“No,” she said. “I’ve been told you’re the one, and if that’s your fee, I’ll pay it. This is my husband’s life.”
As soon as he was on the road he made a telephone call to a man in Ensenada named Antonio Garza, and then another to a woman in Mexico City named Esmeralda Cruz. Next he dropped his car off in the underground parking structure at his condominium building and called to reserve a rental car. He bought all the insurance the rental company would sell him, and packed. A cab took him to the rental lot, and he put his two suitcases into the trunk.
Stahl was on the road to Mexico by noon. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry or uncomfortable when he crossed the border at San Ysidro. He told the border cop he was headed for a resort at the tip of Baja. The police made him open his trunk, but they didn’t go any further. They just watched him to see if he was nervous, and then waved him on. A man who had spent years rendering bombs safe was not easily flustered. And as a rule, people didn’t smuggle anything to the south. It was on the way home that the authorities would be more thorough. He met Antonio Garza in Ensenada, where Garza had set aside a room for him in his house.
Garza was a longtime colleague whom Stahl paid a retainer to remain available to help him in any operations in Mexico. Like Stahl, he had been a soldier and a cop and then had formed his own security company. He had a number of regular clients who paid his company to protect things of value—often a family business, but increasingly, as kidnappings had become more common, their sons and daughters. Garza was about six feet three and 240 pounds, and he conveyed the peculiar impression that he was in life as a kind of referee.
When Stahl and Garza walked into a restaurant near the beach for dinner, Garza took the manager aside and pointed out the spot that would be the best place for him to seat them. The manager seemed to believe this was good advice. During dinner the two men spoke in only the most general terms about the operation. It was only later at Garza’s house that they discussed the specific plan. Garza had people watching the mailbox rental store in Mexicali for the blue box, and each of them had Stahl’s photograph of the box on his cell phone. There would be a constantly changing group—some men, some women. As soon as they saw the box, they would follow the person who picked it up and try to find the place where Benjamin Glover was being held. When it was time to act, Stahl would do the work and Garza would be the driver. Stahl had been with a great many people in frightening situations. He had learned Antonio Garza was a man who would not let fear overpower his pride. Garza wouldn’t get nervous and drive off without him if things turned bad. Stahl knew that if he failed, he wouldn’t be alone when he died.
The call came after three days. A man in his thirties had picked up the blue box in Mexicali. He had walked around a corner and gotten into a pickup truck. He drove south and east to the town of Corazón de Maria, then delivered the box to a house in the center of town in the oldest section, near the old church and the town square.
Stahl and Garza left for Corazón de Maria the next morning. Corazón de Maria was a market town with a considerable population, but because there were no luxury hotels, it wasn’t a place where American tourists were common. If the kidnappers were expecting an American operative, Stahl would be spotted immediately. Garza dropped Stahl off at a ranch owned by a friend of his and went on alone. He arrived in late morning and rented an office on the top floor of a commercial building across the city square from the house where the money had been taken and then went back for Stahl.
They returned late at night. Garza helped move Stahl into the office and unload the items he expected to need and then drove off to Mexicali to wait. Stahl began his own surveillance. He placed a sixty-power marksman’s spotting scope a few feet back from the window so it was enveloped in shadows, and he watched from his vantage point high across the square.
The house was one of the colonial-era buildings that lined some of the streets radiating from the square. There was a wall with a rounded door set into it. The place was like others of that period he’d seen in market towns. Through the portal on the inner side was a garden enclosed by the wings of the house. The rooms were situated in a row, all of the doors opening onto the long covered porch that surrounded the garden.
Whenever the thick wooden door opened, he used the few seconds to stare through it and learn more. Then he focused on whoever went in or out. By the end of the first day he had seen six men and memorized their faces. He had also noticed they brought in a large quantity of groceries, including cases of beer and tequila, and brought out a large number of garbage bags, which they hauled away in a truck. He saw no women or children.
Stahl watched the house most of the time for six days, noting everything that went on. Late on the sixth night, when his office building was empty and there was no chance of being overheard, he called Antonio Garza. “I’m going in tomorrow night. Has Esmeralda arrived yet?”
“Two days ago. I picked her up at the airport.”
“Can you be here at two a.m.?”
“Yes. Why tomorrow night?”
“For the past couple of days, men have been leaving and not coming back. It looks like they’re getting started on another operation or something. There seem to be only two men guarding the house tonight. It’s not going to get better than that.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“They’re not taking precautions. They don’t hide, and they don’t seem to have any defense. I haven’t seen lookouts with cell phones watching the place from outside, and nobody seems to guard the door. You know what that could mean.”
“Yes. They could have somebody else protecting them. And what about Glover? You haven’t seen him yet. How do you know he’s not already dead?”
“If he were dead, there wouldn’t be much point in leaving any men here, not even two.”
“Maybe.” Garza didn’t sound convinced.
Stahl added, “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow night. Rain covers sounds and keeps people at home staying dry. The clouds cover the moon.”
“Where do you want the car?”
“Drive up the street by the back of the church, and wait for me to call.”
“All right. I’ll be there at two.”
At 2:00 a.m. the next night, Stahl walked in a light rain on the cobbled street leading off the square past a row of old colonial houses. When he reached the right house, he picked the front door lock, eased it open to keep its hinges from squeaking, and slipped inside. He was wearing a baseball cap to keep the rain out of his face and a gray raincoat to cover the items he was carrying—a short Steyr AUG-3 automatic rifle on a sling that let it hang muzzle downward, a pistol in his belt, and a razor-edge marine KA-BAR fighting knife with a black blade.
He stepped into the garden, which looked as he had expected from his distant surveillance. A low porch with a roof surrounded the grassy space, with tall leafy trees. The porch roof was covered with climbing bougainvillea that had scaled the beams and hidden the clay tiles. He moved along the covered porch, looking in each window.
Stahl was willing to take his time moving through the dark house. If he’d made a noise as he came through the door in the wall, he knew a sleeping man would probably ignore it unless there was another noise that indicated some sort of a pattern. Stahl felt ceramic tile beneath his feet. It made him happy, because he could walk across it silently.