Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) (24 page)

Even the villagers were more connected to technology and the strife of everyday life than she was now, what with their phones and their lives and their constant arguments about whether to risk rebuilding. They had access to the news, and most of them seemed to be on Facebook.

Hugo didn’t want her on the Internet, of course.

She should steal a phone and check in…but she found she very much didn’t want to. She didn’t want to deal with Dax, didn’t want him staring into her mind. He needed to work on turning Sal, the Brujos guard. Dax was a genius billionaire with a team of spies at his beck and call. He should be able to turn one guard.

The plants continued to deteriorate at a suspiciously rapid rate. The botanist had come by, according to Julian. He’d dug up a plant and collected some soil for tests.

She wished she could’ve talked to him and gotten his impressions of the strange substance on the roots. Hugo had said it was climbing the stems on some plants.

She should stay out of it, but she couldn’t.

“Science,” she declared after dinner that night. Hugo was bent over reports of some sort in front of the fire. She’d just finished cleaning. “Paolo and I are going to do a science project.”

He waved them away. It was as if they had a silent pact to keep their distance from each other now—physically, at least.

The sun was going down as she and Paolo set out. “Let’s go to your plants. The ones whose buds you’ve harvested,” she said. They could experiment there. She’d put together several agents from the kitchen and laundry—lemon juice, borax. Maybe they could find something that would break up the waxy coating. A shot in the dark. Nevertheless.

She showed Paolo how to make an observation chart. They numbered the plants and decided on characteristics to track: level of wilting, shininess, color, and root coating consistency. “It’s how the plants talk,” she said. “It’s important that we listen closely.” They assigned numbers. She sprinkled baking soda around the base of the first, and Paolo watered it to let it soak in. She did nothing to the second, but she put borax around the third.

“Like the
luna de febrero
,” Paolo mumbled as she sprinkled the powder at the base of the fifth plant.

“What is? What I’m doing right now?” She looked up. “It’s like the February moon?”

“It’s a celebration,” Paolo said. “Primer Verde. The old people make designs with the stones along the sides of the rows, sometimes large. Sometimes they break them.” He pointed to the powder. “Afterward there is a party. Dancing. Food. Hugo does not like to go. He does not like to dance and sing.”

“They powder the stone to make designs in the soil?” she asked. “Every February?”

“A tradition.” He shrugged. “Silly.”

“What’s the stone?”

He stood and looked around. “Come.” She followed him across the path to the hill. He kicked at a dirty outcrop until something broke off. “Luquesolama, it is called.” He knelt down and smashed at the pieces with the bottom of his scythe. She gathered a selection of pieces into her hands, tipping it this way and than in the dying light. She crumbled a bit. The mineral was soft, almost like soapstone. “An old tradition?”

“Very old,” Paolo said.

From what she’d gathered over the days in the field, there were three harvests: May, August, and November. They then cut the plants back and let them go dormant for three months. February was when the plants would come out of the dormancy cycle. “The new leaves appear right after?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised she’d guessed it. A ritual this old was more science than superstition—she’d bet on it. She didn’t recognize the stone, but it could be that it was deeply linked to the savinca. Most people didn’t realize how symbiotic plants and rocks were. Plants broke up the stone and dispersed the minerals. Minerals nourished the plants. Had these farmers developed a ritualized way to help it along over the decades? Did this stone add something essential to the savinca? Did it stimulate growth? Support the plant’s resistance to maladies? “Collect the stones for me.”

“It’s not February.”

“As an experiment. I’m going to make some solution in the kitchen with these stones. We’ll pour it on, and then we will see what they say.”

“We can help the village,” he said. “Like Hugo.”

An hour later, she’d cooked up a solution with a carrier—those roots needed to get good and coated. Paolo poured it as they discussed the chart. “You have to check it every day,” she said. “You are a scientist now.”

Paolo nodded. Saving the plants was a long shot, but science was method and consistency—that was a good lesson for Paolo.

S
he missed the
university botanist again the next day. She knew she couldn’t talk with him, but she wished she could at least see what he did—that would give her a clue as to what he thought the substance was made of.

She definitely learned more about Hugo, though. He didn’t talk about his past, but he had views on everything from Paolo’s reading habits to Valencian rebuilding. He was thoughtful. He cared. She could see him as a man who might have gone up against soldiers, but the later, darker Kabakas who’d slaughtered indiscriminately?

It seemed more and more unlikely.

He asked her a lot of questions. She answered as Liza for the most part, hating that she had to. But she could tell he’d found Liza’s blog.

She could see from his movements that his pain had lessened, and she hadn’t smelled opium for a while. Knowing Hugo, he’d reserve it for extreme occasions.

That morning, she and Paolo had gone out to check the results of the test area; there was only increased wilting and more shine. Nothing was helping. Not even the Luquesolama.

The plants were getting worse; it seemed a race now to pull them in before the buds were worthless.

The villagers were out in force, resolved to complete the harvest no matter what. The older women delivered lunch around noon and the younger women gathered at the tree-shaded picnic table while Hugo ate somewhere else with the men. A few of them spoke English; she asked them about the university botanist but she didn’t get anything new.

She spotted a phone in one of the women’s bags. She could check in on the situation. Maybe buy more time. And consult on the roots.

They were involved in an argument. She slipped it out, and then made excuses about having to pee. The phone didn’t have a lot of charge left, but it had enough. She sped down the hill to the outhouse and went in. It was hot and pungent. There was a crack in the wall and she shoved a pebble into it to widen it enough to see though. Nobody coming. She Googled “Luquesolama” and got nothing. Quickly, she dialed an old CIA colleague, a botanist, and told him about the look of the roots and her theories. Had the spraying program evolved in some way? He didn’t think so, but he’d check. He promised to look into the geological makeup of the mountain and the Luquesolama stone.

She got Dax right after that. Dax should’ve been first.

His voice was full of concern. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“We’ve had a situation in the fields,” she said.

“A situation?” he asked, thinking, she realized too late, that it was a situation of danger.

“Nothing like that. It’s the savinca harvest. These little villages, you take their crop and the whole thing implodes. And now there’s this suspicious blight. I don’t think it’s the CIA, but who knows? If there were a way to reverse it…I’m running tests, but I can’t get equipment without blowing my cover. Supposedly, some researcher from the university is here, but he hasn’t come up with anything. It’s not natural…it’s…”

She paused, listening to herself. Obsessed with the crop. “What’s going on with the pirates? Did you turn Sal yet? Is he getting the files?”

“Sal’s scared. He might not turn, Zelda.”

“He wants to turn—I heard it.”

“Not in time. Kabakas is our best bet,” he said.

Her heart sank. “I don’t have any kind of clarity on that yet.”

“No sense at all yet?”

“It’s been difficult…”

“
Difficult
.”

“Yes.” She hated when he echoed her back. “Difficult.”

“You’re staying with a man who may be Kabakas, and over a course of several days you’ve gained no clarity as to his identity whatsoever?”

“Are you questioning me?”

“You’re the smartest, most tenacious person I’ve ever met. So, yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m questioning you.”

She forced her voice to sound calm. “This is a situation with innumerable variables, none of which you have any understanding of.”
Having never been in the field.
She left that part unsaid.

“Did you crack that cabinet?”

“I haven’t gotten the chance.” She’d never before lied to Dax, though it wasn’t entirely a lie. She hadn’t made the chance.

“So you haven’t been able to rule him in or rule him out.”

“Some evidence says no, and some evidence says yes. We can’t use him if we’re not sure.”

The silence on the line made her nervous.

“You’re one of the foremost Kabakas experts in the world,” he said finally. “If you can look at the evidence and think there’s a possibility he’s Kabakas, I think it’s safe to say we can help the pirates pass him off to the delegation as Kabakas, don’t you?”

“Dax—”

“We don’t need Kabakas; we need a solution. If the delegation believes he’s Kabakas, that’s a solution.”

She felt sick. “What if we put him in the mix and it’s proven that he isn’t Kabakas? What then?”

“He’s got
you
baffled.”

“Jesus. He has a little boy.”

“Everybody is expendable.”

Her heart pounded. This was what they did all the time as Associates, sent people into peril and even to their deaths if it would save the many. Sometimes even innocents.

“You need to pull together everything that says Kabakas.”

“My week isn’t up. You gave me a week.”

“Two days won’t matter.”

“They will to me. I need to know for myself if it’s him.”

“And what if it’s not him?” Dax asked. Meaning,
Will she go along with destroying him?

“I need to know,” she said. “I’m the one who can sell it. This is what I need.”

She could feel his unhappiness through the phone. “The tanker situation won’t stay cold forever,” he said. “You have until Saturday.”

“You don’t want to send Associates after Hugo blind. You’ll lose men. You will wait for me,” she warned.

She traced the edge of the phone after they hung up. They’d need to find a way to handle the long distance bill this poor woman was going to get. That was what she thought about—as if that was the problem.

Would he heed her warning?

She replaced the phone just before the group returned to the fields.

She smiled when she caught sight of Hugo; he seemed to feel her, and he turned and smiled back. Out there in the sunshine and fresh air, it was as if all the lies and secrets were gone, and they were simply working shoulder to shoulder. She was beginning to feel less like an impostor in this life, and the world of Dax and geopolitical concerns seemed farther away.

U
sually when confronted
with a situation like this, a problem with an agent, Dax would discuss it with Zelda. Her years of experience gave her insights into life in the field that he didn’t have. She supplied that for him. Or at least she had in the past.

She wasn’t under duress now—that was clear. And she didn’t seem frightened, either. They had her working the fields, working as some sort of a maid or governess. Her journey down had sounded trying, but she’d come through intact. Unviolated. He’d gotten that in subtext.

Yet something was happening down there, and she was hiding it.

He wished he could see her eyes. He’d know things from her eyes, but all he had was her voice and it didn’t sound normal—it was lower in pitch, smoother. That could indicate a snap. Or relaxation. Sometimes they felt the same.

Relaxation.

He cringed when he thought back through the years he’d known her and realized she’d never taken a vacation—not even a day off. And God, she was working around plants, in nature now. She was a botanist, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t go into botany without a love for nature, and aside from Association-related excursions here and there, she hadn’t been out of the city in…what? Seven years? Eight?