“You’re bleeding, too,” Billy told her, and she saw that she was.
She’d been shot in the arm. There was both an entrance and an exit wound, but it looked fairly clean.
If she lived, she was going to have one hell of a scar.
Now. If it was going to happen, it was going to have to be now.
Ken took Savannah’s hand and pulled her with him toward the door and—
Shit!
A guard with an AK-47 was standing right in front of them, his dark eyes alert. He gestured for them to move back. Away from the door. He moved slightly inside the helo so he could watch them.
“Isn’t there a back door?” Savannah whispered.
“Not on this helo.” Ken smiled a happy howdy at the guard, who frowned grimly back at him. Didn’t it figure? There was one vigilant man in Badaruddin’s entire private army, and he’d been assigned to keep an eye on them.
“What do we do?” Savannah asked.
If he were alone, he’d overpower the guy. It wouldn’t take much, one on one, to get possession of that AK-47. Problem was, this guy could get off a couple of shots before that weapon completely changed hands. Another SEAL would be able to avoid getting hit by stray bullets, but Savannah’s instincts were . . . Well, the truth was, she wasn’t going to make the Warrior Princess team any time in the next decade or so.
“We wait,” he told her. “We just stay cool and we wait for the next opportunity.”
“This man needs medical attention,” Molly said, but the soldiers who were dragging her ignored her.
“We were being held against our will by Otto Zdanowicz,” she tried. She might as well have been talking to walking two-by-fours.
“We’re missionaries—people of God. Please help me get this man to the hospital in Port Parwati!”
The soldiers didn’t so much as change their facial expressions as they brought her and Billy over to the angular officer and the wounded white-flag waver—the last surviving member of Otto Zdanowicz’s gang.
The gaunt officer spoke English. “This man says you know the whereabouts of Grady Morant.”
Molly was sick to her stomach from the death and destruction around her and light-headed from loss of blood, but she shook her head. She’d betrayed Jones once already—and once was more than enough even if he was a scum-sucking lying son of a bitch. “He’s lying. We’re missionaries. From the village just down the trail—”
“She’s lying,” countered the flag waver. “She said Grady Morant was right here yesterday, said he flew a red Cessna and went by the name Jones.”
“Please,” Molly said. “I wasn’t serious. I would have said anything to keep Otto from shooting Billy. I’d heard the rumors about this guy Morant, so I said I knew him.”
The officer looked around, looked at the Quonset hut, looked back at Molly. “Jones is Grady Morant.” He laughed. “He never told this to me. But then again, he and I were not lovers. He never lit a roomful of candles for me.” He turned to his men. “Put them all in the chopper.”
Jones hated Jakarta. Whenever he came here, it was only because he absolutely had to, and as a rule, he couldn’t wait to leave.
But he’d been sitting in this dingy airport bar for over five hours, as if glued to this booth. His plane was refueled and ready to fly to Malaysia. That’s why he’d stopped. To fuel up so he could make like dust in the wind and vanish for good.
So what the hell was he waiting for?
The dufflebag filled with money was beside him. The money that Molly had been so sure he wouldn’t abscond with.
Well, honeychild, he’d absconded. He didn’t know who she thought he was, but maybe she’d figure out the truth now.
He looked at his watch.
It would still be a couple of hours before Molly came up to his camp and realized he was gone.
It would probably be a couple of days or even weeks—knowing Molly—before she realized he wasn’t coming back.
Knowing Molly.
That was his big problem here. It had all started with knowing Molly.
He finished his beer with one long swallow. He would get a new passport, he decided. There was enough money in this bag to buy him an entirely new identity—one with which he’d even be able to get back into the United States if he wanted.
Not that he wanted.
There was enough money here to keep him from working another day in his life, if he played his cards right.
He could go to some remote corner of Malaysia and buy a house. Sit around and do nothing all day.
And end up thinking about Molly.
Jones put his head in his hands. God damn it, he didn’t want the money. He wanted Molly. Even if it was just for another month.
What a pathetic fool he was. He’d made it all these years without any complications. How could he be so utterly stupid as to fall in love at this point in his wretched life?
The waitress approached. “Want another beer?”
“No, thanks.” Thanks. He’d never said thanks to anyone before Molly.
“You’re pretty cute.” She sat down across from him, an Indonesian girl of about twenty, pretty despite a black eye, despite being a little worn around the edges. “Want to fuck?”
Jones laughed. “Where were you a week ago?” But he knew it wouldn’t have made any difference. He hadn’t started messing around just because he was horny. No, right from day one, he’d wanted Molly. He stood up, dragging the duffle out of the booth behind him.
The girl followed eagerly, but he put up one hand. “No,” he said. “You misunderstood. I’m not . . .” He shook his head and laughed. “But thanks for the offer.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Jones pushed open the door to the bright afternoon and headed for his Cessna. Fuck Malaysia. He was going back to Parwati.
And if he was lucky, he’d get there before Molly even knew he’d been gone.
General Badaruddin’s camp had a perimeter that was half rough ocean and rocky cliffs and half jungle mountainside.
There was one road, leading through the jungle to the compound.
Molly and Billy were both stable. Ken wasn’t a hospital corpsman, but like all SEALs, he knew enough to be able to temporarily patch up both of the missionaries. Neither of them had been hurt all that badly, although in this climate, they both needed copious amounts of antibiotics to fend off infection.
They didn’t need his attention anymore, and Savannah seemed to understand that he wanted to take a look at their destination, so he inched closer to the open door of the helo as they made their approach to the camp.
The general’s house was about the size of an English manor. It was at the very top of the hill, poking its head out of the jungle. There was a tiny strip of lawn directly in front of it, and what looked to be a pool and tennis courts in the back. But then the jungle took over.
Slightly further down the hill, on either side of the road leading up to the general’s house, Ken could see more utilitarian-looking buildings, presumably housing for the troops, warehouses for ammunition and supplies. Jails for containing hostages.
The whole setup was extremely feudal castle—no wonder the nutball had a thing for royalty.
The helo had a landing pad further down the hill, outside what looked to be a very secure and heavily manned fence with a heavy-duty gate. Ken bet the fence was electric. He bet there were lights and a full rotation of guards and even dogs, all to keep people out. And he bet the soldiers and other people in the compound never for one moment thought that they were anything but safe as long as those guards were at that gate.
And he also bet there was already a team of SEALs inside the compound. He bet they swam in and scaled the presumably unscalable cliffs—probably without even breaking a sweat.
As the helo landed, he and Savannah, Molly, and Billy were loaded into jeeps and brought through the gate. The road up the hill was steep at first, but it leveled off for quite a ways as it approached the main house.
&nbs
p; As he got a closer look at the outbuildings, he realized they weren’t so much utilitarian as ramshackle. Even the main house, from this closer distance, broadcast a sense of decay.
General Badaruddin needed a financial transfusion, and fast. But he wasn’t going to get it from them.
Although this was a fairly decent setup, it was far from impenetrable. In fact, any kind of rescue operation would be almost laughably easy.
Ken caught Savannah’s eye and smiled.
He would bet big money that they would be out of here and on their way home by tomorrow.
Uncle Alex was heavily sedated.
The building—the thin officer had called it guest quarters—where Alex was being held was pretty cushy as far as a hostage holding cell went. It had two rooms and a bathroom. But whoops, no running water from the sink. The toilet flushed, though—which Savannah thought was a major triumph.
The structure was made of cinderblocks, and had only one door to the outside, facing the road. The only windows were on that same side of the building—obviously to keep all of the “guests” from escaping.
The lack of windows in the back made for poor air circulation, though, and it was hot as hell.
The officer who’d brought them here had informed them that they would have an audience with the general in the morning. Badaruddin was coming in from Papua New Guinea where he’d been meeting with leaders of the OPM—the Free Papua Movement.
Ken came out of the other room, where he’d given Alex a quick check. “He looks okay. He needs a shower, but who doesn’t in this heat? They’re definitely giving him something to sedate him, though. Maybe through the food—so don’t eat or drink anything.” He included Molly and Billy in that.
“How long are we supposed to go without drinking anything?” Billy asked.
“Until tonight,” Ken said. “We’re going to be taken out of here tonight.” He lowered his voice, probably on the off chance that the single guard at the door spoke English. “There’s a team of SEALs already inside the perimeter of the camp, waiting for the right moment to pull us out. They’ll use stealth. This is not going to be a guns blazing firefight. It’ll be a covert operation. What you need to remember is to be as quiet as you possibly can and to do exactly what they tell you right when they tell you to do it.”
Savannah shook her head. “How do you know this? I don’t mean how they’re going to do it. I mean how do you know they’re here? Did you see them?”
“No,” Ken said. “I didn’t see anyone. But not only do I know they’re out there, I also know which team it is and who’s in command. It’s Team Sixteen, and the CO for this op is Lieutenant Sam Starrett.”
Kenny grinned, and Savannah knew that he was actually enjoying himself. She was still terrified, though, and it made her speak a little sharply. “And this you know from the way the wind was blowing, or . . . the pattern of clouds in the sky . . . ?”
“I know this because Starrett’s a chocoholic.” He laughed at the look she gave him. “He never goes anywhere—even into the jungle—without a supply of peanut M&M’s. And lookee what I found in the pocket of dear old Uncle Prince Alex’s shirt.”
He held it out on the palm of his hand. It was a peanut M&M’s wrapper.
Savannah’s head was spinning. “Are you saying that this Lieutenant Starrett came into this building, past the guard, simply to put a candy wrapper in my uncle’s shirt? Why didn’t he rescue him at that time?”
“Okay,” Ken said. “Yeah, I can see how that sounds crazy, but you have to understand a couple of things. It probably wasn’t Sam Starrett who brought the wrapper in here. It was probably Jenk or Gilligan or well, never mind. The point is, the wrapper was a message. To me. Sammy Starrett is my best friend, Van. We’re really tight; I know him better than I know just about anybody, except maybe you now. He’s the guy that, you know, when I get married, he’s going to stand up for me and be my best man? That wrapper in Alex’s pocket was not just to let me know that he was here. It was also to let me know that he knew I was going to be here. That’s why they didn’t just pull Alex out. They were waiting for us so that they could save all our asses at the same time.
“And Jenk or Gilligan or whoever came in here to deliver this message,” Ken added, “didn’t come in through the door. I checked the back room. There are four cinderblocks that are loose right behind the bed—the mortar’s been removed. They probably put some kind of patch on the outside to make it look secure, but those blocks are ready to go. We could walk out of here—well, crawl—right now, if we wanted.”
“Why don’t we?” Savannah asked.
“Well, darkness would be nice, for one. It’ll be harder for them to see us if it’s dark. Two, it’s probably better not to tip our hosts off to the fact that we’re leaving until we know where and when to meet the bus that’ll take us out of here. Number three, out of five of us, two are wounded, one is an overweight almost unconscious man, and one is five foot four and a lightweight with feet that are probably so sore that she should get lumped into the wounded category.”
“They’re not that bad,” Savannah said quickly.
Ken laughed. “God, I love you,” he said. But then, as if he’d realized what he’d just said, he stopped laughing.
“I do,” he said quietly. “I love you, Van. It’s a ten for me, too. So trust me when I say we need to wait, okay? Trust me when I tell you that my teammates are out there, that they’re going to bring us home.”
Mid-November, 1946, I received a letter from Hank.
It was too thin to be the divorce papers I’d sent—besides those were to be returned to my lawyer’s office. It had been almost a month, though, and there’d been no response.
Until now.
I opened the envelope, I confess, with shaking hands.
Rose
No Dear. Just my name, written in his so-familiar hand.
I will be visiting New York on November the 12th and should like to see you. Please will you join me for dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria at seven o’clock p.m.
Yours, Hank
November the 12th was the next day. I tried somewhat desperately to talk myself out of going, but of course, in the end, I couldn’t stay away.
I arranged for Evelyn to come out and watch the boys, and, wearing my best dress, I took the train into the city.
The Waldorf was just as I’d remembered it, the lobby perhaps more crowded than it had been, with reporters and newspaper photographers everywhere I turned.
I went toward the restaurant, stopping to ask a young woman in a big purple hat what the fuss was about. (Why do I remember that hat? But I do. As clearly as if I’d seen it yesterday.)
“Some VIP’s in town,” she told me with a snap of her gum. “A war hero—some European prince.”
Hank. She was talking about Hank. These reporters were here because of him.
I gave my name to the maître d’, whispering that I was to be dining with Heinrich von Hopf, whispering for fear one of the reporters with particularly good ears might overhear me and start asking questions.
I was led into the main dining room, which surprised me. I was certain Hank would have arranged for us to dine in a private room where no one could see us and speculate on our relationship.
If those reporters only knew—but I was determined not to let our secret slip. Not just for Hank’s sake, but for my sons’ sakes as well.
“I think there must be some mistake,” I told the maître d’, but then I saw him. Hank.
He was already there, sitting at a table near the big window that overlooked the street. My heart lurched at the sight of him. He was thin and his color wasn’t all too good, but oh, it was Hank.
He didn’t stand as he saw me coming, and I stopped short—my heart doing another flip as I realized he was sitting in a wheelchair.
None of the articles Anson Faulkner had sent me—and there were quite a handful about Hank in both the London and Wien papers—had mentioned anything about a wheelchair.
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He used his arms to shift his chair, pulling himself out from beneath the linen table cloth. And I saw that Hank, my dearest Hank, had lost the lower half of his left leg.
“Oh, God,” I said.
“So you didn’t know,” he said.
I wanted to run to him. To fall to my knees in front of him and run my hands over and across him—making sure that the rest of him was healthy and whole. But there were reporters just outside in the lobby.
“It was an infection,” he told me, as I sank into my seat across from him instead. “The doctors couldn’t shake it, it nearly killed me. They opted to amputate in late September.”
Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control Page 48