Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) (13 page)

“Come,” Paolo said.

She ignored him and wandered closer to the window. There was a veranda out there, shielded from the wind. She spotted Hugo out beyond, heading down the mountainside past terraced rows of bushy plants. The stiffness with which he moved suggested he’d sustained some sort of injury—possibly during the battle, but it could be old.

There was something so gothic in the harshness of this place, the sheer isolation, like an island prison except high up above sea level. The place was as remote and gothic as Hugo himself.

She longed to follow him, to see what he did.

The manner in which a man fought said a lot about him. But what said just as much was how a man wound down after a kill. Some killers liked to bathe, some fucked, some smoked. A lot of them drank. Some exercised, getting out the adrenaline. She’d always wondered about Kabakas.

Not that Hugo was Kabakas.

And what was he growing down there? She didn’t recognize the plants. This was an entirely different climate from the jungle, a kind of microclimate where
araucaria
flourished.

“
Come
,” Paolo said.

She relented, following him around, letting him show her the spartan place. The bathroom. The dining room.

She’d created a Kabakas profile back in the day—a lot of Kabakas hunters had, though they rarely shared them with each other, considering the hot competition for the bounty.

Hers had him as a loner, a rough man who’d perhaps missed critical parts of his socialization. He would’ve had tragedy in his early life that had affected him deeply—a no-brainer there; you didn’t kill like that without being deeply aberrated. She’d never understood why he’d never started his own faction to take back Valencia from the chaos. The fact that he belonged to no faction suggested that he’d grown up outside the country. He would’ve come from poverty, but why then not fight to erase poverty? And what had happened out at the Yacon fields? What would drive a man to kill every living being in sight? Hugo didn’t seem to possess that level of darkness. Or did he?

Paolo would halfheartedly say the English word for the room when he knew it. He knew bedroom and kitchen, but not pantry. “This is called a pantry,” she said. “Can you say
pantry
?”

He ignored her.

There was a hatch in the pantry ceiling, edges cleverly concealed in the dark beam work. She looked at the plaster dust pattern on the shelves and floor underneath and concluded that the hatch had been opened recently. Interesting.

“Pantry,” she said again.

Finally they arrived in the long, wide room where they’d started. He didn’t seem likely to show her the veranda, but she wanted to get out there, so she went.

“No,” he said. “Do not go out there.”

“This is called a door,” she said, playing dumb. “And out here, a veranda.”

He gave her a feral glare. “You must not go outside.”

“Got it.” And out she went, onto a red stone porch overlooking the lush, jagged terrain.

She peered over the stone rail and spotted Hugo near the end of the terraced rows of plants. They were dark and craggy on the bottom with green shoots on top. He slowed near one of the plants, doing something—she couldn’t tell what from up here—touching a leaf, maybe. Out with his plants.

She heard Paolo come up behind her. “What are the plants?” she asked.

“You must stay inside.”

“The plants.” She pointed. “In the field. What are they called?”

“Please,” he said.

“What are they called?”

“
Savinca verde
,” he said.

A shiver went through her and she turned to him. The rare, beautiful
Savinca verde
. So this was the place where they grew.

She pushed off the rail and followed him in. “Hugo is your father?”

“No,” Paolo said in a tone that suggested the very notion was outlandish. He closed and locked the door.

“Your friend?”

He paused and turned. “Yes. My friend.” He continued to show her around, walking a bit taller. He clearly idolized the man. Did he believe he was Kabakas, or had the two simply cooked up the Kabakas act? It wasn’t exactly something the American prostitute could ask.

Ten, twelve years he’d had to practice the act. It was possible. And Kabakas definitely had a fandom.

She followed him through more rooms with tile floors, white stucco walls, and harsh wooden furniture. Nothing soft, nothing upholstered.

This was not a home built for comfort.

Most windows were adorned with fanciful grates and shutters that stood open to the sides, hooked to the walls, ready to be shut against the chill night air if need be.

She’d never imagined a home for Kabakas; she’d always imagined him dwelling in camps, but if she had imagined a home, it would be hard like this, though not quite as magnificent.

The only rug in the place lay in front of the hearth in what she supposed would be considered the living room, a woven brown rug between two chairs. Did they sit there at night, these two males? It was then her eyes fell on the small, padlocked cabinet in the corner under a decorative sword on the wall. The sword of Moreno was displayed in homes for good luck, or if the inhabitants were superstitious, to ward off demons.

But it was the curio cabinet that interested her. People usually used these cabinets for souvenirs, awards, old coins, ticket stubs, and various other treasures. In later years, you’d find them in market stalls; the larger ones became popular as TV cabinets.

This one was too small for a TV and, anyway, she doubted they had reception up here. Was it possible they used it for its original purpose? Treasures collected over a lifetime? If so, it could hold a lot of clues to this man. She burned to rule him out as Kabakas. She had to know once and for all.

She went to it and ran her hand around the ornate carving. Yeah, she could pick that lock in two seconds flat. “Very pretty.” She turned to check Paolo’s expression. “What’s in it?” She tried to give her question little weight—she didn’t want him relating her curiosity to Hugo.

The boy was already shaking his head.

“TV? Television?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“
No sé.
I do not know. Not for you.”

She pulled her hand away and smiled. “What is the sword?”

“Moreno. A great warrior,” he said. “A story of Valencia.”

“What’s the story?”

“A story of Valencia,” he said again. “Not for you.”

Yeah, the boy definitely wanted her gone.

The tour ended in a small side room with nothing but a bed, a table, a dresser, and a window. The window was covered, as they all were, with an ornate grate. A maid’s room. She went to the closet and opened the door to a row of gray dresses. Uniforms.

“From your last cook?” she asked.

Paolo grunted.

O-kay.

She pulled one out. It was gray with short sleeves and white buttons that ran all the way down the front between vertical lines of white piping. It was too large for her, as Hugo had predicted, but wearable. Sensible black shoes sat at the bottom of the closet.

“She cooked? Did she clean and teach, too?” she asked.

He watched her blankly, but he understood perfectly well. This kid was observant, articulate, and definitely intelligent.

“A maid? A governess?” she pointed at the floor. “The woman here?”

“
Sí
,” he said, simply. Speaking to her in Spanish. Outside of Hugo’s stern purview, it seemed, Paolo was willing to break the rules.

She looked at the dress, wondering if she was trading one dead person’s clothes for another’s.

“You stay inside.” He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

She stripped off her clothes. She didn’t know what she hated wearing more—the lingerie or the dead man’s jumpsuit.

There was a simple tile bathroom attached to her room. She went in and took a quick shower. Afterward, she pulled off the bandage and inspected the wound on the back of her wrist. It was deeper than she’d realized—quite the gash. She’d really messed it up trying to free herself from the Jeep; in truth, it needed stitches. There was probably a sewing kit around, but sewing a wound with regular thread sucked—you reopened it trying to get the thread out. Hugo might have something more appropriate, like fishing line, but keeping her cover as Liza was critical now. Liza the prostitute would not sit around stitching herself up.

She found an unopened toothbrush. She sat down on the toilet seat with the towel tucked around her, feeling utterly exhausted now that she was clean and alone. She stared at the toothbrush. The last thing she wanted to do was to scrub the hell out of her wound with a toothbrush and then figure out how to make a meal. She bowed her head on the cool sink, wishing she could just curl up on her couch with her cat. She’d put her face on his soft fur and maybe even cry.

She’d been so frightened. So, so frightened.

Handle it!
She stood, ripped open the toothbrush, got out the soap, and started in on her wrist. She scrubbed and scrubbed, biting back the pain, just powering through it. She worked at the wound steadily, getting out the grit and paint flecks, pissed at herself for even imagining falling apart. Imagining falling apart was the first step toward falling apart.

She was alive, unscathed.

When she finished, she refolded and retaped the bandages Hugo had given her in the Jeep, reusing them the best she could, then she searched the chest of drawers for underwear. It was mostly blankets and towels, but she found a small, strappy T-shirt that would have to do for a bra, as well as cotton granny panties and stockings, too. Good.

She pulled on the austere gray uniform and tucked the recipe in the pocket.

What had happened to the former cook or maid?

A scraping sound came from the direction of the kitchen. The scrape of a chair, maybe, followed by a few knocks. That would be the pantry. There had been a small table at the side of it—just right for Paolo to climb up on. Was he putting away the weapons? The hatch was just large enough for those duffel bags. What else was up there? She hadn’t seen any phones or communication equipment whatsoever on her tour with Paolo, and he’d clearly lost his signal partway up the mountain. That was bad; she had to find a way to get word to Dax, dammit—before the morning.

She waited until the sounds ceased, and then wandered out.

“Hello?” she called, warning Paolo of her approach.

She followed the sound of Paolo’s soft footsteps across the place. The click of a door told her he’d gone out. She moved into the kitchen. Empty. She drew the recipe from her pocket and set it out on the tile counter.

Back at the roadside stand outside Bumcara during those precious few moments when she held that phone, she’d considered trying to get a quick email out, but it was far too risky, what with them both hovering over her, seeming ready to snatch away the phone. Finally Hugo had. He’d checked the screen.

Once she set the meat to marinating, she set out again, creeping through the home, looking for anything she could communicate on, preferably a satellite phone.

She’d ask how they liked their steak cooked if they caught her.

Quietly she moved through the little dining room just outside the kitchen to the large, long living room that overlooked the veranda and even what seemed to be Hugo’s bedroom.

Nothing.

She’d seen what looked like a steerable microwave antenna down in the ruined village. There’d be a wrecked satellite phone in there somewhere; they wouldn’t have left the antenna if the satellite phone were operational. She could probably get it working, but it would be a bitch to get down there—it was just over five miles away, and not an easy five miles, either—more like a steep and treacherously curvy five miles.

She’d run it tonight if she had to, but it would be slow going with the altitude and her general exhaustion. She’d need a flashlight and a gun.

She took a survey of the herbs and spices in the kitchen, anything she could use as a soporific, and came up empty.

Her mind went to the hatch above the pantry where she suspected the weapons were. If she wanted to hide a satellite phone, that was where it would be.

Door. Footsteps. Paolo came in and grabbed a Coke, then left.

She flattened out the recipe. The dinner needed to be decent. She wasn’t stupid—she’d put it all together when they went through the ruined village: this man and this boy depended on resources there to eat—that was why she was alive.

Maybe the only reason.

All men moved on their stomachs. Peaceful men and the killers alike.

She’d never learned to cook Valencian food—she’d spent most of her time in Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Amarrilla, but the street fare they’d had today had given her an idea of the similarities and differences in the flavorings. She’d had
lomo saltado
before—in Peru, maybe. It was thinly cut steak cooked with onion, tomato, and French fries, of all things. Rice on the side. She started water for the rice.

So much had become clear when she’d seen the ruined little village. El Gorrion had attempted to annex Buena Vista for its surrounding cropland—a lot of the gangs were in expansion mode thanks to the CIA herbicide program; even Roundup-resistant coca wasn’t growing well in the heavily sprayed areas. The scene was a classic example of the first phase of a takeover—the gangs sweep in, kill a few people, do superficial damage, and drive the people out. The farmers get ultimatums: switch crops or lose the land.

And Hugo had retaliated.

Kabakas or not, Hugo was a seasoned killer, likely out of the Valencian conflict. The plan might not have worked if the village had been on a transit route, but it was out of the way, a bit of a bother, logistics-wise, to begin with. She could see somebody like El Gorrion dithering over whether to bother with it in the first place. It was high enough up that you could get the rare frost, even. And Hugo had been very convincing…to put it mildly.

She chopped the potatoes.

What if he really was Kabakas? Maybe he’d thrown away his weapons, gained a kid. Maybe he’d sworn off violence. Then the bad guys destroy the village. Little do they know that Kabakas loves that village. They’ve pushed him too far and he once again takes up the barong blades. It was like a trope straight out of an old western. Her skin tingled. That sparkly good feeling filled her. That old good feeling from before. The feeling of the hunt.