Читать книгу Code Name: Blondie - Christina Skye - Страница 7

MIKI AWOKE WITH SAND in her mouth.

She was flat on the ground, her clothing still damp. Her hands were behind her back now, aching in plastic wrist restraints. How much time had passed since her fall?

She tried to free her hands, and instantly felt hot canine breath on her face, a silent warning. Miki tried to clear her fuzzy thoughts, remembering her escape and the pursuit. Her wrists hurt, but by wriggling slightly she could relieve the pressure. Tilting her head back, she looked up, searching vainly for familiar constellations. With the clouds gone, the darkness was alive now, filled with glittering white specks that dotted a sky untouched by any other light. None of them meant a thing to Miki. She barely recognized the constellations back home in New Mexico.

She was on a beach somewhere. That much she knew, but nothing else. Wincing, she glanced carefully around and froze at the sight of the pale shape stretched out nearby.

A really huge dog. Some kind of retriever.

Now you’ve stepped into it, Miki thought. Fired, wrecked, ditched, then lost and half drowned. A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside her, but she cut off the sound, remembering Dutch’s final order.

Stay smart and stay alive.

The dog gave her no choice. She shuddered at the thought of sharp teeth lunging at her throat. Guard dogs were taught things like that. They could kill in seconds, according to Miki’s best friend, who trained service dogs for police and military units. Now Miki wished she’d paid better attention all those times Kit described how she trained her dogs.

If she ever got back.

Blocking a wave of hopelessness, she watched a dark shape feather across the moon. She recognized the leaves of a palm tree, and that meant she was still in the tropics. Given the silence, it had to be someplace remote. Since she’d come awake there had been no lights, either at sea or from passing planes.

Very remote, she thought grimly.

Her head began to ache, and she remembered bumping it back in the cave. Now her whole body throbbed along with her head, but pain or not, she had to do something before the creep in the wetsuit came back, even if one escape effort had failed.

But that left the dog. If she moved very slowly, she could try to make her way back to the water, since dogs couldn’t carry a scent over running water. She remembered hearing Kit say that.

Carefully, Miki eased onto her side. The wind rushed over her face, but she was certain the dog couldn’t hear her anyway. Her confidence growing, she moved another few inches.

Still no warning growl.

Her pulse hammered as she moved again, her face against the wind. She heard a sucking noise and sand skittered over her feet. The sound came again, and the blackness materialized into a column. Miki realized the man was back, her worst nightmare in the flesh. Over the slam of her heart she heard a soft groan that seemed familiar. The noise came from what appeared to be a large object.

Dutch?

Recognition made her try to stand. Had he actually found Dutch out in the dark water? She could barely believe it.

Her urgent questions were cut off by cold gloved hands at her mouth. “No noise,” he whispered. Kit felt him bend down, checking that her restraints were in place.

Then sand squished and he drove her across the beach. She felt sand give way to dirt, the waves sounding muted behind her.

A light flickered and disappeared and his low voice came at her ear. “Four steps down.”

The first drop took her by surprise and she stumbled, her ankle twisting. Gloved hands caught her and she slammed against a hard chest.

A door hinge whispered. Light flared, blinding her. She could see the creep for the first time, his body covered by a black wetsuit and black gloves. He was carrying a pair of heavy night-vision goggles, and in the light his eyes snapped with command, somewhere between blue and gray. Miki couldn’t seem to focus, but when he undid her restraints and set her down, Dutch was at her feet, sickly white. A long gash ran down his right cheek.

“You got him,” she whispered, kneeling beside the pilot. She didn’t look up, gripping Dutch’s cold fingers. “Thank you. I didn’t think anyone could do that.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” He tossed a silver thermal blanket over Dutch and tucked the foil around the man’s motionless body. As he moved his light, Miki saw that they were underground in some kind of small room. Near her feet were a large metal case and half a dozen tins that looked like MREs. The dog sat beside the case, ears erect, body alert. Spotting her sodden camera bag on the floor near Dutch, Miki reached out, but the dog seized the handle in its teeth and tugged it out of reach.

“Hey! What do you mean by—”

“No noise.” The man looked at his dog. “Sit.”

Instantly the powerful body dropped, Miki’s camera bag still between his front paws. The dog nosed the bag and suddenly flattened on the ground, his hackles rising.

The man spun around. “Target?” he said softly. “Alert.”

Target? All Miki had in the bag were clothes, a few sundries and her camera equipment. Everything was likely to be ruined from the seawater.

The dog sniffed the ground, sniffed Miki’s satchel, then laid one paw across the leather bag and didn’t move.

“Confirm.”

The dog sniffed her bag again, and the motion made something shift inside an inner pocket. There was a small pop and fragrance blossomed, filling the cramped space. Miki realized it was her best French perfume, the same fragrance she’d worn since she was seventeen, taken everywhere as a good luck talisman. Unfortunately, she’d been in a rush that morning and had shoved the bottle into an empty lens pouch rather than wrap it carefully the way she usually did.

Judging by the sharp odor, the bottle had just broken.

The dog sneezed loudly. For some reason this made the man angry. He flipped off his penlight, then opened the trap door, letting the dog race up the small wooden steps.

Miki started to blurt another question but one cold look stopped her. Her captor looked furious. Silent and controlled, he pulled a plastic bag from a black tactical vest near the metal case. His mouth set in a thin line as he opened the camera case, saw the overturned and now lidless perfume bottle. Quickly he closed the lens pouch and then zipped the bottle inside.

“What are you doing with my stuff?” she hissed. Since when was it a hostile act to wear nice perfume? Miki’s irritation swelled when he dropped her lens case and camera inside a larger plastic bag, then locked everything inside the metal case.

“Hey, you can’t—”

“No noise. No perfume or scent of any sort. You understand that?”

Miki stared at him, cold, tired and furious. The man was unhinged. Sure, he’d saved her and then gone back for Dutch at considerable risk to himself, but he’d also cuffed her. Now he was the perfume police? Maybe he was one of those neatness freaks she saw newspaper stories about, people who wash their hands fifty times a day and don’t let anyone touch their personal belongings.

The sudden sound of Dutch’s labored breathing made Miki forget about her expensive perfume. The pilot didn’t open his eyes as his lungs moved in strained bursts. Even to her untrained eyes it was clear that he was in bad shape.

“He needs a doctor,” Miki whispered.

Her rescuer raised two gloved fingers, tapped her mouth and shook his head.

Clearly, noise was another one of his problem areas.

She decided it would be best to play along. Right now he was her only contact with civilization, even if he appeared to be two tortillas short of a combo meal.

But he looked competent as he knelt to check out Dutch, cleaning the gash at the man’s stubbled cheek and unbuttoning his shirt to check for other trauma. Miki thought the pilot’s chest looked odd, slightly concave, and the deep bruises streaking his ribs made her breath catch.

Deftly the man checked Dutch’s pulse, eye reflexes and temperature, then put away his black case and medical supplies. Oddly, he never removed his black gloves.

Too weird, Miki thought. At least Dutch appeared to be stable now. She retreated to the far wall, waiting tensely. Though her nursing skills rated a negative ten on a scale of one to five, at least she could provide some kind of moral support to the pilot.

Over her head paws scraped against the trap door, and Miki heard a dog’s muffled sneeze. Was the dog bothered by perfume, too?

Hit by a sharp wave of dizziness, she closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t throw up, wincing as her stomach continued to gurgle and churn. She’d swallowed seawater nonstop after the crash and now her feet and ribs ached. Exhausted, she leaned back against the underground wall, her eyes closed despite her efforts to keep them open.

It felt as if a week had passed since they’d left the beachside hotel in Bora Bora, with Vance muttering and complaining about every delay and expense. Now he was dead, his body lost somewhere at sea. Miki shivered, aware of how close she and Dutch had come to dying with him.

A scraping sound brought her around with a start. The small room was quiet, both candles out. “Hello?” she whispered into the darkness.

There was no answer.

She rose and felt her way along the wall past Dutch’s cot. Fumbling, she found the four steps beneath the sloping entrance. With shaky fingers she searched for the metal door, pushing upward until the hatch squeaked, rising slowly to reveal a gray bar of predawn sky above angry clouds.

But before she could savor her little taste of freedom, a dog’s face appeared at the door’s edge. He sniffed intently, and his mouth curled, baring his teeth.

Miki shut the door quickly. The creep was gone, but he’d left the dog as a guard. Probably he kept the poor Lab underfed to make it hostile. She hated people who were vicious to animals. If he hurt the dog in any way, she was going to make him very sorry.

Assuming she was still alive by then.