Blue Knight (27 page)

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’ll 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.

She pushed the gun into her skirt pocket and made sure the room was as she’d found it, switched off the light and left the house. She climbed down the stairs, trying to remember the night’s passwords so she could pass by the guards at the bottom. It was late. They wouldn’t let her pass if she didn’t give them the right words.

Finally, on the last flight of stairs down, she remembered the words of the day. Her mind gave them up for her. She spoke the words to the guards when they asked for them. In turn she asked them if they’d seen Captain De la Cruz. By the light of the sodium arc lamps they used to keep the beach well-lit, she managed to make herself look coy and flirty and they laughed at her. One of them suggested the Captain was along the beach up by the billets, training with his men.

She thanked them, fluttering her eyelashes at them. They gave one of the half salutes they gave civilians and she passed on. After a few paces she kicked off her shoes, which were a nuisance in the dry sand. She left them sitting there.

There was a stiff wind coming in off the sea tonight, making things cool. She might have felt cold if she stopped to feel anything at all, for she was only wearing a sleeveless cotton shirt and the full cotton skirt that swirled around her ankles and hung around her hips. It dragged farther down her hips by the weight of the gun, but she didn’t care about that much, either.

She hoisted her skirt up a bit higher and kept walking.

There were two lines of men exercising in the sand, facing the rolling waves. Gas lanterns sat on either side, casting small pools of light. One officer stood in front of them. Captain Lucas De la Cruz.

Téra adjusted the direction of her walk and headed straight for him. No coyness this time. No backing down. No politeness.

She saw the men hesitate when they saw her, especially when she drew the gun.

Lucas turned to face her.

“Dismiss your men,” she told him.

“Téra, for heaven’s sake, child.”

She raised the gun to aim at his chest. “You tried to kill Daniel Castellano.”

The condescension was wiped from his face. He glanced at his men. “You’re dismissed.”

“But—”

“Sir—”

“Go!” he roared at them.

They scattered.

Lucas faced her, his hands loose at his sides. His eyes were shadowed pits, this far along the beach, showing nothing. The only thing that moved on him was the white shirt. The officer’s shirt of the real Vistarian army.

“The only way you can know that is if he told you,” he said. He paused. “So Nemesis is still alive. Well, well.”

The wall protecting her heart crumpled. Pain rushed in. “You’re not denying it,” she breathed, horrified.

Lucas spread his hands. “I tried to warn you, Téra. I tried to make you stay away.”

She fired.

The shot made him stagger back, but didn’t knock him off his feet. A shoulder hit. He put his hand up to his right shoulder. “In and out, Téra. Didn’t your brother ever teach you how to kill a man?” He turned and walked away, toward the billets. Blood was seeping through the back of his shirt, but not a lot of it. Not nearly enough.

Téra lifted the gun to fire again, but she couldn’t shoot him in the back. She couldn’t. She walked after him. “You lied to me.”

“I never lied. Not once,” he said over his shoulder.

“By omission!” she screamed. She hurried along the sand to push ahead of him, to get in front of him. It halted him. She turned and raised the gun again, but her hand was shaking. “You’re an
insurrecto
! A spy!”

He laughed and the laugh seemed to shake his entire body. “Of course I am. Somebody has to do it!” He looked at her and sighed. “Somebody has to do the dirty work. Somebody has to pay.” He stepped closer. “Twelve inches, Téra. You can’t possibly miss from here.”

She tried to squeeze the trigger and let it go. Four times. Each time she couldn’t bring herself to put enough pressure on the trigger to fire it.

Finally she dropped the gun to her side. “You made me love you.”

“No. I didn’t.” He stepped around her and walked slowly up the beach toward his billet. The blood was spreading on his shirt now, a black stain in the moonlight.

She followed him helplessly. “What are you doing?”

“Walking.” His breathing sounded bubbly. She wondered if she had done more damage with the bullet than she had thought.

Perhaps he thought so too, for when he reached the billet he paused at the steps and held onto the iron rail, like he was catching his breath. Then he climbed one step at a time and pushed the door open.

Puzzled she followed him in.

There was a gas lamp burning low. Her pictures were still all over the walls. In fact there were more, including photos from the wedding.

Lucas sat on the edge of the bunk, still moving slowly. He pulled from under the thin mattress a small, powerful-looking laptop and what she thought was a battery case, except it had a black, thick stubby aerial attached to it. He set it up on the small desk next to the bunk and turned it on.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, a horrible suspicion forming.

Lucas pulled his shirt open to show her the wound her bullet had made. It looked small and red and undramatic. “I think you hit the lung, Téra. Now the lung is collapsing. I’m going to pass out soon. Then you can do anything you want with me. So I need to send one last message. The news that Nemesis still lives is really too good to leave sitting here in Acapulco, because there’s only one place you could have got that news. Only one place where it would have reached you before it reached your brother first. Daniel tried to reach Duardo at his old home in Pascuallita which means Daniel has to be on Vistaria.”

He grimaced as he plugged the laptop into the battery and turned on the laptop. “I happen to know a bit about Daniel’s personal history and the only thing that would make him reach out to Duardo at all is dire need, which means he’s trapped.” Lucas looked up from the laptop. “Now, the idea of the great Nemesis being trapped anywhere is almost laughable, given the size of Vistaria and the joke that is Serrano’s standing army, but there is one tiny pocket of pure security on the island at the moment. One place where, if Nemesis by some small chance happened to find himself, it would force him to sweat enough to perhaps reach out to Duardo.” He started typing.