I rolled my wrist, pressing against his thumb and forcing him to let me go. Whatever we just shared was clearly not enough to engender much faith in me. But I didn't have time to feel the sting of that awareness. If I could save Carro I'd be fucking damned if his alphaness would stop me.
I scurried up and over the fence, dropping down to the soft grass on the opposite side and not waiting for Joaquín to follow me. The coast was clear here, but I knew where the men were. They were holding Carro on the very edge of the water, the knees of his jeans soaked through from where he knelt on the bank, the water lapping at his legs. I went straight for the small house on the property, pressing my back against the ageing siding and slinking toward the back of the structure, keeping the house at my back and my footsteps as light as I could make them. Just two more steps before I rounded the corner and would be able to see where Carro was reaching the end of heartbreakingly short rope, Joaquín dragged me backward with two hands on my waist.
"What the hell are you doing? He's right there, Joa. He's right there." His face paled as I swore, "It's not too late."
"Adriana, there is no way." He threw out one hand behind him but clamped me close to his body with his other. "This is a residential neighborhood. There is no way they would keep a victim here. You need to stop."
"Fucking let me go!" I clawed at his arm holding me prisoner. "Look. Just look! Look around that corner and fucking tell me I'm a liar. Just look, Joaquín." He hesitated as I continued to struggle, but he was taking too long to weigh the options. "Just look. That's all I'm asking you to do. If he isn't there you can take me to the hospital."
Silence.
"Joa, we're here. I've gotten this far, I swear he's here and if you would just look we could save him."
In that moment a shot rang out in the glittering daylight air. Shit. Six more in quick succession. The sound of an automatic weapon is loud, and jarring, and altogether disturbing. But this sound was coming from so close that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in primal warning. Joaquín's eyes drained of all the clarity he'd been clinging to just a moment before. With solemn swiftness he released his hold on me and I quick stepped over to the corner of the house. Dropping to my knees I peeked around the corner. The gasp must have come from Joaquín as he followed my lead and got low to look at the scene happening at the edge of the lake. I collapsed against the concealed side of the little villa, crushed under a tidal wave of guilt and sorrow. I'd gotten so damn close. I was right here and I couldn't save him.
My eyes burned with tears for a man I’d never met, but who deserved my sorrow all the same. He’d put his life on the line for his country. He had to have known the risk he was taking in acting against Dariel, but he’d done it all the same. This man watched his country suffer a tragedy and he went out and did something about it. Carro had been a true rebel. And now Carro was dead. Before the spiral of my failure could snowball any further, I leaned around the corner, holding my phone out and snapping a few photos for proof of the barbarism. The men were too far away from our position for me to hear what they were saying, but Joaquín’s changeling senses apparently managed the distance without difficulty. With his back to the peeling yellow paint of the house’s siding, ass in the dirt, he thumped a fist on the ground at his side, keeping a tenuous hold on a black rage that I could read in every line of his body.
“We were right fuckin’ here,” he hissed though clenched teeth. “He fucking kept our secrets right to the end and I was five hundred meters away and couldn’t manage to save him.”
I reached over to him, squeezing his thigh, offering the only comfort I could in the blazing sun, barely concealed from men who would snuff out the flame of our existence at the slightest awareness.
We waited there in silence until Joaquín was sure the men had cleared out, the sounds of a car engine a distant and waning hum. Even after that, we waited, not willing to risk being seen by anyone who’d quietly stayed behind. Only after we were absolutely certain the area had been vacated did we stand and cautiously walk to the edge of the lake where Carro had taken his last breath. The loss tore at me. I could only imagine what it was doing to Joaquín.
The cerulean blue of the sky felt like it was mocking us. The gut churning contrast between this bright and beautiful day with the black execution that we’d just witnessed refusing to align in my head. Joaquín stared out over the muddy water, poised in introspection. I just let the silence stretch between us. There wasn’t really anything to say anyway. We’d found Carro. We’d found him against all odds, with no evidence, having taken a risk that seemed impossible to get here, and still we’d been too late. I wanted to scream, to rage against someone for the utter stupidity of this loss.
It was Joaquín who spoke first, guiding me out of my violent thoughts. “You saw it happen.” His voice held a dead quality that made my heart hurt.
I nodded, staring at the spot where Carro had been pulled beneath the milky water. “Yeah.”
“If I’d listened—”
“We still wouldn’t have made it in time.” Carro was lost, but I refused to allow Joaquín to drown in guilt because of it. “I wouldn’t have believed me either.”
He reached out a hand, lacing his fingers through my own, eyes never leaving that spot on the horizon where the water met the earth.
“I watched your eyes turn black, felt every muscle in your body go rock hard. I felt that happen to you. I should have listened.” I squeezed his hand, at a total loss for words. He dropped our connection and stalked away from the lake, crossing the tall grass of a lawn no one had tended in weeks.
When we were back in the car, he made a call to someone in the pack and gave them the coordinates of the lake. I listened to him give orders about retrieving the body, filling the gap his absence left in their defenses. When he ended the call, I asked if Carro had family.
“Yeah, I gotta go to his parents.”
I nodded, understanding the weight of that task.
“Where do you need to go?”
“Just drop me back at KHG.”
This time the drive back to the tower seemed to end too quickly. I wasn’t sure how to end this, but I knew he needed to go. I needed to sleep then figure out what to do next about Dariel. Carro wouldn’t be the last victim, but I would stand between the Snakes and the next one. I brought the jeep to a stop in front of the tower and Joaquín opened the door without saying a word.
“Joa,” a pause, “be safe,” I called after him.
He stopped, hand still on the door, head bowed. “I won’t let him have any more of people. Anything you need, Adriana, you’ve got all the resources Las Furia can offer at your back.”
“What are you going to do about Dariel?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But I will protect my pack.”
With that he left, and I sat in the yawning silence of my Jeep, alone.
Chapter 10
I sat at a small cafe in a busy section of the city, stabbing at the keys of my laptop.
Fucking Justice. Fucking Snakes. Fucking Emmanuel.
I’d been effectively banned from the office by Emmanuel who threatened to actually fire me—liar—if I didn’t keep a low profile. Apparently being officially stationed outside of the country—‘for my protection’—meant that I couldn’t be seen in Colombia. Come on!
Since Emmanuel cornered me in my tower office last week demanding I get outta Dodge I’d been holed up in my apartment investigating the previous disappearances and trying to figure out exactly what Dariel was up to.
My phone rang for the thousandth time that day, and when I checked the display I was expecting to be hitting ignore on a call from Isla, or my mother, or any one of my other friends that’d I’d be blowing off for days. This time, however, the number was listed as “unknown”. My curiosity got the better of me and I answered the call on the fifth ring. When I picked it up, I gave a cautious “hello” and the voice that replied had my eyes going wide in my head.
<
br /> “I need to talk to you. Our usual spot. Be there in 15 minutes.”
She didn’t introduce herself; she didn’t use my name. I knew instantly from her careful wording she was worried about surveillance.
“Is this negotiable?” I asked, my curiosity growing, but I had to know sensitive her information was before walking into what could very well be a set up.
“Non-negotiable,” she stated, and hung up on me.
I had not expected to hear from Valeria Perez, the voice of the mystery caller, anytime soon. Over the last five or so years, Valeria had acted as one of my best informants. She was the personal assistant to the vice president, and although she had access to only limited information regarding sensitive topics, the intel she did give me always led me to something gold.
Dariel had effectively dismantled the president’s office in the days following the official insurrection. Former president Carlos Orcanas had remained entirely silent since then—unsurprising given that I was certain the man had a hefty buyout from Dariel and essentially handed the country over to the man—and the former Vice President had gone missing from the public eye days before the actual handover. In all probability, the man had been disposed of right alongside the other dissenters. I had assumed, the Snakes would have given the entire existing organization the boot, effectively plugging leaks—like Valeria—in the top tier of the new government. But everything remained up in the air with the new government. There was very little reliable information coming out of the Snake camp, and KHG had enacted an effective media blackout on the regime, in an effort to prevent journalists from sticking their necks out to get stories. Dead journalists were bad for business, no matter which side of the news you were on.
Arriving at the conclusion that I could only stand self-imposed house arrest for so long and figuring a meet with Valeria might be worth the risk of walking into an ambush, I decided I’d make an effort to rejoin the outside world. This morning I’d been pacing my flat like an animal in a cage. If I couldn’t even go out for a decent cup of coffee, life wasn’t worth living anyway. I’d just have to take my chances against the Snakes.
Before I left though, I tucked my Glock into a shoulder holster and threw on a jean jacket to cover it up.
It wasn’t unusual to see people toting around guns. This was Colombia after all. Drugs and guns were among our chief exports. I was, however, hoping this would be a fairly civilized meeting. Showing up with an arsenal, even if this was an ambush, probably wouldn’t help the situation. I would have preferred my machete over the gun, but it would no doubt draw too much attention. I threw my laptop into my purse and ran to meet Valeria.
Our ‘usual spot’ was a sunny little cafe on the outskirts of the diplomat neighborhood in the northern part of the city. Whenever I was working on a story touching on the president and his cronies, I’d reach out to Valeria and we’d meet here in the mornings before she went into the office. She never failed to deliver something that cracked the investigation wide open. The last time we’d been here, I was asking her about the missing people I was searching for. At the time, she didn’t have much of anything for me on the subject directly, but she did tell me exactly where to ‘visit’ the next night to listen in on some good conversation. That little visit had let me swipe a carelessly placed cell phone from the man Orcanas was meeting with. I kept the phone long enough to plant a little keylogger inside. Step number one in hacking the pants off of Dariel’s amateur comms systems.
When I got to the cafe, Valeria was waiting for me at a table by the windows. If you looked at her, you’d never guess she was a rat. She was a short, round woman in her mid-fifties with dark curly hair and rosy cheeks set in a face that seemed as blank as a freshly mounted canvas. Today she was wearing workout gear and big sunglasses, obscuring her face. Under that carefully schooled facade, however, beat the heart of a rebel. And I loved her for it.
I sat down across from her, flashing her a big smile, and realizing just how happy I was to see her. To know that she was okay despite everything else going on.
“Valeria, I’m so happy you called.”
“I’m glad you came.” She lifted her glasses slightly, giving a quick glance around the room. “I heard that you were up in Canada. Needed to make sure you hadn’t abandoned us.”
“KHG thinks I’m a liability right now. Put me on the books up there just to get me out of the picture.” I leaned toward her conspiratorially. “No way I’d leave my Colombia in the middle of this.”
“Good girl. You still working on those missing persons?” she asked, patting my hand on the table.
“Yeah. Helped recover a changeling a few days ago, too. I was too late, but we found his body. Lot of good that does.”
She shook her head. “Oh honey, it's something, and something is a whole lot more than Justice has been doing. Listen, there’s something I think you need to know about.”
“What have you got for me?”
Valeria took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Lord,” she made the sign of the cross, “protect us from unwanted ears.” I had to stifle a little giggle. Like so many Latinos, Valeria was deeply religious, and I respected that. But every time she invoked her faith mid-conversation, she just looked so much the part of the stereotypical Colombian mother-in-law, it made me want to laugh. “The Snakes have taken up residence in the government buildings,” she continued. “And they’re making changes. They’ve got access to everything. They’ve revoked security clearance from everyone.” She paused. “Security clearance for all the buildings.”
“What?” I understood what she was telling me, but I had to be crystal clear on what exactly she had.
“A lot of things, a lot of the databases, email accounts, system logs, they’re pretty low tech, you know. Not exactly well documented.”
“You have to be clear Valeria. Do you still have access to this stuff?”
She nodded, a blush creeping over the apples of her round cheeks.
“Yeah. It’s not much, maybe nothing life changing, but I can see whenever one of them logs into any of our public data archives. I can still check a few department e-mail accounts, still can see employee data.”
“Who else has access to this information?”
“A few other administrative personnel. The kid who managed our employee database...he...well, he passed me the login details and just disappeared. He’s got family in the USA, I think he maybe took off, went back home. He seemed pretty sure he’d be ok.”
“Is it active?”
She nodded. “The security for the building uses this database to permit clearances. I can see anytime they give person rights to enter.”
“Valeria you cannot be in that database.”
“I only checked it once, yesterday, just to make sure it worked. That’s why I need your help. We have some info, but we don’t know what to do with this information.”
I felt my face pale. “Who is we?” Valeria was smart and way more competent than people gave her credit for, but she was not equipped to be messing with sensitive tech which could get her killed.
“There are a few of us, from different organizations. We...talk.”
I leaned in closer to her, whispering now. “How many of you are there? And you talk? Are you telling me you’ve amassed a rebel cell? Here in the city? In only a few days?”
She nodded, beaming with pride. “Yeah. I guess you could call it that. At there are about a hundred people...all of them I know and trust, and we’re all collecting data.”
“Are you insane?” I hissed. “You guys are going to get yourself killed. Dariel kills people!”
“Well I’m not going to just sit around and watch him start sticking scarlet letters on all the humans,” she snapped.
“What are you going to do with this information?”
“Well Ms. Rojas. I figured the original rebel would have an idea for me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. This woman was completely and
totally nuts.
“You’ve been investigating the Snakes for months. You were the one who was trying to convince us all that Orcanas was a puppet. You’ve been searching for the missing people. If anyone here is a rebel, it you, Adriana. And you need to tell me what to do with this information. I will not spend my golden years as some harem girl for a bunch of Snake yahoos.”
The mental image was just more than I could handle. I burst into a fit of giggles, nearly falling off my chair.
“You stop that right now,” she scolded me. “Pull yourself together and tell me what I’m supposed to tell everyone else.”
When I finally got myself under control, I was wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. I didn’t think I’d ever get the picture of Valeria playing concubine to some snake with a thing for cougars out of my head.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I resigned. “First things first, how are you people communicating? You guys can’t do anything unless you’ve got totally secure channels to talk in.”
She fiddled with her rings, looking down at the table. “It's all in person right now. Just small little get-togethers we’re calling dinner parties. We were hoping you could help us set something up.”
I just shook my head. I’m not sure how exactly it happened. But apparently, I’d just become the commander in chief of Bogotá’s first rebel cell. I thought about the implications of that for a minute, before throwing caution to the wind. I already had a big ol’ target painted on my back. The chances of me sitting quietly enough to come out of this whole thing alive anyway were slim to none. If I was gonna die for my country, I might as well do it with a title.
“Fine, I’ll help you set something up. You got anybody with any fire power in this group of yours?” She blushed again. “Oh my God, you do!”
“We may have a few members who have some...training.”
I tore the elastic tie out of my ponytail and shook my hair out in an act of nervous energy. “I’ll say it again, you people are crazy. Ok, I’m in. I’ll help you out, set you up with some encrypted messaging channel and start looking though whatever data you can get your hands on. But it’s gonna take me some time to do it safely. In the meantime, I need all of you to lay low. Try not to draw any attention to yourselves. I literally cannot handle any more bodies on my conscience right now.”
Fragile Bonds Page 8
