Her mind refused to shut down, although her aching, fatigued body screamed for her to fall asleep. Soon the darkness was complete. There would be no moon tonight, Mac had told her. It was the dark of the moon, or what Peruvians called the Jaguar Moon, a time of magic, danger and possibility.
Scrunching her eyes shut, Kathy sighed. The distant rumble of thunder caught her attention for a moment. The monkeys never stopped chattering or screaming, near or faraway. Didn’t they ever sleep? The jungle was not the quiet place Kathy thought it would be. She kept swatting at mosquitoes and God knew what other kind of creepie-crawlies wandering along her skin.
Her mind veered for the hundredth time toward Mac Coulter. He’d done all he could to help her survive this test. He’d warned her to hide the pack about five miles from the villa, so no one could ever discover what he’d done for her. Kathy was glad to have the pedometer, which she wore around her waist. Why had he done this? Why? The question whirled in her mind.
Her heart gave her the answer: Mac was drawn to her, as she was drawn to him. Impossible. They’d just met. Kathy had never been drawn to a man like this before. Even her love of Curt Shields, the U.S. Navy SEAL officer who’d been her fiancé, had not had the heat or crazy yearning she felt toward Coulter. She supposed she’d felt a quiet love for Curt—not that she was an expert on romance. When Curt had died in an ambush a year ago, Kathy had stopped living. Maybe she was coming back to life? Maybe Mac was just reawakening her hormones? Hell, she didn’t know for sure. She blew out an exasperated breath. Coulter was different. Her body sure knew it. And so did her heart. She wondered who he was—the man, not the helo pilot in the employ of her enemy.
Kathy rubbed her face and pulled the poncho hood as low as she could to discourage the hungry, buzzing mosquitoes. The scent of vanilla wafted toward her. It was from an orchid, she was sure, and the fragrance relaxed her.
Her mind swung to her family. She’d been gone more than two weeks now. On other black ops she had never contacted the family. But if her father got worried, he’d start making noise and sending out his feelers to find out more about her present mission. Her dad was highly instinctive. She’d had the good luck to inherit that gene, but if Morgan became worried about her, he could blow holes in the cover Patrick had put into place. And that would not bode well for her or her objective.
Sleep finally came to Kathy as she thought about her mother. Laura always gave her a sense of safety in a world gone mad….
THE PIERCING SHRIEK of a wild pig woke Kathy with a jerk, and she nearly fell out of the hammock. The night was black. Seeing nothing, disoriented, Kathy fumbled and the hammock swung dangerously. As the pig shrilled right below her tree, she heard a cat growling—a low, menacing sound. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
What time was it? What was happening? For precious moments, Kathy was flummoxed. Her sleep-drugged mind refused to work. The grunts, screams and sounds of struggle shot adrenaline back into her bloodstream. Heart pounding, Kathy sat upright, her legs dangling outside the swaying hammock. She dug for her bat and the flashlight at the same time.
The screams of the wild pig were hideous and it sounded like a young child being mauled and bitten by a dog. Switching on the light, Kathy shone it downward. Gasping, she saw a male jaguar, his gold coat spotted with black crescents. A huge hundred-pound boar struggled in its massive jaws. The cat had seized the pig by the throat and blood spurted everywhere. Watching in horror, Kathy saw the jaguar’s tail switching from side to side. For an instant, he lifted his head and his large yellow eyes rested directly on her.
Oh, God! Snapping off the light, breathing raggedly, Kathy gripped the stick at her side and brought it up—just in case she had to hit the animal. Her mind whirled. She was trapped! The pig’s squeals became fainter and fainter as it stopped struggling. Finally, there was silence. Real silence.
Then Kathy heard the cat’s gruff breathing. Mac had told her that jaguars were the only members of the cat family that never roared. They would growl sometimes, but that was it. The cat’s breathing was labored and quick. What was it going to do? Crouch there and eat the pig? God, what should I do? Biting her lower lip, Kathy looked around, and found the night was as black as a cave. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, but she could see the radium dial on the watch she wore. Holding it close to her eyes, she saw it was 0300 hours.
The silence of the jungle amazed her. Nothing croaked, screamed, twitted or howled. Nothing. It was as if all creatures knew that the jaguar had killed, and didn’t want to become its next victim. Shaking with fear, Kathy tried to take several calming, deep breaths. If the cat had food, it wasn’t going to come after her—or was it? Unsure, she keyed her hearing to the ground below. The crunching of bone and flesh sent shivers through her. Feeling sorry for the pig, Kathy wondered how the drama had played out before she’d been rudely awakened. The thought that the cat had been sitting under her tree, waiting for its quarry, sent renewed fear zigzagging through her.
Gulping several times, her mouth dry, she waited in silence. Could the cat smell her? He’d seen her when she’d flashed the light on him—a stupid thing to do, she realized belatedly. She’d given away her hiding place to the jaguar. Would he think her an even bigger prize, leave the hapless, dead boar, climb the tree and come after her? Her mind whirling with questions and no answers, Kathy sat unmoving, breathing through her mouth and trying not to draw the attention of the jaguar, which was devouring his kill just fifty feet below.
After a while, the sounds of eating convinced Kathy that she was safe. Well, as safe as she could be under the circumstances. If the cat had his fill of wild pig, he wasn’t going to be hungry for her. Exhaustion from the brutal trials she’d undergone began to seep into her being. Leaning back in the hammock, her legs still dangling over the edge, she closed her eyes. Without meaning to, she immediately fell asleep, the stick of wood gripped in her hand.
THE SHRILL SCREECH of a monkey made Kathy jump into a sitting position. The animal had apparently come to the old rubber tree, seen her and cried an alarm. Jerking upward, Kathy gasped and saw the furry gray mammal disappearing into a nearby tree.
The jaguar!
Breathing hard, her sleep-ridden mind barely functional, Kathy looked below her. Nothing. She saw no sign of the jaguar or the wild boar on the muddy, vine encrusted trail. All that remained was a dark pool of blood that had soaked into the soil. Blinking several times, Kathy scrubbed her eyes. She must have fallen asleep. God, that hadn’t been smart! What was wrong with her? What if the jaguar had decided to climb the tree and go after her? She’d have been a sitting duck. Fear sizzled through her and the surge of adrenaline made her wake up in a rush.
What time was it? Looking at her watch, she saw it was 0700. Time to get up and get going. Cottony clouds lay atop the tallest trees above her. The drip, drip, drip of water falling off the leaves was constant. Wiping her face, Kathy decided she’d better eat another protein bar before she climbed out of the tree.
Where was the jaguar? Where was his lair? Had he dragged the pig off while she slept? He must have. Was he sated and sleeping now? Would that mean the trail was safe? She wanted to make another twenty miles today. Quickly digging into the pack, she found a raspberry granola bar and consumed it with unaccustomed pleasure. If she made it through this hellish test, she promised to buy Mac Coulter a steak dinner in Cuzco and thank him properly. Without him, she knew she would not have lasted. She owed him her life….
TWO AND A HALF DAYS and still no sign of her. Mac tried to curb his worry over Katherine Lincoln. It was noon on the third day and he’d just landed at the villa, after taking several drug lords from the Caribbean back to Cuzco to catch their flight to Lima and onward. After the blades stopped turning, the two-man ground crew quickly scurried up to the Bell helicopter to place chocks around the wheels. As Mac shut down the helo, he saw Carlos Garcia strolling toward him.
Today was a rare day, weatherwise. There had been no low-
hanging clouds this morning. The sun had risen full and bright over the jungle. Taking off his sunglasses and sliding them into the pocket of his light blue, short-sleeved shirt, Mac disembarked. His boss was dressed in casual dark brown slacks, his white silk shirt open at the collar to show off the many gold necklaces he wore. One that evoked Coulter’s disgust had a huge gold crucifix hanging from it—outside his shirt. Yeah, right. A real Christian, this bastard. Swallowing his rage and keeping his face unreadable, Mac met the patrón at the skirt of the landing pad.
“Nice day for flying?” Garcia said, gesturing to the cloudless blue sky above them.
“It is,” Mac agreed as he came to a halt. Garcia wanted something. It wasn’t like the man to come meet him like this.
A few gardeners were in the background, picking up fallen branches from the thunderstorms that regularly hammered the jungle this time of year. They, too, had confused looks on their faces. Therese wasn’t in sight, she must be in her office, running the place as usual, Mac decided. He had learned early on that the beautiful Peruvian woman was Carlos’s personal assistant par excellence. She kept his bed warm, kept him happy and had the steel-trap mind of a military strategist. Truth be known, Therese was the power behind Garcia’s throne, and in some ways, Mac believed the patrón knew that.
“What do you think, compadre?”
“About what?” Mac asked, on guard.
“Señorita Lincoln.”
His heart thudded. Carefully, Mac said, “What about her?”
Carlos pulled out his gold cigarette case and opened it. He delicately took a cigarette and snapped the case shut. “Well, today is the day? If she has passed the test, should she not show up soon? Do you figure twenty miles a day?”
Mac wondered if Garcia was fishing. Had they found Lincoln’s body with the knapsack on it? Fear thrummed through him as he tried to appear casual. “Yeah, if she’s in good physical shape she might make twenty a day. Why?” He watched Garcia light his cigarette and take several puffs before removing it from his thin lips.
“Just curious. Do you think she’ll do it?”
“I don’t know, patrón.”
“Therese says she will. You know, woman’s intuition…” Garcia chuckled indulgently as he looked toward the gate in the compound’s wall.
“She has good instincts,” Mac agreed.
“What do you think?”
Uneasy, Mac said, “I hope she’ll make it. I think she’d make a great nanny for Tiki. From the looks of things, she has the right amount of defensive skills to keep your daughter safe, patrón. I haven’t seen her personnel file, of course, so I’m talking through my hat on this.”
Nodding, Carlos puffed away. “Sí, you do not have all the information, that’s true. But you were in the military at one time until your dishonorable discharge. You were in combat in Afghanistan, so you have good gut instincts, too. I was just wondering what you thought.”
Maybe Garcia was genuinely hoping that Katherine Lincoln would make it home today. That would be a first. Carlos didn’t usually bother with a nanny’s test results, leaving those things to Therese.
“Well, if she does make it, she’ll either show up today or tomorrow, I would guess,” Mac said.
Grunting, Garcia nodded. Sticking the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he clapped Mac on the shoulder. “If you see her, let Therese know immediately.”
“Of course,” Mac said, and watched the drug lord turn and amble down the brick sidewalk toward the main villa. What had that been all about?
Yesterday, an unmarked black Apache helicopter had been spotted less than ten miles from the villa. Mac knew that there was a secret U.S. Army black ops base near Machu Picchu, hidden away in a huge lava cave. The mountains in the area looked like huge loaves of French bread turned on end and covered with greenery. They had been created from lava millions of years ago, and many had cave complexes running through them.
It wasn’t a secret to Garcia or his men. They knew that the U.S. Army had put a fleet of combat Apache helicopters down here, with the approval of the Peruvian government. The Apache pilots tried to stop him and other drug lords from flying cocaine out of Peru to surrounding countries. Yesterday, an Apache had flown very close to the villa, which had been unusual and had sent jitters through the community. Mac had heard about it from distressed soldiers who thought for sure the black helo was going to attack them. It never had before, but Mac suspected that the Apache pilots operating out of that cavern knew exactly where Garcia was—at all times.
He himself had never been harassed in the air by the phantom Apaches. Of course, his flights were to Cuzco and back, not considered a drug flight route. Maybe that’s what had Garcia spooked. Had the black ops helo spotted Katherine on the trail within range of his villa? Was that why they’d come so close?
“WHAT THE HELL is that?” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jessica Merrill demanded into her head set. She was talking to her copilot and friend, Vickey Mabrey, who was serving as weapons officer on this mission. Grasping the controls, Jessica urged the Apache into a slight starboard bank at five thousand feet above the Peruvian jungle. “You got your infrared on, Snake?”
The Boeing Apache helicopter was one of the most advanced in the world for combat. It not only carried live television pictures back to their HUDs, or headsup display units, it also had an infrared scanner so precise it could detect the heat of a single human. Sitting in the lower cockpit, Jessica frowned and kept her feet steady on the rudders while she gripped the collective and cyclic with her hands.
“Hold on a sec, I’m switching modes,” Snake muttered. “I’m looking…Yeah, there it is! A definite heat signature source down there.” She grinned crookedly. “My, what good eyes you have, Wild Woman.” Jessica had gotten her handle because she dyed a thick strand of her blond hair red, and generally raised hell like a good ol’ Montana gal should, even if she was in the ultraconservative U.S. Army.
Wild Woman snorted, “I’m bored to death. There’s not a druggie in the sky.” It was midday and they were trolling along a known drug route about twenty miles from the temple complex of Machu Picchu. Of course, they were under strict orders by Major Maya Stevenson, commanding officer of the Black Jaguar Squadron, never to expose themselves to turistas. That was a huge no-no in their game book. As a black ops outfit, they weren’t supposed to be seen, photographed or identified by outsiders—especially camera-happy tourists who snapped anything that moved.
Wild Woman grinned wickedly. The black Apache might show up in a camera frame and be called a condor because the tourist wouldn’t know what else it could be.
Everyone in the BJS knew that Carlos Garcia, the chief drug lord in Peru, had a villa very close to the known drug routes. Today, for some intuitive reason, Wild Woman had decided to fly over this area. Garcia usually had his drug flights originate elsewhere, and she knew why. He didn’t want to draw the lethal capabilities of the Apache arsenal down upon his head.
As combat pilots, Wild Woman and Snake were under strict orders not to fire on any ground structures—only on airplanes or helicopters whose fuselage numbers could be checked by computer and verified as known druggies who flew cocaine out of the country.
Snake frowned. She pushed up her visor and squinted into the HUD in front of her. “Yeah, this is a human, Wild Woman. One person. Doesn’t look armed or dangerous.”
“Probably a villager on the path,” she agreed.
Snake looked up. She sat in the upper cockpit, above the flight commander. “The target is heading toward Garcia’s villa.”
“Drug carrier, then?”
Shrugging, Snake tweaked the HUD. “I dunno. He’s carrying something on his back.”
“Let’s take a closer look, shall we?”
Snake glanced up to her right. “Remember the flight restrictions. We can’t get too close to Garcia’s villa or the major will have our ass, not to mention our rank. I’m up for CWO3 and I don’t want to lose it on a wild-goose chase.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.” Wild Woman headed down, aiming the nose of the dinosaurlike Apache toward the thin strip of trail. The air was smooth this morning, the sky a bright blue. Blinding rays of sunshine shot through the cockpit, but the air-conditioning kept her cool in her Nomex fire retardant black flight suit.
The only identification either pilot wore was a BJS patch attached with Velcro on her upper right arm. It showed the head and shoulders of a snarling black jaguar on a red-white-and-blue backdrop. Otherwise, no one would know they were Americans, because their aircraft bore no fuselage numbers or flag.
Snake craned her neck toward the cockpit Plexiglas. “Hey, I see him!” The chopper trolled slowly, following the muddy ribbon in the thick jungle about a thousand feet below. The rotor wash made the top leaves shake and shimmy as the aircraft passed.
“Naw,” Snake said after studying the person through binoculars, “that ain’t no native carrying cocaine. It’s a hiker! One of those stupid white women who probably didn’t get her fill of excitement on the Inca Trail, so she’s trying this one out. Fool that she is…”
“Dumb, if you ask me. She’s hiking straight for Garcia’s villa. I wonder if she knows where she’s headed? She’d be the first one that did.” Lost hikers weren’t uncommon around Machu Picchu.
Shrugging, Snake put the binoculars down. “She looks free, white and twenty-ish to me. Nothin’ we can do. She’s a legitimate hiker here in the wilds of Peru.”
“Let’s take a photo of her, just in case. Another mug shot for the major’s files.”
Enemy Mine Page 12