The Marchand Woman

“Why—why?”

But Anders only gri

Harry made a harsh gesture: Calm down, get a grip on yourself.

Harry took Emil Draga from behind by both shoulders and pushed him gently forward until he stood facing the sink with his belly two feet from its rim. He moved to one side to position himself; Anders stepped in behind Emil Draga and hooked both hands strongly in Draga’s web belt. Draga stiffened, utterly rigid.

“Spread your feet out,” Harry said mildly.

When Draga didn’t move Anders kicked his Achilles’ tendon, not hard but it was enough to provoke reluctant co-operation: Draga slid his foot out to one side, then the other foot until he stood splayed, hands flicking open and shut in the manacles, head whipping back and forth and breath sawing through him. Then Harry’s fist slammed into his gut.

It doubled him over. A gasp, a little cry—not so much pain as dread—the breath punched out of him and his head poised over the sink and that was when Harry shoved him down into the sink face-first.

Draga struggled every way he could but there was no chance—he was pinioned by four strong arms and had no way to get purchase. Carole gripped the doorjamb with both hands and pushed her face into it and clenched her eyes shut, hearing Anders’ tremulous voice: “Amazing how a man can drown in just a few inches of water, ain’t it.”

In the end she was unable not to look. The silent struggle had abated; Draga’s body was lurching with the heaves of choked nausea and he’d slumped so that the only thing holding him up was Anders’ powerful two-handed grip on his web belt.

Harry lifted him by the epaulets, pulling his face out of the water. Draga blurted water from his mouth and nose. A choking cough; wheezing to suck air back into him—eyes popping, mouth working, panic.

The sounds he made were so agonized that she had to leave. She stumbled into the front room, fell across the couch and covered her ears with both hands.

But the not knowing got to her and she turned her face to listen.

Draga was coughing now—a painful wheeze, a sucking gasp.

Then Harry: even-voiced, firm, giving away nothing. “I’ll ask a question once. You’ve got one second to answer and then you go back in the water and you stay there twice as long next time. Are you listening? Where’s Cielo?”

A mutter, then a cough; then, “El Yunque.”

Anders was pacing back and forth, shoulders jerking with each turn. Harry sat at the table leaning over the topographical map. Sitting on the couch with her elbows on her knees she held the glass of rum in both hands and sucked at it. The door to the bedroom cell stood open and she could see one of Emil Draga’s feet at the end of the cot: They’d manacled him there, flat on his belly with his hands cuffed together under the cot. The chloral hydrate capsule would keep him unconscious for at least a few hours.

Anders said irritably, “It’s no good using a helicopter. They’d spot it.”

“And nothing with wheels. It’s got to be on foot,” Harry said.

Carole shuddered. She spilled a few drops of rum and wiped ineffectually at her shirt.

Harry picked up on it. “Sorry ducks but you’re in that part of the world now.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Sure. I know you will.” Harry watched her a moment longer and went back to his map and put his finger on it again. “The farm’s here. The track goes back into the hills from there. There’ll be false trails and it’ll take us a while but we’ll have to get all the way back in there and scout them out. We can’t decide how to handle them before we know the position and the defenses. He said there are fourteen men—but suppose they’ve recruited more?” Harry glanced toward Emil Draga’s door. “Someone’s got to keep him on ice. That’ll be you, ducks. Take out whatever guards they’ve got on the place, seal up their exit route and Gle

She said, “You’ve been looking for an excuse to leave me behind, haven’t you?”

“Use your head, ducks. You’re hardly a veteran guerrilla. And we’ve got to keep little Emil and those guards locked up and fed until this is done.”

“I don’t see why we have to wait hand and foot on them,” Anders said. “Remember what they did to Rosalia.”

“When we get the job done,” Harry said, “you can take your choice of turning Emil Draga over to Castro along with the rest of the bunch or delivering him to the police and testifying against him for the murder. If you don’t mind going up against the Draga interests in court. That’ll be up to you—but you try putting this lady’s neck on the block and I’ll find things to do to you.”

Anders put his head down. “I’m sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”

“You’re doing a lot of that right now, Gle

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll cool down.” Anders trudged into the kitchen; she heard him filling a glass from a bottle. Harry began to roll up the map.

She sat behind the wheel of the Bronco with the revolver in her lap and tried to ignore the sensation that Emil Draga, handcuffed to a chain in the back seat, was burning holes in her back with his eyes.

Farmland rolled away in all directions and the mountains lifted soft and green under the bellies of the clouds. Harry and Anders had been gone a long time. She kept looking at her watch. Get hold of yourself.

She twisted the rear-view mirror to get a better view of Emil Draga. Blindfolded still, he sat groggily with his head slack against the window, mouth open. The drug was half worn off and in another thirty minutes he’d be alert.

She was going to have to get used to being his jailer. She tried to steel herself.

On the horizon a smoke-chuffing tractor moved very slowly, pulling some sort of harvesting machine. She could see the driver’s tiny silhouette and wondered if he would become curious about the vehicle parked by the fence. He was a good quarter-mile away and she hoped his curiosity wouldn’t be sufficient to goad him into crossing the distance.

After a time the tractor went out of sight. A few fine drops of rain touched the windshield. She thought about switching on the radio for company but decided against it; it might awaken Draga. She didn’t want to have to converse with him.

She covered her eyes with tinted glasses and tipped her head over against the frame of the door. The few droplets were all; a false alarm—the cloud moved on, the windshield dried. Ten minutes more and the sun poked through.

She heard him stirring behind her and looked up in quick alarm but he was only shifting position. His head lolled to the left and he uttered a somnolent murmur, something in Spanish and too slurred for her to guess at it.

Tensions and anxieties had drained her of the will to think. She tried to see ahead but preoccupation with the present kept crowding everything else aside. A kind of hyperacuity had infected her, sensitizing her to every signal: the flight of a bird from a tree, the shuddering tempo of Draga’s breathing, the smells of farming, the very motionlessness of the truck seat.

A figure approached on foot—Harry, there was no mistaking his limp even at a distance. He emerged from the trees and waved her forward and she started it up and drove bumping across the field, Draga awakening and grumbling in the back seat with petulant loquaciousness. He was still talking in Spanish when she stopped the truck and Harry opened her door.

“Everything’s fine. There was one man—he decided not to fight the drop. Gle

“Get in, then.”

“No hurry.” He offered his hand and helped her down. Looking in at Draga he said, “He’ll keep,” and walked her away—a copse of trees, a hummock of grass in the shade. It was hot but she was getting used to the sticky closeness of the climate.

She understood right away that he wanted to be alone with her here because they’d have no chance once they joined Anders. She turned toward him. Her hands touched his shirt, shyly, and slid up to the back of his neck.