Page 48 of Casualties of War
“And more. We’ve cleared out the caves beneath the house. They want everything there with them.” He jerked his chin up and Adán looked along the dock. Pairs of soldiers were carrying long boxesand crates between them. They looked heavy.
“I don’t know what was in the cave,” Adán said, “although I doubt it will all fit on the boat.”
“You’ll be running continuous shipments until the push,” Rey said. “Now I’ve clocked your time there and back, I know you’ll be running right up until…well, then.”
Adán held up his hand. “I don’t need details.”
“You won’t be getting them,” Rey assuredhim. He held out a hotel room card. “Room 301. Order a meal, too. You’ll need it.”
Adán took the card. “And coffee,” he added.
“Oh, lots of it. I have stay-awakes back at the house. I’ll bring them with me next time.”
“You’ll wake me?”
Rey dug in his jeans pocket and pulled out a cellphone and held it out. “Give me your number.”
Adán took the phone, thumbed the contacts app and entered hiscellphone number. “Fans would offer you hundreds of dollars for this number, if they knew you had it.”
Rey snorted. “I’m not your pimp.”
Adán laughed. “I hadn’t considered it that way.” He handed the phone back. “Sleep soundsfantasticright now.”
“There’s a side door on this end of the club house that the room key opens,” Rey said. “Fire escape stairs are right there. You don’t have to gothrough the lobby.”
“You are a prince among men,” Adán replied.
Rey waved him away. Adán skirted the pairs of soldiers and moved up to the end of the pier and onto solid ground. He crossed the spread of pale grass ailing in the late summer heat to the glass door Rey had mentioned.
Climbing the stairs to the third floor told Adán exactly how tired he was. He could go without sleep for twenty-fourhours or more. He had done it many times when in the middle of filming. He always crashed hard as soon as he stopped moving, though.
He was reaching that point fast, now. He’d worry about eating and coffee when he woke. He could always take both food and coffee with him.
The room was four doors down from the fire escape. He leaned against the doorframe, exhaustion pulling at his mind and hislimbs. He struggled to get the key to register and unlock the door. It was a flimsy thing with bent corners that he worked back and forth into a flatter plane before trying again.
“Hello, Adán.”
The purring voice sent a spear into his gut. Adán spun around.
The woman from the hospital wing opening. Blue eyes, hourglass figure.
Serrano’s wife.
“You!” Adán breathed.
Someone grabbed his armand a foul smelling cloth slapped over his face, blinding him and stealing his breath.
He struggled, fear blooming.
Dark nothing rushed at him and swallowed him.
