“None other,” Brognola confirmed. “They called him Vesco Junior when he split, going on eighteen months ago. The SEC brought charges on a string of junk-bond scams that made Favor a billionaire. And yes, that’s with a b. Clearly, he wasn’t stupid. Someone he’d been paying for insurance tipped him off the night before his charges were announced, and Favor caught the red-eye down to Mexico, then on from there to Costa Rica, where we haven’t got an extradition treaty. He can live a sultan’s life down there until he’s older than Methuselah, and we can’t touch him.”
“Legally,” Bolan amended.
“Right.”
“What ties him to Romano?” Bolan asked.
“Junk bonds weren’t Favor’s only pastime,” Brognola responded. “He’s a money mover, good with numbers in the Rain Man kind of way. What it looks like now, he laundered cash for half the East Coast Mobs before he hit a little snag on Wall Street and got burned. One of his clients—based on testimony from the late, unlamented Ferret—was Antonio Romano. Favor did some banking for the former Marinello Family, saw where the money came from, where it went. The whole nine yards, in short.”
“And he can tie Romano to the Sword of Allah?”
“Manny says—said—that he can. The problem, as you see, is twofold.”
“How to bring him back, and how to make him talk,” Bolan said.
“We’ll take care of Part B,” Brognola assured him. “All you need to do is drop in, have a chat with Favor and convince him to perform his civic duty.”
“Just like that.”
“I may have understated its complexity,” Brognola granted.
“Uh-huh.”
“But seriously,” Brognola pressed, “we think it’s doable. We’ve got someone on the ground to help you out. Translator, guide, chief cook and bottle washer.”
“It’s Costa Rica,” Bolan said. “We have to take for granted that he’s greased the law and politicians.”
Brognola nodded. “Oh, big-time, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“No reason I can think of why he ought to come back voluntarily.”
“Nothing occurred to me,” the man from Justice said.
“So, it’s a kidnapping on hostile turf.”
“These days, we call that a rendition,” Brognola corrected.
“Call it anything you like. It could get messy.”
“Diplomatically, of course, we can’t appear to be involved.”
Meaning I’m on my own, as usual, Bolan thought.
“Who else knows about Favor?”
“Well,” Brognola said, “Romano, obviously.”
“Does Romano know you’re looking for him?”
“Hard to say. We have as many leaks in Washington and New York as we ever did. For sure, Romano knows the state’s primary witnesses are dead. And since the charges haven’t been dismissed, he knows the prosecution plans to go ahead with something else.”
“So it’s a race,” Bolan said. “And I’m starting out behind the pack.”
“I grant you, it’s a challenge,” Brognola said.
Or a death sentence, Bolan thought.
But he said, “I’ll need his file.”
San José International Airport
June 18
THE WORST THING about red-eye flights was arriving at some ungodly hour in a deserted airport terminal. The shops and restaurants were closed, shuttered and dark. No throng of passengers or loved ones armed with flowers and balloons greeted arriving flights. Footsteps rang hollowly on concrete floors, while dull-eyed custodians pushed their brooms along the concourse.
Granted, 9/11 and the war on terror had imposed some barriers to any overt ambush in an airport, but the dead zone of a terminal at 2:00 a.m. reminded Bolan of occasions in the old days, when he’d left commercial flights to find guns waiting for him in the crowd. Nor would a setup be impossible this day, by any means, particularly in a nation that had earned a global reputation as a safe haven for felons on the run.
He counted seven people waiting for his fellow passengers, noting that none of them spared him more than a passing glance. His contact, according to Brognola, was supposed to meet him at the airport, but if something had gone wrong already, this soon in the game…
Bolan was a hundred feet from his arrival gate, eyeballing a sign that directed him to rental-car agencies and guessing that all would be closed, when a soft voice at his elbow said, “Matt Cooper?”
Bolan turned and blinked once at the lady, scanning her from head to toe in nothing flat before he said, “You have me at a disadvantage, Ms….?”
“Blanca Herrera. And I doubt that very much.”
Her grip was firm and strong as they shook hands. “You’re late,” she said. “No trouble on the flight, I hope?”
“Some kind of warning light came on, approaching Mexico City,” Bolan replied. “They don’t exactly set a land-speed record in the maintenance department.”
“It was probably siesta, Señor Cooper. You’re no longer in El Norte.”
“So I noticed.”
“You have luggage?” she inquired.
“Just this,” he said, hoisting his carry-on.
“A man who travels light. That’s good.”
“I still need wheels,” he said.
“I know a good rental agency. An independent. We can use my car until morning and rent one then.”
Bolan nodded. “And there’s a man I need to see about some gear.” A glance at his watch produced a frown. “He won’t be open for a while yet.”
“Have you slept?”
He nodded. “There was nothing else to do.”
“Then breakfast,” she said cheerily, “if that’s agreeable.”
“If you can find a place that’s serving, I’m with you.”
They cleared the terminal and Herrera led him underneath the floodlights to a parking lot. She handed him the keys. “If you wish to learn the city, it is best for you to drive.”
“Sounds fair.”
She took the shotgun seat and guided Bolan from
