Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 05]

by Under the Wire

  “Trusting little dude,” Manny said. “We’d love to sit and chat, but—hey!”

  The macaque snatched the SAT phone off Manny’s lap and took off like a bat out of hell, screaming and scrambling high up into the trees.

  “God damn it! Come back here with that!”

  Manny pushed to his feet, but all he could do was watch as the monkey and his SAT phone disappeared in the treetops. “Fuck.” Hands on hips, he turned to Lily.

  She was all round eyed and worried. “Now what?”

  God, he’d seen that look on her face too often to count in the past few days. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make it go away. “Now we look for a phone in addition to transportation when we get to Elkaduwa.

  “Come on.” He held out a hand, helped her to her feet. “Let’s move.”

  He glanced at his watch, felt his gut knot. There was no point in telling her about the deadline. No point in telling her that if they didn’t get to Adam and the Muhandiramalas, they would be executed in less than eight hours.

  Kandy

  Ethan glanced at Darcy as he spoke with Dallas on the SAT phone. “Ramanathan wants to do what?…

  “Holy shit.” He shook his head when Dallas finished. “Yeah…. Yeah. I can arrange a call. Give me,” he checked his watch, “fifteen minutes. I’ll be back in touch.”

  “What?” Darcy asked when Ethan had hung up.

  “Ramanathan wants to join his military forces with the Sinhalese military and take out the boys who stole his howitzer.”

  Darcy blinked. “Say what?”

  “I know.” Ethan scratched his jaw. “We came here worried about starting up the civil war again and it looks like we might have actually backed into a way to put the Tigers and the Sinhalese on the same side of a fight.”

  “Why would Ramanathan want to do that?”

  “Simple. He wants his gun back. And Dallas honestly thinks the rebel leader is tired of the fighting. Maybe he was looking for an excuse to end it and this dropped into his lap.”

  Ethan shook his head again. “Get Griffin on the phone, babe. We’re about to make history.”

  “And Adam? The Muhandiramalas?” Her worried look echoed his thoughts. “Where do they all fit into this?”

  He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed the top of her head. “I wish I knew. All we can do now is hope we can get this thing off the ground in the next few hours and beat the deadline. If we have any chance of finding them, my money’s on it being tied to the boys who stole the big gun.”

  He checked his watch. They were down to a little less than seven hours until time ran out. “Go ahead. Call Griff. Then I’ll try to reach Manny again.”

  And in the meantime, Ethan would do a lot of praying that this new development worked for them instead of against them.

  On the road to Elkaduwa

  “I don’t need to be coddled,” Lily snapped, a little too sharply, when Manny suggested they stop again and take five.

  She regretted her waspish tongue immediately. But she didn’t want to stop. She wanted to walk. Hell, she wanted to run. To her son. Away from the soldiers who were bound to be trailing them.

  Away from the reality that when the smoke cleared and she put their situation in perspective, she was a health-care professional and, for the second time in her life, she’d had unprotected sex with a man she barely knew. That it had been the same man both times was little consolation. That it had been mind-bending, perception-altering sex was no longer at issue. That he’d wanted her with the same uncontrollable craving as she’d wanted him didn’t hold much sway, either.

  Neither did his total lack of comment about what had happened in the aftermath of the storm they’d literally ridden out in that abandoned temple.

  And what had happened? Other than the two of them connecting with a physical release that had been inevitable given their level of tension and forced confinement.

  Step after step, as they’d slogged through the jungle, her mind had been spinning in directions she didn’t want it to go. Back to the feel of his hands on her skin. The electric sensation of his mouth. The weight of him heavy and deep inside her.

  The feel of his medal between her breasts.

  It had been seventeen years since she’d felt the magical give and flow between their bodies. She’d thought, over the years, that she’d remembered big. Like remembering a special place from her childhood as being huge, then going back as an adult and finding it small. The truth was, her memory hadn’t been large enough to accommodate the feelings—acute, consuming, incredible—that she’d felt when Manny made love to her again.

  Just like she hadn’t remembered the depth of her feelings for him.

  So no, she didn’t want to stop. No, she didn’t want to rest. And she’d been pushing herself to the limit since they’d stumbled onto a road thirty minutes ago.

  At least it was a road of sorts. They’d been dodging muddy potholes and crawling over trees that a recent windstorm had toppled.

  She started climbing over another downed tree that blocked their way. Manny’s hand caught her arm and stopped her. She snapped her gaze to his.

  “Easy,” he said after a quiet moment. “Just ease up a bit, okay? No good is going to come of you dropping from exhaustion in this heat.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but it caught up with her then. The humidity. The suffocating furnace of the sun. The realization that he was right. She needed a break. She needed to rehydrate. And by the looks of him, he did, too.

  She nodded. Sank down on a stump and dug into her pack for another dose of antibiotics and some pain medication. “How’s your head?”

  “Don’t worry about my head.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s easier than worrying about whether or not we’re lost.”

  “We’re not lost.”

  She unscrewed the cap on a water bottle and handed it to him.

  He shook his head.

  Fine. She’d drink first.

  Only when she had drunk her fill did he accept the bottle and take the meds.

  “If we’re not lost, then what are we?” She ignored his wince when she applied topical antibiotic ointment to his cut and checked the stitches. “And don’t say we’re fine, because we aren’t. We’ve got no transportation, no way to communicate with Ethan or Dallas, no clear idea of how to get to Adam, and no way of knowing if we can get to him before something happens to him.”

  Manny scrubbed a hand over his dark, stubbled jaw and gauged the angle of the sun. “But we are having fun, right?”

  She didn’t want to smile at his deadpan delivery. She didn’t even know he had a deadpan delivery. Mostly he did brooding. At least, Manny the man did brooding. Manny the boy had been full of the devil, quick with a grin, easy with a laugh. Deadpan hadn’t been on his list of character traits, either.

  Which was probably why she gave it up and smiled for him. Then apologized.

  “I’m sorry I’m being so bitchy. It’s just—”

  “It’s just that you’re worried about Adam.”

  She looked down at her hands. Nodded.

  “And you’re wondering,” he said in such a reflective tone her head came up, “about what happened back there. In the temple. About what it meant. What it means.”

  She held his deep, dark gaze. Yeah. She’d been wondering. As understatements went, it was one for the record books.

  “Me, too,” he said, then touched a hand to her face, caressed her jaw. “When this is over, we’ll sort it out, okay?”

  She closed her eyes, nodded again, and damn, she was sick of blinking back tears.

  “Come here, querida,” he whispered, and drew her into his arms.

  And held her. Beneath a sun that beat down as relentlessly as her fear for Adam’s life.

  She leaned into Manny, embraced his promise as much as the sheltering strength of his body.

  We’ll sort it out.

  A sigh let go inside of her that felt bigge
r than she was.

  Yes. They’d sort it out.

  In the meantime, they would find Adam.

  Manny squeezed her hard, let her go. “No less than five, no more than twenty,” he said, reminding her that less than five minutes of rest did no good, but more than twenty could cause muscles to tighten. Reminding her that he was more bruised and battered than she was.

  Sweat and dirt stained his shirt, and other than his lack of sunburn, he looked every bit as beat as she felt. And so outrageously gorgeous it was tempting to hit him just on general principles. She had to look like the wreck of the Hesperus.

  “I’m ready,” she said instead, then turned her face to his to see him watching her with a look that spoke of longing and encouragement and even, she thought, a little bit of pride.

  “Mother bear,” he said approvingly. “Adam is fortunate to be your cub.”

  Then, with his thumb lightly caressing her cheek, he kissed her. It wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t even tinged with heat. What it was, was necessary. The look on his face said so. He’d just needed to kiss her. To connect. To affirm. To assure her that all would be well. To encourage her to trust him to know what to do. To sort things out. But more important, at the moment, to find their son.

  “Let’s go.” Manny twisted around to pick up his rifle and pack.

  That’s when Lily saw it. And her heart rate picked up to a flat-out gallop.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  He stopped short when she latched on to his arm. He glanced ahead on the road—probably figuring the bad guys had found a bridge by now and come looking for them.

  But it wasn’t a bad guy or a tree blocking the road.

  “Depends,” he said, moving in front of her like a protective shield. “I’m thinking elephant. Are we close?”

  “A little too close,” Lily said, peeking around his broad shoulder.

  Even at a zoo, she’d never been this close to approximately six tons and ten feet of bull elephant. And she knew it was a bull because of his size and massive tusks.

  “What do we do?” she asked, then breathed a sigh of relief when a young man walked out from behind the elephant and lifted a hand in greeting.

  He wasn’t any more than five feet tall. His skin was dark, his teeth blazing white. He wore the traditional baggy white mahout garb. In contrast, below thin calves and bony ankles he wore a pair of Air Jordans that were almost as big as he was.

  “Su-bhah dhah-hah-vah-lahk.” Good afternoon, he said, approaching them with a grin. A grin that grew even broader when he walked close enough to see them clearly.

  “You speak English?” he asked as the elephant stopped directly behind him, the massive trunk snuffling around in his pockets.

  “Nah-vah-thin-nu.” Stop, he scolded the pestering pachyderm, and absently shoved the wandering trunk away.

  “English. Yes,” Manny said with a watchful eye on the elephant as a toque macaque swung down from a tree and landed in the middle of the elephant’s back.

  “I don’t like that sucker on general principle,” Manny said under his breath, eyeing the monkey as he screeched and scratched his armpit and stared Manny straight in the eye.

  “American?” the mahout asked, sounding hopeful.

  Lily nodded. “Yes. We’re Americans.”

  The young man almost jumped for joy. His grin split his face and he clapped his hands. “I love America!! ‘Go ahead; make my day,’” he said in heavily accented English. “Clint Eastwood, yes? Sudden Impact. I love American movie.”

  He spouted off several more movie quotes before Manny could quiet him down.

  “Look. We’re in a bind. We need to get to Elkaduwa.” He pulled out the map and pointed to their destination.

  Another broad grin. “‘That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.’ Harvey Keitel, yes? Pulp Fiction. What a movie. I am good, yes?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re great.” Manny tapped the map again. “We’re here, right? How long before we get there?”

  The mahout studied the map. “Walking? Four hours. Maybe five. Or maybe running?” he speculated, taking in Manny’s head wound, their ripped clothes, and the rifle slung over Manny’s shoulder. “You have problems, friend?”

  Manny made an “if you only knew” sound. “And once we get there…if we can get a vehicle, how long to get to Bulutota Rakwana?”

  The mahout scrunched up his face. “Long time from Elkaduwa. Maybe three more hours? But…is not long time from here. I, Kavith, the poet, can take you. On Rajah, we can be to Elkaduwa in five hours. You good man. Good woman. Rajah and Kavith, we can tell. You have trouble?” he asked again.

  About that time they heard the whine of gears and looked down the long expanse of road ahead of them.

  A military jeep barreled down the road toward them.

  “We have trouble,” Manny said on a growl.

  “You go. Hide there.” Kavith pointed to the jungle to the side of the road. “Rajah and Kavith. We will fix. Go. Go.”

  It wasn’t like they had a choice. Manny grabbed Lily’s hand and they sprinted for the undergrowth. Crouching low and out of sight, they waited for the jeep to stop. Manny drew his rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. Lily understood that one threatening move the mahout’s way and Manny would take those guys out before they could cock a trigger.

  After much head nodding and grinning and pointing, Kavith managed to convince the jeepful of soldiers to turn around and head the other way.

  They shifted gears with a grind and a jerk and tore off back down the road the way they’d come.

  Kavith watched them go, then beckoned with a wave when the jeep was out of sight. “All clear. Come,” he said quickly while the monkey jumped up and down on the elephant’s back and screeched, like he was laughing at the joke Kavith had played on the soldiers. “We must hurry. They will come back. We must not be here.”

  Lily scrambled out of the brush, looked the elephant up and down, then looked at Manny.

  He looked dubious.

  “Here’s the way I see it. I’ve been shot at, I’ve hidden in a cave, and I’ve played Jane on a vine swinging across a raging river. I’d just as well make the jungle experience complete and ride an elephant. And if it will get us to Adam faster, I say we go for it.”

  Manny studied Kavith, the poet who herded elephants and wore Air Jordans, through narrowed eyes. “And what’s in it for you?”

  Again Kavith grinned and shook his head. “No. No. You mistake what you are thinking. Make wrong notion. I, Kavith, am not what you Americans call a…a…tout, is it? No. I am apprentice. No, that’s wrong. Student. Yes. At university. This day I am on holiday—visiting my grandfather. Rajah, he is my grandfather’s beast. I am uninterested—no. Again. Wrong word. I am bored…yes, bored today. Nothing to do. So I consider, today I take Rajah for a walk. And look. I find you.” His white teeth flashed again. “Not bored anymore.”

  “You’re getting into some heavy stuff here, Kavith,” Manny warned.

  “Yes. Yes. Much heavy. Much fun. And with you I can perform my English. Make better.”

  He looked at Manny, his eyes full of hope. “‘Well, what do you say, Reverend? You think a prayer’s in order?’ Clint Eastwood, Space Cowboys, yes?”

  More than a prayer was in order, Lily thought, and gave Manny a nod when he looked at her for a yea or a nay.

  CHAPTER 21

  Jaffna Peninsula

  Dallas sprinted across the tarmac beside a huffing Ramanathan. They ducked beneath the rotor blades of a hulking Cobra that was revved and rocking and vibrating the cracked asphalt beneath their feet.

  Dallas still couldn’t believe this dual assault was going to come off. But it was happening. The Sri Lankan prime minister and Ramanathan had spoken, agreed that there was a common threat, and mobilized a joint task force in a grand total of two hours. No bickering. No jockeying for position.

  No fucking way, is what Dallas would have thought had he not heard Ramanath
an agree to let the Sri Lankan military call the shots. There were already two units of special operations infantry in place twenty miles to the north of the previously held Tiger camp, and three more were closing in from the south. Ramanathan had mobilized two units of his Tigers stationed on the coast in Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan army general had agreed to wait for the rebel forces to get in position before launching the assault.

  Done deal. Everyone was playing nice with everyone else. Dallas checked his watch as he swung up and into the chopper. If all went as planned, in a few hours it would be all over but the shouting.

  Ramanathan would have his big gun back. The Sri Lankan military would have rousted an unknown insurgency, and for the first time in history Tamils would be fighting someone other than their countrymen.

  An hour or so ago Ethan had connected with Manny. They still didn’t have a fix on the boy.

  “Friend,” Dallas said to Ramanathan when they’d donned headsets and he could be heard above the rotor noise. “Don’t forget. I get your gun back, you owe me a favor.”

  “Your life is your favor,” the general said as they lifted off. Then he smiled and shrugged. “But perhaps I am feeling generous. Maybe I will grant you two. Because of those balls of yours,” he added, then looked toward the south as the snake ate up the knots and headed for the battle.

  Bulutota Rakwana range, northwest of Embilipitiya

  Adam glanced across the cave at Minrada. Silence. It scared him. So did the fact that they’d been moved again. Shortly after they’d filmed the video this morning, they’d been blindfolded, herded onto a truck bed, and off they’d gone. He didn’t know how far they’d traveled or how much time had passed. Several miles. Several hours. Adam had no clue where they were. North, he’d guess, and that was only because the new cave was colder.

  It was also full of bats. He could hear the muffled flutter of their wings above. Their high-pitched squeals. Somewhere from the dark recesses of the cavern he could also hear the sound of water. Underground rivers? Pools? He didn’t know. Wasn’t sure it mattered.