Elizabeth Lowell - The Wrong Hostage

“The thought had occurred.”

“No blood on these so far.” Faroe’s smile was thin. “Not that church jewels have always been clean.”

Magon shook his head sadly. “You are indeed a cynic.”

“A realist. So how about it? Will you persuade the miner to help?”

Magon looked at the diamonds for a long time. “El Alamo has no well. That would be a good place to start.” He looked at Faroe. “You are very generous. I’m sure the miner could be persuaded for much less. Perhaps you are not as much of a realist as you think.”

Faroe didn’t answer.

The priest tilted his hand so that the morning sun fell on the stones, turning them into fire. Then, slowly, he poured the stones back into the chamois bag, tied it securely, and pushed it deep into a pocket of his jeans.

“I will do what I can,” Magon said.

“That’s all anyone can ask. Even God. Did you bring a dog collar? It might comfort the poor bastard we’re asking to risk his life.”

“No collar. Just this.”

Magon reached inside the neck of his cotton shirt and pulled up the heavy gold chain he wore around his neck. A splendidly baroque gold crucifix hung from the chain. The cross was almost as big as his hand.

“The gold in this cross was mined in El Carrizo a century ago. It is well known among the Pai-Pai. One of their martyred leaders wore it. He was my great-grandfather.”

Faroe looked at the antique crucifix and hoped it would be enough.

EL ALAMO

MONDAY, 8:58 A.M.

BELTRAN’S COUSIN OF A cousin of a cousin was a thin man named Refugio. He met them at the dirt runway in a black Dodge crew-cab pickup that gleamed despite a coating of back-road dust.

Faroe recognized the smuggling type, if not the individual. Refugio had the blunt, hard features of an Indian. The two halves of his mustache didn’t meet on his upper lip. Wispy hair curled down to both corners of his mouth. He was dressed jalisqueno style-cowboy boots, jeans, a wrangler’s shirt, and a sweat-stained Stetson with a single tassel on the back brim.

He carried a Colt semiautomatic pistol, cocked and locked.

The slab-sided barrel was thrust through his ornately tooled leather belt, but outside the waistband of his jeans. The pistol was as much a part of Refugio as his hat, and worn just as casually.

Faroe shook hands in the gentle style of Mexico rather than the firm, you-can-trust-me gringo style. But when he spoke in Spanish, he was as direct as any Yankee.

“We have very little time to save a boy’s life,” Faroe said, urging everyone toward the truck. “What can you tell me about this miner?”

“His name is Paulino Galindo,” Refugio said. “He is a very frightened man. He lived most of the last year in an old mine shaft. I brought him food but only recently convinced him it was safe to move to the house where I am taking you.”

“So you and Beltran have been holding this trump card for some time,” Faroe said.

Refugio smiled. “But of course. Paulino is a symbol to the people here. They know what he has endured. We find it useful to have the support of the village because many of them grow fine sinsemilla marijuana.”

“Yeah,” Faroe said. “I can see how Beltran would want to keep his sources happy.”

Refugio looked sideways at Magon. “Are you truly Father Magon? Should I talk of these things outside a confessional?”

“Yes, I’m Father Magon,” the priest said. “And I do not judge any of these people harshly. They are simply trying to survive in the leftover places of a world owned by the wealthy and the powerful. For the poor, it has always been that way.”

“I am happy you have come,” Refugio said. “Paulino trusts nothing but the church, not even me. You will be the key in his lock.”

Faroe sure hoped so.

As Magon settled into the truck, he fingered the gold cross around his neck. It had been worn by others before him and had taken on the patina of their sweat. And his.

The ride was short and bumpy. Galindo’s house was hidden a hundred yards off the road in a grove of dusty green oaks. The house looked like a fortress built of round cobbles from a nearby stream bed. The stones had been cemented together into thick walls with very few windows. More like rifle slits than real windows.

They parked a hundred feet away and approached on foot. Faroe noticed that Refugio made enough noise for a mariachi marching band. Obviously the man didn’t want Galindo to think that enemies, rather than friends, were approaching the stone fortress.

Even so, the barrel of a long shotgun covered every step of the path they walked.

“Paulino, it is Refugio,” he called out in the local dialect, which was a creole of Pai-Pai and Spanish. “I bring a priest for you. See his cross?”

Magon held the cross up.

The barrel wavered, then withdrew.

After a few moments the heavy wooden door swung open. A small, stoop-shouldered man wearing dirt-caked jeans and a World Cup soccer T-shirt stood in the doorway. He had a full head of dusty black hair and hands full of a shotgun. He stared at the strangers for a long moment, particularly at Magon’s cross.

Finally Galindo set the shotgun aside.

Refugio embraced the little miner in the Mexican style, then introduced Faroe by name and Magon by his honorific, el padre. Galindo’s glance never lifted from the crucifix that hung around Magon’s neck.

The disbelief and awe in his eyes told Faroe that the miner recognized the cross as something more than a symbol of Christian faith.

Galindo talked quickly to Refugio.

Even before Refugio could translate the dialect into a more understandable form of Spanish, Magon lifted the heavy chain from his neck and handed the crucifix to the miner. Hesitantly, Galindo took the cross. He held it in the morning light, then slowly turned the crucifix over to examine the small maker’s marks on the back.

Galindo whispered a few hushed words, crossed himself, and looked at Refugio. “I hear of this crucifix.”

Magon nodded, not waiting for the translation. His creole was rusty, but it was his birth language, not easily forgotten. “I am from these mountains. Your grandfather probably found the gold that was beaten into this cross.”

Faroe understood just enough to be grateful for Refugio’s running Spanish commentary. It told Faroe that he could trust Beltran’s man, at least when it came to translating.

Reverently, the miner lifted the crucifix to his lips and kissed it. Then he returned it to Magon with a torrent of words.

“He tells me that since I am from these mountains, I know how dangerous they are,” Magon translated for Faroe. “Now that you outsiders know his secret, the rest of the world may soon know, too. Then he will have to leave, maybe go to some godless place like Chile, where men die in the copper mines from the acid in the air.”

“Tell him that I understand his fear,” Faroe said. “Tell him that I am afraid for my own son, who has only hours to live.”

Magon put his hand on Galindo’s shoulder and spoke earnestly to him for several minutes. Faroe caught some of it. Refugio filled in most of the gaps.

The rest became clear when Magon pulled out the chamois bag and spilled diamonds into Galindo’s hand.

Refugio gasped what could have been an oath or a prayer.

“I told Paulino that these would belong to him and to the seventeen families who suffered a loss,” Magon said in English to Faroe. “I promised to help them turn the stones into a new life here, one that doesn’t have to revolve around fear.”

“Did he believe it?”

Magon shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Did you?” Faroe asked.

“At least as much as he does.”

“Then tell him this,” Faroe said. “If he shows us both ends of the tunnel, I’ll do everything I can to make sure that Hector Rivas Osuna doesn’t live to find him.”

“?Aqui?” Galindo asked in Spanish. Then, surprisingly, in rough Spanglish. “Here? En Mexico? Nunca. No, no, hombre. It no happen.”

“That’s why we need the tunnel,” Faroe said. “To get Hector out of Mexico.”

Galindo looked confused.

Magon translated Faroe’s words.

The miner looked shocked, then laughed with delight. “Hijo de la chinga-Aiee, lo siento, padre. I so bad mouth.”

Magon almost smiled. “We can pray for forgiveness together, Paulino. I, too, believe Hector is the son of a great whore.”

Refugio snickered.

Galindo looked at the diamonds, then at Faroe, and began speaking earnestly.

Magon translated. “Senor, I will help you. In God’s truth, I would pay you those diamonds to rid Mexico of this evil devil Hector.”

Smiling, Faroe shook the miner’s hand and said, “As soon as we find the tunnel, the diamonds belong to you and the families of the men who built it.”

Galindo talked quickly to Magon, who turned to Faroe. “He says that he is but a poor miner. He can’t draw or read maps, so how can he help you find the mine?”

“Ask him if he’s ever ridden in a helicopter.”

A moment later Magon said, “He hasn’t.”

Faroe smiled slightly. “Then he’s going to have quite a story to tell.”

SAN YSIDRO

MONDAY, 9:10 A.M.

HARLEY TOUCHED THE TINY electronic bud in his ear and turned to Steele. “It’s Mary. We got trouble.”

“What and where?”

“Right here. FBI in raid jackets.”

Grace turned from her cell phone. She’d spent the last ten minutes assuring her boss and his boss that she meant every word of her resignation. “Excuse me,” she murmured. “I have to go.”