by Cindy Dees
She handed the weapon to him.
He gritted his teeth and faced the cave opening again. He really hated tight spaces. He steeled himself and squeezed out through the narrow gap. He felt like dough squeezed through a pasta maker. An angel hair spaghetti-maker. He dropped flat and inched over toward the edge of the cliff.
Very carefully he peered over the drop-off.
The soldiers were gone. All of them. Except the one he’d shot, who still lay sprawled where he’d fallen.
Cold bastards. Didn’t take their dead with them. The Blackjacks never left one of their own behind, dead or alive.
He scanned the jungle below. There wasn’t a single glimpse of a soldier anywhere at all.
That was completely bizarre. Why would they just give up and go away all of a sudden? They had their quarry trapped. All they had to do was come up and get her. It made no sense whatsoever.
He stared down at the dead guy speculatively. Was this another trap of some kind?
And then something struck him.
Something that made him sick to his stomach.
He scanned the ground around the base of the cliff quickly, not finding what he was looking for. He searched again, slowly and with careful thoroughness.
He pushed back from the edge of the cliff in complete and utter disgust.
Sonofabitch.
CHAPTER TEN
Kimberly waited in an agony of suspense in the dark cave. What in the world was going on out there? She had visions of a sniper picking Tex off as he peeked over the edge, stranding them both up here with no chance at all of getting down that cliff alive.
He would die horribly from his injuries, suffering terribly as he gave up life inch by inch. She couldn’t bear the idea of not being able to help him if, God forbid, he got hurt. Not to mention she would die of dehydration and starvation and her corpse would wither away into a dried-out mummy long before anybody found her in this remote spot.
Tex’s voice interrupted her morbid thoughts. He sounded totally disgusted. “You can come out now.”
She frowned confused. The soldiers were gone? Why would they walk away at the very moment they had her trapped and within their reach? She wiggled out through the narrow cave opening and crawled over to Tex on her hands and knees. She stretched out on her stomach beside him to look down. Her insides lurched at how high up in the air they were.
He was staring at the ground below in utter chagrin.
“Where’d everybody go?” she asked in confusion.
“They left. They got what they were after,” he bit out.
“I don’t understand…”
He turned his head to stare grimly at her. “They weren’t after you at all. They never cared about kidnapping you. They were after me when they landed that helicopter at Quantico. Me and the RITA rifle.”
She frowned. They weren’t after her? She wasn’t the target? Confusion swirled in her head until she was almost dizzy. She pressed herself flat against the solid rock until the sickening feeling that she was about to fall over the edge passed. “The sniper rifle? Why would they go to all this trouble over a gun?”
He snorted. “Weren’t you paying attention to the briefing I gave you and all your reporter flunkies?”
She answered him honestly. “Not really.”
He laughed shortly, without humor. “Figures.”
He rolled on his side to face her. “The RITA rifle has a smart targeting system that locks on to a target and then tracks the target all by itself. RITA’s computer makes corrections hundreds of times a second for movement of both the target and the gun, weather conditions, the wind, you name it.”
She gave him a blank look.
He translated into plain English. “Once you point the RITA rifle at a target and its computer locks on to that person, the gun doesn’t miss. Ever.”
“That’s impressive and all, but can’t a good sniper do pretty much the same thing?”
Tex scowled. “There’s something else about the RITA rifle I didn’t tell your journalist buddies about because it’s classified. Highly classified, in fact.”
Her gaze swiveled to his. What could be so special about a rifle that it merited its own security rating?
“When we get back home, you’re going to have to sign a bunch of documents promising not to reveal what I’m about to tell you.”
She nodded impatiently. “I know the routine. I’ve sat in on classified sessions of Congress before.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. Daddy pulls strings for you, too, doesn’t he?”
“My father doesn’t lift a finger to help me,” she retorted, stung. “Truth be told, he’d be happy to see me crash and burn.”
Tex looked at her a long time, his mental wheels clearly turning over that tidbit of information. Eventually he shrugged. He was close enough for her to feel the heat from his body. As always, it lured her near with its sexual promise.
She blinked and tried to refocus on the discussion at hand. “So. What’s so special about this gun?”
“It can fire through bulletproof glass.”
“And?” she asked, waiting for the big revelation.
“And?” he asked incredulously. “If that technology falls into the wrong hands, nobody in the world will be safe anymore! No bank teller will be safe from robbers, no head of state will be safe in his limousine. Hell, the Pope will be at risk in the Popemobile.”
That sounded bad.
Tex continued, “The whole nature of personal security will have to change. Any terrorist group or rich bastard with a grudge could hire a sniper with a RITA rifle, and anybody, absolutely anybody, could be killed pretty much at will. The chaos that would ensue… I don’t even want to think about it.
Some terrorist group with one of those rifles could knock out every key world leader and then sit back and enjoy the fun while countries scramble to secure the reins of power. Not to mention the armies and nuclear warheads at stake….
And then there are the little guys. What about DEA or FBI agents who rely on armored cars and bullet-proof vests to do their jobs day in and day out? Or congressmen like your father, whose desks sit in front of bulletproof windows and who ride in bulletproof cars? Jewelry stores, security guards in office buildings, cops who rely on Kevlar vests in a firefight…. Do you have any idea how many people’s lives would be put at risk if that gun’s technology got out?”
“Okay, I get the point. A lot of people would be put in danger.”
He stared darkly at her. His next words, spoken flatly, without any emotional inflection at all, made her flinch.
“And I just handed that rifle over to Gavronese rebels.”
She stared at him as comprehension dawned. While she’d been clinging for her life to the cliff, he’d thrown one of the rifles down the rock face to get rid of its weight. It had been the big sniper rifle he’d tossed.
She glanced over the edge of the cliff in reflex.
“It’s gone,” he assured her. “Believe me, I’ve looked hard. They got it.”
That was bad. But there wasn’t a darn thing they could do about it up here. In a perfect world, they’d walk out of the jungle and call in a small army to retrieve the rifle, walk out…
The secondary implications of what he’d said began to hit her. She gazed hopefully at Tex.
“Then, if they were really after the rifle and not me, that means they won’t chase us if we get out of here. We can walk out to the nearest road and get out of this bloody jungle! Then we can call in some help and get the gun back.”
Jubilation coursed through her. Thank God. Their nightmare was over! Tex’s jaw looked tight, the expression in his eyes harsh. Why wasn’t he as thrilled as she was?
“Let’s go home!” she cried.
“It’s not that simple.”
She stared at him, surprised. What was so hard about going home? Okay, so maybe they’d have to avoid towns and people sympathetic to the rebels. There was probably some risk to that, but nothing like what they
’d been up against.
“Why not?” she finally asked. “What’s so hard about getting out of here? All we need to do is get to a telephone. A couple phone calls and it’ll all be over.”
“I can’t leave yet,” he said heavily.
“What do you mean, you can’t leave?” She pushed herself up onto an elbow to stare at him.
“I mean, I can’t take you home yet. My job’s not over, here.”
A horrible sinking feeling rumbled warningly in the pit of her stomach. “What are you talking about, Tex?”
“I have to get that rifle back.”
She stared in shock. “You’re one man. An army just grabbed that thing. Are you nuts?”
“Maybe. But I have to try. I lost it. I have to recover it.”
No. No, no, no. He couldn’t detour to chase after a gun. He had to get her out of this mess first. She tried to reason with him. “That’s crazy, Tex. Let’s walk out to the nearest town. You can call in the Marines, and they can go get the bloody thing back.”
He shook his head. “The United States has a strictly hands-off policy down here. If we brought in Marines, both sides in the civil war would accuse us of interfering and they’d both turn on us. It would be another Somalia all over again.”
Panic shortened her breath. But they had to get out of here! “So, call in the rest of the Blackjacks. Don’t you guys sneak around in war zones all the time? Don’t you specialize in doing stuff like taking on entire armies?” Desperation pulled the muscles across the back of her neck tight. She wanted to go home. To safety. Now!
“It’ll take the Blackjacks a while to get down here. For all we know, the rebels will ship the RITA out of here the second they get back to civilization. Some off-continent manufacturer could take it apart and learn its secrets in a matter of days.”
“Surely you’re exaggerating the threat…”
He cut her off with a withering glare. “Besides, deploying the Blackjacks down here could be, uh, a bit sensitive. We were down here not too long ago and made quite a splash. Neither side in the Gavronese war likes us a whole lot.”
“What did you do to tick everyone off?”
“We blew up Gavarone’s only international airport, which the Gavronese government is miffed over. Then we killed a couple hundred rebels on the roof of the American Embassy while we rescued the U.S. Ambassador, preventing him from becoming the rebel’s juicy political hostage. The rebels are a smidge pissed off at us over the incident.”
She stared at him. “How do you destroy a whole airport?”
He grinned briefly. “We blew up the above-ground fuel storage tanks. They ignited a secondary blast that blew the underground fuel pits. The whole tarmac and a couple big chunks of the runway are smoking craters. Most of the Gavronese Air Force was parked on the ramp when it blew, too.”
She shook her head in amazement. “Six guys did all that?”
“Six guys and one woman. An American military attaché was with us. It was her idea. I’ll introduce her to you when we get home, if you’d like.”
She blinked at the way he said it. As if there was a tacit understanding that they’d see each other again once they got out of here. His voice rang with straightforward certainty as if there was no question about it.
Suspicion flared in her gut. She’d spent a lot of years in Washington learning that anyone who pretended to be that sincere, wasn’t. In fact, in her experience, the more honest a person seemed, the more dishonest they usually were.
She’d been a naive, idealistic kid once who might have bought that utterly convincing ring in his words. But that had been a very long time ago. He was running a con on her. She just didn’t see his angle yet.
Tex’s voice interrupted her turbulent thoughts. “The U.S. government promised the Gavronese government that it wouldn’t send the Blackjacks into Gavarone again for a good, long time. Which leaves just me on the ground and in place to deal with this.”
“Alone,” she retorted. “Why can’t they come in here in the role of a rescue team?”
“By the time you and I can contact them, we probably won’t need to be rescued.”
She rolled her eyes. “A technicality. Tex, I’ll be the first to admit that your skills and training are impressive. But come on. You’re not John Wayne! You can’t do this by yourself!”
He lifted a single lazy eyebrow at her and drawled, “Are you offering to help?”
“Me?” She recoiled. “Certainly not. I’m going home. To a hot shower, clean clothes, new shoes, and dinner at the best restaurant in Washington. And I’m never setting foot in another jungle as long as I live!”
Tex gestured with his hand at the ground far below, hard cynicism in his eyes. “Be my guest, Kimberly. Nobody’s forcing you to stay with me. Feel free to go home right now, by yourself. But even in a best case scenario, it’ll take the Blackjacks a few days to get down here, and every second counts right now. I’m going after that rifle.”
She glared at him, severely annoyed. “This isn’t fair! I’m stranded up the side of a cliff, and you know damned well I can’t get down it by myself.”
“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll take you down.”
She knew a final offer when she heard one. That was probably as much of a concession as she was going to get from him today. He’d been kind enough not to point out that it was her fault he’d lost the rifle. Had she not screamed her head off earlier, they would still be skulking around…with the rifle. She hated the idea of prolonging her time out here any more than she had to, but she couldn’t possibly navigate her own way back to civilization. She needed him.
And that meant she was stuck going along with his damn fool idea of getting his gun back.
He picked up the AK-47 from the ground beside him and stood up. He rigged some sort of harness out of bits of rope and tied it around her. She watched dubiously while he secured the end of the longest rope to an outcropping of stone behind him.
He moved over to the edge of the cliff and gestured expansively. “Your ride awaits you,” he said with false politeness.
She glared at him and crawled over to the edge of the cliff.
“Hang onto the rope and use your feet to hold you away from the cliff. I’ve got enough line left to lower you past the vertical face. When you get to the broken rocks beyond the smooth stuff, step out of the harness and free climb the rest of the way down.”
She looked up at him in dismay. “You’re not coming with me?”
“I need to bring the rope along. We don’t have much gear, and I don’t want to waste what we do have. Once you’re down the cliff, I’ll untie it and climb my way down.”
“Isn’t there another way? That sounds awfully dangerous.”
“Darlin’, I free climbed up the damn thing carrying you. Going down it is going to be a cinch.”
She supposed he knew what he was doing.
She paused in the act of lowering herself over the edge. “By the way, Romeo, girls like balconies that won’t break their necks if they fall off them.”
His grin flashed. “Picky, picky, picky.”
Pushing any thoughts about what she was about to do out of her mind, she took a deep breath and slipped over the edge of the wall. She hung onto the ledge for as long as she could, easing her weight gradually into the makeshift harness. She held her breath as the rope accepted her weight, stretching and creaking ominously. Oh, God.
She hung on for dear life as Tex lowered her slowly down the granite wall.
Yet again her safety and well-being rested completely in his hands. The vulnerability of owing her life to him like this was incredibly intimate. It struck her anew how deeply she trusted him. Earlier, on the way up the cliff, she’d let go of that rock face and climbed onto his back. And just now she’d stepped, literally, off the edge of a cliff without hesitation because Tex said it would be all right.
How could he make her so mad one minute and then command total trust out of her the next? He was the most confusing m
an she’d ever met, with the possible exception of her father.
Her father and Tex. Boy, now there were two birds of a feather. Military men, driven by some inexplicable, demonic need to be heroes. Her father had broken under the strain of the demands he’d placed upon himself and had spent years lashing out in unreasoning anger over it.
And here was Tex, losing himself in his own hero complex before her very eyes. The idea that he could find that rifle and get it back all by himself was patently absurd. The fact that he would even consider trying it astounded her. And she was helpless to stop him, to protect him from himself. He would end up just like her father.
The rope hung up for a moment, then lurched as it jerked free from a snag in the rock. Her heart raced and she felt light-headed with the burst of adrenaline that hit her.
The rope felt pitifully thin in her hands, not nearly strong enough to support her weight. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and added rock climbing to the list of things she was never, ever, going to do again as long as she lived.
Finally her feet struck a protruding rock and the wall grew uneven beneath her cheek. She’d made it past the worst part. She shimmied out of the rope harness and called up to Tex, “I’m clear of the hard part and the rope’s free.”
The line disappeared quickly as he hauled it back in. Now that there was nobody chasing her, she took her time climbing down the rest of the wall. She tested each handhold and foothold carefully before shifting her weight lower. It seemed to take forever to get down the cliff. How had they ever gone up it so quickly before?
Finally her feet touched solid ground once more. She’d made it. She sighed in heartfelt relief. Suddenly her arms were so exhausted, she didn’t think she could lift them if she had to.
She looked up the wall and saw Tex clinging to the smooth granite cliff. How he was staying on the rock face, she had no idea. He looked as if he ought to slide off it any second. She held her breath each time he moved. Fear for him surged through her and she felt as if she’d made the descent again by the time he dropped lightly to the ground beside her.
She was struck anew by how big and powerful a man he was as he strode up to her.