by Jeanne Adams
After one look, he ignored the ties. He couldn’t change the situation right now and Gates had told him to consistently focus on the things he could change. “Here, Carrie,” he said when he got his pain under momentary control. “Sit closer. We’ll keep each other warm.”
She moved immediately under the arch of the arm he painfully lifted, and burrowed into his chest. “Thank you.” After a moment, she spoke again. “I’m scared, Dav,” she murmured.
“I know. I am too,” he admitted, hoping it would help her to know it. “All we can do is wait, and look for opportunities to escape or make a deal.” Pain raced over him with every bump of the plane. He blocked it by letting his face caress her glorious hair.
That was in the present moment; that was beautiful. Her skin was soft and sweet on the rasp of his stubble-scratchy face. He could still smell her perfume and he focused on that, ignoring all other smells, all other thoughts. He knew it was a momentary respite, but that separation from fear, that brief, sweet lull let his mind clear.
“We could die here,” she muttered, and he heard the fear again. “We could die.”
“No.” He made it a statement. He would not allow that possibility. She was his future. He would not allow it to be otherwise. He would use the stubborn will that helped him survive his father and countless business rivals and they would survive. “We’ll make it out of this. My people, they’ll know to get Gates. He has all manner of ways to figure out what’s happened. He’ll find us. He and Ana are the best.”
“But they don’t work for you anymore,” she said.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said, smiling into the dark. “But friends don’t worry about little things like that. They’ll find us.”
“Dav,” she murmured, sliding her hands up to touch his face. “Dav, why did we wait?”
Dav was distracted momentarily by the shift in the sound of the engines, the subtle drop in the slant of the cabin. “Wait?” he replied, still thinking about the change in the plane’s altitude. “Why did we wait for what?”
He looked down into her eyes, loving the feel of her hands on his face. While he recognized all his reactions were off-kilter from the drugs, though not as badly skewed as Carrie’s, just the touch of her, the feel of her in his arms, was inflaming his body, his mind and senses.
“Carrie?” he whispered, seeing the dark of her eyes, feeling every inch of her in new ways.
“We fought it, Dav, both of us,” she said, her voice serious. But her eyes were still deeply dilated, the effect of the drugs. “We waited for the right time. We didn’t make a move, either of us.”
While he was puzzling through what she meant, she shifted closer, whispering, “Don’t wait anymore. Kiss me now, just in case. I need to know how it feels, I need ...” she trailed off, quieting in order to bring her lips to his.
The connection was instant and powerful. Every thought about the plane, their situation, sank out of his mind, replaced by the magnificent roar of triumph in his heart. No pain could compare to the sweetness, the fire, of her mouth moving on his. All hesitancy fled as she pressed into him, wriggling closer, heating his body. Nothing mattered but Carrie. Nothing was real or present but her mouth, her breasts pressed to his chest, her hips bumping his.
His mind leapt forward to her straddling him, taking him into her, rising over him, pleasuring them both. He nearly lost control just thinking the thoughts as her mouth moved frantically on his, driving them to a frenzy of movement, making their bodies mesh as best they could in the situation. The pain in his hands and shoulders throbbed a counterpoint to his body’s needs. He ignored the pain and focused on the pleasure.
He might never get another chance.
“Dav, oh, Dav, I... I...” She stumbled over the words, pressing kisses to his face, her bound hands cradling his jaw.
Whatever else she might have said was lost when the plane banked hard again. Now she fell into him, slamming her head into his chin as the altitude dropped.
“Ouch!” she groaned, and he wished he could speak at all. It was all he could do to hang on to consciousness as the blow reawakened every one of his other pains.
Passion doused, Dav struggled to shift gears from their sensuous connection back to the situation at hand. For several long moments, they just lay still, panting as they tried to recover. He knew this wasn’t the time or the place, and that Carrie was reacting to the drugs, but the confirmation that she was interested, attracted, gave him hope despite their dire state of affairs.
While there’s life, there’s hope.
“What do you mean you left him alone?” Gates snarled the words into the phone. He and Ana were racing toward the city, Ana taking the curves with the competent speed of a driver trained by the military in evasive maneuvers.
“Not alone. We were there, we were close,” explained Jasper Whitney, one of the security team. He’d been first on the scene when Dav’s team called in the emergency from the city.
Gates shook his head in frustration. No one was off duty now. And yelling at Whitney didn’t matter and didn’t help. No excuses could change the fact that Dav’s security had been breached and he’d been taken.
“Never mind. What about—” he began.
“We found his locator fifteen miles outside the city,” Whitney said. “Along with the getaway car, a Chevy Suburban. Rented with false ID. There was blood, but not much.”
“Damn.” Without the locator, the chances of recovering Dav and Carrie alive went from unlikely to near impossible. “What about Declan? And Damon?”
“Declan’s still in surgery,” was the worried reply. “They’re not telling us anything, but they’ve all got that tight-lipped look. Damon took a bullet along the left side of his head, as he tried to block the getaway, but he was treated and released. Georgiade and Queller both have cuts from flying glass, and a lot of bruises from the panicked restaurant patrons stomping on them. Thompson has a through and through in the meat of his shoulder.”
“Not good. Damn it. Damon could just as easily be dead. Thank God everyone had on vests. Not good, any of it. We’ll be there in—” Gates turned to Ana.
“Twenty minutes, tops.”
Gates repeated the time. “Until then, sit tight. Get everyone together and we’ll meet in the hospital chapel. That’s open twenty-four-seven. Barring someone being in there praying, we can use it as a mini conference room while we wait for news. Two people from the FBI will be meeting us there. Keep an eye out for them.”
He hung up without saying good-bye and turned to his wife. “What chance do we have of getting Agency help?”
“A lot, unofficially. I’ve already sent word. They’ll do it for me, and for Dav. He made a lot of friends last year. Not that he didn’t already have plenty.”
“True.” In the silence, he went over the situation again, every step his former team had outlined for him. “Damn,” he muttered, considering all the angles. “This was brilliantly executed. They took advantage of the change of command. How did they know? How could they know?”
“How would you have done it?” Ana replied quietly. “You’re among the best I’ve seen at running scenarios and coming up with the least likely and most workable in any given situation. And yes, that was a compliment.”
“Thanks,” he said, knowing that from Ana it was high praise indeed. He’d been trained in the military, but hadn’t taken the classes and courses she’d had. He just knew what it was like to lose the people you loved. It made him sharper when it came to seeing the loopholes or gaps in protection. He’d promised himself never to lose another person he loved. In all the time since his family had been killed, he’d managed to keep that promise.
Until now.
“I just can’t find a perp in my head. He’d settled with most of the people who were after him. The business last year turned out to be about me, not him,” he muttered. “I don’t get it. The Saudis were on board with a bunch of new projects. Colombia just hired us. It does them no good to kidnap him
. They’ve already paid us.”
“Keep thinking that way and we won’t get him back,” Ana cautioned. “Think outside the box.”
Anger rushed through him, followed just as quickly by the realization that she was right. “That’s a pisser, but true. Okay. Unknown origin. Not the usual suspects.”
“We can’t handle alien abduction,” Ana quipped. “Anything else, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find him, Gates.”
“Them,” Gates corrected. “They took Carrie. That’s important. Whitney said they took her first. One thread we need to pull is to see who her enemies are. Can’t do like we did last year and assume it’s about Dav.”
“More likely than Carrie,” Ana said on a huffed out breath as she whipped the SUV around a tight turn. She was slim but strong, and she held the powerful vehicle into the turns like a barrel racer. “Probably she’s going to be leverage, a hostage to force him to do something. We can’t ignore the angle that they wanted Carrie, but it’s probably too expensive an op for someone after her. Four Suburbans, decoy cars peeling off to confuse pursuit, the movie camera setup to gain cooperation from total innocents? That was pure genius.”
“They’re all being held, pending,” Gates said, using shorthand to say the fake film crew and decoy drivers were still in custody until the San Francisco police, the FBI and Gates got some answers.
Ana took a hand off the wheel long enough to squeeze his. “Let’s just get there before we draw conclusions. We need more facts.”
“I know. And we’ll find him,” Gates said, squeezing back, trying desperately to believe it.
“So, you have him on the ground now?” Niko smiled into the phone, delighted. “Take him to the camp and put him where I told you. Yes, down there. It’s a perfect spot for a holding pen. Yes. I’m sure.”
“Sí, Niko,” was the brisk reply, and the line went dead.
Niko leaned back in his opulent leather chair, relaxing for the first time in hours. Anything could have gone wrong between the States and Belize. Anything. Now his brother was in his control and nothing could save him.
It was perfect.
Chapter 4
It was time to think, to plan.
If the plane was correcting or changing course, it meant something was happening. It was time to do anything they could to give themselves an edge.
“Carrie, can you reach our things?” They needed to get anything potentially helpful into their pockets, rather than in his coat or her purse.
“I think so,” she said, easing out from under his arm to scoot toward her purse.
“When we land, you must pretend to be asleep. I’ll pull the bag back over my head. Much as I want to see what’s going on, it’s best to leave everything as they left it. Carrie?” he said sharply. He needed to be sure she was focusing on him. When she turned his way, he asked, “Is there anything we can use as leverage to get them to leave you alone? If it’s ransom they want, Gates knows I will pay. Is there anyone else they might approach for money? Anyone important?”
“My grandfather,” she said, grunting the words as she managed to get to their things. Starting back toward him, she continued, “He was a senator. He still has a lot of political connections.”
“Good. Good,” he said, his mind circling the possibilities. “If they separate us, make sure you tell them that Gates will pay a ransom, that your grandfather will. Gates will figure it out about your grandfather, I’m sure, but tell them. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” she said, piling the coat and her purse next to him. He’d gotten himself into a higher sitting position. He’d also found the hood and had it in his lap. There’d been no sound from the cockpit, no indication that there was more than one pilot on the plane. Wherever they were going, there weren’t many guards. The plane’s cockpit was too small to hold more than a pilot and copilot, so their captors had counted on them staying unconscious or at least docile.
“Do you have anything in your purse that might help us? A knife? A nail file? Anything?”
She surprised him by answering in the affirmative. “I have an all-purpose tool,” she said, digging to the bottom. “You know, one of those Leatherman tools? It’s great for checking things at tag sales, tightening screws, that sort of thing.”
She was peering into her purse so she didn’t see his surprise, but he was astounded. She’d be more help than he was. Being in this situation, he realized how much he took for granted now, how many things people handled for him. He didn’t even keep keys for any of his homes or cars. Keys would be a good weapon if Carrie had some.
“Do you have keys?” he asked.
“Keys?” She looked up in surprise, then nodded. “Sure. They’re right here.” She held up a well-laden key ring.
“Put them in the pocket of my jacket,” he said, turning as much as he could to give her access. “I’m betting they’ve already patted us down for weapons, checked your purse and so on.”
“Keys won’t do much,” she said, even as she dropped them in his pocket. “They don’t unlock anything we can reach.”
“You’d be surprised,” Dav said, forcing a smile. “Gates was a good teacher. I can do a lot with keys. Do you have room to put the Leatherman tool and your driver’s license in your skirt pocket? Is it deep enough? If not, put them in my pocket too. If they take your purse, we’ll still have your ID on us. Gates always told me to plan for survival and rescue. We may need to prove we’re American citizens.”
“Are you?” she asked, apropos of nothing. “An American citizen, that is?”
“Yes, I hold dual citizenship since my mother was Greek-American.”
“She was? Did she—” she began, only to break off as another sharp turn of the plane overbalanced her once more.
“Ssaahh!” Dav managed to hiss out the exclamation rather than scream more curses in agony as she landed on his swollen hands. He didn’t want the pilot or copilot to hear, to come back to them before they were armed as well as they could be. It was quieter now, at the lower altitude. With less wind noise to muffle their voices.
Dav couldn’t suppress the instant nausea and headache brought on by the blow however. “Yamoto yamotoyamoto!” He slurred the curse word together, letting intensity help him disperse some of the pain. Fuckfuckfuck!
“Sorry,” she said, sitting up, panic etching her face with worry. “What did I hit? Are you bleeding? What happened?”
“It’s my hands. They’re too tightly bound. You’re going to have to help me,” he snapped, gulping hastily to maintain control of his rebellious stomach. “You need to rub them, force the circulation.” He dreaded even the thought of that, but if he didn’t get some circulation in his hands, they would be useless to him. And they might sustain permanent damage if they stayed numb too long.
“But won’t that be painful?”
“An understatement, Carrie-mou,” Dav agreed, attaching the endearment to her name easily. “But if I want to keep my hands, if I want to ever be able to use them, I can’t let the blood settle too much. As it is, I can hardly feel them.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, jerking her hands away from his, rubbing them on her skirt. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Although it will hurt, you’ll be helping me. I’m going to need my hands.”
The plane shifted, a softer turn this time. When it leveled out, Dav could tell they were lower, and slower. Whatever their destination, they were closing in on it.
“You must hurry. We’ll be landing soon. Put my coat around your shoulders and your purse over your shoulder under the coat. Help me get the hood back on, then lean on me. We’ll act like we’re still asleep. You can start working on my hands, okay?”
“But the coat, my purse, they’ll know, won’t they?”
“People accept what they expect to see. They’ll see us asleep together. They’ll see my coat over you. I would do that if I woke up first, or you might do that if you woke and couldn’t wake me.”
“No, I wou
ld have put it over you,” she answered, puzzlement evident in her voice. “You’re hurt, you need to stay warm.”
He smiled as he realized, once again, why she was the one for him. She would have covered him. In vino veritas—in wine, truth—worked for drugs too. She would have thought of him first. Her earlier kisses seemed to be further proof of that.
Short of instantaneous rescue, nothing could please him more. It would make the pain of the next steps, whatever they were, either easier to bear or the worst possible nightmare imaginable. He watched in silence as she maneuvered her license into her pocket, added the bulkier multitool to her other pocket. The slim-fitting skirt showed a bulge, so he had her move the tool to his jacket pocket. Their captors might take the coat away, or leave it in the plane, but they probably wouldn’t take his suit jacket.
“Now, you need to rub my hands, get the circulation going,” he said, and noticed the horror reflected in her eyes when she saw his swollen fingers, the bluish cast to the skin.
“Oh, Dav,” she whispered, and he heard the tears in her voice. He wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do what was necessary.
“Just do it, Carrie,” he insisted, making it a firm order. “It’s the pain now, or possibly losing my hands later.”
Without a word, she faced him, braced her feet on the side wall of the plane, and took his hands in hers. With one brisk stroke, she began.
It was all he could do not to moan with the horrific pain every stroke brought to his hands. She hesitated only briefly. He saw her jaw clench, but she kept working, stroking his hands, shifting the blood reluctantly through the engorged tissues. They were so involved, and he was so agonized, they nearly missed the further slowing of the plane, the drop in altitude.
“Stop,” he ordered, managing to grip her hands, a minor miracle he didn’t take time to appreciate.