The Cain File

by Max Tomlinson

  It didn’t bother Cain, who grabbed an old woman in black by her gray hair—generating more screams. He brought the gun up to the terrified woman’s head, jerking her temple to the tip of the barrel. “Don’t make me do it,” he growled at Maggie.

  More screams. The old woman’s face became a mask of terror.

  Maggie froze in place.

  To Cain, the woman was collateral damage. Nothing more.

  Maggie raised her hands in the air.

  “Let her go, Cain,” she said, puffing. “I won’t follow you.”

  “On the ground! Now!”

  Maggie got down on the sidewalk.

  “Down flat! Hands behind your head.”

  She did.

  Cain gave a smirk as he tossed the woman loose. The woman sprang away, toppling, then crying out in fear.

  Cain snarled: “Follow me and the next person dies. No question.”

  “I won’t follow.” Maggie didn’t move.

  “Head down!”

  She obeyed.

  And heard Cain’s feet beating the pavement.

  And then he was gone.

  Someone helped Maggie up, then beat a hasty retreat.

  Gone.

  Cain was gone.

  -33-

  Maggie stood in front of the church, shaking with residual adrenaline, wiping blood off her face onto her sleeve, cursing herself. Wedding guests eyed her guardedly in her mud-caked jeans and improvised blood-soaked bandage. No one offered any words, just distance. She realized how off-kilter she looked.

  She’d best leave now, before the police arrived. If they even would. Quito could be a lawless city, overwhelmed by crime.

  Shaking her head, she turned, headed back to the plaza.

  When she got near the Panecillo, the brown Chevy van was gone.

  Hardly surprising, a perfectly good vehicle, albeit marred by a few bullet holes, left running in the middle of city traffic. It was probably already being ransacked in a nearby alley or garage.

  She had done her best. It just wasn’t good enough.

  But with Beltran freed, Tica and the Yasuni 7 would hopefully soon follow.

  She let out a sigh of frustration and walked back toward the plaza.

  ~~~

  They sat at one end of a polished conference table in a windowless room in the American embassy in Quito: Maggie, John Rae and a man named Fisher, who sported a crew cut, crisp white shirt, and a striped tie from some prestigious east coast school. On the flat screen monitor on the wall in split screen mode were Sinclair Michaels, dour and severe, and Ed, hair disheveled, shirt wrinkled.

  Maggie’s wrist stung through the antiseptic and fresh bandage and she had a wad of gauze up her nose.

  “All in all,” Fisher said, tapping the eraser end of his pencil on a pad of paper, “a success. Beltran freed. Two high-ranking terrorists in custody: Comrade Abraham and Comrade Lita. Considering how this operation began, with Agent Hutchens being detained in Bogotá, I’d say: an excellent outcome.” He tapped his pencil again. “Well done, Agent Hutchens.”

  Fisher didn’t need to say what hadn’t been achieved: Cain was still a free man.

  John Rae sat back in his chair. He’d pulled off his knit cap and his long dirty-blond hair was twisted and askew. He looked about as worn out as Maggie felt. “Let’s not forget Forensic Accounting Agent de la Cruz,” he said. “There wouldn’t even have been an outcome if not for her. Not to mention she managed—yet again—to save the Agency two million.”

  Fisher cleared his throat. “Absolutely.”

  “Yes,” Sinclair Michaels said gravely from the screen. “We could not have done it without you, Maggie.”

  “I wish I’d known about the operation to begin with,” Ed said in a tone that tried mightily to deny disappointment. “We might have been able to put a bigger team together and capture Cain. But it goes without saying how impressed I am, we all are, with you, Maggie. I’m going to do my best to see this gets the proper recognition.”

  The proper recognition. She’d be lucky to keep her job. The fact that Beltran had been rescued and Commerce Oil could push ahead with their plans to drill the Amazon meant she might not be charged with anything. But there wouldn’t be any promotions or anything that even smelled like a commendation. The Agency didn’t operate that way. You go against the system, you’re done. No one forgets. Especially the suits in Washington. She’d be double-checking data entry in a basement office until she was old and gray—or quit in shame.

  “Truly excellent,” Fisher said.

  “What about the release of Tica Tuanama?” Maggie asked, her question focused primarily at Sinclair. “And the rest of the Yasuni Seven?”

  A taut brief silence followed.

  “Well?” Maggie asked.

  Sinclair cleared his throat. “We are certainly going to request that Minister Beltran look into Tica and the alleged prisoners,” he said. “But I’ve no doubt he has quite a few things to do first. He just spent many days in captivity himself.”

  “I was assured it would be taken care of,” Maggie said between her teeth.

  “I’m not sure I said that.”

  “I am.”

  “You’re just going to have to be patient.” Sinclair spoke to her as if she were a surly teenager. “We’re doing the best we can.”

  “Now wait a damn minute,” John Rae said to Sinclair. “We made Maggie a promise.”

  “That was before you planned to grab Comrade Cain, Agent Hutchens. Without telling me.”

  “I don’t report to you, Sinclair. You’re a contractor. I don’t need to tell you squat.”

  “Perhaps not. But you will need to explain to your superiors why you failed to catch Cain.”

  John Rae frowned at Maggie. He was no doubt in hot water, too, despite the acceptable aftermath.

  When no one spoke, Ed said: “I want everyone in this room to know that I’m not going to let the Yasuni Seven slip through the cracks. I think it’s shameful—no, let me rephrase that. I think it’s criminal that this kind of thing happens just so Commerce Oil can tear up the Amazon for the sake of profits.”

  “And we tend to agree with you,” Fisher said. “But there’s nothing to be done for the time being. Enquiries have been made. The Ecuadorian government won’t even acknowledge that Tica or anyone connected to her is under arrest at this point. We’re stuck at an impasse—for the moment.”

  “Who is we?” Maggie said.

  “The State Department,” he said.

  “How about getting someone a little higher up involved?” Maggie said. “In Washington.”

  Fisher tapped his pencil. “Commerce Oil is here at the courtesy of the Ecuadorian government. We can’t tell them how to run their country.”

  “Courtesy?” Maggie laughed. “Commerce Oil is getting filthy rich. Along with all those who put them there. While Indian girls disappear in clandestine prisons. There’s nothing courteous about it. This is an example of a flagrant abuse of human rights.”

  “I do understand how you feel, Maggie,” Sinclair interrupted, clearly wanting to end the discussion.

  “Do you? A few days ago, I hit a server with Tica’s prison information on it. She and the others are being held in Carcel de Mujeres—right outside Quito. Now, if I can get that much information with the help of a friend who plays more Angry Birds than he hacks, think how much your techies from Langley can find out. Especially since they already told you Tica’s cell number. Want me to help them? I’d be glad to.”

  “It’s not about where the prison is, Maggie,” he said. “It’s about how we proceed. We’re in a weak position. Without Cain as an offering—a bargaining chip—we’re asking, not demanding. So we have to ask nicely. Diplomacy is a dark art.”

  “And that’s obviously not going to be enough to help Tica.” Maggie stood up, biting back on the disappointment. “Not today.” She’d been a fool to trust them, Sinclair in particular. But she couldn’t let them win. Tica and her compadres would have to
come later. Somehow. She’d just have to make it so. “If we’re all done here, I’d like to get to my hotel and into a shower and a change of clothes.”

  Then she’d be going up to the slums. To deliver the bad news to Kacha. But first she had a few things she was going to look into.

  Because something wasn’t sitting quite right with Cain’s escape.

  ~~~

  Early evening, Maggie climbed out of the taxicab up in the pueblos jóvenes where Kacha lived with her sister and her sister’s baby girl. The approaching cold night sharpened the air. Maggie was refreshed, having abandoned herself to an endless steaming shower, washing her hair three times, cleaning and rebandaging the gash on her wrist delicately and working on her bruised face. Her nose had stopped gushing blood. She’d pulled on new black gabardine trousers, a white cotton blouse, and black flats she picked up in a boutique on Sucre Street near the hotel. She’d topped off the outfit with a rough alpaca jacket, black, with rich orange-and-red embroidery on the shoulders.

  But she really didn’t feel much better inside, having to say the words she had to say.

  She walked up the dirt street to the girls’ shack, carrying a plastic bag that contained two large Styrofoam containers full of roast chicken and rice. Dogs barked and swarmed around her, hoping for a scrap. A boy ran by with a stick, whipping the air that was alive with music wafting out of open windows. The smell of cooking, stews with meat and spices, made her salivate, taking her back to her own days with her mother in the slums. In a place much like this.

  Did she miss it? This? Who could say what one missed? One missed what one knew. She missed the innocence of childhood. She missed her mami, who kept so many bad things in life away from Maggie as a little girl.

  With a heavy heart she stepped up on the rickety porch. She could hear the baby crying, and Kacha’s soft voice, coaxing it back to sleep.

  The door opened. Kacha stood there, in a robe, cradling her niece swaddled in a fuzzy blanket. Kacha’s face lit up in a hopeful smile, causing Maggie’s to stiffen before it could crumple. As much as she fought it. Her look immediately alerted Kacha that she wasn’t bringing good tidings.

  “Oh,” Kacha said, her smile quickly fading. “You better come in.” She stood back, jiggling the baby.

  It was a dismal meeting. The food lay untouched.

  “Where is your sister?” Maggie asked, once the news had been delivered. “Suyana?”

  “She’s out . . .” Kacha said.

  “Turning tricks? Why? Didn’t you get the money I sent?”

  “No. The man at the office said there was a delay.”

  Maggie saw red. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” She dug into her pocket, came out with a wad of bills John Rae had given her. She peeled off several hundred dollars. “Here. No more walking the streets.”

  Kacha took the money with a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  “She’s lucky to have you look after her little girl.”

  “I have the easy part,” Kacha said.

  “I want you to understand something, Kacha. I’m not going to stop. I’m going to get Tica out. And the rest of the Yasuni Seven.”

  Kacha nodded slowly in acknowledgement, but her disbelief in Maggie’s abilities was apparent.

  “There’s more to do,” Maggie said, to herself as much as Kacha. “I will resolve this.”

  “You’ve already done so much.”

  Maggie left, walking down the dirt road toward the Plaza San Francisco, her head hung low, full of darkness, like the night. But she wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.

  Down the hill, where the paved streets began, she found a hole-in-the-wall electronics shop wedged between a produce market closed up for the night and a cheap restaurant harshly lit with fluorescent overheads, teeming with diners, heads bent down over steaming bowls. She bought an unlocked moto e phone for less than a hundred U.S. and a prepaid micro SIM card. The clerk had her up and running in minutes. She’d seen techies back home struggle with similar tasks.

  In the noisy restaurant, she ordered a bowl of spicy bean soup, which the cook loaded up with cilantro. She spooned a few scoops of bright orange ají into it and found a spot at the counter where mountain music screeched from a radio. The aroma of the place had her salivating and the good cheer of the clientele made her homesick once again, even though she was home. Technically. But this home was a long time ago.

  She didn’t really know where home was.

  She ate a mouthful of locro de habas, fired up her phone, downloaded a TOR browser for anonymity, then searched and downloaded Phone Tracker Plus. It was installed by the time she was halfway through her soup.

  She had a head for numbers and didn’t forget them. Not once she’d committed them to memory.

  She turned on GPS and plugged in the number for Abraham’s cell phone, which she’d jammed down the bench seat of Cain’s van. She set her new phone on the counter while she ate more soup. The red pin moved on the map of Quito and settled near the Panecillo. And stopped there. Less than a mile away.

  Too excited to finish her soup, she got up, used her phone to call a radio taxi, went out into the cool night air, and waited on the cobblestones.

  A tinny Daihatsu soon came whining up the street.

  ~~~

  “Stop right here,” Maggie instructed the cab driver, an emotionless young man who wore sunglasses at night and had his radio set on a classical station. The red pin on the map hovered on the phone in her hand, showing this to be the place. And down the end of a dirt cul-de-sac, silhouetted against the deep valley of the city pockmarked by twinkling lights, there it was: Cain’s van. A couple of men in shadows moved around it stealthily. The beam of a flashlight bounced.

  “Wait for me and keep an eye out, please,” she said to the driver.

  “You need to pay me first. This is not the best part of town.”

  She paid him. “I’ll need a ride back to my hotel.”

  He nodded, but she wondered how much help he would actually be if she got into a scrape.

  She exited the car and walked into the alley. The snort of a pig caught her attention. She stepped back, let it cross her path, to avoid getting her new shoes trampled by hoofs. The pig trotted by.

  A couple of kids were playing in the van. The men had the front doors open and were busy removing the dash. She approached. “Excuse me,” she said.

  “What do you want?” one man said, one eyebrow higher than the other. A crowbar dangled menacingly from his hand.

  “I know who this van belongs to,” she said, getting her money out. “And it doesn’t belong to you.”

  “It does now,” the other man said, lighting a cigarette.

  She unfolded a U.S. twenty, let Crooked Eyebrow follow it. “But I don’t care. I just want to know what you found inside. That’s all I want to know.” She held the twenty out. It fluttered in the chill night air, then disappeared.

  “Not much,” the man said, nodding back at the van. “Just the radio.”

  “You’re going to sell the van for parts?”

  He shrugged.

  “Can I look in the back?”

  “Why?”

  “I have my reasons. I’m not going to take anything. I promise.”

  Cigarette Smoker looked at her bandaged hand, as if waiting for it to produce another bill. It did. Now each man had one.

  “Help yourself,” he said. “But if you find anything, it’s ours.”

  She went through the van. There was nothing left but an empty cola can, some crumpled napkins. She found Abraham’s broken mobile in its hiding place and left it there. Well, it was worth a shot. She climbed out, stood up, dusted herself off.

  “Bueno,” she said with a sigh.

  She noticed an overweight little boy, a striped shirt stretched over his round belly, standing in the shadows. Something in his hand caught her eye. It looked like a radio.

  “What have you got there, amigo?”

  “It’s mine!” He hid it behind
his back.

  “I know it’s yours, chico. I just want a look. I won’t even touch it. You hold it out in front of you just so I can see it. OK?”

  “What will you give me?”

  She came over, reaching into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out a ballpoint pen with her hotel’s name on it. She held it up, clicked it, raised her eyebrows.

  “OK,” he said, reaching for the pen.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” she said, holding it back. “Show me your radio first.”

  “Oh, OK.” He held it out with both hands, so she couldn’t take it.

  A Motorola Talkabout. Red. Identical to the one John Rae had been using in the plaza waiting on Lita and Beltran. Before Cain had so very uncannily gotten away.

  Because Cain had been in on that entire conversation. Listened to everything. Knew it was time to run.

  Because John Rae had planned it that way.

  -34-

  “There’s a red-eye to Quito from Houston,” Maggie told Ed on the phone, looking out of her hotel window at the plaza. Night had descended over Old Town and the glistening lights through the mist softened the harshness of life and the reality of what was happening in this city. This country. The country of her birth. “You can grab a flight from SFO and make it by morning. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “You really sure about all this, Maggs? Because we’re both cutting our careers short. Maybe worse.”

  “Yes, Ed,” she said. “Very sure. I need your help on this one. I don’t want to meet John Rae alone.”

  “OK,” Ed said. “Are you going to set up the meeting? Or am I?”

  “Leave it to me,” Maggie said.

  “Fine,” Ed said with a sense of finality in his voice. “See you when I get to Quito.”

  She hung up, ran her fingers through her hair, thought about hitting the minibar, decided against it. She was close to exhaustion. She didn’t want alcohol in her system. She didn’t want anything in her system. She wanted to climb into a clean bed, under crisp sheets, and disappear.

  She called John Rae’s hotel room, in New Town.