Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

  Afundi’s follower swung the muzzle of his rifle and fired from the hip. The first burst went high, sending sparks off a steel railing above the target’s head and twenty feet behind him.

  The man changed his path, charging the open door. Alim lowered the muzzle of his AK and pulled the trigger. The steel-jacketed rounds spun the man like a Raggedy Ann doll. One of them sparked off the blade of the machete, ripping it from his hand as he collapsed on the deck.

  One down, six left.

  “Go,” said Alim.

  The two brothers raced from the open container and out onto the deck.

  Afundi turned to his interpreter. The man was shielding himself behind the device and its wooden crate. Alim pointed to the man in the red T-shirt. “Ask him if they have the bridge under control.”

  The interpreter said something in Spanish, waited for the reply, and translated for Alim. “He says they hold the bridge and the captain. They have temporarily disabled the antenna array.” That meant the ship had no radio or satellite capability, at least until Alim’s confederates reconnected the antennas.

  “Good.” Alim headed out into the night air, running toward the bow of the ship. He felt the sway of the open sea under his feet. Even though everything beyond the railing was black, lost in darkness, Afundi could feel the heavy chop as the vessel bucked a stiff headwind.

  As he glanced over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the open container, perched no more than two feet from the ship’s starboard gunwale. One slip and the chopper pilot would have dropped them over the side. They would have gone down, crushed by the pressures of the deep sea, never knowing what happened.

  Alim heard shots coming from the other side of the wheelhouse, short bursts of automatic fire. He ducked through one of the steel doorways leading from the cargo deck into the ship’s superstructure. He moved slowly down the passageway toward the center of the ship, opening the doors, flipping on overhead lights, and checking each compartment.

  He was almost through a large storage area when a sudden burst of shots from the deck above caused something to move in the far corner. Alim aimed the muzzle of his rifle in the general direction of the movement. He flipped the safety lever down one notch to semiauto and fired two single rounds into the steel bulkhead.

  The ear-piercing explosions caused the two men to pop up like jacks-in-the-box from behind a row of fifty-gallon drums, their hands stretched high in the air. The two were slight of build, diminutive, and dark skinned. One of them couldn’t have been five feet tall. He was wearing an oil-stained tank top and had short shocks of black hair that seemed to shoot in every direction from his small round head. The only thing about him that was big was his eyes as they focused on the muzzle of Afundi’s assault rifle. Alim figured the two men were probably Filipino or Southeast Asian. The ship was of Panamanian registry, but the crew came from wherever wages were cheap.

  Alim considered dropping them where they were until he saw the lettering on the fifty-gallon drums the two men were standing behind. He couldn’t read the words, but he knew the international symbol for flammability.

  He gestured with his head and the barrel of his gun for the men to walk toward the door.

  They did as he ordered with their hands in the air. Once out of the compartment, Alim marched them down the passageway toward the cargo deck. As they reached the deck, the taller of the two men looked back to get direction as to which way to go, forward or aft.

  Alim nodded with his head toward the railing as he lifted the safety lever to the middle position.

  The second he heard the click, the man bolted. Afundi pulled the trigger. The burst of bullets caught the Asian before he could take a second step. They ripped through his back and chest before his shocked dead body could hit the deck.

  The little one stood frozen in place with his hands up, his back to Alim. His head was turned and his eyes cast down on the bloody mass that an instant earlier had been his crewmate.

  With all the thought he might employ in reaching for a cup of coffee, Alim swept the muzzle of his rifle back thirty degrees and emptied the clip.

  The man’s knees buckled as his body disintegrated in bits of spattered tissue and sprayed blood.

  With the casual air of a hunter who has just shot a duck, Afundi turned from the riddled corpse before it could even stop moving. He went through the ritual of reloading, scrupulously depositing the empty clip into his pocket pouch. Then he headed back into the interior of the ship looking to bag another bird.

  FIFTY

  This morning as Herman and I step out of the cab downtown, I have donned a floppy canvas jungle hat packed from home, and a pair of dark glasses. I have the brim on my hat pulled low over my eyes.

  It has taken the mayor the better part of a day to find someone who could produce the passports within the time frame we have.

  Just before we left Goudaz’s apartment, I tried to reach Harry at the office using the encrypted cell phone. Harry answered; we got a few words in, but a couple of seconds later the call was dropped. I redialed three more times and each time the same thing happened. Herman thinks it’s the thick concrete walls in the mayor’s apartment building. He calls it the bat cave. I got enough of the message to Harry that he knows we’re all right. I’ll try again later.

  We walk two blocks to Avenida Central, a pedestrians-only avenue that runs half a mile or so through the heart of downtown San José. The mayor has put us on to a small shop where they make document copies and do photographic work. He has called the owner and the man is expecting us.

  As we shoulder our way through the crowds walking in the center of the street, I feel as though I’m naked. Templeton has a warrant out for my arrest, but I’m worried that the FBI may have identified Herman, in which case they may have circulated his photograph to the local authorities. Even in a crowd he is big enough that walking next to him is like carrying a signpost.

  Half a block down we find the shop. Herman and I quickly get off the street. We give the girl at the counter Lorenzo Goudaz’s name, and a few seconds later a tall, slender man with a pencil mustache and drooping eyelids motions us to follow him behind the counter. He takes us to a back room where he quickly closes the door the moment we’re inside.

  He turns and looks at me. “What is your name, seńor?”

  “We’re Lorenzo’s friends,” I tell him.

  “I need to see some identification.”

  “Is that necessary?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  I show him my driver’s license.

  He takes a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolds it, and checks something written on the paper against the information on my license. “Okay. And you, seńor?”

  Herman does the same.

  “Okay. Mr. Goudaz says you need them today.”

  “Correct,” says Herman.

  “Did he tell you how much?”

  “No.”

  The man smiles a little. “It must be cash. I only take cash.”

  “How much?” says Herman.

  “Twenty-five hundred dollars, each,” he says.

  “Five grand, that’s pretty steep,” says Herman.

  “You need them in a hurry. Of course, you are free to find someone else who will do them for less,” says the man.

  “No, we’ll have them done here,” I say. “But they’ll have to be good.”

  “My work is always good. I have never had any complaints; the pages are all properly stitched; the covers, you cannot tell the difference between the real passport and mine; and the printing and documentation you will see for yourself are excellent.”

  “How long will it take?” I ask.

  “Give me a few moments.” He starts for the door, then stops. “You wanted Canadian, correct?”

  “That’s right,” says Herman.

  “You know, for ten thousand I could give you two French passports, official paper, real covers, the genuine article.”

  “Do I sound French to you?” says Herman.
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  The guy looks at him, doesn’t say a word. He steps out of the room, leaving Herman and me alone with the door closed.

  “This is probably where the Costa Rican police come in and bust our ass for passport fraud,” says Herman.

  “In which case the Dwarf will probably give them foreign aid,” I tell him. “How much of the money here is going into Larry’s pocket?”

  “I don’t know, but you gotta figure the DSG fee down here is probably pretty high. I know it was in Mexico when I lived there.”

  “What’s the DSG fee?” I ask.

  “Delivering stupid gringos,” says Herman. “You notice the mayor couldn’t wait to step up and swallow my lie about the prosecutor having us followed as the reason we need new passports.”

  “That wasn’t a lie.”

  “The way I told it, it was.”

  “You don’t think he believed you?” I ask.

  “I don’t think he heard me,” says Herman. “Calculator in his head was making too much noise trying to figure out the freight on the passports. Mind you, his beer’s not bad. But I can’t recommend the overnight accommodations.”

  “Compared to the local jail, I’m thinking I’d probably give it four stars,” I tell him. “The real question is whether his Urban Information Exchange is spitting out accurate poop.”

  “You mean the Mariah?” says Herman.

  “For starters.”

  The ship Mariah never arrived at the port of Balboa in Panama. According to Goudaz, it should have been there by now. That means that either Nitikin is traveling by other means, or the information in his handwritten note to Maricela is wrong, in which case he may not be in Panama at all.

  “Like Goudaz said, it’s possible the Mariah went somewhere else,” says Herman.

  Our first hope was to find Katia’s camera with the photos from Colombia. We could prop them up in court, identify whatever was in them, and explain the significance to the jury as the reason Pike was murdered. Failing that, our backup was to locate Katia’s mother in hopes that she could either provide leads to solid evidence or testify as to what her father was doing in Colombia. The fact that she doesn’t know anything means we’re batting zero for two.

  “I’m troubled by one thing,” I say.

  “Only one? That’s not bad,” says Herman.

  “How did Goudaz know the container would be shipping out of southwest Colombia?”

  “Huh?” Herman looks at me.

  “Remember when he came into the room after the phone call to his man in Puntarenas? He showered us with all kinds of information. But the first thing he said was, any container coming out of southwest Colombia would most likely ship from the place he called Tumaco. How did he know the container would be coming out of southwest Colombia?”

  Herman thinks about it for a second. “Easy. He knew Maricela flew in and out of Medellín.”

  “That’s what I thought, until I looked at a Google map of Colombia on Goudaz’s computer. Medellín’s not in southwest Colombia. It’s more or less in the center of the country. Maricela said she took a bus from Medellín to some small village where they picked her up in a truck and drove her to where her father was. She didn’t say how long the bus ride took, but she said the ride in the truck took most of a day and that she couldn’t remember much of it, which I don’t buy.”

  “You think she’s lying?” says Herman.

  “Let’s just say she’s protecting her dad. Which still leaves us with the question, how did Goudaz know?”

  “If he’s wrong,” says Herman, “then everything he’s told us is out the window.”

  “I’m not saying he’s wrong. Maricela didn’t correct him when he said it. And you can bet she didn’t tell him.”

  “Good question,” says Herman. “Maybe we should ask him when we get back.”

  I nod. “Which reminds me. Where is Maricela?”

  “She took off early this morning,” says Herman. “She went up to the house to see if she could salvage anything. She was hoping to find her phone. She came back an hour later, said there was nothing but ashes. So she took a taxi over to the phone company—I think she said it was called EESAY. Said she was gonna try to buy a new phone and see if she could get her old cell number back. She’s still hoping to snag her father’s phone call.”

  “She’s a good daughter.”

  “According to Goudaz, she’s wasting her time. Her old phone was GSM. It ran off a chip. Larry told her there’s no way they can assign the old number to a new chip. Apparently he’s tried it before. He says the assigned phone numbers are already embedded in the chips when the local phone company buys them from the manufacturer. So if you lose the chip, the number’s gone.”

  “We better keep an eye on her. She’s wandering all over town alone. Remember what Rhytag said about Katia in the hospital after the bloodbath on the bus? It was better if whoever had tried to kill her thought she was dead.”

  “So what’s Maricela gonna do when we leave?”

  “Fortunately you saved her passport when you snatched her purse from the fire. She doesn’t know it yet, but depending on where we go, she may be coming with us.”

  As I say it, the door in this little back office opens. I turn, half expecting to see the police. Instead the man with the mustache is carrying a shoe box with the lid on and a label on the side that reads CANADA.

  He puts the box on the table and lifts the lid. It is filled with passports, each one with a black cover, the word CANADA printed above the coat of arms, with the word PASSPORT in both English and French printed below it. All of the lettering and design is in gold ink.

  “First you pay, then you pick out a name, any name you want as long as it’s in the box,” says the mustache. “We will take your pictures, put in the necessary descriptions, and provide the entry stamp for Costa Rica and the temporary entry document. That’s the base package.

  “For five hundred dollars more you get the professional upgrade. That includes entry and exit stamps for four other countries of your own choosing, assorted artistic stains, and a press job.”

  “What the hell’s a press job?” says Herman.

  “We put the passport through a steam press. That bends the binding so it looks like it’s had many trips in your hip pocket. I would recommend that you get the professional package since it makes the passport look much more authentic.”

  “Lemme see if I got this straight,” says Herman. “We can pay twenty-five hundred dollars and get your base unit, which is probably good for a stint in a Costa Rican jail, or we can pay three thousand and get a passport that might get us out of Costa Rica and into another country. Is that pretty much it?”

  “Up to you.”

  As Herman is haggling with the man, I turn my back and start fishing in the cash in the money belt under my shirt. When I turn around I’m holding fifty one-hundred-dollar bills. I lay them all out on the counter. He looks at them, the green reality being much better than talk.

  In my other hand I’m holding three more one-hundred-dollar bills. “You can keep the press job and the stains. You give us the four extra entry and exit stamps on each passport, you get three hundred more. Otherwise we’re walking.”

  Ordinarily I might not have pressed him. But given the fact that we can no longer use credit or debit cards without leaving a trail like bread crumbs, cash is now king.

  “The stains and the bending are very important,” he tells us.

  “I can spill my own coffee,” says Herman. “And I bet you if I sit on it, my ass will bend the binding. You want me to try one and see?”

  “Take it or leave it,” I tell him. “You can always tell the mayor we went for the base package. He’ll never know, in which case you just made three hundred bucks.”

  He looks me in the eyes, tries to read my resolve. When he can’t be sure, he glances back down at the money.

  I start to pick up the bills from the counter.

  “Okay. You got a deal,” he says.

  FIFT
Y-ONE

  Liquida spent almost forty minutes trolling the San José neighborhood in his car, never drifting more than three or four blocks from the burned-out house. He wore the oversize shades and the baseball cap.

  He pulled up in front of a boutique hotel, rolled down the passenger window, and told the guard out front he was looking for a man named Lorenzo who lived in the area. Perhaps he knew him as the mayor of Gringo Gulch.

  The guard laughed, shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  “Thank you.” Liquida drove down the street. He talked to a pedestrian on the sidewalk a block down and got the same reply. The lady with the hose was wrong. The mayor of Gringo Gulch did not know everybody.

  He passed a large old colonial house with the words HOTEL VESUVIO painted on the front wall, above the awning. He drove to the end of the block and had started to turn left when he saw two gray-haired gringos in sandals and shorts crossing the street just ahead of him. He hesitated for a moment. What if one of them was the alcalde himself?

  Liquida’s mind quickly came up with a cover story. He pulled up next to them, rolled down his window, and said, “Excuse me. I am looking for a man who lives near here. His name is Lorenzo. I don’t know his last name, but his friends sometimes call him the mayor of Gringo Gulch.”

  “You mean Larry Goudaz,” said one of them.

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, he lives down the street.” The guy leaned down toward the car window. “Just go straight down, through the next intersection. Go one more block and you have to turn right. If you park at the curb after you make the turn, you’ll be right in front of the Casa Amarilla, big yellow house, can’t miss it. Larry’s place is in the apartment building right across the street, on your left. Second floor.”

  “Thank you,” said Liquida. “Muchas gracias.”

  “Or you could wait until four and catch him at the bar inside the Sportsmens. Larry’s got a stool there with his name engraved on it.” The gringo laughed.

  Liquida smiled, rolled up his window, and drove on. But instead of following the directions he turned at the next intersection and went halfway up the block until he found a space to park.