Forbidden

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Who will find it?” Kayla asked him. “Who does this truck belong to?”

  “It is an army truck,” he answered, pushing the bike harder up the hill, forcing them to follow. “There are soldiers searching the mountains tonight.”

  “Searching? For what?”

  The boy looked at her as if she were a total idiot. “For you,” he said. “For the two of you. The word from the shortwave radio is that two Americans are missing from Puerto Norte.” He put on a burst of speed to push the bike the last few feet up the hill and onto the road. Turning to Cal, he gave him the handlebars. “They are using this excuse to search all of the towns and villages, all of the homes in the mountains. You must make it stop. You must let them find you.”

  The truck’s headlights were blinding.

  The oversized vehicle groaned to a stop twenty-five feet away. Orders were shouted in Spanish, followed by the sound of an entire platoon of feet jumping down from the back of the truck.

  And for the second time that evening, Kayla found herself staring into the barrels of quite a number of very nasty-looking guns.

  She lifted her hands, glancing over at Cal as more commands were shouted. “Brace yourself. We’re going to be body-searched again,” she warned him in a low voice.

  His eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Why? If we’re the ones they’re looking for—”

  “You are the ones we’re looking for, Señor Bartlett.” The voice was familiar, but its owner was standing with his back to the truck’s headlights. Backlit the way he was, Kayla couldn’t make out more than the shadowy figure of a man.

  But then the man stepped forward, next to them, so that the light was shining on his face. It was Tomás Vásquez, the man they’d met at the beach. The owner of that sleek black car. The man who had agreed to help them search for the truth about Liam. He was wearing evening clothes—a black tuxedo and a crisp white shirt. Clearly, he’d been pulled away from some high-society party.

  “A search is not necessary, Sergeant,” he told one of the soldiers. “If you will take care of their motorcycle, they will come with me.” He turned to Kayla, genuine concern in his eyes as he saw the blood still seeping through the sleeve of her shirt. Cal’s shirt. “Are you injured?”

  “I just…I fell,” she lied lamely, unwilling to tell him that she’d been shot. After all, she didn’t know who had been shooting at them—one of the guerrillas, or one of the government soldiers. Trust me, he’d said, but she couldn’t. Not entirely.

  “Will you require a doctor?”

  Kayla quickly shook her head. “It’s not…It’s nothing, really.”

  “Perhaps you will allow me to have some bandages and antibiotic ointment brought to your hotel,” Vásquez said in his gentle voice. “Infections are much too common with our humid weather.”

  “Thank you,” Kayla said.

  “My pleasure.”

  The soldiers around them were wearing a different uniform from the one she’d seen on the soldiers in town. These men were members of the Special Forces Police, she realized.

  Liam had told her that he learned from his research on San Salustiano before leaving for the island that the Special Forces Police was little better than Nazi Germany’s SS. The SFP, according to long-standing government policy, were allowed access into any structure on the island, regardless of whether or not it was a private home or business. The SFP could restrict the movements of any private citizen at any time for the purpose of national security. According to Liam, the list of civil rights violations committed by the group was dozens of pages long—and that had been over two years ago.

  And here was Tomás Vásquez, supposedly of the Council on Tourism, giving orders to an SFP sergeant. It didn’t make sense.

  Vásquez led them around behind the truck to where his expensive-looking car was waiting. “I would have requested one of my men find you an extra shirt,” he said to Cal, “but there are certain health risks involved with wearing a uniform this far out in the mountains.” He gestured to the car. “Won’t you get in?”

  Kayla let Cal take the front seat. She climbed into the back, breathing in the new-car aroma that lingered among the leather-covered softly cushioned seats.

  Despite the fact that it was the sort of car that often had a hired driver, Vásquez got behind the wheel himself. “The hotel called at nine, notifying us that you had left early in the morning and had not yet returned,” he told them as he turned the key and the engine hummed softly to life. “We are always eager to avoid what could become an international incident, so I’m sure you realize how relieved we are to find you safe and sound so quickly.”

  “We ran out of gas,” Cal said as the car moved smoothly along the jungle road.

  Vásquez glanced briefly at Kayla in the rearview mirror. “An unfortunate event. May I recommend your staying in Puerto Norte and taking advantage of the resort’s four-star amenities for the remainder of your visit?”

  “You can certainly recommend it,” Cal drawled.

  The other man sighed. “But you will not follow my advice.”

  Kayla leaned forward. “Of course we will. I think we got a good enough taste of the mountains today and—”

  “I have received permission to take you to the site of the bus bombing that took William Bartlett’s life,” Vásquez interrupted her. “I shall pick you up at your hotel tomorrow, say, ten o’clock?”

  “All right,” Cal said. He glanced back at Kayla. “Will you be up for that, or will you want to stay back at the hotel?”

  She just looked at him, narrowing her eyes very slightly.

  He actually smiled. “Sorry. Dumb question.”

  “I also found some information you might be interested in,” Vásquez volunteered. “The intelligence reports I have had access to have mentioned an unnamed American man—your Americano. From the information I gathered, he was a mercenary who had joined forces with the rebels. He was believed to have been a former U.S. Navy SEAL. Quite a formidable enemy, apparently.”

  “Was?” Cal asked.

  “Yes, he is dead.”

  As they reached the top of a rise, Kayla could see the lights of Puerto Norte in the distance. It looked sparkling and beautiful—a diamond in the darkness, not the capital city of a tiny country drenched with the blood of its people as it fought a decade-long civil war.

  “He was fatally wounded when he was apprehended four weeks ago,” Vásquez said, real regret in his voice. “I was on temporary leave at the time—I am afraid I only read the memos and reports of the incident.” Vásquez shook his head. “You must put the last of your hopes to rest. The Americano was not your brother. And even if he were, he is no longer alive.”

  Kayla stood on the balcony, looking up at the city of Puerto Norte, the lights clinging to the mountain that rose up behind the resort hotel.

  Cal leaned against the frame of the sliding glass door, just watching her.

  She had cleaned out and bandaged the cut in her arm by herself, refusing his offer of help. She’d showered and changed into a loose-fitting dress. The fabric flowed gracefully around her—the effect made her look impossibly beautiful. Of course, in Cal’s opinion, Kayla Grey had looked impossibly beautiful dressed in grubby cutoff jeans and his old, bloodstained T-shirt.

  The streets below echoed with music and voices. Even though he hadn’t made a sound, Kayla turned toward him, somehow knowing he was there.

  “Someone’s having a party tonight,” she said.

  He pushed himself forward, stepping out onto the balcony, even though he knew he was tempting fate by moving closer to her.

  They had privacy to speak freely. He’d casually thrown the towel from his own shower over the video camera lens, and the radio was playing in his room, loudly enough to cover the sound of their voices from the balcony. And he’d checked this outside area thoroughly. It wasn’t bugged.

  “I called the front desk for a late dinner reservation and they recommended we order room service and dine in tonight,�
�� he told her. “That ‘party’ is a division of soldiers getting leave for the first time in four months. The concierge says they’ve been up in the mountains for at least that long. Apparently things can get a little wild, even in the hotel restaurant.”

  Kayla had been watching him, her eyes colorless in the dim light. “Cal, do you think he’s dead?”

  “Liam.” He said the kid’s name aloud though he knew for damn sure exactly whom she’d been talking about.

  “There’s no way Liam could’ve been mistaken for a Navy SEAL.” She laughed, but it was a painful sound. “I mean, come on, really.”

  Cal looked at her, and his thoughts raced back to the last time they’d kissed. His body immediately responded, painfully. Here they were, talking about whether or not Liam was dead, and he couldn’t keep his mind off his own selfish pleasure.

  “He’s not dead.” Cal spoke the words experimentally, to see how they sounded. They sounded as if he were clinging hopefully to the side of a sheer cliff with the very tips of his broken fingernails.

  “What if he is?” Kayla asked. “What if he were the man who died four weeks ago? Four weeks…” Making a small sound in the back of her throat, she turned away, gripping the railing. “God, if he was alive all that time, only to die four weeks ago, I’ll never forgive myself for not getting here sooner.”

  She was crying. Cal could see the lights of the city reflected in the moisture on her face. He knew exactly how she felt, and he felt his own eyes fill with tears. He knew the exact sensation, the precise ache in her heart at the thought that Liam might have been alive all those months, with neither of them doing anything to help him.

  “If he’s dead, I hope to God he died in that explosion. If he didn’t, then we’re going to have to live with the fact that he spent nearly two years facing torture and God knows what and—” She couldn’t stop a sob from escaping. “He was my friend. I didn’t believe it when I heard that he died, but I didn’t do anything about it. I should have come down here then, I should have—”

  “Kayla.” He took another step toward her, wanting to offer her comfort.

  She didn’t turn toward him. She just wiped her eyes fiercely with the heels of her hands. “You’d better go back inside,” she said, her back still toward him, “because I need someone to hold me, and I know that’s the last thing you want to do.”

  Cal closed his eyes. He couldn’t comfort her with anything more than words—and there were no words he could say that would help. But if he so much as touched her, he knew he’d want to lose himself in her, to make love to her. And he simply wasn’t strong enough to resist her. Not tonight. “Kayla, I—”

  “Hold me,” she said softly. “Hold me, Cal, or leave me alone.”

  He did the only thing he could do.

  He left her alone.

  11

  Kayla didn’t see it at first.

  It wasn’t until she had stepped out of Tomás Vásquez’s expensive car, until she’d gone a few steps into the underbrush.

  And then, there it was. The bus. A twisted shell of burned and rusted metal.

  There wasn’t much of it left. She wasn’t even sure she would have been able to identify that thing as a former mode of public transportation.

  She couldn’t speak. Cal, too, was silent, hands jammed into the front pockets of his jeans, a muscle working in the side of his jaw as he gazed at the wreckage.

  According to the news accounts Kayla had heard at the time, forty-eight people—mostly women and children—had been instantly killed when the bomb went off.

  Someone had planted flowers around the metal skeleton. They moved slightly in the late morning breeze, brilliant shades of red and orange; life among the death.

  Cal turned and looked at her, and she could read his thoughts as clearly as if they were telepathically linked. Was this the place where Liam had died? If it was, then at least he’d gone quickly, immediately—no long-drawn-out, painful death by torture and malnutrition and God knows what.

  She ached to pull Cal into her arms, but she knew he would only push her away.

  Cal thought his brother was dead. Kayla could see it in the tightness of his jaw and shoulders, in the expressionless set to his face.

  Kayla turned away as Vásquez cleared his throat. Today he wore chinos with a faded indigo blue polo shirt. It was the kind of faded color that cost seventy-five dollars new.

  “There is something you both need to know,” the man said quietly as they walked closer to the wreckage.

  Vásquez touched the flaking rusty metal of the bus, then carefully brushed his hands clean, clearing his throat again. “I told you several days ago that I was unaware of any rumors concerning your brother’s death. But this morning, when I checked into it…” He took a deep breath. “Mr. Bartlett, I now have reason to believe that your brother was not on this bus at the time of the deadly explosion.”

  Kayla couldn’t move. Her feet had rooted her to this spot. She glanced sidelong at Cal, and saw that he, too, hadn’t even blinked. But then he glanced at her, and she saw a flash of wildness in his eyes.

  It was the closest thing to a plea for help that she’d ever seen or heard from him, and she didn’t know what to do. She knew he didn’t want her to touch him. He’d made that more than clear last night.

  But then he surprised her. He reached out and took hold of her hand, breaking his own unspoken rule. And Kayla knew he did it as much for her as for himself.

  He took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was deceptively calm. “Then where the hell is he?”

  Vásquez didn’t make any excuses. He looked first at Kayla and then directly in Cal’s eyes as he spoke. “As far as I can tell, your brother was abducted by rebel forces and taken into the mountains prior to the explosion. From the information I’ve been able to gather, he had just interviewed the San Salustiano minister of defense. The assumption is that the guerrillas were hoping to uncover some military secrets. I’ve read a number of SFP memos, and it seems the situation was thoroughly out of control. The officials attempted to cover up the snafu by claiming William Bartlett had been on the destroyed bus. I think they fully expected the rebels to kill him.”

  “Did they?” Kayla asked.

  She felt Cal’s fingers tighten around hers as they waited for Vásquez’s response.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I will do my best to find out more for you, but right now I just don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe him,” Kayla muttered under her breath as they walked from the elevators to their hotel rooms.

  Cal shook his head sharply, giving her a silent message with his eyes. Wait until they got inside the room, until he’d turned on the radio and covered up the camera lens. Then they could talk.

  Still, Cal knew exactly what Kayla was thinking. Why would Vásquez tell them something that was potentially damaging to his organization and his very government?

  But why would he lie? Unless he were deliberately feeding them false information. Or unless someone else might be deliberately feeding him false information…

  He could feel Kayla’s frustration—he was feeling similar tension himself. He wanted some answers.

  If the rebels had kidnapped Liam the way Vásquez had claimed, then who was the blond Americano that Kayla’s San Salustiano refugee had seen in the government’s military prison? Unless the mysterious American Navy SEAL who had allegedly been killed four weeks before looked remarkably like his brother…

  But what was it Vásquez had said? He didn’t believe in coincidence. Well, Cal didn’t either.

  He unlocked the door to his room.

  “What’s that?” Kayla asked. She started to reach down to pick up a folded piece of paper that had been shoved under the door, but Cal quickly covered it with his foot.

  “Go onto the balcony and put your feet up while I get you something to drink,” he told her.

  She glanced up and saw that once again the “maid” had been in the room. The bed had bee
n made, and the towel had been moved off the TV. The entire television console had been swiveled slightly, so that the camera hidden within was aimed toward the door.

  As Kayla moved across the room, temporarily blocking the video camera, Cal dropped his key, then quickly bent and picked up both the key and the piece of paper. Concealing the paper in his hand, he moved to the bedside table and turned on the radio.

  Someone—the maid no doubt—had put a fresh bucket of ice on the desk, with several bottles of mineral water chilling on top. He opened a bottle and poured some into a clean glass. Then he crossed toward the balcony, moving out of the camera’s range.

  But Kayla stood in the doorway, shaking her head. Putting a finger to her lips, she pointed underneath the white wicker table that was out on the balcony.

  Sure enough, a new wire had been planted there, hidden against the intricate legs of the table. It was damn good that she’d looked. He handed her the glass of water and sat down at the table. “I’m hungry,” he said for the benefit of the ears listening in. “Do you want me to order room service for lunch?”

  “That would be nice,” Kayla said, playing along. “Will you ask what the catch of the day is? I’m in the mood for fresh fish.”

  As he silently opened the piece of paper that had been left in his room, Kayla came to look over his shoulder.

  At first Cal felt a flash of disappointment. It was a flyer from a shop downtown, nothing more than an advertisement announcing a sale. But then he realized which store it was. It was the store where they had bought the radio.

  Another coincidence? He doubted it.

  Kayla obviously doubted it too. “On second thought,” she said, meeting his gaze, “why don’t we go into town and have lunch at one of those little cafés by the harbor?”

  Cal was silent as they walked into town. Their motorcycle had been appropriated the night before by the Special Forces Police and there were no cabs to be found. Kayla knew he was impatient to talk to the shopkeeper who had sold them the radio, but he was purposely shortening his stride so that she could keep up.