Luisa had smooth caramel brown skin. Her breasts were medium-sized and firm, with dark nipples. She was slender with a narrow waist and curvy hips. She quickly covered her body, but not before he saw the scars. She had old scars from small cuts and maybe cigarette burns, and she had new bruises over her breasts and belly. She spoke again.
Julia said, “You have to hit her so she will look bloody.” The girl dropped her gaze to the floor. “He does that a lot.”
Carl understood the deception and stepped in front of the woman. As he holstered his weapon, Luisa squared her shoulders in preparation. She closed her eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe Klipser could. Maybe McGrath could. Maybe Palmer could do whatever it took to salvage the mission, but Carl could not. As long as he lived he didn’t think he would ever be able to hit another woman.
Instead, he took her face gently between his palms and kissed her. She gasped and her eyes flashed open, but she didn’t resist. Her breath was warm and sweet, and she tasted of a chocolate mint. Her lips were soft, and her tongue was strong as she wrestled with his. Then he bit her bottom lip hard. She winced and he released her, but when she fingered her lip she came away with blood that she wiped on her gown.
Even as she smeared the blood, she held his gaze. In her eyes, he saw a mixture of surprise and gratitude, and something else. He saw lust, or maybe a wish for lust, a wish that she could be married to this new man who looked like her husband, but who wouldn’t hit her.
Holding her ripped gown in place, Luisa reached for the doorknob. Julia grabbed Carl’s arm and sat him on the side of the huge bed. She had gone into the bathroom, returned with a wet face cloth, and administered to his fictitious head wound, received from a wife who didn’t want her drunken husband trying to force himself on her.
Julia sat next to him on the bed and explained their plan, saying, “The guard will believe it. That’s what he does to her all the time.”
Carl pulled his Glock and was prepared to shove Julia to the floor if he had to start shooting. He wasn’t afraid to kill, but so far none of the men he’d killed were shooting back.
Luisa turned and opened the door, holding the pieces of her gown together. She exchanged conversation with the guard, and Carl heard the hinges of the door squeak a bit. She was opening the door wide enough for the guard to see what happened. The story of an aborted rape attempt wouldn’t be hard to imagine, because the whole room stank from his whiskey-soaked shirt. The gate guards would corroborate his unscheduled drunk arrival, but hopefully no one had called the real Reyes yet.
She closed the door, and Carl heard the crunch of glass as the guard retreated up the hallway. He heard voices in the hallway briefly, but they faded into silence. Luisa sat at the foot of the bed facing the door, while the girl and Carl sat on the side of the bed and faced the magnificent bathroom.
Luisa still held the front of her torn gown in place, but her back was revealed almost down to her butt. Her body was toned, slender, and curvy. “Little in the middle,” as Carl liked to say. She truly looked magnificent. She turned sideways and saw him looking.
In his ear he heard Palmer say, “That was quick thinking.”
“It was the ladies, not me.” He smiled at Julia. “You saved my butt, young lady.”
Julia smiled and leaned against him, and for a moment Carl was bewildered by her attachment to him, a stranger. Then he realized that while she was a stranger to him, the man he appeared to be was not a stranger to her. From her perspective, this familiar-but-new man didn’t hate her, and she needed that attachment.
He said to the girl, “My assistant says you did good.”
“Assistant?” Palmer said. “Seriously?”
Julia said, “You look like him. And you smell like him.”
He nodded. “The girl your dad kidnapped is my president’s daughter.”
“He’s not my dad.”
“Yeah, well, she sent me down here to get Melissa, because I look so much like him.” Carl rubbed his left shoulder against her right shoulder affectionately. “And I’m sorry about the smell. It was all part of my disguise to get past the guards and find her.”
He paused and looked at the girl beside him. “How old are you?”
“I’m almost twelve.”
Just like American kids, he thought. Never content with how old they were at that moment, but very intent on how old they would soon be. She was the same age as the girl he almost killed two days ago. He shuddered at the memory, then found he had reached his right hand across his body and was caressing the girl’s cheek. She smiled at him.
Julia had her mother’s dark brown eyes and long, luscious hair and rich brown skin color. He suddenly wondered how he could ever have considered harming a girl like her or Lisette. Over the girl’s shoulder he saw Luisa watching him, and he saw something new in her eyes.
She said something that ended with Estados Unidos. He didn’t have to speak the language to understand that she now viewed him as her ticket out of the country, or maybe just out of a bad situation she could not otherwise escape.
The girl said, “Mom thinks she knows some places where they might have taken Melissa, but she wants you to take us to the United States.” The girl had a hopeful look in her eyes and added, “Please.”
“Agent Palmer, what is our status?”
“The drone is detecting an increase in cell phone traffic. It’s extremely likely you’ve been compromised.”
“Understood. Melissa is not on the premises, but I may have a lead. Mrs. Reyes may have some possible locations for Bobcat, but she wants evac to the US.”
“Is it likely she truly knows?”
Carl looked at Luisa. She got up and went into her huge walk-in closet with Julia to get dressed. The woman probably thought she already had a deal.
“No doubt she’s working her own angle here,” Carl said. “But I’d bet good money she at least knows her husband’s phone number, so perhaps I can arrange a meeting.”
Palmer said, “Do whatever you need to do to locate Bobcat.”
“Copy that.”
He went into the bathroom and removed his whiskey-soaked shirt. He quickly washed and gargled. He sensed the girl standing beyond the doorway behind him, so he glanced back there as he dried off. Julia was now dressed in some of her mother’s clothes, which fit reasonably well. She wore denim jeans, a red plaid shirt, and expensive sports shoes. She gave him a shy smile.
“Have your mom grab one of your dad’s shirts for me, okay? And some pants too.”
Julia smiled and nodded, and he followed her into the bedroom. Julia was a cute girl, still innocent looking, with big friendly brown eyes.
Luisa Reyes was dressed in beige cargo pants with a light blue denim long-sleeve shirt. She wore expensive brown hiking shoes that sort of looked like sports shoes, but weren’t really for sports or for hiking. Carl figured they were some kind of fancy, super-expensive cross-trainer shoes.
She looked good. Her long jet black hair hung unbraided down her back. She had a black band restraining her hair at the back of her neck and another band held her hair together near the center of her back.
Her face was more round than oval, kind of attractive, yet kind of ordinary, and she had a scar that began on her left cheek and crossed the lower part of her left nostril and extended down across her upper lip. The scar spoiled what might have been a perfectly flawless face, but Carl thought it gave her a ruggedly sexy look, in a kick-your-ass kind of way. He guessed she was mid- to upper-thirties.
Luisa had dark eyes he could only describe as wounded. She looked like she was uncertain whether or not she was doing the right thing trusting him. She looked like someone who figured she had no other choice.
He stood there and watched Luisa watching him. He was shirtless, and he knew he was in excellent shape for a man of fifty-three. Her gaze danced over his torso, and he saw that her eyes held two distinct, but clearly visible emotions. There was desire in her eyes, but there was also stro
ng anger, hatred even, that was punishing the look-alike for all the misdeeds of her real husband.
She turned away just as Julia came out of the other walk-in closet and playfully tossed Carl some of her step-dad’s clothes. He stepped back into the bathroom and quickly put on dark corduroys and the deep blue and beige plaid flannel shirt. The man’s clothes fit perfectly.
Stepping back into the bed chamber, he said to Luisa, “Do you have some car keys?”
He had plans of sneaking out the side of the mansion, into the carriage house, and stealing one of the Hummers. By the time the guards reacted and were able to chase, Carl and the girls would be beyond the first bend in the road where the mercs waited to ambush the pursuit. Then he wondered if a Hummer could slam through the sturdy front gate.
Luisa shook her head and spoke while Julia translated. “He doesn’t let her drive. It’s his way of controlling her.” Carl had a feeling the girl added that last part as her own opinion.
Palmer said, “You’re out of time, Mr. Johnson. Two of the guards that had previously gone outside to the front gate are returning to the house. Their posture is aggressive, and they are weapons-ready. Other guards inside the house are mobilizing.”
Carl stood and looked around the room as if that action might reveal a new escape route.
“Agent Palmer, can we get to the basement from this end of the house?”
“Affirmative. Proceed out the door and to your left. The door at the end of the hall enters the stairwell.”
Carl looked at Julia Reyes and said, “Let’s go!”
He pulled the bedroom door open and quickly glanced out. The hallway was clear for the moment. He grabbed mother and daughter by the hand, and pulled them along with him. Once in the stairwell, he realized quickly that Julia couldn’t run down the stairs. She looked down and carefully placed each step, and that was as fast as she could move. He picked her up again and carried her. He descended the stairs two at a time, glancing back once to find Luisa right behind him.
He realized that in his haste, he had left his gun and holster on the bed, but he knew he wasn’t going to win a gunfight with a ten-shot Glock-17.
“We need to get creative here, Agent Palmer. You have that special package I requested?”
He’d asked Palmer to have a bomb strapped to the surveillance drone to use on Reyes if it looked like he was going to escape. “What kind of bomb?” she had asked. Carl knew nothing about military ordnance, so he simply said, “Make it the kind that explodes and kills the bad guys.”
“Affirmative. The package is in place,” Palmer said.
“Good. Get ready to drop it on the house.”
“Carl, you’re in the house.”
Chapter 56
0302 MST Thursday
Northern Mexico
Above them a door slammed open. Guards were in the stairwell. The sound of multiple sets of boots echoed from above.
“Prepare to drop the bomb, Agent Palmer. The mercs can mop up anyone who survives the blast. Which way to the wine cellar?”
Julia pointed at the door at the bottom of the stairs. “Go left!”
Palmer added, “We’ll target a drop site just to the west of the house. That should clear the estate of all structures and hostiles. If we drop on the house, the blast would likely compress the basement and cellar as well, and kill you.”
“Well, we certainly don’t want that.”
“Indeed,” she said. “We still need you to get Melissa.”
Carl wasn’t sure if Agent Palmer was sending her brand of humor or if she was serious. He tried to engineer a witty retort, but came up empty.
She said, “We’ll detonate fifteen feet above ground so the blast wave propagates laterally without significant downward effects.”
Palmer’s assessment of the pending bomb damage seemed oddly clinical. She sounded like someone who had conducted a good number of bombing missions and damage assessments.
The west wing of the house on the first floor housed the kitchen and dining room, and the wine cellar was directly under the kitchen. Carrying Julia, Carl led Luisa out of the stairwell and across a huge pantry. They went down a few steps to the cellar door, the top of which was just below the level of the kitchen floor. The cellar door could only be locked from the inside, and Carl locked the thick wooden door behind them just as the thunder of boots entered the pantry.
“We are secure!” he said to Palmer.
“The package has been released. Detonation in five seconds.”
Carl ushered the ladies into the farthest corner of the cellar and huddled them down. Then all hell broke loose.
When the bomb exploded outside the mansion, Carl felt a deep, rumbling vibration. Luisa let out a gasp and clung tight to Julia. Then the shelves snapped like crackers. Carl ducked his head and pulled the girls’ heads down. Jars, packets, and cans rained down, thumping onto their backs, smashing on the hard floor and filling the air with flour dust and a sharp pickling smell.
When the dust settled, they went back up the stairs. He opened the cellar door, and then he gasped. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see, but he certainly didn’t expect to see the night sky. There was absolutely nothing left of the mansion above ground. There were no walls or even wood or steel framing to be seen. There was not even a pile of debris. It was as if the mansion above ground had never existed.
All the lights were off, and in the moonlight Carl could see that the guard shack at the front gate a couple of hundred feet away was also gone. Some portions of the security fence still stood, but the closest sections along with the front gate were bent over flat. Only a couple of the walls of the brick carriage house that served as the garage remained standing. Since that structure was on the far side of the mansion, away from the bomb impact site, it had partially survived the blast though it was severely damaged.
Inside what remained of the carriage house, Carl found only one Hummer not buried under the rubble. He assumed the keys were in the ignition since the entire property was—or had been—secured by the steel perimeter fence. As soon as he opened the passenger door, he saw a shiny key fob dangling from the side of the steering column. He turned back to the women, but Julia had already opened her door and climbed up into the truck.
He gave Luisa a head nod and said, “Up you go.”
She didn’t understand him so he stepped behind her, gently grabbed her waist, and helped her up into her seat. She glanced back at him again, and her eyes were filled with the same conflicting emotions as before.
He said, “Seat belts, ladies,” then closed the doors.
He’d never driven or even ridden in a Hummer, so he took it slow toward the front gate. He and the ladies swayed gently as the luxury SUV bounced over bricks, Mediterranean-style roof tiles, and sheets of metal from the garage doors.
“Stop!”
Agent Palmer’s voice in his ear was calm but firm, and Carl slammed on the brakes without questioning the urgent command. The big truck slid to a quick stop.
“Thermal scans show there is a survivor just beyond the security fence. He’s several feet beyond where the guardhouse was.”
Carl saw the figure rise from the road in the glare of the Hummer’s bright headlamps. He expected the man to be charred after a bomb blast, much like he remembered from movies. Then he remembered Merc Two’s lecture on the devastating effects of the GBU bomb.
There was no fire associated with the type of bomb they’d used. Instead, the detonation had caused a massive compression of air to blast away all structures. Anyone inside the blast zone would have their insides turned to jelly by the overpressure wave.
The guard stood shakily and wavered as he stared at the Hummer. He still held his AK-47 at his side. Most of his black pull-over shirt was torn away, and his black cargo pants hung from his hips in shreds with one pant leg completely missing. The man bled from many open wounds, and he was caked with dirt that clung to his bloody body.
Carl shuddered at the sight of the man.
He guessed maybe the man had been somewhat sheltered in the guardhouse rather than caught out in the open. There were pieces of wood, glass, and tile shards sticking out of his chest, belly, face, and neck.
The guard raised his weapon unsteadily, and Carl felt a sudden rush of hatred. Maybe the guard had been in the truck with Reyes when Mark was gunned down. Maybe he was the driver or the second shooter. Carl squeezed the soft leather of the steering wheel with both hands. He heard his own voice growling.
“Motherfucker.”
“Carl, back away,” Palmer said. “He appears gravely injured and will not be able to aim properly.”
“Back away?” Carl whispered. “I don’t think so.”
He jammed his foot on the gas pedal. The sound of the roaring engine filled the cabin, and Carl heard dirt and debris pinging against the undercarriage as all four wheels spun against the ground. The Hummer instantly caught traction, and Carl was pressed back against his seat. He aimed the front of the Hummer straight for the man.
Luisa gasped as the front of the big truck hit the man, then she screamed as the guard’s weapon bounced against the windshield. Carl glanced at his side mirror, but he could see nothing of the man in the darkness behind the car.
“Motherfucker.”
Palmer said, “Carl, that was reckless.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” He glanced over his shoulder at Julia. “You okay back there, sweetie?”
The girl was barely visible in the light from the dashboard, but he saw her nod.
“I’m okay,” she said.
Carl checked the road, then glanced sideways at Luisa. She still clutched her seat with both hands. He reached over and gave her left hand a slight squeeze of reassurance and saw her nod in return. Then her eyes widened and she gasped.
“That’s okay,” Carl said, nodding at the mercs in the road ahead. The trio was dressed in black combat gear. “They’re friends.”
Julia translated as he slowed the Hummer. The VW bus faced them at the side of the road with its headlights dimmed. Carl stopped his SUV alongside the bus. The mercs’ weapons were lowered, and Carl realized he had mentally tuned out Palmer’s instructions during his brief drive from the compound as she continued to choreograph the operation from Virginia.
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 28