Making the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  Right. Because if Marina had called the hospital and asked for the Doña, she would have learned the truth.

  "I'll call the hospital now," Marina said. "Then we'll see."

  "You should," Kimmer agreed, but with some dark amusement. "Just don't expect to get anywhere near a phone while I'm still here. That little threat about the Ertzaintza? I have a good memory."

  "I—" Marina fell short on her words, and then reluctantly accepted the inevitable.

  Kimmer grinned at her—fierce and Chimera cold. "Don't worry. I'm on my way out. I expected too much of you. Now, I just want you to think about it—we were brought here to fail."

  Marina scoffed; Jefa blinked a startled disbelief.

  "The stupid cover, the persistent lack of information, the interference and the drugs—we were guarding the Etxea blindfolded and hobbled." She stopped, and took a breath, and let it out slowly. "The question is... why?"

  Blank stares, pretty much. Marina, Jefa, and the housekeeper. Even Danele.

  Kimmer fought exasperation. "Hello? If we understand why, we can stop her. Hell, just look what she's done to this household! You—" she turned on Marina, "Until this moment, you didn't even know how sick she really is! Your good friend!"

  Marina drew a sharp breath, looking away. But when she turned back to Kimmer, her eyes glittered with anger and denial. "You are absurd. How can this all be someone's complicated conspiracy? Who even knew that the Doña would fall—" But she stopped, hearing her own words.

  Kimmer bit her tongue, giving Marina time.

  Who even knew that the Doña would fall ill?

  It only took a moment. Even Danele looked aghast by the time Marina whispered, "She made it happen. She made my Doña ill."

  She, he...whoever. Anyone could be behind that altered voice. Although...now that she understood...Kimmer felt a faintly familiar touch to it all.

  And then she noticed the look on the housekeeper's face—hesitation and concern. She knew better than to ignore it. "What's wrong?"

  "Are we certain?" the older woman asked. "Certain that Larraitz is part of this?"

  "Why?" Kimmer asked, startled to find Marina asking the same, a demanding chorus.

  "She—" The woman engaged in an interlude of classic hand-wringing and finally blurted, "She was to come in later this morning, but she asked me to call if Miss Kimberly returned—she said she was frightened of Miss Kimberly after the misunderstanding with Mr. Richard."

  "Dios," said Marina under her breath.

  Kimmer said something rather different under her own breath. And then said to the housekeeper, "You called her."

  "Before I told Miss Marina you were here," the woman admitted.

  "No matter," Marina said firmly, looking as though she was trying to believe it. "So she does not come in today at all."

  Kimmer snorted. "This isn't about whether Larraitz comes in. It's about finding me—stopping me. The fake Doña can't afford to have me prowling around. I don't even know why she got Hunter involved in the first place—"

  And she stopped short, for there was one damned good question. Why bring in an expert out-of-country team to work security on an object you ultimately intend to steal? Why risk the chance that said team would thwart the theft, even after being crippled by the scenario and the meddling help of a willing toadie?

  She specifically asked for us.

  She'd asked for them, she'd welcomed them...and then she'd set them up to fail. Resoundingly.

  THINKING OF YOU.

  Not so random after all, those postcards, those emails.

  This is about us as much as the Etxea.

  It's about US.

  "We need to get out of here," Kimmer said to Danele. "Larraitz' people are on their way, you can bet on it. Besides, I need to see what your grandfather has learned about our friend Gandiaga."

  And coincidentally return you to him. Get you out of this mess.

  "But—"

  Aurgh. "We'll talk on the way," Kimmer said, bodily directing the girl at the door. "Because we're not hanging around here." It had seemed like a good and reasonable next step to come here, and safe enough.

  And Kimmer—

  Well, she'd learned more than she ever expected. But now?

  This was the last place they wanted to be.

  ~~~

  "You're all right?" Sein asked Rio, as they stopped to catch breath. Again.

  "Sure," Rio said. Better, anyway. "Nothing a Twinkie wouldn't cure."

  "Twinkie," Sein said flatly.

  "Never mind." Rio straightened against a lamp post, looking north into Bilbao and once more ruing the loss of his phone. Forget calling Owen...he'd call for a damned cab. His back burned fiercely, his arm throbbed with amazing intensity, and the rest of him just hurt like hell.

  He could just about call himself crabby.

  "We're almost to the bus stop," Sein said. So far, calm and reliable. So far, keeping the tentative trust.

  "If the driver lets me board." His torn and grungy clothes were the least of it.

  Sein shrugged. "You wouldn't be the first man in Bilbao to have a bad day."

  Rio couldn't help it. He laughed out loud, an arm tight over pained ribs. A bad day. That certainly put things into perspective.

  "All right," he said. "The bus. And keep your eye out for a phone." He'd call Owen the hard way. Owen would know if Kimmer still had her phone, if she was still active. And if Owen hadn't heard from her...

  That would mean something, too.

  He lurched away from the lamp post and down the sidewalk, on a street that was becoming noticeably less dock-oriented and more business-like. When the hell had things gone so wrong, anyway? Before Kimmer started doubting their ability to team up on the job, or after?

  But he knew the answer to that. Before. Long before. Right when he hadn't refused to play by the stupid rules imposed upon them. That decision had set them up for the rest of it. And how they'd get themselves out of this place...

  He didn't much want to think about it. He'd find Kimmer first. He'd make sure she was all right—please, God, be all right—and he'd see what she knew of the Etxea. And then together they'd tear up this whole damn op by the roots and see what shook out.

  ~~~

  "Why Andoni Gandiaga?" Danele asked, stumbling a little as she followed Kimmer out to the car at a jog.

  Just because Kimmer had cut the cord to the kitchen phone didn't mean it would take Marina more than a few moments to find another, if she was still of a mind to call the Ertzaintza.

  Danele persisted, on Kimmer's heels in more than one way. "He's a stupid politician, that's all. He thinks he's clever, but he's just made everyone mad and he's not doing the Nationalist Party any good, either."

  Kimmer recognized parroted thoughts when she heard them. But they gave her insight nonetheless—on Ginea's thoughts about Gandiaga.

  Damned similar to Jurdan's, when it came down to that.

  She opened the passenger door, guiding Danele's head down with a protective hand, and ignoring her faint girly slaps of protest as she collapsed down into the car seat.

  The cops would be the least of their problems if Larraitz' people came here to clean up after their mess.

  Before she slid in behind the wheel, Kimmer dug her phone from her pack, auto-dialing Owen's number even as she started the car. Two short rings and—

  "An actual phone call," he said. If she'd caught him at an inconvenient time, he gave no sign; he never did. "It's an honor."

  "Yeah, yeah." Kimmer pulled Danele's seatbelt into place while ignoring her eye rolling, then accelerated around the circular drive, gently spitting gravel. "Rio?"

  "No. I'll let you know if he gets in touch, Kimmer."

  As if she could not ask. "Look, the Doña isn't the Doña. Someone's been playing the role—she's in intensive care in Barcelona, and I wouldn't assume it's from natural causes. We've got someone very clever on the line here. As far as I can tell, screwing with me and Rio was a distinct
part of that plan. Did you have a clue, Owen, or were you so intent on getting intel from Basque country that you didn't look deeply enough?"

  It was the first time she'd ever known him to be speechless. Heading down the driveway just a little faster than she should, she listened to his silence. The profound nature of it reached her more deeply than any sputtered denials.

  "There's a car—" Danele said, her fingers tightening around the seatbelt where it crossed her still-flat chest.

  Kimmer saw it. Fake it. Just ordinary visitors, sedately driving away. Finally Owen managed, "Kimmer—"

  "Fine," she said. She could read Owen over the phone as well as anyone, and if his stunned silence hadn't been enough, the self-recrimination in that one word would have done it. "Now fix it. Somehow."

  "Tell me everything you know," he said instantly.

  And she would have done it—gone back to working deeply with Hunter, now that she knew Owen understood. Except she suddenly realized the oncoming car was traveling far too fast; she just as suddenly found herself close enough to see the set of the driver's shoulders and the jut of the passenger's jaw and the way they'd both braced themselves, and she had just enough time to blurt, "Oh, shit!" before she dropped the phone.

  She grabbed the wheel with both hands, cranked it hard, and hit the brakes, slewing the car's back end into the path of the thugboys. "Hold on!" she shouted at Danele, but Danele was already screaming, high and thin.

  The impact turned the world hollow for an instant, reverberating with percussive sound. Then she blinked and the car had stopped, spun around the way they'd come. No airbags, and her forehead stung from impact with the side window. Danele, frozen in shock with both hands still clutching the seatbelt across her body, seemed not to have so much as a scratch.

  Damned freaking thugboys—took Rio!

  Purpose returned with a flood, and Kimmer scrabbled at her seatbelt. She banged at the jammed door, and when she finally stepped out of the car, her knees went out from under her. Screw that! Up to her feet again and she ran around the front of the car to the thugboys' car.

  It had not fared well. Kimmer ran to the passenger side and jerked the door open, slashing the seatbelt with the toothpick knife from inside her waistband. She dragged the man out with little regard for potential injuries and then headed for the driver through the passenger side, yanking the keys first thing, pulling a quick pat-down.

  Nine-mil Glock—clunky. She tossed it out the shattered driver's window where she could pick it up on the way back to her car.

  But first she had a conversation to conduct. Opportunity knocks.

  She backed out of the car, heard a faint shriek of warning—couldn't turn before a shoulder slammed into her from behind—low and hard, a reaching tackle. The passenger. She bounced off the car body, landing hard—no way to roll out of that one, not with a thugboy still attached to her legs.

  Too bad for him that he'd used up both his arms in the process. She levered up and clapped her cupped hands over his ears—his eyes popped open wide and a grunt of animalistic pain escaped—but she made no effort to escape. Opportunity, dammit.

  Her fingers curled around those abused ears and she brought her thumbs around to the corners of his eyes, applying just enough pressure to get his attention. "Now," she said. "Let's talk."

  Ooh, was that defiance on his face? She grinned, the Chimera grin. "Or, hey, you can be blind. I'd rather avoid that, though. Eyeballs bleed, and I don't have a change of clothes." She dug her nails into the thin skin behind his ears, holding on.

  "My eyes, you whore!"

  "If that makes you feel better." Kimmer applied a little more pressure. "Last night you stole the Etxea. Where is it?"

  "I don't know!"

  And dammit, that was true enough; she had no doubt, and no time to waste beating against thugboy ignorance. "Then who does know?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Tsk," Kimmer said, eyes narrowing. "Now you're just lying."

  Danele's voice came hesitant in her ear—far too close, as the girl crept up to view the thugboys and their car with a hesitant and shaky awe. "How do you know?"

  "I know," Kimmer told her, too distracted to be anything but grimly matter-of-fact. "And you should have stayed in the car." She tightened her hold on the wounded thug—I'm still paying attention to you. "But since you're here, keep an eye on the driver for me. Let me know if he moves."

  "Your head is bleeding."

  "Yeah, well, maybe that's why I keep my hair so short. Damned pesky scalp wounds."

  Danele was finally getting to know her well enough to recognize the dark, dry humor, and she laughed in a quiet exhalation. And then she said, "How do you know?"

  "Just watch the driver," Kimmer said shortly. "And you—" She pushed hard enough on one eye to feel it shift in the socket. Yuck. "Give me a name."

  "It doesn't matter." Brave thugboy, indeed. "We have it now—it means our success."

  She snorted. "You think Gandiaga's security isn't up to a batch of wannabe nationalist dilettantes?" For she'd had time now, to assess both of these thugboys. Demotion to punkboys. Both were as young as Larraitz, both well-dressed, both well-groomed. And neither was truly prepared for this encounter, in spite of the extravagant gesture with the car. "You think that your pretend Doña de Florez is interested in you, now that she has the Etxea stolen away? She'll get that thing to someone who can really do the job. Like the Basajaun."

  Oh, score! He flinched when she first mentioned Gandiaga; he scowled when she mentioned the Doña and the Basajaun.

  So. The Basajaun in the city with the Etxea. Simple as a game of Clue.

  Not that she knew where the Doña was, or if the Basajaun would attack as expected at the next day's Ascension activities. But Owen could follow through on those things—send up the warning flares, alarm the right people.

  All she had to do now was find Rio. She bent her face close to the wannabe and whispered, "So far you can still see. Want to keep it that way? Tell me what you did with the man from the house. The tall guy with the great ass. Blond hair. Tell me what happened at the house. Tell me where you took him. Why."

  He relaxed slightly. It wasn't, after all, as though she could change the past with her knowledge. "He was too slow to suspect Larraitz—she had the cloroformo."

  Finally. The word for chloroform. Her world was complete. "Why not take me?" she demanded. "Why just Rio?"

  He rolled his eyes, trying to get a good look at her. "You broke Lander's arm, Sasoin's ribs. We didn't have enough of us to carry you both, and we already had him."

  A fight at the bottom of the stairs, the crack of bone, falling backward into the darkness... "Why take us at all?"

  "The Do—" He caught himself; she encouraged him—just a little pressure at the corner of his eye—a little thumbnail behind it. Involuntary tears trickled down his face. "We had the impression it was personal. We were told to take him to an alley. We did."

  "Where?" Kimmer asked, oh-so-sweetly. "Which alley?"

  He must have sensed his sudden danger; he blurted out words that meant nothing to Kimmer. But Danele said—still in that whisper—"I know where that is. It's bad, that part of town."

  Well, it wouldn't be a good one, would it? "Danele," Kimmer said evenly, fighting her impulse to grab the girl, dive for the car, and break all speed limits on the way to that particular alley, "take the knife from my waistband. Cut the seatbelt out of the car."

  Danele might still be frightened and shaky, but she didn't hesitate. Kimmer felt her light touch, and a moment later she returned with several lengths of seatbelt. "All right," Kimmer said to the punkboy, "you're going down." And if he wasn't sure what she meant by that, he didn't resist when she slowly torqued his head around. He twisted to follow that motion—going down, and saving not only his eye but his neck.

  "Tie his arms," Kimmer told Danele. "And don't you dare tell your grandfather about this."

  Danele mustered a grin. "You're afraid of him."
/>   "Don't you think I should be?" Kimmer retorted.

  Danele only grinned.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 18

  Kimmer spared a moment to kick her borrowed villa car into shape—literally, pulling crumped metal away from the back wheel—still trying to beat that inevitable moment when someone from the villa finally caught on that there was major drama happening just out of sight. Back in the car, she pointed meaningfully at Danele's seat belt, and then she located her cell phone. Time to call Owen back, to drop most of this in his lap.

  The phone didn't respond.

  "Oh, come on," Kimmer said in disbelief. "It was only a little accident. You're supposed to be nearly indestructible! Owen said—!"

  "Let me see," Danele said, taking the phone with the assertion of a teen. She pushed and prodded—and shrugged. "You shouldn't have thrown it when you grabbed the steering wheel."

  "I didn't throw—" Kimmer started, but gave up. She had the cell phone curse. She was lucky the thing had lasted this long.

  "So much for calling my grandfather." Danele gave the phone a wistful look.

  "So much for calling Owen," Kimmer said, more sour than wistful as she started the car. "But he's got enough information to run with. Gandiaga appears tomorrow for Ascension; bunches of people want to kill him. One bunch in particular has the Etxea to convince themselves they're right and strong and invincible. He'll get word to the local LEOs and pull in the crew from Monaco."

  "Oh, no," Danele said, more of a correction than an expression of dismay, although there was something of dismay in there too—she'd obviously gotten local law enforcement officers from the context. "Didn't you know? Gandiaga is having a big reception this evening, for those who have publicly supported his new policies."

  "No," Kimmer said, as if she could make it not so by saying it wasn't so. "No, no, no."

  Danele nodded solemnly. A bruise had shown up on her cheek, nearly hidden in the shadow of her wild, dark hair. "In the Jardine, outside the Nationalist Party headquarters."

  This evening. Kimmer glanced at her watch. Barely mid-day. "We've got time," she muttered. Time to find a phone that worked, even if it wasn't secure. Time to warn Gandiaga, even if it meant ending up in the hands of the Guardia or Ertzaintza. And time to head for the drop location she'd just wrangled out of her squeamish captive punkboy.