Escape Out of Darkness

by Anne Stuart

“Well, now, Van Zandt didn’t confide in me. You know Van Zandt, Maggie. He tells you just what he wants you to know, and then expects you to kiss his ass for it. All’s I know is that he wanted you two out of Tegucigalpa and down here. So I sent word to my man there, he passed the stuff along, and here you are.”

  “And where’s Van Zandt?” Mack asked.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Willis said cheerfully. “He’s been the mystery man the last few months. Maybe he’ll show up tonight, maybe he won’t. He’s gonna have to find us soon, ’cause we’re out of here in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Where are you going?” Maggie asked.

  “None of your damned business. I know where your sympathies would lie, Ms. Bleeding Heart Liberal,” he sneered. “And they don’t lie the same place as my paycheck.”

  “You’re going over the border into Nicaragua,” she guessed.

  “Hey, that’s the name of the game, lady,” Willis said. “We train here, and then we go in and zap the shit out of them. Makes no nevermind to me—a greaser is a greaser, I always say.”

  “Christ,” Mack muttered under his breath.

  “Shit, another bleeding heart,” Willis said. “Well, if you two can swallow your principles, I’ve got my woman cooking a meal for us. I figured you’d get here by dinner, and Consuela’s a damned good cook. Good in bed too.”

  “How fortunate for you,” Maggie said acidly.

  Willis grinned. “What can I say? I’m a man who likes the finer things in life.” He headed up the street, not even bothering to see if they were following. “Better lock your car,” he called back over his shoulder. “These greasers’ll pick it clean before you can pick your nose.”

  “Helluva charming guy, Maggie,” Mack observed. “Where did you two happen to meet?”

  “Shut up, Mack,” she muttered under her breath, starting after their host. “I never said I liked the bastard. But you’ve got to admit, we’re closer to Van Zandt than we’ve ever been.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. We only have his word for it that Van Zandt’s going to show up, and I don’t think his word is worth pigshit. You going to tell me how you happen to know a piece of garbage like Willis?”

  She considered it for a moment. Willis was way ahead of them, but she knew him well enough to know that he could hear every word. His senses were fine-tuned after years in jungles around the world, ducking from snipers and doing some sniping of his own. But she had nothing to lose by telling him the truth. “I used to work for the CIA,” she admitted.

  “You what?”

  She really had horrified him this time, she thought with grim amusement. “I said I used to work for the CIA, back when Willis still ostensibly worked for our government. Don’t worry, I didn’t get past the first training mission. I didn’t have the right temperament for it. My killer instincts weren’t finely honed enough for them.”

  “Thank God for that.” There was a long pause. “You want to talk about it?”

  “What’s to talk about? A change in careers?”

  “There’s more to it than that, Maggie May. I keep telling you I know you very well, and you never believe me. You can’t hide anything from me.”

  “I’m not hiding anything,” she said, and realized how defensive she sounded.

  “Okay, Maggie. I get the message.”

  Willis had disappeared into one of the larger adobe buildings at the head of the small square, and they followed him into the warmth and light of a sparsely furnished house.

  Who knew whether or not Willis’s Consuela was good in bed, but there was no question that she was a great cook. All through the spicy meal of beans and sausage, tortillas, chicken and raisins in bitter chocolate, Maggie kept looking toward the door, listening for telltale noise upstairs, waiting, waiting. She could feel Mack’s matching tension as if it were her own, and even the delicious food began to pall as they sat there in the barren little room watching Consuela move like a timid rabbit around the kitchen, her wary eyes always on Willis.

  Finally Willis shoved his empty plate away, belched loudly, and announced, “Fucking Mex food. I can’t wait for …” He let the sentence trail off.

  “For what, Willis? What nasty little war are you going to next?” Maggie questioned sweetly.

  Willis laughed. “Almost caught me that time, Maggie. You’re good, kid. I gotta admit it. It’s a crying shame you didn’t have the balls to make it in the Company. You could have been one of the best.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “But I found better things to do.”

  “I’ll bet you did. How long you been shacking up with Mr. Laryngitis over there?”

  Mack leaned back, all deceptive ease, and smiled at Willis. “What makes you think we’re shacking up?”

  “You forget, friend, that I’ve known her longer than you. I’ve seen that look on her face before. You finally get over Randall, Maggie?”

  She could feel her face flush, damn it. “Yes, Willis, I finally got over Randall.”

  “We had bets going,” Willis said affably, leaning back in an unconscious imitation of Mack. “How long did it take you? You were pretty far gone.”

  Mack hadn’t even turned to look at her. “I think we’re a little more interested in Van Zandt’s whereabouts than Maggie’s ancient history, friend.” He gave the last the same mocking emphasis.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “He’ll be here tomorrow morning?” Maggie demanded, hope rising.

  “I’ll tell you where he is tomorrow morning,” Willis corrected her. “Shit, Maggie, don’t be so goddamn antsy. If lover boy over there isn’t enough for you, you can always join me and Consuela. I’ve got a pair of handcuffs that would be just your size—”

  “Go to hell, Willis,” Maggie said.

  He shrugged, turning to Mack. “What can I say? The woman doesn’t like me, God knows why. I try to be charming.” He turned and said something in rapid-fire Spanish to the cowering Consuela, and then turned back with a grin. “You’ll be staying in the room behind the kitchen. It’s not the Waldorf, but then nothing in this fucking country is. Why the hell can’t they have revolutions in civilized places, like France?”

  “I wasn’t aware they were having a revolution in Honduras,” said Maggie.

  “Hell, you know what I mean. Besides, with these crazy countries, it’ll probably be the next one to go. Remind me not to sign up.”

  “I trust, hope, and pray that I won’t ever have to be within a hundred miles of you again,” Maggie said fervently, no longer hiding her disgust.

  “Ah, Maggie, I love it when you’re angry,” Willis said, reaching out to pinch her breast.

  His hand never connected. One moment he was leaning over her, grinning, the next he was flat on his back, spread-eagled, with a very large, very angry Mack pinning him to the rough stone floor. He held a knife to his throat, one he’d managed to pull off of Willis himself, and the mercenary lay there, motionless, numb with shock and fury.

  “Listen, friend,” Mack said in his husky growl, “it’s time you learned a few things. One, you keep your goddamn hands off my woman. Two, you make the supreme effort and behave like a polite human being the rest of the time we’re here, and three, you tell me, right now, where the hell Van Zandt is.”

  Maggie didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Willis was one of the fastest, best in the business. There were very few people who could floor him, and she was still not quite comprehending that Mack had done just that.

  Apparently Willis was suffering the same shock. “What the hell … ?”

  Mack pressed the knife a little harder against his throat, and a tiny spot of bright red blood stained the knife. “Right now, friend,” he growled.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Willis said.

  “Listen, asshole, I’ll cut off your ears, your nose, and your balls if you don’t tell me, and tell me fast,” Mack told him in a genial tone of voice, and Maggie started to choke. “I haven’t had a very pleasant time these last few
weeks, and I’m not about to put up with it any longer than I have to. And, quite simply, I don’t have to wait till tomorrow morning. You’re going to tell me now, Willis. Aren’t you?” His voice was gentle—dangerously so.

  Willis hadn’t gotten to the top of his ill-chosen profession without learning how to read his enemy. “Hey, all right, man,” he said, grinning. “So you’re a little impatient. All you had to do was ask nice.”

  Mack matched his smile. “I’m asking nice, Willis. Where’s Van Zandt?”

  Willis grinned up at him. “Switzerland.”

  sixteen

  “Switzerland?” Maggie echoed in stunned disbelief. “What in God’s name is he doing in Switzerland?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “What?”

  “If you could get your friend off me,” Willis grunted, “I might tell you.”

  “I’ll get off you,” Mack said, “but there’s no ‘might’ about it. You’ll tell us.”

  “Okay, okay,” Willis muttered. Mack pulled away with a lithe, fast motion that kept him deftly out of reach. He ended up sitting back on the floor, a gun trained directly on Willis’s groin as the mercenary’s hand was halfway to his own gun.

  “I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” Mack said affably. “I told you, I’m getting impatient, and I certainly wouldn’t mind shooting you. So move your hand away from that gun and tell us what the hell is going on.”

  “Maybe he should toss the gun in the middle of the room,” Maggie suggested.

  “No, I don’t think there’s any need for that,” Mack drawled. “Willis may be pissed as hell at me, but I don’t think he really wants to kill us. That’s right, isn’t it, friend?”

  Willis was still looking ripe for murder, but he gave himself a little shake and came up with that snarling grin of his. “No, I’m not going to kill you. I won’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but there’s no money in it. And there’s a fuck of a lot of money in keeping you alive.”

  “Explain,” said Maggie.

  Willis shrugged. “You know Van Zandt as well as I do, Maggie. He said if you made it this far you were to meet him in Zurich on the twenty-third.”

  “He’s out of his mind,” said Maggie.

  “Maybe. You’ll have a helluva time getting from the mountains of Honduras to the mountains of Switzerland, I know that much. I don’t think Van Zandt took that into account. He just said meet him there, and he’ll have the answers.”

  “Forget it,” Mack said. “We’ve been on enough of a wild-goose chase as it is. We’re not going halfway around the world chasing after someone who may or may not be able to help us.”

  “Oh, Van Zandt will be able to help you,” Willis said. “Make no mistake about that. He’s got the Mafia in his back pocket, he can get the Feds off your back, and these greasers’ll believe anything he tells ’em. One word from him and you’ll be a free man.”

  “Then why hasn’t he given that one word?” Maggie cried. “Peter Wallace would still be alive if Van Zandt weren’t so damned mysterious. If he’d only—”

  “I don’t think Wallace would still be alive, Maggie,” Mack said suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ask Willis. He knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, friend?”

  Willis grinned. “Not as sharp as usual, Maggie. Van Zandt killed Wallace.”

  “What?” she shrieked.

  “I thought he might have,” Mack said. “But since you didn’t mention the possibility I decided to keep it to myself. Wallace said Van Zandt’s name as he was dying. At first I thought he was mixing us up. You thought he was sending us to find him. Later it came to me that Wallace was naming his murderer.”

  “For God’s sake, why?” she demanded, completely confused.

  Willis shrugged. “Van Zandt’s like me—he likes to tie up loose ends. He’s into something more than you think, and it’s my guess that Wallace found out about it. So Van Zandt had to take him out.”

  Maggie shivered in the hot night air. “And what makes you think he won’t do the same to us once we get to Switzerland?”

  “He might,” Willis allowed. “But he could have paid me to do it easily enough and saved a lot of trouble. Hell, I might have done it on the cuff, as a gesture of goodwill. He knows I owe him one. But he told me I was to do what I could to keep you alive. So he must have a reason, a use for you.”

  “We could go to the government. …”

  “They won’t believe you, Maggie. Van Zandt’s got them so confused they’ll believe anything he tells them. He’s got everybody running around in circles, you included, and your only chance is to play the game and hope you can win.”

  “No more games,” Mack said in a flat voice. “We’re not going to Switzerland, we’re not going to meet with Van Zandt. It’s over.”

  “The hell it is,” Maggie said.

  Willis appeared greatly amused. “Sounds like you two are going to have a restful night of it. I’m betting on you, Maggie.” He rose, wiped away the trickle of blood from his neck, and gestured to the cowering Consuela, who’d sat in the kitchen during the last hour staring down at her lap. “We’re out of here tomorrow morning. If I were you, I’d make my plans before then.”

  “If we were going to get to Switzerland, Willis, how would we go?” Maggie inquired.

  “La Ceiba’s the only international airport. You could get a shorter flight from Danli, then fly back to a major city in the U.S. That is if your friend dares show his face. Van Zandt’s got a lot of people stirred up, looking for you, and I don’t know if their orders are to let you be or shut you up.” He turned and spoke to Consuela, and she jumped up nervously, wringing her long, beautiful hands. “Buenas noches,” he said. “I may see you tomorrow, I may not. If I don’t, give Van Zandt a kick in the ass for me.”

  “I’ll be sure to.”

  “You won’t get the chance,” Mack said when Willis and Consuela disappeared up the narrow stairs to the upper floor. “We’re not going to Switzerland.”

  “What are our alternatives? Go back to the U.S. and wait for someone to gun you down?”

  “What about the Bay Islands?”

  “I’m not about to spend the rest of my life hiding out, and neither are you. And I’m not about to let that bastard Van Zandt get away with it. I never trusted him, I should have followed my instincts. But Peter was so damned sure, and look where it got him.”

  “I don’t want you to wind up in the same place, Maggie.”

  “I won’t. I’m smart and cynical and tough, and I’m not about to turn my back on him. You can wait it out on the islands and I’ll come back and get you when it’s over. But I’ve got to see this through to the end.”

  He sat there, staring at her, frustration and something else warring in his hazel eyes. He sighed in capitulation. “I guess we go to Switzerland.”

  “No, Mack. I’d do better alone.”

  “Stuff it, Superwoman. We go together or not at all,” he demanded.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said automatically. “Which reminds me. Why the hell did you jump Willis? Didn’t you realize how dangerous he is?”

  Mack just looked at her. “I really can take care of myself, Maggie,” he said. It was a gentle reproof, but Maggie still didn’t like it. “Besides, I had the sudden, overwhelming need to kick some ass.”

  “Great. Pick someone a little more innocuous next time, will you? Or at least do it when I’m not around.”

  Mack smiled. “I’m afraid your presence had a lot to do with it. My long-dormant machismo reasserting itself, I guess. Sorry about that, boss. It won’t happen again.”

  “Christ, I let you drive,” she said, flustered.

  “So you did. In return I’ll let you be on top tonight.”

  “Mack.” Her voice carried a very definite warning.

  “Maggie,” he mimicked her, rising with one fluid gesture and reaching out a hand to pull her up. “Let’s go check out our sleeping quarters.”r />
  She looked up at his hand. She didn’t need his help, she could stand on her own, and she opened her mouth to tell him just that. He knew what she was thinking, she could tell by the half-amused look on his face. But he still held out his hand, waiting.

  “You think you’ve got me psyched out, don’t you?” she muttered.

  “Do I?” Mack asked.

  She sat there for another long, stubborn moment. And then she reached up and placed her hand in his. “You do, damn you,” she said as he pulled her up and into his arms.

  It was a relief to be there, to feel the strong, steady thud of his heartbeat against her breasts, to revel in the warmth of his arms around her. She wanted to lean her head against his shoulder and close her eyes to the latest impossible development, and it took all her pride and energy to give a gentle push.

  He released her readily enough, and she knew with a sudden flash of understanding that he always would. He’d never tie her down, force her to do things his way, keep her a prisoner when she needed to be free. The only thing that would keep her chained to him would be her own needs. It was a frightening thought.

  “You’re right, we ought to check out where we’re sleeping, and make sure Willis didn’t stuff the mattress with tarantulas,” she said, her voice just slightly shaken.

  The back room contained a narrow, stained mattress on the stone floor, a threadbare blanket, and a window that wouldn’t close, letting in all sorts of bugs. There was no moon that night, and the kerosene lamp Willis had left them made little dent in the darkness. Maggie controlled the shiver that crept across her backbone.

  Mack put out a gentle hand, brushing her tangled hair away from her flushed face. “I think this is a night for sleeping with our clothes on. What do you think?”

  She went back into his arms of her own accord this time, holding him tight, resting her face against his muscled shoulder. “I think you’re right. At least they won’t have mosquitoes in Switzerland.”

  “Small comfort,” he said, sinking down on the hard mattress with his arms still around her. “The beds will be better too.”

  “Maybe,” she said sleepily, burrowing against him. “Mack?”