The Cain File (20 page)

Yeah, the fun was yet to come.

Well, that was OK. As long as Maggie wasn’t jeopardized.

Maggie watched Comrade Abraham pace the floor of the Bogotá safe house, back and forth, in the pall of the camping light on the table under the poster of Chairman Mao. Night winds picked up on the mountainside, blowing needles of cold air through the crack in the dirt-smeared window overlooking the city. Abraham pulled a cell phone from his shorts and stepped outside, slamming the door that caught the wind, and Maggie could hear him having another heated discussion out there. Beatriz, in her fedora, was still leaning against the wall, arms crossed, her hard features faded beyond the lantern’s reach as she watched Maggie with a tired frown. She had Maggie’s backpack, with the MacBook inside, by her feet. No computer use, Abraham had said, until Jack Warren showed up and they went to meet Cain.

Gabby was still posted outside in the car. Yalu, Abraham’s wife, tended to the baby in the next room. Maggie sat on the only chair. For all intents and purposes, she was a hostage.

“I assume Abraham is calling Cain?” Maggie said.

“
Comrade
Cain,” Beatriz said.

“I notice no one calls you ‘comrade’ around here.” Maggie said. “Revolution is just for the boys, isn’t it?” Maggie shook her head. “You’re just the hired help. Believe me; I know what that’s like.”

Beatriz didn’t respond.

“So is
Comrade
Abraham calling
Comrade
Cain?” Maggie asked.

“What do you think,
princesa
? Your
amigo
isn’t here yet.”

John Rae should have been here by now, according to Sinclair Michaels.

Beatriz said, “It’s not going to be good for you if he doesn’t show up, you know.”

Maggie knew that.

The front door opened and slammed shut, letting in a blast of garbage-infused air, and waking the baby again, who started to whimper afresh. Abraham marched in, running his fingers through his curly hair. He paced back and forth, pulled the .38 revolver, as if not aware of doing so. He stopped, glaring at Maggie in the lantern shadows. “We’re tired of waiting,” he said.

“I don’t need Jack Warren to make those bank transfers,” she said, eying the gun in Abraham’s hand.

Abraham blinked as he squeezed the pistol for apparent comfort. “Keep going.”

She needed to get hold of Sinclair Michaels. “But I do need to speak to my manager,” she said. “Back in the U.S.”

“Why?”

“Jack Warren has the access code. For the transfer. He was to give it to me once he confirmed Beltran was safe and that all was in order. A two-person verification, standard protocol. With Jack Warren out of the picture, I’ll need to get the code from my manager. And I’ll have to bring him up to date on what’s happened as well.”

Talk about winging it.

Abraham rubbed his face with his free hand. “I’ll be back.” He went back outside, a gust of trash air filling the room once again. The door slammed. The baby cried next door.

“He has to clear everything with Comrade Cain, doesn’t he?” Maggie said to Beatriz.

Beatriz stared at Maggie, impassive.

Presently Maggie heard Abraham in another intense discussion. She could discern the words
not take the risk, comrade.
Abraham was getting antsier.

The front door opened and banged shut. In the room next door the infant cried out again. Through the wall Yalu yelled, “Stop slamming that damn door!” Abraham came blustering into the room, gun in hand. Perhaps it made him feel more in control. He was blinking rapidly. “Call your manager in the States,” he instructed Maggie.

“I’ll need my laptop.”

Without looking at her, Abraham snapped his fingers at Beatriz. Beatriz picked up the daypack, came over to Maggie, glaring at Abraham the whole time, dropped the pack with a thump by Maggie’s feet. It was a good thing the laptop was in a padded sleeve.

Maggie pulled her chair up to the table underneath the poster of Chairman Mao, got out her MacBook, set it up with the network card, powered up, dialed into IKON with Abraham standing behind, breathing down her neck. She turned on the GPS and made sure the IP Masker was off. This was one time she didn’t mind being tracked.

Opening Skype, Maggie dialed Sinclair Michaels directly. She enabled the webcam so that Sinclair might get a glimpse of where she was. As the ringing droned on, she tilted the screen up so that Abraham, over her shoulder, was hopefully visible. She hit the PrtScn key and her webcam snapped a shot of her with Abraham behind, the top of his pistol showing. Perfect.

The IP phone on her laptop continued to ring. It was well after 1 a.m. Same time in Washington, D.C., where she was calling.

On the sixth ring, the call finally picked up. Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. A blurry image flickered across the continents. As it settled she saw Sinclair Michaels, well-composed in a shirt with a collar, sitting in an austere office. With the operation in effect and the emergency of John Rae’s arrest, or detainment—or whatever it was—impacting it, he wouldn’t be lounging at home in his bathrobe.

Before Sinclair could speak, and use her real name, Maggie said: “Alice Mendes here, sir. Still no sign of Jack Warren.”

Sinclair gave a slow nod and she could see him peering past her shoulder, where Abraham stood, gun in hand. “And what is the status there?”

“I’m proposing we go ahead with the exchange—without Warren. But I’ll need the access code.”

Sinclair nodded. “So you need me to give you the access code?”

“Exactly.”

“Is Beltran there? Have you verified his well-being?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“Good question.” She turned, looked over her shoulder. “Where is Beltran?” she asked Abraham in Spanish.

She heard Abraham slip the pistol back in his pocket. “Safe and sound nearby,” he said, stepping out of view of the web cam. “Can’t you turn that camera off?”

“No,” she lied. But it didn’t matter. Sinclair Michaels had gotten a good look, no doubt recorded it, and had her GPS location as well. Maggie also knew Sinclair spoke Spanish and understood the interchange.

“I’m prepared to provide the access code, Alice,” Sinclair said, switching to Spanish so that Abraham could follow along. “But not until we have Beltran. That was, after all, the original agreement.”

Sinclair Michaels was playing his cards just fine. If Grim Harvest knew that Maggie had the code now, they could force the transfer without handing over Beltran. And besides, there was no such thing as an access code to begin with. It had been Maggie’s invention to engineer a phone call back home, so that Sinclair Michaels and the Agency could pinpoint her location and get up to speed on the op, and learn that John Rae was still missing in action. Sinclair had picked up on the ploy.

There was a pause.

“I need to make a phone call,” Abraham said, heading back outside. The door slammed. In the next room, the baby cried. Beatriz was left standing back in the shadows, watching Maggie.

“Do you speak English, Comrade?” Maggie said, not looking at Beatriz.

“What do you mean?” Sinclair Michaels said.

“Not you,” Maggie said. “Someone else.”

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

No response from Beatriz. She couldn’t speak English.

Maggie said to Sinclair Michaels in English: “The guy you saw is second in command. He just went out to call you know who. When he returns, I’ll cough twice.”

“Understood,” he said. “Are you safe?”

“Yes,” she said, opening a web browser in a spare window, one that Sinclair Michaels would not be privy to. “They’re playing tough, but they’re too eager for the money not to go along with a change in plans.”

“Keep stalling them. I’ll contact some people and cancel this op. But it might take twenty-four hours.”

“No,” Maggie said. “If I need to bail, I can make a run for it.” While she spoke, Maggie logged onto Frenesi, the dating site. “These guys are motivated to keep things on track, so I’m not worried.” Not too worried, anyway. “This can still work out. I say we go through with it.” And get Tica out of her hellhole.

“I’m impressed,” Sinclair Michaels said. “Good work.”

Maggie flushed with pride as she logged into her IceLady69 account.

12inchesInDetroit wanted to buy her dirty underwear but there were no new messages from PerroRabioso. She’d leave him a message—just in case. She flipped to Google Maps, zoomed in on her location, got the coordinates: 4°35′53″N 74°4′33″W, copied them to a text scratch pad. She renamed the screen shot of her with Abraham standing behind her as 4_35_53_n_ 74_4_33_w.jpg. Outside she could hear Abraham raise his voice and say, “
. . .
Too much deviation from the original plan!”

She typed a quick message to PerroRabioso:
dude, u stood me up! I’m with ur buddies now, top of the hill, and weer all hot to trot . . . if ur the man u say u are, u better make it . . . peace out call me . . . xoxo
heres a pic of me
She attached the photo, with Abraham lurking in the background behind, the barrel of his .38 showing. John Rae was a clever boy and would understand—if he could get near a computer with online access.

She would have liked a picture of the exterior of the place too. Trying to find this shack in a rats’ nest of slums would be a challenge, to say the least.

An ICE ping alert popped up on her computer. She closed the window, but left the computer running.

The front door slammed again and Maggie gave two deliberate, loud coughs. Sinclair said, “Got it.” The baby next door was crying steadily.

Abraham huffed back into the living room. He came over to Maggie sitting at the computer, leaned in front of her, spoke directly to Sinclair Michaels. His body odor had been brewing for a couple of days. “We accept the new arrangement,” he said in Spanish.

“And what does that mean, exactly?” Sinclair Michaels said.

“We will take Alice Mendes to Beltran. When she is satisfied, she will call you for the code and make the transfer there.”

“Where is
there
?”

“A few hours away.”

“Again:
where?
”

“I said: ‘
a few hours
away
.’ We’re leaving now.”

“Where are you going?” Sinclair asked again. “That’s my employee there and I insist on knowing.”

“Ipiales. Near the border with Ecuador. Don’t worry. She’ll be back in Bogotá with your precious Beltran by nightfall tomorrow. We’re leaving now. This meeting is over.” He stood back, the damn pistol in his hand again. “Shut that computer down,” he instructed Maggie.

“Talk to you tomorrow.” Maggie frowned at Sinclair Michaels before she closed the Skype window. She left the IKON network up and her computer running. She accessed
system preferences
in the upper left corner and clicked the Agency override setting to disable hibernate. Then she folded the lid on the laptop, slid the machine with its card running into its protected pouch in her backpack, and fastened the Velcro strap. For as long as the battery held out, the machine would run and would be traceable via GPS.

“Get ready to leave,” Abraham said, snapping his fingers at Beatriz again.

Beatriz came over, picked up Maggie’s laptop bag, slung it over her shoulder.

“Jack Warren is out of the picture now,” Comrade Abraham said to Maggie. “We deal with you. I hope you’re up to it.”

She would have to be. But she still had two million aces in the hole. Grim Harvest would bend over backwards to make this work. They could talk tough, but they’d already shown their desperation. She had the money. And she had her GPS broadcasting as well.

“What about Yalu?” Beatriz said to Abraham.

“She’s staying here. I’m not having my wife ride in the back of an open truck all night. Not with her kid.”

Maggie thought Abraham’s phrasing a little odd.
Her
kid.

“Is that the only transportation we have?” Beatriz sighed. “A
camión
?”

“It’s short notice,” Abraham said. “Revolution doesn’t pander to creature comforts.”

“I see,” Beatriz said. “Is there anything left to eat? Or did you finish it all?”

Abraham ignored that. “Beatriz, get someone up here to stand guard with Yalu and the kid. Should only be two days max.”

“Isn’t it late notice?” Beatriz said.

“Just do as you’re told, please.”

“Call me ‘comrade’,” she said, smirking.

“Just do it.”

Next door, the baby started crying again and they could hear Yalu coddling it.

“She’s in Ciudad Bolívar,” Achic said, tapping the Google map on his tablet as he sat in the front passenger seat of the crew-cab pickup parked on the outskirts of El Dorado airport. He zoomed in on an undefined snarl of unnamed streets and incomplete roads, haphazard half-formed nothingness that defined the mongo slums on the mountainside overlooking Bogotá. The screen glowed in the darkness of the cab.

The
she
in question was Maggie de la Cruz. She was going by Alice Mendes for this op and, apparently, IceLady69 as well.

“Are you j-joking?” Marcelo said, drumming his spindly fingers on the steering wheel. He was a nervous little guy with thick dark hair combed over in a side part. Wiry little mustache. “We’re talking about a n-needle in a haystack.”

“A big-ass haystack,” Clarence in the back said in his gringo surfer Spanish. “And a small-ass needle.”

“Kind of like your
p
-
pinga
,” Marcelo said.

“How did you know, Marcelo?” Clarence said. “You b-been p-peeking again?” Making fun of Marcelo’s stutter.

Marcelo brayed with laughter, slapping the wheel. “Hell yes,
vato
. I can’t take my eyes of you
p-pinga
. It’s like a p-penis—only smaller.”

Clarence broke down too, a booming guffaw filling the little cab, rank with men waiting all night in a small enclosed space.

The two of them were getting bored, ready to raid the safe house where Comrade Cain was. Grab him, tie his terrorist ass up, haul it back to Ecuador to face justice. They were amped up. They lived for this kind of thing.

Well, so did he.

But where was John Rae? The man in charge?