The first man went down without knowing what had hit him. Mallory ducked behind the side of the barn and waited for the second hired gun to realize something was amiss.
All around him was silence. The kind that broke through sound barriers and rocked men’s souls. The kind that throbbed like a breathing, living beast. The waiting game was about to end.
Inside, Francine’s nails dug into her thick comforter and she struggled not to cry out as a contraction twisted her body. Tim had been gone for hours. Time lost meaning. Between pains she prayed for his safety, knowing that if anything happened to him, the killers would come for her and the baby.
Francine tried not to think about what was happening outside the house. Every ounce of energy she possessed was tunneled into the birthing process.
The pains became stronger. She didn’t know how much longer she could withstand the agony without crying out. Yet she dared not.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she whispered to her unborn child. Her hand rested on her tightening abdomen, which she rubbed, wanting to reassure both her and her infant.
The labor pain came on slowly, working its way from the small of her back around her abdomen, growing in intensity.
“Tim,” she pleaded into the dark silence between deep, even breaths. “Please, oh, please hurry.”
Knowing she’d have two, possibly three minutes to rest between contractions, Francine closed her eyes and tried to relax. She tried desperately not to think about what was happening outside her home. Tried not to think if her husband was alive or dead.
She wasn’t one to give in to panic, but she felt the emotion bubbling up inside her like fizz ready to explode from a pop bottle.
Another contraction arrived, this one more acute than the others. Francine bore it as best she could. By the time the pain receded, she tasted blood and knew her teeth had cut into her lip.
A door slammed, followed by the sound of running footsteps. Before she drew another breath, Tim was kneeling on the floor next to her. He gathered her in his arms and hugged her as if he wanted never to let her go.
“Are you all right?” she asked, brushing the hair from his face, looking for signs that he might have been hurt.
“Yes. Yes. Let’s get you to the hospital.”
“No,” she said softly, gripping his large hand with both of hers. “It’s too late for that now.”
“Too late? What do you mean, it’s too late?”
She loved the way his voice rose and cracked with a loving kind of hysteria.
“In case you didn’t know, we’re about to have a baby,” she told him softly, her strength fading.
“I’ve known that for close to nine months. I was there in the beginning, remember?” He spoke fast, running the words together.
“I mean we’re about to have a baby soon.”
“How soon?” He was on his feet and backing away from her as if he suspected what she had was contagious.
“Within the hour, I’d guess. The pains are less than two minutes apart. I’m about to enter the second stage of labor.” Briefly she closed her eyes, sensing his fear, facing her own. “I’m going to need your help.”
Tim looked down on her as though he were tempted to turn and run. Again he knelt on the floor beside her and gripped her hands.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
She smiled up at him through her tears. “I love you, Tim Mallory.”
“You must,” he agreed, rolling up the sleeves of his camouflage shirt. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be willing to go through this.”
John Stamp carried Linette’s suitcase out to the car and glanced about him suspiciously. “You’re sure about driving out of here alone?” he asked as if he were looking for her to change her mind. He stood back, waiting for her reply.
“I’ll be fine,” Linette assured him. She didn’t say it, but it was probably safer as well for John and the Stamp family that she left.
John looked to his wife as if seeking confirmation. Patty didn’t seem any more confident than her husband. “This doesn’t seem right to me,” she said to her husband. “I don’t see anyone out here who’s going to protect you.”
“Cain said I should go. Now stop worrying.”
“I wish Cain had said something to me,” John muttered.
“Is there a phone number where I can reach you?” Patty asked Linette.
Linette hesitated, uncertain she should give out Nancy’s phone number. “I’m feeling much better now, don’t fret. I’ll give you a call once I’m settled.” She opened the car door and slipped inside the driver’s side. John held the door open, and it seemed to Linette that he was looking for an excuse to keep her.
“You promise to keep in touch?” Patty asked a second time, her voice slightly higher than normal.
Linette nodded. She reached for the door, and John released it reluctantly. He wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulder, and the pair stepped back as Linette started the engine. The driveway had never seemed so long as when she pulled out of the yard.
Once on the main road, Linette reached for the radio and turned on the local station. Anything to fill the silence. Anything to take her mind off who might be watching her every move.
She’d phoned early that morning and booked the first available flight to San Francisco. A call to Nancy and Rob had assured her of a warm welcome. Cain had promised to contact her in San Francisco to be sure she’d arrived safely.
A glance in her rearview mirror revealed a black luxury car coming behind her at a fast rate of speed. Her heart started to pound, but she forced herself to repeat Cain’s reassurances. He’d promised her that she would never see either the good or the bad guys.
The car gained speed. Linette certainly hoped these folks were patient because it might be several miles before there was a chance to pass her on these twisty, curvy roads.
The sedan was practically on her bumper. Suspicious, Linette sped up. The other car increased its speed. Her nervousness mounted with every moment. At long last the car chose to go around her. Linette wondered at their wisdom. The edge of the road led to a steep embankment, and it made her nervous to look over the side. It had always bothered her to drive this stretch of road without guardrails.
The vehicle pulled alongside her, and Linette knew then that something was very wrong. The two men in the car were looking at her. The two cars were so close, their side panels touched.
Linette refused to give ground. There was none to give. Another two or three feet and she’d be forced over the embankment.
Her heart raced like an oil drill pumping out raw crude. Her fingers felt as if they were fused to the steering column.
So much for Cain’s reassurances. This wasn’t a silly game played by two overgrown teenagers. These men were attempting to kill her.
Adrenaline shot through Linette like liquid fire. The sedan slammed hard against the side of her vehicle, the hit jolting her. Linette screamed in terror at the sound of metal scraping against metal. Her hands gripped the steering wheel as firmly as she’d hold on to a life preserver in a sea storm.
The wheels on the right side of the car were off the road now, spitting up gravel and dirt. She’d lost ground, precious inches.
She realized she wasn’t going to be able to save herself. She’d barely talked to Cain about their baby. She hadn’t had the chance to tell her husband that she’d never been more pleased about anything. Her baby. She refused to allow these men to destroy her child.
From some reserve of strength and determination she hadn’t known she possessed, Linette turned the car directly into the other vehicle. Sparks flew from the clash of steel. Again she was jarred; she felt her head whip to the side and slam against the window. Struggling to remain conscious, she decided she wasn’t going to let them kill her without putting up a hell of a fight.
Her concentration was absorbed in staying on the road. In staying alive. All at once, without warning, she noticed a third vehicle headed
straight toward her. A head-on collision was inevitable.
Everything happened in slow motion. Linette slammed on her brakes and instinctively raised her arms to protect her face. The instant her hands were off the steering wheel, the car veered to the right. Two wheels teetered on the ledge of the embankment before catapulting over.
Linette screamed as the car rolled again and again and again. Her cries reverberated inside the car, playing back to her as if from a Swiss mountainside.
Then she knew nothing.
It hurt to breathe. Jack Keller suspected he had four broken ribs and an equal number of broken, nailless fingers. This was what he got for being so stupid. He’d walked right into that trap. After all his years of training, he knew better than to do his thinking with his pecker.
His one good finger on his right hand tentatively investigated the extent of his injuries, and he felt one rib bone jutting out against his skin. He moaned softly. He tried to open his eyes, but both were swollen shut. What he did manage to see between the narrow sliver of light wasn’t encouraging. It looked as if he were behind bars. How long he’d been there, he could only speculate. Too long.
He heard a pair of voices from the other side of the wall. One sounded vaguely familiar. Enrique’s? No, he decided. He hadn’t seen the drug lord in several days and had no wish to make the other man’s acquaintance again.
Enrique had been full of questions about Cain. Jack had pretended not to know anything. His silence had cost him dearly. He’d talked plenty, but he hadn’t told them anything they could use against Cain.
The faintly familiar voice drifted toward Jack a second time. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was Murphy. But even Murphy’s accent was better than that.
It wasn’t Murphy. It couldn’t be. No one knew where Jack was. This stinkhole was too deep for him to ever be found. The way he figured, with his internal injuries, he wouldn’t last much longer anyway.
He had regrets. Didn’t everyone? He thought about his life. The turns in the road he’d taken, the choices he’d made. Good and bad. He would have preferred to live to a ripe old age and pass on with a loving family gathered around his bedside. Instead he was likely to die without anyone ever learning what had happened to him. He’d decided, early in his army career, to live by the sword. He expected to die by it. And he would.
Consciousness started to fade. Jack welcomed the oblivion.
A war seemed to be going on outside his door. Fitting, really, that he should go out surrounded by gunfire. The door burst open, and Jack feared Enrique’s gorillas had come to torture him again.
“Jack.”
It was Murphy.
“It’s about time,” he mumbled.
“Sweet Jesus, what have they done to you?”
Jack tried to smile. He knew he must look like shit. Well, that adequately described the way he felt.
“Never mind what you look like,” Murphy said, chuckling. “You never were that good-looking anyway.”
Tim wiped a cool cloth over Francine’s face. “How are we doing?” he asked, and his voice shook slightly, as if he’d paid a heavy penalty for each of her contractions.
Her eyes remained closed, but she managed a weak smile. “So far so good.” Her breathing was hard and labored. Giving birth was by far the most draining ordeal of her life.
A pain gripped her at the small of her back, and she whimpered, unable to disguise her agony as the contraction knotted her uterus, attempting to force the baby from her body. By the time the last of the pain had ebbed away, she was panting and weak.
“Can you see the baby’s head?” she asked when she had her breath back.
Tim moved to the foot of the mattress. “Yes,” he cried excitedly, sounding shocked and more than a little frightened. “The baby’s almost here.”
“I know,” Francine whispered.
The time between contractions seemed like none at all. The next one gripped her body like a vise, and she had the strong urge to push. Her hands found and locked around the rails of the headboard as she bore down with all her might. The effort half lifted her from the bed.
“Good, sweetheart, good,” Tim praised her.
After the next contraction, she felt the baby’s head spill between her legs. Tim’s gentle hands cradled their infant’s tiny head. A mewling cry filled the room as their child drew its first breath.
“We have a son,” Tim announced in a strangled voice that sounded nothing like his own.
Rising up on her elbows, Francine watched as her husband severed the umbilical cord and gently wrapped their freshly washed child in a soft, warm blanket. Tears fell unrestrained down her husband’s cheeks as he gazed upon his son.
“A boy,” he repeated, as if he didn’t quite believe it even now. Taking exquisite care, he placed their child in Francine’s waiting arms.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered, weeping silently.
“It’s little wonder when you’re his mother.”
Francine stared down at her son, completely enraptured by the pink, crinkly face topped with a crown of dark hair. Then she unwrapped the blanket to inspect his hands and feet, count his fingers and toes.
“I told you he was a boy,” Tim said, as if she’d doubted his word.
“I love you, Tim Mallory,” she whispered through her tears. She felt shaken by the enormity of the love that swept through her for her husband and for her baby. Never had she experienced anything so powerful.
Tim sat on the mattress and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “If you aren’t partial to any name, I’d like to suggest one.”
“Sure,” she said, eager to hear his suggestion.
Tim smiled and gently kissed the crown of her head. “How about Bubba?”
19
Knowing Linette was safely on her way to San Francisco left Cain free to hunt down Enrique. He tracked the man deep into the heart of Central America.
He ended up in a known hangout of Enrique’s, a cantina. Wearing a disguise, Cain pretended he was there to quench his thirst. Knowing it was best not to ask questions, he made himself comfortable and listened in on the conversations around him. Within a few hours Cain learned everything he needed to know. As he’d guessed, Enrique was in town. He left his killing to others—not that he didn’t have the taste for it himself, but there were problems waiting for him in the States and he dared not take the chance of crossing the borders.
By nightfall Pretty Boy stopped by the cantina himself, his mood jubilant. Before long he had his arm around the waist of a lusty señorita, and it soon became apparent the two had matters other than conversation on their minds.
Cain watched Enrique closely from the shadowy corner in the back of the room. Pretty Boy was both careless and overconfident as he stood and followed the woman out of the bar.
One of his men looked up and called out in Spanish, “Hey, man. When you’re through, I’ll have a turn with her myself.”
Enrique laughed, and his hand stroked the woman’s slim buttocks. “Be patient, my friend,” he said. “I have the feeling this may take a very long time.”
His men booed, and in an effort to appease them, Enrique ordered a fresh round of drinks.
Cain left by means of the side door and made certain he wasn’t being followed. By now Jack would have been rescued and Linette was safely tucked away with family. He followed the couple for several blocks.
“I understand you’ve been looking for me,” Cain said, stepping close behind the other man.
Pretty Boy froze, then viciously pushed the woman away from him before he turned to face Cain. He swore violently, then smiled, revealing even white teeth in a humorless display.
Cain smiled in return, enjoying the advantage of surprise. “You’re stupid,” he told the other man, “to let yourself get caught like this. I would have thought better of you.”
“I’m celebrating,” Enrique told him, gesturing with his hand. “The news of your wife’s death reached me this afternoon.” He
laughed sadistically. “Perhaps you should join her, McClellan.” He pulled a gun from his pocket and fired the weapon in rapid succession.
Cain flung himself to the ground, shooting as he went down. It was over within seconds. Enrique lay dead on the dusty street, his eyes staring blankly into the night sky.
Cain studied the man and felt no thrill in the death. No thrill in eliminating one who brought only suffering and heartache into the world.
A shout could be heard in the distance, and Cain made haste leaving town. He rendezvoused with Murphy an hour later.
“He’s dead,” Cain said without expression.
“Good.” Murphy’s eyes refused to meet Cain’s. “Listen, I have some bad news. It’s about Linette. You’d best get back to Montana fast.”
The hours it took him to reach Montana were the longest of his life. Cain paced the hospital waiting room like a beast until an older couple glared at him, silently requesting that he stop.
The woman left the room, and minutes later a chaplain came into the area.
“Are you all right, son?” asked the minister, claiming the vacant chair next to Cain.
Cain looked over at the compassionate man, and his throat constricted. He wasn’t anywhere close to being all right. Fear and anger festered inside him like a raging infection. Rarely had he tasted hate in such a bitter form.
“I’m fine,” Cain said tightly, and clenched his fists so hard that the blood drained from his fingers. He stood then, because sitting for any length of time was impossible.
“Is there someone I can phone for you?”
“No one.” Cain had sent both John and Patty Stamp home for fear his frustrations would spill over onto them. Neither deserved to receive the brunt of his anger.
The minister gently pressed his hand on Cain’s shoulder. “The chapel’s on the bottom floor if you change your mind. I’ll be there until six this evening.”
Cain nodded, eager for the man to leave him alone. The minister left, and Cain returned to the chair and buried his face in his hands. He hadn’t slept in two nights. Hadn’t been able to close his eyes without picturing Linette being pulled from the wreckage that had once been their car.
Someday Soon Page 26
