Making the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  He didn't stagger around looking baffled about it.

  It didn't make sense.

  What made less sense was everyone's interest in making it into a problem—Jurdan and Larraitz all too happy to feel them out even as they flirted 'round one another, disparaging remarks all around. We make each other weak, because we care too much.

  Kimmer wasn't the least bit sure it wasn't true. But she knew, with sudden wrenching clarity, that it didn't change anything.

  Here she was. The Etxea was gone, and had to be recovered. Rio was gone, and by damn he had to be found. The rest came later.

  She drew his jacket close in the café's chilly air conditioning. It carried Rio's scent, and she drank it in unabashedly.

  And then she checked out the café window one last time.

  No thugboys. No suspicious characters. No Ertzaintza officers hanging around looking wary.

  Time to get to work.

  ~~~

  From the café across town to this less savory part of the port city, outside Edorta Ginea's leather shop—distinctly off the tourist track. Here we are.

  Kimmer's hand closed around the familiar shaped wood of her war club, still within one of the jacket's many pockets—in another, the SIG Sauer Owen had had waiting for her here, the one she'd never had the chance to draw at the restaurant.

  Owen had no doubt mentioned to Ginea that he had an operative on the ground, but the man didn't know she was coming—and that was how Kimmer wanted it. She had no assurance that Edorta Ginea was one of the good guys—she knew only that he was willing to talk in exchange for whatever concessions Hunter had offered.

  The leather shop's blind was raised, the little flip-sign—in both Spanish and Euskara—invited her inside. But she saw no sign of movement; she wouldn't be surprised if the owner was back upstairs in the living quarters, shaving or eating or finishing off the morning paper.

  Kimmer eased the door open, slowly enough to keep the inevitable bells from jingling. And eased it closed, just as silently, slipping inside. Once hidden from the street view through the door glass, she hesitated. Watching. Listening. And sniffing—the evidence of a damn fine breakfast, full of spices and sausage. The scents almost held their own against pungent leather—stacks of hides, rows of leather laces and string rawhides, shelves of dyes and tools. Beside her, a stack of bins held tanned furs; Kimmer ran her fingers over some silky thing that had probably been fancy rabbit.

  But her other hand stayed in her pocket, fingers wrapped around a red oak handle warmed by her touch.

  A heavy step creaked overhead; a glance up revealed an unfinished ceiling, the floor boards flexing visibly. Not someone small. There were no stairs here, which meant they were behind the grimy apology for a curtain. Kimmer moved for it, ignoring the signs that sternly apprised her there should be no customers past this point.

  She was not, after all, a customer.

  Next to the goods-stuffed shopfront, the back area greeted her with post-cyclonic chaos—stock and projects and tools and corners full of years left behind. She satisfied herself with spotting the wooden door and a small, grimy window that made up her potential exits.

  The enclosed stairs spilled out in the back corner, running the length of the room with an inevitable storage closet beneath. Up above, someone else—someone lighter and more hesitant—moved from one room to another. A toilet flushed; yet a third set of footsteps—medium in weight, faster in movement—moved briskly across the floor above her and—ah ha—started down the stairs.

  And because she didn't know these people or their affiliations, Kimmer slipped in along the wall of the stairs and waited for the man to reach the bottom. But when he would have turned into the room with the carelessness of long familiarity, she straight-armed him between his shoulder blades, propelling him forward into the pile of stiff reject skins against the wall.

  Scrambling on sliding leather, he exclaimed a word as pungent as the shop; Kimmer kicked his feet out from under him and jammed the end of the war club in his back. "Relax. I just want to talk."

  It was easy enough to translate his Euskara reaction. You're just a girl!

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  She replied in Spanish. "Owen Hunter sent me. I'm looking for Edorta Ginea. I need information."

  "You attack me and now want favors?" He snorted, and behind it was intent—to fling himself to his feet and—

  "Don't," she snapped, and jabbed him. "You might hurt me, but I'm damned sure going to hurt you first. Don't be an idiot—of course I took you down. For all I know you're the type to shoot first and ask questions later."

  "Then Owen Hunter didn't send you!"

  Well, that was a good point. If she'd discussed this contact with Owen, she'd have known their protocol. But Owen didn't know her plans, and that's the way Kimmer wanted it right now. Running deep.

  And she didn't know how far this would go. How much distance Owen might need from her.

  "We lost touch before I got details." She eased up on the reversed war club, lest he start to consider the non-gun-like feel of it. "I only know your name."

  "Not me. My—"

  "Ahhhhyiiiiii!" The shrill scream came from the stairs, and Kimmer whipped only halfway around before a hurtling object slammed into her, staggering her backward to hit the floor. She tried to roll on impact but ended up as a landing mat for an attacker no heavier than Kimmer, plenty bony, little muscle, lots of dark, wild hair, arm instantly drawing back to land a vicious blow—

  But not enough room between them to keep Kimmer from surging up to slam her forehead into the barely visible face.

  Her assailant shrieked like a baby-girl and reeled backward. Kimmer flung herself after, reversing their positions. She drew her arm back for the same blow she'd just blocked—only she held the war club, and the results would be decisive. Decisive and ugly and damn! as the wild thick hair fell back and revealed the terrified countenance of a young teen. Not feigned fear, not canny submission, but honest-to-God wet-your-pants-terror.

  Kimmer twisted; the blow landed on the wooden floor, denting it deeply. The girl shrieked, and off to the side the man shouted, "Get away from her!" in a voice that held more panic than command.

  A voice that held threat and promise amidst the panic. The worst combination ever—

  Kimmer threw herself down on the girl, rolled, and came up with that adolescent body between herself and the man. The girl struggled, but by then Kimmer had a painful grip on her hair. She clenched her fingers and snarled, "Be still, or I'll tear your head off!"

  Nice, Chimera. Be mean to the little girl.

  As if. She started it.

  Kimmer looked over the girl's trembling shoulder and found the man had a pistol pointed straight at them. A grimy, nasty, ancient pistol. "Good God," she told him. "Don't shoot that thing. You'll blow yourself up."

  "I'll take my chances," he said, and his face was as red as she'd ever seen a face, the pistol shaking in his grip.

  "You'll shoot the girl before you shoot me," she said steadily. "There's no way your aim is that good. Not with that thing. Now, can we talk?"

  "Aitatxo!" the girl shouted, and Kimmer winced, because now the kid was mad. "Shoot her, Aitatxo, shoot her!"

  "Little girl," Kimmer told her, "I have a knife, too."

  "I'm not afraid of you!"

  "Of course you are. And you should be. Because I will slice the clothes right off your back and leave you topless in front of the world."

  Her gasp was outraged. "You bitch!"

  "That Bitch Kimmer, to be precise," Kimmer muttered. This was Karlene six years from now, she just knew it.

  Heavy tread on the stairs silenced them all.

  The man's feet appeared first, clad in leather slippers. His ankles and knees followed, bowed and covered by sturdy tan pants of indeterminate design and evident wear. A belly pushing hard against a worn leather belt, a barrel chest—and then the hard, knowing features of the sort she'd expected to encounter here, if older than a
nticipated. A man with a history. A man who hadn't expected her, but wasn't surprised to see her.

  "Kaixo, lagunok," he greeted her, dryly enough so she wished she knew exactly what he'd said. And to the man with the gun, in Spanish, "She is perfectly correct. Where is the semi-automatic?"

  The man muttered something about the semi-automatic's heritage, and Kimmer gathered he wasn't comfortable using it. "Get rid of that thing," she told the older man, nodding at the pistol. "And what did you say to me?"

  "Ah," he said. "An informal greeting to a colleague. He nodded at the girl. "Now, you'll release my granddaughter? I myself am quite comfortable with the semi-automatic."

  "Owen Hunter gave me your name," Kimmer said. "He planned for us to meet under better circumstances, but things happened and this is what we've got. Can you deal with that, or is something ugly going to happen here?"

  "If Danele is unhurt, we will talk."

  Not exactly a blanket reassurance, but sincere words; almost before he finished speaking, Kimmer released the girl and gave her a little shove.

  Danele scrambled away, bounded to her feet, and ran to the foot of the stairs to be with her grandfather—although not without wickedly kicking Kimmer in the leg on the way by. Kimmer responded instantly, a blow that would have taken out the girl's knee—if she hadn't pulled it.

  Barely.

  The girl was oblivious; her grandfather, not so much. "You are a woman of decisiveness," he said. "Or do you trust so easily? I think not, from what I just saw."

  "Edorta Ginea," she said. Not interested in conversation, no. "My name is Kimmer Reed. I'm here to—"

  "Yes, yes." He waved her off—not an easy task with lanky young Danele twined around his arm. "You are here to guard the Etxea. And apparently to foil the Basajaun."

  Then again, he wouldn't be a contact for Owen if he wasn't a formidable man.

  He smiled, displaying tobacco-stained teeth. A genuine, self-amused smile. "You expected someone other than an old man, yes? But I have lived through times you don't even want to imagine—from Franco to my own zealous people."

  So have I, Kimmer thought—but again held her tongue. Not the time, not the place. She rearranged herself, sitting straighter, crossing her legs—and took both hands out of her pockets to rest them in her lap. The other man—the girl's father—came to attention, along with his pistol. "Seriously," she said. "Just put that thing down."

  "Good faith goes both ways," Ginea told his—what, son-in-law? There was no resemblance. "Give her credit. And if she moves wrong, you can fling yourself on her as your daughter did, and squash her flat."

  Ha ha. Kimmer wasn't nearly as amused as Ginea. Not by any of it. Her leg throbbed where the girl had kicked her—that was going to be another bruise, dammit. And she didn't have time to waste here.

  "The Etxea has been stolen," she said, making note that the man did indeed put the weapon on a workbench. Still too close to hand, but if she had to beat him to it, she could. "There's been a young woman, Larraitz, working there. I need background on her." She'd seen it on Jurdan's face—his reaction to her absence from the villa this morning. Everything that had been explained by the young woman's manipulating ways and her fears of the consequences...

  No longer so explicable.

  She said, rapid-fire, "I need to know about Andoni Gandiaga—who are his enemies, what steps are they likely to take if the Etxea falls into their hands?"

  Ginea's face had grown grim. "This is not good. None of it. Those young people—"

  "I need to know more about the Etxea, too," Kimmer added, when he didn't quite seem inclined to finish that thought. "I have little understanding of its bigger meaning to Euskal Herria. Why everyone wants it."

  "Owen did not brief you?" Ginea said with some scorn. He sat heavily on the steps, and Danele sat beside him.

  "Señora de Florez kept many details to herself." Kimmer couldn't keep her annoyance from her expression. "Since then, the Basajaun have complicated our attempts to absorb information. I know there's national emotion behind it."

  Ginea snorted, easy enough to read. Understatement.

  "There's another thing," she told him, ignoring his frown. "My partner went missing when the Etxea did. I need to find him." I need to find him RIGHT NOW.

  "He went missing?" said Danele's father. "Maybe he—"

  "Don't," Kimmer told him, and she didn't bother to keep the danger from her voice. "Don't even say it."

  "Why not?" Danele asked. "How do you know?"

  Kimmer turned a hard look on her. "I know."

  Ginea ignored the exchange. "Tell me what happened."

  From the top of the stairs, an older woman's voice filtered down—not strong; not in Spanish. A query. Ginea responded with a gentle tone. When he turned back to Kimmer, he said, "My wife wants to know if I'm bringing guests up for coffee. I told her we have no guest. She is unwell, and I will not have her disturbed. Do we have that understanding?"

  "Of course," Kimmer said. "Give me what I need, and I'll be gone."

  "Owen Hunter cannot provide you with these things?"

  Kimmer snorted. "He provided me with you," she said. "And words on paper." Files that hadn't revealed any concerns within the Doña's staff, when they'd found Atze belligerent, Jurdan conflicted, and Larraitz...well, it remained to be seen. "Your resources are better."

  Not to mention that the less she contacted Owen, the more deniability he had. And the less time she'd spend fighting to do things her way.

  Ginea tugged thoughtfully on his ear. "Tell me of the theft."

  Chagrined, she shook her head, fingers playing with the overlong cuffs of Rio's jacket. "I don't know what happened. We were preparing to install layered security measures today, after which it would have been impossible to get to the Etxea. Yesterday we learned the Basajaun knew of its presence, so we decided to stand watch. That's all I know. They used—" and here she scowled, until finally she put her hand over her nose and mouth, mimed putting herself out, and simply used the English word again. "Chloroform. I don't remember exactly what happened, if I ever knew."

  Fighting at the stairs, the world gone cloying and thick but her blows still striking home. Voices of panic and abrupt decision, being shoved backwards...

  "Ah, but you know something." Ginea raised his thick old-man's eyebrows at her. "Was there blood? Were there bullet holes? Were there bodies?"

  "No," Kimmer said, wincing at the very thought. "And at least one person knew the alarm code for the house." Though if Kimmer and Rio had been allowed to interview the staff directly...they would have been alert to potential trouble.

  Ginea had followed her train of thought, more or less. "Larraitz, you're thinking."

  She shrugged. "It makes sense." It especially made sense with Jurdan's reaction to discovering the alarm had been turned off. Marina, Atze, and the Doña might well blame Rio for that, but Kimmer knew better. And she knew Jurdan hadn't been on the grounds when she'd made her escape; he would have tried to stop her.

  So that meant he was either after Larraitz...or he was with her.

  "Jurdan Etxeberri," she added. "I need to know more about him."

  "Well, it wasn't the Basajaun." Danele's father spoke bluntly, his voice full of scorn. "They would have left a blood trail."

  They would have tried. But she couldn't argue. It certainly would have been their style. Why bother with an alarm code when you can blast the whole door frame away with illicit full auto weaponry?

  "There are some young people just newly pretending to be important," Ginea said, eyeing her thoughtfully. "I'll look into it."

  She didn't pretend not to understand, and she didn't mince words. "In return for?"

  "Recovery of the Etxea." If he was taken aback by her directness, he didn't let it slow him down. "And protection of Gandiaga, if that's what it takes."

  "You think I'm right." She drew her knees up to her chin, no longer concerned about Danele's father. "You think the theft and his safety are tied together.
"

  "The Etxea is a great symbol for all of Euskal Herria," Ginea said. "The Basajaun would not fail to use it as a rallying symbol. It would spur them to do things they might otherwise not even try."

  "Because of its power," Kimmer murmured, more to herself than Ginea. "Because it'll carry the day. And Gandiaga has been a thorn in their violently nationalist sides for a while now, it seems."

  "You understand more than you think," Ginea said, approval on his weathered face. Approval and...satisfaction.

  Satisfaction. Kimmer suddenly felt as though she'd stepped into a pair of shoes left lying around—as though Ginea had been waiting for someone to fill those shoes, and now wouldn't hesitate to use her.

  He nodded, an eerie echo to her thoughts. "Yes, I'll look into the matter of your missing partner. And while I'm doing that, Danele will take you to some people who will know of the Doña, and who can help you learn of Larraitz, and Jurdan Etxeberri."

  "Aitatxi!" Danele blurted, looking at Kimmer in disbelief and then to her grandfather.

  "You speak our language, child," Ginea said. "She needs your translation. You will not, I trust, kick her again?"

  Yeah. Let's not have any more of that.

  "Aita," the girl's father said, moving closer—albeit keeping a certain amount of room between himself and Kimmer. "Are you certain...will she be safe?"

  "There is nothing dangerous," Ginea said. "Conversations with neighbors."

  But Kimmer snorted. "She's safe. I know how to use a semi-automatic," she said. "And I have one."

  That startled him. "Here? Now?"

  "What do you think?" Oh, the joy of these pockets. It was really too bad she'd have to shed it in the day's heat. "I'm not going to let anything happen to the girl." But she shifted her gaze to the sullen young teen and added sweetly, "Other than my unavoidable and understandable reaction to hitting, kicking, pinching, or tripping."

  "I was protecting my papa." Danele's face held the sullen look of a teen who knew she'd gone over the line with that last kick.

  As patently reasonable as she ever got, Kimmer said, "but you don't need to do that any longer, do you?"