The Cain File (36 page)

“
¡La venganza es la justicia!
”

John Rae kicked her legs out from under her and she fell to the ground, shouting. The other ops converged on her. Achic moved Beltran to one side.

“It’s about time!” Maggie heard Beltran yell.

Maggie charged up the hill after the van. Oncoming traffic had stopped. Horns exploded. People packed the sidewalks, but were staying a healthy distance from the action. Even with her fatigue and pain, and at the nearly two-mile elevation, Maggie moved like a greyhound. She was coiled up like a spring and it felt good to air out her lungs and stretch her legs and
sprint
.

The van disappeared over the rise. Maggie raced after it, but hit a wall of onlookers. She shot out into the street, weaving between stopped cars, reaching her legs out further as she followed the yellow line up the hill.

A cacophony of car horns pulsated from the other side. The sparse air forced her to breathe deeply, but she was keeping pace and knew the van would have to hit traffic sooner or later.

She crested the top.

In the middle of the street just over the hill, a blue pickup truck seemed to be trying to negotiate a three-point turn, effectively blocking traffic in both directions. Cain’s van had cleared it, though, and was speeding away in a lane freed up of immediate cars.

Damn!

Maggie breathed thin air and found a reserve, the one that got her across marathon finish lines in less than two hours, the same one that got her across Quito a week ago. She lengthened her stride and pumped her arms. And found she was able to pick up speed. Eventually, Cain’s van had to slow down, if not stop, in Quito’s congestion.

Two blocks passed by in a blur, the back of the van getting closer. She pressed on.

Her heart pounded as the Panecillo came into view, the virgin on the hill looking down with her mournful stare. Blood rushed in Maggie’s ears. The clots in her nose gave way and she tasted blood. She must have been a sight to the drivers and passengers in the cars she kept passing. Gray morning fog billowed around the bottom of the incline. Maggie hurtled down what was left of Venezuela, to where it split around the base of Panecillo hill. Cain’s van made a screeching left, disappearing from view.

But traffic was building.  Maggie fought to maintain her pace. The road was slippery with the fog.
Come on
, she told herself.

Nothing like a few days without sleep, a firefight in a safe house, another in the jungle, a couple of punches, to take it all out of you, make you feel your almost thirty years. Add on a pair of Doc Martens instead of ASIC Gels and 9,000 feet above sea level at high speed.

But finally,
finally
, around the next bend, Cain’s van got stuck behind a blue city bus.
Yes!
Traffic in the opposite direction blocked it from passing.

Gasping for air, Maggie jogged up to the van, drawing her pistol. She climbed up on the rear bumper, gun up in one hand, hanging on with the other, peering in through the window.

A man in a ball cap at the wheel. Cain, in the bench seat behind him, turned around, looking directly at her, Maggie looking back at him. Staring into each other’s eyes.

She jerked down on the rear door handle. Locked. Pounded on the van with her fist.

Cain raised a small pistol, the Lercker, resting his gun arm on the back of the bench seat to steady his aim.

Maggie flinched down, hanging onto the door handle.

Two shots ripped through the back of the van, one right through a door window inches above her head. The window cracked into a web of shattered glass and she swore she heard the other bullet zip by her ear. The van lurched forward, and she lost her grip, the van throwing her off and she landed, skidding back, arms out for stability, slipping on fog wet road, trying to regain her balance but losing the battle, flat on her butt in the middle of the street.

That hurt.

Cars behind her. Honking up a storm.

Sitting on her derriere, raising the .38 in both hands, her bandaged wrist smarting, blood still running from her nose, she fired into the back of the van, punching a hole the size of a nickel.

Return fire popped from inside the van, two more much smaller holes peppering the back doors. Twenty-five millimeter. Small, but deadly. She cringed down onto the asphalt. Near prone, gripping the .38 in both hands again, Maggie took aim, fired. Another hole was punched into the back door. 

The van’s side door screeched open. The driver’s door followed suit.

Both men fled the vehicle at the same time, one each side, leaving the van to idle in traffic, tail pipe puffing. The driver skewed off to the left, ball cap flying off his head, into a throng of people across the street from a white church where a crowd was ballooning out through the tall doors. Forget him.

Maggie scrambled to her feet, gun in hand, unsteady. She lumbered around to the right side of the van. Cain was running away, black jacket flapping. She saw the small pistol in his right hand.

Crowds of people in front of the Mission-style church. Men in suits. Women in gowns. A wedding. Church bells rang out.

Winded, she kept after Cain, ducking in and out of the multitude, pocketing her pistol. It wouldn’t do to be seen with it. And she couldn’t fire, not with all these people.

Cain was fresh. She wasn’t. “Stop!” she yelled, breathless. “Stop that man!”

Cain ducked behind a clump of churchgoers. Then he leaned back out, gun pointed at her. Fired off a round.

Maggie ducked, which slowed her down. She heard screams as people bolted, tripping over one another. One man in tails tumbled, taking a woman in a blue chiffon dress down with him. But no one seemed to be hit.

It didn’t bother Cain, who grabbed an old woman in black by her gray hair—generating more screams. He brought the gun up to the terrified woman’s head, jerking her temple to the tip of the barrel. “Don’t make me do it,” he growled at Maggie.

More screams. The old woman’s face became a mask of terror.

Maggie froze in place.

To Cain, the woman was collateral damage. Nothing more.

Maggie raised her hands in the air.

“Let her go, Cain,” she said, puffing. “I won’t follow you.”

“On the ground! Now!”

Maggie got down on the sidewalk.

“Down flat! Hands behind your head.”

She did.

Cain gave a smirk as he tossed the woman loose. The woman sprang away, toppling, then crying out in fear.

Cain snarled: “Follow me and the next person dies. No question.”

“I won’t follow.” Maggie didn’t move.

“Head down!”

She obeyed.

And heard Cain’s feet beating the pavement.

And then he was gone.

Someone helped Maggie up, then beat a hasty retreat.

Gone.

Cain was gone.

Maggie stood in front of the church, shaking with residual adrenaline, wiping blood off her face onto her sleeve, cursing herself. Wedding guests eyed her guardedly in her mud-caked jeans and improvised blood-soaked bandage. No one offered any words, just distance. She realized how off-kilter she looked.

She’d best leave now, before the police arrived. If they even would. Quito could be a lawless city, overwhelmed by crime.

Shaking her head, she turned, headed back to the plaza.

When she got near the Panecillo, the brown Chevy van was gone.

Hardly surprising, a perfectly good vehicle, albeit marred by a few bullet holes, left running in the middle of city traffic. It was probably already being ransacked in a nearby alley or garage.

She had done her best. It just wasn’t good enough.

But with Beltran freed, Tica and the Yasuni 7 would hopefully soon follow.

She let out a sigh of frustration and walked back toward the plaza.

They sat at one end of a polished conference table in a windowless room in the American embassy in Quito: Maggie, John Rae and a man named Fisher, who sported a crew cut, crisp white shirt, and a striped tie from some prestigious east coast school. On the flat screen monitor on the wall in split screen mode were Sinclair Michaels, dour and severe, and Ed, hair disheveled, shirt wrinkled.

Maggie’s wrist stung through the antiseptic and fresh bandage and she had a wad of gauze up her nose.

“All in all,” Fisher said, tapping the eraser end of his pencil on a pad of paper, “a success. Beltran freed. Two high-ranking terrorists in custody: Comrade Abraham and Comrade Lita. Considering how this operation began, with Agent Hutchens being detained in Bogotá, I’d say: an excellent outcome.” He tapped his pencil again. “Well done, Agent Hutchens.”

Fisher didn’t need to say what
hadn’t
been achieved: Cain was still a free man.

John Rae sat back in his chair. He’d pulled off his knit cap and his long dirty-blond hair was twisted and askew. He looked about as worn out as Maggie felt. “Let’s not forget Forensic Accounting Agent de la Cruz,” he said. “There wouldn’t even have
been
an outcome if not for her. Not to mention she managed—yet again—to save the Agency two million.”

Fisher cleared his throat. “Absolutely.”

“Yes,” Sinclair Michaels said gravely from the screen. “We could
not
have done it without you, Maggie.”

“I wish I’d known about the operation to begin with,” Ed said in a tone that tried mightily to deny disappointment. “We might have been able to put a bigger team together and capture Cain. But it goes without saying how impressed I am, we all are, with you, Maggie. I’m going to do my best to see this gets the proper recognition.”

The proper recognition.
She’d be lucky to keep her job. The fact that Beltran had been rescued and Commerce Oil could push ahead with their plans to drill the Amazon meant she might not be charged with anything. But there wouldn’t be any promotions or anything that even smelled like a commendation. The Agency didn’t operate that way. You go against the system, you’re done. No one forgets. Especially the suits in Washington. She’d be double-checking data entry in a basement office until she was old and gray—or quit in shame.

“Truly excellent,” Fisher said.

“What about the release of Tica Tuanama?” Maggie asked, her question focused primarily at Sinclair. “And the rest of the Yasuni Seven?”

A taut brief silence followed.

“Well?” Maggie asked.

Sinclair cleared his throat. “We are certainly going to request that Minister Beltran look into Tica and the alleged prisoners,” he said. “But I’ve no doubt he has quite a few things to do first. He just spent many days in captivity himself.”

“I was assured it would be taken care of,” Maggie said between her teeth.

“I’m not sure I said that.”

“I am.”

“You’re just going to have to be patient.” Sinclair spoke to her as if she were a surly teenager. “We’re doing the best we can.”

“Now wait a damn minute,” John Rae said to Sinclair. “We made Maggie a promise.”

“That was before you planned to grab Comrade Cain, Agent Hutchens. Without telling me.”

“I don’t report to you, Sinclair. You’re a contractor. I don’t need to tell you squat.”

“Perhaps not. But you will need to explain to your superiors why you failed to catch Cain.”

John Rae frowned at Maggie. He was no doubt in hot water, too, despite the acceptable aftermath.

When no one spoke, Ed said: “I want everyone in this room to know that I’m not going to let the Yasuni Seven slip through the cracks. I think it’s shameful—no, let me rephrase that. I think it’s
criminal
that this kind of thing happens just so Commerce Oil can tear up the Amazon for the sake of profits.”

“And we tend to agree with you,” Fisher said. “But there’s nothing to be done for the time being. Enquiries have been made. The Ecuadorian government won’t even acknowledge that Tica or anyone connected to her is under arrest at this point. We’re stuck at an impasse—for the moment.”

“Who is
we
?” Maggie said.

“The State Department,” he said.

“How about getting someone a little higher up involved?” Maggie said. “In Washington.”

Fisher tapped his pencil. “Commerce Oil is here at the courtesy of the Ecuadorian government. We can’t tell them how to run their country.”

“Courtesy?” Maggie laughed. “Commerce Oil is getting filthy rich. Along with all those who put them there. While Indian girls disappear in clandestine prisons. There’s nothing courteous about it. This is an example of a flagrant abuse of human rights.”

“I do understand how you feel, Maggie,” Sinclair interrupted, clearly wanting to end the discussion.

“Do you? A few days ago, I hit a server with Tica’s prison information on it. She and the others are being held in Carcel de Mujeres—right outside Quito. Now, if I can get that much information with the help of a friend who plays more Angry Birds than he hacks, think how much your techies from Langley can find out. Especially since they already told you Tica’s cell number. Want me to help them? I’d be glad to.”

“It’s not about where the prison is, Maggie,” he said. “It’s about how we proceed. We’re in a weak position. Without Cain as an offering—a bargaining chip—we’re asking, not demanding. So we have to ask nicely. Diplomacy is a dark art.”

“And that’s obviously not going to be enough to help Tica.” Maggie stood up, biting back on the disappointment. “Not today.” She’d been a fool to trust them, Sinclair in particular. But she couldn’t let them win. Tica and her compadres would have to come later. Somehow. She’d just have to make it so. “If we’re all done here, I’d like to get to my hotel and into a shower and a change of clothes.”

Then she’d be going up to the slums. To deliver the bad news to Kacha. But first she had a few things she was going to look into.

Because something wasn’t sitting quite right with Cain’s escape.

Early evening, Maggie climbed out of the taxicab up in the
pueblos jóvenes
where Kacha lived with her sister and her sister’s baby girl. The approaching cold night sharpened the air. Maggie was refreshed, having abandoned herself to an endless steaming shower, washing her hair three times, cleaning and rebandaging the gash on her wrist delicately and working on her bruised face. Her nose had stopped gushing blood. She’d pulled on new black gabardine trousers, a white cotton blouse, and black flats she picked up in a boutique on Sucre Street near the hotel. She’d topped off the outfit with a rough alpaca jacket, black, with rich orange-and-red embroidery on the shoulders.