Against the Wind

by Anne Stuart

  “Of course,” he said, his voice abstracted. “And I didn’t even notice the damned thing.” He tossed the medallion onto the bed, and it landed in front of her. She stared at it without moving. The heavy gold disk was actually two disks, hollowed out and hinged at the top. Jake had already removed the map.

  She roused herself enough to look at him. He was studying the scrap of brownish paper with a mixture of disgust and acceptance. Then he was suddenly all energy and determination, moving back to the bed and picking up the medallion that she’d left, untouched, on the rumpled sheets.

  Very deftly he replaced the map inside the medallion, very deftly he slipped it back around her neck. She was too numb to protest.

  “Don’t take it off,” he ordered, climbing back off the bed and throwing on his clothes. “I’m going to find Carlos.”

  He paused long enough to press a hurried kiss against her mouth, and then he was gone, without a second thought. She listened to the purr of the Alfa as he drove off down the mountain, not moving, the medallion cold and heavy around her neck. The sound of the car faded into the distance, and she was alone in the darkness.

  There was a strange, whimpering noise in the darkened room, like a wounded animal seeking shelter. It took Maddy a moment to realize those sounds were coming from her own throat.

  It had been a lie, it had all been a lie. Sam’s last, uncharacteristic gesture of love had not been that at all. It was a last move in an international game of chess, with his daughter as a willing pawn, ready to be sacrificed for either side. She had been such a complete, abysmal fool to believe in him, even for a moment. Thirty years of neglect should have taught her something. Something she hadn’t wanted to learn.

  And Jake, Jake was cast from the same mold. Not for a moment had he considered her reaction, facing once more her father’s betrayal. He’d been so excited over finding the map that he’d ran off and left her without a backward glance. Even if he never returned to San Pablo, even if they somehow managed to carve a life out together, he’d always be running off and leaving her when one of his damned noble causes called him. She wouldn’t live out the rest of her life like that, and she wouldn’t subject her children to it.

  One thing was clear in all this, she thought as she pulled herself out of the rumpled bed. Her father hadn’t wanted the map and the information it contained to fall into the wrong hands. Without a moment’s hesitation Maddy knew what she was going to do.

  She was going to make her way down that steep trail to the highway, hitch a ride to the nearest airport, fly to Washington, and present liberal Senator O’Malley with the medallion. He’d make sure it got to the papers, just as he’d passed the information about Morosa’s corrupt regime. The international press, Congress, and the American people needed to know that there were no heroes in that dirty little revolution, no good or bad side. Just a history of betrayal, on every level from personal to national.

  She was dry-eyed and enraged, and quite desperate for a small measure of revenge against Samuel Eddison Lambert. Her hands shook as she pulled her clothes back on, and she refused to think back to what had happened when she’d taken them off. This time she wouldn’t blame Jake if he wanted to kill her. But she wasn’t going to change her mind.

  It was rough going. It was darker than she’d imagined, and the undergrowth was thick around her long legs, night creatures were calling, and the medallion felt like a stone around her neck. The rough pebbles beneath her Nikes skidded, sending her tumbling part way down, and she ended up against a piñon pine, her face scratched, her knee skinned, her wrist wrenched, and still the tears didn’t come. Sam Lambert wasn’t worth one tiny moment of grief.

  It was slower after that. Maddy had no idea how far Carlos had traveled, whether Jake knew exactly where he was or would have to spend time searching for him. But sooner or later, and with her luck it would probably be sooner, they would return to the cabin, find her gone, and start hunting. But there was no way she could rush down the treacherous steepness of the hilly path.

  Dawn was breaking by the time she made it down to the highway, and there wasn’t a car in sight. She was limping by then, her wrist throbbing, and more determined than ever. All she had with her was the medallion and her wallet containing every credit card known to man and a decent amount of cash. Once she found someone willing to stop her troubles, at least the transportation part of them, would be over.

  It ended up being an eighteen-wheel semi carrying a load of cabbages to the East Coast. The driver was a thirty-nine-year-old grandmother named Rose, who cheerfully shared her coffee, her Dunkin’ Donuts, and even offered her Nodoz to the exhausted Maddy. Almost delirious with thanks, Maddy took her up on the proferred bed in the back of the cab and slept till Utah.

  Breakfast in a Utah truckstop put some heart back into her, and by the Colorado border Maddy had decided to accompany Rose all the way to the East Coast. There was no rush. The map had kept this long, it would keep longer still. If she was going to be intercepted it would be at an airport. She had no idea how pervasive Ortega’s men were, or the Patronistas, for that matter. But she still couldn’t walk into a McDonald’s as they traveled cross-country without looking over her shoulder.

  But no one would suspect Allison Madelyn Lambert Henderson of traveling from coast to coast in a cabbage truck. She was safe, blissfully safe, and free from the burden that was weighing down around her neck. Once they made it to the East Coast she would have to face up to it. For now she’d put her brain and her emotions on automatic pilot and was set to cruise, chatting to Rose of her grandchildren and her three ex-husbands and the ever-changing panorama of the American landscape.

  It ended far too soon. Three and a half days later the fully loaded semi had reached the eastern seaboard, and Maddy climbed down just outside of Baltimore, clad in an oversized flannel shirt, a pair of jeans that was two sizes too big in the waist and two inches too short in the legs, and headed for the nearest train station.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  She’d looked rumpled and disreputable the first time she bearded Michael O’Malley in his den. Just off the plane from San Pablo, she probably hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep, and she’d just found out the man she loved was dead.

  This time she was at least clean, well rested, and secure in the knowledge that somewhere in the world Jake Murphy was alive and well and mad as hell at her. Despite Rose’s outsized clothes and the unmistakable signs of grief and despair that marked her face, she felt a degree more human than she had on her last visit. In her current unprepossessing wardrobe she was expecting a lot more trouble getting in to see the senator than she experienced.

  There were no delays. The first receptionist, a stranger to Maddy, took one look at her and picked up the phone. A moment later a preppy-looking aide appeared to usher her through the first section of rooms, where he handed her to an elegant young yuppie in Ralph Lauren suit and a coolly professional smile. O’Malley was at the end of this procession, shirt-sleeved, attractive—The perfect candidate, Maddy thought. It was lucky she trusted him; otherwise she would have turned around and walked out, the medallion still safely around her neck.

  He said all the right things, expressed all the right emotions. Shock and dismay and outrage and anger. Concern for her and all she had been through, grave doubts about the rebellion in San Pablo. And Maddy couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that it didn’t quite ring true.

  “I promise you, Madelyn,” he said with smoothly eloquent outrage, “that this will be dealt with, immediately. I can’t tell you how much your trust means to me.”

  Maddy said nothing.

  “I’ll have someone drive you to your mother’s house,” he continued. “Or a hotel, if you’d rather.”

  “The airport.”

  “Surely you can’t be planning to fly back to California right away? I may need to get in touch with you about this. I’m not quite sure what’s the best way to handle it. The situation in San Pablo is very precarious i
ndeed. Word has it that La Mensa is about to fall to the revolutionary front.”

  “Is it?” she replied glumly. If that were so, Carlos would miss it in his quest for the map.

  “Let me put you up at the Hilton for a few days,” O’Malley suggested smoothly. “That way I’ll be able to call on you if I have any questions. …”

  “I’m going to my mother’s house in McLean for exactly fifteen minutes,” Maddy said. “And then I’m going home. You can call me there.”

  “But—”

  “Call me. But not for several days. I won’t be answering the phone.” She walked out without a backward glance, unable to rid herself of the notion that she’d made a very grave mistake.

  The Pakistani taxi driver looked at her askance when she climbed into his cab. She sat back for the long drive into Virginia and went over her plan.

  It was time to sever the ties. For too long she’d held on to the notion that parents were supposed to be loving, supportive, caring about their children. Somewhere along the way her parents had gotten sidetracked, if they’d ever felt that way at all. Stephen had paid for it, and still Maddy had clung to the illusion that beneath her mother’s chilly exterior, beneath her father’s causes, some distant strain of feeling remained. It had been a foolish illusion, causing nothing but pain, and it was time to break the last sticky threads of parental attachment.

  It was a hot fall day. The windows of the cab were open as they careened across the Potomac and headed toward Virginia, and Maddy leaned back against the frayed seat, letting the wind blow through her hair. She’d have the cab driver wait when they got to her mother’s house. He hadn’t liked the looks of her, but a large-denomination bill would keep him in place while she took care of a little emotional housekeeping. Then she’d have him drive her to Dulles and wait for the next flight. Somehow she’d begin to make some sort of sense out of her life.

  The house seemed quiet and deserted when the cab pulled up. Balwinder Singh, her cab driver, seemed content enough to wait once he grasped the fifty, and Maddy’s steps were firm and purposeful as she strode to the front door.

  No German maids today, no press conferences, no military hit squads roaming around, and no locked door. She wondered for a moment if she was expected, then dismissed the idea. After all, who could have told Helen she was coming?

  Her mother’s voice echoed through the spacious interior of the elegant old house. “I don’t believe you for one moment,” she was saying. “You’re making it all up.”

  The response was low, rumbly, but Maddy could recognize those tones, even from a distance. For half a moment she wanted to turn and run, back to the doubtful protection of Balwinder Singh. But she squared her shoulders beneath the oversized flannel shirt and headed in the direction of the voices.

  “I don’t know why you’d think she’d bother to show up here, Jake,” Helen was saying in her cool, controlled voice. “You know as well as anyone that we’ve never been close. She’s much more likely to have gone straight back to—” Her sharp brown eyes widened as the rumpled figure of her daughter appeared in the doorway. “Apparently you were right, Jake,” she said. “The prodigal daughter has returned. Where have you been?’

  Jake whirled around. He was standing by the french doors that overlooked the pool, and his face was pale and shadowed with exhaustion. “Maddy” was all he said, his voice full of relief and anger and something else she didn’t even want to decipher.

  “Yes, Maddy.” Helen was closer to her daughter, and she crossed the distance with a few graceful strides, the long legs that her daughter inherited speeding her along. “What have you done with the map?”

  Maddy grimaced, looking from one to the other. “You’ll be pleased, Helen. I’ve given it to Senator O’Malley. I expect it will be on the news by six o’clock tonight.”

  She didn’t get the reactions she expected. Jake’s shoulders sagged in sudden relief, and Helen reached out and slapped her across the face. “You fool,” she said, her cold voice at variance with the sudden violence of her slap. “Did you really think that O’Malley wouldn’t cover up something like that? He’s a politician, and politicians never lose face. I would have thought you’d have gained at least an elemental bit of sophistication. You weakminded, stupid—” She raised her hand to hit Maddy again, but Jake was there ahead of her, catching her wrist in one iron fist. Maddy watched her mother’s face whiten with pain, and she slowly backed away from the two of them.

  Helen tore out of his grasp, her face livid with fury and suddenly looking very old. “You are no daughter of mine,” she said in a fierce, dead little voice. “Get the hell out of my house. Both of you.”

  For an exit it was quite striking. Maddy wanted to applaud her with just the right amount of mockery, but the energy needed failed her. If only it were true. But Maddy knew Helen too well. In another six months she’d be calling on the phone, cool and distant and wanting something, as usual. But this time Maddy wouldn’t give in.

  She looked up into Jake’s hazel eyes. “So which side are you on, Jake?” she inquired in her coolest voice. “Ortega’s or Carlos’s?”

  “Neither.”

  “And what would you have done with the map?”

  “Destroyed it. Which is what will happen. O’Malley will hand it over to Carlos, and it will be gone.”

  “But people know. …”

  “Rumors,” he interrupted. “And there have been enough rumors in this nasty little war that no one is going to be believed without hard evidence. It was all for nothing, Maddy.”

  She met his gaze calmly. “I suppose it was.”

  “Why did you run?” He made no effort to move any closer, and she could feel the distance between the two of them like a palpable thing.

  “I had to,” she said. “I couldn’t let my father do that to me. I had to at least try.”

  “Couldn’t you have left me a note?” There was a hint of pain beneath the careful control in his voice. “When we got back I was convinced that Chimichanga had found you. I thought we’d find your body out back, your throat slit—”

  “I’m sorry.” It was a useless thing to say.

  His face was once more remote and distant, the stranger-lover she could never quite read. He shook his head then, a gesture of dismissal. “I have to go,” he said.

  “Where?” But she knew the answer to that as well as he did.

  “To San Pablo.”

  “I thought you were never going back?” Don’t leave me, she begged silently. Don’t go back there; they’ll kill you.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t want to. But the game isn’t finished yet. I have to see it through to the end this time. I have to watch out for Carlos.”

  “Carlos?”

  “If the revolution is to succeed, if any progress is going to be made, someone has to keep Carlos under control. It could go either way—a bloodbath or a relatively peaceful passage of power. Carlos needs to remember that a bloodbath would only hurt the cause.”

  “And you think you can remind him?”

  “I’m the only one who can,” Jake said simply, and Maddy believed him. “Go back to L.A., Maddy. Soledad has been worried about you.”

  He still hadn’t touched her. Doubts flew through her mind like phantom butterflies, and she dismissed each one in turn. Logic had told her it would never work, self-preservation had warned her to keep away, not to let him break her heart the way her father had. But logic and self-preservation were cold and lonely company, and even a heart-breaking life with Jake was better than any kind of life without him. “When are you coming back to me?” Her voice was soft, low, and very certain.

  He did touch her then, his hands reaching out and cradling her tired face, tilting it up to his. “As soon as I can, mi amor,” he whispered. “You’ll wait?”

  “I’ll wait,” she said, the last doubt vanishing. Then he was gone.

  It had been a long night, Maddy thought, pulling her weary body out of the bed. She couldn’t even remember if s
he’d slept at all. Her head ached, her eyes were heavy with sleep and unshed tears, and her thoughts drifted and tumbled through her brain like drunken acrobats.

  Christmas was coming. It was the first week in December, Jake had been gone for six weeks, lost in the war-torn confusion that was San Pablo, and Maddy was seven weeks’ pregnant.

  “I do not know whether I shall enjoy being a grandmother,” Soledad had said with a pout last night, clutching a glass of rum in one slender, jewel-encrusted hand. “A mother to someone as ridiculously tall and pretty as you is one thing, my pet, but not necessarily a grandmother.”

  “Cheer up, Soledad,” Maddy replied. “Just think, this might have happened to you.” She patted her still-flat stomach.

  Soledad shuddered delicately. “Never. I have better things to do with my life. Do you know what the worst problem with this niño of yours? You can’t get drunk with me.”

  “Do you think we should be getting drunk?”

  “I do indeed. In memory of Carlos,” Soledad raised her glass. “And in memory of Anastasio Ortega. He was a worthy enemy. And here’s to the fall of La Mensa!”

  Maddy sipped at her mineral water. “And to a new democracy.”

  “Democracy, schmocracy,” Soledad muttered obscurely. “To the triumph of the oppressed.”

  “Now you sound like my father.”

  “Not a bad way to sound. In many ways your father was a good man. I heard that they’re talking about renaming La Mensa after him. Cuidad Lambert. What do you think of that?”

  “Absurd,” Maddy said, no longer moved by pain at the memory of her father’s betrayal. Let him belong to San Pablo.

  “And here’s to the speedy rebuilding of the capital.” Soledad drank deeply.