Latitude Zero

by Diana Renn

  The plane bucked from turbulence. The woman next to me clutched her armrests and murmured prayers in Spanish. As we were pushed through the cloud cover, the lights of Quito rose up to greet us.

  Wheels skidded onto the tarmac, and the passengers burst into applause.

  32

  IN THE airport, I confronted only stress and chaos. Sputtering white fluorescent lights. Endless lines at customs. Tired babies shrieked and wailed, ignored by exhausted mothers. Dazed tourists fumbled with fanny packs. Recorded announcements in Spanish and English, at regular intervals, urged travelers to hold on to bags, and not to carry anything on behalf of a stranger.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of that scene and find my host family. For the first time, it hit me: this was serious travel. I’d been to eco-resorts—Costa Rica, Aruba—and on a school band trip to Montreal. Always with parents or chaperones. Now I had to do all my own navigating.

  After finally clearing customs, I went to a restroom to splash water on my face. Scraping my tangled hair into a ponytail, I made a face at my reflection. Everyone around me wore full makeup, cute outfits. Elaborate footwear—lots of high heels—peeked out from under the stalls. I wore a pair of old Chuck Taylors and a hopelessly wrinkled T-shirt. I’d spilled tomato juice on my jeans. I probably wasn’t going to make the most stunning first impression on the Ruiz family.

  Leaving the secure area of the airport, I passed through a long metal tunnel, like a cage. People were pressed up against the other side of it, calling out to family and friends. Boys my age—and some older men—stared as I passed through. Some whistled or clicked their tongues. Others murmured catcalls.

  “¡Qué guapa!”

  “¡Qué rica, la gringa!”

  I wanted to run or hide my face. But I thought of my mom, younger, cowering in a hotel room, afraid to go out in the streets in Juárez, Mexico. I wouldn’t be like that. And this was Quito, a cosmopolitan city. I turned my skin to steel, imagining words and stares glancing off.

  Then I realized, as the men called to some other girl walking behind me, that nobody here knew who I was. In Quito, I wasn’t Tessa Taylor, the fallen star of KidVision. I wasn’t “Jake’s girl.” And I definitely wasn’t an overgrown Dora the Explorer. I was just some gringa to whistle at. Just a person walking by.

  That thought was incredibly freeing.

  I made three loops around the waiting area at the airport. I scanned the crowds of travelers reuniting with loved ones, businesspeople meeting associates. Everyone got whisked away in taxis and waiting cars. I kept my eyes out for a sign with my name. I passed lots of people holding signs for strangers they were meeting. Not one of them said “Tessa Taylor.”

  Had the Ruizes forgotten me?

  I rummaged for their letter in my pack. I hadn’t brought my cell phone to Quito—my parents cheaped out on the international roaming charges, which was fine by me. I didn’t need Darwin staying in touch.

  I could probably find a pay phone—I’d read on an Ecuador travel site that pay phones could still be found at some stores and Internet cafés. But the letter wasn’t in my pack. With a groan, I realized it must have fallen out on the plane, probably during that turbulence, which had knocked my pack over. I wished I could call Mari—she’d know what to do—but she had no cell phone in Quito either, and her cousin had no landline—too expensive, Mari had explained when I asked. It was almost eight p.m. on a Friday evening, and the Vuelta offices would be closed by now. None of the taxi drivers looked like people I really wanted to jump into a car with. The drivers stood with arms crossed, or paced back and forth, or lit up cigarettes, looking hungrily in my direction.

  I sat down on a curb, zipped up my hoodie, and rubbed my arms to keep warm. So much for summer. It was cold here up in the Andes Mountains. The tropical paradise part of Ecuador, and the steamy jungles and cloud forests promised by the brochures, must be far away.

  I looked up, as if for a map in the stars. I blinked back tears. And caught my breath. Oh my God. Those stars! Diamonds flung on black velvet. I wanted to reach out and grab them.

  The airport crowds began to thin out. A boy approached me, holding a sign.

  “Excuse me? This is you?” The sign had my name on it, misspelled: TERESA TYLER.

  The voice jolted me. The accent, the pitch, the musical lilt—it sounded so much like Juan Carlos! I scrambled to my feet, half expecting to see him.

  It was not Juan Carlos standing there, of course, but a different guy. He was tall—probably over six feet—with milky-brown skin, light brown, curly hair, and deep blue eyes that made me think of those pictures of earth shot from space. He wore dark wash jeans, a pale blue polo shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He didn’t look like anyone in the Ruiz family photo. He also seemed around my age—too old to be my host brother. Good-looking, I couldn’t help noticing, but smiling eagerly, in a way that made me cautious.

  “Who are you?” I held my backpack tight.

  “Santiago Jaramillo,” he replied with a warm smile. As if I was supposed to know who he was. “¡Bienvenidos a Ecuador!” He leaned forward—or lunged. I thought of Pizarro with his knife and turned my head at the last second.

  Santiago’s nose bashed my ear.

  I backed away, crashing into a garbage can.

  “Oof,” said Santiago, rubbing his finely arched nose. “Sorry. Here in Ecuador, we greet each other with besos. In the United States, you are accustomed to handshakes, I think? Okay, then. We can shake hands.” He grinned and extended his right hand. “We start over. Yes? Mucho gusto.”

  I shook his hand, still wary. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Yes, I can understand the confusion.” He laughed. “I wasn’t expecting me, either. I was at my home, studying for my TOEFL.”

  “Your what?”

  “Test of English as a Foreign Language. A very important exam for study in the United States. But then the Ruiz family called to my father. They said they could not get to the airport.”

  “Wait—who’s your father?”

  “Wilson Jaramillo. The director of Vuelta?”

  Of course. Jaramillo. That’s why his name sounded familiar. But I’d just talked to Wilson on the phone the other day, and he hadn’t mentioned a son.

  “He sent me to get you,” Santiago went on. “There is a road problem. Our house is closer to the airport, and I am an excellent driver. I know all the back roads here.”

  Wilson hadn’t mentioned road problems, either.

  “The main road, it is blocked,” Santiago explained. “A protest has closed down the Pan-American Highway.”

  “Who’s protesting what?”

  “Los indígenas, Ecuador’s native population. They are protesting our president’s decision to open more rain forest land for multinational oil companies and to make roads to the pipelines.”

  I’d seen something about that on an EcuaBar wrapper. EcuaBar donated part of its proceeds to combat rain forest deforestation in Ecuador’s Amazon Basin. And Preston Lane had mentioned something about this issue in his commencement speech. “Should I be worried?” I asked.

  He made a dismissive gesture. “It is mostly an inconvenient. Ready to go?”

  I still felt unsure about trusting him. Being harassed by thugs and lied to by your boyfriend will do that to you. Your inner compass goes off-kilter, your instinct a spinning arrow.

  “Do you know Mari Vargas?” If he had anything to do with Vuelta, he should know her.

  He shook his head.

  “She’s a Vuelta volunteer. A friend of mine. She got here about two weeks ago.”

  “The TOEFL prep has been taking all my time. I have not met the new volunteers yet.”

  He could be telling the truth. Still, I’d feel better if I could get in touch with my host family. “Can you call Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz? I had to leave my cell phone at home.”

  �
�Of course.” He patted his jacket pockets, then his jeans pockets. Then he shrugged, with an apologetic smile and empty hands displayed. “Ay. I left it in my car. Shall we walk?”

  “Is it far?”

  “Not far.” He pointed in a vague direction. He might have pointed to a distant star.

  I glanced at the taxi queue again. Not appealing. He offered to carry my suitcase and backpack, but I shook my head. Gripping my suitcase handle tightly, I followed him around the corner to his car, a white Nissan Pathfinder.

  Santiago opened the door and reached in for his cell phone.

  I stood a few feet away, ready to bolt.

  Santiago spoke to someone on the phone in Spanish. I could hear a man on the other end. The two of them laughed about something before Santiago passed the phone to me.

  My host father spoke in a mix of Spanish and English, slowly apologizing for the confusion. He sounded warm. Fatherly. I clutched the phone with two hands, grateful for the kind reassurances, suddenly aching for my own dad.

  My host mother talked, too. There was food and a comfortable bed awaiting. I heard yipping in the background. Peludo the poodle.

  That dog sealed the deal. The dog existed. The Ruizes were legitimate. Santiago must be who he said he was. I was going “home.” I slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

  Then I noticed a figure under a streetlight about ten yards away. A tall, thin guy with a ponytail. He turned toward Santiago’s car. Under the streetlight’s glare I saw dark eyes glinting beneath one dark eyebrow.

  I gasped and sank low in my seat.

  Pizarro? No. No way. Balboa had promised me that Darwin would leave me alone, now that the spare bike was heading to Quito. He wouldn’t go back on his word, would he? Were they monitoring me for some other reason? Maybe this was just someone who looked like Pizarro.

  I stole another glance out the window.

  Damn. It was him! He looked right at me and beckoned. I slid down in the seat again.

  “You are not well?” Santiago cast me a worried look.

  “Not so much,” I mumbled, feeling dizzy. I poked my head up and looked again.

  I saw a black Honda Civic. Headlights winked on. Pizarro got in the passenger side. I saw a shape in the backseat, a mass of hair, glinting red beneath the streetlight. Balboa!

  And the driver of the car? Darwin. I could see his broad shoulders, his thick neck, through the open window. He was still wearing aviator shades, even though the sun had set.

  Come here, he mouthed, looking right at me.

  I hunched low in my seat, breathing hard, my heart pounding. All three of those creeps were here in Quito. Together. They hadn’t been on my flight—I’m sure I would have noticed them—so they must have arrived before me. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t gotten a text from Darwin in five days. How had they figured out I was coming here? And, more important, why did they care? I clearly had nothing to do with that bike! Did they still think I had some kind of “valuable information”? Or were they onto my plan of intercepting that bike—and its secret contents—in the shipping container, and here to make sure that I didn’t?

  I turned to Santiago. “You look like someone who loves to drive fast,” I told him, even though he didn’t look like that at all. He looked exactly like the kind of guy who’d be studying for a TOEFL exam at home on a Friday night.

  Santiago grinned. “I do like to drive fast. How did you guess?”

  He cranked up the radio—a maniacal merengue song with blaring trumpets and a rhythm the pace of a heart attack. He put the car into gear and laid rubber. A Virgin Mary picture swung wildly from the rearview mirror.

  I looked at the picture, then reached up and held tight to Juan Carlos’s necklace. If Darwin had it in for me, I’d need all the protection and backup I could get.

  33

  SANTIAGO’S EYES slid toward me as he finally slowed down for a stoplight. “Forgive me for what is a personal question. But you are anxious about something. Yes?”

  “Anxious? I’m not anxious. What makes you think I’m anxious? No. I’m excited to meet my host family! Let’s go, muy, muy rápidamente!” I looked back as the light turned green and Santiago accelerated again. Those headlights stuck close behind us. “Are we taking this road the whole way?”

  “No. At some point, soon, we will need to turn onto smaller roads.”

  I didn’t love the idea of being on a network of small, dark roads, with a car of thieves behind us. What did they want with me now? Their damn stolen bike was already on the way, due to arrive in just one week. “Let’s stay on this nice wide road with the traffic.”

  “But the blockade is coming up.”

  “There must be some way around it. Or can you just bust through it?”

  Santiago turned off the radio and looked at me. “Please tell me what is going on,” he said. “Is there some kind of trouble? If I am driving you, and if you are asking me to break a law, I must to know why.”

  “I’m being followed,” I confessed. “There are two guys and a girl in the car behind us. They were looking at me in the parking lot.”

  Santiago gaped at me. “¿En serio? Why they are following you?”

  I didn’t want my story to get back to his dad. I might get kicked out of Vuelta before I began if I looked like a magnet for criminals. “They must think I’m someone else,” I said. I remembered the announcements that had kept blaring in customs, about holding on to your bags. “They seemed pretty interested in my, um, backpack.”

  Santiago blew out a long breath. “Chuta. I am really worrying now.”

  “Why?”

  “Drug trafficking is a big problem at this airport recently. Foreigners have been targeted by dealers working for cartels. Especially young people with backpacks. They can be hired as carriers, or even used as mulas—mules—without even knowing about it.”

  “Carriers? Mules? For what?” I sat up straighter.

  “Drugs, maybe, or money from deals. Sometimes a mule can hide this in someone’s bag. Then the bag is carried to the next mule, or to some location. If these people were looking at your backpack? Believe me, you do not want them approaching to you.”

  I sucked in my breath. Drug dealers! Maybe that’s what Darwin and his group were!

  I recalled the State Department website my parents had made me read back in Boston, with all the travel advisories. While Ecuador was considered one of the safer, more politically stable South American countries compared to its neighbors, it had its share of drug cartels. I hoped Darwin was just a fence for a high-end bike-theft ring. But now, thinking of my knifepoint encounter with Pizarro, and the fact that all three of those people had tracked me at the airport, everything was pointing to drug dealing, not just a bike theft. Maybe the “valuable information” Pizarro had asked for was contact information for someone involved in some drug deal. Maybe someone Juan Carlos had known! But would the bike be filled with drugs? That didn’t make sense. Drugs came out of Latin America, not into it. Cash from drug deals seemed more likely. I wondered how much cash would fit into a bike handlebar. Or into a seat, or a hollowed-out frame.

  Any way I looked at it, it seemed likely that Darwin and his crew were connected in some way to drug cartel activities in Ecuador. Maybe the bike contained drug money.

  And Juan Carlos? How did he fit into this darkening picture? I thought of Juan Carlos’s jagged scar. Painful as it was to consider, he could have had a secret life, or a past, that no one ever suspected. Something he’d tried to leave behind when he left Ecuador. Shadows to race away from.

  I wiped my hands on my pants, suddenly aware of how much I was sweating. I’d seen Quentin Tarantino movies. Drug dealers were seriously scary people. People got killed over deals gone bad.

  Could Darwin be the person behind Juan Carlos’s death? If so, could he have framed Dylan or Jake for the bike sabotage? And
if Juan Carlos had information related to drug deals, and that information was now missing, maybe Darwin would do anything to find it. Like chasing a teenage girl who seemed like she knew something, all the way to the equator.

  I swallowed hard. I glanced behind me again, at those blinding headlights so close to us now.

  “The road will divide soon with a detour for avoiding the blockade,” said Santiago. “We must lose these people. There is only one thing to do. Is your seat belt on?”

  “Yes, but why—”

  “¡Vámonos!”

  “Oh my God!” I cried out as the car lurched forward.

  Santiago sped up until the lights behind us were distant dots. Approaching an exit ramp, where cars in front of us turned left, for the detour, he stayed the course instead.

  I looked behind. No headlights. Thank God. “That was amazing! You ditched them!”

  “Ditched? This word I do not know.”

  “You got them off our trail. Sent them packing. Cut them loose.” I smiled.

  Santiago smiled, too. “I hope these idioms appear on my TOEFL.” Then he looked worried. “But we still have the blockade ahead. They will probably tell us to turn back.”

  I rolled down my window. An acrid smell filled my nostrils, making me cough. The air was thick and hot. Logs, tree branches, and plastic barrels were heaped together across the width of the road. Piles of tires were burning bright. Flames flickered orange, licking the night sky.

  Through the smoke haze, I could see men, some with long braids, wearing ponchos and felt hats, pacing in front of the blockade. Some raised their fists as we approached. Not in solidarity. In anger. Other men, and some women—some with babies lashed to their backs—shouted at armed soldiers in front of a jeep.

  I suddenly longed for a bicycle. If we had bikes, we could ditch the car. Be free of this scene. And completely throw Darwin and his crew off our trail.