The Cain File (3 page)

“We can’t proceed,” she said to him. Meaning,
I’m
not going to proceed.

“I see,” John Rae said, nodding sagely. Then, to Beltran, Velox, and Li: “I hate to say it, gents, but Ms. Marin needs to sort this out. Damn computers, anyway. We were better off when we used a shopping bag full of cash. Can we circle back tomorrow?”

“No,” Beltran said, his voice rising. “We can’t. I demand an explanation.”

Li was panic-stricken. Velox was gulping.

“Make that bank transfer,” Beltran said to Maggie.

“I wish I could,” she said.

“I don’t believe you for a moment,” he said. “You’ve been stalling us for an hour. Now do as I say or I’ll have you placed under arrest.”

“What?” Velox said to Beltran. Li was looking more than uncomfortable.

“They’re trying to back out of the deal,” Beltran said.

“Now relax,” Maggie said. “I just need to get another access code. That requires several approvals. I’ll start contacting people, but it’s late. It won’t be ready until tomorrow. Say first thing?”

Beltran snapped his fingers at the two men by the door. They drew their pistols and came forward. Beltran stared at Maggie with slitted eyes. “Make the transfer,” he said between his teeth.

“Gentlemen,” John Rae said, drumming his fingers calmly on the table. “And I use the term more loosely than before, because you ain’t gentlemen at all now, are you? What we have here is what is commonly called a Mexican standoff. Sorry for the political incorrectness and all.”

“Do you really think the National Vice Police are waiting outside?” Beltran said with a smirk. “Who do you think runs this country?”

John Rae nodded, taking everything in.

“I’m not sure I like this,” Velox said to Beltran, eyeing the two men with their pistols drawn. “Maybe we do need to make alternate plans.”

Corruption, Maggie knew, was one thing, but being part of something that involved guns wouldn’t fly with someone like Velox, a well-known American businessman with connections to Commerce Oil. Li, a political figure in China, would probably be less fazed, though he was much less easy to read.

“They have no intention of making any transfer,” Beltran said to Velox and Li. “Can’t you see that?”

“Then we need to resume at some other time,” Velox said. “Or cancel altogether. I didn’t authorize anything like this.”

John Rae said, “We’re not paying you a thing, Beltran. Not tonight.”

“I beg to differ,” Beltran said and Maggie saw what he was thinking. The payoff slipping away. A drastic change to the oil deal. Quite possibly failure. What would that mean for him? He had scrabbled his whole life to get where he was.

John Rae stood up. “Pack up, Ms. Marin,” he said to Maggie. “We’re out of here.”

Beltran signaled one of the men with guns to come closer. Then he pointed at John Rae. “Sit down. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. So will she.”

John Rae nodded as if he had been asked whether he wanted soup or salad. He straightened his jacket, sat back down.

Beltran spoke to the gunman: “If she doesn’t authorize that bank transfer, put a bullet in one of her pretty little knees. She can decide which one.”

The gunman approached the table.

John Rae was leaning back in his chair, not looking rattled at all. He said to Maggie, “Just go ahead and send the money, then, or whatever it is you do with that damn thing. We’ll deal with these
people
when we get back home.”

“Are you sure?” Maggie pressed the power button and held it down until the MacBook’s screen went black and the laptop powered down. “Ai,
mierda!
That’s ‘shit’ for you non-Spanish speakers, by the way.”

“Why, you damn
puta!
” Beltran growled.

John Rae leapt up, swinging a fist so fast the gunman’s face hadn’t fully dropped in surprise before John Rae clocked his jaw with a crack that sent the man’s sunglasses flying, skidding and spinning across the polished floor. His gun went off, thunder echoing off the high ceiling, and John Rae was on top of him, punching in short, sharp blows, suit jacket ripping at the armpit as his arm moved like a piston.

Li, Velox, and Beltran jumped up from the table and dashed for the door.

Plaster dust rained down as the other gunman came forward, pistol in both hands now, moving to and fro as he tried for a shot that wouldn’t take out his partner.

Maggie sprang up, folding her laptop shut. Reaching back with it, she took aim.

“Hey,
boludo!
” she shouted at the gunman leveling his weapon on John Rae.

The gunman looked up at Maggie just as the laptop caught him directly in the face. He jerked, stumbling backwards. He dropped his gun and fell. The laptop bounced off the floor. John Rae saw this, leapt off gunman number one, secured number two’s gun. He jumped up, gun in hand.

Gunman one scrambled to his feet, fired, hit John Rae in the leg. John Rae swore calmly, hopping on one foot, bringing the pistol up, firing twice, hitting gunman number one both times. The man staggered and fell, the back of his head hitting the floor with a thump.

John Rae grabbed his leg, already blossoming red, swung the pistol on gunman number two, who was climbing up off the floor.

“Get the hell out of here, Maggie!” John Rae yelled.

Beltran, Li, and Velox were long gone.

Achic came rushing into the room, saw what was going on, ran over to pick up the gun that gunman number one had dropped.

“Will you get her the hell out of here?” John Rae said to Achic while he held his pistol on gunman two. “On your knees, pal. Hands above your head.”

The man blinked in confusion.

“¡Sobre sus rodillas!”
Maggie shouted at the gunman.
“¡Manos encima de la cabeza!”

The gunman got on his knees, put his hands up.

“Go on, Maggie,” John Rae said, gripping his bloody leg. “You and Achic—out of here.”

“Don’t think we’re leaving you here,” Maggie said. “There are at least four guys outside.”

“What the hell do you think it is I do for a living? Go on—git.”

Maggie collected her laptop off the floor.

“Come on, Achic,” she said. “Help me get him out of here. He’s wounded.”

Voices shouted outside the door. Two guards charged in, wearing camouflage and military caps, holding the submachine guns Maggie had seen outside. Just as Achic raised his weapon, one of them turned on him, sprayed wildly with a short
pap-pap-pap
that dropped Achic to the floor like a puppet without strings. He lay there, gasping.

John Rae turned, both hands gripping his pistol, firing repeatedly, the pistol jerking three times. The guard crumpled over his gun and fell.

The other guard stood there, his gun on John Rae, John Rae’s gun on him.

“Now this is a real standoff,” John Rae said, then shouting at Maggie. “Maggie! Out the damn window. There’s a swimming pool. I’m right behind you.”

Maggie turned, saw the flickering swirls of the pool on the ceiling. In her heels, the polished wood floor was a skating rink. She kicked them off and, laptop in hand, bolted for the huge leaded-glass window, a work of art containing dozens of panes, centuries old. She built up her speed, running hard, bracing herself for the crash about to happen. She could hear John Rae behind her taunting the guard, the guard not fully understanding, but getting the gist of his words.

Maggie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, raised her arms in front of her face with the laptop as added protection, jumped for the window.

Kacha’s first look at the American woman was when she crashed through the enormous first-floor window of the mansion. Leaded-glass panes burst apart as the woman came flying out, her long hair trailing behind her, and Kacha noticed, in the moonlight, that she was wearing a tight black dress. She looked like something out of a fashion magazine in flight. She seemed to have something in her hand, a handbag, something like that. She hit the water of the pool with a mighty splash that sprinkled Kacha’s face, even back where she stood behind the wrought-iron fence, keeping a lookout while her sister entertained a guard in the bushes.

The woman surfaced, gasping for air, paddled to the end of the pool, favoring one arm.

“
¡Ayúdame!
They’re trying to kill me.
”

She needed help.

Kacha brushed her bangs out of her face and shouted to Suyana, her sister. The soldier, a young Mestizo boy, not much older than she was, thrashed his way out of the bushes, pulling up his fatigue pants in a hurry, gun slung haphazardly over his shoulder. The dent of an erection seemed to be slowing him down.

Kacha grabbed the half-meter length of iron rebar she had stashed, held it down by her side.

“What’s going on?” the soldier shouted. “Who broke that window? Is someone in the pool?”

The voices of men shouting wafted through the broken window upstairs.

“Looks like the party got out of hand,” Kacha said.

“Jesus Christ!” The guard zipped up his pants. “I’m screwed.”

“Yes, I think so.” Kacha clubbed the boy across the side of the head. He expelled a painful sigh and sunk to the ground.

Suyana peered out of the bushes, eyes popping in astonishment. She emerged, yanking her tight jeans up her round butt. “What did you do
that
for? I haven’t been paid yet!”

“We need to get that woman out of here.” Kacha dropped the iron bar and dashed to the back gate the guard had left open when he came out to buy a quick favor. “They’re trying to kill her.”

“You do that,” Suyana said. “I’m going to get his wallet.”

Kacha was soon on her knees at the swimming pool, helping the American woman out. Soaking wet, her long hair hung like a dripping mantle. She gulped air as she climbed out onto the Spanish tiles, the laptop computer still in one hand.

“
Gracias, gracias, gracias
,” she said, stepping gingerly in her bare feet as Kacha led her through the gate in the fence. “
Please
get me out of here. I will make it worth your while.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kacha said.

The two women disappeared into the shadows.

Men appeared at the far side of the pool, from under the house. Machine guns were pointed.

“Who goes there?” one yelled in a booming voice. “Halt!”

“
¡Vámonos!
” the American woman shouted.

“Thank God—whoever She is.”

Wrapped in a scratchy blanket, sitting in damp bra and panties on a blue plastic chair in the corrugated-iron shack Kacha shared with her sister Suyana and Suyana’s baby, Maggie shook with the cold. Not to mention the scratches and abrasions from bursting through the window. But she breathed a sigh of relief as she tapped the space bar of the MacBook resting on her frozen knees and watched the thing come to life. The hard drive ground, but she kept her fingers crossed. At her first tech job, she saw machines getting taken apart and literarily scrubbed down. Computers were generally hardy enough to survive occasional abuse, even a dunking in chlorinated water.

Kacha sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, jiggling her infant niece in her arms, boiling a dented pan of water on a camp stove. The heat from the blue flame teased Maggie’s frozen shins as they vainly fought the night air from one of the world’s highest cities. A candle in a tin can flickered, lighting up Suyana’s face as she slept fitfully against the metal wall in the windowless hut. Her head tilted to one side, her mouth open, a crust of dried spittle in the corner of her lips. Her breath came and went in shallow puffs. She didn’t look well.

“Are you contacting the people with the money?” Kacha asked Maggie.

“The reward money’s going to take a while. My purse is back at that party from hell.”

“Oh.”

“I
will
get some cash to you, though, Kacha,” Maggie said. “But right now I’m flat busted.”

“I see.” Kacha gave a sigh. The girls hadn’t only been helpful, they’d taken a huge risk, and deserved to be rewarded.

While Maggie waited for her grating machine to connect to the Agency network, she pondered what could have gone wrong with what John Rae had called “a milk run.” It was supposed to be a simple sting, no weapons required. Two agents, one American, one local. And Maggie, of course. Her second field operation. But someone had tipped off Beltran and he’d compromised the National Vice Squad.

Who?

At least Beltran hadn’t managed to get hold of the two million.

She was supposed to have just handed it over. But she couldn’t see doing that at the time. Now people were dead. Where was John Rae? And Achic? Had he survived?  

What a mess. What a damn mess.

The IKON network finally connected and Maggie thanked her lucky stars. But her digital access fob was back at Beltran’s mansion, so any truly protected communication was out. With the power of IKON’s satellites providing access even in a shanty on a mountainside in the slums of Quito, though, she had the World Wide Web at her disposal. She just had to be discreet.

Maggie opened Skype and pulled up Ed Linden’s number from the contacts list. The shimmering screen bathed her face in blue light while the voice-over-IP connection dialed him. White animated bubbles rose sluggishly under the blurry photo of her boss, showing him to be disheveled and overweight. She prayed he was online.

Thankfully, Ed answered right away, even though it was well into the wee hours. She suspected he would be standing by, anxious to hear from her. The live video stream kicked in, choppy and buffered over the miles, and a bleary Ed appeared through a haze of cigarette smoke. His dark hair hung over his forehead, tousled; his Buddy Holly glasses sat crooked on his wide face—how he looked most days. Only tonight he had an excuse. He was no doubt aware that the operation had ended poorly.

“Hey Maggs,” he said in a husky voice. “How’s your vacation?”

“Well, the weather sucks.”

“Yeah, I heard you had a real soaking last night. You dry now?”

“More or less.” Meaning she was safe for the moment.

“What hotel are you staying in?”
Where are you?

“The Marriott.” That was the code word they’d picked for La Mariscal or old town, the colonial city center.