13
Suz
In the sky over southern Brazil
“You are a very honest woman,” Jones had said back at her house as she brushed her teeth after vomiting up her lunch. “Not your words as much as your body language. You hide very little with your body.”
She held her curls back and looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
He ran his tongue predatorily across his teeth then his gaze slid down her body.
Was he sizing her up sexually? I just vomited in front of you. Suz quickly looked away, spitting toothpaste into the sink.
“Your words are not as honest. You prevaricate with your words. The term is correct, yes? Prevaricate? Your words might be true, but their conveyed meanings are not. I have been playing games with humanity for a very long time. You will find that I am not a man who is easily fooled.”
Suz turned her attention out the window of her first-class seat and wondered how she was going to pay off the credit card. Jones had insisted she pay. The least of her worries, she reminded herself.
One good thing came from her vomiting, Jones knew she wasn’t with the CIA, at least he said he did. That was good. Yes, hard to think that a real CIA officer wouldn’t have snatched up the gun in her bedroom, shot both men in the head, and asked questions later. She wasn’t someone who could do that. The thought of harming someone – her thoughts went to Jack. Yes, breaking up with him would cause him pain. But he’d live through it. Breaking up wasn’t in the same realm as being shot.
Suz’s ears popped as the plane began its descent somewhere in southern Brazil. They were here now. The last leg of their journey. Suz wondered if it were possible that somehow Iniquus had pulled a rabbit out of their hat and would already be standing outside the airport, waiting to shake her free of her nightmare. Did she want them to? She hadn’t found Ari and his brother yet. Jones said they were ill. They needed care. Their deaths would not only be a tragedy for young lives lost, but the purpose they served would be lost as well. The children were stopping some geo-political horror show, according to the man who hadn’t taken off his leather gloves since he walked through her front door. She was sure that how this man defined geo-political disaster and how she did were two very different things. In fact, Suz had no idea what that could mean. No idea how she became a pawn on this chess board.
After she had failed — or passed; she guessed it depended on one’s point of view — the gun test, Jones had gotten on his phone and had conferenced with someone. “Ah-no, Ah-no,” he had said over and over, but it seemed some kind of affirmation rather than a negative. She wished she knew where these men were from. The Levinski’s were of the Jewish faith could that be Hebrew?
Jones had played a video of the boys, they were damp and crying, lying in the mud. The noises that rose behind their wails sounded like something off of a survivor show when they dropped the guy into the Amazon. She reached into her limited South American geography knowledge-file and thought the Amazon ran across northern Brazil, and that wasn’t where their plane tickets were taking them.
The plane hit a section of turbulence, throwing her off balance. She gripped at the arm rests to keep from touching Jones, who sat beside her.
She couldn’t guess why Ari and Caleb ended up as hostages, she did know those children were better off with her than without. She had said during Sandy Hook that that was the kind of person she thought she was, a teacher who would throw her body in front of a bullet to save her kids – and here was her chance to prove it.
Or. . . when they deplaned, she could run. This was it. Her last chance to stay safe. She could tell the passport officials. She could make a joke about bombs or smuggling drugs in her bra, and they’d take her to an interrogation room. . .
“After you move through customs, you will walk outside and get a cab. You will go to this address.” He typed something into his phone, and she felt the buzz against her thigh, indicating the information had arrived in her text messages. Their phones were supposed to be on airplane mode, but Jones had not allowed that.
The phone the other-man had given to her was monitored both by whom she contacted and by GPS. She wasn’t to try anything funny or the boys would suffer – it was not the captors’ intention to harm the children, they in fact needed them to be well. But the children weren’t being held by men with nurturing instincts or skills. And the place they were held had not been set up with the children’s comfort in mind. Any word that she was a problem would mean that she would not be allowed to go and care for them. He made it sound like it was her idea to go to them instead of her being some weird kind of hostage herself.
Suz knew that in the US, Amber alerts were going out for Ari and Caleb. The emergency information had been broadcast over the airport sound system in Miami. Authorities were looking up and down the East Coast. Amber alerts - they didn’t have such things for adults. Had she even been missed yet?
She knew that Iniquus contractually thought of her as one of their own. She didn’t think that these leather-gloved men had made the connection. And her ties to Jack and Iniquus – not yet broken – led her to believe that they’d have Lynx’s keen mind and Strike Forces amazing skillsets all rolled out to affect her rescue. She merely needed to go to the children and help them as best she could and wait. Jack would come for her. No. Jack couldn’t come for her; Jack couldn’t walk. Someone would though, surely. Not Strike Force – they weren’t in the country. And not Lynx – she wasn’t a field operative. Someone though. . . surely.
And then she remembered how Jones had set up the house to make it look like she was leaving Jack and going with Jones on an impromptu vacation. Would Jack read it that way? That she left? Scooted out of town with another guy?
Jones had made a mistake. One mistake. When they left, her dogs were sleeping in the sun. When they woke up, they’d cause a riot with their barking. Eventually, someone would try to shut them up. Her ISO would probably stop by – they’d see even before Jack was released from the hospital that she had disappeared.
Unless. . . Suz had never left her dogs outside when she was away from home before. She had been surprised they hadn’t barked – or gotten up. Maybe the treats the other-man was giving them were poisoned and her dogs were dead and the other-man would simply return and dump their bodies in the woods around her house. Then everyone would think that she had made babysitting arrangements for her dogs as she went off on her new adventure. That thought slammed into her so hard that her body hit back on the seat and the guy behind her, who had rested his drink on the tray, now wore his scotch-rocks. The flight attendant quickly mopped him up, and then checked on her.
“Sorry, I panic when I land. It was my nerves.” Suz’s skin buzzed as adrenaline electrified her system. She pushed her fist into her sternum to counter the pain that radiated across her chest, and she wondered if a twenty-five-year-old in reasonable physical health could go into full cardiac arrest from fear alone. Why would Jack and his teammates think this kind of thing was fun? And they didn’t even have the luxury, most of the time, of walking out the plane door and down some steps – they were leaping out the back at thirteen thousand feet, or fast-roping from the open door on a hovering helicopter. Suz stared out the window, again. Strike Force was probably doing just that, sliding down a rope on some continent she could only guess at, already busy on a mission.
Her plan had been to be the beacon that led the rescuers to the children. Maybe she was heading to the children to help them, and no one was coming after her. Maybe she was just handing herself over to the bad guys. Should she try to escape now? They’d move the kids. They’d be even harder to find. Was she even heading toward the children? She had leaped with only one eye looking. And now, with both eyes open, she could see the chasm was a heck of a lot deeper than she could have ever supposed. So deep that she couldn’t even see the bottom.
The wheels squealed as the rubber bit into the macadam, and the brakes fought to stop the forward momentum. They rolled to a stop. Suz sat still, her fingers tightly laced in her lap. Up until now she had been following a known sequence of events. Now she was going to be thrown into some situation that she was pretty sure she lacked the ability to navigate.
For all the touting of his ability to read humans, Jones seemed to be missing that Suz’s system was winding up for a full blown panic attack. He turned toward her and said in a conversational tone, “When you get through customs, you will take a taxi to the address I sent you. Check in to the hotel for two nights, and I will send you a text with your next instructions.”
***
“Uhm, okay.”
Che Legarto Student Hostel looked reasonable, Suz thought as she climbed out of her taxi and paid the man in the Brazilian real that Jones had handed her on the plane. She had been afraid that he was going to dump her in some slum somewhere. She was to be travelling as a university student. She was to use her real name but speak to no one unless absolutely required to. She would be watched.
Suz made her way inside. She wasn’t sure what she would do about language barriers.
“Hello, I’m Gillian Molloy, I have a reservation.”
“How do you do Miss Molloy? Let me check. Yes, room for two.” The elderly man looked toward the door. He spoke English clearly with a trill of the “r” and an elongation on certain syllables that made his sentences sound like song lyrics. “Your friend is here?”
Suz looked toward the door. Two in my room? “Not here yet. I’m not sure when to expect . . . my friend.” Male? Female?
“No problem, do you have a credit card?”
“No, only cash.”
The man frowned.
Suz swayed from foot to foot, what if she wasn’t allowed to stay here without a card? Where would she go? She had to follow her instructions exactly.
“This is okay, you look like a very nice young lady.”
“Thank you,” Suz’s voice was full of relief. He caught her eye, and Suz thought she had probably revealed something that she wasn’t supposed to have. Her phone buzzed, and she looked down:
Ask the man where to go to buy sight-seeing packages. Then ask him how long the
Zoo Bosque Guarani is open today.
He knows I’m talking to a man. He’s watching me. Suz fought to not turn her head and search for Jones. She focused on the key that was extended to her and reached out for it, eyes forward. “Can you direct me to a place where I can sign up for tours?”
“Simple, you must go to Itaipu Visitors’ Reception Center. It is 12 km from downtown, ask any taxi driver, he will know how to take you there.”
“And the Zoo Bosque Guarni?” Suz chewed on the words as they left her mouth, she was sure that her pronunciation was unintelligible.
The man tipped his head. “You plan to be with your friend, no?”
“No. I mean, maybe. I kind of do my own thing.”
“This is not the place for that. Not even for two. It is much better for you to travel with others around you in a group. So the Zoo is but 200 meters up the street, I do not suggest you go there.”
“Oh?”
“First, it is quite sad. Most of the animals are gone. Those who remain.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They are not as well cared for as one would wish. It is not a beautiful example of conservation. The Zoo is poorly kept. Dirty. There is really no reason to go there. And certainly, no reason to go there alone.” He had a grandfatherly feel, and Suz could see a gentle smile under his bristly grey mustache. “Now, I can put you safely in a taxi and send you to the tourism department. They can set you up with plenty of interesting things to do and see while you are here. I suggest the dam and of course our waterfalls. Also, it is a great pleasure to visit the biological-sanctuary. They have a walk – it takes several hours, and you get to promenade right out with the animals, they sit there on the path. Very docile. Very lovely. The animals are being helped since before you were born, when they built the dam.”
“Thank you and somewhere I might get a bite to eat?”
“In the morning you will eat with us. Our breakfast is the reason that we have won awards for our little hostel. Fruits and breads and juices, delicious.”
Suz hated the feeling of eyes on her. It was like ants crawling under her clothes, making her itchy, making her want to squirm. She wanted to get to her room and shower. And then finish her tasks. Maybe they would take her to the children. She offered up an impatient smile.
“But out?” He shook his head and tsked his tongue. “You should not go alone. You are, if you will forgive me, obviously not familiar with this part of the world. It is very dangerous alone.”
She was already up to her neck in danger. It felt that way, like Jones’s hands had wrapped around her throat and held there. He wasn’t squeezing. Yet. “Thank you. Then perhaps somewhere the taxi could deliver me?” This guy seemed really kind. Suz hoped to make an impression on him. When—if—Iniquus came after her, she hoped he would remember her and confirm that she had been there. Ah, but there was the two-person reservation. This might just confirm that she ran away on a mini-vacation with some guy. Suz felt the sting of tears in her eyes but didn’t wipe them away. She didn’t want the gesture picked up by Jones or whoever was watching her, and she saw that the desk manager had remarked of them.
“Safest? Eat while you are at the visitors’ center.”
“Thank you, again. And you can get me a taxi?”
Her phone buzzed: A half-an-hour. Go to the tourist center.
“I’ll be ready in a half-hour.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Who was watching her and from where? Suz pursed her lips. The back straps of the zombie bag bit into her shoulders as she climbed to the third floor and shucked off the weight, locked the door, and went into the tiny bathroom. What the hell have I gotten myself into?