Rubén’s gaze didn’t shift away from hers. “If someone tries to seduce you, you don’t automatically think they’re doing it because they want access to the computer networks you control. I didn’t make the connection until after…afterward,” he finished awkwardly. “Then I reported to Colonel Peña and volunteered to be debriefed.”
So many questions! Téra sat still, trying to sort it out in her mind. “He was trying to use you?” she whispered.
“He tried,” Rubén said flatly. “I don’t think you were just a target for him, Téra. I think in his twisted way, he was trying to protect you.”
“From him,” she finished.
“From the damage he would cause if he didn’t.” Rubén gave a small shrug and a wry smile. “I don’t know if it helps at all, but in a small way, I know what you’re going through.”
“It does help,” Téra said. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Telling you what?” Minnie asked, pushing open the door and walking in.
“Why she can’t order from the Sears catalog,” Rubén said casually.
Minnie snorted. “The catalog is just a way to see what’s available. We can buy it cheaper and get it sooner if we go to local vendors. What is it you want, anyway?”
“Oh, nothing important,” Téra said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“No, really,” Minnie insisted. “What do you want? It’s my treat.”
Téra glanced at Rubén helplessly. His gaze dropped to the book in her lap and back up.
“Just a book I would like to read,” she told Minnie and mentally thanked Rubén.
“Hell, we can get that on Amazon,” Minnie said, with a grin. “What’s the title?”
Téra grasped for a book title she knew wasn’t in the big house and Minnie pulled up the bookstore and found it, then set about ordering it for her. When Minnie’s attention focused on her laptop screen, Téra caught Rubén’s gaze again and gave him a small smile.
He touched his fingers to his chest and his head bent forward a little.
Téra opened her book once more and tried to remember not to smile.
* * * * *
Efraín found Carmen just after eight in the morning, barely an hour after she had left Garrett in his office. She had walked and taken a cold shower and walked around the monastery again. Yet she still shook with rage whenever she thought of the exchange in Garrett’s office.
Efraín held out a sack. “Orders. We go in like locals. No visible weapons. Nice and innocent, instead.”
“Garrett left innocence behind in his crib.” She took the bag and looked inside. Then she sighed and pulled out the multi-hued silk garment. “Fiesta clothes? I’ll stand out like a neon sign.”
Efraín shrugged. “It’s market day in Valle Leñosa. Probably why they set the meeting there.”
Carmen took the sack from him. “There’d better be shoes. I can’t wear army boots with this.”
Efraín grinned. “Barefoot works.” He winked and walked away, hitching his rifle over his shoulder.
All the older towns in Vistaria had a weekly market day. It was a long-standing tradition where local producers brought their wares and produce into town, for others to barter for and buy. It was one of the last traditional economic structures to survive the twenty-first century. Because of the war, it was one of the few remaining ways for anyone to acquire fresh food. The market would be well attended. Traditional clothing wouldn’t be out of place. There would be many others dressed in their Vistarian finery.
Carmen put on the silky skirt and the white peasant blouse that slid off one shoulder every time she moved. There were shoes in the sack. They weren’t traditional dancing shoes but flat black slip-ons that would let her move across terrain easily. They were a tight fit, but they would do.
She dug through her backpack and found her brush. She unpinned her hair and brushed it out, working the brush through tangles and knots, until it was falling about her shoulders freely.
No visible weapons, Efraín had said. She slid her Glock down the front of her shirt. The weight of the gun pulled the shirt until it threatened to slide right down her arm and expose her breast. She fished the gun out again and hefted it.
Llora, one of the elderly women who tended the cooking pots and a de facto mother to many in the camp, shuffled over to where Carmen was weighing her gun in her hand. Llora’s feet were swollen and painful to walk on, yet she smiled at Carmen and held out a thick piece of elastic.
Carmen frowned at her. “Elastic?”
“For around your leg. It will hold your weapon under your skirt.”
Carmen stared at her, startled that such a passive, gentle woman as Llora would come up with a way to hide weapons. “The skirt is silk. The gun is bulky. It will show under the silk.”
Llora shrugged. “A knife is flat. Take a knife.”
Carmen threaded the flat holster for her knife onto the elastic and tied it around her thigh. A knife was useless in a gun fight. However, the whole point of this expedition was to slide into town, have their meeting and slide out again, all without being spotted by the Insurrectos. With luck, the knife would stay strapped to her thigh, unused, until she came back to the camp.
When she was ready, she made her way through the monastery to the big courtyard where the three working vehicles were kept. They had creatively acquired all of them and let the monks use them when they needed horsepower. Most of the time, the vehicles sat unused. Roaring around in a vehicle drew attention they didn’t want.
They were useful for hauling heavy loads and when they needed to move camp. Carmen hoped they wouldn’t have to move for a while. They had shifted camp four times in the first three weeks she had been with the unit. Moving was uncomfortable, hard work and unsettling. It always took her a few days to get any decent sleep after a move. There were too many strange noises and objects around to relax enough to sleep.
If they were trying to look like locals, then arriving in a Jeep would be logical. Jeeps were everywhere on Vistaria, useful for their four-wheel-drive capabilities and because they could handle the steep mountain roads, too. They were cheap, reliable and as common as ants.
Efraín and Ledo were already there, leaning back against the open-topped Jeep. Neither looked armed. Both had washed and shaved and wore button-through shirts and the tight black trousers that made Vistarian men all look long-legged and slim hipped, especially if they were wearing traditional shirts over the top.
They both grinned when they saw her and Efraín gave a low wolf whistle.
“You want to keep your balls intact?” Carmen growled at him.
He grinned. “For you, Carmencita, I would risk my balls.”
“Luckily, you don’t have to. You’re not my type, Efraín. And I have a knife strapped to my thigh to back that up.”
Efraín threw his hands into the air. “My heart is broken!”
“This isn’t a party outing,” Garrett growled from behind them. “Efraín, get in the Jeep.”
Ledo was already clambering into the back of the Jeep, where two small jump seats unfolded.
Efraín shrugged and climbed in with him and took the other seat.
Great, Carmen thought. That left the passenger seat for her, right next to Garrett. She didn’t for a moment think Garrett would let her drive.
Garrett strode past her and dumped his heavy medical bag at Efraín’s feet. He looked very different from the scruffy, bearded man she had walked out on a few hours ago. He had shaved and washed and it looked as though he may even have trimmed his hair. It had been brushed and lay neatly against his head.
Nothing would remove the thick waves, or the pale color that would draw attention to him in this nation of black-haired men and women. Garrett hadn’t bothered trying to appear to be a local. He had brought his medical bag and he was wearing clean, almost-new jeans and a jacket over his V-necked teeshirt. He looked westernized. Even civilized.
“Get in,” he told her.
Carmen closed he
r mouth and climbed in, glad that the traditional skirts of Vistaria weren’t pencil skirts. She wouldn’t have been able to bend her knee enough to get up into the seat.
Garrett started the Jeep without looking at her. That was fine by her. If he ignored her the whole way, she could relax—as much as one could when driving into Insurrecto territory.
* * * * *
Once they were on the sealed road to Valle Leñosa, Garrett picked up speed, until he was just under the posted speed limit. The movement of the air around the open Jeep picked up Carmen’s skirt and blew it backward.
She fought with the silk, pushing it back down over her knees. She didn’t have enough hands to contain the voluminous yards of silk.
Garrett laughed. “Wrap it around your knees and sit on the rest,” he told her. “I won’t slow down just to preserve your modesty.” He had to speak loudly to be heard over the wind.
Carmen fought to gather the yardage together and do what he suggested. She tucked the excess under her knees and lifted her thighs to push it beneath and relaxed when it didn’t billow up into her face once more.
“The knife is a nice touch,” Garrett said.
She glanced at him and was startled all over again by his clean face. On this side, the scars were minimal. “I can’t hide a gun, wearing this.”
“I don’t want to be in a position where we need guns. This is in and out, as soft-shoe as we can manage it. It’s market day in Leñosa. There will be Insurrectos everywhere.”
Carmen looked away, out at the passing trees. It was going to be a long ride.
* * * * *
It was hard to find parking when they arrived in Leñosa. Most of the locals came on foot, although there were enough people living farther than walking distance from the town that cars choked the crossroads at the center of the valley. Garrett drove around slowly, as they all watched for a parking space. He had picked up a black Vistarian flat-brimmed hat from the back of the Jeep and put it on as they had entered the town limits. It shaded his face and eyes as his straw cowboy hat did yet didn’t look incongruous among all the other Vistarian hats.
“I don’t like driving around this way, exposed,” Garrett muttered.
Carmen tapped his arm. “There,” she said, as another Jeep backed out of a narrow stall.
“That will do.” He wheeled into the opening, cutting off another car, then shut down the engine. “Efraín, you’re with me. Ledo, Carmen, watch our backs.” He hauled the medical bag out of the back of the Jeep, then looked down at it to check that the red caduceus was visible. He turned the bag around so it was. Even in Vistaria, the US medical symbol was well known.
The market itself was at the other end of the block on which they had parked. Even from here, the noise from it was loud. It was a friendly sound. A beckoning sound.
As Carmen and Ledo trailed after Garrett, scanning to see if anyone took any interest in him, she turned her face up to the sun for a step or two, appreciating the mild, cloudless day and enjoying the feminine swish of skirt hem around her knees. She had been wearing jeans for weeks and weeks. The raw silk sheath dress she had worn to Calli’s wedding felt like a long time ago.
When they reached the market itself, Angelo wandered over to greet them. He had been waiting at the entrance to the town square. Garrett acknowledged him with a nod and everyone split up. The strategy had been decided back at the camp. They would wander the stalls by themselves, checking each other’s backs to see if anyone was following or taking an interest in them. At the appointed hour, Carmen and Garrett would head for the café where the meeting was to take place.
A big clock on a tower at the end of the market square showed the time. There was just over twenty minutes before the meeting.
Carmen made herself stroll, moving at the same speed as other shoppers. She lingered at stalls whose produce caught her eye, held up shawls for inspection and prodded tomatoes and peppers of all sorts. The fruit on display made her mouth water, only she had no cash with which to buy it. It had been weeks since she’d had any fruit.
Halfway around the edge of the square, she ran into Insurrectos. They were off duty, for they laughed and thumped each other on the shoulder. All three of them carried mugs of beer. They took up the space between the stalls, forcing people to step around them, or move to one side while they passed.
Carmen stayed behind them, slowing even more. If this was a typical small town market, there would be a beer “garden” somewhere in the market. It would be a roped off area where men could buy beer to offset the heat of the day. They were required to stay within the roped area while they drank their beer. The Insurrectos were making their own rules.
There would be even more Insurrectos in the garden itself. Carmen didn’t want to risk walking past it and be recognized by one of them. So far, no one had called out her name. It was possible that even if they recognized her, these locals would think she was someone who looked like Carmen Escobedo. After all, what would the daughter of the former President be doing wandering in this small town market all by herself, right in front of Insurrectos?
If only you knew.
At the appointed hour, Carmen made her way back to the side of the square where the café was located. With a last casual glance around, she spotted Efraín, who gave her a wide smile. The coast was clear, then. Satisfied, she went inside the café.
There was a booth at the back. It was one of two corner booths that could seat six people around the circular table. A lone man sat at the table, stirring his spiced coffee. He didn’t look up when she stepped inside, yet his was the only table with a single person sitting at it. Carmen walked over to the table. “Can I share your table?”
He looked up. He was English-looking, with clear skin and blue eyes and a soft tan. This was Nemesis? He looked like a mild-mannered accountant.
“I’m waiting for someone.” He gave her a small smile, as if he was sorry to disappoint her.
“My mistake,” she told him and dropped her voice. “Unless you’re Nemesis?”
He relaxed and nodded. “Have a seat. Is it just you?”
She shook her head. “The other will be here in a moment.” She slid onto the seat and moved around to give Garrett room when he arrived. She considered Nemesis again. “You’re not what I expected.”
“Good.” His tone was flat. His gaze flickered away as Garrett walked up to the table. His eyes narrowed as he took in Garrett’s appearance.
Without the hat, which Garrett held in his hand, and without the beard, Garrett’s scars were clear. The one on his left cheek writhed up into a white spot that made Carmen think of skin peeled away, layer after layer, leaving the dermis exposed.
Garrett sat next to Carmen, putting her between the two of them. He placed his medical bag at his feet so the red symbol faced the other diners. He looked up as the waitress appeared. “Another pot of spiced coffee, please,” he told the waitress.
Nemesis studied them both. “How good is your English?” he asked softly, in English.
“I’m American,” Garrett said.
“I’m fluent,” Carmen told Nemesis. “I spent years in the States.”
“I know,” he told her. “I bring greetings from your uncle. Directly from your uncle.”
Carmen caught her breath as pleasure shot through her. “Really?” Then the questions surged. “Are they all right? Is Minnie…did she…?” She pressed her lips together. It wasn’t good to speak names aloud. Perhaps the single name among the English would be missed.
“She’s fine,” Nemesis said. “She’s also married.” His mouth quirked up into a one-sided smile. “And pregnant.”
Carmen sat back, relief washing through her. It was so strong it felt as though it was drawing all her energy as it passed through her limbs. “She found him,” she breathed.
“She did, indeed,” Nemesis said. He paused as the waitress brought the second pot of coffee and two more cups and left again. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that if you want to go h
ome, arrangements can be made.”
Garrett tensed, next to her, but didn’t speak.
“Acapulco isn’t home. There’s no place for me, over there,” Carmen said.
Nemesis gave her a small smile. “That’s what your uncle said you’d say. We were uncertain of your circumstances. There was a possibility the big house would be a haven for you. It’s good to know you don’t need it.” His gaze flickered toward Garrett.
“She’s free to leave if she wants. No one signs a contract with me,” Garrett said stiffly.
“Is she a good soldier?” Nemesis asked.
“Yes.” His response was flat and without hesitation.
Carmen looked at him, surprised.
“Then I suggest you hang on to your good soldiers. You’re going to need them,” Nemesis said. “Can you get hold of a short wave radio transmitter?”
“Probably,” Garrett said, sitting back. “Codes?”
“Very good,” Nemesis replied. “Here.” He didn’t move.
Instead, Garrett pulled his hand out from under the table. There was a flat square object in his hand, which he placed on the seat between them and opened one-handed. He glanced at the open page. Carmen could see rows of letters, in pairs.
“Is there a schedule for changing codes?” Garrett asked.
“Random and rotating,” Nemesis said. “After acknowledgment, your first code pair is the page number.”
Garrett nodded and closed the book and slid it into his jeans pocket.
“Don’t use the Internet anymore,” Nemesis added. “It’s too insecure and too many people know about it. The general population can use the chat group to report in. Their observations are useful. Real data must be coded from now on.”
“Something is going to happen?” Carmen asked carefully.
Nemesis nodded. “Soon,” he added. “I’ve spent the last four days meeting groups like yours. Everyone is on the same page. Just as everyone at the big house is, we’re waiting.”
“Waiting?” Garrett asked.
“For Serrano to make his move.”
Garrett smiled. It was a knowing expression. “You’re waiting for him to flinch.”
Freedom Fighters Page 7
