Mariana stood outside the door to her motel room, watching as the twins’ sheet-covered bodies were loaded into an ambulance. She didn’t know who had discovered them, and she didn’t ask, but she knew from overhearing the police that they believed the girls to be prostitutes, robbed and murdered by a client wielding a hammer. The forensics people had taken the sisters’ fingerprints, expecting them to match up with those from another grisly murder scene a few miles away.
Mariana doubted there would be a match, as the twins had never mentioned killing Villalobos.
The police questioned her briefly, and she denied knowing anything, but she knew it had to have been Fields.
Her cab ride to meet Jessup for lunch was not a pleasant one. She glanced out the back window to see Fields following in his blue sedan. There were two Mexican men in the car with him, and now that he’d taken both of her phones, she had no way of calling Crosswhite or Midori or even Castañeda for support. She decided to keep a hard-copy list of every phone number in the future, but now that Fields had let slip the name Hancock, she didn’t think he had any intention of allowing her to live.
Her urge to run to the US Consulate was strong, but there would be no real protection for her there. Consulates were not embassies. They were not in place to serve US citizens abroad. Their primary function was to provide visa services to foreign nationals. Any services they provided to American nationals were treated as courtesies rather than as any sort of US citizens’ rights. And once Mariana was finally admitted into the secure facility — which would probably take at least a couple of hours due to her lack of identification — there would be no leaving again until and unless they allowed her to leave. Pope would know within an hour of her arrival at the facility, and there was no way to predict how he might react. She now believed he had ordered Downly’s assassination, and for all she knew, he would advise the consulate general of Tijuana to treat her as a fugitive — or, worse, a potential terrorist.
Realizing that the US Consulate building could all too easily become a prison, she decided she was safer on the street, where she could at least move around.
She arrived at the restaurant to find Billy Jessup waiting for her at the bar.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “You look worried.”
Survival instinct kicked in. “I’m in trouble.” After all, Jessup was a man and, in a bizarre way, the closest thing to a friend she had at the moment.
“What kind of trouble?”
“I’m being followed. I think they’re looking to kill us both.”
He glanced at the entrance. “Out front?”
“Yeah. Blue car.”
He took her hand. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Jessup led her into the back through the kitchen.
“Hey, you can’t pass through here!” said a kitchen worker, attempting to block their way.
“Go fuck yourself,” Jessup muttered, shoving him aside and leading Mariana out the back door. Ducking into the alley, they didn’t make it three steps before they were caught in a cross fire: Fito and Memo firing Taser guns from behind adjacent dumpsters.
Mariana was hit in the neck with close to 40,000 volts at 25 watts; Jessup, in the shoulder. They went down convulsing as Fields pulled up in the car. They were both zapped again and dumped into the trunk.
Twenty minutes later, they were unloaded at gunpoint behind a dilapidated office building in a deserted section of town. Fields shot Mariana in the leg with a freshly loaded Taser, and she went down again, convulsing on the concrete.
“That’s an attention getter,” he said with a twisted smile.
Jessup stood watching with his hands behind his head, wanting to help, but Fito and Memo were covering him front and back with pistols.
When she recovered well enough to speak, Fields stood over her. “What did Crosswhite and Shannon do with the gold they found in Paris?”
She glared up at him, now sure that he intended to kill her. “I don’t know anything about any gold, you fuck!”
He zapped her again, and she screamed, her bladder finally letting go.
“That’s enough!” Jessup shouted.
Fields glanced at him. “If he says another word, shoot him in the head.”
Fito aimed Villalobos’s silenced pistol at Jessup’s face, and Fields returned his attention to Mariana.
“Crosswhite would not have gone so far off the reservation unless he had money and a plan — not with a wife and a baby on the way. So you’d better tell me what he’s up to, or it’s going to be a very long afternoon for you.”
Mariana was too badly convulsed in that moment to speak, so he stood waiting patiently.
Jessup began to wonder if he was caught up in something to do with the CIA.
Fields knelt down beside her, looking into her wild eyes. “Just breathe,” he said calmly. “We’ve got all day.” He stood back up, taking her satellite phone from the pocket of his overcoat. “I tell you what we’ll try. We’ll give your boyfriend a call and see what he has to say about your little predicament.”
She drew a deep breath, forcing out the words. “He won’t tell you anything. He’ll know it won’t do any good.”
“I think you’re right. I think he’ll let you die. But this way, he’ll know it’s his fault.” Fields stepped on her throat with his shoe to prevent her calling out before he was ready, and she began to strangle.
Crosswhite answered. “Where the hell have you been? Are you okay?”
“I’m a little annoyed at the moment, actually,” Fields said. “How are you?” There was a pregnant pause at Crosswhite’s end. “What, no smartass remark? I’m disappointed in you, Daniel.”
“Where is she?”
“I literally have my foot on her throat. Would you like me to send you a photo?”
“What do you want?”
“First, I want Chance Vaught eliminated. Then you can do me the service of eliminating Rhett Hancock. By now, I’m guessing Ortega has given you that name, so you can go ahead and eliminate Ortega as well.”
The second that Jessup heard Hancock’s name, his mind caught on fire with the flames of betrayal, and he knew that Mariana had set him up. Bitch! he thought to himself.
“I’ll take care of Hancock soon enough,” Crosswhite said. “Mariana’s got nothing to do with any of this, so—”
“Lie!” Fields said. “I know all about your arrangements with Castañeda. She’s every bit as involved in this as you are. So dispense with the bullshit. Is Vaught there with you? Kill him now, or I’ll kill your little sweetheart here.”
“Vaught’s not with me,” Crosswhite said. “The Ruvalcabas have declared war on Toluca PD. They’re moving to take over the city, and Hancock is with them. Before it’s over, I’ll kill him, or he’ll kill me. That’s all I can guarantee. Now, let Mariana go.”
Fields covered the receiver with his hand, saying to Fito, “Kill him.”
Jessup made a break for it, but Fito shot him down before he’d gone ten feet.
Field’s put the phone back to his ear. “Tell me what happened to the gold you and Shannon hid in Paris?”
There came a tired sigh from Crosswhite’s end of the line. “Fields, I know it won’t do any good to tell you this, but every ounce of that gold went to Pope. Now he’s using it to fund the ATRU. By the way: I do have Ortega. If you hurt Marina, I promise you he’ll testify before the Senate subcommittee.”
Fields chortled, grinding his foot against Mariana’s throat to the point that her eyes began to bulge. “You’ll have to bluff harder than that, Daniel. Ortega will never testify truthfully. He’s got way too much to lose, and it would be his word against Pope’s. Who do you think the Senate will believe?”
“Let her go,” Crosswhite said. “That’s the only way we can make a deal.”