Thief (17 page)

He would have to put the ring back in its box and hide it until Sister was found or released. It sucked, but it was what he would do.

Claudio looked at the cabbage sample Chavez held, before closing his eyes. He saw Sister Rachel clearly in his mind, and thought,
A farm? Out in the country? Is that where he's got you?

 

22

SISTER RACHEL CAME AROUND
in a blur. She felt sick, nauseated. Her eyes drifted open. A single bare lightbulb lit the tiny room, which seemed to turn slowly as if she were lying on the blades of a fan.

She was on a bare mattress on the cement floor of what used to be a bathroom. There was a filthy sink with a pump handle, an equally filthy toilet with no seat, and a shower with no curtain and no head on the pipe sticking out of the wall. The door was steel and featureless. The one window had been covered with a piece of plywood screwed into the wall.

What is this place? How did I get here?

The missionary doctor remembered being in the clinic, working on that poor woman Maria, trying to save her. She'd said good night to Inez, and gone to her office, and …

My God …

Her wrists were bound with duct tape. So were her ankles and lips. Her heart beat wildly. She thought of the children back at the Hogar, and it beat even harder. Were they okay?

Well, of course they were. The other sisters and Robin—

What had the man she'd seen in her office said? Something about Robin Monarch? Something about her saving him? Or could he save her? This time?

What other time was he talking…?

Sister Rachel heard something on the other side of the door: footsteps and then men laughing drunkenly. She felt her stomach curl. And she groggily took an inventory of her clothes and body. She was still wearing the purple hospital scrubs she used at the clinic. And she felt no soreness beyond a general ache from head to toe along with a desperate need to pee.

The missionary doctor tried to get over on her knees and elbows, but couldn't. Her arms and legs still felt weak and uncertain with whatever sedative they'd used on her. She managed to tear the duct tape off her mouth. She lay back, closed her eyes, and focused on her breathing, sucking in air through her nose slowly, holding it, and then exhaling hard through her mouth. She did it over and over again, twenty times in all, using her body's natural detoxification system to flush more of the sedative's effect from her.

When Sister Rachel tried a second time, she was able to use the sink to get to her feet. She almost passed out, but held on until her brain could take the change in position.

More confident now, she relieved herself in the filthy toilet, and then hopped back to the mattress and sat with her back to the corner. Bowing her head to pray, the missionary did not ask God why this had happened to her.

Instead, she asked God for the strength and the faith to endure whatever trials and dark times lay ahead of her. And she prayed that she be allowed to return to the refuge to continue her work.

There are more children every day, Lord, abandoned to the slums, consumed by poverty and sickness. Please let me continue to be an instrument of your compassion. Please let me …

The men outside the door were laughing again; she thought for a moment one or more of them were going to come inside. She felt neither fear nor anger hearing those voices, but when they ebbed away she couldn't help thinking about Monarch asking her what would happen to her work after she was gone. A wave of fear and anxiety pulsed up through her before it turned to anger.

She was here, in captivity, separated from the children, and the clinic, her purpose in life, because of Monarch. This had nothing to do with her and her work. This was about his shadow life, she was sure of it. A weak part of her wanted to rue the night she'd saved him from the knife wound.

But a stronger part of her asked: who pushed him into the shadows?

In her mind, Sister Rachel saw a younger version of herself wrapped in a blue wool shawl opening the orphanage gate, and finding young Robin defeated.

*   *   *

“They would not come, Sister,” he said. “The entire brotherhood. They laughed and jeered at me.”

She put her hand on his arm, and led him inside the compound, saying quietly, “And men taunted Jesus when he bore his cross through Jerusalem. Do you know how many people have laughed at me for wanting to help the poor? Do you know how many times I've been threatened
because
I help the poor?”

Robin looked at her morosely. “You told me I had to do something big to be redeemed for the knife fight.”

“And you still do,” Sister Rachel said, steering him up the gravel drive toward the farmhouse and the barn she'd recently converted into the first real dormitory. “But now I want you to sleep for a few hours. When you get up, we'll climb again, and we'll pray.”

“I can't do this anymore!” he shouted. “I'm sorry, Sister. I can't stay here, and climb up and down, and pray that purpose comes to find me.”

Sister Rachel stopped him, and gazed earnestly into his eyes. “Perhaps you're right, Robin,” she said. “But this is not the time for you to decide that.”

“Sister, please—”

“Go to sleep, Robin,” she insisted. “For me.”

Nine hours later, as dusk crept toward night, Robin followed Sister Rachel up the hill with the heavy knapsack on his back once more. Though he'd slept long and deep, he still looked crushed. The fact that he'd lost his family for the second time was not lost on the missionary doctor, and she'd spent the entire day thinking how best to handle the situation.

When they reached the top of the Difficult Way, Sister Rachel sat down on the bench while Robin took off the knapsack and set it between them. The coming night would be cold and crystal clear. Lights burst on below them in the city. She imagined that Buenos Aires looked spectacular and foreign to Robin that night, a place where he might have known the roads, but didn't feel like he could speak the language anymore.

“I think…” Sister Rachel began, and then stopped.

She'd never been one to hesitate before, and that made Robin turn to look at her. “You think what, Sister?”

The missionary squinted, discomfort in her cheeks before she replied, “I believe you must be naturally good at something in order to find your life's purpose. I was good at science, medicine, for example, and I cared about people, especially children, and that's how I found my calling.”

Sister Rachel hesitated, and then said, “When I think of the things you are good at, Robin, your unique skills, I could not come up with a purpose that would be in line with the common good right away.”

“Gee, thanks, Sister,” he said, irritated.

“I said ‘right away,'” she replied sharply, getting up and starting down the hill with him following. “But the more I thought and prayed, it dawned on me that you would make a good soldier. The military offers an education, food, shelter, and discipline, which I believe you could use in heavy doses.”

“Me, a soldier?” he said, sounding surprised. “In the Argentine Army?”

“No,” she said. “The U.S. Army. Your father was an American, correct?”

“Yes, but…”

“You were born in the United States?”

“Miami,” he said.

“You had a U.S. passport?”

“Once upon a time.”

“We'll get you another,” Sister Rachel said. “It will take time, but we'll contact someone in Miami to get your birth certificate and then we'll go to the U.S. Embassy, get your passport replaced. I'll scrape together the money for an airplane ticket, and you'll be on your way to a new life, one far from—

*   *   *

The missionary startled from her memories at the sound of keys sliding into the lock. The door opened and a squat man in his late thirties, wearing a black wool hat pulled down over his ears, walked in. She remembered his face and the cap from her office at the clinic. He wore a red shirt, black cargo pants, and black shoes. He regarded her with amusement, as if he'd been looking forward to this moment.

“Been a long time,” he said. “Been a long time coming.”

Sister Rachel's head retreated several degrees. “Do I know you?”

“We met once,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Different time. Different name.”

His eyes were bloodshot, shiny. She smelled alcohol and cigarettes on his breath.

“I don't remember you,” she said.

“No?” he chuckled. “You'll figure it out eventually.”

“Why am I here?” she demanded. “Are you holding me for ransom? If so, you'll get nothing. I am a—”

“Not after your money, Sister,” he said with a sigh. “I do this right, I get all sorts of money, and some long-overdue sweet revenge on the side.”

The missionary studied him, wracking her brain, trying to figure out who he was. She still had no idea.

“You're taking revenge on me?” she asked.

He winked at her. “Way I see it, you were involved whether you meant it or not, so yeah. You're part of the package deal.”

“What was I involved in? What did I ever do to you?”

Smiling coldly, he looked at the ceiling as if it held secrets. “You helped take what was mine, Sister. You and that piece of shit, Robin Monarch.”

The missionary shook her head, still not remembering him. Then he drew up his right sleeve, revealing the acid-burned arm, said, “There used to be a tattoo there.”

“You were a member of his gang?”

“Still don't remember me?” he said, and made a
tsk
noise. “Maybe this will help.”

He tugged off the cap, revealing a grossly deformed right ear, and she knew him in an instant.

“I remember you. I don't remember your name, but I remember you. You took over the brotherhood.”

He winked at her again. “I knew you'd figure it out eventually. Back then I was known as Hector.”

“Hector … Vargas.”

He smiled. “That's right. Hector Vargas.” He said the name as if it were an old object pulled from a drawer, and it hung there in the silence that followed.

“Look,” she said. “Robin and those other boys, they—”

“Why don't you shut the fuck up?” Vargas said, the smile fading. “This is my world. And in my world, lame excuses get you nowhere.”

He reached into his pants pocket, and came up with an elastic harness of sorts attached to a small plastic housing. He put the cap back on, and fitted the harness over it.

“Ever seen one of these?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Called a GoPro camera,” Vargas said. “Amazing HD quality. Really shows everything like up close and personal.”

“I don't understand what you're doing. What you hope to—”

“Accomplish?” he said, and then chuckled. “Short term, this will keep the pressure up on good old Robin. Long term? That's a secret even I don't know.”

“What? You're not making—” she began.

But he cut her off again, said, “You talk too much.”

Vargas went to another pocket, came up with a small roll of duct tape. He came at her fast then, and slapped her face hard. She was so shocked by the blow, she didn't cry out before he stripped some tape, put it across her mouth, and then strapped it around the back of her head and across her mouth again snuggly.

Tears welled in her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.

Vargas went to his pockets a third time. When she saw what he held this time, Sister Rachel lost every bit of her dignity and began to scream.

 

23

RIO DE JANEIRO

TWELVE HOURS LATER …

THE STREETS BLARED WITH
the pounding of samba drums, the trilling of whistles, and the blaring of horns. Hoarse and lusty voices called to mostly naked dancers, who shimmied and shook for Monarch's attention as he wove through an increasingly drunken and musky crowd celebrating the Friday of Carnival, the first really big street party of the celebration. The thief ignored all of it.

If I do this right
, he told himself
, she survives. If I do this right, her work goes on.

Monarch had to have complete and utter faith in that assumption of hope. Without it, he might falter. Without it, she might die.

And that, he vowed, was not happening. Monarch steeled himself for that level of trial, and turned off the main drag away from the late-day parade, wearing loose black cotton pants, a matching tunic, and rock-climbing shoes. In the small waist pack he wore beneath the tunic, he could feel the subtle weight of the tools of his trade: thin gloves, black hood, pick set, and the like.

Heading into the blocks around the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and trying to fit in among the academics and students walking to and from the celebration, he slowed to a stroll past a four-story office building that had seen better days. If the security system were just as shabby, the next hour would go easy. Maybe he'd even find the answer inside.

The thief wove figure eights in the blocks around the shabby structure killing time until night had fallen and the air was filled with choirs of insects that joined with the distant samba bands to form a wall of discord behind him. When he passed the target for the fourth time, all lights in the building were off save a single bulb over the front stoop.

Monarch found the dark alley that ran behind the structure. He glanced about before slipping into the shadows, tugging out the black hood, and putting it on. The gloves came last.

The pick case was in his hands and unzipped by the time he reached the office building's rear door. Given the age and general appearance of the place, he was surprised to find that the doors were steel and the Baden Locks new.

Would there be an alarm?