Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (2 page)

Ana removed her sweat-drenched
suit, draping the separate pieces over the wooden hangers permanently attached
to the closet bar. A telltale onion-skinned envelope waited on the nightstand.
She debated,
then
decided to read it later.

He never failed to reach
her,
no matter how far afield she fled. At one time, she’d
considered it a comfort, a warm tangle of emotion encircling her from afar. But
now she wondered if what she’d once viewed as the gold threads of her existence
had coiled into little more than a hangman’s noose.

Ana removed the rest of her
clothing and headed for the shower. She was not beautiful but had a reasonable
figure. Reasonable, she supposed, for a twenty-nine-year- old woman who had
never borne a child. She’d developed later than her sister but ultimately in
better proportion. Still, she’d not been popular in high school. Too intense,
the boys all said. It was her seriousness of purpose that had put them off, her
way of looking at the world and what one could make of it, given the proper
tools and ambition.

College men had been an initial
disappointment. For all her intellect, somehow she’d never considered that the
boys she’d thought so little of in high school would move right up to college
along with her. It wasn’t until Scott that she’d finally met a mind that could
mingle with her own. He’d held something over her from the very start. Sucked
her inwards and under as with no one before. The frightening thing was, it was
becoming more and more apparent Scott had no intention of ever letting
Ana
come up for air again.

These past six months had been
terrifying. The rapid mood swings and violent temper. He’d never actually hit
her, but once or twice had come close. On those occasions, she’d wondered if
she really knew him, ever really had known him. Ana was growing weary of his
unpredictable game. He could love her with undeniable passion on Tuesday but
feel 'closed in by their commitment' by the time the weekend rolled around.

At times she wondered if it was
all still worth the constant bickering and heartache. And yet, she’d already
invested so much – more than nine years. It seemed impossible to pull out
now. Surely, he would change. It was the uncertainty that was driving him to
these fits.
Uncertainty about his job.
Uncertainty about his purpose, his wants.
His needs...

Ana adjusted the water and
stepped into the shower grasping the bittersweet irony. And, though there was
no one around to see, she was grateful for the cascade of water concealing her
burgeoning trickle of tears. She was too strong to deny the truth but too weak
not to feel it. She’d spent nine long years with a Saturday man when what she
desperately wanted – needed – was someone to love her with a
Tuesday kind of passion every day of the week.

Scott closed the latch on his
suitcase,
then
carried his last piece of throwaway
furniture through the gray drizzle to the curb. He tacked a sign to the bureau,
Free to Good Home
. Someone around here could use it, even if they
couldn’t read.

There was so much senselessness
in the world. So many people who didn’t have a prayer. Scott couldn’t offer
much in the way of money but hope was another story.

He took one last look around
his empty apartment, thinking of Ana. She would go on without him. She had too
much to prove to too many people.

Scott shut and locked the door,
hefting his suitcase off the soaked concrete, and stepped, with determination,
into the drowning rain.

Through the heated rush of the
water, the knocking was incessant.

Ana stepped from the shower and
wrapped her body in the soft terry cloth of her robe.
'
Quien
es
?'
she asked, cinching her waist tie and
crossing to the outer room.

'Ana, it's Joe. Come on now,
beautiful, open up!'

She coiled her damp hair into a
loose knot at the base of her neck and slowly unlatched the door. He stood
before her, disheveled as always, a cocky grin emerging from under his
reddish-brown mustache. There was something urgent in his expression. Something
she hadn’t seen there before.

'I can see you’re half naked,
but all things considered, sweetheart, you could at least ask me in.'

Ana stepped back, remembering
the soft, round cup of his lips. 'Yeah sure, Joe,' she said, struggling to
remain unflustered. 'Come on in.'

He eased past her, pausing to
give her the customary Latin greeting of a peck on the cheek. Her still-warm
skin tingled at the suggestion of his bristling mustache. She turned to relock
the door and regroup. She was at his mercy and didn’t like it.

'Is this a contracting call or
is it pleasure?'

A bright blush swept across his
ruddy complexion. 'Sweetheart, this one’s on the level.'

That’s a switch, she thought,
motioning for him to sit and offering him a drink.

He accepted, settling himself
among the cushions of the worn rattan chair facing the window.

Beyond the weathered glass, the
glare of insurgent shellfire splintered the night air. A group of renegade
guerilla fighters from the western province had been fighting to gain control
of Costa
Negra's
central and coastal regions for the
past eighteen months. For over a year now, shellfire and grenades had rocked
the capital where the reigning military forces were still firmly entrenched.
The signs of destruction were everywhere, even in this hotel where mortar fire
had shattered two structural walls and caused searing vertical cracks in the
lemon-colored plaster of Ana's room.

She returned with two plastic
glasses of bottled water and handed one to Joe.

He took a tentative sip. 'It's
not what you think. I can't stay.' She shot him an agitated look
.

'Okay, okay, it's not what you don't think. Hell, I
don't know.

Fact is, I'm here to warn
you.'


'Warn me?' Coming from the most
reckless man in Costa
Negra
, she found the idea
absurd
.


'Ana,' he continued, strangely
stubborn, 'you’ve got to listen. You’ve got to abort that trip to
Tarrona
.'


Abort the trip? Abort the trip?
What the crap was that?
Some kind of State Department jargon?
'Uncle Sam is financing this deal. You know as well as I do the clock’s
ticking.'

'One more day won’t make or
break the contract.'

'Tell that to the children who
will have to wait one more day for penicillin if funding isn’t renewed on time.
It’s practically April, Joe! We’re down to the wire on this.'

'You’re not being rational.'

'No, you’re the one with the
problem. Last time I checked, there was a heart under that hairy chest. What
happened?'

He stood and took her by the
shoulders. 'Look at me.'
She turned her head to the wall. 'I said, look
at me.'

'I don’t know what’s gotten
into you. I’ve never seen you like this.'

He loosened his grip but didn’t
let go. His honey-brown eyes were shimmering. They looked unnatural in the pale
fluorescence of the room. 'Ana, your contract, our contract is going to be no
good to anyone if something happens to you.'

'What are you talking about?'
she said, shaking herself free and rubbing her shoulders.

'The Embassy received a
communiqué announcing an attack on the northern highway.'

'Not that again,' she said,
sitting to refill her cup. 'You know as well as I do the guerrillas ‘announce’
attacks all the time. Nine times out of ten they never happen. At least, not
when and where they're supposed to.'

She caught his eye on the curve
of her calf just at the point where one leg crossed over the other. She
uncrossed her legs and rearranged her robe to cover them.

He pretended not to notice her
shift in posture. 'I know you’re well-intentioned and all that, but I’ve got to
tell you I think you’re making one
helluva
mistake.'

Here spoke the man who’d defied
every security regulation since setting foot in this God-forsaken place.
'You’re a fine one to pass judgment.'

A new softness came over him.
'I really am one fitting example, aren’t I? Look, beautiful, I didn’t mean for
things to come off this way. I apologize.'

'Yeah, yeah.
Apology accepted. Look, it’s getting late –'

'I know you want to get rid of
me but I can’t leave here on this note. Besides,' he said with an impossible
grin, 'we still haven’t settled anything.'
Such a negotiator.

'I am taking that field trip
tomorrow.'

'Far be it from me to stop you.
I was just hoping we could work out a little compromise.'

Ana sat on the bed and popped
the seal on the thin
onion skin
envelope with a
trembling finger. In all the time she’d known him, no single piece of
correspondence had set her so on edge. Perhaps it was the upcoming trip and her
predawn departure from her hotel. Or maybe she was just being foolish, as she’d
happened to be increasingly when it came to Scott. What could he possibly say
that could make her day any worse? She still hadn’t received the milk for her
coffee and she was scheduled to leave in less than fifteen minutes.

She should have known better
than to stay up half the night with Joe. It was true he was irrepressible
– and impossible to get away from – once he set his mind to
sticking close. But, at the moment, both Joe’s closeness and Scott’s seemed
just a wee too tight for Ana and she
was
gasping for
air.

For miles they bumped along
empty roads. First, the northern highway, a crudely asphalted 'expressway', and
then the gravel- pitted trails that scaled the dark, pre-dawn western
mountains. As they drove, plantation ferns spread their fluttering fingers overhead,
lightly strumming an indigo sky. In the underbrush, camouflaged soldiers
waited, their splotchy brown and beige uniforms barely visible through mossy
green. At every shadowy bend in the road, rifles seemed poised and ready.

The Embassy driver, Felipe, and
Joe were engaged in superficial conversation. Felipe had been Ana’s vehicle
escort on many of her previous trips to Costa
Negra
.
He was small and leathered like the men of the region, with a toothless smile
that could crack the black mood of La Concha city streets or ease the tension
of travels into the explosion-riddled hills.

But this time, something was
different. Things in these hills on this particular morning were a bit too
quiet. Even Felipe’s affable chortle couldn’t take the edge off the drive. Were
it not for the uniformed soldiers, insurgents really – the military
always wore their olive greens – she could almost will herself to ignore
the knotty feeling tightening in her gut.

She’d had that feeling twice
this morning already, but dismissed it. The first time occurred when she’d
ordered her room service coffee as usual but it had arrived
solo
,
without the cream. No one in Costa
Negra
, including
the Costa
Negrans
, drank their coffee
solo
, at
least not at six in the morning. Truth be known, most Costa
Negrans
weren’t even up at six in the morning. But Ana was and the bellboy was, and
someone making a mistake in the kitchen was. Ana saw that as a bad sign. That,
and the fact that she hadn’t read Scott’s letter last night as planned, but
instead had chosen to read it over her ill-fated cup of morning coffee. If
she’d thought about it, she would have seen that – owing to the earliness
of the hour and the reputation of the hotel – the mix-up with the coffee
had been predictable. The contents of Scott’s letter were not.

She should have seen it coming.
So many dark omens purposely pushed aside. He’d never understood about her
family or her job. Materialistic was the word he’d used to describe her and it
cut to her core like a rotating, serrated blade.

She’d known since she was ten
she was meant to make a difference. Known since that blistering summer in
Oaxaca when, through a child’s eyes, she’d witnessed families scouring through
trashcans for the promise of a mid-day meal. Her language professor father had
been able to secure a number of summer teaching positions around the globe.
She’d traveled extensively, at an early age, throughout the Spanish-speaking
world. The impoverished landscape she’d absorbed hadn’t painted a pretty
picture on the easel of her soul.

Felipe and Joe stopped talking.

Up on the crest of the
red-brown hill sat an old rusted-out automobile, turned sideways across the
road.

Mark Neal turned from the large
picture window framing the DC skyline in soft orange hues. He sipped his
morning tea, eyeing the file on his desk. He wasn’t much of a coffee man,
except when he was under stress. Then he practically swam in it. Mark lifted
the pale yellow dossier, wondering if he was about to get coffee-logged.
Kidnapping was outside his purview.

As a rule, the Defense
Operations Service did not involve itself in such blatant matters of State.
Mark was a regional analyst trained in third world insurgency, his mission to
track trends in actual events and use that information to forecast and prevent
future catastrophe. For it was no longer the large powers that were the
greatest threat, but rather the smaller, more insidious ones, the crazed third
world dictators with too much time and weaponry on their hands. Not to mention
greed and utter disregard for human life. It was a Pandora’s box of troubles
aching to break free. Mark, and others like him,
were
the keepers of the key.