by Cindy Dees
She eased very gradually onto her back. An arm came through the slit. A leg came through awkwardly. An exclamation came from inside from a few male voices, not as if someone was sending up an alarm, but more as if they’d seen something that surprised them.
Sunny rolled through the slit all in a rush, bowling him over. She drew breath as if to speak, and he pressed a finger across her lips. She nodded and scrambled off him. He stood up and immediately swayed violently.
Ever perceptive, Sunny slipped a shoulder under his armpit and guided him away from the tent. She turned toward the path that snaked away toward the water, and he shook his head. He pointed south into the brush.
She frowned but went along as he started moving in that direction. The Russians would assume he and Sunny would make a beeline for the shore. And if he could’ve run for squat, he would have. But no way could he run the mile or so back to the shore without passing out and stranding Sunny out here no closer to real rescue than before.
The good news about making their way through the tangle of weeds and thorns was they had to go slow. Really slow. Almost, but not quite, slow enough for him to breathe.
When they were perhaps a hundred feet away from the tent, a shout went up inside it. He and Sunny dropped flat on the ground by mutual, unspoken agreement. There was a lot of noise as a bunch of soldiers went barreling down the path toward the shore, shouting back and forth in Russian. As the voices grew distant, he and Sunny eased to crouches and continued on. Small problem, though. Proceeding like this took significantly more physical effort than walking, and in no time he was gasping like a dying fish.
Sunny tugged on his sleeve and signaled for him to stop. She made breathing motions with her hand in front of her chest. Right. If only it were that easy. He’d spent most of his life taking the simple act of inhaling and exhaling for granted. Who’d have guessed it was not an optional human activity?
When the overwhelming desire to lie down and pass out receded an inch or two, he nodded to her, and they continued. And so it was, a few minutes of careful sneaking cross-country followed by far too many minutes of resting and gasping. Lather, rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.
They weren’t making nearly enough progress nearly fast enough. They had to get far enough away from their pursuers so they could angle toward the shore and the safety of the sea. Although how he was going to get Sunny to swim several miles of open ocean to the Nymph, he had no idea. One crisis at a time. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
* * *
Every nerve in Sunny’s body screamed at her to run away from her captors as fast as she could. But maddeningly, Aiden couldn’t. They couldn’t. And no way on God’s green earth was she leaving him behind. At one point he whispered to her to go on without him, and she cut him off midsentence with a sharp “Not happening.”
She heard, very faint in the distance, a ruckus. It sounded as if it was coming from the direction of the tent. The Russians who’d raced down to the ocean must have figured out that she and her rescuers hadn’t headed that way. Crud. Now the soldiers would come out into the bush looking for them.
How Aiden kept going, she had no idea. He staggered, and she wrapped her arm around his waist. “Put your arm across my shoulders.” He leaned heavily on her, an indication of just how wiped out he really was. The man could barely support his own body weight.
“I think it’s time we headed for the water,” she whispered.
They’d been gradually angling southeast toward the water for a while now. Hopefully, the ocean and safety weren’t far away. But she had no way of knowing. Aiden nodded wearily. The guy looked ready to drop where he stood. He’d been in bad shape when they’d fled their attackers in Djibouti City, but that had been nothing compared to this. With every step he tottered as if he might go down. But somehow, he was managing to stay upright. The man’s courage was incredible. If she hadn’t loved him a little before, she darned well did now.
Were it not for his dogged determination, she would probably be curled up in a ball under a bush somewhere with her eyes squeezed shut, praying for it all to go away. But for him, she had to be better than that. She couldn’t give up. She drew strength from somewhere deep within her that she’d never known she had.
“Any idea how far it is to the shore?” she asked under her breath.
“Too far,” he muttered.
“We’ll make it. We have to.”
He squeezed her hand but didn’t waste breath answering.
She thought she smelled salt water and gave him an encouraging squeeze back. “Almost there.” She was blatantly lying, but the man was clearly on his last legs. Encouragingly, she murmured, “Think how good it’s going to feel to get into the water and breathe right again.”
That got a snort out of him. She had no idea if that was how his gift worked. Would water cure one of his asthma attacks, or would it just drown him? She wouldn’t think about that now. The first order of business was to get away from her kidnappers.
* * *
Sunny was lying to him about being close to the shore, but he loved her for it. Were it not for her, he’d have lain down and passed out about a mile back. He’d had a rough night before he’d even come ashore the second time. And he had no business running around like this even on a good day. He was a fish climbing a tree at the moment, and having about as much success as one.
By his estimation, they had nearly a half mile to go. Unless, by some lucky miracle, the coast took an inward dip down this way. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it had looked like on the radar screen on the Nymph’s bridge. He’d been too panicked by her capture to register much of anything.
They stumbled around a nasty stand of scrub trees with long, eye-height thorns and stopped cold. A path ran left and right before them. Did they dare take it? God knew, it would make the going easier. And the only place a path going east-west could lead would be to the shore.
Sunny was looking at him beseechingly. He nodded to her and she sagged in relief.
“You set the pace,” she breathed.
He moved off as fast as he dared, pushing each stride to be a little longer, a little faster. He still had to stop to huff and puff far too often. But they made significantly faster progress now that they weren’t constantly having to detour around thickets and stop every few seconds to untangle their clothes from thorns. Of course, the minute the Russians found this path, they’d sprint down it to the water.
The two of them had been walking down the path for maybe five minutes, and he could definitely smell salt water close by when he heard the sound he’d dreaded. Shouts from behind them.
“Run,” he ordered Sunny.
“Not without you,” she snapped.
Dammit, she could live if she hit the water before the Russians caught up with them. But as sure as he was standing here, he knew she wouldn’t go without him. Her loyalty, her willingness to put herself in mortal danger to stay with him, humbled him. He owed her a shot at surviving. If he was still conscious and could put one foot in front of another, he was going to keep going. He took as big a breath as his violently constricted bronchial tubes would allow and broke into a shambling run.
Gradually, as muscles completely unused to the motion adapted and his adrenal gland summoned one last burst of energy for his exhausted body, his strides lengthened. Evened out. Found a rhythm. It had been years since he’d actually run like this. He used to run all the time, play soccer and basketball and just jog for the hell of it. But once he’d started the stem-cell therapy, all that had stopped.
In a strange way, it felt good to stretch his legs out, to pump his arms. To race across the ground with ground-eating strides. But he knew the price he would pay for it in about two minutes. Hopefully, that would be enough time for him to get Sunny to safety before he turned and made what would no doubt be his last stand.<
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Chapter 11
Sunny was shocked when Aiden took off running. It had to be costing him unimaginable pain. She took off after him, marveling at his bravery. The ground underfoot became softer, whiter, sandier. The scrub gave way to sharp-edged grasses. And that was definitely the sound of waves ahead. They’d almost made it.
“Voht! Voht tak!” someone shouted behind them.
She swore mentally. They were out of time. The Russians had spotted them.
“Run!” she screamed at Aiden. Whether or not he had any more speed left in him, she had no idea. But she ran for her life. She pulled even with him. Pulled a step ahead of him. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was slowing down. No. Oh, no. They’d almost made it. Just over the rise ahead was surely water.
“Come on,” she spared enough breath to pant.
“You go on. I’ll hold them off. Buy you time.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him forward by main force. “Don’t need time. Won’t leave without you. Both of us or nothing.”
He threw her an exasperated look and sped up once more. Distrusting him, she hung on to his hand as they topped the rocky outcropping.
A sheer cliff dropped maybe thirty feet straight down into the sea. She screeched to a halt, yanking Aiden back with her. Gunfire erupted behind them, and she ducked as bullets flew over their heads.
“Jump!” Aiden shouted.
“I can’t!” she shouted back.
“Both or nothing!”
Damn him. She raced forward the last few steps and, still holding his hand, leaped off into space. God, she hoped the water was more than a few feet deep, or this was going to really hurt.
They smashed into the surface of the water with a deafening ripping sound. Her entire body was jarred as the cold shocked her into a higher, heretofore unknown, state of panic.
Something crushed her right hand and gave a yank on her right arm that all but tore it out of the socket. Before she hardly knew what was happening, Aiden dragged her to the surface. Her face burst clear of the water and she took a gasping breath that was half scream.
“One more breath,” Aiden grunted, “then back down. “I won’t let you go. I swear. Keep your eyes closed.”
It was a nightmare. For the next few minutes, which took an eternity, he dragged her along underwater, surfacing every thirty seconds or so for her to take a breath. It must be maddening to him to stop that often to breathe. Although, he was gasping nearly as loudly as she was. He’d been in pretty horrendous shape when they’d hit the water.
Finally, he surfaced and stayed afloat with her.
“Are we clear?” she spluttered.
“I think so. Can you tread water by yourself for a few minutes? I’ve got to make a deep dive or I’m going to pass out.”
“Uhh, sure.”
And he was gone. She was alone, bobbing in the wide-open expanse of the Pacific Ocean all by herself. The shore was a black hump in the distance, not that she had any desire to return to it and the armed men waiting for her there. Of course, with her luck, the jerks would be on their way out here any second in speedboats to run over her and Aiden.
Worry about him crowded forward. What if he was in too bad a shape to straighten out his breathing? She wasn’t anywhere close to a strong enough swimmer to drag his inert form back to shore, let alone to swim around out here without him for any length of time.
What if he was drowning below? How would she know to rescue him? Should she go under and look for him now? Except the water was pitch-black even on the surface. How was she supposed to see him?
Her panic for him actually overrode her panic for herself, and she turned in circles, trying frantically to spot him. Come on, Aiden. Surface already. The minutes ticked by like hours, and she counted to sixty in her head over and over. Seven minutes. Eight. Nine. Ten.
Oh, God. She couldn’t lose him. Not like this. Not to the sea where he was so at home. So at peace. It was his friend. It couldn’t turn on him!
She needed him. How was she to go on without him? It dawned on her she wasn’t asking that question in the context of getting out of the ocean in the next few hours. How was she to go on with her life without him? He had become an integral part of who she was. He already defined her future. Without him she was nothing. She had nothing.
As suddenly as he’d left, he surfaced beside her. “Miss me?”
She flung herself forward the few feet that separated them. “Don’t you ever leave me like that again!” she cried. He caught her body against his, and she greedily hugged his warmth and vibrant energy. “How are you doing? I was terrified you were going to pass out and drown, and I’d have no way of finding you and saving you.” She was babbling, but she couldn’t help herself.
“I’m fine. I just had to go deep and sit while my body adapted to the pressure and reset itself.”
“You can breathe now?”
“Wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t,” he replied jauntily.
A little too jauntily. She stared at his shadowed face suspiciously. “You weren’t sure going down there would work,” she accused.
“In theory, it should. But I’ve never tried it before tonight.”
“Remind me to kill you when we get back to the Nymph.” She looked around at the endless water. “Speaking of which, how are we going to find her?”
He let go of her with one arm and fished around down by his ankle. “No prob. GPS locator beacon. Steig makes me wear one when I go swimming by myself for a long time.”
“God bless him,” Sunny declared.
“If you don’t object, I’m going to suggest we make our way farther out to sea. Our pursuers will stick close to the coast in their initial search for us.”
“You mean they’re out here somewhere?” she whispered, appalled.
“Of course. But two swimmers make for a very, very small target. They’ll have a hard time spotting us unless they get practically on top of us.”
“That’s not encouraging, Aiden. And I don’t think I can go underwater again.”
“No problem. We’ll just paddle along on the surface. You won’t even have to put your face in the water.”
That, she could handle. They took off swimming toward deeper water. It didn’t feel as if they made any forward progress whatsoever, but Aiden insisted they were making great headway. The black hump of the coast retreated to a thin line in the distance behind them.
Across the water, she heard a faint noise. It grew louder fast, resolving from a distant buzz into the roar of a high-speed boat motor. She reached out and gripped Aiden’s shoulder in panic.
“Relax. It’s the good guys,” he murmured.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I recognize the vibration of that engine on my skin.”
“Good Lord. You really are half fish, aren’t you?”
“Nah. I just spend a ton of time in the water. Over time you start to notice things like that.”
In another minute or so, one of the Nymph’s RIBs pulled up beside them and cut its engines. Steig himself was at the helm. He leaned over the side of the boat and asked casually, “You two enjoying your swim, or can I offer you a ride back to the Nymph?”
She tried not to sob as a pair of men lifted her aboard, but she failed. The night’s events caught up with her all at once, and she shivered under the wool blanket someone tossed around her. Finally, as she completely broke down, Aiden collected her in his lap, where she curled up and let it all out.
As her crying jag wound down, it dawned on her how weird it was to cry like a baby in front of a half-dozen armed, grim-faced soldiers. To their credit, though, they were all looking out to sea with their backs to her and Aiden, and not one of them said a word about it.
The RIB’s prow ran right up onto the swim platf
orm, and she and Aiden stepped out onto the familiar teak deck. She wanted a hot shower and to collapse in bed with Aiden.
But Steig had other plans. He hustled the two of them up to the bridge and immediately passed a headset to Aiden, who donned it, looking puzzled.
The man on the other end of the line was broadcast over a speakerphone for everyone to hear. “Aiden, buddy, is that you?”
“Jeff. Yeah. It’s me. Sunny and I are fine.”
“You scared the bejesus out of us all tonight. Don’t ever do anything like that again without letting someone know where you’ve gone!”
Sunny threw Aiden a dirty look to emphasize his boss’s tirade.
“I hear you. But you know how it is when there’s a woman involved.”
Every pair of eyes in the place riveted on Sunny, and she squirmed as her face heated up.
Jeff Winston was speaking again. “I’ve been yelling at Uncle Sam for the past two hours, and Jennifer’s been pulling strings like crazy. They finally caved in. If you guys look shoreward in about three minutes, you should get a nice show.”
Sunny looked over at Aiden, confused. A grin lit his face and he pulled her over to the starboard window. She murmured, “What’s up?”
“It’s good to have friends in high places” was his cryptic reply.
She stared out at the blackness of the ocean and the night, just happy to be alive and holding on to Aiden. Gratitude at whatever fate had protected them both this night flooded her.
A flash of light abruptly disturbed the blackness outside. A distant orange glow lingered, a low smudge on the horizon. A second flash exploded to the right of the first. This one left a larger orange glow that lasted for longer.
“What’s that?” she exclaimed.
“That’s a predator drone taking out the Russian camp and the pirate vessel they used as bait to lure us in.”
“A drone? I don’t understand.”
“Jeff and his fiancée convinced the U.S. government to deploy an unmanned aerial vehicle—a remote-
controlled airplane, basically—to blow up the guys who kidnapped you.”
