Pedralez swiveled his head like a praying mantis and scanned the low rooftops. Three snipers, placed at different locations, made no effort to hide. He sat down again.
“It seems you don’t believe entirely in the forces of fate. What do you want?”
“I simply want to know who owns the Baja Tortilla factory.”
“I do, of course. It’s quite profitable, really.”
“What about the underwater laboratory in the cove? What do you know about that?”
“I’m a busy man, Mr. Austin, so I will tell you the story, and then we will part. Two years ago somebody came to me. A lawyer from San Diego. He had a proposition. Someone wanted to build a factory. They would pay for its construction, and I would take all the profits. There were conditions. It had to be isolated, and it had to be on the water.”
“I want to know what was built in the water.”
“I don’t know. A large ship came. There were guards. They brought something into the cove and deliberately sank it. Connections were made to the factory. People came and went. I asked no questions.”
“What do you know about the explosion?”
He shrugged. “Someone called afterward and said not to worry. They would make good on my loss. That’s all I know. The police don’t care.”
“This lawyer who handled the deal, what was his name?”
“Francis Xavier Hanley. Now I must go. I have told you all I can.”
“Yes, I know, you’re a busy man.”
Pedralez waved his hand. The men got up from the tables and formed a corridor to the sidewalk on either side of him. The Mercedes appeared out of nowhere; the door opened with machinelike precision. The bodyguards piled into two Jeep Cherokees ahead of and behind the Mercedes.
“Mr. Pedralez,” Austin called out. “A deal’s a deal. You forgot the pistols.”
Enrico answered with a mirthless smile. “Keep them,” he said, and added a few more words. He got into the back of the car, shut the door, and zoomed down the street. Austin was sweating, and it wasn’t just from the heat. The junky cab pulled up in front of him and tooted the horn.
Austin slid in the passenger side and looked around in amazement. “Where’d you get this rig?”
“Agent Gomez was nice enough to have it waiting for me. It’s got a hot engine and all kinds of radio gear I used to let our friends know where you were. I’m going to hate to give it up. Did Mr. Pedralez say anything?”
Austin held up the pistol case. “Yeah, he told me the next time I came to Tijuana to be sure these things are loaded.”
14
THE SCENE WAS so awe inspiring in its terrible beauty that Trout almost forgot the predicament he and Gamay were in. Paul sat on a rocky ledge about twenty feet above the lake, long legs dangling down, swiveling his head back and forth to take in the whole panoramic sweep. He had to strain his neck to see the tops of the falls. Multiple rainbows arced over the five cascades as the sun caught the droplets of water in the twisting vapor cloud that rose for hundreds of feet. The roar was like that of a hundred distant locomotives at full steam. Trout wasn’t a religious man, but if anything was the Hand of God, he was looking at it.
A groan ended his reverie. “What are you doing?” Gamay said with a yawn. She was lying nearby in the shade of a tree.
“Thinking what a great place this would be to build a hotel.”
“Ugh,” Gamay said with a scowl. She sat up and wiped the sweat from her face. “Make sure you have air conditioning.”
It had rained briefly an hour before, and the sun returned with a vengeance. Their perch was well shaded by trees and bushes, and they slept for a time, but there was no way to escape the suffocating humidity. Paul was the first to awake.
“I’ll get you some water,” Paul said. He fashioned a palm leaf into a cup, climbed down to the lake, and scooped up water in the makeshift container. He spilled half the contents bringing it to Gamay, who was trying to pick blades of grass from her ratty-looking hair. She guzzled the water, her eyes closed in bliss, then passed what was left to Paul.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “That was refreshing. I hope you won’t mind if I take a dip in our water supply.” She climbed down to the lake, plunged in, and swam out several strokes.
Paul was thinking of joining Gamay after he had quenched his thirst, when a movement near
the river outlet caught his eye. He called out a warning, but Gamay couldn’t hear him because of the rumble of the falls. He climbed down, half falling, to the water’s edge and dove in. He swam out to Gamay, who was peacefully floating on her back, and grabbed her by her T-shirt.
Gamay was startled at first, then she laughed. “Hey, this is no time to get playful.”