Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (25 page)

The voice at the other end softened. “But what happens if she takes pictures of and writes about things that people, very powerful people, don't want seen?”

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Talia had shot starving babies in the Sudan, looters in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, earthquake victims in Guatemala being cheated out of food and medical aid by greedy military generals. These damning pictures flashed across Mercy’s memory. Talia was always pushing the envelope of social justice.

“That’s what she does. She shows the world the ugly truth behind human nature. Taking photographs isn’t a crime, CeeDee. And the State Department wouldn’t support or protect anyone who tried to stop her.”

“The problem is, dear, this time it's not a matter of just taking pictures. It's taking
things
.”

“I don't understand. Now you're calling my mother a thief?”

“I don't know what to call her. But you see, in that hellish place where Talia is now, there has been a great deal of property of varying value left behind. Much of it worthless rubble, I’m sure, except to those who once owned it. But in places around Chernobyl many homes belonged to relatively well-off people. So I'm told. When you consider the jewelry, artwork, family heirlooms, even the building materials and motor vehicles abandoned at the time of the explosion… Well, the sum value would be substantial. Millions of dollars. Billions, perhaps.”

“But everything that was there at the time of the reactor disaster would have been contaminated with radioactive isotopes,” Mercy said.

“Exactly. Imagine a woman slipping a lovely topaz ring onto her finger, or a pearl necklace around her throat. Wearing her jewelry, day after day, without realizing she is slowly poisoning herself with radiation.” Voices that sounded like kitchen staff filtered between her words. “What if there are people living in rooms built with irradiated lumber and brick? Or serving food to their children on pretty imported ceramic plates, which just happen to have come from a factory near Chernobyl—but, of course, carry no markings to prove it.”

Mercy was horrified. “My mother would never have anything to do with such a sick black-market scheme.”

“I’m not sure I believe it either, dear. But there you are. She’s in a tangle, at the very least. If the Russian mafia—ruthless pricks that they are—have been moving radioactive goods out of Ukraine, they would enlist people as carriers, to smuggle smaller, more valuable items out of the country. Talia, with her frequent excursions around the world, might be a most useful sort of person in that way. She is less likely to be stopped and searched on reentering the U.S. or crossing other borders.”

Mercy shook her head, miserable, her mouth too dry to speak.

CeeDee whispered through the phone, “Our dedicated FBI and their Interpol friends are tracing these irradiated items, trying to keep them out of the hands of the public. It’s all very hush-hush. Avoid panic. No leaks to the press.”

Mercy drew a shuddering breath, “Oh, God.”

“I’ve heard,” CeeDee continued, “that Interpol has asked the U.S. State Department not to interfere.”

Peter knew all of this and kept it from me?
Her heart felt as if it were shutting down. Her body drained of all strength. She dropped her throbbing forehead onto the heels of her hands.
No, no, no!

But why should she be surprised? Peter had cheated on her with other women. That was a form of dishonesty. Why not side with the Washington big boys and lie to her about her mother's disappearance? He’d never liked her mother. She’d clearly underestimated his capacity for deception.

Never again,
she thought.
Never, never, never again, Peter, you rat!

Mercy swallowed to get her mouth working again. “I’ll go to her myself then,” she said into the phone. “Fuck the visa! I’m an American citizen with a U.S. passport. I’ll find a back door. Through Romania or Poland, somewhere.”

“Don’t you suppose they'll have already closed those doors to you?” CeeDee asked, her tone gentle, reasonable.

“What do you mean?”

“Your passport has been flagged, Mercy. You won’t be allowed on international flights other than those between the U.S. and Mexico. Didn’t you realize you were being watched at Dulles when you left Washington?”

It took all of her energy just to breathe. Her hands had gone numb. Her stomach lurched
. Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!
No wonder she'd been able to find out so little. If Peter was in on this conspiracy to hold back information from her, no doubt Lucius Clay, a government employee, was also part of it.

The voice in her ear said, “You’re on Homeland Security’s hot list, dear girl. I’m truly sorry.
They
don't want you interfering. And that’s all I dare say on the subject.”

The phone went dead.

Stunned, numb to her bones, Mercy stared at her phone as the screen slowly faded to black. A perfect representation of her mood.

31

In the hour since she'd spoken with CeeDee O'Donnell, and depleted her fury in an exhaustive cursing session, she'd been unable to move. Paralysis, born of an undeniable sense of her own helplessness, kept her from doing anything.

If Peter had been at home with her, she'd have confronted him, then and there. Demanding that he tell her what the hell was going on. But he'd left the city, with part of his staff, for a three-day junket to the northern border towns—he claimed, “to assess recent violence and gather cultural and economic data.” But could she believe anything he said now?

A gentle knock rattled her bedroom door.

“Señora?” Lupe sounded apologetic. Mercy grunted, and Lupe cracked open the door and peered around its edge. “I did not ask him in,” she whispered. “He insist. Even when I say Señor Davis he has gone away and you are busy, he say he will wait.”

Mercy bolted upright on the bed. “Who is it?” Clay? Another man on her fuck-you list that she'd gladly lynch. And why was her normally strident housekeeper whispering?

“El Señor Hidalgo,” Lupe breathed, her eyes wide and urgent.

Mercy’s heart stopped. She bit down on her bottom lip. He’d come after her?

“I think he very angry.” The plump, brown woman lowered worried eyes. “I tell him you visiting friends, not come home until late. Maybe he get tired waiting and leave?”

“Is he alone?” She envisioned him flanked by his henchmen, and shivered.

“
Si
, alone.”

Mercy breathed—one, two, three gulps of oxygen—and thought about options. Avoidance actually might be the wisest course. But she refused to hide from the man in her own home, and he was already here. “I’ll see him now.”

Lupe rolled her eyes, shook her head, and mumbled something that sounded like a prayer.

When Mercy stepped through her parlor doorway Sebastian was standing at the far end of the room, looking out one of the street-side windows, his back to her. He must have heard the faint creak of the door hinge. Before she could say anything, he spun around and sprinted across the room toward her like an athlete who'd already warmed up for the100-yard dash.

He stopped barely a foot short of knocking her down. His face was flushed with anger, his entire body looked taut with the effort to control itself. “
Why
did you take my daughter without my permission?” he roared in her face.

Mercy stood her ground. “What happened on that road wasn’t
my
fault.” She glared up at him, her implication clear.
It was your doing, asshole!

If he got the message, he didn’t let it show. “Maria is young and vulnerable. She needs protection. You had no right to ignore my rules.”

“You can’t keep her a prisoner forever.”

“I can do whatever I goddamn please! I am her father.”

“So you bully and order her around, as if she were one of your ranch hands? Is she in training to become part of your crime syndicate? Is that what you have in mind for her future?”

Mercy didn’t wait for his response. She veered around him, yanked open the heavy draperies from the nearest window. Whatever happened next in this room, she wanted it visible to the outside world.

Sebastian slammed aside a chair rather than walking around it. In two long strides he stood in front of her again, his stance threatening. “What you did was irresponsible and stupid! The child will have nightmares for the rest of her life. You subjected her to horrors that would sicken a grown man.”

Mercy stared at him, appalled. “
I
subjected her? Whose damn truck was it?”

His eyes blazed. A blue vein in his temple pulsed. He stepped forward and, rather than being knocked over, she fell back against a rosewood console.
Nowhere to go now
.

Mercy’s mind spun. An already frightened Lupe must hear them arguing. Would she call the police? But what good would that do when Hidalgo seemed capable of buying off any cop in the city?

She reached behind her, groped for one of the small marble sculptures she’d set out for display days ago. Found one. The cool stone sphere the size of a softball nested against her hot palm. She closed her fingers around it. One good blow to the head might only stun the man, but it would buy her precious time in which to escape and run for help.

Perversely, her anger urged her to continue baiting him.

“I guess I shouldn't be shocked the police haven't dragged you off to prison where you belong. Any man cruel enough to cause such incredible suffering—”

“It wasn’t
me
!” he shouted, reaching around her body to pin her arms at her sides. “For God’s sake, stay out of it, Mercy. If you don't stop, you’ll ruin everything.”

She froze, confused.
Ruin?
Was he insane as well as being a criminal? As a law-abiding citizen, why wouldn't she try to interfere with his horrible slavery business? Why would any decent person tolerate such wicked treatment of human beings?

Before she could come up with a retort, he crushed her body to his chest in a fierce embrace, shocking her to stillness. The heat and strength of his arms reminded her of their clinch the night she'd broken into his suite. And of the kiss. That damned kiss that had left her hungering for more, despite the chilling knowledge of who and what he was.

He brought his lips close to her ear and lowered his voice. “Maria told me what she saw on the road. Everything. The gore. The dead.” His voice caught, broke, trembled. “My child. My poor little girl, sobbing in her room for hours. It broke my heart.” He shook his head, and his lips brushed the rim of her ear. “She wouldn’t let me comfort her. Wouldn’t let me touch her or come near her.” He let out an anguished groan. “You have no right to do this to us.”

His heart hammered against her breast. His emotions were real, she was sure of it. But how could she believe he was truly moved by what had happened, when he was the cause? How could he believe
she
was the one who had done something wrong?

“I’m not the one kidnapping people, treating them like cattle, robbing them of their rights,” she ground out between her teeth. “You should rot in hell for—”

“Enough!”  Reaching behind her, he pried the marble orb from her fingers and stepped away.

She cringed, lifted her hands in front of her, prepared to fend off a blow. If he came at her, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

But he didn’t use the stone sculpture against her. He set it gently back on the console then turned to point a warning finger at her. “
You
will stay away from my daughter. You won’t try to see or talk to her. Not ever again.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

“Things are far more complicated, Mrs. Davis, than you can possibly know. I told you before; change is in the air. It is inevitable. Trust me, you will be sorry if you stand in my way. You will force me to—” His voice cracked again. Sebastian drew a shaky breath, looked away for a moment as if to collect himself. When his gaze shifted back to her, his eyes were as black as sin, as serious as death. “Don’t test me.”

32

The embassy driver doubled as a bodyguard. Peter sat in the back seat directly behind him. Carlotta in the middle. Brad Stevens next to the right window. No one in the front passenger seat. That was reserved for the AK-47.

Months earlier a new travel policy had been inaugurated. A Toyota Sequoia with U.S. diplomatic plates, very much like the SUV they were now riding in, had been ambushed by four vehicles while driving south of the city toward Cuernavaca. Gunmen had riddled the car with a hail storm of bullets. No one died, that time, but two of the three occupants of the Sequoia suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the leg, stomach and hand. It would have been worse had the SUV not been modified with steel panels in the doors.

The attackers turned out to be Mexican federal police. The lead vehicle had mistaken the diplomats for members of the vicious Beltran Leyva cartel they had been hunting in the area. How they missed the SUV’s diplomatic plates, no one could say. Once the lead car opened fire, the occupants of the other pursuing vehicles joined in. It was a diplomatic nightmare—embarrassing for Mexico, hard to explain to American citizens who wanted to know why a “friendly” country had attacked their representatives.