“My God.” Her eyes widened. “I had no idea.”
“If you counted the unconfirmed kills, it would be far higher. And he hasn’t been a sniper for all that long. Give him a few more years and he’d be breaking records. He chose not to do that.” He stopped outside Patrick’s room to meet her eyes. “You’re shocked. I wanted to be honest with you because Mandell is part of my life. But are you going to be able to accept him as he is?”
“Of course I am,” she said impatiently. “I told you that I liked him. Animals in the forest hunt for food and kill every day. Only human beings hunt for other reasons and then count their kill. Do you think lions or tigers don’t kill more than that over their lifetime? It wasn’t Mandell who decided to go on the hunt. He was chosen. And I’d bet he wasn’t the one who counted the kills. It seems like some kind of boastful bureaucracy-type thing to—”
“I hear you.” He was chuckling. “All I wanted was a yes or no. I didn’t know you’d bring in the lions and tigers.” His smile faded as he reached for the knob of the door to Patrick’s room. “I don’t know if you’re ready for this. It’s one thing to see a photo; it’s another to see Patrick in the shape he’s in now. I saw what it did to you on the ship and it’s already scaring me.”
“It’s scaring me,” she said soberly. “All the time we were coming here, I kept thinking of what would happen when I saw him.” She moistened her lips. “I’ve never actually seen him, Lassiter. I’ve never met him. Yet I feel as if I know him.”
“Because you sense how I feel about him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe. I just wanted so badly for him not to be in pain any longer. I wanted him to be strong and well and not…” She made a face. “All this talk.” She pushed open the door. “I just have to go for it.” She stopped for a minute when she saw the white-draped bed, the still figure.
Cambry was sitting in a chair by the bed, looking at his computer, and he glanced up with a smile as they came into the room. “Hi, Margaret. You look much better than the last time I saw you.” He got to his feet. “As I recall, you were facedown on that pier and causing me all kinds of guilt and trauma.” He came toward her and gave her a quick hug. “Good job,” he said gruffly. “I’m sure Patrick would say the same if he could keep awake long enough for us to tell him about you.”
“I think I’m better learned from experience, don’t you?” She turned away from him to face the bed. Patrick was so pale, his face lined with pain. And he was deeply asleep, as Cambry had said. She drew closer to Patrick’s bed, and it was then that she saw Juno lying on the floor beside the bed.
She raised her head as Margaret approached.
Help him? You might heal?
She leaned down and touched Juno’s head.
That’s what we’re trying to do. And you’re doing your part too, Juno.
He mustn’t leave. Too sad. You said she might come back, might still be with me. Not yet. He might not come back, either. Mustn’t let him leave.
She swallowed to ease the sudden tightness of her throat.
Then don’t do it. You’re doing all the right things. Just keep on doing them. Let him feel you. Let him feel the love.
Silence. Those huge dark eyes looked wonderingly into her own.
You are not her. But you say the things she says. How is that?
What could she say? Juno needed an answer and sometimes there were no answers.
I don’t know. Maybe it comes from her. Maybe it comes from what you are together. She bent down and stroked her head again. Or maybe you’re remembering what she would say if she were here. Make up your own mind.
I will. She laid her head on her paws again. But I’m glad you’re back. I feel better when you’re here.
I feel better when you’re here, too. She straightened and turned to Cambry. “You’ve taken great care of her. I think that Patrick is healing her as much as she’s healing him.”
“I had the same idea.” He turned to Lassiter. “But now that I have you to take over Patrick’s care, could you give me an hour or so’s break? Having Mandell’s men answering to me and being the one to give them orders wasn’t my cup of tea. Plus, keeping an eye on Patrick’s vitals and having Juno stare at me accusingly for the past twenty-four hours; all this responsibility is weighing me down.”
“You seem to have risen to the challenge,” Lassiter said. “Did you talk to Father Dominic about anywhere that might be safe to move Patrick if it becomes necessary?”
“They’ve come up with a few places. There are a couple villages in the area that might work. I think he was relieved at the idea of getting rid of us. You can talk to him yourself.”
“I’ll sit with Patrick for a while,” Margaret said. “If he wakes up, all the better. I need to get to know him.”
Lassiter nodded. “But if he does wake, I need to talk to him.” He turned to Cambry. “Unless you managed to get the names of those other prisoners at the camp?”
“Three,” Cambry said. “Patrick was trying, but he kept blacking out. Fidel Damos, Diego Estefan, Pierre Gilroy. I ran them by your contact in the CIA and he came up with three missing persons with links to Nicos. Damos is one of Nicos’s men who disappeared suddenly after a smuggling deal he was handling fell through. Diego Estefan was the leader of a rebel group that the government was trying to squash. He was considered something of a patriot. He had no direct connection with Nicos, but the government could have paid Nicos to have him disappear. Estefan’s group is lethal as hell and was giving the government forces major headaches. Pierre Gilroy appears to be a good guy who owned a coffee plantation near a river that had great access to sea-lanes. He refused to sell to Nicos and was abusive enough about it to piss him off.”
“So they all ended up in Nicos’s detention camp,” Lassiter said grimly. “Plus Patrick and two more.”
“But we have Patrick now,” Margaret said. “And we’ll get the others out. No one deserves the kind of savagery Nicos is handing out.”