Rafferty's Wife (16 page)

“I’ll admit that has me a bit bothered. I’m sure the servants reported it to him, though. And, as I said, I wouldn’t be the first wealthy man to carry one for protection, especially in a place like this.”

“And he doesn’t mind your having it in his
own house? With assassination plots springing up around here daily—almost hourly?”

“Maybe Josh told him I feel safer with a gun but that I’m not really into shooting island presidents.”

Sarah gestured. “All right, all right. At least now we know for sure that Josh did call him; he didn’t hesitate to tell us that, did he?”

“No.” Rafferty went over to the window and looked out. The house was built on a slight rise so that the town lay spread out below. “Nor did he hesitate to give us full run of the city—unescorted, if we prefer. I think we’ll take his advice, though, and not venture anywhere else. Judging by the gunfire we heard, the hills sound a bit dangerous for visitors. And those terrorists are around here somewhere.”

“He didn’t mention them.”

“No. And I doubt the group would want to dirty up their backyard by attacking guests of the president. Things like that tend to wear out your welcome. Still, you never know. Better not to take chances.”

Sarah smiled at him when he turned to face
her. “You’re being very calm and professional about all these surprises, I must say. It’s very comforting.”

“I believe it’s called being shell-shocked. I don’t think anything could surprise me now. So I suppose I should hear about this grand plan of Hagen’s.”

“Sure you want to take the plunge?”

“I’m braced and ready.”

“All right.” Sarah banked pillows behind her back and leaned against the headboard. “First of all, I can’t be sure just
when
we have to move. Hagen said we would receive a, quote, unmistakable signal, end quote. Probably within a few days, a week at the most.”

“He’ll probably send up a rocket or something,” Rafferty said in a wry tone.

Sarah was surprised. “You sound as if he’s watching us as we speak.”

Rafferty gave her a confident look. “Trust me. If your boss isn’t actually on this island, then he’s probably out in the Caribbean in a submarine or on a battleship. Gleefully rubbing his pudgy little hands together while he
watches—through an infrared camera or something—the strands of his insidious, sticky web being woven into place.”

Sarah looked doubtful, but continued. “When we receive the signal, we prepare to move. At
exactly
noon, we’re to be at the prison. I’ve seen a diagram of the place, and I’ll sketch it for you beforehand.”

“That memory of yours is coming in handy.”

“It saves time and trouble,” she admitted dryly. “There’s a back door to which I have a key, and I have a key to the cell—”

“I haven’t seen them,” Rafferty observed.

“They’re in one of my shoes.”

“In a hollow heel?” he asked, hopeful.

“As a matter of fact … yes.”

“I’m beginning to feel as though we’re part of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

“Do you want to hear this, or not?”

“Sorry. Shell-shock, remember?”

“Uh-huh. Anyway, Hagen assured me that, for reasons undisclosed, the guards at the prison will be distracted and far from their normal
positions. We go in the back door, which is near Kelsey’s cell, and—”

“Kelsey?” Rafferty’s ironic humor dissipated. Almost to himself, he muttered, “There can’t be two of them in Hagen’s organization, unless—someone told me that Hagen’s team was small, but I remember you said something once about it being large. Which is it?”

Sarah looked puzzled. “Well, the organization is large, but the team of field agents is fairly small. Why?”

“Then there can’t be two Kelseys. Dammit, I know him.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Well, at least I know he’s a good agent we can count on. And it makes this whole thing a bit more personal.”

“He’s the toy manufacturer from Billings. Sereno locked him up about three weeks ago, just one jump ahead of several enraged terrorists who were after his hide. The official American version is that he was arrested six weeks ago, when he reached Kadeira, but that isn’t true. The press wasn’t supposed to get hold of
any of it, so a hasty statement was released when they did. Sereno unwittingly helped by arresting Kelsey before the terrorists could get their hands on him, and his version is that Kelsey committed ‘crimes against the state.’ A nice vague charge covering a multitude of possible sins.”

Rafferty was frowning a little. “So if Kelsey hadn’t been arrested, chances are good that the terrorist group would have killed him.”

“Right. We must have somebody else undercover down here, because Kelsey hadn’t gotten a chance to report before they grabbed him, but Hagen knew all this, and is very sure of his information. And then there are the keys; somebody got them for us, but who, nobody knows.

“Hagen says that Sereno is holding Kelsey despite the terrorists’ demands that he be released to them. Sereno’s argument—and the terrorist group has made it a public one around here—is that crimes against the state take precedence over everything else. He’s in a pretty tough position. Apparently he isn’t willing to hand over Kelsey, nor is he anxious to alienate the terrorists.”

“Between a rock and a hard place,” Rafferty murmured. He frowned at her, puzzled. “Sereno is claiming that Kelsey spied against his government as well as against the terrorist organization?”

“According to Hagen.”

“Well, did he?”

“Spy on Sereno? Do you really think Hagen would have told me, true or not?”

Rafferty sighed. “Sorry. I wasn’t using my head.”

Sarah grinned a little. “Obviously.”

He eyed her, then said, “You know, the deeper we get into this thing, the wilder it gets. Your boss is a frighteningly dangerous little man. I wonder why he’s been allowed to live this long.”

“Nobody could catch him?”

“You’re probably right. By now, he ought to have developed a strong sense of self-preservation.” He sighed again. “So. After we bust Kelsey out—assuming we can—what happens then? I don’t suppose a crack anti-terrorist squad will come swooping out of the
clear blue and nobly hold off the bad guys while we make our getaway?”

“I told you we aren’t supposed to be overt down here,” Sarah said matter-of-factly and in a slightly reproving tone. She kept a straight face too.

Rafferty gave her a fascinated look. “Yes. Yes, you did tell me that, didn’t you? I wonder why I’d forgotten. Um, what happens next?”

“We get him aboard the
Thespian
and sail out of here.”

“Past all the nice armed boats?”

“Hagen says they won’t be there.”

Rafferty came over to sit beside her on the bed. He looked reflective, and his voice was gentle when he spoke. “Hagen says. Sarah love, I hope you’re not putting too much faith in what Hagen says.”

“Not much, no.” She sighed. “He hasn’t done too much to give me that kind of faith. At the same time, Rafferty, a part of me
does
believe him.”

“The hell of it is, a part of me believes him too.”

“He has a gun.”

Sereno looked at Colonel Durant, amused. “Of course he has a gun. He’s a wealthy man, and no fool. Stop worrying; Lewis will not try to harm me.”

Durant, moving restlessly about the room, was unconvinced. “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, Andrés. If it blows up in your face, all will be lost.”

Sereno leaned back in his chair and gazed across the neat desk at his aide and friend. “Perhaps. The timing is critical. And the secret to success, my friend, is illusion. Outside this house, my enemies think themselves friends, and my friends believe they are enemies.”

“You can’t satisfy both,” Durant protested, and his tone held the sound of an old argument.

“I can, and will. For a time, I need my enemies. In the future, I will need my friends. I may go to bed with the devil, Vicente, but he would not be the first lover betrayed in the light of day.”

Durant turned, and a smile lightened his thin face. “True. It is, as always, your game. I’ll leave you.” He headed for the door, then hesitated. “About the other … there is no word.”

Sereno’s face grew bleak. “No. I expected none.”

“She looks very like—”

“Yes.”

The colonel left quietly.

The president remained where he was for a long moment, staring into space. Then he swore softly and rose to his feet, his expression that of a man putting unbearable things out of his mind, at least for the time being.

But she
did
look like her. And he could use that, if he had to. No one who knew about her would doubt his motives—and nearly everyone on Kadeira knew about her. So that would serve as his excuse, should one be needed.

He crossed the room to a tall bookcase. Grasping one shelf, he pulled the entire structure away from the wall. Behind it was a hidden cavity, filled to capacity with electronic equipment.

He set several dials and switches and then placed a radio call, confident that it would be impossible for anyone other than his contact to hear the conversation, even if the correct frequency was stumbled upon.

Before his contact came on the line he thought of Adrian, the terrorist leader whose camp lay only a few miles inland. It was an odd alias for one who claimed Middle Eastern ties, but Sereno had heard stranger things. He had not, however, met a stranger man. Or a more dangerous one. Adrian was a pit viper with lethal venom, and Sereno didn’t know how much longer he could hold the man at bay, away from his American prisoner.

The American prisoner was either a blessing or a curse, depending on how long Sereno could maneuver the dangerous pawns on his chessboard, and how quickly he could bring the game to a satisfactory conclusion.

“Go,” a voice whispered from his receiver.

Depressing the call button, Sereno relayed his terse message.

T
HAT DAY AND
the next, Rafferty and Sarah remained at Sereno’s home. They made no attempt to explore the city spread out below. Their host kept them company at times, and at others excused himself to disappear into his office with one or more of his men to do the work of running a country.

The two visitors had agreed privately that certain questions couldn’t be asked of their host, but they also discovered that the island president willingly volunteered occasional information
about his goals and even his methods. He made no apologies and no attempts to justify his actions; he merely explained the rationale behind them and left his listeners to make up their own minds.

And that became increasingly difficult.

“Now I know why Josh had trouble turning the man down,” Rafferty said late the second night, as they lay close together in their bed. “He doesn’t pull his punches or make any excuses at all for his behavior, and yet he’s damned persuasive without trying to be. I almost could call those news stories about him and his government sheer propaganda.”

Sarah moved closer to his side, frowning into the darkness. “I talked to his housekeeper while you were playing chess with him tonight. Her English was good, thank heaven, and she was the housekeeper to the former president as well as Sereno. She’s not at all the type to worship blindly, but she adores him. And she says that things are much better now, in comparison to the state of the country under the last regime, I mean.

“She got very indignant when I told her the tales we’ve heard about the torture of political prisoners and the conscription of children for the military. For the first, she claims that political dissidents and revolutionaries are exiled, not imprisoned or tortured; she says the only political prisoner being held now is the American. For the second, she says Sereno would never conscript citizens, especially children, because he was taken into the revolutionary army himself as a teenager, totally against his will.”

“Does she defend the lack of freedoms here?” Rafferty asked a bit dryly.

“In a way, yes. She says the newspaper and radio station were infiltrated by the rebels, and that both were inciting the citizens to murder. Not just overthrow Sereno, but actually to murder innocents. The president stopped that. He declared martial law because stores were being looted and public utilities sabotaged by the rebels.”

Rafferty wasn’t disbelieving of what she was telling him, just curious. “Then why’d we get
hit with the vegetable salad on the drive up here?”

“Well, the one thing Sereno and his government simply can’t do is get the economy back on its feet. Since the island hasn’t been politically stable for more than fifty years, no foreign business will invest here, and the country has no industry. The farmers can’t work because the rebels wreck their fields. The fishermen are able to feed the people, but that’s it. And Sereno can’t stabilize the mess long enough to get anything accomplished. Once in a blue moon he manages to get goods in for the shops, but the amount of money changing hands is pathetic.

“According to Maria, Sereno’s feeding his people with the last few coins in the treasury. Or was, before the terrorists came here.”