"You'll have to work hard," Ellen had told her. "You'll learn, as I had to learn. In the beginning, it will be difficult, but in the end, it will become your life."
And it had.
Megan worked hours that none of her employees could even begin to emulate.
"You get to your office at four o'clock in the morning and work all day. How do you do it?"
Megan smiled and thought: If I slept until four o'clock in the morning at the convent, Sister Betina would scold me.
Ellen Scott was gone, but Megan had kept learning, and kept watching the company grow. Her company. Ellen had adopted her. "So we won't have to explain why you're a Scott," she had said. But there was a note of pride in her voice.
It's ironic, Megan thought. All those years at the orphanage when no one would adopt me. And now I'm being adopted by my own family. God has a wonderful sense of humor.
CHAPTER FORTY
A new man was behind the wheel of the getaway car, and it made Jaime Miro nervous.
"I'm not sure of him," he told Felix Carpio. "What if he drives off and leaves us?"
"Relax. He's my cousin's brother-in-law. He'll be fine. He's been begging for a chance to go out with us."
"I have a bad feeling," Jaime said.
They had arrived in Seville early that afternoon, and had examined half a dozen banks before choosing their target. It was on a side street, small, not too much traffic, close to a factory that would be making deposits there. Everything seemed perfect. Except for the man in the getaway car.
"Is he all that's worrying you?" Felix asked.
"No."
"What, then?"
It was a difficult one to answer. "Call it a premonition." He tried to say it lightly, mocking himself.
Felix took it seriously. "Do you want to call it off?"
"Because I have the nerves of an old washerwoman today? No, amigo. It will all go as smooth as silk."
In the beginning, it did.
There were half a dozen patrons in the bank, and Felix held them at bay with an automatic weapon while Jaime cleared out the cash drawers. Smooth as silk.
As the two men were leaving, heading for the getaway car, Jaime called out, "Remember, amigos, the money is for a good cause."
It was out in the street that it began to fall apart. There were police everywhere. The driver of the getaway car was on his knees on the pavement, a police pistol at his head.
As Jaime and Felix came into view, a detective called out, "Drop your weapons."
Jaime hesitated for one split second. Then he raised his gun.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The converted 727 was flying thirty-five thousand feet over the Grand Canyon. It had been a long, hard day. And it's not over yet, Megan thought.
She was on her way to California to sign the papers that would give Scott Industries one million acres of timberland north of San Francisco. She had struck a hard bargain.
It's their fault, Megan thought. They shouldn't have tried to cheat me. I'll bet I'm the first bookkeeper they've ever come up against from a Cistercian convent She laughed aloud.
The steward approached her. "Can I get you anything, Miss Scott?"
She saw a stack of newspapers and magazines in the rack. She had been so busy with the deal that she had not had time to read anything. "Let me see The New York Times, please."
The story was on the front page and it leaped out at her. There was a photograph of Jaime Miro. Below it the article read: "Jaime Miro, leader of ETA, the radical Basque separatist movement in Spain, was wounded and captured by police during a bank holdup yesterday afternoon in Seville. Killed in the attack was Felix Carpio, another of the alleged terrorists. The authorities had been conducting a search for Miro since..."
Megan read the rest of the article and sat there for a long time, frozen, remembering the past. It was like a distant dream photographed through a gauze curtain, hazy and unreal.
This fight will be over soon. We'll get what we want because the people are behind us...I would like you to wait for me...
Long ago she had read of a civilization that believed if you saved a person's life, you were responsible for him. Well, she had saved Jaime twice - once at the castle, and again at the park. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them kill him now.
She reached for the telephone next to her seat and said to the pilot, "Turn the plane around. We're going back to New York."
A limousine was waiting for her at La Ouardia Airport, and by the time she arrived in her office it was two A.M. Lawrence Gray, Jr., was waiting for her. His father had been the company's attorney for years and had retired. His son was bright and ambitious.
Without preamble, Megan said, "Jaime Miro. What do you know about him?"
The reply was immediate. "He's a Basque terrorist, head of ETA. I think I just read that he was captured a day or so ago."
"Right. The government is going to have to put him on trial. I want to have someone there. Who's the best trial lawyer in the country?"
"I'd say Curtis Hayman."
"No. Too much of a gentleman. We need a killer." She thought for a moment. "Get Mike Rosen."
"He's booked for the next hundred years, Megan."
"Unbook him. I want him in Madrid for the trial."
He frowned. "We can't get involved in a public trial in Spain."
"Sure we can. Amicus curiae. We're friends of the defendant."
He studied her a moment. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"Yes. Get on this."
"I'll do my best."
"Larry..."
"Yes?"
"And then some." There was steel in her voice.