Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4)

by Carolyn Crane

  He drove to the part of the fields nearest to Julian’s tracts. If anybody was trying to save his harvest, it would be Julian. He stopped the vehicle and got out, heading toward the bloody edge, kicking aside the Luquesolama stones left over from the Primer Verde some months back. The ceremonial arrangement of the stones before each harvest was one of the many superstitions his mother had despised. The story went that if the rocks were not sized and arranged in a specific design at specific intervals, the earth below would not welcome the Savinca verde crop as its child and would not care for it.

  Even the villagers seemed to regard it as superstition, but not quite enough to reject the practice. He had no problem with the superstitions, but he found the villagers’ constant celebrations an annoyance because Fernando would shut down Café Moderno.

  He strolled down the row. The leaves and swelled buds were shoulder high, shot up from the gnarled, woody bases. The plants were trimmed back to those bases after each harvest, spring and fall. Some of those bases were two centuries old.

  Like every farmer, Julian had a specific trimming style passed down through his family. Julian cut deep into the base, creating a triangular shape. Others created a flat top. Others rounded to a circle. Paolo had chosen Julian’s style to emulate the first year of his business.

  Hugo ran one of the wide, heart-shaped leaves through his fingers, wondering as he sometimes did what the trimming style of his ancestors had been. He turned the leaf. It didn’t look right—too shiny. He’d noticed the shine up top, too, though it was more intense here. Shine could indicate a lack of moisture and sun, yet there had been plenty of rain and sun.

  Were they sick? Was it emotions? The villagers believed the plants could feel. He, too, believed it at times, and he felt a sudden rush of grief for them. Like a small child, a plant could not run away when there was trouble or fighting. It could only grow, vulnerable in its tiny patch of dirt. An unaccountable thickness filled his throat as he peered across to the red swath at the top side of the slope. Flowers blooming unloved in the fields.

  He heard rustling and pulled his scythe from his belt.

  A man in a red woven hat approached. He wore a coarse gray shirt and a bright gold chain around his neck—the medal of Caribbo.

  “Julian!”

  Julian holstered his gun. He wore long pants and a utility belt holding two sizes of scythes and several pairs of gloves.

  “Buenas!” Hugo said, heading toward the man, hand outstretched.

  Julian took his hand. There was something about being the only two men in this place, surrounded by the blooming savinca sweet with death, which made Hugo feel a bond with Julian. He was a leading farmer, passionate about progress. Julian had a son Paolo’s age. A good boy, and one of the few who tolerated Paolo.

  Julian would be working the field from the protected center. He was wary of El Gorrion’s men, but not enough to lose his crop. One man working the fields, though—it wasn’t enough.

  “Where is everybody?” Hugo asked.

  Julian waved a helpless hand toward the village. “You know what happened.”

  “But it’s safe now. They’re not coming back.”

  “They still could,” Julian said. “And you know what they do. You saw what they did to Pedro.”

  “They aren’t coming back—’

  “You can’t know,” Julian said.

  “El Gorrion’s men were attacked,” Hugo said. “They aren’t coming back.”

  Julian squinted. “I will risk coming back, yes, but to bring my family back. Hugo…”

  “Nobody attacks a village once it falls under the protection of Kabakas,” he said.

  “We heard the rumors of that, but it seems… farfetched,” Julian said, squinting down the mountainside.

  Hugo felt so helpless. He could destroy a contingent of guerrilla fighters, but he couldn’t coax a few families into a field of flower buds. His hands balled into fists deep inside his pockets as Liza’s words rang through his mind. He is a real person. See him. She’d meant it about Paolo, but she could’ve said it of Julian and the villagers. Why should his word have weight? Hugo wasn’t a part of the village. He barely interacted with them or treated them as neighbors. How arrogant to assume they would trust him about El Gorrion not coming back, or risk their families on rumors—or on the casual word of an outsider to a shopkeeper. He’d thought it would be enough.

  It wasn’t.

  But now the flowers would bloom unharvested. His heart pounded. Hugo looked Julian in the eye. He needed to give him something more. “The village is under Kabakas’s protection,” Hugo said. “I give you my word on that.”

  Julian’s dark gaze snapped to his. He could see the question in Julian’s eyes. Julian would hardly suspect he was Kabakas, but as a wealthy American, maybe he’d hired Kabakas.

  Julian watched him warily. It was a grave thing, to confess to knowing Kabakas. During the war, people had been tortured for knowledge of Kabakas. “El Gorrion said they would be back yesterday. They did not come, did they?”

  El Gorrion liked to be known as a man who kept his promises. His image was important to him; if he didn’t come when he said he would, there would have to be a good reason.

  “They did not,” Julian said. Still he had reservations.

  “My boy and I are going to come back in an hour,” Hugo said. “The maid as well. We’ll harvest at the edge, by the road.”

  Julian eyed him. They both knew that if El Gorrion’s men were to return, those harvesting near the road would be slaughtered first.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Back at home, Hugo found Liza chatting brightly with the boy out on the veranda. They were building something out of cardboard. Their chatter ceased as he approached. The boy’s wary look pierced his heart.

  He stared down at the small structure, recognizing trees and houses. They were building a world. How fitting.

  He addressed the boy in Spanish. “Get your harvesting things and collect a set for her, too.”

  The boy scurried into the shed. Hugo eyed her gray dress. “Do you still have the one-piece?”

  “Yes, but it’s dirty.”

  “You’ll put it on. You will work in the savinca fields. The stems have prickers.”

  “We’re going into the fields?”

  He eyed her. Waited.

  “Okay.”

  He watched her go in to the house, following her movements with his mind. Moments later, her curtains shifted with the pressure of the door opening. He imagined her in there, stripping off her outfit down to her underwear.

  His cock hardened. He thought hatefully of his father, the genius oilman, with all of his tables and spreadsheets.

  He forced his mind to other concerns. Did she have decent underwear? He hadn’t considered the things he’d need for her in order to keep her. The other maids, cooks, and governesses had come with luggage. Did she have decent undergarments or toiletries? He hadn’t thought of those things for her, although she hadn’t asked.

  The boy came out with the gloves, and soon enough she appeared in the dirty one-piece. She’d rolled up the sleeves and the pant legs, making the dark blue garment look almost fashionable. She’d gathered her bright blonde hair into two short braids, tied at the ends with red rubber bands. The braids weren’t quite long or heavy enough to hang straight; they curved slightly outward from the straw hat, as if they had lives of their own, a life inside. Like everything about her. The gorgeous American prostitute with her games and her blog and her fashions.

  He didn’t recall the jumper being so dirty, and he experienced a pang of guilt for making her wear it. Right or wrong, she was his to care for now. He felt a strange twist in his chest at the thought.

  “That won’t do. Come.” He led her into the house and into his bedroom.

  She seemed nervous. Remembering the night.

  He picked out one of his own work shirts, plus a belt and worn khakis and brought them to her.

  She clutched them to her c
hest, expression blank. “Thank you.”

  He took a braid in his fingers, remembering the way she’d felt in his hands. “I can trust you out there? Not to try to leave? Not to excite the villagers with tales?”

  She watched him without expression. “Yes.”

  “You do understand that I’ll send you home when it is time,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Her assent was a challenge. Her blank face was a challenge. Everything about her…he tightened his fingers around the short braid, wanting badly to pull, to push. “And the way I settled things with my enemies the other day…” He looped the braid around his finger now, allowing it to graze her ear. “I would not treat a friend in such a way. You understand? Never a friend.”

  The flash in her eyes told him that she understood the veiled threat: best to stay a friend.

  And God, he wanted to take her right there, to push her to the wall, to pull her hair. Consume her.

  He let go. “Take them to your room and change.” He watched her pad off.

  The boy was out back with the supplies in the bucket, waiting. “We already cut all the ready buds,” he said. “We have at least a day before more grow ready.”

  “We aren’t going to work in our fields…” He paused, thinking to use his name. We aren’t going to work in our fields, Paolo. It felt strange…and too late, somehow. “We’re going down to the village to show them that it’s safe,” he continued. “We will work there as long as it takes.”

  The boy nodded. “They worry that El Gorrion will return.”

  “Sí.” Hugo picked out the newest gloves for her. He turned them inside out and shook them. Not so dirty. Good.

  And then she appeared, coming across the porch. In his clothes.

  It did something to him. His shirt on her. His pants. His.

  He swallowed and turned. “Let’s go.”

  Soon they were bumping down the road in the Jeep. Hugo drove. He spoke in Spanish to the boy. “We will stay until their fields are done. I told them our fields are finished. They will not question that.”

  The boy nodded glumly; worrying, no doubt, that he wouldn’t earn enough to afford the game console he had his eye on.

  “You will have your game console, do you understand?”

  Worry remained on the boy’s face. Did he not understand? Hugo would supplement the income he lost by allowing his savincas to bloom.

  “I will buy it if you cannot.”

  This didn’t seem to comfort him.

  “We want Café Moderno to open again, do we not?” he added.

  “Of course.” The boy gave him his best fake smile. What was the problem, then? Hugo realized some moments later what it was: the boy thought that if Café Moderno started up again, that they might get rid of Liza. And the boy didn’t want Liza to leave.

  They parked at the side edge and headed down to Julian’s field. Hugo breathed in deep, feeling at home with the plants. But that shiny look—it made him nervous. And the shoots didn’t seem as straight and strong as usual. It was so subtle that it was almost a feeling more than anything visual, but it was there.

  He slowed at a large, healthy plant and plucked a leaf, inspecting the stem as Liza and the boy watched. Had he noticed the change in the plants? “No te parece que se ve rara?” Hugo asked.

  The boy was silent.

  Hugo looked down into the boy’s solemn face and repeated the question.

  “Sí.”

  “You have noticed it?”

  “Yes,” the boy said.

  “How would you characterize it?”

  The boy regarded the plant. “Débil,” he said. “Demasiado brillante.”

  Hugo nodded. Weak. Too shiny. “Sí.”

  “The rains?” the boy guessed.

  Hugo shook his head and knelt down, now, fingering the soil. It wasn’t dehydration. He could feel her eyes on him. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No sé,” he said. I don’t know. She’d only hear the no, and think he said no. She didn’t need to know anything; she didn’t need to matter.

  Maybe it was the attack. To his mother, the idea that the flowers had emotions was a sign of how backward the villagers were, but they had a voice, these plants. A gesture. They were so very much alive, stretching up toward the sky. He would do his best to give them what they needed. He was doing his best with the boy. He wished the boy could understand that.

  Julian arrived and sent the boy up to help in one of the fields that didn’t have help coming. Sending the boy to a safer field farther from the road. The gesture touched Hugo.

  Hugo announced that he and Liza would handle the side along the road.

  “I will work there with you.” Julian sucked down a bottle of water, eyeing the spread. He’d been working since dawn, no doubt. “We’ll move inward as a group,” he said.

  Hugo asked, “Do the leaves look strange to you?”

  “Brillantes,” Julian said. “It’s the roots,” he said. “Yours?”

  “The same. I didn’t inspect the roots…” He hadn’t thought of it.

  “Come see.” Julian led them across two dozen rows to where he’d been working. Buds were bundled onto carts. He turned crosswise up to an especially shiny plant. This one was not well; the leaves angled down. Droopy. Somebody had dug around the root system—Julian, presumably. He knelt and brushed away the dirt.

  Hugo knelt beside him, feeling his belly turn. The roots looked white—coated. He brushed away more of the dirt to expose more of the roots. Julian scratched at a root with a fingernail, scraping the waxy white off. “Está por todos lados. En todas las plantas.”

  They knelt together in silence, linked in the knowledge of how grave this was. All of the plants had it. Coated roots could not take up nutrients or water.

  “Qué es?” Hugo asked.

  Julian shook his head. “No lo sé.” He told him that there were other plants where the white coating was starting up the stem, as if it moved upward, slowly suffocating the bush.

  Hugo could feel her in the background; he imagined he could feel her sympathy. She wouldn’t understand the conversation, but she would sense the distress.

  “No es glifosato,” Julian said. That was what the CIA sprayed the fields with, but surely they wouldn’t hit the mountain. It was well known that the savincas grew here—national treasures. And anyway, this wasn’t the effect. They’d all seen Roundup kills. Julian plucked a leaf and tore it in half. “Es otra cosa.” Some other thing. The leaf was not right. Again he felt that bond with Julian. It was easy with the plants between them.

  He became aware of Liza touching a nearby plant. She ran a leaf between two fingers just as he had. “It’s beautiful,” she said, turning over the leaf to look underneath, understanding nothing of the disaster unfolding before her.

  She came and knelt beside him, on the other side of Julian, wondering, he supposed, what they found so fascinating on the ground.

  “The plants are sick,” Hugo explained.

  “I’m sorry. How can you tell?” She seemed genuinely interested. She cared about things like this.

  “The leaves are shiny. They shouldn’t be like that. And then my friend looked at the roots.” He brushed away the dirt around the root. “Something is coating them.”

  “They shouldn’t be that color?” she asked.

  “No. They are typically brown.” He scraped off some of the wax to show her.

  “Oh,” she said, running her finger over the coating, back and forth and then up and down.

  Julian rose first. Hugo straightened up and extended a hand to Liza. She took it, and he squeezed gently as he pulled her up, her fingers warm and soft inside his hand.

  “Let’s get on with it,” he said, forcing himself to release her. He pulled his gloves over his hands and looked up to find her staring at his hands with the strangest look.

  “Something wrong, señorita?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He grabbed a wheele
d cart and led her back to the edge of the field. He had her put on her gloves and he showed her how to grasp the stems just above the base, cutting evenly. He pointed out the thorns, warning her of the danger they posed to the forearms. He showed her the parts not to touch and how far down to remove the leaves.

  He watched her do one. She handled the plant gently, reverently, but with confident movements nevertheless. A natural.

  “You’ve worked in fields?”

  “Gardens.” She looked up, shading her eyes. “How can you tell?”

  “The confidence in the touch. It shows when somebody is used to handling plants or weapons or animals…” Or women, he thought, looking up at her.

  She swallowed. Was she thinking it, too?

  “You’ll do this whole row,” he continued, “and then up and back. We have this whole field to do.” Julian was already half a row ahead.

  She cast her gaze over the rows of rows. “You won’t get dinner.”

  “Just do it,” he growled. “And when we’re all done, you’ll make us dinner.”

  She narrowed her eyes in mock anger.

  His heart thundered. He should not love this—not any of it. He forced himself to remember the oilman and turned to his row.

  They worked side by side. When he got ahead, he caught her up. He gave her pointers now and then. As she got used to the tool, he taught her the twist motion to make as she cut. She wasn’t as fast as he was, but she was thorough and thoughtful. She could be trusted with the plants. And that trust, he found as he worked, went deeper than the harvest.

  He didn’t quite trust her on the outward things. In some ways, she didn’t add up. The way in which she held things back, for instance. It wouldn’t shock him entirely if she imagined running. He would catch her, of course. Surely she understood that.

  He didn’t entirely trust her thoughts or strategies, but he trusted her heart; imagined, even, that he could feel her soul.

  He had always drawn something from the plants; or rather, he and the plants had always drawn something from each other. He always felt it when he entered the field, but he most strongly felt it when he became quiet and dwelled with the plants. He and the plants exchanged something as real as rain.