David Unger - The Mastermind

To Miguel, life in Guatemala had become a comedy erroneously portrayed as tragedy. He knew there was no such thing as a perfect crime, but he had been riding on a string of successes that implied that if he applied total vigilance, much could be accomplished. Befriending Guillermo at the funeral had been a brilliant move, allowing him to exploit the man’s vulnerability. Miguel knew that injustice alone would not have been enough to convince Guillermo to join him on his quest. The shock brought on by the deaths of Maryam and Ibrahim, the specter of Samir’s potential role in the murder, and Guillermo’s implacable weakness created the ideal situation to pull off his plan. All the pieces seemed to fit together, and he was right where he needed to be. The only thing required of him was the demonstration of sufficient amounts of sympathy, guile, and money to ensure victory.

The revelation that something had gone awry in his master plan came while he was in his office at Raoul’s trying to plot the exact moment to release Guillermo’s recording. One of his orejas at the national police texted that things at the murder scene didn’t quite add up: the dead man was shorter and stockier than Rosensweig, and he had a buzz cut, not patches of wavy black hair.

Miguel immediately called Braulio Perdomo to see where things had been left with his charge. Everything seemed copasetic to Braulio, with no inkling that Guillermo was going to pull out of the scheme at the last minute.

“Do you want me to go check out Guillermo’s apartment? I have the keys and no one would be suspicious. I could just go there quickly and sniff around.”

Miguel liked the idea. Maybe he would find Guillermo there, sprawled out on the living room floor in another of his alcoholic extravaganzas.

By noon Braulio had reported back. Nothing seemed suspicious or out of place: the apartment reeked of alcohol; there was half-eaten food on a plate on the kitchen counter; Guillermo’s bicycle was gone. Braulio found the man’s passport in the officer drawer and noted that his car was still in the garage, the engine cold.

But something was not right. By one o’clock Miguel heard from a contact at the morgue that the dead man had a huge tattoo of an apocalyptical horse galloping on his hairless back. With no forensic evidence, the coroner wouldn’t say who the dead man was — he needed to take DNA samples and send them to Miami. He would only say that the victim had been shot by a high-caliber pistol at a short range and had died immediately.

Miguel had never seen Guillermo without a shirt, but he doubted he would have a tattoo like that. Miguel grew troubled: he had been too complacent, too confident. He contacted his plants at Aurora Airport and asked them to make inquiries into the departure of Guillermo Rosensweig or someone fitting his physical description. He had underestimated Guillermo’s guile, and now suspected he had purchased a fake passport and would try to escape.

Miguel contacted his orejas at the central bus station, but no one reported seeing a man fitting Guillermo’s description. He had some of his men make discreet enquiries in the downtown hotels and those in Zone 9 and 10, in case Guillermo had decided to hole up for a few days. By sundown Sunday, no one had seen hide or hair of Guillermo.

He had vanished into thin air.

On Monday morning, he had Braulio contact Guillermo’s secretary and discovered that he had furloughed her several weeks back. She mentioned that she still had keys to his office and as far as she knew, Guillermo hadn’t moved his files out yet. Did he want her to check it out?

Braulio thought on his feet and said. “No, no. I must have misunderstood when he asked me to pick him up early this morning. I’m sure he’s okay. Wait for further instructions.”

When it was revealed that the drug lord Boris Santiago was the murder victim, and when it also become known that Guillermo was missing, Miguel was surprised that no one suspected any connection between them. Oddly, Boris’s family made no effort to claim his body, and though Guillermo had vanished, neither his wife nor his children seemed very concerned.

Miguel realized he had to move fast on two fronts if his master plan were to succeed: first he had to patch things up with the president, and second, scour the earth for traces of Guillermo. The former he would deal with personally, with all the finesse and force he could muster, and the latter would be handled by his henchmen.

Through intermediaries, Miguel let the president know that he was tired of opposing his government and would be willing to join his economic team and take Ibrahim Khalil’s place on the Banurbano board. He would do so with the utmost respect for the presidency and with the sole interest of serving with honesty, discretion, and loyalty. Miguel, the inventor of actionable intelligence, had had a long career in government serving as advisor to many of the military officers who found themselves promoted to the presidency.

The president agreed instantly, happy to have one less adversary throwing darts at him and his wife.

* * *

With his appointment to the president’s administration behind him, Miguel can turn his focus to finding and killing Guillermo. But no one knows where he’s gone. He sends Braulio to San Salvador and Edgar Rocio to Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula in Honduras, but after a week of investigating, they both return with no leads, no sightings. He fans immigration agents across all the land crossings in and out of Guatemala with pictures of Guillermo and a 10,000-quetzales bounty for information leading to his whereabouts.

A month passes with not even one piece of credible evidence or actionable information to go on. Miguel is frustrated that this time he cannot find the needle in the haystack, which has never been a problem for him before. He realizes that Guillermo could be anywhere — on an island in the Caribbean, in Mexico City, in Miami, or even in New York or San Francisco. A family man, a lawyer of Guillermo’s standing and stature, doesn’t just disappear, especially after living in Guatemala for the better part of his nearly fifty years, but that’s exactly what has happened.

Miguel Paredes decides he needs to rely on his patience and sit tight: at some point Guillermo Rosensweig will attempt to come back into the country, out of nostalgia or necessity, and that’s when he will be nabbed.

And eliminated.

Maryam and Ibrahim had been killed on May 5 and Guillermo had plotted his own death several weeks later, in early June. In December, before the arrival of Christmas, Guillermo begins feeling despondent again, and lonely. He remembers the jovial Noche Buena dinners; the kids getting up early on Christmas Day to open their gifts as if the Rosensweig family were living in the United States; the numerous vacations they would take — always from the twenty-eighth of December to the seventh of January — somewhere in the Guatemalan Highlands. There were trips to Antigua and Panajachel, but also journeys up the Rio Dulce to the Castillo de San Felipe and Lago de Izabal, and beach trips to Likín, in which Guillermo actually recovered his role as the head of a lovely family. It didn’t matter that their bonds would dissipate after two days back in Guatemala City, the laughter of the kids and the distraction of booze made lovers of Guillermo and Rosa Esther, albeit in a somewhat forced and dyspeptic manner.

One day, nostalgia for his homeland consumes him. He recognizes the immense risk crossing borders implies, but he can’t help himself. He needs to feel the Guatemalan earth beneath his feet.

He wants to go to Valle Nuevo because it would allow him to test out his fake passport for a second time. But there is another reason: Valle Nuevo has a bank and a post office, which will allow him to send Rosa Esther a bank check for four thousand quetzales along with a letter revealing he is still alive. He owes his wife and children that at least, even though he is taking a big risk, given Miguel’s long reach.