Lia ignored his glower and walked back down the hall to the room where the voter cards were. The guard stared stoically down the hallway. This time, he didn’t follow her in. Lia made the switch quickly, expecting that either the guard or the mayor would come in at any moment. She sealed the old cards in her briefcase, then went through the testing procedure, relaxed now, confident that she had succeeded at her mission, happy to be done.
Calvina’s hands trembled so badly she spilled some of the water on her dress. She finally managed to get up and went looking for the women’s room to wipe it.
As she entered, she caught sight of her face. She seemed pale, another person. Until now it had seemed that she had stepped into another body, that the whole trip here had been a dream — a surrealistic nightmare, with leering strangers at every turn. But now she saw that it really was her, that she was neither dreaming nor inhabiting another body — it was her face in the mirror.
A pale, ghostly face. Fearful and worried. And sad.
What had she expected? Of course the people she was dealing with were cruel. That was their nature. Hadn’t she expected that?
She would be taken to a border town near Ecuador, where she would take a bus to the capital. There she would go to the airport, where a man would meet her with balloons like the one she had been shown and she would be given a plane ticket.
If she tried to run away or made a mistake from that point on, she would be killed and her family would be killed.
Just looking at the balloons had made her sick.
The Chinawoman had appeared as if from a dream. Calvina wondered where she had come from — clearly she did not belong here.
She spoke many languages, including the Quechua, the tongue of Calvina’s grandparents. She seemed… an apparition. Or an angel, trying to help? Calvina’s guardian angel?
Just a kind woman, Calvina decided. She had only asked what was wrong, as anyone would.
Much was wrong. But these were the choices she had to make. She would be successful, like Senor DeCura. And when she returned to Lima and told the story of her younger days, she would not mention today.
Or the balloon.
Calvina fixed her dress, then crossed herself. She was to walk two blocks, where a woman in a red shawl would meet her. Then her journey would begin in earnest.
“Hey, stranger, fancy meeting you here,” said Karr when Lia walked into the cafe two blocks from the school.
“Real coincidence,” said Lia.
A waiter approached with a drink. “Same for her,” Karr told the man in English.
The waiter swirled away before she could stop him.
“A lot of tourists come here,” Karr told her. “They go into the jungle from here. That your idea of a vacation?”
“What are you drinking?”
“Bourbon.”
“Oh jeez.”
“Hey, we’re done. Time to celebrate.” He laughed and gave her one of his goofy smiles. “Who were you talking to inside?”
“Deputy mayor had a serious attitude.”
“No, who were you asking if they were OK?”
“Just a girl in the hall.”
“Drug smuggler.”
“What do you mean?”
“That place is being used as a clinic by one of the local drug lords. The government officials are probably in on it. They get these young girls to swallow dope for them right before they get on the airplane to the U.S. or Canada. When they get there…” He made a face.
“What?”
“You know.” He made the same face. “Terrible world out there, Princess.”
“She’s just a kid.”
“Yeah,” said Karr, looking up as the drinks came. “Life stinks.”
97
Peruvian presidential candidates were as hard to schedule time with as American ones at the climax of a campaign but, like them, had an overwhelming need for campaign money. And so when Hernes Jackson was presented to Hernando Aznar, it was as something more than “just” a former ambassador to South America. His current connection as the international representative of Clyve Mining, a large conglomerate that owned several mines in Peru, was emphasized as well.
A connection that the Art Room had arranged, with considerable help from the State Department.
Jackson had mixed feelings about the charade. He had learned as a diplomat that lying could be an unpardonable sin. On the other hand, it was he who had suggested the specific cover story. It allowed him to mention his past while remaining distant from it.
Aznar was in Lima to give a speech at a local college. The talk had been planned more than a month ago; at the time, Aznar was running a very distant third and the organizers probably worried that he would have trouble filling the twelve hundred-seat auditorium. But by now Aznar was the most popular candidate in the race. The street outside the building was lined with media vans, and the crowd overflowed onto the front steps.
Dean and Jackson were led around to a basement door, then up a back flight of stairs and into a small room near the stage. When they got there, Aznar had already begun his speech.
Jackson stood by the doorway, listening to the candidate speak. Dean disappeared for a moment, then reappeared with a chair.
“Thank you,” said Jackson, sitting down. “I see what they’re responding to.”
“What’s that?”
“He gives them hope. He talks of the future. Lifting them toward the future. That’s a powerful message,” said Jackson.
As Aznar wrapped up his speech, the auditorium exploded with applause. Jackson watched him soak it up for a moment — the candidate wasn’t entirely comfortable with the adoration, he realized.
That could be a good thing.
Something in Aznar’s expression reminded Jackson of his son. It unnerved him, made him lose track of where he was. Dean touched Jackson’s shoulder and he got up just as Aznar was walking past.
“Senor Aznar, I–I have something critical to tell you,” said Jackson, stammering, his throat suddenly dry.
He was Bobby’s age, wasn’t he?
“Who are you?” asked an aide who had been onstage behind him.
“I am Hernes Jackson,” he said. Jackson pressed his hands together, pushed everything but the present away. “I have something critical to say. I was a U.S. ambassador.”
They were the wrong words — his approach was far too tentative, completely off-balance. He came off like a flake, not the confident messenger he needed to be.
Aznar squinted, as if he was not sure whether to take the meeting or not.
“It’s about General Tucume,” added Jackson.
“What?”
Jackson looked into his face. He had Bobby’s forceful gaze, but this wasn’t his son.
