“Can I get back to work?” the Panamanian asked.
“Yes. Thank you for answering my questions.”
“What do you think?” Talbot asked after Morales closed the cabin door behind him.
“Not sure,” Bell admitted. “I was half thinking it really was Rinaldo who I shot at Pedro Miguel, and you were covering it up to distance yourself from him in Colonel Goethals’s eyes.”
“Not the case,” the former soldier said. “And I’d take offense at the insinuation, if it wasn’t a theory I would have come up with, were I in your shoes.”
Bell continued, “I’d like to know what happened to the money. It wasn’t on the body when I searched it.”
“Probably moved to a new hiding place that only Raul knew. Probably lost forever.”
“Or already disbursed to carry out the next attack. Don’t forget the dynamite we haven’t accounted for.”
“You think the Viboras will keep fighting?” Talbot’s tone was doubtful.
“You don’t?” Bell countered. “Insurgencies need money, sure, but they are driven by ideology. That hasn’t changed, and if you’re right about the Colombian government being behind all this, then the masters in Bogotá will hear of Morales’s death through whatever backchannel communications system they’ve put in place. They’ll send another bagman with another sackload of money. And I think, ultimately, that’s what Morales was, a go-between.”
“Really? You sure?”
“Absolutely. I believe the head of the Viboras is still out there. I think he’s someone known to both Morales brothers. Otherwise, how could the insurgency have started so soon after Raul’s arrival from Colombia?”
“Surely it’s a friend of Raul’s, not Rinaldo’s.”
“In order to have the level of trust necessary to launch something like this, the chances are the Viboras’s head honcho is someone Raul grew up with. You mentioned their village is pretty isolated. If one brother knew our guy, so did the other.”
“You didn’t question Rinaldo about it?”
“No point. It could be any one of a dozen childhood friends or even a relative. I’m alone down here without the resources to track down that many people. You’re in a position to roll up the fighters out in the jungle, their leader especially. I want to disassemble the Colombians’ network inside Panama and make certain they don’t try a stunt like this again. There are serious diplomatic ramifications to this whole affair. Our government is already sending troops. I can imagine scenarios where they sail right past Panama and invade Colombia via Cartagena.”
“Let’s hope we can contain this thing before it goes off the rails,” Talbot said and got to his feet. He had to adjust the holster at his hip.
On deck, all the gear had been stowed properly. Several fighting men lounged under a canvas tarp that was sagging in the middle under the weight of the steadily falling rain. Others were in the pilothouse, getting ready to start their search and destroy operation.
Bell and Talbot shook hands at the base of the ladder bolted to the pier’s wooden piling. “Good luck, Court, and be careful.”
“Always. What’s your next move?”
“It’s time I get to know some of the diplomats stationed here.” Talbot’s expression showed that he didn’t understand Bell’s answer. “Joseph Van Dorn taught me years ago that any gossip worth knowing comes from Foreign Service types because every one of them, from office boy up to Ambassador, is a spy, and their bread and butter is information. If Colombia—or anyone else, for that matter—is trying to exert influence in Panama, the diplomatic community will know all about it.”
“Then good luck to you too.”
Bell didn’t need luck. The truth is, he needed about ten minutes with Colonel Goethals and he’d have the whole affair wrapped up and the way paved for Teddy Roosevelt to inspect his canal without fear of attack.
19
It took several minutes of tinkering to get the tanker truck fired up for the ride back to Panama City. He’d watched Talbot’s boat pull away from the dock and head out across the lake. It was quickly swallowed by distance and the mist until even the rumble of its engine muted entirely. His bucket for washing the windshield had refilled with rainwater, so he set it on the passenger’s seat and climbed behind the wheel.
If Isaac Bell was entirely honest with himself, he didn’t have all the answers just yet. There were some loose ends. He was sure he knew the who of the case and the why, but there was still the question of the backer. Bell liked the theory that Colombia had a hand in the insurgency, yet he felt there was another layer to the plot, someone as yet unseen pulling the strings. Their goal was to delay the canal’s completion since it could never be permanently halted. He needed to think, remembering that classic Latin question detectives ask themselves with every case. Cui bono? Who benefits?
Who had the resources and desire to delay the canal’s construction? It couldn’t be an exceptionally long list, but at the moment Bell couldn’t add even a single entry to it. It had to be someone wealthy enough to be a player in all of this, and also someone who would be made wealthier still by the canal not opening on time. The more he thought, the more of a disconnect he found between those two points. It wasn’t like there were private construction bonds that could be sold as a short. The United States government was footing the entire bill.
There was another angle he just couldn’t see yet.
A spine-jarring pothole tore him from his reverie and reminded him to focus more on his driving. The road was a soggy quagmire, and he passed several vehicles pulled to the verge because of the conditions. Though it was only early afternoon, the storm and the shadow of the encroaching jungle made Bell’s view of the road murky at best. The truck had oil lamps, but he
