Far below, Rhys was waving the chopper back, arms wig-wagging in fury. He’d expected to come with me. Too bad.
While Jeff was busy trying to relay the latest to the local cops, I sent half the Gerries to the parking lot of the motel where we’d left the Lexus. They would be back-up when Doug and Rhys brought Viktor’s stranded goons in, as I was sure they would. Mangrove swamps are chock-full of menacingly dark water, complete with alligators, and water moccasins. The wiseguys had nowhere to run. The other half of the Gerries I kept on stand-by. Maybe, if we were lucky, they’d be able to demonstrate that retirement hadn’t dimmed their skills.
I settled down to keeping track of the raft. Live oaks overhung the severely narrowed river. Palm trees flattened by hurricanes stuck out over the banks, compounded by so much carrotwood, Brazilian pepper, and wild grape that we couldn’t always see Viktor and the raft, though the stark white of Marina’s dress helped. Alligators lurked like giant logs. I spotted turtles, herons, ospreys, egrets, and cow birds. Turkey-headed vultures circled slowly, as if they already sensed a bloody outcome to this chase.
The raft disappeared under a long canopy of trees . . . and didn’t come out. Clinging to the side of the chopper’s open door, I peered down at the tree tops. Where . . .?
Thank you, God! Viktor was doing what I’d hoped for, heading into a small stream on the river’s east bank that led to the only place where civilization touched the Calusa—a senior mobile home park, built long before the river was officially designated “wild and scenic” and protected from development.
I pulled on Flint’s arm, pointing toward the break in the solid mass of jungle below us. Then I called the Gerries and the local cops. I smiled. Viktor was in for a surprise.
A surprise that could mean a confrontation in the midst of hundreds of senior citizens. Viktor would have a car waiting or on its way, maybe a whole goon squad with guns and more guns. The mobile home park was another massacre waiting to happen. Shit!
Viktor was a monster, the road from town, long and winding. The Gerries might be too late. The seniors needed protection now. Marina needed saving—
Both good reasons to have eyes in the back of my head as Jeff reached for his handcuffs. I shoved my heel hard into his crotch, confident I wasn’t going to do too much damage as my feet were wearing nothing but the remnants of my pantyhose. While he was doubled up, cursing little sisters in general and me in particular, I started the winch and threw the cable out the door. As I went over the side with my HK and the sling pouch with my Lady Smith and the bolas slung over my back, the front half of my dress unwrapped, flew up over my head. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but Flint and Jeff were getting an eyeful. Any moment I expected the line to screech to a halt and start back up again.
It didn’t. I owed Flint. And, oh boy, wasn’t he just going to collect!
He dropped me neatly at the place where the park’s private road dead-ended against mangrove swamp, then remained, not more than a hundred feet off the ground. To my left was the narrow stream and an array of small wooden docks and shallow-bottomed boats. Jeff, I noted, was back in the open helicopter door, covering me. Later, I knew, I’d suffer for that well-placed kick. Viktor’s head and an arm, gun in hand, appeared above pilings about forty feet away. Calmly, he reached down with his other hand and hauled Marina up the ladder. There was no RPG threat now and he still had his hostage. Stalemate.
A ratty-looking pickup zoomed down the narrow road toward the dock. A pickup? Come a long way down, haven’t you, Vik? I pushed the walkie-talkie button. “Jeff, take the truck. Viktor’s mine.”
Viktor was running now, hauling Marina after him. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the Russian for “Down.” I’d have to settle for Saditsyah. Said urgently enough, I hoped it would do the trick. Yet for an instant I hesitated. Viktor. Alive. After one hell of a day, I was tiring. My breath rasped, a quiver threatened my knees. If I aimed for his legs, I could miss—very easily kill him. I should kill him. Like the assassin on the train.
The helicopter swooped in, hovering almost nose to nose with the pickup. Brakes squealing, it halted its race toward the dock. Viktor, still dragging Marina, surged toward the pickup, rapidly closing the gap. I was out of time. Shoving the MP-5 aside, I reached for my weapons pouch. I filled my lungs and shouted, “Marina, saditsyah!”
God bless her, she threw herself flat. I was already whirling the bolas round and around. The air whistled as the hard little balls whipped up friction. One chance, one chance only. If I missed, I’d probably have to kill him. Not that that was so terrible, but Rhys wouldn’t like it.
I let go. The wooden balls on their three strong cords flew through the air, wrapped around Viktor’s leg, bringing him down on the asphalt like a felled tree. Yes!
Thank you, Arlan. I always knew you’d be good for something.
Flint settled the helicopter onto the road just as a car-full of Gerries came screaming down the road, closely followed by two local patrol cars. The goons in the truck— two of the new recruits, or maybe their younger brothers—wisely decided they had had enough. They eased out of the cab, tossing their guns on the ground ahead of them.
Marina launched herself at me, and we clung together as if we’d been buddies since toddler days. Sinking abruptly onto the grass, we indulged in a fit of the shakes. It was over. Everyone who had survived the massacre was still alive. (At least the man I’d shot on Viktor’s boat had been on his feet when they helped him into the cabin.)
“You okay?” Flint’s blue eyes, filled with concern, were only inches from mine.
“As far as I can tell. You going to get into trouble for this?”
He gave me a slow conspiratorial grin. “Not if you don’t insist on taking all the credit.”
I fluttered my lashes. “Oh, Sergeant Ramsey, sir, Marina and I are just lil’ ol’ innocent bystanders. You big he-men did all the work.”
Jeff patted me on the shoulder. “That’s the way, kid. Females should always know their proper place.”
Okay . . . so I owed him his little joke.
My Lexus skidded to a stop right behind the Three Rivers patrol cars, with a single black FBI SUV trailing them. Rhys and Doug jumped out. Of course. They’d turned the wiseguys over to the Gerries and dashed off to the rescue the Fair Maiden, namely me. Well, guess what, guys? It’s all over. Viktor’s down, Marina’s safe, I’m . . .
I scrambled to my feet, which suddenly hurt like hell, and met Rhys face-to-face. He had the strangest look, somewhere between utter terror and flat-out fury as he checked me over like I was some Meissen porcelain shepherdess in danger of developing a crack. I slapped his wandering hands. “I’m fine. It’s over, and we’re all in one piece. A good day’s work.”
“I. Am. Never. Letting you near any operations. Ever again.”
“You. Have. Absolutely. No. Say in the matter,” I responded with equal vehemence.
Checkmate. Miserable Brit twit.
Flint curled his lip at Rhys. Rhys glowered. Doug and Jeff merely looked amused.
I gave Marina a hand up. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s find you some place to stay.”
“I’ll take her,” Doug and Jeff volunteered in unison. “To Mom, of course,” Doug added self-righteously.
“She’s had quite enough men with guns for one today,” I told him and handed him my MP-5. I retrieved my bolas, while Viktor alternately scowled at me and looked as if he were on the verge of offering reluctant congratulations. As I settled Marina and her sadly wrinkled wedding gown into the back seat of the Lexus, Doug inserted himself beside her. In a matter of moments, Marina, her face radiant at discovering someone she could actually communicate with in something besides sign language, was chattering away in rapid Russian.
I looked for Rhys. We had to get out of here fast before the FBI turned their attention from Viktor to us. Is there such a thing as collateral spectators? If so, that would be our claim. We just happened to be around when it all went down.
<
br /> I found Rhys sitting behind the wheel of my car. He peered out the open driver’s window, eyed the dirty and somewhat battered toes sticking out of my shredded stockings. “Time to be a passenger,” he suggested. Gently.
I could have managed, of course, but why not make him feel needed? I limped around the front of the car and dropped into the passenger seat. We took Doug back to the airboat, then headed for Halliday House. In addition to the necessity of reporting to Dad, I knew he and Mom would find some way to keep Marina out of the clutches of the INS. As we drove north on the Trail, Flint buzzed us, waggling a greeting, before zooming off toward the SWAT training grounds. He and Jeff would be tied up for some time, nimbly skirting the truth to keep me out of any official reports. In the end, I knew, Sheriff Purvis was going to shake his head and decide he didn’t want to know the whole truth. The FBI? They wouldn’t believe it, even if someone told them. Even with me driving away right under their noses.
All’s well that ends well.
Except for the dead, the dying, the wounded. The people we should have been able to save. And hadn’t. My euphoria faded.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Rhys stayed another week, sitting in on Viktor’s interrogations, even being allowed a good many questions of his own. In return for the state waiving the death penalty (dammit!), Viktor turned loquacious, but never about Dmitri Chazov, who had benefited most from Viktor’s treachery. Chazov, who had to have been the person behind the assassination of Grigori Rufikov and his captains. Viktor continued to insist the idea was solely his, his attempt to jump from Rufikov goon to Chazov captain in one giant leap. Nonetheless, much of his information was deemed good. Law enforcement—from the Three Rivers cops who never, ever expected to land a big criminal fish, to the Calusa County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI—preened themselves on their big catch, which also included six of Viktor’s murdering wiseguys.
As for me, I walked, I talked . . . I suffered. How did cops disassociate themselves from the horrible things they saw and did?
“It takes a while,” Rhys said on Tuesday night, when I finally agreed to discuss it. “Let it spook you, and you won’t be able to function. You have to shove the pain aside and remember the job. Losses hurt like hell, Laine, and few wins are perfect. Pardon the cliché, but you have to accept the bad with the good. Learn to live with it. Move on.”
When I just sat there like a great blot on my cheerful Florida print sofa, Rhys sighed. “Laine, you know bloody well it’s not your fault. Fault lies with the people who sell human beings, drugs, every kind of illegal service. And it’s the fault of those who buy. The ones who feed the monster by feeding their own filthy habits. It’s not you. Never you.”
For the life of me I couldn’t respond. I knew he was right, but that bloody mother and child haunted me. Surely there was some way we could have managed things better.
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Rhys said, his voice heavy with resignation. “It’s not just guilt. Not just Viktor. Every day I’ve been here, you’ve moved farther and farther under the shelter of your family, like a turtle withdrawing into the protection of its shell until there’s nothing left but that rock hard covering. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It doesn’t exist. Just happy little weddings and vacations. No room for outsiders either—”
“Stop it!”
“Sorry.” Rhys touched my hand. “It’s just that . . . I hold you in my arms every night, and still I feel shut out. I want you in my life, Laine. I want you to work with me. And I see it all slipping away.”
“You’re wrong.” A knot broke inside of me, a great choking miserable lump that had kept me from thinking straight for the past three days. Rhys had come oh-so-close to the truth, but, as it turned out, we’d both been wrong. “Actually”—I took a big shuddering breath—“actually, you were almost right. I’m good at my job. The family needs me. And, yes, I couldn’t see my way clear to adding international intrigue to my list. I couldn’t let the family down.
“But now . . . after seeing what happened at the club, I realize I have no choice. I may not be Supergirl, but I have to find a way to become one.” I will find a way,” I vowed.
Rhys, being Rhys, took me in his arms and said all the right things. We both knew he was getting a bit more than he’d bargained for. An independent American female with a wild streak who wasn’t a good fit for the hallowed halls of Interpol. The future was going to be a tad rocky. For both of us.
The rest of the week, until Rhys’s long flight back to Lyon, was brighter, full of tenderness, hope, anticipation . . . and a few well-hidden fears.
I was graduating from swanky blue alligator to the twenty-league boots of legend. From a sleepy town on Florida’s Gulf Coast to fighting crime on a global scale. I had two new men in my life and an infinite horizon.
Maybe I’d better look up some of the many circus families in Golden Beach. I was so going to have to learn to juggle.
~ * ~
About the Author: Although I’m best known for my Regency romances, I love to venture into new genres and have written romantic suspense, mystery, medieval romance, and futuristic. At the moment I’m working on my first steampunk. Coming soon: O’Rourke’s Heiress, a saga incorporating characters from both Tarleton’s Wife and The Sometime Bride. For a list of my books currently available online, please see below.
Orange Blossoms & Mayhem is a brand new, never-before-available book, and I plan to upload others over the next year (in addition to completing the renaissance of my backlist). I am always delighted to hear from my readers. I can be contacted at [email protected]. And please visit my blog at http://mosaicmoments.blogspot.com/
Blair’s books currently online:
Love At Your Own Risk
Mistletoe Moment
The Sometime Bride
The Captive Heiress
The Courtesan’s Letters
The Temporary Earl
The Harem Bride
A Season for Love
A Gamble on Love
Lady Silence
Steeplechase
Tarleton’s Wife
The Golden Beach Suspense
& Mystery Books:
Orange Blossoms & Mayhem
Paradise Burning
Shadowed Paradise
Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes) Page 26
