But why?
Because she was American? Because she was female and they hadn’t seen a woman in that renegade part of the country in weeks? Her skin crawled at the insinuation.
She tried to move her arms and realized they were tied behind her. Her legs were bound at the ankles and she lay against a cold slab of earth. She shifted her head, trying to look up. Fine slits of yellow light filtered through the cloth covering her eyes.
Her cheek smashed rudely back into the dirt. Her head was still heavy with whatever they’d given her. Probably something else. Something after the chloroform.
She worked to gain clarity, thinking she must devise a plan. But even her name became a blur as she found herself hurling back into the darkness.
Junior Analyst Pete Jarvis walked into Mark’s office and held out his hand. He was young and arrogant, with the bronzed, muscled look of a lifeguard.
'Pete Jarvis, sir. Here to assist you.'
Mark stood from his chair to take Jarvis’ hand, then offered him a seat. He was disappointed Cromwell hadn’t chosen someone a little older, but knew their current limitations.
'I understand you know some Spanish.'
'Yes, sir. Consider myself fluent.' His face was a hard chisel with the sort of mouth that rarely smiled.
'Well, good,' Mark said, 'because I’m going to need some help.'
Jarvis’ flat gaze shifted and for a moment he looked hopeful. 'Travel assistance?'
'Afraid not,' Mark answered, remembering how eager he’d once been to get out in the field. 'What I need from you is backstop support. Home office stuff.'
Jarvis sat up a little straighter in his chair. 'No problem, sir. Where you headed?'
'Costa Negra,' Mark said, staring down at the closed files on his desk.
'They’re still at war.'
'Yes, they are.' Mark was shuffling through manila folders, selecting certain ones and laying them aside. 'Here,' he said, picking up the pile and handing it across his desk. 'You’ll need to go over these right away.'
Jarvis accepted the files, settling them on his lap. He opened the one on top, the one belonging to Ana Kane.
'She’s Spanish,' he said, more a statement than a question.
'Fifty percent. Spanish mother, American father.'
'North American,' Jarvis corrected.
Mark didn’t mind the affront. He liked it that Jarvis appeared to be thorough.
'Hispanic then,' Jarvis said. 'I can see why this is a priority.'
The first Hispanic female had just been appointed US Secretary of State. Having federally -employed Hispanics kidnapped abroad could send a wave of terror throughout the Hispanic diplomatic community, especially since the precipitating factors of this incident were to be kept absolutely top secret.
'I’d like to give you a chance to go over those notes,' Mark said. 'Then meet with you one more time this evening, if you don’t mind working late.'
Jarvis looked at him, a sense of purpose in his slate blue eyes. 'Nowhere to go but here, sir.'
'Great,' Mark said, pushing back from his desk. He checked his watch, knowing he had to get to the division archives before the librarian left. 'I’m going to count on that.'
The stillness went on for decades. And then – the sound of footsteps.
The creeping awareness at once relieved and terrified her. Heavy footfalls approached across a muted floor. There was a deafening pause, then the sharp point of a boot in her gut.
'Despierta? Bueno!'
'Who are you?!' Ana called into the darkness.
She could sense it kneeling, drawing close. A sandpaper hand caressed her swollen cheek. 'Ay, que linda, such a beautiful face...' The words were a slow perversion. He spoke in a lispy French accent, a fountain of spittle spraying the left side of Ana’s face with insidious tickles.
Coarse fingertips traced the curve of her cheek, then made their way to her neck.
She drew a quick breath as knotty fingers pressed into her throat from either side. The weight was unbearable. Bony pebbles constricting her air.
She welcomed the balm of pulling darkness.
A door flew open and a second set of footsteps tore into the room. 'Hombre!' a voice cautioned wildly, racing to her.
Suddenly, the weight was lifted and a tug at the back of her head sent hazy vision spiraling into the room.
'So, Blanca Nieve has arisen,' the new one said, bending low to examine her squinting eyes. He was middle-aged like the other, but shorter, darker skinned. He stank of sweat and heavy cologne.
'You like to play, nena?' he asked, bringing a disfigured hand to her arm.
White-hot bile rose in her throat.
'Apurate!' the other intervened.
'Bueno,' the short one said, pressing into her flesh as he steadied himself on khaki knees. He pulled at the arm in the grasp of his awkward fingers. 'Come!' he told her, motioning to the other with his free hand.
She remained on the floor, her still-numb torso an oblivious extension of the scattered earth.
The tall one stepped forward with a contemptuous look and knelt, drawing a long knife from the crouched man’s belt.
Ana closed her eyes as he leaned forward, then freed her arms and legs with two swift jerks of the knife.
Mark paced his well-worn path in the government-issue carpet. Beside him, the dark city skyline hung brilliant with spotted lights. He walked to the window and drew the blinds, shutting out the distraction, then took his chair, pivoting to face his desk.
Though Jarvis had less experience than Mark wanted, he would do. At least, he had the uncanny compulsion to work long and unbearable hours. A characteristic most typical of the newer analysts, Mark sighed, massaging his stubby hair.
He didn’t have to wear it just above the ears like he had on active duty. But it was a habit hard to break. A habit like keeping his Browning High-Power loaded and concealed just below his left armpit. A propensity for watching everyone in a room, assessing their motives. Never able to relax.
He wasn’t much fun, he realized. Camille went to great lengths to remind him. What he didn’t tell her, but suspected she knew, was that he’d stopped having fun years earlier. Stopped more than twenty years ago when a New York jetliner plummeted 20,000 feet out of the sky in a fast approach toward London’s Heathrow airport. Too fast. All two hundred and twenty-nine aboard dead. Two hundred and twenty-nine. But as far as a seventeen-year-old boy had been concerned, it might as well have been the world.
And then, so many years later, someone in Beirut saying he knew something. Overheard some talk at the Pentagon. Big brass speculation. Heathrow was no accident...
Someone in Beirut who knew something. Someone lucky enough to get called off night duty. Someone damned unlucky enough to get hit with ten tons of moving shrapnel as he lay sleeping in his bunk, a picture of his fiancée tacked to the ceiling overhead. One dead soldier who took his burning secret to his grave six hours before he had planned to share it with Mark. Afterwards, Mark had continued to ask around. But he’d gotten nothing, niente, nada. Nobody else seemed to have caught wind of the rumor. And his higher ups, if they knew, weren’t telling. So there he was right back where he started, another SOL dead end.
Mark leaned forward and set his elbows on his desk, resting his head in his hands. He’d gone in for the adventure and come out to change the world. But so far, what had he accomplished?
Ana’s open dossier sat just out of reach, her pleading eyes upon him. If only there were any guarantees. But there was never any way to know. You could war-game it out to the 'nth' degree. Never made one shred of difference when it came down to brass tacks. In the end, you had your head, your training and your instinct. And if those didn’t fail you, you came out with your tail between your legs, not your guts blown from your body.
Mark shook his head thinking of Heathrow, then of Beirut. Missing Person Central America, Ana Kane. Then pushed back abruptly in his chair, his hands dropping to his knees.
Whenev
er he came this close to making a difference, dammit, something always happened.
'Tell us what you know or we'll cut your pretty throat!' The tall man stood before her now, waving the fat one's knife. It was a hunting knife, Ana realized with distaste, the kind used for scraping animal pelts.
She sat strapped to the chair with electrical tape, her captors' idea of some perverted game. Even her freedom would hurt.
'Escuchame!' the fat one yelled at the other, 'preguntale sobre el archivo!'
Ana needed no translation. 'I’ve told you a hundred times I know nothing of this archivo azul! It's a mistake –'
'A mistake?' the short one said, his voice rising like a child’s. He walked to the foul-smelling corner, unzipped his pants, and began urinating into a barrel.
'We can teach this one about mistakes, can’t we, Fidelito?' he said with a guttural laugh, his yellow stream pummeling hollow wood.
Ana turned her head in disgust.
The other leaned toward her and raised her chin with a dirty finger. 'Tu apellido es Kane, no?' He held the knife in his left hand, its shining crescent just above her ear.
She fought the urge to tremble.
'It's a common name,' she said, stung by the chill of his eyes. They were wolf eyes. Inhuman. Jagged icicles slashing from a frozen face.
'Common name for a common whore!' the fat one shouted from the corner, stuffing himself back into his fatigues and yanking up his fly. He walked back to them and tugged the knife from the tall one’s hand.
Mark’s concentration was broken by the sharp trill of his desk phone.
'Hello, stranger.'
'Camille. Oh, Christ –'
'Don't you spy types ever eat?'
Mark laid Ana's open file on his desk. 'Sorry about dinner.'
'Yeah, yeah. Sorry about dinner and the theater and the Capitals game. When are you going to stop being sorry and just show up?'
Mark looked at his watch, suddenly realizing the time. 'Honey, I had no idea – '
'Let me guess, something’s come up.'
'This one’s important.'
'So important you keep me waiting two hours without so much as a call?'
Mark glanced over at Ana's dossier, feeling her eyes on him. They were eyes that undid him, the eyes of a woman who’d lived beyond Ana's twenty-nine years, the eyes of a woman with a story to tell and no one to listen.
'Who is she?' Camille demanded, feigning indignation.
'There is no other she. You know that.'
'Well all right, if you say so. But, hey, you get to sounding so defensive, makes a girl wonder if she's not half on track.'
'I know I should have phoned. Promise I’ll make it up to you as soon as I get back.'
'Traveling again? Mark, what about Mexico? We're booked for the end of the month!'
'I know, I know.' He felt the exhaustion showed in his voice.
'Look, once this thing’s over...' The line fell silent between them. Mark could hear the coffee percolating in the next room. It was his third pot tonight.
She finally spoke, sounding resigned. 'I'll talk to the travel agent, see what she can do about Mexico.'
'Thanks for understanding,' he said, doubting she did.
'So, still coming by later?'
Mark rechecked his watch and looked back down at the files littering his desk. His paperwork had arrived in record time and Jarvis had pulled together all the necessary research materials. The Intelweb checks would be nonproductive at this hour. Jarvis would just have to transmit any information those produced to him in Costa Negra. In reality, he’d accomplished all he could here and he’d already packed. Still, it was pushing twenty-four hundred.
'Camille, it’s getting late. I don’t think it’s fair –'
'Screw fair! You’ll wreck my girlish figure if you leave me alone with all this food.'
Mark did a rapid-fire scan of his mental checklist. There were still some division files he needed to secure and it was against DOS 'clean desk' policy to leave your office looking like a tornado had hit it. 'All right. Give me another hour or so to wrap things up. I’ll give a call when I’m out the door.'
'You know where to find me.'
He always did. That was the problem.
'Listen to me, you putamadre,' the short one said, bringing serrated steel to Ana’s jugular. 'I have a lot of money at stake here. Comprende? Mucho dinero! Your witch of a mother has already died.'
'No!' she shouted. She couldn't stop herself. Liars. These bastards were liars. They would say anything to get her to talk. Anything. Even that bullcrap about having been in her mother's home and in her father's files.
He let the knife sag and looked up at Carnova. 'I'd kill her now if I didn't think she has what we want.'
'Paciencia, Dedito.' There was a terrifying musicality to his voice. 'Es posible que no sepa nada – dejame ver...' He approached her face-on, pressing his oily palms to her temples, bringing his lips even with hers, saliva flying as he spoke. 'Come now, buena chica, tell Fidelito everything.'
Ana stiffened. The wolf eyes were burning now. Dry ice. He fitted his palms more tightly around her skull until she thought the brittle bones there would cave in.
'No manners, princesa. Such a pity.' He gestured with his chin. A dark shadow rolled over her, then the flash of an arm, followed by the blistering fire of flesh being torn from flesh. Her searing lip gaped open.
Water was running down her face, warm salty water rushing in rapid streams to the bloodstained cotton shift she had chosen to wear into the jungle that morning.
'Perhaps tomorrow,' Carnova said, taking the knife from El Dedo and scraping its reddened blade against the soiled heel of his boot, 'Senorita Kane will feel more like conversation.'
Mark flipped shut the lid of his briefcase and closed down his secured computer. Batten down the hatches. File cabinets locked, desk cleared, wastebasket emptied. Only the door lock remained.
Sealed tight like sardines, all of them.
It was called a 'secure' environment. Even the cleaning personnel had top-secret clearances. Nothing was allowed in that hadn’t been scanned and nothing was allowed out that hadn’t passed the litmus test of security. Professional papers, articles, any written documentation could not escape without a green light from the censor’s watchful eye.
It was an unimpressive granite building on the east side of the Potomac, motion-detecting cameras swiveling above every door. On Family Day, when significant others of the workforce were allowed to 'tour' the facility, non-staff members were summarily confined to the lobby.
Mark thanked God he was an analyst and worked on the seventh floor. The technical shop, which comprised most of the facility, hailed no windows at all.
It was a bit restrictive, but one got used to it, much like sailors ultimately adjust to the confines of a submarine. Only problem was, at the DOS, there was never any shore leave.
Mark switched off the light and pulled the door to, setting it firmly in its casing. It had been years since he’d gone under cover. Years since his weapon had served as anything more than a reminder of who he’d once been. He needed to believe he was still capable, still among the best of the best.
He opened his billfold and tucked away his security passcard, wondering vaguely if he’d have occasion to use it again.
Ana was harshly tossed back into the cool isolation of the room. The door slammed shut with a resounding echo and a jingled rustling of keys. Then there was silence, a stilted, creeping silence that made its way up her spine and nestled in beneath the bandages covering her eyes. What, in God's name, did all this questioning mean?
Her abductors hardly believed her when she insisted she knew nothing of this archivo azul. She wondered what was so sacred about this 'blue file.' Something with such sinister potential, that she, a U.S. Government contractor, would be kidnapped? And Joe – Oh God. She felt her legs collapse in a heap below her.
He had tried to warn her. Had come to her hotel the very nigh
t of her arrival.
The compromise he’d insisted on was an alternate route, a less-traveled road along the northwestern mountains.
She recalled with a shiver the sharp crackle of gunfire dissecting the jungle air, the sound of his bulky body hitting the ground in her wake. There was a dull ache inside, something resonant yet turbulent. She pushed the tumultuous feelings aside, her thoughts reeling to her father.
What in God’s name did he have to do with any of this? Her father – it just didn’t make sense.
She tried to envision his face, see him as the old man he’d been when he’d died. But her memories revolved around a younger man, lightening streaks of gray just starting to ribbon his hair. A uniform decorated with meritorious service awards disappearing behind a closed office door. Two arms too busy with paper work to embrace the needs of a tender, five-year-old girl.
Ana drew her legs out from under her and bent them up to her chest. She rested her sweat-stained brow on the trembling shelf of her knees and thought hard, the bristly twine still scraping against her wrists and ankles. Suddenly, something in her mind jogged. The short man, El Dedo, kept pressing her about the study, her father's study. His questions were so precise. How could he know, how would he know the exact location of her father's things? Then it struck her. Just last summer, her mother had been burglarized. The break-in itself had been traumatic, but the invasion of her father’s private room had broken her mother’s heart. Ana had worried about her mother, already in her seventies, living alone in that big house, even before the robbery.
Afterwards, she had tried to insist her mother move to some place smaller, more manageable. But her mother would hear nothing of it. She loved her home of more than thirty years and intended to stay. She needed the space to accommodate her older daughter, Emalita, and the grandchildren when they came to visit. And some day, she persisted, Ana would have a family and a house of her own. Then she would understand why her mother could never leave this place and its host of happy memories.
Force of Fire Page 3