To The Lions - 02 (36 page)

“I
can’t get you out of here without a reason,” she snapped.
 
“We need chaos and confusion and, as part of
it, El Toro will wind up dead.”

“A
riot.”

“Yes.”

“Do
you have thoughts on how to start one?”

“Of
course I do.
 
I’ve been here a long time,
remember?”

“Can
you do it without El Toro’s knowledge?”

“That’s
going to be the trick.”

Gage
turned his eyes in the direction of the main bay.
 
“I may be able to help with that.
 
We’ll come back to it.”
 
He tilted his head.
 
“About El Toro…”

De
la Mancha’s lips parted.

“Why
do you
really
want him dead?” Gage
asked, making his tone skeptical.

No
response.

“There’s
more,” Gage said, nodding knowingly.

Tears
welled in her eyes.

“Why,
capitana?”

She
squeezed her eyes shut.
 
“I want him
gone.
 
I want to sleep at night knowing
he’s no longer of this earth.”

“What’s
he done to you?”

Her
hands over her face, she shuddered, shaking her head.

It
was obvious that whatever her reasons happened to be, and Gage had a powerful
hunch about those reasons, they were deeply personal.
 
In an effort to settle her, he moved on.
 
“So, back to the plan, we create a riot and I
supposedly kill El Toro—then what?”

It
took a few moments before she composed herself, finally saying, “You and I
escape in my car.”

“Your
car?”

“Yes.
 
It’s parked in the warehouse where you first
came in.”

“How
do you manage to drive your car into a prison?”

“I’m
in charge and, besides, I’ve always done it.”

“Do
they search your car on the way out?”

“Never.”

“Even
if there’s a riot?”

“If
I’m cool and collected, no one would dare question me.”

“Is
your car parked out in the middle of the warehouse?”

She
shook her head.
 
“Parked at one end,
obscured by boxes.”

“Why
is it obscured?”

“Because,
whenever we have inspectors, even though they’re paid off by Los Leones, we
can’t have my car parked out in the open warehouse.
 
When we tour them through, my car is parked
in such a way that they can’t see it.”

Gage
screwed up his face.
 
“So, even though
they’re paid off, you still hide your car?”

“It’s
the way things are done, okay?
 
Rules are
broken, but we’re discreet about it.”

“Fine,
whatever.
 
Do you have a trunk?”

“Yes.”

“How
many eyes will we pass between here and your car?”

“None,
if we can generate a riot.”

Okay, other side now.
 
Slowly, no big movements…there’s no rush
.
  

“Tell
me exactly what happens when you get in your car to leave,” he said.
 
“Exactly.
 
Leave nothing out.”

She
did, going over every detail from her backing out, to waiting for the garage
door, to passing through the heavily-fortified inner gate and the final
pass-through at the narrow rear gate of the facility.

“Even
with a riot, the outer guards will stay at their posts?”

“Yes.
 
They cannot leave unless they’re relieved, no
matter what.”

“And
they’ve never searched your car?”

“Never.”

“So,
to summarize, you meet with El Toro.
 
I
pop out somehow and, with luck, I kill him.
 
We create a riot in the main bay, to keep the guards there.
 
Then, you and I drive away with you as my
hostage.”

“Essentially,
yes.”

“But,
in a riot, they’re not going to let you drive out.”

“You’re
going to drive,” she said.
 
“You’ll bust
us out.”

“Where
will you be?”

“I’ll
be your hostage.”

He
nodded his understanding.
 
Then, slowly,
so he didn’t startle her, he brought his hands around, the cuffs attached to
only his right wrist.
 

Her
mouth fell open.
 
“How did you do that?”

“I
wasn’t completely sure how this meeting was going to go.”
 
As he stood he showed her the straightened
piece of metal from the refrigerator with the S-bend at its tip.
 
“Just an old trick. But it demonstrates to
you that I’m placing my trust in you.
 
If
I’d wanted to, especially with the cameras off, I could have taken you hostage
now, and blown off this business of killing El Toro.”
 
He held out his manacled wrist.

De
la Mancha unlocked the other handcuff and walked to the door.
 
“We’ve got less than two hours.”

“There’s
one other thing.”
 
Gage reached into the
sofa cushions and removed the phone, holding it in one hand and the frayed wire
in the other.

“That’s
the guest phone from my office,” she said quizzically.

“Correct.
 
You never noticed it was gone and I used it
last night to call my contact.”

She
stared at the phone as her lips parted.

“I
told my contact everything,
capitana
.
 
Everything about this prison, about your
involvement, the works.
 
And today, as we
speak, my contact is headed to the U.S. consulate.”
 
Gage muddled the details on purpose.
 
“Once there, my contact is going to tell them
everything.”
 
He motioned toward the main
bay.
 
“So, if you get cold feet, you can
send me out to the main bay and, yes, they’ll probably eat me alive.
 
But your little reign here is about to end.”
 
Gage licked his lips, satisfied at her
horrified expression.
 
“And Los Leones
will lose a million euro, and a prison empire.
 
And they’ll blame you.”

She
swallowed a few times before finally speaking, her voice meek and unsure.
 
“You couldn’t have called anyone.”

“Really?”
 
He walked to the wall plate and quickly
thumbed off the loose spanner screws.
 
He
freed the phone line from inside and quickly twisted each of the corresponding
wires together.
 
Then, after tapping the
button a few times, he held the phone out to Capitana de la Mancha.

With
leaden feet, she trudged over, listening as he held the phone up to her ear.

“Dial
tone,” Gage said.

Capitana
de la Mancha had to support herself with the door handle.

“It’s
called mutually assured destruction,” Gage added.
 
“Keeps everyone honest.”

“I
wasn’t going to back out.”

“C’mon…we’re
wasting time.”
 
He walked back to the
sofa, reaching under and removing what looked like a hobo’s bindle minus the
stick.
 
The bindle made a metallic tinkle
when moved.
 
“Can you get this back to
your office?”

“What
is it?” she asked.

“Just
some items I scrounged.
 
Can you get to
the janitorial supplies, too?”

“Yeah,”
she answered.
 
“Why?”

Working
on the fly, and with her knowledge of Berga, he quickly formulated a plan.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Señora
Moreno placed a heaping breakfast plate in front of Justina.
 
They were in the sitting area, located in the
original portion of Moreno’s home, easily denoted by the cabin’s saddle notches
at the corners.
 
Señora Moreno sat across
from Justina, who was cradling a cup of coffee in her hands.
 
The older woman eyed her houseguest.

“Did
the valium I gave you help you sleep?”

Justina,
her head somewhat swimmy, nodded and sipped the coffee.

“Do
you feel like talking now?”

Another
nod.

“My
dear, you were hysterical last night.
 
I
thought we were going to have to take you to the hospital.”

“I’m
okay, really.”

Señora
Moreno leaned over the table and squeezed Justina’s knee.
 
“You’ve fresh fruit and eggs there,
dear.
 
Eat some, and drink all that
coffee—it will help you wake up.”

“Thank
you.”

“I’m
not going anywhere, dear.
 
And, as you
can see out front, Sven has been out there all night.
 
And Amancio is out back.
 
They’ve been there to protect you.”
 
She looked away.
 
“With all you were saying last night, I
didn’t really know what else to do.”

Justina
peered through one of the windows, able to see half of Sven, one of Señora
Moreno’s “property men.”
 
He was sipping
from a cup of steaming coffee and in his arm he cradled a long rifle of some
sort.
 
She’d seen Sven tinkering around
the lake homes, an older gentleman from Sweden with a kind nature.
 
Like Sven, Amancio had to have been in his
late sixties.
 
Despite their advanced
age, their presence did give Justina a measure of comfort, as did the sunshine
coming through the windows.
 
The renewal
of a new dawn seemed to always have that effect on her.

Not
wanting to dwell on it, but seeing the worry on Señora Moreno’s face, Justina
knew that last night, after the call, she’d been an absolute basket case.

Don’t start all that
…

Justina
sipped the coffee.
 
It was good and
strong and black, but not too hot.
 
She
gulped the remainder and looked at Señora Moreno.
 
“What time is it?”

“Around
eight, dear.”

“I’ve
got to leave!”

“Please
wait just a moment.”

“I
can’t.
 
I’ve got to go.”

“Where
are you wanting to go?”

Justina
shook her head.
 
“I’m not supposed to
tell anyone anything.”

“Dear,
last night, after you took that valium, you told me a number of things.
 
Only none of it made any sense.”

“I’ve
got to get to the American Consulate in Barcelona,” Justina said, standing and
glancing around, feeling the unwelcome mania of the night before rushing back
in.

Señora
Moreno stood, moving around the small table and hugging the much taller
Justina.
 
“First I want you to relax,
darling.
 
Shh.
 
Shh,” she murmured.
 
Señora Moreno gently reseated Justina and
knelt next to her.

“Last
night, you were all over the place, talking about consulates and ambassadors
and acusadors and double-crosses.”
 
She
used her thumb to wipe away the tears from Justina’s face.
 
“You’ve told me most of Gage’s story,
involving Berga Prison.
 
Now, calmly,
slowly, and eating a bit of that breakfast, I want you to tell me the rest, and
then tell me what Gage said last night.”
 
Señora Moreno’s voice was soothing as she said, “Ten minutes of talking
isn’t going to hurt anyone.
 
And, when
you’re finished, I will personally drive you to Barcelona this morning, okay?”

Justina
pulled in a long breath through her nose.
 
“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”

“I’m
not just anyone, I hope.”

Justina
smiled.
 
“No, you’re not.”

Señora
Moreno handed her a piece of fruit, sliced pomegranate.
 
“More coffee?”

“No,
thank you,” Justina said, chewing the fruit.
 
“Okay,” she said, exhaling.
 
“I’ve
told you nothing but the truth about Gage.
 
But last night, after I’d gotten home, he called me.”

“From
the prison?”

“Yes.
 
He said he only had one minute and, no matter
what, I was not to call him back.”

“You’re
doing fine, dear,” Señora Moreno encouraged.

“He
said he’d been double-crossed by Acusador Redon, from Barcelona.”

“Acusador
Redon?”

“Yes.”

A
quick shake of her head.
 
“Don’t know
him.
 
Please, go on.”

“He
said they’re not going to let him go.
 
He
said he’s being held for ransom.”

“By
this Acusador Redon?”

“He
didn’t say.
 
But he told me to leave the
cabin at that very instant, and to leave most of the money where it could be
found, along with one of the pistols.
 
Then he told me to go to the American Consulate General in Barcelona and
to tell them everything.”

“How
much money is left?”

“It
was a million euro.
 
We’ve spent some of
it.”

“Hmm,”
she frowned.
 
“What else, dear?”

“That
was all.
 
We were cut off by an
electronic message…something about a calling card.”
 
Justina looked at the clock on the wall.
 
“Señora, we must go.
 
I’m afraid he’s already dead.
 
I just have this horrible feeling…”

Señora
Moreno hushed her again.
 
She stepped to
the front door, conversing in rapid Catalan with Sven.
 
She came back into the room, her voice
soothing.
 
“Sven said not a soul has
driven up the road to your cabin.
 
So the
money is still there, dear, meaning your Gage is not dead.”

“You
can’t possibly know that,” Justina cried.

“I
know all about money, dear.
 
If it’s
there, he’s alive.
 
And now it’s time for
us to make a move.”
 
Señora Moreno walked
away, coming back with her iPhone.
 
Her
fashionable red reading glasses perched on the bottom of her small nose, she
wiped through several pages before making a satisfied sound.
 
She touched the screen, dropped the glasses
around her neck, and pressed the phone to her ear, smiling reassuringly at
Justina.

“Hello,
I’m calling for Jorge.”
 
Listened.
 
“Yes, I’m aware this is his mobile—that’s why
I’m calling it,” she snapped, using a tone unlike any Justina had heard from
her before.
 
“Well, I don’t care if King
Juan Carlos is in the shower with him.
 
You go and tell him Lydia Moreno is on the phone with a dire
emergency.”
 
She listened for a moment
then winked at Justina.

“Sometimes
people need a little push, dear.”

Justina
sipped her orange juice, relaxing slightly.

It
wasn’t a moment before Señora Moreno had a brief conversation with Jorge, a man
Justina would soon learn was one of her Barcelonan attorneys.
 
Justina struggled to follow the Catalan, but
most of the focus of the conversation was Acusador Cortez Redon before it ended
with a brief discussion about the American Consul General in Barcelona.
 
Finished, Señora Moreno dropped the phone on
her chair and stared out the window for a moment.
 
Justina could hear the clicking sound as the
lady of the house tapped her teeth with her fingernail.
 
Finally she turned and told Justina to hurry
back to the bedroom and to shower quickly.

“There’s
no time,” Justina protested.

“There
is
time.
 
Now go shower, my dear.
 
We’ll make our plan in the car.”

As
Justina showered, Señora Moreno made two trips to her Volvo.
 
On the first trip she placed two bottles of
water in the cup-holders.
 
On the back
seat she placed a small stack of clothes and a case loaded with her finest
makeup.
 
On the second trip she came back
with only one item, first stopping to show Sven, who nodded.
 
She placed it under the driver’s seat, her
Mateo’s beautiful Modele 1892 revolver, fully loaded, touching it afterward to
make sure it was securely seated in the folds of the automotive carpet.

Afterward
she stood outside the car, eyes up.
 
Clasping her rosary, she stared into the trees, fresh with leaves and
pine needles, smiling because, for the first time in years, she felt the zing
and zest of imminent danger.

It
was pretty damned invigorating.

A
thought—actually, an inspiration—came to Señora Moreno.
 
She thought of her assets, so many of
them—cabins, homes, lots, buildings, a parking garage in Madrid, a fabric plant
in Girona, and millions upon millions of euro in all manner of investment
vehicles.
 
It was an empire that Mateo
had begun and she’d grown but, now, in the twilight of her life, she could
never possibly use it all—and she had no one to leave it to.

“What
good is all that wealth doing anyone?” she said aloud.

There
was no point in answering herself.

As
she wended her way down behind the cabin, into its high basement, and through
the two hidden doors, Señora Moreno hummed quiet thanks to Mateo for his
prescience.
 
She opened the old safe on
the very first try, removing the thick sheaf of linen paper as she eyed the
other important documents, stacks of cash and the inviolable instructions for
her battery of attorneys in the event she was ever kidnapped.

“Sweet
Mateo,” she sang, carrying the sheaf back around the cabin.
 
“You knew that someday these papers would
come in handy.”

* * *

The
two women sped to Barcelona, taking the E-9, an international road with
occasional tolls.
 
It runs from Orleans,
France to its terminating point at the Via Augusta in Barcelona.
 
From Berga, in the foothills, the road
quickly flattens out on its way to the Mediterranean plain and the surrounding
area could easily be mistaken for the wine country north of Santa Barbara,
California.
 
Once she’d settled the
turbo-charged Volvo S80 in at a blistering pace, Señora Moreno kept her eyes on
the road as she spoke to Justina.

“My
lawyer said the consul general is worthless if you want quick action.
 
They’ll have to call the embassy, then the
embassy will have to call the United States—everyone’s asleep there, you know,
and politicians and appointed officials will be more worried about how this
affects them than you and your gentleman.”

Justina
glanced over at the speedometer, seeing it hovering around the 200 kilometers
per hour mark.
 
She buckled her
seatbelt.
 
“I’m only doing what Gage told
me to do.”

“Well,
Gage isn’t from Spain, now, is he?”

“No,
but he’s experienced in—
Look out!
 
Look out for that truck!”

Señora
Moreno eased the wheel to the left as both left side tires tore through dirt
and weeds to pass a tractor trailer lolling along in the faster left lane.
 
The underside of the car sounded like it was
being struck by bullets from a machine gun.
 
When they’d made the pass, Señora Moreno smoothly centered the car in
the left lane and, beaming, looked back at Justina.

“The
salesman said this is the safest car on the road, dear.”

Justina
scrutinized the dashboard in front of her seat, making sure the Volvo came with
dual airbags.
 
“Do you normally drive
this fast?”

“No,
dear.
 
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever
driven this car over a hundred kilometers per hour.
 
I must admit that I find driving this way
exhilarating.”

Justina
pointed to the turn selector.
 
“Pull on
that lever to flash your headlights.
 
Most people will get out of the way and that might prove better than any
more passes in the grass.”