A licia rushed home, not to her Coconut Grove townhouse, but to the walled and gated Mediterranean-style villa in which she’d grown up. The Mendozas had lived in the same house since Alicia was seven years old. It wasn’t a palace by any stretch, especially compared to the new ten-thousand-square-foot McMansions that seemed to blanket South Florida like the dreaded red tide, but it was a great old house. Twin pillars covered in purple bougainvillea stood like sentries at the driveway entrance. Beyond the wrought-iron gate was the circular driveway where Alicia had learned the hard way that it was a very bad idea to roller-skate on Chicago brick.
She parked beneath the largest of several sprawling oak trees that shaded the property, then made her usual entrance: one ring of the doorbell to warn anyone inside who might be walking around in their underwear, and then she let herself in with her key. She was passing through the kitchen when her mother greeted her.
“Alicia, I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” she said with a warm smile. Graciela Mendoza was actually a striking Latin beauty who took excellent care of herself, but today she was sporting the Marjorie Stoneham Douglas look, dressed in a floppy straw sunhat and blue jeans stained at both knees with rich black potting soil. Gardening was her passion.
Alicia said, “This is sort of unexpected from my end, too.”
“Did they resolve that hostage situation?”
“Not yet. I have to get back, but I need to check on something quickly.”
“Here?”
“Yes.” She knew that she couldn’t possibly explain, so she didn’t even try. “Is all my old stuff still in the bedroom closet?”
“Yes, of course.”
“This probably sounds weird, but there’s something I need to find.”
“What is it? Maybe I can help.”
“No, that’s okay. It’s sort of official police business.” Sounding weirder by the minute, Alicia realized.
“Okay,” her mother said. “Holler if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Mom.” She turned and went straight to her old bedroom, which no longer resembled the shrine to Alicia that had existed for years after she’d left home. Her parents had finally turned it into a home office, though it was still decorated with a few of her adolescent touches, including a message board filled with names and phone numbers that were so vitally important to a teenager and not even remotely a part of her present life. There was no time to reminisce. She went to the closet, which was like a time capsule filled with awards, toys, school yearbooks, and other mementos. Her search was very narrow: she was looking for Manuel Garcia Ferre.
Ferre created some of the cartoon favorites from her childhood. Not many Americans knew of his talents, except for a few foreign-film buffs who might recall that his animated film La Manuelita was Argentina’s official entry to the 1999 Academy Awards. Truth be told, surprisingly few Argentines even knew that bit of movie trivia. Alicia was no expert on her ancestry, but it had long been her passing observation that Argentina showed too little enthusiasm for its own contributions to culture. Argentines didn’t even embrace the tango (born in bordellos) until it caught on in Paris, and the country continued to revile its greatest tango composer, Astor Piazolla, even as Europeans hailed him as a genius. Argentina had a history of being equally standoffish about local films, many of which were of first quality but lagged far behind Hollywood blockbusters and European films at the Argentine box offices. But Alicia’s father, thousands of miles away from his native country, made sure that his daughter knew Ferre’s work, which for decades has delighted Spanish-speaking children. He’d supplied her with comic books and videotapes of cartoons that had once aired on Canal 13-Buenos Aires and other Argentine television stations. It was his way of connecting her at a young age to her homeland and to her parents’ native tongue.
Alicia went from top shelf to bottom in search of the right box. Naturally, it was in the last place she checked. She pulled it off the shelf and laid it on the floor, then unfolded the flaps and peered inside. Another era was staring back at her. The comic books were on top. Her favorite was Las Aventuras de Hijitus, the adventures of an orphan kid who fought the forces of evil. Simply by saying magical words, Hijitus could transform himself into Súper Hijitus, a boy in a blue suit who is propelled through the air by a little propeller atop his head.
Alicia gave a little nostalgic smile and laid the comic books aside. Wouldn’t it have been nice if Vince had simply called Hijitus?
Beneath the comic books, she found the videotapes, packed across the bottom of the box like spine-out books on a shelf. Alicia couldn’t recall ever having made a conscious decision to save them all these years, but she suspected that somewhere in her heart lay a plan to share them with her own children. She allowed herself to wonder for a moment if Vince would be the father, and it saddened her to think that he would never see any of this. She cleared her mind of such thoughts, however, as it had nothing to do with her mission. The important thing was that her old favorites were still there. She ran her finger lightly across the titles, searching for one of particular interest. She didn’t find it. She checked again, knowing that it had to be there.
It was gone.
She felt a slight chill, but her suspicions were not yet confirmed. Maybe she’d loaned it to a childhood friend and forgot about it. Maybe for some reason she’d decided not to save this one. Neither of those possibilities seemed likely, however. She guarded her collection like gold.
Her gaze swept the room and settled upon the PC that her parents had set up in the corner of the room. It was running, and the screen saver of bright blue sky and puffy white clouds beckoned. She went to it, clicked on the Internet browser, and typed a few pertinent words into the search engine. It came back with exactly what she needed. She opened the link and went straight to the Web site.
On screen, a pitch-black background transformed itself into impenetrable night sky with flashes of lightning and a blanket of twinkling stars. To one side, a dead, leafless tree shivered. The vacant eyes of two orange pumpkins flashed back and forth from white to black. A creepy old Victorian-style house soon took center stage, the doors and windows of irregular shapes, as if the whole structure were in danger of collapsing at any moment. A black bat fluttered in the wind, between the house and the old tree. And in bright orange letters, the title appeared against the black sky.
La Covacha de la Bruja Cachavacha.
Finally, in a high-pitched, scary voice that still gave Alicia the shivers, the witch-la bruja-said, “Bienvenidos a mi casa.”
Welcome to my house.
This witch was no Elizabeth Montgomery or Nicole Kidman. Her orange hair and pointy hat made her scary enough, and she was plenty ugly, with a big, long nose and missing teeth. For a cartoon character, particularly one created for children, she was unusually macabre. The thing that Alicia remembered most about her, and the very thing that had lured her back to her old bedroom, was the strange magic this witch possessed.
She had the power to make people disappear.
Alicia was still looking at the computer screen, this modern-day window to her childhood, but she was no longer really focused. She was thinking more about Falcon’s words-be sure to ask about the witch-and about his apparent obsession with “the disappeared.” She had yet to sort it out and think it through completely, but there was enough to make Alicia wonder.
How does that creep know anything about my childhood?
J ack needed some straight talk from Sergeant Paulo.
On paper, the line between good and evil seemed easy to draw in a hostage situation: hostage-taker, bad; hostage-negotiator, good. In Jack’s mind, however, the line was starting to blur. It wasn’t Paulo who was causing the confusion as much as the people around him, both on and off the scene. The mayor was sending mixed messages about his support for Paulo as lead negotiator. His bodyguard’s appearance at the river on the night of the murder remained unexplained. By nature, SWAT leaders were bursting with confidence, but Sergeant Chavez was becoming so arrogant that he seemed to have his own agenda. At times, even Alicia sent out confusing signals. For Jack, the interpersonal dynamic was starting to resemble a complicated trial in which he represented one of several co-defendants, where everyone professed to stand together at the outset, but where ultimate survival depended on covering your back in dagger-proof armor. Things were nowhere near that extreme-not yet, anyway-but Jack still found himself trying to figure out who could be trusted to act in the best interest of Theo and the other hostages.
He chose Sergeant Paulo.
Alicia was away when Jack returned to the mobile command center. Paulo was giving himself a quick shave with an electric razor. Another member of the crisis team was seated beside him, but he was more than willing to take a short break when Jack asked for a few minutes alone with Paulo. The door closed as the officer left the command center. Paulo switched off his razor, and the ball was in Jack’s court.
“I need to know the plan,” said Jack. “The whole plan.”
To Jack’s mild surprise, Paulo skipped the police doubletalk. “Falcon is going down,” he said.
“I’m sure that if it comes to that, no one will blame you.”
“It’s no longer just an option. You wanted to know the plan; that is the plan. They’ve made their decision.”
It was interesting that Paulo put it in terms of a decision they’ve made. “SWAT is going in?” said Jack.
“They want to try a sniper shot first.”
“How do they plan to set it up?”
“That’s my job-our job, actually, to the extent that you’ll be doing at least part of the talking.”
“What am I supposed to tell him? ‘Hey, Falcon, would you mind stepping closer to the window please? Good. Head up a little. That’s it. Now hold it.’”
“Ideally we’ll come up with a ruse to make him open the door and provide a clean shot. Drawing him to the window and somehow getting him to reveal himself is a possibility, but it’s not the preferred method. Even a trained marksman loses some degree of accuracy when shooting through a pane of glass.”
“What’s the difference? It’s clear glass, not a Coke bottle.”
“It can still affect the bullet’s trajectory, depending on distance and angles. And it’s been looking like rain all day. If it comes, that’s another issue. Even in clear weather, the safest assumption when shooting through a window is that the first shot will miss. But now that they have a green light, our snipers don’t need more than a split second to get off a second shot.”
Jack considered his response. He wanted this standoff to end as quickly as possible, but up until now he’d at least held out some hope that Falcon would put down his gun and surrender. Negotiating with the sole objective of putting a bullet in a man’s head changed the tenor of things. “When was this decision made?”
“I was just told about it five minutes ago.”
Something in Paulo’s voice conveyed that the question wasn’t being answered directly. “But when was it made?” said Jack.
“Sometime after we found out about the injured hostage, is what they tell me.”
Jack still sensed some equivocation. This was no time to let anything slide, even at the risk of offending. “Do you believe what they’re telling you?”
There was silence, and if Vince had been a sighted person, Jack sensed that they would have exchanged one of those long, ambiguous stares in which two equally cautious men size each other up and decide how much honesty their evolving relationship can handle. Strange, but Jack had the feeling that Paulo was doing exactly that, albeit on some level that didn’t depend on sight.
Paulo said, “I’m a suspicious man. It’s my nature.”
“So you have some questions in your mind.”
“Sure I do.”
“Do you ever wonder about the real objective here?” said Jack.
“I have only one objective, and that’s to get these folks out alive.”
“Does it matter to you if Falcon lives or dies?”
“Of course it matters. But the safety of the hostages is paramount.”
Honesty. That was all Jack wanted. “Can we cut the bullshit?”
Paulo’s expression changed, as if he’d suddenly realized he was talking in platitudes. “Yeah, sure.”
Jack had a theory, but he wasn’t quite sure how to present it. He took an indirect route. “You know the history between me and Theo, right?”
“In a general sense. You were his lawyer. Got him off death row.”
“Theo was my one innocent client in four years with the Freedom Institute.”
Paulo shook his head slightly. “Don’t know how you lawyers do that. Defending the guilty, I mean.”
“Maybe we can have that talk over beers when this is over. The funny thing is, the client on my mind right now isn’t Theo.”
“It’s Falcon?”
“No. It’s a guy named Dusty Boggs. Dusty was at a bar and got into an argument over whose quarter was next in line on the edge of the pool table. Dusty said it was his game; the other guy said it was his. So Dusty went out to his car, got his gun, walked back inside the bar, and shot the guy in the head.”
“You represented Dusty?”
“Yeah. He was my very first client. I was just a few weeks out of law school, still studying for the bar exam. My boss and I went down to the prison to interview him. For whatever reason, Dusty showed more confidence in me than in my boss, even though Neil Goderich was a seasoned trial lawyer with more death cases under his belt than any lawyer I’ve ever known. Anyway, at the end of the interview, Neil told Dusty that he would be defending him at trial. Dusty got this angry look on his face. Then he banged his fists on the table, looked at me, and said, ‘I want Swyteck!’”
“Before you’d even passed the bar?”
“Yup. So Neil agreed to supervise me, and I was Dusty’s lawyer. I essentially did the whole trial myself. Thought I did a pretty good job, too.”
“You got him off?”
“Are you kidding? He was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. But here’s the point of the story. Dusty appealed his conviction, and guess what his lead argument was.”
“I don’t know. The butler did it?”
“Ineffective assistance of counsel. He claimed that a recent law-school graduate who hadn’t even passed the bar exam wasn’t qualified to handle a death penalty case. The court of appeals agreed and ordered a new trial. But as time dragged on, witnesses started to disappear and some of them even changed their stories. We ended up plea bargaining, and Dusty got life instead of the electric chair.”
“Sounds like old Dusty was crazy like a fox.”
“That’s exactly right. He knew he had zero chance of an acquittal, no matter who his lawyer was.”
“So he set you up.”
“He set me up,” said Jack, repeating Paulo’s words slowly enough to underscore his point. He waited another moment, giving the sergeant sufficient time to catch his drift. It was a delicate subject, but Jack felt as though it needed to be broached. “You ever feel like you’ve been set up, Vince?”
Paulo didn’t flinch. He simply seemed to be processing Jack’s intimation. Jack said, “I have this theory.”
“Talk to me.”
“I think someone has wanted Falcon dead all along.”
The suggestion didn’t seem to shock him. Paulo said, “I don’t know if I’d go that far. But they don’t seem to want him alive.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Paulo didn’t answer. Jack didn’t let it drop. He said, “I think they want him dead almost as much as they want the hostages freed.”
“I would never want to believe that.”
“Believe it.”
“What makes you say that?”
“As soon as I returned from the Bahamas this morning, I was taken straight to the mayor for a private talk. He laid it on heavy, how he wanted my solemn word that I would do nothing to jeopardize Alicia’s safety in these negotiations, even if that meant disobeying certain instructions from you.”
“That’s no surprise. At least among insiders, it’s no secret that I’m not his first choice to head up these negotiations. I’m smart enough to realize that his show of support for me in the press conference this morning was just talk. Law enforcement always wants to present a united front.”
“Forget what the public has been told. I’m talking about what’s going on within the department. Internally, as far as all the players in the negotiation are concerned, Mayor Mendoza has led everyone to believe that Vincent Paulo is the last person on earth that he’d like to see in charge of this negotiation. But according to my sources, you were put in charge because the mayor called Chief Renfro and told her to do it.”
“Your sources?”
Jack did not want to implicate Detective Barber at this point. “You have to remember who my old man is.”
“Your daddy has an ear to the wall on this?”
“Only because I asked him to. And the walls can be pretty thin for a former governor who was once a City of Miami cop.”
Paulo started working a pencil through his fingers like a miniature baton, and it was as if Jack could see the wheels turning inside his head. Finally, Paulo said, “Let me see if I follow your logic. Someone has wanted Falcon dead all along. The mayor tells the chief to put me in charge of the negotiations. As soon as the opportunity arises, the chief tells me to step aside and let the snipers take Falcon out. I’m in charge, but I’m not in charge.”
Jack was silent. It sounded harsh coming from Paulo’s own lips.
Paulo continued, “Falcon is my Dusty Boggs. I’ve been set up to fail.”
“It’s just a theory,” said Jack.
“It’s an execution they want, not a negotiation,” said Paulo. “If it takes one bullet to drop Falcon, mission accomplished. If something goes wrong and a hostage goes down in the crossfire, it’s my fault. The blind guy takes the fall.”
“I’m not saying it’s true,” said Jack. “It’s just something to consider.”
“I have considered it,” said Paulo, his voice turning very serious. “You and I are on the same page.”
It was more honesty than Jack had expected, and he wasn’t going to squander the opportunity. “Why do you think they want Falcon dead?”
“Mendoza can be a vindictive man, I’m told. Maybe the message is simply ‘Don’t mess with the mayor’s daughter.’”
“Or maybe it’s something else,” said Jack.
“You got a theory on that, too?”
“I’m working on it,” said Jack.
“Work faster,” said Paulo. “We’re running out of time.”
“Theo’s running out of time,” said Jack.
“Maybe we can buy a little more.” A hint of a smile creased Paulo’s lips. “They’ve got the guns, but you and I are still the only two people who Falcon will talk to. All I need to know is that you’re willing to work with me on this.”
“That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear,” said Jack.