“I would hate that as well,” said Túcume. “And I will do my best to prevent it.”
21
“Don’t get involved, Lia! Get out of there!” yelled Rockman, pounding on the console of his workstation as the scene on his monitor blurred. The images whirled. They were fed from a video cam hidden in a button on Lia’s jacket, and Rockman knew from experience that she had attacked one of the gunmen from the side, taking him with a karate-style kick.
“Run away!” Rockman repeated. The image blanked, and for a moment he thought he’d lost the feed. Then he realized that she had fallen to the ground, face-first.
“Lia!”
Telach leaned over the front of his station, staring at him but saying nothing.
“Did you see them?” asked Lia.
“Are you talking to me?” asked Rockman.
“No, the Invisible Man. Did you see them?”
Rockman put his finger on a button under the screen, isolating her voice from the background sounds erupting around her.
“I didn’t see them, but we can review the images later. Are you OK?”
“Where did the others go?”
“Are you OK?”
She replied with an expletive so fierce he knew she had to be fine. He looked up and nodded at Telach.
“Tell her to get out of there,” said Telach. “Now.”
“Lia, get out of there.”
Another expletive.
The street was chaos around her. Police ran left and right. Some people were lying on the ground; others were crouched on their haunches and pointing, apparently in the direction the gunmen had fled.
“Lia,” said Telach, keying her microphone into the circuit. “Remember your job. Leave the area.”
The op still didn’t respond. Once Lia DeFrancesca decided she was going to do something, not even a nuclear bomb could stop her.
Literally, as she had proven beneath the English Channel.
22
Lia lurched to the right, ducking a fleeing protestor as she tried following one of the men who’d fired the submachine gun in the crowd. She saw him stop at the doorway of the building and threw herself down as he began firing again. When she looked up, a woman roughly her age lay on the sidewalk nearby, blood spilling slowly from her mouth.
“Ambulance! Get an ambulance!” yelled Lia, deciding to help the woman rather than chase a gunman she could no longer see. The woman convulsed, bending at the midsection. There was a large blot of blood on her shirt. Lia leaned over the body and saw that the woman’s eyes were glossy. Then Lia realized the victim had stopped breathing.
Lia jumped up, determined to help someone else. But Fernandez grabbed her.
“We have to get out of here. The police are going crazy.”
“The police?” said Lia. “Why?”
“Come on.”
The police were clearing the area, but they weren’t going crazy. True, they were yelling and emphatically herding people away, but the reactions were normal.
“Let’s go,” insisted Fernandez.
“We have to help the people.”
“Let’s go before the police shoot us, too.”
“The police didn’t do this.”
Lia looked left and right quickly. Only when she was sure there were no other victims on the ground, she let Fernandez tug her away, passing through the area where the police line had been earlier. They turned the comer and went half a block, where they found a television crew already interviewing a hysterical man covered with blood.
“Stay here with the TV people,” Fernandez told her. “The car’s just up the block. I’ll get it and pick you up.”
“Go ahead,” said Lia.
She took a step toward the man who was being interviewed. The Spanish was a little quick, but Lia easily understood the gist — the man was accusing the police of firing on the crowd.
“No. It wasn’t the police,” Lia said. “Two men came out of the building. They weren’t police. At least they weren’t dressed like policemen.”
The man who was being interviewed spoke louder and more quickly. The reporter didn’t seem to hear her.
“No — that’s not what happened,” said Lia.
“We’ll get to you in a second, honey,” said the cameraman, waving at her to pipe down.
“Lia, get out of there,” said Rockman in her ear. “Get out of there, now.”
The witness who was being interviewed said that a number of policemen had fired. Some had singled out their victims very carefully before taking aim.
“That’s just not true,” said Lia.
Something exploded in the street behind the cameraman. She started to duck, but a hand caught hold of her and threw her back. As she spun, another set of hands grabbed her and threw her into the backseat of a car.
“Go!” yelled a familiar voice.
It was Charlie Dean.
“What are you doing?” Lia demanded from the floor of the car as it squealed into reverse.
“Saving you,” said Dean, next to her on the seat.
Overcome by rage, Lia pulled herself up and swung her fist hard into Dean’s chest.
“What are you doing, Charlie? What are you doing?”
He grabbed her arm. She pushed against his grip, then forced a release with a sharp snap of her forearm.
“You hit me again, I may hit back,” he warned.
“Charlie Dean!”
“Hey, you lovebirds, let’s calm down back there,” said Karr. “It’s a little hard navigating as it is.”
“I’ll strangle you, Tommy,” Lia sputtered. “Just stop. Just stop.”
“The car?”
“I swear—”
“Let’s just calm down,” said Dean. “Let’s all just calm down.” He leaned forward to talk to Karr, who was wearing his usual What? Me worry? grin. “Take a right and go down that boulevard. There ought to be a place where we can have a drink.”
“I don’t need no stinkin’ drink,” said Lia.
“Well, I do,” said Dean. “I think you broke one of my ribs.”
23
Rubens hesitated for a moment before picking up the phone.
“Yes, Debra, what can I do for the CIA today?”
“It’s what the CIA can do for you, Bill.”
Rubens was thankful he did not have a videoconferencing phone; Debra Collins’ smirk would have turned his stomach.
“We were contacted in Peru this afternoon,” she told him. “Less than an hour ago. An army general from one of the northern provinces predicted that the rebels would make a large strike against the capital. I know it’s an area of interest, so I thought I would pass it along.”
An hour ago? Rubens wondered why the information had traveled so quickly — and if Collins had an ulterior motive.
Well, of course she did. The question was what it was.
“That’s very kind,” he told her. “Which general, if I may ask?”
“Túcume. Does it ring a bell?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“He commands several divisions in the north and northeast, primarily the Amazonian area and near the Ecuadorian border. He saw action in the wars against Ecuador in 1995 and 1998. He was a colonel in 1998, and proved himself so irrepressible he had to be promoted. He doesn’t quite get along with the general staff because of his background. Which may be a factor here: the natives really hate the rebels, and that may be coloring his views. In any event, he seemed quite serious, and we have no reason to doubt that he at least believes his information is correct.”
“Túcume?” The general’s name was not immediately familiar to Rubens, though in itself that meant nothing.
“I’ll save you the trouble of looking him up,” continued Collins. “He claims to be descended from relatives of Tupac Amaru, who was the last ruler under the Spanish and executed in 1572. His people supposedly escaped and went to live with natives in the northeastern jungles. Whether the claims about his ancestry are authentic or misguide
d, it’s impossible to tell at this point.”
“And he was warning about which rebels?”
“Sendero Nuevo. The New Path. Successors to the Shining Path. Same philosophy, different faces.”
“Did he have any comment on the riots in Lima?”
“Riots?”
Now Rubens wished he did have a video hookup.
“There were some protests and gunfire,” said Rubens, who’d just gotten the report from the Art Room. “The army is being called in. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve been very busy, and Peru is not among my priorities.”
I wonder about that, thought Rubens.
“If there’s anything else we can do,” Collins added, “please call.”
“I’ll do that.”
24
Dean rubbed his rib as they drove, wondering if Lia actually had broken one.
“That’s the restaurant, up there,” he told Karr. He slid back in the seat and turned to Lia. “You want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I don’t see a parking space,” said Karr, pulling up near the restaurant. “I think I’ll stay with the car while you guys cool down.”
Dean thought that was a good idea.
Lia got out of the car on the other side. Karr grabbed Dean as he started to follow.
“This is why I call her Princess,” he said. “Packs a heck of a punch, huh?”
Dean followed Lia into the restaurant, where she found a table in the back and pulled out her handheld computer, scanning for bugs.
“You two shouldn’t have come, Charlie,” she told him when he sat down. “I didn’t need to be rescued.”
Dean pointed at the PDA.
“Yes, it’s clean,” she said.
“What about the window?”
She got up, sighing like a teenager who’d just been told to go clean up her room. She slipped a small device nicknamed a shaker onto the comer of the glass near the curtain. The NSA-DESIGNED device disrupted vibrations, making it impossible to use them to pick up conversations inside. While Lia was slipping it on, a waitress came over and Dean ordered two beers.
“I’m not drinking,” said Lia, pulling out her chair.
“I’ll have them both. Tell me what happened.”
“It was some sort of setup,” Lia told him. “They’re blaming it on the police.”
“You should have gotten out of there,” said Dean.
“Would you have done that?”
“Depending on the circumstances.”
“The circumstances? The circumstances are, two men came out of a building, shot some innocent protestors, then took off. Ten minutes later, a guy who wasn’t even there blames the police.”
“Do you know he wasn’t there?”
“I didn’t recognize him.”
“For all you knew, it was an operation aimed at kidnapping you.”
“It wasn’t.”
“But you didn’t know that at the time.”
“I wouldn’t be talking if I were you, Charlie Dean. You and laughing boy tried to break up a purse snatching in England a few months back.”
“That was different.”
“Why? Because it was you, not me?”
The waitress came over with the beers. True to her word, Lia pushed hers to his side of the table.
“You seemed shaken yesterday,” said Dean.
Lia’s face flushed. “That was nothing.”
“I was just—”
“I’m fine.”
“OK.”
“We’re here to make sure the election is fair, right?” said Lia. “They can steal it using the media just as easily as they can using the machines.”
Probably easier, thought Dean.
“You shouldn’t have thrown me in the car like that,” she told him. “It looked like a kidnapping.”
“The Art Room wanted you out of there.”
“The Art Room is in charge now?”
“The Art Room is in charge of the mission while it’s running,” said Dean.
She snarled. “Is that what you really believe, Charlie Dean? You?”
“I thought you were in trouble,” he told her.
“Well, I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Her eyes flashed with anger.
“You were scared in the vault,” he said.
“Well, I wasn’t scared here.”
They stared at each other. Dean realized he might be as angry as she was.
“Let’s get you back to the UN people,” he said, reaching for some money to pay the bill. “You’ll have to make up something plausible.”
Lia caught his hand as he got up. He stopped, gazing down at her beautiful face, luminescent with the reflected light.
“The cops were framed,” she said.
“I believe you.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“I’ll pass the information on,” said Dean.
He was tongue-tied. He wanted to say — he couldn’t even tell himself exactly what it was. He loved her. He was worried about her. He wanted her to be OK.
Instead, he ended up lecturing her. “We have to stay focused on what’s important.”
“What’s important?”
“You.”
“Well, thanks for that,” she snapped, walking out.
25
“Do you miss your wife?”
“I don’t believe that would have much relevance to my work, do you?” said Jackson.
“Please answer the question.”
“Of course.”
Jackson watched the technician flip the pages of the yellow pad on his clipboard. The interviews were supposed to uncover “vulnerabilities” that would make a person a security risk, but to Jackson they were an odd mix of prurience—“Have you ever practiced deviant sex?”—and shallow pop psychology. This was the third go-around for the questions about his wife. He’d already explained that they had led somewhat separate lives when she was alive but that yes, he hated the fact that she was gone.
“Can we get back to your son?” asked Montblanc. He’d sat in on this session, hardly saying anything, but it occurred to Jackson that Montblanc had formulated most of the questions that weren’t routine. He clearly was in charge; everyone else silently deferred to him.
“Yes, my son,” said Jackson. “He died five months ago. He had been in a coma for eighteen months before that.”
“Actually, yes, I was more interested in the doctor bills,” said Montblanc. “If you—”
“The doctors are actually a small portion of the total. Most of what is still owed is to the hospital. It’s a bit over two hundred thousand,” said Jackson.
“Do you mind if I ask a personal question?”
Jackson laughed. The sensor band slid on his forehead.
“Don’t touch that, please,” said the technician, rising to adjust it before Jackson could.
“All of your questions are personal,” said Jackson. “Ask whatever you want.”
“Why did you take on your son’s debts?”
“I thought it only right. He didn’t have insurance. Someone has to pay. If not me, every patient who’s treated there.”
“It’s put you in financial straits.”
“Not really. I don’t need to live ostentatiously.” Jackson saw that the technician was frowning. “I’m not taking the job for the money. I’m doing it to be useful. I’d like to think that I’m still of some use to someone, especially my country.”
And that, thought Jackson, was as candid as anyone could ask him to be.
26
After she found the doors to the restaurant where she worked gated and chained, Calvina Agnese spent the morning walking through the city, trying at other restaurants to see if they might have a similar job. She was still stunned by what had happened and all that she had heard. Calvina was not a naive girl, but it seemed impossible that her beloved boss had been a bankrupt
and gambler.
And a thief. For he had killed himself without paying her the week’s salary he owed. It was the same as taking money from her pocket.
Early in the afternoon, discouraged and tired, she went home. Her mother took the news better than Calvina had feared: she only cried, not shouting or demanding to know what role Calvina had played in her employer’s demise.
Losing the job meant immediate difficulty for the family. Calvina promised her mother that she would find a new one soon. Her mother tried vainly to stanch her tears and finally succeeded in smiling for her, but Calvina could tell that she was not optimistic. Calvina’s fourteen-year-old brother had been laid off from a job with one of the markets a year before and, though he had tried to find another, had not yet managed to do so. Her mother made a few soles a week doing piecework for a clothing manufacturer; Calvina volunteered that she would ask for work there herself. While this was unlikely, her mother nodded enthusiastically and said it was a very good idea.
To take her mind off what had happened, Calvina filled a bucket and began washing the kitchen floor, her hands circling in the steady rhythm she would have used at the restaurant. The floor there was stone and here it was linoleum, but the familiar motion felt reassuring, and she moved on to their bathroom and then the hallway and bedrooms.
With each room, some of the comfort melted away. Her thoughts returned to Señor DeCura. She thought of the priest who would say his mass — if this was even allowed. Was it allowed? Could a man who took his own life be buried in the church?
Calvina’s thoughts grew darker still. She filled her bucket again and began washing the hall outside their apartment, hoping the sense of relief would return. Eventually she realized it would not, but the task had assumed an importance of its own, and she continued to work her way down the hall past the other apartments here, carrying her bucket back and forth several times for fresh water.
She was near the stairway when her cousin Rosa arrived home. Two years older than Calvina, Rosa worked as a cleaner at a small office building on the other side of the city. Ordinarily, she came home well after dark, and Calvina looked up with surprise when she heard Rosa’s familiar steps on the stairs.
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