October 2004
Miraflores, Guaviare Department, Colombia
Day 2

The drive took over a half an hour, over a rough dirt road that ran deep into the jungle. Ford drove, and he was silent the entire way. Still pissed from the night before, no doubt, and Eliot was right there with him. If Ford had seen the Hummer at 2 a.m., he didn't mention it, and Eliot didn't feel enough like talking to raise the subject.

Jorge Cabrera didn't live in a mansion or an estate or even a villa. He lived in a compound. A huge main house designed in some Greek Revival-Spanish Colonial mash-up, all of it surrounded by twelve foot concrete walls, with the jungle looming just beyond them. The house itself was white stucco with a tile roof, but then someone had had the bright idea to slap a Tara-like facade on it, complete with a porch that stretched the length of the house and four enormous columns standing like guards across the front.

There was a stucco guest house; a pool and a pool house. The grounds were plush grass, like something off a golf course. A neatly-laid brick driveway ran in a semi-circle from the bumpy dirt road outside the compound, and along the back wall, there were a line of smaller sheds, probably used for storage (of what, Eliot had to wonder).

Apparently, it was a destination place. Topless girls sunned by the pool, along with young guys drinking beers, the sound system blaring. Eliot thought he recognized one as a back-up player for the Angels. But what really caught his attention were the shady-looking guys in rubber rain boots, walking two pit bulls on chain choke collars.

As Ford parked the jeep in the semi-circle, Eliot said in a low voice. "See the guys with the dogs? FARC."

They were the first words spoken on the entire drive, and Ford was all business about it. He leaned slightly towards Eliot, keeping his eyes on the men. "How do you know?"

"The boots. They're very distinctive boots."

"Huh," he said, considering Eliot's information. "I guess I can see that."

He climbed out of the jeep, leaning over the back to pull his leather briefcase out before he walked around to Eliot's side. Eliot was just about to get out of the jeep when he spoke.

"Try not to get in any fights while I'm inside," he said.

Uh, come again?"

"Hm?"

"While you're inside?"

"Yes. While I am. I got this."

I got this. Again with the I got this.

"Fine," Eliot snapped. "Don't blame me if he takes batting practice on your head."

Nate smirked and turned away from the jeep, nodding a cheery hello at the FARC men as he started up the long stairs that led to Jorge's front door. He was still a good six feet away when the door flew open and a stocky Jorge Cabrera stood inside smiling.

He was extremely friendly. For now. He and Nate shared a little small talk in Spanish as Jorge led Nate inside and closed the door, leaving Eliot sitting in the jeep in the driveway.

Eliot sighed. The FARC guys were watching him, and a few of the guys by the pool were watching him as well. One young guy in board shorts stood up and went over to the outside bar, and turned, making a big show of letting Eliot see the butt of a gun sticking up over his waistband.

Because that was scary: a rail-thin dude in floral shorts as big as a sail who didn't know better than to take his gun to the pool.

Eliot rolled his eyes to himself. Then he quickly bounded up out of the jeep and barely kept from laughing at the quick jerk by every single one of the guys watching him.

Two for flinching, boys.

He smiled innocently at them and leaned against the jeep as his phone started to buzz. He looked at it.

Chapman.

He didn't always answer when Chapman called but sometimes he did. This time he did.

"What do you want? I'm working."

"Oh really? A little wet work on this beautiful fall day?"

"Not exactly." You know I don't do that anymore, he wanted to say, but he didn't bother.

"Too bad. That is your best talent, you know."

Eliot kept staring at the men around him, staring at them one by one. He was starting to feel particularly stony now, more and more cold and angry with Chapman's voice in his ear, and one by one, the men around him broke eye contact first.

Chapman kept going. "I had a job yesterday that made me think of you. Remember that guy Kozlov? The Russian guy in Bulgaria?"

Eliot remembered him well. That guy had a bad habit of challenging Damien's friends and allies. "Yeah, so?"

"He finally pissed Damien off one too many times."

"Not surprised," Eliot said.

"I know, bound to happen right? So guess who got to take care of him? I gotta say I missed your company."

"You'll figure it out."

Chapman chuckled. "Well, I can't wait for you to come back. These other guys aren't nearly as much fun to work with."

Eliot said nothing, and Chapman added: "Cute family, though, the Kozlovs. Well, they were."

Eliot's grip on the phone tightened.

Then there was a commotion. Eliot looked up at the house. Ford was walking calmly out the front door, folding the flap over his briefcase, and Jorge was following him, talking loudly. Obscenities and insults and threats. Ford slung the leather strap over his shoulder and patted the side of the briefcase as it rested against his hip and thigh. A message for Eliot: he had the crocodile.

He walked casually, like he was taking a stroll in a park, like there wasn't some big jock at his back screaming at him.

"I gotta go," Eliot told Chapman and hung up.

The FARC guys and the guys by the pool were up and moving, fast. But then so was Eliot. In his head, he chunked them into groups. Two-three-two-one. The two FARC guys - the ones who'd get to them first - the three guys by the pool on the near side, and then the two guys on the backside of the pool. He saved Jorge for last, although he figured by the time he went through seven guys, Jorge might not have much fight left in him.

As it turns out, he didn't have to get that far.

The FARC guys did him a favor by not sending their dogs. They had just fastened the chain collars to a peg in the ground before Ford and Jorge came out of the house, and they didn't bother to let them loose. They just came straight at him themselves. The first guy pulled out a knife and the second grabbed a crowbar from the back of a truck in the driveway.

Eliot smiled. They didn't think they needed guns for him.

The knife guy swung it high, going for the neck and Eliot ducked and punched the guy in the solar plexus. He noted the telltale sucking of wind with satisfaction - gets 'em every time - and grabbed the wrist of the guy's knife hand, pivoting, throwing him over his hip. The guy landed hard on his back, and Eliot stepped on his rib cage, dislocating the guy's shoulder as he wrenched the knife free. He felt more than he saw the second guy, and he heard the whistling of the crowbar zinging through the air. Eliot juked left, just as the crowbar zipped by his head on the right.

When he turned around to face the guy, he heard Jorge yelling.

"Para!" he called out.

At first, Eliot thought Jorge was talking to him, telling him to stop. But then he saw the crowbar guy looking up at the balcony confused, and he chanced a look there himself.

Jorge was pointing at the guys by the pool, at the guy with the crowbar, yelling "Para! Follar detener maldita sea!"

Ford slipped by behind him with his briefcase and went to the jeep without a word. Eliot looked around and saw that - for whatever reason - Jorge wasn't letting anyone put up a fight.

He looked up Jorge, and Jorge leered at him. " ¡Adelante!" Jorge yelled, spitting off to the side. "Obtener el infierno que de aquí!"

Eliot eased back to the jeep and got in. Ford had left driving duty for him, and he pulled the car around quickly but carefully, looking for any sign of a trick. But there was none. Jorge had called off his men.

It almost got Eliot to wondering why, until he heard Jorge call out after them in English, just as they were leaving the grounds:

"It's not me you gotta worry about!"

"What just happened?" Eliot asked, turning the jeep back towards Miraflores.

"I gave him a choice - give me the crocodile or pay IYS back or get reported for insurance fraud and spend the rest of your life trying to avoid extradition."

"Who's this guy we've got to worry about?" Eliot asked, even though his mind went straight to the Hummer and the forearm extended out of the open window.

"No idea. Jorge said he'd promised it to somebody, but that's all he told me."

Ford pulled his briefcase into his lap and lifted the flap, peering into it. He reached in and lifted out the crocodile.

It seemed smaller than Eliot had remembered from the photograph. In Ford's hand, it was no longer than the heel to the middle digit of his ring finger, and it was thin, narrow, dark. The detail was interesting, though, even to Eliot. The thing had an actual expression on its face, knowing and not a little sinister.

Ford stared at it. For what seemed to Eliot like an overly long time.

Maybe he was wondering the same thing that was going through Eliot's head: I hope you're worth it.

"I'm guessing we're not waiting for the charter," Ford asked when they returned to the hotel; Eliot snorted and shook his head as he parked the jeep, but the question had been asked dryly. Ford didn't expect anything else.

"You can wait for the charter," Eliot replied, already twirling the room keys around a finger; the soft metal-on-metal sound ringing in the muggy air. "If you want to fly back in a body bag."

He left Ford chewing on the thought, before he could come up with a comeback, and took the stairs to their rooms two, three and then four at a time.

He took Ford's room first, and he was pleased to find Ford's bag packed and ready to go on the bed. He grabbed it and went to his own room, sliding the key easily in the lock.

Eliot had always been intuitive. It was one of the reasons he was still alive. So he felt the presence in his room even before he smelled the cologne wafting through the door as he opened it, even before he heard the muffled creak of the bed springs and someone shifted.

The man was sitting there, his back reclined against the headboard, like he should have a book or a TV remote in his hands. The barely-scuffed soles of his dress oxfords were emblazoned with a lion crest and the declaration that they were Made in Italy.

Eliot walked in smoothly, closing the door behind him, gently placing Ford's bag on the floor. Movements slow and easy, confident.

The man was tall, muscles bulging against his silk t-shirt and the shimmering grey fabric of his dress pants. He was built like a brick wall, but way more intelligent, if Eliot went by the three-second view of his face he got while contemplating the best way to punt him out the window. That intelligence made its appearance right away - the guy didn't move, one way or the other. He didn't shrink back, but more important, he didn't come at Eliot either. He just sat there, hands folded in his lap, head cocked slightly to the side.

Eliot's fingers curled at his sides, knuckles cracking.

"Senor Spencer," the guy said, in a voice like oil over ice. "So good to see you in my neck of the woods."

"Bit warm, Senor…." Eliot let his voice trail off, fishing.

The man laughed.

"Cesar," he offered, freely. "Cesar Ventura. I know you, Senor Spencer. I know your….reputation." Eliot frowned, not dramatically, but he frowned nonetheless. "A dangerous man, hmm? One to be….respected. Not crossed."

Eliot felt a twinge of vicious pride. He'd worked for that reputation. But it was tempered with something else, that desire to be….different; the one Chapman kept rubbing in his face. Eliot killed the frown, and just grunted.

"You're working with a….certain gentleman?" Cesar continued, pacing a step or two. Eliot watched him from the corners of his eyes, watched him carefully. Just like Cesar was watching him. "He took something interesting from a friend of mine. Something very valuable. Something that was promised to me."

Ventura's hands were spread, his palms huge, and Eliot kept an eye on those hands because hands gave a person away every time. Ventura kept talking. "I must confess, I have grown very attached to it. But you don't seem overly attached to your friend."

"He's not my friend," Eliot bit out, instinctively.

Cesar smiled, beatifically. "Of course not." His voice was still snake-belly smooth. "Perhaps we can be friends?"

Eliot stared at him, noncommittal.

"I would like to offer an exchange, Senor. I get what was promised to me and…we get to have a nice chat with your… not-friend."

Eliot felt his brow furrow as he considered that offer and what was missing from that offer. "And what exactly do I get?"

"You get to watch," Cesar said, and his eyes took on that same deadness that Eliot had seen so often in his own. "And walk away."

"I'm not a killer." Unspoken: anymore. He reached to grab his bag, already packed, from its place on the floor by the dresser. There was nothing left in the room to say he had been there. He nodded in satisfaction, and turned to see that Cesar had not moved.

"I do not want to kill him," Cesar said, and Eliot just about gave him a look of extreme disbelief. "We just want to….teach him a little lesson. He'll walk away. Well, perhaps limp, but. He will live."

Eliot crossed his arms and cocked his head at the other man, his pack hanging heavy on his shoulder. "I'm in retrieval now. One of my clients gets hurt on the job . . ." Eliot shook his head. "Not exactly good for my professional reputation."

Cesar gave him a little shrug: what can you do? "A man with your particular talents, Senor Spencer, I'm sure you will find work in whatever field you may choose. From time to time, I myself have a need for certain . . . retrieval work."

Eliot watched him, watched the thoughts flickering behind dark eyes, and felt that old darkness flickering in himself again.

"The next closest airport you can use?" Cesar said. "Is San Jose del Guaviare. I am sure this is no surprise to you."

He stopped, waiting for a reaction, but Eliot gave nothing away one way or the other.

(In fact, he knew before their plane hit the ground in Miraflores that San Jose del Guaviare was the closest place with a real airport and military that didn't all seem to be in the cartel's back pocket.)

"There are two routes. Through Barranquillita and then Calamar. Or through Santa Ines. I will have….some more friends along the Barranquillita route, waiting to meet you." He pretended to inspect his fingernails. Eliot pretended to be impressed. "All you, Senor Spencer, need to do is get your Mr. Ford to travel our way, and we. We will take care of the rest. Show him some true hospitality. Easy. Yes?"

"Easy, yes." Eliot replied. "But no."

"…think about it." Cesar said, giving him a polite bow. "But don't think too long. The jungle moves fast, Senor Spencer. You need to be faster, or you die."

And, with that charming statement, he smiled. "I believe you have a plane to catch."

"I thought you were just grabbing the bags," was the first thing Nate said when Eliot returned to the jeep, chucked his bag over the back of the seat and climbed in.

"I was," Eliot growled. "Just double checking that I had everything."

"….double checking," Nate said, as if to himself. "Hm."

Eliot ignored him as he climbed into the passenger seat and pulled a map from the glove compartment, spreading it between them. The route that took them to Calamar by way of Barranquillita was more direct, closer to a straight line. It was also, Eliot noted with a stab of regret, one of a few routes he had highlighted in case they needed an escape. That bright yellow line was blinking out at him like a caution light against the light blue background of the map.

"We're gonna take the route towards Santa Ines," he said. "Then we'll cut across."

"Why would we do that when you've got a direct route highlighted right here?" Ford asked, pointing, and the sharp exasperation in his voice went straight to Eliot's hackles.

"That's . . . a main route, too much traffic," he said, and he could have cursed himself at how vague he sounded. He tried again. "Your boy Jorge's not gonna lay down and let us waltz out, you know."

"That'll cost us an extra day. At least."

An extra day.

Eliot could hear the subtext there loud and clear: Ford was worried about his 7 day deadline. And with every other fucking thing Eliot had on his plate right now, he had to worry about that? "So what?" He snarled. "It's safer!"

"Isn't that what I have you for? To keep me safe?" Nate pulled the map up, jerking it from Eliot's fingertips as he did so, and he folded it with a decisive snap.

Eliot tried not to imagine forcing him to eat the map, even while he chastised himself: maybe if you told him about the Hulk in your room that wants the little crocodile? But Eliot found that he wanted to keep Ventura - and Ventura's offer - to himself, even as another voice in his head told him that the only reason to keep it secret is because he was actually considering it.

"Going towards Barranquillita cuts out a day of travel," Nate leaned across Eliot and gave the map a hard toss back into the glove compartment, slamming the door of it.

Eliot opened his mouth to protest, because that way lay a man with a promise of limps, of work that would come all too naturally to him, an offer that would be so easy to take, but then Ford gave him a look. That look - the arrogant, withering look from Chuy's that burrowed under Eliot's skin - and he spoke to him in that dismissive tone that made Eliot's blood boil.

"Time is of the essence heer, Spencer. Or did you forget that in your long detour to the rooms?"

Eliot was silent, staring at Ford's sharp blue eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, full of barely contained anger. "You want to go through Barranquillita?"

"Yes. And I'm not asking you for permission. Or your opinion."

"Fine," Eliot said, his voice almost a whisper as he thought of Cesar: easy, yes? "We'll go your way."

Eliot turned away from him and stewed in his seat as Ford drove. If that was Ford's choice, it was going to be Ford's fucking problem. What did he care? At the end of the day, Cesar Ventura was really more his kind of guy than Nathan Ford. And if things went bad - went really bad - he could easily parlay this whole situation into a job or three for a cartel enforcer.

Whatever Ford got, it would be exactly what he deserved.