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There were children.
Crouching fearfully on stained mattresses were about a dozen twelve- or thirteen-year-old girls. Relief flowed through me as I put my light on their tragic faces and realized that they weren’t my kids.
Then the relief disappeared as my dread flooded back. If my guys weren’t here, then where the hell were they?
CHAPTER 97
A FIVE-TRUCK CONTINGENT of Mexican federales and military had arrived by the time we raced back to the main house. Inside, six or seven Mexican soldiers were standing out in front of the door to the office where Perrine had been secured.
“What the hell is going on?” I said to Emily, who had her phone to her ear.
“The Mexicans are claiming they need to interrogate Perrine. Washington told us to back off. We had to let them.”
“Is Perrine conscious?” I asked.
“I think so. Just barely,” Emily said.
“I need to talk to him, Emily,” I said as I walked toward the office. “My family wasn’t up at that house. They didn’t come in on that second plane. I need to know where they are.”
“Calm down, Mike. You’ll get your chance,” Emily whispered. “Sit tight and let the honchos hash it out first. This is a delicate situation.”
“Not gonna happen,” I said, turning and marching past her, toward the guards. “No more hashing.”
A crackerjack-looking, silver-haired Mexican soldier in a beret stepped in front of the door with his hands behind his back as I approached.
“May I help you?” he said with a smile.
“I’m United States law enforcement,” I said, showing him my federal badge. “That man has been placed under arrest by me, and I need to speak with my prisoner.”
His smile didn’t waver.
“Impossible,” he said as his men stepped up beside him menacingly. “This is Mexican soil and a Mexican matter. If you persist in annoying me, I shall be forced to place you under arrest.”
I stared at him, trying to figure his angle. Will they try to take Perrine? I thought. Is that it?
I turned at a sound behind me to find my new Delta Force pals filling the hallway.
“Well, if you continue annoying my buddy,” said the monster soldier who’d smashed in the lake house door, “me and my friends will be forced to place you fellas underground, comprende? Now open that door!”
That was when it happened.
From the other side of the door came a crisp, sudden POP!
I bulled my way in past the Mexican colonel and through the door.
Perrine was still sitting on the stretcher we’d brought him in on, with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was shot through the head, and his brains were blown out against the marble lintel of the fireplace.
Another colonel inside the office shrugged as he holstered his pistol.
“I had no choice. He was trying to escape.”
I realized it then. They were cleaning up. Perrine knew too much. About the government, how far the corruption went. And still my family was missing. They’d killed the only man who knew where they were. Would this nightmare never end?
I lunged for the bastard who’d killed Perrine, but I didn’t get a foot before someone grabbed me from behind. There was a lot of shoving, a lot of cursing in two languages, but it finally died down. I started shaking as I broke free and headed for the mansion’s back door to the backyard, where they had just brought some of the Salvajes cartel guys they’d captured.
Someone is going to tell me where my family is, I thought as I reached for the handle of the French door.
I hadn’t gotten it halfway open when Emily slammed into me. She was grinning as she shoved a phone into my hand. I put it to my ear.
