Payback

56

La Oroya was about 112 miles east of Lima, but the real distance was measured vertically: the city sat in the mountains at 12,385 feet. The thin air took some getting used to. Lia felt light-headed, and her lungs seemed to scrape against her ribs for more air. Maybe she should have taken the coca leaves, she thought.

A group of small boys gathered around their SUV when Lia and Fernandez stopped for dinner. The kids clamored for money, blocking their way with outstretched hands and plaintive faces. When Fernandez told them there would be none, they responded by cursing him.

“Tourists have polluted their minds,” he said after he and Lia had pushed their way through and gone inside the restaurant. “They think they’re entitled to handouts.”

“Is this a big tourist town?”

“No, but tourists come through. It’s like a disease, the mentality. It’s really twisted. You saw.”

Lia tried a soup that included quinoa, a grain grown in the Andes. The vegetable base had a pumpkinlike flavor, and the grain filled her up. When they got outside, it had turned cold, and Lia pulled her jacket tight around her as they drove to the Hotel Meiggs, a small building about a quarter of a mile from the center of town. La Oroya did not have the array of first-class international hotels Lima featured; Hotel Meiggs was considered one of the town’s fancier establishments. The hotel had been named for Henry Meiggs, the American industrialist who had brought railroads to the Andes in the nineteenth century.

Lia thought the building and most of its dirt had probably greeted Meiggs when he surveyed the area. Her room was a dingy affair with a bed piled high with blankets — necessary, because she could see her breath in the frigid air.

Fernandez suggested that they share a drink in the café across the street. The café had American beer as well as some local concoctions. Lia ordered a Budweiser; Fernandez had an aguardiente, an herbal rum that smelled like an oregano liqueur.

A TV was on in the comer of the room. The regular programming had been preempted by reports on the discovery of an “apparent nuclear weapon” in the possession of the rebels far to the north. The skimpy footage of the find was played several times before the screen switched back to a pair of talking heads who speculated on exactly what the country’s president would say in his speech that evening at nine o’clock.

The Art Room had already filled Lia in, but Fernandez was hearing this for the first time. He stared at the screen in disbelief.

“It must be a hoax,” he said. “The rebels would never be able to get a bomb. Never.”

“They have photos,” said Lia. “Didn’t you just see? And they’re working with one of the candidates.”

Fernandez stared at the TV, finally absorbed in something other than himself.

“They backed Imberbe? Impossible,” he said. “I can’t believe he would work with them. Never.”

“Will that have an impact on the election?”

Fernandez shrugged. A new set of talking heads came on, noting the gravity of the situation. A spokesman for Imberbe was interviewed saying that the candidate denounced the rebel movement; he was immediately followed by a statement by a longtime political correspondent who said Imberbe could not be believed.

Lia sipped her beer slowly as she watched the program. The show was entertaining in a bizarre way, as guest after guest speculated endlessly on something they knew almost nothing about. The medium is the same the world over, Lia decided.

Fernandez ordered another drink and then a third. Un-prompted, he began telling Lia his life story, which amounted to an epic struggle against academic demons as he went to five different schools before earning a master’s degree in international law. Fernandez seemed to feel that he had struggled mightily in his years as a student, which made him appreciate the realities of poverty and hardship even though his family regularly sent him checks from Madrid.

Lia nodded every so often, one eye on the TV. Finally, bored and tired, she got up to go. Fernandez accompanied her shakily back to the hotel; as they walked up the stairs to their rooms she wasn’t sure whether he would get sick or make a pass at her when they reached their floor.

He did neither, which was something of a relief as she eased into her room.

The door had no lock. Lia pushed the bureau in front of it; the bureau was too light to keep anyone from entering, but it would at least slow them down. Though it seemed ludicrous, she took out her PDA and scanned the room for bugs. When she saw it was clean, she checked in with the Art Room.

“Same old, same old on your end,” said Rockman, telling her nothing was new. Dean and Karr were on their way to check out the warhead; she was to proceed as planned.

Kicking off her shoes, Lia climbed under the covers still fully dressed. She’d no sooner shut her eyes than she heard a scratching sound. Jerking up in bed, Lia pulled out the pistol she had left under the covers next to her. Her first thought was that Fernandez was scraping at the door in some sort of drunken plea, but she quickly realized that the sound was coming from above her.

Lia took her gun and got out of bed. She reached into her pocket and took out her small penlight, shining it around the ceiling. There were several patches where the plaster had fallen out, exposing the lath.

As she shone her light upward, the sound turned into a scampering drumbeat, then stopped. Lia climbed up onto the bed and shone the light into one of the lath-filled holes. The light made shadows through the blackness, but it was impossible to see beyond them.

She flicked off the light for a moment. The scratching resumed. When she flicked it back on, a pair of red beads glowed down at her from above.

The ceiling space was filled with rats.

“Oh, just peachy,” Lia said to herself, shivering involuntarily as she climbed back beneath the covers.