No Reason to Trust

by Tess Gerritsen

  People you love? It filled Guy with a sense of wonder, the thought that he was in love. Though it shouldn’t surprise him. On some level, he’d known it all along: he had fallen hard for Bill Maitland’s daughter.

  It was something he’d never planned on, something he’d certainly never wanted. He wasn’t even sure love was the right word for what he felt. They’d just spent a week together in hell. And in heaven, he thought, remembering that night in the hut, under the mosquito net. He knew he couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt, that he’d do anything to keep her safe. Was love the name for that feeling?

  Somewhere in the night, an animal screamed.

  He tightened his grip on the rifle.

  Four more hours until dawn.

  * * *

  At first light the attack came.

  Guy had already handed the rifle to the next man on watch and was starting down the cliff face when a shot rang out. Sheer reflexes sent him diving for cover. As he scrambled behind a clump of bushes, he heard more automatic gunfire and a scream from the ledge above, and he knew his relief man had been hit. He peered up to see how badly the man was hurt. Through fingers of morning mist, he could make out the man’s bloodied arm dangling lifelessly over the ledge. More gunfire erupted, spattering the cliff face. There was no return fire; the village’s only rifle now lay in the hands of a dead man.

  Guy glanced down and saw the other villagers scrambling for cover among the rocks. Unarmed, how long could they defend the cave? It was the booby traps they were counting on now, the trip wires and the pits and the stakes that would hold off the attackers.

  Guy looked up at the ledge where the rifle lay. That precious AK-47 could make all the difference in the world between survival and slaughter.

  He spotted a boulder a few yards up, with a few scraggly bushes as cover along the way. There was no other route, no other choice. He crouched, tensing for the dash to first base.

  * * *

  Willy was stirring a simmering pot of rice and broth when she heard the gunshots. Her first thought as she leapt to her feet was, Guy. Dear God, has he been hurt?

  But before she could take two steps, her father grabbed her arm. “No, Willy!”

  “He may need help—”

  “You can’t go out there!” He called for his wife. Somehow, Lan heard him through the bedlam and, taking her arm, pulled Willy toward the back of the cave. Already the other women were herding the children into the escape tunnel. Willy could only watch helplessly as the men grabbed what primitive weapons they had and scrambled outside.

  More gunfire thundered in the distance, and rocks clattered down the mountainside.

  Where’s our return fire? she thought. Why isn’t anyone firing back?

  Outside, something skittered across the ground and popped. A finger of smoke wafted into the cave, its vapor so sickening it made Willy reel backward, gasping for air.

  “Get back, get back!” her father yelled. “Into the tunnel, all of you!”

  “What about Guy?”

  “He can take care of himself! Go and get the kids out of here!” He gave her a brutal shove into the tunnel. “Move!”

  There was no other choice. But as she turned to flee and heard the rattle of new gunfire, she felt she was abandoning a part of herself on the embattled cliff.

  The children had already slipped into the tunnel. Just ahead, Willy could hear a baby crying. Following the sound, she plunged into pitch blackness.

  A light suddenly flickered in the passage. It was a candle. By the flame’s glow, she saw the leathery face of the old woman who’d guided them to the cave. She was now leading the frightened procession of women and children.

  Willy, bringing up the rear, could barely keep track of the candle’s glow. The old woman moved swiftly; obviously, she knew where she was going. Perhaps she’d fled this way before, in another battle, another war. It offered some small comfort to know they were following in the footsteps of a survivor.

  The first step down was a surprise. For an instant, Willy’s heel met nothingness, then it landed on slippery stone. How much farther? she wondered as she reached out to steady herself against the tunnel wall. Her fingers met clumps of dried wax, the drippings of ancient candles. How many others before her had felt their way down these steps, had stumbled in terror through these passages? The fear of all those countless other refugees seemed to permeate the darkness.

  The tunnel took a sharp left and moved ever downward. She wondered how far they’d come; it began to seem like miles. The sound of gunfire had faded to a distant tap-tap-tap. She wouldn’t let herself think about what was happening outside; she could only concentrate on that tiny pinpoint of light flickering far ahead.

  Suddenly the light seemed to flare brighter, exploding into a dazzling luminescence. No, she realized with sudden wonder as she rounded the curve. It wasn’t the candle. It was daylight!

  Murmurs of joy echoed through the passageway. All at once, they were all scrambling forward, dashing toward the exit and into the blinding sunshine.

  Outside, Willy stood blinking painfully at trees and sky and mountainside. They were on the other side of the cliff. Safe. For now.

  Gunfire rattled in the distance.

  The old woman ordered them forward, into the jungle. At first Willy didn’t understand the urgency. Was there some new danger she hadn’t recognized? Then she heard what was frightening the old woman: dogs.

  Now the others heard the barking, too. Panic sent them all dashing into the forest. Lan alone didn’t move. Willy spotted her standing perfectly still. Lan appeared to be listening to the dogs, gauging their direction, their distance. Her two boys, alarmed by their mother’s refusal to run, stood watching her in confusion.

  Lan shoved her sons forward, commanding them to flee. The boys shook their heads; they wouldn’t leave without their mother. Lan gave the baby to her eldest son, then gave both boys another push. The younger boy was crying now, shaking his head, clinging to her sleeve. But his mother’s command could not be disobeyed. Sobbing, he was led away by his older brother to join the other children in flight.

  “What are you doing?” Willy cried. Had the woman gone mad?

  Calmly, Lan turned to face the sound of the dogs.

  Willy glanced ahead at the forest, saw the children fleeing through the trees. They were so small, so helpless. How far would they get?

  She looked back at Lan, who was now purposefully shuffling through the dirt, circling back toward the dogs. Suddenly Willy understood what Lan was doing. She was leaving her scent for the dogs. Trying to make them follow her, to draw them away from the children. By this action, this choice, the woman was offering herself as a sacrifice.

  The barking grew louder. Every instinct Willy possessed told her to run. But she thought of Guy and her father, of how willingly, how automatically they had assumed the role of protectors, had offered themselves to the enemy. She saw the last of the children vanish into the jungle. They needed time, time no one else could give them.

  She, too, began to stamp around in the dirt.

  Lan glanced back in surprise and saw what Willy was doing. They didn’t exchange a word; just that look, that sad and knowing smile between women, was enough.

  Willy ripped a sleeve off her blouse and trampled the torn cloth into the dirt. The dogs would surely pick up the scent. Then she turned and headed south, back along the cliff base. Away from the children. Lan, too, headed away from the villagers’ escape route.

  Willy didn’t hurry. After all, she was no longer running for her life. She wondered how long it would take for the dogs to catch up. And when they did, how long she could hold them off. A weapon was what she needed. A club, a stick. She snatched up a fallen branch, tore off the twigs and swung it a few times. It was good and heavy; it would make the dogs think twice. Prey she might be, but she’d damn well fight back. />
  The barking grew steadily closer, a demon sound, relentless and terrifying. But now it mingled with something else, a rhythmic, monotonous thumping that, as it grew louder, seemed to make the ground itself shudder. Not gunfire...

  A helicopter!

  Wild with hope, she glanced up at the sky and saw, in the distance, a pair of black specks against the vista of morning blue. Was it the rescue party they’d been waiting for?

  She scrambled up on a mound of rocks and began waving her arms. It was their only chance—Guy’s only chance—for survival.

  All her attention focused on those two black pinpricks hovering in the morning sky, she didn’t see the dogs moving in until it was too late.

  A flash of brown shot across her peripheral vision. She jerked around as a pair of jaws lunged straight for her throat. Her response was purely reflex. She twisted away and a hundred pounds of fur and teeth slammed into her shoulder. Thrown to the ground, she could only cry out as powerful jaws clamped onto her arm.

  Footsteps thudded close. A voice shouted, “Back off! I said back off!”

  The dog released her and stood back, growling.

  Slowly Willy raised her head and saw two men in camouflage garb towering above her. Americans, she thought in confusion. What were they doing here?

  Rough hands hauled her to her feet. “Where are the others?” one of the men demanded.

  “You’re hurting me—”

  “Where are the others?”

  “There are no others!” she screamed.

  His savage blow knocked her back to the ground. Too dazed to move, she sprawled helplessly at their feet and fought to clear her head.

  “Finish her off.”

  No, she thought. Please, no...

  But she knew that no amount of begging would change their minds. She lay there, hugging herself, waiting for the end.

  Then the other soldier said, “Not yet. She might come in handy.”

  She was dragged back to her feet to stand, sick and swaying, before them.

  An expressionless face, blackened with camouflage grease, stared down at her. “Let’s see what the good Friar thinks.”

  Chapter 14

  Made it to third base. Time to go for that home run.

  Guy, sprawled behind a boulder, scouted out the next twenty yards to the gun. His only cover would be a few bushes and, midway, a pathetic excuse for a tree. He could see the AK-47’s barrel extending over the rock ledge, so close, he could practically spit at it, but still beyond reach.

  Slowly, he rose to a crouch and got ready for the final dash.

  Gunfire splattered the cliff. Instantly, he flopped back to the dirt. This is a crazy-ass idea, Barnard. The dumbest idea you’ve ever had.

  He glanced below and saw Maitland trying to signal him. What the hell was he trying to say? Guy couldn’t be sure, but Maitland seemed to be telling him to wait, to hold on. But there was so little time left. Already, Guy spotted men in camouflage fatigues moving through the brush toward the cliff base. Toward the first booby trap. God, slow ’em down. Give us time.

  He heard, rather than saw, the first victim drop into the trap. A shriek echoed off the cliff face, the cry of a man who had just slid into a bed of stakes. Now there were other shouts, curses, the sounds of confusion as soldiers dragged their injured comrade to safety.

  Just a taste, fellas, Guy thought with a grim sense of satisfaction. Wait till you see what comes next.

  The attackers didn’t delay long. A shouted order sent a half-dozen soldiers scrambling up the cliff path, closer and closer to the second trap: a trip wire poised to unleash a falling tree trunk. But now the attackers were warned; they knew that every step was a gamble, and they were searching for hazards, considering every rock, every bush with the practiced eyes of men well versed in jungle combat.

  We’re almost down to our last resort, thought Guy. Prayer.

  Then he heard it. They all heard it. A familiar rumble that made them turn their gazes to the sky. Choppers.

  That was the instant Guy ran, when everyone’s eyes were focused on the heavens. His sudden dash took the soldiers by surprise, left them only a split second to respond. Then the maelstrom broke loose as bullets chewed the ground, throwing up a storm cloud of dust. By then he was halfway to his goal, scrambling through the last thicket. Time seemed to slow down. Each step took an eternity. He saw puffs of dirt explode near his feet, heard a far-off shriek and the thud of the poised tree trunk, the second trap, slamming onto the soldiers in the path.

  He launched himself through the air and tumbled onto the ledge. Time leapt to fast forward. He yanked the AK-47 out of the dead man’s grasp, took aim and began firing.

  One soldier, standing exposed below, went down at once. The others beat a fast retreat into the jungle. Two lay dead on the path, victims of the latest booby trap.

  Welcome to the Stone Age, Rambo.

  Guy held his fire as the attackers slipped out of view and into the cover of trees. He watched, waiting for any flash of movement, any sign of a renewed attack. A standoff?

  He turned his gaze to the sky and searched for the choppers. To his dismay, they were moving away; already they had faded to mere specks. In despair he watched them slip away into a field of relentless blue.

  Then, from below, he heard shouts in Vietnamese and saw smoke spiral up the cliff face, the blackest, most glorious smoke he’d seen in his whole damn life. The villagers had set the mountainside on fire!

  Quickly he scanned the heavens again, hoping, praying. Within seconds he spotted them, like two flies hovering just above the horizon. Was it only wishful thinking, or were they actually moving closer?

  A new hint of movement at the bottom of the cliff drew his attention. He looked down to see two figures emerge from the forest and approach the cliff base. Automatically, he swung his gun barrel to the target and was about to squeeze off a round when he saw who it was standing below. His finger froze on the trigger.

  A man stood clutching a human shield in front of him. Even from that distance, Guy recognized the prisoner’s face, could see her blanched and helpless expression.

  “Drop it, Barnard!” The command of an unseen man, hidden among the trees, echoed off the mountainside. The voice was disturbingly familiar.

  Guy remained frozen in the pose of a marksman, his finger on the trigger, his cheek pressed against the rifle. Frantically he wracked his brain for a plan, for some way to pull Willy out of this alive. A trade? It was the only possibility: her life for his. Would they go for it?

  “I said drop it!” the disembodied voice shouted.

  Willy’s captor raised a pistol barrel to her head.

  “Or would you like to see what a bullet will do to that pretty face?”

  “Wait!” Guy screamed. “We can trade—”

  “No deals.”

  The barrel was pressed to Willy’s temple.

  “No!” Guy’s voice, harsh with panic, reverberated off the cliff.

  “Then drop the gun. Now.”

  Guy let the AK-47 fall to the ground.

  “Kick it away. Go on!”

  Guy gave the gun a kick. It tumbled off the ledge and clattered to the rocks below.

  “Out where I can see you. Come on, come on!”

  Slowly, Guy rose to his full height, expecting an instantaneous hail of bullets.

  “Now come down. Off the cliff. You, too, Maitland! I haven’t got all day, so move.”

  Guy made his way down the cliff path. By the time he reached bottom, Maitland was already waiting there, his arms hooked behind his head in surrender. Guy’s first concern was Willy. He could see she’d been hurt; her shirt was torn and bloodied, her face alarmingly white. But the look she gave him was one of heartwrenching courage, a look that said, Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. And I love you.

  Her
captor smiled and let the pistol barrel drop from her head. Guy instantly recognized his face: it was the same man he’d tackled on the terrace of the hotel in Bangkok. The Thai assassin—or was he Vietnamese?

  “Hello, Guy,” said a shockingly familiar voice.

  A man strolled into the sunshine, a man whose powerful shoulders seemed to strain against the fabric of his camouflage fatigues.

  Maitland took in a startled breath. “It’s him,” he murmured. “Friar Tuck.”

  “Toby?” said Guy.

  “Both,” said Tobias Wolff, smiling. He stood before them, his expression hovering somewhere between triumph and regret. “I didn’t want to kill you, Guy. In fact, I’ve done everything I could to avoid it.”

  Guy let out a bitter laugh. “Why?”

  “I owed you. Remember?”

  Guy frowned at Toby’s legs, noticing there were no braces, no crutches. “You can walk.”

  Toby shrugged. “You know how it is in army hospitals. The surgeons gave me the bad news, said there was nothing they could do and then they walked away. Shoved me into a corner and forgot about me. But I wasn’t a lost cause, after all. First I got the feeling back in my toes. Then I could move them. Oh, I never bothered to tell Uncle Sam. It gave me the freedom to carry on with my business. That’s the nice thing about being a paraplegic. No one suspects you of a damn thing.” He grinned. “Plus, I get that monthly disability check.”

  “A real fortune.”

  “It’s the principle of things. Uncle Sam owes me for all those years of loyal service.” He glanced at Maitland. “He was the only detail that worried me. The last witness from Flight 5078. I’d heard he was alive. I just didn’t know how to find him.”

  He squinted up at the sky as the rumble of the choppers drew closer. They were moving in, attracted by the smoke from the cliff fire. “Time’s up,” said Toby. Turning, he yelled to his men, “Move out!”