The Colombian Rogue Read online

  “This isn’t a James Bond movie,” Sam said. “Or 1984. People can’t just take over the world.”

  “What about Hitler?”

  “That was different,” Sam said.

  “They don’t plan to do it in a single day. Who knows how long they’ve been amassing followers from the shadows? There were leaders and representatives from criminal enterprises down there, but some of them were true believers. I watched a guy get stabbed to death a few rows in front of me. His attackers were like animals. I know it’s a lot to take in without having seen it for yourself,” Juan said.

  Sam sighed. “Some of it just sounds ridiculous. A big man in a snake hood? And you say he got shot, but there was no blood? I say it was all staged. The guy was probably handed a gun filled with blanks and commanded to shoot at the man at a certain time. He was probably injected with that serum you mentioned.”

  “I’m not arguing with you,” Juan said.

  “I’m sure it seemed real at the time, but so does WWE.”

  Juan and Paul had loved catching episodes of Smackdown when they were at the orphanage. They would sometimes wrestle afterward, practicing variations of the techniques and throws they saw on the TV.

  “Hey now,” Juan said, his finger raised. “Don’t be dissing Smackdown.”

  Sam turned and glanced out at the street again, swelling even higher with water now. It was astounding how much it had rained in so short a time, and surprising how the city seemed incapable of dealing with the runoff. At the rate the water was rising, this part of the city could be in a flood stage soon.

  Juan, meanwhile, turned his thoughts inward again. Every time he recalled how the Kingsnake had jabbed him with a needle down in the sewer, his arms broke out in gooseflesh even though the hot night air pressed oppressively in on him under the awning. He had no way of knowing what he had been injected with. Having listened to a lecture on the various serums, he knew there was a chance he might just drop dead at any moment with no trace of poison in his veins. Or, he might start hallucinating. He figured it’d be best to give Sam a heads up in case, say he suddenly turned on Sam and tried to kill him because of the ELEPHAS serum in his blood, but he didn’t want to put Sam any further on edge. Sam barely trusted him as it was, and they had enough on their plate right now.

  They would have gone to the nearest police precinct had they known it was safe. For all they knew, ELEPHAS had infiltrated police agencies in the area. Juan was sure that under all the robes and masks, most of the people in the underground had looked like normal people. They didn’t require a mask or other disguise to hide their identity, and there was no way to distinguish them when looking at them in public.

  Besides the serum in Juan’s veins and the cultists soon to be searching for them, Juan also had to worry about Paul. While he had told Sam that his lookalike had been underground with him and had vowed to kill him, he hadn’t disclosed that the man was actually his twin. Paul would have killed Juan on several occasions had he reacted any slower down there. His brother wasn’t bluffing, and if he was under the control of the Kingsnake, Juan didn’t know if it would be possible to rescue Paul. He might have no choice but to put a bullet in his brother if backed into a corner . . . His brother was too good a shot and just as proficient at close-quarter combat. Paul was the perfect weapon, a highly trained operative with years of experience under his belt, and Juan was a world-class smuggler working with a team of covert operatives and a police force who didn’t know his true identity.

  Juan hoped Rockwell would have an idea, since the man was the only person he could confide in about the matter.

  As the rain started to pound even harder against the water-glazed sidewalk in front of them, Juan realized his fingers were tapping erratically against the concrete. He’d been sitting too long.

  “And you saw no sign of Josephina down there?” Sam said.

  “Not one.”

  “Shit.”

  A thin layer of water rushed past them down the sidewalk like a mini flood. It seemed a precursor to what was to come.

  “What do we do now?” Sam said. “They slashed the tires of my car. I checked after I realized they had locked the cellar door. I don’t know my way around this city.”

  Juan did his best to smile, given the circumstances. “It’s a good thing I do. We’ll take the train back to Cartagena when the sun rises. In the meantime, there’s someplace I think we need to check out.”

  He drew out the piece of paper Marta had written her address on the prior day. It was the apartment she was sharing with Rosalin, Silvia, and Josephina, and it was nearby. There might be some clues there. Glancing out at the white wall of rain still falling around the awning, Juan figured the weather would probably deter Paul or anyone else in ELEPHAS from searching for them at the moment. With their black robes stuffed in a dumpster a few streets back, and the foreknowledge that they were about to be soaked through to the skin, Juan and Sam ducked out into the rain.

  The apartment was not in a nice part of town. Even in the dark and with all the rain coming down, Juan could tell that the buildings here were a drab tan color instead of the brightly painted colors in other parts of the city. Marta’s room was on the third floor of a bland wide building crisscrossed with external metal staircases.

  Juan led the way up the stairs as Sam kept an eye behind them for anyone suspicious. The only people they passed on the way here were silhouettes standing in doorframes and windows, glass bottles or glowing cigarettes held to their lips as they watched the water fall.

  A man on the second floor of the apartment building stood in an open doorway and idly watched them pass him, his stubbly chin illuminated by the orange tip of a cigar.

  Juan reached the room number on Marta’s paper and knocked. The rain was coming down so hard now that Juan could barely hear his knocking as he stood next to the door. He tried the doorknob. The door opened, and Juan stepped inside out of the rain. Sam followed after a final glance out at the darkness toward the sound of rushing water somewhere below.

  It was quieter after the door was closed, but still quite loud. Sam flipped a light switch and pulled his jacket off over his head that he had been using as a makeshift umbrella. The jacket was soaked through, and water puddled around him and Juan as they stood just inside the room. Juan, having no jacket, had simply relied on the ball cap to keep the water from his eyes on their way here.

  Sam drew his gun. “Looks like there was a struggle.”

  Juan stepped over to inspect a lamp lying on its side. Two plates of half-eaten food sat on a kitchen table. Newspapers lay on the floor, and a small picture frame was facedown on a side table. “I don’t see any blood.”

  Sam agreed.

  Together they combed the place for any sign of what had happened. Juan’s stomach turned sour when he flipped over the small picture frame on the side table.

  Four women seemed to be enjoying themselves at a restaurant as they smiled for the camera. One of them was Marta. The other three were a little younger than her, and Juan realized he knew them as well. Although they were adequately clothed in the picture, two of them had been the women fighting inside the plexiglass arena a few hours earlier. Rosalin and Silvia. The fourth woman, with her distinct tear-shaped birthmark high on her cheek, was Josephina from Carmelita’s Dive.

  Juan dropped his head.

  “Shit.” Sam tucked his gun into his pants and reached for the picture. After a closer look, he shook his head. “I guess these are her roommates. One of these Marta?”

  Juan pointed.

  “You met her yesterday, right? I think it’s time you tell me what happened. You got interrupted at the bar.”

  Juan didn’t want to tell him, but he didn’t want to lie. “She was injected with one of the serums. She was hearing hissing sounds. I tried to save her—I told her I would find help for her, but she was out of her mind. The serum . . . It . . . made her kill herself.”

  “Jesus. Why didn’t you tell Josephina that? They we
re clearly best friends.”

  “Would you have wanted to? I was going to try to find a way to tell her, but—”

  Sam rubbed his forehead with his palm. “Shit. No, I’m with you. I don’t know if I would have been able to tell her myself under those circumstances. But why didn’t you at least tell me?”

  “There’s just a lot going on,” Juan said.

  “That’s no excuse. How am I supposed to be able to watch your back if there’s things you’re not telling me?”

  “The other two women,” Juan said, pointing at the picture.

  “Huh?”

  “The other two women in the picture are the ones who were fighting underground. I didn’t know it was them at the time . . .”

  Sam’s eyes bulged. “What? What the hell is going on here? Why were these women targeted? And how the hell are you tied up with them all?”

  At 6’2”, Sam loomed over Juan by about five inches. While Juan was almost considered tall for his height in Colombia, Sam posed an intimidating figure no matter where he walked. It was not uncommon for the man to have to duck to enter some of the doorways in this country, and it was probably difficult for him to fit in a taxi, which was why he probably always drove himself. Juan, however, had never worried for his safety while in the man’s company until now. While they had argued and nearly came to blows during a training exercise, they were both usually able to keep their cool. But looking up into the taller man’s focused eyes, Juan knew he had some explaining to do if he wanted to defuse the situation.

  “I’m not sure. I called Marta earlier this week to see if she saw a man who looked at me. I, uh, met her during my time undercover. It was a long shot, but I was throwing out hooks everywhere I could to snag a lead. I didn’t expect it to pay off, but she told me about some ‘snake people’ and how they were killing people from the bar she worked at. At the time I didn’t know anything about ELEPHAS, but I wanted to investigate. Then when I met her yesterday, she tried to kill me because the guy who looked like me told her to. That’s what I know.”

  Sam looked at him like he didn’t know whether or not to believe any of it. “I don’t believe in coincidences like that. You know what I think? You ran into this ELEPHAS group when you were undercover. They knew you were connected with Marta and targeted her, and her roommates were collateral damage. I think this all comes back to you and something you’re not telling me.”

  Juan held up his hands. “Then I don’t remember what it is.”

  Sam laughed. “Amnesia, right?”

  “Yeah,” Juan started to say, but stopped as Sam took a step toward him and drew back his fist. He was well out of the way when Sam threw his fist against the wall, cracking the thin drywall and stucco paint job.

  Juan stayed out of his way as Sam walked slowly to the bathroom sink and ran water over his knuckle while taking deep breaths. When Sam came out a couple minutes later, he was much calmer. “Sorry. I got frustrated.”

  Juan nodded, glad Sam’s demeanor had mellowed out.

  “I think we need to go back to that bar,” Sam said. “It’s somehow connected with all this. Maybe we can find a clue about where they took Josephina.”

  Juan gritted his teeth. “We need to get out of here. My lookalike said he’s coming after me, and I’m sure he won’t be the only one. We don’t know who we can trust here. Cartagena’s our best bet. Rockwell will be able to help.”

  Sam scoffed. “You and Rockwell. Fine. I still don’t have any cell signal. Let’s get some sleep and catch the train in the morning.”

  Juan was glad Sam was willing to go along with the plan now, but he didn’t like the man’s sullen attitude as he settled back against one of the couches in the living room. He hoped Sam could trust him at least until they reached Cartagena.

  “I’ll go secure the front door,” Juan said.

  He opened the front door and saw the rain still falling in even sheets. Then he wedged a kitchen chair under the doorknob in case someone tried to pay them a visit while they slept. Since his clothes were soaked, he grabbed some bathroom towels and lay down across another couch in the living room, listening to the pattering of rain falling sideways against the wall.

  Juan woke to the sound of a knife scraping against steel, and his hand crept instinctively to the gun under his pillow.

  “It’s just me,” Sam said.

  Juan sat up on the couch and watched from across the room as Sam sharpened a knife. “Is it still raining?” Juan said. He couldn’t hear it.

  “Yeah but not as hard as it was. According to the TV, there’s some pretty severe flooding at street level. Might slow our way to the train station.”

  Juan stood up and stretched. A clock on the wall said it was almost 6 a.m. “I’m not surprised. Flooding isn’t unusual in Barranquilla. Sometimes schools are shut down when it rains a lot.”

  “Why doesn’t the city fix the problem?”

  “I don’t know.” Juan’s stomach grumbled. “Let’s catch a quick breakfast. There’s little corner diners everywhere.”

  They locked up, wiping their prints from anything they might have touched. Sam drew his jacket over his head again as they descended the exterior stairwell.

  When they reached the ground, Sam said, “There’s a guy watching us.”

  “Hopefully it’s nothing,” Juan said.

  They found water rushing across the street in front of the apartment. A short, tanned man in a wide-brimmed hat and suspenders was standing next to some wooden planks stretching across the street to form a bridge over the water. Juan approached him, and they exchanged pleasantries. After giving the man some coins, Juan told Sam to follow him across the plank bridge.

  “Is that man charging people to cross the street?” Sam said.

  Juan nodded. “It’s just a few cents to cross. It’s not uncommon in Barranquilla when it rains this hard.”

  “I wouldn’t pay him,” Sam said.

  Juan shrugged. “He’s a businessman offering a service.”

  Juan led Sam along waterlogged streets until they came to a small corner restaurant specializing in breakfast. They went in and selected a table by the window.

  “Were we followed?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Sam said.

  A kindly lady with graying hair and a smile asked what they wanted to drink. Juan ordered two coffees along with the house special: rice, beans, eggs, and chorizo. With a pleasant bow, the woman turned and went into the kitchen.

  “Look,” Sam said, “if I know anything about cults, it’s that they’re made up of looney people who don’t always appear looney. They know how to blend in with society. Anyone we come across could be one of them, and we’d never know. I agree with you that we need to get out of this place as soon as possible. We’re in unfamiliar territory, and once we get to Cartagena, we can have a team check out the tunnels and that basement where the market took place.”

  “Yes,” Juan said, glad Sam was no longer offering resistance. “But first, breakfast.”

  Juan tried to enjoy his coffee and food while Sam kept glancing out the foggy window. The front door was propped open, and large overhead fans circulated air through the small building, sending delicious scents out to them from the kitchen. As he ate, Juan studied the rest of the patrons. There was a man in a business suit, a young couple, and an old man with a cane.

  When the kindly lady returned with their bill, she seemed to sense Sam’s anxiety. Her cheeks flushed as if maybe she had offended him.

  Juan smiled and handed her enough bills to cover his and Sam’s meals. “Everything was excellent. Thank you so much.”

  The woman nodded and left with the money, still visibly confused. She watched the two of them with suspicion over the top of her cash register as she entered the payment.

  Juan stood up. “Let’s go.”

  “Since when do you pay for my meals?” Sam said.

  “Since now. Come on, let’s get back to the joint ops center.”

  All
of the flooded streets turned a ten-minute walk into a thirty-minute walk, as Juan kept getting turned about by the similar-looking streets. They had to backtrack across a couple plank bridges, to Sam’s chagrin, but they eventually reached the station.

  After Juan paid for both their tickets and Sam had to duck as he boarded the train, they sat in silence next to each other on the narrow benches along the cabin’s walls, waiting for the conductor to give the final call.

  Juan grinned over at Sam. In less than two hours, they’d be safe again. All they had to do was sit and enjoy the ride. “You enjoy your first trip to Barranquilla?”

  “Except for those hotdogs and fighting those goons in the street, I didn’t really get to experience much. What’s it known for?”

  “Well, it’s the birthplace of Shakira and Sofía Vergara. Ever hear of them?”

  There was a screech as the doors to the train cabin were closed, and a last-second passenger walked toward them. The man was dark-skinned and thuggish-looking and wore a cap sewn out of blue jeans as well as a canvas jacket. He picked the seat across from Juan and Sam and stared at them, stretching his knees out in both directions while popping his knuckles.

  “That’s the guy who was watching us,” Sam whispered.

  “You sure?”

  The thuggish guy smiled toothily at them and lifted his white t-shirt so that only Juan and Sam could see the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  Sam looked flatly at the man and raised his own shirt, revealing his gun. If the man sitting across from them was worried, he didn’t show it. He just sat there with his legs apart and a grin on his face.

  The train began to move.

  “You two and I are getting off at the first stop. ¿Comprenden?” the thuggish man wasted no time in saying.

  Sam looked at the man. “Why would we do that?”

  “If not, I start shooting people on this bus.”

  “You think he’s bluffing?” Sam said.