At first Bradley thought it was a gun cartridge casing but it was far too light and there was an odd clasp affixed to one side. He held the clasp and twisted one end of the tube open. Inside was stuffed some kind of cloth. He worried it out with his pocketknife blade and it dropped to the tabletop. He unrolled the material, fine silk or maybe a sheer linen, and it became a square approximately five by five inches and covered with Erin's tight cursive writing in blue ink.

Dear B, I'm okay and so is he. Owens F. is here and she says this will get to Mike then you. She says Arm finds and destroys cell and sat phones but he doesn't suspect pigeons as there are many in the coop and the message containers are easy to hide. She seems to be Arm's but says she is here of free will. Is a very disturbing woman. I am okay but terrified. Please hurry. Get me out of here. Erin Bradley felt the great rush of tears and he couldn't stop them. There she was. Her hand had written this to him. She was alive and well and so was their son. The tears of joy and hope burned his eyes as he stared down at her words. "G.o.d, this is great news."

"I'm glad to deliver it to you."

"What's Owens doing with Armenta?"

"They've known each other for years."

"You smuggled her a homing pigeon?"

"Three of them. Actually, I had them smuggled to her by an underpaid Quintana Roo propane delivery man. I'll certainly introduce you to him, but to be truthful I was never confident that he'd complete his mission."

"You never told me you kept pigeons."

Mike gave him a boy's grin. "Oh, forever."

A possibility hit him, and Bradley wiped the tears with his hand and flicked them onto the tavern table. "The propane guy also brought three of Armenta's birds out for you. Because we need some that will fly back to the Castle. Right?"

"Yes," said Mike, his eyes sparkling with glee. "I am so proud of me sometimes."

"Then we have a way to contact her."

"Well, three ways. Would you like to see them?"

Bradley slipped the leather map folder between his belt and the small of his back, then pulled on his rain jacket. Mike stashed the newly arrived bottle of rum in one of his book bags then snugged the folded plastic lawn bags against the rain. He looked up at Bradley and gestured at the door like a butler, palm up, scar not visible to Bradley in the poor tavern light.

17.

MIKE'S APARTMENT WAS ON AN alley several blocks north and east, off of M. Doblado. It was in the zona historico, the oldest part of a very old city. Bradley had trouble keeping up with the little man as he barreled along the narrow streets and by the time they were climbing the stone steps to the front door the rain had slackened and the wind died down.

Inside the apartment smelled of seawater and ancient rock. "Built in eighteen-forty-eight," said Mike. "For Veracruz, practically brand- new. One hundred and one years before Woodrow Wilson's attack. Downstairs was a livery and upstairs the residence. Retrofitted for running water and electricity. Later a hostel."

As the lights fluttered on in the foyer Bradley saw that the main room had a high ceiling and there was a balcony that faced east toward the Gulf of Mexico. The windows had been left open and the wind and rain easily blew in past the grates and swayed what looked like very old drapes.

Finnegan unslung the book bags and pulled the windows closed and motioned Bradley to follow. They pa.s.sed a small kitchen lit by a very weak bulb. The hallway was long and made of hardwood that creaked under Bradley's boots. They pa.s.sed a bedroom on the right and another to the left, then they climbed a narrow wooden stairway and Mike was talking as he headed up.

"Yoo-hoo, my fine feathered friends. It's just me again, your favorite creature, bringing someone very special here to meet you."

He turned and drew Bradley by his arm into the room.

"My flock, meet the son of Murrieta!"

Bradley stepped into a half-story, smelled the green stink of caged birds, saw the head-high coop that stretched from wall to wall, saw the bursts of feathers and seed as the animals flapped and dodged. Their alarm spread quickly through the enclosure, then just as quickly it was gone and the birds, Bradley guessed maybe twenty in all, settled on their nests and perches and peered out at the men with the curiosity of pigeons everywhere.

Mike was smiling. First at the birds and then at Bradley, then at the birds again.

"I'll bet each one has a name," said Bradley.

"Well, that's Jason in the corner there, and beautiful Ambrosia on her nest."

"It's a hobby?"

"It's one more way to see the world."

Bradley looked around the s.p.a.cious room. The floor was more brick-red tile and the ceiling paint was peeling. The walls were lined with bookcases to a height of about six feet, and the cases were full. Bradley recognized some of the languages on the spines. Above the shelves the walls were festooned with weapons and devices apparently made for torture, all very old. There was a leather recliner with a colorful serape flung across the back, and a reading lamp beside it. There was a long wooden table in the middle of the room and a wheeled chair. The table was cluttered with books and magazines and sketchbooks and large graph-paper blotters strangled by doodles and notations. A laptop computer sat closed on the blotter. Beside it was a small earthen dish containing a handful of message containers for the pigeons. Some looked well used and others nearly new. There was a short stack of fabric squares similar to the one that Erin had written on.

"You communicate with other fanciers?"

"Do I ever! Of the twenty-four birds in there right now, only six are actually my own. Released from anywhere, within reason, they'll fly right back to me bearing the messages of my friends and a.s.sociates. The other eighteen belong to friends I've made over time. We exchange a few here and there when we meet, so we always have an adequate flock."

"What do you write to each other about?"

"The Earth and everything upon it."

"For about the same cost as a cell phone, I'd guess. Once you figure in the food and grit and vitamins and vet bills and-"

"Quite a bit cheaper, actually, and of course they breed for free, just like people. But it's not about cost. It's not even really about communication. It's about the medium itself. The medium is the message, as we've been taught, so it follows that a slow method of communication will reveal different meanings than a fast one. You get very different rewards when you compose longhand and deliver your brief notes on the wings of birds! You get shorter, more compact thoughts and ideas. You get ideas that are, well, smaller but larger. And this relative slowness with which they are delivered really does nothing to impede the flow of conversation about Earth's important events because, as you know, important events almost never happen quickly. Earthquakes and spectacular accidents aside."

"You're talking like, geology and history."

"Not like them. They themselves. I'm quite drunk. Shall we have another? Listen to that rain coming down out there. The lovely Ivana is most a.s.suredly on her way now."

"She's aimed at the Yucatan," said Bradley. "At Erin."

Mike looked into the coop and pointed at a white-and-tan bird studying him from its perch. "He is one of Armenta's birds. I have named him Samson. I will bet that Samson here can fly back home through any hurricane."

"We have to beat the storm."

Mike went to the desk and took a square of fabric from the top of the stack and cleared the books away and set it down on the blotter. From the middle drawer he brought a pen box and opened it and set it beside the fabric.

"It's up to you, Bradley."

"This is going to take a while."

"I would think so. You have only twenty-five square inches on each side, so you must clear your thoughts, condense your language, and solicit specific information that will allow you to form a plan. A plan that cannot fail."

"Would you make me a pot of coffee?"

"The best and strongest in all of Veracruz."

"The rum will keep."

"It always does."

"We're going to get her back, Mike."

"I could see in the tavern that you were giving it some serious thought."

Bradley set the maps on the desk, then sat and took the pen and flattened the fabric so it would take the ink evenly. He pored over the drawings of the Castle and the compound and the surrounding land and lagoon and sea. "The maps help. The maps show us the way. But they can't give us the way."

"No. You must conjure that with words on silk."

"She has to meet me outside the Castle. It's either that or a gun battle. I can't take that chance. I need to know where to find her, that's the main thing. Outside the Castle. I can be there if I only know where there is."

"Tell her what you need to know, Bradley. And please, save me a little room at the end. I'll write something brief to Owens. Owens can help."

Bradley stared down at the maps while Mike made coffee. Bradley could hear the buzz of the grinder downstairs. When Finnegan came back a few minutes later Bradley had found what looked like a very promising place where he could meet Erin near the Castle.

"This, here," he said, pointing to a small circle with tiny stylized waves sketched within. "It's a cenote?"

"Yes. Just as I have indicated."

"Five hundred yards from the compound."

"I'm confident of that measurement."

"So the cenote is there. Even if your source material is fifty years old, that cenote will be there."

"Bradley, the cenote is five centuries old. Fresh water, coming up from the aquifer. Fresh water, sustaining thousands of the Maya in that area, for hundreds and hundreds of years."

Mike went downstairs to get the coffee and Bradley slowly and carefully composed the letter. It thrilled him and frightened him that their lives now depended on written words. Every movement of the pen seemed freighted with consequence, every word a potential miracle or catastrophe. He had spent years writing poems, trying to get one like Neruda's but he never even approximated one.

Now he told her, concisely and clearly, where he would be waiting. Using the map, he described the cenote's exact location so that she could find it without difficulty or doubt. He gave her two consecutive days to be there-day ten, which was the ransom day, and the day preceding it. Wednesday. Tuesday. He would be there, all twenty-four hours of each day. He would be there. It was not a promise or an approximation but a fact. Not until he had finished did he write two lines to tell her he loved her more than he loved anyone or anything on Earth. I will come to you, like you asked me to in your song. He left room for Mike. Then he turned over the swatch of fabric and faithfully re-created Mike's map of the compound and the surrounding grounds.

When he was finished he checked the map and read the directions over very carefully, then looked up at Mike. "Can we send all three birds? Three messages, three maps, triple our chances?"

"I was about to suggest it."

"They'll take what, four days to get there? If they can make it through the hurricane at all?"

"She's only a category two," said Finnegan.

"Write your part to Owens."

He stood and handed the pen to Mike.

When the letters and maps were finished and rolled and fitted into the containers, Bradley held the birds upside down one at a time while Mike fixed the capsules to their legs. He gave each container a little tug when he was finished. The birds felt warm and capable to Bradley and they allowed themselves to be handled. Bradley said a silent prayer for each one, trying to customize it for the individual bird.

"Bradley," Mike said softly. "You can pray but you will never be answered because G.o.d does not listen. He does not control the lives of men. He only influences them through intermediaries. And never because of a prayer."

"What makes you think I was praying?"

"Thoughts can be loud."

"More of your bulls.h.i.t. I'll pray if I want."

Just before midnight Mike opened the attic window. The air was heavy but the rain had stopped. Bradley held the warm strong Samson in his hands and kissed the top his head, then he reached through the window and released him into the night.

In the taxi early that morning Bradley called Hood on the satellite phone and told him that he had found Erin. He described the Castle, the compound, and their larger geographical positioning within the geography of Yucatan. He told Hood the GPS coordinates.

"That tracks," said Hood. "Armenta is bringing me to Merida-less than two hundred miles from Erin. How many people do you have?"

"Twenty-four. But Charlie, get this-I don't think I'll even need them."

"Talk."

"I've found a way to communicate with her. I've told her to go into the jungle the day before the ransom is due. There's a path and a cenote. All she has to do is get a few seconds to herself. She's got help. She's made a friend. Anytime she can make it is okay. We'll be there all day. Caroline, Cleary, and I will be waiting."

"She's got a phone?"

"No phones. Pigeons. Long story."

"Pigeons?"

Bradley's heart soared though somewhat drunkenly. He had almost forgotten what hope felt like. "It's going to work, Charlie. We're going to pull this off. She's going to be all right. Have you heard from her? What did she say? Please tell me everything she said. Don't leave out one word."

18.

FATHER EDGAR CIEL KEYED HIS way into Erin's room that evening and gently pulled the door shut behind him. "You asked to see me."

"Yes, thank you. Please come in and sit."

Ciel was a tall man, though slender, and he crossed the room with an angular grace, watching her closely as he pa.s.sed her to sit in the old armchair. He wore a priest's short-sleeve black shirt with the white stiff collar and black jacket, pants and shoes. His crucifix was large and silver. There was no gun on his hip that Erin could see and she wondered if in all of her trauma and exhaustion that first day she had only imagined it. He was pale. Behind his wire-rimmed gla.s.ses his eyes were blue and luminous.

"I want you to ask the Catholic Church to intervene on my behalf," she said.

"The Vatican is a bureaucracy," he said with a small smile. His voice was soft and clear and unhurried.

"It's supposed to be the greatest church in the world. How complicated is a kidnapped woman? I am a Catholic and proud of it. I have confessed a million times. Do something, Father. I saw them feed a man to the leopards. The devil walks this castle free and proud. Maybe more than one of them. You have sensed this, haven't you?"

"Yes."