by Clay Farrow
Miguel looked downcast. "That amount wouldn't cover housecleaning and bedding."
"What figure did you have in mind?"
"Four million."
"That's robbery," Alberto roared, once again leaping to his feet. "Give me a gun and I'll kill Hastings myself.”
“Then, I’d be forced to arrest you for murder. Not something I want to do.”
“Be reasonable."
"I am being reasonable. Without your help, Señor Hastings' accommodation would be such a drain on government coffers that I would feel compelled to return him to Belize."
Alberto weighed his options, enraged at what he felt was blackmail. He was caught and it was all Byers' fault. He vowed there'd be an accounting in the not-too-distant future. For now though, he had to go along with his cousin in order to salvage what he could. Keeping Hastings under his thumb was worth any price. But he had to try one last time.
"Can we not compromise and make it three million?" Alberto waited for what seemed an eternity.
Finally, Miguel nodded. "Three million it is."
"Will you take a check?"
Miguel smiled broadly, but shook his head.
"What then? I don't have enough cash with me," Alberto bellowed.
The colonel offered the phone to his cousin. "Have you forgotten? We use the same bank in the Caymans."
He hesitated for a moment, then with a disgusted grunt, snatched the phone and started to dial.
Standing, Miguel walked from behind his desk. "I'll let you conduct your business in private. Once I receive confirmation of the funds transfer, Fidel will begin Señor Hastings' introduction to a lifetime in hell."
He removed his gun belt from the coat stand and strapped it on. Then, gazing into the mirror beside the rack, he set his service cap on his head, pulling the visor low over his eyes, then strutted out of the office.
Alberto furiously stabbed at the telephone's rotary dialer.
Miguel paused in the hall and turned back to Alberto. "By the way, I have a bit of good news for you. Your friend, Jeremiah was released by the FBI last night. He's currently on a plane and will arrive here later tonight."
23:
The Rodriguez Ranch – Wednesday
Monica's nerves went into overdrive when the Mercedes sedan and the Chevy Tahoe, that she and Amanda were in, turned off the paved highway and drove under the elaborate archway that welcomed them to Rancho de la Noche in large bold letters.
She looked down at Amanda, whose head was resting on her shoulder. Thankfully the teenager had fallen asleep five minutes after leaving the prison. Last night they had been confined in a cramped room on the second floor of the administration building. Not knowing what was to become of them, neither had slept.
As the motorcade passed through a grove of palm trees, the ranch house came into view. The cobblestone driveway wended its way through a manicured lawn and well-tended gardens with a stunning variety of colorful bushes and flowers. The house was a typical white stucco hacienda accented with red brick and terracotta tiles. But what truly riveted her attention lay at the rear of the large two-story residence.
A chain link fence that must have been sixteen feet high, seemed to stretch out for at least two hundred yards on either side of the dwelling. Beyond the fence was a twenty-five foot wide no-man’s land of newly cut grass, which ended abruptly where a wall of dense shrubbery began.
The cavalcade rolled up to an ornate double-door entrance of solid Rosewood. The large windows on both floors were adorned with traditional metal grills.
Monica gently nudged Amanda. "Sweetheart, time to wake up."
Amanda looked up at her, yawned then stretched. "Where are we?"
"I don't know. Somewhere about forty minutes southeast of Flores."
From her vantage point in the jump seat in the rear of the Tahoe, Monica watched Rick Calvin leap out of the sedan before the vehicle came to a full stop. He recovered and dashed back to the Tahoe, where he waited impatiently by the rear door.
Next, Liz Dennison slid out from the rear of the sedan, followed by a stranger whose skin looked like it had been preserved in milk. The man, who wore coke-bottle thick glasses that kept sliding down his nose, was adjusting his belt buckle. Liz tucked in her blouse and slipped a .38mm revolver into a pocket of the safari jacket draped over her arm.
Finally the Tahoe's doors swung open. The lieutenant, who she'd heard called Diego, and the driver climbed out of the front, while three soldiers exited from the back.
Diego pointed at Rick and ordered, "Move him back."
Once two of his soldiers had pushed Rick away from the Tahoe, he stuck his head back into the SUV and signaled for her and Amanda to get out.
Monica and Amanda squeezed between the gap in the rear seat and crawled out of the vehicle.
"Jorge," Liz called out, "what's with the fence?"
"It's an enclosure, Señorita Dennison," Lieutenant Diego said.
"What's it used for?"
"When the colonel arrives, he will show you."
“Where are we?” Monica demanded.
“This is Colonel Rodriguez's ranch,” Liz said, walking up behind the group gathered by the Tahoe. The stranger was at her side.
Rick pushed between the guards and rushed up to Amanda. “Are you alright? I heard you scream back at the prison. Did these guys hurt you?”
Monica watched as Amanda glared at the young man, her eyes reflecting the full measure of his betrayal. Rick wilted under her icy stare and shrank back.
The stranger clapped a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “She’s fine, son. She won’t be harmed unless I order it.”
“Dr. Ken Byers, meet Dr. Monica Fremont,” Liz said.
Monica angrily shoved Rick out of her way and stormed over to Ken. “What do you want from us? Why are we here?”
Ken took a step back. “I want the formula for the sample Dr. Jeffers submitted to the University of Washington.”
Monica clasped the leather pouch tied around her neck and uttered a sharp laugh.“You already tried JJ, and he told you to go to hell. Right?”
“Unfortunately,” Ken said, “Dr. Jeffers suffered a heart attack before Liz had a chance to talk to him.”
She felt the color drain from her face and turned to Liz. “He’s alright, isn’t he?”
“I'm sorry," Liz said in a low voice. "He died last Sunday at Tikal.”
Monica was horror stricken. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard. JJ was as indestructible as a rock. There could only be one possible explanation. “Do you really expect me to believe he died of a heart attack? That you people didn’t murder him?”
“Think what you like, Dr. Fremont,” Ken said, “but you're not leaving here until I have the formula. If you insist on being stubborn, we can explore other measures.”
She was too upset for tears. “Stubborn? Me? You kill a friend, a colleague, the gentlest of men. You somehow persuade members of the Guatemalan military to violate the territory of a sovereign country. You kidnap three people, one of whom is a little girl. And at Altun Ha you left something like a half dozen … ."
"Enough," Liz shouted as she stepped between the two and faced Monica. “Give Ken the recipe and the two of you will be on your way to Belize.”
“And Hilton?”
“I’m sure I can persuade the colonel to go easy on your fiancé,” Ken answered.
“Then bring him here.”
Ken shook his head. “Sorry, that’s out of my hands.”
Monica wondered how desperate this man might actually be. She knew enough about Central American flora and fauna to scribble down a tablespoon of this, a teaspoon of that, and a pinch of something else. But was he foolish enough to accept her concoction of ingredients without question and let the three go free? Never. He would rigorously test whatever she gave him before he'd set them free.
“If you’ll go to these lengths to try and extort the formula, what will become of us once you have it? You’re not going to let us go any
where. We'll disappear into that prison just as Hilton did.”
“Believe whatever you want," Ken said, his face becoming flushed, "but understand me. You will give me the formula. The research from my lab in Seattle and the notes you sent Dr. Jeffers were destroyed. You’re the only person left. It was only from your conversation with Liz at Altun Ha that I learned it was you who actually created the sample submitted to the university.”
Monica sensed a growing frustration in Ken's voice when she noticed Rick's jaw drop. He gaped at Ken with a look of astonishment. She looked on as he inhaled and squared his shoulders.
"Ahhh, Dr. Byers, I think you might be a bit confused," he said haltingly as he stepped forward.
Ken looked at Rick. The young man met his gaze for only a moment before averting his eyes.
"What is it, Rick?" Ken demanded.
"Ahhh … ."
"If you've got something to say, out with it," Ken snapped.
"I'm sorry, it was nothing," Rick mumbled.
What had Rick planned to say? Monica was intrigued, but first there was another question she needed answered. "What is it exactly that you believe I’ve discovered?”
“You deciphered a formula that the Maya used as a powerful aphrodisiac, equally effective for both sexes,” Ken replied.
Monica was incredulous. “You’re not telling me you've gone to all this trouble for gender neutral Viagra?”
“Hardly,” Ken said. "No scientist of my stature would waste his time dabbling with anything as pedestrian as a recreational drug. Your formula cures the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The aphrodisiac is merely a side effect."
Monica paused for a moment to reassure herself that she had heard Ken correctly. "You're telling me that a concoction which is more than a thousand years old prevents HIV?"
Ken shook his head. "It isn't a preventative vaccine, it's therapeutic, although there is some preliminary evidence that it might also be preventive. The formula destroys the virus once a person has become infected."
"You're saying no one ever has to die of HIV again?"
"HIV ultimately mutates into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, which is the actual killer. But yes, essentially you're right."
"That's rich. Who'd have thought a disease primarily transmitted through sexual relations could be cured by an aphrodisiac?"
"The important point is, no one will ever die of AIDS once you give me the formula."
"Even if you had it, you'd never be permitted to use it. No drug licensing agency on the planet would allow a vaccine with that type of side effect to ever see the light of day."
"You worry about the ingredients and preparation. I'll worry about the market."
Monica shifted her gaze to Liz. "You've been encouraging him in this nonsense? Haven't you told him he's living in a dream world? That he's deluding himself?"
Ken grabbed Monica's arm, and in a plaintive tone, said, "You simply don't understand the insidious nature of this disease."
"I think I do," she replied, pulling herself free of Ken's grasp.
"No, you don't. Let me give you an example. In India in 1987, only 135 people had contracted the disease; by 2006 there were at least three million cases."
Monica threw up her hands in frustration, resigned to the fact she was dealing with people who refused to accept the truth. "I don't know the recipe off the top of my head. I didn't memorize it. As I told Liz, the recipe is extremely complex."
"Send someone to the resort," Liz said. "She told me that her notes and the mug were stashed in a safe place at home. It shouldn't be too difficult to find. If she won't help, we can hire someone who will."
"You're going to invade the resort with your army of thugs?" Monica asked. Her first priority was to get the three of them back home. "The Caribbean Breezes has plenty of security and my notes and the artifact are well hidden. Let Amanda, Hilton, and I return to Belize and I'll help you in any way I can. Do you actually think I am so cold-hearted that I wouldn't do everything I could to prevent millions of deaths?"
Liz grabbed the leather pouch suspended around Monica’s neck. With a flick of her wrist the rawhide lace snapped and the tiny pouch came free. Monica instinctively tried to snatch it back, but Liz had danced out of reach. She untied the drawstring and upended the contents of the bag into the palm of her hand. A clear glass vial with a red rubber stopper tumbled out. She held the tube up to the light. The cylinder contained a chalky brown solution.
“This looks very familiar.”
Monica reached out again in an attempt to grab the sample. Liz spun away and handed the vial to Ken.
He slipped the tube into his shirt pocket, then looked at Monica. “I still need you to provide the formula. We weren’t able to reverse engineer the sample from the university, so I don’t know how useful this will be in uncovering the ingredients. But, maybe this potion can be put to good use in another manner.”
Monica felt a cold chill run through her when a depraved smile spread across Ken's lips. She'd misjudged this man. He was definitely not a harmless oddity with coke-bottle glasses.
24:
Santa Elena Prison Farm – Wednesday
Fidel gleefully shambled across the prison yard. As he did, the other inmates made a beeline for the closest cell, no doubt praying they weren’t his intended target. He giggled when the other convicts fled the yard. They reminded him of the scurrying rats on which he had survived in the alleys of Guatemala City. The difference now was that his prey scuttled into their burrows on two legs, rather than four. Their fear thrilled him, gave him a sense of power he had never felt before arriving here fifteen years ago. His sentence had long since been served and his greatest fear was that the colonel would one day turn him out of his home, into a world he remembered as taunting and cruel. The warden had once called him a sadistic troglodyte. He didn't exactly know what that was, but the colonel had smiled when he said it, so it must be something good.
Fidel gazed up at the guards on the catwalk. None of the guards dared to challenge him about the dirty cotton mattress cover, or the six inch sailmaker's needle and the large ball of heavy twine tucked under his arm. They also ignored the flashlight in his hand. Like the convicts, the jailers knew he was doing the colonel's bidding.
He had sat in the dust by the gate never taking his eyes off the warden's office windows until the colonel stuck his head out and turned him loose.
If he did well today, the colonel had promised him a bottle of rum and a woman for the night, so he had to be extra careful. The colonel's orders were different from his usual instructions. He silently repeated those orders as he hobbled across the compound – hurt the gringo, no kill him.
He shuffled into the shadow cast by the upper walkway, dug the cell key out of his pocket and slid it into the lock. Although he eagerly anticipated his afternoon task, he approached the undertaking with an increasing uneasiness. The world knew gringos were like women - weak and whiny. He had never worked on a gringo before and was fearful of going too far. If he failed, the colonel would be very angry with him and take away tonight’s treat. He was already fantasizing about what he would do to the woman. Shaking off his anxiety, he drove open the cell door.
* * * *
Hilton looked up as the hinges of the cell door groaned. The jagged iron plate swung inward and crashed against the concrete wall, then bounced back until it was perpendicular to the doorframe. A shadow filled the entrance.
The blob standing in the doorway was closer to a walking tree than a man. Earlier, when crossing the prison yard, Hilton had caught snippets of the conversation between Guerra and the colonel. One fragment he had heard and remembered was the role someone named Fidel was going to play in his life from now on.
“Are you Fidel?”
The man hovered at the entry. "Where are you, Gringo?"
He flicked on the flashlight and swept the beam across the black interior in the direction of the voice. The light came to rest on Hilton, who was sitting against a
side wall, impassively staring up at his jailer. The man stepped across the threshold, pulled a penknife from his pants pocket, and opened the blade.
“Si, I am Fidel. Sit against the back wall, in the center, and no tricks,” he commanded.
Without a word, Hilton rolled to his feet and walked to the back of the cell. He sat down facing the doorway and gazed across the prison yard at the gated entrance directly in front of him. This was probably his only avenue of escape. He carefully studied the twelve-foot gates and the armed sentries patrolling the lane. A sense of futility swept over him. He quickly concluded he wasn’t going to escape via that route and turned his attention to matters of a more immediate concern.
The human mountain, mere feet from him, dropped the mattress cover and the needle and twine on the floor. He bent over the body and turned out Pedro’s pockets, then pried open his mouth and shone the flashlight into it. Using the blade of the penknife he examined the dead man's teeth, presumably looking for silver or gold fillings. Satisfied the body had nothing of value, he closed and pocketed the knife, then tossed the cotton mattress cover along with the needle and twine to Hilton.
“Put him in the bag and sew it up.”
Hilton took his time getting to his feet. He had heard the colonel order Fidel to thrash him to within an inch of his life. And he knew there wasn't going to be a representative of Amnesty International lurking just outside his cell. Here human rights didn't exist. A beating was in the offing and he wanted to prepare himself, to buy as much time as possible to assess any weakness in his opponent. The man's sense of balance was affected by his clubfoot, but that was the only Achilles' heel he had readily identified.
He thought Fidel was becoming agitated and took two quick steps forward to the side of the corpse. He grabbed the dead man's arm and pulled him toward the rear of the cell.
"Stop," Fidel commanded.
Hilton released Pedro and sank to his knees, shaking out the cotton mattress cover to its full length. He lifted the dead man’s legs and concentrated on sliding them into the worn body bag.
