Flash Fire Page 6

  “Bigger than it should be, but compared to the four hundred billion dollars’ worth of drugs that comes through here each year, human trafficking is small potatoes. Except for the violence it brings.”

  “More violence than what comes with drugs?” She tried to grasp what exactly she was facing.

  “The cartels keep the drug business low-key and the violence down,” Walker said. “The war against drugs put heroin transport via ship and plane out of business. A ship or airplane is easy to pick up on radar, easy to target. The land routes are all the cartels have left. They don’t want to draw attention to Chiapas. They lie low here as much as they can.”

  He paused, then continued. “Up north, the level of violence is way higher. What violence you see here is mostly the robbery, rape, and murder of migrants. Since they’re coming through illegally, they can’t go to the police. And even if they do, most of the time, the police will rob them the same as the criminals.”

  Exactly the kind of information she needed.

  “So if the cartels focus on the drug trade and keep a low profile around here,” she said, “then it’s likely that the young woman I’m looking for, Rosita Ruiz, was kidnapped by people like Pedro’s banditos.”

  Walker thought for a moment. “Or some random street thug. Two weeks ago, a group of street kids gang-raped a woman walking home from work after dark.”

  Clara had heard the story from French tourists on one of her treks to the Mayan ruins. The four perpetrators—the oldest nineteen, the youngest sixteen—were still the talk of the town, now sitting in jail. She’d seen plenty of criminals through her work, but the case shook her.

  “A sixteen-year-old should be just a child,” she murmured. Then sighed. “Children are supposed to be innocent. A sixteen-year-old shouldn’t even know about rape.”

  “They do what they see around them. Childhood is a privilege not everyone in poverty-stricken regions receives.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, had seen plenty of poverty-stricken regions on her previous missions. “The police seem to have acted quickly and efficiently.”

  “They’re quick to prosecute street kids. Then they sit on their thumbs when it comes to the cartel bosses.” Walker nudged a giant green beetle with his boot, diverting it from heading toward Clara. “You think these kids had something to do with Rosita?”

  She shook her head. “They came across their victim in a dark alley and jumped her, but made no attempt to kidnap or kill her. Rosita disappeared in broad daylight. These kids couldn’t have kidnapped her on foot, dragged her down the streets without being seen. Why leave her cell phone in the open car? Why leave the car? She had the keys with her.”

  Walker watched her. “Tell me exactly how she disappeared.”

  “She went to the market with her cousin. They got back home and went inside. Rosita realized that she left her cell phone in the car. She went back out to get it. She never returned. When the cousin went to look for her, the car door stood open, the phone still inside, Rosita nowhere to be seen.”

  “Could be a crime of opportunity.” Walker nudged the beetle again, and it flew off. “It’s a small town. People could have heard an American relative was coming to visit the cousin. Then someone saw Rosita alone and grabbed her in the hope of some easy ransom money.”

  Clara had already considered that. “From what I’ve seen in other cases, small-time criminals usually go for express kidnappings.”

  Express kidnappings were popular in South and Central America. They involved either grabbing someone quickly, contacting the family and asking for immediate transfer of funds, or simply taking the person from ATM to ATM until all their money was withdrawn.

  “Rosita had no ATM withdrawals after her disappearance,” she told Walker. “Her purse with her wallet had been left at her cousin’s house. And nobody from her family received a ransom request; both her aunt in the US and her cousin in Furino confirmed that.”

  She pulled her shirt away from her chest again, trying to help it dry faster. “I’ve done some research while I was waiting for you to show up.”

  She didn’t bother to keep the reproach from her voice. He’d wasted her time, and she wasn’t ready to let him off the hook just yet.

  “Over a hundred thousand people are kidnapped in Mexico every year. A thousand or so are reported to the police. Sometimes the police are the kidnappers.” She paused. “How much do you know about the cops in Furino?”

  “About as corrupt as the average.” Walker’s tone turned pensive. “I don’t know. I don’t see it. The corrupt cops are either on the cartel payroll, in which case they kidnap enemies of the cartel and take them to the cartel to be dealt with. Or some crooked cop makes a spur-of-the-moment kidnapping on a dark country road, if the opportunity arises, for quick cash.”

  He shook a fallen leaf off his arm. “Kidnapping an American is a hell of a lot of hassle. Their disappearance actually gets investigated. The embassy puts on pressure, the media gets all excited. Only about a hundred and fifty US citizens are kidnapped in Mexico each year. You have a better chance of getting kidnapped back home than here.”

  Clara turned her head so she could look more fully at him. Odd that he’d know the statistics so exactly.

  “Have you investigated this kind of thing before? What do you do for a living down here?” she asked again.

  “Why is that important?”

  “I’m trying to determine whether or not I can work with you.”

  Instead of responding, he let his gaze glide over her again. “You know,” he said when he finished scrutinizing her. “Everything is way too sensible about you. Take that shapeless T-shirt. And the lack of makeup. Guys like women who take the trouble to look good for their men. Some mascara, some cleavage.”

  His gaze stopped on her mouth. Stayed. “The lips have potential.”

  She had no illusions that the flair of interest and flash of heat in his gaze was real. She wasn’t a looker on her best day. Turning on the heat was a kind of evasive maneuver for him. He brought it when he wanted to shut her up.

  If she’d been a man, he would have told her to fuck off. But with her being a woman, he probably figured a hard come-on was the fastest way to make her back down. He was half-right. She wasn’t used to this kind of focused attention from men who looked like him.

  She had jungle on her face, in her hair, and probably in places she didn’t want to contemplate. She was drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. She looked like the chicken that crossed the road, was hit by a car, then dragged, pounced on by a large cat, chewed up and spit out, then shot from a cannon.

  While Walker actually looked better dirty, the outrageous bastard. The smudges of mud only accentuated his perfect muscles and lent him an even more pronounced aura of rugged, dangerous sexiness.

  Truthfully, she’d never met anyone quite like Light Walker, not with this kind of raw, unapologetic masculinity. But she wasn’t the swooning type, so he was plumb out of luck if he thought he was going to control her with the testosterone slash pheromone cloud he seemingly produced at will.

  “I think you needed this jungle trek,” he told her. “It’ll loosen you up a little. In Furino, there’s an old hippie from Jersey who sells T-shirts to tourists. He says the universe gives us experiences to make us better people.”

  Her hands twitched. How bad a breach of protocol would it be to strangle him with a liana?

  He must have read the murder in her eyes, because he said, “Don’t tell me you’re the kind of feminist who can’t appreciate friendly suggestions for improvement.”

  She rolled her eyes. “How old are you?”

  “Thirtyish.”

  Of course. Because giving an exact number would have gone against his grain. She shook her head. “How are you still alive? The only explanation I can find is that none of the women in your life ever owned a gun.” Or a cast-iron frying pan.

  “You sound grumpy.”

  When she didn’t respond, because what sh
e wanted to say…well, she’d been raised better than to say it, he went on with, “Maybe you’re just hungry. I could probably rustle up some grubs before we get going.”

  Yuck. “The Jamie Oliver of the jungle.”

  He offered a half grin. “The big white grubs taste like chicken. Or we could have roasted tarantulas. It’s a delicacy with some of the tribes.”

  The image of giant hairy spiders flashed into her mind, and she was on her feet the next second. “Spiders and lunch should never be mentioned in the same sentence. Ever. That should be international law.”

  He kept grinning as he stood with feline grace next to her. Then he reached for his machete and began clearing a path for them.

  “Clearing” was a deceptive word, Clara decided an hour later. Their path was by no means actually clear, only passable. With effort.

  While she felt as if she’d just crossed the continental United States with Lewis and Clark, he looked unfazed. He kept pushing forward. She had no doubt he could do this for the next two weeks without taking a break.

  He hacked at the jungle, wielding the machete with the same efficiency he’d used to disembowel people. A man programmed to destroy whatever or whoever stood in his way.

  She wasn’t a fan.

  Walker was not only a cold-blooded killer but a loose cannon. Partnering with a loose cannon was the fastest way to get killed.

  As soon as they reached civilization, she was going to finish debriefing him on the local terrain and power structure so she could figure out the best way to run a clandestine investigation under local conditions. Then he could go back to doing whatever nefarious things he did, flashing muscles and swaggering while he did them. If they actually had to work together, they’d probably strangle each other.

  No matter what her father wanted, no way was Clara going to partner up with Light Walker. He’d suggested a tarantula for a snack, for heaven’s sake.

  They were never, ever, ever going to work together.

  * * *

  Walker was impressed by the woman, and he wasn’t easily impressed. She’d been limping for the last couple of miles but did not complain about her feet. When Walker had offered to carry her on his back to speed their progress, she’d refused. She was determined to make it on her own. She wasn’t a wimp.

  He didn’t like the idea of her feet getting damaged, however, and he was beginning to consider carrying her whether she liked it or not, but then they finally reached the road at last.

  He flagged down the first vehicle they saw, a beat-up blue pickup. The old-timer farmer was headed to Mercita, the nearest large town, and he agreed to take them, so they piled into the back.

  Walker made himself comfortable as they rode away from the jungle, then passed banana farm after banana farm. Since he’d seen all that a thousand times before, he watched Clara as she sat next to him. Despite some obvious shortcomings, she wasn’t bad to look at. Long legs, for one. Long neck too, very kissable looking. And he hadn’t lied earlier about her lips.

  Too bad her mouth was most often flattened into a line of displeasure. She was altogether too severe: the look in her gunmetal gray eyes, the line of her nose, the set of her shoulders. He figured her for about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, twenty-nine tops. If he didn’t know she was DOD, he would have guessed FBI. She had the tone of a government agent. He didn’t much care for that.

  And she was definitely as flat as a tortilla. Every time his gaze dipped to where her breasts should have been, the song “Brimful of Asha” by Cornershop, the song about every man needing a bosom to rest his head on began playing in his head.

  On the other hand, she’d kept up with him in the jungle. He hadn’t thought she would. He’d fully expected that they’d have to spend the night in some makeshift shelter.

  She couldn’t have dropped into his life at a worse time if she’d planned it. A freaking DOD investigator.

  What he knew for sure was that he had no time to waste on her mission, as worthy as it might be. Which left him with a dilemma. Was there a way to use her—either as a distraction or bait—to further his own agenda? Or should he simply get rid of her?

  Five years ago, he wouldn’t have used her. Two years ago, using her would have seriously bothered him. Now he’d do what needed to be done. She’d come here on her own. She’d willingly put herself into the middle of the giant clusterfuck that was Chiapas.

  While he decided that made her fair game, she cast him a look of open suspicion, asking, “What are you thinking about?”

  “What I should have for dinner.”

  “Prison food,” she said, apparently still upset over Pedro.

  At least she had a sense of humor, a point in her favor. That sexy growl too.

  But the disapproving looks she shot him… As if she had tested him, and he had failed miserably, let her down in some way.

  Except he hadn’t. He’d saved her life. But were any words of gratitude forthcoming? No way. Despite the sense of humor, her overall personality wasn’t that great, really.

  She had the soft presence of a fish hook in the eye.

  A lot had changed in the few days since Walker had agreed to help the DOD. He’d received that tip about the convoy coming three weeks early. He’d taken care of the shipment of raw heroin, then a couple of other things. The pieces on the chessboard were being moved into position one by one.

  The borderlands’ power structure was about to blow up. Things Detective Cupcake didn’t understand and wouldn’t be allowed to find out about had been set in motion. Walker was at the epicenter of the trouble, but she didn’t have to be. She could still survive.

  If he’d been able to come up with a way to use her to further his own agenda, he would use her, but he couldn’t think of anything. She’d just be in the way. It’d be better for everyone involved if she left, he decided.

  “I need to go back to Furino,” she said again.

  Dog with a freaking bone.

  “You should go straight to the airport and go home,” he told her.

  She cast him a withering look. “I am going back to Furino, with or without your help. Just to be clear.”

  Stubborn was all over her, in the rigid set of her shoulders, the tilt of her jaw, the glint of her gunmetal eyes. Weird eyes. They would look ridiculously innocent in her unguarded moments—few and far between—then sharp and judgmental as anything when she focused on him.

  “You’re supposed to help me,” she said.

  “Not going to happen.” He planned to scare her straight, then send her packing.

  She fell into a resentful silence, and he let her.

  As the pickup reached Mercita—a rundown border town of about twenty thousand people—they passed a recently renovated factory building on the right. XPTM Pharmaceuticals, the banners proclaimed. Other signs celebrated the upcoming grand opening the following week.

  “That’ll be good for jobs,” Clara observed.

  Walker said nothing as they passed the building, then block after block of similar places, some with the lights on, others abandoned.

  Chiapas was one of the most poverty-stricken states in Mexico, and every bit of that showed in the borderlands, in both the weather-beaten buildings and the malnourished people, many of whom belonged to the indigenous tribes, eking out a bleak existence from sustenance farming.

  The pickup slowed for a traffic light. Walker banged on the top of the cab and shouted, “Gracias, amigo,” to the old guy behind the wheel, then he vaulted over the side.

  He walked away without looking back, without helping Clara down. If she thought he’d be holding her hand through her investigation, she needed to reevaluate.

  She caught up with him a few seconds later. “Where are we going?”

  “To my place. We’re not going back to Furino until I find out how Pedro’s death played with the others.”

  Killing Pedro today hadn’t been on his agenda. Yet the move had been made, and it was the kind of move that could mess up his care
fully laid plans if he didn’t play things smart. He had to adjust a couple of things, shift his plans. All because of the woman currently glaring at him.

  He’d barely set eyes on Clara, and she was messing up his life already. He needed to learn a lesson here. He shouldn’t have agreed to help the DOD.

  He strode down the litter-covered street and led her to a narrow four-story brick building. The front yard was graveled, the back overgrown with weeds. Faded red shades covered the windows; a weather-beaten sign, BRUNHILDA’S, hung over the front door.

  Clara tried to peek in. “You live above a restaurant?”

  “Kind of.” He led her around to the back, pointed to the rubber hose that snaked among the weeds. “We can clean up here.”

  Then he pointed at the outhouse at the back of the small yard that Brunhilda had kept even after she’d had plumbing put in. “Bathroom.”

  Most women would have at least flinched, if not outright refused. Clara hurried off toward the outhouse with purposeful strides.

  Because he was a man, his gaze hesitated on her legs and the sway of her slim hips as he took off his shirt and turned on the hose.

  He let the water run a bit until it cooled, then he aimed the spray at his chest, then hair, soaking himself, washing off the grime of the jungle. He washed his shirt next, then put it back on. The light material would dry fast in this heat.

  He thought about the call he needed to make.

  When Clara returned, he left her with the hose and walked into Brunhilda’s through the back door, dripping. He ignored the ongoing business, used the bathroom in there, then the old-fashioned rotary phone on the wall in the hallway.

  “Walker,” he said when the call was answered. “I need to talk to Santiago.”

  He waited until the man on the other end talked to someone else, walked off, came back.

  Walker listened to the guy’s response, then said, “I’ll call again in two hours. Maybe he’ll be back by then.”

  He needed to see Santiago. Which meant a trip to the Xibalba cartel compound. Who knew, with some luck, he might run into the noseless man there. He had no idea where the man was, so the Xibalba compound was as likely a location as any.