Against the Wind Read Free Page B

remain passive in the face of Lizard Eyes’s attention. She hadn’t heard his name spoken in years and had almost convinced herself that he had never existed. And suddenly, with the sound of his name, he was alive, and the past fourteen years might never have passed.
    “Murphy?” She managed a creditable question in her voice.
    “El Patrón’s protector.” Lizard Eyes shot a stream of rapid Spanish over his shoulder to one of his compatriots and was answered with a coarse laugh. “And it is to be wondered what Soledad will think of you.”
    “Soledad?”
    “Your stepmother. I somehow doubt she will welcome you with open arms.” Lizard Eyes laughed again, unpleasantly, and the gun slowly withdrew several inches and waved her onward.
“Vamanos, gringa
. We will no doubt meet again.”
    She sat there, unmoving, her eyes never wavering as he slowly moved back, the gun at a seemingly relaxed angle. She had no doubt it could snap back up to aim at her face once more at an instant’s notice. One of the men accompanying Lizard Eyes was moving the log that had blocked the road, and he called out something to his boss. It was quite clearly something obscene, an area of the Spanish language that had so far eluded Maddy, but she could make out Murphy’s name and the easily identified
gringa.
    She sat there a long time after her captors melted intothe jungle, breathing deeply. Her hands were shaking as she turned the key. The gears ground, screaming in pain, the car bucked, and she was off, down the narrow track that would lead her to her father—and to Jake Murphy.
    Puente del Norte was a beaten little town, its tumbled-down mansions and overgrown parks attesting to a once more glorious lot in life. The now-familiar poverty was rampant, the fading pink and pastel adobe walls scrawled with graffiti exhorting the benumbed inhabitants to die for freedom. As Maddy limped her battered car into the village she kept her eyes alert for signs of her father’s presence. She could see obvious signs of General Ortega and President Morosa’s recent visits, in the bombed-out church, the shattered walls, the wary looks on the inhabitants’ faces. They were all carrying weapons.
    From the sturdy, black-garbed women industriously washing in the stream that ran along the side of the narrow village road, to the swaggering young men dressed in the international uniform of blue jeans and T-shirts and Nikes, they were carrying pistols and handguns and machine guns and shotguns, knives and machetes and even a sword or two. She was driving into an armed camp, and in retrospect General Ortega was looking more and more attractive. If she made it out of there, out of this miserable country alive, she would never again go any farther south than San Diego.
    No one made a move toward her as she edged her way down the narrow village street, the car bouncing and lurching over the potholes. But every eye was trained on her sporadic progress, and not a word was spoken.
    Maddy’s hands were numb as they gripped the steering wheel. These were her father’s people, she told herself staunchly, not believing a word. The people he’d devotedhis life to helping. They wouldn’t hurt El Patrón’s daughter, they would be more likely to welcome her with parades and flowers. Wouldn’t they? She was only thankful that she had no need to stop to ask for directions.
    Her stepfather’s sources had been very clear. Samuel Eddison Lambert was living in an abandoned villa-turned-fortress two miles past the tiny town of Puente del Norte, surrounded by a small army of followers. Max hadn’t told her who led that army, and Maddy hadn’t asked. Lizard Eyes had answered that unspoken question. Jake Murphy, the man who had abandoned his career in the Secret Service and his life as an American citizen to follow a crazy old dreamer, would be there, still guarding the man who’d shaped his destiny.
    She’d been seventeen when she’d last seen Jake Murphy. Seventeen,