Full Throttle

by Julie Ann Walker

  “No.” She shook her head. “I-I’m okay.” The ends of her dark ponytail slipped over her shoulder, and for a moment he was reminded of how lovely she had looked with her sleek, chocolate-colored hair fanned out across his pillow. How sultry and soft her mouth had been as she watched him slip on the condom Ozzie shoved in his pocket before leaving the dance floor with Julia on his arm—the condom he had not had the chance to use, since the incendiary devices exploded a split second later. Still, Ozzie’s last words whispered through his head. Yo, man. This is just in case you start thinking with your downstairs brain instead of your upstairs brain. And for all the shit he dished Ozzie, and all the shit Ozzie dished him right back, it killed him to think of the guy losing his leg. The job was everything to Ozzie, and if he couldn’t do it…

  Dan squashed the thought before he could finish it.

  “I’m serious, Dan,” she insisted when he’d been quietly staring at her for too long. “I’m fine. Really.”

  And, yeah, he suspected she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince him. “If you’re sure?”

  She nodded again, the movement a little odd and jerky. And when she lifted a finger, running it quickly down the bridge of her nose—something he’d noticed she did when she was feeling particularly vulnerable—he decided not to press her. “Okay.” He dipped his chin and turned back to the phone lying faceup on the table. “Go on, Vanessa. What’s wrong with Jaya and what the hell does he hafta do with her planting the bombs?”

  For nearly twenty minutes, Vanessa—taking her cues from Rock on which questions to ask and in what order—had conversed in Malay via the open line with the wailing maid. And little by little, the woman had settled down. Now she was slumped in her chair, her head bowed, her tears silently falling onto the white apron tied around her waist. Dan experienced a twinge of sympathy and also a twinge of foreboding. He could tell by Vanessa’s tone that whatever she’d discovered, it wasn’t anything he’d want to write home about.

  “First of all,” she said, “her name is Irdina, and she’s a single parent. Her husband died in a trucking accident six months ago, right around the time Jaya was diagnosed with a treatable form of leukemia.” Dan glanced down at the photo lying atop the table. That poor, emaciated little body. Those soulful, suffering black eyes. His stomach turned over, and his diaphragm decided to become a steel vice, squeezing his lungs into his throat. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Penni’s lower lip tremble. “The doctors told her Jaya had an eighty percent chance of survival if he received the right therapy, but Irdina didn’t have the money for it. So she took the job at the hotel. Unfortunately, she has yet to save enough to start his treatment and in the meantime Jaya has taken a turn for the worse.”

  “Lemme guess,” Dan said. “She was suddenly approached by someone working for the JI. And this someone offered her the money she so desperately needed in exchange for one teeny, tiny favor. In order to save her son, she just had to tape some explosives beneath the beds of a few Americans.”

  “To make a long story short,” Vanessa concurred. “But Irdina swears she didn’t know they were bombs.”

  Dan snorted. “Come on. Didn’t she see the wires attached to electronic timers? What the hell else would they’ve been?”

  “She’s poor and uneducated,” Vanessa said. “And I may not be as fluent in Malay as I am in some other languages, but I’m still good enough to pick up on the sound of bullshit when I hear it. I think she’s telling the truth.”

  “You okay, mon cheri?” Rock’s voice drifted over the open line, and Dan could picture the man brushing Vanessa’s ink-black hair over her shoulder. The love those two shared was as obvious as the noses on their faces. And for some reason, Dan’s eyes were pulled over to Penni. The muscle twitching beside her pinched mouth made his heart ache.

  “I’m fine, Rock.” Vanessa’s whispered words drifted over the airwaves. “It’s so sad. So unbearably sad.”

  And, yeah. That was it in a nutshell.

  Still staring at Penni, he admitted, not for the first time, that he hadn’t a clue what to do with her, for her. Did he go with his gut and take her in his arms? Did he leave her alone to courageously endure? What did she want from him? What did she need from him?

  Her statue-like stillness, her stubborn silence offered him no direction. And for a few moments, the only sound to break the tense quiet of the storage room was Irdina’s soft sniffle and the hard rumble of a cat’s purr rolling over the open phone line.

  Peanut, the fat, mangy tom who was the Knights’ unofficial mascot, always seemed to know when one of the women was unhappy. The feline offered comfort by way of curling his rotund self upon whoever’s lap and starting his engine. Obviously, he’d seen Vanessa’s distress and was proving true to form.

  Shit a brick! If the maid had been a fanatical believer in the JI cause, it would’ve been so easy to hate her, so easy to hand her over to the Malaysian authorities. But Irdina wasn’t a terrorist bent on the downfall of all the infidels. She was simply a mother. A terrified, frantic mother who was willing to do anything she could to rescue her son from the savage jaws of illness. It was a goddamned Charlie Foxtrot if ever there was one. Dan scrubbed a hand back through his hair, trying, quite unsuccessfully, to swallow the lump in his throat.

  I need a drink.

  One day at a time…

  “How do you say ‘I’m sorry’ in Malay?” Penni suddenly asked, her shoulders slumped down so low Dan figured she’d need a hydraulic hoist to lift them up again.

  Do I go to her? Do I not?

  He was still waffling, still ignoring the AA advice that went a little something like quit slackin’ and make shit happen, when Vanessa rattled off a string of syllables. Listening intently, Penni nodded and reached across the table to lay a gentle hand on Irdina’s arm. The maid glanced up, her face tear-streaked and swollen. Tapping a finger on Jaya’s photo, Penni repeated the syllables just as Vanessa had said them. Irdina’s face caved in on itself, and she lifted her hands to cover her eyes, wailing anew.

  “I have to—” Penni’s voice hitched as she quickly pushed back from the little table. Her chair tipped over, hitting the tile floor with a loud crack! Then she was racing for the door.

  Cock and balls! He’d been wondering when that would happen. Because for the last several hours she’d borne a striking resemblance to a suitcase nuke waiting to go boom!

  “Hey guys,” he directed his voice toward the face-up phone, wincing when the door to the storage room slammed shut. The shelves stacked with stainless-steel coffee urns and rows of cups rattled with the impact. “I’m gonna need you two to find out how Irdina knew which beds to plant those incendiary devices under, because I suspect she had direction from someone here at the hotel. In the meantime, I’m gonna go after Penni. I need to make sure she’s okay.” Make some shit happen, indeed.

  “Oui, mon ami,” Rock answered after a beat, once Dan’s cell signal had pinged to the other side of the globe and back. “But what if she decides to make a run for it—”

  “We’re standing in a storage room just off a conference room,” he interrupted, understanding Rock’s confusion and concern before he finished the sentence. “Both can be locked from the outside.” He reached into his pocket to remove the universal keycard the hotel manager had given him.

  “Right,” Rock said, but Dan was already opening the door, pulling it closed and securing it behind him.

  “Penni!” he called. She was halfway across the vacant conference room, making a beeline for the hallway. Her ponytail flew out behind her as her long legs ate up the distance. “Penni, wait!”

  She ignored him as she slammed out of the room. And the choked sob that drifted back to him hit his ears like a percussion grenade. He jettisoned after her, skirting the conference table and hopping over the trash can sitting beside a coffee service cart. Quickly pulling the door closed behind him, he scarcely registered the faint clicking sound of its automati
c lock. Turning, he saw Penni disappear into the women’s bathroom.

  Jogging down the deserted hallway—obviously the hotel manager had made good on Dan’s demands for privacy—he tried to think of what he could possibly say to Penni to bring her some small measure of comfort in this goddamned pisser of a situation. Unfortunately, like Eminem would say, I come from Detroit where it’s rough, and I’m not a smooth talker. But when he wrenched open the door to the ladies’ room only to have her instantly hurl herself into his arms, her nose buried in his neck, her hot tears wetting the fabric of his T-shirt, he realized no words were necessary.

  Penni DePaul simply needed to be held. And, by God, he could certainly do that…

  * * *

  The river roared and thrashed over the rocks as Umar hung onto the rope he had strung across the watery expanse using an ancient technique his grandfather taught him. It basically consisted of attaching one end of the sturdy rope to a leader line, in this case some fishing filament, which was itself attached to native seedpod that was capable of floating atop water. Using a quickly constructed slingshot made of vines and palm bark, he sent the seed with the fishing line attached flying across the raging river. After a couple of failed attempts, the seed finally sailed over his target…the thick limb of a tree. Then, just as it’d done when his grandfather showed him how to do it twenty years ago, the weight of the seed caused it to fall to the ground, roll down the opposite bank, and plop into the water.

  Then came the tricky part…

  By carefully and patiently tugging, and subsequently letting out more and more slack in the lead line, Umar was able to make the seedpod dance across to their side of the river before it was washed too far downstream and he ran out of fishing filament. Then it was a small matter of sliding down the slippery bank without falling in, fetching the seed from the clutches of the seething water, and reeling in the line. Since the rope was attached to its opposite end, by reeling in the line, it forced the rope across the river, over the branch, and back to them. He finished the task by tying the two ends of the rope around the trunk of a tree. And, as the Americans would say, bingo! He and his men could now forge the volatile river by inching their way across the rope like silkworms. And even though the complicated maneuver had given his prey a head start of nearly two hours, it was far better than having to trudge the twenty or so miles down the trail to the next bridge.

  Dropping to the ground after having tested that the rope would hold his weight, he dusted off his hands and turned to catch Azahari and Noordin exchange a look.

  “You do not think it sturdy enough?” he asked his men, narrowing his eyes. Though he was no longer feeling the effects of the serum, it had left him overly tired, in turn making him overly irritable. Then again, his poor mood could simply be a result of knowing his months of careful planning—not to mention the small fortune he had spent—might all be for naught. And that his chances of ever seeing his brother again were slipping farther and farther from his grasp with each passing minute and each additional step that anak haram and the woman took toward the Thai border.

  “It is not that,” Azahari assured him, reaching forward to lay a hand on his shoulder.

  Umar looked down at the offending appendage. Then glanced at Azahari, lifting his brow.

  Azahari quickly removed his fingers, and Umar secretly smiled when the man’s throat worked over a quick, uncomfortable swallow. Yes. You are walking the knife’s edge with me. Turning, he made sure to include the other men in the threat shining from his eyes. You all are.

  Only when his two soldiers bowed their heads in submission did he glance back to Azahari. “Then what is it?”

  “It is the jungle,” Azahari admitted. “It is filled with tigers and elephants. Did you not hear one trumpeting earlier?”

  “Yes. I heard.” Umar once again narrowed his eyes. “What of it?”

  “There are stories of people being killed by—”

  “It is not the jungle you should fear,” Umar warned, stepping close to Azahari. He hated that the man was taller than him, forcing him to lift his chin. But what Umar lacked in height, he made up for in intelligence and ruthlessness. Azahari would do well to remember that.

  “We are not afraid,” Noordin was quick to assure him. “And we will not fail you, Umar.”

  Azahari nodded vigorously in agreement. “Noordin speaks the truth. But, still, would it not be better to wait for the others to arrive? They should be here in less than half an hour. And we will be safer in numbers should we happen upon—”

  “No,” Umar silenced him with one word, his hand slicing through the air. Fools. To be afraid of the jungle like children. And, yes, he understood that most of his men had been born and raised in cities—where some of the more dogmatic mosques had schooled them to hate and revile the West—but still, that was no excuse for their infantile fear of the bush. Did they not see what he had just accomplished? Did they not understand the jungle was his turf? “We will not wait. We will not allow the Americans to gain another minute of ground ahead of us. The others will simply have to catch up.” He could tell by Azahari’s expression that the man wanted to say more. “What is it?” he demanded, growing more impatient with each ticking second.

  “The others will be hesitant to follow,” Azahari said, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the column of his throat. “Not only do they fear the jungle, but they fear the RTAF. This close to the Thai border—”

  Umar had reached his wit’s end. Grabbing Azahari’s shirt in a fist, he snarled into the man’s face. “They will follow. Or, by Allah, I will find them when this is all done and I will kill them myself.” Stepping back, he pointed an angry finger at the rucksack slung over Noordin’s shoulder. “Get on the satellite phone and tell them as much.” When Noordin hesitated, he screamed, “Now!”

  Noordin fumbled with the pack, extracting the large, clumsy satellite phone and dialing the number. After he chokingly relayed Umar’s message, he nodded vigorously. “It is done. They will follow as soon as they arrive.”

  Of course they would. They knew he did not make empty threats. “Good.” He nodded smugly. Then he turned to Azahari and pointed to the rope. “You first.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Orang Asli village of Semaq Ulu

  Ten miles from the border of Thailand

  “These things are delicious,” Abby enthused, a growing pile of rambutan skins and seeds forming at her feet. Rambutan was a red fruit about the size of a small plum. Its thick outer coat was covered in fine, green hairs—not at all an attractive sight, really. Though she was not going to complain over a lack of aesthetics when the little buggers tasted like manna straight from heaven.

  Sitting on a wicker stool in the middle of the village—which consisted of around fifteen bamboo huts constructed high atop stilts and covered with dried palm-leaf roofs—she was amazed to find the tiny piece of furniture was wonderfully comfy. Then again, given the ache of her tired bones and the fatigue in her sore muscles, a bed of nails would’ve probably felt like a goose down comforter.

  Carlos lounged to her left on an identical stool, doing a better job of remembering his table manners. He reached over to wipe a drop of rambutan juice from her chin, and the pad of his calloused thumb felt deliciously abrasive. It highlighted the fact that even though he had the beautiful hands of a surgeon, they were also the seasoned, battle-roughened hands of a soldier. Yum! And, grrr.

  Because now that he’d made it clear he returned her unbridled feelings of…okay…let’s just call it what it was…lust, keeping him at arms’ length was going to be just that much more difficult. And she had to keep him at arms’ length. If she didn’t, she wasn’t sure she’d have the courage to tell him what she’d done. And seeing him again after all these years, seeing how brave and selfless he was, had convinced her she must come clean. Carlos deserved the truth.

  Shaking away her tumultuous thoughts—there’d be plenty of time for them later—she glanced to her right where Yonus, a you
ng Orang Asli man, was sitting on a third stool. The moment they had pushed out of the jungle, the old guy who found them—an elder she’d come to understand was named Mamat—walked them straight up to Yonus. And after a flurry of words in that oddly staccato-sounding dialect, Yonus had shocked the ever-lovin’ shitpickle out of them by welcoming them to the village in the most pristine English she’d ever heard. We’re talking Queen Elizabeth couldn’t have done any better. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t have been all that surprised. You know, considering Yonus was wearing a Polo shirt, Levi’s, and Clarks flip-flops, as opposed to the brightly printed tunics and trousers sported proudly by the other male villagers.

  Long story short, apparently Yonus, orphaned at a young age and sponsored by a missionary group, had received an education outside the tribe. He’d gone to college in Johor, learning English and Malay, and was now working as an advocate for the Orang Asli people all over the country. And luckily—the good Lord knew they were due some luck—he was visiting this particular village on this particular day.

  A couple of bowls of sticky rice and a fat bunch of rambutans later, and Abby figured she might survive long enough to make it to Thailand.

  “I am so glad you like them.” Yonus motioned toward the rambutans.

  “Like them? I’d like to be alone with them,” she enthused.

  Yonus grinned down at his flip-flops. “There is a joke amongst the Orang Asli when it comes these fruits.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, noshing on another juicy morsel, willing her body to absorb the calories and give her a welcome boost. As soon as they left here, it was going to be ten more grueling miles of monkey calls and tiger roars and big, slithering snakes. Ten more torturous miles of clinging vines and tripping roots and air so thick it made her feel like she was drowning anytime she sucked in an exhausted yawn.

  “They say they resemble a grown man’s…” he gestured vaguely toward the fly of his Levi’s…“nether bits.”