by Sara Craven
He sat Sarah down on a slab of rock near the brown waters of the Shilongwe and squinted toward the sky. The chopper would come in from the north, from Cameroon. There was a wide sandbank about twenty yards into the shallows. It would land there. If his guys made it into Congo airspace undetected, they should be here in about forty-five minutes.
That was already cutting it too close.
He turned his attention back to Sarah. She was watching him intently. Tears, dirt and blood streaked her cheeks, and her eyes were huge with fear. Of him. She didn’t trust him. Who in hell could blame her? What horror had those big brown eyes seen?
Hunter felt an odd little spasm in his chest. He recognized it for what it was: anger. Protective anger. Anger at the people who’d done this to her. Because this woman was not equipped to handle the situation. She did not deserve this. How she’d managed to get this far was beyond him.
Then he saw what she was nervously fingering at the hollow of her throat—a small crucifix on a delicate gold chain. His jaw tightened and he stared at her fingers. In this merciless jungle, where you had to take life in order to live, where dark spirits and primal forces ruled, she was seeking the comfort and protection of her civilized God.
The sight forced him right up against the acid memories of his past. And for a fleeting moment his mind was touched by a sense of déjà vu, the distant sensation of icy mist trailing over his face on the night he’d fled Belfast—the night the police had come to arrest him for allegedly killing his fiancée. He shook off the poisonous memory. Why was he even thinking about this garbage? It was ancient history.
But he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her hand…from her. She looked so out of place against the backdrop of tangled primordial forest. She didn’t belong in this dog-eat-dog world. Her God wasn’t going to protect her from this jungle. What on earth made Hunter think he could? Something swelled so sharply in his heart it hurt.
He clenched his teeth. He didn’t want to feel these things, these protective urges. Not again. Not now. Not ever. That was not who Hunter McBride was anymore. That man had been dead and buried for fifteen long and bitter years.
“Are you going to tell me who you are now?”
For a nanosecond he wasn’t sure who the hell he was anymore. He mentally shook himself and crouched down in front of her. “My name is Hunter McBride. I—”
“Are you one of them?”
“Them?”
“The militia. The soldiers who attacked the clinic were carrying the same weapon as you, were speaking the same language.”
“Sarah, there’s a reason everyone out here carries an AK. You can jam it with mud, water, whatever, and it’ll still shoot straight without blowing up in your face. And the French…” He shifted slightly on his haunches, the sun hot on his back. “It’s one of the country’s official languages. My colleagues and I speak it, along with just about everyone else in this region.”
“But you’re not with the French—or Belgian—armed forces.” It was an accusation, not a question. “Who are you with?”
Hunter’s lips twitched. He hadn’t expected the Spanish Inquisition. In spite of what she’d just been through, this woman still had spunk. “You’re right, I’m not with the Belgian or French military, but I am French—”
“You sound Irish.” She made it seem as though she almost wished he were Irish. And absurdly, it made a part of him want to say that he was. It made a part of him want to explain. He bit back the urge.
“I’m a citizen of France,” he said bluntly. And then he cursed himself for saying it at all. It was none of her damn business where he came from, what passport he carried and why. And it wasn’t his job to tell her. His job was to get her—and the pathogen—out. That was all.
“Look, I’m just going to give it to you straight. That canister contains a bioweapon that will be released over the three biggest cities in the United States in exactly twenty-one days. That’s New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.”
He could tell from the skeptical look in her eyes that she didn’t believe him.
“We’ve been looking for that pathogen, Sarah. We knew it was being tested somewhere in central Africa, that unethical clinical trials were being conducted on innocent villagers, probably under the guise of a vaccine program. But we didn’t know exactly where until we intercepted your call. It seems that those clinical trials went sideways and villagers outside the control groups were infected. They found their way to your clinic and died there. The soldiers were sent to cover it up.”
She shook her head. “This can’t be true. I…I don’t believe you. I can’t.”
He shrugged. It wasn’t his job to make her believe. He just had to make her cooperate.
Despair clouded her gaze. “Who…who would do such a thing?”
“We don’t know. Yet. But our intelligence tells us there is an antidote. Once we identify this disease, we can begin to think about locating that antidote. That in turn could lead us to whoever is behind this, but we don’t have much time.”
She shook her head again, her eyes looking strangely distant. “Our patients died within days. Within twenty-four hours they all showed signs of advanced dementia. Then they lost coordination, reason, and became psychotic.” She paused, her features growing tight. “They lashed out at anyone who tried to help them, scratching, biting like wild animals. Even at themselves, tearing their own flesh. It…was terrifying. We had to restrain them or I’m sure they would have killed us.” Her eyes flashed up to his, desperation in them.
“What happened then, Sarah?” he asked, a little more gently.
“A painful and messy death. Lots of hemorrhaging. It was something Dr. Regnaud had never seen or heard of before in his life. And he is…was…a world-renowned epidemiological specialist, you know.”
Hunter nodded. “I know. And this is the disease we’ve been looking for, Sarah.” The FDS had seen film footage of the effects, footage sent to President Buchanan as a warning. He jerked his chin toward the canister. “That’s a cryogenic container. How long have we got?”
“Dr. Regnaud preserved the samples with enough liquid nitrogen to last maybe two weeks. He’d planned to fly the canister out on the next chopper.” She looked at the biohazard container, then at him. “Hunter, if this gets released in the U.S.—”
“We can’t let that happen, Sarah. We must do everything in our power to stop this, and you can help us.”
A frown furrowed her dirt-smudged brow. “Us?”
“My team, the Force du Sable. We’re a private military company based on the island of São Diogo off the northwest coast of Angola. We contract out to various countries and organizations. This time it’s the president of the United States.”
“You’re mercenaries?”
“Right.”
“I see.” Her jaw tightened ever so slightly and a hint of disapproval shifted into her eyes. For some reason the change in her expression really bothered him. He opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself, his profession. Then he shut it abruptly. He didn’t have to justify himself to this woman. To anyone. He didn’t even know why the hell he even felt compelled to do so.
“I promised to get the container to the CDC in Atlanta.” A note of defiance now laced her voice. “I have to get it to Atlanta.”
“Can’t use the CDC. Can’t use anyone or any organization within the United States—they’ve all been compromised. It could trigger the biological attack. We have to use an outside source. There’s a level 4 lab being set up at the FDS base on São Diogo. We’re taking it there.”
“I don’t understand. Why would going to the CDC trigger the attack?”
Hunter pushed out a soft breath of frustration. In spite of the need for secrecy, he had to tell her what he could. She’d be more likely to cooperate if she understood the scope of this thing.
“The threat comes from a group within the U.S. An inordinately powerful cabal we believe is comprised mostly of Americans, some with very significant connection
s to the country’s power structure. Until we know who they really are, we can’t be sure who is connected to whom or what. If they are tipped off, if they get even a hint of the fact we now have their pathogen and are attempting to identify it, they will launch the attack immediately, and that is why we can’t risk using the CDC.”
Her eyes flickered. “I…I just can’t imagine why Americans would kill their own people. What do they want?”
“We don’t know,” he lied.
“What about the soldiers who attacked the compound? How do they fit in?”
“Hired by the Cabal.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re a mercenary. I know men like you, Hunter. You work for whoever has the cash. How do I know you aren’t working for this group, just like those soldiers back at the compound? Why should I trust you?”
“Because you don’t have a choice, do you?” He leaned forward. “And there’s one thing you’d better believe. If I did work for the Cabal, you’d have been dead hours ago.”
Alarm flared in her eyes.
Guilt spiked in Hunter. The woman was in shock. She was doing her best to think straight, to protect herself, and here he was, taking offense. What in hell was wrong with him? It wasn’t her fault mercs had a bad rep. And she was right—she had zero reason to trust him. But he didn’t need her trust, just her cooperation. Yet an absurd part of him wanted her trust, wanted her approval.
He hadn’t felt that in a long, long time. And it made him angry. With himself, and indirectly, inexplicably, with her.
He gritted his teeth, focused on reining in his emotion. He needed to keep his mind clear if he wanted to get her out of the Congo alive. And that meant he had to get her wounds cleaned and patched up as soon as possible, because infection in this climate was a very real—and very deadly—risk.
He cleared his throat. “Come on. You need to rinse that dirt off in the river so I can get a good look at your cuts and sterilize them.” He touched his fingers to the gash on her cheek. “And this here needs a butterfly suture or two.”
She sat rock-still as he touched her face, her eyes wary, and in them he could read the beginnings of distaste, for him, for what he was.
And suddenly it cut him. It rankled beyond all reason. He’d just saved her life. She had no right to judge him like this. She didn’t know a damn thing about him.
Hunter got to his feet. “Look, Sarah,” he said coolly. “I don’t need your trust. I don’t need you to like me. All you need to know is that because of what I am, I have the goods to get you and that container out of this jungle. And yes, I’m getting paid to do it. I intend to get the job done.”
“I’m…just a job,” she said quietly.
“You got that right.” And that’s exactly how he was going to think of her from now on. No more dead memories. No more sappy feelings. He was going to get her into that chopper, deliver her safely to São Diogo. Mission over.
The others could take it from there.
She looked down at her hands in her lap and began to fiddle with her fingers. “Men like you really can’t care, can you? It’s always about the bottom line.”
His brows shot up. What the hell? Men like him? What was with this woman? Did she have any idea what she was doing to him? How she was making him care? About her, about what she thought of him? Jesus, she was even making him think about Kathleen.
Caring for a woman once had cost him everything just short of his life. He refused to take that risk again.
“You know jack about me, Sarah.” He grabbed her arm, pulled her to her feet. He ignored the righteous flash of indignation in her eyes as he marshaled her down to the water’s edge.
“Now get into that river. Get yourself cleaned up and then take your shirt off.”
Chapter 4
06:53 Alpha. Shilongwe River.
Monday, September 22
Sarah spun round as he released her arm. “What did you say?”
“I said take your shirt off.” He turned his back and made his way over to the rock. Slipping off his pack, he crouched down and set his rifle at his side. He extracted a first aid pouch from his pack, rolled it open and began laying out equipment on the flat, iron-red stone. The sun glinted off his glossy blue-black hair.
“My…shirt?” she asked, suddenly deeply uneasy.
“The wound on your back is bleeding.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke.
Sarah lifted her hand over her shoulder and fingered the spot where her back throbbed. With surprise she felt tacky wetness, torn fabric…and a deep gash. When her hand came away, there was fresh blood on her fingers. She’d thought what she was feeling was deep muscular pain. She hadn’t realized she’d been wounded.
“And your knees. Need to see those, too. Roll up your pants, rinse the muck off, then get back over here.” He still wouldn’t look at her as he spoke. He’d written her off in some fundamental way.
Sarah turned from him and stared at the ominous, swirling currents of the Shilongwe. She couldn’t see below the surface. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what parasites, protists or primitive bacteria lurked beneath the milky, rust-colored waters. The Congo was full of unidentified microscopic killers. And macroscopic ones. She shuddered, turned back to look at Hunter McBride—a killer of another kind.
“The water…it’s brown. It’s—”
“As hygienic as you’re gonna get.” He tore open a sealed packet of suture strips, attention focused on his task. “The color’s mostly from minerals in the soil.”
But when she didn’t respond, didn’t move, he glanced up. Sarah swallowed. His eyes had gone cold and his blackened features were hard, almost brutal. The change was unsettling. It was as if the man inside was suddenly gone.
Had she done that to him? Had she actually managed to offend this powerful mercenary and somehow shut him down? For an instant, Sarah wondered what really made him tick. But just as quickly she pushed her curiosity aside. Why should she care about Hunter McBride? Sure, he’d saved her life, but this was his job. She meant nothing more to him than that. He’d said so himself. Besides, she abhorred what he did for a living. It went against every fiber of her being.
His hard eyes held hers and a muscle pulsed softly under the black paint at the base of his jaw. The sun beat down on her head and she felt her face begin to flush under his scrutiny, but she wasn’t able to look away, break the intensity of his stare.
He shrugged suddenly. “Hey, stay dirty if you want.” He turned his attention back to his task. “Get infected, maybe die. Or clean up and live. You’re a nurse, Burdett, you know the odds out here. Your choice.”
The use of her last name, the sudden bluntness of his words, winded her. There was absolutely no hint of feeling in his deep, gravelly voice, no nuance of the compassion she’d detected earlier. His sudden offhandedness hurt, much more than it should. Sarah hadn’t realized just how much she’d needed a sense of connection to another human being in this foreign, hostile and very frightening environment.
She clutched her arms tightly over her stomach and a cold loneliness began to leach through her chest. It was a feeling she knew too well; the same dead sensation had filled her when she’d seen the tabloid photos of Josh and his heavily pregnant mistress under the big black headline that blared Twins. It was the same hollow ache that had swamped her when she’d learned she would never be able to bear children. It was the same sick feeling that had gripped her when Josh had told her she was a fool for not realizing their marriage had been over for years.
Sarah hugged herself tighter. Josh had been right on that count. She was a fool for not having recognized the coldhearted psychopath lurking behind her husband’s charming smile. She was a fool for allowing him to abuse her emotionally for so long, for allowing him to make her feel like a barren failure of a woman.
Men like Josh didn’t know how to care.
Tears pricked her eyes at the sudden unbidden and overwhelming memories. Sarah turned to face the river. She hated herself for wha
t she’d allowed Josh to do to her. She hated him. And she detested his Machiavellian drive. He was a mercenary. Like Hunter. Sure, Josh didn’t look like Tarzan here, and he didn’t carry guns and knives. He wasn’t paid to kill—not in a physical way. But he destroyed lives nevertheless. And like Hunter, he did it for cash. Josh was a mergers and acquisitions giant. His jungle was concrete and his weapons were stocks, bonds, coercion, fast cars and pretty women. And one of those pretty women was now carrying his babies—a famous model-of-the-moment who was attracting tabloid attention and dragging Sarah’s pain into the public eye.
Sarah furiously blinked back her emotions. She was not going to let Josh haunt her so many miles away. She would never allow a man to make her feel like that again. She steeled her jaw, ripped off her bloodied apron, bent down and yanked her torn cotton pants up over her shins. She scooped up the reddish-brown water and splashed it over her legs, wincing as she tried to wipe away the memories along with the dirt.
She didn’t know why she’d let Hunter’s bluntness get to her. Maybe it was the incredible tenderness she’d glimpsed briefly in his eyes, felt in his touch…and the way she’d reacted to it. Another wave of emotion threatened. She cupped the warm river water in her hands and splashed it angrily over her face, gasping from the pain that radiated from her cheek. Whatever she’d glimpsed in Hunter, it was gone now. And she wasn’t going to let it affect her. She’d come to Africa to kill that emotionally abused and needy part of herself. She’d come here to grow strong, to play a vital role as a human being, a woman.
She froze as the reality of her situation slammed home. She glanced at the bloody apron bunched up at her side. Lord, she was damn lucky even to be alive, to have been given a second chance. Her stomach churned as images of the carnage at the clinic hit her again. She stared numbly at the mesmerizing, slowly swirling water, but couldn’t make the pictures in her mind go away. They churned in her head like the curling current of the river, making her dizzy, sick.