“¡Mierda!” he muttered and pulled a pistol from his pocket. He brought it up and fired off two shots at her.
Minnie screamed and threw herself to the floor, covering her head.
Another three shots thudded into the carpet by her head. The sound of the pistol in that enclosed space was like a volley of thunderclaps.
“Get up,” Zalaya said with a snap. “I aimed to miss, or you would not be still breathing.”
He had the pistol aimed at her. Dead center, with not a fraction of an inch of movement. It was like looking into the dead, blank eye of eternity. She shivered.
“I killed your precious captain, but only because he tried to kill me,” Zalaya told her.
“Bullshit! Why would Duardo try to kill you?”
Zalaya made an impatient sound. “Because I was in the same army once. I was posted to Pascuallita, just like Peña. He recognized me in the hospital.”
“You worked with Duardo?” Minnie shook her head. “But why would he kill you?” The reason dropped into place for her and she answered it herself, picking her phrases carefully to ensure the deception was maintained. “Because you betrayed Vistaria. You sold out to the insurrectos.”
“Things like that happen at time of war,” Zalaya said dismissively. “Besides, I left the army long before the revolution began. Peña carried a grudge since then. At the hospital, when I was brought in and lay helpless, he saw his chance.”
“This grudge you speak of. Is that the reason you left the army?”
Zalaya waved the pistol impatiently. “Do not attempt futile diversions with me. I have no reason to give you this explanation. You should recognize that fact by remaining silent. Accept what I tell you, woman. No one else can offer you this boon.”
“Why do you bother, then?” she shot back.
“To show you how you waste your time mourning for a weak failure of a man.”
She shook her head. “He was not weak.”
“I stand here. He does not. Who is the stronger, hmm?”
“He was recovering from a bullet through the back that would have killed any other man.” She smiled. “Yet he still managed to come close enough to killing you that you were scared into retaliating with deadly force.” She put her hands on her hips. “In fact, I’m betting he came at you with no weapons but his own bare hands and you took him out with a gun.” She pointed to the deadly eye staring at her. “I bet it was that one.”
Zalaya snapped on the safety and shoved the gun back into his pocket. “I will return in two hours. Be naked and waiting for me.”
“Why don’t you give Torrez that order instead? He’d bend over for you in a heartbeat.”
Zalaya grew still. “I will turn off the screens this time,” he said softly. “You hear far too much for your own good.”
She crossed her arms. “Who was it that ordered the roof over the path out there be taken away?”
Zalaya’s eye widened in surprise. “If I was not certain before, you have just confirmed that you can be no one other than Minerva Benning, one of only two Western women who might know there was a roof there once.”
“Yeah, like you didn’t already know,” she shot back. “Who ordered the roof be torn down?”
His eye narrowed. “You are not in a position to ask questions,” he reminded her.
“Call this my boon, then. Your heroism in slaughtering an unarmed man you can shove up your ass.”
He considered it for a moment then shrugged and looked at his watch again. “I seem to recall that General Serrano gave the order.” He walked to the door, limping heavily, and maneuvered around the broken china and shattered glass. At the door, he paused, head down, hand on the handle. Considering. He spoke softly. “It would appear that your quest here is over, would it not? You have found what you came for.”
He stepped through the door and shut it firmly behind him.
Minnie was careful not to look at the camera as she sat on the bed. Her skin crawled with the knowledge that someone other than Zalaya could be watching her right now. It had to be Serrano—the paranoid general who needed someone like Zalaya to monitor everything and everyone, the general who took away the roof of the walkway so he could watch all who approached his palace.
Who watches the watchers? There was only Serrano left. But why watch at all?
The answer was obvious.
He didn’t trust Zalaya either.
But that was not the only reason for her shiver. It was Duardo’s last message to her: Your quest here is over. You have found what you came for.
Added to his last message on the mirror, it was a demand that she find a way to leave.
Without him.
* * * * *
Serrano switched off the monitor on his desk and glanced at Torrez.
“Why on earth would he bother explaining it to her at all?” Torrez asked softly. “Why the whole ‘boon’ thing?”
“I figured you would be able to tell me that,” Serrano growled. He rubbed his chin in his hand, hearing the bristles scratch.
“What did he mean by her quest?”
Serrano grimaced. “Some stupid medieval jousting challenge to steal a pillow from my bed—some mad group she’s with put her up to it. That’s how we caught her.”
“She didn’t come here for Peña?” Torrez asked sharply.
Serrano paused. “I suppose she might have. That would make more sense.” He waved a hand at the monitor. “Agh, this whole business is biting itself on the ass anyway. I can’t tell anymore why anyone is doing anything. That’s why I’m glad you’re back, Jose. I need a clear head around here. Zalaya is losing it and I need back-up.”
“Bruno was always too easily influenced by his emotions,” Torrez said softly.
“Zalaya?” Serrano’s brows shot to his hairline. “That man is so cool he pisses ice cubes.”
Torrez grinned. “I see he has never told you the details of that grudge between him and Peña.”
Serrano settled back in his chair. “I’m listening,” he said with a smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Calli slipped into Nick’s office unnoticed as General Blanco spread his hands. “But it should be you, Señor, who represents us,” Blanco said in Spanish.
The big man in the formal dress uniform towered over Nick’s desk, for he stood at nearly six feet and weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds. At one time most of that weight had been muscle. Now, he was still strong despite the iron-grey hair and the seamed face, but he was troubled.
Nick shook his head. “It’s not the time for me to take such a public role. I’m neither a soldier nor an elected official. It must be you, Blanco.”
“But the men are expecting you. Everyone is expecting you. Even the Mexican officials are expecting you. It is a social event, Señor. No one will be discussing politics.”
Nick shook his head and stood up. “Politics will be the most popular topic, especially if I go.”
Blanco sighed heavily. “Your name is on the invitation. You will insult them if you do not go.”
Calli sensed this was Blanco’s last defense and even he knew it was a shaky one at best.
Nick smiled. “When I send the official head of the army in my place? If they do, they have a warped sense of priorities. I’ve made my decision, Alonzo. I’m sorry, but now is not the time for me to publicly represent Vistaria. It must be you.”
Blanco sighed again.
“Did I upset your personal plans, old friend?” Nick asked.
“Not at all, Señor. How could you? My life is here in this house and will be until we can once again call Vistaria home. But I am a general, not a politician. I will do Vistaria a disservice by trying to fill your boots.”
Nick came around the desk and patted Blanco’s arm. “We are both leaders of men, no?”
“Yes, of course, Señor.”
“That is what they will see—that you are a leader of men—and they will be honored by your presence.”
Blanco nodd
ed slowly. “Thank you, Señor.” He swiveled to face Calli. “Señora Calli.” He gave the short Vistarian bow.
Calli gave him a warm smile as he left the room, his shoulders very square.
“How do you do that?” she asked Nick. “I watch you do it all the time and I still can’t see how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Change people’s minds like that. Make them see things your way and like it.”
“I don’t make people do anything,” Nick answered, settling himself in his chair once more. “I just...explain things.”
Calli shrugged and gave up. The truth was that Nick had a gift for dealing with people, one that he could not explain and others could not imitate. She dropped the DVD of Serrano’s goodwill tour onto Nick’s desk. “I think you were right. I think someone was trying to send us a message.”
Nick sat back in his chair. “And good afternoon to you too, mi esposa.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry.” She moved around the desk and leaned over to kiss him. Nick pulled her down onto his lap and took control of the kiss, making it a thorough one, and when Calli came up for air, she clutched at his shoulder. “Maybe I’m not sorry enough,” she said.
Nick began to tackle the buttons on her shirt, one-handed. “You’re sorry enough,” he said with a growl. “You were saying...?”
“I was?” she asked, watching his hand work.
“About the DVD. It was a message?”
“The DVD...” His hand slid inside the shirt and settled on her bare breast and she caught her breath.
Nick’s gaze settled on her face. “Concentrate,” he crooned. “The DVD. Tell me.”
His fingers played with her nipple, the tips stroking the sides of the hard nub, his thumb passing over the tip.
Calli battled to pull her thoughts together. “The DVD...” She swallowed hard. “It was sent to the network’s corporate office. Anonymously.”
Nick pulled her shirt aside, exposing her breast. “Post? Courier?”
“Hand—” She sucked in her breath as Nick lowered his head and captured the breast with his mouth. “delivered...!” she gasped.
“And...?” he coaxed, lifting his head long enough to pull the other side of the shirt aside, giving him access to her other breast.
His mouth fastened on it and the touch of his hot, moist lips and tongue scattered her thoughts again. She sighed, giving up the battle to maintain coherent thought.
“Take off my jeans,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
His hand worked at the button and he paused in his assault on her breast to growl in frustration. “As much as I like watching your long legs in jeans, this is one perfectly good justification for keeping women in skirts,” he told her, tugging at the zipper.
That was when the window overlooking the sea exploded inwards with a blast of hot, roaring air.
Nick’s reaction was instant. He pulled Calli tight against him and turned the big, high-backed chair away from the window. He held on to her as the blast battered at them, hunched over her to protect her from the worst of it.
The deafening blast lasted only a few seconds, but after it came the tinkle of glass pattering on the desk, the carpet. It was a deadly rain of shards, plaster, dust and hot air that throbbed around them.
Nick carefully lifted his head and Calli looked up at him, blinking. His dark hair with the deep red highlights was almost white on top where the dust had settled.
He swiveled the chair around to face the window.
The window was gone. In its place was a gaping hole in the wall. Even the frame had been ripped from its moorings, exposing the old stone building blocks.
Nick said something. Calli could see his lips moving and even the low rumble in his chest, where it rested against her arm.
“What?” she said. But she couldn’t hear her own voice either. “I can’t hear!”
Nick brought his lips close to her ear. “Help the others! There will be injuries!”
“But...what happened?” she shouted back.
“Bomb.” Nick shook his head sharply, clearing it. “Car bomb. I think...I fear Blanco is dead.” He got to his feet and settled her on her own. “Go. They will need someone calm to direct them.” He pushed her toward the door.
Calli walked stiffly, glancing at the gaping wound in the wall as she went. She was stunned, her senses all wrapped in cotton wadding. Nick expected her to be the calm director?
She stepped out into the main rooms and was hit with panicked, hysterical Spanish as dazed people covered in dust instantly coalesced around her. Already, her hearing was returning.
She held up a hand. “Slowly, slowly,” she said in Spanish. “Who is hurt? Tell me.”
* * * * *
Forty minutes later, Nick appeared at her side as she scratched off names on one list and added them to another. He crouched down next to her as she bent over the woman on the makeshift pallet on the second-floor landing to ask her name.
Nick was covered in dust, splattered with blood and looked as tired as a man who had gone a week without sleep.
He picked up her hand that held the pen and kissed the knuckles. “Mi esposa,” he murmured.
Calli looked up as Josh moved beside Nick. He was looking around the landing, shaking his head.
“Tell me what you need, Uncle Josh,” Calli said to him. “Triage is in the kitchen. There’s also filtered water there and food. Just sandwiches, but the carbs will get you over the shock quickly. Or do you need communications?” She pulled Nick’s cell phone off her belt. “I just traded batteries, so it’s fully charged. The land line is out, but we have email—I set up my laptop on the next landing.”
Josh just stared at her.
“Something else then,” she guessed. “I thought I had covered everything.”
Nick gave a low chuckle and got to his feet.
“You did,” Josh said, his voice hoarse. “Jesus Maria, all this in ten minutes?”
“Forty,” she corrected, glancing at her watch. “But you know what Nick’s like. He tends to give impossible-to-meet demands and expects you to meet them, so you just somehow do it.”
Nick tried to shrug it off, but Josh shook his head. “He knows exactly what everyone is capable of,” he told her. He turned slowly around the room. “Sweet Maria,” he breathed. “They really wanted to make sure, didn’t they?”
“What happened?” Calli asked Nick. “Was it...?”
He nodded. “Blanco’s dead. So are the two officers who were in the car with him. Plus three others who were too close.”
“Insurrectos?” Calli asked.
“It could be no one else,” Josh said. He rested his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You keep trying to pass the baton, Nick, but you can’t. Not anymore. The rest of the world thinks it’s yours anyway.”
Nick nodded, his expression grim.
That was when the real facts finally assembled in her mind. Blanco had been in Nick’s place. Nick’s boots.
It was Nick they had been trying to kill.
* * * * *
Minnie tried to pretend she was sleeping, but despite her weariness, sleep was an absent friend. She kept her eyes shut and let her thoughts drift instead.
In the middle of the afternoon there was a soft knock on the bedroom door. Minnie sat up, staring at it. The knock was repeated.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“Excúse me por favor. I am not permitted....” The young, high voice trailed off, muffled by the closed door.
Minnie crept to the door and edged it open. Through the crack she could see a very young man in army boots and green fatigues, topped with a dirty black T-shirt. He seemed as skittish as she felt.
She pushed the door open wider. The chain hanging from her wrist knocked against it.
The boy’s eyes widened as his gaze took in her appearance and the chain. He swallowed and tried to shake himself out of his shock, looking very much like a puppy shaking off water. He pointed to the doorway. “I am
not permitted....” he repeated and pointed to himself and then into the bedroom.
“You’re not allowed in the room?” she guessed.
“Sí.” He turned around and lifted from the desk a heavy tray, loaded with more plates of food and a thermos flask. “For you.” He put it on the corner of the desk and then very deliberately took three steps back and waved at it. “Por favor.”
She understood. He had been warned about getting anywhere near her and knew enough about the security cameras to obey the injunction to the letter. Zalaya must have given him those orders.
“Gracias,” she told him and picked up the tray. She backed up carefully so that she did not trip over the chain and carried the tray to the bedside table where the previous tray had sat.
The boy cleared his throat. “Señorita?”
She moved back toward the door until she could see him again.
He pointed at the shards of china on the floor at her feet. “I will have,” he said, using his fingers to beckon.
“Sure,” she agreed. She flipped over the tray with her foot, bent down and gathered up the fragments and dumped them on the tray. She spent longer minutes picking up the pieces of glass a few feet farther away, conscientiously clearing the carpet of every piece she could find. She was the barefoot one, after all. Then she carried the tray over to the boy. He backed up quickly, staying out of reach, and waved toward the desk.
She grimaced and put the dented tray on the corner and stepped back as deliberately as he had, in order to give him the regulation amount of room to collect it. It put her two steps inside the bedroom once more.
He nodded as he picked it up. “Muchos gracias,” he murmured and scurried from the office.
Minnie shuddered when she saw the machine gun hanging from his shoulder, slapping his back as he walked. The boy looked barely old enough to shave.
A blinking from the console caught her gaze as she stared at the closed door. She studied the long bank of switches and dials and that single blinking light. It was a toggle switch off to the far side, the red LED inside it patiently flashing.
Black Heart Page 19
