by Jeanne Adams
“Okay, Dav, you push and I’ll pull, and I’ll shove this under as we go, okay?”
“Good,” he grunted, and climbed up the remaining rungs to set his good hand on the filthy bars. “Ready?”
“On three.” She counted and as she hefted the grate, he pushed and she shoved the pipe in with her foot. The grate was opening, even if it was slow. Thank God.
“This is heavy,” she groaned, shoving again on the count of three. It took them one more try, and finally the iron bars fell away into the grass. Luckily, he had leaned forward against the ladder as he shoved, so he wasn’t directly under the hole. With a terrific clatter and clang, the bracing pipe fell in. The reverberant sound sent the nearby buzzards skyward with a squawking chorus that could have woken the very dead they feasted on.
“Oh, my God, Dav, are you okay?” she demanded, her face white, her voice breathless and scared, as she dropped to the dusty ground, reaching for him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not to worry, Carrie-mou,” he panted, both with exertion and pain. “The ladder is remarkably steady. I’m glad you found it, since I do not think I could have climbed a rope.” Before she could answer, he forced his feet to move, stepping up one more rung. “On second thought,” he grunted, managing another even though his hand, ankle and back were screaming. “To get out of here, I would have climbed barbed wire if necessary.”
She managed a laugh. “I get that, but you’re almost out.” She braced her feet on the side of the hole and reached for his good hand.
His other hand screamed in pain as he wrapped it around the rungs, but he didn’t care. He was climbing to freedom, to Carrie and sunlight. The all-but-forgotten clothing pack and the rattling canteens hindered him, but he reached the top and as his head and shoulders cleared the cell, he drew a deep breath.
At the moment, freedom smelled of dirt and blood, carnage and the sweat of their exertion, but it didn’t matter. It was sweeter than roses. Carrie helped him out, pulling him over the edge. He rolled clear and lay in the clearing’s sparse grass for a moment, savoring the feel of sunlight on his skin, and the release from the imprisoning stone.
The smell of death was still pungent, however, so he didn’t lie there for long.
“We need to get moving,” Dav said, levering himself up with his good hand. Carrie sat next to him, looking at him. There was something in the way she was looking at him, but he couldn’t decipher it.
“There’s another Jeep. The keys are still in it.” She hesitated and then said, “I think the driver died right by the car door, when he got out. There’s blood all over the inside of the door.”
Dav prayed that the door had shut, otherwise the battery would be dead and the car would be useless unless they could roll-start it on the road. With his hand the way it was, he wasn’t sure he could push the vehicle that far.
“Carrie, I believe I could use some more of that aspirin if you still have it,” he said, realizing that he now had access to help. The momentary relief of release and being free were overwhelmed by the headache and heat, which were making his thinking slower than normal.
“Of course. Hang on, I’ll get it for you.” She jumped up and then froze where she stood.
Dav pivoted on the ground, sensing her fear and coming to his feet in a rush. He moved to stand in front of her, putting himself between her and the apparition that stood before him.
Standing between them and the road was a man. At least he thought it was a man.
“Dav?” Carrie whispered.
“Stay put,” he urged. The man hadn’t said anything yet.
They stood, staring at one another for a few moments. Dav was unwilling to break the silence. In negotiating, he never spoke first.
This was a negotiation.
The man watched them with hooded eyes. His face was smudged with camouflage paint, his clothes were akin to tatters, but strategically placed to help him blend in with the terrain. The cap he wore was also shaggy and hid his hair. The bill shaded his eyes, as did dark sunglasses.
Dav moved more fully in front of Carrie, his only concession to the silent negotiation. When he shifted to cover her, he saw the man smile. For a moment longer, the man seemed inclined to wait him out, but then shrugged his shoulders.
“There is little time,” he said, shifting his weapon in front of him. “You cannot use the road.”
Dav frowned at the weapon, recognizing it from Gates’s lessons as a sniper rifle.
“Who are you and why are you telling us this?” he demanded.
“I’m ... a friend,” the man said, and let the smile show fully on his beard-roughened face. Between the stubble and the paint, Dav couldn’t tell what color his hair was. “You have a number of enemies and all of them are converging on you. You should be gone when they get here.”
“What do you know about it?” Dav felt his defensive instincts rise up and snarl.
“This”—the shooter shifted the barrel to indicate the clearing—“is your brother’s doing.” He seemed amused when Dav tensed, then nodded briskly.
Carrie’s hands braced at his belt. As the man gestured with the weapon, Dav realized that a round from it would go through both of them. The shooter seemed to know the direction of his thoughts and smiled.
“What about you?” Dav said, nodding toward the weapon. “What’s your part in all this?”
“As I said, I’m a friend.” Although the man kept his voice carefully neutral, Dav caught a trace of an accent. Scandinavian, perhaps. German? He couldn’t tell.
“Why can we not use the road?”
“It’s mined. The second set of enemies.” The shooter pointed toward the bodies lying where the woman had dragged them. “They did that. I believe they were targeting your brother.”
“And you shot them.” Dav made it a statement, not a question. His gorge rose at the thought. He felt faint and sweaty at the same time, but he forced his face to remain blank, knowing that this man was a cold-blooded killer. A sniper, casually mentioning the deaths of others with no emotion whatsoever, would be unimpressed by his fever.
The rest of the sentence penetrated his fever-clouded brain. “Wait. I know Niko is after me, but someone is after him?”
“Yes.”
Dav waited for him to say something more, but he remained silent. Thinking was like slogging through mud. His usually speedy grasp of situations was agonizingly slow.
“So. Eh-la, how can we get past the mines?”
The shooter shrugged. “You set them off, take your chances that you have gotten them all.” He paused a moment, then said, “When you do, go south. North will take you into Guatemala—you do not want that.”
“What country are we in?” Carrie spoke for the first time.
“Belize.”
With that, he turned and left, fading into the trees and grasses along the entry road with barely a whisper of movement to betray his passing.
It took them a long time to move. “Was he really here, or is the fever affecting my mind?” Dav seriously wanted to know the answer to this question.
Carrie gave a shaky half laugh. “Are we back to the gibbering again? Because I think I might be ready to join you.” Her voice trembled with anxiety and he slipped his good arm around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly. It was the first time he’d touched her since he came out of the hole.
Sheer pleasure and relief flooded through him at the contact. The warmth of her, the delicate balance of muscle and fragility brought a flood of images into his mind.
Carrie rising above him. Her wild abandon in the waterfall. Hundreds of memories, images and thoughts shot through his mind on fast-forward.
His certainty that he might be in love with her strengthened.
“Yes, gibbering can be arranged,” he replied, his face pressed into her hair, knowing she was waiting for his reply.
“It’s getting dark,” she said, looking around. He heard the rustling of the leaves and wind, noted the darkening skies. Somehow he must move
from the heaven of her arms, the solid reality of freedom.
That concept jarred him enough to let go. Much as he hated to move apart, make decisions and focus, he had to. They weren’t free yet.
“You go and get whatever food might be in the building. I will begin clearing the road.”
Her nod, pressed into his chest, was quick and decisive. “I’ll get you aspirin first.”
He smiled. “That would be good, Carrie-mou.”
She kissed him then, her hands pressed to his face, her body leaning into him. It was a moment that stood in stark contrast to the danger and death surrounding them. For a moment, nothing mattered, no one else mattered but her.
Then she broke the kiss and hurried away.
His newly discovered heart wrenched in his chest and he staggered. He could read nothing into her action, good or bad. Was it a farewell-I’m-sorry kind of kiss? Or a ohmy-GodIreallyloveyou kiss?
He had no basis on which to judge.
Carrie rummaged in the scant cupboards. Her motions were more of a cover for her tears than a real effort toward finding anything. How could he make her feel this way? How could he be so incredibly alive, make her feel so alive, when he didn’t love her?
She wanted to cry. She wanted to go home. She wanted...
“Stop it,” she remonstrated with herself. “You have to get out of here first, and unless you want to die today, you need to go help Dav. Now.”
The words, ringing in the small confines of the hut, were almost a shock. The quiet clearing, devoid of all but watching, inimical animal life, was the last place she wanted to stay, much less die.
She pulled two drinks from the tiny icebox, which had been hooked to a battery. They were lukewarm by American standards, but their intact caps and Spanish labels made them seem the ultimate in civilized beverages. She heard the car start and hurried to the door.
Dav pulled the car near to the building and got out. Pain etched his features and Carrie remembered the aspirin. Hurrying to her purse, she found the bottle and got the pills for him. With a quick twist she opened the cap and held it out, dropping four aspirin into his waiting hand.
“I know you’re not supposed to take more than three, but I think you should have them,” she said, and put her hand to his forehead. “You’re really hot.”
Dav laughed as he tossed the little pills into his mouth, draining the soda before he spoke. He was still grinning as he said, “Why thank you. It is good to know I have not lost my suave presence, even under these conditions.”
“Suave... ?” It took her tired brain a moment to catch up. “You—” She grinned, then laughed. Within moments, they were both laughing so hard they could barely stop.
“I don’t think it was that funny,” she snickered, “but thanks, I needed that.”
“Good. So did I.” His expression fell into somber lines. “We must act quickly, Carrie, if our strange protector is to be believed.” He glanced at her from under hooded eyes. “He really was real, yes?”
He waited for her nod before he continued. He must be more worried about the fever than she guessed.
“Once we believe we have cleared the road, it will be difficult to drive out with the holes the mines will make. Despite that, we must go, and again, if our friend is to be believed, we must do it fast. The explosions will alert everyone from here to... to wherever—” He waved his good hand in a sweeping gesture. “We must be gone when anyone comes to search for the cause of the explosions.”
“All right. What do I do?”
“Take this.” He offered a weapon and extra clips, which he’d obviously taken from one of the bodies. “Get in the building. I will use the Jeep as cover. I have gathered enough things to throw that hopefully I can set off the mines. If they are personnel mines, they blow upward, which will not leave a huge crater.” He stared toward the road, as if willing this to be the case. “The man said there were six.”
“He did?”
Dav smiled. Perhaps he was delirious, but when the man mentioned the mines, Dav had seen his hands release the weapon, flash three fingers with a gloved hand once, and then again, before he regripped the weapon.
“I think so. Quickly now.” Dav urged her toward the concrete building, always thinking of her safety.
With obvious pain, he climbed back into the driver’s seat. Before he could put the car in gear, she made her decision. She ran to the Jeep and jerked open the passenger door.
“Wait,” she said, climbing in, dumping the gun and extra clips on the seat. “We’ll do it together and then leave. I’m not waiting for you again. It nearly killed me when I thought you weren’t coming.” She sucked in a breath. “Together,” she declared stubbornly, when she saw the protest forming on his lips. “Or not at all, deal?”
She held out a hand and for a moment he just stared at it, and at her. A brilliant smile blossomed through the growth of the beard he sported, startling in its white contrast to the dark hair.
He took her hand and kissed it, then shifted his one-handed grip to her shoulder and pulled her close to kiss her hard on the mouth.
“It is a deal, yes.”
“Wait here, then.” She ran into the hut and grabbed everything she’d found, snatched up her purse from the tiny, rickety table and got back in. “Let’s do it.”
“My action hero,” he said, smiling, as she dumped the odd collection of gleanings over the seat to be sorted later.
“Wonder Woman, that’s me,” she said with gritted teeth as the Jeep bounced over the rough ground of the clearing. She studiously avoided looking at the bodies strewn about. There was nothing she could do about them, and any one of those men would have killed them both.
“It is, indeed,” was all he said as he fought the steering wheel. She saw the lines of pain return and saw him wince with each jouncing, jarring bump.
He whipped the car across the mouth of the road and got out.
“Now comes the interesting part,” he said, flexing the fingers of his good hand. He looked at her now, a keen assessment. “How well do you throw?”
“Pretty well, why?”
“Time to clear the road,” he said simply, offering her a softball-sized rock.
From behind the wall of the car, Dav cocked his arm back and lobbed a fragment of stone toward the road. The chunk rolled in the dust and stilled. No explosion.
“Farther up, then,” Dav muttered. “Come, get back in.”
They crept forward on the road, and he stopped again. They got out.
Another toss, another blank response.
He handed her a fat chunk of charred wood. “You try.”
She hefted it, then rose up from behind the car to throw it, overhand as she’d seen in countless war movies.
The explosion was louder than anything she’d imagined. Dav grabbed her, yanking her down below to relative safety behind the bulk of the car. Dirt pinged on the metal, but other than the squawking of the birds behind them, there was no other sound.
“Again.”
He threw, then she threw—odd pieces of equipment, pieces of wood, the chunks of stone he’d originally thrown. He counted six explosions.
“Now we must see if we have succeeded. Stand back a ways, Carrie-mou. I will drive through.”
The road was a Swiss-cheese-shred of massive potholes now. Some were only inches deep. Another looked as if someone were ready to plant a good-sized tree in a readied hole in the dusty soil.
“No. Together,” she insisted. She wasn’t going to stand on the road and watch him either blow up or disappear again.
They argued, briefly, but she won. He was either too tired, or in too much pain, but he gave in.
“I do not like it,” he muttered. “If we missed any—” he started.
“Six explosions. Six holes. If you’re right, we’re home free.”
He whipped toward her in the seat. “And if I’m wrong?”
A sense of fatalism seemed to have settled into her bones. “We’ll die together,”
she said, with a shrug.
For long moments, he just stared. Something of her determination must have shown on her face, however, because he finally nodded and restarted the car.
“Fast or slow?” he wondered, scanning the ugly mess before them.
“Go for it,” she urged. “As fast as you can. Get us out of here.” She recognized the hysterical edge to her own voice, but the tantalizing view of freedom, symbolized by the road, beckoned. “God, Dav, just go.”
“Eh-la,” he said, with more strength. “We go.”
Chapter 19
Way in the distance, a flock of birds rose into the sky. Niko trained his high-powered binoculars that way, but saw nothing but sky and dusty trees as the birds disappeared. Had they come from the clearing? Why would the birds have left?
Frowning, he was about to tell Sam when the phone rang. They exchanged glances as Niko picked it up.
“You are still in place?” His mentor’s smooth voice rang in his ear. They’d been without contact for hours. He and Sam had decided to head for Guatemala and had turned the car, just before he’d done one last scan of the area.
“I am,” he lied, keeping his voice level, unemotional.
“There is a change of plans. I have created a ... haven where the main roads join. Go, check on your guest, then join me. Once you arrive we will head for home. I believe the ransom has cleared, so you will be well paid. My jet is waiting.”
He clicked off. The whole scenario was beginning to smell like rotten eggs. He ran it by Sam.
“It’ll get us out of the country,” the other man reasoned, voting for the plane. “We can scatter from there and stay out of this guy’s way from now on. Guatemala’s too hot for me,” he added with a wolfish grin. Sam had outstanding warrants in several countries. Apparently Guatemala was one of them. “Be better if I got out another way.”
They debated it a bit more, but decided to go for it. A scan of the clearing would give them more information anyway.
When they arrived twenty minutes later, they got a surprise.
“Mines,” Sam said, whipping a weapon out and going on full alert to cover the road, actively scanning back and forth.