Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy)

by Rosa Turner Boschen

  'New,' Ana said, not wanting to speak. If only they would leave her alone. All alone.

  'Honorable enough profession,' her father grumbled from behind the candles.

  'Anita!' her mother shouted. 'The salt!'

  'But I – ' She started to shift her legs when she felt her toe collide with something under the table.

  'Anita!' her mother called. This time more forcefully. Emi swiveled her coquettish head around the room. 'Oh, Ana –' Papacito was frowning into his wine, her grandmother leaning into him with a worried look. She moved her other foot and found it met with resistance as well. The frozen terror raced up her legs to where she sat immobilized.

  Her father was calling, his voice loud and threatening. 'Anita!' he boomed. 'Ana Margarita Kane, come out from under there!' He gave a short sharp yank on the edge of the tablecloth and dishes flew, wine cascading into walls, china grappling with glass goblets, as heaven and earth crashed to the floor.

  Then she saw it.

  Under the sleek flat plank of the table lay a long luminous box. It was lined in white satin and open to the air. There was a girl in its hollow, a girl more than thirteen. Older. Perhaps in her twenties...

  Ana woke with a start, her cry baiting her madness. Just above her head, the miniature blades of the fan spun in isolated harmony.

  And suddenly her nightmare seemed the lesser of evils.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Americans sandwiched themselves into the back of the small black cab. As the red-striped taxi made its way along the broad and barren road from the airport, Joe noted the sporadic appearance of stark apartment houses erupting from the Mesa's perfectly even terrain. Half-opened windows spewed forth wild strings of colored laundry that danced like tattered threads in the hollow April wind.

  Eventually they reached Madrid, its normally busy avenues a quiet rumble, the dense morning air trapped in the cauldron of the city.

  'Still in bed,' Denton announced to no one in particular.

  Joe nodded his head. It was the first time he’d agreed with Denton about anything. There was so much about him he didn’t like. Little things, like his ungainly gait and that almost feminine swing to his hips. The way Denton widened his eyes when he spoke and narrowed them when he listened. He was so damned superior for someone who was going absolutely nowhere. Here was a kid who’d once had everything but thrown it all away.

  He really was one major screw up.

  Then again, Joe had the benefit of having access to his file. The added perk of having been able to sort through his dirty laundry.

  And Denton had amassed a whole stinking pile.

  Somewhere up ahead of them a car’s engine backfired. Scott still hated that sound or anything that vaguely mimicked the sickening blast of a gun. He remembered the shotgun, the way its long butt pushed into his spindly shoulder, the unwieldy feel of the barrel in his twelve-year-old hands.

  His father appeared from the duck blinds, his face distorted with terror. Pauli lay on the ground, a pool of crimson exploding from the hole in his cushiony chest.

  Scott’s finger stayed frozen in its position of guilt. The trigger held him there, taunting. This is just what you wanted, what you’ve always wanted. Pauli, dead. Mama and Daddy all to yourself. No more doctors’ visits, no more month-long trips to clinics in Atlanta, no more late -night rockings with Mama for a boy whose years have far surpassed the privilege.

  Scott straightened his arms against the seat in front of him, as the cabby slammed on his brakes and began cursing the driver ahead of them in angry Castilian.

  It was an accident, Scott had told himself, again and again. It was time to let it go. Let it go, as he had been unable to do in high school. His parents blamed him. Not so much for the shooting as for being alive. How many times he’d wished he wasn’t. If he could have thought of a way, he would have ended it. But he was afraid. Afraid he’d screw that up too.

  It was easier just to deaden the pain.

  He’d started with a joint or two before school, then went on to other things. It didn’t matter what, as long as it got him high. Yeah, he’d heard stories about people jumping out of windows. But then, at least, it’d be over. He wouldn’t have to face another day of watching Mama cook his eggs, pretending nothing was wrong, or another night of catching disapproving glances from his father from across the top of the newspaper.

  The drugs helped him get away. And the farther he went, the better he felt. Mama turned a blind eye. It was her way, the Southern way, not to get involved. His dad suspected, but didn’t want to know. Bad for business – having a son in rehab. The town was growing but still small enough tongues wagged. Fact was, no one really got over the accident. It was a shadow that hung over the family. All the Dentons needed was another scandal.

  His folks had been relieved to ship him off to college without a record. Good college at that. State school with a national reputation. He had the grades. Academics came easy. It was the only thing in his whole damn life.

  Except for that stint with the DEA. Fucking load had landed right in his lap.

  A real break, and right here in Spain.

  McFadden’s girth was pressing Mark against the door of the cab. Maybe Mooney had been right about him. Sure, Mark had his reservations at first, but he was also a fairly decent judge of character. Perhaps McFadden was a little hotheaded at times but he was okay. Steadfastly on target. Someone you could count on.

  Denton, on the other hand, had already proven his primary loyalty was to himself. That in itself spelled trouble.

  Mark took in the wide tree-lined walkways dividing the boulevards. Green promenades teeming with benches, brimming fountains and the occasional outdoor cafe.

  They rounded a traffic circle and swept by the ornate structure of the Ritz hotel. Their driver hung a quick left, skirting the imposing, block-long facade of the Prado. Aisles of buses dislodged flocking Japanese tourists. The cabby pounded his wheel, cursing vividly, as their car became embroiled in the stampede.

  Directly behind the museum and its impressive grounds lay the starkly unimpressive street of Calle Cervantes. The network of streets adjoining it was known for its exclusive shops and society cafes. But forgiving a small grocery and one humble bar, Cervantes was unencumbered by commercial entities. Above the appropriately named Bar Modesto hid a complete array of neatly furnished apartments collectively known as Los Jeronimos.

  It was an unobtrusive locale, a haunt little known by outsiders. The perfect place for visiting Americans to fade into the woodwork.

  Mark stepped from the cramped quarters of the cab, his legs aching at the joints. As soon as he settled in, he’d go for a run.

  Mark circled the block and crossed the loud boulevard to the lush velvet of Retiro Park. He jogged through the wrought iron gate and headed for the sculptured gardens at the park’s rear, thinking of Camille. The trellised vines overhead reminded him of the restaurant where they’d shared their parting meal. He hadn’t known going into it that it would be their last. If he had, maybe he would have approached it differently, been prepared. There was nothing he hated more than being unprepared.

  But she had gotten him at a weak moment. Closed in when his mind was occupied with other things like an old soul held hostage by a passport photo. It didn’t take much to imagine her face. It followed him everywhere, daunted him with intrepid eyes.

  The ivy climbed its canopy beneath the blue sky overhead. He ran through its final portal and emerged beside the park’s large lake. As he rounded the corner near the pedal boats, he heard a second set of footsteps pounding the pavement behind him.

  There weren’t many people in the park at this hour. Early birds. Anxious lovers dotting the benches with conspicuous passion. A man and woman amorously entwined at the base of a large Cypress tree, his hands in her thick, black hair, their kisses fast and deliberate. Mark noted the display, at once put off and envious.

  There was something almost furious in their desire.

  He
turned down an adjacent path, increasingly aware of the footfalls behind him. They’d been keeping pace, but now were closing in.

  He altered his course and swung around Retiro’s large Crystal Palace. The footsteps followed, picking up speed.

  He needed a plan. His piece was in the hotel safe.

  To his right, the Palace reflecting pool cupped swans like lilies in a translucent palm. Through the glare of the water, he saw the man at his back draw a pistol.

  He hit the ground, diving onto the pavement.

  His assailant spilled over him, tumbling into the water. Mark pushed himself off the concrete and lunged for the back of the man’s neck. He was young, maybe twenty, with oily shoulder-length hair sticking out from beneath the bandanna that capped his skull.

  He struggled with Mark, groping for his drowning pistol at the muddy edge of the water.

  Mark grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to stand. Then he twisted the man’s arms into a holding position behind his back.

  'You and I are going to have a little talk,' Mark said, ushering the Spaniard into the bushes behind the shuttered refreshment stand. He would speak to him all right, in the tongue of all nations.

  'Tell me who you work for,' Mark demanded, wringing his attacker’s arms higher still and pressing him up against the small wood building.

  'No entiendo,' the man answered with a grimace, as Mark yanked harder on one twisted arm and threw his weight into the thin man’s back.

  'Maybe you’ll understand this,' Mark said, securing the man’s captured arms with his left hand and bringing his steely right-hand fingers to the Spaniard’s jugular.

  'Now,' Mark said, leaning in so his mouth was just above the man’s right ear. 'Do you talk or do I relieve you of that responsibility permanently?'

  Slowly, deliberately Mark tightened the pressure of his fingers against the man’s windpipe until he was gasping for air.

  'Como?' Mark asked, slackening his grip. 'I didn’t hear you?'

  The Spaniard wheezed and turned his head sideways. 'No English, no English!' he declared in a panic-stricken voice.

  'Fine,' Mark said, hoisting him by the collar and hurling him sideways into the brush. 'Go spend some time at Berlitz.'

  Mark sat on a cushioned bench in the small domed annex of the Prado Museum. He’d ducked in here to ensure the man in the park had been working alone. So far, he thought, still breathing heavily, he hadn’t been tailed.

  Mark leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. The mural before him was larger than a movie screen. Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, his 1937 rendering of the atrocities of war. Mark remembered those all too well.

  He studied the fragmented bodies, wretched heads dislodged from grisly torsos, the ghastly flight of a horse dying in fear. A single mutilated bull. Mark felt a burning in his throat, as he saw an American airliner taking a seven hundred and fifty mile-per- hour dive into the earth.

  Their tightly knit Northern Virginia community had rallied around him. Helped a young man with promise and athletic prowess get into West Point. He’d specialized in military intelligence just like his Dad. His mother had been a tall brunette with a warming smile and intelligent eyes. Someone who always had the time to listen. They’d taken Susan along, his baby sister’s first time seeing Europe. She’d been only fifteen.

  There’d been suspicions of a bombing, some type of plastic explosive slipped surreptitiously on board. Talk of drug traffickers and foreign insurgents. But no proof had ever materialized. He’d started working on something just before he left the DEA. He’d gotten a lead on an IRA faction with strong sympathizers in Spain. With the DEA funding his excursion to London, he knew he’d meet with success. At his insistence, British Intelligence was on the verge of reopening the case. It was all starting to come together when the DOS came knocking at his door.

  Mark had heard of the Defense Operations Service, though there was much talk in the intelligence community that it didn’t really exist. Everyone had heard of the CIA, but the DOS was a mere wisp of speculation. Mark realized now that very idea testified to the success of the organization.

  Even once you were on the inside, it was difficult to get too much information. Everything was compartmentalized on a 'need to know' basis. Still, historical rumors circulated. Truman, a military man himself, did not have complete confidence in the founding of the CIA, the premise that international intelligence – and therefore security – would be left entirely at the mercy of civilians. So, he’d developed a special project. Directed the four- star chiefs from each branch of the service to initiate his program. Call from the ranks the best of the best. It had been organized under the expansive wing of the Defense Department and was eventually reassigned as a secretive subagency of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency after a massive DOD restructuring in the early 1960's. To this day, the Service was headed by a two star general, always an MI man, up until this year when, for the first time, a female Commander occupied the slot.

  In the early days, the DOS was said to employ only former operatives who could neatly fold themselves back into civilian society while covertly remaining on active duty. But after Vietnam, when enrolment ranks plummeted and so many of those with the training sought plain-clothed employment, the DOS reluctantly began to take on civilians. Civilians who nonetheless needed the appropriate clearances and covert operations background. Civilians like Mark Neal who had done their time in hell and were ready to get out.

  But the DOD doesn’t have to let you out. It was there in the fine print of Mark’s appointment papers. There, in a little -known section of military proprieties that tells the prospective officer that he or she is, in fact, signing on for life.

  They’d been watching him, they said. A real comer. Someone with the right background and experience. And they needed him to report by the end of the week.

  It was a matter of national security. Surely, a patriot like Mark would want to do his part. If he didn’t, of course, there were ways of changing his mind. He could come willingly as a civilian, or be reluctantly recalled to active duty. Of course, the civilian choice would be less restrictive. Not to mention less messy. Thoughtful man like Mark wouldn’t want to trouble all those paper-pushers at the Pentagon with the busy work.

  Mark turned his eyes to the ceiling seeking the reason. Picasso had hit it dead on. Life was a jumble, an excruciating experience of limb being torn from limb just as surely as death severs the soul from the body. There was so much there that didn’t make sense.

  He’d been with the DEA less than six years, with the DOS now eight. And still hadn’t been able to make one goddamned shred of difference.

  McFadden was standing in the hall of Los Jeronimos looking disgruntled when Mark returned, pulling off his sweat-drenched tee. 'Where's Denton?'

  'I was hoping you'd tell me.'

  'You let him get away?'

  'How the hell was I supposed to know he'd try? Went to take a leak, okay? When I came out he was gone.'

  'Fine, fine. Babysitting's not my thing either. How long has it been?'

  'Couldn't have been gone more than ten minutes,' McFadden grated.

  'Good. You check with the concierge to see if he called a cab or left any clues. I'll grab a change of clothes and meet you in the lobby in five.'

  By ten a.m. the Prado was swarming with tourists. Scott breezed by the Flemish collection and headed for the West Wing. He moved about inconspicuously taking in the huge tapestry walls, the El Greco and Velazquez oils. He looked and he listened. Student painters were everywhere. Apprentices taking their training copying the masterworks.

  Scott circled the incongruous rooms until he came upon a likely group. A handful of pony-tailed young men in their twenties carrying backpacks, the tell-tale packs of Ducados sticking out of their denim hip pockets. Though it was a popular cigarette, one group in particular was rumored to smoke this bitter, unfiltered brand. Scott had smoked it once himself. Not because he liked it. But because it paid.

/>   It was a glamorous world he'd been sucked into, glamorous and filled with unprecedented danger. It was the one time in his life he’d meant something, had influence. And it had thrilled him.

  He’d actually considered a career in covert operations and had applied to the CIA. But they la ughed in his face. No intelligence organization in their right mind would hire him with his record. He was a security risk. He’d established some unsavory patterns over the years. Things have a way of coming back around.

  So he'd taken odd jobs waiting tables on the Hill while he tried to figure things out. Ana had never understood his lack of ambition. Never knew about the CIA or the DEA. He had been that good. But nobody seemed to give a damn whether he'd been good at what he was in Spain or not. He'd served his purpose. That was all. Here's your last roll of bills. Thank you very much. If you ever say a word to anyone, we'll deny ever having known you.

  Eventually, he picked up an internship clerking for a Texas Senator. They could use his Spanish but couldn't pay him, sorry. So he continued to wait tables at night and had less and less time for Ana. Ana and her questions, those damn questions that had no answers. Why couldn't she just leave him alone? Why couldn't she just let him breathe?

  Scott approached what seemed to be the leader of the group. He was the one the others deferred to, the one who held the floor without interruptions or guffaws when he talked.

  'Esta Luis?' he asked in a knowing tone that meant he expected an answer.

  The young man pierced him with cold, black eyes. 'Quien quiere saber?'

  'Un amigo,' Scott said, hoping Cromwell was right.

  He jerked his head sideways, the dark brown ponytail flipping over his shoulder. 'Esta con Goya.'

  Scott bowed his head in acknowledgment and headed for the small gallery dedicated to Francisco Goya. One of the master's paintings consumed an entire wall. The Third of May portrayed the slaughter of Spanish citizens by French soldiers after the fall of Madrid to Napoleon in 1808.