Page 53 of V-Day
13.
DUARDO MADE SURE HE LOSTthe second game. It took effort to disguise what he was doing. General Thorne was a shitty chess player, but he wasn’t stupid.
While they played, Aguado kept the whisky glasses topped. Duardo was careful to make sure it only looked as though he was drinking as much as Thorne.
By the third game, Thorne was feeling the effects of the whisky. It was a decent single-malt with a high alcohol level which one of Duardo’s men had donated to the cause.
Thorne scowled at the board, trying to anticipate Duardo’s strategy, his fingers curled loosely around the glass. The weight of his hand tipped the folding table to one side. He didn’t seem to notice.
Around them, sleeping men snored. They had not raised tents, even though they had them. A decent sleeping bag was enough to hold off the cold and would allow a quick decamping in the morning…if the President gave Thorne the go-ahead.
Thorne still stewed over the order to halt. It was four in the morning, nearly ten hours after the order had come through. Thorne couldn’t let it go. He was an old-fashioned general and wouldn’t give up even with a gun to his temple.
It was why Duardo had engineered the chess game, with Aguado’s help. Playing chess with a man usually told Duardo everything he needed to know about him.
Thorne rubbed his eyes, the whisky and the hour making themselves felt.
“We can stop for the night if you want, General,” Duardo suggested. “It’s late.”
“Damn you, man, the game is even. Give me a chance to beat you, at least,” Thorne growled.
Duardo considered Thorne in the light from the pressure lantern sitting on the table beside the board. The general was exhausted. The lines of his face were dragging. It looked as if he might fall asleep where he was sitting.
A glimmer of an idea came to him. Duardo resettled himself on the fold up canvas stool and reached out for his queen and moved it across the board diagonally, to park it beside his pawn. He had been trying to crown the pawn to keep Thorne’s attention away from the other strategies he had been setting up.
It was a commando move. If Thorne had been a better player, Duardo wouldn’t have tried it. Thorne might still spot the reason for the move and counter it, although that was a risk Duardo was willing to take.
Aguado drew in a soft breath. He’d spotted it. He said nothing. Instead, he covered his reaction, turning it into a yawn.
“Go to bed, General,” Thorne told Aguado distantly. “Get your beauty sleep.”
“I may when this game ends,” Aguado said, sounding humble.
Thorne moved his knight to counter the queen.
Duardo felt a touch of guilt as he slid his rook down the board. “Checkmate.”
“What?” Thorne exploded, sitting up. He stared at the board, slowly working out the available moves for his king and finding them all covered. His scowl deepened even more. “Damn it all!” He drained the inch of whisky in his glass and returned it heavily to the tabletop.
Duardo waited.
“Another game,” Thorne said.
“It’s late,” Duardo said, pushing the test one step further. “Perhaps another time?”
“Now, damn you,” Thorne growled. “You’re one ahead. I demand a chance to even the score at least.”
He detests losing.
It was a good quality to have in a general yet pushed to the extreme, it could make a man reckless. Duardo could use it, though. He cleared the board and set up the white pieces in front of him, weighing and discarding possibilities.
“I’ve been thinking about the position your President is in,” he said casually.
Thorne frowned over the correct arrangement of his king and queen, then looked up at Duardo. “What’s that mean?”
“He can’t negotiate with terrorists. Only, it’s Serrano who has him by the short and curlies. Not exactly terrorist material.” He turned the side of his mouth down.
“Serrano is a fucking idiot, if you ask me,” Thorne said. “Nothing he’s done makes military sense.”
