The Maya Bust Read online

  “Where is the vessel, the one Eleiua gave you?” She was guessing — the woman never did admit it, but the man’s cringe confirmed her suspicion. He straightened, the girl’s arm still around him.

  “I don’t have it,” he answered, his voice a little strained.

  Really. As if she thought it would be in the back pocket of his jeans. She sent a signal with her eyes, and Dante grabbed the young man’s crown of curls, hauling him away from his girlfriend’s comfort. The kid was too tall for Dante to dangle him, but he still swung his arm and jerked it back again, making the young man his puppet. With the other hand, he slid free his machete as if to cut the strings.

  The girl made a strangled sound and lurched to her feet, her hands carving wild symbols in the air, her face animated with need. At first, she addressed Dante, then swung away to face Raxha, maybe thinking that they could talk, one woman to another. Her gestures broke off abruptly, and she held up her hands, still, placating, her face pleading. “No,” she said, her voice awkward where her gestures hadn’t been. So it was true.

  Drawing a shaky breath, the girl brought her hands together and mimed the gesture of writing, then pointed to Raxha. Writing again, this time with a grunt of frustration. Her glance fell on the phone, pointing and miming the act of entering messages.

  Raxha snorted. Certainly easier to let her use her phone; who knew what kind of app the deaf might favor to speak? But then, who knew what else the phone might do.

  Rifling the girl’s belongings with her hand, Raxha found a pen, then tore the cover off one of the books and handed it over. The girl recoiled from the wounded book, but took the cover and pen.

  “This is taking too long.” Dante drew back the young man’s head against his shoulder, stretching his neck, and the girl cried out. She aimed the pen like a weapon, then focused on the scrap in her hand. A few swift strokes, then she showed the page bearing a sketch of a cylinder with a scribble on the front that might be a Maya figure.

  “Yes, yes. This. This is what we need.” Raxha spoke loudly, nodding eagerly as she pointed to the vessel.

  The girl sagged back to her heels and scrubbed a hand over her face. The jade eyes looked glossy, and Raxha hoped the girl wouldn’t cry. She seemed stronger than that, like Raxha had to be when her father died.

  Taking a deep breath, the girl pointed to her boyfriend with the scrap, then to herself, as if receiving it from him. She looked to make sure Raxha was following, then she made another sketch. An airplane, an arrow underneath it. The girl pointed at the other American, held up the drawing, and shook her head firmly, as if Raxha were a child.

  “He gives it to you, and you send it away. It’s on a plane. Okay, okay. Get it back.” She motioned to this effect, as if she could pick up the sketched cup and take it away.

  The girl made an exasperated sound and held up both hands, eyes wide, head shaking. She drew the American coastline, Florida at the bottom, and a little curl of an arm sticking out toward the top. With another arrow, she flew the plan across Florida and landed it near that other peninsula. Over the little peninsula, she wrote, “Boston. 10 pm.”

  “Dante, let him talk.” Raxha pointed at the other prisoner. “She puts the cup on the plane. She must call someone to send it back.”

  Dante released the young man.

  Immediately, he took a step away, stumbling a little, hunched over and scared. The girl made a soft clucking sound with her tongue, and they shared a look. Finally, he shifted his shoulders, and said in Spanish, “I need my hands.”

  “What are they going to do out here?” Raxha told Dante’s glower, and he freed the kid’s hands for a rapid stream of conversation between the two Americans. She formed clear, expressive signs, her hands moving like a dance, her face and body working as well. Her companion’s looked clunky by comparison, slow and stiff.

  “When it arrives in America tonight,” the Black man explained at last. “Then she can text her mom.”

  Raxha stood up and smiled. “Okay. They have twenty-four hours to return it to Guatemala. Then Dante gets to flay you alive.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  * * *

  When the phone buzzed next to his head, Grant Casey snapped awake, instantly regretting his argument that even the boss at the Bone Guard should be on-call sometimes. Their clients spanned multiple time zones and sometimes needed immediate aid. The phone buzzed again, and he paused. If it were one of his operatives, they’d use the signal: two rings, then silence, then the call would start again. The phone buzzed a third time. Not one of his.

  He scooped it up and pressed it to his ear. “Bone Guard HQ, you handle the past, we secure the future.” Tagline sounded a little weak. He’d have to work on that. Of course, it would sound better at 7 am then at 2.

  “My daughter’s been abducted in Central America. I need someone to deliver the ransom and bring her home safe.” The woman on the other end of the line sounded remarkably smooth, given what she’d just said.

  Grant came fully alert and sat up. “Ma’am, I appreciate the call, but you’ll be better served by an expert in that field. Our line is structures and artifacts. Archaeological and historical sites. That kind of thing.”

  “There is an artifact involved. The ransom. It’s not money.”

  Unusual. “If the artifact were missing, I’d be on it. Hostage negotiation and abductions are a very particular niche.” In fact, last abduction he’d been involved with, he was the target. He rubbed the scar that ran along his hairline.

  “You said, ’I.’ Is this indeed Grant Casey?”

  “Speaking.” She hadn’t introduced herself, and he began to ask, but she went on.

  “I’ve been following your career. I need someone I can trust, absolutely. I don’t want to hire some mercenary off of Craigslist.”

  Twitching free of the single sheet over his bed, Grant moved to the edge. Time check: 02:27. “There’s a lot of ground between me and Craigslist. Look, have you spoken with the CIA? Anyone in law enforcement?”

  “Her captors ordered me not to. They claim they’ll know. I have twenty-four hours to send someone with the ransom.” A slight tremor that time, and Grant increasingly had the impression she was just barely keeping her shit together, possibly with the help of alcohol. With a slide of his fingers, he triggered a little call tracking app D.A. had designed for moments like this.

  “Understood. Do you know who’s holding your daughter?” He worried, in spite of himself. Still not the kind of job he did, but he might know somebody who would.

  “Drug dealers, freedom fighters, maybe terrorists — how should I know? What’s the difference?”

  “Most authorities from the cops to the insurance companies will tell you not to negotiate. If one family gives in, that encourages the bad actors to do it again. The CIA has a lot of resources, and they can be very discreet.” Truth be told, he’d been involved in a few similar ops during his time with the Unit, but in volatile situations, they at least had government coverage. No way his business insurance covered this kind of involvement if anything went south, especially if they lost the victim, and the client was justifiably pissed. The tracer came back. Newton. Straight across Boston from the Bone Guard office in Somerville, and straight up on the income-per-capita scale. “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “This isn’t a corporate issue. My daughter isn’t down there negotiating a contract or anything like that — I don’t have that kind of insurance. Look. I intend to pay what you’re worth. I’m aware of your usual fees, but I know this is special. What I’m asking is out of your line, but as I said, I need someone I can trust. I don’t want to deal with strangers over my daughter’s life. Also, I need you now. Tonight. All you need to do is go down there, locate and deliver the ransom. I’ll pay you half a million dollars. One third in advance.”

  Grant stared at the phone for a moment. He’d need a whole new contract, something to cover him and the Bone Guard in the event of failure. Was he really thinking about taking the job? M
onday had them starting on a security review for a dig site in Greece, and after that, covering a salvage project in Dubai with concerns about looters. Neither of which was worth half a million dollars to the firm. Hold up. “Locate” the ransom? “Ma’am, with all due respect, that price suggests complications and considerations beyond the norm. You’re not offering that sum for a twenty-four hour job.”

  “Also I need absolute discretion. I am a celebrity, and I don’t want this getting out.” She swallowed audibly, then continued, “In particular, my daughter’s sperm donor can’t know about this. If you tell him, the contract is off.”

  The phrase rankled. If it were simply factual, that person wouldn’t have a claim, and likely wasn’t involved in the daughter’s life. As a slur against a biological father, it just pissed him off. “I can’t talk any further about this without more details. Who you are, who she is, where she is, and what they want.”

  “Forgive my withholding information, Mr. Casey. I needed to hear what you had to say, and your very reluctance to take me on suggests your integrity. You understand that whatever details I reveal must be covered by client privilege, even if you still turn me down.”

  “Understood, but I need to know who I’m dealing with.”

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “Pamela Dionne. Formerly Gonsalves.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  AAt the name, Grant went completely still.

  “Of the Pamela Dionne Show?” she prompted. “I’m sure you’ve heard of it, even if you’re not in my target demographic.”

  Given how little attention he paid to television, she had to command big market share for Grant to know who she was, but that wasn’t the part that stopped him. “You’re Anthony Gonsalves’ ex-wife — Detective Lieutenant Gonsalves, and we’re talking about his daughter.”

  “Her name is Alexandra, yes. She prefers Lexi.”

  “And he doesn’t know anything about this.” He’d known Gooney’s ex was in the media, heard the name “Pam” once or twice before the divorce, but never would’ve pictured his a-hole former commanding officer in the same room with a star the caliber of Pamela Dionne, much less in the same sentence with her.

  “Mr. Casey, as you may already be aware, I have a restraining order against my ex-husband because of his violent nature — it protects me and the children both. He signed away his parental rights years ago. So far as I am aware, he doesn’t know Lexi is out of the country, and I intend to keep it that way. I was given to understand that you hold him in no higher regard than I do myself, but I understand that the primary reason for his feelings about you are about your competence. He hates that you were better than he was. Neither you, nor anyone who works for you, may reveal what’s happening.”

  Gooney’s daughter had just been kidnapped, he didn’t know about it, and Grant had just tacitly agreed not to reveal it. He plunged into free fall. Two options. Option one: back out now, and let her take the case to somebody else — someone with unknown skills and priorities, to whom Gooney’s child would be nothing more than a paycheck. Option two: take the job and hope like Hell Gooney forgave him when he found out. Unless Grant bombed the exchange, and Gooney buried him.

  This wasn’t his area of expertise, not really, even if it wasn’t far off from some of the stuff he’d done. What if the job went to somebody else? Were they more or less likely to blow it? Gooney hated him, granted; a feeling that had been mutual right up until the last year. They’d been working on that. Hated him because Grant was better? Maybe. He was at least as good as most of the guys he’d ever met in ops, and the fact he stayed on the right side of the grave suggested he was pretty damn good.

  Grant pushed off from the bed, popped in his earpiece and switched the call over from the handset. He jogged down the loft stairs to the main floor of his apartment. “I need to know everything, every detail. Even if this is just an exchange, I’m not walking in there blind. Any piece of information you withhold could be the difference between living and dying, do I make myself clear?” He walked to the computer and tapped it awake.

  “Absolutely. I’m glad you’re taking the job, Mr. Casey. I have a draft contract I can send over, if you’ll give me your best address?”

  He supplied his secure email, and got to work, creating a dossier, as she filled him in on her daughter’s Winter Break plan, the three friends she’d flow down with, who presumably had her luggage from the plane. The contract appeared in his in-box, and he opened the file. “What else?”

  She cleared her throat. “Lexi. She’s deaf. So is her friend Denise.”

  “Total hearing loss?” His fingers hesitated over the keyboard. That was a twist. And explained Gooney’s fluency in American Sign Language. Grant figured he learned for a family member, one of his parents, maybe. Never occurred to him that Gooney’s daughter might be the answer. Restraining order for violence, daughter with hearing loss, and his ex was the greatest thing since Oprah. How much more was the guy hiding?

  “She contracted bacterial meningitis as an infant, and recovered almost completely, except for her hearing. We try not to dwell on it. Not a good candidate for implants, unfortunately.” She cleared her throat. “Her father insisted on a special school rather than mainstreaming, so ASL is her primary language, and she uses phone apps to navigate many situations. She’s very capable.”

  Didn’t have to convince him: Lexi had gone overseas with just a few friends, that was evidence enough. “Why Guatemala?”

  “I suppose it was cheap and warm. I presume one of her friends suggested it.” Pam’s tone went a little sharp, and Grant added in a few question marks.

  “Any chance she or one of her friends was involved in the drug trade, arms trade, anything black market or underground?”

  “What are you suggesting, Mr. Casey?”

  “As I said, Ms. Dionne, anything I don’t know could be the death of us both.” He flipped to the contract, and filled in some information of his own, like how to handle the payments as part of his estate.

  A pause, and a clink, as of ice cubes. “She is … headstrong, as you might expect from that man’s lineage, but I have no reason to believe she has ever been involved in such things. No prior record, no difficulties at school or with the law. And not just because he’s on the force. She’s taking a few classes at the Harvard Extension, and hopes to apply for a full-time program in the spring.”

  On his second monitor, Grant pulled up a few social media sites, entering Lexi’s name, and those of her friends. Kaitlyn had posted a few images of jungle trees and Maya ruins, but mostly shots of men, taken surreptitiously, or re-posted from “hottie” accounts, shirtless, shirt-sleeved or working out. Denise hung upside down from a thick tree branch and cavorted in a turquoise pool with a blond girl: Lexi. Lexi herself didn’t post selfies, hadn’t posted anything from the trip, and Grant wondered if that was Gooney’s instinct toward security. Shari, on the other hand, went all-in, posing on her own, together with the other girls in different combinations, or all at once, Lexi’s face cut off as somebody held the phone arm’s length. Lexi leaning into a young Black man, her arm around his waist in an unmistakable pose.

  “She have a boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

  “No.” Then, “Nobody to speak of.”

  Right. “Whose house do they stay at, the girls?”

  “Kaitlyn’s.”

  “They’ve just landed a few hours ago? I’m executing the contract now, expecting the first payment to drop overnight. We’ll book the flights, and head to Kaitlyn’s in the morning. 7:30? Pick me up at the Newton Center station. With all luck, we’ll head straight from Kaitlyn’s to the airport. How do we make contact with the kidnappers?”

  “Lexi’s cell. I know what you’re going to say, but they’ve already turned off any sort of tracking. She texted me. Or they did. Somebody who signs as ’Z.’“

  He took a careful breath. “Proof of life?”

  “What do you mean?” Suddenly strident, a flaw in her po
lish.

  He took his hands off the keyboard, his eyes raised to the Buddha’s head perched on a brick in the wall above his monitor, a small, chipped statue from his Army days. He gentled his voice, still professional, but maybe of a different sort. “Have you asked for evidence that she’s still alive? It should be a photograph of Lexi, with a record of the date — like a newspaper headline, a website or tv dateline, anything like that.” But they hadn’t offered it. Was he dealing with amateurs? The idea left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “The messages are from her phone number, Mr. Casey, The first ones sounded like her, then they told me, they promised she’d live, if I just get them what they want, they promised. Of course she’s still alive!” She gulped. “Do we have to wait for morning?”

  The fabulous Pamela Dionne had a heart after all. “Pam. The proof of life, it’s pro forma, it’s okay. They want this item back, they’ll take good care of Lexi. This is just our insurance policy, do you understand?”

  Silence, then a sniffle. “Alright, Mr. Casey.”

  “We’ll do everything in our power to get your daughter home safe. I’ll see you at 7:30.” Because it gave both of them time to get their stuff together, literally and figuratively. And it gave him time to figure out whether to breach his contract, or betray his friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *