Читать книгу Her Hero After Dark - Cindy Dees - Страница 9

“Wake up!” Something sharp slapped him across the face and Jeff howled in pain. He was being slow roasted in a giant oven and any second his entire body was going to burst into flames. Ye Gods, what a horrible way to die.

“Wake. Up.”

Was that insistent voice aimed at him? Surely not. He’d died and gone to Hell.

“I’m not kidding. I’ll dump a bucket of ice water on you if you don’t open your eyes and tell me what on God’s green earth is going on, Jeff Winston.”

The demon knew his name. And frankly, a bucket of ice water sounded like bliss. A fresh wave of agony ran over him like a ten-ton steamroller and he succumbed to white pain that blanked out everything else.

And then something else dawned on him. That was a female voice. “Gemma?” he mumbled. “Quit hitting me.”

“Then wake up and tell me what’s wrong with you!”

It was an enormous battle, but he managed to peel open one eyelid. His vision swam fuzzily as the vise crushing his skull tightened. God almighty, he was tough, but even he couldn’t stand this. He whimpered, half in pain and half in terror. How much worse was it going to get before he lost his mind or his heart simply gave out and he kicked off?

The tone of the dark blob softened. “Where does it hurt?”

Everywhere. Dark blob? Gemma was fair and blond. Everything about her was pale, even the light blue of her eyes. He squinted at this woman. Memory hovered close by. He was not in Ethiopia. And this woman wanted something from him ….

The pain receded just enough to allow him a moment of lucidity. Jennifer, not Gemma. His captor. Although she was calling herself something nicer than that. Debriefer. Yeah, that was it. And she wouldn’t let him have something—

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and the joint felt like it had literally exploded.

It was as if everything he’d suffered so far was a bare shadow of the pain that slammed into him now. As much as he hated himself for doing it, he screamed. And once he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop.

Jennifer reeled back from the man thrashing on the bed before her. A high-pitched keening tore from his throat, shocking her to her core. She didn’t do anything! She just touched his shoulder. And he acted like she’d gouged out his eyes with hot pokers.

He barely looked human. He was hairy, huge and bathed in sweat. As if she’d landed in a really bad rendition of Beauty and the Beast. Where was the man from her dossier? Jefferson Winston was suave. Elegant. Sophisticated. He bore no resemblance whatsoever to this man.

Sheesh. If ever there’d been a better advertisement for the evils of drug addiction, she’d never seen it. The man had become little better than a wild animal. It would be a tragedy if it weren’t his own darned fault. She flinched as he let loose another bloodcurdling scream. And this time he didn’t stop.

Freaked out, she retreated to the living room and turned on her laptop. She initiated a voice over internet protocol and called H.O.T. Watch headquarters on the Red line. It was reserved for life and death emergencies.

The duty controller answered with a terse, “Go.” Most callers on this line had no time to fool around with the niceties.

“It’s Jennifer Blackfoot. I need to speak with a physician who specializes in drug addiction recovery right now. I’ll stay on the line.”

“Roger.” The controller’s voice came back in a few seconds. “I’m patching you through to the substance abuse team at Wilford Hall Medical Center, ma’am,” the controller announced.

A male voice came on the line. “This is Dr. Kinchon.”

“Hi, sir. Jennifer Blackfoot. CIA. I’m debriefing a man who appears to be suffering from severe drug withdrawal symptoms. I need to know what to do to alleviate his reaction.”

“What substance is he withdrawing from?”

“I have no idea.”

“I need to know what he’s coming down off of if I’m going to suggest a treatment. It could be dangerous in the extreme to respond incorrectly.”

“Sorry, sir. He just came into my custody yesterday.”

“What are his symptoms?”

She frowned. “Extreme pain. Delirium associated with his more extreme pain episodes.”

“Is he scratching at himself? Hallucinating? Sweating profusely?”

“Yes, he is sweating!” she exclaimed, relieved.

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since his last fix?”

She had yet to hear back from Brady on what his off-the-record conversation with the Ethiopians had revealed. She pictured his thick growth of beard and guessed, “At least two months. Possibly several.”

“Months?” the doctor exclaimed. “That’s not possible. He would be long past any delirium tremens if that was the case. He must have taken something within the past few days.”

At that moment, Jeff let out a scream that echoed through the house and sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. He sounded like he was dying.

“Please, Doctor. He’s in terrible pain. Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“You can try hot or cold compresses.”

“He screams any time I touch him.”

“Aah. Extreme tactile hypersensitivity. Don’t touch him, then. Even the slightest contact may very well feel like a knife stabbing him. You might consider restraining him for his own safety.”

Lovely. Just what she wanted to do. Torture the poor man. Not to mention she doubted any of the rope in the house would hold him down. “Please, Doctor. There has to be something more I can do to help him.”

“Find out as quickly as possible exactly what he’s been taking and when the last time he had it was.”

“Done.” She wasn’t sure how she was going to track down G. and bully the information out of the guy, but by golly, she’d make it happen if she had to show up on this G.’s front porch herself and beat it out of him.

Abruptly, silence fell over the house. Jennifer disconnected the call and raced for Jeff’s room. Funny how the silence scared her even worse than his screams. At least when he was screaming she knew he was still alive.

He was alive when she got there, but he didn’t look good. His skin was a ghastly shade of gray and his eyes were rolled back into his head. She risked touching him in his unconscious state and he was burning up. She’d never felt a fever burn so hot on a person’s skin before.

A flash of her grandfather, who’d been a traditional medicine man, came to mind. What would he do with a patient like this? She recalled his whispery voice murmuring, “Heat a cold man, cool a hot man, child.”

She sprinted for the linen closet and yanked out a bed sheet. She threw it in her bathtub, soaked it with cold water, and carried the sodden mass into Jeff’s room. She spread it over him, settling the cloth against his body as gently as she possibly could.

His thrashing diminished slightly. But as soon as the sheet warmed to his body temperature, his whimpering increased in intensity. Damn. She fetched her laptop and called H.O.T. Watch again.

When the call went through, she demanded, “Who’s G.?”

“Standby one.”

She waited in an agony of impatience.

“No idea. G. has a dummy internet server. From it, your guy’s message was routed all over the world. Assuming we can track it at all, it’s going to take a while to follow the trail back to the target.”

“Define a while,” she demanded tersely as Jeff moaned beside her.

“Two, maybe three, days, ma’am.”

“I don’t have that long.” She thought fast. “Put me through to Leland Winston.”

“Uhh, it’s four o’clock in the morning in New York.”

“Tell him his grandson is dying and I need his help. He’ll take my call.”

She wasn’t wrong. The billionaire’s gravelly voice came on the line in under a minute. “Who is this? And what’s this about Jeff dying?” he demanded.

“Agent Jennifer Blackfoot. Your grandson’s CIA debriefer. He’s in horrendous pain. Appears to be withdrawing from some sort of drug. We need to find out what it is and when he last had it.”

Strangely, Leland devolved into a bout of cursing fit to embarrass a sailor. Now why on earth would he react like that? Was this drug use an old problem of Jeff’s that had resurfaced, maybe?

In an effort to break the old man’s tirade, she interrupted. “Do you know someone with the initial G.? A friend or associate who might be supplying drugs to Jeff?”

Even more strangely, Leland abruptly went dead silent. So. He did know who G. was.

“Where’s my grandson?”

“I’m sorry, sir. That information is classified—”

“Classified, my ass!” he bellowed. “Tell me where my boy is!”

“I can’t, sir.”

“Agent Blackfoot. That’s your name, right? I’m about to roll a crap pile downhill onto your head like you’ve never seen before. Tell me where Jeff is, or I swear, I’ll bury you.”

She didn’t doubt for a second he could make good on his threat. Men like him didn’t have to bother with empty threats. She sighed. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to pull your strings, sir. I have rules to follow and it’s above my pay grade to deviate from them.”

Leland’s cursing grew so imaginative that, in spite of herself, she was a little impressed. She’d have to remember a few of his choicest phrases for the next time a Spec Ops guy stepped out of line and was due for a butt chewing from her.

He wound down soon enough, though. Into the heavy silence, she said merely, “And Mr. Winston?”

“What?” he snapped irritably.

“Hurry, sir.”

Time ceased to have any meaning for Jeff. He was aware only of varying degrees of pain. Once his formidable self-control cracked, there was no putting that genie back in the bottle. The pain had gotten the best of him and no amount of self-discipline could give him the upper hand again. His bones felt as if they were being bent by degrees in vises. Which, in a more lucid moment, he wryly noted wasn’t that far from the truth.

He’d known from the first that this outcome was a possibility. But he hadn’t counted on the ambush in Ethiopia, nor upon being captured and thrown in prison for months before anyone found out he was even alive, let alone freed him.

The next time Gemma Jones said something might become a little uncomfortable, he was going to run away from the woman as fast and as far as he could and never look back.

With daylight came an apparent lessening of Jeff’s pain. Jennifer offered him a glass of water with a straw to sip on. He’d been sweating like crazy for hours; he had to be badly dehydrated by now. She dozed in a chair beside his bed for a while, but woke immediately when he moaned. Her eyes popped open in alarm as she braced for the screaming to resume.

“What’re you doing here?” he rasped.

“You had a rough night. I was trying to help. Although there’s precious little I can do without knowing what you’ve been taking.”

He frowned like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Your drug addiction,” she said impatiently. “I need to know what you were on so the doctors can tell me how to ease your symptoms.”

“Need my doc,” he muttered.

“Give me a full name and I’ll get him for you right now.”

Sharp intelligence abruptly shone from Jeff’s blue-on-blue gaze. “Not nice to take advantage of the sick guy.”

She frowned. “I’m not trying to trick you. I really need to know your supplier’s name. You might die if we don’t find out what you’re hooked on and help you come down off of it safely.”

He made a growling noise that might be a snort in a less torn-up throat. “Not. An addict.” His teeth clenched as a wave of pain clearly assaulted him. “Call Leland.”

“Stay with me, Jeff. I need more information.”

His eyes started to fog over. “You stay. With me. Please …”

Her heart broke a little at the entreaty in his voice. He sounded so utterly lonely. She lashed out in sudden, irrational anger. “Look at you. You’re a mess! You are an addict.”

“Got that wrong …” he gasped before his voice broke and the screaming began again.

It was midmorning when a motorboat pulled up at the dock visible from the house. Jeff was unconscious for the moment, and she happened to be in the kitchen pouring herself a cup of coffee when she spotted the boat. Thank God. She’d asked for the strongest pain killers and sedatives in H.O.T. Watch’s infirmary to be sent over here immediately.

She was startled to recognize the tall form jumping to the dock. What was Brady Hathaway doing here in person? She didn’t have long to wait to find out. He strode through the front door, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a few minutes later. He’d made good time up the mountain. She was gratified to seeing him huffing.

“What’s up, Jenn?” he demanded.

“I might ask the same of you.”

“Where’s the wild man?”

“Asleep right now. And for God’s sake, keep your voice down. At all cost we don’t want to wake him up.”

“Gonna have to if Rich Boy wants the painkillers and sedatives I’ve got in my bag.”

She leaped for the backpack eagerly.

“Whoa there, sister. You should use them as a bribe to get him to cooperate in your debriefing.”

She laughed without humor. “Trust me. He’s in no condition to answer questions.”

“What are you talking—”

Jeff chose that moment to wake up, which meant he let out a banshee wail that sent Brady a foot straight up into the air. She was too exhausted to appreciate the humor of it. His face showing minor shock, Brady handed over the backpack. She rummaged in it frantically, as if she was the addict herself.

Meanwhile, he detailed, “My Ethiopian contact got back to me just before I left to come see you. Interesting report. He swears they did nothing to your boy. A guard tried to rough him up the night he arrived at the prison and Rich Boy supposedly killed him. But there are glaring discrepancies in that story. For example, the guard was garroted, but no murder weapon was anywhere in the room when the police arrived. And the prisoner was still handcuffed by one wrist to the table.”

She demanded, “How do you strangle someone with a table dangling from your wrist?”

“Good question,” Brady replied. “Apparently, the prison guards wouldn’t get near him after that. His first day with the other prisoners, Winston beat the crap out of a bunch of them, then refused to come out of his cell again the whole time he was in jail. My guy is adamant that no one tortured him. Says your boy gradually went from crazy to really crazy. My contact sounded genuinely relieved to have gotten rid of him.”

She poured out a handful of pills. Given his body mass, she figured she’d start with double the recommended dosage of both the sedatives and painkillers and see what those did for Jeff. She headed down the hall and Brady followed curiously.

Jeff had gone completely rigid in his bed, his body unnaturally arched off the mattress and statue-still. She rushed forward. “Jeff! Are you all right?” She knew it was a stupid question. But it was the first thing that popped out of her mouth in her panic.

He managed to open his eyes and seemed to struggle to focus on her voice. She spoke encouragingly as she picked up his water glass. “I’ve got painkillers for you, Jeff. I need you to swallow them. Can you do that for me?”

His entire body trembled with the effort, but he lifted his head off his pillow.

Brady jumped forward to support Jeff’s shoulders while she fed the pills to her patient. He swallowed the last one convulsively and she caught herself sagging in relief.

Frowning, Brady eased Jeff back to the mattress. “Man. He’s really dense.”

“As in stupid to have done this to himself?”

“No. As in unnaturally heavy. The guy weighs a ton.”

“Look at his arms and shoulders. His whole body’s that muscular. Of course he’s heavy.”

Brady shook his head. “I’ve carried my fair share of injured Spec Ops guys across my back before. I know how much muscular, fit men weigh. And I’m telling you something’s weird about this guy. He’s really, really heavy.”

She recalled Jeff landing on her during the gunfight. And the way the golf cart had groaned under his weight. Maybe there was something to what Brady was saying. “Well, I can tell you he’s the strongest guy I’ve ever seen. He ripped the combination lock right off the side of the garage down by the airfield.”

Brady glanced down at her patient. “Who is this guy?”

She threw up her hands. “That’s what I’ve been asking. Now you know why I’ve been so hot and bothered for you guys to dig up everything on his past few years. How did he go from Ivy League, spoiled rich kid to this?”

She stared down at the man in the bed. Sympathy for his plight shuddered through her. No matter what transgressions lurked in his past, no human being deserved to suffer like this.

She and Brady spent the rest of the morning on their respective phones and computers, pushing their staffs mercilessly for any and every thing they could find on one Jefferson Winston.

A little new information was forthcoming. Jeff had apparently experienced some sort of political awakening after graduate school. He worked on the campaign staffs of several politicians who were generally social liberals and foreign policy conservatives.