The poor man didn’t know where C.E. Mason was taken. Although a bit more pressure encouraged him to blurt out: “Creo que a Venezuela.” To Venezuela.
“¿A que lugar en Venezuela?” Where in Venezuela?
“A esta dirección?” the man said. To this address, pointing to a sheet of paper on a nearby table.
Roger was opposed to gratuitously forfeiting of human life, so he hit the frightened man on the head with the top of the handle of the boot knife on just the right spot and intensity …show more content…
Why is someone kidnapped on vacation in Mazatlán? Then she produced an unlikely motive—DEA thinks it’s about moving drugs . . . I mean, trafficking conduits, routes . . . to get drugs across the U.S.-Mexican border. And somehow C.E. is connected with this as a facilitator of such trafficking into the U.S.”
Roger listened politely without challenging the thesis. He was, however, unhappy with her stubbornness and doubts about his own premise. Margarita still paced like a sleek panther about to pounce while she spoke: “Drug trafficking is a risky trade because it’s illegal and the DEA is gunning for drug traffickers on the U.S. side of the border and on the Mexico side in collaboration with the Mexican government. Smuggling risks can be reduced using freight rigs originating in Mexico to smuggle drugs, courtesy of NAFTA.”
“You’re implying smugglers are jockeying to smuggle drugs in Mack trucks hauling illegal merchandise,” Roger stated with skepticism. That’s an implausible idea. “I’m saying money for ransom was never a part of the equation and nobody wants to kill your husband. That doesn’t mean if we don’t find him—if the kidnappers get away with it—you’ll ever see your husband again. The fact is he’s got something they want and it’s not a cache of drugs. They have their eyes on his research. If anything, these people are going to make sure nothing bad happens to your …show more content…
Mason was in Puerto Vallarta until after the fact, but you make a convincing argument as to why my husband was kidnapped. Anyway, it seems that foreign spies heard remarkably quickly about NSL research. They assumed C.E. was the lead man on it—not Dr. Alex Cord, who in fact was—and now they want to acquire possession of it by force if necessary. They kidnapped the wrong man.” Roger concluded his soliloquy with: “Sorry!”
“Sorry?” Margarita echoed. “No need to be . . . I admire initiative. But I was skeptical about you for the job at the beginning, because you seemed off the rails after your accident—that unfortunate bump on your head—and you’ve been claiming, like a rabid madman, to know all things, so can you blame me for being a little cautious? Maybe, it’s I who needs to say sorry.”
She’s right, Roger thought. If it were me, I’d be cautious and skeptical about me, too: “You’re right to be cautious because you don’t know me from Adam."
“Then I apologize,” she said.
“Apology is accepted,” Roger responded thinking: It’s small and unbecoming to hold a