If the Devil Holds All the Cards...

She took a moment to take stock of herself. What was she doing? This was an important business meeting that could determine the future of her enterprise. Even her safety and the safety of all the Food First workers was at stake. This meeting could well decide whether the poor in Guatemala have access to food, whether farmers can continue to enjoy the increased yields her facility provided so they could prosper and build futures for their familes, or whether the whole lot of them would fall again into subsistence and poverty.

She had been acting as if this were some sort of date. She was being stupid and shallow, she realized. This was an important meeting with a dangerous criminal, possibly a psychotic criminal, who had already shown her that his control of his emotions was tenuous at best. If she did not stay focused, very bad things could happen to a great many people.

There was a knock on the door. That would be Luis, she turned and opened it. Luis stood there, "Come in, Luis. I'd like to talk about the letter." She handed it to him to read, closing the door behind him as he entered. She walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, gesturing for him to join her.

When he had finished reading, he set the letter down on the table and looked up at Maribel. In his head he was thinking $50,000 US Dollars! That's almost 400,000 Quetzales, a huge sum, but these people dealt in those kinds of fortunes every day. Out loud he said, "We're going to the meeting. He'll be expecting me to be along, and he'll take precautions should things go badly. He'll either have enough men on hand or the ability to neutralize me quickly. We should bring additional security."

Maribel considered, "No, I don't think that will be necessary. You will drive me, of course, and remain with the car in case of need. I'll have a radio with me, I can hit the distress button if I need you. I don't think I'll be in any danger. I think he still thinks he can convince me to help him with words alone. It's a public restaurant in a busy part of the city. He wouldn't try anything there, anyway."

"He would, and he has. Some of his enemies have been taken from busy streets with many witnesses. He feels that the police will take his side and work to cover his tracks rather than trying to apprehend him. Do not think that there is any safe neutral ground. If he decides to act against you violently, he will do so, without regard to the place or the presence of witnesses. I will stay with the car as you suggest, but I will be ready." Luis knew that Maribel would be protected with her shield ring, even though, he had been told, she was quite unaware of its properties.

He also had such a ring as did all those who had received security training for the Food First group. According to Joe, with whom he regularly spoke via video conference, the rings would make them effectively invulnerable to harm. They could still be forcibly moved, thrown into the back of a truck and carried away for example, but they could not be shot, stabbed, poisoned or otherwise injured. The only weakness in the ring's protection, Joe had told him, was if they were buried alive and unable to dig their way out. The ring would somehow pull oxygen from even the surrounding soil for a brief time, but it would run out quickly and they could suffocate in such an eventuality. A room completely filled with an oxygen-free gas might accomplish the same result. But they were far more likely to be buried alive, so no need to worry about specialized gas chambers, Joe had said. Luis grinned at the memory of the discussion. That's all, nothing at all to worry about except being buried alive…

Luis snapped back to the conversation at hand. "Maybe I should have a gun in my purse, just in case," Marible was saying.

"No," he quickly cut in. "Well, you can bring it if you like, but you must not take it out or attempt to use it under any circumstances. They will have you outgunned every second that you are there. You would have no chance." Luis' expression showed that he was quite serious and had no doubts about this.

Maribel accepted his judgement quickly, "OK, no gun. Will you have Carlos scouting the area before the meeting to identify how many men he has with him and so forth?"

"Yes, we will have that information before your meeting," Luis replied," However, he has considerable presence in Guatemala City. He could have a hundred men there in several minutes, including some police or government officials. It is likely that any men he does have on hand, are there to watch your security, see how we do things, identify how many of us there are, and gather information for any future planning." Luis grinned, "I will be deliberately clumsy and amateurish, for that reason. If you are that important to him. Having requested a second meeting and offering you so much money, I can only assume that he considers you and Food First to be valuable targets. He does not accept failure, not in himself or anyone around him. If he wants that production machine, he will stop at nothing until he gets it."

 "Do you think he will attack the warehouse and try to take it by force?" Maribel asked.

"Yes, if that is his best option," Luis answered. "We have ways to prevent that effort from succeeding. He will not take it by force. But we cannot protect every worker, he may try to use them as leverage to make you hand over the facility. What will you do if he threatens to kill or torture the people who work for you?"

Maribel sat back, what would she do? She knew her father would say that the sacrifice of the few would be a lesser cost than allowing Rafael to grow his operation using the extra income and influence he would gain with the experimental technology. He would use it to consolidate power and expand his control over the area. He would sell more drugs into the United States and elsewhere. Many more would die and suffer if that happened. But she could not allow the workers to be killed or tortured… "I… We have to make sure that doesn't happen." Maribel looked down at the table.

Luis studied her. "I see," he said simply.

Luis had been told that Maribel was an undercover identity. A skilled agent who would play the part without fail. One of the leaders of the operation, in fact, but playing a very specific role. He didn't think she was acting when she said she didn't know. Yet, he had orders that keeping the technology away from men like Rafael Camal de Leon was the highest priority. They told him to do whatever could be done to protect innocents, if sacrifices had to made… He had his orders and his priorities. Only Maribel herself was outside the list of acceptable sacrifices. Perhaps it would never reach that point. A part of him wondered what made her life more important than those of Francisco or any of the delivery drivers, or his own.

Maribel looked up sharply, staring at Luis intently. "We need leverage. We need him to understand that if he hurts us, we will hurt him worse than he is willing to bear. He must know that any attack or threat against my people will not be met with surrender, but with war. A costly war. If his shipments from Colombia were to be lost in Guatemala, for example, he might suddenly have bigger problems than us to deal with. Can we do that?"

"That would be extremely dangerous," Luis said cautiously.

"I know, but we have to operate from a position of strength. We can not just react to whatever he does. We need to be the ones in charge of discussions, we need to be the ones making demands. He needs to know that his vague threats do not scare us, that we can fight back harder and stronger than he can imagine. Let's start thinking of ways to make him suffer and ways to let him know that we can hurt him."

Luis met her gaze steadfastly. Here was a lioness, he thought. A cornered beast is the most dangerous beast of all, and clearly she felt cornered. He knew that Joe and the other leaders had tremendous intelligence gathering capabilities, and even the ability to strike enemies in Guatemala without being seen or, they implied, without being stopped. How much did Maribel know? He had been told to keep her ignorant of any of their high tech capabilities except the radios, so clearly they were keeping secrets from her. He would need to discuss this kind of plan with them to see what capabilities they could bring to bear if they needed to strike at Rafael's operation in a way that would truly hurt him.

"Let me think about it," Luis told Maribel. "I will review the assets we have and the information we have about Rafael and present you some options by this evening. Give me until 8:00 PM, I will meet you back here at the house, Carlos will watch over the house until I return."