David Baldacci - The Forgotten

He hit the gas and the Tahoe sped off, turned a corner, and disappeared in the maze of streets.

Carson had her rifle pointed at the man in the backseat. She studied him calmly. “What man took the boys?”

Puller glanced at her.

She said, “I heard over your earwig.”

She looked at the man in the backseat. “We need some details.”

The man shook his head.

“You’ve come this far,” said Carson. “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”

The man looked at Puller. “You are big. Like the other guy.”

Puller glanced at him in the rearview. “What other guy?”

“The big guy. Bigger than you. He can fight.” “Is he staying at the Sierra?” asked Puller.

The man nodded. “He picked up one of our guys like he was nothing. Threw a knife twenty feet point-first into a wall. El Diablo .”

Puller glanced at Carson. “The same guy who saved my butt the other night.”

Carson looked at the man. “ El Diablo have a real name?”

The man shrugged. “ No se .”

“Is he the one who took los ninos?”

“No.”

“Who did, then?”

“Nose.”

Carson moved her finger closer to the trigger of her rifle.

A smile crept across the man’s face. “You won’t shoot me.”

“Why?”

“Because you are military. A general.”

Carson looked down at the one-star ring she had on.

The man said, “I was in the military once. Not yours. From my country.”

“Sorry to see you’ve fallen so low,” snapped Carson.

Puller said, “We want to help Diego and Mateo. That’s all. Help us do that. They’re just kids.” “They are beyond help.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that. And I don’t care. They’re not my problem.”

Carson looked at Puller and shrugged. “Open the door,” she said.

The man said, “What?”

“Open your door and jump.”

“What?”

“Jump!”

She pointed her gun at his crotch. “General or not, you jump now or you’ll be missing some very vital parts.”

The man kicked open the door and leapt out, tumbling along the road and then coming to a stop. They watched as he picked himself up and slowly limped off.

Puller said, “I like your style.”

Carson eyed him with a stern gaze. “What?” he said.

“Next time you go on R and R, pick a safer place than Paradise.”

His phone buzzed. He answered it and listened for a bit before saying, “Okay.” Then he clicked off.

Carson said, “Talk to me.”

“I’ve been officially invited to join the murder investigation.”

Mecho studied the police officers.

He was bagging yard debris and the police officers were bagging the remains of a very expensive automobile.

Mecho wondered if they had found the bits of the license plate with “The Man” on it. He hoped not. He hoped it had been blown into the water and swallowed by a shark.

As he used a rake to collect some dead branches that had fallen to the ground, he watched the maid Beatriz walk across the lawn with a tray of lemonade and snacks. She was headed to the pool where Lampert and James Winthrop and Chrissy Murdoch were lounging. Her eyes were puffy and she kept her gaze downcast as she served the drinks and food. He watched Lampert eye her as she walked back across the lawn.

As she neared the house and was out of sight of the others, Mecho hoisted the bag of debris and used his long legs to reach a spot that would cross her path. She pulled up when she saw him. He was well over a foot taller than her and more than twice her weight.

He spoke to her in Spanish, asking her if everything was okay.

She mumbled that it was and kept walking. He kept pace beside her.

He asked more questions, and finally queried Beatriz about her employer. Her features hardened.

Mecho pounced on this vulnerability.

“I understand that your boss is leaving the country soon.”

She looked sharply at him. “How do you know that?”

“One of his guys told me. Asia?”

“And Africa. At least that’s what I overheard.”

“When does he leave?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.

“I was thinking of asking you out. It would probably be easier if he weren’t around.”

Whether she understood the significance of his words or not it was impossible to tell from her features.

“You want to ask me out?” she said slowly.

“I wasn’t always a laborer,” said Mecho truthfully. “I treat women with respect and courtesy.”

“It is impossible.”

“I understand.”

She put a hand on his arm. “No, you do not understand. I am not allowed to leave the premises.”

“You cannot leave here?”

She shook her head and said in a low voice, “It is not permitted. I should not even be talking to you.”

“I am a nobody. They do not care about nobodies.”

She glanced up at him. “I think you are somebody,” she said hopefully.

“Is it the guards that keep you in here?”

“Not just the guards.” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the pool.

“You could call the police.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It is not just me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There are others.”

“Your family?”

She nodded, tears trickling from her eyes. She picked up her pace and hurried across the lawn and into the house.

Mecho slowed his walk and ambled over to the truck with his load of debris. He dumped it in the vehicle’s rear bed and watched as Lampert walked down to the gate that led to the pier and unlocked the gate. The walls back here were wrought iron, six feet high. Lampert obviously didn’t worry too much about prying eyes from the water. There was enough foliage to block the main house and guesthouse from observers on boats.

Mecho continued to watch as Lampert walked down the pier, climbed on board the yacht, and disappeared belowdecks.

I could kill him. And maybe I should.

But Mecho didn’t move toward the boat. Part of it was practical. He counted five security men within his sightline.

He had no way to easily get through the gate. And he also had no weapon. Each time they had come here every man on the landscape crew had to walk through a magnetometer and then was wanded by the security detail. Lampert was a careful man. Before he even got to the big boat they would have shot him, and what would that have accomplished?

No, better to let the plan play out the way he had envisioned.

As he continued to work under a hot sun he thought about what the man Donny had told him last night at the hotel.

The shipments came nearly every night. The last platform used as a staging area was twenty miles off the coast and to the west. Mecho believed that was the one he’d been on.

Mecho had also been told that the plan was to start smuggling even more people in beginning next month. This would include people from Asia and Africa. That made sense if Lampert were planning to travel to those continents.

How soon he would be leaving could be problematic. If things were not in place and he left before Mecho could act?

I will not let that happen. Even if I have to somehow shoot his plane out of the sky. He will not get away again.

Never again.

Mecho sensed someone watching him and turned to see Chrissy Murdoch staring at him from just off the pool deck. She had on a bikini with a short terrycloth cover-up over it.

He continued to work away as she walked over to him.

He knelt down and pulled at some weeds around a flowerbed. He saw her painted toes stop a few inches from him. He looked up.