by Cherry Adair
The door opened, letting in more light, and the pounding sound of the rain. “Excellent.” He waved the three figures closer. “Bring her in. Oh, you may remove the tape from her mouth, but keep it close. I might require it be replaced. Come in, my Angel, let me look at you.”
“Who the fuck are y— Carlos?” The woman’s voice rose with outrage. “No. Impossible. It can’t be you. You are dead!”
Holy crap! “Angélica Diaz,” Riva whispered to control.
It was as if hell had just spewed up two devils.
“Did you just say Angélica Diaz?” Control demanded, at the same time Gideon grabbed her elbow and pulled her to one side of the darkened room. The TV monitors, the only source of light, showed a flickered view of the scene outside. Nothing but an empty field and pouring rain.
Not turning her gaze from the two main players in this little drama, Riva whispered, “Wait, did she just say Carlos?”
“Jesus,” Gideon whispered in return. “Escobar Maza is Carlos Dias.”
All hell was about to break loose.
Seeing Angélica restrained by Maza’s soldiers didn’t surprise Gideon, but having her in the same room with him and Riva sure as hell did. What a goatfuck. Any second now, when Angélica took a breath from her tirade, she’d look up to see them standing in the far corner.
It was unavoidable, inevitable, that she’d instantly recognize them and alert Maza. Because as pissed as she was with her husband, she was even more pissed with the man whom she’d planned to use as a stand-in for her dead son. The mystery was, how long had she thought the ruse could possibly last?
Dumb bitch. It obviously hadn’t worked at all, since Maza had known the truth all along, thanks to Andrés.
Like Maza, Angélica was a psycho. Two psychopaths in a twelve-by-twelve box with only one door was a recipe for disaster.
The entire time Riva had been talking to Maza, Gideon had kept his mouth shut and his eyes moving. This was her gig. Her mission. But Angélica showing up changed things. Riva’s mission was to kill Maza, but Gideon’s goal was to kill Angélica. And if Maza laid a hand on Riva again, he’d gift her with his dead ass, too.
Gideon had already assessed the parameters of the room, the size of the large console with its lit-up buttons. He knew where the heavy-duty power cables ran into the raised floor. Raised to vent and hide all those Teflon-sheathed, and raceway enclosed, cables. Double-shielded, coaxial, dual coaxial cables indicated far more than a decade-old console and late model monitors. Somewhere in this room, under the false front of the giant console with its too regularly blinking lights, was a sophisticated, state-of-the-art data center.
Gideon bet Maza ran his entire business from right here in this shithole on the outskirts of Santa de Porres, buried in the jungle where no one had thought to look for this size and scope of an operation. From here he surely also managed the electrical net thrown over the entire area, denying the ANLF any Internet connection.
Genius.
Gideon’s attention didn’t stray from Angélica and Maza. The four guards two with Angélica, two in front of the door—would do nothing without Maza’s say-so.
Body coiled, ready to intervene, Gideon didn’t take his eyes off the two combatants as they growled and hissed like jungle cats circling one another for a fight to the death over territory.
He might not be trained to read microexpressions, but he knew Riva. He listened for any sign that the fucking vision would return to incapacitate her. So far, so good.
Bracing himself as the heated convo continued, Gideon mentally rehearsed each move he’d have to make to counteract someone else’s, like a living game of chess. Then he replayed the match, adjusted, formulated the best plan of attack to ensure a win, just as he did in the boardroom when he anticipated an adversary’s move.
In the boardroom it was a power play. Here, it was life and death.
This time, the thought—memory?—Didn’t make pain knife through his brain.
The soldier to the left of Angélica, five nine, solid, weight-lifter arms, shaved head, had his weapon harness unfastened for quick release. He had one hand clamped on her thick upper arm to restrain her as she and Maza yelled at each other.
The guy to Angélica’s right, a linebacker type with no neck, and arms and legs like tree trunks, had a tight grip on her upper arm. His other ham-sized fist covered his gun. Blocking the only door, the other two soldiers still held their Uzis in the shoot-you-dead position.
Maza had mobility, his wife didn’t. Maza’s voice was even, controlled but loud, and commanding. The man was fearless. His wife, probably the only person who dared to spit venom at him like a striking cobra, was restrained by his loyal soldiers. They were not giving her an inch, their fingers digging into her dirty skin, turning it white where they held her. She was on her toes, jerking and lunging, not getting anywhere. She distracted the soldiers, each of whom had a weapon-hand free. Gideon remained motionless in the shadows.
Yeah. Doable.
Gideon calculated that it would take him two running steps to reach Weight Lifter. Elbow to face, knee to groin, slip weapon free. Commence shooting.
Angélica’s eyes, full of hatred, were glued to Maza. Her loathing seemed to give her tunnel vision, which worked in Riva and Gideon’s favor.
He wasn’t a mind reader, but he suspected Riva, standing beside him, was calculating the same odds for the players on her side of the chessboard.
“…seven years.” Maza’s voice was ice over heat. “Seven fucking years to amass another fortune so that I can come back to my country, wrest back control, and restore everything you stole from me.” His face was inches from Angélica’s. His fury was drawn in every line of his body, yet the tone of his voice was composed. Even softly spoken he gave the impression of leashed screaming. It was chilling.
Reading what was in his eyes, Angélica pulled back her head, but otherwise couldn’t move. The change of angle revealed a large dark bruise on her jaw. A jagged cut, thick with dried blood, was on her right temple. Her right eye was swollen almost shut. She’d had the crap beaten out of her, and Gideon was pretty damned sure Maza had ordered it with great pleasure.
“You built a new business,” she snapped, tendons straining in her neck. Water from her wet clothing dripped on the floor around her boots. No sign of the Aitor Jungle King knife that was always shoved in her boot.
“Cosio is no longer your country, cabron,” she sneered. “Nobody wants you here. Why return to a place where everybody hates you?”
Maza’s smile, all gold and white, made the hair on the back of Gideon’s head lift. Jesus, the guy was scary as shit as he said with soft malice, “I will take everything you hold dear away from you, you fucking bitch. Just like you took my business. My son.”
Riva turned her head slightly, Gideon knew, so that the earbud picked up the conversation. “This is what he planned all along,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. “Not the BRICS Summit. This. He’s been orchestrating a coup to take over the ANLF all along.”
Gideon wasn’t so sure. There were elements that didn’t quite gel here, but he couldn’t put his finger on what that was.
Angélica struggled in the hold of the two bulked-up soldiers. Her black hair dripped water in her eyes and onto the rain and blood-soaked collar of her camo shirt. “You and that boy were useless.”
Maza’s icy control snapped, and he roared, “That boy was your son!” He backhanded her, the full force of his body behind the blow.
Gideon heard her neck snap back, as the two men holding her staggered under her weight. The smack of flesh against flesh and the crunch of bone reverberated in the confines of the cell-like control room. Other than a grunt, Angélica didn’t utter a word. After a few seconds, she lifted her chin defiantly. Blood spurted from her nose to dribble down her shirt-front. She gave Maza a one-eyed glare of death-ray proportions.
For now, Angélica’s profile was toward himself and Riva. Gideon hoped like hell Maza didn’t start
circling the bitch, causing her eyes to track him.
“Useless?” No indication that he’d just gone DEFCON 1 on her seconds ago, as he resumed his cold and absolutely steady tone of voice. “So you killed us? Is that how you solve your problems, Angélica? You murder your problems? Your family? An eighteen-year-old boy? The very people God gave you to love and cherish?” He enunciated each word inches from her face so that it dripped venom, making her flinch. There was nowhere for her to go, no way to back up.
“The money meant more to you than any loyalty?” Maza’s voice rose several octaves, and even in the dim, flickering light, Gideon saw a vein throb in his forehead, and the high color in his cheeks. “Any family? You killed your own flesh and blood for money?”
Angélica stopped struggling, her pugnacious jaw rigid, as she glared at her husband. “Clearly rumors of your death were exaggerated, for here you stand, mi amado esposo,“ she mocked. “It was a business decision. You are weak. Your boy was like you.”
“Holy crap,” Riva whispered, horrified. “She killed her own son? No wonder she was delighted to have you as a stand-in for Sin. She’d been pretending he was alive for years.”
“Murdering bitch.” Maza rubbed his hands together, as though resisting striking her. The dull metal of his bracelet looked incongruous on his wrist, reminding Gideon that he had to find a way to get the damn thing off Riva’s arm, and soon. Maza had enemies everywhere. He could be offed at any time, by fucking anyone.
In a compound of thousands, there must be people right here who hated the mother-fucker enough to kill him. People who wanted to take over, who’d be happy to do it over his dead body. Jesus. Until he figured out how to get the damn bracelet off Riva’s wrist, he was now Maza’s fucking bodyguard.
If T-FLAC ran out of options, if they no longer had a choice about keeping him alive, they would kill him. Riva would be collateral damage.
“An unnatural mother.” Maza slid his hand into the front pockets of his chinos. It was a bizarrely casual, laid-back gesture. “You belittled him, me. You were hard. Unrelenting. Unforgiving.”
“Yes.” Angélica sneered. “Good qualities in a leader. But then you wouldn’t know that, would you, mi amor?”
“Unbecoming traits in a woman,” Maza continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “If you learned nothing from our marriage, you should know from studying your enemy what I am now capable of.”
“My people are strong.” Her chin jerked up as if she was daring him to strike her. “Kill me, and they will avenge my death. It is the ANLF that owns Cosio. Your few thousand men can never take us.”
“You think not? Who do you think Andrés Garzon works for, eh? How do you think I stayed hidden for so long, despite all your searching? I have hundreds of men on the payroll of the ANLF, reporting to me. Fighting for me. All of them in your organization. It is not ANLF who controls Cosio, it is I. You have merely been my puppet.”
Gideon met Riva’s quick glance. “Her right, on your word,” she said under her breath.
He nodded. It was a given that they had to take Maza alive at all costs. The others they’d kill. Strategy planned, if only the first few dance steps. Coiled, he was as ready as he’d ever be.
“I tire of this game, Angélica,” Maza informed her, pulling from his pocket a familiar bracelet.
Jesus, did this guy buy the things by the dozen?
Angélica tried to rear back, but was immobilized. “I want nothing from you.”
“Hold out her arm,” he instructed No Neck. Easier said than done. The woman moved lightning fast, and while the soldier fumbled to adjust his grip, she yanked her arm free and almost broke the guy’s nose as she hit him with her palm.
Maza pulled back his arm, and punched her in the face so hard Gideon heard the crunch of cartilage and bone. Blood poured down her face as she shrieked at the top of her lungs. Not fear. Pure rage.
Maza jerked his head again to No Neck, who also had blood spurting from a broken nose. Yeah, there was going to be a shitload of blood involved before this was over.
No Neck wrestled her arm straight out, clamping it under his arm so she couldn’t break free. Screaming bloody murder, Angélica writhed, and bucked, but the guards were stronger than the five-foot woman, and held her immobilized. “Hold her arm still.” Maza pried open the hinge on the bracelet and snapped it around her wrist.
Angélica went ballistic, spitting, kicking, and attempting to wrench her arms to get free.
“Take her to the truck,” Maza instructed, judging by his expression already bored. “Remain with her for further instructions.”
The door closed. Maza, two soldiers.
Gideon met Riva’s eyes, and saw the same relief that they hadn’t been made, there. He mouthed, “Let’s finish this.”
She gave her head a slight shake. Wait.
For what, for fuck sake? The odds right now were good. Kill the soldiers, take Maza.
She shook her head again.
Fuck.
Maza came to the center of the room, and held his hand out to Riva. “Come, my dear Chela. Let me show you what this has all been about. Come here.” He wiggled his fingers to entice her closer.
“I can see just fine from here, thanks,” Riva told him evenly.
Maza probably knew that Gideon was the man Angélica had tried to pass off as Sin. But did he know that Riva wasn’t Graciela Estigarribia?
Did Riva have a feeling about it? A vision that would tell her if she was relatively safe with this homicidal maniac or not? If Maza still believed she was his trusted psychic, she was safe until whatever happened…happened.
“I ask nicely, and you disobey me? This isn’t the Chela I know and love. Come, my dear. This is important.”
Ah, shit. He knew. Gideon’s balls sucked up at the cold chill that raced through him. They were dead. And he didn’t need Riva’s vision to know it. There was fuck-all chance the eyes in the sky were going to magically show up and save the day.
“What is it?” Riva crossed the room to stand five feet away from him.
Maza dropped his hand. “Very we—” There was a knock at the door. He nodded to the soldiers and they opened it to allow a man inside, then shut it behind him.
Gideon was more focused on keeping a line of sight open to Riva than on observing the new arrival. Another soldier dressed in camo, and carrying an AK-47. Forties, Gideon noted out of the corner of his eye. Slight of build, nervous as hell. His gaze flickered over to Gideon, then dropped back to the floor.
“Ah, Loza.” Maza gave him a thin smile.
Shit…
His Adam’s apple bobbed. Eyes downcast, he asked, “What job do you have for me, jefe?”
Maza raised his pistol, and said conversationally, “You’ve done your job,” and shot him straight through the eye.
The bullet went through the back of Loza’s skull, slamming with a high-pitched screech into the metal door between the other two men as his head exploded like a ripe watermelon, splattering the entire wall and door behind him with brain matter and blood.
Everybody fucking flinched. Except Maza.
He depressed a small yellow square button on the console. “Come get Loza, I’m done with him.” He turned to Riva, who had specks of blood on her arms and bare legs, and was looking at Maza as if he was the devil incarnate. Which he fucking-well was. “Now, where were we?”
Jesus. Loza. Andrés’s informant.
Maza was cleaning house.
“Do you really think that any of this"—Riva waved a hand at the carnage—"is conducive to me having a vision that will help you?”
“No, my dear Chela, of course not.” Her irony went right over his head, or he chose to ignore it. “But I do have something most persuasive that might help speed up the process. Yes, come.” He raised his voice after a knock at the door.
“Hurry,” he told the two men who hesitated at the doorway. “Take him away, and come back later to clean up. I dislike the sight of blood. Now where were we? A
h, yes.” He indicated the monitors above the console.
“My dear Chela needs incentive.” He glanced at her, eyebrow raised. “I think you will soon have all the incentive you need.” Glancing up, he suddenly noticed Gideon standing right beside her.
Gideon gave Maza a lethal look. “My job is to protect Graciela at all costs.”
They all looked as if they’d been in a bloody battle. The sharp metallic smell of fresh blood mixed with the stink of the urine Loza had pissed when he died.
Gideon removed his bandana, wet from its multiple soakings, from his back pocket and handed it to Riva. Brain matter dripped off the metal lip of the console, and in places slid down the blood-splattered walls. None of them had escaped the flying debris. It looked grotesquely incongruous paired with Maza’s polo shirt and chinos.
“Is that right?” Maza quirked a brow. “At all costs?”
“There will be an attempt on your life tomorrow, Escobar.” Riva wiped her blood-splattered face and neck, and handed the bandana back to Gideon, who did the same. Her attention did not leave Maza. “It will be Dante who saves your life when two of your men attempt to assassinate you. I suggest you treat him with kid gloves until then.”
“Until then. Yes. Come closer and watch the monitors, my dear. All right,” he told her when she didn’t move. “You can see as well from there.”
The army green truck with the canvas cover that they arrived in came into view, driving from left to right across the empty, rain-washed field.
Two men jumped from the back, lifted a large, overly gilded red velvet chair from the truck bed. It immediately darkened in the rain. Maza depressed a button on the console.
“Put it over there by the red flag.”
The men carried it a hundred feet to a small red flag on a wire, stuck in the grass.
“Bring out the prisoner. Secure her in the chair. As you can see,” he said, turning to Riva, “there are leather restraints for just this purpose. No!” he yelled at the men through a speaker out of sight of the camera. “Tighter, Bruno, tighter! Tighter still.”