by Glen Carter
“Take it easy,” the foreigner said, twisting the gun into Adriano’s side. Concentrating as best he could, Adriano snapped the wheel hard to the left, red-lining the engine as he downshifted. Cotton and sugarcane fields shot past, his life flashing beyond his reach, and for an excruciatingly indecisive moment Adriano considered turning the car around and killing them all, especially this one. He had slapped his woman and laughed in his face.
Adriano stomped on the brakes to regain control of the car. He would die and they would live. The foreigner had promised. And the honour of an evil man’s promise was all he could now offer his family.
Heads turned when the four large bodyguards walked into Café Umbria. Dark crew cuts and black linen suits, stepping gingerly around tables while they spoke quietly into their sleeves and eyed everyone with equal suspicion – even the teenaged girls cleaning tables.
Jack watched them, unable to see the VIP who was in their wake. He shoved his curiosity aside and noticed that Kaitlin was clearly preoccupied by something entirely different. She’d turned both sullen and anticipatory, to the point of distraction.
Kaitlin looked at him, offered a weak smile, and then drifted off again.
Jack understood perfectly what was on Kaitlin’s mind, and he didn’t blame her. Colombia was more than an assignment to her. It was the place where she was born. Her flesh and blood might still be alive here. Jack adjusted his watch so that it was perfectly positioned on his thick wrist and decided to make her an offer. “Why don’t you just stay for a few days?” he said. “You deserve the time off. And besides I can handle what needs to be done with the material once it’s in the can and back in New York.”
Kaitlin frowned. “Why would we want to do that?”
That surprised him. Professional pride, but more likely stubbornness, he guessed. Getting in the way of a great opportunity. “You know why.” He waited. She didn’t answer. “We can hire a private investigator. This is what they do,” said Jack. “All they need is a name and they run with it. We can find someone in the morning – before the drug lab thing – and get him working on it. Whaddya say?”
Kaitlin broke eye contact, picked up a fork and turned it over as if to inspect it for cleanliness. “I’d better stick with the job at hand. Thanks anyway.”
Jack was disappointed. Despite his desire to help, he knew better than to push the issue. “It was just an idea,” he surrendered.
Kaitlin offered a smile. “And I appreciate it a lot. Thanks again.”
There was no way she could tell him where she had gone that afternoon, her cab ride to the municipal building where they’d found no trace of a woman named Eva Mendoza. She’d been told that the records were kept in district offices, but civil record keeping was sometimes not the best depending on the town or village where the birth, death or marriage had occurred.
“Maradona,” Kaitlin had told the clerk at the counter, behind him, aisle upon aisle of dusty files stuffed on shelves that ran to a fourteen-foot ceiling, some shamefully spilling their documents.
“That’s near Santa Marta,” the clerk informed her. A bald chubby man in his fifties with a round face that seemed to inflate when Kaitlin smiled at him. “I know the notary public there. Perhaps if you left the relevant information I would be willing to make a call.”
Kaitlin gave him the information as well as the phone number for her hotel and he’d promised to call if he found anything useful. Perhaps, instead, they could meet for coffee, he had suggested.
Kaitlin reinforced her appreciation with a warm handshake, but told him a phone call would be fine. She thanked him, and then returned to the hotel.
It was about two hours later when the phone rang in her hotel room, but the voice on the other end wasn’t the records clerk Kaitlin had spoken to. For a full minute she listened, sitting carefully, her hand on her mouth. After some time the man asked her a question. Then provided instructions. And a warning. The call lasted no more than three minutes. Kaitlin couldn’t tell Jack about the phone call, and definitely not what she had to do now.
A waiter arrived with their wine. Jack tasted, nodded his approval, and waited while he filled their wine glasses and then disappeared. Kaitlin sipped, then circled the rim with a fingertip. “I’d feel better if we had something to show for today – except this dress,” she said.
Jack held her gaze. “Pietro’s shooting up in Bellavista. You remember? Two years ago that rebel rocket attack? That Italian guy fed us a couple of minutes and a double-ender the day it happened.”
“I remember. It was horrible.”
More than a hundred innocent civilians had died, including forty children. Now the village was trying to rebuild. It was good material for their story.
“We should be with him,” Kaitlin said. “Instead of…” Holding up her glass. “Fine wine, food. You know. I guess I feel guilty about being here.”
Jack removed his jacket. “Pietro’s used to working alone. Besides, he’s probably shot three tapes by now, so relax.” He tore apart a roll, careful to keep chunks of crust from scattering across the checkered tablecloth. “You’re gonna appreciate the down time and the good food when we’re knee deep in that cocaine lab with General what’s-his-name. No rest then. And we’ll be eating ether fumes.”
Kaitlin knew he was right, and appreciated the fact he was worried about her. “You’re a good man, Senor Doyle,” she said, passing him a small saucer of whipped butter.
“It’s what I’ve been telling you all along,” Jack said to her. “Keep the butter.”
Kaitlin pulled a strand of her long dark hair away from her full lips and laughed softly.
“Hungry?”
“Let’s order,” Kaitlin said.
He had always puzzled her, Kaitlin thought, watching him section his roll into tidy thirds, which he placed carefully on his plate. In some ways he was so organized, especially when under pressure. You needed to be in order to survive deadlines. But this was the same man who also wore odd socks and could misplace his car. Was he really as hard-shelled as he seemed? Not likely, Kaitlin suspected. There was that charity he spent time with. Teenaged drug abusers getting straight at a horse farm upstate. Kaitlin thought it would make a good feature story, but Jack wouldn’t hear of it. “The last thing they need is a camera shoved in their faces,” he had told her. “Besides, there’re lots of rich neighbours who barely tolerate the idea that drug addicts are living down the road. Suppose they’re afraid they’ll be murdered in their beds. Find a rehab that wants the publicity.”
She respected Jack’s enormous talent and hoped he also felt the same way about her. So far, though, it had been all business between them and Kaitlin wanted to keep it that way.
Jack’s cousin Frannie – whom she refused to call Mulligan like Jack – had condemned any notion of a romance.
“Don’t even go there,” Frannie would say to her, though she loved Jack deeply. “This is Jack, remember? Gotta-plane-to-catch Jack.”
Both of them would laugh at that, but once, after they’d uncorked their second bottle of wine, Kaitlin admitted she’d toyed with the idea.
“Then just fuck him, girl, and get it over with,” Frannie had slurred.
“Frannie!”
Kaitlin stared at Jack’s handsome face at Café Umbria and reconsidered her decision not to tell him about the phone call earlier. She rejected the notion a moment later. Besides, she didn’t know yet whether she believed it. She’d know before the night was over. Could it be true?
“What’s on your mind now, O’Rourke?” Jack said, picking up his menu.
“Nothing but good pasta,” Kaitlin said.
Jack smacked his lips. “I’m starved.”
“So am I,” she lied. In truth she was forbidden to tell him about the strange conversation she’d had that afternoon. The man on the phone had made things very clear to her and she planned to do as she was instructed.
“Solo, amiga,” the man had demanded. Come alone.
The f
oreigner spoke bad Spanish. “Not far now,” he said in his strange accent.
Adriano pulled hard to the left, causing the tires to slide sideways on loose gravel, then stomped hard on the gas to push the little car past sixty. He no longer felt the passage of distance or time.
When they reached the outskirts of the city the foreigner checked his watch. He then removed a cell phone from his pocket. A moment later he was speaking in a language Adriano didn’t recognize, and for a few seconds he was distracted.
The foreigner stabbed the gun at an approaching exit and barked at him.
To make the turn, Adriano bullied his way across three lanes of traffic. Tires screeched and horns blared as they shot beneath an overhead sign which led towards the old walled city. His legs shook. Sweat streaked his face and stung his eyes. Adriano prayed quietly and for a second was able to picture the tiny church in their valley, a home he knew he would never see again.
His tribal ancestors left legacies of gold and stone long forgotten on the minifundia where the others of Adriano’s kind gave in to leftist persuaders and their brash promises of a better life for the landless and the illiterate. Adriano was neither and could not believe in another man’s dream. Only his own. But he was about to commit a horrible sin for another man’s evil.
Jack raised his eyebrows as he watched Kaitlin gulp her Merlot.
“Thirsty, I guess,” she said, licking her lips. She glanced casually over her shoulder towards the door, then down at her watch. She took another sip.
“Expecting someone?” Jack wondered what the hell was going on.
“Is it that late? I think we’d better call Malone,” she replied. “I don’t think he was finished with us when he hung up today.”
“He’ll cool down. He has to. Simmons is behind us, and that means Malone has nothing to say in the matter.” Jack drained his glass and thought again about the call they’d made to New York. At first Jamie had been furious. It took Jack five minutes to calm him down, another five minutes before their executive producer began to warm to the Colombia story. Jack knew Frank Simmons was hovering nearby and when he was told of their insubordination, he laughed and shouted for Jack to hear, “Go get ’em, Jack.”
Jack looked at Kaitlin suspiciously. It wasn’t Malone she was worried about. She knew full well the newsroom pecking order.
Kaitlin leaned over and whispered, “Back in a minute.”
At that moment he was aware of the heat from her body, a hint of scent when she got up from the table and walked away. She looked back and smiled strangely before disappearing around a corner towards the washroom.
Jack sat there. What was that all about? He inventoried the possibilities but came up empty. He rolled the empty wine glass between his hands and decided, what the hell – relax – follow some of your own advice and enjoy the evening. Tomorrow was going to be a back-breaker of a day. Jack planned to cover the bullshit drug lab photo-op and then head into the mountains where Marxist insurgents were operating what was basically a protection racket for the cartels. They were all in it together – a multibillion dollar consortium of the greedy, and the brutal. That was the real story. He planned to pitch Kaitlin on the new elements of the yarn when she got back. In the meantime, the ambient clatter in the restaurant was peaking, muted voices and silverware striking fine china, the plucking of mandolin strings. Jack picked up another roll, unconsciously rubbed the taut muscles of his belly, and then dropped it again. He scanned the room. Lots of narco cash in tight silk and Italian suits. Big white smiles everywhere. Everyone was rich or well on their way. He’d seen the pride of exotic cars parked in the grid of alleyways that surrounded the restaurant – the Ferraris, Jags, and a couple of Lamborghinis, polished so brightly they seemed to throb with power.
“To Jaeger and Sasha.” An older gentleman at the table next to Jack’s raised a glass. He was wearing large sunglasses in candlelight. Jack turned at a commotion near the front door. Six men walked in, including the four who reconnoitered the premises earlier. They were apparently satisfied with what they saw because one of them said something into his cuff and a moment later a tall slender man with grey hair and glasses was ushered into the restaurant. He was followed by a woman and a young girl. Wife and daughter, Jack guessed. The three of them were swept along with the phalanx of bodyguards to a private dining room, trailing a wake of stares and murmurs. Jack recognized the man as Miguel Amillo, Colombia’s maverick justice minister. Jack wondered if Amillo would be part of the drug lab photo-op. Perfect! He’d score an exclusive interview aboard the VIP chopper. If he survived till then. This guy was one hell of a target and apparently had big balls given that he was threatening the drug lords with extradition to the United States. While other politicians would have gone into hiding, Colombia’s justice minister told a reporter he wouldn’t be intimidated by “thugs and criminals.”
Jack shouldered aside his uneasiness, moved the butter dish farther away from the candle’s flame, and wondered how long Kaitlin would be gone.
Adriano stopped the car exactly where he was told, between two parked cars at the end of a long narrow cobblestone street. On his left the owner of a jewelry store turned a handcrank in rapid circles, noisily lowering a metal cage in front of his shop. Farther down the sidewalk an enormous doorman ushered a pair of long-legged women into an English pub. Lilting laughter punctuated the click-clack of stiletto heels on wet pavement until the two beauties folded into the man’s thick arms and vanished in a blur of blonde hair and black leather inside the bar. Adriano looked with dread at the murderous cargo they’d placed carefully in the back seat. He thought again about his wife and two children. They would live. It was the only reason he’d been able to say goodbye, even when Miranda clung to him and begged him not to leave. That’s when the man had slapped her, and pressed the gun against her head when Adriano struggled towards him. Adriano would have surrendered his soul for a chance to kill him. Slowly.
The foreigner just sat there, staring at a restaurant at the end of the street. Waiting for what? Adriano saw men outside the restaurant. Five of them leaning against large black trucks parked at the sidewalk. Adriano guessed they had weapons. Men like them always did. Adriano could see the sign in front of the restaurant and wondered what kind of people ate there. Were they rich? Then he froze. Were there children inside? Suddenly overcome by shame and sadness, he buried the thought quickly and followed a string of soft lights that led to the front door of the restaurant.
After five minutes a man left the restaurant carrying what looked to Adriano like a case for an instrument of some kind. The man stopped briefly on the sidewalk to talk to the security men, then lit a cigarette and ambled up the sidewalk as the men watched him walk away.
The foreigner smiled. He spun his head to check the large greasy cache of explosives on the seat behind them. “Start the car,” he commanded.
Adriano hesitated.
“Fucking little monkey.” The foreigner reached into his shirt pocket and removed a shiny photograph, one of those instant pictures. Shoved it in Adriano’s face. “Mirar! Mirar!” he growled between clenched teeth, grabbing Adriano’s hair, painfully jerking his head back. “Your beautiful wife. Look.” The foreigner snapped his teeth together, sucked at air. “Your wife will live.”
The Colombian’s faced twisted. Sobbing, he pleaded. “Please, mister,” Adriano stared at the photograph – snot and spittle spraying on the front of his shirt. “Ilo hare…idejelos ir!”
“They live. You die.” The foreigner shook the photograph at Adriano. “For her! For the little monkeys!” The foreigner jerked the door open and climbed out into cooler air – inhaled long and deeply. He leered at the photo of the Colombian’s wife. Her naked body, a helpless mass of flesh and duct tape, eyes wide with fear with the gun barrel pressed to her temple. The foreigner quietly shut the door and bent to the open window. He nodded slowly and smiled. “When they start shooting – duck,” he said and was gone.
Adriano was not a
murderer. Until this moment. As he pushed down on the gas pedal he prayed again for forgiveness. Heart pounding, he struggled for air as the tiny car raced down the narrow cobblestone street. Adriano whispered their names on hot sour breath. Feeding his courage on the images of his wife and children. He knew he would die quickly, and so he didn’t fear any pain. All that mattered was they would live. Adriano wiped a ragged sleeve across his mouth, a shaking hand downshifted. They will live.
The armed men hoisted their weapons and fired. Too late. The car struck two of them, knocking them to the street where they rolled into the gutter – lifeless. The three others continued to fire. Bullets shattered glass and thumped through metal. Adriano crumpled sideways as the car flew onto the sidewalk. Plate glass crashed onto the hood in a thunderous concussion that drowned out the sound of screaming.
The tables closest to the window were crushed beneath spinning tires and hot exhaust pipes, scorching flesh and bone. The smell came to him. The horrible noise, so numbing he shrank from the terrifying scene and was strangely at the beach with his family, turquoise waves chasing the children from their doomed sand castles. Adriano moaned, as if coming awake. Bodies crested the car’s hood, headlights flashed on stunned expressions. The car stopped inches from a table full of people. A young dark-haired woman pulled herself from the wreckage, furiously wiping the front of her fine dress. She reached for a dinner napkin, incredulous at the red stain pumping from her jugular. Feet away her dinner companion was already dead.
The sounds of dying faded. Then came silence. It was Miranda’s voice Adriano heard. Little Antonia and Raul, too. They would live. He was able to picture them for only a second before a hand he couldn’t see stabbed a button on a small transmitter and sent Adriano Sarantis, a righteous soul, straight to hell.
The crash at the front of the restaurant was followed by a flash of blinding light. Then a deafening concussion which was like nothing Jack had ever experienced. The shock wave moved with incredible speed, crushing everything in its path. Bodies jerked like marionettes on invisible strings, spilling blood and entrails upon fresh crisp linen and shattered crystal.
