Knowing what he had to do, he signed the credit card receipt and bade good night to the man with the beard.
“Remember that without the shield of faith to protect us, the Devil can easily strike us down,” the old man said. “But when we stand in faith we can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”
“I will.”
Chapter Five
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
– Dorothea Brande
Lisa Clark sat watching an old episode of Mad Men, thinking that the character Roger Sterling reminded her of her old friend Henri Gaudier. They had the same kind of hair and shared the same jaded sense of entitlement and need to bend people to their will. The latter was a skill she’d been learning from her husband-the ability to get people to project their power onto you. It involved creating a perception that you were smarter, more attractive, and more in control of yourself than they were, and could make things happen.
If she’d ever needed to marshal her abilities and influence people, it was now, she thought as vehicles stopped in the driveway below and car doors slammed, making her jump from her seat and rush to the window. From her second-story room, Lisa couldn’t see who had arrived, but her fear spiked dramatically.
She paced the room trying to harness her emotions, reminding herself that she had a sophisticated understanding of people and was intelligent. An armed male guard entered, followed by the maid with the long black braid and the flat oval face of a Mayan madonna, who proceeded to light candles and turn off the lamps and TV.
“What’s going on?” Lisa asked the guard.
He left without answering.
She turned to the maid and asked in broken Spanish, “¿Porque paga la luz?”
“The jefe doesn’t like electric light,” the young woman answered in English.
“Why not?”
“He believes it disturbs the spirits.”
“What spirits?” Lisa asked, glancing at the picture of La Santísima Muerte to her right.
“The spirits of the dead, Señora.”
“So the jefe is here in this residence, now?”
The maid nodded. “He is, Señora.”
“Does he have a name?” Lisa asked politely as the young woman straightened the cover on the bed.
“People call him El Chacal.”
Lisa stopped. “El Chacal?”
“Yes, Señora.”
“Is that his real name?”
“In English, you would say the Jackal,” the young woman answered.
“The Jackal?” The name conjured images of nasty, leering beasts sinking their teeth into wounded prey.
“Yes, Señora.”
Clark had told his wife stories about the vicious, out-of-control Mexican and Colombian drug lords with strange aliases who corrupted local officials and acted as though they were above the law. Men like Joaquín Guzmán (a.k.a. El Chapo) of the Sinaloa cartel, who had once escaped from a high-security prison in a shopping cart and started bloody turf wars all over Mexico, and Ismael Zambada-García (a.k.a. El Mayo), who worked as a furniture deliveryman before becoming a gangster; Heriberto Lazcano (a.k.a. El Bronce) of Los Zetas, and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (a.k.a. El Viceroy) of the Juárez cartel. But she had never heard of anyone called the Jackal.
In the flickering candlelight, with the full moon rising past the high back wall, she considered what attitude to take when she met him. Outrage? Defiance? Zenlike acceptance?
She felt it was important to project an aura of confidence to let him know she wasn’t afraid of whatever cult or criminal organization he was part of, because her husband was a highly influential man in the most powerful country on earth.
But her kidnapper had to understand that already. Aside from the fact that she was a senator’s wife, what did the Jackal know about her?
If he’d seen her photo, he knew she was tall, thin, blond, and attractive. But what else? Did he know she had fallen out of a school bus when she was six years old and the back wheels had run over her little body, crushing her pelvis? Did he understand that the resulting nerve damage and dozen operations had left her with an unusual ability to endure pain?
Did he know she had killed someone?
Lisa almost jumped out of her skin at the sharp knock on the door. The maid answered and someone in the hallway handed her a gray business suit on a hanger, a white silk blouse, and black high-heeled shoes.
She laid the clothes on the bed and said, “Señora, please put these on.”
“Why?”
“Because El Jefe wants you to join him for dinner.”
“Where?” Lisa asked.
“Downstairs in the dining room.”
The label in the suit read ARMANI and the fabric was a supple silk-wool blend with pinstripes. Skirt, jacket, and white silk blouse. The shoes were patent leather, designed by Jimmy Choo.
“The Jackal has good taste,” Lisa said.
The maid nodded.
Lisa stood in a dark corner of the candlelit room and undressed while the young woman watched. The skirt and blouse fit perfectly.
“How did you know my size?” Lisa asked.
“El Chacal finds out,” the young woman replied.
“How?”
“I don’t have that information, Señora.”
An older, heavier woman entered and did Lisa’s makeup and combed her hair as thoughts and worries flooded Lisa’s brain.
Whoever the Jackal was, he had an appreciation of style and beauty, which should have given her hope. But instead it unnerved her, and brought back memories of another sensitive, twisted man she had known-someone who understood how to manipulate people far better than she did.
She heard another sharp knock on the door.
The maid said, “It’s time, Señora.”
As Lisa stood, she steeled herself for what lay ahead and reminded herself that she wasn’t an innocent girl anymore. She’d learned a tremendous amount in the past twenty years about power, influence, and determination.
She’d fight tooth and nail if she had to. Whatever happened, she’d do what she had to in order to survive.
I’ve gotten this far on guts, drive, and instinct, and I’m not gonna change now, Crocker reminded himself as he parked his Harley in the SEAL Team Six compound. The changeable April weather had turned cold, so he wore an old brown leather jacket over his habitual black T-shirt and pants, and a black wool cap on his head. Since he’d driven all night and was dirty and tired, he stopped in the bathroom near his cage to wash up. Ritchie used to call the team room the testosterone pit of America.
He wasn’t wrong. The guys on Team Six were the elite of the elite-highly motivated individuals constantly trying to improve themselves and give themselves an edge. As much as they trusted and respected one another, the competition between them to be the best shooter, jumper, diver, or boat crew leader was intense.
Outside he passed a young African American operative from Blue Team, who offered him a big purple jar of Iso Mass nutrition powder, which he said was packed with free-flowing glutamine and BCAAs for building muscle mass. Crocker thanked him for the offer but turned it down. He lifted and worked out as hard as anyone on the teams but preferred to keep his body lean.
Someone had written a quote from soccer player Mia Hamm on the blackboard: “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”
Last time he was here, he had joined Cal and Ritchie at the shooting range as they tested a new variant of the Heckler & Koch MP7A1. When he passed Ritchie’s cage, he noticed that his gear had already been cleared out.