Calls and emails came flooding in.
“They want to interview you,” he complained to Loup.
“Keep it about the band for now,” she said calmly. “I won’t do any advance interviews. Stick to the plan. Don’t give them my name, anything. Keep the mystery alive.”
He nodded. “Right.”
The band recorded a decent rough cut of “Cages” and leaked it.
It was very, very popular.
“Check it out.” Pilar showed Loup a video mash-up on her Dataphone, the new recording interspersed with amateur concert footage from the tour. Half featured the band playing; the other half featured Loup onstage, hoisting and whirling delighted fans.
Christophe called. “Hey, prima!” he shouted into his phone over considerable background noise. “I am in this club in Monterrey. You are on the video screens!”
Loup smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yes! Hey, I watch the news. Are you the mystery witness in America?”
“No, Pilar. Unless, um, we get caught.”
“Caught?”
“Yeah, um… you know that missing witness? He’s a friend, and he’s gotten himself in trouble. We might have to try to rescue him.”
“I see.” Christophe sounded disgruntled. “So much for all my hard work rescuing you, eh? Well, if you do get caught, they are going to ask how you got out. Both of you. Call John Johnson, okay? He took a big risk for you, he and his brother who covered for him, and many other soldiers, too. If you go public, there will be many, many questions. I gave him a what do you call it? Up head?”
“Heads-up.”
“You have his number? I put it in your phone.”
“Yeah.” Loup winced. “I kind of forgot. Thanks, Christophe.”
“Yes, all right. Anyway, nice work, prima!”
She hung up, brooding.
“What’s up, baby?” Pilar asked, anxious.
“Johnson.”
“The guy from the tunnel? The guy who killed Tommy?” She paused. “Yeah, he could get in pretty serious trouble for letting you out of prison, couldn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Loup frowned. “I wasn’t thinking. If it’s just you, explaining the tunnel’s easy enough, but if anything happens to me, we’re gonna have to come up with a good story about how I got out of that damn cell. Fuck! Everything we do puts someone else at risk. I’m gonna call him and see if he has any ideas.” She dialed. “Hey, Johnson? Loup Garron. Yeah, they’re talking about us. Sort of, anyway. Pilar for sure. It’s a long story. But we can cover—” She listened. “Are you sure? I mean, sure sure?”
“He’s sure,” Pilar murmured. “He’s like you.”
“Okay. Okay, I will.” Loup ended the call. “Fuck!”
“He wants us to tell the truth if we get caught, doesn’t he?”
She nodded.
“Loup.” Pilar put her arms around her neck. “Honey, this could get messy. You can’t protect everyone, okay?”
“I hate that!”
“I know.” Pilar kissed her tenderly. “I know, I know. I do. It’s one of the many, many reasons that I love you. But you can’t, okay? You have to let people make their choices. Like Randall and the band, like that Johnson guy. Even me. Okay?”
“Okay,” Loup said softly.
Her Dataphone rang.
“Hi!” She snatched it up. “Senator, hello.” She listened. “Seriously? Why?” She listened some more. “No… no. I can’t promise that. But I can promise you that Pilar will be there to testify.” She smiled. “The concert? Yeah, it’s become kind of a thing, hasn’t it?” Her expression turned serious. “Okay, thanks. I appreciate the warning. We’ll be in touch.”
She ended the call.
Pilar regarded her with trepidation. “Bad news?”
“Yeah.” Loup flung herself onto a couch. “The skeevy hotel guy didn’t go for it. He thinks they’re bluffing.”
“What else?”
She looked up reluctantly. “He knew about the concert. He doesn’t think Kate’s mystery bodyguard is on the government’s radar yet, but it’s not gonna be long. They’ll be able to get our names from the flight records. And once it happens, I won’t make it through immigration. I’ll be detained the minute we land.”
“I see,” Pilar said slowly. “How long do we have?”
“A week, tops. Maybe less.”
“And you’re hell-bent on trying to rescue Miguel?”
Loup hesitated. “Not if you ask me not to,” she said in a quiet tone. “I promised, and it’s starting to look… bad. If you ask me not to go, I won’t. But I get the feeling they’ve given up on Miguel, Pilar—especially now that you’ve promised to testify. And if the bad guys in the government figure it’s not worth paying to have him disappeared, the skeevy hotel guy might just cut his losses and get rid of him anyway to cover his own ass. This might be our only chance to save him. No one else is gonna do it.”
“Miguel fucking Garza.”
Loup nodded.
“Okay.” Pilar took a deep breath and let it out. “Guess I’d better start booking flights to Las Vegas. Let’s go find the boys and see if they’re serious about this.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
The boys were serious.
“I give up,” Geordie said. “I absolutely, positively surrender. Who is this person you’re attempting to rescue and why?”
“Miguel Garza. My sparring partner. He was supposed to be the one testifying at the hearings.”
“Oh, of course! It all makes perfect sense.” He sat down and put his head in his hands. “Is any of what you’re plotting remotely legal?”
“Well, it’s not illegal.” Loup patted his slumped shoulder reassuringly. “Look, we know he’s being held at the Hellfire Club. All we have to do is find out which room and get him out. Simple.”
“Simple,” he echoed. “And why, I ask, is Kate involved?”
“They’re not, really.”
“The fuck we’re not!” Randall smiled slyly. “You want to find out what room he’s being held in? Give me five minutes with any hotel chambermaid.”
“Hmm,” Pilar said thoughtfully. “I was thinking give me five minutes with the room service delivery guy.”
“Want to make it a contest?”
“Sure.”
Geordie groaned.
“My money’s on Pilar,” Charlie offered. Randall gave him a wounded look. “What? Look at her! If the chambermaid’s not a Kate fan, you’re just another skinny English bloke with silly hair, mate.”
“Why are we doing this?” Geordie asked no one in particular.
“Because we are,” Donny said firmly. “Loup, can I ask a favor?”
She looked curiously at him. “Sure.”
His face was open and earnest. “Before we go, will you have dinner with me? Just you and me? Please? I just want to talk to you.”
Loup glanced at Pilar, who shrugged, leaving the decision to her. “I guess. But it would just be dinner, Donny. Seriously.”
“I know.”
“Okay.”
He glowed. “Thanks!”
By the end of the day, Pilar had reserved an expensive suite at the Hellfire Club for the band and regular rooms for the rest of them, and booked flights for two days after tomorrow.
“You and I get in earlier,” she said. “If they’re gonna start cross-checking flight records any day now, I figured it was best if we didn’t travel with the band.”
“Good thinking.”
“Thanks.” She hesitated. “Loup… this dinner with Donny.”
“It’s just dinner!”
“To you, maybe.” Pilar took her hand. “And I would have said yes, too, because he looked that pathetic, and they’re good guys in their own way, and we owe them for helping us, and it kind of reminds me of the way T.Y. used to look at you. All of that. But T.Y. wasn’t a one in a hundred, as much as he wanted to be. Donny’s gonna plead his case to you. He can’t help himself. And whatever you decide—”
“Pilar!”
She shook her head. “Hear me out. We’re doing this thing. And, Loup…” Tears filled her eyes. “It’s beginning to sound like sooner or later, you are going to be taken back into custody.” She rubbed her eyes and sniffled. “All I ask is that you save the last night we know we’re safe together for me.”
Loup raised her eyebrows. “Pilar, I know this is getting scary, but are you crazy? You think I’m going to sleep with Donny?”
“I don’t think anything. I’m just saying what I’m saying. Promise?”
“Yes. Now will you quit being weird?”
“I’ll try.”
Pilar was right; the following night, Donny took Loup out to dinner and pleaded his case. He ordered brandies after they’d eaten and summoned his courage.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
He swirled the brandy in his snifter, nervous. “The bloke you mentioned. The, um, dick-in-the-vise fellow. Was he like me? Feeling the way I do about you?”
“No,” Loup admitted.
Donny gulped his brandy and signaled for another. “So you’ve never been with a fellow who was?”
“No.”
“Or anyone that was but Pilar?”
She sipped her brandy. “No.”
“It’s just…” He took another deep drink, then slammed down his snifter. “Fuck me, Loup! You’re young. You’re fucking, what? Eighteen years old? How can you say you know what you want? You’re going to throw your whole life away on the first person to want you when there are so many options you haven’t even tried?” Donny tugged his hair in frustration. “I don’t mean any disrespect. Pilar’s great. But for fuck’s sake! You don’t know until you’ve tried. Two days from now, you could vanish into the system. Don’t you want to know you’ve lived?”