“I told you why.”
“Yes, you did. But Hoffman just called me back, and there seems to be a problem. Once he started to dig into Sasha Lawrence’s personnel records from the school, he found he kept running into discrepancies. Nothing obvious, but still troubling. For instance, your mother, Hannah Lawrence, was no longer at the address she gave in London and he was having to take more time to discover where she’d moved.”
“My mother always moved around a lot.”
“But wouldn’t she want to be sure to be able to be reached when her daughter was in such danger?”
“She’s probably listed with one of the U.N. charity organizations.” She lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “What are you getting at, Masenak?”
“I was wondering if Baldwin was trying to set up a ransom deal of his own and ran across the same stumbling block as Hoffman. But he might have had more time to find answers. Did he? Is your name really Sasha Lawrence? I had an intriguing thought. What if your parents who enrolled you at St. Eldon’s are perhaps mafia or some other crime family who might offer me a great deal of money if I realized what a treasure I’d stolen from them?”
“No,” she said curtly. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I be working in the stable if that was true? Not everyone has money. My mother did the best she could.”
“So defensive.” His gaze was searching her face. “I don’t really care if you’re lying to me. I’ll learn the truth eventually. Regardless, whatever your parents could offer now wouldn’t be enough to tempt me away from taking you to the mountains.” He paused. “However, it might have a strong influence on Baldwin if he found out that you were a pot of gold he could tap. That might be the reason why he took off when he’d ordinarily be scared shitless.”
“Ridiculous,” Sasha repeated. “He was just jealous or drunk. Though you’re right, he’s probably too scared to face you.”
“We’ll see, when I find him. I’m leaning toward believing my own reason why he took off, and I know him better than you.”
She shrugged. “Two of a kind.”
“That’s an insult. Baldwin would never be my equal. He only serves me, as you will soon.” He turned and started across the grounds toward his tent. “Which reminds me, you’re beginning to bore me, and I need entertainment. Any recommendations? I’ve been using the older girls, but I became quite excited at the event the other day. Perhaps I’ll go a bit younger…”
She didn’t answer. He only wanted to hurt her. She knew no matter what she said, he would do whatever he wished. She stood there, fists clenched, watching until he disappeared into his tent. Then she threw back the canvas door and entered her own tent. She could see Gilroy’s shadow on the far end of the wall. “He’s gone,” she said shakily. “He’s just reached his tent. But you can’t leave yet. He’s going to send for one of the girls, and that means guards moving around. There will be…disturbance.”
“I heard him,” Gilroy said quietly. “I heard everything the son of a bitch said. Are you sure you don’t want me to kill the bastard? There are all kinds of ways to do it that wouldn’t leave even a hint of evidence.”
She nodded. “And Alisa knows them all, but she couldn’t do it, either. Not until we get all those girls out of here. Masenak and Baldwin were the only ones permitted to rape or torture them on a regular basis, but without Masenak in control those soldiers would become savages.”
“Pity,” Gilroy said. He looked down at the signal jammer and the chemical solvent. “What do I tell Korgan? Yes or no?”
“What do you think? Of course I want to do it. I have to do it.” Masenak had been gone long enough to give the order, she thought desperately. It should happen anytime now. Don’t think about it. Just keep talking. “How long should I wait before I use that solvent on those links?”
“As soon as you can. No longer than two, three days max. I’ll check in with you every few days to see if you need me.”
“Not you. You may be as good as you say you are, but Juno is a better messenger and Margaret doesn’t have to get close to the camp to receive word from me.”
“Juno…” he said thoughtfully. “I thought something was going on between them. I knew a few dog handlers when I was in training in the Philippines who had that sort of mystique. Interesting.”
“I’m glad you think so.” She barely knew what she was saying. She was tensing up. The girl must have been delivered by this time. It would come any minute now.
A scream tore through the night.
And then another one.
Dear God. Let it not be one of the young ones.
Make him stop!
She wanted to reach out and strike and strike and strike and strike!
“Easy. It’s me.” Gilroy was holding her wrists against his chest. “I don’t mind a little punishment, but I won’t take Masenak’s.”
She had been hitting out at him with all her strength, she realized dazedly.
Another scream.
“Or maybe I will.” He pulled her closer and covered her ears with his hands so that she couldn’t hear. “Take deep breaths. Stay still for a little while and we’ll get through this.”
“No we won’t,” she said hoarsely. “We’ll never get through it. I hear it even when he stops.” She was clutching him desperately, and she could feel the tears running down her cheeks. “And there’s nothing I can do about it. I kept telling Alisa I had to do something about it, but she—”
“Shh. And now we’ll do what needs to be done.” He was rocking her gently back and forth, his hands cupping her ears. “Just ride this one out with me. I’ll make sure he pays, I promise. Just listen to my voice and nothing else, okay?”
“I told you, it’s not okay. What are you doing? Stop treating me like a kid.”
But he was still talking, and she stopped listening to the words and blocked out everything but the comforting rumble of his voice.
And several minutes later he was taking his hands away from her ears and gently pushing her away from him. “I think the worst part is over now. I don’t hear her. She seems…better.”
“She’s not better. She won’t be better until I can get her and the rest of them away from Masenak.” She pulled away from him and tried to steady her voice. “You should leave now. It would be a good time to slip out of camp before the guards come back to get her. He’ll keep her with him for a little while longer and then send her back to the prisoner tent.”
He nodded grimly. “You appear to know the schedule. This happens a lot?”
“Of course it does. He knows it hurts me. I think the reason he stopped sending for Baldwin and using him was that he wanted to show me what could happen to me if I didn’t cooperate. It’s his way of training me.” She shook her head. “It works very well. Because I usually don’t have anyone covering my ears so that I don’t hear the lesson he’s trying to drum into me.” Her lips curved in a bitter smile. “And I don’t even know what you were saying. I was trying to block everything out.”
“Good. Because I was just making noise and mumbling bullshit to help you do that. I think I ended up telling you the plot of the first episode of the Indiana Jones movies.”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “What? Indiana…I remember Alisa said something…” Then she said flatly, “You must be totally weird.”
“There are rumors to that effect drifting around.” He was moving quickly toward the back of the tent. “But I prefer the term unique. I’ll give Korgan your message. And I’ll tell Alisa my new friend, Sasha, is doing well considering all the scum around her. Though again, I might prefer to use a stronger term. I’ll be in touch.”
He was gone.
Sasha held her breath, listening. No sound. Total silence. But that only meant he might have gotten out of the camp without being caught. He still had the sentries in the jungle to contend with after he’d left the main camp. She would hear a shot or outcry soon if that happened.
She waited.
Nothing.
After fifteen minutes she gradually relaxed. Perhaps Gilroy was as good as he’d told her. At any rate, Korgan must have faith in him if he’d sent him on a mission that could have been deadly. Yet Gilroy had been almost casual about both the mission and any possible ramifications. He was just as weird as she’d called him.
But he’d accepted what she’d told him about Juno, and he’d blocked those agonizing sounds of pain and horror with his hands and his voice. He’d called her his friend in this place where she had no real friends. What difference did it make if he wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever met? The whole world seemed turned upside down and weird right now.
And he’d given her the weapons to help stop the monsters. She gazed down at the signal jammer. It was in her hands now. She was responsible to help make the escape happen. But how was she going to do it? There were forty-seven girls in those prisoner tents. She should probably try to get help from one of the other students if she could. Which one? How to recruit someone reliable? She didn’t know how to do stuff like that.
Well, she’d better learn. Lie here and think and attempt once more to block out Masenak if he decided not to send out that poor girl right away. She quickly hid the jammer and chemical away beneath her blankets. She’d find a better place later, but this would do for now. She closed her eyes. Think about the prisoner tents, picture them. Think of the posts and how the chains are fastened…
Chapter
6
Border Base Camp
1:40 A.M.
Wake up,” Korgan said the minute Alisa picked up his call. “If you were even asleep. You were so annoyed with me by the time you went to bed, I thought you might be having trouble in that area.”
“I had every right to be annoyed,” she said tartly. “I was just trying to ask you questions and find out what was happening. And all day you kept closing me out and having meetings with Vogel and your other men.”
“Then come over to my tent right now and you might get a few answers.” He cut the connection.
She muttered an oath, but the next moment she was out of her sleeping bag and splashing water in her face. Two minutes later, she saw the glow of a campfire before Korgan’s tent as she crossed the grounds. He was standing beside John Gilroy, and they both had bottles of beer in their hands. “Join us?” Korgan looked up as she approached them. “Gilroy had a rather busy night and was thirsty when he came back.” He smiled crookedly. “And I thought the alcohol might fortify me for what was to come.”
“I’m not thirsty,” she said impatiently. She looked at Gilroy. “Busy? Doing what? I thought you were questioning Baldwin.”
“It didn’t turn out quite that way. Korgan found something else he thought was more important for me to do today.” He paused. “He sent me back to Masenak’s camp to make sure that Sasha was safe. He said you were worried about her.” He added gently, “You didn’t need to be concerned. Masenak doesn’t really suspect her of anything connected to Baldwin’s disappearance.”
“Thank God.” Alisa released the breath she’d been holding. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. I talked to her. I heard that son of a bitch, Masenak, talk to her. As I told Korgan, the only doubts he has are about who Sasha’s parents are, and if Baldwin is trying to screw him out of any ransom.”
“You actually talked to her?” she asked incredulously. “You went into the camp on the night after Baldwin disappeared? Are you crazy?”
“Not crazy. Not weird as your friend Sasha called me. Merely doing the unexpected, which works in the majority of cases.” He took a swallow of his beer. “And Korgan insisted on conversation and delivery as well as a report, so I obliged him.”
“Thank you,” Korgan said dryly.
“You should thank me,” Gilroy said. “Though to be honest, she didn’t need any urging to accept that delivery. She was already almost there. All it took was the signal jammer.”
“Signal jammer?” Alisa repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“Since I was having Gilroy check on her, I thought I’d accomplish two aims at once,” Korgan said. “I sent him with a signal jammer to temporarily disarm the CL-20 detonator and a chemical to dissolve the chain links connected to the posts.”
“What?”
“But I told her that it was Korgan’s idea to give it to her, and it was without your approval,” Gilroy said quickly. “And that it had to be her choice.”
“‘Choice’?” Alisa repeated harshly. “Dammit, the minute you gave her that jammer she had no choice. It was like giving candy to a baby. She can’t think of anything but helping those students.” She whirled on Korgan. “I thought we’d talk about any action we asked Sasha to take. Yet you sent him to toss that jammer in her lap without even consulting me?”
“I wanted to get the equipment she might need to her right away,” he said quietly. “I’m moving fast, and I didn’t know how many opportunities I’d have to make certain she had it if she needed it. I was sending Gilroy there anyway, and I took advantage of it.”
She was in such a rage she was having trouble keeping her voice steady. “You certainly did.”
“Yes, I did. But I didn’t coerce her. I just gave her the weapons to help and told her we’d be behind her…if she decided to do it. We’d both agreed that to involve her was the best and safest way to handle the extraction. I didn’t tell you I was doing it today because I knew you’d agonize over it and delay and worry about how to handle it. I didn’t want to put you through that and thought I’d merely present you with a fait accompli.”
“Of course I’d agonize over it. Are you an idiot?” She wanted to hit him. “Sasha is family to me. You had no right to do anything concerning her without letting me know.”
Gilroy chuckled. “I think I’ll go finish my beer somewhere else, Korgan. Much as I’d like to stay and watch her take you down, I’m feeling a little sorry for you since I let myself become involved.” He turned to Alisa, suddenly no longer smiling. “But he was right to give her anything he could so that she wouldn’t feel that helpless again. I saw a little of what she was going through tonight, and I wanted to blow Masenak and every one of his goons to kingdom come.” He glanced back over his shoulder at Korgan as he started down the hill. “And though I hate not to charge you my usual exorbitant fee, anything that I can do to get her out of that hellhole is on me.” He added grimly, “So let’s get moving.” He disappeared into his tent.
Alisa’s eyes widened and her gaze flew to Korgan. “Did he tell you what happened with Sasha tonight?”
He shook his head. “Only that she probably has more guts and stamina than anyone he’d ever run across.” His lips tightened. “But that last offer he made says it all, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “Since the kidnapping Sasha won’t talk to me about anything that’s happening to her most of the time. She’s afraid I’ll worry too much and get upset over something I can’t change.” Her lips twisted. “Isn’t that funny? She’s worrying about me. That’s why Margaret usually contacts her. Sasha will talk to her, and we find out more.”
“Not funny at all,” he said quietly. “She obviously loves you and wants to take care of you. Perfectly natural when you feel the same way about her. She might be a kid, but she evidently doesn’t consider herself one.”
“No, how could she? All her life she’s been used, first by her father, and then the owner of that circus. Now she’s struggling not to be used by Masenak. I only bought her a short reprieve when I managed to send her to St. Eldon’s.”
“Five years isn’t that short. Not if she was as happy there as you say.” He paused. “Are you going to forgive me for not clueing you in about sending her the jammer?”
“No, you should have told me. You can’t just try to run my life as if it was one of your corporations. Not if it concerns Sasha. You will not do that again.” She added coldly, “I’ll accept anything that you do to me because I owe you and have no choice,
but even then, I deserve respect. Do you understand?”
“You couldn’t be any clearer. But I told you anything I did could be reversed. You’re not telling me to do it.” He smiled. “And I doubt if anyone in your life has respected you as much as I do, Alisa.”
“Then show it,” she said crisply. “I gave you Baldwin, and instead of interrogating him, you sent Gilroy to Masenak’s camp to do something you knew I’d object to.”
“Gilroy and I both knew another night of leaving Baldwin alone to stew would only soften him. He should be ready for Gilroy after a few more hours.” He paused. “And don’t you feel better knowing that nothing terrible happened to Sasha after we took Baldwin?”
She frowned. “You know I do.”
“Then that made my action at least fifty percent okay. Making certain Sasha had possession of defensive weapons to save herself and her fellow students took care of the other fifty percent.” He smiled faintly. “And something Gilroy mentioned he’d heard Masenak say to Sasha put me way over the top.”
“Of course it did. You wouldn’t accept anything else. The top wouldn’t be good enough for you.” After a silence, she asked, “So what did Masenak say?”
“That he’d been investigating Sasha’s parents because he’d suspected she might not be who her paperwork claimed she was. One of the ideas he was toying with was that she might be the daughter of a mafia head or some other underworld figure who’d wanted to hide her at the school for safekeeping.”
“Not a bad guess,” she murmured. “And it would make sense to Masenak. That’s his world. Sasha was probably relieved he hadn’t connected her to me. I don’t want to think what his take would be about her being the ward of a CIA operative.”
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