Chapter 16 #2
Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the limited lighting and then she saw her father sitting in the middle of the basement on an old wooden chair.
His hands were tied behind his back, and his feet were tied to the chair.
A strip of gray duct tape covered his mouth and thick white mustache.
His head drooped forward, his chin touching his chest and his eyes closed.
Mary ran forward, dropping to her knees in front of her father, the manuscript flopping to the stone floor. “Daddy?” She reached out and pulled the tape from his mouth.
His head tipped backward, his eyes blinking open. Then he fell forward, his shaggy white hair covering his forehead and eyes. The only things keeping him from toppling to the floor were the ropes binding him to the chair.
Booted feet came to a halt next to Mary and a hand reached out.
“I’ll take that.” Mary’s gaze climbed up the white snowsuit to the face of the man she had seen in the restaurant her first morning with Nick in North Pole.
The man’s dark eyes stared at her, as cold and empty as the time he’d glanced across at her in the diner.
His mouth, set in a heartless sneer, and he held a gun equipped with a silencer.
“Who are you?” Mary asked.
“Some call me Cobra.”
Mary studied the man, over six feet tall, muscular, probably in his mid-thirties. “Why do you care so much about this manuscript? You’re not old enough to have been involved in the Bosnian War.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the package or the war, but I’m getting paid to collect a package and dispose of anyone who knows about it.”
“By whom?” Mary shifted until her knee leaned onto the envelope.
Cobra pointed the pistol at her forehead. “Hand it over.”
“No, don’t, Mary. Give it to me.” On silent feet, Jasmine moved in behind the man, pointing her gun at his back.
His jaw twitched, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “I told you to come alone.” The man jabbed his pistol against Mary’s temple.
Mary winced as pain shot through her head and fear crowded her belly. “I didn’t invite her, she just showed up. I never wanted her here.” If this madman shot her, who would get her father out of this alive? Jasmine? Fat chance.
“Give me the manuscript,” Jasmine demanded.
“Touch it and I’ll shoot the girl.”
Jasmine snorted. “Go ahead. It’ll save me a bullet.”
The man shifted his gun to Santa.
“No!” Jasmine and Mary shouted simultaneously.
Mary launched herself at Cobra’s hand.
Cobra squeezed the trigger, the shot muffled by the silencer. The bullet pinged into the concrete-block wall, knocking chips of masonry onto the floor.
Another shot rang out, the sound deafening in the close confines of the basement.
Cobra staggered backward, clutching his chest with his empty hand. When he stared down at the hand stained with his own blood, his eyes narrowed. Then he tossed his head back and roared. Lifting his pistol, he aimed at Jasmine.
Without flinching, she pulled the trigger again.
The stranger’s pistol dropped to the floor. He fell to his knees and then pitched forward, landing flat on his face.
Mary struggled to her feet and stood between her father and Jasmine. “I won’t let you hurt my father.”
Jasmine shook her head. “Stupid girl. Charles is the whole reason I wanted that manuscript.”
She stalked forward and lifted the package from the floor without taking her gaze or aim from Mary.
“I love your father. I’ve spent a lifetime searching for him and now that I have him, I won’t let anything get in the way of our happiness.
” Her lips pressed into a tense line as she held two fingers to Santa’s neck for several long moments.
Finally, a smile of relief crossed her face. “Oh, thank goodness. His pulse is strong.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill that bastard again for hurting my Charles.”
A fanatical gleam filled Jasmine’s eyes. “I’ve worked hard to get to where I am, to find your father and make him remember what we had. And he remembered me.” She slapped her palm against her chest, her words harsh and desperate. “Even after thirty years, he remembered me.”
“You were there, weren’t you?” Mary asked. “In the village that was burned down in Bosnia?”
“Yes. That’s where I fell in love with him.” She stroked Santa’s face. “He was so young and handsome, and he fell in love with me.” She bent to kiss his temple. “And I loved him more than anything. More than life. More than money.”
A horrible thought crossed Mary’s mind and she staggered backward. “You’re Jasminka, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m Jasmine Claus.” The smaller woman straightened. “Mrs. Claus.”
“You’ll never be Mrs. Claus to me. My mother was the only Mrs. Claus.” Mary’s shoulders pulled back and she stood over Jasmine, ignoring the gun pointed at her chest. “You’re the woman from the memoirs.”
“What do you know about what happened? You weren’t there.” She glanced at the manuscript in her hands, her eyes widening, then narrowing into dark slits. “You read it, didn’t you?”
“I did. You were the woman who was the go-between in the arms deals, weren’t you, Jasminka?”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. And neither will your father.”
“He doesn’t know, does he?” Her father’s head still hung to his chest. Had his eyes twitched? Was he awake but faking unconsciousness? “He doesn’t know that you were the traitor in the village. That’s why you wanted the manuscript.”
“Oh, sweet, devious Jasminka. A leopard can never change her spots, can she?” A well-dressed gentleman descended the stairs into the basement carrying yet another pistol.
Mary’s hopes rose. Maybe he wasn’t Nick, but he looked like a reasonable man, here to rescue her and her father from the crazy woman with the gun.
“Gordon. I wondered when you’d get here.” Jasmine smiled up at the man and Mary’s hopes crashed.
They knew each other.
Mary stared harder at the man in the dim basement lighting. She’d seen that face recently in the news. “Gordon Thomas? Senator Thomas?”
The man answered with a regal nod. “Is Jasminka giving you problems? I must say I’m surprised to see her here.”
“You assumed I was dead?” She snorted. “Not a chance. I had more spies in your own squad than you knew about.”
He nodded. “I should have known. Where have you been hiding for the past thirty years?”
“Here and there. I had to leave my village in a hurry. Someone tried to kill me along with everyone else who lived there.” Jasmine’s eyelids narrowed into thin slits. “I hid then, but I have no intention of hiding now.”
“I can’t say that I’m surprised to find you here.” Gordon nodded toward Santa. “You always had a thing for Mercer. I’m more surprised at how long you took to find him.”
“Now that I have, I’m not letting you or anyone else get in my way.
He’s mine.” Jasmine moved to stand in front of Santa, much as Mary had done earlier.
“I’ve always loved him, an emotion you could never understand.
All you understood was greed and lust. Charlie loved me, not for what I could do for him, but because of who I was. ”
“A lying, cheating traitor to your own people?” The senator laughed. “Aren’t you afraid Charlie will learn the truth about you?”
Truth? Mary suppressed her own hysterical laughter.
She had nothing to laugh at. One man lay dead, her father needed medical attention, and two of the four living occupants of the basement held guns.
How long did it take Chris to tell Nick the bizarre story?
Would he ever get there? If Mary had learned one thing about Nick, he acted first, asked questions later.
Which probably meant Chris was having trouble finding Nick. He could be anywhere in North Pole. Chris was on foot in freezing temperatures. Hopefully the teen had the good sense to go to the police if he couldn’t find Nick immediately.
“You’re the one to talk.” Jasmine held the package against her chest and her gun aimed at the senator. “Aren’t you afraid the world will learn the truth about you? You killed innocent people and members of your own squad to cover up your treachery.”
Gordon’s gaze shifted from Jasmine to Mary and back to Jasmine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I watched from the edge of the forest. I saw you fire on your own men with that AK-47 you had staged in my village. I may have sold weapons to the enemy, but I never pulled the trigger on my own people.”
She spat on the floor at Gordon’s feet. “You are the traitor. You should be thankful I will destroy this.” She nodded at the package in her arms. “What would happen to your precious campaign if your part in the arms sales and murder of your soldiers got out, if this memoir gets published? The great war hero isn’t such a hero after all, is he?
Is that why you hired the assassin to collect the manuscript and kill everyone who knew anything about what really happened? ”
Mary gasped.
“He murdered women and children. He came to kill me and thought he had.” Jasmine smirked. “I escaped, unlike others of my people who were not so fortunate.”
“She’s lying, of course. She’s an expert at it.” Gordon’s grip turned white on the gun. Had Jasmine hit a nerve with the senator? Possibly the truth? How could a man running for president get away with the atrocities listed in Richards’ memoirs?
Mary inched a step away from the two. “But you saved Taylor Rayburn. You were a war hero.”
Jasmine laughed. “He probably didn’t think the man would live.
And when he did survive, he’d suffered brain damage.
He lost his ability to talk in that attack, along with his memory of his entire tour.
He couldn’t tell the truth of what happened.
” Jasmine smiled. “Gordon saves a soldier he set out to kill, becomes a hero and all is forgotten about weapons sales to the enemy. Now look at him, running for president. Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.
All I want is to live the rest of my life with Charles. ”
“I’m supposed to trust you?” Gordon shook his head. He bent to retrieve Cobra’s fallen weapon. When he straightened, he aimed the nose of the silencer at Jasmine. “This story dies here.”
Mary threw herself over her father’s body and squeezed her eyes shut. Whatever happened, would happen.
“Oh no, you d—” Jasmine’s weapon blasted out a round.
The sound reverberated off Mary’s eardrums. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gordon duck to the right. Jasmine’s bullet completely missed him. The basement grew silent, the residual echoes receding at once. A soft thud broke the silence.
Jasmine dropped to the floor at Mary’s feet, her chest covered in a red stain, her eyes open, staring into nothingness.
Bracing herself, Mary turned to face Gordon Thomas. Was she next?
Thomas lifted the manuscript from the floor, pulled out a lighter and set the paper on fire. Smoke curled from the corner of the envelope upward. “Richards was a fool.” He tossed the envelope into a pile of old clothing.
“No!” Mary lunged for the burning package. She had to stop the fire before it spread to the pile of old newspapers beside the box of clothing. Her father lay unconscious, unable to help himself, and she didn’t have the strength to carry him up the stairs.
Gordon blocked her path. “Like I said, the truth dies here.” Then with a powerful, double fisted swing, he hit her hard enough to send her flying backward. She landed on her back, her head connecting with the stone floor in a bone-crunching thump.