hung up on Price. He didn’t need to dignify her last remark. It was less a catty jab at his ego than it was an admonition of concern for the deadly waters he was wading in.
“Rest and recuperation?” Anibella asked, her eyebrow rising over one hazel jewel of an iris.
“It’s what I mean it to be. I’ve been up all night and have been involved in several combative actions since last night,” Bolan replied. He pocketed the cell phone. “Do you have any quarters for me to wash up and take a short nap? All I need is a spigot and a comfortable chair.”
Anibella’s shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly, but she chuckled to hide her disappointment. “This is the governor’s mansion, Señor Cooper.”
She extended her hand to him and he took it tentatively. She guided him, launching into a practiced tour-guide speech, talking about the guest rooms and facilities that the grand home had for visitors and residents alike.
“I personally have gone to great lengths to ensure that guest accommodations are the equal of the highest-rated hotels on the beach,” Anibella stated, her arm now crooked with his. She was tall, and her shoulder came up to the bottom peak of muscle that slid between Bolan’s biceps and triceps muscles. She was only a fist’s height shorter than the big American, wearing three-inch heels that she walked on with the grace and deliberation of a black widow. “Your quarters will not only have full high-speed satellite Internet connection to run a full office out of, but all the comforts of home.”
She lowered her voice, thick-lashed lids drooping seductively over her eyes. “Wherever that may be.”
Bolan shrugged, loosening her grip on his forearm. “I have a couple of places, but they’re strictly utilitarian. I’m on the road too much to lay down roots.”
Anibella grinned. “You’re always welcome in Casa Brujillo.”
Bolan stopped at the door. His laptop case and war bag hung from his left hand, and he disentangled his right arm from Anibella’s to open the guest room. “Send me horchata and a burrito, carne asada.”
“Legitimate or North American fast-food style?” Brujillo asked.
“Legitimate. I’ll take a shower while I wait.”
“Would you care for some company?” Anibella asked.
“I’m a man who usually stays away from married women.”
Anibella Brujillo smiled widely. “I’ll have to work on that ‘usually.’”
“I’m certain you will,” Bolan replied, closing the door behind him.
ANIBELLA BRUJILLO WATCHED the big American step into the shower and pull the curtain. She had a slender fiber-optic camera mounted just above the nozzle, enabling her to watch her quarry at all times. Some people felt that the shower was a secure location, with running water and loud echoes and the security of the shower curtain, but Anibella had made certain that she had technological means around those. She had microphones installed with digital filters that ignored white sound while picking up vibrations in the normal conversational range of the human voice.
Her husband knew that she had put in some extra work to enhance security at the mansion. What he was ignorant of, however, was the tap that she had placed, so she could put anyone in the mansion under her magnifying glass without them being the wiser.
The American’s body was lean, but rippling with curves of muscle. He had very little body fat, and his limbs moved with grace and agility as he washed off the stink of cordite and perspiration from the earlier battle. The Santa Muerte high priestess watched with rapt attention as Bolan turned and twisted, cleaning himself thoroughly, then stood, head hung, letting hot water splash onto his back to massage tired muscles.
Even when he was naked, Anibella couldn’t tell the man’s age. The tightness of his long, straight limbs showed the body of an almost fanatical athlete. The last thing she’d seen that resembled the man was carved from marble and meant to represent Ares or Herakles. Had the warrior on her screen been born two millennia sooner, he’d have been worshiped as a god-king. It was no wonder that Agent Matt Cooper had been considered a one-man solution to rampant organized crime and terrorism by the Mexican president.
Unfortunately, for the first lady, the tall, powerful warrior in the shower had made no phone calls that she could listen in on, accessed no computer data that her cameras in other rooms could glean off the laptop monitor.
“Ah, Martha,” Anibella whispered. “He is a wily creature. He is aware that he is being watched. His senses are as sharp as his skill in battle.”
“Did you say something, darling?” Emilio Brujillo’s voice called from his office in the next room.
“I am just saying my prayers,” she told her husband. “Giving thanks for Agent Cooper’s protection this morning.”
The governor stood in the door. Though his lined face showed weariness, he still was straight and tall, not leaning. His deeply lined smile shone with the light of a man of twenty. “And I give thanks for you, my dear. If you had not requested that I send for him, we surely would have been lost.”
Anibella closed her laptop and walked over to her husband, embracing him, feeling the hidden strength in his frame. Strong arms wrapped around her and he kissed her passionately. For a moment, the first lady imagined the Greek god who had finished bathing on her screen, but the passion of the governor swept over her, and she remembered why she had married this man as he picked her up like a doll, carrying her to their bed.
As passionate a crusader for honest government, Emilio Brujillo was just as passionate a lover. Anibella pushed aside her thoughts of plotting, succumbing to a wave of sexual bliss.
THE EXECUTIONER WAS CERTAIN he was being watched by pinhole cameras, and didn’t bother scanning the room for bugs. It was a matter of course that guest rooms in the homes of heads of state were under all forms of high-tech surveillance. However, since the only secrets Bolan would reveal were the contours of his naked body, he didn’t pay mind to the omnipresent feeling of being watched. A quick, hot shower scoured him clean of the stickiness of exertion and the stench of gunpowder. He appraised himself in the mirror, looking for bruises or signs of lacerations that would need covering to prevent infection. As he made a visual check, he also stretched and tested his muscles and joints, looking to see if he’d overstressed anything, the effects of minor tendon or muscle tears hidden by the effects of adrenaline and seratonin in his bloodstream.
Satisfied that he was healthy and hearty, he slipped into a pair of cargo shorts and greeted the servant who had just knocked at the door. A cart was wheeled in. Bolan was impressed by the savory repast arranged on the plate, heaping side servings of delicious-smelling refried beans and spicy rice accompanying them. The burritos were thick and bulging, in soft wraps. They were delicious and filling to the point where he was nearly groggy. He washed them and the side dishes down with two soft drinks, drunk straight from chilled glass bottles. He saved the horchata for after his nap.
Bolan looked around the room, then crawled onto the bed. Silk sheets enveloped his freshly scrubbed flesh, and the ceiling fan pushed down a cool breeze over the soldier’s bare skin. Though he tried not to concern himself with the hidden cameras and microphones, he couldn’t help but know where they were situated, if only from his familiarity with covert surveillance. There were eyes and ears in likely places, his sharp combat senses picking them out with little difficulty. The Executioner pushed his Desert
