Darkness Before Dawn

by Anne Stuart

“You don’t know where?” Maggie read the frustration beneath his bragging tone. “I thought you didn’t plan to make mistakes this time.”

  Another slap, this one more forceful, and her lip was cut against her teeth. “It is only a very small mistake,” he said softly. “And they will come after you, I have no doubt of that at all. Carter already gave us Vasili to save your life. I doubt he will hesitate a second time.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “It depends on what you want from him.”

  “The same that I want from you. We want to know what you are doing here and what you want with Red Glove Films.”

  Maggie shrugged and tasted the blood on her lips. “We’re here on vacation. We fell in love in Gemansk six years ago, and we suddenly got sentimental to see it again and recapture the old magic.” She eyed Miroslav’s hand warily, wanting to prepare herself for the next blow. His fingers twitched, but he made no move.

  “And what did Red Glove Films have to do with it? They’ve only been in existence for less than a year—surely they weren’t part of your sentimental journey?”

  “I heard they had great pornography. Our love life has gotten a little stale lately, and”—the slap shut her mouth for a moment, but only for a moment, as her eyes met his with undaunted courage—“and I thought Randall might like to see some Eastern European sex.”

  The last blow had hurt Miroslav, and he leaned back, rubbing his wrist. “I think, Miss Bennett, that I personally will indulge your interest in Eastern European sex. Or certain unpleasant variations of it. Now tell me your real interest in Red Glove Films.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be an actress, and I thought I might get my big break in Gemansk.” She steeled herself for another blow, but this time it failed to come. Her face felt raw and swollen and stung with pain, but she was damned if she was going to cower before the bully beside her.

  Miroslav Wadjowska smiled as he leaned back against the seat. “You will get your big break in Gemansk, Miss Bennett. That I will promise you.” He spoke to the driver in his native language, one that was incomprehensible to Maggie. The driver and his companion laughed, and Maggie felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach. “Relax,” he said to her, and his lips were thick and pink and wet. “You have at least an hour before I can devote my full attention to you.”

  She looked at him out of calm, emotionless eyes. Randall had been tortured and Randall had survived, had even managed to escape. If she couldn’t manage such a feat, if she turned out not to be the superwoman her family had taunted her with, at least she would take it with dignity.

  She did her best to keep all her senses alert as they made their way through the twisting, unkempt streets of Gemansk. The stolid gray building looked vaguely familiar to Maggie as they drove into the underground parking garage, which looked like a dungeon. The hands that pushed her out of the car and through the subterranean passages were rough, but she forced herself to endure the indignities with an expressionless face worthy of Randall at his most distant. She’d keep that thought in mind, she told herself: no matter what they did to her, she’d let her face be blank and uncaring. Like Randall’s.

  Miroslav left her in a corner room. There were windows set high in the walls, beyond her reach, and nothing but a spindly chair and a table in the room. In a sudden, unexpected gesture, he unfastened her handcuffs and stuffed them into his pocket. His hand gently brushed her face. It was a small, squat hand with short fingers and dirty fingernails, and it caressed her bruised and swollen face.

  “Such a shame to have to bruise you,” he murmured, licking his thick pink lips. “I want you to think about it, Miss Bennett. I can bruise you in many worse places if you don’t cooperate. And I will find out what I want to know sooner or later. There is no need for you to be a heroine. No one expects it of you.”

  Maggie considered him for a moment. “I expect it of myself,” she said finally in a light, determined voice.

  He sighed, and his fingers caught the tender flesh of her bruised cheek and twisted it sharply. “You will learn,” he said, “and soon.” And he left her alone in the little room.

  At least it wasn’t dark. With a weary sigh, she sank down into the spindly chair and surveyed her hands. Rock steady, she noticed with pride, despite the abraded wrists. She could just imagine the state of her face. Her mouth stung, her head ached, and her palms were sweating. Try as she might to deny it, she was terrified.

  She gave herself a good five minutes to sit and feel sorry for herself. Then she tried the door, made certain he’d locked it, and hefted the table and carried it over to the corner beneath the windows. She set the chair on top of it and climbed up with a deft silence that pleased her enough to add to her courage. She could reach the small, rectangular windows, but they were locked.

  The glass was smoked, and there was no way she could tell what was on the other side. Possibly armed guards, or one of the main streets of Gemansk, or just an empty field. And even if she could manage to break it, was there any guarantee that her strong, almost-six-foot-tall body would be able to squeeze through the narrow opening?

  She had no other choice but to try. Sooner or later, Miroslav was going to come back, and with her luck he wouldn’t come alone. Being beaten was something she could face; being tortured was less appealing; but being gang-raped was downright unacceptable. She was going to get out of that room or die trying.

  She looked back around the barren room. The spindly chair that just barely held her weight would most likely crumble if she used it to break the window, and then she’d have no way of reaching the aperture. The best she could do was slip off one of her Nikes and use it as protection for her fist.

  Damn! Why hadn’t she added karate to all the other forms of physical fitness she’d practiced during the past two years? Her body was perfectly fit, lean and strong, but it was not experienced in breaking bricks, two-by-fours, or smoked-glass windows. She slammed her sneaker-covered hand against the glass, then swallowed the moan of pain as it bounced back off. The force of it nearly threw her off the chair.

  Didn’t it have something to do with concentration? Sending your mind through the barrier ahead of your fist, or something like that? But how could she concentrate when her face was throbbing, her fist was likely broken, and the sound of footsteps and voices passing through the corridor outside her prison brought panic closer and closer?

  She closed her eyes, forcing herself to take a deep, steadying breath. She flexed her aching hand within the dubious protection of the shoe, then sighed, accepting the inevitable. She slipped the shoe back onto her foot, formed a fist, and slammed it against the smoked glass.

  It shattered around her hand. Maggie stared at it with amazement that almost overrode the pain in her fist. Slowly, carefully she picked the shards of glass out of the way and undid the lock. There were cuts on her hand, long scratches, but they looked worse than they were. They’d stop bleeding shortly, she knew, and they wouldn’t leave a trail of blood for the secret police to follow. She opened the broken window and stuck her head out.

  It was a parking lot, full of dusty black sedans. And in the far corner, there was one blessedly white Fiat with two figures conferring in the front seat.

  She was halfway out the window before Randall and Leopold saw her, and her curses at their obtuseness helped her gloss over the pain in her hand. By the time they reached her, her hips had stuck in the narrow opening. The two of them grabbed her arms and hauled her out with more force than care.

  She fell against Randall, her face landing against his chest, and she let out a small moan of pain—a moan he didn’t hear beneath the steady curses he was heaping on her head as he half-dragged, half-carried her back to the Fiat.

  “You may be a stupid idiot,” he was saying as he bundled her into the backseat, cramming her in with their piled suitcases, “but at least you’re a capable one. God knows how we would have gotten to you in that damned place. You’re just lucky Leopold had someone watching the hotel, or God knows when we woul
d have found you.”

  “You didn’t find me,” she snapped, her voice a little hazy with pain. “I got out myself.”

  The car was dark in the gathering dusk as Leopold zoomed out of the parking lot and into the Gemansk twilight. It was too dark for Randall to see her battered face, too dark for her to do anything about the cuts on her hand. She leaned back in the corner, wanting nothing more than to go to sleep. Jet lag and stress were taking their toll.

  “Yes, you did,” he agreed doubtfully. “Where the hell did you think you were going?”

  “To Red Glove Films.”

  “Where do you think we were?”

  “It would have made life a lot easier if you’d just taken me along,” she said wearily. “No, maybe it wouldn’t. They might have gotten all three of us.”

  “You may be gullible enough to have fallen into their trap,” Randall said with just enough smugness to pull her out of her lassitude of pain and exhaustion, “but I’m not likely to make the same mistake.”

  “Wanna bet?” Maggie snapped. “Do you know who picked me up? It was Miroslav Wadjowska. The same man you wanted me to sleep with in return for phony passports. And do you know who he works for? And who he worked for six years ago? The secret police, damn you. This whole thing has been a trap.”

  “Maggie.” His hands reached out for her, but she slapped them away, wincing at the pain in her fist.

  “Get your hands off me. I can take care of myself,” she said. “I have before, and I will again.”

  “Shut up.” He pulled her into his arms and held her against his strong body as Leopold navigated the streets of Gemansk with speed and skill. She didn’t even bother to struggle.

  “We’ve already picked up our things from the hotel. I’m taking you to Saltash,” Leopold offered over his shoulder, his teeth a gleam in the darkness. “I don’t think Wadjowska knows about it, and if he does, it will still be too hard to find you. You can hide there overnight, and tomorrow I’ll take you over the border.”

  “What the hell good will that do?” Maggie fumed. “We haven’t found what we came for.”

  “Yes, we have,” Randall said, his voice a deep rumble in the chest beneath her. “The man at Red Glove Films was very cooperative.”

  “You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen,” Leopold offered Randall with youthful enthusiasm. “Just the right amount of pain, and he was singing like a bird. You should teach me that little trick with the fingers—”

  Maggie shuddered, and Randall snapped something in a foreign language at their driver. He turned to Maggie, and his voice was surprisingly soothing. “We found out who he was dealing with. It wasn’t Francis most of the time. The deliveries were arranged through someone else. A woman.”

  “Damn you, Randall, Kate has nothing to do with it,” she said passionately, squashing down the sudden doubt and fear.

  “I never said she did.”

  “If you don’t mean Kate, who the hell do you mean?”

  “Alicia Stoneham.”

  Dead silence in the rattling old Fiat. “I don’t believe you,” she said finally. “Why, she’s as American as—as apple pie. She wouldn’t turn traitor.”

  “She would to bail out her failing film company. Her husband had built it up from scratch, and she couldn’t bear to see it go down the tubes. So she sold classified information to support it, with Francis’s complicity.”

  “Sounds like the plot for a movie,” she said in a doubtful voice. “Do you have any proof?”

  “Not a speck. Just tons of circumstantial evidence, including motive and opportunity. Alicia’s brother is a retired admiral. A forcibly retired admiral who’s been very vocal about the shabby way he’s been treated. He’d have access to top security documents.”

  Maggie shook her head, trying to clear away the cobwebs. “It seems awfully farfetched.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he replied in a lazy voice. “Most spy scenarios are. But they happen, just the same. The first thing we do when we get back to the United States is have Bud Willis check into Admiral Wentworth.”

  “He’ll love it,” Maggie said, wondering if she dared lean her head on Randall’s shoulder. Her lip was bleeding again, and Randall wouldn’t like blood all over him. No, she’d better stay upright. “That still doesn’t explain who killed Francis, or why he was dumped in Kate’s bathtub.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t exonerate your sister from murder at all, only from possible treason.”

  “You’re so comforting, Randall,” she said with a sigh.

  “I do my best.” His hand reached up and cupped the nape of her neck, and the decision about leaning was taken out of her hands. He pushed her face against his shoulder, forcing her to relax. She winced as her abraded skin rubbed against the rough shirt, and then she sighed, releasing all the pent-up tension that had been singing through her nerves. “Go to sleep, Maggie. Leopold’s going to go the long way around to get to Saltash, just in case we have anyone following us. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  “I’d sleep better if you let go of me,” she muttered grumpily, not even bothering to stifle the yawn that swept over her.

  He didn’t say a word, but his hands kept her a gentle captive in his arms. Through the gathering dusk, she could just see the outline of his profile and the grim line of his lips and nose, and for one sleepy moment she wanted to press her mouth against his and see if she could soften that unsmiling face. But then exhaustion overtook her. Sometime, someday in the distant future, she would begin to understand Randall Carter. But right now she was too exhausted even to begin to make the effort. With a deep sigh, she gave herself up to sleep.

  fifteen

  She felt light in his arms. Not like the solid mass of muscle and warm hard flesh that he knew made up Maggie Bennett, but curiously fragile, and it took all his resolve not to tighten his arms around her, hold her closer. Protective instincts were foreign to him, and the determined woman sleeping so soundly and so unwillingly in his arms wasn’t the sort to want or need protection.

  He’d been ready to storm that dull gray fortress that housed the Gemansk government offices. But Leopold’s surprisingly cool head had prevailed, and he’d waited for the dusk to close around them. Then his planned heroics became totally unnecessary as Maggie crawled through that narrow window with her damnable self-possession.

  He’d always avoided self-sufficient women. His wife, his lovers, even his one-night stands had been soft, pretty, dependent women who listened to his advice, waited for his decisions, and expected him to lead the way. Maggie had been the one exception. She refused to be led, refused to listen, refused to fit into the mold.

  “We have company again, mister,” Leopold said cheerfully from the front seat, breaking into Randall’s thoughts.

  Maggie awoke with a jerk, and he felt her wince in his arms. He had no idea how badly she’d been hurt crawling out of that window, but now wasn’t the time to ask. She scrambled off his lap before his hands could tighten.

  “Who do you think it is?” she questioned in a slightly husky voice.

  Leopold’s shrug was eloquent in the darkened car. “It could be anyone. I would guess that it’s Wadjowska. He has a certain reputation, and he won’t like it that you got away. You’re lucky you got out so fast, miss, before he had time to question you. He likes to hurt women.”

  Randall could feel her shiver in the darkness. “Does he?” she said coolly. “Then I’m glad I didn’t wait around for a white knight.”

  “You missed your big chance, Maggie,” he drawled, his eyes intent, peering through the gloom at her. “It’s not often that I bother to rescue damsels in distress. It would have been worth the wait.”

  She turned to him, and he could see her eyes, wide and curious. “That’s not true,” she said flatly.

  “It wouldn’t have been worth the wait?”

  “Randall, I had access to classified files when I was with the Company. I don’t know what you’ve been doing for
the last six years, but before then, every mission you took was a rescue. Boat people from Cambodia, babies from Viet Nam, political prisoners in Chile and Nicaragua, kidnap victims in Italy. You came to Gemansk to rescue me the first time, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “So why do you say you don’t rescue people?” she shot back.

  “Maggie, have you suddenly decided I’m a saint?” he questioned, keeping his voice lightly amused. “It’s highly flattering, but I’m still the same man who sent you out to whore with Wadjowska and abandoned you.”

  “Considering that you were being tortured, I think you have a good enough excuse,” she said. “Miroslav was talkative before he locked me in that room.”

  Irritation and something else swept over Randall. The last thing in the world he wanted was her gratitude. He didn’t want her to feel she owed him anything; he wanted her to come to him because of the same deep, irrational, overwhelming need that rode him like a devil. Starry-eyed sentimentality was the last thing he needed.

  He shrugged. “What of it? I’ve been tortured before, and even if I’m damned careful, it’s likely to happen again. Does that make me a good man, Maggie? Does that make me someone you can like, respect, and trust?”

  She sat very still in the close confines of the rattling Fiat. “No,” she said finally, “it doesn’t.”

  So where was his sense of satisfaction at making her see things as they were? Why wasn’t he pleased that he’d stripped her of her tentative illusions once more? “Good,” he forced himself to say, his voice light. “I want you to see things clearly.”

  “I think I see things very clearly, Randall,” she said, her voice still and calm and very certain. For one rash moment, he wondered whether it would be worth trying. Whether he could trick her into thinking he was worth loving. But as swiftly as the thought came, he dismissed it. His illusions were long gone; such thoughts were only tempting pipe dreams.

  “I’m going to take a short cut through the next field,” Leopold said from the front seat. “When I get to the bridge, I’ll slow down long enough for you both to jump out. There’s a row of abandoned houses there. The two of you hide while I try to draw Wadjowska away.”