Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (23 page)

'It was the unsecured line.
Couldn’t risk telling you any more.'

Mark breathed a sigh of relief.
His instincts hadn’t failed him after all.

Cromwell adjusted the briefcase
on his knees. 'We received a tip we’re working against a double-agent.'

Mark thought immediately of
Rebelles
.

'Someone working with the
Catalonians, possibly one of their leaders.'

Mark had heard of them.
Alianza
Independista
de
Catalunia
or the
AIC.
There was momentum for revolution building in Catalonia.
Rebels in northeastern Spain who wanted a separate state.
Already their language was apart, many of their customs unique to that coastal
region.

'Barcelona?' Mark asked.

'We think that’s where they’re
headquartered, but aren’t sure.'

Of course, the LPP was a rival
group. Competing separatists vying to take over the northern segment of the
country. Only maybe now, the north didn’t seem like enough. If the LPP could
plan a royal coup, why couldn’t they? And if they had a way to secure the
archivo
.
..

'Sir, we’ve been in contact
with an agent named Salvador
Rebelles
.'

Cromwell had started fiddling
with the glove box, but stopped what he was doing and looked up. 'Define
contact.'

How could he put this without
making Joe and him seem inept? 'He’s been helpful in eliminating the
competition, sir.'

'What competition?'


'Whoever it is who’s been
trying to take us out.'


Cromwell finally got the lock
to work on the glove box and jimmied it open. He felt along the inside of its
hollow, reaching two fingers behind the tiny light bulb.

Jesus Christ, what had he
found?

'Where’d you get this
car?'


'Sir?'


'The car, Mark, quick!'

'It was in Avilla. We’d had a
close call on the road.'


'What papers did you
use?'


'Second set.
Naturally. After Denton–'


'Damn,' Cromwell cried,
slamming his back into the well of his seat
.


Mark was almost afraid to ask.

'Homing device,' Cromwell said,
staring out the window. 'Lined with plastic explosive.'

Joe studied
Rebelles
as he lifted the small electronic device from the seat of his car. 'A bug?' he
asked, fastening his seatbelt.

'A tracking device, Mr.
McFadden.' He flipped open a small electronic screen with map coordinates
flashing around the perimeter. A pulsating red dot moved across a topographical
area that looked like the northern coast.

'I’ve got them,' he said,
setting the sensor down on the seat and cranking his engine.

'Don’t you think we’d better
call for reinforcements?'

'Not to
worry, Mr. McFadden.
All taken care of.'

'How long since you’ve taken a
roll?' Cromwell asked.

Mark was doing his damnedest to
keep his hands steady on the wheel. 'Sir?'

'A roll, son, as in out of a
moving car.'


Mark got the feeling this was a
very specific question
.


'When I tell you,' Cromwell
said, 'I want you to turn this car north and set it in second gear.'


Mark swallowed hard.

Cromwell looked out over the
ocean, judging each side-road as they passed it by. It was hard to tell in the
dark.
'Next one, Mark.
Up ahead!'


There was maybe fourteen feet
of gravel, then a brutal precipice colliding with the sea
.

'That’s
not a road, sir.'


'Good God
Almighty, Mark.
I know it’s not a road. Turn!'

Mark downshifted and slowly
rounded the corner.

Cromwell hit a button and locks
sprung up on all four doors. 'Don’t forget your seatbelt,' Cromwell warned,
throwing open his door and tossing his briefcase out onto the rocky slope
.

The gears strained as the car began picking up
speed. Nothing but pure black sky lay ahead
.

Mark
grabbed his handle and flung the door open wide.

Wheels churned over spiraling
earth, patches of tumbling sea grass coming into view
.


'Now!' Cromwell shouted.

The two of them lunged from the
car,
seconds before it took a steady dive off the
cliff and plummeted into the ocean.

'
Cono
!'
Rebelles
smacked his hand against the box on the seat
between them.

Joe craned his neck, trying to
see. 'What is it?'


'We’ve lost the signal.'


Rebelles
frantically reset knobs
and mashed buttons, dividing his attention between the box and the wheel.
An oncoming car veered toward them and let out a furious horn.

'
Jesu
Cristo
, hombre!' Joe shouted. 'Get back in your lane!'

Rebelles
looked up and steadied their car on its course, then picked up his car phone.
'I need two squads,' he said rapidly in Spanish, 'something is wrong.'

Mark and Cromwell ran their way
to the nearest populated cabin. Fortunately, there was one less than a quarter
of a mile down the main road. The white sedan parked out front was unlocked.

'I’ll drive,' Cromwell said,
tossing his briefcase onto the seat and getting behind the wheel. Mark climbed
in as Cromwell pulled some wires from the base of the ignition and took out his
pocketknife.

The engine gurgled to life and
Cromwell hit the gas, just as lights appeared in the window of the house.

The grenadine sun peered over
the horizon.

'Buckle up!' Cromwell shouted.
'This is going to be a bumpy ride.'

They took off with a jerk,
then
burned onto the Bay Road.

In the purplish light, a blur
of white-capped waves rolled and crashed into the rock-strewn sands. Modest
brown houses whizzed by, their porches boarded to keep out the winds.

'There, Chief!' Mark said,
pointing
.

It was no more than a crude wooden
shack at the foot of a hill sloping toward the sea. A few cars were parked
outside, and there appeared to be movement within.

Cromwell slowed the engine,
gears howling in deceleration,
then
brought the
humming car to a halt at the top of the drive.

Isabel sat still, staring at
the man with her deep black eyes. She recognized the insignia on his ratty
olive uniform. How she loathed him, how she loathed all of them. They were
animals. The resistance always was. Animals like the beasts
who
had forced her father and several hundred others to dig their own graves before
shooting them point-blank in the head.

The bearded one gave the order
to a second man who was standing nearby with a coil of rope.

'Tie her arms to the chair.'

'You filthy separatist pig!'
Isabel shouted at the man with the rope as he drew near, crowning her insult
with a stream of spittle.

The leader's face tightened.

'Oh, so you're a brave one, are
you? Well then, we'll just have to see how bravely you die.'

Isabel's wrists were bound
tightly to the arms of Albert's chair. The lanky man held the gun on her. But
she knew shooting her would give them limited satisfaction. They were preparing
a slow and excruciating death. She damned them all to
hel
with a searing look.

'Let's see,' the bearded one
said, lightly turning the blade over in his hand, 'shall we start with the left
wrist or the right?'

'Start with my left, you
bastard pig! It will bleed faster, spewing your ugly face with real Spanish
blood!' she fired in rapid Castilian.

The man angrily crossed the
room and seized her forearm. She clenched her fist, forcing her veins into
position.

'Whore!' he shouted, digging
the raw edge of the blade into the soft underside of her left wrist.

'Ah yes,' she said, the blood
spurting from her veins, spewing the bearded man’s shirt with trickling
splinters of red. 'Look closer, you worthless
putamadre
.
Your yellow blood will never gurgle with such pure intent. You are polluted!'
She laughed through gritted teeth. 'The fountain of my federalist blood marks
your filthy body with certain defeat!'

'Shut the witch up!' the man
with the gun screamed, bringing his hands to his ears, the pistol now resting
oddly against the side of his head.

Salvador
Rebelles
walked back from the cliff and slammed his fist into the hood of his car.
Vehicle wreckage littered the jagged side of the precipice dangling over the
ocean, but the body of Neal’s car was nowhere in sight.

Joe was worried, but tried to
tell himself Neal was smarter than that. And Cromwell was the master.

The magenta sun was halfway out
of the ocean. Seabirds scavenged hungrily along the coast, diving in and out of
the morning waves.

'It’s a diversion,' Joe said,
knowing that’s what he had to believe.

Rebelles
swung his lean frame back behind the wheel. 'In that case, we’re going to keep
on driving this Bay Road until we find them.'

There was a muffled scramble in
the cabin, then the gentle creak of a screened door swinging open. Mark and
Cromwell were standing at the top of the drive, their car pointed toward the
house, front doors opened as body shields.

Mark drew his pistol and
released the safety.

Carnova
appeared and spoke in his unsettling Spanish-French accent. 'Ah, so! The
Americans,' he said with emphasis, 'have arrived!'

Cromwell pulled his weapon.

Mark recognized
Carnova
at once from the photo files. He wondered how it
felt to have so much blood on your hands.

The right wing of the jetliner
burst into flames, the ear-splitting sound of the explosion matched only by the
desperate cries of all two hundred and twenty-nine on board.

'The girl,
Carnova
,
give us the girl!'


Carnova
laughed, pushing the door farther ajar
.

'Well,
well, Mr. Neal,' he said, baiting, 'if you want her, come in and get
her!'


This self-sanctified bastard
.

Engines squealed as the plane’s nose hurled
south, blue-orange flames licking the sky.

Mark took a stride away from
the car, his weapon in clear view.

'No,' Cromwell warned over the
top of the car, 'that's just what he wants.'

Cromwell was right. For Ana’s
sake, he had to remain focused.

'Before we can talk, we want
proof that Ana’s all right.'

Carnova
stuck his head back in the door and yelled something in a strange
mixed-sounding language.

'What did he say?' Mark asked.

'It was Basque. I don't know
but I'm willing to bet –'


A slender young woman was
pushed into the door’s opening. She wore an oversized olive jacket and baggy
men's slacks. An oily curtain of hair dangled partway over one eye. Her face
was bruised, her lower lip swollen. She seemed fragile, incoherent.

'Oh my God, Ana –'
Cromwell fell back a few paces in shock.

Ana looked up the steep incline
of the driveway
.

'Father?' Her knees buckled
under her. El
Dedo
, who had the barrel of his pistol
in her side, grabbed her sinking form by the elbow.

'Get her back inside,'
Carnova
demanded. 'They’ve seen enough.'

Cromwell's face was shaking
with a fury Mark had never known. 'What have you done to my daughter, you pig
?!
Release her!' Cromwell shouted, his face a fiery red.

'Uh-uh, impatient boy,'
Carnova
retorted. '
Primero
I see
el
archivo
!'

Cromwell reached through the
open door and pulled his briefcase from the seat of the car. He carried the
thin brown
attache
around to the lid of the trunk and
deftly worked its combination.

Mark backed up the hill, taking
cover with Cromwell at the rear of the car.

Cromwell popped the lid of his
case and pulled a slender, yellow file from its pocket.

'It's here,
Carnova
,
all here!'


'In my hand, Mr. Kane!'


Cromwell placed the slim
blue-striped envelope at the top of the pebbled incline and sent it sliding
with a decisive shove. The file glided halfway down the driveway and stopped.

Carnova
yelled back into the house and a young woman emerged. She scrambled up the
driveway to retrieve the package, then hurried back down the hill and into the
house, handing
Carnova
the envelope as she passed
him. He tapped the file lightly in his hand, turning it over. Slowly, he opened
the metal clasp and withdrew the eggshell thin blueprints.

'Very good,
Mr. Kane.
And now it's your turn. I've waited many years for this!'

Cromwell stood like a statue,
his feet anchored to the ground.

'Don't do it, sir,' Mark urged
under his breath.

The roar of an engine swinging
around the Bay Road sounded and tires screeched to a halt behind them. Mark
pivoted his head.

'It’s
McFadden and
Rebelles
,' he said
,
panic jolting through him
. If the Spaniard were a double
agent, he could shoot them all.

McFadden and
Rebelles
were hunkered low, scampering down the hill with
drawn weapons.