Night of the Jaguar (37 page)

The thought of snarling dogs brought back his night with Amelia. The yapping mutts, her pealing laughter, the feel of her arm pressing her to him as she flailed away counting coup.
No! No!
He scolded his weakness.
You've got a lifetime to hate yourself. Finish it. Finish it.

He rolled up the Jeep's floor mats, rolled down the window, and slipped out. He tucked the floor mats under his arm, the Makarov into the small of his back, and crossed the street. Behind the houses opposite Malhora's ran a darkened alley lined with garbage cans. In Nicaragua, only the rich had alleys in which to store their garbage out of sight. Ajax watched until he was certain there were no strays—dogs or people—lurking about. He made his way in a crouch down the alley until he was behind the house he calculated was directly across from Malhora's.
Calculate. Do the math
. The wealthy might not use dogs, but everyone topped their walls with shards of glass. He tossed the Jeep's floor mats over the glass, then launched himself. This next part was delicate—he'd have to hoist his leg over and straddle the wall without castrating himself. He did so, but his weight crushed some of the glass, which sounded to Ajax like pistol shots.

He lowered himself into the garden and crouched in the darkness.
Don't hurry.
It wasn't the owners he worried about, undoubtedly deeply asleep with visions of Malhora's guards dancing in their heads. But the maid's room was right off the garden, and the maids took robbery as a personal insult, no matter that none of it was theirs and never would be. He crept through the open veranda doors and tiptoed into the house. A light was on outside the front door. He used what illumination it cast inside the house to find the owner's liquor cabinet. He'd decided on a Trojan Horse strategy. He took a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label and slipped out the front door. He was in a clear pool of light and had to act fast now—fast and natural.

He began to whistle the Sandinista national anthem.

He walked quickly through the main gates, right into the street, made immediate eye contact with Malhora's guard, and waved the bottle at him, whistling the whole time. What nefarious purpose could a man whistling an anthem and waving a whiskey bottle have?

“Compañero, a gift for the lonely guard whose vigil protects us all.”

The guard's AK stayed slung on his shoulder while Ajax got within inches. The Makarov was pressed under the young man's chin before he could blink.

“Silence or you will not even hear the bullet I put into your brain. Silence. Hold this.”

The guard seemed baffled into paralysis.

“Hold the bottle.”

He did. Ajax used his free hand to slip the magazine from the AK and eject the chambered round. Then he pressed the Makarov into the confused guard's pecker.

“Got children?”

“No.”

“Want them?”

“Yes.”

“Your cooperation guarantees you will have them. What's behind that door?”

“Courtyard.”

“Guards?”

“No.”

“In the house?”

“Two more.”

“The Comandante in?”

“Sleeping.”

“Can you open this door?”

“Yes.”

“Then open it, walk in front of me to the front door, and announce I am just a neighbor dropping off a gift for the boss. I'll have this gun pointed at your asshole and if you fuck up I will shoot you in such a way that you will never have children to help you change the bag you will shit into for the rest of your life.
Comprendes?
”

“
Comprendo
.”

“Go.”

The guard opened the door and Ajax nudged his ass forward to remind him of his options. The courtyard was empty save for two white Land Cruisers and a silver Mercedes. They had not walked four paces when the gate was slammed shut—the metal clang echoing up and down the neighborhood. Six armed men popped up from around the cars and Ajax knew there was a seventh behind him who'd shut the door.

“This is what is known as a Mexican standoff, I believe.” An eighth man came out the front door.

Ajax was startled to recognize him.

“Captain Montoya, we are not enemies. Do you remember me? Colonel Garcia-not-Martin?”

It was.

“Josecho Garcia.”

“Correct. I was assured that if I gave you the message ‘I am commander of the Seventeenth Light Infantry Battalion and Fortunado Gavilan was my radio man,' there would be no gunplay. Well, I
am
commander of the Seventeenth Light Infantry Battalion and Fortunado Gavilan
was
my radio man.”

Colonel Garcia signaled his men, who lowered their rifles.

“Will there be no gunplay?”

Ajax saw now they were dressed in the distinctive jungle camo fatigues of the elite hunter-killer troops. But more, he recognized in their eyes and faces that they were combat veterans. He lowered the hammer on his Makarov and raised his hands. The guard stepped away from him, laughed nervously, and adjusted his ball sack for good luck. His compañeros laughed, too. Ajax presented him with the Johnny Walker.

“There will be no gunplay, Colonel.”

“Good.”

“Where's the Comandante?”

“I'm under orders not to answer any questions. You are to come with me now.” The colonel approached and waved a set of keys. “Shall we take the Mercedes?”

4.

The colonel drove them in silence through nearly empty streets. The Mercedes was as quiet and comfortable as a cloud. Ajax ran his hand over the genuine leather, as soft as anything he had felt in recent memory. But then a voice reminded him:
Not as soft as her skin
. He could tell Colonel Garcia was stealing glances at him.

“My orders are not to answer your questions. Will you answer one of mine?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to Fortunado?”

“Technically? Sleep deprivation psychosis.”

“And untechnically?”

“Guilt. He thought he was being persecuted by the ghosts of friends he'd killed.”

“Killed?”

“Krill forced him into a devil's bargain: go on watching his friends be tortured or kill them and end their misery.”

The colonel grunted in reply. Ajax knew he was putting himself in Fortunado's place.

“Or he could've broken and talked.”

Now it was Ajax who grunted. “Yes.”

The colonel stopped at a corner. “So he could not forgive himself for doing his duty as a soldier.”

“I guess not.”

“He died insane?”

“I don't think so. He charged a line of sharpshooters with an empty gun.” Ajax drew the Makarov. “This gun.”

“It still empty?”

“No.”

Colonel Garcia smiled. “Fortunado was a good soldier. Suicide is a bad end.”

He turned right.

“If you take the next left, Colonel, you're taking me to Horacio de la Vega's house.”

The colonel smiled.

“It wasn't a question.”

“That old man seems very fond of you.”

“So he likes to remind me.”

5.

Horacio was waiting at the door.

“Ajax!
Mi hijito!
Again you have returned to me.”

Ajax hugged him and felt the old man's frail embrace in return.

“Maestro.”

Horacio took the colonel's hand. “Thank you, Colonel Garcia. You have returned my boy to me.”

Garcia returned a casual salute. “We'll drop your Jeep by later, Captain.”

Horacio took Ajax's arm and led him inside the house. Horacio's sala was well appointed with wicker and leather furniture. What walls were not covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves were hung with Central American folk art. In one small, elegant glass case were a few mementos of his days with the guerrilleros: one of the original FSLN flags, the first edition of the Sandinistas' insurgent handbook, and a matched pair of .45s said to have belonged to Sandino himself.

It was Ajax's favorite room in all the world, more home than any he had known, maybe ever.

“How's your head.” Horacio gently touched the bandage.

“Still on my shoulders.”

“I'd like to offer you a drink, but hope I should not.”

“You should not.”

“What can I get you?”

“Vladimir Malhora. Dead or alive.”

Horacio stopped and leaned on his cane. “He's gone.”

“Gone as in
fled
?”

“Gone.”

“Gone dead?”

“Gone.”

“Gone to a cell in El Chipote?”

“Just gone, Ajax.”

“You're going to make me hunt him down?”

Horacio said nothing. He did not move a hair, just stared into the middle distance, the kindly eyes in his grizzled head suddenly gone cold.
Shark eyes,
Ajax had called that look. He'd seen it many times before in the mountains, huddled around small fires. It meant it was time, once again, to suck it up and suffer. There was no appeal from the verdict.

Ajax stared for a long ten count.

“What are you thinking, my son?”

“I'm counting the people he murdered who will not see justice.”

“Well, the aptly named Conquistadores certainly did all the killing, and they paid before they died. Krill saw to that.”

“I'm going to kill Malhora.”

“No, my son. You are not.” Horacio looked at his watch. “You could not find him if you searched from the bottom of Lake Nicaragua to the top of Momotombo. His crime, his shame, hangs over the city, and over certain political enemies, like a poisoned cloud. But the man is gone. You will have to be satisfied with having destroyed him.”

“Destroyed him? You mean destroyed his illustrious career?”

“You have cut out a cancer which endangered the larger organism.”

“The Frente?”

“The Revo.
La Patria
. Your country. It will have to do for now.”

Ajax knew it would not do, now or ever, but there were more questions to be answered.

“Is there a warrant out for me?”

“No, that was a lie.”

“Rhino believed it.”

“Poor Rhino. A good compa. But the agreed official story is that the three gringos and the Nica family were killed by unknown bandits robbing Father Jerome of his gold chalice and crucifix. Deserters. Maybe theirs, maybe ours. Here.”

Horacio shuffled to a table and picked up a copy of
Barricada
, dated the day before. The headlines were full of the news. Ajax scanned the main story.

“Wait. ‘
Agreed
official story.' Agreed to by who?”

“Whom. Senator Teal and us.”

Ajax crumpled up the newspaper. “Teal the fact-fucker!”

“Ajax, we would not tell him the truth, obviously. He did not want to hear it was the Contra who killed three Americans as he will soon vote them a hundred million in blood money. So, we split the difference. He's back in the States and has stuck to the
agreed
version.
Unknown bandits
.”

Ajax felt his head might implode. He pulled off the turban and then gingerly felt the bandage over the wound and rubbed his bristly hair.

“Sit down, mijo. You need to rest your head and I need to get off this leg.”

He walked Ajax to the center of the room where antique wicker chairs surrounded an even older mahogany table. On that table were the Python, The Needle, a travel bag, and some kind of strongbox.

“Where did you get those?”

“From the Red Cross Jeep you appropriated. And in this box is what mystery writers call the MacGuffin.”

“One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in stacks of hundreds.”

A smile lit Horacio's face. “That, my boy, is why it had to be you. Now, tell me what you discovered.”

“The CIA fronted Jorge Salazar five hundred thousand dollars to bribe members of the Army High Command to overthrow the Revo. But, as a Nica, Salazar knew he didn't need half that. So that's all he brought to Enrique Cuadra's gas station at Los Nubes. Half of five hundred is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Malhora, knowing he had secret orders to execute Salazar, kept the rest of the team, like me, away from the car. None of us knew there was any money. Malhora discovered it, but only turned in half. Two hundred fifty thousand divided by two is two sets of one hundred twenty-five thousand. He turned one in—that made the papers.” Ajax flipped open the strongbox. “There's the other one and a quarter he kept for himself. With Salazar dead, his widow, who knew all about it or figured it out later, kept the other two hundred fifty thousand, which is right there.” Ajax unzipped the travel bag; it was stuffed with cash. “On her death bed she confessed it to Father Jerome, who told Enrique, and they buried the money with her in the false bottom of her coffin.”

“From which you disinterred it and put it in your Jeep, which,” Horacio pushed himself slowly to his feet and looked outside, into the dark, “I think has just been delivered to us.” He patted Ajax on the shoulder and rubbed his cheek with warm affection. “You are the best of us, Ajax.” He gave him a little slap. “If not always the wisest.”

“You think I want the money?”

“Do what you want with it. It's chicken feed, in the larger scheme of things.”

“Yes! Yes it is fucking chicken feed. All this was over a paltry box of money?”

“I need a drink now.” Horacio shuffled off. “Can I offer you some fresh orange juice?”

“No.” He got to his feet and paced.

Horacio called from his kitchen. “The Dollar store just started carrying a new American invention: alcohol-free beer. Want to try it?”

Ajax paced, then turned to Horacio's bookshelves. “I don't drink oxymorons.”

The old man chuckled.

“So.” Ajax paced. “Malhora stole the money.”