Smoke and Mirrors (15 page)

“Can you fight?”

He nodded.

I moved a cloth across his greasy face. “If help arrives with the doctor, we’ll help protect Francesca. But if the doctor comes alone, we’ll just have to wait and see how the handoff takes place.”

The room had cleared of all but a few guards and Enrique took a moment to put his hand on mine. I could have sworn he winked at me.

An hour later, I heard the radio on Juan’s belt crackle. “… Jeep’s passed my check point, sir.”

Juan picked up the radio. “Bueno.”

Four minutes passed before I heard the engine. It moved toward the back of our building and Juan frowned. He pointed to one of his remaining men. “See why they pulled around back.”

The man disappeared into the darkness, returning a moment later with a rueful grin. “The driver’s got diarrhea.”

A hail of laughter met the tale, and I kept a lid on my growing hope. I doubted the story, thinking a fellow agent had diverted the jeep to a more appropriate extraction point. Enrique came to the same conclusion.

I had taken my heels off earlier, tucking them inside of the folds of Francesca’s thin blanket. Now I removed the gum I’d pressed into the underside of the left shoe’s arch. Cold and hardened, it came away with the key to Enrique’s cuffs. I slipped it into his free hand just before the back door opened revealing another of Juan’s men and a doctor who might have been an extra from
The Tailor of Panama.
If help had come, it was not in this pair.

Dispirited, I staggered in their direction. “My daughter is very ill, can you help her?”

The doctor placed a hand on mine. “It’s not every day I get to treat the child of a goddess.” He moved toward the bed, leaving my blood to sing.

‘…My Artemis.’

•   •   •

Brad had reviewed uploaded satellite images of the hideout at the doctor’s house. Extending a mile or so in each direction, the photos clearly identified the single outpost. One road led into the highly inaccessible locale, and a rocky, difficult road it was. Passing through deep creeks and hastily built bridges, it made his current journey over the relatively short distance seem endless.

Aware that a full-scale rescue attempt would endanger SIS’s long term mission in Colombia, he made the decision to have the hostages picked up at a river bend that crossed the road a half a mile from the outpost.

“Follow the river up to the large outcropping of cliffs and wait with the boat for them there,” he’d instructed the other operative. “Keep it as quiet as possible. We don’t want anyone linking their rescue with our op here.”

They had just passed the actual river crossing when Brad said, “When we get within visibility of your guards, you’re going to make certain I’m not noticed. I can shoot you through the back of your seat just as easily. Once we pass through, pull around to a more secluded location where I’ll keep an eye on the driver until the good doctor is allowed to leave unharmed. If anything happens to him, the driver dies.”

They passed through the checkpoint unchallenged, and the driver, sweating from the pain of his injury, agreed to pretend he had a GI bug.

Brad had prearranged a code word with the doctor and prayed that the old man would remember to use it.

“…If there’s a dark haired, green-eyed woman –” Here he had flashed a picture of Parker – his emotions banging beneath the shit he’d dumped on them – and said, “Find a way to mention the word goddess. She’ll know help is nearby.”

The doctor and second soldier had passed into the building after a tension filled moment when a third guard had approached the driver to question his parking arrangement. Then, waiting until the area was clear, Brad forced the driver to exit the vehicle and move to a copse of trees a few metres from the latrines.

He brought the butt of his gun down on the driver’s skull, lowered him to the ground and tied him up. Moving in the direction of a corrugated garage, Brad set to work disabling its vehicles. He was nearly finished when he heard a soft crying. He finished the last jeep and padded toward a door hidden behind a tall stack of barrels. He picked the lock and opened the door into coal-black room rank with the scents of urine and fear.

“What do you want from me?” The despondent voice belonged to an English woman.

Brad moved toward her. He switched to Spanish accented English. “Señora Jones?”

Uncertainty and hope laced her next words. “Yes?”

Brad touched her shoulder and she flinched. Jesus, he hated the scent of fear. “I’m going to get you out, but you’re going to have to give me a hand. There are three others who need our help. Can you walk?”

“I can do anything as long as it means getting the hell away from here.”

Brad cut her bindings and massaged her wrists and ankles. “I’ve got a jeep just outside the rear of the main building. Get on the back floor and pull the rucksack and netting over you. If all goes well, an elderly man and a young girl will join you. Her bodyguard will drive, but I want you to help him.” Brad took a grenade from his belt and pressed it into her hands. “You know what this is?”

“Yes. They killed another woman with one. Tossed it at her feet and made her dance until it detonated.”

She started to shake, and Brad momentarily hugged her to him. “If you think of that, you won’t be thinking clearly. I need you to think clearly. Sí?”

Her head nodded in his shoulder.

“When you approach the outer guard post, I want you to pull the pin and toss it at the building. The driver’ll keep you at a safe distance.”

They parted and Brad checked to see if the garage was clear. He led her out, locking the door behind them. They made it to the shed’s rear exit without spotting anyone. Pointing to the jeep, Brad whispered soft words of encouragement. “You can do it. Now go!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be just fine. Vas!”

He watched her move across the open space. Six minutes had passed. The doctor promised him ten. Locating a soldier moving from the Quonset to the loo, Brad picked his way there. He silenced the man, stripped him of his jacket, hat and radio, and pushed him back inside.

He walked casually back toward the main building. Keeping his head down, he passed into the main building and made for a table he’d glimpsed when the soldier exited. He sat across from the soldier who’d been playing cards with the latrine-goer and pressed his gun into the man’s groin.

“Keep playing,” he mouthed in Spanish.

And they did for several hands, until Brad finally caught the eye of the woman on the room’s opposite side. Their eyes locked just as the sound of a plane’s droning engine reached the ears of all present.

He felt blood surge through him when he saw her face. Swollen and bruised, she looked as though a heavyweight boxer had punched her.

He was going to fucking obliterate the bastard who’d done it to her.

M
y eyes were glued to the doctor’s hands, mindful that any evidence of disinterest would damage to my cover. At last, when the doctor moved to aid Enrique, I chanced a glance at my surroundings. Juan had answered a call and was busy talking with someone – possibly Raul – though I wasn’t certain.

That left three soldiers. The closest one was asleep on the cot next to Enrique, and the other two were still drinking and playing the world’s longest game of cards. My gaze flicked over them, and nearly passed by when I caught the eyes of the man facing me.

Dark and Mediterranean, they sent my heart into overdrive.

He had come himself.

Yes,
my heart rejoiced.
The bastard still cares!

My joyous thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a plane’s engine. Alberto and Raul were here. Juan craned his neck to see out the small, unblackened piece of glass.

“I’ll have her standing out beside me. The doctor has finished with the little girl, and you can tell her father she’s fine.”

“Who will you have standing out beside you?” I asked.

He checked his shoulder holster. “You really shouldn’t eavesdrop, Isabella. It could get you into trouble.”

“You still think I’m going to find you funny, don’t you?”

He shrugged on his discarded jacket and grabbed me by the arm. “You will accompany me outside where your loving ex-husband can see you. What he does with after is his own business. For my part, I’d cut out your tongue.”

I yanked my arm from his grasp. “I can walk without your help.”

“Suit yourself,” he grumbled, ordering his remaining soldiers to keep an eye on the doctor and his patients.

I walked out the door without looking behind me, hoping Brad was reading my mind. Once outside, I waited in the early morning light as the small speck grew into the jet I had come to know quite well. I wondered for a moment how Alberto had done it. How he had broken Raul out of the heavily guarded prison. Then, guessing it was like everything else I had encountered, I decided it must have been an inside job. Corrupt guards getting fat bank accounts while the terrorist they were supposed to be guarding walked out the main door.

The plane rolled to a halt a few dozen paces from me, and I saw Alberto’s white face through the oval window. The door slid open and stairs descended allowing three of Alberto’s personal guards to exit, machine guns held at the ready. A moment later, Raul stepped down from the plane, his hands held out to the sides as Alberto’s head of security, Raphael, pointed a gun between his shoulder blades.

Raul was older than I had thought, though he still retained a handsome face and physique. “Juan, it seems you have some explaining to do. Alberto and I are not pleased that you went ahead and ‘borrowed’ his daughter and ex-wife. You were to kidnap him, not them. The fucking president doesn’t give a shit about the kid and her mother. Now we’ve got the military to deal with. Americans too. They were going to extradite me, you know.”

Then those cold eyes met mine and narrowed. I wondered if he guessed I wasn’t Isabella. But if Juan had set him up, it wouldn’t matter. A deal was a deal. A trade, a trade.

Alberto had descended behind Raphael’s impressive form and separated himself the moment his feet hit the ground. “Isabella.”

“Alberto.”

“Is our daughter well?”

I reverted to Italian. “No thanks to you.”

He seemed satisfied with my answer and turned back to his guards. “You’re to make certain we get them out unharmed.”

At that moment, the pilot stepped out onto the platform. “Señor Sanchez, Raul’s wife has called on his cell phone, should I let him take it?”

Alberto waived a hand of dismissal. “Raphael, keep an eye on him.”

We walked back into the hut behind Juan. I wasn’t certain what I expected to have happened while I was gone, but I said a prayer of thanks when I noted the almost indiscernible changes.

Brad was still playing cards with his too-still partner.

The third soldier was turned away, sleeping with the company of his dreams or the fishes more likely.

And a nearly perfect representation of Francesca’s blanket-covered body lay on the bed next to the body of a soldier I knew was not Enrique’s. Handcuffs draped obviously from the body’s arm to a spot midway down the covers of Francesca’s abandoned cot.

“Francesca!” Alberto was almost to her when a shot sounded above my head. Sanchez stopped dead in his tracks, turning slowly to see why his own guards had done nothing to stop his enemy.

Suddenly, it was clear. They were in the pay of someone else, and that someone was Raul.

Alberto’s lip lifted in a snarl. “What’s this?”

Juan shrugged. “A change of power. But I won’t spoil the surprise; Raul’s been planning it for too long.”

Sanchez’s former bodyguards lowered their weapons at him and let Juan pass out into the courtyard.

“What’s going on, Alberto? What are your friends playing at?”

He looked at me, fear in his eyes. They were pleading, begging me to give him something to hang his hat of hope upon. I shot a look at Brad. Then another. The third finally induced Alberto to look at him as well.

Sanchez hid his surprise well. “What are you looking at, soldier?” he snarled.

Brad looked down at his cards.

Alberto’s mouth made a ghost of a smile. “To answer your question, Isabella, I guess I didn’t know who my real friends were.”

The bodyguards laughed just as Brad exploded into action, pushing himself from the table and shooting them in rapid succession. His silencer did the trick, and the only sound to be heard was the dull thump of their bodies hitting the dirt floor.

Then he was beside me, his fingers stroking my cheek, his lips brushing mine. Concern blazed through his eyes. Something else too. “Who did this to you, luv?” His voice was harsh with barely controlled emotion.

I found myself shaking inside the protection of his iron grip.

Alberto interrupted my would-be answer. “Where’s my daughter, De Torres?”

Brad’s eyes never left mine. “Safe for the moment, no thanks to you.”

“Can you shoot, Alex?” Brad asked, his hands working their way lightly over the whole of me. Checking. Rechecking. Never letting go for an instant.

I tried a smile, almost undone by his simply being there. “If Juan’s anywhere in my sights.”

“Juan?”

I nodded, the unfamiliar sensation of wanting to be looked after – by him – welling my throat closed. He pressed his mouth against my bruised mouth - softly, made certain I was armed, and went toward the window. He reloaded his gun before glancing out at the figures in the courtyard. “Raphael’s down. It’s only a matter of seconds before Juan finds out the jeep’s missing along with his captives. Alex, watch my back?”

Always
. I dipped my head and held the gun’s muzzle in line with the partially ajar door.

“I’m coming with you,” Alberto growled.

De Torres threw him a dirty look. “I don’t intend on being double crossed by you and your silent partner again.”

Alberto’s cheeks stained red. “How did you know?”

“I’ve made it a point never to trust anyone.” His eyes moved to mine. “With the exception of my Alex.”