Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(6)

No hay problema, I’d answered. Dignity wasn’t one of my stronger points.

Jesús had met me outside the barrio, then stayed by my side as we small-talked our way through the so-called ‘fierce neighborhood,’ edging past gang members and drug dealers and God knew what else until we reached a man who sold items que se cayeron del camión—things that fell off the truck. Give him your money, Jesús said, and don’t ask questions.

For two thousand pesos, the dealer had sold me a “conducted energy weapon,” then asked if I wanted to throw in an assault rifle—a cuerno de chivo—for forty thousand more. I’d told him I wanted to defend myself, not start a war.

I hoped I wouldn’t regret that decision.

Restless, and now leery of taking a neighborhood run, I removed the travel pouch hanging around my neck, set it on the bed next to the gun, and dropped to the floor. I did fifty push-ups, better than my Marine days, then started on the crunches. I’d been working hard to heal from the injuries I’d suffered earlier that summer during a hunt for a killer. While my VA counselor focused on my war-related PTSD, I zeroed in on the physical—strength building with weights, bands, and my own body weight. It also included as much cardiovascular as I could handle.

Throw in the fact that I was still off the drugs, mostly off the cigarettes, and down to a drink or two a day, and that added up to progress, at least in my book.

I rolled onto my stomach and held my body rigid in a plank. Then side planks. Followed by more crunches.

Finally, I stood and used a towel to wipe the sweat from my neck and face, then sat on the bed out of Rooftop Thomas’s eyeshot and picked up the travel pouch. Inside were my passport, my phone, a credit card, and some cash. And two pictures I pulled free.

The first was a photograph of Malik, the child I’d left behind in Habbaniyah. He’d come home late from a soccer game and found his mother murdered. Possibly the assassins had meant to kill Malik, too, and only a game delay saved his life. He’d been taken in by the Marines after Haifa’s death.

And then he’d disappeared.

The picture was spiderwebbed with creases and worn to the softness of velvet from my daily obsessive handling of it. It showed Malik standing on our forward operating base, grinning and holding aloft a soccer ball that one of the Marines had given him. He was forever eight years old in this photo, with a shock of black hair and an expression of open innocence that made my heart ache. Only the ugly scar on his arm—a memento from the night’s chaotic aftermath—and a faint panic in his eyes suggested he’d had anything other than a normal childhood.

The second picture was a sketch created by a woman who specialized in age-progression drawings, which are used to determine what a kidnapped or runaway child might look like months or years later. She had progressed Malik by three years. This Malik was taller, but still lanky and still with the dark shock of hair. But the artist had also flattened his cheeks and nose, enlarged his ears, and added a layer of baby fat that blurred his features. When I’d protested, she’d shrugged.

“Eleven is not the most attractive age in humans,” she’d explained. “We’re gawky and awkward. In another year or two, he’ll lose the fat and grow into his features. He’ll be quite handsome then, if I’m any judge.”

I held the pictures next to each other, comparing them. In addition to the facial changes, the artist had done a beautiful job of translating the younger Malik’s bewilderment into the older boy’s anguish.

Whatever nastiness had gone down in Iraq and was now spilling over in the US, Malik was somehow the key to unlocking that door and fumigating whatever horrors lay beyond. He had something. Or he knew something. I wanted those answers. But more than that, I wanted to find him, extricate him from whatever trap had ensnared him, and wipe away the misery in his eyes. If that was even possible.

The world is very good at hurting the youngest and least culpable among us. For that, we all bear some responsibility. And an obligation to try and fix it.

“I’m here, buddy,” I said aloud. In the corner, the spider froze. “Mexico City, same as you. Now how do I find you?”

Only 573 square miles, twenty million souls, and one eleven-year-old Iraqi boy who looked pretty much like any eleven-year-old Mexican boy. No job too tough.

Tires squealed at the end of the alleyway. I tucked Malik’s photos back in the pouch and returned to the window. A black SUV rocketed down the cracked pavement, back tires skidding, trash cans clattering in its wake. I flicked my gaze to the rooftop. Thomas was heading toward the stairs, his chair slung over his back. Two floors below, the Mercedes-Benz SUV slowed as it neared the hotel. A door opened, a man tumbled out on the pavement, then the door slammed shut and the SUV roared down the alley to the street, where its brake lights flashed before it bounced and skidded into traffic. Very faintly came the sound of rubber squealing. Was the vehicle peeling out or slamming on the brakes?

I filed away the question and craned my neck to see who’d been dumped by—I presumed—one of the cartels that operated in the city. I could make out just enough to tell that it was a man. He lay crumpled on his side, facing the hotel, not moving. Light from the lobby spilled across a face that looked like it had been rammed against a propeller.

I jerked back from the window. Even with the damage, I knew him. Angelo Garcia. The man I’d come to see.