A Love Forbidden

  Leah held her breath as Jay stepped from behind the protective snow bank. Apparently, he had commanded Teddy to remain in place. Exposed now, he dangled the revolver from his right index finger.

  "Drop the gun!"

  Jay surrendered the weapon--his only defense--slip into the hands of gravity. Leah followed its slow-motion descent into the snow, where the weapon half-disappeared in the soft pack.

  "Put your hands on top of your head and come inside . . . slowly. Bring the boy with you."

  Jay entered the cabin first, with Teddy Barton close behind. Acid tears stung Leah's eyes as she embraced them.

  "I'm sorry, Leah," Jay said. "I've made an awful mess of it." She put her hand over his lips to silence the self-accusation. He finally got to look at his adversary, whose voice he knew, but whose face he had not yet seen. "De los Reyes!"

  "So, you remember an old parishioner, Father. I should be flattered."

  "Juan de los Reyes," Jay repeated. "Chief of Police of Santa Teresita, when I first went there. Then you got promoted. Last I heard, you were high up in Montenegro's service. I suppose I should be flattered to have you as my personal executioner."

  "Teddy, Monica, sit over there on the sofa." They obeyed their mother without comment.

  "You are a very stupid kid," Angel admonished, pointing the gun at Teddy's head. Leah strained in Jay's arms but he held her back. "Ask Marcello Pontieri and Elli Vander Hoorst what happens to kids whose foolish parents oppose the sovereign government of Santo Sangre."

  Teddy stared into the mouth of the .38, then at his mother. The questions in his eyes found no answers. He said nothing.

  "I'm surprised you did not recognize me, Señora Barton and, I must confess, a bit disappointed."

  "I do now," Leah said. "It's been so long." Of all the people she had known in Santa Teresita, the former Chief of Police had been the easiest to forget.

  "We all change," de los Reyes remarked, "but the years have only enhanced your beauty." How could Leah respond to a compliment, when de los Reyes was about to murder the man she loved, destroying her own life in the act? "You probably never knew that, all the while you were in our village, I . . . admired you a great deal." The assassin was maddeningly casual and talkative. He threw a hate-filled glance in Jay's direction. "Unfortunately for me, someone else had your constant attention. I could only admire from afar."

  Leah suspected that "admired" was a euphemism for cruder passions. She felt dirty, knowing this horrible man's drooping eyes had once made her the object of their lust.

  "When the president sent me on this assignment," he continued, "I though I could easily kill you, Señora. I could--until this morning. When I saw you asleep with your daughter and later cooking breakfast for your children-- It will be harder now." An uncomfortable emotion clouded the agent's eyes. Something had touched him. He kept it at bay. "It's time for me to get out of this business."

  Jay scoffed. "You think Montenegro would ever turn you loose? You know too much about him."

  "Do you think I have not prepared for that day?" de los Reyes said.

  "Oh, I'm sure you have. American banks or Swiss?"

  "Swiss," de los Reyes admitted in a confessional tone.

  Leah thought it strange that this man would be so candid with them. Was it respect for the clergy, or confidence that no one of this quartet would survive to betray his secret?

  "This is my last assignment. I've had enough. A peaceful villa waits for me outside Palma de Mallorca. This time next week I'll be tending my citrus trees and enjoying an overdue retirement. That was the meaning of my confession last night, Father." Leah shot a silent query at Jay, but received no acknowledgment. "Killing Marcello Pontieri and Elli Vander Hoorst was not pleasant. Especially the little girl."

  "Then why did you rape her?" Jay screamed the confessional secret.

  "You have no right!" de los Reyes said.

  "Right? Who are you to talk about right?" A wild-animal look glazed de los Reyes's eyes.

  Leah feared that Jay had pushed the assassin over the line separating marginal sanity from utter madness. They had to keep him talking, buy time, act calm and confident on the outside, while their brains whirred like disk drives, analyzing every possible plan of escape.

  No use. Jay wasn't finished with de los Reyes. "There's one thing I need to know. Why am I involved in all this? Montenegro didn't need me to carry out his revenge against POCI. Why me?"

  "I suppose you deserve that much." De los Reyes's finger relaxed on the trigger and the pressure inside Leah's head receded proportionately. "Call your part in this affair the 'final solution' to an old rivalry. Your father was not killed by forces loyal to Comandante Fuego. Montenegro ordered Colonel de Córdova's death."

  "They were comrades!" Jay clenched his fists. The hate in his eyes frightened Leah. "I thought Montenegro had reached the depths of treachery in this POCI scheme."

  "Your father complained too much about the path of their administration. He had this idealistic dream of a military junta that would govern long enough to establish order, then restore democratic rule. Col. de Córdova pressed Montenegro to announce a date for elections. Your naïve father failed to understand that idealism and lust for power do not sleep comfortably in the same bed. Montenegro had no intention of giving up control. The junta was too cumbersome. The others stood in his way and had to be exterminated. Since Col. de Córdova had strong public support, Montenegro choreographed his death to appear as the result of a rebel ambush. Because of the noble nature of your father's mission, he became a war hero. What more could a military man's family--and the people--want?"

  De los Reyes's revelation hit Jay with all the force his massive body had three nights ago on a lightless stairway. "Montenegro pretended to be our friend. He wept at Papá's funeral! Accepted invitations to dine with Mother and me in our home. He encouraged me in my work as a priest. The hypocrite!"

  "Jay, don't!" Leah warned.

  "Who pulled the trigger?" Jay demanded. Montenegro's agent only glared at him with unspeaking, all-revealing eyes. "It was you!" There was no denial. "And now you'll kill me. I must be dense. I still don't understand why I had to be part of this foul-smelling mission. What possible connection is there?"

  "Montenegro lives in fear that Col. de Córdova's son will discover his treachery. As the president has grown older, he has become more suspicious of his rivals. He sees you as one of them."

  "Psychiatry has a different label for his suspicions," Leah said.

  "The president decided the affair provided a convenient time to get rid of the son of Col. de Córdova. 'Two birds with one stone.' Is that not the saying? He assigned me the dual task of neutralizing our troublesome enemies abroad and a potential domestic enemy."

  "'Neutralizing.'" Leah marveled at terrorism's bloodless vocabulary.

  "Then, it was never in the plan for me to go back home and live out my life." Jay shook his head. "How gullible I've been. The president and his whore-secretary must have had a good laugh at my expense. Father Javier de Córdova, President Montenegro's personal ambassador. A damn fool! That's what I am."

  "Mom, I have to go again," Teddy whispered from the sofa where he and Monica had been terrified witnesses to the Spanish babble neither of them understood.

  With a disapproving frown, Leah discouraged Teddy who had already squandered his one shot at credibility.

  "I do. Honest," he insisted.

  "He really has to go to the bathroom this time," Leah told de los Reyes.

  Their captor thought for a moment. "There's one upstairs?"

  "Yes, top of the stairs."

  "Windows?"

  "A small one above the shower." Leah anticipated the next objection. "Too small to crawl out of and a long drop to the ground." She looked sternly at her son. "He won't do anything this time. I promise you."

  De los Reyes seconded her guarantee with a menacing look of his own. He let Teddy stare down the barrel of his .38. "Go ahead
. Don't close the door. I want to hear piss hitting water. Be back in two minutes, or I may have to do something to your mother that you would be responsible for."

  "Yes, sir." Teddy's words barely made it past his lips.

  Leah watched her son trudge up the stairs and enter the bathroom. He was careful to leave the door ajar. In a few seconds, they heard him urinating.

  "I kept my word," Jay said, hoping to divert Angel's attention from the boy. "Now keep yours. You and I leave here together. The Bartons stay."

  "You forget, Father. You are not in charge. What I have to do I can do right here. It is your turn to kneel before me."

  Jay hesitated. He saw his own terror reflected in Leah's eyes.

  "Kneel!" de los Reyes ordered. He pushed the barrel of his gun into the back of Jay's neck, then pulled it back about eighteen inches.

  Leah felt the sympathetic shock of cold steel against her own flesh.

  Jay fell to his knees. "If you have a shred of decency left in you, don't do this in front of them."

  Monica's stoic attempt at bravery deserted her. She fell into a continuum of wracking sobs that shook her whole body.

  "Okay, Mister, drop your gun!"

  Leah, Jay, Monica, and Angel pivoted with the precision of a drill team toward the sound of Teddy's voice at the middle of the stairway. With horror, Leah recognized the old Fox double-barreled shotgun in her son's hands. Walt kept it in a concealed cabinet in the upstairs bathroom for emergencies. She had forgotten it and didn't know Teddy was aware of its existence. It hadn't been fired since Walt died. Teddy aimed the shotgun at Angel's broad chest. Is it even loaded? she wondered.

  Leah pled for her son to give up the gun, but before her warning sounded, the professional killer's lightning reflexes had already taken charge. With a burst of wild rage, Jay propelled himself against the stronger man's left side, just as the handgun exploded.

  Leah stood in motionless horror as Teddy's blond head whiplashed backwards. A straight line of bright healthy blood appeared against his colorless forehead and spattered the wall beside him. A look of surprise came over his face. The expression froze there a moment before he released the shotgun and crumpled awkwardly on the stairs.

  Jay's blow sent de los Reyes crashing into the stone fireplace, where his head struck a jagged corner of granite block. Blood streamed over the assassin's right ear from a deep, open gash. Jay locked on the assassin's gun hand and tried unsuccessfully to pry the weapon loose. Like a wounded bull, de los Reyes battled for survival on pure instinct.

  Pain seared Leah's head in the same place where Teddy had been shot. The shotgun hit the stairway and tumbled end-over-end toward her like an errant last-second field goal, sailing wide of the uprights. When the gun landed at the bottom of the stairs, a blast roared from its barrel, answering her earlier question. The shot split the light fixture above her head, showering the room with broken glass.

  Monica screamed hysterically and slid to the floor in a faint. Leah threw her body over her daughter's and crawled across a stretch of cold hardwood near the cabin door, dragging the child's inert weight beside her like a large stuffed doll. "God in heaven, save us!" some foolish part of Leah prayed, as if a divine being could be anywhere near the scene she fled.

  How she and Walt had loved this place. So many good times shared. But Leah couldn't summon even one happy memory to allay the fright that pushed sickening vomit into the back of her throat. She edged closer to the threshold, absolutely certain that once out of the house, she'd never enter her mountain retreat again.

  The two men rolled across the carpet in a match destined to have a clear winner and loser. Each time Angel rolled on top, his blood spurted into Jay's eyes and mouth. For a long minute, neither gained an advantage, not until with a last desperate contorting exchange of positions, the Chief's Special discharged again.

  Leah emitted a despairing moan. "Jay's dead!" Unless she and Monica got outside they, too, would die. Terror screamed inside her. Every labored second, she expected a flaming bullet to pierce her flesh, bringing finality, eternal darkness. Oblivion.

  She made it to the front porch, where last night's storm had piled snow in virgin drifts against the cabin's western wall. The ice burned her cheeks, but at least she still had feeling. She crawled--slithered rather--down the steps, keeping Monica's head from banging on the hard cedar slats. She'd keep moving until her strength gave out--or until the assassin's bullet commissioned her to join her three men: Walt, her one true husband; Teddy, her only and beloved son; and Jay, her first and final love.

  Footsteps!

  Leah stopped crawling, stopped dragging her child behind her through the snow. Resigned to the inevitable, she closed her eyes. Fortunately, Monica would feel nothing. The man paused beside Leah's head. The smell of wet leather invaded her nostrils. It would be her next-to-last last sensation.

  With her inner eye sensing a cruel, steel barrel inches from her temple, she burrowed her face into the thin crust of ice. A strange peace settled over her. She felt a sense of oneness with all the victims whose freedom she had labored to guarantee, with all the world's political martyrs whose lives had ended just like this, face down in mud, dirt, or snow.

  "Leah."

  Jay!

  The voice wasn't like his at all, but it was Jay! He knelt beside her, his breath warming cheek. "Teddy?" she managed through frozen lips.

  "He's a lucky boy. Come on. We've got to get him to a hospital."

  The life Leah had surrendered only moments before resurrected in Jay's call to action.

  31

  Activity in the Emergency Room at Tahoe Basin Medical Center was a chaotic blur. At least it seemed so to Leah as she observed the hurried comings and goings of the medical staff attending to Teddy, Monica, and an assortment of other patients. All she remembered of the preceding hour was a jumbled collage of sirens, flashing red and blue lights, homicide detectives, paramedics, blood-stained gurneys, Teddy slipping away from her, an anguished ambulance ride, and Jay--faithful Jay--right beside her through it all.

  Now, they waited for news of her children's conditions. When she considered the possible alternatives, she preferred the ER waiting area. The medics worked on Teddy for over an hour, before the attending physician called her name.

  "Here I am!" She rushed down the short hallway to meet him.

  The doctor removed his green surgical mask. "Mrs. Barton, Leon Vogel." His voice gave cause for neither hope nor alarm. "Your daughter has suffered severe shock. Otherwise, she's fine. You can take her home tonight."

  Had he given the good news to buffer what he had to say next? "And Teddy?" The question came from somewhere outside herself. Perhaps Jay had asked it, not she.

  "The bullet grazed the side of his head, just above the left ear. The wound isn't deep, but it's about six centimeters long. He's lost quite a bit of blood. The impact of the bullet against the skull caused a concussion."

  As the doctor continued his report on Teddy's status, Leah listened for the unspoken message she dreaded and dared not ask for. Jay came to her rescue.

  "What is his prognosis, Doctor?"

  Dr. Vogel took Leah's hand and smiled for the first time. "The wounds aren't life-threatening. We're most concerned about the concussion. He looks like a tough kid. Barring complications, he should make a full recovery. We'll keep him here a few days." With a frown, he added, "A quarter of an inch deeper and I'd be telling you a much different story."

  "Thank you, Doctor." Leah wanted to kiss Vogel's hands, as she had seen many villagers do to Ed Wright in P/SHARE's Santa Teresita clinic. Instead, she squeezed his right hand and thanked him again.

  Reassured by the hopeful prognosis, Leah's mind clicked into a defensive mode. The dreaded Angel, Juan de los Reyes, was dead. But how did she know other Santo Sangrían agents weren't out there, ready to complete his failed mission? "Doctor, I have one more request." Her voice was steely, determined. "How can I arrange to have an armed g
uard at Teddy's door, day and night?"

  Dr. Vogel nodded gravely. "That won't be a problem, Mrs. Barton. I'll send for the head of hospital security."

  Since Leah, Jay, and Monica had only the clothes they had been wearing, and de los Reyes's blood stained those Jay wore, he left Leah at the hospital long enough to do some basic-needs shopping for the three of them.

  That evening, they moved into a motel near the hospital. True to her vow, Leah stayed away from the cabin.

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, Leah asked permission for Jay to enter the cabin and bring the family's belongings to the motel.

  "I was okay, when I saw de los Reyes's blood stains on the floor and on the fireplace," Jay related when he returned to the motel. "To get upstairs, I had to step over Teddy's dried blood. I just about lost everything."

  "We'll sell the cabin," Leah said without emotion. "All the good memories are gone."

  "I did one more thing while I was up there," he said. "I dug the gun out of the snow. Fortunately, the police didn't discover it first." He described how he had illegally purchased the weapon. He shared the inner turmoil his decision had caused. "I cleaned it up and mailed it back to Daley's Gun Shop. I didn't put my name on the package, but old Joe will know who sent it. He'll also know the gun was never fired." Jay gestured with his thumb and index finger, which nearly touched each other. "I came this close to killing de los Reyes Monday night in the retreat house confessional. If I hadn't lost my nerve, Teddy wouldn't be suffering today."

  Leah put her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. "But I would have lost you. You kept your word. You promised you would save Teddy--"

  "Or die trying."

  "Now, I have you both."

  Concern for Teddy's well-being and endless questioning by local police and FBI agents filled the next few days. An intrusive swarm of local and foreign media added to the confusion. Camera crews, fronted by good-looking field reporters, vied for scoops on an international story that contained all the elements of high drama and guaranteed ratings. Leah and Jay did their best to protect themselves and the children from the onslaught. As long as the story dominated the headlines, they declined all interview requests. They didn't read the newspapers and kept the TV set off.