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“I need someone inside…no, no, really inside…and reliable…of course for money.” She glanced up at Bourne again, and he nodded. “I understand. The amount’s not an issue,” she continued, “but reliability is…your assurances aside, if my client walks into an ambush I’ll hunt you down and pull your balls up into your throat…Go on, but I assure you it’s no laughing matter to suffocate on your own testicles.” She winked at Bourne. “Okay, got it. Be seeing you.”
After jotting a couple of lines on a scratch pad, she ripped off the sheet, rose, and handed it to Bourne. Then she took a picture of him with one of her phones and sent it off to her contact.
“You’re in luck. It seems my half sister got herself into a huge pile of shit,” she said. “Apparently, she came back to deal with Maceo’s cartel business and inserted herself into the war between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa. She can’t be that stupid so she must have had a plan in mind, insane as that sounds.”
Aware of Ouyang’s partnership with Maceo Encarnación to keep the raw materials for his drug pipeline coming into Mexico, Bourne didn’t think Maricruz’s plan was in the least bit insane—it was more like a necessity.
Anunciata shrugged. “I don’t know what happened but she’s been roughed up pretty badly. Currently, she’s recuperating at Hospital Ángeles Pedregal. I wrote down the address for you. Anyway, it seems that along the way she’s made some powerful friends. Her room is guarded by Federales and her only visitor has been Carlos Danda Carlos, the head of the anti-drug enforcement agency.”
She cocked her head at Bourne’s silent laugh. “This isn’t a joke. What’s so damn funny?”
Maricruz was up and walking to physical therapy twice a day on her own, ignoring the wheelchair her nurse wheeled just behind her. Her legs were covered in bruises but it was her arms that needed the most help, specifically the shoulder that had been most badly damaged in the beat-down. It had needed arthroscopic surgery.
There were times when she hated Matamoros, certain that he had had his men expend their full fury on her, pounding her far more than necessary. But then would come the visits from Carlos and she would see on his face the genuine sorrow and guilt at his complicity in her terrible drubbing, and she knew that anything less severe would not have erased the suspicions crowding his mind.
No, she finally concluded, Matamoros had been a maestro at directing his men to beat her just enough to fool Carlos without doing anything to damage her permanently. And then there was the fact that apart from several scrapes and bruises, they had left her face unscathed. She had to be grateful for that.
In fact, she was grateful for it all. Matamoros was proving far more intelligent than she had given him credit for. Even better, he was desperate to defeat Carlos—almost as desperate as Carlos was to finish him off once and for all.
She was in the best possible position—directly between the two, trusted by both, with her own agenda completely uncompromised. When she reminded herself of that, she smiled to herself. She had never been naive enough to think this process would be easy, but she never could have imagined the shape it would take or the physical pain she would suffer.
These thoughts occupied her during the morning exercises her therapist put her through, which were both difficult and painful. Still, she had to admit that, though sore, she felt better afterward. Several minutes after she had started her afternoon session, an orderly wheeled in a girl of no more than seven. She looked beat up, malnourished, but worst of all her expression was a complete blank. Her cheeks were sunken, her huge eyes black and depthless. She stared into the middle distance at something no one in the room could see. Maricruz watched her clandestinely all through her own workout. Occasionally, a therapist would crouch in front of the girl, try to talk to her, even, once, taking her hand, all without receiving even the minutest response.
An hour later, when Maricruz was done, the girl still had not moved a muscle or altered her gaze. It was eerie, unsettling. Nevertheless, something about the girl stuck in Maricruz’s consciousness like a hook in a fish’s mouth and would not let go.
“That girl,” Maricruz said to her therapist, “why isn’t anyone taking care of her?”
“We’ve tried—many of us,” the woman said, wiping massage cream off her hands, “but nothing gets through to her. She’s catatonic. She was down in psychiatric, but since they can’t do anything with her, she’s been moved up to your floor.”
“What happened to her?”
The therapist sighed. “The story is her father was a drug mule. You know these people—they see an easy way to make money and they take it instead of getting a decent nine-to-five job like the rest of us. Anyway, something must have gone wrong, as it almost always does. Who knows what? It could have been a million things.” The therapist folded the cloth and put it away. “Her parents and two older brothers were killed in front of her—beheaded with machetes.”
The breath caught in Maricruz’s throat. “Who?”
“Los Zetas, Sinaloa, some local drug dealer in their employ, who knows?” The therapist turned away in disgust. “What does it matter?” She shook her head. “These people—you can’t talk to them, you can’t reason with them. Their greed outweighs everything—even their responsibility to their family.”
“How can you be so coldhearted? Whatever the sins of her father, surely you can’t take it out on the child.”
“Señora, do you know how many of these children we see each year? Please. It’s beyond counting. If I got involved with them I’d be burned out within a year and no good to my own family.”
Maricruz kept her gaze on the girl, as if willing her to magically emerge from her catatonic state. “What happens to them when they leave here?”
“They’re picked up by an aunt or uncle, a cousin, if they’ll have them. Otherwise they become wards of the state.”
“What about this girl?”
“How should I know?”
When she returned from her afternoon session, Tigger put down his newspaper, stood up, and smiled at her through his grizzly face.
“How’d it go, señora?”
“Satisfactorily,” she said dully. Her mind was still on the girl.
She paused as he opened the door to her room. Carlos had assigned three shifts to guard her while she was in the hospital. Tigger was part of the second shift. His name wasn’t actually Tigger, of course, but like the animal drawn by A. A. Milne he looked uncannily like a stuffed animal—both fierce and amusing. How he managed this no one could say, least of all Tigger himself.
“You should be gettin’ outta here soon, huh?”
“Not soon enough to suit me.” Then seeing the look on his face, she pursed her lips in an almost comical moue and stroked his rough cheek. “Oh, but Tigger, I’m sure we’ll still see each other when I leave the hospital. In fact, I’ll request that you escort me out. How’s that?”
Tigger’s eyes lit up, and now he really did look like a stuffed tiger, happy and eager.
“Muchas gracias, señora.” Ignoring the nurse and her useless wheelchair, he ushered her inside. “Estefan’s just arrived. Is there anything I can get you before I take a break?”
“No, Tigger. Thank you.” Maricruz awkwardly climbed into bed, trying not to wince at the pain in her shoulder. “Run along now and play.”
He laughed as he left her. The nurse bustled officiously around the bed, neatening the bedclothes, refilling the plastic water jug from the store of bottled water Carlos had his men bring in for her.
“Enough!” Maricruz cried at last. “For the love of Christ, leave me in peace!”
The nurse didn’t bat an eyelash, but she made her exit as quickly and discreetly as possible. Apparently, she had had enough experience with her VIP patient’s violent fits of anger and frustration to know when to get out of the way.
Maricruz lay back on the pillows, furious that she was out of breath, furious that her shoulder hurt like a bitch, furious that she was stuck in this hospital room. Furious
at the thought of that little girl who had lost her childhood if not her life.
One of the things she had learned from her husband was the importance of patience. Still, Latin blood coursed through her veins; patience had never been in her vocabulary, let alone one of her virtues. But now, as she lay back, she thought of what he had taught her, thought of the long hours of sitting za-zen trying to empty her mind of thought, emotion, and consequence.
Slowly, painstakingly, she forced herself to let go of her fury, let go of her frustration—most important, most difficult, let go of her intent. Her mind emptied like an hourglass of sand, and she felt the utter peace of nothingness engulf her, lift her up, take her to another plane of existence.
Then the door opened and the spell was abruptly broken.
25
Bourne met Tigger on the grounds of Hospital Ángeles Pedregal. The exhausted sun had retired prematurely, shouldered aside by a drizzle that darkened the sidewalks and roadbed. Thunder rolled in the distance, harbinger of a hard rain soon to come.
Bourne handed him a thick envelope, which Tigger opened. Running his callused thumb across the tops of the bills, he grinned, showing brown teeth like tombstones. “American dollars.”
“Put it away,” Bourne said.
Pocketing the bribe, Tigger gestured for Bourne to follow him. They went through the ER, where everyone was too frantic to notice them or to care where they went. In a storeroom, Tigger picked out a doctor’s coat and Bourne put it on.
“You have the ID?”
Tigger nodded. “She’s never seen you before?”
“Never,” Bourne said, “but Carlos has. Install yourself in the lobby. Text me the moment you see him coming.”
“Bueno.” Tigger clipped a hospital ID tag to the pocket of Bourne’s coat. As far as the hospital personnel were concerned Bourne was now Dr. Francisco Javier.
“You’re good to go,” Tigger said, then recited a room number. “Estefan won’t be any problem,” he added with an even wider grin. “He’s terrified of doctors.”
Bourne took the elevator up to the second floor, strode to the nurses’ station, and asked for Maricruz’s chart. The duty nurse gave him only the most cursory of glances before plucking out the requested chart and handing it over.
As he went down the corridor toward Maricruz’s room, he scanned the pages. Anunciata’s contact had been right: Whatever else had happened, Maricruz had been really and truly battered.
He looked up to find Estefan sipping a cup of vending-machine coffee and making faces into his mobile as he texted someone. He noticed Bourne coming and, checking that the ID photo matched the face he saw in front of him, gave a shudder as he stepped aside to let Bourne into the room.
Maricruz seemed dazed, her eyes glazed when Bourne stepped in. She blinked several times, then frowned when she saw him.
“Another fucking doctor? I’ve never seen you before.”
“I peeked in several times while you were unconscious,” Bourne said, closing her chart with a snap. “I assisted in the procedure to secure the tendons to your shoulder.”
“Is that medical terminology?”
Bourne laughed as he had observed doctors laughing. “I prefer using everyday language with my patients.”
“How refreshing. Doctors are always trying to prove their superiority, possibly because they’re aware of how little they really know.” She tilted her head. “What does my chart say?”
“Since I don’t know much, my opinion probably won’t mean anything to you.”
“Very funny. Go on.”
“You’re mending well,” he said in a more serious tone. “In fact, you’re healing quite a bit faster than normal. We’re very pleased with your progress.”
“When can I get the hell out of here?”
“Okay if I sit down?” He pulled a chair over and sat down.
“You might as well please yourself,” Maricruz said. “There’s no one else here to please.”
“Well, I always hope I can please my patients.” Bourne crossed one leg over the other and, elbows on the chart in his lap, leaned toward her. “Maricruz—may I?”
“You already have.” But there was a slight lift to the corner of her mouth, and her tone had lost its steely edge.
“Maricruz, can you tell me what happened to you?”
She seemed taken aback by the question. “How is that relevant?”
He shrugged. “I like to get to know my patients.”
“My, you really are a different kind of doctor.”
“Will you indulge me?”
Her frown deepened. “I’m not the subject of some kind of psychological experiment or something, am I?”
He laughed again. “Not at all.”
“I fell off a bike.”
“And got run over by a car?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“The nature of your bruising is inconsistent with a fall off a bike.”
“After my bike hit a pothole I tumbled down an embankment.”
Bourne decided to study her chart in more detail. “I notice there’s a police report attached here. A witness claims someone threw you out of a vehicle and sped away.” He looked up. “Friends of yours?”
Her eyes grew large before she turned away.
“I see here there was no follow-up to the initial police report.”
“The entire matter is being handled by Carlos Danda Carlos,” she said shortly.
Bourne closed her chart. “Ah, I see. Friends in high places.”
She smiled thinly. “Something like that.”
“Tell me, how do you find Señor Carlos Danda Carlos?”
Now she laughed, a soft, musical sound like bells echoing through a mountain pass.
“Define find.”
“It’s only that I’ve heard so many stories about him. I don’t know what to believe. For instance, is he a good man, do you think?”
There was that frown again. “Are you really a doctor?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m beginning to think Carlos sent you in here to interrogate me.”
Bourne, knowing he had to redirect her, stood up. “A thousand pardons, señora. I didn’t mean to give you the impression—”
“Do you work for him?”
“I’ve met him once, briefly,” Bourne said truthfully. “That’s all.”
She studied him a moment more. “Sit down, Doctor.”
He hesitated just the right amount of time before resuming his seat, but this time he sat on the edge, his back stiff, his shoulders slightly hunched.
“Oh, relax. I won’t bite.”
“You certainly won’t bite me if you call me Javvy—all my friends do.”
Maricruz arched an eyebrow. “Now we’re friends? I thought I was your patient.”
“I misspoke before. You were my patient when you were in the OR. Dr. Fernandez is your attending physician.”
“But you came to see me anyway.”
“I told you. I feel a connection with all my patients.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“Better than treating them like slabs of meat. That kind of assembly line deadens the heart as well as the soul.”
For the first time since he entered, she seemed to regard him with different eyes, as if a curtain had parted, revealing something that had always been there but had remained hidden from her.
At that moment the nurse bustled in carrying a tray of food, which she placed on the bedside rolling table. Swiveling it over the bed, she smiled her vaguely wicked smile and stalked out.
Bourne stood up. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
Maricruz looked at Bourne over the tray. “My food is provided by Carlos’s chef. It’s invariably delicious, but there’s always more than I can eat.”
“Are you asking me to join you for lunch?”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“I have rounds.” Bourne lifted the metal cover off the steaming-hot main cour
se, inhaled the delicious aromas. “But on the other hand, maybe I can spare a couple of minutes.”
What we’re contemplating is insane, you know that,” Ouyang said.
“I suppose that depends on your definition of insane.” Kai stared out the window for a moment, but he seemed utterly disinterested in the passing cityscape. “My definition is cutting the Politburo Standing Committee from nine members to seven.” He regarded Ouyang severely. “I take it the Patriarch neglected to inform you.”
Ouyang felt a certain tension inform his frame. “You know this for a fact?”
“I do.” Kai sighed. “The old guard may be stepping down next week, but they’re determined to have their influence carry on. By dictating that the Standing Committee members be reduced they ensure the younger, more progressive candidates will not get enough votes.”
“And so great decisions will fall by the wayside.”
“The committee will remain more to their liking.”
Ouyang shook his head. “You’re quite right, Kai. This is the true meaning of insanity.”
“Jidan, my friend, I’ve had enough depressing talk for one day. I propose we head for a small club I own where we can dive into a swimming pool of naked Japanese girls. What do you say?”
“You go if you want, Kai. I’m married.”
“Married,” Kai scoffed. “Your wife is thousands of miles away.”
“What difference does that make?”
“I would think every difference,” Kai said with a salacious wink.
“I love my wife.”
“I don’t get how you could live with a Western woman, let alone love her. I mean, the ones I’ve been with are plagued with an offensive body odor.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kai sat back, sighing. “The trouble with you, Ouyang, is you have a stick up your ass. You’ve got to learn how to relax, let your hair down, forget who you are for a couple of hours.”
“I can’t forget,” Ouyang said. “I’m not made that way.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
