Flash Fire

by Dana Marton

  She filled her lungs and lay there, staring at all the green above while her shaky muscles recovered. Dappled sunlight filtered through the canopy.

  They hadn’t drowned. Okay. Good. Okay.

  She’d panicked in the water for a moment when she’d thought the river was winning.

  And now she thought: Was that how her father felt? Was the thing with Rosita a desperate gasp for life, the way Clara had gasped in the strong current for air?

  She pushed the idea aside, along with the need to make excuses for the father she still loved, despite everything. Her eyes burned. She blinked.

  Walker stood over her with an assessing look on his face. “We don’t have time to stop and take a nap.”

  He wasn’t even breathing hard. His clothes were plastered to his hard body, showing off impressive muscles. He still had his machete and his rifle, his knife still at his side, his handgun safely holstered.

  He radiated the kind of tough, uncompromising competence she desperately needed at the moment.

  Was he really going to help her?

  Her father thought he would. But maybe Walker had changed—a lot—since her father had known him. His conduct at the cantina didn’t inspire Clara’s confidence. She needed to consider what she’d do if he was no longer one of the good guys.

  She needed to know what kind of man he was, someone she could count on, or someone she should get away from.

  “Are you undercover something?” she asked as the thought occurred to her. “CIA? FBI? Some antiterrorism unit?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to decide if it’s okay to shoot me if I get in your way?”

  When she didn’t respond, he said, “You don’t have to worry about any blowback on my account. If I ever disappeared, nobody would come looking. But I hope we’ll be friends.”

  His grin was pure sin. If she was Catholic, she would have been making the sign of the cross at the way he was looking at her.

  She thought of how he’d disemboweled Pedro without the slightest emotion. It was safe to say friendship was unlikely. She had certain minimum requirements.

  She stuck with the truth. “I hope we won’t be enemies.”

  He made an odd sound, as if he was swallowing a chuckle.

  She sat up and pulled her Glock from her sports bra, checked it, then she shoved the gun into her waistband for easier access, grateful that she still had it. If she’d left it in her boot, she would have lost her only weapon in the river. She did lose her cell phone. And most of her pride, but she’d worry about that later.

  Walker pulled up his shirt and wrung out as much water as he could, flashing hard abs ridged with muscles. She tried not to look, but she caught sight of a couple of scars anyway, and a corner of some kind of a tattoo farther up his rib cage.

  “Are you ex-special ops?” Plenty of mercenaries had that kind of past.

  He didn’t answer as he covered up.

  “Delta Force, Army Ranger?” she tried to guess, then thought about how good he’d been in water. “Navy SEAL?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe which one?”

  “The strongest and the bravest.”

  No false modesty there. She gave up on getting a real answer out of him and tried listening for their pursuers. All she could hear was the river. “I think we lost the banditos.”

  He nodded. “Doesn’t mean we can stop for afternoon tea, Cupcake. The nearest road that’ll take us to civilization is a five-hour trek from here. We have to reach it before dark. Otherwise, we’ll have to sleep in the jungle.”

  She was on her feet before his last word was out. She was not sleeping with snakes and tarantulas. “I’m ready.”

  The look he flashed her reflected serious doubts. But he reached for his machete and led the way once again, hacking away. She hung back far enough so she wouldn’t be decapitated by a backswing.

  Impenetrable walls of green surrounded them, branches and lianas constantly touching her. Visibility was as little as three feet in places. They could, at any moment, come face-to-face with a jaguar or a giant snake or a weapon-wielding bandit, without any prior warning. Sweat rolled down her neck, and not just from the heat and humidity.

  Luckily, things soon turned for the better. Once they were away from the river, under a thick overhead canopy again, the bushes and ground vegetation thinned out. Forging a path with the machete became easier.

  She kept up with Walker, watching nothing but where she put her bare feet. Of course, the rocks and roots managed to scrape her soles anyway. She figured she had maybe another mile in her before her feet would start seriously slowing them down.

  But Walker stopped after another minute or so by a tree that had branches nearly reaching the ground and large round leaves the size of his two hands put together. He nodded at the tree with satisfaction as if he’d been looking for it, then hacked off two leaves with his machete.

  “You need to cover your feet.” He handed the leaves to her. “Sit.”

  While she did, he untucked his pants from his boots, then cut off both pant legs below the knee. Then he dropped to his knees in front of her.

  If the touch of his long, capable fingers on her feet made her hyperaware, she sure as anything wasn’t going to betray herself with the slightest flinch.

  He layered the fabric of the pant legs with the rubbery leaves and wrapped her right foot up first, then the left. He undid his shoelaces next, and peeled off two strands.

  “Useful special ops tip,” he said as he used one of the strands to tie her footwear securely together in a crisscross pattern. “Use parachute cord instead of shoe laces. They’re multi-ply, so you always have string handy if you need it. And the material is practically indestructible. I used one before as a fishing line. Saved my life.”

  She liked the practicality of the idea as much as she liked his confident competence. Murderous mercenary or not, Light Walker came in very handy in the jungle. She wasn’t so petty that she couldn’t give him credit for that much at least.

  “Thanks,” she said as he repeated the procedure on her other foot.

  When he was finished, he stood and stepped away from her. “Try them. How do they feel? Too loose and they’ll fall off, too tight and you’ll lose circulation to your toes.”

  She stared at her primitive footwear as she rose and took a few steps. “Just right.” The makeshift coverings were actually pretty comfortable. “What’s with the leaf?”

  “Water barrier. Let’s go.” He was moving forward already.

  She noted his expert use of the machete. He wasn’t blindly hacking away. He was continuously adjusting the force and the angle of the blade, depending on whether he faced soft lianas or harder branches.

  His movements were precise and economical. Unhurried. And kind of nice to look at. If there was such a thing as masculine beauty, Light Walker had it. She saw no sense in denying that his body had been incredibly finely built.

  Not that she was gawking. She only looked because she had no other choice, since she was walking behind him.

  She put one foot in front of the other. Having “shoes” was a hundred percent better than not having them, but the soles of her feet were still sensitive where they’d been scraped up. She wished she’d protected her feet as soon as she’d crawled out of the river.

  As if reading her mind, he said, “Sooner would have been better, but I wanted to wait until the pants dried. Wet cloth would rub your skin raw.”

  Right. He knew stuff. Useful stuff. In general, she was attracted to competence, but she refused to be attracted to him, for obvious reasons. She simply said, “Thanks,” as she followed him.

  They hadn’t walked twenty minutes when he suddenly halted, raising his hand in warning. She stopped in her tracks and scanned the dense foliage around them, but saw nothing dangerous, no slithering snakes or giant spiders.

  Then a branch snapped up ahead. Other, shuffling, sounds followed. Something large moved in the undergrowth, hidden from vi
ew by all the greenery.

  Walker switched the machete to his left hand and pulled his gun with his right.

  Clara held her breath, her heart hammering as she reached for the Glock in her waistband. Had the banditos somehow cut ahead of them? Or was it some kind of a predator? Were they upwind or downwind? She couldn’t tell. The hot, humid air seemed to stand still.

  They waited until the sounds weakened, then disappeared. And then they still waited another two or three minutes after that. Finally, Walker gestured with his head to move forward, putting his gun away.

  “What was that?” she whispered as she followed him.

  “Could have been something as harmless as white-tail deer, but there are jaguars in these parts.” He kept moving. Stopped. Pointed to the ground. “Wild boar.”

  As she spotted the brown pellets, she swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight.

  Walker continued forward with a shrug. “It’s gone now.”

  As she followed, she thought about sharp tusks that could gore a man. Or a woman. She’d already seen a disembowelment today, and she was pretty sure one per day was her limit. One in a lifetime was one too many, really.

  In fact, if she could, she would have dearly preferred to return the memory.

  She scanned the dense foliage around them. She hadn’t been that worried about animals beyond snakes and spiders. She knew jaguars were indigenous to the region, but also knew they were pretty rare these days. Wild boars. She hadn’t thought about those.

  Walker held a thorny branch out of the way for her. “Be glad we didn’t come across any caimans in the water earlier.”

  She stared at him as she stepped through. “Caimans?”

  He released the branch and moved forward. “Most rivers around here are full of them.”

  She kept up, making a mental note to never ever let anyone drag her into any kind of body of water again while she was in Chiapas. Her swimming days were definitely over.

  Jaguars and wild boars and caimans. Oh, and poisonous snakes and spiders.

  For the next mile or so, she expected sudden death at any second. But the human body could not keep up that kind of freak-out endlessly, so eventually she relaxed enough to think about other things.

  Walker’s wide back and the shifting muscles under his tanned skin that glistened with sweat provided ready distraction. Then she caught herself. Was she seriously ogling him now? No way. So she forced herself to look at nothing but the ground in front of her feet. Probably the most sensible course of action, in any case.

  She walked like that until her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth from thirst and her muscles trembled from exhaustion. She was a regular at the gym, but a mad dash through the jungle over rugged terrain was nothing like running on the treadmill. She hated to appear weak in front of Walker but decided to put common sense before foolish pride.

  “Could we take a break?”

  To his credit, he didn’t seem annoyed or judgmental at her lack of stamina as he checked her over. “Are you hurt?”

  She tried to roll the tension and the soreness out of her shoulders. “Just tired and thirsty.”

  A slow rain drizzled over them, little more than mist, not something they could collect for drinking.

  He checked their immediate surroundings and pointed to the base of a nearby tree that was overgrown with lianas. “Sit right there.”

  She did, then inspected her footwear that had miraculously held together. She ran her fingers over the binding. “Is this something you learned from the local tribes?”

  He shook his head. “The Tojolabal walk around barefoot. Their soles harden up from a lifetime of doing that, so they can walk over any terrain. And they see every thorn and poisonous leaf and snake and bug without having to really look. Their brain just registers the stuff and signals to their feet to avoid it. They evolved to suit their environment over thousands of years. It’s pretty damn impressive to see in action.”

  She took his word for it.

  He searched around for a moment, then separated a finger-thick liana from the others above her head, sliced it through with his machete, and handed her the end that hung down. “You can drink this. We can rest ten minutes, but that’s about it.”

  He folded his hand over hers and directed the dripping end of the liana above her lips. “Open your mouth.”

  She did, trying to ignore how suggestive the whole exercise was. She even stuck out her tongue as the thin sap began flowing, drip by miraculous drip, tasting like very lightly sweetened water.

  He thumped onto the ground next to her, selected another liana and cut it for himself. “Slow, but better than nothing.”

  She didn’t talk. She didn’t want to waste a single drop, wanted every bit of moisture given to her by the plant.

  Minute after minute ticked by as they drank, not stopping until their jungle water pipes ran dry at last. Even the misting rain had halted, as if the lianas had been connected to the wispy clouds over the tree canopy.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, more exhausted than she’d ever been. And, okay, a little discouraged. She was on a side trip that had not been in her plans, wasting time here instead of investigating. And Walker…

  As she turned to him, her shoulder bumped into his. She thoroughly resented her sudden awareness of how close they were sitting, and the fact that she found his physical strength intimidating from this close up. The idea that she was at his mercy at the moment didn’t make her happy either.

  She had no idea where they were, or how to survive the trek in front of them. She was lost in the jungle with a ruthless mercenary she didn’t trust.

  And it was all his fault that she was in this situation.

  She was hot, hungry, and irritated. Frustration bubbled up inside her, and she wiggled a few inches away from him. “Did you really have to stab Pedro?”

  Walker stared at her. “Why in hell would you go into the cantina?” He seemed as unhappy with her as she felt with him. “You look fifteen in this outfit. You want to be gang-raped? You couldn’t have waited for me at the guesthouse?”

  Outrage steamed her brain. “I’ve waited three days. Around Thursday, you said. Do you know what day it is?”

  He gave a one-sided shrug, his massive shoulder muscles shifting. “Who has time to check the calendar when people are shooting at you and snakes are biting you in the ass?”

  Chapter Five

  Clara stared. A snake bit his ass? “Poisonous?”

  Walker nodded, a notch more subdued. “I lucked out. I was at a Tojolabal village, and Baku, the local shaman, happened to be visiting.”

  “He had antivenin?”

  Walker’s expression said, I wish. “He chewed a bunch of jungle leaves and wild tobacco into a paste and spit it at the wound. I had to lie on my stomach for twenty-four hours while he chanted over me and blew smoke at my ass.”

  She glanced at the body part in question. His cargo pants were wet once again and molded to indecently firm flesh. She clasped her hands together in front of her and looked back into his face.

  Amusement glinted in his jungle-green eyes.

  She filled her lungs. God give her patience. To think that if her father hadn’t asked her to wait for Walker, she could have begun her investigation full steam on day one. Who knew what leads she would have found and where they would have taken her? Maybe far away. Preferably up north. She would never even have met Walker.

  As he shifted toward her, forcing her to shift back, she reached for her professional core—something the man clearly didn’t possess.

  “How fast do you think you can you take me back to Furino?”

  “You need to give Furino a break.”

  “I’m here to find someone who disappeared in Furino on July first. The town is crucial to my investigation,” she said, unsure how much information he had about her case.

  Walker remained unimpressed. “Should have thought of that before you made a mess of things at the cantina.”

  She
wanted to hit him. But she didn’t lose control, as a rule. She was a calm, reasonable person. She barely even shouted as she said, “I made a mess at the cantina?” She took a moment to further compose herself. “I should be arresting you.”

  He fixed her with an I’d-like-to-see-you-try look. “One, I don’t appreciate being unappreciated. Two, you have any jurisdiction down here?”

  She growled.

  He gave her a considering look. “That’s almost sexy.”

  She started to growl again, caught herself, switched back to glaring. She put enough ice into that glare to sink the Titanic.

  “The growl was better,” he said. “Had some real nice heat to it. Made me think there might be hope for you yet.” He looked her over, making her aware that her clothes were just as wet and plastered to her body as his.

  Her jeans had been too tight to start with, but now her thin T-shirt might as well have been painted on her for as much as it concealed. She pinched the material in the front and pulled it away from her torso.

  Time to shift focus. “Who are you working for down here?”

  Whoever it was, her mission was more important. Walker would have to accept that and make time for her.

  He ignored her question as his gaze moved over her torturously slowly, stopping entirely at times in its meandering. She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest. She would not allow him to think that he was getting to her.

  “How well did you know Pedro?” she drilled him, focusing on the job she was here to do. “What do you know about him?”

  He watched her without responding.

  “You are supposed to be helping me,” she reminded him.

  His lips flattened, as if he wasn’t overly happy about that. But at long last he said, “Pedro mostly worked in human trafficking.”

  “Not drugs?”

  “The cartels have that handled. They keep reins on the trafficking too, but indirectly. Pedro was affiliated with the Xibalba, one of the two main cartels in the area. He kicked money up to them, and in exchange, they let him run his business the way he saw fit.”

  “How big a business is human trafficking?”