Stalemate

by Iris Johansen

  “Bullshit.”

  “But I did.”

  “And I didn’t anticipate sitting here having breakfast with a man who goes around wearing a ridiculous pistol as if he were some Old West gunslinger. It’s a little over-the-top, Montalvo.”

  He laughed as he glanced down at his holster. “But necessary on occasion. I’ve been a soldier too long. I’ve learned you can’t count on being safe just because you’re on home ground.”

  “My job,” she prompted. “The reconstruction.”

  He nodded and turned to Soldono. “Would you excuse us? I think you’ll find the terrace very comfortable this morning. I’ll have your breakfast served there.”

  “Eve?” Soldono asked.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said.

  Soldono shrugged, stood up, and strode out the French doors.

  Montalvo nodded at a servant, who hurried after Soldono.

  “Soldono will be tempted to eavesdrop but he’ll get such excellent and hovering service it would prove too awkward.” He lifted his coffee to his lips. “It will be frustrating for him.”

  “Where is the skull? Where am I to work?”

  “I have a studio set up for you in the library.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Finish your breakfast. You’ve barely started your bagel.”

  “I don’t want the bagel. I want to see the skull.”

  “The bagel is your better bet.”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  “The skull isn’t here at the compound.”

  “Where the hell is it?”

  “It’s not been unearthed yet. It’s buried about ninety miles north of here in a small cemetery.”

  She said through her teeth, “I don’t rob graves, Montalvo.”

  “You won’t have to rob this grave. I’ll do it. I just couldn’t do it until you were here and ready to do the job. You’ll have to work faster than you’ve had to at any time in your career.”

  “And I don’t act as an accomplice to grave robbing. Go get someone else.”

  “I’ve got you.”

  She met his gaze. “No, you do not. You played me like a violin to get me here, but I won’t be manipulated by you to do anything that’s against my conscience. Violating a grave is high up on the list.”

  “Because you think of a proper burial as bringing someone home. That’s what you’ve been working toward since your daughter died.” His lips tightened. “I assure you that the person in that grave has not been brought there by loving, caring hands. It’s not home, Eve.”

  “So you say.”

  “It’s the truth. Look at me.” His voice vibrated with the force of his words. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  She had to believe him. “Or what you believe as truth. If you were sure, you wouldn’t have brought me down here to verify. And why couldn’t you get someone to do DNA?”

  “I have someone lined up to do DNA, but I have to have some sort of proof before he’ll run the risk.”

  “Why?”

  “Because any scientist who touched that skull would end up murdered in a most unpleasant fashion.”

  “By whom?”

  “Ramon Diaz. You may have heard of him.”

  “I’ve seen photos in newspapers. Drugs.”

  “Yes. Drugs and vice and murder.”

  “Then you have a good deal in common.”

  “You may think so. I told Miguel that you’d never met Satan. If you’d ever run across Diaz, I wouldn’t be able to say that. I have my moments, but Diaz is the master. He’s set himself up in a castle and thinks he’s a king and has a license to do anything he wants to do.”

  “And if a DNA expert’s life would be on the line for examining the DNA, what about mine?”

  He nodded. “It would be the same. Forensic sculpting isn’t accepted in a court of law, but you know about the skull and that would be enough.”

  She stared at him incredulously. “You admit you brought me down here to risk my neck for your reconstruction?”

  “Yes.”

  “You bastard.”

  “Yes, but not Satan. Remember the difference.” He took another sip of coffee. “And, if I’d had time to work at it, I could have been completely honest with you and you would have still come. If the price is high enough, the risk is worth it. But I didn’t have the time once I put the plan in motion. I had to strike while I had the opportunity. I took the chance that you’d cooperate once you were here.”

  “You’re out of luck, Montalvo.”

  “We’ll see. The only reason you came was because I offered you Bonnie. That reason still exists. You didn’t know what you’d find here. Everyone was warning you what a bad man I was. Still you came.”

  “I won’t become the criminal you are. I made something decent of my life after Bonnie was taken from me. I won’t be dragged down again.”

  “What if I promise that you’ll not be doing anything dishonorable? Your reputation and moral principles will remain pure as the driven snow.” He grimaced. “The only thing that you’ll be risking is your life. Sorry about that.”

  “Only my life? Well, then of course I’ll ignore everything else and jump right on the bandwagon.”

  “You might if I’d caught you during those years after Bonnie’s death. Not now.”

  She gazed at him, anger flaring through her. “You think you know me so well. You can’t learn about someone from a dossier. You don’t have any idea who I am.”

  “The dossier was only a start. I thought about you. I ran scenarios in my mind about you. Sometimes I even dreamed about you.”

  She felt a ripple of shock. “You’re psychotic.”

  He shook his head. “When I first started to look for someone like you, I was very coolly analytical. Then when I stumbled over you and started probing, all that vanished. I knew you were meant to come here and do this reconstruction.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I looked at you and saw myself.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “You’ve had enough to digest at one time. And I don’t mean your breakfast. We’ll talk later.”

  “You haven’t told me anything that would make me want to continue this discussion.”

  “I had to break the ice. It’s not the time for details.”

  “I want you to drive me back to that landing strip. I’ll have Soldono arrange a flight out.”

  He headed for the door. “I believe you’ll change your mind.”

  “You’ll be wrong.”

  “You know, I never thought you’d take money for the reconstruction.” He stopped at the door. “It was just an opening play. I knew from the beginning what would make you work with me. That gave me time to try to find something that would make you want to stay after you got down here. I had Miguel put a report on the desk in your bedroom. You might look at it before you make a decision.”

  “Report?”

  But he’d already left the room.

  She stared after him, filled with frustration and bewilderment. Jesus, what kind of man was he? Deadly, threatening, and yet the threats had been so matter-of-fact that she had not felt fear. There had been a sort of bizarre companionableness, an intimacy, about the way he had talked to her.

  I looked at you and saw myself.

  “Chat finished?” Soldono was standing in the doorway. “You don’t look too pleased.”

  “I’m not. He doesn’t even have the skull I’m supposed to reconstruct. He has to rob a grave to get it.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That I was going to ask you to arrange a flight out for me.” She stood up. “Will you do it?”

  “I’ll do my best.” He added, “But if he doesn’t want to let you go, it may be useless. It would take an army to get you out of here unless he gives the word.”

  “Just make the arrangements. I’ll deal with Montalvo.”

  Soldono nodded, frowning thoughtfully. “What grave is he going to rob?”

  “He didn�
��t tell me. What does it matter?”

  “Everything about Montalvo’s movements matters. They have repercussions all down the line. You might consider doing the job for him. It would make your exit easier.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “And your job easier too, I suppose.”

  “Infinitely easier.” He looked her in the eye. “I don’t care about disturbing the dead if it keeps you alive and on your way back home.”

  Her anger ebbed away. “I don’t have any right to judge you. This is my responsibility. I knew when I came down here that I was stepping into a spider’s web and I might have a hell of a time breaking out of it.”

  “A hell of a time,” he echoed. “So do whatever you have to do to get all of us away from here with our skins intact.”

  “I’ll think about it.” She headed for the door. “But don’t hold your breath.”

  Do whatever you have to do.

  Soldono’s words repeated in her mind as she climbed the steps to her room. Those words were easy to say, but she couldn’t go along with that philosophy. Not when it came to her work. Soldono and the CIA made deals all the time and a good many of them were with criminals like Montalvo.

  Even though she’d made a deal with Montalvo, she wasn’t sure that she could countenance his deception, much less—

  Miguel put a report on the desk in your bedroom.

  Her steps instinctively quickened as she reached the top of the staircase.

  A blue binder was lying on the desk.

  She moved slowly toward it.

  I knew from the beginning what would make you work with me.

  She flipped open the cover of the binder.

  Bonnie Duncan.

  A picture of Bonnie taken the year before she disappeared.

  A sheaf of papers over half an inch thick.

  Oh, my God.

  She sank down in the desk chair and started to go through the pages.

  “They’ll know we’re coming.” Galen looked down at the jungle below. “We can’t get anywhere near that compound without Montalvo knowing that he has visitors.”

  “All we have to do is get somewhere near Montalvo’s place, and be dropped off. Then we disappear into the jungle.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Galen asked. “My, my, and I thought you had something complicated in mind. Venable said that jungle is very well-patrolled and we might have to dispose of a few sentries.”

  “You don’t have to go with me.”

  “Yes, I do. This has nothing to do with you. I have a job to do. I was hired to find out about Montalvo. This is as good a way as any. And besides, I happen to have a fondness for Eve. I just thought I’d bring up the difficulties because I have no intention of wasting my efforts without a plan of action. Are we to storm the Bastille? Or perhaps try guerilla warfare? We brought enough firepower for a minor war but it would be a little absurd since there are only two of us.”

  “We get close. We look for a weakness.” Joe smiled grimly. “And I call Eve on my cell phone and get her to come out and play our game instead of his.”

  “Now that makes much more sense than storming the Bastille.” Galen sighed. “If a good deal less interesting.”

  “We may have to go back to one of your scenarios if Eve doesn’t answer my call. She warned me that she might not.”

  “I think she will. Eve is a worrier. She’ll be concerned that you’re in dire straits and need her help.”

  “I am in dire straits.” And Joe needed to know if she was well and not over her head in trouble. He’d been scared shitless since he’d left Atlanta after Galen had told him about Montalvo’s connection with Diaz. It wasn’t enough that Eve was dealing with one scumbag. An even greater one was hovering on the horizon. “And I’m not sure you’re right. She keeps her word and she said that she wouldn’t answer the initial call.”

  “I’m right. I may not know her as well as you do but I can stand back and observe with a more impersonal eye. You’re not thinking as clearly as you might at the moment.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said sarcastically. “Of course, you’d be perfectly calm and rational if the same thing were happening in your personal life.”

  “No. I’d be as scared as you are. But it’s not Elena and Elspeth so I can preach to you. And be here to strike a note of reason when you go off course. Providing you listen to me.”

  Joe was silent a moment. “I’ll listen to you. I don’t promise I’ll pay any attention, but I’ll listen.” He looked down at the vast stretch of jungle below him. Venable had warned him that Montalvo’s men knew that territory like the backs of their hands, but that didn’t worry him. When he was a SEAL, he’d lived in jungles for months and played hit-and-run and still managed to survive. That was years ago, but it would come back to him. Getting Eve out was going to be the hard part. She was strong, and her determination and endurance could be incredible, but she had no training. Galen had been a mercenary at one time and would be able to help. “Thank you,” he said haltingly. “I know I’ve been on edge with you, but you’re being a good friend to Eve. I appreciate it.”

  “On edge? I hardly noticed. Of course, I’ve been bleeding from a hundred little cuts and I might be too faint to feel them anymore.” He smiled slightly. “And I don’t expect it to stop. You’re hurting and you’re a man who instinctively hits out when hurt. I happen to be the closest target. I’ll magnanimously forgive you in the name of Eve.”

  “I don’t believe ‘magnanimous’ is the word I’d use about your acceptance of my apology,” Joe said dryly. “But I’ll try not to use you as a punching bag.”

  “In the name of Eve?”

  He looked back down at the jungle below. “In the name of Eve.”

  It was midafternoon when Eve finished the report and sat back in her chair. Stop crying. Stop shaking. You have to go down to see Montalvo and you can’t let him see this weakness.

  Screw it. Give herself a little time. Accept the pain now while she was alone. Let the tears come. She closed her eyes and the tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Bonnie.

  Fifteen minutes later she got up, went into the bathroom, and washed her face with cold water. Her eyes were still a little puffy but she couldn’t help that. She patted her face dry, grabbed the report, and strode out of the bedroom.

  She almost ran into Miguel, who was leaning against the wall across the hall.

  He straightened quickly. “You’re ready to see him?”

  “What were you doing camped on my doorstep?”

  “He told me to stay here and bring you to him. He didn’t want you to have to search for him. Are you ready?”

  “Oh, yes.” She went past him toward the stairs. “Where is he?”

  “The library.” Miguel caught up with her. “I’ll show you. It’s in the south wing downstairs.” He went ahead of her down the staircase. “It upset you. I’m sorry. I asked him if it was necessary.”

  “You know what was in the report?”

  “Yes, he talks to me sometimes. Not often. Not about things that are close to him. But he needed to talk to someone this time.” He turned right at the bottom of the staircase. “It was my privilege.”

  “If you can call it that.”

  “I can.” He opened a door on the left and smiled gently. “To share anything with the Colonel is a privilege.” He stepped aside. “If I can help you, call me. That would also be a privilege.”

  “Come in, Eve,” Montalvo called from across the library. “Miguel, see that we aren’t disturbed.”

  “By all means,” Eve said as she went into the room and strode toward the desk. She slammed the binder down on the desk in front of Montalvo and dropped into the visitor’s chair. “We definitely have a few things to discuss.”

  “Coffee?” He poured steaming black liquid into a cup from a carafe on the desk. “You look as if you can use it.”

  “Not now.”

  He set the cup of coffee in front of her. “Because your hand would shake i
f you took the cup? I wouldn’t regard that as a sign of weakness. Not in you.”

  “Not now,” she repeated. She moistened her lips. “That was quite a report. Did it need to be that thorough? It started from the time Bonnie disappeared in that park and went into detail about every aspect of the investigation. Every sexual offender, every child molester the police interviewed, every word taken or written about the investigation. Every graphic description of the other little girls’ bodies they found that they thought might be Bonnie. You did a complete background on Ralph Andrew Fraser, the man who was executed for the murders of those other children and assumed to have killed Bonnie.”

  “He didn’t kill her,” Montalvo said. “I think you thought that all along. That’s why when another suspect appeared some years later, you were ready to believe he did it. Only her body wasn’t where he told you it was going to be. That must have been a heartbreaker for you.”

  “Yes.” She blinked back the tears. “A heartbreaker.”

  “But it didn’t stop you. You never gave up hope.”

  “You talk as if it were some kind of virtue. Hope never gave me up. I couldn’t do anything about it. Why did you go into such detail? It wasn’t necessary.”

  “And it brought everything back and hurt you. I considered editing the report before I gave it to you but I couldn’t do it. You had to know what I’d found out about the case. How deeply I’d probed to get answers.”

  “I’d have been satisfied with Section Three.” She flipped open the report to the place she’d tabbed. “Where your investigators started to try to find Bonnie’s murderer.”

  “They were amazing, weren’t they? They were highly motivated. I offered them the million dollars you refused to dig deep and fast. They didn’t manage to isolate a single suspect, but they narrowed it down to three.”

  She glanced at the three names on the list. “How? You said something about leaks from prison inmates?”

  “They interviewed prisoners who were in jail at the same time and facility as Fraser. No one knows what’s going on in the underbelly like prisoners do. They talk a lot and most of them have no use for child molesters. There was a lot of talk on the prison grapevine about Bonnie’s case. More speculation. Some actually claimed to have known the killer well enough for him to brag about it to them.”