The Cain File (27 page)

There was a pause. A long pause. She felt a pang inside for hurting his feelings.

Enzo99:
My bad. I am the 1 sori. I will kep look for your friend. friendz. Check with me in a day. b safe.

An ICE ping alert popped, startling her with its warning window.

ciao
she typed again and hit the shutdown button post haste.

Yes, she could definitely smell a rat from her earlier call to Sinclair.

Or was it a mole?

Next door the bed was starting to squeak again. Maggie checked the time. A few hours to go before she would head to the dock and find a boat to the Yasuni.

She could try for sleep, but sleep didn’t seem likely. She lay back and shut her eyes.

Early morning, the moon still shining overhead, Maggie strode down to Coca’s boat dock, her backpack slung over one shoulder. The air was cool and fresh. Even with all the questions racing through her mind, it was calming.

On the way, she dumped the pistol she’d taken from Abraham in a fifty-five-gallon drum overflowing with trash. She wouldn’t get away with bringing a gun to meet a terrorist group that would be armed to the teeth. They would search her and the gun would only make matters worse.

She still needed to talk to Ed. But she wasn’t going to risk another ICE alert just yet and give away her location to whoever might be watching.

Long narrow riverboats bobbed idly on the piers, all but one of them unmanned. At the end of the dock two Indians in bare feet and baggy shorts were provisioning a boat. One young man lugged a huge red Jerry can of gas across the boards, while an older man hunched over the motor with a long screwdriver. He looked up as Maggie approached, cigarette dangling from his mouth. His face was bronzed and deeply lined from sun and water.

“Are you for hire?” Maggie asked him in Quechua. The Indians in this part of the Amazon spoke it as well. Even though the sun had rendered the man’s face to look much older, he was probably just shy of middle-aged.

“Booked,” he said in voice thick with phlegm. “Taking a group of Germans up to Napo at nine.”

“Napo—the Yasuni. That’s where I’m going. Maybe I can ride along. I’m willing to pay. Cash.”

“Private party,” he muttered. “Eco-tourists.” He gave a frown, apparently not aware how such travelers were keeping people like him alive.

“How much are they paying you?”

He told her.

A peacock sauntered up to watch the interaction curiously.

“I’ll pay double,” Maggie said, pulling out a roll of U.S. dollars, peeling off bills. “It’s just me—no one else. I won’t get drunk, ask a lot of stupid questions about the wildlife, or make you stop so I can take photos. I won’t get sick or fall out of the boat. All I want to do is get to Napo as soon as possible. Have your boy run to the Germans’ hotel now, before they get up, and tell them to relax, lie in, that your boat needs some part and you’ll be ready by this afternoon. You can be back by then, I’m sure. But we leave now.” She raised her eyebrows.

He eyed the wad of money in her hand.

The peacock’s feathers splayed.

The driver gave a single nod.

The long motorized canoe chugged upriver, water splashing over the wooden hull when the boat hit a swell. The torn green awning flapped in the early-morning breeze with its sweet scent of rich wet earth. The sun was rising over the rainforest in a rush of orange. Birds picked up their singing, echoing across the water.

Maggie couldn’t help but wonder how many such mornings were left in the Yasuni.

In front of them, a huge barge came into view, slogging upriver, stacked high with 36-inch thick lengths of pipe. To carry away the black gold. Destined for one of the two last pristine remnants of Amazon rainforest. The report of the canoe’s engine popped off the giant metal hull of the barge as they swept by and Maggie saw the name stenciled on the sides of the pipe: Commerce Oil.  

Halfway to Yasuni, they stopped at a
tienda
, the last store before the jungle, to gas up, where there was cell-phone coverage. Maggie helped the driver lug a can of fuel to the boat and he accepted her offer of a cold drink.

Inside the
store, originally built decades ago by nuns who ran a nearby mission, when all that lay beyond here was unspoiled jungle, Maggie found numerous shoppers, oil-workers stocking up on beer, cigarettes, and other luxuries, although traveling water-bound shops would fill in—at a handsome markup. The inane musical drone of a video game and ringing cash register, along with the thumping of the generator outside, killed what had once been relative silence.

She purchased a couple of dripping Inka colas, a sandwich roll stuffed with ham, and a pack of American smokes for the driver, a tube of toothpaste, and two large bags of boiled sweets she would jam into her knapsack. There would no doubt be children where she was headed.

Over at a grubby dairy case popping with fluorescent light, two men in dungarees examined a stringy slice of red monkey meat dripping blood out of its homemade cellophane wrapper onto the wood floor. Illegal. The sisters would never have allowed it.

Back out on the river Maggie drank neon yellow soda as the manmade breeze of the boat heading upriver helped erase the stickiness of the coming day.

Back in San Francisco, Ed would be up by now. She wasn’t going to risk another logon just yet. She got out Abraham’s mucky cell phone as she chewed her stale sandwich, wiping the phone off with a paper napkin. The phone was a preload, so nobody would be tracking it.

She called a number in San Francisco, California.

On the second ring, Ed answered.

“Did you order a pizza?” It was a standing joke between them and a quick and dirty way to give Ed a head’s up to assess the situation before giving a name. Static crackled across the virtual wires as the boat bounced off a surge of water.

“Last night before I went to bed, I did,” he said. “Extra-large Hawaiian. With extra pineapple. Where the hell is it?”

“I’m eating it now.” She tore off a hunk of dry roll and not-so-fresh meat with her teeth. She was starving. She pulled the phone away from her ear while the screech of a PJ–pocket jammer–was plugged into the phone on the other end. Ed was cleaning the line.

Then: “It’s good to hear your voice, Maggs.”

“Ditto.” Chewing.

“But it sounds a little in and out. I’m going out on a limb here and guessing it’s not coming from your apartment. Mostly because I keep stopping by your place and you’re not there.”

“These South American cell-phone providers are less than excellent.”

“Christ,” Ed said. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

They passed an open gas flare in dense jungle, burning high above the tree line, a byproduct of oil production. Left uncapped, it scorched the last dark blue of night away.

“Better lay it on me, Maggie.”

She did. When she was done, she heard Ed light a cigarette, take a deep suck of poisonous smoke, and say: “Turn that damn boat around. Now. That’s an order.”

“You’re not exactly a ‘that’s-an-order’ type, Ed. Nice try, though.”

“How about ‘please’?”

“Sorry, Ed,” she said. “I’ve got to see this through.”

Even with the splashing of the river, she could hear Ed’s deep sigh of exasperation. “You know I always go to bat for you, Maggs, but do you have any idea what this is going to do to your career? If you survive, that is?”

“It might sound glib,” she said. “But career is the last thing on my mind right now. Perhaps it should be. But it’s not. There are other things taking priority—people. Seven of them. Tica and her six compadres. Maybe they can do something about this insane, illegal, oil exploration.”

She heard Ed take another puff of cigarette. “Yeah,” was all he said in a tone that made her realize he understood completely. “So I can threaten you and it doesn’t make any difference?”

“You’re just not that scary, Ed. It’s one of the many reasons I like you. You’ve survived in a pack of people who care about nothing—except starting wars all over the globe. You’re head and shoulders above the rest of the Agency.”

“Great. Will you put that down as a recommendation in my LinkedIn profile? When I have to go looking for another job?”

“Sure.” Maggie chewed some more dehydrated sandwich. It was a good thing she had strong teeth. “So I guess it comes down to this. You’re duty-bound as my friend to help me in any way possible. Since I would do the same for you.”

“That’s pretty low, Maggie.”

“Yep. But I am going to see the Yasuni Seven freed. And you might as well be part of it. You know how fickle the Agency is. When it happens, they’re going to be pushing each other out of the way to take credit. So you might as well be first in line.”

“You never used to be this cynical.”

“I need you to get John Rae out of jail. Something funky is going on there. But with your connections, I bet you can pull it off. I also need you as a contact point, because I’m not trusting Sinclair Michaels anymore, so you get to be de facto leader of this op now.”

“Come on, Maggs.”

“Admit it,” she said. “It makes total sense.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going to end up working for you in a year or two. Where’s John Rae being held?”

“La Picota Prison,” she said. “Bogotá. Maximum-security wing. He’s going by the name of Jack Warren.”

She could hear Ed scratching it down old school on a pad of paper. “What else?”

“I’m meeting Cain out here in the Amazon, planning to do the exchange in Quito. Beltran for the two mil. By tomorrow.”

“You got the money transfers all set up, ready to go?”

“Does the pope shit in the woods?”

“I’ll get a team of goons together to monitor the transfer. Doesn’t give me a lot of time.”

“Ai-yi-yi.”

“I insist, Maggs. You’re my responsibility. Don’t worry. Cain won’t even know they’re there, unless he tries to pull a fast one.”

If anyone could do such a thing, it was Ed. “K,” she said.

“Anything you read on my work email is going to be bullshit from now on. Disinformation. Play along.”

Ed wasn’t trusting the powers that be. Interesting.

“I thought it was all bullshit anyway.”

“Ha ha,” he said, puffing. “Give me a word. For Quito.”

Maggie thought for a moment. “Moshi’s.”

“Got it. Call me later.”

“If not later, then tomorrow. You got my number, but who knows about coverage. And these Grim Harvest guys tend to get weird about making contact with the outside world.”

“Maybe because they’re terrorists?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t want to tell you how worried I am.”

“Then don’t.” The cell phone startled to crackle as the boat swerved around a wide bend of muddy river. “Time to go, bud.”

“Stay safe, Maggs. I’ll do my best to get your cowboy out ASAP. Hopefully, we’ll be sitting around a table at Moshi’s—that’s the real Moshi’s—in a couple of days, patting ourselves on the back and looking forward to commendations. Or at least, keeping our jobs.”

“Just don’t eat all my calamari this time.”

“You’re too slow.”

“Ciao.”

She clicked off and powered down the phone. When the driver bent down to light a cigarette, out of the wind, she slipped the old-style cell phone down in her cleavage. Not super comfortable, but she could get away with it. She’d smuggled how many baggies full of Bacardi into music concerts as a teenager?

Truth was, she didn’t know exactly what to expect next. Everything she suspected told her Cain was just another dissolute ex-revolutionary who would sell out to the highest bidder. For some of his ilk, that meant working as security for the drug cartels. But Cain seemed to have gone one better and found himself an even bigger opportunity: trading hostages with the oil companies. Shipping cocaine to the Western world was small potatoes compared to that.

They arced around a sunken tree poking up out of the water as they continued their journey upriver.

Not long ago, a boat under motor wouldn’t have been allowed so far back into tribal areas, but the onslaught of oil had changed things.

It started to rain just as they headed into a tunnel of trees, shortly before ten a.m., which meant a torrential downpour that thrashed the jungle canopy and awning of the boat with ominous strokes. Rain in the Amazon wasn’t the civilized showers found elsewhere, or even volleys of water—but vertical floods beating down unmercifully, soaking everything despite whatever measures were taken. Nothing man-made stayed dry. The bottom of the boat was inches deep in water and Maggie had to lift her feet and prop them on the gunwale. It was a reminder that this was still, for the time being, the wilds.

And then, as quickly as it had arrived, the rain was gone. Billowing clouds parted for emerging sunshine. Steam rose from the river. Monkeys reappeared, shaking branches overhead, letting water fly down. The boat headed upstream on the narrow passage, then they pulled out from under the trees into a lake. A dozen thatched huts sat just across the water that shimmered with bluing sky.

On the far shore, where the village once had an unobstructed view of unblemished jungle, numerous non-pleasure boats and barges now crowded a small dock. Pickup trucks and jeeps were parked anywhere there was room. Construction workers came and went, and a bright yellow Caterpillar was firing up its motor, blasting black smoke into the air. It had a huge blade on the front and was towing a trailer loaded down with lengths of pipe, identical to the ones Maggie had seen on the barge. More pipe was stacked nearby on the docks.

Maggie saw several soldiers, looking bored, standing around the dock with rifles shouldered.

“How long have they been here?” she asked the driver.

“A state of emergency was declared a week or so ago. After the attacks on the oil work by the terrorists. It all started with the arrest of a sixteen-year-old girl and half a dozen villagers from the interior just over a month ago. A minister was kidnapped in Quito. They’re getting worried in the capital. Have you got your papers ready?”

“Yes.”

As the boat approached the dock, Maggie saw a wide clearing, cut in what had once been dense jungle, coming into view. She heard the Caterpillar groan.