Andie looked wistfully at me as we climbed back in the car. “I wish Jarrod could have been here, Nick. All the things he missed.”
When we came to the outskirts of Ushuaia there were no picture postcards. The last stopover before Antarctica.
The town sloped upward from the sea against a steep mountain, almost a wall. This was the other side of the world from Haifa, and not just geographically. The place appeared to be a pit. Narrow streets rose up from an industrial port, loaded with locals hawking everything from penguin dolls to Antarctica T-shirts. Packs of mangy dogs roamed the streets. The low stucco houses had these strange baskets atop stakes in front of them. The stunning beauty of our drive there came crashing down.
We found a modest hotel near the port called La Bella Vista that the guidebook said was decent. I shrugged in Andie’s direction. “The Ritz was booked.”
Our room had a queen-size bed, some pictures of the town as it was a hundred years ago, and a framed nautical map of Antarctica, which was as common down here as a print of St. Peter’s is in a hotel room in Rome.
We stepped out on the tiny balcony overlooking Beagle Sound. The clouds were low and dark and swift-moving. Mountains rose from the flat land on the other side of the gray channel. A cold, nasty wind smacked us.
“Don’t ever say I never took you anywhere interesting.”
Andie put her head on my shoulder. “No, I can’t say that about you, Nick.”
We both knew the fun was now officially over.
Chapter 110
IN THE MORNING we went downstairs, and after breakfast, we made some inquiries at the front desk. The wavy-haired clerk greeted us as if we were lovers on a holiday, eager to tour the sites. “Would you like to see the penguins?”
“No penguins.” I took out our map. “We’re looking for ranches outside town. Maybe you can help?”
“Ahhh, la estancia,” he replied, using the term for the sprawling farms that had been privately owned since the 1800s but were now tourist destinations in national parks.
I handed him the map. “We’re actually looking for a particular one. It’s called El Fin del Mundo.”
“El Fin del Mundo,” the clerk repeated, nodding. “The End of the World.”
“You know it?”
“No.” He shook his head. “But it is well named.”
If I was here on official business there would have been dozens of ways I could have located Cavello. But unfortunately, they all involved the local police. I was sure privacy was a guarded commodity down here, and I didn’t want to attract attention.
“There are many estancias north of town.” The clerk took out a pen. He circled an area on the map. “Here, near the skiing. Or here.” He circled another area to the west. “You have a car, Señor?”
I nodded. “A four-wheel drive.”
“You will need every bit of it.” He grinned as if in on a private joke.
We left town, taking a different route from the way we came in, toward the northeast. The road hugged the coast for a while, passing deserted islands. In the distance the mountains of Chile ringed the horizon.
Then we turned at the mountain road and started to climb, really climb.
“Let me guess,” Andie said, feigning disappointment. “You really don’t want to see the penguins?”
“After we find Cavello.” I grinned. “I’ll make sure we leave some time.”
We drove up into the high valleys above Ushuaia. The plains were greener here, spotted with vegetation, the mountains sloping and tall. We passed a few wind-battered road signs. BRIDGES ESTANCIA. Another with an arrow pointing the opposite way. CHILE.
The scenery was spectacular—frozen falls shooting down from steep, high cliffs, crevices packed with solid ice. We passed a beautiful lake, craggy mountains curling out of it that were twisted into shapes I had never seen before, bathed in a luminous bronze light.
We spent the next two hours bouncing up every marked road we could find. We passed a few wooden gates. All false alarms.
I was sure we were more likely to find Bigfoot up here than Cavello. On the way back, we wrapped around the mountains and came down to the west through the Tierra del Fuego Park. At some point we saw the biggest block of ice imaginable. It was at least thirty feet tall and covered the top of a valley between two peaks for miles.
We came across three ranches. Each was huge and in a beautiful setting, tucked into the mountains, overlooking barren coastline and sea. None were the one we were looking for.
I groaned, completely frustrated. Who knew what Remlikov meant by ‘near Ushuaia’? We didn’t even know in what direction.
When we drove back to town around 4:00 p.m. the sun was heading down. It was one of the most scenic days of my life, but that wasn’t why we came. We drove back through the seedy streets and pulled up in front of our hotel.
“Señor!” Guillermo, the desk clerk, waved as we came in. “Did you find it?”
“I found the end of the world.” I snorted with frustration. “Just no ranch.”
He seemed excited. “I asked my wife, Señor. She is Dutch. She works at el pasillo de ciudad. City hall.”
I waited for him to tell me.
“El Fin del Mundo. She knows of this place.”
I went over and let him fold back the map and indicate a point east of town, nowhere near where we’d been trolling around all day.
“Here. It is owned by an old local family. At least that is what the documents say. But my wife says it belongs to a foreigner. An American, yes?”
I patted Guillermo on the shoulder and smiled. “An American—yes.”
Chapter 111
WE DROVE OUT to find it the next day.
It was east—not near the other fancy estancias but in a remote valley. We pushed the Land Cruiser up the narrow, winding canyon, cut through sweeping, rocky cliffs and overhanging glaciers. There wasn’t a single road sign. We only pressed on because of Guillermo’s directions.
We stopped the SUV on what I took to be a high sheep path overlooking the property and made sure it was out of sight.
Then Andie and I crawled to a hidden overhang and peered through the glasses. I knew it was Cavello’s ranch as soon as I set eyes on it.
“He’s here.”
The property didn’t look welcoming or open like the other ranches we’d seen. There was no sign over the wooden gate. Instead there was a tower and two men—more like soldiers—leaning back on chairs, flipping cards.
“They’re sloppy,” I said. “That’s a good sign. I hope.”
Flocks of sheep grazed on land that swept up the steep mountain walls. But the wire that stretched from the closed gate wasn’t to keep them in. It was barbed. It was to keep others out.
The men in the tower were armed. Two automatic rifles were leaning against the wall. I spotted four other guards patrolling the periphery with dogs. I wasn’t looking at a ranch, I realized, but a fortress.
El Fin del Mundo.
The property was so vast I couldn’t even glimpse the main house or the setup. I had no way to determine what the complete security situation was. So I focused on the guards at the gate. The damn thing might be electrified; at various intervals I spotted cameras.
I passed the binoculars to Andie. She took a nervous sweep. I’m sure she never spotted the weapons in the guard tower, but after she surveyed the property, she put the glasses down with a defeated shrug.
“Any idea how we’re going to get in there, Nick?”
I leaned back against a rock, picked up a handful of gravel, and flung it loosely to the ground.
“We’re not.”
Chapter 112
WE WATCHED CAVELLO’S ranch the next day too, from the narrow sheep path about a quarter of a mile away. Each time, we hid the car and huddled in it against the rain and chill, just looking over the ranch, waiting for something to happen.
On the third day something finally did.
The front gate started to open. In the tower, the
guards stood up. I zoomed in closer with the binoculars.
In the distance, two black blurs were approaching down the road. I hopped out of the Land Cruiser. Andie sensed that something was happening. “Nick? What’s going on?”
I didn’t answer, just trained the glasses on the advancing vehicles—maybe a quarter mile away—which turned out to be two black Range Rovers. The guards at the gate picked up their rifles and jumped to attention.
The Range Rovers slowed to a stop at the estancia’s front gate. I couldn’t see into them. Their windows were tinted black. One of the guards in the tower waved and said something to the lead driver.
I knew he was in there. Dominic Cavello. I could feel his presence in the pit of my stomach. It was the same terrible feeling I’d had when I saw Manny and Ed lying on that beach in Montauk.
Then the vehicles pulled away, down the valley road, heading for town.
“That’s how we’re going to do it, Andie.” I kept my eyes on the Range Rovers as they bounced down the mountain road toward Ushuaia.
“He’s going to come to us.”
Chapter 113
WE HAD TO BE a little patient; we’d known that from the start. Twice a week, Cavello emerged from his compound. It was always on Wednesdays and Saturdays, in the two black Range Rovers, and always around noon. Cavello would drive the first car, while two capable-looking guards followed in the second.
On Saturday we waited at the edge of Ushuaia and picked up his convoy as it headed into town. Was this our chance?
Cavello came in to have a meal—always at the same cantina—pick up some newspapers and cigars, and get laid.
We’d learned from a local bartender, and a waitress, that the American ate at a café called Bar Ideal on San Martin Street, near the port. He sat at the same table in the front window. He sometimes grabbed and flirted with a hot little blond waitress there. A couple of times they had been seen going off together, after her shift, to a hotel down the street. Cavello and the girl usually came out after about an hour or so.
Then, like a sated bull, he would wander over to a smoke shop a few blocks away, on Magellanes, his bodyguards a few paces behind. He’d buy a box of fancy cigars. Cohibas—Cuban. Then he’d take a USA Today and a New York Times from a newsstand down the block. Cavello seemed to be fearless here. Who would recognize him? Occasionally he would sit at a different café, order a coffee, open his papers, and light up a cigar. Merchants seemed to cater to him, as if he was an important man.
As I glimpsed him getting out of his car, I felt my insides ratchet tight. All the anger and anguish from so many deaths came hurtling back at me. I could only watch silently, my skin numb and hot.
How was I going to do this? How could I get him alone? We had no bait.
How was I going to get close to Cavello? And then, what if I did?
That night, we stopped to have dinner in a small café outside of town. Andie seemed unusually quiet. Something was weighing on her, and I was feeling it, too. We’d been so close to Cavello—and he was a free man here. Finally she looked at me. “How are we going to get this done?”
I took a sip of the Chilean beer. “He’s well guarded. I don’t know how to get close.”
Andie put down her beer. “Listen, Nick, what if I can?”
Chapter 114
ANDIE HAD BEEN THINKING about this for a long time. She had watched Cavello enough that she just knew. She’d had this feeling even watching him come into the courtroom that first fateful day. She knew how to get close to him if she ever needed to, and now she did.
“I’m an actress, remember?”
She and Nick began to think out a loose plan, just going through the motions.
She had to make sure she wouldn’t be recognized, but Cavello had only seen her during the trial—with her hair long and usually tucked in a beret. So she went out to the farmácia and got a dye to lighten her hair to blond. Then she braided it, Indian-style, and put on a baseball cap. With a little orange lipstick and sunglasses, she surprised herself.
“What do you think?”
“I think we take this a step at a time, Andie. I think it’s a good disguise.”
It wasn’t just acting a role now. It was the real thing. It was life and death.
They found a place to lure him easily enough. But with Cavello’s bodyguards always around, Nick had to be ready to come in fast. There was always a chance he might not get there in time. And then Andie would probably die. They would both die.
Nick bought a short, serrated blade, a fisherman’s knife. And a melon.
“You push the knife in here,” he said, showing her. He guided her thumb to the soft spot under her chin, pressing into her larynx. “It’ll stop him dead, make him helpless. He won’t be able to scream. He’ll be too shocked, and bleeding too much to do anything. There’ll be lots of blood, Andie. You have to be prepared for that. And you have to keep the knife in him. Until he dies. You think you can do that?”
She nodded tentatively. “I can do it.”
Nick handed her the sheathed blade. “You think so? Show me.”
She held it unnaturally. She’d never used a knife for anything except preparing food. She slowly lifted the blade, still in its sheath, to the spot under Nick’s chin. Pressed.
“Let me practice on the melon,” she said.
“Practice on me. Harder,” he said.
Andie pushed the blade with more force . . . into Nick’s throat.
He grabbed her wrist. “Quick—like this.” His hand jerked upward with a violent movement, scaring her, his thumb going right to the same point in her neck.
She let out a gasp.
“You have to be able to do this,” he said, applying more pressure, his voice hard. “If he suspects anything or recognizes you, this is what he’ll be doing to you.”
“You’re hurting me, Nick.”
“We’re talking about killing a man, Andie.”
“I know that, Nick!”
Nick let her go.
She held the knife until she grew comfortable with it, and it began to fit more smoothly in her palm. She thought of all the times she had wanted to do this to Cavello—in so many dreams that she’d had, over and over again.
She pushed the blade deeper into the spot Nick had showed her.
His head bent with the pressure. “Harder. One movement. What if this is all we have, Andie? What if you’re in there with him and I can’t get there to help?”
Andie jerked her hand and dug the blade under his chin. Nick’s head lifted. His face showed pain.
“Better.” He nodded and picked up the melon. “Now show me again. I want to see you stab this fruit hard. Kill Cavello, Andie.”
Chapter 115
DOMINIC CAVELLO’S WEDNESDAY had turned to shit.
He always looked forward to Wednesdays. By then he usually couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take feeling locked up on the remote farm like a prisoner in his own house.
Wednesday was the day he rocked the daylight out of Rita, the hot little tamale who worked at the Bar Ideal. But Rita wasn’t around today. The bitch was up in Buenos Aires, at some spic family thing.
So Cavello just sat there in Bar Ideal, nursing a warm beer and sausages, horny and frustrated as hell. For years he never, ever ate alone. He was always surrounded by his men, his business partners, dozens of them if he wanted, plus an assortment of pretty bodies. All he’d have to do was snap his fingers. Now he ate alone all the time.
He might as well be in a federal prison. Well, maybe not.
Cavello was thinking how he missed that sweet little thing he’d had back at the ranch. Mariella. What a shame that was. He thought of her satiny smooth ass, her baby tits. At least—and he chuckled aloud—I was the only one to do her!
Soon the snow would start, and it wouldn’t stop for months. It would be even harder to find distractions here then. He took another swig of shitty Argentine beer. He felt so trapped and bottled up, he wanted to kick over the table.
Times like this, back home, he’d snap his fingers and he could have all the women he wanted. Any age. Or put a gun in someone’s mouth and hear him beg for his life. Yes, he’d done that just for fun! He could do anything back home. He was Dominic Cavello. The Electrician.
These Incas had no idea who he was.
Cavello got up and tossed a few crumpled bills on the table. He went outside and nodded to Lucha and Juan, who were in the Range Rover across the street. He started to head up the hill in his black leather topcoat, his shoulders hunched against the stiffening wind.
Fuck. This. Shit.
With his bodyguards trailing, Dominic Cavello turned up the hill away from the port and headed toward Magellanes. Two dogs were barking, tearing at strips of meat from a tipped-over garbage can. Pretty soon, they would be fighting each other for the scraps. That was his amusement now. He pulled out his gun—shot one of the dogs. Felt better.
Then he turned on Magellanes. What else was there to do today except smoke a fat Cohiba and then go home?
Chapter 116
ANDIE’S CELL PHONE buzzed. She didn’t answer. She knew what it meant.
She turned to the short, mustached clerk in the cigar shop who barely spoke English. “These are the best, you say? They’re Cuban, right?”
“Sí, Señora, the best in the world. At any price.”
Andie nervously held out the two cigar boxes. Montecristos and Cohibas. She waited for the sound she knew would be coming, the little bell tinkling behind her—Cavello entering the store. A tingle of nerves danced down her spine. This isn’t some stupid play, she said to herself. You’re not on stage here. You have to calm yourself and do this right. You have to be perfect.
Finally, she heard the bell, then the whine of the door opening. Andie tensed but never looked behind. She knew who it was.
“But which is the best?” she kept asking. “It’s a gift for my husband, and they’re expensive. I’m not making myself clear, am I?”
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