“That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear,” said Jack.
chapter 47
J ack placed the call from his own cell phone. Sergeant Paulo wanted it that way. Paulo refused to be anyone’s puppet, and Jack was more than willing to help cut the strings. If that meant calling from the mobile command center on a wireless phone that wasn’t encrypted, Jack was on board, even if he did not yet fully understand Paulo’s strategy. There was no time to debate every decision, and Jack figured that his show of trust in the sergeant’s instincts would only serve to solidify their alliance.
The phone rang several times, but Jack was certain that Falcon would answer soon enough. Falcon was using Theo’s cell phone, and Jack’s number was programmed into it. The display would identify Jack as the caller.
“Changing phones on me, Swyteck?” said Falcon.
“Yeah. I figured it was time to shake things up a little.”
“I thought that was my job.”
“We’ve got the same job. Let’s end this thing and keep everyone safe.”
“Did you get my money from the Bahamas yet?”
Jack had been hoping to avoid that matter, and the abrupt change of subject caught him somewhat off guard. “Soon,” he said, but the bluff rang hollow even in his own ears.
“You’re stalling,” said Falcon.
“No, I’m working on it.”
“You’re lying.”
“It’s more complicated than you think.”
“You stole it, didn’t you?”
“No. I didn’t steal it.”
“You stole my money, and now you think you can just keep on talking in circles.”
“That’s not true at all.”
“You stole my money, and I want it back now!”
“I just need a little more time.”
“Time? How much time do you think I’ve got here? Time is up, Swyteck. Tell me where my money is, or I swear, I’m going to-”
“It’s gone,” said Jack. He cut off Falcon before he could say the words “shoot a hostage,” which would have unleashed an immediate breach by SWAT.
“What did you just say?” said Falcon.
Jack collected himself. Paulo offered a nod of encouragement, as if to say that the truth was out, there was no taking it back, and perhaps it was even better this way. Jack said, “We went to your safe deposit box, just like you told me to. A manager named Riley met us there. When we opened the box, the money was gone.”
“All of it?”
“Yes. Even Riley was shocked. The only thing inside was a note. It was handwritten in Spanish.”
“Really?” said Falcon. The shrill edge was gone from his voice. He sounded genuinely intrigued. “What did it say?”
“It read: ‘Donde están los Desaparecidos?’ Where are the Disappeared?”
The words were met by stone-cold silence. Jack waited for a reply, and, after several moments of dead air, he wondered if Falcon was still on the line. “Falcon?” he said.
Falcon replied in a soft, calm voice, a tone that Jack had not heard in any of their previous conversations. It was a combination of pleasure and relief, punctuated with a hint of sheer joy. “She came,” he said. “I can’t believe it. She finally came.”
“Who came?” said Jack.
There was no reply.
“Falcon?” said Jack. “Who came? Who are you talking about?”
The silence on the other end of the line was suddenly more profound, and Jack realized that no response was coming. The call was over. Falcon was gone. Jack closed his flip phone and laid it on the table in front of him. He stared at it for a moment, trying to comprehend the exchange that had just ended.
Paulo said, “Not exactly according to plan, was it?”
“No,” said Jack, looking off to the middle distance. “At least not our plan.”
chapter 48
F alcon shoved the cell phone in his pocket and resumed pacing. In his years of homelessness, he often went for long walks along the river, up Miami Avenue, and down Biscayne Boulevard. Confinement to a tiny, closed-in motel room made him feel like a caged animal. Walking helped him to clear his head, settle the confusion, and silence the voices. Swyteck had laid a huge mind-blower on him. On the streets, he could have walked all the way to Fort Lauderdale and back just processing this one.
The money was gone. It disappeared.
The money. The Disappeared. The play on words brought a bemused expression to his face.
“You want to share the good news with the rest of us?” said Theo.
Falcon turned and saw his reflection in the full-length mirror on the closet door. He did look like someone who had just received good news. But it was no one else’s business. “Speak when you’re spoken to,” he said.
“That girl still needs a doctor,” said Theo.
“Shut up! Don’t you think I know that? Of course she needs a doctor.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“What do you want me to do? The doctor isn’t here.”
“Then let her go to one.”
“We can’t.”
“Sure you can,” said Theo. “Just open the door. I’ll carry her out into the parking lot only as far as you say, and then I’ll come back inside.”
“Sure you will.”
“You have my permission to shoot me in the back if I try anything funny.”
Falcon was pacing again, furiously this time. The last telephone conversation with Swyteck had brought a long-awaited clarity to his thoughts, and then Mr. Big Mouth had to mention the girl again and scramble everything. It wasn’t his fault that she needed a doctor. It wasn’t his fault that the doctor wasn’t around. There was only so much he could do, only so much abuse he could stand, only so much self-loathing he could inflict.
“What do you want from me?” he shouted, but he didn’t wait for Theo or anyone else to reply. Demons that he’d kept locked deep inside were taking control and forcing their way to the surface like a volcanic eruption. He went to the wall and started kicking it with the force of a soccer star. “Why…the hell…did you…have…to be…pregnant?” he said, a swift kick to the wall marking each break in his sentence. He didn’t even notice the horror on the hostages’ faces, didn’t hear the girl shouting that he had it all wrong, that neither she nor her injured friend was pregnant. It was as if the hostages were no longer in the motel room, as if Falcon himself were in another place, another time. In his mind’s eye, he was seeing other faces, ones that had haunted him for over a quarter-century.
“FASTER!” SHOUTED EL OSO. He was in the backseat of the car with the expectant mother, prisoner 309. She was flat on her back, belly protruding, knees bent, her feet squirming in El Oso’s lap. She was wearing a loose-fitting cotton dress, but it was hiked up to her hips, all sense of modesty abandoned.
“You must drive faster!” she cried.
“Two more minutes,” said the driver.
She let out a shriek that belonged in the torture chamber. That kind of noise coming from a man on the grill was something that El Oso heard every day, all just a part of the job. The same sound coming from a woman in labor affected him in ways that he had never anticipated.
“I have to push,” she said.
“No, you can’t!”
She started breathing loudly through her mouth, in and out, trying to build a rhythm and control the pain. Her face was flushed red and glistening with sweat. Her legs quivered, and her eyes bulged as if ready to pop from her head. Every pothole in the bumpy road elicited another grimace of pain. “I really have to push.”
“Not yet!” said El Oso.
She rolled from her back onto her left side and drew her knees up, assuming more of a fetal position. It seemed to help slightly.
“This is the turn,” said the driver.
“Just hold on a few more minutes,” El Oso told the woman.
The car squealed around the corner. Gravel flew as they turned off a paved highway and continued down a long, narrow alley. It was almost midnight, and with no streetlights in the alley, they sped like a freight train through a long, dark tunnel. The car suddenly screeched to a halt. The driver jumped out and opened the rear door. He grabbed the woman by the armpits, and El Oso took her by the legs. Together, they carried her to a metal fire escape at the rear of a rundown apartment building. In their haste, they knocked over a trash can, which sent a pack of rats scurrying toward the gutters. Up the rickety metal stairs they climbed, all the way to the third floor.