Why did paradise always come with thorns?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RAGGED CLOUDS COVERED the sky and there was a hint of rain in the air as they crossed the beach. Max tapped Miki’s arm, directing her through two rocks half-hidden by thick hibiscus bushes. He saw her eyes widen when he pushed aside the heavy branches and pointed out stone steps descending between the rocks.
Max took point, blooms dropping like bright rain as he followed the moss-covered steps underground. An earlier reconnaissance team had found a dozen tunnels scattered over the island, and this one would lead them back very close to Dutch’s resting place. Once they were underground, Max restored the wall of greenery to its original appearance and waited for Miki to pass. He didn’t miss her slow step and occasional clumsiness.
It was his job to assess field situations and evaluate threats. Where people were concerned he had an innate skepticism that had been heavily reinforced by his military experiences. He had to remain suspicious until he had an explanation for Truman’s alert, even if instinct told him she had been pulled in blind and had no knowledge of Cruz’s stolen guidance system.
He couldn’t risk being wrong.
If she made the slightest hostile move, he would immobilize her without a qualm.
Truman trotted ahead of them, sure-footed in spite of deep shadows. When Miki stumbled, Max raised his Mini Maglite to give her more light and took her good arm. Despite her obvious exhaustion, she managed a smile and plunged gamely after Truman.
Max took a deep breath. He had always liked women with guts.
Suddenly the Lab reappeared, shooting straight toward Max. He stopped short and sat down at Max’s feet, head cocked.
Danger.
Something moved in the tunnel beyond them. Max tracked his light around the tunnel through dust that whirled up in random patterns. Small rodent eyes flashed across the floor. He felt Miki start and then draw back.
But Truman wouldn’t signal for a few rats. Silently, Max eased out his .45 and thumbed off the safety, careful to keep the woman to his left, out of his range of fire. Well trained, Truman had already inched to the left for the same reason.
The faintest breeze whispered around them. Truman growled again, ears flat to his head, back tense. Max leveled the gun, focused on locating Cruz’s energy signature.
A current of air brushed his cheek as something dropped from the ceiling, hitting his shoulders. Max had a quick impression of muscle and cold skin before he flung the thing against the stone wall. Shadows rippled, and a black snake with orange stripes tumbled to the floor.
“Stay back,” he hissed to Miki. Then he patted his leg, signaling Truman to heel.
But the big dog stayed right where it was, in full defensive mode, trained to defend at any cost even when ordered back to safety. Max felt something tighten in his chest at the sight of the dog’s unflinching loyalty.
Before he knew it, Miki pushed past him. The parachute flared out, shimmering ghostly white in the beam of his flashlight.
“What the hell are you—” Max stopped. A second black shape slid along the edge of the parachute, within striking distance of Truman. The snake raised its head, its tongue flickering as it tested the air.
“Truman, freeze.” Max gave the low, harsh order as the dog growled loudly. The snake slithered across the tunnel floor and stopped within inches of the snarling Lab. The flat, triangular head weaved back and forth, poised to strike.
“Don’t move, buddy.” Max’s voice was soothing. “Freeze,” he repeated.
Truman stood frozen.
Finally the snake vanished under the nylon parachute. A muscle twitched at Max’s jaw and he released a breath, flipping on the safety of his .45.
“Truman, heel.”
The dog looked back, then turned toward the parachute, as if determined to defend against a further attack. Max patted his leg again. “Truman, heel.”
This time the Lab bounded closer. Once the dog was safely out of range, Max grabbed a stick and flipped the nylon closed, twisting the ends together in a knot so that the snakes were caught inside, writhing madly but safely out of range. In two minutes he had dumped them outside and carried the parachute back, while Miki watched him wide-eyed.
“Your dog is amazing,” she said quietly. “He didn’t back down even when you called him. He could have been killed—assuming that pair was poisonous.”
“Definitely poisonous.” Max leaned down to pat Truman’s head. “Nice alert, buddy.” He chuckled as Truman’s tail banged his face.
Miki knelt, too, but kept her distance, avoiding Truman’s eyes while speaking softly. It was exactly the way to approach an unfamiliar dog, and Max wondered how she knew the drill so well.
The big Lab approached slowly, sniffed her arm, then lapped at her hand. When Miki didn’t move, he bumped her side and whimpered, licking her face.
“Good dog.” Miki laughed, scratching the dog’s ears until Truman huffed in pleasure. “Big, brave guy,” she said huskily. “Nothing scares you, does it? How could I have been so stupid about you?”
Her voice was soft, her hands gentle and soothing.
Truman pressed against her leg, yawned and scratched behind one ear, then trotted toward Max and waited, ears alert.
Max pointed and the dog shot forward into the shadows. Max pulled a spider web out of Miki’s hair. “You could probably do without this. And thanks for picking up that other snake.”
“It was blind luck,” Miki whispered and Max heard the ragged edge of fear in her voice. “If I hadn’t been looking at the ceiling, trying to figure out when this tunnel was built, I would never have seen the second one.” She touched her face carefully. “Is my nose still bleeding?”
“Looks that way.” He tracked his light over the tunnel floor. “How do you know so much about dogs?”
“I don’t.”
“You know what not to do and how to put Truman at ease. He’s pretty damned picky about strangers, believe me.”
She shrugged. “I told you, my friend trains service dogs. I’ve managed to pick up a few crumbs of wisdom over the years. Kit insists that dogs are smarter and kinder than most people.”
Something slipped through Max’s mind, but he couldn’t pin it down. “She could be right,” he muttered.
MIKI BRUSHED COLD, STRINGY cobwebs off her face and took a quick glance at Max. He was only a few feet away, but he might as well have been on Mars, his attention centered on the shadows around them.
In some subtle way, things had changed between them. She didn’t trust Max completely yet. She would still grab the first chance to leave the island. She was hungry and exhausted and her knee throbbed, but in spite of all those things she owed her life to this hard man.
How far could she trust him when he continued to be suspicious of her? More to the point, how far could she trust herself, when she found herself more and more fascinated by his cool control, broken by elusive flashes of humor and vulnerability?
She frowned into the darkness, watching Truman pace alertly in front of them. Her arm throbbed savagely. “Is it much farther?”
“A few hundred yards.” He glanced over at her, eyes narrowed. “Need some help?”
Miki shook her head. She wasn’t a leaner. She was reckless, stubborn and clumsy, but never dependent.
Her foot hit a fallen rock and she stumbled, throwing out her arms with a gasp. Instantly a hand grasped her elbow, holding her steady in a firm grip like it was the most natural thing in the world. The feel of soft leather sliding across skin reminded her of those unusual gloves that he wore constantly. She didn’t buy Max’s story about chemical sensitivities.
Was it a scar or a deformity he wanted to hide? He didn’t seem the kind of man who worried about his looks, which meant that the problem had to be very serious. There had been no time to see his hand when he’d removed the glove once before. Miki shivered a little, conjuring up pictures of old wounds and mangled fingers with all the graphic detail that came
from being a photographer.
But he had saved her life. She was determined to force some kind of stalemate in their mutual suspicions. Without basic trust, they might not make their way out of this place alive.
She felt him release her arm and move ahead without a word, touching Truman gently. His bond with the dog was another strange thing. Her friend Kit raised service dogs back in Santa Fe, and her four current training animals were beyond amazing, but even she lacked this kind of taut, controlled communication with her dogs. Though Kit didn’t talk about it, Miki knew her friend had been in some kind of trouble recently, and her dogs had been involved. But the trouble had brought a remarkable man into her life. Sometimes life worked that way, hardships bringing unexpected gifts.
Miki frowned, wondering if she, too, would find something positive in this nightmare.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered.
Max looked back at her, one eyebrow raised. “Everything okay?”
“Sure,” she lied.
She wasn’t going to discuss her throbbing arm, her hunger or her confusion with him. She didn’t lean.
When she looked up, they were facing a steep row of stone steps. Max pointed through the shadows. “The door is at the top of the stairs. From there, it’s about twenty yards across the beach. Follow Truman. No noise, remember.”
Miki realized his warning was real. Someone had tried to kill her and there could be more like him out there.
You didn’t hide from the facts, even when they were unpleasant. Miki had learned that rule the hard way, after her mother’s diagnosis of leukemia and four agonizing years spent watching her fade away moment by painful moment. She had hated the x-rays and the needles, the thermometers and taking blood. She had hated being helpless to make things better.
Grimly, she forced the memories away.
When she got to the top of the stairs, Max pointed past a row of bushes. Weak sunlight bathed the beach as the sun went down.
Just another day in paradise.
Beside her Truman sniffed the air, ears raised as he studied a group of boulders above the beach, shadowed beneath high palm trees.
Truman looked back at Max, who made a small gesture with his hand.
Instantly the dog trotted over the sand and vanished.
Another bunker, Miki thought. The island was probably covered with them. But for some reason, she couldn’t move. The sand glinted, too open, too exposed. She half expected to hear another airplane or feel a hail of bullets.
The hand on her arm was firm and reassuring, and Miki closed her eyes, wishing that just once she could relax and lean, letting herself go into those strong arms.
That would be another stupid move, and she wasn’t going to be reckless or stupid ever again. She would follow the wonder dog and the inscrutable warrior and keep her emotions buried where they couldn’t cause any trouble.
Her hands were clammy as she stepped into the fading sunlight. She felt exposed and painfully vulnerable, tensed for some kind of attack. But there was no sound except the wind brushing her face, cool and clean. Only the sea, washing and retreating in calm majesty.
Miki closed her eyes, struck with a sudden awareness of being alive, really alive, feeling every heartbeat, hearing the tiniest sound. She looked around, giddy, seeing colors that seemed brighter and outlines that looked impossibly sharp. For a photographer whose life was tied up in images, this kind of sharp clarity was nirvana, and she clutched every detail in her memory.
Behind her Max shifted impatiently and pointed at the rocks. Miki nodded at him and followed.
“MIKI—IS THAT YOU?” Dutch was twisting on the cot, trying to sit up. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot. Max had brought him from the cave only minutes before, and the trip had left him agitated.
When Max leaned around her to reach for his medical kit, Dutch stared at him in confusion. “Who are you? Where the hell am I?”
There was a faint blue tinge to Dutch’s lips that Miki hadn’t noticed before, and the change seemed ominous. As Max focused his light, Miki noticed that the man’s neck veins were distended. He tried again to sit up, but the movement left him wan and gasping for breath.
Miki took his shoulders and pushed him down gently. “Take it easy, Dutch. Max is a friend. He’s going to help us.”
“Help us how?” The pilot’s fingers twisted, digging at the blanket Max had thrown over him. He didn’t seemed to notice when Max took his pulse.
It seemed like an eternity before Max put his equipment back into the medical kit and offered the pilot water through a straw shoved into his canteen. Dutch drank deeply, then broke into harsh coughing that was painful to watch. Miki was certain that he wouldn’t survive without drastic intervention. Even though Max seemed to have decent medical skills, how much could you do with a few basic drugs and a small set of tools? Major surgery was out of the question.
Miki knelt and took the pilot’s cold hand in hers, talking quietly about the plane, their travels, sports and the weather. Dutch didn’t seem to understand her words, but the sounds made him relax. Finally his eyes closed and he fell asleep again.
Miki stood up slowly. “He’s worse,” she whispered. “Isn’t there something you can do for him?”
“Maybe.” He stowed the medical kit and ran a hand through his hair. “It won’t be easy, I warn you. I’d need your help. But let’s give it a few more hours.”
“He needs to leave now,” Miki hissed. “Get on your radio and call someone.” Her hands shook, opening and closing with anger. “Otherwise, he’s going to die.”
“He isn’t as bad as he looks.” Max’s voice was tight and cold. The subject was closed.
He didn’t care, Miki thought. He was going to go right on with whatever had brought him to this island, and nothing was going to make him deviate from that goal.
“His face is white and his lips are turning blue. Even I can see that he’s not getting enough oxygen. He’s had a heart attack or maybe—”
“It’s his lung,” Max said quietly. “A pneumothorax, probably from the pressure of impact. The airplane crash separated part of his lung from the surrounding cavity, and now his lung is compressed.”
“You knew that all along?”
“I wasn’t sure before. Now I’d say that it’s a high probability.”
“Then do something. You have to—”
“I am doing something. I’m watching him carefully. When the time is right, I’ll do what’s best for him.”
“That’s it? You say something vague like that and expect me to say sure, fine, whatever?”
“Take it or leave it.” He turned away abruptly and pulled off his vest. Miki realized that his movements were slow and awkward, probably because he was exhausted. But she refused to feel a shred of sympathy for him.
She watched him open his pack on the floor and remove a small digital camera with lenses different from any she had seen before. High zoom capability, she noted. Good for distance work. He reached into his medical kit and pulled out a thermometer for Dutch. There, lying next to iodine and gauze, nearly within reach of her hand, was a seven-inch surgical scalpel. One jab with that blade in a vulnerable spot and Max would be incapacitated. If she could find his radio, she could call for help
Impossible. She couldn’t pull it off even if she wanted. With her luck, she’d fumble and end up burying the blade in her own arm.
So much for trying to escape.
She gave an irritated sigh. “Aren’t you going to feed Truman? The poor guy must be hungry.” She walked past Max and held out a piece of jerky, one of the last in her stash. “Here, honey. You can have this.”
“He’s fine. Keep that for yourself or Dutch.” He didn’t move, studying her face. “You don’t add up.”
“What do you mean?”
Max’s gloved hands circled her shoulders. “The scalpel was there. You could have used it. Why didn’t you?”
The scalpel.
Okay, she’d thought about it, and i
t would have been nice to have something to protect herself from another attacker, but the way things were going, she needed more than a scalpel. Mortar fire and a tank battalion came to mind.
Frankly, she wouldn’t have known what to do with the thing anyway. Slash his neck? Drive it into his heart?
She felt nauseated at the thought. Throat slitting just wasn’t in her repertoire. On the other hand, she didn’t want to give him any undue advantage over her. “What scalpel?”
“The scalpel lying in plain sight on top of my medical kit,” he said quietly. “You looked at it, and you could have reached it, but you didn’t.”
“Do you have eyes in the back of your head? How do you know what I was looking at?”
“The camera. I saw your reflection in the steel body.”
It had been a cool, calculated test—and she hadn’t suspected a thing. “I don’t like being watched. Or manipulated.” Miki crossed her arms. “If you keep pushing me, I may decide to use one of those scalpels next time.” But she didn’t meet his eyes and the words sounded flat. So she wasn’t the toughest fighter in the world. This whole situation was pushing her way out of her comfort zone.
She watched him toss a roll of gauze between his gloved fingers. “You expected me to attack, didn’t you? You really think I’m some kind of hostile agent?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” The gauze kept moving, slapping softly against his gloves. There was something hypnotic about the unbroken rhythm. “I haven’t scrapped the idea entirely,” he added grimly.
“Because of what Truman did?” Miki was trying to approach the situation calmly and logically, but it wasn’t easy.
“That and other things.”
“Care to be more specific?”
He shook his head.
“If you don’t trust me, why tell me now?”
“Because things just got a little more complicated.” He stared down at the medical kit. “I’m going to need your help.”
Miki realized the harsh lines on his face came from exhaustion. So he wasn’t a superman after all.
Code Name: Blondie Page 12
