Reckless (2 page)

A hand extends, offering me a tissue.
 

I put my fingers to my face and feel warm streams. I need to get my shit together. I snatch the tissue and turn back to the window without thanking him.

I stare at the clouds. I suddenly hate the man next to me. I know he’s only trying to help, but he should mind his own business. I’d like to see him try that stunt on a subway in Manhattan. Good way to get your lights punched out. As a carnal image forms in my head, I smile.

He utters something in his native tongue.

“I don’t speak Spanish, pal.” I’m shocked by my own catty attitude. “Sorry.” I extend a hand. “I’m Miranda.” My heart slams into my ribs. I’m not Miranda. How can I be so stupid?
I’m Caroline Davis, I’m Caroline Davis, I’m Caroline Davis.

“Good to meet you Miranda,” he says, shaking my hand. “On vacation?”

I tell myself to settle down. This man is a nobody. Still, I must be careful.

“I needed to get away from things back home,” I say. “I lost a loved one.”

“Mother, father, grandparent?”

It takes me a moment to answer. “Father.”

He nods. “That’s the hardest for a girl to lose. At least he’s in a better place now.”

I force a smile. I hardly think Oconee Hill Cemetery is a better place.

The rattle of the flaps releasing from the wings interrupts us. The fasten-seat-belt pictorial glows and a
ping
sound emits through the aircraft that is eerily similar to a nurse’s call button. Turbulence shakes the aircraft. The man beside me lifts a silver crucifix from beneath his shirt and kisses it.

We break through the clouds and all I can see are the Andes. The rocky cordillera dominates the entire terrain; Salcantay is lost above the clouds. The valley quickly rises beneath us. We fly low, soaring between the towering outcrops. Cubes of corrugated sheet metal stipple the alluvial valley in a hodgepodge of derelict villages. The variegated shacks loiter the mountainside like crushed, discarded soda cans.
 

The lack of urban planning is astonishing. Like untamed weeds, the boundaries of the city have grown unchecked. There is an endless checkerboard of rusted rooftops and crude shanties. Dirt roads zigzag and climb precipitous inclines. Electrical wires dip and sag. The only green I detect is far from the clutches of civilization.

Metal whines as the landing gear releases. I buckle my seatbelt and turn my attention forward.
 

The ground rushes ahead.
 

Wheels meet the runway.
 

A vortex of wind deafens my ears.
 

Overhead lights flood the cabin.
 

Heads rise.
 

The plane fills with the repetitive clicking of overhead bins and idle chatter. I grab my carryon and begin to leave. The man beside me has already slipped down the aisle, threading his way around passengers.

***

The airport’s dilapidated-status matches the neglected valley it sits within.
 

Inside the terminal, I watch a frayed and worn conveyer belt struggle to tow my bags. My grey, CIA-issued U.S. Traveler luggage has barely survived the voyage. Several black stripes scar the faces and a wheel is missing from my largest bag.
 

I lumber with the luggage, stopping every couple of feet to rebalance my one-wheel bag.
 

I get outside.
 

The balmy air is thin and the clouds hang cartoonishly low as if placed by an unskilled artist. If I were to climb the nearest hillside and jump, I’m certain I could grasp their puffy contents. The azure sky is so blue it doesn’t appear real. I find myself struggling to look away as the plane’s contrail drifts over the Andes and separates.
 

In many ways, I have arrived on a foreign planet, one with insufficient oxygen and a kind of fragmented modernism. There are no busy airport roads or taxi-designated parking areas other than a lot crippled by pots holes and wandering cracks. A row of yellow and white Daewoo Ticos sit idle by the curb where a throng of short and lean men rest against these anachronistic vehicles, eyeing potential patrons leaving the terminal.

The men descend upon me.

“Necesita un taxi?”

“Es barato!”

“Dónde vas?”

“Venga por aca.”

“Treinta soles al centro. Mejores precios.”

Hands reach for my bags. I forget my training. I’m eighteen again, pacing the house before leaving for the academy.

“I’m fine,” I say, clutching my bags close to me.
 

Do they understand English? I must remember something from Spanish class. But it’s been so many years.

“Muy bueno,” I say, holding up my hands.

Wait. Does muy bueno mean what I think it does?

A smiling Peruvian starts wheeling my bags to a car.

“No,” I protest, grabbing my luggage.
 

Puzzled, he releases his grip.

“Pensé que habías dicho muy bueno,” he says not so kindly.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

I guard my luggage and peer around. Where is the recon team? Bailey said to wait outside the airport. My flight was on time. Has the team been compromised? Does Diego know that we’re here?

“Caroline! Caroline!”

I search for the sound of my alias’ caller. It has a familiar ring.

Then I see him.
 

I don’t believe it.

“Nick?” I hear myself whisper. He’s taller than I recall, but the sandy-brown hair flitting in the breeze and parted to one side is exactly as I remembered it, along with that innocent, boy-down-the-street smile welcoming me.

A forceful taxi driver takes hold of my largest bag. He hurries away, announcing something in Spanish.

“Hey!” I yell, pushing him away and reclaiming my bag. The one-wheel luggage piece topples over, but I continue lugging it toward Nick—toward safety.
 

“Hija de puta!” the taxi driver shouts at me.

Nick rushes toward me.

The taxi driver scurries away.

“You can take the girl out of Georgia,” he says, smiling and shaking his head.

I stop in front of him, sweating. My bag wobbles and falls. The handle strikes the sidewalk.

The last time we saw each other, Nick was leaving New York to join the LAPD. How did he get involved with the CIA? How long has he been in South America? Just what is going on?

“What are you doing here, Nick?”

“Not here,” he whispers. “Follow me.”

He lifts the bags and carries them.
 

I walk beside him, watching his thick arms flexing under the load. There’s a tattoo on his upper arm that I don’t remember. It’s black and spirals and lends him a modicum of danger. Must be new. The ink rises past the sleeve of his featherweight mesh shirt. His arms are dark from the sun and a braided, leather bracelet rests on his left wrist. I can’t decide if the accoutrement makes him appear more like a local or a tourist.

We pass a long line of Tico Taxis and early model Beetles. The passenger door to a 1970s Dodge Dart pops open. Half of the grill is missing and a headlight is smashed in. The vehicle was once black but spreading rust is morphing it into an unintended shade.
 

“Apúrate!” the driver shouts.

“Get in,” Nick tells me.

I give him and the car a second look before I climb into the backseat. The leather interior burns my hands. I’m glad I wore jeans.
 

Nick hops in the front, slaps the dash and yells, “Vamos!”
 

The engine cries out like a tortured seagull on the brink of death. We leave the tiny airport and drive along on a two-lane road that is currently being used as four. A banner spans the road with the words: MUNICIPALIDAD DEL CUSCO. Banners flank the road with gay pride colors.

“I didn’t know Peruvians were so progressive,” I jest.

Nick turns in the front seat. He’s now wearing a pair of black Ray-Bans and my heart flutters a little faster. Dark stubble marks his chin and face—rugged like the Andes.

“That’s the Cusco Flag,” he says. “You should have studied up on the culture before coming.”

“I would have except for the fact that I just found out about the assignment this morning.”

We continue along the main thoroughfare with the windows down. I feel as though I’ve entered Saigon after the fall. Buildings are crumbled into forgotten piles of brick and scattered dust. Large canvas tarps span over several rooftops. Even modern buildings have their sides exposed unabashed, as if their architects were restricted to designing only their façades.
 

The mountains rise around this satellite of third-world industrialism. Billboards dot the hillside. From the ads, I get the impression Coca-Cola holds a majority ownership of the city. Higher still, plywood shanties cling to sheer mud. Grey clouds rush over the cordillera and into the valley, and I wonder how these homes will not soon be washed into the city by a terrific mudslide.

Our driver strikes me as a local not just for his Spanish ethnicity, but moreover, by the way he drives. With perilous deft, he whizzes our clunker between trundling buses and past sputtering motorcycles. I brace myself and pump a phantom brake with every pass as the rushing air tousles my hair.

“Where’s the rest of the team?” I shout over the wind.

“You’re looking at it,” Nick answers. “This is José. He’s our local expert.”

“Please to meet you,” José says, turning to shake my hand as he continues flying down the busy, overcrowded road.
 

“Would you please just keep your eyes on the road!” I scream.

He turns back in time to careen around a truck loaded with workers returning home for the day. The main road, Velasco Astete, empties into a roundabout. 240 degrees later, we turn onto Av. 28 de Julio. These names are meaningless to me, but I log them into my memory like I’ve been trained to do.

“How long have you two been here?” I ask, trying to take my mind off José’s driving.

“About a month,” Nick answers. “José has lived here longer. He’s worked with us on some other assignments in South America.”

So this isn’t Nick’s first South American assignment. I’m slightly jealous, but at least one of us has some experience.

“I’m originally from Rio,” José says, now lighting a cigarette. Smoke whirls in the air current. I fan the smoke and cough. “Now I travel around and try to be helpful where I’m needed.”

It’s a typical CIA-evasive answer.
 

We turn off the main drag, shooting down an obscenely narrow, one-lane cobblestone alley. The sidewalk is packed with passersby. They’re so close I could reach out and touch them.
 

The Spanish may have conquered these lands five hundred years before, but their baroque mark is still on almost every stucco façade. Intricately carved wooden railings and balconies are placed on almost every dwelling. The structures all connect to one another, forming a single unified block, an island of stone resting along the busy thoroughfare.
 

After cutting through a few more back alleys, we stop outside a stately building. At first glance I can’t discern why it seems so out of place. Its architecture is right, but the stones are too recent and smooth to fool even a Georgia girl on the verge of cardiac arrest.

“This is the hotel,” José says. “We have to hurry. We’re blocking traffic.”

Nick jumps out of the front and pulls his seat forward. He offers his hand to help me out. When I take it, a familiar flutter occurs.
 

Maybe it’s the altitude.

When I get out the car, we both stare at one another. I can smell the woody sweat on his collar and nothing else.

He gestures toward the bags.

“I already have your room,” Nick tells me. “We can eat here and then go over everything tonight. I think it’s best if we lay low and not draw any attention to ourselves.”

“That’s fine.”

We enter the JW Marriott. There’s nothing modest about it. We pass through a cavernous lobby reminding me of a chancel inside a cathedral. Stone bricks form the floor, walls, and arched ceiling. A black-suited man with wire-rimmed spectacles nods to us. From the excessive use of arches and hidden, glowing orbs of light, the hotel almost pleads for historical authenticity.
 

We pass through a courtyard. Stilted arches form the cloister. The sun has receded beyond the tallest peaks and the alpenglow bathes the yard with serene hues of red and pink and yellow. As we pass through the opening, raindrops begin to patter the earth. We rush out of the elements and into a second wing of the hotel.
 

Nick passes me a keycard.

“I’m across the hall, and José is one down from you,” Nick says, opening a door in the middle of the hall. “Nice, isn’t it?”

I don’t care about the amenities. I collapse onto the bed. The short walk from the car has left me breathless. I inhale as deeply and as quickly as I can, but I struggle to find oxygen in the lean air. My heart races and there’s a hammering in my head. I start to panic. There’s nowhere to go. I’m eleven thousand feet above sea level with nothing but lanky air to breathe.

“Relax,” Nick says. “I have bottled oxygen if you need it, but it’s best if you can adjust on your own. It takes a day or two. Hold on. I’ll get you some tea.”

Nick returns with a ceramic cup of hot tea. Green leaves float at the surface.
 

I take a sip.

“It’s good,” I say. “What’s in it?”

Nick smiles. “Coca leaves.”

I laugh with him. Here I am in a foreign country, risking my life and limb to stamp out a drug I’m now casually drinking in a Western-owned hotel.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s quite different from the powder version. Supposedly it helps with altitude sickness. Or maybe it’s just a way to sell more tea to tourists.”

Knowing there’s bottled oxygen, I begin to relax. I glance around the room. If I ignored what’s outside the window, I could be in any Manhattan high-rise readying myself for a Broadway musical.

“Do we know where Diego is staying?” I ask. “I wouldn’t want to run into him in the courtyard. This isn’t exactly a hotel that a waitress could afford to stay in.”