Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

He listened as the sharp metal worked the lock in the gate outside. If he was going to do anything, he had to do it now. His eyes scoured the entry area for something, anything he could use to drive the man away. But it was the back of Liquida’s right arm and his elbow scratching something on the wall behind him that found the answer. He moved quietly away from the wall, turned, and looked down. There was a plastic cover plate and two light switches mounted on the wall between the front door and the door to the bathroom. He leaned into the bathroom and checked the wall inside with his right hand. There was no switch on the wall. Liquida guessed that the switch on the right, outside the door, was for the light in the bathroom. The other switch had to be an entry light. There was no overhead light in the interior entry itself, just a floor lamp in one corner. It was possible that the switch turned on the lamp.

Liquida eased over and looked through the port in the front door one more time, just as the locked bolt snapped open on the metal gate. There was an overhead light in the ceiling of the entry area outside. Liquida reached over and flipped the switch.

“Oh, shit!”

Liquida heard the tinkle of metal on the concrete walkway out front, and then footsteps as the man retreated from the wrought-iron gate.

Liquida smiled. In his panic the big one had dropped his lock pick. He listened as the loud sound of rubber soles slapping concrete on the street diminished into the distance toward the dark stairs at the dead end of the street.

By the time he turned off the entrance light and opened the front door, the man had disappeared into the darkness. Liquida could still hear the faint sound of the man’s heavy footfalls as he ran. He waited several seconds, until the sounds disappeared in the distance. Then he swung open the gate and stepped out onto the sidewalk, under the streetlight. He looked down, then stooped to the cement and pinched the tiny lock pick between his fingers. He stood up and looked in the other direction, toward the corner where he had seen the two men talking earlier. The other guy was gone. Or else he was hiding around the corner. Liquida figured he couldn’t have gotten far. If they had a car it would be in the other direction, where the big man ran when the light went on. Instinct would drive him toward safety. And there was no way for his friend to have joined him. Liquida had him cut off.

He moved quickly back into the house. This time he didn’t bother to lock or even close the gate behind him. He wouldn’t be there that long.

As Herman works the lock, I stand at the corner. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, and my attention begins to wander.

As I look around, I suddenly realize that if things go bad, there are no yards to hide in or fences that can be jumped easily. As far as I can see, in every direction the buildings all butt up against one another. There are a few gated side yards and two high iron fences, but all of them are guarded by large rolls of razor wire coiled and stretched along the top.

I look away and am thinking that they must have a problem with home security in Costa Rica when suddenly I hear Herman’s voice saying something unpleasant.

By the time I look back, Herman is moving away from the gate. The next thing I know, he turns, running in full flight, down the street and away from me, toward the darkness and the stairs at the other end.

I can’t tell what has happened. My first instinct is to follow him. Herman must have managed to pick the lock, because the gate at the front of the house is open just slightly. Then I notice the hand gripping one of the wrought-iron bars.

Without even thinking I seem to levitate back around the corner until I find myself on one knee, peeking around the stucco siding. Whoever is coming out of the house is now between Herman and me. There is no way I can follow Herman, and nowhere to hide.

It was, of course, possible that the two men had selected this house under the bright streetlight, and this night, for a random burglary. But Liquida was never one to embrace coincidence. It was the reason he had stayed alive so long.

To Liquida there was only one other person who knew he would be here, his employer. He had taken pains to inform the man that because of previous commitments, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the woman’s house in San José until the following evening. He remembered because his employer, the man in Colombia, wrote back to confirm this.

By now I am down on my stomach on the sidewalk, peering with one eye around the corner of the building across the street, watching the entrance to Katia’s house.

My mind is racing. All I can see is the hand gripping the iron bar on the gate. If it is a woman, it might be Katia’s mother. It is possible she has arrived home and Harry was wrong. Perhaps her cell phone is out of order.

If she steps out onto the sidewalk, if I could be sure it’s her, I might take a chance and approach her, try to introduce myself in the hope that somehow she might have gotten word that her daughter is in trouble in the States.

I’m hoping that her English might be better than my Spanish when the gate suddenly opens and a man steps out. He is lit from head to toe under the blaring gaze of the streetlight, looking the other way, toward the dark end of the street where Herman has disappeared.

I’m studying him when suddenly and without warning he turns and looks directly at the corner of the building where I am hiding. I pull my head back close to the edge of the house and hold my breath. I can’t be sure if he’s seen me. If he hasn’t, it is only because I am close to the ground and his eyes are searching up higher. Still, I have the feeling, the way he snaps his head in my direction and looks over here, that somehow he knows I am here.

It is possible he might be one of Rhytag’s agents, but not likely. If the FBI is camped in the house, perhaps with the assistance of the Costa Rican police, they would have allowed Herman to enter and then bagged him to find out what he was after.

Katia never mentioned any male residents in the house. So who the hell is he? I take a chance. With my chin on the concrete, I edge toward the corner of the building until my right eye clears it. The man is bent over, picking something up off the ground. Then he suddenly disappears, back into the house. But he doesn’t close the gate, he leaves it ajar, which means he’s coming back.

I stand up and start to collect my thoughts, realizing that if he comes this way, I’m going to be out on the sidewalk all alone, with nowhere to hide. I try to check off in my mind the routes on the map that would take me back to the Sportsmens Lodge.

I could turn and run down the street behind me. It’s well lit. At the next corner, if I turn right and run another block, by the time I got to the end of the street I should be almost at the front entrance to the lodge. That’s if I read the map correctly. If the FBI was set up out in front, they couldn’t miss me.

Or I could go in the opposite direction, across the street and up one block. I know with certainty what lies in that direction: the fence that bounds the zoo and the winding lane that runs alongside it. It would be dark as pitch, but if I followed the lane it would loop around and take me past the stairs at the other end of Katia’s street, where Herman disappeared. Retrace my steps a few hundred yards farther on and I would come to the green door at the back of the Sportsmens Lodge.

Without thinking twice I bolt across the street and dodge behind the corner of the house on the other side. I stop for a second to catch my breath and try to dismiss the thought that he might have been watching through one of the windows when I broke cover.