Latitude Zero (18 page)

33

SANTIAGO’S EYES
slid toward me as he finally slowed down for a stoplight. “Forgive me for what is a personal question. But you are anxious about something. Yes?”

“Anxious? I’m not anxious. What makes you think I’m anxious? No. I’m excited to meet my host family! Let’s go,
muy, muy rápidamente
!” I looked back as the light turned green and Santiago accelerated again. Those headlights stuck close behind us. “Are we taking this road the whole way?”

“No. At some point, soon, we will need to turn onto smaller roads.”

I didn’t love the idea of being on a network of small, dark roads, with a car of thieves behind us. What did they want with me now? Their damn stolen bike was already on the way, due to arrive in just one week. “Let’s stay on this nice wide road with the traffic.”

“But the blockade is coming up.”

“There must be some way around it. Or can you just bust through it?”

Santiago turned off the radio and looked at me. “Please tell me what is going on,” he said. “Is there some kind of trouble? If I am driving you, and if you are asking me to break a law, I must to know why.”

“I’m being followed,” I confessed. “There are two guys and a girl in the car behind us. They were looking at me in the parking lot.”

Santiago gaped at me. “
¿En serio?
Why they are following
you
?”

I didn’t want my story to get back to his dad. I might get kicked out of Vuelta before I began if I looked like a magnet for criminals. “They must think I’m someone else,” I said. I remembered the announcements that had kept blaring in customs, about holding on to your bags. “They seemed pretty interested in my, um, backpack.”

Santiago blew out a long breath. “
Chuta
. I am really worrying now.”

“Why?”

“Drug trafficking is a big problem at this airport recently. Foreigners have been targeted by dealers working for cartels. Especially young people with backpacks. They can be hired as carriers, or even used as
mulas
—mules—without even knowing about it.”

“Carriers? Mules? For what?” I sat up straighter.

“Drugs, maybe, or money from deals. Sometimes a mule can hide this in someone’s bag. Then the bag is carried to the next mule, or to some location. If these people were looking at your backpack? Believe me, you do not want them approaching to you.”

I sucked in my breath. Drug dealers! Maybe that’s what Darwin and his group were!

I recalled the State Department website my parents had made me read back in Boston, with all the travel advisories. While Ecuador was considered one of the safer, more politically stable South American countries compared to its neighbors, it had its share of drug cartels. I hoped Darwin was just a fence for a high-end bike-theft ring. But now, thinking of my knifepoint encounter with Pizarro, and the fact that all three of those people had tracked me at the airport, everything was pointing to drug dealing, not just a bike theft. Maybe the “valuable information” Pizarro had asked for was contact information for someone involved in some drug deal. Maybe someone Juan Carlos had known! But would the bike be filled with drugs? That didn’t make sense. Drugs came
out of
Latin America, not into it. Cash from drug deals seemed more likely. I wondered how much cash would fit into a bike handlebar. Or into a seat, or a hollowed-out frame.

Any way I looked at it, it seemed likely that Darwin and his crew were connected in some way to drug cartel activities in Ecuador. Maybe the bike contained drug money.

And Juan Carlos? How did he fit into this darkening picture? I thought of Juan Carlos’s jagged scar. Painful as it was to consider, he could have had a secret life, or a past, that no one ever suspected. Something he’d tried to leave behind when he left Ecuador. Shadows to race away from.

I wiped my hands on my pants, suddenly aware of how much I was sweating. I’d seen Quentin Tarantino movies. Drug dealers were seriously scary people. People got killed over deals gone bad.

Could Darwin be the person behind Juan Carlos’s death? If so, could he have framed Dylan or Jake for the bike sabotage? And if Juan Carlos had information related to drug deals, and that information was now missing, maybe Darwin would do anything to find it. Like chasing a teenage girl who seemed like she knew something, all the way to the equator.

I swallowed hard. I glanced behind me again, at those blinding headlights so close to us now.

“The road will divide soon with a detour for avoiding the blockade,” said Santiago. “We must lose these people. There is only one thing to do. Is your seat belt on?”

“Yes, but why—”

“¡Vámonos!”

“Oh my God!” I cried out as the car lurched forward.

Santiago sped up until the lights behind us were distant dots. Approaching an exit ramp, where cars in front of us turned left, for the detour, he stayed the course instead.

I looked behind. No headlights. Thank God. “That was amazing! You ditched them!”

“Ditched? This word I do not know.”

“You got them off our trail. Sent them packing. Cut them loose.” I smiled.

Santiago smiled, too. “I hope these idioms appear on my TOEFL.” Then he looked worried. “But we still have the blockade ahead. They will probably tell us to turn back.”

I rolled down my window. An acrid smell filled my nostrils, making me cough. The air was thick and hot. Logs, tree branches, and plastic barrels were heaped together across the width of the road. Piles of tires were burning bright. Flames flickered orange, licking the night sky.

Through the smoke haze, I could see men, some with long braids, wearing ponchos and felt hats, pacing in front of the blockade. Some raised their fists as we approached. Not in solidarity. In anger. Other men, and some women—some with babies lashed to their backs—shouted at armed soldiers in front of a jeep.

I suddenly longed for a bicycle. If we had bikes, we could ditch the car. Be free of this scene. And completely throw Darwin and his crew off our trail.

“Could this thing get violent?” I asked as a soldier brandished a rifle at a small crowd.

“Mostly these protests are peaceful,” said Santiago, slowing down. “They try to make the roads inconvenient for travel. Sometimes they can shut down Quito for days.”

“Days?” I thought of the shipping container, which had to be trucked from the Port of Guayaquil on the coast, over the mountains and into Quito.

Santiago made a vague gesture. “Days, maybe weeks. And sometimes, yes, protests can become violent. A match can strike, and then we have riots.”

Fabulous. I’d been in Ecuador for less than two hours and landed in a sandwich of angry protestors on one side, possible drug cartel enforcers on the other. Spin the wheel, take your chance!

A man in gray camouflage waved a rifle in our direction.

“He is a military man,” said Santiago. “He is wanting us to turn around and go back.”

But Santiago kept the car rolling forward. Near the military guy, he stopped and rolled down his window.

Their Spanish was rapid-fire, but I got the gist of the conversation. Military Man yelled at Santiago for ignoring the detour signs. Santiago apologized. He explained we were being pursued by robbers, and we’d stayed on the highway to escape them. He reached into his pocket and handed Military Man a twenty-dollar bill. The guy pocketed it and pointed to a hill off to our right. He explained something in Spanish. The next thing I knew, Santiago was throwing the Pathfinder into reverse.

I gripped my seat belt. “Are you going through the blockade?”

“No. Off the road. This man has shown to me a place I can safely drive. There I can connect with another road into Quito. He will offer us protection if we do it fast.”

About a football field’s length back from the blockade, Santiago turned the car to the right. And floored it.

My teeth clacked as the wheels left the pavement. My stomach churned, and my mind flashed back to the last off-road ride I’d taken: with Jake, at Chain Reaction, on bikes.

Yet as the car wheels churned on the grassy road shoulder, and the car rumbled over bumpy terrain, I didn’t feel as scared this time.

Santiago leaned his head back on the headrest and flexed his fingers on the wheel. “
¡Que raro!
I cannot believe only one hour ago, I have been studying
verbos
for the TOEFL exam. Now I am driving a—what do you call it?—a getahead vehicle.” He flashed me a grin. “I admit. That was fun. I hope these people will now forget they ever saw you. This is a big city. You will not be troubled.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I smiled back. “You went above and beyond. Thank you. And it’s a
getaway
vehicle. Let me pay you back for the bribe.” I reached for my backpack.

“No. I cannot accept payment.
Tranquila.
Sit back and relax. We will be at the Ruiz house in no time.”

Santiago turned the merengue music up loud. We merged with light traffic on a quiet road, smooth asphalt thrummed beneath our wheels, and the gold lights of Quito beckoned.

34

THE RUIZ
family greeted me with hugs and
besos
. My host sister, Amparo, gave me a huge white stuffed bear with a red heart necklace, in case I missed my family and needed something to hug. Andreas gave me Ecuadorian magazines “for practicing in Spanish.” I thanked him, trying to ignore the fact that Juan Carlos was on the cover of almost all of them, with teasers for stories about
la tragedia ciclista.
Hugo carried my suitcase and backpack to the room I would share with Amparo. Lucia served me a late dinner: steak with eggs cooked over it, and a heaping plate of
papas fritas
. Peludo the poodle covered my arms and face with sloppy licks.

I was beyond tired. And sleep should have come easily. For the moment anyway, I was safe. The Ruiz house was tucked away in a maze of hilly streets, all lined with elegant homes—fresh white paint, red tile roofs, gracious arched brown doorways. The homes, including the Ruiz
casa
, were also heavily barricaded: ringed by cement walls iced with glass shards.

The Ruiz house was further guarded by a man in a booth at the gate. He wore a beret, fatigues, and a semiautomatic weapon slung across his chest. After Santiago had pulled up at the curb, we’d had to pass by that booth. As the guard tipped his beret and murmured, “
Buenas noches, señorita
,” I’d actually felt grateful for that gun. Especially now that I was thinking Darwin and those guys were involved with international drug trafficking—and with Juan Carlos’s murder.

Not so long ago, when I couldn’t sleep, I used to lie in my bed back home and let my thoughts drift to Jake. I’d replay our good times—like biking out to Cabot Pond on hot summer nights and swimming to the far edge to kiss—and more—beneath a willow tree, whose gracious branches offered a private room. Sometimes, when things weren’t good with Jake, my thoughts would drift to Juan Carlos instead. To our halting conversations in Spanish, to the slow spread of his smile, to the way he said to me once, almost wistfully, “Jake, he is lucky to have a girlfriend like you.” I’d replayed that memory so much I’d almost worn it out.

But now, lying between crisp pink sheets in Amparo’s spare bed, my thoughts veered away from both of them . . . to Santiago. He had risen to the occasion, driving that “getahead vehicle” like a pro—and he didn’t even know me! He’d also given me his cell number before he left. “If you need anything, call,” he said to me before he left. “And I will see you on Monday?”

“Monday?”

“At Vuelta. I’m working for my dad at the headquarters, part-time, for my summer job.”

“You’re working at Vuelta, too? Doing what?”

“Updating their website. So if you need to have another high-speed chase or something, I am your guy.
Chao!
” He waved—no attempt at a
beso
this time, as he rubbed his nose and winked.

“Chao,”
I replied, remembering, with a pang, that
chao
was the last word Juan Carlos and I had exchanged.

I tossed and turned, trying to plump up my flat pillow. I took off Juan Carlos’s crucifix and set it on the nightstand so it wouldn’t dig into my skin. I still couldn’t sleep. Amparo’s snores were fearsome. And now the airport chase haunted me. All the emotions I’d fought to quell on that ride came flooding in.

Darwin and his cohorts had wanted to talk to me. They’d made no effort to hide. Only after I ignored them did Darwin press the pedal to the metal. Maybe I should have just talked to them in the parking lot and asked them directly what was going on, instead of having to wonder. By ignoring them, I’d pissed them off.

Anyway, how did they know to find me in Quito? And at the airport? Aside from my host family and the Vuelta office, no one had my itinerary. Except Mari.

I sat bolt upright in bed.
Mari
. We’d exchanged a few emails in the past two weeks. One had my flight times and my host family’s address. Maybe Darwin had somehow intercepted our emails. Or maybe one of Darwin’s spies had gotten information out of her, about when I was coming. I had to know who she’d talked to lately—and if she was okay.

I grabbed my laptop from my backpack and turned it on. I padded softly through the house, trying to find an Internet signal, until I came to the open-air patio in the middle of the house.

This patio was the best part of the Ruiz house: a secret square, protected from the streets, surrounded by the walls of adjacent rooms. In addition to the washing machine and clothesline, it contained a large collection of potted plants, some with elaborate vines creeping up the wall and some with strange, bulbous fruits. And above: nothing but sky. Just those brilliant stars, so close they seemed like I could reach out and grab them.

I found a blanket folded up on the washing machine, drew it around my shoulders for warmth, and breathed in the rich scent of dirt and flowers. Then I sat cross-legged on the cool tile and fired off a note to her. She’d been quiet on email, not responding to my last few messages. I hoped she’d reply to this one. I kept it simple.

Arrived. In Quito. We have to talk. You might be in danger.

When & where can we meet up tomorrow?

I sent it and waited for what I hoped would be an almost instant response. No response came. It was almost midnight. I hoped she was having some party at her cousin’s hip bachelorette pad. Dancing. Living
la vida loca
. Safe.

I sent quick emails to my parents, and to Kylie and Sarita, letting them all know I’d safely arrived. I kept those emails breezy and brief. I couldn’t alarm anyone. I wished Kylie extra good luck on her Lane Scholarship interview.

I checked my inbox again. Still nothing from Mari.

To distract myself from compulsive email checking, I surfed to the Team Cadence-EcuaBar website and looked up the latest stats on the Pan-American Cycling Tour. I learned that without its star rider at the helm, it had won two circuit events and some time trial events in Bogotá, but placed fourth in the Bogotá one-day classic, with the favorite Ecuadorian team—Equipo Diablo—taking a solid first. Cadence-EcuaBar was suffering without its star climber. In Venezuela this week, the team was now doing a weeklong stage race, La Vuelta a Venezuela, and performing somewhat better, the strongest North American team in the tour—but three strong riders from Ecuador’s Equipo Diablo were surpassing them at every leg of the race.

Thinking of that Ecuadorian team made me think of their soon-to-debut rider. El Ratón. My quick search on him led to an interview posted a month ago on an Ecuadorian TV station’s website. A local reporter asked him how his friend Juan Carlos got started in racing.

El Ratón hesitated, his brows furrowed. “Juan Carlos?” he asked.

“Yes. You are good friends.”

If el Ratón was at all annoyed that the interview was more about his friend, he didn’t show it. He nodded and launched into the story, in Spanish, as if he’d told it a hundred times before. “

“One day an American businessman—Preston Lane, of EcuaBar—noticed Juan Carlos competing in an urban downhill race, and he got him into the Vuelta Youth Racing Club. He believed Juan Carlos had what it takes for road racing. And he was right. A few years later, with many prizes under his belt, Juan Carlos was recruited for the EcuaBar junior development team. And he spent very little time there before he went pro. He’s an inspiration to us all now, about what is possible if we push ourselves, and if someone believes in our talents.”

“How did that feel, seeing your friend go off to the United States to start a racing career?” asked the reporter. “After all, you used to ride together.”

“We did ride together. Since we were nine years old,” said el Ratón with a smile. “We grew up in the same south Quito neighborhood. Juan Carlos and I found abandoned bike frames in parks, or around the city, and we learned to put them together. We learned about bikes and improved. Then we spent all our time in the mountains, riding. When we were fourteen, we started racing urban downhill. But are you asking me if I was jealous of my friend, for all his opportunities?”

“It would be natural, wouldn’t it?” said the reporter.

El Ratón chuckled and shook his head. “He is like my brother. We are from the same place. His success is my success. Jealous? Me? Never.”

I wondered if that were really true. I had flashes of envy when Sarita got higher grades than me, or won academic awards that I didn’t. I also wondered what this urban downhill thing was. I’d never heard of a specific downhill racing event for cycling, let alone an urban one, but maybe that was some specialized term here. A background in downhill racing could explain why Juan Carlos was fearless on hills. So why did he end up fatally crashing on a descent? It just wasn’t fair.

I checked my email again. Nothing from Mari. I snapped my laptop closed. If I didn’t hear back from Mari first thing tomorrow morning, I’d go to her apartment. There had to be some reason she’d ignored my last few emails. I really hoped she was okay.

I headed back to Amparo’s room, then realized I’d opened the door to a different bedroom off the open-air patio, not the door to the hall. This room was hardly bigger than a walk-in closet. It had a green shag rug and a twin bed in one corner. Beside the bed was a nightstand with a phone and a lamp; the lamp had plastic figures of Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus affixed to the base. A small shuttered window faced the courtyard.

I sat on the bed. Then lay down. Aside from the faint smell of damp earth—like a basement that had flooded once—the room was cozy. And, like the patio, it felt safe. No windows to the outside world.

I pulled the scratchy wool blanket up around me and drifted off to sleep.

I dreamed of Juan Carlos. He was riding the ghost bike. He wore an all-white cycling outfit, matching the white frame, the white handlebars, the white wheels. Turning his head to look back at me, he flashed me his most dazzling smile. “Tessa Taylor!” he called to me. “Can you catch up?”

I was cranking along on an old beater bike. The downtube was rusted. Wheels squeaked and pedals jammed. I looked down and saw I had training wheels, one of them coming loose. “I’m trying!” I called back. “Hey! Come back!”

But he didn’t come back, and I couldn’t catch up, and the distance between us yawned. Only once did he look back at me. When he did, his face was covered in blood.