Chapter 20
I yanked on cargoes and a t-shirt and detoured through the kitchen to flip the switch on the coffee pot, already filled and ready to brew.
As I stepped out of my apartment door into the hallway, Raptor emerged from his apartment, the mirror image of mine. He was rapidly braiding his long, black hair, tying it off with a piece of twine. We stood silently watching the numbers flash above the elevator door as it ascended.
The stainless-steel doors swooshed open to reveal Tank and a gloved Alvirez holding the now-familiar brown envelope and a couple of plastic evidence bags.
Nobody said a word as we entered my apartment and clustered around the dining room table. I sat down at one end, not trusting my legs to support my weight, and Alvirez laid the envelope in front of me, handing me a pair of gloves from his pocket.
As I pulled the gloves on and reached for the envelope I heard the door open. Foster appeared, wearing sweats and sneakers. She moved in behind me, a hand settling on my shoulder. I didn't have the energy to shrug it off. Maybe I needed her strength, her objectivity.
All my concentration was on the envelope in my hands, fixating on the minutiae to avoid thinking about what was inside. It was identical to the previous four, no return address, same label except addressed to the Miami office. Like the three that came to Trenton it had stamps on it. The postmark was Miami, yesterday.
Each movement took an extraordinary effort, like trying to run underwater, everything in slow motion. My fingers fumbled with the clasp.
And then, all too soon, it was open.
I slid the single sheet of inkjet photographic paper out of the envelope. Again it was face down so the writing was revealed first.
I am finished with her.
Kiss her adios.
My heart, already slamming against my chest wall, clenched and skipped a beat.
I flipped the paper over.
Stephanie… The victim… was lying on her back, naked and limp, splayed out on the ancient, stained mattress. Her face was flaccid, eyes almost but not quite closed, mouth hanging open slackly. She wasn't restrained in any way, no cuffs or shackles, although scabs and bruises encircled her wrists and ankles where they had been.
Angry red insect bites still spotted her legs and torso. The cigarette burns showed on her upper arms. But this time the lesions looked almost insignificant compared to the red lash marks that striped her from shoulders to ankles.
I had to close my eyes for a moment.
Forcing them back open I repeated to myself, look at the details. The answer is in the details.
There was a rubber tourniquet draped across her left upper arm, with a puckered red band showing where it had recently cinched her. There were track marks on the inside of her elbow, some partially healed and one obviously fresh, a dark drop of blood beaded just below it. A used syringe lay on the mattress next to her, as if it had been dropped there after the injection.
She was either unconscious or dead.
I couldn't hold back the sound that came out of me. It was somewhere between a whimper and a sob. Foster's hand tightened on my shoulder.
"This changes nothing," I rasped out. "Task force meeting at eleven."
Tank and Raptor both acknowledged me with almost imperceptible nods. Alvirez bagged the picture and envelope in silence. As the three made their way out of the apartment I crossed my arms on the table and rested my head on them. I needed a few minutes to process and plan.
Foster's hand left my shoulder. I heard her pull out the chair to my left and sit down.
Silence.
I couldn't think, couldn't function with her sitting there studying me like some kind of insect pinned live and squirming under a microscope, like a frog cut open in science class, still-beating heart exposed for all to observe. She was probably planning her next scholarly paper, "The Physiological and Psychological Effects of Extreme Stress on the Alpha Male," or some such bullshit.
I raised my head and focused all the malevolent intensity of my alter-ego El Trucidor, the Butcher, on her. I retained enough of his evil emptiness to make her shrink back in her chair.
"Get out," I intoned, hollow and barren.
Without a word she rose and scuttled out the door.
I laid my head back down and began to formulate a plan.
oOo
"This changes nothing," I reiterated to the full task force an hour later in the conference room. "We continue with the legwork until we find her. Or him. Dead or alive. We know he was here. Someone must have seen him. He must be staying someplace. I'm ordering another five thousand posters, and we'll expand the area we're searching."
There were nods around the table as I met each pair of eyes.
Morelli's face had drained of color when he walked into the conference room and saw the photo on the monitor. He dropped into a chair as if his legs had turned to Jello. Caterson was close behind him and she wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered urgently into his ear.
At a look from me she let go of him and backed off. I wasn't giving up and I wasn't going to tolerate any surrender on Morelli's part, either. When we found Stephanie she was going to need him to be there for her.
I finished giving out assignments for today and tonight and everyone cleared out, some to conduct interviews, most to sleep in preparation for more fieldwork tonight.
I went back to my apartment and slept for a couple hours, waking up filled with anxiety. Exercise, I thought. I needed to go running.
It was a hot afternoon, upper 90s, and I welcomed the sweat as it began to pour off me. I ran west from the office, through Little Havana toward the Orange Bowl stadium. I envisioned a grueling run in the heat, at least ten miles, then returning to shower and get ready for more searching, more interviewing.
As I ran through Riverside Park, I turned north by instinct and found myself in front of a white stucco church topped by a shiny dome with a cross. St. John Bosco.
It was a Hispanic section of the city, not far from where I'd lived from age 16 to 18 with my grandparents. This was their church, although I'd flat-out refused to attend with them. The sign was in Spanish. "San Juan Bosco, Padre Juan Carlos Valdes, Pastor," it read.
I was shirtless and covered with sweat, not fit to enter the church, but I lingered in the shade of a palm tree at the entranceway. It was Thursday afternoon, and according to the sign afternoon mass wasn't for another two hours.
I turned back toward the office, running hard, penalizing myself in the heat. An hour later I was showered, dressed, and parking in the church lot. I couldn't identify exactly what drew me, but I'd lived this long by following my instincts and they had led me here.
I entered the cool dim sanctuary of the church and was met in the back of the nave by the priest. He was elderly, white haired and brown skinned, wearing the traditional long black cassock with a white clerical collar. He studied me, his eyes taking in my black work clothes, pausing at each weapon hidden on my person.
"Something is troubling you, my son," he said to me in Cuban-accented Spanish.
I answered him in the same language. "Yes, Padre. I would like to make my confession."
He nodded and led me to the confessional.
I entered the small cubicle and knelt down, ghosts from my childhood hovering above my head, swirling memories around me.
The panel slid open.
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been twenty-two years since my last confession…"
Stephanie had been gone thirty-four days.
oOo
Chapter 21
Sunday, June 8
Two days later on Saturday evening we got the break we needed. A bartender in a little dive in Opa Locka, one of the worst neighborhoods in Miami, thought he recognized El Látigo from the photos.
All thirteen pairs of partners from the task force and RangeMan converged on the area, hitting every business and every person we met on the street, showing our photos Saturday night and all day Sunday. Several additional RangeMan personnel papered the neighborhood with posters.
Late Sunday afternoon the DEA/ATF team of Gonzalez and Simmons showed the photos to a woman walking a baby in a carriage.
"Quizá," she answered Gonzalez in Spanish, "Perhaps. It looks like the man that lives at the end of the hall."
"Have you seen a woman?"
"No, just him."
We surrounded the building and I led Raptor, Tank, Bobby and Lester as we kicked the door open and burst into the one-bedroom apartment, guns drawn.
It was filthy and decrepit, an old, battered couch flecked with holes, soiled wooden floor, cruddy, chipped plaster walls.
Walking through into the bedroom the scene hit me with the force of a volcano erupting in my gut. Acid bubbled up into my throat and only by clenching every muscle in my body was I able to avoid puking my guts out.
A bare, shabby mattress covered by ancient ticking, dark blue and once white, now dirty brown stripes blotched with stains of various revolting hues…
Resting on the dusty boards of a rough wooden floor that had been painted brown but was now peeling and worn and pocked…
Walls of an indeterminate neutral color, grimy and faded and dingy…
A bloodstained shackle attached to a long chain extending to an oversized eyebolt screwed into the wall…
My eyes kept going back to the mattress and I finally closed them, the noise the team was making fading away as my mind went out to her. I felt her fear and pain, anger and hatred, heartache and numbness. It boiled within me, agonizing in its ferocity.
I don't know how much time passed before I came back. Foster was standing next to me, one hand on my shoulder, snapping her fingers in front of my face. I allowed her to take my arm and lead me out of the apartment and out to one of the SUVs. She guided me into the backseat and climbed in next to me.
"Alvirez and his techs need everyone out so they can process the scene," she said to me.
"I could feel her," I said, done in by the magnitude of what I'd experienced. "I could feel everything she felt when she was there."
"There are certain people in our lives that we have a special empathy for," Foster told me.
"No," I asserted, "it's more than empathy. We have some kind of physical connection. My body feels her when she's nearby, and I know it's the same for her. She feels it when I enter a room, even if she can't see me."
"Literature is rife with stories of soulmates, two people who are connected soul-to-soul, spirit-to-spirit. But there are no documented cases of it in the research. It's been sought, but never proven."
I fell silent. I had already revealed far too much.
We sat quietly for a few moments while I composed myself, and then I got out of the truck to take charge of the scene.
oOo
Later that evening
My cell phone rang and I flipped it open, glancing in the rearview mirror to see the lights flash behind me. "How do you spell relief, boss?" came Lester's voice.
Before Stephanie was taken, I allowed Lester his little jokes, but tonight I just growled at him. "Keep your mind on the job, Santos."
I put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb.
Tank and I had just finished the first four-hour surveillance shift on El Látigo's apartment. There was still food in the refrigerator, a few cheap clothes in the closet, and I had a feeling he would return.
I intentionally made up the surveillance schedule of all RangeMan personnel, assigning the Feds and Morelli to continue to canvass bars and businesses. Surveillance was considered a lowly job by almost everyone, so I set the example by assigning myself first.
It was midnight and I turned the truck toward RangeMan. I was feeling the letdown after the surge of adrenaline that kept me going all night and all day, ever since the lead last evening that brought us to Opa Locka.
Other than those scheduled for surveillance, I gave the rest of the team the night off to catch up on sleep and whatever personal business they needed to transact tomorrow morning. The task force would meet at 1300 and I'd have a new schedule of assignments ready.
Back in my apartment I took a quick shower and tried to eat some grilled chicken and steamed vegetables that the building manager must have had delivered. He used a service to take care of my apartment and keep it stocked with staples and easy meals when I was in residence.
I forced down a few bites, tossed the dinner in the trash, and collapsed into bed, almost anxious for a dream of Stephanie. The desire to see her, to feel her, hold her in my arms was so visceral that I was beginning to think I would lose my mind, descend into oblivion, if we didn't find her soon.
I refused to even consider the possibility that she might be dead. She wasn't. I could still feel her.
In spite of the horrors I'd experienced in my time with the military and the abominations I'd committed, the thought of taking my own life had never once crossed my mind.
Until now.
If Stephanie died as a result of my past, I didn't want to remain in this world without her. It was as simple as that.
Not that I expected to be reunited with her in the afterlife. We were going to different places. But the hell I anticipated after death couldn't possibly be any worse than the hell on earth without her.
Stephanie had been gone thirty-six days.
oOo
The vibration of my phone woke me at 0200.
"Talk," I choked out, tears running down my cheeks from the sight and sound of that bastard flogging Stephanie in my dream, the crack of his whip sharp, her sobs of pain still echoing in my ears.
It was Lester. "Boss, we've got him."
oOo
Chapter 22
"Hold him. We'll be right there." I knew Lester understood the ramifications, but I reminded him anyway. "Not a word to anyone."
"Yes, sir."
I dialed Tank and met him in the garage five minutes later. I scrambled the cameras and disabled the GPS on an SUV. Tank drove while I called Raptor to let him know we were bringing in El Látigo. He assured me everything was ready.
There was no traffic at all on the street where Lester and Bobby were parked. They'd caught El Látigo walking down the sidewalk toward the apartment, stunned him and hustled him into the backseat of their SUV, where he was currently cuffed and shackled.
We pulled up beside them, but facing the opposite way. With both back doors open, it blocked the view of what was happening from every direction. They'd stunned El Látigo a second time when he began to come to, so transferring his unconscious body was no problem.
Once we had him secured in the back of our car I spoke with Lester and Bobby.
"The only ones that will know are the four of us and Raptor." They nodded. "Finish your shift and turn over to the next crew. Then go back and sleep. If I need you I'll call."
Nodding again they climbed back into their vehicle and Tank and I set off with El Látigo. About halfway back to RangeMan he began stirring and I half-turned, reaching back to tag him again with my stun gun. And if I scrambled a few brain cells, well, as long as he was capable of telling me what he did with Stephanie, I was fine with that.
Rather than entering the parking garage beneath the RangeMan building, we approached from the rear. Just before we entered the field of view of the security cameras I clicked my remote at them.
The back of the office had some very special features built in, and only a select few knew about them. They weren't on any plans of the building, and were almost impossible to discover, even if you suspected they existed and were searching for them.
Rather than scrambling the cameras, my remote freeze-framed them so that anyone watching would continue to see the quiet, empty nighttime scene. I pressed another button and a section of the wall swung silently open to reveal a steep downward ramp.
Tank drove down the incline into the sub-basement, a level almost nobody knew existed. It was down here we kept the things that would send us to prison for life if the Feds found out about them. Crates of illegal weapons, stashes of drugs of all types, large quantities of cash confiscated from criminals. And the soundproof cells.
Raptor met us as we parked the car. The sub-basement was accessible from inside the building only through a hidden staircase connecting to secret doorways on the top floor inside Raptor's and my apartments. If you didn't know exactly how to open them, even the most careful inspection wouldn't reveal them.
Trenton was similarly equipped.
With silent efficiency, Raptor and Tank stripped El Látigo naked and loosely chained him in one of the soundproof cells. He was still unconscious, so they left him lying there on the concrete floor and locked the door.
"Let's leave him in the dark for a while," I said, trying to quell my urge to make him talk right now.
Raptor went back up the hidden staircase and Tank and I got into the SUV, driving up the ramp and out the concealed entrance. As we reached the end of the block I clicked my remote back over my shoulder to return the security cameras to normal operation.
We drove around the block to the garage and both went to bed.
oOo
I tossed and turned for two hours and then got up and spent the morning down in my office with paperwork. They'd FedExed a whole carton full of it down from Trenton. With the entire core team here, as well as my top B-team guys, Trenton was left in the hands of Cal and Junior, both capable enough at routine operations. But if I were going to be away much longer I'd need to send Tank back to take care of contracts and the out-of-the-ordinary business.
I managed to eat a few bites of lunch and get through the meeting, parceling out assignments and the surveillance schedule for El Látigo's apartment. If the Feds knew we had El Látigo they'd have him behind bars in a D.C. second and be trumpeting the capture of a dangerous kidnapper from the rooftops. I would prefer that El Látigo never came to trial, and when we were through questioning him he would disappear without a trace.
And this time there would be no escape for him. I would make sure of it.
We were still concentrating our search on the Opa Locka area, so Tank and I set off after the meeting armed with photos. Since we both knew exactly where El Látigo was, we concentrated on the photos of Stephanie, showing them to every person we passed. The other teams were still pounding the pavement, as well.
At 2300 we called it a night.
As we drove into the garage Tank asked me, "Need some help tonight, boss?"
"Raptor's got my back," I responded. "Get some sleep."
He nodded.
I walked up the stairs to my apartment with more energy than I'd managed in weeks. Anticipation.
I didn't bother showering, just called Raptor.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
"More than ready, boss."
"Let's roll."
Stephanie had been gone thirty-eight days.
TBC