“You don’t want to see what’s on that computer,” I say.
“You admit it, then,” she says nervously. “Something happened. You found out while I was in the shower.”
I’m standing up now. She still hasn’t shot me. She’s not going to unless I try to go after her. Though I’m not so impressed anymore. If I was her, I would have put a bullet in my skull by now.
I nod my answer. I’m only mildly surprised that she figured that much out. I should never have asked about her mother. She’s a smart girl, this one, though still far too sympathetic and human to get out of this by herself alive.
Leaving the gun in her right hand and keeping her eyes on me, she takes three and a half steps backward and reaches for the iPad, glancing between it and me, one second each, long enough to type in the password. After one full minute of frustration, unable to find anything, the girl points the gun at the iPad and steps away from the table closer to the wall.
“You pull it up,” she demands. “Whatever it is.”
Her hands, both gripping the gun handle now, are shaking.
“I will tell you one last time, you don’t want to see it.”
“Just show me!”
She’s crying now. Tears roll down her cheeks. I notice her lip quiver on the right side. She’s probably sick to her stomach, her nerves frayed to nothing. I glimpse the ropes I tied her up with lying on the floor. They haven’t been cut. She has small hands, small wrists. Quite the escape artist to have worked herself free from those knots. I glimpse the clock between the beds. But it took her far too long to pull it off, I see.
“Hurry!”
Her eyes are red and glistening with moisture.
I turn the iPad around on the table to face me. Using my finger, I open my private email account and then the folder where I filed away the attachment message I received last night from my liaison:
“What have you done?” Fleischer inquired the night before through the live video feed. “The girl was not part of the deal.” His German accent always bleeding heavily through his English.
“Guzmán’s daughter was there,” I said. “I saw her on the compound before I entered the house.” I looked once toward the restroom where the girl was still showering after fifteen minutes. “Javier Ruiz has an impressive operation.”
“Are you certain you saw the same girl?”
I was offended by Fleischer’s lack of confidence in me, that after years of working together and never being wrong in my assessments that he would still second-guess my findings.
“It was the same girl,” I confirmed evenly. “I took half of the money Javier agreed to and left, as I was ordered to do.”
“And then how did you end up with the other girl?”
“She escaped the compound and hid in my car.”
“And you did not know she was there?” He appeared surprised.
“Yes, I knew,” I confirmed.
“Then explain why—”
“Remember, Fleischer, that you are not my employer. It would be wise not to speak to me as if you were.”
Fleischer swallowed his pride and raised his chin to appear more confident in his moment beneath me.
“What did Javier offer to have Guzmán killed?”
“Not a fraction of what Guzmán offered to kill Javier and Izel and for the safe return of his daughter.”
I added, “I could have fulfilled the contract while I was there.”
“Yes,” Fleischer said. “But that was not part of the plan, the same as keeping the runaway with you.”
“The girl will be useful.”
“So far, she has proven anything but,” Fleischer said, regaining the confidence I stripped from him before. “Everything has changed. The plan. The contract. Your orders.”
“What are my new orders?” I asked.
“Vonnegut has given no new orders yet,” he said. “He awaits my contact. Your new orders will depend on the information I get from you now.”
Fleischer and I locked eyes in this moment, both of us sharing the same thoughts: You are my brother and I will do nothing to betray you, no matter our profession or the orders that either of us are ever given.
No one but the two of us know that we share the same father. But over the years since our recruit by the Order when we were young boys, we have grown apart. It is often easy to forget that we share the same blood, especially by Fleischer, first name Niklas, who has lived in my shadow in the Order for so many years.
I simply nodded, knowing that Niklas would relay to our employer, Vonnegut, whatever I needed him to.
To retain the relationship between my brother and me, I offered him information he never asked for:
“The girl will be useful, Niklas,” I repeated, calling him by his first name to offer a truce. “It seems that she is more to Javier than Javier would like us to know.”
Niklas nodded in response, understanding my intent.
“You mean to use the girl to trade for Guzmán’s daughter,” he stated.
“If it comes down to that, yes,” I said. “Tell Vonnegut that I have it under control, but that I will await whatever orders he chooses.”
My back hurts and my face itches from the imprint the scruffy carpet left on my skin.
Victor sits in the chair next to the table now with his shoes on as if he’s been quietly waiting for the day to come.
I lift my aching body from the floor and push myself into a stand.
“I don’t care anymore what you do with me,” I say. “Just please take me back to Javier. I don’t have much time.”
Victor’s face reveals curiosity. “You’ll not be going back to the compound.”