A King's Ransom (11 page)

I'd visited the port once before with my father, when I was a teenager. I remembered it well, because it had shocked me. I'd expected to see the big white cruise ships docked like a string of pearls in the shadow of beautiful downtown Miami. This was an entirely different port, up the Miami River near the airport. Chain-link fences and barbed wire cordoned off ugly metal warehouses and mountains of metal container trucks stacked one on top of the other. The boats were rusty old freighters that looked barely capable of making it to the mouth of the river, let alone to the Panama Canal. Overall, it reminded me of the kind of place a serial killer might dump his bodies. In fact, I think one had a few years back.

This time I took my best friend with me. J. C. Paez was christened Juan Carlos by his Cuban parents, but his friends knew him only as J. C. We'd been friends since we were nine years old. In fact, it was J. C. who'd set me up with Jenna. It was a toss-up as to which of us had taken the breakup harder - a toss-up between me and J. C., not me and Jenna.

I saw Jenna on Miami Beach the other night, he said.

I was trying to negotiate a parking space. I didn't say anything.

She looked great, he continued.

I had to wonder, what was it that compelled friends to carry on about how incredible your ex was looking since the breakup? She wasn't Bigfoot; I didn't need every reported sighting. But now that he'd opened the door, I had to ask, Was she with anyone?

You mean when she came in or when she left?

Don't mess with me. I know Jenna's not picking up guys at bars.

She was with a girlfriend.

Did you talk to her?

Yeah.

Did she say anything about me?

He smiled coyly. Now why would you be interested in that?

Just forget it.

Wait a sec, she did say something about you.

What?

Something like, Wow, J. C., you do kiss much better than Nick.'

I just rolled my eyes and applied the parking brake. He laughed as we got down from the Jeep. You should call her sometime.

Oh, right.

Seriously. I think there's still something there.

As much as I would have liked to believe that, I didn't. J. C.'s parents had divorced when he was twelve, and some fifteen years later he was still clinging to the notion that someday his folks would remarry. That had a way of putting anything he said about Jenna in perspective.

We'll see, I said, noncommittal.

We went around to the back of warehouse Number 3 to see a man named Paco. Shipments had a strange way of not making it onto the boat if you didn't see Paco - more precisely, if you and Ben Franklin didn't see Paco. He was busy, so we waited outside his office door. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, bright blue skies. I wished I'd had my sunglasses.

Hey, isn't that your Jeep? asked J. C.

I looked over and saw a forklift pulling my Jeep toward a huge freighter. I nearly knocked J. C. over, I flew past him so fast.

What the hell are you guys doing?

The forklift stopped. The driver shrugged and laughed. He said something in Spanish that I couldn't quite catch with all the engine noise. J. C. translated for me.

He says you were blocking traffic. He was making room for the trucks to pass.

It was possible he was telling the truth, though it was also possible that if J. C. hadn't caught them, my beloved Jeep would have been a boat ride away from South American license plates. Four-wheel-drive vehicles were in hot demand down there - just ask any Miamian who used to own a Range Rover.

J. C. and I moved my Jeep to a safer place, a parking spot beside the warehouse that was inaccessible by forklift. As I killed the engine, I noticed the goofy expression on J. C.'s face.

What? I asked.

I was just thinking, this is broad daylight. What must go on down here at one o'clock in the morning?

God only knows.

Actually, I think God must look the other way.

Yeah, I said. God and my old man.

Get out. Your dad's as straight as they come.

You and I know that. But I have this feeling that everybody else lumps him together with every snake who's ever slithered down the Miami River.

Why?

Why? It's like you just said, this is the day shift. Who do you think works here at night? Nuns?

You're making too much of that. So what if your dad spends a lot of time at the port. He travels back and forth from Nicaragua on fishing business. He has the bad luck of being kidnapped by Colombians. That doesn't mean

He stopped in midsentence, as if saying those things had made him see my point. It's just a perception thing, he added.

The forklift drove by. The driver beeped his horn and waved. He was hauling a pallet of frozen grouper fingers. Or at least that's what the markings on the box said. Who knew what was really in there?

I looked at J. C. and asked, What would you say if I told you that my old man had been shaken down by customs nineteen times in the past five years?

He was trying hard not to look shocked. Was he ever charged with anything?

Nope. Not a single time could anyone tag him with anything illegal.

Then I'd say he's being harassed.

Spoken like a true best friend, I said, though the accusatory look of Agent Huitt was still burning in my mind. Of course, another man might say he's just lucky as hell he never got caught.

J. C. looked away, saying nothing. In silence, we walked back into the warehouse to see my father's friend Paco.

Chapter 14

More than a week since Dad had disappeared, and still not a word from his kidnappers. Alex assured me that this was normal. The consul's office told me the same thing in my daily update from the State Department. Families always want the ordeal to end quickly, but the kidnappers move at their own pace. It's not that they're incapable of moving faster. They're simply in control, and they want you to know it.

On Monday morning I went to the office to see if Duncan would extend my personal leave for another week. He agreed, though we both knew the rules. At a large firm like Cool Cash, associates either billed twenty-two-hundred hours annually or took a pay cut. No slack for kids, kidney stones, or kidnappings.

Back in my office I logged on to my computer to enter my time for the week. Lawyers at Cool Cash recorded their time in six-minute intervals. Each billing day had entries for a twenty-four-hour day, as you never knew when you might be stuck in the office till 3:00 A. M. cranking out a brief. I entered zeroes across the board, ten slots per hour, two hundred and forty per day, twelve hundred for the week. Staring at five days' worth of zeroes, I suddenly realized how incredibly long a day could be. It made me think of Dad sitting in the jungles or mountains somewhere in Colombia and counting each passing minute, nothing to do but survive and wait for his ordeal to end.

I checked my e-mails. Most were office memos, easily deleted. I printed a half dozen updates from the lawyers who were monitoring my caseload in my absence. One that caught my eye was from an address I didn't recognize. It had arrived just a half hour earlier. I opened it, then froze.

I know where Matthew Rey is, it read.

I stared at the words. The sender's screen name was an eight-digit number, not even a word. I scrolled down to check the rest of the message.

If this interests you, please come see me. An address followed, but no name and no telephone number.

At this stage of the game I had to take every lead seriously. It was only instinct, and my thinking was definitely colored by my meeting with Agent Huitt - but I suspected that if this guy really knew where my father was, he might also know things that were better not shared with the FBI, my negotiator Alex, or even my friend J. C.

I wrote down the address. It wasn't too far. I could be there in twenty minutes - alone, just me and my family secrets.

As usual, a twenty-minute trip on the Palmetto Expressway turned into forty. With no map, I tried to find my way by using two handy mnemonic devices that helped drivers get around Miami-Dade County. The more well known one was STL: streets, terraces, and lanes ran east to west (think St. Louis). The one I seemed to remember better was courts, roads, avenues, and places. In Miami, as at Cool Cash, CRAP flowed north and south, top to bottom.

Unfortunately, someone had stolen most of the street signs in the neighborhood, and I finally realized I was in Hialeah, which had a different street-numbering system entirely. I stopped for directions at a gas station where a big Cuban flag was draped in the window. An old bumper sticker on the counter read, NO CASTRO, NO PROBLEMA. In Spanish, the attendant directed me to one of many rows of two-bedroom, sixties-vintage houses. Once upon a time Hialeah had been synonymous with pink flamingos gracing a manicured infield as powerful thoroughbreds raced around the famous old track. Many areas were beautiful to some, but I was in a declining neighborhood where the flamingos were plastic and front lawns were surrounded by chain link and barbed wire to keep away the car thieves.

I found the right house halfway down the street. An old Chevy was parked in the driveway. Beneath the carport was an aluminum fishing boat on a trailer with two flat tires. As with most of the surrounding homes, the windows and doors were covered with jail-like security bars. I had to wonder what this person could possibly know about my father's kidnapping. After my conversation with FBI Agent Huitt and his threats against my father's partner, Guillermo, I supposed it could have been just about anything.

I opened the gate, walked up the cracked sidewalk, and knocked on the front door. A man answered, dressed in sandals, shorts, and a Miami Dolphins T-shirt. It was only 11:00 A. M., but he had a healthy five o'clock shadow, the kind that was chic on a movie star but plain old scruffy on just about everyone else. A protective Doberman pinscher was standing behind him.

I'm Nick Rey. You sent a message about my father?

He smiled and unlocked the screen door. SA. Come on in.

I glanced at the dog.

Don't worry, he said. She's friendlier than she looks. He led me down a dark hall to the kitchen. The window shades were pulled shut, and the only light in the house was from the lamp in the living room and the ceiling fixture in the kitchen. Incense burned in a small urn on the kitchen counter, filling the air with an almost sickeningly sweet odor.

A?CafE? he offered.

No, thanks.

He poured himself half a cup and filled the rest with milk. At his insistence I took the good chair, the one that didn't have duct tape covering splits and tears in the vinyl covering. He seated himself opposite me at the kitchen table, the dog at his feet.

Who are you? I asked.

He smiled and extended his arms like a preacher. The answer to your prayers.

I hate to be blunt, but you don't look like it.

Looks don't matter. It's the message that's important. It was very powerful, no? I know where Matthew Rey is.'

It brought me here.

Exactly.

So where is he?

In due time, we'll get there.

Do you know my father?

No.

Do you have some connection to the kidnappers?

In a manner of speaking.

At the risk of offending him, I had to speak my mind. You have no idea where my father is, do you?

Not in the conventional sense. But I have access to a power that can lead us straight to your father.

By power, do you mean a person?

No. Collective mind power.

I smelled a scam. Are you supposed to be some kind of psychic?

He leaned across the table and looked into my eyes. Not the kind you're thinking of. Look around the room. There's no crystal ball, no dead chickens to dissect, no turban on my head. I don't work with tarot cards or birth dates. What I'm offering is a clean and legitimate opportunity to link your father telepathically to the most powerful minds in the world. I call it my deluxe power package.

Does it come with a moon roof and CD player?

This is no joke. It's done by e-mail to a group of specialists selected by me. Each of my contacts around the globe is strategically located to enhance the flow of energy from one to the next. At a predesignated moment, each of them opens the e-mail and reads the exact same message: I know where Matthew Rey is.' The timing is critical. It sparks their collective mind power. If it's done right - and this is where my expertise comes in - I guarantee that someone in that group will know where Matthew Rey is.

Yeah, probably last seen with Elvis.

Please, I understand your skepticism. But only after your father returns home safely will you realize that this was the best five thousand dollars you've ever spent.

I nearly laughed in his face. Five thousand dollars? For what?

For my connections to the very best minds in their field. I have a woman who has helped law enforcement officers locate missing children all over the United States. There's a guy in the U. K. who gets patients through major surgery without anesthesia. An aboriginal tribe member in Australia can snap a butter knife in half using only her powers of concentration.