Vice(12)

I shoot Jamie a quick thank you, and then I’m climbing on the back of the motorcycle, making sure I have everything I need with me for the miles and miles that stretch out ahead of me. All I really need is a small can of gas and a working cell phone, but the toothbrush, first-aid kit and chocolate bars will help make life more pleasant if I get stranded somewhere.

The ride passes by in a blur of rickety wagons and clouds of dust. I could power through and do the stretch all in one go, but setting off so late has made that impossible. Still, I barely stop to sleep—there are no motels on the route I’ve selected, and without my camping gear, sleeping on the ground off the side of the road beside my motorcycle is less than comfortable. My time in the military serves me well, though. I’m used to functioning without rest. I’m barely even tired as I finally begin to see signs for Orellana.

When I arrive, I’m surprised to find a quaint little fishing village at the foot of a tall mountain range. There are no Holiday Inns here. No Motel 6s. I don’t see a single storefront as I ride the motorcycle down what appears to be the main street of the tiny town. The locals hurry out onto the streets—presumably startled by the sound of the bike’s engine—and they gawp at me with their mouths hanging open as I burn past them.

Everything is decaying, falling down, tumbling back into the water and the dirt. The buildings are more like shacks, some of which stand on high stilts set back from the road. Some of them stand on the river, with tiny rusting tin boats tethered to rotting wooden posts out front, bobbing on dank green water. Children in worn-out clothes run alongside me as I weave my way through the streets of Orellana; they’re poor and obviously have little, but their clothes are clean, and they have shoes on their feet. Smiles on their faces.

I don’t stop in the town. The building complex I’m looking for isn’t down here, after all; from the looks of the image Jamie sent through for me, the complex is further up the mountain, deep in the thick rainforest that surrounds the town for miles and miles.

The scrambler handles the dirt tracks that weave up into the hillside without a problem. My bones feel like they’re being jarred out of their sockets, and the noise the engine makes is amplified through the rainforest, though. I sure as shit won’t be sneaking up on the Villalobos cartel at this rate.

My heart quickens in my chest as I think about what I might find up here. It’s been years since I’ve seen my sister. Years. If she is with the Villalobos crew, what the f*ck is she going to be like now? Doped up? Broken and in pain? Will she hate me for taking so long to find her? I hate myself for that. I won’t hold it against her if she does. I run myself around in circles until I’m dizzy—it’s dangerous thinking this way. Laura might not be here, after all. It’s entirely possible that my House of Wolves guess back at the Perez farmhouse was wrong. Jamie and I have already traveled all over Chile, Columbia and Mexico looking for her, our seemingly endless journeys always as a result of some small piece of information that inevitably leads us on a wild goose chase. Why should this time be any different?

Because it feels different this time, a voice whispers in the back of my head, treacherous, evil, cruel thing that it is, setting me up for failure. She was alive, though. When Jamie was in that hotel room, bargaining with Julio, my sister was alive. After so long, it was a miracle. If whoever took her has kept her alive for such an extended period of time, why would they suddenly kill her now? It wouldn’t make sense.

I ride the scrambler further into the rainforest, barely willing to acknowledge that either way I’m riding toward danger. Laura’s not going to be camped out at this place on her own. If she is here, then she’s going to be heavily guarded, and the men watching her are highly unlikely to hand her over without so much as a by-your-leave and a sorry-about-that-we-probably-shouldn’t-have-taken-her-against-her-will.

It takes me forever to find the building Jamie sent me on the satellite image. My cell phone loses service, and trying to triangulate my whereabouts using landmarks is next to impossible with the high canopy and the trees pressing in from all sides. Eventually, after much swearing and sweating, I manage to find what I’m looking for. Three separate low-lying buildings rise up out of all the greenery—dark, concrete boxes with no glass in the yawning window frames, weeds and ferns sprouting from the rooves and the cracked pathway leading up to the open doorway of the first, largest building. They’re little more than ruins. Whatever they used to be, they were never the home of a secretive, incredibly rich cartel. Perhaps this was a meeting point for some of the Villalobos cartel members, but never anything more. It’s likely squatters live here now. The three buildings form the sides of a square, one side left open, given access to a courtyard between the structures. Rusting, twisted metal lays everywhere, and rotten mattresses, abandoned sofas, and old, smashed TV sets sit among the long grasses, like some kind of bizarre long-forgotten hotel room that Mother Nature decided to reclaim as her own.

There isn’t a single soul around, and my heart plummets in my chest. Fuck. After riding all this way, traveling through three different countries and spending a small fortune, I’m drawing yet another blank? No way. No f*cking way.

I kill the scrambler’s engine and climb off the motorcycle, wincing as my joints complain. The pain’s not enough to distract me from my goal: recon the area. Find clues. Figure out who used to live here, and find out where the f*ck they are now. I’m almost about to step through the open doorway of the largest building when a voice stops me in my tracks.