Lethal(114)

He scanned the contents, and when Honor joined him, he couldn’t contain his excitement. “He’s got the names of key people and companies all along the I-10 corridor between here and Phoenix where most of the stuff from Mexico is dispersed. But better than that, he’s also got the names of corrupt officials.

“And I know the information is solid because I recognize some of the names. Marset had dealings with them.” He pointed to one of the names on the list. “He’s a weigh station guy who’s on the take. Here’s a used car dealer in Houston, who supplies vans. Two cops in Biloxi. Jesus, look at all this.”

“It must’ve taken Eddie a long time to compile the information. How did he get access to it?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know if his motive was noble or criminal, but he’s left us with the goods. Some are nicknames—Pudge, Rickshaw, Shamu. Diego has an asterisk beside his name. He must be real important to the organization.”

“Does it identify The Bookkeeper?”

“Not that I see, but it’s a hell of a start. Hamilton’s gonna piss his pants.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tried to turn it on but immediately saw that the battery was dead. “Shit!” Quickly he took Fred’s phone from his pocket and snapped in the battery. When it came on and he saw the readout, he frowned.

“What?” Honor asked.

“Doral has called three times. And all in the last hour.”

“Doesn’t make sense. Why would he be calling Fred?”

“He wouldn’t,” Coburn said thoughtfully. “He’s calling me.” Suddenly overcome by a foreboding that squelched the elation he’d felt only moments earlier, he depressed the call icon.

Doral answered on the first ring. In a jolly voice, he said, “Hello, Coburn. Good of you to finally call me back.”

Coburn said nothing.

“Someone here wants to say hi to you.”

Coburn waited, his heart in his throat.

Elmo’s song came through loud and clear.





Chapter 43





When Honor heard the song, she clapped both hands over her mouth, but started screaming behind them.

Coburn didn’t silently scream, but he felt like it. Fear, a foreign emotion to him, struck him to his core, and the mightiness of it stunned him. Suddenly it was clear to him why fear was such an effective motivator, why it reduced hardened men to mewling children, why, in the face of fear, individuals were willing to barter their god, country, anything for the threat to be removed.

His mind became a slide show of horrific images that he’d seen in war zones, the bodies of children burned, beaten, hacked at, until they no longer retained human form. Their youth and innocence hadn’t protected them from a violent, unconscionable egomaniac demanding absolute surrender. Such as The Bookkeeper.

And The Bookkeeper had Emily.

“Okay, Doral, you’ve got my attention.”

“I thought I might.”

His smug chuckle rankled. “Or are you bluffing?” Coburn asked.

“You wish.”

“Singing Elmos are easy to come by. How do I know it’s Emily’s?”

“Nice place Tori has got there on the lake.”

Coburn’s hand formed a fist. Through gnashed teeth, he said, “You hurt that little girl and—”

“Her fate is up to you, not me.”

Honor still had her fingers clamped over her lips. Above them, her eyes were watery, wide, and stark with anguish. Entering into a pissing contest with Doral wouldn’t get Emily returned to her unharmed. Although it galled him, he dispensed with the threats and asked what the terms were for getting Emily back.

“Simple, Coburn. You disappear. She lives.”

“By disappear, you mean die.”

“You’re nothing if not smart.”

“Smart enough to survive the car bomb.”

Doral didn’t address that. “Those are the terms.”

“Your terms suck.”

“Nonnegotiable.”

Mindful of the time he’d been on a phone that might possibly be traced, Coburn asked, “Where and when?”

Doral told him where to go, what time to be there, and what to do when he arrived. “You follow these instructions, Honor drives away with Emily. Then it’s you and me, pal.”

“I can hardly wait,” Coburn said. “But one last thing.”

“What?”

“Since you’ve botched everything so bad, why are you still breathing? The Bookkeeper must have a reason for keeping you alive. Think about it.”


Doral disconnected, muttering a stream of vile language.

Coburn was playing him. He was well aware of that. But Coburn was good at it.

Because he had tapped into Doral’s worst fear: He was nothing more than a flunky, and after everything that had gone wrong over the past seventy-two hours, an expendable one.

He looked over his shoulder into the backseat where Emily was sleeping, dosed with the Benadryl that he had given her so she wouldn’t be afraid or put up a fuss when it became clear to her that Uncle Doral had fibbed about why he’d taken her in the middle of the night from Tori’s lake house.

Just as he’d pulled the trigger to end Tori’s life, a piping voice came from behind him. “Hi, Uncle Doral.”