T he midafternoon rain began to fall.
It fell gently at first. Then, in typical Florida fashion, it suddenly came down in sheets, beating like a drum on the aluminum top of the mobile command center. This was one of those aberrant moments where Vince didn’t welcome the sound of falling rain to help him visualize his surroundings. Today, the rain was not his friend. Neither, it seemed, was Chief of Police Megan Renfro. By telephone, she was in the process of dressing down Vince for having allowed Jack to call Falcon on his own cell phone, a nonencrypted line.
“I know that was no mere slipup on your part,” she said. “You did that by design.”
“It was imperative that the call go through. I thought Falcon would be more likely to answer if he saw Swyteck’s name come up on the caller ID.”
“I want to believe you,” she said, “but I don’t. You used Swyteck’s cell because you wanted someone other than law enforcement to be able to hear the conversation. Like the media.”
“Why on earth would I want the media to overhear our negotiations?”
“Because you don’t agree with the decision to take Falcon out. You think you can still talk Falcon into releasing that injured girl. And if you are somehow able to convince the media that negotiation remains a viable alternative, this department will have hell to pay if we go in with guns blazing.”
Vince didn’t deny the accusation, at least not directly. “Negotiation is still workable.”
“Not in my judgment. So stop trying to back us into a corner with leaks to the press. Your job is to position Falcon for a kill shot.”
“Do you really want to take that shot in the pouring rain?”
“We need to work for the right opportunity. Obviously a window shot is not our first choice. You need to get him in the open doorway. If you can’t pull that off, SWAT will breach.”
Paulo’s other telephone rang. The caller ID told him that it was from Falcon. “It’s him,” Paulo told the chief.
“Answer it. And remember, get him in the open doorway.” Chief Renfro hung up, and Vince answered the other call. “Talk to me, Falcon.”
“Just had a nice talk with Jack Swtyeck.”
“So I hear.”
“I’m cool with the missing money,” he said.
“That’s good news.”
“I like Swyteck’s honesty.”
“I wouldn’t put him on the phone to lie to you,” said Vince.
Falcon chuckled lightly. “I don’t know about that. But he does seem to be the straightest shooter in the bunch.”
Falcon had no idea how “straight” the police snipers could shoot, but Vince let the unintended pun slide. “We need to deal with the injured hostage,” he said. “It sounds like she needs to see a doctor.”
“Maybe so.”
“If she needs medical attention, we need to work something out.”
“All right. Swyteck bought you that much. A little honesty deserves some reward.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Falcon. Let’s just agree here and now that this is the way we’re going to deal with each other. Nothing but honesty.”
There was silence on the line, and then a slight change of tone. “Don’t make agreements you can’t keep. Just tell me what you want to do about the girl.”
“What kind of shape is she in?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. That’s the problem, remember?”
“Is she conscious?”
“Yes. Most of the time.”
“Is she bleeding?”
“Not anymore.”
“But she has lost some blood?”
“Yeah.”
“A lot or a little?”
“Some.”
“Is it a gunshot wound?”
“Hardly. A bullet grazed her thigh. It’s not like she’s going to die or anything. She’s just in pain.”
“I’d feel a whole lot better if I heard those words from a doctor.”
“Well, that’s a real bummer, because last time I checked, nobody here went to med school.”
“What if I could get a doctor to come into the motel room and examine her?”
“No way.”
“It can work, Falcon. I’ve done it in these situations before.”
“Sure you have. You send in a SWAT guy dressed up like Marcus Welby. He takes one look at me and prescribes two bullets and a burial in the morning.”
“I don’t play those games.”
“That’s what you told me on the Powell Bridge, when you said I could talk to Alicia Mendoza if I came down from the lamppost.”
“What happened the last time wasn’t my fault.”
“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t my fault.”
“It was a different situation.”
“Not to me it wasn’t. Just forget it. I’m not letting any doctor come inside here.”
Vince tightened his fist, then released, relieving a little stress as he searched for the right words. “Okay, I’m not going to force the issue. But we can still work this out. Tell me something. Can the girl walk on her own power?”
“I don’t think so. She’s pretty weak.”
That was exactly the answer Vince was hoping to hear. “Do you think you could get her to the door?”
“Yeah, no sweat. She’s a toothpick.”
“Okay, listen to me. Here’s how this can work. We agree that Swyteck’s honesty bought some goodwill, right?”
“Yeah, some.”
“Good. Then here’s what we can do. If it’s just a leg wound, you can pick the girl up and take her to the door. Open the door, and lay her right outside on the stoop. Then just close the door, and leave her there.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll send someone to pick her up.”
“No cops.”
“No. It will be paramedics with a stretcher.”
“No, it will be SWAT guys dressed up like paramedics. Forget it.”
“I give you my word.”
“Your word isn’t worth dirt. Not after the Powell Bridge.”
“Trust me on this.”
“Never. If you want to send someone to pick the girl up, send someone I can recognize-someone who I know is not a cop.”
Vince paused. The silence lingered a good bit longer than he would have liked, but it was still nowhere near as long as it felt. That recurring and unnerving image suddenly flashed in his mind-the pockmarked door at the end of the hallway, the unexpected percussion of flash grenades, the burst of light, and then the darkness. Unceasing darkness. Vince couldn’t believe the words were coming from his mouth, but it was like a reflex. “What if I come to pick her up?”
The suggestion seemed to have caught Falcon by surprise. “Now there’s a twist. A blind cop turned escort.”
“It’s perfect,” said Vince. “You don’t have to worry about me busting down the door and shooting the place up.”
“You got a point there.”
“So it’s agreed? You bring the girl to the door, I’ll come and pick her up.”
“Let me think about it.”
Vince tried not to push too hard, but Falcon didn’t seem to appreciate how urgent the situation was. “There’s no time to think about it. We need to cut a deal on this girl, or things are going to get ugly in a hurry.”
“Is that some kind of a threat?”
“I’m just being honest with you, like we agreed.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“Please. I’m not messing with you, my friend. This is something that we need to work out right now.”
“Stop rushing me.”
“It’s the best deal I can offer.” Vince braced himself for a hang-up, but he could tell that Falcon was still on the line. He gave him a little time to think it over, but too much time would cost him his momentum. Vince said, “So, is it a deal?”
Falcon let out something between a sigh and a groan. “All right. You can come.”
“Good.”
“But bring Swyteck with you.”
“Why?”
“It’s like I told you. I don’t trust cops. Not even blind ones.”
“I’m not going to lead the cavalry through your door.”
“Probably not. Definitely not, as long as there’s a civilian in the line of fire.”
“The wounded girl is a civilian.”
“The girl is a prostitute from Colombia,” Falcon said, scoffing. “Call me crazy. I get more comfort with the son of a former governor at risk.”
“I can’t guarantee that Swyteck will be willing to do it.”
“He’ll do it, if he wants to talk to his buddy Theo again.”
Vince was about to say something, but he heard the line disconnect. The call was over.
A licia should have been driving faster.
More than an hour had passed since she’d left the mobile command center and headed home. Vince hadn’t called for her, but she still felt like she was letting him down, as if it was important for her to be with him. She was the one who had talked him into taking this assignment in the first place and, after all, he…She halted that train of thought, which of course would have ended with “was blind.” She knew that Vince wanted no part of that pity party, and thinking along those lines was the quickest way for her to earn a permanent ticket home.
The police barricade on Biscayne Boulevard was just ahead. The rainstorm had driven most of the onlookers off the street and sidewalks, though many still watched from higher and drier ground, through the windows of apartments and office buildings. The only folks braving the weather were law enforcement and, in even greater numbers, adventurous members of the media, who seemed to relish strong winds, driving rain, tsunamis, or anything else that made it even more challenging to bring a story into the comfortable living rooms of couch potatoes. Alicia stopped at the police roadblock and rolled down her window. The cool rain was falling so hard that, just in the short time it took a patrol officer to check her badge and grant her clearance, her sleeve was completely soaked. She raised the window and adjusted the windshield wipers as she continued up Biscayne Boulevard. Squad cars, vans, and a variety of police vehicles still filled the parking lot that served as the staging area. Alicia found a spot as close to the mobile command center as possible and killed the engine.
She reached for the door handle and then stopped. Why hadn’t Vince called her? She was running almost twenty-five minutes late. Vince was dealing with a hostage-taker who had a history of making public demands to speak to the mayor’s daughter. Surely, in the past seventy minutes some question of strategy had arisen that involved or at least related to Alicia. Yet her cell phone and BlackBerry had remained silent. Maybe Vince was trying to prove something-that he didn’t need her. Maybe he didn’t see her as helpful any longer, or worse, saw her more as a hindrance.
Or perhaps Vince was starting to wrestle with the same questions and suspicions that she was finally facing.
Alicia’s BlackBerry chirped and vibrated in her purse, which wrested her from her thoughts. Without even checking, she was certain that it was from Vince, and that this phone call would settle once and for all that he respected her judgment and that, despite all the personal history and the intervening tragedy, they could work together as a team. She smiled a little as she grabbed the phone and prepared to deliver some pithy greeting. But it wasn’t Vince. It wasn’t even a phone call. It was an e-mail. It came from a server she didn’t recognize, and the screen name wasn’t even a name, just an apparently random combination of letters and numbers. The subject line took her breath away. It read simply, “It was only out of love that I sought you,” harking back to the e-mail she’d received that same night her purse had been stolen. Alicia scrolled down to the body of the message, her hand shaking.
And now I’m sure that I have found you,
the message read.
Meet me in the lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental. Today at 4:00. Please come alone. Please, please come.
Alicia read it again, which only delivered a double dose of chills. She checked her watch: 3:40 p.m. She could make it to the Hotel Intercontinental by four o’clock, but only if she left at that very moment. She thought about it, then decided to trust her instincts. She restarted her car and tucked the BlackBerry into her purse, right beside her Sig Sauer pistol.
THE PHONE CALL in Jack’s ear sounded like a buzz saw. He held his flip phone about six inches away from his head, and only then did he realize that it was Theo’s friend Zack shouting over the roar of a seaplane engine.
“I can’t hear a word you’re saying,” said Jack. He was shouting in reply, even though he was standing in the relative quiet of the parking lot outside the mobile command center. Two Miami cops happened by and wondered if Jack was speaking to them.
“Just a sec,” shouted Zack. The engine noise in the background suddenly cut off, then Zack was back on the phone. “Is that better?”
“Much.”
“Guess who I have sitting here next to me,” said Zack, though he didn’t wait for a response. “It’s our pal Riley.”
“You mean Riley the Bahamian bank manager?”
“The one and only.”
“I thought he was missing.”
“‘Hiding’ is a better word for it.”
“How did you track him down?”
“Made it my mission to do so. I’ve been flying back and forth from the Bahamas for ten years. I got my share of contacts. Let’s just say that my resourcefulness would have made even our buddy Theo Knight proud.”
Jack knew exactly what Zack was saying: Don’t ask. He had visions of Riley bound, gagged, and hanging upside down by a thread over a vat of bubbling acid to prevent his escape, à la Adam West and the old Batman TV show. Jack said, “Does Riley know what happened to the money in Falcon’s safe deposit box?”
“My friend, there is no end to the secrets this man knows.”
“Does that mean yes?”
“It means that the answer is so long and complicated that you’d better ask him yourself.”
“That’s fine. Bring him here to the mobile command center. Sergeant Paulo and I will question him.”
Zack hedged. “Uh, there’s a reason this guy went into hiding. Taking him to the police is probably not such a hot idea.”
“Is he running from the law?”
“No. He just doesn’t have any faith that the cops can protect him.”
“Then who is he running from?”
Again, Zack’s pause conveyed that same “Don’t ask.” Jack said, “Have you processed him through immigration?”
“That depends on what you mean by ‘processed.’”
“Zack, I hope you haven’t-”
“Stop right there. This is Theo Knight we’re talking about here, remember? If that was you or me stuck in that motel room with some pistol-waving lunatic, Theo would have sprung us free two hours ago. We’d be back at his bar shooting pool, drinking beers, and laughing about the whole thing by now. Theo would do whatever it takes. You understand what I’m saying?”
Jack considered it. In every way that mattered-friendship, loyalty, and the kind of brotherhood that transcended the luck of the genetic draw-Zack was making perfect sense. Jack said, “Okay, so tell me, exactly what is it going to take?”
“About five minutes of your time. There’s things you know that I don’t, and vice versa. If you and me put our heads together, Riley could be the key that unravels this thing. It’s like that guy Deep Throat telling the Washington Post reporter how to figure out what was really going on with President Nixon and the Watergate scandal.”
“Follow the money?”
“Yeah. Follow the money.”
“And you’re telling me that Mr. Riley is our roadmap?” said Jack.
“Well said. Now, get your butt over here.”
“I really can’t get away from this place. At least not for long.”
“I’m not bringing Riley to the mobile command center. Dropping him in a sea of cops is the quickest way to make him clam up for good.”
“Can you meet me somewhere halfway? How about the people-mover station over by the college? I forget the name.”
“The one next to that huge construction site?”
“That’s it.”
“I can be there in ten minutes.”
Jack checked his watch. “Be there in five,” he said, then switched off his phone.
SURROUNDED BY POLISHED walls and towering columns of green Brazilian marble, an old woman waited in the three-story, open lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental. On a typical South Florida day, streams of sunlight would be shining through the skylights and bathing the lobby in a warm, natural glow. The afternoon rain and dark clouds, however, gave the marble interior a cold, dreary feeling. A huge modern sculpture dominated the center of the lobby, and in its shadow, the old woman found a comfortable leather armchair. From there, she had a perfect view of the hotel’s grand entrance. She eyeballed each person who entered through the revolving glass doors. If it was a man, she let him pass without much notice. Only the younger women warranted her scrutiny, attractive Latinas in their midtwenties. Miami seemed to be full of them, and this particular hotel lobby was no exception. One of the major cruise lines was in the process of booking hundreds of guests for an overnight stay, and the old woman was beginning to worry that she might miss her expected rendezvous in the long lines of confusion.
A waiter cleared away the empty cocktail glasses that previous patrons had left behind on the table beside her. “Algo tomar?” he asked. Something to drink? Miami waiters didn’t always assume that their guests spoke Spanish as a first language, and she wondered why he had made that assumption correctly in her case.
“No, gracias,” she said.
As the waiter turned and tended to the next table, it suddenly occurred to her why he had spoken to her in Spanish. She was clutching her purse tightly, and protruding from it was a thick file. It was plainly marked: LA CACHA, CASO NUMERO 309. La Cacha, Case Number 309.
The waiter must have noticed the Spanish wording on the file. Or maybe not. Paranoia was getting the best of her. She didn’t exactly look Swedish, for heaven’s sake. Even so, she turned the folder around so that the label was concealed against her bosom. She continued to clutch it tightly, hopefully. Almost as an afterthought, as if for support, she reached into her purse and clutched an old white nappy. It was just a piece of cloth, but it was rich with personal history and years of struggle.
Finally, she spotted a beautiful young woman at the revolving doors. Her pulse quickened. She rose and peered through the crowd for a better look. The young woman climbed the marble stairs, and the prospects looked even more promising.
The old woman started toward her, weaving through a human obstacle course. A group of pilots and flight attendants wheeled their baggage toward the reservation desk. She bumped into one of them and was nearly knocked to the floor. The man stopped to help her, but she was in too much of a hurry to wait for his assistance. She quickly collected herself, forced her way across the lobby, and then froze in her tracks.
She made direct eye contact with the young woman, who also came to a sudden halt.
The old woman had never been more certain of anything in all her years. It was definitely her.
There was a moment of confusion, a flurry of activity as another tour bus unloaded in front of the hotel. Yet another group of tourists trooped across the lobby. The never-ending flow of guests raced toward the long and disorganized line at the reservation desk. She pushed forward, trying to keep an eye on the young woman, of whom she suddenly lost sight.
“Alicia!” she shouted.
Still no sight of her.
“Alicia Mendoza!”
The old woman hurried through the crowd, but she saw only strange faces. People were starting to stare, as if something was wrong with her. Breathless, she could go no farther. From the top of the stairs, she spotted Alicia racing toward the revolving door. Her instincts told her to give chase, but it was pointless. In utter desperation, she reached inside her handbag, grabbed a tube of lipstick, and hurled it down from the top of the steps. It flew across the lobby, and, like a dart finding the bull’s-eye, hit Alicia squarely in the back.
Alicia stopped.
The women exchanged glances from afar. Then Alicia saw the tube on the floor and picked it up.
She seemed to recognize it as her own.
The old woman was about to climb down the stairs, hopeful that Alicia would speak to her. Before she could move, however, Alicia hurried through the revolving door. The old woman could only stand and watch helplessly through the plate-glass window as Alicia ran across the parking lot, jumped in her car, and even burned a little rubber in her haste to get away.