“Against what?” Bourne asked.
“Maceo Encarnación.”
At that moment, Bourne recalled what Constanza Camargo had said: “I underestimated Maceo Encarnación’s power. He is protected by an almost mystical power, as if by gods.”
“Thank you,” he said.
El Enterrador inclined his head, obviously pleased.
Rebeka said, “Are we to stay here?”
“No. You will be transported to the mortuary, where you will stay until the call comes.”
“The call will come to this particular mortuary?” Bourne said. “This one and no other.”
Bourne nodded, accepting el Enterrador’s word.
They were led out of the rectory, through a small, unobtrusive door, out into the churchyard beyond which stretched the vast cemetery, a city unto itself. There was a hearse awaiting them, its engine purring richly.
El Enterrador opened the wide rear door, and they climbed in. “Vaya con Dios, mis hijos,” he said in a pious voice, and made the sign of the cross. Then he slammed the door shut, and the hearse rolled out of the churchyard, away from the basilica, making its funereal way through the blackened byways of Cementerio del Tepeyac, heading deeper and deeper into the mystical heart of the city.
18
PETER, DOWN IN the depths, felt the chill of death. Hands were at his throat.
He kicked out, but the water, seeming thick as sludge, defeated his attack. Bringing his hands up under those at his throat, he exploded them outward the moment they made contact. The pressure came off, but the two of them were still sinking down.
He scissored his legs, arrowing upward, but hands caught at him, dragging him back. Didn’t this man need to breathe as badly as he did, weren’t his lungs aching, his head pounding, his heart thumping painfully in his chest?
Peter could not see his antagonist, had never seen him, in fact. The moment his flashlight picked him out on the boat, he was blinded by the man’s own flashlight. Then came the attack, and both of them went into the water.
Down and down.
Peter felt the cold sucking the strength out of him. His limbs felt like lead weights. Then there was an arm around his throat, a choke hold, which he could not tolerate. Feeling for the man’s face, he jammed a thumb into one eye, pushing and pushing with all the strength left in him, and though the water impeded him, he had enough leverage that the choke hold vanished.
Peter spun to confront his attacker face-to-face. No light in the darkness. He had no idea how deep they had drifted, only that there was less than a minute before his lungs ran out of oxygen.
He rose, feathering his lower legs, then, instead of an ineffective kick, shoved the heel of his shoe into his attacker’s face. Instantly, then, he scissored his legs again, reaching upward with his arms, his first priority now to get to the surface.
With that goal fixed firmly in mind, he kicked harder than ever. It seemed an eternity, during which he might have blacked out for seconds at a time, reality drooling by in discrete segments, connected by nothingness, as if his mind had completely fled his body. But, at last, he saw wavering above him the shadow of illumination—the opposite of a shadow, casting itself on what, as he neared, he realized was the skin of the water.
As he broke the surface, strong arms reached down, powerful hands gripped him—his men, alerted by the shot he had fired, must have been searching for him from the moment they boarded the Recursive.
He heard grunts above him, lifted his head to see two or three faces, among them Sam Anderson, his deputy, picked out in the glare of the spotlights. He squinted, half-blinded by the spots, like a creature from the depths. He heard Anderson turn and call for the spots to be angled slightly away, and was grateful when his men promptly complied.
That was when he felt something pinion his legs, then an immense weight pulling him inexorably back down into the water. Dimly, as he shouted, he wondered how his assailant could manage to stay underwater so long and still have the strength to try to pull him under.
Above his head, he heard shouts of consternation, above all, Anderson’s firm voice, calmly calling out orders. As the men redoubled their grip on him, Anderson rose, and, drawing his sidearm, fired it into the water near Peter.
When the fourth bullet streaked into the water, Peter felt the weight come off, and his men drew him up, back over the railing and onto the deck of the Recursive. Immediately, they wrapped him in blankets. Red lights spattered the deck and cowling in rhythmic bursts. Peter saw that one of the revolving lights belonged to an ambulance. A pair of burly EMT paramedics lifted him onto a gurney.
“Anderson,” he said in a voice that sounded unsteady even to his ears, “get these people off me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Sorry, boss, but we’ve got to get you checked out.”
The gurney was lifted off the boat onto the dock. Peter discovered he was strapped down and helpless. Anderson trotted at his side. They rolled him up the dock to the parking lot where the ambulance waited.
“That fucker’s still down there. We have to ID him. Call out the divers.”
“Already done, boss.” Anderson grinned. “In the meantime, we have spotlights on three Coast Guard boats scanning the harbor.”
Just before the paramedics loaded him into the back of the ambulance, Anderson placed his mobile onto his chest, and said, “While you were getting wet, you got a priority call from SecDef.” Hendricks.
The paramedics were already taking his vitals.
“The moment I get out of restraints,” Peter said with no little sarcasm. Then: “Anderson, find this fucker.”
“You got it, boss.”
The door slammed shut and the ambulance took off. Anderson retraced his step to slip 31 and got back to work. The boss said to find the fucker, and that’s precisely what he was going to do.
Early that morning, Maria-Elena had driven out of the heavily protected compound on Castelar Street, heading, as she always did, to her favorite markets to shop for that night’s dinner.
She was a creature of habit. She had worked for only one person in her life. Maceo Encarnación had taken her off the streets of Puebla when she was fourteen, a terribly thin, undernourished girl, and introduced her to his household. As it happened, she had a natural gift for preparing food—all that was needed was a bit of polishing from the then cook. From the moment Maria-Elena cooked her first dinner in his house, she had become an immediate favorite of Maceo Encarnación. He elevated her above others on his staff who had been with him longer, which, of course, caused friction.
Later, looking back on it from her lofty perch, Maria-Elena realized that the temporary chaos her rise had caused among the staff had been deliberate. It was a form of harrowing, Maceo Encarnación seeking to root out the malcontents and troublemakers before anything untoward happened. With their firing, the household returned to a peacefulness deeper than it had experienced before. Maria-Elena was certain Maceo Encarnación was a genius at handling people, not only his staff. Her keen eye observed how he dealt with his guests— how he engaged some, flattered others, humiliated still others, and proposed ultimatums, either by guile or directly, depending on the guest’s personality—to get what he wanted out of them.
In the end, it was the same with me , she had thought as she shopped for fresh fruit, vegetables, chilies, meat, chocolate, and fish. She knew all the vendors, and they, in turn, knew her, mindful of who she worked for. Needless to say, she received the best of everything, all at prices significantly under those they proposed to their other customers. From time to time, they gave Maria-Elena little treats for herself and for her daughter, Anunciata. After all, she was important in their world, and, besides, in her early forties, she was still a beautiful and desirable woman, though she didn’t consider herself beautiful, not like Anunciata. Anyway, she desired no man at all.