Casualties of War

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Garrett laughed, too.

  “What?” Carmen demanded.

  “If Nick Escobedo has stepped down, they can’t keep him in the field. They’ll send him back to the house,” Garrett said. “He’ll be taking orders from Minnie.”

  Carmen thought of the petite woman who had taken out three men with a fry pan and a flare gun, to stop them raping her. “I would like to be a fly on the wall when they bump noses. I’m not sure who I would put my money on.”

  Daniel hoisted the phone a little. “We have new orders,” he said.

  Garrett tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Locate Calli and the ambassador,” he guessed.

  Daniel nodded. “It’s a good bet they’ll take them to the palace. Duardo needs it confirmed. So, we’re on stake out until we spot them.” He got to his feet, then climbed up the sharp slope of the stairwell behind the roof door, to stand on the three-foot by twelve-foot platform at the top.

  He turned to the west, his eyes narrowing. “A good set of sights will do.”

  “You can’t haul a sniper rifle up there,” Carmen said. “You’ll freak out the neighbors and someone will report it in.”

  “They’ll all be too busy to look up,” Daniel said.

  “Too busy?” Garrett asked.

  Daniel looked down at him. “I forgot to mention. There’s three people at the front door, asking to see the doctor in the house.”

  Garrett’s cheeks thinned. “You told them I was a doctor.”

  “I may have mentioned it to some of the neighbors,” Daniel said. He shrugged. “It’s good cover.”

  “We’ll have the entire neighborhood here by tomorrow,” Carmen said.

  “That’s what he wants,” Garrett said.

  Daniel stepped back down the sloping roof with care. “These people have been living under Insurrecto rule since the war began. All that concentrated gossip. Just think of what we will learn.” He jumped the last foot and shoved the phone in his pocket and nodded at them. “Sorry to interrupt.” He pushed the door open and stepped inside. As the door swung shut on its ancient timbers, Carmen could hear Daniel rattling down the rickety wooden stairs.

  Garrett got to his feet and held out his hand toward her. “Back to work,” he said, with a sigh.

  * * * * *

  Téra hurried into the cramped office where Minnie and Rubén and Chloe had all worked until this afternoon. She headed for the chair in the corner where she had left the current book. She would need it when she went to bed tonight. Rubén wouldn’t be there to read to her or to just sit in silence the way he often did.

  She stopped short, as Chloe spun in her office chair, putting her back to the door and to Téra.

  Chloe wiped at her face.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” Téra said. “I didn’t know you were here. I thought…well, Minnie’s in Calli’s office and Rubén is…isn’t working right now.”

  “Gives me the whole office to myself. That’s bliss, after the last ten days,” Chloe said. Téra could hear the strain in her cheery tone.

  Téra moved over to the desk. “You okay? I know no one’s a hundred percent these days, but are you dealing?”

  Chloe turned to face her and gave her a brilliant smile. Her cheeks were damp. “I’m fine,”

  Téra bent and picked up the book from beneath the hard chair she used while Minnie and Rubén worked. She lifted it to show Chloe. “We all deal differently, I guess. I read. You…well.” She grimaced, glancing at her shiny cheeks once more. “I’m sure he’s okay.”

  Chloe cleared her throat. “I’m just waiting for the next satellite to come over the horizon.”

  “When we find out what happened, it’ll end up being he got goosed by a false alarm and bugged out,” Téra said.

  Chloe looked up from the big laptop, her eyes narrowing. “That’s what you think Cristián would do? Panic?”

  Téra rubbed at the chipped desktop with her thumb. “Cristián is my geeky brother. Believe me, he sees threats in every shadow. I think he used a nightlight until he was eight or something.” Téra smiled. “I love him but because he’s my brother, I know him too well.”

  Chloe sat back, her hands falling away from the keyboard. “You don’t know him at all.”

  Téra’s eyes widened. “I don’t?”

  Chloe didn’t flinch or move. Her gaze was steady. “The man I know is quiet, yes. That’s because in your house, everyone else is an extrovert. Especially Duardo, the golden boy of the family. Cristián isn’t an extrovert. He knows that about himself. He doesn’t let it limit him the way the rest of the world thinks it should. And he is smart. I don’t mean he’s well read, although he is. I mean he’s goddam quantum supercomputer smart. Genius level.”

  Téra swallowed. “He just got A’s in school,” she said awkwardly.

  “True geniuses don’t show off. They don’t need to. The trick for people like Cristián isn’t to ace the exams. It’s to write them so he lands on exactly the score he wanted. A point or two below perfect, so no one notices him and he gets dragged off to an institution with high walls and cameras.” She grimaced.

  “Is that what happened to you?” Téra breathed.

  Chloe lifted her arm and pointed toward the window beside her. She was pointing west, toward Vistaria. “Cristián is passionate, and he’s ambitious and sometimes he’s completely driven by his fury with the limitations of the world. One day he will be a leader and find out he’s good at it and people will love him for his wisdom.” She dropped her arm and looked at Téra, her eyes shining.

  Téra swallowed. “I didn’t know about any of that,” she said apologetically.

  “Of course you didn’t. You’ve spent your life competing with Duardo. Why would you notice?”

  Téra flinched. “I think we’re all learning more about ourselves and each other because of this war than any of us might have in a whole lifetime of peace.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Chloe said and prodded at the keyboard with one stiff finger.

  As Téra eased back out the door and closed it again, she saw Chloe wipe at her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt, her gaze on the code on her screen.

  Later that night, as Téra eased her tired body onto the thin mattress, Minnie climbed the stairs to the attic and paused at the top, her breath blowing hard, her hand on her belly.

  The women fussed and murmured and she waved them off. “I’m just pregnant,” she told them, then stepped down the length of the attic and turned to ease along the wall to Téra’s corner.

  Téra sat up again. “Did I forget something?” she asked, her worry rising. Minnie was being Calli and Téra was trying to be Minnie. Neither of them was sure of themselves.

  Minnie shook her head and lowered herself to the floor. She crossed her legs, for there was room for a woman of Minnie’s size to do that, while Rubén had to turn sideways to fit. Minnie rested her back and her head against the wall and blew out another deep breath. “Ah…to be still, even for a moment.”

  Then she cracked one eye open and looked at Téra. “Rubén woke, thirty minutes ago. First thing he did was phone me and tell me to get my ass upstairs and keep you company until you fell asleep.”

  Téra could feel her cheeks warming at the same time her heart gave a little flip and her chest tightened. “He’s okay?”

  “He’s off the critical list and giving the nurses a hard time. One of them tried to take the phone off him while he was talking to me.” Minnie smiled. “She won’t try again.”

  Téra closed her eyes.

  “Why don’t you lie down and relax?” Minnie said. “You won’t sleep sitting up like that.”

  Téra grumbled as she settled back on the mattress. “This is so stupid. I feel as if my brain has reverted to childhood. Ghosts and things that go bump in the night.”

  “It’s not stupid at all,” Minnie told her. “Needing company to fall asleep is a mild reaction to everything you’ve gone through. Some people become full on basket cases. They never tr
ust another soul and go through life alone.”

  “You didn’t fall apart, even a little,” Téra pointed out. “And you went through hell.”

  “I did it for the man I loved,” Minnie told her, with a soft smile. “Mine ended up being one of the good guys. You were betrayed by yours. Totally different, honey.” She closed her eyes again. “Rubén is one of the good guys, you know.”

  Téra drew in a breath and let it out. “I know.”

  “I’m just saying, because you might doubt your own judgment, after Lucas.”

  “I don’t doubt. Not anymore,” Téra said, smiling. Hearing the man’s name didn’t make her twitch internally the way it used it, either.

  She was still smiling when she fell asleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Adán couldn’t rid himself of the sensation that he had fallen in with a well-trained unit of guerillas. For villagers who were hiding from Insurrectos, they were a disciplined bunch. Not even the boy, Ciaro, made more than a whisper of sound as they moved deeper into the forest.

  The camp they reached was basic. A series of tarpaulins stretched between trees for shelter from the rain, with sleeping bags beneath. Only one small fire was lit, to warm a battered pot of food that turned out to be stew. The chunks of meat were gamy and tough although the meal warmed Adán’s belly and he was grateful.

  Ciaro dropped beside Adán sometime later. “My Da says you should stay until sunrise. You will, won’t you?”

  Adán nodded. “I need to find a way off the island. I can’t do that stumbling around in the dark.”

  “You won’t get off, my Da says. The Insurrectos control the coast.”

  “The Loyalists in Acapulco think the Insurrectos control the whole island.”

  “Except up here where they can’t reach us,” Ciaro said. In the low firelight, Adán saw him grin.

  Adán considered that. “Then I may head for Pascuallita and get a message out from there.” There were people there, Duardo Peña’s family, who could help him get out. Pascuallita was in the highlands, too. It was closer than the coast, for they had walked a long way.

  Ciaro shook his head. “You can’t go there. The Insurrectos have the town locked up good and tight. No one in or out. It’s their town. They sleep there. You understand?”

  Adán understood more than what the boy had said. The Insurrectos were using the town as a dormitory. They were likely using the people in it as slaves, too. His gut twisted. “I will decide tomorrow which direction I will go,” he told Ciaro.

  To change the subject, Adán pointed to the gun strapped to his hip. On the boy, the pistol looked oversized. “Can you even get your hand around the grip of that thing?”

  Ciaro glanced down at the gun, looking surprised, as if he had forgotten it was there. “Don’t need to, do I? Long as I can get my thumb over the grip and my finger on the trigger, it’s all good.”

  Adán tried to be appalled that a twelve-year-old could be so cynical and knowledgeable about small arms. The wonderland he had just stumbled into was too full of surprises for him to have any capacity left to be shocked. “It’s a Glock, isn’t it?”

  Ciaro grinned. “Glock G23,” he said, pulling the gun out of the holster. He held it out to Adán.

  Adán took the gun and studied it. He used a model of this exact gun for the movies. The real thing looked the same. It felt heavier, though. He hefted it. “Your hand doesn’t fall with the weight?” He dropped the clip out of it and raised the gun as he might for an action sequence.

  “No, you’re doing it all wrong,” the boy said. “Here.”

  Amused, Adán handed the gun back.

  Ciaro held up the gun in both hands, so the muzzle was pointing up at the canopy overhead, his forefinger resting alongside the trigger. “Silva does this all the time, right?”

  Adán nodded.

  “It’s a dumb way to hold it.”

  “It is?”

  Ciaro tapped the muzzle. “Watch how the end moves.” He brought the gun down to aim at an imaginary target. Then he brought it back up again and tapped the end. “From here, to…” He traced the quarter circle the muzzle had moved to reach the aim position. “…here, the gun isn’t pointing at the target. It’s wasted movement.”

  A tendril of horror touched Adán. “Wasted,” he repeated and cleared his throat. “So the better way is…?” he prompted.

  The boy stood up and brought the gun down by his side, so the muzzle was pointing at the ground. Slowly, he brought it swinging up, then stopped with it lifted perhaps three inches. “See where the muzzle is pointing? I’ve already got the target’s feet in range.” He lifted the gun another couple of inches. “Crotch and belly.” Another inch. “Center of the chest.” Another two inches and the gun was horizontal, his arm straight. “Head,” he said.

  Adán shifted uneasily.

  Ciaro grinned and crouched back down beside Adán. “See? You only have to lift it a couple of inches and you can fire straight away and have a good chance of hitting him. Keep pulling the trigger, all the way up to the horizontal, and you will totally take out the target.”

  Adán took the gun off him and slid the clip back in and seated it with a hard slap of his hand. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “In return, I want you to do something for me.”

  “Name it,” Ciaro said happily.

  Adán held the loaded gun out toward him, grip-first. “You like the Silva movies?”

  “You can’t tell?”

  Adán didn’t want to tell the kid he sounded like a contained, wizened old man. He ignored the question instead. “Those movies…they’re just fun, Ciaro. They’re just a way to tell a story. So the gun gets held wrong. Or the bad guys can’t hit the side of a barn. It doesn’t matter. People enjoy them because they’re fun. When this war is over, that’s what I want you to do.”

  “Enjoy them because they’re fun?”

  Adán nodded. “Give your gun to someone. Your dad. Or melt it down or bury it. Same with your knife. Then go and watch all the Silva movies and eat popcorn and forget what you know about the best way to take out a target. Just enjoy the movie and be happy the good guys win again.”

  Ciaro considered Adán for a long moment. “That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said. “I just want to help the good guys win.”

  Adán hid his sigh. “Well, remember what I said.”

  Ciaro ginned and moved away.

  Adán settled down on his borrowed blanket to sleep. Sleep didn’t come for a long while, though.

  * * * * *

  At no point did the Insurrectos question them. That was the most puzzling part. It kept Calli occupied during the crossing to Vistaria and the rough, fast drive from the coast to the city, while her arms grew numb from being wrenched behind her and the zip ties rubbed her wrists raw.

  Marisa Roldán stayed silent while her bright eyes shifted, observing and assessing.

  They were pushed out of the Jeep at gun point and Calli stumbled. Her legs were almost as numb as her arms and her hips were icy fire from the uncomfortable seat.

  A soldier yanked her back upright with a soft curse that had something to do with blonde whores.

  Calli looked around, taking note, just as Roldán was doing. She recognized where they were with a jolt. This was the back of the palace where, a long time ago, Nick had taken her. When she had last been here, there had been rows of cars and utility vehicles and two helicopters lined up as precisely as the cars. There had been Loyalist soldiers on guard.

  Now, the flat concrete was empty except for the Jeep. Weeds grew up between the big concrete slabs.

  Calli looked up at the palace itself. That did not look like it had changed. She had seen little of the inside of the palace. She suspected the changes in there would be greater than out here.

  The desperate seediness of the place was depressing. The Insurrectos were letting it go to ruin.

  Rifle barrels pushed into their backs, prodding them forward. They were herded up the sho
rt flight of stone steps onto the terrace outside the palace. More weeds and dirt lay there, too.

  Then through a big glass door into the palace itself. Calli remembered the door. Nick had used it.

  The wide passage was more of a hallway than a corridor. Ahead was the big rotunda where the circular stairs wound in twin helixes to the upper floors. They were pushed to the closest stairs and nudged upward.

  The room on the first floor they were herded into was empty except for lush carpet thick with dust and neglect, two plastic chairs and a camera on a tripod.

  Calli’s heart beat with thuds that hurt. She had seen too many terrorist videos made this way. People on camera were often shot and beaten and maimed to extort the recipient of the video.

  They were pushed onto the chairs. It was awkward to sit with her hands behind her. Calli pushed herself to the end of the chair.

  A hand gripped the top of her head and turned it so she was staring at the camera. From the corner of her eye, Calli could see another soldier had a grip on Roldán’s chin and was doing the same thing.

  The hand on Calli’s head slapped her cheek. It stung even though it was not a heavy blow. “Use English,” a voice growled in Spanish. “Speak.”

  Calli turned her head to look at him. “What do you want me to say?”

  The hand wrenched her head back to look at the camera. “Say your name.”

  She swallowed. Her heartbeat had risen so high it was a blurred thunder in her chest. She felt sick and weak.

  Nick will see this, she reminded herself. So will every Loyalist.

  She lifted her chin and looked at the camera’s black eye. “Callida Munro Escobedo.” Then, even though he had not said to, Calli added, “Chief of Staff to the President pro tem of Loyalist and free Vistaria.”

  The slap, this time, was heavier. Her ears rang and her vision blurred. Calli lifted her chin, blinking. She couldn’t focus. The camera wouldn’t show that.

  “You,” the other soldier told Roldán.

  “Marisa Lupita Roldán, Ambassador of Mexico to Vistaria de la República de Escobedo,” Roldán said, using the full and formal name of the country.