Gaspar said, “Neagley had to know Berenson’s crew were Las Olas.”
“No way she’d have missed that,” Kim agreed as she turned and headed toward the coffee pot first and then Neagley’s security office. Neagley shed no tears for her only brother, but Kim had brothers, too. Brothers she loved like crazy. She told herself it was exhaustion, but she could barely hold it together. She had to think about something else. She cleared her throat. “Come on, Chico. Daylight’s fading fast out there. It’s about time we figure out what’s really going on here and whether Neagley’s on our team, don’t you think?”
“We might only get good intel from her at gunpoint,” Gaspar said.
“Fine by me,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sunday, November 14
5:36 p.m.
Chicago, IL
When Neagley returned to the security room, she was dressed in a black suit and crisp white shirt. Her hair was wet from the shower and combed straight to her shoulders. She had collected coffee from the kitchen as well. She looked resigned, perhaps.
“We are very sorry for your loss, Frances,” Kim said. “I can’t imagine how devastated I would be to lose one of my brothers.”
“Don’t imagine you and I are anything alike, Otto. And don’t imagine my brother was anything like yours, either.” Her words were harsh, but her tone was flat, lacking effect, as the psychologists say. She drank the coffee and stared at the blank television screens, as if she was considering a weighty decision.
Kim knew Neagley was hurting. Paul was a difficult kid, to be sure. But a brother is a brother and Kim had seen Neagley’s loyalty in action already. She was loyal to her Army unit, loyal to her team, and loyal to Reacher. No way she was untouched by her only brother’s death, whether she showed her grief outwardly or not. No way.
Neagley needed action.
“Let’s get to work,” Kim said. “Start by telling us the rest of the story. There’s a dead Las Olas outside. You knew Berenson and Dean were associated with Las Olas, didn’t you? Were Sanchez and O’Donnell involved, too?”
Neagley’s response was devoid of denials or excuses. “O’Donnell, probably not. Sanchez is possible. We have no evidence either way so far.”
Gaspar allowed his anger to surface. “You knew Berenson and Dean were Las Olas-connected and you didn’t tell us that before we agreed to help you get Paul back. That’s a lot of gall, Neagley, even for you.”
“Quit whining,” Neagley said, without rancor. “You didn’t die, did you?”
“You think you can take credit for that?” Gaspar snapped.
Neagley looked unruffled, but Kim sensed she was exercising a level of control that could easily snap at any moment like breaking brittle steel. Kim wasn’t afraid of Neagley, exactly. But getting her off-track and angry couldn’t help.
Kim interjected before full-on combat broke out between them. “You must have located Berenson and Dean’s Mexico headquarters. Where is it? We can start with that and move forward.”
“Sanchez was living openly with his family in a small town called Colina near Camargo City, three hundred and forty miles south of New Mexico. Berenson and Dean were headquartered hundreds of miles away, southwest of Matamoros, near Valle Hermoso. Across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. The entire Sanchez family is missing. Sanchez seemed to believe they’d be killed if he failed in his mission to recover the money. So my best guess is that Tammy and the kids, and her mother, were kidnapped and taken to the Las Olas compound in Valle Alto about two weeks ago. Doubtful they’re all still alive.”
“Is there a way to confirm?” Kim asked. “And can we find out if Dixon is there now?”
“Probably.”
“Not that it helps to know the answers to those questions,” Gaspar said. “Mexico wouldn’t extradite Berenson or Dean or any of the Las Olas cartel even if we could get the paperwork, which we can’t. The Boss isn’t going to send troops or a Seal team into Mexico to collect a few civilians. And there’s no way the three of us can get them out of there without half a dozen M1A1 tanks.”
Neagley actually smiled at the image of traveling with half a dozen tanks. Kim took that as a good sign.
Kim noticed Gaspar didn’t say anything about the extensive multi-agency investigation of Las Olas. The FBI had been involved in the deep undercover project for two years. ATF and IRS and Homeland Security and others had been working longer. The man-hours already devoted to bringing Las Olas down would prevent Cooper from helping Neagley, even if Cooper and Neagley were best buddies. Under the circumstances, elephants were more likely to appear on the moon.
“You’ve got intel on this Valle Alto compound, right?” Kim asked.
“Of course.”
“Then let’s see it,” Gaspar fairly growled.
Neagley didn’t move so much as an eyelash before the panel slid open again and Morrie entered the security room alone. “What’s the status out there?” she asked him.
“Locals are directing evidence collection and crime scene. Paramedics are gone with Paul’s body to the hospital and then the morgue for autopsy.”
“News on the rest of our team?”
Morrie hesitated a split second. “Found both vehicles torched two miles north at the landfill. All five dead by gunshots to the head.”
Neagley’s lips pressed into a strong line. Eyes narrowed. She placed the coffee cup on a nearby table and folded her hands together as if she might otherwise attack something. Her self-mastery was amazing to behold. Kim might have kicked something, at least.
Morrie continued to stand in his formal at-ease posture, waiting.
“Something else?” Neagley asked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a glassine evidence bag containing a brown envelope. He handed the envelope to Neagley, who turned it over a couple of times and pressed through the glassine bag to feel its contents before passing the bag to Kim.
Kim first looked at all sides of the contents through the evidence bag. The brown envelope was two inches by four inches. An unbroken Las Olas wax seal sprawled across the longer lip on the back side. The smaller lip had been glued by the manufacturer. She flipped the evidence bag over. The front side of the brown envelope contained flowing cursive script in black ink:
Frances L. Neagley
. She felt the small, padded envelope through the glassine bag as Neagley had done.
When she finished, Kim passed the bag along to Gaspar who repeated the same steps before he returned it to Morrie asking, “Where’d you get this?”
“Found it in the pocket of the dead Las Olas guy,” Morrie replied.
Gaspar said, “So they either planted it on him after he died or they intended to leave his body here and probably killed him to make sure we found this.”
“That’s how I figure it,” Morrie replied and, turning to Neagley, said, “I’m turning this over to them. They’ll be outside a bit longer and then they’ll be processing in the house. They’ve got probably three or four hours of work yet tonight. They’ve been asking to interview you, but I put them off. I told them you were too distraught tonight and you’d contact the chief personally. Call me if you need anything.”
Neagley said nothing. Morrie turned to depart. When he reached the panel, it slid open of its own accord.
Before he stepped through and the panel secured the room from observers again, Kim called to him. “Morrie?”
He turned his big body a bit to enable eye contact. “Yes?”
“Where’s the copy you made of the drive before you put it in that evidence bag?”
“Already uploaded for you, Agent Otto,” he replied on his way out.
Neagley picked up the remote, pushed a couple of buttons, and the screen they’d watched earlier came to life once more, this time with images unfamiliar but no less disturbing.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sunday, November 14
6:52 p.m.
Chicago, IL
The room is dimly lit. Like a decades-old hospital ward, five single cots are lined up in a vertical row, headboards against the cinderblock wall and footboards ten feet in front of the videographer.
On each cot a patient lies flat, covered to the chin with a lightweight blanket. Three children and two women. Each patient’s left arm lies outside the blanket and is connected by a clear tube running from the inside of the elbow to a medicinal-looking bag filled with clear fluid hanging on a hook next to each bed.
After a few moments of determined staring at the crude proof-of-life, Kim felt her own breath synchronize to each patient’s chest, rising and falling with unassisted but frighteningly shallow breaths.
The camera’s eye approaches each cot and lingers several moments on each patient’s face.
First, a woman about 45 years old. Wild black hair, slight frame, eyes closed. In the second bed, a dark-haired girl, maybe 14 years old. On the third and fourth beds, younger dark-haired boys rest as peacefully as angels. In the fifth, another woman, maybe 70 or more. Grey wiry hair, pulled back tight. Sunbaked complexion reflecting a lifetime lived close to the equator. The camera zooms in. On her chest is a copy of a Spanish Language newspaper, dated today.
Kim didn’t need DNA to confirm the five were related. None of the patients moved even slightly except for the gentle rise and fall of breathing. But human bodies were not meant to be in medically induced comas for weeks on end. Kim worried about the level of supervision. Could they wake up unharmed?
The camera backs away from the beds and pans the room, perhaps to display the bleak conditions, because there is nothing more in the room to see. Nothing at all. No window, no television, no sentient beings. And absolutely no sound of any kind on the audio.
Less than two seconds displaying the nothingness. The video abruptly jump cuts to another scene.
Another room similar to the first, but this one is only dark around the edges. In the center stands a plastic floor lamp illuminating the single straight wooden chair beside it. A woman is affixed to the chair’s sturdy arms and legs at her wrists and ankles with black plastic cable ties cinched tight enough to cause swelling.
The woman is not much larger than Kim, judging by how little space she takes up in the chair. She is dressed in dark, dusty slacks and a grimy yellow blouse, sleeves torn above the elbows. Feet bare and filthy. The camera tightens in on her lap to a neatly folded New York Times front page, dated yesterday.
The camera rises. Her head is bent forward on her neck, chin touching her chest. Dark, stylishly cut hair falls forward to obscure her face.
No matter, Kim thought. The woman had to be Karla Dixon.
Kim stared without blinking. When she saw the now familiar life signs she’d observed in the five patients, she realized she’d been holding her own breath and exhaled slowly through slightly parted lips.
As before, the camera pulls away as if establishing the emptiness of Dixon’s prison for a full second. The video abruptly jumps to the next scene.
This segment is a slideshow, sets of images moving smoothly from one to the next, showing the story, each set offering a separate warning that is always the same: Death is nigh.
First, the Spanish language newspaper dated two weeks ago, followed by a photo of the five now-comatose patients enjoying lunch at an outdoor cantina along with a smiling Jorge Sanchez. Then, the same newspaper dated today, followed by a photo of the five comatose patients. Next, the front page of the Chicago Tribune dated Friday, followed by a photo of Sanchez’s body lying in what could have been the morgue.
The women and children, too, can die now.
The second set of images is the New York Times front page dated yesterday, followed by a photo of Dixon coming out of the terminal at Kennedy airport. Then, the New York Times front page dated today followed by a photo of Dixon bound and unconscious in the chair.
She can die now.
The third set begins with The Chicago Tribune front page dated last week, followed by a photo of Paul Neagley standing happily in the ice cream shop where he bought his strawberry milkshake every afternoon on the way home from work. Then, the Chicago Tribune front page dated today followed by another photo of Paul splayed on top of his sister after he’d been shot, both laying bloody and still. Only Paul is dead, but the photo shows they might both have died.
After that, a short recap: Today’s New York Times front page, followed by photos of the five patients, Dixon bound and unconscious in the chair, and Paul’s body on the gurney being loaded into the ambulance in Neagley’s driveway.
Finally, like any good film, the director reveals his climax: the front page of the Houston Chronicle, dated today, followed by a long, lingering photo of a happy family enjoying lunch at another outdoor cafe. The parents are maybe forty. Fair, handsome man, wearing a wedding ring, holding his wife’s hand. She looks Scandinavian. Tall, rail thin, white-blonde hair, icy blue eyes. She wears an open collared shirt that shows the bones on the front of her chest.
Kim’s breath caught. The boy was maybe nine years old. Short legs. Low waist. Long arms. But it was the eyes that captured and held her. Uncanny. Dark, reassuring, like the child knew, like he was saying,
Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine.
For Neagley, Kim realized something else took her breath away: The boy was Charlie Franz. He looked precisely like a miniature version of his father, Calvin—Neagley and Reacher’s team member, dead years now after being beaten senseless and pitched to the desert floor from a helicopter by Berenson and Dean.
When the director was sure they’d had a good long look at the boy and plenty demonstrations showing his message, he finished his masterpiece with the very last slide.
A simple graphic completes the video. It contains only three words: Return My Money.