Their door swung open, slamming against the wall behind it as Angie saw her uncle Guillarmo enter the room. In his hand, he held a 9mm gloc and was holding it in police standard fashion, sweeping the room.

"Ah, whoa there, Uncle Bill!" Rollie shouted, "what gives here?"

"Tio?" was all Angie could ask in a strained voice.

Guillarmo moved cautiously toward the window, and slowly leaned to one side to peer out. He then stepped out on the patio deftly, silently. Angie held her breath and Rollie looked at her confused.

He returned, holding a spent clip in his hand.

"Nice," he muttered and then looked down at Angie and Rollie, "I guess now that I have some explaining to do, yes?"

He helped Angie up as Rollie joined them and they left the room quickly for his across the hall. Angie was still shaking as she sat on the couch in his room, folding her legs up under her. Rollie joined her, rubbing his hands down his legs and shaking his head, "so there, Uncle Bill- but then again, you’re not really Angie’s uncle, are you?"

"Actually, I am," he replied, smiling at Angie as she took a deep breath. She had had enough deception in her life over the past couple of days.

"Okay, let me just pull up a chair here and just give you the whole enchilada," he said, as his accent disappeared and he became completely Americanized until he said ‘enchilada’. Angie stared at him with confusion. Rollie started to realize what Mira had found out about Angie’s uncle.

"Before I get started, let me call down and take care of the problem next door. We don’t need any suspicious people asking a lot of questions, right?" he asked them and was on the phone then, speaking with the manager in rapid Castilian.

"Rol? What’s going on here? He’s like 007 all of the sudden…" Angie began, in little more than a whisper.

"Mira said that there was something we would need to know about him but she was not forthcoming. I was suppose to get another email from her but with all that has happened, never got the chance to pull it up."

"That’s done," Guillarmo said, sitting back down, "such an untidy mess over there. Hopefully, it will be fixed quickly. I have also taken the liberty of moving your things over here."

"Tio?" Angie was racked with frustration and nervous energy as she begged him to explain.

"You work for Interpol…" Rollie said, more as a matter of fact then a hunch.

"Yes, I have been working for them since they broke me out of Cuba over nine years ago. I had worked for them previously, of course until they discovered my cover and then, of course- the prison. Your father, mija… he was trying to protect you. They were going for the entire family. Manuel had done some work for Interpol himself, you know."

Angie tightened as Rollie put his arm around her shoulders. She was trembling slightly and he tightened his grip, "You okay?"

She nodded back at him in silence. Guillarmo smiled and she relaxed a little.

"Angela, you look so like your mother did," he continued, in a wistful voice as his eyes dropped from hers, "when your father was killed, I couldn’t bear it. I had been watching you grow up in the States. I had contact with Manuel but it was limited of course. He was still trying to get your mother out of Cuba, all that time. Then, when he was killed, I vowed that I would go over there myself again and find her."

Angie breathed deeply and grasped Rollie’s hand. Tears were forming in her eyes, but she was trying so hard to control herself.

"Of course, I was working so deeply undercover and not able to contact you when your father was laid to rest. I put all my energy into finding Marta. I went out in the cold, leaving everything for this. I went back to that God-forsaken island and searched. I dealt with people that I had previously been spying on, and I worked with prison guards that had been my own captors. I finally found a military man who was willing to talk and from there, I did find her- Angela."

"Oh God," Angie said, praying, "tell me she was alright? You got her out and she is coming here, right? Like you said…"

Guillarmo’s face darkened, and his mouth sagged as his eyes reddened and he cleared his voice, "She is being moved here, mija. She is not like you remember her. The beauty is gone as well as the body. She was used…and given drugs and addicted. Her mind is gone, Angela but I could not leave her there."

Angie looked at him coolly, "but you were so excited when we first met as if she was fine. I don’t understand."

Rollie looked from Angie’s sudden frozen face to her uncle’s. He had indeed known about Angie’s mother being alive but not like this. After he had traced Guillarmo through Michael Sanchez’s contacts, he couldn’t wait to surprise Angie and when the added bonus of finding her mother too was known, he could hardly keep it from her. Syd’s movie in Spain gave them all a place for Marta Ramirez to come and where Guillarmo could feel safe. But to hear that Marta was so brutalized and ill was more than he could stand. Mira or Michael should have told him.

"At the moment I met you, there in Mr. Tyler’s lap," he began, as Angie remembered him coming into the trailer and finding them locked in an embrace, "I didn’t have the heart. I knew about this Loubar business from Lt. Sanchez. I knew you had been through so much and you looked so happy. I knew I would have to tell you the truth, soon enough and now- well with this Loubar back tracking your every movement and the attempted hit in your room; I was not waiting any longer."

"Does she know you?" Angie asked, softly, already knowing the answer.

"No, she is nothing more than a shell, mija. Your father and I worked so hard to try and get her out. He was a very determined man, much like his daughter."

He smiled at her for a moment and then shook his head, "She is being brought to a small rest villa near Toledo. I have found the best care for her. I know you will want to see her, mija. Just try to brace yourself for her condition. She will not recognize you. She may even try to hit you or bite you."

Angie burst into tears then, her stony resolve gone and Rollie held her in his arms again as Guillarmo wiped his own eyes and leaned back in his seat.

"This is all so ridiculous!" Angie blurted out the words in anger, "Why is it that our family has had so much pain? Why are we all hunted down like animals to be humiliated and tortured? Oh God, what would a normal life be like, Rollie?"

"I wouldn’t know, Angie- you know my whole story. I think we were destined to be together, shipwrecked survivors of all these deceptions and hatred," Rollie said, shaking his head, "we seem to have evil just gravitate toward us."

"I could say it is a curse," Guillarmo added, "but I don’t believe in them. I do believe in the family though and I will have what is left of the Ramirez and Montgreviejo family in Spain before the week is out with a Tyler thrown in to boot." He smiled then, hoping to get Angie to brighten a little.

She was thinking suddenly about Loubar though and what he was after. It had to have been him rifling through their things. It had to be him trying to kill them earlier in their room. What else did he want from them?

"Loubar…what does he want from us? Hasn’t he done enough?" Angie asked both men, standing up then and wiping her eyes.

"I have never seen someone so pissed off," Rollie said, looking to Guillarmo. I have dealt with the bastard three times now."

"He sure likes to disappear in water," Angie said, folding her hands across her chest.

"Michael Sanchez has filled me on about this character. This started with you getting in the way of some arms shipments, right?" asked Guillarmo.

"Yeah," Rollie answered him, putting his hands out with palms up, "but it doesn’t explain his consuming hatred for me really, does it?"

"He’s crazy, he doesn’t need reasons," Angie interjected, and shuddered. She was remembering being so intimate with him as Rollie- he had taken so much from her that Rollie would never understand.

"What would we have that he wants so badly that he would think we would hide it from him?" Rollie asked, standing up himself and holding onto Angie’s shoulders from behind. Guillarmo sat, contemplating the questions as well. The destruction of the F/X trailer with white phosphorus was strange. The attack on Angie in the trailer was even stranger. Loubar was not one to repeat a trick. He had plenty more to use to amuse himself.

There was a knock outside of the room, like someone was knocking on the door across the hall. The three inside Guillarmo’s room crept closer, with Guillarmo checking the peephole.

"It’s that director guy," he said, and opened the door.

"Hey there, old boy," said Syd to Guillarmo, "seen the kids?"

"Yeah, Syd," Rollie said from behind Guillarmo, "We’re in here."

"Oh," Syd said, weaving back and forth in the hallway, "I was going to share the bottle with you, mate."

Syd was incredibly drunk. He held a whiskey bottle in one hand and a crumpled piece of paper in the other. Rollie pulled him into the room and had him sit as Angie tried to get him to put the bottle on the table.

"You know any good producers?" he asked Rollie, smiling lopsidedly and trying to focus.

"Damn it, Syd- you lost the movie?" Rollie asked, shaking his head and sitting across from him.

Angie rolled her eyes and tried to explain to her uncle the mechanics of production and cost especially when the film had been stymied from the beginning with the costly fire and destruction of the IXB system.

Rollie looked at his friend. Syd was beyond help tonight. He knew that in the morning, Syd Waterstreet would be a new man but right now- this is the Syd that he had dealt with more…losing backing in films was his trademark. He wondered at times why Syd didn’t just quit the business and have that ranch in Australia, like he had always wanted and cried in his beer about.

"Okay, Angie- I am going to take Syd here to his room," he started to say as she began to protest, "hey, I will be careful. I think Loubar is through with us tonight."

He chauffeured Syd out and Angie was left with Guillarmo to go over some of her mother’s travel details and the rest villa.

By the time Rollie got back, Guillarmo had left to talk with the hotel management about their bullet-ridden room across the hall. He was going to get another room and let them use his as well. Angie had kissed him and hugged him for all his help and being behind her in the past. She did however, scold him for never revealing himself to her until now.

"It had to be done, to protect you, mija. You would be surprised how far Cuba extends into the States. There are ears everywhere."

"So," Angie asked, after Guillarmo left and Rollie was finishing a drink that he had poured from the little bar in the room, "we are out of a film, my mother is a vegetable and Loubar is waiting for us in the wings…"

"That about wraps it up," Rollie said, burping slightly and then realized how that sounded to Angie.

"Wait, Angie- I didn’t mean to sound so uncaring," he continued in apology as she turned around and went off to the bedroom, without another word.

"Idiot!" he said out loud to himself. He put his drink down and followed her into the bedroom. She was already searching through her disheveled suitcase for something to wear in bed.

"Ange," he began, putting his hands again on her shoulders from behind and she spun around and shook her head.

"Hey, Rollie, not a problem," she replied, stoic and resigned, "I started it. I mean, to come this far- to hope and then to find out. I was better off thinking she was dead."

Rollie looked down at her face, her youthful, girlish face had been replaced by a woman’s that he was getting to know better. It was a face that he loved for being a woman, a partner and his life. He bent to kiss her full lips and felt her resignation leave. They fell on the bed and Angie shuddered. Rollie sensed her tenseness and stopped.

"What?"

"I don’t know…"

"You’re not ready, are you?"

"I want to be everything for you, Rollie …"

"But?"

"I can’t get him out of my head, right now."

Rollie rolled off of her, as she breathed deeply. Loubar had worked his spell well. He should not have pushed her. He felt terrible. He ached for this new passionate woman he felt and ached for the girl that was gone. Maybe this thing with Angie was not meant to be…

"I’ll go sleep on the couch," he told her, standing up.

She sat up on one elbow, seeing his dilemma and felt so ashamed. What was wrong with her. She had wanted this for so long, had dreamed of it and Loubar had ruined it.

"Rollie…"

"Yeah Ange," he said, walking toward the door with a pillow in his hand.

"I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to …"

"It’s okay," he replied, turning to see her embarrassment, "I have been turned down before, you know." He smiled to let her know he was okay and she smiled back.

"When could that have ever been?" she asked.

"Oh, well then- it has been a long time, mind you," he answered, grinning and left her in better spirits with a wink.

He woke her the next morning and they packed up, picking up Guillarmo and Syd on the way down to the lobby. Rollie insisted on driving due to Syd’s condition and Guillarmo followed in his rental car. Syd slept most of the way back to Avila with Angie navigating in the passenger seat this time. It was around three in the afternoon when they drove up to the almost deserted set. Resigned, Syd stepped out and stretched his legs. Angie and Rollie knew that there was little to pack up now that Syd had been told to cancel the movie. He sat dejected in his trailer as Rollie and Angie walked back over to the burned out F/X trailer.

The IXB was still sitting where Rollie had pulled it out and laid it. Angie started to touch the surface when her uncle walked up behind her.

"Don’t touch it!" he warned her, "the residue can still burn you. It should have been doused with water."

"Sorry, wasn’t thinking," she replied, standing up and looking around. The place was deserted. Syd must have given an advanced notice to the crew and actors before they had left Madrid.

Rollie was playing with a piece of pipe that he had found near the trailer. "You know, I wish Bluey had been here…"

"Why, he could have been a piece of scrap metal himself?" Angie asked, confused.

"No, not Bluey- he would have gotten out. He would have given me a clue though…" Rollie was smiling, thinking of his little creation back minding the fort in New York.

They heard a commotion behind them then, a lot of voices saying; "Surprise!" and then Syd almost beside himself standing in the frame of his trailer door.

The crew and some of the actors were standing around, uncorking a bottle of champagne. Syd was yelling and pushing them away.

Rollie ran over with Angie not far behind to see what the problem was and find out if Syd needed help. Syd was beet red and shouting a full line of curse words as Dani saw them and came toward them.

"Isn’t it wonderful?" she said, clapping her hands together… "My father has sent money for Syd to go ahead and make his film!"

"Ohh," Rollie replied, stumped because Syd didn’t look happy, at all.

"Syd? What’s wrong?" Rollie asked, reaching him as he swayed forward, a brown bottle of something spilling out over his clenched hand.

Syd looked at Rollie in drunken contempt, "This is all your fault, you stupid bloke!"

"What?"

"You heard me!" he said, cursing again under his breath. He was drunk again and very irate.

Dani didn’t seem to notice Syd’s problems. She had saved the day and her own starring role.

"Syd, come on, what gives?" Rollie asked again, as he stepped inside with Syd who was spinning back into a chair in a slump.

"You were the one who wanted that silly twit in the first place!" Syd said, his words slurring and edgy.

"I didn’t request her," Rollie replied, confused.

"You most certainly did!" Syd argued.

"Well, mate- I think I would know that."

"You stood right in my face and told me so in New York only three weeks ago," Syd stammered out.

"I am afraid not. We were in upper state that entire week."

"Forget it, it doesn’t matter," Syd said, waving him off, "leave me alone."

Rollie stepped back, wondering why Dani’s father with his backing now on the film was pissing Syd off. He put his hands up in the air as if to wash himself of the whole affair.

"So, what gives?" asked Angie, outside the trailer.

"Let’s just say that he doesn’t care for his new producer for some reason," replied Rollie as they walked away.

Guillarmo told Angie he was leaving for the villa as she followed Rollie back over to the burned out trailer. He was holding his stubbled chin in his right hand, surveying the whole sight.

"I don’t get it," he told her as she approached him.

"Who knows?" she said, shrugging her shoulders, "Syd has had so many failures and cancelled films in the past two years, that you would think he would be happy about this."

"What?" Rollie’s mind was starting to click. He turned to Angie and spun her around, "we need to call Mira in New York. I have an idea as to who is behind all this."

"You mean, you don’t think it is Loubar, Rollie?" Angie asked, perplexed.