On Thin Ice (17 page)

“Oh, I don’t think so.” He’d cleared his plate in record time and was looking longingly at hers. “They don’t know where I am and they don’t give a damn. Last time I saw them they told me not to come back.”

“A lot of parents say that in the heat of the moment. I’m sure they’ve regretted that a thousand times.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. My mother’s remarried and living in Oregon and her new husband hates me. She’s too busy with her aging hippie lifestyle to even think about me. And my father’s got a coke habit, a seventeen-year-old girlfriend and a twenty-three-year old wife, not to mention triplets born by a surrogate who moved into the household as well. They don’t want me anywhere around upsetting the babies.”

“I’m sure . . .”

“No. You’re not sure of anything. They don’t want me, I don’t want them. I just wish they’d kept sending me money, but that dried up a few months before I ended up in the mountains.”

She didn’t bother arguing. Either the wine or the food or both had cast a surprisingly relaxed glow over the room. “How long were you up there?”

“Six months. It was only supposed to be a week or two, except that my parents refused to pay the ransom. You want the rest of that?” He pointed toward her dinner.

It took her a moment. “No, you take it,” she said, pushing the plate toward him. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m really hungry.”

“You know what I mean. How do you know they refused?”

“Because they told me. They were going to kill me, but MacGowan intervened. Told them my parents might change their minds. He also said I could be used for propaganda, and they decided to wait a few weeks until the big
jefe
showed up. Fortunately we got out of there before my time ran out.”

He seemed amazingly unconcerned about his close call. Beth had the feeling she ought to be weeping for him, but the good will the wine had cast settled over her and she smiled at him a little woozily. She was already tipsy, she thought, on one glass of wine. Must be the result of the stress of the last few days. “Who’s the big
jefe
?”

“Some dude named the Alcista. He’s the one who decides who lives and who dies. MacGowan knows all about him – apparently he was sent down here to kill the dude, but got caught before he could do it.” Dylan yawned.

“Alcista? Sounds like a girl’s name.”

Dylan looked at her with annoyance. “It means The Bull, and you don’t want to know why he’s called that.”

“The Bull? I remember stories about someone named the Bull.” Beth shivered. “He’s not our concern any more. I’m more worried about you. What will happen when MacGowan brings you back home? Will your parents pay up?” She was so damned sleepy she wasn’t sure she even had the energy to put the tray back outside the door. The hell with it. No, MacGowan would say “fuck it.” Let him get rid of the dishes when he bothered to get his ass back there.

“He’ll get the money,” Dylan said, stumbling back toward his bed. “You know MacGowan.”

She didn’t know MacGowan. Not at all. She stood up, and suddenly the room began to spin, and she reached her hands out to the table to steady herself. It wasn’t there. She felt herself begin to fall, and she tried to cry out, but Dylan was lying across the bed, passed out, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it that far. She went down in a crash of dishes as everything went black.

MacGowan ate steak. He ate the biggest, rarest piece of prime beef he could find and he didn’t feel a moment’s guilt. Tomas was going to have the paperwork ready for him in a couple of hours, and he’d be back at the hotel not long after midnight, check on his charges, and then see whether the scrawny desk clerk could find him a blonde to while away a few hours. While Beth slept upstairs, safe and untouched in the narrow bed he wasn’t going to risk sharing with her.

He should never have kissed her. He still wasn’t sure why he had, but in the end it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to do it again.

He’d stashed the priest’s cassock in an alleyway near the dockside hotel, making his way through the dark city streets like the shadow he’d once been. He wondered if Dylan was dumb enough to try to make a pass at Sister Beth. She’d smack him down soon enough – if she could keep MacGowan in his place then a sulky teenager would be child’s play. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t smack the hell out of the brat if he tried, but chances were Beth wouldn’t rat on him. She was that kind of woman.

A good woman. God preserve him from good women. Right now he needed a bad woman. Someone lowdown and nasty and willing to do just what he wanted.

The freighter was going to take six days crossing the Atlantic, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Six days holed up with her. Hell, maybe he could put them on a separate boat. No, he couldn’t afford to do that – he had to see them back to safety and a Nigerian freighter wasn’t exactly the Queen Mary.

He paid his bill with the last of the money he’d won off the rebels. Half the people he’d played poker with were now dead, at his own hands. He wasn’t a sentimental man, he couldn’t afford to be. He stared at the crumpled bills on the table for a moment, then headed out into the cool night air of the city.

It was strange, smelling of dust and diesel and a handful of different foods. It was the smell of choice, the smell of freedom, and he couldn’t get enough of it.

Tomas had finished the work, and the papers were impeccable. He looked at Beth’s passport photo and wondered where the hell Tomas had found the original. She was looking polished, made-up, clean and shiny, and untouchable. Hell, she was still untouchable. Dylan’s photo showed a younger kid, but that was okay – Tomas had adjusted the date on the passport to reflect it. He had the cash as well, a combination of currencies that would keep them until they reached Spain.

“This is more than I asked for,” he said, counting it.

“Got word from London. You’re to have anything you want.”

MacGowan grinned sourly. “A little late for it,” he said, folding the wads of cash and tucking it in the stained wallet Tomas provided.

“You got off that damned mountain just in time, friend,” Tomas said. “Word has it that Alcista was on his way up there when you got out. He ain’t happy.”

“My heart’s broken.”

“The sooner you get out of here the better. He wants back the ones you took, and he wants you dead, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of brains to figure you were heading in this direction. It’s the nearest port. You don’t want that man catching up with you. You got trouble from the CIA as well.”

MacGowan looked up from his perusal of the documents. “Why the fuck would the CIA give a rat’s ass about me?”

“It’s not you they’re interested in, exactly. I think they want to use you as bait to lure Madame Lambert out of retirement.”

“She retired? Hard to believe, but good for her.” He would have thought Isobel Lambert would die at her desk, frozen solid. Good to know she was human after all. “Where did she go?”

“No one knows. The problem is she went with Serafin the Butcher.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Tomas shook his head. “Turns out Serafin is actually CIA, and he didn’t exactly tell them good-bye. They want him back.”

“So they want to use me to get to Isobel to get to Killian? That’s crazy.”

“That’s the CIA,” Tomas said, unimpressed with American intelligence.

MacGowan shrugged. “The day I can’t outsmart the CIA is the day I deserve to die. Assuming they want to kill me.”

“Everyone wants to kill you, MacGowan,” Tomas said.

He grinned. “It’s part of my charm. So I get to avoid the CIA and the Bull. Though hell, maybe I can finish what I came here for. Alcista was my original target. The world would be a better place without him.”

“Maybe. But I think you’ve got enough on your plate for now, getting those two gringos out of here and keeping away from the CIA. Where’d you leave them? Not at the American hotel, I hope.”

“What kind of an idiot do you think I am?” He drained his glass of cheap whiskey. “I put them in a hotel down by the docks. The Santa D’Oro.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

MacGowan put the empty glass down. “Wrong hotel, eh?”

“It’s Guiding Light territory. I thought you knew.”

“It wasn’t three years ago.”

“Times change.” Tomas’s face creased. “You need some help?”

MacGowan shook his head. “Thanks to you I’ve got enough firepower to blast through Alcista himself. I better get back there.”

“They may not have figured out who you are.”

“Yeah, and pigs may fly.” Suddenly he remembered Sister Beth, looking at him after he told her he’d kiss a pig. Yeah, he was in deep shit there. Maybe if he saved her life again she’d overlook it.

“Good luck, amigo. You’ll need it.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Beth woke slowly, her stomach clenching, and she lay very still. She hated throwing up, she’d do almost anything she could to keep from doing so, including not moving when she had absolutely no idea where she was. The room was dark and smelled like mold, and whatever she was lying on was lumpy and uncomfortable. She could hear a sudden burst of laughter, loud male voices talking in Spanish so fast that she couldn’t follow it. But then, with her brain spinning, she probably wouldn’t be able to follow English. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe through her mouth, slowly, carefully.

Where was she? For that matter, where was Dylan? She should sit up, look around, but she was afraid if she did she’d end up hurling. She took shallow breaths and counted to calm herself, as she tried to piece together what had happened.

They’d been drugged. That had become obvious in the last moments she remembered, as she crashed onto the table. Since she refused to open her eyes she had no idea whether she was still in the hotel room or if she’d been moved. She suspected it was the latter. The surface beneath her felt different, and the men’s voices came through an open door. It didn’t seem likely that people would be congregating in the hall outside her hotel room.

Unless something awful had happened to Dylan. Her eyes flew open at that, and she had to shove a fist in her mouth to stifle her groan. The room was in total darkness, but there was enough light coming from the open door to tell her that this was another room entirely, and there was no sign of Dylan anywhere.

Her veil was gone, and the front of the habit was open to the sultry air. Except that there was no opening at the front of the nun’s robes, and she reached up and found someone had ripped the dress open while she’d been unconscious. She lay very still, taking stock of her body. Her muscles still ached, her feet still hurt, and there was a new throbbing in her upper arm, as if someone had yanked her or even dragged her. But below the waist felt the same, thank God. No one had raped her while she was unconscious.

Though if she was going to be raped, that was definitely the way to go, she thought, trying to be rational. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known Callivera was an unsettled country. If she’d wanted safety she never would have left Philadelphia.

Words were becoming clearer from the rapid Spanish in the other room. There were at least three men, probably more, and none of the voices sounded familiar. There was no missing
“La Luz”
and the reverential tone, answering one question. Somehow they’d managed to catch up with them, and she was a prisoner once more.

She felt despair bleeding over her, but she fought back. Giving up hope wasn’t an option. Not until she was dead.

What had they done to Dylan? If he was telling the truth about his family’s abandonment then they would have no use for him. Had they left him behind? Had they killed him?

And then a name came through the rapid Spanish that almost put the finish on her barely-controlled nausea. Alcista. The Bull. The rarely-seen leader of the Guiding Light, known for his insatiable appetite for food, drugs, and sex. And he was coming here.

She started counting again.

She remembered the stories now. The Bull liked sex and he liked an audience, that much she remembered. He usually stayed in the more populous northern part of the country, but the escape of three important prisoners was bringing him down south. The voices of the men sounded more excited than worried, like a visiting rock star was coming to town. If they’d been part of the rebel encampment they’d be a little more concerned about retribution.

Concentrate
, she told herself, her mind growing clearer, though the advent of Alcista was doing nothing for her stomach. She needed to find out what had happened to Dylan. And whether MacGowan had walked into a trap.

For some reason she wasn’t particularly worried about MacGowan. If ever a man could take care of himself, MacGowan was that man. In fact, maybe she didn’t need to worry about anything. MacGowan would make sure Dylan was all right. MacGowan would rescue her. MacGowan . . .

MacGowan was only human, even if he seemed larger than life. Father Pascal would tell her to be patient and kind, turn the other cheek, the Lord would provide. Father Pascal had been slaughtered for his goodness. Maybe she couldn’t afford to wait.

She pushed herself up to a sitting position, though her arms were trembling with the effort and her stomach gave an unfortunate lurch before settling back down. The room was deserted – no Dylan - and she was sitting on a mattress on the floor. She drew her knees up and rested her forehead against them for a moment, taking in calming breaths. Her stomach seemed to have finally settled itself, and when she raised her head the barren little room had stopped spinning.

There was a boarded-up window in one wall, and it looked as if the door had been ripped off its hinges. She heard another rough burst of laughter, and she cringed. It had been early evening when they’d brought her the drugged food, and she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. Hours? Days?

A squat figure appeared in the doorway, blocking out the fitful light, and it was too late for her to dive back down and pretend to be unconscious. “You awake, gringa?” he said in Spanish. “You won’t have too much longer to wait. Alcista is coming, and you’ll have a chance to see what a real man is like.”