“Front room.” Alex freed himself from his seatbelt and started to rise.
The man put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “You wait here.”
Alex settled back while the two men stepped down into the snow. What if he’d tied Pia’s wrists and ankles too tightly? Even if she wasn’t frozen, by now gangrene could have set in. She’d be a candidate for quadruple amputation.
The men returned supporting her, one on each side grasping her arms. She tried to walk, but her legs quit halfway to the helicopter. The men either didn’t notice or didn’t care. They hustled her the rest of the way with her feet dragging in the snow.
Alex met them at the hatch. “I’ll take her.” He lifted her into a seat and strapped the seat belt and shoulder harness around her.
The passenger compartment had two benches that faced each other, with barely enough shared leg room between. Alex sat with one of the men on the rear, forward-facing bench. On the other, Pia slumped by the second man. She reeked of urine. Mucus from the split on her forehead had once again sealed her left eyelid closed. She stared at Alex with the other eye. The purple knot on her forehead had ballooned. The swelling held the split skin agape. Alex had experienced enough head injuries to know she felt like someone was banging inside her skull with a hammer.
They made the brief run back to Silver Hill in silence, and the Chevy Tahoe met them at the helicopter landing pad. Griping about the urine stench, the men in the helicopter seemed content to let Alex carry Pia to the Tahoe and strap her into the rear seat. The driver braked at the lodge, and the man who had given orders during the flight grinned at Alex. “Your stop, ace.”
“I’ll help you get the prisoner settled.”
The man shook his head. “Faust will take it from here.”
* * *
In his room, Alex found a full complement of toiletries. He even had a choice between a safety razor and an electric. Drawers held boxer- and jockey-style shorts nestling alongside T-shirts and sleeveless undershirts. A closet contained a wide selection of outerwear, everything a decent fit. Of course they would know his size—they had his employment physical. And they must have pressured local shop owners to sell after hours. No price tags, but everything looked expensive. Not what he would have bought.
He ordered a snack from room service, then stood for a long time in the shower, letting hot water loosen tense muscles. Where had they taken Pia? Maybe he should have insisted on going with her. Apparently, Koenig thought owning half his country entitled him to treat people anyway he wanted: . . . clean out the girl’s quarters and dispose of her belongings.
As Alex toweled himself dry, someone knocked. Expecting room service, he slipped on a robe and padded barefoot to the door.
Faust entered and plopped into a chair. He rested his booted feet on the coffee table. “You did good, Alex. Erased any doubt Koenig might have had about putting you on the payroll.”
“On the payroll to do what?”
“For now, as my assistant. But things are about to get interesting in Peru. When the dust settles, I’ll be running a world-class mining operation. To handle it, I’ll need a dozen men like you. People I can trust.”
Alex shook his head. “What do I know about mining?”
“You know soldiering. You’ll train a cadre of officers to maintain security in a mining district. And in your district, your word will be law. You’ll have all the—”
Another knock at the door. This time it was room service. As the waiter set out Alex’s snack, Faust got to his feet. “Pick up your final Silver Hill paycheck and wrap up whatever you need to here. We’ll talk some more tomorrow over dinner. Remember, eight o’clock. Meet me in the cocktail lounge.” He slapped Alex’s back. “I’ve got to go up the hill, make sure Pia understands her situation.”
He had to go up the hill? Everything except the office complex and the ski lift was downhill from the lodge. “You keeping her in the office?”
A nod. “The lodge would put her too close to her kid. I’m not about to give her a second chance to snatch him.”
Her kid? What the hell? “Koenig seemed to be letting you decide what happens to her. Why is that?”
A slight frown—momentary, chased with another chuckle. “That’s one of the things we’ll talk about over dinner. See you tomorrow, amigo.”
Alone once more, Alex stared at the door, feeling his brain scramble. Was Faust’s reference to Pia and Frederick—“her kid”—a slip of the tongue, or had she told the truth about Frederick being hers?
Chapter 10
Alex spent a restless night at the lodge, but his mental alarm clock wouldn’t let him sleep past sunup. He dawdled over breakfast, nursing coffee until normal work hours. Then he went to Silver Hill’s administrative office and processed the paperwork to terminate his employment. With everything finished by midmorning, he returned to his room and found that someone had retrieved his belongings from the cabin on Black Oak Ridge and deposited everything in a corner. He killed several hours on a solitary cross-country ski trip and wandered around Silver Hill’s miniscule main street until time to meet Faust in the cocktail lounge.
Faust ordered vodka on the rocks, but Alex stuck with light beer. He had spent months without booze in the hospital and the military stockade, additional weeks while patrolling solo on Black Oak Ridge; he didn’t want to get fuzzyheaded. He sipped the beer and answered Faust’s questions about Pia’s capture and Frederick’s return. Together they reminisced about the grueling discomfort of slogging over mountains and through jungle in northern Peru with their Special Forces unit, the countless days of boredom punctuated with brief, heart-stopping firefights, the pleasures of rest and recreation in Lima.
Over T-bone steaks with French fries served in the cocktail lounge, they rehashed the battle that left both of them wounded. Faust proclaimed his eternal gratitude to Alex for carrying him out of the line of fire. “I felt bad about not seeing you before they shipped you to Fitzsimons. When we talked on the phone just before you left there, you weren’t very forthcoming about why they were kicking you out of the Army.”
The beer and conversation had relaxed Alex, but memories of butting heads with Army brass drove a fresh stab of tension through him. “I’m not proud of being booted.”
“I read a transcript of your hearing,” Faust said. “I know the official line—insubordination and assaulting a commissioned officer.”
Old details reeled through Alex’s head. Lieutenant Stanwick’s platoon had been ambushed while maneuvering to block the rebels’ line of retreat. He broke radio silence to ask for help, even though Alex and Sergeant Steve Gibson—both squad leaders in the platoon—cautioned that enemy mortars would zero in on the transmission. Faust deployed the rest of the company to rescue Stanwick’s platoon, and Gibson was killed during the ensuing firefight. Alex, Stanwick, and Faust were wounded. Alex and Stanwick were evacuated to Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Stanwick to receive rehabilitation therapy for an injured shoulder, Alex for reconstructive surgery on his ruined jaw.
“Lieutenant Stanwick’s wounds were no worse than yours,” he told Faust. “His family’s political connections got him airlifted to Fitzsimons. Did you know they decorated him for valor? After he caused the whole snafu by panicking and breaking radio silence.”
“They asked me for a recommendation,” Faust said. “I guess they decided to ignore my comments. You also got a ribbon, didn’t you?”
“A commendation. They gave him the Distinguished Service Cross. I was leaving the reviewing stand after the awards ceremony, heard him talking to reporters. Essentially, he claimed he saved everybody’s ass after Gibson screwed up.”
Faust nodded. “Pin it on the dead guy.”
“The thing is,” Alex said, “Gibson had pleaded with Stanwick not to break radio silence. And he gets blamed, just because he’s dead? That’s when I . . . well, I lost it.”
“I read about you cold-cocking the bastard.” Faust pushed away his plate, empty
save for the bare T-bone, and leaned back. “I can picture it. Your head wrapped in bandages, looking like one of those old horror-flick mummies. Stanwick on the reviewing stand sandwiched between his daddy, Senator Horace V. Stanwick the Third, and the Center’s commanding general. You pop him, he spits teeth. Then he falls off the reviewing stand and gets a concussion.”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“How’d you manage to get booted instead of doing time?”
“Threatened to go public about what really happened in the jungle. Pointed out I was third-generation Army, that my dad and granddad earned a few decorations of their own. An old high school buddy works for the Denver Post. He helped by filing an official request for an interview.”
Another grin from Faust. “Working for me, you won’t have to deal with that kind of chicken shit.” The grin became a grimace. “But I won’t tolerate loose lips. You threaten to take something to the press, your motivation won’t make any difference.”
“I hear what you’re saying.” Although he was anxious to move the conversation to Pia, Alex suspected his best course was to wait and let Faust provide the promised explanation in his own time. He finished his steak, and they ordered more booze: another light beer for Alex, a third double shot of vodka for Faust.
“We have a couple of issues to clear up,” Faust said.
Finally, the mystery was going to be addressed. Alex settled back in his chair. “What issues?”
“Up there on the ridge, did Pia say anything about me? About people I’ve spoken to or what I’m doing in Colorado?”
“We just talked, you know? Until I figured out what was going on.” The question took Alex by surprise. Wasn’t Faust there to protect Koenig? “We told each other a little about our backgrounds. Lies from her, obviously.”
“So, nothing about me?”
Faust’s persistence tripped Alex’s built-in bullshit detector. Was something going on that the man didn’t want to make public? “Your name didn’t come up. You said there were two issues?”
“The other one’s the time you two spent together.” Faust leaned forward, and his voice took on a riveting intensity. “You’re the nearest thing I have to a kid brother. I can’t see letting a piece of tail come between us.”
Alex flinched inwardly at the insult to Pia. “Where’s this going?”
“Whatever you two did up there, I don’t want it to happen again.” Faust’s narrow, Teutonic face stiffened. “That going to be a problem?”
Alex made a time out signal with his hands. “She was lost, I took her to the cabin. I heard a TV broadcast about the kidnapping, tied her up, and brought the kid in. That’s it.”
Tiny creases around Faust’s eyes smoothed. His jaw muscles visibly relaxed. “Like I said, you did good. I just want to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.”
“She Koenig’s mistress?”
“Naw, he just rented her womb.”
Alex leaned closer, thinking maybe he had misunderstood. “Did what?”
“He was scheduled for radical prostate surgery when his son, his only offspring, died in a plane crash. The old man needed a new heir, but his cancer was aggressive—he couldn’t put off the operation. He finessed the problem by having his sperm flash-frozen. Then he laid out specs and ordered a search for the perfect surrogate.”
Alex struggled to wrap his mind around the rush of information. Frederick was Pia’s kid, as she had claimed, but he was also Koenig’s? “The man’s married to a fairly young, good-looking woman. Something wrong with her?”
Faust shrugged. “Problems with her plumbing, maybe. Koenig wanted a healthy, decent-looking surrogate with a high IQ and mixed-race parents, one Asian, Indian or Amerindian, the other Caucasian. Said something about cross-breeding rather than line-breeding to turn out a hardier whelp. My field guys found the ideal candidate in this little backwater town on the edge of the Amazon rain forest. Both parents dead, no relatives that gave a damn about her. A social life that made her eager to get away.”
“Pia,” Alex said.
“After Koenig’s people okayed her as his rent-a-womb, he sent me to collect her. It took a while—problems with the chopper. I kinda . . . well, we got used to each other.”
Pia’s explanation of how she came to be in Lima flashed through Alex’s mind: A man brought me. “You became lovers, yet she had Koenig’s baby?”
“It’s kinda weird, complicated as hell. Bottom line—I wouldn’t like to think my best buddy was dipping his wick in my oil. You know what I mean?”
“Nothing like that happened.” Feeling more uncomfortable than he’d imagined possible, Alex decided the smart move was to get away. “I’m still worn out from yesterday. Think I’ll call it a night.”
Faust shook his head. “You’re not too beat to sample some local pussy, are you? After all that time you spent in the hospital, then up in the mountains?”
Alex had tensed to stand. He settled back and forced a chuckle. “Not too. But I don’t feel like trolling tonight.”
“No need. I picked up this hot chick last night, told her to find someone for you and meet us here around ten.” Faust nodded toward the entrance, where two women stood checking out the lounge. “Nice, huh?”
The women spotted them and headed for their table. Carol, Faust’s date from the previous evening, introduced her friend as Dakota. They headed for the closest of three clubs strung along Silver Hill’s main drag.
Grasping Alex’s arm as they walked, Dakota leaned close and hugged his bicep to her breast. Blond, thirtyish, pudgy but still shapely, she had a grating, high-pitched voice. The voice, along with her strong perfume and her familiar manner, put Alex on edge. Inside the club it got worse. They crowded into a booth, and she scooted close, pressing her thigh against his.
His body responded, but his mind was elsewhere. As he sipped beer and listened to overly amplified music, his thoughts centered on Koenig’s casual dismissal of Pia: . . . clean out the girl’s quarters and dispose of her belongings. And what about Faust’s claim on her? If they were lovers, why was he out with a casual pickup?
Dakota seemed fascinated by the scar on Alex’s face, although she showed no curiosity about how he had come by it. It made him look evil, she told him twice within half an hour of settling in their booth, each time with a brief, deprecating laugh. Carol and Faust headed for the dance floor, and Dakota slid a hand up the inside of Alex’s thigh. “That thing on your face is Satan’s mark,” she said, whispering with her lips so close to his ear that hot, moist breath laved it with each syllable. “It’s there so women will know better than to be alone with you.”
“You’ve got it right. I’m not a nice man.”
“Trouble is, I’ve got this thing for evil, cruel guys. Thinking about it, imagining what you’ll do to me, melts my core.”
She wasn’t melting his core exactly, but her exploring fingers were thawing it. The other couple’s noisy return, however, prompted her to withdraw the hand. She asked Alex to dance, and on the floor she alluded again to his scarred face, to the equally scarred personality she was sure it echoed. While they moved to slow music, she rubbed against him and begged him to whisper the awful things he would do to her.
He left her standing on the dance floor and returned to their booth. “Dakota and I aren’t clicking. I’m going back to the lodge.”
Faust shrugged. “The Koenigs are flying up tomorrow for some skiing. I’ll introduce you. We’ll be heading for Lima in five days.”
* * *
Alex had downed too much beer. Should have known better, he thought as he trudged back to the lodge. In bed, he closed his eyes and forced himself to lie still, but sleep wouldn’t come anywhere near him. Too much information churning through his head. Too many emotions washing over him.
During their time campaigning together against remnants of Peru’s Shining Path rebels, Faust had taken Alex under his wing. Despite their difference in rank, the captain had treated him like a younger brother.
Alex had grown to admire and respect his commander, even though Faust’s determination to dominate the battlefield and decimate the enemy sometimes drove him to mistreat civilians or go overboard in his interrogation of prisoners. But their acquaintance had played out in a military environment, where personal idiosyncrasies were muted. During leave time—rest and recreation, in Army parlance—they had gone separate ways; military protocol dictated that officers and enlisted men avoid off-duty fraternization. Maybe the surrogate big brother he’d thought he knew had never actually existed.
Shrugging off a sense of loss, he decided to make an exit. Spurning the job offer would leave him with no income, but that was okay. His Silver Hill salary had been automatically deposited in a Denver bank. It would sustain him until he got his life in order.
Forget sleep, he decided. It was time for action. After showering, dressing, and stuffing clothing into his backpack, he penned a note thanking Faust for the Silver Hill job and the offer of a better one in Peru. “I need some down time,” he wrote. “I’m going to hang out, try to get my head straight. I’ll be in touch.” He pulled on his parka and shouldered his gear, left the note for Faust at the lodge’s front desk, and began hiking down Silver Hill’s short main street.
The Descent From Truth Page 8
