Читать книгу Her Kind of Hero: The Last Mercenary - Diana Palmer - Страница 7

Callie had never been in such danger in her life, although she certainly knew what it was to be manhandled. She’d been in and out of foster care since the age of six. On a rare visit home, one of her mother’s lovers had broken her arm when she was thirteen, after trying to fondle her. She’d run from him in horror, and he’d caught up with her at the staircase. A rough scuffle with the man had sent her tumbling down the steps to lie sprawled at the foot of the staircase.

Her mother had been furious, but not at her boyfriend, who said that Callie had called him names and threatened to tell her mother lies about him. After her broken arm had been set in a cast, Anna had taken Callie right back to her foster home, making her out to be incorrigible and washing her hands of responsibility for her.

Oddly, it had been Jack Steele’s insistence that he wanted the child that had pushed a reluctant Anna into taking her back, at the age of fifteen. Jack had won her over, a day at a time. When Micah was home for holidays, he’d taunted her, made his disapproval of her so noticeable that her first lesson in the Steele home was learning how to avoid Jack’s grown son. She’d had a lot of practice at avoiding men by then, and a lot of emotional scars. Anna had found that amusing. Never much of a mother, she’d ignored Callie to such an extent that the only affection Callie ever got was from Jack.

She closed her eyes. Her own father had ripped her out of his arms when she was six and pushed her away when she begged to stay with him. She was some other man’s bastard, he’d raged, and he wanted no part of her. She could get out with her tramp of a mother—whom he’d just caught in bed with a rich friend—and he never wanted to see either of them again. She’d loved her father. She never understood why he couldn’t love her back. Well, he thought she wasn’t his. She couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way.

She was still sitting in a small bedroom that night, having been given nothing to eat or drink. She was weak with hunger and pain, because the bonds that held her wrists and ankles had chafed and all but cut off the circulation. She heard noise downstairs from time to time. Obviously Lopez’s visitors had stayed a long time, and been quite entertained, from the sound of things. She could hear the soft whisper of the ocean teasing the shore outside the window. She wondered what they would do with her body, after they killed her. Perhaps they’d throw her out there, to be eaten by sharks.

While she was agonizing over her fate, the sky had darkened. Hours more passed, during which she dozed a little. Then suddenly, she was alone no longer. The door opened and closed. She opened her tired eyes and saw the three men who’d kidnapped her, gathered around her like a pack of dogs with a helpless cat. One of them started stripping her while the others watched. Her cell phone fell out of the pocket of her slacks as they were pulled off her long legs. One of the men tossed it up and laughed, speaking to another man in yet a different foreign language.

Callie closed her eyes, shivering with fear, and prayed for strength to bear what was coming. She wished with all her heart that Micah hadn’t pushed her away that last Christmas they’d spent together. Better him than any one of these cold, cruel, mocking strangers.

She heard one of them speaking in rough Spanish, discussing her body, making fun of her small breasts. It was like a playback from one foster home when she was fifteen, where an older son of the family had almost raped her before he was interrupted by the return of his parents. She’d run away afterward, and been sent to another foster home. She’d been saved that time, but she could expect no help now. Micah wouldn’t begin to know how to rescue her, even if he was inclined to save her. He probably wouldn’t consider ransom, either. She was alone in the world, with no one who would care about her fate. Her mother probably wouldn’t even be bothered if she died. Like Micah, she’d blamed Callie for what had happened.

Desperate for some way to endure the ordeal, to block it out, Callie pictured the last time she’d seen her grandmother before she passed away, standing in an arbor of little pink fairy roses, waving. Callie had often stayed with her father’s widowed mother when he and Anna were traveling. It was a haven of love. It hadn’t lasted. Her grandmother had died suddenly when she was five. Everyone she’d ever loved had left her, in one way or the other. Nobody would even miss her. Maybe Jack would. She spared one last thought for the poor old man who was as alone as she was. But with her out of the way, perhaps Micah would go home again…

There was a loud, harsh shout. She heard the door open, and the men leave. With a shivery sigh, she moved backward until she could ease down into a worn wing chair by the fireplace. It wasn’t going to be a long reprieve, she knew. If only she could free herself! But the bonds were cutting into her wrists and ankles. She was left in only a pair of aged white briefs and a tattered white bra, worn for comfort and not for appearance. No one had seen her in her underwear since she was a small child. She felt tears sting her eyes as she sat there, vulnerable and sick and ashamed. Any minute now, those men would be back. They would untie her before they used her. She knew that. She had to try to catch them off guard the instant she was free and run. If she could get into the jungle, she might have a chance. She was a fast sprinter, and she knew woodcraft. It was the last desperate hope she had.

One of the men, the one who’d asked Lopez for her, came back inside for a minute, staring at her. He pulled out a wicked looking little knife and flicked it at one shoulder strap of her bra, cutting right through it.

She called him a foul name in Spanish, making herself understood despite the gag. Her mind raced along. If she could make him angry enough to free her, which he’d have to do if he had rape in mind…She repeated the foul name, with more fervor.

He cursed. But instead of pulling her up to untie her, he caught her by the shoulder and pressed her hard back into the chair, easing the point of the knife against the soft, delicate upper part of her breast.

She moaned hoarsely as the knife lightly grazed her flesh.

“You will learn manners before we finish with you,” he drawled icily, in rough Spanish. “You will do what I tell you!”

He made no move to free her. Instead, he jerked down the side of her bra that had been cut, and stared mockingly at her breast.

The prick from the knife stung. She ground her teeth together. What had she been thinking? He wasn’t going to free her. He was going to torture her! She felt sick unto death with fear as she looked up into his eyes and realized that he was enjoying both her shame and her fear.

In fact, he laughed. He went back and locked the door. “We don’t need to be disturbed, do we?” he purred as he walked back toward her, brandishing the sharp knife. “I have looked forward to this all the way from Texas…”

Her eyes closed. She said a last, silent prayer. She thought of Micah, and of Jack. Her chin lifted as she waited bravely for the impact of the blade.

There was a commotion downstairs and a commotion outside. She’d hoped it might divert the man standing over her with that knife, but he was too intent on her vulnerable state to care what was going on elsewhere. He put one hand on the back of the chair, beside her head, and placed the point of the knife right against her breast.

“Beg me not to do it,” he chuckled. “Come on. Beg me.”

Her terrified eyes met his and she knew that he was going to violate her. It was in his face. He was almost drooling with pleasure. She was cold all over, sick, resigned. She would die, eventually. But in the meantime, she was going to suffer a fate that would make death welcome.

“Beg me!” he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily, and the blade pushed harder.

There was a sudden burst of gunfire from somewhere toward the front of the house. Simultaneously, there was shattering glass behind the man threatening her, and the sudden audible sound of bullets hitting flesh. The man with the knife groaned once and fell into a silent, red-stained heap at her feet.

Wide-eyed, terrified, shaking, Callie cried out as she looked up into a face completely covered with a black mask, except for slits that bared a little of his eyes and mouth. He was dressed all in black with a wicked looking little machine gun in one hand and a huge knife suddenly in the other. His eyes went to her nicked breast. He made a rough sound and kicked the man on the floor aside as he pulled Callie up out of the chair and cut the bonds at her ankles and wrists.

Her hands and feet were asleep. She almost fell. He didn’t even stop to unfasten the gag. Without a word, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder in the classic fireman’s carry, and walked straight toward the window. Apparently, he was going out it, with her.

He finished clearing away the broken glass around the window frame and pulled a long black cord toward him. It seemed to be hanging from the roof.

He was huge and very strong. Callie, still in shock from her most recent ordeal, her feet and hands almost numb, didn’t try to talk. She didn’t even protest. If this was a turf war, and she was being stolen by another drug lord, perhaps he’d just hold her for ransom and not let his men torture her. She had little to say about her own fate. She closed her eyes and noticed that there was a familiar smell about the man who was abducting her. Odd. He must be wearing some cologne that reminded her of Jack, or even Mr. Kemp. At least he’d saved her from the knife.

Her wounded breast hurt, where it was pressed against the ribbed fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, and the small cut was bleeding slightly, but that didn’t seem to matter. As long as he got her out of Lopez’s clutches, she didn’t really care what happened to her anymore. She was exhausted.

With her still over his shoulder, he stepped out onto the ledge, grasped a thick black cord in a gloved hand and, with his rifle leveled and facing forward, he rappelled right out the second-story window and down to the ground with Callie on his shoulder. She gasped as she felt the first seconds of free fall, and her hands clung to his shirt, but he didn’t drop her. He seemed quite adept at rappelling.

She’d read about the Australian rappel, where men went down the rope face-front with a weapon in one hand. She’d never seen it done, except on television and in adventure movies. She’d never seen anyone doing it with a hostage over one shoulder. This man was very skillful. She wondered if he really was a rival drug lord, or if perhaps he was one of Eb Scott’s mercenaries. Was it possible that Micah would have cared enough to ask Eb to mount her rescue? Her heart leaped at the possibility.

As they reached the ground, she realized that her rescuer wasn’t alone. As soon as they were on the ground, he made some sort of signal with one hand, and men dressed in black, barely visible in the security lights dotted along the dark estate, scattered to the winds. Men in suits, still firing after them, began to run toward the jungle.

A four-wheel-drive vehicle was sitting in the driveway with its engine running and the backseat door open, waiting.

Her rescuer threw her inside, climbed in beside her and slammed the door. She pulled the gag off.

“Hit it!” he bit off.

The vehicle spun dirt and gravel as it took off toward the gate. The windows were open. Gunfire hit the side of the door, and was returned by the man sitting beside Callie and the man in the front passenger seat. The other armed man had a slight, neatly trimmed beard and mustache and he looked as formidable as his comrade. The man who was driving handled the vehicle expertly, dodging bullets even as his companions returned fire at the pursuing vehicle. Callie had seen other armed men in black running for the jungle. She revised her opinion that these were rival drug dealers. From the look of these men, they were commandos. She assumed that these three men were part of some sort of covert group sent in to rescue her. Only one person would have the money to mount such an expedition, and she’d have bet money that Eb Scott was behind it somehow. Micah must have paid him to hire these men to come after her.

If he had, she was grateful for his intervention, although she wondered what had prompted it. Perhaps his father had persuaded him. God knew, he’d never have spent that sort of money on her rescue for his own sake. Her sudden disappearance out of his life would have delighted him.

She was chilled and embarrassed, sitting in her underwear with three strange men, but her clothing had been ripped beyond repair. In fact, her rescuer hadn’t even stopped to grab it up on his way out of the room where she was being held. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible, grateful that there was no light inside the vehicle, and closed her eyes while the sound of gunfire ricocheted around her. She didn’t say a word. Her companions seemed quite capable of handling this new emergency. She wasn’t going to distract them. If she caught a stray bullet, that was all right, too. Anything, even death, would be preferable to what she would endure if Lopez regained custody of her.

Half a mile down the road, there was a deep curve. The big man who’d rescued Callie told the man in front to stop the vehicle. He grabbed a backpack on the floorboard, jumped out, pulled Callie out, and motioned the driver and the man with the beard and mustache to keep going. The big man carried Callie out of sight of the road and dashed her down in the dark jungle undergrowth, his powerful body lying alongside hers in dead leaves and debris while they waited for the Jeep that had been chasing them to appear. Thorns dug into her bare arms and legs, but she was so afraid that she hardly noticed.

Suddenly, the pursuing Jeep came into sight. It braked for the curve, but it barely slowed down as it shot along after the other vehicle. Its taillights vanished around the bend. So far, so good, Callie thought, feeling oddly safe with the warmth and strength of the man lying so close beside her. But she hoped the man who was driving their vehicle and his bearded companion made a clean getaway. She wouldn’t want them shot, even to save herself.

“That went well,” her companion murmured curtly, rising. He pulled out some sort of electronic gadget and pushed buttons. He turned, sighting along it. “Can you walk?” he asked Callie.

His voice was familiar. Her mind must be playing tricks. She stood up, still in her underwear and barefoot.

“Yes. But I…don’t have any shoes,” she said hoarsely, still half in shock.

He looked down at her, aiming a tiny flashlight at her body, and a curse escaped his mouth as he saw her mangled bra.

“What the hell did they do to you?” he asked through his teeth.

Amazing, how familiar that deep voice was. “Not as much as they planned to, thanks to you,” she said, trying to remain calm. “It’s not a bad cut, just a graze. I’ll have to have some sort of shoes if we’re going to walk. And I…I don’t suppose you have an extra shirt?” she added with painful dignity.

He was holding a backpack. He pulled out a big black T-shirt and stuffed her into it. He had a pair of camouflage pants, too. They had to be rolled up, but they fit uncannily well. His face was solemn as he dug into the bag a second time and pulled out a pair of leather loafers and two pairs of socks.

“They’ll be too big, but the socks will help them fit. They’ll help protect your feet. Hurry. Lopez’s men are everywhere and we have a rendezvous to make.”

She felt more secure in the T-shirt and camouflage pants. Not wanting to hold him up, she slipped quickly into the two pairs of thick socks and rammed her feet into the shoes. It was dark, but her companion had his small light trained ahead. She noticed that huge knife in his left hand as he started ahead of her. She remembered that Micah was left-handed…

The jungle growth was thick, but passable. Her companion shifted his backpack, so dark that it blended in with his dark gear and the jungle.

“Stay close behind me. Don’t speak unless I tell you to. Don’t move unless I move.”

“Okay,” she said in a husky whisper, without argument.

“When we get where we’re going, I’ll take care of that cut.”

She didn’t answer him. She was exhausted. She was also dying of thirst and hunger, but she knew there wasn’t time for the luxury of food. She concentrated on where she was putting her feet, and prayed that she wouldn’t trip over a huge snake. She knew there were snakes and lizards and huge spiders in the jungle. She was afraid, but Lopez was much more terrorizing a threat than a lonesome snake.

She followed her taciturn companion through the jungle growth, her eyes restless, her ears listening for any mechanical sound. The darkness was oddly comforting, because sound traveled so well in it. Once, she heard a quick, sharp rustle of the underbrush and stilled, but her companion quickly trained his light on it. It was only an iguana.

She laughed with delight at the unexpected encounter, bringing a curt jerk of the head from her companion, who seemed to find her amusement odd. He didn’t say anything, though. He glanced at his instrument again, stopped to listen and look, and started off again.

Thorns in some of the undergrowth tore at her bare arms and legs, and her face. She didn’t complain. Remembering where she’d been just before she was rescued made her grateful for any sort of escape, no matter how physically painful it might be.

She began to make a mental list of things she had to do when they reached safety. First on the list was to phone and see if Jack Steele was all right. He must be worried about her sudden disappearance. She didn’t want him to suffer a setback.

Her lack of conversation seemed to puzzle the big man leading her through the jungle. He glanced back at her frequently, presumably to make sure she was behind him, but he didn’t speak. He made odd movements, sometimes doubling back on the trail he made, sometimes deliberately snapping twigs and stepping on grass in directions they didn’t go. Callie just followed along mindlessly.

At least two hours passed before he stopped, near a small stream. “We should be safe enough here for the time being,” he remarked as he put down the backpack and opened it, producing a small bottle of water. He tossed it to Callie. “I imagine you’re thirsty.”

She opened it with trembling hands and swallowed half of it down at once, tears stinging her eyes at the pleasure of the wetness on her tongue, in her dry mouth.

He set up a small, self-contained light source, revealing his companion. He moved closer, frowning at her enthusiastic swallowing as he drew a first aid kit from his backpack. “When did you last have anything to drink?” he asked softly.

“Day…before yesterday,” she choked.

He cursed. In the same instant, he pulled off the mask he’d been wearing, and Callie dropped the water bottle as her eyes encountered the dark ones of her stepbrother, Micah, in the dim light.

He picked up the water bottle and handed it back to her. “I thought it might come as a shock,” he said grimly, noting her expression.

“You came after me yourself?” she asked, aghast. “But, how? Why?”

“Lopez has an agent in one of the federal agencies,” he told her flatly. “I don’t know who it is. I couldn’t risk letting them come down here looking for you and having someone sell you out before I got here. Not that it would have been anytime soon. They’re probably still arguing over jurisdictions as we speak.” He pulled out a foil-sealed package and tossed it to her. “It’s the equivalent of an MRE—a meal ready to eat. Nothing fancy, but if you’re hungry, you won’t mind the taste.”

“Thanks,” she said huskily, tearing into it with urgent fingers that trembled with hunger.

He watched her eat ravenously, and he scowled. “No food, either?”

She shook her head. “You don’t feed people you’re going to kill,” she mumbled through bites of chicken and rice that tasted freshly cooked, if cold.

He was very still. “Excuse me?”

She glanced at him while she chewed a cube of chicken. “He gave me to three of his men and told them to kill me.” She swallowed and averted her eyes. “He said they could do whatever they liked to me first. So they did. At least, they started to, when you showed up. I was briefly alone with a smaller man, Arabic I think, and I tried to make him mad enough to release me so I had one last chance at escape. It made him mad, all right, but instead of untying me, he…put his knife into me.” She chewed another cube of chicken, trying not to break down. “He said it was a…a taste of what to expect if I resisted him again. When you came in through the window, he was just about to violate me.”

“I’m going to take care of that cut right now. Infection sets in fast in tropical areas like this.” He opened the first-aid box and checked through his supplies. He muttered something under his breath.

He took the half-finished meal away from her and stripped her out of the T-shirt. She grimaced and lowered her eyes as her mutilated bra and her bare breast were revealed, but she didn’t protest.

“I know this is going to be hard for you, considering what you’ve just been through. But try to remember that I’m a doctor,” he said curtly. “As near as not, anyway.”

She swallowed, her eyes still closed tight. “At least you won’t make fun of my body while you’re working on it,” she said miserably.

He was opening a small bottle. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” she said wearily. “Oh God, I’m so tired!”

“I can imagine.”

She felt his big, warm hands reach behind her to unfasten the bra and she caught it involuntarily.

He glanced at her face in the small circle of light from the lantern. “If there was another way, I’d take it.”

She drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes, letting go of the fabric. She bit her lip and didn’t look as he peeled the fabric away from her small, firm breasts.

The sight of the small cut made him furious. She had pretty little breasts, tip-tilted, with dusky nipples. He could feel himself responding to the sight of her, and he had to bite down hard on a wave of desire.

He forced himself to focus on the cut, and nothing else. The bra, he stuffed in his backpack. He didn’t dare leave signs behind them. There wasn’t much chance that they were closely followed, but he had to be careful.

He had to touch her breast to clean the small cut, and she jerked involuntarily.

“I won’t hurt you any more than I have to,” he promised quietly, mistaking her reaction for pain. “Grit your teeth.”

She did, but it didn’t help. She bit almost through her lip as he cleaned the wound. The sight of his big, lean hands on her body was breathtaking, arousing even under the circumstances. The pain was secondary to the hunger she felt for him, a hunger that had lasted for years. He didn’t know, and she couldn’t let him know. He hated her.

She closed her eyes while he put a soft bandage over the cleaned wound, taping it in place.

“God in heaven, I thought I’d seen every kind of lowlife on earth, but the guy who did this to you was a class all by himself,” he growled.

She remembered the man and shuddered. Micah was pulling the shirt down over her bandaged breast. “It probably doesn’t seem like it, but I got off lucky,” she replied.

He looked into her eyes. “It’s just a superficial wound so you won’t need stitches. It probably won’t even leave a scar there.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” she said quietly.

“It would.” He got up, drawing her up with him. “You’re still nervous of me, after all this time.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “You don’t like me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he burst out, letting go of her shoulders. He turned away to deal with the medical kit. “Haven’t you got eyes?”

She wondered what that meant. She was too tired to work it out. She sat down again and picked up her half-eaten meal, finishing it with relish. It was hard to look at him, after he’d seen her like that.

She fingered the rolled-up pair of camouflage pants she was wearing. “These aren’t big enough to be yours,” she remarked.

“They’re Maddie’s. She gave me those for you, and the shoes and socks, on the way out of Texas,” he commented when he noticed her curious exploration of the pants.

He worked with some sort of electronic device.

“What’s that thing?” she asked.

“GPS,” he explained. “Global positioning. I can give my men a fix on our position, so they can get a chopper in here to pick us up and pinpoint our exact location. There’s a clearing just through there where we’ll rendezvous,” he added, nodding toward the jungle.

Suddenly she frowned. “Who’s Maddie?” she asked.

“Maddie’s my scrounger. Anything we need on site that we didn’t bring, Maddie can get. She’s quite a girl. In fact,” he added, “she looks a lot like you. She was mistaken for you at a wedding I went to recently in Washington, D. C.”

That was disturbing. It sounded as though he and this Maddie were in partnership or something. She hated the jealousy she felt, when she had no right to be jealous. Old habits died hard.

“Is she here?” she asked, still puzzled by events and Micah’s strange skills.

“No. We left her back in the States. She’s working on some information I need, about the mole working for the feds, and getting some of your things together to send on to Miami.”

She blinked. “You keep saying ‘we,’” she pointed out.

His chin lifted. He studied her, unsmiling. “Exactly what do you think I do for a living, Callie?” In the dim light, his blond hair shone like muted moonlight. His handsome face was all angles and shadows. Her vision was still a little blurred from whatever the kidnapper had given her. So was her mind.

“Your mother left you a trust,” she pointed out.

“My mother left me ten thousand dollars,” he replied. “That wouldn’t pay to replace the engine on the Ferrari I drive in Nassau.”

Her hands stilled on the fork and tray. Some odd ideas were popping into her head. “You finished your residency?” she fished.

He shook his head. “Medicine wasn’t for me.”

“Then, what…?”

“Use your mind, Callie,” he said finally, irritated. “How many men do you know who could rappel into a drug lord’s lair and spirit out a hostage?”

Her breath caught. “You work for some federal agency?”

“Good God!” He got up, moved to his backpack and started repacking it. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

“I don’t know much about you, Micah,” she confided quietly as she finished her meal and handed him the empty tray and fork. “That was the way you always wanted it.”

“In some cases, it doesn’t pay to advertise,” he said carelessly. “I used to work with Eb Scott and Cy Parks, but now I have my own group. We hire out to various world governments for covert ops.” He glanced at her stunned face. “I worked for the justice department for a couple of years, but now I’m a mercenary, Callie.”

She was struck dumb for several long seconds. She swallowed. It explained a lot. “Does your father know?” she asked.

“He does not,” he told her. “And I don’t want him to know. If he still gives a damn about me, it would only upset him.”

“He loves you very much,” she said quietly, avoiding his angry black eyes. “He’d like to mend fences, but he doesn’t know how. He feels guilty, for making you leave and blaming you for what…what my mother did.”

He pulled out a foil sealed meal for himself and opened it before he spoke. “You blamed me, as well.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. It was cold in the jungle at night, just like they said in the movies. “Not really. My mother is very beautiful,” she said, recalling the older woman’s wavy jet-black hair and vivid blue eyes and pale skin. “She was a model just briefly, before she married my…her first husband.”

He frowned. “You were going to say, your father.”

She shivered. “He said I wasn’t his child. He caught her in bed with some rich man when I was six. I didn’t understand at the time, but he pushed me away pretty brutally and said not to come near him again. He said he didn’t know whose child I was. That was when she put me in foster care.”

Micah stared at her, unspeaking, for several long seconds. “Put you in what?”

She swallowed. “She gave me up for adoption on the grounds that she couldn’t support me. I went into a juvenile home, and from there to half a dozen foster homes. I only saw her once in all those years, when she took me home for Christmas. It didn’t last long.” She stared down at the jungle floor. “When she married your father, he wanted me, so she told him I’d been staying with my grandmother. I was in a foster home, but she got me out so she could convince your father that she was a good mother.” She laughed hollowly. “I hadn’t seen her or heard from her in two years by then. She told me I’d better make a good job of pretending affection, or she’d tell the authorities I’d stolen something valuable—and instead of going back into foster care for two more years, I’d go to jail.”