phone with contacts in Mexico and trying to get in touch with Laurent. He was noticeably unavailable, so I decided to stir the pot a bit. I can always find out more in person.”
“I imagine you can.”
“Anyway I drifted around Sonora and asked questions and tried to get a grasp on what was happening with the cartels and what and how they were moving their products.” He dropped down in an office chair and stretched his legs out before him. “Everyone was very guarded. And there were CIA operators that I recognized wherever I went. It wasn’t hard to realize that something very hot was brewing down there. So I went to Pedro Amadez, a source that I knew I could ‘persuade,’ and squeezed very hard about what that might be.”
“And you found?”
“Raul Delgado.”
“What?”
“You know the name?”
“Of course I do. Who doesn’t? Drug kingpin who controls half the drugs leaving Mexico and Central America.”
“And a good portion of Colombia and Venezuela. He’s a mega-billionaire and so powerful that he has more clout than the governments who are paying him just to stay in office.” He paused. “But he’s also had a target painted on his back for the last five years. There’s a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head placed there by the U.S. and Mexican governments, his brother was blown up in his home last year, his wife was shot six months ago. No one knows how many attempts have been made on Delgado himself by the cartels.”
“Am I supposed to be surprised? I’ve seen photos of his victims hanging by the neck off bridges.”
“But evidently Delgado has a highly developed instinct for self-preservation. He’s feeling cornered and doesn’t know who to trust among his Latin brothers. He decided a change was needed so that he could regain control.”
“What are you saying?”
“That Delgado wants to go to a place he’d feel safer and has made arrangements. Very careful and expensive arrangements. In a place not even in the same hemisphere.”
“Where?”
“Do you remember that we heard Dietrich had purchased a new home outside Moscow?”
Her eyes widened. “Dietrich is in this? Why?”
“Because when I went back and grilled Laurent again, he told me one other job at which Dietrich was known to be very good. Extraction. He’s spent time and effort on moving any number of unhappy people like Delgado and his followers to safe environments where they could prosper once again. He probably chose Moscow because there was no extradition and Delgado’s money would make him a king in its mafia underworld.”
“And that’s why Dietrich is here? He’s trying to move Delgado from Mexico to Russia? Why not just hop a plane?”
“Because Delgado is reputed to be paranoid and doesn’t trust anyone but a so-called expert like Dietrich. Though I’m sure Dietrich has been told he’ll be sliced into little pieces by Delgado’s men if anything about his plan doesn’t come off as it should. According to my source, Pedro, the word is Delgado has been moving from place to place around Mexico for the last few weeks. He’s either very nervous or he’s been waiting for word from Dietrich that everything is ready for him.”
“Here?” She was frowning. “Why on Earth would Dietrich choose this place in an exit strategy?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea if it’s here. My first thought was that Oceanside is directly on the ocean. And this place is now conveniently deserted. There are three entrances to enable someone to get on the property plus all the trees and flowering bushes to hide them once they pass the gates. If Dietrich found a safe way to get Delgado this far, then it would be easy to slip down to the coast to be picked up by a ship.”
“And Dietrich would probably arrange to make very sure that the captain could get close enough to the shore,” she said slowly. “Elaine’s email to Mr. Kim mentioned someone or something down at the shore that she felt uneasy about. Could it have been a meeting between the captain of a ship and Dietrich?” She shook her head in frustration. “Guesswork. We don’t know anything.”
“Except that whatever is going to happen will happen very soon.”
“Laurent didn’t know when?”
He shook his head. “Or where. He said Dietrich was a wild card and just when you thought you knew how a deal was going to go down, he went the other way. No one can say that anything Dietrich’s done here at the property has been an outstanding success. It should