Now that the bomb was assembled, Afundi needed to move the device and do it quickly. Instead they were forced to sit and watch as his follower died on his own clock, bleeding from every orifice.
Nitikin could read the anxiety in Alim’s eyes. Yakov had never been informed as to the final target, but he knew that Alim was running out of time. During the weeks of preparation the Russian had picked up bits of information from friends in the FARC and subtle signals from Alim himself. He knew that the device was to be shipped, at least partway, by sea inside a container that had been specially lined with lead. Yakov had seen the container. It was ready to go.
He also knew that the container was to be transferred from a small coastal freighter to a larger oceangoing ship at the port of Panama City. Nitikin had been told by one of his FARC comrades that a fax had been received from a shipping company in Panama and that the transfer was to take place in three days. This did not leave Afundi much time. If his man did not die today, Yakov knew that Alim would have to find some excuse to clear the hospital room by nightfall so that he could smother the man with a pillow.
Nitikin picked this moment to enter the sweaty death room where Alim’s man lay dying. He caught the eye of the interpreter and motioned him with a finger. Alim got up and followed the interpreter as they both approached the Russian.
“I want you to give them a message,” said Nitikin. He gestured toward Alim’s men. “Tell them that the device now contains a safety mechanism and that it will not be armed and cannot be detonated until this mechanism is removed. You can tell them that the device is now completely safe.”
The interpreter whispered the message to Alim, who nodded and smiled. This was good news, something to quell the fear of his men as they watched their comrade die.
In a forceful voice the interpreter delivered the message to Alim’s men. The four remaining men nodded, and three of them offered up reassured smiles.
Nitikin now finished the message. “They must understand that only I can remove the safety mechanism, and that can only be done after the device is transported to its final target. It would not be safe to move the device otherwise.” He waited and watched.
This time when the interpreter whispered in Farsi to Alim, Afundi did not smile. Instead he said something to the interpreter and gestured that he wanted to step outside, presumably to discuss the matter with Nitikin there.
Yakov refused to budge from the door. “Tell them.” His voice was raised a full octave and several decibels in volume.
Alim glanced over his shoulder and realized the men were watching. He could tell by the looks on their faces, they knew something was wrong. Afundi looked at the interpreter, his lips drawn and tight. There was nothing he could do. The Russian had boxed him in. He nodded. Then he studied his men as they listened to the translation, the rasping breath of their dying comrade as background. They looked at each other for a moment and then began to whisper among themselves. Alim walked over and joined them. They talked for a few more seconds. Alim patted one of them on the shoulder as he smiled and spoke to them. He was doing PR. He needed them to move the bomb, and Yakov knew it.
After a few more words with his men, Alim looked at Nitikin and said something in Farsi. “They understand. What you say is acceptable to them,” said the translator.
The words did not square with the livid expression that flashed in Afundi’s eyes at this moment. But the Russian didn’t care. He had gambled on the superstition of Alim’s men. They wanted someone between themselves and the demon that belched blue fire from the hut in the jungle. Of the three men in close proximity, only Nitikin had survived to tame the beast. Surely they had to wonder whether the dragon’s egg he had hidden all these years returned the favor by declining to take the life of its sentinel and guardian.
FORTY-THREE
So what do I tell them?” Thorpe was already on the phone from FBI headquarters to Rhytag at Justice. A reporter from the Associated Press had already called wanting to know if it was true that a San Diego lawyer wanted for murder was on the lam in Costa Rica and the FBI was about to make an arrest.
“What did you tell them so far?” said Rhytag.
“I didn’t take the call. I had my secretary tell them I was busy.”
“Tell them no comment,” said Rhytag. “Tell them it’s a matter under investigation and that we don’t discuss active investigations.”
“That’ll hold ’em for a while,” said Thorpe. “But we have to make a decision. Do we pick him up or do we continue to tail him?”
Rhytag had to think about this for a few seconds. “Damn it. We should have handled the state’s prosecutor with a little more diplomacy.”
“We could let him in on it, tell him about Nitikin and the device,” said Thorpe.
“It’s too late for that. Templeton’s already gone to the press. They’re not going to let it go now. If Templeton suddenly backs off, the media is going to want to know why. You don’t allow someone under a fugitive arrest warrant for two murders to wander free unless there’s a reason,” said Rhytag.
“We can tell them we’re still looking,” said Thorpe.
“Except for one thing; the Costa Rican authorities already know we have Madriani under surveillance. They don’t know why, but sooner or later word is going to get out that we had him on a string. Then all hell is gonna break loose. And what if he slips the tail?”
“You’ve got a point there,” said Thorpe.
“You do know where he is?”
“We’re in contact with our agents down there now. He’s still in his hotel room. No one has seen them yet this morning. We posted one of our agents inside in the restaurant just a few minutes ago.”
“I take it there was no word from your people on where he might be headed or what he’s doing down there?”
“Not yet,” said Thorpe. “We did get a line on the other defendant’s house, Solaz. One of our resident agents called in the location. It’s only a few blocks from the hotel where Madriani is staying.”
“Then that’s a definite possibility,” said Rhytag.
“We had one of the agents go by the place just after nine this morning. He rang the doorbell but nobody answered. We’ve had it checked out before and the place is deserted. The mother’s not there. We had the local authorities run a background check on her. She has no record.”
There were a few moments of silence. “Your call,” said Thorpe. “What do we do?”
Rhytag thought about it, fumed, and then said, “Pick him up.”
“What about the other guy?”
“There’s no warrant out on him,” said Rhytag. “Let him go, but keep a tail on him. But we can’t afford to take any more chances with Madriani.”
“We can try and hold him down there for a few days, sweat him for information in a Costa Rican jail,” said Thorpe. “If we’re lucky, his lawyer may refuse to waive extradition, turn him into a legal pińata.”
“I don’t want to know about it,” said Rhytag. “Just do what you have to.”
Liquida was so angry this morning that he would have to restrain himself to keep from cutting the woman’s throat when she arrived home. The previous afternoon he had tried to transfer funds from his savings account in San Diego to his ATM account under the name of John Waters, only to find out that the account was frozen. Somehow Katia Solaz’s lawyers had found Liquida’s bank account. How they had done this he didn’t know. He should never have sold the coin. The old man must have talked. What was worse, the lawyers had placed a hold on the gold ingots Liquida had stored in the safe-deposit box. The woman at the bank assured him that no one had opened the box, but they had scheduled a hearing and invited Mr. Waters to attend. There was no chance of that happening. The critics were right. The U.S. banking system was a mess. What the hell good was a bank if you couldn’t get at your own money without robbing it?
For the moment he tried to put it out of his mind as he planned the last details for the woman’s arrival home. He had cover
ed all the bases. But he still didn’t trust his employer in Colombia. He had double-checked to make sure that the woman would arrive home alone. Her companions, the two FARC attendants who were to escort her, would be delayed in Medellín until Liquida had finished the job in San José.
When the front doorbell rang, it scared the hell out of him. Liquida had been sitting quietly in the living room reading a newspaper, waiting, like the spider for the fly.
He knew it couldn’t be the owner of the house. She would have used her key and let herself in. He glanced at his watch. Her flight from Medellín, through Panama City and then to San José, wasn’t scheduled to land at the airport for another forty minutes.
Liquida set the newspaper aside and silently slipped across the living room toward the front door.
Whoever was there was impatient. They rang the bell once more before he could even get to the door.
The bright morning sunlight outside and the darkness of the entry allowed Liquida to steal a glance through the peephole in the door without being seen. There was a man standing outside the wrought-iron gate. He was wearing a dark blue suit and striped tie. Fair skinned, he was tall, with brown hair. The fingers of his right hand played with the closed button on his suit coat as he stood there looking down at his shoes.
The man had a look of impatience about him. He punched the bell one more time, silently chafing because no one was answering. To Liquida, he smacked of authority, but not Costa Rican. If he was policía, he was norteamericano, thought Liquida. What was he doing here?
The Mexican stood silently off to the side of the door as the bell rang two more times. “Come on, answer!”
He could hear the man whispering to himself.
“Looks like nobody’s home.” This time the voice came from somewhere farther off.
“Looks like it,” the man at the gate shouted back.
“Come on, let’s go.”
The guy at the gate turned and walked away.
Liquida quickly tiptoed into the dining room and climbed the stairs to the first landing, where he watched from the window as the stranger crossed the street and leaned into the open passenger-side window of a large dark Town Car parked at the curb on the other side. The man talked to whoever was behind the wheel for several seconds.
Liquida was sure he was not one of the men he had seen the other night, certainly not the man at the gate with the pick, and the build was wrong for his friend, who Liquida had seen standing at the corner.
Suddenly the man lifted his head out of the car and looked back at the house.
Liquida leaned away from the window wondering if somehow the guy had sensed that there was someone inside. His mind quickly turned to alternatives, finding some other way out and postponing his meeting with the woman, when he heard the engine start and the car door slam.
By the time Liquida looked out, the big black sedan was backing up the street at full speed, toward the corner. It backed into the intersection taking the turn. The car shifted into forward and a second later it was gone.
Liquida stood at the window looking in both directions along the street. There were cars parked at the curb, mostly on the other side. All of them appeared to be empty. Liquida had entered the house quickly, standing at the gate as if he had a key, using his pick. He was certain the house was not being watched. Still, for a place that was supposedly deserted, there were entirely too many visitors to make it feel comfortable.
He glanced at his watch again. Then he headed down the steps, through the dining room and into the kitchen. He picked up a small brown glass bottle from the counter where it rested on top of a thick piece of folded cotton cloth. Liquida held the bottle to the light. He had already checked it twice. He wanted to be sure there was enough ether left inside to do the job. He satisfied himself once more, then put the bottle back down on top of the cloth and began pacing the floor. He was hoping the plane wasn’t late, or God forbid, that she had missed her connecting flight in Panama.
FORTY-FOUR
Two minutes, seńor, to get my men into position at the back of the hotel.” The Costa Rican lieutenant was in uniform, talking in English to the FBI agent standing on the street next to him, and then in Spanish into the microphone clipped to the shoulder loop of his shirt as he gave instructions to his officers strung out around the Sportsmens Lodge.
“Take your time. They’re not going anywhere.” One of the FBI agents was assembling some forms from a briefcase in the backseat of the black SUV parked across the street from the front entrance to the lodge.
His partner checked the clip in his .357 Sig Sauer, then slid it back into the handle of the pistol, slapped it home, and pulled the slide back, chambering the first round.
“Seńor?”
“Yes?”
“Are you expecting them to be armed? My men will need to know.”
“Not as far as we know. Oh, you mean the gun?” said the agent. “That’s just force of habit. I doubt that they’re armed. Can’t give you any guarantees, of course, but the suspect is a lawyer.”
“Abogado?”
“Sí.”
“He’s charged with murder,” said the agent in the car. “Tell your people not to take any chances.”
“What about the other man? The big one.”
“The other man is an employee. We believe he’s a private investigator. We simply want to detain him to keep him out of the way. We have no warrant on him. Just make sure he doesn’t get in the way. We’ll let him go when we’re done.”
“He is very big,” said the lieutenant.
“Yes.”
The Costa Rican slowly moved away with his hand pressed to the microphone clipped on his shoulder. He turned his head and spoke into it again.
A few seconds later one of the cops near the gate at the hotel’s front entrance lifted his twelve-gauge shotgun and worked the pump, loading the first round of double-ought shot. The weapon was an ugly thing with a pistol grip where the shoulder stock should have been.
Following my conversation with Harry, Herman and I packed quickly. We wait just inside the glass door leading to the bar until the help goes into the kitchen. Then we hustle through the bar and down the steps to the green wooden door at the back of the Sportsmens Lodge.
We don’t stop to pay the bill. Everything was on the credit card. We were booked through that night. So as far as we are concerned, they can charge it.
We are out the door and down the street, hauling our luggage less than five minutes after I hung up with Harry. At least in daylight it would be easy to find the steps leading up to Katia’s street. We will have one more shot to get the camera and the pictures, then either way I would have to run. Off to Colombia without a lead. The way we planned it, Herman would stick around, maybe wait for Katia’s mother and make another attempt to find the camera if he thought it would do any good.
This morning the lion at the zoo isn’t growling. He is probably asleep, something I hadn’t had much of the night before. Thoughts of the man with the pockmarked face kept me awake.
“I’m missin’ one of my picks,” says Herman. “Think I dropped it last night.”
We were walking quickly, both of us breathing hard.
“Can you open the gate without it?”
“Think so. I’m gonna have to,” said Herman. “Just hoping there’s not too many people out on the street. If neighbors see what we’re doin’, they’re gonna call the cops. Where do you wanna stash the stuff?” Herman is talking about the luggage.
“I was thinking we might put it behind that tree, near the fence where I was hiding last night when you pulled up in the taxi.”
“Good,” says Herman. “Let’s hope nobody sees it.”
Just like clockwork the woman showed up, right on time.
As she walked through the front door carrying her suitcase and purse, Liquida stepped out of the dark bathroom just off the entry. He cupped the ether-soaked cloth over her mouth and nose as he wrapped his other arm around her and lifted
her off the floor. She struggled for maybe ten seconds before she went limp.
He kept the cloth over her face for about ten more seconds to make sure she was out cold. Then he carried her to the kitchen and laid her body on the floor in front of the stove before returning to the entry. He glanced at the gate. She hadn’t had a chance to lock it. Liquida left it that way. He simply closed the front door. He left her suitcase where it was, just inside the entry. This way it would look as if she’d returned home, smelled the fumes, gone into the kitchen to investigate, and been overcome by the propane before the explosion and fire killed her.
He went back into the kitchen and arranged her body on the floor with just enough artistry to make it look natural. He would have picked her up and dropped her but Liquida was afraid that the neighbors might hear the noise through the common wall next door and come to see what had happened.
He unscrewed the cap from the small brown bottle, turned his head away, and soaked the cloth in more ether. He emptied the bottle. The odor was making Liquida light-headed. He quickly threaded the cap back on the bottle and laid the dripping cloth over the woman’s mouth and nose. This way there was no chance that the anesthetic would wear off. He used ether instead of chloroform because ether was highly flammable. By the time the fire department found the body, there would be nothing left of the cloth.
He put the brown bottle in his pocket, stepped back a few feet, and checked the body positioning one last time. Liquida wanted to make sure she would get the full effect of the fiery blast. Then he picked up the model airplane remote control from the countertop and pressed the button.
This turned the tiny servomotor opening the valve. Propane began to leak from the stove. He had already extinguished all the pilot lights on the burners to guard against any accident, a premature fire that might only smoke up the place. He listened for several seconds. After he was satisfied that the propane was flowing nicely, he pressed the other button setting the electronic timer. As the propane fumes spilled out into the lower level of the house, the clock was now running. In twenty minutes the tiny electronic chip operating the timer would trigger the spark emitter and the blast would rattle the entire block.
Guardian of Lies Page 31