I quickly answered no. My mission here required me to dig up facts, not kick down doors and clear rooms with the local tactical unit. I thanked Gómez for his help.
As we stood, Cabrera asked to borrow a car.
Gómez promptly reached into his pocket and handed Cabrera the keys to his truck. “Bring it back with a full tank,” he said.
A twenty-minute drive put us in front of a fairly new apartment building that stood out against the wrecks around it. I couldn’t help but notice a tangle of black cables running from the building to various electrical posts. How do they know whose is whose? Every apartment had a balcony, and every balcony had a clothesline, and every clothesline seemed to have a load swaying from it. Apparently driers aren’t a big deal here. The mailboxes were inside near the elevator. A quick look told us Julio Ortega lived on the tenth floor.
When we got there, I gave the door my standard three raps and waited. I tried once more but harder. A few seconds later, Cabrera put his ear against the door. “I don’t hear anything. No one’s home.”
Not what I wanted to hear. I clucked my lips while I looked at Cabrera.
A smile formed on his face. “I got an idea. Wait here.”
Before I could protest, he spun around and hurried toward the elevator. He returned after what seemed like an eternity though he wasn’t alone.
He pointed at the door, and the man who’d followed him revealed a keychain with a slew of keys attached. Cabrera leaned down toward me. “He’s the apartment manager.”
“We don’t have a warrant.”
“We’re not in the US.”
The apartment manager opened the door. Cabrera spoke to him in Spanish and slipped him a tightly folded bill. The manager nodded and left.
“We have fifteen minutes.”
The inside of the flat was typical for a single man that spent all his time at work. It was relatively clean, thanks to its simplicity. The furnishing and décor were purely functional, revealing no hint of the owner’s personality.
I scanned the living room in an attempt to get a handle on our scientist. On a shelf, there were a few framed pictures; one showed two men dressed in graduation gowns, each holding a degree. One had a scar across his cheek. Finally, something useful. So you’re the Ortega brothers. I assumed they were twins, fraternal, since they looked to be the same age and had apparently graduated from the university together. I grabbed the picture and went in search of Cabrera.
I found him halfway down the hallway in an office. The place was a mess. Stacks of paper and junk food wrappers covered the desk and spilled over onto much of the floor. Empty soda bottles lined a side of the work space. Two walls of the room held shelving stuffed with books.
Cabrera was busy rifling through a desk drawer.
“Sheesh, tell me you didn’t do this.”
He looked up, “Huh, what?”
“Shouldn’t we be a bit more inconspicuous?”
He looked around the office. “Don’t worry; it was mostly like this.” He scooped up a bunch of files, dumped them back into the drawer and forced it closed. “Nothing of use here.”
“You think?”
Cabrera didn’t respond as he walked by me. Suddenly his interest in the investigation had gone from “Let’s get this over with” to “I’m on a mission.”
“I got a picture of the brothers,” I called out as I followed him down the hall. He stopped and turned around.
“We can use this.” He snatched the frame from my hand and took it apart, shoving the picture into his back pocket.
“You guys sure do things differently down here.” Honestly, I’m a big believer in following the law, even when it comes to law enforcement. I’ve seen a lot of coworkers bend procedure or go on power trips, but I never figured Cabrera for one of them. I grabbed him by the arm. “What’s gotten into you? Suddenly you’re interested in the case and doing things I know the DEA doesn’t condone.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Honestly, I didn’t think we had much of a case until we got this lead. I guess it got my blood going.” He smiled at me. “Let’s see what this guy’s bedroom looks like.”
We entered the last door. The bedroom itself had the same feel as the living room: impersonal. The bed hadn’t been made, and there were a few articles of clothing strewn about the floor. He had a small bathroom attached. I peeked inside the shower; the tiles were dry, and so was the soap. “Looks like our guy hasn’t been here for a while. Either that or he doesn’t shower.” His toothbrush was dry as well. “I’d say he hasn’t been in his flat for at least a day, day and half. Not unusual for a workaholic.”
I exited the bathroom, and again I found Cabrera excavating the dresser drawers. At least he was being thorough. “Try not to break anything,” I said before heading to the kitchen.
Cabrera caught up with me a minute later. “Find anything interesting?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing stands out to me and says, ‘I conducted experiments in the jungle.’ ”
“Let’s head over to the other brother’s place. Maybe we’ll have better luck there.”
Chapter 39
It didn’t take long to reach the other brother’s apartment, five minutes tops. We found the apartment on the fifth floor; it was an end unit. I knocked twice on the dull brown door before Cabrera lost his patience. He was halfway to the elevator on his way to find the apartment manager when I tried the doorknob. “Cabrera,” I whisper-shouted to him, “it’s unlocked.”
He hurried back, and we both drew our weapons. I entered first and headed right; Cabrera went left, and we proceeded to clear the apartment. It was empty.
The first thing I noticed was that it was nicely decorated and tidy; a woman lived here, permanently. This brother was married, and his wedding pictures sat inside a hutch along with their china set. The couple looked happy and normal. He didn’t look like a mad scientist. There were other pictures. Julio was in a few.
Cabrera came up behind me. “You need to see this.”
He led the way to the master bedroom. It told a different story. Clothes were draped over the bed and scattered across the floor. Drawers hung open. A half-full suitcase lay next to the bed. “Someone got out of here in a hurry,” I said, turning to Cabrera.
He had a hand rested on each hip as he looked around the room. “Barely had time to pack, too.”
“Something spooked them.”
“Or him.”
I walked over to an open drawer and saw lingerie inside. “Unless he’s a cross-dresser, she left with him.”
Cabrera crinkled his forehead. “What makes you say that?”
I pointed to the drawer. “Three bras, barely a handful of thongs—the average woman has more underwear. Trust me: she packed.” I searched the closet, her makeup counter, and the medicine cabinet. All showed signs of items missing.
The investigation had taken a turn. We now had a couple who appeared to have left in a hurry. Could the other brother have left as well? There were no signs at his apartment to indicate that, but a man was less likely to pack much.
I walked over to the nightstand by the bed, where I spotted a few more pictures. One showed a monkey peeking through an open window of a shack from the outside. Standing inside next to the window and holding a banana was Elan Ortega. I handed the photograph to Cabrera. “I’d say we have good reason to believe the Ortega brothers are our outsiders, and something has them on the run.”
“If that’s true, they’ve most likely headed to Bogotá.”
“Why Bogotá?”
“When people get scared in Colombia, they leave the country. They might not have left yet.”
“Now that we have pictures, we should issue an APB.”
“Yeah.” Cabrera snapped photographs of both pictures with his phone and sent an email. “My contact with the Colombian Police will disperse the pictures to his teams at the airport, the ports, and border control. It’ll be hard for them to leave if they haven’t already.”
; I looked at my watch. “Come on. We still have time to catch the last flight back.”
Chapter 40
Every few minutes, Elan Ortega peeked out the hotel window.
“Why can’t we go to my sister’s boyfriend’s mother’s house?” Adrianna asked again.
“I know he’s your brother, but he can’t be trusted. Nor can the rest of your family, no matter how remote the connection.” He worried that Zapata might have already sent men to every possible location to look for them. In fact, he couldn’t be sure they hadn’t been followed and someone wasn’t watching them right at the moment.
Adrianna wiped her eyes with a tissue. “I’m sure he will understand. Whatever you did, it can’t be that bad. I’m his sister.”
Elan looked back at her. “And that is exactly why he cannot know where you are. He will use you to get to me.”
She lay back down on the bed and hugged the pillow.
An overwhelming amount of guilt weighed on Elan. He had put the one person he cared about most into the worst possible situation all because of his and his brother’s selfish needs to achieve a milestone with their work. Was it worth it, Elan? he asked himself continually.
Working for Zapata had been a mistake from the very start. He realized too late that no good could ever come of it. Even Adrianna had managed to stay clear of his business. She had graduated from the university and wanted to be a writer. All she did in her spare time was work on her novel. She would often joke that she was writing a tell-all about her family and that, soon enough, they would have to go on the run. Current events were not what either of them had envisioned, though. They were both living in a fantasy world. He believed his work served a greater purpose; she ignored what her brother really did.
Elan left his perch by the window and sat beside his wife. He ran his hand up and down the length of her back.
“What are we going to do?” Adrianna asked softly.
Elan figured that by now, Zapata knew they were missing. He would hunt them down until he found them—not because he cared about his sister but because he cared about the drug falling into someone else’s hands. Surely the airport had been compromised—Elan figured that much—but he had a friend who could arrange travel to Panama by boat. From there, they would fly to the United States where he would seek asylum for the both of them. This plan would help keep them under the radar, but the risk was still great. Zapata’s reach was long and deep.
There was one more part to Elan’s plan, though—one that would have the US government gladly helping him: his hidden ace, the dead DEA agent.
Chapter 41
I awoke with my face planted firmly in Cabrera’s right arm. When I pulled back, I noticed a tiny bit of wetness on his shirt. I told him it was punishment for letting me sleep through the drink service. The plane had started its descent, and the seatbelt signs were already on. I could have used a cup of green tea.
As soon as we landed at El Dorado International, we checked in with the security force assigned to the airport to see if there had been any sign of the Ortegas.
They were still combing the last two days of video footage to ascertain whether any of them might have slipped out earlier. So far, no sign of that. Cabrera had wanted to leave, but I had convinced him, by keeping my butt firmly planted in my seat, that we should stick around while they went through the rest of the footage.
A nice security guard fetched me a cup of hot water for my tea. The warmth between my hands, coupled with that familiar scent, helped me relax.
“What are you thinking about?” Cabrera asked.
“Next steps if we don’t find the brothers. They could be anywhere.”
“I really don’t think they have left the country yet.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“It’s a hunch.”
“Well, my directives aren’t to go on a massive man hunt. If they don’t turn up in this footage, I’m on a plane out of here and its left up to you and your Colombian friends.”
Cabrera looked down at his watch. “If that’s the case, I need to talk to my contacts on the streets and see if anyone has heard or seen them. The quicker I get the word out, the faster I’ll hear back. Time is of the essence right now.”
“Go. I’ll see this through.”
“So, you really could be leaving soon.”
“If this comes up empty, yes. I still have to run the situation by my supervisor, but I don’t think I’ll have any pushback. I’ll try to grab a flight tomorrow or the next day,” I said, avoiding eye contact.
He checked his watch. “It’s 4:00 p.m. Let me do what I need to do. Maybe two, three hours tops. After that, I own you, Abby Kane. You are all mine until you set foot on that plane. That’s it. It’s not up for debate. That is, unless one of us gets a break.”
I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t help it. The big, strong man had demanded it. Who was I but a tiny woman? I was no match for his dimples. I know it’s silly. He was more than a face or a body. He was a nice guy—an interesting guy. Though why I continued to encourage that fling, I don’t know. It’s not like I flew to Bogotá for business twice a month. Maybe I’ll have to if the scientist thing blows up and Reilly orders me to. I finally looked up at Cabrera. His comforting gaze grabbed me and gave a warm squeeze. “That sounds nice.” I told him.
Cabrera clasped his hands together and rubbed them. “The sooner I leave, the sooner we can reconnect.”
“Go. Get out of here. I’ll see you later.”
“At your hotel,” he said as he backed out of the room.
I sat there for the next twenty minutes fantasizing about his return while I stirred my tea slowly. What position on the bed would I be in when he broke down my hotel door to get to me? Would I have time to scream before he quieted me with a long, deep kiss? Or would he break into my room while I took a shower and somehow manage to slip behind the curtain without my knowing, only to give himself away by tapping me on the back with his third arm?
Even under the warm water, my body would quiver with each touch. Every muscle would tighten. My nipples would harden and stand erect, but I wouldn’t give in and let him know the effect he had over me. I would ignore him and continue bathing as if he were not standing behind me. Then I would brazenly bend over and pretend to wash my legs, leaving myself open and exposed—
“Agent Kane,” a soldier called out, yanking me back to reality.
“Huh? Yes, what is it?” I asked with as much normalcy as I could assemble.
“We have reviewed all of the footage. We did not see the individuals you seek. But now that we are watching for them, it will be impossible for them to leave.”
There were still flashbacks of soapy lather and blunt objects swimming around my head as I listened. “Yes, well, thank you for your efforts. The FBI appreciates your cooperation.” I gathered my things and left the airport, knowing my investigation in Bogotá had come to an end and I would be heading home.
But not before I finished washing.
Chapter 42
Not everyone is cut out for the cloak-and-dagger lifestyle. Elan was convinced that he stood out despite his efforts to conceal himself. Stiff as a board, he stood awkwardly near the rack of sunglasses by the entrance of the small shop. Trying to appear loose and casual only made him appear as if he were slow dancing with himself.
He focused his attention on the building across the street. The Colombian office of the US Drug Enforcement Administration was located on the second floor. Elan wasn’t quite sure how to go about claiming asylum for himself and his wife. All he knew was that he had information on the dead agent found in Mitú, and someone in that office would want it.
He had been watching the building for nearly forty-five minutes. Twice the shopkeeper asked him if he needed help, thinking he was a thief waiting for the right moment to strike. The man’s insistence on standing next to him made Elan’s surveillance of the building nearly impossible. Elan had stalled long enough. He finally apologized and
left.
He didn’t cross the street immediately. Instead, he walked for fifty yards north and then crossed over and doubled back so his approach would not be noticed if someone were looking out the window. He thought his actions were borderline ridiculous, that his imagination and fears had gotten the best of him, but he could not help it. Running from Zapata had placed him and Adrianna in great danger. There was no turning back.
<><><>
Adrianna sat quietly in the hotel room, waiting for her husband to return. Despite his plea for her to not contact anyone, not even her mother or father, Adrianna couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the country without saying anything. They will worry and think something bad has happened. She didn’t want that. So she made the call—a quick one to her parents explaining that she had to go away for a while but was safe.
“Where are you? We will come to you,” they said.
“No, you mustn’t. We are leaving soon. There is no time.”
“Where? How will we contact you?”
“I’ll contact you. But if you want to help, do not tell anyone we have spoken. Not even family. Not even Faro.”
Adrianna hung up the phone. She gave them no information about her whereabouts, but she did stay on the phone long enough for the men standing next to her parents to trace her call.
The leader of the group turned to the parents. “You did well. We will find her. Everything will be okay. Elan will not get away with this kidnapping.”
On the way to the car, the leader took out his cell phone to give an update to the man who had hired them. The boss had said to wait at the parents’ house in case they got a call. He had never met his boss and only knew him by his name, El Monstruo.
Tenderloin (Abby Kane FBI Thriller) Page 13