Casualties of War

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “There’s a part of me wants to rage at you about how this isn’t one of your movies, that people are dying here. Only, I think you know that.”

  He didn’t smile. “If I had been stupid enough to think this was a movie, the last twenty-four hours would have changed my mind.”

  She nodded. “You need to tell me what happened. How you got where you did, because you’re a long way from a beach, here.”

  He told her about being taken from the yacht club in Acapulco and waking up in the dinghy and the run into the beach.

  “Back up a minute,” Parris said. “You said ‘the second time they stopped’. They stopped to get a fix two times?”

  “No, the second time, they went dead in the water to hide from a satellite moving into range.”

  They knew satellite movements. A cold finger walked up her spine. “Go on,” she said.

  He shrugged. “After the satellite passed, they overcompensated for current drift and ended up too far north. I’m guessing they intended to landed closer to the harbor than here.”

  “Walk me back through the satellite thing,” she said, using as casual a tone as she could.

  Adán’s eyes narrowed. He considered her for a moment, then his gaze cut to one side. He took a breath and spoke. This time, his voice flexed and shifted. “The smart one, Joaquim, said, ‘Shut her down!’ Monty said, ‘Why?’.”

  Monty was a different voice. A younger voice.

  “Joaquim said, ‘look at the time!’,” Adán said, his voice dropping deeper and sounding older. “They shut everything down. Motor, lights, the works. Joaquim said, ‘Kill everything. Hurry. It’ll be in range in less than a minute’.”

  Adán opened his eyes and laughed. “One of them wanted to know how long it would take to move out of range and Joaquim got pissed and told them it couldn’t hear them. He told Monty to shut off the phone because the screen glow would get picked up.”

  “Drones,” Parris murmured.

  “Maybe,” Adán agreed. “Except they don’t keep to a schedule and Joaquim had this one down to the minute. That’s what he said next.” His voice shifted. “’It takes twelve minutes to move out of range. Then we can fire up again’. Only,” Adán added in his own voice, “they stayed still and black for twenty minutes. Joaquim wouldn’t let them smoke, either.”

  “Thermal imaging,” Parris breathed. “On the open sea, their bodies alone would show up as major heat spots. He was only worried about light. Something that sensitive…drone or—” She realized what she would say and cleared her throat.

  “Spy satellite?” Adán suggested.

  She stared at him.

  Adán smiled. “Your nose is twitching.”

  She glared.

  “Even more now.” His smiled grew.

  Parris grabbed the laptop and put it on her knees. “What happened after that?” she demanded.

  Adán took her through the run into the beach and being interrupted by the guerilla villagers, who took him in for the night, then sent him on his way to Pascuallita the next morning.

  “Everyone loves a hero,” Parris said, when he finished.

  “Are you going to shove a gun in my face and tell me to stay put, while you do whatever you’re doing here?”

  She cleared her throat. “We’re…assessing.”

  “Bullshit. You don’t want to be slowed down. You told me and you told your C.O. almost the same thing. Timing is an issue. You have a deadline you’re trying to meet.”

  “It’s not a deadline,” she admitted, “but time is critical. Which is why we have to drag you with us. I can’t spare the time to get you off the island.”

  “What is so critical?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell you.” She grimaced. “I’d be breaking so many codes and laws if I even hinted, Adán. Including, I think, the Homeland act, because you’re not American.”

  “Homeland?” he repeated, surprised. He frowned. “You’re not here because of the war, are you? I mean, you are, but there’s something else. Something to do with terrorists.”

  She stared at him again.

  Adán sighed. “Okay, I got it. You can’t talk about it.” His eyes widened and his mouth parted. “Sweet Marie…” he breathed. “Is this something to do with the hospital?”

  She jerked. “What?” she said, her heart screaming. Her mouth felt numb with shock.

  “The hospital bombing,” he repeated. “I can tell by your face that I’ve nailed it.”

  “Wait,” she said, lifting her hand. There were too many people sitting within hearing distance. Her men were good at pretending a sound proof wall was between her and them when she was busy in her “office”. This, though, was not something they could hear.

  She got to her feet. “Follow me,” she told Adán.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He got up and followed her back through the tight crevasse to the narrow outer cavern. She didn’t linger there, for the sound might carry back to the others. She pushed on through the mouth of the cave, out into the gully.

  The nearest sentry saluted. She acknowledged with a nod, then looked around. The nearest trees were all spindly things with bush low to the ground. A single cypress stood twenty yards away. She took out her handgun and thumbed the safety off. “Over by the big tree,” she told Adán.

  They climbed up to the cypress. She stepped over the emerging roots, moved around the base of the giant and stopped on the other side from the cave. For a moment, she scanned the surrounding land, fixing the pattern in her mind. She would notice if something changed.

  While she scouted with her gaze, Adán settled against the tree with a tired sigh. For a moment, she had forgotten he was injured. She must remember to make allowances she wouldn’t normally make with her men.

  She let her gun hang from her hand rather than re-holstering it. “I brought you out here, because no one in my unit has been read in on this. They’re not cleared for it. You called the hospital thing a bombing. It was a boiler blowing up.”

  “That’s what your government wants everyone to believe. I was there, Parris. I know different.”

  “Because you know what a bomb going off sounds like?” she asked sweetly.

  “Because the Insurrectos were there,” Adán replied.

  Her gut tightened. She remembered to breathe. “Tell me about it,” she coaxed.

  Adán studied her. “You’re the first intelligence officer to not laugh in my face when I said I thought the Insurrectos were responsible.”

  “I’m not—”

  He lifted a hand. “Okay,” he said, cutting off her denial. “You’re the first person who hasn’t rolled their eyes at me. How’s that?”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Serrano’s wife was at the Foundation fundraiser.”

  “Did no one see her there?”

  “I don’t think they care.”

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” Parris pointed out. “Former model and all that…someone must have spotted her.”

  Adán shrugged. “Not even when she kissed me.”

  For two heart beats, something hot roiled in Parris’ chest and stole her breath. Rage gripped her throat. Unwelcome images of Adán with his arms around a stunning brunette flashed into her mind.

  Adán’s eyes narrowed. “On the cheek, Parris,” he said. “She kissed me on the cheek while her photographer grabbed the shot. Don’t you get the Internet out here? It was all over Facebook and Twitter.”

  It felt as if her neck was prickling with heat rash. Parris fought to breathe, to shut down her response. What the fuck was wrong with her? She had never reacted to someone kissing Adán before. Hell, she’d sat through his graphic love scenes in the Silva movies with a steady pulse, more than once.

  Only, Adán wasn’t exactly the man she remembered, anymore. She still wasn’t certain what had changed, yet something had.

  “Tell me from the beginning,” she said. Her voice was harsh with control. Better that than letting him hear it tre
mble.

  “All I can tell you is what I saw and heard. What I was told was cover up lies.”

  “Tell me anyway,” she said.

  Adán collected his thoughts, then spoke. She watched his face and the way his voice changed whenever he was repeating what someone said. He was a good story-teller. He remembered what people said, word for word, as he had spent his adult life memorizing lines.

  He painted a picture of typical government two-facing which, even though he detected the lies, still puzzled him because he couldn’t see the big picture.

  It didn’t puzzle Parris. From where she was standing, she could see everything far too clearly.

  She was glad she had brought him out of hearing range of the others. They were all smart. They would all figure out something big was blooming, too.

  He didn’t stop talking when he reached the end of the story about the night the hospital wing had been bombed. He spoke of his unsettled feelings, watching the war progress in Vistaria from his nice, safe house in Bel Air, knowing his cousin Nicolás and his friends and family were working to preserve the country they loved. His growing frustration that his one contribution to the war to that point—setting up a meeting with Nick and the President of the United States—had ended with zero net gain, for the President had not declared public support as he had promised. The betrayal had wounded Adán, more than perhaps he realized from the off-hand way he spoke of failing to reach the President and of his calls being ignored.

  Parris detected the pain in his voice, though. She realized with a start that Adán had let down his shields. This was the old Adán, speaking of everything in his heart and mind—only not about the torturous intrigue of Hollywood, but the gasping struggle his country was making to stay alive.

  “Then there was you,” Adán added.

  Parris jumped again. “Me.” She compressed her reaction and hid it.

  “I didn’t know where you were. I’ve never known and I wouldn’t have guessed you were here in a million years,” he said. “I only knew you were somewhere, fighting for your country, while I was sipping champagne. It made me ill to think of the differences between us.”

  “God, Adán, please tell me you didn’t dive into this war because of me?” she pleaded. What if he died here? It would be on her…

  Adán shook his head. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it because of you. You made me feel…well, guilty.” He frowned. “I couldn’t stomach play-acting anymore. Not when my friends and family are giving everything they have to win this war.”

  The same raw pain was in his voice, only it was the memory of guilt bringing it forth. Now she understood what had changed in him. “You feel as though you’ve made a difference,” she said. “You’ve helped.”

  “I don’t think I’ve done nearly enough to help,” he said. “But I’m doing something, at least. Now I can just about look at myself in the mirror once more.”

  “You’ve done more than you know,” she assured him.

  “If running like hell to get away from a trio of stupid Insurrectos counts, then okay.” He said it lightly.

  Parris moved closer to him and dropped her voice. “What I’m about to tell you is so classified I could be charged with treason if it ever got out that I shared it with you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “I’m not asking you to do that, Parris. I can live with you keeping half your life secret. You always have.”

  She shook her head. “You need to hear this. You need to understand why President Collins refused to talk to you. It’s not because you’re persona non grata. It’s not because you didn’t make a difference.”

  Adán’s black eyes met hers. “Are you sure I must know?”

  She nodded. “The brand new hospital wing, Adán. It had a brand new sterilizing unit in the basement. It was a Cobalt 60 Gamma unit. The Insurrectos did blow up the wing, only they didn’t do it to make a public statement. They were making a private one.”

  She watched Adán put it together. “Jesus!” he breathed. “The cobalt!”

  She nodded. “The bomb was designed to fracture the basement floor, so they could get at the cobalt unit. There was enough cobalt in the core to make a large dirty bomb. They sent the President a message, that if he stepped in on the Loyalist side of the war in Vistaria, they would detonate the bomb in one of the larger cities.”

  Adán turned to face the tree. He leaned against the trunk, his uninjured arm a straight prop. He hung his head, absorbing it.

  Parris moved around so she could see his face. His eyes were closed.

  “That’s why he wouldn’t take my calls,” he breathed. “He didn’t want to lie to me. He couldn’t tell me the truth, either, because America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists and I would have hounded him to support the Loyalists. He can’t do that, either. He was playing for time…”

  “And he’s still doing it,” Parris told him. “That’s why we’re here. We HALO’d onto Vistaria less than twelve hours after the bomb detonated.”

  Adán lifted his head. “The cobalt is here?”

  She nodded. “Radioactive material leaves a trail specialized drones can track. The trail led to Vistaria then disappeared. We’ve been searching for it ever since. We’re all Spanish speakers, we’ve all done covert missions and can blend in…I even have a black wig and black contacts if I need them.”

  “You said there was a time crunch,” Adán pointed out.

  She nodded. “Twenty-four hours ago, something pinged the drones. A tiny trace, but it’s the first hint we’ve had. We were given the coordinates. That’s where we’re going, Adán. We’re going to stop a dirty bomb.”

  Adán blew out his breath. He rolled his head back and laughed, then sighed. “I shouldn’t be laughing. There’s a fucking dirty bomb and the Insurrectos are threatening to use it, but goddamn it, Parris…!” He pummeled the tree with his fist. “I was right all along. I was right!”

  “Yes, you were,” she said, smiling.

  He drew in another deep, deep breath, then blew it out in a gusty sigh. “I feel like…like I just got my life back.”

  She nodded.

  “Thank you for telling me.” His gaze met hers.

  Heat seared the length of her, stopping her heart and her breath. She had never in her life let down her guard while active—not until this moment, when she didn’t just let it down, she forgot where she was and everything about her mission.

  All she knew was that Adán was looking at her with the heavy, speculative gaze she had only ever glimpsed a few times in the long years they’d known each other. He had kept it contained and hidden from her since that first night on his new boat and the damn kiss that changed everything.

  He’d come back into her life through Stuart. While he never showed by so much as a quiver she was anything but the wife of a business associate to him, sometimes she caught Adán watching her with this same heated look.

  It had been in his eyes the last time she saw him, too. The day she forced herself to ask the question of him that had hung between them since her divorce. She saw this expression in his eyes, even while he was telling her “no”.

  It was a richly silent statement of lust and longing that made her knees weaken and her heart to stutter and her sleep to evaporate. She had spent wakeful nights trying to forget it and here it was again.

  Parris realized with muted amazement that her back was to the tree. How had she got here?

  Adán leaned over her, his hand still planted against the trunk. “I want to kiss you,” he whispered. “It’s all I can think about.”

  Her heart leapt joyfully. “I’ll kill you if you don’t,” she breathed.

  His lips met hers and it was…oh, it was so good! She sighed into his mouth as his arm came around her and his body pressed against hers. Every inch of her throbbed in response.

  How had she lived without this?

  She breathed in his scent…she had forgotten how he smelled, only now it was as if she had always carri
ed it with her. It was so familiar. She thrust her fingers into his thick, silky hair and leaned into him.

  The touch of a breeze against her overheated cheeks shifted her focus from the delicious ache of her body and the touch of his, to externalities.

  Reality crashed back with a force that made her jerk. “No. Adán. Stop,” she said.

  Adán straightened with a snap and stepped away from her. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, I let you,” she told him. “And I shouldn’t have.” She glanced among the trees, taking stock, while she compulsively squeezed the grip of her gun. She had even forgotten she was holding it. How had she let herself become so distracted?

  “You should go back in,” she told him.

  Adán cleared his throat. “I can’t. Not yet,” he said apologetically.

  She forced herself to keep her gaze up. Her cheeks burned and her heart hurried a little more. “I can’t leave you alone out here,” she said, “so I can’t go first.”

  He pushed his hand through his hair, the hair she had ruffled. She could feel the tickle of his locks against her fingers, still, making them tingle. “Firewood,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We can collect wood and take it back for them.”

  She nodded stiffly. It would give them the moment they needed to find calm and reassemble their normal faces. She jammed the gun back in the belt clip. “You can collect. I’ll leave my gun arm free and watch your back.”

  * * * * *

  When Adán dumped the wood in the middle of the circle, ten minutes later, he got a round of thumbs-up and handshakes.

  No one looked at Parris at all as she settled on her mat and got back to work.

  Nine hours later, at midnight, they left the cave and moved silently into the night.

  Parris had precisely zero sleep.

  * * * * *

  Nicolás Escobedo arrived at the house shortly after dawn. Téra thought she was the only one to see him arrive. He moved down the long jetty like a man walking the last mile to his execution.