week what you make in a month in Lima.”
“Could I stay a year?”
“A year? The rest of your life.”
“I would work very hard.” Calvina felt a rush of hope. She could become a person such as Senor DeCura.
Except that she would not fall victim to temptation as he had.
“How?” she asked her cousin.
Rosa put her finger to her lips. “I will explain later. Don’t tell them. The old women will worry. But we will take a trip first, arrange everything, then leave. I will help you, Calvina.”
“Thank you,” she said.
27
After getting into the car, Fernandez had been shunted in a different direction by soldiers who arrived to quell the disturbance. Sure that he had lost Lia forever, he spent the two hours they were separated alternately roaming the streets and calling everyone he could think of to help look for her. By the time Lia finally caught up to him at the election commission’s temporary Lima offices, he was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. He greeted her as if she had survived an earthquake, blaming himself for abandoning her.
The Peruvian army had moved in and shut down the center of the city. Order had been quickly restored — it had never really been threatened — but the police found themselves besieged on all sides. The media accepted the allegations that the police had fired into the crowd and another demonstration had spontaneously erupted a few blocks away from the first.
The UN delegation had decided to push up a scheduled tour of Cusco, the major city to the south. They had boarded a hastily chartered aircraft and left Lima, hoping to keep themselves from becoming the focus of any more attention. That left the local staff to try to deal with the press. Even Fernandez’s voice mail was overwhelmed with requests for comments.
“You should tell them it’s definitely a setup,” Lia said. “The police weren’t involved.”
“The gunmen were able to get very close.”
“So were we.”
After a few minutes of arguing, Lia realized that having him say nothing was better than the alternative. She watched TV accounts of the disturbances for an hour or so. Several thousand people blocked off Javier Prado Avenue, a main thoroughfare in the Lince section of the capital, but there was no violence. In the other parts of town the crowds were much smaller and just as peaceful. Traffic was hopelessly snarled, but that was a normal state of affairs in Lima.
By early evening even the most breathless television commentator was saying that the city had returned to normal. The incident’s effect on the election was already being measured; it was generally agreed that the disturbance would harm the vice president, who was seen as the government’s candidate and therefore connected to the police. Victor Imberbe of the Peruvian Centrists had already given a press conference denouncing the violence, though he was careful not to directly criticize the police force.
He had a round, almost cherry-red face, with slicked-back blond hair. He had the smooth patter of a host on an infomercial. Lia started shaking her head as she watched him talking to an interviewer.
“Don’t do that,” said one of the UN people.
“Don’t do what?”
“We have to be neutral.”
“I can’t shake my head?”
“Here, we are among friends, but elsewhere, you never know who may see you. We have to be neutral.”
“Three people died. Five were wounded,” said Lia. “We have to be neutral.”
“The election—”
“Fine.” She got up.
“What’s wrong?” asked Fernandez, coming over.
“I think I’m going to call it a day,” she told him. “I’m going back to my hotel.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I do. My work is done for the day.”
“What I meant was, you should stay here where we have some protection.”
The UN had hired security guards to protect the election workers; the men were from Spain and Portugal, to help ensure that they could be trusted.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe we could have dinner first?”
“Another time.”
28
Dean felt his “pre-go” adrenaline build as he and Karr placed fresh video bugs around the bank. Some people were stricken with all manner of jitters; Dean had known a sniper in Vetnam who always threw up before leaving camp. Dean didn’t get nervous before an assignment, but he did feel his pulse quicken and stomach tighten. There was nothing to do about it but wait for the mission to begin.
While the batteries in the small video units were state-of-the-art, they could provide power for only a few hours and had to be replaced for the night’s mission. The Art Room had analyzed their earlier coverage plan and come up with a few tweaks, improving what the geeks called the redundancy of the system — if one or two bugs failed, they’d still have a complete virtual surveillance net over the area. Dean moved along planting his share of the bugs, nonchalantly pressing them against different surfaces. The fit wasn’t always perfect, and in some cases the sticky material on the back had to be reinforced with a small blob of additional stickum. Doing this wasn’t exactly hard — but doing it without attracting attention took finesse and patience. Dean felt his adrenaline working against him, pushing him to rush the task. He kept reminding himself to move more slowly and not press.
Karr passed him as he worked a bug onto the back of a road sign. The other op smiled but didn’t make eye contact. To provide possible diversions in case things got complicated inside the bank, Karr was planting small explosive panels along the block. About the size and thickness of a checkbook calculator, the devices were essentially flat firecrackers that could be ignited by radio signal. Their sound was much worse than their bite, and they were meant only to temporarily confuse the police unit that would normally be stationed outside, or anyone arriving to assist them.
Dean finished planting his last bugs and went to meet Karr at a cafe a few blocks away. By the time he got there Karr had used his very elementary Spanish to order himself a hot chocolate, which was advertised here as French Cocoa.
“Why do you think this is French Cocoa?” asked Karr as Dean slid into the booth. “Do Peruvians think the French make great chocolate?”
“Maybe they realize it’s not as good as Swiss,” said Dean.
Karr laughed. “I’m kind of tired. What do you say about going back to the hotel and taking a nap?”
“I have to talk to Rubens,” Dean told him.
“Why?”
“I want to make sure he knows that was a setup at the demonstration.”
“Telach told him by now.”
“I want to tell him myself. I told Lia I would.”
“I’d leave that part out. Or make it a group thing — tell him we’re all concerned.”
Karr’s protectiveness was touching, and Dean remembered it two hours later, back in the hotel, when Rubens called him back. He was in a helicopter — even the Deep Black communications system couldn’t completely erase the turbines and blades in the background.
