The Successor (23 page)

“Your body language is all wrong. It’s like I’m hugging a tree for God’s sake.”

“Um…well, I don’t—”

“Is there someone else?” she demanded, stepping back from their embrace, her eyes flashing.
“Is there?”

“
What
? I thought we said we’d tell each other if we ever—”

“Stop it!”
She held her hands out toward him, then slowly let them fall to her sides. “You know what? I can’t take this anymore, Chris. Wondering what’s going on with us, what you’re doing behind my back. Well, you’ve got your wish,” she snapped, cutting him off again as he was about to say something. “We’re business partners from now on and that’s
it.
I’ll be the best damn business partner you’ve
ever
had, and I won’t try to start anything between us again.” She turned and stalked to the door. “Have a nice night,” she called over her shoulder, “
partner.
”

This time he didn’t try to stop her from walking out the door. It wouldn’t have been fair. She was absolutely accurate about everything she’d said. The whole time Allison had been holding him he’d been thinking about how maybe there was someone else out there for him. Maybe even someone younger. Not Beth specifically, but someone like her.

He moaned as he collapsed into the leather chair, let his head fall back, closed his eyes, and ran his hands through his hair. He’d always thought men who’d talked about going through a “midlife” crisis were just weak. Men who hadn’t measured up to the success they or others had expected. He’d always promised himself he wouldn’t fall victim to it. So what was he supposed to call this?

PADILLA FOLLOWED
Gustavo Cruz up the narrow staircase of the main house. The other five members of the Secret Six were waiting for him outside, ready to scatter into the jungle again if there was another alarm. All of them were fidgety, glancing around constantly. All of them except the attorney, Padilla thought.

They all looked exhausted, too, as if they’d just finished a marathon—and for all intents and purposes they had. But the attorney hadn’t looked that way at all when Padilla had finally caught up with him again outside the house’s main entrance, after traipsing all the way back down the lane and up the driveway. The attorney had been sweating a little, but not like the rest of them. And he was the oldest of the group by at least ten years. He should have been ready to collapse.

At the top of the stairs, Cruz turned left down a hallway, then left again into a room with two bunk beds each stacked three mattresses high. On the bottom bunk of the bed nearest the door sat a young boy.

“This is Ruby,” Cruz said, closing the door after Padilla.

Padilla moved to where the four-year-old boy sat and knelt in front of him. He enjoyed treating kids because he hated seeing them sick or hurt. He was a devoted Catholic, never missed a Sunday service no matter where he was in the world, but he’d never been able to resolve the conflict of seeing small children in pain, particularly the cancer victims slowly losing their awful battles. Not really understanding what was going on—which was probably better. Cheerful and loving—never bitter—right to the end.

He’d asked many priests to explain it to him: why a child should suffer so terribly. But none of the men in robes had ever been able to give him a satisfactory answer. One that put his mind at ease and allowed him to accept that there was truly a purpose to the agony borne by such innocent human beings. It was the only conflict that gave him even the slightest doubt about his faith, the only thing that even came close to making him question the existence of the Holy Trinity. Though he’d never admitted this doubt to anyone—which of course he knew was incredibly irrational. It didn’t matter what others thought—only what God knew. And God knew if his faith was solid whether Padilla said anything to anyone else or not.

“Hello, Ruby,” Padilla began in a friendly voice, making certain as he always did when he spoke to children not to talk to the boy in some silly, high-pitched voice. Even more aware of treating him respectfully because he had the serious, piercing expression of an adult beneath his dark brows.

“Hello,” the boy answered quietly.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

Padilla pressed the back of his hand against the boy’s forehead. It was cool. He glanced back over his shoulder at Cruz. “This boy’s temperature is normal.” Padilla pressed his fingers to the sides of the boy’s neck, checking for inflammation of the glands, but they seemed normal, too. “Gustavo, he doesn’t—”

“The boy must have made a miraculous recovery, Doctor.”

Padilla gazed at Cruz for a few moments, then stood up, aware of his bones creaking. He was worn out after his run through the trees. Physically and mentally. He just wanted to get home and get to bed so he could escape the pressure for a few hours. Hopefully, there would be no nightmares tonight as there had been the last two. “What’s going on, Gustavo?”

“I wanted to get you alone for a few minutes,” Cruz admitted.

Padilla could hear an edge creep into Cruz’s voice. “Why?”

“I need to talk to you about one of the men in your group.”

Padilla’s antennae shot up instantly. “Which one?”

Cruz motioned for Ruby to leave. The little boy darted to the door and disappeared, shutting it behind himself without having to be told.

“The older one,” Cruz explained when Ruby was gone.

The attorney. “What about him?”

“He was going through my file cabinets.” Cruz nodded toward the window, toward the barn. “Through the files I keep on my cows.”

Padilla’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“I saw him through the little window in that room. He was the first one in there, he was by himself. I was outside with the rest of you. I saw him, I know I did.” Cruz took off his
TEAM CUBA
baseball cap. Then put it back on, then took it off again. He repeated this several times, smoothing what was left of his hair each time he took the cap off.

A nervous habit, Padilla recognized.

“You know about those files, right?” Cruz asked hesitantly when he had put the cap back on for good.

Padilla nodded slowly. Cruz was making certain that Padilla knew they were falsified, that Padilla knew Cruz could get into a lot of trouble. “I do. The general told me everything.” Padilla put his hand on Cruz’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.” He was careful to say
me.
Suddenly he didn’t know if he could say
us
anymore.

“JUST A SECOND,
just a second,” Marshall said loudly, coming out of the bedroom of his apartment, still shaking out the cobwebs as he pulled the robe together and tied it off around his waist. She’d called from several blocks away a little while ago, and she was already here. He’d figured it would have been at least another five minutes. He checked his watch as he reached the door: It was four thirty in the morning.

He pressed a tired eye to the peephole just to make sure. She was there—her back to him—but he recognized the long blond hair. He was tired, all right, but never too tired for this. He was kind of surprised she’d called. He’d left her there in the hotel passed out, not bothering to wake her up when he’d left to go to his apartment to get the spare key to the Everest lobby. Hadn’t even bothered to leave her a note. But maybe he really was as good as she’d said over and over that night. Maybe she wasn’t kidding, couldn’t resist him. And damn, she’d sounded hot to trot on the phone. This was going to be fun, an unexpected pleasure. And it wasn’t as if he had to get up for anything in the morning now that he’d been put on leave by that bastard Gillette.

“Come in,” Marshall said smoothly, opening the door. “Guess you just can’t get enough of my—” He gasped and stepped back as the man strode into the living room, gun leveled at his chest.
“What’s the—What’s going on here?”

The man pulled the blond wig from his head and tossed it on a chair as three more men followed him inside. “Weren’t going to tell us you’d been fired, huh?” The last man closed and locked the door.

“I wasn’t fired,” Marshall shot back, hearing fear in his voice, hoping they didn’t. “What do you want?”

“This isn’t going to end well for you, Mr. Marshall,” the man said calmly, not answering Marshall’s question. “But you can make it go less badly if you cooperate with me.”

Marshall swallowed hard, heart pounding. His contacts had given him fifty grand in cash—and promised more. Suddenly he knew it hadn’t been worth it. Knew he should have asked more questions—and demanded more cash up front, then run. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begged, the sides of his throat grabbing at the words. “I’ll do anything.”

“I’m sure you would,” the man agreed, “but at this point nothing you could do would help me.”

“I can still get into Everest,” Marshall argued, his voice shaking. “I can still get information for you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” the man snapped. “We know Gillette’s security people spotted you on the building tapes going back in there the other night. We know they called you and told you that if you tried to come back in again, you’d be arrested for trespassing. We know the guards at the security desk in the lobby of the Everest building have your picture posted on the wall behind them. They’ve been warned to look out for you. You couldn’t get into that building now unless you had plastic surgery.”

Marshall sank to his knees, his eyes moving from man to man. The only way out of the apartment was the hall door behind them, and he didn’t have a chance of getting past them. “I’ve got kids.”

The man nodded. “I know, but there’s nothing I can do.” He waved to one of the other men. “Make him write it.”

The man moved to where Marshall was kneeling, grabbed him by the back collar of the robe, and half-led, half-dragged him to the couch. Then he dropped a pen and paper on the coffee table. “Write,” he demanded.

“Write what?” Marshall asked, his voice trembling.

“A suicide note,” the man who’d been first into the apartment answered. “Blaming Gillette.”

Marshall shook his head hard, fully grasping what they intended to do. He’d caught the man’s quick glance at the sliding glass door that opened onto the small, thirty-seventh-floor balcony. “No,
no way.
”

The man walked deliberately to where Marshall sat. “I told you,” he said, looking down, gesturing with the pistol, “this isn’t going to end well for you. But if you don’t do what I want, what happens between now and the end will be worse than you can imagine.”

Marshall lunged for the gun. It was his only chance, and he caught the man off guard.

For a few seconds they struggled, Marshall trying to get his finger on the trigger—if only just to squeeze off a round or two as a call for help—the other man desperately trying to keep Marshall from getting his finger on it.

Just as Marshall finally slipped the tip of his index finger to the slim, curved piece of black metal, one of the other men nailed him with a powerful shot to the chin and he crumpled to his side on the couch, groaning. His face suddenly felt as if it were going to explode.

“Write,” the man shouted, leaning over so their noses were almost touching, shoving the pen into Marshall’s hand.
“Now!”

“Screw you,” Marshall retorted, his eyes rolling back in his head. “I won’t do it.” His mouth was already starting to swell, and he could feel and taste blood oozing between his teeth and over his tongue. “Do what you’re going to—”

Suddenly Marshall felt himself being rolled onto his back on the sofa and pinned down. He saw one of the men coming from his bedroom holding a wire coat hanger, beginning to unwind and straighten it. He flailed wildly as the guy brought one end of the straightened hanger to his left nostril. “No,
no
!” With every ounce of effort he could muster, he turned his head to the right, away from the wire.
“I’ll write whatever you want, whatever you want.”
The thought of the hanger going down his nose was too much to take. “Please don’t do that to me.”

“Then
write.
”

Marshall sat up quickly, took the pen, and scribbled exactly what they dictated. Just a few words blaming Christian Gillette for the suicide. After that he signed his name.

Then they picked him up roughly by his wrists and ankles, dragged him across the floor out onto the balcony, and tossed him over the railing.

And that was that.

AS USUAL
Delgado was smoking a Dominican cigar, calmly inhaling the smoke, tasting it, then blowing it up into the darkness and the broad leaves above them waving slightly in the breeze as they stood at the edge of the beach. Padilla liked the way the smoke smelled, loved the calm, cool aura the general exuded dressed in his camouflage fatigues, black boots, and jungle-green cap, sunglasses hanging from a top pocket of the nylon shirt. Padilla felt better—safer—now that they were together. The way he’d once felt being around his father at night after being at school all day.

“So you’re worried about the attorney?” Delgado asked.

Padilla nodded, watching a wave roll up onto the beach. There was a full moon tonight and the water glittered in front of them like confetti. “Cruz claimed the attorney was going through his cattle files when the attorney didn’t think anyone was looking.”

Delgado chuckled softly. “Ah. I’ll bet old Gustavo almost had a heart attack. He could get in a lot of trouble for that.”

“He’s definitely worried.”

“He doesn’t need to worry.” Delgado tapped ash onto the sand.

Delgado had never met any of the other five members of the Secret Six, mostly because he didn’t want them meeting him. They knew who he was, knew his name, but he would be able to deny everything if one of them ever accused him of being part of the conspiracy by claiming that they were all just raving lunatics. The way Padilla saw it, the only man who could possibly link everyone together now was Gustavo Cruz, and he was sure Delgado saw it that way, too. If Delgado ever got a whiff that anything was going sideways with the Incursion, Cruz wouldn’t last long. Which was one reason he’d hesitated about contacting Delgado regarding the attorney. He didn’t want to effectively sign Cruz’s death warrant because Delgado suddenly decided to cover his tracks and cut the link. But after thinking about it for a while, Padilla felt he had no choice, not if he was truly committed to the Incursion’s succeeding. As they’d all agreed up front, if sacrifices had to be made, so be it.