LITMIR.BIZ

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situation has changed. Now we have three dead employees, and another five who are presumed hostages. At what point do you folks actually get off your asses and do something about it?”

      There was a long pause. Finally the man on the other end said in heavily accented English, “Mr. Smiley, in the past year more than two hundred of our citizens were kidnapped in Mexico City, and another eight hundred nationwide. And those were only the ones reported, the real number is likely two or three times that. We have had five hundred homicides, more than a hundred in Mexico City alone. Are you implying that the loss of Americans is more important?”

      “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Linus said. “We’re not talking about some guy running a taco stand, Mr.—” he glanced at his sheet of handwritten notes “—Ortiz. Cesar Calderon is a major player on the global scene. If anything happens to him—”

      “I don’t believe I can assist you, Mr. Smiley,” Ortiz interrupted. “Allow me to transfer you to someone who can.”

      Linus fumed as mariachi Muzak once again poured from the receiver. He slammed it down. Jesus, he hated Mexico. Bunch of incompetent bastards whose third world status was more than deserved. Russia and the former Soviet bloc nations had problems, but at least money talked over there. Pay off the right person, you could get nearly anything done. Had Calderon been snatched in Kiev, Linus would have had him home in less than a week.

      He pressed the intercom button. “Get the team on the line.”

      Linus paced while he waited for the connection to come through. He’d sent sixteen men down there, led by Ellis Brown. Cesar had personally lured Brown from his career as a Navy SEAL into K&R work, and Brown was his go-to guy for snatch-and-grab operations. He would have led the first team, had even called to volunteer, but Smiley wanted him to finish up another operation in Colombia. A mistake, maybe. One he was now able to rectify.

      “Brown here.”

      “Secured line?”

      “Yessir.” Brown’s tone implied that the question itself was offensive.

      “Progress?”

      “Still no sign of the whale,” Brown said.

      “Whale” was the code name for Calderon. “What about the rest of them?”

      “We think we found a safe house where they were kept, but there’s no movement. Probably gone already.” There was a pause. “One of our contacts said we’re not the only ones looking for them. You send in another unit?”

      “You’re the only ones down there.” Linus’s brow furrowed.

      “That’s what I thought, sir.”

      “Americans?”

      “Definitely. Asking a lot of questions about the minnows.”

      The minnows were the missing unit. That was odd. Linus slumped back into his chair. What the hell was going on down there?

      It was already beyond strange that someone had snatched a hostage of Calderon’s caliber without providing proof of life, or contacting either Tyr or his family with a ransom demand. What could they be after? Had they simply killed him as a warning to K&R companies working in the region? If so, his body should have turned up by now. When a local police chief crossed Los Zetas, his head was found in a cooler outside his precinct. Los Zetas weren’t shy about sending messages. And why seize the rest of the unit alive, then not attempt to ransom them out, too? Fucking Mexico, Linus thought. He’d never understand it.

      “New orders, sir?”

      “No, stay the course. The whale is your primary objective, minnows are a bonus.”

      “What about the other team?”

      “You run across them, find out what the hell they’re doing down there.”

      “Any limits?” Brown asked.

      Linus pondered for a moment. “None,” he finally said. “They’ve got no business interfering. Do what you have to.”

      He hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. It was an hour earlier in Mexico City, just before 10:00 a.m. Linus wasn’t accomplishing anything by phone. The board meeting was less than a week away. By then, he’d have to have Calderon back, dead or alive, and news on the missing unit. He buzzed the intercom again. “Book me a flight to Mexico City.”

      Kelly tensed on the edge of the backseat as Syd and Kane approached the bodega. Syd’s contact claimed the owner was Zeta-friendly. Apparently he and his wife stowed hostages in the apartment above the store. He was responsible for making sure they didn’t escape, she kept them fed.

      Nothing about this was sitting well with Kelly. They only had the word of one of Syd’s shadowy connections to go on, and God only knew what his motivation was for ratting out the bodega. “What if they’ve got nothing to do with Los Zetas?” Kelly had asked back at the motel.

      “Then we go on our merry way,” Syd claimed.

      Kelly very much doubted that was true. The bodega door closed behind them. Almost subconsciously she began to count, trying to keep herself from imagining what was going on inside.

      What the hell am I doing here? Kelly wondered. She’d been so gung ho to feel useful again, she hadn’t thought through what kind of moral compromises working with Syd would present. Already she felt dirty, and they hadn’t even done anything yet. She was no Pollyanna; she knew there was a seamy side to Jake’s new line of work. She just hadn’t realized how seamy.

      Kelly had hoped that coming down here would restore her sense of purpose, and that after they found Mark she’d have a chance to look into the allegation that Stefan Gundarsson was still alive. But the reality of that suddenly seemed absurd. Jake would flip if she told him she intended to track down a fugitive alone. And the truth was, she didn’t even know where to start looking. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with the P.I. who provided the earlier lead. She didn’t speak Spanish, and based on what everyone was telling her, the Mexican authorities wouldn’t be helpful. On top of which she didn’t have the authority or clearance to be doing any of this. She’d wanted to dig up enough concrete evidence to convince her boss to reopen the case and put her in charge of it. But that possibility seemed increasingly remote.

      Out of the corner of her eye she examined Jake. His face was inscrutable. For a second, it seemed as if he were a total stranger, and she was seeing him for the first time. She flashed back on the day they’d met, in the command-center trailer during her campus case. He seemed colder now, harder. It had been a long three years for both of them. Had he really changed so much since then? Or was her mind messing with her again?

      Kelly shifted in her seat. Her leg was sore. The pressurization on the plane had caused it to swell and the socket of her prosthetic felt unusually tight. The lack of sleep wasn’t helping, either. The Xanax had worn off and she could sense the panic lurking, waiting for an opportunity to rush in. It felt like there was a spotlight on their cars, as if everyone passing by had pegged them as intruders. Kelly knew she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help herself. Half of her was afraid that at any moment someone might open fire, drilling their cars with automatic weapon fire. The other half was worried that the people inside the store were involved in the kidnapping of Mark’s team. And she could imagine what Syd would do to them if that turned out to be the case.

      Syd emerged from the store with Kane at her heels. She pulled on a baseball cap, their signal to meet her at a prearranged location a block away.

      “Must have gone well,” Jake commented from the front seat.

      “How do you know?” Kelly asked.

      “No shots fired,” Maltz said from beside her. They were in the same seating arrangement as before, with Jagerson driving. She had yet to hear him say a word, and was starting to wonder if he even spoke English.

      Kelly gazed out the window at the passing storefronts. They were in the northeast quadrant of Iztapalapa. To her eyes

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