“O. Oswaldo fucking Guerrero. El Diablo! You’ve sent Judd right into the hands of the Devil of Santiago!”
“Shit!” he hissed. “Are you saying Judd’s gone into Cuba?”
“I don’t know yet. I think so. He’s cooking up some convoluted backchannel. This is all your fault.”
“I didn’t send him to Cuba. You should be chewing out Landon Parker, not me.”
“Landon Parker didn’t pull me into this, you did,” she shot back.
“What’s Parker up to?”
“I have no idea,” she said.
“He’s going to fuck everything up,” he said.
“Fuck what up?”
“Jessica,” he calmed himself again. “Why is the goddamn State Department running operations in Cuba? What’s Parker’s game?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“I need you to find out.”
“No, sir, I’m out. I want nothing to do with this.”
59.
EASTERN CUBA
FRIDAY, 10:49 A.M.
Bound and hooded in the trunk of the antique Chevy, Judd tried to calm his breathing for the second time that day. His stomach rumbled. His neck throbbed. He pushed away the fake beard with his tongue and tried to moisten his lips. If the driver was going to kill me, I’d be dead already.
The engine of the old car whined as it climbed a hill. Judd used his feet to brace himself as he rolled toward the back of the trunk with a painful thud.
If he’s not going to kill me, then what? Ransom? Does the driver even know who I am? Did I get in the wrong taxi? Who is the driver? These questions raced through Judd’s mind in the darkness and stale air of the trunk.
The car drove for another fifteen minutes, methodically twisting and turning along a road that had become increasingly bumpy. I’m not heading into a city. He’s taking me farther into the wilderness.
Just as Judd decided his only course of action, the car rolled to a halt. Silence. The driver was in no rush. Then Judd heard the door open and slam shut. The man’s steady deliberate footsteps came closer. The trunk popped open.
“Take me to Oswaldo Guerrero!” Judd demanded through his hood.
The driver didn’t hesitate. He yanked Judd out of the trunk by his arms and dragged him away.
“You don’t know who you are dealing with!” Judd shouted. “I’m here to see Oswaldo Guerrero!”
The man pushed Judd forward. He could feel gravel under his feet give way to soft sand. As they walked farther, Judd could hear the gentle splashing of waves, could smell the sea air. Where am I being taken?
Judd trudged along the sand in silence until the man grabbed his wrists to hold him still. The sun was hot on Judd’s skin. Then Judd felt a violent shove and, unable to balance with his hands, he felt himself going down.
In the instant that he fell, he didn’t scream or yell or cry. He didn’t think about the cliff or the hole or the rocks that could be below. He didn’t think about Cuba or Landon Parker or his mission. In that flash of an instant, handcuffed and hooded, in the hands of an unknown assailant, in some unknown corner of a forgotten island, as he fell helplessly to his fate, the only image in his mind: Jessica.
That’s when Judd hit the soft rubber and bounced gently. An inner tube? Then the unmistakable sound of an outboard motor being started. Now what?
60.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA
FRIDAY, 11:08 A.M.
Mommy!” Noah whined from the pool.
Jessica didn’t hear it. She had just hung up the phone on the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. She had just told her boss—the man who held the future of her career in his hands, one of the most powerful men in Washington, one of the most powerful people in the world—to fuck off. She had refused to help him find out what Landon Parker was doing in Cuba. What Judd was doing. She had refused to spy on her own husband.
Was she being righteous? Or just stupid?
“Mommy! Mommy!” her son cried again, now standing next to her, soaking wet and dripping.
She had put herself at risk. Hell, Ricky Green had shot at her. He’d tried to run her down in his cigarette boat just the night before. But Jessica wasn’t worried about the risks to herself. She could handle that. What tore at her was the idea that she had put Judd in danger. That somehow her actions, even if she thought she was helping, had helped to deliver Judd into the arms of the Devil.
“Mommy!” Noah poked her.
“Yes, Noah,” she said, snapping out of her thoughts, “what is it? Are you hungry?”
“Cold,” he said as he danced in place, the water pooling in a puddle beneath him. His older brother Toby was still splashing obliviously in the pool.
“Well, let’s get you all nice and warm,” she said soothingly as she wrapped him in a large blue towel and pulled him onto her lap into a bear hug.
“Is that better?” she asked. “You’re all warm and safe now. Mommy’s got you.”
Noah nodded. “When’s Daddy coming?”
“Soon, baby.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, Noah.” She kissed him on his head. His hair smelled of coconut sunscreen and chlorine. “I hope Daddy’s coming soon, baby.”
61.