Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (4 page)

Jarvis sat up a little
straighter in his chair.
'No problem, sir.
Where you
headed?'

'Costa
Negra
,'
Mark said, staring down at the closed files on his desk.

'They’re still at war.'

'Yes, they are.' Mark was
shuffling through manila folders, selecting certain ones and laying them aside.
'Here,' he said, picking up the pile and handing it across his desk. 'You’ll
need to go over these right away.'

Jarvis accepted the files,
settling them on his lap. He opened the one on top, the one belonging to Ana
Kane.

'She’s Spanish,' he said, more
a statement than a question.

'Fifty
percent.
Spanish mother, American father.'

'North American,' Jarvis corrected.

Mark didn’t mind the affront.
He liked it that Jarvis appeared to be thorough.

'Hispanic then,' Jarvis said.
'I can see why this is a priority.'

The first Hispanic female had
just been appointed US Secretary of State. Having federally -employed Hispanics
kidnapped abroad could send a wave of terror throughout the Hispanic diplomatic
community, especially since the precipitating factors of this incident were to
be kept absolutely top secret.

'I’d like to give you a chance
to go over those notes,' Mark said. 'Then meet with you one more time this
evening, if you don’t mind working late.'

Jarvis looked at him, a sense
of purpose in his slate blue eyes. 'Nowhere to go but here, sir.'

'Great,' Mark said, pushing
back from his desk. He checked his watch, knowing he had to get to the division
archives before the librarian left. 'I’m going to count on that.'

The stillness went on for
decades.
And then – the sound of footsteps.

The creeping awareness at once
relieved and terrified her. Heavy footfalls approached across a muted floor.
There was a deafening pause, then the sharp point of a boot in her gut.

'
Despierta
?
Bueno
!'



'Who are you
?!
'
Ana called into the darkness.

She could sense it kneeling,
drawing close. A sandpaper hand caressed her swollen cheek. '
Ay,
que
linda
,
such a beautiful face...' The words were a slow perversion. He spoke in a
lispy
French accent, a fountain of spittle spraying the
left side of Ana’s face with insidious tickles.

Coarse fingertips traced the
curve of her cheek, then made their way to her neck.

She drew a quick breath as
knotty fingers pressed into her throat from either side. The weight was unbearable.
Bony pebbles constricting her air.

She welcomed the balm of
pulling darkness.

A door flew open and a second
set of footsteps tore into the room.
'Hombre!'
a voice cautioned wildly,
racing to her.

Suddenly, the weight was lifted
and a tug at the back of her head sent hazy vision spiraling into the room.

'So,
Blanca
Nieve
has arisen,' the new one said, bending low to
examine her squinting eyes. He was middle-aged like the other, but shorter,
darker skinned. He stank of sweat and heavy cologne.

'You like to play,
nena
?' he asked, bringing a disfigured hand to her
arm.

White-hot bile rose in her
throat.

'
Apurate
!'
the other intervened.

'
Bueno
,'
the short one said, pressing into her flesh as he steadied himself on khaki
knees. He pulled at the arm in the grasp of his awkward fingers. 'Come!' he
told her, motioning to the other with his free hand.

She remained on the floor, her
still-numb torso an oblivious extension of the scattered earth.

The tall one stepped forward
with a contemptuous look and knelt, drawing a long knife from the crouched
man’s belt.

Ana closed her eyes as he
leaned forward,
then
freed her arms and legs with two
swift jerks of the knife.

Mark paced his well-worn path
in the government-issue carpet. Beside him, the dark city skyline hung
brilliant with spotted lights. He walked to the window and drew the blinds,
shutting out the distraction, then took his chair, pivoting to face his desk.

Though Jarvis had less
experience than Mark wanted, he would do. At least, he had the uncanny compulsion
to work long and unbearable hours. A characteristic most typical of the newer
analysts, Mark sighed, massaging his stubby hair.

He didn’t have to wear it just
above the ears like he had on active duty. But it was a habit hard to break. A
habit like keeping his Browning High-Power loaded and concealed just below his
left armpit.
A propensity for watching everyone in a room,
assessing their motives.
Never able to relax.

He wasn’t much fun, he
realized. Camille went to great lengths to remind him. What he didn’t tell her,
but suspected she knew, was that he’d stopped having fun years earlier. Stopped
more than twenty years ago when a New York jetliner plummeted 20,000 feet out
of the sky in a fast approach toward London’s Heathrow airport.
Too fast.
All two hundred and twenty-nine
aboard dead.
Two hundred and twenty-nine.
But
as far as a seventeen-year-old boy had been concerned, it might as well have
been the world.

And then, so many years later,
someone in Beirut saying he knew something. Overheard some talk at the
Pentagon.
Big brass speculation.
Heathrow was no
accident...

Someone in
Beirut who knew something.
Someone lucky enough to get
called off night duty.
Someone damned unlucky enough to get hit with ten
tons of moving shrapnel as he lay sleeping in his bunk, a picture of his
fiancée tacked to the ceiling overhead. One dead soldier who took his burning
secret to his grave six hours before he had planned to share it with Mark.
Afterwards, Mark had continued to ask around. But he’d gotten nothing,
niente
, nada. Nobody else seemed to have caught wind of the
rumor. And his higher ups, if they knew, weren’t telling. So there he was right
back where he started, another SOL dead end.

Mark leaned forward and set his
elbows on his desk, resting his head in his hands. He’d gone in for the
adventure and come out to change the world. But so far, what had he
accomplished?

Ana’s open dossier sat just out
of reach, her pleading eyes upon him. If only there were any guarantees. But
there was never any way to know. You could war-game it out to the 'nth' degree.
Never made one shred of difference when it came down to brass tacks. In the
end, you had your head, your training and your instinct. And if those didn’t
fail you, you came out with your tail between your legs, not your guts blown
from your body.

Mark shook his head thinking of
Heathrow, then of Beirut. Missing Person Central America, Ana Kane. Then pushed
back abruptly in his chair, his hands dropping to his knees.

Whenever he came this close to
making a difference, dammit, something always happened.

'Tell us what you know or we'll
cut your pretty throat!' The tall man stood before her now, waving the fat
one's knife. It was a hunting knife, Ana realized with distaste, the kind used
for scraping animal pelts.

She sat strapped to the chair
with electrical tape, her captors' idea of some perverted game. Even her
freedom would hurt.

'
Escuchame
!'
the fat one yelled at the other,
'
preguntale
sobre
el
archivo
!'

Ana needed no translation.
'I’ve told you a hundred times I know nothing of this
archivo
azul
! It's a mistake –'

'A mistake?' the short one
said, his voice rising like a child’s. He walked to the foul-smelling corner,
unzipped his pants, and began urinating into a barrel.

'We can teach this one about
mistakes, can’t we,
Fidelito
?' he said with a
guttural laugh, his yellow stream pummeling hollow wood.

Ana turned her head in disgust.

The other leaned toward her and
raised her chin with a dirty finger.
'
Tu
apellido
es
Kane, no?' He
held the knife in his left hand, its shining crescent just above her ear.

She fought the urge to tremble.

'It's a common name,' she said,
stung by the chill of his eyes. They were wolf eyes. Inhuman.
Jagged icicles slashing from a frozen face.

'Common name for a common
whore!' the fat one shouted from the corner, stuffing himself back into his
fatigues and yanking up his fly. He walked back to them and tugged the knife
from the tall one’s hand.

Mark’s
concentration was broken by the sharp trill of his desk phone
.

'Hello, stranger.'


'Camille. Oh, Christ –'

'Don't you spy types ever eat?'

Mark laid Ana's open file on
his desk. 'Sorry about dinner.'

'Yeah, yeah.
Sorry about dinner and the theater and the Capitals game. When are you going to
stop being sorry and just show up?'

Mark looked at his watch,
suddenly realizing the time. 'Honey, I had no idea – '

'Let me guess, something’s come
up.'


'This one’s important.'


'So important you keep me
waiting two hours without so much as a call?'


Mark glanced over at Ana's
dossier, feeling her eyes on him. They were eyes that undid
him,
the eyes of a woman who’d lived beyond Ana's twenty-nine years, the eyes of a
woman with a story to tell and no one to listen.

'Who is she?' Camille demanded,
feigning indignation.

'There is no other she. You
know that.'


'Well all right, if you say so.
But, hey, you get to sounding so defensive, makes a girl wonder if she's not
half on track.'


'I know I should have phoned.
Promise I’ll make it up to you as soon as I get back.'


'Traveling again? Mark, what
about Mexico? We're booked for the end of the month!'

'I know, I know.' He felt the
exhaustion showed in his voice.

'Look, once this thing’s
over...'
The line fell silent between them
.

Mark
could hear the coffee percolating in the next room. It was his third pot
tonight.

She finally spoke, sounding
resigned. 'I'll talk to the travel agent, see what she can do about Mexico.'


'Thanks for understanding,' he
said, doubting she did
.


'So, still coming by
later?'


Mark rechecked his watch and
looked back down at the files littering his desk. His paperwork had arrived in
record time and Jarvis had pulled together all the necessary research
materials. The
Intelweb
checks would be nonproductive
at this hour. Jarvis would just have to transmit any information those produced
to him in Costa
Negra
. In reality, he’d accomplished
all he could here and he’d already packed. Still, it was pushing twenty-four
hundred.

'Camille, it’s getting late. I
don’t think it’s fair –'


'Screw fair! You’ll wreck my
girlish figure if you leave me alone with all this food.'


Mark did a rapid-fire scan of
his mental checklist. There were still some division files he needed to secure
and it was against DOS 'clean desk' policy to leave your office looking like a
tornado had hit it.
'All right.
Give me another hour
or so to wrap things up. I’ll give a call when I’m out the door.'

'You know where to find me.'

He always did. That was the
problem.

'Listen to me, you
putamadre
,' the short one said, bringing serrated
steel to Ana’s jugular. 'I have a lot of money at stake here.
Comprende
? Mucho
dinero
!
Your witch of a mother has already died.'

'No!' she shouted. She couldn't
stop herself. Liars. These bastards were liars. They would say anything to get
her to talk. Anything.
Even that
bullcrap
about having been in her mother's home and in her father's files.

He let the knife sag and looked
up at
Carnova
.

'I'd
kill her now if I didn't think she has what we want.'

'
Paciencia
,
Dedito
.'
There was a terrifying musicality to his
voice.
'
Es
posible
que
no
sepa
nada –
dejame
ver
..
.'

He
approached her face-on, pressing his oily palms to her temples, bringing his
lips even with hers, saliva flying as he spoke. 'Come now,
buena
chica
,
tell
Fidelito
everything.'

Ana
stiffened.
The wolf eyes were burning now. Dry ice. He fitted his palms
more tightly around her skull until she thought the brittle bones there would
cave in.

'No manners,
princesa
.
Such a pity.'
He
gestured with his chin. A dark shadow rolled over her, then the flash of an
arm, followed by the blistering fire of flesh being torn from flesh. Her
searing lip gaped open.

Water was running down her
face, warm salty water rushing in rapid streams to the bloodstained cotton
shift she had chosen to wear into the jungle that morning.

'Perhaps tomorrow,'
Carnova
said, taking the knife from El
Dedo
and scraping its reddened blade against the soiled heel of his boot, 'Senorita
Kane will feel more like conversation.'