Chapter Eleven

The young soldier, Soto, took Minnie straight to Zalaya’s office with no detours, not even a word to her. Zalaya obviously had his personnel cowed into complete obedience, which filled Minnie with more confusion. Duardo was clearly Zalaya...but Zalaya had a reputation filled with unspeakable horrors and atrocities. How could this be Duardo? How could the man she loved—who was very much alive—be committing these terrible things?

Then relief filled her as she remembered something Nick and her father had said when she, Calli and Carmen had pried information from them. Zalaya had been dishonorably discharged from the Army two years ago. So there had been a real Zalaya, which meant Duardo was only pretending to be that evil man.

Only, where was the real one and how had Duardo stepped into this role?

Worry about it later, she told herself. The answers would come. For now it was clear that everyone around her was convinced Duardo was Zalaya and until she had some answers, she must deal with him as Zalaya.

She hugged the crucial fact to herself, barely able to hide her smile. Duardo was alive. He lived!

Zalaya’s office was on the second floor, north wing, which put it smack in the middle of all the bedroom windows they had been studying all night. Was his the light that had continued to burn?

Soto opened the door and beckoned her inside by waving the point of his gun. Minnie stepped into an electronic nightmare. There were banks of screens and monitors on every wall and no windows. Sitting in the middle of the room was a console of switches and dials. The nerve center, clearly. Beside it was a large teak desk with a perfectly normal executive chair behind it.

She looked around, then studied the monitors. They seemed to show every single room in the palace, along with most of the areas outside the building. She and Carmen had not stood a chance of going undetected. How long had Zalaya’s people been watching them?

“Here. Wait,” Soto said.

Minnie looked over her shoulder. He was pointing at her feet.

“Here?” she said. “Right here on this spot?”

It was too much English for him. He shrugged and slung his submachine gun so it rested against his hip. He curled his forefinger over the trigger guard and watched her.

She went back to studying the monitors. How much of the grounds did Zalaya have covered? How much had he seen of their movements? Did he know she had not been alone? She scanned the outside screens. None of them showed the thick grove of trees at the back of the grounds. None of them showed the section of the building with the square iron patch of the coal chute. Yet they could have been seen crossing the grounds. They might have been seen in the building itself. She couldn’t see a view of the fire-escape stairs, but there was a reason for all the switches and dials on the desk—he could jump from camera to camera.

Why had Carmen not warned her about the cameras? She could not have known about them. These were something that Serrano—or Zalaya—had installed. Minnie glanced around the room. There was a lot of expensive equipment in here. It indicated that one or the other of the pair was overly paranoid about security.

She turned and glanced at Soto. His gaze didn’t shift from her. He was the perfect guard.

Her study of the room completed, Minnie dropped her gaze to the floor. Duardo/Zalaya said he would interrogate her. She had to come up with a story now that would explain away everything and not have her shot on the spot as a spy...or turned over to the whorehouse, like Soto wanted. Regardless of what Duardo may want to do with her, he was surrounded by men with machine guns who wanted her dead or given to them as some sort of prize.

But as the minutes ticked away, she could think of nothing that would cover every facet of the circumstances under which she had been discovered. Plus, she had to make sure that whatever story she came up with would expand to cover Carmen, if she had been seen at all. She squeezed her temples under her fingertips, rubbing them as she rapidly discarded each idea that occurred to her. She’d had plenty of practice lying to her parents as a teenager, sneaking out at night and heading for clubs when she was supposed to be on homework dates...but this was such a different scale!

Then she paused, considering that thought. No, it wasn’t a different scale at all. Lying was lying. The only difference in scale was that if the lie didn’t hold up this time, she’d have way more than a simple grounding to deal with.

The door handle turned and Zalaya limped in with two more soldiers behind him, both with machine guns at their hips.

In this better light, Minnie was struck by the changes in Duardo. He had lost muscle and was leaner and paler than she remembered. What had he been through to make him look that...used? Then there was the melodramatic moustache and the eye patch, which must have been the real Zalaya’s. Most distressing was the limp and the cane. Were both because of the bullet he had taken in the back to protect her? She could not ask.

Unexpectedly, different ideas connected up. Duardo’s limp and a conversation Minnie barely recalled—she could hear Cristián’s studied tones as he’d explained the theory, with Trini Juanita bouncing on her chair with enthusiasm.

She looked at the way Duardo held his mouth and the strange light in his eyes. He had never shown that calculating gleam before. It would be better to think of him and deal with him as if he were Zalaya for now. It would help her avoid a slip of the tongue that would betray both of them.

Duardo—Zalaya dumped a length of chain on the desk and from the center of the pile extracted a single handcuff. He held it out to her. “Put this around your wrist.”

She kept still. She had no idea what he intended, but she wasn’t going to cooperate because that’s not what she would have done with Zalaya.

He spoke in fast Spanish and immediately she was grabbed from behind and her arm extended out painfully. Soto scooted forward, took the cuff from Zalaya and slapped it over her wrist so that it snapped shut with a distinct click. The chain was attached to it.

The soldiers kept hold of her as Zalaya picked out another cuff from the middle of the pile of chain. This one he slipped around the handle of the drawer under his desk. He then pulled the chair up and dropped into it. He put the cane aside and lifted his leg to the desk and absently rubbed at his thigh. All the while he kept his gaze on her.

“Search her,” he said.

Hands grabbed her arms again, holding her still. More hands and fingers pried her legs apart and probed her thighs, her hips. Higher. She struggled and even got her foot up high enough to smash it into one of their thighs. It was a near miss. She had been aiming for his balls.

“I’d keep still if I were you,” Zalaya said, barely raising his voice. There was a quick snick of metal that Minnie recognized. She looked up, straight into the barrel of a revolver. She could see the bullets in the chambers, pointing at her. Behind the gun, Zalaya’s steadfast gaze.

Remember this is Zalaya, not Duardo. He has to do this. She grew still.

The hands continued their impersonal search of her, probing in every crevice and crease. She bucked when one of them thrust his hand between her legs and rammed it up against her cleft. She kicked backward and heard a curse.

“Let me see her,” Zalaya demanded, his voice still quiet and controlled.

The soldiers stepped away from her and Zalaya lowered the revolver to the desk, studying her.

She straightened her spine, threw her shoulders back and looked him in the eye.

“Very brave indeed,” Zalaya said. He massaged his thigh once more, over the same spot. “It’s time to tell me why you were wandering the corridors of the presidential palace.”

“You won’t believe me,” she said warningly.

“Likely not,” he agreed. “Yet we must go through this tiresome business.”

“Don’t you want to record this for posterity or something?” she asked. “All these cameras everywhere...one of them must work. I don’t want to have to do this twice.”

“Oh, do not worry,” he assured her. “This is being recorded.” He pointed toward the corner of the ceiling and she looked over her shoulder. The miniaturized camera was barely the size of a cigarette pack and painted to match the ceiling. Only the reflection of the lens gave it away. “I record everything that happens in here,” Zalaya continued. “There have been many occasions I have enjoyed watching again.” He gave another of the smiles that didn’t reach his eyes.

Was Duardo merely playing the role he was locked into, or was he trying to warn her? Both? She looked around once more at the cameras and equipment. They were evidence of a sick mind. Minnie shivered.

“Are you cold?” Zalaya asked.

“You’re an evil bastard.”

“So they say,” he returned calmly. “To business. Your name?”

“I thought you wanted my story?”

“Tell me your name!” he shouted, lunging across the desk at her.

She skittered backward. “M-Miranda,” she stuttered, her heart screaming at her. He is being Zalaya. If he did not do this they would know he was not Zalaya and they would kill him. No, they would kill both of them, she realized bleakly.

Duardo had to play the role of Zalaya with complete conviction or they both would die.

She felt the tip of one of the guns touch her bare shoulder. It was a warning.

Zalaya sat down on his chair once more, as calm as a moment before. “Very good,” he said. “Tell me why you were in the palace.”

She took a deep, wobbling breath. “I’m a Knight Errant,” she said.

“Indeed.”

“I know, you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Most of the world hasn’t heard of us. We’re a loose alliance of people who challenge each other—”

“Wait,” Zalaya said, holding up his hand and frowning. “I have heard of this. The man who walked into the Queen of England’s bedroom. The woman who climbed the outside of the Eiffel Tower. The person who stole Fidel Castro’s personal cigar humidor. Correct?”

“They were members of the alliance. They have been formally expelled.”

Zalaya leaned forward. “Because they were caught?”

She shook her head. “Because the rest of the world heard about it. We don’t do it for the glory.”

“Ah!” He sat back again. “And your challenge was to break into the palace and...?”

“Steal a monogrammed cushion from the presidential bedchamber.”

He considered that for a long moment. “There is no penalty for being caught?”

“I haven’t failed yet,” Minnie pointed out.

“I see.” He seemed genuinely amused. “Telling me about it doesn’t disqualify you?”

“There are no rules, except for getting yourself plastered on the front pages of the world’s dailies. Whatever it takes.”

“You think you can talk me into letting you go and also letting you take one of these cushions you seek?”

She looked him in the eye. “It was worth a try.”

Zalaya’s smile, this time, was broad. “You are an unusual one. So unusual, I’m inclined to believe you would fit in well with this group you describe. If it existed.”

“It exists,” Minnie said flatly. “Do any of these electronic gizmos have Internet access?”

Surprise touched his face. “Certainly. Don’t tell me. A website?”

She nodded.

He leaned sideways and snagged a keyboard from where it lay on top of the console next to his desk and rested it on his lap. He looked at her. “The address?”

She gave it to him. He tapped in the URL and hit enter, then swiveled to look over her shoulder at one of the monitors behind her. “It’s asking for membership codes.”

She gave him a half smile. “I told you, we don’t do it for the glory. It’s a close-knit group. Invitation only.”

“Then why a website at all?”

“We come from all over the world.”

“Including Australia,” he added. “Give me your code.”

“That would get me expelled,” she said quickly. “I told you, anonymity is a requirement.”

“Code,” he repeated, his gaze unwavering.

She dredged up the necessary details from her memory. “The sign-in name is ‘Galahad’. The password is ‘n-i-m-u-e’.”

He grimaced. “Very romantic,” he commented and tapped in the data. He looked up at the screen again. “And accurate,” he added. “I was half expecting you to tell me the reason it wouldn’t work was because you had been caught and they’d changed the codes to protect their privacy.”

“How could they know I’d been caught? You’ve already searched me—was a communications device found?”

He smiled. “There’s a couple of places we haven’t searched yet,” he assured her. She felt herself blush. He pushed the keyboard away. “It’s an intriguing story.”

“Take it or leave it.” She shrugged.

“For now, I will think about it.” He stood up, grabbed the cane and leaned on it, looking down at her. “Which leaves me with the remaining question. What do I do with you?”

Minnie heard a half-muffled cough behind her. It had to be Soto, silently renewing his demand that she be put in the whorehouse.

Zalaya gave no sign that he had heard the cough. He was studying her with close attention to detail. He cocked his head, examining her face, then lifted her chin with a finger. She felt like a steer being measured up in a sale yard, then realized the analogy was an apt one.

Zalaya nodded. “One for the colonel,” he declared.

Soto gave a sigh.

“When I am done, you may have her,” Zalaya told Soto. “I will put her at your personal disposal for...one week?”

“Dos semanas.”

“Very well. Two weeks. Take her through, Soto.”

Soto moved around her, slinging his gun over his shoulder. Zalaya tossed him keys and he undid the cuff around the drawer handle and walked through the other door in Zalaya’s office carrying it with him, the chain slithering along behind. Minnie saw well-polished furniture—a bed, a leather sofa, tall cabinets. Then the chain snapped taut and she was pulled through the door.

Soto was connecting the other cuff to a rail in the foot of the big bed. He readjusted his rifle, winked at her and left, looking cheerful. He shut the door after him.

* * * * *

Serrano poured coffee for himself. He didn’t offer Zalaya any, even though his household spies told him Zalaya had been up all night.

Zalaya didn’t comment as Serrano sat down at the breakfast table with his loaded plate. He sat watching.

After several mouthfuls Serrano spoke. “You kept her?”

“Why not? She is young, wholesome. There’s some fun to be had out of her.”

Serrano shrugged. “I thought your taste ran to boys.”

“My taste runs to anything interesting,” Zalaya corrected, showing no sign of insult or offense. “She’s interesting.”

“As long as she doesn’t distract you from the real work,” Serrano said.

This time Zalaya did show an emotion. His face tightened and anger flickered in his eyes. “If you had known me before the war, you would know better than to question my dedication to my work.”

“Oh, I heard. I heard,” Serrano said, waving away his anger. “But I’m paying damn good money for your services. To be precise, I’m paying you for the cold, calculating son of a whore you really are. Don’t go getting emotional on me or I may have to reconsider. Fuck the bitch, toss her into the bordello and let’s get on with it, yes?”

Zalaya considered this. “Yes,” he said at last. His expression was neutral again.

* * * * *

The sun rose not long after Soto closed the bedroom door on her. When the light was full, Minnie explored the room as far as the chain would let her. She discovered that the chain was just long enough for her to reach the toilet in the attached bathroom, but not the medicine cabinet over the sink.

It meant that the chain had been carefully measured for this sort of thing, long before Minnie had arrived. The calculation in it made her uneasy. Zalaya was everything Nick had thought him to be and the woman in the hospital had warned them about.

Why on earth had Duardo taken over his identity?

The chain wouldn’t let Minnie reach the tall bureau on the other side of the room but the closet was reachable and innocent. Zalaya was an austere dresser. Black trousers, plain short-sleeved shirts. No military uniform that she could see. No underwear either.

The bedside table was empty. More foresight?

She scanned the ceiling and found in one of the corners the same painted box as was in Zalaya’s office. The man was clearly a narcissist as well as an exhibitionist. He got off watching himself and didn’t seem to care who knew it.

The camera meant that even this bedroom was not safe. In here, Duardo must still remain Zalaya.

That was the full extent of her exploration. She could reach no farther into the room, so she curled up on the bed and tried to rest while she did some heavy thinking.

What was she going to do? Was there any way out of this? If there was a way out of this, why had Duardo not used it long before now? There had to be a reason he had stayed here, pretending to be Zalaya.

Did that mean she must find her own way out? Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that yes, she might well be on her own. Duardo was locked into his role as Zalaya and must stay there for reasons she did not know right now. He could not come to her rescue. She had to do it herself.

How was she supposed to escape? She could pin her hopes on Carmen finding her way here undetected, but if she did there was no way to deal with the cuff on her wrist. Zalaya had the key. Duardo might risk trying to give her the key, but the cameras in every room made that a high risk indeed.

She could hope that Nick and Calli might figure out where she was and come looking for her, except that would bring Nick face-to-face with Zalaya and he was not ready for that confrontation yet. Nick would not risk the future of his country for the sake of one stupid American woman who’d embroiled herself in yet another problem. She would not want him to take that risk.

The full size and scope of the potential disaster she had set off registered. Minnie hugged herself, shivering. She realized she was weeping when tears spilled onto the pillow. She drummed the linen impatiently with her fist. Self-pity wasn’t going to help her now.

She bit her lip as the truth came into perfect focus. All her life she had got into scrapes and troubles and every time there had been someone nearby to get her out again—her father throughout her childhood and Calli, more recently. Then Duardo, who had defined himself by his loyalty to his country yet had put that loyalty aside in order to help her.

This latest, greatest scrape had dropped her into territory where no one could help her. Duardo, the one person who might help, would most certainly die if he tried. She was going to have to help herself. Only...she had no idea how she was supposed to do that.

She indulged in more hot tears, her thoughts fracturing into weak protests of despair and unfairness. It was childish and quite useless, but she wasn’t able to stop the whining voice inside her, so gave into it and wailed silently. If she hadn’t been aware of the silent monitor in the corner of the ceiling, she would have kicked her heels in a tantrum too.

Eventually, she dozed and her thoughts drifted. She knew she was dreaming, for Duardo was with her. His hands were on her body. In her dream, Minnie arched back as Duardo’s long fingers slid over her with a knowing stroke. Her body was hyper-alert and that single stroke left her quivering, with every nerve ending sizzling with expectation. She yearned for another stroke and silently cried for it.

She was woken by the rattle of blinds rolling up and the flood of late afternoon sun through the tall windows. She blinked in the light. Zalaya turned from the window and faced her. “How did you get to Vistaria, hmm? I failed to ask that question this morning.”

Minnie sat up, trying to push aside her confusion. Her body was still heavy with arousal, her mind sluggish with after-images of Duardo’s hands stroking her.

“What do you mean?” she asked, playing for time.

“I mean, how did you travel here?”

“The usual way,” she said and shrugged, trying to look carefree. Only, with Zalaya in the shadows and the light in her eyes, it was as if the old Duardo stood before her. Her aroused body could not distinguish the difference.

Zalaya gave an impatient wave of his hand. “There have been no commercial flights into Vistaria in four months—not since we defeated the old guard.”

“I have been here six months,” she said.

“That is not possible. Vistarian customs and immigration only issue three-month tourist visas. Your name does not appear on any passenger flights before the revolution.” He smiled and added with a deceptively mild voice. “There have been no commercial flights since then.”

She thought it through swiftly. She had lied her way into a corner. Usually she was better at thinking ahead than this, but her confused state had hampered her ability. She fell back on an old tactic. The truth—or as much of it as she could afford to reveal.

“You’re right, I didn’t fly in. I came over the night before last night, by boat.”

“From?” he said sharply.

“Acapulco.”

“You own a boat?”

It was another trap. She could feel her heart warn her by jumping hard. “I stole it. Which is why I didn’t tell you first time around.”

“And this boat is where?”

“Some bay. I don’t know this place all that well.”

“Yet you found your way from ‘some bay’ to the city without problems.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t have problems. It took me two days.”

He considered this for a long moment. “We found the boat,” he said.

He had been playing with her. He’d known all along about Nick’s yacht. She had told him exactly what he had wanted to hear.

He added casually, as if it were a throw-away detail, “It’s too big for one person to handle.”

Thank god Carmen was an incessant talker! Minnie dredged up Carmen’s run-off-at-the-mouth speech about sailing it one handed. “Not if you know what you’re doing,” she told Zalaya. “You can’t use a spinnaker, of course, but if you short sheet the jib and keep it tight, then you can manage it. It’s slower, but it gets you there.”

His brows lifted. Then his eyes narrowed. “I don’t suppose you know whose boat it is that you stole?”

Minnie just barely hid her surprise. Of course they would have recognized the boat. The real Zalaya would have known it was Nick’s.

“How the hell would I know?” she told him. “And why would I care?”

He considered her for a long, thoughtful moment. “Indeed,” he said at last, his voice dry. He shifted the cane under his hand and moved his weight.

Minnie thought: Change of directions. New tactic.

“Who is ‘Duardo’?” he asked.

She swallowed dryly, unable to prevent her eyes from widening in shock. Why would he ask that here?

“You were asleep when I came in and you murmured the name,” he added, almost as if he were answering her silent question. He moved around the bed, coming up to her side. “You murmured the name with longing and your body was aroused. This Duardo is your lover, no?”

She shivered. “Duardo is dead,” she said flatly.

“Who was he, then?” Zalaya’s one good eye gazed into her own.

Instinctively, Minnie stuck to the fundamental truth. “He was a Vistarian.”

“You are not a stranger to this land.”

“Not entirely.”

Zalaya gripped the cane. “He was in the army,” he said flatly.

“I didn’t say that.”

He smiled. “You do not have to. It is written all over your face, your body and in every answer you give. Your Knight Errant mission to break into the Presidential Palace was no coincidence, was it? Your Duardo must have been posted here at the palace. You proposed the mission to your fellow knights.”

He was guiding her answers, giving her hints on how best to construct her story so it would withstand probing.

He turned and moved back to the end of the bed, putting himself back into the shadows again. “I have done some research on this group you claim you belong to. ‘Knight Errant’ has a specific definition and my English is good enough to distinguish the subtleties. The quests your knights set are both chivalrous and quixotic. They’re romantic, noble deeds that are at best unreachable. A modern version of tilting at windmills.”

She phrased her answer carefully. “You can think that if you like.”

Again, the long study and consideration. Then, “Take off your clothes,” he said, his voice low.

Her heart jumped. “No.”

He pulled the revolver from the pouch on his hip. “Understand this. Your future depends upon obeying me for as long as I command it.”

Remember, he must be Zalaya...and you must behave as if he is Zalaya. “Go fuck yourself,” she said and added, “Literally.”

“A physical impossibility,” he assured her.

“You won’t shoot me,” she told him. “It’ll end all the fun you have planned.”

He fired and Minnie recoiled sideways as the heat and friction of the bullet stung her upper arm as it passed by. She was too shocked to even utter a scream. The roar of the revolver in that small room was like a thunderclap.

She could smell something burning behind her and swiveled enough to see the edges of the wallpaper where the bullet had buried itself in the wall were glowing red and smoking.

She turned back to him, shaking badly. The urge to pee was almost overwhelming.

“Rest assured, a bullet in the body doesn’t have to kill.” He motioned with the revolver, pointing to different parts of her torso. “There are a dozen places where a bullet will only inflict serious pain. Pain will only discommode you, not me. Besides, I am a crack shot, as I just demonstrated. There are ways of grazing the body that will achieve the same level of pain and not seriously disable you.” He cocked the revolver with his thumb and Minnie felt ill as she watched the barrel roll around, bringing the next bullet into the chamber.

“Do not insist on a demonstration,” he finished. “Take off your clothes.”

Minnie reached for the zipper of the suit she wore and the cuff jingled against her arm. “I can’t get it off over this.”

He dug in his pocket and tossed the small key onto the bed next to her. “Unlock it and throw the key back.”

She obeyed and tossed the key back onto the floor at his feet. The gun and his gaze did not waver as he bent and picked up the key and pocketed it again.

She stripped the foul-smelling plastic suit from her with a degree of eagerness and dropped it on the floor.

He pointed with the gun to the cufflink. “Put it back on.”

She returned the cuff to her wrist.

“Tighter,” he said. “I won’t have you working your hand out of it when I’m gone.”

She tightened it more and waited, her heart hammering.

“I have work to do and meetings to attend,” he said briskly, moving toward the door that led to his office. He stopped at the chair to pick up a brown paper bag and threw it to land on the bed. “You will take a shower while I am gone. You may move around the room, but when I return you must be on the bed, wearing what is in that bag.”

He stepped out of the room and shut the door.

Minnie brought her knees to her chest, her ankles crossed and hugged herself, which successfully hid her nakedness from the camera in the corner. Her mind was racing.

If Duardo must play Zalaya at all times, then he could not openly speak to her as Duardo. Everything he said as Zalaya might hold a message for her—just as his comments about her “ex-lover” being in the army had guided her story.

Was there a message in what he had said before he left? She could not find any hint of such a message. Then why had he come back to the room at all? To play with her? That would be something that Zalaya would do, certainly. Zalaya would have wanted to know about the boat too. But Duardo’s instructions had been banal, indeed. “Take a shower.”

She longed for a hot shower anyway. She turned her back on the camera, moved into the bathroom and started the water. Looking back over her shoulder, she discovered that the transom over the door hid the camera from her. At least her shower would be semi-private. She shut the door as far as the chain would allow, just to be certain of it.

For the next forty minutes, until the water grew cool, she let the heat soak into her body, washing away the stink of fear and exertion. It was one of the best showers she had ever taken.

She stepped out and reached for a towel and froze.

Duardo had left her a direct message after all, in ghostly letters outlined by steam on the big mirror over the sink.

“Mic under the bed. I must stay Zalaya.” Beneath, he had signed his name and her heart clenched at the sight of it.

Duardo.