"Thanks for everything, Juan," I said with a handshake.
"Good luck, my friend."
Jack slipped him a wad of cash, and he hopped back in the car and drove off.
The bellhop tried to take our baggage, but I waved him off.
Isabella had provided fake passports for the trip. If anything went wrong, we were never here. At the front desk, I checked into the hotel under an assumed name, then paid with a prepaid debit card that couldn’t be traced to anybody.
The cute clerk programmed our cards, then slid them across the counter in a paper folio with the room number written on it.
I thanked her, then walked across the lobby, past the koi pond and the waterfall. The hotel was sleek and modern with stylish furniture and down-tempo music drifting from speakers.
We took the glass elevator up to the sixth floor and found our room. Inside, we took a moment to decompress after the journey. It was nearing sunset.
I tossed the briefcase that had been the source of all this trouble onto the desk and set my backpack beside it. I brought the essentials—breathable jungle camo, tactical boots, tactical vest, face paint, tactical helmet, night vision optics, along with toiletries, fresh underwear, bug spray, sunscreen, a few MREs, and anything else I thought I might need in a jungle environment. Nobody searched our baggage when we went through customs, and if they did, I would say I was planning on hiking through the jungle.
The first thing JD and I did was check the duffel bag full of goodies that Juan had provided. He'd certainly come through. Short-barreled AR-15s with suppressors and IR optics. Flash bang grenades, smoke grenades, fragmentation grenades, C4 and blasting caps. Everything we had asked for, including two tactical knives with anodized blades, a few extra magazines and boxes of ammunition, and a few burner phones. The kind of stuff that would put you in a local jail for a long time, unless of course you had the funds to pay your way out. Around here, that was always an option.
"How do you want to play this?" JD asked.
I’d been thinking about that all the way down. The kidnappers had sent an updated proof of life, which I had forwarded to Isabella. That’s how we found their location.
The video of Paisley was taken in the jungle during the day. Bound and gagged, she was dirty and disheveled. It looked like she hadn't had a bath in a week. Her hair was matted, her mascara almost completely worn off, and her cheeks stained. It looked like she’d lost weight, not that she had much to lose. Her dry, chapped lips were split. She may have been smacked around a time or two.
It made me sick to my stomach.
My hands balled into fists. I wanted to punch someone. The sounds of the jungle filled the background—birdsong, and thekraa-kraaof a parrot.
Isabella was unable to pull any metadata from the video file. But the kidnappers had made one mistake. I don't think they considered who they were dealing with. Isabella knew her stuff. And when she sets herself to a task, she never gives up. Among other things, she ran the audio from the video through a spectrum analyzer and referenced it against the AvianNet database. The AI-enhanced database matched the birdsong to the Yucatula Parrot. Endemic to the island, it was the only place in the world where the bird resided. With the stable environment of the island, there was no reason for the bird to migrate. Year-round, the island’s warm climate provided an abundance of fresh fruit, nuts, and seeds for the birds to feast on. With few natural predators, the parrots could live peacefully in the dense canopy of the jungle. Their relative weight compared to their wingspanmade long-distance flights taxing. These weren't migratory birds.
There was only one place in the world Paisley could be.
Isabella had tasked a satellite that was already over Yucatula. She sent me numerous photos of the island.
It was small. From what I could tell, there was a central compound with a few four-wheel-drive vehicles and ATVs. There was also a helipad and a black helicopter. There was a main house with a pool. A warehouse, a small shed, and a bunk house completed the compound in the dense jungle. A dock at the west shore was home to a starter superyacht, a Go Fast boat, a center console, and two HPDE tactical boats, much like our own Raptor.
The high-resolution satellite imagery could read the face of a wrist watch from orbit. The surveillance capabilities were no joke.
There were two large coca fields with full-time guards. Several more guards walked the grounds of the main campus carrying AK-47s and the like.
Besides kidnapping, these guys were running a serious drug operation. Either that, or they were just borrowing the compound from the cartel.
Now we had a choice to make. We could play it straight, show up to the rendezvous at midnight, hand over the case, and hope they’d turn over Paisley and let us go. Or we could make the first move.
I wasn't a trusting person. I knew better. So that really only left us one choice.
49
“Are you sure you want to go to Yucatula?” Antonio asked as we stood on the dock in the Puerto del Sol Marina just after sunset.
"Yep," I said. "That's where we want to go.”
Antonio cringed. "That place, no good.”
Antonio was in his late 20s with shaggy dark hair, an athletic frame, and a friendly face.
I shrugged.
