“Special Agent Mahoney,” Rodriguez said firmly. “The confessions are still being processed in our forensics lab. You will be able to examine them once that process is completed, which will be only a few hours.”
They left the cold storage area and walked back down the hallway. Sampson felt his phone buzz with a text, saw it was from Alex asking him to call.
Mahoney said, “Can you at least get us pictures of the confessions in the meantime? So we know what we are dealing with?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Rodriguez said and pulled out his phone.
Sampson called Alex. It went straight to voice mail, which was not part of the plan. At the prompt, he said, “Calling you back, Alex. We were in some kind of cellular black hole. Tag, you’re it.”
He hung up. Mahoney said, “He said he’d answer immediately if we called.”
“He did say that,” Sampson said, feeling the first drip of worry as he looked at his phone. “C’mon, Alex. Where are you when you’re supposed to be sitting in that café waiting for us to reach out?”
Chapter
64
We were in stop-and-go traffic for what seemed like hours. Despite the mariachi music and wanting to stay alert to my surroundings, I kept dozing off until the Tahoe suddenly lurched to a stop and I heard men speaking in Spanish.
They removed my earphones. A gate of some kind opened. I heard the hinges squeak and the grind of the lower rail of it against uneven soil.
We crunched up a long gravel drive and finally came to a stop. The front doors of the car opened and closed before mine opened.
The same young man who’d met me outside my hotel said, “Step out slow, Dr. Cross.”
I felt a hand under my elbow and climbed out, smelling flowers. The air was cooler, which suggested we were higher in altitude than the city. A dog barked in the distance. Then a cock crowed.
“Stand still, legs wide, arms wide,” someone said.
I assumed the position and heard the familiar sound of a security wand running over my arms and chest. As he went lower, I thought for sure that the GPS transmitter in my belt was going to trigger an alert.
It certainly caused a higher-pitch response the two times he went over the area but to my relief, the wand’s wielder went on after patting down my lower back.
“He’s good,” the man said, stepping away.
We began walking. The surface beneath my feet soon changed. We were crossing slightly uneven brickwork or tile. The air was more perfumed here. A heavy chair moved. Someone took me by the shoulders, pivoted me, and sat me down on a hard wooden chair.
“Wrists on the chair arms.”
I complied and felt zip ties come around and snug me to the chair. Only then did I wonder which of Marco Alejandro’s possible replacements would be across from me when the hood was lifted.
The night before, the former cartel leader had given me three possibilities: his younger brother Juan Alejandro; his brother-in-law Claudio Fortunato; and Salvatore Menendez, who had been Marco’s right hand from the time they were young men.
Marco felt his brother was too young and too hotheaded to act with the discipline and strategy the cartel required, and his brother-in-law lacked the vision and the skills to manifest that vision. Alejandro had predicted his friend Menendez would be in charge.
When the hood was finally removed, I was surprised to see none of those three men. I blinked at the sunlight, realizing I was on a terrace with trellises of blooming purple flowers overhead and sitting at a low stone table across from one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.
Her long hair was jet-black, drawn back, and braided to show more of her face, which featured high cheekbones, flawless pale skin, ruby lips, and large, roasted-almond-colored eyes, which flashed all over me. In her late forties, by my guess, she wore a starched white blouse, collar open, riding jeans, and tooled-leather boots.
She said, “I can’t decide whether you are a brave man or a fool, Dr. Cross.”
“I’ve been called both, if that helps.”
Her lips curled ever so slightly toward a smile and she relaxed a little. I had no idea who she was until she spoke again.
“How is my brother these days?” she asked.
Marco’s twin sister, Emmanuella. She was married to Claudio Fortunato but she’s not wearing a wedding ring now. I said, “Given the conditions he’s being held in, I’d say your brother is doing well. I’m a licensed psychologist and he seemed mentally healthy to me.”
Emmanuella Alejandro scowled. “I don’t believe it. Marco in a small cage, no contact, nothing for a year? My brother becomes a crazed man, a broken man.”