The Shadow File (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 4)

by A. C. Fuller

  Still nothing.

  "Are you asleep?"

  She was and, minutes later, so was I.

  Part 2

  13

  The next morning, I was awake in time to catch a proper breakfast in Maria's exquisitely clean little kitchen.

  Tucked in around a small Formica table, we were served a large spread of bread, butter, fresh fruit, ham, tomatoes, and more coffee, along with glasses of a pink juice I couldn't identify. Greta tasted it and said it was papaya, which made Maria snigger indelicately. After some rapid back-and-forth that I couldn't follow, Greta laughed, too, repeating the phrase "fruta bomba, sí, fruta bomba."

  After returning to our room, as we got our stuff ready for the day, she explained that Cubans usually called papaya "fruta bomba" for the exact same reason that Americans don't call cats "pussies" any more. The word "papaya" had long since passed from being mere slang to standard vocabulary, so the fruit got renamed because otherwise nobody could eat breakfast without giggling.

  After another stroll through Old Havana, during which we had no signs from Innerva, we grabbed a quick lunch, then stopped in front of a stone building marked with a yellow sign with black lettering that read:

  Gimnasio De Boxeo Rafael Trejo

  A short, muscular man in a tank top called out from the doorway, "You wanna watch?"

  "Watch what?" I asked.

  "Boxing," Greta said, pointing up at the sign. "Boxeo. It's a gym."

  "I thought maybe it was a box store."

  The man laughed, though I don't think he understood me, so I concluded that he was laughing out of a habit of laughing at American tourists. He stepped aside as we walked in, but, as I tried to pass, he held out his hand and flashed me a smile that indicated, "How about a little something for my trouble?"

  I shoved a ten-CUC bill into his hand and followed Greta to a small rack of raised bleachers with a rickety staircase leading up to six rows of wooden benches. There was no roof on the place, but luckily we were shielded from the sun by a large building looming over the opening.

  As Greta chatted in Spanish to an old man sitting behind us, I watched the training.

  I'm not much of a fight fan, but I went to a couple heavyweight fights in Vegas years ago. So, while I didn't know for sure whether these fighters were especially skilled, I could tell they were lightning fast. Even the largest of the men, a muscular bald guy with a poorly done back tattoo, was much quicker than the heavyweights I'd seen. And it made sense because they seemed to be working on their footwork for the first half hour or so.

  When the man she was speaking with left, Greta said, "This is the oldest gym in Havana. He said that every great Cuban boxer, including multiple Olympians, have trained here. Some kids start training at age seven."

  "Hmm," I said, not especially interested because my attention was drawn to the trainer, who was setting up a sparring match between two of the fighters. They looked to be about the same weight, but one was taller and on the lean side, while the other was no more than five foot six, but thick like a barrel.

  As we watched, the two men danced around each other, throwing jabs, then stepping to the side cautiously. A trainer shouted instructions in Spanish, but he spoke too quickly even for Greta to understand. After two or three minutes, the smaller of the two men connected with a jab, then lunged in with a hammering combo, knocking the taller man to the canvas with an uppercut.

  The man was only stunned because he leapt to his feet, but the trainer was already in the ring, shouting instructions at both men. The fight was over, apparently, because the taller man tapped gloves with the smaller man and followed him out of the ring.

  "I was thinking," Greta said tentatively, as the trainer barked orders at his line of fighters.

  "About what?"

  "When we got back together, you told me that Innerva set up that app on your machine. What was it called?"

  "Collude."

  "Right, and…"

  She trailed off, and I noticed wrinkles forming on her forehead. The ones that meant she was worried about something. "Greta, what's bothering you?"

  "You told me…you told me everything about what happened with James, right?"

  "Yeah, I mean I think I told you everything."

  "You told me she said that it was military grade security. That she vowed revenge for James, and that she would only use that app. Right?"

  "Right."

  "What else did she say?"

  "That she was leaving the country. That there wouldn't be any funeral for James, but that there would be revenge."

  "Right, that's what I remembered you saying. And clearly, this ransomware attack is the revenge. Or, at least, it's a creative version of revenge, where she's focusing her rage on the whole system, rather than on Amand exclusively."

  She went quiet for a minute as another match began. Two smaller men were fighting now, neither over five and a half feet, and they moved like lightning in the ring.

  "What are you getting at?" I asked. "The letter with the tickets explained why she couldn't use the app anymore."

  "Did it really, though? You know Innerva better than me, but does it sound right to you that she'd say she'd only contact you on an app, then change that unilaterally?"

  "If she knew the app was compromised, that's exactly what she'd do."

  Greta crossed her legs and swung them up on the wooden bleachers, then turned to face me. "I know nothing about computers. I can barely get my iPhone to do what I want it to. But if she's one of the world's top hackers, and she was smart enough to hack into your laptop and install a military-grade messaging app on it—"

  "Greta," I tried to interrupt.

  "No! Hear me out. If she was smart enough to do that and smart enough to detect that Amand had accessed your laptop so the app was no longer secure, wouldn't she also be able to, I don't know, install a new app? A secure app?"

  "Maybe, but she might have figured out that Amand was mirroring my computer, pulling my screen and bouncing it to another screen, and watching."

  "Maybe," Greta said, but I could tell she wasn't buying it.

  "There are a million reasons she might not have been able to install a new app."

  "You work in a building with a hundred computers and smartphones, all connected to the Internet. I have a laptop. Our apartment has a business center. You're saying that she couldn't have found some way to connect with you electronically?"

  "Yes, it's possible. Amand and his people are as good, or almost as good, as Innerva. And if she was stuck in Dubai, or here, she might not have been able to find a way to contact me. I know what you're driving at, but there's no way those tickets weren't from her."

  For a few minutes, Greta shifted her attention to the boxing. Occasionally, she'd call out cheers in Spanish when one of the fighters did something impressive. The fight ended in an apparent draw after three rounds. Greta called out, "Gran lucha! Buen trabajo, hombres."

  The boxers laughed, and from the looks they gave her and the way they tilted their heads to talk in low voices, I guessed they were saying something about the fine-looking yanqui lady. I didn't mind. They were right.

  I turned to Greta. "I'm surprised you're so into boxing."

  "I'm not," she replied. "But I know good athletes when I see them, and these guys are putting in the work. I respect that." She turned to me and raised her eyebrows. "So?"

  "So what?"

  "So I know you were thinking about what I said about Innerva. What do you think?"

  She had me cold. I'd been going through every interaction I'd ever had with Innerva. Starting with the first time I met her, when she'd tracked me and James to Bainbridge Island to help us break a story during the 2004 election, all the way through the meeting I'd had with her in Vegas, when she'd told me James was dead and handed me the old hard drive he'd been killed for.

  "I don't know," I said, but, as Greta was fond of saying, I'm a terrible liar.

  "Yes, you do."

  The realizat
ion had been taking up residence in me slowly, and I was pushing it away. I didn't want to say it out loud.

  "You know you think it's odd," Greta said.

  I ran my hand along the cracked wooden bench. "Yeah, it's odd for her to reach out in a non-electronic way."

  "Thank you."

  "But Innerva has never been predictable. Plus, we're in an Internet desert out here. Maybe she lost access or something."

  "She had enough access to set up the largest ransomware attack in history from here."

  I slapped my palm on the bench, frustrated. "But she could have lost it. Necessitating sending paper tickets and a paper letter. Think about it, it's the last thing Amand and his crew would expect."

  This quieted her for a moment, but it didn't make me feel much better. I was still pretty sure that Innerva had sent the tickets. I was still pretty sure that she, or someone who worked for her, would find us wandering around Havana and tell us what the hell we were doing there.

  But I wasn't as sure as I'd been when I woke up that morning.

  And the fact that the gay couple from the cathedral was standing near the doorway of the gym—eyes locked on me—was shaking my confidence further.

  14

  They'd come in about a minute earlier and pretended to be watching the boxing match after I caught both of them staring in our direction. Like the day before, they wore typical tourist clothes—linen shorts and white, short-sleeved button-downs, but somehow they still looked out of place in the gym.

  One was pale white like Greta, but had short cropped black hair, and looked like he could have been a boxer himself. His legs were like tree trunks and I could make out his chest muscles from across the dusty gym.

  The other was black, with a bald head and stylish beard. He was shorter than the first and not as muscular, but, glaring at me from across the gym, he looked a lot meaner. Greta told me once about her "resting bitch face," a sullen, scowling expression she'd get sometimes when daydreaming or thinking. She assured me I shouldn't take it personally. This guy's eyes were bright white and seemed to be larger than normal. Or maybe his eyes were just open wide. In any case, if Greta had "resting bitch face," this guy had "resting hitman face."

  I hadn't noticed his eyes yesterday in the darkened cathedral, but now they had me worried. I nudged Greta. "Don't look right away, but the two guys from the cathedral are here. The guys we thought were a couple."

  Greta scratched her nose and casually glanced over. "That's odd."

  "More than odd, I think. They were staring at me."

  "Maybe they're looking for a threesome. You're an attractive guy, after all."

  I tried to find humor in what she was saying, but couldn't. Then I realized that I knew something she might not.

  "They were also in the restaurant. I asked you about it last night, but you were asleep."

  "They were? I didn't notice them."

  "I think they came in after you were two mojitos in. I didn't think too much of it, but now…"

  I trailed off, watching out of the corner of my eye as the two men took seats in blue folding chairs at the far end of the gym. As the larger guy sat, the chair creaked and nearly gave out.

  The trainer, who was in the ring demonstrating footwork to a group of boxers, turned suddenly. "¡No puedes sentarte ahí!"

  The white guy stood quickly, but the black guy stayed sitting and scowled at the trainer, who took a few steps across the ring and pointed a crooked finger at him. "¡No puedes sentarte ahí!" he repeated. "Combatientes solamente."

  The white guy leaned down and whispered something to the black guy, who kept scowling at the trainer.

  "He's saying you can't sit there," Greta called down from the bleachers. "Fighters only."

  The black guy looked up at Greta, expression still frozen in a look that alarmed me. He held her gaze for a second, then smiled abruptly and stood.

  I watched the two men retreat into the corner of the room and lean on the wall. They seemed content to watch from there, but I wasn't content to watch them watch.

  "Let's go," I said to Greta, as casually as I could.

  She eyed me for a moment, then took my hand. "Yes, let's get some lunch. I'll ask the guy at the door where we should go."

  As we left, I handed the man at the door another ten pesos and offered up my best "Gracias."

  Greta asked him, "¿Dónde podemos almorzar?"

  The man started answering in a Spanish so fast I couldn't make out a word. I shot a look into the gym, where the two men were still watching the boxers.

  When the man finished speaking, I checked to be sure that the two men weren't watching me, then took Greta's hand and gave a gentle tug.

  We walked for an hour, down alleys and side streets, past many beautifully broken buildings. We wandered through shops and stalls, then back along the same streets and alleys. It must have been over ninety degrees, and by the time I was sure the two guys weren't following us, we were both sweaty and hungry.

  "Can we eat now?" Greta asked, wiping her forehead with her shirt.

  "Yeah, sorry. Those guys creeped me out, and with what you were saying about Innerva, it made me worry that they were after us."

  "What if they were with Innerva?" Greta asked. "Maybe she sent them to meet us."

  "Nah. If she had, they would have come up to us."

  We stopped to look in the window of a market, where I could see that a third of the shelves were bare. But they had fresh pineapples and a fridge full of drinks.

  Greta was already following the scent of roast pork into the market. "How about we get some food and take it to our room? Because, air conditioning."

  We bought a few servings of pork with orange and garlic mojo, plus some drinks and a few different kinds of fruit. Sipping on bottles of water, we walked hand-in-hand to Casa Remedios, the smell of the garlic and cumin making me salivate.

  At the door to our room, Greta stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. "It's almost like we're on vacation," she said as I opened the door for her.

  "Almost," I said as she walked in in front of me.

  But before I could follow her in, she stopped, and I saw them.

  The massive white guy and the smaller, mean-looking black guy from the boxing ring. They were standing on either side of the bed. I grabbed Greta's arm and pulled her into the hall.

  I yelled, "Run," then threw my water bottle at the white guy.

  Greta dropped the food and her water bottle and ran. I stood in the doorway for a second, then bolted after her. She was halfway down the stairs by the time I made it to the top. The black guy, clearly the faster of the two, was right behind me as I leapt down a half flight of stairs and tumbled onto the landing.

  I stood quickly, trying to block the hallway so they couldn't pursue Greta, but the guy was already on top of me. He didn't have muscles like the other one, but when he punched my stomach, I wished I hadn't run.

  Doubling over, I spat up, then fell to the ground.

  "Alex, we're here to help you." He said it in a voice that was quieter and calmer than I expected.

  I didn't respond, and he pulled me to my feet as the white guy appeared at the top of the stairwell and asked, "Where's the girl?"

  "She ran out ahead. But she won't go far. She won't want to leave her man behind."

  I wanted to say, "You never know, she might," but instead I stood as straight as I could and wrestled my arm free. He let me go, probably knowing that there was no way I was going to overpower the two of them.

  "Here's what's going to happen," the black guy said. "We're going to walk out of here, Dex on one side of you, me on the other."

  "Dex?" I asked.

  "Dex," the black guy said. "And you can call me TJ. We don't want to hurt you, Alex."

  "You already did," I said, rubbing my ribs.

  "Here's what's going to happen," TJ repeated. "We're walking out of here and you aren't going to run or shout out or do anything other than walk around until we find Gret
a. Then we'll take you to speak with Amand."

  From the moment I'd seen them in the gym, the theory that Amand had sent them had been growing in me, and now I knew it was right.

  "Amand is in Cuba?" I asked.

  "Not exactly," TJ said, "but we have a way for you two to talk."

  "Did Amand send me the plane tickets?" I asked.

  They were marching me down the stairs, but I was holding back, walking as slowly as possible, trying to give Greta as much time as possible to get away.

  "We wouldn't know anything about that," TJ said.

  We emerged from Casa Remedios, shielding our eyes at the same moment as the midday sun hit our faces.

  When my vision returned, I said, "So, Dex, do you ever talk?"

  Dex said nothing, but suddenly something hard pressed into my ribs in the same spot TJ had punched me. I looked down and saw the barrel of a small black gun.

  "Where would she have gone?" TJ asked me, pressing the gun hard and twisting it slightly.

  I shrugged, but his look told me that wasn't going to be good enough. "Maybe she went to the restaurant from last night. She was fond of their mojitos. Did you try one? What about you, Dex?"

  He ignored me, and we continued walking away from Casa Remedios, Dex and TJ scanning the street and looking up alleys.

  I was doing my best to play it cool, but inside all I could think about were those damn tickets.

  I knew Amand had played me, and I felt like a fool. The tickets had arrived at my door five hours after I'd left Amand in the park. That meant he must have had the tickets ready during my meeting with him. He asked for my help, and when I told him to go to hell, he mentioned Dubai, then started threatening me. My guess was that Dubai had been a diversion. He'd wanted me to think that he was looking for Innerva in the wrong place, and wanted to make me think that the tickets were from her.

  He'd tried to get me to help him, and when I'd refused, he'd gone to Plan B.

  A couple blocks from Casa Remedios, TJ pressed the gun into my side. "It's in your interest to help us find her. We're a lot nicer than the other people who are looking for her."