Captive Dove

by Leon, Judith

  But in the darkness, shortly before eight, their trip took a turn into nightmare. Fifteen heavily armed men boarded their boat.

  One of the men, Carlito Gomez, had until now never been much farther than fifty kilometers from his own home in southern Brazil. He stood, bloody machete in hand, over the corpse of the man he’d just killed. The dead man, identified to Carlito and the others by a photo they had brought with them, lay face down on the floor of the cruise boat’s main cabin surrounded by the nine other terrified Americanos, also sprawled on their bellies. They had stopped screaming, but most of the women were crying.

  The dead man’s arms were both pinned beneath him. Carlito reached down and pulled the left arm free.

  “No, no!” his boss, Felipe Martinez, yelled. “The Eagle says it must be his right hand.”

  Quick to obey, Carlito pulled the right arm free and used the machete to finish the job. The other passengers began screaming again. A woman, probably the dead man’s wife, shrieked, “Ellis!” so loudly it hurt Carlito’s ears.

  Using his body as a screen, Carlito snatched up what looked like a real gold watch from the dead man’s wrist. Felipe didn’t notice. Felipe’s big concern was the black boy, and he had turned his attention to securing the boy’s hands. The Eagle’s other men were also occupied with binding and gagging their prisoners. Carlito felt a quick flush of greed rev his already adrenaline-fueled pulse. It looked like he could get away with keeping and then selling the watch for himself. He stuffed it into his pocket.

  The other teenaged boy, the pretty blond one, attempted to be Mr. Macho and tried to stand. Felipe bashed him in the head with the butt end of his Beretta. The kid collapsed onto the deck, blood running down his forehead and dripping off the tip of his nose.

  “Get it up to the iced package,” Felipe commanded. “Now!”

  Carlito dropped the machete and gingerly plucked up the severed hand. He scrambled across the cabin, clumsily kicking the machete, and climbed the short flight of steps to the upper deck, which was covered but open on the sides. From the roof over his head came the heavy splatting of Amazon basin rain. He stepped around the boat captain, who was still out cold on the deck and now bound.

  Carlito opened the white, insulated box. Felipe had brought it with them, already prepared to deliver this message from Manaus, Brazil, to the office of the vice president of the United States of America. The package, delivered by an untraceable courier, should arrive in Washington no later than tomorrow afternoon.

  Carlito slipped the hand into a plastic bag and then took care, using a pair of gloves brought for the purpose, to arrange the dried ice around it before replacing the interior insulation. Finished, he taped the package shut. An address and postage were already on the top.

  Felipe emerged from the cabin followed by the other men, shoving hostages. One by one, the men walked the captives on a makeshift plank across the black water onto their own riverboat, stolen earlier in the day for this purpose.

  Carlito was now suffering a nagging worry about getting away. There were no roads between here and Manaus. In fact, there were no roads at all going south into Brazil from Manaus. The single road out went north to Venezuela. Plane fare being expensive, common folk left by riverboat, a trip to the coast taking four or five days.

  But with their prisoners, they would cruise ten miles back upriver, running under cover of darkness to the small port of Ceasá. From there, a lorry would drive them to Manaus’s international airport, where a plane chartered by the Eagle, using a false name, would return them home. There would be no record of their arrival to or departure from here. Felipe had made it clear, when Carlito had asked about it, that money could buy anything in Brazil.

  It would likely be some time, maybe not until midday tomorrow or even later, before anyone cruising the river became curious enough to stop at the boat. They would find the bound and gagged boat captain and notify the authorities, who would be pissed to learn they had a huge international mess on their hands: one dead American and nine missing tourists.

  Soaked to the skin but still warm in the tropical night, Carlito watched the heavy drops of rain pour from the boat’s roof to batter the gangplank and shore and pock the surface of the water. Once the Eagle’s other men had all the hostages aboard, Felipe quickly cast them off, heading them back to Ceasá.

  Their passage was slow, guided by three men at the front manning strong searchlights. The package would be on its way right on time out of Manaus, but, given the heavy rain, Carlito wondered as he wiped himself down with a dry rag if the visibility would be good enough for them to make their planned quick exit by air.

  Chapter 3

  Still sweating from a twenty-minute jog and anxious to find out if there were any last-minute disasters for the New York show, Nova made a final check of her answering machine. No new messages.

  This latest show of her award-winning photos of the world’s most beautiful coastal drives seemed to be progressing without serious glitches. Putting on this show was costing a bundle and although her agent, Deirdre, was enthusiastic about the photos—she always was—Deirdre was worried for the first time that they might not be able to sell enough to cover costs, let alone make a profit. It had been a long time since Nova had had to take a loss in order to get her work into circulation. This time she was going to have to do more than just show up. She would need to put on the razzle and dazzle needed to sell.

  In her kitchen, she rinsed and dried her favorite Florentine cappuccino mug and returned it to its hook, satisfied that she could leave knowing that the condo was in order. If she never returned—in her life, always a possibility—she could still hold her head up in heaven. She’d not left a mess behind.

  A small, rueful smile touched her lips. Star had said more than once, “I think your problem with men is that you’re too damn neat. What man can relax and scratch his balls in comfort in such a neatnik home?”

  Although they never discussed it, she and Star both understood just why Nova had such a “thing” about control. For four hellish years, their stepfather, Candido Branco, had controlled Nova’s existence while secretly molesting her. When Candido turned his attention to Star, Nova had instinctively reacted and threatened Candido with a knife. During their struggle, she had killed him. She’d not planned it, but she also hadn’t regretted it. And since she could not prove the molestation, a jury had convicted her of manslaughter. She’d served five years, from age sixteen to twenty-one. And in prison she’d been unable to decide things as simple as when to turn out her light at night. Between Nova and Star, Nova’s passion to be always in command required no discussion or explanation—or excuse. But it did have consequences. For Nova, living the rest of her life unmarried might just be one of them.

  A sigh slipped out as she closed the blinds that let in generous swaths of western light and a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean. Last night in Steamboat Springs she’d said nothing to David, not wanting to spoil the end of their trip, but when he’d dropped her off at the condo early this morning, she’d told him it was over.

  He’d been so surprised. She felt another rush of sadness mixed with guilt. Breaking up right before Christmas and New Year’s had seemed especially unkind. On the flip side, maybe at some big holiday party David would meet someone new. Someone to make his life complete.

  She leaned over the couch to pick up Divinity, her white Angora cat, a treasure with one green and one blue eye. She scratched gently behind one of Diva’s ears. “Time to visit Penny, sweet thing.”

  She left the condo’s door ajar and strolled along her balcony to Penny’s door. Their two condos took up the three-story building’s top floor.

  Today’s gorgeous blue-skied weather in San Diego could not be bettered any place in the world she’d been to, and from working for the Company and Cosmos Adventure Travel, she felt like she’d visited an impressively large selection of the planet’s offerings. Sunny, clear, a pleasant eighty-two degrees.

  To her left, the P
acific Ocean beckoned, framed by four palm trees. A pleasant December day in exclusive and beautiful La Jolla, named “The Jewel” for its beauty and perched on the coved edge of the sea. Seven days before Christmas.

  Reginald Pennypacker, her closest friend, was an African-American with delicate, Ethiopian bone structure and large, dark eyes. Penny owned La Jolla’s most exclusive beauty salon and, bless him, he took care of her plants and Diva upon request, no advance notice—something that happened rather often.

  Today, Nova didn’t even need to knock. She’d told him weeks ago about the New York trip. Apparently hearing her steps, he flung open his door and stood there, regally dressed in a gold jogging suit with black trim.

  “Come to me, precious one,” he commanded, lifting Diva from her arms.

  “Back in three days,” she said.

  “Right. And if not, you’ll call.”

  He smiled and studied her face to see if she had further suggestions or requests.

  She hugged him and offered her half of their ritual parting. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “I intend to do a bunch of things you’d never do,” came back his reply.

  She turned and saw the Airport Shuttle service pull up. Now it was off to New York and sell, sell, sell.

  Chapter 4

  CIA field agent Joseph Cardone unbuckled his seatbelt. He should have been tired but instead he felt “fired up and raring to go,” one of his father’s expressions. Within the hour he’d be driving on a summer evening through moon-washed Texas sagebrush, soaking up vistas from a childhood that had been damn near perfect. He’d grown up in a loving family on a Texas ranch, where he’d ridden horses, milked cows, mended fences, driven a tractor, and baled hay. He was almost home.

  The man next to him in first class, an oil exec also returning from Baghdad to Houston, had the aisle seat. They stood, and the man opened the overhead bin and pulled out his briefcase. Like Joe, the exec had traveled casual: chinos and a short-sleeved shirt, white for the exec and a light blue for Joe.

  “It’s been damn pleasant sharing the hours with you,” the exec said. He stuck out his hand and Joe shook it. “You decide to come into town for some fun during your stay, give me a call. Or if IBM ever sends you to Houston on a troubleshoot. I’d love to show you around.”

  IBM troubleshooter was Joe’s cover identity, and he would never take the likable guy up on his offer of hospitality. CIA business was Joe’s real life, one that occupied virtually all of his time. He had no idea where the Company would send him next, although it sure wouldn’t be Houston. “Like I say, I’m just here for a few days for my brother’s wedding. Family stuff. It’s not likely I’ll get away from my folks’ ranch or into any town other than Placita. That’s where the church is.”

  At the door leading from first class into the Boeing 737’s exit, the flight attendant on this leg out of Baghdad pressed her business card into Joe’s hand. She said, “I don’t fly out again for four days.” He flipped the card over and checked the back. Sure enough, there was her phone number.

  He smiled and used his forefinger to touch the tip of her chin. “I don’t know my schedule right now. But thanks for great service.”

  He pocketed her card and strode down the gangway.

  There had to be sixty or seventy people waiting for arrivals, but drawn by the unerring pull of maternal love, the first face that registered was his mother’s. Rosalinda Cardone. She stood next to his brother, Manuelito, and seemed to glow from within, her smile identical to the one for which Joe was legendary among CIA colleagues of both sexes: brilliant white teeth, sensual lips.

  He dropped his overnighter as she embraced him, plump arms hugging his waist, her head pressed hard against him. Standing on tiptoes, her head came to his midchest.

  He closed his eyes and let a warm sensation spread up his neck to his face. He was flushing with happiness. And something else. Some powerful feeling. This is absolutely the only place in the world where I am safe.

  His mother pulled back enough to look up at him. His eyes were dark brown with some gold flecks, like his father’s. Hers were deep pools of velvet black from her Spanish heritage. “Your muscles are firm enough, but you are too skinny, Joseph,” she said.

  He laughed and kissed her on the forehead. “You are my home.”

  “Been too damn long,” Manuelito said, grabbing Joe into a bone-crushing hug.

  “And how’s Dad?” Joe asked.

  His mother took his hand. “He’s fine, he just didn’t want to wrestle the wheelchair through the airport. He’s waiting for us at the ranch.” His bullock of a father had finally been broken by a car accident that had robbed him of the use of his legs.

  Joe checked out Manuelito, head to toe. Levis. Red shirt. Black, well-worn cowboy boots. He’d let his hair grow long and wore it pulled back in a ponytail, Antonio Banderas style. It looked good. When they were young they were often mistaken for each other. Same dark brown wavy hair, light brown skin, brown eyes, and quarterback physique.

  Joe at thirty still had rock-hard abs. He patted his twenty-eight-year-old brother’s midsection, softer-looking than the last time they’d been together. “Well, Manuelito, looks like you’re ready for marriage, all right.”

  “You bet. Time for the really good life.” His brother picked up Joe’s overnighter.

  “I can get it,” Joe said.

  The ride Joe had been imagining took place in the cab of a beat-up Chevy truck, Manuelito driving, Joe riding shotgun and their mother in the middle. Life could sometimes be so damn good.

  Chapter 5

  Paraguay. A landlocked country in the heart of the South American continent.

  In area, slightly smaller than California.

  A country that in the east had grassy plains and wooded hills; in the west, low dry forest and thorny scrub in the vast, sparsely inhabited emptiness of the Gran Chaco; and that in the extreme east, possessed a magnificent strip of tropical rain forest where Paraguay shared a border with Brazil and Argentina.

  In Paraguay, Tomas Morinigo Escurra—born in Manaus on the Rio Negro in northern Brazil—found refuge at the age of fifteen, after he killed his first man.

  According to the CIA World Factbook on Paraguay:

  Population—95% Mestizo.

  Languages—Spanish and Guarani.

  Capital—Asuncion.

  Religion—97% Roman Catholic.

  Government—constitutional republic.

  Economy—poor economic performance attributed to political uncertainty, corruption, lack of structural reform, internal and external debt and deficient infrastructure.

  International Disputes—an unruly region at the convergence of the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay borders that is a locus of money laundering, smuggling, arms and drug trafficking, and fund-raising for extremist organizations; a major illicit producer of cannabis; a base for transshipment of Andean (Colombian) cocaine headed for Brazil, other Southern markets, Europe, and the U.S.; and a center for corruption and terrorist money-laundering activity, especially in the tri-border area.

  In the years that followed his arrival from Manaus, Tomas Escurra hacked out success and imposing wealth in his adopted country, working as a hired hand, then a small rancher, and finally he married a rich man’s daughter and became a legitimate cotton grower. Later, he moved into more lucrative endeavors, ones more challenging and exciting—his specialty: drug smuggling. In his younger years he had also gained fame as a champion practitioner of capoeira, the distinctive martial art of Brazil, a combination of music, dance and fighting. But that time of young glory now lay thirty years in the past.

  Six days before he would celebrate the birth of Christ by throwing one hell of a huge party for local honchos from hundreds of miles in every direction, Escurra was hosting a dogfight at ten o’clock in the evening for his soldiers. He’d built this fighting pit on the grounds of his massive Rancho Magnifico, half a million acres hacked out of the jungle on the Brazilian side of the
tri-border area.

  He sat in his place of honor surrounded by shouting, swearing, cheering, unwashed men watching a German mastiff and a German shepherd tearing each other to death. And days hence, on Christmas Eve, while the local VIPs wined, dined and danced at his home, his less savory business partners would enjoy an even more exciting blood sport. Naturally, he had cocks and dogs lined up, but a pair of human fighters would be selected too, the final choice made only the day before the event.

  The smell of beer and marijuana was enough to get high without even taking a hit. He’d put his money on the mastiff. The German shepherd lay whining and writhing on the ground in a messy pool of its own blood mixed with arena dirt. Escurra leaned forward. Finish it! he thought, his pulse pounding warmly at his throat, his passion with the mastiff. Escurra would win his bet. He usually did.

  This rough fighting complex was comprised of wooden pens for dogs, cocks and even men—for special, highly secret events, such as those on Christmas Eve—plus a viewing stand. The viewing stand was part of an arena his men could enlarge for the bigger contests or make smaller for the cockfights.

  The fight was over; the dogs were being hauled away. Escurra checked his watch. He’d not heard from Felipe, not one word about the Manaus operation. The operation had been planned down to the finest detail, but experience had long ago taught him that it was impossible to control everything, hence his anxiety.