by Cindy Gerard
Watch your back, you slimeball, she thought, before cutting her gaze away from where he stood under the shelter of a tree in the fading daylight, his back to her, his rifle slung over his bony shoulder. If he and his buddies force-marched them up the steep mountainside path into the mine tomorrow and he came within shoving distance, the little sadist was going to find himself on a fast ride to the bottom of the deep, rocky ravine.
Once, she would have felt guilty for having such horrible thoughts about another human being. That was before she’d experienced the depth of man’s inhumanity to man.
Her belly growled with hunger. She tried not to think about it, or about the cuts and bruises on her body and her feet and the utter, consuming hopelessness that clogged her throat like a rock. Instead she thought of ruby slippers, a magic lantern, a get-out-of-jail-free card. Anything to keep her from dwelling on the dull, lifeless eyes of the others who shared this prison with her.
She’d settle for a rabbit hole in Wonderland. A frickin’ time continuum. Please, God, anything to take her back in time to before she’d flown halfway across the world, wide-eyed and ready to embrace the first big adventure of her life—a humanitarian mission to help set up a dialysis unit in a rural Myanmar hospital.
Something to take her back to a time before she’d stepped out of a taxi onto a bustling, vital, wildly exotic city street, only to gasp in horror when she’d seen a young girl being beaten with the butt of a gun. She’d run to the girl’s defense and been promptly arrested for “interference” in a police matter.
“You have been charged as an enemy of the state of Myanmar.”
Verdict: guilty.
Sentence: ten years of hard labor.
She closed her eyes and dug deep to keep from giving in to burning tears as rain streaked down her face. Panic knotted in her chest, tight as a clenched fist.
Surely someone was looking for her. They had to be looking for her, right? Only how would they ever find her?
She clutched her hands together between her breasts, wishing she hadn’t been so thorough in her research. Wishing she didn’t know that this country formerly known as Burma was the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia—260,000 square miles, much of it the dense, mountainous rain forest surrounding these mines. Wishing with all her heart that she’d listened to her family and Wyatt when they’d begged her not to go to this fascinating yet frightening place, where military rule was often arbitrary and brutal.
260,000 square miles.
She bit back a sob.
How could anyone possibly find her?
The sound of a struggle and angry voices jarred her head up just as the cell door swung open and her captors shoved a Burmese man inside. A dozen faces—their eyes dull, their hope gone—glanced up, then away from the new captive, who landed in a sodden heap on the muddy ground.
Only a week into this “adventure” and she got it. They didn’t see the old man as one of them. They saw him as one more invasion of precious little space, one more belly in need of precious little food, one more soul doomed to suffer and eventually die in this godforsaken work camp.
As she stared at the pathetic lump of humanity curled into a ball at her feet and reached out a tentative hand—an offer of comfort, of human kindness—she finally accepted the brutal truth.
She could die here.
A bone-wrenching shudder ripped through her. For certain, they were going to make her wish she was dead, long before starvation or the elements or some virulent infection finished her off.
Suddenly her father’s voice echoed in her mind.
“You’re a scrapper, sugar doll. That’s what’s gonna see you through this ol’ life.”
She’d heard those words all through her life whenever she’d run up against seemingly unbeatable odds.
She drew a deep breath, finding a new well of resolve. Her father was right. She had a choice. She could lie down like a lamb and die here or she could stand like a lion and fight. It was up to her—only her. No one else was going to save her. Her fellow captives had their hands full keeping themselves alive.
That was the operative word. She was still alive, and as long as she had breath she was going to stay that way.
Tomorrow or the next day, no matter what, she had to attempt an escape. While she still had the strength to run.
HOT, MUGGY AIR, pungent with the scents and sounds of the bustling streets of Mandalay, blew through the open driver’s-side rear window. The black sedan that the Tatmadaw military commander had arranged to transport Cav to the ruby mines near Mogok shot recklessly through heavy traffic. Though Yangon was the country’s capital, Mandalay, a city of more than a million people, was the last royal capital of Burma, the capital of the Mandalay Division, and Upper Myanmar’s main commercial city.
Cav had arrived on a charter flight from Jakarta for an early morning appointment with the commerce minister, who had been the key to setting his plan in motion. Once he’d been wheels down on the tarmac at Mandalay International, there was no turning back.
He was proceeding on blind faith now, counting on Wyatt to put everything into play from Georgia to ensure that Cav could get Carrie out of the country once he rescued her from her abductors. If he managed to rescue her.
Cav watched the action fly by outside the car window. Men on small bicycles and motorcycles wove through streets glutted with battered taxies and city buses, while women on foot carried big bucket baskets filled with produce on the ends of long poles balanced on their shoulders. Colorful umbrellas covered merchandise lining the crowded throughways. City police wearing blue uniforms and carrying assault rifles stood on every corner.
If their presence alone hadn’t announced absolute military rule, the huge murals painted on the sides of buildings, depicting soldiers in front of a backdrop of the red, white, and blue Myanmar flag, would have.
Cav let it all pass by in silence, his relaxed bearing as bogus as his cover story. As far as the CIA was concerned, he had a family emergency and was on personal leave. As far as the Junta government of Myanmar was concerned, Frank Windle was here, representing the interests of Horizons, International.
Windle’s false but well-known reputation as an unscrupulous player, willing to do business with oppressive military regimes, had placed him and HI on the International Dirty List—and, consequently, high on trade-agreement lists with corrupt military regimes.
Would the CIA be happy to find out Cav was freelancing using his CIA cover? Not so much. Uncle would never sanction an official op to find one lost American. But by the time his handler discovered he’d gone off the grid it would be too late to stop him.
Cav had counted on the Windle name to open back doors in the dirty underbelly of unethical international commerce. And since the military government backed all the unethical commerce in these parts, he had figured the trail would lead to Carrie Granger.
He’d figured right. Carrie Granger, it seemed, was the victim of a bungled arrest, and the Myanmar government hoped to cover up its blunder simply by making her “go away.”
No evidence, no crime, no complicity.
And no chance in hell was he going to let them get away with it.
He glanced at the driver, who wore an olive drab uniform with a red patch on the upper sleeve. His matching helmet was standard military issue. Another soldier with an assault rifle rode shotgun. Cav’s personal “security guard,” who had been assigned as “protection” by General Maung Aye, the commerce minister, sat on the far side of the backseat, eyes forward.
While Maung Aye had granted Cav access to the ruby mines, it was no surprise that he had not agreed to let Cav bring his own security detail for the overnighter up in the mountains. Cav had expected as much, and the driver and a couple of heavies he’d hired locally had been mostly for show. A fat cat American investor would be expected to travel with a protection detail, so he’d come equipped with all the bells and whistles.
The fact that Cav was the only one in the vehicle wit
Cav was still holding his breath over the small backpack between his feet. He’d hidden a KA-Bar Warthog folding knife, an area map, a GPS locator, and his cell phone in a secret compartment in the specially designed metal frame. So far, the compartment had gotten by the quick, cursory search by the military—most likely because he’d been carrying a decoy cell and GPS that had been taken away from him despite his very vocal protest. He’d learned a long time ago that a little acting went a long way to deflect attention from what he really wanted to hide.
It had been almost three days since Wyatt had called Cav. Seventy-two hours, and the promise of several hundred thousand kyat to grease palms, loosen lips, and open doors, to finally find out what had happened to Carrie Granger. Cav figured it was going to take roughly seventy-two acts of God to pull this off and get her out of the deep, deep trouble she was in.
He settled in for a minimum five-hour ride, noting landmarks as they traveled. When the driver stopped a couple of hours out of the city and Cav’s “security guard” gave him the option of placing a hood over his head himself or having one of them do it for him, it got even longer.
Three
The guard dogs—six mangy mixed-breed rottweiler types, all big, half starved, and trained to be mean—barked maniacally and tugged on their chains as the car approached the mining camp.
Head down, her hands busy sifting through dirt and rock and debris, Carrie squinted against the late-afternoon sun as the vehicle snaked up the narrow road cut into the mountainside. Military vehicles came and went on a daily basis, hauling out the day’s precious mineral finds and delivering supplies, so it wasn’t unusual to see traffic.
What was unusual was that when the car pulled into the main base and stopped by the commanding general’s tent, a tall, dark-haired Caucasian man stepped out of the backseat.
Oh, God.
Her heart jumped when he stood and, hands on his hips, surveyed the mining site from behind his aviator sunglasses.
Maybe he was American! Maybe the American embassy had found out what had happened to her and sent him to take her home!
She took a step in his direction and opened her mouth to call out to him—and a long whipping stick promptly cracked across her shoulders. Gasping at the stinging pain, she fell to her hands and knees.
“Work!” the guard ordered in Burmese. “Work!”
Fire lanced across her shoulders, so sharp she could barely breathe, but if she didn’t get to her feet soon there would be another blow. The throbbing wound on her ribs from when she’d tried to escape two days ago was a constant, painful reminder. She’d been lucky they hadn’t let the dogs loose on her.
Biting back a cry, she struggled to her feet, her gaze darting back to the man as she slowly resumed her work.
He stood twenty yards away from her work station at the mouth of the mine. From that distance, even though she was taller than everyone else around her, she would look the same as the rest of the laborers. They all wore filthy, oversized gray shirts and pants and pointy straw hats. All were bent over their tasks, heads down, backs bowed.
If he saw her he didn’t give any indication. If he cared, he gave even less as the general emerged from the tent. The general extended his hand, offering a warm, hearty greeting, which the newcomer returned.
Excitement zipped through every cell in her body as the two men exchanged a few words. Carrie sneaked furtive glances his way so she wouldn’t draw the attention of the guard again. Even if the dogs’ incessant barking hadn’t interfered, the distance was too far for her to make out each word. Still, she heard enough to pick up a mix of Burmese and English. That knowledge set her heart rate on a crash course, then sent it plummeting when the general lifted a hand toward the tent, indicating they should go inside out of the heat.
She had to get his attention. She had to get him to notice her.
Desperate, she stared at his back and willed him to turn and look at her. Miraculously, he paused at the opening of the tent, turned, pulled off his dark glasses . . . and looked straight at her.
Her heart nearly exploded.
Their eyes connected.
And she could have sworn he mouthed her name, just before he turned back to the tent. Then he disappeared, leaving her cursing the desperation of a mind that had just played a cruel trick on her.
CAV REMOVED HIS shoes, as was the custom, before stepping inside the tent. Even though he felt physically ill at what he’d seen, he smiled his best shyster smile and accepted the shot of whiskey the general’s aide offered on a sterling silver tray.
Forgoing his pact with himself to swear off the booze, he downed the shot in one toss, not giving a damn that it wasn’t scotch. He needed it. Gawddamn, he needed it. Not because he was tired and thirsty after the long ride over winding mountain roads. Not because he’d had a few moments of panic under the black hood that had been removed only a few minutes before they’d driven into the camp. Not even because he was now deeply embroiled in a rescue mission that had less than a snowball’s chance in hell of success.
He needed the booze after getting a glimpse of the horrific conditions of the slave laborers forced to work the ruby mine. He needed it because when he’d spotted the slim figure hunched over a crude flume and she’d lifted her head and met his gaze, beneath the rickshaw hat he had seen misery and hope and blue, blue eyes.
He’d found Carrie Granger.
And with one look he’d felt the full weight of her future on his shoulders.
“Yeah.” Cav nodded when the general offered him another shot. “Absolutely.”
He wrapped his fingers around the glass and smiled again for the general, who had clearly been given advance notice of his arrival by Maung Aye.
Cav’s Burmese was spotty, and given there were about a hundred different dialects in Myanmar, what he did know wasn’t going to help him out very much. The general wasn’t much better equipped to speak English, but it didn’t matter. Their common language was greed and money. The promise of a lot of money.
He extended the letter Maung Aye had provided, then stood in silence, arms folded over his chest, while the general read it. The amount of money that had exchanged hands between Windle and the commerce minister, plus the promise of under-the-table kickbacks, had bought his passage to the Mogok mines. By the time Maung Aye discovered the account on which he’d written a check was bogus, he and Carrie Granger would be well away from here. Or dead.
In the meantime, greed and Windle’s reputation—which the commerce minister had no doubt researched even before meeting with him—had given him carte blanche to explore the mines. The letter instructed the general to allow an up-close-and-personal inspection of the operation, because HI was supposedly contemplating infusing it with millions in investment capital.
Love of money. The root of all evil. And the means to save Carrie Granger from rotting in this hell on earth.
When the general handed the letter back with a nod, Cav breathed a silent sigh of relief. Another hurdle jumped.
The general turned to his attendant, who promptly presented a serving tray filled with an assortment of food.
“Hatamin sa pi bi la?” Have you eaten?
“Mâhou’ pabù.” No, Cav said, getting the gist of the offer and knowing enough Burmese to decline. “But later. First, business,” he added in English and gestured, indicating he wished to leave the tent and tour the operation.
His host nodded and said something to the aide, who quickly produced a hard hat and handed it to Cav.
“Chèzùbè.” Cav added a nod to his thanks. After settling the battered gray hard hat on his head and slipping on his shoes and shades, he followed the general out into the sweltering heat.
Even though he was prepared for what he would see, it was all he could do to keep from knocking the heads of the guards and inciting an insurrection. But the guards and the guns and the dogs numbered too many. Even though the slave laborers outnumbered their captors ten to one, in their poor physical condition they were no match for the Junta.
Young men, old men, women, and children, all emaciated and covered in grime, hauled dirt and rocks in rickety wheelbarrows over steep, narrow paths. Others disappeared into the narrow mine opening carved into the mountain, hauling buckets hanging from poles balanced on their stooped shoulders.
Metal clinked against stone as twenty or so people worked the flumes along the edge of an open pit. Carrie was among them, laboring to lift heavy, screen-bottomed trays out of murky water, then balance them on the edge of the flume in order to roll the stones trapped on the screen with their bare hands and search for the precious bloodred rubies.
Even as she worked, head down, Cav knew she was watching him. He felt the desperation of her gaze on the back of his head like a tractor beam from twenty yards away. He wished he could give her some assurance that he was here to help her, but he couldn’t risk blowing his plan sky high. He’d taken enough of a chance mouthing her name just before he’d ducked into the tent.
He played the part of the cold, calculating investor, nodding in approval when the general explained the operation in a surprisingly understandable dialogue made up of Burmese, broken English, hand signals, and a little Indonesian thrown in for good measure. They spent two hours tromping along the edge of the open pits, into the mouth of the cave, and along the assembly line of workers and the dozen or so cages that acted as their sleeping quarters.
The tour served three purposes. It put the general at ease with Cav’s presence in the camp, and it gave Cav an opportunity to do a complete recon. It also left Cav’s scent all over the place, which would slow down the dogs if they used them to track them when they blew this place.
At the end of the second hour the sun was starting to set and Cav had seen what he needed to see. One road leading in. Same road leading out. A lot of thick, mountainous jungle in between.
It was time to put phase two into play and hope to hell he could keep on his timetable. Everything hinged on timing.
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