“We’ll have to get out through the back of the van,” Pilar apologized to Matthew Coke.
Coke slipped between the seats ahead of the woman. “I’ve made low-level drops under worse conditions,” he said, forcing a chuckle. He was keyed up and working very hard to conceal the fact.
You couldn’t let your men know that you were as nervous as they were. Besides, the process of acting calm brought a degree of real relaxation.
“I appreciate you escorting me back, Matthew,” Pilar said. “It’s been …Until last night I could pretend it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, but now I’m frightened to be out alone after dark.”
“My pleasure,” Coke said. “Besides, I could use the drink you offered.”
The interior of the garage was painted half red, half blue. Both sides had staircases. Pilar walked toward the red one.
“Only a drink, you understand,” she said. She didn’t look at her companion as she spoke, and her left hand clutched her crucifix.
“I understand,” Coke said in a neutral voice.
The guard smirked at the couple. He turned away when Coke gave him a flat glance from the base of the stairs.
“L’Escorial?” Coke said mildly. There was room to walk beside Pilar. He followed two steps back in order to keep his right hand clear of her if he had to draw.
“Not exactly,” Pilar said. She paused just below the ground-floor landing to let a party of sailors exit noisily onto the street. They sounded happy, even the man who was reciting the Lord’s Prayer in a singsong.
Pilar started up again when the way was clear. “The top floors, the fifth and sixth, are a, a brothel,” she said. “They have the same— staff, I understand. But the entrances to the two floors are off different stairs so that there won’t be fights. Our suite is on this side of the building, that’s all.”
The cape she wore for concealment draped her full hips and swayed as she moved. Coke smiled at the thought of Salome and the seven veils. Far more effective than just flaunting your bare tits over a railing …though that worked too; anything at all worked when a man was going into the red zone and needed to reassure himself.
Pilar had kept her explanation flat, purely informative. She cleared her throat and added with a touch of embarrassment, “It’s actually a good location in Potosi, you realize. The security is so much better than at other buildings.”
The door at the second landing had three separate lock plates, though they seemed to work from a single electronic key. As Pilar began to open them, a L’Escorial gunman turned at the floor above and continued down the stairs.
The man was drooling and wild-eyed from gage tailings. He held a 2-cm powergun. The loading gate was open, indicating that there wasn’t a magazine in place, but Coke couldn’t be sure whether or not there was a round in the chamber.
Coke walked up two steps and stood so that he blocked the stairwell. His hands were under his cape, the left one holding a needle stunner. Unlike powergun bolts, the little charged projectiles would penetrate the light film of the gray cape. “Good evening, sir!” he called. “L’Escorial forever!”
“Fuck you,” the gunman mumbled. He braced himself against the wall and pointed his weapon at the Frisian’s face.
“Inside quickly!” Pilar screamed as she flung the door inward.
Coke shot the L’Escorial in both knees. The gunman’s legs splayed outward like those of a dancing marionette. His tailbone slammed violently down on the step behind him.
The powergun was pointing at the ceiling when it went off. Cyan light and the wham! of enclosed air superheated filled the stairwell.
The 2-cm bolt shattered the lower half of the cast-in-place concrete. It left a cloud of powder and the rusty squares of reinforcing wire across a meter-wide crater.
Coke lunged into Pilar’s suite and slammed the metal door behind him. He held the panel shut while the woman reset the triple locks.
“Well!” Coke said, expelling a deep breath. He stripped off his cape and threw it down. He felt hot and trembly.
The floor was carpeted. Coke put the needle stunner on safe and dropped it onto the cape. His grip had been so fierce that his hand hurt. He’d trained himself to shoot ambidextrously, but using his left added a level of stress—
Necessary here so that he could have drawn the powergun with his master hand.
Pilar removed her own cape. Her face was calm until the composure crumbled like ice in a spring freshet. She threw herself sobbing into Coke’s arms.
“I hate this place!” she cried. “This house and this town and this planet! Oh Lord, I wish I were dead!”
Coke stroked the back of her neck with his left hand. With his right he tilted her face and kissed her. Her lips were wet with tears.
“Don’t wish that,” he whispered. “It’s not as bad as that.”
“This place is Hell and I’m in Hell,” Pilar moaned. “Oh, if only we had never left Marvela….”
Coke kissed her again. He lifted her breast against his broad chest with his left hand.
“Please,” she said. She put her hand to his and twisted her torso away. “Please.”
The room was lighted by three globes, weaving a simple pattern as they hung unsupported in the air. The furnishings were of handmade wood rather than the plastic extrusions that Coke had seen everywhere else in Potosi. The syndicates preferred to import goods and even food rather than to turn the labor force into production of anything except gage.
Coke held Pilar by waist and shoulder. He kissed her again. “Your husband isn’t here,” he said. “You know he isn’t going to be back tonight.”
He thought of adding that Terence Ortega had gone to an apartment at the other end of town at midday. Barbour would warn them if Ortega left.
Coke decided not to explain that. Telling Pilar there was an electronic tag on her husband would have indicated the degree of preparation that Coke had made for this moment.
Coke was romantic—you didn’t stay a soldier because of the pay and benefits. But you didn’t survive as a soldier if you didn’t plan each possible step, and that carried over to the rest of Coke’s life as well. Women tended not to see things the same way.
Pilar snatched herself out of his grip again. “Terry’s behavior doesn’t affect my vows!” she said angrily to the far wall.
“Pilar,” Coke said softly, “I’m—not real settled just now. Forgive me if I misspoke.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her around to kiss him again.
“Oh, Matthew,” she said, “you could have been killed, I know. Because of me. But …”
Her fingers brushed his cheek, dusted by tiny fragments of the concrete ceiling. He kissed her, pulling her toward him without resistance.
“Matthew,” she said desperately. She caught his hands as they rose again toward her breasts. “Matthew, I’m so sorry, please.”
She stepped away, still holding his hands. “Let me get you that drink, but then I’m afraid you’d better go.”
He lifted his chin and dipped it again. His face was as placid as that of a saint’s statue. He lowered his hands to his sides. “That’s all right,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll have the drink.”
Pilar began crying again. She swallowed the sobs, but the tears pulsed down her glistening cheeks. She held her crucifix with both hands. “I’m sorry, I just can’t,” she whispered. “I want to, but I can’t.”
An internally lighted button controlled each lock-plate from the inner face of the door. Coke thumbed the buttons in turn, switching them from green to red.
“No problem,” he said without emphasis. He donned the cape again. His hands and the needle stunner vanished beneath the gray shimmer.
“Matthew?” Pilar said. “Please? Call me when you’ve gotten back to Hathaway House safely.”
Coke looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve got various business tonight,” he said. “If it goes well, I’ll probably see you tomorrow when I send another message capsule off from the port.”