Switched (24 page)

The Organization of African Unity was probably not amused by the European mercenaries taking over a sovereign African country with such ease, but President Ahmed and his Simoran subjects seemed to be thrilled with the outcome of the coup.

At least I suspected as much, looking at all the smiling faces. President Ahmed had a big fat ear-to-ear grin as he sat at the center of the long table. He was flanked on both sides by Montou, the head mercenary, and various members of Montou’s mercenary group,
Les Terribles.

The president was younger than I had pictured him, only about fifty years old and rail thin. He was most likely a devotee of the cigarette diet. He was the worst sort of chain-smoker—unfiltered, hand-rolled French cigarettes, taking long drags that burned up at least a third of the cigarette and then French inhaling, two long columns of smoke rising almost magically into his nostrils.

I was both disgusted and transfixed. I sat for a long time watching the smoke go up his nostrils. It had a hypnotic effect, and my eyes began to droop when I was wakened from my stupor by a familiar voice.

“…European mercenaries.”

I caught only the end of the sentence, but I was sure I knew the voice. It was John Grant, a Reuters bureau chief I had done some stringing for years back but never actually met, only spoken with over the phone.

I craned my neck to get a look at him while the chief mercenary, Montou, answered the question.

“There are no mercenaries here,” he said, his thick French accent booming through the room. “We are military technicians. Good ones at that.”

I got up from my seat and moved next to John Grant to say hi, but my squeaking shoes on the linoleum floor attracted Montou’s attention, and he paused to look directly at me.

He had piercing, murderous eyes. He had obviously been good-looking at one time but too much sun, harsh living conditions, and an overabundance of stress had aged him prematurely.

A hand pulled hard on my shoulder. John Grant yanked me down to the chair next to him. I had been crouching, staring into Montou’s eyes, and indulging in an internal dialogue for who knew how long.

I introduced myself to Grant while questions and answers swirled around us.

“Tourist piece? That’s a little unusual for you, isn’t it?” John asked me.

“New job, John. New job and new life,” I said, pretty proud of myself. “I’m features editor of
High Life
magazine.”

“Well done, Abby. I always knew you’d make good. Does this mean you are based in London now?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think about that, but we’re neighbors now.”

John smiled and raised his hand in a mock toast. “Here’s to you, neighbor. America’s loss is England’s gain.”

The press conference dragged on, and I let John get back to work and focus on the questions and answers. I scanned the room for other familiar faces and finally looked back up at the panel. One of Montou’s lieutenants caught my attention. Mid-thirties, blond, blue eyed, muscular yet lanky, he had absolutely perfect features.

“Who’s the Adonis?” I asked Grant.

Without looking up from his note-taking, he replied, “A Brit. Jake Logan. One of Montou’s henchmen, now Minister of Finance. All of the
Les Terribles
mercenary group have titles now.”

“He’s number two, then?”

“No, Brodie’s number two. Number one, according to some,” he murmured, still deep in his notes.

I looked around. “Which one is Brodie?”

“Not here,” he mumbled.

I sat back and allowed myself to stare at Jake Logan, the Adonis, and fantasize freely about him in order to pass the time until I could get out of there and get on with my vacation at the pool. I wasn’t about to give up my planned schedule. I desperately needed a daiquiri.

“There he is. That’s Brodie.” John pointed his pen toward the side door. A tall man had walked through it. He was unshaven, more muscular than Jake Logan, with a face and body that looked like it was chiseled in stone. He didn’t look happy at all. A shiver went up my spine. It was the man from the airport.

“Shit, I don’t want to mess with him,” I said out loud.

“I wouldn’t think so,” said John. “Not unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

I remembered my body’s reaction to Brodie and wondered if I was into that sort of thing. Just my luck, I was pretty sure I was.

Brodie scowled at Montou, who was in the midst of a loud rant, yelling at the reporters. “Hey, I did a good thing here. A good thing!” He pounded the table with his fist, making it jump up a couple of inches.

John stood up. “Mr. Montou. John Grant, from Reuters. Mr. Montou, can you respond to reports that you executed the former president with two shots to the chest?”

“He had a summary trial first,” said President Ahmed, answering for Montou. “Everything was completely legal and correct.”

“But he didn’t die right away. Isn’t that right, Mr. Montou?” John asked.

“Sometimes it takes time to die. These things are complicated,” the president said, answering again for Montou.

A reporter from
The New York Times
stood. “Amnesty International is calling that torture, Mr. Montou, and they’re calling for you to be brought up on war crimes.”

I could have sworn I saw steam come out of Montou’s ears.

“War crimes? You say I’m a war criminal? You mean like a Nazi?” he roared, his French accent getting thicker with each word. “I am a Nazi now? My grandfather, he fought in the Resistance. I am no Nazi.”

Montou sputtered and pounded the table with his fist.

“I shot the so-called president two times point-blank in the chest,” he announced. “I used two bullets. Pow! Pow! And he don’t die right away. What do you want me to do? Two bullets in the chest usually kills a man pretty quick. I’m not going to waste another bullet for nothing. I knew he would die. It just took a little time to do it. And I went to his mother and asked if we should bury him or feed him to the dogs. She want to bury him, and I bury him. I do what the mother want. There. Is that a Nazi?!”

“He made the mother pay for the burial,” John whispered to me.

Brodie’s scowl never left his face. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. Logan was smirking and staring at his hands.

“You guys call me mercenary, say I do bad things,” Montou continued. “Now bad guy is out, and good guy is in. Everybody is happy!” He stood up to his full, over six-foot height. “You write that!”

Montou stomped out, and the rest of
Les Terribles
and the president followed him, signaling the end of the press conference.

John closed his reporter’s notebook and gave me a big smile. “Don’t you love Africa?”

“Why yes,” I answered. “Especially with a luxury hotel and strawberry daiquiris.”

“Good point, Abby. I’ll buy the first round.”

Turned out the hotel didn’t serve daiquiris at all, but they did serve an awful lot of other drinks, and John and I took advantage of their supply. He bought the first round, and soon we were joined by hordes of other reporters who were all too glad to buy more. They pushed a bunch of tables together in the hotel’s bar area, and we sat and were as rowdy as drunk reporters could be.

Funnily enough, I was the only female reporter on the island, and I felt it was my duty to be celebrated by my male counterparts. I accepted every drink I was offered with grace.

John was a sloppy drunk and tended toward melancholy and tears after a few drinks. He pulled out his wallet and showed me pictures of his family.

“My wife,” he blurted out with a hiccup. “She’s so beautiful, don’t you think?”

“I do,” I said, honestly. She was lovely, well dressed, and fit.

“Well, you’re wrong!” He pulled the photo back and scrunched his face, ready to tell me just how wrong I was. Then, just as suddenly, his face slackened, and he searched for his thought, but it had gone into the ether with the alcohol vapors. He sat for a moment, staring into space and then grabbed for his wallet again.

“Here’s a picture of my kids. They’re cute, don’t you think?”

I was unsure how to answer, didn’t know if it was a test. I took another slug of my drink and stood up. “To Africa,” I called out.

The reporters cheered and raised their glasses. “To Africa!”

The night was a blur after that. I remembered us singing “God Save the Queen” and clog dancing, but the alcohol pretty much wiped everything else from my memory.

The next morning the only thing left in my head was the pain that knifed through it with my every movement and every blink of my eyes.  I moaned into my pillow. Despite the hangover and general debauchery, I mentally patted myself on the back because I had stayed fully dressed during the evening.

In fact, I didn’t have to live down any embarrassing or disgusting behavior on my part. That was no small achievement considering the alcohol that ran through my veins.

Armed with a new sense of pride and four Advils, I showered and tiptoed down to the pool in my bikini, wrap, dark sunglasses, and tennis shoes with thick socks.

I was still following the doctor’s orders to get rid of the nastiness on my feet. But even with my feet taken care of and despite various headache remedies, I was still murderously hungover.

I picked out a chaise lounge by the pool and lay down. With my eyes closed and wearing the dark sunglasses, I had almost succeeded in blocking out the sun, which was like a jackhammer against my frontal lobe.

I had begun to relax when I felt light, calloused fingers dancing up my leg. I opened my eyes to see David Montou, the head of the mercenaries, hunched over me.

“You are a very beautiful woman,” he said. He spoke slowly, his accent dripping thick sexual innuendo with every syllable. He eyed me like I was a porterhouse steak.

In my previous life, I would have been excited by the opportunity to wangle an exclusive interview with the eccentric mercenary. But as features editor for a frilly women’s magazine, the uninvited fondling was at best a nuisance, especially in my present state of physical agony. At worst, well, the worst could be pretty bad in David Montou’s hands.

“No speaka the English,” I said. It was the only strategy that popped into my mind.

“Oh,” he said, elated. “Alors, vous êtes francaise?”

“No speaka the French,” I said.

His face dropped in disappointment. “Deutsch?”

“No speaka the…whatever that was,” I said. Geez, I was some kind of idiot. I was expecting Montou to get fed up and shoot me in the chest at any moment.

But Montou didn’t get angry. He didn’t seem to understand I was trying to get rid of him. He sat down next to me and brought my hand to his lips.

“Lovely,” he said.

“Lesbian,” I blurted out. I was clutching at straws. If it came right down to it, I didn’t think he would take “no” for an answer, and if lesbian didn’t work, I had a herpes excuse waiting in the wings.

“Huh? I don’t understand,” he said.

I didn’t get the chance to explain sexual orientations to him because one of his underlings whispered something in his ear. By the looks of Montou’s face, it was important.

He dropped my hand and rose to leave but not before he shouted orders at me. “You will have dinner with me. The hotel restaurant at twenty-thirty. I do not become very happy when I am refused.”

I gulped and weighed my options.

No matter what was on the menu for dinner, I was pretty sure I didn’t want it. Still, refusing Montou wouldn’t be wise. After all, I wasn’t too sure that the former president’s mother would spring for my funeral expenses.

(Wish Upon A Stud – Book One)

By Elise Sax

Chapter 1

I clutch my lucky silver dollar firmly in my hand. I don’t want to give it up, but this wish is really important, and I can’t leave it up to chance.

I’m down to my last two hundred bucks. I’m a month behind in my rent, and I’m in pain from giving myself my own bikini wax in order to save money. Nothing can get between me and this wish coming true.

The wishing fountain is in the center of town, right next to my apartment. In fact, I can see it from my bedroom window, but this is the first time that I’m trying it out. I’ve been saving up my wish for when I’m desperate. And boy, am I desperate.

It’s the ugliest fountain I’ve ever seen, bone dry with just a few coins, dirt, and a used condom at its bottom. But it’s famous for its wishes. I’m not crazy to believe in it. It has a long history as a wishing fountain. It’s been on the news. Katie Couric. Oprah.

I focus on my wish, pull my arm back, and release the coin.

Please let me get this role.

Please let me ace this audition.

With my wish out into the universe, I shut my eyes and throw the silver dollar into the fountain. It lands on the cracked plaster, making a loud clanking sound in the town square.

A breeze blows, which I take as a good sign. I swear I feel different, like I’m infused with good luck. I sure need some good luck. I open my eyes, half expecting an angel to appear, or at the very least, a leprechaun.

But I’m on my own. The sleepy little town of Esperanza isn’t exactly bustling with people on its busiest day, and today it’s particularly dead.

I step down from the fountain and go on my way. I don’t have to go far. Just across the street to the diner, which is located on the bottom floor of my apartment building.

Built in the 1950’s, the building is no-frills and covered in pink stucco. There are twelve units and four flights. I’m on the top floor, next to the landlord.

This location has its good points and its drawbacks. I get woken up every morning with the smell of fresh coffee brewing from the diner downstairs, which is a good point. However, I’m also tempted to eat a slice of Mack’s homemade cherry pie to go along with it, which is a drawback.

And that’s the other plus and drawback: Mack.

I open the door to the diner, making the bell ring. The diner is enjoying a lull in the day, that time between breakfast and lunch where everyone is busy at work or at home. Mack is wiping off a table but looks up when I enter.