Heart of the World (39 page)

“If I don't get her name?”

“I'm working on it at this end, too. I'm going through news clips.”
Possibly Luisa had mentioned it in her writing about Navas. Possibly Roldan would remember
.

“Okay. You think Paolina's being held by this woman?”

“The woman's involved.”

“What else?”

What else? “God, Sam, it's good to hear your voice.” I inhaled, closed my eyes. Concentrated. “People. We'll need people to meet us in Cartagena.”

“We?” he said. “Us?”

“I'm with Paolina's father. With Roldan.”

“He's alive, then.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of people are you talking about?”

“Can Ignacio provide men as well as equipment?” Men who can use guns, that's what I meant.

“Soldiers,” Sam said smoothly. “It can be arranged.”

I thought,
This is his business. This is what he does
.

CHAPTER 36

“So he's a drug dealer,” Roldan said
. “This fiance of yours.”

“He might be.” My concentration, such as it was, wasn't on Roldan's words. It was on finding my way in the dark.

“Can you see?”

“Barely.”

It was after ten at night and the city of Cartagena no longer shimmered in the hazy heat. We'd flown in hours earlier, the temperature hovering at a hundred, Roldan stubbornly insisting we continue the journey by plane. The less said about the roller-coaster flight and rocky landing the better.

Old friends of Roldan's from the farm near the landing strip had driven us close to the heart of the city in a rusty Jeep; now we were walking along the old sea wall, six feet high in some places, higher in others. The street lamps were far apart and dim.

“He'll sell me to the highest bidder.”

“He won't do anything that would hurt Paolina.”

The water was indigo; the beaches perfect bands of white sand. Earlier, in the Jeep, we'd passed houses painted blue with bright yellow shutters and parrot green balconies, the colors pulsing in the heat.

“He'll convince himself it's the right thing to do. That Paolina will be better off without me.”

“Are we close?”

“We're here. This is it.”

The bar had no sign. Like the other nearby buildings, it was made of the same stone as the sea wall. The shutters were closed, the walls thick to keep out the heat. When Roldan opened the door, a bell tinkled and guitar music swelled.

No one greeted us when we entered. The low-ceilinged eatery seemed to be a place favored by regulars who knew their way to the bar or to one of the tables to the right of it. Then I saw Sam and the shape and particulars of the bar receded.

He fit in; he wore a
guayabera
of pale blue cotton, a shirt he'd never have worn at home, untucked over loose khaki pants. He stood out; he might as well have been the only man in the room. I couldn't take my eyes off him. His familiar face seemed thinner, paler, but maybe that was the light. He needed a shave.

We were seated at the long rectangular table so quickly we might have been absorbed into the picture. Sam was next to me, his hand warm on my thigh, Roldan across from us. There was rough wooden planking under my elbows. Smoke stung my eyes.

There were introductions and glasses of warm beer. Conversation flowed over me, around me, in English and Spanish. Sam's Spanish was primitive, but he spoke Italian like a native, and was evidently able to make himself understood. Next to Roldan was Ignacio himself, arrived with Sam from Bogota within the hour. Ignacio was shaped like a squat refrigerator, broad through the torso, with legs too short for his girth. He smiled whenever he spoke, a menacing smile. A woman named Felicia, short and dark, with prominent teeth, sat next to him. She and a hook-nosed smoker named Rafael, both Cartagena natives, seemed to be old friends. Likewise Silas, a slightly older man with graying hair, and slender Luis, who'd both flown in from the capital. I glanced around the table: Eight people didn't seem like much of an army.

In the blend of voices, Sam's stood out. I wanted to close my eyes and let it wash over me like water, but his words demanded attention. He said, “Iragorri. Is that Ana's name? The family name?”

“You reached Mooney.”

“Iragorri, of course. Yes.” Roldan wore a straw hat he'd been given at the farmhouse after we'd landed. The brim shaded his face.

I was grateful it wasn't Garcia or whatever the Colombian equivalent of Smith or Jones might be.

Sam said, “The captain was in Miami, but he left a phone number with Gloria.”

“Miami?”

“Powwowing with DEA. This guy he knows says your lawyer, Vandenburg, doesn't work for them. A grand jury's been convened and he's due for indictment any time.”

Vandenburg had sent me to Naylor. So Naylor wasn't DEA, and yet he, or Vandenburg, had the juice to have me followed, to have me processed through the airport via alternate means.

“Did he get anything on the phone numbers?” The e-mail I'd sent Roz about Zona Rosa and Base Eighteen, requesting she ask Moon to run them by DEA, seemed like something I'd done in another lifetime.

“He said you'd need to call him on that. I got the feeling he didn't exactly trust me.”

I should have realized that Moon would react badly to a call from Sam, that it would raise all his cop hackles.

Sam said, “But he said to tell you that the guy, Naylor—is that the name?”

“Yes.” Across the table, Roldan had grown very still.

“Mooney says it may take a while because there's something with the Witness Protection Program, a prefix in his file that means WP. Does that make sense?”

If Naylor was in the federal Witness Protection Program, he might be working for DEA after all. Undercover from the locals.

Roldan said, “The Iragorris, what properties do they own?”

Sam said, “First, do you think you're being followed?”

Roldan said, “At this point, the only thing that matters is finding out where they're holding the girl.”

“You look like her,” Sam said. “Excuse me, she looks like you.”

I was aware not only of how much Paolina resembled her father, but of how much the two men, Sam and Roldan, were superficially alike, both dark, both tall. Sam's hair was curly, his nose more aquiline, but both had the air of command. They dominated the table.

I wasn't sure whether or not Sam had shared Roldan's identity with the others. In the introductions he'd been simply “Carlos.” The woman,
Felicia, stared at Roldan openly, but he was a handsome man, worth more than a quick once-over.

The woman said, “There are two properties. The farm on the way to Santa Rosa will be easy to check. Raffi and I will rent a car, drive there, and experience a sudden breakdown.”

The man named Rafael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She's such a bitch, yells bloody murder at me for not knowing how to fix the car. Everybody feels so sorry for me, they let me in to telephone a garage. Once a man gave me a whole bottle of rum, so I could get drunk on the way back to town.”

“Don't get killed,” Roldan said. “These people are serious.”

“So am I,” Rafael said. “Just because I joke, don't think I'm not serious.”

“No problem.” Ignacio's smooth baritone oiled the waters. “The other property is in the old section of town, an apartment building.”

I was watching Silas and Luis at the other end of the table, sizing them up. Everyone talks, Roldan had told me, everyone's bought and sold. How much could we trust Ignacio's people?

“Which site do you consider more likely?” Ignacio asked.

Roldan shrugged.

“The apartment building is not half a kilometer from this place. We walked by it on our way to the bar. Felicia?”

The woman passed several Polaroid photos around the table. I wondered whether she or Rafael was a regular customer at this place. The table was the farthest from both the bar and the door, secluded in an alcove.

“I played tourist,” she said. “Discreetly. It's the dark green building with the blue trim. It's narrow. It looks like there's only one apartment to each floor. See, both the second- and third-floor apartments have balconies overlooking the street.”

Each balcony was covered with a peacock blue slatted wooden grating.

“We didn't want to draw attention to ourselves by circling the building, checking the access from the rear, but you can see the small sign in the window. The third-floor flat is for rent, possibly empty. I called the number a little while ago. It was busy. I'll try again now, if you like.”

She left the table just as the waiter brought food, huge platters of
fish and bowls of rice, served family style. Steam rose and mingled with the smoke. The food smelled fine, but I wasn't hungry.

I felt like I was having a vision: Sam here in this place. In spite of his hand on my thigh, his shoulder at my shoulder, the scene seemed unreal, something in a movie or a drug dream summoned by pointed-hatted little men. I felt suddenly weak, dry-throated. It was all I could do to clasp a glass of water in my hand and raise it to my lips. Florida, Bogota, the Sierra Nevada, and now Cartagena. So much done, so much left undone, so much to do. Paolina, still to rescue.

Between bites, Ignacio said, “And if we don't find the girl at either location?”

Roldan said, “We go through with the original plan. I meet with them at San Felipe.”

Ignacio made a face. “The fort? A bad place. Exposed.” Roldan nodded.

Sam said, “The woman, Ana Iragorri, what's she like?”

“I don't know. It's so long ago that I knew her.”

“Did she know you? Will she expect you to follow instructions? Or will she expect something tricky?

“Again, I don't know.”

“She's not in this alone,” I said. “She's working with some nasty professionals.”

Ignacio spoke to Roldan. “You have a reputation, no? As a rebel? A man with a certain flair?”

Whether Sam had told him, or whether he'd recognized Roldan from photographs, I didn't know. Roldan seemed unfazed.

“They know you're coming to the city,” Ignacio continued. “They might have followed you from the airport.”

“We didn't fly commercial,” Roldan said.

Ignacio nodded sagely, as if that were only to be expected.

Roldan said, “But you're right. Even the landing strip where we landed, to the south, could be watched. This woman, if she's who I think she is, knows many of my old hideouts.”

“Old friends make the worst enemies,” Ignacio said. “And people talk. Maybe it would soothe this woman and her friends if you seem to be doing what you should be doing, if you act the part of a man who's going to pay the ransom without making any trouble.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Before Ignacio could reply, I said, “Wouldn't they expect you to go to San Felipe, to check out the terrain in advance?”

Roldan nodded as he chewed. “It's something I would do.”

I cast my eyes at the opposite end of the table. Luis, the slender one, stood to let Felicia pass. He seemed around my height, but the light was dim, the air hazy with smoke and steam. His droopy mustache obscured the shape of his mouth.

Felicia slid into her seat. “Anything left to eat? The landlady is unhappy she can't show me the flat. She says it's being painted.”

I said, “You don't believe her.”

The woman shook her head. “She hesitated too long. Then she said she'd be happy to show me a flat in the building next door, one that resembles the flat for rent almost exactly. I have an appointment tomorrow morning at nine.”

Ignacio said, “You hit it off with her?”

Felicia took a neat bite of fish. “She likes to talk. She said the building used to be part of a small convent, very private and quiet.”

“If it was a convent, there'll be public plans, blueprints.” Silas, who'd been quiet until now, added, “When we passed, there was no sign of painters, no van, no ladders.”

“We'll find Raffi another girlfriend for the ride to the farm,” Ignacio said. “Felicia should keep the appointment with the landlady.”

Rafael said, “Fine; I know lots of bitchy women to take her place.”

I said, “We'll need to know everything about the place they're holding her. Every entrance, every exit. Who lives there, who visits. Who goes in, who goes out.”

“Don't worry,
chica,”
Ignacio said. “We know this kind of work. Silas and Luis are experts.”

I said, “Not Luis. Can you handle the apartment with Silas and Felicia? Or find more people?”

Luis gave me a lazy grin. “You don't like the way I look?”

“How tall are you?”

He told me in meters. I had to do the conversion.

Then I asked Roldan when the fort opened to the public in the morning.

CHAPTER 37

“The man with binoculars on the south tower
. No, don't look.” Roldan came to a halt in the center of the walkway between two of the fort's high stone towers, full in the blaze of the glaring sun.

I wasn't tempted to look; I'd noticed the man five minutes ago. I sipped bottled water, savoring its coolness. The sip was celebratory, almost a toast; so far, so good. If it was logical that we'd check out San Felipe, the site of the ransom-for-prisoner exchange, in advance, it followed that Paolina's kidnappers would post sentries to watch for us.

It was essential they see us.

Roldan had warned that it would be hot, but I'd underestimated the word. The farm near Baranquilla had been hot. The city, at night, had been hot. The bedroom, generously ceded to Sam and me, in the bright yellow house where we'd all spent the night, had been hot. I almost smiled, remembering the lazy ceiling fan turning overhead, the small white bed, too short, too narrow, wonderfully adequate.

The fort steamed in the relentless sun. The concrete and red brick scorched the soles of my feet through my moccasins. With each breath, the air seared my lungs. Under any other circumstances, I'd have shed my rose-colored ruana, yanked open the top buttons of my white shirt.