Page 69 of Prisoner of War
He nodded. “Blanco’s dead. So are the two officers who were in the car with him.Plus three others who were too close.”
“Insurrectos?” Calli asked.
“It could be no one else,” Josh said. He rested his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You keep trying to pass the baton, Nick, but you can’t. Not anymore. The rest of the world thinks it’s yours anyway.”
Nick nodded, his expression grim.
That was when the real facts assembled in her mind. Blanco had been in Nick’s place. Nick’s boots.
It was Nick they had been trying to kill.
* * * * *
Minnie tried to pretend she was sleeping. Despite her weariness, sleep was an absent friend. She kept her eyes shut and let her thoughts drift, instead.
In the middle of the afternoon there was a soft knock on the bedroom door. Minnie sat up, staring at it. The knock was repeated.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“Excúseme por favor. I am notpermitted...” The young, high voice trailed off, muffled by the closed door.
Minnie crept to the door and edged it open. Through the crack she could see a young man in army boots and green fatigues, topped with a dirty black T-shirt. He seemed as skittish as she felt.
She pushed the door open wider. The chain hanging from her wrist knocked against it.
The boy’s eyes widened as his gaze tookin her appearance and the chain. He swallowed and tried to shake himself out of his shock, looking like a puppy shaking off water. He pointed to the doorway. “I am not permitted...” he repeated and pointed to himself and then into the bedroom.
“You’re not allowed in the room?” she guessed.
“Sí.” He turned around and lifted from the desk a heavy tray, loaded with more plates of food and a thermosflask. “For you.” He put it on the corner of the desk and then deliberately took three steps back and waved at it. “Por favor.”
She understood. He had been warned about getting anywhere near her and knew enough about the security cameras to obey the injunction to the letter. Zalaya must have given him those orders.
“Gracias,” she told him and picked up the tray. She backed up carefully so shedid not trip over the chain and carried the tray to the bedside table where the previous tray had sat.
The boy cleared his throat. “Señorita?”
She moved back toward the door until she could see him again.
He pointed at the shards of china on the floor at her feet. “I will have,” he said, using his fingers to beckon.
“Sure,” she agreed. She flipped the tray over with her foot, bent down andgathered up the fragments and dumped them on the tray. She spent longer minutes picking up the pieces of glass a few feet farther away, conscientiously clearing the carpet of every piece she could find. She was the barefoot one, after all. Then she carried the tray over to the boy. He backed up quickly, staying out of reach. He waved toward the desk.
She grimaced and put the dented tray on thecorner and stepped back as deliberately as he had, in order to give him the regulation amount of room to collect it. It put her two steps inside the bedroom once more.
He nodded as he picked it up. “Muchos gracias,” he murmured and scurried from the office.
Minnie shuddered when she saw the machine gun hanging from his shoulder, slapping his back as he walked. The boy looked barely old enoughto shave.
A blinking from the console caught her gaze as she stared at the closed door. She studied the long bank of switches and dials and that single blinking light. It was a toggle switch off to the far side, the red LED next to it patiently flashing.
Minnie looked up at the blank, dead squares of the screens on the three walls around her and back at the switch. Curious, she threaded herway past the desk to the corner of the console, which was as far as the chain would let her reach. She stretched out her hand for the switch and found she was about two feet too far away from it.
A glance around the room showed no handy stick or pointing device. A hockey stick in this climate was too much to ask for, but all she needed was two extra feet.
She looked down at her bare feet. “Twoextra feet,” she murmured and smiled. She again stretched herself out to the maximum and this time she brought her leg up in a ballet movement, reached out with her toe and delicately rocked the switch to the opposite position.
She was rewarded with an electronic pop and the bank of screens to her right fizzed to life. Silent life. She scanned them all.
