parked along the railed balcony. No box of tools from the resident handyman. He was sure he’d left the No Molestar sign on the handle. Two men emerged from his room.
Davis edged into the shadow of a parked delivery truck and watched. The men were Hispanic, both beefy and rugged looking, a pair who would look right at home on a warehouse loading dock. One was wearing a soccer jersey and needed a shave. The other wore dark sunglasses and needed a gut-buster diet. They closed the door neatly, and Davis followed their progress all the way to the office. His suspicions about the hotel owner might have had merit after all.
The sunglasses went inside, and through a tightly angled window Davis saw him hand something to the proprietor. A key card? Cash? Maybe both. A few words were exchanged, and soon the pair headed out to the street.
They set out on foot, which was good, because a car would have forced Davis into a difficult choice — confront them here or let them go. He fell in behind the men, keeping a healthy separation, and watched them fall in and out of the shadows of high-rise apartment buildings. They tracked across a broad park, and twice disappeared behind foliage, but each time Davis reacquired them. They hit a good stride on a street called La Esperanza, a wide boulevard with a central tree-lined median and sided by retail shops. There were salons and brand-name clothing stores, practical farmacias next to extravagant emerald wholesalers. He was a hundred feet in trail, and working up a sweat, when the two men suddenly stopped. One pulled out a cell phone and had a very brief conversation. Then both turned and looked directly at him.
It didn’t take countersurveillance training for Davis to realize he’d been made. They’d been alerted by a phone call, which meant there was at least one other person nearby, possibly more. The two reversed course and started walking toward him, and Davis sensed a major shift in the odds. He didn’t know how many he was up against or where they were. As he stood in the middle of a busy commercial district, there wasn’t a cop in sight.
Never was when you needed one.
THIRTY-THREE
Davis spun an about face, and immediately spotted two more men with their eyes on him. They crossed the street quickly, taking an angle to cut him off. Davis made what he thought was the most unpredictable move — he dashed into the busy street.
Horns blared and tires screeched. He glanced left and right, and saw all four men in pursuit. He darted through the opposing lanes, dodging a motorbike, and on reaching the far sidewalk he found himself facing a five-story building with shops at street level. He turned away from the soccer player and his partner, and sprinted at top speed in an effort to outflank their pincher maneuver.
He failed.
The other two cut him off with fifty feet to spare. One white shirt, one green. Green reached under his shirttail and pulled a handgun, leaving Davis but one option — the store right in front of him. He burst through the entrance and sprinted down an aisle toward the back. Flashing past in his periphery were sets of dishes, Wedgwood and Mikasa, and along the walls he saw displays of silver flatware. The stunned sales clerk, a slim and well-dressed woman, stood at a counter in back, wide-eyed and speechless as she watched her new and only customer rush down the main aisle.
He aimed for an exit at the back of the sales floor, but as soon as he reached it Davis skated to a stop on the slick tile and cursed. The only rear exit was blocked, a sturdy-looking door secured by a thick iron bar and padlock. The only other opening in the storeroom was a high transom window, ancient glass scored to the point of being opaque and fortified by an iron grate. He heard the shop’s front door open, then his pursuers shouting at the clerk in Spanish. No way out.
His head swiveled as he searched for a weapon. There was only one — leaning against a wall, a four-foot length of lumber. He grabbed the two-by-four, held it by one end and punched out the window. Glass shattered and light sprayed down through the opening, broken shafts playing the dim storeroom like a chapel nave under stained glass. Davis backed against the wall near the passage to the sales floor. He didn’t have to wait long.
The gun was the first thing he saw, the barrel canted upward toward the broken window. Davis swung his club eighteen inches above that, and a head arrived right on schedule. The two-by-four connected, but not cleanly, and the man stumbled back. Davis’ second swing was better, crushing his gun hand against the door-frame. The gun flew to the floor, and the man in the green shirt doubled over with a shout of pain. Davis palmed one end of the two-by-four and used it like a battering ram, a pivoting arc that ended abruptly under the man’s chin. He collapsed in a heap. He’d barely hit the floor when the first shot rang out.
Davis threw his shoulders against the wall, hopelessly exposed. The only way out was the way he’d come in. He needed protection, and the only thing he saw was inside the showroom — an arm’s length away, a massive silver serving tray. It was oval, the size of a manhole cover, and looked nearly as sturdy. Davis lunged into the open as a shot zinged past. He grabbed the tray by the handles and raised it, both surprised and heartened by its weight. With the white shirt ten steps away, Davis held the tray like a shield and bull rushed the man. Three more shots echoed, ricocheting off the thick metal. Glass shattered all around, and in the reflection of a wall-length mirror he saw the white shirt shift to one side. Davis altered his momentum and made solid contact.