“Yes, he has some other men with him too.”
“Well, I must say,” Linda observed breathlessly as they rounded a corner, “he seems perfectly capable of doing it by himself. And as for me, I’d follow him anywhere, into or out of a civil war.”
This was such an unexpected statement for Linda to make under the circumstances that Karen stopped short, causing the other woman to crash into her.
“What do you mean?”
Linda made a face. “Don’t be dense. Surely you noticed that the man is gorgeous.”
“I did, but at first I was a little more concerned about what side he was on.”
Their conversation came to an end as they approached the dock, a large flat area like an airplane hangar with a huge roll-up garage door at the back. Supplies and deliveries were received at this point, and Colter evidently planned on taking them out of the building through the spacious rear exit.
They were joined shortly by the men, who looked as if they had not fared quite as well as their female counterparts. Some were cut and bruised, as if they had been physically abused, and one of the security guards was supporting his bandaged arm. Karen and Linda exchanged glances. They didn’t want to think what might have happened if Colter and his men hadn’t shown up when they did. And it was far from over; they still had to get away.
During the next minute or so, Colter’s eight men assembled at the loading dock from all parts of the building. They were dressed in khakis, T-shirts, camouflage pants, denim vests—a motley assortment of clothing—but uniformly carried Israeli Uzi submachine guns, the most efficient assault weapon in their deadly business. They fell into line behind Colter as he appeared from Karen’s left and ran to the steel door. He held his gun down at his side, reducing the kick, and shot off the lock holding the door in place. Then after slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he threw up the door to reveal a trio of military transports waiting for them to board.
Everything seemed to be moving at the speed of light. The hostages ran to the trucks as Colter and two other men directed them, separating them into three groups for boarding purposes. Colter stretched out his arm and caught Karen as she ran past him.
“You’re going with me,” he said. “Get into the third truck.”
Karen obeyed, looking back at Linda who was heading for the first one. There was no time to object, Karen realized as she ducked under the canvas flap and took her place on one of the side benches. She didn’t mind anyway; Colter’s confidence was contagious. Already she felt safe with him.
An armed man rode with the driver in each transport, and the two other mercenaries jumped into an accompanying jeep. Colter vaulted into Karen’s truck at the last possible second, grabbing a hand pull just inside the back flap. The little caravan careened wildly down the access lane and into the street.
Everything had been done in the space of a minute with the efficiency of long practice. The band of hired soldiers probably did this sort of thing all the time. But Karen didn’t. She found that her hands were trembling so badly she had to clasp them between her knees to keep them still.
“Got the shakes?” Colter asked, looking down at her.
Karen nodded, ashamed that he’d noticed.
“Don’t worry, it’ll pass,” he said, with more sympathy in his tone than she would have expected. He wasn’t inured to the physical effects of fear, then. Perhaps he had even felt them himself. But then she looked at the set of his broad shoulders as he stared out the back of the truck, the way he held his weapon as if it were an extension of his body, and she doubted it.
Suddenly he began to curse under his breath. He levered his gun into his hands and yelled, “Hit the deck, everybody. We’ve got company.”
Karen flung herself to the floor, crossing her arms over her head. The moving truck was rocked by a series of explosions. Colter knelt and, steadying his weapon on his upraised knee, fired several rounds from his position at the rear. Karen could hear what sounded like little bombs going off around them; someone was lobbing grenades at the transport. The noise was deafening and the smell of cordite choking, overpowering.
Through it all the driver roared on and even seemed to pick up speed, taking the turns through the narrow downtown streets at breakneck pace. Karen could only assume that reinforcements had arrived and the rebels were making a final effort to recover their fleeing hostages.
A charge went off right behind them. Colter turned and threw himself down, seizing Karen and sheltering her under him. She was conscious of a second flash of light, followed by a thunderous detonation, but was more aware of the man who lay on top of her, pinning her to the metal floor of the transport with his body. He was heavy, but not uncomfortably so. Once again Karen felt protected, even though she knew that anything hitting him would probably injure her as well. Her face was crushed against his chest and she inhaled the clean male smell of him, detectable through the odors of sweat on his skin and the starch in his shirt. She could feel his heart beating under her ear, and its deep, steady thud was comforting. She noticed that it was not racing, as hers was. She wondered what it would take to get it pumping wildly. World War III, maybe. Or the right woman. Then all at once she was ashamed of herself for having frivolous thoughts at such a time and she closed her eyes, willing them to stop.
The firing from outside fell off dramatically and Colter sat up. Karen scurried away from him as soon as he released her and huddled against the curved wall of the truck.
He leaned forward, concerned, and put a large hand on her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Karen nodded mutely, more shaken by his recent closeness than the rebel attack.
“You sure? You jumped up like you were on fire.”
Karen looked away, disturbed by the unintentional accuracy of his analogy. She wondered wildly if the confinement in the cellar, followed by the theatrical rescue, was unseating her reason. She had been fantasizing about a man whose only thought was to save her life. He would have done the same for anyone else on the truck and she knew it.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, and he stood, satisfied. He made his way back to the door and then looked around at the rest of his passengers. Some were mute with shock, others weeping openly. He alone seemed unaffected; it was another day’s work to him.
Karen waited for the onslaught to resume, but nothing happened and the truck plummeted on toward its destination. She hoped the worst was over.
Colter crooked his finger at Karen and she rose unsteadily. When she reached him he put his arm up behind her, sheltering them from view, and spoke to her in a low tone.
“Do you have any psychological training?” he asked. His eyes, the color of Karen’s aquamarine birthstone, searched her face.
“I, uh, no,” Karen replied, thinking it an odd question for him to ask.
He nodded resignedly. “It was just a hunch. I thought you might, from the way you took charge back at the Government House. These people are pretty shaken up and we’re going to have to hold them together until I can get them where they’re supposed to go.”
She liked the way he spoke of it as a cooperative effort. “I’ll do what I can,” she said.
She grabbed for a handhold as the truck hit a pothole and pitched her forward. Colter put an arm around her and steadied her against his side. She had an overwhelming temptation to relax into his embrace, let him take care of everything. But she had promised to help him and this wasn’t the way to go about it. She straightened and eyed him alertly.
“The situation isn’t good,” he said shortly. “I saw one of the jeeps get hit, and I think we’ve got some injured people in another truck. We’re taking you to a ship waiting in the Ascension harbor. It’s supposed to be outfitted with trained staff and medical supplies, but it will be an overnight trip to Caracas. We’ve got to keep the injured, and anybody who’s on the verge of losing it mentally, going long enough to get them to a hospital there.”
“Can’t we leave them at the hospital here?” K
aren asked. “Surely the Almerian authorities will cooperate; the rebels were acting on their own.” She glanced over her shoulder at the rest of the passengers; some of them were taking an interest in her conversation, clearly wondering what she was saying to the mercenary.
Colter shook his head. “The government here is too unstable, and the rebels are everywhere. We have to sneak you out on a tuna boat because the locals didn’t want to risk an international incident at their airport. I can’t vouch for the safety of any of these people if we leave them in Almeria. I’m being paid to get them to Venezuela, and that’s what I’m going to do. Now are you with me?”
“Of course,” Karen whispered, her dark eyes locked with his pale ones.
He curled his right hand into a fist and tapped her on the chin with it.
“Good girl,” he said again, and she wondered why such a casual salutation from an obviously distracted man should mean so much to her.
The truck bumped to a stop, and Colter jumped down from its open back while it was still moving. Karen was the first of the hostages to get out; he reached up and put his hands on either side of her waist, lifting her to the ground.
They were at the harbor, and another time Karen would have been able to appreciate the beauty of the warm tropical evening. The stars were out, glittering against the blue velvet expanse of sky. A full moon hung above Sangre de Cristo Bay, illuminating the sea below with the iridescent light of a Chinese lantern. All the little boats bobbed at anchor, the water slapping against their hulls with the rhythmic motion of the waves. A salt wind blew in from the ocean, stirring Karen’s hair. It was a soft, lovely night.
Colter and his men hustled the hostages onto the boat as quickly as they could move. Karen noticed Colter turning from side to side as she went up the gangway, and she realized he was on the lookout for the harbor police. She saw two men with stretchers come down from the boat to pick up the injured, and she was glad she had made it through unscathed.
But it wasn’t finished yet. They could still be stopped on the way out, and she tried not to think about their tenuous situation as she went below deck with the others. They were gathered in the dining room by the medical staff, who handed out tea and sandwiches with unflappable British calm. She couldn’t see the boat depart from the dock, but she felt its motion as it left the slip and sailed out into the bay. She knew that Colter and the other mercenaries had remained on deck, and she guessed they had stayed above to deal with any trouble that might arise.
Karen was reunited with Linda, and the two women spent the next several hours working with the medical personnel, a doctor and two nurses, performing any service that didn’t require professional training. They unwrapped bandages and washed utensils, fetched and carried as the wounded were tended. Three of the mercenaries had been shot, and one of the government workers had suffered a heart attack. In addition, several of the male hostages had sustained injuries during their confinement, so there was plenty to do.
And when Karen wasn’t with the nurses, she was talking to the shock victims: the mail clerk who couldn’t stop crying and the security guard with the bad arm who kept insisting that they were all going to die, despite repeated assurances to the contrary.
By the time she took a break it was close to midnight and their vessel was far out to sea. She sat down on a cot next to Linda and accepted a cup of tea from the younger of the nurses, an English rose with vivid red hair who called everybody “sweeting.”
“You’d better not let your handsome friend catch sight of ‘sweeting’ there, or he might just emigrate to Britain,” Linda said dryly as Karen took off one of her shoes and rubbed her foot.
“What friend?” Karen asked confusedly. She was so tired she could hardly follow the conversation.
“Our savior, dearie, the big blond with the big gun. By the way, where is he?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of them since we boarded.”
“You don’t suppose they’ve jumped ship and left us to fend for ourselves?” Linda asked in a stage whisper.
“Don’t be silly. They’re being paid to take us to Venezuela, and I don’t think they can collect unless they deliver us in person.” Karen took a sip of tea and glanced at Linda. “Do you think you’ll go back to England now?”
“I suppose I shall have to,” Linda replied, sighing, “though I can’t say I’m looking forward to facing my stepmother over the breakfast table every morning. Father got me the job on Almeria to take me away from her, but he might be in difficulties now with all of this, so I should think everything will be rather uncertain for a while. What will you do?”
“Stay with my sister in New Jersey, I guess.”
“Isn’t that near New York?”
“Yes, right across the river, on the east coast.”
“I would love to see New York. I hear it’s unforgettable.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Is it true that everyone gets mugged there?”
Karen laughed. “Where did you get that idea?”
“I read the American newspapers,” Linda replied airily.
The older nurse stopped in front of them and said, “Ladies, you may take a shower if you like. We’ve rigged a hand-held job in the head just down the hall, and there are fresh clothes on a stand outside the door.”
“Ooh, lovely,” Linda said, standing up. “I could certainly do with a good wash. Do you mind if I go first?”
“Fine with me,” Karen replied. She could hardly move. She took a ten minute nap while Linda was gone, and then revived enough to stumble down to the tiny metal appointed bathroom. The soap was some fragrant, hand-milled British variety, and there didn’t appear to be any shampoo, so she washed her hair with it too. After she dried off, she dropped her ruined outfit into the steel wastebasket provided and dressed in the proffered clothes, which turned out to be a pair of seaman’s baggies and a loose cotton blouse. She didn’t want to consider the picture she made as she emerged with a wet head, wearing the borrowed togs which fit her like a pair of boxing gloves.
Karen made her way back to the dining room and asked the nurse who had suggested her shower if she could go up on deck.
“I still have cabin fever from that basement,” she explained. “I would love to get a breath of fresh air.”
“I don’t see why not—we’re too far out now for any trouble,” the nurse said. “But I’d better check.”
She returned shortly and told Karen that she could go up if she felt like it. Most of the other passengers were sleeping on the cots and air mattresses the crew had provided. Karen felt rejuvenated in her clean skin and clean clothes and walked past them briskly, eager to escape the confines of the lower level.
Out on deck the air was chilly, and a stiff breeze whipped her oversized shirt around her body. The boat was old. The warped floorboards beneath her feet creaked as she walked, and through the dated glass screen she could see the pilot leaning on his wheel and checking his instruments. She seemed to be alone. Everybody was probably too exhausted from the ordeal to feel like taking a stroll. Above her was the tower where the lookout scouted for frolicking porpoise, indicating a school of tuna below them. Karen went to the polished wooden railing and leaned over it, letting the fresh wind blow her hair back from her face. She stood there for a long time. She was out of Almeria. She was safe and on her way to freedom. She had never felt so good.
“Cigarette?” said a masculine voice behind her.
She turned to find Colter with his back to the water, his elbows propped against the railing, offering her a pack of Camels.
She shook her head.
He lit up and said, “Great outfit. You look like Nellie Forbush in South Pacific.”
Karen glanced down at herself. “Anything would have been an improvement over what I was wearing.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, exhaling a stream of smoke. “I kind of thought that little beige skirt you had on was cute.”
“It was
no longer beige by the time I took it off,” Karen said dryly.
“You did very well in there,” he told her seriously, tilting his head as he examined her. “I know you were as tired and drained as anybody else, but you pitched right in and worked side by side with the nurses.”
Karen looked at him. His deep voice seemed almost disembodied. In the faint light all she could see was the pale eyes and the flash of teeth in his tanned face. “How do you know?” she asked.
“I was watching you.”
“You were? I didn’t see you.”
“But I saw you. You must be beat; you didn’t sit down once. Why did you work so hard?”
“You asked me to,” she answered simply.
There was a silence, during which the only sound they could hear was the froth of waves breaking against the bow of the ship. Finally Colter said, “So why aren’t you passed out below deck with the others?”
“I did take a short nap, but now I feel keyed up, alert. I don’t think I could sleep.”
He nodded. “It affects some people that way.”
“What does?”
“Danger. The adrenaline will keep pumping for a while. You’ll need a few days to settle down.”
Karen shivered suddenly as a salty gust flattened her shirt against her and Colter said, “You’re cold. Do you want to go below?”
“Oh, no,” she replied. “That cellar was so hot and stuffy and it seemed like we were trapped in there for a year. This is wonderful, really.”
“Then let me get you something,” he said, straightening up from the railing.
“Don’t go to any trouble,” Karen began, but he held up his hand.
“No trouble,” he said. “Just stay right where you are.”
Karen did as he said, closing her eyes, content to wait for his return. He was back in no time. He handed her a light denim jacket that, judging from its size and the tobacco scent clinging to it, had to be his. She put it on and the sleeves cascaded to her hips.
“You’d better grow if you want to fit the clothes around here,” he observed. “That looks almost as good as the sailor suit you’re wearing.”
Danger Zone Page 2