She didn’t give in to the temptation to glare at him, or the even stronger one to stick out her tongue. The very impulse was childish and absurd, given the desperate nature of their situation, but she was feeling childish and stubborn.
“I’m in,” she said.
He said nothing, giving her a sideways glance, but she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he wished she’d given the other answer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was close to dusk when MacGowan pulled the car off the paved road. He’d already made the phone calls he’d needed, then deliberately smashed the phone so his charges wouldn’t be tempted to use it. They had berths on the Martha Rose, a Nigerian freighter sailing from Puerto Claro to Spain tomorrow night at midnight, and in the meantime he needed to keep Beth and Dylan stashed while he dealt with a few things, including forged passports for the three of them. Tomas could dig up internet photos of them and go from there in making the phony documents without them having to provide photos. Tomas was a genius when it came to forgeries, and a genius was what he needed.
“Have you called Peter yet?” Bastien Toussaint had asked him at the end of their short conversation. “He’s been trying to get through to you.”
“I’ll just bet he has,” MacGowan drawled.
“What do you want me to tell him?”
MacGowan only thought about it for a minute. “Tell him to watch his back.” And he broke the connection.
Dylan had already abandoned the car to take a leak, but Beth had stayed put, watching MacGowan out of those unnervingly calm eyes. “Okay, Sister Beth,” he said, coming over to the side door and opening it. “Come on out.”
She made no effort to move, just looked up at him. “I don’t need to use the bathroom.”
“The bathroom, as you call it, is the bushes, and I don’t care whether you use it or not. It’s time to change.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if we go into Puerto Claro looking like we do we’ll be picked up in no time. I’ve got a much better idea.”
“What?”
He tossed the yards of black and white fabric into her arms. “Meet Sister Maria Elizabeth.”
“No.” She tried to shove it back at him.
“Don’t give me grief. When the church abandoned your mission they left a shitload of things behind, including clothes. No one ever looks too closely at a nun, particularly in a Catholic country. You keep your head down and your mouth shut and let me do the talking and everything will be fine.”
She opened her mouth to say no again, but something in his face stopped her. She was learning, MacGowan thought. Dylan chose that moment to come around the side of the car, chuckling. “Aw, c’mon, Sister Beth. Don’t be such a spoilsport.”
“You too, kiddo,” MacGowan said, tossing another bundle of cloth at Dylan.
The boy actually looked pleased. “I get to be a priest?”
“I’m the priest. Nuns always travel in pairs.”
For a moment the boy’s face was blank with incomprehension. And then he understood. “Oh, no. Hell, no. No fucking way. If there need to be two nuns then you can dress in drag, not me.”
“You’d never pass as a priest. Sorry, kid, but you’re too young. Beth can show you how the outfit goes.”
“I have no idea,” Beth protested, looking at the various pieces of fabric. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Yeah,” Dylan said. “Why don’t we just . . .”
“Enough!” MacGowan thundered, and his squabbling charges fell silent. “I’ve had enough of the two of you. I don’t give a flying fuck how much your families are willing to pay – some things just aren’t worth it. I hear one more complaint, one more disagreement, and I’m leaving you here to find your way home on your own. And I wouldn’t give you very good odds.”
Dylan looked mutinous, but he kept his mouth shut. Beth climbed out of the car, tossing the fabric over the open door. “Come on, Dylan,” she said in a soft voice, “we’ll figure it out together. And just think, it’s going to make one hell of a story later on.”
“I’m not telling anyone I dressed in drag,” he muttered.
“It’s up to you. All I know is I want to get home, and I think you do too. So let’s see how good we are at being nuns. I bet we’re a lot closer to God than MacGowan is.”