Passenger 19

THIRTY-FIVE

“Where are we going?” Davis asked.

He was in the backseat of a Toyota SUV, and there were now two men, the Viking having been joined by their driver, a wiry dark-haired man with an ever-present grin. They’d told him their names were Jorgensen and McBain, and that they worked for the DEA, which was enough to get Davis into the Toyota — that and the fact that he was running seriously low on cash for cab fare.

McBain drove with abandon, blending perfectly in the demolition derby that was Bogotá traffic. The Toyota bottomed out on a pothole, and an audible crunch from the undercarriage widened McBain’s smile. The vehicle seemed solid, in a mechanical sense, but the floorboards were littered with food wrappers and newspapers. Davis doubted the exterior had ever been washed, save for two arcs of clear glass on the windshield that could be credited to the wipers. A company car if he had ever seen one.

Jorgensen said, “We have an apartment nearby. There are some things there you should see.”

An apartment, thought Davis. One that probably looks a lot like this truck. “So why is the DEA springing me out of jail?”

Jorgensen, who was in the front seat next to his partner, half-turned to face Davis. “We only follow orders, Jammer. By the way — is that your real name?”

“My birth certificate says Frank, but nobody uses it.”

McBain said, “The guy in charge of our region, back in D.C., he’s a retired Marine general. Apparently he got a sideways call from an old Air Force friend who said you needed help.”

And there was the answer. Jorgensen and McBain represented the long reach of Larry Green, or more precisely, the old generals’ network in action. That was what happened when you put a hundred or so high achievers together in the Pentagon for their last tours of duty before retirement. They formed cliques and had lunch, and when they all retired and moved on to corporate and government afterlives, they kept in touch and did favors for one another.

“Oh, and by the way,” said McBain, “Semper Fi.”

“They told you about that? That I did three years living in tents and eating MREs before trading desert camo for sky blue?”

“I won’t hold it against you.”

“Semper Fi, then. Where were you?”

“West coast, EOD, with two tours in the box. Got out ten years ago and ended up with the DEA.”

“Defusing bombs and drug enforcement. What’s next, parachute test pilot?”

Jorgensen whacked his partner’s shoulder. “See, I told you this guy would be good!”

McBain grinned. This was the opening for him to say something more about his service. You could always tell who’d seen serious action — the rear echelon types boasted about their tours, amplifying every dust-covered step. McBain said nothing.

Jorgensen turned toward Davis, and said, “We heard about what you did to those cops. We deal with the police here every day. Some of them are great, but others will sell you out in a heartbeat. You never know who to trust. I’ve got to tell you — there’s been a couple of times the two of us wanted to do exactly what you did.”

Davis said at a near whisper, “I didn’t know they were cops. It was dumb because getting locked up didn’t advance my cause. Right now I’m only interested in one thing — finding my daughter.” With his gaze fixed out the window, he stared at nothing. The truck jarred over bumps, and new sites of pain were realized. It was nothing compared to the empty ache in his core.

The Toyota pulled up to an apartment block garage. It was a notably featureless address, the building square-edged and bland, settled on raw concrete footings and finished in chipped stucco. Aesthetics aside, the place looked solid, which was probably the point. McBain produced a remote control, jabbed a button, and the sturdy parking garage door opened.

Jorgensen pulled into the spot labeled 16, and said, “We already got a briefing on your daughter, Jammer. From our office upstairs we can access pretty much every DEA asset in Colombia — and trust me, that’s a lot. So don’t worry, we’re gonna get her back.”

Davis could have kissed the man.

Apartment 16 was on the top floor, and it did look a lot like the truck. McBain said they’d been here for a month, but Davis would have guessed a year. There was takeout food on a dinette, half-eaten Chinese with the chopsticks still in place, and a cardboard box cradling two pieces of thin-crust pizza that had curled at the corners.

All the casual furniture — a couch, chairs, and an entertainment center — had been pushed to one side of the room to make way for a large table that bristled with computers, and two thick cables snaked out the main window, undoubtedly linking antennas on the roof.

“It looks like you guys keep busy,” Davis said.

“Honestly, things have been a little slow,” said Jorgensen. He explained that the DEA’s Colombian footprint today was smaller than during the galloping drug wars, when the likes of Pablo Escobar and rival cowboy narcos pushed the country to the brink of lawlessness. “A lot of the coca production has pushed down into Peru this season. We’d like to call it a victory, but the cartels are resilient. It’s a water balloon strategy — we clamp down on one spot and they move to another. Still, there’s plenty to do. Our most recent op involved a small group of farmers on the steppe who decided that a downturn in coffee bean prices meant it was time to convert to a new crop.”

“So how do you combat something like that? Go out and franchise a few Starbucks outlets?”

Both DEA men smiled. “I wish we could be that proactive,” said Jorgensen. “But I like your positive outlook.”

Davis said, “Whatever help you guys can offer is appreciated. I have to ask, though — is this an officially sanctioned event?”

“You mean will DEA Central be informed?” said Jorgensen.

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Let me put it like this. The best thing about our job is that we have a lot of autonomy — nobody in Washington is quite sure what we do down here. Not unless we tell them.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

“Pretty close, and we get a lot done. So tell us what you know about your daughter’s situation.”

Davis did, covering the abduction of the two girls and the subsequent crash.

“That’s pretty brazen, even for this part of the world,” said McBain. “Of course, the drug business has been slumping lately. It’s possible some of the new entrants are focusing more on kidnapping and extortion.”

“Even so,” Jorgensen argued, “crashing an airplane to cover your tracks? I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Davis said, “You’ve never seen the kind of hostage we’re talking about. This isn’t about my daughter at all — she’s just caught in the crossfire. The primary kidnapping target is very high value.”

“Bill Gates’ kid?” McBain jested.

“Way worse.”

The two affable agents exchanged a look, and their good humor dissipated. “Okay,” said McBain, caution in his voice, “maybe you should tell us what we’re getting into.”

“I’ve been giving that some thought — whether you guys need to know. You sealed the deal a little while ago. Semper Fi.” He paused, and then said, “But you should understand that just by knowing, you could be setting yourselves up for some difficult choices in the near future.”

Again the two exchanged a look, and this time Jorgensen said, “All right, warning duly noted.”

“The name of the other girl who was abducted is Kristin Stewart.”

The DEA men exchanged a blank look. “So who is Kristin Stewart?” Jorgensen asked.

“She’s Martin Stuyvesant’s illegitimate daughter.”

“Holy crap!” said McBain.

“Eloquently put, Marine. When they came to pull her off that airplane, Kristin seemed to realize what was happening. She told my daughter to claim that she was Kristin Stewart. The two look a lot alike, so apparently the thugs on detail didn’t know what to do and took them both. As it turned out, it saved Jen’s life. I’m sure the mastermind who cooked up this insanity has figured out who’s who by now. That’s what you’re getting into. I need to find out where these girls are being held. Then I’m going to go get them.”

“You? By yourself?”

“If necessary. Of course, a little help is always appreciated. Problem is, I don’t trust anybody north of the Mason-Dixon line right now. Somebody in D.C. has been watching every move I make.”

“Stuyvesant?” asked McBain.

“No way to tell. But I don’t think were talking about any kind of government-sanctioned surveillance. It all seems very shady and off the books, which makes sense in a way. And because this situation is a powder keg, politically speaking, nobody is going to authorize SEAL Team Six or an FBI task force to come down and rescue these girls. Bottom line — whatever help I was getting is gone. I’m on my own now.”

“Wow,” said Jorgensen. “You are screwed.”

“Oh, it gets worse.” Davis pulled out the note Echevarria had given him and showed it to the DEA men. “Someone is threatening Jen if I don’t go home on the next flight.”

“But you’re not going,” said McBain.

“Would you?” He looked at each man in turn, and got two head shakes. “That’s what I thought. Help me find her, that’s all I ask. I’ll take it from there.”

Without hesitation, McBain said, “Let’s get to work.”