The Devil's Bounty (19 page)

There was more good news. Neither of what Lock had suspected were motion-activated lights had switched on.

He waited a few more minutes, then broke cover, moving slowly towards the rear of the house, careful to skirt the area covered by the fixed security camera. From its height, the lens and the angle it was sitting at, he had estimated its coverage – and peeing in the pool was an off-camera activity.

The up-lighters at the bottom of the pool were bright enough for Lock to take a closer look at the frames surrounding the windows. The depth and composition of the glass told him it was blast-proof. He kept moving, staying close to the building out of the camera’s range. At the doors, he cupped his hands over his eyes and peered inside. There was a large living area, with a drop-down viewing screen. The remnants of a party – empty glasses, bottles and drug paraphernalia – covered a low wooden coffee-table.

From nowhere, a light snapped on. He hugged the wall beside the windows, pulled out his gun, and held it by his side. Seconds passed before he realized that what he had thought was a motion-activated external light was in fact the main light in the living room. If whoever had switched it on hadn’t seen him, it was by pure dumb luck. Or they had seen him and were raising the alarm. He risked taking a peek, craning his neck to the window and looking inside.

Separated by a few inches of bomb-proof glass and less than fifteen feet of carpet, he found himself staring straight at the missing girl. She was wearing a long floral dress and looked drained but in reasonable shape. Better yet, standing behind her,
weatherbeaten but still clearly recognizable, stood Charlie Mendez. Between them was the bodyguard.

Lock ducked out of sight, a shiver of excitement running through him, like an electric current. He got it now. He understood why Brady had risked everything. There was no feeling like this.

He keyed his radio and spoke to Ty. ‘I got them both inside.’

Forty-six

BACK IN THE
apartment, Lock weighed the options. A hostile extraction, where you take someone who is either unwilling to leave or being prevented from doing so, is hard to pull off and it sure as hell required more than two bodies. But that was all they had – three, if they counted Rafaela – and Lock was a firm believer in working with the tools at your disposal rather than cursing your ill-fortune. Under normal circumstances, a task of this nature would require ten times the resources if it was to be carefully and safely executed. The surveillance and intelligence team would be one component, the extraction team another. There would be a quartermaster, a transport coordinator and all manner of other personnel.

Complicating matters even further, they had two targets. One would, Lock hoped, go willingly, although that couldn’t be guaranteed when you were dealing with someone already traumatized by an abduction and who might have begun to identify with her captors. Mendez, on the other hand, would go kicking and screaming.

As they gathered together their gear, Rafaela on her way to them, Lock looked at his partner. ‘We’re going to have to forget Mendez. We take the girl, get her out of there, and deal with him later.’

He could tell that Ty didn’t like the idea of giving up on the fugitive they had come to collect. ‘We can’t take ’em both?’ Ty asked.

Lock tucked a spare clip into his jacket. ‘We could try, but it halves our chances and right now they’re pretty slim as it goes.’

‘So he gets off again?’

‘Maybe we can come back for him,’ said Lock.

‘That ain’t gonna happen. You and me both know it.’

‘If he’s implicated in kidnapping the girl the State Department will have to get off their fat ass and put pressure on the Mexicans to get him back.’

‘Or he floats on down to Venezuela or catches a slow boat to Cuba,’ said Ty.

Lock zipped up a bag. ‘What do you want me to tell you here, Ty? It sucks, but taking them both is too risky.’

‘What about Melissa and what she wanted?’

There was a long silence. Lock flushed and his jaw tightened. He advanced on Ty, fists clenched. ‘Melissa’s dead. Carrie’s dead. When they’re gone, they’re gone. The girl’s alive. We can get her home. There’s no debate.’

They froze as the apartment door opened and Rafaela walked in. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘No, we’re good,’ said Ty, breaking eye contact with Lock. ‘Just talking things over.’

‘Now what?’ Rafaela asked.

Lock looked at Ty.

‘We go get the girl,’ Ty said.

Lock gave Rafaela a grim smile. ‘You’re the cop in charge of finding her. Should be straightforward, right?’

She smiled back, all three knowing that for Rafaela to knock at the door and demand they hand over the girl was about as likely as building a snowman in Palm Springs in June. Of course, they might hand her over, and that would be it, until a bomb turned up under Rafaela’s car or someone arrived at her apartment to kill her. But, Lock thought, there might be a way for them to extract the girl while everyone saved face. In him and Ty, Rafaela might not have two accomplices so much as two scapegoats.

‘Sure,’ Rafaela said. ‘Piece of cake.’

Forty-seven

LOCK HAD ALREADY
run through the choices in his head, dismissing most of them out of hand. They could try a covert entry, breaking in without anyone noticing and taking the girl out. That was Fantasy Land, the domain of movies. Even if they could sneak in, which in itself was unlikely, getting out unnoticed with the girl was pushing the boundaries of possibility.

The second approach was a dynamic, and therefore overt, entry. In other words, forcing their way in. From the cursory glance he’d had of the location that, too, was unlikely. They would almost certainly have something akin to a panic room. The girl, Mendez or both would be put there and then it was a siege, with plenty of reinforcements to hand.

Their only real shot at this was if the girl left the house, and there was no way of knowing if that would happen. And even if it did she might not necessarily leave alive. If she had been retained for Mendez’s amusement, then history suggested he would tire of her – there had been no sequels in his date-rape
movie collection – and she was far too risky to keep. She would be killed, dumped, and Rafaela would be handed a prime suspect. The case would be closed, and Lock would find himself a lone voice trying to persuade people that Mendez had been involved in her disappearance.

No, the only real shot they had was if she was moved – and that would have to be prompted. They would have to find a way of dictating the kidnapper’s next play.

He wrote out what he needed and handed it to Ty. Ty looked at the list and his eyes widened a little. ‘You sure about this?’ he asked.

‘That’s Plan B.’

‘And Plan A?’ Rafaela asked.

‘Once Ty’s got what we need and it’s all in place I want you to call your boss and tell him you have a lead. Give him this address. They’ll have to move her and that’ll give us a shot.’

Rafaela looked unconvinced. ‘And what if they decide to kill her, then move her? You might be better going with your second plan first. That way they won’t have time to think, just to react.’

Lock walked to the window and stared over the wall. The light was still on in the living room but there was no sign of anyone. Rafaela had a point and he wasn’t one for letting his ego get in the way. ‘None of this is without risk, but okay. Can you take Ty and gather the materials?’

She gave a curt nod. ‘Sure.’

As Ty followed her to the door, Lock called him back. ‘And we’re going to need a new vehicle as well.’

Ty raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yeah? Ask the black guy to jack the car. Y’know, just because I grew up in Long Beach doesn’t mean that—’

Lock put up his hand. ‘Tyrone. How many cars have I seen you steal? Not how many cars have you actually stolen. Just how many have I seen you steal?’

‘“Steal” is kind of a judgemental term to apply under the circumstances.’

‘Okay – borrowed without asking first,’ said Lock.

Ty glanced at the ceiling as he did the math. ‘I dunno. Maybe a dozen?’

Lock nodded outside toward the villa. ‘Okay, so can we have the racial stereotyping discussion after we’ve taken care of business?’

‘Fine,’ said Ty. He turned to Rafaela. ‘See what I have to deal with here?’

As they headed out, Lock stayed at the window, torn, not sure if he wasn’t deluding himself, that maybe he shouldn’t just pick up the phone to the State Department. He packed that idea away. Who would they call? Rafaela’s boss? That was one sure way of getting the girl killed.

Ty sat out of direct sight in the back seat as Rafaela navigated the empty streets. Her eyes flicked to him in the rear-view mirror. ‘You want Mendez, don’t you?’

Ty shrugged. ‘Can’t always get what you want. Ryan’s right, the girl’s more important.’

They got to the gas station. A couple of kids were hanging around out front, kicking a soccer ball back and forth. Ty helped Rafaela fill the two gas containers and load them into the back of her vehicle. She went in to pay and he put the small tank of propane next to the gas.

Lock had already worked out that the guard he’d seen walking round the grounds stuck to a regular routine, leaving on the hour every hour and taking less than seven minutes, even with a stop to pee in the pool, to complete his patrol. So, barring someone coming out of the house, that left the grounds empty and unpatrolled for fifty-three minutes. The rest of the time, Lock figured, they were relying on someone inside watching the security monitors, but the cameras were mostly at the front of the property, leaving a couple of large blind areas at the side and rear. One of those areas covered the wood pile.

With Ty and Rafaela back safely with supplies and a new model, recently ‘borrowed’, white, Toyota RAV 4, with heavily tinted windows. Lock checked his watch. It showed a quarter past the hour. He set to work, climbing on top of the wall, then hauling up the two gas containers and the cylinder full of propane. He lowered them to the ground on the other side, then followed them.

Having been over the wall once already, this time he felt more sure of himself. He doused the wood pile with one container of petrol, set the second a few feet away, but closer to the house, and the propane cylinder closer still. He was counting on no one finding the initial fire until the other items had exploded. It was an imprecise science.

Satisfied, he used a rag soaked with gas to start the bonfire, then headed back to the wall. Ty’s hand reached down and pulled him back over. They had already abandoned the apartment so they retreated to their vehicle, retrieved from the back of the apartment block, and climbed in.

Now all they had to do was wait.

Forty-eight

HECTOR ANXIOUSLY CHECKED
his watch. They were running late. They should have left the mansion five minutes ago. They would have to make up the lost time on the road.

At the front door, he pulled Julia to one side. ‘Remember what I told you, and you’ll be fine. You understand me?’

‘I understand,’ she said softly, eyes focused on the hallway’s red terracotta-tiled floor. Charlie was standing a few feet away, looking awkward. Hector assumed this was a new experience for him – having to be around one of the girls after he was finished with her.

Eager to get moving, Hector opened the front door and ushered them out. A red Escalade SUV was waiting to take them to the party. Hector opened the rear passenger door. Charlie walked past Julia and climbed in. Julia didn’t move. The look she gave Hector told him that, while she wouldn’t try to escape, there was no way she was sitting in the back with Charlie.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Hector.

‘I don’t want to sit next to him,’ she said, shooting a glance at Charlie.

‘Fuck it,’ Charlie said, scooting across the seats and getting out again. ‘I’ll ride up front.’

He squeezed past her as he got in, his crotch deliberately brushing her backside, even though there was plenty of room. She shuddered and got into the back. Hector climbed in and started the engine. He put the Escalade into drive and released the parking brake.

A second later she caught sight of one of the guards from the back window. He was shouting and waving his arms. Hector stopped, put the Escalade in park and got out, leaving the door open.

The guard was still animated, waving his arms and pointing to the back of the house.

Julia’s Spanish was rusty but she picked out the word
fuego
. Fire. She couldn’t smell smoke but the breeze was blowing towards the house and they were at the front.

Hector snapped at the guard, telling him to deal with it. Then he slammed the door, put the Escalade into drive and gunned it, roaring down the driveway, the gates gliding open just in time for them to scrape through and out on to the road.

Behind them there was a loud bang. Louder than a gunshot. Louder than a car backfiring. She looked at Hector. If he had heard it, it didn’t seem to register. His eyes were fixed on the road and that was where they stayed.

In the front seat. Charlie was staring out of the window at a vague orange glow behind them.

‘What was that?’ he asked, unclipping his seatbelt so that he
could turn around for a better view. ‘It sounded like an explosion.’

Hector shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

Lock’s hand slammed down hard on the steering-wheel of the Toyota RAV 4. They had still been moving into position when the gates had opened and the red Escalade had come barrelling out on to the road. The guards couldn’t have anticipated the fire so it was down to bad luck, plain and simple. But it left in shreds his plan to grab the girl as the occupants fled the house.

Given the Escalade’s tinted windows and that they were parked behind it, they’d had no clear view through the windshield so no idea about who was inside it. For all Lock knew, it might be a decoy.

Glancing to his left, he saw a column of dense black smoke rising from behind the wall as an alarm screamed a warning. The Escalade was almost a full block clear of them now.