by Kay Hooper
“We’re out of explosives,” Lucas explained cheerfully.
Sarah looked at Rafferty. “D’you think this is the ‘unmistakable signal’ we’re waiting for?”
“It works for me.” Rafferty replied blankly, staring at his friends.
They had been prepared to leave their possessions behind, and since Lucas had a gun for Rafferty he didn’t bother going back upstairs. His friends waited in the stormy garden, and Rafferty and Sarah waited tensely in the den, until they heard Sereno and his colonel leave the house.
Several moments later they headed for the prison.
It was hardly an easy trip. They were battered by the storm, and at one point had to seek shelter behind a stone wall while soldiers passed within ten feet of them. But they managed to reach the prison without incident.
They found, after carefully studying the building, that the guards, if any, were all on the inside, since none were visible outside. The back door was just where it was supposed to be, and Sarah’s key fit perfectly. The door opened into a short hallway with thick doors at either end. One door led to the main part of the building, and Zach stood guard there. Lucas remained at the outer door—they both had their weapons at the ready—and Sarah and Rafferty went in search of Kelsey’s cell.
The door they passed through led them along a corridor, down a flight of stone steps, and past several unoccupied cells that were depressing in their tiny size and utter bleakness. So both Sarah and Rafferty were braced for the worst when her second key unlocked the door of Kelsey’s cell.
He was there. He was lying back on a comfortable bunk and reading a magazine from the light of a lamp with a fringed shade. There were several magazines on the floor beside the bunk. He was drinking from a bottle of beer.
He looked up when the door opened, his brows rising faintly, an expression of amiable surprise on his lean face. “Hello. Taking shelter from the storm?”
Rafferty didn’t know whether to be relieved because his worst fears had been definitely off-base, or annoyed to find the subject of all their efforts entirely undamaged and lazily comfortable in his so-called cell. “Can’t you recognize the cavalry when you see it?” he demanded.
Kelsey sat up on his bunk and swung his long legs to the floor, reaching for his shoes, grinning now. “Took you long enough, I must say.”
“Go to hell,” Rafferty told him politely.
“I hate to interrupt this mutual admiration society—” Sarah began.
“Hey, Rafferty, you’re keeping better company these days,” Kelsey observed after looking Sarah over thoroughly. He got to his feet and ostentatiously tucked in his shirt.
“Zach and Lucas are here, too.”
Kelsey sighed. “You know, Hagen truly amazes me. He’s actually as great as he thinks he is. And if you tell him I said that, I’ll deny it.”
“He does seem to get all his puppets onstage for his little plays, doesn’t he?”
“He does at that. It’s depressing, isn’t it? And it’s rather frightening when you think about it. It’s to my credit that I don’t, often.”
“If you’re ready?”
“Delighted.”
“After you, then.”
“As it should be.”
Sarah had been listening and watching them as though they were out of their minds, but a part of her recognized the sheer release of tension. So she wasn’t totally surprised to see Kelsey leave his cell with suave dignity, or to see Rafferty follow behind gravely.
Men were strange creatures.
Humor fell by the wayside as they hurried cautiously toward the harbor. They could hear automatic gunfire uncomfortably close, and Rafferty struggled to ask Zach a question that wouldn’t be snatched away by the wind.
“If you guys started the phony attack, who the hell are they shooting at?” He held Sarah’s hand tightly as they all pushed against the wind and rain.
“You’ve got me,” Zach answered. “Maybe shadows. Or each other. Just hope they keep shooting and stay occupied. We don’t want them getting restless.”
“Where, by the way, did you get the explosives?”
“Forethought. Brought ’em with us.”
Sarah, suddenly worried, said, “What if the Thespian isn’t tied up at the dock? With the storm—”
“It’s there,” Lucas told her. “We saw it when we set the charges in town. Tied up short and riding rough, but definitely there. The crew must be seasick by now.” He looked at Zach and asked, “What about our fishing boat?”
Zach grunted. “We’ll leave it. And send Hagen a bill for it later.”
Lucas nodded approvingly. “Nice touch.”
“Is Sereno with his men?” Kelsey asked, when they paused to peer around the corner of a building.
“Yes, he left the house with Colonel Durant,” Rafferty told him. “Why?”
“Oh, no reason.”
Rafferty gave him a sharp look, but didn’t probe.
“The harbor looks clear,” Zach reported, his eyes scanning the area carefully from where they stood near the corner of a warehouse. “Nothing’s moving at all.”
Cheerfully, Kelsey said, “I’m ready to shake the dust of this place off my feet. Let’s go.”
They went.
When an overeager lieutenant reported he’d seen several men and a woman heading for the harbor, Sereno resisted the urge to deck the young officer. Given a choice, he would have simply ignored the information, but too many ears had heard for that to be a viable option.
He avoided Durant’s worried eyes, merely commanding a small group of soldiers to come with him to the harbor. He chose them by name, quickly but very carefully, selecting only those he was certain would obey him instantly no matter what the command. They also just happened to be men who had known the other Sara.
Then he led the way.
Sereno set a deliberate pace, not too fast, keeping close to buildings. He held his sidearm in one hand, but cautioned his men to hold their fire until ordered otherwise.
There was nothing more he could do.
The American party reached the dock, where the Thespian was indeed tied up and riding the storm-tossed waters. As they ran toward the yacht, the engine thrummed to life. Tom and Dick appeared from the bridge as though summoned, and readied to cast off.
It was then that Zach, preparing to leap aboard the rising and falling deck of the yacht, glanced back the way they had come and froze.
Almost as if nature herself controlled the storm for the benefit of drama, the rain stopped abruptly and the wind ceased to howl. So that when they all looked at what had caught Zach’s attention, they could see all too clearly.
President Andrés Sereno stood not twenty feet away heading a small group of soldiers. And the businesslike automatic he held was pointed at them. At, specifically, the person nearest to him—Sarah.
They were all frozen for a moment, until one of Sereno’s men began to lift his gun. Without looking at him, the president snapped a harsh command in Spanish, and the soldier lowered his gun instantly.
Rafferty moved then, quickly pulling Sarah behind him and speaking to Zach in a low voice. “Get her on the yacht.” He didn’t take his eyes off Sereno. The president didn’t move, but he didn’t lower his gun, either.
He could hear the sounds of the others boarding the yacht, but continued to look at Sereno. After what seemed an eternity, that unwavering gun finally lowered, and a second command was barked out to the men. Silently, they backed up another twenty feet, then stood ready. And there was no rebellion on those faces, only understanding. Sereno stood still for a moment longer, then decisively holstered his pistol, turned on his heel, and strode away. His men fell in behind him as he passed, and within seconds they were gone.
Rafferty released breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, then quickly boarded the yacht. “Let’s get out of here before he changes his mind,” he told the others.
As the Thespian pulled away from the dock and headed out to sea, Rafferty h
eld Sarah tightly and listened to the words that were nearly lost against his chest.
“Macho. Stupidly macho, but I knew he wouldn’t shoot you.”
“Oddly enough,” Rafferty said, “I knew he wouldn’t too.”
NINE
“YOU’RE ALL DAMNED lucky you didn’t get killed.” Josh Long’s voice was very definite.
The group assembled in the luxurious main “cabin” of the Corsair tried in various ways to look properly contrite, but none of them pulled it off. Except for the captain and crew of the Thespian, who were all on their way back to Trinidad, everyone involved in the matter was present.
Everyone, that is, except for Hagen, who had a lively sense of self-preservation, and the long-suffering Kelsey, who had elected to return with the crew of the Thespian.
Sarah, safe in the circle of Rafferty’s arm, studied them all with thoughtfully appraising eyes, particularly the two she’d just met.
Joshua Long had surprised her a little. For a captain of industry he was absurdly young, somewhere in his mid-thirties, she thought, and remarkably casual and informal for all his wealth and power. He was also every woman’s dream. He was tall, dark, and handsome, although his face, she thought, could be hard if he chose.
He didn’t choose to appear hard when he looked at his friends with a faintly exasperated expression of camaraderie, nor when he looked at his wife—which was often.
Raven Long was a tall, striking brunette with violet eyes and a warm voice. She was naturally graceful, instinctively charming, and completely spontaneous. Within ten minutes of their coming aboard, she had sworn at all three of her husband’s friends for disturbing their honeymoon, instantly followed with a demand to be told what had happened on Kadeira, and finished up by cheerfully damning Hagen and asking Rafferty when the wedding would occur.
Interrupted honeymoon or no, both Josh and Raven were obviously in no need of cementing the first critical stage of a marriage. Their shared glances held the warm glow of a deep and abiding love, and their plain gold wedding bands were worn with the ineffable look of permanence and certainty.
Basking in the glow of her own love, Sarah listened as Rafferty responded to Josh’s statement.
“Well, you could have helped us out a little more, you know. That cryptic remark about ‘shades of gray’ wasn’t very much to go on.”
“I was almost completely going on instinct,” Josh told him. “And I met him several years ago, after all. An afternoon’s conversation. He was ruthless then, and I knew damned well that hadn’t changed. Still, there was just something about the man.” He looked at Sarah and smiled. “He turned his back and let you walk away.”
She nodded. “I had a feeling he might. And I think I’ll call his Sara when we get back. She might like to know that.”
“I think you’re right,” Josh told her, smiling at this delicate lady who had captured Rafferty’s heart.
Rafferty looked steadily at his friend and boss. “Hagen had no right to ask you to do what you did. And, dammit, you had no business at all agreeing to it! Josh, when Sereno calls in that favor—”
Joshua Long lifted a cool eyebrow at him, at that moment every inch the tough businessman, and said calmly, “He won’t ask for more than I’m willing to give.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Fifteen years spent in boardrooms.”
“Josh, he’s a dictator.”
“He’s a businessman.”
Interrupting what promised to be a standoff between Josh and Rafferty, Raven said in a cheerful voice, “I think we should celebrate.”
“Our survival?” Zach asked.
Raven made a rude noise. “You guys are like cats—you always land on your feet. No, we’ll celebrate Sarah and Rafferty’s forthcoming marriage.”
So they broke out the champagne.
A considerable time later, in the cabin allotted to them, Sarah blissfully allowed Rafferty to undress her. She couldn’t help, mainly because she had celebrated with a future bride’s happy enthusiasm and was, therefore, wonderfully limp and unconcerned.
Another word for it would have been “drunk.”
“You have no head for champagne,” Rafferty observed, sliding Raven’s borrowed jeans down Sarah’s lovely legs with difficulty, while those legs moved to some imaginary music.
She sat up abruptly on the bed and made a grab for him, looking puzzled when she missed. “Where did you go?”
“Right here, darling,” he muttered, unbuttoning her blouse and trying not to laugh. This side of his Sarah was definitely endearing and somewhat fascinating. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the image of her standing before Zach, so tiny next to his bulk, while she solemnly reproved him for having deceived Rafferty years before.
It was mean, she’d said.
Zach had looked rather sheepish, which was astonishing in itself.
Sarah peered at him owlishly. “You weren’t there a minute ago, dammit.”
“Sorry about that.”
She blinked, then squinted. “Which one are you?” she asked, apparently afflicted with a distressing case of double—or triple—vision.
“The one in the middle,” he told her gently.
She let him remove her blouse, then aimed carefully with both hands and managed to find his face. “There you are. Hello.”
“Hi.” Stoically, he removed her bra and then pulled a borrowed nightgown over her head.
“You’re dressing me,” she realized.
“Uh-huh.”
“But that isn’t right. Don’t you want to ravish a drunken wanton?” she asked, then repeated the question to herself as if it didn’t make sense.
“I want you to take a little nap.”
“But I’m not sleepy.”
“Lie back and close your eyes, and I promise you’ll be sleepy. Trust me.”
“But it isn’t even dark yet.”
“This too shall pass. Go to sleep, darling.”
Drifting away, Sarah said sleepily, “It doesn’t work when you say it, does it? Only when I say it.”
“Only when you say it, darling,” he agreed tenderly.
“Trinidad looks different,” she said, “when you aren’t here pretending to be something you’re not.”
Rafferty joined her on the balcony, slipping his arms around her and pulling her back against him. “I’ve noticed,” he agreed. “So, Mrs. Lewis, you’re enjoying your honeymoon?”
“If you have to ask, Harvard produced a dud.”
“A little reassurance never hurts,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.
“Then be reassured. I’ve never been happier.” She smiled and covered the hands lying on her stomach with her own. “And your idea of honeymooning here was just perfect. We couldn’t have found a better place.”
He hugged her. A little curious, he said, “I never asked, but what did Hagen say when you asked for the time off?”
“That I’d earned it. He seemed relieved when I told him I wasn’t quitting, just transferring to the New York office. He said, by the way, and very reprovingly, that he really didn’t think he—meaning the agency—should have to pay for a fishing boat.”
“To which you replied?”
“I told him to take it up with Zach.”
“I don’t imagine he will.”
“Hardly. He signed a voucher on the spot.”
“Ummm. I don’t suppose you asked him—?”
Sarah turned to gaze up at him, smiling. “No. I guess I was afraid he’d deny it.”
Rafferty touched her cheek lightly. “You really did care about Sereno, didn’t you? You don’t want him to be a dyed-in-the-wool villain.”
Not for the first time during the last few weeks, Sarah tried to get it clear in her own mind. “It’s just that what I believe makes so much sense. I’m not saying he would have let us escape if it hadn’t benefited him in some way, but I have to believe he was glad that’s how it worked out.
“Just think about it. He arrest
ed Kelsey just before the terrorists would have gotten him and killed him, even though Kelsey hadn’t done anything at all to justify the charge of spying on Sereno’s government. Kelsey was treated more like a guest than a prisoner. Sereno refused to turn him over to the terrorists, even though he supposedly wanted and needed their goodwill.
“And then there are the keys. Who but Sereno could have not only gotten them, but also got them to Hagen? I don’t think we had a second agent in Kadeira. I think Sereno himself was in touch with Hagen, and more or less told him to get his agent the hell out of the country before Kelsey got himself killed and Sereno was blamed for it.”
“It makes sense,” Rafferty admitted. “Especially if he wanted to get Kelsey’s information out of the country as well as his dangerous hide.”
“I really believe that he hates terrorists. Remember what I told you about that last day, and what he said to me? That’s when it all started to make sense to me. Shades of gray. He’d allow terrorists to have a base in his country and take money from them for the privilege, pour the money into his economy, and then help get information about the organization out to people who intend to stop them.
“And all the while, he had perfectly logical explanations to hand the terrorists. Kelsey was in jail on a legitimate charge. We were there because Sereno was eager to do a very powerful man a simple favor. A very believable attack by the rebels drew his soldiers away from the prison, which allowed us to break Kelsey out. And at the end …”
“At the end,” Rafferty finished, “he simply couldn’t allow the image of the woman he loved to come to any harm. Something his men very obviously knew, judging by their faces. So he turned his back and walked away.”
Sarah nodded. “So he comes out on top. The terrorists are angry but unsuspicious. Joshua Long owes him a favor. Hagen owes him a favor. And, best of all, America isn’t up in arms against him.”
Thinking of the terrorists, Rafferty said, “He’s still in bed with the devil, though.”