Chapter 10 Bodies Armor #3
She shrugs. "It isn't a secret, nor very traumatic.
Just…context. Timeline. Anyway. Vicente sent me to finalize a deal for American-made fentanyl.
It wasn't very popular on the streets back then, so it was a risky move for him.
" She waves a hand. "Unimportant. Rafa—as I shall now call him, just to piss him off even in spirit—found out that I was supposed to be doing the deal.
He laid a trap, and I walked right into it.
Only through dumb luck did I survive, and only just barely.
I was hit several times, and hid until they left, and then crawled away.
I patched myself up as best I could and…
" she hesitates, remembering, and then continues.
"I hijacked a private plane at an airfield and made them fly me into Mexico.
I nearly bled out before some weird, crazy old man found me wandering around, bleeding, in the hills near the Benito Juárez park.
He put me in his truck, took me home, and nursed me back to health.
He didn't speak a lick of Spanish, Portuguese, or English, just Zapotec or whatever.
He wouldn't take my money when I left. Just pointed me north and slammed the door in my face. "
"Something similar happened to me, once," I say. "Except it was a Guarani woman."
She's quiet for a while, and then resumes her story. "I walked across most of the rest of Mexico. Hitched rides when I could, walked when I couldn't. Thankfully, I'd managed to keep hold of the briefcase of cash, so I had plenty of money."
"Why not buy a car?" I ask.
She shrugs. "I wasn't thinking clearly. I'd lost a lot of blood, and the old Zapotec guy only did enough to prevent me from bleeding out.
I left his hut before I was really ready to go anywhere, and I developed an infection.
I was just…stumbling around, I suppose. It's all a hazy blur.
I remember reaching a river in the middle of the night and running into a group of migrants.
One woman recognized that I wasn't in good shape and stuck with me.
She helped me cross. I wasn't even aware that that's what I was doing—crossing into the US.
I just had this drive to keep moving. If I kept moving, Rafa couldn't find me, I thought.
I was terrified of him finding me. Petrified.
I'd have panic attacks about it all the time.
Just keep moving, keep walking, keep going north, no matter what—that's all I could think about in my fever state. "
"Understandable, I'd say."
She nods. "Yes, I suppose so." A pause, a wave of her hand.
"Border Control hit the group after we reached the US side, and I ended up in a detainment center and interrogated, especially in light of the fact that my passport was discovered to be a fake, I had a handgun on me, and had three not-exactly-healed gunshot wounds.
I couldn't exactly give them my real identity or I'd be in even worse trouble, so all I could do was pretend I didn't speak English or Spanish.
It took them a while to find a Portuguese translator, but by that time the infection had left me so delirious I was incoherent.
They put me in the infirmary under armed guard, handcuffed to the bed, which as you can imagine did real wonders for my state of mind.
I was in and out of consciousness and coherence for who knows how long. "
"Barbarians," I mutter.
She shrugs. "I was obviously not an average migrant, Ren.
I was absolutely the threat they assumed me to be.
I just wasn't a threat to them. They had no way of knowing that.
I don't blame them for how I was treated.
I do not excuse their treatment of others who are innocent of everything except trying to flee the horrors of home and enter the US illegally, but me?
I was dangerous. Their precautions were logical and understandable. "
I growl. "Perhaps. I have not had the best of experiences with that organization, personally and professionally. Perhaps I am biased."
"Believe me, I understand completely. I am only saying that in that particular situation, they were not wrong to treat me as a threat.
Regardless, I was the unwilling guest at that detention center for several weeks, hovering on the brink of death from infection.
It turns out that swimming across the Rio Grande with open, already-infected wounds isn't the best plan.
I developed multiple, severe infections.
I remember very little but faces and noises and pain and being so, so thirsty. "
"God, Sophia. That sounds awful."
She nods. "It wasn't fun. There are much worse things one can experience, however, and I remember being thankful that at least I was safe from Rafael.
Even he couldn't get to me in the middle of an American detainment center.
" A pause; she looks back, remembering that we aren't alone and that she has an audience.
"The man who became my employer, however, could. "
"That's where he found you?" I ask.
She nods. "I remember his face above me.
He was speaking to me, or maybe to someone else.
I don't know. I was uncuffed, transferred to a wheelchair, and brought out of the facility.
To this day, I still don't know how he knew who I was, since I was listed as a Jane Doe in the official records, with my fake passport name as an alias.
But he knew, and he got me out of that facility, brought me to LA, got me healthy, gave me a new identity, a new life, and a job. "
"This was before the Arrows, I assume," I say, "so what was the job, back then?"
"Personal security. He was…reorganizing, shall we say, and made quite a few enemies for himself. Keeping that man alive was a full-time job for a while, there. The rest of how I became Inez as you know me and how the Arrows came into existence is not my story to tell."
She picks up her phone and stares at it as if willing it to ring. "I am very worried, Lorenzo. This is highly unusual. What if Rafael or Pugli got to him? He can handle himself well enough, but he's not an operator."
"I'm sure he's alright, just unable to answer the phone."
She glares at me, knowing as well as I do that my answer is bullshit. "I will keep trying every fifteen minutes."
And so she does, and every fifteen minutes, the call goes to voicemail.
Two hours later, she's dozed off, head against the window, phone wedged between her thighs. Everyone has either dozed off or nearly so, leaving me to my thoughts as I drive.
I'm startled into cursing in Portuguese when her phone abruptly jangles with the shrill, jarring trill of an old-fashioned landline handset ringer. Inez jolts upright with a snort, fumbles the phone, and stabs the answer button.
"Pull over!" she snaps at me. "Pull over, now!"
I jerk the wheel and mash the brakes, skidding and fishtailing to a halt on the gravel shoulder. Inez is out of the car before it stops. "One moment, sir."
I exit as well, gesturing for everyone else to stay put. She glares at me as I join her, but she doesn't otherwise protest. “You're on speaker with me and Lorenzo, sir," she says.
"Lorenzo, Inez." Jakob's voice is strained. Quiet, as if he can't risk speaking at full volume. "The situation has changed. You warned me that I could not assume I was safe from our enemies, and unfortunately your warning has proven true."
"Are you okay, sir?"
"I am…well enough. I find myself, ironically, in a situation rather similar to those our Broken Arrows have all recently experienced—that being hunted by a numerically superior foe, with an innocent life at stake."
Inez coughs in surprise. "Sir?"
“No time to explain. I'm sorry to have worried you, but I simply couldn't answer.
I can handle this situation well enough on my own for now.
I'm calling because I've finally heard back from my contact at the CIA.
I have a definitive location for Rafael.
And better yet, he's planning on meeting up with Pugli in the next twenty-four hours. "
"When and where, sir?"
"Los Angeles. Precise time and meet location are both unknown. All I know is they're meeting somewhere in LA in the next 24 hours. Contact Solomon and have everyone rendezvous in LA as soon as possible. This may be our one chance at eliminating both players."
"I should send someone to you, sir," Inez says.
"No. I…no. Focus on Pugli and Rafael. I want photographic proof of termination, Inez. No prisoners, no mercy. Not for them."
"Sir, with all due respect, Lash could—"
"Sophia, I said no. You will need everyone you can get. They won't be alone, you know that. I may not be an operator, but I'm far from helpless."
She hisses her profound displeasure. "Understood, sir," she snarls. "I disagree with your decision, but I respect it."
His tone is amused. "If I find I need help, I'll ask. You have my word on that. Just…kill Rafael Sousa and Roberto Pugli. Their deaths will ensure my safety. In the meantime, while I may be in danger, I'm finding the experience so far to be…not entirely unpleasant."
"The innocent life, I presume," Inez says, her tone wry.
"Quite."
Inez slides her braid through her fist, flips the end up to examine the place where a bullet took off the last inch or two during the firefight at the club.
"Jakob…You're not just my boss. You're my friend.
Other than Lorenzo, you've known me the longest. I owe you everything. Please, sir. Stay safe. Stay alive."
Jakob clears his throat. "My, my. An emotional outburst from the great Sophia Bruna Santos de Silva, La Víbora herself.
What is this world coming to?" Before Sophia can respond, he sighs, continues.
"I tease, my friend. In truth, I'm touched.
And amazed. I think you may be a miracle worker, Lorenzo.
But a month ago, such a declaration from Inez would have been less likely than winning the lottery, twice. "
"I am no miracle worker, Jakob," I say. "She has done the work to face her demons. The credit for her transformation goes entirely to her."
"Transformation may be a bit of an exaggeration," she mutters. "We can stop talking about me at any point."
"I have to go anyway," Jakob says. "I assure you, Sophia, I will be fine."
"Until later, sir."
A pause. "I think at this point, we can dispense with the 'sir.'" Jakob says something that is muffled and inaudible. "I have to go. We'll speak again soon. Hopefully, so you can report that Pugli and Sousa are dead."
"It will be done, sir—Jakob."
"I don't doubt it. Goodbye for now, both of you."
The line goes dead, then.
Inez looks at the phone with a curious expression, then at me. "He's met someone."
"I agree," I say.
"You don't know him like I do," she says. "So you can't understand how strange an idea that is. Until recently, Jakob and I were two peas in a pod. Meaning, cold, distant, isolated, prickly, difficult, and often flat-out mean."
I smirk at her. "Armor, protecting your hearts. I hope for his sake whoever he's with can see through it to whoever the man is, or can be, beneath it."
She frowns thoughtfully. "I hope so, too. I get the sense that he's been that way for far longer than me. He may not know who he is without it."
"Did you?" I ask. "Do you?"
She shrugs, head tipping toward her lifted shoulder.
"No. Not really. And I don't know that I would have been able to face everything if I didn't have you, so in a way, you are the miracle worker he said you are.
" She exhales sharply, and I sense the conversation is over.
"Enough of that, for now. I have to trust Jakob to take care of himself. We have a mission to complete."