John Gilstrap - Damage Control

“That’s the second time that’s been said to me in just the last hour,” he said with a wry smile.

Maria scowled. “Really? Who else?”

“An associate of mine,” Hernandez said. “His name doesn’t matter.”

“What does he say you need to be careful about?”

His eyes grew even emptier as they peered into her. “My associate-who knows many things and is rarely wrong-says that I have been betrayed.”

The words chilled Maria’s blood far more effectively than the air-conditioning had. She willed herself to maintain eye contact, yet again touching his arm. “I don’t understand.”

“He tells me that someone very close to me has been talking to American agents, plotting to do me harm.”

The chill turned to ice. How could he possibly know? She’d been so very careful. “You mean to kill you?”

He cocked his head and stared deeper. Maria felt as if he were trying to set her on fire from within.

“I don’t understand, Felix,” she said. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but the fact that people are trying to kill you is hardly news.”

The glare continued for a few seconds, and then he smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “But the threat is not to kill me. The threat is to have me imprisoned for the rest of my life.” Finally, he looked away. “But even that is not what troubles me. This associate was very specific. The informant is very close to me, and probably a woman. That means that someone to whom I have been extraordinarily generous is planning to repay me with the worst kind of betrayal.”

Maria’s mind raced. What was her best play now? Clearly, he suspected her-he’d have to suspect her-so would it be most convincing to pretend to be totally clueless, or should she become defensive?

“Surely you don’t suspect me,” she said before she even knew that she’d chosen a course.

“Should I?”

Her strategy materialized out of nowhere. She bolted to her feet and stormed to the door, furious.

On cue, Hernandez shot out his hand to grab her wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Maria whirled on him and slapped his face. “How dare you!” she said. Tears clouded her vision.

Hernandez shot to his feet, too, his face red with rage.

“Go ahead!” Maria dared. “Go ahead and beat me. Have me shot. If you think so little of me-if you think for even a second that I could betray you-by all means shoot me yourself.” She pulled her arm from his hand. “Bastard.”

Her heart hammered at an impossible rate as she headed again for the door.

“Stop!” he commanded.

When she turned this time, he hadn’t moved. He still stood in front of the love seat, his face slack with surprise.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Maria said, pointing her finger at him. “I am not like your other mistresses. Yes, I know you have them. They pretend to care for you because they fear you. I love you, Felix. I would lay down my life for you. How dare you suspect me of such a despicable thing?”

He moved toward her. “Where are you going?” His voice was softer now.

“Home,” she said.

He reached for her hands with both of his, but stopped when she recoiled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was being… stupid. Please stay. Please stay the night.”

“I am going home,” Maria said again. “Unless, of course, you want to have your guards drag me back here so that you can rape me.”

The thought seemed to horrify him. “Maria. I would never-”

“And neither would I,” she said. “Never in a million years would I betray you.”

“Stay, then.”

She shook her head emphatically. “No, not tonight. I couldn’t tonight. I need to be alone tonight.”

Hernandez seemed to be at a loss for words, as if he hadn’t found himself in this position before.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” His voice sounded oddly childlike now.

This was a new expression. There was tenderness there somewhere.

She might actually feel something after she drove a stake through the monster’s heart.

Two hours ago, when Ernesto Palma had taken the phone call from Felix Hernandez, he’d thought for certain that the point of the call would be to upbraid him for having lost track of his prey. Palma had spent so much time over the years dealing with the peasants and riffraff that defined the population of drug thugs that he continued to be surprised by the savvy and resourcefulness of Harris and Lerner.

It only made sense, of course, that they would disappear after their altercation with the patrol in the jungle. Once they’d been made, they had to go into hiding. That was the bad news. The flip side of that-the good news-was that hiding and getting away were mutually exclusive endeavors. Sooner or later, they would have to make a move, and when they did, Palma would be ready for them. The longer they took, in fact, the more soldiers and police Palma could have out on the streets to intercept them.

He’d talked himself into believing that his prey’s disappearance was actually a good thing because it allowed him to marshal more resources to catch them.

But that had turned out to be a fantasy.

Four hours ago, one of his patrols had found the Pathfinder stashed off the road. It had been stripped of all valuable gear, and there was no evidence of what direction they might have gone when they left.

Had they hijacked a car? Had they taken off on foot? That latter option seemed least likely if they were in fact trying to head north-a lot of inhospitable desert lay between here and there-but maybe they’d reached some kind of a hybrid solution, in which they hiked far enough to steal a different car.

For that matter, they had three million American dollars with them. They could buy any car they wanted. They could buy dozens of any car they wanted.

This was the report that Palma had been prepared to give to Felix Hernandez when the phone rang, but as it turned out, he never had to. In fact, Hernandez never even asked him about how the search was going. He didn’t say much of anything. He opened with, “My plane will be waiting for you at Hacienda Luna. Be on it in a half hour.”

Palma ran the distance in his head. “I don’t think that’s possible, Mr. Hernandez.”

“Make it possible, Captain Palma. Your targets will be leaving from Ciudad Juarez.”

“Ciudad Juarez? That’s twelve hundred kilometers. How are they getting there?”

“I don’t know,” Hernandez replied. “But when they get here, I want you here waiting for them. You cannot let them leave.”

Palma didn’t like it. “With all respect, Mr. Hernandez, we have them on the run here. They’ve left their vehicle and now they’re having to improvise on the run. Literally on the run. They are on foot, as far as we know.”

“Which means that they could be in a boat, as far as you know. Do yourself a favor and don’t leave my pilot waiting.”

With that, Hernandez clicked off.

Thus, Palma found himself racing down roads that were never intended for speed, bouncing off the door and roof of the Sandcat as Sergeant Nazario did everything he could to keep it on the road.

As he’d expected, thirty minutes had proven to be undoable, but forty-five looked to be possible.

“We are going to hurry to Ciudad Juarez,” Nazario said. “We are leaving all our leads behind us. And then what happens when we arrive there?”

“We await orders,” Palma said.

In the lingering daylight, Maria stormed from the compound, every stride covering half again the distance that it normally would. The guards she passed looked startled-some even shifted their hands on their weapons-but none made a threatening move on her.