by Glen Carter
Jack stared out the window at an approaching coastline. He’d already made a couple of phone calls to his contact at the American embassy in Bogotá. Could he have ten minutes face time with the Ambassador? What were the chances of an interview with the DEA honcho? Not surprisingly, the press attaché had been noncommittal, though Jack was confident that things would line up nicely once they were into the story.
As the Citation jet banked hard Kaitlin looked at Jack with a worried expression. “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” she said. “Malone’s not gonna like the fact we left the funerals to McCoy, and Carmichael is going to kick our asses.”
Jack, on the other hand, was betting Carmichael was still enough of a journalist to appreciate the initiative, the enterprise. “When Walter was in Nam he basically refused to even acknowledge the fact he had an assignment editor – did his own thing for months on end without even taking messages from him. He still loves to talk about how he ran his own show,” said Jack. “Pissed off the ‘tall foreheads’ back in New York.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I think so.”
“Doyle you–”
Something thumped beneath their feet.
Kaitlin squeezed the armrest.
“Landing gear,” Jack chuckled. “We’re about to land.”
The executive jet was buffeted hard as it descended. Kaitlin closed her eyes and whispered a prayer. “It’s OK for you, Jack,” she said after a moment. “You’re the star. You can afford to be petulant. They’ll just slap you on the wrist. Me, on the other hand…” Kaitlin allowed the sentence to trail off. Doubt joined the apprehension that laced her face. “I’m screwed.”
Jack looked into her eyes and remembered the promise he’d made to her father. A promise he intended to keep. “Simmons is gonna love it,” he said after a second. “And Malone won’t stand up to Simmons. Malone will say ‘yes sir, it’s a great idea. Send our man Jack into Colombia before the other guys know what hit them. One step ahead. Exclusive story.’” Jack gave her a reassuring look. “Simmons will love it – so Malone will love it. Don’t worry anymore about it. Case closed.”
“If you say so,” Kaitlin said uncertainly. Anyway she was done with the subject. What was the point? Jack would have his story. She’d probably be fired and that would be the end of it. In the meantime, there was a shoot to set up. That was her job, and she intended to do it. Kaitlin slung open her laptop.
Jack smiled inwardly, certain she would come around. He looked down. The Citation’s shadow streaked across the Caribbean Sea. Frothy waves lapped at white sand, and even at their current altitude he could see the customers at a number of palm-thatched beach restaurants. A fleet of snorkeling boats bobbed lazily on glistening cerulean water thick with coral in stunning hues of pink and green.
The pilot increased power to level the aircraft, then banked hard left. “Five minutes more we’ll be on the ground,” Jack said, tightening his seatbelt.
Kaitlin did the same, though it did nothing to diminish a growing sense of unease that had seeded in her gut the moment they boarded the aircraft in New Orleans. At first she thought the feeling had everything to do with their renegade detour to Colombia. Another of Jack’s adventures that would have a happy ending. It’s what Kaitlin told herself again and again though she was still unable to shed her anxiety.
The Citation bumped gently onto the runway, and for a fleeting second Kaitlin O’Rourke wanted to race to the cockpit and tell the pilots to add power, to gain speed again and lift off for home. To escape whatever was waiting for them. Whatever was waiting for her.
It was while they were being processed through customs a short time after landing in Cartegena that Jack noticed the strange looks. Lingering stares at Kaitlin that made Jack uncomfortable. The customs officer who took her passport demonstrated a special interest. His head bobbed from her passport to her several times before he muttered something and stamped Kaitlin’s documents.
Kaitlin didn’t seem to notice. Within minutes of clearing customs she was working her cell phone, trying to confirm that the freelance shooter from Bogotá was on his way. Her plan was to try and get an interview with General Rosso Jose Serrano, a reportedly incorruptible police commander who had led a team of commandos against Pablo Escobar’s mighty drug empire. The guy had juice and Kaitlin knew he’d be more than happy to cooperate with the gringo news network if it meant some positive PR.
They rode in air-conditioned comfort through Las Murallas, the parapet walls that had protected the old city for more than three centuries. Sunshine broke through low clouds, bathing brightly coloured outdoor cafes and cobbled plazas that stretched to the Convento de San Pedro Claver, a 17th century convent that was home to the monk Pedro Claver. She told Jack he was the first person to be canonized in the New World. Kaitlin smiled at the sight of Cartagena’s stately old mansions with overhanging balconies and shady patios, the legacy of Spanish colonialists. Jack remained silent while she absorbed it all, every brick, every hue, every square inch of stucco in a bewildering maze of shades and shapes. “Jack,” she said, “it’s beautiful.”
Jack nodded.
A moment later Kaitlin’s cell phone chirped. She took the call and when she hung up announced the general was available to be interviewed the next afternoon. He asked if the gringo reporter cared to see how Colombia dealt with the blight of cocaine labs. They’d tour one the next day – watch his soldiers burn it to the ground. Two gunships would accompany the general’s private chopper. He assured her that danger was nonexistent. Jack smiled his agreement, and of course Kaitlin was ecstatic, getting into the groove now as things were beginning to shape up. “I’ll make some other calls. And maybe this afternoon we can knock off some of your standups.”
“Standups?”
Kaitlin had the upper hand now. “There’s a clinic in the centre of town that treats campesinos addicted to coke. It’ll be great stuff.” Kaitlin flipped open her laptop and began typing furiously. “Though we’ll wait till we get to the drug lab to do the opener and closer.”
Jack reached up to close her laptop. “There’s lots of time.”
“And lots to do,” she replied testily.
“Eventually, yes,” Jack said, tapping the cabbie on the shoulder. He had a detour in mind before they reached their hotel. “There’s only one thing we need to do right now,” he said, smiling like a devil.
TWENTY-ONE
Café Umbria was highly recommended by the hotel concierge while Jack checked them both in. He was friendly enough, but stared too long at Kaitlin. Jack watched him watching her as she rolled her suitcase towards the elevators. “Say again,” Jack said tersely.
The concierge turned to him. “It’s a favourite of this hotel. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.” He offered to make reservations for seven o’clock.
Jack told him seven-thirty, then added, “A guy’s gonna be here in about an hour asking for me. Send him to my room when he gets here, please.”
“As soon as he arrives, senor,” the concierge responded, catching another glimpse of Kaitlin before she disappeared inside the elevator.
“What’s up with him?” she said when Jack pushed his way through the doors.
“Who knows?” he replied. “It’s like he zoned out for a moment. Either that or he was mesmerized by your beauty.”
Kaitlin caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored elevator. She needed a shower and fresh clothes. She felt sluggish. It was three days since she’d clocked a five-mile run. Tomorrow, she decided. In the meantime she couldn’t wait to pour herself into the new dress she’d bought. Kaitlin had protested when the taxi pulled up in front of the exclusive dress shop in the El Laguito district – Jack’s detour. She was reluctant to buy the dress at first, but when Jack insisted, she decided to treat herself.
“Two weeks’ pay,” she intoned. “Let’s get out of here.”
Two hours later Jack arrived at her room and knocked, then stood there like a prom date feelin
g slightly foolish.
“I still think it was too expensive,” Kaitlin said after opening the door and studying his reaction, “but, oh well.”
Jack was speechless. The dress was cut low and slim and revealed every curve of Kaitlin O’Rourke’s beautiful body – a cream-coloured satin that seemed to morph into flesh where it was taut against her hips and flat tummy. Kaitlin’s hair was swept back and up in a fashion that made Jack wonder why he’d never noticed the gentle lines of her face, her shoulders and the transition between her delicate throat and the heave of her breasts. She was gorgeous, and Jack was thankful she’d relented and bought the dress.
It took ten minutes for the taxi to travel from the Santa Clara Hotel in the old city to the Boca Grande district where Cape Umbria was located near Avenida San Martin. It was a busy tourist area full of outdoor patios and tropical gardens. The hot humid air was thick with the smell of meat searing on charcoal fires. Jack breathed it in.
They walked a cobblestone street and Kaitlin was quiet. Occasionally she stopped to speak Spanish with old women who sold jewelry made of seashells and coral. Jack saw the curiosity in Kaitlin’s deep brown eyes as she casually scrutinized those old faces, listening for nonexistent clues in the sound of their voices. Jack knew what Kaitlin was wondering – understood her inquisitiveness.
They were standing on the sidewalk outside Café Umbria when she spoke next. They’d been watching a lovers’ sunset that left them both feeling a little awkward.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Kaitlin finally said.
“I was wondering when you’d bring it up.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about her,” she continued.
“I’m not surprised,” Jack said.
“Not now. OK, Jack?”
“Sure, Kaitlin.” Jack thrust his hands inside his pockets. “I understand.”
They stepped beneath a stone archway and walked to the front door, past the milky light of soft patio lanterns. Jack sensed edginess in her, could feel it in her back as he led her towards the door. Something suddenly unnerved him about her mood. She had been on the phone when he went to her room to collect her. Before he knocked he heard her, speaking to someone about something that didn’t sound like business. Now he was wondering about the call. When he asked her about it she told him it was the front desk. “Wondering if I’d be staying in for dinner. Would I need reservations somewhere?”
Strange, Jack thought, since he had already asked the concierge to make reservations at Café Umbria for the both of them.
As usual Jack was able to talk his way to a great table. It was in a stone nook with hanging vines situated in an open-air courtyard at the back of the restaurant. Half a dozen tables closest to them were buzzing with conversation, while a legion of waiters darted around like schools of fish. The maîtred’ left them with menus. “Smells great,” Jack said.
Kaitlin nodded as she surveyed the restaurant, taking in the atmosphere, the odours of freshly baked bread and garden herbs, steaming plates of pasta and flaming desserts that smelled of caramel and vanilla. A huge basket of big red roses and yellow lilies hung nearby.
Jack remembered they were the flowers that Kaitlin loved. He watched her checking out the other women, but it was Kaitlin who had turned heads on the way to their table. “Wine first?” he said.
“Wine sounds great.”
Jack straightened his tie, checked the knot and gave her a stupid grin. Was it hot in here?
Kaitlin saw his discomfort and smiled to herself. “What about Pietro?”
He informed her of Pietro’s arrival. The cameraman had shown up demanding two thousand American dollars a day, especially if they were going to be flying with the Colombian army. “FARC has now an arsenal of shoulder-mounted stingers, thanks to the Russians,” Pietro announced grimly over a beer in Jack’s hotel room. Suicidio.
“Is he with us?” Kaitlin asked.
“Yeah, he’s with us,” Jack responded, continuing to read something strange in Kaitlin’s tone. He ignored it. “At two grand a day he better be.”
Kaitlin had already turned her attention to a troubadour playing a mandolin in the corner, serenading a beautiful young couple who listened in rapt silence.
“Merlot OK with you?”
“Sure, Jack,” Kaitlin replied. “Whatever.”
Jack looked at her quizzically and then caught the waiter’s attention.
The newlyweds at the other table were holding hands, eyes locked over a crystal goblet that sparkled from the light of a stout candle.
Another awkward moment intruded. Kaitlin smiled and then allowed her gaze to fall away, somewhere between the olive oil and a basket of bread. Pinpoints of light reflected from her eyes.
“Something on your mind?” said Jack.
“Tomorrow, I guess. Probably all this talk of rebels with missiles.”
Jack understood her concern but they were being escorted on the flight to the drug lab by some pretty impressive firepower. “Have you ever seen what a gunship can do?”
“Yes. And that works as long as we see them before they see us.” Kaitlin reached for the menu.
Jack watched as she read. It was startling the things he’d not noticed before. Her long lashes and sensuous almond-shaped eyes. Too late he realized he was being obvious.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Did you confirm our interview at that drug clinic?”
“Yes, as I already told you, remember?”
“Good,” Jack replied. Shit.
Why the hell did he feel like a high school kid on a first date? His mind pulled him back to that day on the island and one of those rare times they had actually run into each other. It seemed funny to Jack how he could still remember the flush that swept through his body when he spied the astonishing Kaitlin O’Rourke – the woman. He was sitting on his sailboat at the marina Kaitlin’s father owned. Another war assignment was done and Jack’s world was righting itself again. His thirty-two foot ketch, Scoundrel, and that saltbox of a house where he grew up were the reasons he was home again. Bark Island. Always home, no matter what.
“I heard you were back,” Kaitlin had said to him that day, stopping at the transom of his boat to say hi. She was wearing faded blue jeans and a T-shirt, and when Jack looked up at her the book he was reading just tumbled out of his hands like his fingers were fashioned from slippery wood. The long-legged wide-mouthed kid had blossomed into something special.
Jack took a moment to align his words in a doomed plan to play it cool. “Argus says you’re home for a good time…I mean for good this time.”
An embarrassing millisecond passed between them.
“Don’t know yet,” Kaitlin replied a little too quickly. “I guess you could say I’m considering my options.”
They both smiled at that and Jack allowed the moment to spend itself as he tried to recall the small-town newspaper she wrote for. Somewhere near Seattle, he thought. Eventually he gave up and invited her aboard. “Got some great steaks from the butcher and the beer’s cooling down below,” he said. “I promise, no shop talk. How about it?”
Kaitlin shifted her long legs in a gesture that caused fireworks to explode inside Jack’s head. After that, the rejection was nearly too much to bear. “I promised Dad I’d straighten out his books tonight. Thanks anyway.”
Jack ate alone that night.
Kaitlin did too. Her father couldn’t account for twenty-six hundred dollars. But Kaitlin’s mind wasn’t on the money. Jack was, the slightly arrogant, Emmy-winning network reporter who had liked what he’d seen and had casually invited her to dinner. Sorry Jack. Kaitlin O’Rourke could have postponed the bookkeeping, but she chose not to. The last thing she needed was the complication presented by Jack Doyle, who would probably be gone before the week was out. A man whose world existed somewhere else, save for the rare trips he made back for his boat.
A week later Jack was on a plane for peace talks in Ireland.
TWENTY-TWO
Adriano Sarantis drove like a demon towards his own death. Cursed for the legions of Spaniards slaughtered by his people centuries ago. His ancestors were eventually sliced into ribbons of flesh and trampled beneath the thundering hooves of the enslavers’ obsidian mounts.
Now Adriano Sarantis was about to join them.
The man sitting next to him jabbed a gleaming silver revolver hard into his ribs. “Vamos,” he grunted. “Vamos, my little friend.”
Adriano gasped in pain.
In the distance, the city seemed dreamlike to him, a blanket of coloured lights, vile and full of whores and cocaina. He was a good man whose only sins, until this moment, were the little white lies he told his wife to make her feel young even though she was not yet twenty-three. The foreigner had promised to spare his family, a promise Adriano clung to as mightily as he gripped the steering wheel.
It was the two large ones who had scared the children the most after the first one kicked in the door to Adriano’s house, splintering wood across the kitchen as they ate supper. That’s when they strong-armed Adriano to his knees, causing Miranda and the children to scream. Raul made a hopeless run at them. Brave boy – a fighter already. They simply swept him aside and then pointed their weapons at his head. Big ugly cowards against a nine-year-old.
The foreigner had grabbed the back of Adriano’s neck, squeezed hard and yanked his face up. “You die. They live,” the foreigner said, pressing a gun to the side of Adriano’s head. “Easy choice, amigo.”
It was agony for him to leave his wife and children with the two large ones, but what choice did he have? He rubbed the pewter crucifix that hung on a thin strip of rawhide around his neck and then downshifted into a sliding right-hand turn.
