“We know who you are, Contra pig.” The butt of a rifle connected with his gut and doubled him over. “So does the General. Your American puta, she spread her legs for you, eh? And you tell her everything.”
As he gasped for breath and fought the pain, Manny knew who he was, too. And he was a dead man. And he was a fool.
They let him pull on his pants then dragged him at gunpoint from the apartment. During the long walk down the stairs, he knew something else. He was betrayed.
No torture Poveda could inflict now that he knew Manny was a spy for the freedom fighters would be as painful as that truth.
Your American puta.
Lily.
They could only be talking of Lily Campora of the diamond black eyes and beautiful breasts.
He didn’t want to believe them.
The sheets beside him had been cold.
Lily was gone. As if she had known they were coming for him.
Betrayed.
Tears of anger stung his eyes. No. They had to be lying. He could not bear to think that the woman he loved could have turned him in. But why else—how else—would Poveda have found a reason to send his squad of thugs for Manny and brand him as a traitor?
The things Manny had told Lily in this bed, he’d told no one else. So what other explanation could there be?
He couldn’t think of that now. If he wanted to live, he could not think of her now. He had to figure out how to get out of this. Then he would deal with Lily Campora.
Anger rolled over his heartbreak. Resolve kicked him into survival mode. Talking himself free was not an option. Poveda’s soldiers did not want to hear anything he had to say. He was on his way to prison—if he made it that far.
The Managua streets were midnight dark and deserted as a ghost town. The soldiers hauled him roughly to an open Jeep then took off down the pocked streets.
They’d tied his hands behind his back. The rope cut into his wrists and already he could feel the loss of circulation in his fingers. He was shirtless and his feet were bare. The business end of an AK-47 was trained dead center at his heart and he was running out of time.
He glanced at the soldier riding shotgun in the front seat. Recognized him, though he’d never met him. Garcia. He was Poveda’s hatchet man. Specialized, it was said, with a stiletto and he had a penchant for using electricity to make his victims talk. He particularly loved to use it on freedom fighters.
Manny didn’t recognize the driver but in the seat beside him, a young corporal watched him like a hawk, his eyes narrowed and intent on Manny’s face.
Well-trained, Manny thought. Always watch a man’s eyes. They were telegraphs to his thoughts. For that reason, Manny kept his eyes as blank as white paper. Didn’t let on as the Jeep headed toward the outskirts of the city on the Lago Managua road that he’d figured out where they were taking him.
He’d heard of the torture camp in the jungles outside of the city. And he knew of no one who survived it.
Miles and maybe an hour went by. The city lights grew distant. Up ahead, he saw the glimmer of moonlight off water and realized they were approaching the Rio Tipitapa bridge.
He didn’t so much as glance ahead or to the side. He sat. He waited. Silent. Hunched as if still in pain from the blow to his gut and resigned to his fate. They would soon find out he was far from it.
The city lights were a memory as the Jeep hit a slight incline leading to the narrow bridge he had known was coming up. Manny counted to five then made his move.
With a sharp kick at his guard’s chest, he dislodged the rifle long enough to sway the barrel away from him. It discharged wildly into the air as he stood and leaped from the moving vehicle.
He landed on the cracked pavement with a bone-jarring jolt then rolled like a square, wooden wheel. His shoulder and hip screamed in pain. He forced himself to his feet to the sound of squealing tires and guttural shouts.
He didn’t wait to see if the soldiers had drawn on him. Off balance with his hands tied, he vaulted to the stone rail of the bridge. Without a backward glance, he launched himself toward the Tipitapa, flowing fifteen feet below.
The night exploded in a hail of gunfire just before he hit the surface of the rapidly running river. The cold and the current sucked him under and he shot toward the riverbed like a bullet.
He sank like a stone, found the silty bottom with his feet and praying he had the lung power, pushed off.
He surfaced on a gasping breath. Shook the water from his eyes and for the first time since Poveda’s men had shattered his sleep and his illusions about Lily, he found something to smile about. The swift running current had already carried him fifty yards downriver from the bridge. There was no way they could spot him in the inky black night.
His smile was short-lived. The current sucked him under in a vortex of speed and darkness. Without the use of his arms, the river rolled him like a deadhead—a water logged stump—spinning him out of control. The harder he fought, the deeper the river took him.
He forced himself to relax, to sink to the bottom again then he pushed off with a prayer. He broke the surface with a gasp, coughing muddy water and sucking air. He was a good hundred yards downriver now and the jungle had thickened, closing in on the meandering river as the current flowed toward Lago, Nicaragua, a hundred miles down stream.
It wasn’t until his third trip down that he figured out what to do. The only way to fight the current and gravity was to go with it. When he surfaced, he spread his legs, used them as rudders and rode the river.
With concentrated effort, he let himself be a log instead of fighting that fact that he was one. Logs float. So he floated. Coughing and spitting and gasping for air. Sometimes on his back. Sometimes on his belly. However the Tipitapa wanted him. But always with an eye toward the shore and an opportunity to beach himself.
He didn’t know how long he drifted like that. Long enough that his strength was fading fast. And he suspected he knew the reason why.
One of the soldiers had gotten lucky. As Manny was freefalling off the bridge, he’d felt the round connect with his shoulder. Felt the slice and the burn.
And now he felt the effect of the blood loss.
Light-headedness. Fatigue. And for the first time, dis-orientation.
A wave of darkness hit him and he went under again. He battled the urge to fight it. Slowly let himself surface and grabbed the breath he desperately needed. He fought to stay conscious. Fought the chills that overtook him. Made himself stay relaxed so he wouldn’t sink like a stone again.
And then he was fighting something that snagged at his legs. Grabbed at his feet.
Panic hit before understanding. The Tipitapa was home to any number of night stalkers—including bull sharks, the only freshwater sharks in the world. And if the sharks didn’t get him, there was a good chance a bush-master would. He’d never tangled with the large pit viper whose venomous bit could kill a man in minutes. He prayed to God he wouldn’t have to now. It was a battle he could never win.
He kicked for his life and managed only to become more entangled. And that’s when it hit him. Brush. He’d hid a patch of brush. Which could mean shore. Or a downed tree.
A tree he decided. It was branches, not a shark or a snake that had latched onto his pant legs and ended his free float down the river.
He was saved. And yet this saving grace could kill him. If he couldn’t figure a way to break free, yet use the tree to keep him from floating away, he’d eventually be sucked under again. Each time he’d gone down, it had become harder to come up. He strongly suspected he had very few resurrections left in him.
Drawing from the last of his reservoir of strength, he dug deep and threw a leg over what felt like a stout arm of the tree. When he felt a connection, he clamped his thighs together like a vice and put his weight into righting himself.
He teetered precariously, the river flowing around his hips, strong and determined to knock him from his perch.
But he hung on.
>
Panting for breath.
Fighting the pain that screamed through his arm.
Clinging to consciousness.
Determined not to fall.
No way was he going back into that spin cycle. This, he understood, was his last chance. If he fell back into the water, he was done.
He shook his head, cleared the cobwebs. Struggling with balance as he straddled the tree, he tried to orient himself to his position. The night was dark but a sliver of a moon shined across the rippling water. He could actually see the riverbank. See the roots of the downed madrono tree that held him, the base of the trunk as it disappeared into the water some thirty feet away.
Thirty feet that separated him from drowning.
On a bracing breath, he leaned back, just far enough so he could reach the tree with his hands, gain a measure of balance. Now, if he could only feel his hands.
Inch by cautious inch, he pushed forward, his eyes on the bank, his mind blank of anything but reaching his goal.
He didn’t think of the pain. He didn’t think about falling. He didn’t think about the heat of the night—and yet he was shivering. Shock, most likely. Blood loss.
Most of all, he didn’t think about Lily. To think of her would make him weak. To think of her betrayal would make him want to die.
So he pressed forward at a snail’s pace. It felt like years. A century passed as mosquitoes bit him incessantly and night creatures slithered along the bank and brushed against his bare feet.
Finally, his toes touched mud.
Thank God. He’d reached the bank. Barely conscious now, propelled by muscle memory and guts he threw his leg over the log—and fell up to his chest in water and muck.
He sucked in a gasping breath when the cool water rushed over the inside thighs scraped raw from grating across the madrono bark. His arm throbbed and ached like someone had nailed him with a branding iron.
He had no feeling in his hands. No real conception of how he’d gotten there as he half-stumbled, half-crawled his way out of the water and up the muddy bank.
Where he collapsed. Facedown. Covered in muck.
He passed out cold—and dreamed fitful dreams of Lily. Of the first time he’d seen her beautiful, treacherous face. The first time they’d made love.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Halftitle
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Epilogue
Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 04] Page 29
