process of cleaning herself.
Her body was functioning at a rate much quicker than that for which her instincts were programmed. Though she had just mated, her eggs would be ready to be laid by nightfall.
The creature drew her front legs together, folding them like a jack-knife. They curved up under her chin, positioned in an attitude of prayer.
She swayed, and she waited.
CHAPTER 12
As Cameron left the hotel with Rex and Tank, she noticed the man with gold chains who had harassed Szabla earlier. He seemed to rec-ognize her despite her civilian clothes. A sat phone raised to his ear, he blew her a kiss before ducking into an alleyway.
Rex led the way north a few blocks on Calle Chile. Along the way, shoe shiners called out from the pavement, smiling through crooked teeth and pointing to Tank and Cameron’s scuffed jungle boots. A man stepped out from a shop across the street and scooped water from a bucket onto the sidewalk, using a detergent bottle with the top cut off. Dust mingled with the water, running off the fractured curb into the street.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Rex said. “The resilience of these people. They’re used to having no control over anything.” He started to sit on a bench to get his shoes shined by an old man with no front teeth, but Cameron grabbed his sleeve and kept him moving.
“Getting your shoes stroked isn’t the mission today,” Cameron said.
A boy followed them with a shoe shine box, chattering away, tugging at Tank’s pant leg and pointing to his boots. Cameron had a hard time keeping up with the Spanish; it was a more rustic form than she had studied, the consonants blurring together.
“If you didn’t want a shoe shine,” Rex said, “you should’ve worn sneakers.”
On the corner, Otavalo Indians were still setting up for the day, stuff-ing T-shirts into metal racks bolted into the walls and scattering trinkets carved from Tagua nuts on blankets on the ground. Cameron found a street sign cemented into the wall of the corner building: Avenida 9 de Octubre. A number of American fast-food joints crowded the block. One franchise building had crumbled into the street, but the rubble had been bulldozed to one side to allow traffic to pass. Fragments of the red and white sign lay on top of the mound. One of Colonel Sanders’s eyes was missing.
They waited for a break in the traffic, then sprinted across the street. The banged-up cars driving by or broken down roadside were built of mixed and matched parts, some of them tricked out with familiar emblems and gold steering wheels. A bus shuddered to a stop in front of them and a scrawny driver hopped out, removed his shirt, and crawled underneath with a wrench. They cut one street over and kept heading west. Rex bowed to a group of uniformed schoolgirls, removing his Panama hat, and they giggled and called out greetings in bad English.
A wide band of sweat darkened the lower half of Tank’s shirt. Stop-ping on a corner, he pulled a tube of sunblock from his back pocket and smeared lotion liberally across his wide cheeks, which were already beginning to redden. Cameron felt her pants clinging to her legs. An orange electronic billboard flashed nearby: Minutos para Quemarse—3:40. She took the tube from Tank.
Cameron flashed ID at the UN cordon, and they headed into a dismal neighborhood. The street was bare and cracked, lined with deserted warehouses. Here the fallen buildings were left as they were, no con-struction crews in evidence. A man pissed against a wall, and a passing woman and child paid him no mind, stepping over the rivulet of urine on the sidewalk. Cameron kept in the lead.
After a few more blocks, Rex halted outside a brown box of a two-story building dotted with graying, cracked windows. A large section of asphalt had tilted up, leaving a two-foot lip in the middle of the sidewalk, and the building had settled unevenly across the hump. Rex rang the doorbell beneath a placard that read: Dr. Juan
Her body was functioning at a rate much quicker than that for which her instincts were programmed. Though she had just mated, her eggs would be ready to be laid by nightfall.
The creature drew her front legs together, folding them like a jack-knife. They curved up under her chin, positioned in an attitude of prayer.
She swayed, and she waited.
CHAPTER 12
As Cameron left the hotel with Rex and Tank, she noticed the man with gold chains who had harassed Szabla earlier. He seemed to rec-ognize her despite her civilian clothes. A sat phone raised to his ear, he blew her a kiss before ducking into an alleyway.
Rex led the way north a few blocks on Calle Chile. Along the way, shoe shiners called out from the pavement, smiling through crooked teeth and pointing to Tank and Cameron’s scuffed jungle boots. A man stepped out from a shop across the street and scooped water from a bucket onto the sidewalk, using a detergent bottle with the top cut off. Dust mingled with the water, running off the fractured curb into the street.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Rex said. “The resilience of these people. They’re used to having no control over anything.” He started to sit on a bench to get his shoes shined by an old man with no front teeth, but Cameron grabbed his sleeve and kept him moving.
“Getting your shoes stroked isn’t the mission today,” Cameron said.
A boy followed them with a shoe shine box, chattering away, tugging at Tank’s pant leg and pointing to his boots. Cameron had a hard time keeping up with the Spanish; it was a more rustic form than she had studied, the consonants blurring together.
“If you didn’t want a shoe shine,” Rex said, “you should’ve worn sneakers.”
On the corner, Otavalo Indians were still setting up for the day, stuff-ing T-shirts into metal racks bolted into the walls and scattering trinkets carved from Tagua nuts on blankets on the ground. Cameron found a street sign cemented into the wall of the corner building: Avenida 9 de Octubre. A number of American fast-food joints crowded the block. One franchise building had crumbled into the street, but the rubble had been bulldozed to one side to allow traffic to pass. Fragments of the red and white sign lay on top of the mound. One of Colonel Sanders’s eyes was missing.
They waited for a break in the traffic, then sprinted across the street. The banged-up cars driving by or broken down roadside were built of mixed and matched parts, some of them tricked out with familiar emblems and gold steering wheels. A bus shuddered to a stop in front of them and a scrawny driver hopped out, removed his shirt, and crawled underneath with a wrench. They cut one street over and kept heading west. Rex bowed to a group of uniformed schoolgirls, removing his Panama hat, and they giggled and called out greetings in bad English.
A wide band of sweat darkened the lower half of Tank’s shirt. Stop-ping on a corner, he pulled a tube of sunblock from his back pocket and smeared lotion liberally across his wide cheeks, which were already beginning to redden. Cameron felt her pants clinging to her legs. An orange electronic billboard flashed nearby: Minutos para Quemarse—3:40. She took the tube from Tank.
Cameron flashed ID at the UN cordon, and they headed into a dismal neighborhood. The street was bare and cracked, lined with deserted warehouses. Here the fallen buildings were left as they were, no con-struction crews in evidence. A man pissed against a wall, and a passing woman and child paid him no mind, stepping over the rivulet of urine on the sidewalk. Cameron kept in the lead.
After a few more blocks, Rex halted outside a brown box of a two-story building dotted with graying, cracked windows. A large section of asphalt had tilted up, leaving a two-foot lip in the middle of the sidewalk, and the building had settled unevenly across the hump. Rex rang the doorbell beneath a placard that read: Dr. Juan
Similar Books
