The Fifth Kingdom (2 page)

The sinfully smooth and creamy olive tone of her complexion paled for the briefest of moments before she regained her prickly composure.

“Color me confused, but since when does the CIA investigate abductions?”

He reached into his jacket pocket for his business card and extracted not only his card, but one for the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York bureau. Leaning forward, he placed them both in the center of her black leather desk blotter and explained.

“The CIA and FBI received approval to work jointly on cases that might involve domestic terrorism—”

“You think my mother is a terrorist?” she shot back and with one graceful swoop of her hand, picked up the two cards and examined them carefully.

“Actually, we’re not sure of anything except that your father reported your mother as missing.”

“My father?” Deanna asked, slightly confused by the agent’s revelation. “My father hasn’t spoken to my mother—”

“Since she disappeared a little over a week ago. You may want to discuss that with him, but suffice it to say that after your father called the embassy in Mexico City with his concerns, investigations revealed that it’s likely your mother was abducted,” Special Agent Santana advised in a calm tone that she supposed he had practiced over and over again in order to perfect it.

Deanna, however, was feeling anything but calm. Annoyed, angry and yes, even concerned, but not calm. “And you’re making the leap from a possible abduction to domestic terrorism how?”

“Shortly after the message your mother left you and the subsequent calls to your father, we began to pick up lots of chatter as well as unusual activity with a fringe group we’ve been monitoring for several months,” he advised, but suddenly stopped short. “Frankly, Dr. Vasquez, unless you’re willing to participate in the investigation, I’m not authorized to provide you any more information.”

Participate?
she thought, wondering just what would be expected of her for a moment before common sense jumped in and reminded her of the futility of participating in anything involving Miranda. She set the business cards on the leather blotter once again and leaned back in her chair. Facing him directly, she said, “Unfortunately there’s too much to do before school ends tomorrow and the final grades are posted later in the week. Plus, I’m not sure that there’s much I can do to help given that Miranda and I have barely spoken to each other in nearly fourteen years.”

His lips tightened with displeasure once again. “Your help might be what we need—”

“I’m sure that with the combined resources of the FBI and CIA, there’s little help I can provide. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” She stood, picked up the cards to return to him and motioned to the door, just in case he hadn’t understood her answer.

His gaze flitted to the business cards for barely a moment before settling firmly on her face. “Cold, Dr. Vasquez, but then I expected as much from a woman who has decided to bury herself in a tomb filled with books.”

He gestured to the cards in her hand. “Keep them in case you decide to return to the land of the living.”

Shock filled her at his audacity, so powerfully that all she could do was sputter an impotent complaint beneath her breath before he sauntered out the door. With anger making her blood pressure ride high and her hands shake, she clutched the two business cards, nearly mangling them as she held them over her garbage can. But then guilt slowly blossomed, taking root in her conscience and refusing to withdraw.

She slipped the crumpled cards into the side pocket of her briefcase and then dialed her father. When he answered, she said, “We need to talk.”

Bill Santana plopped into the chair before the FBI assistant director in charge’s desk, frustration pervading every tired bone in his body as he considered how his meeting with Dr. Vasquez had gone down.

“I gather it didn’t go well,” ADIC Williams said. He laid down the papers he had been reading and removed his eyeglasses. Williams was barely a decade older than Bill’s thirty-two years of age, but he didn’t wear his years well and the reading glasses just added to the perception that he was much older.

“The CIA should think about recruiting her. She’s damn difficult.”

Williams brought one arm of his reading glasses to his mouth, teethed it thoughtfully before he said, “What was her response to her mother’s abduction?”

“Dr. Vasquez barely flinched, but there was some emotion. Whether it was relief or concern—”

“Relief?” the ADIC immediately challenged.

Bill nodded, laced his hands together and rested his elbows on his thighs. Leaning forward, he said, “The good professor calls her mother Miranda and has had little contact with her in quite some time. I don’t think she was as upset about the possible abduction as she was about the fact that her father has apparently been in regular contact with her mother without telling her.”

Once again the FBI ADIC brought the reading glasses to his mouth and relaxed back into the padded comfort of the leather executive chair. “Interesting,” he murmured and swiveled back and forth, lost in thought.

Interesting?
Bill thought. He had found the professor’s attitude anything but interesting. Cold. Detached. Definitely angry despite the psychoanalysis that their file said she had undergone to deal with her mother’s abandonment. But then again, how was she supposed to react to that emotional loss? Add to that the apparent revelation that her father and mother were still in constant contact? He could well understand her upset and sense of betrayal. Once more, an unexpected and unsettling feeling rose up in him about possibly hurting her by forcing her to deal with those apparently unresolved feelings.

“I’d put money on the fact that she’ll confront her father to find out what’s been going on between him and the mother,” he tossed out for consideration by the ADIC.

Williams nodded. “So what
has
been happening between the parents?”

Bill didn’t need to check his notes for that answer. “According to the elder Dr. Vasquez, Miranda Adams left him and his daughter to go on a dig and never came back. Since then they’ve kept in touch, but he insists it’s been purely professional for the most part.”

“For the most part?” Williams interjected, shifting to face Bill once again.

“Over the years Dr. Adams apparently inquired about her daughter’s well-being and his own during the conversations. As best as I can determine, that was the extent of Adams’s maternal and spousal involvement until recently.”

ADIC Williams motioned to him with the reading glasses. “You said ‘until recently’. Has something changed in their relationship?”

“Dr. Adams phoned her daughter about two weeks ago. A short call that Dr. Vasquez apparently disregarded. I still need to find out if she has the message, although I suspect that she deleted it.” He paused for a breath and then continued with his report. “Dr. Adams also reached out to her husband, asking him and their daughter to come join her on her latest dig.”

Williams leaned back toward his desk, picked up a file and opened it. He shuffled through some of the papers therein and asked, “These calls were right around the time the chatter with Primera Mexica started?”

Bill nodded. “Yes, sir. This fringe group seems to have been closely following Dr. Adams. Their messages indicated a big event was coming up and that they would soon have something powerful in their possession.”

“A weapon?” the other man asked.

Bill shrugged. “Possibly. Given this group’s radical leanings and past acts of violence, it could definitely be about a weapon and a plan to use it.”

“The Mexican authorities are assisting, right?”

Once again he nodded. “We’ve got full cooperation. If we can manage to get at least one of the Vasquez family members to Mexico City, there’ll be an intelligence attaché at the embassy to assist us with the investigation and to liaise with the Mexicans.”

ADIC Williams snapped the file shut and tossed his glasses on its surface. “Get
her
there, Santana. Immediately, so we can find this Dr. Adams and squelch whatever it is that’s going on with Primera Mexica.”

Get
her
there?
he thought, drew in a long breath and held it. Releasing it in an exasperated sigh, he said, “That may not be an easy thing to do.”

The FBI assistant director expelled a harsh laugh. “You’re the frickin’ CIA. Don’t tell me this history professor is getting the better of you.”

Heat flooded Bill’s face, but he schooled his reaction to the interagency gibe. “No, sir. She isn’t. Whatever it takes, we’ll be on our way to Mexico City shortly.”

He’d get her to Mexico City no matter what since he was certain that not only did Dr. Adams’ life depend on it, but the lives of countless others. He’d even go so far as to hog-tie the younger Dr. Vasquez and toss her over his shoulder if he had to. When he recalled her slender but rather curvy body and luscious lips, it occurred to him that a little bondage might not be such a bad idea. And if she started to get mouthy, he knew just what to do to put that mouth to better use.

If not for her father’s assorted graduate assistants, secretary, his department head and her regular reminders about upcoming events and obligations, her
papi
would likely while away most of his days with his head buried in a newly discovered work about the people and histories of his native Mexico.

Of course, when one was as respected in his field as her father, some forgetfulness was generally overlooked or billed as the eccentricities of an absentminded professor. But she was not about to forgive any apparent amnesia about his recent contacts with Miranda, Deanna thought while she waited outside the restaurant located around the block from the East Side apartment building where they both resided.

She peered up the avenue in the direction he would most likely come from, but her father was nowhere in sight amongst the many pedestrians scurrying home after a day of work. Then again, her father had a late afternoon class and had likely gotten hung up with one of his students or another faculty member. Her
papi
was never one to turn away someone who wanted to chat about Mexican history, which sometimes resulted in his tardiness.

She had been running a little late as well. After the troubling visit from the CIA agent, she had gone home to listen to her mother’s—Miranda’s—message.

When she had first started listening to it she had been tempted to erase it, but there had been something in Miranda’s tone that had finally snared her attention. Now as she waited for her father, watching the snarl of weekday traffic crawl uptown on Third Avenue, she replayed Miranda’s message in her brain.

“I’ve got wonderful news. I think I’ve found the tomb! I’d like you and your father to help me excavate and catalog the site. It would be very special to me if you were there, Deanna.”

She hadn’t heard the final sentences of the message the first time around. She had stopped right after the word “tomb”, disgusted that after so many years, Miranda appeared to still be on the same wild goose chase. A wild goose chase that had caused her a loss of standing in the archeological community not to mention a decline in the grants that had funded Miranda’s various expeditions. The combination of the two, as far as Deanna knew, had forced Miranda to become second fiddle on a number of digs.

Up until Miranda’s message, she had thought that was all Miranda was up to—working on other people’s projects. Now she knew differently, but even with that knowledge, she couldn’t wrap her brain around the idea that whatever Miranda had been researching had resulted in her abduction.

“Nickel for your thoughts,” her
papi
said and raised himself on tiptoe to kiss her cheek. She had inherited Miranda’s height and general coloring, making her several inches taller than her rather short and squat father.

“A nickel?” she said with a chuckle despite her anger at him, returned the kiss and slipped her arm through his.

He tenderly brushed the tip of his index finger just above her brows. “From the furrow along your forehead, I suspected that the thoughts were worth much, much more than a penny.”

She chuckled once again and shook her head. “I guess my message that I had something important to discuss didn’t give you a clue?”

“
Mi’ja
, you take everything too seriously,” he chided and guided her into the Italian restaurant where they regularly shared dinners or lazy Sunday brunches.

She kept her silence as they entered and the hostess quickly seated them at their usual table. Even before they took their seats, a waiter was bringing over a basket filled with aromatic garlic bread and a carafe brimming with the house red wine.

“Will it be the usual,
professore
?” the waiter asked her father while he poured glasses of wine for both of them.

“Actually I’m feeling daring tonight, Dino. How about the veal marsala?” her father said and Dino turned to her, pad and pencil in hand.

“And you,
bella professora
? Will you be daring tonight as well?” Dino asked and winked at her, ever the tease despite the fact that he had at least two decades on her and was happily married with several children.

“Never daring, Dino. In fact, I feel like I need something solid and unwavering. Something I can count on, you know.”

Dino shot his index finger up in the air. “The chicken parmigiana will never fail you,
bella
.”

The chicken parmigiana was just what she had in mind. After Dino had left with their orders, she picked up her glass and her father did the same. She offered up a toast, “To Miranda and her latest escapade.”

Her father’s hand shook, rattling the rim of his glass against hers. “I should have suspected you knew with all those comments about stability. The CIA agent—”

“You mean Special Agent Santana? He visited me this afternoon,” she said and took a sip of her wine before proceeding. “Seems that he believes Miranda was abducted and that her disappearance has something to do with a fringe group they’ve been watching for several months. But of course, you must know this already since I’m assuming you’ve spoken with him. Just like you’ve been speaking to Miranda.”

The flush of color that spread across his face nearly matched the deep hue of the wine, but not quite. He gulped down a goodly amount of the Chianti and shakily set the glass on the table. Hands braced against the white tablecloth, displaying the dull gold of the wedding band he still wore despite the divorce, he confessed his sins.

“Your mother and I have been in contact for some time.”

“How long?” she asked, wondering if it had been weeks or months or—

“Fourteen years,” he said.

Fourteen years
? she repeated, thinking that it had been fourteen years since Miranda had walked out on them.

“You’ve been in touch with her ever since she abandoned us?” Her words were clipped and a little louder than she had intended since a head or two in the restaurant turned her way. In softer tones, she asked, “Why,
papi
? After the way she hurt us.”

“Hurt
you
, Deanna,” he countered. “I always knew Miranda wouldn’t stay with me long. She was like one of those feral cats at our shore house, coming and going for food and some attention, but never really allowing you to get close.”

Deanna remembered those cats. She had discovered them as kittens beneath the back porch, mewling pitifully while they waited for their mother to return. Her
papi
had warned her not to touch them so as to not scare off their mother and she hadn’t.

She’d been thirteen at the time and her
mami
had just left for her latest expedition so she had understood the loneliness of the kittens. Their mother had returned later that night and even after the kittens were grown and gone, she had continued to visit their porch for food and an occasional human touch.

Unlike Miranda who had never come back.

“You’ve always shouldered the blame for her shortcomings,
papi
. Isn’t it time you acknowledged that Miranda—”

“Your mother,” he corrected and laid a hand over hers as she nervously picked at a snagged thread in the red-and-white checked fabric of the tablecloth.

She slid her hand away from his touch, too angry with him to accept his comfort. “Miranda. It takes more than giving birth to be a mother.”

Her father’s gentle brown eyes shimmered and with a slight incline of his head, he acknowledged the truth of her statement. “She’s always asked about you. Taken great pride in all that you’ve done and your many accomplishments.”

Accomplishments?
she thought and the CIA agent’s words immediately echoed through her brain.

I expected as much from a woman who’s decided to bury herself in a tomb filled with books. Keep the cards in case you decide to return to the land of the living.

Picking up her wineglass, she took a sip and then peered at her father over the rim. “Do you think you’re living a full life,
papi
?”

His eyes opened wide and his slightly bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows swung upward. With his roundish face, he reminded her of a barn owl, especially when he said, “Who-o-o? Me?”

She nodded and set down her glass as the waiter brought over heaping plates of greens drenched with a spice-filled house dressing. After the waiter left, her father said, “I love what I do. The research and books. The young minds thirsty for knowledge.”

The endless routine of class after class. Of one paper or exam after another until the summer break came and with it freedom.

Freedom.

Funny, but up until that moment it hadn’t occurred to her that she might have more of her mother within her than she cared to admit.

“Miranda left me a message about the two of us helping her excavate and catalog a site. ‘The tomb’ she said and I’m assuming it was that same old lunacy,” Deanna told him, her tone so harsh that she almost winced at the sound of it.

Her father did grimace and immediately admonished her. “If it is in fact Montezuma’s tomb, it would be an incredible find as you well know. Except for the tomb of Ahuizotl, no other Aztec ruler’s burial place has been discovered.”

“It’s unlikely,
papi
. The Spaniards obliterated all that they could.”

“And the rest was buried beneath the colonial buildings and structures the Spaniards erected. But what if she managed to find it?” he said excitedly, an unusual eagerness in his normally placid demeanor.

“What if she did? Could that be why she’s missing?” she asked.

Her father shrugged, forked up a bit of salad and chewed on it for a long time before answering. “Miranda was quite excited and not just about the tomb. Apparently your mother believed there was something at the site that would be an important find.”

“Important enough for someone to kidnap her?” she questioned and picked up her fork, but then reconsidered and pushed her salad aside, her appetite blunted by the discussion.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to speak to the CIA agent about it in-depth,” her father replied and finally snagged a piece of the garlic bread from the basket. Waving it in the air before her face, he said, “You probably know more than I do.”

“I’m in the dark as much as you are. Unless I agree to help him, the CIA agent refuses to provide me any more information.”

The scent wafting from the bread reawakened her hunger. She snared a piece of bread and bit into the oil-and-garlic-drenched goodness. Murmuring an appreciative sound, she then kept silent, considering their predicament.

She was certain the CIA agent would reveal little more to her father unless he agreed to cooperate, but maybe her
papi
would consent and help the agent. He clearly seemed to have more of an interest in finding out what had happened to Miranda than she did.

Maybe because he’d been communicating with his ex-wife behind her back!
she thought angrily, wondering how her father could have done such a thing. But then again, she had never really asked about her mother after her fifteenth birthday.

On her
quinceañera
day, she had truly become a woman in many ways, the most important of which was finally letting go of the hope that her mother might actually come home one day.

“You look sad,
mi’ja
,” her father said, but she was spared from answering by the arrival of their meals.

The teasing comments of the waiter when he served their dinners helped to lift her spirits and by the time they finished the delicious Italian food and shared some espressos, she had driven away the melancholy created by Miranda’s sudden intrusion in her life once again.

Arm in arm, she and her father walked out of the restaurant and strolled the short distance to their apartment building, the early Manhattan summer evening comfortably cool. In the elevator, her father gave her a quick buss on the cheek and got off on his floor, leaving her to continue upward.

At her door, she breathed a tired sigh and opened it. Bolting the double set of locks once she was in her apartment, she tossed her keys into a thick terra-cotta dish—a replica of an ancient ceremonial bowl she had picked up on one of her summer treks.

The mail she had collected from the mailbox in the lobby earned a spot beside the keys, unopened. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with anything tonight even though she had to start her review of the essay papers her students had turned in. She had to provide their final grades to the prep school by the end of next week

Later, she thought, placing her briefcase down against the leg of the foyer table. As she walked away, the overstuffed briefcase fell onto its side, spilling the contents of the one side pocket.

The two crumpled business cards fell out and gleamed bright white against the dark cherrywood of her foyer floor.

Damn
, she cursed beneath her breath, annoyed by the reminder of Special Agent Santana’s visit.

Keep the cards in case you decide to return to the land of the living.

Bending, she snatched up the cards from the floor and glared at them. Considered all that had happened that day. Repeated Miranda’s message in her brain and what little Santana had told her about lives being at stake. Then she made a decision she hoped she would not regret.

“I sure as hell know how to live,” she muttered beneath her breath.

Absolute determination in her every step, she walked to her telephone and dialed the annoying CIA agent.

After he answered, she said, “Special Agent Santana? I think I’ve got a message you should listen to.”

“Really?” he drawled, the low tones of his voice causing unexpected tension deep in her center.

“When would be a good time?” he asked.

“How about now?” she replied.