The Sniper and the Wolf

70

Crosswhite was still at the house of Duardo’s sister-in-law. Agent Mariana Mederos had arrived a half hour earlier, and she stood outside the back bedroom, where Crosswhite sat on the edge of the bed talking with Paolina. His leg wound had been sutured by a doctor that Ernesto had contacted on his behalf, and the pain was being controlled by large doses of ibuprofen and oxycodone. The police had bought Duardo’s and Paolina’s story the night before without bothering to do much of an investigation, and the bodies were removed without a single photograph being taken. In the eyes of the law, it had been a whorehouse brawl that got out of hand, and no one really seemed to care too much about it. The police sergeant told them they’d look for the guy who got away, but everyone knew it was lip service.

“Will you come back?” Paolina asked.

Crosswhite touched her face and kissed her hair. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“For you or for me?” She was on the verge of tears.

“For you.”

“That’s my decision,” she said. “Do you want to come back or not?”

“Of course I do.”

She put her hand on his. “Then I want you to.”

“I do bad things, Paolina.”

“To bad people,” she said. “And someone has to, no?”

He sat staring at her soft brown eyes, feeling his throat tighten. “That’s what I tell myself, but I don’t always believe it anymore.”

She kissed him. “Come back, Daniel.”

“Okay,” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “Mariana, come in here.”

Mariana stepped into the room and smiled noncommittally at Paolina.

“Got any money?” he asked her in English.

Paolina understood the word money. She touched his arm and shook her head. “I don’t want you to pay me.”

Crosswhite ignored her. “Got any money? Real money?”

Mariana let out a sigh and unshouldered her daypack. “How much is she charging you?”

“Cut the fuckin’ attitude, and just gimme some money.”

She reached into the bag and handed him a zippered leather pouch.

Crosswhite unzipped it and peeled off five thousand dollars’ worth of Ben Franklins.

Paolina’s eyes grew huge, and she moved away from him on the bed, shaking her head as the tears began to fall. “No lo quiero.” I don’t want it.

“If something happens to me, I want you well—”

“No lo quiero!”

Crosswhite looked at Mariana. “You’re a girl. Help me out here.”

Mariana stood chewing the inside of her lip, debating whether or not to get involved in this Shakespearean tragedy. “It’s way too much money. She thinks it’s a payoff — that you’re never coming back.”

Crosswhite took Paolina’s hand and folded the money into it. “I’m coming back,” he told her in Spanish. “I swear it. If I don’t, it’s because I’m dead.”

She hugged him and began to cry, and Mariana left the room.

Paolina’s mother was in the salon with four small children, her husband and sister having gone to work.

“You’re with the CIA too?” Olivia asked.

Mariana nodded. “I’m not really supposed to tell you that.”

Olivia smiled. “You’re very uncomfortable here, no?”

“Dan shouldn’t have brought this trouble into your lives,” Mariana said. “Your daughter thinks she’s in love with him.” She shook her head. “It’s not my business, but you should discourage her.”

“We are all in the hands of God,” Olivia said. “God brought them together, and only He can take them apart.”

Mariana glanced at the crucifix on the wall. She wasn’t about to debate a Roman Catholic. “As I said, señora, it’s not my business.”

Crosswhite came into the room, fastening his belt. “You did a good job with the pants,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you knew my size.”

“Are you ready to go? The cab is waiting.”

Crosswhite stepped over to Olivia, offering his hand. “Señora, I’m indebted to your family. Thank you for not turning me over to the police.”

Olivia held onto his hand. “Take care of yourself.”

He looked at the toddlers playing on the floor. “Which is Paolina’s?”

She indicated the little girl with the darkest skin, and Crosswhite touched the child on the head. “Let’s go,” he said to Mariana.

They got into the cab, and Mariana put on a pair of Ray-Bans. “So are you planning to get this one killed, too?”

Crosswhite was immediately angered — even with the narcotic in his system — but he kept his composure. “Be glad you’re a woman, Mariana. I’ve knocked a man’s teeth out for a fuck of a lot less.”

She ignored his threat, entirely unintimidated by him. “What’s next?”

“Do you have a room at my hotel?”

“Right next to yours, actually.”

“Were you spotted at the airport?”

“No one knew I was coming.”

“That’s not what the fuck I asked you.”

She took off her glasses and looked at him. “Quit talking to me like that, goddamnit!”

“Then lose the self-righteous fucking attitude! We’re on the goddamn job here! If you don’t get your fucking head in the game, you’re gonna get yourself killed — which I don’t particularly give a shit about — but you might get me killed along with you, and that I do give a shit about!”

The cabbie looked in the mirror. “Everything okay?” he asked in Spanish.

“We’re just arguing,” Crosswhite said, lowering his voice. “Nobody’s gonna get hurt.”

The cabbie seemed to accept that and kept driving.

Mariana put her glasses back on and looked out the window. “You should know this is a command performance for me. I don’t want to be here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Pope ordered me. I guess there are only so many people in the agency he feels he can trust right now.”

Crosswhite grunted. “It’s not like him to make such a gross error in judgment.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You know what?” he said, lighting a cigarette. “You’re done here. I don’t care if you get back on a plane or hang out at the pool, but you and I are done. You’re useless to me.”

She looked at him, realizing she’d pushed him too far. He had enough influence with Pope to hurt her career. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do to Hagen?”

“Is that was this shit is about? You’re still pissed about Hagen?”

“You made me a party to murder,” she hissed. “That’s not why I’m in the CIA!”

Crosswhite didn’t have the patience to get into it with her. “Take it up with Pope when you get back to Langley.”

“I already did that.”

“And?”

“And he said tough shit.”

“Then you’d better get used to it. This is the world we work in. If you had any brains, you’d realize you’re a member of a club now — a very exclusive club. There aren’t too many women who can say that.”

She looked out the window. “I can’t sleep. I’m having nightmares.”

“They’ll go away,” he said quietly. “The important thing to focus on is purpose. What we do is not random; it’s not arbitrary. There are very definite reasons for it.”

She looked at him. “These men should be put on trial. Pope is having them killed out of vengeance.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“What’s the other way?”

“Pope sees the future. And in it, there are bad guys with nukes. So he’s adopted a zero-tolerance policy.”

“I heard what you said to Paolina. You don’t even believe that yourself anymore.”

He took a deep drag from the cigarette. “I’ve got a lotta blood on my hands, Mariana. A little doubt here and there is what keeps me human.”

They arrived at the hotel and went up to their rooms, pausing in the hall outside their doors.

“Just hang here at the hotel until mission complete,” he said. “We’ll keep the argument between us. Pope doesn’t need to know.” He winked at her. “What happens in Havana and all that shit.”

Mariana keyed into her room and closed the door. She stepped into the bathroom, reaching for the light switch, and was slugged in the stomach harder than she had ever been hit in her life. She grabbed her middle and collapsed to her knees, trying to scream, but there wasn’t so much as a breath of air left in her lungs.

Someone grabbed her from behind, pressing a strip of duct tape over her mouth and shoving her forward onto the floor. Her hands were quickly bound with a nylon tie-down, and two Cuban men carried her into the other room, tossing her onto the bed. One of them jerked her pants and panties down inside out past her ankles, tying the pant legs in a knot and effectively binding her feet.

Mariana’s pain was matched only by her terror. She tried to sob, but the wind was still knocked out of her, and she was having a great deal of trouble breathing through her nose.

“One fucking sound,” the man said in English, “and I’ll break your fucking neck!”

“I’ll call Peterson,” said the smaller of the two, taking a cellular from his back pocket.