by Kay Hooper
On the point of turning away from the gun case, Sara hesitated. What was it her father had once told her? That police officers often kept “backup” guns other than their service revolvers on the theory that one gun might jam or be lost, and another might be needed. And Sara had often muttered in disgust while reading of fictional heroines who had known they were in danger and hadn’t taken the simplest precautions.
Sara hesitated, then went quickly upstairs to change her running shoes for a pair of soft-soled ankle boots. She returned to the gun case and removed a tiny derringer, studying it thoughtfully. Useless for any long-range defense, of course, but quite effective at close range. She made sure it was cleaned and loaded, then bent and slid the little gun into the top of her right boot. It was virtually hidden there, and yet she could get to it quickly if the need arose. It made a small but comforting weight against her ankle.
She hesitated yet again, forcing her mind to work methodically and trying to ignore the continuing sounds of gunfire and explosions from the town. Was there anything else she could do?
Lucio wanted to capture rather than kill her, wanted to use her to force Andres to renounce power. Wanted, even, to break his enemy thoroughly and completely.
Torture.
Sara felt the coldness of rational fear but tried to think practically. Ropes, perhaps. Ropes … She went to Andres’s desk and rummaged for something vaguely remembered, emerging at last with a small, flat penknife. It wasn’t much as knives went, but the blade was sharp, and it would be almost invisible in her hip pocket with the tail of her summer blouse loose over it. She thrust it into her pocket grimly.
She found Maria waiting for her at the top of the cellar steps, and it was only then that she remembered something.
“Damn. Oh, damn, and I’ll bet—Maria, did Andres know how I got through the fence when I ran away before?”
Bewildered, the housekeeper said, “He was wild then, half crazy. Nobody knew how you got out, and he didn’t blame anyone.”
Sara was torn for a moment, knowing she had promised Andres to remain in the cellar. But … “Maria, go on into the cellar. I’m just going to speak to one of the guards outside.”
She left the housekeeper worried and upset, then went quickly out through the kitchen and into the garden. It was almost light now, gray and misty, and Sara hadn’t gone three steps before she encountered a young soldier who relaxed perceptibly when he realized who she was.
“Señora …”
He had her already married, Sara thought, and could hardly help but grin a little. “Do you speak English?” she asked him.
He looked blank, worried. Tried a hesitant “No.”
“Damn.” She had been a little tardy in worrying about speaking Spanish, Sara realized. If none of the guards here at the house spoke English, she’d have to do this herself. She felt, briefly, like a foreigner, then smiled ruefully at the soldier. “De nada,” she said, using one of the few phrases she knew.
He made an anxious sound when she continued on into the garden toward the western fence. “Señora!”
Sara waved a hand dismissively at him and went on, pushing through the shrubs rather than taking the path.
What with one thing and another, it hadn’t occurred to her to ask Andres about the opening in his defenses that she’d discovered two years ago. She thought it had probably been closed by now just as a matter of course, but there was always a chance it hadn’t, and a chance was too much.
When she got to the fence, she was relieved that she had remembered to check, because the gap was still there.
It wasn’t really much of an opening, however. Rainwater had eroded a narrow gully that ran from just inside the fence all the way down the hill, leaving a gap of about two feet square between the bottom of the fence and the base of the gully. It wasn’t an obvious opening, being almost completely hidden from inside the fence by a creeping shrub that had crept over most of the hole, and more or less invisible from outside the fence because more greenery practically hid the gully.
But it was an easy way in.
Sara paused for a moment, staring down at the gap. She’d have to go back toward the house and try to find a soldier who spoke English. Failing that, she’d just lead one of them here and make the problem obvious. She began to turn away. Then realized something with a jolt of fear, and her hand was closing around the Colt’s grip even before she was consciously aware of it.
The creeping shrub was flattened, its gleaming green leaves torn and mashed into the ground. The opening was obvious—because someone had already used it.
Someone was inside the fence.
Sara had an instant to reflect bitterly that she was no better than those stupid, unprepared fictional heroines. Made less wary by soldiers and her own guns, she had trotted out cheerfully to check on a breach in the defenses on her own instead of pulling up the drawbridge, flooding the moat, and barricading herself in the castle like any sensible heroine.
Her gun was in her hand, but she never got the chance to fire it. With only a fleeting awareness of someone behind her, Sara felt an explosion of pain in her head and crumpled to the ground without a sound.
Sara had underestimated the young soldier. He had been wretchedly aware of his inability to communicate with her and shuddered at the very thought of dragging the president’s lady back to the house against her will, but seeing her roaming in the garden, armed or not, scared him to death. The moment she disappeared into the shrubbery, he raced quickly around the house until he found Captain Morales, who did speak English.
“Captain, the lady. She’s in the garden.”
Morales cursed bitterly, but he was moving at the same time, moving quickly and ordering the younger man to show him where the lady was. The shooting started all around then, as one of Andres’s guards encountered one of Lucio’s men—inside the fence. And there were, it developed, half a dozen of Lucio’s men inside the perimeter. The small battle didn’t last long, ending in minutes, with the enemy dead and two of Andres’s men wounded.
But the lady was gone.
They found her gun near the fence, and it was obvious she had been taken out through the unsuspected opening. There was no sign of movement. Morales ordered his men to search the house and grounds, just in case, but he knew they were too late.
He would have to go to the president and tell him. He didn’t look forward to that.
At some level of her mind Sara was still swearing at herself when she fuzzily came back to consciousness. She knew time had passed; not even the interlacing of jungle greenery above her head could block out the hot morning sun. And it was very hot, damp, and sticky.
With her eyes still half closed and unfocused, Sara silently took stock. She was sitting on the ground, her back and aching head against a narrow tree. Her wrists were bound with ropes—in front of her. She thought that was ironic and even amusing; after her careful selection of a knife with which to cut ropes, she couldn’t get her hands around behind her to get it. Which certainly said something about best-laid plans. And since her ankles were tied as well, Sara wasn’t sure she could get to her small derringer either.
She forced her eyes to focus, studying her bound ankles. She could, just barely, see the derringer’s grip, and she didn’t think the gun was inaccessible; it didn’t feel as though those ropes were pressing it against her ankle, at any rate. So maybe she still had that ace. The problem was, she wouldn’t know for sure until she tried—and any attempt would certainly give away the gun’s hiding place.
Because he was watching her very closely.
Deliberately, perhaps unwilling to look death in the face, she turned her head slowly and gazed around at her surroundings instead. A jungle camp, mostly deserted. There were signs that a large number of men had been here at least a couple of days, but they were gone now, fighting in the town.
There were only two men present. One was a burly, bearded soldier with blank eyes. He stood a few yards away, holding a rifle. He wasn’t loo
king at her but scanning the area almost automatically, and he held the rifle like a friend.
The other man …
He was slightly above medium height. Dark, of course. Slender to the point of thinness, but when he moved, it was obvious there were muscles. It was obvious there was strength and determination and purpose.
Sara hadn’t wanted to look at his face. But she looked at last, compelled to know what she could about this man who would certainly kill her—after he made both her and Andres suffer.
He was standing only a couple of feet away from her, staring down at her. He was handsome in the way a glacier is beautiful: cold, remote, deadly. His black eyes were unusually large, unnaturally brilliant with cunning and something else. Evil. He had a wide, mobile mouth that was sensual and cruel. A mouth that smiled like the gates of hell.
Lucio.
Suddenly he spit a single word at her in Spanish, and Sara didn’t have to understand the word to catch the meaning. He was, she realized in vague surprise, calling her a whore. She didn’t know why that surprised her, except that she wouldn’t have expected him to waste time with words. But then she began to wonder if he intended to break her mind and soul as well as her body, and looking into those brilliant, hate-filled eyes, she thought he just might.
She fought to keep her face expressionless, to keep command of her voice. “Sorry,” she said ironically. “I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish.”
He laughed. There was, astonishingly enough, a glint of real amusement in his eyes. And his wide, white smile remained. “You’re Andres’s woman,” he said, his English as easy and idiomatic as Andres’s, his voice deep and somewhat quick.
“You knew that before you grabbed me,” she said.
His gaze flickered over her disordered hair, and his smile widened. “The only redhead on the island—I would hardly make a mistake about that.” Then he stepped forward and calmly ripped her blouse open from top to bottom.
EIGHT
“ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?” Derek asked Josh through the headphones all of them were wearing. “We’re dropping into a war zone.”
Josh, piloting the jet helicopter that was descending rapidly toward a clearing in front of the stucco house, sent a glance toward the town, noted the rising smoke, the signs of fires burning all over the place. A war zone, indeed. “Durant didn’t say no,” he reminded Derek.
Raven leaned forward from her place in back and said somewhat dryly, “Didn’t say yes, either. Not exactly. Roughly translated, he said something along the lines of ‘Oh, hell.’ He sounded a bit upset.”
Zach, who had been cursing more or less steadily since they’d first seen what was happening on Kadeira, interrupted his own swearing to say, “Lucio must have thrown his entire army against the town.”
Kelsey, who was sitting by the rear door and looking out, asked suddenly, “Why didn’t Sereno answer the radio call?”
“Dammit,” Josh said after a moment, and then concentrated on setting the big jet helicopter down as near as possible to the house.
They had made good time from Trinidad, arriving hours earlier than they had expected. And the radio call to alert Sereno, placed just minutes ago, had garnered a most unsatisfactory response. Colonel Durant had answered, saying only briefly that the president wasn’t available and warning them that the government wouldn’t be responsible for their safety.
Still, the soldiers near the house had drawn back to give the helicopter room to land, and on those tired, grimy faces were expressions of only faint curiosity. They had obviously been alerted about the arrival. None took up a defensive stance, and none tried to stop them when they left the aircraft.
Durant was waiting for them at the front door, and though Kelsey was the only one he knew by sight, he quickly singled out Josh after a faintly surprised glance at Raven. “You’re taking quite a risk, Mr. Long,” he said in a voice that contained, more than anything else, weariness.
“Our risk to take,” Josh noted dryly, and quickly introduced the others. “I gather Lucio attacked the town?” he asked when the colonel had acknowledged the introductions.
Durant nodded, unsurprised by their apparent knowledge, and stepped back to allow them into the house. “This way.” He led them toward Andres’s office. “Lucio has gone berserk,” he told them, still tired. “He threw all his men in a suicide raid against the town. Even the townspeople fought them. He no longer has an army.”
“The revolution?” Raven ventured.
Durant shrugged, hardly the picture of triumph. “Over. But it doesn’t matter now. He’ll be president before nightfall.”
“Sara,” Derek said softly.
Durant didn’t answer; he didn’t have to. As they entered the office they all heard Sereno’s voice, a voice beyond weariness, beyond pain and fear; a numb voice.
“Vincente, try to raise him again.”
Durant went toward the radio but said, “He won’t answer. He’ll talk when he’s ready, and not before.”
“Try.”
The newcomers stood inside the office and gazed at the president of Kadeira. He was leaning back against his desk, his face gray and blank, seemingly unaware of the young doctor who was working quickly to bandage a wound high on his left arm. His dark uniform was torn in a couple of places and smelled of smoke; his face, like his soldiers’, was grimy and drawn with weariness; like his colonel, he showed no triumph.
He looked at them finally, seemed to focus on them at least a little. Mildly, almost conversationally, he said, “This is not a good time to visit.”
Josh’s first thought was, God, he’s like Zach. And he knew that was true, even though he had missed it years before when he had first met Sereno. He had missed it, and that told him this man had amazing control that would not be broken easily, yet was now in splinters.
And heaven help Lucio, Josh thought. Because Sereno, like Zach, would act out of rage on occasions so rare they could be counted on one hand during a lifetime. And during those thankfully rare occasions he would be a human earthquake, a one-man army, death on the prowl.
A primitive force beyond civilized bounds.
Josh thought the man was very likely beyond reach, but he tried, and he used all the experience gained in more than fifteen years of knowing Zach; he looked into eyes that were windows to hell, and he didn’t waste time. “We might be able to help,” he told Sereno calmly.
The president continued to look at him without interest, without, really, very much attention at all. “He has Sara.” A quiver disturbed the blankness of his expression. “He took her from me again.”
Raven left the others to move forward until she stood directly in front of Sereno. “We care about Sara too,” she said quietly, gently. “Let us help.”
Sereno looked at her, and it seemed that he saw her, that something in her was reaching him. Perhaps it was her voice. Perhaps it was the steady calm in her violet eyes. Whatever it was, it seemed to touch a cord of response. With a smile that was no more than a bleak curve of his lips, he said, “I’ve never asked for help before.”
“Then it’s time you learned to do so,” Josh said flatly.
The black eyes swung his way, seemed to focus. This time there was faint interest. “Yes.”
Sara hadn’t worn a bra. She wished now that she had, although he probably would have torn that as well. With an effort that went against every instinct, she didn’t try to fight him, made no effort to lift her bound hands and hold him off. She just sat there and stared up at him. And it wasn’t his gaze she felt crawling like a chill over her bare breasts, but the other man’s, the soldier’s. He had stepped closer instantly, his greedy eyes fixed on her with lewd interest.
Lucio looked down at her for a moment, at her face rather than her breasts, then twitched the shirt back into place so that it more or less concealed her breasts again. He straightened and rapped out a sharp command to the soldier.
His face wiped of all expression but his eyes still hot, the soldier
turned his back and walked a few steps away.
“Andres’s woman.” Lucio laughed but seemed oddly satisfied. “I should have known he’d choose one with pride.” He studied her for a moment with assessing eyes, then leaned over again and slapped her.
Sara felt the pain of the flat, openhanded blow as it rocked her head, but it was the primitive, soul-deep shock of it that dizzied her. No man had ever hit her like that, a blow meant to degrade and humiliate more than hurt. It was a cool use of male strength, a sure gesture of domination. She tasted blood and didn’t make a sound. Slowly she fixed her eyes on his face again and lifted her chin. And she wondered how long she could hold out against his kind of calm cruelty.
Not long. Not long at all.
“Ah.” Lucio nodded as if some private deduction had been confirmed. “Strength as well. Good. You’ll break slowly, then. Excellent for my purpose.”
“And that is?” she asked, knowing.
“To break Andres, of course,” he said conversationally. He gestured to a silent radio set on a rickety table nearby. “He’s no doubt calling me now, willing to offer anything for your safe return. But I don’t ask anything. I ask everything. I will break him until there’s nothing left of him.”
“You won’t.” She was thinking of nothing, just the need to hold on, to gain time.… Anything to avert this planned destruction of the man she loved.
He chuckled. “No? Oh, I think so. I have a tape recorder I’ll get in just a few moments. It will be delivered to Andres in due time. A message. He’ll hear me break you, slowly, and it will break him.”
She half shook her head. “He’ll kill you.”
Lucio was still amused. Horribly amused. “Cripples don’t kill, my dear. And he’ll be a cripple by the time I’ve finished with you.”
“What are you going to do?” She hadn’t wanted to ask the question, but it emerged on its own, a product of her instinctively shrinking mind.
“I’ll take you first.” His voice was chillingly calm and thoughtful. “Take Andres’s woman. I’ll tell him what I’m doing, of course, and you’ll tell him as well.”
