White Dawn: A Military Romantic Suspense Novel (21 page)

Nick frowned. “There’s a lot of
Insurrectos there,” he said and handed the glasses back to Duardo.
“Far too many to guard a bunch of buildings that are basically
empty.”

“They’re using the company equipment to
excavate the silver,” Duardo said, “but even that isn’t worth this
sort of deployment. The only reason I would park that many men in
an abandoned compound was if I knew an attack was imminent.” He
looked at Nick.

“They know we’re coming,” Nick breathed
and rolled back onto his side. “How?”

“They may not know for sure,” Duardo
said. “Serrano may just be covering his ass. The silver mine is a
critical asset. If he loses it, it’s likely he’ll lose everything.
He’s smart enough to know that.”

“We weren’t expecting this,” Nick said.
“Is there any chance our approach to the island was spotted?”

Duardo wanted to say no, forcefully, but
he couldn’t. He looked at Nick, weighing up what he
should
say. In fact, he hadn’t agreed with Flores’ frontal assault plan.
The bay they were using as a beach head and the route to the mine
compound were the most expected routes. “Even if they don’t know we
were coming, they would have been watching the best landing
points,” he said slowly.

“Because that’s what you would have
done,” Nick concluded. “Well, the Insurrectos have demonstrated
they don’t have your imagination, so let’s hope—” He broke off,
looking ahead through the scrub at the compound. “I think our hopes
were just dashed,” he added quietly.

Duardo eased forward and raised the
glasses to his eyes once more. He was forced to turn down the light
filter on them, for strong spotlights had been switched on, bathing
the open ground between the administrative buildings and the
workshop sheds to the north. From here, they had a perfect view of
the open area. There were six Insurrectos standing on either side
of a closed door, their rifles at the ready.

All three wore the new gray uniform the
Insurrectos had been slowly outfitting their people with. Duardo
could feel his mouth curl down just looking at the gray outfits. A
uniform didn’t make an army. The Insurrectos still lacked
discipline and training, and their chain of command was shaky at
the best of times. Serrano didn’t understand how delegation worked.
He tried to control everything himself. The result was a
bogged-down communications system. The tiny handful of men that
Serrano
did
trust were overworked and stressed. The results
were this ragged group of misfits holding unmatched armament,
wearing uniforms that didn’t fit properly.

The outer door opened and people
emerged.

“Camera!” Duardo murmured urgently.

Nick reached for the camera and
telephoto lens in the bag lying next to him and brought it up to
his eye. Then he swore. “That’s Carmen,” he said softly.

Duardo let out his breath. “She’s
injured,” he said as gently as he could. Through the night glasses,
he could see bandaging over her shoulder and her arm was in a
makeshift sling. She was walking slowly, like she was having
trouble concentrating.

“Who is that next to her?” Nick
asked.

“I don’t know him,” Duardo said. “But
he’s Caucasian. Daniel said there was an American leading the
outfit that Carmen was with.” He reached mentally for the name.
“Garrett Blackburn.”

Nick took more photos as the pair were
led, stumbling, out to the middle of the compound. “The officer
behind them,” he said. “That’s the same one who executed the girl
on television.”

Duardo swallowed. “Carlos Ibarra. He
must be quite mad to do what he did, then get up the next morning
and eat breakfast like ordinary people.”

Nick refocused the telephoto lens. “I
think the strain is getting to him. His hair is completely white.
It wasn’t that way on television.”

Duardo studied Ibarra through the night
glasses, but the light amplification mechanism destroyed colors. It
was hard to tell what color his hair was…except that it wasn’t
black. “Something’s happening,” he said, as Ibarra halted a few
paces behind the two prisoners. Garrett was helping Carmen stand
up, but the guards nudged them apart. They were each handed a flat,
thin object and the guards stepped back, surrounding them on two
sides. The rifles came up, aiming at them and Nick drew in a sharp
breath. “
Mierda
! They’re going to execute them!”

“No, they’re sending a message,” Duardo
said. He focused on the boards the prisoners were holding up. The
writing was rough, but the letters had been made large and dark, so
that the message would be received from at least a kilometer
away.

Nick steadied the telephoto lens.
“
Leave by midnight. Or we die.”

Duardo lowered the glasses. “Hostages,”
he said. He looked at Nick. “This is a political decision. You
might want to discuss this with General Flores. We can withdraw as
they demand. Go back to the boats and return to Acapulco. Or we can
move ahead as planned.” He hesitated. “Given what we know of Ibarra
from the televised execution, I have no doubt that he will kill the
prisoners if we do.”

Nick put the camera down on the canvas
back beside him and rested his head on his arm, hiding his eyes.
“Fuck!” he breathed, then rolled onto his back and looked up at the
sky.

Duardo agreed with him. It was an
impossible decision. No matter which way Nick decided, it was going
to have bad consequences. Returning to Acapulco would kill any
moral and momentum they had built up in the last few days. It would
also kill any cooperation they might get from the United
States.

The other alternative didn’t bear
thinking about. If that was the way Nick decided, Duardo would
follow through, but he didn’t have to like it.

The sergeant who had escorted them to
the observation point wriggled over on his stomach to where Nick
and Duardo rested and held out his cellphone. “Sir, a message from
the General.”

Duardo took the phone and looked down at
the glowing screen, keeping it shielded so that any sharp shooters
that Ibarra might have watching them wouldn’t have a target to
shoot it.

There was a text message on the
screen.

Return to boats. Fleet returning to
Acapulco. Servicio Meteorológico Nacional report category 4
hurricane arriving within 12 hours. – Top Dog

Top Dog was Flores’ code name, known
only to Duardo and Nick, as a way of verifying the message.

Duardo swore. They had been so busy in
the last three days that no one had thought to check a long range
weather forecast. They had obsessed over regional sea changes,
instead. But now the heat and the stillness that had marked the
last week made a grizzly sense. The calm before the storm.

He passed the phone to Nick and rested
on his back, too. He put his arm over his eyes, thinking it
through. The alternatives were few.

“We can’t argue with a tropical
cyclone,” Nick said quietly. “Flores is right. Ibarra holding
Carmen and Garrett adds weight to the decision.”

“We’ll lose everything,” Duardo said.
“Momentum. American gratitude. Morale. Pride. The respect of the
media. We
can’t
turn back now.”

“You have a plan for holding back a
hurricane?” Nick asked mildly. “It’s category 4, Duardo. That’s
winds up to a hundred and fifty miles an hour. The storm that
killed New Orleans was stronger, but only just.” He put his hand on
Duardo’s shoulder. “We’ll ride this out. It doesn’t have to be
defeat. Not yet.”

Ride it out
. It was an English
term, for they were using English for privacy, but the words lit a
chain reaction of cascading ideas. Duardo drew in a slow, deep
breath, excitement flaring. He rolled over onto his stomach and
pressed his forehead into his fists, breathing hard.

“Duardo?” Nick asked quietly.

He looked up. He was smiling, but
couldn’t stop. “We don’t ride it out,” he said flatly.

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t ride the hurricane out at all.
We don’t go back to Acapulco. We don’t slink away with our tail
between our legs like Ibarra wants us to.” He banged his fists
against the dirt for emphasis. “We
use
the damn thing.”

Nick frowned. “How?” he asked.

Duardo told him.

Ibarra made them stand under the glare
of the spotlights for over an hour and Carmen was certain they
would have stood there until dawn, except that a soldier with
insignia she didn’t recognize hurried over to Ibarra and murmured.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but as soon as he finished,
Ibarra stirred. “Get them back behind a locked door. And get the
medic to look at the woman again. I don’t want her expiring before
her usefulness does.”

Carmen hid her smile. Four hours ago,
she had woken to find herself lying on a blanket laid over bare
concrete floor, the chill biting into her bones. A man in civilian
clothing was kneeling next to her, wrapping a bandage over her
shoulder and under her arm. Her shirt had been cut away completely
and two Insurrecto guards standing at her feet were ogling her
breasts with open hunger.

Between their legs, Carmen could see
Garrett. He was sitting with his back to the wall, his arm held up
high because the handcuff around his wrist was attached to a pipe
running across the wall above his head. There was blood on his neck
where it had trickled down from the wound on the back of his head,
but it looked dry.

He was watching her with a peculiar
intensity.

There were cartons and metal boxes
stacked around the room.

The medic kneeling over her spoke
quietly. “The bullet passed right through your shoulder. I’ve
stopped the bleeding and stitched both entry and exit wounds, but
you may find you’re weak for several days. You lost quite a bit of
blood.”

She swallowed. “Thirsty.”

The medic looked at the guards. “Find
some drinking water.”

The guards didn’t move. One of them
turned his head and spat.

“Sorry,” the medic told her. “Perhaps
later.”

He packed up his things, then picked up
a black garment from the floor and held it out to her. “Do you want
me to help you put it on?”

Carmen took the garment and rested it
over her breasts, hiding them. She shook her head. The movement
hurt.

The medic got to his feet. “Try not to
open the stitches,” he said, but the dryness of his voice said he
didn’t expect her to follow that advice. He left without looking
back.

The two guards stayed where they were,
stirring restlessly. One of them glanced at the other, with a
smirk.

Carmen tried not to interpret the smirk.
Instead, she struggled to sit up without using her left arm, which
was as flexible as a piece of lumber and as heavy as one. The medic
had used local anesthetic, but just flexing her fingers hurt.

While the guards watched her with
growing restlessness, she ignored them and struggled to put the top
on. Although she didn’t look at him, she knew that Garrett was
watching both her and the guards. She could almost feel his
tension, from all the way across the small room.

It was a sleeveless singlet-type top and
it looked like it would be large enough to cover her properly. She
laid the top on her knees, so the hem was facing her, then picked
up one edge and carefully slid it up her left arm, threading her
fingers through the armhole as it passed over her hand. When she
had it bunched up around her bandaged shoulder, she worked the hem
over her head.

For a few seconds she was blind.

“Carmen, watch out!” Garrett cried.

She yanked the top down, pushing her
head through. One of the guards was reaching for her, his fingers
inches from her breasts. She rolled back onto her shoulders and
brought her foot up. They hadn’t stripped her completely. She was
still wearing the heavy steel-toed boots that everyone in the unit
wore as a substitute for army boots. With her knee almost to her
chest, she rammed her boot into the guard’s exposed crotch, with
all the strength she could muster.

He howled and dropped to his knees, his
hands cupping his testicles. His face turned a dirty gray color and
he toppled over onto his side, his knees curled up and his
breathing ragged.

The other guard was caught flat-footed.
He fumbled to haul his rifle around to aim at her. Carmen pushed
herself up off the blanket and onto her knees. It felt like the
guard was moving slowly. She had all the time in the world to bat
the rifle away from her direction. Then she reached out her hand
and gripped his genitals through his pants and squeezed as hard as
she could.

The guard made a breathless, wheezing
sound. A pair of handcuffs fell to the floor as he bent over, his
hands covering his crotch. His face was red with pain and fury.

Carmen pushed at his shoulder and he
fell to the ground next to his
compadre
.

Moving slowly, she pushed her other arm
in and through the top and yanked it down over her torso. Then she
picked up the handcuffs, grabbed the closest ankle and fastened one
end around the bony joint. She dragged the boot over to the other
guard and fastened the other end around his ankle.

“There’s no camera,” Garrett said,
speaking English, “but I don’t think these walls are very sound
proof.”

“I don’t care,” she told him and stepped
over the guards. She couldn’t move fast and by the time she reached
Garrett, she was exhausted. She fell to her knees in front of him.
“You shouldn’t have tried to reach me,” she said breathlessly.

Garrett drew his free arm around her.
“You shouldn’t have tried to cover me. You drew their fire.”

“You should know better,” she told him,
gripping his shirt to hold herself up and draw herself closer.

His answer was to kiss her. It was hard
and brief. “Check the guards. One of them might have a key for the
cuffs.” He spoke urgently. “I know you’re weak. I know how you’re
hurting, but you need to do it now, before they recover.”