The Mastermind

by David Unger

  “Where are you going?” Ibrahim asks uneasily, leaning forward.

  “You are making me very nervous, uncle,” Verónica says, shifting into a higher gear, which makes the car hiccup. She takes her foot off the clutch and the car stalls once again.

  “Now what have you done?” he snaps, lowering his window, looking around to get his bearings. He is beginning to panic.

  Maryam, in the backseat, begins to stir. She is vaguely aware she should be giving directions, but she’s still half asleep.

  A gray Nissan pulls up alongside the passenger side as if to offer help. Ibrahim sees its shaded windows and becomes extremely anxious.

  “Stupid woman, start the car and drive off!” he yells, slapping the dashboard.

  Verónica cannot find the ignition and begins to weep.

  Finally she is able to start the car and Ibrahim lets out a sigh of relief. Then she inexplicably begins to lower his window to thank the Nissan for stopping.

  “Raise it, you fool. Drive! Drive!” he shouts.

  What happens next happens very fast. Ibrahim catches a glimpse of a man racing out of the Nissan from the passenger side. He scrambles around the front of his car and rushes toward where Ibrahim is sitting. He is sweating and waving something wildly in his hand. Ibrahim pushes the button to raise his tinted window with one hand and tries to loosen the seat belt with the other, so he can crouch down.

  The gun, a nine-millimeter pistol with a detachable cartridge, is the last thing Ibrahim sees before he hears, PUM! PUM! PUM! PUM! The tinted window, three-quarters raised, immediately shatters. Verónica starts to scream but is cut short by the spray of bullets.

  Then the assassin, for good measure, pumps another three shots into Ibrahim’s corpse. The explosion of shots, the shattering of glass, and the screaming all fold together into one spurt of cacophony. Maryam drops her face into the backseat and covers her ears.

  A second later there is only a deafening desert silence. Maryam can hear her heart beating loudly in her chest and feels tears leaking out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She is terrified for herself, well aware that a massacre has just taken place.

  This silence feels protective so Maryam slowly sits up. Through her own tinted window she sees the shooter walking casually back to the passenger seat of his car. She cranes her head forward, making sure she stays out of his line of vision, and sees that both her father and Verónica are slouched over the dashboard, and that the front windshield, miraculously intact, is splattered with blood.

  Maryam feels the silence building in her ears.

  She knows that her father is dead but she is in too much shock to cry. She looks back at the Nissan, which hasn’t moved an inch. It’s as if they’re in the middle of a wasteland. She sees the gunman open the back door and pull out a large plastic container. He tosses the gun into the car.

  Maryam lies back down and listens. She hears some odd movements and what sounds like liquid being thrown onto the hood of the car. She knows what is happening, what will happen next, but she doesn’t know what to do. She is certain that if she says a word the man will shoot her as well. Her heart is beating so loudly it makes a thumping noise against the backseat, which she hopes the killer cannot hear.

  Then there’s a flicking noise and a huge flash of light over the hood—flames shoot up into the air. She hears the flames crackling, followed in a few seconds by the noise of the Nissan screeching away. The flames begin to engulf the sides of the car.

  In one motion Maryam jacks up the handle of the backseat door on the driver’s side, grabs her purse, and rolls out of the car onto the gravelly pavement. The odor of burning gas and paint is nauseating.

  She stands up and begins to run to the entrance of one of the abandoned buildings when she hears the car detonate behind her, the body of her father and Verónica still inside.

  Once she is safe, she turns around to see an inferno rising ten meters into the air. If she had hesitated even two seconds, she too would have roasted inside her car. She feels a bit of urine running down her legs, her eyes are a burning tear of rage and pain. Her car is a ball of fire.

  Maryam is still in too much shock to cry. Someone wanted both her and her father dead. This someone has probably been aware of every single step both of them have taken. What the killers have not planned for is Maryam’s illness and Verónica’s visitation, and now Verónica is dead and she is alive.

  At least for the moment.

  She opens her purse and sees her passport and the tiny purse with ten hundred-dollar bills, realizing how smart Guillermo’s advice was. She thinks of calling him now, to let him know what has happened and that she is alive, but quickly changes her mind. Guillermo has told her many times that all their phones are tapped. The only way to communicate privately would have been to purchase disposable phones with untraceable numbers but they’ve never taken the time to do that. She turns off her phone, knowing she has to get rid of it.

  She is so tired that she slides down the wall of concrete and sits on the ground. She needs to think clearly.

  Why would anyone want her dead?

  Her father has enemies, this she can understand: his advisory role in Banurbano and his constant, undisguised accusations about governmental corruption; the rumor that her father has purchased textiles from contrabandists importing bolts of cloth illegally into Guatemala without paying duties; the handful of disgruntled employees, lazier than hell, who say they will sue Ibrahim if he makes good on his threat to fire them.

  Plenty of people have issues with her father.

  But her? What has she done to any of them? She hates no one and no one hates her.

  Well, almost no one.

  Just Samir, with his cloying smile and vituperative voice.

  Would he be brazen enough to kill her and her father because she wants to leave him? In a normal world, such criminality would be beyond anyone’s comprehension. But this is Guatemala, where children prey on their parents and vice versa.

  There is so much unknown. So much that can’t be known and perhaps never will.

  * * *

  Time is passing.

  Maryam pushes herself up. She is covered with dust. She brushes herself off as she hurries back toward the street. It is quiet still, save for the smoldering vehicle. The stench of rubber, plastic, and cotton is disgusting.

  A huge plume of smoke billows up from the remains of the car into the blue sky, drifting toward the top of Roosevelt Hospital’s highest building and flitting swiftly as if from the end of a pipe into the surrounding hills and mountains.

  Maryam begins walking away down a broken sidewalk. After three blocks, she hears sirens approaching and sees two fire trucks and an ambulance racing toward her.

  She is tempted to flag them down and wants to tell them that they should just go back, that it’s too late, for the car and for everyone in it—including her beloved father, who has been rendered into a dark, flaky ash; that she is the only survivor. But then Maryam realizes she is in a dangerous predicament. The assumption will be that she is dead. She doesn’t know if she was the actual target or just collateral damage, but she understands that her next step has to be counterintuitive: that is, it must fly in the face of any sort of expectation.

  As painful as it might be, she must do something completely unexpected. And what would that be?

  Her mind is spinning faster than a roulette wheel, and she is trying to review her options.

  Her heart is broken, but she is alive.

  All of a sudden she hears the screeching of tires, the opening of doors, and the sound of people running toward her.

  She rushes into the construction site. A bullet zings past her ear, then she hears shouting and screaming.

  She keeps running through a maze of concrete and wooden beams.

  Four or five bullets ring out. Then more sirens and burning rubber.

  Maryam drops to the ground, squeezes her eyes tight, and waits for a bullet to pierce her.

  chapter sixt
een

  a pile of ashes

  One thing that can’t be disputed about Guatemala is that mistakes—very serious ones—are always happening. It is almost like a national epidemic, a defining characteristic, a part of the genetic makeup of the population whether you are Indian, Latino, or Caucasian. The wrong people are kidnapped, the wrong people are killed—there is an ineptitude that is endemic to the country. This extends to even the smallest of matters, like the purchase of fruits or vegetables.

  For example, you go to a hardware store and order a fixture for your stove but get something more suited to your refrigerator. You order a Jaguar XJL—illegally, of course, to avoid import taxes—and receive an XKL instead. There is nothing you can do to rectify the mistake unless you want to return the purchase and risk being arrested.

  You can have an invoice stating what you have ordered—say a table lamp with a green shade—but in the end you have to pay for what you get: a pole lamp with yellow plastic jackets. Even if it isn’t exactly what you wanted, you are better off simply zippering your lips and keeping what you have, which is almost what you purchased. Not quite.

  This is just the way it is.

  * * *

  Guillermo is in a meeting with Favio Altalef, a client who is hoping to establish a consulting firm to help existing factories conform to the new environmental laws regulating the release of fossil fuels into the atmosphere. Favio is an engineer with the ambition to run his own company. He knows a lot about converting waste to harmless gases, but knows nothing about setting up a legitimate business. He is hoping Guillermo can facilitate his firm’s articles of incorporation, and get the necessary federal and municipal licenses so he can begin advising others. Guillermo informs him that in addition to his standard hourly fee, he will require a deposit of two hundred thousand quetzales in order to smooth the progress of what he calls “the wheels of government.”

  Favio knows that he isn’t being hustled. Bribery is part of the price of doing business. He has gone to Guillermo because his reputation among the Guatemalan business community is impeccable. Favio knows he is in good hands and not about to be led down a financial rabbit hole.

  Thirty minutes into the meeting, Guillermo’s secretary Luisa rushes into his office and calls him into the hall. She says, “Don Guillermo, we just received a call that Ibrahim Khalil has been in a serious car accident about a kilometer from his factory near Roosevelt Hospital.”

  Guillermo tenses up; his nose starts dripping. He pulls out a handkerchief and wipes it; his right eye is beginning to spasm.

  “Was anyone else in the car?” He is afraid to mention Maryam’s name to Luisa, though she has put calls through to her in the past.

  “That’s all the man said. He sounded official. I am so sorry, Don Guillermo.”

  He has no time to figure out who “the man” is. There is always a secretive “man” in Guatemala who somehow becomes the messenger of bad news.

  He asks Luisa to tell Favio to leave all the documents on his desk and have him reschedule the appointment for later in the week. He walks over to the receptionist’s desk and calls Maryam from the office phone. The line rings six times before it goes to voice mail and he hears her sweet voice asking the caller to leave a name and number. “I will return your call as soon as I can.”

  He finds this strange. Maryam is never more than a few feet from her cell phone unless she is showering, which she wouldn’t be at two o’clock in the afternoon. He pulls his BlackBerry out and calls her phone again; this time it goes straight to voice mail.

  This is even stranger: first six rings, then none. Why would she turn her phone off? Something is up.

  He wipes his nose on his coat sleeve and calls Maryam’s apartment. Hiba says that the madam is not at home. She is gruff and uninformative, as usual.

  When he persists, she says, “If you want more information, talk to her husband,” and hangs up.

  Guillermo calls Ibrahim’s apartment and his maid Fernanda picks up, all in a huff. After he identifies himself, she says that it is now two o’clock, lunch is getting cold, and neither Ibrahim nor his daughter have arrived, or called to say they would be late. More matter-of-factly, she adds that she has just received a call from the police, asking for Ibrahim. She told them what she just told Guillermo.

  “How do you know the call was really from the police?” he asks, agitated.

  “Because the caller identified himself as Sergeant Enrique Palacios.”

  “Sergeant Enrique Palacios my ass,” says Guillermo, hanging up. He is losing his cool. Rage is taking over his chest.

  He leaves the office and drives his car straight to Ibrahim’s factory, weaving in and out of traffic, pushing down on his horn as he goes. He zooms around the Plaza del Obelisco and heads west. In two minutes he is passing by the huge IGGS center on the south side of Calzada Roosevelt. He passes the Trébol entrance leading to Roosevelt Hospital and goes down Ninth Avenue toward the factory on 12th Street. As he approaches the guardhouse, he sees at least five police cars parked there, with lights spinning and intermittent sirens sounding. He sees more than a dozen policemen talking, laughing, kicking at the pebbles under their feet. It all seems oddly festive, as if the president of the republic has come to pay his respects to one of Guatemala’s leading industrialists, or to bestow upon him an international business prize.

  Guillermo leaves his car outside the gate and jogs up to them.

  “What’s going on here?”

  One of the policemen takes a few steps toward him. “And you are?”

  “Guillermo Rosensweig. I am Ibrahim Khalil’s lawyer,” he says, struggling to pull out a business card from his coat pocket. He notices that his nose is still running, but now he doesn’t care what he looks like. “I received a phone call telling me that my client has been in an accident. I would like to talk to him right away.”

  The policeman’s cap is too large and falls over his coppery forehead. He has to keep pushing the rim up in order to see, but since his hair is greasy it slides back down. His ears stick out like unruly cabbage leaves. He tilts his cap up again and examines the card. “I don’t think you will be able to do that, Don Guillermo . . .”

  “And why is that?”

  “Mr. Khalil is dead.”

  “What?” Guillermo screams, confused.

  “And I am afraid to say that so is his daughter.”

  Guillermo runs his right hand through his thinning hair. His scalp is sweating and begins to itch. He scratches his neck so hard he draws blood. He is totally lost, about to lose the capacity to breathe. The spinning lights and noise further disorient him.

  “He’s dead? Ibrahim Khalil is dead?”

  “So is his daughter,” the policeman answers.

  “If this is your idea of a joke, I don’t find it funny.”

  “It’s no joke, Don Guillermo. Samir Mounier, the husband of the deceased woman, has just confirmed that the car that blew up belonged to his wife. She and her father—apparently—were in the car and driving home together. They burned to a crisp, like a pan francés,” he adds, as if he has been waiting all his life to say something as foolish as this.

  “Samir Mounier is a joke of a man. He knows nothing. And why isn’t he here now?”

  “He has gone off to make arrangements for the funerals.”

  It’s all happening too fast. The phone call to the office. His inability to get through to Maryam. His call to Hiba, then to Fernanda. The zigging and zagging to the office and the factory. His mind is fizzling.

  “I am telling you that there has been some kind of serious, very serious, mistake here—” Guillermo is grasping at straws, but at this moment he doesn’t know that. He only feels something like the weight of a bulletproof vest pressing heavily against his chest, making him tired and clumsy.

  “If you come with me I will show you the car, or what’s left of it. Perhaps you will have something more to add when you see it.”

  Guillermo follows the policeman into his c
ar, saying angrily “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really don’t.”

  “Be calm, Don Guillermo.”

  He gets into the front passenger seat of the police car, which is filthy, full of paper cups, brown towels, empty plastic bags, three sets of sunglasses, garbage bags, balled-up cellophane. He pushes the side lever back so he has more leg room in the car.

  All of a sudden he starts getting nervous. Why has he just gotten into a cop car? This is a dangerous situation. They may be kidnapping him. “Where are we going?”

  “To the crime scene.”

  “Bring me back to the factory!” Guillermo screams, afraid he is being abducted.

  The policeman points to the rising smoke blocks away. “That’s where it happened. We are almost there.”

  Within a minute they are there, in the middle of an abandoned construction site with gravelly streets. On the side of the road is a blue tow truck with its engine running, starting to lower an enormous metal plate. In the middle of the street lies the burnt carcass of a black Mercedes with a piece of twisted metal—one of the doors?—next to it. The plate is about to scoop up the remains.

  The car is surrounded by five or six men in ill-fitting suits. There are more clumps of metal on a sea of sticky, multicolored oil. There’s the faint but unmistakable smell of charred flesh and bones. He sees no bodily remains.

  Guillermo pushes himself out of the police car and goes over to look more closely at the car, whose front half, up to the backseat, resembles a brittle charcoal briquette. As soon as he looks at the trunk door he knows it is Maryam’s car because he sees the shreds of a green blanket on the asphalt; Maryam sometimes put it on her father when he felt cold. He crosses to the driver’s side and sees the blown-out door and window, the dashboard turned to pulverized ash and burnt rubber, a blackened iron cross dangling from the roof: the remains of the mirror. On the wired vestiges of the front bucket seats he sees piles of charred mineral compounds, like the simple white residues of old bones.

  The passengers have been cremated, largely vaporized.

  And then it finally hits Guillermo that Maryam and Ibrahim have ceased to exist. If they are there, they are the small mound of charred white splinters covering the seats.