by Tom Wood
For a few days, Victor took a step back from his preparations while the barbiturate worked its way out of his system. Even when he no longer had a headache, when he no longer felt slow or weak, he had to work on the assumption that he wasn’t at his best. Therefore, he concentrated on cementing the credibility of his identity. He met with more suppliers. He sent e-mails. He made phone calls. He did nothing that could be construed as suspicious while he checked the news and watched his back.
He didn’t need one, but it was a good excuse to meet Joanna for dinner.
She picked the restaurant, and he arrived early. The chairs were low, with a sweeping curve of a back designed for aesthetics, not ergonomics. They were not comfortable. They could have been heavenly, but Victor would still be displeased. He didn’t like being low. It restricted his ability to keep watch on his surroundings. It limited his peripheral vision. He couldn’t see threats coming and he couldn’t respond to them. He sat straight-backed, with his head in line with his hips, which was the correct way to sit to be able to stand again at speed. It was rare for Victor to sit back in a chair. It was rare for him to relax. The unrelaxed posture made him look awkward. Awkward made him memorable. He didn’t like that either, but he preferred it to needless vulnerability.
“You’re even earlier than me,” Joanna said when they greeted one another.
He didn’t comment on his preference to arrive at places early, or why.
She sat down. “Good choice of table too.”
They were both hungry, so they ordered food when the waiter arrived, asking what they would like to drink. He told Joanna to order for him, in part to further reduce the already minimal chance someone would tamper with his food—if he didn’t know what he was ordering, neither could they—but also because she had been here longer and knew what was likely to be good. They made small talk for a while.
After their drinks arrived, she said, “Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”
“Guess.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Thirty-five.”
Neither did he. “Close enough.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“I’m an intensely private person.”
“I can never tell when you’re being serious or making a joke.”
“That’s the idea.”
She raised her hands. “Again . . . don’t know.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Now? Not in the slightest. Most guys, I know everything about them before they even open their mouths. And when they do, I can see right through their BS. You’re different. But . . . if I can’t figure you out after a while, then you’d see my stern face. I can look really stern if I want to. Think one of your old teachers giving you a disapproving stare.”
“I was taught by nuns, so that would be quite something.”
They ate octopus to start.
He was curious where this experiment in normalcy would lead. He needed to experience normalcy to understand it, and without understanding it, he could not pretend to be normal with any conviction. The mask he wore had been well fashioned, created with care, endlessly refined until it had become nearly invisible, until he could wear it and no one could tell the difference. That mask had limitations, however. It could never be perfect. The world wasn’t static. Its population was fluid, dynamic, forever changing. He was the eternal student, observing, changing and adapting to fit in, to remain unnoticed. He could never master what he did not practice. The best he could achieve was an academic comprehension of his subject matter. He could become an expert observer, but he could not become what he was not.
“I have an idea,” Joanna said. “Let’s play the Boring Question Game.”
Victor said, “What’s that?”
“You know, the typical Q and A you do when you meet someone new. The questions you ask when you can’t have a natural conversation and you’re still struggling to find a rapport.”
“Such as?”
Alamaeda said, “Okay, I’ll start with the absolute worst one: what kind of music do you like?”
“It’s easier to say what kind of music I don’t like.”
She upturned her palms. “Well?”
“Anything that uses a guitar, drums, or electronics.”
“So, any music after about nineteen hundred, right?”
“Thomas Tallis used choirs of eunuchs. Some teenagers singing about their angst can’t compete with that.”
She said, “Did he perform all the castrations himself?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But, and I’m just speculating here, naturally, I’m pretty sure he would have to check they were all genuine, wouldn’t he?”
“In case they were fake eunuchs?”
“Some men have a naturally high voice.”
“True.”
“Or they could be a woman in disguise.”
“Now you’re reaching.”
“Okay,” Joanna said. “Time for an important question: you don’t mind dating an older woman?”
“Are we dating?”
“This is a date, isn’t it? And that’s not answering my question.”
“I didn’t know you were an older woman until seven seconds ago.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Does it change anything?”
“I’m sprinting to the door as we speak.”
She smiled at him, both in amusement and relief, the former hiding the latter somewhat, but Victor still saw it. He realized he felt good to be the source of that relief, that simple words could have such an effect. She changed the subject, asking him about his work, about commodities. With no barbiturate in his system, lying was again effortless, but whereas once he had relished the effective application of his skill set, here it felt increasingly like betrayal. He answered each of her questions with questions of his own.
In his own evasiveness, he failed to notice her own.
“You sound dispassionate,” Joanna said. “About commodities.”
“I’m in it for the money,” he admitted. “What’s your excuse?”
“Oh, I’m a mercenary too. A cold-blooded capitalist out to screw over the little guy.”
“A man I used to know told me that what we do for a living is not a reflection of us, but society.”
“How come you used to know him?”
“Society got in the way.”
She smiled. “You can be quite witty when you want to be.”
“I don’t often want to be. My charm is a lethal weapon. Best keep it holstered.”
“Now you just sound like a jerk.”
He nodded. “Like I said: it’s best to keep my charm holstered.”
“How are you liking Guatemala?”
“It’s a little humid for me.”
“You’re too Canadian for this climate, but you’ll get used to it.”
When their main course arrived, Victor looked down at his plate with a measure of disbelief. “You ordered burgers and fries.”
She mistook his tone. “You did say for me to order for you. I figured you might be sick of guacamole by now. Sorry if I got it wrong.”
“No,” Victor said with a shake of his head. “This is exactly my kind of food.”
Joanna reached across the table to prod his stomach. “I don’t believe you.”
“I burn a lot of calories in my line of work.”
“Sure. The commodities business is the modern equivalent of working down a mine. Do you get Trader’s Lung too?” She pretended to cough.
He smiled to take the mockery on the chin, and said, “Your job must be pretty taxing mentally.”
“Not really. Mostly it’s staring at databases and filling out forms.”
Victor said, “That sounds exactly like my work.”
She smiled. “Look at
us. We’re the most uninteresting people in this place.”
He remembered the last time he had eaten dinner with someone similar, with someone whose company he wanted to be in. The last time he had been on a date, even if he had paid for it. He could picture the restaurant clearly, as if referencing a photograph. Clearer still was the smell, the aroma of Indian cuisine and the scent of her perfume, sweet and delicate. She had looked across the table at him, moisture in her eyes, disbelief. Fear. She had never seen him again. She was alive, he knew, because he had broken protocol and found her, putting himself in danger to do so, but he’d had to know if she were alive or dead, if he had killed her through his actions, through association. She hadn’t known she had been found. She hadn’t seen him watching her, but few ever saw him when he wanted to remain unseen. A little flower shop in the middle of nowhere. A new name. A new life. Smiling at every customer but with unmistakable sadness in her eyes. Who are you? was the last thing she had said to him. Someone you’ll wish you had never met, had been his reply.
Joanna saw his mind was elsewhere, but he brought it back to the present before she could ask him what he was thinking about. He didn’t want to lie any more than he had to, so he asked her questions on subjects he knew she liked to talk about. She told him all about white-water rafting.
After the waiter had cleared their empty plates, she said, “You know this thing has a finite shelf life, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I know. You have a job here. A life.”
“I say it as a friendly warning.”
“Noted and ignored. I don’t think I’m going to be in town too much longer.”
“At least this way we won’t end up taking each other for granted. We’ll have just enough time to get to know the other, but not enough to get bored.”
“We’re only interested in the people we don’t understand.”
She winked at him and pointed a finger like a gun, clicking her cheek. Then she said, “Say, since we’re on the clock, you wanna skip dessert and eat low-fat frozen yogurt at my place?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
• Chapter 42 •
It was a narrow street. Quiet. He took a meandering route from Joanna’s place, through narrow, residential, cobbled streets. The buildings were dark on either side of the street. Windows were closed and curtains drawn. A few exterior lights pushed away the night, but only in places. There was no traffic.
Victor preferred to walk facing oncoming traffic. He never let cars come up behind him if it could be avoided. It was one of the first things he had learned. A simple precaution, but the best ones usually were. This was a one-way street, however. Vehicles had to come at him head on, but none did at this hour.
He walked along the center of the road. He had a light step, but against hard cobbles and with the buildings in close proximity, those footsteps were loud and echoing. He could hear little else because this part of the city was residential and it was the middle of the night. It made it simple to pick out a second set of footsteps.
Lighter than his, so he pictured trainers or walking shoes. Twenty or twenty-five meters behind him. The echo was different, however, uneven, which meant the walker was on the pavement, close to one line of buildings with the nearby cars muffling the sound.
A citizen out for a late-night stroll, he discovered, but with four men already killed by his own hand, Victor had to operate with a higher level of caution until he knew for sure no one was looking for him.
With half a dozen cartels operating in Guatemala, plus others still from abroad, violence was endemic. Every day there were killings and kidnappings reported on the news broadcasts and in newspapers, but he found only a single mention of the disappearance of four men who worked for a private-security firm, and it was only a brief mention tucked away beneath an article about a soap opera star’s adultery. The article mentioned the men were known associates of one-half of the warring Salvatierra cartel, and their disappearance had already been attributed to their rival traffickers.
How hard the police were investigating, he didn’t know, but as a rule the authorities focused their resources on finding justice for civilians. The lack of an official desire to find the perpetrator wouldn’t necessarily extend to the cartel itself, but like the police, they might put it down to Heloise Salvatierra.
Victor was careful regardless; even if there was no immediate fallout from the dead private-security guys, it might trip him up farther down the line. But if Diaz thought there was a connection with the events at the hotel, he didn’t act like it. He was playing poker that night at his private game in a bar that overlooked Lago de Amatitlán. It was enough to convince Victor that if Diaz knew about the missing crew, he didn’t care. Diaz believed he was unassailable. He thought the cartel’s power was his shield.
For days, there had been no clouds. The pavement was so hot underfoot it felt as though the soles of his shoes would melt. He expected to leave size-twelve prints of rubber with every step. Victor was no fan of the heat. The hotter the weather, the fewer or lighter the garments. It was hard to hide a gun under linen, after all.
Perhaps that was why most of his work was carried out in the colder months. He had never set out to avoid work in the summer, but he had preferred areas to operate within, so why not seasons? He couldn’t escape the climate in Guatemala, and he stood out enough without adding to that with inappropriate dress. There were limits, of course. No T-shirts. No shorts. Good quality shoes at all times. He had rules that could never be broken. He would rather stand out than be unable to deal with the consequences of being noticed.
Despite the discomfort, there were dozens of opportunities to steal the yellow Aventador, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Victor would need significant time alone with the vehicle in order to turn it into a car bomb without Diaz’s knowledge. That was for later, after he had learned more about Diaz’s habits.
That would have to wait, however, because Georg got back with a choice: he could have an AX50 rifle shipped to him from South Africa, which would take three weeks to arrive, or he could collect one at the border with Honduras anytime he wished. Each option had its own positives and its drawbacks. It was safer and easier for the rifle from South Africa to be shipped to him. All he would need to do was collect a crate from the port. The risks would be negligible. Worst-case scenario would be having to bribe a member of the port authority not to check the cargo, and even that was highly unlikely. A cargo ship brought in thousands of shipping containers. If a port wanted to be profitable, it was impossible to check every container, let alone every item of cargo within them. At best, at tiny percent of containers were inspected. The downside was the wait. Three weeks was a long time. He might miss dozens of excellent opportunities to kill Maria, and while he waited he risked the chance of his target learning she was hunted. He risked the chance of his documentation being exposed. Even without those particular risks, he didn’t like to stay in one place so long. Though most of his enemies believed him dead, he considered it prudent to stay on the move. A stationary target was an easy target.
On the flip side, he could collect the rifle from the border with Honduras whenever he wanted. No downtime. No waiting.
The risks, though, were many. While Georg had sourced the weapon, she couldn’t vouch for the dealer selling it. At best, she could make a third-hand recommendation, but she could offer no guarantees. She made that clear. She wanted Victor to be under no illusions. She wanted him to have no grievances with her if the outcome was less than satisfactory. He understood this. He appreciated her frankness. Hence, he could not be sure the weapon would be as promised. It might be old. It might have been poorly maintained. The ammunition could be substandard. Maybe it had been used in a crime, the ballistics in a case file somewhere, with dogged cops trying to trace the weapon. Or it might be there was no rifle, just an opportunist looking to rip him off and score a considerable amount of cash. Or, worse
, it could be bait as part of a nonproliferation sting operation.
Even if the dealer was legit and the rifle up to Victor’s standards, there would still be problems. He would need to transport it himself, else take the additional risk of involving another party to take the main risks for him. Victor always preferred to work alone. He could trust only himself. At some point, everyone he had ever relied on had let him down, either willfully else through plain incompetence.
Georg needed an answer fast. The dealer from Honduras wasn’t going to hang around, and if the rifle in South Africa wasn’t on the next cargo ship out of Cape Town, it would be nine weeks, not three, before it arrived.
Victor liked rushing about as much as he liked taking risks, so he called Georg and said, “I’ll take both.”
She hadn’t expected this, and was silent.
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“Of course not, but it’ll double the price. Can you afford both? These are expensive weapons.”
“Money is no object.”
“Then I wish I had quoted you a higher price.”
“Too late now. Just make sure your Honduran contacts are aware that I expect them to keep to the very letter of the agreement.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’ve made sure they know exactly the kind of man they’re dealing with.”
• Chapter 43 •
The Smurf was a long, stringy kid with a crew cut that wasn’t even. The back was all messed up. So uneven that at first Alamaeda thought it to be deliberate. But no. Just a home cut. Maybe self-inflicted. She hoped it was self-inflicted. Either that, or whoever had cut it for him was a sadist. The Smurf wore baggy clothes, so oversized he could have been advertising a miracle diet. All he needed to do was smile and hold out his waistband and he could be on billboards everywhere.
Smurfs were always easy to spot because they were nervous. Their task was easy and the risks were nonexistent, but they still sweated. Their fingers couldn’t stop moving. Their heads never stayed still. They were nervous because they were new. They got the job in the first place because they were new. No one with even the remotest amount of experience or competence would have been given so lowly a task. If they didn’t screw up after a dozen or so runs, maybe they would get to do something a little riskier, a little more profitable. Some of the most dangerous sicarios she had taken down had started their careers as Smurfs. Some of the most fearless murderers had begun as scared Smurfs wiping sweat off their brows as they entered the bank for the first time.