CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Before the kidnappers contacted me, I had started to feel fatigue from so much aimless driving around. Now I was more than wide awake, heart pounding, pulse throbbing. That’s one thing getting shot at will do for you. It’s aerobic.

I didn’t try to call Don Carlos from the highway. All I wanted to do was get off the street and deliver that backpack to him as soon as possible, before someone else started shooting at me.

Manuel opened the gate for me when I got there, and I drove in before any cop outside could chat me up. The Estradas were in the living room, waiting for the phone to ring, when I suddenly appeared in the foyer. The only one missing was Cousin Cósimo.

José jumped up. At first his face was all excitement. Then he fixed on the backpack in my hand and frowned.

“What happened? Did you bring Catalina?”

“I didn’t, but I do have the money.” I held up the bag.

Doña Carmen had come to her feet. “Where is my grandchild? What happened?”

I explained to them what had gone down, or at least as far as you can explain a series of events as screwed up as those I’d just been through.

Doña Carmen and José both looked petrified as I described the high-caliber soccer game I had just survived. Don Carlos kept his eyes on the backpack. I think he appreciated the risk I had taken to retrieve the ransom under the circumstances.

Doña Carmen sat back down, dejection visible all through her. She suddenly looked much older to me. The past two days had aged her to a degree that was painful to see. The change in her worried me.

José spoke up.

“Who could have done this, Cuesta? Who could have risked Catalina’s life like that?”

I had my suspicions about one person in particular. Cousin Cósimo might have wanted to scuttle the delivery of that ransom. He had been opposed to paying the money in the first place and he knew I was delivering it and when. He might have sent some of his para buddies after me. He was suspect number one as far as I was concerned.

But I wasn’t about to say that to José, at least not in the current setting.

“I don’t know who could have done it.”

Don Carlos was still staring at me. “You were obviously followed.”

I shook him off. “I didn’t see anybody back there. Especially later in the night, the traffic was sparse, and it would have been tough.”

“So you’re saying the other side was followed?”

“I don’t know that either, but somehow, the attackers knew where I was.”

A thought occurred to me, and I walked back outside, with all of them behind me. I approached my car, crouched down and ran my fingers first underneath the front and back bumpers and then the fenders. I was at it for about two minutes before I found what I was searching for. It was a small, black transmitter no more than five inches long attached to the underside of the fender.

“This is how they knew where I was.”

It was the kind of anti-theft gizmo anybody could get these days on the Internet. For Colombian kidnapping gangs, known for their technological sophistication, it was kids’ stuff, but you didn’t have to be a terrorist to pull that kind of trick. Anyone could have done it.

We were still standing there when my cell phone sounded. Again the screen simply said “Restricted.” On the other end I heard “the voice.”

“What did you do, Cuesta? This is how you get Catalina Cordero killed.”

“Me? I did what I was told to do. Did you hide the transmitter on my car?”

He hesitated. “What transmitter?”

I told him what I’d found. “Somebody knew I was delivering the ransom and tried to rip it off,” I said.

That was obvious, but why they hadn’t waylaid me before the soccer field and avoided that gunfight wasn’t obvious at all. “The voice” must have been thinking the very same thing.

“You’re lying. You tried to take us into a trap. That’s what I’ll tell Catalina Cordero just before we kill her.”

My voice rose. “I didn’t ‘take’ you into anything. I drove the money where you wanted it. We did everything you asked us to do. If it didn’t work, you’ll have to ask the dead guy roasting in that red sedan in the park or his buddy who bolted . . . if you can find him.”

Doña Carmen reached out and ripped the phone from my hand.

“This is Carmen Vickers de Estrada. Please, please do not harm that young woman. She is carrying my grandchild and we want them both back very much. We had nothing to do with what happened. We will pay you. We will deliver the money wherever and whenever you want. You must believe that.”

She listened to “Mr. Big” on the other end.

“Yes, we will,” she said finally. Then she hung up and handed me back the phone.

“He said we must wait for another call. If he learns we have been lying, he will call to tell us where we can find the body of Catalina.”