Guardian of Lies

FIFTY-FOUR

As he marched toward his car, Liquida knew the Arab would be sending him an e-mail any minute telling him he wanted to meet him to pay him. Liquida would meet him all right, on his own timetable and perhaps at a place of his own choosing.

He no longer cared about killing the woman. As far as he was concerned, at least for the moment, he was working for himself, and there were only two people on his current hit parade: the man called Afundi who owed him a bundle, and the lawyer who had interfered for the last time.

In his present state of agitation, Liquida was a good fit for the Tico traffic of San José. He whipped out of the parking space without bothering to look in his mirror, cutting off a woman who hit her brakes and laid on the horn.

Liquida gave her the finger out his open window as he laid rubber on the rainbow road, streaking for the airport. He was already calculating in his mind which terminal in northern Mexico to parachute into that would put him closest to the port of Ensenada.

They say that with enough money you can buy anything. At the moment Herman and I are testing the concept. Sitting in the backseat of one of the little red taxi sedans, we are rumbling down Highway 1 just beyond the broad avenue known as Paseo Colón. The shocks are gone on the car’s rear end, so we feel every bump and groove in the road as it vibrates from the tailbone up the spine.

Herman and I are silently counting the currency from our money belts as Maricela sits, watching us from over the front-passenger seat. We have not told her that Lorenzo is dead, only that we have information regarding her father, where we think he will be, that there is no time to talk, and that we will fill her in later.

“I don’t think it’s enough,” says Herman. “You gotta figure it’s at least twenty-five hundred miles, maybe more.”

Herman and I left the States with a total of nineteen thousand dollars between us in the two money belts. Less the fifty-three hundred we paid for the two passports leaves us thirteen thousand seven hundred. Even if I wanted to use it, the feds have probably put a stop on my credit card. Herman could use his, but it has a twenty-five-hundred-dollar limit and there’s no question they would trace it.

“I booked a charter flight out of Mexico a few years ago for a client and it cost us twelve grand back then. And we didn’t go nearly that far,” he says.

“We won’t know unless we try,” I tell him.

“Seńor, we are coming up to the turnoff, I need to know if you want me to take it or keep going.

Give us a minute, says Herman.

This time of the day the only commercial flights north are gonna take us to the States. Maricela can't get in without a visa even to transfer flights. And then there’s the question, do you really want to try and run the U.S. border on these things?” I tap the phony Canadian passport next to me on the seat.

“Take the turnoff,” says Herman.

The driver cuts across three lanes of traffic, setting off horns all across the city. He hangs a quick right on the short off-ramp, rolls through the stop sign, and starts winding through the back streets. I ask Herman for the cell phone and call Harry. I have tried to reach him repeatedly over the last several days. I am wondering if perhaps the carrier simply doesn’t have good coverage in this area.

I am holding the fax from Goudaz’s apartment in my hand as Harry answers.

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for two days,” he says.

I tell him to get a piece of paper and write down what I’m about to tell him. With what we now know from the fax, Herman and I have decided that we can no longer withhold the information from the federal authorities.

“Wait till I get outside,” says Harry.

“You’re in the office?”

“Where the hell else would I be?” he says.

“Then stay there, you won’t need a pencil. Just repeat everything as I give it to you out loud. As I say it.”

“You know what you’re doing?”

“Yes, we’re talking to the world,” I tell him. “I want you to contact Rhytag and give him the following information. Go ahead. Say it out loud.”

“You want me to contact Rhytag and give him the following information.”

“The weapon is in transit on board a ship.”

“What weapon?” says Harry.

“Never mind, just say it.”

He repeats it out loud.

“The name of the ship is…” Before I can say the word Amora, the line goes dead. “Hello. Hello. Damn it!”

Just as I push the button to dial again, the driver starts goosing the taxi, bumping aross the deep swales at blind intersections as if this were the national sport. Herman and I bounce all over the backseat.

The phone rang on his desk and Thorpe picked it up.

“Hello.”

“Director Thorpe, Bob Mendez.”

“Yes, Bob, have you got something for me?”

“We think so. We’ve zeroed in on the cell phone signal. It’s clear as a bell. At a place called Pavas.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s a suburb just a few miles north of San José. It seems that Madriani and the other man are on the move. We were having trouble honing in on the signal downtown. We were getting interference from someplace. Then we realized the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry had an antenna array on top of their building. We were picking up their transmission signals and jamming them by mistake.”

“The ministry?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Thorpe winced.

“Don’t worry, we won’t put it in any reports,” said Mendez. “The good news is, the cell phone is now in the clear. He keeps powering down, so we lose the signal every once in a while. He was moving, but he appears to be stationary now. We’re triangulating the position. We have agents closing in on the area, along with the Costa Rican police. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Excellent. Are you in communication with your agents?”

“I am.”

“Good. Then tell them the following. There is a chance that a woman is traveling with Madriani and the other man.” Thorpe pawed through some papers on the top of his desk until he found the one he wanted. “Her name is Maricela Nitikin-Osa de Solaz.” Agents in Costa Rica had found the name in official records after they realized Maricela had survived the blast at her house and has been seen with Madriani and Herman.

“Tell your agents that it is absolutely essential that the Costa Rican authorities hold her for questioning. Also tell them to make sure she’s given adequate security. We think there’s already been one attempt made on her life. And tell the agents that Justice and State are working on some kind of documentation to get permission from the Costa Ricans so that we can question her. It’s going to be dicey. She’s a Costa Rican national. Tell your agents that if the local authorities let her go, I want a tail put on her twenty-four-seven. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if she tries to leave the country, stay with her.”

“Hold on a second,” said Mendez, “something’s coming in now.” He went off the line for a second. Thorpe could hear voices in the background. Then Mendez was back. “They’re less than a mile from the signal, do you want to hold?”

“Yeah, I’ll stay on the line.”