The Cain File

by Max Tomlinson

  “You are.”

  “That’s correct. So just do as you’re told.” He glared at Gabby. “You too.”

  “What did I say?”

  The driver didn’t look back, didn’t say anything.

  Quietly, Beatriz said: “Things are getting out of hand, Comrade.”

  Maggie wished she had something made of metal, something she could smack Abraham’s head with. Something sharp. Something that cut flesh. Or something that fired bullets. She held her head, waiting for her senses to settle down. For the ringing to stop.

  “We’re staying here until morning,” Abraham said. “Then we’re heading upriver. The deal will be completed there. That’s all there is to it.”

  Maggie said nothing. What else could she do? She’d overplayed her hand.

  “Gabby, where’s your gun?” Abraham said.

  “Right here, Comrade.”

  “Keep your eye on Alice Mendes here. Beatriz, you have your machete?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Keep up the rear. And now, if there are no objections, we’re going into the house. That fine with you, Alice? Or do you need to clear it with God?”

  Maggie bit down on her tongue.

  They got out of the van then, approached the darkened safe house. The driver took off in a hurry. Abraham was on Maggie’s left, Gabby on her right. Both men had their guns down by their sides. Beatriz brought up the rear and Maggie saw the big fish head of a machete swinging behind on the periphery of her vision. Her head was swimming.

  At the front door Abraham reached up, got a key from a hole in the molding, unlocked the door. He pushed the door open, stood back. “Gabby, you know the procedure. Check the place out.”

  “Yes, Comrade.” Gabby threw a who-cares shrug and entered with the big .45 in his hand. He reached for the light switch, flicked it up. No light.

  “Someone needs to pay the damn power bill,” he mumbled, going into the house, blinking rapidly to adjust his eyes to the dark. The place was the usual pigsty, chairs pushed up against the wall, mattresses on the floor, blankets twisted on top of them. Half-eaten tins of food here and there.

  Springing over the mattresses into the darkness of the hallway, he scanned for intruders. He had yet to find one. He’d love to. He was eager to get into a firefight.

  He was a good shot. A good shot. Comrade Cain had slapped him on the back during target practice once and called him a pistolero, right out of a spaghetti western. Well, Gabby knew that. He practiced and was good to begin with. But the compliment stayed with him, considering its source.

  He was a pistolero. It was in his nature. And you couldn’t deny a man his nature.

  The militares would pay for killing his father. Pay with their lives.

  Gabby moved into the kitchen, the sink bulging with dirty dishes, floor littered with more tins, stove full of pots thick with sludge. The core members of the group treated this place like a rubbish tip. Cleaning up was too good for them.

  Then the bathroom. The old claw-footed tub sat full of scummy water. Cold as a witch’s tit. Moonlight through the pebbled window reflected off the filmy surface.

  A rat scurried out from under the tub, scratching nails and making Gabby jump like a little boy, taking aim to shoot the thing. He didn’t. He was glad no one was there to see that.

  Then a bedroom, ankle deep in old clothes and more mattresses. He stood back, surveyed the dump of a room, moving the gun with his line of sight. The closet door was wide open, flat against the wall. A pair of empty coat hangers hung next to a large camouflage field jacket on a wooden dowel.

  Then the second bedroom. Junk everywhere.

  A poster of a girl in a bikini in the light from the window caught his eye. Whoa. She was new. Normally, it was Chairman Mao or nothing at all in these places. Someone had taste. This chica was illuminated by moonbeams that set her alight. She was holding up a can of motor oil, right in front of her boobs, in case you didn’t notice that she had a perfect set. They were exceptional. You could see the sheen on the tops of them, swelling out of her bikini top a size too small. Her full lips were parted, the tip of her tongue licking the upper one. Eyes sly and smiling, and her long dark hair was tousled and wild, like she was waiting to be thrown over your shoulder and taken off into the woods. Not very revolutionary. But inspiring. Gabby thought of the norteamericana, Alice Mendes, at the front door now with Abraham and his mother. He hadn’t engaged her in conversation. It wasn’t easy with your mami around. And he was shy to begin with. He needed to work on that. Alice Mendes was fine—she put even this poster girl to shame. She made Yalu look like his toothless aunt. And Yalu was nothing to turn your nose up at . . .

  “Gabby?” Abraham shouted from the porch. “What’s going on in there?”

  “All clear!” he yelled back.

  He heard them come in, Comrade Asshole telling the norteamericana not to try anything funny. He had her covered.

  “They left this place like a bombsite again,” Gabby’s mother said.

  “Yes, Beatriz,” Abraham said.

  “You really need to talk to them, you know.”

  “Yes, yes. Where’s the damn lantern?”

  “Over here. They could have at least paid the power bill.”

  Gabby saluted the oilcan chica with the barrel of his .45 and turned to join the others in the living room, tucking the pistol into the back of his waistband.

  The closet door creaked.

  Gabby snapped to attention, spun back around, reaching behind him for the gun.

  A machine gun was already pointed directly at him. A pair of hard little eyes stared into his. “Forgot to c-check the closet, d-didn’t you?” the man whispered.

  ~~~

  “¡La venganza es la justicia!” they heard Gabby shout as a machine gun opened up in the back bedroom. It was followed by pistol shots, Gabby returning fire.

  “Gabby!” Beatriz shouted, running toward the hallway with her machete raised.

  Abraham sunk back to the front door and squatted, holding up the .38. His eyes were wild and nervous.

  Unable to get out the front door, Maggie pressed herself against a wall cloaked in darkness, becoming part of it.

  In the bedroom more automatic-weapon fire popped amidst a struggle. A man screamed, Beatriz call him a bastardo, then more automatic fire, then the continued brawl.

  Outside the front door now, a man shouted in accented English: “Alice! If you’re in there, get the hell out of the way! I’m going to open up! Then I’m coming in! Move—now!”

  The voice knew her code name. It was Achic, from the Quito op. Maggie dived for the shadows, half of her landing on a mattress, an elbow smarting when it hit an open tin of something.

  Shots tore through the front door amidst the chatter of automatic fire, random holes appearing in old wood, holes filling with streetlight. Big splinters sprayed across Abraham crouching. He leapt up and landed on a mattress. Scrambling around, he got into a squat, fired the .38 at the door. A single shot went wild. He hunkered back down.

  The bedroom where Beatriz had gone was pure pandemonium, Beatriz attacking someone with the machete.

  Rounds ruptured though the front door, one of the panels disintegrating. The tinkle of shell casings rattled on the porch outside.

  “Alice!” a voice shouted in English again. “Stand back!”

  “He’s got a gun on you, Achic!” she yelled. “You watch out!”

  Abraham raised his pistol in both hands and aimed at the front door. The gun shook visibly.

  Maggie charged across the room, knocked Abraham off the mattress. Abraham rolled, staring up at Maggie with panic-stricken eyes. He brought the .38 up in one hand, into her face.

  Her heart leapt as she kicked the gun out of his hand. She heard the pistol smack the far wall. Abraham swore as he gripped his injured wrist. She kicked him hard, connecting with his torso, a blow that vibrated through her boot. Abraham’s hands covered his head as she kept at it, gritting her teeth. Out
of the corner of her eye, she saw Achic’s arm reach into the shattered front door panel and unlatch the lock.

  “He’s unarmed now, Achic!”

  Maggie rushed to the far side of the room where a divot in the plaster indicated where the gun she had kicked out of Abraham’s hand had struck the wall. She scanned the floorboards below and, behind a tattered wing-backed armchair, found the .38. She grabbed it and squatted down behind the chair. She pulled the hammer back with her thumb and waited.

  The front door opened.

  The house had quieted down; all they could hear was the nonstop party going on up the road at the whorehouse.

  “Alice?” Achic said.

  She dragged her hair out of her face, but stayed put. Her heart was pounding audibly.

  “I’m OK,” she said. “I’m OK.”

  Achic crept through the front door, holding an automatic pistol with an extended magazine. He saw Abraham on the mattress, gripping his head. Achic leveled the gun on him. “No sudden moves, Comrade.”

  “No,” Abraham panted. “Don’t worry.”

  “Who’s the guy in the bedroom?” Maggie said to Achic in English.

  “My partner.” Then he shouted, in Spanish: “You in there, Marcelo?”

  Out of the hallway came a small Latin guy with penetrating eyes, a pencil mustache and thick hair. He had a machine gun slung over one shoulder, and one hand gripping the other arm with a rag. Even in the dark, it was easy to see that it was soaked with blood.

  “That d-damn woman put up a fight,” he said, wincing. “Got me with that m-machete before I could put her away.”

  “She dead?” Achic said.

  “Lights out. So’s the kid. That leaves this one? Comrade Abraham, is it?”

  “Last one alive,” Achic said.

  “How’s the revolution going for you today, Abe?” Marcelo said, squeezing his wound with the rag, dripping blood.

  Abraham held his head.

  “How did you find me?” Maggie said to Achic, standing up, woozy.

  “Three of us were supposed to meet up with you and your partner after you two landed in Bogotá. But you know what happened to him. Detained. He sent me a login and password to the site you told him to sign up for while your plane was still in the air. I saw your message with the map coordinates to the safe house in Bogotá. We headed up there, found out these guys had left, and were bringing you here.”

  A good thing, as it turned out. Maggie thought she had things under control, until Abraham took her hostage. How quickly things could change. “What about Yalu?” she said.

  “We’re holding her,” Achic said. “Her kid, too. To make sure these shitbags let you go.”

  “What?” Abraham cried, rising up from the mattress. “What have you done to my wife, you animal?”

  “I thought I said no sudden moves.” Achic struck Abraham across the side of the head with the pistol, sending him back down to the floor. “Any more of that and I lose my temper.”

  “Please don’t hurt my wife!”

  “Do as you’re told,” Achic said. “And no harm comes to little Ernesto.”

  “What have you done to Yalu?” Abraham said. “Have you hurt her in any way?”

  Maggie took in Abraham’s words with interest. She stood up, slipped the .38 into the side pocket of her denim jacket. “Help me find the lantern,” she said to Achic. “It’s around here somewhere.”

  Achic did so, fired it up. He went over to the window, pulled the blind back an inch, checked for anyone walking by. No one. That was one of the few benefits of a derelict neighborhood, no doubt a reason Grim Harvest was drawn to a house like this. Achic came back, held the lantern while Maggie found a stray piece of rag, tore off two small sections, wadded them into ear bungs. She knelt over Abraham, plugging both ears. Cloth stuck out like fuses. Now they could talk freely.

  “Now you can tell me what in the hell John Rae had planned with you mad dogs in the first place,” she said to Achic. “Because he never mentioned a damn thing about it to me.”

  -20-

  “So John Rae was planning to capture Comrade Cain?” Maggie said, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “That’s why he put this team together,” Achic said, gently cutting Marcelo’s bloody shirt away from his shoulder as Marcelo sat on a chair, gnashing his teeth, the knife in Achic’s hand drawing painfully close to a blood-soaked patch where Beatriz’s machete had found its mark. After the firefight, Achic had sprinted back to his truck, returned with a backpack of supplies. Marcelo pressed a rag on the wound to stem the bleeding while Achic worked around it to cut away the shirt sleeve. “We were planning on taking Cain back to Quito. To face justice. My country has had more than enough of terrorism, let alone gangs of terrucos coming in and wreaking havoc.”

  Even as the oil companies inflicted their own mayhem, Maggie thought—damage sanctioned by governments, probably far more lethal to humans in the long run than any band of radical idealists. Almost nothing about the modern world made sense anymore, which side to take. The only person who seemed to have any kind of answer to this situation was sitting in a prison cell in Quito, along with her six allies.

  “I would have appreciated knowing that,” Maggie said to Achic. “I was led to believe we were doing a simple money exchange for Beltran.”

  “John Rae didn’t want you along in the first place,” Achic said, cutting the bloody arm of the shirt away at the shoulder seam, around the cloth Marcelo held in place. “But you insisted. It was the only way you would agree to help.”

  True enough. Both John Rae and Sinclair Michaels had tried mightily to dissuade Maggie, hoping she would enact the cash transfer from the U.S. John Rae told Maggie to bow out if anything out of the ordinary transpired. Had he been expecting something like his detainment at the airport? Her near abduction by Grim Harvest? And how much did Sinclair know about John Rae’s plan? Was he in on the thing as well? Being in the dark came with the territory in this line of work, even in the field, she was learning.

  “Better let me help you with that,” Maggie said to Achic, indicating Marcelo’s wounded arm. “What can I do?”

  “Quikclot.” Achic nodded at his backpack, open on the floor. “Side pocket.”

  Maggie kneeled down and dug through Achic’s pack, pulling out a fat roll of gauze, medical tape, safety pins. She found what she was looking for: a blue and yellow plastic bottle of combat blood coagulant. Pulling open the top, she moved over to Marcelo’s upraised arm.

  “Move your hand away, Achic.”

  Marcelo winced as Achic pulled the soggy sleeve down and over his wrist. He dropped the bloody cloth to the floor with a soft splat. A gash ran diagonally down most of Marcelo’s upper arm, a slice deep and ugly, flesh hanging from the wound. Uncovered, blood pooled quickly, running down Marcelo’s forearm, over a tattooed snake coiled over the word Defendemos. We Defend.

  “¡C-cingada!” Marcelo stammered, wiping the blood off the snake with his hand. The abrasion collected again and dripped anew.

  Maggie poured a good four ounces of fine gray powder into the laceration, wincing at the exposed white bone. She filled the wound. The powder rapidly absorbed blood and swelled to seal the incision. Within fifteen seconds, the bleeding had stopped. Turning away for a moment, she suppressed a twist of nausea in her gut.

  She noted that Abraham, face down on a mattress, was silent, his hands cinched tightly behind his back in a plastic tie Achic had applied. He had a black hood over his head now and appeared still, like a corpse, in the cold glow of the battery-operated camping light on the table cluttered with junk. Upon closer inspection, it was obvious Abraham was vibrating with fear, though whether for himself or Yalu, she couldn’t discern.

  “That arm looks better,” Achic said to Marcelo. “Not good, but better.”

  Ripping open several medicated gauze squares, Maggie placed them strategically over the gash, while Achic held Marcelo’s arm up and steady. Marcelo for his part, stayed motionless, gritting his
teeth, studying the effort. Maggie unrolled a few feet of Medica combat bandage and soon had his entire upper arm wrapped, safety-pinning it securely. When she was done, his padded arm stuck out from his skinny torso like a chicken wing.

  “Beltran was only part of the larger plan,” Achic continued. “Yes, the Ecuadorian government wanted him back, but that was primarily the oil companies talking. The government would only authorize the operation if we brought Cain in as well. He’s been a thorn in our side for years.”

  Two birds with one stone, Maggie thought. It would have been nice to know about bird number two: Cain.

  “How long has John Rae been after Cain?” Maggie asked Achic.

  Achic gazed away in thought. “John Rae was with U.S. Army Intelligence in the mountains, helping us root out Shining Path. We actually caught Cain once. John Rae started to interrogate him, but Cain’s guerillas overran the camp and freed him. John Rae never forgot it. Neither did I.”

  Maggie rose, went over to her own bag, discarded by the front door where Beatriz had dropped it, and found her skull-and-crossbones rock-and-roll headscarf. She unfolded and refolded it into a makeshift sling as she came back over to Marcelo and, with Achic’s help, got Marcelo’s forearm through it where he could rest his arm without having to lift. He gave a muted sigh of relief.

  “That’ll have to do for now, Marcelo,” she said.

  “Thanks, ch-chica,” Marcelo said, examining her handiwork with an appreciative nod. “As good as new.”

  “Not by a long shot,” she said. “You need to see a doctor. And soon. Or learn to shoot with your left permanently.”

  “It’s f-fine.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “She’s right, brother,” Achic said.

  “What are you planning to do now?” Maggie asked Achic, standing up.

  Achic retrieved his Glock 18, ejected the extra-long magazine that extended several inches from the handle of the gun. “Number one, get you to safety,” he said, going through his pack. “Get Marcelo to a doc when day breaks. Find out what the hell happened to John Rae. Plenty to do. But the op itself, to swap Beltran for two million pavos—and capture Cain—is history.” He pulled a fresh 33-round magazine from another side pocket in the bag, slicked it into the gun. “I hope you realize that.”