CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MIKI YAWNED. Her watch was ruined from seawater and she couldn’t be certain of the time. Five o’clock. Maybe six?
She looked over at Dutch. For about ten minutes he had struggled for breath, tossing restlessly, but now he was snoring quietly again.
Miki stretched out on the floor, pillowed Max’s sweatshirt under her head and tried to sleep, too, but she kept seeing the stone-cold eyes of the man who had tried to kill her.
Muttering, she rolled over and pulled the worn sweatshirt over her head. Worrying was pointless. If she hoped to have any energy left, she needed to sleep. She definitely wasn’t going to think about having sex with Max. She wasn’t used to that kind of raw physical intimacy and her wild response frightened her. She knew that stress broke down barriers, but stress alone didn’t explain her reaction. The thought of his hands and expert mouth still made her heart lurch.
No, she wouldn’t go there. It was just sex. By the time he came back, the whole encounter would be forgotten. With that thought firmly in mind, she tried to relax, wriggling on the cold ground. But the instant her eyes closed, she found herself thinking of Max again.
Wondering where he was. Wondering what he was doing. Hoping he was safe.
Even Max had been shocked by their instant sensory bond. His blunt questions had left no doubt that the intensity was unusual for him and he wasn’t used to women going off like roman candles in his arms. Miki couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
New heat brushed her face as memories crowded into her mind. There was no avoiding the truth. Some dark, physical bond had been forged between them. First both of them had been hit with unusual nosebleeds, and Miki wondered if that was one more symptom of whatever was affecting both of them so strangely.
Not that she was complaining about the whole physical thing that was happening. Only a fool would have a problem with a gorgeous man who appeared to be fascinated by every detail of her body. For a crazy moment, she had almost thought he had been reading her mind.
Irritated, Miki rolled over, forgetting she was on the floor. She knocked her forehead against the wall of the bunker and winced.
Some adventure.
Closing her eyes, she focused on relaxing, breath by breath. What she needed now was a distraction. Something to calm her down.
She could think of one kind of distraction, but she’d already done that with Max and it had made matters worse.
Miki opened her eyes and sat up. Photography was her passion and lifeblood, but when she was keyed up and needed to recharge her creativity there was only one answer.
Her eyes narrowed. She picked up Max’s tool kit and the pile of dried branches near the door and went to work.
ONLY A KNITTER UNDERSTOOD the addictive solace of a pair of smooth needles with buttery yarn that slid over your fingers, making big problems shrink and small problems vanish. Something to do with repetitive motions and brain chemistry, Miki had read somewhere. Since the science was unimportant, she hadn’t paid much attention. The effect spoke louder than any set of dry explanations.
She’d begun to knit the summer her mother had been hospitalized and her world fell apart. One of the intensive care nurses, a restful woman with intelligent eyes and gentle hands had given Miki her first pair of needles. They were cheap plastic, an ugly orange.
She had never loved anything more.
Her first few attempts had reduced her to sputtering, furious idiocy, but somewhere around day five muscle memory kicked in and she stopped thinking. First it happened for only a moment here or there, but soon her thoughts quieted, her fears and worries cast aside for as long as her hands moved. Within days she had given her mother a set of needles in a reflection of the same gift that had been made to her.
But Miki had chosen smooth, fine-grained rosewood for her mother, and soon the two women were knitting in quiet companionship, sharing a sentence here and there, comparing yarns or stitch definitions.
But one day her mother was too weak to hold circular needles and bulky yarn. A month later she was too weak to knit at all.
Two days after that, she was dead.
Knitting had been Miki’s solace during the long illness, and became her focus on the long journey back from loss. It wasn’t something she discussed with people, and years later she was still uncomfortable knitting in public—KIP, as knitters called it.
Now she looked down at the two decent needles she had managed to carve with one of Max’s surgical scalpels. She had sanded them on a grainy piece of limestone. For yarn, she had found a package with a smooth and surprisingly light fiber that looked like cotton but felt like silk. Intrigued, Miki ran the fiber through her fingers and wondered why she had never seen anything like it before. The stitches grew beneath her fingers in smooth, even rows that were dreamlike and almost effortless against her needles, which made her swear to locate the manufacturer just as soon as she got back to the States.
She tested the fiber, made a few more sample stitches, and then smiled. The pattern jumped into her head without any planning. Leaning back against the wall, yarn in her lap, she began to knit.
She had barely finished two rows when a sound echoed near the concealed entrance to the bunker. Shooting to her feet, she clutched the knitting needles in one hand and a scalpel in the other, but it was Truman who came bounding through the shadows toward her.
The dog raced past her and sniffed Dutch’s hand, then returned and bumped Miki’s leg in excitement.
“What is it, honey? What do you want?”
The dog turned in a tight circle and bumped her leg again.
“I’m having a little communication problem here, so help me out. Do you need something? Food or water? Or maybe you want something from Max’s bag.” Miki stroked the Lab’s head. “Did he send you for something, big guy?”
Truman sniffed Miki’s arm and then cocked his head, ears raised. This time Miki heard it, too.
A motor throbbed out beyond the breakers. But instead of feeling joy at the possibility of being rescued, she sat frozen. This could be a fishing boat or innocent tourists. On the other hand, it might be one of the hostiles Max had warned her about. She wasn’t about to risk being wrong.
She gripped her needles tighter, listening to the rising drone of the motors. Truman pressed against her leg and licked her face, then turned back toward the entrance, his hackles rising.
“Truman, what is it?”
Before Miki knew it, he was gone.
Brushing aside a stab of panic, she raced after the dog, up the stone steps and back through the bushes that concealed the entrance. In the slanting afternoon sunlight she saw Truman stop again, head raised.
A gunshot cracked like thunder. Miki felt the force of it tighten her chest. Gunfire was a bad sign and she wanted nothing to do with it.
“Truman,” she called softly. “Come back here with me.”
The big dog didn’t move, his head pointed toward the breakers where a sleek white speedboat with two decks was tossing up white foam in its race ashore. Miki noticed something about its main deck looked odd and asymmetrical.
Her throat went dry when she realized the thing she was looking at was a mounted machine gun. A man in a bright blue shirt was holding the gun, aiming at a man kneeling on the deck. She couldn’t hear their voices, but the sense of threat was harsh and unmistakable.
“Truman,” she rasped. “Come here.” The dog didn’t turn back or register her command in any way, and as the big yacht came closer, the dog’s tension grew.
Another burst of gunfire cracked the silence. The kneeling man fell.
Miki put her hand against a rock to steady herself as she watched a second man dragged out onto the deck. Now she was close enough to hear his wild, pleading cries.
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Truman was at the edge of the sand now. When the yacht came closer, the dog would be clearly visible from the beach, bound to attract curiosity.
“Truman.”
When the dog didn’t respond, Miki shot through the bushes and crouched behind the Lab, one hand stroking his head reassuringly. “Honey, we have to go. This is too dangerous.”
Miki’s hands were shaking and she couldn’t seem to hold the leather collar. After two tries, she managed to hold tight and tugged hard, trying to get the Lab’s attention. “Come back now. You can’t stay here.”
The dog’s eyes flickered toward her for a moment, then locked on the sleek boat again. The shrill cries from the deck made Miki’s stomach churn. Suddenly there was a glint of metal and the man in the blue shirt swung around, raising binoculars from a strap around his neck.
He looked toward the beach.
Toward the spot where she and Truman were crouched, frozen.
She heard a shout. The machine gun swung around slowly, dipped, then pointed across the sand directly at Truman.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHOUTS FILLED THE AIR. Even as Miki dropped flat on the sand behind a flowering bush, she knew it was too late. They’d been spotted.
Excited cries echoed above the hiss and slam of the surf while Miki tried to pull Truman down beside her, but the big dog refused to leave his vantage point beside a line of rugged boulders on the beach.
The big man in the blue shirt turned slowly, scanning the whole beach with his binoculars. His hands chopped at the air as he shouted orders Miki couldn’t hear. A loudspeaker thundered and two men ran across the deck, pointing at Truman.
Like hell she was coming out, Miki thought. But she had to find a way to draw Truman back out of sight. Her calls didn’t work and her soft shoves were ignored.
Time to try something different.
Miki gave a little cry and flopped back down on the ground, her arms outstretched, her eyes closed. She heard sand crunch. Truman’s wet nose bumped her face, but she didn’t move.
Another bump.
Truman lapped her cheeks with his tongue, and she managed to stay still. Something nudged her jeans and the next thing she knew, Truman was dragging her across the sand, his teeth gripping her pants leg, saving her as he had been trained to do. As a precaution, Miki didn’t respond until she felt the sand give way to stone beneath her back. Then she opened her eyes and faked a long moan.
Truman bumped her leg, sniffing her face with an intense curiosity. Ears alert, he was in full rescue mode, oblivious to the cries of the men on the approaching ship.
Just as Miki had hoped, the Lab nudged her back toward the stairs to the underground bunker and safety. But before they were out of range, a line of bullets cut across the sand barely two feet away from Truman. Miki responded by gut instinct, her heart pounding and her throat dry as she grabbed the dog’s neck and pulled him low to the ground.
More bullets strafed the beach and Truman went flat, covering Miki with his body while sand shot up in clumps. As the bullets cut closer, Miki wiggled free and pulled Truman toward a gardenia bush. Something hit her wrist, making her wince, but she didn’t release Truman’s collar.
More gunfire drilled the sand, accompanied by shouted curses and Miki realized she was too late, their position blown, with no way to cross the beach in time to escape the bullets that were pounding closer from the deck-mounted machine gun.
This is how it happens, she thought. I am going to die and it will be right here, in dirty jeans on a beach with no name. No one will even know what happened. Against the scream of bullets, panic took hold, clouding her logic.
She hugged Truman, shaking.
Then she raised her head and looked in the dog’s keen eyes and felt her fear slip, pulling free. She took a deep breath, finally able to think again, and saw the figures scattering over the deck of the ship, which was nearly through the surf. She and Truman would have to run for the trees above the beach. Anything was better than waiting, silent and craven, until they were shot or tortured.
Miki pulled vainly at the Lab’s big collar, sick to her stomach, knowing she could never leave the dog behind, but Truman refused to budge.
His head lifted. The shots from the boat came closer and closer.
Something white drifted past the gardenia bush. Not sand. Not flower petals.
Miki frowned. She felt Truman’s tail straighten as he stared out toward the horizon while the air began to fill with tiny flecks. Then the white flakes swirled and ran together into a pale cloud, blanketing first Miki’s corner of the sand and then the whole beach.
Fog.
She watched the layers drift and thicken until the world blurred and vanished completely, until all she could see was fingers of white drifting past her feet, cool on her face. Then the bullets stopped. A strained silence fell, broken only by the sound of the surf.
Truman looked up at her and sneezed, his tail stiff. If a dog could grin, then his open mouth was set in a grin. He turned in a circle, tail wagging. Then he sat, raised one paw and stared at her.
Like a high five, Miki realized. Dogs didn’t do that, did they?
But they weren’t out of danger by a far cry, not with the shouts of anger and confusion that began coming from several directions through the fog.
The fog…
It was just like the other time, fog swirling up out of the ocean, and Miki was sure it wasn’t from a simple act of nature.
Truman? No way. That had to be impossible. An animal couldn’t…
The Lab sneezed, his tongue lolling. He whimpered softly and then sank against her.
“Tru?”
Whimpering softly, Truman blinked, his eyes un-focused. Then he sank against Miki’s chest. Hard on the heels of his collapse, a figure appeared from the fog, bare-chested and barefooted. He was missing two teeth and cradled a sawed-off rifle, whispering into a headphone that probably connected him with the yacht.
Bad news. Way bad news.
He spun, peered through the heavy clouds, saw Miki.
And he smiled slowly, revealing another gap in his dirty teeth. The shotgun lowered. “You come here.”
Miki scooted backward, clutching Truman, who barely moved. She’d forgotten Max’s revolver in the bunker. That left only one weapon available to her.
Grimly, she palmed her hand-carved knitting needles, slipping them from her pocket into the waist-band of her jeans. Ineffectual at long range, they could still do damage up close…assuming she didn’t get blasted by the shotgun in the next three seconds.
Stall.
Miki released Truman, raised her hands and stood up slowly. “You want money?” she rasped. “I’ve got an iPod around here somewhere.”
“IPod?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Nano or Shuffle? You got Bose headset, too?”
“Uh—sure.” Like hell. “Right up there behind that rock. I’ll show you where it—”
“You stay.” The man’s voice was tight and uneasy. “I look.” He smiled at her and rubbed his crotch idly. “You American, sure. I love Julia Roberts. You know her?”
Know Julia Roberts, as in personally? “Uh, I can’t say—”
“Maybe Paris Hilton?” He kept on scratching, his eyes narrowed. “She make lots of movies. I see on Internet.”
Miki clutched the knitting needles, her hands trembling. “Yeah, I’ve met Paris and Julia. Sure I have. Great people. Friendly, too.”
The man with the gun sighed in pleasure. “You get iPod for me. Then you come. Leave dog.” He stared at Miki’s legs and moved closer. “Take off shirt first.”
“Pardon me.”
The shotgun jerked sharply. “Shirt. Put it on sand. Now.”
Miki swallowed and stepped away from Truman, keeping him well out the line of fire as she reached for her top button. Her hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t open the blouse, but she kept a big, silly smile on her face. “Sure. I can do that. Why not?”
One button.
She took another step sideways, still smiling. The fog swirled up between them and Miki calculated how far she would get before he cut her down.
Two buttons.
“Hurry up. You fast.”
Three.
“Take off all. Then you get down on sand.”
Uh-oh. Miki fought to hold the smile, opening the last button on her shirt and letting one shoulder slide free. She’d ditched her bra because it was gritty with sand, rubbing her skin raw. With luck she’d buy a little distraction time.
The man’s shotgun tilted. He stared avidly as her shirt parted. “Faster. The others come soon. You hurry and maybe I help you when they come here.”
Miki fought panic and slowly lowered the other side of her blouse, with the cotton clutched to her chest. Then she let it fall.
Her attacker’s eyes darkened. He slipped the shotgun into a holster under his arm and fumbled with his zipper. “We do it now. Maybe then I help you.”
Oh, sure you will, Miki thought grimly. But the needles were in the waistband of her jeans and if he got any closer, she’d have a weapon.
It would have to be the eyes, she thought. Then a blind dash through the fog. Except she couldn’t leave Truman behind.
The man with the scarred chest shoved her onto the sand, staring at her hungrily. Miki gripped her needles in her right hand, smiling vapidly, waiting until he was close enough so that she wouldn’t miss. His hands dug at her shoulder, pinched her neck and rubbed her breasts. His breath was hot, sour like spoiled meat, making her gag.
She pulled out the sharpened wooden needles.
And then he made a little gurgling sound and pitched sideways onto the beach, his shotgun falling with a hiss.
Max stood glaring down at him, his eyes dark with violence. “That should teach the shit.” He grabbed the shotgun and a knife stuck in the man’s belt, then looked at Miki. His eyes hardened as he saw the bruise on her breast. “Maybe I’ll kill him after all,” he said hoarsely.
“Let’s g-go. Truman’s sick.”
Max shoved her attacker over, saw that he was out cold, and smiled grimly. He picked up Miki’s shirt and slid it around her shoulders, gently closing the buttons. His body was hot, reassuring, and she fought back a shaky sob, wanting to lean against him, drawing heat and strength from those hard arms.
Code Name: Bundle! Page 44
