Redback (31 page)

‘Can we turn around and make another pass? I want to fly lower.’

This time the pilot shook his head no, and in the backseat Verandas smiled. They’d hired four hours of air time and on the ground the pilot had said he could fly them anywhere, even to Tronador, if they wanted to circle the volcano. But once in the air and near Stoval’s estate everything changed.

‘What if we paid you extra?’

He shook his head again and explained. ‘They shot at the plane of a pilot friend of mine. I saw the bullet holes and the police went out there and nothing happened. Two weeks later my friend was gone. They say he moved away, but I don’t think so.’

Stoval didn’t leave the estate until 10:15 that night. He drove into Bariloche with General Trocca and parked around the corner from a bar. Two hours later, they came out with a couple of young women who carried packs and could only be tourists.

‘Can you believe those two guys scored these women?’ Verandas asked, and seemed truly incredulous.

‘He’s got his big house. He probably offered them a place to sleep.’

‘Sure, right next to him.’

But now Marquez could see something was wrong. The women acted like they didn’t know they were going for a ride. They pointed down the street to where there were other bars open and when Trocca tugged at the blonde and nudged her toward the open door in back, she jerked away, got skittish. Marquez watched a man come out of the shadows, possibly to help the women.

‘Where did this guy come from?’ Verandas asked.

‘I’m not sure. I missed him, but it’s good he did or we’d need to get out there and help them. He may have come out of the bar and we were too busy watching them.’

It took Marquez another moment before he said, ‘No, wait a minute, I recognize him. That’s Chole Joulet, the game warden I was telling you about.’

The women used the moment to get away and Chole moved around to the right rear of the Range Rover with Trocca and Stoval, talking or arguing. Both of the Range Rover doors on that side were open. So was the driver’s door where Stoval had gotten out, and the view was blocked.

‘Can you see what’s going on?’ Marquez asked.

‘No.’

Marquez started the car and pulled forward a little and what he thought was a confrontation starting had ended and it looked like Chole had gotten in the back of the Range Rover. He didn’t actually see him get in, but he had to be in there because he wasn’t on the street as the Range Rover pulled away.

‘Maybe you made a mistake, Marquez. Maybe this guy is a friend of theirs and he’s taking a ride now with Stoval to tell him about you.’

‘Can you see him in back?’

‘No, the windows are tinted.’

A moment later Verandas hit the dash with his fist.

‘Ah, fuck, that’s what’s going on. Stoval owns him, one more corrupt cop. That’s it, we’re blown. You moved too fast with the game warden, Marquez. You made a mistake and you may as well book a flight home. He’s giving his report to Stoval right now.’

‘Not the guy I met last night.’

‘Yeah, he is. He’s just another good actor.’

They followed as the Range Rover left Bariloche and Stoval drove back to the estate. Verandas radioed Taltson and Taltson turned around on the road and drove toward them and Stoval’s Range Rover with his high beams on. He tried to see Chole Joulet in the backseat but didn’t see anybody. Marquez turned to Verandas.

‘We know he got in that vehicle. So he’s lying down. He may be hurt. Either we go up there now, or we get the police.’

‘We get the police. We’ll call them and give them the minimum, but this warden is on the take like everyone else Stoval touches. He’s probably going up to the house with them to lay it all out and identify some photo Stoval has of you. He’s up there getting congratulated and paid.’

Marquez listened to that and said, ‘We’re going to the police. We’re not going to call them. We’ll be more credible if we show up and explain.’

‘We aren’t doing that, it’ll blow everything.’

‘I’m running this and that’s how we’re going to do it. I got Chole into this. Now we’ll get the police up there.’

The police listened, photocopied their badges and sent two officers. Taltson watched the hacienda gate open and the officers drive up. They returned less than a half hour later and radioed in that they had searched and the warden wasn’t there. Stoval reported having a brief conversation with the warden out on the street, but because it was cold they hadn’t talked long. The warden did not get in the Range Rover. He had no reason to and Stoval did not ask the warden where he was going next. He was sorry not to be of more help.

Marquez couldn’t live with that. They drove back to the police station, a bright blue building near the center of town. He asked them to wake up the chief, who then came in to talk to them. He explained it very patiently to Marquez.

‘Chole Joulet and Stoval are enemies. He would not get in a vehicle with him unless it was after arresting him, so I think you made a mistake.’

‘Chole’s four-wheel is on the street four blocks from the bar. We found it before coming here.’

‘His car is often on the street Sunday morning. Women like him, so maybe he went home with somebody and maybe you should go home, too.’

‘That doesn’t explain it. He got in the Range Rover.’

When they left the police station he said, ‘Let’s drive back out there. I’ll take over for Taltson.’

‘You can if you want but this one is blown. We’re all headed back to Buenos Aires tomorrow.’

Marquez didn’t bother to answer. At dawn he watched the crust of snow on the plateau turn pink. An hour later he watched Stoval and the general leave the house. They came down the long road from the plateau and exhaust from the Range Rover left a cloud in the cold air. He waited until he was sure they were gone. Then he crossed into the woods and started working his way up.

SIXTY-SEVEN

O
n the plateau he entered a building that was large and rectangular with a high vaulted ceiling thirty feet above a polished concrete floor. Two walls were largely glass, so that as you stood inside you had the sense of being outside. It was a museum or maybe just a big trophy case. Marquez stopped at a stuffed Siberian tiger and read a brass plaque with the date of the kill. He walked past a white rhino and touched a yak shot recently in China, then remembered in the city of Chengdu officials had auctioned permits for hunts that included some rare or endangered animals. Birds of prey hung from the ceiling. He looked up at a bald eagle with an eight-foot span.

The doors to the main house were also open and he didn’t see any signs of an alarm system or cameras, and yet, somehow, that didn’t surprise him. Marquez wasn’t allowed to bring a gun into Argentina and lacking a gun, he picked up an eight-inch knife in the kitchen. He moved slowly. He moved quietly, and there didn’t seem to be anybody here, no servants, nothing, just mechanical noises, the hum of machines, his footsteps creaking on wood stairs as he went up. He checked five bedrooms and looked through a window at what looked like a guest house across the road.

When he came back down he worked methodically through the first floor until he reached the study. The study doors were locked metal French doors with thick reinforced glass. It would take a battering ram to get in. So this was it, this was where he needed to get in. Two computers sat on a glass desk inside. A third sat alone on a separate table. He looked at everything visible and moved on and soon crossed to the guest house.

Inside, the guest house reminded Marquez of a high-end hotel suite. He found Trocca’s suitcase and clothes hanging, but didn’t touch any of it. He left again as a greater sense of urgency enveloped him, a worry about the time passing and Stoval’s return. He was outside working through the outbuildings when he heard the Range Rover coming. He stepped behind a tree and crouched down as it came into view and drove past, Stoval at the wheel, Trocca smiling.

They stopped at the last outbuilding on the plateau, about fifty yards from where he was, close enough to hear their voices. Stoval unlocked a heavy barn door and slid it open. With Trocca’s help he dragged out Chole or Chole’s body, it was hard to tell if he was alive until they got him to the rear of the Range Rover. There, Trocca kicked him until Chole struggled to his feet. He wore both hand and ankle cuffs and fell several times before they got him loaded in the back. He’d probably been in the cold shed all night, and he was injured. Marquez saw the bruising on his face.

Stoval slammed the rear door shut and they drove out the track across the plateau and dropped down into the trees and were gone from sight. Marquez tried his cell again. He hurried into the main house and tried the phones, but got a busy signal rather than a dial tone and guessed there was a code to call out. He went back outside, looked at the tire tracks running in the dirty snow and started to follow them. At first he walked, and then as he thought more about what they were doing with Chole he started to run.

SIXTY-EIGHT

T
welve foot high chain link gates to the penned enclosure were latched closed, but not locked. Marquez went through and then followed the four-wheel drive track down through Scotch broom and across an icy stream. The road climbed through trees. It reached a clearing and Marquez panted hard as he knelt down. He glimpsed the back of the Range Rover, heard Stoval and Trocca talking. He skirted brush, catching his breath as he caught view of Trocca holding a gun and Stoval leaning over Chole. He could also see the long run of high fence dropping toward a canyon and how trees and brush were cleared away from it, and the electrified strands running at the top. Transistors on the fence hummed and he finally understood.

In the clearing Stoval looped a chain around the cuffs that held Chole’s ankles and then ran the chain through an iron hoop staked to the ground. The chain clinked and somewhere in the distance he heard the cry of an animal. Soon after came the low whooping of hyena.

Hyenas wouldn’t leave anything behind, not even bones if they were hungry enough, and Stoval probably made sure they got hungry enough. They must be hungry if they were this bold. They were circling, closing. They seemed to frighten General Trocca whose voice carried as he encouraged Stoval to finish and to stop talking to Chole. Stoval bent over Chole, probably describing what was going to happen.

Marquez moved toward the hyenas and a break in the brush. He wanted to get through that opening before the animals spread out more. The opening allowed him to blindside them. Trocca faced the hyenas whooping in the brush straight ahead of them and Stoval’s back was to Marquez as he charged into the clearing.

From the look on his face as he wheeled, Trocca expected a hyena. He got off two shots and missed with both before Marquez slammed into him, tearing the gun out of his hand and battering his throat with an elbow. Trocca went down gagging and Marquez’s momentum carried him stumbling on to Stoval. Stoval pulled a knife. He lunged upward with it and with luck Marquez blocked it with the rifle. Then he knocked the knife loose and swept the gun stock across Stoval’s face. He knocked him down, then knocked him out and found the keys in his coat. He dragged a struggling Trocca over, freed Chole’s legs and hooked up Trocca to the ankle cuffs that had held Chole.

He got Chole to his feet as Stoval stirred and Marquez took the chance of getting Chole to the Range Rover before going back for Stoval. Chole’s face was a mess and he was having trouble breathing. Marquez got him closer to the Range Rover then had to leave him as Stoval retrieved the knife and stood. When that happened Marquez quickly picked up the rifle.

‘Drop the knife.’

Stoval didn’t answer and then did something Marquez never saw coming. He moved sideways to Trocca, leaned and slashed open one side of Trocca’s throat. Blood spurted onto Trocca’s face and into the dirt. Trocca’s hand rose to his neck and he spasmed and his body jerked as Stoval ran toward the brush and Marquez swung the rifle and sighted on Stoval. The shot was easy, but he didn’t pull the trigger. He saw Trocca’s blood sprayed over Stoval’s pant legs, and blood dripping off Stoval’s face where the blow from the gun stock had opened his cheek. He thought about it and let Stoval push into the brush, watched him disappear.

Trocca bled out before the first hyenas showed themselves. A big female crept into the clearing as Marquez got a seatbelt on Chole. At his feet as he shut the door and started back around the Range Rover was a shard of yellow bone that could be human. He stooped, picked it up, and dropped it in the Range Rover. He started the engine. Chole needed medical help and soon. He saw the hyenas reach Trocca’s body but he couldn’t do anything about that or go after Stoval yet. Chole’s breath was ragged. His lips were not only split and swollen, but blue from cold. His nose and front teeth were broken. He wasn’t far from going into shock.

Before Marquez drove away, he locked the gate. The Range Rover rocked as they bounced back down the rough road to the stream. Chole made sounds about needing water and Marquez got him water and then drove on. Several ribs were badly broken and Chole moaned as they bounced through potholes. Up on the plateau, he lost consciousness. He said ‘
Mi amigo
’ and then closed his eyes, and when Marquez reached over and felt for a pulse what was there was erratic.

Now, as he hit the paved road he drove hard. He called Verandas on the way into Bariloche and Verandas met him at the clinic. Two doctors were waiting. They worked on Chole as Marquez and Verandas walked out on to the cold street. The snow on the mountains looked very bright and clean as they talked over what to do next.