Chapter Six
“Guys, I’ve got to head back to the hotel for my date.” Glancing at his watch while seated on the upper floor of a moving double-decker, Mitch discovered that time had run away on him. Their trip to the Olympic Park, followed by lunch and a tour of La Sagrada Familia, had taken them late into the afternoon.
Haiku glanced at the map on his sat phone. Being the task unit’s chief communications officer, he could access data anywhere in the world—at least when a U.S.-owned satellite was orbiting overhead. Mitch’s iPhone, on the other hand, was useless whenever he went overseas.
“Get off at the next stop and walk north two blocks,” Haiku advised.
Austin, who was plugged into his music, looked over in time to see Mitch slide to the edge of his seat. “Get some for me, brother,” he encouraged.
Mitch rolled his eyes. As the bus approached Avinguda Diagonal, he reminded his friends about the newly instated curfew. Madrid had decreed that not a single soul should be walking the streets of Barcelona after three in the morning. Haiku and Austin acknowledged the reminder with a wave. The bus drew to a stop, and Mitch clambered off, hurrying in the direction of the hotel.
As he crossed the lobby, Katrina’s father, a careworn gentleman who’d taken the time that morning to answer their last-minute transportation questions, glanced up. Mitch’s respectful greeting went ignored. The man didn’t even seem to recognize him from earlier.
It occurred to Mitch that the tension in the streets was equally evident within the Ferrer family. The number of Guardia Civil in Barcelona seemed to have tripled overnight. Regardless of what sights Mitch and his companions had toured that day, there were paramilitary policemen everywhere, casing the streets, shooting suspicious looks at the locals.
Clearly, they were there to discourage acts of rebellion, but considering how much and for how many decades Catalans had desired their independence, Mitch figured it was only a matter of time before tensions turned into violence.
Still pondering Spain’s future, he showered and shaved in record time before donning a lightweight blue button-up, tan slacks, and boat shoes. The previous night’s near brush with violence reminded him to transfer his folding dagger from his jeans into the pocket of his slacks. The holster for his backup knife went around his left ankle, out of sight.
With a bounce in his step, Mitch left his room and headed for the lobby, arriving two minutes early.
Katrina was waiting by the check-in counter. Caught up in earnest conversation with her father, she failed to notice his approach. He sure as hell noticed her.
A black swing dress fell straight from her shoulders to the top half of her thighs, leaving most of her trim, golden legs bare. Her hair was caught up in a ponytail, drawing his attention to her slender neck and the smooth skin peeking through the embroidery at the back of her dress. Strappy black heels encased her dainty feet. If he could get away with picking her up and carrying her to his room right then and there, he might have tried it.
Felipe caught sight of him first, directing Katrina’s attention over her shoulder. As she turned around, a convincing smile supplanted her agitated expression.
More family trouble, Mitch thought.
“Hello,” he said, wishing he’d brought a flower for her hair as he bent to brush her cheek. Her perfume, he decided, would have made the flower redundant. “You look amazing.”
She took in his neat attire. “So do you.”
Pleased, Mitch cast a respectful nod at her father. “I’ll take good care of her, sir,” he promised, but that man scarcely acknowledged him. Mumbling something, he was already turning away.
“Ready?” he asked Katrina.
With a game smile and a familiarity that warmed him, she linked her arm with his. “Let’s go,” she said, drawing him toward the exit.
“You feel okay today?” he asked. Her fresh complexion and sexy eye makeup revealed scant evidence of their late outing the night before. “No hangover?”
“No, I’m fine. You?” she asked, as he opened the door for her.
“I couldn’t be better.”
“Great.” They stood on the stoop of the hotel grinning at each other. “Where are we going?” she prompted.
“I was hoping you could make that decision for me.” Filaments of sunlight slanted across the street, bathing the opposite building in gold. “Where’s a good restaurant that’s close to here?”
“Hmm.” She turned her head predictably toward Las Ramblas, and her smile disappeared. “Let’s go this way,” she said, nodding in the opposite direction—one he’d never taken before.
Maybe she was remembering Armando and the crude words he’d spoken. Recalling his decision to eradicate that man’s memory from her mind, Mitch steered Katrina toward the inner part of the sidewalk, taking the curb side in the event of a runaway car.
She glanced at him sidelong, looking at first bemused and then touched. A small smile lifted at the corners of her pink-glossed lips.
He had a hunch he’d be kissing that gloss off her long before their date was over.
***
“How’s the gazpacho?”
Mitch’s question, paired with his searching blue gaze, let Katrina know she wasn’t doing so great a job of concealing her anxiety. They sat at an outdoor café she had visited many times before, La Granja, sheltered from the glare of the setting sun by a green awning. Unaware of the impending violence, Mitch had ordered several different tapas, or light plates for them to share, including jamón serrano and tortilla Española. She herself had scarcely touched her chilled gazpacho, preferring to sip the sangria she’d ordered in the hopes that it would settle her nerves.
“It’s good,” she assured him, regretting their circumstances. If not for the weight of the world on her shoulders, she could well be enjoying the best date of her life. The insightful, intelligent, and noble man sitting across from her would have absolutely won her over, romantic that she was.
She had asked him about his occupation and discovered he and his friends were in the U.S. Navy, stationed on the east coast of the United States, in Virginia Beach. He’d been born in Massachusetts, and he’d studied both American and Spanish Literature in college. As a junior officer, he outranked both Austin and Chuck, who were enlisted, yet he spoke of them as his equals. When she excused herself to use the restroom, he stood and pulled her chair back. And when she returned, he stood up again, flattering her with his respect.
As special as he made her feel, dread knotted her intestines, stealing her appetite. Sneaking peeks at her cell phone, she measured the time left before everything she’d ever known disintegrated.
As if it weren’t distressing enough to think of her city ravaged, the innocent people about to be killed, Katrina’s family would never be the same. Martí would never get away with what he and his friends had plotted. Jordi, who’d known of the plan for a while and done nothing, would be dragged down with his brother. Katrina’s conscience demanded she do something—fast, before it was too late. Yet fear and denial kept her in a state of paralysis.
What if talk of a bomb was merely that—talk? After all, Martí’s friends had accomplished so little with their lives, was it even possible for them to coordinate properly and see their plans through without getting caught?
Aware that she ought to be conversing more, Katrina let Mitch fill the deepening silence. He did so by relaying the story of what happened to a teammate while on a cruise to Mexico. Under ordinary circumstances, the harrowing story would have enthralled her. That evening she could scarcely pay attention.
“Katrina?”
Jerking her gaze to his, she realized he had noticed her wandering thoughts.
“If you don’t want to be with me, it’s okay. I can take you home. No hard feelings.”
His gentle assurance prompted a rush of guilt.
“No.” She reached for his hand, scooting to the edge of her chair and causing their knees to bump. “It’s not you,” she assured him. In fact, the small part of her that was not preoccupied by her brothers’ plot couldn’t help but appreciate the warm density of Mitch’s leg and the strength in the hand beneath hers. A sprinkling of hair rasped her palm as she slid her fingers up to his wrist and higher.
At the physical connection, the fear that had constrained her up until then yielded to reason. She couldn’t turn a blind eye to what she knew was coming. Meeting Mitch’s puzzled gaze, she asked in a voice raw with fear, “What would you do if you knew something bad was going to happen and innocent people were about to get hurt, maybe even die?”
In his pupils, she could see the reflection of her pale face as he probed her expression.
“That’s not a hypothetical question, is it?” His deep voice held an edge to it.
“What would you do?” she pressed, needing his support to do what was necessary.
“I would try to stop it.”
There it was. Fear and relief plunged simultaneously into her midsection, followed by a desperate sense of urgency.
“What if that meant betraying people close to you?”
Empathy wreathed his features. He covered her hand with his free one.
“You have to do what’s right,” he told her steadily. “What’s this about?” His tone left no room for her to lie to him, not that she felt the need to. With Mitch’s help, she could make a difference.
With her heart galloping, she leaned across the table and whispered in his ear. “In fifteen minutes, a bomb is going to go off at the market, La Boquería, as a protest to Spanish oppression.”
As he eyed her in astonishment, Katrina fall back into her seat, afraid he would look at her with condemnation. Instead, he pulled out his cell phone—clearly an automatic response—then realized it was useless to him.
“Here, use mine,” she offered, finding it already in her hand.
“Thanks.” While tapping out a number, he managed at the same time to hail their waiter. “Haiku, where are you?” he demanded, taking the bill before Katrina could snag it.
His self-possession, his measured actions kept her panic from spiking.
“Are you near La Boquería, the big market we walked through twice already?”
She listened to him give directions to his colleague, lapsing into military jargon that made her suspect he’d had a great deal of experience in the field—not only on a boat. Interpreting his directions to Haiku, she deduced that his friend would find the nearest civil guard and convey the potential for an imminent explosion.
“I’ll find you.” Severing the call, Mitch handed Katrina back her phone. “Let’s go,” he said, leaving enough money to cover the tab. “What’s the fastest way to the market?” he added, as he pulled her to her feet.
“This way.” A glance at her phone had her breaking into a run. “It’s seven minutes to six!”
The toe of her sandal caught on the lip of the curb. Mitch kept her from pitching face-first onto the sidewalk. In her urgency, she hauled her sandals off and left them right there on the street.
What if they were too late? What if the Guardia Civil didn’t believe Haiku, or the market wasn’t evacuated in time? La Boqueria was immense, the size of a soccer field. How long would it take to empty it of people? What if the bomb was still so powerful that even people on the street were devastated by its blast?
A minute later, they burst out of an alley onto Las Ramblas. To Katrina’s amazement, the tree-shaded avenue appeared no different than it always did around six o’clock on a Sunday evening. Dozens of people, mostly tourists, populated the broad street enjoying the many restaurants and shops, kiosks and cafés. Not one of them had a clue what was about to unfold.
“There’s Chuck.” Mitch had spotted his colleague next to one of the immense poplar trees deep in conversation with a benemérita. Austin stood nearby. He waved Mitch over.
“Go back to the hotel,” he told her, putting both hands on her shoulders and spinning her in the direction from which they’d come. Before she could even say a word, he was already darting across the avenue, dodging pedestrians and kiosks to join his friends.
The realization that she’d put her three guests squarely in harm’s way kept Katrina from complying with Mitch’s request. She watched as he joined Chuck in addressing the civil guard. Talking earnestly, he showed the man his ID and passport.
A cold sweat breached the pores of her skin. There had to be something she could do. She could call Martí and beg him not to detonate the bomb.
With a sense of unreality, she dialed Martí’s number only to listen to his voiced recording. Doubting he would hear her message in time, she left one anyway. “Martí, please don’t do this. There are too many people. It’s nothing but murder.”
As she ended the call, she noted the time. Two minutes to six. How could the entire market be evacuated in just two minutes? Perhaps, by some miracle, Martí had already come to his senses and abandoned his plan.
A sudden stir took place at La Boquería’s wide entrance. The guard with whom Mitch had been talking barked into his radio. With broad gestures, he ordered several of his underlings to follow him into the dim interior, presumably to evacuate the place.
With her heart in her throat, Katrina saw Mitch, Chuck, and Austin share a look amongst themselves. In one accord, they turned and followed the guards inside.
The blood drained from Katrina’s head as she watched them disappear. “No!”
A sudden siren split the air, startling her into nearly wetting herself. Tourists and merchants alike began pouring out of the market. Looking anxious and confused, they called out frantically for their loved ones. A palpable wave of alarm rolled toward Katrina, even while her eyes remained fixed on the entrance for any sign of Mitch and his companions.
My God, how could she ever forgive herself if they got hurt?
Suddenly, with enough force to shake the cement beneath her feet, the very air seemed to splinter. The force of the blast knocked Katrina to her knees. Having expected it, she scrambled up again, wobbly on her feet, to stare at the smoke billowing out of the market doors.
“Mitch!” Without making any conscious decision to go after him, she found herself stepping over people. Through the muted buzzing in her ears, she could hear women and children wailing, car alarms blaring. Everywhere she looked there was debris and chaos but very little blood.
The blood would have been spilled inside the building where Mitch and his friends had gone in order to pull innocent people to safety.
Oh, God, please. Please, I will never ask for anything ever again. Just let them be okay.