Martel jerked the E/M weapon up, the beam hitting the ceiling causing a rumbling noise that began at the point of impact and moved away hitting the edges of the room like ripples from a stone cast into a pond.
 
 

"He does not have the stone!" the voice said, commanding and assured.
 
 

Dingo opened his eyes, not believing who had said it.
 
 

Taia Kwan walked over to her father, folding her hands across her chest. She looked up at him, face hardened and absolutely resilient. Martel smiled, the weapon going to his side as he put out his arm and circled his daughter’s shoulders, pulling her to him.
 
 

"Come back to daddy, dear?" he asked, sarcastically.
 
 

"When it suits me, of course," she replied, nonchalantly as she glared over at Dingo.
 
 

Dingo looked at Taia in astonishment. He couldn’t believe it. She had played the biggest ruse of all on both himself and Rollie! Playing the poor innocent daughter of an international terrorist was a forte for her.
 
 

"Been working the Tyler boys for the stone too long, my dear!" Martel told her, kissing her on the cheek as she stared at Dingo with a smile, raising one eyebrow.
 
 

"It seems like forever!" she replied, chuckling, "I would say for as long as you’ve been sending secondaries to do your dirty work…" she added as Martel stopped smiling and tightened the grip around her shoulders.
 
 

"Loubar unfortunately, developed his own agenda. Pity, if Dingo hadn’t of wasted him in Spain, I would have certainly done the job myself," Martel contended; "Gaining B. Geste’s confidence was excellent, my dear. A fitting callname, Monty…or should I call you Beau….!"
 
 

"Seems we are like family, why not…" Guillermo offered, smiling slightly as Dingo scratched his head.
 
 

"What about the boy? What about Bastion? Taia, have you forgotten about your son?" Dingo asked, amazed that she had seemingly left him out of the picture.
 
 

"Not at all….Bastion is safe at daddy’s home, I’m sure. Actually, right about now, he’s probably working on his advanced warfare video games…" Taia replied, the mental daggers flung deep through Dingo’s heart and mind.
 
 

"What?"
 
 

"Oh, don’t act so hurt, Dingo! Bastion is a real chip off the old block. He actually has acting down quite naturally and his hand to eye coordination is almost as good as his father’s was…" Taia began, moving away from her father and over closer to Dingo.
 
 

"You did me a favor though…" she continued, her face close to his, her smile revealing the twisted family allegiance, "Loubar was getting so boring…after I sent him after Angie!"
 
 

Dingo frowned, trying to stay cool and calm but Guillermo had become a ticking time bomb.
 
 

"You little puta!" he hissed at her as she backed away. Martel placed the E/M weapon against Guillermo’s chest, clucking his tongue.
 
 

"Not nice! Beau….that’s a terrible thing to insult my family! I’m growing impatient now. Tyler, where is the stone?"
 
 

Dingo, still stunned by Taia’s cover-up at brilliantly playing him for over four years, looked up at Martel, then to Taia.
 
 

"I swear, I passed the stone that I thought was real, to Michael Lopez…"
 
 

Martel rolled his eyes; "That’s not the answer I want!"
 
 

He raised the weapon to Dingo’s head again, looking at Taia; "Well, you going to interrupt me again?"
 
 

Taia shook her head, "No, but it’s a waste of energy. I believe him, actually. Now, the person that I believe you really need to talk to is not here."
 
 

Dingo, Guillermo and Martel all looked at Taia at the same time.

Rollie was driving a rental Mercedes, an old one at that, as Angie and Aidan rode in the back seat. Toledo was their destination. Angie was anxious. In all the conversations with her uncle since she had seen her mother, the reports had always been the same. Marta had stayed in a semi-catatonia…sometimes not moving for hours and then, pacing and muttering in an almost manic state.
 
 

Angie remembered that meeting with her mother, the last time she had been in Spain. Her mother had been so devoid of her, not knowing her. Yet, she had for an instant, repeated Angie’s words, actually- the lullaby she had sung to Angie as a child- ‘mija dulce…’.
 
 

"You okay back there?" Rollie asked, looking back in the rear view mirror.
 
 

Angie looked up, her hand over her mouth; "Ah, do you think you could pull over real soon?"
 
 

"What?"
 
 

"Now, Rollie!"
 
 

"Okay! What’s the matter?"
 
 

He pulled the car off the road, somewhere near Toledo but certainly almost desolate with only wide fields around them. Traffic was even light for being almost noon.
 
 

Angie opened the back door, slamming it hard before Aidan could get out behind her and ran over to the edge of a drainage ditch. By the time Rollie got out, pulling Aidan up in his arms and coming over to her, she had finished. She was sitting, with her knees up against her chest, her face between them.
 
 

"What’s this? You’re sick again? Angie?"
 
 

Angie looked up at him, her face revealing her angst and her fears. Rollie could see the paleness, the shivering and he frowned, putting Aidan in his lap as he sat down beside her.
 
 

"Something you want to tell me, Angie…"
 
 

"Yeah, well- not here, not now, you know…and I don’t really know but then again, I do…"
 
 

She put her hand to her lower abdomen and he followed her gesture, his eyes drifting then back to her eyes. Aidan was squirming to be back with Angie.
 
 

"I’m sorry, it’s not what we planned and it’s not really a great time, huh? I mean, we don’t even have Aidan out of diapers and we’re not working and well, no money and my parents were spies and so was your father…and that damn stone is back in our lives as well…!"
 
 

"Bloody awful!" Rollie echoed and she looked up at him, somewhat surprised but then he smiled; "but then again, by the time this new Tyler cruncher arrives, Aidan will be aiming at that bulls’ eye on his little dunny right beside his old man at the big one!"
 
 

Angie stared at Rollie, her mind going blank for a second. Had she heard him correctly? He leaned over and kissed her, exuberantly as she came up for air and looked at him amazed. He was really okay with this, she thought wildly!
 
 

"Okay, as long as you teach Aidan a new trick, maybe it will teach an old dog a new trick as well…" Angie warned him.
 
 

"What?" Rollie shook his head, looking at her in bewilderment.
 
 

She stood up, taking a deep breath in and then smiled at him, taking Aidan from him; "Oh, that trick about putting the toilet seat down when you guys finish your aiming techniques!"
 
 

She walked back to the car, Rollie getting the door for her as he grinned; "Sorry love, old habits die hard…"
 
 

"Umm," she replied, getting in with Aidan.
 
 

Rollie jumped back in the driver’s seat and pulled out on the road again. When Angie had lowered her head, playing again with Aidan, he looked back through the rear view mirror at his wife. By God! he thought to himself, I am going to be with this woman through this entire pregnancy no matter what!
 
 

Angie met his glance in the mirror then, her face flushed slightly, as she promised herself that no matter what, she was going to have a normal pregnancy and a normal delivery with Rollie by her side.
 
 

They rented a room for the night in the same hotel that they had stayed in once before, when they reached Toledo. Aidan was ready for a nap and before heading over to the rest villa to see Marta, Angie decided she needed to rest as well.
 
 

"Are you going to try and reach Guillermo?" Angie asked, crawling into the bed as Rollie sat down on the edge, looking over at Aidan, already asleep in the other bed.
 
 

"No…" he answered, softly, "let’s try to do this whole thing here without any knowledge from the homefront, deal?"
 
 

"No protests from me, Rol," she replied, then pulled off her T-shirt and threw it across the room to a chair.
 
 

Rollie looked at her, standing up from the bed and began to unzip his jeans.
 
 

"What? You going to take a nap too?" she asked, putting her arm across her eyes and yawning.
 
 

He didn’t answer but she felt him slide in beside her, his hand softly brushing over her breasts, their tenderness at this stage in her pregnancy overwhelming now.
 
 

"What?" he asked, concerned as she jumped from his touch.
 
 

"Nothing," she replied, and turned toward him then, her lips meeting his with a tenderness, a softness that made him realize how fragile she really was right now.
 
 

"Sweet dreams, sweetie- you’ll see your mum soon," he told her, ignoring his own desires at that moment as she smiled, her eyes closed.
 
 

"Rain check, Rol…that’s all…"
 
 

"No worries…" he replied, kissing the tip of her nose.

"And who would that be?" Martel asked his daughter as Dingo and Guillermo were curious as well.
 
 

"Ask yourself who is still alive? Who was with the man who held it from you in Geste Prison?"
 
 

Martel smiled; "Taia, Marta Ramirez is a vegetable, living somewhere in a rest home. The General worked her over for years. No, not her. She was easy to manipulate and coerce. I played her like the cheap violin she was, many times in prison, she’s was a simple whore…"
 
 

Guillermo lunged forward, taking Martel off guard as Dingo grabbed the E/M weapon from Martel. Taia backed away, bracing herself against the wall.
 
 

"You sadistic, son of a bitch!" Guillermo said, as he pushed Martel up against the door to the safehouse room.
 
 

"Temper, Beau!" Martel choked back as Dingo smiled, pointing the weapon first at Martel, then at Taia.
 
 

"Come on, you Jezebel…I’m thinking Michael Lopez would love to get his hands on you and daddy!"
 
 

"Nice move, Tyler!" Guillermo told Dingo, grinning as he turned Martel around, slamming his face against the wall.
 
 

"Not bad, yourself, Guillermo, not bad…!"
 
 

"It’s been a long haul…" Guillermo said, pulling out his cellphone and punching in a series of numbers.
 
 

"Bloody years!"
 
 

Taia looked at Dingo, frowning and shaking; "But what about the stone, Dingo? Don’t you care about getting it back? Think of the money!"
 
 

"Not interested, sis…I had all the bad luck I wanted with the fake stone. The real one would have put me six feet under!"
 
 

"And you! In prison, tortured for years, your brother murdered, your niece raped, your sister as well…aren’t you curious where the real stone is?" Martel added, still facing the wall.
 
 

"I’m not curious at all…the one person who once knew about its whereabouts and deserves whatever the real value of it is a continent away, and unaware. You see, Manny still wins, Martel! Marta still wins…and me, well- my conscience is satisfied that it will never be in your hands. All these years have been wasted, you fool!" Guillermo told him, grinning.
 
 

With phone in hand, he told his answering reinforcement; "Yeah, I've got Alex Martel and Taia Kwan for pick-up…"

Rollie woke with a start, sitting up in the bed. His heart was pounding and he was bathed in perspiration. He could see that Aidan was sleeping soundly across from him and as he turned to look at Angie, he realized she was gone.
 
 

Jumping up, he went to the bathroom, seeing it empty. He realized then, that Angie’s clothes were missing and that she must have gotten up and left the room. Where had she gone? The villa? Alone?
 
 

It would be like her, he realized then, to see her mother alone. To face the demons, the past and the future were something that Angie wanted to do herself. He remembered her saying what seemed like years ago those words of painful truth to him; "I am my mother’s daughter…"
 
 

"Oh Angie!" he whispered in anguish, sitting on the edge of Aidan’s bed.