now, why so suddenly?
Once again, she was back to the question of the list who exactly had
seen it? Bartlett had spoken of an internal CIA audit, and of the
decision to bring in the I.C.U itself. That suggested researchers,
government officials. What about the Attorney General himself had he
seen it?
And there still remained several salient questions.
Why were the murders disguised as natural deaths? Why was it so
important to keep the fact of the murders secret?
And what about
The phone rang, yanking her out of her reverie. The taxi was here.
She finished applying her makeup and went downstairs.
The taxi, a silver Mercedes probably stolen, too hurtled through the
crowded streets of Asuncion with apparent disregard for the sanctity of
human life. The driver, a handsome man in his late thirties with his
olive complexion nicely set off by his white linen tropical-weight
shirt, brown eyes, and close-shaven hair, glanced back at her
periodically as if hoping for eye contact.
She pointedly ignored him. The last thing she needed was some Latin
Lothario taking an interest in her. She stared out the window at a
street vendor selling fake Rolexes and Cartiers, holding up his goods
for her as they stopped at a light. She shook her head. Another
vendor, an old woman, was peddling herbs and roots.
She hadn’t seen a single gringo face since she’d arrived here. Maybe
that was to be expected. Asuncion was not exactly Paris. A bus in
front of them belched foul-smelling smoke. There was a burst of
instrumental music.
She noticed the traffic had thinned, the streets were wider, tree-lined.
They were on the outskirts of town, it appeared. She had a city map in
her handbag, but didn’t want to unfold it if it wasn’t necessary.
She remembered Captain Bolgorio mentioning that Prosperi’s house was on
Avenida Mariscal Lopez, which was in the eastern sector on the way back
to the airport. She had traveled down it on the way into town, the
street with all the beautiful Spanish Colonial mansions.
But the streets she saw out the window didn’t look at all familiar. She
certainly hadn’t seen this part of town before.
She looked up at the driver and said, “Where are we going?”
He didn’t reply.
She said, “Hey, listen to me,” as he pulled the car over to the shoulder
of a quiet, un trafficked side road.
Oh, Jesus.
She didn’t have a weapon. Her pistol was locked in her drawer at the
office. Her training in martial arts and self-defense would scarcely
The driver had turned around and was pointing a large black .38 at her.
“Now we talk,” the man said. “You arrive at the airport from America.
You wish to visit the estate of Senor Prosperi. Do you understand why
some of us might find you interesting?”
Anna focused on remaining calm. Her advantage would have to be
psychological. The man’s one disadvantage was the limits of his
knowledge. He did not know who she was. Or did he?
“If you are a DBA whore, then I have one set of friends who would enjoy
entertaining you … before your final, unexplained disappearance. And
you won’t be the first. If you are an American politico, I have other
friends who will enjoy engaging you in, let us say, conversation.”
Anna composed her features into a look of boredom mixed with contempt.
“You keep speaking of ‘friends,” ” she said, and then hissed in her
fluent Spanish: “El muerto al hoyo y le vivo al hollo.” Dead men have
no friends.
“You do not wish to choose how you will die? It is the only choice most
of us ever get.”
“But you will have to choose first. El que mucho hablen, tnucho yerro.
I feel sorry for you, taking on an errand and making such a botch of it.
You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
“If you’re smart, you’ll tell me.”
She curled her lips in scorn. “That is the one thing I will not do.”
She paused. “Pepito Salazar would not want me to.”
The driver’s expression froze. “Salazar, you said?”
Navarro had mentioned the name of one of the most powerful cocaine
exporters of the region, a man whose trading enterprise outstripped even
that of the Medellin kingpins.
Now the man looked suspicious. “It is easy to invoke the name of a
stranger.”
“When I return to the Palaquinto this evening, it is your name I will be
invoking,” Anna said provocatively. The Palaquinto was the name of
Salazar’s mountain retreat, a name known only to the few. “I regret we
were not formally introduced.”
The man spoke with a tremor in his voice. To make trouble for a
personal courier of Salazar was more than his life was worth. “I have
heard stories of the Palaquinto, the faucets of gold, the fountains of
champagne…”
“That’s only for parties, and if I were you, I wouldn’t count on any
invitations.” Her hand dipped into her small purse for her hotel keys.
“You must forgive me,” the man said urgently. “My instructions came
from people with incomplete knowledge. None of us would dream of
dishonoring any member of Salazar’s entourage.”
“Pepito knows that mistakes will be made.” Anna watched the .38
dangling loosely in his right hand, smiled at him encouragingly, and
then, in a swift movement, dug her keys into his wrist. The jagged
steel stabbed through flesh and fascia, and the gun dropped into Anna’s
lap. As the man howled in agony, she scooped it up in one deft movement
and placed the muzzle at the back of his head.
“La mejor pa labra es la que no se dice,” she said through gritted
teeth. The best word is the one that is not said.
She ordered the man out of the car, made him walk fifteen paces into the
scrubby roadside vegetation, then got into his seat and roared off. She
could not afford the time, she told herself, to replay the terrifying
encounter; nor could she allow panic to seize her instincts and
intellect. There was work to do.
The house that had belonged to Marcel Prosperi was set back from the
Avenida Mariscal Lopez. It was an immense Spanish Colonial mansion
surrounded by extravagantly landscaped property, and it reminded her of
the old Spanish missions back home in California. Instead of a simple
lawn, though, the expanse of land was terraced with rows of cacti and
lush wildflowers, protected by a high wrought-iron fence.
She parked the silver Mercedes some distance down the road and walked
toward the entrance, where a taxicab was idling. A short, potbellied
man emerged from it and ambled toward her. He had the dark skin of a
mestizo, a drooping black bandito mustache, black hair combed straight
back with too much hair goo. His face gleamed with oil or perspiration,
and he looked pleased with himself. His short-sleeved white shirt was
translucent in places where sweat had soaked through, revealing a mat of
dark chest hair.
Captain Bolgorio?
Where was his police cruiser? she wondered as his cab drove away.
He approached her, beaming, and enveloped her hand in his two large
clammy ones.
“Agent Navarro,” he said. “A great pleasure to meet such a beautiful
woman.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Come, Senora Prosperi is not used to being kept waiting. She is very
rich and very powerful, Agent Navarro, and she is accustomed to getting
her way. Let’s go right in.”
Bolgorio rang a bell at the front gate and identified themselves. There
was a buzz, and Bolgorio pushed the gate open.
Anna noticed a gardener hunched over a row of wildflowers. An elderly
female servant was walking down a path between ledges of cacti holding a
tray of empty glasses and open bottles of agua gaseosa.
“We’re all set to go to the morgue after this interview?” Anna said.
“As I said, this is really not my department, Agent Navarro. A
magnificent house, is it not?” They passed through an archway into cool
shade. Bolgorio rang the doorbell at the side of an ornately carved
blond wooden door.
“But you can help arrange it?” Anna asked, just as the door opened.
Bolgorio shrugged. A young woman in a servant’s uniform of white blouse
and black skirt invited them in.
Inside was even cooler, the floor tiled in terra-cotta. The servant led
them to a large, open room that was sparely decorated with woven
primitive rugs and earthenware lamps and pottery. Only the recessed
lighting in the stucco ceiling seemed out of place.
They sat on a long, low white sofa and waited. The maid offered them
coffee or sparkling water, but both of them declined.
Finally a woman appeared, tall and thin and graceful. The widow
Prosperi. She looked around seventy but very well taken care of. She
was dressed entirely in mourning black, but it was a designer dress:
maybe Sonia Rykiel, Anna thought. She wore a black turban and outsized