Burnt Sienna

by David Morrell

  In Spanish.

  “You’re safe,” the voice said.

  Malone opened his eyes a little more, seeing a face with gray beard stubble, wizened from years of working in the sun.

  “You’re safe,” Fernando repeated.

  Movement made Malone tense until he realized it was Fernando’s wife touching his forehead with a cloth. Other movement made him glance toward a corner, where Fernando’s children huddled, afraid.

  Having trouble getting air through his nose, he opened his mouth, his jaw hurting, but when he expanded his chest to take a deep breath, the pain in his upper-right ribs was even worse.

  Outside, wind shrieked. Rain lanced against the windows.

  “Sienna,” he managed to say. “Where … ”

  Fernando frowned, as if Malone had spoken gibberish.

  Which I did, Malone realized. Not only had he spoken in English, but Fernando had never heard Sienna’s name before. He knew her as Beatrice.

  “Beatrice,” Malone said. “¿Donde está? ¿Qué pasa?”

  Fernando and Bonita exchanged troubled looks.

  “¿Qué pasa?” he demanded.

  Fernando sighed and told him what he had heard.

  Malone closed his eyes, his emotional pain greater than what his body suffered. He imagined the terror Sienna must have felt when she was forced into the car. The terror would be worse now, as Bellasar prepared whatever hell he had in mind for her.

  If she was still alive.

  How long ago had they taken her? Straining to clear his thoughts, Malone checked his watch and saw that the time was almost 10:30. Bellasar and his men had arrived at dusk, around 8:45. He had no idea how long they’d remained after he was knocked unconscious, but he doubted it had been long. That meant they had about a ninety-minute head start.

  By now, they’re close to the border, he thought sickly. No, I’m wrong. The rain at the window made him realize the storm would have slowed them. They might even have had to take shelter in Santa Clara. There was still a chance.

  “Help me stand,” he told Fernando.

  “No. You mustn’t try to move.”

  “Please.” Malone grimaced. “Help me stand.”

  “But …”

  Malone shuddered, sitting up. Nausea swept through him as he struggled for the further energy to get on his feet.

  “Loco.” Fernando lifted him, holding him steady as Malone wavered.

  Malone fumbled at the pockets of his jacket. “Help me open these zippers.”

  Confused, Fernando did, his curiosity turning to amazement when he saw the wad of pesos Malone pulled out.

  “Half of this is yours,” Malone said.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to keep some in case I need it on the way to Yuma. Otherwise ” Malone waited for a swirl of dizziness to pass. “Your share’s about four thousand dollars.”

  Fernando’s wife gasped.

  Malone fumbled in his jeans, pulling out the Explorer’s keys. “You’ve been a good friend.”

  Fernando’s voice was tight from emotion. “De nada.”

  “If you’ll just do one more thing for me.”

  Fernando waited to hear what it was.

  “Help me to my car.”

  3

  There must have been something in the way Malone said it or in the look he gave. Fernando didn’t argue. With a nod, he put an arm around Malone’s left side, careful not to aggravate the pain on his right.

  When Malone pulled the door open, rain shoved them back. He braced himself and stepped into the raging darkness, Fernando going with him, holding him up. Drenched, they staggered toward the gutted trailer. Despite the storm, a few flames struggled to flicker, guiding the way toward the dark outline of the Explorer next to the trailer.

  If only the fire hasn’t spread to it … Apprehension made Malone’s heart pound faster. Despite the cold rain, he sweated. He smelled smoke. Lightning gave him a glimpse of the driver’s side. Heat had blistered the car’s paint. He felt along the windows, finding them intact. “Fernando, the tires,” he fought to say in the wind. “Are they all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Help me inside.”

  Fernando eased him behind the steering wheel. The effort increased the pain in Malone’s ribs and made him see gray for a moment. He fumbled to put the key in the ignition switch.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” Fernando asked.

  “I have to.”

  “We will pray for you.”

  “I’ll need it.” Malone turned the key. For a moment, he was afraid water had gotten into the electrical system, but after the briefest hesitation, the engine started. He switched on the headlights. They barely pierced the storm. When he turned on the windshield wipers, he saw Fernando running into the darkness toward his trailer. Then he pressed the accelerator and tore up wet sand, heading toward Santa Clara.

  The strength of the wind made the waves higher than usual, thrusting them farther onto the beach. Malone had to steer close to the storm-obscured dunes, forced to reduce his speed so he wouldn’t crash into them. It made him furious.

  Just remember, Bellasar had to go through this, too. He had to face the same obstacles, Malone thought. I’m not really losing time.

  But they’re still ninety minutes ahead, and the storm wasn’t as bad as this when they left.

  He had no doubt that Bellasar’s destination was the nearest major airport, which was in Yuma. The only way Bellasar could have arrived so fast (he must have been closer than his estate in France) was by jet.

  But he won’t be flying anywhere in this storm, Malone thought. Bellasar’s ninety-minute head start doesn’t mean anything as long as he can’t take off.

  A gully loomed, water churning through it. Before Malone could hit the brake pedal, the Explorer charged down and up through it, splashing waves on each side and over the windshield. Driving blindly, desperate to control his steering, Malone couldn’t understand where the gully had come from. He’d driven along the beach many times and had never encountered the obstacle. Then he remembered there had been numerous wide, shallow dips. Were they the equivalent of dry streambeds? In major storms, did water rage from the bluffs on the right and fill these dips with flash floods?

  The wave drained from his windshield. Wind buffeted the car. At once his headlights reflected off another gully, this one wider. Reflexively, he stamped the brakes, instantly realizing it was the wrong decision. As the car’s tires dug into the wet sand, he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. He would slide into the surging water and be trapped. He needed to go as fast as possible, to force the car through to the other side. Jerking his foot off the brake, he applied gas. He felt the car skid and then gain speed. And more speed.

  When the front end hit the water, the impact jolted his teeth together. Waves sprayed. But the car kept surging forward. Flying forward. With a punishing jolt, it landed on the opposite bank and started to climb the crest.

  But the back end was in the water. Although the tires dug into sand, they fought the strength of the current. Malone pressed harder on the gas pedal. The car gained traction, but not enough. He felt the back end shifting sideways. Oh, Jesus, the current’s pulling me in.

  As the Explorer swirled in the raging water, he tried to work the steering wheel. It spun in his hands, the current controlling him. The water drowned the engine. The electrical system shorted out. The headlights darkened. He felt the force of the water beneath the car. Then the Explorer twisted sideways and walloped to a stop. Blocked by the edges of the gully, the car was now a plug, the current roaring against it, rising above the windows on the driver’s side and pouring over the roof. Water seeped past the windows. I’m going to drown in here, he thought.

  He shifted to the passenger side and pressed the switch to lower the window, belatedly remembering that, with the electrical system dead, the window wouldn’t budge. More water seeped in. He pulled the latch on the passenger door and shoved, wincing from the pain the effor
t caused him.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried harder.

  The door opened slightly.

  He rammed his shoulder against it. The force of the water spilling over the roof caught the door and thrust it fully open, yanking him with it. He barely had time to breathe before he was sucked under. The current’s turmoil shocked him. He couldn’t tell up from down, right from left. He struggled to swim but found it impossible. About to inhale water, he brushed against the side of the channel. The current foamed around a curve and hurled him against a slope, where he gasped for air, clawing. He kicked his feet to propel him, kept clawing, and broke free, flopping onto the top of the sand. A wave crashed into him, almost dragging him back. Another wave followed, this one rolling him onto higher ground.

  He struggled upright and staggered onward. But his legs didn’t want to support him. Dazed, he sank to his knees. He gulped air and shivered. Despite the pain in his ribs, his chest heaved.

  Santa Clara was too far to walk to in the storm. The roiling stream blocked him from going back to Fernando. The odds were he would get hypothermia and die out here.

  It didn’t matter. What happened to him wasn’t important. Getting to Sienna was, and now he would never be able to help her.

  Lights flashed from farther along the beach. A car.

  Help, he thought.

  He managed to stand.

  It’s someone who can help me.

  Squinting from the headlights, he waved his arms. An alarming thought made him wave his arms harder. Dear God, the car’s coming so fast, the driver won’t be able to see the stream in time to stop. He’ll do what I did and crash into it.

  Stop! he mentally shouted. The headlights sped closer.

  Abruptly another alarming thought seized him. Nobody drives along this beach at night in a storm unless …

  It’s the police. Someone saw the fire. They’re hurrying out to investigate.

  Or it’s a friend of Ramirez, wondering where he is.

  Assaulted by stronger rain, Malone looked frantically around for a place to hide, but the only place was a dune on his right. His legs were numb with cold. He seemed to take forever as the headlights got larger. With a torturous effort, he rounded the dune and collapsed.

  Can’t go any farther.

  From his vantage point, he saw the headlights glint off the raging stream. They seemed to be slowing. Had the driver seen the stream in time?

  Or did the driver see me? Malone wondered.

  A car stopped just before the stream. Malone couldn’t tell if it was the police. He tensed, waiting to see what the driver would do.

  Two men got out.

  Flashlights gleamed toward the dune.

  Shit, Malone thought. What if they work for Bellasar? What if he sent them back to make sure I’m dead.

  He struggled toward a farther dune.

  But the flashlights kept coming. They checked the first dune, found where his footprints led to the next, and followed.

  Malone didn’t have the strength to do anything except crawl. His hands and knees didn’t seem to belong to him. He felt skewered in place.

  The flashlights centered on him, hurting his swollen eyes as he squinted up. He waited for the bullet that would blow his brains out.

  “Jesus, what happened to you?” a familiar voice asked.

  Malone frowned up at a burly man beyond one of the flashlights, straining to identify him.

  “My God, Chase,” Jeb said, hurrying to lift him, “we have to get you to a hospital.”

  4

  “No. Not the hospital.”

  “What? I can’t hear you.” Driving as fast as he dared along the stormy beach, Jeb risked a glance toward Malone in the backseat.

  “The airport,” Malone murmured. “Yuma’s airport.”

  “The poor son of a bitch is delirious,” the man next to Jeb said.

  “Save your strength,” Jeb said.

  “Yuma’s airport.” Malone shivered. “Bellasar’s there. He’s got Sienna with him.”

  “What?”

  Malone tried to explain about Ramirez.

  “I know about him,” Jeb said. “This morning, Ramirez used a computer at the Mexican immigration office at the border to find out what he could about a couple named Dale and Beatrice Perry. Dale Perry was one of ours.”

  “I took his wallet.”

  “We eventually figured that out. A half hour after his name surfaced, I was on an Agency jet to talk to the Mexican immigration official whose computer Ramirez used.”

  “Bellasar arrived ahead of you,” Malone managed to say.

  “How? Dale Perry was our man, not his. Bellasar couldn’t have known about him.”

  “Unless somebody in the Agency is on his payroll.” Malone forced out the words. “How else could Bellasar have known we were at that safe house in Virginia?”

  A rumble of thunder was followed by a heavy silence in the car.

  “Hell,” Jeb said.

  Malone hugged himself, shivering worse.

  “We’ve got to get him out of those wet clothes.” Jeb’s stocky companion crawled into the backseat and opened a travel bag on the floor. He pulled out a shirt and a pair of jeans. “Since we’re about to get intimate, I might as well introduce myself. Name’s Dillon.”

  “I’ve got the heater turned as high as it goes,” Jeb said. “We’ll do everything we can to get you warm, Chase.”

  The weather was so bad, no matter how fast Jeb tried to drive, it still took four hours — twice as long as usual — to reach the border. Dillon tried to use a cell phone to warn the Yuma authorities not to let Bellasar’s jet take off, but the storm was so bad that the call wouldn’t go through.

  Beyond the border, the weather improved, but it still took an hour to get to Yuma. The cell phone finally worked.

  Malone, who’d been drifting in and out of a feverish sleep, barely heard Dillon talking urgently to someone in Yuma. He fought toward consciousness, his chest cramping as he tried to get a sense of what the person on the other end was saying.

  “Here!” Jeb swerved into the modest airport and skidded to a stop in front of the single-story terminal. Police cars, their roof lights flashing, waited. Jeb rushed out of the car, hurrying to a group of officers. Malone struggled to get out and join him, but even before he took a step, he saw the bleak look with which Jeb turned to him.

  “I’m sorry, Chase. I wish I … Bellasar’s jet took off forty-five minutes ago.”

  Malone sank.

  5

  “Your ribs are bruised but not broken,” the doctor said. Windows vibrated from the roar of jets taking off and landing at the Marine Corps Air Station at the edge of Yuma. “Your nose is broken. You’ve got a concussion.”

  “Is the concussion going to kill me?”

  The tall, thin doctor, a captain, peered over his spectacles. “Not if you take it easy for a while.”

  “He’s talking about R and R,” Jeb said.

  “I know what he’s talking about.”

  “What he’s not talking about,” Jeb said, “is trying to go after Bellasar. We’ll handle it. You’re in no shape to do it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t —”

  “How are you planning to go after him? Tell me how you’ll get Sienna back.”

  Jeb looked uncomfortable.

  The doctor glanced from one man to the other. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I don’t think I should be hearing this.”

  The door swung shut behind him.

  “Do you know where Bellasar went?” Malone asked.

  “South over Mexican airspace.”

  “And then?”

  “By the time we alerted the Mexican authorities, he was off their radar.”

  The painkillers the doctor had given Malone didn’t stop his skull from throbbing. “So he probably flew over Baja and reached the Pacific.”

  “That’s the theory.”

  “He could be going anywhere.”

  “We�
�ve asked Canada and the Central American countries to alert us about unidentified civilian aircraft.”

  Malone massaged his forehead. “We can’t assume he’ll go back to his estate in France. The most I can hope for is, whatever Bellasar plans to do to Sienna, he’ll wait until they get off the jet. It gives us a little more time.”

  “To do what? A man that powerful … I’m sorry, Chase.”

  “I won’t give up! Tell me what you learned about Bellasar since we disappeared. Maybe there’s something that’ll help us.”

  “The arms dealer Bellasar planned to use to broker the weapon —”

  “Tariq Ahmed.”

  Jeb nodded. “He got word that Bellasar’s wife had run away with another man. He doesn’t know the Agency’s involved. Bellasar’s trying to keep that a secret, but the fact that Sienna ran off jeopardized the negotiations. Ahmed’s the kind who believes that if a man can’t control his wife, he can’t be depended upon to control his business. There’s a chance Bellasar might keep her alive to show Ahmed that she’s back and that he’s the boss.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ve got a look in your eyes. What?”

  “Bellasar might prove what a man he is by inviting Ahmed to watch him kill her.”

  Another jet roared into the air.

  “That’s just the sick sort of thing Bellasar would do,” Jeb said. “Kill her in front of Ahmed. It would solve a lot of problems. He’d not only get the negotiations back on track; he’d also scare the hell out of anybody tempted to underestimate him.”

  “If your people keep a closer watch on Ahmed —”

  “He might lead us to Bellasar.”

  “And Sienna.” Jeb pulled out his cell phone.

  6

  As the fuselage hummed from the Gulfstream 5’s powerful engines, Sienna barely looked out at the whitecapped ocean below. She told herself she ought to. This would be the last time she’d see it. But she didn’t care. Staring at the back of the seat, she kept remembering what Derek had done to Chase. In her mind, she saw Chase lying on the floor, the flames spreading toward him. He was dead. Nothing else mattered.