“Exactly where we are now.” Ryan glanced at the gunmen ringing the room, one every few feet and two in front of each exit. “Caught in the middle.”
“Shh.” Finn hoped she had translated Javier’s last sentence correctly. “I think he just said he’s changed his mind.”
“Yeah? Is he letting us go?” Finn’s expression caused the hope in Jill’s voice to fade before it could take root. “What does he want?”
“Not what,” Finn said disconsolately. “Who. He wants Luisa.”
“The cop you’re seeing?” Ryan asked. “Why does he want her?”
Finn could think of only two possible scenarios, neither very desirable. “Either he wants to kill her or he wants her to watch me die.”
“We can’t just sit here,” Ryan said. “We’ve got to do something. It’s just like on the bus. There are more of them now, but the numbers are still on our side.”
“Unless you’ve got a stash of C4 in your pocket, the firepower’s still on theirs.”
“I don’t care. The next time they let us out to use the bathroom, I’m making a run for it.”
“If you manage to get away, what do you think will happen to the ones you leave behind?” Aurora asked. “The ones who can’t run.”
Ryan’s cheeks colored as she regarded Aurora’s wheelhair. “I’m sorry, but I’m tired of sitting around waiting for someone to rescue us. Maybe it’s time we saved ourselves.”
“I hear you,” Finn said, “but we’re in over our heads with this one. We might have had an outside chance of success on the bus, but we have zero chance here at the resort. Even if we managed to fight our way past the guys in here, there are more waiting outside. I know it’s frustrating, but we need to leave it to the professionals this time. It might take a while, but I know they can come up with a way to get us out of this.”
“How can you be so certain?” Ryan asked. “You saw how badly the state police bungled the attempted rescue when we were on the bus. Instead of saving us, they put us and themselves in even more danger. Based on that sad performance, do you really have that much faith the Federal Police can do much better?”
“No,” Finn was forced to admit, “but I have faith in Luisa Moreno, and that’s all that counts.”
❖
Luisa put down her guns and began stripping off her protective gear.
Director Chavez placed his hand over the cell phone’s speaker.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Moreno?”
“I’m trying to save the hostages. Villalobos asked for me. I’m turning myself over to him.”
“What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? Put your vest back on. I’m not letting you anywhere near that guy. Let me keep trying to negotiate with him first. The initial demand is rarely if ever the final one. If we agree to fulfill his request too soon, he’ll think we’re weak and he’ll ask for more, not less. I need him to show us a sign of good faith before I even think of giving him anything. And there’s no way in the world I’m letting him walk out of here with a single peso, let alone one hundred million dollars and one of my best officers to boot. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Director Chavez looked at her to make sure they were on the same page, then nodded and returned to his call.
“All right, Villalobos. Let me get this straight. You want money, transportation, and Officer Moreno. If I give you these things, what do I get in return?”
“You get to walk away with your reputation intact,” Javier said. “I’m offering you a chance to be a hero or a scapegoat. You can be the man who saved four hundred thirty hostages or the man responsible for getting them all killed. It’s your choice. What will it be? Are you going to give me what I want, or are you going to keep wasting my time?”
“It’s after seven. The banks are closed at this time of day. Even if one were still open, it would take several hours to put that kind of ransom together. One hundred million dollars is a lot of money.”
“You don’t need to go to a bank when you have piles of cash sitting in evidence rooms all around the country. You have at least five million dollars of our money, in addition to the assets you’ve seized from other cartels. Unless the president has spent it all paying for that cushy property in the Lomas district his soap star wife got on credit from a government contractor, your people are sitting on a hell of a lot more money than I’ve asked for. You have one hour to give me my share.”
“One hour isn’t enough time.”
“One hour, Chavez, or I start shooting hostages. One will die every fifteen minutes until I get what I want. Don’t make me wait too long or the price will double. So will the body count.”
“Be reasonable, Javier. I’m trying to negotiate in good faith. Give me the courtesy of doing the same. One hour isn’t long enough and you know it. You’ve got to give me some leeway.”
“How much time do you need?”
Javier’s world-weary sigh made him sound even more like a petulant child than his exorbitant demand.
“At least twelve hours,” Director Chavez said. “Maybe more. The amount of money you’re demanding is above my pay grade. I need time to get clearance from my superiors. If they approve, then I’ll need time to locate the money and arrange transportation for you and your men.”
“You have six hours, not a second more. And don’t forget about the most important part of my request.”
Director Chavez eyed Luisa. “I can get you the money, and I can round up enough vehicles to get you and your men safe passage out of here, but there’s nothing you could say to convince me to hand over Officer Moreno to you.”
“You know what they say. Actions speak louder than words. And I think it’s time I showed you that your actions have consequences if you cross me.”
“Villalobos, wait,” Director Chavez pleaded, but the line had gone dead.
A few seconds later, Luisa heard screams from inside the theater. Then the double doors on the right side of the building opened and Javier walked out with a weeping woman in tow. The woman had short hair and broad shoulders. She was wearing sandals, board shorts, and a loose-fitting tank top over a black sports bra. A silver ball and chain necklace dangled between her breasts. She looked ready for a day at the beach or a night by the pool. Instead, Javier forced her to her knees and placed the barrel of his gun to the back of her head.
Luisa raised her AR-15 and set her sights on Javier. She flexed her finger against the trigger but didn’t squeeze. She had the shot. The one she had been waiting for her entire career. With one bullet, she could put an end to Javier Villalobos, but at what cost? He was only one man. Even if she killed him, there were sixty more just like him standing between her and Finn. And countless more under his command. Killing him wasn’t enough. But it was a damn good start.
“Stand down, Moreno,” Director Chavez ordered. He turned to the rest of his troops. “That goes for you, too. Lower your weapons. All of you.”
Luisa and her colleagues reluctantly complied, but it didn’t stop Javier from pulling the trigger. The woman’s lifeless body pitched forward as she fell facedown on the sidewalk.
Javier looked up. His words were aimed at Director Chavez, but his gaze was focused on Luisa.
“You’ve got six hours. See you then.”
❖
Finn pulled Katie into her arms and tried to assuage her grief over Sasha, but she could barely control her own fear. She could still see the panicked look in Sasha’s eyes and the stricken expression on her face when Javier pulled her from her seat and marched her outside. She could still hear the gunshot that had taken Sasha’s life—and Katie’s heartfelt wail for her lost friend. Sasha’s death had obviously been meant as a warning. Would it force the Federal Police to give in to Javier’s demands, or compel them to stand their ground?
“Do you still want to sit around and do nothing?” Ryan asked. “Any one of us could be next.”
“I think we should wait for the deadline to pass,” Jill said. “If he gets the money he asked for, he might let us go.”
“How can he?” Ryan asked. “Whether he gets the money or not, we’re witnesses. All of us have seen his face. So has everyone outside. He executed Sasha right in front of them.”
Finn pressed a hand over Katie’s ear as fresh sobs racked her body. Ryan’s voice softened.
“He doesn’t intend to let us go. If he doesn’t get the money, he’s going to kill someone else. And he’ll keep killing until he runs out of victims, the Federal Police give in to his demands, or someone grows some balls and takes him out. And if he does get the money, he’ll probably use some of us as human security blankets to escort him to safety while his men use the rest for target practice. We’re dead either way.”
“What’s your plan?” Finn asked.
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t have one yet, but we have six hours to figure something out. Otherwise, these guys will start picking us off one by one. I don’t know about you, but I would rather die on my own terms than someone else’s.”
A few hours ago, Finn had offered to sacrifice her life for thirty-eight others’. She wondered if Javier would be willing to make a similar trade now.
“It’s me he wants.”
“Not anymore. He was using you and the rest of us as bait to get the Federal Police here. He wants Luisa, not you. I don’t even think he wants the money. If he did, he wouldn’t have asked for nearly as much. He just wants her. I don’t know what she did to piss him off, but he obviously wants to get back at her for something. This whole thing is about revenge. We have six hours to deny him his and exact our own. For Sasha. Who’s with me?”
Katie lifted her head from Finn’s chest and dried her eyes. “I am,” she said shakily.
After everyone else in their group pledged to mount as much resistance as they could, Finn saw them turn to her. She had traveled the world alone for years now, but this next journey was one she couldn’t take on her own.
“Count me in.”
“Excellent,” Ryan said. “Now what will we do for weapons?”
“We already have them. We just have to figure out how to use them.”
Finn pointed to the dog tag around her neck and the plastic band around her wrist. A few days ago—though it felt like a lifetime now—Verity had joked about accidentally slicing off a nipple in the shower. The wristbands weren’t that sharp. If used appropriately, they might be able to inflict enough damage to slow someone down but not stop them completely. With precious few resources at their disposal, they would have to take what they could get.
“All we need now is a distraction,” Ryan said.
Aurora raised her hand. “Leave that part to me.”
❖
Luisa removed her helmet as she watched two state troopers zip the dead woman’s remains into a body bag and place them in the back of a police van.
Director Chavez looked up at the news helicopters circling overhead, then lowered his gaze to the ground.
“I should have let you take the shot.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. If you had, we would have more than one victim on our hands.”
“We still might. The clock is ticking. Six hours isn’t much time to plan our strategy.”
Luisa put her helmet back on and lowered her protective visor into place. “Would you like me to get the president on the line?”
“No, he would be a fool to authorize that kind of payout and I would be an even bigger fool to ask him to do it. Let’s not drag this out any longer than we need to. This ends tonight. And it ends with us.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Director Chavez handed her a tablet computer. “I need you to find me something that shows the electric plan for the entire resort and someone who knows how to access it. Villalobos and his men have enough food and water available to them to hole up indefinitely. If we don’t take them out of their comfort zone, they could dig in for weeks. First, we’ll cut the air-conditioning. I want them to sweat. Literally and figuratively. If we do it remotely, Villalobos won’t be able to pin the blame on us. The sun is setting, but it’s still pretty hot out here. Inside, the conditions will become oppressive in no time at all. We can send one of our guys in disguised as an electrician. Once he gains access to the control panel, he can install a camera that will allow us to see what’s going on in that room. When the right moment presents itself, we’ll cut the lights and put them in the dark. While they’re feeling their way around, we’ll drop a team of snipers on the roof and use our night vision goggles to attack them from the air and on the ground.”
Luisa thought the plan sounded strong though not foolproof. “Even if I find the information we’re looking for,” she said, “we’ll still need someone to give us the access codes.”
“The hotel’s assistant manager is on his way now,” Hector Salinas said. “He saw the coverage on TV and called in to offer his help.”
“Have you vetted him?” Director Chavez asked.
“Yes, he’s on our side.”
“It’s a risky plan,” Luisa said as she paged through screens on the tablet.
“I know,” Director Chavez said. “And there’s a chance we might end up with casualties on all fronts, but the scheme has to work because I don’t have a Plan B. Not one I’m willing to employ, anyway.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Were you willing to sacrifice yourself in order to save one woman or four hundred?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does. I included you on this mission because you promised not to let your emotions get the better of you.”
“And I won’t.”
Director Chavez’s jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to believe her but thought she wasn’t being entirely truthful.
“We’re responsible for every woman in there,” he reminded her, “not just one.”
“I realize that, sir. And I intend to save as many as I can.”
But her mission would feel like a failure if Finn wasn’t one of them.
❖
The room was starting to feel like an oven. At first, Finn thought the collected body heat was to blame. Then she realized the temperature had been cooler before the sun set than after.
“Is it hot in here,” she said as she fanned herself with her shirt to get more air, “or is it just me?”
“When was the last time the AC kicked on?” Ryan asked, but no one could come up with the answer.
“Do you think it’s intentional?” Jill asked, nearly mouthing the words.