T. Parker - The Jaguar

They looked at Hood blankly, then opened the booklets.

“Do you know him? Have you seen him?”

The men flipped patiently through the pictures. One looked up at Hood with an amused smile. The other went through the photos twice.

“No.”

“No.”

“Keep them. Show them to the men you work with. Show them to whoever you want. I’ve got a thousand dollars for anyone who can tell me where he is. My numbers are on the last page. Call collect if you want.”

“Reynosa in one day.”

When the men were gone Hood called Bradley on the satellite phone. “She’s okay. I just talked to her. She’s scared but she’s okay.”

“Tell me everything she said.”

Hood did. When he was finished he listened to the silence at the other end. “Where are you, my friend?” asked Hood.

“On my way to Veracruz.”

“Who aimed you there?”

“Carlos’s people. The bad guys always know where the other bad guys are.”

“Do you know where they’re keeping her?”

“Somewhere on the Yucatan peninsula. Trust me, Hood-when I know where she is, you will too. But I suspect you’ll find out long before I do. If I do.”

“Do you trust Herredia?”

“I have to. I’m lost down here without him.”

“I’m guarding this money with my life. I’m doing my job, Bradley.”

“Tell me everything she said. Please. One more time.”

Dear Beth

I hope you are okay and that Daisy has been good company. I’m in Mexico helping some associates who are in a tight spot. It’s a long story and I won’t burden you with it, although I remember you asking me to share my burdens. I’m still learning how to do that. I wish I could blather, warble and yap, as you describe your own talents. I don’t know why I seem to think my burdens are too special, or maybe not special enough, to share. I miss you very much, the hope in your eyes and the sweetness of your breath and the way your hair falls over your forehead and when I lift it back into place it falls again. Lots more than that too.

Down here it’s another world, Beth. Juarez is devastated by the murders of the women, and the cartels have added another two thousand or so bodies of their own in the last two years. Whole neighborhoods are deserted now, mostly the more prosperous ones because the better-off people have left. Anyone who can afford to leave has gone. The mayor lives in the United States because he fears for his life. I recount these horrors not to impress you with my bravery (or foolishness) but as a way to measure my own puzzlement over why I choose to work along this border of sorrows. I remember you told me how you enjoyed the challenge of treating cancer patients. How you loved the idea that you could win. So I think you must understand what draws me here. I could go back to L.A. anytime. I could get back my patrol in Antelope Valley-you know how I like the desert. But I stay close to Mexico. Why? I believe that I’m needed here though I can’t prove that my actions and sacrifices, or those of the brave men and women I work with, some of which have been far deeper than my own, have accomplished even one tiny bit of good in this lawless place so immune to good fortune. I wonder if a man’s soul can grow used to defeat, and if so, can the soul of a place?

There are many beauties in this world but none of them touch the beauty that I see in you.

Your Missing Man,

Charlie

“That is not Veracruz,” said Bradley, poking his finger against the window glass of the Chinook. The air was spotted with turbulence and the ride was rough. “It’s Guadalajara.”

“There has been a change,” said Fidel. He had piloted the craft for nearly seven hours. They had gotten a late start from El Dorado, which had greatly angered Bradley. “We will stop near Guadalajara.”

“But Carlos has a safe strip for us in Veracruz.”

“We need to see some people.”

“We need to get Erin off the Yucatan. We’re eleven hundred miles from the Yucatan, Fidel. You start late. You make changes. You’re making me angrier.”

“I am so sorry for that. But we have new information. The man I told you about. The one we were questioning.”

“We’ve been in the air all day.”

“It came yesterday.”

“This is bullshit and I don’t like it. Carlos won’t, either. He recruited you to help me, not to risk Erin’s life.”

Fidel gave him a dark look that encompassed Erin within his own history. Bradley saw that his quest to save Erin was only a part of Fidel’s quest, a subordinate fragment of the dream that was to avenge his wife and family, and he felt the nearly blind fury stirring inside again. It was always right there, up near the surface, invisible and powerful.

“Would you like to fly us to Veracruz, Bradley?”

“I can’t fly this thing.”

“No, of course not. Then you be a good soldier and do what I tell you to do.”

Someone pushed into the flight deck. Bradley heard the roar of the motor and rotors when the bulkhead door opened and he turned to see Caroline Vega glaring down at him.

“You only missed Veracruz by six hundred miles.”

“I was just explaining that to Fidel,” said Bradley.

“And I was just explaining to Jones that we have a change of plans,” said Fidel.

“Like what kind of change?” asked Vega.

“We need fuel.”

“What are all those drums of fuel in the back for? I kicked one of them. It wasn’t empty.”

“You can never have too much fuel,” said Fidel. He turned and smiled up at her. “So now we stop for fuel.”

“Who’s in charge here, Bradley? Is it you or him?”

“I will let you two decide who is in charge,” said Fidel.

With this he clicked off his shoulder restraint, stood and left the cockpit.

“Can you fly this, Brad?”

“No. You?”

“I don’t believe so.”

Vega worked her way into the pilot seat and surveyed the instruments before her and reached out her hands but wasn’t sure where to put them. She looked helplessly at Bradley.

He felt the big machine groaning along but it felt different to him, as if a great weight was climbing onto its back. There was a hesitation and a dreamy yaw that brought his stomach up into his throat.

“Do something, Brad.”

He climbed from the copilot seat and clambered out of the flight deck with his hands on the bulkhead for balance and support. He looked back into the huge cargo and passenger bay, where the four black Yukons waited and most of the twenty men napped on litters. Most of the men wore the tan camo fatigues and shirts and desert boots of their leader, but two had changed into navy pants and light blue shirts with white oval patches over the left breast. Fidel was about to open a bottle of Bohemia and sit down with them.

Bradley approached. “You made your point.”

The men looked at him with boredom or contempt.

“Good,” said Fidel. “In another twenty seconds you would have been too late and we would all soon die.”

“And I have a point to make also, Fidel.” He swung the barrel of his AirLite flush up against Fidel’s forehead, cocking back the hammer mid-swing. “If you’re not on your way to the cockpit in five seconds I’ll pull. I’m sure one of these guys can fly this thing. I will not wait six seconds, Fidel. I simply will not wait. And we are not stopping until we get to Veracruz. So now, five, four, three…”

Bradley counted fast and on “one,” Fidel shrugged away from the pistol and started for the cockpit. Bradley fell in behind him, gun still up and ready, scanning the hostile eyes of the men as he walked. “Remain clear on who’s running this show, shitbird. And everything will be cool.”