Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (5 page)

The taxi pulled to the curb in front of the hotel and the three friends got out.  “That’s not exactly how I wanted to start the vacation,” Kendra said.

“It’s going to be okay,” said Jamie.  “Let’s just put it behind us, but we’ll definitely be more careful for the rest of the trip.”

“I still can’t believe that guy,” Taylor said as she got out of the car.  Jamie pulled a little cash from her pocket and as she was paying the driver the girls saw headlights barreling down on them from up the street.  They looked up to see an older cream colored car skid to a halt in front of the Hutton’s driveway, tires screeching.  Three men jumped out and Taylor screamed when she realized who it was . . . Martin and his friends.

The men rushed them and one punched Kendra viciously in the face.  She dropped unconscious to the ground.  The two men with Martin then grabbed Taylor and pulled her kicking and screaming towards the car where Martin stood opening the back door for them.

Jamie had looked up in time to see Kendra drop and the men grab Taylor.  She ran around the taxi and flew at the men.  “Get your fucking hands off her!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.  She lunged at Martin as though ready to rip his eyes out.

Martin reached into his belt waist and pulled out a gun.  “No!” Taylor screamed as she was pushed into the car and realized what was about to happen.  “Jamie!”
she screamed in warning, but it was too late.  Martin shot her without a hint of hesitation.  Her eyes went wide in surprise, and she fell face forward as she clutched her chest.  Then he pointed his gun at the frightened taxi driver.  The poor man tried to switch his car into drive and hit the gas, but Martin put two in his head before the car could take off.  He then took two steps forward and leaned over Jamie as if to put another bullet in her.

Taylor was being stuffed into the car, her arms and legs held tight, but desperate to do anything to stop Martin she leaned towards the man holding her arms and bit him as hard as she could on his ear.  He let out a belligerent scream just as Martin was about to fire, and instead he turned his head, saw what Taylor was doing, and ran over and kicked her in her head.  She fell backward in the seat and Martin yelled at the man she’d bitten, “Let’s go!”  The man ran back around the car and jumped into the driver’s seat.

A second later Martin pushed Taylor’s legs further inside the car as he slammed the door shut behind him and the car roared off into the night.  People began to run out into the street to help Kendra, who was still unconscious, and Jamie, who was face down on the asphalt bleeding to death.

Yesenia was awakened by flashing lights.  Her eyes fluttered open and she saw that the black Suburban was parked on the edge of the highway, its engine idling.  The digital clock in the dash read 9:42 P.M.  There was an unusual bustle of movement in the front.

“Don’t panic,” Jose whispered from the passenger seat.

“What do we do?” asked Hector.

“Just act normal.  I’ll take care of it.”

Yesenia looked over her shoulder and saw what had the two men concerned.  The flashing lights sat atop a Texas state trooper’s car.  She watched as the cruiser’s door opened and an officer dressed in gray with a matching cowboy hat approached, his right hand resting on his pistol and a flashlight held up in his left.  He was a black man with an athletic build and stern gaze.

Unbeknownst to the t
rooper or the girls, Jose’s hand was also resting on the grip of a pistol.  He slowly moved it to his lap and slid it beneath his thigh.  Yesenia leaned up just in time to see what Jose was hiding away and she gasped.  Next to her, Silvia was still sleeping soundly, but Jose had heard her and looked back at her.  “Don’t say a word,” he warned her, his finger to his lips.

Hector rolled down his window as the trooper approached and smiled as though happy to be pulled over.  “Was I speeding?” he asked.

“License and insurance, please,” said the trooper.  The beam of light from his flashlight slid along the interior of the vehicle like a snake looking for a mouse.  Jose had his hands visible, one on the center console and the other on the window handle of the door.  The trooper angled the light and looked at Yesenia and Silvia a moment before continuing the light towards the back of the vehicle where it fell upon the black tarp.  Hector was fumbling with his wallet and handed his license to the trooper.

The light retreated from the car and fell upon the license he now held in his hand.  “Where y’all headed?”

“Home,” said Jose, speaking over Hector.  “We were visiting family in the valley.”

“Is that right?” asked the trooper, looking at Hector.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.  “I’m sorry if I was speeding.  We’ve had a long trip.”

The trooper leaned in a little bit, still moving his flashlight about.  “You got your insurance card on ya?” he asked.

“I’m looking for it,” said Jose as he opened the glove box and rummaged around.

“Whose vehicle is this?” asked the trooper.

“It’s mine,” said Jose.  “We’re taking turns driving.”

The trooper flashed his light towards the glove box to watch Jose’s hands, but saw nothing but a mess of papers.  As he leaned in towards the vehicle to keep an eye on what Jose pulled out of the glove box, he suddenly picked up on the aroma of marijuana.  The bales had been packed and re-packed as tight as could be, but still that unmistakable smell per
meated ever so softy.  And the trooper was all too familiar with that telltale scent.  From roaches in the ashtray to dime bags people tried to hide in their underwear, he’d smelled it a hundred times before.  But he didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow to let on that he knew.  The tarp in the back indicated this could be more than someone’s personal joint he smelled.  This could be a runner.

Intending to call for backup he retreated from the window a bit and told them, “Y’all keep looking for that insurance and wait here for a moment while I run the license.”

Jose pulled some papers from the glove box, and as the trooper turned around he quietly slipped his hand beneath his thigh.  He pulled his pistol and folded the papers around it, hiding it from view.  “Sir!  I found the insurance, sir!”

The trooper turned back around and flashed his light inside the car.  Jose leaned over Hector as if to hand the officer a bundle of papers.  As he reached out to take them the trooper glimpsed the bulge of the gun, but it was too late.  In the second he realized what the man had in his hand, he went for his own gun, but Jose had already fired, striking the trooper in the neck.

Yesenia screamed as he fell to the ground, his hand grasping the wound as blood spurted out of his carotid artery.  Jose jumped out of the Suburban and ran around to where the trooper was lying.  Still holding his neck, the officer saw Jose coming for him and tried again to pull his gun, but Jose shot him three times more, twice in the chest and once in the head.  His head tilted and his open eyes seemed to be looking at Yesenia.  She covered her own to escape his gaze.

“C’mon!” yelled Hector, seeing headlights in the distance in the rearview mirror.

Jose took the license back from the trooper and ran back around and jumped inside, the tires throwing gravel as the black Suburban sped out.

Having heard Yesenia’s screams and the gunshots, Silvia was now awake.  All around her was chaos.  Yesenia was moaning and nearly hyperventilating, the sound of the gun still ringing in her ears.  Jose was staring out of the back window with a gun raised, and the
Suburban’s engine was being pushed to its max.  “What happened?” Silvia tried to ask Yesenia, but got no response.  Yesenia was crying now and held her hands over her mouth in shock.  “What’s going on?” she asked Hector.

“Sit back and shut up!” Jose yelled.  Silvia turned around and saw the trooper’s lights disappearing behind them as they sped away.

“Is that the police?” she asked.

Jose whipped his left arm back and slapped her hard.  “I said shut up!”

Silvia flinched in pain and withdrew to the corner of the rear bench seat.  Tears welled up in her eyes from the sting and she rubbed her face.  She still had no clue what had just transpired, but didn’t dare speak another word.

They drove on in silence, speeding through the cover of darkness for miles before anyone spoke again.  “They’ll be looking for us,” said Hector.  “Did you have to kill him?”

“Yes, I had to kill him!” yelled Jose.  “He smelled it and was going to call for backup.”

“How do you know?” asked Hector.

“I just know, okay.  The way he put his head in then went right back for his car . . . I just know.  Do you want to go to jail?”

“Now they’ll all be looking for us,” said Hector worriedly.

“Looking for who?” asked Jose.  “They don’t have any information.  He didn’t run the license.”  As they always did, the two men had stolen the license plates on their vehicle from another early model Suburban as a precaution before making the pickup.  Soon the police would likely be breaking down the door of a very surprised Suburban owner whose real plates had been replaced with ones from a random car.  After all, it was seldom people memorized their own plates or would notice them being changed out.

“We still have to get off the highway.”

“There’s not much further to go,” said Jose.  He pulled out a map from the glove box and turned on the dome light.  “Just take the county roads ahead.  We can take this one and get off the highway and it goes all the way down.  Look.”  He pointed to a line on the map.

“Ok, that will work,” said Hector.  “But keep a look out.  There’s going to be cops swarming around here pretty soon.”

A few miles later, just as Yesenia looked back and saw a speck of light flashing in the far distance, the Suburban turned down a thin county road.  She stared behind her as the black patch of highway began dwindling away.  She imagined at any second she’d see a dozen police cars suddenly turn down the road speeding after them.  Her eyes stayed glued to the road, her heart trying to decide if she wanted to see the police coming after them or not.

They made a curve around a bend, cutting off her view of the highway, and after a few minutes Yesenia began to breathe norma
lly again as they put more miles behind them. 
What have I done?
She asked herself. 
How did I let myself end up with people?
  It all seemed to keep going from bad to worse and what scared Yesenia the most now was wondering how much worse it could get.

Ten hours.  That’s the approximate time it took for all hell to break loose in Cancun.  It was like an avalanche that began rolling down the hill that morning.  Univision, the Hispanic television channel, broke the story in the United States on their morning news channel, followed by KHOU 1
1 in Houston.  Other students on vacation in the hotel had found out what had happened and via Twitter, Facebook, and a barrage of cell phone calls, the news spread like a wildfire . . . the snowball grew bigger and bigger until finally half the mountain gave way to its weight.

By early afternoon a current affairs news commentator was on the case, tossing accusations around like cheap beads at Mardi Gras and comparing events with similar cases of years past.  She had some poor clueless official on her program via satellite ripping him a new one for the incompetence of the local police, barraging him with insults while he stood and gave his approved answers in short, apologetic replies.  The tourist strip in Cancun was now littered with Associated Press vehicles
while famous newscasters stood outside of the
Noche Salvaje
recounting the last hours leading up to Taylor ’s disappearance.  By that afternoon, less than 24 hours after the kidnapping, it was worldwide.  Parents all over the United States were calling their children in Cancun for spring break ordering their immediate return.  The bars and restaurants were at half yesterday’s occupancy.  People were staying in their hotels and the markets were quiet.  Fear and apprehension was on every face to be seen.

Jim and Amy Woodall were sitting at a conference table at the Hutton Cancun.  Jim was tall with graying thin brown hair and tanned skin from his weekend golfing getaways.  He was
48, but now looked more like 68 under the stress and lack of sleep.

Amy was four years younger, though looked much the same.  Her hair was pulled back in a quick ponytail and she wore no makeup.
  She sat in a chair in a pair of shorts that had been close by when they got the call and a UT orange T-shirt she’d gotten on a recent visit to Taylor’s school.  She had sandy blond hair, crisp green eyes like her daughter, and a similar complexion to Jim, who she often joined on the weekends.

The hotel’s Melbourne Ballroom was now ground zero for the search for Taylor Woodall.  It had 9,652 square feet which could be broken up into four separate areas and could hold up to 1,000 people.  Barriers and tables were being erected upon its red and tan carpet creating separate designated areas including a media relations section with a podium for when officials needed to make public statements and deal with the press.

The hotel and its staff were still in shock that the horrific event had occurred right outside their doors and the hotel chain’s corporate offices in the U.S. had pledged their unequivocal support.  Inside, the conference room bustled with activity while outside, a single palm tree stood back-dropped by the azure ocean in a picturesque view.

Across from the Woodalls sat senior officer Juan Ramirez and his partner Hernando Vargas of the Quintana
Roo anti-kidnapping unit.  Ramirez was 5’8” with a thin mustache and hair that was plastered into place by years of disciplining it with a sturdy comb.  His eyes were sharp and he spoke English effortlessly.  He was dressed in gray slacks with a white button down shirt and plain navy blue tie.  Vargas was slightly older, his dark brown hair accented by gray that began in the part in his hair and slowly worked its way down like spilled paint.  He wore a blue suit with a gold and blue tie.

In his hand Ramirez held an artist’s rendering that Kendra had provided only hours before.  She’d given them enough to create a strikingly accurate picture of the man named Martin.  “We have circulated this photo to all the departments in and around Cancun,” he was explaining to the Woodalls.  On the table sat a picture of Taylor, one she had just taken before the trip for graduation where she wore her cap and gown.  “We’ve also sent both pictures to every police station, gas station, and hotel in and around the district.”  He tapped the sketch with his index finger, “If this man shows his face anywhere in public, we will know.  We will have his picture placed in every newspaper and in every shop window by this time tomorrow.”  It was already on every television channel in Mexico and the U.S.

“Why haven’t they asked for a ransom?” asked Amy Woodall.  It was the thought that worried her most. 
Why wasn’t there a money demand?  If someone had kidnapped her, and they didn’t take her for ransom, then what did they take her for?
  She shook in fear to think of it.  At first she was terrified of the idea of a ransom call, but now she was praying for one.  Just some news that Taylor was still alive, some hope that she could get her back.

Ramirez had wondered the same thing about the ransom, and the only answer that fit didn’t bode well.  But it was not something he was prepared to share with the girl’s parents.
  He knew the helpless feeling and the fear they suffered.  He had worked many disappearances of young women during his time as an officer in Mexico City and then a detective in Chihuahua State.  Usually, they never found the girl, or if they did, it was a body out in the desert.  Many of the young women in Ciudad Juarez were forced to travel long ways for the jobs they found, either by bus or often walking across the barren landscape for hours.  Hundreds of such women had gone missing, many turning up raped and killed.  He’d seen the look in their mother’s eyes when they learned what had happened to their missing child.  He wondered if he’d be giving the Woodalls similar news in the near future.  He hoped not, but the more time that went by without a ransom, the more likely the prospect.

Ramirez had worked in a department called
Unidad de Atención a Víctimas de Delitos Sexuales y Contra de la Familia,
or the Unit for the Care of Victims of Sexual Offences and Offences Against the Family, for three years before being put in charge of a search commission, set up at the behest of Amnesty International and former President Vicente Fox.  He was all too familiar with looking into worried family members’ eyes and telling them “We’re doing everything we can,” which is what he said now to Taylor’s mother.  “I can’t say why there has not been a ransom demand.”

She wasn’t satisfied.  “But that’s what they do, right?  These people
, they kidnap Americans or wealthy people and then demand a ransom, right?  I’ve heard about this before.  They keep them alive, in a small house out in the country or something, sometimes for months, right?  Right!?”

“It is very possible,
señora
,” Vargas told her.  “Such things happen occasionally in this part of the world.”  Off to his right stood an official from the governor’s office that shadowed Ramirez and Vargas, then reported back to his superiors.  He cringed with Vargas’s words.

“Why don’t they have better security?” asked Mr. Woodall.  “I thought the kidnapping problem you had down here was only in Mexico City or along the border.  We would never have let Taylor come here if we knew you had a kidnapping problem here.”

“Actually, it is unusual that the victim is a tourist.  Normally, what you have said is true,” said Ramirez.  “This is the first time we’ve had an American tourist kidnapped in this way from the boulevard.”

“We have one of the largest police forces in the world,” said the official who now stepped forward.  “We take our security very seriously.  We will not rest until we have found your daughter and brought any responsible criminals to a swift justice.”

This seemed to placate Mrs. Woodall, at least for the moment.  She grabbed her husband’s hand.  “I feel so helpless,” she told him.  “We’re sitting here, just talking and talking, and she’s out there, God knows where.”  She pictured Taylor, lying in the gutter, bleeding and beaten, gasping for air, calling for her parents, and yet here they were, still talking.  Or maybe she was in a dark room somewhere, tied to a chair with a blindfold and gag in her mouth.  This image didn’t seem a much better alternative.  To keep from descending into madness, she concentrated on reminding herself what she’d heard about these sorts of things.  The kidnappers usually just wanted money and therefore wouldn’t be likely to hurt Taylor because if they did there’d be no ransom.  Taylor was alive somewhere, uncomfortable and scared, maybe, but alive.  She made herself believe that a call would come and they’d get her back.  It became her internal mantra,
we’ll get her back, we’ll get her back.

But the afternoon wore on with no demand, only hollow assurances of best efforts with no tangible progress.  Finally, Jim Woodall couldn’t take it anymore.  He whispered to his wife “Well, I’m not just going to sit here and do nothing.  These people obviously aren’t getting anywhere.” He picked up his cell phone and stood up to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To call an old friend,” he said, “someone who might actually be able to get something done around here.”