by Kylie Brant
He glanced over his shoulder to check on Annie's progress. She never protested and, God help him, never whined about the pace he set or about wanting to stop. As a matter of fact, the only time she'd made a sound in the past hour was when she'd paused to relieve herself and had gotten up close and personal with that spider. The corner of his mouth kicked up. Considering that it was the size of a dinner plate and had a leg span of over eight inches, he couldn't really claim she'd been overreacting.
Since then there hadn't been a peep out of her, and that was cause for some alarm. He was getting used to her pointing out the orchids growing wild on the trunk of a host tree, or the pattern of the lacy ferns springing up wild between the trunks. He could only figure sheer exhaustion had set in, and that she was saving her breath for the trek. He checked his watch. They'd been in the jungle for more than twelve hours already. In another two or three hours it would be dusk. Darkness fell early and suddenly in the tropics. He needed to find them a safe place to stop for the night soon.
He reached for the binoculars and checked the village below. It seemed strangely deserted. A fire had been built in the middle of the clearing, but no one had been tending it as long as he'd been observing, and the rain had extinguished it. The male villagers may well be away hunting or gathering food. But that didn't explain why there were no children playing outside, no brightly clothed women drawing water or tending to a meal on the fire. Unease trickled down his spine.
"What's the matter?"
"Something isn't right." He continued to scan the scene, his instincts sharpening. He lowered the glasses and turned to look at her. She'd stopped, was swaying a little on her feet. She looked, he thought grimly, as if one strong wind would knock her flat. Not that they were likely to get one here. The air was so thick and still it was suffocating.
"I'm going to take a closer look. You wait here." It was a measure of her weariness, he thought, that she didn't protest, just inspected the nearby tree trunks for insects or slime mold before selecting one to lean against.
Strangely reluctant to leave her, he had to force himself to turn and make his way through the thicker vegetation. He would only be a few yards away. There was no reason to feel this ill at ease. He'd be able to hear her if she called out for help, or if an animal came close enough to threaten her.
He stopped in his tracks, logic warring with emotion. Uttering a curse, he returned swiftly, slid the pack off his shoulders and dug in it. "Here." He took out her bag, reached into it and handed her gun to her. "Make sure you don't use this unless you have to. The sound of the shot will alert anyone in the area to our location."
He could see the surprise on her face, but she took the gun with undisguised eagerness. With his Beretta shoved into the waistband of his pants, he grabbed the binoculars and machete and strode away.
They'd traveled the ridge until they were directly above and to the right of the village. Jones hacked and sawed at the dense thicket outside the forest until he had a clear view, then squatted on his haunches and reached for the binoculars again.
The structures below were covered with corrugated tin roofs, orange with rust. Rivulets of the earlier rain ran down in steady trickles off the roof to the soggy ground below. The windows were covered only with oil cloth, which were all drawn closed now. The places had to be stifling.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. There were shadows moving across the cloth, evident in the sunlight. More than ever he was convinced something was seriously wrong down there. Maybe there was an illness confining the people to their homes. But even then someone would be moving back and forth between the huts tending the sick, wouldn't they?
Utterly still, Jones kept the glasses trained on the scene below. It was another fifteen minutes before his watchfulness was rewarded. Two fatigues-clad men came out of a house, squatted on the dilapidated porch and lit cigarettes. Both had automatic machine guns strapped to their backs.
Military.
The knowledge sent adrenaline spiking through his veins. He'd told Annie earlier what he'd expected the men to do. He wished by all things holy that he could have been wrong. Edging back into the vegetation again, he swiftly made his way to her. They needed to get as far away from here as possible, and damn fast. If any more of the troops were spread out in the area, they could end up tripping over them.
He checked his watch again. The more distance they could put between them and the village before dusk, the safer they'd be. Moving swiftly, he retraced his steps to where he left Annie.
The place was deserted.
He gave a low whistle, thinking she was hiding somewhere nearby. "Annie? It's Jones. Let's head out." He scanned the surrounding area carefully; but she was nowhere in sight. There was a click behind him and he whirled, reaching for his gun. And found himself looking down the barrel of an AK-47.
"Lancez en bas votre arme."
Jones didn't need to call on his little knowledge of French to understand the command. He let the Beretta dangle from one finger, then tossed it at the soldier's feet.
"Les mains en haute. Tournez-vous lentement."
Making no attempt to interpret or obey, Jones sent one last sweeping glance around. Had the man or one of his friends already gotten to her? Or had she seen the soldier first and hidden?
Panic slicked nastily down his spine. If she was already in their possession, her death certificate was all but signed. He had no doubts that Shala would order her demise without a second thought.
"Et la femme?" When Jones asked about the woman, interest flickered on the man's face.
"Où est-elle?"
Jones breathed a tiny bit easier. If the soldier was asking about Annie's whereabouts, it was a sure bet she hadn't been captured yet. Maybe he could buy them some time.
"Je vous prendrai à elle," Jones said haltingly.
The soldier was silent, as if weighing Jones's offer to take him to Annie. He must have decided that he had nothing to lose, because he indicated for him to move ahead, saying, "Montrez-moi. Maintenant!"
Jones preceded the man, heading into the forest. The dim green twilight there would give him a better chance of eluding him. The muzzle of the gun jabbed into his back, an insulting reminder of his position. He kept his pace deliberately slow, waiting for his chance to overpower the soldier.
A burst of static sounded nearby. The soldier stopped, and it took a split instant for Jones to remember he no longer wore the radio. Before he'd set off he'd put it in the pack, which he'd left with Annie. And the soldier hadn't been carrying one. He glanced behind him, saw the soldier scanning the area around them.
With lightning speed he leaped to the left, prepared to take advantage of the distraction. The soldier immediately recognized his mistake, raised his gun, but Jones was already sending a hard right to his jaw. The man dropped, and Jones followed him down, delivering another blow to guarantee unconsciousness.
Reaching down, he slipped the automatic weapon's strap from the man's neck and then looked up, scanning the area.
Annie stepped out from some huge ferns, still clutching the now silent radio in her hand.
He grinned at her. Her diversion had been sheer genius. "Nice job."
"If that hadn't worked I had a pile of rocks to start throwing."
Striding toward her, he said, "The radio was a surer thing than hoping for accuracy."
Amazingly enough, her nose tilted up. "Hope would have nothing to do with it. I'll have you know I took the softball team to state three years straight with this arm." The arm in question, with its puny muscle, was flexed for his admiration.
He stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. Maybe he hadn't. Not really. The rain had turned her hair into a tumble of ringlets that looked baby soft. Her sky-blue eyes were shadowed with fatigue, her features bearing the unmistakable stamp of weariness. But her head was lifted at a cocky angle, matching the bravado in her voice. And for once in his life he obeyed an urge without question.
Crossing to her
he cupped her head in one hand and gave her a long, hard kiss. One that didn't take into account the unconscious soldier at their feet. One that forgot for a moment that more troops were nearby.
His mouth ate at hers, drawing some kind of satisfaction from the contact that he would have denied if he'd been thinking. If he hadn't been only feeling, just for a moment. Her lips parted and she softened against him, nipped his bottom lip in the kind of response that had heat pooling in his groin. A dozen erotic scenarios danced through his mind, all of them featuring her naked, slim body under him. Over him.
His tongue glided along hers, and he steeped himself in her flavor. It traced through his senses, making all sorts of promises. Promises that couldn't be fulfilled right here. Right now.
Breathing raggedly, he tore his mouth away, took a step back. As if by establishing that small measure of distance he could deny the temptation she presented.
"He's coming around."
Her voice was thin, but steady enough. He focused on that, rather than on the way her lips had swelled from the pressure of his, the mark his beard had left near her mouth.
Turning back to the man crumpled on the ground, Jones observed distantly that she'd been right. The soldier seemed to be regaining consciousness. Reaching down, Jones hauled him up by his shirt and clipped him smartly on the jaw. Dropping his limp form again, he held out his hand. "Give me your scarf." She unwound it from her throat without question and placed it in his palm. Expertly he wadded the cloth up and jammed it in the soldier's mouth.
Rising, he grabbed the machete from the bag she'd dropped beside her and strode over to free a stout vine. He used it to bind the soldier's arms and legs, and left him trussed up, still unconscious, on the forest floor.
Looking at his watch, he said, "There may be more of them combing the area. We have to figure that there are. We've got less than two hours of daylight left."
She nodded, but he wondered just how much more energy she had before she dropped completely. She'd had no more than short rests in the past thirty-six hours. He had to get her to safety soon. Someplace she could clean up, eat and get some uninterrupted sleep. Where they could both refuel before they set off again tomorrow.
"Stay close behind me, understand? And not a sound. There's no telling where the rest of the troops might be."
He struck far right, heading much farther off course than they'd originally planned. He set a fast pace, checking back frequently to make sure she wasn't lagging behind. Once she slid in the slippery muck beneath their feet, fell to her hands and knees. He helped her up, and after that kept a firm hand clasped around hers.
They walked in silence for fifteen minutes before the vegetation grew denser. That often meant a clearing ahead, and Jones walked faster. They were due a bit of luck. Maybe the jungle gave way here to the rockier region like that edging the village.
After several minutes of sawing through the underbrush, he cleared a large enough path for them to pass through. From here he could see the ridge bordering the village, but not the village itself. The sun was sinking rapidly below the horizon. But it wasn't the rapidly fading sunlight that had him muttering a string of very inventive curses.
It was the cliff straight ahead of them.
He glanced back at Annie.
"Uh-uh." She raised her hands and shook her head furiously. "Don't even think it."
"There are plenty of footholds. Vines to grab. It's not a sheer drop. Come and see."
"I don't need to see." Despite her exertion in the last few minutes, her face had gone completely white. "We'll just go another way."
He reached for reason. "There's a stream down there. We could clean up and find a place to pitch camp. The sooner we get started, the sooner you can get off your feet for several hours."
"My feet are fine." As if to prove it, she stomped one of them, her gaze still avoiding the empty area behind him. "We'll go around. Or back."
Valuable minutes were ticking by. He reached for a patience he rarely bothered with. "To get to an easier path down we'd have to backtrack at least two miles. And we can't go back the way we came, Annie. You know why."
Her head was shaking furiously, and he got the first inkling that he wasn't dealing with a totally rational argument. "I'm staying here. You go down. I'll meet you there tomorrow. That's right. Maybe by then…"
He took four quick steps and grabbed her shoulders. "We're both going down and we're going down now. It'd be suic— It'd be stupid to wait until dark. We can't waste time arguing."
Her eyes were dark and huge in her face. Under normal circumstances she'd send a fast right jab into his gut for the way he was ordering her around, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that these weren't normal circumstances. He peered at her closely. A sheen of sweat had formed on her brow, and the shaking in her limbs wasn't caused solely by exhaustion. "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise. But you're gonna have to trust me."
He didn't think his words even registered. She swallowed hard, stepped back, yanking herself out of his grasp. He could almost see her reach for control, saw the effort it took for her to tuck away the terror. "I'm sorry." Her voice barely trembled. "I'm not trying to be difficult, really I'm not. I just can't…" Her voice cracked on the last word and he knew they were going to be doing this the hard way.
"Okay." His voice soothing, he began making plans. "Just let me figure something out."
He left her to survey the rocky mountain slope again. Twenty yards away it seemed less steep. That would he the path they'd take. His decision made, he strode past her to the entrance of the jungle. Selecting a young supple strangler vine, he cut it away and approached her with it.
Warily she backed away. "What are you going to do?"
"Tether us together so I can do the work. You just keep your eyes closed and I'll get us both lowered to safety."
"I can't."
He made quick work of the knots binding them together at the waist. "Here." He shrugged out of the backpack and helped her slide her arms through it. "I'll do most of the work. You just grab finger and toeholds where you can."
"No, I can't do it," she said, even as he was leading her closer to the face of the cliff. He grabbed a vine that grew between the rocky side and tugged on it. It'd do. Twisting back to his feet with the vine in one hand, he went to her, pulled her close.
"I know you're scared." Her heart was hammering like a locomotive in her chest. He remembered the trouble he had getting her to climb down the cable at the capitol. Heights must be the one thing in this world that she feared.
"Please, Jones…" She bit her lip on the whimper that threatened. "I just…"
"Shh." His lips brushed her hair. "It's going to be all right."
Her gaze turned to his, tentative. "Really?"
He nodded, got a firmer grasp on the vine. "Absolutely." He waited until he felt her relax against him, a quick sag of relief. Then with one swift movement, he had them both swinging off the side of the cliff.
* * *
Chapter 11
«^»
She was too quiet.
Jones threw Annie a concerned glance. She was sitting obediently on the large flat rock where he'd placed her. The flashlight he'd handed her was dangling loosely from her grasp. At this distance her dark clothes melded with the night, but her face stood out starkly. She hadn't spoken a word since their wild climb down the mountain slope. As a matter of fact, she hadn't spoken a word since he'd nudged her, oh so gently, off the cliff.
An unfamiliar emotion surged through him, felt suspiciously like guilt. There was nothing else he could have done, he reminded himself, as he unfolded the neat square of mosquito netting over the thick layer of ferns he'd cut. Nothing short of knocking her unconscious, which he tended to think she'd have appreciated even less.
But every shuddering breath she'd taken as he'd let go of one vine to grab for another, every fractured sob that had escaped her lips as they scrabbled for footholds to break their slide do
wn the mountain … all of them had torn through his chest like a blade. When they'd reached the bottom she'd been unable to stand without support. He hadn't spent a lot of time searching for the best place to pitch their small tent. His main concern had been her.
He crossed to the small creek and dipped his hands in, washing off the worst of the day's grime. Then he took off his shirt, peeling off the ribbed sleeveless undershirt beneath. He dipped the undershirt in the water, soaking it thoroughly and wringing it out. Then he went to her, knelt down and dabbed her face with it.
She didn't jerk away. She didn't do anything but look at him with that vacant expression that told him she was edging too close to shock. "Annie." He didn't recognize that soft tone to his voice. "Look at me, baby. Look at me." When she did he saw a flicker of awareness return to her eyes. Encouraged, he moved the damp cloth in soothing strokes along her jawline, down her throat.
"We'll just get you cleaned up and then finish off the rest of those sandwiches, okay? Then you'll get some rest, I promise. How do eight hours sound?" He cleaned her hands with that same easy stroke, murmuring a running litany of words that he didn't even think about. His focus was on her.
And when a great shudder seemed to rack her body he gathered her close, ready for the storm of tears that she surely had trapped inside. But the tears never came. After a while she moved back, and he dropped his arms, his gaze searching hers. "Okay?"
She nodded, avoiding his eyes. "I'm hungry enough to eat a slug rat, though."
Given her disgust for the rodentlike fanged creatures they'd conic across a time or two, that was saying something. "One slug-rat sandwich, coming up."
She didn't speak much while they ate sparingly from the provisions he'd packed. Or while they sipped at their precious store of water. He helped her down to the creek, so she could clean and dry her feet to protect them from jungle rot. And when he crawled into the small tent with her and zipped up the netting, she was still silent. She didn't appear to notice that there were only inches separating them as they lay on their sides, spoon fashion. She didn't ask about the phosphorus light gleaming, off in the darkness. Or comment on the bats zooming along, eating their fill of mosquitoes and other bugs. She didn't mention the glowing eyes that appeared every now and then in the distance, or the occasional scream as small animals became prey.