Liquida could see all the way up to the sky through the broken windows on the front. All that was left standing were the exterior masonry walls. From what he could see, the interior was totally gutted. The old wood had burned well.
Wearing oversize sunglasses and a baseball cap with the New York Yankees’ logo on it, he walked slowly down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. With his hands in his pockets, he surveyed his handiwork. If he had a camera, he would have taken pictures to send to his employer. The camel jockey was never satisfied.
Liquida walked past the house and ended up three doors down where a woman was dragging a hose and watering some plants in her front yard.
He smiled, then spoke to her in Spanish. “Good afternoon.”
“Hello.” She nodded and smiled back.
“What a shame.” He stood there looking back at the house across the street.
“Yes. It was a very bad fire. And the explosion shook the entire block.”
“Really?” said Liquida.
“Oh, yes. Propano,” she said. “That’s why I don’t have it in my house. It’s too dangerous. Only electricity,” she said. “The fire got so hot it burned the telephone wires.” She pointed to the cables running between the poles across the street.
“I hope no one was hurt.”
“Well, a woman had a heart attack,” she said.
“You mean the woman who lived in the house?” Liquida was surprised there was enough of her left that they could find her heart.
“No, no, not Maricela, the lady next door to her. She was in her eighties. It was probably all the excitement from the explosion. No, the woman who lived in the house was very lucky. She got out.”
Liquida nearly got whiplash turning to look at her.
“Some students up at the beauty school said that two men who were walking up the sidewalk smelled fumes coming from the house. They managed to get inside and one of them carried her out, just before the house blew up.”
Liquida didn’t say anything. He just stood there looking at her as she continued watering her plants.
“Was she hurt?”
“Oh, yes. She was unconscious when they brought her out.”
“So I assume she’s in the hospital?”
“No. One of the men, the one who carried her out, a very big hombre, managed to revive her. Right up there on the sidewalk.” She pointed up the street. “I would say it was a miracle. I was sure she was dead when he brought her out. And his friend, the other man, he didn’t look too good either.”
“What did this man look like?” said Liquida.
“As I said he was very big. A black man.”
Liquida immediately understood. “So what happened to Maricela?”
“Do you know her?”
“No, I just heard you say her name.”
“Oh. I think she left with the two men.”
“So they must have been friends of hers?”
“I don’t think so. They were not locals. I have never seen them before. Americanos, I think.”
“The black man, you say he was big,” said Liquida.
“Mucho grande,” she said.
“Was he bald? Did he have a shiny head?”
“Do you know him?”
“No, but I think I may have seen him around the neighborhood.”
“Then perhaps I am wrong. Maybe they are local. I offered them my house to rest, but Maricela said she wanted to go stay with the mayor.”
“She knows the mayor of San José?” A cold chill ran down Liquida’s spine.
“No.” The woman laughed. “It is a joke. He is a friend. His name is Lorenzo. In the neighborhood some people call him the mayor of Gringo Gulch because he knows everybody and everything. He lives a few blocks down that way.” She gestured with one hand in a general direction toward downtown.
Liquida would have asked her for Lorenzo’s last name, better yet, a map to his house and whether it was hooked up to propane. But to ask more questions was to invite suspicion.
Yesterday afternoon after arriving safely at Lorenzo’s apartment, the trauma of the event finally caught up with Maricela. She collapsed on a couch in his back room and slept all night. By the time she wakes up this morning, it is almost noon.
“I have to tell you, Maricela, I didn’t trust him,” says Goudaz. “And I tried to warn Katia. She wouldn’t listen to me.” He is talking about Emerson Pike. “He was asking too many personal questions. Anybody want a beer?”
Herman raises his hand. “Yeah, I’ll have one.”
“How about you?”
“Not for me,” I say. We are seated around the dining table grabbing a bite, something Goudaz has whipped up, rice and chicken and some black beans. He seems to like to cook. After being under his roof for one night, it is hard to size him up completely. There is a bit of roguish cha risma to the man. You get the sense that he survives in the gap between the two cultures. It is difficult to say what Maricela thinks of him.
For the moment he has his head in the refrigerator. He comes out with two bottles of Imperial, knocks the caps off, and hands one of them to Herman as he takes a swig from the other.
Lorenzo doesn’t move fast, but he seems to get things done. The minute we arrived he found accommodations for us. One of the other tenants in the building is out of town. The mayor has the key and says the man won’t mind. Last night Herman and I sacked out on a bed and a rollaway in the other apartment.
It’s a little tight but it’ll work, at least for a few days, until we can figure out where we’re going. That will depend in large part on what we can find out from Maricela.
This morning I brief her on Katia’s predicament in California. We talk about the photographs from Colombia, Emerson Pike’s obsession with them, and his murder. She wants to know what Pike’s involvement in all of this was. I tell her we’re not sure. I don’t tell her about the FBI or the fact that I am now charged as a codefendant along with her daughter, only that we were interested in recovering the photographs from the camera at her house. But, of course they are now gone, destroyed in the fire.
She tells us that it was, in fact, her father who was in the photographs along with a man she calls Alim and several of his followers, who she believes were responsible for the attack at her house and the fire.
When I ask her where the photographs were taken, she becomes vague. She tells us she was always picked up at a rural bus stop by men in a small truck. It was a very long ride to the village in the jungle where her father was. It took most of a day and sometimes longer depending on the route they took and the condition of the mountain roads. According to Maricela she would often fall asleep and never paid much attention to where they were or their direction of travel.
“What makes you believe this man, Alim, is responsible for what happened at your house?” says Goudaz.
“I’m sure of it,” says Maricela. “He was very threatening. My father was certain he would never allow me to leave, to come home. So he made special arrangements for a man and a woman whom he trusted to accompany me to San José. When we arrived at the airport in Medellín, there was a message waiting for them, some emergency back home and they both had to return.”
“And so you figure Alim was responsible?” says Goudaz.
“Who else?”
“What is your father doing down there?” says the mayor.
“Excuse me, some of this information may be confidential,” I tell him. “Because it may have to do with a pending case. I know we’ve barged in on you without warning and I apologize for that, but I wonder if we could have just a few minutes alone.”
“Sure, I’m sorry,” says Goudaz. “I didn’t realize. Listen, you take all the time you need. I’ve got work to do in the study. Call me if you need me.”
“Thanks.”
He disappears down the hall and closes the door to the study.
“Thank you,” she says. “Lorenzo is a good friend, but he has a habit of making other people’s business his ow
n.”
“I noticed,” I tell her. “You said Alim and his followers didn’t speak Spanish.”
“That’s correct.”
“Do you have any idea where they were from?”
“The country, no. The area, I believe, is the Middle East. Several times each day they would get down on their knees and pray, always with their heads toward the east.”
“So they were Muslim?” I say.
“I think so.”
Maricela tells Herman and me that her father has always been very secretive. He was absent for large periods of her life when she was a child, and he refused to tell her anything about what he was doing in Colombia. She doesn’t believe he is involved in any way with drugs, so she has dismissed this from the range of possibilities. All she knows is that whatever the project is, it is nearing completion. This was the reason he sent her home. He told her that he would be leaving Colombia shortly and would not be back. She got the very clear sense that it was to be their last visit.
The thought of never seeing him again, followed by the events at her house, has left her emotionally fragile. Trying to probe for details is difficult.
We talk for a while about what she saw when she was there in the encampment. There were a large number of men, most of them young, some of them children, along with young women in uniforms, many of them carrying rifles. She doesn’t believe they were part of the Colombian army and therefore were probably rebels. She knows that Colombia has for many years been involved in a revolution. Her father seemed to know many of these people and none of them seemed to be a threat to him, only Alim and his followers.
Suddenly she sits bolt upright in the chair. “Oh, my God, I forgot.” She stands and starts feeling in the pockets of her pants as if maybe she’s lost her keys or something.
“What is it?”
“It’s ah, something…someone gave me. I hope I didn’t lose it. With the fire and everything, I forgot.” She’s riffling through each pocket.
“What was it?” says Herman.
“Just a note.” She feels something in her right-front pocket. She reaches in, and when her hand comes out, she is holding a small folded piece of paper. “Thank God.” She takes a deep breath, turns her back for a moment, and walks a few steps from the table as she unfolds the note. It appears to be about the size of a single half sheet of paper, and I see what looks like handwriting in pencil on the page. As she reads Maricela keeps her back to us.
Herman and I look at each other.
“If it’s something that would help Katia, we need to know about it,” I tell her.
When she finishes she drops her hand to her side, still clutching the paper tightly. When she turns and looks at us, there are tears running down her cheeks. “What is today?”
“Wednesday,” says Herman. “Why?”
“No, I mean the date.”
He looks at his watch. “It’s the twelfth,” he says.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “That means we still have time.”
“Time for what?” I say.
She looks at me. “My father made me promise not to tell anyone. But none of us knew what was happening then. I cannot think of anyone who would want to kill me other than Alim. And if he tried to kill me, then he probably also tried to kill Katia and killed her friend. What was his name?”
“Emerson Pike.”
“I believe if my father knew all of this, he would want me to tell you. It may be the last chance we have to talk to him. The note says he is going to try and call me.”
“When?” says Herman.
She hands him the note. “He says he is going to be in Panama. But he doesn’t say why.” Suddenly a dark expression blankets her face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“He won’t be able to reach me.”
“Why not?”
“The only number he has for me is my cell phone. It was at the house.”
FORTY-EIGHT
Within minutes, three of Alim’s men were overcome by motion sickness. Swaying and twisting in the dimly lit container under the flapping rotor of the huge blades, Nitikin could hear them retching in alternate waves on the other side of the wooden crate.
Alim hollered at them, but it seemed to have little effect. The men could not control themselves. The air in the metal coffin was stifling, and the constant motion in the enclosed container disoriented the inner ear even with the Dramamine.
Yakov closed his eyes, propped his elbows on his knees, and steadied his head in his hands to control himself. In less than five minutes, he was unconscious.
Alim had had enough of the weaklings who followed him. The one he shot through the head the day of the dragon’s breath had tried twice to abandon his comrades and escape from the camp. He looked at the two on the floor by the crate as they soiled themselves. He jammed a fully loaded thirty-round banana clip into the receiver of his rifle. He would have shot them on the spot except he knew he would need them, at least for a few more days.
On the other side of the crate he could see shadowed faces in the dim light, the interpreter and two brothers, who struggled to their feet. The two young men looked almost ashen, and were breathing heavily. But at least they were trying. Alim grabbed one of the other rifles from the duffel, jammed a clip into the receiver, then tossed it to one of them. He grabbed one more weapon and a clip, and then glanced down at the Russian who by now had toppled over and was laid out flat on the floor. Alim kicked him with one foot to make sure he was out before stepping away from the unguarded weapons still in the duffel bag. He loaded the other rifle and handed the Kalashnikov to the other brother. He told them to sit and relax and to keep an eye on the Russian.
It would be a long ride. Alim knew that the extra fuel tanks on the Skycrane would extend the usual three-hundred-mile range of the helicopter out to nearly two thousand miles, almost all of it over the ocean. It would take them ten hours to rendezvous, and then from there just under four days to their destination. Before anyone knew what was happening, they would be there.
Afundi tapped the interpreter on the shoulder and the two men slipped between the wooden crate and the wall to where Nitikin was lying on the floor.
The interpreter lifted the Russian’s eyelids, first one and then the other. He checked the pupils in both eyes with the flashlight and checked Nitikin’s pulse.
“He’s okay,” said the interpreter.
The last thing they wanted was an overdose. The cartel’s doctor in Tijuana was very precise regarding the amount to use. They wanted to know the weight of the victim, the age, and whether the pills would be administered with alcohol.
The tablets were known in some circles as “Mexican Valium.” In the U.S. it fell under the rubric of one of the more popular date-rape drugs. In the right amount, it would knock the victim out for hours. Properly managed and administered it could keep them in a haze for days. And when they finally woke up, they would remember nothing.
This evening Maricela, Herman, and I go over Nitikin’s note line by line looking for any information we might glean. She had promised her father that she would maintain the note in confidence. But because Katia is now in trouble, she is certain that her father would want her to do everything in her power to help.
Goudaz is in the other room working at his computer with the door closed. We talk in hushed tones as we sit at the dining table.
“He doesn’t mention a ship by name,” says Herman. “But somehow he knows that he is going to be at the Port of Balboa in Panama in two days. He doesn’t give us a certain time, but he says he’s gonna call.”
Most of the message is personal. For Maricela this is painful. All indications are that Nitikin’s phone call from Panama is intended as a final good-bye. While he doesn’t say it in so many words, the message has an ominous tone. Reading the note carefully conveys the definite sense that whatever is happening, the Russian does not expect to survive.
“Why would he be working with these people?” she says. �
�He detested Alim. I could tell.”
“Maybe he has no choice,” I tell her.
“What I don’t get is this part right here,” says Herman. “Who is the contender?” He points to the word in Spanish on the note. The Russian’s handwriting is a scrawl. “He says, ‘The contender is ready.’ Do you know what that means?” He looks at Maricela.
She shakes her head.
“How is the word used in Spanish?” I ask. “What is a ‘contender’? Is it an enemy? It could be a reference to Alim.”
“No,” she says. “‘Contender’ in Spanish is spelled the same as English. It means the same thing. It’s not an enemy. It’s like a competitor.” She squints and looks more closely at the note. “Ah. The word he uses is contenedor. How do you say?” She looks around as if her eyes are scanning the floor and the walls for the English translation, and then says, “Container. He is saying that the container is ready.”
“What kind of container?” says Herman.
“If he’s going by ship to Panama, it could be a cargo container,” I say.
“That would make sense,” says Herman. “When you were down there with your father, did you see any cargo containers? You know, a large metal box, about the size of a small truck trailer.”
She shakes her head. “My father would not permit me to move around the camp. He didn’t want me to see what was happening.”
“Assuming that’s what it is, then all we need to know is what’s in the container,” I say.
“That seems to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” The voice comes from behind me. When I turn in the chair, the mayor is standing in the hallway holding some papers in one hand and a pen in the other. He seems to have been listening for some time.
“I couldn’t help but overhear. I know that the Port at Balboa, in Panama, is a major transshipment point. There is a large international container facility there. The reason I know this is one of my sidelines. I install electronic sound systems in small boutique hotels and my supplier runs the stuff across the border around customs for me from the port in Panama. I don’t know if you remember, but a few years ago there was a big flap because the Chinese government was in negotiations with Panama to purchase the container terminal. It became a very touchy subject because of the canal.”
Guardian of Lies Page 34