Page 95 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

The Food O my good ness Meets & Cheeses and Bread, with juice from reel Oranges. I asked for choklit onct but the Doctor laft & said the diet was so I get better & then I get all the Kandy I want affter. I am geting plump Youll not even know Me!!!

Please rite & tell me abt your new Family. From what the Doctor tells me They sound ever so nice. Do You have a fether Bed like wht I have?

Hugs from Your loving Sister,

Mary

She laid the letter out, carefully rolling the blotter back and forth as her father had taught her, and looked at the results. It was disappointing. There were blots, the lines weren’t as straight as they should be, and there were some words that didn’t look right. But she wanted to get it off as quickly as possible, so she carefully folded the letter, inserted it into an envelope, and wroteFor Constance Greeneon the cover. Then she sealed and gummed it for Munck to take away later.

She wanted to write a letter to Joe as well, but she felt lassitude slowly enveloping her limbs once again. Instead, she let herself fall into a daydream about the future. The filthy streets with their leering men, the cold dirty ice in the gutters—everything was already so far away that it seemed like a receding nightmare. First she’d awoken to this beautiful room, and now her greatest wish had come true: the doctor had not only rescued Joe and Constance, but had managed to find a good family where they could be happy and taken care of. After so much deprivation and tragedy, it seemed as if God had finally taken notice of them. She felt another upwelling of gratitude to the doctor, and even a touch of affection for his funny manservant Munck, with his knobbly face and bowing, scraping ways.

January 7. The doctor had promised. She could scarcely wait for that day when they would—at last—all be reunited once again.

61

June 11

Sunday

ARMSTRONG COLDMOON SAT INthe black chauffeured Jeep that had picked him up at the Quito airport in the middle of the night—while Tom Torres, the FBI’s International Operations Division “legat” in Ecuador, watched from a place of concealment to ensure nothing went wrong. Now he was headed northward into the mountainous province of Imbabura. Coldmoon used the drive to mentally rehearse one last time the details of his undercover identity.

Torres had briefed him over the phone before he’d left New York. The legal attaché explained the confusing situation as best he could. Ecuador would not extradite Ramón Armendariz y Urias to the United States, as he had recently acquired Ecuadorian citizenship. On top of that, Armendariz was extremely wealthy and had friends in high places. But Armendariz was a brash, outspoken fellow, and he had pissed off the comandante general of the Policía Nacional by meddling in Ecuadorian politics, weeping crocodile tears about the repressive hand of the state. So the police had seemed willing enough to assist the American FBI in setting up a sting operation to lure Armendariz back to the States.

It was Coldmoon’s assignment to be the wasp delivering the sting.

He had never been to Ecuador before. Perhaps more importantly, this was his first overseas assignment, and now he felt both excited and apprehensive, staring out the back window of the Jeep as the vehicle climbed up a winding highway ever deeper into the Cordillera, the backbone of mountains that ran through the heart of Ecuador. Even though Coldmoon had arrived with a cover identity worked out back in the U.S., Torres had been helpful with details, telling him to arrive in an off-the-rack suit and polyester tie. His undercover name was Armstrong Witko, a direct descendant of Crazy Horse and a registered member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The FBI had created an online trail for him, including a Facebook page with posts going back ten years, a genealogy easily accessible online, employment history, credit score, and even a minor criminal record. Coldmoon had been shocked at how quickly and cleverly the FBI could create, out of whole cloth, a multiyear existence of someone. This, along with the International Operations Division as a whole, was an aspect of FBI work he’d been entirely unaware of. It seemed a lot had changed, and changed quickly, in the undercover field since he’d graduated from the academy.

It was a given that the item had to be heavy enough to lure Armendariz back to America in order to evaluate it. It also had to be fabulously valuable—and have an ironclad history that would satisfy the well-educated collector. Ultimately, Coldmoon’s own original idea—the so-called Crazy Horse Winter Count—had won out.

Coldmoon, clutching a file of cleverly produced pictures of the (fake) Crazy Horse Winter Count, along with forged papers documenting the provenance of the robe, pondered all this as the Jeep departed the highway and continued up a series of ever smaller roads into the highlands of Ecuador. From what little he could see in the 4AMlight, it was wild and spectacular country, the horizon dominated by a row of towering volcanoes covered with glaciers and snow. They passed through a number of tiny villages with whitewashed houses and red tile roofs.

Under other circumstances he would have enjoyed the drive. But despite his excitement, he could not shake a feeling of unease. Armendariz was no fool, and if he saw through the deception, Coldmoon’s life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel. Up in the high Andes, on the remote seven-thousand-acre hacienda where Armendariz lived like a feudal lord, Coldmoon would be disappeared without a trace at the first scent of anything fishy. But Coldmoon knew this wasn’t the real reason he was nervous. He was used to running his own cases from beginning to end—enlisting help where necessary, but always on his terms. This operation was much bigger than he was used to, and it was being run in a different way entirely. International Operations had taken his notion for how to nail Armendariz and turned it into a reality—with minimal input from him. Now all he had to do was carry out the sting. But if he screwed up, he wouldn’t just be letting himself down—he’d be letting down the whole platoon of faceless FBI spooks who’d toiled to put everything together.

Just as the sun broke over the horizon, the road turned from asphalt to cobblestones and continued up a long, beautiful valley, dotted with pastures of grazing cows and horses. A final turn brought them to a mossy wall of whitewashed stone extending across the narrow valley, into which was set a heavy wrought iron gate, guarded by two men with automatic rifles. One of them leaned in and the driver presented his credentials along with Coldmoon’s passport. The guard examined them and nodded, opening the gates and waving them through.

The car drove into a cobbled courtyard, as large as a village square, beyond which stretched an ancient and magnificent hacienda. Long, arched portals on three sides opened to a second courtyard, then a third, each edged with rose gardens and featuring a central, massive flowering tree laden with blossoms. Coldmoon had imagined something quite different—vulgar and modern, with a pool, scantily clad women, loud music, and lots of booze. Instead, entering this smuggler’s hacienda was like stepping back into a more genteel, simpler, nineteenth-century way of life. Woodsmoke coiled from countless chimneys rising from tiled roofs. Nestled at the far end of the main hacienda stood a stone chapel gleaming with stained glass, and beyond that a stable with horses, a vineyard, vegetable and herb gardens, an apiary, orchards, and a dairy with cows, all enclosed by stone walls. The mountains rose up to the great slopes of Volcán Imbabura, its summit now socked in by gathering storm clouds.

The driver parked the vehicle, then rushed around to open the door for Coldmoon. He stepped out to see an exceedingly tall man, dressed in an old-fashioned, tight-fitting Spanish suit with silver buttons, come striding down the colonnaded portal, flashing a smile, followed by several uniformed employees. He, too, looked as if he’d stepped from another age.

“Armstrong Witko!” He grasped Coldmoon’s hand in his own and gave it a shake. “Welcome to Hacienda Angochagua! I apologize for the unseemly hour. Did you get any sleep on the plane? My men will show you to your quarters: I imagine you must be fatigued after your long journey.” He had long, flowing black hair and spoke English almost perfectly, with just the trace of an accent, his voice hearty and emphatic.

Coldmoon was too nervous to be fatigued. He mustered a smile. “Thank you, Ramón—if I may.”

“Of course! We’re going to be good friends, I am sure.” Armendariz turned and spoke to his employees in Spanish, ordering them to collect his bag and take it to the Diego Suite. He turned back to Coldmoon. “Do you speak Spanish? Not that it matters—we will conduct our business in English.”

“I don’t speak it, and thank you, I appreciate that.” Coldmoon did in fact speak Spanish fluently, but it was thought that it might be useful for him to hide that fact.

Armendariz paused and said: “A?pétu wašté.”

“Ta?yá? wa?chíya?ke,” Coldmoon answered, startled.

“So glad to see you speak Lakota, however.”

“Of course,” said Coldmoon, realizing he had just passed his first test. “Spoken it since I was a kid. And you? How did you learn that greeting?”

Armendariz laughed. “I have a deep interest in all things Native American—as you must have assumed. But don’t test me, it’s about all I can say.” He hesitated a moment. “Sorry, but I have to ask: what is it like to be descended from Crazy Horse? You, standing right here…I can hardly believe it.”

“It’s not so great. I wake up angry every morning.”

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