He might never have been inside El Grande and Maria’s inner circle, but it was clear that his current trust trajectory was heading in the wrong direction.
A significant part of him hoped to reverse that trend. He wanted to fit in with El Grande’s crowd, he realized. He wanted to spend more time with Maria, and he wasn’t a huge fan of the Agency deviants he’d met. He would enjoy doing his part to make life difficult for the CIA, as long as he didn’t get killed as a result.
That, he supposed, was the rub. How to have your cake and eat it too. I don’t ask for much, he thought wryly.
And it was clear that in light of his current status as a man in need of a few good friends, any such thoughts were borderline delusional.
Kittredge’s reverie was interrupted when Alejandro turned abruptly into an alley and gunned the engine. Kittredge checked his seatbelt, certain that a collision with a trash dumpster, bum, or building was imminent.
“What gives?” he asked.
“Your amigos,” Alejandro said. He reached an intersection with another alley, and reefed the big sedan to the right, barely missing the brick facade of a dilapidated building as he did so. They were traveling parallel to the main road but now in the opposite direction, Kittredge realized.
Alejandro again stood on the accelerator, eliciting another protest from the backseat. “What good does it do to lose them if we wrap ourselves around a building?”
“They told me you were kind of a puta,” Alejandro said, smiling for the first time all day.
The sedan charged through two more blocks, bottoming out on each cross-alley drainage channel, before Alejandro jammed on the brakes and slid to a stop between two dumpsters. Kittredge heard the car trunk pop open, and Alejandro exited, stopping on his way to the trunk to open the rear driver’s side door, closest to the building wall.
Kittredge climbed out, and had barely stood up when Alejandro threw clothes at him. “Quickly. Change your clothes. Put the mustache and glasses on first.”
You’ve got to be kidding me, Kittredge thought. A disguise? Are we twelve years old?
“Faster,” Alejandro said.
“This is ridiculous. Is this going to work?”
“Maria was right. You are nothing but questions and problems.” Alejandro sported a ridiculous cowboy hat atop white slacks and a tan blazer. Out of fashion in any decade, Kittredge’s inner fashionista observed.
Alejandro straightened a newly-affixed goatee and strode off.
“Wait,” Kittredge said.
“Get shot if you want to, but I’m not in the mood for it,” Alejandro said.
Kittredge hustled to catch up, now wearing a blue sport coat, blue slacks, giant sunglasses, and a large black mustache. If anyone had looked closely, they’d certainly have spotted the color difference between his sandy brown hair and his swarthy black mustache, and he felt a strange combination of self-consciousness and fear as he matched Alejandro’s long strides.
They walked back to the main road, turned left, and disappeared down a subway stairwell a dozen paces from the corner.
Alejandro handed him some change for the ticket dispenser and guided Kittredge to the northbound platform of the Blue Line.
Several long, uncomfortable moments passed before the train arrived, which Kittredge filled by looking around nervously.
“Stop it,” Alejandro told him through clenched teeth. “Relax and smile.” Kittredge forced a tight-lipped grin, but was nowhere close to relaxing.
The train finally rumbled to a stop and disgorged its passengers.
“Get off at San Jose,” Alejandro said, shoving Kittredge toward the open train door.
Kittredge turned to ask about their final destination in case they became separated, but Alejandro had melted into the crowd and disappeared.
The remainder of the trip had gone uneventfully, with the exception of a few panic-filled moments at the San Jose station, where Kittredge realized that he had no idea where to go or whom to look for.
Alejandro had reappeared as if by magic, no longer sporting the cowboy hat or goatee. Kittredge didn’t recognize him until he spoke, something along the lines of, “Are you coming, jackass?”
Alejandro escorted him to a waiting car, this time a Dongfeng S30. It was a memorable name for a car, Kittredge thought, but it was a thoroughly forgettable ride. Kittredge realized that they’d taken the subway to the north side of the city, only to weave through town in a nausea-inducing dash reminiscent of a rally race in order to reach Caracas’ posh east side. Apparently there was a lot of wasteful overhead involved in clandestine travel.
Then there was the garden shed. That’s where Kittredge had sat for the better part of the afternoon, locked inside a sweltering hut full of garden tools and the smell of earth and cut vegetation, situated at the edge of a vast manicured pool and yard adorning a mansion in the hills above the eastern side of Caracas.
He wasn’t chained up, and he thought he might be able to escape the shed if he put his mind to it, but where would he go after that?
Much of his time had been spent sweating through the rough phase of the hangover that had finally caught up with him. He had nearly retched several times, when the lawnmower fumes, fecund air, and crushing humidity had mixed together in just the right way.
He either wanted a tall, stiff drink, or never to have another drink again in his life, whichever occurred first.
It was a crazy situation, no matter how Kittredge sliced it. He had been out of touch with his Company handlers for a couple of days, which was a rash and colossally stupid thing to do, possibly evidenced by the shooting incident in Maria’s apartment the previous evening.
And he now found himself locked up like a prisoner by his newest friends, the VSS, whose buxom agent he’d had the pleasure of balling both before and after she saved his bacon in spectacular fashion from his Agency friends.
That – sex with a femme fatale – had made him question his homosexuality, which was a reality he had established in his life at no small cost, so his thorough and repeated enjoyment of Maria’s charms had become quite an existential puzzle for him.
It was a lot for a mind to take in. Especially a sober mind, which is why Kittredge did his best to escape the sobering situation using a few of the zen tricks he’d read about over the years, but had never gained any proficiency in using.
He tried meditation, which was mainly about getting your mind to shut the hell up. It always sounded really simple to Kittredge, until he attempted it, and he inevitably ended up in a state of utter annoyance at the myriad voices all shouting to be heard inside his head, none of which would give him the courtesy of a moment’s silence.
Think you’re sane? Try meditating. He’d heard that somewhere, and he didn’t disagree. Each of the Kittredges running around in his mind had clever things to say about the stench, heat, humidity, hangover, and probability of living through the next few days, none of which Kittredge appreciated hearing over and over again, even from himself. Or from his selves, as it were.
He was therefore far more relieved than he should have been when a familiar face entered the shed late in the afternoon. El Grande himself appeared, cigar in hand like an omnipresent cliché, gravitas and importance having replaced the friendlier personage Kittredge remembered from their time together in the jungle just a couple of days earlier.
His expression wasn’t unfriendly, but Kittredge felt a distance that wasn’t present in El Grande’s personality earlier. It seemed a lot like. . .weight. Kittredge thought he might have an inkling of what that felt like, and he suspected that he might be personally responsible for some of El Grande’s current travails.
Kittredge made room for El Grande on the garden shed’s workbench.
“Maria, she is something, no?” El Grande asked.
It was a hell of an opener. Kittredge wasn’t sure if a good response was possible.
“She sure is,” he said, as neutrally as he could.
“She has a special pla
ce in my heart,” he said.
Perfect. I slept with the boss’ girlfriend, Kittredge thought.
This thought must have been displayed prominently on his face, Kittredge surmised, because El Grande laughed aloud.
“Don’t worry, my friend,” he said, to Kittredge’s relief. “She is not property. She loves whom she chooses. But I was surprised at this choice.”
“Me too, honestly,” Kittredge said. “But maybe for different reasons,” he added.
El Grande chuckled.
“I certainly meant no disrespect,” Kittredge said awkwardly, “and I would never have–”
El Grande cut him off with the wave of his cigar. “Please, do not think of it any more. If a girl like her chooses to have you, you are chosen. It is best not to over-think things like this. I would have done the same in your shoes. I know this, because I did the same in your shoes,” El Grande said with a chuckle and a wistful look in his eye. “But things change, no?”
“I guess they do,” Kittredge agreed.
“And now, I’m afraid that there is another important change that we must make.” El Grande’s mien hardened a bit, and the distance returned to his eyes.
Kittredge felt his chest constrict. Discussing their mutual enjoyment of Maria’s favors wasn’t exactly lighthearted banter, but El Grande apparently had even less enjoyable topics on his mind.
“You have been absent from your friends in the CIA for a couple of days now. It has been long enough for you to establish credibility that you know us, and have access to us, no?”
Kittredge was pretty sure he knew where El Grande was headed. Perhaps he even knew that it was inevitable. But he was still scared to death at the prospect. He kept his silence.
El Grande took a long, exaggerated pull from his cigar.
Straight to the lungs, Kittredge noticed. Maybe this guy is a legitimate badass, in spite of all the posturing.
“It is time for you to return to your apartment in Caracas,” El Grande said, smoke punctuating each word.
Kittredge blinked involuntarily, and was certain that El Grande registered his fear.
“You must also initiate contact with your CIA handlers. It can be no other way.”
Kittredge shook his head, recalling the more memorable moments spent chained to the basement floor in the Alexandria safe house, with Quinn blithely tossing salt onto his ablated back. He shuddered.
El Grande reached a hand out and put it on his shoulder. “Si, it is a risk. But it is one you must take. If you run, they will hunt you like an animal. If you stay with us, they will find you, and they will find us in the process.”
“I think they’ll kill me.”
“As I said, it is a risk,” El Grande said, returning to his cigar with a contemplative look on his face. “Maybe a thirty percent chance, I think.”
More cigar smoke, which added to Kittredge’s returning nausea.
“But I think that now, more than ever, you have something they want,” El Grande said. “You know what that is, no?”
Kittredge nodded.
“Si. Of course you know. Do you think you can keep it from them?” El Grande arched his eyebrows in query.
It was a loaded question. Kittredge knew how little time it would take Quinn to inflict otherworldly pain, and he doubted his ability to protect El Grande, his band of VSS men, or even Maria from the onslaught.
In the end, it wouldn’t really matter if he held out for an hour or a week. Quinn would break him, and he would tell the Cocksuckers In Action everything he knew about the VSS.
El Grande had to know this, too, Kittredge realized. “No, I probably can’t keep it from them,” he said.
El Grande smiled, patted his shoulder, and nodded. “Of course not. It is not possible. So don’t try. Never resist a stronger enemy’s strength,” he said.
Kittredge searched El Grande’s eyes, and as he did so, the grave look gave way to a warm sparkle, which spread to a smile that covered the Venezuelan guerrilla’s whole face. “We know this, too,” he said. “So your visits have been carefully engineered.”
He paused to inhale a lungful of unadulterated cigar smoke, then continued, “Which means that you can be as careless as you want when you go back to the gringos. How do they say? Sing like a bird.” He laughed.
Kittredge was suddenly irate. “You manipulated me.”
El Grande shook his head, still laughing. “This is, how you say, a theme with you, no? Manipulation. You said the same thing to Maria.”
Kittredge was taken aback. How the hell did he know that? Have these assholes been listening and watching, too? Just like Quinn and Fredericks?
Or did Maria talk about the details of our private moments together with El Grande?
He decided he disliked any of those possibilities. He felt the familiar emotions of violation and victimization.
A discomforting thought struck. “At the apartment, when the shooting started, Maria threatened to kill me rather than let the CIA capture me again,” Peter recalled. “Now you’re throwing me back at them? What gives?”
El Grande smiled sympathetically. “Peter, listen to me,” he said. “Many people depend on me. I take steps to protect them. Now, you depend on me a little bit too, no?”
Kittredge remained silent.
“Of course you do,” El Grande went on. “Caracas is a dangerous town, and you have chosen a dangerous path.”
El Grande shifted his weight and crossed his legs, then took another long drag from his cigar. His eyes got a faraway look. “Maria did what she had to do in a very tenuous time.”
Kittredge mulled this over, still feeling played. He felt even less happy about his role as equal parts baggage and pawn.
El Grande noticed the continuing disquiet, and patted Kittredge’s shoulder. “Besides, it would have been monstrous of me,” he said, avuncular overtones heavy in his voice, “to put you in a position where you had to protect a secret for me, no? Because you cannot do it. They will pull it out of you. You have ten fingernails and ten toenails, and they will rip them out one at a time. That causes a lot of pain, enough to make you tell them everything you know.”
Kittredge nodded. He had no doubt that Quinn, the feral-eyed monster, would enjoy doing exactly as El Grande had described. He shuddered again.
El Grande let the fingernail torture imagery marinate, then went on. “So I have done you a favor. I have only let you see what you needed to see, and no more. You have no knowledge that can hurt us.”
Kittredge nodded slowly.
“But you can still hurt us, my friend,” El Grande said. “By staying. They will find you, eventually, and they will find us as a result. So you must go.”
He let it sink in.
“I hope that when you go,” El Grande continued after a moment, “you will speak to them, and make it right with them, and tell them what they want to know.”
Another lungful of smoke. “And we will continue to help each other after that, no? Like a business arrangement. And maybe more, if Maria still wishes for more. Si?”
Kittredge mulled silently, then shook his head sullenly. “There’s no good exit strategy here, is there?”
El Grande clapped him on the shoulder. “Mi amigo, no strategy is necessary,” he said, standing and making his way toward the garden shed door. “Because there is no exit.”
47
Adrenaline slammed through Sam’s veins as she saw the gun pointed at her face from within the darkness of her basement safety room.
She sprang into action.
She ducked and sidestepped, moving her body closer to the intruder’s arm while swinging her left forearm counterclockwise in a vicious arc. It connected with the gunman’s forearm, which smashed against the edge of the door, still ajar from Sam’s cautious opening a split second before.
She used her right elbow to smash the man’s rib cage, tightening her grip on her own pistol to ensure it wasn’t jarred loose by the impact.
Her elbow connected with a
vengeance, and she heard a loud groan as the air escaped from the man’s lungs.
There was something familiar about the groan.
It actually sounded like the man had tried to say something.
She ripped the gun from his hand, leapt back, and trained her weapon on the writhing shadow splayed on the floor inside the panic room.
“Don’t shoot me, Sam!” wheezed a familiar voice.
“Brock?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but–”
“Oh my God, Brock!” She launched herself at him, wrapping her arms and legs around him, embracing him as tightly as she ever had, feeling herself start to choke up.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I thought you were dead, I’m so sorry, so sorry for everything.”
He returned her embrace with equal enthusiasm and even greater strength.
“I’ve never lied to you, Sam,” he said when his breath returned. “Never.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry for doubting you. It’s just that Ekman–”
“I’ll kill him,” Brock said.
“No, it’s okay, it’s just that he showed me how your cell phone location overlapped Dibiaso’s, and I freaked out, and–”
“I’ve never met that guy, Sam, I swear to you. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I do, baby, that’s what I’m saying. I figured it out, it was the slug line, right?”
Brock was confused. “Every day for the last three months. Why?”
“That’s it. That’s what happened. Dibiaso rode next to you, twice.”
“Holy shit. Are you sure?”
“Trust me,” Sam said. “I’ve been to hell and back with this one, and it sounds crazy, but I’m pretty sure.”
“Do you know why another cop broke into our house?”
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon. I think he came in through the back yard somehow. He drew a Taser on me, in my own damned home!”
“I’m sorry, baby, I don’t know how you got dragged into this. . .”
“I don’t either. He surprised me in the kitchen, and I threw the butcher knife at him. I was aiming for his balls, but I think I got his thigh. Bled like a stuck pig.”
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 27