Shades of Gray Read Online Free PDF Page B

vulnerable, and Lucio’s swift defection from Serene’s regime had given Sabin and those like him a new war. Politics mattered not at all to them, only fighting. Lucio had offered a fight, and they had joined him.
    And now, waiting patiently, Sabin felt little curiosity about his leader’s reasons for wanting the woman. It would be, no doubt, because she could be used as a weapon in some way.
    “Andres will see to it that she keeps to the grounds, where he can protect her,” Lucio said, musing. “It would be foolish to storm his little fortress, of course. So we shall have to draw the woman out.” He glanced up, saw Sabin waiting patiently, and gestured. “We will discuss it later. Dismissed.”
    Sabin saluted again and left the cave.
    Alone, Lucio absently watched the lamplight throw weird shadows on the rough walls. He could hear, out in the cloying heat and damp of their jungle camp, the voices of his men; he didn’t think about them. He thought about the woman—and about Andres.
    The one could be used to break the other. Once in his possession, the woman would be the most powerful weapon he could hope to use against his bitter enemy. He hadn’t decided how best to use that weapon, but he would. Like all his weapons, she would be used to maximum effect.
    He meant to destroy Andres Sereno.
    “
What kind of man does that make you
?”
    The question echoed in his mind long after Sara had disappeared back toward the house. He stood gazing at the beautiful mountains that not even half a century of revolution had been able to destroy, and he couldn’t find an answer to her question.
    Did the end justify the means? Did it matter at all that he had allowed them here so they could have been closely observed by the people who intended to bring them to justice? Would Sara understand if he explained that he had been asked by the head of a secret American agency to provide a base for the terrorists just so that they
could
be observed and studied, their weaknesses pinpointed—their next target identified?
    Perhaps she would understand. Certainly she would forgive him, he thought. And yet he had been unable to offer that simple explanation. It
was
simple and factual, but it was not the entire truth. It was, as he had told her, far more complex than that. It was a matter of favors asked and owed, a matter of desperate need for his country, a matter of a delicate and dangerous chess game where people named as friends were in fact enemies, where people named as enemies were often friends.
    In the end it had been a matter of his own conscience.
    He had not sold them arms or offered aid, merely a base where they could live unmolested. He had helped make their continued existence possible, when he just as easily could have ordered his army to capture them. He could have had them executed or had them thrown into his prison for the duration of their natural lives, actions that most of the world no doubt would have applauded privately, if not publicly.
    Instead he had offered them sanctuary here on Kadeira—in the eyes of the world. In Sara’s eyes. And there had been no connection made by the world or by her when the Final Legion had been quietly and effeciently captured one week after leaving Kadeira, and before they could kill again.
    Only Adrian, the leader of that group, had managed to escape, and he hadn’t been heard of since. The Final Legion had been more or less forgotten in the year since their capture, replaced in the news by other groups. Forgotten by all except those like Sara, who had lost loved ones.
    And by Andres Sereno. He would go to his grave with the blood of their crimes on his soul. But Andres could bear that. He didn’t know if Sara could.
    He left the gazebo, walking slowly back through the garden, his hands in his pockets. He wondered grimly if he would be able to sit across from her at dinner without disgracing himself; his hands always seemed to shake when he was near her.
    She was so lovely … and