Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (28 page)

Joshua, when he was not watching the television, kept them busy.

“You have to pack three ways,” he explained. “Until we know if this is the start of a full out revolution, or just a fart in a bottle, we have to assume the worse. So you pack one small bag with every essential you can’t live without if you’re crossing national borders—passport and other ID, money, Tampax.”

“Dad!” Minnie gasped, genuinely shocked.

He shook his finger at her. “I mean it, Minerva. When you’re on the run, you won’t be able to stop at the nearest 7-11 for that sort of stuff if you need it. So take it with you. But pack as lightly as you can because you’re going to be carrying it with you all the way. The second packing is a second pack or a suitcase that you can carry with less essential stuff. Clothes, toiletries, anything that you could live without if you and the suitcase part ways.”

“And the third pack?” Calli asked.

“Everything else,” he said simply. “Suitcases, boxes and crates, ready to ship. It may never leave Vistaria, but we should be ready if the opportunity occurs.”

* * * * *

On the second night they went to bed early, all of them tired from packing and worrying. Calli hoped she would sleep well. She had a feeling that sleep would be in short supply for a while.

The fighting at the silver mine had ceased at sunset and the rebels had receded back into the forest and disappeared. The army had combed the island and established that the raid had been launched from boats in the channel and the rebels had made their escape that way, too. They had gone back to their mountain hideouts.

That evening the government station had shown footage of the president visiting the silver mine and the families of the victims of the raid. Jose Escobedo had reassured Vistarians repeatedly that the raid could not possibly presage further violence, because the rebels had achieved their apparent aim—the mine was shut down. In addition, the Americans had fled the main island and now considered leaving the country. Joshua had translated the rest with a sour look.
The loss of American know-how would mean the end of the mine and the doom of Vistaria’s prosperity for the near future. When Vistarians felt the pinch of a tight economy once more they would do well to remember this sad day....

“Politicians,” he said, making it sound like a curse. “Even Escobedo cannot resist scoring points from this thing.”

But Calli’s attention was skewered by the grainy outside-broadcast images on the screen. Nicolás Escobedo had also been on the island and walked amongst the small crowd of people that followed the president about the island. She watched as the camera panned past him, as he turned to speak to someone by his shoulder.

Her heart stirred, almost painfully. She forced herself to look away from the television. Minnie watched her but said nothing.

Joshua turned the television off after that. “I think it might be all right,” he declared, rubbing his hand through his hair, scrubbing at it. “I think it was a one-off thing, like the president said. Nothing else has happened for over twenty-four hours. We might be okay.”

“You mean I packed for no reason?” Minnie protested.

“No. Leave everything packed. From now on, we operate under yellow alert. You girls grew up watching Star Trek so you know what I mean. Assume the worst, prepare for the worst, but don’t fire the guns off just yet. Speaking of which...do either of you have pistols at all?”

“Oh my,” Beryl murmured.

“I hadn’t thought about that sort of stuff,” Minnie said slowly. “I know Duardo had one, but....”

Calli shook her head. “No. Neither of us have guns,” she told Joshua.

“Good. Now listen hard. Do
not
even think about acquiring arms. Of any sort. Not even for self-protection. This is
not
the States and I’m damn sure that the rebels are not kitted out with uniforms or even quasi-military clothes. It means that if you are found with a gun in your possession you instantly stop being a civilian and become a rebel. Calli, you’ve been in prison, so you know that justice here isn’t like you’d get back home. Do you think they’re going to throw you in jail and give you a trial if you’re found with guns on you?”

Calli shivered. “You’ve made your point,” she said quietly.

“Good. Minnie, promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, subdued.

Not long after that they went to bed, their moods pensive. No one felt like talking or watching vapid entertainment. The Vistarian commercial station still broadcast static.

Calli climbed into bed and hugged herself, wishing it were Nick’s arms around her. She wish he was there, whispering reassurances into her ear—that his deep voice would croon soothingly that everything would be all right, that of course the rebels would not try anything while he were there and he would protect her if they did....

But Nick was busy working to preserve his country and if he thought of her at all, it was probably with a small, reminiscing smile for a risky indulgence.

With a deep sigh she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, knowing sleep would come no easier to her than it had on other nights in Vistaria.

She was woken by frantic banging on her bedroom door and sat up, blinking away sleep. It was daylight.

“What is it?” she called.

“The door is locked! Calli!” Minnie’s voice.

Calli crawled out of bed and unlocked the door. Minnie pushed into the room waving a newspaper. “Calli...ohmigod, Calli.” She gripped Calli’s wrist and shook it, waving the paper at her. Her eyes were wide, her face pale.

“What?” Calli asked, her heart skittering. War? Assassination? Nick!

She grabbed the paper and held it out so she could look at the front page. It had to be a front page headline.

It was.

Calli sat down suddenly on the office chair that Joshua had never got around to moving out of the room, her knees draining of strength. She let the paper fall on her knees, staring at the headlines and the terrible picture beneath.

The headline was in fifty point font. Screaming.

The picture. Her gaze was pulled back to the picture. It was grainy—a telephoto lens at the least and the actual picture enlarged to enhance the details. The black and white didn’t help either. She had seen dozens of “candid” shots like this on the covers of cheap tabloids at supermarket checkouts.

She’d just never expected to see herself in one of them.

It was her and Nick at the pond, lying on the rock together. His hand rested on her breast and he was leaning over her, his features quite clear. Her hair, the long blonde hair, fanned out over the edge of the rock, smoothed out by the water. Her leg, the one closest to the camera, was bent, hiding more than it revealed—a minor mercy, all in all.

Minnie crouched next to her. “Calli, my God, they’ll crucify Nick,” she whispered.

Calli swallowed hard. She couldn’t cry. She didn’t feel anything. The enormity of the disaster was too much to take in all at once. Any vestige of shame she might have felt at being plastered across a national newspaper buck naked was swept away by the weight of the consequences to come.

“Calli?” Minnie prompted.

She looked at the headline.
¡Escobedo ama Americanos más!

“
Ama
?” she asked Minnie.

“Um...love. Loves.”

“Escobedo loves Americans more,” Calli translated and sighed. “They’ve already crucified him.”

“Page two,” Minnie prompted.

Calli turned the page. Inside, they had another photo; a bad copy of her passport photo. Perhaps even a photocopy taken at the station that first night? But they had her name,
Callida Munro
, emblazoned below the photo in bold, perfectly clear Times Roman.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

Minnie squeezed her wrist. “I think you need to leave Vistaria,” she said, very gently.

Calli shut the paper, to look at the front page again. The photo. She sighed.

“My geeky cousin Calli...the sultry seductress. Who’d have thought?”

“It’s not funny,” Calli said tiredly.

“No, not at all. In fact I could easily feel envious,” Minnie confessed. She pointed to the photo. “I look at that and see blazing passion, even love. The body language.” She shook her head. “I always knew Nicolás Escobedo wanted you very much. I just hadn’t realized...”

“What?”

“You match each other,” she said simply.

Calli folded up the newspaper and gave it to Minnie. “Thanks, but the rest of Vistaria is only going to see that their trusted president’s brother is out screwing American women, so how trustworthy are the Escobedos going to look to them now?” She got up.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get dressed.”

“You’re not going to phone him?”

“Hell, no.” Calli laughed dryly. “I’m going to stay as far away from Nick as geography lets me. I think you’re right. I need to leave Vistaria as soon as I can.”

“I’ll let Dad know. You’re going to have to sneak into the airport.” Minnie left, shutting the door behind her.

Calli threw on jeans and a tee-shirt, the same clothing she had worn when she landed here. It seemed fitting she would leave that way. She had already packed, thanks to Joshua’s insistence, and the two small packs sat next to her bed.

“
Calli! Get down here!
” Joshua yelled at the top of his lungs.

Calli flew down the three steps to the living room proper and hurried over to where he stood in front of the television, another copy of the newspaper in his fist. He turned up the volume.

Minnie sat on the sofa behind him, chewing her lip.

The screen showed the circular iron fencing around the legislative building, the big fountain in the foreground and just off to one side. The cameraman had to be standing with one foot in the water, because the camera was elevated over the back of the heads of the crowd of people standing before the closed gates. They were shouting, waving newspapers, chanting, brandishing their fists. There was screaming and people were shaking the ironwork on the gates.

Behind the barrier, five soldiers stood with their machine guns slung over their shoulders and held down by their sides—non-threatening, but there to be used if needed. Their faces were inscrutable. They wore hard helmets and jungle fatigues.

The voice-over narration was fast and breathy—almost panicked.

“This is
serious
,” Minnie said as Calli sat on the sofa next to her.

“What are they saying, Josh?” Calli asked.

“No military action has taken place yet, but it’s making the crowds more frantic. The size of the crowd is growing. There are more people coming onto the avenue all the time.”

The picture changed, showing a view taken from a vehicle moving along the Avenue of Nations. The many people there jostled each other off the pavements onto the road itself. They looked angry.

“They’re talking about you,” Joshua said softly and cocked his head to listen more carefully. “And Americans in general.”

Abruptly, he turned the television off.

“What?” Minnie said.

Joshua sat on the other sofa next to his wife and took her hand. “This is the government station but they’re asking the same damn fool questions as the crappy newspaper. Why are Americans influencing the government? Why is it allowed to happen?”

Calli hugged her knees to her chest. “Nick isn’t the government,” she said softly, hopelessly.

“And you’re just an excuse,” Joshua shot back. “A damned good one as it happens, but that’s all they ever needed, Calli. One lousy excuse.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “Well, they have that now.”

She hid her face against her knees. “I have to leave the country.”

“Good idea but with civil disturbances, the first things that get shut down are the transport systems. They won’t let you out.” Joshua smiled grimly. “You have to stay and face the music, my girl.”

“I wasn’t running away for my sake,” she said swiftly.

“I know that, but they won’t see it that way.”

“Who won’t?”

“The rebels. The people. Vistarians. If this rioting keeps up then the rebels will have a ready-made army at their disposal. It will take very little to turn these angry, roused civilian Vistarians to the rebels’ cause now.” He shook his finger at her. “So you are going to stay put on that sofa and not make a squeak and we’ll hold our breath and hope this passes too.” He grimaced. “Let’s hope we don’t wake up to worse news tomorrow.”

Calli shuddered. “It could hardly get any worse.”

Chapter Fifteen

At eight o’clock that night, the news did turn worse. The television station, which had been broadcasting re-runs all day, broke into an X-Files episode and cut to a studio, where an anchorman began speaking swiftly, holding a sheet of notes in his hand. The paper visibly trembled.

“
Jesus Maria
,” Calli breathed. The Spanish was too fast for her to pick up more than the odd word.

Minnie sucked in a quick breath. “Pascuallita! They’re talking about Pascuallita.”