The Geronimo Breach (20 page)

Then, after only a few hours and with no independent corroboration of any of the claims being true, the body was buried at sea because the government assumed nobody would want to claim it (that they never actually asked anyone was a detail they would gloss over) and because they didn’t want his grave to become a Mecca for martyrs and prospective terrorists.

The blogosphere was filled with a combination of hate messages celebrating his death or threatening reprisals for his execution or just generally spewing venom to increase dissent and turmoil. The CIA had staffers working round the clock to craft and control the dialog, ensuring that anyone who doubted the official version of events was shouted down or branded a crazy.

In America, it had long been considered heretical and treasonous for the population to question the veracity of the government, in spite of numerous, repeated incidences where the government provably lied. This social adjustment had largely been accomplished by collaborating with a compliant media to parrot whatever the official talking points were, and demonize anyone who dared question the official version.

In this environment the clandestine machine had the power to hatch virtually any implausible fabrication and tout it to a compliant public as reality, and the supposed watchdogs in the press went along with it.

Several foreign press outlets, mainly in the Middle East, covered the amazing attack with considerable skepticism, however, in the U.S. the government’s version of events was treated as gospel.

A menace had been brought to justice, and the nation could once again hold its head high. The president’s meager approval rating skyrocketed, and re-election looked like a lock.

Lilliana approached the embassy gates on Monday morning at ten a.m. as requested. She’d managed to get some badly needed sleep and felt optimistic about the day ahead. She presented her card to the marine guard on duty and waited patiently as calls were made and her entrance was cleared.

She walked through the front doors, to be greeted by a secretary, who ushered her to a sitting area. Sam Wakefield hadn’t made it in yet, but they expected him shortly. Nobody knew anything about any special project she’d been working on or any payment, so she settled into the comfortable leather seat and enjoyed the chill of the air conditioning.

Forty-five minutes later, the intercom on the secretary’s desk buzzed and Lilliana was informed it would be just a few more minutes until her payment would be ready. She looked at her watch – this was turning into a half a day’s wait, if one counted sacrificing her morning’s work with one of the advertising agencies in the city. Employment for sketch artists in Panama was scarce, so like many moonlighters Lilliana had a day job. But dropping off a sketch that was commissioned on an emergency basis over a weekend and then having to wait forever for payment wasn’t what she’d agreed to. She made a mental note to be unavailable next time anyone from the embassy required her services.

Eventually, a staffer came down the stairs and gave her a check as payment.

She wasn’t at all happy. Rush jobs were usually paid in cash, not checks, and now she’d have to spend yet more time at the bank, thereby losing more paid working time at her job. She thanked the staffer and left an oversized manila envelope with the secretary on the way out the doors.

Lilliana was annoyed. This had been far and above the call of duty from her end, and now she was being treated like the cleaning lady.

No, she wouldn’t be doing any more work for the embassy. That was for sure.

~

Al had gotten virtually no sleep for the second night in a row, and the deprivation was eroding his usually sunny disposition. That, and he hadn’t taken a drink in thirty-six hours.

He’d started up the hill at 5:30 and had advanced only four miles through his day’s slog by ten a.m.. He could have hiked up the riverbank but the constant and very real threat of crocodiles coupled with high visibility exposure to any human predators made that idea seem like a poor one. Instead, he and his trusty burro friend had forged through until they’d located a game trail that ran roughly parallel to the river, but a hundred yards in the brush. It was virtually impassable in sections, requiring strenuous work with the machete, and by ten Al reeled with exhaustion, soaked with sweat and rain. It drizzled constantly as they increased in elevation, making for a slippery morning constitutional in the Panamanian highlands.

As the day progressed, the two companions made it over the summit and Al could see the Caribbean glimmering in the distance. It didn’t look that far to the coast, but Al’s GPS told him he still had nine miles to go, which meant arriving anywhere near a safe area by nightfall wasn’t a given. But at least he didn’t have bullets shredding the leaves around him and it wasn’t raining bombs, so the glimmer of the ocean gave him at least some cause for optimism.

Now the question was which fishing village to try to get to. He could shoot for Capurgana, which was at the northern tip of Colombia and which had a few hotels and not much else, or veer south to Acandi, which was a larger town in that it actually had streets and some commercial boats.

He was leaning towards Acandi but the terrain looked like it naturally rolled towards Capurgana. In the end, he supposed the burro would be the key because Al really didn’t know how to get to either beyond following the now fading screen of his handheld GPS.

Al’s stomach affliction had eased over the course of the night so at least that part of his misery was over. As he took a break by a rock outcropping overlooking the Atlantic coast, he stripped off his soaked and bloody socks to inspect his wrinkled feet – a new source of constant pain and suffering. The skin had worn off both of his heels and several toes, and his tennis shoes were a wet, pulpy mess. Al knew this was bad news and that the infection risk was extremely high, but there wasn’t much he could do about it other than hope for the best and seek out a doctor as soon as possible.

He considered stuffing some leaves into his shoes for additional padding; but with his luck he figured he’d probably select something toxic and wind up walking the last few miles into Colombia on stumps. So he wrung out his socks, peeled off the strips of skin adhering to them and pulled them back on, wincing from the burning agony of the raw epidermis grating against the sopping cotton.

Resigned to at least another eight hours of hell on earth, he got to his feet and patted the burro; whom he’d decided to call ‘Ed’ in a moment of weakness the night before. He’d named the burro after Mister Ed, the talking horse who starred in the black and white fifties television comedy.

“
Vamanos
, Eduardo,” he whispered to the donkey, who stared at him balefully. “Come on, giddyup!”

The burro resumed its slow passage down the trail into Colombia, and Al actually felt a momentary pang of kinship with the tired beast. They were both making their way through difficult circumstances to the best of their abilities in a harsh environment.

At least the burro was holding up pretty well. Al considered whether he could ride the animal, but dismissed the idea – Ed was the smaller of the two burros the guide had brought, and slight as burros go. He also had a lot of gear stuffed into the packs strapped to his back, so there was no way he could handle Al’s couple of hundred pounds of Caucasian fat reserves.

Al made a mental note to take a full inventory of the pack contents before he hit civilization – aside from scrounging around inside for food he hadn’t paid much attention to the meager contents. And once in populated areas he’d probably do better without an AK-47 or an old machete, but if old Carlos had any cash stashed in one of the packs or if Ernesto’s battered backpack contained anything of value, then at least Al could benefit from their bounty. They certainly weren’t going to be needing their worldly goods at this point.

He gingerly followed Ed down the hill, into the brush.

Next stop, with any luck, Capurgana...

The mood at the embassy was buzzing with celebratory undertones. It was hard not to feel a palpable sense of relief that finally, one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world had been taken down.

Obviously, the news about the pre-dawn attack soon became the only topic anyone was interested in talking about. In most offices, CNN was streaming the tidings from the monitors and televisions. It seemed that every hour some new tidbit of information was broken, adding to the sense of momentous events unfolding.

Sam spent most of his day cleaning up the mess from the weekend – thanking his contacts at the police for their help with Carmen, who was still being held pending seeing her attorney today, and denying any connection to the Caucasian men in the brothel attack. A whole lot of lying, but then again that’s what Sam did best: a convincing prevaricator, even when exhausted.

So far, there had been no blowback from the botched attack on the cop cruiser, although he noted that the papers were heralding the officer as a modern-day Panamanian gladiator – sort of a tropical version of
The Terminator
. The stock photo did portray a man you wouldn’t want to fuck with, Sam conceded. Looks like Don finally met his match. Too bad – it was hard to develop assets who could be relied upon to not only gun down whoever was targeted but also keep their mouths shut afterwards.

Don wasn’t going to be talking to anyone now, that was for sure.

The photos of the Land Cruiser on the local news depicted a molten, smoldering steel cage with lumps of unidentifiable goop inside. The vehicle had blazed white hot for some time.

Sam was happy his little drama was over. He could return to business as usual. Of course, there was little chance of that on the day Bin Laden was killed, but then again, he didn’t have Richard breathing down his neck so he could cut everyone a little slack. And truth was he still felt beat – even after taking a sleeping pill last night he’d so much residual adrenaline and caffeine in his system it had only made him groggy. He’d finally dozed off around midnight – but it was a disturbed sleep, filled with amorphous dreams and anxious premonitions.

Given the number of hours he’d clocked the day before, he decided to take the afternoon off and visit his other
familia
– as he referred to the twenty and twenty-one year old Peruvian sisters who did double-duty as his mistresses. The older one was his main squeeze but sometimes when he wanted something really loco she’d invite sis over and they’d pull out all the stops. And if today wasn’t a special occasion, he didn’t know what would qualify.

Come lunchtime, Sam told his secretary to hold all his calls because he was going to be offsite for meetings during the rest of the day.

He hummed as he bounced down the stairs, thinking about his afternoon’s prospects. Sam didn’t even notice the envelope in his secretary’s inbox, nor did she remember it, glued as she was to the unfolding Bin Laden saga on satellite TV.

There was nothing so urgent that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Today, of all days, that was especially true.

~

Al stood on the outskirts of Capurgana just before dusk, going through Mister Ed’s packs before sending him on his way. Freedom was just around the corner for the little fellow – he hoped Ed would find some nice native girl donkey and settle down, raise little ones, or whatever burros in these parts did.

He’d ditched the weapons at the edge of the jungle and unstrapped the two packs, freeing Ed from their sapping weight. In the first he found a collection of threadbare clothes, an extra pair of ancient boots almost worn through at the soles, binoculars, a bible in Spanish, and a water bottle and funnel. There were also random odds and ends of no value – a pair of dilapidated scissors, a pocket knife, a small sewing kit. So no goldmine there.

The other saddle pack contained Ernesto’s backpack, as well as a map of Panama, laminated photos of who he presumed must be the world’s ugliest grandchildren, and a toothbrush. Oh, but wait – there was a neoprene dive wallet. He opened it and counted $1600 dollars, $1500 of which was obviously Al’s $500 and a grand from Carmen’s end, as well as another hundred bucks in tens and fives. Al pocketed it and tossed the wallet aside.

His feet were killing him, and it was going to be dark at any moment. He quickly rummaged through the cook’s bag and found only clothes, a hygiene kit, a camera and a micro cell-phone. Ernesto had obviously carried his cash with him. Bad luck for Al.

Actually, worse luck for the cook, all things being relative.

Al scratched Ed behind the ears, and pointed to the jungle. “Go on, Ed. Get out of here. You’re free now!” he said.

Ed, as always, just stared at him.

Al pulled the burro’s big head around and gave him a shove towards the dark vegetation. “
Vamanos
,” he exclaimed, slapping Ed on the butt. Ed almost decapitated him with a narrowly-missed kick – no doubt reflexive – and then trotted back to the trail.

Al watched him go, and then set out for one of the largest buildings in the little hamlet – a white Moroccan-styled monument on the beach; no doubt a hotel, considering the epic scale and the lights blazing throughout the property.

He approached the entrance and mounted the stairs. The man behind the reception desk regarded him with distrust – not surprising given that Al looked as though he’d been dragged through broken glass behind a motorcycle gang.

“I need a room for the night,” Al said in passable Spanish.

“Hmmmmm. I seeeeeee. Perhaps you would like to see the rates first?” the receptionist responded politically.

“No, it’s fine. I just need a room. Something simple, and I’ll pay cash,” Al said, figuring that was a universal language in every country.

“Dollars or...?”

“Dollars. For one night. And if there’s a doctor in town, I’ll need to see if you can get him to come over. I have a problem with my feet – I’ve been hiking for days and wasn’t completely prepared...” Al explained.