The Cain File (33 page)

“Stand by for
how long
?” Cain said.

“Ten-fifteen minutes,” Maggie said, winging it.

“It takes that long?” Lita asked.

“People think everything with computers takes nanoseconds,” Maggie said. “That’s Hollywood. When people are involved, it’s much different.”

“Oh,” Lita said. “Just like everything else.”

“Just like everything else,” Maggie said.

Another ICE alert popped up. Lita clicked OK, ignoring it.

They waited for close to ten minutes before the reply came from enzo99.

Transfer is pending. Proceed to the main branch to complete authorization in 24 hours.

Maggie had a pretty good idea what Enzo had set up with Ed. The 24 hours would give Ed time to get a team together, back her up.

Lita divulged a smirk, suddenly jumping up from her chair, whooping, before she high-fived Paavo. She even gave Cain a high five, which seemed to irritate him. “Don’t you know what this means, Comrade?” Lita asked Cain.

“It says go to the main branch in twenty-four hours,” Cain said, looking unevenly at Maggie. “I thought the transfer was supposed to be immediate.”

“No,” Maggie said, ad-libbing again. “Although the authorization process
is
complete, the actual funds transfer to Beltran’s account can take anywhere up to forty-eight hours. In some countries, depending on the bank, even longer. So twenty-four is actually pretty decent.”

“You told me last night that the funds were ready.”

“Ready, yes. But transferring them still takes time. We’re talking about two million dollars here.”

“Why in the hell didn’t you tell me this?”

“I told Jack Warren,” Maggie said, meaning John Rae’s alias. “Several times. I thought you understood the procedure.”

“Damn it,” Cain said. “Goddamn it.”

“Don’t worry, Comrade,” Lita said. “By tomorrow we’ll have our money.”

“The money is going into an account under Beltran’s name,” Maggie said. “So he’ll need to sign it over to you.” That was BS, too, but the only way to ensure that Beltran was at the signing, to make sure he wasn’t “forgotten.” “Do you have an account to transfer it to?” Two million in large bills easily filled two suitcases, so she knew they wouldn’t be taking it all in cash. Besides, few banks were prepared for a withdrawal that large. It would take hours just to count it. And think of the unwanted attention.

Cain nodded. “Yes, yes.”

“We need to get hold of some decent clothes.” She motioned at her own muddy getup, then at Lita and Cain in their well-worn shorts and jeans. “Beltran looks like he’s been sleeping on the streets. We can’t walk in a bank to transfer that kind of money looking like vagrants.”

Cain said to Lita: “Send Señora Gomez out to find some clothes.”

“I’m a small,” Maggie said.

“Whatever.” Lita powered the laptop off by hitting the button. It ground down and rattled before it died.

“What did you do that for?” Maggie said. “Are you trying to ruin the damn thing?”

Lita folded the laptop shut. “If we need your precious little
computadora
again, doll face, you can always charge it up then.”

Christ. Maggie shook her head.

“What do we do for a day?” she said.

“We wait,” Cain said. “We wait.”

After a night sitting up against the living room wall in the safe house, dozing intermittently with one eye half-open, watching the tall geeky teenager and Paavo watching her while they took turns sleeping in armchairs, it was finally time to get moving and make the transfer. Cain had slept in another bedroom, Lita in a room with Señora Gomez, Beltran in his cell-room. Señora Gomez had gone out to the shops early and returned with a transparent pink plastic bag full of bread rolls. She seemed to be the busiest terrorist of the bunch. She had fetched presentable clothes last night at Maggie’s suggestion, but nothing for Maggie, which gave her pause.

Now she drank watery coffee and chewed a roll with no butter or jam—Señora Gomez had bought day-old bread—sustaining herself with the hope that Ed was putting together a team to monitor the handover at the National Bank of Ecuador down on the Plaza de la Independencia. Making sure Beltran was released without any nonsense, that Maggie made it out unscathed.

And soon, with any luck, Tica and the rest of the Yasuni 7 would go free as well.

It had been a harsh few days but it was looking like it was actually coming together.

“The van’s here,” Lita said, slurping from a cup as she pulled the curtain back an inch to check the street down below. She let the drape fall back into place, drained her coffee.

Lita was practically unrecognizable in a loose blue synthetic pants suit that had seen much better days, over a cream-colored blouse with a bow at the collar, and black flat shoes. Her outfit bore a hint of thrift shop, but with her hair combed back and held in place with a black headband, and large lightly tinted sunglasses, she looked much more at home in a bank than the jungle madwoman that she was. A large beat-up leather shoulder bag lay on the table, empty, and Maggie assumed it was intended to carry some of the money away after the transfer.

Lita instructed the teenager to do a perimeter check of the building. Meanwhile Cain had slipped on a nondescript black jacket and was checking his gun, which made Maggie wonder. He wore laundered jeans and a shirt. No suit, or tie.

Maggie still wore her mud-caked jeans and grubby T-shirt. Something was up. “Why the gun? We’re going into a bank.”

Cain didn’t reply.

“What the hell is going on, Cain?”

Lita set her cup down on the bare coffee table, nowhere near a doily. “It’s your turn in the back room, princess.”

Maggie started, her heart thumping. “I followed through on my end,” she said in a controlled voice to Cain. “You’re going to get your money. You need to let Beltran—and me—go.”

“Of course,” Cain said. “But first I have to make sure everything is as you say it is.”

“We have Beltran,” Lita said brightly. “The money is in his name. And he will sign anything. No one is going to argue with him. He’s the oil minister. What do we need you for, doll face?”

Maggie’s head reeled. “You think Commerce Oil is going to put up with this?”

“We
will
let you go,” Cain said. “Once the money is transferred into our account.”

Bullshit. Cain and Lita would be halfway back to the jungle. Maggie would be the guest of Paavo and the creepy adolescent who couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Believe what you wish,” Cain said.

“You won’t get through that transfer without me,” she said between her teeth.

“Let me just put it this way,” Cain said, narrowing his gaze. “We
better
get through it. Because if we don’t, we’ll be right back here to find out why.”

And then the shit would hit the fan.

“And what makes you so sure I don’t have someone to back me up?” Maggie went up to Cain, looked him directly in the eye.

Cain shook his head. “You’re a rogue. No one really knows where you are, or what happened to you—except that you transferred money without your partner. What were you doing? Trying to use the opportunity of his disappearance to impress your bosses? Well, you took a chance, didn’t you? No one to protect you. Without the cash as leverage, you’re just another gringa who was swallowed up by South America.”

She lowered her voice. “What do you think it means for little Ernesto. Hmmm?”

Cain frowned. “It’s a risk. But I’m a little better at risk-taking than you. Unlike most, I thrive on it. I still have Beltran. I still have you. An American citizen? An employee of a large oil corporation? The kind of money they have? I suspect they’ll pay for you, too. And, if not . . .” He shrugged.

Cain was prepared to throw Yalu and his son to the wolves. She’d miscalculated. “How do you know the transfer wasn’t bogus?”

“Because I don’t think it was. But if, for some reason, it fails, I’ll be back. And that won’t be good for you.”

“I’m going to make sure you pay for this.”

Lita came over, gave a little smirk. “Come on, doll face, time to trade places with Beltran. I hope he kept the bed nice and warm for you. Do you know how to use a bucket? I’m so sorry there’s no bidet for your pampered fanny.”

Maggie sucked in a breath. She needed to think.

Cain said to Paavo, “Get Beltran ready. Lita, take Alice back. Make sure she’s well-secured.
Well
-secured.”

Maggie eyed the revolver on the arm of the chair. About ten feet away. But with a good chunk of Cosecha Severa in the same room, ten feet too far.

Paavo came out with Beltran in his suit that had been pressed. His tie was askew, but he’d been put together. He blinked his eyes, looking meek and hopeful.

“He’s going to make a great impression signing over two million bucks,” Maggie said.

“Money talks,” Cain said. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Let’s go,” Lita said to Maggie. She had plastic cable ties in one hand, her Beretta in the other.

Maggie’s eyelids flickered with rage as Lita guided her past the crucifix in the hallway to the cell-room. Señora Gomez was on her hands and knees in the bathroom, her heavy bottom waving in the air as she scrubbed the toilet. Lita shoved Maggie into the room, followed, shut the door. The room reeked of Beltran’s sweat and worse.

“Turn around,” Lita said.

“Do you really think you’re going to get away with this?”

“Turn around, I said.”

“You don’t think it’s going to look just a little bit weird, some guy who needs a bath transferring two million dollars to a couple looking like you two?”

“If I have to ask again, you are going to get this pistol across your face.”

Maggie turned around to face the bed, Beltran’s dirty rumpled sheets awaiting her. “Cain is sending you into the bank with Beltran to manage the transfer, while he waits outside in the van, isn’t he? Where it’s safe. That’s why he didn’t bother with a shirt and tie.”

“Hands behind your back, bitch.”

“Ah, that’s it.” Maggie put her hands behind her back. Lita tied them. Maggie turned her head, caught Lita’s eye while Lita cinched her wrists down. “You’re going in without Cain. Yeah, it would be pretty difficult for Comrade Cain to walk into a bank, wouldn’t it? His face is on quite a few wanted posters. Not you, though. Can’t send any of the other Grim Harvesters in with you either. Now that would look odd, a bunch of
terrucos
accompanying Beltran. So it’s just you.” She caught a flinch in Lita’s eyes, confirming her suspicion. “Has he explained why you have to take the risk and he doesn’t? For the good of Grim Harvest, is it?”

Lita tightened the cable tie even tighter, but Maggie could tell she was listening.

“That’s when you need me along,” Maggie said. “Bank transfers in the millions are a can of worms anywhere, but especially in this part of the world. You’ll probably have to pay someone off. Do you know who, and how?  I do this kind of thing for a living. You did okay on the computer out there, but that was with me telling you exactly what to do. You need me. Any suspicions and they’ll call the
tombas
. That’s way too tight, by the way. My fingers are already numb.”

Lita examined her work.

“And if you get nabbed,” Maggie said. “Do you think he’s going to wait outside for you?”

“You think you know so much. You and your fancy job.
College degree.
Where did it get you? Right in this room. A room where we make the rules.”

Lita spun Maggie back around. Maggie’s fingertips pulsed ominously.

“But he’s going to take off on you anyway,” Maggie said. “As soon as he gets those two million smackers. With Miss Hottie and his baby. I wonder where they’ll go. They can’t stay in Ecuador. Or Colombia. Brazil maybe. Until things die down. Copacabana? Kids love the beach. I bet she’s a knockout in a string bikini. But she’ll go topless, of course. He’ll like that.”

“Shut up.”

“Long afternoons making love, while little Ernesto snoozes away, contented. Sucking on his pacifier while Yalu sucks on something else.”

“Didn’t I just tell you to be quiet?” Lita grabbed Maggie by the collar, wound up her right fist, and punched Maggie square in the nose. Pain shot through her face and head and she saw stars as she fell back onto the bed with a bounce. She lay there in anguish on top of her bound arms, head hanging over the side of the bed, spinning.

“You don’t like me and I don’t like you,” Maggie gasped. “But we’re both alike. And we both fell for his lies.”

“You did, perhaps.”

“Don’t kid yourself, girlfriend. He’s playing both of us, so he can have what he wants. He’s going to screw you, and not the way he screws her.”

Lita blinked at her, as if in doubt momentarily, then left the room and locked the door.

Shit,
Maggie thought
. So much for that.

A warm trickle of blood ran from her nostril down her cheek. Maggie rolled over, making the bed squeak, and landed flat on the floor on her side, puffing for air. She didn’t know which hurt more, her nose or her wrists.

She heard a knock at the front door. The teenager was back. Instructions were mumbled to Paavo and him before she heard Cain and Lita leaving with Beltran. The door shut and several pair of footsteps hastened down the outside stairwell. Maggie gasped as blood ran off her chin onto the green carpet inches away from her face. Her wrists ached. Her hands were starting to deaden.

Twisting her neck, she saw the sliding mirrored closet door. Could she somehow break it and use an edge to cut the hard plastic tie binding her wrists? Not without making a hell of a racket and tearing up her arms. She rolled up quietly, landing on her feet in a crouch. Thank God she did her yoga. She peered under the bed, hoping to find something sharp, anything, to cut her loose.

Then she saw it, right in front of her: the corner of the metal bed frame. It would take an age, but she had time. She just had to be quiet.

The front door opened again and Señora Gomez said she was going out. The door shut. The TV volume ratcheted back up.

On her haunches, Maggie waddled over to the corner of the bed, turned her back to it, positioned herself so that the cable tie around her wrists caught the bottom of the corner of the metal frame. Her hands buzzed.