I n downtown Miami, construction sites were outnumbered only by traffic jams. Jack passed seven or eight of the former before he was ensnarled in the latter. He left his car in a loading zone near Flagler Street and hoofed it down the sidewalk. After a couple of wrong turns, he came to the construction site that marked the way to the people-mover station where he and Zack were supposed to meet.
No city on earth had more skyscrapers in the works than Miami-not New York, not Tokyo, not even Hong Kong. Many would eventually be built; just as many, if not more, would develop no further than the weedy construction site that served as the landmark for Jack’s destination. The downtown people-mover was an elevated tram that ran on rubber tires and a concrete track. As Jack climbed the stairs to the station’s platform, he had an unobstructed view of a vacant lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. Most of the fencing was covered with a green nylon mesh, but the long stretch facing the street had been transformed into an architectural gallery of sorts, with impressive drawings of a future seventy-story multi-use facility. The sign at the gate boasted that sixty percent of the condominium units had already been sold. The big question was, “To whom?” Miami was to condo speculation what Las Vegas was to roulette wheels, and Jack figured that many of those units had been bought in bulk by the type of investor who would stash away his money at an institution shrouded in secrecy, like the Greater Bahamian Bank amp; Trust Company, all with the help of a man like Riley.
When Jack arrived, however, there was no sign of Riley. Zack was leaning against the lighted billboard by his lonesome-all seven feet of him.
“Where’s Riley?” said Jack.
“Sorry,” said Zack as he stepped toward him. “You may be Theo’s best friend, but any lawyer makes me nervous. After the way you were talking on the phone, I half-expected you to show up with the cops in tow. I left Riley behind.”
Images of that vat of boiling oil suddenly resurfaced in Jack’s brain. “Where?”
“Back at the hangar. He’s cool, okay? Frankly, he’s glad to be out of the Bahamas. So long as the guys who are out to get him don’t know he’s out of the Bahamas.”
“Who’s out to get him?”
“I’m not sure. Somebody showed up at his house yesterday morning, pulled a gun, and told him to keep his trap shut about Falcon’s box. I pressed Riley pretty hard on it, but honestly, I’m not sure that he even knows who it was.”
“Not everyone in the islands follows the Swiss model of ‘know your customer.’ I’m not so sure the Swiss even follow it. Bank secrecy has more exceptions than rules.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. But if you grew up where Theo and me did, you know this much: nobody sings like a scared canary.”
Somewhere in Zack’s sentence was a more familiar cliché, but Jack got the drift. “What did you get out of Riley so far?”
“First off, your boy Falcon set up the safe deposit box and did all the paperwork himself.”
“We knew that. His signature specimens were on file with the bank.”
“Yeah, but here’s something you didn’t know. He did all this years ago, probably before he started living on the street. And here’s something else. Falcon never even opened the box.”
“You mean after he put the two hundred grand in it.”
“No. I mean never.”
“How can that be?”
“That’s what I asked Riley. But he says Falcon just rented the box sight unseen. Never put a thing in it.”
“Then how did the money get there?”
“According to Riley, some other guy shows up about two months later. He’s got a key and a power of attorney signed by Falcon to let him open the box. Now, we don’t know what he did when he opened the box, but Riley says the guy came with a briefcase.”
“Big enough to hold two hundred thousand in cash?”
“Yup. He used the name Bernard Sikes. Totally bogus identity, of course.”
“So this guy Sikes, or whatever his real name is, puts two hundred thousand dollars cash in an empty safe deposit box rented by Falcon. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“You got it.”
“Why?”
Zack shrugged. “Hell if I know. Why don’t you ask Falcon?”
“I just might do that. But obviously there has to be more to the story. There was two hundred thousand in the box when Theo and I went there. I took ten thousand for Falcon’s bail. So who came after me and took what was left? Riley?”
“No,” said Zack. “He swears he didn’t.”
“Sikes?”
“Uh-uh. Riley says it was a woman. An old woman at that. The way Falcon set things up with the bank, three people were authorized to access the box. Falcon, Sikes, and the woman.”
“She got a name?”
“Marianna Cruz Pedrosa.”
Jack searched his mind for some recognition, but there was none. “Have the Bahamians tracked her down?”
“This is where it gets interesting. I didn’t hear this from Riley, but I was talking to a buddy on the Bahamian police about this.”
“And?”
“As you can imagine, there are more than a few women by this name in the world. But the local cops have checked all kinds of databanks and computer lists, and one woman has really caught their interest.”
“Why?”
“A woman named Marianna Cruz Pedrosa went missing over twenty-five years ago. She was a university professor in La Plata, Argentina, back in the mid-seventies. She and her husband were taken from their home in the middle of the night. No one ever heard from them again. It’s like they just vanished.”
Jack fell silent for a moment. “No,” he said finally, “I’ll bet they disappeared.”
“Vanished. Disappeared. Same thing.”
“Not exactly,” Jack said, as the pieces to Falcon’s puzzle finally started to fall into place.
V ince was not getting the response he wanted from the headquarters. He was listening to Chief Renfro on speakerphone, and she didn’t like the idea of Vince-with or without Swyteck-approaching the motel in any kind of swap for the injured hostage. Vince was prepared to make a host of arguments to the contrary, but he was a lone voice. The mobile command vehicle was starting to feel less like the nerve center of negotiations and more like a SWAT staging area. Sergeant Chavez, two members of his tactical team, and his best sniper were standing near the door, as if waiting for the chief to say “Go.” The Miami Dade Police Department had its negotiator in the room, but if body language meant anything, she was actually standing behind the MDPD’s SWAT leader. The MDPD director himself-the local equivalent of the county sheriff-was participating by conference call, and he was siding completely with Chief Renfro.
“Look,” said the director, “the guy has already shot two officers, killed one. It appears that he’s wounded one hostage. It makes no sense to send in a negotiator with a civilian in the hope that a known killer has suddenly lost his itchy trigger finger.”
“We’re not sending anybody in,” said Vince. “The deal is that he puts the injured girl outside the door. Then Swyteck and I go and get her. We never set foot inside the motel room.”
Chavez said, “I like the first part of that plan. When he opens the door and lays the girl on the stoop, that’s our chance to take him out.”
Renfro said, “What’s the likelihood of success on that shot?”
Chavez deferred to his lead sniper, who answered in a thoughtful monotone and without any sense of arrogance. It was simply the best judgment from a highly trained professional who fully understood the gravity of his work. “Subject in the open doorway. Girl on the ground. He’ll probably be moving quickly, perhaps even erratically, since we are dealing with an agitated and clinically paranoid subject. Definitely won’t be standing still. Second story of the apartment building directly across the street offers the clearest line of sight. Distance is just about one hundred yards. Slight angle should have only minimal adverse impact on bullet trajectory. We do have rain and wind to contend with. Unless this rainstorm turns into a hurricane, I’d say we’re close to a sure thing here.”
Renfro said, “I don’t want to wing him now. Last thing we need is for him to go back inside and tear into those hostages like a wounded animal.”
“Understood,” said the sniper. “I’m talking about a kill shot to the head.”
Vince said, “Nothing’s a sure thing. Any attempted takeout brings a chance of dead hostages.”
“We breach at the crack of the sniper fire,” said the director. “If the shot doesn’t take him out, we will.”
“No offense,” said Vince, “but that won’t do much good, unless your team can fly faster than one of Falcon’s speeding bullets.”
The SWAT leader spoke up. “You’d be surprised how quickly we can move. We’ve been studying the blueprints. There’s a maid-ser vice hallway that runs directly behind the rooms on this eastern wing of the motel. We can cut through the back wall. It’s just sheet rock on studs. Conservatively speaking, we should be able to position a team as close as two rooms away without Falcon ever knowing we’re there.”
“If he hears you cutting through walls, it’s disaster,” said Vince.
“He won’t hear us.”
“And what if he comes to the door with a hostage in tow?”
“Then we’ll respond accordingly,” said Chavez.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ve done this before. We adapt.”
Vince could have debated that point, but he knew when he was outnumbered. In truth, he didn’t totally disagree with the strategy. He hoped it was because they were right. He feared that it was because of the way things had gone so horribly wrong the last time, his disastrous face-to-face confrontation with that monster who had stolen a five-year-old girl, and then stolen Vince’s eyesight.
“You on board, Paulo?” asked the chief.
Vince didn’t answer right away.
“Paulo, you with us?”
“Yeah,” he said without much enthusiasm. “I’m all in.”
“Good,” said Renfro. “Then proceed as planned. Tell Falcon to bring the girl to the door, and give him every assurance that you and Swyteck will come and pick her up. Any questions?” The mobile command center was silent. “Excellent,” said Renfro. “Good luck, team.”
Vince ended the call. The SWAT members headed toward the door. Chavez was the last to leave. He stopped on his way out, laid a hand on Vince’s shoulder. “Look at the bright side, Paulo. Falcon won’t live long enough to know you lied to him.”
Vince couldn’t tell if it was a bad joke or if Chavez was just being a total jerk. He gave him the benefit of the doubt by simply not responding. He turned, walked the familiar path back to his chair, and was about to take a seat when he heard radio squelch in his headset. He adjusted the earpiece, and the voice came clear.
“Sergeant Paulo, you there?”
Vince didn’t recognize the speaker. “Paulo here. Who’s this?”
“Officer Garcia, perimeter control.”
“Go ahead.”
“Got a little situation here at Biscayne and Seventeenth.”
Rookies, thought Vince. He couldn’t imagine why it took the lead negotiator to handle perimeter control, but he wasn’t too harsh in his response. “I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t handle, Garcia.”
“Actually, sir, it’s a little complicated. There’s someone here who insists on seeing you.”
“Who is it?”
“Wouldn’t give me a name, says it wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway. But she says she can definitely be of help to you.”
Vince was tired, stress was high, and this interruption seemed so inane that he was on the verge of losing his temper. “Tell her we don’t need any help, thank you.”
“She says she knows who Falcon is.”
“She does, does she?”
“Yeah. I hear your skepticism. I didn’t put much credence in it either, and I wasn’t even going to bother you with it. Except that she has something that she wants to give you.”
“What is it?”
The cop paused, as if taking care not to be overheard by any bystanders. “Looks to be about two hundred thousand dollars. Cash.”
The rookie suddenly had Vince’s undivided attention. “Bring her in right away,” said Vince. “Tell her that I’d be delighted to speak with her.”
A licia made it from downtown Miami to Coconut Grove in record time. The last time she’d been in such a hurry to reach 311 Royal Poinciana Court, she was seventeen years old, it was three a.m., and her fake ID had worked like a charm on South Beach. This afternoon, the circumstances could not have been more different. The charming Mediterranean-style villa was no longer where she lived, of course, though she’d probably heard it from her parents a thousand different times, a hundred different ways, that it felt so much more like home whenever she came to visit. She understood that sentiment perfectly. This old house was where she’d grown up. It was filled with memories of birthday parties, sleepovers, after-school snacks, skinned knees, girl talk, and boy troubles. It was like a giant box filled with all the hopes and dreams that marked her journey from daddy’s girl to womanhood. She’d scored a thousand soccer goals in the yard with her father as goalie. She’d practically killed her mother in the living room for trying to “fix” her hair five minutes before her prom date arrived. It was a cliché to say that not every house was a home, but this one brimmed with the kind of endless love and inevitable parental overkill that an only child could either understand or endure. For a moment, Alicia felt like she was a kid again as she sat directly across the kitchen table from her mother.
Another part of her, however, felt more like a cop.
“Why the oh-so-serious expression?” her mother said.
Alicia was a tangle of emotional knots, and the words seemed trapped inside her. She laid her handbag atop the table, the lipstick tube concealed from her mother. She reached inside, removed her wallet, and opened it. The billfold was empty.
Her mother could not contain her disapproval. “Alicia, how many times have I told you never to go around without a dollar to your name?”
“Mom, please.”
“You should always have a little cash. What if you had a flat tire or an emergency?”
“If there’s an emergency, I have a fully loaded nine-millimeter pistol. Mom, can you please just listen?” It was a tone she rarely used with her parents, and her mother was clearly taken aback.
“Okay,” her mother said quietly. “I’m listening.”
Alicia reached into the photo section of her wallet and removed a colorful piece of paper currency that was pressed behind plastic. She laid the bill on the table between them, facedown. “Do you know what this is?”
It required only a cursory glance for the recognition to kick in. “It’s an Argentine banknote. Twenty pesos. But why is it torn in half?”
Alicia took the bill, and with her elbows on the table, she held it at eye level. The smooth natural edge was between her right thumb and index finger. The rough edge, where the note had been torn down the middle, was in her left. “Six years ago, just a few days after my twenty-first birthday, a woman gave this to me.”
“Who was she?”
“I’d never met her before. She found me on campus after one of my classes and asked if she could speak to me. I had nothing else to do, and she seemed nice enough. So we sat down at one of the picnic tables on the lawn and talked.”
“What about?”
“At first, it seemed that we weren’t really talking about anything. She told me that she had a friend whose daughter was thinking about enrolling in the spring, and she wanted to know how I liked the university, what campus life was like, that kind of thing. It was all about me. Too much about me, actually, and after a while I started to feel a little uncomfortable with the personal nature of the questions. I came up with an excuse to leave, and that was when she admitted that she wasn’t just scouting out the campus for the daughter of a friend. She said she’d come all the way from Argentina just to talk to me.”
Her mother suddenly showed more concern than curiosity. “Why on earth would she come that far just to talk to you?”
“That’s what I wanted to know. She said she knew my family back in Argentina.”
“Really? Your father’s side or mine?”
It was a simple enough question, but suddenly Alicia was having second thoughts about this entire conversation. She’d avoided it for years, out of respect, love, and probably a host of other emotions that she might never fully sort out. Fear had certainly been part of it-fear of the truth. But it was too late to turn back now. She searched within and found the strength to say it. “Neither.”
Her mother let out a little nervous chuckle. “What do you mean, ‘neither’?”
“She told me that she didn’t want to ruin my life, that she was not trying to upset me, that she would not make me into another victim by turning my world upside down.”
“Victim of what?” Graciela said, seemingly annoyed. “This woman sounds like she was crazy.”
“I had the same reaction. I didn’t want to hear any more, but the interesting thing is that she never really came right out and said anything directly. Even so, I somehow sensed what she was implying. In hindsight, I think she wanted me to figure things out for myself, rather than dump a lot of painful information in my lap.”
“Figure what out for yourself?”
Alicia laid the torn Argentine peso on the table, facedown. “Before she left, she took this bill from her purse and tore it in half. She kept part of it for herself, and she made a point of giving me this half, the one with the handwriting on it.”
Alicia turned the bill faceup. Directly on the bill, in blue ink, a message was handwritten in Spanish. The translation read: “The military is taking our children. Where are the Disappeared?”
Alicia’s mother showed no reaction.
“I kept the bill, and over the next few months I did some research on this.”
“What kind of research?”
“Being raised in Miami, I realized that I didn’t know much about the country of my birth. It turns out that I was born during Argentina’s Dirty War, which I had heard of but never really studied.”
“Plenty has been written about it.”
“I know. But it wasn’t until I met this woman and had this torn banknote in my purse that I started to learn about los Desaparecidos-the Disappeared. It was so amazing to me, how everyone was afraid to talk about what the military was secretly doing to people who opposed the regime. Some of the Disappeared were left-wing extremists.”
“Terrorists. Like the ones who set off the bomb that killed your father’s first wife and daughter.”
“Yes, I know about that. But others were just ordinary people who spoke out against the government: trade unionists, social reformers, human-rights activists, nuns, priests, journalists, lawyers, teachers, students, actors, workers, housewives, and on and on. Some were guilty of nothing. They were simply accused or suspected of being a subversive or conspiring to undermine the ‘Western Christian way of life.’ It was like Nazi Germany, except that in the case of Argentina, the rest of the world stood by until the very end and let it happen. Even within the country, practically no one had the courage to say or do anything, except for the mothers of the disappeared children. They met secretly in churches, they organized, they marched in the town plazas with little white nappies on their heads and carried photographs of their missing children. They put themselves at risk to make the public aware of the fact that people were disappearing and that the military dictatorship was behind it.”
Alicia paused to catch her breath, then gestured toward the torn Argentine peso on the table. “And one of the ways they got their message across was by writing notes like this on money. It was a way to make sure that the word would spread from one person to the next, all across the country.”
“That was all a very long time ago,” her mother said in a quaking voice. “And it has nothing to do with our family.”
“It was probably the implication otherwise that got me so angry and made me tell this woman never to contact me again. And you know what? She promised to respect my wishes. She said I would never hear from her again. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Alicia took the tube of lipstick from her purse. She opened it, but the lipstick was gone. Inside was another torn Argentine banknote. Alicia unrolled it and laid it flat on the table beside the other half. The ripped, jagged edges fit perfectly, like the pieces of a puzzle. Said Alicia, “She promised never to contact me again, unless she could prove all of the things that she wanted to tell me.”
“What kind of proof is this?” her mother said, scoffing.
“This was the tube of lipstick that was stolen from my purse. I got it back today.”
“From who?”
“The same woman who came to see me before.”
“She stole your lipstick?”
Alicia’s expression turned very serious. “Notice how the lipstick has been removed. Only the tube is left.”
“Yes, I see that. Who would do something like that? She must be absolutely crazy.”
“No. She actually did something smart.”
“I don’t see how stealing lipstick can be smart.”
“It was ingenious, actually-if the purpose was to collect my saliva.”
Her mother halted, as if the big picture were suddenly coming clearer.
Alicia said, “What kind of proof do you think there might be in my saliva?”
The color seemed to drain from her mother’s face. Matters of biology had always been irrelevant in the Mendoza family, and it pained Alicia to watch her mother start to unravel emotionally. For an instant, it seemed as though the air had been sucked from the room.
“People are sick. The things they say and do just to hurt others.”
“No, Mom. That’s not what this is about.”
Her mother swallowed hard, seeming barely able to speak. “This…I just don’t understand how this could be happening. I love you, Alicia. I love you with all my heart.”
“I know that.”
“Then what do you want from me, my darling?”
“I want to know just one thing,” said Alicia.
Her mother’s eyes welled, and she seemed on the verge of tears. “Tell me, please.”
“Do you want to talk to me, Mom? Or do you want me to talk to her?”