The Commander

He slipped a hand beneath her head. She was going into shock, her skin pale and clammy, her body shaking on the leather cushions that were already slick with her blood. Her eyes fluttered open, and suddenly she looked smaller and more frail.

“Hang on, querida, hang on.” His endearment slipped out naturally, just as it had earlier in the plane. “We’ll be at the hospital any minute. You can do it.”

She spoke with great difficulty. “You…okay? Not hit?”

“Don’t talk,” he said automatically. “You’ll lose more blood.”

She ignored him completely. “Are you…okay?”

“Sí, sí. I am fine, now por favor—no more talking!”

She nodded weakly, her eyes closing once more, only to blink open again. “W-what about…Potter?”

“Don’t worry about him. The others will take care of him. You just lie there and be quiet.”

They bounced around a curve. She tried to bite back a cry but failed, her agony apparent. Helpless to do anything else, Andres screamed at the driver. “Take it easy up there, goddammit! You’re hurting her!”

The man didn’t respond; he simply added more gas, the black Suburban barreling down the highway, passing everything else in a blur.

“Andres…” She spoke his name softly, painfully.

He bent down, his heart suddenly plunging into a frightening abyss. She was fading right before his eyes, growing obviously weaker as he held on to her. “Lena! Stay with me, okay? Stay awake!”

She lifted a shaking hand and grabbed his shirt. Her fingers were red and sticky with her own blood, but the strength in her grip was shocking. She pulled him closer, her voice a fading rasp. “I should have done a better job…shoulda checked better.” Her lips were dried and caked, the words thick but the meaning clear. “I’m sorry, Andres, I’m so sorry….”

She was apologizing for saving his life? If there were shoulds they belonged to him, dammit! He should have been the one lying there bleeding, not Lena.

He leaned over her. “Lena, please! You did do your job. Don’t get loco on me, okay? ¿Me escuchas? Do you hear me?”

She nodded faintly, then she went still in his arms and her head fell back.

ANDRES DIDN’T KNOW which was worse: holding Lena’s unresponsive body or handing her over to the medics at the hospital. Either way he felt helpless and totally out of control.

Three nurses and two doctors were waiting as the SUV wheeled into the drive-through by the hospital’s back door. They shoved him out of the way and disappeared with Lena down the hall. He caught up to the gurney just as they turned it into a room and slammed the door in his face. All he could do was listen as someone screamed for X rays STAT and another voice yelled out for a chest tube. He vented his frustration by cursing in Spanish and waving his arms but his actions were futile. No one would let him inside.

Leaning his head against the mint-colored wall, a storm of emotion broke over him. Panic, anger, fear, guilt—every feeling he’d ever experienced erupted all at once. It was a tide he couldn’t stop, a flood he couldn’t control. In a useless attempt to stem the sensations, he raised his hands to cover his face, but all he did was make it worse as his fingers came into focus.

The creases in his skin were painted red. Red with Lena’s blood. His horrified gaze fell lower. His pants, his shirt, even his shoes were crimson. He was covered with her blood.

He stared a moment longer, then he closed his fingers, his knuckles shining under the bright lights of the corridor as a rush of guilty rage shook him. Lifting his arm in one fluid movement, he slammed his fist into the wall. A hole appeared as a rain of green plaster cascaded to the floor.

His whole side went numb, but his mind—and his heart—cracked open wide.

THE DOCTORS and the nurses were talking. Their voices were hurried, but distinct, each word a perfectly formed entity that Lena heard, then saw. They floated above her, just out of reach in little cartoon boxes, as did the masked faces of the people nearby. She wanted to tell them she felt fine but everyone seemed too rushed to listen to her mumbles. She closed her eyes slowly, the lids fluttering down. The next thing she knew, she was at the beach. Jeffrey, the youngest of all her brothers, was chasing her into the tide, splashing her and calling her a baby, telling her about the monsters that were just offshore, waiting to get her.

She looked out into the emerald waves and shivered. Monsters were out there, all right, but they weren’t in the water. They were closer, closer than either of them had ever suspected. She shut her eyes and screamed, but no one heard her.

ANDRES HEARD Phillip McKinney long before he saw him, the man’s unmistakable voice rolling down the hallway and bowling over everything in its path. Andres jumped to his feet and after a questioning glance, Carmen, at his side, stood as well. A moment later, Lena’s father strode into the waiting room, his entourage following behind him as he plowed through the crowd of cops who’d begun to congregate after hearing the news.

Phillip had aged a bit, but not that much. His hair, always silver, was a little thinner and his step a little slower, yet his back was ramrod straight, his skin tanned and tight. The handmade suit, the polished shoes, the silk foulard tie, they hadn’t changed at all. Expensive and flashy, they were essential to Phillip’s presence.

At seventy, he was a still practicing attorney with personal injury lawsuits his speciality. His thriving partnership had given him the kind of wealth and power few men could ever achieve; he was well-known all over Florida and even in the nearby states.

Almost as an afterthought, Andres’s brain registered the identities of the men surrounding Phillip. They were Lena’s brothers, all older than her except for Jeffrey, the baby of the family. Bering, the eldest, waited anxiously just beside his father. On the other side of the old man was Richard, her second brother. Behind those two came Stephen, and finally, trailing, came Jeffrey.

As always, Jeff was a peripheral member of the group. Even though he worked at Phillip’s law firm alongside his brothers, he was the black sheep of the family. Idealistic and sometimes naive to Andres’s way of thinking, Jeff continually disavowed what he considered the other McKinneys’s base materialism. He spent his vacations helping migrant workers and went his own way, a way that was usually the opposite of what Phillip McKinney wanted.

Which was exactly why Andres had liked Jeff and had called him to inform the family of the shooting. He couldn’t stand the rest of them.

Shaking hands and greeting the officers, most of whom he seemed to know, Phillip McKinney was almost on top of Andres before he noticed him. He didn’t have time to prepare himself, so instead a cascade of emotions, genuine and unedited, crossed his expression at once. First surprise then anger, and finally a wary edginess, all of which he hid as soon as he could behind a stony mask.

Andres stared back from behind his own facade. He’d never known if the old man was aware of the investigation he’d conducted against him or not. Regardless, they’d hated each other from the very moment they’d met. Phillip had told Lena that Andres wasn’t good enough for her, but the real truth was a lot more complicated. Phillip had had Lena to himself since her mother died and he didn’t want to share her, with a husband or anyone else. It was power and control and love, all mixed together.

Phillip recovered fast. “How is she?” Silky smooth and deep, his voice was his trademark. It now held a tinge of something Andres had never heard before. Fear? Concern? Love?

“Lena’s in surgery,” Andres answered. “The bullet entered her body just beneath her left breast. They reinflated her lung in ER, then took her into the operating room.”

Phillip sagged. It wasn’t a physical response, but just as Andres had caught the tremble in his voice, he saw this as well. Phillip seemed to falter a bit, to pull inside himself, then the moment passed, almost, it seemed, before it had happened.

He tilted his head toward the double doors behind them that led to the operating room. “How long have they been in there?”

Forever.

Andres glanced at his watch. “An hour and a half.”

Bering spoke for the first time. He lived in his father’s shadow, never quite measuring up, never quite making the grade. He compensated for this with a blustery attitude and a burning desire to replace his father in the practice. “An hour and a half? And no one’s been out with an update?” He shook his head at Andres’s obvious lack of status, then turned to Stephen. “Go find somebody who knows what’s going on. Get a doctor out here.”

Phillip nodded his approval and Stephen scurried off through the crowd. Wearing a self-satisfied expression, Bering said something about coffee and bustled over to a small kitchenette in one corner of the room, Richard going with him, offering help. Andres remained where he was, his black eyes meeting Phillip’s blue ones with the coldest of gazes. Something passed between them. It definitely wasn’t a truce—the war between them was too involved for that to ever happen—but the moment was understood by them both. This wasn’t the time or place.

Jeff broke the tension by moving up to where Andres stood. He extended his hand, then his eyes widened as Andres lifted his own, now swathed in bandages. “You were hit?” Jeff asked in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell us—”

“No, no. I wasn’t shot.” He dismissed the inquiry with a shake of his head. When Carmen had arrived at the hospital with fresh clothes for him, she’d taken one look at his hand and forced him to have someone take care of it. He’d bruised three knuckles so badly the doctor had insisted on wrapping them. “It’s nothing.”

Behind him, Bering and Richard returned, Carmen helping them distribute the coffee they’d brought. Earlier Andres had been annoyed by her presence. Now he was glad. She handed out packets of sugar, then she made conversation and kept things cordial. Andres was suddenly grateful; he wasn’t sure he could have kept up the facade for much longer.

Stephen returned with the doctor a moment later. They stepped to one side, isolated by a bumper of space from the waiting officers. “They’re still in surgery,” the man said, holding up his hands as if to ward off their questions. He was young but looked exhausted, his jaw dark with stubble, his shoulders a weary slump beneath his pristine white coat. “I’m Dr. Maness, Dr. Edwardson’s assistant. She’s still operating. The bullet’s currently lodged in the diaphragm behind the patient’s lung on the left side. It nicked the lobe before it stopped.”

His gaze went to Phillip, then on to the other men until it came to Andres. Despite Phillip’s age and obvious status, the doctor seemed to sense Andres was the man he should be addressing. Andres hardly noticed this, though. All he felt was a rush of anxiety as their eyes met and locked.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor continued. “You’re just going to have to be patient. If you want something to do, then go downstairs.” He let his gaze go over all of them this time. He wore thick glasses and his eyes were bleary and sad behind them. “There’s a cafeteria…and a chapel.”

ANDRES DIDN’T LOOK for either place. He certainly wasn’t hungry and he’d given up searching for comfort from above a long time ago. Instead he went outside. He wanted isolation and some distance from the crowd upstairs, stopping first at the hospital gift shop to buy a pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked in as many years as he hadn’t prayed, but the craving had hit him and there was nothing to do but satisfy it.

Cupping his bandaged hand around the flame of his match, he was lighting the first one when Carmen opened the door of the hospital’s atrium. As she walked across the flagstones toward him, he jumped to his feet, his pulse suspended in midbeat. She shook her head as soon as she saw him and motioned for him to sit back down.

“There’s no news,” she said. “I just came outside for some air.” She stared curiously at the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “What are you doing? You don’t smoke.”

He was angry at seeing Phillip McKinney, angry over Lena’s injury and angry at himself. With a pointed disregard for Carmen’s feelings, Andres unleashed the emotion and sent it flying toward her, his words scathing. “You don’t know me that well, Carmen. Don’t tell me what I do and what I don’t do.”

She blinked at his tone, and he immediately felt like a bastard. Instead of apologizing, he turned his face away from her and took a deep drag on the cigarette. The acrid smoke seared his lungs with a sting so painful it brought a wave of dizziness with it as well.

Without saying a word, she sat down on the concrete bench beside him. They weren’t the only ones in the small, walled garden. There were other smokers who’d been banished, and they all wore the same worried expressions. No one saw the carefully tended flowers or heard the bubbling fountain. Andres studied a young man on the other side of the patio, his hand on the head of a young girl who was dancing a doll along the edge of a low concrete wall.

The silence between he and Carmen built and hung, then finally she spoke softly, almost reluctantly, it sounded to Andres. “This woman who was shot. Lena McKinney…you know her, don’t you? From before. You didn’t just meet today.”

It took him a moment to decide how to answer, then he realized there was only one way. He had to tell her the truth; she deserved it.

“Yes, I know Lena.” He looked at the cigarette between his fingers. “I know her very well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

She shifted on the bench. He could feel her eyes on him. “You didn’t think it was important?” She shook her head and smiled softly. “That usually means it’s just the opposite.”

“Carmen…”

She stopped him. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Andres.”

“No.” He rose abruptly. “I do owe you that. At least.” He took a final, death-defying drag on the cigarette, then crushed it under his shoe. He turned and looked at her. “Lena and I were engaged at one time. We were going to marry.”

“To marry!” Her dark eyes widened in surprise. “You mean she was your fiancée?”

“That’s right.”

“Wh-what happened? Why didn’t you get married?”

“It didn’t work out.” His tone defied her to ask for more information. “I went back to Miami.”

“And?”

“And what? That was it.”

“You never saw her again?”

“Not until this morning.”

Carmen sat immobile on the bench, a pinprick of guilt stinging Andres as he looked at her. He should never have slept with her. She wasn’t crying, but she looked as if she wanted to. Beneath her expression, there was a gentle dignity that made him feel even worse.

“Does she still love you?”

Back in the plane, Lena’s gaze had held nothing but disgust when she’d looked at him, yet she’d protected him with her life and now she might have to pay up. Did that mean she loved him or had she just been doing her job? He didn’t know…so he didn’t answer.

“I guess that wasn’t the right question, was it?” Carmen asked.

His hand suddenly ached, a striking, sharp pain that bypassed the painkiller the doctor had insisted he take. He cradled the injured fingers with his other palm. “What do you mean?”

“I should have asked, ‘Do you still love her?”’

This time she waited even longer for his answer. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to reply, she stared at him a minute more, then she stood and walked away. He watched her disappear through the hospital door, and after it closed behind her, he reopened the package of cigarettes and tapped out another one. When he lit the end, the match trembled in his hand.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the double glass doors opened once more. Dropping his cigarette, Andres jumped to his feet again, his heart pounding as Jeff McKinney crossed the small patio and came in his direction.

The nearby ashtray was overflowing with butts, and Andre’s stomach felt sour and sick. With nothing else to do, he’d been on his cell phone ever since Carmen had left, making calls and getting as much information as he could about what had happened. It hadn’t taken long and the news had started a train of thought Andres couldn’t stop. But those thoughts fled now.

“The nurse just found us,” Jeff announced as he reached Andres’s side. “The doctor’s finished the surgery and she’s coming out to talk to everyone.”

“Did she say anything else? How’d it go? Is Lena okay—”

Jeff held up his hand and stopped him. “I don’t know any more than what I just told you. Let’s go upstairs and see what the doctor says—”

Andres was heading for the door before the young attorney could even finish. Jeff caught up with him a second later, sending a quick glance at the phone in Andres’s hand. “Did you find out any more details?”

Andres nodded grimly. Normally, he wouldn’t tell a civilian anything, but Jeff was an attorney. He knew the system. “According to Lena’s right-hand man—some guy named Bradley—the shooter never made it off the field.”

“Who was he?”

“They don’t know yet.”

“And your associate?”

“Potter’s dead.”

They walked into the hospital lobby. “How’d this guy get in the airport?” Jeff asked. “With Lena in charge, I can’t imagine—”

“Bradley wasn’t sure, but he thinks the perp picked one of the baggage handlers and started a friendship. The bad guy had on the handler’s ID and uniform and when they started checking afterward, they found the handler’s body back at his apartment. Bradley thinks the guy might have hidden his weapon the day before when he visited his pal.”

Jeff raised his eyebrows. “That’s an awful lot to know so soon.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less from Lena’s team.” Andres spotted the elevators and headed toward them, still speaking. “Her sniper took out the shooter with a cold shot.” He pointed to the base of his neck.

“Lena won’t like that. She hates it when the snipers have to fire.”

Andres met Jeff’s eyes with a steady look. “I think she’ll understand this time.”

The elevator came and they both got in.

“Before you got here, Lena had said there might be trouble with some group named the Red Tide. Was he a member?”

“That’s the assumption.” Andres shook his head angrily and jabbed at the buttons as he spoke. “These pendejos—these Red Tide people—they’re idiots. That makes them even more dangerous. We can’t predict what they’re going to do. They haven’t actually done anything violent like this since—”

When Andres didn’t continue, Jeff looked at him then obviously thought better of whatever question he’d had in mind. The silent elevator rose slowly. “Why do they want you dead?” Jeff asked finally.

“Because I’m trying to stop them and have been for years. They’re behind ninety per cent of the drug shipments coming through here. They finance their political activities—their little riots and rigged elections—with drug money. They tell the people they’re fighting for freedom when what they’re really doing is taking it instead.”

“Drugs? I thought Lena said they were revolutionaries.”

“That’s what they want everyone to think. They’re nothing but a bunch of thugs, though.” Andres paused, the inevitable conclusion he’d come to while he’d been waiting forming itself into words. “They’ve gone too far this time.”

The elevator pinged softly, announcing its arrival on the surgical floor. When the doors slid open, Andres held them back, but instead of walking out, he turned and looked at Jeff. His voice was low and soft. No one overhearing them would have even bothered to listen.

“Shooting Lena was the biggest mistake they could ever make,” he said quietly. “I’ll lock up every one of the bastards…or I’ll die trying. Ya están muertos.”

Jeff stared at him, then nodded his head with a slow thoughtful movement. The Spanish needed no translation.

THE SURGEON came out moments later. She was a handsome woman, in her fifties, with graying hair and dark blue eyes that looked both kind and exhausted. She wore a set of green scrubs with her name embroidered on the left side. Laura Edward-son, M.D. Obviously recognizing Phillip as he held out his hand, she greeted him then nodded toward the rest of the group.

Her eyes stopped on Andres when she saw his bandaged hand. “You were the one who was with her?”

“That’s right.”

“She kept asking about you. Fought the anesthetic so hard I didn’t think we’d ever get her out.” Before he could reply, she continued. “She’s in stable condition right now. The bullet clipped the lower lobe of her lung. We sutured that as best we could and put in a chest tube, but we’re going to have to watch that area very closely. Infection can be a big problem in the lungs. So can pneumonia.”

“We need a specialist.”

She glanced at Phillip as he spoke. “That’s exactly what I recommend,” she said calmly. “In fact, I’ve already called in our thoracic man and our pulmonary man as well. Dr. Weingarten, the thoracic surgeon, assisted me in the operation, and he’ll be monitoring her closely.” She stood wearily. “She’ll be out of the recovery unit in an hour. After that, she’ll be in intensive care until we know we’re clear on that lung. Once she’s settled into ICU, one of you can see her then. One of you.” She paused until all eyes were on her. “It’s none of my business, but since she asked for Mr. Casimiro, I suggest it be him.”

SHE WAS COLD, colder than she’d ever been in her entire life, and nothing but a jumble of sounds and impressions made their way through the bone-chilling numbness. Lena lay perfectly still and let the sounds wash over her. Eventually one stood out—a bubbling noise. She had no idea what it was or where it came from, but strangely enough she was breathing in rhythm with it. Other than that, she felt little. It was like being suspended in midair, as if nothing were touching her, nothing holding her down, nothing holding her up. She wanted to open her eyes but she couldn’t. Her lids were too heavy and when she tried to speak, her tongue felt the same way. Someone had attached weights to it.

Out of the confusion another detail started to register. It was minor, but she concentrated on it and tried to magnify the feeling. After a moment, she put a name to it. Touch. Someone was touching her. It took another second to understand where the connection was being made and another second after that to name it. Her hand. Someone was touching her hand. She strained to respond, but her fingers wouldn’t move, the command never making it out from her brain.

“Lena…querida… Can you hear me?”

The words were soft in her ear, soft and loving. They brushed her cheek with a feathery touch and a warmth she craved. For some unexplained reason, the Spanish made her feel good, too, made her feel as though whoever had spoken cared deeply, cared passionately. Who was talking to her like this? She could hear the emotion in his voice and the coldness faded, if only for a moment. When he spoke again, she fought the cloud of confusion that surrounded her, but it was too strong. It picked her up and carried her off.

The last word she heard was querida. The last thing she felt was a kiss.

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