Tracks by Niv Kaplan Page A

distant relative
looking for the family.  They confirmed the family ordered tickets but
never actually used them.  It was too late to stop you from coming over.”
    “So are we back to square one?”  Sam asked, disappointed.
    “Not quite,” Ortega said, a
mischievous smile spreading across his face.  “I got friendly with the
travel agent.  She’ll see us if we hurry.”
    They hurried through
Immigration and Customs to a waiting taxi and sped on the M-10 to the M-30 via
Castalena to Cuzco Plaza where they entered Sunshine Travel, a colorful agency
on the ground floor of a high rise building on the northern side of the
roundabout. 
    Julia, the agent, a striking
tanned brunette, dressed minimally, as if just arrived from a Caribbean cruise,
welcomed them to a back office where she shut the door behind them and planted
herself on the edge of a desk facing them.  El Chino introduced them both
and went on to explain the purpose of their visit, in Spanish, translating to
Sam intermittently.
    Carlos Rio was eleven when he
disappeared from his home in Madrid a year before.  His case reached the
Center six months later and was immediately embraced by Ortega who knew the
family through mutual friends.  Carlos Rio’s parents, Jose and Louisa,
separated and went through a long custody feud which ended in the mother
receiving custody and the father weekly visiting rights.  Being a devoted
father, Jose Rio kept his visiting rights to the letter, demanding his rights
be kept precisely as instructed by the courts.
    Mother Louisa, who in the
midst of pursuing a new life and possibly a new partner, had sent the boy to her
parents in Segovia for a spell, forgetting her ex-husband’s meticulous devotion
to the boy .  When his time came and the boy was
gone, Jose threw a fit and drove to Segovia to retrieve the boy from his
ex-in-laws.  When he arrived in Segovia, the boy was not there. 
Actually, his belongings were there, but the grandparents were at a loss as to
where the boy was.  Jose initially thought they were taunting him but
later, with the police present, realized the grandparents were as terrified as
he.
    The boy, Carlos Rio, had
disappeared.  He had been at the house the night before, then, in the
morning, went for a walk and never returned.  Jose had arrived that same
day at noon finding the grandparents worried but still hopeful.  They had
split up looking for him in playgrounds, nearby shopping centers, and in the
city center, but he was nowhere to be found.  Jose accused Louisa of a
conspiracy to keep the boy from him, but the investigation could not support
his claim.  Jose Rio was never convinced and kept watch on the family,
especially his ex-wife.  Six months later, the boy still missing, and no
progress with the investigation, the case reached the Center for Missing
Children in New York, where Ortega first became aware of it.  The name,
Jose Rio, rang a bell.  He was a building contractor who had built several
hangars in Barajas airport and became quite friendly with the local police
force Ortega had been a part of.  A mutual friend, police sergeant Alonso Ferrer , suggested he contact the Center having been aware
of El Chino’s success in tracking the Ricardo boy a few years earlier. 
Jose Luis Ortega convinced his partners to take the case and had been at it for
the last six months.  He was convinced, as was Jose, that the mother was
involved, and employed a local detective agency to follow her around.  The
agency had gotten him the information of the planned trip to Barcelona.
     
    Ortega briefed the travel
agent, leaving out most particulars, trying to avoid staring at her long brown
legs, bare to her thighs, showing underneath a tight black mini skirt.
    “We need to know how many
people were in the Rio party and whether or not the boy was with them.”
    “May I see your credentials?”
Julia asked in fluent English, spreading her legs just a little wider around
the tip of the office