There was a back room with men gambling over cards. And Xang intended to auction her off. She didn’t know how she found the strength to break free from him, but she did. His laughter followed her to the door.
He thought she would be back because she had no options. He was wrong. She and her mother ran away for the second time that night, but now they had somewhere to go. America. And it was so far away he would never reach them.
She’d been wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
0700 Friday
Eastern Island, Midway Islands
BOWIE PICKED HIMSELF up off the ground. He staggered on unsteady legs, pressing his palm to his forehead in an attempt to relieve his bitch of a headache. His forehead was wet, and when he removed his hand he saw that it was slick with blood.
Thank God, he had a hard head. The bullet had only grazed him.
He heard the airplane engine in the distance.
“Tam!” He ran up the runway calling her name. The Cessna took off over the ocean and he felt panic like he’d never known.
Don’t be John Wayne!
She’d been talking in code.
Live! And get the girl!
John Wayne.
Okay, so he didn’t have to sacrifice himself to be the hero. But he did have to take action and hope that a plan came to him along the way. Because the girl he loved had sacrificed herself for him.
He had no idea where Xang was taking her. But he did have pieces to the puzzle.
Bowie took off at a sprint. He stopped only long enough to pick up his discarded knife. He ran over lava rock on his already-shredded bare feet. Other parts of his body had been scraped raw as well during his fall.
He reached the blanket and dumped the contents of Tam’s bag onto it. No two-way radios. Xang had probably taken them. He only had his knife because it had been half buried beneath the blanket and the sand.
It sickened him to know that Xang had stood over them as they’d slept. But that was nothing compared to the churning in his gut when he thought of that man hurting Tam.
He hopped into his swim trunks, but left everything else and ran toward the boat, knowing what he’d find. The general had disabled that, as well. Bowie didn’t waste time trying to fix a problem he couldn’t solve.
He had one option and that was to swim the two miles back to Sand Island. Never mind that he was bleeding and that sharks fed at sunrise and sunset. He’d have to trust that the coral atoll would keep the big sharks out.
He strapped the Pirate to his thigh and dove in.
His body sliced through the ocean, one stroke, one kick at a time. He reached Sand Island exhausted, but picked himself up from the surf and hit the marina at a dead run.
“Will,” he shouted. “Give me your walkie-talkie and get me the fastest boat this island has. Keep the motor running.”
“Do you want me to call in the Coast Guard?” Will called back.
“Do it!” Bowie answered without breaking his stride. “McCain!” he called on the two-way.
“Where’ve you been? Over.”
“Round up the squad, meet me at the armory, and I want it done yesterday!”
He’d reached the brig and slammed open the screen door, heading straight to the phone on his desk.
“What the hell happened to you, college boy?” The master chief sprang to his feet from behind his desk. “Looks like a bullet parted your hair.”
“General Xang has Tam. McCain’s rounding up the squad. I’m trying to reach Stevens,” he said as he waited for the operator. “Will’s standing by with a boat. Also contacting the Coasties.”
“Slow down and have somebody look at that head of yours.”
“I’m sorry, the line is busy,” the operator said. Bowie slammed down the phone without a thank-you. The sound of his labored breathing filled his ears as he slowed down just enough to think for a second. He didn’t have time to worry about his head.
In the stillness he heard an airplane. He rushed outside. Overhead an unmarked C-130 made its final approach. “Stevens!”
Cohen had followed him outside. “I’ll get the men to the war room.”
Bowie took off for the hangar. He reached the tarmac just as Stevens stepped down the ladder.
“What’s happened?” Stevens asked. “I’m here to meet my daughter.”
“Xang has her. You have to help me find her. I don’t even know where to begin.”
Stevens turned to the man behind him. “Have everyone assemble in the war room.”
“It’s a trap,” Bowie warned.
“That’s not going to keep me from walking into it.”
“Me, neither.”
Bowie was the first one up the stairs. He pulled a chart off the wall and spread it out on the conference table. “He’s been right in our own backyard all along,” Bowie said as the rest crowded around them, his own brother and sister-in-law included.
“What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time, little brother?” Zach reached up to touch Bowie’s matted hair.
Bowie jerked his head back and focused his attention on the chart. “He’s using the depot on Eastern island to refuel.” Tam had given him the idea with her John Wayne reference.
“We know he’s been using small boats and planes,” Stevens said, taking over the briefing. “What we don’t know is which island he’s using as a distribution center. That’s probably where he’s taken her.” Stevens stood back and crossed his arms. “Now all we have to do is find it.”
How did you find one small uncharted island in the middle of an ocean?
Think, think. Bowie supported his weight by leaning on the table. It was all that was holding him up.
“Let me look at your head, Bowie,” Zach coaxed.
“You should have told me you worked for the CIA.”
“What’s to tell?” Zach studied Bowie’s injury. “That doesn’t look so bad. Bet it hurts like a bitch, though.”
“I’ll find a first aid kit,” Michelle said, ducking out of the room.
His men arrived and took up what was left of the space. Stevens filled Bowie’s men in on the situation. And they got back down to business.
Bowie had a flash of insight. “Midway got its name because it’s midway between Hawaii and Japan, right? So he’s refueling midway, right?”
“I think you’re on to something. Keep going,” Stevens encouraged.
Bowie pressed the heel of his hand to his head. “Well, we know he’s not coming from Japan—”
“No, he’s transporting the drugs out of Laos by cargo ship through the South China Sea….”
“And he’d want to make the switch over to smaller vessels sometime after the Philippine Sea…but stay clear of U.S. Coast Guard patrols around Palau, Guam, and the Mariana and Marshall Islands. Islands all south of the Tropic of Cancer.”
“Midway is northeast of Hawaii…. We’ve been looking too far south,” Stevens concluded. “Lay out the satellite photos of those islands to the east of Midway,” Stevens instructed one of his men. “We’re looking for a small airstrip, probably dirt.”
Everyone began poring over the photos. When they were finished, everyone went so far as to check and recheck photos that had already been gone over.
“It isn’t here,” Bowie said in frustration, shuffling aside another picture.
“What you’ve got to look for,” said Zach, “is an airstrip that’s been camouflaged.”
Bowie riffled through the photos again. How could he have been so stupid as to have missed it? “Like this one right here?”
“Got it!” Zach handed the photo to Stevens of a small island just outside of U.S. jurisdiction. If the island was being used as a distribution center, that was well camouflaged, too.
“Let’s get to work,” Stevens said. “We need a plan to get in. And one to get out again.”
Michelle returned with a first aid kit and squeezed her way through the crowd to Bowie.
“Sit down and let me get a look at
you,” she said, pulling out a chair from the table. Bowie did as he was told.
“There,” she said when she was done. “I put a butterfly bandage on it. Maybe you won’t even scar.”
“What do I care about a scar.”
My little ba muoi lam.
Bowie remembered Xang’s words, remembered the look on Tam’s face. Bowie didn’t know or care if what Xang said was true. All he cared about was that Tam was set free.
And soon.
He listened to the plans for storming the island. “Can I see that photo again?” Bowie asked. General Xang wanted Stevens on his terms. He’d chosen the place and time. How did they get back the advantage? “How would a Navy SEAL approach the island?”
“From the water,” Zach said.
“Exactly.”
“What’s going on inside that brain of yours, Prince?”
“How close can we get to that island without being seen or heard?”
“Several miles. But not everyone here is trained for long-distance swimming.”
“No, but I’ve got a whole squad of divers,” Bowie said. “Some with underwater demolition training. What if we set explosive charges around the perimeter? We could create one hell of a diversion. We go in, get her out, blow the charges, confusion masks our escape. Then the boats can move in to pick us up.”
“I like it,” Stevens said.
“It gets better. That island is made up of lava rock. We can make them think a volcano is about to blow.”
They set a timetable for the operation.
They’d wait for darkness, but the hours until then were agonizing.
Bowie had showered the blood out of his hair in the locker room down at the marina, but he hadn’t bothered to shave. Or eat. He kept his body hydrated only because he knew he needed to.
Will had still had the engine running on the speedboat when Bowie had returned to the marina after the briefing. So Bowie didn’t argue when the young man begged to captain them to the dive site; he’d earned his stripes.
The Coast Guard was standing by, too, again thanks to Will.
Bowie was putting on his frogman gear when Stevens entered the locker room and started suiting up.
“Think you’re going to be able to keep up?” After all, the man was in his fifties.
“Just watch me,” Stevens said.
When his brother joined them, Bowie started to get a little irritated. “What’s going on here? You think I need baby-sitting?”
“Nope, just goin’ for a swim,” Zach said.
Bowie slipped on his hood and smeared his face with grease paint. “Maybe we’d better set our watches.” And they did, down to the second.
“You know, if this goes off without a hitch, my daughter is going to owe you her life. And I’m going to owe you,” Stevens said.
Live! And get the girl!
“Tam doesn’t owe me anything. And neither do you. But you do owe her.”
2400 Friday
UNCHARTED ISLAND
Northern Pacific Ocean
“TWO, ANY SIGN OF THE professor?” Bowie spoke through the headset of his transmitter.
“Negative,” McCain told him.
He got the same from Zach and Stevens.
Each of them approached the island from a different direction. Bowie signaled to Brown and Jones. They were to secure the highest point on the island and serve as lookouts. Or snipers, whatever was necessary.
The rest of the squad were to set perimeter charges under Cohen’s direction. They had enough C-4 to blow the island to kingdom come. As Bowie suspected, the center of the island was made up of porous lava rock. But there was also thick vegetation. And there didn’t appear to be a soul around. What if she wasn’t here? As his heart pounded against his chest he hoped and prayed he hadn’t made a mistake.
Bowie followed an overgrown path inland. Within minutes, he pulled up short, spotting a trip wire an inch from his boot. Following the source of the wire, he identified the trap and stepped over it, then tripped it with the butt end of his weapon. The fulcrum action released the spiked Malayan gate. Had he been on the other side he would have been gored.
“At least I know we’ve come to the right place.” Bowie released his breath.
He warned his men and disabled three more traps along the way before the sound of rushing water captured his attention. A waterfall. And a sentry. The man trudged across a fallen log over the top of the falls, then followed a path down the other side and disappeared.
“This is One,” Bowie said over the transmitter. “I have visual contact. And what appears to be the entrance of a cave. Report.”
“Two, negative,” McCain reported from the south side.
“Three,” Zach came through from the west. “Four Cessna Citations under camouflage netting. Two armed guards on the line. And another five playing poker in a Quonset hut.”
Next Stevens reported from the north. “Four, I’ve got the mouth of a cave big enough to drive a boat through. I’m going to follow it and see where it leads.”
“Copy,” Bowie said. “Three, can you disable those planes?”
“The question is, can I get close to them.”
“Try.”
“Roger that.”
“Two, head west to help. I’m going to check out this cave.”
“Copy,” McCain said.
Bowie followed the same path as the guard, keeping his back to the wall when they reached the other side. The entrance wasn’t behind the waterfall as it first appeared, but next to it.
The cave was dark with no sign of movement. He crossed quickly to the other side and drew his weapon. The cave opened up to a cavern below, a natural north-to-south waterway slicing through the middle of the island. And cutting him off from the opposite bank.
Tiki torches staked to the ground and from sconces attached to the wall gave off an eerie and unnatural light. He heard voices and ducked behind an outcropping of rock. Two armed guards emerged from the opposite side of the cavern where a natural V shape opened into the overgrown core of the dormant volcano.
The guards passed by four high speedboats docked in the water and followed the waterway north along the western bank. If this was the same waterway Stevens was following, he’d meet up with those men somewhere inside the tunnel.
“Four, two men headed your way along the west bank,” Bowie whispered.
Bowie followed the path down and waded across the waterway, using the boats as cover. He climbed up the west bank just as Stevens emerged from the tunnel.
“We’re clear here,” Bowie said in hushed tones as the two of them headed to the overgrown opening. “What happened to those guards?”
“I took care of them,” Stevens answered.
Entering the core of the volcano was like something out of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Alive with natural sound and thick vegetation, the cave would have been fascinating to see in the daylight.
Behind them the bowl of the volcano rose straight up a couple of stories high. The mouth was so vast that from where they stood they couldn’t make out how wide it was. They headed west along a freshwater stream to an encampment.
No wonder McCain hadn’t been able to spot anything. The lip of the volcano had created a natural barrier between him and the base camp.
They veered off the path, using the thick foliage for cover.
“Stand by.” Bowie spoke into the transmitter, readying the demolition crew. But since there was only one way in and out of this bowl, a diversion wouldn’t do them much good until they cleared it.
There were several storage buildings, one large barracks, one medium size barracks and two small hooches. They could smell the weed burning from one. And two guards stood watch over the other.
Keeping to dense cover, they worked their way around. Bowie pointed to himself, leaving no doubt as to who would go in to see if she was there. He scrambled across the clearing in a crouch, then plastered himself to the wall and worked his way around the corner to pee
k inside the window of the hooch.
She was there! And alone. Gagged and bound to a chair in the middle of the room, which contained only a table and a propane lamp.
“Psst,” he whispered. And when she turned her head he winked. Then he ducked back down and headed around the corner.
He signaled to Stevens to go around one side while he took the other. Bowie left the guards to Stevens and burst through the door.
Tam shook her head frantically.
Bowie stopped in his tracks. “Is the room booby-trapped?”
She nodded.
From the looks of things, so was she. One thing at a time, he told himself, willing his breathing under control. He looked over his shoulder at the Malayan gate ready to swoop down from the ceiling if he made one wrong move.
So much for rushing to the rescue.
He looked everywhere but couldn’t see a trip wire, and he didn’t dare move around the room. Or even untie Tam’s gag to ask for help.
About the time he noticed that the floorboards under Tam’s chair were different, a commotion started outside.
“We’ve gotta move now!” Stevens said at the door.
“Don’t come in here,” Bowie warned. He’d figured out the trap had been set when he’d entered the room. There were now two triggers. If they added or removed weight from either side, the trap would spring.
But he had to act.
The table was on his side. He crouched under it.
“Now would be a good time to trust me,” he said to her.
Grabbing the table by two legs, he flipped it to his back and leapt across the divide, knocking Tam and the chair over and into a corner. He covered her with his body as the table took the brunt of the blow and splintered.
The propane lamp had overturned and a fire had started in the opposite corner.
Bowie untied Tam from the chair as quickly as possible and carried her from the burning room. Her feet were still bound, but she looped one arm around him and removed the gag with the other.
“Still think you’re John Wayne,” she accused.
“It’s good to see you, too, honey.”
Midway Between You and Me (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 20
