Smoke and Mirrors (12 page)

I leaned down and pulled her to me, pushed my mouth into the space where her hair drifted over her elf-like ear. “Do you remember when you accidentally called me Mama last week?” I felt her head nod. “Well, no matter what happens today, I want you to call me Mama. If you do, I promise we’ll have a real ice cream. A really big one with everything you want on it. Deal?”

She turned to look at me. Eyes wide with surprise. “Okay…but we don’t have to. I don’t want my teeth to rot.”

I crouched a moment longer and hugged her. “Enrique might play too, he might do something that seems a bit scary. Don’t let it frighten you.”

She nodded and I stood. Fifteen seconds had passed. The photographers were crowding together to get a glimpse inside the steadily widening aperture, and the hospital’s president was trying to keep them back with gesturing hands. “If you please, allow our benefactor’s family to go in first.”

I glanced at Enrique, hoping he had heard my little speech or at least guessed its contents. He gripped Francesca’s opposite hand and we moved as a trio through the opening. Artificial trees melded seamlessly through huge expanses of glass with their living outdoor counterparts, a melodious river crisscrossed the space, the sound of chirping met our ears, and the floor beneath us looked like a nature trail, complete with signs and replicas of local wildlife.

“It’s so pretty here, Mama,” Francesca breathed.

“Mmmm.”

Enrique didn’t miss a beat. “Signora Lauretti, would you like me to carry your daughter’s bag?”

I nodded and felt Francesca adjust her shoulders as he slid the Hello Kitty bag off her shoulder. In that second, I knew he had manacled himself to her. A shiver ran down her body as the cool metal encircled her tiny wrist. They were adjustable, and I guessed the diameter was as small as it could possibly be.

I never let go of her hand.

Not when the water erupted with the bodies of wetsuit-clad men who took out the seven guards behind us with waterproof semi-automatics.

Not when the doors behind us were sealed by the terrorists closest to them.

Not when the men coming over the nearest bridge told Enrique to move away from Francesca and me or die.

His body was in front of hers, mine behind it, my hands covering her eyes from the gruesome slaughter surrounding us. He held his unmanacled hand in the air, empty of any weapon. “Don’t do anything stupid! I can’t move away; I’m handcuffed to her. Her father’s rule in public.”

My voice was ice. “My rule in public. What do you want?”

I recognized the closest man to be a leading member of the leftist guerrilla movement EPIC, current enemy of the country’s right wing paramilitary group. A group funded by people including Alberto Sanchez and his ill gotten gains.

The man moved closer. “Where is your ex-husband?”

“With his new girlfriend. Why?”

He pushed Enrique aside with a sharp jab of his rifle’s butt. Francesca was pulled off balance and tipped toward the bodyguard, kept standing only by my now doubled grip on her free wrist. “How dare you!”

He slapped my face and I wished to God I could have grabbed his slow moving hand and broken it. But that was definitely not what Isabella Lauretti would have done, and right now, I needed them to believe I was Francesca’s mother. My eyes were stinging with tears, and I heard Enrique swearing under his breath.

Not bothering to touch my bleeding mouth, I spat, “He’s going to slit your throat for doing that to me.”

He laughed and made a comment about loving fiery women, but he kept his hand from me. “Call your ex-husband. Tell him I’ll kill you and the girl next if he doesn’t do exactly what I say.”

My hands, already occupied with Francesca’s eyes, could not prevent his threat from reaching her ears, and I felt her flinch. I glared at him before taking my hand from one of her eyes so I could reach the mobile I kept in my bag. Suddenly, I realized I had left my handbag out on the stage. Luckily for Francesca, I had her medical kit instead.

I unfastened the bag, laying open its contents to the group of men standing around us in an armed circle. “My daughter’s a diabetic. These are her things. I’ll need to check her blood and give her food and medication if necessary.”

He narrowed his eyes, but conceded “Call him now.”

I clicked on the iPhone I had used only a handful of times since landing in Bogotá. Alberto’s mobile was on speed dial. It rang nearly ten times before he answered.

“Who is this?” he shouted.

“Alberto, it’s me, Isabella.”

I hadn’t even completed my sentence before his voice changed. “Isabella? What are you playing at, Alex?…Is Francesca okay? Is her count low? God, is she unconscious? Have you called an…”

“Alberto, you idiot, listen to me. Francesca is fine. She’s beside me in the new wing of the hospital. You were late, so she cut the ribbon without you.” I heard his girlfriend’s shrill voice in the background and then silence after a loud slap.

His voice was flat with anger. “Go on.”

“We were ambushed. All but one guard was killed and the doors have been sealed. I’ve been asked to tell you that if you don’t comply with our kidnapper’s orders, I’ll be killed, followed by Francesca.”

The mobile was yanked from my hand.

“Listen to me, you sorry son of a bitch, I want to be allowed out of here without being followed. I’ve got a helicopter waiting to take us, but I won’t put up with one second of trouble. If I think you’re up to something, I’ll shoot your ex-wife in front of your daughter, understand?”

I thought I heard a muffled shout of defiance, but Francesca’s quiet sobs made it impossible to be certain. Enrique was patting her head with his opposite hand, having had his guns and knives removed a moment prior. He glanced up at me, his eyes dark and full of rage. And until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the crimson stain on his right thigh.

“Shit, you’ve been hit. Why didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged.

“Did it pass through?”

His head shook slightly, and I noticed a faint hue of white taking hold of his normally tanned flesh. I moved toward my still opened bag. One of the guards put his hand on my arm, but I shrugged it off. “If I don’t do something for his leg, you’ll be carrying him.”

He took one look at the stocky bodyguard and stepped back, waving me forward as though it’d been his idea. I ripped open Enrique’s pant leg and wiped away the blood. Before it welled again, I was startled to see the back of the bullet, not two centimeters into the thick tissue. I glanced up at Enrique, a smile of encouragement on my lips. “You’re lucky, it hit the bone and bounced back. It’ll hurt like hell, bone bruises always do, but I’ll be able to get it out fairly easily.”

Moving back, I found a long pair of tweezers and a roll of gauze. I could hear our attacker shouting at Sanchez, giving him the order to get Raul Fernandez freed from his Colombian cell before he was extradited to the States. Content to listen while I worked, I made note of the conversation’s specifics and filed them away. The bullet came out easily, clinking onto the floor at Francesca’s feet. She moved to pick it up, but I clicked my tongue and bandaged Enrique’s free flowing wound. I finished by administering a shot of antibiotic to the site and tossing him four tablets of painkiller.

He swallowed them with the remainder of Francesca’s juice box.

The mobile clicked off and our kidnapper turned around. “Sanchez has agreed. He promises that we won’t be followed.” He paused, eyes fixated on my bloodied hands and their recent handiwork. “Where did a model learn to do that?”

I glared right back at him. “With an ex-husband in the ‘trade’ and a daughter who needs constant medical attention, I’ve done my homework.”

He snatched the forceps from my hand. “I believe your husband wouldn’t be content to have his beloved daughter protected solely by men.” In illustration, he eyed the carnage around us. “Perhaps she’s had a trip to the dentist? Maybe a cavity filled, no?”

I guessed what he was thinking and felt incredibly lucky that Francesca had recently lost the molar in question. I had avoided telling Alberto, and a plan, already formed in my mind, rolled easily off my tongue. “If you believe I’d be insane enough to have a chip implanted in my daughter’s mouth, you’re even stupider than you look. Don’t you think I know the first thing you people would do, would be to pull it out? See for yourself, she’s only got half a mouth full, and they’re as white as snow.”

Francesca looked as though she’d rather have had a thousand shots, but she opened her mouth and showed him anyway. He seemed satisfied and moved in my direction. “And what of her mother, eh? The woman who seems to know so much about ‘chip implants’. Do you have a clean mouth, Isabella?”

“I have a filling.”

Enrique, sensing the kidnapper’s next move, pulled Francesca to him, pushing her face into his stomach and covering her ears. “You fucking bastard.”

The man in front of me forced my mouth open and spotted the one shiny tooth in the rear of my mouth. He made a sound through his teeth that reminded me of my childhood dentist. “Miguel, lend me a hand, will you?”

My hands were pulled behind my back, wrists immobilized with a plastic zip. I felt sick at the prospect of dirty hands touching my lips, and even sicker at the thought of the bloodied instrument’s proximity to my mouth. “Wait!” I nodded toward my bag. “There’s another pair there and some gloves; put them on and I promise I won’t struggle.”

I waited tensely, thinking he might like the idea of making me endure the filthy surgery, but he bent down and put on the gloves before grasping the tongs. I closed my eyes as they drew nearer concentrating on the night I had spent with Brad.

The instrument was cool on my tongue.

Brad was cool on my tongue.

My wrists were losing feeling bound like they were.

Brad was holding them against the marble.

The body against mine reeked of sweat and blood.

Brad smelled of wine.

The pain in my mouth was unbearable, nearly forcing me to scream.

Brad’s hand was over my mouth, keeping me from screaming.

My mouth was abruptly empty of all but hot, salty liquid.

A sip from Brad’s glass of wine swished between my teeth and tongue.

I opened my eyes just as someone cut the plastic zip binding my wrists. They were staring at me. Everyone, save for Francesca. I shakily wiped a hand across my mouth, first one way, than another. My tooth glistened in the pincers, still held by the gloved hand, and I spit to the side, into the river flowing merrily by. “Are you planning on bringing it with us? I assure you, it works the same way in or out of my mouth.” Then I had the foresight to sway enough that he grabbed my arm to steady me.

The tooth landed in the rocks beside the river, beside the instrument that had extracted it, beside the gloves. He pointed to the distant sound of rotors. “Get ready to move. Our ride will be here in about two minutes.”

True to his word, the military-style chopper landed in the small outdoor area to our right. We exited through a fire door, three bodies surrounded by camouflaged militiamen armed to the teeth. I noticed faces in the many windows, but none moved so much as a muscle and we took off without a hitch.

By the time we were airborne, our kidnapper had lost some interest in us, and he moved off to discuss the release of Raul Fernandez with the pilot. Only then did Enrique chance speaking to me. He had carried Francesca out to the helicopter, and she was now seated on his lap, facing away from me.

Respect and concern laced his features. “You all right?”

I snorted softly, my mouth now throbbing with discomfort. “Perfect.”

He refrained from smiling at my lame joke. “Do you think you should take some of what you gave me?”

I shook my head. Ever since I had come to after the rape, my head feeling like it had been stuffed with cotton, I hadn’t taken so much as an aspirin. Alcohol, for some reason, had never seemed the same. “Don’t touch the stuff.”

His free hand touched my jaw. “Maybe you should. Your modeling career might crash if you don’t.”

A
n hour later, my jaw was just about swollen shut. We had moved in a southwesterly direction, over the Sabana de Bogotá and the thick, forested sides of the Cordillera Oriental. At last, the sky nearly black, we lowered our altitude and came to rest in a small field beside a corrugated Quonset hut.

Francesca had fallen asleep, waking only when I checked her blood and forced her to eat a sugar-laden snack. When the rudders touched down, she stretched and sat up. “Mama?”

I wondered if she remembered what I had said, or if she had luckily misspoken in her half-awake state. “I’m right here,” I garbled, hugging her close. “Go back to sleep.”

She tucked her head against Enrique’s chest and nodded off again. We waited there for a few minutes until a light shone through the hut’s open door and the nearest guard ushered us out. If my jaw had hurt when I was sitting, it positively throbbed when I walked. Enrique seemed to be in similar distress, hissing through clenched teeth each time he set down his right boot.

“We’re quite a pair.” I stumbled and let out an unintelligible curse.

He moved through the door ahead of me, twisting so that Francesca’s head and feet missed both sides. Once my eyes adjusted to the bright lights, I noted blackened windows, simple furnishings, another dozen or so militia members and a huge chalkboard covered with maps, photos and instructions.

Our kidnapper, now known to us Juan, quickly spun the board over. My original assumption, that it held the details of our abduction, appeared an accurate one. I pointed to a cot. “Can we put her on the bed?”

Juan waved a hand of dismissal, and Enrique lowered her down, moving to sit beside her. Their wrists were both chaffed, and I wished for the hundredth time, that I hadn’t been forced to do this to them. However, we had an ally whose life depended upon hers and who would keep her safe by his mere proximity.

She was sleeping, yet I knew she needed some real food soon or risk certain danger. “Señor, please find her something to eat or there will be nothing left to bargain with, and Alberto will tear this country apart to find you.”