No Easy Target

  “Exactly. And I’m thinking…” Lassiter was silent a moment. “About body language. I’d bet Margaret would have figured that out, too. Brukman and Salva both on the defensive…”

  “Is she really that good?”

  “Oh, yes. What she did in Montego Bay was just the tip of the iceberg.” He was silent again, thinking. “Whatever she’s planning, she’ll probably try to do it by herself. I can’t let her do that. I have to get an idea of what she’s doing and make sure she knows we’re there for her.”

  “Good thought. Difficult execution. How are you going to do it?”

  “Damned if I know. As I said before, we have to start with negotiation. I’ll give Nicos a little more time and then give him a call.”

  * * *

  “Open your eyes, Margaret. Salva says you’re trying to freak me out.”

  Nicos. She’d been expecting him sooner, but he’d given her at least four hours since he’d had Brukman take her down from that stake.

  She opened her lids and straightened away from where she’d been leaning on the wall. She smiled at Salva, who was standing a few yards behind Nicos. “Don’t believe him. It takes concentration to gather power. I have to close everything else out to do it. And it seems as if you’re the one who’s being freaked out, Salva.” She looked at Nicos. “Nicos doesn’t seem to be frightened.” She studied him. “On the contrary, I believe he’s excited. Have you been thinking about which one you’re going to choose, Nicos?”

  “Shut her up,” Salva said. “Can’t you see she’s playing you?”

  Nicos chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to have her cast a spell to turn you into an anaconda.” He tilted his head. “Could you do that, Margaret?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been devoting my time to the death spells. I thought that would be more beneficial for you and might help me to survive. But we might be able to make him into a zombie.”

  Nicos laughed again. “Do you hear that, Salva?”

  “I heard it,” he said sourly. “I’m not amused.”

  “But I am. Now why would I want you to rid me of a fine, loyal friend like Salva, Margaret?”

  She only looked at him.

  Nicos shook his head. “She believes I don’t appreciate you, Salva. She could be right.” His smile faded. “But enough of this. It’s Patrick I need to find and take away from Lassiter. You said that you might be able to figure out where Lassiter has hidden Patrick. Where is it?”

  “What do I get in return?”

  “I don’t have to give you anything, Margaret. Your position is vulnerable in the extreme. Brukman is very eager to make you talk. Even more so, since you targeted him earlier.”

  “And you wouldn’t find out anything no matter what he did to me. I’ve never actually seen the safe haven where Lassiter was going to hide Patrick. It’s a cave in the hills someplace and Lassiter didn’t trust anyone with the location. Certainly not me.” She added bitterly, “Patrick is the only one who’s important to him. Lassiter took me as far as the river that runs through the hills and I had to wait there for him. But I could take you that far and, if you give me a chance, I’ll track him the rest of the way.”

  “Or we might be able to find him ourselves.”

  “I grew up in the woods. I’m a great tracker. I tell you, I can find Patrick.” She met Nicos’s eyes. “And if Lassiter is with him, you’ll get him, too.”

  “Or be ambushed. We know that Mandell has a small but lethal force.”

  “Then take a larger force with you.” She glanced around the compound. “You seem to have plenty of men. Take Brukman and a dozen or so others along if you’re afraid of Lassiter and Mandell.”

  “Was that supposed to be a taunt?” Nicos’s hand reached down and grasped her throat. “I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior, Margaret.” His grasp tightened to bruising force. “You’re only alive because I’m feeling generous and you made me an offer that intrigued me.”

  “It wasn’t a taunt.” Margaret swallowed and could barely get the words out. “I wouldn’t … be that stupid. I told you, I need to survive. No matter who else you manage to destroy, I’m going to live.”

  “You don’t need her,” Salva said. “You’re a fool for letting her live this long.”

  Nicos stiffened. “A fool?”

  Salva caught himself. “Just a suggestion. As I said, she’s playing you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “No, of course you didn’t mean it.” Nicos released her throat. “And you wouldn’t have been so careless if she hadn’t made you nervous. I understand, Salva.” He watched Margaret coughing and struggling for breath. “But she’s only a woman who wants to live, nothing to scare you. I tend to believe—” His phone rang and he looked down at the ID. “But I may not need her.” He smiled. “Let’s see what kind of offer I can get from Lassiter himself.” He pressed the access and put the phone on speaker. “Hello, Lassiter. Do you want surrender terms? I’m afraid they would involve my turning you over to Brukman, and he’s very angry with you at the moment.”

  “No surrender,” Lassiter said curtly. “But I might want to negotiate. You have Margaret Douglas, and I feel bound to offer to ransom her out of this hellish situation. I pulled her into our battle because I knew she was a card I could play against you. Her usefulness is over and I don’t want to get her killed.”

  “A little late, Lassiter,” Nicos said. “As you say, her usefulness is over for both of us. Unless I choose to take her up on an offer that I find interesting. But you do have another card to play. Give me back Sean Patrick and I might call my men off and let you live. From what Brukman tells me, Patrick’s almost dead anyway.”

  “Then why do you want him?”

  “I don’t like to lose. I need to finish him.”

  “The hell you do. No deal. But the offer is still on the table for Margaret. What’s your price?”

  “She tells me she has a talent that’s beyond price. I might have to explore it.”

  “Everything has a price. Except my friend Patrick. Think about it. I’d be very generous.”

  “Was she that good?”

  “I owe her. For God’s sake, I practically destroyed her life.” He paused. “Are you lying? Is she even still alive?”

  “She’s alive.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  Nicos glanced at Margaret. “He wants to make certain you’re still alive. It appears he’s more concerned about you than you are about him.”

  “Why shouldn’t he be?” she asked bitterly. “I never did anything to hurt him. He’s right: He practically destroyed my life. I was free of you and had friends and a job I loved. Then he decided he could use me to get you, and that was the end of all of it.”

  “I said that I regretted it, Margaret,” Lassiter said quietly. “I’m trying to get you out of there.”

  “I don’t believe you. You forced me to mess up that job in Montego. You didn’t care what would happen to me. Then you flew me down here in case you might need to use me against Nicos again.” She added passionately, “I begged you to send me back to San Diego. Now you’re saying you want to ransom me? Nicos is right: It’s too late. You almost got me killed, Lassiter.”

  She could feel his shock as he digested her words. “That’s all true,” he said slowly. “But what can I do to make it right?”

  “You’ve already tried to do that. You tossed that diamond necklace at me after you jerked me on the plane and brought me down here. All you think about is money. Did you think all those sparkling rosettes would be worth the risk to me? I know what Nicos can do. You chose Patrick over me from the beginning, and nothing will make up for that.” She added wearily, “Now leave me alone, Lassiter. I’m done with you. I’ve watched what Nicos does to women who go against him. That’s not going to be me.”

  Nicos laughed. “Satisfied, Lassiter? I believe she’s proved she’s alive and well … so far.”

  “And I’m tempted to let you keep the ungrateful bitch,” Lassit
er said. “But I still owe her. The offer still stands. I’ll put together a proposition. When you decide you want to talk about it, call me.” He hung up.

  “I told you he didn’t care about anyone but Patrick,” she said jerkily. “I thought for a while that he might let me go after I got away in Montego. But he wanted an insurance policy and that’s all I was to him.”

  “How sad…”

  “Spare me your sarcasm. All I want is for you to let me live and show you how valuable I can be,” she said, then added fiercely, “Salva may think you’re a fool, but I know better.”

  “I didn’t exactly say that I—” Salva began.

  But she interrupted him. “You wouldn’t be where you are if you weren’t able to pull all the strings, Nicos. Let me help you to do that.”

  Nicos stared thoughtfully at her.

  “I’ll think about it. There’s a chance that my treatment of Rosa did have an effect on you. I could see you start to weaken when I was doing it. It might have made you more compliant.”

  She met his eyes. “It had a great effect on me.”

  He nodded slowly. “As I said, I’ll think about it.” He smiled. “It would be amusing to have Patrick taken away from Lassiter by the woman he brought in to help save him. I rather like the idea.”

  He turned on his heel and strode away.

  Salva gave Margaret a cold glance before following Nicos across the yard.

  Margaret let out her breath and slid down the wall to a sitting position again. A fairly successful several minutes, she thought shakily.

  Another encounter with only minor physical pain.

  Contact made with Lassiter.

  Message given without suspicion.

  Progress had been made.

  If Lassiter had caught and understood every nuance of what she’d said to him.

  * * *

  “That didn’t sound like Margaret.” Cambry had come out of the cave and was standing behind Lassiter, with Juno beside him. “Bitter. Very bitter. And not much truth connected to it. What’s that son of a bitch doing to her?”

  “It may be what she’s trying to do to him,” Lassiter said grimly. “And, no, not much truth. She practically forced me to bring her down here to help Patrick. Certainly no bribes involved. Everything she said just now was slanted to make both me and Patrick appear to be her enemy.”

  “Desperation? She knows what Nicos might do to her.”

  He shook his head. “Mandell said he thought she was more aggressor than victim.” He added roughly, “And I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. I’ve got to go over that entire phone conversation and see if she was trying to tell me something. I can’t just wait and hope that it’s not going make Nicos angry enough to cut her throat.”

  “No, waiting isn’t one of your strengths.”

  And it’s nearly impossible when it concerns Margaret, Lassiter thought. “At least I’ve got Mandell keeping watch on the camp. If the situation changes with her, I’ll just have to change with it.” He took out his phone and said grimly, “Right now I’ve got to keep Carlos Estefan from making a few changes of his own. He insisted on moving his rebels into the woods behind the detention camp and he’s clamoring to go in and get his brother. If he launches an assault, it could not only get his brother, Diego, killed but Margaret, too.”

  Cambry gave a low whistle. “Can you keep him under control?”

  “I’ll do it. I’ve got to do it. God knows how.” He was dialing his phone. “Because I seem to be doing crap in controlling anything else at the moment.”

  Detention Camp

  10:37 P.M.

  “Get up, Margaret,” Nicos said. “Are you dozing? Or are you doing that concentration thing again?” He knelt down beside her and she could see he was smiling mockingly. “At any rate, you have work to do.”

  She scrambled to sit up straight. Work. That meant he wasn’t going to start the torture and that she had a chance. “I was dozing. I admit I was getting bored. I was hoping you’d make up your mind.” She looked beyond his shoulder and saw the camp stirring, the glaring lights coming on, men streaming out of the bunkhouse. “Where’s Salva?”

  “He’s changing to boots and the same camouflage attire I’m wearing. I told him he had to prepare for anything. He was a bit surly. He doesn’t really like to hunt. He’s much more comfortable behind a computer in his office.”

  “Hunt?”

  “Why, yes. You promised me a Patrick hunt. With perhaps Lassiter thrown in for good measure. I thought all evening about that possibility. I listened to all Salva’s and Brukman’s arguments.” He chuckled. “Both of them had interesting alternate plans for you involving pain and humiliation. But in the end, they couldn’t offer me what you did.” His eyes were glittering with excitement as he gestured to the noise and activity around them. “Patrick, Lassiter…” His voice lowered silkily, “And the victim of my choice. I couldn’t get your proposition out of my mind. I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity for your test, Margaret.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Murder always intrigues you,” she said. “And whom did you choose? Salva or Brukman?”

  “Salva. Remember? He called me a fool. He picked the wrong time to do that, didn’t he?”

  “It seems that he did.”

  “And you’ll use your magic to take care of him.” He jerked her to her feet. “No gun. No knife. That would be no test at all.” He shoved her toward the truck parked beside the gate. “Prove yourself to me, Margaret. Because only one of you will be coming back here tonight.”

  * * *

  “They’re on the move, Lassiter,” Mandell said sharply as Lassiter answered the phone. “Nicos, Salva, and Margaret just rolled out of here in a truck driven by Herb Stockton, with twelve of Nicos’s guards in the back. They left only Brukman to run the show back here at the camp. They have automatic weapons. Traveling fast.”

  “Toward the monastery?”

  “No, they took the road that circles around that area.” He paused. “I think they’re heading for the hills. You might consider moving Patrick out of there fast. She could be leading them straight to you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, dammit.”

  “They’re on their way. In twenty minutes, they’ll reach the road leading to the hills. I’ll let you know if they turn back.” He cut the connection.

  * * *

  “Twenty minutes,” Cambry said. “You’re sure we shouldn’t be getting out of here, Lassiter? I could tell the sentries guarding the cave to start packing up.”

  “I’m sure. Margaret wouldn’t turn Patrick over to Nicos.” But Lassiter didn’t know what the hell she was doing or what was happening. “But Mandell is sure she’s definitely heading for the hills.” Why would she even get near to a place where Nicos might stumble across Patrick? Had she said anything in that conversation that had anything to do with her bringing Nicos out in these wilds in the middle of the night? Lassiter had gone over her words before and there had been something.…

  He quickly again went over every word she had spoken. For the most part, it had just been accusations and telling him to leave her—

  Untrue accusations.

  Sparkling rosettes …

  You tossed that diamond necklace at me.

  Rosettes.

  He whirled and stared at the dark hills to the north. “She’s not bringing them here. She’s taking them to the north hills.”

  “What?”

  “Get our sentries up there right away to welcome Nicos’s men when they start crawling all over those hills looking for Patrick. If they position themselves right, they should be able to pick them off.”

  “Right. Then I’ll go with them.”

  “No, you won’t. I’m on my way.” He was heading for the van hidden in the bushes. “Someone has to be here to guard Patrick and Dr. Armando. You and Juno are elected.”

  “No election about it,” Cambry grumbled. “How do you know that she’s heading for the north hills?”
/>
  “Rosettes. She said that diamond necklace had rosettes.” He jumped in the driver’s seat. “There was no diamond necklace and the only time Margaret ever mentioned rosettes to me was when she was telling me that jaguars don’t have spots, they have rosettes.” He started the car. “And the only jaguars in the area live in those north hills. She’s giving us a chance to take down Nicos and Salva.”

  And that isn’t all she is giving us, he thought suddenly.

  He called Mandell. “I know where she’s going. It’s the north hills area and she’s laying a false trail to Patrick. And it’s not going to be another twenty minutes; it will be thirty. That means once they’ve reached there and started the hunt, it would take them at least forty-five minutes to an hour to get back to the detention camp if they get an alert from Brukman.” He paused. “Enough time for you?”

  “No problem. I have only four of our guys in the area, but you said Carlos Estefan was champing at the bit.” Mandell was quickly calculating. “Brukman and eleven of his men still in the camp. You said Estefan’s group has thirty-seven. Of course, there’s the hostage card that Brukman could play, but I think I can get around it.”

  “You’ll have to get around it. I promised Carlos we’d get his brother out safely. One of the first things Brukman will do is kill the prisoners if he can’t negotiate for them.” And he didn’t know what price Margaret might have to pay if anything went wrong. “Set it up. But don’t move until I call and tell you that it will be safe for Margaret. She’s going to have to contend with Nicos and Salva, and I can see Nicos exploding if he hears about an attack on the camp.”

  “Then you know the solution,” Mandell said softly. “We discussed it before. Remove the threat. Not one. Not two. But all three.”