Latitude Zero (32 page)

Cacao. The cocoa bean. Of course! A fruit that Mari and I hadn’t thought of last night, but should have, considering it was a key ingredient in EcuaBars. And the password had probably changed from
papayas
, the word mentioned in Preston’s email to Gage back in April.

“Has anyone you know won anything on the PAC Tour so far?” I asked next.

“In the Colombian and Venezuelan events, yes, some people I know—Vuelta staff members, friends of my parents—they have made good profits on the Equipo Diablo riders. They wanted to bet even more money on them, for the big Quito races. Because of el Ratón.”

“So locals were putting money down on the underdog team. Just like Preston had said in that email to Coach Mancuso!” It was all part of the “narrative” they were constructing to make Sports Xplor profit. They would boost the visibility of cycling in Ecuador, and give Team Cadence-EcuaBar a shot at redemption upon their return. That would lead to more wagers, more money. A cycle. More bettors, more viewers, more enthusiasts, more sponsors. Even with el Cóndor out of the picture, the machinery was in place to bring pro cycling into high-level sports betting, and to pay off cyclists—young athletes who really needed the money—in order to skew the results.

A low rumbling sound behind us interrupted our conversation.

“The truck is coming,” said Santiago. “
Suerte
, Tessa. Good luck. We will need it.”

55

THE TRUCK
chugged up to the parking lot, towing the shipping container. A cheer rose up from the crowd. I reached into my backpack for the Vuelta video camera that Santiago had loaned me to interview el Ratón. If we couldn’t get the official media here to get this recorded,
I
would be the media presence.

My view from behind the lens blurred as the truck turned into the lot and the container came into full view. My eyes welled with tears. The container looked like it had aged a hundred years since I’d seen it last. It was filthier than I remembered, and covered in scrapes and dents. If someone had said the thing had been dragged underwater by the ocean freighter, instead of loaded onto it, I would have believed it.

Thank God I’d gotten out. No one was going to open that thing and find my body inside.

The truck and trailer rumbled, closer, making the whole ground vibrate.

The container was ugly, yes. But it was also a thing of beauty. It contained the good intentions of countless people back home who wanted to give their bikes or parts to help strangers in a distant country. To help young girls in villages get to school.

And it contained the secret behind Juan Carlos’s death. Soon, very soon, we’d be able to show that secret to the world.

The truck stopped, and the driver got out of the van. Wilson signed some forms on a clipboard. A black Ford Explorer drove up. And parked.

An Explorer. Crap. Was this Darwin himself? This seemed like something he’d drive.

The door opened. One leg emerged. Then Preston Lane stepped out.

I nudged Mari. “He’s here. Just like he said he’d be. He isn’t at the race.”

Mari looked worried. “Okay. Slight revision of plan is in order.” She let out a long breath and looked around. “There’s nobody here to arrest him. We have to get his bike out of the container and not let him touch it. Why don’t you talk to him, since you know him. If you can keep him talking, stall him, Santiago and I can go after the bike.”

There was no time to discuss all the things that might go wrong. Preston Lane walked over to the driver and to Wilson. He shook Wilson’s hand and said a few words to him, in English, thumping him on the back.

I walked up to Preston, while Wilson finished dealing with paperwork, and gave him my most winning
KidVision
smile. “Hey, there,” I said. “Remember me? I’m doing a video about the container unload. Can you answer a few questions?”

“Maybe later. I’m afraid my time is limited,” he said brusquely. He narrowed his eyes. “I heard you were here,” he said in a low voice. Not friendly at all.

Of course he knew I was here. He and Darwin had to be in communication, working together to move money—or a money-filled bike—across international borders and to conceal Preston’s secret business.

“I’m a Vuelta Volunteer,” I said, forcing a grin. “I wanted to follow the shipping container and see how the story ended.”

Something about holding a video camera in my hand made me bold. Bolder than I would have been standing there without it, and feeling the full force of his gaze, even as the warmth drained out of his face and he narrowed his eyes at me. “I’d prefer that you put the camera away,” he snapped.

I feigned an innocent expression. “Oh? Why’s that? Don’t you want everyone to see how committed you are to this bike donation program? Think of all the bikes here going to communities in need.
All the bikes
.”

He glared at me. “You,” he said, “need to learn a lesson about boundaries. None of this business concerns you.”

“Señor Lane!” Wilson, smiling, approached him. “How wonderful to have you here. Will you please do us the honor of opening the doors?”

“My pleasure.” He brushed past me and strode to the container.

Santiago and I exchanged panicked looks. Preston was getting ahead of us. If he was the first one inside the container, he could grab the bike as soon as he saw it. And take off.

The crowd around us applauded, and the Vuelta receptionist took photos of Preston standing by the container, holding up the key. Normally he’d enjoy the photo op, mugging for the cameras, but now his closed-mouthed grin and wild eyes looked almost maniacal to me.

“We must take our positions. Now,” Santiago whispered to me. He beckoned to Mari, a few yards away. She came toward us, with Amparo, who’d linked her arm through Mari’s in a sisterly gesture. I often saw women and girls in Quito walking arm and in arm like this, but now was not the time. I didn’t want my host sister anywhere near this.

“Why don’t you hang out with your family?” I suggested to Amparo. A line of helpers was forming behind the container, as directed by a Vuelta staffer, and I pointed to Hugo and Andreas farther down the line, near the end.

Amparo squeezed Mari’s arm and beamed at her. “Mari is family,” Amparo said stubbornly. “And so are you. While you’re visiting us, both of you are my sisters.”

I heard the locks turn in the tumblers, even though traffic roared past on the highway and buses belched in the terminal nearby.

There was no time to lose. And maybe Amparo could be useful here. I handed my loaner camera to her, and instructed her to keep filming everything. No harm could come of that. Besides, I needed both my hands free to catch Juan Carlos’s bike if it came my way. And if Preston did make a dive for the bike, at least we might catch that on film.

Preston struggled to slide the long metal bars on each door, and Santiago ran up to help him. Gutsy. Santiago had moved into a prime position to leap into that shipping container.

The moment the doors swung open, Preston lunged forward. But Santiago pushed him aside. He jumped up to the back of the shipping container. Mari and I got right up in front, further crowding out Preston. Santiago then began extracting the bikes and items closest to the doors and passing them to us. We passed them down the line of volunteers. Hands stretched out to receive and pass on each bike or component or box of parts. Six volunteers acted as runners, ferrying things into the warehouse.

Hugo had loosened his necktie and rolled up his sleeves. He laughed with Andreas as they fumbled to pass an armload of tires to each other. Amparo, meanwhile, stood a few yards away from it all, sweeping the camera up and down the chain of volunteers, then training it again on the back of the container, which Preston, scowling, still struggled to edge toward. Bikes and parts were flying out of there so fast, into volunteers’ outstretched arms, that Preston could never get quite close enough to jump in.

Santiago passed a bike down to me. With a start, I realized what it was. My Bianchi. I clutched its familiar mint-green frame tightly, remembering those scrapes from my crash. It held so many memories, so many miles. I missed it. But I couldn’t take back my donation.

I passed my Bianchi to Aussie Guy, and he sent it traveling on down the line.

“Excuse me,” said Preston, elbowing people and pushing forward. “Can I get in there and help?”

“Help? Sure. Here you go. Catch.” Santiago tossed him a cardboard box, almost knocking him over.

Preston staggered under its weight. “Jesus. What’s in here?”

“Tools,” said Santiago. “Do you mind running them over to the warehouse?”

“Unless they’re too much for you?” I added to Preston. “We could find someone . . . younger, maybe?”

Preston, reddening, glared at me. “I can carry a box of tools,” he said. “And I’m hardly the oldest person here.” Huffing, he strode off to the warehouse, lugging the box.

Santiago grinned at me. “How’d you get rid of him so easily?” he asked.

I smiled mysteriously. “I had a little inside information,” I said. “Preston’s freaked out about getting older.” Then my smile faded. “But we still have to hurry and get that bike out. He’ll be back here soon enough.”

“Can you see the Cadence bike? Are we getting close?”

I could just make out the white tape on the handlebars. “You’re two rows away,” I said.

“Jump in. And start digging.”

I did, and Mari came in to help too. Contents had shifted in transit, and many of the bikes had capsized or become entangled. The two of us burrowed through bikes, extracting them—carefully at first, then less so—and handing them off to Santiago, who moved them on out to the volunteers.

“Preston’s coming back from the warehouse,” Santiago said over his shoulder as he picked up a children’s bicycle trailer. “Are you close?”

My hands closed around one of the white handlebars. Mari’s closed around the other. Together, we pulled.

“Hold on. It’s stuck on another frame,” said Mari, diving down to remove a pedal from the spoke of another bike’s wheel. “Okay, pull.”

I did. The bike gave way. “We got it!” I cried.

“Hurry!” Mari urged.

I rolled the bike toward the container door and handed it to Santiago. “Quick. Jump off and take it to your car before Preston comes out of the warehouse.”

“No! Stop!” Mari exclaimed, as a Ford Explorer at the edge of the parking lot suddenly started up. The window lowered slightly. Santiago and I followed Mari’s gaze. At the wheel was the guy in the Panama hat.

“Looks like Preston brought his own personal get-ahead vehicle,” I murmured. “Crap. Now there’s two people we have to worry about.”

“Maybe more,” said Mari, gesturing with her chin to two more identical cars, with tinted windows, parked on the opposite end of the lot. Right by Santiago’s parked car.

As if to confirm Mari’s guess, their engines roared to life.

56

“OH, NO!”
Mari pulled at her hair. “Three cars with Preston’s henchmen.”

“And now Preston is coming back from the warehouse,” said Santiago, pushing the Cadence bike over so it lay flat on the container floor.

Santiago passed armfuls of tires down to volunteers to keep the chain moving. I wiped sweat off my forehead and tried to keep breathing. “We’ve got to get this bike down to the circuit race along with the flash drive and give it to the ambassador! Preston knows I’m on to him, and I want both these things off my hands. Like, now.”

“But we can’t!” Mari protested. “Not with those Explorers flanking Santiago’s car. We’ll never get the bike in there without their intercepting it. They’re totally in position to nab this bike from us.”

“We have only one choice,” Santiago said as he turned to pick up a box. “We must get this bike past Preston, past his friends in the Ford Explorers, and into the warehouse.”

“And then what?” I demanded. “What good is the bike stuck in a warehouse?”

“There is a storage closet in the back,” said Santiago. “You can turn the lock as you leave, and lock the bike inside there. Then run out to the street and take a taxi to the race. Give to the ambassador the flash drive and explain him what else we have found. Then he can come to the warehouse to see the bike himself.”

“And you? You’re going in the taxi too?” Mari asked him.

“No. I will stay and keep Preston busy while you two do this thing. And your host sister can help.”

Santiago jumped out of the container and had a few words with Amparo, words Mari and I couldn’t hear. “I don’t like it,” I said. “I don’t think we should leave the bike once we have it. How do we know the Explorers crew won’t find some way into the warehouse? Or that Amparo’s safe?”

“We have to trust Santiago,” Mari responded. “There’s no more time. Here comes Mr. EcuaBar now.”

Santiago immediately tossed Preston another heavy box, this one full of bicycle pumps. Preston started to hand the box back to Santiago, protesting, but Amparo trotted over to him, camera in hand. “What a wonderful thing you are doing for Vuelta! This will look great for Cadence Bikes publicity, Señor Lane,” Amparo purred.

Preston immediately stood straighter and balanced the box in his arms. While Preston was occupied with Amparo, who seemed to have seized the opportunity to play interviewer and grill Preston about his involvement with Vuelta, Santiago ushered us out of the container. “Go!” he hissed, after quickly explaining where the storage closet was.

“All right. Let’s do this,” Mari muttered.

I leaped out of the container and Mari passed the Cadence bike down to me before jumping out too.

Santiago kept the human chain busy ferrying a fleet of kids’ bikes down the line. Preston was trapped between the chain of volunteers and Amparo. Mari and I each held a handlebar of the Cadence bike and made a beeline for the warehouse.

Once inside, we headed straight for a far corner that was partitioned off to form a makeshift closet. The small space was filled with cleaning supplies. “What are you doing?” I asked as Mari suddenly knelt down. “Let’s lock this thing up and get out of here!”

“Wait. While we’re here, I just want to make sure this bike’s really got contraband inside it,” she said. “So we can be really specific about what we tell the ambassador. Amparo can’t stop talking. Preston’s tied up. We have time.” She got busy, taking three tools from her jeans pocket. First she removed the seat post and looked inside. Then she pulled a bracket off the downtube. She put in her fingers and pulled out three tightly wadded-up bills. Hundred dollar bills. She peered inside the tube again, shook it, and whistled under her breath. “And there’s a lot more where that came from,” she said. “They’re all crammed in there. This frame is totally stuffed.”

I sucked in my breath. “Oh my God. It really is cash. So Preston
was
using Juan Carlos’s bike to smuggle money into this country.”

“And laundering it through Vuelta and other charities,” Mari added, unfolding one of the bills. Then she turned to the bike and picked at the name decal. It unrolled easily. “This isn’t even an official label,” she said. “This is a home computer print job, on a sticker. The real decals are put on with heat transfer and they don’t come off. Tessa.” She looked at me. “We were right. This isn’t even Juan Carlos’s bike. Remember how I saw his spare bike on the wall at Dylan’s place? I think Preston Lane labeled this bike with Juan Carlos’s name so Juan Carlos would take the fall if anyone at customs found out what was inside. Juan Carlos would look like the cash smuggler, not Preston.”

Relief, warm relief, flooded me. Juan Carlos was a good person at heart. I’d judged him well. And the cash in the bike was further proof that Jake had nothing to do with either of the bike crimes from the morning of Chain Reaction. I didn’t love him, or even want to see him again, but at least his name would be cleared.

“There’s tons more cash in here. But we can let someone else count it up.” Mari quickly screwed the seat and the downtube bracket back on. “We have to get the bike and the flash drive down to the media circus at the starting line. The race is starting soon.”

“I thought we were locking up the bike and just taking the flash drive.”

Mari smirked and pointed at the lock on the doorknob. The latch could be turned, yes, to lock the door on the way out—but the doorknob itself was hanging off-kilter. “Seriously? This is hardly high-level security,” she said. “If Preston comes in to the warehouse to look around, or the guys in the Ford Explorers, they could easily bust their way in. No way am I leaving this bike and the money here.”

I turned and looked around. Mari was right. The closet was little more than a partition with a door. The walls of the partition could be scaled with a ladder, or even punched through with a heavy object.

“But how will we walk the bike out and get a taxi, without Preston’s backup creeps following us?” I asked.

“Did you happen to see a box of used bike shoes and helmets? I packed it myself. That should have been one of the first things off the container.”

“Yeah, I saw it by the door. Why? Why is this important right now?”

“Grab it. We need shoes for clip-ins.”

I darted out into the main warehouse area and grabbed the box, wondering what this was all about. When I came back, Mari had Juan Carlos’s bike and a Diablo bike that she had snagged from a rack just outside the partition. “Find two pairs of shoes that might fit us,” she said.

“But I can’t ride in—”

“Don’t argue, Tessa. No time. If we bike the side streets and alleys, we can ditch the cars and make it down to the race. We can throw the cars off our trail, and leave them stuck in traffic.”

We quickly exchanged our sneakers for bike shoes and strapped on helmets. My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly fasten my helmet. I thought of Rosio and the determined look on her face as she completed her maiden journey around the block the other day. If she could ride so fiercely, why couldn’t I? I had to put Chain Reaction behind me and get back in that saddle.

But just as we grabbed the handlebars of the bikes—me with Juan Carlos’s Cadence, Mari with the Diablo—we heard a man’s voice. “Going for a little ride, are we? What fun.”

In the makeshift doorway stood Preston Lane.