Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(56)

Then he was gone.

Minnie dropped her head and Calli moved to put her arm around her shoulders, knowing she wanted comfort. Yet Minnie didn’t cry and she didn’t seem sad. She looked at Calli with a crooked smile. “He’s off to be a soldier. That’s what Duardo is, and I love him for it.”

*

Three hours later, Joshua arrived home, dusty and wrinkled, yet calm. He took a moment to assure Beryl he was unharmed, as she fluttered around him. “They got us off the island first. Then they went back to help the Vistarians,” he said. “Escobedo said no harm would come to Americans. I never thought they would sacrifice their own countrymen to live up to that promise.”

“Sacrifice?” Beryl said sharply.

“Two died in the first attack,” he said. “Two more, later. They were civilians, working the trucks. Hell, I knew one of them.” He sighed.

Calli thought of Duardo, itching to get back to base, yet detouring by more than six hours to make sure he got her and Minnie home safely. Nick, who’s first thought and first action had been to arrange that safe return. “Vistarians are an honorable race. They have strength of character you don’t see often these days.”

“No, by God,” Joshua agreed. He plucked at his sweaty shirt. “I need a shower, and then we must make plans and phone calls.”

*

For the next twenty-four hours they all remained in the apartment, with the television on the government station. The only other commercial Vistarian channel had abruptly gone off the air at midnight with no announcement or warning. The government channel reported the news as it developed, the anchorwoman speaking in subdued, sedate tones. Joshua, who’s Spanish was stronger than anyone’s, translated when asked. Mostly he sat staring at the screen, his brow wrinkled, deep in thought.

They tried CNN, available on cable, only the States had not yet taken any notice of events in Vistaria. The major headlines focused on the President’s tour of a Detroit automobile factory. The Acapulco station merely mentioned that there had been a riot at the Garrido silver mine on Vistaria. Then it spent twice the air time reporting on Jose Escobedo’s daughter. Carmen Escobedo was vacationing in Acapulco for the summer holidays, energetically celebrating her graduation from Harvard law school with various American and Mexican celebrities who gravitated to the seaside resort every summer.

Joshua, when he was not watching the television, kept them busy.

“You must pack three ways,” he told them. “Until we know if this is the start of a full out revolution, or just a fart in a bottle, we have to assume the worst. You pack one small bag with every essential you can’t live without if you’re crossing national borders—passport and other ID, money, Tampax.”

“Dad!” Minnie gasped, shocked.

He shook his finger at her. “I mean it, Minerva. When you’re on the run, you won’t be able to stop at the nearest 7-11 for that sort of stuff. Take it with you. Only, pack as lightly as you can because you’re going to be carrying all the way. The second packing is a second pack or a suitcase you can carry. That one has less essential stuff. Clothes, toiletries, anything you could live without if you and the suitcase part ways.”

“And the third pack?” Calli asked.

“Everything else,” he said simply. “Suitcases, boxes and crates, ready to ship. It may never leave Vistaria, although we should be ready if the opportunity occurs.”

*

On the second night they went to bed early, all of them tired from packing and worrying. Calli hoped she would sleep well. She had a feeling that sleep would be in short supply for a while.

The fighting at the silver mine had ceased at sunset. The rebels receded back into the forest and disappeared. The army combed the island and established the raid had been launched from boats in the channel and the rebels had made their escape that way, too. They had gone back to their mountain hideouts.

That evening the government station showed footage of the President visiting the silver mine and the families of the victims of the raid. Jose Escobedo had reassured Vistarians repeatedly that the raid could not possibly presage further violence, because the rebels had achieved their apparent aim—the mine had shut down. In addition, the Americans had fled the mine and now considered leaving the country. Joshua translated the rest with a sour look. The loss of American know-how would mean the end of the mine and the doom of Vistaria’s prosperity for the near future. When Vistarians felt the pinch of a tight economy once more they would do well to remember this sad day...

“Politicians,” he said, making it sound like a curse. “Even Escobedo cannot resist scoring points from this thing.”

Calli’s attention, though, was skewered by the grainy outside-broadcast images on the screen. Nicolás Escobedo had also been on the island and walked amongst the small crowd of people that followed the President. As the camera panned past him, he turned to speak to someone by his shoulder, the square jaw outlined by the last of the summer daylight.

Her heart stirred painfully. She forced herself to look away from the television. Minnie watched her and said nothing.

Joshua turned the television off after that. “I think it might be all right,” he declared, rubbing his hand through his hair, scrubbing at it. “I think it was a one-off thing, like the President said. Nothing else has happened for over twenty-four hours. We might be okay.”