Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (32 page)

            As soon as Tina reached
her page, she took time to see that her old friends, especially the friends she
went to the mall with, had become more and more concerned in their private
messages to her.

            Two of them took a
week-long road trip with one of the families. They wanted her to go with them.
One of them was visiting colleges with her mother. But they were all sick with
worry since they hadn’t heard from her. They knew her father filed MISSING PERSONS.

It’s not fair, she
thought, that I can’t talk to them. They didn’t do anything wrong except to
think Gopher was nice and maybe someone I should talk to. I’ll talk to Mrs.
Hightower and see if I can have my friends back.

            She scrolled through
things she had said before her abduction. Automatically, she started to respond
but stopped herself.

            Then, there it was, the
message from Gopher.

            “Baby Maria, prettiest
little girl I ever laid eyes on! Where have you been? My heart’s been breaking
for you. Can’t look at other girls. What means I sold you?”

            You’re such a liar,
Tina thought. Well, I’ve learned to lie, too.

            “Gopher, I’m sorry.
It’s just someone said that. I’m OK now. Of course it’s not true. Been back
with my dad for 5 or 6 weeks but he wouldn’t let me have a computer. Couldn’t
stay with your friends in Mexico. What a church! ;-) Party all night long!!!
How do they do that?  LOL! I’m not like that. Just been dying to see you again,
but Daddy says I’m too young.”

            Tina clicked ENTER.
That message was so far off the mark.

            Within minutes, Mrs.
Hightower called.

            “Hello, Tina! How are
you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been
brought back to life.”

“Good! You were a
sick little puppy! We picked up on your message to Gopher. I was going to get a
script to you, but you did better than we would.”

            “You really think so?
It was awful! You know it’s not true at all?”

            “Of course. The
important thing is, will Gopher know? We’ll watch for his response. If Ramon
got in touch with him, he’ll try to find you.”

“Not good.”

“Don’t worry. Gopher
can’t find you and I want you to try to stay in touch with him, but with a
script next time. I’m sending somebody to you. She’s about your size and she
has worked with me, off and on as my assistant, for the past couple of years. I
think she’ll be a good double for you. The two of you can work on the script
for now, and then she’ll take over your account.”

            “Why not you?”

            “I’m working on Miss
Shoe’s rescue. Someday, I want you to get the chance to see her again.”

            “You don’t have Miss Shoe
back yet? They’re awful! What Ramon might do, I don’t even want to think! You
have to find her! And get the other girls out.”

            “We are trying with
everything we’ve got. Your information is most helpful. They won’t like it, but
we’re going to get this job done. In the meantime, I’m sending Miss Sobori to
you with the beginning of a script.”

“Miss Sobori. She
knows about me?”

“Yes, and you can
trust her. She’s working hard for you. Furthermore, she resembles you, a pretty
good fit! A few pounds heavier, of course. I want you to help her with how she
does her hair, and to talk and dress like you. Basically, how to be you. Just
enough to fool someone at a distance. Gopher and Ramon won’t actually get close
to her. Our people will see to it.”

“OK. That should
be fun.”

“So, as soon as
you’re up to it, we’ll get started.”

“I’m ready now,”
Tina said. “Did you clear this with my dad?”

“Of course. He
gives his approval as long as you stay in cognito and safe. He wants these
people caught as much as you do. We just want to make sure we’re the ones who
get them before your father could.”

Tina laughed.

“I’m serious. Your
father’s pretty upset about what happened to you. Well, I have things I must
do. I’ll check with Miss Sobori and see how soon she can pay you a visit. I
think you’ll like her. Bye, Sweetie!”

“Wait! Don’t hang
up!” Tina said. “I have some friends who have been trying to reach me.”

“No, no, no. I’m
sorry. I know that’s hard but absolutely not. We can’t let anything slip right
now. Definitely not now, maybe never.”

“OK. I had to ask,”
Tina was intensely disappointed. “Can’t I even let them know I’m alive?”

“No. We’re giving
you a new chance at life. Maria died. She’s going to help us nail Gopher, and
then we’re going to let her rest in peace.”

            After she dressed for
the meeting with staff in the Operation Missing Shoe headquarters right there above
the museum, Abbi caught her reflection in the mirror.

“Miss Kowalski, you
look so old!” she said to her new persona.

The stress from
worry, restless sleep and bad dreams were making an old woman out of her. She
tried to add a little foundation to cover dark circles. Her already dark, thick
lashes looked good. Frankly, she was too tired to care. She had been thinking
about her father. What condition was he in? What happened to him? Why so much
secrecy? These questions added worry lines to her face. Worry lines. She was
too young for worry lines.

“Cosmetics won’t
make up for lack of sleep,” Mademoiselle Soufflé said. “But they’ll help. Let’s
clear up your eyes and make them pop with some liner and eye shadow. It’s good
that you look older, but not good to look so tired!” Louise was giving her
artistic hand to the eyes. “Now just a hint of blush. Sometimes less really is
more. Try that.”

A little lipstick helped
brighten her outlook as well as her face.

“Thanks,” Abbi
said. “That’s refreshing, more positive. But you, dahling, look absolutely
fantabulous! How DO you do it?”

Louise laughed, “I
told you, magazines. But sometimes I would go with my mom and we’d get
makeovers at the mall. That’s fun. We’ll do it sometime. OK?”

“OK. Oh, my wig!”
Abbi almost forgot and laughed as she adjusted it. She wasn’t used to being
this girly but she liked it.

Abbi and Louise
hadn’t been best friends for long because their differences used to get in the
way. Not so much anymore. Theirs had become a pleasingly complex relationship.

When she and Louise
were ready to leave the apartment, Abbi attempted to relax her body by
breathing in deeply, out slowly. As her stress lessened, Abbi turned to Louise,
gave her the warmest smile she could muster, and raised up her hand for the
secret fist bump they shared.

“Ever together,” Louise
whispered. “Fred’s Boots Incorporated to the rescue.”

Abbi smiled and
nodded.

“I like that,” she
said. “Hey, they’re changing the way they want to do the drop, and I want you
to know they may be leaving us out.”

“Abbi, that’s
fine. This is getting way too dangerous.”

“But I still want
to be part of it.”

“I know.”

The phone rang as
they were about to leave the room.

“It’s Big Sam,”
Abbi whispered. “I hope I didn’t upset him again.”

Louise shook her
head.

“I want you to
bring two things,” Big Sam said. “All the notes and materials you’ve gathered
and the listening devices. By the way, you’re going to be key in moving this
thing forward. Be prepared to speak.”

Abbi and Louise
were now dressed in business casual and carrying their briefcases. They left
their suite at four minutes before five. The hallway looked more familiar now
and they turned left toward Operation Missing Shoe headquarters for this
meeting that Abbi both anticipated with excitement and dreaded.

She pressed her
thumbprint onto a small box in the panel. That was another thing that made her
wonder. Why did they have her thumbprint?

After a brief hum,
the panel turned and exposed a door. Two knocks on the door brought Lowell into
sight at a two-way mirror.

            Gate Keeper asked their
identities.

            Still a little tense, Abbi
wanted to yell ‘Lowell, it’s us’ but instead, she played the game, a game that
involved very high stakes. Lowell was enjoying this way too much. She tried to
see the fun in it.

“Miss Kowalski and
Mademoiselle Soufflé as requested, sir. Looking for the missing shoe.”

            A beep sounded.

            “Follow me,” Gate
Keeper said. “Glad you arrived punctually. We’re about to start the meeting.”

            Abbi’s heart started
racing. She remembered to speak only when spoken to, not an easy task for her. Up
until recently, so many questions, so few answers. Now she had answers, key
answers, and she wanted this group to know. Aside from HT, these were the power
people.

            Everyone looked posed,
as if for a photo session. Chairs placed around the room were old, somewhat
mismatched. It was not unlike walking into an antique shop, the obligatory room
with the odd chairs. The assortment of people could have been a scene from Clue.

            A woman was saying, “This
place is totally unsuitable for a staff meeting. And parking is a bitch.”

            Someone asked, “Why
drive?”

            Abbi overheard the thin
man, always in a gray suit, say almost inaudibly, “There’s a reason we’re here.
Something about ‘too obvious to be obvious’.”

            A young man in a hoodie
and jeans said, “Is that possible?”

            The woman laughed at
him and said, “Think about it. A man wearing a hoodie? You look like you’re
about to rob a bank.”

            The guy with the hoodie
nodded and said, “I like to play around with my look. Besides, no one hassles
me on the metro when I look like this. Keeps everyone on their toes.”

            “And now you know why I
drive,” the woman said with a chuckle.

            For a moment Abbi was
struck by the fact that all the people who gathered were highly trained and
yet, underneath it all, they were still human and enjoyed joking around.

A desk in one
corner held a small laptop where the woman sat and rested her fingers on the
keyboard. She was obviously ready to begin.

            “Miss Kowalski and
Mademoiselle Soufflé have arrived,” Gate Keeper said and then went back into
the hallway.

 The tall slender
man seemed to be in charge. He stood up and nodded toward them.

“We’re a little
cramped in these accommodations. Everyone, try to find a seat. Let’s begin with
debriefing. We’ll catch you up to speed with the latest.”

Everyone got
seated.

He continued, “We
are in the midst of learning more about the far-reaching hand of the Central
American underworld. It has been creeping into our very cities and towns and
robbing us of our children. Our attempts to bring it under control have not met
with success. Somehow they learned about our sting operation as it was
unfolding, putting all of us in a risky situation.”

He turned to face
Abbi and Louise.

“This is where you
ladies come in with your technical skills. We have reason to believe that you have
managed to gather information, the kind of stuff that the rest of us had been
unable to obtain. For that I thank you.”

Abbi looked around
the room and wondered if the person who could not be trusted was in the room
now. There was a gaggle of negotiators she had seen before, Big Sam, Gate Keeper,
the woman in the corner, and the thin man, apparently known by others in the
room with no introduction needed. The man in the hoodie looked a lot like Shoe
Clerk. Was he? His hair was long and messy. Scott was waiting outside the door.
Miss Sobori and Mrs. Hightower, also key players, were not present.

“Miss Kowalski, I
turn the meeting over to you. We have a multimedia projector for you to use if
you choose to share some things with this group. I believe everyone here can be
trusted with this information. Whoever leaked information to NM2 is somewhere
beyond these walls. We are expecting a U. S. Attorney to arrive shortly who
will update us and assist with planning.”

Abbi swallowed
hard, taking this as her cue to catch the staff up on her recent discoveries
regarding her mother’s unpublished report on a group called NM (Nuestra Madre)
and its rebellious faction NM2. She had information that was sure to help in
identifying the names of her mother’s captors. There were layers of information
to divulge about NM2. Explaining it would be like trying to peel an onion, only
the stench inside was worse.

She stood up and
spoke.

“Thank you for
inviting me. I believe I speak for Mrs. Hightower. I’d like to catch everyone
up on what we know so far. The unsubmitted reports I was able to uncover reveal
that Miss Shoe may have been taken hostage because she had maneuvered into a
trusted position within an organization known for its human rights activities
in South America. Quite possibly, although she had gained their trust because
she respected some of what they did, they came to see Miss Shoe’s involvement
as a potential threat that would result in their undoing. The group she
infiltrated was Nuestra Madre. Some of you may know it as ‘Our Mother’ or NM. But
she was subsequently pulled off that operation.”

“It might help if
you shed light on why she was pulled off,” Big Sam said, interrupting Abbi. “Before
she answers that, let’s get audio and video equipment in place. You’ll want to
record this. This may be old news to the negotiators who have been staying on
top of this but it bears repeating to get everyone up to speed.”

Cameras and audio
equipment were set up so that the group could replay the interview over and
over.

“Please state your
name and start again.”