Burn (Story of CI #3)

by Rachel Moschell

  And if she didn’t help Lázaro, he was gonna blow up the hospital. Or Alejo and the others at the mission compound.

  She slid into a chair at the table and leaned forward onto her elbows, huddled in the gray pea coat. Lázaro sat across from her, still wearing all black and the Irish cap. She had no doubt he was still wearing the Skorpion under his clothes, too.

  “Please, have something to eat,” he told her. The polite tone just didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth. And it was really weird to hear Lázaro speaking Spanish again after the British English.

  Wara slid the lid off a white porcelain casserole dish and found fish that smelled like butter and garlic. It looked pretty greasy. She made herself take a little piece, and some fried things that looked like plantains from another plate.

  Lázaro poured her some wine. Maybe his plan was to get her drunk to make her talk.

  Right now, Wara had absolutely no problem with getting wasted.

  “So,” she drew the word out shakily. “You remember Spanish now.”

  Lázaro blinked. “As soon as you told me we used to speak Spanish, it all came back. Funny how that works.” The expression on his face said he didn’t find it funny, though. “Where am I from?” he asked.

  There was no point trying to hold back information from his past. Eventually, Lázaro was going to remember. He’d already remembered an entire language, for goodness’ sake. And whatever Lázaro planned to do it her, he was gonna do to her. Trying to escape or otherwise pissing him off could have deadly consequences for people in Timbuktu, and she was not prepared to accept that. Her feeble attempt earlier to keep information from Lázaro in order to keep herself safe now seemed really unimportant.

  “You’re from Puerto Rico,” she told him sadly. “San Juan. Your mom’s name is Maria Rosa. Your dad left you guys when you were little and moved to Miami. You have three brothers. And like a million cousins.”

  Lázaro slowed down munching whatever he had in his mouth. “Maria Rosa?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And how do you know this? I told you all this when we worked at church camp, and you still remember?”

  “No. I…” There was no way she wanted him to know what had happened between them. “Look,” Wara told him. “You remember gold cats and everything smelling like coffee? That’s this café in downtown Cochabamba, where you and I hung out a few times. After church camp, cause we got to be friends.” Wara tried to keep her eyes from giving anything away. “It’s the last place I saw you, while we were still friends.” Just a little lie. She was so not going to tell him about the beer and her apartment. “Then we lost touch, and I didn’t see you again til five years later. You had changed a lot, decided to become a Muslim. You got involved with a Muslim organization called the Prism and were working there in Bolivia. Alejo was your boss.”

  Lázaro’s jaw froze mid-chew. “Stop messing around. I worked with Trigger-Happy Boyfriend?”

  “He told you he knew you,” she said. “When you tried to burn us alive in Fez.”

  All of the information she’d just given Lázaro was seeming a lot to digest. “I figured he just wanted to take your place. Chivalry and all.” Lázaro scowled and drank some wine. “I don’t remember him at all. He doesn’t bring back any memories. And I’ve seen Boyfriend quite a lot, working in Timbuktu the past six weeks as Hannibal. We spent a lot of nights eating popcorn and watching The Office together. Alejo really needs to learn to lighten up, though. Even at the funny parts, he never laughs.”

  Wara really didn’t appreciate Lázaro trying to joke about Alejo.

  “You on the other hand,” Lázaro said with his mouth full, “brought back my first real memory. Tell me more. Unless you’d like to recreate the CPR. You told me I used to quite the outdoorsman, and I guess you’re right. I seemed to be pretty good at CPR, that night on your parents’ balcony.”

  Wara cringed in her seat. Time to change the subject.

  Anything to not discuss Lázaro giving her mouth to mouth.

  “So Alejo did some research,” she said, after a good draught of wine. “About what happened to happened to you after you left the Prism.”

  It hurt her chest to say Alejo’s name.

  “Boyfriend is obviously not just a do-gooder involved in education like you claim,” Lázaro interrupted, narrowing his eyes.

  Wara drained the third glass of wine and ignored him. “The only thing we found out was that you stopped working with the Prism about the same time Alejo did, a year and three months ago. Then we found out you did some work for like two months with the Eastern Star, an organization out of Georgia. Then the trail goes cold. That’s all I know.”

  Lázaro poured himself some more wine. Wara found herself staring at the thick scars on the hand holding the glass. “The lost year,” he mused. “Whatever happened to me, I’m pretty sure that Tsarnev used it as an excuse to take me for his sick little experiments.” Lázaro’s tone was very sour. He saw the confused look on her face. “The man is obsessed with fringe psychology,” he explained. “I don’t remember it, but I bet he put me through his experiments. Depatterning, psychic programming, drugs…I know the sick crap this man experiments with.”

  Wara didn’t know what to say. “What is all that?”

  Lázaro shook his head. She could swear he looked a little scared. “I’ve read about it. They put you in a drug-induced coma, then put helmets on you with speakers inside that repeat things over and over they want you to believe. You feel nothing. You hate them all. You are really a Russian basketball star.” Lázaro snorted. “Or whatever the hell they want to make you into. They make you forget everything, and then they remake you into their image. Tsarnev tried to make me believe my name is ‘Aslanbek.’ But that’s just some name from his country, Georgia.”

  It sounded like science fiction. “You’re serious?”

  “I’m sure it’s why I don’t remember anything,” Lázaro glowered. “All you have to do is search the internet. The United States government paid for all kinds of experiments like this. Not only the Russians like Tsarnev. Ever heard of the MK Ultra program? They messed up a whole lot of people, all in the name of creating better weapons and spies.”

  “And Tsarnev works with this?”

  Lázaro’s eyes glinted gold. “It’s his passion. And now he has me. You don’t know what happened to me after the last time you saw me in Bolivia, and I don’t remember. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsarnev did this to me himself, just for fun.” He yanked up one black sleeve and let his eyes run over the burned skin. “So now you can understand,” he said, “why I was so happy to find you. With time, you’re gonna help me remember more and more. And when I know who I am, I decide what to do. Not Tsarnev and his deprogramming puke.”

  With time. Wara did not like the sound of that.

  Waking up here with Lázaro today was so overwhelming that she hadn’t let herself think what was gonna happen tomorrow. There was no way she could go back to her life. Everyone in CI would know by now what she’d done. Even the thought of going back to her parents’ house made Wara shudder. Alejo had been there, and her parents loved him. They would ask about him. How could she go back home, knowing she had helped Lázaro Marquez? And hurt Alejo.

  All that really mattered was making sure no one else got hurt.

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Wara said to Lázaro. She scraped her chair back across the concrete, feeling panic rising. “I think you’ll remember everything, with time, now that you know who you are and where you came from. You don’t need me.”

  Lázaro’s eyes sparked fire and he leaned across the table towards her. The table was little and square, and he was so close she could see the gold flecks burning in his eyes around stormy irises. “I need you,” he spit at her. “And you will not leave, or you’ll have to live with the consequences.”

  The panic was ballooning. “I don’t know if I’ll have a choice,” Wara said. “My friend is in love with someone who can find
anyone. Anywhere in the world. They’re gonna come looking for me.”

  She didn’t know why she said it, but Wara cut herself off before saying the last hope that was ringing in her chest: They won’t leave me here with you.

  She shouldn’t be telling him what she knew about Lalo. It was time for her to shut up now.

  It was an empty threat anyway, because no one was gonna come and save her. And Lázaro was just gonna think she was talking crazy.

  Instead of exploding like Wara expected, Lázaro calmed down and regarded her. She ripped her gaze away from him and traced the crumbling African buildings with her eyes, anything to pretend for a second she wasn’t here.

  “Dear,” Lázaro said calmly. “The point of all my threats isn’t so you’ll be terrified of me. But it seems that’s the only method I have to get you to cooperate. Calm down. Here, have some more wine.”

  Wara’s gaze jerked back to the table, and she saw he’d poured her some more, finishing off the second bottle.

  She would have some more wine, happily. Wara gritted her teeth and picked up the long-stemmed glass, wondering if there was the tiniest grain of truth in what Lázaro had just said, that she didn’t need to be afraid of him, that he didn’t want her to be terrified of him.

  She drained the wine and mentally reviewed all the interactions with Lázaro over the past week. He’d shook her so hard she felt like her brain was gonna come out her nose and stuck her with poisonous arrows. Then tied her and Alejo up and pumped the room full of poison and threatened to burn them alive.

  He didn’t really seem very safe.

  The stress of it all was making the wine affect her more than usual. She felt like a glow-in-the-dark jellyfish, limbs floating limply out to the sides like tentacles on the water.

  She was slumped in the chair, but it felt like everything around her was salty, roiling waves.

  She was transparent, open to the world, like every barrier including her skin had just disappeared.

  There was nothing between her heart and Lázaro.

  She was breathing really fast.

  "Are you alright?" Lázaro raised an eyebrow at her. "Something I said?"

  "I think I shouldn't be drinking. So soon after whatever you gave me in Timbuktu." The words bubbled out of her, and Wara felt herself grin.

  "Why, you're feeling bad?"

  "I feel great. Actually." Wara forced herself to finish the rest of the burgundy liquid sloshing around in the bottom of the jeweled glass. "I've felt horrible the whole day. I can hardly stand thinking about what I did to Alejo. You could have killed him, and I didn't even think about it. I just knocked him out." Wara felt her cheeks burn like coals. The rest of her started to shiver.

  "You know what?" she continued blabbering. "Could we go inside? It's feeling really cold out here. I didn't know Mali could get this cold. Or maybe I’ll just move my chair over by you."

  Wara felt she should frown, but she was still invertebrate, back-floating on a sea that was suddenly turning icy. Lázaro was moving around the table towards her. "Must be the stress. And residual stuff from when I drugged you. Let's go downstairs. Keep talking down there."

  "Yeah, let's go to my room. That'd be great." Lázaro wrapped his arm around her shoulders and Wara fell into his side, hooked her arms around his ribcage, one cheek plastered against his shoulder. Part of the Skorpion bumped against her arm through Lázaro’s black sweater and she thought that maybe she should just go for the weapon, right now while she had Lázaro distracted. But there just didn’t seem to be any reason.

  "Thanks for getting me drunk,” she said instead as they made their way down the narrow stairs. “I needed that." Wara felt herself blink. Why was she talking so much? She shouldn't be acting like this from the wine, right? But then again, who knew what crap Lázaro had put in her system in Timbuktu, to knock her out and then keep her asleep on the trip to Bamako?

  The thought occurred to her that he could have drugged her again, right now during dinner. But she wasn't passing out. She just really felt like talking.

  She was still hanging on him as they rounded the corner and she pulled Lázaro into the room he’d given her. The red Converse tennis shoes squeaked on the tile as she took some downright unsteady steps.

  "You don't want to go to the parlor?" Lázaro asked her. "More light in there. I'm just gonna ask you some questions."

  "No, I don't want to go in the parlor."

  The words were just shooting out of her, and the things she said were a little surprising. If she remembered correctly, two minutes ago, up on the roof, she'd told Lázaro Marquez they should go into her bedroom. Yeah, the idea of the red-carpeted parlor was freaky. It reminded her of waking up, finding Lázaro sitting there drinking wine and holding her captive. But why wasn't it much worse to be leaning against his chest and letting him lead her into her bedroom?

  Wara heard her voice echo inside her head. She wasn't exactly positive, but she might have just said all of that about the parlor and leaning against Lázaro out loud. Lázaro smiled into her eyes and sat her down on the bed, started talking about Alejo and who Wara worked for and who was working in Timbuktu.

  There was no way Wara was going to tell Lázaro any of that. But when Lázaro asked her, the answers forced their way into her mouth and it was all she could do to just shut up.

  "You gave me something to make me talk," she blurted in the middle of something about Cail's lack of a love life. "Didn't you?" She was so mad, but at the same time, still the transparent sea creature, floating, no barriers, unable to stop her heart from leaving her chest. "Just leave me alone!” she said. “Don't you know you used to be in love with me?"

  She already had her fingers on his cheek when she said this.

  Despite being the bad guy, Lázaro Marquez tasted really good.

  From there on, everything got a little blurry.

  Amy

  THAT NIGHT LALO GOT TO TAKE A shift of guard duty with Alejo. Caspian was a little freaked out by the guy’s moodiness after what Wara did, and was probably secretly happy to be with Cail out front. Friends going through hard times didn’t really faze Lalo. He just shifted positions in the wire-rimmed garden chair and calmly scanned the street to the rear of the hospital, enjoying the view from the second-story hospital porch.

  The tiled porch was shielded from the moonlight by an old roof of clay shingles. Shadows clustered around potted plants and tattered cardboard boxes the hospital staff piled out here. Alejo was in a chair next to Lalo, vigilant but still half-dazed, jaw set so hard it looked like he might break teeth. Alejo had brought one of those dorodango balls, the new hobby that turned mud into some very pretty colored orbs.

  The dorodango ball Alejo held tonight was basically polished into oblivion. The past few days had not been nice for Lalo’s friend.

  The afternoon heat was still trapped in the ancient tiles, and Lalo could feel it soaking through the rubber soles of boots, warming his feet all the way through his socks. The air floating in from the Sahara was actually chilly tonight. Mario Brothers was covered up with a ratty gray sweater that Lalo had a hard time getting on under his vest.

  The nurses on duty inside the hospital had their soap opera turned up a little too loud tonight. Lalo was sure the kids were sleeping through it, anyway.

  He glanced over at Alejo, sitting there polishing his mud ball with a rag, fixated on the empty street, yet lost in another world. It had been over forty-eight hours now since she’d done what she’d done, and Alejo was not looking too good.

  Lalo wished he were angrier.

  Hollow, hopeless eyes were never good.

  Alejo’s eyes appeared even darker than they had the day the school burned, even more soulless, if that was possible.

  But soulless wasn’t really a good word for it, because if your heart could break it meant you felt, that your heart was working fine, alive and hurting like hell.

  If you didn’t have a soul, it didn’t hurt.

  “Amadou seems t
o be doing better,” Lalo said into the night. It was all relative, but Amadou was eating, speaking in coherent sentences, not holding a gun to his head. Amadou had gone to visit the kids a couple times now.

  Alejo grunted. Talking about Amadou reminded him.

  “It was them.” Lalo crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked out at the stars. “They killed her. They killed the kids. Not you. Even if it’s little by little, you’re gonna have to transfer the blame over to them. It’s normal for you to feel like you do, but it’s not right. They did it.”

  Lalo felt Alejo’s mind racing next to him. He supposed getting over what happened to Amy would go a lot quicker than figuring out how to deal with what Wara had done. Amy was a friend and Alejo had liked her, but the AQIM guys were responsible for what happened that day.

  It wasn’t so easy to forget the person you loved and trusted more than anyone stabbing you in the back. Or in the neck with a poison arrow.

  Alejo crossed and uncrossed his legs in the chair. His breathing seemed pained. He was probably remembering how he ran to Amadou and Amy’s room at the school after they got the kids out of the burning building last week. The room where Amadou and his wife slept some nights hadn’t been in flames, but Alejo had burst in to find a couple AQIM fighters in the middle of torturing Amadou.

  They had shaped wire into verses from the Koran, and they’d heated it in the flames and were branding Amadou all over his chest. He was tied to a chair, screaming.

  Aisha was bound to another chair across the room.

  Alejo had the advantage of surprise and a M4 carbine. He could have shot both of the AQIM guys before they even turned around from their torture session.

  He’d been beating himself up ever since that day for waiting too long.

  “You know why I didn’t shoot him?” Alejo said in the darkness, proving his thoughts had been running through the same jungles as Lalo’s. “Tsarnev turned around, and all I saw was this kid, this guy who looked so innocent and young and should be studying in some library for a computer science degree, wearing geeky t-shirts and still waiting for his first date. Not carrying weapons in Mali.” Alejo ran a hand across his eyes. “I saw Gabriel. My friend from Bolivia. I think he was one of the best friends I ever had. We worked together in the Prism. He was really young, had that same look of wide-eyed wonder. Idealism.” Alejo swallowed hard. “Gabriel strapped a bomb to his chest last year and blew himself up to take out some Israeli government officials. I saw Tsarnev and I thought about Gabriel. And I waited too long.”