The Counterfeit Agent (14 page)

Wells was glad Ramos spoke English. Less glad that he’d guessed right about her talent. She sang in Spanish, but he didn’t need to understand the words to recognize that her voice was reed-thin. Wells and the other patrons shifted in their seats, avoided one another’s eyes. After forty-five interminable minutes, Ramos finished with an instrumental number on the acoustic, her fingers working the strings. Her guitar playing was far stronger than her voice. Wells suspected Ramos couldn’t admit that truth to herself. She would sing alone in empty clubs forever instead of joining someone else’s band. Wells wondered how Eduardo Nuñez had come across her. The Peruvian assassin and the Panamanian songstress seemed an unlikely match.

She finished to relieved applause. “
Gracias.
Thank you. Come back next week—I’ll be here, trying new material.
Escucha la música!
” Even before she stepped away from the microphone, the club’s speakers returned to the Violent Femmes
,
picking up mid-chorus:
Two two two for my family and Three three three for my heartache . . .
Musical whiplash.

A tall man waited for Ramos at the bar, a Latin hipster in skinny jeans and thick black glasses. He tried to kiss her on the lips but she ducked him, gave him her cheek. Wells had hoped to approach quietly, put her at ease. But she wouldn’t want to talk about Nuñez in front of this guy. Wells would have to pry her away. He moved to the bar.

“Sophia?”

She tilted her head, trying to place him.

“You were great. The guitar especially.” He had to shout to be heard over the Femmes. “My name’s Roger Bishop. I see you’re busy. I just wanted to tell you, I’m”—Wells was about to say “an A&R guy,” then realized he didn’t know if they still existed—“with an Internet company, streaming radio.”

“Pandora?”

“Yes. Exactly. Pandora. Always looking for exclusive content. If you have a minute, I’d love to buy you a drink—”

“You have a card?”

“Just gave out my last.”

Her friend frowned, whispered into Ramos’s ear.

“Look, we can sit right there—” Wells nodded at a battered table in the corner.

“Long as you don’t ask me to sign anything,” Ramos said.

“Of course not.”

They sat. Now Wells had to switch gears, hope she didn’t toss her beer in his face. He nodded at the bar. “He’s right.”

She lapsed into Spanish.
“Qué?”

“I lied. To get you away from him. I’m looking for your boyfriend.”

She shook her head. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Eduardo Nuñez.”

She pushed away from the table like Wells had told her he was carrying a deadly, highly contagious virus. “How did you find me?”

“A man named Juan Pablo Montoya. In Guatemala.”

She leaned in, wrapped her fingers around his forearm. “Tell me who you are right now.”

“I work for the CIA. Montoya told me Eduardo’s involved with an American who calls himself Hank. That Eduardo—”

“Call him Eddie. His name’s Eddie.”

“That Eddie called him, said Hank was planning to kill a CIA officer. They were supposed to talk more, but Eddie never called back.”

She tilted her head back, looked at the ceiling. Wells noticed for the first time that it was covered with decals of cows.

“I want to find him before something bad happens.”

“You know what Eddie did in Mexico.”

Wells nodded.

“Don’t you think something bad has already happened?” Her voice was a sneer. She raised her arms Superman-style “Here you come to save the day.”

“I want to help.”

“Of course you do. Come back here tomorrow, ten p.m. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Wells wondered why she’d changed her mind so abruptly. “Thank you.”

“And you’ll bring one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”

A hundred thousand seemed to the going rate. Wells was about to argue. But they both knew she’d probably seen the last of those handy deposits from ABCD Exchange. She was a lousy singer, but she wasn’t dumb. Anyway, he didn’t mind spending Duto’s money.
“Fine.” Wells decided a warning would serve them both. “But understand, the money won’t be all I’m carrying. Try to take it for nothing, I’ll be upset.”

She nodded.

“And so we’re clear, you can tell me where to find Eddie.”

“Yes.” Her eyes slid sideways with the lie. “Yes.” More conviction this time.

Wells figured she had a lead, a phone number or a plane ticket. Not the whole picture. He’d find out soon enough.
“See you tomorrow.”

She nodded, went back to the bar without a second glance.

—

At his hotel, Wells called Shafer.

“Hundred thousand seems steep.”

“Foreign aid.”

“She can get us to him?”

“She has a lead. A good one.” An exaggeration.

“I’ll tell our friend. He may want to talk to you about it.”

“Tough.” Wells was still angry that Duto hadn’t told him how dirty Montoya was. He was done with Duto. For now.

“I’ll tell him that, too.”

In the morning, Wells found a text:
Kibble in your bowl by noon. Delicious kibble.
He imagined Shafer smirking as he sent the message. At 12:10, Wells saw the extra money in his account. A Web search revealed several Chase branches in Panama City. By 12:30, he had presented his passport to a polite assistant manager and in turn received ten slim packets of hundred-dollar bills. The manager showed a discreet disinterest in Wells’s desire for hard currency.

Even so, Wells took a cab to the Trump Ocean Club instead of his hotel, in case someone at the branch had tipped off friends. An American carrying a hundred grand made an easy target. The real problem was once again his lack of a firearm. Wells hung out for ten minutes in the Ocean Club’s lobby before hailing a cab to a Walmart in the suburban sprawl west of the city. He bought an aluminum bat and an ugly knife. He’d have happily traded the metal for a rusty .22 like the one he’d grabbed at the Parque Central. If Ramos didn’t think she had enough information to sell, she might try to take the money preemptively.

Still only 4:15 as he approached his hotel.
When in doubt, move first.
The wisdom of Guy Raviv, the best trainer Wells had ever had. Lung cancer had galloped Raviv to the grave, but Wells still heard his rusted-out smoker’s voice every so often.
Why give her time to set a trap?
Wells nodded to himself and Raviv, headed for the Oro Blanco.

—

Julianna mustered a dim smile as he walked into the sales office. “Señor Bishop. Your appointment was for ten-thirty. Six hours ago.”

“It was unavoidable.” A formulation that left open the question of what exactly
it
was. Wells spread his hands wide. “I’m sorry, Julianna. But am I lucky? Are you free now?”

“Between appointments, yes.”

“Listen, I asked my friend the name of his friend here. Sophia Ramos, in 2106. I’d love to talk to her.”

“Why not just ask her, then?”

“I don’t know her well enough. I thought we could both go up together.”

She shook her head. He could almost hear her thoughts:
A jerk for sure, but still a potential buyer . . . I hope.
He opened the packet from Chase, showed her the money inside. “I brought my down payment.”

She ran a hand through her hair. “You want to talk to Ms. Ramos—” Her voice was perplexed.

“See what she likes, if there’s anything I should know about the building—”

“And you want me to come up?”

“At least see me to her door.” He saw she wanted to say no. But the money was a powerful lure.

“All right. If she’s home and doesn’t mind.”

She led him to the doorman’s station.

“Miguel. Call 2106.”

The doorman buzzed, handed Julianna the phone. After a rapid-fire Spanish conversation: “She asks, can you turn to the camera so she can see you?”

Wells did. He was giving Ramos a choice. He’d proven he could find her at home. She could see him under these relatively controlled conditions, or send him away and risk that he wouldn’t be so polite the next time he wanted to meet.

He took the phone. “I brought my down payment.” He held up the open envelope so she could see the money inside. “A hundred thousand.”

“This wasn’t what we agreed to.”

“No, this place is perfect.” Wells gave Julianna a thumbs-up. “I’d really like to talk. I’m giving you back to Julianna now. Just let her know it’s okay.”

—

Wells rode the elevator alone. He had to admit he was pleased. In Guatemala, Montoya had treated him like a fool. Here he’d forced a meeting on his terms.

He was lucky the elevator was slow. Around twelve, he wondered why Ramos had agreed so readily. Why she hadn’t asked Julianna to come up, too, if only to have a second set of eyes on him?

He heard Raviv in his head again.
Never trust it when it’s too easy.
He jabbed at the button for twenty, stepped off, flipped the fire alarm to freeze the elevator. Wells ran for the fire stairs as the alarm bell shrieked. If she had a pistol and was waiting in the corridor when the elevator doors opened, he had no play.

Wells vaulted up the stairs to twenty-one, opened the door a crack. Ramos stood outside the elevator bank, a pistol in her hands. So much for forcing the meeting on his terms. He wondered if she was any kind of shot. She was holding the gun too hard, her arms rigid. On the other hand, she was barely fifty feet away. Even someone who’d never pulled a trigger before could get lucky that close. Only one choice left. He opened the door.

“Sophia.” She looked to him. He raised his hands. “Do not put a hole in me.”

“Qué?”

“Don’t shoot. Please.”

She swung toward him. Even from fifty feet, he saw the pistol barrel shaking.

“Leave me alone.”

“Let’s go inside. Talk.”

“Eddie said someone like you would be coming.”

He feared if he took even a single step, she’d start shooting.

“Think it through. If I’d wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t come in such an obvious way. With the doorman and Julianna knowing I’m here. And I wouldn’t have brought the money.” He raised the envelope.

Her arms sagged, like the pistol weighed a hundred pounds. The strain would rise in her until she surrendered or pulled the trigger.

“We were supposed to meet tonight.”

He didn’t answer. Inch by inch, the pistol drooped, until finally the barrel was vertical. The elevator alarm still rang crazily a floor below.

“I don’t want you in my apartment.”

Too late.
“There’s a pool on the roof, right? Put away the gun, we’ll go up, talk there.”

“Not the roof.”

“The gym?” Julianna would have been pleased. All the Oro Blanco’s
amenities were making an appearance.

—

The developers had skimped on the gym. Behind the frosted glass double doors of the Oro Blanco Fitness Center were two small rooms of treadmills and Nautilus equipment. Second-floor windows overlooked the street. Wells and Ramos sat side by side on a padded exercise bench.

“Let me see.”

He handed the envelope to her. She thumbed through a packet of bills. Then she tucked the envelope at her feet and without further ado told him what he’d come to hear. “I met Eddie five years ago. I was working as a masseuse.” She spat the word. “You understand?”

“I think so, yes.” A prostitute.

“He came from Mexico a year or two before. He drank all day. But quietly. Rum and Diet Coke. He wasn’t an angry drunk, a showy drunk like a lot of our men. This was to hide something very deep inside him. When I told him I was a singer, he came to hear me. After that, he decided to support me, get me out of the life.”

“He believed in your music.”

“Of course.” Matter-of-factly, as though Nuñez was one of a legion of fans. “He kept drinking. I didn’t try to stop him. We didn’t get married or anything. I’m barren—” A word Wells couldn’t imagine an American woman using. “I didn’t used to be, but I had a bad abortion. I told him. He didn’t care. He said he didn’t want children, didn’t deserve any.”

“Did he tell you about Mexico?”

“Enough. He didn’t seem like one of those men, but I never doubted him. Then—this must have been a year, a year and a half after we met—an American called him, came to meet him.”

“You met this man?”

“No. And Eddie never told me his name. He said the less I knew, the safer I would be. He said he’d known the man in Peru. Anyway, the man wanted to hire him.”

“So this was more than three years ago?”

“Right. And Eddie didn’t take long, he agreed.
I was born to be a mule,
he told me.
It’s time for me to get back in the harness.
He stopped drinking. I didn’t think he could, but he had three bad nights and then it was gone. Like he’d never touched the stuff.”

“But he wasn’t doing anything then. For this man.”

“No, he was. That first year, he went away several times.”

“He say where?”

“Europe. That was all. But I’m sure he was doing jobs.”

“Three years ago.” Wells couldn’t understand how this group had operated so long without being noticed, much less caught. Either Nuñez hadn’t been killing anyone back then, despite what Montoya and Ramos thought, or an intelligence agency was funding these guys and maybe helping with coms and transport.

“Three years, yes. He worked for more than a year. Then everything stopped. He was home several months. He bought this apartment. I thought it might be done, but Eddie said they were still paying him.”

“All this time, he didn’t tell you anything specific?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t mean targets. What about how many men he worked with? Who was behind it? He never showed you a fake passport? Nothing?”

“You don’t understand.”

She was wrong. Wells had lived for seven years among al-Qaeda guerrillas who would have gutted him if he’d ever hinted at how he felt about them. He knew the value of silence.

“So he was—off duty, let’s say—for a while. Then what?”

“Last May, he left again. Said he might not see me for a while. He came back for a few weeks in September and October. Then gone again. Finally, two weeks ago, he called me. He was angry.”