Volcano (17 page)

Harmless, and yet now she could see where it had led. The
baby was in so much danger the authorities wouldn’t even tell Maria where
they’d taken her.

Maria withdrew the rosary and pressed it to her tear-stained
cheeks, knowing she’d probably never see her Isabelita again. And now Pepe,
without the money for his surgery, would leave her as well.

Maria stared at the gray empty walls, thinking their purpose
must be to drive her insane. There was nothing here,
nada en absoluto,
but
Maria’s nagging guilt and the big hole in her heart not a soul in the world
could fill.

Maria startled and cast her eye to the opposite end of the
room as she heard a rattle from beyond the reinforced door. She shifted on the
narrow cot and tucked her rosary away, thinking that just maybe her prayers had
been answered.
That, just maybe, God had sent someone to help
her.

But, when the door swung forward and a man entered the room,
Maria found herself staring into straight into the eyes of the devil.

***

Baby Isabel was sleeping and the wall of silence between
Mark and Ana in the front seat provided the perfect backdrop for Carolyn’s
raging thoughts.
Joe McFadden
. After all this time, a man Carolyn had
been virtually certain she’d never see again. Not that she hadn’t hoped to see
him, dreamt of seeing him those first several weeks- make that months- after
his assignment in Panama City had ended.

He’d been a young Marine Lieutenant, barely out of school,
cock-sure and handsome in a devilish way that had turned every woman’s head.
The danger was he’d known it, known it and reveled in the fact, Carolyn’d
suspected. Joe had never felt about Carolyn the way she’d felt about him.

Carolyn thwarted an uncomfortable burning
inside that told her, even after all this time
,
she
still felt it
. In that split second realization of who he was in the
cabin, an old ghost had resurged within her. That phantom feeling of what she’d
had and could have been to Joe, if he’d only let her. But Joe, Carolyn later
convinced herself, had never seen the relationship as more than a passing
fling. Officer McFadden was not the sort to settle down, raise a family.
And the fact that he hadn’t, to this day, only confirmed Carolyn’s
earlier suspicions.
Though it was technically an abuse of her power,
Carolyn had managed to keep unofficial tabs on Joe’s whereabouts these past few
years.

Enough time had gone by to temporarily close the wounds when
she and one Mark Neal had been assigned to the
newly-organized
DIPAC. And then, once Mark’s new wife Ana Kane had joined him at the Center,
the occasional banter began. A periodic reference, a hinted allusion to a man
both Mark and Ana knew, someone who’d helped them accomplish something big in
Spain. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to square the picture of the man Mark
and Ana described with the Joe McFadden Carolyn had remembered in Panama. And
then, when her DOS research revealed he’d gone to work for the Company,
everything else fell into place.

Carolyn just never imagined the place where Joe would wind
up with Ana would happen to be the very same safe house in which she’d been
instructed to guard Mark’s infant daughter Isabel. But it was a small world,
she supposed. Particularly where covert operations were concerned.

Carolyn studied the man in the front seat, wondering what
was crossing his mind, not sure she wanted to even guess at the sort of
conversation he would later engage in with his wife. The wife about whom he’d
been worried sick- and whom he’d found in another man’s arms.

And then, there was Joe to be concerned about. Joe who’d
sacrificed himself to the Chinese to save the rest of them. But the Joe Carolyn
recalled from Panama City was not a selfless man. And, judging by the way he’d
appeared ready to take advantage of the situation with Ana, not much had
changed. He would never have gone with the Chinese had he believed himself to
be in real danger. Or, would he?

Carolyn shifted uneasily in her seat and stared out into the
fading light. Evening was crawling across the mountains, stretching
purple-black blankets across darkening vales. Soon, even their peaks would be
covered in ebony sheaths and Joe’s all-
terrain
 
Jeep
would depart these unmarked
back roads for the better-known bypass to the city.

Carolyn aimlessly twisted a wavy lock around her finger,
hoping she was right. Reversing her prayers of all these years, and besieging
the heavens that- despite her earlier wishes-Joe McFadden hadn’t changed.
Let
him still be the same vain, out-for-his-own-ass Joe
, Carolyn begged of her
unseen God. For, if
he
was
still all
those things,
Carolyn could more easily convince herself he wasn’t
really in danger.

But if he had changed.
Changed in
the least from the self-centered, unabashed man Carolyn once knew, then Carolyn
prayed sincerely God would help Joe McFadden in the hands of the men who had
taken him.

***

Incensed, Tom Mooney looked down at the cowering woman and
slammed a fist against the concrete wall. “You
still
haven’t answered my
question,
senora.”

“I told you,
senor,
” Maria began in rapid Spanish,
which Tom followed with great ease. “I know nothing.
You
were the one,
the one who requested all the information. I have no idea why!”

Tom knew she was lying and, what’s more, was certain she was
a fricking Commie.

“Do you have children, Ms. Gonzales?”

“Por favor, senor, no mis hijos...”
she pleaded,
ramming her hand in her pocket.

“Where are they?” Tom demanded in a booming voice. “In
Cuba?”

Maria’s face crumbled at the memory of her disappeared
daughter.
At the rumors of renewed revolution in her parent’s
homeland.
“No, senor,”
she told him with a weepy shake of her
head.

“But you’re Cuban, yes?” Tom asked her in Spanish.

Maria nodded and sobbed into the hand that clutched a
rosary.

“What are you plotting?” Tom demanded grabbing her by the
shoulders. “Tell me!
 
Tell me
now!”

Tom stopped suddenly at the firm grip on his shoulder and
realized he’d been shaking the woman- hard.

“Sir,” DIPAC counsel John James said at his back. “We’ve
tried hardball and it hasn’t worked.”

Tom spun in confusion toward the man behind him. He
recognized the face, but...

“Sir,” James continued solemnly, “I realize you are close to
the family, but I’m afraid you’re being in here constitutes a breech of
protocol. It’s going to be someone’s ass for letting you in. And, if you’ll
pardon my frankness, it’ll be mine too if I don’t see you out of here, post
haste.”

Tom whirled back toward Maria, trying to remember just what
she’d told him. She’d confessed, hadn’t she? Confessed to the conspiracy
involving Cuba? Whatever it was Tom knew with dead certainty, Maria and
therefore the Cubans, were involved in the analyst scare. Christ, he’d known
that all along. That’s why his being a part of this operation was so damn
critical. Critical and top secret, he reminded himself, casting a wary eye back
at John James. Even the lawyers...
No, make that, especially
the lawyers- couldn’t be trusted.

What Tom needed to do was get back to the office and make
sure everything was on track. His operation’s success was more critical now
than ever. Thank God he wasn’t operating alone. This thing was too damn big.
Make that, fricking explosive, for one man to handle alone. But when it was
over, one man and one man only would reap the glory. Yessireebob, Tom Mooney
would get his accolades for sure.

Joe approached Al Fahd at the outdoor desert shooting range.
Loaded military cargo trucks lumbered by, their burgeoning flaps fluttering in
the slight breeze. Sweat trickled down Joe’s brow as he walked to face his
destiny, the barrel of a pistol pressed into his back.

Al Fahd waited until Joe was little more than four feet
away, then spun in his tracks, angling his weapon high and setting the sights
from his semiautomatic just between McFadden’s eyes.

“You, Mr. Smith,” the Arab said, a gritty unlit cigar
between his purple lips, “are either very brave or very stupid.”

Joe started to shrug, but the pistol at his back pressed
deeper.

“Moving out?” Joe asked, raising his voice above the din of
the convoy that continued to grind past.

Al Fahd twirled his lifeless cigar in his teeth but kept the
aim of his rifle steady. “Ever the curious one, aren’t we, Mr. Smith? Or should
we say...McFadden?”

Joe swallowed hard, but forced a rock-hard smile. “Very good,
Al Hakeem. Perhaps they could use you in US Intelligence.”

Al Fahd shifted into his rifle with a disengaging
click.
“Better
me than you, special agent McFadden. You appear to have outlived your
usefulness.”

   
Joe
held up his hands and started to shake his head, but the barrel at his back dug
in. “Surely, you didn’t bring me all the way back to kill me,” Joe said with a
grimace.

Al Fahd lowered his rifle with a riotous laugh, then turned
and said something to the two men beside him who’d been oiling their weapons.
The others shared a look then gave McFadden a slow appraisal, which stirred
forth their own hilarity.

“Someone going to let me in on the joke?” Joe asked, not
entirely sure he wanted to know.

“I said,” Al Fahd told him, his eyes going deadly cold,
“that’s what you’ll wish- that we’ve only brought you here to kill you. For you
see, Mr. Smith...uh, McFadden, we have our ways of making you talk.”

Joe tightened his jaw but said nothing.

“Take your right hand for example,” Al Fahd began, until his
words were drowned out by rude guffaws from the men around him.

Joe curled the fingers of his right hand into a ball. “I
wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

Al Fahd gave a grisly smile,
then
shook his head at McFadden’s bluster. “We start with one finger...” He slurped
saliva between the cigar and his teeth, in a fair imitation of a slicing sound.
“Then the next...”

Joe started to move, then looked over his shoulder and
changed his mind. “You know, Al Hakeem, you’ve got me pegged all wrong. I could
still be of use to you.”

Al Fahd trained his weapon sights down to Joe’s groin,
before angling them slowly, slowly back up again to Joe’s forehead. “In what
way?”

Joe met Al Fahd’s cold black stare. “Tell me what you’re
moving in those trucks.”

Al Fahd spewed a laugh, spittle seeping toward the parched
earth. “Those, Mr. McFadden, are heading to America, a land I’m afraid, to
which you’ve already said your goodbyes.”

Joe swallowed
hard,
remembering the
helium tanks, knowing what day it was, recalling Al Fahd’s intention to
party
.
Y2K, hell no.
It was the turn of
this
new year
the Arab was after.
This
new
year
, all dammit to hell,
in America.

“Auld Lang Syne?”
Joe asked.

Al Fahd steadied his weapon and began a slow, tortuous,
ill-melodious tune between his teeth and the cigar.

“You’ll never get away with it.”

Al Fahd fell silent and took a step nearer, closing the gap
between his rifle barrel and Joe McFadden’s head. “No?” he asked, his ebony
gaze blistering like blue-hot coals. “Perhaps you should tell me why.”

***

Mark sat across from Ana at the DOS conference table, an
unsettling
deja vu
casting a pall on the room. Almost four years ago,
they’d been in a similar situation. But, though he’d known her less well, she’d
seemed more forthcoming in Spain. Mark thumped his gold pen against his
notepad, wondering if she was holding something back. Hoping in his heart it
wasn’t something he didn’t want to know.

“You sure you don’t want someone else in the room?”

“Why,” she asked, motioning to the camera dangling from a
suspense bracket in the corner, “can’t you be trusted?”

Oh, Mark could be trusted alright- infinitely. So what was
up with the double talk from his generally
straight-forward
wife? “I don’t know how to tell you-”

Ana leaned her weary form forward and turned both palms up
on the table. “Since when have
you
been at a loss for words?”

“Okay, I’ll come straight out with it, then. I don’t think
you’re being completely honest with me.”

Ana set her jaw and pushed back from the table. “As an
analyst or a husband?”

Mark swallowed hard. “Both.”

Ana shook her head with a look of incredulity. “That’s it?
That’s all you have to say after everything I’ve told you? I was almost killed,
for God’s sake!
 
Hay Long was a
monster and yet I found a way to come out on top!”

Mark pushed back in his own chair and stood. “Ana, hang
on...” he said, walking around the table.

“No,
you
hang on!
 
What is it with you men...”

Ah, shit
. Mark caught the plural, his stomach
nosediving.

“...
always
telling me what to do!”

“You have a right to be upset,” Mark told her. “I wasn’t for
a minute implying-”

“Forget what you were implying!
 
It was all in what you
didn’t
say!”

Mark cast his eye toward the camera, then turned his back on
it, stepping in toward the table. “I’d keep your voice to a low roar, if I were
you. That is, unless you want our domestic dirty laundry made part of the
permanent DOS record.”