Passenger 19

FORTY-ONE

The girls were, at that moment, no more than thirty meters away. Jen heard every bellowed order, and in spite of her lack of fluency in Spanish, she caught enough to know that a search of the jungle was under way. That was where Kristin had wanted to run, but Jen had resisted the idea. To begin, it would have required a forty-yard sprint across open ground to reach the nearest cover. If they made it that far, neither of them had any idea which way to go. Jen had also thought the plan too obvious. She’d reasoned, correctly as it turned out, that it was the first place the Colombians would look.

She’d spotted the old cellar door under a pile of rubble, just out of view on the far side of the house. Jen guessed it was a basement of some kind, and together they quietly pulled aside timber and chunks of plaster. When they finally lifted the door it was a disappointment — there was no more than a crawl space beneath, two steps disappearing into an avalanche of soil and rock. It seemed useless at first, but when the shouting began — a man named Pablo, according to Kristin — the space seemed suddenly larger. The girls had scrambled inside, laid down shoulder to shoulder, and lowered the door, doing their best to pull bits of debris on top as it fell closed.

Now Jen was flat on her belly, Kristin crushed beside her and peering through their only window to the world — a narrow gap offering a tunnellike view of the compound.

“Can you see anyone?” Jen asked in a hushed tone.

“No. Not in the last few minutes.”

“So you were actually dating this guy?”

“His name is Carlos. When I met him he was just a student like me. But he’s completely different now.” Kristin kept watch through the tiny gap, and at a whisper explained how everything had come to pass. She left only one thing out.

“Why did they kidnap you?” Jen asked. “Are your parents wealthy?”

Kristin sighed, and in the darkened shadows she twisted her head until they were face to face. “My mom and I have always been alone — I never knew who my father was. She told me he disappeared before she found out she was pregnant, and that she never tried to find him because he was a total loser. I guess in a way she was right.” She glanced to make sure no one had wandered near. “Two years ago my mom lost her job. When I started college we really needed money. Then suddenly, everything changed. Last year, right before Christmas break, Mom told me she’d moved. I went home expecting a tiny apartment, but out of nowhere we had a nice new house. She wasn’t looking for work anymore. She had new clothes and a new hairstyle. It was a good Christmas — tablet computer, gift cards, a car for college.”

“The Dad who abandoned you is rich?”

“Not so much rich as… connected. There’s seven million dollars in that suitcase out there. I can guarantee you not a penny of it is his.”

Jen stared at her. “Who has connections like that? Is he a mob boss or something?” She saw Kristin smile for the first time since they’d been on the airplane.

“There are people who might put it that way.”

Jen looked at her quizzically.

“My biological father is Martin Stuyvesant — the vice president of the United States.”

“Holy—” A hand clamped over her mouth.

The silence outside was broken as footsteps scuffed nearby. The girls lay frozen with fear. Neither breathed, and through a slim gap Jen saw a pair of boots approach, then turn away until only one was visible. It was big and black, and had a crescent-shaped scar on the heel.

Kristin was watching too, and she silently mouthed one word. Pablo.

Davis had the engines pushed hard against the red lines on the gauges. The airspeed was pegged at 210 knots — painfully subsonic, but covering ground. He estimated they would reach the airfield in eight minutes.

“I’ve got Jorgensen on the phone,” McBain announced as he jockeyed the sat-phone antenna to get better reception. “He says the jeeps got bogged down on a bad section of road — right now they’re about three miles south of the landing strip.”

“Ask him who got left behind at the airfield — I didn’t take the time to look.”

Moments later McBain had the answer. “He says the only person in sight is the Cessna’s pilot.” He gave Davis a tentative look. “Let me guess — we’re going to land there too?”

“Why not?”

“We have no other choice,” piped in Delacorte from the back seat.

Davis turned and said, “I knew I brought you for a reason.”

“How do we handle the pilot?” McBain asked.

“There’s three of us and one of him. We have imitation heavy weapons, he’s probably packing something between a semiauto handgun and a Swiss Army knife.”

“I doubt he’s one of the bad guys. Chances are, he’s only a charter pilot — probably got five hundred bucks plus expenses to retrieve this courier and deliver him to a coordinate set in the jungle. Tomorrow he’ll go back to his usual gig. He’ll fly a couple of movie stars to a high-end resort, or maybe give an eco-tour of the rain forest.”

“By cruising over it in a turboprop gas hog?” Davis asked.

“Maybe he’s got a Greenpeace sticker on the side of his airplane. My point is that we’re not talking about a tactically oriented individual.”

“Which means what?” Delacorte asked.

Davis reached into the same leather side pouch from which he’d pulled the aircraft checklist and withdrew a cheap pair of sunglasses. He put them on to ward off the brilliant sun, and said, “Which means we can keep our toy guns in the bag… for now.”

Kehoe sensed he was nearing the endpoint of his journey. He felt the jeep slow considerably, and one of the men behind him muttered something about being hungry.

He was comforted that the briefcase full of cash was still in his lap. Kehoe did his best to glean information during the ride, but there had been little of use. Clattering valves from an ill-kept engine, the occasional shadows from trees overhead, and enough dust in his lungs to tell him he was riding in the trailing vehicle. Not much to advance an understanding of his circumstances.

He was used to it, of course. Most of his jobs, by design, involved an acute lack of information. He’d been told there would be seven million in the briefcase, and that much was true — he’d opened it in a quiet moment alone on the G-III, because no one can carry that much cash and not look at least once. What he didn’t understand was why the girl he was getting in exchange was so important to Martin Stuyvesant.

Back in Cleveland, Stuyvesant’s chief of staff let slip in his briefing that the Secret Service was somehow involved. This was not a complete surprise, given Stuyvesant’s status, and Kehoe was being paid well enough to know that the reasons were none of his business. But it did pique his curiosity. He’d asked if the money was counterfeit because he doubted he could spot a high-quality forgery, and because there were plenty of people here who could — Colombians had long been the world’s most prolific counterfeiters of U.S. currency. He’d been assured that the money was legitimate, and he thought it might be true. All the same, the fact that the people he was meeting had brought him this far without inspecting the cash seemed doubly curious. Both sides, apparently, were highly confident of a straightforward deal, and if everything held together for a few more hours the transaction would be, in his experience, uniquely successful. It suggested that both sides had some kind of insurance, or perhaps a mutual interest in a positive outcome.

His inference that the end of his journey was near proved correct. The jeeps came to a rough stop and both engines fell silent. Under the black hood, Kehoe’s senses heightened. He knew they were in the shade, and he felt the jeep rock as the driver and two soldiers in back dismounted. Someone ordered him to stay where he was. Kehoe was happy to do just that.

Then things got interesting. He heard a distant conversation in Spanish, the voices quiet but strained. Then he heard the man in charge, shout, “Cómo pudiste dejar escapar a los dos?”

Kehoe stiffened ever so slightly. There had been an escape. The girl he was sent to retrieve? Los dos implied two. A second hostage? That was news to him, but he supposed it wasn’t out of character — they were, after all, kidnappers. Get the girl back safe. That was his objective, he reminded himself — aside from getting out alive.

He heard a command to begin a search, the voice of the man who’d spoken to him at the airport. Then another order, one that froze Kehoe to the worn upholstery. “Ir a buscar el hacha!”

Go find the ax.