His heart pounded in his chest, and he could feel hers answering in kind. He couldn’t catch his breath. She was panting, too. His mouth slid from hers, across her face, her jaw, to her ear.
“We were right to wait,” a deep voice said from the darkness.
Beneath him, Melusine went utterly still.
Alex lifted his head away from her, staring down into her stunned eyes, as breathless as she was. Then he turned slowly toward the man’s voice, and he saw not one man, but three. They stood in a rough semicircle, the desert night their backdrop, and each one held an automatic weapon pointed at the two of them.
“It’s obvious now,” the first man, the leader, went on. “The other two are mere imposters. Waiting, watching them, was the only way to know for sure. But there is no longer any doubt. These are the real Katerina and Thomas Barde.”
Mel’s hand inched toward the gun. It was on the ground, right beneath her backpack. She’d tucked it there, as if tucking it under her pillow before lying down.
“Get to your feet,” the man ordered. “Now, and keep your hands in front of you.” He spoke with an accent, she noticed, but only a slight one. She couldn’t identify it.
Alex got up and reached down to take her hand, pulling her to her feet with him, holding her close beside him.
“Get the packs,” the man barked, and one of his two companions surged forward. He gripped a pack in each hand, hefted them and turned to take them back to the leader. Mel moved her foot carefully, pushing sand over the gun that lay just behind where she stood. She did it without looking down and hoped to the heavens she had covered it well enough to keep them from seeing it.
She was terrified and shivering—probably directly due to experiencing polar opposites of extreme emotion. First burning up in Alex’s arms. Now frozen in absolute terror.
Alex glanced her way, frowned, reading in her face that she was up to something. His eyes warned her to be still, to comply.
“Search them,” the leader said. He was the smallest man in the group. Thin and hard, with cruel angles in his face and jaw. His small dark eyes reminded Mel of a rat’s eyes. Cold and assessing and wily.
The other two men came forward. One of them ran his hands over Mel’s arms, her legs, her torso, her buttocks, between her thighs, over her chest. He was thorough. She stood still, not fighting him. She resisted the urge to knee him between the legs when she knew perfectly well he was copping a feel. They were the ones with the weapons here. Now was not the time.
The one searching Alex found his handgun and took it from him. He tucked it into the back of his own pants—dark tan multipocketed pants and a matching shirt. It was a uniform of some kind.
“Good,” the leader said. “Now, you two, come.”
Alex took a single step forward.
“I…I can’t,” Mel said. She pressed a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, prayed for the strength and acting skills to pull off her little ruse. “I’m just…too weak. Please…”
As Alex turned toward her in surprise and worry, she let her body go limp and slumped to the ground. Alex shot toward her, but stopped when the leader shouted at him to be still. Then he looked at Mel. “My dear Katerina, you did not seem so weakened when we arrived. But it’s of little consequence to me. You can get up, or I can kill you where you lie. I’ll leave the decision to you.”
She shoved the tiny handgun down the back of her jeans even as she made a show of struggling to get to her feet. The tail of the khaki button-down shirt hung over her hips, hiding the bulge, she hoped. She walked weakly. Alex put his arm around her to help her.
The leader started off across the desert, and they followed. They had little choice, with the other two following behind, prodding them with guns if they slowed at all. She hoped to God they didn’t have to walk far. Rest had only given her limbs time to stiffen. Now they moved like hinges sorely in need of oil. Slowly, under protest, creaking with pain. She wondered how the hell she and Alex were going to beat these three morons senseless when it hurt this much just to walk.
Over a slight rise, she saw two vehicles, older model SUVs, tan and brown. She and Alex were hustled into the back seat of one of them. The leader and one of the gunmen got into the front. The third man drove the other one, following behind.
Mel slid closer to Alex as the vehicle bounded over the impossible terrain. She curled against him, and he put his arm around her protectively. “Try not to be afraid, Mel. We’re just biding our time, waiting for the right moment. I’m damned sure not going to let anything happen to you,” he whispered.
“Neither am I.” She reached behind her to clasp his hand where it rested and slid it lower over her bottom, until he could feel the hard outline of the gun she’d tucked there. His eyes shot to hers, then warmed.
“Have I told you you’re one of a kind?” he asked her softly.
“No talking,” the driver barked.
“I don’t understand,” Selene whispered. She sat beside Mick Flyte in a helicopter that swooped over the barren wasteland below in search of people. Wes was on the ground, trying to pick up some trace of Alex and Mel from closer range and connected to Selene by radio. She wore a headset and spoke into the microphone that hovered a few inches from her face. “There’s nothing. It’s as if they just disappeared. God, where could they be?”
“Wait, I see something!” Mick said. He pointed briefly, then swung the chopper expertly to the left and lower. “What is that?”
“I don’t know. A…a tent?”
The radio crackled in her ear. “What?” Wes asked. “What do you see? Is it them?”
“No. No, I don’t see any people, but there’s something,” Selene told him. “It’s about three hundred yards north, I think, of where you are.”
“Are you hovering over it?” The question crackled back at her.
“Yes. Can you see us?”
“Yeah, I’m on the way. Stay right there.”
Soon the vehicle Wes had been driving came bounding and bouncing over the uneven ground toward the spot below them. It came to a rough stop in front of the olive-green square below, and only then did Mick Flyte set the chopper down.
Selene tugged the headpiece off and jumped from the open chopper, bending low and squinting in the blade-driven sandstorm as she ran until she was clear. She spotted Wes, looking at the contraption and shaking his head slowly. “They’re not here. But I think they were.”
Selene looked past him at the sleeping bag rigged up to provide shade, and the marks of feet in the sand.
“There are tire tracks over that way,” Wes said softly. “And where the ground isn’t packed too hard to hold them, there are footprints. Three sets coming this way from the tire tracks, five sets going back.”
“You mean…?”
“The little store was a setup, we already guessed as much. The man who gave them directions was probably one of the bad guys. He sent them out here far enough so they’d be worn out, weak and exhausted by the time his counterparts arrived to pick them up.”
“Less of a struggle that way,” Mick Flyte muttered. “And no chance of witnesses.”
His voice, coming from so close behind her, startled Selene. She hadn’t even heard his approach.
“There’s no way in hell we can know where they might have taken them,” Wes said softly.
“There are ways,” Flyte told him. “Don’t you doubt it, there are ways. We’ll get a plaster cast of the tire marks, find out what kind of vehicle they fit that could also handle this terrain and put out a description. And we can fill this desert with men, scour every inch of it.
“By then they could be dead.” Wes sounded grim, and though he looked at Selene, he kept speaking to the other man. “You do what you can, Mr. Flyte. Follow your protocol and bring in your experts. We have our own contingency plan in situations like this.”
Selene knew exactly what he meant.
Flyte lifted his brows. “Contingency plan? And just what is this plan, Mr. Brand?�
��
“Call in the family,” Wes said softly.
“The whole family,” Selene said with a firm nod.
They had been blindfolded ten minutes into the ride. They were taken from the vehicle, blind, stumbling and helpless. Alex didn’t know for sure when to make a move but sensed the time wasn’t right just yet. He would know when it was. Or so he told himself. When the damp cloth that smelled of ether was crushed over his nose and mouth, he had second thoughts. He told himself not to breathe, heard the sudden sounds of Mel struggling, then relaxing as the ether took her. And then he was gone, too.
When he came to, he had to blink for several minutes before his vision cleared and his eyes adjusted to the dimness. The only source of light came through the barred window of a heavy-looking wooden door that stood directly across from him. There was a hard floor beneath him. The wall he leaned against felt like it was built of cinder blocks. It braced him up in a sitting position, and there was a warm body lying limp across his outstretched legs.
Blinking away the grogginess, trying hard to focus his mind, he felt softness beneath his hand and realized two things. First, that he was no longer blindfolded, and second, that his fingers were buried in soft, short hair. He bent over Mel where she lay, lifting her up off his legs by her shoulders, only to see her head loll forward, limp and doll-like. “Mel. Wake up, honey, come on.”
“She’ll be all right,” a man’s accented voice said. “She’s smaller than you. The ether takes longer to wear off on a small woman.”
Jerking his head to the left, Alex realized for the first time that he and Mel were not alone in this dank cell. He peered through the darkness. “Who are you?”
“I am…” The man looked toward the barred door, cut himself off. “We are the first couple these criminals mistook for Thomas and Katerina Barde. You, apparently, are the second.”
“We?” The man’s face was becoming clearer, as Alex’s vision adjusted to the dimness and the gas wore off. The man was sitting on the floor, a woman huddled close beside him. He was nodding toward Mel now. “It’s amazing, the resemblance.”
“I don’t really see it, myself,” the woman said, her voice soft. She got to her feet and came closer, leaning over Mel and gently pushing her hair from her face. “Poor thing. She’s going to have such a pounding headache when she wakes. At least, I did when I woke.”
It was her. It was Katerina herself, Alex realized. She was somehow dimmer than her press had made her seem. Or maybe it was that she was tired and dirty, dressed in tattered rags, her hair oily and limp.
“Who are you?” Thomas Barde asked Alex, coming closer before sitting down again, so that they could speak in whispers.
“I’m Alex Stone. This is Melusine Brand. We’ve been impersonating you in order to help avoid an international incident. Of course, that was when the powers that be were still working under the assumption that you two had run off together on a whim. No one realized you’d been abducted.”
“They were going to use us to gain control of our country—and then just kill us,” Katerina whispered, sinking to the floor to sit again beside her husband. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her close to his side. Her head was lowered, her eyes, Alex thought, damp. “But they overheard us quarreling. That alone wouldn’t have saved us, I’m certain. Except that only a few hours later, someone, one of their despicable spies, I assume, showed them footage of the two of you. Rather…intimate footage.”
Alex wondered when it had been taken. He tried to picture himself and Mel together, and realized that, to outside eyes, they must seem intimate most of the time. He was always finding excuses to touch her. She was always looking up at him with those eyes….
He blinked the thoughts away, told himself to focus on the present conversation. “So they decided that you two must be the imposters,” Alex said. “And that we were the real couple.”
Katerina shook her head, her motions jerky. “It confused them enough so that they put all plans on hold until they could determine which was the genuine couple. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Now they have all four of us. And I have no doubt that just as soon as they figure out which of us are the real Bardes…”
“They’re not going to figure that out,” Alex promised. “That part of this is entirely within our control. We aren’t going to give it up.”
“Then what’s to stop them from simply killing us all?” Katerina whispered. She closed her eyes, lowered her head to her husband’s shoulder and wept softly.
“They do not want to kill Katerina. They want to use her as leverage against her father,” Alex said.
“They’ve taped enough footage of us to convince Belisle we’re still alive for several weeks to come,” Thomas said very softly. “They have no reason to keep any of us alive for much longer.”
“Then my suggestion would be that we find a way to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.” Mel moaned and lifted her head from where it rested on Alex’s shoulder. He touched her face, smoothed her hair. “It’s okay, I know it hurts. Come on, wake up now.”
Her eyes blinked open, then squeezed closed again. “Oh, God, I feel like I’ve been on a three-day drunk.”
“It’ll get better. Try to breathe nice and deep.”
She inhaled nasally, then scrunched up her face. “Gawd, it stinks in here. Smells like a stinkbug crawled up a skunk’s ass and died. What is that?”
Katerina’s head came up, and she blinked at Mel in what looked like amazement. “She impersonated me?” she asked softly.
Mel squinted at her. “Damn, you’re her, aren’t you?”
“It’s probably best we don’t talk too much about who’s who just now, hon,” Alex told her as she sat up more fully. The act took her out of his arms and left him chilled. She leaned back against the cinder block wall and pushed her hands up over her face and forehead, then back through her hair, closing her eyes again. It was as if she were trying to push the ache from her head. Then she went stiff, and her eyes widened. She drove her hand behind her, feeling her bottom, sighing in apparent relief as she shot Alex a look.
He read the look loud and clear. The gun was still there. They hadn’t found it.
“I should give it to you,” she whispered, her hand dipping down the back of her khaki pants. “You’re probably going to be more effective with it than me.” She glanced quickly at Katerina and amended, “Uh, than I, I mean.”
He slid closer, pressing his side to hers, sliding one hand behind his back to take the gun from her. Then he slid it into the back of his own pants.
“What are you doing?” Thomas asked. “Do you have a—” he dropped his voice to the barest whisper “—weapon?”
Alex nodded.
“You mustn’t do anything to anger these people,” Katerina pleaded softly, her eyes welling with tears. “They’re dangerous. Don’t upset them, whatever you do, or they’ll kill us.”
“Upset them?” Mel asked, fixing her eyes on the frightened woman. “Hey, Miss Manners, these men intend to put us all into the ground, in case you’re not clear on that. They’re going to kill us no matter how polite and cooperative we might be.” She looked at Alex. “Have you explained this to them?”
“Of course we know all of that.” Katerina bit her lip, shook her head. “But it would be rash to act on our own. We simply have to be patient, be calm. We should do everything they ask of us until help arrives. And it will arrive. Even now, there must be a massive rescue attempt underway. Someone will come for us anytime now. Surely they will.”
Mel looked at the woman in disbelief. “You can be patient and do what you’re told and wait for someone to come save you, if that’s what you think best. From what I understand, that’s pretty much what they teach women in your country to do, anyway, isn’t it? Be patient and do as they’re told? As for me, I’m gonna fight my way out of here or die trying.”
“I do not care what you think of my country. That does not give you the right to make decisions h
ere that could be the ruin of all of us!” Katerina cried, and she was loud this time, loud enough to attract attention from outside.
“This is America sweetie. Around here, I have just as many rights as you do.”
A face appeared at the bars. “Silence!”
Katerina crowded against her husband, hiding her face, shaking all over.
The guard retreated, and in the distance Alex heard him telling someone they were awake. Then there were more steps returning to the door. Keys jangled and scraped in the lock, and the cell door opened. Three men stepped inside, two of them dangling handcuffs from their fingers. “On your feet, and hold your arms out.”
Katerina and Thomas were up, offering their wrists to the handcuffs instantly. Mel said, “Screw you,” and stayed where she was, on the floor. Alex rolled to his feet, but only to plant them in front of Mel.
One guard cuffed Thomas and Katerina, and led them out of the cell. The other came nose to nose with Alex. “Your hands, sir.”
Alex reached behind him for the gun.
Mel jumped to her feet, elbowing him in the process and then nodding toward the hall beyond the open door when she caught his eye. He saw them then. A line of men with automatic weapons.
“Fine, cuff us,” Mel said. “But know that you are going to be very, very sorry you treated us this way. More sorry than you can even imagine.” She stuck her wrists out, thinking about what her mother and sisters, and Wes Brand, were going to do to these bastards when they caught up to them.
Secrets and Lies Page 15
