“Maybe it was hidden in a hangar,” suggested Anders.
“There was a hangar on the property, which we checked and found empty. It looked like it hadn’t been used in weeks.”
“How certain are you of that?”
“Ninety percent.”
“Has the Jackal made a statement of any kind?” asked Sutter.
“Since the raid on the ranch?” Anders shook his head.
“So no one’s seen hide nor hair of him, or heard from him, since Mrs. Clark spoke to him yesterday morning in Tapachula?”
“Based on the knowledge we have now, that’s correct,” Anders answered.
“What do we know about the plane?” asked Clark.
“It was a private jet.”
“I found this,” Crocker answered, opening the door to the closet and reaching into the dirty, blood-stained utility pouch for the documents he had recovered from the hut by the runway. They listed the plane’s serial number (N662MS), purchase price ($8,950,000), and seller (Maxfly Aviation).
“Can I have them?’ asked Anders.
“Of course.”
“I don’t know that these will do us any good, but I’ll inquire.”
Upon receiving the order from the Jackal, Nacho Gutierrez activated three of his best young sicarios-Guapo, Osito, and Stallone. Dressed in designer jeans, tight T-shirts, and leather sneakers, they looked like hip young men out for a night of clubbing. But the savage expressions in their eyes spoke to a more serious agenda.
High-level hits like this one were worth lots of plata-tens of thousands of dollars each, as well as perks like sports cars, SUVs, expensive watches, and their pick of beautiful girls kidnapped from Mexico, Texas, and California. It was a results-reward, high-stakes business.
Good results, lots of money. Bad results, a kick in the ass, or maybe a bullet in the head.
These three former members of the Mexican Navy boxing team took pride in their speed and cold-blooded efficiency. The first thing they did was locate Bob Marion of Global Banking & Investments, which took a couple of calls and a visit with his secretary as she was getting her nails done in a hair salon across the street from the office.
They caught up with Marion and a female companion two hours later as they were enjoying the salmon tartare amuse-bouche with a slightly chilled French rosé in the modern, atmospherically lit dining area of the chichi Lula Bistro in the Jardines de los Arcos area of downtown Guadalajara.
Guapo (“handsome” in English), who had a pleasant, boyish face and looked like a young businessman, waited in a café across Calle San Gabriel until Marion and his date exited arm in arm on their way for a nightcap and dancing at the nearby Ibiza Club, which featured nude dancers covered in gold paint and feathers in cages that hung from the ceiling. The Dutch record producer and DJ Tiësto was performing a set there tonight, and Marion had scored two very expensive and hard-to-get tickets from a friend who worked for the promoter who had booked the DJ into the club.
Outside on the rain-slicked sidewalk, he kissed his Versace-clad companion, then slipped a tab of Ecstasy into her sweet mouth.
“I feel like letting go tonight,” he whispered, swallowing one himself.
“We only live once, Bobby.”
Her name was Selvina and she was slim and model-tall with a mane of wavy hair and toned arms and shoulders. She was the only child of an Estonian mother and a Mexican father and had recently entered the intern program at the audit and risk review division at Banamex, which was the Mexican affiliate of Citibank.
Guapo put away his iPhone, crossed the street, and called, “Hola, Bob. Johnny Valdez.”
“Who?” Marion asked.
“Johnny Valdez. We met at a party last month.”
Marion, who was terrible at remembering names but good with faces, examined the young man’s smooth features, ears that stuck out slightly, and defined jaw against the databank of images in his head. He noticed but wasn’t alarmed by the black Cadillac Escalade that slid by and stopped at the curb.
“Don’t you remember?” Guapo said, smiling and keeping up the false charm. “Tony Alvarez’s house in La Florida?”
At the mention of the coworker who worked the Jackal’s account and had recently been roughed up by a group of U.S. intelligence officers, Marion grabbed Selvina’s arm and started to pull her across the street. As he maneuvered around the Escalade, the back door opened and Guapo pushed them both inside.
One of Selvina’s new Prada high heels fell off in the process, causing her to release a stream of Russian curse words into the dark interior. She stopped abruptly when a silenced Glock 9mm was pointed at her face.
As the vehicle moved quickly, Marion sat determined not to show any fear. He explained to Guapo that he had nothing to do with Tony Alvarez and demanded to know who the men were and what this was about.
Guapo reached past the girl and slapped the back of Marion’s head so hard that it jolted him out of his cocoon of security and privilege. Marion started to worry that maybe he had been arrogant to think that playing both sides of the fence-Ivan Jouma and the FBI-wouldn’t catch up with him.
But there was nothing he could do now but wait for an opportunity.
As the vehicle turned into an alley between two office towers, Guapo asked for their phones and Selvina’s purse.
She was reluctant to hand it over but relented soon after Stallone grabbed the front of her dress and pulled so hard that the cotton-Spandex-blend shoulder straps snapped.
A very tense six minutes later, the Escalade entered the underground garage of a dark office building and wound down four levels to the bottom, which was being used as a storage area for desks, partitions, chairs, and other furniture and equipment. As he was dragged roughly from the vehicle, Marion said, “El Chacal is a close business associate of mine. He won’t like this.”
Without saying a word in response, Guapo duct-taped Marion’s wrists behind his back, then taped him to an executive chair.
Marion watched dry-mouthed and trembling as Selvina’s dress and bra were ripped off, revealing the tattoo of a dragon on her lower stomach. The three men made a series of lewd comments about the meaning of the tattoo; then Stallone punched it hard, causing her to double over and fall to her knees.
“Tell me about the dragon,” he said, grabbing her by the hair. “What’s it mean, bitch?”
“Nothing,” she whimpered.
“It’s silly, like you. Isn’t it?”
He grabbed her by the hair, lowered his zipper, and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Guapo snapped pictures with his iPhone, then took a turn. She spoke to herself in Russian and blubbered, causing black mascara to streak down her face.
How far are they going to take this? Marion asked himself as he stared at the ceiling and scolded himself for staying in town.
“Tell me what you want,” he said, “and I’ll give it to you now!”
Osito, who was the shortest and most muscle-bound of the three, ripped off Selvina’s panties, leaned her over a desk, and started to sodomize her, which made Marion throw up over the front of his suit.
He tried to ignore the sound of Osito’s pelvis smacking against Selvina’s butt and the little squeals of pain that sometimes issued from her mouth. But that was impossible.
By the time Osito was finished, Selvina resembled a rag doll, stripped of will, humanity, and dignity.
Osito pulled out of her, shouting “¡Olé!” spun her so that she faced him, and shot her in the head. As Selvina crumpled to the cement floor, Marion lost control of his bladder. He decided he didn’t care what came next, he just wanted it to end quickly.
Without asking him a single question, the three sicarios took turns beating him with bats and sections of pipe until all his teeth were dislodged or broken, blood dripped down the front of his suit, and his head was a throbbing, swollen mass of pain.