Read The Cain File Online

Authors: Max Tomlinson

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Thriller & Suspense, #Women's Adventure, #International Mystery & Crime, #Women Sleuths, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Assassinations, #Conspiracies, #Espionage, #Terrorism, #Thriller, #Thrillers

The Cain File (4 page)

BOOK: The Cain File
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“OK.” She saw Ed chew his lip as he consulted papers on his desk. “OK.”

“Hey,” Maggie said. “How’s your uncle? I was actually thinking of stopping by, since I’m here.”
Should she go to the embassy?

“You know, he’s just come down with a cold.”
Stay away.
The embassy was off limits.

Ed knew something she didn’t. “What about that friend of yours,” she said, “the cowboy?” It was their private joke about John Rae, their verbal cipher. “Whatever happened to him?”

“Oh, him. He got bored. Took off.”
John Rae managed to get away.

Good. But she wondered how. When she had jumped for the window, he was facing down a man with a machine gun.

“Where’d he go?”

“To the movies.”
Ed didn’t know.

An ICE alert popped up on Maggie’s computer screen: ATTEMPTED GPS PING. Someone was trying to map her location. She clicked DENY. “I’m getting bored here, too,” she said.
She needed to get out ASAP.

“You know, a buddy of mine wouldn’t mind meeting you. I told him you were single and could hook up for coffee. Hope that wasn’t out of line. Maybe you could show him around? You never know. He might like you.”
Someone would pick Maggie up, take her to safety.

She felt a blast of relief. “Why not? I got nothing else to do. What’s his name?”

“Frankie.”
Plaza San Francisco, one of their pre-arranged spots.

“What’s he like?”

“A real hoot. He’s in finance. A go-getter. Make sure he picks up the check.”

The code phrase her contact would use would include the word “check.” Call it arcane, but their simple code worked. A team of analysts could no doubt crack it, but by the time they did, it wouldn’t matter. Ed had been around and was a survivor. Old school.

“When does Frankie want to get together?” Maggie said. “For coffee only, mind you.”

Ed forced a laugh and puffed on a cigarette. “Can he call you tomorrow at this time?”
As soon as possible.

“Sure, why not?” A second ICE alert popped up: ATTEMPTED GPS PING. Again, she clicked DENY. “I’ve got a bad connection, dude. See you.”

“Send me a postcard.”
Call Ed back within twenty-four hours.

She shut down her computer, feeling more settled, although the GPS pings bothered her. Maybe they were nothing. Then again, someone had outed their operation.

Kacha pressed a steaming cup of tea into Maggie’s hands while she hefted her sleeping niece in one arm. The hot mug radiated heat into Maggie’s cold fingers.  She had to meet her contact. But first she needed dry clothes, a change of outfit. “I have to get out of here, Kacha—before the barrio wakes up. You and your sister
cannot
be associated with me. Not after that fiasco up there.” That GPS ping was making her more and more nervous. “I’m sorry I don’t have any cash,” she said. “But I will see you’re paid.” She set her cup down on the dirt floor and grabbed her damp cocktail dress from the back of the chair. It would have to do.

“How?” Kacha said, eyeing Maggie’s slim black Evelin Brandt that, although wet, stood in stark contrast to Kacha’s ripped jeans and purple-sequined T-shirt. The infant in her arms cooed and she gave it a kiss on its tiny nose.

Maggie sized Kacha up. She was a 2, a 4 at the most. They could be sisters. She held up the dress. “It’s wet, but it’ll survive. It cost a small fortune. Want to call it a down payment? You could sell it for a tidy sum. But we’d need to swap.”

Kacha’s face lit up. “You think I’m going to
sell
it?” She placed her niece down gently on a folded blanket on the floor and snatched the dress from Maggie’s fingers, then quickly stripped. The baby gurgled and flubbed her tiny fingers over her wet lips.

“I could sell
that
if you like,” Kacha said slyly, nodding at the chunky engagement ring on Maggie’s finger.

“I hate to tell you, but it’s the best glass money can buy.”

“A fake engagement ring? What kind of cheap
novio
do you have?”

“Keeps the wolves at bay,” Maggie said, pulling Kacha’s warm jeans over her damp undies and slipping her torso into the tight top. It reeked of flowery perfume, but provided more warmth than a wet dress. Moreover, it allowed her to blend in. The police would be looking for a woman in a black cocktail dress.

“I could sell that computer . . .” Kacha eyed the MacBook.

“No can do,” Maggie said quickly. There was sensitive information on it, not to mention photos taken with the webcam at the meeting before things went bad.

Kacha pulled the dress over her head and straightened the damp garment over her curved hips. Her face broke into a grin.

Maggie said, “I know it’s beautiful, girlfriend, but don’t hang onto it.”

Kacha touched her midriff. “I suppose.”

“Doesn’t quite go with the sneakers, anyway.” Maggie studied the black high tops next to Kacha’s bare feet. “I left my shoes back at the mansion . . .”

Kacha gave a sigh. “Take them.”

Maggie slipped into Kacha’s warm Keds, lacing them up. Without socks they were a bit loose, but beat the hell out of bare feet. She now felt like the world’s oldest teenager. She wished she had a jacket, but she wasn’t going to ask for any more clothes from these poverty-stricken girls. They’d done more than enough. She pulled her long hair back with her fingers, tied it into a quick loose braid, Indian style. It was as different as she could muster up on short notice. Walking around with a laptop wouldn’t work. “Do you have anything I can hide this thing in?”

“Here.” Kacha handed her a thin blue
lliq
carrying blanket from the floor, the size of a large square scarf. “It needs a bit of a wash.”

Maggie took the blanket. It smelled of baby barf. She tied her laptop up in it, slung it over her shoulder. She flipped her ring around on her finger so that the stone didn’t show. Now she was an Indian girl, on her way to wherever.

“If anyone asks anything, you know nothing.” Maggie drank the last of her coca tea. It might be the only thing she would have for the foreseeable future. A warm, mild narcotic glow began to seep into her. It had served her people for centuries as they fought fatigue and hunger and now it would serve her. “We never met.”

“Why are you flying out of windows in the first place?”

“It’s a long story.” Maggie set her cup down, glancing at Suyana, comatose against the wall. “What is your sister
on
anyway?”

Kacha shook her head in disgust as she hugged her niece. “Devil’s Breath.”

Scopolamine. Many of the working girls and thieves in this part of the world used it on unsuspecting clients, putting the powder in their drinks in order to liberate them of their wallets, not to mention their memories. But rarely did they use it themselves. “You’ve got to be kidding. That stuff is mighty dangerous.”

“It grows wild back home in the jungle.
There are borrachero trees everywhere. We brought some Breath with us. When things are tight, well, sometimes we need to get by—you know?”

“And your sister’s taking a liking to it herself,” Maggie said, shaking her head sadly. “We have to put a stop to it.”

“It’s not easy for Suyana. She needs to get away from it all sometimes.”

Maggie cleared her throat. “Do you think you could see your way to giving me a dose or two?”

“What for?” Kacha squinted. “Do you have someone you need to knock out? Follow you around like a helpless puppy? Give you the card and number to his ATM machine?”

“You never know.”

Kacha let out a sigh. “My sister doesn’t need it anyway. We can always get more. But don’t let it touch your skin. You’ll end up walking the streets in a daze.”

A few minutes later, Maggie had a folded paper packet of white powder safely in the pocket of her—Kacha’s—jeans. Before she turned to leave, one hand on the opening of the hovel, Maggie said, “Why can’t you and your sister go back home?”

Kacha nodded sagely for such a young woman as she swayed her niece to and fro. “Sis is no longer welcome in my village—not since she came back with a swelling in her belly and no man to own up for it.”

Things hadn’t changed much in this part of the world. Maggie’s own mother had gone through the same ordeal with Maggie in her womb, almost thirty years ago. “So you came here to the big city to make your way. And you ended up turning tricks. Hanging outside rich people’s parties to pick up the leftover men.”

Kacha gave a shrug. “Little Irpa needs to eat.” She wiggled the baby again. “But we really came looking for my cousin. Tica. She was arrested.”

“Arrested?” Maggie let go of the door, turned back around. “What for?”

“Protesting the bulldozers. The oil companies. Plowing up our village. In the Yasuni.”

The Yasuni. The part of the Amazon Beltran’s cronies were itching to tear apart.

“You’re Kichwa?” Maggie asked.

“We are.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

Kacha stared off in thought as she toddled Irpa. “Over a month ago now. We were released. But Tica wasn’t. We’ve tried to check the prisons. But no one will tell us anything. No one will even talk to us. So here we are, looking for her.”

“And you haven’t seen your cousin Tica since she was arrested?”

Kacha shook her head.

“What’s her last name?”

“Tuanama.”

“Tica Tuanama. Do you have a picture by any chance?”

Kacha jostled her niece. “Tica’s sixteen. Slender. Fair-skinned. Long hair. Pretty hair, shiny and black. Tribal tattoos on each cheek.” She indicated under each eye.

Maggie had gotten involved with this operation to stop Commerce Oil and men like Velox. She thought it was just about them breaking the law, denuding the land, and fouling one of the two lungs. But that wasn’t all of it, she realized. It was also about the people who got in their way.

“Let me look into it, Kacha. Don’t make any more enquiries. Be careful. How can I get in touch with you? Where can I send you a letter?”

“There is no mail here.”

“Anyone you can trust?”

She shook her head no.

“Do you ever go to the Internet cafes?”

“Sometimes.”

“And do you have an email address?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Tell me what it is.”

Kacha recited it and Maggie repeated it to herself three times. “When I get back, which might take a few days, I’m going to email you from an address I’ll get from one of the free services. I’ll send something made up around Jennifer Lopez—the singer? It’ll look like spam, so check your spam folder. Do you know what I mean?”

Kacha nodded once.

“Good. The email will be full of rubbish. Reply to it with just a phone number and a date and time to call you. But here’s the trick: add ninety-nine to the phone number. Got that?”

“Add ninety-nine to the phone number you are to call.”

“Right, and add one digit to the hour and one day to the date. So if you want me to call you on June second
at seven p.m., you say ‘June third at eight p.m.’ Got that?”

“So if anyone is watching they will be too late. Very clever. What about time zones?”

“Just use your time zone. It’s the same as mine.”

“OK. I think I have it.”

“Sure you do. You’re a smart girl. No one will be watching you, but they might be watching me. What we’re doing is burying our conversation, so it’s hard to track. But not impossible, eh? Be careful. The free email addresses you get are scanned regularly.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Right. Thank you. I am so anxious to learn what you find out about Tica
.

“It’s the least I can do. I’ll wire money when I get a chance. Might take a couple of days—until I get back home.”

“I’ll be happy if you just find Tica.”

“I’m going to do that too,” Maggie said, although she didn’t want to say whether Kacha’s cousin would still be breathing. “You know—I’m a lot like you.”

Maggie felt Kacha’s eyes scour her and could tell that she didn’t believe a word of it. “That must have been a very long time ago,” she said.

“I was born in a small village in the Andes. My mother was Quechua. So we’re both Incas. Although my father is American. I was brought up in the U.S.”

“And now? You’re flying through windows? Men with guns chasing you?”

Maggie gave a sad smile. “I have to run. Take care of your little sister and niece. They need you. I’ll be in touch.
Tupanachiskama.

Outside, in the shantytown, dogs barked as the coming dawn crept over the Andes to cast its first light over Quito. Maggie walked briskly down the steep dirt road into town.

-3-

three weeks earlier. . .

The guards came for her just after the sun came up. The cell block was still quiet, except for the hacking cough of a woman who had been up all night, pacing the rough cement floor. The guards were gentle, which made her suspicious right away. One even helped her up from her mattress, as if she was already an invalid.

She was sixteen, Indian, and she’d been arrested for standing in front of the bulldozer plowing up the rainforest leading to her village. Six others had been arrested too.

A doctor had examined her in the jungle, and given the sergeant a nod. They sent her to the prison outside the capital. Young soldiers, barely older than she was, sat with her in the back of the truck. In the capital, the morning fog crawled across the cobblestone streets, and she saw the statue of the Virgin on the hilltop. It seemed as if the Virgin was looking down at the city, looking at her. In the mist, it seemed as if she might be crying.

Early in the morning when the guards woke her, they wouldn’t look her in the eye. She was thirsty and asked for water. Not until afterwards, they told her.

When they got to the hospital, she was led down a white hall into a room that hummed with machines. Two nurses there wouldn’t look at her either. One doctor had a beard and smiled, the other wore a facemask.

They laid her down gently and gave her an injection and as she drifted off, she thought of the Virgin, crying on the foggy mountain.

~~~

present day . . .

The city awoke slowly as Maggie passed people heading off to the markets carrying bundles, starting their day. A pig trotted by in the opposite direction, grunting. The Virgin of El Panecillo watched from the early-morning mountainside, her sad gaze locked onto the capital.

BOOK: The Cain File
5.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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