by Fiona Quinn
Jack checked his watch as he sat down on the bench outside of the old mission church. He had stowed his bag in a locker at the bus station five blocks east. His crutches rested propped up beside him. He popped open his bottle of antibiotics and knocked two back. He swigged from his water bottle then repeated the process with some Tylenol. His knee was on fire. Lynx was probably right. Bending his knee should have happened over time with professional help. He bent it to about 50% of what had been his normal angle, and then straightened it back out a few times trying to calm the biting edge of pain. The swelling felt like it had increased on the plane. The flight attendant had been helpful in bringing him ice packs. Jack tried to imagine that there was improvement.
His phone buzzed.
Lynx: Got info from forensics. Acepromazine — a doggie tranquilizer was in the pill pockets. They took blood samples from Dick and Jane. Trace tranq in both dogs. Know anything about that?
Jack: Nada
Lynx: Think I should try to contact this Emma person?
Jack: Tough call. Wish we knew what was going on. – Jack hesitated before he typed any more. It might give us more information if we hang tight and see if she calls me to ask about Suz. See if she’s in a panic. I hate to do it to her though.
Lynx: Those were my thoughts, but I wanted that to come from you.
A man in a polo and loose-fitting cotton pants came up and sat on the edge of the bench. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. Jack slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans.
The man spit toward the gutter, his saliva arching through the air, and landing with precision.
“The rain clouds look like they want to beat the hell out of us.” Jack said in Arabic.
The man snorted mucus up his nostrils and spit again. “The same every day. Rain. Let’s walk.”
They moved down the street, the man flipped to English. “That a fake injury or are you really nursing that knee?”
“I wish it were fake,” Jack said.
“We put eyes on your POI,” he said. POI was the speak they used to distance themselves from talking about human beings. POI—person of interest—PC—precious cargo. Those little psychological tools kept them from getting emotionally involved. Emotions in these types of circumstances were usually a bad thing. It made one stop and assess, to second guess when first impressions and action should rule.
Jack picked up eyes from a building up ahead. And more from a car at the corner.
“Those your people keeping watch?” Jack asked.
“Have to be careful.”
“Agreed. Just checking in. Mind telling the guy with the scope to drop the barrel a couple inches? I need my brains to think through this problem.”
The cigarette guy pulled at his ear and the glint from the glass moved out of sight. “So who were we looking at?” he asked turning his head left then right, sweeping his gaze over the neighborhood of boarded up apartments. “CIA? FBI? Why is she down here?”
“She’s a school teacher. We don’t know why she’s down here. We thought you could help us out with that.”
“The US is tracking its school teachers now?”
“We have a couple of kids missing. We need to ask her a few questions.”
“She’s the perp?”
Jack squinted at a guy in the car, trying to decide what his hands were doing. “No, she’s a puzzle piece.”
“Her actions say she’s a tourist. She went to the dam yesterday. She slept at the address you gave us last night. She’s spoken to no one who isn’t busy doing their tourism jobs. She left this morning in a cab.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“To a point. First, tell me about these children. About six years old? Boys? American speakers?”
“You’ve seen them? The boys?”
“We had our eyes on two boys, and they disappeared. We had followed a mark to his normal pickup spot, we expected a high ranking official, instead we saw two sniveling kids.”
“Do you have photos?”
“Too dark. Too dangerous.”
“Could be the kids we’ve got missing. And if they are, they aren’t high ranking officials but they could make a high ranking official jump.”
The guy nodded. “The boys came in on the Brazilian side and walked the bridge with our mark, a Hezbollah trainer. We hoped they would lead us to their camp. We know that Hezbollah has something planned. Lots of chatter – nothing concrete. When they came off the bridge there was a car waiting on the other side. They loaded up and disappeared into the traffic. It’s hard to keep track at night.”
Jack nodded. “Why are you guys in town?” Jack asked, slowing his gait before he crossed over the alley, giving himself time to assess.
“We believe they have a farmer who grows suicide bombers as his cash crop.”
Jack pulled out his phone and opened his photos. “Is this the woman you saw?”
“Affirmative. That’s her, she’s not dressed that way though. She’s dressed like a soldier – camo pants, olive t-shirt, Bates Defender zip boots. If she’s special ops, she’s doing a crap job at incognito. She couldn’t look more like a soldier if she was fast roped off a helo into the middle of the square. She’s getting attention with her get up and her red curls. Pale skin sticks out in these parts.”
Jack took that information in. He scrolled forward on his phone. “These the boys?”
This time the man took Jack’s phone in his hand. He reached up and scratched his shoulder – a signal. A man in a car got out and walked over to them. They both looked at the photos and discussed them in Hebrew. The second man lifted his chin and went back to his car.
“Right size, right age, right coloring. When did they go missing?”
“Monday morning, taken from their school around zero nine hundred eastern standard.”
“Right time frame. They came in early Tuesday morning well before dawn.”
“So they’re training for suicide runs down here. Where’s that?”
“We haven’t found their camp.”
Jack stared at him hard. The guy had information; he just wasn’t willing to share. “You’re afraid I’ll mess up your operation?”
The man stopped and held Jacks arm to keep him from moving forward. “We have a mission to accomplish and the outcome is much bigger than the lives of two children – as sad as that is to say.”
“The children’s well-being might very well have national security implications. Their grandfather is on the Senate Arms Committee and there are several votes that are coming up with which he has major political sway. It could change the whole dynamic in some of the old Eastern Bloc countries and change the temperature in the Middle East. We believe the children are being leveraged to change United States security policy.”
“News of the children’s deaths reaching the US population would take away this power.”
Jack took that information in and processed it. “We don’t know what the desired outcome is and which policy is being influenced. In fact, we don’t have any idea who took the children. According to the grandfather, they have heard nothing, and there have been no demands.”
“The Americans know that the children were kidnapped?”
“They know the children are missing. There’s a difference. We have something called an Amber Alert it went out up and down the East Coast. A school was attacked, St. Basil’s. Four adults were killed, one of the assailants committed suicide in front of an auditorium of kids. Two trucks with explosives were set to detonate on either side of the school. Their detonators failed. That information has not been released to the public.”
“The school’s attack hasn’t played on the news down here.”
“Any chance you’re missing some people from the cell you’re watching?”
“I can find out. Do the Americans believe the live-shooter at the school was staged simply to get to those two boys? It seems extreme.”
Jack’s eyes scanned the horizon as they came up near the ri
ver. “Ever hear of St. Mogila’s School during World War II?”
The man stopped walking. “That would be a very bad set of circumstances. That’s what’s being considered? Then the shooters failed to see it through properly. Certainly if that is the case, the Americans are better off if the boys are dead. The boys are better off dead, too.”
“Americans don’t think that way.”
“Israelis don’t either. But sometimes it is best to be pragmatic.”
Jack wiped his hand across his mouth and sniffed. The air smelled like hot dog crap. “Let’s take that right off the table. We don’t know if this is a chess game that’s trying to force us to move a particular piece. Sacrifice a Bishop to trap the opponents King. What if, for example, the politician recuses himself or steps down from the chairmanship? Perhaps, that’s exactly the end goal. Perhaps, they have the next in line already over the fence about something; maybe they have him reaching into their deep pockets. Since we don’t know, the best strategy at this point is to rescue the children and return them to their parents. If anything happened to the kids, we don’t know what detonator fuse was lit.”
“If the Chairman stays in place with the children absent, the reporters would explain this to the Americans. His actions would be scrutinized.”
“I think you have an old-school view of our journalists. Now, there are many who are more about entertainment than holding people’s feet to the fire. The children who are missing are not taking up any vital time on the news shows. The pundits are fighting about gun laws and second amendment rights. They want to know why the principal wasn’t armed, why the secretary couldn’t reach under her desk and pull out an AK and take down the bad guys before the school was shot up. The nuances of geopolitics is too difficult to get off in a sound bite. The media doesn’t even try.”
“Your chess analogy is sound reasoning. The terrorist groups have, by necessity, become extremely savvy strategists. And this woman, the teacher, she is trying to infiltrate the terror group who took the children? If these are the right boys, I’m surprised she made it here so quickly. I’m also surprised that she isn’t trying to blend in.”
“The woman is my fiancée,” Jack’s voice was so quiet he wasn’t sure his counterpart could hear him. “We believe she is being manipulated by the terrorists. She’s wearing the clothes that were packed in a bugout bag I gave her one year as a birthday gift. I think she grabbed it on the way out and that gear is all she has with her.”
“Digital print backpack? Solar panels?”
“Exactly.”
“Someone handed that to her just this side of the Friendship bridge.”
“When was that?” Jack’s whole body tightened down.
“10:40 hours. This morning.”
Jack’s jaw locked, thrusting his chin forward. “Do you still have eyes on her?”
“No, my friend, that we do not. She took a taxi thirty kilometers to the north, to Refugio Tatí Yupí. The taxis can only go 10 kilometers into the park, then the passenger must walk the rest of the way. We saw the taxi exit without a passenger.”
“You left someone there to watch for when she comes out? Is she there now?”
“This is personal. I understand that. I’m very sorry to tell you that we doubt very much that she will ever come out again. Walking into Refugio Tatí Yupí is like walking into quick sand.”
19
Suz
Somewhere Close to Noon, Thursday February 17th
Yati Tupi, Paraguay
Suz had stepped out of the taxi, bewildered. The taxi driver had done some wrangling with the guard who stood at the entrance sign –a long piece of wood with white painted writing. Three brightly colored orange cones stopped cars from entering. She wasn’t sure what that was about. It didn’t seem like a very popular place. Suz didn’t see any other cars around. Finally, the taxi driver gave the guard some cash; the gate keeper, in return, pulled one of the cones aside and let them pass. The cabby drove for about ten minutes and then stopped at the side of the road. Suz stared up the wide dirt road and saw nothing. She looked back over her shoulder and saw nothing. She was alone on the road without witnesses to what would happen next.
The driver exited the cab and went around to pop the trunk.
No matter what happens, Suz thought. I will fight him. I’m not letting him put me into a trunk. When he slammed the hood and walked around with her backpack in his hands, hysteria floated out of her chest in a bubble of craziness, and she found herself laughing until her eyes streamed.
When she was under some semblance of control, she found the driver standing by the car saying something to her. When she finally opened the door and crawled out to stand next to him, he thrust her bag into her hands. He was miming to her. Suz got the impression that this was as far as he could drive, that she needed to walk around the corner. He took his index and middle finger and twiddled them back and forth to look like legs walking, and it was kind of sweet, and kind of unnerving. Suz focused on getting her backpack on in order to keep the next bubble of hysteria packed into her chest. She nodded and gave the man some money. From the look of a windfall on his face, it was too much money, but Suz didn’t know anything about Paraguayan money. It looked like brightly colored Monopoly bills to her.
She moved around the corner and immediately saw the one-story tourist building painted white with a green roof. She approached slowly, waiting for a text. None came. She stood outside the door waiting. None came. Big fat droplets of water began to fall and even under the overhang Suz was getting wet. She decided to go in.
Here, a man approached her and caught her under the elbow. “Man” might have been a stretch. Suz didn’t know what to make of the guy. His teeth were crooked when he smiled at her. A forced kind of smile that twitched at the corners with a wrinkled nose like someone had handed him a bag of dog doo, and he was obliged to carry it. He was very thin, she thought, young. Very young. She wondered if he was still a teenager. At home she would have guessed sixteen or seventeen years old. His eyes looked old though. “No English,” he said. She recognized the lilt of his accent as someone who spoke native Arabic but that was as far as she could guess.
He motioned her to the educational information along the walls, and they both pretended to be interested. They finally made it over to a counter where the refuge’s offerings could be arranged. Bike tours, horse tours, walking tours. A crash of thunder boomed overhead. Suz couldn’t imagine going out in this weather. The desk operator wagged a finger at the pictures then pointed up and as if on cue, the sky boomed again. A text buzzed against Suz’s thigh. She pulled it out: Show this to the woman, it said. What followed were Spanish-looking words. Suz was kicking herself for the years of French that she had studied that were serving her no good at all. Suz handed the phone over, the worker read, and then pointed to a signup sheet for a walking tour. Excursión that sounded like excursion. . . it might mean tour. The woman typed a message into her phone and handed it back to Suz.
You will wait for the rain to stop and then go with the guide.
What if it didn’t stop? Then what?
As if reading her mind, the next text said: Instructions will follow.
Suz swung her head around wondering how this texting-person always knew exactly what was happening. He wasn’t spying on her through the camera. After she realized that she had been carrying the phone in her left hand all the time, she had been careful to put it in her thigh pocket. That hadn’t seemed to have made a difference. Suz moved over to a low couch, pulled off her bag, and sat down. The boy scowled as if she should not have moved without his permission. Suz ignored him. Instead she dug through the outer pockets of the bag. Jack had packed them by hierarchy, he had explained. Each thing in the bag was important, but the things she would need first were in the outside pockets. What she needed was a first aid kit with mole skin. Her new boots had rubbed inch-wide blisters in rings around her ankles. Each step was agony. She pulled off her boots and doctored her skin. She ca
refully wrapped her pants’ leg over her ankles, folding the extra fabric to cushion her, then put the boots back on. That was the way Jack wore his pants in the pictures of him in the jungle.
After a short time, the rain stopped, and a man dressed in long pants and a long sleeved shirt, despite the oppressive heat, called her name, holding up two fingers to indicate she and her new found friend/guard should come. Two other adults and three children were called, as well, and they all headed out the door behind their guide. They climbed on a tourist bus that drove them about thirty minutes back into the forest, down a road to a path
The path they followed was wide and comprised of rich earth, muddy from the shower. There were some small puddles and a few rivulets, but it was easy hiking. While the path was wide enough that they weren’t brushing against the foliage, the broad leaves on the trees dripped down on them. Suz reached around and found the rain poncho that had been stashed in the right-hand pocket. It was a large military issue poncho that was designed to keep men like Jack dry. For Suz, it was much too long. She ended up holding it up like a ball gown as she moved behind the guide, listening to what he was saying about the history of the area and their conservation in English(ish), and then a repeat in Spanish.
“We have classified thirty-nine species of mammals such as: jaguars, wild boar, capybara – which are the world’s largest rodents, anteater, wolves, and tapir. Paraguay also has a large population of crocodiles in our waterways. As you enjoy your time in Paraguay, please be aware that there are dangers in our waters. The carnivorous piranha, for example, are common.” He lifted his eyebrows for emphasis. “Here at Tatí Yupí we have classified two hundred and forty-seven different kinds of birds and twenty-one reptiles. Perhaps today we will be very lucky and see a boa constrictor. They like to drape their bodies in the tree limbs.
Suz’s eyes widened, and she looked up. What’s that? Boa constrictors hanging in trees like Christmas tinsel?
“Boa constrictors are non- venomous snakes that kill their prey by squeezing and constricting until their dinner is dead.” The guide was walking backwards and using his hands to demonstrate. “Boa constrictors are around three meters in length – so around nine feet.” He looked pointedly at Suz, the only American, as he said that.
