He hesitated. “No, I’ve set up other files for him that concerned drugs and arms. He was more careful with this one.”
Lassiter leaned forward. “And you think you may have guessed why,” he said softly. “Haven’t you, Zwecker?”
Zwecker didn’t speak for a moment. “Powerful men have different needs than other people. Nicos might have wanted a place to— What do I know? I’m just guessing.”
“And what are you guessing?”
“Salva had me add this heading a few months ago.” He pointed at the bottom of the document. “EXIT. A substantial amount of money was allotted at that time.”
“About the time that the food-supply orders reflected a drop of three,” Lassiter said. “They had three deaths and had to arrange to make the bodies permanently vanish. Nicos wouldn’t have wanted any evidence connecting them to him if the camp was discovered. I’m sure the corpses were gruesome in the extreme.” He shook his head. “And you ‘guessed’ what was going on and you didn’t do anything about it.”
“I had to protect myself.” He moistened his lips. “I didn’t actually know anything.”
“Oh, I think you did,” Lassiter said softly. “Those guesses were a little too accurate. You’ve been studying this file for a long time and you had plans for it. Let’s see, I don’t think you have the nerve to try to blackmail Nicos. What’s another option?”
Zwecker shook his head.
Lassiter thought about it. “I don’t know about the other prisoners, but if they have as much potential as Patrick, then that detention camp could be a pot of gold. Nicos didn’t care how much money those prisoners were worth. He had his own agenda. But it would be enough to dazzle someone on the outside. Did you know how much money I offered to ransom Patrick?”
“No. How could I know that?” he asked quickly.
“Monitoring. Hacking.” He paused. “Or maybe someone who had been told how much the merchandise they were holding was worth leaked it to you. Maybe to emphasize to you how carefully it had to be guarded.”
“You’re only making wild guesses. I’m cooperating. Let me go. I’ve told you all I know.”
“You’ve told me enough so that you were hoping I’d not dig any deeper. I’m digging deeper. I think you’ve been planning this scheme for quite a while. But you had to be sure of your facts and knew you might need an accomplice. It wouldn’t be anyone close to Nicos.…” His finger went down the screen to the STAFF heading. “Twenty-two. Monsters every one. You knew what they were doing to those prisoners. Which one were you going to share the booty with, Zwecker?”
He was silent.
“I’ll give you thirty seconds.” He took out the knife. “I believe I’ll skip breaking the finger first. You’re annoying me.”
“No!” Zwecker was breathing hard, his gaze fixed compulsively on the knife. “Don’t be a hard-ass. What I did wasn’t all that bad. I needed help. Some of those prisoners could be ransomed. At least three would bring in a fortune. If I couldn’t blackmail Nicos, I could go in another direction. Hell, it would even be the humanitarian thing to do.”
“I’m touched. Which guard did you make a deal with?”
He hesitated and then brought up a photo on the screen. The man was in his early forties, with craggy features, a broken nose, blue eyes, and a white-blond crew cut. “Lars Brukman. He’s in charge of the Nalsara Detention Camp and is a favorite of Nicos. He’s been down there for over four years and gets the highest pay. He’s a former mercenary and he’s tough enough to run the camp efficiently. But he’s tired of being stuck down there in the jungle and he liked the idea of the ransom.” He smiled tentatively. “We would have let you buy back Sean Patrick. We’d even talked about it. Maybe we could still make a deal?”
“Lars Brukman was also probably in charge of the torture they did on Patrick. What do you think?”
His smiled vanished. “Then what are you planning on doing with me?”
“I’m sending you back to Cancún under guard and letting you live … for now.” He got to his feet and moved toward the door. “I don’t know for how long. It depends on how many details you can give me about that camp and Lars Brukman. Where do you meet when you contact Brukman?”
“We either text or phone most of the time. When one of us wants to meet in person, I go down to Colombia. When Brukman’s not at the camp, he stays at a hotel on the coast at Puerto Ponce. It’s about sixty miles from the camp. We usually met at the bar off the lobby.”
“Then call him and tell him that you need to see him this evening. Tell him that you think you’ve negotiated a deal that will make you both rich. Set it up for eight tonight.”
He frowned. “Why can’t we make that the truth? Couldn’t we discuss an arrangement that would—”
Lassiter was across the room in seconds and knocked Zwecker crashing off his chair onto the floor. His voice was fierce as he glared down at him. “Listen, I’m within a heartbeat of breaking your neck. Eighteen months that you knew this was going on and what they were doing with those prisoners. Make the damn call.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Mandell said quietly. “You’re a bit upset. He’s got to be alive to make the call.”
Mandell was right. Lassiter was on the edge of violence and he had to control it. Zwecker and his cohort Brukman were as filthy as Nicos, and the knowledge of the torture and deaths they’d so casually accepted and the lives they’d played with during these months had made him go ballistic. Margaret was risking her life while those scum were calculating how to sell those people in Nicos’s death camp for the most money. He nodded jerkily. “And I’ll call Cambry and tell him to get the rest of the team down there to Puerto Ponce by tonight.” He turned and strode from the room and out onto the veranda.
He stood looking out at the sea for a moment before he made the call to Cambry. Things were beginning to flow together and he should be happier. But it had gone on too long and his nerves were raw. There was still too much to do in too short a time. He had to be at that airport in Montego Bay by tomorrow evening or Margaret might be killed. He had to pull Patrick out of that camp before he went to Montego Bay or the first thing Nicos would do after Margaret escaped would be to order Patrick killed.
“So what’s wrong, kid?” Lassiter had a sudden memory of Patrick, his eyes twinkling, sitting in that hotel room in Atlantic City all those years ago. “Too much for you? Hell, you’re only seventeen and you can do all kinds of hocus pocus to dazzle my buddies at the CIA and con the entire world. But you can’t straighten up and find a way to get through a few years in the army?” He added teasingly, “Need a little help? Maybe we can work it out together.”
“I don’t need help from anyone.”