Marcus parked Javier’s car in the center of Segovia and visited a few shops until someone was able to tell him the location of the nearest store for hunting supplies.
The San Cristóbal Armory, a short drive away, was a small shop packed with hunting and fishing gear. The proprietor grunted at his customer and kept checking a catalogue resting on a display case. Marcus went for a rack of paper maps and chose one that was detailed enough to show not only the village of Lirio, but the location of Castle Gaytan.
“Can I see those binoculars?” Marcus said in Spanish.
“American?” the shop owner asked.
“I am.”
“Then I speak to you in English, okay?”
“That would be good, thank you.”
“I was in army,” the man said. “We had NATO exercises. I had American friends. I visited my friend in California.”
“California’s great.” He had a look through the German binoculars and said he’d take them. Behind the owner there was a wall-rack of shotguns. “You’ve got a nice selection,” he said.
“Some nicer than others,” the owner said.
“What’s your nicest?”
“This one,” he said, reaching. “The Benelli Super Vinci pump-action. I can take or leave Italians, but I can’t deny they make an excellent shotgun.”
“May I?”
Marcus pumped it and visually inspected the chamber to make sure it was empty, while the proprietor nodded his approval at his safe handling. He felt its balance point and sighted down the long barrel.
“How much?” he asked.
“One thousand six hundred. For a nice American gentleman, one thousand five hundred.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Fantastic. I’ll just need to see your license.”
Marcus said, “That’s going to be a bit of a problem.”
“No license, no sale. This is Spain, not America.”
“There was a fair amount of dust on this gun,” Marcus said. “How long have you had it?”
“I was a younger man.” He patted his big gut. “And thinner.”
“I’ll take it off your hands for three thousand.”
“I don’t want to go to prison,” the man said, moistening his lips with his tongue.
“I don’t want you to go to prison either.”
The prospect of a huge windfall was making the fellow breathe fast. “The no-license price is five thousand. Cash. No records.”
Marcus winked. “With the binoculars?”
“Binoculars, map, shells—sure.”
When Marcus returned from a bank with the cash, there was a closed sign on the door. The owner unlocked it, let him in, and counted the cash.
“Wait here,” the man said, taking the gun with him.
“Where are you going?” Marcus asked.
“Give me five minutes.”
Marcus heard loud grinding from a back room and figured out what was happening.
When the owner returned, he said, “No more serial number and looks like my camera stopped working, the piece of shit. You were never here.”
“You’re right. I was never here.”
“I’m not going to read about you in the papers, am I?”
Marcus said, “Stick to the sports pages and you’ll be good.”
*
He left his car at the trailhead parking lot and from a vantage point on a hiking trail a hundred meters up the Guadarrama Mountains, Marcus focused his new binoculars. From this elevation, the earthen-brown, stone castle looked squat and massive. He could see a long drive from the main road that passed through vineyards and orchards before ending at the castle entrance. There were several vehicles parked in front of the main structure, but he couldn’t see any people. He had a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a large bottle of water, and he kept his hunger and thirst at bay while he maintained his surveillance.
An hour passed by and doubts crept in.
He had no idea the girls were here. He had no idea whether Gaytan was here. He had just dropped five thousand euros, an uncomfortably large chunk of change, on an illegal gun. Did he think he was going to be charging in like Rambo? For the moment, all he could do was keep observing and figure out his next steps. He was a man wanted for murder who couldn’t exactly expect the Spanish police to be sympathetic to a request to raid the home of a prominent doctor.
He put down his water bottle and lifted his binoculars when he thought he saw something moving on the roof. It was a man walking the ramparts. He didn’t appear to have a weapon, but he too had binoculars he was using to scan the grounds. The sun was high in the early-afternoon sky and because his position was due south, he thought his lenses wouldn’t be glinting.
A sentry had to be a sign of something going on inside.
Then he saw something that short-circuited all his carefully considered and rational thought.
Up on the ramparts, a second figure came into view.
Marcus recognized that face and he recognized that blond hair.
He tossed his food aside. Victoria and Elizabeth, I’m coming for you, he thought, and God help anyone who stands in my way.
*
For a man who prided himself on his analytical abilities, Marcus’s mind was blank as he sped down the estate road. Then one inconsequential thought crept in that almost made him laugh. It involved that sweet man, Javier, and his old car. He would try not to wreck it.
Through the windshield the castle loomed large.
He saw the rifle on the ramparts and began to weave. As he cut the wheel to the left, a bullet pierced the right side of the windshield where his head would have been. His view was blighted by spidered glass, but he saw a large barn to his left and floored the gas pedal. He heard rapid-fire pops coming from above. Another round caught the car roof as he braked to a skidding stop behind the safety of the barn.
He grabbed the shotgun and got out of the car, making his way around the barn until he had what he thought was a protected line of sight to the castle entrance. It turned out not to be as protected as he hoped, because the rooftop shooter fired and chipped some stone from the barn wall, just to his right. His own shot didn’t require much skill. He simply pointed toward the roof and let the buckshot do the rest. It plinked the upper walls and crenellations and sent the shooter ducking for cover.
He started running.
The massive main door was festooned with ancient iron hardware. He made it there without catching more fire, and racked another shell into the chamber of the Benelli. The motion was agony for his injured left shoulder.
The huge door creaked open.
A rifle barrel poked out, then an arm, and a shoulder.
Marcus was hoping the next thing he saw was blond hair, but the shooter’s hair was brown.
When Marcus pulled the trigger, the brown turned red.
He racked the gun again, grimaced, and stepped over the body into the entrance hall.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a threatening shape, but it was a silver suit of armor with a lance. The afternoon was bright, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the hall. There were large dimly lit rooms to his right and left and a sweeping stone staircase ahead.
He heard a voice he recognized.
“I am going to come downstairs, Mr. Handler. I am not armed. I would appreciate not being shot. Are you going to shoot me?”
Marcus called back, “Let me have the girls and no one else needs to get hurt.”
Ferrol appeared at the top of the stairs holding his hands in the air. Marcus was struck by how calm he appeared in the face of blood spreading across the yellow and black tiles of his hall, and having a shotgun pointed at him. Either he always wore a sports coat at home, or he was a cool enough customer who’d gotten himself properly attired for a guest after the alarm was raised.
Ferrol took a couple more stairs and said, “Please put the gun down. Would you like some coffee? We can sit and talk. You might be interested to hear what I have to say.”
The room to his left appeared to be a library.
There was a flicker of movement and Marcus yelled, “Tell the man on my left that he’s got three seconds to throw down his weapon or I’ll shoot you.”
“You in the library! Do as he says!” Ferrol shouted.
A pistol slid over the tiles.
Then he heard Ferrol shout, “Don’t shoot him!”
Marcus was about to say that he wasn’t going to shoot if the man showed himself, but Ferrol wasn’t talking to him.
He was talking to the blond man who shot Marcus in the head.
*
One moment it was pitch black and the next moment it was phosphorous white. Everything was pure and luminous in every direction he turned his head.
He tried to focus through the worst pain he’d ever felt. When he tried to close his right eye, the pain got worse and the whiteness persisted. When he closed his left eye, things got black again. Confused, he tried to reach for his face but his arms were tethered at his sides.
His voice was his own but it was so thin and dry he didn’t recognize it. “Help. Help me.”
A small face appeared over him.
Then another face.
“Uncle Marcus!”
“Am I alive?” he heard himself ask.
“What a silly question,” Victoria said.
“Did you come to rescue us?” Elizabeth asked.
“If I did, I didn’t do a very good job. Where am I?”
“Don’t you know?” Victoria said.
“I can’t remember.”
“You’re with us,” Victoria said. “On the spaceship.”