It wasn’t much of a hotel room. Creaking ceiling fan, no bathroom, old-fashioned washstand in the corner with one threadbare towel, and a single window overlooking Columbus Park. I had just begun to tie the laces on my second shoe when the door flew off its hinges and landed on the floor in front of me.
Four men came in after the door. They all carried guns. I wasn’t surprised to see that one of them was my new friend from the day before—Ernesto. Everything was proceeding according to plan.
I said, “Good morning.”
Ernesto gestured toward the door with his gun. “We go.”
“Sure,” I said, standing up. I had finished with my laces anyway.
Ernesto and another gunman went ahead of me, and two remained behind as we walked along the dimly lit interior hallway, then down the stairs to the street level lobby, which was only a small room with a counter in one corner. The man behind the counter didn’t bother to look up from a magazine when we walked through.
At the curb outside the door stood an old Ford Econoline van. The sliding side door was open. The men herded me straight across the sidewalk and into the van. The entire rear of the van was empty. There weren’t even any seats. Three of the men got in with me. Ernesto went around front and got into the passenger side. There was a fifth guy already behind the wheel. One of the men in back with me slammed the door closed. We all sat cross-legged on the steel deck.
The van rocked away from the curb on its old suspension like a ship tossed at sea. There were no side windows, so I couldn’t see much from where they made me sit, but that didn’t matter much, since I didn’t know the city anyway.
One of the men in back with me handed his weapon to another one and said, “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
When I did that, he pulled my wrists together and slipped a plastic twist tie around them. He didn’t notice when I flexed my wrists and held them slightly apart. As soon as he was done, I turned back around and went to work on getting my hands free. He had left me wiggle room. It was good to know they were amateurs. Once I was certain I could slip out of the restraint, I stopped trying.
We took a lot of turns. I figured they were checking for tails. After a while the driver slowed and shifted into low gear. The engine whined as we headed up a steep incline. We leveled off, turned left, then right, then left again, and then we climbed some more. About forty-five minutes after we left the hotel, the van stopped.
Ernesto got out. A few seconds later, he opened the sliding door and said, “Come.” He kept his handgun aimed at my stomach.
I got out and looked around while the others followed. We were on a level place high above the city. From there I could see that Guate was essentially in a hanging valley. On the horizon were three mountains so perfectly conical they could only be volcanoes. One of them was even spewing smoke. The mountainside below us and behind us was obscured by a dense jungle.
“Follow me,” said Ernesto.
“You know, those pork chops were pretty good,” I said. “But the spaghetti recipe needs more garlic or something. It was a little bland.”
“I will tell the cook,” he said.
I walked behind him across the level area and into a nearly invisible break in the jungle alongside the road. The three other men followed. As we stepped out of sight behind the wall of vegetation, I heard the van driving away.
We followed a trail that would have been almost impossible to find without knowing exactly where to look. It was fairly level for the first hundred yards or so, and then it began to climb. It wasn’t always easy climbing the steep path with my hands behind my back, but I managed. We had gained another quarter-mile in elevation when we came upon a building made entirely of rusting corrugated steel. I figured it had been hauled up there in sections and assembled years before by a logging company, then left behind when they moved on. The others took up positions around the building. I followed Ernesto inside.
Valentín Vega sat at a wooden table, writing on a legal pad by the light of a battery-powered lantern. He looked up when we entered. He put down his pen and stood.
“Mr. Cutter,” he said in English. “You are a long way from home.”
“No farther than you were when you hired me.”
“Why are you here?”
“You forgot to pay me.”
He stared at me a moment, then he began to chuckle. “You are correct. I did forget that completely. I am very sorry.”
I shrugged to conceal the effort of slipping off the plastic strap around my wrists. “That’s okay. Unexpected events arose, and you were in a hurry. It happens.”
His smile disappeared. “I ask again, why are you here?”
“I just told you.”
“How did you know about Ernesto’s restaurant?”
“I’m a professional sleuth, remember? That’s why you hired me.” I had my hands free by then but continued to hold them behind my back.
“I dislike speaking in clichés, Mr. Cutter, but sometimes they are most appropriate. So forgive my lack of originality when I say we have ways of making you talk.”
“Ways? Who has these ways? Him?” I nodded at Ernesto.
“Exactly,” replied Vega.
“Nah,” I said.
I set my weight on my right foot, delivered a lateral left kick to Ernesto’s ribs, and followed through to take his gun before he hit the floor. He lay clutching his chest and moaning as I covered Vega with the weapon. It was over in less than a second.
To Vega I said, “Lock your fingers behind your head and turn around.”
He did as he was told. I approached from the rear and removed his holstered Glock, I also took a knife he had slipped into the top of his right boot.
On the floor Ernesto continued to groan. I spoke to him in Spanish. “Ernesto, my friend. I am truly sorry about that. Can you breathe?”
He said, “Yes,” through gritted teeth.
“Excellent. That means your lung is not punctured, so you will be okay in a few days. Someone cracked some of my ribs only last week, and look how great I am doing now. You just stay down there on the floor and rest, okay? And Valentín, put your hands in your front pockets and call the others in.”
Vega dropped his hands to his pockets and called, “Mario, come in here. Bring the others.”
I gripped Vega by the back of his shirt and pulled him with me into a corner where I could cover the whole room from behind him. His men came in with their guns holstered. Distracted by Ernesto on the floor, they didn’t realize I was positioned to their rear until I said, “If you go for those guns, I will shoot your boss in the head.”
All three of them turned to look at me. “Vega,” I said, “Tell them to put their right hands in their pockets and then reach around and put their weapons on the floor with just the thumb and first finger of their left hands.”
They all looked at Vega. He said, “Do it.”
After they had kicked the guns into the corner where I stood, I told them, “Put your other hands in your pockets too and sit down on the floor.”
With a nod from Vega, they all did as they were told. I released Vega and told him to go across the room and sit with them. Still covering everybody with Ernesto’s gun, I stooped to pick up their weapons one by one and pitched them through the open door into the jungle. They all glared at me, watching my every move.
When I held the only gun in the room, I relaxed a little. I switched to English. “Hey, Valentín. Don’t look at me that way. I know this is awkward, but it’s not my fault. All you had to do was ask me nicely for a meeting, but were you polite? No, you sent these guys to kick in doors and tie me up and scare me with their great big guns.”
“Why are you here?”
“Always the same question. But since you’re being more polite now, I’ll tell you. I’m here for you. We’re going down the mountain in a minute, straight to the American embassy. When we get there, you’re going to tell them that the Montes’s home invasion was your idea and that I had nothing to do with it.”