a kind of robbery that happens all the time in Spain and Italy. Before the mark knows what happened, the bike is gone.”
“Were there pages inside the briefcase?”
“No.”
“What do the notes say? I’m sure you read his notes.”
“There were none. The briefcase was a booby trap. As soon as I clicked the clasp, a spring mechanism popped the case wide open, and another spring pushed a piston up a cylinder full of blue ink. It’s all over my face.”
“Oh, my gosh!” she said. “So he saw you watching them.”
“I don’t think that’s a fair assumption,” Russell said. “The briefcase might have been only a precaution.”
“Then he knows about you now, doesn’t he?”
“He only knows that he got robbed. He can’t know why. They’ve been walking around here at night for over a week, wearing expensive clothes, staying in a fancy hotel, eating in exclusive restaurants. That attracts thieves.”
“I can’t believe this,” Sarah muttered. It sounded to Russell as though she was talking to herself. “These people will not go away and leave me alone. They keep pushing and pushing me. Did I tell you they denounced me to the Guatemala federal police? Well, they did. They’re absolutely relentless, like ants. If you block one way in, they’ll find another. They’re persecuting me. I offered them a fair price. They’re the ones who turned me down.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t stop them in San Diego. Or here, at least.”
Sarah was feeling more and more sorry for herself. “Have you gotten cleaned up from the ink yet?”
“Not yet,” he said. “We’ve tried several solvents, but, so far, no luck. I just sent Ruiz out for more.”
“Russell, I need somebody to rid me of these people. They’ve become vicious now, and dangerous — not only to my reputation and my business, but even to you. That ink trap could just as easily have been acid, or an explosive.”
“I’m sure he meant me to understand that. Any nonfatal attack is a warning.”
“We can’t go on this way,” she said. “If someone threatens your life, you’re justified in using any force to save yourself.”
“I’m not sure the authorities here would see it that way,” he said. She was assuming he’d just kill the Fargos for free. He had been planning to offer that option for a high price.
She said, “It doesn’t matter what the authorities want. There’s such a thing as natural rights.”
“I’m afraid that if you decided on an aggressive defense, I would have to charge an additional fee,” he said. “I have to pay Ruiz, and so on.” He waited for an answer.
When it came, she sounded distracted, distant. “Oh. Yes. I was thinking of you as an equal. But, of course, I had no right to do that. You’re someone who works for me and has to think about money. How does an extra five thousand sound?”
“I was thinking it would have to be ten,” he said.
“Oh, Russell. I’d hate to think you called to get me all upset about what they’d done to you so you could take advantage of my sympathy to raise your prices.”
“No, Miss Allersby,” he said. “I’d never do that. The figure is the minimum I’d actually need. I’ll have to get my color back so I don’t stand out, buy weapons for one-time use in a European country where they’re heavily controlled, pay to dispose of the bodies, find a quiet way out of Spain and back to the U.S., and compensate Ruiz.”
“All right, then. Ten.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“But you have to do it, not just promise it and take the money in advance.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. I haven’t gotten rid of my blue face yet.”
“You may not know this, but cosmetic companies sell opaque makeup that’s designed to cover scars, birthmarks, and discolorations. If the blue doesn’t wash off, you can cover it up until your skin recovers on its own.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do. When those horrible Fargo people disappear from my life, I’ll make you glad they did.” He heard the click as she hung up.
Sarah sat in the big office in the old quarter of Guatemala City. Why was her patience being so sorely tested? These little people, these nothings, were making her life unbearable. Since they had left Guatemala, Diego San Martin had come to her home to tell her that the Fargos had killed several members of one of his security patrols before they had slipped away into the jungle.
An enraged drug lord was not a pleasant guest. He had labor issues too. If men who worked for him were killed, he had to send big payments to their wives. If he didn’t, the others would become timid and reluctant to do their jobs. If Diego San Martin couldn’t keep people off the small corner of her land where he was raising and shipping marijuana, he couldn’t make a profit and he would stop the commission he was paying her. In the current international economy, having a large stream of passive income was what kept her business profitable.
Sarah opened her computer and tapped in the name Bartolome de Las Casas. She read the entry quickly, and then came to the end. Las Casas had left his whole personal library to the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid. What could a monk’s personal library have been in 1566? The man had been the first colonizer of the north of Guatemala, a friend and teacher of Mayan kings. Could he have left a set of directions to find an abandoned Mayan city? A tomb with a fabulous treasure? All this time, Sarah had been thinking that the way to the next big discovery was going to be a Mayan codex, but it could just as easily be a Spanish priest’s journal. She had never before considered such a thing, but if the Mayans were going to tell anyone a secret, it would have been Las Casas. He was their confessor, their protector.
The bloody Fargos might have discerned the one way to confound her. Of course, just the fact that they had beaten her to an idea didn’t mean the idea was worth anything. The whole idea depended on something that might not have happened at all. Had Las Casas learned any secrets from the Mayans? Probably. Had he written them down and left them in his library of hymnals and catechisms and tracts? Who knew?
She had to get going now, to choose her destination and begin assembling the components of her first expedition. The idea of being beaten to a major discovery by a pair of inquisitive, jealous, and resentful upstarts was maddening.
Sarah picked up her telephone and called the vice president in charge of the financial arm of her company.
“Yes, Miss Allersby?” he said. The Spanish-speaking employees of her companies had been instructed never to address her as Senorita because it sounded disrespectful to her English-trained ears.
“Ricardo, I need a favor.”
“Certainly, Miss Allersby,” he said. “If you ask me, it’s not a favor. It’s my job.”
“I would like you to run credit checks on an American couple. The names are Samuel and Remi Fargo. They live on Goldfish Point in La Jolla, California, which is a section of San Diego. I want to know exactly what charges they’re making on their credit cards and where.”
“Do you have any identifiers? Social Security numbers, dates of birth? Anything like that?”
“No. But you can buy them from their banks, can’t you?”
“Of course, Miss Allersby, or from middlemen.”
“Then go ahead. They were here in Guatemala a couple of weeks ago. Their hotel will probably have made copies of their passports and will certainly have their credit card numbers.”
“Yes, Miss Allersby,” he said. “I’ll find out where they are and what they’re doing and call you.”
“Good. Wait a few hours after that and run their credit again once each day so we can pick up any changes.”
“Certainly, Miss Allersby.”
She hung up and turned her attention to planning her expedition. She made long lists of things that needed to be done and, under them, the people she would order to do them. After about two hours, her cell phone rang again.
“Hello.”
