The pilots had struggled with it over the Atlantic Ocean. They must have hoped to put it down on land to save the lives on board.
"All those people died because of me…"
"No, Olivia. Don't let that weigh you down. Preliminary reports are saying there was an explosion in one of the turbines."
She glanced at Diggs. "They were trying to get at me."
"And they are ready to risk hundreds of lives to accomplish that." Diggs closed the laptop and put the gear in reverse. "Let's get away from here. Too depressing. If you're still interested in finding Rodriguez, that is."
"I need to make a call."
They stopped at a pay phone outside the airport. Olivia called Sheriff Tom Garcia first.
"Oh, thank God, Olivia, you're alive!"
"Yes, Tom. I am." The words tasted bland on her tongue.
"But how's that possible? You were supposed to be on that flight."
She looked across the road at the brown crew-cut hair in the black sedan. Lawrence Diggs was eating Sty's chocolate bars; the blue and white wrappers littered the car's floor.
Lawrence Diggs had appeared beside him and dragged him off the line, saying, "Don't get in this plane. I don't trust it."
He had driven to the airport ahead of her to check the airplane and the engineers. One of the guys on the ground told him that one of their colleagues was missing. Diggs had found the missing guy in a ditch a long way off the airfield. He was naked and dead. Diggs didn't have to find the killer; it was obvious who the target was.
She sighed and said, "It's a long story."
"You'll tell us all about it when you get here. Betty's cried herself sore. She's waiting in the living room—"
"It's not safe, Tom. I'm in danger. It's not safe for you two."
"Where are you gonna go?"
"I'm still going to look for Rodriguez."
It was his turn to breathe hard. He said something to someone in the background; Olivia heard what sounded like sobbing. Then the hysterical voice of Betty, Tom Garcia's wife, came on.
"Olivia?"
"Betty, I'm fine—"
"Are you out of your damn mind? You come right back here now, Olivia. I can't lose you, please…"
Betty Garcia continued to implore her. Olivia closed her eyes and bit her tears back. For a moment, she considered again the sense in what she was about to do, going after Rodriguez.
Betty finished her entreaties with more sniffles.
"Betty, I couldn't have helped those people on the plane. I have reason to believe they died because I was supposed to be on it. But I can do something about Rodriguez. I can save his life."
"Who's Rodriguez?"
Olivia gave a sketchy description of how she came to know the old man. It seemed to calm Betty a little. Betty glared at her husband for neglecting to give her a background to Olivia's action. After some seconds, she said, "Alright, you do what you have to do. Save Rodriguez. But please, don't go alone. I think you should assemble your team, right."
"I would," Olivia lied.
She hung up minutes after and put her back to the wall of the phone booth. No one was waiting to use the phone, so she took a moment to catch her breath. Miami Airport was a mile away; she could still make out the tower. Two helicopters lifted into the air and hovered off in the direction of the ocean. Several cop cars with Miami PD stickers have made their way to the airport too. She imagined that they were out here on the order of the police commissioner or some other guy high up the power tree. Tom said he would soon be out here too.
She crossed the street, checking the faces passing on the sidewalk.
Diggs was chewing up his last batch of a chocolate bar. He packed the colorful wrappers together and stuffed them in the glove compartment.
"What'd you say?"
Olivia said, "Let's get on with it."
"Okay."
—
Frank Miller was waiting in an old shack in Bayside Marketplace. They rode a speedboat from there to Dodge Island.
"An aircraft is waiting on Port Boulevard to take you and Diggs out," Miller said.
Olivia glanced at Diggs.
"Yeah, you don't think I'd let you go looking for Rodriguez alone? You'll need all the help you can get," Diggs said without looking at her.
She smiled. It would be good to have Diggs along.
"What else do you need?" Miller asked.
"I just want in and out. We find Rodriguez and bring him home."
"Yeah, you're just gonna get to Brazil, find the old man walking on the street, pick him up, and leave."
"I know it's not gonna be like that."
Miller said, "Good. I've asked the team to be ready on a moment's notice."
"Oh Frank, you didn't have to—"
"We have to."
And it was settled.
Port Boulevard was a long stretch of dirt road. The big blue ocean on the right and yards of dry storage containers on the left. Trucks were lining up to pick up their cargo. Olivia leaned her head near the window. Strong currents of cool wind pulled her dark hair and spread it in the air. She squinted her eyes at the collage of a grey cloud.
The aircraft soon appeared in the distance. It was a Cessna 172 aircraft. The engines started as they approached. Dust swelled around it. A man in a black helmet waved at the car and jumped into the aircraft.
The car parked away from the swelling dust. Diggs got two bags—his and Olivia's—from the back of the vehicle and ran towards the plane.
"You be safe out there. The team will join you if need be, alright?" Miller shouted over the plane's turbulence.
"Yeah!"
Olivia joined Diggs.
Miller waited until the plane was in the air before he got into the car and drove away.
—
Eight hours and thirty minutes later, Olivia and Diggs went up the elevator to their hotel room.
When Olivia had showered, Diggs opened his computer and jacked it up with a satellite. He inserted another cable to the satellite, did his magic, and a black screen appeared on the laptop.
He touched the screen. "This is where he last appeared."
"Where's that?"
"Here, this hotel."
"We have to get into his room."
"I'll hack into the system here."
"Good."
Olivia went down the hallway and found a staircase. She followed it down to the kitchen but didn't go in. She looked through the small aperture in the door with the words Staff Alone.
There was another door on the left. Olivia took that one and came to another hallway. He looked up the wall where a low voltage light burned white. The sign there said a utilidade.
She went in that door and found herself in a room filled with clothes on hangars on one side of the wall. The air conditioner made humming noises. The walls were white, and a large mirror hung on the other wall. The floor looked wet. She listened for the presence of the security of cleaners. There was none.
There were identical clothes for both male and female cleaners, red and black cashmere material; Olivia picked one of the pieces of clothes off the rack. She tried on several of them until she got a proper fit. She pulled it off and folded it in a bag she found on the back of the door.
She rushed back the way she came.
Diggs was waiting with a blank look.
"The hotel's administration is not hooked to the internet," he said, closing the laptop. "I couldn't hack shit."
They were running out of time. Rodriguez had gone missing for almost two days now.
She changed clothes and picked up her phone; she told Diggs to stay on his. He nodded. Olivia went out of the door.
—
Olivia scanned the lobby. She kept her hair in her face and tried to appear as casual as she could. There were no cleaners in red and black. The bellhop was letting a group of noisy tourists in. He spoke fast Portuguese. The concierge was probably telling the fat American in oversized jackets that dogs aren't allowed in the h
otel. The tall, slender man behind the counter in the lobby observed the little show with bland equanimity. Olivia took two gulps of breath. She walked towards the desk.
The guy behind the desk was young, quite good-looking. He had a head of brown curly hair and cherubic lips. His eyes lit up when he saw Olivia.
"Are you one of the new intakes?" he asked in Portuguese.
Shit, Olivia breathed. She hadn't factored the dilemma of language in the deceit. She opened her mouth, but the words refused to come because she knew not a single word in Portuguese. Oh, Diggs, what have I gotten myself into?
She felt someone behind her, then a warm hand on her shoulder.
It was from Lawrence Diggs.
He smiled brightly. His hair was tied behind his head. He had changed into a white t-shirt with the black and white image of Michael Jackson in brown khaki shorts that exposed his thick hairy calves and Nike sneakers.
He spoke Portuguese to the guy behind the desk.
“Eu tenho um quarto preferido…” Diggs began.
The language profusion continued for a bit. Diggs stretched his hand over the desk, and the curly-haired guy put a pair of keys in his hand. He smiled sweetly. Then Diggs spat another slew of Portuguese. The young guy looked at Olivia. He shrugged and shooed Olivia after Diggs, who had started walking away.
"What the hell just happened back there?" Olivia asked as they stepped in the elevator.
"I asked for my favorite room. I told the guy I heard someone's taken it. He checked and told me the number of the room. Number 18. So, I got the keys to room 19."
"Now we can break in," Olivia said.
"Yup."
Diggs picked the lock in seconds.
Room number 18 was just like Olivia's room. The windows were open; the bed was made. A black travel bag sat on the single bed. Beside it was the TV remote. Olivia emptied the bag's contents on the bed; Diggs drew his gun and went into the kitchen. Then the bathroom.
The bag contained some clothing, a book by Robert Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Poor Dad; Olivia remembered the book from college. She put it aside and checked the side pockets of the bag. She found pieces of receipts of grocery purchases, bank transactions.
She checked through the clothes. She found nothing. Then she opened the Rich Dad book. The paragraphs were heavily lined with a red and black pen. There were notes in the margins. She read some that were related to the chapter's subject, scribblings of an old mind trying to get a grip on concepts he'd probably never exercise.
Olivia put the book back. She looked around the room. A balcony. She went to it.
It overlooked the beach about half a mile away, and the ocean beyond. Holiday people looked like little miniature toys a kid had assembled on the white floor.
"Do you think they grabbed him here in this room?" she asked Diggs.
He was standing in the middle of the room. He was staring at the bed.
"Diggs?"
The man seemed lost in thought. Olivia walked into the room; she frowned. Diggs had gone down on his knees. His cold blue eyes burned like cerulean fire.
"Olivia, we've been fucked," he said coldly.
Olivia dropped to her knees too. Crammed under the bed was the body of Arsenio Rodriguez; his black eyes had turned grey and dead. His mouth was open slightly, and congealed blood glued the side of his cheeks to the carpet there.
Olivia's heart did a backflip. Nausea washed over her, and she sat down hard. Diggs was on the move. He went to the balcony and took a look out into the street just as the cops were arriving in the street.
Two vans with painted black and yellow had just parked in front of the hotel, and a tactical team, heavily armed, were jumping down from it. The concierge was practically carried out of the way as he gestured his confusion.
Diggs grabbed Olivia's hand. "We have to get out of here, now!"
Shit, our prints are all over the place, her head screamed. Diggs grabbed the clothes they had both been disguised in earlier.
They went down the quiet hallway. There was a stairway at the end of the hall that went down. There was a door on the second landing; exit was written on it. They went down to it. The door closed behind them just as black-clad cops, their guns pointing forward, came up the steps.
Another group poured in through the elevator. They stalked down the hall and stopped at the room number 18; one cop got on one knee and picked the lock. They went in and spread through the room; two cops lifted the bed and found the body. One cop radioed down their situation.
Another tactical team came out of the elevator; they tracked down the hall and met the group coming up. They signaled at the door with EXIT on it. They got it open and went in.
—
The exit door led down another set of steps. Olivia and Diggs did not go out in the street, however.
"Diggs, come on, let's get out!"
"No. They're trying to flush us out. The cops are waiting out there," Diggs corrected. "Come on. Follow me."
They went down to the kitchen where too much steam in the air hid them from the eyes of the cooks. They had both changed into their disguises again. Now, they look like a hotel customer and a maid, both lost and trying to find their way.
From the kitchen through the stores, they went by a row of office rooms. The doors were shut, but voices murmured behind them. Olivia squinted through a door with stained glass at the top. She listened with her ear against the door.
"This one's empty," she whispered.
Diggs tried the opened the door, and they went into a room filled with boxes of clothes and shoes, books, and equipment. There was a window at the rear. Diggs opened it and looked down the side of the hotel, an alley down there. Two cops stalked along on their way to the back of the hotel. There was an open dumpster there. A cat was curled in it, hunkering from the moving humans nearby.
"We have to jump down," he said.
It was at least about ten feet down. Olivia's heart sank. "Jump into the dumpster. You'll be safe," Diggs instructed.
"There's a cat in there."
"We have to move, Olivia." Diggs's eyes flashed.
Olivia vaulted as the last cop went out of sight. The cat saw her and leaped into the alley, vanishing into the dark crevice between two buildings.
Olivia was winded momentarily. Her face felt wet with slime. Her feet hurt where it hit the metal side of the dumpster. She rolled over on her side and brushed the dust from her face. The gooey matter on her face was putrefying peas. The smell of its corruption filled her nose at once, and she retched.
She struggled out of the dumpster onto the hard floor. She shook the shock of her fall out of her head but cringed when Diggs landed beside her in the dumpster too. He was moving as soon as his feet touched the garbage. He pulled Olivia along behind him.
Five cops were at the back of the hotel. One policeman was on his radio, telling someone they were still holding the back, and the killers can't make it past them. Two smoked, and the other two wore dark glasses, and they watched.
Murderers? Someone has just set her up, big time.
"Shit!" Olivia breathed.
More cops were sure to be parading the front of the hotel. And they couldn't hang around the alley too long. Olivia looked around and saw Diggs picking the side door of the building beside the hotel where the cat from the dumpster had scampered into some space in its wall.
The door opened, and Olivia bolted in after Diggs.
—
Arnold Hirsh walked into the hotel and went straight to the room where the body of Rodriguez was found. The corridor crawled with local police. They marked the hall from the landing to half the hallway. Some customers have been moved, he was told.
The bed had been moved too. The stiff body was sprawled in the middle of the room on the carpet.
One of the policemen, a detective, cast a dry look at the newcomer. "Who are you?"
Arnold flipped his badge in the cop's face.
"Arnold Hirsh, Interpol."
The co
p relaxed; he asked the excess cops to clear the room. Arnold walked around the place. He went into the bathroom, the kitchen, and back to the body on the floor.
He touched the neck. Then he turned the head. The knife wound was deep.
"I want to see the autopsy as soon as it's ready," he declared.
"Where do we send it?"
He gave the policeman who seemed to lead the investigation his card. "Here, to my email."
"You people have heard of the man called the Hacker?" he asked the room.
Activities stopped. They turned to the man who looked like a nerd, with wiry hair, black-rimmed glasses, a sweater, and pants that barely touched his ankles.
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. When no one said anything, he said, "The Hacker. Wanted in eight countries. Eight. And none of you have heard of him?"
The commanding officer, a heavyset man, pulled off his cap to reveal his balding head. He shook his head.
"No, we have not heard of him. And if you are saying he did this, you are wrong. We have tapes," he said. "Downstairs. The killers are on them."
Arnold smiled. "Yeah, those two. Okay. I'll check these tapes you speak of. Meanwhile, make sure the autopsy gets to me. You'll find he was dead long before he was knifed."
Shocked, the policemen looked at the body again.
The puddle of blood on the carpet was so minimal Rodriguez couldn't have been killed there. The moment Arnold saw this, he knew the cops were going to go after the wrong perp.
—
They were on the news that night. Olivia Newton and Lawrence Diggs, Americans who are at large in Brazil, both armed and dangerous.
Olivia stared grim-faced at her face on the small old TV on the wall of the motel she and Diggs holed up in after leaving the hotel.
Diggs was out somewhere to forage for food.
According to reliable sources, the two Americans killed and robbed a Peruvian businessman. Then they stuffed his body under the bed.
She started pacing when the reporter said the city was on lockdown, and there was a manhunt for the fugitives.
King Solomon's Tomb Page 3
