Finally, "Papa, I will call you the minute I get word that Tony's back. Yes, of course the scientists are monitoring everything! That's their job. They'll damned well do it. No, I haven't been back to check on the hostages personally. That's Martin and Bill's job. They have recall boxes..."
Santa Maria... He held the receiver out from his ear again. "No, dammit, I don't have time! Not if you want that Trinity Site job pulled off without any foul-ups! And you might send John up here to help me out with logistics. At least he's got a brain. Why Cara married that idiot defrocked priest... Yes, I said idiot, Papa. You should never have let him into the business! He made a mess of a simple courier job and I'm still getting repercussions on this end! Did I tell you we had an anachronism show up here?
"An anachronism, yes. Some asshole fell in out of nowhere and showed up half frozen to death. When he fell through, he couldn't have been more than fifteen, twenty miles from the door Tony opened to snatch that girl from Florida. I still haven't figured out what Tony did that caused it. —Yes, dammit, we're taking care of the bastard!"
Carreras held onto the shreds of his temper and heard his father out. "Yes. No. I told you already, we'll be set to move on that in two days. The scientists are working up the figures on the jumps now. Papa, I can't make them work faster. That woman doctor is about to drop as it is, and her work is critical to our success. Yes, the one with the daughter. Christ, Papa, get your mind out of your pants— No, I won't risk that. I don't care what— No! Goddammit—"
He was tempted to slam the receiver down. Instead, he said, "Papa, I will not discuss this any further. It is out of the question. If you want my advice, go buy a ten-thousand-dollar whore and work it off. I will not jeopardize our hold on Dr. Firelli for your—"
He counted to ten. Then to twenty. "Papa, I'm out of time. I have fifty things to get done in the next hour. I'll call you when Tony gets in, and I'll call you when we're set for the Trinity Site run. Just be sure things are ready on your end."
This time he did slam the receiver down, so hard the bell on the old-style, government-issue phone jangled in the awesome silence.
Senile old fool....
The telephone rang and he snatched it up. "What?"
He heard someone gulp. Then Nelson's voice said, "Sir, Martin's back. Trouble, sir. The Hughes kid is sick."
He swore and slammed a fist against the desktop. The framed photo of his wife and sons jumped and fell over with a bang. The photo of his mistress teetered, but remained upright. "How sick?"
"He thinks it's the kid's appendix."
He treated Nelson to his favorite curses and threats. Nelson was a stolid sort, though, and heard him out. Carreras finally muttered, "Get a doctor and send Martin back through! I'm busy, Nelson!"
"Sir, which doctor?"
A very good point. He considered. That fellow Valdez had been snooping around, had seen McKee, had even talked to him, alone. The tape from McKee's cell had Carreras worried—McKee had said too much. And clearly Valdez was already suspicious. Collins had asked the man to sit in on the initial interrogation, too. He knew too much.
"Use Valdez. Take Joey over to the clinic and pick him up. Have Martin fill up a medical bag with a bunch of junk, then hustle him through. Don't bother bringing him back. He's been poking around, asking questions, trying to make phone calls off base. And he talked to McKee. Send Martin back when you're through; I need him for another job."
"Yessir."
The line went dead.
Carreras cradled the receiver and pondered what Valdez' official army death certificate would say. Death by exposure? Avalanche? Accidental poisoning?
He shook his head. He had too much to worry about. His father had damned well better send John up here. With Tony gone, he had too much to keep track of to worry about details like death certificates.
He thought of the well-endowed Firelli girl and snorted. He certainly had better things to worry about than pandering to his father's increasingly weird sexual appetites. Christ, didn't that old macho cabrio ever get tired of screwing girls a third his age?
Jésus Carreras thrust the thought from his mind and returned to his interrupted computer session. He pulled up the file he'd been working on and got busy again.
Somebody had to keep the family business going.
Awareness returned slowly. Charlie stirred and gradually registered a hard surface under him, the heat of sunlight on his face, a sound that beat at his whole body. Eventually he realized the roar was water cascading over the lip of a waterfall somewhere nearby.
He blinked his eyes clear and tried to get his bearings. When he moved his head, the first sensation to wash across him was overpowering nausea. He swallowed it down with difficulty and gradually took in more information.
He lay crumpled on one side, atop a slab of native stone that jutted out of the stream bed. He squinted against a bright glare. Out of the hot light, water shot over the lip of a waterfall fifteen feet above his head. Charlie had been thrown considerably farther than the reach of the waterfall. High and dry on his rock slab, Charlie was stranded several yards from the nearest bank.
He spent a couple of unbelieving minutes staring up the long expanse of roaring water. How the hell did I live through that? Then, as memory reasserted itself, What happened to my horse? There was no sign of Silver.
Judging from the angle of the sun, he'd been out cold for several hours. Breathing hurt. A whole new series of aches and sharper pains had been added to old ones, but the pain in his back, from Xanthus' last beating, had sunk to a dull, bearable ache. He'd have cheerfully killed for a painkiller—any painkiller—but old bruises felt merely stiff.
"About time the breaks came my way," he muttered aloud.
His optimism was short-lived. When he tried to sit up, a white-hot knife stabbed his chest along the side, down low. He recognized the feel of a broken rib from his violent childhood. He lay back down again hastily. The hurt thumping through his head and side left him light-headed and nauseated.
"Aw, man, this just tears it... ."
Charlie fumbled with the catches on his armor, then thought better. If he took the armor off now, he'd never get it on again over the swelling. Besides, the constriction of metal bands was closest he could come to wrapping his chest in adhesive and bandages. He did, however, flounder around with the straps on his helmet until it came loose. He pulled it off and poked gingerly at a swelling the breadth of a chicken egg above his ear.
"Ow..."
He rolled cautiously to lie on his back and covered his eyes with one arm. The movement pulled at his side, but the pain was bearable. Slowly, it occurred to him that his pursuers must have called off their hunt. He tried again to sit up and made it this time, although the waterfall and the walls of the gorge swung crazily for a couple of minutes afterward.
"Wha' time's it?" he muttered, groping stupidly for the watch he hadn't worn in nearly four years. "Oh, yeah..."
Things have just gotta start looking up, for once. Just this once...
Not with Vesuvius set to blow, they wouldn't.
The unnerving heat of what should've been an icy mountain stream added to his growing sense of disaster.
Charlie lay motionless in the sunlight for several minutes, gradually recovering his strength. At length, when he thought he might actually make it without blacking out, Charlie pushed himself up again. He recovered his helmet and jammed it back on over the swelling, then eyed the distance from his rock slab to the nearest bank.