To The Lions - 02 (31 page)

“Since
you jumped ahead with your assumptions, I will, too.
 
As you know, Navarro and his son are no
longer threats to Los Leones.
 
I don’t
like killing, Mister Hartline, I’m not that cold.”
 
She paused, resetting her expression.
 
“But these people, all of them, the Navarros
included
, are savages.
 
They’ll kill one another whether I’m here or
not.
 
And trying to stop them is, as you
Americans so eloquently say, like shoveling shit against the tide.
 
It’s useless.”

Gritting
his teeth, Gage said, “So you figure, screw it, I may as well get rich off their
blood.”

“That’s
not it.”

“Well,
what is it?”

“It’s
either cooperate or die,” she said with indignation.

Though
her statement didn’t exactly make sense to Gage, he moved on, asking, “And what
about me,
capitana
?”

“Yes,
well, your deal is a bit more tricky, Mister Hartline.
 
And you destroying that León’s face yesterday
didn’t help things, either.
 
You nearly
killed another one on the stairs.”
 
Clucked her tongue.
 
“You’re quite
violent.”

“I
don’t cotton to gang rape,
capitana
,
though you obviously have no problem with it.”

“I
had no idea that was happening.
 
When I
learned of it, I ordered it stopped but you had already halted it.”

“I
was too late.
 
Then the guards you sent
to stop the rape
allowed
Cesar to be
killed.”

“I
won’t argue that.”

“Why
do you allow it?”

“Los
Leones run things here.
 
They did.
 
They do.
 
They will.
 
And had I, or any of
the guards, tried to stop the killing of Cesar, it would invite certain death.”

“So
you can stop a rape, but not a killing?”

She
shook her head.
 
“I don’t expect you to
understand.”

“If
fear rules your life, then you don’t need to be a prison warden,” Gage said,
disgust dripping from every word.

“Understand
this: given my broad powers here at Berga, if I decide to send you back out in
that bay, you’re dead inside of ten minutes.”
 
She tilted her chin up, waiting for him to respond.

Gage
was emotionless.

“Rather
than do that, I’d like to propose a deal, Mister Hartline.”

Gage
sucked on his teeth, viewing her paintings.

“Mister
Hartline…did you hear me?”

He
ignored her.

“I
said
I have a proposition.”

“Listen,
lady…my proposition is for you to open the doors and let me walk out.
 
Now.
 
Even if Navarro was double-crossed, there is official paperwork on me,
filed in the U.S., stating that I was hired by the Spanish government to be
placed into Berga as an undercover agent.”
 

She
shook her head.
 
“That won’t work, for
two reasons.”

“What
reasons?”

“First,
if I allow you to make contact with the U.S., it’s
me
who will die.”

“How
will anyone know?”

“Los
Leones now have a bounty on you, Mister Hartline.
 
I’m the only person keeping you alive.
 
It was me who had you thrown into that dark
cell, thereby protecting you.”

“Why?”

“While
Los Leones may be vicious, they’re not very bright.”
 
She gave Gage a tight smile.
 
“They know you were paid a large sum of
money.
 
If you can produce that money, I
might be able to bargain your life with it.”

Given
the tenor of the conversation leading up to this point, this demand wasn’t at
all surprising to Gage.
 
He believed
every word.
 
He also believed her choice
of words, using “might,” was key.
 
She
might
be able to bargain his life.

Yeah, sure.
 

Once
she had the money, he’d be getting a necktie to match Cesar’s.

“If
I don’t agree?” he asked.

“I
think you already know the answer to that question, Mister Hartline.”
 
She gestured toward the main bay.
 
“I’ll send you out to the floor with word that
you won’t cut a deal.
 
Then I’ll come
back in here and have a mineral water as I polish a monthly report that goes to
the Bureau of Prisons.
 
I may squeeze in
a workout on my elliptical and, by that time, my chief of guards will bring me
one of the little pink notes I’m so familiar with.
 
It will detail your tragic, and gruesome,
death.”

Gage
pressed his hands over his face and back through his still-damp hair.
 
“That all sounds real tidy, but there’s one
thing I don’t think you’re considering,
capitana
,
and that’s the official state paperwork I was given.
 
Regardless of what I have been paid, my
person in the U.S. is going to get suspicious when I don’t call on time.
 
We created a system—they will be expecting to
hear from me.”

“Please,
go on.”

“When
my paperwork is shown to the U.S. State Department, they’ll split this place
open like a cheap tin can to get me out.
 
And with the U.S. holding those papers, you know what’ll happen if you
let these animals kill me before I’m released.
 
Your entire flow of money will come to a halt because you’ll have CNN,
the BBC, and every other news organization crawling all over this place, not to
mention the United States State Department.
 
And then, when they crack the corruption—and, believe me, they will—it’ll
be you who will be in prison, fending off the inmates who want to meet you for
all sorts of reasons.”

“All
true.”

Gage
stared.

“If
it were to play out as you said.”

Gage
made no response.

“But
it won’t.”

It
was a struggle for Gage to make no response.

“Remember
when I said there were two reasons your proposition was flawed?”

He
arched his brows.

Capitana
de la Mancha walked back around her desk and opened the center drawer.
 
When she did, Gage noted the bluing of
another handgun in a larger frame and caliber.
 
Filing the desk gun to memory, he watched as she produced a rigid overnight
envelope, marked by thin bills of lading dangling and crinkling as she waved
it.
 

Holy shit.

“Mister
Hartline, is this the paperwork you thought was filed in the U.S.?”
 
She tossed the heavy envelope to him, the
hanging bills of lading fluttering loudly as it spun.

Gage
caught it, immediately ripping open the pull tab.
 
Noting the shake of his hands, he tugged the
sheaf of papers from the inside, studying his hand-written note on top, running
his hand over the back of the paper as he felt the indentations from his own
pen.

“Acusador
Redon, wily little snake he is, had all outbound shipments tracked and this was
pulled for him by someone at the shipping company.”
 
She frowned.
 
“He also knows you didn’t email or fax these papers because the dirty
American on his payroll, some Air Force general, the same one who tracked your
satellite phone conversation, used your own country’s imperialistic power to
monitor all electronic transmissions outbound from Spain to the U.S.
 
Of the millions of communications that
occurred in the few days between the two countries, those documents were not
part of them.”

“Sonofabitch,”
Gage breathed.

 
“You’re in check, Mister Hartline, and you
have only one move available.”

Lifting
his eyes, Gage thought about his phone conversation with Colonel Hunter, and
Justina’s knowledge that he was here.
 
So,
at the very least, two people knew he was here.
 
He’d need to somehow get to his cell and call as soon as he could get a
signal with the—

Breaking
his train of thought was his compact satellite phone being wagged across the
desk.
 
She’d pulled it from the other
pocket of her lab coat.
 
“You’re recalling
the people who you told you were coming here, and you’re thinking of calling
them.
 
But it’s going to be hard without
this,” she teased, shaking the phone back and forth.

Staring
down at his lap, Gage took steady breaths, allowing the situation, the wretched
situation, to sink in.
 
Justina, a Polish
national who probably didn’t even have a visa, wouldn’t be able to create any
pressure.
 
And Colonel Hunter, despite
his considerable pull, didn’t have a clue that Gage was in any distress.
 
For all he knew, Gage was going into this
situation long-term.
 
Gage had promised
to reach out when he could—but there was no timeframe.

The
situation was perilous.

“It’s
all quite simple, Mister Hartline.
 
Acusador Redon already told Los Leones that you were advanced a million euro.
 
Now, where is the money?”
 

Fists
balled, head down, Gage ground his hands against the other.

“Hey!”
she snapped, finally losing her cool.
 
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
 
He looked up.
 
This time she asked
it slowly, her painted lips readable even without the sound.
 
“Gage—Hartline, where—is—the—money?”

“I’d
have to make a phone call.”

“We’ll
call for you.”

He
rubbed his face.
 
“Capitana, if I can
produce that money, who is to say I won’t be killed upon its delivery?”

She
shrugged.
 
“There’s no guarantee.”

“So,
why do it?”

“You
want to live, don’t you?”

He
narrowed his eyes, thinking the situation through.
 
The call he mentioned was a call to Justina,
of course.
 
As soon as that call was made,
he’d instantly endanger her along with himself.
 
The vivid picture of Cesar’s bloody Colombian necktie burst forth in his
mind, stark and chilling.
 
Again he
thought of Justina, waiting tables for Russian mobsters and now sitting alone
in a cabin, loyally waiting on him to return.

A
cold dagger of pain pierced him as he hearkened back to that rainy Frankfurt night
when Monika was ripped from this earth.

He
thought of Monika’s smile.

He
remembered watching movies on her sofa, the two of them entwined as one.

And now she’s gone.
 
Murdered.

Not again.
 

Not again.

De
la Mancha said he had only one move—and she was correct.
 
Gage licked his lips and swallowed a few
times to wet his mouth.
 
He shifted in
the seat, joining eyes with Capitana de la Mancha.
 
He shook his head once, resolutely, and made
his reply loud and clear.

“No.”
 

She
tilted her head.
 
“Pardon?”

He
repeated himself.

“What
do you mean, ‘no’?”

Gage
crossed his arms, setting his chin, making sure the corners of his mouth ticked
upward.
 
“No means no, in English, Spanish
and Catalan.
 
I can do it in German,
French, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, and probably a few others, but I’d need
some time to think on it.”

She
straightened, the mirth of her face replaced by anger.
 
“You stupid, macho bastard!
 
Do you have any idea what they’ll do to you
out in that bay?”

“No.
 
I’m thinking about what they’ll do to you.”

“Idiot!”
she snapped.
 
“You hand over that money
and pray they spare you.”

“Not
happening.”

“There
is no other answer here, Hartline, other than compliance!”

He
smirked.
 
“Look at you.”

“What?”

Gage
nodded knowingly.
 
“You’re scared.”

“They
will torture you for that amount of money, Hartline.
 
It will be worse than anything you could ever
dream.”