by Gabriel Hunt
“More of Esparza’s men may be on their way. Go around them.” He stuck his head out the back window and checked the damage the motorcycle had done when it rear-ended the jeep. The fender was bashed in, but that appeared to be the extent of it.
“Go!” he said again to Cierra, and this time she complied. The jeep was still running. She gave it gas, veered around the stopped car, and shot down the hillside.
A minute later they reached the bottom of the slope. Paseo de la Reforma was nearby, and once they got onto the boulevard, they could blend into the heavy traffic that hardly ever let up, night or day.
“We need a place where Esparza can’t find us,” Gabriel said.
“Us?” Cierra repeated.
“I didn’t want you in the middle of this, but you are. Now that Esparza’s seen you with me, he’s written you off. Clearly he told those bikers to kill us both.”
“Then we should go to the police. We can tell them what happened…” Cierra’s voice trailed off, and after a moment she said in a dull tone, “That won’t work, will it? As much money as Vladimir has, the authorities would never believe us. Even if they did, they wouldn’t go against him.”
Gabriel nodded. “That’s right. I’d say our only chance is to get out of Mexico City and beat Esparza to whatever it is he’s after.”
“You mean…”
“I’m sorry, Cierra.”
“We’re going to Chiapas, aren’t we?”
“And wherever the trail leads us from there.”
“Chiapas,” he heard her mutter as her hands tightly gripped the wheel. “You know how to make a girl’s night, Gabriel Hunt.”
Going back to the hotel would be too risky, Gabriel decided, and returning to the museum was out of the question. The police would still be there, and Esparza might have men watching both places. Cierra’s apartment wasn’t safe either, since Esparza knew where she lived.
“He’s never been there, though,” she snapped. “So get what ever you were thinking out of your head.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything,” Gabriel lied. “Is there somewhere else we can go that he wouldn’t know about?”
Cierra thought it over for a moment, then said, “The old man who was the foreman on the plantation when I was a little girl lives here in Mexico City now. I’ve tried to keep in touch with him. He’s really the closest thing to family I have left from that time. I’m sure I’ve never mentioned him to Vladimir. And he retired from the plantation so long ago, even if Vladimir investigated my background he wouldn’t have turned up Pancho’s name.”
Gabriel nodded. “He sounds perfect. That is, if you don’t mind involving him in this.”
“I don’t know where else to go.” She laughed softly. “And Pancho is a fierce old buzzard. He would feel insulted if he ever found out that I was in trouble and didn’t come to him.”
“All right. Let’s go there now, before Esparza has a chance to pick up our trail again.”
A few minutes later Cierra left Paseo de la Reforma and turned onto a highway that led out of the city. “Pancho lives in a colonia on the southern edge of town,” she explained.
“Does he live alone?” Gabriel asked.
Cierra laughed. “Oh, no. His wife and their children and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren live with him. It’s a very extended family.”
Gabriel hated to get that many more innocent people involved. “It would probably be a good idea to tell this old friend of yours as little as possible about what’s going on,” he suggested.
“I’d trust Pancho with my life,” she said.
“That’s exactly what you’ll be doing…but I was thinking more for his sake than ours. If he can just give us a place to stay for the night, in the morning we can leave for Chiapas.”
Cierra nodded. She was still taking things awfully well, Gabriel thought, considering that just a few hours ago she hadn’t thought that the night held anything more than another boring cocktail party among the rich and beautiful at Esparza’s villa. The possibility of being surrounded by violence and death had surely never entered her head. Normal people just didn’t think about such things.
Which just went to show you, Gabriel thought wryly, how far from normal his life was…
It took quite a while in the heavy traffic to reach the colonia where Pancho Guzman lived with his large family. It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood with narrow, winding streets but what appeared to be fairly spacious, well-kept houses behind narrow lawns. Cierra brought the jeep to a stop behind a rusty old pickup, in front of a house where one light still burned in a front window. Most of the houses along the street were already dark, because this was a working neighborhood where people turned in early so they could get up and go to their jobs the next morning.
When Gabriel and Cierra got out, Cierra went to the back of the jeep and examined the damage the motorcycle had done when it crashed into the vehicle. With a look of dismay, she shook her head.
“This jeep has been on digs all over the country, in all sorts of wilderness, and never got a scratch on it. Look what happens to it in the fanciest part of Mexico City!” She glared at him for a second and then said, “Come on.”
The man who answered her knock stood tall, straight, and broad-shouldered and didn’t appear old at first glance. Then Gabriel saw how his face had been darkened to the color of old saddle leather by years of exposure to sun and wind and how hundreds of tiny wrinkles had seamed and gullied his skin. The man’s voice boomed out, though, as he said in Spanish, “Cierra! Little one! How are you?”
He threw his arms around her and gave her such an energetic hug that her feet came up off the porch for a second. She laughed as she returned the hug.
“I’m fine, Pancho, but…I need help.”
The old man let go of her and turned toward Gabriel, his hands clenching into big, knobby-knuckled fists. “Is this gringo bothering you?” he asked in an ominous voice.
“No! No, not at all. This man is a friend. Gabriel Hunt, meet Pancho Guzman.”
Gabriel realized now that Pancho had only one eye; the right socket was empty and sunk deep in the weathered face. But the man’s left eye glittered with life and intelligence. He stuck out a big right hand and shook with Gabriel.
“Señor Hunt, welcome to my home,” Pancho said, switching to English. He looked at Cierra and quirked an eyebrow. “You and this hombre…?”
“We just met tonight, Pancho,” she said. “It’s not like that. We’re…business associates, I suppose you could say.”
Pancho nodded. “Ah.”
“And we need help.”
“You said that, little one. Tell me, what can Pancho do?”
“We need a place to stay for the night. Some bad men are after us.”
“Bandits?” Pancho growled. “Like in Chiapas?”
“You could almost say that,” Gabriel said. “But the less you know about it, the better for you and your family, Señor Guzman. Cierra and I are leaving on an expedition tomorrow, but first we need some sleep and some supplies, and a place to get the doctor’s jeep off the street and out of sight, just in case anyone comes looking for it.”
Pancho nodded. “I can provide all these things, and I ask for no explanations. The word of this niña is good enough for me.”
“Thank you, Pancho,” Cierra said as she laid a hand on the old man’s arm. “I knew I could count on you.”
“Always,” Pancho vowed. “Your father was a good man, and your mother was a saint. I should have been there to protect them from the evil that came to the plantation.”
“Then you would have died, too,” Cierra pointed out.
“Yes, but it would have been a good death, fighting those bastardos!”
Gabriel hoped that Pancho wouldn’t get a chance to die fighting the bastards who were stalking him and Cierra now.
Chapter 11
The next morning, the pickup rattled and bounced along the expressway leading southeast from Mexico City to Puebla.
The road was fairly good, but the pickup’s suspension was in bad shape. Pancho had told them that he’d intended to get it repaired; he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
“But the engine, she runs perfect,” the old man had claimed, and so far, it seemed to be true. Gabriel felt plenty of power under the dented hood when he pressed down on the gas. The pickup might not be much to look at, but it would get them where they were going.
Gabriel wished he knew exactly where that was.
Trading vehicles with Pancho Guzman had been his idea. Cierra hadn’t liked it, but she had to admit it might be safer to take Pancho’s pickup and leave her jeep stashed safely out of sight in the shed behind the old foreman’s house. Esparza might have men watching all the roads leading out of Mexico City, especially the ones on the southeastern side of the city.
Gabriel was at the wheel, a battered straw Stetson belonging to one of Pancho’s sons on his head. He hadn’t shaved, and he wore one of Pancho’s faded work shirts. Cierra sat beside him, her hair pulled back in a tight bun behind her head. Gabriel thought she looked good in a white, off-the-shoulder blouse and a long skirt. Their appearance was different enough from the night before that he hoped they would escape notice if Esparza did have men watching the highway.
The pickup’s bed was filled with supplies that Pancho’s wife had brought back from the market this morning. A tied-down tarp covered the boxes and bags. Pancho had also insisted that they take a lever-action Winchester and a double-barreled shotgun that belonged to him, and his wife had packed ammunition for the weapons, too.
“I don’t know what sort of trouble is chasing you, and I don’t want to know,” the old man had said. “But if it catches up to you, you might need those guns.”
Gabriel couldn’t argue with that.
They had left before sunrise. To all appearances, they were a young couple, a farmer and his wife, who had come to Mexico City and were now on their way home. If that masquerade was successful, they would be well out of the city before Esparza ever found out that they were gone. With any luck, he might not find out at all.
Gabriel didn’t think they would be that lucky. Even if they slipped through the cordon that Esparza was bound to have thrown around the city, the man knew more about what was going on than they did. He had to figure that they would head for Chiapas to pick up the trail of General Fargo. He had gone to a lot of trouble to try to stop Gabriel from interfering with his plans, what ever they were, and he wouldn’t stop now.
But maybe they could gain a few days’ advantage. Gabriel hoped to, anyway.
Cierra told him where to turn and which roads to take. He knew Mexico fairly well, but she was the native here, not him, so he trusted her directions.
“It’s eight hundred kilometers to the old plantation,” she told him as they left Mexico City behind. “Not so far that it can’t be driven in a day, but not all the roads will be as good as this one.”
“I don’t want to push this old pickup too hard, either,” Gabriel said. “I know what Pancho told us about how well it runs, but we can’t afford to break down.”
“It was good to see him and his family again.” Cierra leaned back against the seat’s tattered upholstery and sighed. “I swear, if Vladimir bothers them, I’ll come back and…and claw his eyes out myself.”
Gabriel laughed. “I believe it. But you shouldn’t have to do that. It was just one night. It’s pretty unlikely that Esparza will ever connect us with them.”
They had hidden the jeep in the shed the night before and pulled the pickup around back to pack the supplies in it this morning. No one in the neighborhood should have been able to get a good look at Gabriel or Cierra, and the chances of Esparza’s men even looking for them there were slim.
Pancho and his wife had insisted on giving up their bed for Cierra. Gabriel had slept on a sofa. The house was full of children, but they had all been asleep when the two visitors arrived the night before. That hadn’t been the case this morning, when Gabriel had awakened to find four solemn-faced youngsters under the age of five standing beside the sofa and staring at him. He had grinned at them, and that sent them scampering off in search of their madres.
The chance to get some rest had helped, and so had the hearty breakfast washed down by several cups of strong black coffee. When they were ready to go, Cierra had hugged Pancho and Pancho’s wife and each of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“Why don’t you let me come with you?” Pancho had asked. “I know I’m an old man, but I know those jungles down there as well as anyone.”
“I’m sorry, Pancho,” Cierra had told him. “I couldn’t take you away from your family. They need you more than we do.”
“I would tell you to be careful…but even as a little girl, you were reckless. Always daring to do more and more, even when it put you in danger.”
That brought a smile to Gabriel’s face when he heard it. His first impression of Cierra had been that she was a beautiful but fairly strait-laced academic and museum administrator. But she had demonstrated since a wilder side. The way she had handled the jeep during the pursuit down the hillside told Gabriel that she had been in some tight situations before.
That was good. He was liable to need a tough, competent ally again before this was over.
But not today. This day turned out to be a welcome respite for Gabriel Hunt. The expressway climbed and wound through the mountains that surrounded Mexico City, then dipped toward the Gulf of Mexico, turning to parallel that body of water several miles inland. The terrain flattened into plains covered by cultivated fields, interspersed with coffee and banana plantations and areas of oil drilling. The driving was easy, as there wasn’t too much traffic on the expressway.
Gabriel kept a close eye on the rearview mirror, watching for any signs of pursuit, and he noticed that Cierra often turned around to look behind them, too. Gabriel said, “I’m sorry you had to find out about Esparza like this. I know you considered him a friend.”
“Not really,” Cierra said. “Not a friend. I appreciated the things he did for the museum, of course, but that was all. We had little in common.”
“He claimed to have a passion for history and archaeology.”
Cierra shook her head. “I think the only thing Vladimir really has a passion for is power.”
“What about money?”
“That goes hand in hand with the desire for power. You can’t have one without the other.”
Gabriel nodded. Clearly, Vladimir Antonio de la Esparza was going to be a formidable enemy. But Gabriel had gone up against better men than Esparza, he told himself, and he was still here.
They reached Villahermosa late that afternoon and found a rundown motel in which to stay. There were plenty of nicer hotels in the city, but that wouldn’t have fit the image of a poor farming couple.
After taking one look at the neighborhood, they decided to carry all of their supplies into the room rather than leaving them in the pickup. As Gabriel slipped the chain into place on the door, Cierra asked, “Were you bored today?”
Gabriel frowned. “What do you mean?”
“No one shot at you all day. That must be a dull day by your standards.”
That brought a laugh from Gabriel. “Sometimes my life is as mundane as anybody else’s.”
“Really?”
“Well…sometimes. Not too often.”
Cierra smiled. “I think I’ll see if the shower works.”
She went off into the bathroom, and a few minutes later Gabriel heard the water running in the shower. Through the thin walls, he could hear Cierra turning under its spray, soaping up. He tried to put the image out of his mind; there was still work to take care of. He took off his shirt and removed both flags, which he’d folded and taped to his torso, front and back, in flat, compact bundles. He spread out General Fargo’s personal standard on the bed and sat beside it, leaning over to take a closer look at it.
The artwork on the flag was fairly crude and of course
somewhat faded, but everything was still clear and distinct. Some of the lines, in fact, were darker than the others, Gabriel realized. The distinction was small enough so that it wasn’t likely to be noticed except on close scrutiny. Two such lines made their way in a snaking, parallel path across the hills to the right of the cavalryman figure. Gabriel had assumed at first that those lines just depicted slopes in the hills, but he realized now that wasn’t right. In some places the lines cut across the slopes that the artist had drawn. They ended at the far right of the circular picture in what Gabriel suddenly realized was a tiny letter Z.
No, he thought as his heart began to slug harder in his chest. It wasn’t a Z. He turned his head so that he was looking at the flag lengthwise, ninety degrees from how it would normally be flown.
It was an N…for North.
The damned thing was a map.
Those two winding lines represented a river making its way generally from north to south. A curving line of right-angled marks crossed the wavy lines, and when looked at from this direction they resembled caret marks…which were sometimes used on maps to signify mountains, Gabriel thought. Little squiggles that were meaningless marks one way became smoke from those mountains when looked at the other way.
Volcanoes?
His pulse was racing now. The reason those marks were slightly darker than the other designs on the flag was because they had been drawn on there after the flag was made, after it had been flown in battle, possibly for a number of years. But not any time recently—they were faded by time, too, just not as much. So: Sometime after the start of the war someone had drawn a map on the flag. The most logical person to have done that was the flag’s owner—General Granville Fordham Fargo.
But what was it a map to?
He was so engrossed that he almost didn’t hear the bathroom door open. He did hear it, though, and glanced up to tell Cierra about his discovery.
The words got stuck in his mouth when he saw that she was standing there in the doorway with nothing on but a towel, wrapped loosely around her torso. Its lower edge fell barely below the curve of her hips, leaving her sleek, honey-golden legs bare. Her arms and shoulders were bare as well, and her raven hair was damp and tumbled loosely around her neck.