by Jeanne Adams
A breath of silence greeted her, then, “The third is someone looking for you.”
The line went dead.
Chapter 17
With efficient movements, despite the swaying of the luxury vehicle on the less-than-stellar roads, he snapped the Internet device into his small computer. He pulled up an urgent e-mail and opened it.
The insider is seeking asylum.
He considered it. A man of those qualities would be useful. However, after a few moments, he shook his head. No. Once a turncoat, always a turncoat.
He positioned his fingers on the keyboard and responded.
No asylum granted. I suggest Siberia.
He awaited a reply, knowing that his man would be at the controls, waiting for a response from him. He trained his people to act with alacrity, and with independence where it was warranted. However, they also were bright enough to know when to get his approval.
He didn’t wait long.
Immediate train or convenient arrangement?
He smiled. If he knew his man, there was probably someone with the turncoat in his gunsights, just waiting to be given the signal to fire. It was a delicious thought and he took time to savor it. Life and death, hanging on an e-mail. How wonderful.
Immediate train. He typed the reply and hesitated, thinking it through, his finger hovering over the Send button.
If Davros’s team were not onto the inside man, there was a bit of time. Even if they suspected him, the security geek, his woman and their team had flown the coop and were, presumably, chasing some of the false leads he had strewn about. With any luck, they were about to go on a scouring hunt through South America. They would still be there, chasing the trail he’d laid as Davros breathed his last.
As an added fillip, the security team had already agreed to the ransom, offering an additional sum for Davros’s woman and the word of her senatorial grandfather that it would be paid.
He smiled. Perhaps he would save the woman, return her to her grandfather and collect the favor there. He opened another window on his screen to see with which committees her grandfather might have influence.
Yes, he thought, surveying the list. That might be profitable. He made a mental note to have his men cull Carrie McCray from the melee before he let Niko kill Davros. Then, if he were lucky, the two men would kill one another and save him the trouble of executing Niko. He’d already gotten word that Niko had drawn back, left the post he’d been assigned.
That would never do.
He pressed Send.
As he considered the ramifications, the reply came through.
Done.
The waiting was the worst.
It was killing her to look down into the hole, praying for a glimpse of Dav or even a hint of sound that would tell her he was near. It was worse than fighting through the brush and scrub to get back to the camp, constantly watching on the circling buzzards. Coming on the camp where they’d first been shoved down into their cell was a relief in one way, a nightmare in another.
Carrie scratched at the viciously itching bites on her lower legs. She was sure that she’d received more bug bites in the two hours it had taken her to get back than she’d ever received in her life.
She was hot, tired, sweaty and terrified. What if he didn’t make it? What if she had to go back through the brush and figure out where the hole was? What if she had to go back through the tunnels without the flashlight?
But no. She’d found the keys. She had the ladder. She could go in through the cell....
The thought of climbing down again, alone, with no one keeping watch for someone who might come and lock the grate again was enough to turn her stomach to jelly.
That fear just redoubled the pain in her heart.
Dav wanted to marry her. How could she bear it?
After all the secrets they’d shared in the darkness, he didn’t understand that he couldn’t marry her. Not her. She wasn’t marriage material. Hadn’t she told him that? Shown him that? She couldn’t have children; the doctors had told her so after her miscarriage. She was damaged goods. How could he not see that?
More than anything, however, her soul, her spirit, wasn’t big enough to live with him, love him when he didn’t love her. She couldn’t do that again. It would be worse, with Dav. Unlike Luke, who had cheated again, and again, Dav would be loyal. A marriage to her would doom him to marriage with someone he didn’t love, with no chance for a family. How could she do that to him? She had been there, lived that way. She wouldn’t ask anyone she loved to do it for her.
She felt the tears threatening and fought them back. This was no time to be weepy and sentimental. She had to be firm, strong.
She could do that. She had done that. She’d turned him down.
“Oh, God, where are you?” she moaned, staring down into the cell, willing him to appear. She’d found the keys on the mutilated guard’s body. After she’d vomited up everything she’d ever eaten in her life—the way it felt—she managed to drag the other body away as well and unlock the grate. It had taken her try after try to get the grate out of the way. She’d heaved and heaved, but it was too heavy. She could put the ladder down without moving the grate though, so maybe he could help her push from underneath.
“Come on, Dav,” she said again, straining to hear anything.
Off in the distance, a flock of birds rose into the air, squawking and calling. The vultures in the nearby trees shifted and croaked in response, but didn’t leave their watching posts. The ready meal just below their feet was too enticing. With only one puny human blocking them, they seemed content to wait her out.
His first obstacle was the narrow crack of the tunnel leading back into the final cave. He had managed to traverse the corridor without missing a step, or dropping himself down a pit shaft. Now, he was having difficulty getting into the cave mouth from this direction, just as he had when they’d come through the first time.
He managed it, but barely. The long scrapes on his back that Carrie had so painstakingly cleaned in the waterfall burned like fire as they were reopened. New lacerations joined them in a symphony of pain, low notes from the old wounds, higher notes from the new and the underlying bass throb of his swollen, infected and very broken finger.
“Shitdammithell.” He ran the American curse words together as he’d heard Gates do so many times. The circular cave was dark, as it had been before, but for the one golden beam of light. It was on a different part of the circle, he decided. He was coming through earlier than he and Carrie had. The light had changed.
That was okay, but the fever he was beginning to feel again was not. The aspirin wasn’t battling it back anymore, not as it had before. He didn’t dare look at the hand. The dull throbbing was enough to tell him that it was damaged, perhaps beyond repair. It did scare him that he couldn’t actually feel the broken finger.
He filled the water bottles and strapped them back on. Stepping under the fall, he let it sluice away the sweat and blood from his back. Cold and wet was better; even that modicum of cleanliness lifted his spirits.
Ready to move on, he stopped. He hadn’t realized that there were several tunnels leading in. He walked to the black hole of the opening of the center tunnel and turned back, looking at the perspective on the scene.
No. The angle was wrong.
He moved to the right, turned again. Yes, this was it, this was the tunnel from which he’d spotted the waterfall.
Good.
The sound of the waterfall followed him down the tunnel. He could hear the musical cascade as it pounded on the rock. It reminded him of Carrie, of making love to her under the waterfall. Her sensual smile, her intensity and her sheer, unadulterated passion—all of them spoke to who she was, and what he felt about her.
What did he feel about her?
Everything.
“It doesn’t matter. It cannot matter,” he stated, moving to the lone tunnel from which they’d come. He must put it from his mind. She had refused him. For now.
The middle le
g of the journey was the worst in terms of watching for the pits in the floor. He climbed into the mouth of the tunnel, then looked back. How lowering to think that a fall into this chamber, a simple fall and a simple broken finger, might lead to his death from infection.
“But not yet,” he said aloud. “Not yet.” Survival was paramount. “While there is life, there is hope,” he reminded himself. Carrie had said that over and over, and if she truly believed it, perhaps he could change her mind. A marriage between them could work.
With renewed determination, he turned his back on the orb of light, on the circular space and the other tunnels and headed into the dark.
To his dismay, the flashlight began to weaken as he walked. The bulb dimmed, then strengthened, then dimmed again. He picked up his pace, trying to remember if there were two shafts or three in this tunnel. It was all blurring together as his head grew hotter and hotter. He should have taken the aspirin bottle with him, rather than leaving it with Carrie. How could he have missed that vital step?
Angry with himself, he picked up the pace, racing the failing light. He made it over another pit, and hurried on.
When he’d crossed the last circular area where they had slept, he turned off the light, using the books of matches instead. Every few feet he would strike a match and hurry forward until the flame burned to its barest nub. Then he’d walk on as far as he thought he could, given what he’d seen ahead of him in the flickering flame. He had to trust himself, even though the fever made him doubt. There were three pits in this last section, but they were closer to the cell, closer to the beginning of the journey.
If he traveled this part of the tunnel in darkness and walked for a while without the light or matches, he could preserve the batteries in the lamp and the rest of the matches. He’d need the steadier light of the flashlight for the last part of the journey to avoid the pitfalls at that point and he couldn’t afford to waste it now.
The instant, impenetrable darkness as he let a match burn out made him suck in a startled breath. The old fears rushed through him in a hot flash.
“Then eeseh enea chronon,” he whispered to himself. I am no longer nine years old.
He chanted the words, trailing his good hand along the smooth line Carrie had discovered on the side of the tunnel. The stone was cool and slick, worn away by countless hands, hands that hadn’t touched it for more than a century at least, and perhaps closer to four centuries.
The walls were narrowing.
He stopped. Trust yourself. The fever, Carrie’s refusal, they made him doubt, but he couldn’t afford that. He had to focus, to trust his instincts. They would save him, even as he felt blurred by pain and fever.
He forced his breathing to settle. Standing there, he knew the narrowing wasn’t just his imagination, his fear of the dark. He closed his eyes, flicked on the light. Giving himself a moment to adjust, he opened them.
“Ah,” he murmured, crouching down. He was glad now that he’d stopped. He was at the tunnel turning and if he’d kept walking he’d have run smack into the wall. He switched off the light again, but lit a match and tossed it forward through the passageway.
He faced the hole, knowing it would require more of his skin and blood to get through. Kneeling, he set both pack and flashlight into the narrow opening and pushed them in front of him as he twisted and turned, trying to slip through with the least effort possible.
“Eh-la, new skin I can grow,” he declared, shoving into the tightest part of the space. “I cannot and will not,” he grunted as he managed to move himself forward, “stand up a woman, even one who turned me down.” He shoved farther through, feeling more of his shirt rip free on the rough ceiling. He heaved, pushing with his legs as much as he could, sliding his shoulders farther in. As he did, he felt the last of the tough, smooth fabric catch on the ceiling. It parted at the center of his back, along with his skin. The stinging heat of blood welling in his wound lent impetus to his movements. “I will not leave her waiting.” He shoved again.
“For.”
Shove.
“Me.”
The flashlight clanked onto the stone at the end of the passage and without thinking he caught himself with both hands before he too fell onto the rough floor.
“Ahhhhh,” he gasped in pain. Without Carrie to witness his agony at further injury to his finger, and his abused back, he groaned, let himself rock back and forth on the floor, cradling his injured hand.
The new scrapes on his back added to his pain. His shirt hung in tatters down his back now, but he didn’t care. Although the lacerations on his back made him feel as if he’d been whipped, his hand screamed in pain. Bracing with both hands as he fell forward had jolted the injury unbearably. He’d tried to be careful, but it had been impossible.
“It is just pain,” he told himself. “Eh-la, will you give up then? Hands hurt, back hurts. They do not kill you.” He grunted as he shifted on the floor. “Lying here, that will kill you, Davros. You will use your body as much as you have to, to get out. Business you can do, without a finger or even a hand. But not if you die down here, idiot.” He cursed again as the throbbing continued.
For now, he had to absorb the pain, then shunt it aside so he could keep moving.
Grunting again, he shifted to his knees, struggled to rise. It took him four tries, but he managed to get to his feet. Because she’d ordered him to, he drank his fill, draining off half the water in the canteen. Because he was sweating, he sluiced some of the water over his head. His clothes had dried, such as they were.
“So. This I can do,” he mumbled, shaking the water and sweat from his eyes. His head hurt and he could tell that his fever was getting worse. The water felt colder than it was, but he was grateful for the effect. He needed more of Carrie’s aspirin and it was at the end of the tunnel.
“That is where I will go then.” The sound of his voice echoed in the tunnel in a strange way, soft and sibilant. Part of his wandering mind focused on that. The sound. The other part focused on the journey and its end.
Carrie.
He needed more of Carrie, but that was not to be. She had turned him down.
But why had she turned him down? He hadn’t asked, just reacted. He’d never proposed to anyone else, ever. He’d never had anyone that he’d wanted to ask. He frowned as he squinted into the darkness.
He switched on the light and stood again, wincing in renewed pain.
“Yamoto,” he cursed softly, crouching his way through the next section. When he could stand upright, he stretched, feeling the blood ooze on his back once more. “Eh-la, it is a walk in the park. It will go easily. I will do this.”
He turned off the light again, remembering this section of the tunnel better. There was only the one gap left and it was closer to the front of the tunnel. For a moment, it seemed as if the walls were closing in. It was the fever this time, he was sure, rather than actuality. To combat it, he focused on Carrie, waiting for him at the end, at the cell. He would not leave her alone, and she would be there when he made it.
She might not wish to be his wife, but she was not indifferent.
What if it was all a lie? What if she’s part of this? Those were the deadliest lies, the ones told by your family, those you thought were your friends. The intrusive, insidious thought slithered into his mind, like a black snake in the inkier blackness of the tunnels.
“No,” he insisted, telling the shadows what he believed. What he knew. “Not Carrie. Not her.”
She doesn’t want you. Not you, or your money. Not your children. Not you, the darkness whispered at him.
“Go to hell,” he growled in English, and again in Greek for good measure. “No matter, she is my friend, and she has become my lover. That does not change.”
He moved on. The darkness said nothing more, and he was grateful.
“Here.” Ana thrust the coordinates at Gates. “Don’t worry about the trace. She got us here and here was right. Find this—” She pointed to the numbers. “And let’s
move out and get there. That’s where Dav is. If we’d gone with the Agency lead, we’d be in Ecuador or something. We’re close now and we can’t be wrong. Or late.”
“Argentina,” Gates corrected, taking the paper. “We’d have gone to Argentina. What does the rest of this mean?” he asked, even as his fingers flew over the keys and screen after screen shot up, disappeared, and reformed on his machine.
“It means that she also gave us a lead on who did this, and who else’s after him.” She whipped open her own laptop, booted it up and began a series of searches.
“And this last bit?” He held up the paper, pointed to where she’d written Me?
He waited, an expectant silence that she couldn’t ignore. She reluctantly admitted the truth.
“A complication. A big one,” she confirmed. “She said there’s someone down here who knows I’m here and he’s hunting me.”
“Hines.” Gates made the obvious leap. She’d made it too, when the woman told her. Ex-CIA Special Agent Hines had been one of the wild cards in their art fraud case, the case that introduced Ana to Gates, and had nearly gotten them all killed. He’d profited from the sales, covered up the connections, and murdered other agents to silence them. He’d tried to kill his former partner, but McGuire had managed to not only evade him, but hold his own against the thugs Hines had sent to do his dirty work.
It had meant lots of red tape and paperwork, but McGuire was in the clear for killing several of the men sent against him. Meanwhile, Hines had disappeared. From Hines’s perspective, Ana and McGuire were his last two loose ends.
Not good, since Hines was an expert marksman.
“Yes. And I think McGuire’s here too, tracking him.” She could see the fury and fear on Gates’s face. “I have no control over him, you know that,” she defended. “He’s a free agent as far as both the Agency and our company are concerned.”