lineofbattlechapter1part2

                                      Line of Battle

                                    Chapter 1, Part 2

        Before Mara turned, she arranged her face. It was a habit she'd perfected at the age of seven. Her father made her practice in front of a mirror. He wouldn't take her to the meet the new president in the Rose Garden otherwise.
        She could hardly remember herself back then, so innocent, back before the revelations about Central America. And then that horrid business in El Salvador.
        "Caine. My God. What on earth are you doing in this small, insignificant little country on the edge of nowhere?"
        A gnome of a man, Caine had increased in girth and decreased in height. His eyes were too large for his face, one seeming the slightest bit higher than the other. It gave her the sense of being not quite balanced. And she thought it strange, unlikely. Alexander Caine was far too important a man to show up in Kathmandu. "My dear Mara. You've blossomed. What a catch you've become. Any prospects?"
       She extended her hand. "I'm so sorry. It's Sir Caine now, isn't it? Congratulations, long overdue."
        He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips. Then inspected her nails. "Too much digging, then?" he said. "Archeologists aren't supposed to do the work, dear. It's why God created the masses. Salt of the earth and all that."
        Caine passed a thick arm about her waist, pulling her against him. "You haven't deigned to answer my first question, I've noticed. Taking lessons from Daddy these days? And how is the beast? Sullen and bitchy, I hear."
        She laughed, untangling herself from Caine's grasp.
        "You'll have to call him and argue it over the phone. Better yet, visit. Between the war, the elections, and the 'lost' plutonium rumors in the states, he's driving Mother nuts. Daddy needs an equally sullen and bitchy old bastard to give him a run for his money."
        Caine's eyes slid over her body, looking everywhere but her face. It created a disturbing sensation of heat along her skin. She became uncomfortable. Annoyed.
        "So what do you think of the Ganang?" she said. "Odd, don't you think?"
        "I think your father would froth at the mouth if he knew you were trying to finagle an audience. If word got out, dear God."
        "I'm a cultural anthropologist, Alex. Never a politician."
        "Everyone is a politician, dear." His lips tightened a bit at the corners. He lowered his voice. "And rumor has it the Ganang have been moving arms through from the Chinese."
    "If you listen to rumors, everyone in the whole damn region supplies the insurgents. Pakistan, India. Even the king."
        A marked drop in conversation surrounded the three of them.
        "Odd sort of democracy we've propped up here, don't you think?" She caught and held a sidelong glance from the Belgian representative. Belgium, after all, had been late in coming to the table. They had yet to announce an official capacity. "'Democracy' being the confusing term now that the king has dissolved parliament." And she lowered her voice. "Have you heard, Alex? He's created a battalion for 'special operations.' People are disappearing. Remind you of anything? Like Honduras in the eighties?"
        Caine grasped her above the elbow and guided her a few feet to the side. Delphau followed with practiced grace, gathering two full glasses of bubbly.
        "I should think comments like those are better kept to oneself, Mara," Caine said.
        "Especially now." She mimicked his accent, pulling her arm from his grasp.
        "Yes," Caine said. "Especially now."
        Delphau handed her a glass, then dabbed his handkerchief to his forehead, but Caine     seemed immune to ordinary influences. She found his monotonous tone strangely cooling.
        "Especially now because of the war on terrorism or because of the worldwide tendency for losing plutonium? And we thought only the Russians were that dumb," she said. "Just exactly how does one lose plutonium? Daddy says send it US Post."
        But Caine was distracted, staring in the direction of the king. "I should think if one wants to lose something, one would put the government in charge of it," he said. "A tactic perfected by the Russians."
        She followed Caine's gaze. "Silly men," she said. "They think they've won the 'little country lottery - high grade uranium in the upper digs. They're in over their heads, but they don't know it, do they? Haven't they learned anything from El Salvador?" And she waited before she said the last word. She watched Caine's eyes, his mouth.
        Nicaragua, she said.
        She finished her champagne in one long draught.
        A current of air flowed about the three of them. The heat was beyond bearable. She placed the flute of her glass against her cheek. Cool.
        "And how is it between you and Daddy these days, Alex?" she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "Who's winning?"
        Caine avoided her eyes. He stared just below, at her lips. Then at her throat, pale, perfect.
        "One never wins, dear. One guides, directs. The most one can hope is to ride the bull longer than the other man. And jump to the side before one gets trampled."
        She stifled a laugh. "What? You've gone to proverbs of the rodeo? And coming from a Brit no less." She intentionally ran one hand behind her neck then around to the front of her chest, drawing his eyes that direction. And Caine's eyes lingered, investigating the delicate beads of sweat that lay between her breasts, and then the breasts themselves. And, she felt certain, her nipples, taut, irritated by the taffeta.
        "Is that what Daddy learned in Nicaragua?" she whispered. "To jump before being trampled?"
        Caine's eyes rose suddenly, catching her off guard. "If I were your father, I'd haul you out of here tout de suite. Things are going to get nasty here. India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and China, all nuclear, all banging heads in the land of prayer flags. America at war in Afghanistan. And now rattling the sword at Hussein. The entire region is a powder keg. No place for intelligent, lovely young women these days. Especially a young woman whose father has such a penchant for making enemies."
        The corner of his lip began a slight tremble. "You're a walking target, dear. Go home."
        She lowered her arm and laughed.
        "But Sir Caine, I was born with an affinity for insignificant, uncivilized countries halfway around the world from Capitol Hill."
        "Capitol Hill? Or do you mean Daddy?" No one and no place on earth is halfway around the world from your father any longer, dear. I'd lay odds he tracks you with his own personal satellite."
        And finally, their eyes locked. It was a thrill she felt, wasn't it? Because she could see in his eyes that he wanted something. And she was ready to bargain.
        "Then I think a long anthropological study of the isolated mountain clans is in order. Have you heard? Cannibalism has been revived. That's the rumor anyway. I should think a man with your background would find it more than appealing."
        Caine's eyes narrowed.
        She'd seen that look before. It was El Mozote, the horror in El Salvador, wasn't it? But no. It was after that. During Iran-Contra. That was when things had changed between her father and Caine. And Caine had been right. The American people are fools, she remembered him saying to her father. But not idiots.
        Caine took one of her hands gently in his, as though to emphasize, but she thought it too intimate, as though they might be lovers. He looked pointedly at the Ganang. "An audience," he said. "That's all?"
        And this was the moment when she heard them again. All those men in the city. They were crowing.
        For a few seconds, both Mara and Caine looked toward the windows. No one else seemed to notice.
        Caine let go her hand and picked up his drink, his fingers massaging the glass. Scotch on ice. She'd made it for him a hundred times. Her father and Caine had stayed closeted for hours trying to limit the political fallout over Iran-Contra. She'd carried drink after drink into her father's study, hearing bits and pieces of conversation. Pieces she would later fit together to make a whole.
        She looked away, back to the Ganang tribesmen, illiterate nomadic shepherds of goats, sheep, and yaks. Their lands lay on an ancient route to China, trading over the top of the Himalayan ridge. In the eighties, rumor had it, the Ganang had run large amounts of gems, opium, and guns.
        "So tell me, lovely Mars," Caine said.
        She started. Few people knew her nickname.
        "If not the Ganang, then who provides the insurgents their apparently unlimited supply of arms?" He had leaned in her direction. How cool his body seemed, as though he could not be fully alive.
        "Daddy," she said, not batting an eye.
        Caine emitted a burst of sound, rather strangled at the end because she didn't smile. And her hands, well, she glanced downward. She understood how they gave her away.
        "That would be foolish," he said, his voice sharp.
        "Destabilize," she said. "And occupy. Isn't that what Daddy always says?"
        "Careful, child. You may find yourself on the opposite side from your father. I advise against it."
         "What would you know of my battles with my father?" Her sudden anger surprised her. And her cheeks and forehead flushed.
        This is what people will remember of her that night, her bloom. She was stunning, they'll say. Lovely. It's the kind of remark a person will make after a terrible accident, as though memory must strike a balance, and that only the pure can be sacrificed.

                                            *

        It was nearly dawn. Mara had left the gala hours ago. Caine promised he'd call. So when the phone rang, she picked it up, sure of herself.
        "You're still awake?" her father said. "It's three in the morning there. What have you been doing? Fucking?"
        She almost dropped the phone.
        What could he know? That she'd talked with Caine? Sure. About sex? He was fishing.
        "I'm jetlagging," she said. "Besides, it's too hot to sleep." And she'd forced a smile because she understood about inflection, how your voice sounds different when you're smiling. But all of the sudden, she couldn't breathe. He's your father, she reminded herself. He wouldn't hurt you. Not his own daughter.
        But it didn't calm her. It made it worse, her panic. And she waited, thinking about Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua. Her father, Edmond Adams, had been complicit in all of them. Each one.
        "I hear Caine's in your town," he said.
        She started shaking. He brought up Caine, not she.
        "Yes. We spoke tonight. He hasn't changed." Had she been followed? Was Delphau wearing a wire? Were people assigned to her? It never occurred to her before, that he'd keep her covered. I'm an idiot, she thought. A complete idiot.
        Neither of them spoke.
        "You should spend time with him if you get the chance." He paused.
        To let it sink in, she told herself.
        "I'm sure you could learn a lot from a man like Caine."
        She let out a long, slow breath. Incredible. Unbelievable. "What are you saying?" she said.
       "Crazy Brit. Has the damnedest idea about rodeos and bulls."
        Her hair went up in a wave.
        "Now what Brit would think he could ride a goddamn bull? Churchill would have crapped."
        She searched her purse, looking for a cigarette.
        "You know what I say about bulls, Mara?"
        Her hand shook as she lit up. "What, Daddy?"
       "You shoot the fucker once. Right between the eyes."