by Leon, Judith
He held a coffee mug and used it to point to another big chair next to Joe. “Sit yourself down, Nova. I had no idea they were sending you. Quite a coincidence, no?”
The CIA deputy director, Claiton Pryce, whom she strongly suspected had been involved in choosing her for this op, knew a lot about her past. He certainly knew from her files that Ramone Villalobos had recruited the fresh-out-of-prison Nova Blair to work for the Company. Pryce also knew that Villalobos was a womanizer who had dropped out of her life within that same year. Did Pryce know that Ramone had dropped out after convincing her to love and trust him? Pryce couldn’t know that Nova had been haunted in her dreams for years by futile searches to find Ramone, to make him love her, to heal the wound to her trust, but Pryce knew that sending her to Asuncion would throw her into Ramone’s presence. Maybe Pryce didn’t know that she and Ramone had been lovers, but still, she should have been told that he’d be here.
Ramone had been the last man she’d trusted. Until Joe. She trusted Joe, but in his own way he’d also let her down. In the end he couldn’t accept her as she was. Seeing Ramone stirred up old memories and fears.
Joe stood. “You look like you need a hit. It isn’t cappuccino, but it’s damn good coffee.” He strode to a table where a sleek coffee brewer stood.
She took the chair Ramone had indicated, noting that the office at least was neat and welcoming in a male sort of way. The dark wooden furniture and desk were finely made from Brazil’s beautiful jacaranda. She scanned the walls and not surprisingly found tasteful wildlife prints of raptors and big cats. That had been another shared love he had used to seduce her—her love of nature.
She turned to accept the coffee from Joe and the photograph behind Ramone’s desk caught her eye and froze her again. The Girl and the Bees. One of her earliest photos that had appeared in National Geographic and won several awards years after Ramone had taken off. And here it was, behind his desk.
She studied him. Even under his deep tan she could tell that he was blushing.
The whole scene struck her as surreal and she laughed, a sharp, bittersweet chuckle.
Joe sat again. He checked her face and then Ramone’s. “So, you two know each other?” he asked.
“A long time ago,” Ramone said. “Nova and I worked together in her first op for the Company.”
“Ah,” Joe said, and then took a long sip from his coffee.
This wasn’t where the conversation ought to be. “What do you have for us?” she said to Ramone.
“Two sources said that Gomez still works for Felipe Martinez on Martinez’s legitimate enterprise, the big cattle and cotton spread, but no one has actually seen Gomez for quite a while. So the tie to Martinez might not be as strong as we’ve been thinking. The ranch is located roughly a ten-minute drive outside of Ciudad del Este, on the Paraguay side of the Paraguay/Brazil border. We don’t know if Martinez involves any part of the ranch in his weapons smuggling. The entire ranch operation may be legit.”
“I’ve got some ideas about tomorrow,” Joe said. “How long will it take us to get over there?”
“I’ve arranged a private flight for us tomorrow at first light. We’ll have rooms in a place I’ve used before in Ciudad del Este. The Loro Azul. The Blue Parrot. Do you know that Martinez is married to the daughter of Tomas Escurra?”
The big rancher? “Tomas Morinigo Escurra?” she said.
She looked at Joe, who shook his head. Apparently this little tidbit had not been in any of the material they’d been given.
“That’s him. Escurra is the crime boss of this whole region. Like Martinez, but he’s into cotton and cattle and a bunch of other legitimate things as well. Five years ago, Martinez married his oldest daughter.”
To the picture she had sketched in her mind—that Gomez worked for Martinez and so Martinez had been pulling the strings of the kidnapping—she did a quick redrawing. The scope of the op must expand at once to include Escurra. They had another cup of coffee. Escurra’s place, Ramone said, was a half-a-million-acre minikingdom slashed out of jungle on the Brazilian side of the tri-border area, not far from Iguazu Falls.
She looked at Joe. “I have a good friend who is the manager of The Royal Hotel Iguazu. Right at the falls. Brazilian side. Fabulous views.” She looked back to Ramone. “I’ve checked and Bebe still works there. The first thing I want to do is talk to him. Bebe knows everything going on and everybody who is anybody in the area.”
“I’m bushed,” Ramone said. She wasn’t surprised. His bloodshot eyes made her suspect a very practical reason for why he’d been drinking coffee when she arrived, instead of his favorite, bourbon.
“I’ve given you separate rooms on the third floor, but there is a connecting door if you want to talk further,” Ramone added.
She checked the sturdy antique clock on his desk. Ten fifteen. Joe had not had much sleep the last few days, so he probably also wanted to hit the sheets.
Ramone set his coffee mug on an end table with a click of closure. “I’ll have the man at the desk wake you both at five.”
This was always hard for her, having to let others go into that other world, the one of dreams, while she stayed awake for many hours more. It always felt lonely. In prison, though, she’d learned how to work her peculiarity to her advantage. She lived a second life. While they slept she would exercise. Then she would read further into a novel written in Moroccan Arabic, Leila Abouzeid’s The Last Chapter, the story of a young Moroccan woman’s struggle to find her identity in the late twentieth century. Nova read and spoke nine languages now, and keeping them fresh took time.
She and Joe left Ramone’s office separately, five minutes apart. Still shaken by Ramone’s presence again in her life, she wanted to put herself as far away from him as possible while she regrouped her emotions.
She had barely had time to get out of her clothes and start running a bath when she heard a knock on the connecting door to Joe’s room. She wrapped herself in a big blue towel. “Come on in, Joe.”
Chapter 23
Joe opened her door and peeked inside. Nova checked that her towel was securely wrapped. He stepped in, leaving the door between their rooms ajar. “So what’s with you and Villalobos?” he asked.
Nova knew exactly what he wanted to know—and it wasn’t his business. “Like Ramone said, we worked my first op together. It didn’t go well.”
“What was the op?”
“Drug ring.” Not only wasn’t she going to share with Joe how she’d been tricked into love and into working for the Company, she’d also been tricked, or forced, into killing two drug-crazed men intent on killing her. That op had made her a three-time killer. Since then she’d done a lot of good, but she thought a shrink might claim that a deep need for redemption was a big part of the drive behind all her work for the CIA.
Psychobabble could be interesting, but it didn’t change anything.
Joe threw himself into one of the room’s two comfortable armchairs.
She said, “I’m getting ready for a shower.”
“Villalobos thought you looked great. I could see it in his bloodshot eyes.”
She smiled and took the other chair. “What do you think? Alcoholic?”
“Yep. Although he did start drinking coffee the minute I arrived, right after he’d patted the bottom of a luscious Guarani girl who might have been eighteen.”
Ah. Trying to make Ramone look like a bad, lecherous old man suggested a bit of jealousy. “Do you think his drinking will make him a liability?”
“Can’t tell yet. So, you going to see your friend Bebe first thing tomorrow, right?”
“As soon as I can. And you don’t need to follow me. No one here knows anything about me and I figure the sister cover isn’t any use here. We know who the bad guys are. So I’m just a woman visiting a friend.”
“Fine, I’ll take the direct approach. I go out to Martinez’s place, show my journalist credentials and ask for an interview on money laundering and terrorism. Butt
er him up. Tell him people in town say he knows everything and so on.”
“Someone may have died already. Someone else tomorrow. It’s more efficient if we split up. I feel sick if I let myself think about it.”
They fell silent, she thinking about how much she should confide in Bebe. Joe interrupted. “So, you glad to see Villalobos again? Maybe it will go better this time.”
“We need to depend on him more than I’d like. Alcoholics can be horribly unreliable.”
“Women would find him hot, right?”
“Stop fishing, Joe.” She stood. “I need to shower. And don’t you need sleep?”
He hauled himself to his feet. “Okay.” He left, closing the door.
Damn! She stared at the floor, and anger at Pryce, which had been on simmer, bubbled into boil. Pryce would be following every detail of this mission. He would have known that Ramone was here. Eleven o’clock in Asuncion meant it would be only ten o’clock in Washington, D.C. She’d prefer that it be twelve or one, some truly annoying hour in the morning.
She fetched her cell phone from the bag and dialed Claiton Pryce’s private, secure line. He’d given it to her, one of the many reasons on Joe’s list of arguments for why Joe just knew that Pryce carried a torch for her. “Pryce,” he said.
“It’s Nova.”
“My God, Nova! Is something wrong?”
“You knew, didn’t you, that Ramone Villalobos is our man in Asuncion?”
“What’s wrong?”
The sincere distress in his voice shocked her. She regretted her haste in making this call. Pryce had no way of knowing how much seeing Ramone upset her. “I called because I need to know if a hostage was killed today.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t know yet. Not likely to know until tomorrow. I’ve left word to be called the minute we learn of another death. Shall I contact you at that time?”
“No. I’m sorry to have called so late.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m delighted to hear your voice. You may call me any time for any reason, Nova.”
“I appreciate that. I sincerely do. Good night.”
She hung up, shaking her head. Joe and Ramone, an explosive combination, had triggered a truly unprofessional response from her.
“Get a grip,” she said as she headed for the bathroom.
The next day she, Joe and Ramone arrived so early in Ciudad del Este that she had to fight her impatience and actually went to the Blue Parrot in person to check in. She called The Royal Hotel Iguazu. Bebe would not come in until nine o’clock. She ate breakfast and by nine o’clock found herself standing in front of and staring at one of the planet’s great wonders.
Chapter 24
A breathless awe crept over Nova. Goose bumps prickled her skin. She had wondered in Rio if she would once again feel it or would she have grown blasé.
It was December twenty-third, two days before Christmas. In Nova’s consciousness, Christmas meant twinkling snow, green fir trees draped with baubles and topped by a star, white steam on your breath, the scent of cinnamon in wine and maybe even sleigh bells. Six days ago in Steamboat Springs, she had been closer to Christmas than she was today. This place at the other end of the world from the cheery and crisp traditions of America and Europe could not have a less Christmassy feel.
But what magnificent beauty! Here, exposed to her, its closest point perhaps no more than three hundred yards away, lay the gushing primitive power of nature. A breath of misty air cooled her skin even in the ninety-degree heat.
Nothing in the world compared to this series of some two hundred and fifty falls draped in a curtain extending over three miles in breadth. The massive rush of water crashed downward two hundred feet in two tiers, to a reddish-tan river, and to Nova the ceaseless roar—day and night, never-ending—represented eternity itself.
Iguazu. The Guarani word for “great waters.”
The falls were cloaked in jungle-green. At irregular intervals, a patch of tall trees peaked out from behind the water. If jungle covered some of the protruding black, rocky crags, others stood starkly naked in the midst of the torrent. A heavy cloud of white vapor hovered in the air above the lower river. During the rainy season the cloud grew thicker and rose yet higher.
A small, black tourist helicopter with yellow markings suddenly intruded, buzzing at about two hundred feet like a huge wasp across the top of the falls. Nova immediately remembered the time one of the helicopter pilots, after learning that she could fly such a craft, had let her fly his copter over that very route. The views of the sprawling river’s approach to the abyss had been almost as spectacular as hanging above the water as it took its plunge over the edge.
Finally, her feet felt ready to move. Hurrying down the path to the left of the three-story, white, Spanish colonial-style hotel, she headed toward the main overlook. Three couples stood in rapturous poses, gazing at a phenomenon that, like the Grand Canyon or a major migration in the Serengeti, must be seen and felt to begin to comprehend.
She saw her first rainbow painted against the white mist and, darting like tiny black rockets flying through rainbow and mist, thousands of black swifts that came to feed on insects. For a moment she lingered in the pure luxury of this stupendous power. Longer would bring on guilt. She strode back toward the hotel’s outdoor terrace and café.
The Royal Hotel Iguazu with its European decor was five-star: air conditioning, two swimming pools, four tennis courts, golf course, and all the personal amenities a rich traveler might demand. Some suites had Jacuzzi tubs and small private gardens with their own caged song birds.
Bebe had been the manager for at least fifteen years. She had met him and his wife and daughter ten years ago on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands. Nova had been twenty-four, and the cruise was her first time as a guide to the Ecuadorian islands made famous by Darwin. While snorkeling, Bebe’s shy, fourteen-year-old daughter, Solange, had got into a sticky situation, and Nova had performed a minor rescue. Consequently, Solange had adopted Nova, following Nova everywhere and braiding her hair in the same French braid Nova wore at the back of her head.
Nova made her way across plush blue and gold carpets, past a pair of scarlet macaws littering the tile under their brass perch with peanut shells, to the reception area. The concierge, a young woman with dark Spanish eyes and fair skin, said that Bebe was expecting Nova and would be back to meet her in no more than five minutes.
Bebe returned just after Nova checked her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. He rushed to her, clasped her in a bear hug, which, given his six-foot, two-hundred-pound frame, crushed the air right out of her.
“I am the happiest man in the world to see you, my dear little Nova.”
“Hello again, Bebe. It’s been three or maybe four years.” He hadn’t changed. A Savile Row suit draped his hulking but solid frame beautifully.
He stepped back. “You are as beautiful as ever. This time married?”
She laughed. “No, Bebe. I’ve told you, I’m hopeless.” His dark skin still had a healthy glow as did his coal black hair in spite of his age, which had to be about fifty.
“Never never are things hopeless. Come to my office.” He guided her away from the desk. “Your message said you must see me urgently.”
He at once offered her a cappuccino.
She grinned. “You still know how to get to this woman’s heart.”
Using an intercom, he ordered two cappuccinos, then settled behind his massive desk. Beaming he said, “You look extremely fit.”
She’d worn white slacks with a silk, icy-pink spaghetti-strap top that left her shoulders and arms bare. Anyone could tell she worked out a lot.
He continued. “So now tell me, what is urgent?”
“First I want to ask how you and your family have been.”
His smile drained away, his lips formed a sad, downward crescent. The twinkle in his eyes snapped out. “I lost Sonaria, Nova. She died suddenly two years ago. Ovarian cancer.”
“M
y God, Bebe. She was too young.”
“Only forty-four.”
Beautiful, fun-loving Sonaria, Bebe’s perfect soul mate. Nova didn’t know many couples who were profoundly happy in their marriage. Too many, when you got behind the stage decoration, lived compromised lives that didn’t match the public show. But not Bebe and Sonaria. Someone had once told her that a great love was a tragedy in the making. Eventually someone leaves, and the survivor’s grief would be as profound as the love had been. “I am truly sorry for your loss. Solange must have been devastated.”
The two cappuccinos arrived, delivered by the same young, dark haired woman.
“Solange is here, Nova. For Christmas. After we chat, you must see her. She adores you. She is finishing her last year of law school at Berkeley.”
“I will, of course.”
“But let us focus on now.”
She talked, he sipped. “I’m going to be pretty honest with you, my old friend, but not totally honest. I ask you to trust me and let me tell you what I can. Please don’t ask questions that I can’t answer.”
He smiled. “How very mysterious. I shall do my best.”
“You know everything that goes on around here. As it turns out, a terrible thing has also happened to me. One of my sisters, Linda Stokes, has been kidnapped.”
“Dear God!”
“Not here. Strangely enough, she was taken with nine other hostages from a boat in Manaus. They were on a birding trip.”
“I did not know you had another sister.” He waited, sipping again at his drink.
She ignored the comment, hoping Bebe would let it slide. “I went to Manaus and did some searching. I had a little help from the Brazilian authorities. One of the kidnappers is a man named Carlito Gomez and he’s employed by Felipe Martinez.”
Bebe’s eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing.
“I also know that most of the kidnappers, maybe even all of them, spoke Guarani. This kidnapping was orchestrated here, Bebe. That’s why I’ve come. I need your help. But I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved. This could be dangerous.”
