Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 05]

by Under the Wire

  Manny had rewound the flashlight and propped it on a rock shelf built into the wall. It cast a blue-white glow over the temple room.

  He watched from a distance as Lily slowly roused herself. She stretched like a sleek cat waking. And it was all he could do not to go to her, to reach out and pet her. To run his hands over her beautiful breasts, slide between her slim thighs, and awaken her with the glide of his fingers in her slick, wet heat.

  From the moment he’d seen her that fateful night in Nicaragua, she’d been an obsession. Nothing had changed. He’d loved her. Hated her. Craved her. But he’d never forgotten her.

  He never would. And he didn’t honestly know where that left them.

  “You’re dressed,” she said, and he realized she’d opened her eyes and was watching him.

  “Time to go,” he repeated.

  She yawned, sat up, and stretched, and he had to tear his gaze away from the sensual picture she made, naked and abandoned, her hair streaming down her back.

  “How long did I sleep?”

  “Not long. You need more rest, but we must go.”

  She dragged her hands over her face, pulled the hair back out of her eyes, and blinked up at him. He saw the moment the guilt hit her. Knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “Do not second-guess, Lily. What we did here, it was meant to happen.”

  “We made love while…while Adam—”

  “No,” he cut her off. “Don’t even think it. We needed rest. We needed release. We couldn’t leave before now anyway. Not with the rebels out in force. We haven’t placed him at more risk, Lily. I wouldn’t let that happen. I would never let that happen.”

  She lowered her head, not looking at all convinced.

  “Only an hour has passed. It was an hour we needed. Even now, it will be a risk to leave here. They have to know we are hiding somewhere near.”

  She reached for her backpack, drew out dry panties and a white T-shirt. “You think they’re still searching for us?”

  “They have to be,” he said, hating that he had to break the news. “They can’t let us report to anyone about the gun.”

  Face grim, she stood, shimmied into her panties, and looked around for her bra. He picked it up from the floor beside him, handed it to her. Then watched with hungry eyes while she put it on, then stepped into her pants.

  “I’m ready,” she said after slipping into her damp shoes.

  “Eat first,” he said. “Rehydrate.” He handed her a Power-Bar and a bottle of water.

  “What about you?”

  “I already ate.”

  “And your head?”

  “Fine.” It hurt like hell, but he’d deal with it. He’d deal with it and the rebel soldiers.

  As soon as they left the temple and cleared the ravine, he’d try to reach Ethan on the SAT phone again. He needed to fill Ethan in about the company of soldiers. The howitzer. None of which added up.

  Something was way off here. And Manny had a sick feeling in his gut that there was much more going on than met the eye.

  “Ready?” he said after checking outside and grabbing his rifle and his ALICE pack.

  Lily had hurriedly worked a brush through her hair, plaited it into another thick braid that hung down the center of her back. She nodded, shouldered her backpack. “Ready.”

  Yeah. She was ready, he thought. He only hoped she was ready to deal with what they might encounter when they finally found Adam.

  “Head down. Follow me. Quiet as a mouse, querida. I suspect there are many big cats still lurking in the jungle.”

  They’d made it a quarter of a mile through undergrowth as thick as sludge and had cleared another ridge before Manny had felt it was safe enough to call Ethan. His sat phone rang before he got the chance.

  Lily startled at the sound that cut through yet another eerie silence that had set them both on edge with concern that the Tiger soldiers were still in the area and would hear it.

  As was the norm this time of year in the Sri Lankan rain forest, the storm that had deluged them had long since moved out. Sun filtered down through the canopy trees, casting long, flickering fingers of hazy, laser-type beams through the thick vegetation as Manny dug into his ALICE pack.

  “Ortega.” He picked up on the second ring, silencing it.

  “Where the hell have you been, man?”

  It was Ethan. And he was as agitated as Manny had ever heard him.

  “Out of range. Long story. What’s happening?”

  In concise sentences Ethan filled him in on the video and the midnight deadline that was now less than nine hours away.

  Manny glanced at Lily. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, her cheeks red from his beard. A surge of lust punched him gut deep just looking at her. Dread quickly replaced it. He hated the thought of telling her about the deadline as he fought with his own reaction to the news. Nine hours. Nine fucking hours and they still didn’t have a clue where Adam was.

  “Here’s the thing,” Ethan added as Manny handed Lily a bottle of water and motioned for her to drink. “Dallas made it to the Tiger headquarters. General Ramanathan’s adamant that he knows nothing about the abduction.”

  “Dallas buys it?”

  “Yeah. He does. Ramanathan’s big goddamn issue right now is finding a misplaced howitzer.”

  “Howitzer?” Manny glanced at Lily. “What’s it worth to him if I can tell him where it is?”

  Dead silence. Then a disbelieving, “You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me.”

  “Wish I was, but my ears are still ringing from the blast. I can lead you to the gun and a full company of Tiger soldiers.”

  “Holy…wait. Wait, wait, wait. This doesn’t add up.”

  Manny could visualize the frown darkening his friend’s face. “A lot of that going around,” he agreed.

  “Ramanathan is royally pissed because someone stole his cannon, so it can’t be Tigers who fired at you. And another thing. The Tiger leader says he pulled all of his troops out of the area a week ago.”

  Manny thought back to the rebel camp. “Something…I can’t put my finger on it, but something’s been bugging me since we spotted the gun and the shooters.

  “Fuck,” he swore when it came to him. “I should have picked up on it sooner. The soldiers—they spoke Hindi. Hindi,” he repeated for emphasis. “Not Tamil.”

  Manny didn’t know much Tamil, but he’d picked up some Hindi when he’d been deployed briefly in India several years ago—and it just occurred to him that he’d understood some of what they’d been saying when he and Lily had been hiding at the opening to the temple.

  “You’re saying they were Indian?”

  “So it seems. Damn. What would a group of Indian soldiers be doing in the thick of the Sri Lankan jungle with a Tamil rebel gun? And wearing Tamil uniforms?”

  “Thicker and thicker,” Ethan said, and Manny could almost see him dragging his hand across his jaw. “Where did you spot the gun?”

  Manny gave him the coordinates.

  “Exactly where Darcy’s covert contact said the Tamil camp would be,” Ethan said.

  “So if Ramanathan’s being straight with Dallas,” Manny speculated aloud, “that means the new boys are squatting on the old Tiger campsite with Ramanathan’s big gun and we’re back to square one with Adam.”

  “Or not,” Ethan said with a thoughtful pause. “It’s a long shot, but who’s to say there isn’t a connection here somewhere?”

  Yeah, who’s to say there wasn’t a connection? Manny agreed, and glanced at Lily, who sat silently on a tree stump, waiting with an expectant urgency for him to fill her in.

  “Okay, look,” Ethan said. “I’m going to call Dallas back, run it all past him to present to Ramanathan. See what he has to say. In the meantime, where are you?”

  “Hold on.” Manny dragged their map out of his pack and with Lily’s help got a fix on their location. “Best as I can figure, we’re about three hours from Elkaduwa. We’re on foot and we need to find transpor
tation.”

  “What happened to the jeep?”

  Manny grunted. “Starts with an h and ends with a boom.” He tucked the map into his hip pocket.

  “Jesus,” Ethan swore when understanding dawned.

  “Yeah. He was there, too, or we wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. Look, we’re in some pretty rough terrain and we need to make tracks. I’m not so certain we don’t still have some bad guys on our tail…which makes me think we stumbled into the thick of something big or they’d have given up searching for us long ago.”

  “Roger that. Keep your heads down. I’ll be back in touch after I talk with Dallas.”

  “What?” Lily asked when Manny disconnected.

  He didn’t have a chance to tell her.

  A soldier appeared out of nowhere. Rifle butt locked against his shoulder, finger tight on the trigger.

  “Easy,” Manny warned Lily as he stood and raised his hands above his head. “Just take it easy and follow my lead.”

  “Faint,” Manny whispered as, hands above their heads, he and Lily marched at gunpoint back the way they’d come.

  Lily didn’t need a second cue. She folded like an accordion and dropped to the ground.

  The young soldier was so shocked, he stumbled. Before he could recover, Manny was on him like spice on curry. The rifle discharged into the air as Manny wrestled him to his back and clamped a hand over his mouth.

  Beside him, as he drew his knife out of its sheath, Manny could see Lily scramble for the soldier’s weapon.

  “Get Adam’s photograph,” Manny said, and set the side of his blade against the boy’s throat. “Show it to him.”

  Eyes wild, the young soldier shook his head.

  “Why do I not buy that?” Manny said, then accused in Hindi, “You are not Tamil.”

  The boy shook his head again.

  “Indian?”

  He hesitated, then gave a jerky nod.

  “Where did you get the big gun?”

  The boy swallowed, Manny’s blade pressing against his Adam’s apple.

  “Where?” Manny demanded. “Talk or I’ll slice off your left ear. Then your right. And then I’ll start on your fingers. You’ll die slowly and in pain—and for what?”

  He pressed the blade deeper against the boy’s neck, drawing blood.

  “Lily…show him the picture again,” Manny ordered when he was certain the boy was convinced he meant business. “Have you seen him?”

  This time the boy gave a reluctant nod.

  Manny heard Lily’s indrawn breath.

  “Where? Where?” Manny repeated when the boy shook his head again.

  “Bulutota Rakwana,” he finally confessed.

  “Lily, get the map,” Manny said, never taking his blade from the boy’s throat.

  “It’s northwest of here…near Embilipitiya.”

  Manny heard paper rustle as she studied the map.

  “Found it. It’s maybe…oh God, maybe five or six hours on foot.”

  “If you lied you just died,” Manny promised the boy.

  “Truth. I speak truth.”

  “How many troops guard them?”

  The young boy closed his eyes, heaved a shaky breath.

  Manny pressed the knife deeper. Blood trickled down the soldier’s neck. “How many!”

  “Twenty. No more.”

  “Who is your leader?”

  Something in the young soldier’s eyes told Manny he’d been pushed as far as he would go. The boy was finished talking.

  Manny pinched the boy’s neck right at the juncture of his shoulder. His body went limp.

  “Is he—”

  “Dead?” Manny stood, sheathed his knife. “No. Just unconscious.”

  There were tears in Lily’s eyes when Manny looked at her. He understood. They were tears of hope in a situation that had grown more and more hopeless. This was their first solid lead on Adam. “Don’t fall apart on me now, Liliana. We’re almost there.”

  She drew back her shoulders, managed a tight smile. “Let’s go get him. I want my baby back.”

  “We’ll get him back. That’s a promise.” He reached for his SAT phone. “I need to raise Ethan and let him know we’ve got a location on Adam.”

  Before he could dial, the staccato rap of automatic weapon fire ripped through the air around them and he dropped the phone in a puddle of water at his feet. A squad of soldiers cleared the rise and started running their way.

  “Shit,” Manny swore, picked up the phone, grabbed Lily’s hand, and took off at a dead run.

  CHAPTER 20

  Fifteen minutes later, they were winded and soaking wet with sweat. They’d run for their lives…and they’d just run out of real estate.

  “Whoa!” Manny skidded to a stop. He grabbed Lily, catching her before she ran straight off the edge of a cliff and into nowhere.

  The jungle just stopped, right at the edge of a deeply gouged riverbank. And to really make it fun, the bank fell at a 180-degree angle to a wide, swollen river, running wild with white water as it careened over rocks and rills a good fifty feet below.

  Was nothing ever easy?

  “It always fucking comes down to heights and water,” Manny grumbled as he glanced across the divide to the other side some thirty feet away.

  He found a thick, woody vine and grabbed it. He tested it for strength and length and draped the tail of it over the side of the bank.

  He looked at Lily. She glanced from him, to the vine, to the thirty-foot chasm in front of them. “You’re not serious.”

  He pulled a compartment from his ALICE pack and stuffed it with everything from rations, to water, to a pair of NVGs, to several magazines full of ammo.

  “Trust me. If there was any other way,” he said as the not so distant shouts from the forest caught up with them. “Grab what you can carry. We’ll have to leave the rest. Hurry.”

  While she scrounged for portable medical supplies, he reached inside his shirt. He pulled his St. Christopher’s medal over his head and kissed it. Then he draped it over Lily’s neck, hauled her up against him, and kissed her until he felt her knees buckle.

  “This is the part where you get to say, ‘Geronimo.’” He shot her a game smile to shore her up. “You can do this, Liliana.”

  He physically took her hands in his and wrapped her stiff fingers around the vine. “Just hang on. That’s all you have to do. It’s going to be a helluva ride. When you see ground beneath you, let go, tuck, and roll. Got it?”

  She closed her eyes, nodded, and tightened her grip on the vine. Then he pulled her back, like he would pull a child back in a swing, gave her a hard push, and she was airborne.

  Heart in his throat, he watched her sail across the ravine like Jane of the Jungle.

  “Go, Lily.” More prayer than plea, he held his breath.

  It seemed like forever before she reached the far bank. When she finally did, he started shouting, “Let go! Let go!”

  Then he breathed a sigh of relief when her feet touched the ground and she rolled like a pro. He didn’t have time to whoop and holler over her amazing feat. He waited for the vine and snagged it when it sailed back past him. Then he tucked the SAT phone in his pocket and slung his rifle and small pack over his shoulder.

  Rounds from an AK-47 whizzed by his head as he pushed off.

  “Christ,” he muttered, swung out over the wide expanse of bottomless air, and prayed the vine would hold. Add his body weight to his rifle, ammo, and gear, and he figured he had more than a hundred pounds on Lily.

  The vine snapped just as he reached the other side. He hit the embankment waist high. Felt himself slipping backward into the abyss—and then felt Lily’s hand clasp his.

  He looked up and into her eyes. Sunlight slanted down through the trees and haloed her hair as she lay on her belly on the bank, his very own angel, pulling for all she was worth. He dug and clawed and finally, with her help, managed to haul his hips up and over onto solid ground.

  Panting, he rolle
d to his back, heaved a deep breath, and looked at her. She was still on all fours, panting just as heavily as he, the medal hanging around her neck like a talisman.

  Her hair was wild around her face, her cheeks red from exertion. She had mud on her chin, grass in her hair.

  He thought she was the single most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. Because they were alive, because by all rights they shouldn’t be, he grinned at her. Then he laughed, because it was just too wild not to. “Do I know how to give a good date or what?”

  He thought he saw a smile just before a hail of gunfire broke into his relief at having survived yet another brush with heights and water.

  “Head down. Let’s move it,” he barked, and together they belly-crawled into the thicket and out of the line of fire.

  Out of breath and feeling the monkey off their back for the first time since the jeep had been destroyed, Manny dropped and leaned back against a Palu tree. Lily slumped against a tree opposite him.

  “Just a quick breather,” he said on a panting breath, and reached into his pack for a bottle of water. “I’ll get ahold of Ethan.”

  He cranked off the lid of the bottle and handed it to Lily.

  She gulped greedily as he rifled around in his pocket for the SAT phone and dialed.

  “Not working,” he said when she shot him a questioning look. Frowning, he tapped the phone on his knee. “Wet,” he muttered when a drop of water shook out. He laid the phone on his lap and took the bottle of water when she held it out to him. “Maybe when it dries out…I’ll try it again after a while.”

  “We have company,” Lily whispered.

  He tensed and reached for his rifle.

  “No. It’s okay. Look.”

  Since she was grinning as she looked behind his left shoulder, Manny relaxed. He turned slowly to see a toque macaque monkey sitting on his haunches not four feet away, stroking his long tail and watching them with huge, humanlike eyes.

  The brightly colored macaque was about the size of a big house cat. He screeched and, pushing off with the knuckles of his front legs, scooted over to Manny’s side.