The Cain File (31 page)

The two guerillas slung their weapons and went about assisting him, although it was clear they were reticent working with explosives. In minutes, the bulldozer and stack of pipe were wired with multiple charges. The tall man ran wire to a safe point in the trees, joined every ten meters or so with blasting caps.

“A wall of fire,” one of the guerillas called it.

Lita had taped the soldier’s hands behind his back and his ankles together. He lay face down in the road.

“No,” Maggie said to Cain. “I will
not
allow this.”

Cain ignored her. “Everybody back into the trees.” They all drew back into the jungle, all except for Maggie. The guard lay struggling on the ground.

“My grandmother was Quechua,” he gasped.

Maggie marched over to the soldier, the sludge sucking at her Doc Martens. She turned to Cain, by the trees. “He’ll be blown to pieces.”

“As will you,” Cain said. “If you don’t get to safety.”

“I understand your anger, Cain,” she said. “But let me tell you something—and you best listen. If you’re going to blow up a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of equipment to prove you have muscle and can push Commerce Oil around, there’s not much I can do about it. But if you think you’re going to kill this man in cold blood, you can forget our deal. Commerce Oil is
not
going to have this murder on their hands.”

Cain walked over to Maggie. “Even though they have the murders of thousands of our people on their hands already? Through the black death they leach into the ground?”

“Let me rephrase that,” Maggie said. “
I’m
not going to have this man’s murder on my hands.” Her eyes locked with Cain’s.

“You’re in no position to bargain.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “Actually, I’m in a pretty damn good position. I have your precious money.”

“You won’t die for oil.”

“It has nothing to do with oil,” she said, dropping her voice so only Cain could hear. “But if this man dies, I can’t vouch for your son’s safety.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“You willing to take that chance?”

“Do you really think you can tell us what to do?” Cain said. “You Americans think you own the world. Well, not this part.”

“Call my bluff,” she said. “See where it gets you.”

“Leave her, Comrade,” Lita said, coming up on them. “We don’t need their filthy money. We never did.”

Cain frowned then. Perhaps he thought she would buckle. But revolution didn’t run on spirit alone. It needed cash. And if Cain had any human feelings, his son might factor in as well, although Maggie was beginning to question that.

Not even thirty and possibly about to die. Well, there wasn’t much she regretted. Except for not reconciling with her father. Her damn father.

“Let the oil company see what we can do to
her
, Comrade,” Lita hissed. “Their precious little doll. That will make them think twice.”

“Be quiet,” Cain said.

Maggie’s saw Lita balk with anger—and a trace of hurt. But her gamble had to pay off. Had to.

Cain and Maggie stared at each other.

“Let him go,” Cain finally said to Lita.

“What? Are you serious, Comrade?”

“Another death doesn’t further our cause right now.”

“It delivers vengeance!” Lita said. “
Vengeance is justice
—or do you forget your own words?”

It was then that Maggie saw the tightrope Cain walked. One between appeasing the madmen he needed to follow him and those with the money to advance his mission.

“Let him go, Lita,” Cain said. “He’s a simple soldier. Like you or I.”

“Are you becoming ambitious?” Lita said. “Are you going to move to Quito and be a politician now?”

Cain jerked his head toward Lita. His pistol, holstered by his side, rested an inch from his hand. “And do you forget who is in charge, Comrade?”

A howler monkey bellowed up in the tree canopy.

Lita was first to look away. “Very well, Comrade,” she whispered, her voice devoid of its passion. She drew a knife from the scabbard on her belt, stepped over in the slurping mud, cut the soldier loose, roughly, staring Maggie in the eye.

Freed, the soldier rolled over, scrambled to his feet, winded with relief. His uniform was caked with muck.

Cain spoke, “Tell the others how I let you go,” he said. “How I showed mercy. Tell them it’s not too late to join the people’s fight.”

“Yes,” he panted. “Thank you.
Thank you.
”

“Off you go now,” Cain said. Turning, he headed back into the trees.

The soldier turned to Maggie, his wet eyes connecting with hers. “And you most of all.” He spun and ran down the road, lopsided and breathless as he headed toward the village.

The blade of Lita’s knife suddenly glinted in front of Maggie’s face. Maggie lurched back.

Lita smiled, put her knife away. She turned, marched angrily back into the trees as well, but stood away from Cain.

Shaking out her nerves, Maggie joined the guerillas in the trees.

The tall man picked up the wires that had been bunched together, their bare ends twisted collectively into two points. He dug into his bag and came out with a large square nine-volt battery. He touched the ends of the wires to the terminals. One. Then the other.

The flash of the blasting caps popped down the wires, a chain reaction, toward the earthmover.

Thunderous explosions hurled the track off one side, followed by billowing orange blossoms of flame and the clanking of heavy metal. The engine compartment flared white, ripping open like tin foil, before the bulldozer blew over on its side, dozens of tons of steel groaning. A meter-long section of tread came heaving down into the road, smacking into the mud at the spot where the soldier had lain. Smaller pieces of track followed, clanging off the earthmover. A section of pipe flew through the air like a missile and snapped a palm tree in half, mid-trunk.

Through the trees birds squawked. Monkeys thrashed and screeched.

The guerillas jumped, hooted, slapped each other’s hands in a victory dance—all except for Lita, who simply hoisted Maggie’s backpack onto her shoulders, turned, and trudged back into the darkness of the jungle, head down.

In early-morning darkness, Gauman backed the eighteen-foot aluminum fishing boat into a secluded inlet dripping with vines. Maggie, Cain, and Lita climbed aboard. Once out on the Napo River, equipped with a 90-horsepower outboard motor, they skipped past barges and transports like a giant skeeter bug, hitting a swell now and then that knocked the boat sideways, but it was momentary; they barely touched the water all the way back to Coca.

Gauman let them off in the back of a boat yard, where a guard dog straining on a chain barked nonstop at their arrival. Under severe lights by a fence topped with barbed wire, Lita and Cain hustled Maggie into a rusted Chevy van, a ’70s’ throwback with mag wheels and faded stripes on its side.

And soon they were on Highway 20, shooting toward Quito.

Maggie sat shivering in the back seat by the window in her denim jacket soaked with river spray, over her mud-caked jeans and once-white T-shirt. Next to her, keeping a watchful eye out, sat Lita, with Maggie’s backpack, and her right hand resting on a Beretta perched on her thigh. Cain sat in the front passenger seat, wearing a throwaway plastic poncho that had left pools on the floor mats. Underneath, he carried a small Lercker pistol that looked like a cap gun. The larger firearms had been left back in the Yasuni; in populated areas, the last thing Cain and Lita wanted to look like was militia. Gauman drove.

No one spoke.

Toward Mulauco the sun rose, a gray haze casting first light across the windshield.

Maggie needed to get hold of Ed. After last night, the situation was edging out of control. She needed backup. Soon.

Lita had her laptop.

As they approached Mulauco traffic turned sluggish, lines of trucks from the countryside funneling through the small town.

Maggie leaned forward, gripping her belly. She gave an Academy-worthy groan.

“What?” Lita said.

“I need the toilet.”

“When we get to Quito.”

“With this traffic? It’ll take over an hour.”

“Cross your legs, like the rest of us.”

“I’m not going to make it. You want a mess all over this seat? Because that’s what we’re talking about.”

From the front seat, Cain turned and eyed Maggie. His tongue moved under his bottom lip, as if he were trying to determine whether she was telling the truth.

“I’m serious as a heart attack,” she said. “I’ve been trying to hold it.”

Cain frowned, turned to Gauman. “Pull over—up ahead.”

The driver slowed, guiding the van into a vacant lot with weeds cracking the asphalt.

“Lita,” Cain said. “Go with her.”

Maggie said: “If you think I’m squatting in the back of this damn parking lot with a ton of traffic going by, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“La-de-da,” Lita said. “We do have a real live duchess on our hands.”

“What you’ve got is someone who is going to have a real live accident any minute now. I don’t know how old those anchovies were, but they went right through me. Can I make it any clearer?”

“Tough shit, lady.”

“And that’s exactly what it’ll be.” Maggie noticed trucks up ahead, pulled up under an orange-and-yellow Primax sign with a jagged chunk out of the corner, a bare bulb burning away the remnants of night. “Stop there,” she said. “That truck stop.”

“Go ahead,” Cain said to Gauman. “Lita. Go with her.”

“Give me your pistol,” she said to Cain. “This one’s too big.”

Cain and Lita traded guns. Lita slipped the smaller Lercker into a jacket pocket. Gauman hopped out, ran around, heaved open the sliding side door.

“Let’s go, little doll,” Lita said to Maggie. “You
are
in a hurry, aren’t you?”

The two of them headed back behind a restaurant closed for the night. Filthy wasn’t the word. The woman’s toilet had no lights and the floor was a good inch deep in the kind of stuff that should never cover a floor.

Next door, the men’s toilet was only slightly better off. But at least there was a bulb lit and places where you could step that didn’t involve used toilet paper adhering to your shoe. Maggie entered, Lita right behind, hand in her pocket, clutching her pistol. The smell was less than captivating.

Two truck drivers stood at a long encrusted urinal, relieving themselves. One did a double take when he saw Maggie and Lita walking in.

“The woman’s room is out of commission,” Maggie said, rushing over to an empty stall, going in, slamming the door. She pulled her jeans down, sat on the pot.

Maggie coughed as she got out the phone and pretended to do her business. Shifting the volume down, she quietly tapped out a text to Ed:

on my way to Moshis. Beltran hopefully there. things getting dicey. cant talk. need backup. will ping u later

Lita’s hiking shoes appeared by the stall door. “What the hell are you doing in there?” Lita said. “Hurry up already.”

Maggie hit send, hoping her text would go through. But in the middle of nowhere, who knew? She watched the spinning blue circle, then saw a message pop.

UNABLE TO SEND. BALANCE IS 0. PLEASE TOP OFF YOUR ACCOUNT. THANK YOU FOR USING AGUILA CELLULAR.

Goddamn!

She saw Lita’s eye through the side crack in the door.

“What the hell is that?” Lita said. “Are you on a fucking phone in there?”

Maggie jumped up, shoved the phone back down her bra. She flushed, yanked up her jeans, exited the stall. Lita grabbed Maggie, spun her around, slammed her against the tiles.
Hard.
A big man in a ball cap standing at a urinal turned his head, mouth agape.

“All better now?” Lita screamed, shoving her sharp nails down the front of Maggie’s shirt, ripping out her phone. “You damn
puta
!” She hurled the phone against the far wall where it smacked the tiles a foot from the pissing man’s head. He spun around, a stream of urine following.

“What are you looking at,
boludo
?” Lita growled. “Get lost before I beat your ass!”

He zipped up as he fled the bathroom.

Lita pulled her gun, about to strike Maggie.

Maggie said, “You’re in love with him.”

Lita stopped, pistol midair. “What the hell do you know? What do you know about
anything
? Money—that’s all you know!”

“Yeah,” Maggie nodded. “And I thought love was a no-no with you revolutionary types. But he’s not your regular commie with BO and a scratchy beard reading Chairman Mao, is he?” Maggie gave a knowing squint. “Come on, look at him.”

Lita blinked back, her gun arm dropping to her side.

“Yeah, he’s something all right,” Maggie said. “Any woman with one good eye can see that. Who wouldn’t want to go a few rounds with Comrade Cain? And he’s got that fire burning inside to boot. What a combo: looks
and
passion. But do you really think he’s gonna be happy with some trigger-happy
revolutionista,
eating sardines out of a can in the jungle for the rest of his life? You think he’s gonna hold your rough little hand when he’s got two million
pavos
itching away in the other?”

Lita took a deep breath, the gun by her side forgotten. “That money is for Grim Harvest.”

The stiffness and openness of her reply let Maggie know she’d hit a direct target.

“It’s meant to be,” Maggie said. “But he doesn’t buy that Marxist mumbo jumbo. I’ve never seen anyone look so bored at your little meeting. And he didn’t much like your attitude out on that road last night, did he? You two sure have your differences when you get right down to it. He doesn’t want to give the money up either—like you do. Why is that?” Maggie raised her eyebrows. “You’re right—I do know about money. It’s the heart of everything. And two million U.S. buys a lot of everything. Especially around here.” She saw her words sinking in.

“You don’t know anything about him,” Lita said.

“I know he’s a got a woman in Bogotá who wrenches necks when she walks down the street. Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. In your gut, you sensed it. You’re not alone. I’ve got a guy back home who cheats on me
right under my nose
and I
still
want him.” Maggie shook her head. “You think Commerce Oil didn’t do their homework on Cain? He’s going to take that money and run, babe. Leave you high and dry with your band of dreamy revolutionaries. Because that
chica
in Bogotá has an insurance policy. His kid. Oh yeah.” Maggie gave a sympathetic frown. “All those hushed phone calls he makes? You’d be an idiot if you didn’t suspect. And you’re not an idiot. Not by a long shot. No, you’re just
in love
.” Maggie patted Lita’s cheek. “Poor Comrade Lita. In love with the wrong guy. Join the club, sister.”