Payback

47

Lia studied the map on the PDA as Chris Farlekas explained the situation. Telach had gone over much of the information the night before, but Farlekas tended to be anal-retentive when it came to mission prep — not necessarily a bad thing. Lia sipped her coffee, holding the sat phone as if she were using it to talk. The restaurant was empty except for an American couple in their early fifties several tables away.

“One of the cards is going to La Oroya. That’s a few hours away from Lima, up the mountains,” said the Art Room supervisor. “The setup there is very straightforward. They’re using a building that was a cafeteria for one of the mining operations two miles outside of the city; the voting machines were trucked there last week. Tommy and Dean will get there ahead of you. They’ll scout the situation, but we think that it’ll be the easy one.

“The second is going to a city just on the edge of the Amazon area in northeast Peru, called Nevas. As you can see on the map, it’s very far from the coast, and very isolated. There aren’t many roads in that area. The most reliable transportation is by air or boat. The UN will probably give you a helicopter; they hadn’t made a final decision yet.”

“Is this the jungle?” asked Dean. He and Karr were sitting on a park bench across the street.

“The edge really. The wilderness, the thick Amazonian jungle, is further east. This is definitely jungle. The area around Nevas is pretty primitive, and there are narco-traffickers all through that region. A lot of cocaine.”

“And we get to walk?” asked Karr.

“We’ll have a light aircraft standing by for you and Dean. You’ll be covered as businessmen looking for botanicals that may be of medicinal use.”

“New age nuts?” Karr laughed good-naturedly.

“There’s big money in botanicals,” said Farlekas. He didn’t sound like he was joking.

“How serious is the threat from the terrorists?” asked Dean. “There have been news reports about it.”

“Very good question. Opinions vary. You won’t be in Lima, which is their alleged target. We think it’s much more likely that the rebels will strike in the north if they strike anywhere. So we’ll have paramilitary teams in Ecuador standing by in case things get rough when you go to Nevas,” said the Art Room supervisor. The units could not be located in Peru, since that would have raised obvious questions with the Peruvians about what they were up to. “Their base is roughly three hundred miles from Nevas by air, which is just inside their range. At top speed, they’d be there within an hour and a half. Depending on the situation, we may have them in the air when you’re going in.

“But just for reference, most of the rebel activity has taken place to the east of the area you’re going to — fifty, a hundred miles away. And I have to tell you, the military has made no obvious move to deal with any threat over the past twenty-four hours; it may just be a false report.

“Let me show you the building up there,” Farlekas continued. “It’s a school with a clinic, some health offices, things like that. It’s one of the major, what would you call it? Civic services places in the city. They don’t have a video system there we can break into, so you’re going to have to plant flies. According to the instructions and the communications we’ve seen, the cards are kept in an upstairs room at the side, here.”

An X appeared on Lia’s map.

“I have to caution you, though, this is not confirmed,” added Farlekas. “You may have to scout it before going in. We’ll keep working on it. Just for your reference, the voting machines up there are in a separate warehouse close to the river. Like I say, the security is very light; they’ve authorized funds for a total of a dozen people and sent only metal detectors up there.

“Lia, if you get to La Oroya this afternoon and then reach Nevas Friday, that will give us twenty-four to thirty-six hours of leeway,” said Farlekas. “That’s the schedule we’d like you to keep. One complication here is that sometimes the electricity goes off. They don’t have backup generators at either place, so that may be a pain.”

“I’m sure we’ll survive,” said Lia. “Are you going to be on all day?”

“Just until noon. Then Marie and the rest of the A team come on.”

“You’re the A team as far as I’m concerned.”

“Hey, thanks. Us Greeks have to stick together, right?”

Lia smiled. “We’ll keep you updated. Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Yeah, enjoy your breakfast,” said Karr. “Have some for me.”

Two hours later, Lia got into a battered Land Rover with Fernandez and set off for La Oroya as part of a convoy of election officials and equipment. There were crates of leaflets explaining how to vote, tables and chairs that were to be used by poll watchers, and enough odds and ends to fill four trucks. Another four trucks of soldiers had been detailed to escort them. Fernandez complained about this, saying that the rebels were forever making threats that no one took seriously. He seemed to think the soldiers were intended to somehow intimidate them.

After a few miles his complaints became too much and Lia told him that he seemed much more sympathetic to the rebels than to the government.

“I thought we were supposed to be neutral,” she said.

“Yes, to the extent possible. But I don’t trust the government,” he said. “The riot was a pretense for a clampdown and intimidation. I’ve seen it before.”

“Maybe,” said Lia. “Or maybe it was instigated by the rebels to make the government look bad.”

“That’s not their style. I don’t pretend that they’re angels,” added Fernandez, “I’m only saying that no one takes them seriously. If they did, this road would be clogged with people running away from Lima. You see it’s practically empty. There’s no traffic here. They’re buffoons. Light-weights. The military is much more of a serious threat.”

“They’re not talking about murdering people.”

“I didn’t say I liked Sendero Nuevo,” insisted Fernandez.

He concentrated on the road for a while — pouting, Lia thought, because he didn’t like being shown his prejudices.

“Coming from Spain, I have a different perspective, perhaps,” said Fernandez finally. “I distrust the government because I’ve seen how corrupt it can be. The colonial government here was often unfair to the people. I understand that legacy.”

And maybe, thought Lia, you feel a little guilty about it.

“Peru liberated itself almost two hundred years ago,” Lia told him. “The government is on its own.”

“And as corrupt as its oppressors.”

Fernandez seemed to surprise himself with the remark. He said nothing for the rest of the trip.