Survival (18 page)

He pushed his way into the room and stared at his satellite phone, which he’d left charging. The red message LED was blinking in the darkness. He switched on the lights and lumbered toward it, regretting the last two drinks, which he’d known at the time had been excessive – unlike the four that had preceded them.

He stepped out onto the terrace and dialed his voice mail. A terse missive from their Panamanian contact, an hour and a half ago: two thugs had been taken to the hospital in Colón, injured, they said, by a young woman. Of course they didn’t have an explanation for why they were in a deserted area of Colón after dark or why the woman attacked them. Their story was that they were minding their own business, presumably sightseeing in the worst neighborhood in the country, when the woman materialized and assaulted them.

The police had shown them the picture of Igor’s quarry, and the men had identified her as their attacker – or at least, they thought she looked like she might have been.

Igor checked the time. It was after two. Nothing would be open until tomorrow. If the woman was in Colón, he’d find her, with the help of the police. But it wouldn’t be in the wee hours of the morning.

He shook his head to clear it and drank two glasses of water before stripping off his clothes and lying on the bed, which was spinning by the time he nodded off.

The next morning his headache was monumental, the sugar from the soda and the rum conspiring to create a perfect storm hangover. He sat up and cringed as spikes of pain shot through his head from his eyes. His brain seemed to bump against the inside of his skull with the slightest movement, sending agony through his body.

Igor forced himself to stand and moved to the bathroom, where a ten-minute hot shower rinsed away the worst of it. The three aspirin he’d downed before soaking himself under the spray also blunted the pain somewhat. He eyed himself in the mirror as he toweled off, his customary smile replaced today with a pained scowl.

He called the Panamanian as he dressed, but there was no update to the information relayed the prior night, other than the names and addresses of the two injured men from the police report. Igor’s next call was to Fernanda, who listened to his account without comment before cutting straight to the chase.

“What’s your plan?”

“I want to find the two she thrashed and confirm it was actually her. And find out what she wanted. They had to be involved in something with her – it sounds like their deal went bad. I’m thinking it might be appropriate to pay them a visit.”

“And maybe spread some generosity around with the Colón cops, so they prioritize finding her over whatever else they’re working on?”

“You read my mind. Anything happening on your end?”

“Waiting for word to come back from the feelers we put out. But nothing yet.”

“Any idea how long it will take before it’s either a success…or not?”

“If we haven’t been able to locate them in another forty-eight hours, I doubt it will ever happen. I mean, for all we know, they’re already dead. That was a bad storm, and there’s no guarantee they made it to land. Over a hundred miles in terrible seas…”

“Oh, they made it. I read up on those lifeboats. They can go through anything. That’s the entire point of them,” Igor said.

“Well, let me know what you learn.”

Igor terminated the call and finished his preparations, and then went downstairs to check out. While he paid his bill, he considered whether he’d need any backup from the locals, and decided against it. So far all they’d managed to do was botch everything and get themselves killed. He liked his odds better working on his own. After looking up the first victim’s address and memorizing the route from Panama City, he started the engine of his rental car and pulled into traffic, his headache now quieted to a dull roar.

His impression of Colón was that it was a dump. The word that popped into his head as he negotiated the streets was “squalid.” The neighborhood he pulled into was so run down that he actually felt some trepidation when he parked his car down the block from the first victim’s address – and he was a hired killer.

The apartment block was one step above abandoned – a small step at that. He mounted the stairs to the front security door and found the lock broken. Inside was all gloom, and it stank of rot and human waste.

Igor arrived at the steel door of apartment 1F on the first floor. He checked the victim’s name and address, confirmed that it was the right apartment, and knocked officiously.

A man’s voice called out from the interior. “What?”

“Emanuel Rojas?” Igor said in his best policeman’s tone.

“Who wants to know?”

“Police.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m following up on the report you signed yesterday. I’ve been assigned to the case.”

“Great. I already told them everything I know.”

“Mr. Rojas, please open the door. I don’t want to have this discussion in a hallway.”
Charming as it is
, Igor thought silently.

“Wait a minute,” Rojas called, and Igor could envision him hiding his drugs and weapons. Two minutes later the door opened a crack, a security chain in place, and a ferret-faced man with pockmarked, jaundiced skin stared out at him. “Do you have any ID?” Rojas asked.

“Sure,” Igor said, turning slightly and stepping back from the door as he reached for his wallet.

He put all his weight into the kick that tore the chain out of the wall and knocked Rojas backward. Igor glanced both ways down the corridor and stepped inside as Rojas held his broken nose, blood streaming through his fingers. The Brazilian closed the door behind him and looked at his victim, who’d lost control of his bladder from the pain and shock, to judge from the spreading dark stain on his pants.

Igor knelt next to the man and spoke in a low tone. “We’ll make this short and sweet. The woman who beat you to a pulp. What were you doing with her? What did she want?”

Rojas didn’t answer, instead glaring at him through bloody hands. Igor stood and kicked him hard in his injured hip, and Rojas blacked out.

When he came to, he was bound to a chair in his kitchen, and Igor was heating something on the stove. It smelled like…burning oil? Igor saw the man stir and moved to where Rojas could see him.

“I need to know what the woman wanted, Emanuel. This isn’t a game, and as you’ve guessed by now, I’m not the police. I have no issue with you, but if you don’t tell me the complete truth in the next two minutes, I’m going to fry your skin off. So if you want to be cooked like a chicken leg, lie to me or hold out. But a word of warning – if you make me start, no matter how cooperative you are after I begin, I’ll continue to the bitter end. Do you understand?”

Rojas nodded mutely.

“So let’s try this again. What were you doing with the woman?”

“We were going to rob her.”

Igor smiled. “That didn’t go so well, I see. Why were you going to rob her?”

“She had a bunch of money on her.”

“How do you know?”

“She wanted us to hook her up with a plane.”

Ten minutes later, Igor closed the apartment door behind him and wiped the knob before moving unhurriedly down the hall to the building entrance. There were no security cameras – not that he expected any in a barely habitable tenement – so his passing went unremarked.

In the end, Rojas had told him the complete truth before he’d begun the oil treatment. But Igor had needed to be sure, and the world wouldn’t be any poorer for the loss of a fecal speck like him. The fire Igor had started as he left would engulf the cinderblock apartment in a few minutes, helped along by the cleaning fluid he’d liberally doused the corpse and furniture with, which would in turn cause an explosion when the gas line he’d torn loose had spewed enough propane into the place.

A whump from the building as the apartment blew shook the car, and he smiled at himself in the rearview mirror before pulling away from the curb.

Because now he knew the woman was trying to get to Colombia. And as of last night, was in Colón. With a little luck and some smart detective work, he should be able to find her. And finish the job that had taken him from Argentina to Chile and now to Panama.

It wouldn’t be long now.

He could feel it.

Chapter 27

Frontino, Colombia

Fernanda was hanging up with Igor when a knock sounded at her bedroom door. She glanced up and called out, “Yes?”

“Fernanda, it’s Jaime. Mosises’ son?”

She moved to the door and opened it. “Of course.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Not at all. What’s going on?”

“We got a call from the police in the Chocó region. It’s good news. They think they’ve found your gringo.”

“Really? That’s great. Where?”

“In a small river town deep in the jungle. I advised them not to do anything until we get there. Which is why I’m disturbing your morning. We need to go.”

“Of course. Let me get my things.” Fernanda stopped, thinking. “How far is it?”

“Four, maybe five hours.” His eyes twinkled. “I drive fast.”

“I was hoping you’d say you had a plane.”

“There’s no nearby airstrip. By the time we filed a flight plan and got there, and a car made it in to pick us up, it would be nearly the same amount of time.”

She walked over to her bag. “Give me two minutes.”

Jaime grinned, and Fernanda could sense him admiring her figure again. “I’ll give you as much time as you need.”

He turned and left her to pack. She glanced over her shoulder as she calculated how she could use his obvious attraction to her benefit. Fernanda viewed every interaction as a transaction, and part of her profession was reading people and determining what they wanted. In this case, Jaime was a powerful man who apparently had his run of Colombia, and it was clear what he wanted.

That might come in handy at some point.

She resolved to flirt with him on the road. It couldn’t hurt, and if he thought his obvious interest was reciprocated, she might be able to turn his desire to her advantage. In her experience most men were narcissists, especially Latin men with their bravado and machismo, preening peacocks intent on displaying their finery to the world. That meant they could be controlled by a deft hand without realizing what was happening.

Fernanda was an expert at manipulation. The only man she’d been unable to bend to her will was Igor, which was part of what accounted for their powerful bond. She’d never met anyone like him – smart, ruthless, confident, utterly fearless…and incredible in bed. A man like Igor had no need to impress the others in the herd. He was his own master and didn’t care what anyone thought about him.

Jaime had some of those qualities, from what she could see, but he also had the ego of a drug lord who’d been born to power, who took privilege for granted. Which made him malleable, should Fernanda decide to play him.

He was attractive in a Neanderthal sort of way, she thought, wondering whether he was any good in the sack. Her relationship with Igor was flexible when it came to sex – if either of them had to consummate in the course of an assignment, there were no questions asked. They were beholden only to each other, but they were also pragmatic, and sometimes a little intimacy with others was required in order to achieve an objective. If it happened, it was purely mechanical, strictly business, no emotional attachment possible from either of their perspectives. They were hunters, and everyone else was the kill, to be used and discarded as necessary. Which included meaningless physical connection if required.

She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, it probably wouldn’t be entirely unpleasant. But for now they were just going on a drive, and hopefully would soon have the man and his daughter in their grasp.

From there, it was just a matter of convincing them to tell her where they were planning to rendezvous with the woman, and being there when she showed herself.

Igor had just finished reporting about the woman’s search in Colón for someone to get her to Colombia. There could only be one reason.

In the highly unlikely event that Igor didn’t finish the job in Panama, Fernanda would be waiting for the woman in Colombia.

Fernanda entered the bathroom and studied her reflection, then moistened her lips and dabbed a hint of perfume on her neck and breasts.

A lot could happen with four hours in a car.

No point in letting the opportunity to solidify a promising relationship with a new ally go to waste.

Chapter 28

Portobelo, Panama

When Jet descended the stairs to the lobby of the bed and breakfast, she saw that the breakfast portion of the hospitality consisted of fruit covered with flies, a few crusty pastries that looked as though they’d been saved from the prior week, and a dented thermos of what she hoped was coffee. She was the only guest in evidence. After confirming the contents of the thermos with a cautious sniff, she opted for coffee only, in light of the culinary offerings.

Ten minutes later, a stirring from behind the desk alerted her that the clerk had returned from wherever he’d been. She approached him and asked whether there were any messages for her. After making a production out of looking, he told her there weren’t. She wasn’t surprised. After drinking a bottle of seventy proof rotgut, her captain was probably passed out in a pool of his own sick, not attending to business.

She decided to kill time by wandering around what passed for the town, centered around an abandoned fort complete with rusting cannons. Sailboats bobbed in the protected anchorage along with a variety of fishing boats, and she wondered absently which was Juan Diego’s. Not one looked like it could make it around the point, much less the two hundred miles to Colombia, and she hoped that he kept his vessel elsewhere.

For the first time since she’d touched down, the sky was clear of clouds, an endless vibrant blue that stretched to the turquoise horizon of the Caribbean Sea. It was only ten o’clock, but the heat was already rising, and she found herself following the example of the few locals she saw, darting from shady spot to shady spot in order to spare herself the worst of the sun’s blistering rays.