Passenger 19

THIRTY-TWO

Davis left the hotel in a fog, meandering in the direction of El Centro. There was little conviction in his stride because he could imagine nothing there that would help his cause. He lumbered ahead all the same, operating on the same principle as a shark — keep moving or drown.

He’d come here on a mission to find his daughter, and as a secondary ambition, sanity permitting, to solve a crash. He now knew Jen wasn’t the victim of an aircraft accident, but rather a kidnapping. And the crash investigation? It was unlike any he’d ever seen. The final report, if he even bothered with one, would have nothing to do with maintenance practices or pilot training or weather. This mishap was one hundred percent about people. In truth, it wasn’t an air crash at all — more like a crime scene with wings. To top it off, an unbearable new stench was wafting in, seared by that most volatile accelerant of all — the acetylene torch of politics.

The vice president of the United States had fathered an illegitimate daughter. It explained a lot of things, including why Davis had been getting such focused help from Washington. He wondered if the president himself could be involved. Davis would bet against that idea. He’d met Truett Townsend, and everything about the man seemed aboveboard. The Montanan, fed up with congress, had declared he would not run for a second term unless the two parties found common ground. Gridlock continued, and Townsend kept his word. America’s loss, in Davis’ opinion. Now his apparent successor was being blackmailed by someone hiding in the headwaters of the Amazon.

With Jen caught smack in the middle.

When he caught sight of El Centro, Davis stopped on the roadside and stared. He’d already spent two hours there today, scouring maps and surveillance photos, asking searching questions and getting blank stares in return. The building glimmered under the high midday sun, but to Davis it suddenly seemed a dark place, an investigative black hole where evidence went in but nothing came out. Since arriving on scene he had pursued the standard practices of investigation, none of which had brought him closer to Jen. Marquez had done the same, and it had gotten him killed.

The sun beat down on his back. It pounded everything in sight. People, cars, airplanes landing on the nearby runway — all seemed to move languidly, as if time itself was overheating. A truck barreled past raising a cloud of dust, and El Centro disappeared in a swirl of brown. In that moment, Davis realized he needed a new direction. He studied the city around him, slow and observant, and then the mountains beyond. He considered a scarred plot of jungle eighty-nine miles south. Was that where the solution lay? Or was it in a plush D.C. conference room? He wondered if there was a military transport speeding south at this very moment, full of hard men and exotic weapons, prepared to settle a score for the man who would soon be king.

It dawned on Davis that the most useful piece of evidence he’d discovered was on the bedside stand in his room — Jen’s iPod, which held an audible record of the abduction. Voices that could be analyzed. The gunshots that ended the life of a Secret Service agent. Kristin Stewart imploring Jen to act as her double. With fresh lucidity, he realized that Jen’s recording was his best weapon. He turned on a heel and started back to the hotel.

By the time the weathered three stories of Hotel de Aeropuerto edged into view, he was breathing hard and his shirt was matted to his back. Davis was almost to the parking lot when he saw the door to his room. He scuffed to a stop on the road’s gravel siding.

The door was ajar. There was no maid’s cart parked along the railed balcony. No box of tools from the resident handyman. He was sure he’d left the No Molestar sign on the handle. Two men emerged from his room.

Davis edged into the shadow of a parked delivery truck and watched. The men were Hispanic, both beefy and rugged looking, a pair who would look right at home on a warehouse loading dock. One was wearing a soccer jersey and needed a shave. The other wore dark sunglasses and needed a gut-buster diet. They closed the door neatly, and Davis followed their progress all the way to the office. His suspicions about the hotel owner might have had merit after all.

The sunglasses went inside, and through a tightly angled window Davis saw him hand something to the proprietor. A key card? Cash? Maybe both. A few words were exchanged, and soon the pair headed out to the street.

They set out on foot, which was good, because a car would have forced Davis into a difficult choice — confront them here or let them go. He fell in behind the men, keeping a healthy separation, and watched them fall in and out of the shadows of high-rise apartment buildings. They tracked across a broad park, and twice disappeared behind foliage, but each time Davis reacquired them. They hit a good stride on a street called La Esperanza, a wide boulevard with a central tree-lined median and sided by retail shops. There were salons and brand-name clothing stores, practical farmacias next to extravagant emerald wholesalers. He was a hundred feet in trail, and working up a sweat, when the two men suddenly stopped. One pulled out a cell phone and had a very brief conversation. Then both turned and looked directly at him.

It didn’t take countersurveillance training for Davis to realize he’d been made. They’d been alerted by a phone call, which meant there was at least one other person nearby, possibly more. The two reversed course and started walking toward him, and Davis sensed a major shift in the odds. He didn’t know how many he was up against or where they were. As he stood in the middle of a busy commercial district, there wasn’t a cop in sight.

Never was when you needed one.