Blood of My Brother (28 page)

There was another contract in the
Banque de Geneve
folder, an original that Jay had pulled out and put in his knapsack. Now, hearing the cottage’s back door open, he turned and saw Isabel coming out, carrying a tray of buttered bread and another pot of coffee.

“
Buenos días,
” she said, as she set the tray on the wall.

“
Buenos días.
You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, the Valium worked. And you?”

“Yes, I was up early, but I slept.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“An hour or so.”

“Reading?”

“Yes.”

“Will Rafael go to jail?”

“Yes. And Herman and Lazaro.”

Isabel looked down at the sea, shimmering in the morning sunlight, then across at Jay.

“I am sorry about last night,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“It is an awful thing to know.”

She poured coffee for both of them, but they did not pick up their cups. They were sitting on the stone wall, the breakfast tray between them. Jay reached across and took her hand.

“What is the name ‘Jay’?” Isabel asked. “Is that your proper name?”

“Do you know the story of the golden fleece?”

“Yes.”

“My mother foresaw great things for me.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Many times.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes, I miss her, and my father. They spoiled me.” But expected me to grow into a man, thought Jay. It’s a good thing they’re not around to see what I’ve made of my life.

“You deserve to be spoiled.”

Jay said nothing.

“I don’t want to call Herman,” Isabel said.

“You gave me your word.”

“We can leave together, drive into Guatemala, or fly someplace safe. I have lost my desire for revenge.”

“I haven’t.”

“If I call,” Isabel said, “I will stay with you. You cannot force me to leave.”

Jay reflected on this. The logistics of killing the Feria brothers were not complicated. He had Frank Dunn’s service revolver, the one he had practiced with on Big Pine Key. The road up the hill was visible for its entire length from the veranda. The cottage was inaccessible from behind, where a thick, rock-strewn forest covered the mountain as it ascended in abrupt stages another two hundred feet or so to its crest. He would watch them approach, then step behind the cottage. When they emerged from their car, he would step out and shoot them both. If something went wrong—and he did not doubt that it could—he would try to kill himself before the Ferias could torture him as they had Danny. There were forty ten-milligram tablets of Valium left. He could keep half with him, and Isabel half with her. There were worse ways to die.

“If you stay,” he said, “one of us would have to keep watch at all times.”

“Yes.”

“I have Sam’s amphetamines to keep us up, if necessary.”

“Let’s go make the call, then I would like to swim before we settle to our watch.”

“Chris, Phil Gatti.”

“Phil. Talk to me.”

“My guys missed their call in.”

“By how much?”

“They’re twenty-four hours overdue.”

Markey looked at his watch. It was noon on Friday.

“Where were they?”

“Zipolite.”

“Where the hell is that?”

“It’s a little town on the coast. Hippies and surfers live there on the beach. It’s a shit hole.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Puerto Escondido, about fifty miles away. I thought I’d better get there.”

“To do what?”

“The Ferias stopped in two houses owned by the Dominican Sisters. Maybe they’ve got a place around Zipolite, or the next town, Puerto Angel. I’ll ask around.”

“You’re on your own, Phil.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“I’m worried about your people. If they’re dead, I may
have to do something about our friends personally. I’ve had enough.”

“If I find the Ferias, Chris, I’m taking them out.”

“Like I said, you’re on your own. Do whatever you have to do.”

Markey was at his desk in downtown Miami. He hung up and swiveled his chair around to look out the window behind him, where he had a view, across Biscayne Bay, to South Beach, the flanks of its row of high-rise hotels glowing a golden yellow in the late afternoon sun. The US Attorney had agreed to impanel a grand jury, and would start taking testimony in a few days. The Pernas and Gary Shaw would be the first witnesses, but unless they folded, or turned on one another, both of which were highly improbable, not much would result from it except to set them all up for later perjury charges, assuming the phone taps—in place the last two days—yielded a smoking gun or two. So far they had yielded nothing. He had come very close to arresting both Isabel Perez and the Feria brothers, but they had slipped away, and it was looking more and more like a year’s work had come to naught.

The FBI agent swung back to face his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Ted Stevens’s extension, to ask him to get Lazaro Santaria’s official schedule and itinerary for the next two weeks. Then he put a call in to Don Sullivan, a friend from his CIA days, now working as a consultant to the Colombian military. Markey, divorced for fifteen years, had spent many Christmases alone since his daughter died; this one would be no different, except that, if things worked out the way he planned, it would probably be his last as an employee of the United States government.

49
.

Instead of going to the beach to swim, Jay and Isabel took a path that led from the back of the cottage, winding and ascending for about a half mile through broad-leafed tropical thorn trees, to a place where the Arroyo River was naturally dammed. There, a small waterfall splashed into a calm, clear pool that shone brightly in the midday sun—a lovely, quiet spot that remained, Isabel said, upon reaching it, much the same as it was when she last saw it as a girl. They splashed and swam for a few minutes, and then sat on a flat rock at the pool’s edge in the sun. Jay had on his khaki shorts and Isabel a T-shirt over her underwear.

“Are you afraid?” Jay asked.

“Yes. I could hear Herman’s mind spinning as we talked.”

“He will fear a trap.”

“Yes. But there is no doubt he will send the Ferias.”

Jay had been afraid that Herman would send someone else to deal with Isabel, or ignore her, but Isabel had reassured him. As planned, she had asked Herman for his forgiveness, and his help. Most important, she had told him about Bryce Powers’s papers. Isabel knew Herman. He looked for simple solutions first. Killing Isabel and retrieving the papers was the perfect assignment for his panthers,
involving, as it did, stealth, bloodshed, the possibility of torture, and a triumphant return to their master.

“It would be nice if he came, too.”

“That will never happen.”

“I still think you should leave,” said Jay. “You can take the bus to Puerto Escondido, or Hector can drive you in the restaurant’s truck.”

“No. I have lived in fear all of my life. It must stop. We will take our pills if we have to. I will meet you in heaven.”

The pool was about forty feet at its widest, enough for Jay, a swimmer all of his life, to do rhythmic laps of some ten strokes each. He swam for fifteen minutes, while Isabel watched. Afterward, drying off with the towel they brought, he was tired, but happy to know that he had regained much if not all of his strength.

“Jay,” said Isabel.

“Yes?”

“Let me help you.”

Taking one end of the towel, she began to dry his chest and stomach, then, wrapping it around his neck, she drew him to her. They kissed, both still wet, the sun caressing them as they caressed each other. Shocked by his need for her and by the sudden rock-hardness of his erection, Jay tore off his shorts, threw the towel down, and lay on it on his back, oblivious of the smooth, hard stone beneath him. Isabel quickly stripped and then straddled him. They were looking into each other’s eyes when they came. Afterward, they stayed locked together for a few moments, chest to chest, the spray from the waterfall reaching them, cooling their sticky bodies.

“I was pregnant by Bryce,” Isabel said, keeping her face in Jay’s neck, speaking softly into his ear. “I had an abortion in Miami. I wish you had not been fixed. Your child, I would have kept.”

At the cottage, Jay showered and packed. All of his things—a few shirts, an extra pair of shorts, his shave kit—fit into his knapsack along with Bryce Powers’s satchel full of folders and tapes. Afterward, he checked the action of Dunn’s gun and put it into the cargo pocket of his shorts. To get to Puerto Angel, the Ferias would have to take a two-hour flight from Mexico City to Puerto Escondido, then drive fifty miles along the coast. After calling Herman at nine, Isabel had called the airport in Puerto Escondido and was told that the earliest flight arrived daily from Mexico City at four. It was now noon. The earliest the brothers could be expected to appear would be around six.

While Isabel showered, Jay sat with a Modelo under the awning and stared down at the village, whose multicolored buildings—most of them shacks—looked deceptively pleasant from three hundred feet up, especially with the shimmering blue-green bay as a backdrop. Some of the town’s structures, like the cottage, and the Vista del Mar below it, were tacked onto the side of the hill that ascended from the unpaved and muddy main street, and that formed a natural amphitheater around the bay. Several dirt roads intersected with the main street and ascended the hill. The first of these led up to the restaurant and ended at the cottage. Jay had an unobstructed view of this intersection. Any vehicles—or pedestrians—who turned upward from it would be clearly visible. Isabel appeared with a beer and sat across from Jay under the awning, out of the unforgiving tropical heat.

Below they could see Hector walking slowly up the dirt road toward the cottage, carrying their lunch in two white paper bags. Isabel had told Jay that when she saw Hector
earlier, she mentioned that she and Jay might have to leave soon, and quickly. She also said that she would pick up their lunch, but that Hector had insisted on bringing it. When he reached the cottage, he knocked, as was his custom, on the side wall, before turning the corner of the small building and entering the veranda.

“Isabel.”

“Hector.”

“Senor.”

“Hector.”

“All is well?”

“Yes, Hector, my friend,” said Isabel. “Thank you.”

Jay got up and went into the house, where he retrieved an envelope with a thousand pesos in it, money he had put aside for Hector. When he returned, Hector, who had put the food and beer on the table, was standing, talking to Isabel, an ancient pride in his bearing, and in his chiseled, weathered face, despite his dusty work clothes and makeshift, peasant’s sandals.

“Please take this,” Jay said, handing the envelope to Hector. “We are grateful to you for climbing the hill so many times.”

“No, senor,” said Hector, “it is my pleasure to assist Isabel and her friend.”

“Please, Hector,” said Isabel, “we would like you to buy something for Luisa and the girls. Please.”

Hector took the envelope, nodding, then resuming his erect stance before them.

“Hector was telling me that there is a roadblock,” Isabel said to Jay. “At Pochutla.”

“Did you come through it?” Jay asked.

“No, senor. Miss Clara told me. She went early to Puerto Escondido. When she returned, it was there.”

Miss Clara was Clara Cardenas, the owner of the Vista del Mar.

“Did she say which police?”

“Who are they looking for?”

“I do not know, senor.”

“Have you seen this before?”

“This is the first I have heard of.”

“Is it the only way out of here?”

“Yes, senor.”

Jay looked at Isabel, then back at Hector, standing, motionless, in the shade of the awning, his coal black eyes indecipherable.

“Is there a way around the roadblock?” Jay asked.

“Not from the town, senor, but from here, yes, there is.”

“Here?”

“Yes, senor. If you start to go to the waterfall, you will see the old riverbed going to the right. It is rocky, but your jeep will drive on that.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Isabel. “We used it to get through the woods to your house.”

“Yes,” said Hector, smiling. “My children use it now to go to the waterfall.”

“Where does it come out?” Jay asked.

“On the highway, two or three kilometers to the east of the roadblock.”

“Is there a road to the north, Hector? I didn’t see one on the map.”