Lock stood behind his partner. ‘Anything new?’
‘Our boy Charlie’s like Brer Rabbit. The mofo, he lay low.’
‘You should be a poet, Tyrone.’
Ty smiled. ‘Maybe when I retire.’
He returned to the emails, and Lock to the map. Unless Mendez had taken off for another country, the clusters of confirmed sightings had him in the north-east of Mexico, close to the border. It was a puzzle. If Lock had been in his position, he would have driven south, moving deeper into Latin and South America. That he appeared to have stayed within the same three-or-four-hundred-mile radius seemed to back up Lock’s suspicion that Mendez was under someone’s protection, most likely a cartel or gang.
Five years ago it would have been easy to work out who was shielding him. There had been the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel. Between them they had carved up drug- and people-trafficking in Mexico. Then there had been a US-funded crackdown by the Mexican government, the subsequent emergence of the paramilitary Los Zetas, and a volatile fracturing of the drug-trafficking industry. The cartels were still there, still powerful, but the vertically integrated business structures they had used to operate their business had eroded to the point at which it was very difficult to figure out who was working for whom. Worst of all, with the fragmentation came more violence. Before, it had served a business function; now more and more people were killed, raped and tortured, not to intimidate, clear away competition or for profit, but for almost recreational reasons.
Also, the cartels were outsourcing many aspects of their business, from transport to security to money laundering. As with legitimate business, it saved money, but it also distanced those at the very top from the things that could land you in prison. If a drug lord could claim he had had no idea that a sub-contractor was flouting safety laws, he could wash his hands of the latest criminal outrage. After all, the people committing these atrocities weren’t his men. The idea of plausible deniability had found favour with organized crime.
All of these changes had meant that tracking Mendez was proving a lot tougher than Lock had anticipated. To make matters even more difficult, his strategy of convincing whoever was tracking him that he had no interest in Mendez meant that he couldn’t be overt in gathering intelligence. At some point, though, that would have to change. To capture Mendez, they had to find him and, so far, they were getting nowhere fast.
Ty got up and stretched, locking his fingers behind his head and kneading his neck. ‘Nothing. No one’s seen him. No one’s heard of anyone who’s seen him.’
Lock kicked at the foot of the bed in frustration. ‘He’s got to surface at some point.’
‘Apart from that detective in Santa Barbara and Brady’s wife, did you think about talking to someone at the Department of Justice or in the US Marshals Service?’
Lock walked to the window and looked out over the City of Angels. ‘Marshals aren’t going to go after him down there and the DOJ have their hands full. Charlie Mendez is old news. Sure, if he gets pinched down there they’ll send someone to pick him up, but go looking for him? Nah.’
That was the other difficulty with finding Mendez. Over the past few months relations between the Mexican and United States governments had become even more frayed. As the narco-wars began to spill over the border and Mexican government corruption became more obvious, cooperation between American state agencies and their counterparts in Mexico had been strained, with distrust on both sides. Simply put, there was no appetite for anyone in Mexico or the US to go looking for a serial rapist. They had bigger fish to fry.
‘I’m beat. You mind if I turn in?’ Ty said.
‘Sure. Go ahead.’
Ty walked to the door. ‘We’ll find him.’
Lock waved a goodnight and turned back to the map on his bed. He continued to pore over it, hoping it would give up its secrets, willing a pattern into existence, searching for a clue, however small, that would give them a starting point. But none came. Three hours later, he finally fell asleep.
Part Two
Twenty-two
Wrapped in the warmth of the fiery orange sun above the Pacific Ocean, Charlie Mendez stretched his lean, tanned body, and gave a loud yawn. The whole day stretched ahead of him. In a minute or two he would rise from his lounger, grab his surfboard and try to catch some waves. After an hour or so, he would come back into shore, head to the villa to shower, then go out to lunch. Afterwards, he would return to the villa with one of the local girls he rotated on a weekly basis. After a siesta with her, when he often ended up burning more calories than he did surfing, he would rest properly. Around seven, he would go to dinner, then drink in a local bar where he would pick up another girl, almost always a different one from the afternoon’s. By midnight he would be alone in bed and asleep.
While most men would tire of such a life, Mendez was used to indolence, to doing a lot of not very much. It had eased his transition to life in Mexico. There was only one problem: the local girls. They were beautiful, some strikingly so, but they were no challenge. He was young, wealthy and American, which meant that getting laid was a lot easier than catching a wave. He missed his old life so badly that he had even drugged one of the girls he had brought back to the villa. But, as she lay there unconscious, the thrill was gone. She would have done what he wanted her to do anyway, no matter how degrading or weird. Where was the fun in that?
That was why, later that evening, he was going to slip away from the villa and drive to nearby Diablo, which had a couple of resort hotels that catered to American tourists, and find some real sport. He had bought a new video camera specially. He had sourced his drugs. He was taking a risk. There was every chance that a bounty hunter might still be looking for him, despite what had happened to the last one. But that made it all the more thrilling. Charlie Mendez would be both hunted and hunter. The thought made his skin tingle with anticipation, and goosebumps rose on his arms.
He got to his feet, flicked off his sandals and picked up his board. Behind him, on the concrete promenade, two of his bodyguards stood next to a red Mercedes saloon, their automatic weapons slung over their shoulders — men openly carrying heavy-duty firearms were no big deal down here. He waved to them. One of them, Hector, waved back. Hector scared him. Although he was the smallest of the men who followed him everywhere, he was the one the others deferred to, the leader of the group. It was in his eyes, which were those of a predator.
Mendez began to run towards the ocean, the promise of a proper evening’s entertainment making him feel truly alive for the first time in months. Finally he had something to look forward to. Then he heard Hector calling him from the road.
‘Charlie!’
He kept running, but Hector called after him again. He might get away with ignoring the man once, but not a second time. He turned. Hector was beckoning him. He jogged towards the vehicle. ‘What’s up, Hector?’ he asked.
‘We have to go back to the house.’
‘Why?’
Hector stepped forward. ‘I’ll take your board. Get in.’
Pissed off, Mendez handed it to him. Hector took the front passenger seat, an assault rifle on his lap.