Where There's Smoke

“I don’t think so. It looks like an ordinary map.”

“Better than nothing,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

“It was sent to me.”

“By someone you trust?”

“A Catholic priest. Father Geraldo. He befriended us while we were there. Randall made him the official embassy chaplain.”

“I thought the rebels had executed all the clergymen.”

“They’ve murdered many of them. He’s managed to survive.”

Key ruminated on that as he sat down in an easy chair beside the bed, so close to her that their knees almost touched. “Sounds to me as though your priest might be playing both ends against the middle.”

“Very possibly,” Lara admitted with a weak smile. “He claims to be bipartisan.”

“He goes with the flow.”

“That’s the only way he can continue to do the Lord’s work.”

“Or save his own skin.”

“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “But I have no reason to mistrust him. Anyway, he’s all we’ve got.”

Key blew out his breath. “Okay. Let’s temporarily shelve that and move to point B. Do you know if they have radar?”

“I’m sure they do, but it couldn’t be very sophisticated. Nothing there is. Technologically they’re decades behind the rest of the world.”

“How far from Ciudad Central is this landing strip?”

Mentally she converted the kilometers. “About forty miles.”

He whistled. “That’d be close. How am I supposed to avoid their radar?”

“There must be ways. Drug smugglers do it all the time.”

He looked at her sharply. “I’ve never smuggled dope.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Sure you did.” He held her gaze, then shrugged impatiently. “Fuck it. Believe what you want to.”

He left the chair and began to pace again. Lara had a thousand questions to ask but didn’t dare. She mainly wanted to know why he’d changed his mind. Like a caged animal, he restlessly prowled her bedroom.

“If we can slip through their radar, if this landing strip is where it’s supposed to be…”

“Yes?”

“How do we get around?”

“I can make arrangements for Father Geraldo to pick us up.”

“Go on.”

“There’s an underground organization that manages to slip supplies, letters, and such into and out of Montesangre. That’s how the map got to me. I waited a year for it, but I’ve had it for several months. Utilizing this underground, I can have Father Geraldo notified when to meet us.”

“It’ll take another year?”