Stalemate

by Iris Johansen

  “Are you sure you haven’t been told to keep an ailing man from being bored?”

  “Who would tell me? I take orders from Venable. I’m afraid he doesn’t think you of enough importance to waste my time.”

  “Ah, what a blow to my ego,” Miguel said. “And I was considering leaving the Colonel and going to Venable and asking for a job. Don’t you think I’d make a fine CIA agent?”

  “I think you’re pulling my leg. What do you want to eat?”

  “The Colonel is feeding me steaks to replenish my blood supply.” His smile faded. “I hear I must thank you for donating blood to me.”

  “It was nothing. I would have done it for anyone.”

  “But I was the one in need,” Miguel said. “I don’t like to be in need. It hurts my pride. I’ve never felt more helpless in my life than when I was being nailed to that cross.”

  “You don’t want to think about that, Miguel.”

  “But I do think about it. I can’t get it out of my head. The spikes being driven into my hands and all the time Diaz standing above me and gazing down at me and smiling. It was nothing to him. He acted as if he did this every day of his life. So casual. He even took a phone call while he watched them do that to me.”

  Soldono leaned back in the chair. “Oh?”

  “He probably thought I was in too much pain to pay any attention to what he was doing. He didn’t realize how every sound, every sight, was magnified, and recorded in my mind. With every pound of that hammer…”

  “I’m with Diaz. You must be remarkable, Miguel. I wouldn’t think you’d be able to concentrate on anything but what was happening to you.”

  “What a curious coincidence that you’d use that phrase.”

  “What phrase?”

  “You said, ‘I’m with Diaz.’ ” He smiled. “And you are with Diaz, Soldono. You were the one on the phone with the bastard that night.”

  Soldono stiffened warily. “You’re crazy.”

  “No, he used your name. Just once. He said, ‘Are you sure, Soldono?’ You must have been telling him about Eve going to Armandariz’s camp.”

  “Nonsense. You were delirious with pain.”

  “No. You’re his mole in this camp. How long have you been in his pay?”

  “You’re nuts. It was Destando who was in Diaz’s pay. For God’s sake, Montalvo shot the bastard.”

  “No, he wanted you to think he had shot him so that you wouldn’t realize we suspected you. Destando has been lying low all day on the Colonel’s orders. How long has Diaz had you in his pocket?”

  Soldono didn’t answer.

  “How long, Soldono?” Miguel asked softly.

  He was silent a moment and then shrugged. “Not long. He wouldn’t meet my price. It wasn’t until lately that he was desperate enough to make it worth my while.” Soldono’s gaze was cold. “And you’re a fool to confront me like this when you’re helpless in bed. You must know I have to kill you.”

  “To protect your interests with Diaz?”

  “Diaz will need me as long as I have contacts with the Agency. I have to maintain those contacts. When I leave the Agency, I’m going to go home and fake a terrific windfall on the stock market. None of this living in the jungle like an animal for me. I’ll have a grand horse farm in Kentucky and be respected.” His eyes narrowed. “So Montalvo knows?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then I think after I leave here, I’ll have to go and take care of him. The library, you said?”

  “That’s what I said.” Miguel watched him reach in his pocket and draw out a gun and point it at him. “You’d really shoot an unarmed man?”

  Soldono’s lips twisted. “I really would.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Miguel’s forefinger pressed the trigger of the sawed-off shotgun he was cradling beneath the sheet. The sheet was blown off Miguel by the force of the blast.

  And Soldono’s head was blown off his body.

  12:48 A.M.

  “Are you hiding from me?” Diaz asked mockingly as he peered at the dark pews. “You were very brave a few minutes ago, whore. Where is that courage now?”

  He began to go slowly down the aisle, shining the flashlight on either side. “Are you praying in my fine church? It won’t do you any good. You’ll be dead in a few minutes. Did you see the sky when the helicopter blew? Do you think when you join Quinn in the afterlife that he’ll forgive you for betraying him with another man? He tried to tell me that he didn’t believe me, but a man always believes a woman will fuck another man given the chance.” He stopped, frowning. “Come out, bitch. I’m getting impatient and you don’t want to—”

  “You’re not the only one who’s impatient.”

  Diaz froze. He whirled to stare at the man standing in the doorway. “Montalvo?”

  “Who else?” He melted to the side so he wasn’t silhouetted against the door. “Are you ready to die? You asked Eve if she was praying. It wouldn’t do you any good to pray. You’re so steeped in foulness that even Satan wouldn’t take you.”

  Diaz got off a shot as he dropped behind one of the pews.

  “Missed.”

  He could hear Montalvo moving to the left.

  He fired again.

  “Missed again. You’ve spent too much time in that castle counting drug money,” Montalvo said. “There’s an art to cat and mouse. I learned it in the army.” He paused. “So did Nalia.”

  Montalvo’s voice seemed lower and to the right, Diaz judged. Make him keep talking until he could zero in on him. “That whore was no challenge to me. I gathered her up and crushed her. Alive or dead she’s nothing. I have her head right here.”

  “You’re wrong.” It was Eve’s voice from far across the room. “Nalia may be dead, but she’s the one who trapped you tonight.”

  “I told you not to be in the church when I got here, Eve,” Montalvo said roughly. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  “I had to be sure,” Eve said. “I didn’t see you at the tomb. I wasn’t sure you’d made it.”

  “Tomb,” Diaz repeated.

  “Your mother’s tomb,” Montalvo said. “I made it here earlier this evening and jimmied the lock. I thought she wouldn’t mind if it meant you were disposed of like the garbage you are.”

  Diaz began cursing. That bitch mother was trying to destroy him even from beyond the grave. No, he mustn’t lose control. He was still master here. Soon his men would be pouring into the church and killing these vermin. He started crawling toward the door.

  The floor shook as an explosion rocked the earth!

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s your splendid castle, the center of your universe,” Montalvo said. “Or at least it was. That blast should have turned it into rubble. By the sound of the explosion, Galen and Quinn did a good job of planting that dynamite.”

  “I’ll build another one,” Diaz snarled. “I have money. I have men. You can’t—”

  “You have no men,” Eve said. “Armandariz was waiting to gather them up when they poured out of the castle. Another of his troops is setting the coca fields on fire now. You have nothing. They’ll bury you in a pauper’s grave.”

  “No!” he screamed. He began shooting at the corner where he’d heard her voice. “You’re lying. You’re lying.”

  “It’s time to end it,” Montalvo said. “Past time.”

  He was near the altar! Diaz turned and got off another shot. He didn’t wait to see if he’d gotten the bastard. He had to get out. He had to see if it was true. He had to see—

  His body collapsed on the floor as Montalvo jumped on top of him. He struggled to turn and lifted the gun. Montalvo knocked it aside. “No guns. I’m not going to shoot you. I’ve waited too long for this.” His hands closed around Diaz’s throat. “Is this how you were going to kill Eve, Diaz? You would have taken your time, wouldn’t you? You like the pain to be slow and deep.”

  “Yes.” Diaz glared up at him and began to curse. “I’ll get out of this.” He
tore at his hands. “I’m stronger and smarter than you, than anyone. I won’t let—”

  “The hell you are.” Montalvo’s hands tightened, slowly choking him. “You’re scum. Die, scum.”

  He was dead.

  Eve could see the limpness of Diaz’s body as she came across the church toward where Montalvo was still astride him.

  She picked up Diaz’s fallen flashlight and shone it down on his face. His eyes were wide open and staring up at her. Yes, dead. But Montalvo still wasn’t moving to get off him.

  She shone the light on Montalvo’s face and inhaled sharply. Blood lust. She had seen that expression on Joe’s face in the heat of battle and it still shocked and terrified her. “I believe you can get off him now,” she said quietly.

  He stared blindly at her and then shook his head as if to clear it. “Yes.” He slowly released Diaz’s throat. “It’s…done.” He got to his feet. “You should have gone out the back door as we agreed.”

  “I didn’t agree. You told me to do it. I decided that wasn’t what I wanted. I had to know for sure that Diaz didn’t get away. He’s hurt too many people.”

  “Yes, he has.” He was still staring down at Diaz. “He believed until the very end that he’d be the one to survive.”

  Her lips twisted. “Survive and prosper.”

  “I wanted him to know he was defeated and going to die. I’m not sure he did.”

  “Unless it’s a sudden death, I think everyone knows before the last breath.” She paused. “There was an explosion. I saw the light in the sky. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It scared the hell out of me. You promised me that Joe would be safe on that helicopter.”

  “He is safe. I set it up so that—”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” she said fiercely. “What was that explosion?”

  “I’ll find out.” He dialed the phone as he walked toward one of the arched windows. “It looks like something from that American movie Independence Day out there. Come and look.”

  She followed him to the window. The castle was engulfed in flames, and smoke wreathed the ruins and cast a dark haze over the village.

  Men running toward the castle.

  Screams.

  Shots.

  A machine gun mounted on a truck was driving down the street and spewing out bullets and death as Diaz’s men returned the fire.

  Montalvo had finally made a connection and was talking into the phone.

  She tensed, her gaze on his face. No expression, dammit.

  He listened for a moment and then said, “No, go back to the compound. We’ll meet you there.”

  “What’s happening?” she asked as he hung up the phone.

  “Quinn is alive and free and angry as hell. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

  Relief poured through her. “That’s what I wanted to know. It’s not that I didn’t trust you but—”

  “But you didn’t trust me.” He smiled faintly. “Not entirely. But at least there was some trust there or you would have been hysterical instead of mildly suspicious.”

  “Sometimes the best-laid plans go awry.”

  “Not usually. I’ve never believed in that saying.”

  “What about the explosion?”

  “The tower was too inaccessible to send a force in to bring down the sniper.”

  “You sent twenty men to meet Galen and take care of it. That wasn’t enough?”

  “There would have been casualties. It turns out that Galen has a horror of casualties. He camped out in the jungle outside the tower and checked out the missile launcher last night. He thought he could disable it. So he waited until the sniper left the battlements and went downstairs, presumably to piss and eat. Galen went into the tower, disabled the missile, and got out by the skin of his teeth.”

  “The explosion,” she repeated.

  “When the sniper fired the missile, it exploded as Galen intended. That was the tower blowing up.”

  “Thank God.” She turned to once again gaze out at the turmoil in the streets.

  “Independence Day?” Montalvo asked softly.

  She nodded. She and Montalvo had caused this to happen. They had planned and worked and executed the plan and now it was happening. The knowledge gave her a sense of bonding and closeness to him that she had never felt before toward anyone.

  She drew a deep breath and took a step away from him. “When can I get back to the compound?”

  “Don’t be impatient. We have a major conflict going on outside.” He handed her a gun and headed for the door. “And I should be out there with my men. Stay here. I’ll come back for you when it’s safe.”

  “What about Nekmon and the other men staked out in the forest?”

  “They should have been disposed of by now. I ordered them to be taken out as soon as the castle was blown.” He stopped at the door. “I mean it. Don’t leave here. There are bullets flying everywhere. I’m not going to lose you at this stage of the game.”

  “You can’t lose what you don’t—”

  He had already run out of the church. She watched him duck down and keep low as he ran through the streets toward the castle. It was true; there were shots and grenades going off constantly. He’d be lucky if he reached his men before he took a bullet. The thought sent a thrill of panic through her.

  “Keep safe,” she whispered. “For Christ’s sake, don’t die now, Montalvo.”

  Galen met Eve in the courtyard when she arrived back at the compound. “Okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay.” She jumped out of the jeep. “How is Joe?”

  “He had to have some stitches replaced and Diaz broke another rib but he’s as good as can be expected. Where’s Montalvo?”

  “Still at the village. He and Armandariz are doing a cleanup. He sent me here as soon as he thought it was safe.” She smiled grimly. “Some of Diaz’s men are holed up and shooting everyone they spot. The idiot will be lucky to get out with his skin intact.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re very concerned about Montalvo.”

  “What do you expect? He’s not a stranger, after all. We’ve been practically living in each other’s pockets ever since I got here.”

  “Yes, I can see how that would promote a certain intimacy. A relationship born under the sword, so to speak.”

  “We’re not intimate.” Yet those moments in the church had possessed a strong sense of intimacy she couldn’t deny. “It’s over. May I see Joe? He’s not under sedation?”

  “Are you kidding? After what he’s been through with these wounds, he’d have shot anyone who tried to drug him now. He’s on the veranda.”

  “But you’re the one who came to meet me.”

  “He was concerned about you. He wanted to go back to the cemetery and rescue you. He was relieved when I told him you were on the way back here.”

  She smiled bitterly. “Not relieved enough for him to want to see my face.” She wearily shook her head. “I didn’t expect anything else. I know how Joe thinks. I hurt his pride. It will take a while for him to forgive me.” She paused. “If he ever does.”

  Galen shrugged. “I can sympathize with him. I’d have problems with being a pawn instead of a player. It would chafe like hell.”

  “Then he’ll have to deal with it.” She started up the steps. But Joe wouldn’t have to deal with it unless that was his choice. He could turn his back and walk away. The thought sent a jolt of pain through her. Face it. She had done what she had decided had to be done and there might be terrible consequences. Confront them and try to work through them.

  Joe was standing by the balustrade on the veranda looking out at the jungle when Eve opened the French doors.

  “Shouldn’t you be sitting down?” she asked quietly. “Galen said you had to have your stitches redone.”

  “I don’t feel like sitting down.” He turned to face her. “It makes me feel weak and ineffectual. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”

  “You weren’t ineffectual. You
’re the one who laid those explosives. You took the beatings that bastard handed out and never flinched.” She paused. “You were a hero, Joe.”

  “Bullshit. I didn’t finish the job.” He stared her in the eye. “You did. You and Montalvo. I was useless after I was captured. Just a glorified punching bag.”

  “You weren’t useless. If you hadn’t set those explosions, Montalvo might not have been able to persuade Armandariz to stage the attack. Everything fell into place.”

  “What fell into place?”

  She frowned. “Didn’t Galen tell you?”

  “I want to hear it from you. I want to watch your face.”

  “Do you think I’d lie to you?”

  “No, that’s not why I want to do it. Tell me.”

  “When Diaz told me that you’d been captured, I knew I had to make a deal with him. But I couldn’t be sure he’d keep it, so I had to involve Montalvo. At first, he refused me and I thought I’d have to go it alone. But I went back and wore him down after I got the call from Galen. He knew there was a chance then. He already knew that Soldono was Diaz’s information source and was monitoring his calls. We needed to make sure that Soldono gave Diaz the right information. That was my job.”

  “Was it your job to meet him in that cemetery and risk your neck?”

  “Yes. It was the only way I could be sure of saving you. And it all had to go like clockwork if we were going to wipe Diaz out in one night. Armandariz setting off the explosion and the attack on the castle. Montalvo sending Galen to take care of the sniper in the tower after Galen told us what Diaz was planning. Galen had been monitoring what was going on at the castle with that fancy surveillance equipment you brought with you. Montalvo’s part was to take out Diaz so that he couldn’t call for more reinforcements. We couldn’t tip any part of the plan or the rest might not work.”

  His lip curled. “I can see the two of you huddled together conspiring.”

  “We did a lot of that,” she said. “We had to make sure Soldono didn’t tumble to what we were doing until the right moment.”

  “Cozy.”

  “Not at all.” Her lips tightened. “What the devil are you trying to say?”