“I don’t know. We got along okay. In fact, he tried to hire me.”
“No,” Claudia said, speaking in a tone firm enough for everyone to turn toward her. “Asking for Losa’s help would be a mistake. He might come off as very slick and professional, but let’s not lose sight of what he is.”
“And what’s that?” Rapp said.
“A man you don’t want to owe.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you, but I don’t see that we have a lot of choices. Other options?”
“We could form a private intelligence team and put them on the ground in Guatemala,” Claudia said. “Nick could probably lend some technological resources. Given time, we might be able to find him.”
“Yeah, but how much time?” Rapp said.
“A year,” she admitted. “Maybe more.”
“Maybe never,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Whatever the risks are, there are rewards, too. If we can take out someone like Marroqui—particularly if we do it fast—it’s going to send a clear message to anyone else out there who might have heard rumors that you’re alive.”
They all watched nervously as he searched for the stored number and then sent a brief text.
“Don’t look so worried,” he said, putting the phone on the table. “It’s been a long time. I doubt he’ll even ans—”
His phone started ringing. The number on-screen was the one he’d just texted.
“I stand corrected,” Rapp said and then picked up. “Thanks for getting in touch.”
“I have to admit that I’m surprised to hear from you,” Damian Losa said with an accent that straddled British and Ricardo Montalbán. “I heard you’d found a place in Nicholas Ward’s organization and that Irene Kennedy is likely to follow.”
“You’re well informed.”
“I keep up with the gossip. Now, what is it that I can do for you, Mitch?”
“I’d like a location on Gustavo Marroqui.”
There was a brief pause over the line. “I read that a group of Guatemalans attacked a family in South Africa a few days ago. The owner of the house executed all of them and then disappeared with his wife and young daughter. Might you know something about that?”
“I might.”
“I’m not aware of you ever having had dealings with Gustavo.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then how did we get here, Mitch?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’ve survived this long because I don’t make decisions without all the information available. If you think I’m going to get involved in something I don’t understand, you’ve misjudged me.”
Inconvenient, but not exactly unexpected.
“What I’m about to tell you doesn’t go any further than us.”
“You have my word.”
“He wasn’t after me. He was after the woman I live with.”
Rapp heard the tapping of a few keys on the other end of the line. “One Claudia Dufort.”
“Her real last name is Gould.”
This time the pause over the line was longer. It finally ended in laughter. “Claudia Gould? You have strange taste in women, Mitch.”
“Will you help?”
“At the risk of sounding mercenary, what’s in it for me?”
“I’ll owe you one,” Rapp said, finding it difficult not to choke on the words.
It didn’t take long for Losa to make a decision. “Give me twenty-four hours and I’ll have my assistant text you the coordinates you’re looking for.”
Rapp disconnected the call. “He says we’ll have a location by this time tomorrow.”
“That easy?” Coleman said.
Rapp shook his head. “I think that one’s probably going to come back to bite me. But for now, yeah. That easy. Can I assume you’re up for a quick trip to Guatemala?”
The former SEAL smiled. “Anything for a good pi?a colada.”
CHAPTER 16
GUATEMALA CITY
GUATEMALA
IF anything could be said about Claudia, it was that she had friends in low places.
Rapp was sitting in the rotting backseat of an SUV that sounded like it was going to rattle itself apart. The driver was navigating a mix of asphalt and dirt that snaked through a slum on the outskirts of Guatemala City. In addition to the men in front, two more were crammed in on either side of him. All were a good twenty years younger than he, and all were covered in tattoos identifying them as members of Mara Salvatrucha. Better known as MS-13.