Nicos stared thoughtfully at her.
“I’ll think about it. There’s a chance that my treatment of Rosa did have an effect on you. I could see you start to weaken when I was doing it. It might have made you more compliant.”
She met his eyes. “It had a great effect on me.”
He nodded slowly. “As I said, I’ll think about it.” He smiled. “It would be amusing to have Patrick taken away from Lassiter by the woman he brought in to help save him. I rather like the idea.”
He turned on his heel and strode away.
Salva gave Margaret a cold glance before following Nicos across the yard.
Margaret let out her breath and slid down the wall to a sitting position again. A fairly successful several minutes, she thought shakily.
Another encounter with only minor physical pain.
Contact made with Lassiter.
Message given without suspicion.
Progress had been made.
If Lassiter had caught and understood every nuance of what she’d said to him.
*
“That didn’t sound like Margaret.” Cambry had come out of the cave and was standing behind Lassiter, with Juno beside him. “Bitter. Very bitter. And not much truth connected to it. What’s that son of a bitch doing to her?”
“It may be what she’s trying to do to him,” Lassiter said grimly. “And, no, not much truth. She practically forced me to bring her down here to help Patrick. Certainly no bribes involved. Everything she said just now was slanted to make both me and Patrick appear to be her enemy.”
“Desperation? She knows what Nicos might do to her.”
He shook his head. “Mandell said he thought she was more aggressor than victim.” He added roughly, “And I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. I’ve got to go over that entire phone conversation and see if she was trying to tell me something. I can’t just wait and hope that it’s not going make Nicos angry enough to cut her throat.”
“No, waiting isn’t one of your strengths.”
And it’s nearly impossible when it concerns Margaret, Lassiter thought. “At least I’ve got Mandell keeping watch on the camp. If the situation changes with her, I’ll just have to change with it.” He took out his phone and said grimly, “Right now I’ve got to keep Carlos Estefan from making a few changes of his own. He insisted on moving his rebels into the woods behind the detention camp and he’s clamoring to go in and get his brother. If he launches an assault, it could not only get his brother, Diego, killed but Margaret, too.”
Cambry gave a low whistle. “Can you keep him under control?”
“I’ll do it. I’ve got to do it. God knows how.” He was dialing his phone. “Because I seem to be doing crap in controlling anything else at the moment.”
Detention Camp
10:37 P.M.
“Get up, Margaret,” Nicos said. “Are you dozing? Or are you doing that concentration thing again?” He knelt down beside her and she could see he was smiling mockingly. “At any rate, you have work to do.”
She scrambled to sit up straight. Work. That meant he wasn’t going to start the torture and that she had a chance. “I was dozing. I admit I was getting bored. I was hoping you’d make up your mind.” She looked beyond his shoulder and saw the camp stirring, the glaring lights coming on, men streaming out of the bunkhouse. “Where’s Salva?”
“He’s changing to boots and the same camouflage attire I’m wearing. I told him he had to prepare for anything. He was a bit surly. He doesn’t really like to hunt. He’s much more comfortable behind a computer in his office.”
“Hunt?”
“Why, yes. You promised me a Patrick hunt. With perhaps Lassiter thrown in for good measure. I thought all evening about that possibility. I listened to all Salva’s and Brukman’s arguments.” He chuckled. “Both of them had interesting alternate plans for you involving pain and humiliation. But in the end, they couldn’t offer me what you did.” His eyes were glittering with excitement as he gestured to the noise and activity around them. “Patrick, Lassiter…” His voice lowered silkily, “And the victim of my choice. I couldn’t get your proposition out of my mind. I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity for your test, Margaret.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Murder always intrigues you,” she said. “And whom did you choose? Salva or Brukman?”
“Salva. Remember? He called me a fool. He picked the wrong time to do that, didn’t he?”
“It seems that he did.”
“And you’ll use your magic to take care of him.” He jerked her to her feet. “No gun. No knife. That would be no test at all.” He shoved her toward the truck parked beside the gate. “Prove yourself to me, Margaret. Because only one of you will be coming back here tonight.”
*
“They’re on the move, Lassiter,” Mandell said sharply as Lassiter answered the phone. “Nicos, Salva, and Margaret just rolled out of here in a truck driven by Herb Stockton, with twelve of Nicos’s guards in the back. They left only Brukman to run the show back here at the camp. They have automatic weapons. Traveling fast.”
“Toward the monastery?”
“No, they took the road that circles around that area.” He paused. “I think they’re heading for the hills. You might consider moving Patrick out of there fast. She could be leading them straight to you.”
“She wouldn’t do that, dammit.”
“They’re on their way. In twenty minutes, they’ll reach the road leading to the hills. I’ll let you know if they turn back.” He cut the connection.
*
“Twenty minutes,” Cambry said. “You’re sure we shouldn’t be getting out of here, Lassiter? I could tell the sentries guarding the cave to start packing up.”
“I’m sure. Margaret wouldn’t turn Patrick over to Nicos.” But Lassiter didn’t know what the hell she was doing or what was happening. “But Mandell is sure she’s definitely heading for the hills.” Why would she even get near to a place where Nicos might stumble across Patrick? Had she said anything in that conversation that had anything to do with her bringing Nicos out in these wilds in the middle of the night? Lassiter had gone over her words before and there had been something.…
He quickly again went over every word she had spoken. For the most part, it had just been accusations and telling him to leave her—
Untrue accusations.
Sparkling rosettes …
You tossed that diamond necklace at me.
Rosettes.
He whirled and stared at the dark hills to the north. “She’s not bringing them here. She’s taking them to the north hills.”
“What?”
“Get our sentries up there right away to welcome Nicos’s men when they start crawling all over those hills looking for Patrick. If they position themselves right, they should be able to pick them off.”
“Right. Then I’ll go with them.”