She said nothing.
He paused, shrugged. “Or maybe not,” he said. “But I can handle what you’re doing there if you want to take a break.”
She pushed back from the computer.
“An hour,” she said.
Anything longer was not only inviting an episode but would also put her behind schedule for the afternoon.
She stepped aside to let him near the computer and, with a glance over her shoulder, turned to lie down. Bradford leaned back in the chair, watching her in a show of exaggerated observation. She grinned, shut her eyes, and allowed herself to free-fall into oblivion.
Munroe woke to the touch of Bradford’s finger against her cheek. Disoriented, she turned to him.
“Hey,” he whispered. She attempted a grin, and he said, “Any monsters?”
“No,” she said. “No monsters. How long was I under?”
Bradford glanced at his watch. “One hour and three minutes. How do you feel?”
“A little dizzy,” she said, and she sat up, shifting her feet to the floor. “What’d you get on the tracker?”
He smiled an exaggerated smile. “I think we’ve got the third Haven.”
She attempted a return smile, thumbed-up the news, and then stood and made for the shower and what she hoped was instant clarity. She needed to be functioning at full throttle in less than an hour, and the jury was still out on whether or not sixty-three minutes of sleep was worth the cotton-headed mental fog.
By the time Munroe returned to the room, Bradford had already left, so she dressed and for added femininity liberally applied makeup. Having finished, and with Bradford still out, she turned again to the computer.
According to the data, the van had made only one stop in the hours since she’d returned from her jaunt at the mall, and she could see from the location on Bradford’s map why he’d smiled. The third Haven was less than a ten-minute drive from where they were ensconced. She would forgo the dry run and get surveillance installed tonight.
The pieces were coming together.
As long as Logan’s sources were accurate, as long as Hannah was truly in one of the Buenos Aires Havens, they would soon have her.
Munroe ran through visuals of the garage, located the time frame that the vehicle had left, caught a snapshot of who’d been in it, and, certain that neither Hannah nor David Law had been among the occupants, moved to the recordings captured by the laser mike. She had gotten through only the first five minutes when Bradford called.
Setting aside the equipment, she picked up her oversize purse, left the room, and joined Bradford in the lobby. He grinned as she approached, obviously appreciative of her attire, and then took her arm in his and led her to a late-model Peugeot sedan. Munroe paused to scan the car and nodded approval. He’d procured it from his local contact, and it far exceeded her expectations.
“Is it clean?” she said.
“It’ll trace back to Recoleta.”
Recoleta was a neighborhood of expensive apartment buildings and city blocks filled with mansions, where the most affluent of Buenos Aires congregated.
They drove through the streets of Palermo to Pascual Palazzo, which would route them to the highway that would take them out of town. It was a different route from the one Raúl had driven the evening before, but the destination was the same.
This was the first time in all of their mutual history that Munroe had allowed Bradford the wheel, and she glanced at him now, dressed up and owning the roads. She supposed that his transformation from jeans and T-shirts to sophistication and the effect it had on her were what people around her regularly experienced when she phased from one role into the next—unnerving, but in a good way.
They drove for over an hour through gradually thinning traffic before reaching the rural road that passed the Haven Ranch, and here Bradford turned off onto the gravel track that led to the buildings.
The vehicle slowed, Bradford obviously prolonging the approach.
“You ready for this?” he said.
Munroe nodded. “Born for it,” she said.
Bradford stopped the car, and while he waited in the warm interior, Munroe stepped out. She stood at a chain-link gate and, hands shoved into her pockets, searched for a bell—anything meant to alert the occupants that someone waited for entry. Several dogs approached. Their ruckus, absent any other notification, would surely give notice, but after another moment, she found a press-button on a post far to the right of the gate. She thumbed it several times and then returned to the car to wait.
“Still certain they’ll let us inside?” Bradford asked.
“Nearly certain,” she said. “Just give them time to clear forty pairs of shoes out of the foyer.”
As if on cue, a lone figure exited the front door and made the long walk toward them. Worn coat, worn shoes, dark curly hair, he appeared to be in his late twenties, and based on stories she’d collected from Logan and later Heidi, Munroe assumed that unlike the majority of those who lived here, the man was Argentine.
As he drew near, Munroe turned to Bradford, said, “Here goes,” and, with a radiant smile, stepped out of the car and walked toward the gate.
Chapter 14
The wind blew against the landscape, taking the typical winter chill and turning it bitter, and painting the leaf-strewn expanse with a dreary brush. Munroe pulled the faux-fur-cuffed jacket tight round her neck, arriving at the gate at the same time as the man walking toward it.
Her expression was one of uncertainty, of innocence and curiosity. “¿Se encuentra el dueño de casa?” she said. “Are the owners here?”
“Le puedo ayudar si quieres,” he said. “What is it that you need?”
Munroe shifted from foot to foot, gave a nervous glance over her shoulder toward Bradford, who waited in the driver’s seat, and then turned back to the man. “I’m looking for God’s people,” she said, and after only the slightest pause, continued on in a rush. “It sounds crazy, I think crazier to you than even to me, but last night God answered my prayers and told me to come here and ask for His people—that God’s people would have answers and that they needed my help.” She paused. “Have I come to the right place?”
The man hesitated. In all of the scenarios he’d expected to encounter at the gate, this was probably the most unlikely. Munroe studied his face and body language for cues and chose silence. This man was not the final authority.
He looked from her to the car and then to Bradford beyond the windshield, and finally said, “Possibly the right place.”
This was good, so much better than a figuratively slammed door. For the sake of her audience, her face brightened in visible relief, and then to push his hesitation toward favor, she reached into her coat and pulled out an envelope. She held it toward him. “God said that His people need this,” she said. “If you really are those of my vision, the people who have answers for me, I want you to have it.”
The man reached for the envelope but before taking it said, “What type of answers are you looking for?”
“I want to know how I can find peace, and meaning to life, and what comes after,” she said, and then in a rush of words that overlapped and retraced, all an excited chatter, she offered little while saying much.
After a bit, he took the envelope and, interrupting her flow, said, “If you could wait for just a few minutes?”
“Certainly, certainly,” she said.
He turned from her and, more quickly than he had come, walked back to the house.
When he’d made it halfway, Munroe returned to the warmth of the car.
“Did he buy it?” Bradford asked.
“I figure ten minutes and we’re in,” she said.
“What did you give him?”
“A thousand U.S. dollars in nice crisp hundreds.”
“Cheap date, huh?”
“The answer to their prayers.”
“So that’s your secret to information gathering? A gold-plated envelope?”
Munroe grinned
at Bradford’s teasing. He knew as well as she did that Logan hadn’t come to her simply because she was a best friend who could also conveniently kick ass and hand out bribes. Logan needed her on the inside, had come for the same skill that brought the highest bidders and the biggest players to her doorstep: the capacity to read people and then shift her own personality into whatever was necessary to allow others to believe what they most wanted to believe.
What happened after they were inside would determine whether or not she was granted access. Munroe folded her hands in her lap and turned to him with a smirk. “If I’ve properly analyzed, their arms will open.”
“And if you haven’t properly analyzed?”
She cut him a sideways glance. “Trust me.”
Munroe’s estimate was off by two minutes. According to Bradford’s watch, the man, whose name she would later learn was Esteban, returned within eight. He inserted a key into the large padlock that kept the gate chained shut, pulled to open it, and motioned them through. Even though tree-lined, the property felt desolate, a bleakness that was possibly due to the weather or possibly not.
Bradford followed the sweep of Esteban’s hand, driving to the area beside the main house, where two vans were parked in a space made for four or five. The vehicles were in relatively good condition and much newer than the overworked and run-down vans Munroe had seen both in documents and in person.
The dogs circled the Peugeot, sniffing the tires, and Bradford killed the engine. Watching the side mirror, Munroe said, “If for any reason you have to say something, use Arabic, it’s the only language we share that they won’t understand.”
“Arabic?” he said. “It won’t raise questions?”
“It’s the only option,” she said, “unless we play you as a deaf mute.” And then, as if an afterthought, “I know you’re a professional, Miles, but in the interest of covering my ass, when you hear English, no signs of recognition, okay?”
“Lakad fahimt,” he said, and his reply forced from her a smile. His accent was nearly as clean as her own.
Esteban approached, and they both stepped from the car. Bradford kept a cautious distance as Munroe initiated conversation, and with the ice thawing if not broken, she beckoned Bradford closer, introducing him as her boyfriend, hopeful that the combination of Bradford’s hypervigilance and his rudimentary Spanish would allow the meaning of what she’d just said to pass unnoticed. In her manner, she was wide-eyed and expectant, simple and generous, and she preempted suspicions about Bradford’s lack of interaction with the truth: he wasn’t from here and didn’t speak the language.
Esteban led them inside the main house, where a wide foyer opened into a wider hallway that half-ended in a winding staircase, the narrower space continuing to a back door. To their right was a large living room with furniture that was newer and in better condition than she would have expected. The size of the building spoke to the ground floor holding far more than this, although the layout didn’t provide for a view of anything else.
From what was visible, signs of occupancy were everywhere: cubbyholes that reached five high near the end of the hall, far too many couches in the living room, and in spite of the swept floors and washed windows, walls that had seen too many hands.
And yet, the house was eerily silent. There were no childish peals of laughter, neither the patter nor thud of little feet, and what voices did filter in their direction were hushed; all of it so similar to the descriptions Logan had given of Havens going Secret when unfamiliar visitors were on the property.
Esteban brought Munroe and Bradford to an alcove off the living room, a small space that, from its clean walls and minimalistic décor, appeared to get little use—or at the least far less than the rest of the house. They sat and Munroe attempted conversation, and although Esteban’s words were casual and friendly, his body language showed increasing signs of discomfort. When, a moment later, a second man approached and introduced himself, she understood why.
The newcomer was Elijah, a balding fifty-something who, after his first words of introduction, Munroe pegged for West Coast American. He greeted her initially in English, and when Munroe shook her head and half-killed an attempt to return in kind, he switched to Spanish. His language was proficient, though not fluent, and his accent and word usage pointed to his having learned in another Spanish-speaking country.
Elijah thanked her profusely for the contribution to their home and, at times turning to Esteban for help in interpretation, asked her what had brought her and what she knew of them.
Growing up a missionary kid in the heart of Africa may not have been the logical segue to international spy and accidental assassin, but for this journey, Munroe’s childhood was perfect. She knew the answers before the questions and simply reversed course, her story following the woven fabric of what she’d first told at the gate.
She was short on details and long on emotion describing a search for happiness that had taken her through travel, then work and money, and finally drugs until she was desperate. Wanting to put an end to life, she had a vision that showed her the path to the Haven.
If there was any part of this incursion that put Munroe on edge, it was the telling of the lie. Assignments had taken her across five continents, the gathering of information propelling her into multiple roles and many stories, each washing over her conscience more spot-free than the one before it. But never had she directly preyed on the spiritual faith of another.
To so easily enter this sanctum felt like a violation of what was hallowed, and in the face of this pause her mind returned to Logan’s documents, to the pictures and images of true violation, to innocence and trust stolen, to the daughter kidnapped from her parents, and the nauseating rage that had consumed her at the first kindled again, bringing her fully around to the present.
At the core of every successful subterfuge lay the desire of the mark to believe, and in this Elijah was very eager. If he harbored doubts, her act of innocence and the thousand-dollar ticket at the gate had apparently dulled them. As if he’d at last found a true votary, he discoursed with her, providing answers to her questions, guidance to her angst, and introduced her to the building blocks of his faith.
From the windows the shade of the sky shifted from gray to black. Esteban occasionally interpreted an English word into Spanish, as often getting it wrong as right, and Bradford sat silent until the middle of a lively exchange when he interrupted with but a stage whisper in Munroe’s direction. She deciphered his request, Arabic to Spanish, asking for the restroom.
There was a moment of pause and the predicament washed over Elijah’s face. He could let a stranger wander their house, or insist on having him accompanied and scare off the young potential proselyte who was so eager to give of herself and her fortune to God. In the end, and after an awkward silence, the man gave directions. Munroe, now certain that neither Elijah nor Esteban had understood the initial request, in turn interpreted to Bradford, adding a few words of her own.
“Try not to get lost,” she said. “We know how you can be when you’re in unfamiliar places.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said.
When he had left the room, Munroe turned immediately to Elijah and rushed onward in the conversation. The move had been intended to distract from Bradford’s absence, but it had little effect. Elijah after a continued pause finally said, “You speak Arabic?”
“Oh yes,” Munroe replied, “and a few languages besides. It happens that way when you are a mutt of no pedigree and you have relatives around the world.”
“And your boyfriend?”
She laughed, as if his question had been a joke. If they wanted to know what part of the world the Arabic-speaking, dirty-blond, gray-green-eyed stranger hailed from, they’d have to work for it. Her face drew serious, and in spite of the visible cues to Elijah’s discomfort and internal debate, she pressed forward with a question that he would not be able to ignore.
Bradford returned a long ten minutes later, and after ano
ther fifteen of continued doctrinal back-and-forth, Munroe apologized and excused herself on account of a prior appointment. Elijah begged a few more minutes of her time, and although Munroe stood to leave, he called for his wife, and when she arrived, several smiling children were with her.
It felt like cheating, to know so much about them and what they intended from the encounter when they in turn knew nothing of her, but she was along for the ride and so hugged the children back as they hugged her. Munroe promised to return—tomorrow if she could.
By the time they left the Haven, they had been there nearly four hours. Four hours for Bradford’s ten minutes of work, but the long wait leading up to his exit from the room had been every bit necessary.
“Four bugs,” he said. “One in the kitchen, one under the stairs, one in the living room”—he shrugged—“and one in the bathroom.” At Munroe’s mock disapproval he said, “Hey, don’t knock it. Listening to teenage boys’ bathroom talk might be our best lead.”
She chuckled. “Cameras?” she asked.
“Couldn’t,” he said.
She nodded and her face grew serious. “It’s possible—highly probable, that she doesn’t go by Hannah anymore. I mean, The Chosen change names often enough without being on the run, I imagine she’s gone through quite a few.”
Bradford nodded, and they both grew silent at the implications. They were halfway to the hotel before Bradford spoke again.
“So,” he said, “how long exactly have I been your boyfriend?”
She grinned. “About as long as humans have lived on Mars,” she said.
He smirked. “That’s what I thought,” he said, “but for a moment there it seemed I might have been mistaken.”
Munroe said nothing, continued to smile, and kept her head tilted toward the window. She turned toward him to find him watching her, and this time it was she who winked.
The stoplight changed to green and Bradford returned his focus to the road, but he was grinning. “That wasn’t flirting, was it?” he said.
The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel Page 12