Текст книги "Red Jungle"

Автор книги: Kent Harrington

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

TWENTY

She can’t stay here,” Mahler said. “It’s too dangerous. They’ll kill us all.” “She can go out with us to the bush,” Russell said. He put down his pack.

“I won’t take her,” Mahler said.

“Yes you will,” he said. “You’ll take me, and you’ll take her too.” Mahler looked at him.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll go without you,” Russell said. He picked up his pack and walked down the hallway. He was exhausted from the drive from the capital. “I know where to look now. I don’t need you. Remember, I own the place.”

“You’ll never find it without me,” Mahler said. The look on the German’s face changed. He’d been sitting in the kitchen, and he stood up. His hair was loose at his shoulders. He’d taken his shirt off. It was hot in the room. Mahler wore just jeans, without shoes. “Don’t be a fool. They’ll kill us too. Send her away. . . . I’m close now. Since you left, I found something.”

Russell could hear the fans in the room turning, feel the warm air hit his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” he said.

“I wanted to surprise you. I tell you, we’re close. And it may be a very big find. . . . A city, maybe,” Mahler said.

“What?”

“An entire Mayan city,” Mahler said. He walked out into the living room. “Do you know what that means? You’ll be richer than you can possibly imagine. It’s all there, gold, silver, jewels. You see, I think Bakta Halik was just the outskirts. I think this site is big. Like Tikal. The jungle swallowed it all. But it’s there,” Mahler said. “And we own it.”

“I don’t care. She’s still coming with us,” Russell said.

“They’ll kill us all. You know what they’re like. It won’t matter. They’ll follow us out there.” Mahler put his hand on his naked white chest.

“Maybe,” Russell said. “But she can’t stay here, can she?” They saw headlights in the driveway. “That’s her.” He walked towards the door.

“You’re a stupid fool,” Mahler said before he got to the door. “Typical American.”

Russell let the remark go and walked out into the night. He saw Katherine’s white UN jeep pull up next to his car and park. The night was warm and humid. Her headlights went out as he descended the stairs. The white volcanic sand driveway was still visible in the weak, bug-infested porch lights.

“Okay, I’m here,” she said, hugging him as she got out of her jeep.

“We have to talk,” he said. “Come inside.” He turned and saw a second set of headlights, yellowish and bright, on the road coming toward the house.

She was still holding him. He moved towards his own jeep and opened the driver-side door. He groped for his shotgun.

The vehicle came up the road and stopped just below them. A Ford Explorer, dark colored; two men got out of the front. A third man emerged from the open sunroof. The sunroof man pointed some kind of weapon at them. Russell couldn’t tell what it was.

The two men came towards them, wool balaclavas pulled over their faces. One of the men was holding a Steyr machine pistol. Russell could see it clearly in the light from the house. He glanced back towards the porch and saw the living room lights go out. The awful fear he’d had for months, the fear of being helpless, was suddenly playing itself out.

The smaller of the two men stopped in front of Russell and told him to put his shotgun back in the jeep. The man with the Steyr grabbed for Katherine as Russell tossed his shotgun into the still-open door of his jeep.

“Russell?” Katherine’s voice, terrified, called him. The short man, without a weapon, took her by the hand and started to lead her towards the Ford’s open passenger door.

“I know General Selva,” Russell said in Spanish. “I can call him now.” He didn’t know what else to say or do. The man who had the Steyr trained on him was going to shoot him, he realized. What Russell had said stopped him. “He won’t like this.”

The man with the gun looked back at his shorter companion, who continued to lead Katherine away.

“Now what?” the man with the Steyr said in Spanish.

“I’m an employee of the UN. And I’m an American citizen,” Katherine said angrily.

“Let me call him,” Russell said. The tone of his own voice scared him. He saw Katherine looking at him in fear. He saw the short man hesitate, then stop. The man who had them covered with some kind of automatic weapon from the Ford’s sunroof didn’t move. Russell took his cell phone out of his pants pocket and dialed the general’s home number. A maid answered, and he asked for the general.

“Yes.” Carlos’s voice finally came on the line.

“It’s me, Russell. They have my friend… Will you talk to them? For God’s sake.” There was a pause.

“All right,” Carlos said. Russell looked towards the man holding Katherine’s arm.

“General Selva wants to talk to you.”

The man with the Steyer turned around. He called to the man standing in the sunroof and told him to get out of the car. The sunroof man climbed out onto the driveway. Russell could clearly see an AK-47 in his hand. The sunroof-man walked over to where Katherine stood and took her by the hand.

“What’s this about, Russell?” Katherine said. He wanted to run to her side and beg the men not to hurt her, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“I don’t know,” he lied.

The short, unarmed man walked towards him and took his cell phone.

“Digame.” The short man—obviously the leader—said into the phone. Russell caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were not cold, but they were menacing. He listened for a moment. “Sí. Eso, sí,” the short man said. “Pero ella, no. Ya está echo.”

The man tossed the phone back to Russell. Unable to grab it fast enough, it bounced off his chest and it fell onto the ground. He picked it up.

“She’s going with them,” Carlos said. “I told them you were a member of my family and, if he did anything to you, I’d find him and have him killed. That’s all I could do. I can’t do anything for her. She’s already dead. But if you do anything to try and stop them, they will kill you, too. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Russell said.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos said and he hung up.

When he looked up, Katherine was already inside the Ford, which was slowly turning around. Its headlights painted the porch. Russell dropped the cell phone on the ground and walked back towards his jeep. He threw open the driver’s side door and lifted out his shotgun. The Ford continued slowly down the road towards the gate.

As he was coming down the road—staying far to the right, hoping to stay out of the driver’s line of sight—he saw, with disbelief, Mahler step out into the middle of the road just down from the house. Mahler waved the Ford down. It stopped in front of him. He could see Mahler smiling at the driver, his shirtless body in the headlights.

“Hola, amigos!” Mahler said. He raised his hands—palms out —high above his head. Mahler walked towards the driver’s side window, hands in the air. “I’m sorry I had the gate closed. I’ll have it opened immediately,” Mahler told the driver. He continued to walk towards the Ford’s driver, still smiling, both his hands held high in the air. Mahler finally stopped at the driver’s window. He started to lower his hands, making sure he kept his palms out.

Russell—as he walked quickly—wondered if the men in the Ford could see him. He unslung his shotgun and approached the rear of the car.

Mahler, leaning in towards the driver, put one hand on the driver’s side door. Russell saw Mahler’s other hand move quickly behind him as he spoke to the driver. Suddenly he saw Mahler fire his weapon, point blank, into the car. Russell heard the first shot, then a second. The gunman, sitting again on the sunroof, tried to fire back at Mahler, but was hit in the legs, which were dangling inside the car. Russell, running now, opened fire on the sun-roof man, hitting him in the back with a blast from his shotgun and knocking him forward. There was more firing as Mahler, yelling in German, ran along the side of the now slowly rolling Ford. Russell could see Mahler’s right arm thrust inside the Ford’s cab, firing his pistol.

Russell jogged down the dark road, his shotgun raised, but unable to fire indiscriminately into the Ford. He watched Mahler—everything quiet now—jump on the Ford’s running board and grab the steering wheel. All Russell could hear was the sound of the Ford’s tires on the sandy road. Russell saw the sunroof man he’d shot lying across the roof of the Ford. He jogged behind the car, staying to the left. He watched Mahler struggle with the steering wheel as the Ford started to pick up speed, heading down the hill towards the gate.

“Get in!” Russell yelled. He was running, catching up. Mahler, riding the running board, turned to look at him. He still had his automatic in his hand. Mahler dropped it and climbed into the Ford, first pulling open the door and yanking the dead driver out of the cab. Russell had to jump over the driver’s body as he gained on the car.

Mahler, behind the wheel now, began to slow the car, then stopped it abruptly. Russell ran to the driver’s side window and looked in past Mahler. Katherine was sitting in the passenger seat, her face blood-splattered. He could see the dangling legs of the sunroof man. Russell looked into the back seat, where another body was lying, the dead man’s balaclava shot up, the backseat cushions bullet-smacked and torn. Mahler pulled the Ford’s emergency brake on.

“I thought you were in here,” Mahler said. “I thought they were taking you. I couldn’t have that. Not now.” Mahler looked up at him. He was smiling. It was the smile of a crazy man.

Russell turned and watched Katherine climb out of the car. The sunroof man’s foot hit her shoulder. He ran around the front of the Ford to help her. She was wiping her face with the back of her hand; she hadn’t said a word. She put her arms around him.

“What do we do now?” Mahler said from the car.

“I don’t know. I’m taking her up to the house.”

“We can’t just leave them here,” Mahler said. “What if their friends come looking for them?”

“I don’t know,” Russell said. He slung his shotgun over his shoulder and walked Katherine back up the road in the dark.

There was the sound of howler monkeys high in the canopy above their camp site. Mahler threw cold coffee on the fire, and it began to smoke. They sat in a jungle clearing, the air above them hazy, tinted blue by the smoke and the humidity.

Russell looked at Katherine. She had spoken very little since the death squad had come for her the night before. Mahler looked at her, and then smiled. The automatic he’d used the night before was stuck in the front of his jeans.

They’d taken the weapons from the dead men before they’d driven them and the Ford to the outskirts of Colomba and left them. They were better armed now. They’d found an M16 with a grenade launcher and several grenades, as well as the Steyr and the Kalashnikov with a hundred-round drum.

Russell looked up into the canopy, but there was no sky. And there was no sound now from the river, either. They knew what time of day it was only from the half-light that penetrated the greenish-blue canopy. He looked at his watch; it was six in the morning, and it was warm already. He pulled off his filthy T-shirt

“I would go back through Belize. That’s the way I’d do it. Rio Dulce, and then cross over to Belize. Then it’s easy. It’s lightly manned, that crossing,” Mahler told her. “You’ll be okay.”

“The airport is out of the question now. Maybe he’s right,” Russell said.

“If I leave, they win,” Katherine said. It was the first thing she’d said since they’d woken up and fixed breakfast. Mahler had been going on about the reach of the death squads and how they worked. He didn’t seem to care that he was scaring her. Katherine had just stared at him. She was grateful, Russell imagined, because Mahler had saved her life, but she was obviously horrified by Mahler’s insensitivity.

“Thank you for what you did. . . .” she said. She put her cup down on the ground. They’d brought cold coffee in a Thermos.

“I didn’t do it for you. I didn’t even know you were in the car. I thought it was Russell. I thought they’d come for him.” She nodded. “I couldn’t afford to see my partner leaving with a death squad just now,” Mahler said, cigarette smoke pouring out of his nose. “It wasn’t convenient.”

Russell stood up and walked to where they’d hobbled the horses. A jaguar had attacked one of the horses during the night, and its leg was scratched up. Five red claw marks ran along its rear flank. The red stood out in the early morning light. Russell had woken up and heard the commotion. By the time he and Mahler had lit a flashlight—Mahler firing his pistol in the air—the jaguar had gone, looking back at them once. It had been a very big male.

Everything on the ground smelled of rot. They were leading their horses back down the path that had been cut through the jungle down to the river. Russell could hear the river first; then suddenly the ground went soggy, and he was staring out at it through the tunnel they’d cut that first day.

Katherine was behind him and Mahler behind her, with the injured horse. They had left for the jungle late the evening before, deciding that the safest place was here in the bush. There would be hell to pay for killing those men, Russell thought, watching his horse drop its head and drink from the pewter-colored river. He swung up on the horse and rode out into the river. He saw the banks of the other side, bright green and higher, and overhead a strip of sky, soft-looking, marred by clouds. He felt safe here. Even if they came looking for them, it would be almost impossible to spot the hole they cut

in the bank that led back to their camp, he thought.

He made way for Katherine’s horse. She glanced at him.

“You can’t stay in Guatemala now,” he said almost automatically. “It’s suicide. They were going to murder you.”

“I didn’t know you were so chummy with her husband. What about you? Do you think Carlos isn’t going to find out about you and his wife?”

“That’s got nothing to do with this. You have to leave,” he said.

“How about I leave, if you do?” she said.

“Jesus Christ.”

“I’ll leave, if you come with me. You can’t stay with him.” She nodded toward Mahler. “He’s obviously crazy.”

Mahler came down the path with the injured horse. He was good with horses. The German seemed to have a special sympathy for them. They made way again; Mahler waded out into the river and bathed the horse’s injuries, then took out a topical antibiotic and spread it carefully over the horse’s deep scratches. The animal, sensing it was being helped, was still.

“Well, aren’t you going to ask what the hell we’re doing out here?” Mahler said. He stood up, capped the ointment, and shoved it into his army pants.

“It’s none of my business,” Katherine said defensively. “But I suppose it has something to do with antiquities. Bakta Halik is only over those mountains,” she said, “and I met you at Carl Van Diemen’s house. It’s not difficult to put it together.” Her horse brought its head up, its withers shaking. The sky– the bit they could see above the river—was already starting to cloud up.

Mahler looked at her and made a Jack Nicholson ain’t-thisall-grand face, and then looked at Russell.

“I don’t really give a damn. I mean, about whatever it is you’re doing out here,” she said quickly. “Stealing from the country, I suppose.” She shot a glance at Russell.

“Oh!!!! You see, Russell. . . . We’re stealing from the country!” Mahler’s voice boomed across the river and echoed back. STEALING FROM… STEALING FROM… STEALING. “Do you really think anyone in this rotten country gives one shit about what we might find? Do you think they would have found Tikal? Or any of it! They’re always too busy killing each other, or didn’t you notice last night?

“If it wasn’t for me, everything at Bakta Halik would have been carted away by the military and sold off. Everything! Who do you think went to the world press and stopped it? Huh?” Mahler yanked the injured horse around, its hooves clomping on the rocks. He came back out of the river, leading the horse, and faced her. “Let me tell you something. You’ve been here how long, a few months? Maybe a year? You don’t know anything about this country. Nothing,” he said angrily.

When it began to rain in the afternoon, they got only drips at first, then a kind of filtered dew-like rain, very soft, that clung to their skin and clothes. The floor of the jungle where they worked became a kind of insect-infested steam room, where even breathing was difficult. Russell looked back to where they’d brought the horses, far below him. They had climbed a hill where Mahler said he’d found something. There was a wall of green in front of them. The hill seemed especially overgrown. Mahler had said it might be something. So they’d begun, after a breakfast of cold tortillas and farmer’s cheese, to hack into the hillside.

Because of the heat, the three of them were working without their shirts on. Stripped to the waist, the sweat pouring off them, they hacked away. When it happened, they all heard it. Russell’s machete struck something. They heard the hard sound of steel on stone.

The machete handle vibrated in his hand. He pulled the blade back and saw where it had been bent. He thrust his hand into the wall of vines, and felt the damp stone.

“I found something,” was all Russell said. Mahler scrambled towards him, his long hair undone and wild.

“What did I tell you!” Mahler said, reaching into the hole with him.

TWENTY-ONE

A huge, blood-red neon Coca-Cola ball revolved perpetually above Guatemala City’s main traffic roundabout, where Avenida Revolución turned into Avenida De Las Americas. Russell had promised De La Madrid he would be at an important meeting at Madrid’s house at midnight. They had an announcement for the world press in the morning. It was going to be a real shocker, one that would either win the election for Madrid or send him into political oblivion. And it had been all Russell’s idea. They would propose pegging the quetzal to the dollar, to stop the hyperinflation that was destroying the country.

Russell pulled his car around the statue of Pedro de Alvarado, the infamous and brutal Spanish conquistador who’d been with Cortez. He drove into a tony neighborhood of high-rise luxury apartment buildings belonging to the rich, not too different from neighborhoods in Sao Paolo or San Francisco. At this time of night, the empty boulevard was impressive and cold looking, the high-rise buildings looking down on the world they commanded.

He pulled down a driveway and was stopped by a tall metal gate. He spoke into an intercom. Two men with shotguns stood in the shadows by the gate, making sure no one rushed the steel portal.

“It’s me; it’s Russell,” he said into the speaker in English.

“Okay.” He heard Carl’s voice. In a moment the gate swung open; he drove down a steep driveway to the parking garage and parked. The garage was full of expensive, late model cars, even a brand new yellow Ferrari. The building, with its posh condominiums, was home to several big-time drug dealers and bankers. They lived in the same apartment buildings, Russell had heard from his boss, so that it would be easier to launder all the millions of dollars a week the drug business was bringing into the country. Guatemala had become one of the most important linchpins in the international cocaine trade.

He stepped into the elevator. The Muzak played Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls.” He hit 12. As the door closed, he noticed two men in dark suits leaning against a wall of the parking garage, one of them with an Uzi in his right hand.

Carl’s maid opened the door. The Dutchman kept the apartment in the capital when he didn’t feel like driving down to his palace in Antigua. Russell followed a tiny Indian woman in a spotless black-and-white uniform into the all-white living room, with its view of the city. Carl and his lover were sitting around a white onyx coffee table, drinking wine out of long-stemmed French crystal glasses and watching “TRL” on MTV.

“Is Katherine ready? Her plane leaves in an hour,” Russell said.

“She’s getting dressed,” Carl said, lowering the sound on the TV. The jaguar scratches on Van Diemen’s face were red, and would leave an ugly scar. They’d gotten infected, and part of his right cheek had been cut away. There was a plan to rebuild his missing right cheek. In the meantime, Carl looked a little monstrous. Russell tried not to stare as he sat down across from him.

“I’m going to Europe again for my surgery,” Carl said. He looked over at his boyfriend. The kid looked sad, like a little boy whose mother was going to leave him.

“Good,” Russell said. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t really give a shit about Carl’s face. “Thanks for looking after my friend.”

“Of course. They say these claw marks are nothing. The surgery will fix my face,” Carl said, holding his wine glass. It looked like the son of a bitch had lost half his face, Russell thought. The jaguar had gotten him good.

“Of course, they’re nothing, dear,” the kid said. Carl had been keeping his right hand near his missing cheek; he dropped it to pat his boyfriend on his bare leg. The boyfriend was wearing pedal pushers and a tank top.

“I want to thank you for what you did for Carl out there,” the kid said to Russell.

“No sweat,” Russell said, trying not to stare. “Listen . . . can we talk?”

“Of course,” Carl said.

“We want to cut you in for a third. We found something. It might be really big,” Russell said. He stopped himself for a moment and looked at Carl’s boyfriend, then back at Carl. “Maybe a whole fucking Mayan city.” Carl leaned forward.

“What?”

“A city, a whole Mayan city,” Russell said. “On my property.”

“You’re joking,” Carl said.

“No. And we need money. I don’t have any. I’ve quit my job. We’ll sell you a third of the deal for a hundred thousand dollars cash. That’s what we figure we need just to keep going. We need cash. I have to pay off the Frenchman. And then we’ll need to hire a small army to guard the site. If the word gets out before we’ve had a chance to look into the temple we found . . . well, you know. The site will be stripped clean in a few days.”

Carl—obviously in shock—leaned forward so that he had one hand on the huge white onyx table in front of him. He was so excited it looked like he was going to get up and do a

fifty yard dash.

“Can I have a drink?” Russell asked.

“Of course,” Carl said. He was still staring at Russell. “You know what it could be worth. . . . If it’s true,” Carl said.

“A fuck of a lot, I guess,” Russell said. “We’ll be like fucking Cortez.”

“Even if we only took out the best. We’ll all make a fortune. No . . . more,” the Dutchman said. His eyes were animated. He’d forgotten all about his mangled face.

“Yeah, that’s what we think,” Russell said. “So are you in?” Van Diemen nodded his head quickly.

“Poppy, does that mean we’re going to be rich?” the kid asked. Russell turned to the kid.

“Keep your mouth shut about this, or. . . .” Russell glared at the kid. He wasn’t feeling right in the head. Maybe it was the days they’d spent in the jungle being bitten by everything there was to bite a man, or the heat as they worked cleaning off the first temple, or the excitement, or whatever. But he was feeling strangely angry since the gunfight. It was too much, he supposed, too much to try to pull down from the shelf, a whole fucking Mayan city. But he was game. He knew that with that kind of money, he could convince Beatrice to leave her husband. He would be rich, and he would simply take her and her kids and disappear into some apartment like this one, somewhere in the world. He’d steal the throne from under the Pope’s ass to have Beatrice.

The kid glanced at him, terrified.

“Poppy, he’s scaring me,” the kid said, huddling against Carl, his brown face pressed with fear.

“That’s okay. . . .” Carl put his arm on his boyfriend’s shoulders. “Pablo isn’t going to say anything, don’t worry.”

“Good. Because if anyone fucks with us, I’ll kill them.” He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. But he meant it. He was sure of that. He wanted Beatrice, and getting her wasn’t going to be easy.

“Dios mío,” the kid said, shutting his eyes. He spilt some wine on his pedal pushers.

“No one is going to talk, Russell. You have my word,” Carl said again.

“I’ll need a hundred thousand dollars by tomorrow for the Frenchman. I want to pay him off. Get that over with. That way, I own the place outright. No question then.”

“How can Mahler and I be sure you won’t . . . how did you put it? Fuck us,” Carl said, smiling.

“Yes …Yes! How can Poppy be sure you won’t fuck us?” the kid said, looking at him sideways now.

“You can’t be. Can you have the maid get Katherine, please? I have to take her to the airport. And thanks for letting her stay here. I appreciate it. I won’t forget it,” Russell said. “I mean that.”

“You look tired,” Carl said, ringing a bell for the maid.

“Yeah, well. We’ve been busy.” He took out his cell phone and dialed the general.

“I think you should take a rest, a few days off,” Carl said. “You look exhausted.”

“We’ll all get plenty of rest when we’re dead,” Russell said, listening to the general’s phone ring.

Katherine came down the hall as he closed his telephone. She was dressed in clean jeans and a black mid-length coat. Her hair was pulled back. She crossed the room and gave him a kiss, and he kissed her back on the lips. He’d made love to her out there in the jungle, and he’d lied to her, and it was all designed to make her believe in him so he could get her on a plane and out of the country. He didn’t feel bad about it. Maybe, he thought, as he held her, it was all the lying he was doing that was making him strange in the head.

“Are you ready?” he said.

“Yes. Let me get my suitcase. Are you bringing much?” she asked. “My sister is picking us up at the airport, but she only has a VW.”

“No. Not much,” he said. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Selva had sent him a big chase car, an American Suburban filled with his bodyguards. That was part of the deal. The Chevy Suburban was following him to the airport to make sure nothing happened. It was a short drive from Carl’s apartment.

He listened to Katherine make plans for their future. She said they would stay with her sister in New York until the paper reassigned him. Then they would see. She might quit her job, she said. She reached over and held his hand as they drove. He wanted to tell her then. But it felt mean, putting her straight about the way things really were, so he didn’t.

“What about the car? Your car?” she asked.

“I’m leaving it there at the airport,” he said. She nodded. “I checked my stuff in early,” he said. “That way we could get two seats together.” More lies.

He’d lied when he told her he had no intention of going on with Mahler. He’d told her the night they made love out there that he was going to give the plantation to the government and leave. Get away from it all. That it was all crazy. How could anyone try to hold onto a Mayan city, he’d said, holding her naked in the heat of the jungle night. The fire burned high to keep the mosquitoes away, the light falling on Mahler’s head as he slept across from them. It had all been a lie– everything he’d told her. He was going to try to hold onto a whole fucking Mayan city. Why not? Hold on long enough, anyway, to get what he wanted out of it.

Once he had her in the airport, it would be over. He’d gotten Selva to mark Katherine as persona non grata; if she tried to come back, she wouldn’t get past customs. She would never see the country again. It was a mean thing to do, he knew, but he’d felt he had to do it for her own good. Carlos had promised him she would be safe at the airport.

“I’m so glad you love me,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve been in love before. Not like this, anyway.”

He couldn’t look at her. Instead he looked into the rearview mirror and saw Selva’s chase car following close behind them.

•••

He wondered, as they made their way across the black tile concourse at Aurora airport, if he didn’t love her more than he thought. It wasn’t like Beatrice. He knew that; what he felt for Katherine was different. He cared about what happened to Katherine, about the men she would have in her life back there in the States. About who she would become, about another country she might go to, and his not being there to protect her. For a moment, as they approached the ticket counter at American Airlines, he wondered what his life would be like if he left right now with her.

But the craziness inside of him wouldn’t let him do that. He might love Katherine, but he wanted to possess Beatrice. He wanted to prove to Beatrice he was just as good a man as Carlos. He realized that part of his love for Beatrice was tied up in stealing her from the General.

Aurora airport was surprisingly busy. The red-eye flights for the States were leaving soon. An American, a United, and a Taca flight left for the States almost simultaneously every night. They’d bought her a ticket for Miami. The general’s brother-in-law ran Taca Airlines, so it was all set.

Russell saw the Taca ticket counter on his right. He glanced behind him. Two of the men from Selva’s chase car had followed them into the airport, and were behind them.

He put her suitcase down. Katherine stopped and looked at him. He knew she was expecting them to go to the American Airlines counter, because that was the only flight to New York.

“Look . . . I’m sorry, Katherine. You’re going to Miami. After that, you can go wherever you want,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” She reached for his hand. He pulled his away. One of Selva’s bodyguards went on to the Taca counter and picked up the ticket that was waiting for her.

“You have to leave. I can’t go with you,” he said. He couldn’t look her in the face. A customs official came up to them and asked for Katherine’s passport.

“I don’t understand, Russell. You said you loved me.” She sounded like a little girl.

“I do.” And he realized he really meant it.

“What’s this mean?”

“Señora, pasaporte,” the man said. The other bodyguard stood beside her now.