The Cornwalls Are Gone (Amy Cornwall #1)(10)

The door swings open and Pelayo walks in. The young girl is hunched up against the wall on her bed, coloring something in a book, and her father is drying his hands at the corner sink. Pelayo is pleased that the girl is using the coloring book, which he earlier supplied. Something to keep the little brat occupied so her father can focus on the trouble they are in. The father turns, and Pelayo sees the man is struggling to keep his emotions under guard, but Pelayo is no fool. The man before him wants to kill him and would try in this very instant, save that the little girl is here and Casper is standing in the doorway.

Pelayo nods to the other bed. “May I sit?”

“Do I have a choice?” comes the reply.

“No,” Pelayo says, sitting down on the edge. “Still, I always try to keep as much courtesy in the air as I can.” He takes a sip of the cold Coke, relishes the sharp, sugary bite. He holds the bottle up and says, “My apologies. Would you and Denise like one?”

“No,” the man says.

“You didn’t ask her.”

“I didn’t have to.”

Pelayo shrugs. “Your loss. This bottle comes from Coca-Cola FEMSA, which produces it in Mexico. There, they use the traditional cane sugar, unlike the corn fructose sugar used in the States. The experts say there is no difference in taste, but the experts, once again, are wrong.”

He takes another taste and says, “And I must apologize for something else.”

“The kidnapping?” the man asks. He’s tall, with muscular shoulders and arms that show he likes to work out, but with a pudgy middle and sides that show he spends a lot of time sitting in front of a desk. He has on blue jeans, no shoes, black socks, and a wrinkled pink polo shirt. Pelayo thinks of himself as a global man with global tastes, but really, a man wearing pink?

“That’s a harsh word, a harsh phrase,” Pelayo says. “Let’s just call it an unfortunate turn of events, a matter of business, that’s all. Hopefully, in two days or so, all will be settled and you will be rejoined with your wife, Captain Amy Travis Cornwall, 297th Military Intelligence Battalion, Military Intelligence Corps, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, recently home after an eight-month deployment to Afghanistan.”

The man’s face colors but he stands still. The little girl is staring at Pelayo, and he offers her a slight smile. She returns to her coloring book. The hand holding a colored pencil is shaking.

Pelayo says, “In the meantime, is there anything else I can provide to you and your daughter?”

“How about our freedom?”

He smiles. “I wish, but, ah, my hands are tied at the moment. I’ve dispatched your wife on a very, very important mission. To have that mission succeed, unfortunately, I need to have you and your daughter in our possession.”

“Fuck you,” the man says. His daughter doesn’t say a word.

Pelayo stands up. “I won’t take that as an insult. You’re a father, a husband, under serious stress. That insult…I will let it slide. But remember this in the hours ahead: be very, very happy and prayerful that you’re not in the presence of my cousin Miguel. If you were…well, let’s just say at this point, you would be begging for the sweet relief of being killed.”

He takes another satisfying sip of the Coca-Cola—really, how could anyone not tell the difference?—and as he turns, the man calls out, his voice pleading, “Wait, please. Just a moment? Please?”

Pelayo sees the man is no longer angry, no longer ready to curse him again. Instead, well, the man’s shoulders are slumped. He is showing he is defeated.

But Pelayo sees that as just a temporary success. Many times, a defeated and humiliated man will come back with a surprising vengeance and fury at the most inopportune time.

“Go ahead.”

The man says, nearly looking down, “We’ve eaten just once. It was quite the nice meal. I…I thank you. But could we have some snacks and other drinks, just in case we get hungry? And my daughter…she loves chewing gum. Could we get that for her as well?”

He smiles. This is going better than he expected. “You will have it all within the hour.”

Pelayo now is beyond the door, and Casper is ready to close it, when the man says one last thing:

“Why? Why did you do this to us?”

Pelayo shrugs again. “You know very well why. And soon so will your wife.”

He steps back, and the plain gray metal door closes shut on the American father and his daughter.





CHAPTER 12



I RESTRAIN myself from jumping up and slapping Sue Judson on her pretty face, but I manage to minimize the screen for GILLNET so she doesn’t know what I’m up to.

But even then, she knows I’m up to something, which is just as bad.

Her expression is a mix of curiosity and concern, and she says, “Is everything okay at home, Amy?”

Instantly I’m on guard, and I say, “Of course everything’s okay. Why do you ask?” And I’m thinking, All right, what does she know, has her husband, Luke, said something about me and work and that appointment tomorrow with the CID officer—another problem the size of the moon I’m trying to ignore—and then I try to dial it back and add, “Are you all right?”

“Me? Oh, yes, fine, it’s just that…well, I’ve seen you here plenty of times with Denise, and I’ve never seen you at one of these terminals. Is your computer at home broken?”