The man stopped for just an instant, lifting his head to peer around like an animal testing the wind. Lisa closed her eyes, terrified that the faint light reflecting off them might make her visible in the dark. She opened them again when she heard him move. He was headed away from her, toward the jeeps, his movements stealthy.
Compelled by something she didn’t understand, Lisa followed him at a safe distance, stopping when he stopped, taking care to make as little noise as possible. He seemed unaware of her presence. . . . As she had thought, he was headed for the jeeps. They were parked together, six of them, in a little cleared area surrounded by dense trees.
He seemed to know precisely where they were; he was still moving quietly, but surely, when he emerged into the clearing. Lisa stopped at the edge of the trees, sheltering in their shadow. The man crept around the first of the parked vehicles; his object seemed to be the jeep farthest from where she stood—Sam’s jeep. The jeep she usually waited in.
Skirting around the edge of the trees, Lisa was able to keep the man in view. What could he want? To disable the jeeps? He didn’t act like it; he had made no effort to do anything to any of them. To steal something, like an engine cart? Perhaps . . . Ducking, he reached Sam’s jeep and moved swiftly alongside. Then suddenly he straightened. For a moment he stood motionless, staring at the inside of the jeep as if it was not what he expected to see. Then he swung around. Lisa was startled into taking a hasty step backward. A twig crackled under her foot. The small sound brought the man’s eyes straight to her. Gulping, she met his gaze head-on. With a little frisson of shock she recognized him: it was the man who had attacked her that afternoon down by the creek, the man Sam had identified as Lutz. And with a sudden, horrible quiver of fear, she realized that he had returned to the jeeps in hopes of finding her.
They both stood frozen for an instant, staring at each other through the silvery darkness. Then Lutz took a step toward her. Lisa whirled, ready to run into the jungle. There was no doubt in her mind that he meant to finish what he had started down by the creek that day. . . .
“Lutz! What the hell are you doing here?”
Lisa nearly swooned with relief as Sam’s voice sounded irately from the other side of the clearing. Lutz swung around at the sound, facing Sam.
“I—finished up.”
“Your orders were to wait by the trail for the rest of us to join you.”
As Sam spoke, the other men came silently up behind him. At his curt gesture, they headed for the jeeps. Sam himself was moving toward his own jeep.
“I—forgot.”
“Don’t forget again.” Sam’s voice was hard. As he reached the side of his jeep, looking vainly for her, Lisa thought she heard the harsh indrawing of his breathing. He swung around. . . .
“Lisa?” he called, the necessary hush of his voice in no way mitigating its sharpness. Startled out of her momentary stupor, Lisa hurried toward him.
“I’m here, Sam,” she answered breathlessly.
He waited for her; when she reached his side, he said nothing, but stood back to allow her to climb into the back of the jeep. To her surprise, he motioned to Frank to drive, and got into the back with her, letting Malloy, the other man who usually rode with them, sit in front for once.
“Are you all right?” Sam asked gruffly once the convoy was under way.
“Yes,” Lisa answered quietly, touched by his obvious concern. Unobtrusively, she scooted a little closer to him on the seat. She found his hard warmth comforting after the scare she’d had.
“What were you doing out of the jeep? Lutz didn’t . . . ?”
“No.” The word was soft.
Sam took a deep breath, releasing it in what sounded like a sigh. “After tomorrow, you won’t have to worry about him anymore,” he said, speaking low so that the two in the front seats couldn’t hear him. “Tomorrow, we finish up, and then we go our separate ways. You should be home in a couple of days.”
Lisa didn’t reply to this. She had thought that she would feel jubilant when Sam at last told her that she would be going home, but she didn’t: instead, she felt kind of—empty. She supposed it would take a little while for the news to sink in . . .
Sam too was silent the rest of the way back to the camp. But once they were alone in his tent, he made love to her with an intensity that seared them both.
The men stayed around the camp the next day, packing up the tents and loading the jeeps. By the time darkness fell, there was nothing left of the camp except a small circle of dead ashes and several patches of flattened grass where the tents had been. Even those signs, Sam told her, would disappear within days.
Lisa was sitting on her favorite flat rock, waiting for Sam to join her. At his direction, she had exchanged the raggedy shorts and shirt for one of his old uniforms—a whole one. His flak jacket rested on her shoulders. They would be on the move all night, he had told her, and it would get cold. When she had protested that he might need his coat himself, he had merely shrugged and said that he was a lot more used to difficult conditions than she was.
All day Lisa had sensed the tension that permeated the camp. This was it, their faces seemed to say; they were unusually quiet as they waited to finish the job they had come to Rhodesia to do. Lisa herself was as nervous as a cat. Whatever they were engaged in was dangerous, she knew. She was worried about the outcome—about her own safety and, as much as she hated to admit it, Sam’s. Despite everything, she didn’t like to think of him being hurt or killed.
When Sam came for her at last, she gaped at him through the deepening gloom. His face was as black as pitch.
“What on earth . . . !” She gasped.
He grinned, looking for all the world like a black-faced performer in an old-time minstrel show.
“Shoe polish,” he explained laconically. “Makes you harder to spot at night. Want some?” He held out a small, flat can.
Lisa shuddered, shaking her head. Sam laughed and turned away, pocketing the shoe polish. But it wasn’t long before he was back, herding her and his men into the jeeps. The mission was on.
They returned to the same spot they had used the night before. Again, Lisa was left with the jeeps while the men melted away into the jungle. This time, she was determined to stay with the vehicle and keep the pistol close at hand. Last night she had learned a valuable lesson.
She waited for what seemed like hours, her nervousness increasing with every passing minute. What if something went wrong and Sam never came back? What if . . . ? Resolutely she banished these horrible conjectures from her mind. Sam was a professional, he knew what he was doing, she comforted herself. But still . . . Her nagging doubts refused to be silenced.
Lisa had no idea what time it was when a slight sound brought her upright in the seat. Her eyes strained toward the direction from which it had come. Surely Lutz wouldn’t be bold enough—or stupid enough—to try the same thing two nights running. Her hand closed over the pistol; a bullet was already in the chamber, so all she had to do was flick the safety off. This she did, her hand slightly unsteady. Then she turned back to peer into the woods in the direction of the noise.
She was just in time to see the night explode around her.
VIII
SAM was knocked flat on his belly by the force of the explosion. He lay there for a moment, stunned. Then his instincts, honed by years of being faced with potentially deadly situations, took over. Even before the sharp rat-a-tat of the machine guns began, he was on his feet, ducking and dodging through the dense jungle undergrowth. Bullets smacked into the ground and bushes and trees all around him. Severed foliage showered him like rain. Luckily, he seemed not to be hit—so far. At least he didn’t feel anything. But then, he had known men to have an entire limb blown off and not know about it until they looked down and saw the bloody stump. Shock acted as a local anesthetic. However, he seemed to be in one piece, and as long as he was, he was going to run like hell. All around him he could hear hoarse curses accompanied by the crashing of t
he undergrowth as those of his men who had survived the explosion did the same thing.
What the hell had gone wrong? was the question that ran through his mind as he zigzagged at a dead run for the jeeps. What the bloody hell had gone wrong?
The damned explosives had blown too soon—that was one thing. They’d barely had time to get ten feet away when the whole thing had gone up like a Chinese fireworks factory. The blast had sent them hurtling through the air like matchsticks in a tornado. When it was over, the charge that was supposed to have acted as a diversion while they got on with what they had been hired to do had killed four of his men. But the premature explosion wasn’t the only thing. There had been soldiers waiting in ambush nearby, guns at the ready, clearly aware that some sort of attack would be launched from precisely that point, at precisely that time. Which meant that someone had talked—someone in his group, because they were the only ones who knew the details of the operation. But who? The question clawed at Sam’s guts as he alternately pounded, rolled, and scrambled for the jeeps.
Now that he thought about it, the unexpected explosion had probably saved his life. Otherwise, he and the rest of the men would have walked right into the trap that was waiting for them. At least the enemy had been as taken by surprise as he and his men were. They had been flushed out of hiding before they’d been ready, and it was for this reason that he and most of his men were still alive—temporarily, at least.
Even as these thoughts ran through Sam’s mind, another hideous possibility occurred to him. It was quite likely that another enemy military unit would be waiting at the jeeps. That would be the logical backup move on the part of the opposing commander, who seemed well versed in all the details of their operation and would surely know the location of the jeeps. Sam himself would make such a move. For an instant Sam pictured Lisa alone in his jeep, falling into the hands of men who would regard her as a sexual plaything for the entire company at best and a spy at worst, and winced. Then, deliberately, he blanked her image from his mind. This was no time to start getting sentimental. He needed every ounce of concentration he possessed just to survive.
They had to have the jeeps. That was the beginning and end of it. If they were to make the airstrip on time, to board the plane that would be waiting tonight to take them out of the country before all hell broke loose, they had to have the jeeps. Period.
Grunting, Sam jerked the M-16 from where it hung by its shoulder strap, checking the weapon quickly as he ran. Turning to fire at the unit closing in behind him would have been suicidal: if he stopped, he was as good as dead. But fighting for the jeeps was another story—they needed those jeeps to survive.
“Get ready to fire!” Sam yelled hoarsely in the direction of his men, hoping they weren’t too far away to hear and understand. They were all seasoned fighters—they would realize the importance of the jeeps. He hoped.
Sam reached the edge of the clearing, ducking behind a large mopani tree and resting his back against it. Quickly he reconnoitered the clearing. Unbelievably, there seemed not to be any men lying in wait for them. You fool! Sam thought contemptuously of the opposing commander, then turned to fire several quick bursts at the enemy forces coming up behind them to cover his men’s retreat.
All around him the men were hitting the clearing, some with rifles at the ready, the more stupid ones with their weapons still strapped to their backs.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Sam roared at them, gesturing them into the jeeps. They didn’t need any urging. The vehicles began to move out almost before the command had left his mouth. Some of the men had to run to catch up and then leap precariously on board.
Sam saw his own jeep begin to roll, and ran toward it, still firing behind him at the soldiers who were almost at the edge of the clearing. Mike Harley, a young man who had been brought along on Frank’s recommendation, was driving; he swung the vehicle in a wide arc to pick Sam up. Sam leaped on board, going over the side of the jeep in a low rolling dive. As he hit the rear seat, he felt his body crash against something soft and yielding. Lisa. Her breath expelled forcibly as he knocked the wind out of her. He straightened, catching just a glimpse of her white, frightened face before his hand was on her head, pushing it down below the level of the seat. Then he shoved her bodily down onto the floorboard.
“Get down and stay down!” he growled fiercely.
She said nothing, but crouched where he had pushed her, her eyes enormous in her pale face as she stared fearfully up at him. Sam spared her no more than a quick glance; then he was turning, kneeling on the seat, firing staccato bursts from his rifle. As the jeeps roared out of the clearing, with his the last in line, enemy soldiers began bursting through the trees, their machine guns blasting.
Sam felt the bullet that slammed into the left rear tire as if it had struck some vital part of his body. Cursing, he abandoned all attempts to provide cover fire for their retreat and concentrated on hanging on as the jeep veered wildly. On the floorboard, Lisa moaned and clutched at his leg; he could feel her nails digging through his pants into his calf. In the front, Harley fought valiantly to hold the jeep steady. For a moment there Sam thought he was going to be able to do it. Then another bullet slammed into the right rear tire. The jeep bucked like a rodeo bronc; its rear swung around in a crazy attempt to catch up to its front. There was a jolting lurch as they hit some sort of hole. As the jeep rolled over, with a kind of slow inevitability, Sam heard Lisa scream.
Miraculously, he was thrown clear; as soon as he hit the ground he was on his feet, crouching, moving, scrambling for his rifle, risking a scared glance back the way they had come. The enemy were closing on them, rifles spitting fire and death. God! He had to get out of there, fast. The thought had no sooner entered his mind than he was heading for the jungle. Then he saw Lisa. She was lying on her stomach in the dirt, her hands flung wide, her legs spread. She was not moving—she appeared not even to be breathing. As he dove toward her, Sam cursed himself for the thousandth time for not having left her lying in the jungle the first time he had ever laid eyes on her. She was going to be the death of him yet. But he could not bring himself to leave her. . . . She would be raped, tortured; a quick death would be the best she could hope for.
Cursing, sweating with fear, he ran quick hands over her body. She was breathing. All his haphazardly acquired medical knowledge screamed at him not to move her. He ignored it, scooping her up in his arms and flinging her over his shoulder, then heading at a dead run for the line of trees that offered a measure of safety. Several A.L.I.C.E. packs had been flung from the jeep and lay near the edge of the undergrowth. Instinctively, Sam scooped one up, hardly slowing his stride.
Bullets spat all around him as he leaped into the trees. Casting one more scared glance behind him, he saw that the soldiers had reached the overturned jeep. They stopped for just an instant, giving him valuable time; a single shot rang out. They’d done for Harley, poor kid, Sam thought, and said a brief prayer for the repose of his soul. All the while he was leaping through the undergrowth as fast as his legs would carry him.
They were coming after him; Sam could hear them as they reached the trees. Apparently they could hear him, too, because blasts of machine-gun fire began to pepper the area around him. Sam felt perspiration roll off his body in waves, more from fear than exertion. They were close behind him—too damned close. Lisa was a dead weight over his shoulder. Any professional soldier worth his salt would dump her on the spot. One thing they all learned early in their careers was that when the chips were down, you had to look out for number one. But, dammit, she was a goddamn girl! Cursing himself and her impartially, Sam knew he couldn’t leave her.
Thorny branches tore at his face and clothes as he ran through the jungle. He could feel his skin tear in a dozen places; little trickles of blood ran down his face and neck. There was no pain—he was too scared.
Lisa’s head thudded against the middle of his back. She was still not moving—he hoped she was merely unconscious. It was
possible that one of the randomly fired bullets had caught her; she might be dead or dying even now. If so, there wasn’t a thing in hell he could do about it. If he stopped, they were both dead.
Bullets whistled through the air around him; Christ, they were getting close. He prayed as he hadn’t prayed since he was a kid. . . .
“Ahhgg!” He couldn’t prevent himself from crying out as a bullet smacked into his left shoulder blade. The force of the impact sent him sprawling; he fell heavily to his knees and one hand, the other going automatically behind him to clutch as close to the wound as he could reach. He felt blood pour over his hand; fiery knives seemed to be twisting viciously in his shoulder. Tears came to his eyes. God, that hurt! But he was still alive, though for how long was still a question. Behind him, the soldiers were getting closer with every heartbeat.
Lisa had been thrown a little way in front of him by his fall. He crawled over to her: she was breathing. Even as he bent over her, knowing that he would no longer be able to carry her but still not able to bring himself to leave her, she opened her eyes. They stared blankly up at him.
“Thank God!” he said, groaning. Then, taking her by the shoulder, he shook her roughly.
“Lisa,” he hissed, desperation making his voice as cutting as icy whips. “You’ve got to get up! Do you hear me?”
She didn’t move. He shook her again, beginning to despair. Christ, he couldn’t carry her—but he couldn’t leave her, either.
“Goddammit, did you hear me?” he demanded fiercely. “If you don’t move your ass, I’m going to leave you behind. Do you understand?”
To Love a Man Page 12