Sean Black - The Devil's bounty

‘Laundering?’ said Ty.

‘Of course,’ Rafaela agreed.

Lock passed the cutting to Ty and flipped to the last one. This one did shock him, although he wasn’t sure why. The man was also middle-aged and puffed up with his own importance. He had the same big-shark-in-a-small-pond look as his buddies. The only difference was that, rather than a suit, he was wearing a uniform or, to be more precise, a police uniform complete with stripes, epaulettes and service medals.

‘Gabriel Zapatero,’ said Rafaela. ‘The city’s chief of police. The boss of the man who’s looking after Mendez. My boss too.’ She looked evenly at Lock. ‘Now do you see why it might be difficult to just go arrest them?’

‘I don’t get it.’

Lock rose from the couch, walked five steps into the tiny kitchen and rinsed his coffee mug in the sink. ‘They take girls off the streets, then rape and kill them. Why?’

‘I’ll give you my answer, but you won’t like it,’ said Rafaela.

Lock dried the mug and placed it carefully on the counter. ‘Try me.’

‘They do it…’ she sighed ‘… because they can and because they believe that no one’s going to touch them. When the public outcry gets too much, they have one of Zapatero’s men in the department pick someone up. They threaten his family or torture a confession out of him, he’s convicted and everyone quietens down. In terms of why you’d want to rape and murder, I don’t think the attraction’s hard to grasp, if you think about a certain type of man.’

‘So where does Mendez fit in?’ Ty said, his long legs stretched out, fingers steepled under his chin. ‘He ain’t one of them.’

‘I don’t know,’ Rafaela confessed. ‘That part is strange. They can manipulate the courts here, but by protecting him, they’re inviting the Americans to look at them more closely.’

‘Well, there has to be a reason,’ said Lock. ‘And it’s got to be more than that they’ve found a kindred spirit.’

‘You think?’ said Ty. ‘Why couldn’t it be that? He’s as sick as they are. He comes down here, they work out who he is and offer him an invite into the club.’

Rafaela shook her head. ‘No, Ryan is correct,’ she said to Ty. ‘There’s more to this.’

Lock and Ty took turns to shower in her tiny bathroom and then Rafaela suggested they get some rest. Lock took the couch, Ty the living-room floor and they grabbed a meagre few hours’ sleep. Rafaela slept in her bedroom, or at least she tried to, but her mind was over-occupied. Part of her wanted to drive the Americans back over the border, but another part told her that finally she had people she could trust, whose interests were broadly aligned with hers and that this opportunity might never arise again. She could probe the killings but eventually the group of men, or those around her, would tire of her interference, or she might gather too much evidence and she, too, would be gone. If she was killed that would be one person fewer to protect the young women who were asleep in their beds tonight — with a bloody future awaiting them.

All the horror and despair of recent years had cemented rather than eroded her belief in God. She believed in Him and in the grace of the Holy Mother. Perhaps He had sent these two men to help her. Their arrival might be a sign that the Almighty had grown tired of the wickedness, that He wished Rafaela to call the killers to account.

She got out of bed, clicked on the lamp and began to make a list of places to check. Yesterday she had been one but now she was three. And Lock was right: if they had the American girl, she wouldn’t be kept alive for ever. Eventually, thought Rafaela, standing next to the window and looking out over the rooftops of the city she still loved, they would tire of her, as they had tired of the others.

Rafaela wasn’t the only one having difficulty getting to sleep. Despite his exhaustion, Lock’s mind wouldn’t rest. He lay in darkness in the tiny apartment and worried over one aspect of the American girl’s disappearance.

In the normal run of things, he could go to the American consul with what he knew. Or, if he wanted to remain in the shadows, he could share what Rafaela had told him with the parents and they could relay the information. He was in no doubt that if they were believed, which was by no means certain, the consulate would call in other authorities and apply pressure on the Mexicans to do everything they could to find the girl. It would be more than an abduction: it would be a full-blown diplomatic incident. It would also, he was pretty certain, guarantee that, if she was still alive, whoever had her would get rid of her as quickly as they could and start covering their tracks.

If Rafaela’s belief in the previous pattern was true, Julia would turn up next to some railtracks and some dumb unfortunate would take the rap. Justice would be seen to be done. The parents might not buy it, but the American government would want to move on. After all, there was money to be made along the border and business deals to be completed. It was a cynical view but, in Lock’s experience, when the stakes were so high, and particularly when there was money in the mix, it was safer to err on the side of cynicism. Idealism was best saved for happier times.

They reconvened over more coffee and tea in the tiny apartment. Together they decided that the key to finding the girl was tracking down Charlie Mendez. If he was found first, though, Lock and Ty would be in a quandary. Mendez was still the reason they were there, and Lock didn’t want Melissa’s death to be lost in the midst of this. But Melissa would not have wanted another young life sacrificed in order to secure justice or revenge.

Rafaela was aware of three residences where Mendez might be found. One was an apartment in the centre of the city. The second was a house owned by Managua, the third a vast narco-mansion owned by Tibialis in an area that was as close to leafy suburb as any area got here. The house, according to Rafaela, was often used as a party location by the four men.

She would take the apartment and the boss’s house. She had been keeping an eye on the narco-mansion, when she could, and had an observation post nearby in the shape of a small apartment across the street. She would drop Lock and Ty there to keep watch.

As the sun crept over the horizon, Lock scanned the narco-mansion with a pair of binoculars, careful to angle them in such a way that he avoided the sharp sunlight striking the lens. From his vantage-point in the front room of the small, dusty apartment, he had a clear view of the house’s back yard with its shimmering swimming pool. To the right of the pool, french windows led into the main house; to the left there was a small single-storey guest-house, perhaps eighty feet long and forty deep.

No one was around, save a gardener, who was clearing leaves from the water. Lock counted two fixed-position closed-circuit cameras, one mounted on either corner of the house, their lenses triangulating over the pool and the yard towards the guesthouse. The first hour of watching had already started to weigh on him. Ty, pacing the floor behind him, didn’t help. By definition, surveillance was a waiting game that required patience and, with the American girl missing, he was all out of it.

Their plan was needle-in-a-haystack stuff. Between them, the men connected to Mendez would have dozens of possible safe-houses at their disposal. With all the drugs that flowed through the city, hiding places would be legion and of good quality. Lock imagined that if you had something, or someone, you wanted to hide, there would be plenty of options available to you.

The only plus for them was that Rafaela had managed to retrieve not only their vehicle but also the gear they had brought down and their weapons, checking everything out from the police station on the pretext that, with them gone, it was better destroyed. The vehicle was no good to them now so they had emptied it of its contents and hidden it close to her apartment.