Chapter Twenty-Three
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
El lay on his bed in the dark, thinking. He didn't like where his thoughts were taking him.
He hadn't removed his boots - if he did, he'd have to dump the cocaine in order to get them back on.
Sands had not returned to the room.
And, as Delgado had ordered El back to his prison, he'd called him by his real name. His full name, just to show he knew it.
The door opened, and Maria, covered by many machine guns, came in with her first aid kit. When the door closed and locked, the room was in darkness again.
"Why is the light out?" she asked.
"Turn it on, if you like," El said.
Maria moved to the small stand and switched on the light.
El sat up.
Maria sat opposite him, on Sands's bed.
"Are you all right?" she asked, her eyes wide and worried. "What happened today?"
"I got their cocaine back." He studied her for a moment before he went on. "And I had time to use one man's cell phone."
"You did? Who did you call?"
El looked away from her excited young face.
"The CIA," he said, his mouth dry. "Sands gave me a number for them. They are coming to rescue him."
"That's wonderful! Do you know when?"
"No, but sometime. You must have hope. Now you tell me." He dragged his gaze back to her. "What happened when Lorenzo tried to escape today?"
"He was hurt too badly. He wasn't strong enough to hold himself above the door very long, and they heard him and turned and saw him."
It sounded plausible. Maybe he was mistaken.
"Lorenzo said someone told them what he was going to do," he told her.
"I don't understand. How would he know that?"
El shrugged. "By the way they acted when they came in, or by something they said."
"Well, maybe he didn't want to admit how he failed. He made it someone else's fault."
El felt faintly sick.
"No, Maria, he wouldn't do that." El stretched a cramp out of his leg. "Maria, why are you here?"
"What do you mean? To help you, like before."
"Lorenzo needs your care, not me. Are you really a nursing student?"
"Yes, of course." She looked bewildered.
"Then why weren't you in school?"
"What?"
"Why were you at Lorenzo's in the middle of the day in the middle of the week?"
Tears came to the girl's eyes. "Why are you asking me these things?"
Indeed, El felt like a colossal heel. But his instincts rarely failed him, and he didn't think they had now.
"Maria, this room is not bugged. I searched."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
"So I don't believe Lorenzo's room is bugged. If Delgado were going to bug only one room, it would be this one."
"What is it you are saying?"
"The Delgados didn't have Lorenzo's house watched for months just to catch me. Someone called them. Someone who was always there. When the gunmen took you hostage, they knew you were his sister. They knew you. Maria, you told them of Lorenzo's escape plan. You've been working with them from the start."
The tears in the girl's eyes spilled over. "How can you say that? How can you even think such a thing?"
El sighed and leaned back against the wall. "They have medicos. But they sent you to our rooms to spy on us. Did the Señora know, or not?"
Still crying, Maria stumbled to the door, and pounded against it with the heel of her palm. "Let me out! Take me back. He doesn't want my help."
The door opened, all too readily.
"And you told them my name!" he called after her, though they could have tortured that information from Lorenzo. But he didn't think they had.
The door slammed shut and he was alone again.
Not nursing school, he thought, acting school. She was good. He wondered if she had betrayed her brother for money or for love. Her plain face would not win her many suitors.
El did not feel bad about the confrontation. He preferred accusations to secrets. It had been a trying day, and he slept well.
Until some time in the middle of the night when the door opened and light streamed in, blinding him. He expected Sands to enter, but instead, the guards rousted him up and escorted him out.
The estate was dark, except for the bright corridor lights. El saw that, although there might be patrols outside the wall, as Sands had described, few night guards stood duty inside the estate. Even the guards with him had an unkempt look, as if they had been awakened, too.
A light breeze brought the scent of jasmine, and a night bird twittered.
El's instincts awoke. Something was up.
Across the courtyard, another cluster of activity bustled at Lorenzo's door. El saw Lorenzo led out of his door and turned in the same direction as El's group was heading.
They were both taken to the glassed-in ballroom. The chandeliers were dark, and much of what El thought of as "the throne room" was in shadow. At the far end, near the "throne," floor and desk lamps threw eerie shapes, glinting off the glass and reflecting over and over into infinity. At night, the glass walls, rather than allowing lovely vistas of the surrounding gardens, isolated the room from the dark outside.
At the throne end, Delgado, still looking fresh in his flowing silk leisure suit and twinkling rings, his brother David, Pablo, whose family relationship El had not determined, but whom he guessed to be David's son, and Vasquez were gathered. All the men had a tension in their stance that warned El further of danger. They stood around the table that had held the breakfast buffet however many mornings ago. Now it appeared to have papers, possibly maps, on it.
El noted other things about the room. In Señora's absence, no care had been given to making it look elegant. The lovely furniture had been pushed aside, and the place seemed to be being used for temporary storage. In fact, the pallets of cocaine kilos were stacked to one side, and, interestingly, next to them were two piles of weapons. The room appeared to hold everything they had taken from the Orozcos.
El regarded the two piles of weapons. He knew what they were. The larger pile was the Orozcos' weapons cache from the back of the tunnel. The smaller pile was his own collection from that cache, loaded and readied.
As they neared the light, El could see Lorenzo better. Someone had given him a T-shirt, and El could see bandages poking out of the shirt's neck. Lorenzo walked stiffly, but he could walk, which cheered El.
The door behind them opened again, and Sands entered, with one guard and one medico - not the doctor. Maybe the doctor had someone else watch Sands on the midnight shift.
Sands looked clean and neat, and wore a fresh set of black clothes that only enhanced his pallor to where he looked truly spectral. He wore a new pair of sunglasses. He walked steadily enough, but he stopped every three or four paces, and his guard had to urge him forward with a shove or a threat.
At Delgado's signal, Sands's guard pushed him to the high-backed, carved chair that Señora had used. Sands sat in it and slumped as the guard handcuffed his right wrist to the arm of the chair. El thought the image would stay with him for however long he lived, like some tarot card of skeletal Death on a medieval throne, captive.