Gina chose another path, and it finished even sooner on a locked cattle gate. Michael got out and shook it, but the gate held firm. “We’re going to end up in town,” Gina said.
“We can’t.”
“Maybe with all the confusion of the fire—”
“He lit this.”
It began to snow. Millions of dandelions bursting in the heat, their soft white bodies filling the air, like a blizzard. It was getting hard just to see from the truck to the gate. Gina caught a dandelion in her fingers and looked with apprehension at the swirling dark around them. “Would he really do all of this?”
Michael was going to say something pointless when a bloom of heat stung his back and he turned from her instead, faced the current of fleeing dandelions, and watched smoke boil away to reveal a wall of flame marching across the hill toward them. “We have to get out of here.”
They backed down the path, traveled again the main road till it suddenly disappeared in a fiery maw ahead.
“Oh God…” Gina said. He didn’t have to tell her to stop, turn around, run. Neither of them were sure which way to go, but the fire left few choices, reducing even those by the second. Smoke descended on them heavy as soup, and the world went a dull, glowing black.
Gina took a trail—maybe it was a trail—and the Renault shimmied and spun on soft earth as they climbed. Nothing was visible in the headlights but the few feet of dirt directly in front of them. Michael had no idea how far they traveled—it was impossible to judge either time or speed—only that the trail flattened out on a knoll of some kind.
“Stop the truck.” She did. Michael opened the door and it was getting hard to even breathe out here.
“Where’s the fire?” Gina asked.
Michael looked out on what passed for a foggy horizon and saw only murderous red. “Everywhere.”
“Where do we go?”
Fire had already closed over the trail they’d driven up on. Everything was only unfocused scarlet, hot and dark, on every side. “Christ, I don’t know.”
As his eyes clouded at the lashing smoke, a silhouette emerged from the darkness coming resolutely at them. It held a pistol at the end of an arm outstretched and moved without pause till the pistol was in Michael’s face, and it was Alejandro.
“You. Come. Now.”
Alejandro half tugged, half threw Michael into the cab. Gina moved on her own, compliant, and Michael wished she’d run. Alejandro jammed inside beside Michael and they were three upfront, the young Argentine practically in Michael’s lap. He kept the gun aimed both across Michael’s nose and at Gina beyond. “Drive.”
“Where?”
“Straight. Right a little.”
There was only fire everywhere she looked. “Are you sure?”
“This is my fire.”
Gina steadied herself and edged the Renault forward. Alejandro’s face nearly touched Michael’s, his free hand a vise on Michael’s arm. The face smelled like rotten cotton and looked like boiled hamburger. “You killed those cops,” he said to the mask.
“I haven’t begun killing.”
Gina stepped harder on the gas toward what seemed to Michael only a sheet of flame. The whirl of heat jumped all over them but was thinner here than elsewhere—a facade—and Michael thought, as they popped through the other side, This boy knows his fire.
They rummaged a path, squeezing carpets of embers as Alejandro ordered Gina when to turn in the gray-black sameness. Michael found it hard to believe the man had any real sense of where they were. How could he?
“I am curious,” the boy with the destroyed face said, his gun occasionally bumping Michael’s cheek, and the memory was instantly Moori Koenig and a Recoleta closet full of Evita. “Why you do this? I think not for money or patriotism.”
“To finish this.”
“That is important to you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never finished anything before.”
Alejandro gazed at the unstable blackness around them. “You knew Her?”
“I met Her. I’m not sure anyone knew Her.”
Alejandro seemed jealous of the familiarity. “Tell me about Her.”
“She was strong and frightened. Pure and dirty. She suffered badly but died well…”
“She was the light of my life.”
“She was the end of mine.”
Alejandro seemed to think a moment. It was difficult to tell under the mask. “It seems strange we should be on different sides.”
“You serve chaos.”
“You serve murderers.”
“But mostly I serve myself.”
“I serve only Her.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Al…”
Like an errant herd of buffalo, a churning arm of the fire slid over the road behind them and gave chase. “We must go faster,” Alejandro ordered Gina. She drove harder, tires banging furiously the ruts, and the fire stayed on their tail in pursuit.
There was nowhere to go but straight ahead, the fire leapfrogging at unbelievable speed. Gina pushed the Renault to its maximum, the little truck’s rubber-band engine screaming in pain. But the way had turned to steep switchbacks, and like all fires this one liked switchbacks.
Out of the gusting ash ahead emerged the faint shapes of concrete blocks. Spaced one after another along the road, open on one side with rounded, oriental tops, they seemed like guard shacks to a raja. “Where are we?” Michael said.
One of the concrete shacks slid past Gina’s window. Its insides, blackened by smoke, held a sculptural tableau of Christ being crucified by the Romans. “They’re stations of the cross…”
The road ended.
Right at the base of a broad set of stone stairs. It was difficult to see the top, the only things visible being three massive, oversized crucifixes.
The fire, perhaps smelling blood, doubled its efforts and was now a lazy wave of death sloshing up at them. “Drive up the stairs,” Alejandro ordered.
“You’re crazy,” Gina said.
“Do it!”
“It’s impossible!”
Alejandro leaned across Michael and leered the gun at her. “You want to die? To burn? Here? Now?”
Gina exploded. “Stop shouting at me! Stop threatening me! I don’t care, do you understand? I don’t care!”
And to Michael’s surprise Alejandro spoke softly to her. “Please. Gina. Drive up the stairs. I’ll coach you.”
The truck held its traction better than Michael expected, as the insides jostled madly on each step. Unburnable stone gave them a small jump on the flames, now washing up at the stairs’ base, fumbling and yowling like pack dogs.
At the top they reached a flagstone square and climbed out where the three oversize crucifixes loomed in smoky silence: Jesus flanked by Dismas and Gestas.
There’s an inherent gothic horror to crucifixes everywhere, but these…the arms bound instead of nailed—the way the Romans really did it—the stains on Christ’s loincloth, his face not beatific, not accepting, but caught as if in midspasm, lips parted, the human in him dying hard and lonely. It was horrible.
“What is this place?” Gina asked.
Ruins, mostly. Collapsed stone blocks choked by brush lit by the fusillade of embers carried on fire wind. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to protect the truck. Michael felt the lake of flame below watching, waiting for the signal when it would simply move in and consume them.
Alejandro had left them for a stretch of wall. There were two pops from his pistol, the sound of chains pulling, and Alejandro was back, gun out, for this was not a discussion.
“Get Her out of the truck.”
Gina shouldered her vet bag. Michael did what he could on his ruined foot, but it was Alejandro and Gina in the end who took most of the casket’s weight.
The chained doorway Alejandro had shot the lock off of led into a musty basement that smelled of rat feces. Michael’s last glimpse behind him, as they descended the steps carrying Evita’s casket, was of fire washing aro
und the crucifixes and licking the ruins’ grounds.
The roof was fractured stone and the firestorm above cast unearthly shafts of red over faded religious mosaics and smashed crypts. They set the casket down, got their breath, and Gina gazed at the mosaics. “Tot co que’s Dieu…” she read. “It’s Occitan.”
“Occitan?”
“The ancient language of the Cathar heretics. The King burned the last of their priests in the fourteenth century. This must have been one of their monasteries…”
Alejandro’s gaze was on the ceiling, as it breathed threateningly. His eyes fell to the plundered tombs around them, most smashed and covered in graffiti, but one with a stone lid was still in decent shape. “Put Her in there.”
“The casket’ll never fit.”
“Then take Her out of it.”
Michael stared at him a beat then complied and pried open the lid. The woman was as they’d left her. Unchanging. A biological sculpture lit freakishly by the probing flames above.
Alejandro looked stupefied, and Michael realized this must be the first time the Argentine had actually looked upon the face of his obsession as an adult. His eyes couldn’t stop moving over her. “Get Her inside…”
Gina’s face shuddered with reluctance, but together they lifted the former First Lady, Michael awkward on his foot, and when he slipped Alejandro pressed the gun’s muzzle to his ear. “You put the goddamn bullet in my ankle, so why don’t you give me a break, huh?”
“Just be careful.”
“I knew her too, okay?”
They set her easily into the marble tomb as the roof began to groan. “Now what?” Michael asked.
The firestorm howling up the sides of the ruins was developing the low rumble of an approaching tornado. “It’s going to kill us,” Gina whispered.
Alejandro looked at them both then waved his gun. “Get in the tomb.”
“With Her?”
“This place is all rock. The fire will pass over quickly. There’s only brush above to burn.”
“You’re insane.”
“Get inside. Now.”
They stepped into the dank interior. Built to be roomy for one, it was instantly tight for four. Michael went first, scrunching himself to one mossy side away from Evita. Gina lay beside him, her back to his face, and he held her from behind to make their profile smaller. Alejandro then pushed the stone lid nearly closed over them, climbed in on the opposite side of the body, and tugged the lid closed.
“I’m scared,” Gina whispered.
Michael held her tighter to him. “You and I and tombs, huh?”
She gave a small laugh, his face full of her smell.
As the burning tornado above lashed and sought their hiding place, Alejandro said in a strange voice, “What did the Cathars believe?”
“They rejected all earthly matter,” Gina answered, “and believed Satan as powerful as God. And as eternal. Earth to them was the soul’s chain and the only real power rested in the dead…”
The tornado hit.
The air around them lifted and attempted escape as sudden stabs of red forced themselves through cracks in the crypt, and Michael saw Alejandro holding Evita against him, his voice tiny and broken: “I saw you. I saw you in heaven…”
The fire screamed and instantly began pounding their hiding place like a furious child…then just as abruptly grew bored and moved on.
Michael could feel the radiant heat left in the marble cooking his back. “We have to get out.”
There was no answer from Alejandro, just a child’s snuffling. Then in one movement he rolled on his back, raised his powerful legs and forced the crypt’s lid aside.
They rose cautiously from the tomb, careful of the Senora, and the room around them, including Evita’s coffin, was completely fried. The fire may have only glanced this place, but it glanced it completely.
Alejandro no longer bothered with his gun and lent his full support in lifting Evita’s body, carrying her up blackened steps into a world fire had consumed and abandoned. The Renault had been cooked into nothingness, small flames licking its carcass. One of the massive crucifixes—Gastas—blazed like a Klan burning. They stood between it and the destroyed Renault, like some punished and sacked funeral procession.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Michael croaked as he gazed across the charred land around them. They set Evita on a flat rock, like Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. Tiny hands still grasped the rosary to her breast. Gina rifled her vet bag for burn ointments.
“Hey. Spook.”
Michael looked up. It was Wintergreen coming up from the smoldering courtyard, looking like he’d had his own close call with the night’s events, his pistol loose in a sooty hand. “What a fucking disaster,” he breathed, hard from the effort. “Nice work, Al. We’ll only spend the next decade trying to smooth this over.” Wintergreen shifted his position, gun still easy in their direction, and for the first time saw Evita resting on the flat rock beside them. “Christ, is that her?”
“It’s Her,” Michael answered dully. He could see now, at the far end of the courtyard, a surprisingly undamaged French four-wheel that must be the ex-marine’s.
“She’s smaller than I expected,” Wintergreen said.
“Where are the others?” Alejandro asked.
“They’re nearby, don’t worry. We’ve had loads of fun looking for you in all this. Borrow your radio? Don’t know where the hell mine’s got to.”
Alejandro handed his over, and Wintergreen muttered something into it, receiving a muddled squawk in return. Finished, he looked back at Evita. “Y’know, I saw her once too. On a street corner. All mink and attitude. Look at her now…” He stared a moment longer. “I never got you and her, Mike. The ice princess and the schoolboy spook with ‘lost’ stamped on his forehead.”
“I don’t remember any of this stamped on yours.”
“Just didn’t look hard enough.”
“What did I miss, Wintergreen? What did I miss in all this?”
Wintergreen sighed. “You bought their bullshit, Mike. Evita the divine. Evita the wondrous. Just a whore who got lucky, that’s all. A girl on the make with cheap dyed hair and a hundred million she looted from her beloved descamisados and stuffed in a Swiss bank. Evita may be a saint in the arrabales, but she was smart enough to figure she might have to buy her way into heaven.”
Michael could feel Alejandro stiffen with rage beside him. Wintergreen must have too, for his smile became forced and his gun gripped a little tighter. “Nothing personal, Al.”
“What is she to you, Wintergreen?” Michael asked. “You don’t care about Argentina. There’s no reward for carrying her over the border into Spain.”
“—They want her money.” Gina.
Wintergreen swung his gun around at her. “What’s in the bag?”
“Medical kit.”
“Put it down.”
Gina squatted gently and set it in the dirt.
“Is that it, Wintergreen?” Michael asked. “Is it her money?”
Wintergreen considered, then a smile broke out over his features. “Acres of it, Spook. Stuffed in a drawer.”
“What drawer?”
“Think about it.”
Michael did, and the answer was cloudy and unsatisfying. “But there’d be rules, access codes, signatures…”
“Not when you’re the First Lady, son. Not when you’re Santa Evita. Santa Evita just gets a key.”
“Where’s the key?”
Wintergreen just smiled, his eyes darting to Alejandro. “Why don’t you ask Dr. Ara?”
“What does he mean?” Gina asked.
“I told you about Ara,” Michael said. “He embalmed her. The Ara method. Everything intact inside but the blood.”
The ex-marine seemed pleased. “Remember that café bomb in ’55? Right in broad daylight at the one place you could get a decent hamburger? Only killed that drunk, Tomi-something? He was delivering X-rays for Dr. Ara. X-rays of a certain dead wo
man. X-rays blown all over the sidewalk, just waiting for someone to pick up.”
“You think she took her own key with her.”
“Don’t just think, Spook.”
Michael turned to Alejandro. “What did they tell you? That they needed her body first? Just for a little while?”
“I don’t care about Her money,” Alejandro answered. “It is Her person that will save the revolution.”
“But what did you think they were going to do, Alejandro? Search her pockets? Pat down her hair? The woman took it with her.”
It was hard to read a man without a face. But it wasn’t hard to read Wintergreen at all. “Why don’t we keep this friendly, Spook, huh?” He waved his gun at Michael. “Take her to my truck.”
“What are you going to do?” Alejandro asked.
“We’re going to borrow her, Al. Just long enough to authenticate her fingerprints. We’re on your side.”
“Where are you taking Her?”
“I don’t know, okay? You’ll get her back. Like we said.”
“It’s not her fingerprints they’re after,” Michael said. “They’re going to find a table. And then they’re going to find a butcher. And when they’re finished, they’ll find some plastic bags to give her back to you in—”
“Stop talking shit,” Wintergreen snapped.
“Look at her, Alejandro. Think about what they’re going to do to her. She took the key with her.”
“I don’t care about Her money!” Alejandro shouted.
“But they do, Alejandro. They care a lot. And they’re going to carve her to pieces for it.”
Wintergreen swung his gun squarely into Michael’s face. “You’re under arrest, Suslov. Murder and about a thousand other charges. Now why don’t you start behaving yourself and help us move the lady before she catches cold.”
Michael didn’t react, and Wintergreen jammed the muzzle into his cheek, hissing, “I know how to use this, Suslov. I won’t miss and kill my wife.”
Michael’s eyes went flat. He stared at Wintergreen coldly and something in the ex-marine paused. He seemed about to say more but stopped. Maybe because of what he saw in Michael’s eyes; maybe because it occurred to him that he should never have taken the gun off Alejandro.
Wintergreen spun, and Alejandro had an elbow ready that he slammed into the ex-marine’s eye. Wintergreen howled as Alejandro shoved his other arm into Wintergreen’s side, hard enough he pushed Wintergreen against the Renault, far enough away to get his .38 up and, with one eye, blow a hole in Alejandro’s stomach. The Argentine dropped to his knees as Wintergreen whipped the gun at Michael—then jerked it suddenly, a jet of flame erupting in a wild arc. His arm hit the Renault for support, and when he turned Michael could see a hypodermic sticking out of his lower back.
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