A Question of Honor

by Lindsay McKenna

  Henri glanced at his watch. “In ten minutes the Coast Guard will be on station,” he warned, maneuvering the chugging tug toward the beach to get a closer look at another group of boats anchored there. “Take a look at this next bunch, Kit.”

  She swung her binoculars toward the shore. There were more than thirty sleek inboard cruisers, beat-up rusty tubs and yachts huddled together, all waiting their turn to get the bales. Could she spot Garcia and Dante before the Coast Guard closed off the cove? Tension thrummed through her as she frantically searched each boat in turn.

  “Five more minutes,” Henri warned, “before these boats split like a flock of startled birds. The moment they see the Coast Guard, they’re gonna panic.” He gave the wooden wheel a hefty turn, urging the Guayama around so that the bow was aimed at the mother ship.

  Kit glanced up; the shore was no more than fifty feet away from them.

  Barnes crowded in on the bridge, unholstering his revolver and releasing the safety. “Man, this is going to be a mess in a few minutes. Where are all these boats going to go when they find out they’re all trapped?”

  Chortling, Galera asked, “You ever seen druggies walk on water?”

  Kit grinned sickly, continuing to rapidly scan the boats. Suddenly her heart thudded. “Oh, my God!” she breathed. “It’s them. Garcia! And Dante!”

  “Where?” Henri demanded.

  “Over there,” Kit said, pointing. “That red-and-white charter boat about two hundred yards east of us.” Her throat ached with renewed fear as Barnes took the binoculars.

  Henri grabbed the microphone, calling the Osprey and Sea Eagle, giving them a clear description of the boat. Kit listened in stunned silence, watching the boat. Her pulse was strong, her heart beating wildly in her breast.

  “They’re sitting on two-hundred-fifty horsepower of boat,” Barnes growled, lowering the binoculars.

  “They ain’t gonna go anywhere,” Henri said with a booming laugh. He glanced at his watch and then over his shoulder. “They’re here.”

  Kit jerked her attention to the only entrance to the cove. Both the Coast Guard vessels had just hoved into view, stationing themselves like a barrier across it. She turned back to the smugglers. Suddenly, without warning, the entire cove rippled with fear. Kit saw smugglers sprint into action as soon as they saw the Osprey and Sea Eagle. Shouting and cursing filled the air. It was as if a huge tidal wave had smashed through the cove. Boats fled in all directions.

  All her attention was riveted on the red-and-white boat. Suddenly the huge, thunderous engines roared to life, water foaming and swirling madly around the rear of the boat. From the corner of her eye, Kit saw four other DEA boats of varying sizes, shapes and power closing in on Garcia to cut him off and surround him. Henri thrust the two throttles forward, causing the little Guayama to leap ahead with surprising adroitness. They were closing the net around Garcia.

  Barnes cursed and gripped Kit’s shoulder. “Look out!” he screamed. “He’s trying to escape!”

  Kit’s lips parted, a cry lurching from her throat. In the blinding split seconds that followed, the red-and-white monster of a boat careened wildly, its bow pointed directly at the Guayama, which blocked its only remaining route of escape.

  The snarl of engines and the sudden crunching sound of bows meeting, folding and cracking shattered the air. Kit was thrown heavily against Barnes, who was slammed into the rear bulkhead. The explosion that followed punctured the cove like an artillery barrage.

  Kit remembered wave after wave of broiling heat from the explosion, screams, then the smell of diesel fuel in the air. She crawled to her hands and knees, blood dribbling from her nose and mouth. Water rushed into the destroyed bridge of the listing Guayama. Blindly she reached out, gripping Barnes’s limp arm. She yelled at him, realizing in her dazed condition that he was unconscious.

  Staggering to her feet, Kit turned. Nausea overwhelmed her and she jerked her head away, unable to cope with the grisly scene that met her eyes. Henri was dead. But Barnes was still alive. Kit heard gunshots all around them, ignored the angry firing and dragged the agent off the bridge and onto the deck of the sinking Guayama.

  Barnes revived just in time. Kit stared disbelievingly as diesel fuel and fire raced across the surface around the two wrecked boats. She gasped for breath, realizing that several people were flailing nearby in the water, all of them heading for shore to escape.

  “Come on!” she begged Barnes. She jerked his arm, and they both jumped overboard.

  The water was surprisingly warm, and Kit coughed wildly, floundering toward shore. The heavy flak jacket weighed her down, and she swallowed water as she struggled to stay afloat. Barnes was having equal trouble. They touched bottom minutes later.

  Kit’s hair hung limply around her face as she staggered toward the beach, Barnes weaving unsteadily on his feet in front of her.

  “Kit!” Barnes screamed in warning.

  Automatically Kit flattened, throwing herself into the shallow water as the crack of a gun sounded very close to her. Barnes was thrown backward into the water, a red stain moving across his head. Kit rolled on her side, fumbling to unsnap the revolver that rested beneath her left armpit.

  “Hold it!” a voice snarled.

  Her hand froze on the gun and Kit looked up. Into the viperous eyes of Emilio Dante.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cordeman was the first to discover what had occurred. It had been one of the many messages coming across the bridge of the Osprey. He had seen the two boats collide close to shore and heard the resulting earsplitting explosion. Moving with unaccustomed quickness, Cordeman got a ride on another DEA decoy boat and made it over to the Marie-Elise to locate Noah and his boarding crew.

  Cordeman found Trayhern, his face blackened by grime and sweat, down in the hold. He grabbed Noah’s arm and jerked him around to get his full attention. The roar of several fire hoses and shouts of the men directing water on the blaze mingled with Cordeman’s raised voice.

  “Kit’s in trouble!”

  Noah wiped a trail of sweat from his eyes, blinking once. “What?”

  Cordeman’s grip tightened. “The boat Kit was on was rammed by Garcia and Dante!”

  Noah’s mouth opened and closed. He stared disbelievingly at Cordeman. Everything had happened so fast. The boarding party from the Osprey had been the first to engage in gunfire, and he had led the initial attack aboard the bristling mother ship. He pointed toward the hold ladder.

  “Get topside so I can hear you,” Noah ordered. He turned, giving orders to Chief Stanton to continue battling the blaze, then quickly climbed the ladder. He took a deep breath of clean air, and his eyes pinned the narc supervisor.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Cordeman?”

  “We got a call from the Guayama seconds before it was rammed. Kit spotted Garcia and Dante on a red-and-white charter boat near them.” He gritted his teeth, watching the officer’s face pale beneath the tan. “I don’t know if they rammed the Guayama on purpose or not. Anyway, an agent on one of the other DEA decoy boats watched the whole thing through binoculars. With Galera’s description, he was able to identify Garcia and Dante.”

  Noah felt his heart tearing apart inside his chest, and he looked toward shore, where two vessels were still mated and burning from their collision. “No—” he croaked. “No!”

  “Get hold of yourself, Trayhern! They saw Kit, Barnes and Dante make it to shore. Dante shot Barnes and he took Kit prisoner.”

  Noah tensed and glared toward the scenic beach lined with palm trees. Beyond the grove of palms, the rocky land rose sharply, dotted with gnarled trees and cactus. He swung around.

  “He’ll kill her.”

  “Not yet. She’s his ticket to safety until he can get to the other side of the hill above us,” Chuck growled. “Come on, let’s get a rescue party together. If Dante reaches some means of safety before we can get to him, he will kill Kit.”

  Grimly Noah tightened his lips to a thin
line of pain. “What about Garcia?”

  “Dead. We just recovered his and Galera’s body from the area of the collision.”

  Noah uttered an expletive and moved quickly toward the debarkation area. Cordeman reached out, pulling him to a halt. “Look, there’s one more thing you gotta know before we try to rescue Kit.”

  “What?” Noah snarled, tired of Cordeman feeding him bits and pieces of information. All he wanted to do was find Kit. He glared at Cordeman, confused by the look on the man’s sweaty face.

  “I promised her I wouldn’t tell you.” He breathed harshly, mopping his brow with his handkerchief. “But things didn’t go right. Trayhern, she’s four months pregnant with your baby.”

  Stunned, Noah froze. Four months pregnant? Tears welled in his eyes. “When?”

  Cordeman swore. “I don’t know what your love life’s like! You answer those questions, dammit. She went to the doctor recently and it was confirmed.” His voice lost its angry tone as he saw the officer’s face turn ashen. “Look,” he went on, “the doc told her she’d have a tough time carrying the baby to full term.” He mopped his brow nervously. “Dammit, what I’m trying to tell you is that even if we’re able to rescue Kit, she still might be in serious danger of a miscarriage!”

  Shakily Noah touched his brow, trying to force his crowded, cartwheeling thoughts into some semblance of order. Kit was pregnant with his child! A deluge of joy was shattered by terror for her and the baby’s life. He had to think straight! He could not allow his emotions to get the better of him. “Yeah…okay,” he muttered, forcing himself to think, not feel. “Come on, we’ll get a boarding party together.”

  Noah’s green eyes were dark with despair as he looked around at the group of six volunteers. Each man’s face was tense, anticipating. They all knew the score—Dante would use Kit as a shield, kill her at the first opportunity and escape. Further, she was pregnant, and even if they could find Dante, it might be too late. Noah made sure a corpsman came along, just in case, and a helicopter from a hospital in Port-au-Prince was on its way.

  Two Haitian drug agents would guide the party ashore and help them track Dante. They knew their island better than anyone and were aware of all the nooks and crannies in the rocky foothills that loomed above the beach. Noah tried to shove aside his personal suffering, but it was impossible. He rubbed his grimy, sweat-streaked face, fighting to keep his escaping emotions under control. Picking up his M-16 and jamming the baseball cap back on his head, he growled, “All right, let’s get Dante.”

  Dante wheezed brokenly, giving Kit a push that sent her sprawling on the hillside. He rested the gun on his knee as he sat for a minute and tried to catch his breath. Glaring at her, he snarled, “Don’t move, or I’ll blow your damned head off your shoulders.”

  Kit sobbed for breath and dragged herself into a sitting position. She dared not speak back to Dante, dared not aggravate him into shooting her as he had Barnes. How far had they come in the past half hour? Turning her head, she saw the chaos down below them in the small, cluttered cove. Smoke was still pouring in thick black clouds from the Marie-Elise. Fear made Kit tremble as she sought to fight down the panic eating at the edges of her mind. Dante had jerked her up by her hair, forcing her to run out of the water toward the line of palm trees on the beach. Once there, he kept shoving the snub nose of the gun into her back and forcing her to keep running up into the hills. Her hands and knees were bleeding where she had fallen several times, trying to scramble up the steep slopes. And Dante was close to losing what little patience he had.

  Kit weakly leaned her head against her drawn-up knees, gasping for breath. Her clothes clung to her sweaty body. She was a hostage, she realized bleakly. Dante will keep me alive for as long as I’m useful to him. Tears stung her eyes and she fought against a burgeoning sob caught in her throat. Dante despised weakness in any form.

  “Damn!” Dante swore, leaping to his feet. His narrow face hardened, his brown eyes growing black.

  Kit jerked her head up, following his gaze. Down below on the beach was a contingent of men armed with rifles. Her heart soared as she recognized Noah among them. Tears drifted down her dirty cheeks as she also saw Chuck Cordeman with the group. They knew! Someone had spotted Dante taking her prisoner! Hope escalated with fear. Wildly Kit glanced over at Dante’s ferretlike face. A snarl had lifted his thin lips away from his small, sharply pointed teeth. He looked like a snake ready to strike. He turned slowly, his opaque eyes burning into her.

  “Get up,” he demanded coldly.

  Kit rose, unsure of what he was capable of doing next. Her mind spun with options, choices. How fast could Noah and his squad move? Would it take them the same amount of time to traverse the trail she and Dante had taken? Kit doubted it. She watched as Dante raised the ugly black barrel of the gun toward her.

  “You’d better pray you can run even harder, Anderson, because that’s what we’re going to do. I ain’t lettin’ the Coast Guard catch me.”

  Kit stifled a scream, watching as his finger stroked the trigger. Her throat was parched, dehydration stalking her thirsty body. Her only ounce of satisfaction was that Dante was going to be equally deprived of water. Hopefully this would slow him down enough so that Noah could reach them in time. “I’ll do the best I can,” she rasped.

  Dante cursed, motioning for her to turn around. “Shut up and get moving!” He jabbed the barrel savagely into her neck. “I’m gonna enjoy puttin’ you down, Anderson. All I need to do is find a boat on the other side of that cliff, and then you’re dead meat.”

  Noah wasn’t aware of anything except catching up with Kit. Those few moments watching her struggle up the hill with Dante on her heels made his stomach turn. Leaping over a series of vines, he pushed his body to its maximum, disregarding the pain in his lungs and the stinging sensation of cacti as it tore at his lower legs. I love you, Kit! Just keep going, don’t try anything with Dante. Just survive! Survive!

  Kit sobbed for breath, feeling the punch of the gun barrel in her bruised back again. Dante cursed her, giving her a shove forward.

  “Keep moving!” he panted.

  Sweat blinded her, and she stumbled over another vine. The summit to the hill seemed so far away. And the heat…she heard Dante gasping behind her. The man must be made out of steel, she thought. He never slowed down. They reached an outcropping of granite eight feet high with gaping fissures, which crowned their escape point in front of them. They would have to either go around it, losing precious time, or try to climb it. Kit turned, eyeing Dante. He cursed, having come to the same conclusion as her.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The six men in uniform were climbing steadily toward them. Dante probably had five shots left in his revolver, Kit thought. It wouldn’t pay him to fire wildly at this distance. The rescue party would take cover in the rocks, completely safe from his useless attack.

  “We’re gonna climb this face and save time. If I find a boat down in that harbor once we’re on the other side of this hill, I won’t need you any longer.”

  Kit gasped, leaning over and trying to recover her breath.

  She raised her chin, a sheen of sweat on her flushed face. A dull ache was beginning in her lower abdomen, sending a thread of fear through her. She placed her hand across her belly, anguish clearly written on her face. No…no, her heart screamed. She tried to concentrate on Dante and on giving Noah a clear shot at him. If the drug dealer foolishly decided to climb the rock wall, he would become an obvious target for an M-16 rifle. It was a long shot, Kit realized. If her blurred memory served her correctly, even a SWAT team sharpshooter couldn’t place a bull’s-eye at over six hundred yards. And right now, if she estimated accurately, Noah was at least eight hundred yards behind them. Would he try anyway? It would be her last chance before they started up the cliff that led down to the other cove.

  More pain shot raggedly up through the center of her body and Kit doubled over, dropping to her knees. Tears squeezed from beneath her lids as she wr
apped her arms around her middle, her head resting against the dirt and stones.

  Dante growled. “Get up! Dammit, get up! We’re climbing. You first!”

  Kit gasped, lifting her head, tears streaking down her cheeks, making silvery paths through the dirt. Dante’s eyes were wild as he waved the gun at her head. “I—I can’t!”

  He gripped her shoulder, his long fingers digging into her flesh. Placing the revolver at her temple, he snarled, “I said, get up.”

  The pain increased as Kit swayed to her feet. She tottered toward the wall, blindly lifting her foot into the first crevice, finding a handhold above her. Tears blurred her vision as she hoisted herself upward. Her baby—oh, God, her baby…the pain…no, it couldn’t happen! Don’t let me lose our baby….

  “Hurry up!” Dante shrilled, climbing right up behind her.

  Kit forced herself to take another step and then another up the face of the cliff, sweat rolling down her brow. Her hands were bloodied and scraped as she hunted frantically for another handhold above her. Dante jabbed the revolver repeatedly into her lower back. Noah! she screamed in her mind. Please take a shot at Dante. Hurry! Please, hurry!

  Noah made a slashing motion with his hand, a silent order for his men to halt behind him. He dropped to one knee. He had his target. He saw Dante start to climb the wall. His heart was pounding achingly in his chest as he wrapped the sling of the M-16 around his upper arm, steadying the rifle, willing his body to stop trembling so he could draw a bead. What direction was the wind coming from? And how many knots? He knew from much experience with weapons that wind direction played a key role in the trajectory of a bullet. If he estimated windage incorrectly, the bullet could easily strike Kit, instead. Or, he could miss Dante completely, and he and Kit would be over the wall before he could fire off another careful shot. Sweat stung his eyes. His face hardened, his mouth pursed as he raised the rifle into position. Stop breathing. Don’t move. Kit—Kit, I love you. His finger squeezed back against the trigger, and he increased the pressure, willing the rifle barrel to remain steady despite the agony tearing through his heart.