by Cindy Dees
Finally she woke up enough to open her eyes and look down.
Her scream ripped through the early morning silence, loud and piercing across the green expanse of the jungle.
Chapter 8
Tex jolted wide-awake as an ungodly screech tore apart the silence of the jungle. He was instantly at full battle alert, his gaze taking in the situation in a single quick glance of assessment.
Kimberly screaming her head off. Her hands up in the air, her body pressed back against the tree trunk. A large, bright yellow snake curled up in her lap. Holy sh— An eyelash viper. Tree dweller. Venomous bite, deadly to humans.
In the next millisecond, the question of shutting up Kimberly first or getting rid of the snake first popped into his mind and was answered. He slammed his hand across Kimberly's mouth, stifling the sound, even though she still screamed against his palm. She was completely hysterical.
Clearly not a fan of snakes, he thought dryly.
He took a moment to assess the deadly viper. Fortunately the creature, deaf like all snakes, wasn't freaking out at the sounds emanating from Kimberly. But the vibrations of her screaming and wriggling had disturbed it. The snake was alert and testing the air with its tongue.
Good news, it had been a chilly night, cold enough to make the snake's reflexes sluggish.
Bad news, eyelash vipers have lightning-fast reflexes to begin with. Sluggish for that snake might still be faster than him. Plus, it was curled up in Kimberly's nice, warm lap. He'd have to assume the snake was at full speed.
Keeping his left hand pressed tightly against Kimberly's mouth, he leaned over slowly, moving his right hand by gradual degrees closer and closer to the back of the snake's head.
When the snake finally began to turn his head, its tongue flicking to catch the scent of his hand, Tex lunged.
He grabbed the viper right behind its triangular head.
The snake went nuts. It writhed and flailed, flinging its long body every which way, trying to get loose.
It hissed furiously, opening its mouth wide to reveal a pair of curved fangs. It even spit its venom in a futile effort to free itself. The deadly, milky yellow fluid streamed down Tex's wrist and forearm.
He prayed fervently he didn't have any fresh scratches in the path of that venom, or he might as well have been bit by the damn snake. The venom would get into his bloodstream through the tiniest open wound on his arm.
If that happened, it was lights out for him. He'd go into convulsions in a matter of seconds and stop breathing within thirty minutes or so. An eyelash viper was not a snake to be messed with lightly.
The snake's whole body whipped about, its tail wrapping around Tex's upper arm in a powerful grasp. The thing had to be a good six feet long, and at its thickest was nearly the diameter of his wrist. It was a monster of a snake.
Tex paused in indecision. He had to have both hands free to wrestle with the snake and throw it away from him before it bit him. But he dared not let Kimberly advertise their position to the entire free world anymore, either.
"Kimberly," he panted urgently as he struggled to hang on to the powerful creature. "I need both hands to get rid of the snake. You've got to stop screaming." He prayed she was coherent enough to understand and obey him.
Thankfully she went quiet under his palm.
He grabbed the snake with his free hand, fighting to disentangle himself from its furious coils. Normally he'd break the neck of a snake like this and eat it for supper. But the thing was so damned big and muscular, he wasn't certain he could snap its neck. If he tried and failed, he'd get bit for sure.
When he finally managed, his arms straining, to get the bright yellow creature stretched out more or less in front of him, he threw it as hard as he could. It bounced briefly across the end of the limb he was sitting on, giving him a momentary start.
But then it wriggled and fell off the branch, tumbling through the foliage toward the jungle floor far below.
Kimberly tore at the knots holding her in place and worked the rope free. She flung herself at him. Fortunately he had a foot hooked around the tree trunk so she didn't tumble him right off his perch.
Her arms wrapped around his neck in almost as tight a hold as the snake's, choking him until he could barely breathe.
He squeezed her close against him, the adrenaline shock of waking up and seeing that deadly snake in her lap finally hitting him. His hands shook and he didn't feel all that much steadier than she. That had been a close call.
He took one deep breath and allowed her to take a couple breaths, and then he spoke into her hair. "We've got to go, Princess. Right now. Your screaming will bring every person within a mile to the foot of this tree in the next few minutes."
She looked up, disoriented. "I want to stay here," she wailed.
She was still too messed up over that snake to realize what she'd done. She had no idea she'd just brought the whole damn rebel army down on top of their heads.
He didn't waste any breath explaining to her. He yanked out his knife and slashed the ropes holding him in place. He stuffed the pieces of rope in his pocket.
"Let's go," he bit out as he started climbing down the tree. She shook her head in the negative and he let out a breath of frustration. They didn't have the time to argue about it, and he didn't have time to coax her out of her hysteria.
He figured if he left her up there alone, she'd come down after him, so he kept climbing downward. He figured right. She scrambled after him, more interested in staying close than in remaining in her leafy perch.
He dropped the last ten feet or so to the ground and looked up. She'd stopped in the branches above him. Her face had one of those looks of frozen terror on it that didn't bode well for getting her to move any time soon. Damn.
"Is it gone?" she asked in thick-throated horror.
He frowned. "Is what gone?"
"The snake," she gasped, searching the ground frantically.
"Trust me, darlin'. That li'l ole yellow snake was a whole lot more scared of us than you were of it. He skedaddled the second he hit the ground."
Still, she hesitated.
"Come on down, Kimberly," he said calmly. "The bad guys will be here any minute. We need to get out of here."
She blinked at him in noncomprehension.
Dammit.
"Kimberly, get your butt down here right now, or I'm going to climb back up there, turn you over my knee, and blister your behind," he barked.
He sagged in relief when she lurched into motion. Ten to one her father had conditioned her into that automatic response to a no-kidding order. The bastard.
He waited impatiently for the long seconds it took her to negotiate her way down the last dozen feet. Please God, let her not flake out on him now. There'd only been a few times in his life when he'd truly needed a woman to come through for him, and this was one of them. He added a specific plea to his silent prayer that Kimberly wouldn't fail him like all the other women in his life had.
The moment her feet hit the ground, he grabbed her hand and took off running. They raced through the jungle like wild animals, leaves whipping their faces and branches tearing at their clothes. There was no time for stealth. They had to get away from that tree as fast as they possibly could.
It was only a matter of minutes until he heard gunshots and crashing noises behind them.
"Oh, my God!" Kimberly panted beside him.
"They've found roughly where we were and are shooting up into the branches," he grunted. "Keep going."
The shots spurred both of them onward. When Kimberly started to lag behind he just barged on, gripping her hand tightly and dragging her alongside him. If she could stay on her feet, he'd provide the forward speed.
He didn't know how long they ran. A half hour maybe. Even he had a stitch in his side by the time they stopped. He was in good shape, but carrying two heavy rifles and bodily dragging another human along at a dead run was taxing, even for him.
Kimberly's breath came in ra
sping gasps. He gave her sixty seconds to catch her breath, then he took off again. He didn't waste breath on speaking and neither did she.
Somewhere in their mad dash, she must have gotten her wits about her after the snake encounter, because she wore a grim expression of determination. She knew this was a run for their lives.
Ten more minutes of running and another one minute break. They kept that up for an hour. Kimberly was staggering beside him, and her breath came in great, wheezing pulls that told him she was done for. He gave them three minutes to rest, and when he set off again, it was at a much slower jog.
His heart still slammed against his ribs, though, and he felt light-headed with adrenaline. The kidnappers were closing in on Kimberly, and the helplessness of being unable to stop it nearly made him sick to his stomach. The guys in Charlie Squad didn't fail. They just didn't.
And he was about to. In a big way.
He wasn't afraid of dying, himself. But he was appalled at the idea that Kimberly was going to die.
Think, man. Think!
There had to be something he could do to save her.
When they'd taken off running this morning, he'd chosen the same direction they'd been travelling all along. He hadn't expected to come this way at a dead run, but the same theory still applied. Somewhere out here was a trap waiting for them.
The fact that he didn't hear anyone crashing through the jungle immediately behind them led him to believe the captors were satisfied to let him and Kimberly continue in this direction.
He looked around, but the foliage was so dense he couldn't see more than a few yards in any direction. They were going to be right on top of the trap before they found it.
He'd been tempted to ditch the rifles during that mad dash away from the tree, but he was glad he hadn't. The weapons gave them a number of options they wouldn't otherwise have.
God, he hated being blind like this. If only he knew what was coming!
* * *
Keep going. If you stop, you'll die. Keep going…
Kimberly repeated the mantra over and over to herself as she ran alongside Tex. It was the only thing that kept her going long after she was completely out of breath, long after her reserves of energy were spent, long after she'd run every step that was in her legs to be run.
When the idea of dying started to sound like not so bad an alternative to stopping, she switched to telling herself that if she stopped, Tex would die, too. It pushed her for another half hour or so.
When Tex finally slowed the pace to a fast walk, she nearly cried in her relief. She never wanted to experience that much agony of mind and body again for as long as she lived. However long that might be.
Chagrin washed through her at what she'd done. Tex had worked so hard to get them a head start, to buy them some time, to plan a smart strategy for getting out alive, and she'd blown it all with one good, loud scream.
It was her fault they'd had to race through the jungle like maniacs. She had only herself to blame for the misery Tex had just put her through. He was only trying to save her life.
Her breathing recovered slightly, even though the back of her throat felt raw and her lungs still felt like they might explode at any second. "I can run a little more if you need me to," she gasped.
He shook his head in the negative and gestured her to be quiet. His pace slowed down even more.
What was going on? She listened intently and didn't hear a thing. They'd long ago left behind the sounds of gunshots and pursuit.
Tex eased forward, moving as cautiously as a tiger on the hunt. She mimicked the way he glided around leaves and branches, slipping through the jungle in near total silence.
Her already overtaxed muscles protested.
Pain is better than death, she told her uncooperative body sternly. But not by much, her pain centers announced to the rest of her brain.
They continued onward for maybe another fifteen minutes when, abruptly, Tex crouched in front of her. She did the same. He gestured her to sit still while he disappeared into the jungle ahead.
He rejoined her in under a minute. "We've got a problem," he murmured very low.
Her stomach dropped to her feet.
"How good are you at rock climbing?" he asked.
She blinked. "Not. I've never done it."
"Well, you may be about to get a crash course," he commented. "Come with me."
"What's going on?" she murmured as she hustled to keep up with him.
"The rebels have chased us into a box canyon. We must've passed the entrance a while back while we were running like bats out of hell."
Box canyon. She remembered the term from a stray snippet of a cowboy movie she'd caught a very long time ago. It had to do with dead ends and being trapped with no place to go. Oh God.
He murmured, "There's a wall of rock ahead of us, probably a hundred meters high. It looks vertical from here, but I can't tell for sure. Without climbing gear, I don't know if we stand a chance of getting up it."
Great.
"Problem is, we can't turn around at this late date. I'm sure the rebels have the entrance to this thing sealed off in a line of men that's practically shoulder to shoulder. With you along, we don't have even a ghost of a chance of doubling back through the line."
They walked forward for several minutes, each step bringing her closer to her doom. She couldn't believe he just kept walking deeper and deeper into the trap.
Still, this supposed cliff hadn't come into sight. "How far is it to the dead end?" she asked in some confusion.
"About a half mile."
"And we're just going to keep on heading deeper into this canyon thing?" she asked in dismay.
"There's no way out behind us. That's why the rebels quit chasing us. They know they've got us trapped. I won't know if we have a shot at getting out the back door until I see it."
"But if there's not another way out, they'll have us cornered with nowhere to go."
"Honey, we've already got no place to go."
His words were like a bucket of icy-cold water. They froze her brain into momentary shock. In denial of the real issue, she latched on to an odd detail. "How the heck did you see these cliffs through all this brush?" she whispered.
"I climbed a tree and had a look over the understory of vegetation."
"And you can see a half mile away?" she exclaimed under her breath.
He grinned briefly. "Yeah. I'm a bit far-sighted. I'm the spotter for my team."
She didn't ask what a spotter was. Clearly, it took good eyesight to do the job. They had more important things to worry about at the moment.
Then she pushed aside a banana leaf, and there it was. An enormous rock cliff. As he'd described, it started behind them on their left and arced all the way around until it disappeared behind them on their right.
It was jagged and rough, with plants clinging precariously to cracks and crannies scattered across its vertical gray face. It was huge. The portion of the cliff in front of them disappeared somewhere above the canopy of trees far overhead.
They jogged toward it for several minutes, and it grew appreciably larger with each step she took. Finally they got close enough so she could see glimpses of pale blue sky between the looming granite behemoth and the trees growing out of the jungle floor beside her. The cliff towered overhead until she had to tilt her head back—way back—to see the top of it.
Tex thought she could climb that?
Chapter 9
Tex looked grimly at the rock face before them. If Kimberly had been a trained mountain climber, or even an experienced rock climber, it might have been okay. But as it was, he didn't stand a chance of getting her up that rocky face.
He glanced around quickly, looking for any other possibilities at all. This was the moment he'd dreaded. The end game. Now was when he'd have to outthink and outperform the kidnappers if he and Kimberly were to survive.
There was nothing for him to work with. The undergrowth was thin in this area. Nothing to hunker d
own and hide under. The tree-climbing gambit had worked once, but it wouldn't fool their pursuers a second time. Besides, he doubted he'd get Kimberly back up in another tree after her encounter with the snake.
Any second now he expected to start hearing the advance of the line of rebel soldiers behind them.
There was a pile of scree at the base of the cliff stones and debris that had sheered off the cliff face, but there weren't even any boulders big enough for them to take good cover behind if it came to a firefight.
The kidnappers had picked their trap well.
He'd expected as much, given the efficiency of their initial attack at Quantico. He'd just hoped for a lucky break.
It looked like he was going to have to create their luck himself today. He stepped back several yards to gaze up the cliff face, scanning for a route that an amateur rock climber with no upper body strength could negotiate.
Nada.
But he did catch sight of a couple really dark shadows a ways up the face. Caves, maybe?
He stepped back farther, peering closely at the suspicious spots. One looked promising, but he just couldn't tell from this angle. He'd have to move well away from the cliff to see better, and they didn't have time for that.
"Tex," Kimberly murmured urgently. "I hear them coming! We've got to do something!"
He heard them, too. It sounded like dozens of men, beating the jungle methodically as they moved forward. They weren't even bothering to lower their voices as they called back and forth to one another.
He and Kimberly were out of time and out of options.
"We've got to climb the cliff," he announced.
"Climb that?" she squeaked, gazing up at the giant rock face.
"It's that or surrender. Your call."
She stared at him for an instant. He could see it in her eyes. She was weighing the idea of giving up.
And then she swallowed resolutely and turned to face the rock. "How do I do this?" she asked.
Sonofagun. She hadn't buckled under pressure. Pride in her surged through him. Quickly he showed her how to find and test handholds and footholds before committing her weight to them. The first sixty feet up the cliff weren't too bad. The rock was heavily pitted and cracked by erosion, and footholds were plentiful.
