Cradle and All

by Rebecca York

  No one was going to try to pry the information out of me," Jason

  replied evenly, " because nobody realized I had it.

  Abby nodded, only somewhat mollified.

  "I guess you'd better open it."

  "He may have left it with me for safekeeping, but it's really for you,"

  Jason said gruffly, handing it over.

  Abby moved to the couch between her friends .

  Then, with shaky fingers, she slit the seal.

  Inside was a set of dates, contact points, and contingency plans.

  @ 4It says Steve was going to call you if he found oliver at the first

  destination," Jason muttered as he looked from the paper to the date

  window on his watch." This is the fifteenth.

  Have you heard from him?

  71

  "No."

  Abby ran her eyes down the page.

  "Then he's going on to New Delhi. Unless his plans have changed," she

  added in a voice that rose in desperation.

  Noel put an arm around her shoulder.

  "Oh, honey.

  We'll figure it out.

  Abby looked at Jason.

  "Can you arrange a flight for me-the way you did for Steve?"

  "You're not going there alone! " Noel objected.

  ','I have to.

  I have to help him get Shannon back.

  I was so sure I had it all figured out, that Shannon was taken by a

  woman who was obsessed with having a baby of her own.

  But it was only what I wanted to believe.

  Steve tried to tell me the kidnapping was tied up with Oliver.

  I wouldn't listen to him.

  "You were acting on the best information you had," Noel said, trying to

  comfort her.

  "I wasn't acting on information! I was acting on emotion."

  Abby took a deep -breath and let it out slowly.

  "I still think it was Mrs -14amadi. But she must have been working for

  this group called the Indian Liberation army.5' Her voice grew shaky,

  and she stopped abruptly. She'd gone from one firmly held conviction

  to another in the space of a few minutes, and the transition left her

  breathless. If she were one of her own patients, she'd probably

  suggest a good, stiff dose of Valium. But she didn't have that

  luxury.

  She needed to think. And act.

  "The ILA said they're going to contact you with further instructions,"

  Noel said softly.

  "And then what? I can't tell them where Oliver is."

  Abby pressed her knuckles against her lips, then she raise her eyes to

  her friend.

  "Don't you understand? I can't just sit here waiting, not when I've

  wasted all this time. But you could stay at my house in case they

  call.

  Or if you can't do it, someone else.

  "I'll do it," Noel reassured her.

  "Erin and I can work in shifts. But you still don't know if you can

  meet up with Steve."

  "We can call the hotel where he's going to be next but not from here,"

  Abby added quickly.

  "The police have the phone tapped, which is why I asked both of you to

  come over."

  "Tell them we persuaded you to spend the night with us," he

  suggested.

  "They'll buy that."

  Abby gave him a grateful nod and went to make a brief call to Angel,

  who seemed relieved that she wasn't going to be alone.

  Then she went upstairs and threw some clothes into a suitcase,

  conscious that she might be packing for a trip halfway around the

  world.

  "IT'S NOT TOO LATE to back out," Noel Zacharias's words rang in Abby's

  ears as the trio stepped off the escalator at Baltimore-Washington

  International Airport.

  Abby gave her friend a wry grin as she realized what strange tricks

  fate could play.

  "Didn't we have a similar scene a couple of months ago? Only you were

  the one who was going off on the harebrained adventure.

  The difference is, you didn't know you'd be hooking up with Jason.

  They all laughed self-consciously.

  Then Noel reached for her husband's hand.

  "Everything worked out for the two of you," Abby whispered.

  "So it has to for me."

  She clung to that thought during the exhausting eighteen-hour flight

  that took her to New Delhi, India.

  Luckily, she'd been to this country before on a visit with Steve.

  so she'd already had a valid passport and most of the inoculations she

  needed.

  But even before she'd cleared customs, she was struck once again with

  how foreign the environment seemed.

  The feeling of total immersion in another world grew on the taxi ride

  from the airport into the city.

  The very air was different, hot and humid and pungent with the smell of

  exotic spices and something earthy.

  hen she'd asked Steve what she was smelling, he'd laughed and told her

  it was the burning dung the populations used for fuel.

  At first she'd been repulsed, yet it really wasn't unpleasant.

  The foreign odors wafted in through the open windows of the ancient

  Chevy, along with a cacophony of noises.

  The grinding gears of buses and trucks.

  The shouts of vendors along the street.

  The babble of voices in a dozen languages-most.

  of,which she didn't understand.

  Yet now and then a,few words of musically accented English- drifted

  toward her.

  It had all seemed so much safer with Steve at her side to smooth the

  way.

  Today she felt,lost as she jounced along on a seat from which half-'the

  stuffing must be missing.

  A hole that was covered with a coarse blanket scratched against her

  thighs.

  Ljeaning back, Abby closed her eyes.

  She was exhausted by the long trip and the ten hour time difference.

  Alone and fighting a sense of confusion, she tried to will her tense

  muscles to relax as the taxi wove its way through the crowded

  streets.

  But her pulse continued to thrum.

  What if she'd missed Steve?

  What if he'd already left for Oliver Gibbs's other hideout?

  The one in the jungle.

  And what if she had to face something even worse?

  What if her husband didn't want her here?

  She'd acted as if he were deserting her; or as if she'd thought he was

  escaping from reality.

  Would he understand why she hadn't been able to cope with the enormity

  of his conclusions?

  To stop the questions chasing each other through her head, she turned

  back to practical matters.

  Jason had called ahead and left a message to be given to Mr. Claiborne

  when he arrived at the hotel.

  She hoped his words had filtered through the crackling telephone

  connection and the imprecise English of the hotel clerk on the other

  end of the line.

  Abby still had many miles to travel before even that question was

  answered.

  It was a long ride from the airport to the suburb where Steve was

  staying.

  Apparently he'd chosen a location along the route to Oliver's.

  As the sun set, the air cooled a little.

  Looking out the window, Abby could see they had come fairly far from

  the center of the city.

  The buildings were no longer packed one against the o
ther but

  interspersed among cultivated fields with crops she couldn't name.

  She was wondering how much farther it would be when the vehicle finally

  pulled in between tall white pillars, one of which bore a brass

  plaque.

  It was lighted and Abby could make out the words Akbar Hotel.

  The narrow driveway wound through beds of swaying red and yellow

  flowers.

  The building was long and low, with turrets and balconies and a portico

  that bordered a rectangular, reflecting pool.

  As soon as the taxi stopped, a uniformed doorman rushed forward to grab

  the door handle.

  "Welcome to the Akbar, Missy."

  Abby fumbled in her purse for unfamiliar bills and coins to pay the

  fare.

  Jason had gotten the money for her right after he'd arranged her flight

  to Frankfurt and then east.

  He'd also made sure her medical records were in order.

  Abby had realized gratefully that no one else besides her husband would

  have been able to smooth her way so easily.

  Squaring her shoulders, she got out of the cab.

  At least Steve had booked himself first-class accommodations.

  The exterior was beautifully kept.

  The lobby was cool and spacious-an oasis of marble floors, Oriental

  rugs and heavy wicker furniture.

  Yet even first-class hotels had their problems.

  Abby found herself at the front desk behind a businessman from Djakarta

  who became furious when told he didn't have a reservation.

  Swaying with exhaustion but afraid to get out of line, she waited

  twenty minutes while the clerk and a manager straightened out the

  mess.

  Then it was Abby's turn.

  -She gave her name and gripped the counter with rigid _fipgers while

  the woman checked the files "Your room i' s ready, Mrs. Claiborne."

  Abby relaxed her death grip on the polished marble.

  "Has my husband arrived yet?"

  " We were expecting him this afternoon, but he hasn't checked in yet.

  A porter led her down a wide, dimly lit corridor toward the back of the

  hotel.

  Her room overlooked a walled garden where bougainvillea festooned a

  high stucco wall.

  At the base were Queen of the Nile lilies.

  After giving the room and the view the briefest of glances, she drew

  the drapes and pulled off her skirt and blouse.

  In the bathroom she turned on the shower before she could tell herself

  that she was too tired for anything but bed.

  Besides, her breasts ached, and she needed to express some milk.

  It would have been a lot easier to simply let the supply dry up, but

  that would have been breaking one of her last remaining links with

  Shannon.

  When they found her daughter, she was going to nurse her again.

  Twenty minutes later she was feeling clean and a lot more

  comfortable.

  After throwing on a cotton gown from her suitcase, she climbed between

  the sheets of the double bed and burrowed down against the

  airconditioned chill of the room.

  Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, she was asleep.

  FOUR HUNDRED MILES to the west, Amarj it Singh was too restless to

  sleep.

  Too many responsibilities weighed on his shoulders.

  A powerfully built man with dark curly hair and a beard to match, brown

  eyes, and sunbronzed skin, he was a leader who commanded respect as

  much for his intellect as for his size.

  His followers called him the Lion.

  The government had labeled him a terrorist.

  In reality, Singh was a practical man who could order a kidnapping or

  assassination with the same ruthless ease as the bombing of a public

  office building during business hours.

  Singh balled up the communique he'd received a few minutes ago and

  tossed it disgustedly across his Russian-army-issue tent.

  There was still no sign of the American, Steve Claiborne.

  He wasn't in Baltimore or India.

  At least as far as anyone knew.

  He had simply vanished, and that was very unfortunate.

  He was counting on Claiborne to track down Oliver Gibbs and recover the

  lost cargo before it was too late.

  The fall elections were only weeks away, and the shipment Gibbs had

  stolen was his best chance of getting the concessions the Indian

  Liberation Army sought from a government that was deaf, dumb, and blind

  to the plight of the Sikhs.

  Singh stared out the door of the tent at the moonlit sky.

  Ten years ago he'd had nothing more on his mind than his engineering

  studies at Punjab University, but all that changed the day a thousand

  protestors-including his own father-were murdered at the Golden

  Temple.

  The tragedy had hardened his heart, and over the past few years he'd

  come to believe that any means justified the ends he sought.

  He brought his attention back to the present.

  He might have lost Claiborne for the moment, but the man would turn up

  soon-if he ever wanted to see his daughter again.

  "The bird is landing, jathe@r, " a young recruit informed him.

  The Lion rose from the intricately patterned rug that lined his tent.

  The accommodations-a sleeping mat, washbowl, kerosene lamp, and rattan

  chest for his few clothes-were Spartan by western standards.

  But his people were used to a simple'way of life, even if this desert

  stronghold was a recent variation.

  On the other hand, the nomadic -encampments made a strange contrast to

  the modern equipment necessary to wage a successful guerilla

  offensive.

  In the compound, other tents housed arms, medical supplies and

  communications equipment, including radios, Teletype machines, and

  rugged field computers-most of which had been acquired from U.

  S.

  companies through third parties, or had been left by the Soviets when

  they'd vacated Pakistan.

  Amarjit stepped into the night air, which had fallen thirty degrees

  from the 110-degree heat of day.

  The whirling noise grew louder as a Soviet-made helicopter approached

  from the east.

  In the moonlight, he watched the bird land on the flat sands bordering

  the encampment.

  When the blades stopped moving, a woman carrying a small bundle got

  out.

  Sunita, the wife of his youth.

  She was from the city, a woman whose parents had educated their

  daughter almost as well as their sons.

  His hopes had been high when he'd married her.

  Now her use to him was limited.

  Yet perhaps only she could have stolen the hostage for him.

  "Bring them to my tent at once," he told his first lieutenant.

  Ten minutes later, a woman's shadow blocked the light.

  "You sent for me, master?"

  "Yes. Enter."

  Obediently Sunita moved into the tent.

  She was holding the babe securely in her arms.

  "The child tolerated the journey?"

  As well as could be expected for such a tiny infant.

  " The little girl started to cry, and Sunita rocked her gently.

  Amarjit's dark eyes narrowed as he observed the protective way Sunita

  hugged the other woman's baby.

  He could hav
e cast this woman aside when she'd failed to provide him

  with an heir, but he'd kept her around even after he'd taken another

  wife, and twisted her shortcomings to his advantage.

  "You have done well."

  "Thank you, my husband."

  "You can turn the babe over to Veena."