by Leon, Judith
“You don’t believe me?”
“I suppose so. Right now I need to concentrate on landing.”
The landing went smoothly. A couple of uniformed mechanics materialized quickly. Bebe told them to watch the helicopter and then escorted a bedraggled Nova, Solange and Alex to his office via a back entry. By the time they were inside, the clock on Bebe’s wall said eight o’clock.
“I have to make some phone calls,” she said. “Would you all please just wait here a bit. The feds will be here soon.”
Alex planted himself in front of her. “You have to believe me. I did record them. The cell phone is probably still there.”
Alex had been through a lot of stress. Could he be delusional? Or just making the story up to sound heroic? “Where, Alex?”
The boy frowned and leaned forward, giving her a hard look that said, pay attention. “It’s in the office. There’s two big sofas in there. I shoved it down under a cushion of the sofa closest to his desk.”
Alex sounded rock-solid and clear-minded. She recalled how he had been concerned for Vitor. “Okay. You know, kiddo, I do believe you.” She touched his cheek, and he smiled. “I still have to make calls. I’ll be right back.”
She left the office and out another door into a pretty alcove where a wrought-iron bench sat in front of a wall of red, yellow and purple orchids.
Pacing, she called Special Ops and told them the pickup at the Martinez place was off, that she had to go back to locate an agent, and she’d get back to them with another extraction time and place if necessary. They agreed and said they would stand by.
Then she called Claiton Pryce’s private and secure number.
Chapter 47
The deputy director of operations of the CIA answered immediately. “Pryce,” he said.
“It’s me. Nova.”
“I’ve been expecting a call from you. It’s outstanding that you and Cardone pulled out the VP’s niece and all the others. Great job.”
“Not all of the hostages. But I just brought out the last one, too; Alex Hill.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Mr. Pryce—” She choked up, saw the image of Joe falling and the men rushing him. Hell. “I had to leave agent Cardone behind to get the boy and two others to safety.”
“That’s rough. He’s a top man.”
Pryce sounded upset but not really distressed. She detested him for a brief moment for that failure. “Now that the others are safe, I’m going back for Joe. I just hope they don’t kill him.” I’m praying they haven’t already killed him. “I have some other information that I don’t know what to make of. It seems crazy, but it comes from the boy and he seems remarkably credible for his age.”
“Yes?”
She told him Alex’s story about Red Dog and the hidden tape.
When she finished he said, “I believe it, Nova. And here’s why. You know that Alex is the grandson of Supreme Court Justice Suleema Johnson. She told us yesterday that someone is blackmailing her to vote a certain way on a case that is to be handed down in two days. The threat is to kill her grandson.”
Surprised but also filled with a sense of pieces falling into place, Nova slid down onto the bench. “That would explain why they kept Alex separate from all the others. He was their bait for something other than the money.”
“This is big, Nova. Whoever Red Dog is, he’s a traitor and he is on the inside of our government. We have to get him. And it sounds very much like the boy’s cell phone recording might be the key we need. Hold the line a moment. I need to confer.”
She crossed her legs but couldn’t lean back or relax. She bent forward, shifting her cell phone to her other ear. Pryce was probably in his office or perhaps in the situation room. And he was right. Whoever had set up this elaborate plot stood to gain something enormous, probably financially, but maybe equally important, politically. She couldn’t think of anything more treasonous than trying to fix the Supreme Court.
Finally, three minutes later at quarter past eight, Pryce came back on. “We need to get that recording at all costs, and we have to secure it fast because the Brazilian feds have been told that Escurra was behind everything. The Brazilians are on their way to Escurra’s place right now. They should arrive within the hour. You must go back to Escurra’s house, find that recording and get out. If they beat you there they’ll sew up the location and do their own searches and we won’t get the recording soon, if ever.”
“You want me—”
“I’m giving you a new assignment, an order. You go back to Escurra’s place ASAP, secure that recording and bring it out of Brazil.”
“I have to find Joe.”
“Did you hear me? Your job is to get the recording. Joe is in charge of taking care of Joe.”
She stood, the heat of anger warming her neck. If she could have shot Pryce through the heart, she would have. Instead she pulled in a long, deep breath.
“Under no circumstances are the Brazilians to take control of it.”
Her voice low, her words slow, she said, “I’m not leaving Joe.”
“Nova, I know you care for him. He’s a good agent. We don’t have better. But the CIA is Joe’s life. He would tell you to go get the goddamn recording, and you know it.”
Silence spanned the thousands of miles between them, but Pryce was right. She could go back, no question. She had the helicopter and she sure knew the Escurra layout, knew right where the office was, knew the very sofa that Alex had described.
Finally she sighed and began pacing. “The partygoers should probably all have left late last night or early this morning. I think I can make this work.”
“You will have any support you need. I know SO is standing by. I hear they lost a team.”
“Yes. I saw the helicopter go down. And I’m on this.” She told him she’d keep him posted, said goodbye, and snapped the phone closed.
She was going to leave Joe to his fate. Maybe death. Again the image rose in her mind of him falling to the ground, his face as he yelled to her to, “Go!” Tears she’d been fighting from the moment she’d left him behind rushed free and down her cheeks. She sobbed. Her anguish finally spilled into the only words that seemed right. “I’m sorry.”
How dumb had it been to say she wouldn’t marry Joe? She dropped her head, wrapped her arms around her as if to hold back the sobs.
Just how stupid could one control freak be? She was free. If she didn’t marry him or anyone else, she’d be free the rest of her life. But she didn’t want freedom from Joe. No number of compromises and risks were too high a price to pay if…if he found a way to get out alive.
The line from Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” slipped out. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
She stood. If he lives, and he wants me, he’ll never get rid of me, I swear.
Back in Bebe’s office she said, “I need a helicopter pilot, Bebe. I have to go back to Escurra’s place before the feds get there.”
Solange said, “Why don’t you wait. Papa called the local police. They are on their way to arrest Escurra right now. Let them take care of it.”
“What!” Nova turned around to Bebe. “Is it true? The locals are on their way out there?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Bebe, that makes a big problem twice as big. I have to beat them to Escurra’s place. I’ll need a helicopter pilot who is willing to take potentially lethal risks. I’ll pay him whatever amount of money he asks. I have to have him now. And some clothes. A gun. And a chicken.”
Chapter 48
Unfortunately, the American agent simply would not talk. They were not going to learn from him who they had to look out for, they would not be able to tell Red Dog where the danger for all of them lay. They were out of time.
Escurra stood up from his desk in the Casa Grande just as Felipe planted another blow to the man’s cheek, opening a second cut.
Juan had been mostly leaning against the wall and watching the b
eating since he returned from the helicopter site with this stubborn North American bastard and handed him over to Felipe and the two of them had brought the agent to Escurra’s main office. Juan took a toothpick from his shirt pocket and set to work on his teeth. Felipe shouted at the bound man. “You killed my brother, you shit! Who are you working for?”
Escurra said, “You’re not going to get anything out of him, Felipe. At least not by beating on him. He’s clearly been trained to withstand this kind of interrogation.”
Escurra strode toward the door. “I’ll be back shortly. We have to get away for a while, but I must have cash to use for payoffs until everything is sorted out. Don’t kill him. We may need a hostage.”
He left, heading for the office at the fighting pit.
At eight thirty, the borrowed helicopter took off from The Royal Hotel Iguazu with the hotel’s senior pilot, Ernesto, at the controls. “I’m retired Brazilian military,” he said in response to Nova’s question about whether he’d ever flown a helicopter in a dangerous situation. “I can do anything you need to have me do. And given what you agreed to pay, I gather this could get quite exciting.” He grinned, a cocky smile that stuck a painful stiletto into her heart because the smile was so like Joe’s.
“Right now,” she said, “we need to make top speed to the coordinates I gave you on the Martinez ranch.”
“What is the significance of the ugly peasant woman outfit and the caged chicken?”
She smiled grimly. “Disguise.”
She punched in the number for her Special Operations contact and asked for the location of the GPS hidden in one of Joe’s boot heels. It was currently in Tomas Morinaga Escurra’s house!
Yes! She let a little ray of hope warm her heart. Joe must be alive! If he were dead, why would they take him there? And even better, that’s right where she needed to go as soon as she picked up James.
She punched in the number for James, the macho African American SO watching over Luis. James answered immediately and assured her that everything at the Martinez bunker remained secure and he was anxious to get lifted out.
“We have a new assignment,” she said. “After we talk, you can call your commander and have him validate that you are to help me, but I need to know if that bunker full of munitions has RPGs, plastique, and the stuff to set it off.”
“Roger,” he said, sounding quite happy. “Do I get to blow stuff up?”
“If all goes well. So please round up all the explosives you can carry, an RPG, and a couple of rounds for it. I’ll pick you up in—” She checked her watch. It was now 8:33. “—in about six minutes. We’re in a real hurry.”
At eight-forty, right when she’d estimated, the hotel pilot sat them down fifty feet from the Martinez bunker and James threw some gear in the backseats and then climbed in himself.
“Okay, Ernesto,” Nova said, “Escurra’s ranch.”
It had been only twenty-five minutes since Bebe had called in the local authorities. Even if the local police took off at once, an unlikely probability, they could not be at Escurra’s place yet. She estimated that she might be as much as twenty minutes ahead of them. She began explaining her plan to both men.
Kneeling on the floor of the fighting pit office, Escurra threw back the rug that covered the safe lid and twirled the dials of the combination lock. He kept two hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars cash in there and had to replenish it often as demands for bribes and payments rose and fell.
He packed the money into a briefcase, then raced his Jaguar back toward the house. That’s where the diamonds were—he had never kept all his backup assets in a single stash. He was going to need a lot of money to bribe his way out of this mess. Escurra punched his helicopter pilot’s number on his cell phone. The pilot had the best room in the bunkhouse and was always on call. He answered immediately.
“I’m leaving!” Escurra announced, his voice harsh because of the pressure to hurry. “Ten minutes at the most. Get the helicopter warmed up. There will be three, or maybe four of us.”
Ernesto zoomed the helicopter on a direct path to Escurra’s ranch.
“Look over there, Nova,” James said, pointing out the back window on their side.
Five cars in a caravan were tooling down the single road leading to the ranch, appearing and disappearing behind the mass of green trees that lined the road on both sides. “Local police?” she asked.
“Sure are,” Ernesto replied.
She checked her watch for what must be the hundredth time—8:51. Not good. She estimated that she, Ernesto and James were maybe fifteen minutes ahead of the Brazilians. How could she get the recording and Joe out of there in fifteen minutes?
Ernesto sat them down on a spot on the road north of the ranch’s boundary, which she knew could not be seen from the house. If she cut straight south through the jungle running from this spot, she could be at Escurra’s fancy entry gate over the road leading to the house in under two minutes.
“Guys, it’ll take me ten minutes or less to get into position near the house. When I signal, do your thing.”
“Roger,” both men said at the same time.
“You be careful, little lady,” Ernesto said.
James already knew she was more than able to take care and just gave her a thumbs-up as she climbed out.
Escurra heard the sounds of his helicopter starting up as he strode into his bedroom and went to his wife’s jewel box. The thought had occurred to him on the way back to the Casa Grande that she sometimes failed to put even her most valuable jewels in the safe in his office, where he also kept his most movable asset, the diamonds, no matter that he had told her repeatedly she must do so. Most especially he had told her she must do so when leaving this country, like now.
Sure enough, she had not obeyed this time either. When he got all this mess sorted out and his wife was back with him and his life was back to normal, he would find a way to punish her for this lapse so she would never forget.
He grabbed up the six pieces that held exquisite emeralds, sapphires, pearls and a huge ruby and stuffed them into his jacket pocket.
Carrying the chicken in a wooden cage and stooped over so that the front of her bright red and green peasant skirt trailed in the dirt, but walking briskly nevertheless, Nova found herself within a hundred feet of the ranch house nine minutes after Ernesto and James had set her down. She text-messaged to James: In position.
Both of Joe’s cheeks throbbed from the cuts Felipe had opened, mostly because Felipe wore a big diamond ring on his right hand. The gunshot wound on his leg had been mercifully slight. It had finally stopped bleeding but still throbbed. Escurra’s son-in-law paced like a caged bear back and forth in front of Escurra’s big desk and had been doing so ever since Escurra walked out.
The office door opened and the Eagle burst in.
“We have to get out of here!” Felipe yelled. “Why were you gone so long!”
“I wasn’t gone long. Don’t yell at me!”
“I can’t stay here.”
Escurra had said earlier that Felipe wasn’t to kill their hostage. But Joe wondered how long that position would hold. He had heard the sounds of a helicopter warming up. Escurra was going to make a break. Either they would kill him or take him away to God knew where. The nasty little argument between them was the first chance he’d had to take advantage of some confusion.
His arms bound behind him but his legs free, Joe leapt to his feet and made a pretend dash toward the door, his injured leg shooting pain with each step. As expected, Juan unstuck himself from the wall and landed a punch to Joe’s midsection.
Gasping for air, but in full control of his fall, Joe went down on both knees, bent slightly forward, reached down to the heel of his right boot, sprung the lever and palmed the razor blade.
Juan dragged him, still bent-over at the waist, back to the chair and shoved him into it. Joe set to work on the half-inch rope binding his wrists.
Chapter 49
Hearing the im
pressive blast of Escurra’s helicopter going up in flames, Nova dashed behind the wall of oleanders lining the road. She stripped off the peasant dress covering her jumpsuit, opened the cage door to set the chicken free and then ran at top speed toward a service entrance into the hacienda’s garages.
She sprinted past five cars—two Humvees, two black Mercedes Benzes, and a gorgeous silver Rolls-Royce—and then cautiously opened the door to a hallway that she knew had a laundry room on one side and a food storage pantry on the other. Seeing no one, she plunged farther into Escurra’s lair, her first goal being that sofa in Escurra’s office and her second, to somehow find Joe and take him out with her.
Joe was sawing away on the ropes at his wrist when an explosion caused him to cut himself, he hoped not too deeply. The blast couldn’t have been far from the house, maybe fifty to a hundred yards.
He checked the time on the clock on Escurra’s desk—8:52.
“Fucking dogs,” Felipe said. “It’s gotta be the police.”
Escurra said, “Juan, Felipe, both of you go see what the hell happened. Make sure the helicopter is okay.”
Both men left at a full run.
Joe sawed harder, watching his captor hurry to a picture on the wall opposite his desk and swing the picture back, revealing a safe. Escurra opened it, pulled out four dark blue velvet pouches, opened the strings holding one closed and spilled diamonds into his palm. Quickly, he poured them back into the pouch and closed it. He tucked all four pouches into a briefcase stacked full of what looked to be U.S. greenbacks.
“Ah. Diamonds,” Joe said. “I’ll bet your buddies don’t know about the diamonds, do they?”
