Fuck this, he thought, I’ll go look for him before I collapse here in misery and boredom. Packing up his notepad and gathering up his light luggage, which included his duffle bag and a hard case with some camera equipment, he considered the reasons for the pilot’s long absence. Surely it did not take that long to reassign a departure schedule, he thought. It was coming on in the day already, and he was in no mood to be lowered from the chopper onto Purdue’s yacht under the meager illumination of lights. This was something he would only exercise during the daylight.
As Sam turned to sling his bag over his shoulder, he bumped right into Stephen, the pilot.
“Sorry, Mr. Cleave,” Stephen apologized sincerely, yet he looked and acted quite differently than when he’d been fleeing Sam’s schoolboy teasing earlier on.
“Hey, I was just about to come looking for you,” Sam said, smiling at first, but upon closer view he quickly noticed that something was very off with Stephen. “Jesus, man, what happened to you? It looks like you went a few rounds with Tyson up there.”
The pilot tried to smile, but it was clearly only out of courtesy to Sam. “I had a bit of an accident on the sixth floor, sir. But not to worry. We are good to go now. I got all the paperwork I need upstairs.” He helped Sam with one of his two pieces of luggage and started toward the assigned gate for their exit. Sam had been an investigative journalist—a natural snoop—for over two decades, and he instantly took note of discrepancies. His eyes had been trained for many years to find loopholes, to see differences in appearances.
One such tiny detail was the condition of the pilot’s collar. Before he’d left Sam in the lounge, his collar had been impeccably neat, its edges and seams perfectly pressed down in an origami of tidiness next to his uniform epaulettes. Now it looked like a straightened out piece of paper retrieved from a paper bin, as if it had been handled.
“Any idea when we will get there?” Sam asked.
“No more than an hour from takeoff, sir,” Stephen replied hastily without looking at Sam. “The weather should hold out at least for the next four hours, so we should be able to make it in clear conditions—clear, as in wind, not as in sunshine.”
“Oh, I figured,” Sam assured him, as his wild dark hair obscured his face under the onslaught of a crosswind. “I know Spain hardly ever wanes on sunshine, but these wind speeds are positively deadly, especially for helicopter flight.”
“That’s right. I will definitely be using more fuel than usual just to keep the machine hovering,” Stephen affirmed abruptly. “It’s going to be a bitch to keep straight for long enough, so I hope you are experienced in this procedure, Mr. Cleave.”
“I am,” Sam replied as they walked out to a helipad about five hundred meters from the exit they took. The sky was clear and blue and the temperature warm, but the pilot’s demeanor was chilly. He had changed in mood and in appearance since he’d returned from the airport offices, but Sam could not put his finger on it. Apart from having obviously been roughed up by someone for some reason, it was difficult to determine the true mindset of the pilot.
As they approached the orange and white JetRanger, something came to mind that Sam had previously neglected to ask Stephen. “Where is your co-pilot?”
“No co-pilot, Mr. Cleave,” Stephen replied nervously. He opened a large luggage compartment behind the back seats to put Sam’s gear case inside, securing it.
“Usually Purdue has two men per shift, regardless of how quick and informal the flight is,” Sam remarked.
Stephen’s face swung to look at him, almost as if he were about to throw a tantrum, but he restrained himself. “Well, I was the only one he hired for this trip, Mr. Cleave. Me alone, probably because it’s supposed to be a quickie.”
More and more the journalist realized that something was amiss. While Stephen was doing his pre-flight checks with all the formal training expected of him, Sam saw a few more telltale signs of trouble. The pilot’s hands showed signs of tremor, moving a bit timidly as he ran the control tests and advised the tower of their intention to depart. His skin was pale, even for a Scot, and perspiration fixed his shirt to his skin as trickles of sweat rolled over his face.
“I appreciate that you obviously had an altercation of sorts while you were gone, old boy, but are you sure you are in flying shape?” Sam asked plainly. He spoke loud and clear into the mic of his headphones, making sure that Stephen had no excuse to ignore him. “You look awfully wan.”
“I’ll be fine, sir,” Stephen assured. “This will be over in no time, I promise. You are in good hands.” Sam did not believe a word. The aircraft lifted carefully off the ground, at first swaying in the hard gusts of the ground area before recovering smoothly within seconds. Purdue always hired only the best and Sam knew that, but the pilot’s appearance was far from reassuring. Without any further conversation, the two men ascended inside the sturdy machine, enjoying the immaculate panorama from the altitude they reached.
Now and then Sam would pretend to admire the scenery to the right in order to quickly survey the pilot’s condition. Stephen stared dead ahead most of the time, occasionally looking down over the pristine turquoise water with an almost yearning stare. Next to him, his passenger was beginning to contemplate the possibility of plummeting into the Alboran Sea, but he could never mention such a notion.
Sam had to admit to himself that he was screwed, no matter the truth of what was going on. Whether the pilot was just under the weather, anxious, or upset was as inconsequential as Sam simply being a victim of his own paranoia. Either way, whatever happened in air space could not be altered or countered, especially with no co-pilot to recover any calamity. But Sam had no idea that his mounting distrust and anxiety could be exacerbated to a degree of terror, until Stephen suddenly looked at him and smiled nervously. “Did you know that I have twin daughters I have not seen in eight years?”
At first, Sam thought the man was trying to make small talk to break the awkward atmosphere in the helicopter, or maybe he had finally warmed up to the journalist extrovert humor. “No, I didn’t know that, Stephen. Why haven’t you seen them in so long?” Sam reciprocated.
“My bitch ex-wife left the country with them while I was in the hospital,” Stephen sneered. “When I got out, they’d disappeared. Do you know what that does to a man’s heart, Mr. Cleave?”
O-o-kay, Sam thought to himself. Now is the time to say all the right stuff.
Melancholy soon overwhelmed the pilot, giving Sam reason to shift gears into panic. “I can’t imagine how painful that must have been,” he stammered clumsily, as the helicopter started tilting too much for comfort. “But I’m sure you can still get in touch with them. Hell, I know a lot of people who can help you find your daughters.”
In the distance, Sam could see a white speck on the dark blue blanket of slowly heaving ocean. He hoped that it was Purdue’s vessel, but if there was ever a time not to inquire, this was it. The vast beauty of the sea challenging the clear blue of the sky lost all appeal as Sam had to focus all his energy and perception on the faltering mind of the man holding his fate.
“Between my contacts and Purdue’s funding, I am sure we can help you, Stephen,” Sam said casually, while in truth he was frantic.
“Help me?” Stephen chuckled madly. The helicopter dipped in increments of dangerous fluctuation that Sam could feel in his body, the adrenal rush flooding his senses. His stomach churned as the pale pilot carelessly corrected the equilibrium of the machine. “Help me see my girls again?”
“Aye!” Sam exclaimed, abandoning the ruse of coolness. “Just relax, alright? We can fix this for you.”
Stephen just laughed, his mirth lined with bitterness. “They’re dead, Mr. Cleave! They died in a fire six years ago!” He shook his head hopelessly, and it was then that Sam saw a small detail he had previously missed—a fresh small puncture wound at the base of his ear. Right below it something dark barely protruded, running along the inside of the pilot’s collar, but Sam could not identif
y it. The engine screamed under the clap of the rotors as the nose of the craft slanted down. “Mr. Cleave?” he shouted over the noise, looking terrified. “I am so, so sorry. Just know that. I am so sorry.”
“What the fuck!” Sam screamed at him, trying to grab the cyclic stick, but the machine careened wildly as it headed straight for the white yacht meant to be Sam’s destination. “Let go! Jesus Christ! You’re going to kill us!” he shrieked as he wrestled the control from Stephen.
In horror Sam regarded the fast approaching mounds of water and the white yacht about to join them in a gruesome furnace of combustion. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cleave.”
8
Castles
Madalina and the boy took a train to Alicante after two days at the local shelter of St. Iglesia in Castillo, a town well away from the core of her crime. Fortunately for Madalina, the Spanish police took a while to spread awareness of her flight and none of the details had reached the public in Castillo yet. She was convinced that all the police stations had been notified nationally, but they were hardly in touch with the people of the large town where she and Raul had been hiding.
It was time to move on, something unexpectedly effortless considering she had expected the boy to be difficult and unwilling. But Raul followed his new keeper faithfully, never asking about the dead woman his rescuer had mistaken to be his mother. Not once did he question Madalina’s commands or ideas, not even down to the food she gave him to eat. She was even fonder of him now that she knew him better, an unspoiled little boy with little resistance to a stranger. Psychologically it was strange to her, but in the current level of shit she was wandering through, she was not going to question his obedience.
“Where are we going, Madi?” he asked as she took him by the hand and skipped over the threshold of the train station.
“Have you ever seen a castle, Raul?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“Many,” he shrugged. “Why?”
His answer took the fire from her zeal, but she maintained her enthusiasm nonetheless. “Um, because I thought it would be nice to see the big old castle in Sax, that’s all.”
“Oh, I haven’t seen that one before,” he said, smiling. “Is it in Spain?”
“Of course,” she chuckled. “Why? Where are the castles you’ve seen before?”
“I don’t know,” he answered sincerely. “I was too small to remember where they were, but I remember some things about each one. There was one that Mara took me to, once, that was built in a triangle.”
“Like a pyramid?” she asked, assuming that Mara was the women she’d killed in the bathroom. “In a triangle, like Egypt’s Giza pyramids?” She sat down on a bench on the platform to wait for the train. He shook his head confidently. “No, not like that. It had three sides, three walls with a courtyard in the center. Mara’s friends were there too. They said it was like King Arthur’s castle, but the knights are all dead.”
“What did they say the place was called?” Madalina asked as she pulled the boy onto her lap. “Did they tell you?”
“I don’t know,” he frowned at her, sounding vaguely intolerant. “They all spoke German. How am I supposed to know what they said? I’m Spanish. See?” he grouched, gesturing to his face. Madalina could not help but find it extremely cute. Shaking with laughter, she gave him a tight hug.
“Yes, my darling boy, I can see that you are Spanish, just like me.” The statement she made just then instilled in her a subliminal pride, a feeling of potent heritage welling inside of her that she could not readily explain. She clutched at the tickets, suddenly remembering why they were going on the train ride. “Hey, this castle is lovely. I’ve seen pictures of it, but I’ve never been there. You’re going to love it!” she said with overdone cheer to cover up the sinister reasons for visiting the landmark in Alicante.
It was not so much the landmark she wished to visit, but to lay low in the little town that slept in its mighty shadow. Sax was an unassuming little place, full of history and ruinous buildings. At the same time modern life continued running through its veins. Madalina had once driven through there with Javier and remembered the isolated nature of the place, even at full functioning capacity.
The accommodations there would be cheap, she guessed, so she could figure out a way to get hold of Javier to help them flee Spain. Even though her brother was a painfully straight arrow, she knew he would help her, regardless of his obvious disagreement with her choices. On the other hand, she knew the police must have gotten to him by now, and especially Dr. Sabian.
He would be the first to look for her; she knew he wasn’t done with her. Madalina feared that nobody would ever believe that the respected shrink would be serving more sinister ends, so she’d kept her therapy sessions secret . . . mostly. All she’d ever told Javier was the superficial stuff he’d requested her to report on, but she knew he could detect anomalies in her behavior, even if he never said anything outright.
I wonder if he knows? she thought as she stared at the steel tracks recessed between the concrete slabs of the platforms. If he knows more than he lead on . . . he’s smart enough to have seen what was really going on during my sessions, even when I denied it to myself. Her green eyes ran along the smooth edges of the tracks, following the double lines away from the station as far as she could until they turned into white fire in the glare of the declining sun. Madalina winced at the brightness in her eyes. Who knows how far I can follow these tracks, if I just keep going? I wish I could be like them—just meander and stretch—so that I could be in several places all at once. I would be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
T the moment there was no way to get hold of Javier that would not betray her position. She had dumped her cell phone that same night, regrettably, and any e-mail correspondence would be tracked, no doubt. The problem was that she had no friends. There was nobody who would run such an errand for her—play messenger to reach her brother—and Javier’s friends would very likely turn her in. Or would they?
“Come, Madi! Come, let’s go!” Raul shouted suddenly, roughly leaping from her lap to point out the oncoming train. “Let’s go see the castle!”
“Alright, I’m coming.” She smiled, picking up their bags to board the train.
“Hey, they are following us too,” he remarked, eagerly rushing to help her with his bag. Madalina smiled at his zest, but his words filled her with dread. A rush of adrenaline numbed her legs for a moment, and in her mind she envisioned her flight and her subsequent subjugation at the hands of the police. She dared ask, “Who is following us, Raul?”
Happily he pointed at the train tracks on the other side of the train car. “The tracks, look! On one side we follow them to find our way, and on that side,” he pointed behind the car, “they follow us.”
“Jesus, boy, my heart,” she mumbled in relief, and looked back at the signboard that identified her soon-to-be former sanctuary one last time.
Castillo.
9
Caballo
Capt. Sanchez drove home, flabbergasted by Javier Mantara’s confession earlier in his office. In his twenty-five years of service, the captain had never once heard such an accusation, and that included eleven years in Madrid’s Aluche district security section, a non-profit protection service he worked for after hours. Aluche served him up back alley abortions gone wrong, incestuous drug runners keeping the plunger in the family, brutal gang killings, and underground organ trafficking. It made him realize that the saints revered by the spiritually desperate offered no protection and that most who got to the bottom of the bottle would be better off using it to slit their own throats.
As he turned into the highly fenced complex where he lived, he could not help but feel some truth lurking in Javier Mantara’s words. The captain was not well versed in the religion Javier spoke of, but he had heard of it before during a raid on a murder suspect’s house.
Santeria, he thought to himself as he opened his car door and stepped out into the humid night. It has s
imilar roots to Voodoo, that I know, but it also has a Catholic flavor, I think? Slowly, as he considered the tiny shards of recollection about that old case, Sanchez gradually began to find validity in Javier’s claim.
He did not know the murder/kidnapping suspect personally; therefore he had to remain objective about the case. Sanchez took Javier’s warning into account, though, and as any diligent investigator would, he intended on at least looking into the young man’s accusation before continuing with his regular procedure.
Even though his wife was busy preparing dinner, the house was relatively quiet. However, the neighbors had a hideous habit of watching football loud enough to deafen anyone in a five-block radius.
“Hola, darling,” he said.
“How was your day, Pedro?” She smiled, looking at his reflection in the kitchen window.
Through the small maze of lobby meeting hallway and hallway meeting two doorways, he went straight for the fridge. Inside it was what beckoned Sanchez, and he suffered a mild scolding for the sake of that glass of jeropiga.
“No drinking before dinner!” she reprimanded playfully.
Sanchez slouched over and kissed her, begging in his best puppy-yelp, “Just one, por favor? I have a lot I have to research tonight and I’m going to need something to let me lose my troubles just a little. Por favor, Lira?”
“One,” she yielded.
“One,” he agreed.
His mind was racing as he tried to remember the details of the old case, but finally he was more interested in the robust beauty of the Portuguese wine he had poured.
The Inca Prophecy Page 5
