by Cindy Dees
He would’ve preferred to come upon them while they were sleeping-they’d be less likely to give away his presence by some expression of surprise or joy at seeing a rescuer. But, he had to move now. No way would Melina sit out there for long doing nothing, listening to that poor sod scream. She was far too compassionate and empathetic a soul for that.
He waited until Huayar did something that made his prisoner howl like a banshee. Every guard’s head turned toward the central clearing, and John used the moment of distraction to glide across the path and into the shadow of the structure. He slid around back to the same window he’d peeked into the night before. Grabbing its sill with his fingertips, he did a slow chin-up to peer inside.
He stared in dismay. Gone! The room was empty. No people. No blankets on the bed. Nothing. He let himself down silently and crouched below the window, thinking.
Huayar had moved his prisoners. This was not good. Not good at all. Huayar had anticipated that someone might try to come in here and rescue Melina’s family. Word had obviously gotten back to the bandit that Melina Montez had brought help with her. A potentially competent operator. Damn, damn, damn.
If Huayar was operating on the assumption that his enemy was highly skilled, then the bandit would’ve taken other security precautions, too…John swore under his breath…like the poor schmuck screaming behind him. All of a sudden, Huayar’s choice of torturing some guy tonight took on a whole new significance.
Was this entire scenario an elaborate trap?
Crap. How could it not be? The screaming was meant to lure Melina into the open. Maybe even to give John a plausible cover under which to sneak into the camp and attempt a rescue. And the prisoners had been moved. He’d bet a bundle that if he tried to get into the now-empty room at his back it would be chock-full of booby traps.
He had to get out of here now!
As another scream erupted behind him, John took a quick look around and made a dash for the trees. The vegetation was thin here at the foot of the massive cliff behind the camp, but it was enough. He melted into the shadows, abandoning hours’ worth of patient penetration of the encampment. Frustration ground his molars together. He needed more resources, dammit!
Alternate plans flashed through his head almost too fast to process, but one necessity overrode all others. He had to get back to Melina. To let her know that wasn’t her brother or her father being tortured. To get her to sit tight and let him come up with another plan.
He moved off to the west, easing around the perimeter of the camp and its inner ring of guards. Now that he took a head count, he noticed that there were more than double the number of guards posted tonight compared to last night. Oh, yeah. The bastard had laid an elaborate trap for them. He had to get to Melina, and fast. She’d fall into Huayar’s snare as innocently as a rabbit sticking its head in a hunter’s clever lure.
Sit still, Mel. Sit still.
Chapter 15
Melina ran for all she was worth, away from the distant sounds of movement in the jungle. If only John were here, he’d know what to do. Panic was getting the better of her, and despite knowing that this was a bad thing, she couldn’t help its creeping advance.
Yet again, breath deserted her, and she stopped in the lee of a large-leafed bush of some kind. The forest felt alive, dozens of eyes peering out of every shadow. At the very edge of her vision, she imagined she saw a vaguely human form materialize out from behind a tree, a shadow within the shadows, and beckon to her.
Just then, crashing sounds erupted behind her and she looked over her shoulder, frantically. She turned back around to that ghostly form, and it was gone. Great. Now she was hallucinating. Must be the lack of oxygen.
Air or no air, she had to get moving. Still gasping from her last sprint, she dashed off again, this time in the general direction of that desperate vision.
John froze in the woods only a few dozen yards beyond the last line of guards. Sweet mother of God, the entire forest was crawling with Huayar’s men. They were crashing around like a herd of angry elephants. He dived for cover and quickly pulled handfuls of dead leaves and dirt up over himself as a pair of bandits rushed past.
Definitely looking for something. Or someone.
His stomach dropped like a block of lead. She’d moved. She’d approached the camp to try to save him or her father or brother or whoever she thought was doing all that screaming. Huayar’s ploy had worked like a charm to draw her out. They must not have found her yet, though, or they wouldn’t be bombing around out here trying to flush her out.
Frantically, he tried to send her a telepathic message. Go to ground, Mel. Find a hiding spot and hunker down. Just. Don’t. Run.
Melina ran until the stitch in her side was so severe she could hardly see, let alone breathe. Not that it mattered. Someone behind her had spotted her and sent up a great shout. It sounded like twenty men were chasing her now. It was only a matter of time until they closed in on her. The sounds of branches breaking and men swearing were within maybe fifty feet of her now.
The jig was up. They were going to catch her.
In the few remaining seconds she had left, she had to think fast. John had said not to show Huayar fear. Ever. Surely, running around like a fox pursued by Huayar’s hounds was a colossal statement of terror. She had to take control of this situation, and now.
Quickly, she brushed as much of the dirt and leaves off herself as she could. She waited until she spotted the first of her pursuers, and then stood up, waving to him.
“Here I am!” she called in Spanish. “Are you with Geraldo Huayar?”
The guy stared in shock for a moment. He rushed forward and made a grab at her arm.
She jerked away indignantly. “Hey! Take your hands off of me. I asked you a question. Are you Huayar’s man?” she demanded.
“Uhh, yes,” the guy answered, startled.
“Then take me to him right away. Some idiot bandits are out here chasing me around. We need to get to Huayar’s camp right away where we’ll be safe.” She commenced dragging him in the opposite direction from the camp.
“Where are you going, lady? The camp’s this way.”
She gave him her best surprised look. “Really? No wonder I couldn’t find it.” She let a complaining tone creep into her voice. “I’ve been wandering around out here in this godforsaken jungle all day trying to find him. You’d think if he wanted me to visit him he’d have given me better directions than just some latitude and longitude coordinates.”
“Uhh, right. This way.” Her captor took the lead, falling easily into the role of guide to her.
Perfect. No way did she want to enter Huayar’s turf dragged in by his men like some helpless prize. She was walking in, head held high, free and on her own terms. It was a small victory, but every win would count against her adversary.
Light began to flicker between the trees. Shouting voices converged around her. Two dozen bandits all toting rifles emerged from the woods as word spread that she’d been found.
The trees gave way to a clearing ringed by shacks in various stages of disrepair. A bonfire burned in the center of the space, and a bloody, battered man lay by it, his arms tied behind his back. She couldn’t make out his features clearly, but he was small and wiry and dark-skinned…thank God…not John or Mike or her dad. The man pacing, lionlike, on the far side of the fire caught and riveted her attention. How could that be anyone but Huayar himself?
Rage and power rolled off the man in waves that seemed to bodily hold his people back from him. Or maybe they were just scared of the bastard. Show no fear. Show no fear…
All of a sudden, the bandits crisscrossing the woods around John reversed direction like a school of fish darting away from a predator. They turned as one and streamed back toward Huayar’s camp.
Hell. They’d captured Melina.
Terror blossomed in his chest, and a desperate need to leap up and save her all but gave away his position to the last of Huayar’s men. A steady stream of cur
ses flowed through his mind, and he beat back the litany by force of will, grinding his brain into gear in spite of the panic choking it.
He couldn’t rush after her. Huayar’s trap had caught one of his prizes, but not both of them. If Melina was to have any chance at all of surviving, he had to remain out here. To bide his time. Wait for his chance. It was their only hope.
Using every trick of stealthy movement he’d ever learned, he eased back toward Huayar’s camp. He had to see what was going on, get the lay of the land, look for further traps. It took him only a few minutes to work his way to the edge of the trees where they dissolved into the limestone face of the cliff behind the camp. He peered out from behind the trunk of a massive fir tree at the scene below.
A groan rose in the back of his throat and he only barely managed to prevent it from escaping his lips.
“You’re late,” Huayar growled.
“You give lousy directions,” Melina retorted.
The bandit’s head jerked in what looked like equal parts offense and surprise. He studied her more closely. “Where’s your soldier boy? He should have been able to bring you right to me.”
She shrugged. “I got rid of him after the last village. He didn’t want to hike in here on foot. Told me it was too dangerous. So I told him to get lost.”
Huayar’s intelligent gaze drilled into her, measuring the truth of her words. She crossed her arms and assumed a waiting stance. John had warned her not to be rude or belligerent with the guy, and she schooled her face not to show her thoughts. He strolled over to the bloody man lying on the ground and kicked him viciously in the kidneys. The guy didn’t flinch. Unconscious. “Take this sack of garbage out in the woods and shoot him. Nobody steals from me.”
Two of Huayar’s men ran forward and grabbed the bound man by his armpits. Every fiber in her being screamed for her to beg for the man’s life, to do something to save the guy. But there was nothing she could do. Huayar held all the cards. All she had going for her were her wits and the desperate hope that John could figure out some way to help her and her family against these overwhelming odds.
Where are you, John? She prayed silently that he was safe and well away from this fiasco. But somehow, she didn’t think that was the case.
She started as Huayar’s voice cut across her thoughts harshly. “So, you are here now. You will show my men how to make this new drug you have invented.”
“Look. I’ve tried to tell you people over and over that the formula is not perfected. It’s not anywhere near refined enough for human consumption. It will take months of lab work to finalize the recipe.”
“You will tell me the formula now. My people will do any necessary refining.”
Yeah, she’d bet. They would randomly screw around with the mixture until they found one that didn’t immediately kill the victims they tried it on and would call it good. How many people would die before they stumbled on the right mix of ingredients? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand, maybe?
“That’s not the deal we made. My family goes free. They walk out of here and I receive confirmation that they are back home safe and sound before I tell you a thing.”
Huayar’s hand flashed out. He slapped her viciously across the face almost before she saw it coming. Her cheek exploded in fiery pain and her neck ached from the unexpected snap of her head to the side. Ohgod, ohgod. Show no fear.
She straightened, checking her teeth on that side with her tongue to see if any were loose. She tasted blood. “Slapping me around does nothing to endear me to you, Geraldo. If we’re going to be colleagues, we’re going to have to establish some ground rules, here.”
“Coll-” Huayar broke off, obviously startled. He glared at her as if he wanted to rip her skin back and peer directly into her brain.
She did her damnedest not to give away a thing beneath the intensity of his scrutiny. “That’s right. Colleagues.” Time to drop a whopper on the guy and shake him up a little. “You don’t seriously think you’re the only person who’s approached me with some sort of business proposition, do you? I studied the market and analyzed you and your competitors long before you resorted to a sophomoric stunt like kidnapping my family.”
Jaws dropped all around the fire. Huayar looked skeptical, but rattled. Definitely rattled.
“I had narrowed it down to you and one other…corporate entity…already.”
“Who was the other?”
She gave him the name of one of Colombia’s most notorious drug lords. The only reason she knew the man’s name at all was because she’d heard it dropped at a security meeting within her pharmaceutical firm as someone who would kill to get the formula she was developing. Too bad the same security meeting hadn’t included implementation of protective measures for her family. If it had, none of them would be in this pickle now.
Huayar’s eyes narrowed in hatred. He must know the drug lord she’d named.
“I will have the formula from you. Now.”
She answered evenly. “You will have the formula when my family is out of here. And it’s not like you can’t continue to use them for collateral against my continued cooperation. Your people can kill them just as easily in Mexico City as they can here.”
Huayar actually seemed to consider that. He paced back and forth on the far side of the fire for several minutes.
A gunshot rang out in the woods. She jumped about a foot in the air, then said a silent prayer for the soul of the nameless man. At least he wasn’t in any more pain. Perhaps death wasn’t the worst fate out here.
Thank goodness she’d talked John out of handing himself over to Huayar to be tortured to death. The thought of having to endure John being mutilated, to hear him screaming in pain like that…nope. She wouldn’t have been able to do it. She cared for him far too much for that.
“I need a show of good faith. Give me the list of ingredients for this new drug you have designed.”
Her attention swung back to Huayar. Score two points for the guy. He was capable of being reasonable. She weighed how far she dared push him. “Do you have a chemist here?”
“You said the ingredients were readily available. Over the counter.”
“They are. But several of them, if handled improperly, could blow this place into last week.”
He frowned. But if the guy manufactured methamphetamine, and from the smell of the place he did, then he had a rich appreciation for the dangers of exothermic chemical reactions. Finally, Huayar bellowed, “Get Vito. Bring him here.”
She waited tensely while the resident chemist was fetched. Vito turned out to look as Italian as his name sounded, with thick black hair, heavy eyebrows, and a burly frame. He nodded cautiously at Huayar and glanced over at her incuriously. Was that the future awaiting her? Serving at the whim of a madman and doing her best imitation of a robot so as not to draw his random and cruel wrath?
“Tell him,” Huayar ordered.
“Do you have some paper? I’ll have to write it down. It’s a rather lengthy list.”
A grimy notebook and a pen were duly passed to her. She scribbled hastily, leaving out several key ingredients. Unlike methamphetamine, which was a relatively simple formula, the one she’d devised involved nearly a dozen steps and twice that many chemicals. But the premise of her work was to only use readily available ingredients, and most of the obvious ones for concocting a drug had already been controlled, to some degree, by governments and industry.
She tore the page out and held it out to Huayar. He gestured at the chemist and she passed the page to Vito. He read down the list carefully. After maybe a minute, he looked up at Huayar. “Not the list. These chemicals cannot form what we seek.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could utter a word, Huayar’s fist coldcocked her squarely in the jaw. She went down like a rock. The blow didn’t knock her out, but the pain was so excruciating that her legs buckled right out from underneath her.
White spots danced in front of her blurry gaze, and she definitely h
ad a couple loose teeth now. Whether she willed it or not, terror exploded inside her. Her ploy hadn’t worked. Huayar was going to torture her and kill her family. She’d failed them all.
“You stupid bitch,” a voice snarled above her. A foot slammed into her gut. Already half curled into a fetal position, the kick tightened her into a little ball, just like a roly-poly bug. Except in infinitely more pain, of course. She coughed violently, surprised she hadn’t thrown up, too.
In the face of her pain and terror, something odd happened. It was like a switch flipped on in her head. An odd purity of thought came over her, a suspension of time wherein her mind worked at double or triple normal speed, and the events around her seemed to be unfolding in super-slow motion. She watched in detached interest as Huayar drew back to kick her again.
John jumped violently as Huayar’s fist smashed into Melina’s face. Son of a bitch! No matter that he’d seen people get hit before-hell, he’d slugged people like that himself a few times-he completely lost his composure this time. That was Melina down there! Sweet, gentle Melina, who would never harm a hair on anybody’s head.
Whatever they were saying-he couldn’t hear their conversation from up here-she’d obviously said something that severely pissed off Huayar. What was on that piece of paper she’d scribbled on, anyway? Surely she hadn’t handed over the formula. She, of all people, knew how crucial it was to keep that information out of Huayar’s hands. Although, given the swing the bastard had just taken at her, John had to believe that she hadn’t given the bandit what he’d wanted.
Hang in there, baby. Don’t buckle.
He had to do something fast to save her. She couldn’t take too many more blows like that. No way would he let Huayar beat her to death while he sat up here and watched the show. A diversion. Maybe he could draw off Huayar and his men. Except Huayar hadn’t left the camp earlier when Melina had been spotted. He’d sent his flunkies out to hunt her down.