Czytaj książkę: «Michael's Temptation»

One

Were they coming for her?

She sat bolt upright, thrust from sleep into wakefulness. The bed ropes creaked beneath her. The taste of fear was thick and dry in her mouth. Dan, she thought. Dan, why aren’t you here?

There was, of course, no answer.

If it had been a sound that awakened her, she heard nothing now except the rhythmic rasp of Sister Maria Elena’s breathing in the bed beside her. Darkness pressed against her staring eyes, the unrelieved blackness only possible far from the artificial glow of civilization.

Automatically her gaze flickered toward the door. She couldn’t see a thing.

Thank God. Her sigh eased a single hard knot of fear. If they came for her at night—and they might—they would have to bring a light. She’d be able to see it shining around the edges of the door.

Her gaze drifted to the outside wall where whispers of starlight bled through cracks between the boards, smudging the darkness. Soldiers had hammered those boards over the window when they’d first locked her in this room last week.

One week. When morning came, she would have been here a full seven days. Waiting for the man they called El Jefe to return and decide if she were to live or die…or, if the taunts of her guards were true, what form that death would take.

He would decide Sister Maria Elena’s fate, too, she reminded herself, and wished the fear didn’t always come first, hardest, for herself. But while the sister was a religioso, she was also a native of San Christóbal, not a representative of the nation El Jefe hated even more than he hated organized religion. She was old and ill. He might spare her.

A.J. pushed back the thin blanket, careful not to wake the nun, and swung her legs to the floor. Her knees were rubbery. Her breath came quick and shallow, and her hands and feet were chilled.

She ignored the physical symptoms of terror as best she could, making her way by touch and memory to the boarded-up window. There she folded her long legs to sit on the cool, dirty floor. Spaces between the boards let in fresh air—chilly, this far up in the mountains, but welcome. She smelled dampness and dirt, the wild green aroma of growing things, the heavier perfume of flowers. Even now, in the dry season, there were flowers here.

Wherever “here” was. She didn’t know where the soldiers had brought her when they’d raided La Paloma, the sleepy village where she’d been working. San Christóbal had a lot of mountains.

The boards let in slices of sky along with air. And if the sky was clear…yes, when she leaned close she could see a single star. The sight eased her.

The night wasn’t truly silent. Inside, there was the labored breathing of the feverish nun. Outside, frogs set up a staccato chorus, and the soft whirring of wings announced the hunt of some night-flying bird. Somewhere not too far away, a man cried out a greeting in Spanish and was answered. The distant scream of a puma rattled the night. Then there was only the sighing of wind through trees.

So many trees. Even without boards, without soldiers and fear, it had been hard sometimes to find enough sky here to feed a soul used to the open plains of west Texas.

A.J. tried not to regret coming to San Christóbal. That, too, was hard. Her eyes stayed open while her lips moved in a soundless prayer.

It shamed her, how deep and terrible her fear was. It weakened her, too, and she would need strength to get through whatever was to come. So she would pray and wait here, wait and watch as her slivers of sky brightened. In the daylight, she could remember who she was. There was Sister Maria Elena to care for then, and birdsong and monkey chatter to listen to. In the daylight, the slices of sky between the cracks would turn brilliantly blue. She could steady herself against those snatches of life.

But at night, locked into the darkness, she felt alone, lost, forgotten. In the darkness, she missed Dan intensely—and blamed him, too, as foolish as that was. In the darkness, the fear came back, rolling in like the tide of a polluted ocean. Sooner or later, he would be back. The one they called El Jefe. He would finish killing people elsewhere and return to his headquarters.

Being left alone was a good thing, she reminded herself. El Jefe was a man who believed in killing for his cause—but he didn’t condone rape. Neither she nor Sister Maria Elena had been harmed in that way. A.J. watched her star and murmured a prayer of thanks.

If she hadn’t been sitting with her head almost touching the boards, she wouldn’t have heard the sound. Softer than a whisper, so soft she couldn’t say what made it—save that it came from outside. From the other side of the window.

Her breath stopped up in her throat. Her eyes widened.

Something blacked out her star.

“Reverend? Are you there?” The voice was male and scarcely louder than her heartbeat. It came from only inches away. “Reverend Kelleher?”

It was also American.

Dizziness hit. If she had been standing, she would have fallen. “Yes,” she whispered, and had to swallow. “Yes, I’m here.”

A pause. “I’m going to kill Scopes,” that wonderful voice whispered.

“Wh-what?”

“I was expecting a baritone, not a soprano.” There was a hint of drawl in the whisper, a deliciously familiar echo of Texas. “Lieutenant Michael West, ma’am. Special Forces. I’ve come to get you out of here.”

“Thank God.” The prayer was heartfelt.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.” She bit back the urge to ask him how old he was.

“Are you injured?”

“No, I—”

“On a scale of couch potato to superjock, how fit are you?”

Oh—he needed to know if she would be able to keep up. “I’m in good shape, Lieutenant. But Sister Maria Elena is over sixty, and her leg—”

“Who?” The word came out sharp and a little louder.

“Sister Maria Elena,” she repeated, confused. “She was injured when the soldiers overran the village. I’m afraid she won’t be able to…Lieutenant?”

He’d begun to curse, fluently and almost soundlessly. “This nun—is she a U.S. citizen?”

“No, but surely that doesn’t matter.”

“The U.S. can’t rescue every native endangered by a bunch of Che Guevara wannabes. And what would I do with her? Guatemala and Honduras aren’t accepting refugees from San Christóbal, and Nicaragua is still pissed at the U.S. over the carrier incident last spring. They wouldn’t let us land a military helicopter.”

“But—but you can’t just leave her here!”

“Reverend, getting you out is going to be tricky enough.”

A.J. leaned her forehead against one rough board and swallowed hope. It lumped up sick and cold in her stomach. “Then I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t go with you.”

There was a beat of silence. “Do you have any idea what El Jefe will do to you if you’re still here when he gets back?”

“I hope you aren’t planning to give me any gruesome details. It won’t help. I can’t leave Sister Maria Elena.” Her voice wobbled. “She’s feverish. It started with a cut on her foot that got infected. Sh-she’ll die without care.”

“Lady, she’s going to die whether you stay or go.”

She wanted desperately to go with him. She couldn’t. “I can’t leave her.”

Another, longer silence. “Do you know anything about the truck parked beside the barracks?”

She shook her head, trying to keep up with the odd jumps his mind made. “I don’t know. They brought me here in a truck. A flatbed truck with metal sides that smells like a chicken coop.”

“That’s the one. It was running last week?”

She nodded, then felt foolish. He couldn’t see her. “Yes.”

“Okay. Get your things together. Wait here—I’ll be back.”

She nearly choked on a giggle, afraid that if she started laughing she wouldn’t be able to stop. “Sure. I’m not going anywhere.”

The moon was a skimpy sliver, casting barely enough light to mark the boundaries between shadows. Michael waited in a puddle of deeper darkness, his back pressed to the cement blocks of El Jefe’s house. A sentry passed fifteen feet away.

The sentries didn’t worry him. He had a pair of Uncle Sam’s best night goggles, while the sentries had to rely on whatever night vision came naturally. He also had his weapons—a SIG Sauer and the CAR 16 slung over his shoulder—but hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to use them. Shooting was likely to attract attention. If he had to silence one of the sentries, he’d rather use one of the darts in his vest pocket. They were loaded with a nifty knockout drug.

El Jefe’s headquarters was like the rest of his military efforts—military in style but inadequate. The self-styled liberator should have stayed a guerrilla leader, relying on sneak attacks. He lacked the training to hold what he’d taken. In Michael’s not-so-humble opinion, San Christóbal’s government would have to screw up mightily to lose this nasty little war. In a week or two, government troops should be battling their way up the slope El Jefe’s house perched on.

But what the guerrilla leader lacked in military training he made up for in sheer, bloody fanaticism. A week would be too late for the soft-voiced woman Michael had just left.

What was the fool woman doing here? His mouth tightened. Maybe she was no more foolish than the three U.S. biologists they’d already picked up, who were waiting nervously aboard the chopper. But she was female, damn it.

One sentry rounded the west corner of the house. The other had almost reached the end of his patrol. Michael bent and made his way quickly and silently across the cleared slope separating the compound from the forest. Then he paused to scan the area behind him. The goggles rendered everything in grays, some areas sharp, others fuzzy. Out in the open, though, where the sentry moved, visibility was excellent. Michael waited patiently as the man passed the boarded-up window. He wouldn’t move on until he was sure he wouldn’t lead anyone to the rendezvous.

He was definitely going to kill Scopes.

It was Scopes who’d passed on word from a villager about some do-gooder missionary who’d been captured by El Jefe’s troops. He must have known the minister was a woman, damn him. Andrew Scopes was going to strangle on his twisted sense of humor this time, Michael promised himself.

Maybe the minister’s sex shouldn’t make a difference. But it did.

He remembered the way her voice had shaken when she’d whispered that she couldn’t go with him. She’d probably been crying. He hated a woman’s tears, and resented that he’d heard hers.

She was scared out of her mind. But she wasn’t budging, not without her nun.

A nun. God almighty. Michael started winding through the trunks of the giants that held up the forest canopy. Even with the goggles the light was poor here, murky and indistinct, but he could see well enough to avoid running into anything.

Why did there have to be a nun?

Since he’d joined the service, he’d had more than one hard decision to make. Some of them haunted him late at night when ghosts come calling. But a nun! He shook his head. His memories of St. Vincent’s Academy weren’t all pleasant, but they were vivid. Especially his memories of Sister Mary Agnes. She’d reminded him of Ada. Mean as a lioness with PMS if you hadn’t done your homework, and twice as fierce in defense of one of her kids.

Dammit to hell. This was supposed to have been a simple mission. Simple, at least, for Michael’s team. His men were good. True, Crowe was new, but so far he’d proved steady. But gathering intelligence on the deadly spat brewing between El Jefe and the government of San Christóbal, rounding up a few terrified biologists on the side, was a far cry from snatching captives from a quasi-military compound.

Still, the compound wasn’t heavily guarded, and the soldiers left behind when El Jefe left to take the mountain road weren’t well trained or equipped. Michael and his men had watched the place for two days and a night; he knew what they were up against. No floodlights, thank God, and the forest provided great cover. Once they got their target out, they had three miles to cover to reach the clearing where the Cobra waited with its cargo of nervous biologists. An easy run—unless you were carrying an injured nun with fifteen armed soldiers in hot pursuit.

But El Jefe had thoughtfully left a truck behind. And, according to the Reverend, it had been running a week ago, when they brought her here. There was a good chance it was in working order.

If the truck ran…

She’d giggled. When he’d told her to wait there—meaning for her to wait by the window so she would hear him when he returned—she’d answered with one silly, stifled giggle. That sound clung to him like cobwebs, in sticky strands that couldn’t be brushed off. He crossed a narrow stream in the darkness of that foreign forest, his CAR 16 slung over his back and memories of Popsicles melting in the summer sun filling his mind.

Her giggle made him think of the first time he’d kissed a girl. The taste of grape Nehi, and long-ago mornings when dew had glistened on the grass like every unbroken promise ever made.

There was no innocence in him, not anymore. But he could still recognize it. He could still be moved by it.

He could knock the Reverend out. It would be the sensible thing to do. Downright considerate, even, since then she’d be able to blame him instead of herself for the nun’s fate.

Of course, he’d blame himself, too.

When was he going to grow up and get over his rescue-the-maiden complex? It was going to get him killed one of these days. And, dammit, he couldn’t get killed now. He had to get married.

That wasn’t the best way to talk himself out of playing hero.

He’d reached the fallen tree that was his goal. He stopped and whistled—one low, throbbing note that mimicked a bird call. A second later, three men melted out of the trees. Even with his goggles, he hadn’t spotted them until they moved. His men were good. The best. Even Scopes, though Michael still intended to ream him a new one for his little joke.

He sighed and accepted the decision he’d already made, however much he’d tried to argue himself out of it. He couldn’t leave the Reverend to El Jefe’s untender mercy. Or the nun.

The Colonel was going to gut him for sure this time.

The wheeling of the earth had taken A.J.’s star out of sight. Now there was only darkness between the slits in the boards.

Getting her things together had been easy. They hadn’t let her bring any of her possessions, not her Bible, not even a change of underwear. She had a comb and a toothbrush tucked in her pocket, given to her a few days ago by a guard who still possessed a trace of compassion. Of course, he probably expected to get them back when she was killed. Still, she asked God to bless the impulse that had moved him to offer her those tokens of shared humanity.

Waiting was hard.

He was coming back. Surely he was. And if he did…when he did, he would take her and the sister away with him. He had to.

She touched the place between her breasts where her cross used to hang and wished she knew how long she’d been waiting. How long she still had to wait. If the sun rose and he hadn’t returned…oh, she didn’t want to give up hope. Painful as it was, she didn’t want to give it up.

Time was strange. So elastic. Events and emotions could compress it, wad up the moments so tightly that hours sped by at breakneck speed. Or it could be stretched so thin that one second oozed into the next with boggy reluctance. Slow as molasses, she thought. Into her mind drifted an image of her grandfather’s freckled hand, the knuckles swollen, holding a jar of molasses, pouring it over a stack of her mother’s buttermilk pancakes….

“Hey, Rev.”

Though the whisper was so soft it blended with the breeze, she jolted. “Yes.” It came out too loud, snatching the breath from her lungs. “I’m here.”

“In a few minutes there will be an explosion at the east end of the compound. Are you familiar with the setup?”

An explosion? Her heart thudded. “I didn’t see much when I was brought here, and I’ve been kept in this room ever since. Are you going to…Sister Maria Elena, will you…?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “We’ll take the sister. You ready? Got your things?”

“There’s nothing.” Her hand went to the place her cross used to hang. A soldier with pocked skin and a missing tooth had yanked it off her neck. “Just Sister Maria Elena.”

“Is she ready to go?”

“She doesn’t hear well. I didn’t want to wake her to tell her what was going on. I would have had to speak too loudly.”

“Explanations will have to wait, then. The sentries are taken care of, but there might be other guards inside the house.”

The sentries were “taken care of”? What did that mean? She shivered. “Why an explosion? Wouldn’t it be better to sneak out?”

“We need a distraction. One of my men is going to blow up the barracks at the other end of the compound. When it goes—”

“No.” In her distress she rose to her knees, putting her hands against the boards as if she could reach him through them. “No, the soldiers—they’re sleeping. You can’t kill them when they’re sleeping.”

“It’s a shaped charge, just a little boom. Noisy enough to get their attention, but most of the force will be dispersed upward, taking out the roof. It probably won’t kill anyone.”

He sounded matter-of-fact, almost indifferent. As if death—killing—meant little to him. “Probably?”

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered. “Look, this is war. A small one, but the rules aren’t the ones you’re used to. These men would shoot you and the sister without blinking. That’s if you’re lucky. They’ve done worse.”

A.J. swallowed. The area where she’d been working had been peaceful at first. She wouldn’t have come to San Christóbal if she’d known…but after she’d arrived, she’d heard rumors of atrocities in the mountains. Men shot, tortured, villages burned. In Carracruz, the capital city, they blamed outlaws. In the rural villages, they whispered of rebels. Of El Jefe.

“Maybe so. That doesn’t make it right to kill them in their beds.”

“You worry about right and wrong, Rev. I’ll worry about getting us out of here. Here’s the plan. There’s a helicopter waiting three miles away. While the soldados are busy worrying about the explosion, we get you and the sister out of here and run like hell. There’s a trail that runs into the road about half a mile from the compound. We’ll meet the truck there.”

“What truck?”

“The one my men will liberate. It will get us to the copter. If everything goes well, we’ll be airborne about fifteen minutes after Scopes’s bomb goes off. Got it?”

It sounded good. It sounded so good she was terrified all over again at the sheer, dizzying possibility of escape. “Got it.”

“One more thing. From this point on, I’m the voice of God to you.”

“That’s blasphemous.”

“It’s necessary. You have the right to risk your own life, but you don’t have the right to endanger my men. You do what I say, when I say. No arguing, no questions. If I say jump, I don’t want to hear any nonsense about how high. Just jump. Understood?”

“I’m not good at following orders blindly.”

“You’d better learn fast, or I’ll knock you out and make my job easier.”

She swallowed. She didn’t have any trouble believing Lieutenant Michael West would knock her out if he considered it necessary. “You’re supposed to be one of the good guys.”

“They don’t make good guys like they used to, honey.”

“A.J.”

“What?”