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Tino pounded on Isabella’s door in the Marriott hotel. She hadn’t answered either of her phones and now she wasn’t answering the door. He tried the burner phone he gave her one more time. A faint shrill buzz came from the other side of the door. ¡Coño! Was she in her room and hurt? Had someone else already played out Garza’s orders? A maid slowly pushed a cart into a room at the end of the hall.
He ran down the corridor.
“Miss, please, I need you to open a door. I think something has happened to my friend. She was not well and now I can hear her phone ring and no one answers the door.” His urgency must have swayed the older woman. She shuffled down the hall. He ran ahead of her and stopped at Isabella’s door.
The woman opened the door and he burst in. He rushed through the main room, noting her suitcase and backpack on the chairs. The bathroom was clear of any personal items. Her bags were packed for departure. Where was she?
“Gracias,” he said to the woman, urging her out of the room against her protest.
Where could Isabella be? He dug through her belongings. Her vest was not packed. The tunnel. If she entered that tunnel, she would walk right into the hands of the people who wanted her dead.
Tino punched in Rico’s number. “Isabella is in danger. I will get the key to the locked office for you and hand it over, then I will be through. I have to find Isabella and keep her safe.” He disconnected and headed to his SUV. He would gather the key from Guadelupe and follow the tunnel in hopes of running into Isabella before she committed suicide.
~*~
Isabella had insisted they stop at a hardware store and purchase two dowels, several yards of canvas and a staple gun. As Alphonso drove to the manhole to enter the sewer tunnels, she made a gurney to use to pack the statue. It was rolled up and easy to carry by the time they parked and exited the car.
Without scanning the area, Alphonso moved the manhole cover and they both climbed down. Her dots remained from their last visit to the bowels of Mexico City. Knowing the route, they moved faster and stood outside the small room with a few minutes to wait for the Bohu gang’s diversion.
“How will we know they are out there?” Isabella whispered.
Alphonso shrugged. “We have to believe they did not run into problems.”
She leaned her back against the cool dirt wall and breathed in the earthy scents. If this was a dig and they were excavating the statues for the first time, her adrenaline would be pumping just as fast, but she wouldn’t have panic squeezing her chest. She was stealing an artifact. And not just from a dig but from a drug lord’s wife.
Fear sparked in her chest and constricted her throat. She worked hard to swallow the spit pooling in her mouth. How had an easy assignment to discover thieves ended up with her working with a thief to steal? The logic of this befuddled even her clockwork mind.
“It is time.” Alphonso took one end of her gurney sticks and led her into the room. “Which one do you want?” he whispered.
“The closest one,” she replied also in a whisper.
They spread the canvas gurney on the ground and carefully placed the two-foot stone carving onto the canvas.
Isabella turned around, grasped the dowel handles, one hand also clasping her flashlight, and walked back into the tunnel. She kept moving as fast as she could with the push-pull of the gurney handles and sway of the statue in the canvas hammock.
She spotted the old sewer tunnel at the same time voices echoed in the smaller tunnel.
“They have discovered the missing statue,” Alphonso said, pushing her to move faster.
“Don’t push. I’m hurrying.” She stepped into the old sewer.
“Go left.”
She hesitated. “But the way out is to the right.”
“Sí. That is the way they will expect us to go. To follow the marks you made.” Alphonso walked past her in the wider tunnel, taking the lead.
She had no option but to cling to the handles and follow him with her flashlight illuminating half his back and the tunnel to his right.
“Turn off the light. They will see it,” Alphonso said, stopping when they had traveled around a corner.
She doused the light and stood. The eerie drip of water was soon muted by the scuffing of feet and voices. Her heart pounded in her chest and head nearly masking the sounds of their pursuers. Using yoga breathing techniques she stilled her heart and listened to the retreating sounds.
“You’re right. They went the other way,” she whispered aware that sound carried well in these tunnels. “Now what?”
“We follow this until we find a way out.” Alphonso tugged on the dowels as he started forward.
Isabella followed and after shuffling in the dark for several more turns, she flipped her light back on.
“Gracias. I was having problems moving in the dark. We have lost them. Even if they backtrack, they would not believe us to be this deep or know the tunnels.” He looked back at her and winked.
“What are you not telling me?” His wink didn’t bother her. She could see it was the mischief of a boy. But his reference to the tunnels made her suspicious he knew exactly where he was taking her.
“I have studied these old sewer tunnels in case I was caught labeling the crates at the museum. I know how to get there from any spot in this city as long as we stay in the old sewer.”
Relief slacked the tension in her arms and her steps moved freer. They would soon be back at the museum. They could crate this statue in the storage room and hide it until she could put a label on it and have it sent to her university.
“I knew you were the right person to help me.”
They stopped an hour later to take a break. Alphonso pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket.
“I need to check the walls for markings to figure out exactly where we are. Will you be okay here by yourself?” The backlight of the flashlight showed his concern.
“I’ve been in worse situations. Go find our way out of here.” She handed him an energy bar and waved him off as memories of her ordeal with bats in a cave in Guatemala sent shivers down her back. There were no bats in this tunnel. Rats, yes. She could deal with rodents without wings. She inhaled the musty tunnel air and slipped a hand into a vest pocket and pulled out a small bottle of water and an energy bar.
The statue had to weigh close to two hundred pounds. She was glad she’d thought of the gurney while waiting for Alphonso to arrive at the restaurant. The conveyance made carrying the carving much easier. And if they took the tunnels all the way to the museum and artifact room, they wouldn’t have to worry about a way to cover it while packing it in public. She’d been mulling that problem over as they’d made their way to the three statues.
Skittering came from the direction Alponso had headed. The moment his light came into view, six rats raced toward her. She pushed to her feet and smashed her body against the wall, clenching her jaw to keep from screaming. Rats didn’t usually cause terror, but the size and the number overrode her good sense as they scampered by ignoring her.
She’d barely regained normal breathing when Alphonso walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” he asked, peering into her eyes.
“Yes. I-I’ve never had that many large rats run at me before.”
He grinned. “They will only hurt you if they are hungry or you are hurt. Come, I know where we are.” He picked up the front of the makeshift gurney and headed the direction he’d just returned from and waited for her to gather her end.
She turned off her flashlight and grabbed the dowels. “I’m ready.”
They used Alphonso’s light to show them the way through the sewer.
~*~
Tino’s fingers wrapped around the key and remote tucked under the cloth cushioning the figurine of Guadelupe as gunfire and yelling broke loose. He pulled his gun out of the shoulder holster, wrapped the key and remote in a small cloth from the table and shoved it into his holster, pulling his shirt closed and hooking a couple of buttons.
Pounding feet rushed from all areas of the house as Garza’s men ran outside. He followed, wondering about an attack in daylight. His forward momentum stopped as someone grabbed his arm. Tino spun to confront the person and found Karyme Garza. Her eyes were wide and dark; her breathing came in small hisses.
“You were told to kill that woman.” She threw her hands in the air theatrically and then pointed toward the ballroom. “Take men and go after her. She just stole one of my statues from the basement.”
Tino didn’t know whether to smile or grimace. Isabella had used someone to distract while she stole a statue. But how and where had she gone? And how could he catch up to her and keep her safe?
Before señora Garza started hand selecting his help, Tino spotted Diego and Cruz. Two men he felt he could control.
“Diego, Cruz! Come on!” He ordered and headed for the basement. He threw open the door ignoring the men’s questions.
In the basement, he discovered the small opening. Hunching over, he stepped through and stopped. The men both bumped into his back as he stared at the size of the statue Isabella had stolen. What was the woman thinking? How would they cart something of that size through the tunnels? ¡Coño!
Diego grabbed his arm. “What are we doing?”
“Someone stole one of these statues and señora Garza wants us to find them.” If Diego and Cruz hadn’t heard señora Garza wanted Isabella dead, he had a chance to get the statue into the two men’s hands and take off with Isabella.
He pushed out of the small chamber and into a tunnel just wide enough for a fair-sized man to travel as long as he ducked his head. He stopped as the dark folded around them. “Cruz, go back into the basement and find a light.” Tino stood in the darkness, listening to Diego breathe and straining to hear movement ahead of him.
Light grew behind him and Cruz arrived with a small flashlight. The beam was weak but enough to keep them from stumbling about and getting disoriented in the dark. He pressed forward but not at a speed that would catch up with the thieves or at least he hoped not.
They moved out of the smaller tunnel into an old dirt culvert that was three times the size of the tunnel. Across from the opening, Tino spotted a shiny dot.
Diego saw it at the same time. “They left a trail.” He took the light from Tino and started down the tunnel. “Here’s another one! They went this way!”
Tino lingered behind the other two as they commented on the thieves’ stupidity to have left such an easy trail. Stupid wasn’t a word he’d use for Isabella. Was it possible this was a ruse to draw them the wrong direction? He hoped so, but for him to go the opposite direction wouldn’t get him close to keep her from harm. However, he had no idea which direction she headed.
He didn’t have a light so he couldn’t take off opposite Diego and Cruz. He decided to follow the two men and the dots and see where they came out. The only other tunnel Isabella told him about led from the museum storage room. He’d ditch Cruz and Diego once they surfaced and head to the museum to follow that tunnel.