by Dana Marton
He thought of the killing that was to come, planned for various contingencies. The violence didn’t bother him, although he would have preferred to avoid it if possible.
There were always options.
If he sneaked away now with Melanie, maybe their absence wouldn’t be discovered until morning. Maybe they could gain enough distance. Maybe the men wouldn’t bother coming after them. Who knew, they might have orders to reach the Don quickly.
Jase looked at her silhouette. He might be able to save her and her baby. But he would have to leave Mochi behind.
Then he realized that her eyes were open again and she was watching him.
“I don’t want to leave the boy,” he told her. The scrawny little thing was beginning to grow on him. There really was something about that kid. He knew grown men with less grit and a hell of a worse attitude about life.
“I wouldn’t go without Mochi,” she said without hesitation.
“Yeah. I pretty much figured.”
They lay next to each other in silence.
She shifted to her side.
“Are you okay?”
“The baby is kicking up a storm. Feels like there’s a soccer practice going on in there.”
That must be weird as anything. He couldn’t even imagine it. He’d envied Mochi earlier at the research station for being able to just walk up to her and touch her, put his hands on her belly.
But even as he thought that, Melanie reached for his hand and put it near her bellybutton that protruded through her shirt. Something pushed against his palm.
Okay. Wow.
An instant connection blinked to life. The baby just made physical contact with him.
And it was his responsibility to make sure Melanie was safe and that kid got born. The thought hit him suddenly and made him more nervous than he’d ever been on any mission before. Rescue missions were the pits, he decided. Plain nerve-wracking. He’d been smart to avoid them in the past. Search-and-destroy was a hell of a lot more straightforward.
He glanced at the men. Right. There’d be plenty of “destroy” coming his way shortly.
“You’re going to be fine.” This time he said the words more to reassure himself than her as he pulled his hand away, because touching her like this wasn’t enough suddenly. He wanted to pull her into his arms.
“I know. I trust you.”
Some warm emotion washed over him that felt kind of squishy. He didn’t like it. He felt as if there was a dragnet somewhere out there, closing in around him.
“Get some rest,” he told her brusquely.
And soon she did fall asleep. He watched her for a while, wondered what it would be like to sleep next to her every night. Be there when the baby was born. Get up for midnight feedings or whatever new parents tended to complain about.
Strangely, he had no problem forming a crystal-clear picture, even though he’d never seriously considered a life like that before. His focus had firmly been on other things. Like his training and his missions.
He’d never wanted anything else. Sure, he liked the action and a good rescue if he happened to be in a position to help someone, but he was always ready, even eager, to move on once the op was over. Yet he was already wondering what Melanie would be doing once she was safely back home, what her son would be like, if the kid would end up looking like her, and other idiotically stupid things.
Of course, when he fell asleep, he had another one of those hot and heavy dreams about her, like he had every night since he’d first seen her on the balcony. He was nowhere near ready to leave that dream world when the soldiers’ shouting woke him.
He came wide awake in an instant, then was out of their shelter and on his feet, yanking on his boots, which he’d hung upside down on sticks skewered into the ground to keep the bugs out.
The men were visibly angry, looking for something.
Then he put together enough snatched words. Mochi was missing.
Amazingly, Melanie slept on despite the commotion. He let her and went to investigate, scanning the camp and the surrounding bushes, more than a little worried.
“Where is he?” the leader demanded as soon as he saw Jase.
“No idea. He slept here by the fire.” He looked around at the soldiers, examining each face one by one, but none of them looked guilty. They all looked as if they could have used some more sleep. More than one flashed him an annoyed look. The kid belonged to him, so any disturbance the boy caused they blamed on Jase.
“The little bastard probably ran away.” He did his best to sound annoyed, like he would if he’d paid good money for a guide who’d just taken off on him.
The man gave him a hard look.
A tense moment passed between them, Jase ready for pretty much anything. He might not have had his gun but he still had his knife in his boot, and he knew how to use it. But then the guy shrugged and turned from him to yell out orders to get packing and moving as soon as everyone was ready.
He had his own marching orders, was obviously on some kind of mission. He wasn’t going to waste time with chasing after a jungle kid who meant nothing to him.
Jase grabbed some coffee, and as he walked back to Melanie he passed by his gun but didn’t pick it up. The team leader was still keeping too close an eye on him.
“Mochi ran away,” he said when he reached her.
She was sitting up in their little nest, combing through her hair with her fingers, watching the men. Her forehead wrinkled with worry at the news.
“He took Chico with him.” He hoped the kid had stolen some food, too, but knew he probably hadn’t. He seemed to prefer whatever the forest provided. At least he knew how to fend for himself. He definitely wouldn’t starve to death.
She paled. “Can we find them? Are they going to be okay?”
“Maybe Mochi recognized something when we set camp. Maybe he knows of a village around here.”
The native tribes often walked long distances in search of fruit and game, and they took their children with them on these trips so they would learn the trails that led through the jungle, would learn the locations of certain fruit trees and creeks. Mochi might have passed this way before and had remembered the way to a village he was familiar with.
He helped Melanie off the platform and offered her some coffee.
“No thanks. I quit when I found out I was pregnant.” She pulled out her canteen instead and took a long drink of water. “Are you sure Mochi is going to be okay on his own?”
“Reasonably sure.”
“Is there any way we could go after him?”
He’d considered that already. He shook his head, annoyed that he couldn’t do more. “We have no idea when he left. And we don’t know in which direction he is headed.”
Her shoulders slumped as she struggled to accept that. “How long before we make our move?” she whispered after a long minute.
Despite his own worries about the boy, he smiled. She was beginning to sound like a true adventurer. “At the first opportunity.”
“Are you sure about Mochi? Once we break free—”
“A lost hiker, I could track. I could even track a soldier. But forget about tracking natives, especially a kid who weighs nothing and wouldn’t leave marks behind him.”
He was a sharp little boy, agile and industrious. He had to trust that the kid knew what he was doing, no matter how much it went against his instincts.
One of the men trotted over with a metal bowl and tossed it onto their sleeping platform, then walked away.
“Gracias, amigo,” Jase called after him, making a point to be cordial.
The soldiers had cooked tapioca for breakfast. He pulled the bowl closer, set it between them. But they didn’t spend much time on their meal or with their morning toiletries. They were all on the trail in about twenty minutes.
He stayed close to Melanie. Then, after an hour or so, when she looked like she was tiring, he asked the men to stop. They did. They understood that she was an asset, and they wante
d to make sure she reached the Don in good shape.
He watched them closely, but they didn’t seem to pay him or the pregnant woman too much attention. They looked sullen. They didn’t appreciate being ordered out of their comfortable garrison and being sent on a trek through the jungle.
They talked amongst each other, smoked. One broke into a whistle now and again. They seemed less than fully alert, apparently expecting no trouble. They didn’t seem too wary of the jungle, either, trusting that the size of the group and the noise they made would scare off any predators.
“Next time we stop,” he whispered to Melanie once they were walking again, “you ask to go relieve yourself. Just keep walking. When you can’t walk any farther, hide. I’ll come and get you after I deal with them.”
He thought of the knife hidden in his boot. He would play the concerned escort, suggesting that maybe she’d passed out or something, giving the men no reason to mistrust him, so he could pick them off one by one as they searched for her. Then once he had his gun back, he shouldn’t have too much trouble finishing off whoever was left.
He flashed her a reassuring smile, but it didn’t erase the worried expression from her face.
He raised his eyebrows. “You wouldn’t be doubting my superb fighting capabilities again, would you?” He puffed his chest out.
She did seem to relax a little at his light tone, and rolled her eyes. “Never.”
Good.
They kept walking, keeping the pace, careful not to draw any attention to themselves.
The next section of the trail turned out to be relatively easy, so the team leader didn’t call for a break until another hour had passed. As planned, Melanie asked and received permission to walk into the bushes.
But she came right back in a couple of minutes, pale and anguished.
“What is it?” Jase rushed up to her.
“I’m spotting,” she said under her breath, her eyes wide with fear.
What in hell did that mean? He shot her a questioning look.
“There is blood,” she whispered. “Maybe there’s something wrong with the baby.”
A sudden cold spread through him, despite the heat that surrounded them. He reached to brace her elbow on instinct. “Are you in pain?”
She shook her head.
“Sit.” He helped her, then went to talk to the leader. “She’s having trouble. There’s a Jesuit mission not far from here. She needs help. We have to make a stretcher and carry her there.”
“We’re going to Don Pedro’s camp.”
“If anything happens to her and the kid, Don Pedro will have your head on a plate,” Jase threatened, hot anger coursing through him as he stepped forward, coming nose to nose with the man.
But the guy didn’t seem threatened. And the next second Jase found out why. A half-dozen bandits came into view on the trail, heading toward them from the direction of the Don’s camp. They greeted the soldiers like old friends.
They weren’t Don Pedro’s men. Jase didn’t recognize a single one. Which could only mean one thing.
“You work for Cristobal?” he confronted the leader, dread stiffening his spine.
The man shrugged. “You go where you get the best pay.”
How in hell did Cristobal have more money than Don Pedro? A question for another day.
He held his hands up in a defensive, submissive gesture. “Look, she has nothing to do with whatever power struggle is going on. She’s just a woman, trying to have her baby. Let me take her to the mission. She’s nothing but a complication to you, anyway.”
But the hard look on the man’s face didn’t change at Jase’s entreaty. “If she’s important to Don Pedro, then she could be useful to Cristobal. I’m thinking she’s worth something, eh?”
“She needs help!” He charged at the man, but others pulled him back and shoved him aside.
And, despite the rage that pumped through him, he walked away. He needed to keep a cool head, dammit. If he got shot, then she wouldn’t have anybody to protect her. He did his best to walk off his fury as he strode back to her.
“How do you feel?”
“Worried.”
“Pain?”
“None. Thank God. Who are those people?” She nodded toward the newcomers.
He sat down next to her and explained the developments, his jaw still clenched.
Dismay filled her big brown eyes, which had fully recovered from the hornet stings. “But the soldiers said they were here to help Don Pedro.”
“Not really. They said they were going to Don Pedro, which isn’t the same thing. This way we went with them willingly and didn’t put up a fight.” The leader had simply done whatever was easiest for him. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Go figure.
He watched the men. The leader was looking at him and Melanie, explaining something to Cristobal’s lackeys. Then he called out to two of his own soldiers and ordered a stretcher made.
All right. Good. The guy was smart enough to know that she was worth more alive than dead.
“What will Cristobal do with us?” she asked, a hand on her belly in that protective gesture he’d seen so often.
“Depends on how well the battle is going. If he still hasn’t taken the compound, he might use you as a bargaining chip.”
“And if he did?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
Not that he could think of a single thing just now that might save them. If Cristobal had already taken the compound, then he had no need for them. Most likely, they’d be summarily executed.
Not that he was about to share that with her.
“You know what they say,” he said instead, keeping his tone light.
“It ain’t over till the fat lady sings?”
Her spunk had to be appreciated.
“My lips are sealed.” She straightened her spine, putting a look of determination on her face.
“That’s my girl.” He made sure the smile he gave her was reassuring and full of confidence.
Chapter Ten
They’d been closer to the camp than she’d thought, and the trip went faster with her on the stretcher and not slowing everyone down. They reached Cristobal’s troops midafternoon, by the river. He was too busy to pay much attention to them, directing the ongoing offensive, so his lackeys settled her and Jase in until the man had time to decide their fate.
Melanie lay on a platform under a makeshift roof of bamboo and banana leaves, close enough to the battle to hear the gunfire but far enough away to be safe. Cristobal’s command tent stood to her right, the man coming and going, a permanent scowl on his scarred face. He had cold, cruel eyes and a crooked nose that had obviously been broken in the past and never set straight.
The heavyset drug boss didn’t look like a man given to vanity. He looked power-hungry and ruthless, ordering his men around with the self-confidence of a third-world dictator. He also looked frustrated, and ready to blame anyone and everyone for the protracted battle.
Other than worry about her baby, Melanie could do little else but observe everything around her and speculate.
Cristobal hadn’t been able to take the compound in five days. But things were looking up for him now. His army backup should be here soon. They hadn’t been that far off when she and Jase had sneaked around them. Odd that they weren’t here already. Seemed that they were marching awfully slowly if they covered less ground than a pregnant woman.
Maybe the general Cristobal had bought was hoping the two factions would kill each other before he got here, then he could just gather up the loot and get through all this the easy way.
She wished she could ask Jase what he thought, but he was tethered to a tree about twenty feet from her.
She watched as two men walked up to him and roughly yanked him to his feet, then untied him. Another two came for her. She slid off the platform before they could have manhandled her. She hadn’t bled any more since that first incident, and she wanted to keep it that way.
“Whe
re are you taking us?” Jase demanded.
“To your lord and master,” one of the men sneered.
“She shouldn’t walk.” Jase’s voice was cold, thunder flashing across his face, the muscles in his arms flexing.
But the man just shrugged at him. “She looks fine to me. Move it.”
Jase stepped toward her. The two men holding him pulled him back.
“Let me carry her.” He switched to a more reasonable tone, trying another tactic. “Don’t you have a wife at home?”
He received another shrug in response, but then he was released.
He immediately reached for her.
“You don’t have to.” She tried to step away from him.
She weighed a million pounds, and he’d been roughed up by a couple of thugs when they’d first arrived here. He’d demanded to be kept right next to her and had fought for it. Hadn’t backed down until they’d tied him and beat him, then practically shoved a gun barrel up his nose.
“Jase, I can—”
She was in his arms before she could finish, and he stepped forward, carrying her as if she weighed nothing.
The weird thing was that, after about the first second, she didn’t feel awkward. She put her arm around his neck and felt safe, grateful that he was here with her. If she and her baby survived this ordeal it would be thanks to God and Jase Campbell.
The men led him to the road that led to Pedro’s camp. Some sort of signal was passed, and Cristobal’s men surrounding the place stopped shooting. A few minutes passed before the enemy, too, fell silent.
“We have something that belongs to the Don,” one of Cristobal’s men shouted toward the closed gate, and shoved Jase out into plain sight. “Throw down your weapons and open the gate.”
No response came.
The man nudged Jase forward. Melanie clung to his neck for dear life. The two of them against everyone else.
The silence stretched on.
Then the Don’s men opened fire, obviously rejecting Cristobal’s offer.
Jase dove into the bushes with her and kept going until they were safe. Their escort ran right behind them.