To the Limit (Shadow Heroes Book 3) Page 5

  Was this woman giving her blessing to a future relationship? “I—”

  “Because of Alex, he tells me that he is taking you to Los Desamparados.”

  Surprised, Mary Beth nodded. “Yes, he is.”

  Cristina shook her head slightly, glanced out the window again, then said, “He has taken responsibility for the family. He has put the Romeros, all of them, before himself.” Her voice tightened, turned into a whisper. “Daniel would not want this for him.” She caught an unsteady breath.

  Confused that Daniel Vargas featured so prominently in Cristina’s words, Mary Beth listened as this beautiful woman, her eyes dark and lost, continued.

  “Be very careful, Mary Beth. Make Nicholas be very careful. Alex cannot be without a father. The Río Hermoso is a killing place.”

  Chapter Four

  A killing place. The words still echoed in Mary Beth’s mind hours later as Nick shifted an older-model Land Cruiser into third gear. They were on the ascent into the Andes, en route to the town where Mark kept his bank account. The fact that he’d chosen an Andean town instead of the capital was odd, but then Mark often shunned the city in favor of the mountains and jungles. He’d always craved adventure. Mary Beth prayed that this one didn’t kill him.

  The road was dangerous, with tight curves and a precipitous drop that had her initially clinging to the armrest. But she’d relaxed after the first few miles, easily trusting Nick’s driving despite the endless switchbacks. She hadn’t expected the dry, chilly temperatures that made his suggestion of jeans and a sweatshirt a good one. He’d explained that their route would take them over the Andes Mountains before they reached the semitropical slopes of the ceja de montaña.

  She’d been too surprised to discover he had a son, and was puzzled by the formal and cordial relationship between Nick and his ex-wife. And her words about Daniel Vargas. But there was no point in dwelling on something she would never need to understand.

  Patterns of shadow and light, formed by the immense boulders and the afternoon sun, played against the steadily climbing car.

  “This is incredible.” Mary Beth pitched her voice to be heard over the drone of the vehicle’s engine.

  “This canyon is called Infiernillo.” Nick kept his gaze straight ahead and shifted gears. “Little Hell.”

  “A demon must have built this road.”

  “Civil engineers with tons of dynamite,” Nick corrected with a grin. “Nothing else would have cut through solid rock.”

  “It looks like a cubist’s fantasy,” she said.

  Nick shifted yet again. Around the next bend, he pulled into an overlook, secured the emergency brake and said, “Let’s get out and stretch.”

  Mary Beth waited for him before stepping away from the car. While she appreciated the geometric beauty of the Infiernillo, she held tightly to the guardrail. She’d never been fond of heights.

  “How much farther?” she shouted against the wind that whipped up in swirls.

  “Probably another twenty miles to the top, but it’ll take us about an hour.”

  She took a small step back toward the Land Cruiser before asking, “Then what?”

  “Then we head for the Romero estancia. We can stay at— I have a house there. We’ll spend the night and go to your brother’s bank in the morning.”

  “What time do they open?”

  “Nine, I think,” he replied. “I didn’t tell you before because I thought we could get out of it, but we’re expected at my aunt’s house tonight.”

  “Both of us?”

  “My mother told her sister that you’re with me, so yes.”

  “I don’t want to impose—”

  “Believe me, you’re not.” He smiled. “You may feel imposed upon, though. My aunts can be … interesting.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied with what sounded like aggrieved humor. “Five.”

  “You could tell them I’m—”

  “I think you’ll like them. They’re good people.”

  Once back in the car, Nick asked, “Have you ever had soroche? Altitude sickness?”

  “No. I’ve never been above ten thousand feet.”

  “When we reach the top, we’ll be at around fifteen thousand. There’s a thermos of tea in the back seat. Drink some of it. It should help.”

  Minutes later, Mary Beth took the first swallow of tea. “What is this stuff?”

  “It’s a traditional remedy. It’ll keep you from having soroche.” Nick drank from the mug he’d prepared for himself.

  She took a sip. “It’s different from anything I’ve ever had.”

  They drove on, only the steady drone of the engine breaking the silence. Mary Beth’s ears popped several times. In the distance, the road seemed to disappear into the side of a mountain.

  “Is that the top?”

  “Yes. Have you finished your tea?”

  A short while later they drove through a jagged break in stone and onto the level plateau. At this altitude, the air seemed rarified. If the road had been spectacular, the plateau was eerie. Quiet, not a thing in sight but blue sky and brown grass broken by white boulders. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance.

  “Wow,” Mary Beth whispered.

  “As flat as the sky. And as cold.”

  Mary Beth rolled her window down a fraction of an inch and inhaled the crisp, cold air. “Fifteen thousand feet, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sick,” she said, twirling the last of the now-tepid liquid around in the cup. “What’s in this tea?”

  “Coca leaves.”

  She really didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into.

  ***

  Mary Beth stretched, tired from the drive across the dusty plateau and back down to around ten thousand feet. Here the terrain was not so desolate, with some conifers and other vegetation visible along the sides of the rocky dirt road. While not as cold as the area five thousand feet higher, the temperature would likely drop as the sun set.

  “Here we are,” Nick said as the sun began its descent toward the faraway horizon.

  They turned onto a track that led to an isolated and surprisingly modern single-story house nestled among the trees. The roof angled low over the huge windows of the facade. Nick drove the Land Cruiser around to the side and parked.

  “Wait here,” he said, getting out but leaving the door ajar. Glancing from side to side, he moved toward the rear of the house, his back against the aged cedar siding, and peered around the corner.

  She saw it then. Or perhaps she’d seen it all along.

  This was not the Nicholas Romero she’d met in the city, the diplomat. This was another man. Not Alex’s father, not Doña Elena’s son and certainly not the man who’d seemed so comfortable in the formal wear of the night before. He looked … harder. Capable of taking care of himself in the isolated interior of San Mateo. He’d said she needed a mercenary to find Mark. All she needed was Nicholas Romero.

  He disappeared behind the house, then reappeared from the front.

  “This way,” he said, once he’d walked around to help her out. He led her to the front door and inserted a key into the lock that clicked loudly when he turned it. A clean, white marbled foyer held the cold of the unoccupied house.

  Beyond the foyer lay a small living room-dining room combination with ultramodern furniture. The room was austere, with only a single painting on the wall, a panel of black splashed with white. Nothing about the house fit what she’d seen so far of Nick.

  Surprised at the decor, she asked, “This is yours?”

  “I have some calls to make,” he said. “Bathroom’s down the hall. You can freshen up.”

  Wincing from so obvious and abrupt a dismissal, Mary Beth took her bag and walked down the short hall, past a bedroom. There was, indeed, a bathroom. A woman’s bathroom, with a lacy camisole and bra hanging on the shower curtain.

  ***

  Nick hadn’t been in Dani
el’s house since right after his death. He hadn’t been able to face it, so he’d just closed it. He would not dwell on that now. Instead, he would concentrate on what he had to do.

  He waited until Mary Beth closed the bathroom door before picking up the phone. The man from the Justice Ministry was too scared to speak freely, but Nick had other government contacts, friends he could count on.

  A woman answered on the third ring.

  “Colonel Vidal, por favor.” He waited while the woman called Roberto Vidal to the phone. In the background, he heard the clicking of computer keyboards and people talking. The Ministry of Defense was not a quiet place.

  “Sí,” he heard Roberto say.

  “Roberto, Nicholas Romero. ¿Qué tal?”

  “Un momento. Let me take this call in my office,” Roberto said without any undue inflection. But once he was on the other phone, Nick could hear the tension in the man’s voice. “What are you doing calling here?”

  “What’s going on, Roberto?”

  “A disaster,” was his quick reply. “You need to get out of the city. Fast.”

  Nick saw no point in telling the man he’d already left.

  “You have stumbled into a joint operation between American Special Forces and our Rangers. The woman you have been seen with is wanted. Everyone is after her.”

  He’d been right about the men in the hotel. “What do they want with her?”

  “Her brother is running guns across the border from Monte Blanco. I saw the report. I hear that the American Embassy tried to get her to leave the country. They do not want a woman on trial in San Mateo.”

  “Why didn’t the Americans force her to leave?”

  “I do not know, but the gunrunning is an old case.” Roberto paused. “One of Daniel’s.”

  So that was the connection between Mark Williams and Daniel. But why would Williams give Daniel’s name and number to his sister?

  “Who is our liaison with the American forces?”

  “Francisco Iglesias. You remember him from your time as a Ranger. He is a captain now, in Daniel’s old outfit.”

  The captain pictured with Vargas in the newspaper. “What about on the American side?”

  “A man named Elliot Smith. He is new. They have him listed as the military attaché, but it is said he argues with the officer in charge of the Americans. It is believed this Smith is CIA. Why else would he take on such a common name?”

  Nick smiled. “So what do you know about the woman?”

  “Nothing. I have been kept out of it,” Roberto replied.

  “Did her brother sell guns to Primero de Mayo?”

  “That is what the report said. I do not think the man is alive, personally,” Roberto continued. “The last time anyone saw him, he was up along the northern frontera about two or three weeks ago—then he vanished.”

  That timeline could coincide with the kidnapping. Could Mark Williams be so unlucky as to have been kidnapped by the men he did business with while joint forces from two countries and the American CIA looked for him?

  “If there’s been nothing for so long, why all the sudden interest in him?”

  “I do not know. As I said, the report I read is old. A friend told me that Williams was seen recently, but I cannot verify that.” Roberto paused. “According to what this friend said, Williams worked the area on and off for years. I think the Rangers found some proof against him and he ran. Maybe they killed him and now they are left with no one to arrest so they want his sister. You know the political climate.”

  “Vargas has to have a public victory,” Nick filled in.

  “If he is to make a run for the presidency.”

  The general had lived his whole life, even allowed his own son to be killed, for the sake of his dream of the power of the presidency.

  “Did Daniel ever report on the original operation?”

  “I am not sure. I think so, but it would have been at the very beginning. He died shortly after he began to work with his American counterpart in their Special Forces.”

  “Do you know who that was?”

  “No. Those records were removed, so I cannot check. I thought the investigation died with Daniel.”

  “Gracias, Roberto.”

  “Nicholas, be careful. Vargas knows this is his last chance for a public victory. He will go after Williams and his sister with everything.” The phone clicked off.

  Nick knew that meant shoot first, ask questions later. Whether a hostage or gun merchant or both, Mark Williams, if he wasn’t already dead, soon would be.

  And his sister was likely to meet the same fate. They hadn’t taken her, as Roberto thought they would, as made sense. They’d followed her, searched her hotel room. For what? To frighten her? To what end?

  To get her to contact her brother.

  That meant that neither the American forces nor the Rangers knew about the ransom demand.

  Or the ransom demand was a ruse. One designed to get at Williams through his sister.

  If that was true, Vargas was behind it, he had to be. There was something in this situation with Williams that screamed the general’s involvement. Something that could end the old man’s political aspirations. Something Nick might be able to use. He just had to figure out what it was.

  Mary Beth came out of the bathroom, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Were you talking about me or Mark?” She delivered the line with no more inflection than if she’d asked a stranger about the weather. Chin high, she stood in front of the awful abstract.

  Even in jeans, sweatshirt and tennis shoes, she had whatever it was that made her appear to be in complete control at all times. He knew her better now than he had on the evening she’d worn that devastating little black dress. The beautiful Mary Beth of the sweet name and determined attitude hid a vulnerability that packed an emotional wallop he had not expected. One he couldn’t afford.

  “I had to make a phone call.”

  “So you told me,” she replied, barely inclining her head in his direction.

  “It was private.”

  She nodded. Absently.

  That was enough. Getting up from the sofa, he stepped around the glass coffee table and came to stand only a few feet from her and the stark abstract, forcing her attention onto him. “There are some things I can’t discuss with anyone.”

  “I understand perfectly.” Her tone said the exact opposite.

  He thought about telling her what he knew about her brother, but only for a second. He needed her trust. He had to know how she figured in the big picture. How Vargas did. Without her trust, he’d never get the truth. The truth would help him ruin the general.

  “I was talking about Romero family business.” He soothed his conscience by reminding himself there was truth in that.

  The general had always been his business, and would always be. Until one of them was dead.

  ***

  She’d been put in her place, Mary Beth acknowledged later. Hopelessly caught up in her concern for Mark, in the pull she felt toward Nick, she’d ignored who he was—the head of a wealthy and powerful family, a man who handled the high stakes of international affairs. There would be dozens of things he couldn’t discuss in front of others.

  Just as her father had been unable to discuss the details of his ambassadorships, secrets that could be innocently spoken and used by others, so, too, would Nick be unable to discuss the details of his position. It made her wonder how different his home life was from the way hers had been.

  Yes, she’d been raised by her parents, or at least one of them, while Nick’s real parents were dead. But there was an undeniable closeness between him and Doña Elena. With Daniel Vargas, they had been a family. She wasn’t sure how Cristina fit into that picture, but a marriage between her and Nick seemed oddly off-kilter, despite the existence of Alex. Maybe the child was the result of a brief affair. Who knew?

  Except for her relationship with Mark, there had been no sense of family in her life. From the best she c
ould tell, her parents married because it would advance them individually and as a couple. When her mother decided she no longer wanted to live in foreign countries, the year Mary Beth was twelve, she’d calmly announced she was getting a divorce. Her father, even more of a stranger to Mary Beth and Mark than their mother, had been thrust into the role of single parent. But the relationship between father and children had been nothing like the relationship between Doña Elena and her two sons, nor Nick’s with young Alex. Spencer Williams had used his role as father to his own advantage, pushing his children into the limelight while pretending it was the last thing he wanted.

  Mary Beth’s gullibility in the face of a man who promised her the love and family she so craved proved to be her, and her father’s, undoing.

  Mark had saved her, kept her sane. She wondered if Nick and Daniel had been thrown together because of family problems.

  But when she and Nick joined his mother’s family, a half hour’s drive from the too modern house, it didn’t appear that the Romeros, Doña Elena’s sisters and their families, had any problems. While Mary Beth and Nick had exchanged polite single sentences with each other, his aunts, all five of them, welcomed Mary Beth with open arms. The house, a huge, rambling Spanish-style one, was surrounded by fields where, according to Nick, horses and cattle were raised. His aunts, uncles by marriage and cousins, made it difficult to keep her distance and easy to momentarily forget why she was here, what she had to do in the coming days.

  “Pero, Tía,” Nick was saying to the elderly lady sitting on the couch. The hum of several conversations didn’t cover the fast beat of a San Matean band pouring from a high-tech audio system. “Manuel is doing fine at the university.”

  “Nicky,” replied the lady, whom Mary Beth knew to be his aunt Rosa. “He needs your influence. Please, talk with him.” Tía Rosa squeezed his hand as another aunt pulled him away.

  This family was so different from the cool, polished exterior of her own. They doted on Nick. She laughed quietly to herself. Of course, aunts could dote on a saint or a sinner. She had a feeling there was a lot of the sinner in him.