Freedom Fighters

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Carmen cupped his face with her hand, feeling the scratch of bristles against her fingers and palm. She turned his chin so he was looking at her again. There was pain in his eyes, mixed up with old hurts.

  “I’m the leverage, Garrett. Not you. You were just a bonus. Taking you takes away the unit’s direction and motivation. I’m the daughter of the former president. I’m the current Loyalist president’s niece. They will parade me out somewhere where Nick can see me and force his hand. If I’m gone, you’re useless to them.”

  Garrett’s gaze flickered over her face. “If you’re gone, I don’t care,” he said gruffly.

  “I care. I love you, Garrett.”

  His breath caught. He looked at her. Really looked at her, instead of trying to find a way to argue her out of staying.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she added.

  “Stubborn…” Garrett muttered.

  She dropped her voice even lower and moved her lips to Garrett’s ear. “I’ll play weak,” she murmured. “I’ll watch for an opening. You keep telling me if you watch long enough, there’s always a break.”

  “Always,” he said. “You might have to go through hell to get to it.”

  She nodded. “Hell, I can manage. It’s these assholes who are going to drive me crazy.” She looked back over her shoulder at the two guards, who were stirring, pushing themselves up on their hands. “I could just shoot them,” she added loudly.

  She didn’t shoot the guards, although she seriously considered the idea for a brief moment. She doubted she could shoot straight with only one arm working. Garrett might have managed it, only if he shot the guards, the retribution would be worse.

  Instead, they waited for someone to come and rescue the guards, which happened a few minutes later. There was a flurry of concern over what Carmen had done to them. She pretended to be weak and useless, her head on Garrett’s thigh. No one tried to rouse her.

  They didn’t cuff her, either.

  No one had a cuff key, which added to the shambles. The hitched guards hobbled from the room in a dignity-stealing three-legged walk. A guard was placed outside the door and another in the room. This one sat on a folding chair in the far corner, his rifle on his knees, glaring at them as if he dared them to try anything.

  They didn’t speak. Garrett stroked her face. Carmen drifted toward sleep.

  She woke some time later and blinked in the darkness.

  Garrett shook her shoulder. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered in English.

  She sat up. The chair where the guard had been sitting was empty. “The guard is outside?”

  “Both of them. There are more coming, though.” Garrett caught her arm. “Whatever happens, promise me that if a break opens you’ll take it. No matter what.”

  “Maybe,” she said, hedging. Nothing would entice her to make a break if she couldn’t bring Garrett with her. “You should run if you get the chance, too.”

  Garrett stared at her, his lips parting as if he was about to protest. Then he sighed. “Now I know why you won’t consider it. It’s inconceivable.” He gave her a grim smile. “So, both in or both out. No other way.”

  “That sounds good to me.”

  The door opened. Carmen leaned against Garrett, trying to look ill and pathetic, as five Insurrectos marched into the room. An officer followed them. He had white hair, although his face didn’t match the hair. His eyes were black and soulless. “Get them on their feet.” His voice was emotionless.

  They were hauled to their feet. Garrett worked his stiff shoulder, wincing. Carmen cried out as a guard tried to yank her up by her injured arm.

  The officer said, “Hurt her at your peril, gentlemen.”

  The guard’s eyes got big. He licked his lips, nervous. He helped her up with the gentleness of a man with his first date.

  Carmen reached out for Garrett and he helped her stand, his arm around her waist. It wasn’t difficult to look shaky, for her shoulder throbbed painfully and her head was light.

  However, the longer she stood, the clearer her thoughts became.

  They were marched down a corridor lined with normal-looking office doors, into an empty reception area. There was a desk in the corner for a receptionist. That told Carmen where they were—the Garrido silver mine on Las Piedras Grandes. They must have been brought here on the train they hadn’t been able to stop.

  They were pushed through the front door into a still, muggy night. Floodlights bathed featureless dirt. They were pulled apart and told to stand.

  A guard thrust a big piece of card stock into Carmen’s hands, as another did the same with Garrett. “Hold it up, against you,” the guard told her.

  She looked down at the card. There were letters on it.

  Before she could read it, he lifted the card and thrust it hard against her chest, making her wince. “Like that,” he snapped. “Now hold it there, whore.”

  They stood holding the cards for what felt like hours. They weren’t given an explanation. Carmen knew they were both being waved at the Loyalists. Was Nick out there somewhere, hidden but watching?

  The idea gave her hope. She and Nick hadn’t always got along, yet his reputation as el leopardo rojo was deserved. He had resources and connections and the will to match. If Nick was nearby, or any of his trusted Loyalists, then the break she and Garrett were looking for might come sooner than either of them expected.

  Nothing happened, except the night grew warmer, not cooler. The air was thick and stifling. There was no hint of a breeze and the Big Rock was usually one of the windiest places in Vistaria.

  After what Carmen thought around an hour had passed, they were led back inside. Carmen made a great show of stumbling and reeling, as if she was at the last of her strength. The officer the Insurrectos called Ibarra made his comment about having the medic check her once more, telling her the Insurrectos were buying her act.

  They were pushed back into the storage room once more. Garrett wasn’t cuffed this time and the guard stayed outside the door. Garrett moved around the room, looking in the cartons and prying up the lids on the metal boxes. Most of the metal boxes were locked and the cartons were full of paper records.

  Carmen caught his arm as he moved closer to where she was sitting on the folding chair. “Garrett, I think a break is coming.” She spoke softly.

  Garrett tilted his head to look at her. “You don’t have a crystal ball in that top. I’d have noticed.”

  She tugged at his hand. “Hunker down. I don’t want to speak too loudly.”

  He lowered himself down so he was looking her in the eye. Then she realized that he was studying her with professional disinterest. “I’m fine,” she said impatiently.

  “You’re white. Is there much pain?”

  “A little,” she lied. Her arm felt like a forty pound anvil. The bullet wound burned.

  “I watched the medic,” Garrett said. “He did a good job, considering the circumstances. Infection is a real possibility, though.”

  “I have killed anything that ever tried to infect me. I don’t get sick,” Carmen told him. “Listen, Garrett. I think a storm is coming.”

  He blinked. “A storm.”

  “A bad one. You grew up in Wyoming, so you wouldn’t know the signs. Vistaria gets smacked around if a storm goes through because a single island thirty miles wide isn’t enough land mass to slow them down. They tear right across the island. I’ve seen a dozen hurricanes and the weather always starts out just like it is now. Muggy, hot as hell and no wind. Only, I don’t think the Insurrectos have noticed. Not these ones, anyway.”

  Garrett cupped his chin, his thumb beside his mouth. “I’ve haven’t seen one. Ever.” He looked around the room thoughtfully. “Will these buildings take it?”

  “They’ve bolted them onto poured concrete. The walls might stand. The roof is vulnerable. They’re all prefabricated,” Carmen said. “I looked around while they had us outside. I’d say the big building over that way—” and she pointed, “—woul
d be our best bet. It had poured concrete walls. Even if the roof goes, the walls will stand and that will help with the wind. Wind isn’t all of it.” She hesitated.

  “Tell me,” Garrett urged her.

  “The Big Rock is a tiny island, compared to mainland Vistaria. If the center of the hurricane passes directly over it, or even nearby…” She bit her lip. “The wind will hit the west side of the rock first and that’s fine—there are big cliffs there and that will protect that side of the island. Then the wind will pass over the island. On the east side, there are no cliffs at all, just a gentle slope down to the beaches, where the resort used to be. The wind will push the water out to sea. It’s that powerful. Only when the eye has passed, the wind changes directions.” She gripped his hand. “All the water comes back and then some,” she finished.

  “Storm surge,” Garrett murmured.

  “The northern tip of Vistaria was submerged by a tidal wave, in the 1970s,” Carmen said. “Thousands of people were lost.”

  Garrett got to his feet and stared at the wall behind her. Beyond that wall was the big building she had spotted. He pressed his hand against the plaster wall. “If these walls are prefabricated, then the corners will be weaker than the walls themselves.” He looked down at her. “How soon, do you think?”

  He was trusting her. Taking her word for it.

  “There’s no wind yet,” she said, “so it’s hard to tell. Once the wind starts, then it’s a matter of a few hours. The worst hurricanes are always tightly compacted, spinning faster than the weaker ones and drawing everything in. They move faster than the weak ones, too. If it’s a bad storm, then once the wind starts, it will arrive quickly.”

  “There’s no window here,” Garrett muttered. “We won’t be able to tell if the wind starts.”

  “Yes we will,” Carmen assured him.

  He looked at her, a brow lifted.

  “We’ll hear it,” she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  Joshua groped his hand across the nightstand, reaching for his cellphone, which buzzed frantically. It was face-down, so no screen glow told him where the damn thing was and he was only half-awake.

  He picked it up and glanced at the caller ID, then answered it. “Nick, what’s wrong?”

  “What makes you think something is wrong?” Nick asked.

  “It’s three in the morning for both of us. I sincerely hope something is wrong.” Beryl stirred next to him and Josh pulled himself out of the bed. “Wait a second, let me get somewhere I can talk above a whisper.” He trod out to the living room, flipped on the lamp and sank onto the sofa. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “I need another favor,” Nick said.

  “Does the time of day mean you need this done sometime yesterday?” Josh asked.

  “Preferably. The safety goggles that your miners use. I need two hundred pairs of them in Acapulco before midday.”

  Josh’s jaw dropped open. “You’re shitting me,” he breathed.

  “They pack almost flat and two hundred of them would fit in one big carton. There’ll be a courier company somewhere in San Diego that will happily take the fee, although Astra Corp has three Cessnas and each of them could manage the load. The airport in Acapulco can handle all the way up to 747s. It’s a three hour flight from where you are. That gives you until sometime after eight am to get the plane into the air.”

  The intense hard note in Nick’s voice told Josh he was very serious indeed. “Will this make a difference?” Josh asked.

  “All the difference in the world.”

  Josh didn’t press him for details. Cellphones were wildly insecure and if the Insurrectos weren’t tracking every cellphone in the big house they were more stupid than they had let on so far.

  “I’ll bring them down myself,” Josh said, standing up. “Anything else?”

  “Thank you,” Nick said. It was a heart-felt expression, gusty with relief. “I don’t suppose your company stocks climbing gear?”

  Josh blinked at the unexpected question. He made himself not ask why on earth they wanted climbing gear. The quality in Nick’s voice, the hard and quick way he was talking, told its own story. This was urgent. Critical.

  “I’ll knock over the nearest mountaineering store on my way to the airport,” he told Nick.

  “Thank you again,” Nick said. “Although you might want to rethink coming down here yourself.”

  “Why?” Josh asked sharply.

  “Check a weather forecast for this area,” Nick told him and hung up.

  * * * * *

  Daniel felt one of his phones vibrate against his hip and shifted around under the blanket until he could haul it out of his pants pocket. It was stifling inside the little tent, hotter than he could remember Vistaria being in quite some time.

  He didn’t recognize the number, but that didn’t mean anything. Now the phones and the Internet were untraceable conduits, any phone could be used to reach him, as long as the cloak had been installed.

  “Hello,” he said shortly.

  “Daniel. Mi amor.”

  He drew in a heavy breath, happiness making his heart leap. “Olivia. Your voice is heaven to me.”

  “I can’t talk for long,” she said. “I just wanted to hear your voice and know for myself that you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay. Better than okay now,” he told her truthfully.

  “Duardo wants to speak with you,” she said. “It’s urgent.”

  “Put him on.”

  Duardo got straight to the point. “There’s a Category 4 hurricane bearing directly for the south end of Vistaria. It’ll be here by mid-afternoon.”

  The heat. Daniel sighed and nodded, even though Duardo couldn’t see it. “I’ll find somewhere solid to hole up. Thanks for the warning.”

  “It’s not a warning,” Duardo said shortly. “I have new orders for you.”

  Daniel could feel his eyes widening. He answered automatically, his mind racing. “What are my orders, sir?”

  Duardo told him.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me!” Daniel cried.

  * * * * *

  Calli woke with Nick’s hand on her shoulder. She sat up, scanning him for injury. “What happened?” she asked, alarmed, for it was still an hour before dawn and the operation should have taken another forty-eight hours yet.

  Nick straightened up. “Get dressed,” he told her. “It’s an emergency. We have to move everyone in the house and camped on the beach as far inland as we can get by noon.”

  “The hurricane? It’s going to hit us? The weather reports said it was veering away.”

  He shook his head. “They wobble like tops and their path is elliptical. I’ve just spent twenty minutes I can’t spare going over the United States’ National Weather Service data. Servicio Meteorológico Nacional says it will veer, only the data doesn’t support it. We have to prepare.”

  Calli threw the sheet aside and reached for her jeans, already building in her mind a list of supplies they would need to take with them. “It will take hours to move the whole household,” she said. “There’s close to three hundred people looking to us now.”

  “The army won’t be coming with us,” Nick told her. He handed her a teeshirt.

  It was one of his. She took it anyway. “Where are you going to take the army, then?”

  “I’ll be with you,” Nick said shortly.

  Calli looked up at him, startled, as she drew the hem of the teeshirt down over her hips.

  Nick’s mouth turned down. “I’m the head of the state right now. Flores and Duardo refuse to let me go with them. Besides, we may have to deal with the Mexican authorities and I can smooth the way.”

  “Then the army is going somewhere else.” She gave him a small smile. “That means whatever they’re doing this time, it’s a much higher risk than occupying the Big Rock.”

  Nick grimaced. “What Duardo has planned is so insane I don’t want to share it with you. You’ll have nightmares.” He glanced behind him. The d
oor to the room was closed. “I won’t be sleeping until they get back.” He picked up her cellphone from the bureau and handed it to her. “Minnie and Rubén both think in systems. They should be able to come up with the most efficient way to move everyone the farthest distance possible. Do you want to wake them up, or shall I?”

  “You do it,” Calli told him. “I’m going to wake Mama Roseta and stir the kitchen to life. We will all do this much better on coffee and an early breakfast.”

  “As long as the breakfast is eaten with one hand and standing up,” Nick said. “Noon is our deadline and that’s pushing it. By then the winds will be howling.” He moved to the door. “There’s an old motel, ten miles east of us, on the other side of the highway. We’ll make for that.”

  Calli shuddered and pushed her cellphone into her pocket, then headed for the door. She had never been through a hurricane and wasn’t looking forward to this one. Then she thought of the people on Vistaria, the refugees who were living in camps and lean-tos since the revolution had wiped out their homes and villages, or because the Insurrectos had taken their homes for their own use and turned them out.

  Whatever Duardo was planning, she hoped it worked.

  * * * * *

  Once they had run out of options to consider, Garrett folded the blanket and settled on it with his back against the wall. He tugged Carmen’s hand, coaxing her off the chair. She settled next to him, her head on his shoulder. Her arm ached.

  Garrett slid his arm under her injured one. His hand settled on her stomach. His lips pressed against her forehead.

  Carmen didn’t sleep. She was too hot and uncomfortable. Although, she must have dozed, for she woke with a start and looked up at Garrett. “Did you say something?” she whispered, wondering what had roused her.

  His head rested against the wall. He rolled it to look at her. “Listen.”

  She heard the soft whistle of wind skirting eaves and scraping around corners, stirring sand and rattling anything loose. Her heart thudded. “It’s coming.”

  “I think the Insurrectos have finally got a clue,” Garrett murmured. “I heard shouting a while ago and there’s a lot of activity for this time of night. Day, really. It must be almost dawn.”