The Last Honorable Man (18 page)

A key scraped against a metal lock, and the door clicked open. Elisa raised her hand to shield her eyes from the light spearing into the dim room. “Back for more questions, Colonel?”

His pocked face sneered at her. “This time I expect some answers.” He slapped a baton against the palm of his hand. “I've been gentle with you so far out of respect for your…condition. But even my compassion has limits.”

“Hopefully they are broader than the limits of your intelligence, because I have no idea what you want me to tell you.”

“I want to know Eduardo Garcia's mission.”

They had covered this ground before. She could only be thankful he seemed fixated on Eduardo and had not connected her to La Puma. If he had, no doubt she would be dead.

She had to stall until she could come up with an escape plan. Last night and the night before, she had denied any knowledge of a mission. The way he was cracking the baton against his hand, she doubted that would work again.

She decided on another tactic. One she hoped would gain her as much information as she gave away. “How
would I know what his mission was?” she asked, her lips thin. She felt shamed that she had been involved with a traitor. “He worked for you.”

Sanchez paused midswing. “You think Eduardo worked for me? How interesting.”

Thwack.
The baton hit his palm.

“Eduardo Garcia was one of former Presidente Herrerra's personal bodyguards.”

Elisa's breath stalled. Eduardo? One of Herrerra's elite protection units? Those men had been the crown jewels of the San Ynez military when it was an honorable force. She could not believe one of them would turn on his countrymen.

Sanchez circled her with his baton. “Now he offers to sell me guns. I want to know for what purpose.”

So did Elisa. “What does it matter? He is dead.”

“Yes. It's unfortunate I had to have him killed, and leave all those lovely weapons behind. But I could not risk letting him live once I found out who he was.” Sanchez tipped her chin up with the baton. “And that he had taken a rebel lover.”

Elisa's heart tried to break out of her chest. He did not know who she was. He could not. Calming herself, she realized what the colonel had just said. “You had him killed? But—”

A knock sounded on the door. A young soldier popped his head in and said breathlessly, “Colonel—”

“Fool! I told you I did not want to be interrupted.”

“But, sir—”

With one step, Sanchez was at the door and rapped the baton on the boy's shoulder hard enough to snap bone. The boy writhed in pain. “But, sir…we're under attack!”

 

Three dozen members of the San Ynez People's Resistance Movement—supported by an American infantry squad—fired into the air and generally raised a racket in front of the Sanchez compound while six special forces paratroopers—and one former paratrooper—parachuted inside the rear wall. Silently they gathered their black chutes and rigging and stuffed them behind bushes, then moved out across the compound. Though they could talk to each other with a mere whisper into the ultrasensitive micro-electronic headsets they each wore, they communicated only by hand signal, unwilling to risk announcing their arrival with even the slightest noise.

The main house was lit up like the castle at Disney World, and to give Elisa credit, it did look to Del a little like Gene Randolph's estate, except it was stucco instead of brick, and had a red tile roof instead of Gene's cedar-shingled one. Plus, Sanchez's mansion was about twice as large as the Randolph estate. Drug dealers lived in style these days.

Only one guard stood watch at the back door, and he wasn't very well trained. One of the paratroopers took him out so easily that he almost seemed disappointed the man hadn't put up more of a fight. It looked as if all the San Ynezian soldiers worth their salt had bought the diversion out front, as they were supposed to.

Inside, four of the paratroopers headed upstairs, to the office suite where Sanchez was likely to be. Del and one volunteer, the kid who had taken out the guard outside, went down, looking for Elisa.

They found her much more quickly than they'd anticipated. She stood at bottom of the stairs. Right behind her stood Colonel Sanchez, with a gun pointed at the swell in her belly that held her child.

The young paratrooper spoke excitedly into his headset when he should have been looking for cover. “Charlie One, Charlie One. I've got him. I've got Sanchez. Do you read?”

Sanchez swung the muzzle of his pistol away from Elisa momentarily, and fired. The paratrooper tumbled down the stairs, blood arcing from a wound in his neck.

“You've got no one,” Sanchez said. His black eyes were dead calm. The eyes of a madman.

“Let her go, Colonel,” Del ordered. “And maybe I won't kill you.”

“Del?” Elisa cried.

“Wrong,” Sanchez yelled. “Drop your weapon and come out, and maybe I won't kill her.”

“Del, no!”

He wanted to go to her. Gather her up and tell her everything would be all right. But he couldn't. And it might not be.

He heard automatic gunfire from upstairs, and realized he wasn't going to get help from the paratroopers anytime soon.

Partially hidden by the door frame, he sighted his Hechler and Koch on the center of Sanchez's forehead, but Elisa was too close to risk a shot. Del had barely an inch as a margin of error.

“You drop her,” he said, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt. “You've got no cover. I'll kill you before you before her body hits the floor.”

Sanchez laughed demonically. “Then it looks like we have a standoff.”

Del caught movement in the hallway off to Sanchez's right and a little in front of the colonel. Hope winged through his chest, and he smiled. “Tell you what,” he
proposed. “I'm only interested in the woman. You let her go, I'll let you go.”

“You think I believe that?” He moved the pistol to Elisa's temple, dug the barrel in deep. She bit her lip, but held her silence. The movement in the side hall went still.

“It's the truth. You let her go, I'll let you walk right by me. Look.” He lowered his pistol an inch. “I'll put my gun down if you lower yours. We'll do it together, an inch at a time so neither of us gets the drop on the other.”

“Del, no! You cannot let him escape.”

Difficult as it was, Del ignored her. He lowered his pistol another inch. “Come on. A little at a time. Just ease the gun away from her, and I'll put mine down.”

Del held his breath, watching for any sign of cooperation. Slowly the colonel's hand dropped. Maybe half an inch.

“That's good,” Del encouraged. He lowered his gun again. “Now you. A little more.”

They played the game until Del's pistol rested on the floor, still cupped in his hand. The colonel's weapon hung at his side.

Still pulling Elisa with him, he shuffled forward a step. Then another. One more put him directly in line with the intersecting hall.

A figure leaped out of the shadows. Del's gun was up again in a flash, but he didn't need it. The young Hispanic man made a tackle on Sanchez that would have made a pro linebacker proud. A second young man caught Elisa as she spun away.

Pulling out plastic restraints, Del ran down the stairs to secure their prize.

Elisa pulled back from the man who'd caught her to
look at his face. Then she flung herself back into his arms. “Miguel? What are you doing here, my brother?”

Del put his foot on Sanchez's throat, and the man who'd tackled him backed away. “What about me? Don't I get a hug, big sister?”

“Raul! How did you know…?”

“Your ranger friend paid us a little visit,” Raul answered.

“Along with a few dozen American soldiers,” Miguel added ruefully.

Raul hung his thumbs in the waistband of his pants and arched his back. “Seems they needed a little help with their invasion.”

“It's not an invasion, it's an extradition,” Miguel said. “And all they needed was intelligence.”

Raul cuffed him on the back of the head. “Then why did they ask you?”

Miguel rolled his eyes. “We gave them the layout of the house. But only if they let us come along.”

Del smiled at the reunion as he finished securing the colonel's hands and feet.

Sanchez sneered up at Del. “Go ahead, Americano. Kill me. I spit in your face with my dying breath.”

“Kill you? And deny your right to a fair trial and to spend the next fifty or sixty years rotting in an American prison? Not a chance, Colonel.”

Finally ready for a reunion of his own, he stood.

But Elisa bent over the fallen paratrooper. “He is still alive. Miguel, find something to use as a pressure bandage. Search these rooms.” She waved down the hall, then pulled off the trooper's headset. “Raul, figure out how this works and call for help.”

“No need,” Del said. He spoke quietly but urgently
into his own set and listened for the reply. “They're on the way.”

Everything moved at light speed after that. The paratroopers arrived and then the regular infantry. Medics carried the wounded man away, while other soldiers carted Sanchez off under heavy guard. Elisa was removed to “debrief” with two men in suits. They had to be spooks, Del figured. Nobody but spooks wore suits to a raid. An American lieutenant asked Del to help round up Sanchez's key officers.

Much to his great displeasure, Del's reunion would have to wait.

O
ther than the past two weeks, and a few short educational trips, Elisa had spent her entire life in San Ynez. Yet tonight the sight of the dark mountains charging up to the sky, the pattern of the stars overhead, the scent of the nearby rainforest were all unfamiliar. Foreign.

San Ynez no longer felt like home.

Elisa sat in the darkened doorway of an American military helicopter, watching the hubbub around Sanchez's mansion incredulously. She still could not believe the Americans had arrested Colonel Sanchez. In his own country.

But she was glad. And proud. For her people, and for theirs.

A man walked toward her in the distance. It was too dark to make out his face, but she recognized Del immediately. His shape. His walk. It was as if she had always known him. Always been a part of him. And him a part of her.

“Hey,” he said, when he reached her.

“Hey.” She should come up with something more articulate, but words for this moment escaped her.

“They said they had a doctor look at you.”

She laid a hand on her belly. “We are fine. Clint?” she asked, suddenly picturing the ranger writhing on the ground as Sanchez's men had dragged her away.

“He's okay. Practically had to sedate him to keep him from coming along on this mission. Are you sure you're all right? And the baby?”

She took his hand, laid the broad palm over her stomach.

He frowned. “Am I supposed to feel something?”

“Not yet.” She smiled and gently pressed her right side with her own hand. The baby kicked like a World Cup soccer star. Del's eyes widened. “We have learned a new trick since we have been away.”

“So I see. Does it hurt?”

“No. Want me to do it again?”

“No!” He snapped his hand back. “I mean, maybe you'd better not. Let the poor girl rest.”

Elisa laughed, fingered the silver circle and star pinned to his shirt. “Your Texas Ranger badge.”

“A lot's happened since you disappeared. I got my job back, for one.” She nodded towards the soldier scurrying about. “And started your own army for another?”

“Nope, these are the real deal. U.S. Special Forces.”

“And they're here because…?”

He chuckled and relayed what Mr. “Bradford” had told him. “Without the gun deal, the State Department had no grounds for the extradition warrant on Sanchez,” he added. But you had applied for your I-9 residency status before you were taken. Gene Randolph came up with the idea. He had State push your application
through. We had a witness who saw you forcibly taken from the parking garage and a federal agent undercover in Sanchez's organization who could place you here in the compound.” He grinned. “Kidnapping a legal American resident is a serious offense. You provided grounds for the extradition.”

She was still sorting through everything he had said, trying to process it all, when he cupped her jaw in his palm, stroked his thumb across her cheek.

“It's over,” he said.

Elisa's heart twisted even as she tipped her head back under the pleasure of his touch. “Sanchez's reign of terror? Or our marriage?”

Del let her go, swung around and sat beside her. He looked at the ground between his feet. “Sanchez is gone, and Herrerra will be reinstated as president—”

Elisa's head snapped up. “Presidente Herrerra? But he is dead…”

“Not so dead after all. Seems his elite guard got word there might be an attempt on his yacht. They took him off the boat in time. He's been hiding out in the U.S. with a few of his men.”

“Eduardo,” Elisa said, seeing the truth in her heart.

“Yeah. Eduardo.”

Her eyes burned. “He was not a traitor.”

“He was a hero. He stayed loyal to Herrerra all those years, and eventually worked with the State Department to put him back in power. Herrerra is planning a special award for him, to be presented posthumously.”

Elisa touched her abdomen again. “I am glad. For her sake.”

“Me, too. And for yours.”

The silence stretched uncomfortably between them.

Del cleared his throat. “Guess you can stay in San Ynez now, if you want. It's safe.”

“Yes.” The possibility should have made her happy. Instead an overwhelming sense of loss engulfed her.

What else had she expected? The ranger had married her out of a sense of duty. To protect her. Now he knew that he had not killed Eduardo, and her safety in San Ynez was not in question. His duty had been fulfilled, and so he was letting her go. Gently, as was his way.

“Of course,” he said. “I don't know as there's going to be much need for a resistance leader here anymore.”

“It is a job I will happily relinquish.”

“What will you do?”

She pondered a moment. “Have this baby. Then help get the country back on its feet, I guess. Stabilize the economy. Promote trade agreements.”

“With the U.S.?”

“Yes.”

He shifted restlessly. “Maybe you'll have some business in the States?”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe…” He looked at her sideways, and Elisa didn't think she'd ever seen more fear on his face. “Maybe you could do what you need to do from the U.S.”

Elisa's heart ricocheted off her breastbone. “Perhaps.”

The ranger dug in his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to her. “I told you State pushed through your residency application.”

“My green card?” she asked, astonished.

“'Course, you probably don't want to leave your family, and there's a lot to do here.”

Before she got too carried away, she had to be clear.
“Are you asking me to come back to the United States, or to come back to you?”

His jaw set stubbornly, and she realized just how much she had hurt him that last day. “You said you didn't want me to come looking for you…”

“I was an idiot. That's why I went to the courthouse, to tell you I was wrong and I was sorry. But I never got the chance.”

Starlight gleamed off the intensity in his eyes. “Then come back to
me,
Elisa. And I'm not asking out of duty or obligation or debt. Come back to me because I love you. I love everything about who you are and who you've been. Come back because I want to marry you again, in a church this time, and raise this baby and three or four more with you.”

Elisa nearly floated out of her skin. She let him suffer for…about a millisecond. Which was as long as she could hold herself back from throwing her arms around his neck and kissing every square inch of his face.

A few soldiers drifted by, storing gear. Some of them cast lingering, curious glances at them.

“And your family,” she said into his neck, “they will accept this, knowing what they must know about me by now?”

He pulled back so he could see her. “I had a long talk with them before I left for this mission. You know what my Papi said?”

She shook her head.

Del grinned. “Said during World War Two he met a woman who ran a part of the French resistance. I think maybe they had something going, by the way. That was before he met Mami. Anyway, he said she was the bravest, smartest, most principled person he'd ever met. And
he said you reminded him of her. He'd be Goddamn proud—”

He paused while Elisa crossed herself and mumbled a short prayer.

“—to have a woman like you in the family. Permanently. So will you marry me again, Elisa?”

She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him perfunctorily. “I'll marry you again, Delgado Cooper. And again and again and again and—”

He cut her off with another kiss.

And this one was anything but perfunctory.

At the sound of clapping and whistling, Elisa raised her hand. The soldiers had formed a semicircle around them, a respectable distance away. A few shouted encouragement to Del, and he pulled her close, squeezing her almost painfully.

She thought back over all that had happened in the past two weeks. The people she'd met—Gene Randolph and Bull Matheson, Clint Hayes and even Kat Solomon and the soldiers here she hadn't met but who had saved her life.

They were all heroes.

But her gaze was inexorably drawn back to Del.

He might not be the last honorable man, she realized. But as far as she was concerned he was the best.