Where There's Smoke (52 page)

It's as hard as a drill bit."

"Key."' Janellen cried.
 
"Mama, sit down.
 
You look-" "Your father didn't need my love.
 
He got it from whores all over the world.
 
And he flaunted them in my face.
 
He was with one the day you were born."
 
She drew herself up and took several labored breaths.
 
"The only good thing that came out of my marriage to Clark Tackett Junior was your brother."

"Saint Clark," Key said with a sneer.
 
"Maybe he wasn't as saintly as you think.
 
Tonight I was talking about him with his former mistress.

Seems Dr. Mallory blames Clark for packing her and her family off to Central America and getting them shot.
 
She asked me to take her down there and help bring back her daughter 5 remains.

Ain't that a bitch?"

"You aren't considering it, are you?"
 
Janellen looked at him aghast.

"Why shouldn't I?
 
Her money's green.

"There's still a revolution going on down there.
 
People are being slaughtered every day."

Although he'd responded to Janellen, his eyes never left Jody.

"Dr. Mallory thinks we Tacketts owe her this.
 
In exchange for my services, she's agreed to leave Eden Pass and never come back."

"You are not to do it, do you understand me?"
 
Jody's voice quivered with wrath.

"Even if it means ridding us of Lara Mallory?"

"You can't trust her to keep her word.
 
Under no circumstances are you to even consider going to Central America with her."

He placed his hand over his heart.
 
"Why, Mother, your concern for my safety is touching."

"I don't give a goddamn about your safety.
 
My only concern is to protect the remaining shreds of Clark's reputation.
 
If you go anywhere with that whore, you deserve no better than to get your damnfool head blown off."

Janellen covered a gasp with her hand and sank back into her chair.

"Why don't you go ahead and say it, Jody?"
 
Key shouted.
 
"If you can't have Clark, you'd just as soon see me dead, too."

Jody swept up her pack of cigarettes and lighter, turned, and marched from the dining room.

For the longest time his rigid arms braced him against the back of his chair.
 
His knuckles turned white against the polished oak, as though at any second he might pick up the chair and heave it through the dining room window.

Until she spoke, he'd forgotten that Janellen was there.
 
"What you said was so.
 
. . so horrible, Mama was too angry to refute you."

He looked at her bleakly.
 
The muscles in his arms relaxed, and his hands dropped to his sides.
 
Turning on his heel, he started for the door.
 
"You're wrong, Janellen.
 
She didn't refute me because I spoke the truth."

The lamp on the nightstand came on.
 
Lara woke up instantly and rolled toward the light, then sprang to a sitting position, her heart in her throat.
 
"What are you doing in here?
 
How'd you get in?"

"I picked the lock on the back door," Key replied.
 
"You forgot to change the code on your alarm."

His eyes were drawn down to her bare breasts.
 
Lara, still trying to orient herself, didn't scramble for cover.
 
His gaze remained fixed on her for several moments.
 
Then, swearing softly, he snatched up the robe lying across the foot of her bed and tossed it to her.

"Put that on.
 
We need to talk."

Still dazed from awakening to find him in her bedroom, she œ1lowed his instructions without argument.
 
She sat on the edge of the bed.

Key paced along the footboard, gnawing on his lower lip.
 
Suddenly he stopped and looked at her.
 
"We'd never get clearance to land.

Have you thought of that?"

She was muzzy from the abrupt manner in which she'd been awakened.

"No.
 
I mean, yes."
 
She drew a head-clearing breath and pushed her hair off her face.
 
"No, we'd never get clearance to land, and yes, of course I've given it a lot of thought."

"Well?"

"I've got a map marking a private landing strip."

"A WAC?"

"A what?"

"A World Aeronautical Chart.
 
A map specifically for pilots."

"I don't think so.
 
It looks like an ordinary map.

"Better than nothing," he said.
 
"Where'd you get it?"

"It was sent to me."

"By someone you trust?"

"A Catholic priest.
 
Father Geraldo.
 
He befriended us while we where there.
 
Randall made him the official embassy chaplain."

"I thought the rebels had executed all the clergymen."

"They've murdered many of them.
 
He's managed to survive.

Key ruminated on that as he sat down in an easy chair beside the bed, so close to her that their knees almost touched."Sounds to me as though your priest might being playing both ends against the middle."

"Very possibly," Lara admitted with a weak smile.
 
"He claims to be bipartisan."

"He goes with the flow."

"That's the only way he can continue to do the Lord's work."

"Or save his own skin."

"Yes," she admitted reluctantly.
 
"But I have no reason to mistrust him.
 
Anyway, he's all we've got."

Key blew out his breath.
 
"Okay.
 
Let's temporarily shelve that and move to point B. Do you know if they have radar?"

"I'm sure they do, but it couldn't be very sophisticated.
 
Nothing there is.
 
Technologically they're decades behind the rest of the world."

"How far from Ciudad Central is this landing strip?"

Mentally she converted the kilometers.
 
"About forty miles."

He whistled.
 
"That'd be close.
 
How am I supposed to avoid their radar?"

"There must be ways.
 
Drug smugglers do it all the time."

He looked at her sharply.
 
"I've never smuggled dope."

"I didn't mean to imply-" "Sure you did."
 
He held her gaze, then shrugged impatiently.

"Fuck it.
 
Believe what you want to."

He left the chair and began to pace again.
 
Lara had a thousand questions to ask but didn't dare.
 
She mainly wanted to know why he'd changed his mind.
 
Like a caged animal, he restlessly prowled her bedroom.

"if we can slip through their radar, if this landing strip is where it's supposed to be .

"Yes?"

"How do we get around?"

"I can make arrangements for Father Geraldo to pick us up."

"Go on."

"There's an underground organization that manages to slip supplies, letters, and such into and out of Montesangre.
 
That's how the map got to me.
 
I waited a year for it, but I've had it for several months.

Utilizing this underground, I can have Father Geraldo notified when to meet us."

"It'll take another year?"

"No.
 
I put everyone on alert.
 
They're standing by."

"You were that sure I'd agree?"

"I was that sure I'd do anything to see that you did."

They paused, watching each other.

Key was the first to shake himself free.
 
"Does this priest speak English?"

"Actually his name is Gerald Mallone.
 
He's an American."

He swore.
 
"Which means he's doubly suspicious and is probably being tailed everywhere he goes."

"I doubt it.
 
He's steeped in Montesangren culture, more Latin than Irish in temperament.
 
Besides, he's fully aware of the dangers.

He's been living with them for years and knows how to avoid them.

The landing strip should be fairly safe.
 
I've been told it's on the coast, at the foot of a heavily vegetated mountain range."

"Safe!
 
Jesus.
 
I'll have to fly in at night, over open sea, dodging radar, and set that puppy down in the middle of a goddamn jungle, hoping all the while that we won't run into a mountain or get blown out of the sky."
 
He saw her about to speak and raised both hands.

"I know, I know.
 
Drug smugglers do it all the time.
 
No doubt on this very strip."

He paced another few minutes.
 
She didn't interrupt his thoughts.

"Okay, say we land without crashing and burning, say we manage to leave the plane without having an army of rebels or contras shooting us on sight, say this semitrustworthy priest is there, where does he take us?"

"Ciudad Central."

He dragged his hand down his face.
 
"I was afraid you'd say that."

"That's probably where my daughter is buried."

His eyes moved to her tousled tawny hair.
 
"You'll stick out down there like a polar bear in the Sahara.
 
Aren't you afraid of attracting someone's attention when you take a shovel into the graveyard and start digging?"

She took a swift breath.

"I'm sorry.
 
Strike that for insensitivity."
 
He returned to the chair and continued in a kinder tone of voice.
 
"I doubt very seriously they'll let you exhume the casket, Lara.
 
Do you know which cemetery your daughter would be buried in?"

"How about Father what's-his-name?"

She shook her head.
 
"The last word I had from him is that he's checking into it.
 
Civil records have been haphazardly kept the last several years.
 
By the time we get there, I hope he's uncovered a clue."
 
She smiled apologetically.
 
"That's the best I can do."

"What if he can't obtain any more information?"

"I'll do the detective work myself."

"Christ.
 
That's impossible."

"It's not as hopeless as it sounds," she said with as much conviction as she could garner.
 
"There's a Montesangren who worked in the embassy, a savvy young man who knew his way around.
 
He was initially hired to do clerical work, but soon became invaluable to Randall by translating offcial documents.
 
Randall had only a rudimentary understanding of Spanish.
 
Emilio is smart and intuitive.
 
If I can find him, I know he'll help us."

"If you can find him?"

"He might not have escaped the attack on the embassy.
 
His name didn't appear on the casualty lists, but I doubt the lists were complete.

If he wasn't killed, he's probably in hiding.
 
Anyone who'd worked in the American embassy would be regarded as a traitor by the rebels."