Hostage Crisis

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

“What the fuck?” Daniel said.

  “Christ on a pony,” Escobedo breathed.

  Daniel blinked. Escobedo didn’t even seem shocked at this airing of family history. More like…resigned. Perhaps even a touch amused.

  Duardo’s fist descended, but he’d telegraphed way too much. Daniel flipped him onto his back and kneed him in the lower abdomen, making him wheeze. He brought his double fists together hard against his sternum, making it creak and Duardo groan.

  They had fought like this all the time when they had been kids. This would have been enough to make Duardo quit, back then. Daniel even found himself relaxing.

  Duardo reared out of the sand with a growl. His shoulder buried deep into Daniel’s gut—so deep, Daniel thought he might make contact with his spine.

  Daniel was pushed back and would have landed on his back again, except he didn’t want to hit his head. He flipped himself over, then remembered he had the gun tucked into his trousers. He threw his hands out to break his fall and the impact travelled up his arms and all the way through his back.

  He hung there with his face a few inches from the sand, wondering if he was going to be sick.

  Duardo’s boot landed on Daniel’s back. “Thought you’d won, huh?” He pushed and rolled Daniel onto his back.

  “You’ve got a bit tougher and smarter since I saw you last.” As Daniel rolled he grabbed Duardo’s boot and yanked hard.

  It tripped Duardo and he went down on his ass in a tangle of legs and elbows. “Fuck, that hurt.” He sat up. “A bit tougher?” He sounded offended.

  Escobedo crouched down between them. He was holding the SIG. “You two about done with the squabbling?”

  Duardo nodded. “I think I’ve made my point.”

  “Christ, didn’t you ever fight with your brother, sir?” Daniel asked carefully.

  “José? God no.” Escobedo snorted. “He was the anointed one, the shining child. Besides, he was nearly ten years older than me. I was the embarrassing bastard love child who had to be hidden away. I got packed off to Ireland to boarding school as soon as it was decent. I might as well have been an only child. José, too.” He held out a hand to Daniel. “If you could keep the fighting between you and Duardo to a minimum, I’d appreciate it. I’d hate to have to explain to Minnie that Duardo got killed by family fire.”

  “Who’s Minnie?” Daniel asked as Escobedo helped him up.

  “My cousin,” Escobedo said. He nodded toward Duardo. “And Duardo’s wife.”

  Daniel felt his head whip around to look at Duardo, before he was aware of his own shock. “You dirty, dirty dog,” he breathed, aware that he was grinning stupidly.

  Duardo merely lifted a brow. He took the SIG from Escobedo. “You’ve changed,” he said, his voice low. “That news would have turned you cynical and sour, once upon a time.”

  Daniel sobered, staring at him. He was right. It would have.

  Olivia. He heard her voice in his mind. Her eyes as she whispered those words that still thrummed where they’d landed in his gut. “Daniel, I love you.”

  Escobedo held up a hand. “Listen,” he said in Spanish. Back to business. His head was down, moving from left to right as he tried to locate a noise only he could hear.

  Then Daniel heard it. “Choppers. Over water.”

  Escobedo and Duardo picked up their gear and started running for the tree line. Daniel ran with them, puzzling over the obvious question. Who was it in the helicopters? The Insurrectos had Sikorskies, but these were coming from the wrong direction.

  By the time they reached the tree line, the sound had leapt to the unmistakable. Helicopters, more than one and heading in this direction.

  “Report!” Duardo demanded.

  “Three targets, sir. Coming in on a north by north-east bearing. We can go to missile lock at this range, sir.”

  “Negative.” Duardo looked at Escobedo. “It’s not likely to be the Insurrectos. Not from that direction. They don’t have that sort of imagination and the engine sound is wrong.” He turned back. “Someone get a night scope on them, on the double!”

  “Sir!”

  There was a sound of scrambling in the dark.

  The helicopters rounded the head of the bay and hovered over the water.

  “Sir, you’re going to want to see this, sir!”

  A non-com came forward with the night glasses and held them out to Duardo. He took them and pushed forward to the edge of the tree line. On his belly, he leaned on his elbows and looked through the glasses.

  Then he rolled onto his side and looked at Escobedo. “They’re right. I don’t believe it. Three Night Hawks turned side on, nice and pretty, showing their colors. It’s the United States out there, Nick.”

  “What?”

  “They’re tiptoeing in nice and gentle so we don’t fire off their noses. They know we don’t know they’re coming.”

  Escobedo leaned on his rifle. “How on earth did they get here?”

  Duardo said something, but Daniel didn’t hear it. There was a roaring in his ears. Weight in his chest. Sickness in his belly.

  He staggered to one side, dizzy with it.

  Olivia. Somehow, she had done this. Only she had known this was the bay where he was meeting Duardo and the army. It had to be her. But how? How?

  Daniel’s shins came up sharply against a fallen tree. He staggered again. Fell against it and hung on to it, his head hanging, breathing hard.

  A hand squeezed his shoulder. “Breathe slower or you’re going to pass out.” It was Escobedo. The man settled himself on the fallen trunk next to him.

  Daniel nodded.

  “You know something about why the Americans are here, don’t you?”

  Again, Daniel nodded. He wasn’t sure he could speak yet.

  “Whatever it is, it’s enough to send you into flat panic.” He let silence settle for a second or two. “I sent Duardo on to greet the Americans, along with the rest of the troops. They’ll understand a military greeting more than if they got me.” Daniel heard amusement in his voice. “Rank and orders need no translation. So for a few minutes it’s just you and me here.” Again, the small contemplative silence.

  Daniel drew in a breath. “There’s a woman at the White Sands, sir. I think she’s done something incredibly brave and incredibly dangerous. I’m not sure how she pulled it off, but she’s the reason the Americans are here.”

  “And now you’re worried about what will happen to her as a result.” There was no condescension in Escobedo’s voice and no judgment. Remarkably, he seemed to understand.

  “Yes, sir. We have to get back there as soon as possible.”

  “Thanks to the Black Hawks, that’s going to be sooner than we thought a few minutes ago.” Escobedo glanced toward the beach. “It looks as though they’ve got a mixed bunch of black ops types. I’d say the support they’ve sent us is unofficial and off the record. Can you tell me who the lady is who pulled off this miracle?”

  Daniel pushed himself off the tree and sat back on his heels. “Olivia. Olivia Davenport.”

  “Davenport?” Escobedo said sharply. Then he laughed. “Well, that explains a lot.”

  “Not to me,” Daniel said.

  “My wife Calli is the Chief of Staff and it’s not an honorary title. She spends her life with the phone glued to her ear. I sometimes regret that she is the best person for the job, but….” Escobedo shrugged. “She talks to the United States Chief of Staff all the time. Nice enough fellow. Name of Callan Davenport. Colonel, retired, U.S. Army Rangers. He was in Vietnam.”

  My cantankerous family. Let’s talk about them later.

  Daniel leaned back over the tree and this time he was sick. The retching left him weak and almost without a voice.

  “If they find out who she really is….” he whispered.

  “I think she knows that, too,” Escobedo said gently. “She’s obviously spent five weeks playing it close to the chest, trying to avoid having it come out.”

  “The risks she
took for me!” Daniel wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand.

  Escobedo nodded. “That’s what you do when you love someone.”

  Daniel jerked as if he’d been hooked through the mouth like a fish.

  “You haven’t taken insane risks for her?”

  He opened his mouth to say, “No, you’ve misunderstood. I don’t love Olivia.” Then he closed it.

  He opened his mouth again to point out that he hadn’t taken any insane risks, but shut it again, because he had taken risks. Only the risks he had been taking had nothing to do with endangering life and limb. They had to do with risking heart and soul and sanity—all that touchy-feely shit that terrified him, that actually was the key to happiness.

  His insane risks had involved rolling up the portcullis and putting down the drawbridge and letting in a woman with sea-foam hair and big blue eyes and a mind like a razor. She had carved her way into his heart.

  It had hurt like crazy and he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping her.

  There was a tromp of feet through vegetation, heralding the return of the soldiers and their new allies. The Black Hawks were still powered down, doing their slow “whomp, whomp”.

  Escobedo stood up. “You’d better call me Nick,” he said. “We’re practically family, you know.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Olivia woke the instant the door opened. She uncurled herself enough to check who was coming in.

  Ibarra stepped into the room, looking neat, fresh, ironed and polished. All except his eyes. His eyes were still dead. There were bruises under them, that came from long-term sleep deprivation or mental unease.

  “Good morning,” he said in Spanish. The door was closed gently behind him.

  She kept her face blank and curled her arms around herself more tightly. Last night, when Ibarra could not be found in his office, they had marched her back into the meat cutting room and locked the door on her. She had still been quite naked, as she was now. Every soldier’s head had turned as she was marched past. Olivia had kept her gaze straight ahead and unblinking, but her anger had grown in small increments with each grin, each suggestion and each lewd comment.

  When the door of the meat cutting room had been locked on her she had been almost relieved. She had picked the corner most likely to be the warmest and curled up in it. She had astonished herself by drifting off to sleep.

  Now she stared at Ibarra, still curled in her tight ball.

  He picked at a well-polished fingernail. “While I was having breakfast, Lieutenant Gomez brought news to me of a breakout last night. One of you actually scaled the fence and got away.”

  Olivia found herself focusing on the word breakfast. Her stomach rumbled hard and in the empty, hollow room it sounded loudly.

  Ibarra lifted his head and smiled, showing yellow teeth. “Yes, I suspected you knew more Spanish than you have led us to believe so far. The guard you hit with the telephone last night insisted your diction was a bit too good for someone who had barely managed a simple greeting in the past.”

  Olivia didn’t respond. She wasn’t going to give Ibarra anything. Let him work for it.

  She focused on his watch, which flashed in the light from the window behind her as he worked on his nails. If he would just keep his wrist still for a moment, she might be able to read the time.

  “You don’t have to answer right now,” Ibarra said. “We’ll get plenty of answers from you sooner or later, and don’t worry about the escapee. We shot him, of course.”

  Olivia tried to hide her reaction, but something gave her away, for Ibarra surged out of the chair, grabbed her hair and hauled her to her knees. “I knew you would know about Nemesis!” he hissed, his nose an inch from her face. Sour spiced coffee smells washed over her, making her gag and try to turn her face away, but the grip on her hair was too tight.

  “Who?”

  “Nemesis!” he screamed.

  She shook her head.

  “Who was it that escaped last night?” he demanded.

  “If they’re dead, what does it matter?” she said dully.

  “If they’re dead, it doesn’t matter if you give me their name,” Ibarra said, letting go of her hair. He walked back to the chair and sat down.

  She sank back onto her heels, staring at him, her heart thundering. “He’s still alive. You didn’t kill him at all. You’re bluffing.”

  Ibarra spread his hand on his crossed knee. “I am a civilized man. I find parts of my job distasteful, but I do them because that is my duty and I will not shirk it. I have found ways to…compromise.” He looked up at her. “I am interested in only one thing today. I want to know where I may find the man they call Nemesis. I know that it was he who escaped last night. Only someone like Nemesis would have the skills and experience to know exactly where my defense lines were weakest and exploit them as he did last night.” Ibarra’s eyes narrowed. “He worked his way through the roof system, then fought his way across the compound, using a homemade shield and Taser jury-rigged out of household supplies. They tell me he used equipment that had been stolen and hidden away weeks ago. He also had a gun, which gave him a decided advantage. He had clearly been planning this for some time. He disabled seven of my best officers and guards. Two of them died this morning from wounds he inflicted.”

  Olivia kept her face stiff and unemotional. She gave no sign of reaction. But inside, she was awed. She had thought that Daniel would use stealth to escape. Never had she dreamed he would bull his way out of the compound using sheer force. Yet he had implied that there was no other way, that once he left, the alarm would go up.

  This was why.

  There had been no subtle, undercover way for Daniel to steal out of the White Sands and remain Daniel Castle. If he left at all, he would be declaring to the Insurrectos that he was something other than the mild English businessman they’d been harboring. His life’s work depended on him not drawing attention to himself in that way.

  Ibarra still wasn’t sure who it was. They hadn’t seen his face clearly.

  Olivia took a breath, fighting back a smile. Daniel was safe, as long as she didn’t give him to Ibarra.

  Ibarra was watching her, the narrowed eyes assessing. “You do know who he is,” he said with satisfaction. “If I dig enough, I wonder if you will tell me where he is, too?”

  Olivia put her hands together in her lap and remained silent.

  Ibarra reached over his shoulder and tapped on the door with one knuckle. “Serrano charged me with killing Americans and finding Nemesis. I have a few hours yet before I have to kill another American, so I can take my time on you. I don’t think I’ll need much time, though. Serrano doesn’t have a lot of imagination. I’m sure you noticed when he was questioning you last time. Boots, hands. Pah!”

  The door opened. Gomez waddled in, carrying a small tray with a white cloth draped over it. There were small lumps under the cloth. Just the sight of them made Olivia’s heart hurry along faster.

  Gomez had a stool in his other hand. He put the stool down next to Ibarra and placed the tray on top of it. He gave a short bow, more of a nod of the head, to Ibarra and moved to one side. The door shut and locked with a heavy thud of the metal.

  “Serrano wanted me to use Pentothal and hot mental pincers and all sorts of crude and barbarous modern tools and approaches. As I said, no imagination. I once had the dubious pleasure of working with Colonel Zalaya for a few months. Now, there was a real creative genius, when it came to extracting information.” He glanced at Olivia. “You think Nemesis is good at using whatever is at hand? Zalaya was an inspiration. I watched him once, using nothing but a razor blade and a bottle of household bleach, reduce a girl to a bloody pulp. It took him thirty minutes and she sang like a bird.”

  Olivia shuddered. She couldn’t help it. This cheerful fireside conversation about such a gruesome subject was sickening. She knew Ibarra was doing it to soften her up. He was trying to make her afraid, to get her halfway to caving in b
efore he started on her. The problem was, it was working. The imagery he was painting in her mind, when she knew that all this pain and blood was in her immediate future, was sucking out her courage.

  She was afraid.

  Ibarra held up his neat hand, the one he had been fussing with. “You never think much about the fingernail, do you?” he said. “But there’s a massive number of nerve endings right under the nail. They once used the fingernails all the time on subjects. Such a classic art, fingernails. Quite a lost art. I thought I’d start there.” He lifted the cloth off the tray. There was a small bottle labeled ammonia in Spanish and a beaker full of flat wooden spatulas with pointed ends.

  Olivia curled her fingers into tight fists and put them behind her.

  “Gomez, your assistance, if you please,” Ibarra murmured. He picked up a spatula and a little silver hammer from the tray.

  Gomez walked over and grabbed her arm.

  Olivia struggled. She knew there wasn’t any point in it, that they’d win in the end. However, there was a little clock in her head, counting down seconds and minutes. She didn’t know how many seconds and minutes but they all added up, and she just couldn’t passively let them do this to her. The fear wouldn’t let her.

  Gomez cursed under his breath and tried to pick her up and haul her over to the stool. She punched him in the lower stomach.

  He whooshed out his breath, barely keeping a hold on her arm.

  Ibarra made an impatient sound and grabbed her ankle. Gomez, breathing heavily, caught hold of her other calf. They lift her up off the floor altogether and carried her like a carcass over to the stool. Gomez threaded her arm between his legs and leaned all his upper weight onto her wrist, holding her hand down on the surface of the stool.

  The only way Olivia could move her arm was to wrench it out of its socket.

  Fear was a runaway train in her chest and her mind. Panic closed down her throat.

  Ibarra leaned around Gomez’s legs and she felt him lift her forefinger and slide something beneath the nail. He tapped.

  The pain exploded in her brain. She felt it running through her neck and back, down her arms and legs. Silvered. Cold. Hot.