Deadly Little Lies

by Jeanne Adams

  “I do too,” he reassured her. “I do too.”

  He knew he still needed to say his piece to Carrie. So many things could happen between this point and getting back to the cell. He could fall again, or miss a step and meet Hades as he’d joked earlier.

  “Carrie, I must tell you some things,” he said, slipping her hand through the gap to press a kiss on her bruised and skinned knuckles. “I had planned to ask you to be my wife,” he blurted out, knowing he needed to do it before she could say anything else.

  Shock suffused her face. “Your wife?” Her voice rose on the second word. “Me?”

  He didn’t know whether to be amused or hurt by the shock. “Yes. We have known one another for a long time now, and I think we have proven that we are attracted to one another.” He sighed. “Carrie, I had not thought to mention it for some time. I have, however, thought it for quite a while now. Of course, I had not thought to end up in the jungle, in a series of tunnels with traps, with dead mercenaries above us, and impassable entrances and exits before us at every step.”

  “But, Dav, you’re... you’re...” she stopped, at a loss for words. He had no idea what she had decided he was, but she was obviously not interested. His gut burned with pain. Perhaps he should have continued to date the models and seekers of safe harbors. Apparently, he should not have attempted to find a wife who understood him.

  “I am a man, Carrie-mou. Nothing more. Especially now.” He let go of her hand, eased back. “I will work my way through the tunnels and meet you at the cell.”

  “Dav, I just meant—” she said, then stopped. She didn’t reach out, try to regain his touch, and that spoke volumes to him. “I just meant that I’m not marriage material. And I don’t think I would ever want to be second place in anyone’s life again.” Her voice was pleading, quiet.

  “I would not put you second,” he stated, knowing it was true.

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You haven’t said you love me,” she said softly. “Work would be your wife and mistress and what would I be?”

  “I would be faithful, I would treat you with care and respect,” he defended, feeling the burn in his gut spread.

  He could see the tears in her eyes. They made his stomach burn harder, deeper.

  “I know you would, Dav.” She shifted the weapon, looked at the ground. Evidently she didn’t have anything else to say.

  “Then it is settled,” he said heavily, striving for some semblance of decorum. He would not beg any woman, or man, for anything. “I will go back through the tunnels.” The smile was difficult to muster, but he managed it. “I will race you there.”

  She smiled as well, and her tear-streaked face would live in his memory forever, along with all the other snapshots of her that he carried there. “Ready, set, go,” she said, turning away, the weapon still cradled in her arms.

  Dav waited until she had crawled out of the cave once more before he gathered the few other things they’d been carrying and turned to his own journey. Nothing would test him more than this.

  “God,” he said, addressing the deity he believed in, but had not spoken with very often. “See that she gets home alive.”

  It was all he would say. For now.

  Niko stirred when the phone rang. It was barely dawn, but he had slept only fitfully, so it didn’t matter.

  “Yes?”

  “You will wait until a new team arrives.” The order was clear, and it was his mentor; he recognized the voice. If anyone could make sense of this, make sure he got his revenge and got out of Belize to enjoy it, it would be this man.

  “Done. Where?”

  “Where you are. Longitude and latitude?”

  He checked his map, estimated, and gave the coordinates.

  Sam watched him, a wary look in his eyes. When he hung up he addressed it. “What? We got no backup.”

  Niko nodded and said, “Yeah, there’s backup coming. A new team.” He hesitated, but Sam was the only member of his own team still alive. If he didn’t trust Sam ... “Here’s the deal, though. We don’t work for this guy, not payroll. We’re hired guns.”

  “Exactly,” Sam said, jabbing a finger toward the phone. “How do we know we’re not sitting ducks for whoever did that?” He jerked his head in the direction of the now-distant campsite, the massacre. “Som’thin’ ain’t right here, compadre. And it isn’t our team comin’. They had our backs, right down the line. We don’t know these people.”

  Niko stopped the hot denial that sprang to his lips. Sam might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he wasn’t stupid either. His common sense had saved them, time and time again.

  “You may be right,” Niko said. “The more I think about it, the more I don’t like it.” He scanned the dark jungle, wondering who was watching, who might be listening.

  If it was a double cross, why? If it was a rescue mission, why have them stay put?

  “We’ll move out, get somewhere with a little distance.”

  Sam started the car, but didn’t turn on the lights. “Up or down?”

  “Up, toward Guatemala. We’ve got some contacts there if this goes to hell.”

  Sam nodded at the directions, but muttered, “Don’t know how much farther toward hell it’s gotta get, ’fore we bail,” as he whipped the Jeep around in the road. Only when he’d eased a few feet down the tarmac did he turn on the running lights, not turning on the full headlights until he’d crept on for at least a mile.

  It made sense. If someone was watching them, the Jeep starting might not be deemed unusual; it was still cool at night. The lights going on was a dead giveaway that they were moving out.

  From atop his hillside, Jurgens watched the Jeep creep off into the night. The fact that Niko was moving didn’t bode well. Jurgens would lay odds that he’d received instructions to stay put. That made him a target. It meant Niko was smart enough to realize that and might be turning on whoever held his leash.

  Either way, it didn’t bode well for Dav and his lady. With practiced care, Jurgens packed up his meager watching post and shifted back to the position above camp. As the sun crept over the horizon, Jurgens could see that nothing but nearly stripped bones and fragments of clothes were left of the ambushed men. His nightscope had showed animal activity, but nothing moving on two legs, and now the dawn light revealed that even the bodies were being consumed by the jungle. Within a few days, most of the evidence of the mercenaries’ bodies would be gone as well, devoured or carried off with the bones.

  The sun rose in hot glory and he chewed a bland ration bar, welcoming the energy that flooded through him as the food hit his system. The bugs were unpleasant, but losing sleep was worse. Each night away from his Caroline was an agony.

  As if his thought had summoned her, his phone vibrated. The Guatemalan phone, traceable only to the capital city, was being called with a phone card from a disposable phone in Los Angeles. Caroline had gone there on business, his business, and now hers. The legitimate sidelines were growing enough that he would be fully able to replace his excellent income from his freelance work. When that finally occurred, they could be married. That was the benchmark he had set, and to which she had agreed.

  “Liebchen,” he answered with that one word.

  “My love,” she replied, infusing the words with such desire that he felt himself harden at the mere sound of her voice.

  “The data?”

  “Delivered. And some for you. There are two dealers, both old grudges. Both related to your main product.” Two hit men, hired to settle old grudges, and both of the hits were hired by relatives.

  “Strange,” he replied, obliquely asking for more information. “That product,” he said, meaning Dav. “Is one of a kind, I believe. It stands alone.”

  “So we—and he—thought.” He heard the rustle of papers, the click of keys. “Genealogical Web sites are amazing things. You find out a great deal about who is related to whom.”

  “Really?” She was amazing,
his Caroline, he thought again, as he had many times, even long before he discovered she felt the same way about him.

  “Yes, but enough about my hobby,” she said, letting him know that she was sure about her data, had sourced, tracked and confirmed it.

  “I like hearing about your hobby, love.” He couldn’t help adding the endearment. “Are these relatives in the mix as well?”

  “Why, yes,” She feigned surprise. “They are.” So, two relatives after Davros, and two hired killers as well.

  “Perhaps...” He let the word draw out as he considered the two men he had killed the day before. “I may have met one of the...” Ah, what was the word for it?

  “Collateral relatives?”

  “Exactly. I met two people yesterday who fit the description.”

  “Yes, they work as a team, I understand.” The two he had killed in the act of planting mines were a hired team then. Good. That left only three in play.

  “Gut.” He felt the satisfaction warm him, as she warmed him. “That leaves only three cousins to meet.”

  “Any sign of the product you were searching for?”

  “There is good hope of finding that product, today,” he said, hearing the concern in her voice, knowing that it was about more than the situation. She cared. About him, about their lives together. And about Davros and his woman.

  It was more than enough to cement his decision to see if he could free Davros and his lady. Caroline wanted it, which meant he, too, wanted it.

  Off in the distance, a movement in the clearing he’d been watching caught his eye. He made a minute adjustment to the scope and saw a woman creep into the open. She wore dress clothes, a dusty skirt and a tattered, wrinkled and dusty T-shirt and sweater. That attire, along with her limping gate told him this was most likely Carrie McCray. To his surprise, he could see she carried a weapon.

  “Do you know, my love,” he asked Caroline softly as he adjusted the scope, set up the shot should he need it, “what color the top is on the secondary product?” He hoped she would understand his reference.

  “I do know, yes. It has a black top, like a raven. The other accessory is blue, and it is a five-six model.”

  Black hair, blue eyes and five-feet-six-inches tall. The disheveled woman he could see in his scope fit that description.

  “You should give your friends the coordinates. I think that product is about to come loose from its packaging.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Well, then I will get right on that. Will you be all right?”

  The last was as straightforward a question as either of them would dare.

  “Ja, all is well. I will deal with this.”

  “Okay. See you soon?” She made it a question, and he heard the longing in her voice that matched the need in his heart.

  “Ja. Soon.”

  They disconnected and he checked the time of the call. One minute and thirty seconds. Too short to trace, but possibly long enough to pinpoint location. He needed to move, and quickly.

  The scope showed the woman edging around to the grate, weapon at the ready. From the way she held it, she did not seem to know much about it. Her finger was not on the trigger. He squinted into the lens, adjusted, shifted. The safety was on—he would put money on it.

  This then, was Carrie McCray. How had she escaped, and where was Davros?

  He kept his eye to the scope as he gathered himself to relocate, keeping his movements small and random. A pinpoint from a satellite tracker could give his location too closely, but there wasn’t anything quite close enough yet to get to him, or he would have heard it. It was imperative he see what Ms. McCray was doing, so he would have to risk staying put just a bit longer.

  Like a frightened animal, she scanned the clearing, hesitating at every step. The buzzards were swooping back in and every time one called out in its harsh screech, or another one landed, she winced and averted her gaze. From the trees, more buzzards croaked, evidently wanting to land where she was, but not bold enough to do so with her there. The remains of one of the mercs lay not too far from the grate and she edged around it, giving it and the other bodies a wide berth. Several vultures left their prizes as she approached, but they too waited in nearby trees, continually calling their harsh disapproval of this intruder.

  She disappeared into the small block building, but stayed only a short time. When she reemerged, she was eating something, and drinking from a bottle. She had several more bottles with her and set them down a goodly distance from the bodies.

  To his disgust, and surprise, she laid the weapon down as well.

  “Stupid,” he muttered, thinking she was crazy. This woman was going to get herself killed. Did she not know how hunted she was?

  “Evidently not,” he answered his own question in a soft whisper.

  He quickly scanned the area. Nothing else moved, but that didn’t mean someone else wasn’t watching, or that they wouldn’t arrive before she completed whatever task she was about.

  Now he watched as, with shaky, jerky movements, she heaved and dragged one of the assassin team’s bodies from the grate. He smiled to remember the perfect shot he’d made, which took that one out without a whisper. There were times when he loved his job very much.

  This body, of course, was not as picked over as the original team’s corpses. Through the scope he could see that the underlying corpse, mostly dismembered by the birds, still covered the opening.

  With rough sympathy he noted that she had to stop and retch before she got that body moved. Whatever she had eaten in haste had come up in the same fashion. He softly tsked to himself. It was a rookie-recruit thing to do, reminding him that Carrie McCray was a stranger to these operations. A pawn in someone’s game, which brought him back around to all that Caroline had revealed. Multiple players. Multiple family members, several of whom Dav was unaware of.

  The woman had not yet recovered from handling the bodies, was still bent over at the edge of the brushy clearing, heaving.

  He must move. With his target still incapacitated, he took his eye from the scope to survey the surrounding terrain. They were odd, spiky things, these mountains. Not like his mountains in Germany, all strong, sturdy peaks. This terrain was disjointed and covered in scrubby, unpleasant low growth. It offered little cover and even that was a haven for biting insects.

  Nothing about it was conducive to his mission, but this was no reason to fail.

  He pivoted the scope slightly, getting a fix on a new location from which to keep an eye on the clearing. It would take him at least half an hour to get there, moving steadily, covering his tracks. He would prefer a longer time frame, but moving and seeing were both equally important.

  Marking the spot in his mind, he sighted in on Carrie again.

  She had moved. Now she was kneeling by the grate, the lock in her hands, trying key after key from a gore-covered ring she held as if it were a live snake. None seemed to fit the lock. As he watched, she stopped and went into the building again. Even from this great distance he could see the gleam of the newly washed keys, the drip of water from her hands as she returned to her work.

  Within minutes, she had found the key and opened the lock. When he looked last, she was busily struggling to heave the grate out of the way.

  He took this to mean that Davros was still in the cell, or somewhere underground. She had escaped by another way, obviously. Perhaps Davros was injured, or, as a smaller person, she had been able to use an escape route unavailable to the larger man.

  With an economy of motion, he secured his weapon and set out. Carrie hadn’t been speaking to Davros through the grate. Despite her flurry of activity, she wasn’t going down into the cell, nor was she leaving. At his last look, she’d been sitting, weapon in hand, waiting.

  Jurgens decided she was waiting for Davros to appear. This would give him the best opportunity to move.

  He must also now consider what to do about those land mines.

  Everyone was waiting for the go sign from Gates and A
na. Most had slept a little, but everyone was on edge and Ana knew it. But before they did anything, Ana was going to follow her gut again and make the call she’d been instructed to make in the fax.

  She dialed the number and the phone rang twice in her ear before the same woman picked it up.

  “You have information?” Ana demanded.

  “A latitude and longitude,” the woman said, rattling off the numbers. Ana repeated them and they were confirmed.

  “Why are you involved?” Ana asked with blunt directness.

  “Love.”

  The single word rang with sincerity.

  “Dav?” That could pose a further complication, knowing what she now knew about Dav and Carrie.

  A musical laugh rang through the line.

  “No.” That denial was equally sincere, and sincerely amused. “But he was helpful in getting my love and me our chance at happiness. That’s all I’ll say as I know your husband is busily attempting to trace this call.”

  “Of course,” Ana admitted, glancing at her husband, who was indeed pounding the keyboard, honing in on the signal. From his expression, he wasn’t having any more luck tracing the actual call than he had tracing just the number.

  “You have three enemies,” the woman said, snapping Ana back to the moment. “Two of them are related to your Davros.”

  “What? Who?”

  The woman ignored her interruption and continued, her words coming more quickly. “They are hunting him right now, from opposite directions. One is supposed to be dead.”

  “Niko.” Ana made it a statement.

  “Yes.” Approval rang through the line along with the confirmation.

  “The other?” Ana was frantically writing on her pad. Other relatives? Who? Where?

  “Is unknown to Dav or Niko. Look him up on Athens GenePool.com. You can find the information there. I did.”

  “And the third?” Ana scribbled that down, then waited tensely, praying that this mysterious contact would be willing to share a last bit of vital information.