Page 49 of Prisoner of War
Soto moved around her, slinging his gun over his shoulder. Zalaya tossed him keys and heundid the cuff around the drawer handle and walked through the other door in Zalaya’s office carrying it with him, the chain slithering along behind. Minnie saw well-polished furniture—a bed, a leather sofa, tall cabinets. Then the chain snapped taut and she was pulled through the door.
Soto was connecting the other cuff to a rail in the foot of the big bed. He readjusted his rifle, winked ather and left, looking cheerful. He shut the door after him.
* * * * *
Serrano poured coffee for himself. He didn’t offer Zalaya any, even though his household spies told him Zalaya had been up all night.
Zalaya didn’t comment as Serrano sat down at the breakfast table with his loaded plate. He sat watching.
After several mouthfuls Serrano spoke. “You kept her?”
“Why not? She is young, wholesome.There’s some fun to be had out of her.”
Serrano shrugged. “I thought your taste ran to boys.”
“My taste runs to anything interesting,” Zalaya corrected, showing no sign of insult or offense. “She’s interesting.”
“As long as she doesn’t distract you from the real work,” Serrano said.
This time Zalaya did show an emotion. His face tightened and anger flickered in his eyes. “If you had knownme before the war, you would know better than to question my dedication to my work.”
“Oh, I heard. I heard,” Serrano said, waving away his anger. “But I’m paying damn good money for your services. To be precise, I’m paying you for the cold, calculating son of a whore you really are. Don’t go getting emotional on me or I may have to reconsider. Fuck the bitch, toss her into the bordello and let’sget on with it, yes?”
Zalaya considered this. “Yes,” he said at last. His expression was neutral again.
* * * * *
The sun rose not long after Soto closed the bedroom door on her. When the light was full, Minnie explored the room as far as the chain would let her. She discovered that the chain was just long enough for her to reach the toilet in the attached bathroom, but not the medicine cabinetover the sink.
It meant that the chain had been carefully measured for this sort of thing, long before Minnie had arrived. The calculation in it made her uneasy. Zalaya was everything Nick had thought him to be and the woman in the hospital had warned them about.
Why on earth had Duardo taken over his identity?
The chain wouldn’t let Minnie reach the tall bureau on the other side of the roombut the closet was reachable and innocent. Zalaya was an austere dresser. Black trousers, plain short-sleeved shirts. No military uniform that she could see. No underwear either.
The bedside table was empty. More foresight?
She scanned the ceiling and found in one of the corners the same painted box as was in Zalaya’s office. The man was clearly a narcissist as well as an exhibitionist. He gotoff watching himself and didn’t seem to care who knew it.
The camera meant that even this bedroom was not safe. In here, Duardo must still remain Zalaya.
That was the full extent of her exploration. She could reach no farther into the room, so she curled up on the bed and tried to rest while she did some heavy thinking.
What was she going to do? Was there any way out of this? If there was away out of this, why had Duardo not used it long before now? There had to be a reason he had stayed here, pretending to be Zalaya.
Did that mean she must find her own way out? Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that yes, she might well be on her own. Duardo was locked into his role as Zalaya and must stay there for reasons she did not know right now. He could not come to her rescue. She hadto do it herself.
How was she supposed to escape? She could pin her hopes on Carmen finding her way here undetected, but if she did there was no way to deal with the cuff on her wrist. Zalaya had the key. Duardo might risk trying to give her the key, but the cameras in every room made that a high risk indeed.
She could hope that Nick and Calli might figure out where she was and come lookingfor her, except that would bring Nick face-to-face with Zalaya and he was not ready for that confrontation yet. Nick would not risk the future of his country for the sake of one stupid American woman who’d embroiled herself in yet another problem. She would not want him to take that risk.
The full size and scope of the potential disaster she had set off registered. Minnie hugged herself, shivering.She realized she was weeping when tears spilled onto the pillow. She drummed the linen impatiently with her fist. Self-pity wasn’t going to help her now.
She bit her lip as the truth came into perfect focus. All her life she had got into scrapes and troubles and every time there had been someone nearby to get her out again—her father throughout her childhood and Calli, more recently. Then Duardo,who had defined himself by his loyalty to his country yet had put that loyalty aside in order to help her.
This latest, greatest scrape had dropped her into territory where no one could help her. Duardo, the one person who might help, would most certainly die if he tried. She was going to have to help herself. Only...she had no idea how she was supposed to do that.
She indulged in more hot tears,her thoughts fracturing into weak protests of despair and unfairness. It was childish and quite useless, but she wasn’t able to stop the whining voice inside her, so gave into it and wailed silently. If she hadn’t been aware of the silent monitor in the corner of the ceiling, she would have kicked her heels in a tantrum too.
