The Cain File by Max Tomlinson Page A

have power and influence, try ordering someone else’s dog around . It was one of Ed’s favorite quotes and he would know who had sent the email. She hit Send , then went to Ulfric’s Sent Items folder, where she deleted the sent copy of the email, for whatever security was in it.
    Ulfric stood staring at the wall in his towel.
    “Ulfric,” Maggie said. “I have a few more questions for you.”
    “Yes?”
    Within minutes Maggie had access to Ulfric’s cell phone and hotel safe. Soon she had four hundred euros, several hundred U.S. dollars—the base currency in Ecuador—and a German passport. “Ulfric, where’s your wallet?”
    “Under the mattress.”
    The wallet contained seven dollars, an ATM card, and several credit cards. Another jackpot.
    She left Ulfric the seven dollars and slid the wallet back under the mattress.
    While she waited for Ed to call, Maggie nudged Ulfric over to the bed where she sat him down like a stoned Teddy Bear and continued to question him. Eyes open wide, twiddling his pudgy toes, he answered like a dutiful child, one with a German accent. She jotted down his pin and access numbers on a pad of hotel notepaper.
    She turned on the TV, found Canal 13, the Quito station. “Las Noticias” was on, the breaking news, a serious man in a tie with a microphone standing in front of the U.S. Embassy she had sailed by not a few hours ago. A collection of police cars flashed behind him. “Police are on the lookup for a young woman, wearing jeans and a purple T-shirt, and an American man with fair hair.”
    Reasonable identikits of her and John Rae appeared.
    “The two are wanted in connection to a shooting at an event last night in Guapalo. The woman is believed to be the same one who tried to run the barricades this morning at the U.S. embassy, resulting in the death of her driver. She is considered armed and dangerous.”
    Maggie wished she were armed. And she hadn’t run any barricades.
    She switched to TeleAmazonias, the national station. Students were marching in Guayaquil, protesting the agreement with the Chinese to continue oil exploration in the Amazon. Footage showed bulldozers cutting a road of rust-red dirt through pristine rainforest, natives demonstrating there as well. In their painted faces, bare torsos, and native dress, they looked vulnerable and undermanned. Maggie was reminded of Kacha’s cousin, Tica, under arrest somewhere. The red dust blew around the ankles of the demonstrators in swirls. Without the ancient growth to keep it in place, the precious Amazon was blowing away. Maggie shook her head.
    But there was nothing on the national news of a runaway Indian girl in jeans and purple T-shirt, wanted for causing havoc in Quito. Yet.
    Ulfric’s cell phone rang.
    Maggie answered. “Did you order a pizza?”
    “What the hell is going on, Maggs?” Ed Linden said.
    Street noise in the background. Ed was calling away from the office. Playing it safe.
    “I’d sure like to know,” Maggie said.
    “I thought I said to steer clear of the embassy.”
    “Well, that’s not what the driver thought. How did he know the check passphrase?”
    “We don’t have a profile on him yet. The local police won’t let us near. He wasn’t one of us. And whoever he was, he’s dead.”
    “Yes, I know.” She had never been responsible for the death of another human. She could argue it was in self-defense, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
    “The guy who was supposed to pick you up just missed you.”
    “Minister Beltran thought he could get over on us, Ed. He stopped the arrest. Who alerted him?”
    There was a pause while traffic honked in San Francisco. “All good questions.”
    “Sounds like we got a mole.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Who else knew about the passphrase?”
    “The usual channels. But we’ll have to deal with that later. Right now, there’s an alert out for you. Everybody and anybody is searching.”
    “What about John Rae?”
    “He made it out.”
    “The guy