He saw the extractor now. Blood oozed out of it.
“Boss.”
“What?”
Crocker blinked and realized that he and the doctor were standing in a large waiting room. Thirty or so men-visitors to the hospital and personnel-stared at him. They looked up from their positions on the floor, standing, and sitting in green chairs.
Mancini stood facing him with an MP7 strapped across his chest. “You okay, boss?”
Crocker nodded.
“We released all the women and children.”
“Good.”
“The Mexican commander outside has been demanding our surrender and I’ve been telling him to go to hell. I don’t trust any of them.”
“Neither do I.”
“Suárez has been outstanding.”
A helicopter passed over the building, rattling the windows. Through the double doors he saw tanks, news vans, and soldiers in riot gear. They looked real.
“The consul and governor are waiting in the administrator’s office, down the hall,” Mancini said, pointing to a narrow fluorescent-lit hallway to his right.
“Thanks. See if you can find me a glass of water or a cup of coffee.”
Crocker turned the knob of the pale beige door and entered, holding his HK416 and SIG Sauer. The five men inside regarded him with varying degrees of fear, contempt, and suspicion, then introduced themselves one by one.
The U.S. consul was young and full faced, with short hair and a dark beard. He seemed completely overwhelmed. The governor of Jalisco was a good-looking man with gray hair, dressed in an expensive suit and cowboy boots. He acted like someone who was pleased with himself, which struck Crocker as completely inappropriate.
The other three men included the hospital administrator and two of the governor’s aides. A male nurse brought bottles of water, a cup of black coffee for Crocker, and a bowl of fruit.
Crocker downed the coffee and drank half a bottle of water. His ability to focus quickly improved. In blunt language he described what had transpired that morning, starting with the raid on the house in Puerto del Hiero and the battle with police.
The governor interrupted. “You and your men are in my country illegally, and you have committed criminal acts. I advise you to surrender immediately.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Crocker countered.
“If you surrender now, I’ll try to arrange your safe passage back to the United States, but I can’t guarantee that.”
“We’re not interested in leaving until we’ve completed our mission, which is to rescue Lisa and Olivia Clark.”
“Our security forces are capable of doing that,” the governor said.
Crocker shook his head and glanced at the clock on the wall, which reminded him that valuable time was ticking past.
The consul tried to act as conciliator, explaining the positions of both governments and the negative effect the Clarks’ deaths would have on U.S.-Mexican relations.
The governor stepped forward aggressively and pointed a finger at Crocker. “As Mexicans, we won’t tolerate violations and insults to our sovereignty.”
Crocker wanted to clock him in the mouth but held himself back. Turning to the consul, he said, “Get some people in here who make sense.”
An hour later the CIA station chief, Max Jenson, arrived with the Mexican deputy minister of defense.
The three men retired to the administrator’s office, and within fifteen minutes, a deal was worked out. First, they waited for a helicopter to ferry Nieves and Davis to a hospital in Mexico City. Then Crocker and his men relinquished control over the hospital and the M706 and were released into the custody of Jenson and the U.S. consul. The Mexican deputy minister promised that once the two wounded men were healthy enough, they would be transferred to a recovery center in the States.
As he sat in the back of an SUV that sped through the streets of Guadalajara, Crocker’s body begged to sleep, but his brain wouldn’t let him, pushing the name Maria to the surface over and over.
Once he focused enough to understand who Maria was and why she was important, he said out loud, “We’ve got to find her.”
But no one responded. Mancini, Akil, and Suárez sat behind him, snoring, and the driver kept staring ahead.
Jenson in the passenger seat finished his cell phone call, pulled the buds out of his ears, turned back to Crocker, and said, “I have good news and bad. The good news is that Nieves was given a blood transfusion and is responding to pain and verbal stimuli.”
“He and Davis have arrived in Mexico City?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the bad news?” Crocker asked.
“We’ve got nothing on the Clarks’ new location.”
“What about the Jackal?” Mancini asked.
“Nothing on him, either.”
“We need to find Maria,” suggested Crocker.
The sandy-haired CIA officer at the wheel looked over this shoulder and finally spoke. “Maria isn’t her real name.”
“What is it?”
“Claudia Matamoros.”
“Find her,” Jenson barked, looking at his watch. “We’ve got nine hours.”
Lisa dreamt that she was in the woods being chased by a pack of jackals like the ones she’d seen in the backyard. Her lungs burned and the muscles in her calves ached as she ran over the mossy, leaf-covered ground, trying to keep from slipping. Struggling, she veered right, into the cover of high green grass that bordered a body of water.
The jackals snarled and howled behind her. She couldn’t imagine why they were so angry, or what she had done to put herself in this horrible situation.
But it must have been something personal, because she sensed their hatred as they clawed the ground and closed the gap between her and them.
Six feet beyond the tall grass lay a river that fed into a silver-colored lake. She ran as fast as she could, jumped, and landed on the soggy edge of the far side with a splash. The jackals whined and howled on the other side. But when she tried to pull herself out of the muck, she discovered that her legs were stuck.
Seeing her distress, one of the jackals jumped into the water and started to swim toward her. She saw its hungry yellow eyes draw closer and struggled to pull free. The animal was practically on her. She saw its long teeth and smelled its hot, disgusting breath.
As it bit into her shoulder, she screamed, “No!” and awoke in a room filled with pale-blue light.
El Chacal leaned over her and shook her shoulder gently.
“Mrs. Clark,” he whispered with a sensual Mexican accent. “Mrs. Clark, wake up.”
The bed had four wooden posts. The windows were covered with long blue curtains. A young man in a white shirt and dark pants stood near the door.
“Mrs. Clark…” the Jackal whispered. “Can you hear me, Mrs. Clark?”
The whites of El Chacal’s eyes were yellow. His lips bloodless and cracked.
“Mrs. Clark,” he said. “I have good news for you. Your stay with us is almost over.”
“Really?” she asked, a big wad of emotion gathering in her chest.
“Yes. But before you go, I want you to record a statement. You think you can do that for me?”
Tears of relief gathered in her eyes. “A statement?”
“Yes, a statement. That’s all I ask. I’ll send someone to help you. But first, you need to take a shower and get dressed.”
“Of course,” she said, sitting up and discovering that her white cotton nightgown was drenched in sweat. “Thank you.”
Crocker was pulling on the fresh light-green tunic and pants he had grabbed at the hospital, when Jenson, in the passenger seat, turned to him and said, “Claudia’s father, mother, brother, and aunt have already left for Dallas. But Claudia is still trying to recover her five-year-old son, who has been living with his father at an amusement park on the other side of town. My people think she’s there now.”