by Linda Howard
To find Diaz, said an old man warning her away from her quest, was to find death. Best to stay far away from him. Diaz knew about, or was behind, the disappearance of many. She heard that the one-eyed man’s name was Diaz. No, that was wrong; the one-eyed man worked for Diaz. Or Diaz had killed the one-eyed man for mistakenly snatching an American baby and causing such a furor.
Milla had heard all of that, and more. People seemed afraid to talk about him, but she asked questions and waited, and eventually some sort of muttered reply would come. Even after all this time, she still had no clear idea of who or what he was, only that he was somehow involved in Justin’s disappearance.
“Someone’s setting Diaz up for a fall,” Brian said suddenly.
“I know.” There was no other reason for that phone call, and that worried her. She didn’t want to get involved in a plot of betrayal and revenge. First and foremost, she wanted to find Justin. That was what Finders concentrated on, finding the lost ones, the stolen ones; if justice was served, fine, but that was police business. She never hindered an investigation, in fact often helped, but her objective was simply to return children to their families.
“If things turn ugly, we’ll just stay low and out of sight,” she said.
“What if it turns out he’s the one you’ve been looking for all these years?”
Milla closed her eyes, unable to answer. It was one thing to say they’d stay out of whatever trouble was brewing, but what if Diaz was indeed the one-eyed man who had stolen Justin? She didn’t know if she could control her rage, which still seethed and bubbled inside her like a hidden volcano. She couldn’t just kill him; she needed to talk to the man, even if he was the one, to find out what he’d done with her baby. But oh, how she wanted to kill him. She wanted to tear him apart as surely as he’d torn her apart.
Because she had no answer, she concentrated on the here and now. She could do that; she’d gotten by for ten years by focusing just on what she could do right now. She and Brian were tired, hungry, and they faced a long night. Nothing she could do about the last point, but she dug into their stash of PayDay candy bars and opened one for each of them. The peanuts in the candy bar would give them energy. Now that he knew the candy was going to be his supper, instead of the steak he’d been fantasizing aloud about all the way home, Brian grabbed the PayDay and downed it in three bites. Milla handed him another one, which lasted slightly longer.
She always carried fruit on the jobs, too, but because they thought they were headed home, she’d allowed the supply to get low. They were down to one banana. She peeled it and broke it in half. Brian was already reaching for it before she got the thing peeled.
“Anything else?” he asked after he’d allowed her to eat her half.
“Let’s see. Two more PayDays. A roll of Life Savers. And two bottles of water. That’s it.”
He grunted. They’d need the PayDays to keep them going on the trip home. “Guess that’s supper, then.” He was clearly unhappy. Brian was a big boy who required constant refueling.
She wasn’t thrilled with the idea, herself. She opened the bottles of water, but they drank only a few sips each. The last thing either one wanted now was an overloaded bladder.
They had been to Guadalupe before, but she went through the box of maps until she found one that included the town, and studied the layout of the place. “I wonder how many churches are in Guadalupe. I can’t remember.”
“I hope to God only one, since that guy didn’t give us a name. Give me that roll of Life Savers.”
She handed over the Life Savers and Brian tore into the roll. He didn’t let the candy melt in his mouth; he put in three or four at the time, and crunched.
Milla got out her cell phone and called their contact in Juarez, Benito—no last name had ever been given. Benito was a whiz at providing them with wheels whenever they needed them, and not the rental agency variety of wheels, either. Benito specialized in beat-up, rickety pickup trucks that no one paid attention to, and which weren’t likely to be vandalized if left on the street unattended. That was because there was nothing left to vandalize in Benito’s vehicles. They were bare-bones, really not worth stealing. But they ran, and the one he delivered to them on his side of the border would be full of gas. The paperwork was always in order, too, in case they were stopped by the police.
Arranging for weapons was trickier. The Finders didn’t often have a need for weapons, and doing this always made her uneasy. Mexico had strict weapons laws; not that there weren’t plenty of weapons to be had; it was just that if they were caught with guns, they’d be in very deep doo-doo. She didn’t like breaking the law, but when you were dealing with human snakes, you had to be prepared. She reached their contact for illegal weapons and placed her order: nothing fancy, just basic self-protection. She never knew exactly what would be provided, but she expected cheap .22 revolvers, which they would dispose of before they returned to the States.
As she had expected, it was seven-thirty and getting dark by the time they parked the SUV, walked across the bridge, and cleared their paperwork. Benito was waiting patiently for them with a truly remarkable excuse for a truck, an ancient Ford that was more rust than painted metal. There was no tailgate, the passenger door was wired shut—presumably to keep it on the truck—and the windshield was held in place with duct tape. Literally. Despite their hurry, both Milla and Brian had to stop and blink at the derelict.
“You’ve outdone yourself this time, Benito,” Brian said in awe.
Benito grinned broadly, showing the gap where he was missing a tooth. He was short and wiry, age anywhere between forty and seventy, and he had the most consistently cheerful expression Milla had ever seen. “I try,” he said, with a New York accent. Benito had been born in Mexico, but his parents had crossed the border with him when he was small, and he had very few early memories of the land of his birth. Later he returned to his roots and settled down very happily, but he couldn’t shake his accent. “The horn doesn’t work, and if the headlights don’t come on when you pull out the knob, push it back in real hard and then kind of ease it out again. You gotta get the knot in just the right position.”
“Does it have a motor, or do we have to push it with our feet?” Milla asked, peering inside. She was only half joking, because part of the floor had rusted out and she could see the ground.
“Now, the motor’s a work of art. It purrs like a kitten, and there’s more power than you’d expect. Might come in handy.” He never asked questions about where they were going or what they were doing, but he knew what the Finders did.
Milla opened the driver’s door and climbed in, gingerly scooting across the seat and avoiding the hole in the floor. Brian handed her the case containing the two nightscopes, the one blanket, dark green, they’d had in the SUV, and the two bottles of water; she securely stowed everything while he slid behind the wheel.
The truck was so old there weren’t any seat belts; if the traffic police stopped them, they would almost certainly have to pay a fine. As Benito had promised, however, the engine turned over at the first turn of the key. Brian maneuvered through Juarez’s busy streets, then stopped in front of a farmacia, a drugstore. Milla waited in the truck while he went inside, where he met their contact, a woman they knew only as Chela. She was very distinguished-looking, neatly dressed, and looked to be in her late forties. She gave Brian a Sanborn’s shopping bag; he passed her some money so slickly that no one knew the transaction had taken place; then he was back in the truck and they were on their way to Guadalupe.
Darkness had fallen by then, and he fiddled with the knob for the headlights until they came on. Driving in Mexico at night wasn’t recommended, for anyone. Not only was that when most highway robberies occurred, but the heat retained in the pavement drew livestock to the highways. Hitting a horse or a cow was never good, for either animal or vehicle. There were also potholes and other hazards, which were more difficult to see at night. To make driving even more adventurous, Mexicans somet
imes deliberately drove at night without their own lights, the better to see oncoming cars on hills and curves and avoid them, which was okay unless two cars traveling in opposite directions both had their headlights off. Then it became more like a game of blind chicken.
Brian loved driving in Mexico. He was still young enough, only twenty-five, that he enjoyed pitting his night vision and reflexes against whatever waited for him on the road. He was steady as a rock and didn’t know the meaning of the word “panic,” so Milla gladly left the driving to him, while she held on with a death grip and prayed.
It was almost ten o’clock when they finally reached Guadalupe, perilously close to the time for the meeting. It was a small village of maybe four hundred people, with a single main street that was closely lined with shops, the inevitable cantina, and a variety of other buildings. Here and there hitching posts still stood in position. The road had deteriorated to mostly dirt and gravel, though there were patches of pavement.
They drove down the main street, verifying that there was indeed just one church; behind it was a cemetery, closely dotted with crosses and tombstones. Milla wasn’t able to see much during the drive-by; she couldn’t tell if there was an alley between the church and the cemetery, though she assumed there had to be room enough for a car to drive.
“No place to park,” Brian muttered, and she turned her attention back to the street. He was right; while there was physical space for parking, there wasn’t anywhere that wouldn’t attract the attention of men who didn’t like being spied on.
“We’ll have to go back to the cantina,” she said. Several cars and trucks had been parked there, providing camouflage for their truck. Brian nodded and continued past the church, keeping his speed slow and steady. He took the next right, down a narrow lane. When it intersected, he took the right turn, then worked his way back to the cantina.
He parked the truck between a 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo and an original-style Volkswagen Beetle. They waited and watched, looking for people on the street. Noise poured from the cantina, but a dog nosing curiously around doorways provided the only movement they could see. They each took a pistol and night-vision scope. Before Brian opened the door, Milla automatically reached up to turn off the dome light, only to discover it had been removed.
They slid from the truck and quickly blended into the shadows. The dog looked their way and gave an inquisitive bark, waited a moment to see if they responded, then returned to its search-and-eat mission.
There was no sidewalk, just the street with its obstacle course of potholes and chunks of pavement. By chance they were dressed fairly well for nighttime clandestine work, Brian in green cargo pants and a black T-shirt, and Milla in jeans and a sleeveless burgundy blouse, and they both were wearing rubber-soled work boots as well as dark green baseball caps with “FA,” for Finders Association, in light blue on the front. Brian was darkly tanned, but Milla’s bare arms were noticeable, so she draped the blanket around her shoulders. Now that night had fallen the temperature had cooled dramatically, and the blanket felt good.
They didn’t run, or slink from doorway to doorway; either would attract the attention of anyone watching. They walked purposefully, but without obvious haste. The bad news was that it was less than fifteen minutes until the meeting was supposed to take place. The good news was that only tourists were on time in Mexico, where punctuality was considered bad manners. That didn’t mean no one would be watching the church, but it improved their chances of getting into place unseen.
Seventy-five yards from the church, they left the main street and ducked down a tiny alley that brought them out on the near side of the cemetery.
“What’s the plan?” Brian whispered as he slipped one of the pistols into his pocket, then took out one of the night-vision scopes. “Do we get the jump on them, find out which one is Diaz, and take him away for questioning?”
“I doubt it’ll be that easy,” she said dryly. Because Brian was young and big and strong, and running over with testosterone, he had so far been able to handle everything that came his way. The crucial phrase was “so far.” She was much more aware of how quickly things could go horribly wrong. “We do exactly that if there are only two men, but if there are more, we don’t.”
“Not even if there are just three?”
“Not even.” If there were two men, she and Brian could catch them by surprise and keep both of them covered. Milla didn’t mind holding them at gunpoint while Diaz answered her questions. If there were more than two . . . she was neither stupid nor suicidal, and she certainly wouldn’t risk Brian’s life. It might be two more years before she had another shot at talking to Diaz, but that was better than having to bury someone. “Can you work your way around to the other side of the cemetery?”
“Has a cat got a tail?” Brian was not only ex-military, having joined the army straight out of high school, but an east Texas farm boy who had grown up ghosting through the woods while deer hunting.
“Then pick a spot where you have a clear view of the entire back of the church, and I’ll do the same on this end. Remember, if there’re more than two, all we do is watch.”
“Got it. But if there are only two, what’s the signal for moving in on them?”
She hesitated. Normally they used radios, but they’d been caught without much of their equipment. “Exactly three minutes after they both show up and begin talking, we move. If the meeting is shorter than that, we move when they do.” If the men meeting here were on the alert, the three minutes would give them time to settle down—she hoped. This wasn’t the best method of synchronization, but it was the best she could come up with under the circumstances. God only knows how long they would have to wait.
Brian faded away into the darkness, and Milla edged in the opposite direction, first away from the cemetery, then around it to the back. Taking cover behind a tall tombstone, she used the night-vision scope to look all around her, searching for someone—other than Brian—who was doing the same thing she was doing. There was no one lurking around the church that she could spot, nor was there anyone hiding behind another tombstone.
Still, she waited a few minutes and scanned the area again. Still nothing. She cautiously moved up to another tombstone. This part of Chihuahua State was desert, with cactus and brush, so there was no grass to muffle any sound she made. She went down on one knee and a rock dug into her leg, making her wince, but she controlled her reaction and didn’t make any sudden movements, just carefully shifted her position.
Something crawled across her hand. It felt tiny, like an ant or a fly. Again she controlled her flinch, but her skin crawled, and she had to fight the urge to shriek and jump up and down to fling the bug away from her. She hated insects. She hated being dirty. She hated lying on the ground, in close proximity to both dirt and insects. She did it anyway, and had trained herself to ignore the dirt and bugs. What she was doing was dangerous and she knew it; her heart was already pounding with sickening force, but that, too, she had learned to ignore. She might cringe inside, but no timidity at all showed on the outside.
She picked up the rock that had been digging into her knee, her fingers sliding over the smooth, triangular shape, kind of like a small pyramid. Hmm, that was interesting. Automatically she slipped it into her front jeans pocket. After a moment she realized what she’d done and started to dig the rock out of her jeans, to toss it aside, but she couldn’t make herself do it.
She had been picking up rocks for years now, always on the lookout for smooth ones or ones with unusual shapes. She had quite a collection of them at home. Little boys liked rocks, didn’t they?
After once again surveilling the cemetery and surrounding area, she moved in a crouch up and to the right, then again to the next tombstone, slowly working her way into position. Cupping her hand over her wristwatch, she pressed the button that illuminated the face: ten thirty-nine. Either the caller’s information was bogus, or the people were in no hurry to get here. She hoped it was the latter, and she and B
rian hadn’t gone to all this trouble for nothing.
No. It wasn’t for nothing. Sooner or later, she would find her son. All she had to do was keep running down all leads. She had been doing this for ten years and she would do it for another ten, if necessary. Or twenty years. She couldn’t imagine ever giving up on her little boy.
Through the years she had tried to imagine what Justin’s interests would be, how they would change as he grew, and she had bought toys she’d thought he would like. Would he be fascinated by balls and toy trucks? Would he make motor noises as he crawled along? When he was three, she imagined him on a tricycle. By four, she thought, he would be picking up rocks and worms and things like that, putting them into his pocket. She couldn’t make herself pick up a worm, but the rocks . . . she could do rocks. That was when she’d begun collecting them.
When he was six, she wondered if he was learning how to play soccer, or T-ball. He would probably still like rocks at that age, too. But just in case, she’d bought a baseball and a small bat.
When he was eight, she imagined him with his adult teeth growing in, too big for his face just yet, though his cheeks would be losing the chubbiness of childhood. At what age did children start playing Little League? He’d have his own bat and glove by now, surely. And maybe someone had taught him how to skip a flat stone on the water; she began looking for the smooth, flat ones, so she’d have them for him just in case.
He was ten now, maybe too old for throwing rocks. He’d have a ten-speed bicycle—a gear for each year, she thought. Perhaps he was into computers. He was definitely old enough now for Little League. And maybe he had an aquarium. Maybe he could put a few of the prettier rocks in his aquarium. She had stopped buying toys, and though she did have a computer, she didn’t buy a bicycle, or an aquarium. The fish would just die, because she wasn’t home often enough to keep them fed.