Hard Target

by Barbara Phinney

  "Is this why you wanted to come to Bolivia?" Ambassador Legace asked. "To find him and kill him?"

  "I didn't know where he was, but I knew he had to be here somewhere."

  "Then you found him working here."

  "I didn't recognize him at first. I never got the opportunity to face him after he killed my husband. They whisked him out of the country too quickly. At first, I thought he was Ramos. He had the right story, which was that he'd found good work after he was released by the old government."

  "How did you figure out he wasn't Ramos?"

  Lucy straightened. Her jaw set, her shoulders went back with pride. "Joey found out. He's smart, just like his father was. He found me, didn't he? He has my looks, but his father's brains."

  His expression grim and sad, the ambassador peered at her. Tay watched her, too. Yes, that was the curious familiarity he'd seen in Joseph. He resembled a younger, male version of Lucy. "But why did you try to kill me?" the ambassador asked.

  "The tea wasn't meant for you. It was to scare off Dawna. Only scare her off. She's strong, young and in good shape. I knew she wouldn't rest until she had all her answers. I thought if she got sick, I could finish with Chayo, and everything would be done. I couldn't rely on Juan anymore."

  Cabanelos. "Certainly not after you'd killed him." Tay said. "And what did Cabanelos do to you, that you needed to kill him?"

  "He wanted to help. He knew the real Miguel Ramos, and didn't want him to be forgotten. He and all the others who suffered under the old regime."

  Dawna frowned, but Tay spoke up. "Cabanelos called out for his wife, but he wasn't married. Was he calling out for you?"

  "I said I'd marry him. He wanted to start a new life away from here. I convinced him we should go to Sucre and be married by a government official. Fool. He kept calling me his wife. But I needed his skills, so I agreed to marry him. He taught me about explosives and tried to shoot Chayo that day he was smoking behind the embassy."

  Tay nodded to himself. Just as he suspected. "But something went wrong. You had planned to frame Cabanelos and return to Canada and disappear."

  "He got cold feet." she snapped with a sneer. "He wouldn't kill Chayo, and talked about forgiveness and stupid things like that. So I made him some tea and some food and told him to go back to his village for a while."

  Tay folded his arms. "Yeah, all the things high in potassium."

  Lucy looked away. "They were only foods he liked. He'd told me he had a heart condition, so I knew he wouldn't be strong enough to handle the potassium. He was too weak, and returning to the mountain would be hard on him."

  "Did you kill Chayo, too?"

  Her expression indignant, she lashed out, "I told you! I can't find him! But, yes, I wanted to kill him. Kill him three times, one for each of us."

  The ambassador took a step closer to her. "Only your husband died, Lucy. You could have kept going."

  "No! I died, too. And so did Joey. He struggled for love so much. He worked so hard in school, hoping to find the love I couldn't give him. You're a parent, you understand."

  "But he found you again." Wheezing himself from the altitude, Dennis Legace shook his head. "You could have started over."

  Dawna glanced up at Tay. When he caught her gaze, he held it. She swallowed, remembering the disappointment in Tay's eyes when she refused to answer his proposal.

  Her lungs hurt. It was tough enough to draw in a deep breath without her shoulder adding to the pain. But she'd remained as silent as Andy Bonner and one of the local policia as they took Lucy away. The ill Mountie appeared to be doing better.

  Dawna studied the dust on her clothes for a moment, before brushing down her pants. She couldn't look at Tay, not yet.

  Someone touched her arm. She looked up to find the ambassador there. "I'm returning to Cochabamba, now. That sick Mountie and I have had enough of this altitude. And so have you."

  "I'll be leaving shortly, sir."

  He flicked a short look at Tay. "Not without talking to him, I hope. But turn off your mike first."

  Dawna reddened, and fumbled with her mike. It was wired in tight under her vest.

  Tay was at her side. "Let me help."

  Standing still, feeling Tay's warm hands guide the mike out of her vest, she watched everyone keep their distance. No wonder. They'd heard everything Tay had said.

  But they weren't going to hear her words. She spun around and covered the tiny black mike with her hand. "Tay?"

  He looked up.

  "Um." She wasn't sure where to start. Her thoughts of the two of them were mixed up, jumbled with her compassion for Lucy. "I don't know what to say. When you told me you loved me, I believed you. I even trusted you'd come back for me. But I really wasn't sure and it was hard to push away all those doubts...."

  She shifted her weight. Tay said nothing, but in one comforting move, took her hand and pulled her close.

  "Tay, I was scared. I knew you wouldn't desert me, but I think I was scared for myself." She finally found the courage to peer into his eyes. "Except now, listening to Lucy, I don't want to be like her. Revenge and bitterness ruined her life. Chayo didn't. I know she's unbalanced, but she ruined her chances for happiness. And I don't want to be like that."

  He held her hand, and she looked down at where the cuts made from the jagged steel in the basement were now healing. "You're not," he said.

  "I wanted to prove to the whole world that I was good at my job. I thought you were there to stop me."

  "I was supposed to. But I've never regretted anything more, Dawna."

  "I know you didn't have a choice, and that you couldn't explain it to me, either." She crept closer, hesitantly toying with his bullet-proof vest. "I don't want to ruin any chance I have at happiness. And you're the only person who can make me happy. Is that proposal still available?"

  He drew her into his arms. "You bet it is."

  She clung to him, needing his body to be close to hers. Needing him, she admitted to herself. "In that case, I accept. I love you, Tay. But I haven't got a clue how we're going to work this marriage out. I still have two and a half more years left here. And you have two jobs..."

  "We'll work something out. Trust me." He bent his head and kissed her.

  She gave herself over totally to the kiss, totally to the trust.

  And totally to the love.

  Epilogue

  Dawna threaded her way through the crowd, peering carefully to see if she could spot Tay as he entered the airport.

  This time on a commercial flight, Tay would meet her at the civilian airport, a modern building with an arched roof, all new and bustling with such a variety of people. The throng of new arrivals poured in from their walk along the tarmac from the airplane.

  There was Tay! Dawna shoved up her hand. He'd only been gone for five weeks, but to her, it had seemed like a year. It didn't matter this time, he was returning as the Military Attaché Advisor. A fancy title, created by Dennis Legace, to set up a continual military presence here.

  Tay had teased her when the posting had been confirmed, saying he'd be her boss. She reminded him that she would be arranging not only his office space, but his sleeping quarters, as well. And considering their wedding was still a week away, she could easily put him up in the Hotel D'Oro.

  Weaving around some locals, he hurried toward her. He hauled her into his arms and kissed her soundly on the lips.

  "Hmm," she said, kissing him back. "Welcome to Cochabamba. Good flight?"

  "Better now I'm here." He looked around. "This is a nice airport. I should have landed here before."

  They walked outside toward her car. "I have some news for you."

  His face lit up. "You're pregnant!"

  She smacked him lightly. "No. And I don't plan on that until we're back in Canada." Stopping by the embassy's car, she sobered. "Chayo was caught last night."

  "Where?"

  "He was trying to slip over the border into Chile, just near Cardon Plata. An Aymara shepher
d found him, and recognized him from the newspaper and dragged him to the church. Chayo had fallen down a ravine and broke his ankle.""Where's he now?"

  "The priest, who now has a cell phone, called the police. They took him to the hospital in Oruro. The police have discovered that twelve years ago, the Bolivian embassy had asked that Chayo's file be stripped of any details of the accident. They aren't sure who authorized the pages' removal, but an internal investigation has begun."

  "They'll get to the bottom of it, I'm sure."

  "They will. Andy Bonner is in charge of it. Ambassador Legace said the government here has two choices. Keep him here and charge him with impersonating another person, or send him back to Canada to face manslaughter charges. He's lost his diplomatic immunity."

  "Which one are they going to choose?"

  Dawna sighed as she unlocked the passenger door. "If he stayed here, he would get a light sentence in a miserable prison. If they extradite him to Canada, he would face manslaughter charges for Joseph Porter's death, and possibly get 10 to 20 years in one of our relatively nicer prisons."

  Tay stopped her hand as she moved it away from the door. "So, where's he going?"

  "They're doing up the paperwork now to return him to Canada. Lucy gets her justice, after all."

  "But that doesn't compare with a man's life." He took Dawna in his arms and pressed her against the car. "I saw Lucy before I left Ottawa. She's going to try counseling again. And her son has promised he'll visit her as soon as his prison term is up."

  Dawna nodded. Thanks to Ambassador Legace's influence, both Lucy and her son had been taken back to North America to serve their sentences.

  Feeling the need to hold Tay, she kissed him and clung to him. Her own prison sentence of distrust and bitterness was over. She was free.

  Free to love Tay in the way, she realized now, she always wanted to love him. With trust and confidence.

  ###

  Author's note:

  Over a decade ago, I became intrigued with my friend's occupation. She was the chief of security at a South American Embassy, and was gracious enough to tell me some of the basics of life there and the way security worked. A story began to form in my head, but I still needed a country. Afraid to make a mistake, I created a small, newly independent country south of Bolivia.

  But when the opportunity rose to visit Bolivia as a short term missionary, I jumped at the chance. My research had not been incorrect after all, I was happy to note, but it took another few years and one more trip to Cochabamba to dare myself to set this story in an actual country.

  Naturally, any mistakes are my own and discrepancies such as an embassy in Cochabamba, are strictly the result of my overactive imagination. This is a story created solely for entertainment, and to help us ponder our mistakes and regrets and vengeful thoughts. Let them go or they will eat you alive. And if you ever have the opportunity to do mission work, I strongly encourage you to take it. You'll never regret it.

  Regards and my thanks for purchasing this book,

  Barbara Phinney