The Lawless Kind (5 page)

‘Now we all know each other, let’s get down to figuring out our next move.’ I moved across the room to place Kirstie’s bag next to a rustic-looking settee. Most of the furniture in the room looked handmade, albeit by a decent craftsman. The settee was basically a wooden frame, upholstered with thick throw cushions, but it was inviting and no doubt comfortable, and more desirable than the wooden benches we’d sat on during the journey here. I offered Kirstie a place on it.

She looked expectantly at the three of us. We were standing over her, and I felt the closeness of my buddies encroaching on the space, so I nodded each of them to sit. I chose a seat across a coffee table from Kirstie. Harvey sat next to her, a cushion’s distance between them, while Rink propped himself against a cabinet, folding his arms over his chest. Though Kirstie hadn’t looked intimidated, she visibly relaxed. Without being prompted she reached for her carry-on bag and pulled from it a stack of papers in a clear Ziploc envelope.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d need these, but brought them anyway. They’re the steps I’ve already taken to get my boy back.’

‘Rather than go through documents, I think it’d help if you just told us in layman’s terms,’ I said.

Kirstie nodded.

‘The problem is that neither Jorge nor I have sole custody of Benjamin, so the usual routes of getting him home have been mired in red tape and bureaucracy. Normally when a child is kidnapped, he must be registered as missing with law enforcement on the National Crime Information Centre system. Where there’s a felony charge against the abductor, law enforcement agencies are usually happy to help, often issuing a warrant of arrest for the abductor. When a kidnapped child is taken across state lines or even to another country the FBI will get involved and they too will issue an arrest warrant, even an international one if need be. They will usually arrest the abductors and extradite them back to the US, and bring home the child as a matter of course. However, it’s different between Jorge and me, because Jorge has the same parental rights to custody as I have, so I was unable to secure a warrant.’ Kirstie fished inside the envelope and pulled out a glossy snapshot of her son. He was a cherubic toddler with tousled black locks. His light-grey eyes, inherited from his mother, were in contrast to his tanned complexion and dark hair. His paternity wasn’t in doubt.

‘How old’s the boy now?’

‘This is an old photo, the last I took before Jorge kidnapped him.’ Kirstie’s voice hitched at the final syllable. She struggled to get a grip on her emotions. ‘He had just turned three then, but now he’s almost five. I haven’t seen him for over eighteen months . . . Christ! It feels like a lifetime.’

‘It’s taken eighteen months trying the legal route?’ I shook my head at how a child’s welfare could be so mired down in bureaucracy. ‘Shame we weren’t brought in sooner.’

‘I’ve tried other avenues. There are associations, charitable foundations that will help in cases such as mine.’

‘Yeah, I’ve heard a bit about them,’ Rink cut in. ‘Seen something on TV about some guys who went to South Korea and grabbed a kid for his mom.’

‘They can be helpful, but obviously being in the public eye the better-known associations must work very closely with local law enforcement agencies. One group did offer to help, but on hearing that Benjamin had been taken to Mexico they told me that corruption is so rife in the police force that they counselled against seeking assistance from the Mexican authorities. They warned me that the police would tip off Jorge, or worse, throw us in prison as kidnappers. They offered me legal assistance, support and advice, but they were fearful of repercussions if they acted against Jorge. They learned early on that he is allegedly a highly ranked cartel boss.’

‘Allegedly?’

Kirstie shrugged. ‘It’s no secret that the Mexican cartels don’t take infringements against them lightly. Hell, these are the same people who hung a young boy and girl from an underpass during rush hour, slitting them open from throat to groin and allowing their guts to hang out for all to see. Why? Because the two kids had badmouthed them on their blogs, for God’s sake!’

‘So this foundation was afraid to assist you is what you’re saying, for fear something similar would happen to them?’

‘They didn’t say as much, but, yes, that’s what I believe. They were frightened.’

I didn’t have to look at Rink or Harvey to guess what they were thinking. To understand the violence the Mexican cartels inflicted on innocent people would salve their consciences, and make them more enthusiastic for the job.

‘The charity encouraged me to file for emergency custody, and receive certification from the Secretary of State, to put the onus on the Mexican government to help, but that was a non-starter.’ Kirstie laughed without humour. ‘The Mexican government are running scared of the cartels half the time, or in their back pockets. I didn’t waste my time, I sought help elsewhere.’

‘From Conrad?’

‘Not directly. I went to my grandmother. She dotes on Benjamin and misses him as much as I do. She offered to find someone who was willing to help outside of the usual channels. I didn’t hold out much hope – it’s been a long, long time since she was with the CIA.’

I made a grunt of surprise, but when I thought about it, it was pretty obvious that Walter’s lover was from the Agency. He had known no other life since he was in his early twenties.

‘So your grandma put you in touch with old Walter, eh?’ Rink said.

‘Walter? Is that his name? He has only ever referred to himself as Conrad. I assumed that was his first name.’

I scowled at Rink, but he only offered a smile that twisted one corner of his mouth. Then I decided, what the hell? ‘His name is Walter Hayes Conrad. So he wasn’t exactly lying to you.’

‘Just being economical with the truth,’ Rink put in.

Kirstie frowned. She had no idea about Rink’s distrust of our former Arrowsake handler, and voicing his opinion here and now wouldn’t help. I think he got that, because he lowered his head and pinched down on a further retort. Kirstie shook her hair off her shoulders. She picked up Benjamin’s photo, and stared at it for a second or two. I was worried that she would see a connection between Walter and those identical eyes peering back from the toddler’s face. But she didn’t seem to. Tears were welling. ‘Conrad, uh, Walter, or whatever he’s called, promised that he would help me get my son home. And yet, even he was tentative when he realised who Benjamin’s father was. Are you sure that you’ll be able to rescue him?’

It wasn’t the time to tell her that Walter had been hiding a secret and that his reticence was for fear of revealing it, perhaps placing all four generations of his family in a worse predicament.

‘He’s a complicated man,’ I reassured her. ‘He was probably just thinking about the right people for the job. Don’t worry, Kirstie, we’ll do everything in our power to get Benjamin back.’

‘You’ve done similar work before?’

‘Yeah, you could say we’ve had experience of dealing with dangerous people.’

She studied each of our battle-scarred faces in turn. ‘I suspect you’ve seen nothing like the kind of animals Jorge could set loose on you.’

Chapter 6

The wall-mounted air-conditioning unit roared along on its lowest temperature setting, periodically dripping condensation on the floor. Lying on the bed with a sheet pulled up to her throat, Kirstie Long watched the moisture build, tremble in place then make the drop to the carpet. The regularity was almost metronomic, hypnotic in its way. She began to count the drips and was well into triple figures before she realised what she was doing and made a conscious effort to stop. Within half a minute she was counting again. Counting was something she did as an unconscious stress-reliever, and she often wondered if she had a mild case of OCD. The dripping of the A/C unit was only one of many things she’d counted in the past few hours. She’d tapped the tip of her tongue on each of her teeth, making continuous circuits of her mouth. She had counted the small geometric patterns in the carpet. She had also counted the slats on the window shades, calculating if she’d be able to break her way through them before Hunter or the others entered the room.

It was wrong to think of the three men as her guards, because she was not a prisoner. Not in the usual sense. But if she was not allowed to leave this house, then what else could she be? She had asked to go back to her original hotel for her belongings, and been refused. She had insisted but her harsh words were rebuffed as easily as her pleading. All the men would say was that it was for her own safety. Perhaps her warning that Jorge had some of the nastiest killers at his disposal had not helped her cause: it put the men more on edge. After some further discussion, Kirstie had left them to their planning and availed herself of the shower in the en suite bathroom. Washed, and her hair dried by a sputtering dryer that was little more than a flexible tube hanging from the wall, she had climbed into the bed. Not because she was tired, but to force herself to relax. She was impatient to get started, to bring home her son, and if she didn’t lie down she might claw her way through those window slats and run all the way to Mexico.

She wished now that she’d kept her mouth shut about Jorge’s resources, but she’d told Hunter and the others how he’d been hiring mercenary fighters, and had built himself a small personal army culled from branches of various Special Forces groups. His reason for doing so was that there was much infighting between the major cartels, all of them jostling for predominance and control of the narcotics and human trafficking routes into the US. Kirstie knew what task he’d put his army to when she tried to grab Benjamin. Conrad struck her as someone with similar assets at his beck and call, and she didn’t think Hunter or his pals were any less capable than Jorge’s men, but they would be wholly outnumbered and in unfamiliar terrain. She’d contemplated contacting Conrad and requesting further assistance: more men and a support network, but evidently the three men here were all that she was getting.

She thought about the old man and how he’d presented two faces to her. One was cold and hard, the other surprisingly tender. When discussing the detail of snatching back Benjamin, he’d been as cold and soulless as a snake. Yet, afterwards, when he’d done with the planning, he looked as if he wished to embrace her and his eyes had twinkled with unshed tears. Kirstie had recoiled, not so much from fear as from recognition. She knew those eyes. They were her mother’s eyes and those of her own child. They were the eyes she saw staring back at her from the bathroom mirror each morning.

Could it be true?

Was that old man – the soulless CIA man – her grandfather?

When she’d grown old enough to wonder about her heritage, Kirstie had asked her parents about her grandfather. Her mom, Annie, explained that her own mother had always refused to name her father. Embittered by the secrecy surrounding her birth, Annie had stifled any desire to discover his identity, and encouraged Kirstie to do the same. Yet Kirstie had always wondered who the mystery man was. In her teens, she’d attempted her own sleuthing, but her attempts had failed. It was through her search for her grandfather that the investigative journalism bug had bitten her in college, and that was what had led her to her chosen career. Through her work as a fledgling journo she’d made acquaintances of various celebrities, some of whom she’d helped with promo ideas. From there it was a natural step to her current vocation. She had met Jorge Molina through one of her clients at a celebrity dinner, falling for the handsome smooth-talker over margaritas in the bar afterwards. They’d enjoyed a whirlwind romance; one where she’d been carried along on the crest of excitement afforded her by his wealth and associations with many powerful individuals. She’d fallen pregnant by him in the third month of their relationship, was married in the next, and that was when everything had gone downhill. Jorge had shown his real face, something that she had grown to fear more and more as the date of Benjamin’s birth approached. As soon as the boy was born, Jorge had dissociated himself from Kirstie, and the next three years had been stifling as she’d been made a prisoner in their home. Rather than a lover, or mother to his child, Jorge had used her as little more than a nanny to raise Benjamin until he was old enough to be cut loose. He took the boy to his homeland, with threats should she follow. It would be ironic if the loss of one family member should lead to the discovery of another. If she had not met Jorge then there’d have been no need for her grandfather to come to her rescue.

Jesus, she thought, if I’d have known finding him was as easy as this I’d have attracted the attention of a sadistic monster long ago.

It was a black joke.

But how could she laugh when Benjamin was still in the clutches of her evil ex-husband? Not for one second did she believe that his father physically threatened Benjamin – Jorge’s heir was important to him – yet Jorge inhabited a world where dangerous enemies might target his son at any moment. Worse, she feared that Benjamin would be raised to emulate his father . . . something she had no wish to contemplate. As soon as Jorge had returned to Mexico Kirstie had initiated proceedings for the return of her child. Jorge had countered with a plan of his own. One night two thugs had grabbed her off the street and forced her at gunpoint towards a waiting vehicle. They had taken her to her apartment on the outskirts of Washington DC – the home she’d shared with Jorge and Benjamin – and told her to say goodbye to everything she held dear. Then they’d surprised her by introducing a third man to the mix, this one a lawyer working on Jorge’s behalf. Under duress Kirstie had been forced to sign the divorce papers served upon her, and also a backdated pre-nuptial agreement endorsed there and then by the lawyer, giving up all claim to any share of Jorge’s estate in Mexico. She’d gladly signed the papers; she had no interest in anything but her child. She had been handed the deeds to the apartment, with a warning that should the men have to visit her again her next place of residence would be a casket.