“Just give me the gun, jefe.”
“No, it wouldn’t do any good anyway. She doesn’t care. Isn’t that a terrible thing? Is there anything more abnormal than a mother forsaking her own child?”
“We have to, jefe.” Clarence’s big hand moved in, agitated. “I’ll be careful as I can. I promise.”
Achic gave a sad nod. “Very well, then.” He handed the gun to Clarence, who took it expertly, flipped it in the air single-handed, caught it. “It’s on single-shot, right?”
“It is,” Achic said. “Try to be careful. We don’t want to cripple him for life.”
The woman’s eyes flickered madly as she gasped. She was fighting to hold onto her sanity.
“Semper fi,” Clarence whispered, pointing the gun at the infant’s foot. Then he closed his eyes.
“I can’t watch,” Achic said, turning. “I’m going outside.”
“God forgive me,” Clarence said, holding the barrel over the baby’s foot. “God forgive me.”
“They’re taking the American woman to Ipiales!” the woman shouted. “But Cain isn’t there. He’s staying at a safe house in Coca. They’re taking her there. Over the border. To Coca!”
Achic turned and looked at her blankly. “What is the address of the safe house?”
“Two-twelve Espejo. Please put my Ernesto down! Please!”
Clarence sniffed, made a face. “I think Comrade Ernesto here needs a diaper change.” He turned to Achic. “Nice performance by the way, jefe.”
“I think it was an ensemble effort, Clarence.”
“I’m going to contact the motion picture association, have you nominated for best actor.”
“Oh, come on, Clarence. Best supporting actor if anything. You were the star of the show. Your sense of pathos. Irony.”
Jiggling the kid again. “My dad used to own a video store. Before they all went belly up, that is. I watched a ton of old flicks as a kid. Those old black-and-white movies?” Handing the Glock back to Achic, who took the gun.
“Did you really shoot that boy?” Achic said, putting the gun away. “In Afghanistan?”
“Hell, no!” Clarence said, grinning. He gave Ernesto a bounce. “I’d rather pound my balls flat with a wooden mallet than shoot a kid.”
“That was a very good touch.”
“Did you ever do any community theater?”
Achic laughed. “I honestly didn’t know what we were going to do next.”
“Oh, you would have thought of something, jefe. That’s why you’re in charge. You go with your gut. And it works for you, nine times out of ten.”
Achic gave a smile of relief. “I learned that from my grandpapi. Go with your gut.”
“You tricked me,” the woman said, her voice rising. “You fucking tricked me!”
Achic gave her a weary smile. “But you’ll never really know for sure, will you? And now I know how much conviction you have.”
~~~
While Marcelo stood guard, Clarence bound Yalu’s ankles in electrical wire while she lay on the cot in the bedroom. But when all was said and done, she was looking at the playpen where Ernesto was jabbering away.
Clarence slipped a bottle of formula into the child’s hands. “I followed your instructions,” he said to her. “Not too hot.”
“Gracias,” she whispered.
Achic entered the room, stood by the cot. “Where is your cell phone?” he said to her. “Don’t tell me you don’t have one.”
“In the kitchen,” she said. “In a pot on the stove. There’s a lid over it.”
“Clarence, get her phone.”
Clarence did.
“What’s the number?”
“In the call log. The first number. It belongs to Abraham. My husband.”
Achic found the number, dialed it, put the phone to his ear, winced as a shrill piercing noise came, followed by a woman apologizing for not being able to connect the call.
“Out of range,” he said. “But we can still beat them there.” He spoke to Yalu. “Clarence is staying here with you and your son. When Beltran and the American woman are free and safe, you’ll be released.” He handed the phone to Clarence. “If anyone calls, hold the phone up to her, so she can speak.” Then he focused on Yalu. “You will say everything is fine. No problems. Got that?”
She nodded. She was defeated.
And then he was gone.
Clarence settled down against the wall, leaned back, started playing a game on his cell phone. Little gunshots came.
~~~
“What are you doing now, ese?” Marcelo said, starting up the Nissan truck, the out-of-tune engine rumbling, making the view of Bogotá vibrate, a million shimmering lights below. They had parked up the hill, away from the safe house. To keep that element of surprise when they approached.
Achic dialed into his Nexus tablet, logged into Frenesi, the swinger site. He used the ID PerroRabioso, the one John Rae had texted him before he went offline.
No new messages. John Rae was well and truly out of circulation, as the 999 code suggested. Probably in some cell somewhere, courtesy of the Colombian government. And nothing from Maggie aka Alice Mendes aka IceLady69. Achic typed a message to IceLady69 anyway.
He didn’t have a clue what kind of code she might be using, so he wrote his note in Quechua. He remembered her speaking it to him at Beltran’s party. And he had yet to meet an American operative who could speak it, let alone the slang version he was using, full of reversed words and street dialect.
John Rae is disappeared. We’re coming to Coca. We know where you are. If you can, escape. If not, sit tight. We’ll get you out. Achic. He hit Send.
“Step on it, Marcelo,” he said, powering down his tablet. “With any luck, we’ll get to Coca before they do. Abraham’s wife said they’re taking a truck. We can move faster, even in this relic. And we have Ecuadorian passports. We’ll get through border control without a problem.”
The pickup bobbed down the hill. By his thigh, the gun smelled faintly of nitroglycerin, from shooting through the door to the child’s room. If there was ever a time to be grateful for not hitting a target.
But he would see the American woman freed.
Shoot a baby? The terrucos could do that. Maybe that was the price of revolution.
-18-
The International Harvester truck ground to a halt at the top of the ascent outside the last major town before the Ecuadorian border, where they were to meet Comrade Cain and Beltran. The ancient chassis resounded with the recoils and thumps of a timeworn engine and decades of rough roads. Several hundred miles of Pan American Highway had shaken Maggie’s teeth loose, while she sat in the back along with the members of Grim Harvest. She remembered riding in trucks like these with her mother as a child, bouncing through the Andes. This vehicle was older than she was, most likely twice as old. Maybe she’d even ridden in this one as a girl.
Dust swirled through the side gates as Maggie stood up, gazing out over the canyon that the twisting road had followed for the last hour. The valley was lush, deeply gouged by a river cascading down its twisted chasm. A delicate-looking gothic-style cathedral nestled between the folds of the gorge, spanning the ravine, caught her eye. It sat on tall stone piers, reaching across the rift with a footbridge that led to its entrance. Early-evening mist climbed the emerald canyon walls, rising up to reflect against the church.
“The city of green clouds,” Beatriz said, getting to her feet and straightening her pollera skirt. The boy with the shaved head—Gabby—and Comrade Abraham got up from the truck bed as well, dusting themselves off. There had been a heated argument when Abraham told Yalu she wouldn’t be coming along—an argument that turned into a shouting match, with Maggie suspecting Yalu of being just a little too enamored with Comrade Cain.
Soon they were all on the dusty ground, Beatriz with Maggie’s knapsack slung over her shoulder.
Maggie sensed something was up. “Where’s Cain?”
“Comrade Cain,” Abr
aham reminded her. “He’s over the border.”
Maggie let out an angry gasp. “He was supposed to meet us here. With Beltran.”
“Comrade Cain has every right to take precautions. Too many things have changed.”
“Do I need to remind you that I’m the one with access to the funds?”
“If Commerce Oil wants its precious Minister Beltran back, it’s going to have to meet Comrade Cain where he demands.”
Maggie gave it some thought, ire roiling inside of her. She still didn’t know the situation with John Rae. And then there was Tica and her comrades, even now under arrest as far as she knew. If they were entering Ecuador to meet Cain, Maggie was just that much closer to seeing them freed. On the other hand, she was a hunted woman in Ecuador, with her photo on the bulletin boards of police stations from the Oriente to the costa. Still, when she got right down to it, what choice did she have? “So where are we meeting Cain now?” she asked Abraham.
“Not far.”
“Name of the town. Location. Specifics.”
“Coca,” Abraham said. “We’re meeting Comrade Cain at a safe house there.”
“Beltran is there?”
Abraham nodded.
Coca was the last main town on the Napo River before the Amazon proper. John Rae had told her that Cain and other members of Grim Harvest were hiding out in the jungle, wreaking havoc on the oil companies. “I need to clear this with my boss,” she said.
“Very well,” Abraham said, snapping his fingers at Beatriz.
Beatriz came over, handed Maggie her backpack.
Maggie pulled her laptop from the pack, squatted, rested the computer on her thighs. She flipped the top open. The screen was blank. The machine was cold. She’d left it up and running with the GPS on so that some ally might track her. A long shot.
“The battery’s dead,” she said, standing back up, closing the computer, putting it away. She suspected there wasn’t much Sinclair Michaels could do anyway, not at this very moment. She’d continue on with Grim Harvest through to Coca and see what transpired. She’d come this far.
She could always make a run for it, if need be. Even Gabby, a teenager, posed no problem; he didn’t clock five miles a day and look forward to it, miss it when it didn’t happen. And they wouldn’t shoot two million dollars. Not just like that. “I hope you didn’t know about this all along,” Maggie said to Abraham. “I don’t like being jerked around.”
Abraham said nothing.
Beatriz was watching her with what Maggie suspected was muted admiration. “Come on, princesa,” she said, gazing up at the sun slipping below the summit. “It’s getting late. We still have to hike over the top of the mountain—around border control.”
An hour later at the top of the mountain, the four of them stopped, puffing. Humidity saturated the air, even with the rainforest a good hundred miles away. No one was talking.
Despite the anxiety of the situation, the view of Ecuador sent powerful emotions through Maggie. Mountainous and verdant, with grand araucaria trees swaying amongst ferns and exotic plants, she felt the bond yet again. She’d been born here and she was as much Quechua as she was gringa. The Andes never let go.
The four of them trekked down, leaving Colombia, staying well away from the main highway that connected the two countries. At a narrow mountain road forking off the main highway, its potholed surface a reminder that it had once been paved, a white panel van mottled with rust sat under the trees. Its doors were open, obviously to let some air through. The driver was sitting back, arms crossed, a straw cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes.
“That must be our ride to Coca,” Beatriz said to Gabby in Quechua.
“I hope this one has seats,” Gabby said, hitching up his baggy jeans with one hand. His pistol swung in his right hand as he walked. “My culo is raw from riding in the back of that dang truck all morning.”
“You kids have it easy. You just don’t know it.”
“Just because you’ve got a padded arse that can handle it.”
“Show some respect!” She tried to cuff his head, but Gabby quickly dodged her and spun, waving the gun, pretending to take aim.
Beatriz laughed, a loud roar. “Better not shoot me, boy! I’m the one looking out for you.”
“If that’s the case, then I’m in real trouble, aren’t I?”
Beatriz rubbed the back of Gabby’s stubbled head as they got into the work van. It had bench seats.
Abraham gave Maggie a squint as they climbed in and set off for the Amazon town of Coca.
-19-
Coca flanked the Napo River, the last main town before the jungle. With the oil boom, the once-sleepy backwater had burgeoned to over forty thousand people and even late in the evening, the streets were full, mostly young men looking for excitement. Harshly lit bars were going full tilt, shouting and music creating a din that spilled out into Chimborazo Street along the riverfront. Hastily built structures took up all available space. Stores were just closing, many displaying household appliances and televisions, all the conveniences and creature comforts people moving from the city wanted. Cars and motorbikes jammed the road. Out on the water, a huge barge loaded down with two gasoline tanker trucks headed upriver.
Progress, Maggie thought.
Their van crawled down Chimborazo and took a dim side street that quickly turned into unlit dirt road, passing rundown houses, many in a permanent state of incompletion, rebar sticking out from rooftops like wild whiskers.
They passed a house with red lights, thumping with noise that seeped through heavily curtained windows. A couple of vatos in dungarees and yellow hardhats were just leaving, one lighting a cigarette, both keeping their eyes down. A woman in a short revealing robe shut the front door. A whorehouse.
A couple blocks beyond, near the end of the dirt road, they stopped at a one-story stucco house, silent and dark. The few houses down this way were interspersed with vacant lots, and all of them were dark. Maggie took a good look at the empty house in front of her. Someone had dumped an old car seat under the window. There were no vehicles parked anywhere.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” she said drily to Abraham.
Abraham frowned, heaved the side door of the van back with a bang, climbed out, marched off, pulling his cell phone from the pocket of his shorts. Maggie watched him make a call, gesturing excitedly. Gabby turned to Beatriz, sitting in the bench seat in front of Maggie, and the two exchanged looks.
“What do you make if it?” Gabby said in Quechua.
“I think Cain isn’t coming.”
“Comrade Cain,” Gabby said, grinning.
Beatriz smiled back.
Abraham returned to the van, looking more stoic than before. He stood by the open door for a moment, then placed both hands on the top of the doorframe.
“So where are Cain and Beltran?” Maggie said.
“We’re going to meet them. Tomorrow.”
“Where to now?” Maggie said, although she had a pretty good idea.
“The Yasuni,” Abraham mumbled.
The Yasuni. The heart of the Amazon jungle. Where the oil exploration was going on. Where the heart of Grim Harvest were rumored to be holed up. Where the Yasuni 7 were from. Tica. Where that hideous video Maggie had watched was made.
It made sense Cain would be there. But it made her nervous. “I need to confirm this change of plan with my manager,” she said.
Abraham ran his fingers through his frizzy hair. “Yes. OK. Inside.”
“No,” Maggie said. “I’m not going into that funhouse without talking to my boss first. We’ll go somewhere. A café. A bar.”
“We don’t have time.”
“Make time.”
“I’m getting tired of your demands.”
“My demands?” She laughed out loud. “Who exactly is taking who on a scenic trip halfway across South America in the hopes of meeting the elusive Cain? Oh, I’m sorry—it’s Comrade Cain, isn’t it?”
“Comrad
e Cain has every right to take precautions.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that. Well, so do I. I’m calling my boss. Or it’s no deal.”
Abraham glared into the van. “I’ll have to clear it,” he said.
“Of course you do. God forbid you make a decision on your own.”
Abraham stormed off, making another fervent phone call. Beatriz and Gabby watched Maggie closely. Abraham returned, climbed into the van, yanked the door shut with an angry slam. He produced his cell phone, held it out to Maggie. “Call your boss.”
“I’m not calling him on that,” she said. “Do you really think my boss wants a verifiable connection to a terrorist group? Drive down to the main drag. Along the river. I’ll call from one of the bars or cabinas there.”
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“¡Mierda!” Abraham pulled the .38, waved it in the confines of the van. Maggie reared back. Beatriz and Gabby watched. The driver was noticeably quiet, staring straight ahead. “Enough!” Abraham shouted. “We’re staying here for a few hours, then heading off to meet Comrade Cain to complete the arrangement. That’s it!”
Maggie looked at the gun. “You know what? I’ve had enough of your bullshit. Let me out, amigo. The deal is off.”
Abraham laughed through his nose. “Wouldn’t you like to think so?”
“Get out of my way.”
Abraham shook his head, gave an ugly smile.
“You won’t get a single penny out of me,” Maggie said.
“More talk. Words.”
“Words that equal no money for you losers. Let me out. Now.”
Suddenly the gun blurred through the air and smacked Maggie in the side of the head, making her skull ring like a broken bell.
“Want to keep talking?” Abraham screamed. “Keep at it!”
Maggie held the side of her buzzing head. Her vision shook out of control.
“Comrade,” Beatriz said quietly to Abraham. “Please. She is just . . .”
“Shut up!” Abraham yelled at Beatriz, waving the pistol. “Who’s in charge here?”
The Cain File Page 18