“Can’t they come to Mexico and adopt her?”
“Dio’s lonely. He loves having Conchita here. He won’t let her go. I mean, he thinks he’s giving her a good life. He got her an English tutor and he gives her toys and books. But it scares the shit out of me to think what her life will be like if she grows up here. It’s one thing now, when she’s little. But once she gets tits? I don’t trust Dio.”
“What about Conchita’s father? Can’t he help?”
“I had Conchita when I was fourteen.”
“You’re only seventeen?”
“In six months, I’ll be eighteen. Then I won’t have to worry anymore about Dio jumping my ass. He really meant what he said. He never touches females over the age of eighteen. It’s like he thinks if he does, he’ll grow old, like them.”
“Wait,” she said, thinking. “Is Dio Conchita’s father?”
Rosa laughed. “Dio got fixed after his tenth kid. Conchita’s father was my boyfriend when I was fourteen. We thought we were in love. You know how it is.”
“I know how it is,” Natalia said wistfully.
“I didn’t want to get an abortion. The whole Catholic thing.” She made the sign of the cross. “Her dad’s never seen Conchita, which is fine with me. My mom’s a good grandma. I come to visit as often as I can. But I’m hoping you can do something.” She touched her arm. “It’s too late for me, but not for Conchita. It’s like that fairy tale you told her… I was the pretty sister. I listened to my mom and got mixed up with bad men. Monsters with money. Men like that don’t change. They stay bad.”
“Where the fuck are you? The President is on Skype!” Dio was yelling from down the hall. “Get your ass here right now!”
“You are a good woman. You will be okay. I know it in here.” She touched her chest, then grabbed Natalia’s hand. They ran down the hall toward Dio’s office.
Chapter 59
The White House
December 20, 10:30 p.m.
“She’s bringing a kid with her? No way! She either comes home and gets knocked up with my kid in time for the convention, or no deal!”
Rex lay on a sofa in his bedroom, his shoes off, eating French fries from a McDonald’s bag balanced on his stomach and watching FOX News with the sound off. Moon wasn’t surprised that he had turned over the negotiating to Gretchen, who was seated at Rex’s computer talking to Natalia on Skype. Moon couldn’t see the computer screen from where she sat, but she had heard enough to know that the hostage exchange had been set up for tomorrow in Baja: FLOTUS for Dio’s brother. Only one detail remained unsettled: Natalia refused to return unless she could bring along a three-year-old Mexican girl named Conchita Gonzales and an American photographer named Phillip Smith.
Across from the President, Moon sat on a sofa beside Sally-Ann, who was now her BFF. After Moon’s scathing putdown of Rex, Gretchen had ordered her to plant herself beside her minder and keep her mouth shut. Sally-Ann had whispered into Moon’s ear: “You blew him out of the water!” and squeezed her hand.
“Natalia says she’s not adopting the little Mexican, Daddy,” said Gretchen. “The kid’s got an aunt and uncle in San Diego. They’re U.S. citizens. All you have to do is get her a U.S. passport. They will adopt her.”
“Fine! Done! Now who the fuck is this photographer?”
“I just googled Phillip Smith,” said Pricker, who was sitting on the floor, hunched over his laptop. “He’s a paparazzi.”
“She’s bringing home a fucking paparazzi? We don’t have enough of those vermin hanging around the White House?”
“Phillip Smith is not a paparazzo.” Natalia’s voice boomed over the computer speaker. “He is an architectural documentarian. And one more thing. I want you to hire him to photograph the most historic government buildings in Washington.”
“Sounds fucking boring, but whatever,” said Rex. “Just get your bootie back here!”
“I will. Tomorrow.”
“How about tonight?”
“You miss me, Rex?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “Tomorrow. Philip has some photos he’s got to shoot tonight for Dio.”
With a whoop sound, Skype flicked off.
Gretchen stood up from Rex’s desk and moved over to where he was sprawled on the sofa. She picked up her father’s stretched-out legs, sat down, and cradled them on her lap.
“Scratch,” he said.
Gretchen inserted both her hands up his right pant leg and scratched his leg with her long nails.
“Mmmm. Feels so fucking good,” he murmured, closing his eyes.
Moon glanced over at Sally-Ann and made a finger-down-the-throat “barf” sign. Sally-Ann stifled a laugh.
“Daddy?” Gretchen cooed.
“What, baby?”
“I foresee a minor problem about tomorrow’s hostage exchange. Actually, it’s more of a major problem.”
“What?”
“I mean, I’ll be thrilled to get the real FLOTUS home tomorrow and kick out this fake.” She shot Moon a dirty look. “But Pancho Reyes killed twelve DEA agents. You can’t just let him go free.”
“Why the fuck not? I’m the President.”
“I know, Daddy, but we have to keep this whole hostage exchange top-secret. If we let Pancho out of prison, there are too many prison guards and officials, not to mention the grieving families of the victims, who will find out. And you know who will find out next!”
“The fake New York Times!” He pulled up his left pant cuff. “Scratch.” She began scratching his left leg. “What’s your solution?”
“I don’t have one, Daddy,” she said. “Do you?”
“Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just the President!” He snickered. “Wait, I know.”
He swung his legs off of Gretchen’s lap and onto the floor. “In this very room, we are honored to have a man, whoops, I mean a woman, or sort of a woman, who just convinced the whole fucking world that she is FLOTUS.” He stood up and walked over to Moon. “Moon, sweetheart, you’re the world’s greatest female impersonator. But you’ve still got balls and a pecker. I know cuz, fuck, I saw them myself! How about we pay you to impersonate Pancho Reyes? I mean, that would make you the world’s greatest male impersonator, right?”
Moon glared up at him from the sofa. “Forgetaboutit!”
“C’mon,” pressed Funck. “From what Pricker says, Pancho Reyes is hot. You do a little filler, a little Botox. It’ll be a cake walk.”
Before she could tell Rex to go to hell, Pricker looked up from his laptop. “Cancel that. It says here that Pancho Reyes is five-foot-four inches tall.”
“How tall are you?” Rex asked Moon.
“Five eleven and a half. Same as Natalia.”
“Too bad,” he said. “If we can’t make this work tomorrow, she’ll be the loser.” He walked back over to his sofa, lay down, and put his legs back up on Gretchen’s lap. “Scratch.”
Moon sat there a moment, fighting mounting panic. The bastard was right. If Dio didn’t get his brother back, he would kill Natalia. She felt a hand on hers. Sally-Ann beckoned her closer and whispered in her ear. Moon brightened.
“No worries, I have the perfect solution,” she announced to Rex and Gretchen. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod! she thought. Natalia is coming home!
Chapter 60
Middle of Nowhere, Baja MX
December 21, 12:00 p.m.
The Baja sun at noon was unforgiving. Natalia took off her blue L.A. Dodgers baseball hat, grateful that Phil had given it to her, and wiped the sweat from her head. Her hair was growing in fast. It felt as if she were petting a wet cat.
She walked over and sat down on a canvas folding chair under the enormous sun canopy, complete with solar-powered air-conditioning fans, that Dio’s butlers had set up in the middle of what looked like flat, endless desert. Guarding the perimeter were six barrel-chested Mexican men in white-linen suits and sunglasses. Natalia noted that the walkie-talkie radio devices on their ears looked identical to those worn by U.S.
Secret Service agents. So did the bulges of their handguns under their jackets.
She smoothed down the pink, red, and yellow YSL caftan that she was wearing, courtesy of Dio’s mother. The loose, flowing gown was the only garment in Isabella’s closet that had fit her. Like Cinderella’s stepsisters, she had tried to squeeze into the tiny woman’s shoes, but they were all too small. Isabella had given her a pair of Dio’s hand-sewn leather huaraches to wear today. “You cannot walk on the desert at midday in your bare feet,” she warned Natalia. “Your soles will be scorched, as if you’d stepped on hot coals.”
Wearing a similar pair of huaraches, Dio was sitting with Phil at a nearby table. He was wearing a Panama hat, sunglasses, and a white-linen suit. Except for the scars on his face, he looks like a distinguished Mexican businessman, she thought. The two men were reviewing the photos that Phil had taken last night of Dio’s house. They were displayed on a new Mac Book Pro that he had given Phil to take home with him. Natalia was thrilled that Dio was bananas over Phil’s pictures. She could see from where she sat that they were worthy of Architectural Digest.
Wearing earbuds, Isabella was slouched on a sofa, glued to a Mexican telenovela on an iPad and smoking a cigarette. Natalia wondered if Isabella could really show up at Beau Rivage under an alias and not be revealed as the mother of one of the most notorious criminals in the world. With her ostentatious jewelry and over-the-top plastic surgery, she would fit in with the wives of some of the billionaires who belonged to Rex’s club. Come to think of it, more than a few of those men made their money in ways that were as suspect as dealing drugs. The only difference is that they don’t kill people, thought Natalia, at least not that we know of.
Rosa was sitting on another canvas sofa with Conchita on her lap, reading aloud from a book. Natalia was pleased to see that it was Rosie Revere, Engineer. Conchita stroked her small pink-piglet plush toy, riveted by the story. Too bad I wasn’t exposed to books like that when I was Conchita’s age, she thought. All she knew were the fairy tales that her babika told her, about princesses who married princes and lived happily ever after.
Natalia had convinced Dio to let Conchita go to the United States with her today by threatening to cancel her offer to take Phil’s house photos to Architectural Digest. It had been a no-brainer for Dio: He loved Conchita, but he loved his house more.
Last night, while Dio supervised Phil’s photo shoot, Natalia and Rosa had talked for hours on the terrace. They lay on their backs on chaise lounges, looking up at the stars. Rosa mentioned that someday, if she could figure out a way, she wanted to finish high school and go to college. She revealed that over the past year or so, during her visits here with Conchita, Dio had taught her about the stock market. “He likes having company when he’s parked in front of CNBC,” she said. “Sometimes he lets me pick stocks for him. If they make money, he lets me keep half. Guess what? I’ve earned enough to start a college fund for Conchita, and for me!” Rosa said she wanted to study finance and maybe go to business school. Natalia hoped that she would accomplish her dream. In fact, it hit her that there might be a way for her to help Rosa, like she was helping her daughter.
Before they went to bed, Natalia had glimpsed the Big Dipper and remembered the night—was it only two nights ago?—that she wondered if her “true love” was looking at the Big Dipper too. Vaclav. How could I have been so stupid? she thought.
She remembered what Angel always said: “Never look at what was. Focus on what will be.” She wasn’t sure what “will be” was for her. Maybe figuring it out would require a journey like the one on the Pacific Crest Trail that the Cheryl character took in that movie. Or maybe I already took that journey, she thought. Maybe my journey was escaping from the White House with Angel, meeting with Vaclav, and ending up here. Maybe all I need to do now is figure out what I learned from it.
“Aquí vienen! Here they come!”
Dio’s helicopter pilot was pointing to an aircraft in the distance. Looking into the sun, Natalia couldn’t make out much detail, but she was certain that it was the U.S. Army helicopter that Rex was sending for her and her two guests. Dio had deliberately selected this flat desolate patch of desert for their rendezvous, a wide-open space where both sides could see that there were no hidden gunmen. She hoped that all would go well, that both sides would play fair, and that she would be back at the White House with Conchita and Phil by tomorrow morning.
Dio’s butlers hastily laid down a red carpet on the spot that was halfway between where Dio’s Sikorsky had landed and where the U.S. helicopter was to land shortly. Rex had said that he wouldn’t be on board because he had an important meeting at the White House. She pictured him sitting in his bedroom with his feet up, drinking a Diet Coke and watching FOX News. Or maybe he was frolicking under the covers with his latest piece of ass in the Presidential suite at the Washington Funck Hotel. She tried to picture it, but no image came to her.
Images of Rex with other women had haunted her like bad dreams since she met him. She tried to conjure one up now, but nothing appeared in her mind. She suddenly realized that the thought of Rex in bed with a bimbo didn’t stab her in the heart, like it always did before she fled the White House. Maybe my journey here has taught me that Rex can’t hurt me anymore, she thought. That I won’t let him hurt me. Before she could ponder it further, Dio walked over.
“Señora Funck, it has been my pleasure to have you as a guest in my home,” he said. He extended his hand and helped her up out of her chair.
“I hope someday you will meet my husband,” she said. “You two have a lot in common.”
Isabella joined them as they walked over to Dio’s helicopter. She had traded her iPad and earphones for a pair of binoculars, which she was aiming eagerly at the sky.
His backpack slung over his shoulder, Phil strode over with Rosa, who was carrying Conchita tightly in her arms. Conchita clutched the book, Rosie Revere, Engineer, and her small pink-piglet plush toy. Natalia could see that both mother and daughter were fighting back tears.
The pilot jumped into the cockpit of Dio’s helicopter. Natalia, Dio, and their entourage, and one of Dio’s guards, stood in its shade and watched as the U.S. army helicopter swooped lower, the camouflaged colors on its cabin merging with the desert. The helicopter landed so gently—no jolting, no screeching brakes, as with an airplane landing—that it reminded Natalia of a grasshopper alighting on a potato plant in her babika’s garden. If her babika saw it, the old woman would hobble over, grab the insect, and snap off its head. She cringed at the grisly memory.
The pilot cut his engine and the spinning rotors slowed. The hatch opened. From the shadowy interior, a short heavy-set man in the loose orange shirt and boxy pants of a prison uniform emerged. Pancho Reyes also wore a brimmed khaki cap that threw a shadow over his face. His hands were handcuffed behind his back. A Secret Service agent wearing a black T-shirt, black combat pants, and boots, nudged him from behind. Pancho climbed down a few portable steps from the helicopter to the ground. The agent followed and unlocked Pancho’s handcuffs. Pancho stretched his arms and rubbed his wrists.
Natalia was surprised by how short he was: no more than five-feet-four, a lot shorter than his brother, Dio. Pancho was pudgy, his eyebrows were carefully plucked, and his pronounced lips, cheekbones, and jaw screamed Juvederm. A narcissist, like Rex, she thought.
“Mi hijo! Mi hijo!”
Isabella was peering at the prisoner through binoculars, wiping back tears. “They fed him well, Dios mio!”
Dio took the binoculars to see for himself. “Muy bien,” he said.
Dio handed the binoculars back to Isabella, then motioned for a guard to come forward. Natalia turned to Rosa and held out her arms. “I will take good care of you, Conchita, I promise,” she said gently. “I will keep you safe.”
Biting her lip, Rosa settled Conchita into Natalia’s arms. “You are a brave little girl, mi amor, and very strong and very smart, like Rosie Revere.” She kissed her cheek.
&
nbsp; Natalia knew the plan. The Secret Service agent would escort Pancho Reyes from the U.S. helicopter to the red carpet. At the same time, Dio’s guard would escort her, Conchita, and Phil over to it. The moment that Pancho and she passed each other on the red carpet, both pilots would switch on their engines. Passengers would proceed quickly to their respective helicopters, which would lift off at the same moment.
Dio’s guard squeezed her arm as he escorted her toward the red carpet, leaning so close that she could smell his stale sweat. It was deadly still in the desert; she could hear the crunch of her huaraches on the sand.
She could see the prisoner more clearly as he approached. Though his cheekbones and lips were grotesquely thick from dermal filler, there was something about Pancho that looked familiar. Could she possibly have seen this Mexican man before?
They stepped onto the red carpet at the same time. Their eyes met. Pancho winked so quickly that she thought his eye had twitched. He did it again. A chill ran through her…
Ohmygod, it’s Angel!
As he swept pass her, she clutched Conchita tighter and continued toward the helicopter.
“No es mi hijo!” Isabella shrieked.
Natalia glanced behind her: Dio grabbed the binoculars from his mother and aimed them at Angel. “Gringo motherfuckers! That is not my brother!” He called to the guard holding Natalia’s arm: “Mátalo! Kill him!”
The guard dropped Natalia’s arm. As he pulled a Walther from under his jacket, Angel’s guard shot him in the stomach. The Mexican dropped to the ground.
Four Secret Service agents piled out of the U.S. helicopter, guns drawn. Two of Dio’s guards traded fire with them.
Angel’s guard let go of him and grabbed Natalia. Another one ran over and took Conchita. The men shielded them with their bodies as they raced toward the helicopter. Phil trailed behind them. As more shots were fired, the guards piled them all into the helicopter.
Natalia took Conchita from the agent’s arms and sat down on a bench. The little girl wrapped her arms tightly around her neck, burying her head against her shoulder. “We’re safe now,” she murmured into Conchita’s hair. “We’re safe.” Through the open side of the aircraft she watched Dio’s helicopter lift into the air. Dio was leaning out of it, shaking his fist at them.
The First Lady Escapes Page 28