She nodded her head eagerly. “Buena idea.”
“I’ll call the police if I think there’s gonna be trouble,” Rick added. “If not, I’ll come up on his heels to the front door.”
“Gracias,” she said, her shoulders dropping, feeling a tiny bit less distressed.
Rick nodded and they quickly exchanged cell phone numbers.
“Alright, I’ll head outside.” Before he left, he turned around. “Is it just me or does it feel like the heat’s getting turned up pretty fast around here?”
Sofia sighed. “Si.”
Luis said, “Ten cuidado.”
Rick smiled. “I promise, I’ll be careful.” He left.
He hurried down the stairs and out his building’s back door. He sneaked through the parking lot, around the building, crossed a side street, and then darted across the road to another apartment building. He took up a position behind a fence, with a decent view of his building’s entryway. Then, he waited.
Less than half an hour later, he spotted a rusted, moss-green colored Ford F150 pickup truck with a crew cab drive by, slowing in front of his building, then park about a block away. A couple of minutes later, a slender young man got out of the truck, looked around, and darted over to Rick’s three-story walk-up apartment building. He stepped into the lit entryway. He wasn’t very tall, maybe 5’4”, with short-cropped black hair, and he seemed nervous as heck. He furtively looked around behind him, then pressed one of the buttons.
Rick texted Sofia.
The buzzer went off inside Rick’s apartment.
Sofia checked her phone. There was a text message from Rick.
Looks ok so far. I’m coming back. He sprinted back to his building.
She showed the message to Luis, then quickly texted Rick back, Bien.
Luis nodded, then took a deep breath.
She answered on the intercom. “Quién es?”
“It’s Javier,” a young man’s voice answered in Spanish. “I’m here to speak with Sofia.”
“Come up,” she replied and buzzed him in.
Sofia paced the room nervously.
There was a soft knock at the door. “It’s Javier.”
Sofia called out, “Un momento.” She wanted to wait until Rick arrived.
A moment later, she heard Rick in the hallway speaking to Javier.
“Hola, my name is Rick,” he said, holding his hands out. “Don’t be frightened.”
Javier stepped back away from him.
“It’s ok. I’m a friend of Sofia’s. This is my apartment you’re meeting her at. We needed to take some precautions, you understand.”
Javier swallowed hard. “Si, si,” he said, in a shaky voice, clearly jumpy.
Sofia opened the door.
“After you,” Rick said, motioning him inside.
Javier entered the apartment looking skittish and scared. His inquisitive dark brown eyes darted around the room, looking for danger and trying to get a sense of who was here. He’d obviously taken a bit of a beating, too. His eye was blackened and there were bruises on his arms.
Rick closed the door behind him and locked it.
“I’m Sofia and this is my brother Luis.” She could tell how nervous he was. He had the look of someone desperate and completely out of options. In her line of work, she’d seen many a soul look exactly this way.
“You have nothing to fear from us,” she said in a calm voice.
Javier nodded, but was still clearly tense.
“Let me get you something to drink,” Rick said. He grabbed a bottle of Coke from the fridge and handed it to him.
Javier took it, his hand shaking a little.
“Have a seat,” Rick said, pointing to a chair in the living room.
He sat down, leaning forward, somewhat hunched over.
Rick sat down in the chair next to him, while Sofia and Luis took the sofa.
Javier took a long sip. His shoulders were tense and he stared at the floor, brows creased, looking like someone who was expecting to be jumped at any moment.
They were all quiet for a few moments.
“So,” Rick said, breaking the ice, “you might know where Diego Torres is?”
“Si,” he replied, setting the soda bottle down on the coffee table. “I saw an older man, held prisoner in the jungle, outside the city.” He described the man to them.
Sofia and Luis nodded quickly, their eyes growing wide with hopefulness.
“That sounds like our padre,” Sofia said, the emotion clearly evident in her voice.
“He was tied to a tree.” Javier then hesitated a moment. “He appeared injured slightly. Not bad, but I think they might’ve roughed him up a bit.”
Luis squeezed his eyes closed, fighting back tears at the thought of his father held prisoner and injured somewhere out in the jungle.
“He was held by a group of men. I could not tell how many there were, but they were armed. I am certain they’re somehow connected to those foreign operators, Ares, that you mentioned in your article. They’ve been spotted snooping around everywhere, asking questions about our historical artifacts and archaeological locations. I do not trust them.” Javier’s throat felt parched. He reached for the Coke and took a long sip.
“Neither did our padre,” Sofia replied, thinking that was exactly what got him captured.
Rick listened. Hearing about the capture of their father brought memories flooding back to him. He felt his heart beat faster. He could again feel the fear and anxiety of being taken prisoner. Not knowing if you would live to see another day. Completely at their mercy.
Javier continued, “I ran as fast as I could, I was trying to get back to town, but I was grabbed not far from the prison camp. One of the men must’ve spotted me. He was questioning me about what I was doing out there, how I’d found them. If it had something to do with where the metal library was, and what I knew about the Tayos Caves system. I said I didn’t know what he was talking about. I struggled and managed to escape.”
“How?” Rick asked.
“My knowledge of the jungle,” Javier replied, offering no further explanation on that point.
Rick didn’t press him on that particular point. “Where is this prison camp?” he asked.
“It is on the way to the
