Requiem, page 18
Soon they were following the taxi north on Vista Hermosa, but it was gaining distance in the traffic. Roha leaned forward in her seat, telling Antonio to not let them out of sight. They threaded west across the city, splitting Zone 9 and Zone 10, snaking through traffic, #599 coming in and out of view.
Then #599 got onto CA-9, the Transoceanic Highway—a fast-moving, multilane freeway bisecting the country and the city. They were headed southwest; traffic was heavy. For a few miles, Antonio did well, weaving in and out, keeping close to #599. But then brake lights began to glow in all lanes. Traffic tightened and slowed to a crawl.
Up ahead, #599 changed lanes several times. Large trucks and buses obscured their view of it, as it advanced in the logjam, putting distance and vehicles between them.
Then they saw flashing emergency lights; a tractor trailer had jackknifed and overturned, blocking lanes and creating a choke point. Police were funneling traffic from several lanes to one. More than a dozen cars ahead, #599 disappeared around the wreck, just as a bus cut off Antonio, bringing their solid lane of traffic to a stop.
“We’ve lost them,” Wyatt cursed.
“Hang on, Ray.” Roha got on her phone to Diaz, and after a quick conversation, spoke quickly in Spanish to Antonio. Horns blared as he did his best to cut ahead around the bus, to get free around the wreck. But they were mired. After Roha spoke to him, he nodded, reached for his microphone and spoke to his dispatcher.
“Most drivers have personal phones,” Roha said. “Diaz suggested Antonio ask his dispatcher for the phone number of the driver now on duty in #599. Then Antonio can call him.”
A few moments later, Antonio’s phone rang. He spoke briefly. Then, while driving closer to the wreck, he pressed his phone to his ear and began speaking again.
A few seconds later, he shared his conversation with Roha.
“Turns out, he knows the guy now driving #599. I guess they played soccer together as kids. His name is Hugo,” Roha told Wyatt.
Antonio nodded. “Sí. Hugo.”
Roha said, “He asked Hugo if he wanted to meet for something to eat after his next fare. Then in a friendly way, he asked where Hugo’s next fare was ending and maybe they could meet him there. So, we have a destination. It’s Villa Nueva, southwest of the city near the lake.”
“The lake?”
“Lake Amatitlán,” Roha said.
Wyatt took a moment, then said, “Good. Bueno.”
At that point, they cleared the accident. Antonio accelerated on the freeway, with Wyatt and Roha searching for #599.
As they rolled southwest, Wyatt was relieved that Antonio knew where the Becks were heading. Why a lake? But he remained uneasy about not having them in sight. And the puzzling events in Zone 15 gnawed at him. Staring at his phone, he contemplated calling McDade, but decided against it.
We made it this far on our own. I’m so close. I feel it.
He swiped to his favorite photos of Lisa and Danny, drawing strength from them.
Wyatt estimated they’d gone about 10 miles before they left the expressway for the city of Villa Nueva. In the distant hills, they saw the Pacaya volcano. After a series of turns through the city, they passed the Mayan Golf Club, took an exit off a roundabout, continuing to Calle Amatitlan.
But no sign of #599.
No sign of any taxi.
A motorcycle raced around them, disappearing along the road ahead.
Wyatt grew nervous, and Roha pressed Antonio to confirm Hugo had taken this route because they saw no other taxis.
“Sí, sí,” Antonio said.
Slightly elevated, Calle Amatitlan ran parallel to the lakeshore, in a narrow, paved roadway. Nearly canopied with lush forest growth and palms, it wound alongside the privacy walls and gates of the cottages and villas dotting the waterfront. Only their rooftops and satellite dishes were visible.
They rounded a curve.
Roha gasped.
Wyatt caught his breath.
On the right, taxi #599 was parked in front of a locked gate at one of the properties—a fortress protected by high gray-and-beige stone privacy walls, all of it topped with razor wire.
Antonio parked behind the taxi. They got out. The yowls of angry dogs spilled over from the other side of the gate. The driver, Hugo, was alone in his taxi, talking on his phone, preparing to turn and leave. He stopped when they stood in front of his car.
After a quick conversation with Antonio and Roha, Hugo confirmed that he’d just dropped off a man, a woman, and a boy from Zone 15.
Wyatt looked for an intercom, or bell, on the gate to call. That prompted Hugo to warn them in Spanish.
“Ray,” Roha said. “Hugo said the dogs are dangerous. Vicious. And there are private security guards with guns inside.”
Wyatt climbed to the roof of Antonio’s taxi and looked over the gate.
The dogs growled.
Through the razor wire, he saw a building, then a cluster of smaller buildings—probably a boathouse. In the gaps, where the property sloped to meet the water, a long dock extended out over the lake. On land, at the dock’s start, he saw the Becks, with Danny. They were talking to a man who appeared to be examining their documents. Another man standing nearby appeared to be waiting to take their bags to the end of the dock and load them onto a waiting seaplane.
“They’re getting ready to fly out!” Wyatt said to the others.
“Fly out?” Roha said.
“On a seaplane!”
With the high razor-wired walls surrounding the property, the dogs, and armed guards, there was no chance Wyatt could climb over the wall and run down to the dock. Farther down the shore, where it curved around a small cove, Wyatt surveyed neighboring cottages.
A large motorboat was docked at one nearby.
He hopped down.
“We have one chance to stop them. Get in the car. Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 59
Guatemala
Jack Clay and Leon Palma came up from the dock heading for Clay’s Jeep.
“It’s a beautiful boat, Jack.”
Clay had shown his friend, Palma, a Guatemalan Army colonel, his new SuperXT Glider, a 27-foot motorboat with twin inboard engines.
“We love it,” said Clay, a former U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel from Virginia. “It’s the icing on our retired life here. Been three years now.”
“I told you when I was in Washington, you’d love this place.”
“It’s been a dream, my friend,” Clay said as they got into his Jeep.
The men were going to the Mayan Golf Club to join their wives.
“Yes, it’s been a dream.” Clay repeated. “Except for the Morales place up the road.”
“What about it?”
“The widow sold it, almost two years ago now. Looks like the people who bought it turned it into a vacation rental. Now with that floatplane you saw, flying in and out all the time, I don’t know what’s truly going on. I mean, it’s likely legitimate, but I don’t know.”
“It could also be a front for smugglers, or cartels,” Palma said. “I could make some calls, Jack. See what I can find out.”
“Sure.” Clay shrugged. “But I got protection in the house, the boat.”
“Berettas?”
Clay nodded. “And a couple of ARs. We’re good. Lately, some of the owners were thinking of hiring private security, too. Like everybody else.”
He eased the Jeep up to his gate and pressed the remote control on his visor. The steel gate automatically opened.
“What the f—?” Clay said.
A taxi wheeled up to block the entrance.
Wyatt and Roha got out waving their arms, Roha pleading in Spanish for help.
Clay nodded for Palma to open the glove box and remove his gun as a precaution, while he ordered Roha and Wyatt to keep their distance.
“Stop. Just keep your hands where I can see them,” Clay said.
Quickly, Roha explained that they were American journalists pursuing an illegal child-abduction network; that at this moment, a child-smuggling operation involving foreign nationals was taking place up the road; that an escape by seaplane was imminent; and that they needed help with a boat now.
“Because the child is his son!” Roha pleaded.
Clay asked for Roha and Wyatt’s identification while Palma kept the Beretta close. They showed IDs for True Signal News, and their driver’s licenses.
After a moment of quiet discussion between Clay and Palma, two veteran soldiers, Clay switched off the Jeep’s motor and closed the gate.
“Damn! Gives us a story to tell our wives,” Clay said. “Let’s get to the boat.”
As the four of them trotted to the dock, with Roha telling Palma more details, Palma took out his phone and made emergency calls. All of them got into the motorboat. Wyatt and Roha untied the ropes. Clay started the SuperXT Glider; its twin engines grumbled to life, and they eased away from the dock.
Clay then pushed the throttle forward, the bow rose, and the 500-horsepower craft sliced through the water directly toward the seaplane, less than a quarter mile away. As they approached, their view of the plane’s dock improved. They saw a child, a man, and a woman board the seaplane, saw the doors close. Seconds later, the plane’s single engine started and someone at the dock cast off the tie ropes.
As the boat got nearer, Clay passed a key to Palma, pointing to storage areas where he kept two ARs and ammo.
“Get them ready, Leon. Just in case!”
It may have been because the plane’s pilot spotted the boat, but the plane began taxiing and gaining speed to lift off.
“We won’t make it! We can’t stop them to talk!” Clay shouted over the engines and the wind to Wyatt and Roha.
“Stop it from taking off!” Wyatt said. “Whatever it takes!”
Clay glanced toward his guns, which Palma had readied, and kept his boat on a collision course with the plane.
“Everybody hang on to something. Now!”
Clay turned the boat sharply half a football field in front of the plane, peeling a massive curtain of water from the surface while carving a deep wake. To counter it, the pilot throttled the plane. But the huge wake early during takeoff forced the plane to prematurely become airborne, lift roughly from the water, and then slam down, teetering. One of the wings sliced into the water and broke off, twisting and flipping the plane. The prop churned water until the engine stalled.
Turning the boat, Clay headed to the crash, slowing as they came upon the wreckage. The cockpit was upside down, submerged and slowly sinking. Pulling alongside, Wyatt and Palma jumped into the water.
Gulping air, swimming below the surface, they worked on opening the doors. They glimpsed Hanna struggling upside down in her seat belt. The pilot and Deiter were unconscious; so was the boy.
The impact had crumpled the fuselage, making it difficult to open the doors. Palma and Wyatt surfaced. Clay passed them a claw hammer from his toolbox and a large knife.
Palma and Wyatt submerged. Using the hammer and pulling, they got the doors open. Palma cut the seat belts with the knife. The angle and seating meant first Hanna swam free, pulling Deiter behind her to the surface, while Palma grabbed the pilot.
Last, alone and unconscious, was the boy.
Danny.
Wyatt was out of air; his lungs were bursting.
Suddenly, the cockpit began shifting and sinking.
His ears pulsing, his heart drumming, he summoned every degree of his strength. He could hear Lisa’s voice as he swam down, reached into the cockpit, seized Danny’s arm, and pulled.
I lost you once. I won’t lose you again.
Kicking, stroking, Wyatt ascended to the light, breaking the water’s surface. Gasping, swallowing air, he immediately began giving Danny mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, as the others pulled them onto the boat. Wyatt continued CPR and mouth-to-mouth until Danny coughed, spit out water, and opened his eyes.
Wyatt took Danny into his arms.
Roha shrouded them with a towel, embracing them.
Palma held Hanna at gunpoint, as she watched over Deiter and the pilot, who also coughed up water, while Clay guided his boat to his dock.
Along the shoreline, they saw the flashing lights of the police.
Wyatt held his son the whole time, never letting go.
CHAPTER 60
In Guatemala City, about the time Wyatt and Roha’s taxi had left the hillside community to pursue the Becks, the police action on the house of Cristina Yaqui’s employers was proving fruitless.
The search had yielded no evidence of a childcare center, let alone an illegal adoption network.
“You’re making a big mistake! I want to call my lawyer!” the señor, handcuffed with his family and Cristina, continued calling out to officers.
“Please, you have the wrong house!” the señora shouted, while comforting her handcuffed children.
Cristina clenched her eyes shut, convinced the raid was retaliation for her attempt to help her nephew, for which she would go to prison.
The family’s protests and the unsuccessful search prompted commanders of the PNC and Interpol teams to double-check the information on the warrant. To their horror, their respective copies differed, giving them two different addresses. Calls were made to confirm that the correct address of their target was, in fact, linked to the property a short distance down the road.
Urgent commands were issued over radios, but by the time they shifted the operation to the correct address, Ernesto Ruiz Ayala, was gone.
The property was empty.
Children’s toys, food, and clothing were everywhere—clear evidence of a childcare center and front for an adoption network.
A check with the police helicopter patrolling overhead showed its video camera had captured a vehicle departing the Ayala property moments earlier. A replay of the recording enabled police to get a visual on the fleeing vehicle, strong enough to track it and issue an alert.
Moments later, on Vista Hermosa, patrol cars surrounded and blocked the SUV in a dramatic stop. Ernesto Ruiz Ayala—the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, a global fugitive, wanted for murder and other charges—was pulled out at gunpoint, arrested, and handcuffed.
***
Miles away at Lake Amatitlán, German nationals Hanna and Deiter Beck had survived their plane crash in their failed attempt to flee the country illegally with a trafficked child. They faced numerous charges after the initial police investigation showed they had planned to fly to Belize City, then to Miami, and on to Europe.
Using counterfeit documents and helped by corrupt officials bribed by Ayala’s network, the Becks conspired to deliver the child to an individual in Paris, where they would offer the child for “adoption” in exchange for a large payment.
Further investigation, aided by authorities in Munich, Germany, showed the Becks were planning to repeat their enterprise by targeting wealthy individuals around the world who were grieving the loss of a child.
In Paris, when French police arrived at Tamina’s home, she was waiting with three powerful attorneys, ready to defend her position that she had no idea of, and no connection to, any criminal activities by the Becks.
For his part, Ayala faced extradition to the United States, where he would stand trial for the murder of Wanda Stroud, and a range of other human-trafficking charges, supported by the investigations of law enforcement in several countries.
Ayala’s house in Zone 15, and his administrative office, Servicio De Manera Clara, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, underwent processing by local teams, supported by FBI evidence experts.
Their work yielded records that helped McDade at the FBI, along with police around the world, arrest a number of key players in Ayala’s network. Among them was the man who ultimately confessed to abducting Danny during the chaos of the hotel fire in Banff, Alberta, and fleeing Canada with him.
The records also helped locate other children stolen by Ayala’s network and ultimately reunite them with their true families in São Paulo, London, Madrid, San Antonio, and many other cities.
Investigations also led to the arrests of ranking immigration officials, attorneys, and law enforcement officials in Belize, Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Brazil, the U.S., and Europe, including many police officers in Guatemala City who were above Detective Sebastian Cruz.
***
In the time that followed, Guatemala’s interior minister, who oversaw the PNC, issued an apology for the botched raid on the house of Cristina Yaqui’s employers.
In the flow of media reports on the story, the role Cristina Yaqui had played emerged. She soon became a hero on social media. Cruz and the public defender, Karen Ceto, praised her. So did the FBI in Los Angeles, who supported editorials and calls for the U.S. government to offer to bring Cristina and her nephew to the United States—in gratitude for her courage, and to escape any risk of retribution in Guatemala.
Ceto was successful in getting the court to give Samuel Yaqui a three-month suspended sentence for his crime, which passed quickly after the time served, starting with his arrest, was included.
In the U.S., nonprofit groups helped Cristina find a home and a job, helped Samuel with school, and both of them with a path to citizenship.
***
In California, Colleen Eden led the drive to have a memorial plaque honoring Wanda Stroud placed in the flower bed at a park near her home in Downey.
Wanda’s neighbors and friends raised close to $100,000 to start a foundation in Wanda’s name, dedicated to protecting children around the world.
***
McDade returned to Manhattan to follow up on any remaining tentacles of the Hydra case, while working on her other investigations out of the FBI’s New York headquarters.
Whenever they could, McDade and her daughter, Alison, would go out to Queens to visit Ray Wyatt, Danny, and Molly.
***
In the immediate aftermath of the rescue, Guatemalan police and social welfare officials had taken custody of Danny Wyatt.
With the help of the U.S. Embassy, a required DNA test was done, proving Wyatt was Danny’s father. At the same time, embassy officials, working with their counterparts in Guatemala, Washington, D.C., and New York, arranged for all official documentation to be expedited.
