He looked down at her, pushed wet clumps of hair off her face. Her lids lifted, smoky brown eyes penetrating his soul and making him hurt. “Don’t scare me like that,” he said, nudging her.
Her laugh brought on a fit of coughing, and when it subsided she cleaned her throat. Her voice was a little raspy. “See, told you so.”
“Yes, you did.” What it meant, he didn’t know. But he wasn’t going to ignore it again. “Forgive me?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders sank with relief.
“But I’m going to use this to get my way for a very long time.”
His smile was slow, lighting his eyes. “Fire away.” Mike leaned down slowly, as if waiting for her to take back her forgiveness. His mouth settled over hers, drugging her with soft moves and a sweep of his tongue.
She hummed against his mouth, touched his jaw delicately. “Thanks for my life,” she whispered, and he squeezed her close, the tightness in the back of his throat strangling him.
She curled comfortably in his arms, then said, “Are we leaving this place any time soon?”
“No, baby.” Mike looked up at the crack in the mountain. “Not yet.”
Maybe not ever.
Francine couldn’t handle it. The rush of adrenaline swept her body every hour, increasing every moment, and she couldn’t keep still or work. She wanted to hit something, do anything to stop it. She was probably going to jail, and locked in a cell would drive her insane. This has to end, she thought and kept searching the lab for the Terminator. It wasn’t in its case and she knew Clancy had taken it, but there was more than one. Wasn’t there? She shook her head as if her careening thoughts would break free and fall into place, but they didn’t, wouldn’t.
She went back to the computer, trying to open Clancy’s notes for the operations specification. But Clancy had locked her out of her files.
Francine shoved at the keyboard and pushed back, pacing when she wanted to run. She gripped the back of her neck, massaging the insertion location and wishing she could pull it out. She had time to stop it, she thought. But the only person who could help her operate the sonic machine was lost in South America.
She filled a cup of water, and drained it, drinking four more before the dryness in her mouth felt quenched. She made notes in her iPod. If this was going to permanently damage her brain, she wanted all the information so they wouldn’t do it again. It was laughable to think this project would continue, and she regretted her actions. But maybe a private company would see the potential that she and Carl had destroyed. Clancy had created the technology that would someday enable the handicapped to function. It can’t be wasted, no matter what.
She moved to the bank of screens, watching Boris.
She adjusted the joystick, moving the camera closer. The ape was on the ground, writhing, clawing himself. When he rolled toward the camera, Francine lurched back, horrified as Boris clawed at his face to the point of bleeding.
She rushed to the habitat, pushing past people and sending a soldier into the wall.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said without looking back, keyed herself in, and went immediately to the tranq gun. She loaded it, cocking the gun, and then keyed open the wide glass doors. She fired, but Boris didn’t move. Francine realized the orangutan was already dead, his torn face lying in a pile beside him, blood dripping from his stubby fingers.
For a long moment, she stared at the gruesome mess. That could be me, she thought, then closed the doors. Sullenly, she turned away, grabbing a new cartridge and preparing it for herself.
Clancy slept and didn’t think she’d moved till she tried to sit up. Her body screamed with aches and scrapes, and she inspected her elbows. She really hoped there weren’t any more underground streams to swim. She lay back down, the moments when her lungs filled with water playing in her mind. She knew she was dying then. There wasn’t much question in that, yet she could also see they were still far off. Signaling Mike would have drowned him too and then neither of them would have survived. He had to live. He had a job to do. It sounded so damn noble, but the reality was, she was really glad he’d revived her.
Yet the moment took away her fear and she wondered if this was what he felt when he was on a mission. Kissing death wasn’t something she wanted to experience again, but she wasn’t afraid. You outgrew the thrill junkie crap, she reminded herself, then heard movement behind her. She rolled and found a little camp behind her, and pushed up as Mike came out a tunnel with an armload of sticks.
When he saw her, he stopped short. Boy, is that a sappy grin! she thought, feeling suddenly warmed.
“Move around, it will help.”
“Says you.” She tried to stand and he tossed down the stack and helped her. “I think you bruised me.” She rubbed her chest.
“Want me to check?”
She looked at him, emotionless. “I hope you have better lines than that, Gannon. It’s almost prehistoric.” He just kept smiling, and walked with her around a bit. “How’s it looking?” She settled to the ground, and noticed her clothes were almost dry.
“Tunnels go in two directions.” Mike built a small fire. “One is blocked with fresh dirt. Richora’s grenade did that, I think. The others are narrow, but passable.” And they led down, not lateral.
“Then where did you find wood?”
“It’s just dead roots from the tunnels, and that’s about it for the stockpile.” He laid pieces of torn cloth on the twigs, then struck two rocks for a spark.
“That’s good, Boy Scout, but I have a lighter. Oh, it’s back…there.” Her words trailed off when he gestured to the pack off to the side. “You went back? Michael!”
He met her gaze and made no excuses. “You’re right, it was twelve minutes. Nobody can hold their breath for half that and swim.”
“But you did?”
He nodded, scowling as he struck the rocks. The spark shot and the cloth fibers caught.
“Mike, look at me.”
He didn’t and blew on the fire, adjusting till it caught more. “I know what you’re going to say, I thought it too. I was in the hospital, right near your lab.”
She shook her head. “You have no marks and you’ve shown none of the preliminary reactions.”
He looked up sharply. “Like what?”
“Dizziness at first.”
He shrugged. “I was doped in the hospital, so that’s nothing.” He built up the fire, then grasped his pack and started loading it.
“Do you feel any different?”
“Yeah.”
“Explain.”
He held her gaze, laying a positively wicked smile on her, and Clancy experienced it as if he’d held her heart in his palm. “Orgasms don’t count.”
He burst out laughing, and she launched at him, wanting to get better acquainted with that sound. He held her, kissing her slowly.
“Don’t fight it,” he mimicked, squeezing her.
“Give me a break. I’m so out of practice, I’m retro.”
“Weren’t you married?”
“Not really. His sudden proclivity for women’s underclothes was a real clue it wasn’t going to work.” She shrugged. “He did it to please his family. I was just part of the role he was playing.”
“Christ.” What a creep.
“Were you ever married?” Her expression melted. “Oh, hell, are you?”
“No, and hell no. You wouldn’t be in my arms if I was.”
She relaxed, more than delighted with his honesty. “I’m sure you have women stripping on your doorstep, so why not?” Cradled on his lap, she ran her finger over his collarbone, brushing the healed wound in his shoulder.
“No time and no one willing to deal with all the it’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“And you don’t need to know,” she finished and he nodded. “I understand. Even my mom doesn’t know what I really do.”
“Mine either. But she’s not uninformed.” And she’d love Clancy, he thought, surprising himself. He was suddenly
glad his brothers were married with children. “They just don’t ask for details.”
Her hands smoothed over his bare chest, her mouth on his throat and trailing lower. “We’re talking too much,” she said, sliding her tongue over his nipple, and heard air hiss through his teeth. She liked that he tried to restrain himself and nipped at his rib cage. His muscles jumped and when she backed off his lap and bent lower, Mike gripped her shoulders, then set her back from him.
She blinked, disappointed.
“Keep that up and we’ll never get out of here.” He’d never want to, Mike thought, but had men waiting for him to find them.
“Killjoy.” She taunted him with another heart-pounding kiss, then eased back. He handed her a granola bar, and she made a sour face, yet ate it in under a minute as she tried to recall the discussion. “Okay, so far we’d learned some of the symptoms are aggression, fearlessness, heightened sex drive.”
“Check that one off.” He chuckled to himself and she nudged him to hush.
“Increases strength and intelligence, and the five senses sharpen exponentially.”
“Senses are acute, but they’ve always been fairly good. Fearless? No. That’s stupid, fear keeps you sharp. The rest, no difference that I noticed.”
It could all be explained away with a man like him, Clancy thought. All he did was train for the next mission. “Your speed?”
“I run decathlons to stay in shape.”
“Jeez, I bet you’re tons of fun on a date. And when we make it out of this, you’ll just have to cut back on some of that stuff.” His features went soft, then tight with understanding. “A twenty-mile run or sex with me?”
“Now, there’s a tough choice,” he muttered and she laughed.
“There’s sleep deprivation.” She frowned, realizing neither of them had time for much rest in the past few days. “When was the last time you slept?”
He was quiet for a moment. “When I got to San José de Lourdes.”
“That’s two days, Mike.”
“I hadn’t noticed. But I’ve gone for days without sleep before.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I looked before, you don’t have a mark.” He met her gaze. “When you said they were your men, I checked. I thought perhaps they’d done it to you without knowing. But you have no mark. None. It would have left an injection point.” It was a big needle and a deep plunge.
“I heal quickly.”
“Maybe so, but holding your breath that long?” She shook her head, sitting back on her calves.
“I know, but if it’s in me”—the words stuck in his throat—“then we’re alive because of it.”
She was right before. His attributes, finely honed from years of training, could be explained away. But what if they weren’t? Clancy couldn’t consider it. Nano in Mike was just plain unacceptable. Because it would kill him too.
“Let’s get out of here.”
He frowned. “You should probably rest.”
“I’m fine.” She reached for her bag. It was empty and she noticed her clothes strung over the boulders. She went to them, snatching them up like retrieving from a panty raid. She turned sharply, giving Mike an amused did you have fun? smile. He actually reddened a little. Such a man, she thought.
“Perhaps you should put some clothes on.”
She smiled, aware of what she looked like in a T-shirt and pink panties.
Mike glanced up. She hadn’t moved and was a damn invitation for sex standing there like that. “Have mercy on me, Irish.”
“Not a chance, Marine.” With her back to him, she stripped to her skin, then dressed, aware he was watching her. She gave him a show. Then she realized he’d rinsed out her other clothes. She cocked a look over her shoulder. He was gawking.
“That wasn’t mercy,” he rasped, then cleared his throat. “That was torture.”
“I know. Wanna make something of it?”
“Yeah, I will, damn it. When we get out of this place, I want a week alone for some payback.”
“Just a week?”
“Christ. Keep talking like that and I won’t be able to walk.”
She laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls as she grabbed her boots and socks, then sat on the ground. Mike watched as she reverently put the classified data into her boots, then slipped them on.
“So how do we get out of here?” She looked up at the crack in the ceiling above the waterfall. It was long and narrow, yet aligned with the sun so the place was lit for a good portion of the day. On purpose or a fluke? “I bet I could climb that. I’ve rock-climbed before.”
That didn’t surprise him. “I considered it, you’re small enough, but not enough rope.” It had to be forty feet up and they needed at least twice that. “I can’t get through that crack, and besides, where would you go for help? We were in drug territory before. I’m betting up there, it’s no different.”
“Do we even know where we are in this mountain?”
“South of the ruins, I figure. But the GPS won’t go through this much stone. I can draw up the last map. But there’s enough iron in these walls that my compass isn’t working.”
He held up his wrist and she could see it quiver. Magnetized. “I knew I should have kept that one from the Cracker Jacks.” He smiled to himself, shaking his head. “So what’s in those?” She tossed a thumb at the holes in the wall.
“They go in the wrong direction, down. We head toward the light.” He opened an energy bar that looked a bit smashed, then pushed a stack of brown packages toward her.
She studied the selection. “Oo, peanut butter and crackers!” She snatched it up.
He made a face. “It’s MRE.” Meals Ready to Eat.
“They’re much better tasting than they were in Desert Storm.”
His head jerked up and his gaze shot over her like a buzzing bee. “I keep forgetting.” He stuffed the pack without paying much attention to it. “I hate the desert.”
“I like my sand on a beach with a mimosa,” she agreed. “You were here before?”
He nodded, chewing and swallowing. “It was a DEA sweep with Peru’s drug officers. I spent five days trying to get off that mountain.”
“Lost? That’s not promising.”
He looked at her, deadpan. “Lost? No. It was the terrain. This area is easy, dense, and close to the river. Follow the water and it’s a way out. The higher you go, the tougher it is to breathe. I was carrying wounded, too.”
“Nathan Krane.”
His brows drew tight.
“He’s the only one besides you who’s ever been wounded.”
“Nathan’s my closest friend. We were assigned to DEA working a sweep in Colombia and Peru for Shining Path drug factories. Proceeds from the cocaine trade were—are channeled to terrorists in Afghanistan.” He clenched his fist. “Man, I really don’t want to bring back just his dog tags.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking if anyone were alive, it would be Krane. Unless the nano shit went haywire in him. “The source of the water is that way.” He left out a breath, shedding his worry, and pointed to the spill of the waterfall. “Somewhere behind it.” He closed his pack and reached for a plain black T-shirt, pulling it on.
“Behind? Is it deep enough to get behind?”
“No, we have to find a way around.” He stood, tucking in his shirt and dressing in more weapons. He held out a loaded gun and thought, he really did trust her. She put it in the cargo pocket of her pants, the weight making her slacks droop on her hips, and then she shouldered on the pack. Mike put out the fire, then went to the waterfall.
Clancy climbed after him, balanced on the jumble of rocks. The fall looked more like the mountain had sprung a leak. Water fought its ways around the boulders, most of it streaming straight down and flowing into the pool. She put her hand in it and the force of it stung, surprising her.
“It’s like a cork.” She balanced as she moved the few yards to the fissure, a crooked passageway into complete darkness. “You sure about this?”
/> “Look.” He aimed the flashlight and showed the hollow beyond the fissure.
“Another cavern? It’s a wonder it hasn’t caved in on itself.” A steady breeze pushed through the crack, and she heard whistling wind above the splashing water.
Mike kissed her, then led the way. He’d gone twenty feet before he was forced to take off the pack and move laterally, foot by foot. Clancy followed right behind him, but she kept her pack on.
“Suck it in, Gannon,” she teased when the rock pressed against his chest. She held his pack when his steps became increments as he forced his big body between the slabs of stone. “The air is coming harder.” Strong enough to push at her hair.
Mike struggled to pass, barely able to bend his knees to lift his foot, yet Clancy was leaning, waiting to inch along with him. Behind her was over thirty feet of stone and rock, and she suspected this had been part of the last room, a sacrificial chamber perhaps. “Can you see the end?”
“Yeah, another forty feet or so.” Mike ran his hands over the slick wall to find something to grasp for leverage. “This wall’s not a solid slab. I feel grids, stacked stones.”
“Man-made is good. They had to get it in here somehow.”
“Unless they built it in here.”
“No negative vibes, Marine. You’re just asking for a bad karma.”
He smiled to himself and was about fifteen feet from the edge, the wind pushing hard, but the space was too narrow to draw his arm to shine the light. “Get behind me, take this, and shine it down past my feet.”
She did and Mike looked, his body nearly crushed between the walls. “There is nothing there.”
She adjusted the light to hold it as high as she could and still point down. “Nothing?”
“If there is, I can’t see it.”
“Mike?” Clancy straightened, and frowned at the ground. “Am I nuts or—”
“No, I felt it too.” Under his feet, against his back. The ground trembled, rocks sprinkling. It felt as if he were standing on golf balls.
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