Burnt Sienna

by David Morrell

  He brought his mouth toward hers. She turned away and struggled. He redirected his mouth, trying to reach her lips. When she pulled her head back, he squeezed her tighter. She stomped on his boot.

  He hit her.

  For a moment, she saw blackness. Then he hit her again, and suddenly she was on the floor. Through blurred vision, she saw him reach back his boot to kick her, and for a frenzied moment, she thought he was Derek, that she was back in the hotel room in Istanbul, that Derek was kicking her and —

  Something slammed. A figure rushed past. As her mind stopped spinning, she realized that the noise was the trailer’s door, that the figure was Chase, that he had collided with Ramirez and knocked him onto the kitchen table.

  When the table collapsed, toppling them onto the floor, Sienna looked desperately around, hoping to find something she could use to hit Ramirez. In the gloom, Chase and Ramirez were indistinguishable, rolling one way, then another, striking each other. One of them groaned. Their breathing was forced. They struggled to their feet and slammed against the kitchen counter. A pot clattered into the sink. A dish smashed onto the floor.

  Someone lurched back from a blow to the face and punched the other man’s stomach. The second man staggered back. At once the man straightened, his silhouette clear against the twilight at the kitchen window. He raised his right hand. Something was in it. A pistol. Ramirez. Sienna opened her mouth to shout a warning. Too late. The gunshot was deafening. Ears ringing, Sienna could barely hear herself scream.

  The bullet shattered a window. Chase struggled with Ramirez’s gun arm, trying to wrench the weapon away as the pistol went off again, its muzzle flash almost blinding in the gloom. Her ears in greater pain, Sienna felt the bullet pass her, but all she cared about was squirming to the broken table and groping for one of its legs. The wide end had splintered, forming a spear tip. She plunged it into Ramirez’s back. He screamed. The two men lost their balance. The pistol went off a third time as they fell to the floor.

  Sienna grabbed another table leg, raising it to bash it across Ramirez’s head, but away from the twilight at the window, she couldn’t tell which man was Ramirez.

  “Chase, where are you?”

  “Here!”

  She slammed the club against Ramirez’s head so hard that the weapon split in half.

  She picked up another table leg and struck him again, feeling something on his skull go soft, but he showed no reaction, remained motionless, seemed not to have felt it.

  18

  For long seconds, no one moved. The only sound was Malone’s labored breathing. He couldn’t stop his heart from racing.

  “Is he dead?” Sienna struggled to get the words out.

  “Yes.”

  Hot bile rose in her throat.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I think …” She wiped blood from her mouth. “I’m all right.” Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance, a storm coming up the gulf.

  Malone braced himself against the counter. “Why didn’t we hear his Jeep?”

  “It isn’t outside. He must have parked on the beach and snuck up.”

  The thunder rumbled louder.

  They held each other.

  “He called me Mrs. Bellasar.”

  “Jesus.”

  “He said he’d done a computer search.” Her shoulders heaved. “He knew that the CIA is looking for us.”

  “If he put Dale Perry’s name into the computer, you can bet it set off alarms in the Agency. By now, whoever told your husband we were at that Virginia safe house has passed along the news. Your husband will be coming.” When thunder again rumbled, Malone stared toward the window. “We don’t have much time.”

  “But what about … ” Sickened, she peered down at the body. “We can’t just leave him. The Mexican police will connect him to us. The next thing, they’ll be after us, too.”

  Malone strained to order his thoughts. “We’ll tie something heavy to the body and dump it in the gulf. His Jeep. We’ve got to find it. I’ll drive it to Santa Clara while you follow in the Explorer.” His mind raced. “We’ll make it seem like he parked on the edge of town. The storm and the tide will wipe out the tire tracks. If we’re careful not to leave fingerprints, the police won’t be able to prove we had anything to do with this.”

  “But the shots …”

  “We’re too far from town for anybody to have heard. Yes, Fernando must have, but he’s too afraid of the authorities to tell what he knows.” Ignoring how quickly Ramirez’s body was turning cold, Malone searched the pockets. He found car keys, but they weren’t enough. He needed Dale Perry’s driver’s license. Where was it? He had to find it. “There. Thank God.” He pulled the license from the corpse’s trouser pocket. “Hurry. Help me carry him to the boat before that storm comes any closer.”

  He grabbed the corpse’s hands, started to lift, then realized that Sienna hadn’t moved.

  Spurred by a new burst of thunder, she grabbed the corpse’s boots, shuddered, and lifted.

  They lugged the body across the trailer. Malone was in the lead, backing toward the screen door. He nudged the door open with his hip. Then he got a better grip on the corpse and backed out, startled by a flash of lightning that revealed a look of terror on Sienna’s face.

  But not because of Ramirez. Something was behind him.

  He turned.

  A blaze of lightning revealed Bellasar, Potter, and three bodyguards.

  “You should have known I’d find you,” Bellasar said.

  Sienna gasped.

  “Taking out the garbage?” Bellasar asked.

  Malone released the body and tried to straighten.

  Not fast enough.

  Potter slammed the barrel of a pistol across his forehead. “Let’s deal with this garbage first.”

  19

  Blood streaming down his face, Malone felt himself being lifted, two men carrying him into the darkness of the trailer. As if from a distance, he heard Bellasar demand something.

  Sienna’s answer was a murmur. Malone was too dazed to know what it was. At the moment, what he was most aware of was the force with which he was slammed onto a chair.

  More indistinct voices. Something flickered. At first, Malone thought it was the lightning outside, his impaired vision barely registering it. But a second flicker and a third spread across the trailer, the darkness dissipating until he realized that what he was seeing were candles that Bellasar had made Sienna take from a drawer. She lit a fourth and a fifth. The trailer glowed.

  “More portraits.” Bellasar’s features were twisted. He rammed a fist through an image of Sienna’s face. “I’ve lost my enthusiasm for your work.” Cursing, he threw the ruptured portrait into a corner, the frame shattering as it bounced off the wall. He went over to Malone and punched his face so hard that the chair fell over, sending him sprawling onto the floor. “Do you remember I warned you never to touch my wife?”

  Malone was in too much pain to speak.

  Thunder shook the trailer.

  “Pick him up.”

  Hands yanked Malone to his feet.

  “Hold him steady.”

  With pain-blurred vision, Malone saw Bellasar put on leather gloves.

  “No!” Sienna shouted.

  The blow to Malone’s stomach would have doubled him over if Bellasar’s men hadn’t been holding him so rigidly. The next blow was aimed toward his nose, the one after that to his stomach again. His mouth. His —

  The last thing he heard, passing out, was Sienna screaming.

  20

  “You’re killing him!”

  “That’s the point.” Derek drew back his fist again. Sienna broke loose from the man holding her and grabbed Derek’s arm before he could launch the blow. “I’m begging you!”

  “You’ll beg me a lot more when your turn comes.”

  “I don’t care what you do to me! Let him live! If you ever had any feelings for me —”

  When Derek shoved her across the room,
she banged against a small table, knocking a candle onto the floor.

  Wind shook the trailer.

  “That storm’s too close,” Potter said.

  On the floor, the candle continued to burn.

  Chase’s swollen face was covered with blood as Derek punched him again.

  A few drops of rain pelted the metal roof.

  “Get the car where we left it when we followed the Jeep,” Potter ordered a guard.

  The candle’s flame spread to the carpet.

  “Hurry,” Potter told the guard, “before the storm hits and you can’t find the car. I don’t want to be stuck here.”

  The guard ran outside.

  “Put out that fire,” Potter told another guard.

  “No,” Derek said. “Let it burn. Let everything burn.”

  As smoke rose from the burning carpet, Derek hit Chase one more time, frowned at his blood-covered glove, and gestured for the men to let him go.

  Chase collapsed on the kitchen floor.

  When Sienna tried to run to him, Derek grabbed her.

  Lightning cracked. More drops of rain pelted the trailer.

  “Sounds like it’s going to be bad,” a guard said.

  The flames spread across the carpet, reaching the portraits.

  “Take a last look at him,” Derek said, pulling her away.

  Sienna shrieked. She couldn’t stop shrieking. She felt as if her vocal cords were going to burst, and still she wailed as the flames rose higher and Derek dragged her toward the door.

  Headlights glaring, a large four-wheel-drive vehicle pulled up, its windshield wipers flicking away the rain. Derek yanked her outside with a force that jerked her gaze from Chase.

  Thrown into the vehicle, she scrambled to look through the rear window toward flames bursting from the smoke. As the vehicle sped away, the trailer disappeared into the darkness and the rain. Only the flames remained. Then they, too, disappeared, obscured by the blur of her tears.

  | Go to Contents |

  NINE

  1

  A sharp noise from outside made Fernando swing toward the door.

  His wife tensed. “What was that?” she asked in Spanish. “It sounded like …”

  “A shot.” Motioning for the children to stay back, Fernando cautiously opened the door. In the deepening twilight, he stared to his right toward Dale’s trailer. The shot had been in that direction. But it didn’t make sense. Dale and Beatrice wouldn’t be shooting at each other. Had the military officer returned? Hearing a second shot and a third, Fernando stiffened.

  “They need our help,” he told his wife.

  But his legs didn’t want to move.

  Thunder rumbled. To the south, dense black clouds approached.

  But Fernando’s attention was fixed to the north, where five men in suits walked swiftly through the gray light. They were about fifty yards away, rapidly narrowing the distance. One was short and stocky. Three were tall and heavy-chested. But the other, the one in the lead, although equally tall, radiated far more strength, scarily so. He had dark hair and sharply defined features stark with emotion. His angry march was relentless.

  The thunder rumbled more loudly.

  “It isn’t safe here,” Fernando said. “We have to go.”

  “But where?”

  Fernando immediately thought of where they’d survived the previous summer’s hurricane. “To the cave. Quickly. Bring the children.”

  He grabbed his son’s hand and urged him from the trailer, hoping they wouldn’t be seen as they darted around the side. Ignoring the lightning and the thunder, they raced through the deepening shadows toward a sand dune.

  If we can get around it without being seen … Fernando prayed. He had never felt a more powerful premonition. Those men seemed enveloped by a greater darkness than the approaching storm. Chilled by more than the suddenly cold wind, he ran harder. Rounding the cover of the dune, he and his family rushed toward a rocky bluff and the small, almost hidden mouth of a cave.

  But even after they reached the echoing shelter of its blackness, Fernando didn’t feel safe. The cave was hard to see unless you knew where it was, especially with twilight about to turn to dark, but the footprints they’d left in the sand were another matter. If the men had flashlights …

  Stop thinking like that, Fernando warned himself. Why should those men care about us? It’s Dale and Beatrice they’re interested in. We mean nothing to them.

  That’s just the point. We mean nothing. If they noticed us, if they’re worried that we’ll be witnesses …

  We can’t just wait here to be killed.

  “I have to hide our tracks!”

  Rushing from the cave, Fernando reached where the footprints curved around the dune. He yanked off his shirt and dragged it over the footprints, stepping backward, trying to smooth the sand, but the force of the wind almost yanked his shirt away. A few drops of rain struck his bare skin, then more drops, their cold force stinging him.

  I don’t need to cover the tracks, he realized. The rain will do it for me.

  But what if the men come before it does?

  Lightning cracked, temporarily blinding him, making him feel exposed. As thunder rumbled and darkness again cloaked him, he hurried to the cover of the dune. Then the only sound was the shriek of the wind.

  And a vehicle approaching.

  Headlights blazed past the dune. Fernando heard the vehicle stop. The trailer’s door slammed. Beatrice shrieked. There were sounds of a struggle. Then the doors on the vehicle slammed, and the headlights veered away.

  It sounded as if the men had taken Beatrice.

  But what about Dale?

  Stung by colder rain, Fernando peered around the dune. As the vehicle’s taillights disappeared into the darkness, he was startled by flames in the trailer’s living room windows. Seeing a body outside the screen door, he scrambled toward the trailer, almost blown off balance by the wind-driven sand. The man was Dale, he was certain, but when he got there, he was surprised to find a man in a military uniform. Where was —

  Fernando frowned through the screen door. The flames were on the right, in the living room, spreading to the left toward the kitchen and the bedroom. Raising an arm to shield his face from the heat, he stepped closer, able to see into the kitchen, to see Dale sprawled on the floor. Then the flames blocked the way.

  He isn’t moving. His face is covered with blood. He’s probably dead. I’d be foolish to —

  Before Fernando realized what he was doing, he raced to the left, around to the bedroom side of the trailer. When Dale had repaired the damage from last summer’s hurricane, he had used a tarpaulin to seal a gap in the back corner of the bedroom. Fernando reached it and tore it free, the wind so fierce that it flipped the tarpaulin into the night. Drenched, Fernando forced himself into the narrow gap. Turning sideways, scraping his bare stomach and back, he squeezed into the bedroom.

  Smoke drifted toward him, making him cough as he hurried around the bed. The doorway was filled with rippling, growing light. He felt the heat before he reached it and almost lost his nerve at the sight of the flames entering the kitchen. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he prayed, then darted forward. Feeling the fire singe his hair, he grabbed Dale’s legs and pulled frantically toward the bedroom. He dragged him over the wreckage of a table, banged against a kitchen counter, and suddenly lost his balance. Falling backward but continuing to keep his grip on Dale’s legs, he landed in the shadows of the bedroom, and although the heat was accumulating in there, he had never felt anything so welcomely cool. In a rush, he tugged Dale to the gap and positioned his head toward it. Rain gusted in. The wind shrieked. Heart racing, he squeezed outside, turned, and blanched when he saw that the flames had entered the bedroom.

  He grabbed Dale’s shoulders and pulled. Dale’s head came through. Seeing the flames reach the bed, Fernando pulled harder. The wind filled his mouth, taking his breath away. Harder! he told himself. But Dale’s chest was caught on something, the pockets of his fi
sherman’s jacket so full they jammed him. Fernando shoved him back in. Unable to remove the jacket, he yanked its bulging flaps through the gap, then tugged again on Dale’s shoulders, exhaling in triumph when Dale came toward him. Dale’s chest was through. His stomach. His hips. With one last pull, Fernando fell backward, Dale landing next to him, the wind and rain overwhelming them.

  But Fernando couldn’t take the time to catch his breath. As the flames reached the gap, he lifted Dale to his feet, doubled him over his right shoulder, and staggered toward the other trailer. When he burst inside, leaving the storm behind, he set Dale on the floor and groped through the darkness to find a candle and light it. What he saw as the tiny flame grew made him moan in sympathy. Dale’s face was raw, swollen with bruises. Not even the fierce rain had been able to wash the blood off. Fresh blood seeped from his nose, and Fernando shivered, not because of his wet clothes but because of excitement as he realized, Corpses don’t bleed.

  “My God, you’re alive.”

  2

  Pain roused him. It stabbed. It festered. It ached. His entire face was alive with it, pulsing with agony, about to burst. And his scalp. And his stomach, oh, Jesus, his stomach. And the right side of his chest hurt so …

  As his nerve ends came back to life, the pain grew and dragged him from his delirium, prodding him into consciousness. His swollen eyelids struggled open, sending the tortured area around them into spasms. Among shadows, he saw a flickering light. The fire. He was lying in the trailer. The flames were about to reach him. Sienna. Where was … Moaning, he squirmed to get away from the flames. Hands grabbed him: Bellasar’s men. A face appeared before him: Bellasar about to hit him again. He thrashed harder to get away, the effort intensifying his pain.

  A distant voice said something he couldn’t understand.

  He struggled.

  “Be still,” the voice said.