Lethal Cure

by S A Gardner

  I jumped back out of his wandering hands’ range. “There’ll be no orgies if you come with us!”

  “Why not?” At my glare he shrugged. “Guess I’ll proposition you again when you’re in a better mood. So did you take care of the hotel reservations or shall I do it?”

  Okay. Had he just made a leap in logic or did I miss something? Like the whole point behind life on this planet? “What hotel reservations?”

  “To spend the night, what else?”

  “We’re getting out of here and to Soacha at once.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not going anywhere today.”

  “Now, listen here, Damian—”

  “Today is Bogotá’s car-free day, held the first Thursday in February. Only fire trucks and ambulances are allowed on the streets. Before you argue that you are a medical convoy and should be regarded in the same category, don’t bother. Show one wheel on the streets today, and you spend the rest of it in a traffic police station, negotiating the gross fine. See how beneficial my homegrown knowledge is going to be to you?”

  A thunk echoed in my skull when caressing fingers closed my hanging-open mouth for me. “Welcome to my home, mi amor.”

  Twenty-Two

  We didn’t have an orgy.

  But I did spend the night watching my mental stability ebbing in the gloom, going crazy for one.

  Yeah, we spent the night in Bogotá. Damian hadn’t been joking. The city was on foot. They chose one day in the whole damn year to conserve the environment, and we arrived on it!

  Our guards, Rafael’s—or should I say, Dad’s—men, stayed behind at the airport with the STS and ML. The rest headed to the hotel where Damian had secured us rooms. He insisted on handling the bill. I insisted right back. We ended up tossing for it. I won. I paid. Ouch.

  I would have paid anything, though, to stop the gnawing, the whispering. What are you fighting this for? Just cross that corridor, and knock on his door, enter and enjoy.

  Enjoy. Right.

  But I did know why I was fighting. Accepting his help, his offering it at all, was complicating matters, entrenching a dependence I couldn’t foster, taking our relationship into depths I had no idea whether I could survive.

  And then I had issues with single-mindedness, when I was its focus. Jake had made me his obsession, and the catastrophic domino effect had lead to the destruction of his life and so many others’. So Damian wasn’t a psychotic megalomaniac, but still, his focus scared me, especially since it wrenched out mine in return. We were a foolproof formula for devastation.

  And no, I wasn’t forgetting his constant manipulation and lies. I had good reasons not to be with him. The best.

  Good luck telling my body that.

  And now the damn reason for my suffering was at it again. Right there at my door. Bringing another serving of temptation and torment, no doubt. I snatched the door open and almost fell to me knees.

  He pushed past me, went to set down the tray in his hands, turned, came back to me, fresh, alert, mouthwatering.

  “Calista the Idiosyncratic. It’s a law of nature that freshly brewed tinto—that’s our Colombian coffee—wakes anybody with a smile. Not a snarl.” One long, knowing finger traced my canines when I gave him a real one. “Snarl is good. I like your snarl.” His gaze glided to my mangled bed. “Rough night, huh? Good. On many levels. Revenge wise, end-result wise. Simmering all night will just make now all the more explosive.”

  “Okay, that’s it. No way in hell is this going to work.”

  “It worked great in Russia.”

  “Russia worked only as far as you were still nursing your grudge, hating me and yourself, growling ‘St. James’ not ‘mi amor’ and ‘mi corazón,’ and not touching me or messing with my hormones. And it’s only hormones, Damian. Only sex. If I want relief, I’ll get it. Your help is not needed or required.”

  His eyes froze. Felt like the time I got trapped in one of those huge slaughterhouse fridges.

  Oh, what the hell! End this. “Go catch up with your men and wreak havoc somewhere else, Damian.”

  He turned and walked to the door. “It’s oh-six-hundred. We need to be on the road by oh-seven-hundred if we’re to reach Soacha before nightfall.”

  And he’d expected to get stuff wrapped up here before that, huh? A quickie for the road?

  Though, his expectations were right on the money. In an hour it would have been several quickies.

  At the door, he tossed over one cold shoulder, “Drink your coffee. And get some relief.” Before I could throw something at his head, the door clicked on his grim, “I will.”

  “I won’t be exaggerating if I say Santa Fe de Bogotá is not a city, but a maze. Of contrasts. Futuristic architecture, colonial churches, incredible museums, the latest in every luxury and technology, side by side with an abundance of beggars and shantytowns. First-time visitors are always shocked at the amazing mixture of prosperity and poverty, Maseratis and mules.”

  Damian, in maddening tour-guide-mode, drummed his fingers on the wheel, keeping perfect rhythm with the hot salsa number. What a time to discover his taste in music. And for it to be that! He even swayed slightly with the beat, almost rapping his words to it.

  Feeling mellow, huh? Or he was a better actor than I had thought he was. Probably both. Damn him.

  And he was right. Bogotá, what I’d seen of it on the few fleeting times I’d been here, was breathtaking. Nothing like any metropolis I’d ever been to. Cool, dizzying, simmering—unfathomable. Its reputation as one of the world’s most chaotic, seductive and aggressive cities was well earned.

  Yeah. And all of the above adjectives fit Damian. Now I’d seen him and Bogotá together, I might just have found out why he was what he was.

  “No offense to your motherland pride, Damian.” Lucia, who was sitting beside him, threw him a glance. “But all I want to know is—will we ever get the hell out of here?”

  Valid question. We hadn’t moved for fifteen minutes!

  Damian shrugged. “Post car-free-day mania.”

  Tell me about it. Seemed the nine million populating Bogotá were taking revenge for being forced to relinquish their cars yesterday. We might just take all day—and night.

  And to think I’d thought Damian’s comment about making it to our destination only sixty miles away before nightfall an exaggeration to frazzle me!

  So he’d known what he was talking about. Our local expert. A bottomless well of info. When he decided to share.

  Humph.

  Lucia fidgeted, gulped another mouthful of that addictive coffee, subsided against her door and went still. Damian started to hum softly and—what do you know?—he sounded like a cross between Elvis and the Gypsy Kings.

  Get relief, my ass!

  Seemed he’d gotten his, though. Did I already say, damn him?

  I shifted in my seat, easing my cramping everything, resumed watching the avalanche ozbusetas on the opposite road, which for some reason was flowing. That got dizzying fast. I turned to the other side, scanned the extravagant stores and roadside stalls. Again. Anyone hand me a piece of paper so I could write down an inventory. The endless home-entertainment gadgets, the multitude of mouthwatering bakeries, the amazing collections of tropical plants and fruits—and that amazing multi-colored evening dress, the solitary exhibit in the window of that exclusive boutique… Hmm. Indecipherable material, could swear it was all hand embroidered—what there was of it. Never seen anything like it before.

  I found myself wondering what it felt like to dress up in something like that. I never would, probably. That was a disguise for a kind of racket I didn’t frequent. As for wearing it in real life—ha.

  I swung my eyes away. Damian’s presence caught me again—what I could see of his profile—one day I had to find out which of his ancestors was a Native American shaman and which was a Spanish marauder. He was an amalgam of the best the two races had to offer, enhanced in every way….

  “See anything you like?”
r />   I jerked. Caught. So what? Huh. “Yeah. That dress!”

  His eyes in the mirror called me liar. Well, him and me both!

  Then he followed my gaze, pursed his lips. “You’d need your elders’ approval for that one.”

  “Says the man who lives with his mommy.”

  Oops. My eyes darted to Lucia. She was out. Whew.

  The traffic moved. Damian put the Jeep in motion, kept devouring eyes on me. “And living with ‘my mommy’—” he imitated my voice and sneer to perfection “—does what? Emasculates me?”

  As if anything could. Still—it was an odd setup. The mother he’d once told me he hadn’t known until he was sixteen. Then, almost twenty years later, big, bad and mass destructive, he went home to her. Didn’t take his women there. Didn’t keep condoms there.

  But according to him there were no women to take, therefore no need for condoms. And that shouldn’t make me all nauseous with relief.

  Change the subject!

  “So what’s a Desideria anyway?”

  That’s right. Shove your foot farther into your big mouth, Calista. Go ahead and slight the man’s mother, why don’t you?

  A leisurely inspection of said foot-filled mouth later, his answer was monotone, matter-of-fact. Snickering loud and clear, thank you. “What’s a Calista? Don’t answer that, O Most Beautiful One.”

  He fell silent as he negotiated a bottleneck, then suddenly he was picking up speed, leading our convoy out of the city. I looked back. The trucks and trailers were right behind us. Maybe there was still hope of getting something done in the tugurios today.

  After half a dozen traffic police and military police inspections, with the suburbs thinning and the roads worsening, Damian suddenly said, “Desire. Blinding. Enslaving.” I gaped at him in the rearview mirror, until he elaborated, “That’s a Desideria.”

  Answer four hours later, why don’t you?

  He went on, “A name that served her well, and describes what she was—still is—to so many men. All of them notorious.”

  “Just how many men did she go through?” Oh God! Somebody reel in that runaway tongue of mine.

  Damian gave it more rope. “Nine. From my drug-lord father to her latest oil mogul. She’s an unerring magnet for major league scum.”

  I took the rope and ran away with it. “Wow. But then again, what could your mother be other than a femme fatale?”

  “Actually it was an homme fatal here. I got rid of six of them so far.”

  “You killed your mother’s lovers? Shades of Oedipus!”

  “Apart from my father—husbands, actually. And I eliminated them, and decimated their operations.”

  Just like that, huh?

  “Starting with my father, of course. Oedipus had no idea who he was killing, and ended up gouging his eyes out in horror and remorse, poor guy. So I’ve got him beat.”

  So he’d killed his father. Heavy stuff. What kind baggage could he be dragging about?

  He didn’t let me wonder long. “If you’re wondering if I fall into abysses of guilt over terminating my father, don’t. He wasn’t a Godfather-type goon with a soft family center. He was a soulless monster. My mother’s Witness Protection Program wasn’t tight enough, and he got to me while my grandmother was babysitting. He killed her, abducted me out of spite, then threw me to the poorest of the families he terrorized to raise among ten children.

  “In that overcrowded, dirt-poor home, I was the straw that broke the camel’s back, a resented burden, and punching bag. Then when I was eight, my father decided it was time I earned my keep. He took his first good look at me, and saw my eyes. They’re neither my mother’s color nor his. And even though I looked like a younger edition of him, he tortured me for it.”

  Oh God! “Oh, Damian.”

  “No sweat. I grew too big to beat up pretty fast. And I’m grateful that he put me to work. It was how and where I learned all there is to know about depravity—and how to bring people like him down. Then I found out who my mother was, and I bailed to the States. It took some searching to locate her, and I still only went to her when I found out that she’d never stopped looking for me, had never given up. Meeting her for the first time when I was almost twenty was weird. She felt like an older sister rather than a mother.” His eyes crinkled at me. “And I can assure you I have no perverted feelings for her. In fact, may she lure more and more villains for me to vanquish.”

  “You make it sound as if she entraps them for you.”

  He gave a fond chuckle. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “So she knows what you are?”

  “What I am, not what I do, huh? Like I’m some demon?”

  “You are.” And I now had more insight into why he was. As if I needed more reasons to love him. Or to mistrust him.

  And just why was he telling me all this?

  His eyes met mine in the mirror in one of those visual caresses he was a master at. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Funny thing was, it was. Must be the demon in me wagging its tail in intensified appreciation of a kindred fiend.

  A minute later, he leaned over Lucia to the glove compartment, opened it. “And by the way, see that makeshift checkpoint in the distance? That’s a death squad.”

  Twenty-Three

  “Death squad?”

  Lucia’s head jerked up with a squeak.

  Damian slid open a secret panel in the glove compartment, and dislodged half a dozen concealed semiautomatic pistols. He threw two in her lap. She got an instant grip on them, though from the dazed look she swung to me, not on the situation.

  Damian slowed down, his voice unperturbed over the smooth whine of the Jeep’s finely tuned motor. “They’ll ask us all to step down, have a bit of fun first before they execute us.”

  “Are you sure about this, Damian?” My disaster bag was already unzipped, my weapons being assembled by touch, my eyes straight ahead at the straggly stop sign, the older Jeep intercepting our path, and the few gunmen loitering beside it.

  “There are ten, two in the Jeep. Wind down your windows the moment we’re in range and get them before they have a chance to retaliate. No place for your weapons here, Calista.” He handed me two guns over his shoulder. “Head shots. Later we can add more elsewhere to make it look like whoever did it wasn’t a marksman, that the head shots were posthumous vindictive overkill.”

  He considered that an answer? “You still haven’t told me how you know they intend to kill us. What if they’re with the paramilitaries controlling the tugurios? They’ve agreed that we can enter their territory, promised protection.”

  He slowed down more, stretching the remaining minutes before the confrontation. Whatever that would turn out to be. “Protection. Yeah. I pushed some buttons, uncovered some lids, made sure the paramilitaries meant it.”

  “And you still think it’s okay to kill people who could turn out to be their vanguards, just to be on the safe side?”

  “With millions of dollars on wheels, you get one shot at the safe side, Calista.”

  Of course. I hadn’t been in a medical convoy that hadn’t been attacked with an eye to commandeer our hardware and supplies. Peace-loving bleeding hearts with pricey equipment were just too tempting for gun-toting cowards. But maybe it wasn’t like that this time!

  His growl stopped my inner debate. “If you need a reason to kill those vermin, how about that they abduct boys to add to their army first thing every morning, after slaughtering their fathers and raping their mothers and sisters? That they picked us to provide their sport now, not only to raid our resources, but to stop aid from reaching those they terrorize and exploit?”

  I poked him, protesting the polluting images, the infecting rage, demanding a situation-specific answer.

  He gave one, reluctant, grudging. “They’re not with our paramilitaries.”

  “You’re sure? A direct answer would be appreciated!”

  “As sure as you are of the ABCs of emergency measures. These m
en are not wearing the correct ‘colors.’”

  “They look like any other mercenaries I’ve ever seen.”

  “To me they’re a clearly demarcated species. But the clincher is they’re just outside our paramilitaries’ territory. They’re intercepting us, claiming the prize before we enter it. They wouldn’t dare breach the limits when they’re so few. And that’s another clue. Our paras move in packs of a couple of dozen, minimum. This is a fringe job.”

  Okay. He was the terrorist-guerrilla-paramilitary-scum specialist. He could probably tell them apart in the dark. But…“Why not just ram through them, hightail it into our protected territory? Our vehicles are bulletproof. One-way, too, so we can fire from within if need be. Uh—your Jeep is, too, right?”

  His eyes met mine again in the rearview mirror, Damain my lover gone, the lethal black ops agent staring back at me. “See those M249 machine guns and their lovely ammo belts? How about that mounted Mark 19 grenade machine gun? How much do you think our armoring could take? And what if they shoot our tires right away and we’re forced into an equal-opportunity confrontation with unpredictable results? We’d still wipe them out, but at what cost?”

  None. I wasn’t placing a single one of my people in danger.

  Funny that, when you’re dragging them right into it.

  Stop it. You’re the leader. Decide. Give the orders.

  I couldn’t risk contacting the others on the walkie-talkie, secure channel or not. Safe side. It was what it was all about.

  “Damian, double-flash the others, three flashes, then two, then one. They’ll know it’s an attack. They’ll be ready.”

  My grip tightened on cold hardness, the polished, painstaking instrument of death, my mind leaping over the ticking seconds to when it would come to explosive life in my grip, ending lives. We were now within three hundred feet of them. My other hand undid my braid.

  “What are you doing?” Damian barked.

  “If we’re doing it, we’re doing it right. I don’t even want the paint job scratched. That means all fire comes from our side.” I rolled down my window and tossed my hair out. It swirled and billowed in the cool afternoon wind. “If it distracts you, I bet it distracts any male.”