Appeared to.
“What took you so long, Alice?” a man’s voice said, with a hint of playful mockery.
It was the cultured voice Maggie had heard on the phone call with Abraham.
She stepped up onto the deck, brushing slivers and leaves off her jeans.
Standing before her was the reason for this risky jaunt in the first place, the reason John Rae might still be sitting in some South American prison, the reason Maggie had gone AWOL. The reason the U.S. government was prepared to hand over two million dollars, so that Commerce Oil could destroy this primeval jungle.
Comrade Cain was not at all what she expected.
-25-
What Maggie had expected was a grizzled terruco with a dirty beard and hard criminal stare, the kind of man you’d see on a street corner in the worst part of town in the worst city on the continent, someone who feared no one, even though many would be trying to take him down. Some vato whose front teeth and conscience were missing, whose bulk would easily intimidate.
But before her on the observation deck high above the jungle was a relatively slim man, mid-40s, with an unassuming way about him that belied who or what he was—the leader of a terrorist group about to trade a hostage for two million dollars.
Comrade Cain was light-skinned, with distinguished features, his short dark hair combed back over a high forehead, and a few days of designer stubble to take it all down a notch. His soft brown eyes could convince you that the outcome of your pap smear was nothing, that you would live forever. He had a fine mouth that looked like it was kept closed more often than not and opened only if it had something important to say. If not for the olive-green fatigue shirt, open, exposing a slim hairless torso and the black handle of a pistol sticking casually out of the front of his khaki shorts, Comrade Cain could be working in a branch bank, tallying up daily figures.
Maggie found herself staring. “Comrade Cain,” she said.
He gave a wry smile. “Cain is good enough.”
He put his hand out. “Alice Mendes. You made it to the Yasuni. And the top of this beautiful old kapok. One which we are trying to save—along with the rest of the rainforest. You obviously have a lot of determination.” He spoke formal Spanish and clearly was well educated.
His friendliness disarmed her. Maggie took his hand. It wasn’t gnarled. No missing fingers. He had a gentle but firm touch. It seemed absurd, as if she had suddenly been dropped into one of her meetings at the Fed and was shaking hands with a colleague.
Over Cain’s shoulder, Maggie caught Lita drinking from a canteen and watching Maggie’s interaction with Cain closely. Lita quickly glanced away.
The green-eyed monster. There was no hiding jealousy.
“Does everyone who wants to meet you have to climb up here to prove themselves?” Maggie said.
“Only if I need to be here myself for some reason.”
Maggie followed Cain’s eyes as he glanced over at Lita, who had gone to the railing and was scanning an expanse of trees across the clearing in the distance with a pair of binoculars. Two yellow-tailed orioles spun off from the lower branches of the tree next to them and flew into the sun.
“More progress on the road, I see, Comrade,” Lita said to Cain, adjusting the field glasses.
Cain said, “They’ve completed their measurements on sector four. They are ready to start the pipeline.”
Maggie recalled the barge on the Napo River loaded down with three-foot thick lengths of pipe.
“We’ll have to strike quickly,” Lita said.
“Yes.” Cain gave Maggie an uneven glance. “And once we have the funds, we’ll strike again. And again. Until they desist.”
“Where is Beltran?” Maggie asked Cain.
“Not here.”
Maggie shook her head. “There’ll be no money transfer until I see him in the flesh—safe and sound.”
“You seem very sure of yourself.”
“I have every reason to be.”
“Don’t fret. There’s too much value in Beltran being alive.”
Maggie placed her hands on her hips. “So where is he?”
“There’s no harm in telling you now. He’s in Quito. Safe and sound.”
Not far from where he was kidnapped. A man like Cain went for the simplest solutions. It was no doubt part of his success.
Maggie saw Lita’s head cock slightly to the right in an artificial movement as she pretended to view the jungle and not eavesdrop on their conversation. That little motion gave so much away. She suspected that Comrade Cain had that effect on most of his female followers.
“Fine,” Maggie said. “Then Quito is where we’re doing the money transfer.”
Cain narrowed his eyes. “I never agreed to that.”
“I’m not really giving you a choice. When do we leave? Now seems like a good time.”
Cain came in close, his face inches away. He had a scent that was animal and captivating and she could see him the way many women no doubt saw him, but underneath the charisma was a whiff of rage. His smile gone, his face became a tight grimace. “Americans—so sure of yourselves. You think you have so much power. But you’re deluded as to what you can achieve.”
Lita was smirking, looking sideways.
“Perhaps we should head down and leave for Quito,” Maggie said, about to turn.
Cain seized her wrist, like a lizard grabbing an insect. He held it like a vise.
“That hurts,” she said, not struggling, a battle she would only lose.
He cocked his head to one side. “Do you really think you’re above being a prisoner yourself?”
Maggie dropped her voice, so that Lita couldn’t hear. “We have Ernesto,” she said very quietly, raising her eyebrows.
Cain’s eyes flinched. His mouth dropped. His grip lessened.
“Let go of my wrist now,” she said.
Cain obliged.
“Get rid of Lita.”
Cain glared at Maggie.
“I said get rid of her.”
“Lita,” Cain said. “Go down and gather the group for our meeting.”
Lita turned. “But that’s not until later tonight, Comrade.”
Cain didn’t take his eyes of Maggie. “Do it now.”
A look of hurt crossed Lita’s face. Her head dropped. “Yes, Comrade.” Lita glanced once more at Maggie before she crossed the deck and descended the stairs. They creaked as she made her way down.
“Where is my son?” Cain said, when Lita was out of earshot.
“You’ll find out. When I have Beltran. In Quito.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“I know enough to know he’s your son.”
“Perhaps you’re bluffing.”
“Call Yalu. Put the phone on speaker.”
Cain got out a beat-up Nokia, hit speed dial, pressed the red speaker button. He held the phone up in the palm of his hand.
Someone answered on the fifth ring.
“Hello,” Yalu said mechanically.
“It’s just me,” Cain said in an intimate tone of voice. “How are things?”
“Everything is fine,” she said perfunctorily.
“Are they really? It doesn’t quite sound like it. How is Ernesto?”
“He’s fine.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.”
Maggie said: “Tell her to put the phone on speaker.”
“Please put the phone on speakerphone,” Cain said.
The phone clicked and the other end of the line echoed. They could hear Ernesto babbling.
Maggie said, “Clarence? Alice here. Kindly tell Cain what you were told to say by your jefe.”
“Hola, Comrade Cain,” Clarence said. “Cómo está?”
“Who the hell are you?” Cain growled.
“Just your friendly American mercenary,” he said in fluent Spanish. “I’m at an undisclosed location here with your lovely wife or whatever she is and your little boy. He
really is a kick in the pants. You know, it makes me want to find a nice girl, settle down, and get me some bambinos of my own.”
Cain grimaced. “If you so much as . . .”
Clarence hung up the phone. The dial tone was jarring, juxtaposed with the twittering of the birds at the top of the ancient tree.
“I take it we’re both on the same page now,” Maggie said.
Cain scowled at her. “What makes you think I’m not willing to sacrifice my son for the cause?”
“It’s a gamble. But Yalu wouldn’t. And she means something to you.”
Cain ran his fingers through his hair desperately. “Are they really safe?”
“Yes.” She watched a flurry of emotions cross Cain’s face. But one emotion dominated. Anger. Controlled fury. The raw fuel of a revolutionary.
“If anything happens,” he said, “don’t think it will go unpunished.”
“You brought this on yourself,” Maggie said. “When you took Beltran. Murdered his driver. It’s a shame, really, because I hate to see what’s happening to the Amazon as well.”
Cain gave a bitter laugh. “What does someone like you understand about the problems here? Or even care? All your people do is create them.”
“Tica,” she said. “The Yasuni Seven.”
He nodded, seemingly surprised. “I’m impressed. And how does a norteamericana even know about Tica?”
“Enough to know that if Beltran is released, she might be set free.”
He thought about that. “Really.” It wasn’t a question.
“Maybe we want the same thing. Maybe I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think this would help the Amazon and its people in some way.”
“They told you Tica would be freed?”
“More or less.”
“You’re being used.”
“Aren’t we all? But in this case, I’m willing.”
“Very well,” he said, exhaling deeply. “But I don’t operate in a vacuum. I have my followers and they have a say in everything. Lita—you saw her—has a say. And a sway over the troops.”
“Poor Comrade Cain,” Maggie said. “So many women to juggle. Shall we head down now?”
Cain gathered a small machine gun, a black-and-olive INDEP Lusa, slung it over his shoulder. He nodded at Maggie’s knapsack on her back. “Your computer.” He put his hand out. “It stays with us for the time being. Until the transfer.”
She unslung the bag, handed it to him. “Lead the way.”
Cain’s eyes met hers, looking deeply into the windows of her soul. She worked hard to pull the curtains.
“Do I trust you, Alice Mendes?”
“As much as I trust you.”
Two streaks of red, blue, and yellow flapped by the observation deck. Macaws, a meter long apiece. Without their precious jungle they would cease to exist. Maggie reminded herself that this was what it was really all about.
And she wondered, with two million dollars at stake, how much Cain truly wanted the same thing.
-26-
The cell door creaked open, ambient light cutting across the darkened windowless cement floor, coming toward John Rae sitting up against the cinderblock wall.
He’d heard two pair of shoes marching down the hallway in unison, the lady-killer interrogator’s gleaming loafers and a heavy pair of guard’s boots. They’d stopped outside. Then the fumbling for keys.
John Rae hadn’t been sleeping. Not since San Francisco, two days now. It wasn’t the aching in his jaw that kept him awake, where they’d belted him a few times with a phone book when he’d told them to go do what was biologically impossible in answer to their questions. That was simply collateral damage. He’d had worse. And this incarceration, in La Picota, just outside Bogotá, wasn’t as bad as some. Add it to the list. Sure, there was the other prisoner crying out for his mother down the hall during a fervent questioning that turned ugly, then the man-on-man sex two cells over, not exactly consensual. But John Rae had his own cell, all five by five feet of it. No bed, of course. Not even enough room to lie down and stretch out. No overhead light. No food. No water. But that was kid’s stuff. Did they really think a little sensory deprivation was going to break him?
Especially when he was where he wanted to be.
No, it was wondering what was happening to Maggie, whom he’d put at risk when he’d engineered own his arrest at El Dorado Airport. Achic, Marcelo, and Clarence, they were big boys, could fend for themselves. They knew to dissolve the op if John Rae didn’t show.
His arrest had to look like the real deal. But Maggie, if she didn’t have the good sense to walk away after she witnessed him being taken into custody, could be in some deep yogurt by now. And like him, she didn’t always seem to have that kind of sense. Had to like her for that—among her many other attributes, though her taste in men was, perhaps, questionable. But he should have never let her come along.
Now, however, it was time to play along with Ladykiller, answer the questions, get his ass on out of here. Go find Maggie, wherever she was. In case she didn’t go home, the way John Rae had told her to. Make sure she was OK. He’d stalled long enough.
The door opened completely, a block of harsh light coming to rest on John Rae sitting, shielding his eyes now.
“I think I’m ready to talk,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ladykiller said, in another crisp white shirt, tie up to the top button, holding his file folder on Jack Warren. Looking like a Hispanic George Clooney working for some shady national security agency in Colombia.
“Doesn’t matter?” John Rae said, climbing to his feet, using the wall to support. Feeling a tad woozy. “What do you mean, doesn’t matter?”
“Someone back in your country played a trump card, amigo.” Ladykiller smiled. “Got you out. Too bad.”
“No shit, Sherlock?”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Ladykiller said, feigning John Rae’s Texas drawl. The guard, for his part, stood behind like a wooden statue, looking stoic. Didn’t speak English.
“Mind if I ask who?” John Rae said.
“No harm in telling you, I suppose,” Ladykiller said. “Someone in your San Francisco office.”
Maggie got his ass out somehow. Goddamn. Now that was actually kind of embarrassing. Not to mention unnecessary. He’d had the key all along. She just didn’t know.
“Mind if I know your name?” John Rae said to Ladykiller.
“Mind if I know yours?” Ladykiller said, smiling. “The real one—no more of this Jack Warren nonsense, please.”
John Rae shrugged. “Sorry, Charlie.”
“I as well.”
“I was just about to tell you too.”
“You can’t win them all,” Ladykiller said. “Isn’t that what you people say?”
“Your English is pretty damn good, amigo.” John Rae put his hand out. “No hard feelings, eh?”
Ladykiller took his hand, gave it a single shake. “Until next time.”
~~~
Night fell quickly in the jungle. The buzz of katydids replaced the sticky silence of the waning day, while howler monkeys settled in the canopies, booming out the boundaries of their territory for the night.
A band of guerrillas gathered around a stream with a view in either direction, but still concealed by trees overhead. Finishing up an ad hoc meal of stale crackers and tinned sardines, they had dessert: cupuaçu, a coconut-like fruit split open with a machete, its moist pulp tasting of chocolate.
There were eight of them, including Maggie: Comrade Cain, Lita—never far from Cain—the woman in the grannie glasses who had been standing guard at the base of the kapok tree, the older man with the straw hat and machete, and several U’was from northern Columbia, who faced a similar battle in their own homeland with the invasion of the oil companies.
Amidst the rustle of leaves, wafting through the trees at ground level from different directions, figures appeared, rifles slung over their shoulders, machetes hanging from their hands. People of all shapes and
sizes: Mestizos, Indians, even a purebred Caucasian with horn-rimmed glasses who spoke with an Argentine accent. Soon, more than thirty people total. They stood silent.
“The meeting will come to order now, comrades.” Lita took her place in front of the semicircle. Comrade Cain waited off to one side, a hand in the pocket of his cargo shorts, matter of fact.
Lita read from the group’s manifesto: a rousing passage about injustice and the rights of the people tending to their land being trampled by the moneyed masters. It was simple and passionate and hard to disagree with. She shook her small fist from time to time. Breathing hard, she was clearly swept away, almost like a woman in the throes of sex. Her face shone. The group cheered every fervent point.
Ovations reverberated through the trees when Lita finished.
“Our comrade and commander!” Lita announced, voice soaring with emotion. She stood aside as Cain approached, stopped in the apex of the semi-circle.
Voices dropped to a muted hush.
Cain spoke, low, unassuming, but in a tone that carried.
“If you leave me in peace, I leave you in peace; if you strike me, I will strike you.” He looked around the group. “Simple words that sum up how we have no choice but to strike back at those who would strike us, strike our comrades, strike our land. Your land. The land that the Kichwa have guarded since the beginning of time.”
The group was silent again. Eyes were tightly focused on Cain.
“I’m a man of few words. Words are precious, yet at the same time worthless—if not backed up with blood. Words mean nothing without action.”
Murmurs of agreement.
“Today we saw proof that the corrupt government, funded by the Americans and Chinese, is ready to begin building their pipeline through this sacred ground. Despite the petitions that the people have signed and dutifully delivered to the fraudulent politicians. Despite the peaceful protests that end with arrests and disappearances.” He gazed around the semicircle. “Tonight some of us will strike another blow. The rest of you will return to your posts and take reassurance in the knowledge that you played your parts. The next meeting will be in two days. I will be elsewhere, comrades, but I will still be here—with you—in spirit. I could not ask for finer companions in this hour of justice.”
The Cain File Page 23