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Tino rubbed a hand over his face as he settled down on the bed that hours ago had held the dead body of Cezar. He knew the house staff had put new coverings on the bed and had cleaned out all of Cezar’s belongings, but a chill still rippled up his spine. As Garza’s new righthand man he had the only single room for employees, but he’d also had to go farther than he’d ever had to go before to play his part. His gut clenched and bile rose into his throat.
With the help of Manny, the most sadistic guard in Garza’s employ in Mexico, he’d tortured the two bikers and discovered they were working for the Alvarez brothers and Cezar had been the one feeding them information. What he and Garza didn’t understand was the route had been changed after Cezar’s death. So who, using Cezar’s name, told them of the change? And they discovered, which Tino already knew, Cezar was not killed by the Alvarez brothers. The two bikers had been stunned when they heard he was dead.
Once Garza had the information he wanted, he told them to take the bikers heads and leave them on the Alvarezes’ doorstep. Tino left that detail to Manny. The man drove off with the severed bodies and heads and a maniacal grin on his face.
Sitting on the bed rehashing the events, yet trying to not remember the gory ones, he wished he could lose himself in Isabella’s sweet concern and tantalizing body. Many more days like today and he’d walk away without any regrets or doubts. If he didn’t, he would be such a vile wounded man he wouldn’t be worthy to love Isabella.
He stared up at the ceiling and wished his querida was in his arms. He smiled at her outrage over his commenting she was not his partner. They had become inexplicably connected during their time in Guatemala.
His eyes closed, his breathing slowed, and he dreamed of dancing with Isabella at their wedding. She was dressed in a white dress and he in a white suit. He could smell her exotic scent and hear her wonderful childlike laugh.
The beep of his phone shot him to a sitting position. He rubbed a hand over his face and groped the items on the small table by his bed. Cupping the phone, he hit the button with his thumb, noting Rico’s number and answered. “¿Sí?”
“Your bird hasn’t roosted.”
Rico’s cryptic statement ricocheted around in his head bringing him immediately awake. He looked at the time. Three a.m. She should have been tucked into her room at the hostel unless she was researching. But what? “She could still be in the museum.”
“She isn’t.”
Anger took hold. “How do you know?”
“I have a security guard in the building. He checked. She is not there.”
“¡Coño! Did she leave Garza’s?”
“Sí. I picked her up myself and dropped her at the hostel. My person saw on the tapes she arrived at the museum at eight but did not leave.”
Tino’s chest squeezed making breathing hard. He didn’t want to discuss this where someone could hear, but he also knew Garza would have his head if he left now. ¡Coño!
“From your reaction I take it she does not usually disappear.” Rico’s controlled voice didn’t help the frustration buffeting Tino’s temples.
“The only time she has gone missing is when someone abducted her.” He knew she was resourceful but that didn’t lessen his anxiety. “I’ll meet you behind the museum in twenty minutes.”
“I did not call you to have you run out on your mission. I called for information that might help me find her.” Rico’s voice turned hard and commanding.
“Start at the museum. She has been looking into stolen artifacts. If she is missing, she either found the way they have been taken and they are on to her, or she is following a clue.”
“You’ll stay put and let us see what we can find out?” Rico might have asked a question but Tino heard the directive in the words.
He exhaled. A hard feat considering the guilt clogging his throat. “Sí, but call me as soon as you know anything.”
“I will. Do not ruin the last six months’ work. No woman is worth it.”
The phone went dead.
“Yes, this woman is,” Tino said as he pulled on his pants and grabbed his Glock. He exited the compound, slid into the DEA car, and headed for the hostel. He’d search her room and see what he could find that might lead him to her whereabouts.
~*~
Isabella waited three minutes before moving the boxes and following Alphonso into the tunnel. To avoid his discovering her, she didn’t use a light but followed the soft glow of his flashlight beam. He moved swiftly. She pursued as quickly and quietly as she could without a light, but every turn he made tossed her into darkness when she lost the slight glow of his flashlight.
Her toe connected with a hard object and she fell. “Shamutz!” Her hands stung and her knee and toe throbbed, but she popped up and caught a glimmer of his light turn down a tunnel to the right. Isabella placed her hand on the right side of the tunnel and continued, slower than before. Her hand fell into openness and she turned.
There wasn’t a glow ahead of her. She’d lost him.
Slowing her breathing and listening intently she hoped to catch a hint of where he might be. A faint scuffing sound came from ahead. She dug into her vest and pulled out her LED light. Muting the light with her fingers she hurried down the tunnel. If she saw a glimmer of Alphonso’s light, she’d click hers off.
She chewed on her bottom lip, tossing about the pros and cons of continuing or turning around. Her chase so far had taken thirty minutes so she should be less than a mile from the museum. The stench of sewage grew in the musty air and the ground under her feet grew slicker.
She no longer traveled in tunnels under Templo Mayor, she was in the Mexico City sewer. Panic squeezed her chest. She’d been so intent on watching Alphonso’s light she didn’t pay attention to the turns or the distance between them to get back to the museum. But how was she to get out of the vast maze of underground tunnels that made up the city’s waste system?
Manholes.
There had to be a way for city workers to get in and out of here. She directed the LED beam to the ceiling and began walking, moving the beam back and forth from side to side searching for a ladder to the surface.
Ten minutes passed when she caught sight of a metal ladder leading up. Isabella stuck the light in her mouth, grasped the rungs above her head and stepped up onto the bottom rung. Creaking echoed through the silent darkness as she felt her body tipping backwards. Before she could release the ladder and hop off, she landed on her back and popped the back of her head on the concrete.
Stars danced in her head as air rushed out of her lungs. Everything went black.
~*~
Her roiling stomach hit her, forcing her eyes open and her mind to reconstruct what happened. She rolled to her side to sit up, shoving her hand into a slimy, stinky sludge on the sewer floor. This was more than she could take. Her stomach heaved and the small amount of content left from her meal a long time ago, joined the sludge. The unexpected slap of concrete had her back and bottom stinging.
She repositioned her glasses, found her flashlight, and peered up at the holes in the cement where the ladder had hung. “Next time I’ll try it before putting all my weight on the dumb thing.”
Pushing to her feet, she swayed and leaned against the wall. “I have to get out of here. No one knows where I am.” She started forward. Her watch had a tracking device from the WIA but they weren’t allowed to use it unless an operative was believed in danger. While her father had her tracked continually before she became an agent, she’d made him promise to only use it as he did with other operatives.
She trudged on, keeping the light beamed upward. There had to be another manhole soon. Another ten minutes past and she spotted a ladder and a cover at the top. This time she grabbed the rung and hung all her weight. It held. Then she jiggled her body to see if the bolts would slip loose. Nothing.
Elation propelled her arms and legs up the metal rungs to the heavy metal cover. Grunts and a shoulder helped to move the disc to the side enough so she could squeeze out. The manhole appeared to be in an alley.
She stuffed the flashlight into her pocket and straightened her glasses as she stared down the empty street. “Where am I?” She pushed to her feet and spun in a slow circle looking for something familiar. She walked to the end of the alley and spotted a skyline that looked familiar.
Off to her left over the tops of the buildings she thought it was the Catedral Metropolitana. The historical site near her hostel and Templo Mayor. Walking toward the two tall towers of the cathedral, Isabella chastised herself for thinking she could follow someone who knew their way around the tunnels. She should have known better. She had to stop thinking she was Indiana Jones in a fictional movie.
A block closer to the cathedral the traffic picked up. With the night crowd carousing the streets, she had to prove she wasn’t a victim, which was hard since she looked and smelled like some rat that had crawled out of the sewers. It was the only way to keep from being mugged or worse. She shifted her shoulders back and looked at people without seeming confrontational. If she walked along keeping her eyes to the concrete, they’d pounce on her in a flash. Increasing her pace, but keeping it below a trot to not look like she was scared and running, she stepped into the block housing the hostel and was soon locked inside the building.
Isabella leaned against the door and let her body droop. She’d made a mess of the evening and wasn’t sure how to fix it. With slumped shoulders and slow steps, she climbed the stairs to her second story room and slid the key card through the slot. She shoved the door open and stepped inside.
A hand covered her mouth as an arm banded around her middle. Anger didn’t give fear a chance to emerge. She kicked backwards and hissed when she missed her mark.
“Querida, it is I, Tino. Where have you been?”
Tino’s low seductive voice siphoned her fortitude. She spun in his arms, tears streaming down her face in relief and shame.
Tino hugged Isabella to his beating heart. When he’d heard the door latch click, he wasn’t sure who was entering. He’d hoped it was the woman in his arms, but he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. The stench that came through the door could have been anyone. Tears dampened his T-shirt. He held her away from him. “Are you hurt?” He peered at her using the faint light from the moon to search for wounds.
“Yes. No. Not really.”
“Querida?” He’d never witnessed her so sad and trodden upon.
“I messed up. I should have known better.” She pulled out of his arms and stalked across the room only to pivot and stalk back. “I shouldn’t have followed him. I should have come back here and called the curator and my father.” She stalked away from him and back again. “Now they know.”
Her anger and words sliced fear into his chest like a machete swing. “Who knows? What have you done?” Was it Garza? Had he somehow discovered her true identity?
“Whoever is stealing the artifacts.” She stopped in front of him. “I discovered how they are doing it. There is a tunnel from the digging in Templo Mayor. Only it also connects to the sewer system. They came in and put address labels on crates, and they were sent to the buyers without anyone noticing.”
Tino grasped her hand and led her over to the bed. He gently urged her to sit. “Where were they sending the crates?”
“That’s what doesn’t make sense. They sent it to a prestigious British museum. While I was standing in the storage room contemplating the address, Alphonso, of the Bohu gang, came back and saw me.”
“¡Carajo! The Bohu gang? How would they know which artifacts to sell?”
“Exactly. It doesn’t make sense. It would take someone who knew something about Aztec history to know what was worth the risk.” Isabella unbuttoned her vest and slid it down her arms.
“How did you get away?” Tino didn’t like thinking about her in danger. He didn’t know who this Alphonso was, but if he were part of the Luis Bohu’s gang he had to have a mean streak.
“I guess he figured he could get away from me in the tunnels.” The indignation in her voice made his lips quirk. “And he did.”
“What do you mean?” He gathered her hand into his and watched the emotions playing across her face and knew her mind was spinning behind her introspective stare.
“I followed him into the tunnels, lost him, and ended up in the sewer.” She scratched her disheveled hair and sniffed her hand, making a face. “When I realized I’d never find him, I started looking for a way out. I found a ladder to a manhole, but the ladder gave way. I fell backward, hitting my head. I think I was out for a time.”
“Querida. You should have never followed.” He drew her into his arms even though the stench of her was hard to ignore.
She pushed out of his arms. “I know. It was stupid and impulsive to think I could follow him and see who he was working for.”
Tino rubbed a hand up and down her arm. His insides were twitching thinking about the danger she’d put herself in. “How did you get back here?”
“When I came to, I found another ladder. This time I tested it. When I climbed out, I used the Catedral Metropolitana towers to guide me back to the hostel.”
“But this Alphonso, he knows you saw him?” Fear for her safety had tripled if the Bohu gang would be after her too.
She ran her hands over her head and winced. “I can’t be certain. I don’t think he’d say anything. It would make him look bad to have allowed me to see him. He’s not really gang material.”
She looked so forlorn, Tino wanted to treat her like a child.
Her wide pupils peered into his eyes. “I should have turned everything into father and let them handle capturing the leader. I probably ruined their chances of ever catching the person now.”
“Querida, all that matters is you are safe.” Tino kissed her cheek. She turned and he captured her lips.
Isabella pulled out of the kiss. “What are you doing here?”
“Rico... Aiiyii, I better call him.” He pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial for Rico.
“¿Sí?” Rico’s angry tone validated he knew Tino had slipped out of the compound.
“Dr. Mumphrey is back in her room.”
“And you know this how?”
“I am sitting beside her. And will head back to the compound now that I know she is safe.” Tino kissed her knuckles and winked at her.
“You may have jeopardized your career with DEA and your life with this infatuation you have for that woman.” Rico’s tone had softened to that of a concerned friend.
“Sí. But she is safe.” Tino closed the phone and drew Isabella into his arms. “Querida, I must go. I do not wish to leave you like this but I risked much by coming here.”
She gasped. “Tino, you need to worry more about you. I’m not in as deep as you are.”
Isabella kissed him drawing his thoughts to more pleasant things. When he would have lingered, she drew out of the kiss and his arms. She stood, pulling him up beside her. “Go. I don’t want you in any more danger because of me.”
He kissed her forehead. “Querida, you have done all you can for your mission. For me, get on a plane tomorrow and put yourself far from here.”
“Karyme Garza is expecting me—”
“You owe them nothing. Send a message saying a family matter came up and you had to go home.” He feared for her to get tangled any deeper with the drug lord and his wife.
“I will after I check into one other thing I dug up.”
If she had looked anywhere other than straight into his eyes, he would have packed her clothes and forced her onto the next plane. “Does this have to do with your mission?”
“Yes, I need to gather more information from the museum about the names of the people I believe might be part of the smuggling.”
He relaxed. “Once you have that you will be on a plane back to your university?”
She placed a brief kiss on his lips and pushed him toward the door. “Yes.”
As Tino exited the hostel he had a bad feeling she was not going to stay away from the Garzas.