Page 59 of Freedom Fighters
Chapter Eleven
Olivia tapped on the door that led out to the balcony. “I don’t want to interrupt…” she began.
Calli got to her feet and walked over to the door. “Come out and join us,” she said and drew her out onto the balcony with a hand on Olivia’s arm. There were two other women there. Minnie was one of them.
Calli pulled up a battered kitchen chair and patted the seat. “Have a seat.We’re sharing a bottle. It’s almost a tradition.”
The young woman who was a stranger to Olivia thrust a nearly full bottle of mescal toward her. “I’m Téra,” she said, her voice husky. “It’s just family here. I guess we’re sisters. Duardo is my brother.” She wrinkled her nose. “Big bossy brother.”
Olivia took the bottle absent-mindedly, as she sorted out the relationships. “Daniel and Duardoconsider themselves brothers,” she concluded and took a swig from the bottle, then grimaced. The Vistarian mescal had a smoother taste than others she had tried. A spice she couldn’t identify added its own unique punch to the flavor. She suspected she would have many chances to get used to Vistarian mescal.
Minnie shook her head when Olivia offered the bottle to her, so Olivia handed the bottleto Calli. “Why is this a tradition?”
“It’s not. Not really. We just seem to end up on this balcony, watching the sun go down every time the men head out on an operation,” Minnie said.
Olivia glanced down at the beach. It was deserted. There were tents and equipment piles and tire marks all over the sand, although no one was to be seen. Farther up the cove to the north, the semi-permanent cabinsthey called billets marched in two regimented rows. A sentry stood at the far end. No one moved along the sandy street running between the huts.
Even Nick had donned army greens and a bullet-proof vest for this operation. Every single able-bodied man headed forLas Piedras Grandesin the most cobbled-together fleet of sea vessels ever collected. There had even been four wooden fishing smacks,complete with their tall netting structures at the back of the decks, crowded with armed personnel. They chugged out into the bay with the rest of the vessels. One of them looked decades old. The paint had been stripped away and the raw planking showed in the rays of the rising sun, yet the engine ran smoothly and the boat kept up with everyone else.
“How long will it take them to get to TheBig Rock?” Olivia asked.
“Duardo thought they would be there by sunset,” Calli said. “That was a best estimate. They wouldn’t leave anyone behind, so if an engine failed, or one of them was in trouble, the whole fleet would have had to wait for them.” Calli looked out at the sun, which was dipping down into the sea. “They could be there by now,” she added and passed the bottle back to Olivia,who turned and gave it to Téra.
“This sitting on my ass and waiting just sucks,” Minnie said, her voice tight.
Olivia nodded. “I used to wait for my dad to come home from missions. Then I got to wait for Daniel when we were in the White Sands. Now I’m waiting again.”
“How do you deal with the anxiety?” Calli asked.
Olivia grimaced. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I never got used to it. Aboutthe only thing I found that helped, just a bit, was staying busy.”
Calli let out a sigh. “Finding something to do isn’t a problem around here.” She stood. “Speaking of which. Téra, I’ll have one more mouthful, then there’s about six inches of paperwork on my desk.”
Téra passed the bottle back. “Is there anything I can help with?” she asked.
Minnie got to her feet. “There’s plenty for me todo, too. Who on earth invented this civilian quarter master crap, anyway?” She glared at Calli.
Calli smiled. “If you seriously want something to do, Téra, then come with me. I just lost all my military aides.”
Olivia got to her feet. “I’ll help, too.”
They all retreated inside the old house. The mescal bottle stayed on the little table in the corner of the narrow balcony.
* * * * *
Duardotook the night glasses the sergeant offered him and scanned the compound on the other side of the shiny, new fencing that enclosed it.
The fence was unexpected.
The administrative offices of the Garrido Silver Mine had started life as a group of reconditioned temporary buildings flown onto the island in prefabricated panels and constructed on top of poured concrete.
Enclosed walkways joinedthe huts together into a large half-donut. A powerful commercial air conditioning unit was sited behind the complex, feeding into the huts. It wasn’t running right now.
Out-buildings and more robust sheds that housed equipment and workshops spread around the administrative center. A single large building sitting off on its own behind the administrative buildings had security warnings plasteredacross the concrete walls. From his vantage point, Duardo could see four security cameras scanning the front of the building and the big sliding door. There was even a security guard box next to the door.
The high-security building housed the silver smelter and refining equipment. It had also stocked the silver ingots before they were shipped.
During the first wave of the rebellion, the Insurrectoshad blown a large hole in the back of the building, which had disabled the smelter. Perhaps the Insurrectos thought they would seize all the silver stocked in the smelter building, only there had been none. The mine had barely begun proper operations. The small amount of processed silver had been transported elsewhere, to prove the mine was operational.
