by Glen Carter
Ruiz chuckled. “A megalomaniac who taunted the Bush men.” He lazily lifted a sausage-like finger to touch the centre of his forehead. “Made himself a target.”
“And we haven’t?” Montello paused, looked with mild rebuke at the three of them. “We’ve become the monsters that this American president must defeat. It’s what the voters said to him. Choke off the supply. He will have Colombia’s permission to do what has to be done, you know that. It’s already begun. They have units here already. ‘Advisors.’ Last week those ‘advisors’ engaged FARC soldiers not fifty miles to the south of Bogotá. Thirty-two revolutionaries were dispatched without casualties to the enemy.” Montello lifted his head slightly to view the line of trees where clusters of heavily armed bodyguards stood watch. Each of the three drug barons was under escort by large protection details. There had been twenty-nine men in all, twelve fewer now by Montello’s calculations. Ruiz had no clue his men were gone. He was both stupid and blind. No different really than the pathetic cowards who begged for Montello’s mercy while he kicked them into unconsciousness and stole their money in the dark alleys where he hunted as a teenager.
For a moment none of them spoke. Montello could see the doubt beginning to lay roots in them, even Ruiz, whose perpetual smile was fading behind the fleshy folds of his face. Though in his eyes, a flicker of challenge.
“The Americans have no stomach for body bags. No guts for another useless war,” Ruiz insisted.
Montello allowed the statement to settle, to find its place among them. Allowed them to sample its flawed logic, and unsound reason, to mine whatever false hope they could extract from it. When Montello spoke again it was as if arrows had launched towards Ruiz, pinning him to dark oak.
“The Americans have no tolerance for dead children either.” Montello watched their reactions closely, saw eyes narrow in stern faces. “They’re dead because your cousin did something which was totally unnecessary, and phenomenally stupid. We’ll all pay now.”
The two others waited for the fat man to defend himself, which would have been a stupid and useless gesture at best.
Ruiz said nothing, just stared at Montello like he’d been slapped. A challenge that had to be met.
Bonito was longing for her knife, the heft of it. She imagined the feel of its blade melting through layers of fat. She brought her fingers to her face, ran a nail along that part of the scar that began just below her earlobe. Blood seemed to be pulsing there. Ruiz was an idiot who threatened them all.
“I am prepared to die to protect my country,” Ruiz said, folding fat arms across his massive chest.
What a fool, Montello thought. No one would win that kind of fight.
Even the former Soviet Union, with its mighty nuclear arsenal had eventually surrendered. But the Americans had made the mistake of calling it a “war on drugs.” Wars have winners and losers and coca could not be defeated. For a long time it had been used legally around the world, as a cure-all in everything from wine to sinus medicine. Even American drugstores had once dispensed it in its purest form to recreational users. No. Coca could not be defeated.
Montello doubted Ruiz would ever understand the stupidity of his bluster. “Noble gesture, Carlos,” he finally said. “But, irrelevant.”
Ruiz burned his eyes into him, stubby fingers drained of their blood as he pulled himself forward in his chair. “You ignore my family’s brave history.”
Montello appeared calm and confident but beneath the façade boiled pure anger. He gripped the arms of his chair to keep from lunging at the fat man who was now testing him. “Long dead soldiers, Carlos. Another time. Noble then, not now.”
“You insult their legacy,” Ruiz responded, his face reddening. “That means you insult me.”
“Noble and perceptive, as well as stupid,” Montello challenged, coldness gathering in a steely gaze.
The fat man seemed to be calculating something. He twisted his thick neck to scan the tree line, saw immediately that something was wrong, and seemed to deflate before their eyes. He recognized none of the men holding the guns, his bodyguards were nowhere to be seen. Twelve of them, gone. A sheen of sweat appeared on his ruddy forehead like the dawn’s dew on a granite headstone. Shiny white teeth disappeared behind sneering lips as if they had never existed. He turned to look at the others, saw the deception. Understanding fired in his eyes like a magician’s flash paper – then turned to hatred as black as soot. “Fuck you,” he was able to say in the second before Branko Montello casually dropped his napkin to the ground as a signal. The rifle shot echoed like a cannon across the finely manicured landscape, shock waves shimmered across an acre of glass at the back of the mansion, and from one window on the second floor a puff of smoke emerged from the end of a weapon that never missed its target. Hernan Suarez slowly drew the weapon inward and disappeared into the room’s shadows.
The fat man seemed now to be laughing, but the white teeth were gone, so were his lips and half of Carlos Ruiz’s lower face. A large red gaping hole, a final, jovial, open-faced guffaw for the fat man.
Montello felt no need to disguise his satisfaction. Neither did Bonito or Alvarez. Bonito would have smiled if she could have. But her mirth was stymied by a deep paralysis that had been slashed into her face a decade ago. Instead she picked up a napkin to wipe droplets of splattered blood and pulverized flesh from her clothing. She then looked directly into Branko Montello’s eyes.
“You’ve made your point,” she said.
EIGHT
Her legs pumped like pistons. Footfalls noiseless atop a thousand years of forest decay. Sweat snaked down her face as she ran, clutching tightly what wasn’t hers.
It was as sad as anything she had ever known that she would die so soon after becoming wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. It was much more depressing than dying poor, though death without friends was a pathetic end. In her relatively young life, Mercedes Mendoza had never known family, but she had a bounty of friends. In their mourning, her death would not be pathetic.
She gasped for air. Her heart on wings – like a raven burst from her heaving chest. Mercedes punched through foliage that raked her skin, a wet earthy blur that mimicked the passage of her life. In the fragment of a second, a bullet sliced humid air. Deathly close. Mercedes screamed. Ducked lower as she ran.
Faster!
The men chasing her were Montello’s. Out-of-shape goons ruined by cocaine. Mercedes shot a desperate look behind, saw one them drop to his knee. The flash of a muzzle was followed by another bullet. It thudded into a tree as she swept by, cleaving slivers of ballistic wood against her face, making her cry out in pain. Two more rounds struck. Drilling into ground near her feet. Dirt pummeled her bare legs, driving her faster through the thick, moist jungle.
Mercedes cursed her luck, wondered how everything had gone so wrong. Gaining access to the estate hadn’t been a problem, neither had his study. Quivering, she had punched in the combination, and then with trembling hands she had stuffed her satchel with unbelievable riches. Montello must have discovered the empty safe and then sounded the alarm. Maybe he had known all along and allowed her to bolt for the pleasure of the chase. This was not the time to think about it.
Angry shouts in the forest behind her.
They’re closing.
A heartbeat later the killers went quiet. The rush of blood inside her head became a deafening roar. Instead of relief, Mercedes surrendered to dread, then terror as she realized they were forming a net from which escape would be impossible. She thought about dumping the satchel. That’s what they wanted. No! She clung to the bag more tightly. All or nothing, she decided, as she ducked beneath the limbs of an ancient tree and was swallowed within its shadowy embrace.
A minute passed. Mendoza’s pace slowed as she frantically considered her next move. She could go to ground, find cover until nightfall. Pray they’d give up the chase. She shook her head. That was suicide. Mercedes sprang forward, tensed at the report of another rifle shot. The explosive ech
o created chaos in the canopy above her. A rainbow of wings blurred upon panicked flight. The macaw, the golden parrot and other spectators to her final earthbound moments. Mercedes wished her escape could be so easy.
A short moment later she broke into sunlight, a second wind driving her onward. Her feet pounded the jungle floor for another two hundred yards. She was still moving. Still alive. Her arms and back were drenched in sweat. Frantically, Mercedes spun right and left, tensing at the sight of two hulking forms closing the distance. Their weapons coughed flame and a bullet whizzed past, so deathly close its tiny wake caressed her cheek. The assassins sneered, shouted angrily.
Suddenly there was a new sound. She shuddered when she saw its source. A black silhouette hovered directly overhead, crushing what remained of her hope. A machine gun appeared at the helicopter’s open cockpit. Mercedes froze, wasting valuable time as the aircraft maneuvered to a better firing position. Frigate birds erupted from the nearby brush, squawking as they fluttered to higher perches against the maelstrom borne of the beast’s downdraft. Terrified, she spotted a figure leaning through the open cockpit door, his face full of menace. Orange fire spat from his weapon – relentless.
Think!
A split second later, Mercedes bolted from cover. Dashing towards thicker brush while bullets snapped at her heels. There was only one way to escape, and Mercedes winced when she saw it. A deep ravine studded with gnarled trees and jagged rock. She stood at the precipice, swayed in the updraft of cool air.
Safety.
The helicopter began its descent – thunderous in her ears. Waves of compressed air beat down upon her. The weapon barked, a rabid animal baring yellow teeth.
Do it!
Mercedes leapt into the ravine and disappeared into a darkness that held life or death. She cried out in pain as branches and rock tore at her body. Slugs slapped into the trees behind her as she curled into a ball, tumbling endlessly downward.
She would not hear the large airborne beast as it increased power and dipped its nose towards the abyss which had swallowed its doomed prey.
NINE
Branko Montello could hardly believe his eyes. He moaned softly, a plaintive dry sound that was absorbed within the open safe. He reached inside to touch the spot where they had been, allowing his hand to linger there as if plumbing the extent of her betrayal. He then slammed shut the thick lead door, massaged the loathing from his face, and cursed her.
Montello moved swiftly into the hallway, nearly colliding with his chief of security. Hernan Suarez was sweating and breathless.
“We had her on motion sensors and video.” Suarez fought for oxygen. “She made her run during a shift change. Unfortunately, it was to her advantage.”
Montello studied the Uzi strung across his security chief’s shoulder. “Show me her body,” he demanded. Clenched teeth.
Suarez seemed not to hear. He wiped rivulets of sweat from the side of his face. “Nanez was already in the south quarter when he spotted her. We weren’t thirty seconds behind.”
Montello folded his arms in warning. Suarez gulped. “We engaged her, but there’s no blood trail.”
“The body!” Montello spat, unwilling to accept what he was hearing. “I boarded the chopper personally,” Suarez assured him. “And we spotted her at the ravine.”
Montello sensed a possible shift in the outcome. Maybe Suarez had gotten lucky. The chopper would already have been in the air patrolling the jungle around the villa when Suarez called it in.
“The fuel light,” Suarez continued, seeming to shrink in advance of what he had to say next. “The pilot was already on vapours when he landed to pick me up. Two minutes later we had to break off the pursuit.” Suarez stepped back in anticipation.
Montello slapped the wall. The sound reverberated through the empty hallway outside his study.
Suarez wisely paused before reporting that Range Rovers were continuing the hunt, but so far his men had found no trace of her.
“She dies, or you die,” Montello said evenly, before cursing her again.
TEN
Miraculously, she was alive. Though Mercedes Mendoza had tumbled hard. Her hair was matted with dirt and blood. Her limbs were scraped and bloodied in a half-dozen places. As she lay there, shock set in, sending shivers through her entire body.
Mercedes breathed deeply, grateful she hadn’t broken anything, though her head hurt and her ears were ringing, leading her to suspect she might have blacked out for a second. Carefully she sat up and began to take stock of her situation. The satchel lay next to her, still intact. The sun hung nearly directly overhead, causing her to squint when she looked skyward. The helicopter was gone and on the ridge above she heard nothing of her pursuers. Why had they broken off the pursuit? Mercedes struggled with understanding. Eventually, she surrendered to the mystery. What mattered was she was alive. Painfully so. Her ankle throbbed. She rubbed it for as long as she could and then, grabbing the satchel, she rose unsteadily.
It took her ten minutes to reach the main road, a serpentine stretch of black pavement that already shimmered with the oppressive morning heat. She moved as quickly as she could, hugging the tree line, and twice she darted into the cool underbrush to hide from passing cars. Her ankle throbbed and Mercedes wanted to sit. But that would be a deadly mistake. Montello’s men would be aboard Range Rovers by now, continuing the hunt.
Five minutes later she found the spot where Nestor had promised to leave the car. Mercedes breathed deeply, relieved to see a headlight protruding from beneath a camouflage of thick heavy palm leaves. The car was well hidden about fifteen feet from the highway, just as the gardener had said. Nestor had taken a great risk, and although he had wanted no payment, Mercedes made a silent promise to take care of the man and his family. His daughter had been one of Montello’s housekeepers, until recently released. Nestor had not told her the reason, though Mercedes could tell he was deeply troubled. It was the hard cold look in his eyes when he spoke about it that made her decide to trust him. He’d asked no questions and eagerly agreed to do what she asked. The car would be there.
The keys were in a small magnetic box beneath the rear bumper. Mercedes pulled them out and opened the trunk. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the small suitcase stuffed next to soiled rags and an old gas can. Mercedes tugged it from the trunk and threw it into the back of the car. She placed the satchel on the floor behind the driver’s seat and covered it with a small patchwork blanket she found on the rear seat.
Mercedes prayed the engine would start, and after growling in protest, on the third try, it coughed to life. Thank you, God. She stomped on the gas, spraying dirt and rocks as the little car leapt onto the pavement. Mercedes knew Branko’s men would be close behind and the thought of them made her lean forward as if that would make the car go faster. If she was going to live Mercedes had to find the old road. Nestor had told her about it. “A wooden gate three kilometers up the highway,” he instructed. “That’s the way in.”
Mercedes balled her fists as the engine revved. She had to find the gate, knew that the gate was life. Please, please. Any minute she’d see the Range Rovers in her rear-view mirror, and the barrel flashes that would end her life.
The gate. Quickly.
It was another five excruciating minutes before Mercedes spotted it, hidden beneath vines and tall bushes. She wanted to scream with joy when she saw the gate and the entrance to the abandoned road. It was long forgotten, except by the old gardener who had traveled it hundreds of times when his back was still strong enough to harvest the hundred-year-old shading royal palms for which the resort owners paid a king’s ransom. Mercedes was well along the hidden road before she felt she could breathe again. Still, she kept one eye on the rear-view mirror and the other on the narrow stretch of gravel that would take her twenty miles to the main highway again. The farther she traveled from Montello’s villa the safer she would be, the better her chances of survival.
Mercedes wanted music, any music wo
uld do. She fumbled with the knobby radio dials, and a moment later loud music drowned out the monotonous thrum of the four-cylinder engine and the splash of grit and gravel against the bottom of the old rusty car.
Mercedes tried to relax as the hand drums of the cumbia carried her backward in time, to the day in her friend’s apartment. The cumbia was Selena’s favourite music, and for the first time that day, Mercedes actually smiled.
ELEVEN
“This is my music, amiga.” Selena Santos had beamed with pride, glowing white teeth against her perfect mulatto skin. “The music of my people. We were slaves.” Selena rolled her hips, ample breasts thrusting to the beat. “Came on the last boat a hundred fifty years ago to work the plantations and sugar mills.” The cumbia left her trance-like, swaying rhythmically.
Mercedes didn’t believe a word of it, and as she drove on Nestor’s hidden road she remembered that she had laughed at Selena. “You were no slave. No slaves in your family either.” She also remembered what Selena had said next. “Uncle Orlando said his grandfather had scars. Cane strips up and down his back. Slaves, Mercedes. I still have relatives in Choco where most of them took their freedom.”
What nonsense. They had been in Selena’s apartment. Her hideaway in Cartagena which was a world away from Nelson Mandela City where the ancestors of real slaves lived in squalor. Refugees of the jungle war.
Mercedes had laughed at her friend who always managed to make her feel better. They’d been like magnets since the orphanage, but to Sister Evangeline they were “the instigator and the imp.” Mercedes thought about the first time she heard it, covered head to toe in thick mud. They’d been at a swimming hole near the orphanage, a forbidden place where both girls had spent a hot afternoon splashing around in the cool water. Mercedes had an idea. “Real sisters should at least be the same colour,” Mercedes had said to her best friend slyly.
