The Forgotten

CHAPTER 64

Mecho lifted his head slightly out of the water and watched the chopper lift off from the helipad and head south out to sea.

He turned on his back and used small strokes of his hands to propel him closer to the boat.

There was security on the main deck and two men on the pier holding MP5S. However, they had no one in the water. That was a large breach in security. But then again the sharks would be out now.

And while Lampert paid well, he apparently didn’t pay that well.

Mecho drew close enough to the boat to touch its hull on the starboard side. He looked out to sea where the lights of the chopper were still visible.

From land and with the aid of binoculars he had caught a glimpse of the man who had first climbed off and then climbed back on the bird.

Mecho had known instantly who he was.

Stiven Rojas.

Police around the world would pale at the name.

There had never been a successful prosecution of Rojas, though many had been attempted. But when witnesses, prosecutors, and even judges are slain during the course of a trial, convictions are exceedingly rare. He had given a whole new definition to the term “ruthless” and would make some of the world’s worst terrorists look innocuous by comparison.

He had started as an orphan on the streets of Cali and built himself into a cartel chief of near mythic proportions. Despite his modest stature, men twice his size would drop to their knees at his approach. He would kill without warning or provocation. He was not simply a sociopath who happened to be a global criminal.

He was the sociopath who happened to be a global criminal.

But something had come along that even Rojas had not anticipated.

Rojas had watched his hemisphere’s drug pipeline into America move from his native Colombia to Mexico. But then he had adapted to a new business line. He would provide the mules to move the drugs throughout the United States. And along with that he would move other valuable product, namely prostitutes and slaves. Slaves in particular were the new growth market. Forget illegal immigrants. They expected to be free, and paid at least something. Slaves expected nothing. They just hoped not to die. Everything after that was a positive for them-not that there was much that was positive.

Rojas and Lampert were partners in the largest slave ring in the world. And they were poised to make it even larger.

Unless they were stopped.

Still in the water, Mecho moved down the starboard side of the ship. There was a line of portholes low enough for him to see in. He gripped one and pulled himself partially out of the water.

The room he was looking into was dark. And empty. He lowered himself back into the water and moved to the next window.

It was on the fourth porthole that he found something other than dark and empty.

Beatriz was still dressed in her maid’s uniform. She stood in one comer while Lampert sat at a table and ate his dinner. He ate slowly, chewing his food methodically. When he glanced at the bottle of wine within a few inches of his arm, Beatriz shot forward and refilled his glass.

As she bent slightly forward to do so Lam- pert’s hand slipped to her bottom and grabbed. She didn’t jerk or drop the bottle. She was apparently used to this treatment. She finished pouring the wine and retreated to the corner, her gaze downcast.

A minute later Lampert glanced at the basket of rolls.

Beatriz shot forward again, picked up one roll, broke it open, and used a small knife to butter it.

While she did this Lampert cupped her left breast with his hand and snaked his other hand under her skirt. As she buttered the roll Mecho could see her face. Bubbling just below the surface was anguish, coupled with a hatred that Mecho, in all his life, had rarely seen. He saw her hand tremble ever so slightly with the knife in it. He knew what she wanted to do. Even as Lampert stroked her she wanted to take the blade and stick it into his chest.

Mecho wondered why she didn’t do so.

Just do it, Beatrix!

Then he looked to the right and saw why she didn’t.

A man stood there with a gun pointed straight at Beatriz’s head.

She finished buttering the roll, placed it on Lampert’s bread plate, set the knife down, and once more retreated to the corner.

The man with the gun relaxed his stance and holstered his weapon.

Mecho sank back into the water.

Peter J. Lampert was not a man who took chances.

Mecho let the current pull him away from the yacht. When he was far enough away he struck out with long, powerful strokes.

And with every stroke he imagined plunging a knife into Lampert’s chest.