Davis listened and relaxed, the music sweeping his mind clear like a cool gust of wind. His thoughts drifted as another song began, misty jazz, vocals this time. Since when did she listen to jazz? He closed his eyes and succumbed to stillness.
Davis drifted off in the middle of the fifth song, the time on the clock having lost all meaning. He slept surprisingly well, feeling closer to his daughter than he had in a very long time.
ELEVEN
“Donde es hospital?” Davis asked in butchered Spanish.
He’d woken late, thrown on his clothes, and rushed to the hotel lobby. The woman behind the desk, a smiling and bosomy matron who certainly had grandchildren somewhere, replied, “Cúal?”
Which one?
Davis said, “Kennedy.”
She tapped a spot on the city map pressed under a sheet of glass on her counter. The map was colorful and dotted with cartoonlike drawings of museums and children’s carousels.
She said, “Taxi, a diez minutos,” and held up ten fingers to be sure he understood.
“Taxi,” he replied, nodding vigorously.
The merciful woman phoned him a cab, and Davis gave her a muchas gracias before heading outside. While he waited, he was happy to find an English-language daily at a corner newsstand, and happier still that the vendor didn’t mind taking a U.S. dollar for it — he still hadn’t found time for things like currency exchange.
Minutes later he was en route to Al Hospital Occidente de Kennedy, his life in the hands of a cabbie whose eyewear resembled shot glasses. If the man had a visual deficiency he didn’t seem to care as he wove through traffic like a slalom skier. Thinking it better not to watch, Davis hung on tight and flicked through The City Paper.
He found five paragraphs relating to the crash of TAC-Air Flight 223, all of it on page three beneath a grainy photograph of the crash site — one that he was sure had been taken from Marquez’ Huey. Yesterday the accident had been front page news, but interest was fading quickly. There were no scintillating pictures, no Hollywood celebrities or soccer stars unaccounted for. Better yet, more entertaining stories had found traction — the mayor had a new mistress, and a particularly nasty presidential race in the United States was heating up. Davis tossed the paper aside. He suspected that if Marquez were to make his hijacking theory public, the crash would quickly move back to page one.
He tried to steer his mind to positive thoughts, but it was hopeless. His daughter was missing and presumed dead, and so a visit to the city morgue could be approached with nothing less than trepidation. Davis forced his eyes outside and studied the city around him. He was reminded of Albuquerque, a blend of old and new, all trying to breathe in the thin air over a mile above sea level. Bogotá, of course, was on a larger scale, twenty million people living in a bowl carved by mountains, the biggest of these being Monserrate with its orange cable cars and moody cloud cover. Like so many cities, a place full of inviting corners, but one that collectively remained at arm’s length.
On reaching the hospital he settled with the driver, and after fencing with a receptionist in broken Spanish, Davis was directed to the basement level. At the foot of a staircase he found bilingual placards on a stone wall listing a number of departments, including radiation oncology and nuclear medicine. With two minutes to spare, he found Marquez. The colonel was standing under a sign that was written only in Spanish, but one that even Davis could translate: Depósito de Cadáveres.
The cadaver depository.
Marquez was not alone. Standing next to him was a man in uniform, although not one issued by either the Colombian Army or Air Force. If Davis were to lay odds, he would say he was looking at a policeman. The two men looked tense as they conversed in hushed Spanish.
Marquez spotted him coming, and with a raised hand, he cut the other man off in midsentence. “Thank you for coming,” he said to Davis, shaking his hand with businesslike formality. “This is Major Raul Echevarria. He represents the Bogotá Region One Police, Special Investigations Unit.”
Davis was inwardly pleased at the accuracy of his guess.
The two Colombians were standing next to an air-conditioning grate, probably an acquired behavior this close to the equator, and when Davis shook the man’s hand it was cool and moist, like a wad of wet clay. Echevarria was a big man, almost as tall as Davis but padded in the middle, an effect magnified as he stood next to the smaller Marquez. His uniform was quilted with embroidered insignia, and thin wings of hair puffed from the sides of a blue beret. A Saddam Hussein mustache stood front and center, and most prominent of all was a set of coal-black eyes, frayed powder at the edges — it was like looking down a pair of gun barrels.
The major smiled, perhaps a bit more than he should have, and asked, “Is this your first time in Colombia, Mr. Davis?”
“I was here once before, a long time ago,” he replied, suspecting this was something Echevarria already knew.
“Marquez tells me you are a good detective.”
The policeman’s decoupling of Marquez with his superior rank of colonel was not lost on Davis. He had seen such dynamics before, brusque interactions between military and police forces that typically functioned independently. In the best case it evolved to no more than healthy competition, committed individuals who answered to separate chains of command. In the worst case, careerist officers butted heads with corrupt government ministries, or even loosely tethered criminal elements. As a general rule, Davis stayed clear of infighting. If time wasn’t critical, he might have left right then for the nearest place that served coffee and eggs.
He said, “If I was really good none of us would be here right now. We’d all be in our offices writing after-action reports.” Echevarria almost replied, but Davis cut him off. “If there’s something here to see, let’s get on with it. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
Marquez said, “Yes, we all do. The medical examiner has completed her autopsy of the two pilots. Because certain findings suggest criminal involvement, the police must take part in our inquiry.”
Davis didn’t argue — there were criminal matters at hand. He did not, however, like this new trajectory. In certain countries, all air crashes were subject to mandatory criminal investigations. Police with zero knowledge of aviation plundered evidence and harangued witnesses, while attention-seeking prosecutors spouted cockeyed theories to the media. The United States took a very different approach. Air safety was considered paramount, and so NTSB investigators were given exclusive authority. They granted broad immunities to aircrew, mechanics, and air traffic controllers in exchange for the full and absolute truth. Barring willful negligence, the criminal justice system kept its big nose out. This latter model was widely recognized as the most significant advance to air safety since the seat belt, even if it did little to advance the careers of tort lawyers and prosecutors. Wishing he were in Kansas, Davis said, “Are we talking about a full criminal probe, Major, or are you here to observe?”
“Hijacking is a serious matter,” Echevarria said in a light tone that was at odds with his words. “Here in Bogotá—”
“Here in Bogotá,” Marquez interrupted, “we have an ambitious general prosecutor who cares less about victims than what he can do for himself. I think we will see a great deal of Major Echevarria.” The two Colombians exchanged a look that discarded any pretenses of civility.