Forbidden (11 page)

She waved the money at one of the men, and spoke in staccato Spanish. But then, to Cal’s surprise, she turned back to look at him. When she spoke again, it was in clear, almost accentless American English. “This will cover the cost of a meal.”

Cal was shoved down onto one of the benches, and he had to brace himself against the table to keep his head from being pushed into the unfinished wood. Kayla was pushed down next to him just as roughly. He reached for her, both pulling her close to him and, in one smooth motion, backhanding the man who had treated her so brutally.

He was slammed forward onto the table, and an ancient but extremely well-oiled revolver was nearly shoved up his nose for his trouble.

“Cal, no!” he heard Kayla say as the dark-haired girl gave a crisp order in Spanish.

The gun disappeared, and Kayla put her arms around him in relief.

The wound on her arm was bleeding through both the makeshift bandage and her shirt, but she was thinking of no one but him. “Don’t you
dare
get yourself killed,” she hissed through clenched teeth, shaking him slightly, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Don’t you
dare
do
any
thing like that again. They have guns, Einstein, and we don’t!”

“Listen to your girlfriend.” The girl sat down across from them as someone else placed plates filled with what looked like roasted fish along with refried beans and some kind of greens in front of them both.

“Who are you?” Cal asked.

“We are no one.” Her smile didn’t touch her darkly glittering eyes. “Or so our government would like us to believe.” She fell silent for a moment. “You claim to be the brother of the legendary Americano.”

Kayla leaned forward, eagerness in her voice. “Do you know him?”

The look in the girl’s eyes was unreadable. She would have been one hell of an opponent in a poker game. “I didn’t say that I did.”

“Do you know where he is? Is he still alive? Is he all right?”

The girl ignored Kayla. “You claim to be his brother, yet you carry no proof of your identity. You expect us simply to believe you?”

“I have proof of who I am—back in my hotel room.”

“Which is what you would say if you were only pretending, no?”

Cal let out a burst of air in frustration, knowing that the girl was right. Why should she believe him? “Let me go and get it. I can bring it back here—”

“You don’t really think that we’d still be here, waiting for an ambush?” The girl laughed. “No, I can think of other ways that I would choose to die, Mr. Whoever-You-Claim-to-Be.”

Kayla leaned forward again. “His name is Calvin Bartlett and he
is
Liam’s brother. I know they don’t look much alike, but they had different mothers. Cal was told that Liam was killed in a bus bombing two years ago. If his brother is still alive, if we still have cause to hope, please tell us now.”

But the girl didn’t give them any answers. “I’m sorry,” she said, standing up. “We cannot put gas in your motorcycle. We have none to spare. In fact, we’ve taken what little oil you had—I’m sure you understand.”

With that, she turned and strode quickly to the darkness that surrounded the clearing.

“Please,” Kayla called after her. “Is he alive? Can’t you even tell us that?”

But the girl had already stepped out of the light and disappeared.

         
10
         

No sooner had the girl with the machine gun disappeared than a murmur rippled through the crowd.

Cal leaned toward Kayla. “What are they saying?”

“There’s a truck coming,” she translated. As she watched, about thirty men, women, and children vanished into the jungle, taking their plates and cups with them, leaving most of the tables clear.

Four women rushed around with cloths, wiping the tables clean. Someone else turned up the radio. Trumpet music with a Cuban beat filled the air.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Cal said uneasily.

One of the women whisked their plates away from them. “Go,” she spat out. “
Dejame!
Or blood will be spilled!”

Threat or premonition, that was one warning Kayla didn’t need to hear twice. She stood up. “They want us to leave.”

Cal moved quickly, taking her by the hand and pulling her toward the path that led up to the jungle road.

“The motorcycle?”

“To hell with it!”

But the people at the roadhouse didn’t want the bike left behind. “Señor!” A teenage boy came chasing after them, pushing the motorcycle up the path. “Don’t leave this here. They will find it and cause trouble!”

“Who will find it?” Kayla asked him. “Who does this truck belong to?”

“It is an army truck,” he answered, pushing the bike harder up the hill, forcing them to follow. “There are soldiers searching the mountains tonight.”

“Searching? For what?”

The boy looked at her as if she were a total idiot. “For you,” he said. “For the two of you. The word from the shortwave radio is that two Americans are missing from Puerto Norte.” He put on a burst of speed to push the bike the last few feet up the hill and onto the road. Turning to Cal, he gave him the handlebars. “They are using this excuse to search all of the towns and villages, all of the homes in the mountains. You must make it stop. You must let them find you.”

The truck’s headlights were blinding.

The oversized vehicle groaned to a stop twenty-five feet away. Orders were shouted in Spanish, followed by the sound of an entire platoon of feet jumping down from the back of the truck.

And for the second time that evening, Kayla found herself staring into the barrels of quite a number of very nasty-looking guns.

She lifted her hands, glancing over at Cal as more commands were shouted. “Brace yourself. We’re going to be body-searched again,” she warned him in a low voice.

His eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Why? If we’re the ones they’re looking for—”

“You
are
the ones we’re looking for, Señor Bartlett.” The voice was familiar, but its owner was standing with his back to the truck’s headlights. Backlit the way he was, Kayla couldn’t make out more than the shadowy figure of a man.

But then the man stepped forward, next to them, so that the light was shining on his face. It was Tomás Vásquez, the man they’d met at the beach. The owner of that sleek black car. The man who had agreed to help them search for the truth about Liam. He was wearing evening clothes—a black tuxedo and a crisp white shirt. Clearly, he’d been pulled away from some high-society party.

“A search is not necessary, Sergeant,” he told one of the soldiers. “If you will take care of their motorcycle, they will come with me.” He turned to Kayla, genuine concern in his eyes as he saw the blood still seeping through the sleeve of her shirt. Cal’s shirt. “Are you injured?”

“I just…I fell,” she lied lamely, unwilling to tell him that she’d been shot. After all, she didn’t know who had been shooting at them—one of the guerrillas, or one of the government soldiers. Trust me, he’d said, but she couldn’t. Not entirely.

“Will you require a doctor?”

Kayla quickly shook her head. “It’s not…It’s nothing, really.”

“Perhaps you will allow me to have some bandages and antibiotic ointment brought to your hotel,” Vásquez said in his gentle voice. “Infections are much too common with our humid weather.”

“Thank you,” Kayla said.

“My pleasure.”

The soldiers around them were wearing a different uniform from the one she’d seen on the soldiers in town. These men were members of the Special Forces Police, she realized.

Liam had told her that he learned from his research on San Salustiano before leaving for the island that the Special Forces Police was little better than Nazi Germany’s SS. The SFP, according to long-standing government policy, were allowed access into any structure on the island, regardless of whether or not it was a private home or business. The SFP could restrict the movements of any private citizen at any time for the purpose of national security. According to Liam, the list of civil rights violations committed by the group was dozens of pages long—and that had been over two years ago.

And here was Tomás Vásquez, supposedly of the Council on Tourism, giving orders to an SFP sergeant. It didn’t make sense.

Vásquez led them around behind the truck to where his expensive-looking car was waiting. “I would have requested one of my men find you an extra shirt,” he said to Cal, “but there are certain health risks involved with wearing a uniform this far out in the mountains.” He gestured to the car. “Won’t you get in?”

Kayla let Cal take the front seat. She climbed into the back, breathing in the new-car aroma that lingered among the leather-covered softly cushioned seats.

Despite the fact that it was the sort of car that often had a hired driver, Vásquez got behind the wheel himself. “The hotel called at nine, notifying us that you had left early in the morning and had not yet returned,” he told them as he turned the key and the engine hummed softly to life. “We are always eager to avoid what could become an international incident, so I’m sure you realize how relieved we are to find you safe and sound so quickly.”

“We ran out of gas,” Cal said as the car moved smoothly along the jungle road.

Vásquez glanced briefly at Kayla in the rearview mirror. “An unfortunate event. May I recommend your staying in Puerto Norte and taking advantage of the resort’s four-star amenities for the remainder of your visit?”

“You can certainly recommend it,” Cal drawled.

The other man sighed. “But you will not follow my advice.”

Kayla leaned forward. “Of course we will. I think we got a good enough taste of the mountains today and—”

“I have received permission to take you to the site of the bus bombing that took William Bartlett’s life,” Vásquez interrupted her. “I shall pick you up at your hotel tomorrow, say, ten o’clock?”

“All right,” Cal said. He glanced back at Kayla. “Will you be up for that, or will you want to stay back at the hotel?”

She just looked at him, narrowing her eyes very slightly.

He actually smiled. “Sorry. Dumb question.”

“I also found some information you might be interested in,” Vásquez volunteered. “The intelligence reports I have had access to have mentioned an unnamed American man—your Americano. From the information I gathered, he was a mercenary who had joined forces with the rebels. He was believed to have been a former U.S. Navy SEAL. Quite a formidable enemy, apparently.”

“Was?” Cal asked.

“Yes, he is dead.”

As they reached the top of a rise, Kayla could see the lights of Puerto Norte in the distance. It looked sparkling and beautiful—a diamond in the darkness, not the capital city of a tiny country drenched with the blood of its people as it fought a decade-long civil war.

“He was fatally wounded when he was apprehended four weeks ago,” Vásquez said, real regret in his voice. “I was on temporary leave at the time—I am afraid I only read the memos and reports of the incident.” Vásquez shook his head. “You must put the last of your hopes to rest. The Americano was not your brother. And even if he were, he is no longer alive.”

Kayla stood on the balcony, looking up at the city of Puerto Norte, the lights clinging to the mountain that rose up behind the resort hotel.

Cal leaned against the frame of the sliding glass door, just watching her.

She had cleaned out and bandaged the cut in her arm by herself, refusing his offer of help. She’d showered and changed into a loose-fitting dress. The fabric flowed gracefully around her—the effect made her look impossibly beautiful. Of course, in Cal’s opinion, Kayla Grey had looked impossibly beautiful dressed in grubby cutoff jeans and his old, bloodstained T-shirt.

The streets below echoed with music and voices. Even though he hadn’t made a sound, Kayla turned toward him, somehow knowing he was there.

“Someone’s having a party tonight,” she said.

He pushed himself forward, stepping out onto the balcony, even though he knew he was tempting fate by moving closer to her.

They had privacy to speak freely. He’d casually thrown the towel from his own shower over the video camera lens, and the radio was playing in his room, loudly enough to cover the sound of their voices from the balcony. And he’d checked this outside area thoroughly. It wasn’t bugged.

“I called the front desk for a late dinner reservation and they recommended we order room service and dine in tonight,” he told her. “That ‘party’ is a division of soldiers getting leave for the first time in four months. The concierge says they’ve been up in the mountains for at least that long. Apparently things can get a little wild, even in the hotel restaurant.”

Kayla had been watching him, her eyes colorless in the dim light. “Cal, do you think he’s dead?”

“Liam.” He said the kid’s name aloud though he knew for damn sure exactly whom she’d been talking about.

“There’s no way Liam could’ve been mistaken for a Navy SEAL.” She laughed, but it was a painful sound. “I mean, come on, really.”

Cal looked at her, and his thoughts raced back to the last time they’d kissed. His body immediately responded, painfully. Here they were, talking about whether or not Liam was dead, and he couldn’t keep his mind off his own selfish pleasure.

“He’s not dead.” Cal spoke the words experimentally, to see how they sounded. They sounded as if he were clinging hopefully to the side of a sheer cliff with the very tips of his broken fingernails.

“What if he is?” Kayla asked. “What if he were the man who died four weeks ago? Four
weeks
…” Making a small sound in the back of her throat, she turned away, gripping the railing. “God, if he was alive all that time, only to die four weeks ago, I’ll never forgive myself for not getting here sooner.”

She was crying. Cal could see the lights of the city reflected in the moisture on her face. He knew exactly how she felt, and he felt his own eyes fill with tears. He knew the exact sensation, the precise ache in her heart at the thought that Liam might have been alive all those months, with neither of them doing anything to help him.

“If he’s dead, I hope to God he died in that explosion. If he didn’t, then we’re going to have to live with the fact that he spent nearly two years facing torture and God knows what and—” She couldn’t stop a sob from escaping. “He was my
friend
. I didn’t believe it when I heard that he died, but I didn’t do anything about it. I should have come down here
then
, I should have—”