Take Cover

by Marliss Melton

  Unable to wrap her mind around the madness of their situation, she gestured at their father. “You killed Pare. Don’t you see that? Both of you, with your defiance and your obsession with independence. You killed him!” Her stricken voice echoed off the high ceiling.

  “Enough!” he hissed, taking a threatening step in her direction. “Don’t blame me,” he pleaded. “I had nothing to do with it. It was all Marti’s idea.”

  “Tell that to the Benemérita when they come calling,” she hissed.

  Tense silence stretched between them.

  “You can wait for the coroner,” she decided suddenly. The realization that she, too, would come under suspicion made her want to flee.

  “Where are you going?” Jordi demanded as she spun toward the door leading to their basement apartment.

  “I don’t know. I can’t look at you.” She darted through the door and down the steps to seek asylum in her bedroom.

  Chapter Eight

  For countless minutes, Katrina lay face down across her narrow bed, overcome by grief, dismay, and uncertainty. Her father was dead. She knew from having lost her mother five years before that her life would never be the same.

  The continual blare of sirens turned her shock into guilt. Recalling how Mitch and his companions had risked their lives to save others, she sat up slowly, wondering at their fate. Turning her head to look at the television she rarely ever watched, she rolled out of bed to turn it on, looking for news of the incident.

  The voice of a local newscaster reached her ears. “…the three American servicemen who helped the civil guards clear La Boquería have been taken into custody for questioning.”

  With a gasp of surprise, Katrina increased the volume and stepped back to stare in consternation at a short clip of Mitch, Chuck, and Austin being forced into the back of a police van, their expressions grim.

  “A radical separatist group called The Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for the bombing.”

  Katrina covered her mouth with a hand. Martí’s group of misfits had made no secret of their involvement. Were they crazy? It was only a matter of time, now, before the Benemérita found and arrested Martí—maybe her and Jordi, also.

  “As such, the three American servicemen are expected to be released. Locals here agree their quick thinking may have saved countless lives.”

  The screen flashed to a live view of the devastated market. “In the meantime”—the anchor’s tone turned melancholy—“workers are continuing to sift through the explosion’s aftermath in a hunt for survivors. The death toll continues to stand at four. Dozens of people are reported injured and at least two are confirmed missing.”

  Snapping off the television, Katrina turned away from it, unable to bear the thought that she should have acted sooner. Yes, Martí was ultimately responsible. Yet she, herself, could have gone to the authorities right away. Why hadn’t she?

  She had hoped Martí would come to his senses before it was too late.

  A sudden pounding at her door made her jump. Holding her breath, she waited.

  “Katrina, open up!”

  The sound of Martí’s voice paralyzed her. The doorknob gave a jiggle. “I know you’re in there. Jordi told me everything. He said you told the Americans of our plans.”

  She could hear him breathing heavily through the crack in the door.

  “You know what happens now, don’t you? Those Americans are going to tell the Benemérita how they knew about the bomb, and they are going to come here to question you.”

  Katrina shook her head. No. Mitch wouldn’t betray her. How she knew him well enough to know that, she couldn’t say. It didn’t matter. Martí wouldn’t believe her anyway.

  “You’d better think of a story to tell those bastards, Katrina. If you betray me, I promise you, you will regret it.”

  The threat slid beneath her skin like the finest of razor blades.

  With a final huff, Martí retreated.

  Katrina sat heavily upon her bed, clutching a pillow to her roiling stomach.

  “Pare,” she whispered, breaking into silent sobs. “What do I do?”

  Her father, her one constant, was no longer alive to comfort her as he had when her mother had passed, nor to advise her, the way he had when Armando had betrayed her trust. That betrayal paled in comparison to this current crisis. To what Martí had done to her family. What if Mitch did lead the Guardia Civil into questioning Katrina? In her guilt, she would tell them everything she knew and hope to be forgiven.

  But then she would still have to deal with Martí, who would likely try to silence her before or after she betrayed him.

  Katrina’s thoughts went immediately to Mitch. Mitch could protect her.

  Was it fair of her to ask him, though? Of course not. She had thrust him into the middle of a struggle that had nothing to do with him. She would protect herself. She would flee to the ski resort her family had frequented up until the winter her mother died.

  Somehow, some way, she would hide from her older brother and start over.

  Mitch set a brisk pace as he and his teammates hurried from the Clinical and Provincial Hospital of Barcelona under the cover of darkness. Treated for abrasions and mild burns, they had slipped out of an employee-only exit to avoid the journalists waiting in the lobby.

  Because of the bombing, the citywide curfew had been rolled back to midnight.

  “Step it up, guys,” he urged, sneaking a peek at his watch. They had half an hour left to get back to their hotel before they found themselves in violation of the law—not a good idea considering they’d already fallen under the watchful eye of the federal police.

  “How many blocks?” Austin asked.

  “About six.”

  “Seven,” Chuck corrected.

  The scurrying of footsteps drew Mitch’s head around. One block behind them, two men darted into the shadows, making it clear they didn’t wish to be seen.

  “We’ve got two on our tail,” he warned. Now what? he thought.

  Austin cocked an ear but didn’t look back. Squaring his shoulders, he slid a hand into his front pocket, which no doubt held the knuckle ring he kept handy. Mitch felt for his own folding dagger and gave a thought to his backup blade.

  “Stay cool,” he ordered Austin. “We don’t need any more attention at this juncture.”

  “Who do you think it is?” Austin asked.

  Several possibilities came to mind. “Well, I think del Rey is keeping an eye on us,” Mitch replied. The civil guard with the red beret had introduced himself as Capitán Rodrigo del Rey and taken them promptly into custody. Within the municipal police station, commandeered by the federal police, del Rey had grilled them on how they’d come to hear about the bombing in advance of the explosion.

  Conscious of the need to protect Katrina, Mitch nonetheless stuck as close to the truth as possible. “I overheard a conversation.”

  “Where?”

  “At a bistro a couple blocks away, La Granja.” Versed in interrogation, he knew to supply specific details, just not those del Rey was looking for.

  “All three of you were there?” the captain grilled.

  “No, just me with some girl I met last night at Razzmatazz.”

  “The girl’s name?”

  “Katrina.”

  Del Rey looked up from the iPad he was typing on. “Katrina what?”

  Mitch had shrugged and shook his head.

  “So you were sitting there at La Granja and you overheard a conversation about a bomb.” Del Rey’s tone had sounded understandably skeptical. “Was the conversation in Spanish?”

  “No,” Mitch replied.

  “Then you speak Catalán?”

  The man had thought he was being crafty but Mitch was ready for the question. “The words bomb and market have Latin roots. I would have to be dense not to understand what was being said.”

  Del Rey had stared at him so hard a light sweat had dampened Mitch’s button-up shirt. “Describe the men who were
talking.”

  Mitch offered up a generic description, at which point del Rey had put his iPad aside and demanded to be put in touch with their commander. Fortunately, his subsequent conversation with Captain Montgomery had eased his suspicions sufficiently, as Montgomery had made it clear his SEALs had zero connection to The Liberation Front. In lieu of locking them up, del Rey had driven them to the hospital to have their minor wounds looked at.

  “Stay in Barcelona,” he had ordered as he’d dropped them off. “If I look for you at Hotel Leonardo, I expect to find you there.”

  They had wandered into the hospital only to run into a swarm of journalists. If not for the overprotective hospital staff, they’d have found themselves being interviewed, close-up shots of their faces televised worldwide. It was possible a couple of persistent journalists were trailing them even then.

  There remained a third possibility—one that made Mitch’s nape prickle. The look Katrina’s brother had given him right after the bombing suggested that The Liberation Front, who’d claimed responsibility, might have a bone to pick with the three Americans.

  “We need to get out of this city,” Mitch murmured.

  Chuck looked over at him. “Del Rey said we had to stay.”

  “In the hotel run by the separatists who blew up the market?” Mitch retorted. “No thanks.”

  “So, we vanish,” Austin suggested. “We’ve all got our passports, right? We can go right now.”

  All they would leave behind was a couple changes of clothing. “Possible,” Mitch agreed, though the thought of leaving without telling Katrina goodbye panged him. “There’s just one problem. You see any taxis?”

  Only a stray car or two still coursed the streets, and neither was a taxi.

  “We could walk out,” Austin suggested.

  “We’d have to cover twenty klicks without being picked up by a civil guard.”

  “Then we’re trapped like rats until the sun rises,” Chuck determined.

  Mitch felt strangely relieved. As they turned a corner toward the looming white walls of Hotel Leonardo, a handful of men came into view, closing around them as a semicircle that kept them pinned against the building.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered.

  “Ambush,” Austin determined, as the two men on their tail cut off their exit. Dressed in street clothes, the hostile stances and unkempt appearance of their opponents identified them as members of the separatist group.

  “Well,” Chuck said, producing two shuriken, or throwing stars, from his thigh pocket, “adversity introduces a man to himself.”

  Austin grinned at the prospect of a fight. “I like getting to know myself.”

  Mitch pictured Captain Montgomery’s blistering response to an altercation. “No bodies,” he ordered sternly, although the measures they would have to take depended entirely on the opposition.

  Taking stock of them, Mitch figured the odds weren’t as bad as they could be, all things considered. All the same, he would welcome interference on the part of the Guardia Civil—conspicuously absent when they were most needed.

  “We heard about you on the news.” The ringleader, a bald man in a leather jacket swaggered forward to address them in heavily accented English. Pulling back his jacket, he let them see the butt of an antique pistol holstered to his left side. “We are The Liberation Front,” he announced. “You have no business interfering in matters that don’t concern you.”

  Mitch wondered briefly if the man was Katrina’s older brother, then decided he didn’t resemble Jordi enough to be related. “Relax,” he said. “We’re leaving in the morning.”

  The separatist sent them a cocky smile. “No need to wait.” He gestured to a dark windowless van idling just across the street. “We will give you a ride to the edge of town.”

  “Thanks, but we’ll leave on our own,” Mitch insisted. He couldn’t be sure the separatists wouldn’t drive the SEALs to some quiet location, then try to execute them. Besides, he was loathe to leave Katrina without first making sure she would be okay.

  Predictably, the bald man drew his pistol. Mitch eyed the Astra 600 with interest. Manufactured in Spain as early as the 1920s, the 600 had been exported to Germany during WWII. The gun was a classic, but still just as accurate as in its heyday.

  Mitch countered by flicking open his switch blade. The men behind them rushed at them suddenly. Ducking, Mitch hurled an assailant over his shoulder. Chuck leveled two opponents in the same instant, imbedding his shuriken at their thighs, and Austin kicked the Astra 600 out of the ringleader’s hand. As it skittered across the street, the ringleader keeled over, a victim of Austin’s famous right hook.

  Mitch ran for the pistol, snatched it up, and aimed it at the three remaining separatists, who backed away with their hands up.

  Mitch gestured for his friends to keep moving. “No hard feelings,” he said to whomever could understand him. “Like I said, we’ll be out of here tomorrow morning.” Tucking the 600 into the waistband of his slacks, he joined his friends in walking away. Over their shoulders, they watched the uninjured separatists help their injured counterparts to the van.

  Hurrying into Hotel Leonardo, all three SEALs cut a wary glance at the reception desk. The man seated behind the counter looked as old as Katrina’s father—too old to be her brother—but he wasn’t Felipe.

  “Hold the elevator,” Mitch requested, crossing to the reception desk. The sparse-haired stranger looked up from his cell phone.

  His eyes rounded with recognition. “You’re one of the Americans,” he exclaimed.

  Fantastic. They’d become overnight celebrities.

  “Are you related to Katrina?” Mitch glanced at the man’s nametag.

  “No, no.” Juan Carlos shook his head. “I moved here from Toledo. I only work for the Ferrer family when they’re shorthanded.”

  “Why are they shorthanded?” Mitch was hoping to hear Katrina’s brothers had been arrested.

  “Ah.” Juan Carlos shook his head sadly. “The owner of the hotel died of a heart-attack today. It happened around the time the bomb went off.”

  Mitch widened his stance at the unexpected news. “Sorry to hear that. How’s the family doing?”

  Juan Carlos sighed. “They’re upset, of course. I haven’t seen any one of them all evening.”

  Mitch glanced around. “Do you have some way to reach Katrina?” he asked.

  “Katrina?” The man shrugged. “Sure. I can text her.”

  “Yes. Can you do that now?” Mitch looked pointedly at the man’s cell phone. “Tell her the Americans are leaving at dawn, and they asked about her,” he added.

  The thought of never seeing her again turned his feet to lead.

  Juan Carlos thumbed the message painstakingly before hitting send.

  Mitch held his breath, hoping to hear a quick reply.

  The man looked up. “Would you like me to print your statement now?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’d be great.”

  As the printer spit out the bill, Mitch strained his ears for the sound of a reply text. He signaled for his friends to hold the elevator a little longer.

  “There you go.” Juan Carlos handed him the printout. “I’m sorry if you have cut your vacation short,” he added kindly.

  “Me, too,” Mitch said, then retreated from the desk to join his teammates. Sorrow and concern knotted his intestines. Was Katrina okay? Was it even safe for her to remain in Barcelona?

  “The hotel owner had a heart attack today,” he relayed as the elevator started upward. “He’s dead,” he added.

  His friends blinked at him in atonishment.

  “Man.” Austin shook his head sympathetically. “How’s Katrina doing?”

  “No idea.” Mitch could only imagine she was devastated—perhaps too consumed by grief to look after herself. If only there was something he could do to protect her, but he and his buddies weren’t exactly in any position to help. Come dawn, they were going to slip away. After they left, he doubted he’d
ever see or hear from Katrina again.

  This day couldn’t get any worse, he thought. Then the memory of the scuffle they’d just come from came to mind. Actually it could, he realized, if The Liberation Front risked the curfew to come after them tonight, bringing reinforcements.

  Chapter Nine

  Katrina strained her ears for the sound that had awakened her. Metal scraping over metal. Her head came off the pillow as she lurched upright. In the darkness of her bedroom, her door was framed by a wavering light, as if someone out in the hall was holding a flashlight.

  Martí. The realization of who was out there and why had her bolting out of bed. She’d been afraid he might attempt to force his way in. As a precaution, she’d stolen the master key from the reception desk, and now it seemed he was sawing his way in, perhaps with a hacksaw.

  Panic streaked to her extremities. Considering her a traitor, her brother meant to get to her to do God knew what.

  Quietly, she reached for the backpack she had stuffed with personal items ready for her early morning departure. As a precaution, she had gone to bed fully dressed. Grateful for her foresight, she jammed her feet into her favorite shoes, then stepped onto her bed, reaching for the narrow window over it. For years, it had served as her fire escape. Tonight, it would help her to escape the nightmare her life had become.

  The hinge squeaked in protest, and the sawing at her door ceased.

  “Katrina, open the door,” Martí demanded.

  The mad edge to his voice galvanized her. Tossing her backpack out onto the street, she wriggled through the casement after it. Cool air wafted from the sea. Shivering with fear, she shouldered her pack and moved quickly up the alley. What now?

  Cruising the streets during curfew would ensure her arrest. The only safe place to go was right back into the hotel, using the master key she’d lifted. She would hide out until dawn.

  Wishing there was another choice, she found herself minutes later standing at the door of Mitch’s hotel room, out of breath from running up the stairs. Doubts assailed her. She had ruined his vacation. He had every right to deny her shelter.