“Hit the gas!” Crocker exclaimed.
It took them forty minutes to find the amusement park, which sat behind a Ford dealership off the south highway. It was a sad, grimy place with a tall, rusted Ferris wheel, a pit for bumper cars, a roller coaster that was out of order, and an assortment of game booths and lesser rides.
The sandy-haired CIA officer rolled the black Range Rover with blacked-out windows into the dust-filled lot and parked.
Despite its condition, the place was filled with lower-class Mexican mothers and children, many of whom were carrying balloons. Directly ahead of them was a bumper car ride with a long line of excited children.
Jenson addressed Crocker and his men in back. “The father’s name is Moco Taveras. You think you guys can handle this?”
“Is Elvis dead?”
“You going dressed like that?” he asked Crocker.
“Why not?”
The four SEALs strode to the ticket window, where Suárez paid the forty-peso admission for all four men, then asked the big woman behind the counter where they could find Moco Taveras.
She shrugged as though she’d never heard of him.
After he handed the ticket woman another three hundred pesos (approximately twenty-four dollars), she said, “Moco’s running the Ferris wheel today.”
Crocker, Mancini, and Akil sipped cold sodas as they watched Suárez approach the attraction and a mustached man with a blue bandana tied around his forehead.
Suárez told Moco he worked for the FBI and had money for Claudia. Moco suggested that Suárez leave the money with him and he’d make sure to give it to his wife. When that didn’t work, he pointed in the direction of the bumper car pavilion.
As Suárez walked away, Crocker saw Moco reach for his cell phone. A minute later, he saw Claudia (Maria) emerge from the pavilion in a blue top and tan pants, clutching a dark-haired little boy by the hand.
The moment she recognized him, she pushed the boy toward the Ferris wheel, turned, and ran in the opposite direction.
Suárez stopped the boy, and Akil and Crocker pursued her.
It was a short chase. Crocker snatched her off her feet and carried her to the Range Rover. She kicked and screamed, but neither Moco nor anyone else intervened.
Crocker set her on the middle seat and sat next to her as she clutched her son. All of them were dusty, sweating, and out of breath. Minus the wrestler’s mask, Claudia had a round, pleasant face.
Suárez asked her a question in Spanish, and Claudia wept and responded at the same time. She swore that she hadn’t alerted the narcoterrorists at the house and had no motive for betraying the Americans, who were moving her family to the States.
Crocker sensed that she was telling the truth.
“Does she know where the American women are now?” he asked.
Suárez translated. Claudia shook her head and said something.
“She doesn’t,” Suárez said. “She says El Chacal owns houses, apartments, and properties all over the country.”
“Does she have any way of getting in touch with people who do know?”
Claudia shook her head vigorously and said something in Spanish.
“No,” Suárez said.
“Does she have any idea who betrayed us?”
She thought about it, then nodded.
“Who?”
“Señor Marion,” she said.
“Bob Marion, the security consultant?”
“Jes.”
It seemed like a stab in the dark, but it was all they had and the clock was ticking.
Jenson said, “Let’s head back into the city. I’ll see if my people can locate Marion. He works for Global Banking and Investments downtown.”
Crocker struggled to stay awake as the sandy-haired CIA officer spun the vehicle onto an autopista and sped into town. All he saw were cars flashing by and patches of blue sky.
He dreamt he was standing on a rock casting a line into a river. Three minutes later, he opened his eyes and saw that they were passing a silver bus.
“This Marion guy was at the safe house when the raid was discussed?” Akil asked from the backseat.
“He was the dark-haired guy with the two-day growth and the smug look on his face,” Mancini answered.
Crocker tried to focus. He remembered that there had been something about Marion he hadn’t liked.
Five minutes later Jenson removed the buds from his ears and reported, “He’s attending a cocktail party in the Emiliano Zapata Room of the Hotel Demetria, which is near the university, downtown.”
“Marion?” Crocker asked.
“Yeah, Marion.”
“Where’s that exactly?” the driver asked.
“Twenty-two nineteen Avenida de la Paz. I’ll punch it in the GPS.”
Crocker slipped in and out of consciousness, but on some subconscious level his mind was busy trying to catch up with the events of the day. He absorbed information and processed new situations faster than most people. The image of the four heads on the coffee table kept reappearing.
He was jarred awake as the Range Rover hit a speed bump and lurched left.
“Sorry,” the driver muttered.
Outside he saw a beautiful, idyllic afternoon with sidewalks jammed full of determined-looking businesspeople and shoppers. Claudia sat leaning against the opposite door with her son in her lap.
The CIA officer pulled to the curb in front of a sleek hotel tower with a fountain out front. Atlas stood in the middle holding a metal globe on his back.
“Who’s going up?” Jenson asked.
“I’ll go with Suárez,” Crocker said, glancing at his watch. The deadline was eight hours away.
“Not dressed like that.”
They compared sizes and exchanged clothes. Crocker got Jenson’s black pants and pullover. Suárez wore the driver’s polo and chinos.
“That’s better,” Jenson concluded. “Grab him and take him down to the parking lot. We’ll meet you there.”
They entered the modern black-marble lobby wearing their same blood-covered black boots.
“High class,” Suárez whispered.
“Looks more like a modern art museum than a hotel.”
The clerk at the front desk turned his nose up at them like they smelled bad. “Twelfth floor,” he said. “But invitation only.”
They rode up alone, watching footage of masked Mexican soldiers roaming the grounds of the FBI compound on the elevator TV. It had the effect of a flashback from a bad dream.
Two burly guys in black suits stopped them at the double doors to the Emiliano Zapata Room.
“We’re from the U.S. embassy,” Suárez said in Spanish. “We have an important message to deliver to someone inside.”
One of the guards looked them over and asked, “What’s the VIP’s name?”
“Señor Bob Marion.”
“Wait here.”
Crocker pushed past as one guard consulted a guest list on a table by the door and another turned to greet a short man in a gray suit.
“¡Que cosa!” the guard shouted.
Crocker quickly scanned the high-ceilinged room. There were no people in the center. Instead, large ceramic objects were displayed on tables. One of them looked like a huge gourd. People crowded under columned corridors on all four sides of the room. In the far left corner of the center space a jazz quartet played “A Night in Tunisia” by Dizzy Gillespie, which was one of Crocker’s favorite jazz tunes. To his right, he caught a glimpse of a woman with red lipstick throwing her head back and laughing. She stood next to a potted tree.
In the dim, atmospheric light he saw Bob Marion standing with his back to her, leaning one hand on the side of the planter. He wore a dark-gray suit and a blue shirt open at the collar. His other hand held a cocktail.
Crocker glanced over his shoulder to see if the guards were following him-they weren’t so far-then crossed the room.
Marion stood conversing with a tall, thin woman in a tight dress.
Crocker approached and said, “Excuse me, Bob. We met at Lane’s house a couple nights ago.”
Marion looked perplexed. “Oh, yeah.”