The guard standing next to Roldán rammed the butt of his rifle into her stomach. She wretched and bent over, her hair falling forward.
“Vistaria, bitch! There is no more Escobedo!”
Then they were hauled to their feet once more and pulled out of the room. Stumbling, they were led across the rotunda into the south wing.
Calli staggered deliberately, brushing against Roldán. “Serrano next,” she warned in English.
Roldán nodded.
The airy, light-filled offices at that end of the palace held more Insurrectos in their ugly gray uniforms. Heads lifted as they were marched past desks and glass doors into the largest office in the corner. Calli had never been here. She suspected this had been Jose Escobedo’s office a few weeks ago. The elegant desk and good quality leather office chair said it had belonged to someone with taste. That didn’t match the man sitting in the chair watching them being pushed to stand in front of the desk.
Serrano was shorter than Calli had realized. His girth, though, made up for that. He had a huge belly that the gray shirt had trouble encompassing. The buttons were strained around the middle. He had an equally round face with small eyes surrounded by deep folds. Even his hair was tight, fine, short ringlets, which added to the volume, although it was thin on top and receding at the front.
She guessed he was in his forties. His eyes glittered with sharp cunning as he considered them.
“Video?” he said.
“Completed, sir,” someone said from behind them.
“You know who I am?” Serrano asked.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Roldán said coolly. “So, no, I don’t know who you are.”
Serrano’s eyes narrowed and his face shifted. The movement, Calli realized, was him clenching his jaw with irritation, only there was too much fat in the way for the movement to be visible.
Roldán had pissed him off by not recognizing him.
Calli hid her smile. She heard Nick’s voice in her mind. Never ask a question for which you don’t already know the answer. Leading questions never give you the answers you want.
Serrano’s gaze shifted to Calli. She shrugged, even though the movement made the zip tie dig into her wrists a little more. “Someone in charge?” she asked, letting her voice lift.
Serrano hissed and slapped the desk. “It would please me to shoot you right now and have your blood stain this carpet, just for your insolence. Escobedo has already stepped down. Flores is now President.” He studied her. “You know what that means?”
Calli knew. Trembling began in her belly and spread out cold fingers. If Nick had stepped down, then her use as a tool of extortion had ended.
For a moment, her heart went out to Nick. He had responded the only way he could, yet Calli knew how much he would rage against his helplessness.
“You would demonstrate you are as foolish as everyone thinks you are, if you kill her off now.” Roldán’s tone was polite, as if she was discussing a menu with a waiter.
Serrano glanced at her. His face grew red. “I will not kill her now because I like Flores being in charge. He is weak. It serves my purpose just as well to have him stay there. As long as I have her, Escobedo is neutralized. And for the record, I don’t give a fuck what the world thinks of me.”
Liar! Calli breathed to herself.
“For the same reason I will keep you alive, Ambassador,” Serrano continued. “Mexico won’t help Flores while I have you.”
“In that case,” Roldán replied, her tone haughty, “you need to obtain long-acting insulin. I am a diabetic and need insulin every twelve hours, along with food. I should have had a dose at six pm tonight.”
Serrano considered her. “I will think about it,” he said.
“My use as leverage expires when I do,” Roldán pointed out.
Serrano scowled. “Get them out,” he snapped.
Calli’s last glimpse of Serrano was of him lurching from his desk, to wrap his hands around the throat of a soldier waiting against the wall and shake him.
The interview had not gone the way he wanted, so he was taking it out on a soldier.
“He’s mad,” Calli whispered to Roldán in English, as they moved back through the outer office with its desks and filing cabinets.
“Despotic at the least,” Roldán replied, her voice down. “He didn’t like that we were not in awe of him.” Her gaze slid to Calli and away. “Now I know we backed the right side.”
“Shut up!” a guard growled in Spanish and shoved them forward.
What would happen to them now? Serrano had his proof of life. He could have them executed and still put the screws on Mexico and the Loyalists. Calli suspected he would do the deed himself and laugh as he went.
She shivered.
Chapter Fifteen
After a breakfast of spiced coffee—the first he had tasted for years—and a soft tortilla with more spiced meat and vegetables, Adán set off for Pascuallita with an easy heart.
He had spent most of the sleepless night mulling over what he should do.
It was likely that by now the Loyalists would know he was missing. The Insurrectos had grabbed him to force the Loyalists to do something. That made telling the Loyalists he was not in the hands of the Insurrectos anymore critical. He had to get word to them as soon as possible.
Using an uncloaked cellphone would tell the world—and the Insurrectos—where he was. The loss of his cellphone narrowed his choices. The nearest cloaked communications device was in Pascuallita. If the Insurrectos did own the beaches, then heading back to the sea and stealing a boat to get back to Acapulco would take longer.
Ciaro’s father, Jose, had not liked his choice. “The Insurrectos have locked down Pascuallita. You can’t sneak in there.”
“The house I need to reach is on the west side, right up against the mountain,” Adán told him. “Do you know the Peña house at all?”
“I know it. Every Loyalist does,” Jose replied. “We stay away from it because it is General Peña’s house. You think the Insurrectos won’t be watching it?”
“I have to get there,” Adán replied. “I have to let the Loyalists and Nick Escobedo know I am free. It will make a difference.”
“He could sneak in from the back end,” Ciaro said to his father. “Up into the hills and back down again. The Insurrectos are lazy. They don’t like climbing,” he added, to Adán.
Jose sighed. “Well, I’ve told you what I think. I can only wish you luck.”
“Thanks, I think,” Adán said dryly.
Before Adán left the camp with a compass that Jose supplied and a direction to head in, Ciaro came up to him with an uneven grin and held the Glock out. “You need it,” Ciaro said. “I can always get another one.”
Adán shook his head. “I have no intention of getting into a shooting match with the Insurrectos.”
“You think you’re not already deep in this war?” Ciaro asked. His eyes looked old and wise.
Adán sighed and took the gun and shoved it in his windbreaker pocket. It weighed down the pocket, but at least it wasn’t visible. He still looked like a helpless civilian.
That had been four hours ago. Now he was climbing up a hill that was steeper than he thought, his breath whistling in and out. He had forgotten how fit the average Vistarian was, clambering around on mountainsides for most of their life.
Adán checked the compass and make sure his direction was still true. It was easy, in amongst the trees, to veer off course. He needed to head south west, which cut across the slopes on a diagonal and made his course tough to follow.
He stood for a moment, catching his breath.
Far away, he heard voices. He froze, straining his hearing to pick it up again. Had he imagined it? He waited, his breath held.
The whisper of voices. Only, how far away?
His heart thudded.
Then, a crack of a stick.
“Shit!” came the whisper.
Adán’s heart shot upward. They were very close. He had been s
o busy scrambling through the trees, he had failed to pay attention to anything around him.
He looked about, seeking a place to hide. For as far as he could see, until the gloom of the canopy-shadow swallowed up details, was a march of tall kapoks and ahuehuete, that Americans called Montezuma cypress. Vines tangled up in the higher branches and leaf litter covered the ground. The canopy was too thick overhead to let much grow down here.
A thicker cypress spread in front of him, between him and the voices. Adán eased his way down the slope to the wide, multi-strand trunk and put his back against it, nestling into a crease. He would listen and wait to see if the voices were heading away from him.
If they came this way, they might pass by without noticing him if he held still. He pulled the gun out of his pocket and held his hand over the butt to muffle the sound of the clip springing free. He eased the clip out and checked the load. It was a full clip.
He pushed it back home and seated it. He lifted the gun up to his shoulder, as he had done in dozens of Smokey Silva scenes. With a grimace, he dropped the gun down to his thigh and held it there, instead. It felt wrong to let it hang there. It felt as if he wasn’t prepared, only Ciaro had been right—swinging the gun up from this position would bring it into firing range faster.
Adán closed his eyes and extended his hearing, straining to locate the voices. They had been male and there was at least two of them.
Faintly, the patter of boots on the leaf litter. They were coming closer. He made himself breathe slowly and steadily, sucking in the oxygen. His temples pounded and his mouth was dry and his throat clicked when he tried to swallow, making it hard to hear.
He saw them first, at the edge of his vision, a brief flicker of movement. They were only two trees away from his cypress, moving in the same general direction as he was. It meant they were probably making their way to Pascuallita, too.
Stains streaked their gray uniforms, most of them green from slapping branches. Not one of the four men wore their uniform the same way. Some had tucked their pants into their boots. Some had their shirts flapping free.
They were breathing hard as they dug their boots in to climb the slope.
Adán held his breath, his mind racing. If they were heading for Pascuallita, he could use them as his guide. He could let them get far enough ahead that they would not hear him behind them, then follow them all the way into town.
High in a kapok and over to his right, a howler monkey screeched and gibbered. It was staring at him, pissed that he was in its territory.
Adán’s heart sank.
The four Insurrectos whirled, bringing up their rifles in an instinctive defensive movement.
One of them was staring right at Adán. His eyes widened.
Adán didn’t wait. He brought the gun up and as soon as it was pointing at their boots, he fired two shots.
The one who had spotted him fell back with a cry and rolled down the slope.
The others scattered, dropping to hide behind trees.
Adán ducked around the cypress, as three rifles gave out a semi-automatic chatter, peppering the trunk he had been leaning against. He kept the pistol level with his eyes as he searched for a glimpse of any of them.
This was bad. He was one man, pinned down by three. One of them could flank him. Two would ensure he was caught in cross fire.
“Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered, resting his head against the bark for a moment. He looked up as more bullets thudded against the tree, to watch for any sign of flanking movements.
There! To his right! He swiveled and put his right shoulder against the trunk and tracked the private as he dodged to another trunk. Adán aimed for the other side of the tree and waited. His heart was hammering with an intensity that made him wonder if it would burst.
The private lunged for the next tree. Adán let him run into his sights and fired. The private dropped with a cry.
Adán whirled to face the other direction. The Insurrectos were stupid, but they weren’t that stupid. Of course they would try a pincer movement.
The sergeant standing braced against the roots of the kapok already had Adán in his sights. He grinned, his finger squeezing the trigger.
Then he grunted, his eyes widening and his chest thrusting forward. The rifle fell out of his fingers and he toppled forward.
A large knife hilt stuck out of his back.
A man dressed in green camouflage from head to boots, including mottled face paint, stepped out from behind the tree the sergeant had been propped against. He put his finger to his lips, then turned his shoulder to display his upper arm and pulled down a disguising flap to reveal the American flag stitched beneath.
Adán leaned against the trunk. He was shaking too heavily to stand without support.
The American moved up the slope in silent, bounding steps, his M-16 held in front of him, the muzzle trained on the last Insurrecto.
Adán waited, listening.
The three shots came almost at the same instant. The light crack of a simple rifle, the heavier cough of the M-16, and over the top of both, the whistle and thud of a heavy caliber. Adán recognized the sound. A sniper rifle. A big one. Probably one firing 50 caliber cartridges.
The shots seemed to be a signal. The forest around Adán filled with camouflaged soldiers as they stepped out from behind trees. One of them carried a sniper rifle that Adán recognized from a Silva movie. It was an American CheyTac.
They were all big men, armed to the teeth, except one, who strode right up to where Adán leaned against the tree.
“Adán Caballero. What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked.
Adán’s heart jolted. “Parris?” Camouflage paint covered her face the same as the men, yet her voice…
She took off her helmet, revealing her red hair. Her green eyes assessed him. “I left you safe in Hollywood. Why didn’t you stay there?”
* * * * *
Parris put her helmet back on. Business first, she reminded herself. “Odds on perimeter,” she told the men. “Evens, take fifteen. Water and rations. Odesky, can you check his wound? Looks superficial but plug him up, please.”
“Right.” Odesky slung his rifle and reached for the flat pack that lived in his thigh pocket. The five “odd” members of the team spread out, their backs to the center. They were on lookout. Everyone else dropped to the ground and pulled out water cans and ration packets.
Adán looked down at his chest, shock showing. When he saw no wound, he looked puzzled.
Odesky grinned as he stepped up to him. “Your arm, dude. You’ll feel it in a minute or two, when the adrenaline drops.”
Adán looked at his right arm then his left, where the bullet had ripped through the sleeve of his light jacket and clipped his arm. The blood had reached his hand.
“Jesus Maria…” Adán murmured, twisting his arm to see the wound better.
Odesky pulled at his other arm. “Come and sit down and let me look at it,” he suggested.
Adán moved away from the tree, peeling off the jacket.
Parris had forgotten how tall Adán was. His true height didn’t always show in the movies, which made all heroes look like giants. He was nearly six feet. Vistarians were tall, for Latinos.
As Adán sank to the ground, Odesky followed him down. Parris parked herself right in front of both. There were questions to be answered yet.
“Hey, Captain, you really know this joker?” Donaldson asked, around a mouthful of jerky. He was the direct-question-asker of the group.
“Long story,” Parris assured him. Her heart gave an extra little beat. If she told them anything, the story would be heavily edited.
“She arrested me at a Hollywood party, years ago,” Adán said.
That was something she could live with her unit knowing. She nodded. “He was so disgusted by my Spanish, he gave me lessons for a while.”
“Shit, you speak Spanish better than a Mexican,” Ramirez said, whose parents were from Tijuana.
“Not
then, I didn’t,” Parris assured them. “Will he live, Odesky?”
“Straight slice through the meat, nothing vital,” Odesky said, straightening up from inspecting the wound and wiping it clear. “Antibiotic cream and a bandage. Maybe a painkiller.”
“No, nothing that will make me drowsy,” Adán said. “I have to reach Pascuallita.”
“You’re not going anywhere near that place,” Parris shot back. “There are Insurrectos crawling all over it. More than usual.”
Adán looked at her, a brow lifting. “Is that why you were heading there? Were the three Insurrectos going there, too? What’s happening there?”
Parris considered him. “Why are you here?” she demanded, because answering his questions directly would break with security protocol.
“Why are you here?” Adán replied, his tone sharp.
Parris realized everyone, including the perimeter guards, was listening with avid curiosity. Why wouldn’t they? This was Adán Caballero, film star and action hero. Shit, they had streamed Silva Savior the night before shipping out here.
Only, if her tough as nails unit were waiting for the action hero to prove he was a lily livered weakling afraid of his own shadow, they were in for a shock.
“Why we’re here is classified,” Parris told Adán. “Why you’re here is a different—”
“President Collins wouldn’t commit to supporting the Loyalists as he said he would,” Adán said, cutting her off. “So you’re here unofficially. Is that why I can’t go to Pascuallita?”
“The place is crawling with Insurrectos,” Parris assured him. “And the President did not say he would support the Loyalists.”
“I was in the car with him when he said it,” Adán replied.
Parris saw eyes widening. Glances among her men. That had surprised them. She could sense them reassessing Adán, upgrading his category from “actor” to “political figure”.
“I don’t know about that,” Parris said. “I’m following orders, which include not being seen here.”
“Black ops,” Adán said, his tone speculative. “Richard Collins won’t commit publicly, yet he sends units over, anyway. That implies…” He frowned. “Something,” he finished. “He’s not ignoring us,” he added.
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