T. Parker - The Jaguar

“Armenta removed them.” Mike poured the rum over the ice. In the dark tavern light it came from the bottle like gold. “No land lines. He installed cell signal scramblers that cover the whole compound and half of the federal reserve. He relies on satellite phones but he only allows his most trusted men to carry them. Armenta’s men confiscate all electronic devices belonging to guests, returning them only when the guests depart. He has no alarms or electronic security, none of the things that you fruitlessly employed against the men who now have Erin.”

“How do you know what I employed? You’ve never even been to my home.”

Mike gave him a crafty smile. “I’m trying to teach you something here. The things you thought would protect you-whatever they may be-did not protect you. Oh, good ideas, yes. Terrific technology. But technology is still very fragile and finicky. It’s the simple things that really register, really work , and always have. The finger on the trigger. The well-timed question. Twenty-fifteen eyesight. Thirty pieces of silver or a million in cash.”

“Hand-drawn maps.”

“Exactly.”

Bradley held up the maps and even in the poor light he could see the smudges left by Finnegan’s fingers and the shine of the graphite on the paper. Then he set the papers back in the folder. “Did you make copies?”

“Not prudent. Each is one of a kind. They are yours.”

Bradley slowly shuffled them, staring at the close-up, then the establishing shot, one after the other.

“What we need is a way to talk to her, Mike. If we can talk, we can make a plan. Without a plan, it’s just bullets and blood.”

“I’m working on this. Believe me, I am working on it.”

They clinked glasses and drank. Bradley was not a rum man but it was sweet and whole and the lemon finished it cleanly.

“Bradley, have you by any chance mentioned our friendship to Charlie Hood?”

“Why would I do that?”

“That is not what I asked.”

“I said I wouldn’t. I haven’t and I won’t.” Bradley tucked the leather folder onto his lap and lifted his glass to Finnegan.

An hour later the bottle was half gone and Finnegan had joined a pack of stevedores up by the bar. He was shouting out something about all the gold still left here in Veracruz and why the lazy people on this part of Earth had failed to extract it. Someone laughed and pushed him and Mike laughed and drove a finger into the man’s chest and rocked him back. Then he was up at the counter buying drinks and when Bradley looked above the tavern mirror at the same Taberna Roja sign that hung outside, he saw that the jolly man with the booze on his tray looked a bit like Mike. Red cheeks and curly red hair. El Rojo. Bradley shook his head and added a handful of ice to his glass and set the leather folder on the table before him and looked again at the maps of where Erin was being held. This is what connects me to you, he thought: a map drawn by a man I hardly know and barely trust.

Looking down at the maps he thought that the jungle might be an ally rather than an enemy. Yes, Armenta and his people knew the jungle, but if it was as dense and steep as Mike had said, then it could hide things even from those who knew it. Bradley thought that they could get close to the Castle without being seen. Yes, through the unfenced jungle. With a finger he traced the road coming in, then tapped the triangle representing the guardhouse. Using his pocketknife he estimated the distance from the garrison in the jungle to the Castle proper to be half a mile, based on Mike’s scale. If we were quiet, he thought, and Erin could meet us, we could steal her away before anyone knew she was gone. Silence. Cunning. The Caribbean Sea was less than half a mile east. Laguna Guerrero a third of a mile to the west. Trails. There must be at least game trails. Or, water. Come from the water and leave by water. Chetumal was close enough if they could get a decent boat. Chetumal also had an airport. Bacalar was near the lagoon, and very near the highway leading northwest to Merida. Merida: crowds, a consulate, an airport, safety. The same for Cancun. He sipped the rum without taking his eyes from the maps.

Or we can think about using the road, he thought. Be simple and pure and audacious. Surely, if the Castle was locked in the middle of jungle, then it required occasional deliveries of goods and services. Food? Propane? Water? Building materials? Landscape and pool maintenance? Painting? Mosquito abatement? He thought: If I could talk to her she could tell me who comes and goes. If she could get free for just a minute, for just a few seconds, I could get her on her way home before Armenta knew a thing. If…

He looked at Finnegan, now pushing drinks down the bar toward two men who appeared ready to fight. In his red warm-ups and deck shoes and Navy cap, shouting, his face flushed and his eyes asparkle with whatever high emotions now ran through him, Mike looked ridiculous. But even wearing an expensive-looking suit, as he had worn the other night at El Dorado, Mike still looked ridiculous, thought Bradley, and he wondered if Mike’s strenuous efforts to know things and to influence people and to seem important were all attempts to cover this. The little-dog complex. Owens had said that Mike was insane and Bradley had never doubted it. And what did it say about himself that Mike was his greatest ally in this, the most weighted journey of his life?

Through the windows Bradley could see a couple running in the wind and the first drops of rain hit the glass and the bottom of the Taberna Roja sign swaying on its stout iron rod. We will be that couple someday, he thought, Erin and I will run through the rain together again, alive and free and we will never come back to the hell of Mexico again. Never.

Mike was back at the table adding ice to their glasses, then pouring the last of the rum into them.

“No sense leaving now with the rain starting up,” he said, smiling.

“None,” said Bradley.

Mike held up the empty bottle and Pao left the drink he was making and brought over a fresh one and another bucket of ice. “What are you thinking, young son of Murrieta?”

“Don’t call me that. Can we get a satellite phone to her?”

“They say that Armenta is phobic about phones of all kinds,” said Mike. “Only he and his trusted few can have one. So, we can smuggle something in to her, but the question then becomes, can she keep it? What sort of wrath would she receive? They’ll search. They’ll find her things. Oh, Brad. I almost forgot. I’ve got something else for you here in my bag of tricks.”

Finnegan hopped down and lifted one of the bags to the stool and searched through it. From down in a corner he produced a small metal tube and handed it to Bradley.

At first Bradley thought it was a gun cartridge casing but it was far too light and there was an odd clasp affixed to one side. He held the clasp and twisted one end of the tube open. Inside was stuffed some kind of cloth. He worried it out with his pocketknife blade and it dropped to the tabletop. He unrolled the material, fine silk or maybe a sheer linen, and it became a square approximately five by five inches and covered with Erin’s tight cursive writing in blue ink.

Dear B, I’m okay and so is he. Owens F. is here and she says this will get to Mike then you. She says Arm finds and destroys cell and sat phones but he doesn’t suspect pigeons as there are many in the coop and the message containers are easy to hide. She seems to be Arm’s but says she is here of free will. Is a very disturbing woman. I am okay but terrified. Please hurry. Get me out of here. Erin

Bradley felt the great rush of tears and he couldn’t stop them. There she was. Her hand had written this to him. She was alive and well and so was their son. The tears of joy and hope burned his eyes as he stared down at her words. “God, this is great news.”