V-Day
Page 4
The only way Duardo could transport his army to the city to confront Serrano’s Insurrectos was to do it the ancient Roman army way. They must walk.
The walking pace progress pissed off General Thorne. Everything irritated Thorne.
General Cassius Thorne the Third, Commander of the 12th Marine Regiment, was a Southern gentleman from a family which traced its roots back to the Mayflower and beyond. He was educated in Cambridge and the Sorbonne, and was a graduate of West Point. Like his father and grandfather before him, was a military man down to his DNA.
Thorne was likely a good soldier in the right circumstances. Asking a man of his rank and privilege to curtail his strategies to the limitations of Duardo’s army had soured Thorne’s outlook. He’d spat a stream of tobacco juice which missed Duardo’s boots and glared. “Walk there? We’ve got Humvees and tanks and troop carriers on the wing, son! Why would we walk?”
The ‘son’ was patronizing. Duardo judged Thorne to be only a handful of years older than him. Back on the beach, he’d watched the troop carriers roll off the big US landing craft with a touch of envy he identified with cold surprise and instantly squashed.
Instead he shaded his eyes and glanced at Thorne. “This is my war, General. We do it my way. We push to the city on foot. You’ll have your action soon enough.”
That had been three days ago. Thorne insisted Duardo and General Aguado, commander of the Mexican infantry regiment which had come over on the US cruiser, ride with him in the air-conditioned luxury of the Hummer. The big command vehicle rolled at the same pace as the soldiers on foot, right at the head of the thick column of troops.
In the three days since, Thorne had built on his theme of now! With relentless energy. He sat in the front passenger seat, his right hand resting on the assault rifle clipped to the door. He verbally roamed over wars he had seen and battles he had won. He always brought the topic back to the might and superiority of the American military, and the fantastic technology and equipment he’d had the chance to use.
Walking into a war didn’t sit well with him.
Also, he never shut up.
Duardo also wished he had never learned English as thoroughly as he had. Then he wouldn’t have to shield himself against Thorne’s barrage of belittlement. Thorne was not openly sarcastic, yet the endless monolog about strategies and tactics and the constant emphasis on superior firepower would have the same effect if Duardo let it get under his skin.
Aguado’s English was adequate to make himself understood. He had a natural barrier against Thorne’s undermining. He sat in the other corner of the wide vehicle, his gaze upon the columns of men he could see in the side mirror, or else scanning the surrounding land. He was alert, even sitting in the back of the Hummer. He was a small man—short, but thick with muscle. He moved in a way which made Duardo glad he was on the same side. He had a feeling Aguado could defend himself against all comers. He didn’t want to test the theory for himself.
“Bah, this is barely a war, anyway,” Thorne said, in the front seat. He waved toward the windscreen with a dismissive flick of his fingers. “Two dozen marines dropped from choppers over your little Palace could firestorm the place to cinders in an hour.”
Duardo gritted his teeth together, holding back his first instinctive response. When he thought he could keep his tone civil, he said, “There are civilians inside the Palace, General.” It wasn’t the first time he had mentioned them.
“Yeah…” Thorne blew out his cheeks, making the ends of his mustache flutter. “Funny thing about civilians. I hauled a bunch of civilians out of a school which got bombed once. Northern Afghanistan, up in the Hindu Kush, this was. Kids and body parts and hysterics. Women blubbering in that yammer they use. Pulled a woman out from under rubble…least I figure she was a woman. She was wearing a burqa, of course. Just the blacks of her eyes showing. She was still looking at me when she shoved the knife into my side.”
Duardo looked out the window and waited for Thorne to shift the subject.
“Thing is, el Presidente,” Thorne added. “I’ve been fighting wars for twenty years and I used to know who the enemy was. Now, it’s usually a guess. On the other hand, your Palace is sitting there nice and pretty. This time I know where the enemy is.”
“No, General,” Duardo said sharply.
Aguado’s head turned, as Duardo’s tone alerted him.
In the silence which formed, one of the two phones mounted on the dash beeped. The driver answered it, speaking softly.
Thorne turned on his seat so he was looking at Duardo. “Those fuckers blew up an American hospital!” he hissed.
“Those fuckers destroyed my entire country, General,” Duardo said, keeping his tone chilly. “You will not take out the Palace with an airstrike. There are civilians in the Palace and more of them surrounding the Palace grounds and an entire city beyond them. We will take the Palace with a controlled ground assault, following my directions. Do I make myself clear?”
Thorne’s face turned red.
The driver held out the phone. “The Situation Room, sir. Classified only.”
“Stop the car,” Thorne said heavily. He took the phone and glared at Duardo. “I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to get out for a moment while I take this call.”
The Hummer halted.
Duardo was more than happy to get out. He stepped onto the ground and shut the door with a sigh. Around him, the columns of walking soldiers split and streamed around the car.
Aguado came around the vehicle and leaned against the back corner of it and blew out his breath. “I feel as if I’m watching you ride a bronco, Peña,” he said in Spanish. “How does a man rise so high in the ranks with such sloppy impulse control?”
The driver, who had also stepped out, cleared his throat. He was a pink cheeked private and looked to be barely twenty years old. He even had freckles. “General Thorne’s sister was at the benefit when the hospital blew up, Mr. President.” He spoke perfect Spanish.
Duardo looked at Aguado.
“Just great…” Aguado muttered, rolling his eyes. Then he grinned and patted Duardo’s arm. “You’re the President, Peña. I’m just a general.”
Just great… Duardo echoed in his mind and sighed.
*
THE TAXI DRIVER KNEW HOW to get to the big house on the north side of Acapulco, so Adán didn’t need to give directions. The driver also knew who Adán was. His gaze would shift to the mirror so he could examine him. Tonight, he would tell his family about his famous passenger.
Normally, Adán would talk to the man and draw him out. Today, though, he was just too tired to cope with it. He let the silence stretch and watched the resorts and the condo complexes slide past. In between, he glimpsed the blue of the Pacific.
The taxi turned into the grand graveled circular drive of the house and pulled up beside a minivan.
The door of the minivan was open and Minnie and Téra hovered in front of the opening as Rubén Rey eased himself down to the ground. His left leg was encased in a thick cast, as rigid as steel and possibly as heavy, too.
Adán shoved pesos at the driver, murmured his thanks, grabbed the walking stick and his duffle bag and pushed out of the back of the cab. He hobbled over to the minivan and dropped the duffle bag. “Here, let me help.” He rested the cane against the side of the vehicle and thrust his arm under Rey’s back and hoisted him onto his one good foot.
Rey blew out his breath. “Thanks.” He reached for the crutches leaning against the open door.
“Been there,” Adán said. “Sort of.” He grabbed the cane and resettled his own balance.
“You’re back, Adán?” Minnie said, as Téra wrapped herself around Rey, beneath the crutches.
“Did you think I would stay in Los Angeles? Now?” he asked her.
Minnie squinted into the sun, studying him. She was such a tiny thing and Adán only remembered it when he saw her in person. She was larger in his mind. “You can’t go to Vistaria,” she said.
“I’m here to help,” Adán told Minnie. “If I can do that from here, fine.”
“I don’t know if there is much more we can do from the house,” Minnie said. “You are aware of what is happening over there?”
Adán grinned. “Probably more than you. I know the American side of it, too.”
Minnie grinned. “I heard about…Parris, is that her name?”
“I call her Parris. Everyone else just salutes her,” Adán said.
Minnie’s smile broadened. Then it fell. “Oh shit…” she breathed.
“What?” Adán asked, alarm touching him.
“I just remembered.” She chewed her lip, doubt clouding her expression. Then, with an air of confession, she said, “Nick took your boat over to Vistaria. At least, we think that’s what he did. He took Chloe with him, too. At least, we think he did. She disappeared, too, and neither of them are answering their phones.”
Adán shrugged. “So I’m stuck here. It sounds as though you need the help.”
“Only if you know how to ladle soup without spilling it.”
He took her elbow and turned her around to face the house. “Let’s find out.”
*
OLIVIA GAVE INTO TEMPTATION FOR a glorious moment. She slid her arms around Daniel’s neck and kissed his cheek.
He absently held her against his side as he frowned down at the documents spread across the tucked and buttoned satin bed cover. Then he stirred, as if his brain had caught up with reality and looked at her. He kissed her forehead.
Olivia made herself let him go, recrossed her legs and sighed as she scanned the seas of print. Most of the text was redacted, the heavy black lines a reminder of her changed position. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to figure anything out if the President won’t give us all the information.”
Daniel looked up. Then he sat back on one arm, nodding. “We’re on the wrong side of the information barrier. Although I don’t think it’s Collins who did this.” He lifted the wad of paper he had been reading. “I think it’s a senior staffer somewhere trying to be proactive about American security. Which is perfectly valid.”
“The President meant for us to have it all,” Olivia concluded.
“I don’t think he even thought that far ahead,” Daniel told her. “He just wants answers and I’m a neutral third party who might be able to give them to him.” He got off the bed, padded over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a bottle of water and cracked it. He wore the jeans he had flown up to Washington in. His feet were bare, for he had stripped his shoes off as soon as he stepped into the hotel room. His backpack still sat just inside the door. It smelled of earth and growing things.
The boxes of photocopied documents had been sitting on the bed when he and Olivia had arrived from the airport. There were two Secret Service suits outside the door—not to guard them, but to guard the contents of the boxes.
Daniel had dropped his bag and moved over to the bed, peeling shoes and socks as he went. He lifted off the lid of the first box and dumped the contents on the bed, then climbed onto the bed beside it.
He hadn’t moved from there until just now. He drank from the bottle and gave a gusty sigh and pointed to the bed where Olivia sat. “If your father thought there was a mole in the Whitehouse, he wouldn’t have put it in any of the documents we can get access to. I seriously doubt he would have put it anywhere at all. He kept it up here.” He tapped his temple.
“Then why are we reading all this?” Olivia asked.
“To make sure he isn’t that stupid.” Daniel shrugged. “This is basic intelligence analysis, ‘livvy. It’s boring. It’s not sexy. It gets answers, though. Now we know your father wasn’t stupid and didn’t leave a paper trail.”
She nodded. “So we’re nowhere.”
Daniel drained the bottle and squeezed it into a small mound of cracked plastic with one hand, then tossed it into the garbage can beside the fridge. “What makes you say that?”
The phone beside the bed rang, making Olivia jump. She rolled over onto her hip and reached for it. “Hello?”
“Olivia Castellano?” Betty Howard, President Collin’s gray-haired personal secretary, spoke her name the Spanish way.
“Yes, Betty, it’s me,” Olivia said.
“President Collins would like to speak to you, Olivia. One moment.”
The phone clicked. “Olivia?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Any progress?”
Olivia chose her words carefully. “We have established my father did not record his beliefs about a mole anywhere in the papers we have here—the bits we can read, that is.”
There was a perceptible pause. “I understand I’m asking you to work within narrow limitations,” Richard Collins replied. “I’m handcuffed right now, too.”
Daniel held out his hand and beckoned with his fingers.
Olivia pointed to the phone. He nodded.
She spoke into it. “Daniel would like to speak to you, Mr. President. Can I give the phone to him?”
Again, the slight pause. “I suppose I am already speaking with a foreign national, aren’t I? One more won’t matter. Very well.”
She gave the phone to Daniel.
“Mr. President,” Daniel said, with no accent at all. He was controlling his language. “Olivia isn’t used to thinking in negative spaces and patterns. The paperwork says Colonel Davenport wrote nothing down. Paperwork is not the only place we can look, though.” He moved around the room in a small, ambling circle as he spoke.
He listened with close attention for a moment, and a frown formed. “I see. Yes.” Then, his frown cleared. “I can tell you that freely, sir. There were no installations of that capacity anywhere on Vistaria. Only, my information is weeks out of date, sir. I don’t know what the Insurrectos may have put in place.”
Then he nodded. “I will absolutely keep you posted.” He switched off the phone and tossed it onto the bed beside Olivia and stretched his arms and back.
“What was that about?” she asked.
Daniel scowled. “There is a US military prototype drone heading for Washington, glowing with gamma radiation. It has been recalibrated and isn’t taking orders from the US Airforce. The President asked if I knew of any facilities on Vistaria which could control the drone.”
His gaze met Olivia’s.
“Hell’s bells…” Olivia breathed.
*
ANNAMARIA—THE MADAM, CALLI SUPPOSED she should be called—looked as though she was in her forties and was probably younger. Her hair was a dyed, dry blonde. Her figure sagged under the simple tee shirt and cotton skirt. Her eyes had bruises beneath them from long term sleep deprivation. “Marisa Roldán isn’t here,” she said, her voice strained. “After the first night, they took her to a place where they could lock her up during the day.”
“You’re locked up here, aren’t you?” Calli said, looking around. The room was perhaps thirty feet long, with a cold concrete floor and bare fluorescent tubes overhead. The walls were also raw concrete. The front half of the room held rows of folding beds and camp beds, with thin blankets and no pillows. Nearly two dozen women were sleeping on them. There were few beds left empty.
The rows of beds took up most of the space in the front of the room. On the other side, a counter was mounted along the wall. Mirrors were screwed into the concrete above the counter. More fluorescent lights illuminated the mirrors. On the counter in front of the mirrors were dozens of tin cans, some with their food labels still attached and some glinting dull zinc in the light. They all held makeup and hair accessories and brushes.
The other half of the room held the wardrobe.
Calli had scanned the rows of mobile racks with curiosity when she first arrived. Then she noticed the details of some costumes hanging from the racks. Leather and vin
yl. Lacings and sheer garments. Holes in interesting places. High leather boots. Sets of chains and leather she could make no sense of, for they hung shapeless without a body to hang from. She had shuddered and turned away.
Now she tried not to look at the racks. She kept her gaze on Annamaria’s face, instead.
“We are locked here, yes,” Annamaria said. “Only, we are quiet and sleep. Roldán…” She sighed.
“She didn’t sleep?” Calli asked curiously.
“She talked!” Annamaria replied. “Always, about freedom and rights and how we should rise against the men who have us enslaved here.” Her mouth turned down. “As if we didn’t know that.”
Ibarra had removed Roldán because she was a bad influence over these ground-down women. Calli hid her smile and said soberly, “I am afraid I will do the same, Annamaria. This bordello…it is an offense against women.”
“Yet here it is.” Annamaria shrugged. “What would you have us do? Fight the soldiers? Take their shiny guns away from them with our bare hands?”
“You don’t want to do that?”
Annamaria rolled her eyes again. “I am a good Loyalist—”
“You are a Loyalist?” Calli was shocked for the first time since she had been pushed into the room.
Annamarie’s smile was wry. “We all are. Why do you think we are here?”
Calli stared at her, rapidly readjusting her assumptions. She had been trying to appeal to Annamaria’s sense of solidarity among women to bring her to Calli’s side and help Calli escape. Not for a moment had Calli thought a simple appeal to her political affiliations might move the woman.
Calli sighed. “How do you stand it, being cut off down here? Wondering what is happening?”
“We’re not cut off. Why would you say that?” Annamaria replied.
“Excuse me?”
Annamaria shrugged. “What do you want to know about the war?”