Latitude Zero

by Diana Renn

  Mari drew her legs up onto the chair and hugged her knees. “Honestly? I don’t like to go out,” she whispered. “I’m being followed.”

  39

  I STARED at Mari, who was now shivering in her plastic chair as if she were cold to the bone. I, too, felt cold. Numb. With fear. “Followed?” I repeated. My suspicions were right. Mari was on Darwin’s radar.

  “Oh, great. You think I’m paranoid, too.”

  “No. I don’t. Who’s following you?”

  “Some skinny dude with a ponytail,” she said. “I started noticing him a few days after I got here. Like, wherever I was, there he was.”

  Pizarro. The one with the knife. Oh, no. Though Darwin was a phone hacker, and Balboa a hack writer, I had the sense that Pizarro wouldn’t mind using a real weapon to hack at someone who didn’t comply. He’d been quick to flash that silver at me that day at the Port of Boston.

  “When I left my afternoon bike mechanics class at Vuelta?” said Mari. “He’d be across the street, or at a kiosk or something, pretending to shop or eat or talk on his phone, but watching me. I could feel it. Or I’d go to a café or a restaurant with the other volunteers, and he’d show up, sit by himself in a corner, and eat. Then I was biking home from work one evening, alone, and he came up behind me. On a bike. He called out to me in Spanish. He said he needed some information, and could I come and talk to him? Well, no way was I going to do that. I figured he was trying to lure me over, so he could mug me or something. Playing ‘lost tourist’ or something, even though his accent was clearly from here.”

  Information. He’d asked her for information, too. “What’d you do next?”

  “Rode away. Fast. I managed to ditch him. I haven’t seen him since. But there’s a girl who follows me, too. A redhead. Big hair. Not much older than us.”

  That had to be Balboa.

  “She came into Vuelta twice, poking around, looking at the used bike section, it seems, but really looking at me, into my classroom when I’m teaching,” said Mari. “She didn’t buy anything, and when someone asked if they could help her, she left. Then last Sunday, I rode in the ciclopaseo, and—”

  “What’s the ciclopaseo? A race?”

  “No, it’s this community event every Sunday, where they close the whole street of Amazonas for bikes. It goes all the way from north Quito to the Old Town. It’s super fun. I mean, it’s fun if you’re not being stalked. Anyway, she was on that ride. Tessa, I swear, this girl chased me! She tried to run me off the road and make me steer into traffic! A bus almost hit me. I’ve never had such a close call.”

  I could imagine Balboa doing something like that. She’d seemed keyed up, on edge, when we talked at the shipyard. Was there any chance Balboa could have orchestrated Juan Carlos’s crash? Could she have been the one who rigged his bike?

  I quickly tried to recall everything she’d told me. She’d said she was a new recruit to Darwin’s group. Maybe in addition to the suckiest alias, she also got the suckiest job. Going in for the kill.

  Now I didn’t know which of these three guys I should fear most.

  “What’d you do then?” I asked Mari, sitting on the edge of my broken chair.

  “I managed to get the bike off the main drag. I ducked into a crafts market, and hid behind a display of hammocks. I lost her. But I’m pretty sure some other people were working with her. I saw four guys—Ecuadorians—following on bikes, not far behind.” She let out a long breath. “So I told the police people were following me, and that maybe they were the same people who broke into this place and stole my laptop. They wrote down my descriptions.”

  “Can they do anything?”

  “Not without proof, they said. So I just filled out a bunch of paperwork no one will ever read. This one detective I keep talking to, he just thinks I’m crazy. He even asked me if I was on medication! So I’ve been lying low, hoping they’ll think I’ve left the city.”

  “Mari. Listen to me.” I set down my bottle of Inca Kola, hard, on the plastic table. “I know who these people are.”

  She leaned forward. “You do?”

  “Yes. And they’re not giving up. They’ve been tailing me, too.” I told her, finally, everything, going all the way back to the discovery of Juan Carlos’s spare bike in the woods. She listened, mouth open, barely blinking.

  “And you said they all have weird code names?”

  “Darwin, Pizarro, Balboa. I’d file that under ‘weird.’”

  “Charles Darwin did his natural selection theory research in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands. Francisco Pizarro and Vasco Nuñez de Balboa were South American explorers.”

  I groaned. Any good investigative reporter would have Googled those names right away. If I’d done that, I’d have realized the names all connected to this region, and that Ecuador would not offer any escape.

  Mari buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God. I wish I’d never touched that bike!”

  “Touched what bike?”

  “Juan Carlos’s bike. The one in the woods.”

  My heart pounded. I’d touched that bike. And so had she? When? “I think you’d better explain that,” I said.

  A loud knock at the door interrupted us. Mari and I exchanged terrified looks.

  We heard one of her roommates—Jim or Liz or both, still entwined—shuffle to the door and answer it. And then a guy’s voice, in accented English: “Sorry to disturb you. I just brought something for Tessa and Mari. If they are busy talking, it’s no problem, maybe I can just leave this bag for them here?”

  Santiago. He’d come up. Even after he told me he’d just meet me at the car in an hour. An hour had not yet passed. Was this normal Ecuadorian courtesy? Or stalkery?

  “Who the hell is that?” Mari asked, eyeing the balcony railing as if she might leap over.

  “Santiago. Wilson’s son. He drove me here. He’s cool. But I told him not to—”

  “I think Mari’s outside on the balcony,” one of the roommates was saying. “Go right on in. Her room’s just behind that bookshelf.”

  And then Santiago was approaching our window, grinning sheepishly, holding out a paper bag and two paper cups, steam swirling up from them.

  “They’re not really lattes,” he said. “Just Nescafé with a lot of hot milk. And here are some fresh-baked rolls from the tienda downstairs. I know you’re catching up. So I guess I should be going.” He looked at me uncertainly, making no move toward the door.

  I heard Mari’s stomach grumble appreciatively. I could smell the bread through that paper bag. And I warmed, pushing aside my worry that he was checking up on me like Jake sometimes did. Santiago had actually listened to me in the car, as I talked about my friends and our latte tradition. He probably thought Mari and I had the same tradition. He’d gone out of his way to make me feel at home, to find a link between that world and this one. Jake had never gone out of his way like that, to make my friends and me comfortable. Maybe that’s the kind of guy I wanted to find next time around.

  But Mari still owed me some information. So I thanked Santiago for the refreshments and looked at the door, hoping he’d get the hint. “I’ll see you outside. I won’t be long,” I said.

  But Mari whispered something to me about “Ecuadorian hospitality” and led him out to the balcony. Santiago eased his long limbs out the window and folded himself into a third plastic chair while Mari divided the rolls. He didn’t make one judgmental remark about Mari’s humble living conditions. From the questions he asked, he seemed genuinely interested in how we knew each other through Compass Bikes.

  “It was my idea to get Tessa on board with the Vuelta bike donation project,” Mari concluded, after giving a mercifully brief account of how we’d first met. “We both wanted to honor Juan Carlos by helping to finish this project.”

  Santiago’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I still cannot believe he died in t
hat terrible way,” he said. “His own team mechanic!”

  “Did you ever meet Juan Carlos?” Mari asked him. “Since your dad runs Vuelta?”

  Points for Mari. Here I was, the aspiring investigative journalist, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask Santiago that question.

  “Once or twice, yes,” Santiago said. “He seemed like a really good person. And his death hit our country hard. Ecuadorians had high hopes for him, to help put Ecuadorian cycling in a map.”

  “On the map,” Mari and I corrected, in unison.

  When we were done eating, Santiago proposed a sightseeing trip up to El Panecillo next weekend. But Mari said, “Hey, what about now? And we can bring Jim and Liz, too, now that they’re finally awake.” She stood up so quickly that I suspected her enthusiasm was all manufactured. She wanted to avoid my questions.

  “We are so not done talking,” I whispered to Mari in the stairwell as we all followed Santiago out to his car. “You were starting to tell me about Juan Carlos’s bike in the woods! Darwin’s trying to get in touch with me, too. I need to know everything you know about what he’s hiding and what he’s been up to here, so I can figure out some kind of game plan.”

  She looked scared. Then she nodded. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell you everything when we get there. There’s a place at the base of the statue where we can talk privately.”

  Santiago drove to the Old Town, down bumpy cobblestone streets. While New Quito was all gleaming and colorful buildings, a hodgepodge of modern architecture, Old Quito was a step back in time. Grand white colonial buildings rose ahead of us. On either side of us, pastel-painted buildings were squished together like layers of wedding cake. Santiago pointed out sights along the way—a grand plaza, a famous cathedral, old art galleries—and then he ascended a hill. At the top, he parallel parked behind a few other cars and a tourist bus. As we all walked toward the statue, and Santiago talked about the Quito School of Art and the inspiration for the statue, I barely heard a word. Mari had seen—no, touched—that bike! Had she been the original thief? Or the one who’d foiled Darwin’s plan?

  At the base of the statue, while Jim and Liz bought some overpriced magnets from a souvenir stand—and Mari and Santiago helped them to negotiate the price down in Spanish—I took a close look at the statue. Up close, I saw its surface wasn’t smooth at all, but a rough patchwork of aluminum pieces. The Virgin of Quito stood atop a globe with unexpected grace, given the heaviness of her materials. She seemed to be almost dancing on it. Stars adorned her halo. And then, with a start, I realized she held in one hand a long chain, which was attached to a serpent.

  She seemed free, but she was tethered. Burdened, almost, by that chain. As was I. I played with Juan Carlos’s necklace. It felt heavier than ever. I had to figure out for sure if Darwin and his group had killed him, and what they wanted with Mari and me. His crew could resurface anytime. His eyes and ears could be here. I looked behind us. Another tourist bus had arrived and was emptying itself of passengers, who were armed with cameras and guidebooks.

  All five of us started walking around the statue’s pedestal, but as Santiago went into tour-guide mode, I grabbed Mari’s long sleeve and held her back. A strong breeze gusted. “You lied to me. I mentioned the stolen bike in the woods. Twice. Why didn’t you tell me you knew about that?”

  Mari had looked happy a moment ago, helping Jim and Liz to buy souvenirs, but now her face fell. She nodded and beckoned for me to follow her a few yards away, around the corner from the shop. The breeze blew more briskly there, and an Ecuadorian flag flapped loudly, obscuring our words from anyone who might listen. It also smelled of urine, and there was litter all over the ground.

  “I’ve wanted to tell you the whole story,” she began. “I’ve hated walking around with this secret. But I also wanted to protect Juan Carlos.”

  “Protect him? From what? Or from who?”

  “From cheating allegations.”

  “Cheating!” I thought of Jake’s theory about motorized bikes and other enhancements.

  Mari sighed. “Okay. Before Chain Reaction started, I was parked in the Compass Bikes van at the edge of the staging area,” she said. “That’s when I saw Juan Carlos, riding his bike down Great Marsh Road.”

  “Right. But you told me you didn’t see him that morning!”

  “I know. I didn’t know if I could trust you. You didn’t tell me everything, either, you know. You could be a little more understanding.”

  “Point taken. Go on.”

  She took a deep breath and continued, closing her eyes as she spoke, as if conjuring up the scene. “Juan Carlos rode fast. He looked behind him a few times, like he thought someone might be chasing him. I thought he was just warming up. And racers do that. They look behind them.”

  “I know.” Jake used to joke he was paranoid that way, glancing behind him even while strolling at the mall or waiting in line at the movies. Looking behind him was how he’d seen me and Juan Carlos talking at the café in Harvard Square that day, while he happened to pass by.

  “But then Juan Carlos rode into the woods,” said Mari. “He stayed in there for about five minutes. And then he walked out. With no bike! He stood under some trees, like he was hiding.”

  “Praying,” I said. “He always prayed before races, when he was on the junior team.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know that,” said Mari. “Anyway, I was about to run over and ask him if everything was okay,” Mari continued. “Then Gage drove up with cases of water for the van, so I had to work. But I saw you and Juan Carlos talking. Juan Carlos ran off. Your friend Jake came along. Then the two of you went into the woods. And you didn’t come out. Now I’m thinking, this is messed up. I thought you guys were up to something.”

  I reached out to the statue base to steady myself. I felt dizzy, maybe from altitude. I wished I’d brought a bottle of water. Or maybe the realization that I had been observed with Juan Carlos before the race—by both Mari and Balboa—was making my head spin. “What would we be up to?” I asked.

  “Helping Juan Carlos to cheat.”

  “No way! We would never!”

  “Well, I know that now. But that was my thought at the time.”

  “So that’s why you were asking me about my friend in the black jersey, when you helped me after the crash. You were wondering where Jake had gone.”

  “Yeah. I thought he was helping Juan Carlos pull off some cheating scam. The only thing that didn’t fit the equation was you, an obviously less experienced rider. And once I scooped you off the road and talked to you more, I realized you were just a bandit with her boyfriend. You seemed so clueless. I didn’t think you’d be capable of helping him cheat.”

  “Thanks. I guess. But . . . you really thought Juan Carlos was cheating?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first pro to do it.”

  “How would he cheat?”

  “Stash an unapproved bike in the woods until after the pre-race bike inspections were over. Then pretend to have a mechanical failure, pull over, and have someone swap his regulation bike for a tricked-out one, with enhancements. He’d need an accomplice. Like your old buddy Jake. That’s what I thought anyway.”

  “Jake wasn’t an accomplice. He suspected Juan Carlos of cheating, too.” I shook my head. Picturing Juan Carlos as a cheater was almost as hard as imagining him caught up in shady business with a drug cartel. “But why would he even consider cheating? He was an amazing rider.”

  “He was,” Mari agreed. “But he felt tons of pressure ever since Cadence came on board. Chris Fitch was really on his case about needing to win.”

  “Juan Carlos had wins,” I pointed out. “Have you seen his race stats this season? He was on a streak.”

  “He needed big wins,” said Mari. “Record-breaking times. Juan Carlos told me, the day before the race, that Chris wanted world champions riding on Cadence brand bikes.”
<
br />   “Why?”

  “Because people love to buy what champions ride. Look what Lance did for Trek.”

  “Dylan said something about that.”

  “Sure. That’s what consumers want. The bicycles of champions. I hear it all the time at the shop.”

  “So Juan Carlos was supposed to do well at Chain Reaction, to kick off the Cadence-EcuaBar partnership?” I guessed, remembering the team photo, the unfurled banner.

  “That’s what Juan Carlos told me.”

  I sank into a nearby chair. I’d known el Cóndor, the character. Not Juan Carlos, the person. He’d made everything look so effortless, but clearly it wasn’t that way. He had pressure, too, to fit other people’s expectations. To exceed them, even.

  “Chris was so mean about Juan Carlos, when he didn’t show for the photo shoot,” I recalled out loud. “It seemed like he didn’t like Juan Carlos, or care if he missed the team photo. Wait. Mari!” I suddenly remembered Chris’s TV interview with Bianca Slade. “Chris Fitch’s brother died. In a bike crash. Don’t you think it’s a little weird that the CEO of Cadence knows two people who died in bike crashes?”

  Mari tipped her head, considering this. “It is a pretty big coincidence. But you don’t really suspect Chris as the bike saboteur, do you? He wouldn’t kill his star cyclist—someone he was making money off of—in a public place. On a bike that his company manufactured. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No. I guess you’re right.” I scratched the back of my neck and let my gaze drift to the statue’s aluminum patchwork, while I tried to piece all this new information together. So far, Darwin was the more likely missing link between the bike theft and Juan Carlos’s death. For a moment I’d let myself hope that I wasn’t being stalked by a murderer on the loose. That hope was fading fast. I glanced behind us again. The tourists from the bus were approaching now. I talked faster, in case “eyes and ears” were among those tourists. “So what happened? You found the bike in the woods. Did it seem enhanced in any way?” I thought of Jake’s motor-in-the-seat-tube idea. “Heavier, maybe?”