second to pull back from the black empty pit that had been his prison for so many years. He wasn’t God, but he’d sworn an oath to do his best.
“Tell her husband to get behind her and support her shoulders,” he ordered the driver crisply. “I’m going to push the baby back into the birth canal, then try to turn it.”
“Ah sí, comprendo! Like birthing a…a calf, no?”
Elliot nodded. “Sí, exactly like that.” He only hoped he didn’t kill both mama and baby in the process.
Elliot didn’t care where he died. Still, it surprised him to discover he still had enough humanity left not to kill himself where his body might be discovered by someone who cared about him.
The third-rate, bug-infested hotel in the nowhere village of Puebla del Mar was ideal. Here he was just one more gringo. An outsider with a surly attitude and the take-no-prisoners swagger of a barroom brawler.
Hell, most of his fellow guests rented their rooms by the hour, so he doubted they’d even flinch at the sound of a shot. The desk clerk might even take it as a favor, given he could rent the room twice in the same night.
After twisting the cap off the tequila he’d bought after leaving the public clinic this evening, Elliot drank straight from the bottle, one fiery swallow after another until his head was swimming. Reeling a little and careful to keep a tight grip on the bottle, he walked to the sagging bed with its worn gray spread and lumpy mattress.
Old-fashioned wire springs creaked under his weight as he sank down. He took another long swallow, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before reaching under the thin pillow for the worn leather photo case he’d stashed there this morning after checking in. It fell open easily, the fold thinned by constant handling during these past ten years.
A familiar ache spread through his chest as he gazed into the laughing eyes of his two dearest loves—his wife and daughter. Sweet, generous Candy with her open smile and shiny black hair that always smelled like apples and sunshine. Feeling as though he were being strangled, he shifted his gaze to the face of his baby girl, his angel, Lauren, who had her mama’s stubborn chin and beautiful smile. Today would have been his fifteenth wedding anniversary—and his daughter’s eleventh birthday. Ten years was long enough to wake up every morning telling himself his work was enough. No matter how many broken bodies he put back together or how many lives he saved, he still felt empty inside.
He’d tried once, to put it behind him. On a miserable night shortly after the funerals, when he’d hit bottom, Katie had come to him. Sweet, innocent Katie, his sister’s best friend, wearing her heart on her sleeve.
She’d held him, talked to him, made love with him—and in that small window of time he’d felt peace. But afterward, the guilt had nearly crushed him—and Katie. It still hurt, the way he’d treated her.
His mind drifted. It had been a close call this afternoon on that hot, dusty road, but the mama and baby had survived. He’d damn near lost it when he’d drawn that tiny little body into the world. Mad as a little hornet, she’d started squalling as soon as he’d cleared away the amniotic fluid. Despite the temper, she’d been a dainty little girl with dark fuzz covering her little round head, and milky-blue eyes sure to turn dark.
Suddenly it had been Lauren there on her mommy’s tummy, and Candy gazing down at her daughter with dark, shining eyes. It was too much for one man to bear, this crushing grief that never let him rest, no matter how tired he made himself. God knew, he’d fought it, pretending that he had put the grief and despair behind him, hoping he could make the pretense real if he repeated the lie often enough.
Only now he’d simply stopped caring. He couldn’t fight any longer. He missed his girls. If there was a heaven—and he had no faith that there was—he wanted to be there with them.
His parents and his sister would mourn for him, he knew, and that hurt. But Mom and Pop had each other, and his baby sister had her friends and her job as a social worker. And sweet little Katie? He did regret not being able to make amends for the way he’d treated her. He tried, but every time he was home, she made it a point to avoid him. Not that he blamed her.
He smiled a little sadly as he drained the last drop from the bottle, then let it fall to the mattress. Head swimming, he unzipped the duffel bag at his feet and took out the .44 Magnum his dad had given him when he hired on with MWL.
“Keep it loaded and never point it at anyone you’re not willing to watch die,” his dad had said in a steely voice Elliot had never heard before.
Even as he slipped the barrel between his lips, he grieved a little when he thought about how upset Pop would be if he ever found out it was his gun that had fired the bullet into his son’s brain.
Elliot closed his eyes and his finger tightened on the trigger.
Washington, D.C.
The tall, white-haired gentleman with chiseled features, close-cropped white beard and military bearing who stepped from the elevator of the historic Willard Hotel and turned left was familiar with the agony of war and the sorrow of its innocent victims.
Though he no longer wore the olive drab of the U.S. Army, seventy-year-old Jonathan Dalton’s dedication to peace and freedom for all was still the abiding force in his life. To that end, a few years after resigning his commission he had begun using his skills and training to aid victims of abuse and oppression all over the world.
One by one he had recruited others to this same cause, fellow warriors with expertise in a wide range of fields, from medicine to demolition—men he trusted with his life and his honor, men willing to lay down their lives to make the world a better place.
For a long time there had been only five, an elite force of tough, dedicated commandos who had been sadly disillusioned after the Vietnam War. Few knew of their existence, and those who did had been sworn to secrecy as a condition of receiving their help. One of the few, a forward-thinking leader of an emerging nation in South America, had given them the name by which they were now known—the Noble Men—after they had successfully thwarted the overthrow of his government by dissidents.
Over the years others had joined the cause, good and valiant men all. As the original five men became more deeply involved in raising families and building businesses, they’d gone on fewer missions. Still deeply involved, however, the original five conscientiously considered every plea for help, accepting more than they declined.
Scattered across the continental U.S. now, where each had lucrative business and investment interests, they routinely communicated by secure phone lines and e-mail when security wasn’t crucial. But this mission was special.
King Marcus Sebastiani of Montebello was both a friend and, because of a past mission in his own land, a fellow comrade-in-arms. It had been his urgent, though rushed, telephone call to Jonathan’s private line at his Texas home yesterday morning that had brought the five Noble Men together tonight.
The room Jonathan sought was at the end of a dogleg corridor. Unlike the others he passed, its twin doors were unmarked. Officially, it was listed on the hotel’s roster as a house suite held in reserve for unexpected VIP guests. Occasionally it was even used for that purpose. Far more often, however, the three rooms beyond those doors served as a meeting place for some very hush-hush groups known only to a select few, extremely senior officials in the uppermost echelons of the intelligence community.
Satisfied that he was unobserved, Jonathan lifted a large, suntanned hand and rapped twice. An instant
