Falling Darkness--A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Karen Harper

  “A man after my own heart,” Jace put in. “Let’s just hope there’s a path swimmers have cut up to the road, because the brush looks pretty thick right here. Onward and upward, right, bro?” he added, addressing his supposed brother, Jack Randal.

  Claire gave Gina a quick hug, but the young woman was trembling and clung to her, getting her wetter than she was. Nita patted Gina’s back and said in English, “And we be like sisters to you.”

  Single file, their ragtag group, now increased by one, headed for the upward path.

  * * *

  They could see the low-level sprawl of Guantanamo City in the distance, but the road they took toward it was lined on its landward side with a massive sugarcane field. Claire marveled that some of the cane was ten feet tall, green and waving in the breeze, ripe to harvest. More than once, they saw workers with machetes along the way and horse-drawn wagons loaded with newly cut stalks. The storm had cleared, but they smelled smoke from the cane fires, all in the distance, but nearly blocking out the sinking sun.

  They were hopeful as they trekked westward toward Guantanamo City, which surrounded the navy base, on one side of the beautiful bay. Claire sensed Jace got really excited when a big-bellied US naval plane flew over. But their high hopes came to a screaming stop when they saw a problem about a half mile up ahead.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Claire asked. “Wish we had binoculars. And isn’t there a second roadblock beyond that? That farthest one looks like it might be near the base—I mean, isn’t that one of those tall watchtowers? If that first blockade’s for us, we’re doomed. Despite drifting smoke, I can make out blue license plates on those cars.”

  “What does doomed mean, Mommy?”

  Everyone ignored her. Gina said, “Looks like police officers’ cars to me.”

  They edged over farther toward the sugarcane field. Shading his eyes and squinting, Jace said, “It looks like police—and isn’t one of those guys up there in a suit?”

  They heard a shrill whistle and some of the men in the cluster started toward them.

  “We’re going to have to duck and run,” Nick said. “We can cut into the field, around that first roadblock to the one near the base. Once in, turn right. And don’t get lost in there. Stay close together, but go way back in!”

  Jace grabbed Lexi and ran with her clasped in front of him. Claire came next, holding the whale. She could feel and hear things in her purse bouncing. Nick followed her. The others were several rows to the west, running abreast through the rows of cane. Claire had once gone through a north Florida corn maze with friends, but this was different, a dark, tall, endless tunnel. And the soil was spongy from recent rain, slowing them down. The shifting, dry stalks and sharp-bladed leaves snatched at them, and their tops of waving tassels whipped back and forth in the wind. At least these rows were wider set than in a cornfield, so they could run without bouncing into stalks to give away their position.

  But she could hear their pursuers behind them, running, calling to each other, shouting for them in accented English to “Stop! Stop or else!” More bad news. They must know they were chasing Americans. When Lexi’s feet dragged into the canes, the clacking sound made Claire think of distant machine gun fire.

  Then it seemed that the voices were muting. “Maybe they’re dropping back,” Nick said, out of breath. “We’re far enough in to cut toward the base. Keep close, everybody. Go!”

  He took Lexi from Jace, and they started off again. “Miles, acres of this stuff!” Claire muttered. Like all of them, she was sweating and out of breath. Only Lexi seemed calm, but she was grateful for that. All they needed was for Lily to be yelling out something to give away their position.

  But the running was harder now, and not only from wet soil. The cane grew thicker in this direction, making it almost impossible as they tried to cut through the cane sideways, not down the rows. “It hurts!” she heard Lexi say. “Can’t we shoot the bad guys or just hide?”

  “Let’s go deeper in,” Nick said. “Bronco and Heck, you hear me?” he got out.

  “Lily doesn’t like to run!” Lexi put in.

  Claire told her, “Hush. If those men find us they will take away Shark-Killer, so you have to be quiet.”

  “But others are talking!”

  They went deeper into the massive field again. It was like being lost in a forest, plunging through the cavernous rows of trees. They heard a shout behind them. Someone close? Had someone spotted them?

  “Over here, officers!” a very American voice shouted. “We got them now! The man will have our heads if we don’t get them! They have to be stopped this time!”

  For sure that meant Ames’s men were here. Claire saw Nick looked livid.

  Lexi said, “They are bad men. And, Mommy, what’s that smell, like those icky cigars?”

  Claire gasped, and she heard Bronco swear under his breath in the next row of cane. The breeze had not been in their faces, but they heard a crackling like popcorn. The sun wasn’t out, but the heat got more intense as the wind changed direction.

  Gina whispered, “They are burning this field ahead of us, from near the base. Madre de Dios, we’re trapped between those men and the flames!”

  10

  Not only the crackle and roar of the flames grew louder but some other noise did too. Claire craned her neck to look up. A drone with a camera buzzed overhead and turned back to hover above them, coming lower, lower. No wonder their pursuers had located them in this thick maze.

  She ripped her shoulder bag off her arm, grabbed her meds and wallet out in case she lost the purse. She slung it like a boomerang at the low-flying drone. The leather shoulder handle snagged the drone’s rotors, and it went down several yards away into the cane.

  “Way to go!” Jace blurted. “But we got to go. No time to find the purse.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, torn between pride and panic. “I’ve got my ID and meds, so—”

  But as she bent to gather her pill case and wallet, she saw the case had come open. Her pills were strewed on and in the damp soil. She’d stepped on most of them. Without them, she’d be in such trouble.

  She went to her knees and started to dig the pills out of the ground, but many had dissolved to wet powder. She clawed at two, three of them, her nails raking the damp soil until Nick hauled her to her feet.

  “They’re still coming,” he whispered, looking more desperate than she’d ever seen him. He grabbed her wallet and jammed it in his front pocket. “Let’s go!”

  Jace took Lexi again. Nick, who’d been calming the others, snagged the green whale, smeared with mud. He dragged Claire so fast through the cane away from the devouring flames that her feet almost left the ground.

  Men’s voices, shouts. Suddenly, a towering wall of orange flames roared close behind them. Choking smoke. No choice, she thought. No choice but to die in the fire or run for the road and be taken, maybe shot, maybe kept here forever.

  Before they even saw the opening ahead, they exploded from the far edge of the cane field. It was a strip of land with no plants and barbed wire and watchtowers just ahead. It was hilly ahead and blue-gray mountains huddled in the distance.

  Their pursuers ran out just behind them, guns drawn. “Stop! Halt! Alto! Alto!” different men shouted. Shots rang out, exploding little dust balls near their feet while the flames reached the edge of the cane field, so the men came farther toward them.

  Every instinct in Claire’s body said to keep running, but there was that fence and barbed wire to keep them from the safety of the base. So close yet so far.

  Her brain threw pictures at her of the day she was shot leaving the Collier County Courthouse, the day Nick helped her. In that instant, she felt the fear, the searing pain again. Cloaked in smoke, she stopped running with her back to the intense heat.

  Bronco also st
opped and turned. Gina skidded to a halt and put her hands atop her head. Jace stopped but didn’t turn, no doubt to protect Lexi, cradled in his arms.

  Nick turned to face their pursuers, yet he called out loudly enough to be heard in the watchtower behind them, “We’re Americans. We’re here seeking asylum from the officers at this base so—”

  Claire screamed as someone shot. Nick went down, clutching his left leg. Gunfire erupted over them from two directions as they hit the ground. Shots from the guard tower spit back at their pursuers.

  Next to her in the damp dirt, Jace’s body covered Lexi. They were not hit but Nick was.

  “The marines in the tower are covering us!” Jace shouted at her. “Crawl up to the fence.”

  He had to be crazy, she thought. There was nowhere to go through the fence, and they’d be trapped against it. Coils of barbed wire topped it. But when he rolled Lexi over to her and belly-crawled backward, she did as he said, on her knees, covering and dragging Lexi.

  Lexi was screaming, but Claire ignored that. She darted a glance back. Nita crawled close to help her with Lexi. Bronco rolled toward Nick too; Heck held Gina. Now Jace was dragging Nick, whose leg was leaving a trail of blood behind them.

  Suddenly the fence made sense: at least ten marines ran out from somewhere on the other side of it, pointing rifles and handguns through it at their pursuers. When she looked back again, Jace had a belt around Nick’s leg, and a green, camouflaged Humvee was roaring madly toward them on this side of the fence. Their pursuers had run along the burning edge of the field toward the road just outside the wire fence, dragging two of their injured with them. The marines didn’t pursue them, but helped Nick.

  At last, what had seemed an eternity of gunfire stopped, though the smoke and roar of heat and flames from the field was worse, an inferno.

  Claire left Lexi in Nita’s and Gina’s care and bent over Nick.

  “Just a leg wound,” he told her through gritted teeth. His handsome face was distorted in pain. “We’ll be all right now. The marines—and Jace—saved me.”

  Strong hands helped all of them up, then put Nick first in the big, boxy vehicle. “First stop, the hospital,” someone said. Claire saw the others were covered with mud and smudges of smoke, so she must be too. But all of them—even Nick—were safe. And in American hands.

  “Those weren’t Cuban police, Sarge,” she heard one marine say behind her when she climbed in behind Lexi. They had to watch their feet; the marines had put Nick flat on the floor. “Kind of looked like it, but fake outfits. And the guy giving orders was in civvies.”

  Jace, already in the Humvee, was still holding the belt tight around Nick’s leg. “Thank you,” she told Jace and gripped his shoulder, then leaned down to take Nick’s hands in hers. He was trembling, and his eyes looked dilated.

  Lexi squirmed out of Nita’s arms and crowded in between Claire and Jace as if they were a family again.

  Between clenched teeth, his eyes shut tight in pain, Nick told Jace, “Thanks, man.”

  Narrowing his eyes in a laser look at Claire, Jace mouthed to her, I did it for you too.

  “Hey,” Bronco said from the seat behind them, the big man’s voice as shaky as a child’s, “we’re in US hands! We’re going home—even if it’s not quite home.”

  Claire looked out the vehicle’s dusty big square window as they passed through the checkpoint to enter the base. It was getting dark. The marines were lowering the flag from the pole. How good it felt to see the Stars and Stripes instead of Cuba’s single star. One palm tree and some scrub pine seemed to guard the entry to Gitmo. Still holding Nick’s hands, leaning against Jace, she noted they passed a sign that read:

  WELCOME TO US NAVAL STATION

  GUANTANAMO BAY

  * * *

  That evening was a blur. Nick’s leg was tended to at the base hospital, and he walked with crutches, but the bullet had passed through, so they didn’t have to dig it out. He’d kidded Claire that he was now on narco meds too. And everyone, even the marines, had told Claire she did a helluva “who-ya!” job knocking that drone out of the sky.

  They’d all had showers and been given clothes. Claire’s jeans felt tight on her, which was weird since she thought she’d lost weight since the plane went down. Surely, if she was pregnant, she wouldn’t be showing already.

  Someone had given Nick a bobblehead doll of Fidel Castro, taped to one of his crutches. Gina kept covering the bearded figure with tissues so she didn’t have to look at it. They were staying for the night in two apartments for married couples who would be arriving soon. The places were Spartan and smelled of paint. Despite the aura of tradition and tragedy that hung over the area, they were greatly relieved and thankful. And, though they were so exhausted they didn’t feel like celebrating, they thought it would be good to take Lexi to the McDonald’s on the base. Anything to get her back to feeling safe—and to get rid of her alter ego, Lily.

  Lexi had been so thrilled to hear that that Claire wondered for one moment if heading to “Mickey D’s” for a Happy Meal could solve the child’s trauma. But they’d all been through hell. Their rescuers were nervous about Gina since she had no passport, until Rob Patterson, who had flown in to debrief them the next morning, said she could stay. Jace told Claire he imagined Patterson would give her a very thorough debriefing. What strings he pulled so fast in Washington to get her an entry visa for here and to the US they might never learn and didn’t want to ask. He’d even promised her a green card.

  Rob Patterson had turned down their offer to join them. Of course, Claire thought, they should have known better than to even ask. He didn’t want to be seen in public with them even here, and the marines had snagged one of the bogus Cuban police they were questioning. Patterson had told Nick the guy had done it for money and knew nothing about who was behind it. Now Patterson was consulting with the base commander.

  Claire breathed a sigh of relief and free air for the first time in days. They were in good hands and heading back to the US tomorrow, and Heck had Gina leaning against his shoulder. Bronco and Nita smiled at each other, and Lexi, hugging her war-torn plush whale that had been bathed and tended to with a blow-dryer, seemed content. Still, Jace looked—well, restless, staring at her.

  Suddenly, although she’d dreaded it before, Claire was glad they’d hide out this winter in the snowy depths of another island far away. Patterson, who now knew Clayton Ames’s Havana address, said he’d get his hands on him somehow, get him extradited and on trial so Nick could testify and they could return to their normal lives—whatever normal was since she’d met and married Nick Markwood.

  Yes, she thought, as she dipped another french fry in the ketchup, that was the way it would be, calm and quiet in Northern Michigan where Ames could not find them, but he would be found and arrested here. Surely, nothing else could go wrong now.

  11

  Two days later

  The noise from the ferry engine heading for Mackinac Island was loud, but Nick would still hear every word Julia Collister, their WITSEC handler, said. Go figure, Nick thought, that the city they’d just left was spelled Mackinaw and the island was spelled Mackinac, but they were pronounced the same, without a final c sound. Maybe it was a foreign language, because their destination seemed foreign to him.

  But he had trusted Julia instantly, partly because she’d taken care of so many things for them before they’d even met. The ferry was loaded with supplies she’d ordered to get them through the winter: clothing, food, even two snowmobiles. And a laptop in a box at Heck’s feet that he seemed to be guarding with his life, though he was upset at the WITSEC restrictions about using it and the cell phones they would try to do without. Too many witnesses had contacted or called home only to be traced and killed.

  It didn’t bother Nick that the sea was rough today. Now that they’d escaped a plane cras
h and dangers in Cuba, he hoped it would be smooth sailing from here on. Again, at least for now, they had escaped Clayton Ames and told the FBI where they thought he was hiding.

  Claire, alias Jenna on the next island too, whispered, “Isn’t it nice not to have to worry about hidden listening devices and cameras? And, either because it’s so late in the season or because it’s the last ferry on a rough day, no passengers on here but us.”

  “Love it. Love you,” Nick replied. “Julia seems to have taken care of all our needs so far.”

  “So far,” Jace echoed in a low, singsong voice, which annoyed Nick. So, even when they whispered, someone was eavesdropping.

  “She, at least, really seems in control,” Claire added, obviously trying to head off more words between him and Jace. With her great forensic psychology radar, she’d no doubt picked up on Jace’s body language, Nick thought. Jace had been riveted on Julia, all smiles when introduced to her or when she spoke to him.

  Nick had tried to ignore that at first to keep peace and because he probably owed Jace his life. Ordinarily, he’d be glad to see him look longingly at someone besides Claire, but Julia was business not pleasure. It was kind of sad Jace was odd man out among the rest of them who had someone to care for, but WITSEC rules were rules. The stakes of a slipup were incredibly high.

  Jace had turned back to watching Julia. Nick squeezed Claire’s knee. Despite her asserting herself, she didn’t look like she felt better than she had in Cuba, but he could hardly blame her for looking queasy on this rocking boat. The gray spray of waves hitting the surrounding bank of windows on this lower deck didn’t help, but, even standing, ahead of where they sat on the wooden-backed benches, Julia looked sure-footed.

  “Are we there yet?” Lexi asked the eternal kid’s question from behind them where she sat on Nita’s lap next to Bronco. That kind of broke the ice. Everyone laughed or smiled, especially when they saw Bronco holding the ragged stuffed animal.