The sound of forks and knives scraping plates and quiet conversation filled the air, and everyone looked very happy to be enjoying a decent meal. A little over a half an hour passed, and the plates were cleared, and dessert was served. It turned out to be apple pie and ice cream, which was probably because the majority of the diners were American, so, whether or not Lars was a ruthless bastard, he was certainly a conscientious host.
I checked my watch and was curious why we still hadn’t had any police or government people arrive and wondered if perhaps Lars had made a few phone calls of his own and used some of his government influence to slow or halt the rescue effort. I therefore needed to contact Greaves and at least get our own people in the loop. With dessert over, everyone returned to the living room, and Ernesto finally broke out his Cacique Guaro. Shit, I really wanted to partake, but I needed to keep a clear head.
Feeling a familiar swelling in my bladder, I moved across the room and down the hall towards the bathroom. Along the way, I passed a little nook that just happened to have a traditional landline style phone. Bueno! I picked up the phone, dialed Greaves’s number from memory, and immediately heard an annoying beeping tone. Interesting. Apparently, the phone lines were down, so I continued on to the bathroom, peed, then washed my hands and returned to the living room to look for Alessandra. She was talking with several of the UCLA team, but, after we made eye contact, she politely excused herself and joined me.
“You ready?” I asked.
“I guess so, though I’m already feeling guilty.”
“Just imagine that you’re freeing an innocent man.”
“I don’t need to imagine it. I know it’s true.”
“Good, then let’s go.”
We slipped out of the room and were careful to avoid any of the household staff as we made our way upstairs to his office on the third floor. Unfortunately, living in a castle meant he had a shitload of rooms spread out across a shitload of floors, and, had I not had Alessandra’s help, I could have wandered all night and never found his office. Sure, I’d seen it briefly from the pool the other day, but at night the inside of the castle was a little disorienting. We arrived at the third floor, but, just as we came around a corner, we saw a maid leaving a nearby room, so we raced back and slipped into an alcove that resided just behind a suit of medieval armor. We waited for her to pass, and, once the coast was clear, we stepped out and headed around the corner to Lars’s office. I tried the doorknob and found it locked. Shitfucker. Of course, a sneaky billionaire kept his private office locked when he was having a party. Too bad I didn’t have my lock pick set, but they were back in my overnight bag at the camp.
“Any other way in?” I asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“The other day when you were meeting, I noticed the windows were open. Does he usually leave them that way?”
“I don’t know. Probably, as it get’s warmer the higher you go in this place, so it would make sense.”
“Maybe I can get in through one of the windows.”
“Did you forget to tell me your superpower was flight?”
“No, as I would obviously climb down from the room above.”
“Yeah, if you didn’t fall to your death first.”
“I’ve scaled the outer walls of some pretty nice homes. I think I’ll be OK.”
“You’ll be at least four or five stories above the ground, so, if you fall, your odds of surviving are pretty slim.”
“Never tell me the odds!”
She looked at me blankly, which meant she didn’t remember Han Solo’s famous rebuttal to C3PO, and it also meant that she wasn’t nearly as big a Star Wars fan as me. Oh well, who was, really?
“What’s on the next floor?” I asked.
“More rooms.”
“That’s all you’ve got? More rooms?”
“This place has over a hundred rooms. No one, including Lars, even knows what they all are.”
“OK, then let’s go explore together.”
We walked back to the stairs and headed up to the next floor to find that all was quiet, and not a creature was stirring when we reached the approximate area above where Lars’s office resided. I opened the door and found an empty guest room and quickly moved to the window. It took a fair amount of pushing to get it open, then I poked my head out and was struck at how far down the ground appeared. It might have only been fifty or sixty feet, but it looked like a hundred. Alessandra joined me and looked out the window and instantly let out a little sigh of fear.
“This is crazy. You can’t risk it,” she said.
“I have to.”
“As you know, I’m a climber, and even I wouldn’t attempt it.”
I looked around the room and decided to do the old movie standard and make a rope from the sheets. I stripped the bed and tied the top sheet to the fitted sheet and had about ten feet of improvised rope, which should be plenty to get me safely to Lars’s office window. I tied one end to the bed frame and stepped up onto the window sill.
“Seriously, Tag. Don’t do this.”
“I’ll be fine—but be ready. The minute I’m in, I’ll wave so you can come downstairs and join me.”
I grabbed a hold of the sheet and stepped out over the window sill.
“You’re not living unless you’re living dangerously,” I said, as I slipped out of view and tried my best not to think about how far it was to the ground.
I reached Lars’s floor, but the only open office window was the next one over. Wonderful. I braced myself and pushed off and swung to my right but couldn’t quite reach the open window. I swung back then moved a few steps to my left in the hopes of getting a running start. This one had to be successful, because my hands were getting tired, and I didn’t entirely trust my improvised rope. I silently counted to three then ran and jumped, and this time I made it just far enough to get my feet through the opening. The upper half of my body was dangling out the window, but I managed to clamber down into the room.
“Fuck,” I said aloud, as I took a second to catch my breath.
I leaned out and waved to Alessandra, and she pulled the sheet back into the upstairs window, so it was time to have a look at Lars’s office. There was a small desk lamp still turned on, which could mean that Lars might have been here recently, or perhaps he didn’t really care about saving electricity. In either case, it provided enough illumination for me to see that this was not your typical office. It was larger than most people’s living rooms and was at least fifty feet across and twenty feet deep with the furnishings befitting of even the greatest of James Bond villains. It featured a large modern desk as the focal point while out in front of it was a shaggy white rug on which there resided a leather sofa and an Eames chair. More interestingly were the walls, which were decorated with ancient weapons and manly paintings of medieval knights and samurai warriors. In truth, I rather liked his taste and wondered if I should redo my office back home with a more manly theme.
I heard a knock on the door and hoped it was Alessandra, and, as I opened it, I was relieved to see it was Professor Hot Sauce, and she was looking rather uncomfortable or perhaps guilty.
“Is it weird sneaking into your hump den without your hump buddy here?” I asked.
“Fuck you, and yes it is, though, for the record, there’s a side room with a bed for that.”
“Clearly, it’s good to be a billionaire.”
She stepped inside, and I closed the door and turned my attention back to the office, or, more specifically, a brushed aluminum file cabinet that was behind the desk. I went over to it and started with the letter C and found a fairly thick file that was labeled Chalupa Ruins Cultural Heritage Site. There were several folders and two manilla colored envelopes, and the nearest one I just happened to recognize as being the very same one Alessandra had hand delivered.
“Here’s the document you brought to Lars-bear the other day. Did you ever get a chance to look at it?” I asked.
“No.”
&
nbsp; “Well, no time like the present,” I said, as I slid out the documents.
It was a copy of the Chalupa land deal agreement, only it looked different from the one I’d read in Alessandra’s office. This one, according to the table of contents, was amended and apparently had an addendum. Interesting. I thumbed to the addendum, and my heart began to race ever faster with each sentence. This was it. The veritable second gunmen on the grassy knoll that was my Chalupa conundrum.
“Do you know anything about an addendum to the Chalupa land deal?” I asked.
“No—why?”
“Take a look,” I said, handing her the contract.
She read the words on the addendum page, and I watched as her face flushed and her heart began to beat visibly faster. She looked up at me, with her gaze lost and unfocused, as bad news was hard to take, and no one liked to find out they were dating a shitball criminal.
“This can’t be,” she said.
“It has to be, as you delivered it from the Department of Antiquities yourself.”
Alessandra had to take a seat to steady herself. I could understand her feelings, as I’d had more than a few times in my life when someone let me down, though it was rarely a girlfriend, and it was never quite like this. The addendum added a time limit to the contract, and, if the UCLA team hadn’t found any evidence to disprove the validity of the Chalupa’s claims to the site by May 15th of this year, then the deal would go forward regardless of what findings were uncovered forthwith. We didn’t have a motive for kidnapping before, but now we had a doozie. Today was May 16th, and the land was officially Lars’s to do with as he pleased. The kidnapping served to buy him the time he needed to get the deal amended, but now I was curious as to who might be his inside man or woman on the Board of Antiquities. I looked at the very end of the document and saw that there was an official stamp of approval from the Costa Rica Department of Antiquities but no signature.
“I wonder why they didn’t just change the date to be even sooner. Why wait a week?”
“Our bylaws state that a week is the minimum time we can put on a rush contract.”
“Does it happen very often?”
“Only once or twice since I’ve been on the board, and it’s usually only done when an archaeological site is in extreme jeopardy due to construction or unusual outside factors.”
“Do all board members have the authority to alter a contract?” I asked.
Alessandra was still in shock and took a moment to respond.
“No, only senior members have the authority and an official stamp.”
“As there’s no signature, it would appear that whoever did this preferred to remain anonymous. So, how many suspects do we have?”
“Well, there are only five senior members—me, Donald Delaney, Rico Aroni, James Riglez, and Valerie Velasquez. Lars could have bribed any one of them.”
“Including you, but, just so you know, I don’t think it was you.”
“Thanks, but it doesn’t change the fact that I fell in love with a man who is very likely a criminal.”
“At least it might ease any guilt relating to our little moment in the cave.”
She smiled a little sadly.
“I suppose, but what do we do now?” she asked.
“Good question. I guess the first thing to do is get a distress message out in case Ernesto’s didn’t make it.”
“The phone is right there, so you might as well call Greaves.”
“I already tried on one of the downstairs phones but couldn’t get out. Maybe I’ll have better luck on Lars’s personal line.”
I took a seat at Lars’s desk then picked up the phone and dialed Greaves, but heard that same terrible beeping noise. Fucking Lars had his lines blocked, so we needed a different way to get out our message. I looked around the room and quickly honed in on his computer. It was a twenty-seven inch iMac identical to the one I had at home, and I was hoping that his internet came in via a different line than the phone. I went over and tapped the spacebar, and it came out of sleep mode. Hot damn! It wasn’t password protected! I opened up his Firefox browser and up popped his homepage. Oddly, it was Yahoo—the very same one I used. I logged into my email account and saw that I had about fifty or more emails since I last checked, and I scrolled down and was excited to see that Beeber had finally gotten back to me about the Sexstasy secret clinical trials website. His email started with hello, asshole and went on to detail how the fucker had managed, against all odds, to track the URL through numerous relays across the world before ending up on a Von Träger Pharmaceutical’s server. That was the golden ticket! We had tangible proof that Lars’s company was officially involved in something illegal. From there, it would only be matter of time before we could prove that Lars himself was personally involved.
“I’m going to send Greaves and my friends back in the States an email update on the situation, then I think we need to sneak the fuck out of here tonight.”
“And go where?”
“Back to the camp. The team’s vehicles are still there, so we could load up and head for San Jose, and, if we’re extremely lucky and someone checks their email, they’ll hopefully send in the authorities.”
Alessandra paused for a moment as though she were having second thoughts.
“Wait, Tag—are we absolutely sure about all this? Is there any possible way that Lars might not actually be guilty?” she asked.
“Not as far as I can tell.”
I took a final look around Lars’s desk and checked the drawers. In the second one down I found a Beretta 92 pistol and five full clips of ammo. Apparently, Santa Claus knew I was coming and left a present! I pocketed the four clips and slid the fifth into the gun then moved to the next drawer down and spied an odd looking remote control.
“I wonder if this will make a miniature scale model of the Chalupa ruins rise up from the floor?”
“Like the model of Fort Knox in the movie Goldfinger?” Alessandra asked.
“Oh—so now you suddenly remember that movie? Where was that pop culture knowledge when I called you Pussy Galore?”
“I was apparently still booting up the useless facts part of my brain.”
“Useless? How dare you! You should be ashamed of yourself for speaking ill of the great creator and his creation.”
I pressed the first of four buttons and heard an electronic buzzing sound coming from the other side of the room.
“Holy shit! Is the floor opening up?” I asked.
“No, but the wall is, and it’s revealing a secret closet.”
I looked over and saw two sections of wall sliding open, and a light automatically turned on and was illuminating an item that made me feel as though I had snuck into the Bat Cave and was looking at Batman’s bat suit. In this instance, however, it was a King Chalupa outfit complete with mask, headdress, leather loin cloth, and a large scepter, and Alessandra and I walked over and gazed in wonder.
“Well, if there were any doubts, there aren’t any more now,” I said.
“I guess not,” Alessandra said, gravely.
“Let’s get the hell out of here and go tell the others what we learned.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Escape from Asshole's Castle
ALESSANDRA AND I left Lars’s office and headed downstairs to the living room and were fortunate not to run into any of the household staff, as it was now important to appear as normal as possible and not arouse any suspicion until we could come up with some kind of escape plan. We arrived to find the party still going strong, and we slipped through the crowd and found Estelle and Thomas standing in front of the fireplace. Just as we joined them, Lars and Linda unexpectedly arrived, and our favorite billionaire was looking unusually jovial and acting like the consummate host. Shit, I had to give the fucker some credit, as he was one cool customer to be able to act so innocent amongst the people he’d kidnapped .
“Alessandra, where have you been?”
She nervously looked to me.
&n
bsp; “Giving me a brief tour of your castle. I must say, it’s absolutely magnificent,” I said.
“Well, thank you, Tag. I certainly feel lucky to live here.”
He moved closer and placed his arm on Alessandra’s shoulder.
“Alessandra, I was hoping you could tell Linda about the latest acquisition you made for the museum, as she’s a fan of early Incan artifacts.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, as Lars led the two ladies off to a quieter corner of the living room.
Perfect, the man of the house was moving on, and that would allow me to talk more easily behind his back. Fabiana appeared soon thereafter, and I proceeded to fill everyone in on what I’d learned in the big man’s office. I could see all of their expressions dramatically change for the worse as they processed the news, and, in turn, realized the direness of our situation.
“It feels a little like we’re back on Soft Taco Island, but, instead of escaping from a French arms dealer’s mansion, it’s a Costa Rican billionaire’s castle,” I said.
“It’s certainly never boring around you, Finn,” Estelle responded.
“Sometimes, I honestly wish it were.”
“So, what do we do?” Thomas asked, sounding concerned.
“Tonight, after the festivities die down, we get the hell out of here and go to your camp. From there, we load up in your vehicles and head back to San Jose. If all goes well, we’ll be long gone by the time Lars has his morning coffee.”
“Is it wise to go running around through the jungle at night?” he asked.
“It’s wiser than staying here.”
“But, what if Lars finds out? He practically has his own private army.”
“Well, if Lars somehow finds out that we’re trying to escape, then we’ll deal with it.”
The Chalupa Conundrum Page 50