The Commander. Kay David

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СКАЧАТЬ broke the tension by moving up to where Andres stood. He extended his hand, then his eyes widened as Andres lifted his own, now swathed in bandages. “You were hit?” Jeff asked in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell us—”

      “No, no. I wasn’t shot.” He dismissed the inquiry with a shake of his head. When Carmen had arrived at the hospital with fresh clothes for him, she’d taken one look at his hand and forced him to have someone take care of it. He’d bruised three knuckles so badly the doctor had insisted on wrapping them. “It’s nothing.”

      Behind him, Bering and Richard returned, Carmen helping them distribute the coffee they’d brought. Earlier Andres had been annoyed by her presence. Now he was glad. She handed out packets of sugar, then she made conversation and kept things cordial. Andres was suddenly grateful; he wasn’t sure he could have kept up the facade for much longer.

      Stephen returned with the doctor a moment later. They stepped to one side, isolated by a bumper of space from the waiting officers. “They’re still in surgery,” the man said, holding up his hands as if to ward off their questions. He was young but looked exhausted, his jaw dark with stubble, his shoulders a weary slump beneath his pristine white coat. “I’m Dr. Maness, Dr. Edwardson’s assistant. She’s still operating. The bullet’s currently lodged in the diaphragm behind the patient’s lung on the left side. It nicked the lobe before it stopped.”

      His gaze went to Phillip, then on to the other men until it came to Andres. Despite Phillip’s age and obvious status, the doctor seemed to sense Andres was the man he should be addressing. Andres hardly noticed this, though. All he felt was a rush of anxiety as their eyes met and locked.

      “I’m sorry,” the doctor continued. “You’re just going to have to be patient. If you want something to do, then go downstairs.” He let his gaze go over all of them this time. He wore thick glasses and his eyes were bleary and sad behind them. “There’s a cafeteria…and a chapel.”

      ANDRES DIDN’T LOOK for either place. He certainly wasn’t hungry and he’d given up searching for comfort from above a long time ago. Instead he went outside. He wanted isolation and some distance from the crowd upstairs, stopping first at the hospital gift shop to buy a pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked in as many years as he hadn’t prayed, but the craving had hit him and there was nothing to do but satisfy it.

      Cupping his bandaged hand around the flame of his match, he was lighting the first one when Carmen opened the door of the hospital’s atrium. As she walked across the flagstones toward him, he jumped to his feet, his pulse suspended in midbeat. She shook her head as soon as she saw him and motioned for him to sit back down.

      “There’s no news,” she said. “I just came outside for some air.” She stared curiously at the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “What are you doing? You don’t smoke.”

      He was angry at seeing Phillip McKinney, angry over Lena’s injury and angry at himself. With a pointed disregard for Carmen’s feelings, Andres unleashed the emotion and sent it flying toward her, his words scathing. “You don’t know me that well, Carmen. Don’t tell me what I do and what I don’t do.”

      She blinked at his tone, and he immediately felt like a bastard. Instead of apologizing, he turned his face away from her and took a deep drag on the cigarette. The acrid smoke seared his lungs with a sting so painful it brought a wave of dizziness with it as well.

      Without saying a word, she sat down on the concrete bench beside him. They weren’t the only ones in the small, walled garden. There were other smokers who’d been banished, and they all wore the same worried expressions. No one saw the carefully tended flowers or heard the bubbling fountain. Andres studied a young man on the other side of the patio, his hand on the head of a young girl who was dancing a doll along the edge of a low concrete wall.

      The silence between he and Carmen built and hung, then finally she spoke softly, almost reluctantly, it sounded to Andres. “This woman who was shot. Lena McKinney…you know her, don’t you? From before. You didn’t just meet today.”

      It took him a moment to decide how to answer, then he realized there was only one way. He had to tell her the truth; she deserved it.

      “Yes, I know Lena.” He looked at the cigarette between his fingers. “I know her very well.”

      “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

      “I didn’t think it was important.”

      She shifted on the bench. He could feel her eyes on him. “You didn’t think it was important?” She shook her head and smiled softly. “That usually means it’s just the opposite.”

      “Carmen…”

      She stopped him. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Andres.”

      “No.” He rose abruptly. “I do owe you that. At least.” He took a final, death-defying drag on the cigarette, then crushed it under his shoe. He turned and looked at her. “Lena and I were engaged at one time. We were going to marry.”

      “To marry!” Her dark eyes widened in surprise. “You mean she was your fiancée?”

      “That’s right.”

      “Wh-what happened? Why didn’t you get married?”

      “It didn’t work out.” His tone defied her to ask for more information. “I went back to Miami.”

      “And?”

      “And what? That was it.”

      “You never saw her again?”

      “Not until this morning.”

      Carmen sat immobile on the bench, a pinprick of guilt stinging Andres as he looked at her. He should never have slept with her. She wasn’t crying, but she looked as if she wanted to. Beneath her expression, there was a gentle dignity that made him feel even worse.

      “Does she still love you?”

      Back in the plane, Lena’s gaze had held nothing but disgust when she’d looked at him, yet she’d protected him with her life and now she might have to pay up. Did that mean she loved him or had she just been doing her job? He didn’t know…so he didn’t answer.

      “I guess that wasn’t the right question, was it?” Carmen asked.

      His hand suddenly ached, a striking, sharp pain that bypassed the painkiller the doctor had insisted he take. He cradled the injured fingers with his other palm. “What do you mean?”

      “I should have asked, ‘Do you still love her?”’

      This time she waited even longer for his answer. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to reply, she stared at him a minute more, then she stood and walked away. He watched her disappear through the hospital door, and after it closed behind her, he reopened the package of cigarettes and tapped out another one. When he lit the end, the match trembled in his hand.

      TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the double glass doors opened once more. Dropping his cigarette, Andres jumped to his feet again, his heart pounding as Jeff McKinney crossed the small patio and came in his direction.

      The nearby ashtray was overflowing with butts, and Andre’s stomach felt sour and sick. With nothing else to do, he’d been СКАЧАТЬ