Thief (6 page)

 

8

TWO DAYS LATER …

MONARCH CREPT OUT OF
the darkness, lying there with his eyes closed, becoming aware of things one by one. It was hot. He heard children laughing in the distance. There was a soft click, and a low beep every few seconds. He breathed in through his nose and smelled lavender and something more antiseptic. His right side ached. His face felt frozen. The last thing he recalled was snow, lots of snow, a storm, and cold and a tree coming at him.

Then he remembered. He'd been gut shot. He'd been bleeding. He'd called Mayday. He'd crashed.

Monarch forced his swollen eyes open and got them only to slits. But it was enough to see he was in a hospital bed. He was hitched up to IVs and monitors, and there were slat blinds open and fluttering in the hot breeze that carried the sound of those children laughing and playing.

His tongue felt thick.

Thirsty.

Water.

His head spun and he almost lost consciousness. He managed to turn away from the window, and saw an older woman with a long silver braid and a handsome, kindly face. She wore a lab coat, a stethoscope, and was scribbling on a clipboard. A small wooden crucifix hung on a chain around her neck.

“Sister?” he muttered weakly.

Sister Rachel looked up from her chart, and said in Spanish, “I was wondering when you'd come around, Robin.”

“Water?” he croaked.

“You may have ice chips,” she said in a no-nonsense voice, and left.

She soon returned with a paper cup and a spoon. She scooped out a few chips and put them to his lips.

After he'd had several scoopfuls, Monarch whispered, “Where am I? Clinic?”

Coming to his side, she said, “The new one at the refuge.”

He nodded, let his eyes roam around the room and over the modern equipment. Though Monarch had paid for it, he'd not yet seen this new clinic at the Hogar d'Espera, the Refuge of Hope, the orphanage Sister Rachel ran in the foothills outside Buenos Aires.

“Day is it?” he asked.

“Monday, December twenty-third.”

“How'd I get here?”

“Your friend Miss Barnett,” she replied, taking his pulse. “She brought you on a private jet with a full medevac team that operated on you in flight. They got the bullet out of you. I've been treating you for sepsis.”

He blinked, nodded, and licked his lips. “But I'm okay now?”

“Hardly,” she replied in a diffident voice he knew all too well.

His eyes drifted shut and he saw an image of himself as an eighteen-year-old struggling up the side of a steep hill with a knapsack full of rocks on his back while she berated him for some shortcoming in his character.

“Do you want more ice chips?” she asked, breaking the memory.

More ice chips sounded like heaven and he opened his eyes to slits again, seeing her still standing there with a cup and a spoon. “Please.”

After two more spoonfuls, he said, “Thank you.”

Sister Rachel set the cup on the table beside the hospital bed, said, “Miss Barnett tells me you were shot in the course of some kind of government-sanctioned mission. Is that true?”

It wasn't true, but he said, “That's right.”

She crossed her arms, clearly skeptical. “Then why didn't she take you to government-sanctioned doctors?”

Monarch smiled weakly and said, “Because she knew no one would take better care of me than you would.”

“I don't like being lied to, Robin, especially by you.”

“And I can't help it if Gloria wanted you to heal me. You've done it before, after all. Where is she? Gloria?”

“Out for a walk with Claudio.”

Monarch smiled. Claudio was his oldest and dearest friend. He hadn't seen him in months.

“How long until I'm good to go?” he asked.

Sister Rachel stared at him through her wire-rimmed glasses for several long moments, and even as groggy as he was he could tell she was conflicted on many different levels.

“How long?” he asked again.

Finally, she snapped, “I don't know, Robin. How long did it take you to recover the last time I saved your life?”

“Six months?” he said, and groaned softly.

“It won't be anywhere near that long,” she admitted. “But you're not out of danger from infection yet. Not by a long shot. That bullet perforated your small intestine in three places.”

He suddenly felt tired, knew he'd fall asleep in seconds, said, “Thanks.”

*   *   *

When Monarch awoke again, the air was cooler and filled with the voices of children singing. He listened, feeling the warmth of a dream realized.

He'd done terrible things as a U.S. Special Forces and CIA operative. Robbed men. Kidnapped them and held them for ransom. Killed them, too. But hearing the children's voices raised in song made him feel as if he were doing some good now, taking parentless children out of the slums and offering them a chance at a life he never had.

Doing that was worth being shot. Doing that was—

“Merry Christmas, my brother.”

Monarch knew the voice. He weakly rolled his head left; saw Claudio Fortunato coming through the door. His oldest friend was in his late thirties with a wild mop of curly dark hair and a barrel chest. Claudio wore white linen pants, a black polo shirt, and sandals. On his inner right forearm, he had the same tattoo as Monarch, the letters
FDL
with the suggestion of a pickpocket's hand coming off the top of the
D
.

“Bring me a present?” Monarch whispered.

Claudio grinned and gestured with his chin toward the door where Gloria Barnett was entering. Built like a long-legged shore bird, Barnett had cut her flaming-red hair short, wore a pretty blue dress, and carried an attaché case.

She came over on the other side of Monarch's bed, kissed him on the forehead, said, “I knew you'd make it.”

“Tell me,” Monarch said.

“How we got you out of there?”

“Last thing I remember was going off the road.”

“But not before you called Mayday,” she reminded him, pulling out a bottle of Malbec and two glasses.

“I don't think Sister will like that,” Monarch said.

“It's not for you,” she said.

After pouring wine for her and for Claudio, Barnett explained that as soon as she heard the distress call she'd ordered in the extraction team from their layup positions around Greenwich. They staged accidents on the road north and south of the crash site. The rest of the team went immediately to the thief's position based on the GPS transponder in the Rover.

“You were lucky that Range Rover has excellent airbags or you would have broken your neck,” Barnett said. “Tats and Chavez stabilized you, got you up the bank, and out of there in twenty-two minutes.”

“Range Rover?”

“Still there, buried under the snow in a place no one would look, which means you had your senses about you right to the end,” she replied. “We'll wait a month or so before sending a wrecker to get it.”

Monarch nodded, almost drowsed, before saying, “The bonds?”

Barnett reached in her case, came up with a thick manila envelope, said, “Awaiting your instructions.”

Monarch moved in bed, and groaned at the pain in his side before saying, “How much have you told Sister Rachel?”

“The minimum,” Barnett replied.

Looking to Claudio, he said, “When can you move the bonds?”

Before he'd become a painter, Claudio had been a fence. As his art career had flourished, Claudio had abandoned the trade except when Monarch needed to convert stolen items into cash.

“They're all high quality, so they'll be noticed if we try to move the lot whole,” Claudio said. “I say we wait two months before we start cashing them in, and then only in smaller amounts, say two hundred and fifty grand, slow, steady, and in different locations.”

Monarch saw the wisdom in that, looked to Barnett. “You okay with that?”

“More than fine,” she said. “The others, too.”

On a job like the Arsenaults, Monarch gave each of his support staff five percent of the take, which in this case meant a million dollars apiece. He would also take five percent, and the rest, roughly fourteen million, would go to Sister Rachel and the children.

“It's good,” he said softly. “If we gave her the lump sum, I think she'd balk.”

Claudio agreed: “She'll be less likely to question it if it comes trickling—”

They all heard the slap of shoes coming and quieted. Sister Rachel came in, saw them all, and smiled. “Like old times,” she said, then shooed them away from Monarch's bed while she worked.

After a few moments of silence, Barnett said, “Sister, now that you've got the clinic built, what's next?”

The question seemed to surprise her. “I don't know,” she said.

“What do you dream of doing?” Monarch said.

“Yeah,” Claudio said. “Wildest dreams.”

Sister Rachel thought about that for a few seconds, and then replied, “I suppose I would try to buy the land north of us, so we could expand.”

“What's it worth?” Barnett asked.

The missionary doctor said, “Millions I should imagine. It's a large piece.”

Then she finished up with Monarch, said, “How is the pain?”

“No narcotics.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “If you're spending your energy fighting pain, you're putting even more stress on your body. Rate it on a scale of one to ten.”

“Six,” he said.

“Seven then,” Sister Rachel said. “I'll be back after the evening service with some pills to help you sleep through the night.”

Monarch gazed past her, saw Barnett and Claudio smiling behind their hands. Sister Rachel was the only person in the world who bossed him around this way, and they were highly amused.

She said, “Well, Gloria, Claudio, dinner is at seven, you'll join us?”

“It would be an honor, Sister,” Barnett said.

“You know I never turn down a free meal,” Claudio said.

Sister Rachel took one more glance at Monarch, said, “I have other patients to see. Two poor kiddos with the stomach flu on Christmas Eve.”

After she left, Monarch looked at Claudio, said, “Are you going to make an honest woman out of Chavez tomorrow?”

For the last couple of years the artist had been in a torrid love affair with Chanel Chavez, another member of Monarch's team.

Claudio sobered at the question, said, “If she was here, I would, Robin. I swear to this on my soul, but Regina is not doing well. I talked to Chanel before I came over, and she was very down, said it might be Regina's last Christmas.”

Monarch felt horrible. Chanel's sister had two young children and had been fighting breast cancer for more than a year.

“You talk to Chanel, tell her we're praying for her and Regina,” he said.

Claudio nodded, looked at his watch, said, “Almost time for dinner.”

Barnett stood, said, “We'll come back to see if you're up later.”

Monarch tried to stay awake, but was asleep within minutes of their leaving.

*   *   *

When he awoke, the pain was terrible. He realized Sister Rachel was checking his bandages, and probing the wounded area.

“Infection?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“Yes, but you're winning,” she said, regarding him over the top of her glasses. “Here, I brought your medicine.”

As a rule, Monarch tried to avoid narcotics or drugs of any kind. But he was in no position to argue with Sister Rachel. He opened his mouth and swallowed the pills.

Monarch watched her before saying, “Thank you for saving me that first time.”

Sister Rachel tilted her head, looked at him quizzically, and then said, “You're welcome, Robin.”

“You changed my life,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that.”

The missionary doctor smiled, said, “In your way you've changed mine.”

He almost laughed to think how, but stopped himself, knowing the pain would be excruciating. Instead, he said, “What you said earlier, about the land?”

“Yes?”

“Merry Christmas, Sister,” he said. “I think you should start making plans.”

Her face fell, and she looked away.

“What's the matter?” he asked. “I thought you'd be happy.”

Sister Rachel seemed to have an argument with herself before saying, “All the money, Robin. It … well, it makes me wonder sometimes.”

“About?”

“Where it comes from,” she said, her head bowed.

“Given my background, you mean?”

“I hate to bring it up.”

Monarch felt his head grow fuzzy from the drugs, knew the less he revealed the better. But finally, he said, “This clinic? The money?”

She looked up at him, hands clasped, and he could see fear in her eyes, as if she did not want to know what was saving so many children from the streets and so many slum dwellers from disease and calamity. “Yes?”

“Remember last year when the U.S. Secretary of State and the foreign ministers of China and India were kidnapped by fanatics?” he asked.

A twitch of confusion passed through her face. “Yes, of course.”

“I led the rescue,” he said. “They paid me millions to save her.”

A great weight seemed to fall from her shoulders. “You did? They did?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling foggier as the drugs hit.

“Then why do you insist on anonymity with the donations?” she asked.

“Because anonymity is what I need to do my job well,” Monarch said. “Whatever you may suspect of me, Sister, I promise you that everything I do, I do for you, and for the greater good.”

The missionary doctor said nothing, just gazed at him. But the last thing Monarch saw before his eyes drifted shut and he fell deep into unconsciousness was a tear that rolled down her right cheek.