by Kylie Brant
Flipping the safety back on, he shoved it back into his waistband and distanced himself several yards from the fence. With a running start he leaped skyward, grabbing the bars as high as he could, and hoisted himself up the remaining distance. His ascent wasn't pretty, but within moments he'd swung over the other side, slid partway down and jumped to the ground beside Annie.
"They're shooting at us!" she shouted, sounding half panicked, half amazed.
He grabbed her by the arm and started racing away. "Then you better keep your head down."
Swiftly he considered their options. Shala knew Annie had come by ship; he'd had his car pick her up at the dock. So he had to get word to Pappy to pull anchor and get the Nefarious the hell out of there. Shala would alert the police to stop the ship if they got to it in time.
They dodged in and out of the labyrinth of deserted alcoves and alleys of the marketplace. Stairways spidered up aimlessly from some of them, leading God knew where. Strolling passersby looked at them curiously, but no one made a move to stop them. Shala hadn't gotten his force formed yet. Jones knew they didn't have much time.
He ducked into the maze of connecting alcoves and stopped, leaning heavily against the wall. Tugging down the goggles, he shrugged out of the backpack and unzipped it. Digging around inside, he found the hand-held short-wave radio by touch.
"Jones…" Annie's voice was ragged.
"Quiet." He switched the radio on, winced when the static seemed abnormally loud in the darkness. "Nefarious 172-651, come in. Nefarious 172-651."
"But, Jones…"
"Dammit, be quiet!" He threw a glare at her, noting the way she'd collapsed, sliding down the wall.
"Nefarious 172-651. Over."
"Pappy?" Relief washed over him in a wave.
"Cap'n?"
"Pull anchor. Immediately. Full throttle it back to Rontilla. Hire Ranachek to meet me on the north side of Laconos, near the beach there. I'll contact him with further orders."
"You all right, Cap'n?"
Jones didn't bother mentioning that right now he and Annie were far from all right. But he was determined that his ship would be. "We're fine. Just get moving."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n."
"Jones?"
Jones switched the radio off, replaced it in his backpack and put his arms through the straps again. Only then did he glance at Annie. "What?"
"Those sirens you hear? They're headed our way."
He lifted his head, listened for a moment. Damned if she wasn't right. "How much farther do you think you can go?"
Annie looked at him and rose, brushing off her dress. "As far as I need to."
He felt an unwilling tug of admiration. Her chest was still heaving, her dress was damp with perspiration, torn in a couple places and smeared with dirt. But her expression left no question that she was willing to press on. Which was good, because in another minute those police cars would be on top of them. He held out a hand, waited until her fingers closed around his. "That's good. Because we don't have a lot of choices."
Going to the front of the alcove, Jones peered out. The flashing lights of the police cars were already on the streets coming toward them. He heard more sirens in the distance, and hoped like hell Pappy had wasted no time getting the ship moving. Looking out again, he saw that uniformed police had piled out of the cars and were running toward the marketplace.
"C'mon," he said, and pulled her back inside the labyrinth of alcoves.
"What?" She balked. "Are you crazy? We can't go back inside there. There's no way out."
"Hate to tell you, sweetheart," he said grimly as he yanked on her hand to get her moving again. "But there's no way out in that direction, either."
He chose a stairway in one corner and they ran up it, turned the corner and found themselves in a narrow passageway lined with open-air windows. A quick glance inside the lone door showed a crude latrine.
The sound of shouts, of running feet could be heard below them as the area was searched.
"It's only a matter of time before they head up here," Ana said with a surprisingly even voice. She stuck her head out the window, looked down. She didn't have to tell him that it was too far to jump. He already knew what their only option was. He gave her a long look, and her gaze widened. Apparently she'd just figured it out as well.
Minutes later there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Curses, shouts, then the noise receded, fading in the distance. Jones turned his head carefully. Annie's face was deadly white, her eyes screwed shut, and her hands were clutching the roof tiles with a death grip. "I think it's safe to get down now."
"Are you sure?" she said, without opening her eyes. "I mean, we just got up here."
"Yeah, it's a shame to waste the view," he agreed dryly. "But we need to get the hell out of Dodge."
Reluctantly she opened her eyes, but he noted that she kept her gaze trained on his face. "I think it's only fair to warn you that when this is over, I'm really going to kill you."
He was already sliding toward the edge of the roof, hanging on to the edge as his feet sought the purchase of the windowsill below. "Get in line, sweetheart. But first we have to escape. Preferably alive."
* * *
Ana had never been so exhausted in her life. She huddled next to the building on the outskirts of the city, her arms clasped around her legs, chin resting on her knees. Her body was shaking with a mixture of weariness and shock. Jones was seated next to her, digging in that infernal backpack of his once again.
Her head was spinning, so she closed her eyes. The pounding adrenaline had long since drained. Her limbs were weak and achy. Her heels had been rubbed raw by her sandals, which owed more to fashion than to comfort. It seemed a lifetime ago since she'd had a moment of sleep. Or a glass of water. She'd kill for either.
Without opening her eyes, she muttered, "You don't happen to have a canteen in that terrorist handbag of yours, do you?"
"No. Sorry."
She opened one eye, looked at him. The shock of discovering who'd grabbed her in the offices, coupled with the escape amid a shower of bullets, had shifted her surprise at his appearance to a much lower priority. But delayed curiosity rose now, and wouldn't be stifled.
"Does Rambo know you've stolen his outfit?"
His voice was sour. "Funny."
"No," her voice was reflective, "what's funny is you appearing in the capitol, dressed like a second-story man, complete with the tools of the trade." He was clothed completely in black. Black jeans, black long-sleeved T-shirt, black watch cap on his head. Even the pack, from which he'd just withdrawn a—she needed to open the other eye to get a closer look—compass, was black.
She straightened, regarded him quizzically. "Mind telling me just what you were doing in the capitol offices?"
"Not at all." His gaze remained trained on the compass. "Just as soon as you tell me what you were doing there."
A moment ticked by. Then another. In the next instant he looked up, caught her gaze on him. She realized belatedly that she hadn't responded. "I … I was looking for a bathroom."
He surveyed her steadily. "And I was looking for dance partners for the Ice Capades." Their gazes did battle, at impasse. She looked away first. That narrowed flinty stare was too hard to face while her mind was racing furiously. For the first time it occurred to her that she was going to have to come up with a reasonable explanation for what had gone down tonight.
"Well, there's a bit more to the story, I guess."
"Yeah, I guess."
She ignored his caustic agreement, still piecing her story together. "The night I went to the nightclubs, I kind of stumbled on a drug deal outside, and one of the guys had a knife—"
"What?"
Uh-oh. She sent him a cautious glance. The dangerous look in his eye matched the lethal tone of his voice. "It's okay. I got away. And that's how I met Shala. He'd heard about the scene—at least," she finished grimly, "that's the line he gave me." It was glaringly apparent that Shala had been hidi
ng as much from her as she'd been from him.
There was silence from the man at her side, the kind that promised an impending storm. Then "You'd better tell me the whole story."
She could only partially comply. Giving him a carefully edited version of the drug transaction, her escape, the encounter with Shala and then the strange conversation with Bunei this evening, she finished, saying, "I was looking for a bathroom when I happened to see Shala with that man … the same one who'd threatened me. And it didn't appear as though he was in danger of imminent arrest." It had seemed, she thought, as though they were having an argument about something at first, but when the two men had been coming toward her, they'd acted pretty chummy.
The creative oath he muttered when she'd finished had her brows raising.
"Pardon me?"
"You need to be locked up," he said succinctly. "Under armed guard 24/7. You're a danger to yourself, not to mention those stupid enough to get involved with you."
Anger snapped through her veins, dissipating a bit of the exhaustion. "If we're referring to your involvement, I can certainly attest to the stupid part."
He went on as if he hadn't heard her. Perhaps it was just as well. "You come to a strange country where you don't know a soul. You proceed to traipse around at night on your own, almost get your throat slit by a drug dealer, accept a date with one of the shadiest guys in the new government and, golly gee, he just happens to be in on the drug deals up to his eyeballs and turns around and tries to kill you. I gotta hand it to you, lady. You really know how to vacation."
Her fists curled. He was back to calling her lady, like the first day on the dock. As if he hadn't called her more informal endearments on their wild trip across the city evading the police. It was a ridiculous thing to focus on, when her primary emotion at the moment was wanting to give him a swift kick. "There's a bit more to it than that."
"Really." He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her, giving the appearance of a man prepared to wait. "This ought to be good."
"I'm through explaining things to you," she snapped. Actually, she was out of facts that she could afford to reveal to him. "It's your turn. What were you doing there?"
There was a beat of silence. Then another. Finally he said, "I went to make sure you were all right."
She gave him a get-real look. "Yeah. That'll fly. You had no way of knowing where I went, and it's probably too obvious to point out that you didn't exactly come outfitted in your party togs."
"What the hell's a tog?"
"Never mind. You're stalling." She ought to know, she'd perfected the art. "If your story is true, how'd you know where I was?"
"We're wasting time." He made a point of checking his watch, touching the button that illuminated the face. "I just wanted to give you a few minutes to catch your breath before we discussed our next move."
But his effort to distract her didn't work. "It was that taxi you hired, wasn't it?" If she'd had the energy, she would have smacked her forehead at the conclusion. Better yet, she'd have smacked his. "After promising me that your protective crap was over, you had me followed."
His mouth was flattened to a tight, grim line. "Yeah, so?" stomach. What was it about her that elicited this kind of reaction in men? Did she put out some sort of vibe that made every man of her acquaintance believe she was someone to pat on the head and set aside while life marched by? It was enough to make a woman scream. Out of all the emotions to claim to feel for her, protectiveness was the one guaranteed to wound.
"I didn't need protecting," she said in precise tones. "I'm not completely without resources of my own." He wasn't the only one who had a few surprises in his bag.
"Yeah, I saw how well those resources were working for you tonight. Not to mention your sense of direction. You spent a lot of time in those rooms before discovering that they weren't bathrooms."
The mockery of his words escaped her. Sudden understanding bloomed. "How would you know that? Unless you were watching the whole … that's why those doors were open! You'd already been in them."
He adjusted his goggles again to peer down the street. "They don't lock when exiting without a key."
She reached out and grabbed his ann. "And you thought you'd find me upstairs in those rooms?"
"I did find you upstairs in those rooms," he pointed out. "Not because you were looking for me." Her certainty in that fact was growing. "Is that the story you're sticking to?"
He turned and looked at her, the goggles making him look utterly foreign, utterly dangerous. "Are you sticking to your story?"
Her mouth snapped shut. "Yes."
"Then so am I. Let's hit the road."
She rose, silent only because she needed to think about all the inconsistencies in his tale. There was plenty he wasn't telling her, that was for sure. Even more than what she wasn't telling him. And it occurred to her, as she brushed the grit off her dress, that the man standing next to her was a stranger. And a much different person from the one she'd assumed he was on the day she'd hired him.
She wasn't any too certain what to make of that.
"They'll post guards around the edge of town." He was talking again, his voice low, cool and emotionless. "But before we try slipping by them we need to get you some different clothes."
She couldn't agree more. When she'd bought this dress, it hadn't been with the intention of climbing over fences or on top of roofs—she gave an involuntary shudder—or hiding in grimy alleys. "What do you have in mind?"
"I'll take care of it while you wait. It's easier for one person to get in and out undetected than for two. Wait for me here. If you hear anything," he pointed to the large, steel garbage bin behind them, "hide in back of there."
He was gone before she could form a protest, a black, silent wraith in the night. The darkness immediately closed in around her, lending a feeling of isolation.
Shaking off the gloomy feeling, she waited until she was sure Jones wasn't coming back and then got up, moved farther back into the alley. It was a dead end, and the stench from the garbage didn't make it the most desirable of places to wait. The faint scrabbling sounds she heard around her were certainly from rodents who found the aroma more tempting than she did.
But it afforded her a measure of much-needed privacy, one she wasn't likely to get again. She reached into her bag and took out the phone, rang Sterling's number again. He hadn't responded the last three times she'd called. She waited five rings, then ten. Switching the phone off, she grimly folded it up and returned it to her purse. She'd done the occasional courier job for him, jumping at the chance for some excitement in her otherwise quiet life. But that work was very low priority, she knew. She had no idea of his function or position for whatever alphabet agency he and Sam worked for. She had no inkling what his continued absence from his phone meant, outside the obvious. She couldn't depend on him for advice.
She raised her head sharply in the act of dropping the phone in her bag. Were those footsteps? Her skin prickled despite the balmy night air and she edged closer to the receptacle. Unless Jones had been very quick indeed, he couldn't have returned so soon.
Reaching back into her bag, she drew out the small derringer. It wasn't the size she normally practiced with, but there had been no question of getting her gun through airport security. She'd had to wait until she reached Bontilla to purchase another. Though small, it was lethal enough to stop someone at close range. And from the faint sounds that seemed to be drawing nearer, the range was going to be close indeed.
Quickly she grabbed her bag and moved behind the bin, wedging herself in between its filthy metal exterior and the stone wall of the building face. It was tight, even for her slim form. In order to fit she had to keep her head turned to one side. There wouldn't be room to change position, which would render even her gun partially useless. If someone thought to look behind the garbage receptacle, they would have to get very near to see her. But for her to have a fighting chance, they'd have to approach from the side on which
she carried the gun.
Holding her breath, she waited as the scuffling sounds came closer. She hoped it was rats. That had to he the first and only time in her life she'd experience that particular desire, but moments later she knew the hope was in vain. Although they were trying for quiet, she could hear whispers, breathing. At least two people.
Nerves were doing a screaming race up her spine. She couldn't visually assess what kind of danger was out there, and somehow that made it even worse. She could only wait, listening to the stealth with which the people moved, wondering at their identities, afraid she could already guess.
They were coming closer. Stray pebbles and debris crunched beneath their feet. Ana swallowed, released the safety on her gun with a smooth, silent movement. The close fit didn't allow her hand to tremble. But she was shaking inside, tension spiking her nerve endings.
One of the men finally moved past the garbage bin and into her range of vision. He wasn't clad in police uniform, though, but in military garb much the same as the guards at the capitol. Panic churned viciously in her stomach. She watched as he searched the length of the alley, kicking over boxes, disturbing the nightlife feasting beneath. He turned, uttered a command in French.
The bin jostled as a second man began to pull boxes and bags from the metal receptacle. Ana gritted her teeth, wondering at the wisdom of her hiding place. If the bin were pushed back too far, she may well end up with a few crushed ribs, if not worse.
The minutes stretched interminably, as the men thoroughly examined the contents of the bin. Finally giving up in a disgusted exchange, they left, their exit not nearly as silent as their entrance had been.
Her pent-up breath was released in a silent stream. Only her close proximity to the metal and the stone wall kept her upright. She was certain without the support she'd have slid to a limp, boneless heap. Sliding the safety back on her gun, she waited until she thought at least ten minutes had passed. Then waited another five before she deemed it safe enough to attempt to wiggle from her position.