Duardo grinned and slapped Nick on the back. “You think I don’t know how lucky I am?” He sobered. “You weren’t there, Nick. I saw what she did to defy Zalaya.”
Nick took a breath. “The debriefing was enough for me.”
Duardo nodded. “You should know how honored I am to have my family be joined with that of el leopardo.”
“I think the honor runs the other way, Duardo.” He headed back to his desk and waved Duardo to the chair in front of it. “I never imagined that two American women would entangle our politics and lives so much, but I’m glad it is so.”
Duardo grinned. “They have a way of making things happen.”
Nick nodded. “There’s another matter. It’s delicate.”
Duardo didn’t move, yet Nick could almost feel the man switch mental gears. Duardo’s eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”
“When Carmen was roaming the palace while you were Zalaya, she got a message out via a text app. Do you remember?”
“She wiped the cache. They never did figure out who she spoke to.”
“Indirectly, she was warning us that Zalaya had Minnie but that she, Carmen, was leaving the palace that night.”
Duardo leapt on the key word. “Indirectly?”
Nick nodded. “She spoke to an old friend of hers, a Boston-based businessman, Richard Menzies, who called us. We vetted him at the time and have more thoroughly investigated him since. He’s who he says he is—an intimate friend of Carmen’s. I took a call from him earlier today.”
“He knows Carmen is on Vistaria?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Because of Carmen, he is on our side. So he phoned to warn us, I guess. He is well connected and heard rumors, followed them and confirmed enough to warrant the call.” Nick grimaced. “About six weeks ago, the UN sent a party of diplomats and businessmen into Vistaria to oversee the democratic process. Remember?”
“I remember them arriving on the main island. All very formal and official. Serrano was triumphant. He saw it as official recognition of his victory. I warned him it was nothing of the sort.” He shrugged.
“A few days after you came here, Menzies tells me, any news about the group ceased.”
Duardo shrugged apologetically. “I was not functioning fully at that time.” The psychological fallout from his time as Zalaya had set in and Duardo had spent a week withdrawn from the world, pulling himself together.
“You were up on your feet fast enough after that,” Nick assured him. “Remember them returning home?”
Duardo blinked. “No,” he said flatly. “Are they still there?”
Nick lifted his shoulders. “No one seems to know.”
Duardo leaned forward. “A whole group of UN sponsored diplomats cannot disappear. We would hear the scream all the way from New York.”
“Nevertheless, that seems to be what has happened. They’ve been off the radar for four weeks. No one has heard from them. The curious part, the factor that made Menzies call me, is that the UN is not braying about it. They’re deathly silent. So silent, he had trouble confirming the group went to Vistaria at all.”
Duardo frowned. “Why? Why? Why cover up a disappearance of your own people?”
“I was hoping you would figure it out for me, with your pretzel mind, as Josh puts it.”
Duardo absently put his cap on the desk and stood up. Nick could see his mind was in overdrive and kept silent. Duardo walked to the recently repaired windows. The limp from the bullet he had put into his own leg while posing as Zalaya was barely noticeable now. He stared out at the sea. “They’re afraid,” he said at last. “If they acknowledge the group went to Vistaria, it will be used against them.”
“How?”
“Leverage,” Duardo said.
Cold fingers walked down Nick’s spine. “That implies they’re being held as hostages somewhere on Vistaria.” He blew out his cheeks. “Jesus wept. Is Serrano that mad, Duardo? Mad enough to hold UN diplomats as hostages?”
Duardo turned to face him. “He’s not mad at all. He’s a cold, calculating and ruthless son of a bitch, with no morals and even less conscience. However, he is paranoid.”
“Enough to do this?” Nick asked.
Duardo considered. “You say the diplomatic party disappeared days after Zalaya did?”
Nick nodded.
“He lost Torres and Zalaya on the same day and his whole intelligence base with it. That might have been enough to build his paranoia to a degree necessary to justify this. The prize he’s going for would demand it, in his eyes.”
“What prize?”
Duardo’s grimace was sour. “He thinks he can force the United States to back him, not us, if he threatens to kill the hostages. All he has to do is find an American among them.”
Chapter Four
“Oh my God, will you look at all those uniforms!” Minnie hissed, looking through the window at the beach, below.
“Swords, too,” Calli said calmly. She tapped Téra on the arm. “Her zipper isn’t all the way up,” she said in Spanish, then said into her cell phone in English, “Yes, I’m holding for the Chief of Staff.”
“Swords, too?” Minnie squeaked. “Which Chief of Staff?”
“The United States, I think,” her father said from across the room, as Téra calmly zipped up the top of her wedding dress.
Beryl, sitting on the chair next to Josh, fanned herself. “Oh dear…”
“This is way too much fuss,” Minnie said, looking out the window again. “What were you thinking, Calli?”
Calli held up her hand, listening to a voice at the end of the phone. She nodded a couple of times. “Thank you, I will.” She ended the call with a decisive tap of her thumb and looked at Minnie. “This is precisely the right amount of fuss one deserves when one marries a senior officer in the Vistarian army. He’s a colonel and the President’s right-hand man. Nick can’t do without him and Duardo is getting married. What’s more, the cousin of Vistaria’s Chief of Staff is getting married and that deserves pomp and circumstance, too.” Calli turned Minnie to face her. “On top of all of that, Vistaria’s new civilian quartermaster deserves to be honored on her wedding day, too.”
Minnie tried to smile. “Well, if you put it like that…”
Calli smiled and handed Minnie her bouquet, which featured native Vistarian wisteria. She picked up two smaller bouquets and gave one to Téra. “I do put it like that,” she said firmly.
“But a twelve-foot train?” Minnie demanded, kicking back at the lace wafting behind her.
Calli leaned down to kiss her cousin’s cheek. “You’ve got at least three hundred soldiers in formal uniforms, wearing swords and gloves and boots shined to a gleam. They’re going to give you twenty-one gun salute as you walk down a red carpet. Nothing less than a twelve-foot train was going to compete, honey. Take a deep breath and pretend you’re a queen, because you’re about to be treated like one.”
“Ah, hell,” Minnie murmured as her father took her arm.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Calli called.
“Yeah, twelve feet behind,” Minnie muttered.
* * * * *
Her dad must have sensed her nerves and discomfort, because all the way down to the beach, he kept up a running commentary designed to keep her mind distracted. The beach had been cleared of army equipment, raked smooth and laid with temporary flooring. Chairs had been set up, along with lights, decorations and the most perfect backdrop of all, the sun setting into the sea.
And damn, there it was, an impossibly long red carpet, running between far too many people standing and waiting for her to walk the length of it. Her father patted her hand as she gripped his sleeve. “Dad….” she moaned. This sort of limelight had never been her thing.
Then Minnie saw Duardo, standing and waiting for her at the end of the carpet, looking so impossibly handsome, tall and alive. His eyes were on her and he seemed stunned and happy to see her. His gaze was full of love.
“I love you,” he murmured.
“Probably just as well, huh?”
He smiled and turned her to face the priest.
* * * * *
After dinner Olivia found herself in the same club chair, facing the same National Geographic. She wasn’t sure she could stand it. She considered going straight to her room but endless hours of staring at her walls wouldn’t be any better. She had read everything worth reading in the small library and the gift shop in the hotel lobby had been closed by the Insurrectos.
Theresa had returned. Just after lunch, she had come into the bar, looked around for a while, then settled at a table by herself. She had pointedly not sat next to Daniel at the bar. But then, Olivia couldn’t remember any of Daniel’s friends openly associating with him. To do so would have given the Insurrectos far too much leverage. Daniel would have warned each of his bed companions in turn.
Ernesto drifted over to Olivia’s chair a few minutes after she had sat down and sank onto the edge of the chair next to hers, his big hands between his knees. “She looks so despondent,” he muttered in French.
“Theresa?” Olivia clarified.
“She’s clearly upset about something,” Ernesto insisted.
“She was up all night being questioned about who she was. They came at her about it from every conceivable direction, over and over again,” Olivia pointed out. She recalled the grueling hours of questioning she had suffered through. “You would be depressed, too, if you’d had no sleep and put up with a night like that. She didn’t say anything, Ernesto, or we would not be sitting here yet again as we do every night.”
Ernest was actually wringing his hands as he watched Theresa sip at the sour punch some of them seemed to find so appealing
“Why don’t you go and talk to her?” Olivia suggested. “Gently,” she added. “She has had a rough night.”
Ernesto nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, standing up. “I will do that.” He nodded at Olivia and walked across the room to sit next to the young brunette.
Olivia hid her sigh. Ernesto needed the comfort more than Theresa did. She picked up the National Geographic magazine again and pretended to read it, while she tried to figure out how she could invent some novelty for the evening. She was in danger of going stir crazy and this latest thing with Daniel merely underlined the problem.
She was aware of him. Like metal filings could feel the pull of a magnet, from across the room she could feel him sitting at the corner of the bar as usual, even though she had not once looked at him. Despite not sparing him a glance, his presence was affecting everything she did, from how she sat to the way she pushed stray hairs from her face. Even as she was conversing with Ernesto, she had been wondering if he was watching her talk to the man, if he cared that she had other concerns besides him.
It bothered Olivia that she was obsessing even a little bit about Daniel. Yes, she had little to do. She could use that as an excuse for her mind leaping upon the one truly novel event in the last few weeks and clinging like a limpet. Only, that didn’t come close to explaining why her body was joining the party. Was it simply a matter of forbidden fruit? Not only was a liaison distinctly high-risk in this situation, she was so clearly not his type to begin with, lusting after him was safe. She could even tease him and know he would do nothing about it.
Olivia stared blankly at the open page of the magazine, her eyes unfocused, as she considered this new idea. Hadn’t she made certain this morning that she was invisible to him, before she had taunted him sexually with a breakdown of her preferred underwear choices?
She closed her eyes, self-loathing running thickly through her veins. She had been playing it safe with a new toy. How despicable.
She looked up at the bar, searching him out, hating herself.
Daniel wasn’t sitting on his usual stool. Olivia scanned the room quickly and found him sitting at the same low table as Theresa and Ernesto. His head was close to Theresa’s as they talked quietly. Ernesto was listening, while sitting back and separate from the two.
Something stabbed hard and sharp in Olivia’s chest. Cold tendrils drilled through her. Even before she had processed the decision, she was on her feet and moving toward the bar. The barman was native Vistarian and young, which made him abundantly good-looking, with dark eyes, dark hair and olive skin. He watched her approach and smiled a cautious welcome.
“Dry martini,” she told him. “Put it in a soda glass,” she added in Spanish, dropping her voice.
His eyes slid toward the guard at the end of the bar and back. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said quietly.
“No olive,” she added as he walked away. She sat on the stool closest to her and stretched out her legs under the foot rest of the next stool. Her long legs weren’t earning her any attention tonight.
The barman slid the tall, plain glass of liquid in front of her and stepped back with a nod. She picked up the glass. “Saluté,” she murmured to no one in particular. She drained the glass in three big swallows. It stung going down and burned in her gut and the back of her throat. Good.
She pushed the glass at the barman. “Another,” she said in Spanish, blinking to clear the tears of pain from her eyes.
* * * * *
Téra Alejandra Peña y Santos smoothed down the fabric of her bridesmaid’s dress and blessed Calli Escobedo once more. The gown was glorious, an apricot raw silk creation that made her feel wonderful, even while taking nothing away from the bride. The dress clung to every curve, while sweeping the floor with modest drapes. It made the most of her figure. If she had to wear a dress, this was the dress to wear, for it was the perfect tool to help her seduce a man.
She had located Lucas just after the formal speeches. He was at the table where the drinks were laid out, at the far end of the temporary flooring. Hastily, she leaned over to Calli. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she murmured and slipped out of her seat. As the second bridesmaid at the head table, it was possible her absence wouldn’t even be noticed. She tried to hurry across the floor without looking as though she was rushing, her heart thudding.
Lucas was pouring himself a glass of red wine while talking to other officers. His back was to her. Some conversation about Duardo’s exploits at sea that day, with the newly formed aquatic teams. Téra barely processed it. It felt as though the men spoke of her brother more and more often. Perhaps she was around them more and noticed the chatter, as one did when focused upon a subject.
She took the few seconds to calm herself and appreciated yet again the width of Lucas’ shoulders and the hard, trim hips, even as she was grateful for the conversation that kept him at the table and his back turned so that he did not notice her approach.
“I’ll have one of those, too, please,” she told him.
He didn’t even turn his head. “Don’t you have your own waiters slaving to your every attention at the head table, little one?” His face in profile was sharply delineated in the light from the huge bonfires that had been lit on either side of the floor, showing the high forehead and gleam of his brushed-back hair. Captain Lucas De la Cruz was almost savagely masculine. His body was corded with muscle and sinewy tendons. Téra knew that from watching him working in the camp, when a generator had got bogged in wet sand. He’d stripped to the waist and dug out the tire when his men had not worked fast enough for his liking. He drove himself and his men hard. From watching Lucas De la Cruz for the last few weeks, Téra knew that in both his mind and body no quarter was given anywhere for the softer passions. Everything about him was unyielding.
Except his mouth was made for the giving and receiving of pleasure. The lips were full and sometimes, when he was deep in thought, he pursed them in a way that made them pout. At moments like that, Téra wanted those lips to press against her body. Anywhere. Everywhere. She was in a sil
ent, hidden fever to have Lucas De la Cruz and had been since he had hauled her to her feet, three weeks ago.
She had been climbing the wooden stairs from the army camp to the big house, her mind on the tasks Duardo had asked her to complete that day, following the steady trail of people up the long flights. A river of people traveled to and from the house and everyone had learned to stay to the right. Because the speed of the climb was determined by the slowest person in the line, Téra had learned patience was the only way to tackle these stairs. She had also learned to multitask. She often climbed them while reading or scribbling notes, keeping her right hip brushing the guardrail as a guide.
There were two landings, both of them switching the stairs back upon themselves, making the flight a three-phase climb up the steep, sage-covered hill. Téra had been deeply involved in figuring out a better training schedule for Duardo’s men when, at the second landing, closest to the top, someone had come around the landing on their way down, bearing something large. It was big enough and heavy enough to catch Téra’s left elbow and wrench her around.
Caught by surprise, for her attention had been on her notepad, Téra spun on the narrow step she had been standing on. She had already lifted a foot to step up onto the landing. Her notebook flew from her hand and down the steps as her arm thumped up against the person behind her, on the next step down. She might have hit him in the face with her arm but he reacted quicker than a cat, grabbing her wrist to stop it from hitting him, ducking under her arm, thrusting his foot upon the next step and leaning forward to catch her weight as she fell.
She landed against him, her heart going a million miles a minute, with no clear idea what had happened, for she had been so thoroughly absorbed in what she had been doing.
“I have you,” he told her, his other hand lifting to her waist.
As the people up and down the line murmured and muttered concerned comments, she drew a recovering breath. Her chief impression was how solid the man was. She was resting against a rock. A nicely upholstered rock. Her chest was pushing against him. He smelled male and good.
Hostage Crisis Page 6