Страница 40 из 49
She returned to the window. It was in the side of the house, looking out onto a stand of pecan trees. She heard the thump of bass from a powerful sound system. If she pressed her face against the glass she could see a sliver of the rear garden, and, occasionally, guests from the party would pass into and out of view. Servants ferried crates of beer and trays of food from a catering tent. They passed directly below her; she banged her fists against the window but they either could not hear her or paid her no heed.
She went back to the bed but was unable to settle. She got up and started to pace. She returned to the window. The drive to the house snaked through the trees beneath her and, as she watched, a Mercedes SUV approached and stopped. The branches obscured her view a little but she saw a door opening and then two men hauled John Smith out. It didn’t look as if he was conscious: he was a dead weight, the two men dragging him across the driveway, his toes scraping against the asphalt. A second man followed. Caterina recognised him from the cowboy hat he was wearing: the man from the hospital who had wanted to speak to her, the man Smith had sent away.
She went back to the bed and sat.
Five minutes later, the door was unlocked and opened.
A man came into the room and locked the door behind him.
He was bland. Average. Nothing out of the ordinary about him at all.
“Hello Caterina.”
She backed away.
“You’ve caused us quite a lot of trouble.”
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“This business of ours — we don’t welcome publicity.”
She shuffled backwards, her hand reaching beneath the pillow.
He tutted and waggled a finger at her. “Don’t,” he said, nodding towards the bed. He took out a pistol and pointed the barrel up to a tiny camera on the wall that Caterina had not seen.
“Who are you?”
“You can call me Adolfo.” He stepped further into the room. “Let’s have a talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Why have you been writing about me?”
“What?”
“The girls.”
She thought of what Delores had told them.
He was nothing special, by which I mean there was nothing about him that you would find particularly memorable. Neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Normal looking. Normal clothes.
“It’s you?”
“I can’t take the whole credit. Me and a few friends.”
She tore the pillow off the bed, grasped the shank and rushed him. He pulled the gun quickly, expertly, and held it steady, right at her face. She stopped. She thought about it, calling his bluff, but her legs wouldn’t move.
He nodded to the shank.
She dropped it.
“Your hand.”
She had taken the glass too hastily and had cut her index finger.
“I’ll send someone in to wrap that for you,” he said.
“Don’t bother. I don’t need your favours.”
“We’ll see. I am going to speak with your friend, the Englishman, and then we have some business that needs to be seen to. Once I am finished, I will be back. We have lots to talk about.”
48
A
She pulled up the blind and looked out onto the New Mexico landscape five thousand feet below. It was desert for the most part, with nearly two thousand square miles of terrain within its boundaries and adjacent to the White Sands missile range. The populated area was set on a mesa, was six miles by six miles and housed several thousand soldiers and civilian perso
A
A soldier with colonel’s pips was waiting for them. “Welcome to the United States,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I’m Stark.”
“Captain Pope.”
“Good flight?”
“Straightforward, colonel.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ll be your liaison here. Anything you need, you just holler. Can I do anything for you now?”
“Not really. We’d just like to get started.”
“No sense in delaying.”
“That’s right.”
“Thought you’d say that. We’ve got you a couple vehicles ready to go. We’ll get your gear unloaded and repacked and then you can be on your way.”
“The border?”
“That’s all arranged. The Mexicans know you’re coming. We’ll get you straight across.”
“That’s very helpful. Thank you, colonel.”
“My pleasure.” He took off his cap and squinted against the sun. “Don’t suppose you can tell me what you folks have come all this way to do?”
“Afraid not,” he said.
He laughed. “Didn’t think so. Completely understand.”
Two identical SUVs were standing at the edge of the taxiway. Pope led A
“You’ll be with me,” he said. “We’ll speak to the police. I’ll send the others to the restaurant, see if they can find anything out there.”
“Fine.”
A
They had a lot of firepower.
She wondered whether they would need to use it.
49
Milton came around. He was groggy and, as awareness returned, so did the pain. He assessed the damage. Red hot spears lanced up from his face. His head throbbed. His arm was difficult to move. A couple of ribs broken? He tried to open his eyes. His left was crusted with dried blood and his right was badly swollen; he could only just open the first and he could see nothing through the second. There were bones broken there: the orbital, perhaps, and something in the bridge of his nose. He felt a stubborn ache from his shoulders and realised that his hands were cuffed behind his back.
“You alright?”
He looked to his left. It was Beau.
“I’ll live.”
“You don’t look so good. They worked you over some. I saw when they marched me down the mountain. They pretty much had to pull Adolfo off you.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Really? Doubt that, partner.”
Milton winced; his lips were cracked and bloodied.
He looked over at Beau. His shirt was ripped to the navel, revealing a tiger’s tooth that he wore on a chain around his neck. He was sitting down, leaning back against the wall. His arms were shackled with FlexiCuffs behind his back.
“You got any bright ideas?” Beau asked.
“Not right at this moment. Has anyone been in to see us?”
“Not yet.”
“Where are we?”
“Back in the city. South side. Looked like a pretty swanky neighbourhood, at least by standards around here. My guess is we’re in one of El Patrón’s houses.”
“And this room?”
“First floor. End of a corridor. I didn’t get the chance to see all that much.”
“Anything else?”
“Only that I’m not sure why they didn’t just cap us out in the desert.”
“He strikes me as the kind who’d want to make a point.”