Читать книгу Bridal Op - Dana Marton - Страница 10

Rafe rubbed his elbow, sore from wielding the machete all morning. “You’re too close,” he said, then paused. Had to be the first time he’d ever said that to a beautiful woman. Man, times were changing.

Isabelle dropped back.

Better. They had to keep a healthy distance between them so that if they were discovered they wouldn’t both be taken out by the same spray of bullets. Drug routes crisscrossed the mountains; marijuana plantations were fairly common; poppy fields bloomed in out-of-the-way clearings. And with those came the men who guarded them, the drug lords’ private armies.

Laderan army base notwithstanding, the locals knew who owned these parts and respected the real power, the men on whom their lives depended.

“What’s that noise?”

Rafe stopped to listen. “Trucks. We must be getting close to the main road.”

Most roads in the area were little more than footpaths that connected the mountain villages. The only paved highway for hundreds of miles led to the army base that guarded the north corner of the country. They’d been hearing planes overhead more frequently for the past few hours but couldn’t see any from the thick canopy above.

He moved forward, toward the sound of the trucks, his feet sinking with every step into the layers of leaf mold underfoot. Walking on a solid surface would have been nice, but even when they found the road they would have to keep in the cover of the trees. At least he’d be able to stop navigating by his GPS unit and simply go by sight at that point.

The sound of motors faded, but he kept going forward. In another five minutes, he could see more light filter through the trees ahead. “There.”

He signaled to Isabelle to keep down as they crept to the edge of the woods. Damn. He scanned the other side of the road, nothing but stumps and low brush for as far as he could see.

“Not good,” he said when she came up next to him. “Loggers.”

“Do we have to cross?”

“We don’t have to, but I wouldn’t have minded having options. I don’t like it. If they’re logging this far up the mountain now…”

“They might have cleared woods closer to the base, too,” she finished the sentence for him.

“Right. I’d prefer not having to come out into the open.” He glanced at her. She looked okay although she’d been more quiet than usual that morning—probably the side effect of the high elevation. The thin air was bothering him, too, and he’d grown up with it. “Want to stop and rest for a while?”

“Not yet. I can walk a little longer.” She gave him a small smile. “I hate to stop knowing Sonya is out there, suffering who knows what.” She was backing away already, a few yards into the woods where they could walk without having to worry about being seen from the road.

“If anything happens to us, Sonya is not going to be saved at all. It’s okay to take a break,” he reminded her. They had precious little time left, not enough for Rachel Brennan, head of Miami Confidential, or anyone else to come up with a backup plan. They had to succeed and for that they had to stay in good shape and not let themselves get too run-down.

She drew in a good lungful of air and straightened her back, visibly gathering strength. “We’ll be fine.” Her fawn-colored eyes glinted with determination.

“Okay,” he said, just as eager to get going. “We’ll eat as we go.”

He moved forward, watchful and alert to any dangers ahead. They’d been lucky so far with the wildlife, but surprises abounded in the jungle. Speaking of which, the forest seemed awfully quiet all of a sudden.

He stopped again.

“What’s going on?” she asked from behind him.

“Listen.” He strained his ears. Was a group of smugglers moving through the woods nearby? Maybe a predator?

He pulled his gun, Isabelle following his example.

And then he felt it, a small trembling that could easily have come from a caravan of military vehicles passing on the road, except for the lack of motor noise.

“Watch out for falling trees!” he shouted as the ground shook harder now.

She was looking at him wide-eyed, her knees bent as she tried to balance. Insects rained from the trees and she shrieked. He was over there in two leaps, covering her with his body as she crouched down.

“It’s okay. Hang on. Just an earthquake.” He had to continue shouting now to be heard over the groaning trees, large branches splitting and smashing to the ground around them.

Then it all stopped just as fast as it had begun.

“Just an earthquake?” she asked weakly, once the ground stopped moving.

“Happens all the time.” He straightened and did his best to clean the bugs off her while she still crouched there with her shoulders hunched, apparently trying to prevent anything from crawling under her collar.

“Define all the time,” she said as she stood, then shivered with revulsion as she took in the ground and all the creepy crawly natives that were busy burrowing under fallen leaves or taking flight.

“A couple of hundred quakes a year. Some are so small you don’t even feel them, some pretty big.”

“And you haven’t told me about this, because?”

“I forgot about them.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that weird?” There had been two big ones during his childhood. Hard to believe they’d skipped his mind. He’d been living in Miami a long time. “It’s been a while.”

And he’d had too many other things on his mind to remember everything he should have. He was worried about Sonya, the wildlife in the jungle, Isabelle’s distracting presence and the fact that fifteen years ago, before he had left for the U.S., he had been a misguided young man, very much part of the local drug trafficking scene. If he weren’t careful, he could easily run into one of several people who’d just as soon separate him from his skin than see him in it.

“We go this way.” He picked up his machete and struck the bundle of vines blocking their way. “Keep behind me. Once we reach the base, we have to get a detailed picture of the place, find out where Sonya is, make a plan.”

He got down to business, separating a knot of woody vines that blocked their way.

“The woods keep getting denser,” she remarked as she followed him.

“The farther north we go, the closer we are to the equator. More vines, more bugs. A few hundred miles ahead these woods turn into a rain forest.”

“The more you have to cut, the more noticeable our trail is,” she said between bites, eating another one of her protein bars for lunch.

“I’m banking on the villagers and the smugglers sticking to their own well-worn trails. That’s why we are staying off them.”

They walked on for a minute or two before she spoke again. “All right. Your turn. I’ll take the machete while you eat.”

“That’s not necessary.” He turned around with a come on now smile that quickly wilted off his face at the look in her eyes.

“So your plan is to keep up the whole do this, don’t do that, stay ten steps behind while macho man makes sure everything is okay thing for the entire duration of this mission?” She cocked her head with a mild expression on her face.

Was she serious? “It’s— I’ve been to the jungle before and you haven’t.” Her words ticked him off. “Damn right I’m going to try to protect you.”

“Protect does not mean ‘boss around,’” she said sweetly, but her eyes weren’t smiling.

“You think we have enough time to hold a meeting over every little thing and discuss our differences until we come to a consensus?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean, exactly?”

“I meant what I said.” She marched up to him. “Give me the damn machete.”

She didn’t look like she was kidding—her feet set apart, her gaze locked on to his face. He hated to think what this was going to do to the tender skin of her palms, which had been already damaged by the ropes. But he handed over the slightly curved blade and took a quick step back as she lifted it in an arch and went at the vegetation.

The woman used the machete like she meant it.

Maybe she was right and she needed less protection than he’d thought. He gave her plenty of room before he followed, pulling some dried meat and a bottle of water from a pocket of his backpack. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food hit his stomach.

They were going slower than if he was in the lead but only marginally. And being second in line wasn’t a bad position after all. There were advantages—watching Isabelle twist and bend, her hair swaying around her shoulders as she went about her work with unabashed enthusiasm.

Normally, he would have regarded with caution anyone who wielded a knife that big. Oddly enough, he found the sight of her with that machete a serious turn-on. Not a surprise, come to think of it. He’d found most everything about Isabelle enticing from the moment they’d first met.

For the past few days, he had barely thought about the fact that right now he should be out on the water, testing his brand new boat, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze instead of being sweaty and tired to the bone, trekking through the jungle. Isabelle’s company more than made up for his lost vacation.

She kept up the backbreaking work for a solid hour before she slowed.

“Okay.” She wiped her forehead. “You can take over for a while. Then we’ll switch back.”

A fine sheen of sweat dampened the strawberry-blond locks at her forehead and neck, and she was breathing hard but had a look of utter satisfaction on her face that made her irresistibly beautiful.

“Have to say, I never pictured you doing this kind of stuff—considering those high heel, strappy sandals and flirty skirts and all that you wear at the office,” he teased.

“I don’t wear flirty skirts,” she snapped mildly, but her eyes were smiling.

“Mmm.”

“Anyway, I have four brothers. I had to grow up tough,” she said.

He had to admit he found this tougher, physical side of her that was coming out in the jungle just as enticing as the soft, more cerebral role she filled at the office.

He grinned as he took the machete from her and cracked his neck before settling into the task at hand. The rest had been nice. Now that he was head of security at Weddings Your Way, his job involved a lot of desk duty, and although he made sure he kept in shape clearing brush in the jungle was a lot more strenuous than anything the trainers could throw at him at the gym.

All the more impressive that she’d done it for as long as she had.

He put some muscle into it and made progress, speaking little for the next hour or so. Then he could set the machete aside as the vegetation grew sparser again.

The sound of airplanes as they took off and landed came from fairly close by, as did other sounds of civilization—motors, metal banging against metal somewhere in the distance.

“Watch every step,” he said. “I don’t think the army would have perimeter sensors this far out but no sense in taking a chance.”

She nodded, scanning the ground and trees around her.

They crept forward another few hundred feet before they reached the end of the woods and had to drop to their stomachs. Crawling silently, they soon reached a rocky ledge and were rewarded with an excellent overview of the small military base below.

“You think she’s in there?” she whispered next to him as they lay on the rock shoulder to shoulder. “Fuentes said at the military base.”

“I doubt she’s inside. Even if the kidnappers have connections at the base, the risk of discovery would be too great there. Can’t bribe everybody.” He scanned the open land and the surrounding woods. “I do think that she is someplace very close, though.”

Other than the military base there were dozens of huts, a small store and other public buildings for those who made a living by selling things to the base or by working there. He could smell the pig farm before he spotted it, sprawling to the edge of the forest on the other side of the base.

“Let’s circle around,” he said.

“It’ll go faster if we split up.”

“Okay,” he agreed with some reluctance. She’d proven over and over that she could handle herself. Besides, she wouldn’t be part of Miami Confidential if she couldn’t. “If you find anything call me on the two-way.”

THAT WAS IT? He wasn’t going to tell her they should stick together so he could protect her? Isabelle stared at him for a long moment, swallowing the list of objections she’d already prepared.

“All right. Good luck.” She moved back toward the woods where she could circle the base without being spotted.

“Be careful,” he said, and took off in the opposite direction.

She walked a good three hundred yards before she broke cover and crawled to the edge of the woods again, taking a good view at the six-foot-high cement fence and the barbed wire on top, the evenly spaced guard towers that were manned. A row of shacks had been built just outside the wall, with small kitchen gardens between them. A woman came out of one and tossed a bowl of dirty water, yelling something to the group of children who played nearby.

“Sí, Mama,” one of them responded.

The woman went back inside.

Isabelle counted the shacks, eleven in all. She waited and watched as more people came and went and identified the huts that nobody seemed to be using. Still, it was hard to say whether they were truly abandoned or the occupants were merely at work somewhere on the base.

A few hours remained until sunset. She couldn’t go any closer than this until then, so for the time being she moved on, hoping to survey her half of the circle and meet up with Rafe somewhere ahead with a few suggestions on what they should investigate further.

The next cluster of buildings ahead was the pig farm, another two hundred yards from the huts. She pulled back into the woods where she could walk instead of having to crawl on her stomach to avoid being detected. She kept track of the distance, moving toward the base again once she thought she’d gone far enough.

She crouched for a second to listen before she went out into the open, and the precaution paid off. Now that she wasn’t moving, she could clearly make out voices, coming from the woods somewhere behind her, nearing.

She had to hide. Now.

Dense bushes edged the woods to her left. She made a dash for them and pushed inside, flattened herself to the ground. In another few minutes she could see military boots, six pairs, as men marched by toward the base.

She waited several minutes after they passed before coming out of the bushes, then another five minutes or so before moving closer to the pig farm. She breathed shallowly, her stomach turning at the stench even though plenty of open space divided the pens from the woods. Too much, in fact, to get close enough, so she had to use her binoculars to make her careful observations.

Come on. Give me something. Anything. She inspected every square foot but could see nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that aroused her suspicion.

The next stretch ahead seemed empty save an entrance gate to the base. She pulled back to the woods, planning to avoid that part altogether, not wanting to run in to soldiers. Better not to come out into the open again until she was sure she was well past the gate.

She walked carefully, knowing the woods this close to the base would hardly be deserted. The army would be training here, men hunting, older children playing.

She was right on top of the derelict hut before she could see it, so overrun by vines it was, its weather-beaten wood blending in well with its surroundings. Isabelle stopped and crouched low to the ground, took in the remains of a fire and the empty bottles a few feet from her. Every instinct in her body screamed this was it.

She circled the clearing step by careful step, stopping every few yards to listen for any sound from inside the shack. First time around, she could detect no sign of life. The second time around, she ran into Rafe.

“Any movement?” He whispered the question, his clothes a lot dirtier than when he’d left her.

She probably looked just as bad. Crawling in the dirt on your stomach tended to do that.

“Haven’t seen a soul. They could be laying low,” she said.

“Come up with a plan yet?”

“We wait to see how many men are in there. One of us stays here, the other could keep checking the perimeter, make sure there’ll be no surprises from any side.”

“Want to go?” he asked.

Putting her foot down with the machete business had apparently achieved its goal. He was taking her more seriously. Good. She liked quick learners.

But should she go? She shook her head after a moment of thought. “You have more experience in the woods.”

“Okay.” He pointed to the left. “If you do go anywhere, don’t go near those. The thorns are full of poison.”

She checked out the bushes and registered with relief that they seemed different from the ones she had thrown herself into earlier. She was definitely staying put until he got back.

By the time she returned her attention to him, he had disappeared back into the jungle. He did that well. She stared after him, unable to spot where he was.

The wind was picking up, ruffling the trees above. She couldn’t detect any sound from the hut. No movement indicated the presence of men. Maybe they were sleeping. Could be they were keeping a low profile, going for the abandoned hideaway look. After the first hour went by, she began to think otherwise. The place seemed too quiet.

Was it the wrong place, after all? Was Sonya kept somewhere else?

Or had they gone off to a new hiding place? Where?

Then it occurred to her that Sonya could be in there alone, bound and gagged. Maybe they only checked on her from time to time. It would sure make the rescue easier. But even as hope fluttered through her, her instincts said it wasn’t so. If they’d left her in there alone, they hadn’t left her alive.

The urge to go and see for herself was overwhelming, but she stayed because it was the smart thing to do and acting stupidly now would risk not only her own life but Rafe’s and the success of their mission.

She kept low and mapped the clearing in her head, the distance from the woods to the door, from the small window to the game trail on the other side.

Forty minutes passed before Rafe returned, appearing out of nowhere.

“They might all be gone,” was the first thing he said, confirming her worst fears.

“Find anything?”

“Tracks. Two four-wheelers. They left sometime during the night.”

She nodded and moved forward, using the vegetation for cover. They had nothing else left to do but check out the hut itself and see if they could find any clues to where the kidnappers had gone. They approached carefully, despite expecting the place to be empty. She crept toward the shabby abode while Rafe covered her, then he stole forward foot by foot while she trained her gun on the single door.

When they were both there, he opened the door a crack. Nothing happened. She pushed the door open the rest of the way with the tip of her gun.

Discarded plastic bottles littered the dirt floor, in addition to a worn-out blanket, an old wooden plate and a couple of moldy crates. The hut was small enough to be appraised with one glance.

“I doubt they’re coming back.” Rafe kicked the crate over, sending bugs scampering in every direction.

A shiver ran down Isabelle’s back at the thought of Sonya being kept here, tied up, helpless.

“Do you think the kidnappers are taking her back to the U.S.?” Maybe they’d been wrong and Fuentes’s buddies did plan on returning her in exchange for the money.

Rafe looked at her then looked away. “Wish I could be that optimistic.”

He moved aside another crate, and she saw the half-dug hole at the edge of the wood plank wall—a hole that had been clearly dug from the inside by someone trying to get out, not by an animal from the outside trying to get in.

The gap was fairly large, but not large enough for a person. Sonya hadn’t succeeded.

Rafe bent over to inspect the bottom of the planks, some of them damaged. She bit her lip as she crouched next to him to see what he was looking at and spotted the dried blood. She could see in her mind Sonya trying to pull the boards loose until her fingertips bled. Isabelle’s throat tightened.

“We’ll find her.” Rafe’s voice sounded clipped as he straightened.

“Any idea where they’ve gone?” The sooner they started out, the better. No sense in wasting time here.

“Their tracks point south. We’ll follow them.” He was already heading for the door, which was stuck ajar, held in place by one of the crates he had moved there to let light in. He gave the crate a frustrated kick, sending it flying outside.

By pure chance she glanced up and saw something odd among the vines that grew on top of the hut and had sneaked inside, something that didn’t belong there—a blue plastic-coated wire. Her brain moved faster than her eye. By the time she spotted the shapeless lump of plastic explosives she knew the hut had been booby-trapped.

“Bomb!” she yelled as she lurched forward.

Incomprehension flashed over Rafe’s face even as he acted on reflex and grabbed for her, flung her from the hut in front of him, out toward safety. They didn’t quite reach it. The next second the building blew, the force of the explosion lifting them both from the ground and sending them flying through the air.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. She flailed her arms as if that could slow her. Then she was smacking into the ground, hard. She couldn’t breathe for a long moment. Everything hurt. Flaming boards rained from above. She covered her head, the most she could do. She didn’t have it in her to try to crawl away.

After a few moments, once things quieted down, she looked up and spotted Rafe in the clearing smoke.

He wasn’t moving.

“Rafe?” Odd, she could have sworn she spoke, but she could hear no sound coming out of her mouth. “Rafe?” she said louder, with the same result.

The explosion. Right. She was still deaf from it. She pulled herself up, did a routine check. What hurt? Everything. What broke? She tested her limbs. They all worked. Other than the scorch marks on her clothing and a few gaping tears here and there that revealed some serious abrasions, she seemed to be all right.

“Rafe?” She moved toward him, and over the ringing in her ears she could finally hear something, a siren going off in the distance.

The explosion had been loud enough to be heard at the base. The Laderan military was about to come to investigate.

She hobbled toward Rafe, bent when she got there. “Get up.” She grabbed his shoulder. “The soldiers are coming. We have to get out of here.”

They didn’t have time to deal with the army now. The questioning could last days. Two foreigners involved in a bombing incident next to a Laderan military base—they could be in jail for weeks before the U.S. consulate got them out. Sonya couldn’t wait that long.

“Come on,” she said, and felt panic rising from a deep, dark well inside when he didn’t get up. How badly was he hurt?

He was lying on his back, moaning, or at least she thought he was. His lips were moving, his dark eyes rolled back in his head.

“Can you move?”

He blinked, focused on her, said something, repeated.

Am I dead? She read the words from his lips.

If he was joking, all was not yet lost. “Stop looking for the easy way out.” She helped him sit, then slipped under his arm and pushed him up, carrying most of his weight.

When they were almost standing, he lurched forward, nearly sending both of them to the ground again. Maybe she couldn’t do it. The panic was grabbing hold. What was she thinking? They both belonged on a stretcher.

Move. She struggled with the first step but managed without falling over. Okay. One more. Then another, then another. She dragged him like that to the edge of the woods. They’d rest later. Right now they had to find someplace to hide.

“Go,” he said. “Leave me.”

Now that his words vibrated inches from her ear, she could finally hear them.

He was in bad shape. It scared her breathless, but she couldn’t show it. “Get moving, drama queen.” She nudged him forward.

She didn’t know what lay ahead, nor did she care, her only thought being to get as far away as possible from the army base and the soldiers who were coming after them.

“There.” Rafe was pointing to an open stretch of rocks to the left, the remnants of a landslide some time ago.

“No, not in the open.” She ignored him and pulled him forward.

“Tracks,” he said.

Where? She strained to see, then realized after a moment that he was talking about their tracks, the ones they were leaving behind. She glanced back. He was right; with both of them dragging their feet, they disturbed enough leaf mold that an idiot could follow them.

“Okay.” She moved on toward the stony ground that wouldn’t leave telltale signs of their passing.

They crossed that without trouble and made it into the woods again. Her legs wobbled. Rafe wasn’t a small man. She couldn’t support him like this for long.

He seemed to come to the same conclusion and pulled away from her. “Stop,” he said and sank to the ground. “We’ll rest a few minutes.” The side of his face was covered with soot and blood. “How are you feeling?”

Her hearing was returning slowly. So far, so good. “Fine. You took the worst of the blast.” At the last second he had positioned his body between hers and the hut. The thought brought an odd tightening sensation to her chest. She went down next to him and looked at a long cut on his neck that seemed the nastiest of his visible injuries. “Where else are you hurt? Is anything broken?”

“I don’t think so. Just banged up pretty good.” He drew a breath, let it out slowly. “I’m pretty sure this shoulder is dislocated.” He nodded to the right.

She unbuttoned his ripped shirt and pulled it aside, stared at the bone that was clearly out of place.

No.

He couldn’t be injured.

He was the only one between the two of them who knew what the hell they were doing out here. What did she know about the jungle? What did she know about Ladera? She needed him, needed his strength.

And he needed her.

“Okay. We’ll fix it.” She clenched her fists then unclenched them again, wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.

“Hold on to my hand,” he said, sounding infinitely calmer than she felt.

She took his hand, squeezed it and felt a rush of doubt. “Maybe we could find a village doctor. You said there are some scattered villages on the hillside.”

“Hold tight,” he said and threw his body back.

The bone returned to its place with a crunching sound, ligaments snapping into place. His face went a sick ashen color for a moment.

Her stomach rolled over. Her muscles went weak. She took a deep breath then another as blood returned to her head.

“Thanks,” he said, and tested the arm carefully before lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing it.

“Better?” She cleared her throat, ignoring the heat that skittered across her skin.

“Good as new.” He smiled and seemed to regain color.

The relief that washed over her was short-lived. The sound of motors filtered through the woods.

“Four-wheelers,” he said. “The soldiers use them to chase after drug traffickers. I bet the men who have Sonya got theirs from the base somehow.”

It made sense. The vehicles fitted the terrain.

“We have to go.” She stood and held out a hand to him.

“Thanks,” he said, but stood without assistance. “I’m not that bad now. Just got my bones rattled around.”

She glanced toward the base, the sound of motors growing louder. What now? The brief rest had helped, but still, neither of them were in the kind of shape it took to run. And even if they were, she doubted they could outrun the machines that were closing the distance behind them.