Detective José Hanna was saying into his phone as he drove back to his apartment.
"Hello?"
"You've got to go back and check up on her, José. I believe she may be in danger," said Olivia.
"Okay, okay, I'll do as you say. I'll call her now—"
"Don't call, Detective! Go to her right now."
"Okay, it's an emergency, alright," he murmured to himself.
José threw the car in reverse before the lights; a slew of angry honking followed. He cut his return journey short by speeding through alleys. Olivia had not called him personally since the Inca temple months ago. And she had sounded desperate on the phone.
He parked his car a block away from Tami's place; the street was reasonably crowded. The night was young. Girls in skimpy clothes hustled this side of Cusco. A few of these prostitutes hung about the street. Roast meat sellers made smoke that whitened the air. Folk music blared from speakers across the road from a record store. A homeless man in sack clothes danced on the sidewalk.
It had been his idea that Tami should move here since he was transferred back to the city from Apachia. Now he was about to wish he hadn't done that. He saw there was a black car in front of the three-story building. Maybe Olivia was right. Tami was indeed in trouble.
The car was unmarked. And it looked familiar, like one of those from the police carpool back in Apachia. José hadn't used them much and for obvious reasons. Imagine riding one of those cars, and it's been used to run illegal operations. Imagine getting shot by a disgruntled opponent who's been slighted by one of the Apachia station policemen.
He stayed close to the wall until he got to the street door. He went up the steps as quietly as possible, and when he got to the door, he called Tami's phone.
"José?"
"Tami, I'm at your door. Are you alright?"
He heard her run across the room. But she could not open the door.
"Shit," she said, "Reno locked me in."
"What?"
Tami explained what happened. When she was finished, José looked down the hall and shivered. Someone was coming up the stairs.
It was Reno. He said, "Hello, Detective."
—
Miami
Past events were repeating themselves.
The last time, Olivia had almost been knocked down in the street. And the others too had each had an encounter, a close shave with death. Victor Borodin had barely made it and had only been out of the hospital two months ago.
That night, after speaking with Detective José Hanna half a world away, she went to lock all the doors and talked to the others—except Andrew Gilmore. He had dropped off the radar, which is something he did from time to time.
Olivia sent emails to her brother. Then she worked half of the night and slept the other half fitfully. She was woken the next day by rapping at the door. Fear clutched at her throat first. The suggestion to buy a dog once again occurred to her in Frank Miller's voice. And another to have cameras installed on the property too in Lawrence Diggs's voice.
It was a DHL guy. And he looked genuine in the yellow jumpsuit, white cap, rough facial hair, and eyes that squinted at you. His head cocked to the side because—maybe—his hearing wasn't that good in the left ear.
"Good morning, ma'am," he said in a twang from the deep South.
He held a package in his hands. He pushed it forward and then started writing in a book. He asked her to sign for the package. Olivia signed in the column that said package received by me.
The man smiled and walked quickly back to his van, parked in the street. Olivia watched him drive away.
Three minutes later, Olivia hadn't opened the box.
To calm her nerves, she made a long-distance call to Peru again. Tami had been visited by two men from the local corrupt police community. She was bummed out by the experience, but she would be alright.
Who was the puppet this time?
Olivia had long come to terms with the dangers of being her. She had made enemies in the course of her adventures. But it was so much consolation to know who was behind the face of every new terror each time.
She could think of no one now because the pattern didn't fit.
She had breakfast. She considered calling Diggs over, but she didn't want to tip off anyone who might be watching.
She took the package to the garage; she placed the package on the oil-stained floor and opened the door. There was no name on it, nor was there a return address. Weird.
The brown paper was in two layers. She tore the first one off and checked for any clue about its sender. There was none. When the last layer was off, it revealed a black box. It looked like a regular shoebox.
It smelled like an old house when she opened it, like a room filled with junk. It was a familiar smell, the kind that greeted you when you opened an attic you haven't been to for a long time—an attic starved of outside air. The air was stale and pulpy like an old antique store.
There was a book in it. That smell was more potent as she held the book in her hand. She let out a pent-up breath.
It was hardcover, red that's not quite red anymore because of lack of light and too much moisture. She rubbed the back of the book where the pressed letterings of the title were now faded; in its place were traces of black.
The blank title read: All The Treasures in One Place
The dissolving color came off on the tip of her fingers. She opened the book, and an envelope fell on the floor. She picked it up and opened it. There was a letter addressed to Olivia in it.
It began:
Dear Olivia Newton.
I'm sorry I should not be doing this alone. Still, I have to be sure it is true before I tell you about it, for I recall the hazards of the job you did not too long ago in my hometown at the foot of the mountain, so here I go confirming what I have always thought was the truth. It is just as this book says. I hope I find the wise man's lair. It is the grandest thing you'll ever see; treasures whose worth no one can measure. Still, I'm also aware of the forces that seek to keep these things hidden in books and from the eyes of the world. Give your friends my kindest regards, Roddy.
"Rodriguez…?"
Olivia was even more confused than before. The letter was as cryptic as the appearance of the package that brought it and confounded her. Olivia packed the box and put it on the shelf. Other tools were on the wall, beside the Jacks and spanners.
She checked the street as she went back inside. The bay was a shining spread of water across the road and the brown stretch of oceanfront. Boats bobbed in the waves, gulls cried in the sky, and the sun hung over it all.
She pored over the letter again as she ate breakfast.
Rodriguez was trying to tell Olivia something.
The wise man's lair, she read again. What was Rodriguez talking about? And why did he leave Peru? Was he in danger?
—
"You feel the tug of the wild again, huh?" Sheriff Tom Garcia said.
"He's in trouble, Tom. He needs my help, or what do you think he's telling me in the letter?"
"Nothing, Olivia. Nothing, that's what." The sheriff eyed her over the rim of his coffee cup. Steam rose from it and swelled around his head.
Tom Garcia was graying in the hairs around his ears. The bags under his eyes were filling up. And he was severely going bald as well. The sheriff's office had been redecorated courtesy of the city's taxpayers. They were grateful for their able cop boss. Behind him on the wall hung many plaques, commemorative plates inscribed with Tom's achievements in his years as a cop. Looking at him, Olivia thought, It takes a toll, huh, Tom?
"Are you ever gonna get married, Olivia?"
"Maybe."
She was quick with the response. Maybe too quickly. Oliva picked up the letter from Tom's war-torn table of papers and police files. She folded it and put it in her pocket. Her cup of coffee was losing temperature in front of her.
"But first, old Rodriguez sent that letter and that book to me for a reason—"
> "Maybe old Rodriguez wants you to read, broaden your horizon, maybe pick up a hobby other than breaking into old places. You got richer than most people would ever be, Olivia. Isn't it time to relax and get some air?"
"And what if Roddy is in danger?"
Tom shrugged. He put his cup on a pile of blue cover files. He sat back and said, "You told me he went to Brazil?"
"Yes Tom, but he disappeared—"
Tom leaned forward, a mischievous laugh on his lips. "He found a senorita, a girl looking to show him a good time. Dude can't have you people snooping on him with those little cameras the CIA got. He knows Diggs is watching. You said so."
He laughed softly when he was finished.
"Tom, this is not something to laugh about. For all I know, it's the trouble before the Inca temple all over again. Do you remember that? I almost got killed in the street. And the others too, hell, Victor Borodin was in the hospital for two months. I think someone is trying to get us, Tom."
"Of course. I get it. I'm sure one of those guys, maybe Paul Talbot. That's why I'm telling you not to put too much stock in this thing, this letter. But if you must—wait, what do you wanna do about it, go looking for him?"
Olivia rose from her chair and went to the window; the glass was damp. It smelled of some detergent. It had recently been washed; she could see the parking lot from there. Tom's old Chevy truck was there, beaten, one of its rear lights were busted. Olivia had pressed a gold bar on Tom Garcia, but the sheriff had refused it. He wouldn't know what to do with it, he said.
She turned around to look at the sheriff.
Tom was scared for her; she could see that now. Tom loved her that much, to not stand by and watch harm come to her. He loved Olivia like he loved his sister Agnes in Minnesota. Olivia had met Agnes only once and decided the grit she loved Tom for ran in the family.
"I would go looking for you, Tom. I would tear down the place to get you out."
Tom sighed. "I know you would. But—"
"But what? Rodriguez is now my friend. If it wasn't for him, we'd be dead in that temple."
"I know you had a lot of help and all, but that doesn't justify going to Brazil just on a hunch. What if something happened to you out there? Every time you go on this…this…" He swung his hand around, looking for the right word.
"…these adventures of yours, do you know what happens to Betty and me?"
Olivia stared back, glumly. She shook her head, just a fraction.
"We are both scared it could be your last. I'm scared I'd be here, and I'd get a call asking me to come to Rome, or Bolivia or one of those places with treasures, to identify a body they think is you. Do you know what it's like to live like that? It's no way to live, Olivia. Constantly worrying about you, even right here in great Miami."
Tom rubbed his scanty hair and his aging brown eyes.
There was a knock at the door. It opened, and a police officer named Max poked his head in. He was Mexican. He nodded at Olivia, and then at Tom. He said, "There's been a homicide in Fenwood. We're heading out."
"Get Daltrey and Caparzo on it; you stay," Tom ordered.
Max concurred with a nod and disappeared. The sheriff looked at Olivia and said, "The call of duty."
Olivia smiled. She was still standing with her back against the window. Olivia breathed. She had already made her decision.
"Look, Olivia, I know you are a strong woman, but you can't save everyone every time they get in trouble—"
"It has something to do with me, Tom. Me. If Rodriguez dies, it's on me. I have to do this."
After a moment's pause, Tom said, "And you're going alone…"
She nodded. "Tes. I am."
Tom Garcia embraced Olivia.
—
2
Olivia Newton made copies of Rodriguez's SOS letter in the morning after and faxed it to Frank Miller and the rest of her team members. At the time she was preparing to leave, none of the members had replied to her messages. She then packed a small bag with clothing provisions for a couple of days, a week maximum.
Dark clouds hung oppressively over the Miami skyline. Tom Garcia picked her up from her apartment. He promised to check on the apartment while she was gone. Olivia had no pets, yet that side of town was near the water. There have been reports of break-ins by vagrants who come pretending they were interested in the water, not the homes.
"You call me every day," he said as he drove towards the airport. "And if it gets too hot out there, you get right back here. That's an order."
"Yes, sir."
Olivia smiled, the weight of the unknown on her mind, yet enjoying the fawning sheriff's companion. At the airport, Garcia presented a box of cookies that Betty, his wife, had made.
"A parting gift from my beloved wife to you."
"Oh, Betty." She accepted the box and ate a cookie right away. "I'll call you when I land—"
"Like you have a choice. And make sure you check that old man into a home when you find him. He's too old for Brazilian ladies now."
Olivia kissed him on the cheek and shooed him off to his duties in the city. Reluctantly, Tom Garcia walked out of the crowded terminal. Seated by herself, she had a chance to consider her plans again, the uncertainty of it. She smelled danger in the air and watchful eyes needling at the back of her neck.
She joined the line of beset Americans on their way out to South America on the PanAm. People of all classes, their faces bore their worries. It was interesting to observe a distraction for Olivia too.
—
Outside, unseen by her, or the security guards that prowl the airport grounds, two eyes and feet walked nonchalantly away from the Airbus A380 that was getting ready to bear the souls of 142 people. The man had arrived at about the same time Olivia Newton was sending copies of the letter she found in the book Rodriguez sent to her.
This man had joined the engineers that checked the Airbus. He wore a yellow jumpsuit, just like the other engineers. His suit had a tag on the chest, Andre Pesci. His clothes were soiled with black grease, and his black boots caked hard with a mixture of dust and oil.
He purchased the name tag downtown from a business that serviced illegal identity, guns, and black-market equipment. The jumpsuit he took off a now dead airport engineer whose name and person passed out of this tale as quietly as his death.
He had climbed into the turbines and did the proverbial throwing of a wrench into the works, literally. He tempered with mechanisms. To make sure his plan would work at any cost, he set small charges on the engines that would go off approximately one hour after the airplane is airborne.
He waited in a blue 1970 Oldsmobile 442. He ate crackers and listened to the radio.
When the accident happened, he'd hear it first on the radio.
—
The control tower of the Miami International airport watched as flight No. 243 took off. The tower controller, 63-year-old George Royce, watched the airplane lift off with the usual calmness of an officer who had never experienced a plane crash on his watch. Well, maybe a few near-accidents—once a component fell off the wing side of an airplane at liftoff. Still, it had amounted to nothing even though the aircraft turned around.
This morning, George Royce had done his usual checks. All checks had gone through the meager chain of command at the airport. His subordinate had gone round below, checked all the logs, crossed out safety concerns, and sent word up, the usual way.
It was a usual day—good weather, good pilots, harried customers. Nothing new. Then he had noticed the guy who had walked off the hangar in the opposite direction while the crew shared cans of beer. The guy hadn't said anything to anyone, and he hadn't looked familiar either. Royce prided himself on knowing everyone on the ground.
So, he had called out to the guy, "Ahoy!"
The tall, broad-shouldered guy had simply gone out of sight around the corner.
"Who's that guy?" he asked the crew.
"Which guy?" they asked.
He looked back at
the entrance of the hangar; the sun streamed in. No guy. The guy was gone. Royce forgot about him. He drank water instead of beer and went on up the tower to his duty post.
He would not think about the odd guy again until forty minutes later.
Flight 243 progressed out of Miami airspace. Royce saw it on the screen as a green dot. His deputy continued to give his instructions in a monotone voice. One aircraft was coming in from Heathrow. Another flight was scheduled to lift off in ten minutes. Royce watched from the tower as the airplane rolled to its place by the departure gate.
Royce dropped himself in his chair and started letting his mind wander. From wandering, he felt sleepy and thought he might catch a nap. He couldn't tell exactly how long he nodded off, and it didn't matter.
"Mayday! Mayday! We are going down!"
Royce thought it was a voice in his head. He opened his eyes and saw his deputy leaning over the console, giving orders rapidly. An odd thing was happening on the console. He jumped out of his slumber and grabbed the headphones.
"Mayday! Mayday…!"
The next few seconds passed like a dream. He could still be back in his chair, head turned up, mouth open, and sleeping. He heard static after.
The tower waited for the customary news that followed crashes. George Royce went about the rest of the morning, dazed, trying put together the moments leading to the takeoff.
Airline Authority officials ganged up an hour later to go over the procedures at the airport. They wouldn't find anything irregular.
Royce would recall the suspicious dude in the hangar when news from the crash site arrived. The airplane had gone down
One hundred forty-one people, plus the two pilots, had died in the crash.
—
Olivia opened her eyes again after shutting them. The images tore at her heart. She was the only survivor, though she hadn't even been on the airplane. Lawrence Diggs had made sure of that.
"We have to get you out of here. Miller's made arrangements for you."
Her throat worked. No words came. She looked at the screen of the mini laptop opened on the dashboard of Diggs’s car. The Airbus was a twisted, charred hull, broken in three. Fire and black smoke rose from the pits; pieces of metal were scattered about the grass. The airplane had gone down just off the coast of Cuba in a place called Cardenas.
King Solomon's Tomb Page 2
