Rebecca York - Till Death Us Do Part

With a quick glance at her watch, she saw that three minutes had elapsed since she’d ducked out of the party. That left only a little more than fifteen to get in and out of here with the goods Victor was paying her to bring home.

At least Sanchez’s office was on the ground floor, she thought as she turned the corner and started for the end of the hall. She felt less exposed as soon as she’d stepped into the anteroom and quietly shut the door behind her.

The room was spartan, with a secretary’s desk, a few wooden chairs and some filing cabinets. Marissa gave them only a quick glance. The good stuff was in Sanchez’s private office under lock and key.

Victor had briefed her on the likely places to look, so she went straight to his desk and knelt behind it. His most confidential files were in the two bottom drawers. Willing steadiness into her hands, she extracted a small case from her evening bag. What appeared to be a manicure set was really a set of lock-picking tools. A quick look through the contents of the first drawer told her that she’d struck out. And she only had ten minutes left.

Teeth clenched, she worked the other lock. Then she came across a stack of coded papers neatly filed in manila folders. She couldn’t read the text. But this was what Victor had told her to look for.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she placed the first one in the center of the desk blotter and got out the small camera disguised as a lipstick. Methodically she began snapping pictures of the incriminating letters and other documents.

She was almost finished when a noise in the hall made the hair on her scalp bristle.

Someone was coming!

Sweeping the papers into the folder, she had them back in place and the drawer locked again in fifteen seconds.

Now all she had to do was get out of here. And quickly. A desperate glance at the barred window told her she wasn’t going to escape in that direction. With camera and evening bag clutched in her hand, she bolted for the only other possibility—the general’s private bathroom.

* * *

“ERES TU?”

Jed stopped dead on the path, just managing to avoid crashing into a young Hispanic woman who had stepped out of the darkness to block his progress.

“Let me by,” he answered in Spanish, only half hearing her words as he tried to push past her to get to Marissa.

Her fingers clamped onto the sleeve of his dinner jacket. “Jed. It’s really you. I thought at first I’d made you up.”

She stopped abruptly, looking furtively from side to side as if she were terrified of being overheard. The urgency of her touch arrested him, and he peered at her more closely. There was something familiar about her face. But on the darkened patio he couldn’t place her.

“I must—”

“It’s Clarita,” she interrupted. “Don’t you know me? I’m so glad you came back to see us.”

The features resolved themselves into familiar lines. Clarita. Miguel Sanchez’s daughter. She was more mature now. A girl on the verge of womanhood. She’d been eleven when Jed had been here six years ago helping the general train his troops. He’d recognized her as the neglected child of a rich man who had more important things to do than worry about his offspring’s happiness. When he’d come home from the training camp with Miguel on the weekends, he’d tried to make a small difference in the little girl’s life.

“I heard them talking about you, so I took a peek at the guest list for the party,” she told him. “I knew you would be here. Like old times. When everything was simple.” Her tone was high and wistful, as if she longed for the past.

“Clarita, I can’t stay here and talk to you now.”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard. “It’s all right. Do you remember how you taught my parrot to say ‘no sweat’?” she asked eagerly. “He still remembers. Come see.”

While she prattled on about the fun they’d had together, time was ticking by for Marissa. She had disappeared minutes ago—along with the man who was following her.

He forced a false heartiness into his response. “It’s great to see you again, but I have important business to take care of. We’ll talk later. Okay?” Gently but firmly he disengaged Clarita’s fingers from his sleeve and started toward the offices at a rapid clip, praying he wasn’t too late.

She stayed right behind him. “No!”

The strangled rasp was like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

“I’ll come right back, niña, ” he promised, using the old endearment.

“I’m not a little girl anymore! And you must not go into the office wing. I know the rules. It’s not allowed. They’ll shoot you if they catch you.”

“It’s okay. The general knows,” he lied. Anything to set her mind at ease.

“I don’t think so.” She looked almost frenzied as she reached to grab hold of him again. “Jed, I can’t let you do it.”

He peered into her eyes and knew instinctively that if he tried to wrench himself away she’d start to scream. Then every guard in the place would come charging onto the patio to find out what he was doing to her. And when Marissa came back out, they’d be here waiting for her.

He began talking in a low, soothing voice, telling Clarita it was all right. Telling her that nothing was going to happen to him. That he’d come back to her in a few minutes.

But all the time he was talking, he had the sick feeling that he was already too late.

* * *

MARISSA’S GAZE DARTED around the little room as she locked the door behind her.

There was a small window. But it was also barred.

Someone rattled the knob and began to pound on the door.

“Come out of there!” a voice commanded in Spanish.

“Just a minute,” she answered in the same language, expecting a large fist to splinter the wood.

Sink. Toilet. Medicine cabinet. Tile floor.

Marissa looked down at the camera still clutched in her hand. If she didn’t want to get caught with the incriminating evidence, she’d have to flush it down the toilet. If it would go down the toilet. Or maybe she could just flush the film.

“Come out or I’ll shoot through the door,” the angry voice demanded.

Desperate now, she thrust her hand into her purse to check for the empty film wrapper. Her fingers closed around the small zip-lock container in which she’d stowed the pills that were supposed to keep you from getting Montezuma’s revenge.

It was big enough to hold the camera. Did she dare?

Ignoring the pounding on the door, she emptied the pills into the toilet bowl. Then she slipped her camera and film wrapper into the bag, squeezed out the air and sealed the strip across the top. Working as quietly as she could, she lifted the lid on the tank and thrust the plastic bag inside, hardly able to breathe as she watched it sink to the bottom.

The whole operation seemed to take hours. She knew only seconds had passed as she flushed the pills away and rustled her clothing as if she were putting herself back together after using the facilities.

“You have ten seconds, or I’ll shoot.”

“No. Please.” Marissa didn’t have to fake the panic rising in her voice as she tried to unlock the door. The mechanism stuck, and her fingers stung as she twisted the lever.

As soon as she’d snapped the lock open, the doorknob flew out of her hand. Wide-eyed, she backed away, staring at the man who stood with a gun trained on her chest. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he had the look of a policeman.

“I said come out of there.” With his free hand he grabbed her wrist and yanked her roughly out of the bathroom. “What were you doing in Jefe’s office?” he snapped.

“What a question. You can see what I was doing. The ladies’ room was occupied.” Even as she did her best to look embarrassed, she was evaluating the odds of getting away from an armed man. Not good. “I had to find another quickly. It was an emergency.”

“No one is allowed in this wing of the house.”

“I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know.”

“How did you get in?”

She gestured vaguely. “I—I just walked through the door.”

“It was locked!”

“No.” She shook her head as if she were a bewildered tourist caught trying to snap a forbidden picture of the treasures in the cathedral. But her heart was pounding so hard that she could hardly catch her breath.

He kept the gun pointed at her while he picked up the phone, dialed a number and spoke into the receiver.

His voice was low, his Spanish rapid. But she caught enough to know that her goose was cooked. He was calling for reinforcements.

When he returned his full attention to her, his eyes were hard.

Marissa tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

Pointedly he looked down at her stocking feet and then at the shoes she’d set down on the desk. “You’re going to give me some straight answers, señorita, or you are going to be truly sorry.”

Jed heard several pairs of feet hammer against the paving stones. He whirled and cursed as four khaki-clad soldiers moving in tight formation came dashing along the path from the direction of the guard station. They all carried machine guns, and they looked as if they were on their way to the offices to foil an assassination attempt.

“Holy mother!” Clarita whispered a more ladylike version of Jed’s muttered exclamation. Her eyes grew large, and the blood drained from her face. “I told you,” she whispered. “It’s dangerous to go there.”

“They’re not after you.” Jed reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She ducked away from his grasp and ran toward the bedroom wing of the house.

She had the right idea, Jed thought as he watched her disappear into the safety of the interior. He should probably blast out of here, too, while the blasting was good. He knew how Miguel Sanchez treated spies and how his twisted logic could quickly turn a friend into an enemy.

He glanced toward the lighted windows of the reception hall, wondering if anyone else had heard the guards. The guests were all drinking and eating and talking as before. Apparently the mariachi music had drowned out the sounds from the patio. Or perhaps no one chose to acknowledge the disturbance.

He was on his own. And so was Marissa.

His chest tightened as he strode rapidly after the soldiers.

One of them was standing at attention in front of the door of the office wing. Too bad it wasn’t a man he’d helped train.

“Qué pasa?” he asked.

“This area is off-limits, señor. ”

“I’m Jed Prentiss, a good friend of General Sanchez.”

The guard shifted the machine gun in his grasp, as if he were unsure about aiming the gun at a good friend of El Jefe. Yet he obviously had his orders. “You’d better go back to the party.”

Jed stood his ground.

The sentry, who’d probably never had his authority questioned before, looked uncomfortable.

The stalemate lasted less than a minute until the rest of the armed contingent returned. The soldiers were escorting a man in civilian clothes who had a firm hold on a woman’s arm.

It was Marissa.

Until Jed actually saw her being frog-marched down the hall, he realized he’d been hoping against hope that some other crisis had prompted the summoning of the guards.

Her face was paper white. It went a shade paler when she spotted him with the sentry, and he knew in that instant that she was thinking he was the one who’d turned her in.

“What’s he doing here?” the civilian snapped.