Moments later Davis stepped outside. The night was deepening, a hard black punctuated by bright windows and passing headlights. He didn’t know what part of town he was in, but he saw the lights of the mountain, Monserrate, to his left. He turned the other way. Airports in any city were set away from mountains, and Bogotá was no exception.
His shoulder hurt and his head was spinning, twin blows from very different truncheons — one hardened steel and the other a scribbled note in his pocket. Leave the country now if you ever want to see her again.
Davis knew he couldn’t do it. He might end up searching a thousand square miles of jungle, or locked in another jail, but there was no decision to be made. He would find Jen or he would die trying. He was weighing the practical ramifications of this conclusion, grim as they were, when a voice called from an alcove, “Jammer Davis?”
He looked and saw a side entrance to the police station, a door that probably hadn’t been used in years. Overhead was stenciled: PROHIBIDA LA ENTRADA. Out of the shadow stepped a scruffy Nordic-looking man. He was tall and strongly built, with long blond hair that fell to his shoulders and a bushy mustache. A seriously lost Viking in a loose cotton shirt and worn Levi’s.
“Who are you?” Davis asked.
A thin smile, clear-blue eyes glinting under the stab of a streetlight. “I’m the guy who just busted you out of prison.”
The stretch limousine sat motionless on black tarmac, blending with the quiet airfield that shouldered the Maryland-Virginia border. The ramp was lit in a sulfuric yellow mist, and parked nearby, like an ever-watchful bird of prey, was a sleek eggshell-white business jet. In the back seat of the limo, separated from the driver by an opaque privacy screen, Frederick Strand, CEO of The Alamosa Group, sat next to the vice president’s chief of staff, Bill Evers. It was Evers, voice weary after a strenuous day of travel, who issued the final instructions to Vincent Kehoe.
“We still don’t know who we’re dealing with. If at all possible, we’d like you to find out, just in case this issue comes up again.”
“Your boss will have more firepower in a few months?” Kehoe suggested.
Strand shot his man a hard look. “You are being paid for neither humor nor speculation, Kehoe. Put a sock in it.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry.”
Evers picked up, “Never lose sight of the immediate objective. First and foremost, get the girl out safely.”
Kehoe promised he would, and two handshakes later he was stepping smartly across the tarmac, a large suitcase in hand. The two men in the limo watched him climb the boarding stairs and disappear into the big Gulfstream — in fact, the very same G-III that had whisked Jammer Davis to Colombia days earlier. The door shut immediately, and the twin turbofans purred to life.
“Will he be able do it?” Evers asked
“Get the girl home? I think so. It’s a lot of money, which in my experience equates to success. Also, I don’t think they’re fools. In a few months, Martin Stuyvesant will be the last man in the world anyone wants pissed at them.”
“And the other? Will Kehoe be able to identify who we’re dealing with?”
Strand hedged, “I’m not sure about that. It depends on how careful they are. But as long as we get the girl, the rest should prove moot. I think everyone will be happy at that point.”
Strand’s phone chimed and he looked at a message. He smiled. “Our Mr. Davis has turned into a complete bust. He can’t even stay out of jail.”
“Jail?”
“Apparently he beat four policemen senseless.”
“Four?” Evers looked away from Strand and shook his head. “The man’s a damned embarrassment. It’s no wonder he hasn’t gotten any results.”
“It was worth a try. When you attack problems like this, you have to do it from every conceivable angle. Fortunately, the angle in the briefcase Kehoe is carrying is generally the most effective. You did well, raising that much cash on short notice.”
“It cost us a great deal,” said Evers.
“An ambassadorship?”
“Worse — a department head.”
“Which one?” asked Strand.
“Treasury.”
Strand studied Evers for a moment, then remembered that the Secretary of Treasury had announced her intent to step down at the end of the current administration. He was naturally curious who her successor would be, information being the currency it was in his town. A Wall Street hedge fund manager? A Goldman Sachs partner? Strand knew better than to ask, relenting that the answer would have to wait until spring.
The jet carrying Sergeant Kehoe began to move, and two minutes later clawed into the sky in a rush of tormented air.
“Kehoe did have a point,” said Strand. “If Stuyvesant wins the election… he won’t need the likes of me anymore. He’ll have the entire United States military at his disposal.”
“Worried about your job?” Evers asked playfully.
The retired admiral chuckled. “Certainly not. Midterm congressional elections are always right around the corner. Four hundred and thirty-five House members, one-third of the Senate, all coming up for reelection. With a crowd like that? I always find work, Mr. Evers. Always.”
THIRTY-FIVE
“Where are we going?” Davis asked.
He was in the backseat of a Toyota SUV, and there were now two men, the Viking having been joined by their driver, a wiry dark-haired man with an ever-present grin. They’d told him their names were Jorgensen and McBain, and that they worked for the DEA, which was enough to get Davis into the Toyota — that and the fact that he was running seriously low on cash for cab fare.
McBain drove with abandon, blending perfectly in the demolition derby that was Bogotá traffic. The Toyota bottomed out on a pothole, and an audible crunch from the undercarriage widened McBain’s smile. The vehicle seemed solid, in a mechanical sense, but the floorboards were littered with food wrappers and newspapers. Davis doubted the exterior had ever been washed, save for two arcs of clear glass on the windshield that could be credited to the wipers. A company car if he had ever seen one.
Jorgensen said, “We have an apartment nearby. There are some things there you should see.”
An apartment, thought Davis. One that probably looks a lot like this truck. “So why is the DEA springing me out of jail?”
Jorgensen, who was in the front seat next to his partner, half-turned to face Davis. “We only follow orders, Jammer. By the way — is that your real name?”
“My birth certificate says Frank, but nobody uses it.”
McBain said, “The guy in charge of our region, back in D.C., he’s a retired Marine general. Apparently he got a sideways call from an old Air Force friend who said you needed help.”
And there was the answer. Jorgensen and McBain represented the long reach of Larry Green, or more precisely, the old generals’ network in action. That was what happened when you put a hundred or so high achievers together in the Pentagon for their last tours of duty before retirement. They formed cliques and had lunch, and when they all retired and moved on to corporate and government afterlives, they kept in touch and did favors for one another.
“Oh, and by the way,” said McBain, “Semper Fi.”
“They told you about that? That I did three years living in tents and eating MREs before trading desert camo for sky blue?”
“I won’t hold it against you.”
“Semper Fi, then. Where were you?”
“West coast, EOD, with two tours in the box. Got out ten years ago and ended up with the DEA.”