White Dawn: A Military Romantic Suspense Novel (4 page)

The last man was Daniel and he was
wearing a military uniform, too. It didn’t quite fit properly, but
it looked very good on him. He came forward and picked up her hand
and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind, but it’s just family.”

Family
. That was something
neither of them had cared to lay claim to a few days ago. Olivia
looked up at him. “Just family is perfect.”

Daniel turned her toward the priest.

After they were married and the priest
had congratulated Daniel and hurried away, Nick stepped in front of
them. “As President pro tem, I am honored to welcome you upon
Vistarian soil.”

Calli handed him a small card and smiled
at Olivia, as Daniel took her bouquet from her and held out a
bible.

“Put your left hand on the bible,
please,” Nick said, “and raise your right hand.”

Olivia’s heart gave a little skip and
she followed the instructions.

“Please repeat after me,” Nick said and
looked down at the card. “I solemnly swear…”

The simple oath that Nick led her
through moved her and brought tears to her eyes. Daniel had
arranged this…and Calli. They had honored her wishes. Truly, she
was blessed.

Nick dropped the card to his side.
“Congratulations, you are now a Vistarian and one of the
family.”

This time, Daniel’s kiss was thorough.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear, before turning back to face
Nick.

Duardo stepped up beside him and Minnie
and Calli joined the circle. Nick looked around the small group.
“Daniel and Olivia, I’m sorry to cut the festivities short. We were
going to take you to one of the best restaurants in Acapulco, but
even that plan has been abandoned, because Duardo needs to report
back to General Flores and Calli is still talking to what seems
like every general and executive in the Situation Room at the White
House.”

Duardo nodded. “I could only arrange a
four-hour leave and I’m nearly at the end of that. But I have
orders to distribute before I go…but first, Nick?”

Calli’s cellphone beeped and she
grimaced. “Sorry, everyone. Minnie, take notes and report back to
me, please.” She walked away, bringing the cellphone to her
ear.

“I guess I’m deputy chief of staff,”
Minnie said.

Nick looked at Olivia. “You have certain
diplomatic skills that by way of Daniel you have put at the
disposal of Vistaria, correct?”

Olivia nodded. “I was a junior diplomat,
but I have ten years’ experience.”

Nick nodded. “Then I’m appointing you
Ambassador of Vistaria to the United States. Minnie will draw up
diplomatic credentials you can present to the President when you
get there and you might help her with those—”

“Yes, please,” Minnie said quietly.

“But for now, do you accept the role and
responsibilities that come with it?”

“I do,” Olivia said gravely.

“You will endeavor to represent
Vistaria de Escobedo
in a manner that encapsulates the
qualities and strengths of this country?”

“Yes.”

“Very well.” He looked at Duardo. “We’re
all under the rose now.”

Olivia recognized the term with a little
jolt.
Sub Rosa
meant secret. She was in the middle of a
secret war council. Just like that. She was a sworn-in diplomatic
official and part of whatever secrets act Vistaria recognized.

“There’s something I want you to do for
me, on Vistaria,” Duardo told Daniel.

Daniel straightened up. He didn’t snap
off a salute, but he was at attention, nevertheless. “Name it.”

Duardo told him.

Daniel pulled Olivia to one side once
Duardo was gone and kissed her. “A honeymoon will have to wait,” he
said apologetically.

“That’s reasonable,” she told him,
brushing her hand along the lapel of his borrowed uniform. “Nick
has momentum now. He’d be a fool to squander it.” She bit her lip.
“Do you think he realizes that sending me to the White House is
going to put me in front of my father?”

Daniel grinned. “Nick doesn’t miss
anything. I think he’s sending you to the White House
because
you’ll end up in front of your father. That’s a
powerful message.”

“And you’re going back to Vistaria.” She
gripped his lapels. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“Of course I’ll be careful,” he told
her. “I have every reason to come back, now.”

“And there’s me, too,” she added.

Daniel brushed his fingers through her
hair. “There will always be you,” he said, then picked up her
injured hand and kissed the back of it, beyond the edges of the
bandage.

Olivia spent her wedding day packing
newly acquired belongings, signing official documents that Minnie
thrust in front of her, then racing to the airport with Nick in
time for the eight o’clock flight to Washington. She already missed
Daniel, but she was deliriously happy, all the same. It took her
until the plane was at cruising height to realize why.

Freedom was a heady brew.

Early the next morning, after ten hours
of solid sleep and a breakfast of hand-made fajitas stuffed with
spiced goat meat, Carmen straightened up her sleeping bag and
folded it double, then sat cross-legged on it, with the laptop on
her knees.

She hooked the laptop to the cellphone,
using the phone as a modem to get access to the Internet and
logging in with Hernandez’ accounts. It was possible someone might
be routinely tracking the IP address, but it didn’t matter for what
she wanted to do.

With a few clicks, she was logged into
Facebook. The search bar brought up the Fans of International
Wrestling United as the top result. She joined the group and
scrolled through the messages there, taking her time. It was all
free code, but she knew that the IWF was code for the Insurrectos
and could pick out patterns and associate the wrestlers they were
gossiping about with known Insurrectos.

After twenty minutes, she scrolled back
up to the top and started a new discussion, tagging the group’s
moderator, a man called Mr. Intensity, who had graying hair and a
beard and in his profile picture was growling with his hands up in
the air. Carmen didn’t know Cristián Peña at all, but she got the
sense from the fake profile and the comments he had left scattered
across the group that he was a lot looser around the collar than
his upright brother Duardo had apparently been.

That made her think of Minnie, whom she
had left in the hands of Zalaya and Serrano in the palace. Briefly,
she wondered how Minnie had faired, then deliberately shut down the
train of thought. She couldn’t do anything for Minnie and her lost
love, so worrying about her was a waste of energy.

She typed quickly.
Hey, Mr.
Intensity! I’m new to the group, but I very much like wrestling,
especially IWU, I watch it all the time. I don’t like Jackson Jeer,
though. He’s a bad ass. It’s the look in his eyes. But I can tell
you’re a fine, upstanding Christian and I think I’m going to like
this group a lot.

She paused with the cursor over the
“post” button. Jackson Jeer was Serrano. She wondered if this would
be enough to tell Cristián she was another Loyalist and wise to the
ways of the group. Then she shrugged and tapped the post
button.

The message wrote itself on the
wall.

She was about to disconnect and shut
down the laptop to save power, when a private message popped up in
the lower corner of her screen.

Welcome to the group, Hernandez. What
else do you like, besides wrestling?

It was Mr. Intensity.

Carmen chewed at her lip.

“Tell him you like opera,” Garrett said
softly, from just behind her.

She jumped, startled. She hadn’t been
aware of his approach at all. “Opera?” she asked doubtfully.

“Just tell him.”

She considered how Hernandez might say
such an odd thing, then typed it.
It’s going to sound funny, but
I like music. Classical music.

Garrett made an impatient sound.

“It has to sound natural,” Carmen told
him.

Favorite composers?

Garrett squatted down next to her. “He’s
figured it out,” he said. “He’s ahead of you. Feed it to him.”

“Feed him
what
?” Carmen asked.
“The only opera I’ve ever heard is my father singing in the
bathroom.”

“Bizet. Tell him your favorite composer
is Bizet.”

Really like Bizet
.

She glanced at Garrett uncertainly, but
he drew her attention back to the screen with a jerk of his
stubbled chin.

Favorite piece?

She looked at Garrett again.

“His last one,” he said.

She typed it out and hit post.

The conversation disappeared, the screen
closed up and she was left staring at the Facebook group page once
more.

“Disconnect,” Garrett told her.
“Now.”

“I don’t understand,” she said,
unhooking the phone and powering down the laptop. “Why did he
leave?”

“Because you confirmed who you are, so
he broke the direct connection just in case someone was listening
in.”

“To a private message?”

“They can hack into highly secure
university exam servers these days. You really think that was a
private message?”

Carmen could feel her anger stirring and
put the laptop down and turned to look at Garrett, ready to drop on
him from a great height. He was treating her like she was stupid
again and she didn’t like it.

The cellphone buzzed in her hand and she
stared at it, puzzled.

“Give it to me,” Garrett said, holding
out his hand. “You don’t sound anything like Hernandez.”

She looked at the caller ID. It was a
handful of symbols and unpronounceable.

Garrett took it from her and answered
it. “Hernandez,” he said shortly.

Carmen could hear the voice at the other
end. The sound was crystal clear. “This is Mr. Intensity. My
brother is a big opera fan. You two should meet.”

“That sounds good,” Garrett said. “Tell
your brother to bring his records.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

The phone disconnected.

Garrett looked thoughtful as he handed
it back to Carmen.

“Would you like to explain all the opera
references?” Carmen asked.

“Later,” he told her and walked
away.

Carmen watched him leave, her anger
stirring yet again. He might have at least thanked her for putting
them in touch with the Loyalist army, but it seemed even that
simple kindness was beyond him.

Asshole.

Calli rarely intruded upon the army’s
setup on the beach. Most of them slept under open canvas, while a
few lucky ones shared roughly-built billets. There were caves in
the cliffs that could have housed even more, but Duardo had vetoed
the idea – to be caught in a place with only one exit was a bad
idea. The stretched canvases were the next best idea. The poor
conditions would not be helping with moral.

But as Calli walked along the marked
pathways between billets and tents toward the big white tent in the
middle of the group, she noted that discipline was not slipping.
Everyone appeared to be washed, shaved and their uniforms neat and
tidy. Belongings under the awnings were stowed away properly. She
wondered if theft was an issue, but if it was, it was the army’s
problem. She had too many problems of her own to start worrying
about something outside her control.

There were guards on either side of the
tent opening and they both straightened to attention as she
approached, but didn’t salute. Calli was still getting used to the
army acknowledgement of her position. “Thank you,” she murmured as
she ducked under the flap and stepped inside.

They had laid wooden flooring down, but
beach sand was scattered across the surface. There was a big table
at the end of the tent and battered second-hand filing cabinets
along the short walls. A junior officer was flipping through files
in one of the drawers.

Four officers stood around the table and
General Flores sat on the only chair in the tent, staring down at
something on the table. So were the officers. One of them was
Duardo.

“Excuse me, General Flores,” Calli
said.

They all turned to look at her and
Flores jumped to his feet. “Señora Calli,” he acknowledged.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but there was a
message from Pascuallita that Téra cannot decode. I was wondering
if I might borrow Colonel Peña for a moment, as he might be able
to.”

Duardo pointed to the table. “We already
have. Come and look.”

Calli stepped up to the edge of the
table and bent over to look at the sheet of paper that Flores had
been staring at so intensely.

“Do not read it aloud, or speak aloud
about what it says,” Duardo warned. “These walls are far too
thin.”

She glanced at him, startled, then bent
to read the sheet.

At the top of the page was the garbled
message Mr. Intensity had posted, full of fury and bad English. At
least, it looked that way to the casual reader. Beneath was the
decoded message.

Carmen Escobedo alive and in contact.
Part of Resistance group somewhere south of capital. Meet?

Calli caught her breath and
straightened. “Will you agree?” she asked Flores, phrasing it
carefully. She squashed the impulse to call Nick and break the
happy news that his niece was alive. When he arrived back in
Acapulco would be time enough, then she could tell him face to
face.

“This group is not known to us,” Duardo
said. “If they’re well-founded, we could use them. We must meet, to
establish communications and measure their numbers and worth.”

Calli nodded. “I’ll leave that in your
capable hands, Colonel Peña.”

Duardo nodded. “I have already taken
steps to see that this is done. I can brief you once the meeting
has taken place, if you wish.”