Wildcard. Rachel Lee

the blood of Miguel’s father. Today, he would take theirs. It was the way of the world. His world and, probably, his children’s world. If he lived long enough to have them.

      That vision of the future had dimmed in the past four years. He had once imagined himself with a wife, working his father’s farm, raising children. He had once been so foolish as to imagine that his father’s optimism was not misplaced, that the peace accord would stand up, that his country would know stability, that he would someday walk into town and not see men in uniform with machine guns hanging from their shoulders. In his youth and naiveté, that had seemed possible.

      That vision had been torn apart as he’d stood on a dirt street beside a drying puddle at the base of the lamppost, a testament to the moment of his father’s death. Blood cried out for blood. Nothing more. Nothing less.

      He reached inside the shopping bag beside him and fingered the stumpy stock of the AK-47. The wood was rough where he’d sawed it off. He’d considered sanding it smooth and decided against it. Life was not smooth. It grated on the nerves and left splinters in the mind. A weapon should be no less. And do no less.

      The couple were also armed, he with another AK, she with a 9 mm pistol and a block of plastic explosives in her handbag. The guerilla lieutenant had provided the C-4. The use of gringo explosives was a delicious irony. Miguel didn’t know their exact provenance—that a corporal in Georgia had sold them to a wild-eyed friend who sought to restore the purity of the white race, to be sold and resold again by those who lived and died by a warrior creed, until what looked like a block of gray clay had made its way to the Guatemalan highlands. He didn’t know the details, but he had learned enough about the ways and means of killing to recognize U.S. Army issue. It was perfect.

      It was perfect, because the guerillas had also taught him about his country’s history, about the endless cycle of violence that had nearly bled his people white, touched off in 1954 when the American CIA—to protect the profits of the United Fruit Company—had instigated and funded the coup that had replaced an elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Gudman, with a military dictator. In the years since, the gringos had continued to fund a reign of terror, training the death squads at the School of the Americas. Over two hundred thousand of Miguel’s countrymen had died. All so American children could have their bananas.

      That was the official story.

      The truth, Miguel knew, was something else altogether. Gudman would not only have nationalized Guatemala’s farms and thereby ensured a better quality of life for the Quiché Mayan people. He had also been working to authenticate and publish a document that would change the world. The gringos could not permit that. Everyone known to be associated with the document had been killed, including Miguel’s grandfather.

      Now, today, Miguel would strike back. Today’s operation would not be the first blow. It might not even be the largest blow. But it would be Miguel’s blow.

      He heard the heavy rumble of the engine before he saw it, and checked his watch. Right on time. The armored limousine, bearing the gringo ambassador, passing through the streets like a Roman governor through a slave nation. Well, Miguel thought, this is not a slave nation. And you are not welcome.

      He rose from the bench and lifted the shopping bag, striding casually, as if he were on his way to work. And, in a brutal way, he was. The couple saw him and got to their feet, as well, walking arm-in-arm, two young lovers out to greet the new day. Miguel stood at the corner and lighted a cigarette. He made as if to put the lighter in his pocket but dropped it in the bag instead. Shaking his head, he set the bag on the sidewalk and stooped, watching the limousine and the couple from the corner of his eye.

      The timing was perfect. Just as they’d rehearsed it.

      The couple had almost crossed the street as the car approached. The woman touched her forehead and stepped back from her partner, as if she had left something behind. Miguel gripped the stock of the AK-47 and rose, just as the limo slowed to avoid the woman. He fired, knowing the bullets would not penetrate the glass, but also knowing the spiderweb of cracks across the windshield would cause the driver to pause momentarily before his training took over and he gunned the engine. In that pause, the woman moved with well-drilled speed and precision, looking as if she were diving for cover behind the limousine, when, in fact, she was slapping the plastic explosive to the underside of its frame.

      Now her partner drew his weapon from beneath his business suit, and the car was riddled with enfilading fire. The limousine surged forward, the driver reacting exactly as he had been taught to do. Get out of the kill zone. Protect the principal.

      Miguel and the man held their fire as the car passed, so as not to hit each other, then opened up again as it pulled away. The rattle of rounds being discharged, the comforting recoil, the ping and whine of bullets ricocheting off hardened metal, were exactly as he’d imagined.

      As was the fireball, moments later, when the plastic explosive detonated beneath the fuel tank. The heavy, almost hollow crump reached his ears a split second later, followed by the rush of heat. But he was prepared for that, as well, knowing he and his comrades had been protected from the blast itself by the limousine driver’s training to speed away from the shooting.

      They were already advancing on the burning vehicle, weapons at the ready, as the doors popped open. The woman fired first, two Teflon-coated 9 mm rounds cutting through the driver’s Kevlar vest like hot knives through butter, shredding internal organs as they went. The ambassador was the next to crawl out, and by then Miguel was only three meters away, waiting for him. The ambassador was raising his hands, his eyes pleading, as Miguel smiled and sighted his weapon on the man’s forehead.

      “Vaya con Dios,” Miguel said bitterly.

      Then he squeezed the trigger.

      A white Honda squealed into the intersection, the lieutenant at the wheel. Miguel yanked open the passenger side door and climbed in as the couple piled in back.

      “Vámonos!” the lieutenant said, stepping on the gas even before their doors were closed.

      “Sí,” Miguel answered. “Vámonos.”

      “Sangre para sangre,” the lieutenant said, glancing in the rearview mirror as they sped away.

      Yes, Miguel thought, remembering his grandfather, his uncle, and his father. Blood for blood.

      2

      Fredericksburg, Virginia

      As the primary returns were posted, Terry Tyson jumped from the sofa and let out a whoop that almost deafened Tom Lawton.

      “Yes!” Terry said. “He’s got it!”

      Grant Lawrence had indeed sewn up the Democratic nomination for president, with solid wins in Florida, Texas and Louisiana pushing him over the top.

      Beside him, Miriam reached for a napkin to dab champagne from her slacks. “Terry!”

      “Oh,” he said, looking down. His ebony features fell. “Sorry, honey.”

      She smiled back at him and laughed. “Hey, I’m excited, too. But you just about blew out poor Tom’s eardrums!”

      Tom joined in the laughter, finding it more difficult than it should have been. Here he was, in the home of his Bureau mentor, having spent the evening basking in the obvious warmth that passed between her and Terry. It had been an evening of good food, lighthearted banter and ready smiles. No undercover role-playing. No reading between the lines for veiled threats. None of what he’d endured the past three years living in the underside of the Los Angeles glitter. He ought to have been a warm puddle. But the old instincts, the quiet, life-or-death whisper in his mind, wouldn’t go away.

      The fury wouldn’t go away, either. It had gotten him suspended. Now it gnawed at him remorselessly.

      Miriam had seen it, of course. So had Terry. They understood. They’d both been there, she with the FBI, he as a career homicide detective in Washington, D.C. They knew the signs. But they were too considerate and too experienced to offer casual bromides. Instead, they had simply