He bit back his disappointment. Susana took Jacie’s right arm and he took her left and together they pulled the woman to her feet and dragged her over to the lone chair in the tent.
Susana’s eyes widened as she spotted the trussed-up mercenaries, both still unconscious.
Kai glanced over at Mr. Family Jewels and noticed that there was now a red stain on his crotch. “Jesus Christ, what did you do to the guy, Susana?”
The smile she shot him was pure feminine evil. She walked over to where she’d been held captive and picked something up from the ground.
“I stuck this into his groin.”
He closed the distance between them. Shit. No wonder the guy was bleeding. On her palm lay a long, thin, needle-sharp pick. “Ouch.” He picked it up and saw blood on it. “What do you normally use it for?”
“Getting dirt out of tiny crevices. It was sitting on my trunk and I thought it would make a good weapon, so I brought it with me.”
He nodded. “Good thinking. Just remind me not to piss you off again.”
She grinned. Then she turned to Jacie and her good humor evaporated.
Jacie stared defiantly up at Susana, her dark green eyes glittering with insane fury. Kai took a step back, giving Susana the field, but staying close enough to offer his support if necessary.
“I saw you being filmed earlier,” Susana said. Her tone was flat, completely unlike her usually warm, passionate voice.
“How long have you been planning to step into my shoes?” Kai heard the underlying note of pain in Susana’s voice and wished he could take this hurt away from her. “Were you the one behind the sabotage? The tracking device? Did you push me off the boat?”
Jacie tossed her head and shot Kai a coy glance out of the corner of her eyes. “Of course.”
Trying not to show how much she was reeling emotionally, Susana searched Jacie’s eyes for some sign of the generous friend she’d loved like a sister. She found only cold ambition and madness.
How had she been so blind?
“You intended for me to die?” The anger from their fight simmered at the edges of Susana’s consciousness, barely held back by the need to understand why.
“Of course.” Jacie’s sly, satisfied smile sent a chill slithering down Susana’s spine.
There wasn’t a trace of remorse anywhere in Jacie’s eyes or expression. The hairs at the back of Susana’s neck stood on end and she was suddenly very glad she had Kai at her back.
This Jacie was capable of things Susana didn’t want to think about.
“Why?” Susana asked.
“Oh, you mean besides the fact that I’ve been waiting years for you to get out of my way? Money, of course. My contact offered me a huge payoff if I made sure he got the microchip first. But how much more satisfying to make you run scared back to civilization.” Jacie sat up straighter in the chair and tried to bring her arms in front of her, but the cables binding her wrists restricted her movement. She frowned, stuck her lip out in a pout, and glanced at Kai as if she thought he’d feel sorry for her and release her.
The woman’s lack of fear wasn’t normal. Nor was the way she jiggled her chest, trying to get Kai’s attention.
From behind her, Susana heard Kai smother a laugh behind a cough.
“It was my decision to hire the private soldiers to kill you,” Jacie said. She rocked her head side to side, preening. “The general is one of my lovers. I knew he had enough contacts that we could take the microchip for ourselves and sell it to the highest bidder.”
“And the tracking device?”
“Oooh, very cloak-and-dagger wasn’t it?” Jacie purred. “I’m surprised you found it. My lover gave it to me. I shot it into you using a blowgun the first day you were here.”
As much as Susana wanted to turn away from the hatred burning in Jacie’s eyes, she wouldn’t show the woman any weakness. “What story did you tell the rest of the crew to explain my disappearance?”
Jacie’s pitying smile made Susana want to throttle her.
“I told them the network had decided to replace you as the show’s host in favor of me.” Jacie sighed dramatically. “Poor Susana, hiding a diagnosis of clinical depression for years. When you got the news about being replaced, you committed the sabotage, determined not to let me ruin your career. But when I caught you, you committed suicide by jumping into the river.” Jacie had the gall to bat her eyelashes. “And oh, how convenient. The fishing boat had been sabotaged. By the time the boat was repaired and a search party was ready to go, you were already in the hands of the mercenaries.”
Susana clamped her molars on her tongue to stop herself from asking why no one had questioned Jacie’s tale. Why no one seemed to have mourned her. She was afraid she wouldn’t like the answer.
“I even forged a letter from the head of the network supporting my claim that you had been replaced, so when the television crew arrived, they never questioned why I was in charge. Because of the production deadline, they didn’t hesitate when I insisted we continue filming the very next day.” She tossed her head so her hair flipped back over her right shoulder. “The rest of the crew never even missed you. Not a single sad eye among them,” Jacie smirked.
“And because I’m such a better host, the viewers will never miss you.” The malice in Jacie’s eyes speared through Susana, chilling every cell it hit. Susana instinctively took a step back. “Finally, I’m getting the fame I deserve.”
“Excuse me?”
Jacie’s lip curled up. “No one looks at the rest of us poor archaeologists and offers us television contracts. They only want Susana. Beautiful Susana. Smart Susana. The golden girl of the archaeological world. Not even charges of black marketeering stuck to you, and Elena made an excellent witness.”
Spots danced before Susana’s eyes as her rage roared back. “You were behind Elena’s charges?” She’d spent five hellish months being questioned by the police and by Interpol, being trashed by the press, because of Jacie? Jacie, who at the time had given Susana a shoulder to cry on?
“Of course it was me. Elena wasn’t smart enough to think up the idea, even though she resented you as much as I do.” Jacie laughed. “At least she hurt your feelings, didn’t she? Remember all those tears?”
“You traitorous, lying, conniving, whore-bitch!” Susana lunged toward Jacie, fingers aiming for the woman’s eyes. But Kai wrapped his arm around her shoulders from behind, trapping her arms to her sides and pulling her to a stop.
“Easy,” Kai murmured. “We need her conscious to answer the rest of our questions.”
Susana shot a murderous glare at the smirking Jacie. She so wanted to fight again, but Kai was right.
She sucked a deep breath into her lungs and exhaled slowly. Four more breaths, and enough tension had left her that she relaxed her fists one finger at a time.
“That’s it, sweetheart. You’ve already done enough damage to her. She’s going to be hurting for days,” Kai said.
Yeah, he was right. Jacie’s normally perfect appearance was ruined. Deep red scratches marred the normally flawless skin on her face. Her lips were swollen and bloody. The skin around both eyes was bruised.
Susana’s lips quirked into a satisfied smile. Jacie would freak once she looked in a mirror and saw the hunk of hair missing from just above her left temple. And the bloody rips in her expensive clothes.
“Who told you about the microchip?” Kai demanded.
Well, that just made her feel small. She’d been so focused on Jacie’s intent to kill her, she’d forgotten that there was a bigger picture.
“Mmm…now there’s a man of culture. My other lover. Tall. Brown, curly hair. Looks straight out of GQ. You danced with him at the fundraiser last month, but it was me he took to bed.”
Kai glanced at Susana. “Ring any bells?”
Susana shook her head. She’d danced with a lot of men that night. “Did he give you a name? A reason?”
“Oh, he called himself Antonio, but I doubt that w
as his real name.” Jacie’s smile turned sexual. “He claimed the microchip inside of you belongs to the American government, and that you stole it. He claimed he needed to get the chip back because it contains data critical to national security.” She rolled her eyes. “So very patriotic of him. But I knew that if he wanted the data so badly, there had to be other people who would pay even higher for it.”
“You’ve lost everything, Jacie,” Susana sneered. “The potential money. The fame. You’ll never—”
“Tomás, are you there?” a male voice squawked from one of the two-way pagers Kai had removed from the mercenaries. “A black military helicopter is heading your way very fast. Get out of there now, brother. They just tried to sink us with an explosive charge.”
“Shit. Grab your pack,” Kai ordered. The urgency in his voice propelled Susana across the tent to where she’d dropped her backpack.
Kai pulled his knife and took two steps toward Jacie. Susana felt a juvenile thrill as the other woman finally showed terror.
But Kai only sliced the cables at Jacie’s ankles, then the ones at her wrists.
“Run!”
“What? Why?” Jacie sputtered.
Kai cut the mercenaries free next. Then, knife still in hand, he scooped up his pack, grabbed Susana by the arm, and bolted for the door.
“What’s wrong?” Susana gasped, trying to keep up with Kai.
“Helicopter’s almost on us. Can’t you hear it?”
Um, no, she couldn’t. Not over the sound of their pounding feet. After several yards he finally let go of her arm and she found a pace that allowed her to stay by his side.
“Head straight into the jungle,” Kai said. “Keep going no matter what happens.”
She did not like the sound of that. “What if they’re friends?” she gasped.
“There hasn’t been enough time for our side to mobilize.” They were next to the mess tent now. Without slowing down, Kai shouted, “The camp is under attack. Run for the trees!”
Susana joined his cry, thinking her crew might respond better to a familiar voice. She was afraid to risk her balance by glancing back over her shoulder, so she sent up a little prayer that her colleagues would obey.
As they passed the shower tent, she finally heard a deep thrumming that had all the hairs on her body leaping to atavistic attention. The helicopter!
She lengthened her stride. The jungle seemed no closer, while the helicopter drew nearer until the noise from the rotors pressed against her back like an invisible wall.
Just a few more feet. She put every bit of effort into breaching the distance between her and the trees, then gave in to fear and leapt the last foot.
Yet even within the shelter of the jungle, she still felt hunted. Caught up in the urgent need to get away, she panicked at the slow pace forced on them by the increased darkness. She turned and looked back at camp, hoping she’d see her crew evacuating.
But there wasn’t a person in sight, not even Jacie or the mercenaries.
No!
Susana started back toward camp.
“Stop,” Kai ordered. “Susana, there’s nothing you can do about your crew now. We have to keep moving if we’re going to stay alive.”
As if to prove Kai right, the sound of the helicopter became an engulfing roar. Then two headlights rose over the tree line, following the road into camp from the river.
The desire to save the people she’d considered her family warred with her need to stay alive. She took a step away from Kai.
The roar of the helicopter was punctured by the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire.
Someone screamed.
Her crew. “No!”
“Susana, we have to move!” Beside her, Kai switched on a flashlight.
Susana kept her eyes on camp, praying for someone to leave. Finally, she saw Jacie race out from between two tents. The helicopter swept in behind her, and like a slow-motion scene in a movie, Jacie’s body arched back, then fell to the ground.
The helicopter zoomed on, heading straight for Susana.
She turned and sprinted after Kai.
Shit. Kai hadn’t expected the helicopter to be a military gunship.
He heard the impact of bullets tracing a path in front of the helicopter. The bird was close enough now that the rotor wash blew leaves off the surrounding trees and molded their clothing to their bodies.
Bullets slapped into the trees behind him.
He glanced back and felt a surge of relief to find Susana at his heels. But the helicopter was almost to the edge of the jungle. Dammit, if it didn’t turn away soon, they were dead. A few more yards and those bullets would find them.
Or the helicopter would crash into the trees, creating a fireball that would burn them alive.
Come on, come on, pull up, dammit.
He grabbed Susana, ready to throw her on the ground and protect her with his body, when the helicopter veered up and to the left.
Thank you, God.
But shit, whoever was piloting that thing was crazy. The camp barely had enough cleared space to allow the helicopter to swoop in, shoot, then pull up before hitting the trees.
The pilot had waited until the last possible minute to retreat, but Kai suspected the helicopter would be back.
He led Susana up a slight embankment into even deeper tree cover. The narrow beam from his flashlight proved a meager guide in the thick darkness, but using any light at all put them in danger. Remove the tape covering the lens would give the helicopter a larger beacon to follow.
They’d only run a hundred yards or so, when someone back at camp started screaming. The helicopter zoomed overhead, accompanied by a loud whoosh.
Kai threw Susana on the ground and dove on top of her just as a flash of fiery light illuminated the woods. After a minute, he spared a look behind him.
Shit. A wall of fire surged toward them.
Kai leapt to his feet, dragging Susana with him. He grabbed her hand and ran full out, not caring where they went, as long as they outran the flames.
The smoky air was sticky with the scent of burning resin, and underneath that the sickly chemical smell of an accelerant. Heat expanded out from the burning trees, pushing at their backs as if someone had opened an oven door behind them.
What the fuck were the idiots doing? The chip wouldn’t do them any good if it melted.
Susana pulled his hand and turned right. Kai didn’t know what she’d seen, but he trusted her jungle knowledge a hell of a lot more than his own. A few feet later the ground dipped. They skidded down the sandy slope and splashed into a shallow stream.
Susana turned left. The pull of the calf-deep water hampered their progress, but at least the air here was less smoky.
Without the accelerant to fuel it, the fire behind them slowed, having to work harder to burn the water-dense vegetation. The glow from the flames seemed farther away now, leaving them barely enough light to see by.
When the air finally cooled around them, Kai pulled back on Susana’s arm, slowing her to a stop.
“What?” she asked.
“Hold on a sec.” He listened. If the helicopter was still out there, maybe scanning the jungle with infrared, staying within the above-body-temperature air closer to the fire would hide their heat signal.
Angry birds squawked their alarm and animals roared in fear, but he didn’t hear the thrumming of helicopter blades.
“Okay. Keep going.”
She nodded and continued wading upriver. But after a few minutes her steps began to drag.
Dammit, they both needed to rest, yet the farther away from her camp they moved, the better their chance of survival.
Susana tripped and went down to her knees, Kai set her back on her feet and conceded they had to stop soon. He removed her backpack and slung it across his chest. The fact that she didn’t protest proved her level of exhaustion.
They’d moved far enough from the fire to need the flashlight. The pale light shimmered across Susana’s face, illuminating the b
lank, slack look of a person in shock.
His anger flared back to life, coupled with a fierce protectiveness. He wanted to pull her into his arms and lend her his strength. Instead, he hooked her fingers into the rear pocket of his backpack, then continued wading upstream.
With each step he took, the need for retribution burned through his veins. He wanted to turn around and confront their enemies. To kill as Susana’s friends had been killed. His muscles trembled with the need to act. A bellow of rage made it up to his throat before he managed to contain it.
No. He was not one of Nevsky’s monsters. He believed in law and justice.
He dug the fingernails of his right hand into his palm. His left hand tightened around the flashlight as he reached deep inside himself and dragged sanity out from its hiding place. Used it to bludgeon his savage instincts back into their cage.
He had to stay in control. Be calm.
Susana needed him.
Slowly, his anger faded. But the fight to master his temper left him as drained as an attack of malaria.
Chapter 18
Rafe lay on his back and blinked up at the hellish shadows dancing across the jungle canopy. Where was he?
Reddish light. Smoke. The crackle and pop of living things exploding. His mind struggled to make sense of his surroundings. To remember…
Fire. Helicopter.
Right. He’d been moving around the perimeter of the camp, intending to intercept his targets, the man and the woman, when the helicopter attacked. The targets dashed into the jungle. He’d followed for several minutes, the light from the fire making his job easy. But the helicopter had returned, firing into the jungle. Something had slammed into his shoulder. He’d tripped. Fallen. And…then what? He must have blacked out, because he couldn’t remember.
What was he supposed to do next? Wait for orders? Or go after the targets?
Sweet Jesus, he couldn’t remember past the pain in his head.
He tried to sit up, but the pain throttled him into oblivion.
“Stop,” Kai whispered.
He’d heard a sound behind them. Like…
There. A wheezing, human cough.
Betrayal (SSU Trilogy Book 2) (The Surgical Strike Unit) Page 17