Smoke and Mirrors (13 page)

He paused in his conversation. “Are you not a chip worth bargaining for?”

I scoffed. “You do recall he divorced me. Yet, you must keep me to keep her, so in that, I am worth something to him.”

Juan snapped his fingers at the man nearest him. “Get Maria to make them dinner. Tell her to give some to the other woman too. I’ll not have her die on me before that foolish husband of hers finally agrees to my demands.”

I looked away after a brief, “Gracias.”

What other woman? Had someone else recently disappeared?
I mentally scanned through my conversation with Alasdair. Nothing there. Flipped through the daily newspaper. Nothing.

Wait…What was it Alberto had said a few days before to the head of his security? ‘I don’t want to be in Stephen’s shoes. Make certain of it.’

I crouched to Francesca’s level and whispered to Enrique, hoping my slurred speech was intelligible. “Is Stephen Jones still working for BP?”

“Mmmm.”

My mouth was killing me and I took a deep breath. “Have you heard anything about his wife disappearing?”

“No,” he whispered, “But he might not be talking about it for good reason.”

Stephen Jones was British. SIS was formed in part to help protect British interests and British Foreign Nationals, BFN’s, living abroad.
I closed my eyes. Lovely, just lovely. Another glitch in a quite imperfect situation.

Bradley Milton, wherever the hell you are, keep us in your prayers; we’re going to need them.

•   •   •

It was midnight in the Casbah section of Al Jazair. The narrow, twisted streets were dark under the shadow of the massive 16
th
century Ottoman fortress for which they were named. Moonlight strayed through cracks, filtering her cool luminescence over the ground like fissures through old pottery.

Brad studied the crooked shadows, finding routes through them in case he needed to disappear quickly. He was staying in the French section of the city under the pretense of dispersing the narcotics he had stored in the cave, but he was out here tonight in order to rendezvous with his Algerian SIS contact.

The web was nearly out to its furthest edges. SIS had half the dealers in Algeria, Italy and France under surveillance. And, if and when the last piece finally fell into place, and the spider was actually caught, the whole web could be pulled in, taking with it a multi-billion dollar drug trade that would take several years to rebuild.

Only several years
? That part bothered Brad. So much work, so many countless operatives and hours, for a relatively short-lived payoff.

A cat yowled. Brad shook his head, amused his contact’s signal was a tom in heat. And then, as if each road in his mind always led to the same point, he thought of her.

He shook his head, trying to banish her from it.

You all but tossed her to Sanchez and his wolves, what makes you think you can forget her now?

A figure moved into sight, passing Brad and ducking into a preordained alley. Checking to make certain no one was following them, Brad turned from his somber thoughts and entered too.

The other agent touched his forehead. “You look well.”

Brad extended his hand in the same gesture. “And you, how is your wife?”

“Expecting our fifth any day now.”

How the hell can you be both husband and hunter?
Brad wondered, while adding his congratulations and handing over a small slip of paper. Several seconds passed before his friend burnt the coded Intel in the briefest of fires.

“Anything else?” Brad asked.

“Not unless you’re planning a trip to coffee country.”

“Why, what’s happened?” His panic was back in force.

A second fire flared, this one at the end of a cigarette. “BFN’s wife kidnapped. EPIC wants her husband to pay his pipeline workers three times their current rate or they’ll kill her.”

Brad resisted the urge to take the offered cigarette. “Trying to quit.”

A choking cough sounded like muffled gunshots. “You can’t quit when you don’t smoke.” Then he vanished.

Brad made the sign of the cross and offered up a ‘Hail Mary’ for Alexandra’s continued safety.

•   •   •

Alberto was pacing his room with vengeance in mind. They had taken his beloved Francesca. Eight bloody bodyguards, a sniper and they had still managed to do it. Why hadn’t they waited for him?

It was all her fault.
A goddamned pair of shoes they couldn’t find in L.A.’s endless run of boutiques had kept them from getting to the hospital in time. Too bad the bitch was too prominent to have killed. Instead he’d had her precious possessions burnt and thrown her outside the hacienda’s gates with a cell phone as her fig leaf.

Raphael entered the room. “I’ve been on the phone to El President. He says he’ll talk to the U.S. about your request. But it comes at a very bad time. He doesn’t want to start giving in to terrorists now, or he’ll be plagued with…”

The glass Sanchez was holding flew from his hand and smashed at Raphael’s feet. “I don’t give a fuck whether or not he wants to deal with terrorists. I want my daughter back, and if it takes me breaking into the penitentiary myself to get Fernandez out, I’ll do it.” He pointed a finger at the head of his security. “And you’ll help me, understand?”

Raphael nodded. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something of the sort nor would it be the last. “Have you been contacted a second time?”

Sanchez shook his head. “Just the one call. Now get out so I can think.”

The door shut and Sanchez began to pace. He had to solve the problem before word got out. Before De Torres discovered Alex had been taken as well.
Bastards!
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. He was the one they wanted. If he had been taken, the President would have automatically freed Fernandez for fear of losing the next election. But now… now it was just a little girl, her bodyguard and a doctor. Not worth El President’s trouble.

What was it Juan had said?
‘I’ve got your daughter and ex-wife.’
Why had Alexandra pretended to be Isabella? And why hadn’t Raul’s men waited for him to get there?

Then he remembered Isabella didn’t know. If she found out, she’d be in Bogotá with her entourage and the press in a matter of hours.

If
she found out, he’d lose partial custody of Francesca. That wasn’t about to happen. He had a few hours at the most to get Fernandez out of prison and make the switch.

I
t was close to nine when I remembered what one of Juan’s men had said before he barred the doors to the new wing.

‘
Where’s Sanchez? Raul said he’d be here. He said we’d be done with this by midnight.’

And the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Alberto was in on this. Not in on the kidnapping of his daughter. I knew him well enough to know he’d never intentionally put Francesca in harm’s way.

But himself? What did he have to gain by putting himself in harm’s way?
I turned over in the cot, fitting myself against Francesca’s sleeping figure. Glancing up at the chair beside the cot, I noted with some satisfaction that Enrique was sleeping. He had fought with me on that account until I reminded him that Francesca couldn’t afford to have an overtired, injured bodyguard attached to her.

But I dared not sleep. I was the third wheel, and if someone intended on separating me from the human tricycle to which I now belonged, I wanted to know it.

What did he have to gain?
I forced myself to find an answer. Alberto had wealth, the President’s friendship, admiration of Colombian society, and a beautiful daughter.

A chair scooted back and I overheard muffled voices. Their low tones obscured the conversation, but I did make out one clear word - ‘fields’. We had flown over fields, but they were too small to be the huge expanses SIS were looking for. And that’s when the thoughts I’d had back at the Cagliari mansion’s dinner party resurfaced.

What if the fields in question weren’t found because the one group no one would ever suspect was protecting them?
The group that publicly denounced all Sanchez stood for. The group that had gone and done the worst thing possible and kidnapped the only child of El Tigrè.

I played with Francesca’s errant strands of hair to calm myself. If Sanchez had been involved with his own plotted kidnapping, then he obviously wanted Fernandez released for a reason.

Francesca moved in her sleep, waking Enrique from his restless slumber. His eyes snapped open, but he refrained from jostling her. He noticed my wakefulness and murmured. “You should be sleeping for the same reasons you told me.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the decreased number of men, busy playing cards or talking in small groups. Juan had left us alone nearly two hours prior, after making certain we had eaten and were grateful for it. No one appeared to be looking in our direction, so I propped myself up on an elbow and pretended to check on Francesca.

“Close your eyes.”

In between murmurs of maternal affection, I whispered, “What if Alberto is in on it? Thought he’d be taken and do a deal to get Fernandez out yet still appear to be his enemy. What could he gain?”

“Nothing. He hates Raul.”

I trusted Enrique to a point, but not with my identity and motivations. Still, I risked alerting him to my true purpose and pushed on. “Maybe it’s a front, at least for those in the highest echelon. If Raul and Alberto are silent partners, then they’d have both sides of the game covered. Hiding anything would be possible.” I paused, then said, “You know I’m aware of my employer’s other dealings?”

His mouth formed a soft smile. “You forget I know your boyfriend.”

A small pang of regret curled inside me. Boyfriend? Brad had made it quite clear that wasn’t the case. Yet, I had not forgotten his other words of advice. ‘
Bastards to a man, Ms. Brothers. Except for Enrique, he’d help you in a tight spot, I’m almost certain of it.’

I kissed Francesca’s cheek. “Well then, you’ll know that no matter how careful they are, some things need to be hidden quite cleverly from prying eyes. Giovanni said this was a hotbed of corruption. I don’t know, maybe it is mines, fields, or oil; it’s anyone’s guess, but Raul’s got something more to do with Alberto than either of us knows. If they planned on the President freeing Raul in exchange for Alberto, what would happen if they didn’t have the same bargaining tool?”

His brows creased. “But she’s a little girl, surely the President would –” Then he thought the better of finishing his naïve statement.

The President wouldn’t necessarily do the same thing for a child as he would the child’s father. If I knew that, Alberto must as well.
What would
he
be thinking?

Enrique whispered through a soft snore. “Francesca’s tooth – he’ll think she’s still traceable.”

“He’ll have found mine and assumed hers was taken as well. No, we’re on our own and I’ve only got a few days’ supply of insulin.”

His jaw grew tight. “What do you want me to do?”

I had thought about it for several hours. If Enrique became ill, if Francesca’s condition worsened, could they somehow create a distraction big enough for me to risk calling Brad? If I got a hold of him, if someone could get here within the next twelve hours, could we kill two birds with one stone? Francesca would be freed and SIS would have the wherewithal to examine the piles of papers and maps I had seen stored in the room at the back of the Quonset.

Unfortunately, that was a whole lot of ‘if’s’.

“Could you become believable ill?”

“Why?”

“If we can convince them you’re both near death’s door, I might just be able to make a phone call that could get us help.”

•   •   •

It took him fifteen minutes, and even
I
was afraid for him. Sweat poured from his skin and he tossed, agitated, murmuring nonsense. I had taken the opportunity before his performance to rouse Francesca and explain my plan. Understanding the importance of her actions, she had lain still awaiting my signal.

When I finally moved to Enrique’s side, I felt his pulse and placed the back of my hand against his fevered brow. “Fuck,” I swore, noting the turn of several heads.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“That goddamn bullet.” Reaching for fresh bandages and anything that looked useful, I made a lot of commotion – enough to induce two of them come over to see what I was doing. Enrique had slumped forward. Before I could catch him, he crashed to the floor, dragging Francesca with him.

I yelled, catching her as she ‘woke’ with a terrified yelp. Any men left in the room were surrounding us, looking at one another, unsure of what to do. I glanced at the man closest to me. “Don’t just stand there. Help me get him up.”

He lowered his weapon to the floor and wrestled Enrique onto the chair again. When it appeared as though he’d fall a second time, I ordered another man to drag a second cot next to Francesca’s. We got Enrique onto it and placed Francesca’s sobbing form beside him. I stood then, slapping away the hand of a soldier who had put out an arm to prevent me from moving back to my kit.

“If he dies,” I snarled, “You’ll be forced to carry him whenever you need to move her.”

He slapped my face and grunted, “I’ll just cut his hand off.”

“If you do that, Francesca will go into shock. If she dies, you’ll have nothing left to bargain with. I’m worth nothing to my ex-husband, you moron!”

His gaze fell on Francesca, who was doing her best to appear hysterical. A second soldier stepped forward and put a hand on his comrade’s outstretched arm.

“What harm’s she going to do, Stephan? Let her get her things and treat him. I’ll watch her while you fetch Juan.”

Stephan’s lip curled into a defiant snarl, but he shrugged off the other man’s hand and stormed out. I muttered a brief word of thanks, grasped my bag and began to rummage through the contents. A few of the soldiers drifted away and I continued to work on Enrique until no one was watching me. Seizing the brief moment, I added a touch of juice to the tip of her testing kit. Then, moving to test her blood, I mixed the two together and got a frightful reading.