Free Wolf in the Shadows by Marcia Muller

4
New York Times
.
    Renshaw went on, “Finally Kessell—Dan Kessell, my partner—hit on the idea of an irrevocable international letter of credit
     drawn on Phoenix’s bank account here to whatever foreign company they specified. And they went for it. Apparently they knew
     somebody they could trust at a firm, Colores Internacional in Mexico City.”
    “You checked them out, of course.”
    “Yeah. Fairly good-sized operation, makes silk flowers, crap like that. Privately held by a member of one of Mexico’s wealthy
     families, Emanuel Fontes. Fontes is an environmentalist, has donated to a number of causes, particularly ones having to do
     with the protection of marine mammals.”
    “Dolphins. Interesting.”
    “What’s even more interesting is that Fontes’s brother, Gilbert, owns a large tuna-fishing fleet headquartered in Ensenada.
     Diametrically opposed viewpoints there, and bad blood between them.”
    “Bad enough blood to make Emanuel an extremist?”
    “We’ve kicked the thought around.”
    “Have you tried to get the Mexican authorities to lean on him, find out if he’s connected with any of the fringe groups?”
    Renshaw looked at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses. “Down there, where you never know who’s involved in what? No, we
     backed off and set it up. The objective was to get the victim back alive; then we’d let the authorities go after the kidnappers—that
     is, if we didn’t take care of them first.” He smiled grimly. “Ripinsky was to make the drop; we hoped he might be able to
     identify somebody. They went through the usual nonsense: go to this phone booth, wait for another call. Finally they named
     the location—that turnoff in San Benito County.”
    “What happened down there, do you know?”
    “I know. And that was the first time I had a funny feeling about Ripinsky. According to him, there was another car in the
     turnoff when he arrived. Its driver panicked, forced him into the boulder, and took off. Ripinsky waited, but nobody else
     ever showed.”
    “But you don’t believe that.”
    “At the time I did, but like I said, I had a funny feeling. Anyway, Ripinsky came back here and we waited some more. Didn’t
     take the kidnappers long to reestablish contact. They wanted to move the drop south, said Ripinsky should check into a place
     on Hotel Circle in San Diego and they’d call him on Sunday. That gave us real cause for concern.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it indicated they might’ve taken Mourning into Mexico. If they reneged on setting him free once they had the L.C.,
     there’d be no way we could recover him by force. In most foreign countries, we work either with or around the authorities,
     but not down there. After last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it’s okay to snatch criminals from foreign jurisdictions
     to stand trial here, Mexico quit cooperating completely. The political situation’s just too damned volatile for us to go in
     on our own. Company policy says we don’t set foot south of the border.”
    “I see. So Ripinsky flew to San Diego that night?”
    “Uh-huh. One of our operatives dropped him off at SFO and returned his rental car.”
    “He had the letter of credit with him?”
    “Damn right he did.”
    “Did he contact your people in La Jolla?”
    “He did not. Too risky, in case the kidnappers had him under surveillance. We know he checked into the motel, the Bali Kai,
     and on Sunday he sent a message through a woman friend of mine on Point Loma, saying the drop was set for eleven P.M. And that’s the last we ever heard. Ripinsky checked out of the motel with the two-million-dollar L.C. and vanished. His rental
     car didn’t even turn up.”
    I masked my surge of concern by asking, “Has the L.C. been drawn upon?”
    “No. We’re monitoring Phoenix’s bank account minute by minute.”
    “Any chance Ripinsky met with foul play before he could make the drop?”
    “That’s possible, but not too damn likely.