Fear No Evil

Chapter 62

Mexico City

The following morning, I was up drinking strong coffee after sleeping for an hour on the plane and getting another two hours of fitful drowsing in my hotel room. Ned Mahoney and John Sampson had arrived here long before me but they looked barely more rested than I did when they came down for breakfast in the little café off the lobby.

“Last night the Federales were flat-out refusing to let us read the confessions, especially General Guerra’s,” Mahoney said. “I was up until three a.m. putting diplomatic pressure on them and woke up to find that a government liaison is coming to take us to see the bodies and the confessions in half an hour.”

“Just enough time to eat,” Sampson said.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“You are technically under my authority, Alex, and I flew you in so you could be there,” Mahoney said.

“I know you did, Ned,” I said. “But you can easily take pictures of the victims and the confessions and text them to me here while I try to contact the cartel using the system Marco described to me last night.”

“I don’t like that idea,” Sampson said. “Not alone.”

“I’m not doing this alone. I won’t leave the hotel until you both come back. Marco was adamant about that. No moving around once contact is made.”

“Which means they’ll come to you,” Mahoney said.

“This is evidently a long, drawn-out process,” I said. “How much time can it take you to look at the bodies and get copies of the confessions?”

“There are people who don’t want us here. Who knows how long they could drag this out or what new ways they could find to interfere?” Sampson said.

“Point taken,” I replied. “But, look, I have my phone on me. You can track me.”

“Not good enough,” Mahoney said. “I’ve got a GPS transmitter the size of a quarter upstairs. You cut a slit in the inside of your belt and slip it in there.”

“I can do that.”

I installed the GPS transmitter in my belt and waited until they’d eaten and left to meet their Mexican law enforcement liaison before I started the process of contacting the leaders of the deadliest drug cartel in the Western Hemisphere. The first step was texting three words to a phone number Marco Alejandro had recited from memory.

“Madre de Dios,” I muttered as I thumbed in those words.

Ten minutes after I’d hit Send, I got another phone number in response. I texted that number another four words in Spanish that translated to “Pray for us sinners.”

I received a third phone number about twenty minutes later.

My stomach fluttered as I thumbed in what was supposed to be the final response, this one in English: My name is Dr. Alex Cross. I work as a consultant to the FBI. I saw and spoke to Marco Alejandro last night in Colorado. He sends his regards and asks you to please see me on an urgent matter. Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

I finished the text with the last lines of the Hail Mary prayer on Alejandro’s specific order. Without the lines, whoever was on the other end of that text would evidently not believe what I’d written.

They believed it. I’d no sooner sent the text and ordered another cup of coffee than my cell buzzed with an incoming message.

My journey? I felt uneasy. How far would they be taking me?

I tried to call Ned and John but they didn’t answer. I texted them to call me. The message seemed to go through, but I noticed it wasn’t marked as delivered.

It still had not been delivered after I paid for breakfast, so I tried again out in front of the hotel, facing a busy street with cafés, high-end stores, and other hotels. The doorman asked if I needed a taxi and I told him in my rudimentary Spanish that I was waiting for a ride.

It took several attempts before he understood, and he gestured that I should wait to one side of the doors. I walked over and sat on a small bench and got anxious at the idea that my words to the cartel leaders might be mistranslated and therefore misunderstood. Then again, Marco Alejandro spoke perfect English.

A ruggedly built man who looked like he had Indian blood in him sat on the bench next to me and sipped from the coffee cup he carried.

“Dr. Cross,” he said in thickly accented English, his eyes dancing over me, his expression amused. “You understand the rules, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Your phone, please.”

I didn’t like it but handed him my phone. He put it in a thick pouch.

“Here is our ride, then,” he said. “You will climb in the back.”

He got up, carrying my phone, walked to a white Chevy Tahoe with dark windows, and opened the front passenger door. He paused to watch me open the rear door, then nodded and climbed in.

I followed suit, was unsurprised to see a second man sitting in the seat beside mine and another even bigger man behind me.

“Hands on your thighs, Señor Cross,” the one beside me said after I’d shut the door and the SUV had pulled away from the curb.

I did as he requested and sat passively as he patted me down. He was thorough but found nothing more than my wallet, FBI credentials, and passport.

“He’s clean,” he said.

A hood came down over my head from behind. I tensed up.

The man beside me said, “No need to panic. We’re putting headphones on you as well. I hope you like mariachi music.”