Saint (16 page)

Perhaps she should have been frightened by
the arctic glint in his eye. Or the soft, steely quality of his voice as he came
toward her, backing her against the wall. “Lady, you’re a lot of things, but
convenient sure as hell isn’t one of them. I’ll take it as a compliment both
you and the men guarding you are still alive after Juarez’s latest attempt.”

Her chin went up. “You think I’m just some
fluff-headed Pollyanna that stumbled through an undercover operation involving
a man smart enough to outwit the U.S. government, along with some of its top
agents, and by some fluke came out of it alive.”

“Stumble is exactly what you did. What
amazes me is how you continue to pretend once you’ve done your duty in the
courtroom it’s all over. Look around you, Maria. Look at where you are. You’ve
gone from living life at your own pace to hiding out in an underground bunker
with an ex-soldier. One who’s spent the last six years trying to get away from
the very thing you’re running toward. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

Her gaze shifted away from him. She didn’t
need to see his face to know he was once again back to being angry and
disgusted. “Sometimes the right thing isn’t always the easy thing.”

“Sometimes the right thing is to let it go.”

“I can’t.”

“You won’t,” he corrected. “But when you
get to the other side of hell, you’ll wish you had.”

“I believe in the system.”

“Yeah well, sometimes Francis actually
believes he’s a preacher.”

* * * * *

“This is the place, cowboys. Strap on your
spurs.” Francis parked the stolen truck alongside a dumpster behind the
Crescent Arms Hotel, leaving the engine running. “Okay, Gabe, do your stuff.”

Gabriel exited the stolen Blazer and went
inside. To pass the time while he and Joan waited, Francis sang a ditty.

“There was a young girl from Nantucket

who went to the well with her bucket.

But the bucket got stucket, the water went plunket,

and so the poor young girl just said fuck it.”

“That’s the stupidest song I ever heard.”

“Watch your mouth, Joan. My father taught
me that song.”

“What’s taking so long?” Joan scowled,
checking his watch.

“Ah you know Gabe. He has to lay that Texas
hick crap on ’em before he springs into action. Speaking of hicks, here he
comes now with our guest of honor.”

Gabriel hefted the lumpy sack from his
shoulder into the back and climbed in. “Let’s go.”

An hour later they pulled off the road and
unloaded the sack, spilling their guest onto the ground.

Francis eyed the still form. “You didn’t
kill him, did you? He looks pretty stiff.”

“No, I didn’t kill him.” Gabriel nudged the
man’s ribs with the toe of his boot.

The hotel clerk’s eyes opened, focused,
nearly bugging out of his head when he realized he was tied hand and foot, like
a calf at branding time.

Francis leaned over, smiling as he attached
a pristine white collar around his neck. “We’re having a little roast and
thought you might like to join us. Three’s a crowd, you know. This makes
everything nice and even. I’m Father Francis, I’ll be conducting the ceremony.
This handsome piece beside me is Archangel Gabriel—you’ve met him already—and
last but not least, is the black tank. You can call him Joan of Arc. Now I know
what you’re thinking—why are we here? The God’s truth is we’ve come to help you
see the error of your sinful ways.”

“Amen.”

The clerk struggled wildly against his
bonds. “No need to fight us, brother, we’re here to save you.”

“Or send you to hell,” Gabriel corrected. “Depending
on how salvageable your soul is. Father Francis will hear your confession now.”

“And mind you don’t lie. I hate liars. Joan,
here, will help you remember the events I’m going to ask about as clearly as if
it were yesterday.” Francis gestured to the man’s arm. “Now, would you look at
that? Track marks. Joan, I believe our friend may know the candyman. Bad thing
about candy, it can make you sick if you eat too much of it. On your knees,
greaseball.”

Joan hauled the greaseball up by the scruff
of his neck and shoved him into the kneeling position.

“Let us pray. Uh, Joan, maybe you should
take the duct tape off his mouth.”

The ensuing rip brought a shriek from the
man’s lips. “Who the
fuck
are you?” he demanded nervously. “What do you want?”

“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.
We’re going to have a little chitchat about your boss, Juarez. And watch your
language, you’re in the presence of greatness.”

“You’re no priest,” the greaseball spat,
sweat forming on his nearly extinct upper lip.

Francis spread his hands helplessly. “I can’t
work with a man who has no respect for the collar. Maybe if you were touched by
an angel it might help drive out the demons, make you more susceptible to my
ministry. Help him, Gabe.”

A scream tore from the man’s throat as
Gabriel stepped forward. “I haven’t even touched you yet, you piece of shit.
You scream like a woman. Are you sure you have balls?” Once Gabe did touch him,
the clerk doubled over in pain, losing the contents of his stomach.

“Do I have your attention now?” Francis
asked placidly. “I really don’t have time to fool around. There are souls to
save and only one of me.”

“Fuck you,” the man wheezed.

“You got a sewer mouth.” Joan cuffed him on
the side of the head, knocking him sideways.

After Joan repositioned the greaseball,
Francis said, “Lucky for you, my sinning friend, there’s a sewage ditch just
behind these trees. I prefer clean water, but we’ll make do with what’s
available.”

Joan dragged the man kicking and cursing
toward the ditch, tossing him bodily into the polluted water.

“No more bubbles,” Gabriel observed blandly
after about twenty seconds. “Guy’s got no lung capacity. Probably from smoking
too much.”

“I don’t want him to drown, Joan, just see
the light.”

Joan moved down the bank, reaching beneath
the water to haul the sputtering, coughing man out.

“I’m sorry about that,” Francis apologized
when the clerk’s feet hit terra firma. “Joan tends to get carried away. Better
now?”

“I ain’t telling you motherfuckers nothin’,
so you might as well kill me now.”

“See, we think you will. We specialize in
interrogation techniques.”

The man snorted. “You can’t torture me any
worse than Juarez’s man.”

“Ya think?”

* * * * *

Harris stayed busy the rest of the morning
and into afternoon cleaning weapons and checking equipment. Since she didn’t
know the first thing about assault weapons, Maria sat cross-legged on her bunk
and watched. When he got tired of her staring at him he pitched her a deck of
cards and she played solitaire.

A radio would have helped break the
tension, but she realized there wouldn’t be much reception in the bunker so
didn’t bother to ask if there was one. She decided this must be what it was
like to spend days or weeks in a foxhole. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but
it would definitely wear on the nerves after a while. Like solitaire did after
about an hour.

Leaving the cards on her cot, she wandered
over to where he was sitting. “Need some help?”

“No.”

She ran her tongue around her teeth. “You
could show me how to put one of those together.”

“You don’t like guns, remember?”

“A person doesn’t have to like something to
learn how to do it.” Before he could refuse again, she filched a crate from
beneath the canvas cover in the corner and sat down beside him. Over the next
couple of hours he pointed out parts, explained their purpose, where and how
they fit, then showed her how to reassemble a deadly looking machine gun known
as a Mauser Luger.

“Is it loaded?” She turned the gun in her
hand, testing its weight.

He pushed the tip away from his stomach
with a blunt-tipped finger. “If it was, it wouldn’t be in your hand. Don’t
point a gun at someone unless you intend to kill them.”

“Have you killed many people? Sorry, stupid
question. So, you and Francis and Gabriel and Joan served together.”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Doing what? What types of missions were you
sent out on?”

“The kind where people die.”

Again with the death stuff. Couldn’t they
just have a normal conversation? “I give up.” She slapped the Luger down on the
box in front of her. “Is there a safe topic we can discuss?”

“What do you want from me, Maria?” he asked
in a resigned voice, taking a moment to work the kinks from his neck.

“Your promise that you won’t kill Juarez no
matter what Will’s orders were.”

He took the Luger and hung it back on the
wall. “I don’t take orders from Will or anybody else.”

“Fine, so Will didn’t exactly order Juarez
killed, but you said yourself he knew you’d do it anyway because you owed him.
It amounts to the same thing.”

“Where the hell did you get an idea like
that? I don’t owe Will shit. And I don’t kill people for money or favors.”

“When we were at the Crescent Arms in D.C.
you inferred that was the sole reason Will chose you. Who better to off Juarez
than someone who knows how he thinks?”

“I don’t have a clue how Benito Juarez
thinks, he’s a lunatic. My only job is to make sure you get out of this mess
alive. If Juarez interferes with that objective, he dies. Simple as that. If
you want to call it murder, knock yourself out. You can’t turn yourself in to
the DEA now even if you wanted to, because
if
, by some slim chance, Hocksteder’s on the up and up, somebody with
as much or more clout than him isn’t. That doesn’t leave many options.”

“What about the CIA or Secret Service? You
worked for both agencies.”

“They won’t take you—you hardly qualify as
a threat to national security. Christ, Will has a big mouth. My mother doesn’t
know as much about me as you do.”

Wonderful, he actually had a mother. And
here she was beginning to wonder if he’d been hatched in a Petrie dish in the
basement of the Pentagon. “There has to be something we can do to get around
Hocksteder.”

He lifted another gun from the rack and sat
down to strip it. “There is. You go with Joan. I’ll deliver you on time for the
trial.”

“That’s it? That’s the plan? Bury me in
Mississippi with Joan and forget about the whole thing until the trial date.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well maybe I don’t want to hole up with
Joan.” Absently, she passed him the parts while he oiled and reassembled the
gun. “And you don’t strike me as the kind of man who’ll simply forget someone
blew his house up.”

“You’d be surprised what I can forget. Too
bad you don’t like guns. While you were busy bitching, you handed me each piece
in the correct order.”

She had? “You don’t have to sound so
surprised. If Forrest Gump can learn, don’t you think I can?”

“It was a compliment, Maria.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

* * * * *

“I think it went well,” Francis mused on
the ride back.

Gabe sprawled along the backseat, chewing
on a weed. “Is the colonel going after Juarez, or what?”

“He says no, but—”

“I came to kill the candyman. That’s why
Saint sent for me.”

“Don’t get your Arc in a knot, Joan. My
guess is the colonel isn’t pissed enough yet.”

Gabe snorted. “How pissed do you have to
get after the Venezuelan Luftwaffe swoops down and blows up your shit?”

“The colonel’s not like us,” Frances said.
“He has more patience and a few more morals.”

“
We
have morals,” Joan objected. “He chose us over hundreds of other
guys for his squad.”

Gabe leaned over the seat and patted Joan’s
scarred cheek. “And I though he picked you ’cause you were so pretty.”

“Nah, Harris picked Joan because he’s
bigger than the freaking Empire State Building. On a lighter note, I wonder how
Angelface is gettin’ along without me.”

“That gal needs to get with the program.”
Gabe threw himself back against the seat. “It’s not that I don’t like her, but
hell, she’s not seeing the big picture.”

“Gabe, believe it or not, some people don’t
view the world the same way we do. Ain’t that right, Joan?”

“I just came to kill the candyman.”

Gabe pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “That
silly bitch is gonna end up getting one of us killed. Mark my words.”

“You gotta go sometime,” was Francis’
philosophy. “I’d rather go in a good dogfight than sitting in an old folks’
home somewhere, playing bingo and waitin’ for a diaper change. You didn’t have
to come, you know.”

Gabe shrugged. “He asked, I came. Same as
you and Joan. I owe him.”