Guardian of Lies (40 page)

This morning the lion at the zoo isn’t growling. He is probably asleep, something I hadn’t had much of the night before. Thoughts of the man with the pockmarked face kept me awake.

“I’m missin’ one of my picks,” says Herman. “Think I dropped it last night.”

We were walking quickly, both of us breathing hard.

“Can you open the gate without it?”

“Think so. I’m gonna have to,” said Herman. “Just hoping there’s not too many people out on the street. If neighbors see what we’re doin’, they’re gonna call the cops. Where do you wanna stash the stuff?” Herman is talking about the luggage.

“I was thinking we might put it behind that tree, near the fence where I was hiding last night when you pulled up in the taxi.”

“Good,” says Herman. “Let’s hope nobody sees it.”

Just like clockwork the woman showed up, right on time.

As she walked through the front door carrying her suitcase and purse, Liquida stepped out of the dark bathroom just off the entry. He cupped the ether-soaked cloth over her mouth and nose as he wrapped his other arm around her and lifted her off the floor. She struggled for maybe ten seconds before she went limp.

He kept the cloth over her face for about ten more seconds to make sure she was out cold. Then he carried her to the kitchen and laid her body on the floor in front of the stove before returning to the entry. He glanced at the gate. She hadn’t had a chance to lock it. Liquida left it that way. He simply closed the front door. He left her suitcase where it was, just inside the entry. This way it would look as if she’d returned home, smelled the fumes, gone into the kitchen to investigate, and been overcome by the propane before the explosion and fire killed her.

He went back into the kitchen and arranged her body on the floor with just enough artistry to make it look natural. He would have picked her up and dropped her but Liquida was afraid that the neighbors might hear the noise through the common wall next door and come to see what had happened.

He unscrewed the cap from the small brown bottle, turned his head away, and soaked the cloth in more ether. He emptied the bottle. The odor was making Liquida light-headed. He quickly threaded the cap back on the bottle and laid the dripping cloth over the woman’s mouth and nose. This way there was no chance that the anesthetic would wear off. He used ether instead of chloroform because ether was highly flammable. By the time the fire department found the body, there would be nothing left of the cloth.

He put the brown bottle in his pocket, stepped back a few feet, and checked the body positioning one last time. Liquida wanted to make sure she would get the full effect of the fiery blast. Then he picked up the model airplane remote control from the countertop and pressed the button.

This turned the tiny servomotor opening the valve. Propane began to leak from the stove. He had already extinguished all the pilot lights on the burners to guard against any accident, a premature fire that might only smoke up the place. He listened for several seconds. After he was satisfied that the propane was flowing nicely, he pressed the other button setting the electronic timer. As the propane fumes spilled out into the lower level of the house, the clock was now running. In twenty minutes the tiny electronic chip operating the timer would trigger the spark emitter and the blast would rattle the entire block.

Herman is right. In the bright morning sunshine, leaning against the gate and picking the lock, we may as well take our clothes off and do it naked. Anyone who sees us is going to call the cops. We aren’t even up the block to Katia’s house yet and I am beginning to sweat.

“Jeez, I don’t know,” says Herman. “I don’t like it. We’re just begging to get nailed.”

This morning there are a lot more cars parked out on the street. What is worse is that the building directly across the street from the house appears to be a business and this morning it’s busy.

“I didn’t see that last night,” says Herman. We are walking slowly up the sidewalk on the same side as Katia’s house. We are now just one house away.

“That’s because it was closed last night.”

“Looks like a beauty salon,” says Herman. “We’re gonna have to make a decision pretty quick whether we keep walking or stop.”

We are thirty feet from the gate at the front of the house when two young women come out of the building across the street. They are wearing blue smocks, talking and laughing as they walk across the street toward Katia’s house. They stop in the middle of the street for a second. One of them lights a cigarette, then offers the flame to her friend, who lights up. Before they can take a second puff, three more women come out of the building and join them. They are all dressed in the same blue smocks.

“It’s a beauty school.” Herman says it under his breath. He is right. They’re on a break. Before we reach the gate, three of the women plant themselves on the curb directly in front of Katia’s house and sit. They are laughing and talking a mile a minute in Spanish.

“Any ideas?” I say.

“Yeah, ask ’em if we can borrow a bobby pin to pick the lock,” says Herman.

Without saying another word, we keep walking until we are opposite the gate to Katia’s house; suddenly Herman slows down. “What the hell is that?” He lifts his nose and sniffs the air a little. This takes him in the direction of the gate.

“I don’t smell anything.”

“Put your nose over here,” he says.

I do. The second I get near the wrought-iron bars I pick up the odor.

“It’s stronger down here,” says Herman.

He is right. Down near the tile floor in the entry behind the gate the heavy vapor is actually visible.

“It’s propane,” says Herman.

By now several of the women on the sidewalk are looking at us, wondering what’s happening.

Herman turns to them. “¿
Apaguen sus cigarrillos! Hay gas. Es peligroso
.”

They stand there looking at him.

“
Peligroso
. It’s dangerous. Put out your cigarettes. Go! Ir. ¿
Corren—Escapen
!” Herman starts waving his arms at them. They begin backing away, more frightened by Herman than what he is saying.

Herman is trying to dig his pick set out of his pocket.

I reach through the bars and try the little lever on the inside knowing it will be locked. Instead the lever snaps down and the gate swings open.

“It wasn’t locked,” I say.

I charge through the open gate and try the front door. The same result. Whoever left last didn’t lock up.

As the door swings open, we get the full effect as vapors of propane wash out through the open portal like a wave. I wade into the house trying to hold my breath, Herman right behind me. I trip over something, knock it over, and then kick it against the wall in trying to keep my balance. It’s a suitcase.

With my hand over my mouth and nose, eyes watering, I feel my way past the entry to the living room. I glance to my right. I see the dining room and the kitchen beyond. There is a set of stairs going up just inside the dining room.

“You check down. I’ll go up,” says Herman. He is coughing as he bounds up the steps two at a time.

Just inside the kitchen door I see the body on the floor, something over her face. I reach the stove. I can tell that this is the point of the emission. The vapors here are overpowering.

As if in a dream state I hear the pounding of heavy footfalls on the wooden floor overhead. Herman is either wrestling with someone or checking the rooms. I can’t tell.

I try turning the knobs on the stove, thinking she must have left one of them open. But even with my eyes watering I can see that they are all turned off.

I reach down and pull the cloth from her face, grip her under the arms, and lift her until she is vertical, like a limp rag held out in front of me. I get a glimpse of her face. I don’t have to ask to know who she is. The resemblance to Katia is uncanny. Holding her steady, I sweep one arm under her legs at the knees and lift her into my arms.

She is not heavy. Still, I am staggering, unable to stand, fighting for breath. It is all I can do to hold her up. Putting one foot in front of the other, retracing my steps toward the door is impossible.

I take one step, then another. Like a dark night it envelops me. I have only the slightest sensation, the feeling that I am weightless as my head hits the edge of the countertop on the way down, and then nothing.

“So how the hell did they get out without being seen?” The lead agent, the one packing the papers is angry.

“I don’t know,” said the other agent.

Madriani’s room was empty. No clothes in the closet, no luggage, and nothing in the bathroom. Now they find the same thing in his friend’s room.

“These are the right rooms?”

“
Sí, señor.
” One of the hotel employees is still holding the passkey in his hand after letting them in.

The beds had been slept in, but it was as if they had checked out. However, the girl at the front desk told the Costa Rican police that the two men were still registered.

“So who tipped them off?” said the lead agent.

“You got me,” said the other one.

“Have your men search every room. They’ve got to be in the hotel somewhere. They couldn’t have gotten out.” The lead agent was now giving orders to the police. The lieutenant in charge wasn’t sure about this.

“
Un momento.
” He stopped one of his subordinates before the man could get out of the room. “I am not sure that we have the authority to disturb the other guests. I am going to have to check with my superiors. You are certain that they were here in the hotel this morning, and that they stayed here last night?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” The agent was now turning his venom on the Costa Rican cop. Unless Madriani and his man were hiding out in a supply closet in the hotel, he was going to have to explain to Thorpe in Washington how the two men, one of them the size of a small mountain, had slipped through the net unseen.

“Lieutenant, can you call the airport? Make sure that he doesn’t catch a flight out of the country?”

“If you can supply me with his passport number, I will see what I can do.”

“It’s in the file, in the car,” said the other agent.

“Why don’t you go get it?” said the lead agent.

“What’s this?” said the other agent. He was holding a small brass grid in his hand, a metal cover for a heat or air-conditioning register.

“Where did you get that?” said the lead agent.

“It was under the sheet on top of the bed.”

The FBI agent started searching the floor with his eyes, looking for an open heat register.

“
Señor
.” The lieutenant gestured toward an area high on the wall above the polished hardwood headboard and the pillows. There was an open rectangular air duct about six feet above the bed.

The lieutenant reached over and drew his fingers across the polished dark wood of the headboard, leaving a clear track in the dusting of white plaster left from the screw holes drilled by whoever had removed the grill from the register. “It looks as if they were hiding something. Perhaps they knew you were here.”

As he said it there was just the slightest motion, as if someone gently rocked the room. It was almost imperceptible. You might not have noticed except that when it stopped, the small chandelier overhead was swaying. A second later the shock wave jingled the dangling glass crystals of the fixture.

They had it all wrong. Colombian coffee was all right, but the best-flavored coffee in the world came from Costa Rica. For Liquida’s money, compared with fresh-roasted Costa Rican consumed on the spot, the stuff at Starbucks sucked.

He was savoring a cup and nibbling on a pastry, what the girl behind the counter of the little coffee shop called “
Fruitas
,” when the mushrooming fireball reflected off the windows of the Hospital Calderon Guardia across the street.

Even three blocks away the shock wave of the blast rattled the glass all around him. It sent everyone from the open-air café out onto the street to look. The only one who didn’t have to was Liquida. He knew that no one could possibly survive that.

“What do you mean, you lost them?” Thorpe almost crawled through the phone line, all the way to Costa Rica. “How the hell could they get away? You had the entire building surrounded. That’s what you told me.

“Give me a minute.” Thorpe took the phone away from his ear and thought for a moment, then quickly brought it back up. “Do you have the airports covered?

“Well, at least that’s something. I’ll call Justice and see if they can get hold of somebody at State to turn the screws on the Costa Rican government so they pull out all the stops. Without their help we can’t possibly cover all the exits. In the meantime, get off your ass and look for them.” Thorpe slammed down the receiver.

Getting international assistance was not going to be easy. The Costa Rican government was already asking questions; why should they be expected to expend so many resources chasing a single American fugitive? True, it was a capital crime, but there was a limit to how many police officers they could spare. After all, it was not their fault that the Americans had allowed the man to leave the U.S.

Thorpe knew that the administration was still unwilling to share information concerning the other half of the story, the possibility of a nuclear device loose in Latin America. While some in the White House believed the information to be credible, skeptics were demanding hard evidence.

The bigger problem was the politics of Guantanamo. Powerful people were covering their asses because of wild-eyed intelligence rumors that escaped prisoners from Guantanamo had somehow become attached to the device. As with every paranoid delusion, there was just enough truth to this one that it caused policy makers to throw a blanket over the entire Nitikin affair. While there was no evidence that Middle East radicals had become involved, it was known in high government circles that seven prisoners had escaped from Guantanamo some months earlier. Whether they were still in Cuba or had been shuttled back to their homeland was unknown. Either way, the administration wasn’t anxious to have the story on CNN.