CHAPTER THREE

Beth didn’t hesitate. She dove after him, out the rough door, scrambling down the path behind his silhouetted figure. He was moving fast, blending with the shadows, and she had a hard time keeping up with him. Every step she took seemed to echo in the night forest, twigs snapping beneath her feet, leaves rustling as she brushed by, but she didn’t hesitate. She could barely see him up ahead – if she lost him she’d be screwed. Wilderness training had never been part of her upbringing, and she’d be lucky if she didn’t get eaten by alligators.

Except there were no alligators in the Andes, she was pretty sure of that. But there were wild cats and God knew what else. She’d eaten some strange things since she arrived in South America, and she didn’t like to think about what kind of animal they’d come from. Probably Rodents of Unusual Size.

She slipped, going down hard on her backside, but she managed to keep it to a small grunt of dismay. By the time she got to her feet again he had disappeared into the night as if he’d never been there.

She froze, momentarily panicked. He was her only chance at escape, and she’d already lost him. She’d understood more than MacGowan had thought when Carlos and the other boy were arguing – if she made it back home it wasn’t going to be in pristine condition. The thought pushed her onward, deeper into the jungle. So she knew squat about surviving in the wilderness. At least she’d read enough Worst Case Scenario books to have a general idea of what to do in an alien abduction. She couldn’t remember whether escaping from guerilla kidnappers in the Andes was mentioned, and if it was, she’d forgotten. All she could do was keep moving and hope she’d catch up with MacGowan before he went to ground completely.

In the distance she could hear the sound of a stream. That was a start – water had to flow downhill, and her only chance at survival, if MacGowan proved elusive, was to get as far down the mountain as she could. If nothing else, she could follow the stream.

Someone with MacGowan’s training wouldn’t need to rely on something as simple as that. He was clearly well-versed in dealing with these kinds of things. The closest she had come was reading a book on worst-case scenarios.

She was simply going to have to hope for the best, expect the worst, and just keep moving . . .

An arm came around her waist, a hand clamped over her mouth to keep her from screaming, and a moment later she was pulled back into the thick foliage, held against a strong male body. “Keep still,” he whispered in her ear, barely a ghost of a sound.

She had the sense not to fight him. A moment later someone walked by, one of the guerillas on nightly rounds. He was smoking something dubious and his rifle was slung carelessly over one shoulder, and as he moved past she let out her pent-up breath.

It wasn’t even a noise, lighter than the wind through the greenery, but MacGowan tightened his hand over her mouth, hard, and the stoned soldier spun around, the rifle at chest level.

And suddenly she was alone. MacGowan had released her, disappeared back into the jungle, leaving her at the mercy of the creep in front of her.

“Who’s there?” he demanded in Spanish. He speared the brush aside with the barrel of his gun, and Beth sank lower into the dirt.

She felt like a terrified rabbit, small and quivering in the dirt, and she crouched there, frozen, waiting for rough hands, pawing at her, waiting for a bullet, waiting for God knew what.

She heard a noise, a rustle, a thud, a crunching sound, and she lifted her head just a little. The gun had disappeared, as well as the man behind it. She sat up a little higher, then almost screamed as someone looked out of the darkness.

MacGowan. It was MacGowan’s rough hands on her, pulling her to her feet. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded in a breath of sound.

“You can’t leave me behind!”

“I can and I will, if I have to break your neck to keep you from following me.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” His voice was flat, unemotional, but even in the darkness she could see the faint flicker in his eyes. She looked behind her, at the crumpled body of the pot smoking soldier, his head at an odd angle, his eyes open and staring.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, horrified. What had seemed a strange kind of nightmare was suddenly, terribly real. “Did you kill him?”

“No, the tooth fairy came along and took care of him.” He stared down at her for a long moment, and she wondered whether he was thinking about how easy it would be to break her neck. He wasn’t the kind of man who was troubled by moral qualms.

And then he turned. “Come on,” he said. “Keep up, do what I tell you, keep your mouth shut, and if you lag behind I’ll leave you.” He was already moving down the narrow path again, so fast that her words of gratitude were eaten up in the night air. She took one last look at the dead man lying in the dirt, and on impulse she leaned down and closed his eyes, making the sign of the cross as she’d seen Father Pascal do. She wasn’t Catholic, but doubtless the dead man had been, at least in the early part of his life, and she could give him some brief benediction before she took off into the night after his murderer. All the while wondering if she was trading danger for outright disaster.

Right then, she didn’t care.

So what the fuck was he doing, taking her with him? He’d always been a bleeding heart. Isobel Lambert would laugh if she saw him now. Except that if she knew, he wouldn’t be here.

If Dylan and Froelich got the message they’d probably be waiting for him down by the bridge. They should have managed to sneak out hours ago, as soon as they saw the sign he left. The Guiding Light knew that neither of them were much of a threat – they didn’t have the cojones to try to escape. But the so-called rebels didn’t realize that Finn MacGowan would do almost anything for money at this point, reverting to survival mode and throwing all his idealist crap out the window. It was a dog eat dog world. So why had he told the bitch she could come along?

Maybe it was that simple. He wanted to get laid, and she was there. He was saving her life – she owed him, and he knew he could collect. She was pretty enough, from what he could see in the almost moonlit night, though right now he’d fuck any female between the ages of twenty and sixty who wasn’t a nun. Which wasn’t a given. She hadn’t given him a direct answer earlier.

“You’re sure you’re not a sister?” he tossed back at her, his voice little more than a growl on the night air.

She was closer than he thought, making decent enough headway on the steep hill. “I’m an only child.”

Stupid, he thought. “I’m asking if you’re a holy nun.”

“I told you, I’m not a nun, holy or otherwise.”

Okay, she met the criteria for fuckable. “Then what are you doing in this hellhole?”

“I’m an aid worker. Volunteer.” Her voice only wavered slightly.

“And what stupid-ass organization sent you into a war-torn country with a history of kidnappings?”

He heard her hesitation. “The Pennington Foundation.”

He snorted in disgust. “So you bought your way in here? You got a death wish, lady?”

“I wanted to be somewhere I could make a difference.”

“Doesn’t seem like you made much of a difference with Carlos there. He’s planning to rape you any which way to Sunday, and I’m thinking he’s been dreaming about it for a long time. You could at least have cut your damned hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” She sounded bewildered, which pissed him off even more.

“You’re a baby in a nest full of rattlesnakes. Don’t you know any better? Blondes are prime targets. In fact, that’ll be a fucking beacon if anyone trains a light in our direction.” He pulled the grungy kerchief from around his neck. He’d washed it out in a nearby stream any number of times, but that didn’t make it any cleaner. He turned, and she almost barreled into him.

He caught her before she smacked right into him, grabbing her by the arms. It had been thirty-four goddamn months, and he didn’t need her any closer. “Here,” he said, shoving the kerchief into her hand. “Cover your goddamn hair.”

“Is everything goddamn and fucking?” she said in her cool voice as she tucked the kerchief around her head. “This thing doesn’t have bugs, does it?”

“Bugs are the least of your problems. I’m in a bad mood. After you’ve been here a while you’ll know why everything is goddamn and fucking. Are you sure you’re not a fucking nun?”

“Not a holy one, not a fucking one,” she said. “I’m a teacher.”

“Christ,” he muttered.

“And a social worker,” she added.

That one silenced him. “Lady,” he said finally, “you’re an idiot.” And he turned and continued back down the narrow trail.

“At least I’m not a fucking idiot,” she said smartly.

Not yet, he thought.

He half expected her to sound like a herd of cows making her way through the brush, but she was surprisingly quiet, following his lead. She picked up on the routine quickly without him wasting a word – letting branches fall back softly, moving lightly through the thick vegetation. There was no sound from back in the camp – Carlos and Izzy hadn’t built up enough courage to come for her, and by the time they did, he and the woman would be long gone. In fact, they would have discovered he’d gone when they came after her – he hadn’t lost anything by taking her along. She wasn’t even slowing him down. Much.

The ground was slippery beneath their feet. He was wearing the remnants of the boots he’d been captured in, bound together with strips of cloth as the sole had eventually parted from the rest of the boot. He’d been marched from place to place, covered hundreds of countless miles in such lousy conditions that his boots had given up the ghost long ago. He usually made do with the sandals they’d given him, but for a trek like this he needed all the covering he could find.

He halted abruptly, and this time she did slam into him, but at least it was his back absorbing the blow of her soft body. He could pretend to ignore it. “What have you got on your feet?” he growled.

“Shoes.”

He looked down, his eyes accustomed to the inky black. Light-weight sneakers, already soaking wet from the damp undergrowth. “Christ, woman,” he muttered.

“I didn’t exactly get a chance to choose my wardrobe when they kidnapped me,” she said.

Damned if he didn’t like her. He was doing his best to intimidate her into total compliance, and she was undaunted. As she had been in the hands of her captors. Of course she’d had Redbeard looking out for her, and she clearly hadn’t understood Carlos’ and Izzy’s plans for her, or she might have been a little less cheeky. But some part of him would have regretted that.

He moved forward with a grunt. The less he talked to her, interacted with her, the better. First things first. Hans Froelich and the kid would be waiting up ahead by the makeshift bridge if they’d gotten away. Once he caught up with them he could concentrate on how to get this motley assortment of people down through a deathly tangle of undergrowth, rocky outcroppings, and the pursuit of drug-fueled sociopaths. Piece of cake.

He heard her mutter something beneath her breath. You son of a bitch, she said, thinking he couldn’t hear. He could hear everything. She had no idea just how big a son of a bitch he could be.

It would be interesting to see if she was still that cocky after a couple of days of scrambling down the mountain and maybe, just maybe, a couple of nights beneath his lust-starved body. She’d go down fighting. But he’d make absolutely sure she went down.

Vincent Barringer was a handsome man on the edge of retirement, looking over his covert little world from a secret basement room in Langley, Virginia. He prided himself on being a warm, friendly man, a laid-back boss who nonetheless demanded excellence and invariably got it. He had the commendations and awards to prove it, and he’d been contemplating an early retirement on the comfortable investments he’d shepherded over the years, just as he’d shepherded some of the world’s most dangerous operatives through the deepest cover imaginable. Some had died, some had come through, failures had always been followed by triumphs, and he cherished his reputation, almost blemish-free. He was a good man who’d lived a good and honorable life, free from smoking and drinking, free from carrying on and foul language and the weaknesses of modern society. People laughed at him, calling him a prude, but they’d done so affectionately, he was sure of it, and he knew he was viewed with both admiration and gratitude for his spotless work. He could retire happily.

If it hadn’t been for Thomas Killian. There were times when he still couldn’t believe Killian would dare think he could simply walk away from the company. When you sign up for the CIA undercover wet work, you sign up for life. Unlike Barringer, you didn’t get to retire to a nice little estate in Virginia and play golf. You couldn’t walk away, and yet Killian had, with the kind of information that would topple governments, locked away in his razor-sharp brain.

No one had blamed Barringer, exactly. After all, people trained in wet work weren’t the most malleable of souls, and he was lucky only one of them had gone rogue. Only one that his superiors knew of, of course. He’d been able to see the warning signs in any of the others who seemed likely to break rank, and he’d dealt with them, calmly and efficiently.

He hadn’t had that chance with Killian. By the time he knew Killian was planning to leave the reservation he was gone, disappearing as only a high level operative could. If he’d gone alone, Barringer might have been able to find him. But he’d disappeared with the head of the Committee, Isobel Lambert, and it was only belatedly that Barringer discovered the long standing connection between Thomas Killian and the woman who became Isobel Lambert.

His intel had failed him badly that time, and he dealt with that problem as well. Perhaps a little too quickly, but he was seriously annoyed and Killian was out of reach.

He wasn’t a man to regret his abrupt actions. He always made certain the families were well taken care of in these cases, that they knew their husbands or wives were heroes, giving their lives for their country. Barringer believed it, and he would cry at the funerals. It made no difference if his hand had held the gun or he’d simply ordered it. Each death was still in service of the country he loved.

In the four years Killian had been gone Barringer had never given up. Sooner or later there had to be a sign. They’d surface, maybe in a neutral country in Africa, maybe in Australia or the Arctic; heck, maybe in Washington, DC. He wouldn’t put it past someone like Killian.

So he waited. Patience was one of his many virtues, and he knew the value of taking his time. His retirement package was waiting, his comfortable house on the sound was furnished and waiting. All he needed was Killian.

He couldn’t leave his career with a blot like that on his record. He couldn’t leave a loose cannon like Killian out there with all that knowledge. And Killian had been a loose cannon - ignoring orders, following his own head, refusing half the wet work assigned. He’d been brilliant, though, and Barringer had learned to let him go. He’d pulled victory from defeat so many times and those victories had gone on Barringer’s record. Killian had no record, very few in the company even knew of his existence or the few others he’d run.

The others had done what they were told, and done it well. But they weren’t Killian. His betrayal had felt personal, and Barringer had no intention of letting him get away with it.

Patient though he was he was almost ready to give up. The days were long, the commute, even with the car and driver he’d earned, was tiring. He needed to work on his golf game, he needed to join the R.O.M.E.O.s, the other Retired Old Men Eating Out, for their weekly luncheons. But the ghost of Killian kept haunting him.

But now it had happened, finally. He’d known he’d be most likely to track him through Isobel Lambert, and he’d had the shattered remains of the Committee watched very closely for any sign of her. So far there had been nothing, but the sudden reappearance of one of her operatives was likely to change the playing field.

He’d known the Guiding Light was holding one of the members of the Committee up in the mountains at the behest of Harry Thomason, but he’d decided it was none of his business. He’d always liked Thomason, though his language could be offensive, and he had no interest in anyone else’s operatives. But apparently no one else had known where the man was, and his escape from La Luz was causing ripples that would be felt all the way to wherever Isobel Lambert and Killian were living. MacGowan had escaped, and he’d be out for blood.

Lambert had been known for her loyalty to her men; it was one of the reasons Thomason had been kicked upstairs to a powerless position on the governing board. She wouldn’t abandon operatives if she could help it. She also wouldn’t let MacGowan screw up his life by wreaking vengeance on whomever he could blame, he would bet his retirement on it. It would be easy enough to fan the flames of Committee concern, make it clear that MacGowan was out for blood, whether he was or not. And Isobel Lambert and her husband would emerge from hiding, just to make sure that didn’t happen.

How glorious to come back to his superiors, on the eve of his retirement, and tell them Killian was dead, that the one leak had finally been plugged. It was worth any risk.

He would send Sully, he decided. Sully was a crack shot, perhaps better than Killian in his prime. Once MacGowan made it down out of the mountains, Sully would find him, snatch him, and wait for Isobel Lambert to emerge to set the cat among the pigeons. And she wouldn’t come alone.

In retrospect he might have let the Committee know that MacGowan was a hostage, but he didn’t trust them. Peter Madsen, who’d taken over when Thomason had died in a so-called explosion and Lambert had disappeared, was too efficient, and he would have extracted MacGowan without Lambert ever knowing.

No, this was better. Enough people in the intelligence community had heard about it that he knew the word would get to Lambert. And he had complete faith in Sully. If MacGowan proved too hard to kidnap he could always cancel him. Lambert didn’t need to actually find MacGowan, she just had to believe that he was heading for Madsen. Killing him might even be easier. He would trust Sully.

Maybe he’d buy himself a sports car for his retirement. Drive fast, with the top down, except that his very expensive, undetectable hairpiece would probably get blown to heck and gone.

No, he was better with a solid American car, something large and comfortable but not too ostentatious. Too bad they didn’t make Oldsmobiles any more.

MacGowan really was a bastard and a half, Beth thought as she half-climbed, half-slid down the narrow trail after him. If she were feeling fair she wouldn’t blame him – by the looks of him he’d been held for a long time, and it was little wonder he was lacking compassion, sensitivity, or even manners. He was getting her out of there; that was all that mattered. Reluctantly, on his part, but he knew she was worth hundreds of millions of dollars at last count. He’d be well-paid for his efforts.

She hadn’t had a really good look at him. She knew he was tall, thin almost to the point of gaunt, but she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was weak. She’d felt the strength in the hard hands that had clamped around her arms. They’d probably added to the panoply of bruises on her tanned skin. He was nothing but hair and dirt and rags, and she found herself wondering what he looked like under those layers of grime. Ugly as sin and twice as mean, most likely. It wasn’t her concern. So she was feeling grateful, pathetically so. It was only logical. He was getting her out of here. No wonder she wanted to see him as heroic.

They walked on in silence. Her feet were sopping wet, she felt as if she’d been walking for days, her stomach was so damned empty it hurt, and she was frightened. It was taking everything she had to keep from panicking, and her reserves were running low. She would have given everything she had just to be able to curl up in a corner and rest, pull together the tattered remnants of her courage. But she had no choice. She would follow him, silent and uncomplaining. Anything else meant degradation and probably death.

She’d understood more than he thought. It hadn’t taken a linguistic expert to know what Carlos had in store for her, and the other scrawny rat had looked just as dangerous. He was right about the blonde hair, of course. The children she taught had loved it, loved to touch it and stroke it. She had very pale hair, thanks to her part-Scandinavian heritage, and it stood out. She should have dyed it brown before she got here.

She stumbled, going down on one knee, and she felt her pants rip. Her unwilling rescuer didn’t stop, didn’t even slow, and she scrambled to her feet, hurrying after him, keeping her curse between her teeth. She was at war with her own stamina, and she was at the losing end. If she fell and couldn’t get up, if he decided to abandon her to the Guiding Light again, she might just ask him to kill her instead. She was sure he could, quite easily, with those strong hands of his. It wasn’t a case of death before dishonor. It was more a question of death before rape, torture, and death. Might as well skip the uglier parts and get straight to the pay-off.

She wanted to laugh at her thoughts, but try as she might she couldn’t find the humor in her melodramatic musings. Because they weren’t actually melodramatic – they were based in fact.

She slammed into him again, unaware that he’d stopped. “Christ, woman,” he muttered. “Must you always fling yourself at me?” It wasn’t even a whisper beneath his breath.

“As long as you keep stopping without any warning,” she said back, not quite as soft as his but close. “You could . . .” The words were cut off, as he moved, fast as the strike of a snake, yanking her against him and slamming a hand over her mouth.

“Make a sound and I’ll snap your neck,” he breathed against her ear.

Well, that answered that question, she thought. He could easily kill her by hand. She stayed absolutely still and silent against his strong, bony body, waiting, though she wasn’t sure for what.

Two figures loomed up out of the inky darkness, and she felt a panicked scream bubble up. If she tried he’d kill her – better than having him hand her over to Carlos and the other one.

He must have felt her sudden panic, because his arms tightened for an uncomfortable moment. “You made it,” he said, and she realized he was talking to the newcomers. Newcomers who, as they approached, were definitely not the two feral kids.

Relief hit so hard she sagged against him, and he held her for only the briefest of moments before he released her. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he grumbled.

She almost fell again, but she managed to keep to her feet by sheer willpower. “I thought you were handing me back to Carlos and his new friend.”

He only grunted – such a charming companion, she thought. She was almost light-headed with relief as she looked at the two men - one middle-aged, the other a kid not much older than Carlos.

“Who the hell is she?” the older man demanded in a German accent. “We’re paying you to get us out of here. She’ll slow us down.”

She felt MacGowan’s eyes on her. “If she does we ditch her,” he said. “Miss Beth Pennington, this is Hans Froelich, who works for Deutschland Oil, and the brat there is Dylan Hamilton. He says his father is a movie star, and the two of them combined have more money than God. As do you. I figure I get at least one of you down, I’m due a tidy sum. If I get all three of you down I’m set for life.”

A mercenary, she thought, vaguely disappointed. She kept trying to turn him into a hero. It was no wonder – she was counting on him to save her life.

“Nice piece of tail,” the teenager said. “You feel like sharing?”

“I’ll let you know,” MacGowan said, faint amusement in his voice. “In the meantime, keep your mouths shut and follow me. I want to get as far away as we can by first light.”

“Where are we going, exactly?” the German demanded, still eyeing her uneasily.

“If I told you it wouldn’t mean anything, exactly,” he mimicked. “And Junior, keep your hormones to yourself. She’s tougher than she looks, and she’s had enough of horny teenagers to last her.”

“Dude!” the kid protested, but a sharp gesture shut him off.

“Okay, darlin’,” he said. “You follow me, then Froelich, then Junior. I figure he’s not worth as much as the rest of you, and if his father has any sense he wouldn’t pay a dime to get him back, so he’s expendable.”

“Harsh, man,” the kid said.

“Shut the fuck up and start walking,” he said. And they did.