There was a pause. “What I’m wondering is why you have to take me at all? What’s the CIA want with a renegade Irishman? And don’t tell me it’s intel on the Guiding Light. This country doesn’t have oil – you have no interest in messing with their politics.”
“So cynical, MacGowan,” the man called Sully chided. “I hate to break it to you, but we don’t give a flying fuck about you. You’re simply the means to an end.”
“What end? No, let me guess. You want Serafin. What have I got to do with it?”
Sully grinned. “No one ever accused you of not being fast on the uptake. Isobel Lambert has always been loyal to her people, and she left you in the lurch when she ran off with our operative. She’s not going to stand by and let you kill Peter Madsen. She’ll want to make it right.”
“It was hardly her fault. Madsen should have followed through.” MacGowan’s voice was hardly more than a growl.
Sully shrugged. “None of my concern. If we knew they had you stashed in the mountains for the past three years then the Committee should have known as well.”
“The CIA knew I was a hostage?” Beth shivered at the tone in his voice.
“None of our business,” the man called Sully said.
“You didn’t think you should inform the Committee? Since we are, ostensibly, working on the same side?” Macgowan’s voice was deceptively casual, like a snake about to
strike. Didn’t the man know how dangerous MacGowan could be?
“Not my concern. It worked out well in the end. We have you as bargaining tool and . . .”
MacGowan moved abruptly, sending Beth sprawling onto the filthy pavement. A shot rang out and she felt something go whizzing past her head as she fell. And then a volley of shots, as Sully went down, and he was lying at eye level, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Staring at her, out of blank, dead eyes.
MacGowan dragged Sully’s body into a corner, covering it with discarded cardboard boxes. They’d find him soon enough – in this heat the smell would start quickly. He cursed beneath his breath. This was so fucking useless. Sully hadn’t needed to die, not until he took the first shot at Beth, and then there’d been no choice. He was so bloody tired of death.
He hauled Beth up, allowing himself one worried look at her face. At least this time she wasn’t screaming. She’d had too much as well, and she had retreated into some quiet place. It made things easier. He needed to get her to the ship as fast as he could, and he hadn’t needed still another delay. Sooner or later the men he sent on a wild goose chase would realize they’d been had. They wouldn’t be finding the body of Alcista any time soon, if at all. He’d been afraid for Beth, and he couldn’t afford to take time finishing him, but there was still enough for payback for the hundreds of women he’d raped. He felt no regret for ending that piece of filth. He should feel no regret for the men who’d wanted to join in with Sister Beth.
Sully was a different matter. MacGowan had no choice. Once Sully aimed his gun at Beth he was a dead man. Still, it infuriated him. He had no illusions left – the taking of a life diminished him. It was astonishing there was anything left to him at all.
Beth said nothing as they moved through the teeming city. She limped, but there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t dare try for one of the ancient taxis that plied its trade on the narrow streets – taxis could be traced. He couldn’t even slow their pace. The sooner they got off the streets the better.
By the time they reached the docks he was wondering if he’d have to carry her. The Martha Rose carried coffee beans and maize, and he suspected a hidden cargo of coca, but that was none of his concern. All he cared about was getting Beth, and Dylan, to some form of safety.
She gave out when they reached the gangplank to the ship, and he scooped her up, ignoring her futile struggles. He carried her through the narrow corridors to the tiny cabin, kicking the door open and setting her down on the narrow berth. She tried to sit up, but he simply shoved her back down with a bit too much enthusiasm, and she stayed put.
“Yeah, I know,” he said in a rough voice. “What you need most is not to have to look at me. Dylan and I have the room next door, and if you need anything just knock on the wall. We’re sailing at midnight, and I can bring you food if you want . . .”
“Bathroom,” she said in a hoarse voice.
He hadn’t even thought of it. “You’re in luck sweetheart. You have the one and only en suite on the entire ship. Even the captain has to share.” She was off the bunk before he’d finished speaking, and a moment later the door was slammed shut in his face.
He didn’t wait to hear her start retching. He closed the door quietly behind him, then paused, leaning his forehead against the door for a long, empty moment, before going in search of Dylan.
Beth sank down on the bathroom floor. It was tiny – there as barely enough room for her, but she didn’t care if she had to wrap herself around the toilet. She couldn’t stand any longer. Couldn’t be around MacGowan any longer. She was filled with shame, horror and disgust, mostly with herself. It wasn’t so much a traditional bathroom as a wet room, and she turned on the shower spray, yanking off her clothes. Her underwear was stiff, and she remembered why as heat flushed her body and she began to shake again.
She could put everything in order, mentally, when she had time to breathe again. She’d shower, put on clean clothes and lie down on the bed. It would take time, but eventually her jumbled, insane reactions would make sense to her.
She showered quickly, knowing the water supply on a ship like this wouldn’t be endless. The towel was threadbare but clean, and the one small suitcase Finn had allowed her was sitting in the tiny room. She dressed quickly, certain her familiar clothes would bring a measure of security back to her.
She was wrong.
She had no strength. Her legs were shaking, barely able to hold her up, and her hands could barely manage the zipper to her baggy jeans. Baggier now, after the days of erratic provisions. Which didn’t matter; there wasn’t a woman alive who wasn’t happier ten pounds lighter. She just managed to crawl into the bunk, closing her eyes as she felt the slight rocking of the boat.
She should have warned him about her seasickness, but there hadn’t really been time. At least she had a room of her own to be sick in. What was another five or six days with an empty stomach? She’d look like a fashion model when she arrived in Spain. She needed to concentrate on that, not on all the blank, staring eyes she’d seen this day. All the men MacGowan had killed. It was too dark a horror to face, and she’d rather sleep and avoid it, avoid everything.
And she did, drifting in and out, glad of at least a few hours before they set out on the ocean. The cabin was stuffy, but she couldn’t stop shivering, and she burrowed under the blankets. What in God’s name was wrong with her? She could blame it on the violence, the death, the blood, the stink and sweat of it all. But that had nothing to do with the fierce rush of heat that had taken her when Finn was . . .
She shouldn’t be thinking about it. But pushing it away wasn’t working; she needed to put it all in perspective. It had to be the desperate nature of the situation. Death had been so close, and it was no wonder that some kind of life-affirming emotion had swept through her. That was all sex was, after all. The most elemental creation of life.