Chaos

by Johansen, Iris

  “A name that came up when I was investigating Masenak’s trips to the Atlas Mountains. I need to know more about it.”

  She was studying his expression, trying to remember every nuance of the conversation about that mountain stronghold he’d mentioned so briefly. But the reference had been too fleeting; he’d gone immediately on to other questions. She said slowly, “I believe you already know more than you led me to believe that night in the study.”

  “Perhaps. Why not? We were both on guard, and you were the one being interrogated. I told you I might need to ask Baldwin questions.”

  “But I didn’t think it would be about Jubaldar Castle. I’ve never heard of it.”

  “No reason why you should. Not many people have, and I didn’t specify. But I’m very interested in Jubaldar. You gave me the opportunity, and I went directly to ask Baldwin that particular question.”

  “That he’s not willing to answer.”

  “He’ll see the error of his ways.”

  She was searching his expression. It was harder than she’d ever seen it. “Gilroy was right, you were…eager in there. I told Margaret you weren’t into torture. Was I wrong?”

  “It depends on the subject. Let’s say I have to be motivated. I’ve heard stories about what Baldwin did to villagers when he was on raids with Masenak.” He added: “And I have no trouble requiring he be totally compliant when I’m ready to move.” He looked at her. “Were you shocked?”

  “No, I always knew you were tough. I just wasn’t sure how far you’d go. It surprised me.”

  “I go as far as I have to go to get what I need,” he said simply. “As I told you, I believe in fairness. And I believe an eye for an eye is a very fair concept.” He smiled. “Plus I never turn the other cheek. There you have my philosophy.”

  “You’re not that uncomplicated.” She shrugged. “And I wasn’t criticizing. Baldwin beheaded one of Sasha’s classmates and he has girls brought to his tent almost every night. He deserves anything anyone does to him.” She stopped and turned to face him. “But I have to know what you’re going to do. There was an…urgency about you in there. You were intense.” Her gaze went to the drones and weapons beneath the munitions enclosure. “You said you might be using him to trap Masenak. There’s no might to it now, is there? You’re going to try to do it.” She moistened her lips. “And it’s going to be right away.”

  “As soon as possible. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to pull off bringing me Baldwin, but you did it.” His eyes were glittering. “And that means that I can start planning toward gathering up Masenak.”

  “Not yet,” she said quickly.

  “I know. I know,” he said impatiently. “Those students first. I didn’t forget.”

  “I know you didn’t. I was just reminding you where the priority lies.”

  “For you, it lies with that fifteen-year-old girl you had to leave behind in the tent last night. That couldn’t be more clear. Don’t worry, I’ll get her out. I’ll get them all out. I’ve already got a plan in the works that was intended for Masenak. All I have to do is adjust it to the situation. You’ve seen that I have the men, the weapons, and the helicopter to transport those girls to safety.” He added grimly, “I’d just like to try to give myself a shot at taking down Masenak at the same time if I can work it out.” He held up his hand as she opened her lips. “I said if I can work it out. It’s going to be difficult as hell. If I can’t, I’ll just go for rescuing the girls and chase down Masenak later. I won’t be any worse off than I was before you showed up at the palace trying to burgle me. And now that I have Baldwin, he could be a storehouse of information.” He was frowning thoughtfully. “I tried to line up a few different scenarios last night when I was waiting for you to show. I’ll go back to my tent and work on some more today.” He glanced at her. “You’d better go get some sleep. I’ll discuss it with you later.”

  She shook her head. “What are you talking about? You’ve just said it’s a go, that you’ll do it. I’m too excited and nervous to sleep.” She could feel the excitement zinging through her. “I need to go back to your tent with you and help set it up. It’s not as if I haven’t been trained to do this.” She was talking fast, trying to convince him. “I’m not an amateur. If anyone is an amateur, it’s you. What if you do something wrong? I need to be around to provide checks and balances.”

  He swore softly. “You’re impossible. Why do I feel as if you’re trying to take over the operation? Back off, Alisa.”

  “I can’t. Okay, I was too pushy. Don’t shut me out. This is too important to me. I promise I won’t get in your way.” She whispered: “Please.”

  He looked at the desperation on her face and slowly shook his head. “I’m not certain I can trust you. You want this too much.” Then he shrugged. “But I did have one idea that I thought you might be helpful exploring. You can come to my tent and have coffee with me and we’ll discuss it.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief as she followed him to his tent. “You can trust me. It’s just that I’m so close now. I’ll do anything you want. But you should listen to me. It would be a mistake not to use me.”

  “And you do hate mistakes.” He smiled sardonically as he knelt before the fire outside his tent and stoked it before reaching for the coffeepot. “You have a few minutes before the coffee will be ready. You can go in my tent and clean up a little if you like. Feel free to use anything I have. I don’t mind sharing. Though you’d be better off if you’d go to your own tent and take that nap I suggested.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. This will be fine.” She ducked into the tent and paused a moment in the dimness. The air was warm and close, and the spicy, clean scent of him was all around her as if he was still standing next to her. But then she was always aware of him no matter how near he was to her. His backpack with a shirt tossed on top was lying on his cot, which was pushed against the opposite wall. She saw the toothpaste, bucket, and water canteen on a camp table. She moved quickly across the tent and splashed water on her face and neck, brushed her teeth with her forefinger, rinsed out her mouth, and spit in the bucket. Then she grabbed the camp towel and wiped her face. That faint scent of Korgan clung to the towel, too, she realized. She folded it neatly and laid it back on the camp table.

  Then she was back outside the tent. “I took you at your word,” she said as she took the coffee he handed her. “I definitely shared. I probably have your scent all over me.”

  He went still. “What an erotic thought.” He met her eyes. “But you weren’t in there long enough for it to be all over you. And that also requires a certain amount of my participation.”

  She stiffened. “Yes, it would. I didn’t think of that. But you did.”

  “Yes, I did. Immediately. I’m still thinking about it. I could have resisted the urge to tell you about it, but I’m having enough trouble resisting urges around you.” He reached out and touched the curve of her upper lip. “However, I’m not going to act on what I’m thinking because any minute now you’ll offer to go to bed with me again because you’re excited and happy and you want everything to keep on going that way.” He took his finger away from her lip. “Right?”

  Her lip felt soft, swollen. She wanted that touch back. “Maybe.”

  “Probably.” He took his own cup of coffee and sat down across the fire. “And the next time it might happen. But not if I can hold out until I don’t end up feeling guilty about it.”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty. I told you that I—”

  “Drink your coffee.”

  She dropped down on the ground and lifted her cup to her lips. “I am excited and happy, and naturally I want everything to go well.”

  “So do I.” He was frowning thoughtfully. “Now hush while I try to forget everything that rushed into my head when you came out of that tent. I need to concentrate on asking you a few questions about your Sasha that I thought about last night.”

  “Sasha?” She frowned. “Why do you want to know anything more about Sa
sha?”

  “Because ever since our helicopter landed here, it’s been all about Sasha Nalano.”

  “Because I care about her. Because we’ve got to get her and those other girls away from that monster.”

  “I get that,” he said gently. “But I have to know more about her. Because it’s not what she is to you or what we have to do for her.” He paused. “It’s how far we can go to use her to help us as we go forward.”

  She stiffened. “Use her? She risked her neck last night to help me get Baldwin for you. I thought that would be the last thing I’d have to ask her to do. That’s enough, Korgan.”

  “It should be, but she’s a weapon that we might not be able to do without. At the least, it would make retrieving those students easier and safer.”

  “How?” she asked fiercely. “You don’t know that, Korgan. You have that elite team and all those fancy weapons. Use them. Dammit, she’s fifteen.”

  “I don’t know how yet,” he said quietly. “I don’t know enough about her, or what I could ask of her without her falling apart and getting caught. All I know is that we have a person in the right place at the right time. That’s why I have to know everything about her so that I can make a decision.” He met her eyes. “Because I don’t want to get her killed if I make the wrong one.”

  “Using her at all from now on would be a wrong decision,” she said curtly. “We can do without her.”

  “We could, but she’ll probably have a better chance of staying alive if she helps us.” His gaze held her own. “Admit it. That’s what you thought yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re scared of me using her, but what were you doing before you decided to pull me into this? You were already planning on how you could get her out. You asked her to find out about the explosives in the prisoner tent. You even asked her to get the exact CL-20 device.”

  “She said it wouldn’t be dangerous. I told her not to do it if it was.”

  “But you asked it because you’re CIA, and experience has told you that you might need that information to save her.” He repeated softly, “And she was in the right place at the right time. It was the intelligent thing to do.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I called Vogel that same night you told me about it and told him to bring a signal jammer to block the detonator for the CL-20 when he brought the team. It’s in that munitions shed over there with the other weaponry along with a few other items that might prove useful.”

  Her gaze flew to the shed. “It’s already here?”

  “And ready to use. You and Sasha did it. I only followed through.” He added, “But it’s only a start. Will you tell me about Sasha so that we can decide if there’s anything else she can do to help herself and those friends of hers?”

  “Do you think I don’t realize you’re trying to manipulate me into doing what you want?” she asked through clenched teeth. “You’re making it seem as if we’re a team working together. You’re entirely too used to getting your own way. I don’t like this.”

  “I know you don’t, but will you trust me enough to do it anyway?” He smiled coaxingly. “All I’m asking for is information, and that’s something we’re both committed to searching out wherever we can find it. Then we’ll discuss it, and I won’t ask anything of Sasha until we agree it’s necessary and within her ability to perform.” His smile faded. “Because if we’re not a team, then we’re in deep trouble, Alisa. You’re the one who came to me and asked me to find a way to save those girls.”

  She stared at him for a moment before her gaze dropped back down to the flames. “I know I did, but I was hoping you’d use me and keep everyone else out of it.”

  “That might have been possible if Sasha had kept herself out of the line of fire. But she didn’t, did she?”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Alisa said quickly. “All of those girls are victims.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I’m just saying that she seems to attract more than her share of disturbing attention. Do you disagree?”

  “No. But it’s not because she wants to cause trouble. Sasha knows that the more invisible she appears, the better for her. Things just happen to her because she’s—” She stopped.

  “Different?” Korgan finished. “And who told her not to draw attention to herself. You?”

  “Heavens, no,” she said. “She learned it herself. Just as Margaret did. But it was even more difficult for her because she worked at that circus with the spotlight always on her.”

  “You’re still insisting that she can communicate with animals?”

  “I’m not insisting anything. I gave it up when you said you didn’t believe me. But Masenak thinks it’s true, because Baldwin saw her working with the horses that first day at the school and there wasn’t any way for her to just fade into the background after that. So if you want answers, you’ll have to accept that they’ll be what I know is true and not what you believe or don’t believe. I won’t cater to your ignorance.”

  “Ouch.” He smiled faintly. “I can’t remember when anyone last called me ignorant.”

  “Too bad. If it happened more often, you might be more willing to accept a few different concepts than the ones you create yourself.”

  “Admit it. I did not reject the idea out of hand.”

  She nodded reluctantly. “But it bothered me that you thought I was guileless enough not to recognize hogwash if I saw it.” She waved an impatient hand. “Never mind. Perhaps that makes me as arrogant as you to expect you to accept that I was worth believing without cast-iron proof.”

  “Ignorant and now arrogant?” He wrinkled his nose. “I’d better quit when I’m ahead. I do want answers, and it seems I’m going to get them?”

  She nodded. “As you said, it’s only information. I’m not committing to anything. Don’t expect it.”

  “I promise I won’t. Why did Sasha find it more difficult to remain in the background than Margaret?”

  “The spotlight,” she repeated. “She was a wonderful performer from the time she was four or five. Probably earlier than that, but her father kept anyone from knowing just how good she was.”

  “To protect her?”

  “No, Sasha said that she thought he was using her as a foil to make himself look good. Dominic Nalano was an equestrian performer himself, but he was never anything but second rate until he brought his baby daughter into the act. Then he took off like a rocket.” Her lips tightened. “I don’t know when he stumbled on the fact that Sasha was a positive genius with the horses. But she was only four when he started using her full-time in his performances. You can imagine how the sight of that tiny little girl doing tricks and balancing on the back of those beautiful horses with her handsome father would bring the audience to their feet.” She looked down into the coffee in her cup. “Particularly since there would have been no fear, but only pure joy in her expression. When I first saw her perform when she was ten, that was my impression. The freedom, the grace, the sheer joy…Later she told me that the only time she could remember being happy was when she was with the horses. She understood them much better than she did anyone else. A mother who deserted her when she was two, a father who was an alcoholic who paid attention to her only when he needed her to do something, the circus folk who thought she was a little touched because she hardly spoke. She didn’t even realize how unusual it was that she and the horses understood each other so well. Because she was so bright, she picked up somewhere along the way that she was just different from other people and adjusted to it. So she kept on doing what she loved and ignoring everything else around her until she was six, when her father was killed. He got a little too drunk one night and ran his truck into a telephone pole. Then she couldn’t ignore everything any longer because Alonzo Zeppo, the owner of the circus, wouldn’t let her. Sasha and her father had become minor headliners in his little circus during the last few years, and Zeppo had invested in a few very expensive horses to use in their act. He was furious that he was going to have to sel
l them now that her father had been so stupid as to get himself killed. Sasha was terrified at the thought of losing the horses, so she showed Zeppo all the other tricks she knew that her father had never let her put in the performance.”

  “This is beginning to read like a matinee where the understudy takes over the leading role and becomes a star,” Korgan said.

  “That just shows you don’t know her. She didn’t care anything about being a star. All she wanted was to keep her horses. And she did it.”

  “Yes, she did,” he said thoughtfully. “Only six and she thought out the problem and then found a solution.” Suddenly his eyes were twinkling. “Unless one of the horses whispered it to her. What do you think?”

  “It’s possible.” She found herself smiling back at him. “But if he did, he should have spent more time making it easier for her. Zeppo let her keep the horses and take over the act but left her pretty much on her own. She not only had to care for the horses and do the performances, but since she had no living relatives, she was always having to find ways of dodging the school truancy officers. She found the easiest way was to just keep ahead of her current grade and have Zeppo write a letter saying she was constantly on tour and was schooled by a qualified teacher. It worked most of the time.”

  “And you’re proud of her,” he said softly.

  “Every day. Every way.” She lifted her cup to her lips. “Every time she came across an obstacle, she jumped over it.” She chuckled. “And I don’t mean on one of those wonderful horses. I could tell you stories…”

  “You have been. And I like to watch your face while you tell them. All that light…” He tilted his head. “But you said you were wary of each other in the beginning. I bet it took you a long time to get her to tell you some of those stories.”

  “Of course it did. Anything worth knowing is worth the time it takes to learn. But once you learn, it’s there forever.” She added, “But you know that, and now you’re just probing.”

  “Perhaps. But humor me. Tell me a little about how the two of you managed to break through a few of those barriers.”