Chapter Twelve
Laura placed yet another wine goblet back in the china cabinet in the dining room. She’d spent the morning at Ruiz’s house, a compound that took up an entire city block in a wealthy part of the capital, making sure all was in order for the upcoming parties Rosa had said would take place. Ruiz probably planned to wine and dine more power players into his orbit, maybe his way of calming things down after moving so many troops.
“Laura,” Rosa said from kitchen doorway in an excited voice, “Doña Margarita says we will have many guests tomorrow night! At least fifty.”
Someone would recognize her for sure. Now that she knew Tony wasn’t in the house, there was no reason to stay, but she had to find where Ruiz was hiding him.
“This is not a dinner,” Rosa continued. “Only hors d’oeuvres and drinks. I have the names of the bakery and liquor store. You’re to go and verify that there will be enough and that it will arrive on time.”
“Does Doña Margarita have a wait staff?”
“The bakery will send two. That is all we need. You will manage them.”
“Of course, Señora Rosa.”
“Go now. We must be ready.” She handed Laura a slip of paper with names and addresses. “Do you know where these are?”
“I know the streets. I’ll find them.”
“Rosa,” Margarita Ruiz said entering the kitchen. “I’m leaving now. If Don Ernesto returns before me, please tell him I am with friends.”
“He will be—”
“He won’t miss me. Leave me to my pursuits.”
Rosa pursed her lips, but said nothing more.
“Laura,” Margarita turned to her, “come, help me get my packages into the car and I’ll take you to the bakery. It’s on my way.”
Laura followed Margarita Ruiz out of the kitchen, through the dining and living rooms. Whoever decorated this house had captured the flavor of San Matean high society, with its combination of European furnishing and touches of native culture.
“Do you like the house?” Margarita asked.
Surprised the lady of the manor would bother asking a servant, Laura replied honestly. “It’s beautiful. Very beautiful.”
“It is too big,” Margarita said softly.
“It’s grand.”
“The space, the furniture, they are grand.” She stopped as she reached the door to her office. “But...”
“It’s all beautiful, Doña Margarita. You should be pleased.”
Margarita Ruiz seemed to focus again, straightened and donned her usual imperious look. “Yes, I am.” She pushed open the door. “Come. Help me take these to the car and we’ll go.”
The small, tastefully feminine office lay strewn with shopping bags and gift wrapping paper.
“You are going to a party, Doña Margarita?”
“¿Qué?” Margarita picked up an envelope from the elegant antique desk.
“Are the gifts for a child’s party?” Laura asked.
“A party? No.” She put the envelope in her purse. “No party. Just things that will make someone happy.”
Laura bent to grab an oversize paper shopping bag from the floor next to the desk. A glance inside made her heart tighten. A large blue bucket full of Legos. Tony spent hours building airplanes and cars. She forced calm into her voice. “The child will like these.”
“That is what I am told. That little boys like these things.”
“They do,” she replied, touching the top of the bucket.
“I understood Rosa to say your children are babies.”
Startled from her thoughts of Tony, Laura jerked her head up. “They are.” She had to think of something to say. “My son will like something like this when he is older.”
But Margarita Ruiz was already picking up another shopping bag, this one with something bulky inside. “Bring that and the boxes from the desk.”
They hurried out, encumbered with the packages. One of the ever-present guards put them in the back seat and Margarita ordered Laura into the front passenger’s side.
“I am driving again today, Julián,” she said to the guard.
“Doña Margarita, Don Ernesto ordered me—”
“Don Ernesto is not here. I am ordering now. You will stay here. There is no danger.”
Julián frowned. He was probably scared of what Ruiz would do to him.
“Don Ernesto did not go alone. He had Felipe with him.”
“That is Don Ernesto’s choice. My choice is to go with my maid.” She held out her hand for the keys.
After a second’s pause, the guard gave them to her. “Be careful, por favor.”
“I’ll tell Don Ernesto of your concerns if he learns of this. Don’t worry.”
“Gracias, Doña Margarita,” Julián replied.
And again, Laura was surprised by Margarita’s manner in dealing with the help. Having lived in San Mateo most of her life, she knew how unfair people could be with servants.
As Margarita Ruiz drove through the gates of her enormous and elegant house, Laura heard the bags shift in the back seat. Turning, she grabbed at one bag, but it fell over and a soccer ball spilled out.
Her breath caught. The ball was signed by the starters of the San Matean national team. Just two months ago, one of her cousins had the team sign one for Tony, for his birthday. He loved that ball so much he’d wanted to bring it with them when they left the States.
First the Gummy Bears, now the Legos and the ball.
Por Dios, was it possible that Margarita Ruiz was on the way to where Tony was being held? Or was that a huge assumption? Was she getting ahead of herself because she so wanted it to be true? Most little boys in San Mateo loved soccer, fútbol, as it was called. Probably Legos and Gummy Bears, too.
A horn honked, jerking Laura back to the moment. She put the ball back in the bag, straightened, and faced forward.
Margarita drove like most natives of the city, switching lanes at will, dodging other cars and madly honking her horn.
“This is the bakery. The liquor store is around the corner,” Margarita said as she pulled her car to the curb.
“I can go with you and help.” If she was right and found Tony, Laura would have to pray he didn’t give her away until she could get him out of wherever he was being kept.
“No. That’s not possible. You will make sure the orders are correct and will arrive on time. Go, chica.” Margarita nodded toward the store.
With no choice but to do as she was told, Laura got out. But she could follow. She tried to flag down a taxi, but it didn’t stop. Her heart sank. She ran a few yards, but it was no use. Margarita’s car was gone. She so wanted to scream, to grab someone, anyone, to take her to her son.
But all she could do now was make sure she followed Margarita’s instructions and then go back to the house. She’d find a way to search the woman’s office. Search wherever she had to. There had to be something, some clue that might tell her if Tony was the child she’d gone to see.
***
Mark removed the detection device ear phones and placed them on Ruiz’s desk next to the electronic surveillance detector. He’d been given a white dress shirt, khaki pants and blue blazer to cover his holstered gun before being ushered into the office by Gonzalez who’d spit out orders like the world was ending.
“What have you found so far?” Gonzalez had been carefully watching him for the last few minutes.
“Every room in the house is clean,” Mark replied. He was seriously surprised he hadn’t found anything. Estrada either couldn’t get anyone inside to plant a bug, or he had some kind of electronic surveillance from a neighboring house along with the men he’d posted there. “I haven’t checked Doña Margarita’s office.”
“She left. Check her office now. It’s the last door on the left.”
“What do I do when I finish?”
“Await Don Ernesto’s return. There will be much for you to do. Report to me when you finish.”
Gonzalez left and Mark gathered the bug detector and ear phones. Estrada had said Ruiz had Tony in another of his houses. Mark hadn’t had a chance to search for papers about Ruiz’s local properties because Gonzalez had the annoying habit of coming in and out of the office.
As soon as Mark heard the man’s footsteps fade away, he turned toward the file cabinet against one wall. Nothing lay on top. A quick pull on each handle told him it was locked. Same with the desk drawers. He’d have to make sure Gonzalez was out of the house before he broke into them. The desk top held only a blank notepad and the telephone.
He carried the detection equipment down the hall to Margarita’s office and opened the door. Very feminine, with smaller, more decorative furniture than Ruiz’s, the floor was covered with empty shopping bags. A roll of blue wrapping paper had been left on a chair.
He liked to work toward the right, so, pulling on the scanning ear phones, he started. Systematically, he checked everything, then approached the desk. Most of the shopping bags lay around it, so he removed the ear phones, put them and the detector on the cluttered desk, and bent to pick up the bags.
A miniature cast iron toy car, a blue Corvette, had rolled under the antique desk. He squatted down and caught movement in the corner of his eye.
“You found something?” Gonzalez asked from the doorway.
“It’s nothing. Just a toy car,” Mark replied, before reaching for it.
That’s when he saw her.
Laura. Under the desk. Hell. Only her tennis shoes were visible from this angle.
He picked up the tiny blue ‘vette and held it out to show Gonzalez. “Must be something a child left here. A nephew maybe.”
“There are no children in the family,” Gonzalez said, looking around at the bags. “Doña Margarita must have been shopping for a friend’s child. I’ll send a servant to clean this up. It’s not like Doña Margarita to leave her office in such a condition.”
Mark put the tiny car on the desk.
“Continue. I want to be sure no one has planted listening devices here. The girl can work around you. I’ll be in Don Ernesto’s office. Report to me there.” With that, he walked out, leaving the door open.
Mark listening to Gonzalez’s footsteps as he went into Ruiz’s office, counted to ten, then quickly closed the door to the hallway.
“Laura, it’s me. I know you’re in here,” he whispered.
Did she really think she was invisible? Did she really think Gonzalez would not have seen her?
He strode back to the desk, walked around and squatted. There she was, hunkered down, hugging her knees, eyes wide, looking up at him. He had to give her credit. This was the best—the only—hiding place in the office. As long as no one walked around the desk, her chances of being detected were slim.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She scrambled out from under the desk. “Margarita has gone to see Tony,” she said quietly.
“What are you talking about?”
“She bought Legos and a soccer ball.” Turning, she grabbed the die-cast car from the desk and held it up. “This is a favorite of his. He has a ball exactly like the one Margarita took when she left the house. He loves it. It can’t be a coincidence. You heard Gonzalez, there are no children in the family. Someone has been taking care of him. The Gummy Bears, this. She’s giving him the things he likes.”
Estrada had said he knew the boy was safe with Margarita, that he was at another location. If Laura was right, finding that location would be the break they needed.
Still, taking toys to the boy didn’t make sense. Ruiz took him to flush out Herrera, who was now under arrest. Why would he treat the boy well? Threats were his modus operandi. Victor Fuentes, tortured and ordered executed was how Ruiz dealt with problems.
Unless… The argument Fuentes overheard between Ruiz and his wife had something to do with Tony Iglesias. Had Margarita intervened and taken the boy herself? But why would she?
Still, if Estrada’s only concern was his mission, why would he say the boy wouldn’t be harmed? Or had that been a ploy to keep Mark from jeopardizing Estrada’s operation?
He hoped like hell that Estrada, who’d spoken so definitely about Margarita Ruiz, wasn’t playing dangerous games with the boy’s life.
“Okay,” he said. “Quick, let’s search through all this stuff. Maybe there’s something that’ll tell us where she has Tony.”
Laura brightened, bent and grabbed a bag at her feet. Mark started to stop her, but if Gonzalez came in, she would be cleaning up. She carefully folded the shopping bags, examining the receipts as she did so. Only the scraps of wrapping paper went into the small trash can.
Mark found another toy car under the desk, then behind it, against the wall, found a hard plastic wrapper which had held four cars. Margarita must have opened the package and immediately lost two cars in the chaos. The receipt was buried under scraps of wrapping paper.
He held it out to Laura. “Know where this store is?”
“Between here and the center of the city.”
“What about the other receipts?”
“Two are from a shop even closer to center, a few blocks from the Presidential Palace,” Laura replied. “It wouldn’t make sense for Margarita to drive all over the city. These have to be close to wherever they have Tony. Both are on Avenida Arequipa which flows into the Plaza de Armas across from the Presidential Palace. The bakery where Margarita left me today is on the same avenue, only a few blocks away. I’ll follow her the next time she leaves.”
“No.” Hell no.
The door opened. Both of them turned.
“What are you doing here? Gonzalez, annoyed as usual, stood in the doorway as one of the female servants looking anxiously on.
“I saw my wife and asked if she could clean the office so I can continue my sweep,” Mark said.
“Go tend to your own duties,” Gonzalez barked at Laura. Turning to the servant, he nodded her inside. The young woman scurried past him.
Laura kept her face down as she left.
“Finish in here, then report to me,” Gonzalez ordered and left.
***
Laura placed the last of the flower vases on a lamp table in the living room, then clutched the crumpled store receipts in her pocket. Ciudad San Mateo was a huge sprawling city, so no one drove miles out of their way unless they had to. She was sure Margarita had bought these things on the way to or from the place where they were holding Tony.
Patience. She needed an extra dose right now because all she wanted to do was confront Margarita and demand the return of her son.
The woman was not back two hours after Laura found the receipts. The muscles in her neck and shoulders were tense from watching for the woman while making sure everything was ready for the party.
Adding to her anxiety was the stream of visitors. The most prominent being Ruiz’s cousin, one of the country’s top army generals. He arrived in his field uniform with a small entourage of lower ranking officers. They all went into Ruiz’s office, but moments later everyone except Ruiz and his cousin stepped into the hallway. After a quick whispered discussion, two captains left, leaving behind two young lieutenants. As they left, two more high ranking officers, one from the San Matean navy, the other from the air force, were ushered into the office. Luckily, none had ever met her. Mark, whom she hadn’t seen since Gonzalez ordered her out of Margarita’s office, was stationed outside the office with the two lieutenants.
Rosa had gone into Margarita’s office as soon as the maid had cleaned it. When Laura took the older woman a late lunch of hot tea and a ham sandwich, Rosa was calling guests to invite them to the next day’s party. The two names she heard were those of two very powerful businessmen she’d met several times. They would recognize her for sure. She’d have to find some way to either stay out of sight or disguise herself.
Or better yet, find Tony and be gone by tomorrow.
Laura waited until Rosa hung up the phone. “Doña Margarita, she has many nephews?”
Rosa looked up, puzzled. “No. Why do you ask?”
“She bought so many gifts. For a boy.”
Rosa stared at her, her lips pinched before she spoke. “Doña Margarita has a great love for children. I’m sure she’s taking gifts to a friend’s son.”
“She left toy cars behind,” Laura said. “Would you like for me to take them to her?”
“No.” Rosa’s tone was adamant. “No. I will tell her when she returns. Go now, let me finish the invitations.”
***
Mark listened to the whispered conversation between the two army lieutenants who’d been left waiting in the hallway while the generals remained inside Ruiz’s office.
“I tell you it’s true,” one argued.
“It can’t be. General Ramos would have told us.”
“He doesn’t know. My brother is stationed along the northern frontera. He has twenty-three tanks at his disposal. At six o’clock this evening, he is to advance on the Monte Blancan troops holding the border.”
“That’s crazy! We can’t violate the treaty.”
“Monte Blanco violated it by shooting one of our soldiers, Julio. Besides, San Mateo owns that land.”
“But Monte Blanco will respond by crossing our border.”
“The generals know this.”
“Do you know what this means?”
“Yes,” the other lieutenant whispered. “Guerra.” War.
Holy shit. Mark hadn’t discounted the possibility, but still. Even if the lieutenant had it wrong, something was definitely about to happen. Estrada had said that things would be resolved in a few days. Could he have meant a quick war? Estrada was a hard ass, but as the intelligence service’s top man, this would be the last thing he’d want.
Mark had to get word to Sam. Unless he knew. No, Sam knew something was up, but not this. He would have told Mark when he asked him to tell Ethridge about the troop movements. This, if true, was something that JSOC, Delta and the State Department needed to know in order to evacuate Americans who’d be in danger.
Ethridge. Shit. Sam had surely already gotten word back that Mark had been in touch. Ethridge was shrewd enough to know he was avoiding direct contact. There would be hell to pay when this was over.
But if what these lieutenants were saying was true, Monte Blanco would retaliate in a big way to any attack from San Mateo, starting a chain of events that couldn’t be stopped, potentially involving the entire continent if other countries took sides.
A country at war was the last place to find one missing child.
***
Margarita returned just before dark. Laura didn’t see her, but she was ordered to take the woman something to eat. Laura kept her head down as she walked past the two young lieutenants who’d stayed beside Ruiz’s office door all afternoon. Mark stood guard by the front door. She knocked on Margarita’s door, then entered.
The office was empty. Margarita must have stepped out. Laura placed the food tray carefully on the desk she’d hidden under hours earlier. As she straightened, she scanned the top, hoping to find some other clue that would tell her where Tony might be.
The daily newspaper lay half on, half off the desk, as if tossed down quickly. Laura picked it up to make sure it wouldn’t fall off.
A picture of her filled the top left side. On the front page. A more current one than the ones run in the papers earlier.
Margarita Ruiz knew who she was.
Laura braced herself against the desk, her mind spinning. She had to get away, find Tony before they—
No. He had to be okay. But why had they kept him? They’d already captured her father.
Mark. She had to tell Mark.
She grabbed the paper, walked to the office door and peered down the hall. The two officers were still there. Mark turned and saw her. She held her palm up, as if telling him to stop, then waited the interminable seconds until both officers turned their backs to her so she could hold the paper up to Mark.
He gave her a barely perceptible nod, directing her to go.
Hands trembling, she folded the paper so her picture wasn’t visible, and left it on the desk. Opening the door again, she nearly slammed it shut when Ruiz’s office door opened. She hurriedly stepped back as Mark escorted two senators into the office. When she peeked out again, Mark was closing the door to Ruiz’s office from the outside. The young officers were gone.
She ran out to him.
“She saw my picture. She has to know who I am. I don’t know where she went.”
“I didn’t see her leave.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Get out of here. Go back to the house.”
“If she knows who I am, she’ll know you’re not who you say you are. You have to leave, too.”
“Laura,” he said quietly, his gaze intent on hers, “if we both leave right now, neither of us will get away. Go now. If I’m not there by—”
“What are you doing here?”
Laura jumped, barely containing a scream as she spun around at Gonzalez’s angry question.
“You are not to be here,” he said.
“I brought Doña Margarita’s dinner,” Laura said, sure her voice shook.
“You are finished here. Leave us,” he ordered. “Your husband has more important things to do.”
She looked up at Mark, who mouthed a single word: Go.
As she reached the end of the hall, she heard Gonzalez speak.
“Find Doña Margarita. Don Ernesto wishes to speak with her.”
Laura bit her knuckles to keep from crying out. Margarita Ruiz would tell her husband that the maid they’d hired was his enemy’s daughter. That her “husband” was one of her father’s agents.
If Mark didn’t get away, Ruiz would do to him what he’d done to Victor Fuentes.