by Lyn Stone
"René, go to that second tree, just there." He pointed. "Buried at the base of it or in the surrounding brush is a cell phone. If you find it, call in help." He rattled off the number for the secure line to reach the team.
He only hoped Eric had been able to place the cell phone back in the original location after the incident with Piers, or at least hadn't removed it from the bushes where Jack had tossed it.
Surely it was Eric who had taken Edouard out of the mix that day. Hopefully, he would have returned and replaced the phone, in case Jack had another chance to retrieve it.
No time to worry about that now. He had to get to Tournade. No chance of overtaking Piers while driving the antique Mercedes, but he could at least put out an all-points on the Saab once he got there.
A horrifying thought occurred. What if Piers caught up with Solange? Then he would stop. Jack was not armed but Vincent was, and Piers always carried. The keys for the Saab must have been somewhere else besides a lock box in the kitchen. That section of the mansion had been in flames. Piers and Vincent had to have escaped out the front, the only other exit not blocked.
Jack pressed the accelerator harder, though he knew the old car was giving its all already. "Damn it!" He pounded one fist on the steeling wheel. The blow seemed to trigger the fireball that billowed above the horizon in front of him.
A millisecond later he heard the blasts. More than one. He could feel the vibration beneath the wheels of the Mercedes. "Oh, God."
Frustration eating at every nerve, Jack leaned forward, a useless attempt to hurry. He was barely doing forty miles per hour.
When the bridge came into view, his heart almost stopped. A burning skeleton of a vehicle stood on the far side of the bridge. Not the Saab, he realized. He pulled up to the edge of the bridge, climbed out and looked down the steep slope of the bank. The remains of another car poked up out of the swift shallows on the far side. He recognized the distinctive shape of the fender.
Over the sound of rushing water, he heard someone cry out.
"Solange!" he shouted as he saw her. She was struggling in the water, one arm raised, less than two hundred feet downstream. The slope of the bank on the far side was too steep for her to climb out.
He jumped.
His boots were too heavy to swim effectively. His clothing dragged him down, but there was no time to consider that. He rode the current, his weakened muscles screaming. Hang on, hang on. Whether he spoke to himself or to her, he didn't know.
An interminable time later he had her in his arms. She clung to him, taking them both under. He fought his way back to the surface and managed to get them close enough to the bank that he could touch bottom.
With what seemed his last ounce of strength, he lifted her up. "Grab something. Climb!" he ordered.
He stood, submerged up to his chin and watched her snake her way up the bank, prepared to catch her if she slid back down into the water. Only when he'd assured himself she was safe on level ground did he make his own attempt.
When he neared the top of the six-foot incline, her eager hands reached out to him and grasped his wrists to pull him higher. She was more hindrance than help at that point, but Jack didn't protest.
Nothing she did would ever spark an argument with him. She was alive and that was all that mattered. All that mattered.
He dragged himself up beside her and collapsed on the weeds and dirt, his entire body trembling with relief, pain and exertion.
"I blew up his car," Solange said in a small voice.
She was kneeling over him, those capable little hands of hers trying to roll him over, probably to check his wound.
Jack felt laughter bubble up, totally inappropriate laughter. She was a doctor. She must be horribly upset that she'd been forced to take a life. Lives, he thought, remembering Vincent had been with Piers. Two souls on her wonderfully naive conscience.
He couldn't seem to care about that at the moment. All he could think was that this delicate little slip of a thing had managed to stop the bad guys. He didn't know how she had done that or what she had used.
"I'm just...glad you're...alive," he gasped. "So incredibly glad."
Jack smiled up at her, happiness wringing every drop of exhaustion out of his body. More than anything, he wanted to make love to her, show her how proud he was of her ingenuity, her courage.
He thought briefly of the image Joe Corda had seen before all this went down, that strange premonition. All wet and ecstatic. That was precisely how he felt right now.
Solange was alive! She had survived.
With his good arm, he pulled her closer and kissed her soundly on the mouth. He tasted keen relief, their combined adrenaline and something else of her alone. Fear, he realized.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes. They were red-rimmed, the blue irises almost obliterated by the dilation of her pupils. "What is it, Solange? Everything's all right now. It will be fine. You're safe."
He spoke softly, gently, as he would to a frightened child, someone in shock.
She was already shaking her head, her glance darting to the river, over her shoulder to the damaged bridge. "No, Jacques. It might not be...all right." She focused on him again as she released a weary sigh and touched his face with her fingers. "Not if Piers had the toxin with him."
"Oh, God." He had had it. Jack had seen the canister. For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Both knew what it could mean. If the canister had broken open, if the vials had not survived, the toxin would have been released into the river. They both had been exposed.
Finally Jack spoke, his voice brusque. "Worst case, how long do you figure we have?"
Again she shook her head, an almost imperceptible shake this time. "I...I don't know. Perhaps twenty-four hours, maybe more. I attempted to destroy it in storage, but the temperature would not rise. Belclair gave me no chance to test the substance myself. I only had his notes on the findings."
She looked again toward the bridge. "Of course, the heat of the explosion might have...or not. Perhaps it takes sustained heat to destroy it. The water might have dispersed it enough to reduce its effect on us. But it only takes a minuscule amount. I simply do not know."
Jack reached for her, surrounding her with his arms, holding her, rocking her.
"This is so unfair." She sounded angry now.
Unfair? She still believed that any fairness existed in the world? Poor Solange. Life was chance and that was a fact. He should have expected some kind of incident, going into this mission. And he should never have allowed her to come with him. But it was too late now for self-recrimination. At least, too late to voice it. He would go to his grave with the guilt. Maybe sooner than later.
"We have had the vaccine," he offered hopefully.
"Yes, but that was for ricin, not this. It could prove useless." Tears tracked down her cheeks, melding with the water still dripping from her hair.
Jack brushed them away. "Our luck has held so far," he told her. "'Look what you've done, Solange. You saved an entire village."
Suddenly .she pushed away from him and sat up straight. "We have to let someone know right away. They will have to do something to decontaminate the water if that is possible! And René is still at the chateau. He will need help."
"Listen," Jack said. He could already hear the distant whup-whup of rotor blades, though he couldn't see anything yet. "Helicopters. René must have found the phone, or else the authorities are checking out the smoke from the fire and the explosions. In a few minutes we will have more people here than you can count."
Even as he spoke, his words were punctuated with the whiny hee-haw of an ambulance on its way from Tournade.
She looked in the direction of the village, then back at him. "We will be quarantined. Isolated separately, I expect."
"I'm afraid so. There will be the debriefing, too. That is always done individually."
"One more kiss...for luck?" Solange suggested with a brave, teary smile.
"Many mo
re, I promise," Jack said, sliding his hand over her wet clothes and feeling the precious, vibrant body beneath. "We will get through this, Solange."
But when his mouth met hers, desperation fueled the kiss and it was not all hers. Both of them knew it could be the last kiss they ever shared.
By the end of his second day of isolation in the secure facility just outside Paris, Jack was ready to break out and get some answers.
God only knew he had given enough of them to French intel. He had been debriefed to within an inch of his life and had nothing more to tell them. He had made his own reports for the record.
His shoulder was healing, a wound hardly worth the term. He was so full of antibiotics, his veins were probably stretched to the max. No evidence of exposure to the toxin had occurred in him so far and he knew he was almost home free in that respect.
Reaction to ricin and the like took two to three days, he knew. Respiratory distress would have been apparent by this time if he had been affected.
He had spoken briefly with Holly Amberson by telephone three times. All she had told him was that the threat was contained and they had managed to keep it out of the news to avoid public panic. She had seemed uncomfortable when he demanded to know Solange's condition and where she was being kept.
He glared at the telephone. It was a receive-only line and he could not call out. French security was determined to keep the incident under wraps at all costs. There were guards outside the locked door. No windows. No vents larger than six inches in diameter. He was effectively trapped unless he created some disturbance that would require opening the door. Even then, he was not certain they would.
The inactivity, not to mention the worry, was killing him. He lay back on the uncomfortable hospital bed and closed his eyes.
With all his might, Jack zeroed in on Eric. "Get me the hell out of here. Now before I kill somebody!" He even said the words out loud. Very loud.
Five seconds later the phone rang. Jack snatched it up. "You heard me, Vinland. Make it happen."
"Take it easy, Jack. Holly's on her way."
"What do you know about Solange? How is she? Where is she?"
"Holly will give you a full report. She's talking with the doctors right now and will be there within the hour."
Vinland's usual lighthearted tone was missing, Jack noted. He was broadcasting some bad vibes. Jack could actually feel them. Fine time for a psychic connection to kick in. It scared the hell out of him.
"Eric, be straight with me. Please. Is Solange ill? I have to know."
There were a couple of seconds silence. "Yes," he finally admitted. "But she is alive, Jack. I can tell you that much. She's alive and she's fighting."
Fighting.
Jack couldn't speak. He replaced the receiver, set the phone on the nightstand and stared into space.
In his mind's eye, he could see her. Lying still and quiet, heavily suited nurses and doctors monitoring her every breath. Tubes, wires, machines, locked doors. And worst of all, if conscious, she would know what to expect next. She would be aware of her internal organs disintegrating and how blood would rush out everywhere.
His anguish was so profound and consuming, he was not even aware that anyone was in the room with him until he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard the voice.
"Jack? It's okay."
He could only shake his head. Nothing would ever be okay again. Not ever.
"Come on," Holly told him in her no-nonsense way. "Put some pants on and let's go see her." She unfolded a pair of jeans and a pullover shirt.
He saw that she actually meant to help him dress. "How bad?" he demanded as he snatched the clothing from her and began to put it on.
"She's holding her own right now. There's fever, but she hasn't progressed beyond regular flu symptoms."
"Bleeding?" he rasped as he shoved his feet into the loafers Holly had brought.
"None. Look, Jack, it could just be a simple case of—"
"Yeah, but we know better, don't we," he said bitterly. "I dragged her into this, knowing what could happen. Hell, I should be the one. It should have been me."
"But it's not, so give it a rest!" Holly snapped. "Don't you think I feel responsible, too? I was the one who insisted you take her with you! And she's got to be feeling pretty stupid right about now to have blackmailed you into taking her, right? Yeah, she told me about that before she got so sick. We all feel bad about it, not just you. Get over it and give the girl some credit, will you? She felt she had to go and she went, just like you did."
" 'Life's a bitch and then you die'? Is that all you've got to say?" Jack thundered.
"Sometimes, yeah, that's the way it is!" Holly exclaimed, hands on her hips and her black eyes flashing. "Now are you gonna ream me a new one all day long or you want to get out of here and go see her?"
Her expression softened. "She's been asking about you, Jack. That's why I'm here. And if you knew the threats I had to make and the strings I yanked—"
His anger deflated, melted down to something approaching grief. But it was too soon to grieve. If there was any way to save Solange, he meant to find it. He grabbed Holly's arm. "Let's go."
They didn't have far to travel. "Her room is on the floor below yours," Holly told him as they reached the elevator. "Every biomed expert in the country and a few choice imports have been working around the clock on all of you."
"All?" Jack asked as he punched the down button repeatedly. "Who else besides Solange and me?"
"Belclair survived the fire. The tower was mostly stone and never ignited. The two guys locked in with him suffered smoke inhalation, but the separate ventilation system in the tower saved them."
"René?" Jack asked. Solange, especially, would want to know he was all right.
"Checked out okay. He's staying at his digs over on the Left Bank and he's been driving us nuts! You gave him our secure number and he's used the hell out of it. Calls constantly wanting to know how you and the doctor are doing. You need to have a word with that kid when you get time."
She led the way out as the elevator stopped. Jack would have pushed right past her, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Jack, I'm sorry if it looks like we've been stonewalling you. We were advised to wait until we knew whether you'd succumb to this, too, before we told you anything."
He ignored the apology. "Which room is she in?"
Holly pointed to the closed door on her right. "This is the observation room. First, I think you should—"
"Hell with that."
Solange wasn't contagious. She'd been poisoned. And he didn't have any bug that would make her worse or his doctors would have discovered it.
He shoved Holly aside and entered the door next to the one she had indicated.
The sight that greeted him stopped him cold when he stepped inside. Solange lay motionless as a marble statue, an oxygen mask over her face and IVs in both arms.
She looked so small, so defenseless. So pale. An attendant, eyes wide over her close-fitting mask raised a gloved hand to wave him back, but Jack ignored her.
He approached the bed, took Solange's nearest hand in both of his and stood there, helpless to do anything.
Dimly he was aware of the nurse dragging a chair closer to the bedside and urging him to sit down. He did, his eyes never leaving Solange. This was his watch to keep.
"Any further development?" Will asked as he entered the observation room. His dark gaze flew to the one-way window where Holly sat watching Jack and the patient.
"No bleeding. That's something. Blood pressure's low and her fever's still way too high, but she's holding her own." She sighed. "Look at him, Will. If she dies, he's not gonna get over it."
"He got over Maribeth," Will argued. "Jack's tough."
"No, he didn't get over it, you goof. He still blames himself for that and he wasn't even involved in the mission that killed her. But I can't argue logically that he's not partly responsible for this, and we both know it. Besides, I t
hink he really loves this one."
"C'mon, he loved his wife," Will argued, leaning against the edge of the window.
"Yeah, well, in a way I guess he did. But they were more buddies, I think. Or partners."
"Like us," Will said, nodding.
Holly looked up at him but didn't answer. It hadn't been a question. She wished it were. "This is different with him, though, I can tell. The little doc really got to him in a big way. They were lovers. That's pretty clear."
"I don't know how you can possibly tell that. Anyway, it's none of your business, Holly," Will warned. "Stay out of it. Why did you let him go in against doctor's orders?"
"She needs him there. Nobody wants to die alone."
Will turned and pierced her with a look. "This is not like you, Holly."
She shook her head. "The whole mission has creeped me out from the get-go. Give me a hail of bullets any-day. What's the latest on Chari?"
"Singing like a canary on speed. We can't shut him up. Eric and Joe are scrambling to keep up with the transcripts of his confession. And—get this—the fool wants copies."
"Yeah, he would. What's the word on Belclair?"
"His respiratory problems are much worse. Nothing's showing up in his blood, but they're doing further tests. He's asthmatic, so they aren't sure whether it's that, exacerbated by smoke and stress, or if it's the toxin."
"I hope it's the toxin," Holly declared fervently. "I hope the son of a bitch dies today! He deserves it."
She released a worried sigh as she looked through the window. "If Belclair lives, I'm afraid of what Jack might do next."
Will paused on his way to the door and gave her shoulders a fond squeeze. Holly closed her eyes and relished the touch. Given this past week and a half, she badly needed a bear hug, but she could hardly ask him for that.
When she looked up at him, he gave her a bracing smile. "Keep a close eye on him, Holly. Jack's not himself right now. And don't you worry, we'll take care of everything else that's going on."
"Thanks...partner," she said, but the door was already closing behind him. The man wasted no time where some things were concerned.
Holly turned back to the window. "Girl, I sure hope your luck holds out," she whispered to Solange. "You might have used it all up finding some guy to love you that much."