Latitude Zero

by Diana Renn

  She shook her head. “I’m too scared. Darwin knows everything about me. He knows about something bad I did to pay a college bill freshman year. That’s the way he has power over his employees. He never has to pull a gun. He just lights up information and makes it explode. He can wreck a reputation with the push of a button. He can make sure I never find a real job.”

  “Balboa,” I said, “what’s your real name?”

  She looked up. Her eyes glistened. “Bridget,” she whispered.

  “Bridget. Listen to me. Do you understand what Preston has been trying to cover up, with Darwin’s help? What project you’re helping him with? He’s hiding a whole lot of illegal activities, including running this offshore betting business and fixing bike races. And you know he’s really the one behind Juan Carlos’s death, don’t you?”

  Balboa looked down. “I try not to think about the details too much. But yeah.”

  “Meanwhile, two innocent people back home are people of interest in this case: Dylan Holcomb and Jake Collier. They’re both just decent people, trying to live their lives.” I thought for a moment. Was Jake a decent person? He had his faults and flaws, like anyone, and I didn’t need him in my life. But he was innocent of the crimes and didn’t need this cloud of suspicion following him around forever. “More race fixes are being planned, on an even larger scale,” I went on. “More money will get laundered through charities and other businesses here. And cycling is going to get corrupted all over again with this scheme. You could do a lot of good, for a lot of people, by just explaining how you got dragged into this. By fingering Darwin and Preston. And by handing over that flash drive so I can take it to the people who can go after these creeps.”

  Bridget’s fingers played at the gold chain, twisting it around and around as she thought.

  Putputputputput.

  A moped sound drew closer.

  Bridget wheeled around to see who was emerging from the alley. Darwin, on a moped. Followed by Pizarro and the other five cyclists from the shadowy Team Xplor.

  “Agent Balboa!” Darwin called out. “What are you doing? You were not supposed to go after the bike until you handed off the necklace!”

  Balboa clutched the necklace tighter.

  “You didn’t want to hand it over to them, did you,” I said, locking eyes with her. “You’ve already gone against his orders once. You can do it again.”

  “This isn’t funny, Agent Balboa,” said Darwin. “Move away from the scene and get the flash drive away from that girl. We’ll handle the bike.”

  “Bridget,” I coaxed. “You don’t need these guys anymore. Stand up for the right thing. And find your own ride.”

  The moped and the cyclists inched closer. Darwin revved the engine. Now both Bridget and I stood at the very edge of the platform. Bridget teetered. I grabbed her arm to keep her from falling.

  “Agent Balboa!” Pizarro inched his bike forward. “Do I have to cut that necklace off you?”

  “Stop calling me Balboa! I hate that name! I’m done with that name!” Bridget tore off the necklace, breaking the chain. She held it in both hands for a moment. “You want this? Go chase it yourselves!” And she hurled it over the edge.

  “No!” Darwin shouted as he lunged for it and missed.

  No! I wailed inside.

  Pizarro and the other cyclists leaped off their bikes, and they all looked over the edge, trying to spot it on the rooftop below and figure out the best way down.

  Bridget took my hand and slipped something into it. It was the flash drive. She’d thrown only the chain, to distract them.

  “I’ll hold these guys off you as long as I can. I think I can buy you a good lead. Now go, Tessa. Go. Ride like the wind.”

  /////

  I DIDN’T waste any time. I shouldered Juan Carlos’s bike and ran down those stone steps. I slipped twice in my bike shoes, and skinned my arm, but I got up again and kept going. At the bottom, I put the flash drive in my pocket and rode as fast as I could toward El Parque Metropolitano.

  Toward the starting line of the race.

  Toward the finish line of this nightmare.

  Toward the starting line of the rest of my life.

  I heard cheering as I neared it. I almost imagined it was for me. But the race had started. I was riding against the stream. Colorful pelotons shot past me. Including Team Cadence-EcuaBar in white and green. The Ecuadorian team followed close to their wheels, a streak of red, yellow, and blue.

  I gritted my teeth and pedaled on, ignoring police who cautioned me to keep away from the barricades. Spectators scattered out of my way. Pigeons, too.

  “Tessa! Over here!”

  “Slow down! Slow down!”

  I looked up and saw Mari and Santiago waving. Gesturing me to veer right, to a set of bleachers roped off with red ribbon. Diplomat and other government cars were parked just behind them. Police cars, too.

  “You did it, Tessa! You did it! Stop!” Mari shouted.

  I plowed right through the red ribbon setting off the VIP area, my arms raised up in a victory V.

  60

  FOUR DAYS later, I was in Santiago’s Pathfinder, barreling down the Pan-American Highway. I rolled the window open and let the wind tangle my hair. I trailed my hand outside and felt the wind push back against me. I tried to grab on to that wind and hold it, to imagine it pulling me forward.

  Things were definitely moving forward on the crime-solving front.

  Preston Lane, Coach Mancuso, the three spies, the flash drive, and Preston Lane’s bike—now emptied of cash—were all on their way back to Boston. Darwin and his crew would face more questioning there. A news story in the Ecuadorian paper said Bridget Peterson, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, had done a lot of talking already and might be able to expect some leniency from U.S. authorities compared to the other two individuals. I hoped so. Even though that article she’d posted about me still stung, I hoped she’d find a better use for her communications skills and her journalistic interest, as well as a fresh start for her life.

  Preston Lane and Tony Mancuso would be taken into protective custody. They faced charges for racketeering and for conspiracy to commit money laundering, as well as conspiracy and second-degree murder charges for their involvement in Juan Carlos’s death. Dylan and Jake were presumed innocent at this point, though would serve as key witnesses in eventual legal proceedings.

  The FBI had swiftly tracked down and raided the homes of at least ten other businesspeople, in the United States, who were involved with Sports Xplor in some way—as investors or consultants or agents. The site was declared illegal and promptly shut down. Mari and I talked to Gage on the phone—he wanted to hear the whole story from us personally. I asked him about that Sports Xplor screen I’d noticed on his office computer. I hoped he hadn’t been implicated in the gambling scheme. “No way,” he said. “I knew it seemed fishy. I held on to the URL and password Preston and Tony had given me, and I kept coming back to look at the site and try to figure it out. I never would have spent money on it, as a player or as an organizer. And I’m really proud of what you girls did, reporting all this. My gut told me that site was illegal, but I never was sure of Preston and Tony’s roles in it. Now I wish I’d spoken up sooner.”

  Next I’d had a tough video conference with my parents, where I had to tell them everything. My mom promised me “consequences galore” as soon as I got back home. They weren’t at all thrilled I’d lobbied to go to Ecuador without telling them everything I was involved in. They said it was wrong to cover up so many of my own actions, even as I was trying to do the right thing and uncover the truth. If that wasn’t enough, I then had pretty much an identical conversation with the Ruiz family, in Spanish. Not exactly how I’d planned to be practicing my Spanish verbs.

  My dad insisted I stay out of the news, for my own safety, in case other gambling ring members surfaced and decided to r
etaliate on Darwin’s behalf. I agreed to lay low, and turned down interviews with the media, Ecuadorian and American. I promised not to talk about the details on my vlog, once I got that going again. It wasn’t hard to do. This story wasn’t about me getting famous or restoring my TV persona. It was about unearthing the truth behind Juan Carlos’s death. It was about owning up to the fact that while I didn’t directly cause that death, I’d been wrong to bandit ride, to draft a team’s paceline and pull out too fast, and to go for so long without reporting to police what I knew. It was about making sure that a handful of greedy, corrupt people like Preston Lane didn’t poison the sport of cycling. Bikes could save lives, just like Mari had said once. They weren’t supposed to end lives.

  At the end of those tough conversations, both sets of parents—north and south of the equator—had told me they were proud of my courage. “It’s a rare individual,” my dad added, “who takes risks in the name of justice. I’m not saying everything you did was right, especially since you are under eighteen. But I am proud to have a daughter who’s got integrity.”

  On Sunday, just two days after we exposed Preston Lane and the Sports Xplor scheme, Bianca Slade had actually called me at the Ruiz house. She wanted to tell me personally that I’d been courageous to tip her off about the bike sabotage in the first place, and when I confessed—off the record—what else Mari and I had done to crack the case, she expressed even more admiration. “My hat’s off to you,” she said. “You have the qualities of a great investigative journalist. And you know what the most important quality is?”

  “What?”

  “That we care enough about something to ask questions, follow hunches, and find evidence—even when it seems like no one else cares. That we keep on digging.”

  “Thanks,” I’d managed to squeak.

  “But there are ways to look for evidence and talk to sources without putting yourself at such risk,” she’d continued, sounding a little bit stern. “You need to get special training for this field of work. There are journalism programs with investigative tracks, and I’ll email you my recommendations. Meanwhile, I hear you’re between jobs these days. There’s an internship with your name on it at Watchdog, whenever you’re ready to start.”

  I’d done a little dance after hanging up the phone, whooping with joy. Bianca Slade liked my work! I’d get to work with her someday! Mari and the Ruiz family had joined me in my celebratory dance. Lucia had put on salsa music—Amparo had turned it up loud—and we made our own salsoteca in the Casa Ruiz living room that night.

  Kylie was less understanding at first. We had a videoconference right after my host family’s impromptu dance party and she burst into tears. She said the scholarship committee had contacted her. A stop had been put on the check while investigators looked into Preston Lane’s financial transactions in the United States and offshore. There were suspicious money wire transfers and more suspicious cash smuggling activities to look into, and the scholarship would likely be dissolved. I listened to her for as long as she wanted to talk. I let her cry as long as she needed. Then I explained to her, gently, why I’d exposed this scandal, how it was something bigger than all of us. She’d said she understood, but I could hear the hurt in her voice. Ending that video call was hard. I wished there were something I could do to help her raise that tuition money

  Meanwhile, in Quito, the Ecuadorian police and some government officials were interrogating the local affiliates that Darwin had been working with in Quito. The affiliates were numerous, and included a mix of locals, police, and expats from the United States who were hiding out in Quito to avoid prosecution for various crimes. Even the nightclub bouncer I’d dealt with was fingered by Balboa. He was actually a police officer who moonlighted as an enforcer and a debt collector for the Sports Xplor gambling business.

  The Pan-American Cycling Tour grand finale in Quito continued and came to a dramatic finish. Equipo Diablo won the circuit race, with el Ratón leading his team. He then went on to lead the team to victory on two of the stages of the four-day stage race that followed. But a Brazilian team came up out of nowhere and won the other two stages, and Team Cadence-EcuaBar—struggling without el Cóndor, reeling from the scandal, and in the absence of their head coach—placed fourth in the stage race event. After the races, el Ratón showed up at the U.S. Embassy, asking to talk to an FBI field agent. He admitted that he’d been paid off by Darwin to keep Juan Carlos’s secret, and he’d been appointed the team leader of Equipo Diablo in exchange for helping to identify potentially bribable riders.

  As for Juan Carlos, he had emerged from all of this more of a hero than ever. There was already talk of building a statue of him and putting it in the park where the Vuelta Youth Racing Club trained, and Wilson called for a planning meeting at Vuelta to brainstorm ways to stage a fundraising ride. The money would go to a scholarship fund in Juan Carlos’s name. None of this, of course, would bring him back. But at least he’d be remembered as a person of character, as the Juan Carlos I’d known. Not just some character in a bicycle rivalry drama or a betting scheme.

  And me? I still had almost two weeks at latitude zero, which I was finally free to explore. I could bond with my host family and Mari, who’d left her cousin’s apartment for good and was staying at the Ruiz house with me. I could hang with the Vuelta volunteers and soak up the culture. There were cloud forests to explore outside the city. A Vuelta-sponsored jungle trek Mari and I were looking forward to. And more bike classes to teach at La Casa and elsewhere. Even though Juan Carlos and his ghost bike would probably cast their shadow on me for a long time, I could live with that, knowing I’d taken el Cóndor’s cause all the way to the finish.

  “So where’s this surprise place you’re taking me?” I asked Santiago.

  He smiled. “We are here already. An actividad I thought you’d appreciate.”

  I walked by his side through the parking lot, toward a big stone obelisk with a globe on top. The monument was surrounded by green-and-brown hills and a row of fluttering flags showing countries all over the world.

  “La Mitad del Mundo. The official middle of the world. More or less.”

  “More or less?”

  “Come. I will show you. Here is the equatorial line.” He pointed to a yellow strip on the stones, leading up to the obelisk. Colorful flowers formed an S on one side, N on the other. I walked in the Northern Hemisphere, Santiago in the Southern. “It is a turístico thing to do,” he admitted, “but you cannot come this far and not stand with one foot in each hemisphere.”

  At the steps to the obelisk, he took my picture with one foot on each side of the line. Then we climbed the stairs inside the obelisk and looked out at the view. At Quito in the distance, and the ring of velvet hills, and the line stretching out in either direction.

  “So what do you mean by ‘more or less’ the middle of the world?” I asked.

  “This isn’t really the equator. The first navigators got the location wrong.”

  I stared at him.

  He laughed. “This is the true! Modern GPS technology now shows the early explorers were off by about a hundred meters. The line has been redrawn. Over there, by that museum.” He pointed to a building a few yards away. “They will need to build a new monument, too.”

  I thought about this. “You know what? Maybe it’s not always easy to figure out where to draw a line. Like, what’s good or bad, what’s wrong or right.”

  He considered this idea for a moment, then nodded. “We have to redraw our lines all the time, depending on situations.”

  “But I don’t like that. How can we make good decisions and do the right things if our values aren’t fixed? If our lines about what’s right or wrong are always shifting?”

  We’d come full circle around the observation deck of the globe. As we looked at the sprawling view below us—hills and homes and a network of narrow meandering roads—I realized Santiago had taken a step
closer to me. Then another. And another. Before I knew it, he had slipped his arm around me and lowered his face toward mine. I lifted mine to meet him. Somehow, in the middle, our lips found each other.

  His kiss was warm. A perfect mix of gentle and firm.

  I wanted to lose myself in it. Jets of emotions that I’d turned off after Jake suddenly turned back on.

  He cupped my face in his hands and looked at me. “I do not know what to do with these feelings,” he said in a husky voice. “I do not know if it was right or wrong to do that just now. Maybe I hope for too much.”

  “I don’t know, either,” I whispered. I felt disoriented. Dizzy. Confused.

  “The timing is terrible.” He sighed. “You are returning to Boston soon. And I do not know if I will successfully get into a school in the U.S. If I do, it will not be for one more year.”

  “And you still have to pass that TOEFL exam.”

  “I will! I have been studying hard! And I have many new action verbos I can use.”

  We both smiled.

  Then he grew serious again. “Tessa. I know things are complicated. But I wanted to express my feelings to you. You are the most exciting person I’ve ever met. The most adventurous and amazing girl.”

  I took a step back. I studied his face. Open, inviting. His body warm and welcoming.

  I’d thought Santiago wasn’t my type. But did that really matter? This was a really good guy. He’d gone out on a limb for me, from the first day we’d met. He’d gone along on my ride. And the more he revealed about himself, the more sides I saw to him. And liked.

  Santiago smiled, almost sadly. “You are quiet. I understand. You are an independent American girl. You do not need a boyfriend. Especially one in another country. You do not need more complications.”

  He was right. I didn’t need complications right now.

  But maybe it didn’t have to be so complicated. My future, his future—they weren’t entirely charted out. Maybe what mattered was this moment, right now, and following my own heart to see where it might lead me.