CASEY MISSED A TURN AND ENDED UP IN A NEIGHBORHOOD where people milled through the lightless streets like phantoms, reaching for her car with worn hands, knocking on windows and pleading. Casey locked the doors and checked to make sure the windows were up all the way. The burgundy sky burned down to the color of charcoal ash. The few other vehicles on the street rolled slowly forward, some tooting their horns, some rocking with loud thumping music.
Casey looked out at the dark faces from the seat of her Mercedes, knowing that if they stopped her and yanked her out, there wasn't much she could do. Some of the men wore straw hats and carried sticks. Others held machetes alongside their legs that glinted like the bellies of fish in the light of tiny gutter fires. Casey felt for the guns Jose had left beneath the seat and kept her eyes ahead, trying not to let the car stop moving.
When she finally found the main highway, it was for the southbound lane. She got on it, anything to get clear of the neighborhood. She didn't know if the idea to go to scout out the factory on her own sprang up because of the direction she traveled, or because of the anger she felt at being left behind by Jose and his code of machismo, or from being lost in the slums and scared. Whatever the reason, she knew that she wanted to regain her sense of control. So she kept heading south, knowing twenty minutes away was the factory where the eighteen-wheeler from the quarry was bound, the same factory they'd seen only weeks before. A place rumored to conduct experiments with human beings. A place people went into by the truckload, but apparently never came out of.
When she reached the plain south of Nuevo Laredo, she sensed the open space around her, even in the darkness. She knew from before that the hilly banks of the Rio Grande lay off to her left, and straight ahead lay the distant mountains guarding Monterrey and the land to the south. Her eyes scoured the empty roadside.
She actually passed the gated factory entrance before she noticed the guttering of a greenish chemical flame, venting from a distant smokestack off to her left. She stopped and looked hard into the darkness, seeing what she knew was the high metal fence a hundred feet or so off the road. She turned around and backtracked, slowing when she came to the wide gravel road, flattened nearly smooth from the weight of heavy truck traffic.
At the gate, two uniformed guards approached her from opposite sides, neither moving with any kind of urgency, both with submachine guns slung over their shoulders. She put her window down and let her voice take on a ditzy Texas drawl.
"I'm so glad I found someone. I'm nearly out of gas."
The man looked at her blankly.
"Usted tiene que marcharse," he said.
Casey looked at him blankly, then smiled and said, "See? I told my husband, you can't just take me down to Mexico when I don't speak the language, but no. He don't care nothing. No hablo. No hablo espanol."
The other guard rounded the hood and stood with his compatriot. They wore a dark blue uniform Casey didn't recognize, probably from a private security firm, but were armed with weapons beyond those of normal security.
The second guard chattered at her in Spanish and she gave him more of the same dummy talk. When he leaned into the window and realized she was pointing at her gas gauge, he motioned for her to get out.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said, shaking her head and smacking the wheel. "I want to speak to someone who speaks English. Hablo ingleses. You understand?"
The second guard said something sharp to the first one and raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth, speaking quickly and getting an immediate response. In the distance between them and the plant, Casey saw the lights of a vehicle turn onto the road and speed their way. A tall blond man with a crew cut jumped out of the jeep and strode through a small opening in the gate. His uniform was different from the guards' and he wore no gun.
"Problem?" he demanded of her, his English sounding perfect.
"Thank God," Casey said, splaying her fingertips against her chest, sighing, and pouring on her Texas accent. "I'm lost and almost out of gas and my daddy works for one of these plants in Texas. This is SmithKline Labs, right? We Americans got to stick together, especially south of the border, if you know what I mean."
Casey flicked her eyes at the two Mexican guards.
"This is a private facility," the man said coldly. "You have to leave."
"My daddy probably plays golf with your boss, so don't be a pain. Okay, sweetie pie?"
The blond man rolled his eyes. "This is not an American company, and I don't work for your daddy. Turn around and take this vehicle back onto the highway. If you run out of gas, the police will help you. I can't."
Casey glared at him and said, "How about telling me the way to Nuevo Laredo? That too much for you?"
"Make a right when you get back to the highway and keep going," the man growled, leaning toward her. "That's my advice to you."
She now saw that the patch over the breast pocket of his shirt read KROFT LABS.
Casey swallowed and averted her eyes. She nodded her head and put the car in reverse, backing out and checking on them in her rearview mirror. She checked the mirror several more times as she raced up the highway, then tried her cell phone. The phone had no service. By the time she closed in on the lights of Nuevo Laredo, she was able to ring up Sharon.
"Catch you at a bad time?" Casey asked.
"Where the hell are you?" Sharon asked in a whisper. "Hang on. I just put the kids down."
Casey heard Sharon 's breathing and a long pause before a door closed and Sharon spoke in a normal voice. "Did Jose kill those women?"
"Of course not, one was his aunt," Casey said.
"They're making it sound that way," Sharon said.
"They," Casey said in disgust. "Listen, I need you to do some research for me."
"Now?" Sharon asked. "Wow, okay. I haven't pulled an all-nighter since college. Steven's in Miami and Matthew's got the croup, but what the hell."
"It's a company called Kroft Labs," Casey said. "Everything you can find, but specifically anything they've got going in Mexico in Nuevo Leon. They've got a facility here. I don't think it's American. If I had to guess, I'd say European."
Sharon paused for a moment, then said, "Their offices should open over there any minute now. I'll get on it."
" Sharon?"
"Yeah?"
"I want to know what they could be doing with a couple hundred people."
"People?"
"They disappear at that place.''