Guardian of Lies

by Steve Martini

  He took his time inching into the space. The streets in San José were layered with so many pours of asphalt that the roadways arched like rainbows. Drive too close to the edge, your car might roll on its side and disappear into the canyon at the curb. To be safe Liquida left the rental car three feet out from the sidewalk.

  He locked it up and crossed the street on foot. He had walked one more block, passing under some trees and overhanging bushes that arched above the sidewalk, when he saw the big yellow house off to the right. It was an old colonial from the plantation period. Behind it, on the same grounds, was a modern high-rise office building that looked as if it had wandered into the wrong century. The entire compound was sealed off from the street by a high, spiked iron fence that surrounded the L-shaped block.

  As he moved farther along the fence toward the yellow house, Liquida noticed a gate with a guard kiosk. There were a dozen or more expensive cars, Mercedeses and Lexuses, parked inside the grounds. Men in dark suits with briefcases and women in tight power outfits, some of them carrying file folders, walked with an air of consequence between the yellow house and the high-rise. To Liquida, the uniformed security, power people, and expensive cars meant one thing—high-level government offices.

  The guard kiosk was directly across the street from the apartment building the two gringos had told him about, the place where Lorenzo lived.

  Liquida slowed his stride for a moment as he studied the situation. There was no heavy traffic. The quiet lane that separated the gray-masonry apartment house from the government compound made a dogleg, turning to the left almost directly in front of the entrance to the apartments. Liquida figured he had nothing to lose by walking along the sidewalk and checking it out.

  When he came to the end of the block, he crossed the street and ended up directly in front of the apartment building. Turning to his right he strolled along the narrow sidewalk as it curved toward the dogleg in front of the building. It was possible there was another entrance into the building, either around the corner or in the back, where he could pick the lock and not be seen entering by a guard in the kiosk across the street.

  He was approaching the entrance to the apartments when he heard the clang of metal. The steel gate at the front door suddenly opened. It blocked the sidewalk directly in front of him. The man stepping out didn’t see him. He nearly collided with Liquida.

  “Perdón! Excuse me.” He stood there confused for a moment, hanging on to the gate and blocking the way.

  Liquida smiled, said, “Excuse me,” and stepped through the open gate and into the building as if he belonged there. “Gracias.”

  “De nada,” said the man. He locked the gate from the outside as the Mexican closed the front door. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

  The entrance area was small, a kind of tower with concrete stairs that spiraled up around a central core to the next level. Liquida quickly climbed to the second floor. Finding the right apartment wasn’t going to be difficult. The stairs continued up, but on the second level there appeared to be only one apartment with a single door.

  Liquida carefully approached it and put his ear gently to the small pane of translucent glass in the top section of the door. If no one was home, he would take a few minutes to check the place out, make sure he had the right apartment, and look for any trace of the woman. He listened for voices and movement inside as he felt for the small box of picks in his pocket.

  The ship Amora was a coastal cargo carrier but with sufficient fuel capacity for long-range travel. Because it had been traveling empty-handed to Guatemala to pick up a load of lumber, it was operating with a skele ton crew. Its tanks had been topped off with cheap Venezuelan diesel for ballast. It had been designed originally as a Great Lakes freighter, with the wheelhouse and superstructure forward, near the bow.

  It was less than three hundred tons in gross weight. This meant that it was exempt from the international automatic identification system, otherwise known as AIS. The system tracked the location and identity of large cargo ships around the world by using satellites. It broadcast information as to their identity and location every two minutes over VHF radio frequencies. Originally designed for collision avoidance, the AIS system was now being used increasingly to guard against terrorism and escalating acts of piracy.

  Alim had coordinated with the Tijuana cartel. Two of the cartel members had joined the Amora’s crew in Colombia. Armed with handguns, they had disabled the radio and seized the bridge just moments before the container was delivered on board.

  Alim and two of his gunmen cornered the last crew member shortly before midnight. By one in the morning, the bodies of the dead were weighted with chain, pitched over the side, and the decks washed clean with high-pressure hoses.

  Only the captain remained alive, up on the bridge where Afundi held him at gunpoint until he could rendezvous with the other boat. He would be replaced by a skipper provided by the cartel, along with a new crew, and the Amora’s captain would join his men in the eternal chain locker at the bottom of the sea.

  “The Costa Rican government is getting nervous. They’re asking a lot of questions. They want to know why the FBI is making such a big deal out of a case involving a single fugitive.” James Rhytag sat behind his desk in his Washington office and talked into the telephone as he looked at the report from Thorpe’s agents in San José.

  “Listen, Jim, give us another day and my people will have him. We’re that close.” Thorpe was on the other end of the line, trying to buy more time.

  “The State Department and the White House are getting nervous,” said Rhytag. “There’s a complaint from Costa Rican law enforcement that U.S. agents are conducting electronic surveillance on Costa Rican soil without their government’s knowledge or approval. The Ticos are threatening to file a formal diplomatic note with our ambassador, in which the government is going to start asking questions in the international press. The White House wants a lid on it.”

  “My men have locked in on a weak signal from Madriani’s cell phone twice in the last two days. They’re telling me one more time and they’ll have him. Have you seen the report?”

  “I’m looking at it now,” said Rhytag.

  “The house belonged to Nitikin’s daughter. According to the neighbors, two men got her out just before the place went up. The two men fit the description of Madriani and the guy he’s traveling with. The three of them, the daughter, Madriani, and his friend, all disappeared off the street after the fire. That means if we nab Madriani we may get the daughter as well. And if she took the pictures, she knows where Nitikin is.”

  “Who the hell blew up the house?” said Rhytag.

  “That’s the point,” said Thorpe. “I can smell it. Something is happening. This thing’s going down. Get somebody to tell the people in the White House that if they shut us down now, they may end up having to answer some very painful questions later.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  Yakov woke to the sound of a train, the diesel engine switching gears somewhere off in the distance. He was lying facedown, spittle running from the corner of his mouth. What looked like a gray linen sheet and the open end of a matching pillowcase inches from his face transformed itself to soiled white as it slowly came into focus. There were stains that looked and smelled like motor oil or grease.

  For some reason he was famished. The rumbling in his stomach competed for attention with the noise of the diesel engine. He tried to recall when he had eaten last. It was at dinner in the common dining area. Since he never ate much, the meal, some chicken, potatoes, a healthy portion of salad, and bread, should have been plenty.

  He began to roll over, then covered his eyes with his hand. Nitikin’s head felt as if it were a melon about to split. He could tell by the bright sunlight that it was morning, but he had no idea where he was.

  He remembered waking up on the cot in his hut, the piercing beam of the flashlight in his eyes, and the helicopter with its giant rotors whipping the air in the clearing. In his m
ind he could see the large steel container with its open door yawning wide, waiting to swallow him.

  Yakov lay there for what must have been several minutes. But try as he might he could remember almost nothing after entering the cargo container. He recalled seeing the wooden crate, the pressure of his back against the hard metal wall. He had a foggy image of Alim, his cold, evil eyes looking down, his lips moving, saying something. Nitikin couldn’t be sure if the image was real or imagined.

  He touched his naked wrist and realized that his watch wasn’t there. He remembered trying to find it in the bag under his bed but being stopped by the interpreter. Then suddenly he reached down and felt for the shape and the hard plastic of the cell phone in his pants pocket. It was still there. Yakov took a deep breath, brought his hands up, and pressed his fingers to his temples. He closed his eyes and tried to stop the spinning motion.

  As the fog in his head began to clear, his eyes focused farther out, on the room and his surroundings. He was dizzy with the constant sensation of motion. The shaft of light piercing the room through the small round window in the wall was also in motion, as were the thin gauze drapes that seemed to dance from the rod above the window. Slowly it settled on him, he remembered the Port of Tumaco, and realized he was on board a ship, but for how long?

  Yakov struggled to sit up. He lifted his leaden legs and dropped his feet onto the floor. No wonder they were so heavy, he was still wearing his boots. He crunched with his abdominals as he pushed with his arms, lifting his upper body until he was sitting upright at the edge of the bed. The blood raced to his stomach as his head pounded.

  He sat there for two or three minutes unable to move as he collected his strength and looked at the door. The nausea rising in his stomach suddenly curbed his appetite.

  Yakov stood up and then stumbled over to the washbasin in the small bathroom. He doused his face with water, then checked the phone in his pocket for any sign of a cell signal. The little screen read NO SERVICE. The time on the screen read 11:22. It was almost noon. He couldn’t remember if there was a change in time zones between the encampment in Colombia and Panama City.

  When Nitikin tried to open the door to the cabin he found it was locked. He tried releasing the four steel-handled levers that sealed the door tight. Yakov couldn’t budge them. Somehow they’d been jammed from the outside. He went back into the bathroom, grabbed a tin cup, and started banging on the steel door until, a few seconds later, the door swung open, revealing one of Alim’s minions standing there with an assault rifle pointed at him.

  As he was escorted along the deck at the point of a rifle, Yakov looked to see if he could find any sight of land off to his right. He saw nothing but open ocean. He wondered how long before they would get to Panama. His mind began to search for methods to slip away, to make his phone call to Maricela, and perhaps to escape. But first he had to know that his daughter was safe. He would tell her to run, to get away from her house. She had relatives in Limón, on the Caribbean coast. He would tell her to go there and hide out. If he survived, he would try to find her.

  He passed crewmen going about their chores but Nitikin didn’t recognize any of them. The men glanced at him. None of them seemed particularly concerned by the fact that the man walking behind Yakov was carrying an automatic weapon. Since the crewmen weren’t being guarded themselves, Nitikin had to assume that somehow the ship’s company had been bought off or co-opted by Alim.

  As they approached the superstructure at the front of the ship, the guard pushed Yakov with his rifle toward a set of stairs. They climbed up four decks and arrived on the wing of the bridge, where the guard pushed him toward an open door and the wheelhouse.

  Inside, Alim and his interpreter were talking to another man. They were studying the screen of a small monitor mounted on the console next to the ship’s wheel. Another crew member was steering the ship.

  Nitikin couldn’t understand what Alim was saying. But as the translator repeated it in Spanish, Yakov realized that the men were trying to fix the precise position of the ship on the vessel’s GPS navigational system.

  The captain was a Latino, but from the Spanish vernacular he used, Yakov could tell he was not Colombian or Costa Rican. He couldn’t quite place the accent, but he might be Mexican.

  The answer to Nitikin’s burning question, the distance from Panama, came a second later when the captain looked at the screen and told the interpreter that they were less than twenty-four hours from their destination.

  When he heard it, this seemed to please Alim. Afundi then turned his attention to Yakov. He asked him how he was feeling. Yakov said he would feel much better if his men stopped pointing their guns at him. Except for that, he was fine, although he was hungry.

  Alim said something to the interpreter, who told the captain to contact the galley to prepare some food and something to drink for Yakov.

  Afundi turned back to the Russian, said something to the interpreter, who asked Nitikin whether he’d had a chance to check the bomb. Though Yakov had no recollection of it, according to Alim the container had been handled very roughly as it was loaded onto the ship. The fact that Alim was willing to talk openly about the cargo in front of the captain and the other crew member told Yakov all he needed to know about the ship’s company. No doubt they had been well paid.

  “How could I possibly check the device? I’ve been locked up all night.”

  Alim told him to check it and to report back if there was any problem.

  “How long before we arrive in Panama?” asked Nitikin.

  As soon as it was translated, Alim looked at him through snake eyes, then offered a sinister smile and spoke.

  “He wants to know why you think we’re going to Panama.”

  “Tell him I am informed by intuition because of my Gypsy blood,” said Yakov.

  Alim laughed.

  Apparently the Russian still had a sense of humor.

  But that wasn’t why Afundi was laughing. Nitikin didn’t know it but thanks to the extended fuel tanks on the helicopter and the fact that Yakov had been maintained in an unconscious state in his cabin for almost four days, they were now nearly three thousand miles north of Panama City, a few hundred miles beyond Cabo San Lucas and just forty-two miles off the coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. By midafternoon tomorrow they would be tied up at the dock of the international cargo terminal at Ensenada, Mexico, just sixty miles south of the U.S. border.

  “Tell him to check the bomb. If there is no damage, I want him to arm the device now, everything except the cordite charge, which I will load, and timer, which I will set myself. The device should be safe from here on out.” He wanted Yakov to remove the safety.

  Nitikin waited for the interpretation and then replied, “Not until I know the target.”

  “The target is not your concern.” Alim was getting angry.

  “It is if you wish to deliver the bomb in one piece. Tell me, do you intend to transport it beyond the ship?”

  Following the translation, Alim looked at him with a stern expression, but didn’t answer.

  “Tell him I will not arm it until I know how it is being transported and where,” Yakov said.

  Afundi ignored him for the moment and talked to the interpreter in Farsi. “What time do we expect the phone call?”

  The interpreter checked his watch. “Any minute now. In fact, he is late.”

  “I don’t want him on the bridge.” Alim dismissed Yakov with his eyes. “Tell him to go check the device to make sure there is no damage. And I want a report back.” Alim turned to his man with the assault rifle. “Watch him closely. And when he’s finished, lock him back in his cabin. I am holding you personally responsible.”

  As he said it the satellite phone lying on top of the console rang. “Get him out of here.”

  Larry Goudaz huddled over the desktop computer in his apartment as he cradled the phone against his shoulder and spoke into the mouthpiece.

  “That’s right, he failed both times. If
I were you, I’d get my money back, unless you haven’t paid him yet.”

  Goudaz waited for the reply.

  “Ah, your man is smarter than I thought,” Goudaz said. “How do I know? Because I had lunch yesterday afternoon with the mother, Maricela, the one who blew up and burned in her house the day before. She was here with the lawyer for her daughter—that would be Katia, Nitikin’s granddaughter, the woman he missed at Pike’s house and killed on the bus. She’s in the hospital in San Diego and recovering nicely, thank you. Listen, when this is all over, tell him I’ll send him a DVD. It’s a Road Runner cartoon. There’s a character in it you’ll recognize, he’s called Wile E. Coyote. I think he’s related to the Mexican you hired.

  “Yeah, never mind, you’d have to see it to appreciate it.

  “Listen, don’t no, don’t worry, you can tell him that I took care of everything. Right now I have them running errands. And when they come back, I’m going to give them some urgent news and send them off on a vacation to Panama for a few days. How much time do you need?”

  He waited and listened.

  “No problem. I can give you more if you need it. Yeah, let me get paper and a pencil. I don’t want to put that kind of stuff in my computer. Just a second.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  He stepped away for a moment.” The interpreter looked at Alim as he held the satellite phone away from his ear.

  “Are you still in contact with the Mexican?” said Alim, talking about Liquida.

  “Yes, by e-mail, to different addresses each time.”

  “Good. Then send him an e-mail and tell him that if he wants his money, he’s going to have to meet us in Tijuana, just south of the American border. That’s his home. He should feel safe there. Tell him we are going to pay him in gold and narcotics, which will explain why we are not wiring the funds. Because it is not in cash, we will be giving him a significant increase over the market value of these commodities. Tell him you are surprised because we have never offered this to anyone before. Give him the location of the warehouse and say the meeting will be tomorrow afternoon. We are scheduled to arrive in the port about noon, so tell him we will meet at four o’clock sharp. Tell him not to be late.”