Ringo opened his mouth to protest, but the Guardian forestalled him with a lifted hand. “You must distract our pursuit and provide verification that Marianne was indeed on the vessel we will blow up.”
“But I’m the explosives expert,” Ringo said.
“I know my way around a blasting cap,” Dan answered. “And I’m the better swimmer.”
Before Dan could reply, Gideon put his hand on Ringo’s forehead. “You will see your friend carry his wife aboard the Dulcinea.” He indicated one of the smaller yachts.
Dan agreed with Gideon’s choice. There were bigger, faster boats in the harbor, but they were more likely to have staff on board than the modest sight-seeing boat Gideon had indicated.
Ringo looked at the boat and nodded without arguing.
Dan looked sharply at his friend, and then at Gideon. What the hell?
Gideon put a finger to his lips. Dan kept silent.
“Then you will steal that pick-up,” Gideon pointed to rusty old Ford at the end of the street, “and drive as fast as you can for the border. You will not resist when the Trust stops and questions you.”
Again Ringo nodded without complaint.
Gideon dropped his hand from the big man’s forehead, then knelt and wrapped the duffle bag with the C-4 in a blanket and put it into Dan’s arms.
“This won’t fool anyone,” Dan said.
“It’s close enough. Carry it as if it were the most precious thing in the world to you, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“What did you do to him? Will he be all right?” Dan asked as they walked toward the dock, leaving Ringo in the alley.
“I made it possible for him to believe the illusion. He’ll remember seeing you and Marianne board the boat for at least six weeks. Long enough to be questioned by the Trust and anyone else that asks. He will tell the truth as he knows it, that he did his best to distract pursuit from you. Over time, the false memory will fade, but the investigation will have moved on from him by then.”
Dan looked over his shoulder only once as Gideon led the way, carrying the bag with their other equipment. He could barely see Ringo as they left him watching their departure from the shadows.
The yacht’s engine started more quickly than Dan would have expected, given the condition of the aging sight-seeing boat. Gideon piloted the Dulcinea out of the marina with surprising speed, despite the moonless night. They were almost clear of the breakwater before they heard one engine and then another roar to life near the shore.
“Sounds like we’ll soon have company,” Gideon said, pushing the boat to greater speed. “You’d best prepare your explosives.”
Dan ignored the twinge from his ribs as he hefted the duffle bag. He pulled out the C-4, then hesitated. Maybe it shouldn’t matter so much, given the life and death circumstances, but he hated that he might be destroying the only source of income of an already poor family. “This boat. It belongs to someone. I’d like to make sure they can afford to replace it. And the truck Ringo’s taking, too.”
“I’m glad you thought of that.” The approval in Gideon’s voice felt like a blessing. “You needn’t worry, however. I’ve already taken care of it.” Gideon smiled and pushed the throttle full open now that they’d reached deep water.
Dan braced himself on the pilot’s cowling against the change of inertia. “I’ll repay you.”
The other man laughed, “You will, eventually, but not with money. Now go get ready to blow up this boat.”
Fifteen minutes later they’d both shimmied into the wetsuits Aliberto had provided, and the two yachts in pursuit had significantly closed the distance between them. An amplified voice rolled over the water and the noise of the engines to them. “Heave to. Release the Colliers. You won’t be harmed. Heave to.”
Kincaid must have told them the Golden Path took us.
“How’s that bomb coming?” Gideon asked.
“Almost ready,” Dan muttered as he connected wires.
Five minutes brought their pursuers even closer.
“We’ve got to go,” Gideon said.
“Damn it! This timer isn’t working! The best I can do is long fuse, and it’s not long enough.”
“I’ll light it then.” Gideon eased back on the throttle and the engine coughed and struggled.
“No! I’m the explosives expert. You’re the healer. Get back to Marianne. Make sure she’s okay.” Dan set off the smoke bomb in the engine housing.
The other yachts were close enough now that their lights would reveal the smoke.
A woman’s amplified voice said, “You can’t get away. Let our friends go. You’ll be allowed to leave unharmed.”
Despite the distortion, Dan recognized Kalisa’s voice, and grinned. Good. The witch would be able to locate Marianne’s MIA bracelet right away. He turned to Gideon. “Go!”
The other man shook his head in disgust then pulled the wetsuit cowl over his blond hair. “Don’t wait too long,” he said, and slid off the far side of the boat where prying eyes wouldn’t see.
Dan counted fifty, then lit the fuse and followed Gideon, slipping quietly into the water without a splash. He was a strong swimmer, but there was a good chance even he would be caught in the blast. Too close, and the shock could liquefy his internal organs, or he might just be knocked out and drown. Either way, he’d be dead. Either way, it would be worth it, if it meant Marianne would be safe.
Guilt nipped at his heals. Marianne wouldn’t think it was worth it. His wife would want his balls for breaking his promise that he wouldn’t leave her the way Mark had. I’d better not break my promise, then. Ignoring the pain in his side, he struck out, doing his best to get far enough away, cutting silently through the ocean with strong, swift strokes, heading for even deeper water. No search would look for him there. He’d swim parallel to the beach before heading back to shore. No light cut through the foggy marine layer. Only the compass on his wrist showed him the way. But first he had to get away from the Dulcinea.
He was in the trough between waves when the flash of the explosion reflected over the ocean. A fraction of a second later the shockwave hit, stunning him. The black night grew even blacker as Dan slipped beneath the cold dark water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MARIANNE
Time passed in a haze of pain and respite. Doña Elena felt my belly and timed the intervals. “Muy bien.” She brought a pile of clean cloths, then returned to sit with me and murmur soothing words alternately in English and Spanish. Beyond the thin walls of the small room, in the cantina, I could hear men talking and the occasional laugh of a woman.
“Do you think the guys are all right?” I asked after one of my contractions.
“Do not distract yourself with such thoughts, Señora,” Doña Elena said. “Think instead of the beautiful niño you will soon hold in your arms.”
“I’m already distracted,” I grumbled. “My husband is doing something dangerous. He’s already been hurt twice.”
“Do not fret. El Guardián is with him.”
Somehow it didn’t seem strange that Elena knew what Gideon was. I was glad that Gideon was watching Dan’s back. Clearly his healing abilities were beyond the norm, and he was great at pain control, but I wasn’t sure how much help he would be during a firefight.
The minutes passed slowly. Elena made me manzanilla tea, rubbed my back during the contractions, and told me all was progressing as it should. I’d begun to grow used to the rhythm of pain and respite when a wave of dread rolled over me, leaving me shaking with cold.
“Oh, no! Oh, no!”
“What is it, mi’ja?”
I’d felt this before, when my husband had nearly been run over. “It’s Dan! Something wrong!”
The partera tsked. “You cannot know this for sure.”
Another contraction hit just then. “I can! I do!” I managed to snarl past the vise-like grip of my belly.
Elena looked hard at me, then said, “Then you know if he still lives, sí?”
I panted through the rest of the contraction and the overwhelming feeling of fear. The spasm passed. The fear did not. “He’s alive, but he’s in terrible danger.”
Elena sat on the narrow bed and took my hands in hers. “Tu esposo has his work and you have yours. Trust him. Did he not say he would return to you?”
I nodded. Dan had promised he’d be back. But so had Mark. My lack of confidence must have shown in my face, because Doña Elena said, “You have had a serious fright. You must not let it weaken you. I will perform the susto, to protect and calm you.”
“The susto?”
“A ritual to protect you from the mal de ojo.”
The evil eye. “My feelings aren’t evil,” I protested.
“No, but they put a darkness on your soul that you should not carry while su niño enters this world.”
I nodded my assent and she left the room. A minute later she returned with a bundle of sage. She swept the herb over my body and began to chant, “Creo en Dios Padre todopoderoso.”
I understood just enough Spanish to recognize the Apostles’ Creed. Although I wasn’t sure what good this would do, a feeling of wellbeing gradually overtook me despite the contractions that refused to wait on Elena’s ritual. When she’d repeated the Creed three times, she anointed me with holy water in several places.
“There,” she said. “The mal de ojo will not touch the child or you tonight. The susto brings calm, does it not?”
I did feel less fearful. “It does. Thank you.”
“Be at peace now. Do not worry for the men. Do not underestimate their determination.”
It wasn’t Dan’s determination that concerned me. It was his luck.
I wasn’t sure how much time had gone by when the pressure in my belly grew nearly unbearable. “I need to push.”
“Then do so,” Doña Elena answered.
“But I want Dan here when Evan comes!”
“He will be, if he can, but the child will not wait.”
If he can.
Then another contraction hit, and I had to push.
It was very late. I was pushing with nearly every contraction now, gritting my teeth and groaning with the effort, trying not to make noise, and failing.
“Is it supposed to hurt this much?” I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the pain had actually grown worse. I’d read half a dozen books about pregnancy and delivery. None of them had said it felt like passing a freaking bowling ball.
“Your labor is going well.”
‘Well,’ she says. I wanted to curse at her, but all that came out was a high-pitched grunt.
Whenever I cried out, the voices in the cantina would fall silent, then the patrons would resume their conversations when I was quiet again. My presence, and what was happening in the back of the small building, was no secret, if it ever had been. Periodically, Don Aliberto came back for updates to give the patrons on my progress, as if they were family. Elena blotted sweat from my brow, and gave me manzanilla tea to sip between contractions.
I was resting in that brief space in between when I heard new male voices through the wall, asking with a horrendous accent, “Quien miran este mujer enciente? Está Americana.” Then he repeated loudly, “Has anyone seen this woman? She’s American and very pregnant.”
I held my breath. Though they hadn’t seen me, everyone in that room knew that a woman was giving birth in the owner’s apartment.
In accented English, a man replied, “No, señor. The gringas do not come here. We have not seen her.” Other voices agreed.
“We’ve been all over this damn town,” an American voice said. “Let’s take a break and have a brew.”
“Yeah,” another voice agreed. “Cerveza!” I heard the sound of chairs scraping across the wooden floor.
Another contraction hit. Elena put both hands on my belly, and I tried to separate myself from the pressure that was cutting like a knife across my abdomen. I breathed through my mouth while I focused on a spot on the ceiling, trying to imagine myself in a meadow full of wildflowers instead of a small adobe cantina. Unexpectedly, a white wolf raced across the field, leaping in play through the yellow blooms. Where had he come from? I hadn’t consciously added him to my meditation. It was Aldwyn, and he stopped and stared right at me as he had in Conrad’s apartment, almost seeming to laugh before he raced off again.
Aldwyn’s playful antics distracted me, and I managed to not push or cry out. What would I do if those guys looking for me stayed for a beer or three? I didn’t think my body would let me get away with remaining passive for long. Evan was ready. He wasn’t going to wait.
A walkie-talkie squawked incomprehensibly on the other side of the wall. A voice answered, “We’re searching the tavern at the end of the street. Over.” More squawking. “Yes, searching.”
After more noise from the walkie-talkie, the man spoke again in a more normal tone, to the men in the cantina. “Manson’s team is joining us. He’s got some news.”
A minute later the pressure in my belly eased, but out in the cantina I heard more Americans join the first three.
“We’re calling off the search,” a new male voice said with a Boston accent. “They’re dead.”
“Says who?” The first voice demanded.
“Says the witch here. We saw them get on a boat. We followed, but the damn thing blew up like a bomb was on board. We were lucky we weren’t too close when it went up.”
“A bomb!”
“Yeah. Splintered like toothpicks.”
I bit my lip. Blowing up the boat was part of the plan, but had Dan intended the blast to be so big? Had something gone wrong? Were he and Ringo all right? What about Gideon? Why weren’t they back yet?
“Benedict says it was the Path, that they blew the boat on purpose rather than give up the Colliers. I don’t know why those bastards would be after a pregnant lady, but she says the fact that Kincaid was after her might have been enough reason.”
“And you’re sure they were on board?”
A woman’s voice answered this time. A voice I recognized. “Yes. I’m sure,” Kalisa sounded as though she’d been crying. “She’s gone. Marianne’s at the bottom of the ocean.”
“We didn’t see anyone leave the boat,” a man added. “We quartered the area afterward. No one got off, and no one could have survived the explosion.”
No one survived? His words fell like a punch. He had to be wrong. He had to be. I would know if Dan was dead, wouldn’t I? That was what we wanted them to think. But fear sank sharp teeth into my throat, stopping my breath.
A voice whispered in my head, “Fear not,” just as another contraction wracked my body. I wanted to push, but like before, I didn’t dare. Elena put one hand on my brow and another on my belly, but my body still felt drawn as tight as a bowstring. The pressure between my legs was tremendous. I closed my eyes and clutched the sweaty sheets. The image of the white wolf rose in my mind, his steady blue gaze telling me, “Be strong.”
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could bear this. I whimpered as the distorted voice on the walkie-talkie squawked again.
Suddenly Dan was there, putting his arms around me. Startled, I almost screamed, but he silenced my cry with a kiss. For a moment my pain disappeared, swamped by relief.
By the time the vise of pain released my body, the Americans had left, and the soft susurration of Spanish conversation resumed. I gazed into Dan’s dark brown eyes, drinking in his love.
“What happened?”
He gave me the short version. Ringo had done his best to lead some of our pursuers away. The boat Dan and Gideon had taken out had blown up as planned. My MIA bracelet was at the bottom of the ocean, convincing Kalisa that I had drowned. Dan was here, but where was Gideon?
Before I could ask, I heard a familiar voice. “Cerveza por todos!” A second later, Gideon was by my side.
My worry evaporated. Then my body tightened again. The baby was coming, and I had to push. I held my knees and Dan lifted my sho
ulders.
For a moment, nothing in the world existed except pressure and pain. I heard a harsh guttural scream. Distantly, I realized it had come from me.
“Can’t you do something about the pain?” Dan asked Gideon.
Gideon shook his head. “I’ve already seriously overstepped the scope of my mission.” But then he shrugged. “Oh, hell, what’s one more infraction?” He placed his hands on my belly.
At once the pain disappeared, although I still felt the pressure.
“He’s almost here. Just one more push,” Gideon said.
“Easy for you to say,” I said between gasps for air.
Then with another push and a slippery twist, Evan was born.
For a moment there was silence.
“Madre de Dios!” Elena exclaimed, crossing herself.
Behind me, Dan tensed. “Is that normal?”
Alarm shot through me. “What is it? Is Evan all right?” Dan’s arms tightened around me. I looked down, and between my legs Gideon was peeling a caul away from my baby’s perfect face.
A second later Evan drew a breath and wailed with all his might. A rush of joy pushed everything else from my mind as the men on the other side of the wall cheered.
EPILOGUE
Five months later
Early April, 1980
Evan kicked and looked around as Dan pushed our son’s stroller around the duck pond in Ft. Lowell Park. Ducks quacked and swam toward us, looking for a handout. I threw them a few shredded crusts of bread that we’d brought for that purpose, ignoring the signs that said to not feed the birds.
Despite it being only nine hours from San Diego, we’d settled in Tucson, establishing ourselves with the fake IDs that Dan had bought for us. Being a mid-sized city, Tucson was easy to disappear in, and so far we’d seen no sign that the Trust had continued searching for us.
After I’d recovered from the delivery, Dan had come clean about what had happened on the Dulcinea. Things hadn’t gone quite according to plan. Dan had been knocked out by the blast. I had yet another reason to thank Gideon, if I ever saw him again. He’d saved Dan from drowning and had gotten them both back to San Corazon in time to see Evan be born.
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