The Kingmaker

“Well, let’s see who she is,” Nixon says, grabbing my backpack from the back seat and rummaging through it. He pulls out my passport. “Lennix Moon Hunter. What kind of name is that? What are you? Mexican or some kind of Puerto Rican?”

“Yavapai-Apache,” I answer, trying to keep my voice from trembling. “What do you want with us?”

“Oh, I don’t want anything with you,” Abe assures me, his voice soothing. “I’m probably tossing you off the side of this mountain in few seconds.”

Oh, God. An ear-splitting scream is trapped inside my head, desperate to get out. I’m not sure I could even run. Terror weights my body and nails my feet to the path.

Abe tips his golden head toward Wallace. “He’s the one I want.”

“Me?” Wallace touches his chest. “Wh—I don’t—why? I’m a biochemist administering vaccines. There’s been a mistake.”

“I know who you are,” Abe says, a grin tipping his mask to the side, “but thank you for confirming you’re exactly who I’ve been looking for. You’re gonna make me lots of money, Doctor Murrow.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Wallace says, his words and eyes frantic. “But Lennix has nothing to do with this. Let her go. She hasn’t seen your face and—”

Abe cuts Wallace’s words short with a backhanded slap. Even in the first morning sun’s heat, coldness emanates from Abe’s arctic blue eyes behind the mask.

“This is my operation, Doctor Murrow,” he says as if he hasn’t just drawn blood from Wallace’s lip. “I’ll tell you what I need from you, and I’ll decide if Lennix Moon Hunter lives or dies.”

He issues a low stream of Spanish commands, and two of the armed men grab Wallace by the arms, then shove him into the covered bed of the truck.

“No!” I surge forward, my fright for Wallace overcoming the fear for myself. Abe blocks me with the butt of his gun under my chin.

“You’re not invited. Yet,” he says, his voice harsh and pleasant. “I need to figure out who you are before I let you in the clubhouse.”

“I’ve seen her before,” Nixon says, studying me, his eyes narrowed in the mask’s slits.

“We don’t know each other,” I say carefully, the butt of the gun digging into my neck. “I’d remember a face like that.”

Abe’s laughter booms through the trees, bouncing off mountains and scurrying birds from their branches.

“Oh, I get it. Because of the mask.” He gestures to his covered face. “Clever little squaw, aren’t you? Lucky for you I like my women feisty and foreign.”

“I’m an American,” I reply, tensing at the insult, “like you.”

The cheeks of his mask drop with his disappearing smile. “You don’t know what I am, who I am, and if you’re a smart bitch, you’ll make sure it stays that way.”

“I got it,” Nixon says, his voice eager. He shifts his weapon on his shoulder. “That political show Beltway. That’s where I saw her. She was talking about her book.”

Abe tilts his head, the blue eyes narrowing with interest and speculation.

“Politics, Ms. Moon?” Abe asks, I’m sure deliberately misnaming me. “The plot does thicken.”

I wish he’d stop toying with his food and just bite so I can know what I’m dealing with. “Let him go,” I say.

Before I can draw my next breath, he grabs me by the neck, lifts me clear off the ground and with a few powerful strides, takes me to the edge of the road. He dangles me over the side of the mountain by one strong hand. Hundreds of feet sprawl beneath my frantically kicking legs. Lush jungle, the curvature of a rushing river with rocks like fangs jutting from the water sprawls so far below they look like game-board pieces. Breathing is impossible, not just because of the huge hand cutting off my air supply, but because of the helplessness and fear scrambling up from my belly, anaerobic and nauseating.

“Stop!” Wallace shouts from the back of the truck. “You’ll drop her!”

He’s silenced. I can’t tell by what or whom, but his raised voice is swallowed in abrupt quiet.

“I don’t care if she falls,” Abe says, the cheeks of his mask lifting with a smile that infects his blue eyes with a diabolical gleam. “I’ll hold her here until she learns who’s in control, or dies.”

This is power at its worst. A madman who, by loosening his fingers, could end my life, hurling me to certain death. By tightening them, he could do the same, choking the very breath from me.

He squeezes, sick pleasure flooding his bluebell eyes. The irrepressible sound of me fighting for air, for life, fills my own ears. My hands fly to his arms involuntarily, even though if he drops me, I’m dead. I can’t stop them from begging for relief from the iron manacling my neck.

I’m going to die.