Amok by Eisler Barry

Author:Eisler, Barry [Eisler, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Crime, Mystery, Suspense
ISBN: 9781542005661
Amazon: B09C681LRX
Goodreads: 58825654
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2022-12-06T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Isobel stared at Santiago. The man with the cut shoulder. Who she’d been thinking about, daydreaming about. He wasn’t who she thought he was? Who was he?

One of those Americans. Your first thought was the right thought.

And she had helped him. That might have made Falintil angry. But she was a doctor. She had no choice.

“What do you mean?” she said, afraid to say more.

“He’s a spy. Helping Kopassus.”

Instantly Isobel felt sick to her stomach. She took a step back and sank heavily into the chair she had just gotten up from.

“Don’t be afraid,” Santiago said. “Falintil knows you didn’t know.”

She wondered how anyone could be so confident of what she did or didn’t know, and sensed Santiago was saying it to lull her. Which only made her more afraid.

“I don’t . . . How do you know he’s a spy?”

“We have people at the hotel where he’s staying. They saw his interaction with the Indonesian soldiers and thought it was strange. Perhaps . . . an excuse for him to come to the clinic, hmm?”

Though she had suspected Santiago was with Falintil, and knew that he knew she suspected, still neither of them had ever acknowledged anything. And yet now Santiago was speaking on Falintil’s behalf. He was even describing Falintil as we. Some frightening, invisible line had been crossed.

For a moment she couldn’t speak. Then she said, “I’m sorry, I . . . I don’t understand.”

Santiago looked at her and said nothing, and suddenly she was sure Falintil knew about the videos, and Beeler, and everything. But would they be angry? Getting the videos to the Western media would help all of Timor. She had only kept her plans from Falintil out of fear of . . . fear of . . .

Of getting involved.

Yes, of getting involved. With Falintil or any other group. How could she know who to trust? The videos were too important, the girls’ stories too precious to let anyone else handle. She wouldn’t let anyone else direct her. Or veto her. Or try to make her do anything she didn’t know was right for those girls.

“My question is why,” Santiago said. “Why would he be interested in the clinic, hmm?”

Santiago had a habit of ending many of his sentences with hmm?, even ones that weren’t technically questions. She had always found the habit strange, but never intimidating. She felt different now.

“What do you mean, ‘interested’? This interaction with the soldiers . . . He came here with a bad cut. I sewed it up. Thirty stitches. I think that was his interest.”

She realized Santiago seemed . . . different. Ordinarily he was quiet and deferential to the point of meekness. She was seeing a hidden side of him. The Falintil side.

Not a hidden side. The real side. What he shows you at the clinic is an act.

“You sewed it yourself?” Santiago said.

Isobel was suddenly worried. “Yes. I . . . He didn’t want a nurse to do it.”

Did he know more? For

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