Undercover Read Free Page A

Ecuador late that night. They were making plans for the transfer of goods from Ecuador to Panama, but there was nothing remarkable about the meeting. And at the end of it, Raul offered him a cigar, which Pablo took. As he lit it, he saw Raul watching him, as he always did. One always had the feeling with him that he could look into your thoughts.
    “So what do you think?” Raul was asking about the meeting.
    “It sounds all right to me.” It wasn’t one of their bigger deals, and seemed like business as usual. They talked about the upcoming shipment to Miami then, which was far more complex, and more interesting, for a much larger amount. Raul told him then that he had to go back to Bogotá again the next day. Sometimes Pablo didn’t go for a week or two, and at other times, when they were moving several shipments, he had to go to the city every day. He didn’t mind.
    It was nearly two in the morning when Pablo finally left the tent, and Raul disappeared into the shrubbery to dissolve into wherever in the jungle he would spend the night. The two men had embraced as they parted, as they always did. And when Pablo went back to the hut, Paloma was sound asleep. She was sleeping more now, he had noticed, as her time came close, and something told him it would only be a few days. He lay quietly next to her and fell asleep, and was up and dressed before first light.
    He didn’t stop to see Raul as he left, as he had to be in Bogotá early that day. But he was hoping to be back late that afternoon. The only thing that bothered him about going to the city now was not being there for Paloma if labor started. There was no one else to help her—she was the only woman in the camp.
    He was thinking about her on the way to his meeting, when a man jostled him hard on the sidewalk. He apologized in Spanish, and locked his eyes into Pablo’s. Pablo recognized him immediately and didn’t want to be late.
    “Not now,” he said under his breath, and the man responded just as quietly, seeming not to even speak to him.
    “Now.”
    No expression crossed Pablo’s face, as he headed down a narrow street, turned a corner, walked behind a small dilapidated building, and took a key from under a plant. With startling speed, he had turned the key in the lock, entered the house, and closed the door behind him. He ran up a flight of stairs, threw open a door, and glared at three men in jeans and ordinary street garb, who were waiting for him.
    “What the fuck is this about?” he shouted at them. “I told you yesterday, not now. I have a meeting in five minutes about the shipment to Miami. Why don’t you guys back off?” He sounded angry and looked tense, and he was speaking to them in English, not Spanish. The collective look they aimed at him was like a wall. There was no give in it, and no emotion. This was pure business, of a different kind.
    “You’re out, Everett. You’re done. There’s a leak somewhere in the chain. It’s going to get to Raul any second. Maybe it already has by now.” Pablo thought of the men who had flown in from Ecuador, and wondered if one of them had said something to Raul. There had been no sign of it the night before. But El Lobo was cagey that way, and he would have wanted to check it out. Maybe that was why he had sent him to Bogotá for the third time in a week. But Pablo wasn’t ready to quit. He was too close in, knew too much, and with Paloma ready to give birth, he wasn’t going anywhere.
    “The hell I am!” he shouted at the men again. There wasn’t even the slightest shift in their eyes. “For chrissake, I’ve been here for three years. My woman’s about to have a baby any minute.” He was shaking with rage and emotion and looked like he was about to cry.
    “You’re risking everyone in the operation if you try to stay. You’re a marked man, Everett. We’re talking about hours before Raul knows it, if he hasn’t already heard. You’re out. There’s a plane waiting for us now. You