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Whoever decided to call it a Mexican standoff probably did not spend enough time in Colombia.
Then again, Pine thinks, Teddy really is half-Mexican, and this is not – yet? – a full-blown standoff. There are only three guns in evidence – for now, anyway – and for now, those other than the one trained on Pine himself, are pointed at the same very deserving target. Not that the target seems to mind.
Roper is seemingly enjoying this, quoting Shakespeare and taunting Teddy by starting a countdown, not in the least bothered by the guns. But Jonathan Pine is enough of a bluffer to know an equal, if not a superior; the man who has convincingly faked his death for years can sail through feigning a lack of concern at its prospect. To Jonathan’s eye, the swollen veins in Roper’s neck tell a different story. He is playing for time, whatever his endgame, likely unsure how much longer he needs to wait. Teddy neither fires nor lowers the gun; Pine wonders if Teddy is picking up the same clues, and how likely they are to influence his decision.
He does not get to finish that assessment, as in the next moment, chance intervenes.
Roper moves – a tiny fraction, but noticeable despite the low light – and shifts his hand toward his waist. Cabrera’s enforcer, pointing his gun at Roper behind Teddy’s back, instantly reads it as Roper reaching for his own weapon, and pulls the trigger.
Teddy flinches, but has the presence of mind to stay silent, and calmly, or at least slowly, pockets the gun he was holding. Roper must have had a split-second visual warning allowing him to try to dodge the bullet, for what should have been a clear shot through the heart is apparently a couple of inches off target. He slumps down, but Pine cannot say for certain if Roper is dead.
The reason for his earlier move reveals itself the next second, when the familiar ringtone of Roper’s phone sounds from somewhere on his body. It must have buzzed before ringing, and Roper, in an apparent instant of ill-judged impatience, must have been reaching for it before warning those present; a costly and very fortuitous mistake.
Whatever inner torment Teddy may be going through, his reaction is flawless; he glances at Cabrera and waits a beat before speaking:
“General, ¿lo contesto?” Shall I answer this?
Cabrera nods his no-objection, and Teddy kneels to retrieve the phone from Roper’s pocket. Pine watches Teddy’s face darken upon seeing the caller ID.
¡Dígame! he snaps reflexively, before switching to English: “Who is this?”
Teddy is clearly not a desired recipient of this call. Even from five feet away, Pine can hear the barking reply on the other end. Sounds like Frisky.
And likely is, judging by Teddy’s answer.
“He is here but cannot answer right now. Do you want me to pass on a message?”
Whatever Frisky barks next seems to have exhausted his capacity for rational conversation, not to mention provoking a scowl from Teddy; it sounds like the call cuts off right after that, and Teddy pockets the phone in the casual, fluid move of a practiced thief before addressing Cabrera again in a flat, seemingly bored voice.
“Era un otro asociado de Roper que lo buscaba. No dijo nada.” It was another associate of Roper’s looking for him. Didn’t say anything. Presumably Frisky’s parting expletives do not count.
“Bien.” Cabrera does not seem to care.
Apart from Pine himself, still on his knees, those present are still standing around Roper’s body in a loose circle, a few metres away from the drop zone. Now that Roper is out of the game – whether for now or forever remains to be seen – the Cabreras’ best tactic would be to lie low, maybe send a recon team to get news on the shipment, be it fake or real, that landed at San Marcos, but make no rash moves.
Teddy looks up, and Jonathan snaps out of his thoughts to focus on the sound Teddy has picked up on before the rest of the group follow suit. A low rumble, like the distant sound of industrial machinery, presently resolves itself into the rhythmic hum of Hercules propellers as the plane grows closer and passes overhead. For a split second Teddy’s eyes fly wide with shock, enough to tell Pine that he had nothing to do with it, but whatever happened, it means that their plan has failed. Sally and the Chief Justice will be waiting in vain at the firing range for the weapon that, in a couple of minutes, will be landing right here, exposing the lie he and Teddy concocted. Their only chance of making it out of here is if the others have bought their story about the paratroopers enough to seek cover.
As if on cue, the jungle around them comes alive with rustling fronds and dull thuds whose nature is, to Pine’s ears, unmistakable. If he were religious, he might have chalked it up to a miracle. Short of that, it must be an incredible coincidence that Frisky, or whoever made the decisions for him in Roper’s absence, made a second bad call for Team Roper in the space of a quarter of an hour. They must have put a squad on board to handle the EMP device, ready to follow it jumping into the drop zone on Roper’s command, and hearing Teddy’s words about Roper being unable to take the call must have been enough for paranoid Frisky to pull the drop and send in the muscle instead.
Cabrera’s men instantly spin around, weapons drawn, shots ringing out into the darkness. Pine takes it as his chance to lunge at Teddy, pulling him to the ground – an unnecessary precaution, as Teddy is no novice to gunfights, but a timely one, as the answering shots follow seconds later. Teddy wastes no time in pulling out his pocket knife to cut Pine’s wrists loose; the moment Teddy is certain that everyone except them is either shooting or seeking cover, he dives out of the clearing, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Jonathan is following, and they run, half-crouching, deeper into the pitch-black shadows. Behind them, in the distance, Frisky’s “Boss!” rings out like a demented wail.
*
Martín is never less than impeccable. As if on cue, the moment Teddy has led them to the unpaved road and right before they duck back into the shadows, he hears a sharp “Max!”, followed by a split second of flashing headlights less than a hundred meters away, and they sprint toward the truck, piling into the back seat. Pine’s guess that Martín must have brought night vision gear to keep an eye on the proceedings proves correct once they have reached the vehicle; Martín switches on a phone screen on a minimum setting for a couple of seconds to ascertain that his passengers are who they should be, and instead of the familiar broad face, they are greeted by a begoggled mask. What he did not expect was seeing Tavo in the passenger seat. He is happy that the kid has made it thus far, but unsure if being party to their escape now may put him in greater danger. Jonathan can tell that Tavo has recognised Teddy and is glaring daggers at him from his seat even in the dark. For now, Pine’s “está bien, él nos está ayudando, de verdad” – it’s OK, he is really helping us – should suffice until there is time and place for a better explanation.
They creep forward in first gear in near-total darkness, Martín still wearing the goggles to find the way; he must have tweaked the truck lights for manual control. A few hundred meters down the road they veer off before what looks indistinctly like a low bridge into what feels like a shallow gully. This is not the direction they came to the camp from; there was no bridge there at this distance. Considering the well-staffed checkpoint they had passed, Pine is certain that Martín has made the right call, and has done his homework, as always. Martín kills the engine, letting gravity do its job in quietly propelling the truck down the slope before they continue their tortuously slow progress along the bottom. “Así ningún de ellos se enterará de nosotros hasta que estamos fuera del perímetro”, Martín explains, as the firefight still echoes in the distance. This way no one will know we were here until we are outside the perimeter, of the zone controlled by the Cabreras, that is.
As he keeps driving them further away from the camp, Martín tells them about the decoy shipment that arrived at the San Marcos range, and explains that Sally’s message to him confirming the fiasco was his clue to drive as close as he safely could to the originally designated drop zone in the forest in the hope of picking up “Max” before it was too late.
“Eres un ángel. The name’s Jonathan, actually. But you boys already know it.”
“Lo se”. Pine can practically hear him grinning. If Martín is surprised to hear Teddy so easily taken into their collective confidence, he does not show it. Still, grateful as Pine is to Martín, the confirmation of their failure to expose the arms deal is a bitter pill to swallow.
“If the shipment at San Marcos is a decoy, we need to find out where that EMP is really going. Roper was sending it to the forest back there, but they got spooked and didn’t drop it. They sure won’t just abandon their plan, though, they’ll try to get it to Cabrera somehow in the next week or two, at most.”
“Do we have the registration number of the second plane?” Martín ventures.
“No.” He and Teddy answer practically in unison.
“What about the radar flightpath?” Pine suggests. “We can ask Sally – my teammate here,” he explains for Teddy’s benefit, as up to now, to Teddy she was just a nameless “colleague”, ”to check all recent flights in a six-hour window,” he goes on before Teddy cuts in.
“They will have literally flown this one under the radar. There are pilots here – cowboys,” he snorts, “who can still fly by basic instruments and paper maps. Best way to transport stuff that no one needs to know about.” Of course, Teddy would know all about that.
“I can contact los chicos in the other local units,” Teddy offers. Presumably, those of the boys not too closely tied to the Cabreras. – “and ask them if they saw or heard this plane tonight. A Hercules needs a one-kilometre runway, so we can triangulate its likely flightpath to the nearest airstrips to see where it may have landed.”
This may well be their only option, but one that may put Teddy in danger if any of the chicos start wondering about his allegiances and rat him out to Cabrera. “You sure it’s a risk you want to – “
“I’m sure,” Teddy cuts him off again. “You are right, we need to stop this. I… I went along with it too far, but… Wait.” Teddy sits up next to him; it sounds like he is reaching into his pocket. Jonathan hopes he is not about to start brandishing the gun in pitch darkness. “I have Roper’s phone right here. Chances are, he’s got the flight coordinates on it.”
Teddy pocketing the phone was a brilliant move indeed, but there is a catch. “It’s got to be password protected.” Teddy’s glance at the screen instantly confirms it. “If we want a shot at cracking it, the best thing to do will be to get it to Sally.”
“He probably had it set to his son’s birthday,” Teddy mutters through gritted teeth. “If you can find out what date it is.”
Pine shakes his head, even though Teddy cannot see him. “I know what date it is, June 25, 2010. I was at his sixth birthday in Mallorca,” he explains, and can feel Teddy freeze next to him, and is sorry for the unintended reminder that even he, Pine, was for a while a closer confidante of Roper’s than Teddy, who had every right to his father’s love and trust… if Roper had been a normal father. “But Roper is no fool and even if he set it to the date, which is likely but not certain, he could have used any variation of it, year first, month first, date first, month in letters, whatever, and we only have ten attempts max. Fewer if he tweaked the password settings. Better let Sally do her thing than blow our chances on guessing and have the damn thing freeze up for good.”
“¿Alguno de vosotros tiene un trozo de papel de aluminio?” Does either of you happen to have a piece of foil? Teddy’s non-sequitur question is presumably directed at Martín and Tavo. Pine belatedly realises the reason: Teddy has figured that it is best not to switch off Roper’s phone in case it also has a restart PIN code – it is bound to – but if they keep it on, they run the risk of being tracked by friends of Roper’s with the right equipment, so they’d better improvise an electromagnetic shield.
Instead of an answer, Martín apparently reaches for his chest pocket; a couple of seconds later, he turns on his phone screen again and hands Teddy a slender foil pouch. “Toma ésta, yo voy a apagar mi celular por ahora, casi ya estamos.” Take this one, I’ll switch off my phone for now, we’re almost there. Whatever and wherever there is.
*
There turns out to be a modest-looking but reasonably well-kept house on the outskirts of Chiquinquira, a mid-size town in the foothills less than 100 kilometres northeast of Bogota and 200 kilometres from Medellin, if the road signs are to be believed. Close, but not too much, to the political hotspots, the town’s position at a busy highway crossroads would make it easier for them to move around without attracting attention. Martín at his best.
“It was a friend’s house”, Martín explains as they pile out of the truck inside the garage. “He and his wife went to Spain a few months ago, she had Spanish grandparents. They kept saying they were tired of the danger here, especially because of their kids.”
Inside, the house is on the smaller side, but still in excellent condition; a master bedroom and a kids’ room, looking forlorn without its occupants, with just the brightly coloured walls and furniture, both opening into a decent-sized sitting room with a large sofa facing an empty space where the TV used to be – they managed to sell it, Martín explains – and an open kitchen along the side wall, next to what must be the bathroom door. Most of the furniture and furnishings are still there – the owners took only what they could bring on the flight – eventually to be sold off once the housing market recovers enough for them to put their former home up for sale. If it recovers, that is.
Martín ducks back into the garage to bring in a laptop and an internet receiver – the wifi is shut off, he explains, but they prepaid utilities for another month so you still have water. The power comes from a generator anyway, I've left enough diesel fuel to last you a week. “This is for you. Let me know what else you need. It will be best for the two of you to stay here for a few days until things settle down.” Unless the civil war breaks out tomorrow, as Roper predicted.
“Some food would be good,” Teddy ventures. “Money, at least a couple of million.” Jonathan is momentarily confused by the amount until he remembers that two million pesos comes in at just under 400 pounds and just over 500 dollars.
Instead of an answer, Martín pulls out a thick wad of notes from his jacket pocket. “There’s five million in here. I can get you the food as soon as we’re done here. Don’t expect much, but there’s a 24-hour convenience store at the gas station five minutes away.”
“Gracias. I’ll make sure you get back this and all the money you spend.” Jonathan hopes that Martín does not make any quips about the provenance of Teddy’s money, but Martín is way smarter than this.
“And we need some weapons besides this,” Teddy adds as he shows Martín the gun.
“For the weapons you’ll need to give me more time. I can get you a couple more of these,” Martín gestures to Teddy’s gun, “and a few rounds of ammo, say, by Thursday.” The day after tomorrow.
“Vale.” Teddy nods. That’ll do. “I’ll go talk to my guys, see if they can get me something quicker than that, and something bigger. If not, then I’ll let you know.”
“Give it a couple of days before you start driving around,” Martín cautions him. “If you can call – your people – without having to go talk to them in person, I can get you some burner phones by noon tomorrow. Tavo can bring them here.” Tavo does not seem terribly happy at the prospect – on Teddy’s account, Jonathan suspects – but the boy still nods his assent. “How many do you need?”
Teddy ponders it for a few seconds. “I need six, one for each of the field commanders. You?” he turns to Pine.
Jonathan only has one direct contact he needs on speed-dial, other than those in the room. “I can make do with two, one plus a spare. So long as the internet works, I can talk to Sally by video link.”
“We can try it now, see if it works,” Martín offers.
Assuming she is able to answer, Pine figures, by now it is probably best that they do call her together, or else he will end up relaying messages and questions between Sally and his fellow plotters. It is worth a shot, if only to take stock of the situation at both ends.
“Sally?”
In the couple of minutes it took Jonathan to set up the secure connection, he had practically convinced himself that it was a lost cause; even if Sally was somewhere safe, the chances of getting through to her were minuscule. But what had started as an evening of shattering losses is shaping up to be a night of singular luck. She looks to be at a desk of sorts in a dimly lit room; Pine cannot tell if she is alone, but she looks to be safe.
“Jonathan!” Sally is half whispering, but the excited relief in her voice is loud and clear. “Where are you? What’s happened to you? Are you safe?” These last two bits must be her reaction at seeing his beat-up face and bloodstained T-shirt.
“I’m OK, a few cuts and bruises, nothing serious.” Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Teddy’s dirty look directed at him. “We’re in a safehouse. We had to escape from the Cabreras. Martín picked us up. He and Teddy and Tavo are here with me.”
“Hi,” Sally greets them, though Pine’s companions are out of the picture. “Thank you Martín, and all of you.”
“Can you talk?”
She knows what Pine’s question means. “Yeah. Same as you, I’m in a safehouse with Consuelo – with the Chief Justice. Did Martín tell you…”
“About the decoy shipment? Yes. He did. But they never dropped the real one.”
“What?!” Sally cannot keep her voice down this time.
“Roper got shot in the drop zone. One of Cabrera’s men. We don’t know if he’s dead – “
“If he isn’t,” Teddy mutters next to him, “next time I get to him, I’ll shoot him on sight.” Jonathan hopes that whoever ends up doing the honours, it will not have to be Teddy, for his sanity’s sake.
“His men panicked and sent in a squad of paratroopers instead of the EMP, and they got into a gunfight with the Cabreras,” Pine goes on. “So they scrapped the drop, but we need to find out where that plane has landed. Teddy’s managed to get Roper’s phone, we need you to crack it to see if we can get the flight coordinates off it. Can you get to your office?”
Sally’s eyes light up. “Yeah, as soon as I have the phone, I'll go there. We can get plenty more off it. Contacts, call logs. Maybe he’s been in touch with Mayra directly. Or with Holywell. If we’re lucky, maybe he’s even got some sort of banking app on there.” That might be stretching credibility, but the points on contacts and call logs are eminently valid.
“Can you get Basil to help with it?”
Sally’s face falls, and Jonathan feels as if an icy lump has settled in the pit of his stomach. “Last time I contacted him, it was answered by someone named Angela Burr.” So all is not yet lost; whatever happened to Basil, Angela has picked up the trail. “but I haven’t been able to get through to her in the past two hours.” Fucking hell. Please, please not Angela, too. Not like this. He hopes that both of these are false alarms, but knows it to be unlikely. He hopes, at least, that his distress is not so obvious to Sally as to completely dishearten her. Seated next to him, Teddy reaches over to get hold of his hand on the kitchen table, and he finally remembers to take a breath. They may be on their own now, but they are not going down without a fight.
“Listen, Sally, Martín can get it to you – “ Pine looks at the detective for confirmation.
“ – by tomorrow evening at the latest,” Martín finishes for him. “Send me the coordinates and I’ll leave as soon as I’ve got some food for these two.”
“La comida puedo comprarla yo,” Tavo speaks up, recognising the word. I can go get the food. “Se yo voy por la tienda ahora mismo, tu podrás partir apenas habéis acabado con esta llamada,” he adds, looking at Martín. If I go to the store now, you can leave as soon as this call is over.
“Te está buscando toda la policía,” Teddy cuts in, though he understandably stops short of reminding Tavo and the rest of them why exactly Tavo is wanted by the police.
Tavo shrugs. “Y a ti que te interesa?” And what do you care?
Teddy looks down for an instant before lifting his eyes to face the boy. “Lo se que te he tratado muy mal, pero no voy a seguir haciéndolo, nunca.” I know I’ve treated you really badly, but I’m not going to keep doing it, ever. “Esto te lo juro.” Jonathan is unsure as to how much Tavo might be swayed by Teddy’s swearing upon his promise, but apparently he is; his shoulders relax, and his set expression softens somewhat.
“I can drop by the store first thing tomorrow morning, I’m not wanted by the - ” Jonathan starts, figuring that they will not die of starvation overnight, but before he can say another word, Teddy turns to stare at him point blank, and he looks positively furious.
“What you are is wounded, cabrón. You’re getting out of this house over my dead body until you’ve healed.”
The funny thing is, the person most shocked at this outburst seems to be Jonathan himself; while none of the others, Sally included, speak up, they all seem to approve. He must look a bloody mess, indeed.
“I can go tomorrow morning, I am not wanted either,” Teddy argues oh so casually once he has calmed down, and before Jonathan can even process it, he mutters a “You must be insane” that somehow gets their audience chuckling.
“Ya basta, chicos,” Martín jumps in. Enough, you kids. I’m going to fetch you something to eat as soon as we’re done here, and then I leave for our meeting,” he steps into the camera field of vision as he addresses Sally. “You two should stay put for a few days,” he repeats his earlier admonition. “With any luck, we’ll find this EMP and find a way to blow it to bits before anyone can use it.”
Sally, for once, looks amused. It may be a trick of the light, but Jonathan could swear she just winked at him. “Excellent. I’ll get started on it as soon as I can, and I’ll let you know as soon as I find something useful.”
*
They have said their goodbyes, and Martín has come back from the provisions run and left again; it is past midnight by now, and Jonathan realises that he has not slept properly for nearly two days, but he is still riding the adrenaline high from their escape. They have lost a battle, true, and worse yet, they may have lost beloved allies; but their adversaries have not escaped unscathed, the war has not yet begun, and if they can help it, never will. Long as the odds may be, they look less impossible than they did a few hours ago. For now at least, they have been granted an unexpected reprieve.
.