Page 102 of Casualties of War
The tray held a syringe and a small glass bottle.
Roldán looked at the woman as she pulled up her shirt and pushed down her jogging pants to reveal the flesh over her belly. “I will need food, too. Something with protein. Tell them, hmm?”
“They don’t listen to me,” the woman said.
“Oh, they’re listening,” Roldán said dryly.
Then Calli understood. The room was being bugged. Roldán’s silence made sense now.
Roldán injected herself and dropped the syringe onto the tray. “The insulin must be refrigerated, otherwise it will be useless. I need a clean syringe next time. The insulin breaks down the rubber in the stopper. Six o’clock tomorrow morning. Tell them.”
The woman sniffedand wiped her nose with the back of her hand. It was her only answer. She left, carrying the tray.
For the following thirty-six hours, the woman was the only one to step into the room. She would bring food or hold out the tray and wait with lethargic lack of interest while Roldán injected herself, then leave again.
The woman’s clothes did not change. It did not look as if she had brushed herhair, either. It hung in lackluster strands down her back. The white off-the-shoulder top was grubby and the silk of her skirt crumpled.
The only other event to break the monotony was an explosion on the north of the city, not long after sunset last night. The sound wave had made the windows of the room shimmy and the curtains flap out.
Roldán took one window and Calli peered through the other.She saw the fireball in the north. It was a long way from here yet she could still see the skeletons of trees on fire. There were no regular shapes. No buildings.
“Lightning?” Roldán murmured, her gaze sliding to Calli.
“I don’t know.” Calli said nothing else aloud, while in her heart, hope stirred. Was Nick and the army already at the outskirts of the city? Was that the first overture of theirfinal offensive? Only, it was far too soon, even for a wildly successful foray up from the Big Rock. They would not approach from the north, either.
As the night wound on without another explosion, her hope petered and died. It had been an anomaly, after all.
And now, this morning, Ibarra had arrived to tour them as if they were dignitaries, not prisoners. The guard who walked behind them withan AK47 over his shoulder made Ibarra’s tour a farce.
She studied Ibarra as he bounced ahead of them, full of energy and excitement. She recognized Ibarra’s name. It had appeared in Daniel’s debriefing after the Whitesands mess. Ibarra had tortured Olivia.
Calli could not figure out why Serrano was insisting upon this play acting, until they reached the first stop on Ibarra’s tour. Ibarra thrustopen the door to what appeared to be an office with a gesture that made Calli think of the ring master in a circus pulling aside a curtain.
She and Roldán stood at the door and looked in.
A curved desk sat in the corner, with a high dashboard of controls in front of it that made her think of a radio station studio. Above the desk, hanging from the ceiling, was a wide grid of monitors. Theirwiring and leads ran across the back of them to the wall and down to the desk.
“My office,” Ibarra said, with pride in his voice.
Another door behind the desk stood open. Through it, Calli glimpsed curtained windows letting in early morning sunlight, which spilled upon the end of a bed with a high rail at the foot.
Something stirred in Calli’s memory. Something Minnie had mentioned…
“Youroffice?” she said, her voice flat. “This is Zalaya’s office.”
Ibarra’ face worked. His smile faded. “Zalaya is dead.” Then the smile jerked back into place, as if he had remembered he was supposed to maintain that sunny expression. He waved toward the screens. “From here, I can see every room in the palace. I see everything that happens, everywhere.”
Was that what had made him mad?
Roldán stirred.“Then you’re a voyeur?” she asked, her tone disinterested.
Ibarra was staring at the screens and didn’t react. Calli wondered if he had even heard Roldán. Calli and Roldán were standing by the door and could not see what had caught his attention.
“I see everything…” Ibarra whispered. All the animation left his face. Even his shoulders slumped, as if someone had pulled the plug on a robot.
Calli shivered.
Abruptly, he straightened again and clapped his hands. “Come, come! There’s much more to see!”
