Page 48 of Code 6

“Cómoandas, Javier?” asked one of the guides, greeting him.

Javier could smell the whiskey. The war was over, and these young men were true adventure guides, not a revolutionary bone in theirbodies. But the bottle passed quickly around a campfire, and some things never changed.

Javier dismounted, and the guide tied the reins to the nearest tree. His hand was bandaged, Javier noticed. The fool had tried to duplicate Javier’s knife trick.

“Idiota,” he said.

“Just a scratch,” the guide said in Spanish.

Javier had honed his trick to perfection as a guerrilla, making it look easy. True enough, back in the day, it had often ended badly—but only for the hostage. Of course he hadn’t expected Patrick to accept his challenge that morning. No hostage, however, had ever been given a choice in the matter. A severed finger, delivered to the family, was a common “proof of life” tactic—a dramatic confirmation that the hostage was still alive and, at the same time, a horrifying reminder that time was running out. The hostage, in effect, chose his own proof of life: the first digit nicked in Javier’s unwinnable game.

“Twenty years ago, you would have lost that thumb,” Javier replied in Spanish.

The other guide laughed, even though he didn’t know what Javier was talking about. He invited Javier over to the campfire to share in the whiskey, but Javier declined. He removed the satellite phone from his satchel and walked deep into the grassy meadow, where reception would be uninterrupted by the forest. It was time to report back to the client.

“I can’t find him.”

Javier had told his client nothing about pushing Patrick off the mountain. He’d fed him the same lie he’d told the guides—that Patrick was a quitter and had headed off into the jungle to find his own way home.

His client was not the least bit understanding.

“He’s still missing?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Damn it, Javier. All I asked was that you take him outside the subpoena power of the Department of Justice for a while. Now he’s lost in the jungle.”

“No worries. I’ll search again in the morning.”

“Find him. We have enough problems.”

The call ended, and Javier was glad to have it over with. But the call to his “client” was the easier of the two calls he needed to make. He took a moment and dialed the boss—or, more precisely, the boss’s representative. It was Javier’s practice never to have direct communication with the person who actually ordered the hit.

“It’s done,” Javier said into the phone. “I think.”

There was a pause on the line. “Youthink?”

“No one could have survived a fall from that height. But when I climbed down after him, I couldn’t find the body.”

“Then you didn’t look hard enough.”

“He must have hit the ground and just kept on rolling toward the river. Maybe a croc got him. They’re around here. Big ones. A girl got dragged into the Sardinata River, same elevation, a few years ago.”

“What if he just got up, dusted himself off, and walked away on his own power?”

“I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“You’re guessing.”

“It’s an educated guess.”

“We don’t pay you to guess. Call me back when you have an answer.”

Javier switched off the telephone.

He could deal with an unhappy “client.” It was rare, but shit did happen on corporate adventure challenges—snake bites, dengue fever, heart attacks—and all clients understood the risks. But the boss was the top of this pyramid. He expected perfection, and Javier had promised “no screwups” in the dispensation of Patrick Battle.

He was cursing himself, muttering under his breath, as he started back toward the campsite. Then he heard a noise in the weeds. He stopped and saw Olga emerge from behind a scrub of bushes.

---