Shattered (27 page)

Neither Kirby nor Shane said anything personal or mission sensitive on the two-block drive to the restaurant. Instead, she pointed out a few scenic sights, all of which had been erected to honor the president.

All the tables on the outdoor patio were filled with twentysomethings seemingly unconcerned about the vast amount of pollution they were sucking into their lungs from the passing traffic. Then again, since they were all smoking, Kirby figured it didn’t much matter.

There were also a few uniformed members of the army, drinking beer from dark bottles while flirting with young women who flirted back. American pop music filled the air, with Beyoncé singing about déjà vu, which Kirby figured somewhat fit her and Shane’s situation.

The difference was that there weren’t any mortars blasting in the background and so far no one had died. She could only hope it stayed that way.

The interior of the restaurant was dark and cooler than outside, with the fans overhead circling, stirring the air. A wall of windows looked out onto the sea, which was now a deep indigo with a single silver swath from the rising crescent moon. Kirby worried about the others being able to make their way from the yacht to the Costa Rican beach, but Zach had assured her that he’d accomplished more difficult missions, so she’d chosen to believe him.

When the hostess, a gorgeous J.Lo look-alike, led them to a table in the center of the room Shane flashed that killer smile and asked for one on the far side of the room. The woman instantly agreed. Kirby figured she’d also agree to strip naked and give him a lap dance on the spot, were he to ask for that.

She wasn’t surprised when he took the chair that put his back to the wall. She’d seen that before with other military men, which definitely caused some table problems when a bunch went out together.

They ordered an Imperial beer for him, a piña colada for her, and at Kirby’s suggestion, a selection of platillos—small plates of snacks including a vegetable and black bean pupusa (cousin to the quesadilla, but with corn dough replacing the tortilla), fried plantains, and tamales de sal, small chicken tamales wrapped in banana leaves.

“This is nice,” she said with some surprise after their order had been delivered. She only wished they were here on a real date.

“We’ll have to come back,” Shane said.

Kirby had no idea if he’d said that for show or if he’d meant it. Which was impossible, of course, since after they rescued Rachel, the chances of her ever being allowed back into this country again were, oh, say, zilch.

“Definitely,” she agreed, with a smile that was only partially feigned.

They chatted a bit about their plans to drive out to the Mayan ruins, just as any tourists would do, and although outwardly he seemed totally relaxed, Kirby suspected that, by the way he was peeling away at the black eagle label on the brown beer bottle, inside he was as tense as she was.

His eyes kept drifting not just to the door, but around the room, where more soldiers sat around, some in groups, others, like the ones on the patio, trying to charm young women with flashing dark eyes who appeared more than willing to be charmed. At least as long as the frothy drinks kept coming.

On a small stage a trio of musicians played while a woman performed an impressive flamenco, heels clicking on the wooden floor, colorful skirt swirling.

Outside, the laughter and sound of traffic continued.

Kirby took a sip of the sweet rum drink, barely aware of the screech of brakes outside.

Shane suddenly tensed.

She was about to tell him such sounds were typical for the city when he yelled, “Shit!”

Then knocked over the table, sending drinks and appetizers flying. He dragged her down behind it, his hand pushing her head down as a dozen men with automatic weapons stormed into the restaurant, shouting out liberation slogans and spraying gunfire.

The children—and despite their being armed and wild-eyed, Rachel could not think of them as anything else—were obviously starving.

Rather than hold her at gunpoint, they continued to raid the clinic kitchen devouring every bit of precooked things on the shelves.

When that was still not enough, she found herself in the odd position of making beans and tortillas for her captors.

She knew that food was often used to establish personal contact with another human being. Even an adversary. She’d realized that early on in her relief work, and had certainly seen it work on television police shows during those brief times she’d spent back in the States. Which was less and less, because with each year she stayed away, the more difficult it was to make the transition from the comfortable, even excessive lives so many Americans made to the way so much of the rest of the world lived.

Although the boys refused to participate in what they scoffed was women’s work, the girls were willing to help. While the boys played cards and dominoes, or repeatedly cleaned their weapons, she worked on drawing some of them out.

Amando, one of the younger boys who could not be more than eight, had come over to sit on a stool next to the counter as she made corn tortillas. He told her how the rebels had come into his village one night and demanded that each family turn over one child to the guerilla cause.

“Our neighbor refused,” the boy told her as she added the water to another batch of masa harina—corn flour—and began kneading the dough. “Because he only had daughters, and did not believe killing people was proper behavior for girls. So the soldier in charge shot the father in the head and took the oldest daughter. After that, everyone else chose who’d join the cause.”

“And you were the one your parents gave up?” she asked, wishing she could be horrified, but she’d seen worse.

“I was the youngest. Too small to work in the fields,” he said on a matter-of-fact tone that broke her heart. “When I got to the camp, the leader decided I was also too small to hold a gun, because it would drag on the ground when I carried it. So I was taught to make bombs.”

“That sounds dangerous,” she said mildly.

After covering the bowl of dough, she tore off a small ball from one that had been sitting for the past thirty minutes. Although the usual way was to put the ball in a tortilla press, having lost two iron ones and a wooden one to raiders her first month in the country, she’d given up and learned to pat them back and forth between her palms, creating a near perfect circle.

“It can be dangerous because you cannot mix the ingredients,” he said in Spanish. “Or they could go off and kill many people.

“We use fertilizer liberated from the farmers, gasoline, diesel fuel, and gunpowder. The older boys break up metal from rusting cars and supports from houses, which we put in our bombs for shrapnel. Then it is set off by an electric charge.

“After I did not kill myself for six months, Tío Manuel, our leader, made me a teacher.”

He puffed up a skinny chest clad in a blue Tennessee Titans T-shirt that had undoubtedly come from some other relief group. There’d once been a lot of missionaries setting up churches in the country. Most had fled upon advice of the U.S. government, as one entire group had been massacred, with both sides of the civil war blaming the other.

“That’s very impressive.” She tossed the circle of dough into a hot cast-iron pan, where it sizzled. “You must be a very smart and clever boy.”

“I could read when I was only five years old,” he boasted. “My mother wanted me to go to the city and become a doctor when I grew up.”

“You could still do that,” Rachel suggested.

“No, he can’t.” Another boy glanced up from his cards. “Unless we win the war. If El Presidente succeeds in destroying our movement, then we will all be executed. And even those allowed to live will always be outcasts in our villages for having committed murders.”

From the mouths of babes, Rachel thought.

“Maybe Señora Madrid will come and bring peace,” a teenage girl, who was folding black beans into the already made tortillas, suggested. “Then no one will ever have to die again.”

“She’s not coming,” a third, older boy insisted.

The girl tossed up her chin. “People say she is.”

“They’ve been saying that since I was this one’s age.” He nodded a head, covered in a tiger-striped wrap, toward the boy bomb maker. “Madrid is living the good life in Mexico. Why would she come back to this hellhole?”

“Maybe because she wants to help us,” another girl, no more than eight, with black braids that fell down to her waist, suggested.

“She only wants to help herself,” he scoffed. “Why else would she have run away after her husband was assassinated?”

“To gain support.” Another boy, one of the eldest, whom Rachel guessed to be seventeen, suggested. “One person alone, especially a woman, cannot do anything against Vasquez. One woman with the backing of powerful countries could bring down a corrupt government.”

“Then we would rule,” the boy who doubted the possibility of the martyred leader’s widow’s return said.

“And Jesus Castillo would do exactly what this government would do to us,” the teenage girl dared to say. “Kill everyone who did not agree with him.” She placed the plate in front of the eldest boy and began filling another tortilla. “Which is not exactly the democracy he preaches.”

The room went absolutely still. So quiet, the only sound was the pop and sizzle of the corn tortilla on the propane stove.

“You would be wise to shut your mouth,” the armed man, who’d returned after having taken food out to the guards surrounding the clinic, warned. “Unless you want me to turn you over to them.” He gestured toward the night-black jungle outside the window. “And let them teach you what happens to traitors.”

“It was merely conjecture,” Rachel broke in quickly. “If you’re going to use children as your army, you have to expect occasionally immature thoughts.”

“Thoughts like that can get you killed.” His midnight gaze raked the room. “You are, after all, no better than mangy dogs. Easily replaceable and not worth the food it takes to feed you.”

Although it was not in Rachel’s nature to hate, she hated this man. With a passion that went all the way to her core and had her trembling inside. If he was the only person she had to worry about, she’d risk her own life and pick up one of those butcher knives from the wooden block and drive it into that place in his chest where a heart should be.

But there were those other men outside, and while she certainly wouldn’t look forward to it, she was prepared to die.

The problem was, she knew, without a single doubt, that if she did manage to kill, or even wound, her captor, the children would be executed like the stray dogs the man had called them.

She refused to allow that to happen.

And, although she’d nearly managed to unscrew the screen on the bathroom window frame with that scalpel, she now realized that the exercise had been pointless.

Because there was no way she would even attempt to escape the compound without taking this ragtag children’s army with her to freedom.

The bap-bap-bap-bap-bap of the gunfire seemed to go on forever. People were screaming, plaster was falling from the floor and ceiling, overhead lights were blasted, sending glass flying.

More bullets shattered the bottles of liquor behind the bar; the smell of whiskey, rum, and tequila mixed with that of cordite and blood.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! Wasn’t this just perfect? A reenactment of the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral, and him without a damn weapon. Which, Shane had been told, he’d receive during the car swap after his and Kirby’s meeting with the president.

As much as he hated the idea of going into an op armed only with his fists and brains, Shane hadn’t wanted to have to reveal weapons in a suitcase at the security checkpoint, since what the hell would a professor at a college for the deaf need with an automatic rifle?

There was some talk about having the guns already placed in the hotel suite, but since Kirby had told him about the cautiousness of the palace guards in searching for weapons, that precluded the possibility of taking them along on their little visit where she was supposed to beg for help.

And as Zach had pointed out, all too correctly, with Vasquez’s iron-fisted hold on the country, it wasn’t impossible to expect their room to be searched while they were at the palace.

No, it had been decided, the best time and place was when his and Kirby’s look-alikes would return to the airport in their rental car, while they left in a “clean” car—with guns hidden beneath the wheel well in the trunk—to make their way to the rendezvous point.

It hadn’t been Shane’s first choice. But he wasn’t the one in charge of the mission, and he had to admit that it was probably the most fail-safe. Until you factored in that little adage about plans going awry.

“Are they shooting at us?” Kirby asked, as the bullets kept flying overhead. He wanted to get the hell out of Dodge, but so far Shane hadn’t figured out the best way to accomplish that without getting them both shot full of holes.

“I think some of Castillo’s boys, or some other rogue group, decided to do some target practice on Vasquez’s goons. And we’re just in the way.”

“Lucky us,” she said dryly.

A lot of women would be screaming bloody murder. Hell, a lot of men in the place were doing exactly that.

But not her. Shane wasn’t all that surprised, having watched her keep her head in the midst of chaos in the CSH, but that didn’t stop him from being damned impressed.

“You are fucking fantastic,” he said, dodging as a spray of bullets shattered a pitcher nearby, drenching them both in a shower of beer.

“You’re not so bad yourself, cowboy.”

While not as experienced in street warfare as D-boys or Rangers, Shane had had enough Special Forces training to recognize that both sides were shooting AKs. Which should have given them a lull between the twenty-five to thirty rounds the weapons shot. But unfortunately, for that to work to their advantage, everyone would have to have begun shooting at the exact same time. Which, natch, wasn’t the way it was working out.

“Okay,” he said, “this could end up getting dicey.”

Like it already wasn’t? Holy shit, within seconds it had turned into a fucking kill zone.

No. The thing to do, Shane reminded himself, was focus on the positive. He had a ring waiting back at the hotel. A ring he had every intention of putting on this woman’s finger.

But he wanted to do it right, with the entire get-down-on-his-knees-in-a-five-star-restaurant-where-you-had-to- put-on-a-jacket-and-tie-even-to-go-to-the-john grand gesture. He’d slip the maître d’ some bucks to bring out the champagne at just the right minute. Maybe spring for some violins. And definitely flowers. Probably roses. If women didn’t like red roses, why were they such a big deal with florists at Valentine’s Day?

So, since he only intended to go through the marriage proposal deal once in his life, he wanted to get it right.

Which first meant getting out of here.

With both of them alive.

“How fast can you run in those shoes?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Damn.” She glared down at the wedged heels in question. Then looked up at him, regret written all over her face. A face splattered with someone else’s blood. “I’m betting not all that fast. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t have any way of knowing we were going out to have dinner at a shooting gallery.” With them being the sitting ducks.

“That bellman could’ve set us up.”

“Could have,” Shane agreed as he lifted his shirt and used the tail to wipe at least some of those scarlet spatters off her cheek. “But I still think it’s a wrong place, wrong time thing.” If not, they were in a world of hurt, because even going back to the hotel could prove deadly.

“I’ll take them off.” She scooted around, trying to reach the ankle ties without lifting her head above the overturned table.

“Here.” Since their positions had him closer, he pulled on the white bows, unlacing the ribbons. “The problem with this is that with all the broken glass, you could end up slicing up your feet.”

He could carry her. Which would only end up making them a larger target. And slow them down. Plus, although so far his leg was holding up exactly how it was supposed to, and he’d lifted far more weight with it during PT, he was afraid of putting them at additional risk if it crumpled on him.

“I’ve been standing on my own two feet for some time now,” she assured him. “So, you give the count, tell me where to go, and I’ll run like my hair’s on fire.”

He’d already given that thought, and although they might be able to blend into the crowd on the sidewalk, he’d bet most people had ducked into the nearest building, which, with all the flashing neon lights, could just put them in the bad guys’ crosshairs.

“The beach won’t be completely dark, because of the damn moon,” he said. Something Zach had been a bit concerned about. “But it beats the alternative.”

“Plus it’s closer than the street,” she said.

Yeah. By maybe two feet. Then again, the copilot who’d been killed in the Chinook’s cockpit with him had been closer than that. Sometimes survival came down to inches. Shane could only hope it would this time.

“On the count of three.”

“Roger that,” she agreed.

Since he’d had to yell to make himself heard over the gunfire and shouting, he held up one finger.

Then a second.

Their eyes met. A silent message was exchanged: We’re getting out of here. Because no way did either one of them want to die in this godforsaken country, smelling like beer, bullets, blood, and death.

He held up a third.

Then grabbed her hand. Ducking low, they raced through a blizzard of fire, leaping over bodies as they headed toward the open back doors leading out onto yet another terrace and the beach beyond.

At the same time, all his senses on full-battle-mode alert, in his peripheral vision, Shane saw one of the uniformed soldiers pull out a grenade.

What happened next was in that crazy blend of slomo and fast forward, where every bit of his focus was on the guy’s hand as he pulled the pin and raised his arm, preparing to throw it.

But something went wrong, which wasn’t all that much of a surprise when you bought crap, leftover Soviet weapons from unscrupulous arms dealers.

There was a flash of heat. A blinding light as Shane and Kirby were thrown through the air.