Chapter Ten

Calli awoke to daylight and the unmusical call of seagulls outside the windows. She lay on her side, wrapped in Nick’s big arms, his leg resting on hers. A sense of peace and contentment settled over her and she sighed.

“Good morning,” Nick said softly.

“This is my country, Nick,” she said just as softly. “Your arms about me, your voice for me alone...that is all the home I will ever need.”

He kissed her cheek. “Mi esposa,” he said and she heard the happiness in his voice.

A rapid, heavy thudding sounded from the first floor and he groaned. “That’s the front door.”

“They’re back so soon?” Calli asked, dismayed. She had hoped for more time.

“I told them after noon or I’d have their balls.” He climbed from the bed and displayed taut buttocks, a wide back and stiffly held shoulders as he thrust his legs into jeans and pulled them up. The thudding continued. “It has to be something serious,” he told her, sounding apologetic.

“Of course, it must and of course you must go,” Calli said, also easing down from the high bed. She saw her new negligee and gown on the stool at the foot of the bed and blinked. There didn’t seem to be a single detail Nick had overlooked in the frantic two days of preparation. She slipped them on.

“You don’t have to rouse yourself,” Nick assured her.

“For something so urgent they would risk your anger? I’m coming to hear it too.”

They both hurried down the stairs but at the foot of them, Nick waved her back behind the sliding doors of the formal lounge. “Wait until we know who it is.” He reached into the drawer of the antique secretary next to his hip and pulled out the loaded pistol always kept there. He moved to the door and stood not in front of it but to one side. “Who is it?” he called.

“Nick, it’s Josh Benning. For Christ’s sake, let me in, will you?”

“Talk to me, Josh,” Nick called.

Silence came from the other side of the door and Calli could almost hear the surprise in it. “For heaven’s...” came the mutter. “Is Calli still wearing your Saint Christopher medallion?”

Nick smiled, opened the door and Joshua stepped in. He looked around, blinking in the cool dim light of the foyer. Calli moved out into the foyer so he could see her and he pushed his hand through his hair.

Minnie, she thought.

“Minnie’s gone,” Joshua said without preamble. “So’s Carmen.”

“Gone?” Nick asked sharply, pausing in the middle of putting the gun back on safety.

“As in disappeared. You know Carmen left the wedding early. Well, Minnie slipped off not long after you two got away. Their rooms haven’t been slept in.”

“Carmen’s a big girl,” Nick said, a resigned note in his voice.

“So is Minnie,” Josh agreed. He pushed his hand through his hair. “I would have left it at that. But...” He glanced at Nick, measuring him. “Your boat is gone too.”

Calli sank onto the bottom step, watching Nick. He slowly put the gun back in the drawer, thinking hard. “Which one?” he asked. “Which of them took the boat? And where is the other one?”

“Minnie had every reason to take it,” Joshua said, almost apologetically. “She was desperate to find that man of hers.”

Nick shook his head. “She’s not a sailor. Carmen is. But why? There was no reason for her to go back to Vistaria.”

“Except that for Carmen, it’s home,” Calli interjected.

Both men turned to look at her.

“She’s been away at college for...how long, Nick? Seven years or more? That day on the balcony, she blasted you for shuffling her off to college so quickly. Off to college and away from her father. It was a sore point with her. And you went and lost her country for her.”

Josh winced.

“I’m phrasing as she would phrase it,” Calli explained.

“I know,” Nick said softly. He was staring into middle-distance. Thinking hard. “If Carmen is on the boat, then where is Minnie?”

Josh pushed his hand through his hair. “I’ve looked in every place I could think of. I even walked through that fashion mall thing.” He shuddered. “Minnie has been hanging around this house most of the time lately. She has to be somewhere unexpected.”

“She is,” Calli said, as the idea burst into her mind like a sun emerging from eclipse.

They both looked at her again and Nick was smiling.

“Where’s the most unlikely, unexpected place she could be right now?” Calli asked them.

Nick’s smile broadened. “On the boat with Carmen.”

“Are you crazy?” Joshua asked, looking from Calli to Nick.

“It’s so crazy it’s logical,” Nick said. “They both have reason to go back to Vistaria and Carmen is a good sailor. Only, it’s a two-man boat at the minimum. She couldn’t do it herself. She has to have help, even if it’s someone just competent enough to take the wheel while she trims the sails.”

Joshua shook his head. “Are you actually listening to what you’re saying? You’re telling me that two women who couldn’t stand to be in the same room—who clawed each other to bloody pulp less than a week ago—that they’ve got together and are sailing into Vistaria? A country so overrun with Insurrectos and so ground down under their heel that not even refugees can find a way off it...they’re sailing into that?”

“Exactly,” Nick agreed, pushing his hands into his pockets. “We don’t know how they got together and agreed to do it, but it doesn’t matter. We do know they’re on the boat.” He glanced at the old grandfather clock across the hall. “Depending on how long they’ve been sailing and how tight Carmen trimmed the sails, they could already be on dry land.”

* * * * *

“Tell me again why we’re here?” Minnie whispered. She wriggled as the long dry grass under the tree tickled her nose. Each movement made her nylon suit crackle. “And why this isn’t the most stupid idea you’ve had this year?”

Carmen waved away a fly. “Because this is the last place you saw Duardo and because I know the shack inside out, upside down and backward.”

Minnie stared at the front of the Presidential Palace, her heart tripping along unhappily. There were soldiers everywhere. She knew they were soldiers because most of them wore submachine guns hanging from their shoulders, but there wasn’t too much in the way of uniforms to identify them.

She and Carmen lay in the long wild grasses at the southern edge of the palace grounds. Carmen had led Minnie through deserted side streets and back alleys to what had looked like a farmer’s field, complete with waist-high wire fence, leaning fence posts and a border of shade trees. There was a three-meter-wide opening in the fence and the dirt between the posts showed tire tracks. Something stirred in Minnie’s memory. “I think I’ve been here before,” she said.

“Possibly. Nick would have used this way if there were people at the front.”

Minnie frowned. She remembered a car. Vaguely. “God, I really wasn’t paying attention,” she muttered. “Why haven’t the Insurrectos shut this opening up tight? It’s bad security.”

“They probably don’t even know about it. Few people in my father’s government knew it was here. It was primarily Nick’s escape hole. From the palace, it looks like these trees back up onto vertical mountain.” She nodded toward the sheer rock face just across the road. “It probably hasn’t occurred to them to even investigate this section of the boundary.”

“Does that make them stupid or lazy?” Minnie muttered. “I’d have checked.”

“C’mon,” Carmen encouraged her, stepping through the opening. “And quiet. We’re on enemy territory now.”

They’d worked their way to the edge of the shady trees and lain down in the grasses to observe the palace and the administrative building and the personnel walking between them. Minnie wrinkled her nose again. “There’s something different here too,” she said. “When we were here...” She nodded. “Yeah, they’ve taken away the covering over the path between the palace and the admin building.”

Carmen propped her chin on her hands and studied the buildings. “Son of a bitch, you’re right,” she said after a moment. “Why on earth take the roof away? That’s stupid! It’s either hot or raining...either way, it was useful.” She rolled over on her back, patently pissed.

“What’s wrong?” Minnie asked. “They’ve messed with your house?”

“Yes!” It was a heartfelt growl.

“Just imagine what they’ve done with the rest of the country then.”

“I’m trying not to.” Carmen rolled her head to look at Minnie. “I hope Nick makes his move real soon. Something’s got to be done. Did you see all the market stalls along the square when we went through?”

“There weren’t any stalls,” Minnie pointed out.

“That’s right. It’s a Friday morning. We should have had to elbow our way through the people in the square. I’d planned on picking up something hot to eat there and there wasn’t a single stall in sight.”

“Lots of men with machine guns, though,” Minnie pointed out.

Carmen sighed and rested her forearm over her eyes. “Yeah, lots of guns,” she murmured. “I’m going to sleep a bit. We’ll trade watches until it’s dark, ‘kay?”

For the rest of the day, they dozed and watched the movements of the men between the buildings. In the mid-afternoon when they were both awake, Minnie pointed to the front gates. “No one is coming in or out of those gates, have you noticed? There are armed guards, the gates are closed and even the street outside is empty.”

Carmen yawned. “They’re gripping too tightly,” she said. “Keeping themselves apart, controlling too hard. Serrano must be getting desperate. No other country will recognize him. He’s killing the economy here, making the money dry up, so he can’t even buy himself recognition. No wonder the Mexican government approached Nick.”

At that latitude, darkness fell early, even in summer. Once it was fully dark and even though they were both dying to move, they stayed where they were and discussed their plan. “After midnight,” Carmen suggested. “They’ll be asleep or sleepy—even the guards. Fewer people wandering the grounds too.”

Minnie chewed at her lip. “I think it should be even later than that. Serrano and his men strike me as the sort that party hard in the evenings—booze, women, gambling. The closer to dawn the better. They’ll be bedded down with a woman or sleeping off their rum.”

“Neither of us have a watch. That could be tricky to judge,” Carmen pointed out. “Wait too long and we’re back to daylight.”

“So let’s keep count of the number of windows still lit on the second floor. That’s where all the bedrooms are, right?”

“Along the north wing. Sure.”

“When they’re all out, or most of them, we make a move.”

* * * * *

Minnie nudged Carmen awake with her elbow. “Every light but one is out,” she whispered. The dark and still night seemed to demand whispering and her adrenaline had been steadily building the last few hours. “It’s been at least a couple of hours now since I saw anyone moving anywhere. There’s just that one last light. No one’s cast a shadow across the window, though.”

Carmen rolled over and studied the shadowed building. “The external spotlights are still on. Suspicious bunch, aren’t they? Never mind, we can go around the back way. There’s an old coal chute...well, you’ll see.”

They carefully got to their feet, stretched and massaged away kinks and cramps. Carmen spent a few minutes feeling around the ground beneath the trees. She straightened up with a satisfied sound and put something in the pocket of her oversized jeans. Then she led Minnie back along the line of trees until they reached the sheer rock face that provided an unscalable defense at the back of the presidential grounds.

From there, they could see the back of the building with the wide, elegant terrace and the paved section where, once upon a time, rows of cars and a helicopter or two stood waiting to be used.

“Is that where...?” Carmen asked.

“Yes.” Minnie’s heart stuttered and thudded on. “They took him on a stretcher through that door there.” She pointed to the unremarkable doorway Duardo had been hurried through.

“That’s where the infirmary was,” Carmen confirmed.

The paving below the terrace was empty. Already, grass grew between the stones, giving it a neglected, sad look. “It seems like such a long time ago,” Minnie confessed. “But also, like it happened just yesterday.”

Carmen shifted her feet, the oversized rubber shoes squeaking in the grass. “Let’s go,” she murmured and strode out into the open grassed area between the trees and the palace itself. Minnie hurried after her, barely keeping up with her shorter legs. Carmen arrowed straight for the corner of the building and didn’t stop when she reached it. She moved with the wall a bare inch from her shoulder all the way to the north end of the building and halted at a section of the wall that had a sheet metal patch on it—as if it had been riveted over a hole in the wall. Carmen dug into her jeans pocket and withdrew what looked like a thick, six-inch-long twig.

She worked the end of the twig between the metal and the brickwork behind it, using a lot of effort. Minnie took a startled half-step backward when the patch moved a fraction of an inch from the wall.

Carmen slipped her fingertips between plate and wall and waved Minnie over, indicating she should do the same. Confused, Minnie did as she was asked, feeling thick, heavy and cold metal press against her fingers.

Carmen pulled on the sheet, putting her full body weight into it. Nothing happened. Still uncertain about what Carmen was trying to do, Minnie copied her and tugged on the sheet as well.

Although there was no sound, she felt the sheet giving way with slow reluctance. When it had moved far enough away from the wall, she recognized it for what it was. The sheet was merely the front end of a vee-shaped bin that was hinged at the bottom of the vee. They were pulling it out from the wall.

As it swung lower and lower, she saw that the sides of the bin were vee shaped, but there was no back wall to the bin. Just a pitch-black maw. This, then, was the coal chute.

Carmen touched her shoulder and indicated that she should climb in. Minnie looked at the solid blackness beyond the opening and shook her head. Carmen rolled her eyes with exaggerated movements and pushed her aside. She threw her leg over the side of the bin and wriggled into it until she was sitting on the bottom of the bin. For Carmen it was a tight fit. Her hips were bigger than Minnie’s. But if Carmen could get through it, Minnie would slip through with no problems.

Carmen inched her way forward and Minnie saw from her progress that the chute did not drop but sloped gently.

Encouraged, Minnie climbed into the bin herself. She jarred her butt against a thick metal handle on the inside of the bin and realized that she should use it to close the hatch behind her. She grabbed the handle, tugged on it and the hatch moved sluggishly. It had taken the two of them to open it. How the hell was she supposed to close it by herself, with no leverage? Her feet hung in the complete darkness, with nowhere to anchor herself.

Then she felt Carmen’s hands on her feet, steadying her. The hands took a better grip on her ankles and pulled.

Understanding flared in her. Minnie gripped the handle tightly, rolled onto her stomach and let herself slide down the shoot until her arm was extended. Then she planted her other hand flat against the inside of the framed opening and pushed like hell with that hand while she pulled on the handle with the other. With Carmen’s pulling on her legs, they slowly closed the hatch. It seated itself solidly and Minnie could understand why no one had recognized it as a way into the building. It was too small, too old and looked like it had been riveted into the wall.

Carmen helped Minnie down to the ground and onto her feet. They were in a half-basement, the old coal chute finishing a couple of feet above the concrete floor. There was no source of light in the room at all.

Carmen took Minnie’s arm and moved slowly across the room. She had explained to Minnie on the way across to Vistaria that this was one of half a dozen secret entries she had used throughout her high school years to sneak in and out of the palace and avoid her father’s interrogation every time she wanted to go somewhere with her friends. It had also allowed her to move about the city without a security detail.

So now she led Minnie across the room with confidence despite the dark. Minnie heard fumbling and the motion of air across her face. Carmen had opened a door. She was led through the doorway into more black. She blinked. To their left dim light showed them the shape of the passage they stood in.

Carmen spoke in a murmur, right by Minnie’s ear. “End of passage, service stairs, up to third floor, sneak along main passage to attic entry and up.”

Minnie nodded, though she didn’t know if Carmen could see the nod. They had already discussed this during the long day observing the palace. The attic had been Carmen’s childhood playground. No one ever ventured up there except Carmen and, on occasion, Nick and her father when they had come to find her. From the attic they would be able to sneak around the palace and collect the information they needed. Carmen had seemed confident that the attic was a strategic position. “It runs the length of the palace and there’s a half-dozen entrances. It’s perfect.”

They moved along the passage and when they got closer to the light Minnie could see it came from beneath a door at the end of the passage. Carmen pushed the door open an inch at a time, peering around it. Then, satisfied, she pushed it fully open. It was a stairwell and a metal staircase wound upward, lit by the dull orange glow of emergency lights. This would get them to the third floor.

Carmen took off her shoes and indicated that Minnie should do the same. She placed her forefinger against her lips.

They climbed the staircase as quickly as they could. In that echoing funnel, Minnie realized she was incapable of moving silently. The salt-encrusted nylon of her coveralls swished with each step she took. There was nothing she could do about it. She was naked beneath the suit. With her heart in her mouth, she concentrated on climbing with as little noise as possible, keeping her thighs far apart so the legs of the suit wouldn’t rub together and her arms out from her sides.

There were doors at every level and Minnie realized that at any moment someone could step through one of them. Her heart pattered along, loud in her ears. Sweat broke out on her temples.

At the third-floor doorway, Carmen again eased it open. They would have to use one of the main corridors to get to the attic staircase now. She let the door swing shut and put her rubber shoes back on. Minnie slipped on her borrowed tennis shoes. Carmen had found it enormously funny that Minnie fit into gym shoes Carmen had used when she was ten.

Carmen eased open the door enough to slip through and Minnie followed. Immediately, their surroundings changed. The carpet beneath their feet was thick and muffling. Minnie could sense the quality even though the light in the wide hallway was dim. At the edges of the carpet, highly polished floorboards gleamed. At intervals sat elegant antique chairs with satin backs and claw feet, or carved wooden pedestals holding up huge bouquets of flowers. It was plush. Silent.

They moved down the middle of the carpet. Minnie winced with almost every step. She was swishing and in the dull silence it was loud.

They had covered twenty-five yards when a voice spoke to them out of the darkness, the Spanish harsh. “I can hear you moving. Do not run, or I will be forced to shoot you.”

Minnie froze. Her nylon suit had given her away.

Carmen’s hand landed on her shoulder. Squeezed. Minnie felt her move away and knew exactly what Carmen was thinking. The man had spoken of only one and she was the one he had heard. Carmen still had a chance to escape and must take it. Minnie silently wished her luck and turned to face the voice in the dark.

“I’m not running,” she said and threaded her fingers together to hide their trembling.

Another small silence.

“Americana?” It was a different voice. This one came from behind her.

She swiveled again to face it. Instinct prodded her. “Not bloody likely, mate,” she said. “Can’t you tell the difference between Australian and Yank?”

“There is...difference?” A door opened nearby, spilling light onto her. The man who had spoken was also illuminated. He was young, unshaven and held a submachine gun to his face, aiming at her.

Another two men stepped into the pool of light. She realized with a sinking heart that she had been surrounded and had not noticed a thing until the voice spoke out of the dark. The same voice now spoke, still issuing from the shadows. “For an Australian, you are a long way from home. You have been discovered in a position most difficult to explain.” She sensed movement and the silhouette of the man came into view. He moved slowly because he used a cane. He leaned heavily upon it.

This was the dangerous one, Minnie realized. This man outranked everyone here.

He stopped a few paces from her and studied her. He was still in shadow and weak light, but she could see an eye patch and a thick moustache, which might have looked melodramatic on anyone else, yet on him seemed to imply danger. This man had seen things and suffered. He was experienced in the harsher qualities of life.

“Do you have an explanation for your presence inside the palace?” he asked. His English was good.

“I might,” Minnie said airily.

He moved impatiently, the cane thudding the floor, and stepped closer. The light hit his face squarely and Minnie sucked in a breath as shock slammed through her.

It was Duardo.

“What is it?” he said sharply. “Why do you stare at me so? Do you know who I am? Is that why you tremble?”

Adrenaline was making her shake, making her feel sick. She was unable to tear her gaze from his face. Was this Duardo? How could it be? He was the enemy, he didn’t know her. It couldn’t be him. Yet...it was Duardo. Somehow, he was here, inside the enemy’s quarters. What sort of dangerous game was he playing? Even though she did not understand what was going on here, she had to play along.

“No, I don’t know you,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I tremble because your friend over there is pointing a bloody great big gun at me. Am I supposed to chuckle about it?”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his calculating eyes. “You have courage,” he said. “I applaud that. I am Colonel Bruno Zalaya y Fuentes.”

Minnie could feel her already laboring heart actually stop in its tracks for a split second. Duardo...was Zalaya? Duardo was the man that did such dreadful things to people, was the evil lynchpin that Nick intended to deal with?

“I see you know the name,” Duardo continued. “Which makes you more than just a tourist with too much curiosity.” He looked around at the men in the corridor. “Take her back to my office. I will complete the interrogation there.”

The younger Insurrecto with the gun stepped closer to her and motioned with the muzzle that she should turn around and move. He glanced at Duardo. “And then, the whorehouse?”

Minnie had no trouble translating “whorehouse”—it was the same in both languages and she recognized the hungry look on the soldier’s face. A shudder rippled through her.

Duardo/Zalaya considered her for a moment. “An intriguing idea,” he said softly. “I’ll decide once she has given me some answers.” He glanced at the soldier. “To my office, immediately, Soto. And no dallying on the way.” Then back at her. “Yes, do not dally at all. I greatly desire to...question this one.”