The Lady Lauren looked like she wanted to be sick.
Manuel waved at Fernando to let the tarp fall. ‘I’m sorry to have shown you this, and hope you’ll not be angry at my inviting you here, to try to lure you into a fight that is not yours—’
Mednaiya Knight waved away his words as graciously and firmly as if she’d been a queen. ‘Righting grisly wrongs is what I do.’
Her voice was low, but hard with rage. Much rage. No fear.
Manuel looked from her to her friend Lauren. Both beautiful faces were white, eyes glimmering with unshed tears.
His gamble might—just might—have been the right thing to do.
‘We’ll need to film these,’ she said curtly. ‘Don’t let anyone make them disappear. So, who’s left in Mariacordoba who’ll still dare to fight?’
Manuel and Fernando exchanged glances, then shrugs. ‘Just the two of us, I think …’
‘The Palace servants; are they all Mariacordoban?’
‘Si,’ Manuel said slowly, mentally shuffling faces. ‘All but two maids from Paloda.’
‘There’s your army,’ she told him softly.
Manuel shook his head. ‘They will help—and can work hard and keep silent, even under torture. If Stonefletcher kept inside the White Palace, and just took the oil, he could be King of Mariacordoba and welcome to it … but he takes everything, commands everyone, and shoots all who disobey. The maids have been … broken. By Stonefletcher’s soldiers, who force them to bed. And stand guard over them in the kitchens, whenever they are near knives.’
‘I see. Then we will be your army,’ the Midnight Knight told him. ‘Lauren and I and the rest of the Merry Blades.’
Suddenly, Manuel found himself fighting back tears of his own.
And wondering if any of them would get out of this alive.
‘Say nothing yet,’ Mednaiya told Lauren softly. ‘I need to think this through, first. Colin, for one, might say something and wind up dead or warn Max that we know. Act carefree. They’ll know something’s wrong, but tell them to wait for my explanation.’
Lauren nodded and headed along the path to the guest palace, just inside the White Palace gates.
Mednaiya watched her put on jauntiness like a cloak, then turned the other way, into the little stand of trees around the pond. Without looking at them, she was aware of two armed SGL sentries watching her.
Her anger was deeper and darker now, the way she needed it to be. She had to think.
All important visitors were housed in the guest palace, closer to Stonefletcher than armed locals could get. The Merry Blades were the sort of diversion bored mercenaries might appreciate—until it was too late to evade the swung swords of laughing knights or pirates.
And we’re Americans who’d be believed at the UN office in Paloda, to boot.
Stonefletcher Global Logistics was an expanding, thoroughly rapacious multinational that had distinguished itself in bold ruthlessness under Maxwell Stonefletcher’s coldly precise guidance. Bold ruthlessness took one only so far on Wall Street, where some very large and wise old sharks cruised, savaging young challengers on general principles or for sport, but out here in South America, among a coastal row of tiny former Spanish colonies that were impoverished jungle backwaters but might—just might—have oil, bold ruthlessness could get you your very own country.
Naõporto, Paloda, and Mariacordoba together held no more than seventy miles of coast, their borders mere rock cairns beside cart-track jungle roads. There were ranches back in Arizona and Wyoming larger than Mariacordoba.
But Mariacordoba did have oil. And now, courtesy of a few hired assassins who’d killed the handful of politicians Stonefletcher couldn’t buy, and more mercenaries to tighten his rule by providing Mariacordoba with the army it had never had, Maxwell Stonefletcher had Mariacordoba.
Oh, there was a President in the white-marbled, many-pillared White Palace, but every Mariacordoban knew Don Habro de Leon took his orders from the hated Stonefletcher. The men with guns at the gates were hard-eyed, tattooed Americanos—and in Mariacordoba, they were the law. If they shot down a dog, a boy, or a man on a whim or for not obeying their every ridiculous command, there the dog or boy or man lay rotting, and nothing was done.
Most Mariacordoban women had fled to Paloda, for there was no longer any safety in Mariacordoba for a good-looking woman. The palace maids would fight like panthers if they saw a good chance—but someone would have to hand them that clear hope.
Max would be seeking business partners with oil holdings to front for him, so he could ship oil from here stateside without alerting the wider world to what was happening in Mariacordoba.
The previous occupant of the White Palace, now resting forever at the bottom of a disused well at the far end of the vast gardens, had been adamantly opposed to oil development for religious reasons Manuel hadn’t quite followed. She doubted Max had bothered to understand them, either, when a bullet through the head was so much faster and simpler.
No wonder dearest Maxwell had been so happy to see a surprise from his past. He gained both a bedpartner and an oil importer into the North American market. The former might last for months, or only for as long as it took to implicate her in his illegalities too deeply for her to betray him to American authorities. She’d have to act naïve or distracted or both, if he was this open about his tendency to do business at gunpoint.
Thus far, with satellite phones and uninvited tourists prohibited, and a lengthening series of unfortunate fatal ‘accidents’ befalling oil workers who talked or tried to leave, what happened in Mariacordoba very much stayed in Mariacordoba.
Being as bullets through the head weren’t getting any more expensive.
Lauren frowned. ‘Of course she’ll help. You heard her promise. You can trust anything Mednaiya says. Anything.’
Manuel sighed. ‘I just don’t see how one woman, no matter how skillful, with a few friends in costumes who run around waving swords, can do anything against Stonefletcher’s hired guns. Guns, in the hands of hardened mercenaries! I dare to hope, si, but … they’ve taken over our whole country, Lady Lauren.’
She sighed. ‘Trust, Manuel. Trust.’
‘So when did she start this Midnight Knight nons—pardon, this unusual career?’
The lady in the medieval gown thought for a moment, then said softly, ‘Mednaiya was always beautiful. And … uninhibited. And rich. Very rich. She hid that, as much as she could; felt guilty about it. When some of us were down to eating canned peas with ketchup and raiding the Golden Mart dumpster, Mednaiya got the best city restaurants to deliver steaming steak and turkey dinners with all the trimmings to the rec hall, pretending it was some crazy old millionaire alumnus suddenly remembering his alma mater. She majored in pharma, working with the best in creating knockout drugs, and was in on early computers as they went from huge machines that filled rooms to things one person could lug around. Then her father died, leaving her alone in the world.’
‘That shattered her?’
‘Oh, yes. She found out the smiling father she’d loved and trusted had been one of the most dishonest, ruthless men on Wall Street. Howard Millingford Knight could’ve written the book on corporate deceit and exploitation. Done so slickly that the public—and the regulators—never knew.’
‘So she became a shining crimefighter?’
‘She … changed. Put her wits, her acting and seducing, the pharmaceutical training and computer smarts, all of it, to work knocking down corrupt executives. Especially those who enriched themselves by drug-running. When she took down a mayor—he was nasty—we first heard the name “Midnight Knight”.’
‘But does she truly know what she’s getting into? The name Maxwell Stonefletcher meant much to her, I saw, but—’
‘Oh, she knows,’ Lauren said curtly.
A long, long moment passed before she added, ‘One of her father’s closest business partners—partners in crime—was Burton Stonefletcher.’
‘Maxwell’
s father?’
At her nod he added slowly, ‘Yes, but surely the father was a successful man in a suit, the sort of criminal who never sees a jail, who never—’
‘She knows, Manuel. I wasn’t her only college roommate. Three of us shared the best rooms in the residence. Mednaiya, me—and Maxwell Stonefletcher.’
‘Surrender,’ Max growled, holding her down amid the acre of twisted sheets.
‘Force me,’ Mednaiya whispered up at him, bucking under his iron-strong hands. ‘You know I like it.’
He laughed. And came down on her with his full weight and strength.
He’d put ropes on the four ornately-carved bedposts, but disdained to use them, leaving her wrists and ankles free. Mednaiya devoted herself to giving him a good struggle, and it was a long and panting time before they lay idle in each other’s arms, calm enough to talk.
‘You still,’ he said accusingly, ‘like to bite.’
‘Yet these days I draw no blood, and leave no lasting marks,’ she replied archly.
He chuckled. ‘Progress at last. You’re well on your way to being tamed.’
‘And you’re well on your way to taming Mariacordoba, by the looks of things.’ She smiled. ‘So, did you always want your own little pet country?’
‘Throne and crown and all. Right now it’s much more fun being the power behind the throne.’
‘Fun, or safer?’
‘Bah, there’s no fight left in the locals. We had to shoot a few just to show them we were serious, then wipe out the local ruling gang of thugs. Those left now are happy with what we’d done. What use is oil to them? Give them steady food, drugs when they feel sick, wristwatches and good shoes—they go ape over shoes, like little squealing kids at Christmas!—and they’re happy. So I keep them that way, take the oil, and there’s goodness enough to go all around.’
‘Is there goodness enough in Maxwell Stonefletcher to go around with this lovelorn lass one more time?’
‘C’mere, Lady Knight,’ he chuckled, ‘and I’ll show you.’
And he did.
Thank you, she wrote on the napkin with Max’s best pen. Then reapplied her lipstick and kissed the paper below her words, to leave the crimson mark of her lips. More, please.
He was still snoring, of course.
Shoeless, she padded out of the room, smiled happily at the two hard-eyed SGL mercenaries outside the door, and obediently followed the one who gestured with his gun.
He did so only after they’d checked that their boss was sleeping, and not hurt. Then they searched her tiny purse to make sure she hadn’t taken any Stonefletcher property out with her, before marching her back across the moonlit lawns to the guest palace, where more watchful sentries waited.
She got past them all, and inside the door they locked behind her, before she let out a long, shuddering sigh.
And thought about what might have been, if Maxwell Stonefletcher hadn’t been such an utter monster.
He was worse than she remembered. A casual mass murderer, a vindictive tyrant.
She would have to destroy him.
The first show had been a great success. The Mariacordobans hadn’t seemed to mind having the wagons, handcarts, and stalls in the dusty central dockside market cleared away. They’d laughed and cheered a lot at the swashbuckling swordplay of the pirate-garbed Merry Blades, the playacting and the juggling.
Even the heavily-armed SGL sentries on the rooftops had guffawed, pointed, and shouted for more when Colin and Adam had flung the flirting and flouncing Lauren—that is, Black Bart and Old Scratch Skulltooth, tossing Red Nancy—back and forth. They’d roared down lewd encouragement when the eight pirates fencing with Lady Midnight had overcome her acrobatic leaps and swift sword to slash away her full-sleeved shirt and sash, to reveal a glittering mail corset beneath.
And they’d laughed themselves as whoopingly helpless as most Mariacordobans when Colin led a band of Blades in a stabbing chase across the square after rolling wild sweetmelons, bought from the stalls at twice the usual price, and ‘slaughtered’ for distribution to all.
A second show was scheduled for tomorrow morning, then a third two days hence, to end the tour.
But sufficient unto a day are the screw-ups thereof. The Blades had returned to the guest palace for lunch and a breather, and were now headed across the lawns to the White Palace for the ‘afternoon of a little piratical filming in one wing’ Mednaiya had cajoled Max into letting them do.
She and Lauren exchanged glances. Under their full gowns were no petticoats, just their topmost bustle-hoops, hung with wineskin after bulging wineskin—the leather belt skins that were part of every Merry Blade pirate costume. Skins that now held neither water nor wine, but slumbertime.
This was it. Their first strike against Stonefletcher. If any SGL man got suspicious, or tried to grope …
Which was why they were right in the midst of a chatting, joking knot of excited men in pirate costume, carrying all manner of film gear.
‘For I am a pi-hi-rate king!’ Colin bellowed, with more enthusiasm than polish, swinging on a rope across the vast marble ballroom with sword in hand, rakishly-tilted tricorn hat tied securely under his chin.
On a nearby balcony, a startled SGL mercenary lifted his gun. A blond-pigtailed but brown-bearded pirate in a pink satin shirt minced up, struck the weapon aside with a sweep of one florid hand, and said pettishly, ‘No firing! You’ll ruin the shot—ruin it, my dear!’
The pirate waved his other hand, bright with nail polish and bouncing gold bangles, to indicate a minicam a taller, fatter buccaneer was training on the pirates—three of them, now—who were swinging across the great open space between the chandeliers and the marble tiles far below.
‘See? We’re filming! Mister Stonefletcher gave his personal permission!’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No butts, my dear—it’s not that sort of movie! Hahahahaha!’
The SGL man grimaced and recoiled, spewing choice and surly profanity—and a stream of ragtag Hollywood pirates, many with cutlasses clenched in their teeth, promptly swarmed past him, enthusiastically hacking at each other.
Blades clanged loudly, striking sparks, and men bellowed ‘Avast ye, matey!’ and ‘Shiver me burrrrning timberrrrs!’ and over-the-top worse. It was a roiling sea of tricorn hats, eyepatches, swashbuckling dirty shirts, and flopping seaboots. Two pirates were women in gowns, but the goggling SGL men caught no more than a few glimpses of them through all the merry mayhem being spread by the male Merry Blades.
This way and that the Stonefletcher triggernecks had to duck or relocate, to avoid hooting and roaring buccaneers happily swinging swords, while other pirates scurried around with minicams in hand, filming it all.
The SGL men were under orders not to be filmed, but the Blades knew that, and either waved mercenaries aside or turned their cameras away.
It was a good half hour before some Stonefletcher men began to suspect they were being herded—but by then, the pirates were winding down, gasping for breath over lowered swords and gathering wearily in one Palace hall.
In the happy heart of that ever-increasing knot, Mednaiya and Lauren exchanged winks and smiles.
They’d done it, thanks to the Blades’ skill at coordinated distraction. Every last skin of slumbertime had been emptied into the water supply of the White Palace, and as many open bottles and decanters as they could find.
The SGL men who stuck to beer they’d just have to deal with the other way.
Their breathing had barely slowed when Max rolled over to face her.
He gave her his familiar smile, but his eyes weren’t smiling. ‘You’ve been bad, Naya.’
‘Indeed, but “bad” how, exactly?’
‘The Blades, this afternoon. Your Blades, for whose conduct you are responsible. I gave you permission to film, but they spread general mayhem and tauntingly disobeyed my men—who were all armed, and operating under specific orders. Your Blades could very well have been killed.’
‘But no one was hurt; I don’t believe a single gun went off.’
‘None did. That’s not the point, my lovely Miss Knight.’
‘I see. What is?’
Max reached behind himself. When his hand came back into view, there was a whip in it.
‘The point, my dear, is that I am not to be disobeyed,’ he said gently, hefting it.
Mednaiya Knight looked at it, then at him, and arched one shapely eyebrow. ‘And if I … like that?’
They stared into each other’s eyes in a long, deepening silence before Maxwell Stonefletcher rolled out of bed and up to his feet in one abrupt lunge, tossing the whip aside as he strode out of the bedroom without a backward glance.
In his wake, tapestries parted along every wall, and stone-faced SGL mercenaries with ready assault rifles converged on the big four-poster.
One leaned forward to gravely inform the woman spread-eagled on the bed, ‘Mister Stonefletcher has been called away on urgent business, and has asked us to escort you back to the guest palace. Without delay.’
Her response was a nod and a smile, before she rolled off the bed to calmly catch up her boots and clothes.
If Mednaiya Knight was discomfited at her unclad state, or at the thought that four heavily-armed men had witnessed the energetic romp she’d just enjoyed with their employer, she gave no hint of it.
‘Stonefletcher Global Logistics has taken over the country of Mariacordoba at gunpoint! To get its oil, they gun down citizens in the streets!’
The astonished faces of the UN staffers changed, expressions sliding into disbelief. The two overweight security guards saw that, and started forward.
‘Okay, lady,’ one began, making shooing motions back toward the door. ‘Spewing unfounded accusations against—’
‘Unfounded?’ the distraught and disheveled yet beautiful woman gasped. ‘How do you explain this?’
She turned and aimed the gleamingly expensive camera in her hands at the wall beside the door, and projected a scene on it … of swarming flies and dead faces, as a tarp was hauled back. The date and time stamp were clearly visible, even before a pale and grim American woman stepped into the frame, voice trembling, to tell the camera where these heaped bodies were, and how they’d been killed, pointing out bullet holes.
The New Hero: Volume 1 Page 7