The Cain File (21 page)

“Please, guys,” Achic said, holding one hand up in the dark cab, hoping for silence. He needed to concentrate. The coordinates got him down to an area of within ten feet of the place. But they still had to drive up there.

They had been sitting in the beat-up 1994 Nissan Frontier 4x4 crew cab, with a camper shell on the back that would hopefully soon be holding a shackled Comrade Cain. They’d moved the truck farther away from El Dorado Airport after John Rae texted Achic the code that meant he had been apprehended getting off the plane: 999. Emergency. Then John Rae’s cell phone went dead. No doubt he’d disabled it. But that had been quite a few hours ago.

Achic in the passenger seat, Marcelo at the wheel, Clarence in back, all dressed in dungarees, work boots, baseball and cowboy hats—looking like a bunch of
campesinos
who’d gotten off work, were cruising around. The truck was loaded down with firepower, machine gun and shotgun in tool boxes with blankets piled on top. Small arms in their jackets, waistbands, under seats.

Achic double-checked the coordinates—4°35′53″N 74°4′33″W—making sure he hadn’t fat-fingered the numbers transcribing them from the photo file someone named IceLady69 had sent to someone named PerroRabioso on some weird site called Frenesi. John Rae had texted Achic the logon and site info prior to landing in Bogotá, saying his partner called it belt and suspenders. And right after the plane came in, John Rae had sent Achic the 999.

“I can’t wait to m-meet this Alice M-mendes,” Marcelo said.

“I hear you, bro,” Clarence said. “Any lady looks like the female in that photo, takes a friggin’ selfie with some
terruco
standing right behind her holding a damn gun to her head,
and
calls herself IceLady69 to boot . . . well, let’s just say I’m gonna have to get on bended knee, forgo my errant ways, and beg her to marry me.” Clarence, the big gringo from California, played a video game on his smart phone in the back. Tinny gunshots popped out of the speaker. Clarence was an ex-Ranger buddy of John Rae’s, a freelancer. His blond hair was cut and dyed dark to blend in south of the border, and he’d removed his earrings and shaved off his hipster goatee. Marcelo was Achic’s contribution to the team, ex-Ecuadorian Coast Guard—like Achic himself—with sharp eyes that twitched every now and then. But he was battle-hardened and just what you wanted when dealing with someone like Cain. Both men were hired guns on the covert-covert team John Rae had put together with Achic. To take down Comrade Cain. A side mission of John Rae’s that, as far as Achic knew, no one else knew about. Not even IceLady69.

Problem was, it looked like someone else had found out. That wasn’t good for the Ice Lady, Magdalena de la Cruz, whom he’d almost died working with a week ago, on the failed Quito gig with Beltran. She was up there with those
terrucos
. Alone.

Achic and his crew were to follow John Rae and her to where they went to exchange Beltran for two million U.S. And then they were going to grab Cain, shoot the
vato
in the leg if they had to, tape him up good, throw him in the back of the Nissan, take him across the border into Ecuador to stand trial.

Shoot anybody got in the way. Cosecha Severa members in particular. Preferably.

But now it seemed as if someone had found out about John Rae’s little Easter-egg operation, his covert op within a covert op. Had him pulled aside at El Dorado airport. The surface plan to pay Cain and his Grim Harvesters for Beltran the
pendejo,
who’d tried to burn them all just last week in Quito, was unraveling. Achic was still hurting from the two bullets he took in that carnage, one in the leg, one in the shoulder. Numbed up with Kodon now, over the counter hydrocodone easily acquired in this part of the world, he was foggy and irritable waiting for this op to get rolling.

Did he mention irritable?

At almost losing his life.

Dirtbags like Beltran, selling out his country.

Angrier still at scum like Comrade Cain, thinking he could waltz into Ecuador, do whatever he and his
comunista
shitbag pals wanted to. To Achic’s country.

All in the name of saving the Amazon. Please.

Sure, no one liked the big gringo oil companies tearing things up, but filth like Cain would send the country to hell faster than you could say Chairman Mao.

“What we goin’ to d-do,
jefe
?” Marcelo said. “Sit here all friggin’ night? Wait for your American b-buddy?”

“If John Rae doesn’t show,” Achic said. “We’re supposed to bail. That’s the rules.”

“Say
w-what
?” Marcelo said. “Leave M-miss Eyepopper—who took a hell of a risk for us—up there with the
terrucos
? With a damn gun to her head?”

“She don’t know John Rae was planning to catch Cain.”

“Well, t-that almost m-makes it worse.”

“He’s right, bro,” Clarence said. “Plus, you been itching to nail Cain since your coast guard days, when he was running into Ecuador like he owned the place.”

Achic nodded. “Yeah, you’re both right. Right on the money. I can’t argue.”

“Then let’s get it on, already,” Clarence said, still playing his video game in the back of the truck. “The Ice Lady wants me. I can sense it.”

Achic checked the Google map on his tablet. Then he looked at the picture of the pretty woman, the same one who jumped out the window in Quito while he took a couple of bullets. Alice Mendes, the Ice Lady now, with some dickhead
terruco
standing behind her, gun in his hand.

She was smart to get that picture out to the Frenesi site.

Inside some cinderblock shanty, way up there in the slums.

She had
cajones
, to go up there alone.

Maggie, Alice Mendes, IceLady69, whoever, could be in some serious shit.

Fifty thousand hovels like that up in that slum. But with the coordinates she sent, Achic could find it. Ex-Coast Guard, man. No problem.

“Let’s go, men,” he said. “John Rae is officially a no-show. Which makes me in charge.”

“
Cha cha time!
” Marcelo fired up the Nissan, the old engine chugging
,
like half the trucks did in this part of the world. “Cain, we come to crash your party.”

“
You got it!
” Achic said in English, mimicking Johnny Canales on TV. Reached under the seat, pulled his black Glock 18 automatic, the one with an extended magazine, adding a few inches in length to the handle.

“Now you’re talking, homeboy,” Clarence in the back said, thumbs punching, playing his stupid game, the truck bouncing around on the dirt road. “Let’s go get us some
terroristas
.”

Achic kept looking at the map, the red little pin on it moving, showing where their truck was, heading toward Ciudad Bolívar, getting closer.

Get Maggie safe and sound.

Get that Peruvian shitbag Cain.

Two-thirty in the morning Yalu awoke, thought she heard something outside the safe house. Maybe the wind. She’d finally fallen asleep, after getting little Ernesto back to sleep first, hugging him in the cot she was curled up in, in the bedroom, the door pulled shut. Just Ernesto and her, Comrade Iker standing guard out in the living room, although he was probably asleep too. Comrade Iker wasn’t much, but he was better than nothing, so they said. And he was available.

The others had gone, taking the
norteamericana
who looked like a fashion model to make the exchange for Beltran. They’d left over an hour ago, headed off to the border. Yalu hadn’t heard the old Toyota pulling back up into the dirt road. So it wasn’t Abraham and the others out there, making noise. They had gone to meet Comrade Cain.

Cain.

How she wanted to see him again. More than wanted. But Abraham wouldn’t let her. The last time was when she’d caught that dirty Beltran ogling her ass out on the road to his mansion. Not only was Yalu the bait in the trap, she offed his pathetic chauffeur.

Cain had been pleased.

Abraham didn’t like her around Cain.

There it was again, a sound outside. A window? The outhouse door? Left unlatched and catching the wind again? Damn Abraham anyway.

“Hey! Iker?” she shout-whispered, not wanting to have to mollycoddle Ernesto back to sleep for another two hours. No answer. Iker was either asleep or in the outhouse. She needed to be sure.

Holding Ernesto in her arms, Yalu climbed out of her cot, quietly as possible, set the baby down on his back in his playpen. He murmured, eyes shut, dribble on his lips. Her son. And such a responsibility. The word
burden
came to mind. She scolded herself, touched two fingers to her own lips, pressed them dutifully against Ernesto’s forehead. Then she stood up, glanced around the half-finished room ankle-deep in clothes and junk, searching for rats or critters who might feast on her son. All clear.

Wait. What was that? Inside the house.

She tip-toed to the door, picked up the Belgian FAL rifle leaning on the frame. Held the gun in one hand by the pistol grip, a light enough weapon for a woman. Pulled the bedroom door open with the fingers of her free hand, no doorknob, just a hole. She crept out, drew the door shut behind her.

“Iker?”

No answer. She gripped the gun in both hands, flipped the extended safety selector off
she said, creeping to the front door. “Iker?”

Another two steps. The wind was blowing up a gale out there. Just her fears?

“Abraham?” she said. “Is that you?”

“Put the g-gun down,
chica
.”

Yalu jumped, the voice right behind her—
right behind her
—in this very room. Not a meter away. She spun with the rifle, but knew she was too late.

There, facing her, a little mid-30s Latino with a bandito mustache, sharp eyes blazing in the dark, holding a submachine gun, small hand gripping the magazine. The gun’s stubby barrel pointed at her belly, still a little soft from carrying Ernesto. He had one of those plastic battery-operated hiker’s lamps on his head, an elastic strap around it, making his thick hair bunch up.

“D-down on the floor it goes,
chica
.” He motioned with the machine gun. Casual. Confident.

She laid the rifle quietly on the rough floor, not wanting to wake Ernesto. If people knew who he was, who his father was, there would be hell to pay.

The little
vato
with the machine gun reached up, flicked on his forehead lamp. The light blinded her. “Sorry.” He tilted it down. “Where are the others?”

“I’m the only one here,” she whispered.

He cocked his head to one side. “So why are you w-whispering?”

“I’m the only one,” she said, louder. Maybe she could get away with it. Where the hell was Iker anyway? Useless bastard. “No one else.”

The little guy cupped a hand around his mouth, shouted: “Clear in here!”

The front door opened silently, telling her that it couldn’t be Abraham, who always banged the damn thing. Another hiker headlamp appeared, on a dark-skinned smallish man, also in his mid-30s, with a Glock machine pistol. He moved silently. The beam of light from his forehead centered directly in Yalu’s eyes. He came up close, making her blink. The front door stood open, some big guy with a military shotgun filling it. He had his back to them and was watching the front of the house. The wind blew through the open front door like wind in a tunnel. He had the door propped open with a cinderblock he found out front.

Achic stood, looking the woman closely in the eye under the light. She was hiding something. He saw her eyes dart down to an empty sleeping bag on the floor, a daypack next to it, then back up to him. Quick, but not quick enough.

“Clarence!” Achic shouted over his shoulder. “Did you check the outhouse yet?”

“Shit.” Clarence’s big frame thumped the ground as he hopped off the porch.

“Iker!” the
terruca
woman shouted, her hands cupping her mouth now. “Watch out . . .”

Achic struck her across the face with the gun, knocking her to the floor. He flipped the Glock to semi-auto. She howled, rolling. “Any more of that and you lose a kneecap,” Achic said.

She looked up at him through gritted teeth, blood running down from her eyebrow.

She was hiding something all right.

Outside, Clarence marched to the outhouse, the big Kel-Tec KSG shotgun up and ready, like some badass weapon out of a video game he’d played as a kid.

He stood now, legs apart, stared at the little crescent moon in the top of the outhouse door. Yeah, he should have checked before. “Hello?” An eyeball appeared at the crescent moon. Big and worried.

“How’s it going?” Clarence said, making sure to use the polite form, as he didn’t know to whom the eyeball belonged. “I’m Clarence, your friendly mercenary. Come on out with hands up and all that good stuff. Because if I even
think
you have a weapon . . .” Clarence shrugged with the shotgun in his hands. “Hell, I’m being kind of a softie right now, compared to how you
vatos
carry on. Not to generalize or anything, but you
terrucos
do tend to be kinda fanatical.”

The eyeball disappeared.

A second passed.

Two seconds.

Clarence sighed, fired the Kal-Tec twice at the outhouse door.

Twin
booms
reverberated around the mountainside. The outhouse door vanished, leaving a shredded suggestion on hinges.

Clarence strode up, pointing the shotgun into the ragged hole that had been a door.

A middle-aged Mestizo wearing a
chullo
hat sat on the floor in a crouch, pants and underwear down to his ankles. An automatic rifle lay on the floor. The man had been hit and was covered with blood, like he’d been through a carwash of it. He looked at Clarence with fearful eyes, wheezing. He didn’t have much time left. His rifle might as well have been a mile away. A newspaper was tattered around the inside of the outhouse. Scrap of headline about Bogotá FC, winning 2-1. He’d been reading the sports section on the pot, fell asleep. Last newspaper he’d ever read.

He was going to bleed to death. That wasn’t the way to go.

Clarence didn’t want to fire again. Sure, it was the slums, but he’d already fired twice. Eventually, someone would notice, even in this part of town. He pulled his boot knife, stepped up onto the porch of the outhouse, shaking his head. “Should have come out when I gave you the chance.”