Free Taken by Robert Crais Page B

time anyone has seen her. Today, six days later, I found this note and her driver’s license ten yards from the wreckage.”
    He glanced at the note again, and frowned. This time when he offered it back, I took it.
    “You believe she had contact with this person, Sanchez?”
    “Maybe, but I don’t know. Either way, she wrote this note for a reason, so I want to ask him about it. I need a first name to find him.”
    Locano nodded, but more to himself than me.
    “I would like to help you, Mr. Cole, but this business you speak of is not what it was.”
    “Are you telling me no one comes north anymore?”
    “Of course people come, but the guides I knew are gone. The old guides were a cousin who had come to work the seasonal crops, or an in-law who came to visit relatives. If you gave them a few dollars they would help you, as much out of friendship as for the money, but the cartels and their hoodlums have changed this. They patrol the roads like an army to control the movement of guns and drugs, and now nothing comes north without their permission.”
    “Including the coyotes?”
    “Transporting people is big business now. Groups from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East find passage to Central America, and are taken north through Mexico in large groups. The new coyotes don’t even call them people. They are
pollos
. Chickens. Not even human.”
    “Coyotes eat chickens.”
    “Not only chickens, but each other, and each other’s chickens. Do you know what a
bajadore
is?”
    “A bandit?”
    “A bandit who steals from other bandits. These are usually members of different cartels, a Baja stealing from a Zeta, a member of the Tijuana cartel stealing from a Sinaloa or La Familia. They steal each other’s drugs, guns, and
pollos
—whatever can be sold. They even steal each other.”
    “Sold. As in slavery?”
    “Sold as in ransom. These poor people have already paid their money to the coyote, then they are kidnapped by the
bajadores
. They have nothing, so the
bajadores
demand ransom from their families. I do not know people like this. When they are arrested, I do not represent them.”
    I felt my mouth dry as I took in what he told me.
    “Nita received two calls from Krista and a male individual, the man demanding a fee for Krista’s return. Nita transferred the money, but Krista is still missing.”
    Locano’s eyes grew darker.
    “Nita said nothing of an abduction.”
    “Nita believes it’s a joke or a scam. They only asked for five hundred dollars.”
    Locano looked even more disturbed.
    “This is small to you and a woman with a successful business, but it is a fortune to a family counting pennies. We are talking about poor people. A few hundred, a thousand, another five hundred. The
bajadores
know with whom they are dealing.”
    “It still seems so little.”
    “Multiply it times a thousand. Two thousand. The number of people abducted would astound you, but such abductions are rare on U.S. soil. Let’s hope Nita is right.”
    Neither of us spoke for a moment, neither of us moved as I listened to the voices in his outer office, his wife speaking with one of the younger attorneys.
    “Mr. Locano, you may not know this man, but you might know someone who does, or who can find out. Ask around. Please.”
    He stared at me, and I could tell he was thinking. He tapped the arm of his chair, then called to his wife.
    “Liz. Would you show Mr. Cole to the restroom, please?”
    He stood, and I stood with him as his wife appeared in the door.
    “Take your time. Wash thoroughly. It is important to be clean, don’t you agree?”
    “It’s important to be clean.”
    “Take your time.”
    Elizabeth Locano graciously showed me to the restroom, where I took my time. It was a nice restroom, with large framed photographs of the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacán in southern Mexico, what the Aztecs called the City of the Gods. It was and remains one of the most beautiful cities ever built, and one I have always wanted to