Secret Agent Sam

by Kathleen Creighton

  Hang on, Pearse, she begged him silently as she wrenched her hand from his. I’m not gonna let you bleed to death, dammit-or lose your leg, either!

  But it was only bravado, and as she splashed out into the flooded fields, some of the moisture she brushed from her face wasn’t rain.

  She’d only gone a few yards when she heard something that changed all her plans-an all-too-familiar sound-the pop and crackle of gunfire. But where was it coming from? In the rain it was impossible to tell. From the village? Or the jungle on the other side of the fields? Or-dear God, both, and they were about to be caught in the crossfire?

  She spun around and ran back to the banana grove, waving and yelling as she went. “Come on-now! Everybody. We have to get to the plane. That gunfire might be the government’s forces or it might be al-Rami’s, but one thing’s for sure, we don’t want to be caught in between!”

  She grabbed Hal’s hand and helped him to his feet, waited, shifting impatiently, until he’d picked up Esther and gotten her situated, then tucked her shoulder under Cory’s arm and slipped hers around his waist. And once again, she set out across the sea of rain and mud.

  How they made it, she never knew. Later, looking back on it, she didn’t remember her heart pounding, or her muscles screaming, or her breath tearing through her lungs. She remembered a terrible sense of urgency and purpose. And one clear thought: Get everybody into the plane.

  She remembered Hal Lundquist’s face, set in a zombielike mask, eyes wide and unfocused, and she remembered wondering how on earth he could still be moving, still be putting one foot in front of the other, carrying his sick wife all those miles, through the rain and mud and jungle…

  She remembered thinking about what Tony had said: That’s love, babe. Most powerful force in the world.

  Chapter 13

  The DC-3 loomed ahead in the rain, its nose in the air and its tail dragging on the grassy landing strip…the great gray Gooneybird, relic from another time, a different war. Sam’s spirits lifted with relief and thanksgiving at the sight, almost as if she were already at the controls of the aircraft and soaring toward the sky.

  She let go of Cory and scrambled up the short grassy bank ahead of the others, then turned to offer a hand. Hal slipped once, but never lost his dogged grip on Esther, and then Sam was there on one side of him and Tony on the other, holding him up, and together they all made it to the relative shelter of the plane’s big wing.

  “Get everybody inside,” Sam yelled to Tony. “I’m gonna go check out the runway.”

  She slipped under the wing and ran past the plane’s upswept nose…down the grass-covered strip that stretched ahead of her arrow-straight until it disappeared into the curtain of rain. She ran for nearly a hundred yards, and her heart lifted with such relief and hope she felt as if she could have run forever…turned cartwheels…shouted for joy. Under her feet, rather than the squelch of sucking mud or the give of saturated soil, she felt only a beautiful, unyielding…crunch.

  She turned, finally, and jogged back to the plane, and Tony came hesitantly to meet her, his face tight with suspense. He looked slightly stunned-though pleased-when she threw her arms around him and kissed him resoundingly on his broad wet cheek.

  “That’s for your grandaddy,” she yelled. “Those navy Cee Bees knew their stuff. Must’ve built this thing out of crushed volcanic rock. It’s solid as the runways at JFK!”

  “Go Cee Bees!” Tony pumped an arm in the air and grinned. “So, we’re good to go?”

  “Good to go! I just need to check out the plane. Everybody inside and buckled in?”

  “Almost,” Tony said dryly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “He wouldn’t get in until you got back.”

  She looked past him and her heart lurched when she saw Cory standing beside the plane, leaning heavily on the steps. “Typical…” she muttered, but couldn’t deny the sweet warmth-Lord, what could she call it-tenderness?-that flooded her. Though she did try, adding a sardonic, “My God, what’s holding him up?”

  Tony shrugged and gave her a sly look. “What’d I tell you? It’s love-what else?”

  Having no answer for that, Sam made a halfhearted scoffing noise. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer as she left Tony and walked over to Cory, and inexplicably, she felt awkward and shy. Her face ached and the best smile she could come up with was small and crooked as she spread her hands wide and said, “Hey, Pearse, it’s okay…the runway’s okay. Rock solid. We’re getting out of here. We’re gonna get everybody home.”

  He looked at her. Just looked…his eyes sunk so deep in their sockets they seemed almost black…his face chalk-white beneath a dark growth of beard. Then he lifted his hand and curved it around the back of her neck. She felt his arm tremble as he pulled her close, but his lips were warm and firm when he kissed her. Then he folded her one-armed against him…let go of the steps and wrapped both arms around her. And though she could feel him swaying with weakness, she closed her eyes and let herself hold him for a long, sweet moment.

  One that lasted not nearly long enough. It was shattered by the thump of a distant explosion, and then, closer by, the all-too-familiar rattle of gunfire.

  Tony lurched past her up the steps yelling, “Here they come! Let’s get the hell outa here.”

  New adrenaline spurted into her bloodstream as she hooked an arm around Cory, who was struggling to pull himself up the steps, dragging his injured leg.

  “Get him inside and buckled in,” she yelled to Tony, and then she was ducking under the end of the wing, trying not to cringe as the sounds of battle rumbled closer, knowing she had only minutes to get the plane off the ground, knowing, too, that if she overlooked something vital in the preflight prep it could mean disaster for everyone on board.

  So, she forced herself to shut out the gunfire and concentrate on the checklist in her mind…checked the props, looking for bird nests in the cylinders and hinges…checked the cowls and gear pins. Satisfied, finally, she pulled the chocks from the wheels and sprinted for the door of the plane.

  She pulled up the steps and secured the door, then paused to catch her breath. So far so good, but they weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. A DC-3 aircraft wasn’t a car, she couldn’t just jump in and start it up and go shooting off into the wild blue yonder. It was going to take a while to run through even the most basic cockpit check, and then the warm-up…the takeoff…Thank God, at least she’d had the foresight to turn the plane around before she’d shut it down!

  On her way up the aisle she paused to make sure everyone was belted securely, and had to resist the impulse to put her hand on Cory’s shoulder…just to touch him one more time.

  Then she was slipping into the pilot’s seat, running through the preflight check, once again forcing herself not to rush, to concentrate on the task at hand. Flight instruments checked…gyros…airspeed selector…trims…pitch…throttles…mixture…tail lock…hydraulics…

  Satisfied at last, she cleared the props and put her hand on the engine-selector switch, just as Tony slid into the right-hand seat beside her.

  “We ’bout ready to get this thing airborne?” he asked, his voice breathless and light, trying to hide the urgency in it. “Those bullets are getting a little too close for comfort.”

  “Starting the engines now,” Sam replied, tight-lipped, as her fingers manipulated the switches and first one engine, then the other coughed and fired, shaking the plane with their powerful vibrations. Still going through preparations for takeoff, she spared Tony a brief glance. “Buckle up if you’re staying, pal.”

  “Right…” He pulled his harness tight and squirmed himself into the seat, then looked up and through the windshield. “Uh…Captain?”

  “Yeah?” Sam said absently, her eyes on the oil pressure gauge. Then, something in Tony’s voice got through to her and she looked up, too. Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

  The rain had stopped, as if someone had turned off a faucet. And she could see, far down
the landing strip, a dozen or so men wearing camouflage pants, running, zigzagging toward the plane, firing automatic rifles as they came.

  She swore, one sharp, succinct word, as something-a mortar shell or grenade-exploded in the flooded field near the men, sending geysers of muddy water into the air.

  “Uh…might want to get this thing in the air while we’ve still got a runway,” Tony muttered, sounding strangled.

  “Can’t get the rpm’s up ’til I’ve got oil pressure,” she said grimly, as her heart pounded and her eyes flicked between the gauges and the advancing gunmen. Al-Rami’s men, she assumed, and those incoming shells must be the government’s troops. If even one of them hit its target, the runway would be cut in two. She needed a thousand meters of it for takeoff.

  “Come on…come on…” With agonizing slowness, the oil and fuel pressure and temperature readings came into line. Sam’s eyes burned in their sockets as she watched them. Her neck muscles felt like wire. The plane shook and bucked like a tethered bronc as the rpm’s rose…

  Then… “Okay!” The word gusted from her on an exhalation. “Here we go…”

  With her teeth tightly clenched and her right hand light and steady on the controls, she sent the plane forward, straight toward the oncoming gunmen. She didn’t even wince when she heard bullets clang into the plane’s metal skin, just tightened her jaw, held the plane steady on course and increased speed…and knew a moment’s sheer jubilation as the men on the runway in front of her broke and scattered like chickens, some diving head-first into the muddy water alongside the strip.

  “Yee-haw!” Tony crowed, but Sam was too busy, now, for celebrations. Her eyes were on the approaching jungle…coming up fast…coming closer…closer. Her hand was on the throttle…in-creasing speed…faster…faster. And then…at last…Lift off!

  She felt her body press into her seat and her heart shoot through the roof of her mouth as the DC-3’s nose swept up and over the treetops. It climbed steadily toward the lowering gray clouds, and the growl of the two big engines was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. Then they were in the clouds, swathed in filmy gray-white mist…bucking with the turbulence…then above them, where the air was smooth and the sun was shining.

  As the warmth and brilliance of it sliced through the windshield, nearly blinding her, Sam eased back in her seat and drew a careful breath. She allowed herself, now, to look over at Tony, and saw that he’d put his head back against his seat, too, and that his eyes were closed. His bulldog face looked bunched and tense, as if his skin held in emotions almost too turbulent to contain.

  “Hey-you can go tell Cory we made it,” she said softly, and a smile burst across her face like a sunrise.

  She was drifting with the drone of the DC-3’s engines, allowing her mind the luxury of numbness, although her body was still chilled and quivering with adrenaline hangover, when Tony slipped back into the copilot’s seat a short time later.

  Pulling herself together reluctantly, she shifted and threw him a glance, and though she cleared her throat, her voice was gruff when she asked, “How’s everybody doin’ back there?”

  “Hangin’ in,” Tony said, remembering without being told to fasten his seat belt. “Esther’s asleep. Hal looks like he is, and somebody just forgot to tell him to close his eyes.”

  “Cory?” The word came with a little hitch in her breathing she couldn’t control.

  He shrugged and lowered his voice just a bit. “Hard to say. I know he’s gotta be hurting. Lost an awful lot of blood. That tourniquet’s been on there a long time, too-that can’t be good, but he’d probably bleed to death if we loosen it up.” He let out a breath. “He says he’s doin’ okay, but…you can’t always tell what’s goin’ on with him.”

  “Tell me about it,” Sam said softly. She felt weighed down, suddenly: exhausted, worn-out, depressed. Where only a short while ago she’d been soaring on waves of euphoria, now she wallowed in troughs of futility and despair. And there was frustration with herself and anger, too, because depressed and weighed down wasn’t who Samantha June Bauer was, and for sure not the way she ever wanted to be.

  After a long silence, during which her pride wrestled with an unaccustomed and overwhelming need to talk to someone, she drew a deep breath and said, “Tony?” And then, in a voice edgy and tense with all she was feeling, including the anger: “What am I gonna do?”

  “You’re doin’ it, all you can do, anyway. Getting him to a hospital the fastest-”

  She shook that off with an impatient gesture. “I mean about us. Cory and me.”

  After a cautious pause and an uneasy glance, Tony shrugged. “You love him. He loves you. I don’t see the problem.”

  “Yeah, but…” She let out a short, sharp breath, fighting to keep her voice steady. “All of this-none of this is real. All our problems-everything that was wrong before-it’s all still there. Nothing’s changed, not really.”

  There was another pause while Tony appeared to be thinking it over. Then he said, “Well, I know one thing you can’t do.”

  Sam threw him a hopeful look. “What’s that?”

  “Live without each other.”

  Damn. In spite of all her efforts, the tears she’d been fighting so hard welled up anyway. She blinked them furiously away before they could fall. “Yeah, but unfortunately I still have a career and a…a lifestyle I really love, and that isn’t what he wants. And he still won’t share himself with me emotionally, and that’s not the kind of relationship I want. Okay? So…I’m asking you-his best friend. What do I do?”

  He shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the role of counselor she’d thrust upon him. “Like I said. I think you guys need to talk.”

  Too upset to let him off the hook, frustrated almost beyond her ability to control it, Sam growled, “Yeah, but he won’t. Don’t you understand? Not about himself, not the things that matter. And I don’t know how to make him, Tony.”

  He was quiet for a long time. Then, looking straight ahead at the hazy horizon, he said slowly, “Yeah, but…I think you’re gonna have to.”

  “What if I can’t?” she whispered, wretched and in despair.

  “You need to get him to tell you about his parents.”

  Something in his voice made her look over at him. “He told me they died.”

  He turned his head, and his exotic whiskey-gold eyes looked straight into hers-briefly, before he turned back to the horizon again. “Get him to tell you how they died. Make him.”

  She stared at his profile, and it was like something carved in the side of a mountain. Quivering with frustration and dawning realization, she said slowly, “You know, don’t you? You told me you didn’t, but that’s not true. You did look it up. You know what happened. Oh, God. Tony-” she clutched his arm and it came in a rush “-please tell me, please, it’s important, I have to know, please.”

  He shook his head, his jaw implacable, unyielding as stone. “Yeah, you do, but like I told you-it’s his story. He’s the one who needs to tell it.” He unbuckled himself and eased out of the seat, looming over her briefly as he stood, and again, for one moment his eyes arrowed straight into hers. “You have to make him tell it, Sam.”

  The dream came gently, like a parent creeping in to kiss a sleeping child good-night.

  It’s my mother’s face bending over me, laughing and beautiful…her hands are cool as she brushes my cheek…then she hugs me, and her cheek is smooth and soft, and she smells like flowers and sunshine.

  I feel my father’s shoulder, hard and bony under my head…his breath tickles my forehead and I giggle as his voice growls deep inside his chest: “And I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!”

  Then, as it always did, in his dream everything turned dark. All around him was darkness, and his mother’s face swam toward him and then retreated…drifted around and came back, then floated away again, always out of reach, bobbing like a cork on the ocean.

  She’s not laughing now, but she
’s speaking, saying something to me, and her eyes look scared so I know it’s something important, something urgent, but I can’t hear what it is because of the noise…

  There’s a loud and terrible noise, a howling sound and a banging, banging, banging…someone’s pounding on the door, and I hear a roaring, growling voice saying, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!” And I don’t want to open the door, because I know something terrible is on the other side. It’s the Big Bad Wolf, and he’s pounding, pounding, pounding on the door and yelling at me to open it, and I know I must not open it, but I do anyway.

  And the Big Bad Wolf has my father’s face.

  Cory fought his way free of the dream, clawing his way toward consciousness by sheer will, and woke chilled, sweating, and desperately nauseated. He felt hands on his shoulders, and clutching at one of them, managed to utter one word: “Sick…”

  A basin materialized near his chin, the hands lifted his shoulder and rolled him, and he retched feebly and fruitlessly before subsiding, exhausted, shaking with the most appalling weakness he’d ever known. No wonder he’d dreamed of his childhood, he thought. It was the way he felt-weak as a child…an infant.

  “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

  The familiar voice, husky and belligerent, jolted him into full awareness. “Sam?” he croaked, struggling to lift his head.

  “Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal,” a heavily accented voice said. He felt the upper half of the bed rise under him and a head crowned with sleek black hair moved out of his line of vision. A blond one came to take its place. Blond hair standing up in tufts as if it had been combed with fingers, surrounding a frowning face with honey-gold skin, a sprinkling of freckles, and fierce dark brown eyes.

  In spite of how desperately awful he felt-worse than he could ever remember feeling before in his life-he could feel a smile shivering through his whole body, warming him the way the sun does when it slices through the frost on a cold morning.