Blue Knight Read Free Page A

hurt. At least it would guarantee he would stay on his side of the bed.
    She thought she wouldn’t get any sleep, not with a man in her bed for the first time in more years than she cared to tote up. She thought she would lay awake mulling over their exchange.
    But she found herself thinking, instead, of defiance. Of Daniel’s nightly breaking of the curfew, just because he could and just because the insurrectos told him he couldn’t. The way he had expertly disabled the sound bug and told her how to avoid tipping off the insurrectos of the transgression.
    Defiance.
    She liked it.
    * * * * *
    Nick rested his hand on Duardo’s shoulder as he squeezed past the big old-fashioned kitchen chair to get to his own at the top of the table. Calli was already sitting next to Josh at the rickety, scarred table. God knows where she had scrounged it from, but for now it served as the boardroom and meeting table for half a dozen committees and working groups.
    The little room was tucked away in the back of the house on the south side and the south wall of the room was covered in small, dirty windows. Nick thought the room had once been used as a potting shed. It was almost unbearably hot in the room in the afternoons, but it was still only seven in the morning and the windows had all been thrown open to catch the sea breeze. There was no chance anyone might be lurking outside beneath the windows to listen to their meetings, for the cliffs dropped away right beneath the house on this side, straight down two hundred feet to the sea.
    The car bomb that had killed General Blanco had also destroyed the northwest corner of the house where the big formal dining room they had been using as a boardroom had been. The repair work was underway, with Calli coaxing and bribing where she could to hurry it up, but it was still a week or two from being completed. In the meantime, they were forced to squeeze into this tiny leftover of a room.
    It had been nearly four weeks, yet Nick still had moments of disorientation when he saw Duardo at these meetings, or noticed the short hair—although it was already starting to grow out again.
    Duardo nodded at Nick as he sat down. He already had a thick, cheap notebook full of handwriting open in front of him. There had been no disorientation for Duardo. He had slid back into full productivity like an otter into water, with barely a disturbed ripple to show his reentry.
    General Flores hurried in, carrying a briefcase exploding with paperwork and another armful of notes. He was panting from having climbed the long flights of stairs from the beach, where the army mostly trained and quartered, up to the big house where Nick and others in the household lived and where this meeting was being held. Flores was a very lean man, with an abundant moustache. He nodded at Nick and sat at the other end of the table.
    Josh cleared his throat. “I repeat my protest, Nick. I really shouldn’t be here.”
    Nick shook his head. “You know as much about Vistaria’s affairs as we do. Let’s not get into this again. These are extraordinary times. I need the knowledge you have between your ears. Duardo, let’s begin.”
    “ ¿Ahora debemos tener la reunión en inglés? ” General Flores asked.
    “Yes, we’re having the meeting in English now,” Nick confirmed. “There’s a reason for the inconvenience, General, so you will need to bear with us.”
    Flores grimaced. “If you bear my English, I bear it.” He shrugged and looked at Duardo. “Colonel?”
    Duardo blinked, hesitating. Nick knew why. Duardo didn’t think he deserved the double-promotion, but in wartime, promotions were often rapid and extemporaneous and the fact was, they needed Duardo in a senior position. Nick himself had pushed for the double-tap. He mentally shrugged. Duardo was a soldier first. He was used to obeying orders. He’d get used to this one.
    Duardo looked down at his notes, marshaling his thoughts. “When I was inside the insurrectos ’