The White Sands was old enough to have a tiny cupola on the roof, although it was so filled with dust and dirt that Daniel knew no one had been inside it for decades. The decorative sides hid him from view as the sun set and if he was still up here when the floodlights set up, well, he’d be safe from those, too. Coming down again was a different set of problems he’d figure out later.
He pulled out Solos’ phone and familiarized himself with the layout and controls, then flipped over to the internet browser and looked up the Pascuallita number he hoped would be there. It was.
He dialed it. For the longest time it didn’t answer. Then a male voice answered suspiciously and cautiously. “Hello?”
“I’m looking for a way to reach Duardo. I’m wondering if you can connect me.”
“Who are you?”
“An old friend.”
“Prove it.”
“I called him Duardo, didn’t I?”
“That’s one point in your favor. Keep talking.”
“Is this Cristián? You sound way too old, but there can’t be another man in the house, unless…. Did your mother remarry?”
He could feel the caution pouring through the phone.
“If I were Cristián, I would have sisters. Tell me about them.”
Daniel rested his head back against the fencing, smiling. He couldn’t help it. “Téra Alejandra, Trini Juanita and Pía Isabela. Ah, God, I haven’t thought of them in years. Do they still fight like cats and dogs? Do they still dress you in skirts?”
“Shit. I know who you are. Fuck.” The disgust and distress in Cristián’s voice made Daniel laugh.
“Are the three girls still there?” Daniel asked, letting him off the hook.
“Two,” Cristián amended. “Téra is elsewhere, all moony-eyed over some Captain De la Cruz she can’t quite trip over—”
“Lucas De la Cruz?” Daniel said sharply.
“That’s the one,” Cristián confirmed. “She won’t shut up about him, although she thinks she’s being discreet.”
The world was roaring in his ears, Cristián’s words fading under the pressure.
Daniel felt the phone slipping out of his hand and grasped it tighter. “Wait,” he croaked into it. “Wait.”
He could feel his own pulse throbbing in his head. Beating and receding. Is this what a stroke felt like? Or the start of a heart attack? He tried to breathe but his lungs wouldn’t cooperate.
“Cristián,” he whispered into the phone. “She has to get away from him.”
The memory was crowding him, dimming his hearing. He could hear Cristián talking, but not what he was saying.
Instead he was immersed in the memory.
* * * * *
Over a year ago now, and just before the revolution broke out in Vistaria, he had been coming back to the studio apartment he’d rented in Boston. He walked fast, because despite three years in New England he still wasn’t used to the cold.
He heard someone call his name and looked up to see Lucas De la Cruz across the street, muffled up to the chin in a dark coat and scarf, the black eyes and hawk-like nose the only things showing under the hat pulled down low against the cold. Fog fingers curled around his legs as he crossed over the footpath.
Daniel thought he was going to cross the road to come and talk to him, that Lucas was coming to visit. It wasn’t the first time Daniel had received company from home. He’d even lifted up his hand in greeting.
That was when Lucas fired.
The shot took Daniel in the chest. If Lucas had been a better shot it would have been in the left, over the heart and been fatal. But it had taken him over the right side instead and Daniel fumbled out his gun and fired off a return shot with his left hand. He took Lucas in the back as he ran off, but it was a glancing shot at best, because Daniel’s eyes were already unfocused and his head swimming by the time he’d fired. He wasn’t conscious by the time the ambulance and police got there.
They’d had to relocate him after that. Blanco had been pissed as a hornet, too. Three years of contacts shot to hell. Then the war had broken out barely a month later and the reason for Lucas’ actions had all made sense. A preemptive strike…
* * * * *
“Daniel!” It was Cristián’s voice and from his tone, Daniel could tell it wasn’t the first time he’d yelled it.
“I’m here,” Daniel muttered.
“Finally,” Cristián breathed. “What’s this about De la Cruz?”
“He’s bad,” Daniel said. “As bad as they get. You have to trust me. I can’t tell you more than that. If you have a way to reach Téra, get her the fuck away from the bastard. He’s one of them.”
“Oh, sweet mother…” Cristián breathed. Then he pulled himself together. “That’s not why you called.”
“Duardo. I need to get a one-time message to him. Is that possible?”
“Yes.”
“Can you record?”
“I write fast.”
“That’ll have to do. I’m going to trust that he saw what happened today with the diplomats. We’re being held at the White Sands—”
“Jesus, Daniel, you’re mixed up in that?”
“Concentrate, little brother.”
He heard Cristián’s exhalation. “Right.”
Daniel continued. “It’s going sour fast. Serrano is no longer holding a full deck of cards. Neither is Ibarra. With this message I am now compromised, so I have to leave the hotel, but there are complications I won’t go into. Are you getting all this?”
There was a pause. “Compromised. Leaving…complications. Yep. Next.”
“This is important. These are coordinates, so don’t get these wrong.” Daniel slowly gave Cristián the string of numbers and made him repeat them back. When he was happy that Cristián had them right he went on. “Tell him I’ll meet him there at 0430 hours tomorrow. The complications mean they must be ready to immediately spring the hostages when I meet them. This is not open to negotiation.”
Again there was a pause while Cristián wrote this down. Then he whistled.
“What?” Daniel said.
“You’re ordering out the Vistarian Army?”
“I’m just sending a message to your brother. He can do the ordering. Besides, if he’s followed the usual promotion path for the Army, I probably outrank him now.”
Cristián snorted. “It has been a while since you two spoke.”
Daniel looked at his watch. “I’ve been here too long. I have to go.”
“Wait! How does he communicate back to you?”
“He doesn’t. This is a one-time, one-way line. I have dozens of submachine guns pointed at me twenty-four-seven. It took five weeks for this opportunity to happen. I’ll never be able to pull this off again. As it is, the heat this will raise will singe me and others enough that I’m going to have to take a dive in the next few hours.”
“Jesus, Danny…” Cristián sounded worried.
“It’s fucking Daniel, or I’ll rip your throat out,” Daniel growled.
Cristián laughed. “That tells me it’s you, like nothing else on earth. We missed you, you know. Mom still does. She never said anything, because of Duardo.”
“Damn it…”
“Go,” Cristián said.
“Duardo had better be at those coordinates with backup, or I might just go another ten years without a phone call home.”
“Me, too,” Cristián said with feeling.
Daniel disconnected and realized he had a stupid grin on his face. He wiped it off.
He glanced carefully around before he got to his feet. He crushed the phoned under his heel, so there was zero chance of anyone retrieving anything from it. He took out the battery then hurled the phone as long and as hard as he could. Several seconds later he heard it smash on something good and solid, far below. The battery he tossed in the opposite direction.
* * * * *
Minnie lifted herself to her feet and moved to the doorway of the office and leaned against it. “Téra!”
Slowly, she moved back to her desk. Lately, the only time she could get any of her work done was by working into the small hours of the night. Morning sickness ensured the beginning of the day was a total loss.
Right now, with everyone locked in the strategy meeting after the broadcast on the hostages, she was getting more work done than she’d got done in a week, except for Trini’s interruptions.
Téra thrust her head into the room. “Hi?”
“Your blessed sister keeps dinging me via that Facebook wrestling group, insisting that she talk to you. She keeps saying it’s urgent, urgent, urgent. I can’t get her to go away. She won’t tell me what it’s about and she won’t leave a message. Will you please sit and talk with her so I can have my computer back?”
Minnie got up and walked over to the other desk where all the old manual systems were kept that she and Rubén were gradually converting over to the laptop.
“Sorry, Minnie. Trini’s not usually like that,” Téra said. “She usually uses the common accounts.”
Minnie smiled at her sister-in-law. “I know that. I’m not bitching about her. I’m bellyaching about not having my computer. One week I’ve had that thing and I’m already attached to it. I’m still upset about the broadcast, too. Don’t mind me.”
Téra settled behind the open laptop. “I’ll be as fast as I can,” she promised.
Minnie sat in the other chair and bent over the old paper ledgers with a sigh. The old systems worked just as well as the computer did, but after getting used to doing it on the computer, they were slow and awkward to use. When she could click and drag an item around on the screen, having to rewrite it over and over on paper became a real pain in the backside.
Téra made a small noise. It wasn’t quite a gasp. More like a choking sound.
Minnie looked up.
Téra had gone white. So white, the freckles on her nose were standing out clearly.
“Téra!” Minnie bounced over to the other desk. “What’s wrong?”
Téra blinked and looked up at her. “Nothing.” She stood up. “I’m fine.” She smiled, but it looked as though someone was pulling wires inside her head to make her face perform the trick. There was no emotion there. It was a ghastly expression. “Thanks for the loan of the computer. It’s all yours again.”
She left, moving like a ship under sail, cutting through the sea smoothly.
Minnie checked the screen. Téra had shut down Facebook. There was nothing to see.
Minnie turned and hurried after Téra, but she had already disappeared in the rabbit warren of rooms that made up the top half of the big house.
Minnie stopped and bit her lip. She didn’t like it. Not at all. There was something not right about this. Her gut was churning and it wasn’t morning sickness. She headed for the potting shed—the “boardroom”.
* * * * *
Duardo was such a strong creature of habit, of discipline, that even though he was now married, he still kept his spare gun and bullets in the same place—in the left corner of his footlocker. Téra didn’t even need to search for them.
Growing up in a military household also meant she had absorbed a great many basic skills by osmosis. She loaded the clip and reseated it with little difficulty. She checked the safety was on and sorted out how to cock the gun, because she knew this was a semi-automatic and that it needed to be cocked the first time she fired it.
The whole time, her heart and mind seemed to be locked in a hard, tight place where she couldn’t think or feel. Everything was instinctual. Basic.
She pushed the gun into her skirt pocket and made sure the room was as she’d found it, switched off the light and left the house. She climbed down the stairs, trying to remember the night’s passwords so she could pass by the guards at the bottom. It was late. They wouldn’t let her pass if she didn’t give them the right words.
On the last flight of stairs down, she remembered the words of the day. Her mind gave them up for her. She spoke the words to the guards when they asked for them. In turn she asked them if they’d seen Captain De la Cruz. By the light of the sodium arc lamps they used to keep the beach well-lit, she made herself look coy and flirty and they laughed at her. One of them suggested the Captain was along the beach up by the billets, training with his men.
She thanked them, fluttering her eyelashes at them. They gave her one of the half salutes they gave civilians and she passed on. After a few paces she kicked off her shoes, which were a nuisance in the dry sand. She left them sitting there.
There was a stiff wind coming in off the sea tonight, making things cool. She might have felt cold if she stopped to feel anything at all, for she was only wearing a sleeveless cotton shirt and the full cotton skirt that swirled around her ankles and hung around her hips. It dragged farther down her hips by the weight of the gun, but she didn’t care about that much, either.
She hoisted her skirt up a bit higher and kept walking.
There were two lines of men exercising in the sand, facing the rolling waves. Gas lanterns sat on either side, casting small pools of light. One officer stood in front of them. Captain Lucas De la Cruz.
Téra adjusted the direction of her walk and headed straight for him. No coyness this time. No backing down. No politeness.
She saw the men hesitate when they saw her, especially when she drew the gun.
Lucas turned to face her.
“Dismiss your men,” she told him.
“Téra, for heaven’s sake, child.”
She raised the gun to aim at his chest. “You tried to kill Daniel Castellano.”
The condescension was wiped from his face. He glanced at his men. “You’re dismissed.”
“But—”
“Sir—”
“Go!” he roared at them.
They scattered.
Lucas faced her, his hands loose at his sides. His eyes were shadowed pits, this far along the beach, showing nothing. The only thing that moved on him was the white shirt. The officer’s shirt of the real Vistarian army.
“The only way you can know that is if he told you,” he said. He paused. “So Nemesis is still alive. Well, well.”
The wall protecting her heart crumpled. Pain rushed in. “You’re not denying it,” she breathed, horrified.
Lucas spread his hands. “I tried to warn you, Téra. I tried to make you stay away.”
She fired.
The shot made him stagger back, but didn’t knock him off his feet. A shoulder hit. He put his hand up to his right shoulder. “In and out, Téra. Didn’t your brother ever teach you how to kill a man?” He turned and walked away, toward the billets. Blood was seeping through the back of his shirt, but not a lot of it. Not nearly enough.
Téra lifted the gun to fire again, but she couldn’t shoot him in the back. She couldn’t. She walked after him. “You lied to me.”
“I never lied. Not once,” he said over his shoulder.
“By omission!” she screamed. She hurried along the sand to push ahead of him, to get in front of him. It halted him. She turned and raised the gun again. Her hand was shaking. “You’re an Insurrecto! A spy!”
He laughed and the laugh seemed to move his entire body. “Of course I am. Somebody has to do it!” He looked at her and sighed. “Somebody has to do the dirty work. Somebody has to pay.” He stepped closer. “Twelve inches, Téra. You can’t possibly miss from here.”
She tried to squeeze the trigger and let it go. Four times. Each time she couldn’t bring herself to put enough pressure on the trigger to fire it.
Téra dropped the gun to her side. “You made me love you.”
“No. I didn’t.” He stepped around her and walked slowly up the beach toward his billet. The blood was spreading on his shirt now, a black stain in the moonlight.
She followed him helplessly. “What are you doing?”
“Walking.” His breathing sounded bubbly. She wondered if she had done more damage with the bullet than she had thought.
Perhaps he thought so too, for when he reached the billet he paused at the steps and held onto the iron rail, as if he was catching his breath. Then he climbed one step at a time and pushed the door open.
Puzzled she followed him in.
There was a gas lamp burning low. Her pictures were still all over the walls. In fact there were more, including photos from the wedding.
Lucas sat on the edge of the bunk, still moving slowly. He pulled from under the thin mattress a small, powerful-looking laptop and what she thought was a battery case, except it had a black, thick stubby aerial attached to it. He set it up on the small desk next to the bunk and turned it on.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, a horrible suspicion forming.
Lucas pulled his shirt open to show her the wound her bullet had made. It looked small and red and undramatic. “I think you hit my lung, Téra. Now the lung is collapsing. I’m going to pass out soon. Then you can do anything you want with me. So I need to send one last message. The news that Nemesis still lives is really too good to leave sitting here in Acapulco, because there’s only one place you could have got that news. Only one place where it would have reached you before it reached your brother first. Daniel tried to reach Duardo at his old home in Pascuallita which means Daniel has to be on Vistaria.”
He grimaced as he plugged the laptop into the battery and turned on the laptop. “I happen to know a bit about Daniel’s personal history and the only thing that would make him reach out to Duardo at all is dire need, which means he’s trapped.” Lucas looked up from the laptop. “Now, the idea of the great Nemesis being trapped anywhere is almost laughable, given the size of Vistaria and the joke that is Serrano’s standing army, but there is one tiny pocket of pure security on the island at the moment. One place where, if Nemesis by some small chance happened to find himself, it would force him to sweat enough to perhaps reach out to Duardo.” He started typing.
Téra scrambled to put the gun against the back of his head. “You can’t send that.”
“You’ve already proved you can’t kill me, Téra. I can send this.” He kept typing.
She shifted the gun to rest it against his thigh and pulled the trigger.
The noise inside the cabin was huge. The impact collapsed the fragile folding metal chair and pushed Lucas back against the bunk. He cried out and clutched at his leg with both hands.
Blood oozed out from between his long fingers.
Lucas half lay against the bunk, breathing heavily. Blood trickled from his mouth as he stared at her. “It’s too late, Téra. I’ve already told them about Nemesis.”
She turned and yanked the cord from the battery out of the laptop. But the laptop continued running. Téra rolled her eyes as she remembered the battery. She pressed down on the power button until the screen went dark. The computer was turned off.
Then, one-handed, she picked up the laptop and lifted it above her head, ready to smash it onto the floor.
“No, don’t!” Lucas yelled, holding up his bloody hand.
She hesitated. “Why not?”
From outside the cabin she heard voices. Boots on the steps.
“Téra,” Lucas said.
He had a gun now and it was trained on her.
Téra put the laptop back down, her heart thundering. Where had the gun come from? She had looked away for the merest split second. She had got a taste of just how truly dangerous Lucas was.
Tears filled her eyes. “Go ahead,” she said. “I know you really could pull the trigger.”
The gun stayed lined up on her chest. Lucas’ gaze stayed on her face.
The door burst open. Duardo, Nick and Calli pushed into the tiny cabin. Duardo had the big black satellite phone against his ear. All three of them carried handguns.
Nick held up his hand when he saw that both Téra and Lucas had guns pointed at each other.
Lucas swiveled his head to look at the three newcomers. He seemed to be having difficulty moving. He focused on Nick. “I saw the broadcast. It sickened me. I thought you should know.”
Nick nodded.
Lucas looked back at Téra. “I love you. I always have.” He lifted the gun, aiming for her head, his gaze locked on her.
Time slowed to a crawl. Téra saw all three of the guns aimed at Lucas lift in reaction. He had deliberately baited them. Calli was the fastest of them all, even though Duardo had been practicing since basic training. She was a natural at it. From this distance, she would not fail to get a kill shot.
Téra screamed her protest, already knowing it was too late.
Only, it was Duardo’s bullet that hit home first. Téra actually saw it strike Lucas’ temple, knocking him onto his side.
Instant death.
Time restored itself to normal. The echo of the three shots in that enclosed space and the smell of gunpowder was overwhelming.
Téra stared down at Lucas’ body. Someone was trying to pull the gun out of her hand. Hands were on her arms, trying to lead her away. She resisted.
Calli’s voice. “She’s in shock. She needs a doctor.”
“He didn’t destroy his computer.” Duardo’s voice, behind her. “The information we can get from this will be invaluable.”
“He wouldn’t let me,” Téra said.
“What was that, Téra?” Calli responded gently, trying to wrap one of the blankets from the bunk around her shoulders. The blanket smelled of Lucas. Abruptly, Téra’s chest unlocked and she sobbed. “He w-wouldn’t let me destroy it! He deliberately left it there for you! Ah, God help me!”
Duardo, who hated to show any sort of public sentiment, especially with her, was holding her. Her big brother was hugging her.
That told her how bad it was.
Her sobs intensified.
A few minutes later something pricked her skin, cold rushed up her arm and dark peace descended. She embraced it with panicky relief.
* * * * *
Nick hooked a submachine gun over his shoulder, reloaded his nickel-plated Colt and pushed it back into the holster strapped on his hip and grabbed one of the last bottles of Vistarian mescal off the sideboard. He caught Duardo’s eye as he left.
He thumbed a text message to Calli into his cell phone one-handed as he walked down to the beach.
He didn’t have to wait long. Duardo arrived barely three minutes later. His standard issue Glock was strapped to his hip and there was a SIG SG 550 assault rifle over his shoulder.
“That’s not standard issue,” Nick said, pointing at the rifle.
“I won it from an American who thought a pair of eights was good enough to ride on,” Duardo said. He grinned. “He made the mistake of thinking because I couldn’t speak English well, I couldn’t play cards well either.” He lifted a brow. “Who else are we waiting on?”
“Calli.”
Duardo nodded. Nick thought it was interesting that Duardo, who was such a typical Vistarian in so many ways, had no trouble accepting Calli as an equal and at times as his superior.
Nick cracked the seal on the mescal and held it out to Duardo. “To keep you warm.”
“We’ll be out for a while, then.”
“We could be.”
Duardo took a good swig and passed the bottle back. He breathed out between his teeth. “It’s been a while since I tasted the home brew. I’d forgotten that aftertaste. Phew.”
“A reminder of the ultimate goal of this conversation. I thought it appropriate.” Nick took a belt himself and felt it burn on the way down.
Calli crossed the sand toward them, a dark profile against the harsh lights bathing the beach. Nick saw the twin holsters, one on each hip and knew she had taken his instructions seriously. Then she flicked her thick braid over her shoulder and he saw the handle of the machete jutting up from between her shoulder blades and realized she had added another weapon to her usual arsenal, just as he and Duardo had.
He wasn’t the only one feeling spooked tonight.
Calli stopped in front of the pair of them.
“Is Téra comfortable?” Duardo asked her.
“She’s sleeping. The doctor put her out and she’ll sleep for about ten hours and wake naturally. After that, when she’s ready, she’ll need to talk.” Calli cocked her head at Duardo. “She may want to talk to you about it, Duardo. You’ll have to break down and actually talk about emotions and yucky stuff like that. There’s not too many people around for her to talk to. You were there tonight and you’re family.”
Duardo shift uneasily. “If I must, then of course…”
Nick could see his discomfort building and grinned. “How on earth did you manage to woo Minnie, big guy?” he asked. “Because I just know the strong and silent routine wouldn’t go down with her, either.”
Duardo cleared his throat. “That’s for between Minnie and I, surely?”
“And me,” Calli corrected.
Duardo frowned, confused.
“You say ‘and me’ not ‘and I’,” Calli explained.
“I hate bloody English,” Duardo muttered.
Nick nodded. “It’s not pretty,” he agreed. “But we’re sticking with it, especially for right now.” He turned and started walking along the beach. The other two fell in with him, one on either side. “This is an official meeting, though there’ll be no notes and no official record of the meeting taking place. This is as sub-rosa as I can make it. That’s why it’s just us three. Clear?”
They both nodded.
Nick passed the mescal to Calli. She didn’t wipe the neck or hesitate. She tipped the bottle up and took a hefty swallow of the contents. Then she handed the bottle back to Nick without comment and licked her lips.
Duardo grinned.
“We’re going to keep walking so that no one can sneak up on us and listen in. I’ve got so paranoid I just don’t want to take the chance. We found Lucas, but until we gut his computer and figure out if there’s anyone else, we can’t relax. Even then, we still can’t be sure.” He let the silence build for a few steps. “Duardo, you know Daniel Castellano.”
“I…knew him.” There was awkwardness in Duardo’s voice. He sounded apologetic.
“You know who he is now, don’t you?”
Duardo sighed. “Nemesis.”
“You know who Nemesis is, don’t you?”
“As Zalaya, I heard of his reputation, but in the past tense. I was told he was dead, that he had been executed at the outbreak of the revolution—a preemptive strike.” Now his tone was firmer. This was more comfortable ground for Duardo. Less emotional.
“I’m afraid I don’t, though,” Calli said. “Duardo was the one on the phone talking to Cristián, so he got that end of the conversation. Nick, you seem to know all about this Nemesis already, so you’re ahead of me there. You both need to back up and fill me in.”
“Duardo, why don’t you start?” Nick said. “Get it over and done with.”
“Thanks,” Duardo said dryly. He walked for several paces in silence. Nick pushed the mescal at him and he took it absently. “Daniel and his family lived in Pascuallita. Daniel is the same age as me, although we went to different schools. His family came from…there is no English translation for it. ‘Down the hill’ is the closest. Nick?”
“Lower class,” Nick murmured. “Working class. If you care about such things. In Pascuallita it’s more to do with where you live and how you conduct your life, than what you were born into.”
“Like American ‘white trash’?” Calli suggested.
“Yes, close to that,” Duardo agreed. “His mother left when he was young. She just disappeared one day. Her clothing and possessions were all gone. No one knows why, not even Daniel. I’m not even sure his father knows, although when he got drunk, he liked to hint that he knew and it was all Daniel’s fault. Then Daniel’s father died when we were about eleven. I remember it, because there was a big discussion in the town about what to do with ‘the boy’. My mother and father talked about it at dinner one night, while we were all sitting around the table. Pascuallita was small enough then that every family’s business was the whole town’s business. So we all got to talk about Daniel’s future and figure it out. A family took him in, but they were just using him as an unpaid servant and everyone could see it, including my father, who got angry about that. So just like that, my father decided we would take him. About four weeks after Daniel’s father died, Daniel came to live with us. My father announced that Daniel was our new brother.”
Duardo stopped talking abruptly. He drank from the mescal.
Nick stayed silent. He could hear how Duardo hated talking about this and if he interrupted with questions, Duardo was going to clam up.
Was this how Calli always scraped painful stuff out of him? Was he learning empathy from her?
He glanced at her. They had left the lights behind and in the dark he couldn’t see enough of her expression to guess what she was thinking.
“Daniel was angry and hostile. My father was patient, though. He eventually got his way. I was in awe of Daniel. We were the same age, but Daniel always seemed to be older than God to me. He knew so much, had experienced so much and seemed so wise. To this day I have no idea what Daniel saw in me. We became this odd pair of friends. Then, when I was sixteen, my father died.” Duardo drank from the bottle again. “Someone had better take this,” he said, his voice rough.
Calli took the bottle from him.
“My mother insisted that Daniel was part of the family, but even he could see she couldn’t afford to keep him with her single income. He found a family in town who had a printing business who would let him help out after school for room and board and moved in with them. My parents taught him one thing—that he needed to graduate high school. So he did. It took him a year longer than I did because he had to work a lot of the time in order to eat, but he graduated. That meant he could join the army and qualify for officer training after basics, if they liked what they saw.”
“Jesus,” Nick breathed. He made a mental note to review welfare and education systems if ever they got that chance.
“That’s why Daniel ended up under my command eighteen months later. Both of us immediately asked for a reassignment but while we were waiting for it to come through, there was a skirmish on Pequeña del Sur with some rebel factions that later would become the more formalized Insurrectos. Back then, they were just dissatisfied villagers picking up guns and shooting at the Army because they had a beef about how things were being run. On this particular day they were a bit more organized than most and we got pinned down in a mountain crevasse and called for a chopper evac.
“While we were waiting, the rebels called for reinforcement of their own. Their backup came over the ridge from the other side. We saw them on the mobile radar. Daniel, who was covering our tail, would have been caught in the crossfire, so I dropped my pack and sprinted back to cover him and bring him up to where we were protected by the higher sides of the ridge. I got there just as the reinforcements cleared the ridge and brought him down flat.”
“You saved his life,” Calli concluded.
“That’s what he has always said,” Duardo replied. He shrugged. “There was a pretty good chance Daniel could have scrambled out of there all on his own, too. He’s a damn good basic foot soldier.”
Nick wisely kept his mouth shut. If Duardo needed to justify it, he’d let him. He’d done enough jungle and mountain work to know that getting caught between two lines of enemy fire left a slim to nothing chance of shinnying out of the way, no matter how fast one ran. For some reason, Duardo didn’t want to be credited with saving his friend’s life.
“Daniel never forgave me,” Duardo finished. He reached for the bottle again and Calli handed it to him.
Ahh… Nick thought to himself.
“What?” Calli breathed. “Forgive you for what?”
“Forgetting about my men. For making him a higher priority. For making it personal.” Duardo shrugged. “He was right.”
“No, he wasn’t!” Calli said hotly.
“Yes, he was,” Nick said gently. “I don’t know if never forgiving you is fair, but he was right, Duardo. There were other ways you could have dealt with it.”
Duardo nodded. “Now, with over ten years of command experience, I could easily give you a dozen different ways I could have handled it,” he replied. “I was inexperienced. It was my first command. Daniel was my friend, my brother. What can I say? I made a choice. Daniel has never spoken to me since.”
Calli’s indrawn breath was adequate enough a response. Nick felt his own touch of shock. “Never?” he repeated carefully.
Duardo shook his head. “Daniel got transferred out of my unit after that, as requested. Then I heard he’d been reassigned for special training. I heard a rumor that it was Intelligence. I didn’t bother trying to find out if it was true because no one would confirm something like that. It seemed appropriate. Intelligence would suit Daniel exactly. Then things got in the way. Time passed. I can’t quite believe it’s been over ten years, to tell the truth.”
Calli drank from the bottle. “And the call you made to Cristián tonight? Minnie came rushing into the room, talking about Trini and Téra on Facebook, so the first thing you did was pick up the satellite phone and call Cristián. I thought the phones were down in Pascuallita?”
“They’ve been systematically restoring them across the main island,” Nick said. “However, we have assumed that all calls are tapped or traceable. Duardo’s landline in Pascuallita would be high on the Insurrectos’ trace list.”
“The first thing I did wasn’t to pick up the satellite phone,” Duardo replied. “It was to go to my room. Trini and Téra are typical sisters. They rub along like flint and stone. For Trini to take such lengths to speak to Téra privately alarmed me and Téra’s reaction to the news and her abrupt disappearance made me check if my backup gun was still where it should be. When I found it missing, I picked up the satellite phone and called Cristián to find out what Trini had told Téra. I judged the call was worth the security breach. We needed the information fast. What I learned—”
Nick reached for the bottle that Calli held and took a drink before passing it to Duardo.
Duardo nodded his thanks, but he didn’t take a drink from the half-empty bottle. “Daniel is in the White Sands Hotel with the other diplomats,” he said.
That wasn’t what he had been about to say.
Duardo glanced at Nick, then away. “I knew, earlier tonight, before the phone call.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I saw him briefly and recognized him. I remembered he was mixed up with Intelligence. If I had said something, I thought perhaps it might ruin things for him. I don’t know who he reports to now. I’ve never known.” He handed the bottle back and pushed his hands into his trousers. “Then I phoned Cristián and it all made horrible, hellish sense.”
“What did Cristián say?”
“That Daniel had made some awful, desperate bid to steal a phone and call for help. Call me.” Duardo stopped walking. Nick and Calli fell back to face him. “They’ve been locked up in the White Sands for five weeks, those people. Serrano has been playing mind games with them and no one knew. Daniel was part of it and he’s only now been able to reach out. Cristián said the call will cost him, that he and the people he’s protecting will only last a little while longer now. He’s expecting me to go in and get him.” He pushed out a laugh that sounded anything but amused. “To save him.”
“Then we’ll go,” Nick said.
“But—”
“No,” Nick overrode him. “Not because he’s your friend, your brother, or any of that, Duardo. You want a political expediency as an excuse, then take this one. If we go in there and pull out those hostages when the UN and US will not dare, then how is that going to make us look to them? How grateful are they going to be?”
“Nick!” Calli was shocked. “You’re counting political brownie points over something like this? How could you?”
“I’m not,” he said. “Duardo wants to find a way to justify this so Daniel won’t stop talking to him again for another ten years. I just gave him a decent excuse to go in there with all guns blazing. That’s all.”
Duardo grinned. “Thank you, but I, too, do not want to do it for the political brownie points, either. I just want to go in there and rip their fucking heads off because they deserve it and because they’ve got my brother at gunpoint and that’s something no one gets away with and lives.”
Nick clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m looking forward to meeting this brother of yours.”
“If he has not changed much, Nick, you may find him offensive. He does not think highly of authority.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Nick started walking again and Calli and Duardo trudged alongside him again. Their silence was companionable.
“So Daniel is this Nemesis you mentioned?” Calli prompted.
Nick nodded. “Now that I know who Daniel is, I’m beginning to understand why he is Nemesis.”
“And who is Nemesis?” Calli asked.
“From what we’ve just said and from what has happened tonight, Calli, you can probably put it together yourself now.”
Calli took the bottle, drank and cleared her throat. “If the Insurrectos went to such great lengths to get Nemesis off the game board before they even began the revolution, then Nemesis has to be good. Really, really good. Daniel is Nemesis and he’s in Intelligence. Zalaya was primed about Nemesis when he was there. Then Nemesis was—or is, rather—one of the best intelligence agents Vistaria has ever had. One that scares the crap out of Serrano enough that he sent Lucas De la Cruz to kill him before the war…right?”
“My girl,” Nick said happily.
“You are correct on all points,” Duardo agreed. “If Serrano was aware that Nemesis was still alive, he would be turning Vistaria upside down looking for him. He was that afraid of the man. If I had known it was Daniel… Well, perhaps it was best I had not known at the time. The Insurrectos were convinced he was dead. Nemesis alive and well can cause Serrano far too much trouble and he knows it.”