by Cindy Dees
Emily stared. Seriously? How come he’d never mentioned that during their magical night together?
Don nodded. “Thought so. You have the look about you.”
Jagger leaned an elbow on the counter as if to settle in for a chat. “You ex-military?”
Don replied eagerly, “I’m ex-army. Pulled a couple tours flying choppers with the Rangers in Iraq before I got shot. Bum knee now. Had to get out.”
Jagger winced in sympathy. “Too bad. What’re you flying now?”
“Sweet little Lear jet. I shuttle the AbaCo folks in and out mostly. Couple a’ rich guys on the other side of Lokaina use me to fly to Tokyo once a month. They have a standing date with some geishas.”
“Cool. Have you got extended-range fuel tanks on it to make the Japan run?”
“Yup. Just upgraded the avionics, too…”
Emily tuned out as the men talked airplanes and electronics. She recognized the male bonding ritual for what it was and let it take its course, even though her skin was crawling with dread and her gut screamed at her for them to get moving. Now.
Before she knew it, Don had offered to take Jagger out to the ramp to have a look at his jet. She tagged along without comment. She saw now where Jagger was taking this. Clever.
Sure enough, they spent about five minutes crawling all over the sleek plane, and Don piped up, “Hey, if we top off the tanks, I could fly you to the big island tonight. I haven’t been drinking and I’m not sleepy. I’d have to charge you for a hotel room at that end, but I’m up for it. Whaddaya say?”
Jagger grinned. “Awesome. Any chance I can sit in the copilot seat for the takeoff if I promise not to touch anything?”
“Absolutely.”
Emily rolled her eyes as the two men fueled the plane together and talked vintage sports cars. Gearheads, both of them. Strangely enough, she thought she registered a note of strain creeping into Jagger’s voice. And he seemed to be favoring his right side a little. As though maybe he’d hurt it when the boat had exploded around him and the pain was just now starting to set in. Which made sense. Almost dying must have sent his adrenaline sky-high. It would’ve taken a while to wear off.
Don took about a half hour to finish refueling, file a flight plan and preflight the plane. And then they were rolling down the runway and leaping into the air as the jet engines surged behind her. It was strange being all alone in the back of the plane. She was used to being crammed in a corner with a bunch of burly AbaCo employees jammed in around her.
When the plane reached cruising altitude, Jagger crawled out of the cockpit and came back to check on her. At least that was what he said. But she noticed a line of white around his mouth and the slight hitch that had entered his breathing.
“Are you hurt?” she murmured.
“A little.”
“How little?” she retorted sharply. “Lemme see. It’s your side, isn’t it? I noticed you pressing your elbow against it earlier.” She reached for his shirt.
He protested, pushing her hands away, but she persisted. “Don’t you mess with me, Super Spy. Pull your shirt up and let me have a look before I tackle you and make you do it,” she threatened.
That brought a grin to his face. “You and what army, Danger Girl?”
“If AbaCo can’t keep a hold of you, I doubt anyone can,” she retorted.
Dang. She should’ve thought before she blurted that out. Her comment wiped the smile from his face and put back the heavy frown that had been momentarily missing. For a few minutes there, he’d almost looked like her old Jagger again.
Reluctantly, he lifted his shirt.
She gasped. A long, jagged piece of what looked like fiberglass was impaled in his right side. The piece came out of his back about two inches below his ribs. “Oh, my God,” she cried in horror.
He looked down and grimaced. “I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks. I’m still breathing reasonably well.”
Twin trails of blood trickled down his front and back from the two exit wounds.
“You’re bleeding,” she declared. “You’ve got to get to a hospital right away!”
Her exclamation drew Don’s attention from the cockpit. He swore and unbuckled his seat belt. He joined them in the back, eyeing the injury.
Emily asked, “Uh, Don, if you’re back here, who’s flying the plane?”
“The autopilot.” Then he turned to Jagger and said briskly, “Take off your shirt and lie down in the aisle here on your side so I can get a better look at that.”
Jagger did as ordered. “You a medic?” he gritted out from between teeth that were definitely clenched now.
“Naw, but all us Rangers got decent combat first-aid training.” The pilot leaned down to take a closer look at the white fragment.
It was nearly a foot long and roughly two inches wide.
Don asked lightly, “You get jumped by a canoe in a bar fight, dude?”
Jagger’s pale lips turned up. “Yeah. It was a hell of fight, but you ought to see the boat. I tore it to shreds.”
Don announced, “We can’t move the shrapnel. Don’t want you to bleed out accidentally. You’re gonna want a doctor to do that in case you punctured something major. I can’t believe your lung hasn’t collapsed. That thing goes right across the top of your diaphragm.”
She winced. She could seriously do without the medically accurate blow-by-blow.
Don moved to a narrow closet behind the cockpit and rummaged around in it. He emerged with a first-aid kit. “This ain’t much, but I can at least sterilize the wounds and pack ’em. Stop the worst blood loss for now. Nearest hospital’s on Ranauatu Atoll. It’s about an hour’s flight from here. It’s more of a clinic than a hospital, but they’re ’bout all that’s nearby for medical care.”
Jagger hissed as the pilot blotted peroxide directly onto the wounds. Then he gritted out, “No hospital for me. Sorry.”
She stared at him, appalled. “Why not?” It was more an exclamation of disbelief than an actual question.
Jagger answered her nonetheless. “I don’t trust AbaCo. They’ll have people on the payrolls of any hospital, government offices—” His glance flickered to Don. “They probably pay Don here to keep them apprised of strangers coming and going from the area.”
The pilot grinned, unabashed. “They pay stupid big amounts of money for me to do it, too. But funny, I have a hell of a hard time remembering to mention when marines pass through.”
“Thanks, man,” Jagger ground out.
Don sat down in an empty seat, staring down at Jagger on the floor thoughtfully. “Speaking of marines…there’s a guy…’bout halfway back to the main islands…ex-marine. Owns a little island with a dirt strip on it. I think someone told me once that he was a field medic in Vietnam. He could probably handle an itty-bitty piece of shrapnel like that. Want me to radio him?”
Itty-bitty, her butt. That thing was the length of her forearm!
Jagger started to shrug, then broke off, sucking in a sharp breath. “It’s worth a try.”
In short order, Don had radioed the guy, explained the situation and altered their course. In about forty more minutes, he began a descent and quietly told Emily to buckle up. Jagger stayed on the floor, lying on his side. He’d gone quiet and had sucked down every painkiller in the first aid kit. Worse, he’d gone pale under the small overhead lights and his breathing had taken on a raspy quality.
The medic, a silver-haired man who introduced himself only as Lyle, met them at the plane with a golf cart. He and Don helped Jagger lie down across its backseat while Emily climbed in the front.
Don commented, “There’s no air traffic coverage out here and nobody’ll ever know about this little stop. So you two rest up, and when you’re ready to go, you gimme a holler.”
Jagger nodded. He seemed to be struggling to maintain consciousness now.
Don moved to her side and murmured, “I’m gonna fly on to Hawaii and build a cover story for you two there, but I’ll need your credit
card. I’ll charge the room to it.” He added drolly, “And I promise not to max it out, Mom.”
She grinned and dug in her wallet. “Do your worst with it, Don. Max it out if you want. It’s not nearly thanks enough for your help.”
The ex-chopper pilot ducked his head. “Pshaw. Ain’t nothing for a fellow marine. You take good care of him, ma’am.”
The medic murmured, “We need to get going. This young man’s trying to get shocky on me.”
Don nodded and stepped back as the golf cart lurched into motion. Jagger moaned from behind her.
Emily whispered, “Hurry, Lyle. I can’t lose him. Not after I just found him again.”
Chapter 8
How she and Lyle horsed a now unconscious Jagger up the steps and into the ex-marine’s kitchen, she had no idea. Adrenaline-induced superstrength, probably. But they managed to lay him out on his uninjured side on the kitchen table, which was covered with a clean sheet and brightly lit by several floor lamps with the shades removed. A kettle bubbled merrily on the stove, presumably for sterilizing surgical instruments. She didn’t want to know.
Lyle went to work immediately, giving Jagger an injection of something and then cutting away the field dressing Don had put over the twin wounds. He told her, “Grab his shoulder and hold him down if he starts to thrash around.”
She did as ordered while Lyle probed the wounds. A gush of blood made her turn her head away, her stomach roiling. Jagger groaned once but made no other protest as Lyle worked quickly. He picked up a scalpel and commenced cutting into Jagger’s side. She handed the medic various implements as he asked for them. A ferrous smell of blood permeated the air.
“Dunno how this didn’t catch his lung. Damned lucky,” Lyle muttered to himself. Then, “Dirty as hell. Sure to get infected. Gonna need more antibiotics.”
He didn’t sound as though he expected a response from her, so she offered none. Besides, her teeth were clenched too tightly together to speak. And then it was done. An enormous length of bloody fiberglass lay on the table beside Jagger, the bleeders were cauterized, the wounds were stitched and bandaged and Lyle mopped sweat off his forehead.
“Thirsty?” the older man asked her casually.
She turned away from the hellish remains of the surgery. “Is he gonna be okay?”
Lyle shrugged. “He looks tough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Here’s the thing, Miss Grainger. The shrapnel didn’t clip any major organs or blood vessels. That’s the good news. The bad news is the wounds were filthy. He’s bound to pick up the mother of all infections. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he looks malnourished. That’s the worst news of all.”
“Can’t you load him up on antibiotics and…and protein drinks or something?”
Lyle grinned. “In the morning I’ll go to town and see if I can sweet-talk the doc there out of some Zithromax. May have to claim I’ve picked up the clap to get it.” He grinned over at her. “I hate to wreck my sterling reputation like that, but for a fellow marine…”
Man, these marines took the whole brotherhood thing seriously! She nodded gratefully. “Is there anything we can do for him tonight?”
Lyle shrugged. “Let him sleep off the morphine I shot him up with. You look like you could use a shower and some shuteye yourself.”
Now that he mentioned it, exhaustion dragged at her eyelids until she could hardly hold them open. She kept the shower short and cool lest she fall asleep in it. As soon as she’d pulled on the clean, oversized T-shirt Lyle had laid out for her, she stumbled into the living room in search of sleep.
She noticed vaguely that the rustic cabin looked native Hawaiian. The ceilings were high-beamed and looked covered with some sort of dried leaves that formed a thatch overhead. There was no glass in the windows, just wooden shutters that closed over the spaces. Indeed, a pleasant trade wind blew through now. Just cool enough to need the light blanket Lyle handed her with a pillow. She’d insisted on curling up in the armchair beside the couch they’d moved Jagger to.
She slept deeply, dreaming of smiling blue eyes and fires burning on water.
In what seemed like only minutes, she awoke to something kicking her foot. Sharply. She blinked her eyes open and stared, horrified.
Lyle was pointing a gun at her. He didn’t look amused.
Ohmigod. She and an unconscious Jagger were alone on a rock with a madman! Or worse, had Don delivered them right into the clutches of Jagger’s captors? Again? Sick terror washed through her.
“Uh, what’s up, Lyle?” she mumbled.
“Care to tell me why the FBI’s put out an APB on our patient?”
What? The FBI? But…but Jagger worked for the federal government. Why would they want to arrest their own man? Had he been lying to her about who he was? Had AbaCo been in the right to hold him prisoner?
Questions piled on top of questions in her fuzzy brain. Whom to trust? Whom to believe? Follow her head or her heart?
She asked carefully, “If you don’t mind my asking, what are the charges against Jagger?”
Lyle shrugged. “The APB says he’s a violent criminal. Attacked and killed a couple guys from some shipping company and is wanted in connection with smuggling and selling government secrets.”
Okay, one thing she knew about Jagger Holtz. He would never sell out anyone he worked for. He was nothing if not loyal. Suddenly certainty flowed through her. “The charges are fake.”
Lyle snorted. “Girlie, I hooked directly into the FBI Web site. There’s nothing fake about the charges against the man lying on my couch.”
She shook her head. “The people who tried to kill Jagger, they must’ve planted incriminating information against him when he escaped from them. They can’t afford to have him tell the U.S. government what he knows about them, so they’ve trumped up these charges against him to force him not to testify against them.”
“And is that how you explain the warrant for your arrest, too?”
“My arrest?”
Lyle nodded. “The complaint against you says you broke into this shipping company’s records. Says you broke into sealed cargo containers, too, and violated international customs laws.”
She sighed. “Well, those charges are true. But I did it to free Jagger. He was locked up in a cargo container on a ship for two years. I found him and let him out.” As Lyle stared in shock, she added defiantly, “I’d do it again, too. Even if it means I have to go to jail.”
The marine studied her closely and eventually nodded. “You’re telling the truth. Maybe you two have been set up.” He glanced over at Jagger’s bandaged form. “And I’ve got to admit that boy’s injuries look like the kind you get when someone is trying to kill you, not when you’re trying to kill someone else.”
She commenced breathing again as Lyle lowered the weapon and eased the hammer of his pistol back into place. He said firmly, “You go on back to sleep.”
As if that was going to happen anytime soon! Her heart was still stuck somewhere in the vicinity of her throat.
He continued, “I’m heading to town to get more medical supplies. I’ll be back in a few hours. Keep your boy still and give him water if he wakes up and asks for it.”
She listened until a motorboat retreated in the distance. Was Lyle heading to the nearest town with police in it to report them? Would he return with a squad of AbaCo men? She sighed. It wasn’t as though she could do a darned thing about it now. Jagger was still unconscious on the couch. And even if he could move, where would they go? They were on an island in the middle of nowhere.
What were the two of them going to do? The U.S. government believed Jagger was a traitor, and she’d become a wanted criminal. Who would help them now? If only he’d wake up. Maybe he’d know how to proceed. But what if he didn’t? What if there was no way out of this mess?
She must have fretted herself to sleep eventually because a moan ripped her from a troubled dream some time later. She jolted upright. Jagger was thrashing
on the couch, swearing up a blue storm.
She leaped to his side. “Hey, cool it or else you’ll rip out your stitches.”
Unfocused eyes stared up at her. “I’ll never talk. You understand? Never. I know you’re going to do whatever you have to, and I’m going to scream and suffer and you’re going to do even more to me. But at the end of the day, you’re getting nothing from me. Just so we’re clear on that.”
He must be dreaming about his captivity.
And then she knew it because he started to scream. It wasn’t a high-pitched sound of fright like a woman reacting to a mouse. This scream came from the depths of his gut, torn from his throat, raw and feral in its agony. Right then and there, her knees collapsed out from under her. She needed no further explanation of what had happened to him as AbaCo’s prisoner. That one scream said it all.
She leaned forward, grabbing Jagger’s shoulders as he twisted back and forth, begging him to stay still. She practically had to sit on him to slow him down, and he cursed at her all the while. And the things he ranted about in his delirium…the torture he described…the days on end alone and isolated…his longing for decent food or for just a glimpse of sunlight…
Bit by bit, he tore her heart out as she pieced together the story of his past two years in his ramblings. It was hard for her to believe that AbaCo could do that to anyone and get away with it. But it was even harder to believe he’d survived it all. His mental and physical toughness, his raw courage, his sheer, ferocious will to live boggled her mind.
She heard a motorboat returning and her pulse leaped. She clutched Jagger’s hand tightly, still registering how hot and dry it was in her panic.
The kitchen door opened.
Nobody shouted for her to put her hands over her head. No gang of armed men rushed into the room.
Lyle’s craggy visage poked around the door. “Any change in your fellow while I was gone?”
She all but sobbed in relief. “He thrashed around for a while and he’s been talking in his sleep.”
“Fever’s setting in. He’s going delirious on us. Lemme go get my bag of goodies.”
