“An associate… Who is this?”
A knot of parents momentarily parted, and Danny saw a bald man with mocha skin and rimless glasses holding Abby’s red LG mobile phone against the side of his face.
Their eyes locked.
It was the man from the surveillance image Tom Galvin had shown him. The man sitting in a car outside Galvin’s house. The man sent by the cartel to…
“If you cooperate,” the man was saying, “nothing will happen to her. There’s no need to worry about that. It will be quick and painless. But if you refuse to cooperate, or you are slow about it, I need only call my friend. And then, what happens to your daughter… well, I’m afraid she will never be the same.”
Galvin’s words came rushing back to him.
You know the videos on the Internet of those guys with chain saws cutting off people’s heads and all that? The ones you see in your nightmares? Well, this is the guy who gives those guys nightmares.
And: His name is Dr. Mendoza. That’s all I know-Dr. Mendoza, no first name. He specializes in coercive interrogation.
“Let us step outside, Mr. Goodman,” the voice said.
89
Heart thudding, nearly dizzy with adrenaline, Danny stood at the rear of the school’s main building, off to the side.
Waiting for Dr. Mendoza.
His skin prickled. A parking light fixture buzzed loudly. In the distance a car started.
Everything had taken on an eerie clarity, a feeling of heightened reality.
Then he heard the scuff of a shoe on gravel and the man named Dr. Mendoza loomed into view.
“Well, then-” Dr. Mendoza began to say, but Danny lunged.
“You bastard!” he roared. “You goddamned bastard!”
He grabbed hold of Dr. Mendoza’s shirt collar, the knot of his necktie, and Dr. Mendoza made a tight strangled sound as Danny slammed his full weight against the man’s chest. But the man came back upright with surprising strength.
Dr. Mendoza’s rimless glasses were knocked askew.
He looked at Danny with an amused arrogance as he straightened them. “I am sorry you’ve done this,” he said, and he blinked several times. “You have just made a grievous mistake.”
“Where the hell is my daughter?”
“Please back away,” Dr. Mendoza said patiently. He pursed his lips.
Blood roaring in his ears, Danny unsteadily stepped back. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.
“Mr. Goodman, you are overwrought. I will permit you this one outburst, because you are clearly unable to control your emotions. But let us be blunt. If you so much as lay a finger on me ever again, you will only harm your daughter. She will experience pain of a type and a magnitude that killing her will be a mercy, one she will beg for.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“I want to know where Thomas Galvin has gone.”
“And what makes you think I have the slightest idea-?”
“Oh, dear. This is a shame. You are risking your daughter’s life with your silly games. What I am proposing is a very simple trade. Your daughter for Thomas Galvin.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Dr. Mendoza shrugged. “This game doesn’t benefit either one of us, and it doesn’t help your daughter. Abigail, is that right? Abby?”
It took all the restraint he could muster to keep from lunging at the man again. Danny clenched his fists and bit his lower lip. He actually trembled with anger.
“How do I know she’s okay?”
“You have my word.”
“Your-word?”
“I’m afraid that’s the best you can do. But you’ll see that I am a man of my word.”
Danny swallowed. He heard distant laughter, a girl’s squeal. “Okay, listen. If you let my daughter go-and if you absolutely guarantee my daughter’s safety-I’ll-I’ll try my best to find Galvin.”
Dr. Mendoza smiled. “You’ll try to find him? This is your notion of good faith? You disappoint me. Good night.” Straightening his tie, Dr. Mendoza began to walk away.
“Wait-”
Dr. Mendoza stopped, made a half turn.
“Hold on,” Danny said. He swallowed again. His face was taut, burning. Agonized, he said, “He’s on his boat.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Mendoza said. “And where is that boat?”
“Where’s Abby? Give me my daughter and I’ll tell you where his boat is.”
Dr. Mendoza sighed and shook his head.
“This is a game you really want to play? A game with your daughter’s life? No, this is how it will work: You will take me to Galvin. Then I’ll tell you where she can be found.”
Danny looked around wildly, trying to regain some semblance of control. He swallowed, closed his eyes.
“All right,” he said at last.
90
Danny sat behind the wheel of the Honda. In the passenger’s seat next to him sat the man in the suit, tall and lanky yet powerfully built.
“Place the call,” Dr. Mendoza said.
“He’s on his boat. I don’t even know if a call can get through.”
“For your sake, for your daughter’s sake, let us hope it does.”
Galvin was on his boat, waiting for Danny to give him the all-clear signal.
But this call would change everything.
Once again, Danny felt a terrible clarity. His daughter’s life depended on this. He remembered the morning when Sarah and he had strapped their tiny baby into a car seat and drove her home from the hospital. A howling snowstorm outside, and they’d covered her face with a pink-and-blue-striped baby blanket to protect her from the snow during the dash from the hospital to their car. He drove as if the baby was made of glass, as if the baby’s life was in his hands, and it was.
As it was now.
The most precious thing in the world to him.
His stomach was roiling. He was frightened and alone and his baby’s life depended on him. Abby or Tom Galvin-was that even a choice?
He punched the numbers for Galvin’s BlackBerry. It rang once, twice, three times, and he thought: What if he doesn’t answer? What will this monster in the seat next to me do?
On the third ring, Galvin answered. “Danny?”
“Tom-don’t leave yet. I have-something to give you.”
“Danny? What, did you say-give me-?”
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said, and he ended the call.
“Where is Galvin?”
“Boston Harbor,” Danny said softly.
“The faster you take us there,” Dr. Mendoza said, “the faster our business will be concluded.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
A long silence. “That will be determined by his behavior.”
Danny drove like an automaton. Not another word was exchanged between the two men on the way over. His chest was tight. He found it hard to breathe. He was acutely aware of Dr. Mendoza’s presence next to him. It burned his cheeks and ears like he was standing next to a raging fire.
Traffic had gotten light, and they made it there in twelve minutes.
He pulled the Honda into the Boston Yacht Haven parking lot. He got out, his legs leaden, a prickle at the back of his neck.
As they came around the side of the clubhouse to the dock, Dr. Mendoza drew up close to him. “Do I need to tell you that if anything happens to me, if I do not place a call to my associate within an hour, harm will befall her?” He glanced at his wristwatch, a large white face with gold numbers and a brown leather strap. “You will see I am not in the business of making idle threats.”
Danny nodded. He felt light-headed, thick and slow. He moved as if through sludge.
“And where is his yacht?” Mendoza demanded.
El Antojo wasn’t tied up at the dock. Its berth was empty.
He pointed. Galvin’s yacht had left shore. It was a few hundred yards off, its running lights illuminating the ship with an orange glow as if lit from within.