Blue Knight

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Olivia closed Jenny’s eyes.

  She heard Daniel’s voice, low and dangerous, on the far side of the room from where they had been sitting. “Turn off your fucking camera now.” He was speaking Spanish and he was clearly speaking to one of the film crew, or perhaps the journalist.

  “Of course, of course.” The man seemed dazed. Bewildered.

  The blazing camera light suddenly cut out.

  Olivia looked up and saw Hans sitting, stunned, on his chair. She reached over and tugged on his trouser leg. “Hans,” she called loudly.

  He stirred and looked at her. She saw the track marks of tears on his face.

  “Go and get a cloth for Jenny. A big one. Perhaps two.”

  He wiped at his face. “I…all right.”

  “Make them dark cloth, Hans, okay? So the blood doesn’t show.” She gave him a big smile and patted his knee as he stood up. “Ask the hotel staff, if you can find anyone.”

  Hans nodded, his jowls wobbling. He tottered away, looking relieved to have something to do. Olivia looked around. “Theresa,” she called.

  The brunette was huddled in her chair, hugging her arms around her. She, like Hans, had been crying. Now she lifted her brown eyes up to look at Olivia, careful not to look at what was lying at her knees.

  “Can you find me a pillow for Jenny’s head? A cushion, anything soft?” Olivia knew it didn’t matter for Jenny, or even for many people here, but it would give Theresa something to do and it would help some people look at Jenny’s body more directly, until they could move it away.

  Olivia picked up Jenny’s hand. It was already cooling. That surprised her, that the body lost heat that quickly. But she held onto her hand anyway and she wiped her own tears away as they fell, which they kept doing regularly as she sat quietly waiting for the requested items to arrive, while the hysteria around her swirled and frothed.

  She watched Ciro Solos carefully rebutton his suit jacket and smooth back his hair. His hand was shaking. Then he stood up. “Well, time to blow this town,” he declared. The rest of his crew stood with him.

  Daniel laughed. “You don’t think they’re just going to let you walk out of here, do you?” he asked, in English, heading toward him.

  Solos fidgeted with the knot of his tie. “I’m an investigative journalist and a member of the press. They must let me go.”

  “Speak English, Solos. Or French, or anything but Spanish. You know English?” Daniel asked.

  Solos was looking confused. “Why must I speak English?” he asked in halting English.

  “Because the guards here aren’t so hot on English, especially idiomatic English. They’re even worse on anything else,” Daniel said, flicking his eyes toward the sentries with their machine guns.

  Solos smoothed back his hair. “Why would they not let me go from here?” he asked again.

  “Because they figure you will turn around and lead the United States and the United Nations straight back here.”

  Solos shook his head. “There must be freedom of the press, or we cannot do our job.”

  Daniel stopped in front of Solos and pointed down at Jenny. “You really think Ibarra and Serrano care about freedom of the press, Solos? You think they’re operating with any sort of mental clarity right now?”

  Solos swallowed. “But this is…this is outrageous!”

  “Welcome to our world,” Daniel said softly. He put his arm around Solos’ shoulder. “Come and have a drink. You’re going to need it.”

  Solos wrenched himself out of Daniel’s grip. “You’re wrong!”

  Daniel smiled. “Oh yeah?” He pointed behind Solos. “Here’s my proof coming right now.”

  One of the more senior guards, Ibarra’s Lieutenant Gomez, hurried into the lounge. He was very short, barely five feet tall, with a sharply receding hairline and luxuriant moustache. From the few hints that some of the woman had given, Olivia knew he was a cruel man that would take any advantage he could if he was alone with them.

  He marched straight up to Solos. “Mr. Solos, I must request that you give to me your cellular phone.”

  Solos’ face turned a bluish gray around the lips. It was a very sick color. His hand pushed against his chest, over his heart. “Why?” he asked and it was a hoarse whisper. But Olivia could see from the expression in his face that he already knew why.

  “Your phone, Señor,” the little lieutenant demanded, his hand out. “And I must demand that you not leave the property, you or your men. You will be given rooms at the hotel as accommodation and supplies found for you.”

  Solos’ eyes met Olivia’s over the top of Gomez’s head. There was fear in Solos’ eyes and Olivia felt a touch of pity. She’d had weeks of this and got used to it. He was just starting from the beginning.

  Solos reached into his pocket for his cell phone. Then into the other one. With a sigh, he unbuttoned his jacket and reached into the inner pocket. He frowned and reached into the outer pocket again.

  Then he started patting himself down all over. “I don’t have it,” he told Gomez.

  “Then where is it?” Gomez said impatiently.

  “I don’t know. I had it a moment ago. I swore I put it in my outer pocket just after…after the thing. I’m certain of it.”

  Olivia couldn’t help it. Her gaze swept around the room in a fast, all-encompassing look. Daniel was nowhere in sight.

  Immediately, she dropped her chin down to hide her expression as excitement and fear swamped her. He’d taken the phone and gone. Somewhere.

  Perhaps even as Jenny was executed he had been planning this. Certainly as he had been talking to Solos about his confinement here.

  Olivia struggled to keep her face still and not reveal anything.

  Gomez pulled out his pistol. “I want your cell phone, Mr. Solos. Pretending you have mislaid it will not work with me.”

  “But I don’t have it!” Solos cried.

  Gomez jerked his head at the guards. Two of them slung their machine guns and walked over and roughly ripped Solos’ jacket off his shoulders and started patting him down.

  “Oh my god!” Solos moaned. From the cottage cheese complexion of his face, Olivia suspected he’d never been manhandled in his life.

  When the phone did not appear the guards pushed Solos to his knees. Gomez slapped his face and Solos stared at the little lieutenant with an open mouth and very big eyes.

  “Where is that phone?” Gomez screamed.

  Olivia wished she knew, too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The White Sands was old enough to have a tiny cupola on the roof, although it was so filled with dust and dirt that Daniel knew no one had been inside it for decades. The decorative sides hid him from view as the sun set and if he was still up here when the floodlights set up, well, he’d be safe from those, too. Coming down again was a different set of problems he’d figure out later.

  He pulled out Solos’ phone and familiarized himself with the layout and controls, then flipped over to the internet browser and looked up the Pascuallita number he hoped would be there. It was.

  He dialed it. For the longest time it didn’t answer. Then a male voice answered suspiciously and cautiously. “Hello?”

  “I’m looking for a way to reach Duardo. I’m wondering if you can connect me.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A very old friend.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I called him Duardo, didn’t I?”

  “That’s one point in your favor. Keep talking.”

  “Is this Cristián? You sound way too old, but there can’t be another man in the house, unless…. Did your mother remarry?”

  He could feel the caution pouring through the phone.

  “If I were Cristián, I would have sisters. Tell me about them.”

  Daniel rested his head back against the fencing, smiling. He couldn’t help it. “Téra Alejandra, Trini Juanita and Pía Isabela. Ah, god, I haven’t thoug
ht of them in years. Do they still fight like cats and dogs? Do they still dress you in skirts?”

  “Shit. I know who you are. Fuck.” The disgust and distress in Cristián’s voice made Daniel laugh.

  “Are the three girls still there?” Daniel asked, letting him off the hook.

  “Two,” Cristián amended. “Téra is elsewhere, all moony-eyed over some Captain De la Cruz she can’t quite trip over—”

  “Lucas De la Cruz?” Daniel said sharply.

  “That’s the one,” Cristián confirmed. “She won’t shut up about him, although she thinks she’s being discreet.”

  The world was roaring in his ears, Cristián’s words fading under the pressure.

  Daniel felt the phone slipping out of his hand and grasped it tighter. “Wait,” he croaked into it. “Wait.”

  He could feel his own pulse throbbing in his head. Beating and receding. Is this what a stroke felt like? Or the start of a heart attack? He tried to breathe but his lungs wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Cristián,” he whispered into the phone. “She has to get away from him.”

  The memory was crowding him, dimming his hearing. He could hear Cristián talking, but not what he was saying.

  Instead he was immersed in the memory.

  * * * * *

  Over a year ago now, just before the revolution broke out in Vistaria, he was coming back to the studio apartment he had rented in Boston. He was walking fast, because despite three years in New England he still wasn’t used to the cold.

  He heard someone call his name and looked up to see Lucas De la Cruz across the street, muffled up to the chin in a dark coat and scarf, the black eyes and hawk-like nose the only things showing under the hat pulled down low against the cold. Fog fingers curled around his legs as he crossed over the footpath.

  Daniel thought he was going to cross the road to come and talk to him, that Lucas was coming to visit. It wasn’t the first time Daniel had received company from home. He’d even lifted up his hand in greeting.

  That was when Lucas fired.

  The shot took Daniel in the chest. If Lucas had been a better shot it would have been in the left, over the heart and been fatal. But it had taken him over the right side instead and Daniel fumbled out his gun and fired off a return shot with his left hand. He took Lucas in the back as he ran off, but it was a glancing shot at best, because Daniel’s eyes were already unfocused and his head swimming by the time he’d fired. He wasn’t conscious by the time the ambulance and police got there.

  They’d had to relocate him after that. Blanco had been pissed as a hornet, too. Three years of contacts shot to hell. But then the war had broken out inside a month and the reason for Lucas’ actions had all made sense. A preemptive strike….

  * * * * *

  “Daniel!” It was Cristián’s voice and from his tone, Daniel could tell it wasn’t the first time he’d yelled it.

  “I’m here,” Daniel muttered.

  “Finally,” Cristián breathed. “What’s this about De la Cruz?”

  “He’s bad,” Daniel said simply. “As bad as they get. You have to trust me. I can’t tell you more than that. If you have a way to reach Téra, get her the fuck away from the bastard. He’s one of them.”

  “Oh, sweet mother….” Cristián breathed. Then he pulled himself together. “That’s not why you called.”

  “Duardo. I need to get a one-time message to him. Is that possible?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you record?”

  “I write fast.”

  “That’ll have to do. I’m going to trust that he saw what happened today with the diplomats. We’re being held at the White Sands—”

  “Jesus, Daniel, you’re mixed up in that?”

  “Concentrate, little brother.”

  He heard Cristián’s exhalation. “Right.”

  Daniel continued. “It’s going very sour very fast. Serrano is no longer holding a full deck of cards. Neither is Ibarra. With this message I am now compromised, so I have to leave the hotel, but there’s complications I won’t go into. Are you getting all this?”

  There was a pause. “Compromised. Leaving…complications. Yep. Next.”

  “This is important. These are coordinates, so don’t get these wrong.” Daniel slowly gave Cristián the string of numbers and made him repeat them back. When he was happy that Cristián had them right he went on. “Tell him I’ll meet him there at 0430 hours tomorrow. The complications mean they must be ready to immediately spring the hostages when I meet them. This is not open to negotiation.”

  Again there was a pause while Cristián wrote this down. Then he whistled.

  “What?” Daniel said.

  “You’re ordering out the Vistarian Army?”

  “I’m just sending a message to your brother. He can do the ordering. Besides, if he’s followed the usual promotion path for the Army, I probably outrank him now.”

  Cristián snorted. “It has been a while since you two spoke.”

  Daniel looked at his watch. “I’ve been here too long. I have to go.”

  “Wait! How does he communicate back to you?”

  “He doesn’t. This is a one-time, one-way line. I have dozens of submachine guns pointed at me 24/7. It took five weeks for this opportunity to happen. I’ll never be able to pull this off again. As it is, the heat this will raise will singe me and others enough that I’m going to have to take a dive in the next few hours.”

  “Jesus, Danny….” Cristián sounded worried.

  “It’s fucking Daniel, or I’ll rip your throat out,” Daniel growled.

  Cristián laughed. “That tells me it’s you, like nothing else on earth. We missed you, you know. Mom still does, but she never said anything, because of Duardo.”

  “Damn it….”

  “Go,” Cristián said.

  “Duardo had better be at those coordinates with backup, or I might just go another ten years without a phone call home.”

  “Me, too,” Cristián said with feeling.

  Daniel disconnected and realized he had a stupid grin on his face. He wiped it off.

  He glanced carefully around before he got to his feet. He crushed the phoned under his heel, so there was absolutely no chance of anyone retrieving anything from it. He took out the battery then hurled the phone as long and as hard as he could. Several seconds later he heard it smash on something good and solid, far below. The battery he tossed in the opposite direction.

  * * * * *

  Minnie lifted herself to her feet and moved to the doorway of the office and leaned against it. “Téra!”

  Slowly, she moved back to her desk. Lately, the only time she could get any of her work done was by working into the small hours of the night. Morning sickness ensured the beginning of the day was a total loss.

  Right now, with everyone locked in the strategy meeting after the broadcast on the hostages, she was getting more work done than she’d got done in a week, except for Trini’s interruptions.

  Téra thrust her head into the room. “Hi?”

  “Your blessed sister keeps dinging me via that Facebook wrestling group page, insisting that she talk to you. She keeps saying it’s urgent, urgent, urgent. I can’t get her to go away. She won’t tell me what it’s about and she won’t leave a message. Will you please sit and talk with her so I can have my computer back?”

  Minnie got up and walked over to the other desk where all the old manual systems were kept that she and Rubén were gradually converting over to the laptop.

  “Sorry, Minnie. Trini’s not usually like that,” Téra said. “She usually uses the common accounts.”

  Minnie smiled at her sister-in-law. “I know that. I’m not bitching about her. I’m bellyaching about not having my computer. One week I’ve had that thing and I’m already attached to it. I’m still upset about the broadcast, too. Don’t mind me.”

  Téra settled behind the open laptop. “I’l
l be as fast as I can,” she promised.

  Minnie sat in the other chair and bent over the old paper ledgers with a sigh. The old systems worked just as well as the computer did, but after getting used to doing it on the computer, they were slow and awkward to use. When she could simply click and drag an item around on the screen, having to rewrite it over and over on paper became a real pain in the backside.

  Téra made a small noise. It wasn’t quite a gasp. More like a choking sound.

  Minnie looked up.

  Téra had gone very white. So white, the freckles on her nose were standing out clearly.

  “Téra!” Minnie bounced over to the other desk. “What’s wrong?”

  Téra blinked and looked up at her. “Nothing.” She stood up. “I’m fine.” She smiled, but it looked like someone was pulling wires inside her head to make her face perform the trick. There was no emotion there. It was a ghastly expression. “Thanks for the loan of the computer. It’s all yours again.”

  She left, moving like a ship under sail, cutting through the sea smoothly.

  Minnie checked the screen. Téra had shut down Facebook. There was nothing to see.

  Minnie turned and hurried after Téra, but she had already disappeared in the rabbit warren of rooms that made up the top half of the big house.

  Minnie stopped and bit her lip. She didn’t like it. Not at all. There was something not right about this. Her gut was churning and it wasn’t morning sickness. She headed for the potting shed—the “boardroom”.

  * * * * *

  Duardo was such a strong creature of habit, of discipline, that even though he was now married, he still kept his spare gun and bullets in the same place—in the left corner of his footlocker. Téra didn’t even need to search for them.

  Growing up in a military household also meant she had absorbed a great many basic skills by osmosis, too. She was able to load the clip and reseat it with little difficulty. She checked the safety was on and sorted out how to cock the gun, because she knew this was a semi-automatic and that it needed to be cocked the first time she fired it.

  The whole time, her heart and mind seemed to be locked in a hard, tight place where she couldn’t think or feel. Everything was instinctual. Basic.