Deadly Little Lies

by Jeanne Adams

  “No way to know. No blood though, or the dog would have alerted on that.”

  “You said the freshest scent was here, though?” Gates said, pointing at the ground where they stood, by the hut. They were all crouched in its shadow, with Callahan and Reed keeping watch. Reed hadn’t left the tree line, keeping the clearing under cover, but not showing himself.

  “Don’t know that yet,” Franklin began, when his first dog bayed and sat, right by the same spot the first dog had sounded on in the rutted road.

  “That’s freshest.” Franklin pointed, and hurried to his dog before Gates could caution him to keep his head down.

  “Idiot,” Ana muttered. “What’s he thinking going out there without evasive?” Franklin had run straight, no zigzagging or evasive maneuvers at all.

  “Getting to the dog, that’s what matters to him,” Gates said, gritting his teeth at the thought that Franklin was so exposed.

  He cued his own mic and ordered everyone to fall back to the main road. They’d have to see if they could figure out which direction the vehicle had gone. Since someone was driving it, and the dog had alerted on both Carrie and Dav, he had hopes that they were still alive.

  It would take a miracle, but sometimes that was all you had to go on.

  Carrie and Dav woke when the sun had risen well into the sky. The air in the Jeep was stuffy and hot, in spite of the overhanging cover and the slightly lowered windows.

  “God, I want a shower so badly,” Carrie muttered, brushing at her clothes. Dav saw the dried blood staining them and felt fear clench in his belly.

  “Carrie, you are covered in blood. Are you hurt? Are you injured? I did not ask,” he said, whipping himself in his mind for the oversight.

  “No, no, it isn’t my blood,” she quickly reassured him. “I had to drag that man,” she began, gulped, and tried to go on. “The one that fell over the grate. I had to... had to...” She gulped again. Then, forcibly shoving herself upright, she flung open the door and stumbled out to retch in the long grass at the back of the covered area.

  As he neared her, he heard her muttering, “Oh, God, the blood. Oh, God.”

  He brought the canteen and a towel he’d seen in the backseat. Wetting it, he handed it to her to wipe her face and mouth. He put an arm around her shoulders, and awkwardly used the uninjured fingers of his broken hand to tuck her tangled hair behind her ear.

  “Here you are, Carrie-mou. Use this now and wipe your face,” he urged. “It is cleaner than my handkerchief could ever be, no matter the origin.”

  He was rewarded by a weak chuckle. “That handkerchief needs to be burned, along with everything else,” she muttered.

  “True, but if we survive this, I may keep it, for sentimental reasons.”

  Her only reply was a grunted, “Ugh.”

  “Oh, God, I’m going to throw up again,” she wailed, and did so.

  By the time she’d gotten her rebellious stomach under control, the humidity was beginning to build and the heat as well. “And now, we must go,” Dav said, wishing he could help her more.

  “I know. Maybe some crackers or something, to settle my stomach.”

  “We have those. The finest jungle crackers, just for you,” he joked, rummaging in the supplies she’d gathered to find an oval sleeve of Town House crackers. “Are you well enough to drive?”

  “I think so. There’s no other choice. We have to get out of here, so I’m well enough.”

  “Good, because the fever is making me feel hot and cold,” he confessed. “And there is dizziness with it. Driving is probably best left to you, for now.”

  He took more aspirin, drank more water, but stopped before draining the canteen. They didn’t have a map, or a source for supplies. It needed to last.

  They crept forward in the car, inching toward the main road. Before they turned into it, Dav got unsteadily out, and peered up and down before he allowed her to come close to the mouth of the overgrown drive.

  He was about to get back in when he heard it.

  “Quick,” he ordered her, slamming into the car and grabbing for the seat belt. “Move it. I hear cars coming from up the road. In the daylight, they will see where we stopped and turned in. We can’t be trapped here.”

  He barely clicked the metal buckle into place before she peeled out onto the bumpy surface and headed south.

  Dav gritted his teeth against his wavering vision and hung on to consciousness with every ounce of will he had.

  It was about survival now, and that meant speed.

  “Go faster if you can,” he said, and hung on.

  Chapter 20

  “Hurry,” Ana urged as they made their way back to the road. “They’re ahead of us again, but maybe not by much.”

  “A day,” Franklin said, coming up even with her, his dogs trailing at his heels. “Maybe less.”

  “That’s good news,” Gates said, throwing a warning glance at his wife. Both he and she knew what could happen in a day, but there was no need to demoralize any of the team, not when they were this close. They each had experience with the heartbreak of arriving moments too late to help or save a friend or colleague.

  Still on watch, they arrived at the road, quickly followed by their outliers, Reed and Callahan. When those two arrived, Franklin loaded his restless dogs and climbed into the SUV to reassure them.

  They carefully turned the big vehicles back the way they had come, beginning the trek down the steep, rock-strewn road.

  They’d barely started when a form stepped into the middle of the road, a weapon pointed right at them. Gates skidded to a halt, the heavy SUV shuddering as he stood on the brakes.

  The man was a sniper, dressed to blend in with the surrounding hillsides, his rifle painted the same dusty greenish brown hues as the grasses and brush. But there, standing in the brightly lit road, he didn’t blend. Rather, he stood in sharp contrast with the sunlit morning.

  He held up a hand in the universal sign for them to stop.

  “You, driver,” he called. “Gates Bromley. Step out.”

  Ana put a hand on his arm, but he murmured, “No, it’s okay. If he wanted us dead, we’d be dead. And he knows who I am.”

  “True. Be careful,” she said as if she couldn’t help saying the words. She eased her Kahr K9 from its holster, slipped off the safety and readied herself to fire.

  “Roger that,” he replied, without glancing at the weapon. He slipped down from seat to running board and to the ground before raising his hands. Arms still raised, he moved in front of the vehicle, but deliberately stayed to the left.

  With the heat of the large engine at his back, Gates positioned himself so that Ana, Callahan or Holden could get a shot at the sniper. He didn’t hold out much hope that the man would give them the opportunity, but he positioned himself properly anyway.

  “Your friends are alive,” the man stated. “The man, Davros, is hurt. I do not know how badly.”

  “Who are you and how do you know that?” Gates snapped back, masking his surge of hope with flat calm.

  A smile curved the other man’s lips. “My partner led you here because the man and his woman are alive.”

  The phrasing reminded him of Dav. A sure sign the speaker wasn’t born in America.

  “Your partner. Yes.” He paused a moment, then added, “Thank you for that.” They would never have gotten this far without the woman’s help.

  The other man offered a brisk nod of acknowledgment. “Go south. I’ve been down the road, but lost them. There are many players here. Davros’s brother is not far behind him. And the third player has arrived in the country. I do not know what reception your man will get, but you must find him first, yes?”

  “Yes,” Gates answered. The man smiled again, and flicked his wrist, sending something spiraling into the brush. He knew better, but Gates’s involuntary response was to look.

  In that flash of a moment, the man was gone.

  “Damn it,” Gates cursed, flying back around the driver’
s side door to jump behind the wheel. He should have seen that coming.

  Then again, he wouldn’t have pursued; his focus was Dav, not some crazy sniper informant with twisted ideas of loyalty.

  “What did he say? I couldn’t hear him,” Ana demanded, impatience written in every line of her body. Her weapon at the ready, she quickly resnapped her safety belt but not the safety on the weapon, as he threw it in gear and headed out.

  “In a minute. Tell the second team to stay close and push the limit.”

  The bone-rattling ride wasn’t conducive to handling firearms, so Ana ordered everything safetied and stowed, and with obvious reluctance, she holstered her own weapon.

  “Spill it,” she ordered, grabbing the “oh-shit” handle well above her head to keep herself steady on the bone-shaking descent.

  “He’s the woman’s partner. He’s been the source of the info.”

  “Why didn’t he just save Dav?” she snarled. “What’s with all this fucking cat and mouse?”

  “He said he lost the pursuit down the mountain. He also said Niko’s between Dav and us. And the third player’s in-country. The uncle.”

  “What uncle?” This was from Callahan, bouncing around like a rag doll in the backseat. Her shorter stature made it hard for her to brace herself and hang on, but she wasn’t complaining.

  “That’s the search we did. The genealogy thing.” Gates spat the words. “Shit!” he said, then flicked Ana a glance as a deep rut nearly wrenched the wheel from his hands. “You tell it.”

  “Whoever our little helper is, she dug out the data that Dav has an uncle. A bastard uncle, raised in the United States.”

  “How old would this guy be?” Callahan squeaked, looking mortified that she had gone airborne for a moment.

  “Late seventies, probably, maybe eighty. The site says he’s older than Dav’s father, and I don’t remember how old he was when he died, but it’s been twenty years,” Ana explained.

  “Did the boss know this guy?” Holden managed as he too flopped to and fro with the sharp corrections Gates was making as he pushed the limits of both road and vehicle.

  “Don’t think so,” Gates added. “Never mentioned it. And he would have.”

  The SUV slewed sideways, and Gates corrected. “He could be anywhere, waiting for them.”

  “I know.”

  Ana struggled to reach her phone, and he took a hand off the wheel just long enough to steady her.

  “Thanks.”

  She pulled up the number and called Geddey. “Hey, it’s Ana. Don’t talk, listen,” she said when he answered. “We’re in pursuit. We’ve been told both Dav and Carrie are alive. The dead brother arisen, Niko, is between us and Dav. The third player I e-mailed you about is in-country too, but we have no way to know where he is or what he’s planning.”

  “Got it.”

  “Make sure the yacht staff is ready and the Agency’s alerted. If we can get out of here, we’ll need to make tracks, fast. They’ll have to cover us with the locals.”

  “Done.”

  Ana heard the fast scratch of a pen on paper.

  “As soon as we hit international waters, figure out how fast you can get a chopper or seaplane to us and have that ready to rock. Word is, Dav’s hurt. We don’t know how badly, or if Carrie’s hurt too, but we can’t take any chances. We get ’em both to medical attention as soon as possible.”

  “On it,” he snapped. More scratching of the pen.

  “We’ll keep you posted as soon as we know something.”

  “He’s alive, though?”

  “Yes. So far as we know.”

  There was a significant pause, then: “Want the sit-rep here or do you need to go?”

  “Hit it,” Ana replied, bracing herself for the jolt she could see coming from a pothole. “Shit!” She scooted back onto the seat. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Sit-rep is Queller and Damon were on the way to the hospital and there was an accident. Queller’s dead.”

  “Aw, hell.” Her brain caught up with the words. “Wait. Accident? Really?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  Shitshitshit. It kept going from bad to worse. “Damon?”

  “Critical.”

  “Declan?”

  “Improving.”

  “Thompson and Georgiade?”

  “Under watch.”

  “Good. Good work.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she wrapped up with, “I’ll call.”

  “Do that.”

  The lightning fast exchange had taken less than two minutes. Ana clicked off and used the hand holding the phone to brace herself for a particularly sharp turn.

  “What’s up?”

  “Either Queller or Damon was our mole. Someone tried to take ’em out.”

  “Fuck,” was Callahan’s soft response. Holden didn’t speak. He hadn’t known either man for long.

  “Yeah, I agree,” Ana managed, thinking of the eager, soft-spoken Damon.

  Queller was harder to pinpoint, personality wise, and that clued her in. “It’s got to be Queller,” she said. The uncle was tying up loose ends, and doing it fast.

  That didn’t bode well for Dav and Carrie.

  Carrie drove like a maniac down the rutted road. Her lips set in a tight line, she navigated every turn with the latent skill of a veteran race car driver. Her lament that she’d not driven in years proved that the skill, when combined with the threat of imminent death, could be recovered in an instant.

  “You have missed your calling, Carrie-mou,” Dav said, feeling weaker and more feverish by the moment. He coughed and she looked over. “Keep your eyes on the road,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended.

  “My calling?”

  “NASCAR, or the Indy 500, would be glad to have you.” He coughed again and couldn’t suppress the groan at the pain in his head and hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice sharp and high with tension.

  “No, but I am alive and so are you,” he replied with force. “I will be thankful for that for now.”

  “It’s the hand, isn’t it?” She dared to look again, despite his order. “It’s infected.”

  “I think so, yes. It was very badly broken and the conditions were—” He hesitated, struggling to think of the proper American term.

  “Barbaric?”

  He laughed. “Yes, that will do. I was going to say, less than...” Bump, rut, bump, pain, pain, pain sang through him like a pattern.

  “Less than?”

  “Sanitary.” He finally managed the word, over the roar of the road. “It has not been tended to in several days. I did not stop to wash the wound, thinking only to get back to the cell, and out, with you.” He grunted in pain as they swerved suddenly.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered. “Damn road. Doesn’t anyone in whereeverthehellweare believe in paving?”

  “Belize, the nice man in camouflage said,” he offered, and realized that the laugh bubbling inside him was vastly inappropriate to the setting. “And I’m guessing that no, they do not pave things here.”

  As he said it, she gasped. “Oh, my God, paved road!”

  “Efaristo, Cristos.” Thank God. He knew he’d lapsed into Greek, but the words were wavering a bit in his mind, along with the need to burst into laughter.

  The smoother ride was like a miracle. He sat up, feeling the grating of his ribs. He was fairly sure that he had cracked at least one rib, perhaps several in his many falls in the tunnels. The long, albeit shallow, wounds on his back stung with his sweat and he knew he was bleeding on the scant remains of his shirt and into the leather of the seat.

  It didn’t matter though, if Carrie got out alive. He would like to live too, he decided blearily, but she mattered more.

  “Which way?” she asked, peering ahead into the distance. He could see now that the road joined another in a T formation. They would have to choose a direction.

  “We will flip a drachma,” he managed, coughing again, feeling the pain in h
is ribs, chest and back. “Ahhh, that hurts.”

  “Oh, God, Dav, look,” she moaned, as four men stepped into the road, weapons drawn. She slowed. “I’ll put it in reverse, we’ll go back.” She started to do so and he heard the despair in her indrawn breath. Painfully, he turned to see. Racing up behind them was another Jeep, much like their own. It skidded to a spinning stop, blocking their retreat.

  They were boxed in.

  “Drive forward,” one of the men yelled. “Don’t try anything or we’ll shoot her.”

  Dav knew what that meant, even in his delirious state. “Carrie. Stop.”

  “Oh, my God, Dav, what do we do?”

  “We do what they want.” He forced the words out, but his tongue felt thick and tangled. “For now, we are free, and we are alive. If we can stay that way, we will. I am so very sorry, Carrie-mou.”

  “Shut up,” she fired back. “Just shut up. This is not your fault. And by God, where there’s life there’s fucking hope, okay? We’re not dead yet.”

  “That’s my Carrie-mou,” he said, at once both stung and proud of her spirit.

  She followed the gunmen’s directions, pulling off the road again onto yet another rutted track. In a smaller clearing there was some kind of building. It looked like a park service facility, with road machines and a small compound with official-looking vehicles.

  They were pulled roughly out of the car and marched inside as the second Jeep followed them in.

  “Ah, welcome, welcome,” an older, white-haired gentleman called, standing to greet them. The genial comments were accompanied by the waving direction to chairs, given via a gun barrel, appointing locations for them to sit.

  Adrenaline gave a rush of clarity and as Dav’s vision sharpened, he saw that someone else sat before the old man. There was a two-second delay before recognition sizzled into his mind. With a roar, he leapt forward, fury suffusing his veins, driving him forward in a mindless rush. The blind anger obliterated thought as surely as the fever had.

  “You son of a bitch, you fucking bastard,” he shouted, reaching for Niko with both hands, determined to wrap even his damaged hand around his brother’s throat and choke the life out of him.