The DMZ Page 24

  Julie stifled a sigh. Tim McAdams was good-looking, reasonably intelligent by all signs, and certainly not lacking in charm. And though she had reached her twenty-third year untangled of heart, Julie wasn’t unaware of his attraction. But not tonight! Not now with a torrent of unwanted memories facing her just across through those trees.

  “Look, I’m sorry!” she said apologetically. “I’m just not in a very good mood right now. I’d really like to be alone for a bit. Maybe over supper?”

  Whether he was disappointed or indifferent to her answer, it was too dark to tell. “Sure, no problem,” he answered cheerfully. “I’ll catch you then.”

  He strolled back toward the air control tower, recovering his camcorder from his pocket. As he did so, Julie saw that he’d already focused on his next target—Sondra Kharrazi, tripping out onto the runway in her stiletto heels. So she too had been run out of the inner sanctuary. Sondra paused to scan the runway, and Julie spun quickly around. She didn’t want any more company.

  Quickly, Tim and Sondra were dismissed from her thoughts. In that swift transition to nightfall distinct to the equator, it seemed that a moment ago there had still been remnants of dusk and now it was full night. A floodlight blinked on above the service gate, and on the far side of the fence, Julie could see a firefly glitter of lights flickering through the tossing branches of the scrub jungle. The evening ration of electricity had been turned on in San Ignacio.

  The pickup truck rolled through the gate, its animal cargo noisy in the back. As the floodlight fell on the truck bed, Julie saw that the animals were not its only cargo. Half a dozen women were sitting back with the pigs and chickens, with huge aluminum pots at their feet. The cooks for tonight’s meal. Julie found herself straining to see their faces as the truck moved slowly out of range of the floodlight.

  That bent old lady hardly bigger than the pot at her feet. Allowing for passing years and fuzzy memories, she could be Doña Nina, one of her parents’ most faithful parishioners who had cooked for dozens of church events. And the bigger, plumper one beside her. Her back was to Julie, but her build could easily be Doña Carmen, their next-door neighbor. Or had either of those women survived the madness that had hit San Ignacio?

  A gust of wind blew suddenly across the airstrip, its force whooshing through the treetops like surf on a beach, sweeping away the acrid odor of petroleum and chemicals and hot tarmac, and carrying in their place the sweet perfume of night-blooming jasmine—and another scent, moist and green, that was an indescribable fusion of flowering trees and sun-warmed grasses and an underlying citric tang that told of lemon and orange groves nearby.

  The scent was achingly familiar, and as it filled her lungs and caught at the back of her nostrils, Julie found her heart racing unaccountably, her breath whistling through her teeth in short, sharp gasps, her hands cold and clammy as they tightened on the steel links under her fingers.

  Her more rational side told her sternly, You’re crazy! You can’t go out there! You don’t even want to go out there!

  But she had no choice. For better or worse, the first sixteen years of her life lay out there beyond that patch of scrub jungle, no more than a ten-minute walk away. If she turned away now, the lost opportunity would never cease to haunt her.

  I’ll just go look and come back.

  And why not? As Bill Shidler had said, they weren’t prisoners. The FARC commander had made a big deal about warning the press away from his followers. Fine, she had no intention of making contact with a living soul. It was dark enough now that she shouldn’t have to. She could easily slip over, have a leisurely stroll around her old home and town, and be back in plenty of time for that dinner engagement with Tim Me Adams.

  After all, what’s the worst that could happen? Say I get caught or the gate’s closed when I get back. What are they going to do? Exile me for the rest of the mission? Dump me in the plane and keep me locked up till morning? I’ve already got my story. And Andy Rodriguez has my pictures. One way or another, I’m out of here tomorrow—with a prize-winning piece to show for it too.

  Nor would getting out be difficult. For all their weapons, these teenage guerrillas showed little experience in keeping tabs on a group this size. Even now, one of the supply trucks was returning from the hangar. Stepping away from the gate, the guard held up a hand to flag it down. With a squeal of brakes, it ground to a halt. The guard strode around to the driver’s window. All Julie had to do was slip up along the other side and—walk out the gate.

  The thought was mother to action.

  Stepping away from the fence, Julie walked quickly back toward the hangar as though she were following Tim McAdams, but as she rounded the tailgate of the truck, she halted beside the rear right tire. She couldn’t see the guard or anything but the wheel and the high side of the truck. But after a moment the wheel shifted into movement, and she simply walked alongside it as it rolled toward the gate. The truck slowed to ease over a speed bump, then picked up speed so that she was forced to break into a trot.

  And then she was through.

  The guard would have seen her lonely stance at the fence—and earlier, her conversation nearby with Tim McAdams. But if her sudden disappearance roused concern, Julie heard no raised voice of alarm behind her. The truck picked up speed again as soon as it pulled out onto the gravel track so that Julie was soon running beside it. This was the tricky part. Could she get across the road unseen once the truck pulled away?

  It didn’t prove so difficult after all. The guerrillas hadn’t been overly generous with electrical power at the airport complex, and once beyond range of the floodlight above the service gate, the blackness of night closed in over the gravel track. Julie smothered a cough as the dust stirred up by the truck’s passage swirled over her. Then she slipped through its concealing billows and into the cover of the scrub jungle on the other side of the road.

  * * *

  Narrowed eyes watched Julie’s exit, and a cold smile curved with a satisfaction that could not be seen in the shadows that nightfall had laid across the airstrip. So soon, confirmation!

  Swift fingers tapped in a number on the sat-phone dial. The signal went to a communications satellite hovering over the equator, then bounced to a GPS position that should have been trackless, uninhabited jungle.

  Taqi Nouri left the unloading job he was overseeing to take the phone a subordinate hurried to bring him. He nodded with equal satisfaction as he listened to the low Farsi.

  “How can you be so sure she is the one?”

  The question had been anticipated. “Elimination. I have verified every member of the mission. The UN doctors are who they say they are, and they are too publicly known to be otherwise. The non-American reporters were a gambit I considered, but they have proved to be faces well-known on camera. The State Department team were a logical consideration, but they are too conspicuous—clearly Special Forces dressed as civilians, and they must know they are under close surveillance. This eliminates all but the American news crews, an obvious choice. But most have worked long in their present positions, and I have visually confirmed their identities with the computer files. I seek a person who is new to the scene and not what they appear to be.”

  Taqi Nouri stroked his black beard thoughtfully before replying. “And you—are you not who you appear to be? A good agent supplies himself with good cover.”

  “True. But there is a balance that leave signs to the experienced eye. This woman’s cover is classic—a journalist from a magazine too obscure to be readily investigated, yet with a readership broad enough to justify wide travel. I could not have chosen better myself. But in that lies their error. I ran her too through the computer. She is an underling at this magazine with but a few trivial published credits—too unknown to be selected for this assignment. And there are other factors. Too many for coincidence.”

  “What factors?”

  Taqi Nouri listened with an occasional nod. He had told the ayatollah that this agent was his best, and if the f
acts were as he was being told—and there was no reason to think otherwise—then his own assessment agreed with the agent’s. The Americans had again proved themselves predictable. It would one day be their undoing.

  “It is well then. You have your orders. We must know how much the Americans know and what are their suspicions. And it must be done swiftly. The time is growing short. Even as we speak, the final pieces are moving into place.”

  “It will be done.”

  The connection was severed. Taqi Nouri returned to the growing stack of crates. A man in a technician’s white coat walked over to hand him a sheet of paper. “The manifest of today’s shipment. Our friend across the border came through as promised.”

  Nouri glanced through the handwritten list. “The lightning bolt of Allah,” he mimicked softly, and there was no mockery in his imitation.

  * * *

  Colonel Thornton picked up the sat-phone on the first ring. This voice too was low, almost a whisper, but the words were English. “I saw you from the plane today.”

  “I saw you too,” retorted Colonel Thornton. “Just about freaked me out. What are you doing mixed up in this mess?”

  A muted chuckle. “Last-minute orders. Did I make it onto the evening news?”

  “Haven’t had time to watch it. We’re having our own troubles here, remember?”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like this. It’s gone way too public. Cameras all over the place.”

  “Hey, your cover’s good. Don’t sweat it! What about the op?”

  “There’s something out there, I can feel it. But whoever knows what’s going down, it isn’t Raul Aguilera and his bunch. They think they’re telling the truth, whether they are or not. I can’t buy that ‘natural death’ verdict the comandante is handing out. John was too good for that. No, they ran into something out there, I’d swear it. But what? I’m running out of options, sir.”

  “Give it more time. Something might break yet.”

  “Time.” The voice on the other end was suddenly somber. “Sir, I have a feeling we’re running out of time.”

  The same urgency for haste was dogging at Colonel Thornton’s heels. But he chose not to discuss it. “What about the mission?” he asked. “Any trouble there?”

  “They’re fine. Both sides wallowing in the PR. There’s a reporter, though—she’s better informed than I like.”

  “Ms. Julie Baker.” This time the chuckle was on the San José end. “She checks out okay,” Thornton said. “Just one smart cookie, from what I can see.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s just hope Aguilera doesn’t decide to have a few of these cookies for dinner! They have to look pretty tempting from where he’s standing.”

  “HQ claims there’s no risk of that. And they’re probably right. Still, if something does blow, don’t go breaking cover to bail them out. There’s a lot more at stake here than a few politicians and reporters, and Shidler has a whole lot more resources than you do. You just keep your eyes open and let me know if something goes down.”

  “Hey, no worries, I’ve got more invested here than you do. I’ll keep an eye on your reporter friend and her pals. But that’s it. And another thing. Don’t ask me to check in again unless it’s urgent. There’s too many eyes and ears around me right now. This has been too long already. You hear from me again, it’s going to be calling for the cavalry.”

  “Roger. Just watch your back, man.”

  The answer was muffled, but distinctly dry. “I always do.”

  * * *

  So the report that had come was true. The daughter had returned to San Ignacio. And just in the needed time. The shadows of evil were growing dark across the jungle. Too dark to ignore any longer. But was the daughter like the parents? Would she listen—and help?

  And if she did not, what to do then?

  Perhaps the course of wisdom would be to watch and to see.

  NINE

  A TANGLE OF BRANCHES AND VINES hung low over the road on the opposite side. Underneath was the blackness of midnight—the perfect cover as Julie slipped back toward the footpath.

  Ouch! Not so perfect when you couldn’t see where you were going!

  Pushing aside the branch that had raked through her hair, Julie slowed to a more cautious progress. Maybe the footpath didn’t exist anymore. Seven years was plenty of time for it to grow over—especially as it no longer provided a swift passage down to the docks.

  But it was there. Julie’s feet fell onto the path and she felt relief. The packed earth under her sneakers allowed her to feel her way, and as she left the road behind, the trees were sparse and even cleared back in spots so that the starlight shone through, offering a dim illumination to the trail. This was clearly still in frequent use—something that puzzled Julie until her foot connected with a round object. A soccer ball, her hands informed her as she picked it up. Children, slipping down the trail to spy through the chain-link fence of the new airport.

  And perhaps not just children.

  The footpath petered out sooner than Julie had expected. The trail ended in a banana grove. Stacked to one side were branches and limbs from the trees that had been cleared to plant the bananas. Through the banana fronds, Julie spotted a bamboo hut, its thatched roof extending well beyond the cane walls to shelter at least one strung hammock. The smell of smoke signaled a cooking area on the far side of the hut.

  Stooping to dodge a stalk of bananas, Julie threaded her way through the grove. A rooster, settled in a nearby orange tree for the night, set up a noisy crowing as she passed. Julie quickened her pace before someone came out to see what had caused the disturbance.

  Julie slipped past several other farmyards. Then she came to the first town street. Here the houses were adobe, or cinder block for those more prosperous, their whitewashed fronts forming one solid wall along the street.

  The lane itself remained unpaved and ungraveled. There were still no streetlights, though the gleam of electric lights spilled through several open shutters.

  Cooking areas were indoors or in a back patio, and Julie caught an occasional uplifted voice behind those walls. But something troubled her, and she wasn’t sure what it was until she realized that the streets themselves were empty. Dark as it was, this was still early evening here on the equator, where nightfall fell like clockwork at 6:00 P.M. the year around. She should have seen men and women enjoying the evening breeze on their front steps, young people strolling through the streets or playing their guitars, children kicking a soccer ball like the one she’d found.

  Was this what the guerrillas had done—driven all joy and life and merriment from the town?

  Julie passed the closed-up stalls of the open-air market, and with that orientation, made an immediate right. She began to hurry, anxious to have this over.

  And then—there it was. The little plaza lay empty and silent under the stars. It had once possessed a single streetlight, product of the generator Dr. Baker had installed for the clinic. The light was now broken or shot out, its lamp case a mess of shattered glass. The building fronts around the plaza were mainly shops, their heavy wooden portals and shutters fastened tight.

  The promise of moonlight, not yet risen over the town but reflecting a dim luminosity from whitewashed walls, allowed Julie to make out the shapes of ornamental shrubs here and there. The light gleamed softly from large triangular flower planters, also painted white.

  Julie walked slowly to one of the planters and sank down onto its concrete border. This was where she had sat that night as the music and laughter had fallen into silence, when the young people she’d called “friends” had dissolved into the darkness and out of her life. That rutted lane, empty now along its length as far as she could see, was the street down which the horsemen had clopped their way. And over there …

  She turned her head, almost reluctantly. It hadn’t changed—her home. Its street frontage was longer than that of its neighbors, due to the clinic, whose large wooden portal was just beyond the smaller door that had opened int
o the Bakers’ living room. Otherwise it was just like the rest of the buildings surrounding the plaza—the same square, flat facade, the same peeling whitewash. Behind those cinder-block walls, Richard and Elizabeth Baker had lived and worked, pouring out their lives and their selves.

  And there in the end they had died—alone. Julie didn’t even know where they were buried, or if their bodies had been left for the birds and creatures of the jungle, as the guerrillas had been known to do often enough.

  Okay, you’ve seen it. Time to go.

  But Julie didn’t move.

  Like its neighbors, the windows of her old home were shuttered—heavy wooden shutters that her father had barred from the inside only at bedtime. Time and weather had warped the wood so that a yellow sliver of light showed around the edges. The jasmine and bougainvillea that Elizabeth Baker had planted and trained still curved up around the doorway, and the sweetness of their scent drifted across the plaza.

  A macaw, protesting raucously from the patio out back, might have been the same that resided there in her childhood. An aroma of cooking in the air reminded Julie of just how scantily she had eaten so far that day.

  For all the somberness the guerrillas had brought to San Ignacio, beauty remained, Julie recognized with surprise. A beauty that came from the tranquility of the night and the heady perfume of the flowers that was released by the cooling dew of nightfall and the gentle evening chorus of bird life and frogs and even the scampering monkeys restlessly choosing a place to sleep. Almost, Julie could see the ghost of a small girl perched on those concrete steps across the way, knees drawn up to her chin as she waited for a call to supper, her wondering eyes on the stars that were so much more glorious here above that tossing sea of jungle than at boarding school where the city lights competed with their splendor.

  Across the plaza, a murmur of voices rose suddenly from beyond those closed shutters, and an indignant squawk from the macaw signaled that someone had thrown water—or worse—to silence it. For one agonizing moment Julie knew she had only to cross those paving stones and knock on that wooden portal for her father and mother to step out into the doorway and pull her laughingly inside.