Andreo's Race

by Pam Withers

“Isn’t that what tubes from punctured hydration packs are for? Where were they heading, anyway?”

  “Across the border. Out of Bolivia.”

  “Which border?”

  I blanch and shrug. East or west, Brazil or Chile, I hadn’t even thought to wonder. “She wouldn’t have told me if I’d asked, anyway. So, are they walking to town? Or heading back here?” I glance nervously at the door.

  “They headed west, through thick brush, with a flashlight. I learned some new Spanish cuss words following them. They kept trying to phone someone, I suppose to come get them, but I don’t think they ever got through. They’ve settled themselves into a big, dry cave a twenty-minute walk from here. Now let’s get out of this place before they change their minds about their evening’s accommodation.”

  We exit the shack hurriedly, slipping the dead-bolt into place.

  “Raul, we can’t just let them get away.”

  “Leave them to the police. The Jeep guy has a gun. We’re in over our heads, Andreo. You’re lucky they didn’t hurt you. Where’s your bike and pack? I’ll race you to the police station.”

  I walk over to retrieve my pack and bike from where I’d hidden them. I clamp my helmet on my head and flick on its light. It illuminates Raul’s impatient face, where he waits on his bike. “Raul, they’ve got a registry of all the babies they ever sold.”

  I watch his jaw work back and forth. “Is that why you went into the shack?”

  I hang my head. What am I supposed to say, that I’d still been under the spell of my evil birth mother? “I wanted a ringside seat to the police arresting them. I didn’t mean to actually go inside.”

  Raul rolls his eyes at me, then rubs his chin. “I know how we could try to get it from them, safely, if your navigation skills are still in working order.”

  “Huh?”

  “The map, Andreo.”

  I fish the map out of my pack. My parents hadn’t needed it to bike to Cochabamba—or so I’d reasoned to myself when I’d taken off with our team’s only copy.

  Raul points to two penciled Xs I don’t remember marking. “When Maria and I fooled around on our day off …”

  I laugh. He blushes, a rare sight on Raul.

  “I mean, when she took me to a couple of caves around Torotoro …”

  “Yeah?”

  “There was one that joined up with the big cave that they’re in now—Caverna Refugio. This X marks the big cave, and this one the tunnel. The cave and tunnel join up just like that tunnel did with the big cave back home in Canmore.”

  “You mean a tunnel up to a grizzly bear’s behind?”

  “If that’s what you want to call our party of three desperadoes.”

  My heartbeat picks up as I consider that. “You’re saying there’s a secret-passage tunnel up to their lair? We crawl up it, wait till they’re asleep and nab the notebook?”

  “Something like that. The tunnel joins the big cave through a hole about the size of an air vent. Nothing grown men would notice or try and crawl through, but doable for us.”

  “Not even Vanessa would fit?”

  Raul sneers. “She might break a fingernail or scuff her heels.”

  I smile. Just like something my mother would say. If I had to choose between Mother and Vanessa in a tight situation, my adoptive mother would win, hands down. “So, if two salamanders hang out at the vent, they can see and hear everything without being spotted.”

  “Best seat in the theater.”

  “But the police. Shouldn’t we ride down and inform them?” I ask.

  “You already left a message with Colque; he’s sure to have phoned them by now.”

  “But how will he and the police know where Vanessa and Vargas are if they’re not in the shack anymore?”

  “I’m way ahead of you on that,” says Raul smugly. “I’ve already left a note on the Jeep’s windshield.”

  I shake my head, whip out my compass and hold the map’s smaller X close to my face. “Andreo’s Navigation is at your service.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It takes twenty minutes for me to track down the tunnel entrance. We stash our bikes, shoulder our packs and enter. I reflect how nice it is to be out of the rain as we advance through a relatively spacious series of passages. Soon, however, things get tighter, and the ceiling becomes so low that we’re forced to tie our packs to our feet and drag them behind us. As we crawl on our hands and knees, our headlamps illuminate interesting patterns of sculpted rock.

  “This is cool,” I whisper.

  “Yeah,” Raul replies. “Maria knows so many cool caves around here. She’s amazing.”

  I grin. “So I hear.”

  Where the passageway gets even tighter, we drop to our stomachs and elbows and proceed in single file ever upward until we hear voices ahead. Bingo! So this really is the back entrance to Caverna Refugio. We switch off our headlamps and breathe as quietly as we can, wriggling forward much more slowly and cautiously. Finally, we stop at a slight widening, untie our packs from our feet and lie squashed side by side a safe distance back from the opening, which is marked by the faint light of a lantern across the cavern.

  I smell dirt, sulfur, body odor and beer. Beer? As my eyes adjust to the dark, I see that directly in front of us, his body half-blocking the vent-size exit, is the reclining figure of the tattooed guard. His deep breathing indicates he’s asleep. To his left are two empty plastic bottles of chicha. In his lap lies a handgun.

  Though I can’t see Raul’s face in the dark, I can almost hear our heartbeats pick up. It’s not too late to slide backward, retreat, abandon this mission. Angling my head a little more, I see Vargas and Vanessa sitting on their suitcase, the lantern beside them. Vargas is holding the record book.

  “Burn it,” Vanessa is pleading.

  Vargas heaves a big sigh. “I guess we should.” He hesitates. “Our life’s work.” He looks at his watch. “Where is he? He said he was on his way half an hour ago.”

  “He’ll come,” Vanessa says. She leans her head against Vargas’s shoulders and closes her eyes. He wraps an arm around her and presses his lips to her cheek.

  I feel Raul fidgeting beside me. He’s fishing something out of his pack, then inching forward. My mouth falls open as, in the shadowy light, I see him reach out to replace the guard’s two empty containers of beer with the two full ones he took from the shack. He has even opened them for the guard. Seconds later, Raul is back beside me and stuffing Jorge’s empties into his pack. My eyes fly to Vargas and Vanessa, but there’s no sign they’ve noticed.

  A particularly loud snore from Jorge makes Vargas shout at the guard. “Jorge, wake up. We’re not paying you to nap.”

  Jorge stirs, slurs a curse or two and sits up straighter. We watch his hand reach for a bottle. We hear him chug the entire beer down, belch and start in on the second. Though I can’t see Raul’s face, I can pretty much bet he’s grinning. While visiting his house, I had often seen him hide beer from his parents. Tonight, he’s in reverse mode. We slide backward a few feet for safety’s sake and wait. We lie there for what may be minutes or hours. I may even have dozed off myself when I feel Raul’s elbow in my side. He leans very close to whisper into my ear, “Get the gun.”

  Huh? I come fully awake. I blanch as I realize what Raul is asking. Looking toward our vent, I see that Jorge has moved his gun from his lap to the cavern floor beside him. He’s snoring softly. I reach backward to my pack and feel my trekking pole. Then I unfold it, slide forward as soundlessly as I can and peer across the spacious room. Vargas is slumped against the cavern wall, eyes closed. Vanessa is curled up on their suitcase, head resting on her knitting bag, asleep as well.

  I push my pole forward, inch by inch, trying to keep it steady despite my shaking arm. It reaches the gun, floats over it, eases down to capture it. Slowly, ever so slowly, I slide it back. The second the gun arrives within reach, Raul grabs it and squirms backward at high speed, leaving me within pole’s reach of a drunken guard we’ve just
robbed.

  Some muffled clicking behind me makes me wonder, terrified, what my crazy friend is doing. When I hear the ping of metal hitting rock, I stare out our hole, thinking we’re done for now. But the slumber party remains intact. Then I feel the cold metal of the gun pressed into my hand, which scares me so much I nearly drop it.

  “Ease it back,” Raul is whispering as he stuffs bullets from the gun’s magazine into his backpack. My teeth are locked together; my nerves are running an electrical current from my jaw to my toes. But I crawl forward as far as I dare, place the gun on the tunnel floor and push it gently forward with my pole. A loud hiccup from Jorge almost gives me a heart attack. I hold my breath as the guard stirs, letting it out again only when he settles back to dreaming. I continue the pole push until the gun is back where it was, then retract my pole and sink into a sweaty mess.

  Sometime later I wake to the smell of cigar smoke drifting into Raul’s and my cramped hideaway. Raising my head, I see Vargas not just smoking but also flicking his lighter off and on while cradling the yellow notebook in his lap.

  “Do it,” Vanessa orders. “Burn it now.”

  I’m about to elbow Raul in the ribs when I feel him rise beside me and launch himself out of the vent, right over a startled Jorge. Raul, with the element of surprise on his side, manages to close his fingers over the notebook and wrest it from Vargas’s grasp just as it catches fire.

  Then everything happens at once. Vanessa shouts, Vargas lunges after Raul and I push my fists and helmeted head full strength into Jorge’s backside as he tries to stumble to his feet. Jorge falls heavily, knocking his head on the cave floor. I step out from the tunnel and observe, with a stab of guilt, that he’s out cold. Meanwhile, Vargas’s heavyset body, no match for Raul’s fleet feet, fails to prevent Raul from sprinting to the vent, then dropping the notebook to stamp out the flames and flinging it down our tunnel’s length like he’s competing in a Frisbee championship.

  Smart thinking, I realize. No one but us will be able to retrieve it from there!

  As for me, the minute Vargas’s beady eyes lock on me, I let unknown instincts take over: I pick up the fallen guard’s handgun, point it at the fat man and cock it. Vargas and Vanessa stop in their tracks, mouths dropping open.

  “Raul,” I order, “peel some duct tape off my trekking pole and tape Jorge’s hands behind his back before he comes to.” I don’t know whether the guard is drunk, concussed or both, but even if the gun were loaded—and I remind myself that Vargas and Vanessa don’t know it’s not—I consider two irate adults enough to deal with.

  “Jorge!” Vargas shouts as Raul kneels and begins a lightning-fast duct-tape job on the man’s wrists and ankles. “Get up, you drunk, before it’s too late!” Then he turns to me and switches to the soothing, patient voice I’ve come to hate. “Andreo, have you any idea how dangerous a firearm can be?”

  I do my best imitation of his belly laugh. “You think kids who live in grizzly bear and moose country don’t get taught pretty young how to handle a simple piece like this?” That shuts him up.

  “Andreo,” Vanessa pleads, taking a step toward me. “Don’t get yourself hurt. Put the gun down, son.”

  “I am not your son,” I bark, aiming the empty gun point-blank at her; she does a hasty retreat. “You mean nothing to me, Mrs. Vargas. My real parents taught me right from wrong. That’s why I know it’s up to me to shut you down. You chose your fate when you joined Vargas’s business. Now all I want is to see both of you arrested.”

  Raul, kneeling on the moaning Jorge like the guard is his personal bear trophy, raises his eyebrows at my speech and smiles.

  I see Vargas edging toward the lantern beside the red suitcase. He thinks it might be clever to plunge us all into darkness? I reach up to flick my helmet headlamp on and shine it right into his face. Raul does the same. Vargas blinks and freezes.

  “Boys!” comes a booming voice at the cave entrance. We turn to see someone carrying a second lantern. A hint of cologne enters my nostrils. Detective Colque! I’m so relieved I could sink to the floor on the spot.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Increíble!” Colque enthuses, shaking his head as he surveys the scene. “You boys are hired anytime you want to move to Cochabamba. Not that you should have been taking matters into your own hands, mind you. How’d you pull this off?”

  “Snuck up that tunnel,” I say proudly, pointing.

  “Where they dared to throw my record book a moment ago,” Vargas grouses.

  “Where are the police?” Raul asks Colque.

  “Right behind me,” the detective says. I feel my body relax even more.

  Colque walks over and uses the toe of his boot to lift Jorge’s chin. “Drunk? Vargas, can’t you even hire a decent guard? And, Vanessa, how did I miss your secret connection to Vargas all these years?”

  She stares blandly at him. Vargas crosses his arms and glares at the detective.

  “Raul, you sure are handy with a roll of duct tape,” the detective continues. “Nice work. Andreo, hand the gun to me and I’ll take over from here.”

  I give him the gun, even though I’m momentarily stunned by Raul shouting, “No! Don’t, Andreo!”

  The detective, gun in hand, keeps it leveled at Vanessa and Vargas as if he didn’t hear Raul’s outburst. “Okay, Andreo, all we need now is the notebook. Can you fetch that for me?”

  “As soon as the police arrive,” Raul answers for me in a steely voice. I look at him in surprise. What kind of answer is that?

  The detective has turned to survey Raul closely, his eyes narrowed. Raul’s forehead reveals beads of sweat, and I know my friend’s full-on stare at me is trying to communicate something. But all I am is confused.

  Detective’s Colque’s tone turns sharp. “No time to play games, Raul. Andreo, be a good muchacho and—”

  “You’re not working for the Cochabamba police, are you?” Raul demands.

  “Of course I am, Raul,” the detective responds, looking puzzled and hurt. “And we established right from the start that my mission is to bring Vargas to justice.”

  “Isn’t it handy that your office in Cochabamba is right beside Vargas’s vacated one?” Raul asks, his voice dripping sarcasm. I begin to feel alarmed. What’s Raul suddenly on to that I’ve missed?

  “I hoped it would help me connect with people like you and Andreo, as I told you when we first met,” Colque says patiently, “so we could find adoptive parents willing to testify and help connect adoptees and birth parents where possible.”

  “You mean identify anyone who might be willing to testify, so you could intimidate them out of the idea like you did with Ardillita and Juan Pedro,” Raul accuses, eyes flashing at the detective. “And pretend to put adoptees in touch with birth parents while really doing everything you can to prevent them from finding each other.”

  “Raul, you’re not making sense!” I object.

  Raul ignores me. “You put Andreo and Vanessa together eventually, but only after we phoned and told you that we’d met Ardillita and Juan Pedro and that Ardillita had spotted Vanessa in the village. And only after you’d phoned Vargas to tell him all that, correct? Am I also right that Vargas okayed your setting up a meeting, and then the two of you coached his wife on what to say, in hopes of satisfying Andreo? ‘You’ll return to Canada satisfied’ is what you said to Andreo. You figured that meeting would throw us off the scent long enough to help your real bosses, Hugo and Vanessa Vargas, get out of the country. How much is Vargas paying you, anyway?”

  I’m looking from Colque to Vargas to Vanessa. No one is responding, but Colque’s gun—had I really been so stupid that I handed it to him?—slowly swings from the couple to Raul. Thank goodness Raul emptied it is all I can think.

  “Hurry this up and let’s get out of here,” Vargas orders Colque in Spanish as he strides across the cave like someone intent on grabbing hold of us. “What took you so long, anyway?”

  It occurs to me—and I’m guessing to
Raul too—that we should dash to the tunnel entrance and dive down it, right now. But Colque, reading my mind, steps between us and the tunnel until Vargas’s large hands close around Raul’s arms. “Good,” says Colque. “Hold Raul while Andreo squeezes into that tunnel to retrieve the notebook, Hugo.”

  Raul and I exchange looks. I do a quick shake of my head to stop him from calling a bluff on the gun yet.

  “No, let Raul get the notebook,” I say firmly. “He’s the better caver. And after you hand it over, Raul, show Detective Colque what we’ve discovered hydration pack tubes can be used for.”

  Raul’s response is a bare hint of a smile. I don’t expect him to get down the tunnel and up to the detective’s truck fast enough to siphon his gas, but if the police aren’t on their way and things are about to take a turn for the worse in this cavern, it’s better that at least one of us and that notebook stay safe.

  The detective looks momentarily confused. “If that’s code for doing something funny, I’d strongly advise against it,” he says. “Especially since I’ve got Andreo here as hostage.”

  Vargas has yet to release Raul. I do a fast calculation. Even with the gun disabled and Jorge out of action, I know better than to try and dodge three adults in an escape attempt, especially before Raul is free of Vargas.

  “Clever boy, aren’t you?” Colque says to Raul. “But why should you care who I’m working for? I helped Andreo meet his birth mother, and now you’re headed back home. All’s well that ends well.”

  “Not,” I say, prompting Vargas’s evil eye to shift to me. Vanessa, meanwhile, moves back to the suitcase and plunks down tiredly.

  “We’re not actually headed home till this ring is history,” I say, causing Vargas to laugh. “And maybe I have a few questions too. Like who came up with the beauty queen and married doctor line?” Buying time. Hurry up, Police Chief Ferreira.

  “Me!” says Vargas proudly. “It was half true for my first client—you—and seemed to please your adoptive parents.”

  “It worked so well that I advised him to use it on all our adoptive parent clients,” Colque adds, grinning.