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To hell with it, Castillo thought. Bite the bullet.
I am not going to sneak around my own house.
Besides, Abuela's not here.
He said, "Estella, the lady will be staying with me."
Estella looked at him in disbelief, then crossed herself.
"Estella," Dmitri Berezovsky offered, "I am her brother and, like you, a Christian. I know what that might look like. But I have found some comfort in the Scripture that enjoins us to judge not, lest we be judged."
Estella looked between them.
"We will make sure Dona Alicia does not find out," she said somewhat anxiously. "Or Fernando. Or, God forbid, Maria!"
"Okay," Castillo said twenty minutes later. "The AFC is up and running. Starting first thing in the morning, it gets monitored twenty-four/seven. And that means we will have to teach Dmitri and Svet how to use it."
"Just Dmitri, my Carlos. Sweaty already knows how to operate it."
"Dmitri, then, will require instruction," Castillo said. "And we'll have to come up, Sergeant Major, with a duty roster."
Davidson nodded.
"And after breakfast tomorrow, having come up with a necessary equipment list--printers, scanners, tape recorders, etcetera--and having submitted same to Corporal Bradley for his approval, either Davidson or Bradley or both will drive into Midland and find an office supply or something similar to acquire what's needed.
"We'll then set up a CP in the library. That being accomplished, we can then all sit around with our thumbs in our . . . ears, waiting for the AFC to go off reporting how others are doing what I'd really prefer to be doing myself."
"Come on, Charley," Davidson said. "You heard what Phineas said. If we went over there we'd wind up in some cannibal's pot."
"You can really be stupid sometimes, my Carlos," Svetlana said.
Castillo raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, he said, "And on that romantic note, I'm going to bed."
"Is this the place where I am not supposed to sleep?" Svetlana asked five minutes later.
Castillo didn't reply. He went into the bathroom. When he came out ten minutes later, Svetlana walked wordlessly past him into the bathroom.
When she hadn't returned ten minutes later, Castillo considered the pros and cons of going in after her.
He had just about decided that that would not be a very good idea when she suddenly appeared nude--then rushed across the room and jumped in beside him in the bed.
"This place is like Siberia. I am freezing. If you were a gentleman, you would make me warm."
That, Romeo, is as close to a peace offering as I'm going to get. . . .
He hugged her.
"Don't let this go to your head," she said a moment later, "but you were an adorable little boy."
"I know."
"That's not what you were supposed to say." She momentarily laid an icy hand on his crotch.
He squirmed. "Jesus!"
"You're going to have to learn not to blaspheme," she said.
"What was I supposed to say?"
