She took the two steps over to Kyle’s chair and dropped one of the forks she held.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding brittle even to herself, “would you get that for me?”
Kyle bent to pick up the utensil. His shirt rode up again. Paige’s hand darted forward. She had the gun in her hand almost before she realized it.
Kyle let out a yelp and jumped.
“Be quiet,” she ordered through clenched teeth, hiding the gun behind her, hating the heavy, deadly weight of it.
Her son glared up at her. Anger glinted in his eyes. But when he spoke, he kept it down to a fierce whisper. “Give it back.”
“Don’t even ask.”
“Somebody has to do something!” Kyle’s fists were clenched as tightly as her teeth.
“Not you.”
“Nobody else will!”
Don’t be so sure, Paige thought, but she didn’t say it. Something stopped her, something that made her think Noah had good reason for not wanting anyone to know.
And then Noah was there, at her side. He glanced at the guards to be sure they were still occupied, this time both eating at their posts between visual scans of the perimeter. Then he reached down and took the weapon from her unprotesting fingers. When he had it, he pulled up a chair left empty by a child who’d chosen to sit on the floor, and sat down at an angle that put his back to the guards.
“So,” he said in a low but calm, nonconfrontational voice, “that’s what you were up to. Swiped it out of his duffel, did you?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said proudly. “Lani helped, and I—”
“So you risked her life as well as your own?”
“We didn’t get caught,” Kyle protested.
“True enough,” Noah agreed. “But did you even wonder what he might do when he found it missing? Did it occur to you that he might start shooting people as punishment? Maybe starting with Lani?”
Kyle paled. Obviously, he hadn’t thought that far at all. And frankly, neither had Paige, and now that Noah brought it up she was even more upset.
Noah glanced at both guards again. Then he swiftly and smoothly pushed something on the handle and the little rack of bullets slid out. He pulled back the top part of the gun, leaving what she guessed was the barrel oddly exposed. He looked into an empty chamber on the top, then did something that let the gun slide back into its original position. All the while Kyle stared, wide-eyed.
She didn’t know what any of the parts were called, but it was clear even to her that he was no stranger to handling this kind of weapon. And if she’d had any remaining doubts about the identity of the person who’d caused their captors so much trouble, they vanished now.
And as he handled the gun with the ease of long experience, she realized his cowed facade was just that, a facade.
“You just wanted them to think you were too frightened to do anything, didn’t you?” she whispered.
Noah gave her a sideways glance. “The less attention they paid to me, the better,” was all he said.
“You mean, it was all an act?” Kyle asked, wide-eyed. “That acting like you were a coward and afraid and all that?”
“I am afraid,” Noah said. “And anybody who isn’t afraid with terrorists around is a fool.”
“What are you, a cop?”
Noah slid the weapon under his own loose, Hawaiian-style shirt, then looked at the boy. “No. I’m just a businessman, stuck in this situation like we all are. I’ve got a bit of knowledge of how outfits like this operate, but only from reading.”
“But the gun, you handle it like—”
“I grew up around guns. My father taught me how to stalk and track, and I’m a good shot, but that’s all.”
“How good a shot?” Kyle asked, clearly entranced.
“Very,” Noah said. He glanced at their guards. “But I’m out of my league here.”
“But the gun will help, won’t it?” Kyle said eagerly.
“At least now it won’t get you killed,” Paige said sharply.
The old rage flashed in her son’s eyes. “It’s better than just sitting here and letting them win,” he said in a harsh whisper.
Paige shivered. She hadn’t realized how much of her own rage at these kind of men Kyle had absorbed. She lowered her voice, adding quietly yet earnestly, “I couldn’t bear to lose you, too, Kyle. I just couldn’t bear it.”
The anger slowly ebbed, and Kyle looked away.
Later, as the children gathered up their dishes and put them on the trays, and Lani began to gather the utensils for counting again, Paige took Noah aside.
“Thank you,” she said. “It scared me to death when I saw he had that gun.”
Noah shrugged. “It was pretty clever of him. And Lani, diverting their attention like that.”
“That’s what that was?” Paige asked. “That bit with her knocking over the CD-ROM cases?”
He nodded. “While Kyle was over snagging it out of Filipo’s bag.”
“I wondered. She’s just never clumsy.”
“She’s a beautiful girl.”
“And smarter than she is beautiful.”
Noah looked at her consideringly. “You do know that Kyle’s really got a thing for her, don’t you?”
“Oh, I hope so,” Paige said. “She could do him a world of good.”
“No motherly desire to keep him a little boy forever?”
“He quit being a little boy five years ago,” Paige said. “Right now I’m for anything and anyone who can reach him.”
“He’ll be all right,” Noah told her. “You just stick to your guns—”
He broke off with a wry grimace, as if realizing the irony of the expression. Paige gave him a quick smile to show she hadn’t taken offense.
“What will you do with it?”
“For the moment keep it and hope Filipo doesn’t notice it’s gone before I get a chance to try and put it back.”
“You won’t…it won’t help?”
“One handgun against their weapons? It’d help get me killed, maybe.”
“But if you were caught by just one of them?”
“Not worth the risk. It might stop that one, but it would put the rest of them even more on guard. And so far they haven’t really been trigger happy. I’d just as soon not give them reason.”
Paige nodded. He made sense. But she couldn’t help thinking most men would have kept the gun, wouldn’t have been able to make such a rational, cool decision when the risk was their own life.
“Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”
He grimaced, rolling his eyes. “Very. And I know I’m going to wish I’d never tried to do it this time.” Then, clearly changing the subject, he asked her, “What about the kids today?”
“I can kill a certain amount of time making sure they all get washed up and as clean as possible, but after that, there’s still a long day ahead. They’re going to be going stir-crazy, all cooped up like this.”
“What would you normally be doing when they’re all together like this?”
“Reading to them, some of the time, and I can do that, but not all day. They won’t sit still for it.”
“What else?”
“Well, sometimes we just talk about things.”
“Then do that,” he suggested. “Just like you normally would.”
She thought about that for a moment. “It might help if they could talk about how scared they are.”
And then an idea struck her, and she began to plan.
“Do you all know what terrorism is?” Paige asked from her seat in the high director’s chair in front of her class. Rider sat on the sofa, watching her, curious about where she was going with this. She’d said it rather loudly, and it sounded odd after all the whispering they’d all been doing.
She lifted the large book she held and opened it on her lap. “The dictionary says it is ‘the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion.”’ She looked back at the kids. “Let’s talk about that.
Terror means being very afraid.” Noah realized she was being careful to say things so they wouldn’t go over the heads of the younger kids. “Systematic means there’s a plan to it, that they know exactly what they’re doing, that it’s intentional, and that they do it often. Do you understand that?”
She got a chorus of nods.
“All right, then, who knows what coercion means?”
Lani politely raised her hand. Some traditions held, even in the face of chaos, Rider thought in amazement.
“Lani?”
“It means being forced to do something you don’t want to.”
“Exactly. Now how many of you have been terrorized by, oh, maybe a brother or sister?”
A couple of hands went up, but many of the younger ones just looked puzzled. Paige tried again.
“How many of you have had a brother or sister try to scare you into doing something you didn’t want to? Like maybe telling you they’d beat you up if you didn’t do their chores for them, or take the blame for something they did?”
At least a half dozen more little hands shot up.
“Okay, that’s a form of terrorism. But there’s a big difference here. First, these men don’t want anything from you except for you to be scared. They want to use you to force someone else to do something.”
“Why us?” a tiny voice asked from the back.
When Paige answered, her voice was even louder. “Why innocent, defenseless children? Because terrorists are cowards—heartless, cold, cruel cowards.”
Noah leaned forward. What was she trying to do? He glanced at the guards. For the first time since they’d gotten the report on possible sabotage, their attention was fully on the inside of this schoolroom.
“And,” Paige went on, “they don’t care who they hurt as long as they get their way.”
“Bullies,” Kyle said suddenly.
“Yes, they are. Can anyone think of any other names for them?”
“Criminals?” Lani suggested.
“Yes, terrorists are definitely criminals.”
“Stop this!” Filipo called from his post. Paige ignored him.
“How about villains?” she said.
“Chickens?” somebody else offered.
“That’s true, too,” Paige agreed.
“I said stop!” Filipo shouted again, on his feet now. “We are not terrorists!”
“Sit down, you’re interrupting my class,” Paige said as if he were no more than a rowdy student. The kids took their cue from her and continued.
“Tyrants!” another girl exclaimed.
“Gangsters!” A boy this time, shouting gleefully.
The kids were getting into it now, and Noah realized this was exactly what Paige had wanted.
“Nasty!” little Hannah called out. The entire group laughed, Noah included. Until he realized that being laughed at could well be the one thing guaranteed to provoke their guards beyond control.
“Yes, sweetie, they are very, very nasty,” Paige said with a wide smile at the little girl.
Filipo broke then and started toward Paige. He waved his rifle at her. “Stop this. Now.”
Paige flicked him a disdainful glance, then turned back to her class. “Something else about terrorists. They often deny, even to themselves, what they really are. They try to hide it by saying they’re fighting for a noble cause, or that they’re after something important, like justice. But underneath they’re just scared little bullies, who aren’t smart enough to think of any other way to get what they want.”
“You will stop this instantly!”
“All right,” Paige said, suddenly agreeable. “Let’s talk about something else, kids. Remember how that other terrorist, the one who thinks he’s a leader, said he was called Ares?”
Some of the kids nodded, most just sat still, looking from Paige to the man she was taunting, their eyes wide.
“Does anyone know who the real Ares is?”
“A mythological god,” Lani said when no one else spoke up.
“Yes,” Paige said. “The son of Zeus and Hera.”
Filipo seemed to relax slightly, although he didn’t return to his post. This line of instruction was clearly preferable to him. Rider had a feeling his mood wasn’t going to last, not if Paige had anything to say about it.
“Ares was the god of war. And he was a bully—nasty and bloodthirsty. Nobody much liked him, gods or humans. He was particularly fond of looting and butchery, and was cowardly besides. Sounds like the perfect name for that man, doesn’t it?”
That did it, Rider thought as Filipo shouted again. This time he snapped his rifle to his shoulder, aimed at Paige. Noah leaped to his feet. So did Kyle.
Tarak started walking toward them. Paige never looked at the older man, just turned to face Filipo. And his rifle. Noah could see that she was scared, but her head came up and her shoulders went back.
“Go ahead,” she said, her voice tight, “prove me right. Show them all that you’re nothing but a coward who thinks shooting an unarmed woman or child proves he’s a man.”
Tarak called out then. “Filipo!”
Filipo looked over at the older man, but didn’t lower his weapon. “You heard what she was doing! She was insulting us, calling us names!”
Tarak’s gaze slid to Paige. He looked at her intently for a moment before saying, “Only if you admit she is right, that we are terrorists.”
Filipo’s brow creased in puzzlement. Tarak, Rider thought, was brighter than he’d given him credit for.
“Go back to your post,” Tarak ordered.
Filipo hesitated. But finally, after a glare that promised Paige would pay for the insults, he went back to his doorway. And after a long look of his own at Paige, Tarak turned and went back to his own post.
Rider covered the six feet between himself and Paige in a step and a half. He saw her sway slightly in the instant before he put an arm around her.
“Point made,” he said.
She leaned against him, and he felt a shiver go through her.
“You are,” he whispered, “the smartest, gutsiest, most totally insane woman I have ever met.”
She looked up at him. He saw her swallow, as if she wasn’t certain her voice would work anymore. He saw traces of the fear that lingered but also a flicker of triumph glinting in her cinnamon eyes.
“Should I take that as a compliment?” she finally asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
He’d meant every word of it. He’d never in his life met a woman like Paige Cooper. A woman who could be scared down to her bones and yet stand up to the source of her fear. A woman who would risk her life to ease the load on a bunch of terrified kids. A woman who would wave a red flag in front of terrorists just on general principle.
And that night, when they settled down on the sofa, he found himself thinking that here was a woman worth staying home for. Hell, you’d have to stay home, just to keep up with her.
And when she let him pull her close in the darkness once more, when he felt her in his arms, felt the lovely curves of her body as she snuggled closer, he thought it no less than a miracle that somehow that fearless fighter and this warm, soft woman were all wrapped up in one person.
Too bad he’d never earned a miracle.
Chapter 12
This time Paige was awake when he left. In fact, neither of them had slept much. There was a new, humming sort of tension between them, and it had been all he could do not to kiss her again, long and deep.
“You’re going out again now?” she whispered when he began to move slowly, intending to roll up over the top of the sofa without ever standing up, as he had last night.
“If I stay any longer,” he said into her ear, “with you this close, I’ll go stark raving crazy.”
He heard a tiny catch in her breath and chose to take that as proof she was as wound up as he was.
“Someday,” he said, his voice even lower, his mouth even closer to her ear, “I want to be in that same position with you
. In private. Naked.”
This time he was sure she gasped. But this was not the time or the place to pursue this fire that sparked between them. He wondered if they would ever be in the right time or the right place.
“Don’t go,” she said. “Not alone.”
“No choice.”
“I’ll go with you.”
He hugged her then. “Lady, I’d tackle anything, with you to watch my back. But you can’t. The kids need you. You’re all they’ve got.”
He felt it when she gave in, letting out a little sigh that was an acknowledgment of his point. “Be careful, Noah,” she whispered.
He went over the sofa and inched toward the trap door. Funny, he didn’t hate his name when she said it. In fact, it made him feel kind of funny inside, warm and welcome and a few other things he was better off not thinking about just now.
He froze when the trap door made more sound than he’d intended as it fell shut. Then he heard another sound, footsteps, and held his breath. But they were light steps, not the heavy tread of a soldier. And then the direction of the steps, back and forth in the area where the children were, told him Paige was up and moving, no doubt covering for his noise with her own footsteps as she gave the appearance of checking on the children once more.
Definitely the smartest, gutsiest, most totally insane woman he’d ever met, he thought as he belly crawled toward the back of the building, to where he was out of sight of both guards and could make it into the trees.
He had only one goal tonight. He knew the most important things to any attacking force were weapons, transportation and communication. He couldn’t do much about the weapons—they didn’t appear to have an arsenal, only the weapons they carried—and he’d already damaged their transportation. So that left communications.
The handheld radios he’d seen looked old, battered and bulky. He thought that in sets that old, there had to be a base station somewhere, with some sort of antenna that allowed signals to be transmitted from one handheld unit to another. If he could just find it….
He searched all the buildings he could get to. Then every acre of the grounds. He hurried as best he could while maintaining some kind of quiet, but it still took a very long time. And every hour that passed made it more likely his absence would be discovered.
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