The Witness, page 27
part #1 of Felipe Santos Series
Felipe felt his blood run cold. He shivered as the news sank in.
Chance had been kidnapped.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Felipe was trembling. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel so that his partner would not see his hands shaking and pressed down hard on the gas. He drove aggressively, his heart in his mouth. He hardly spoke. He knew that he was ashen-faced and agitated, and that Henrique was suspicious.
“Take it easy,” his partner said, trying to keep his voice light, though Felipe knew his partner sensed that something else was going on. “We’ll find him. He kidnapped Chance. He didn’t kill him. That means he wants him alive for a reason.”
Felipe nodded. He tried to tell himself that, but he still could not relax.
“Why kidnap him?” he asked as he slammed on the brakes and narrowly avoided ramming into the back of a slow minibus ahead of him. Felipe beeped the horn and overtook. “He hasn’t done it before. What’s different this time? Apollo must want something.”
Henrique shook his head. He did not have answers.
Felipe tried not to think it, but he could not help himself. This was his fault. He had hidden Adonia away, and sent Constanza out of state, leaving Chance without protection. He should have had someone keeping him safe, knowing that he would become the prime target.
He wondered why Chance had been kidnapped. Apollo must know that he would not be able to do a trade, Chance’s life in return for the location of another witness. Unless Apollo knew of the personal relationship Felipe had with him. The thought made him tense further.
Apollo was a calculated, clever man. He must have researched the investigators who hunted him. Felipe wondered if perhaps one of his child-spies had seen him here. Perhaps Apollo hoped to use this to his advantage. Felipe wondered if he would save Chance in return for Adonia’s location. He tried not to think about it.
Maybe Apollo had done this as revenge, Felipe thought, for sweeping Adonia out from under him. Perhaps knowing his personal relationship with Chance, Apollo wanted to send Felipe a message.
Henrique was still watching him closely from the passenger seat as Felipe screeched to a stop across the road from the hotel, in front of the vacant lot.
“Take a deep breath,” Henrique told him, when Felipe shut off the engine. “We’ve got this.”
Felipe breathed deeply.
He climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut. Uniformed policías were already on the scene. They had been the first to respond to the call. Felipe called the sergeant over to give him a briefing of what they had so far.
A short, beefy man with jet black hair and a thick moustache introduced himself as Sergeant Diaz.
“Buenas tardes,” he greeted them. “Only three witnesses. A British couple who were having a cigarette over there,” he gestured to a lone bench beside the entranceway. “And a car park attendant who was about to take his break when he saw the abduction.”
Felipe glanced over to the witnesses. The British couple looked shaken. The woman was tearful, her husband’s arm around her shoulders. The car park attendant puffed away on a cigarette, looking weary.
“The couple say the victim came out for a smoke. He walked down to the end of the road. He turned around and started walking back. He finished his cigarette. A car stopped on the street behind him. A man ran after him. Pointed a gun at him and walked the victim back to the car, shoved him in the backseat and drove off.”
Felipe shivered, trying not to think of Chance as a victim.
“They couldn’t give much of a description of the kidnapper,” Sergeant Diaz said. He stroked his moustache absent-mindedly. “Mexican. Male. Perhaps late twenties, early thirties. He wore a hood, but it fell in the wind. Muscular physique. I’m thinking gangbanger.”
Felipe wondered who the kidnapper might be. Apollo had not used his child-minions for this. They could not drive, could not have overpowered Chance. He thought of Dario Otero. They had managed to overpower him. Why had Apollo changed his MO? Or had Apollo taken a more personal interest in this one. Had he come here himself? It seemed like an unnecessary risk to expose himself like that, but the description from the British couple could be a match.
“What about the attendant, did he see anything else?” Felipe asked.
“Not much either, a partial license plate and the colour and make of the car. A clapped-out white Ford Ikon. We’ve told control,” Sergeant Diaz said. “Old reg number. A stolen car.”
He shook his head, sensing Felipe’s frustration.
“Attendant says the same as the couple, except he only noticed them when he saw the gun,” Sergeant Diaz said. “Same description of the kidnapper. Not much to go on. Could describe half of the city. He said he held the gun sideways. Gangbanger, like I said.”
Felipe’s brow furrowed. He could not imagine Apollo holding a gun like that. He was ex-military. He must have enlisted some low-level Sanguinito to carry out his orders.
“Bueno. Who called to report it?”
“A receptionist. She heard the British couple screaming. Ran outside, heard what had happened, and ran back in to call. She didn’t see the car or the kidnapper.”
Felipe nodded. The description of the car was being circulated. He told himself that someone would spot them and call it in. He hoped this would be over soon.
“Gracias,” Felipe thanked the sergeant.
Felipe left Sergeant Diaz on the street and went inside. He saw a receptionist sat on a sofa, being comforted by a doorman. Her name badge read Juanita. The woman who had called to report it. Behind the desk, two more women ran receptionist. One was Carmen. She caught his eye. He wondered if she would be questioned, if she would tell anyone that he had made several personal visits to Chance at night.
He led the way to Chance’s bedroom. Henrique was a step behind him. It was a strange sensation, to be in his room, his personal space, without Chance there. He saw his phone on the bed. The television was paused halfway through a Spanish movie, subtitles turned on.
A laptop was open, the screen on a word document. Perhaps it was the coursework that Chance always mentioned but never seemed to get around to.
They did not take anything from the room. Felipe closed the laptop and switched off the television. He wondered if they should notify Bill, the fiancé in Brazil, about the kidnapping. He picked up the phone and felt uncomfortable at once. He passed it to Henrique, told him to make the calls to his family.
He did not think he could make the call to Bill himself.
They left the room and Felipe tried to keep his expression neutral, professional, as they returned downstairs. Sergeant Diaz was finished. The rest of the investigation would not take place here. They had done all they could at the hotel. The British couple had gone, probably up to their room to try and forget what they had seen. Juanita the receptionist was back at her post, a smile fixed on her face.
Felipe was silent as they got into the car.
“Are you sure everything’s fine?” Henrique asked him. He was concerned.
Felipe wondered if he should tell him, just blurt out the truth. Confess that he had been messaging Chance, that they had spent the night together, that they had been on dates, and that he made him feel comfortable in a way that nobody else had in a long time. He wanted to reveal that he blamed himself for Chance being kidnapped, that if anything happened to him, he would never be able to forgive himself.
Instead, he forced himself to nod as he turned the key in the ignition.
“Let’s find Chance,” he said firmly, keeping the emotion from his voice, knowing that he had not convinced his partner that he was entirely fine.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
The hours passed and still there was no celebration, no sigh of relief that Chance had been rescued. Felipe sat hunched at his desk, pouring over files and through records, long after his colleagues had departed, and day turned to night.
It was raining hard outside and storms threatened. Felipe hoped that Chance was being treated well, that he was not being harmed. He tried not to think of how afraid he must be, but that was preferable to imagining that he was already dead somewhere, his body waiting to be discovered.
Sergeant Diaz had updated him infrequently as information came in. The car had been found abandoned in a parking lot in the south of the city. It was an undesirable neighbourhood, but not a stronghold of Los Sanguinitos. Forensics had gone over the car and brought it to an impound lot, but Felipe was yet to hear if any useful evidence had been found.
He wondered why Apollo had not taken him to somewhere more secure, unless the kidnapping was his own doing. Felipe could not shake the thought that this was personal, that Apollo wanted to warn him off. Perhaps he had seen how close he had come to saving Victor and Hortensia Govea, had been watching him as Felipe tried to reach them amongst the flames. Maybe he knew that he had a list, that he was working on exposing his true identity.
Apollo understood just as Felipe did that once he had a name, a real name, for him then the game was over. Apollo liked the shadows, the darkness, because it gave him anonymity. Once Felipe snatched that away from him, Felipe would have the upper hand.
The jefe had been in a bad mood, scowling in the corridors and shooting Felipe dark looks whenever he left his office to get a coffee, as if he had personally organised the kidnapping of an American tourist. If the jefe was getting heat from his superiors, then Felipe hoped that perhaps anyone connected to Los Sanguinitos would feel the pressure too, would be driven to tell Apollo to release his prisoner because the media attention was not worth it.
He tried not to think about Valentina Vasquez’s assertions that attention and notoriety was exactly what the cartel wanted. They wanted that reputation. The more notorious, the better.
Henrique had notified Chance’s parents in California. They had offered to fly out, but Henrique had advised against it. The media had already picked up on the story and Valentina Vasquez and Irene Fierro were leading the charge accusing the government of failing to protect the witnesses and questioning whether tourists were safe to visit the capital. Henrique had not mentioned calling anyone else, and Felipe assumed that the parents would tell Bill. He wondered if Bill would fly up from Brazil, if he would come face to face with the man whose fiancé he had slept with.
The only good news had come from Luisa, who had reassured him that Adonia was ensconced at the safe house, her identity a secret, and she was safe from Apollo and Los Sanguinitos.
Unable to switch off from the case, Felipe remained at his desk. Henrique wished him goodnight, placed a cup of fresh coffee on his desk in front of him, and left. Alone on the floor, Felipe sipped the coffee and ran a hand through his hair.
He had resumed his digging into Jesus Morales Ortiz. He was the only name that had not been scratched from his list and he clung to some hope that he was Apollo, though it was half-hearted hope. Felipe did not think the profile fit. Jesus had abandoned his post with the army and risen quickly through the ranks of the cartel, which indicated that he been working with them for some time.
Jesus was flashy and did not hide his associations well, if he had indeed tried at all. He had a big house, fast cars and made no secret of his parties at which several other Sanguinitos were always present. Anti-cartel task forces all agreed he was involved in trafficking and Felipe could not imagine Apollo was so well-known to the agencies.
Apollo thrived on being anonymous. The more research Felipe did, the more he was convinced that Jesus and Apollo were not the same guy. His suspicions were quickly confirmed when a contact at the defence department contacted him, returning his attempts earlier in the week.
“I heard you were asking about Jesus Morales Ortiz,” Diego said down the phone. They had once been in the same department, and Felipe trusted him. That was why he had asked him for information on a few names from the list. Diego cleared his throat. “He was arrested today. He was under surveillance for several months. He’s in custody now. His location is confidential, for obvious reasons. If you wanted him for your investigation, I think you’ll be disappointed.”
Felipe did not feel disappointed. He crossed the name from his list. No names remained, and he wanted to curse. The arrest, the fact he was under surveillance, explained why Lopez had told him that Jesus was not his man. He wondered what else Lopez might have kept from him.
“The other names, I’m not sure about,” Diego said. “Jose Luis Martinez’s name no longer exists in our records. I guess the military got to him before justice could.”
“Somebody wiped his file?” Felipe asked, surprised.
“Looks that way,” Diego said. “Listen, I just wanted to give you the heads-up about Ortiz. If you Martinez is one of your suspects, I’d be careful. Someone high up wiped that name from the system. It’s happened before, a few times. Deserters vanish, like they never existed. The government clearing up after themselves. Somebody doesn’t want Martinez’s name out there.”
“Why though?” Felipe asked.
He thought about Jose Luis Martinez. He was a commando, then he had gone undercover in Los Sanguinitos. Perhaps he was a law unto himself, loyal to nobody, only to himself. If the army suspected he had turned against them, perhaps they wanted to cover their tracks and deny he existed at all.
“Look, this is off the record,” Diego said. “You know it’s not my area, not my jurisdiction, but I’ve had it happen once before. An ex-forces guy turned cartel hitman. I had him pinned for the murder of a mother and her son. Witnesses to a cartel hit. I flag his name in the system, started digging around. Next thing I know, he vanishes. The paperwork is gone. His records disappeared. No sign of him anywhere. Like he was erased. Neighbours saw nothing. He was just gone.”
Felipe thought about Lopez and the special task force that tracked down ex-forces who had deserted for the cartels. He wondered what happened to them when they were caught. If these forced disappearances were the end result.
“If you pursue this, be careful, mi amigo,” Diego warned him.
“Gracias,” Felipe said.
The call disconnected. Felipe put the phone down and shook his head. He wondered if he should call Lopez, ask for more information, but then remembered it was late and he would likely be at home, like everyone else.
Felipe closed Jesus Morales Ortiz’s file on his computer. He was not Apollo, just as he had suspected. He thought about Jose Luis Martinez. He was a shadowy figure. Duplicitous.
He had a dark feeling about him.
Perhaps the man whose file had just vanished was Apollo.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
It was late when Felipe gave into his exhaustion and drove home. He parked in the underground parking and instead of going upstairs he walked across the lobby and out onto the street. The ageing doorman nodded at him.
Felipe leant against the wall, just beyond the box of light on the pavement cast by the front doors and shook a cigarette out of his packet. He rarely smoked, but he kept a packet in his desk drawer for occasions such as this. He struck a match and lit it.
He coughed as he took his first drag, flicking ash into the night air. The street was deserted. Cars were parked up and down the sides of the street. The café and shops near the end of the block were all closed and shut-up for the night. Few cars were on the road, no traffic to slow them.
Felipe looked up at the sky. It was overcast but at least it had stopped raining. He wondered if Chance could see the sky wherever he was. He doubted it.
He took another drag, longer than the first. It did little to help him relax. It was just psychological, he told himself. He had to stay focused.
The more he thought about it, the more he believed that Jose Luis Martinez was Apollo. Now his file had been deleted. Felipe did not know whether that meant the task force was closing in on him, ready to wipe Apollo out as they had done with Diego’s suspect. If they did, then what did that mean for Chance? Was he just collateral damage?
And what if he was wrong, what if the file had been deleted by someone under instruction from the cartel. That made his job a lot harder. Someone high-up could be protecting Apollo.
Felipe took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it across the pavement to a drain cover. It bounced, sparks flying off the metal grate, before it dropped below the ground.
Footsteps sounded on the pavement. Felipe was alert at once as a young boy approached him. He walked directly towards him, eyes on him. He was a street kid. He looked unwashed. His lips were pulled into a scowl.
Felipe pushed off from the wall, any thought of sleep forgotten in a heartbeat.
“Apollo sends his regards, Subinspector Santos,” the boy said, in a practised voice, as if he had rehearsed exactly what to say over and over like a script. “If you don’t back off, he’ll kill your friend.”
Felipe’s breath caught in his chest. He reached for the kid, but the boy took off down the street. Felipe did not give chase. The boy was just a messenger.
Felipe wondered if he was growing closer to identifying Apollo, if he had kidnapped Chance as a warning to him. Felipe looked up and down the street, and then retreated into the building, feeling eyes on him as he went.
Even now, he felt Apollo’s spies watching him, waiting to see if he heeded his warning.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The room was dark and cramped, more like a cell than a bedroom. That was what he was now, Chance thought, shivering. A prisoner.
He lay on the thin mattress on the floor, the blanket pulled around him tightly for the little warmth it provided. The building seemed to creak around him, whether with age or rats, he did not want to think about.
He felt exhausted, sleep calling to him though he was too scared to close his eyes in the darkness. It must be night, he thought, but he had no basis for that. He had tried to keep track of time since he had been thrown into the room and the door had locked behind him, but there were no windows and he had no watch or phone.
