Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (17 page)

Joe wondered just what the
Spaniards were hoping the outcome would be, but suspected he knew.

Denton had been too easy for a
professional assassin. Even if Spanish Intelligence had been covering their
tails against
Carnova’s
men back at the warehouse,
there wasn’t much they could do about an idiot stretched out on a rock in the
middle of nowhere. Any sniper could have picked him off. Dumb-shit Denton had
been a fucking sitting duck.

Joe knew he should cut the man
some slack. It was sacrilegious to slight the dead. It was true Denton had been
a floater. Drifting here and there, never knowing which way was up. But Joe had
read the file; he knew Denton had had his reasons.

Besides, Joe’s life had once
lacked direction in much the same way. But he'd been lucky. He’d had friends in
high places and very quickly learned that, no matter what the politicians tell
you, in America nepotism isn't dead. In fact, having an uncle in the DOS had proved
extremely useful.

Joe never was one for
academics. He was street-wise with a penchant for contact sports: football,
wrestling,
hockey
– anything where he could kick
some deserving bastard's ass and get away with it. Hell, get praised for it. He
was perfect for the Agency, his old man said, but because his GPA wasn’t
perfect, he’d have to get in the back door. Marine Intelligence was a good
start. Do the ROTC thing. The recruiters were handing out scholarships left and
right. Uncle Tom would be glad to make a
well placed
call or two for his favorite nephew.

The only problem with ROTC
scholarships is then you owe them. He gave them the best two years of his life.

Nothing was ever the same after
Beirut.

There’d been this blonde, a
network correspondent from the West Coast doing a wire piece on the troops and
how they were getting along. Everyone told her she was going where there was no
story.

He still remembered the way her
big eyes fluttered under those uncanny lashes. He had wanted to take her to
bed, and was ashamed of those thoughts later.

He’d been tagged the PR man
from his unit, so he was awarded the honor of the interview. All the grunts
were jealous. 'Let me know if her tits are really as big as they look,' one had
joked, as Joe walked out the door.

Later, he regretted laughing at
the asinine comment. He’d still be mad at the guy who’d said it, but he’d died
in the blast with the others.

Joe had walked into the
cafeteria and seen her sitting there.
So cosmopolitan.
Obviously not Embassy staff or military.

She was sifting through a
wire-ring notebook, the scrawl barely discernible.

'You can read that thing?' he
asked, grabbing an empty chair and sitting down.

'It’s written in code,' she
said, without giving him a smile.

'Better be careful, Ma’am. Never
know when someone from Marine Intelligence might come along and try to crack
it.'

She turned to a blank page
without looking up and uncapped her pen. Man, she was tough.

'So,' she checked her watch,
'you must be Lieutenant McFadden, U.S. Marine Corps.'

'At your service.' He wished.
This babe was a
popsicle
.

She scribbled on her pad in
frustration. Her pen was dry. She reached across the table for a pencil,
upsetting her stale cup of coffee. Joe jumped to his feet as the cold
mocha-colored liquid sloshed toward him, spraying his pant leg.

She laughed. 'Oh, I’m so sorry.
Oh my goodness,' she said, reaching for the table dispenser and heaping napkins
on the mess. Joe caught the first glimpse of her eyes under those fluttering
dark lashes. They were aquamarine. He’d never seen that color.

He walked to the bar for some
paper towels and came back to help her.

She was still giggling. 'I
don’t know what’s gotten into me,' she said, catching her breath. 'Lost it, I
guess.'

She was really quite pretty, in
that fresh-faced California way. Joe judged her to be about his age.
A year or two older at most.

'Don’t worry about it,' he told
her. 'We all have our days.'

'Yes, well,' she said, sitting
back down, 'this one’s been a doozy.'

She was smiling now, but had
these little crinkles around her eyes that made her look tense. Joe knew what
could ease that tension.

'Can I get you something?' she
asked. 'It’s on me – a peace offering.'

What Joe wanted a piece of
wasn’t on the Embassy menu. He leaned forward just a bit. 'It’s so hard to talk
with all this distraction...'

'Yeah right,' she said,
purposely naive, 'we’ll just have to make the best of it.'

She took a fresh pen from her
purse and resumed her pose with the notebook. 'You sure you don’t want coffee?'

He shook his head, looking down
at the stain on uniform. 'Thanks, I’ve already had mine.'

'So, Lieutenant, what made you
join the Marines?'

Back to
business.
'I heard they were looking for a few good men.'

'Ha, ha,' she said, chilling
again.

All she needed was one fabulous
earth-shaking fuck. He could ask her – outright. No need for pretense.
They could go back to the ladies room at the motor pool. It was always vacant.
Lock the door and go to it like animals. Why not? They were both young and
healthy, both in need of the release. She’d board that plane for LA flying
high.

'Did you hear me, Lieutenant?'

'Sorry,' he said, still lost in
his fantasy.

She checked the clock on the
wall against her watch. 'Damn. My watch is slow. I’ll never get to my interview
with the attaché in time. Listen, I hate to ask you this –' Ask, ask, he
thought. Anything
.

'– but could we finish
this up later?'

'Any time you’d like.'

'Okay, fine,' she said, looking
preoccupied. 'I don’t mean to brush you off, but I’ve really got to go over
these notes before my meeting.'

'I understand,' Joe said,
pushing his chair back from the table. Maybe he should ask her. Just ten
minutes. It was a short walk. But she had already turned her attention to her
notebook.

'It was a pleasure,' he said,
wishing very much it had been more so for the two of them.

He left her sitting
there
feeling sorry for himself.

The next thing he remembered
was hitting the ground as shards of glass exploded from the long windows of the
cafeteria. A wave of heat flattened him to the pavement, and for a long moment
there was a terrifying silence.

Then the screams began.

Mark motioned to the rushing
waters beside them. 'This the Guadalquivir?'

'Looks like. Runs from the
ocean smack into the heart of Seville.'

Mark thought this over
remembering what he’d learned about this region while studying the drug trade.
The south was a gateway for incoming contraband from Latin America and
Southeast Asia. Shipments were smuggled either by boat or plane to North
Africa, then spirited across the narrow Strait of Gibraltar into southern
Spain. From there, it was a matter of simple logistics to transfer the dope
over the mainland and into central Europe. Basque cooperation in the stronghold
that divides Spain and France could be extremely useful.
So
useful that that cooperation could be worth a lot of money.
Money or artillery.
Possibly both.

If Colombia had the drugs and
Colombia had the
arms, where did that
leave Costa
Negra
? Right between one money-grubbing terrorist and some
of the most menacing warlords in the world. Not an enviable position for most,
but for Luis Vaquero, aka El
Dedo
, it was a dream
come true. He could secure arms for his rebellion against the Costa
Negran
government and cash to finance his operations. Plus,
he’d have earned a few friends in some very low places.
Quite
a perk for the very sort of man to sell out to the highest bidder.

Mark considered the size of the
sherry barrels, fine for packing with weapons or cocaine, but also suitable for
hiding a body – at least a slight female body pressed into contorted
form.

Along the far reaches of the
road, small teetering spots began to appear.
Some sort of
vehicles in motion, yet not traveling with the steady velocity of cars.

'Hey, McFadden, what do you
make of that?'
Mark watched McFadden study the oncoming scene.

'I’ll bet they’re wagons. Come
to think of it, must be around carnival time.'

Wagons. That made sense. And,
as they pulled closer, Mark could see that McFadden had been right. Spaniards
approached, dressed in traditional ruffled costumes and wide-brimmed hats. They
were driving horse-drawn wagons covered with fresh flowers and multi-colored
ribbons.

'Feria,' McFadden explained.
'Holy Week’s taken pretty seriously here, but this baby’s one hedonistic
blow-out
. Celebration of the grape harvest.'

Grapes for making sherry, Mark
thought, surveying the crowd passing them by. 'Looks like it's going to be one
heck of a party.'

'People come from all over.
Should be quite a show.'

Mark considered this a moment.
'Most certainly it's the type of thing where people go to see and be seen?'

'Most certainly.'

'Everybody who is somebody will
be there?'

'Everybody.'

'Even some of the
not-so-esteemed members of the LPP?'

'Most assuredly,' McFadden
said, seeming to read Mark's thoughts.

Mark sent McFadden downtown to
rent a car and walked to the public telephone facility to call Washington,
cursing himself a second time for losing his briefcase. Now he would be unable
to secure the line.

The young lady at the calling
station was very solicitous. He got through to the States in a record ten
minutes.

Thankfully, Jarvis was already
at the office
.

'Give me that location again.
Delgado Warehouse?'


'Right,' Mark said. 'Northeast
of Jerez, ten to twelve kilometers.'


'Are you sure about Denton,
sir? We could send a–'


'Positive. Body transport’s all
we need. And the Spanish authorities need to be officially alerted.'

'Officially?'

'Just do it.'


'Anything else?'


'Update Mr. Cromwell as soon as
he gets in. He deserves to know. Oh, and Jarvis, any luck with London?'


'I’ve got the list, sir. You
some place I can send it?'


Mark gritted his teeth. 'No,
dammit. Lost my gear.'


'You, sir?'


Mark could hear the implication
he was slipping. But he wasn’t slipping. He could still play ball with the best
of them and he was going to prove it. 'Give me your take on it. Anything stand
out?'

Jarvis was quiet a moment,
probably deciding whether or not to mention Mark’s family.

Mark blew a hard breath and
glanced around the calling station. There were people behind him waiting in
line. 'Look, I haven’t got all day.'

'Okay, there was one thing: a
group of 'undisclosed' passengers. Had to con Betty in file security to get the
names, and even then it took me a while –'

'Spill it,' Mark cut in.

'The Greek Princess, Juliana.'


'She was on the plane?'

'Traveling under an assumed
name for privacy purposes. And get this, Chief. I found an International Herald
Tribune paper trail that says she was going to get married. The details were
being negotiated between her family and that of the heir apparent of another
country.'

'Heir, as in heir to a throne?'

'Prince Luis
Roberto of Spain.
The rebel with a cause against the
Basque kingdom.
Under the parliamentary stipulations of the time, he
couldn’t have reigned a bachelor.'

Mark knew Luis Roberto, eldest
son of the reigning royal family, had never held the crown. So the plan had
worked; he’d never gotten control. He’d been passed over for the position of
king, which had been handed down to his younger brother. Surely, if they’d had
evidence, the monarchy would have taken action against
Carnova
and his men. But it appeared
Carnova
had been as
crafty in outwitting the Spanish as he had US Intelligence.

'You’re certain about this?'
Mark asked.

'Dead
certain, sir.
Carnova
had his motive.'

Neal had asked him to go
downtown and get a car. Only Joe didn't go downtown. As soon as Neal was out of
sight, he pulled the wrinkled leather address book from his rear jeans pocket.
He had scooped it off the damp ground beside Denton's body. It had been neatly
concealed beneath the blood-speckled Bible. He had retrieved it inconspicuously
without a word to Neal. A page had been earmarked. Denton had had a plan.

Joe hailed a cab and asked the
driver to take him to the address listed in Denton's book under the name Maria
Delgado. He figured he only had about fifteen minutes.

Thankfully, the Delgado
apartment was on the west end of the city, not far from where Joe caught his
cab. If he'd had a way to judge the distance, he could have walked it. But he
was here now and had already saved a few minutes of time.

Joe rang the bell and waited
behind the wrought-iron gate while a maid in a white apron and elbow-length
gloves descended the stairs. He told her he was a good friend of Mrs. Delgado's
granddaughter, in Spain on travels, and was immediately let in.

Maria Delgado was delighted to
hear from an old friend of her youngest granddaughter. She insisted Joe join
her for tea. He was pressed for time, but decided to go along with the
protocol. The generous upstairs apartment was graced with finely sculptured
antiques and pretty porcelain vases. Rich oil paintings hung from walls
dripping with rosaries and skillfully rendered portraits of the Virgin Mary.
Though Maria was frail, a quiet strength emanated from her coffee-colored eyes.