“Lacking in character,” he repeated hoarsely. “You have entirely too much of that commodity. And I have no right to judge anything you decided to do with your life. I wasn’t around there to help you. Hell, no one was there to help you.”
“Stop it,” she said sharply. “I got along fine. I’ll always be fine. I’m strong and I’m smart and—”
“A survivor…” Korgan supplied. “That’s your mantra.”
“And it’s not such a bad one,” she said. “But if it’s upsetting you, go away. This all started because I offered you something I thought you wanted. Again, my choice. I certainly don’t need anyone pitying me.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” he said curtly. “I don’t know what the hell I’m feeling for you now, but it’s not pity. Yes, there’s lust and anger and frustration and half a dozen other emotions. But now I also want to put Zabron on the same death list as Masenak. Maybe at the top of it.”
He meant it, she realized in bewilderment. She hadn’t expected this extreme reaction. “That’s not reasonable. Zabron is just Zabron. Masenak is a monster. And you’re always reasonable. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you.”
“Wrong,” he said harshly. “There are times I’m not reasonable at all.”
“I can see that. Why?” She was studying him, and then her eyes widened as she finally understood. “It was because I was so young,” she murmured. “That’s what’s bothering you. It shouldn’t, it’s not as if I couldn’t take care of myself.”
“Yeah, you weren’t like other girls. I heard you.”
“But I don’t think that would matter to you.” She could suddenly feel her face flushing with excitement. “And that means that I’ve got you, Korgan. If you felt like that about what happened to me, you aren’t going to let Sasha and the rest of those girls be abused by that son of a bitch. No matter what happens with your damn proof of intent, you’ll go after them.”
She could feel his withdrawal. His face was now tight, those silver-blue eyes cool. “Don’t be too sure of that,” he said silkily. “I can’t tell you how I hate to be taken for granted.”
“Oh, I know you don’t. Vogel told me what a badass you could be.” Yet she was so relieved, she couldn’t stop smiling. “That doesn’t make any difference now that I’ve found the one weak link.”
“You’re entirely too confident. You don’t really know anything about me, and I don’t like the idea you think you can manipulate me. I can’t tell you how many times it’s happened before.” He leaned toward her. “The idea of Zabron abusing that young Alisa might have bothered me, but you’re not her any longer. You’re the same woman who broke into my study and caused this major headache.” He deliberately reached out and stroked her cheek. “And who might have told that sad story to touch me or to remind me of all the things you must have learned at the Golden Door. One of them would have been that sex can trump almost anything on the table. You were eager enough to remind me the offer is still in place. Maybe you would have been a better Sparrow than you thought.” His thumb was moving lightly, sensuously to the curve of her mouth. She was suddenly breathless. She could feel the pulse in his thumb pounding against the sensitivity of her lips, the warmth of that touch, the tingling that was moving from the flesh of her face, to her throat, to her breasts. “Right now I prefer to forget that dreary story and think of the seductress you were back then. It has many more possibilities.” His hand was on her throat, his fingers rubbing, lightly, his fingertips circling down to her nipples. “Either way, I’m the one in control of the situation, and I’ll do what I damn well please.”
“Of course you will.” He must be able to feel her heart beating beneath those fingers. She felt as if she were melting. “I’m not arguing about that. It was never in question, and it doesn’t matter now that I know they’re all going to be safe. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
He suddenly froze. “Anything you have to do?” His hand dropped away from her. “Son of a bitch.” He pushed her away and got to his feet. “Damn, you’re good. You spiraled me right back to that fourteen-year-old girl again.”
“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said quietly. “I was never that girl you’re imagining. But I can’t pretend it doesn’t make me happy if it’s going to help me save those students.”
He asked through clenched teeth, “Because you think you’ve ‘got’ me.” He turned on his heel. “No way!” The next moment he was striding into the rain forest.
She drew a long, shaky breath. She hadn’t handled him at all well. She had just been so exhilarated she had at last been able to read Korgan, and what she had seen had filled her with hope. But it was clear that he was wary and antagonistic at anyone realizing he might be vulnerable to manipulation of any kind. That was why what had happened afterward had escalated so quickly and emotionally. Now he wouldn’t believe she’d never intended to manipulate him—that she’d meant only to show him the honesty she’d promised him. Those few moments with him had been searingly erotic. Her body was still taut and ready. She didn’t know what she was going to face when she confronted him again, but she would worry about that later.
Right now she was just grateful that she knew Sasha had a much stronger chance to survive than she’d thought when she’d seen Korgan walking toward her earlier tonight.
Chapter
4
Margaret!
An hour later, Alisa stiffened as she saw the pale gleam of Juno’s coat as the retriever moved out of the darkness of the rain forest. She jumped to her feet and ran toward Margaret as she followed the dog into the camp. “Sasha?”
“Not good.” Margaret wearily rubbed the back of her neck. “Masenak staged one of his horror shows for the parents of an eleven-year-old classmate and Sasha had to watch it. I don’t know how much more she can take.”
“As much as she has to,” Alisa said grimly. “She’s strong and she knows the stakes. She won’t do anything that will get those girls hurt. Just having you there to talk her through it must help enormously. I wish I could be there.” She paused. “Baldwin?”
“Yes, let’s hear about Baldwin,” Korgan said as he came out of the darkness toward them. “After Alisa assuring me that was your primary goal for the night, I’m interested to know what success you had, Margaret.”
“As good as it could be.” She shone the beam of her flashlight on his face. “But you’ll probably want more than that considering your less-than-pleasant mood. Did he give you a bad time, Alisa?”
“He had a few problems with the way you choose your friends. One thing led to another. Nothing that can’t be overcome if we give him what he wants.”
“Yes, nothing that can’t be overcome if you give me Baldwin,” Korgan said. “Can you?”
Margaret reached in her jacket pocket and gave him her notebook. “The location of Baldwin’s tent. It’s on the far edge of the encampment. It’s going to be very convenient for us that Masenak has been distancing himself from Baldwin lately. Since Masenak kidnapped those students, he likes to be close to them in case he wants to bring one or two of them into his tent for fun and games. He evidently thinks Baldwin might either be jealous or get in his way.”
“Trouble in paradise,” Korgan murmured. “And all the more reason Masenak might believe Baldwin would have reason to leave him.” He was looking at the pages in the notebook. “I’ll have a team here by tomorrow evening. How soon can we move on Baldwin?”
“You can’t,” Alisa said curtly. “I told you we’d handle it. We know everything there is to know about that camp. I won’t have you moving in there and getting any of those girls killed. You said that you wanted Baldwin to just disappear, and that’s what will happen.”
“How?” Korgan bit out.
“Sasha will go into his tent and distract him. I’ll give her five minutes, and then I’ll crawl under the back of his tent and take him down.” She grimaced. “Very quietly. I know the location and schedule of all the sentries and exactl
y when they make their rounds. I can have him out of the tent and halfway to the border here within an hour. Sasha will take care of cleaning up the interior of the tent to make it seem as if he’d left on his own. Margaret will fake the exterior footprints and make sure that they lead deep into the jungle in the opposite direction before they disappear.” She looked at Margaret. “When? Soon?”
Margaret nodded. “I told Sasha to be ready after midnight tomorrow night.” She turned away. “And now I’m going to get what sleep I can manage before we have to welcome your team, Korgan. I’m looking forward to the result, but not the interaction. I’ve heard you can be a bit of a dictator on occasion. I wouldn’t advise you to try that with my friend Alisa.” She moved toward the hut. “But I’m going to grab something to eat first. Join me, Alisa?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She glanced at Korgan, who was still staring down at the diagram of Baldwin’s tent. He was frowning and didn’t look at all pleased. Too bad. If everything went as it should, the plan could work, and Korgan would have his decoy to lead Masenak away from the camp. She trusted Sasha, Margaret, and herself, and there was no reason why she should be upset if Korgan didn’t have a similar faith in them. She headed for her sleeping bag. “I ate earlier.” She gave Korgan a cool glance. “It was a banana, and somehow it didn’t sit too well…”
* * *
“Everything okay?” It was the first thing Vogel asked Korgan as he led the team of twenty or thirty soldiers out of the Maldaran jungle the next afternoon. His glance went immediately to Alisa. “Any unexpected surprises other than the one you mentioned on the phone last night?”
“No, and that one might turn into a plus if we handle it right,” Korgan said. “Where’s Gilroy?”
Vogel motioned to the path behind him where a stream of other crew members were carefully transporting boxes of ammo, weapons, and some very unusual drones. “He had to sign off on those weapons as they left the helicopter. Now he’s taking a look around. You said to land the Chinook 47 deep in the Maldaran jungle so there was no chance it would be visible. He wanted to make sure that we could get out with no trouble. He’s used to Black Hawks, and he said this Chinook was going to be one big headache.”
“But you can’t get over fifty teenage girls on a Black Hawk,” Korgan said impatiently. “We’ll be lucky to get them on the Chinook. So Gilroy can just suck it up.”
“Don’t be rude, Korgan.” A man dressed in camouflage fatigues with dark curly hair and blue eyes was strolling out of the jungle. He might have been in his thirties, but he looked younger with that puckish grin lighting his face. “I said that it was a headache. I didn’t say it couldn’t be done.” He shook Korgan’s hand. “But then you always like to hand me the jobs that are most likely to get me killed. Vogel says this one is high up on that list. Masenak and the CIA?” He turned to Alisa and smiled. “John Gilroy. You have to be the rogue agent who’s luring Korgan into this disaster, pretty lady. Vogel let me read your dossier. He’s a little concerned about you.”
“You have a big mouth,” Vogel said sourly. “I just said that you should know everything if you took the job.”
“And so he should,” Alisa said. “No one should go into a job blind. Did I make good reading?”
“Excellent. It was very entertaining.” Gilroy beamed at her. “And you don’t have my dossier, but I don’t want you to go in blind, either. I’m a very good pilot and I can handle a Chinook 47 and get those young girls out of here. It’s just going to be a hassle and no fun for me. But then Korgan makes me do a lot of things I don’t like. I put up with it because he pays me so well that I’m on my way to becoming a billionaire myself in a decade or two.” He tilted his head. “However, Vogel says this time I actually might not mind some of the work connected with the job.” His gaze shifted to Korgan and he asked softly, “What about it?”
Korgan smiled faintly. “Possibly.”
“That’s good enough for me.” He grinned. “I can tell you’re jealous as hell.” He glanced at Alisa. “Did he tell you we were in special forces together when we were young and stupid? Then he decided to become Einstein and I decided to become Indiana Jones. Of course mine was the better choice since everyone knows Indiana is much sexier and more admired.”
“Absolutely,” Korgan said solemnly. “And you don’t even have to think. That was always a plus with you.”
“Ouch,” Gilroy said. “Masenak had better be very entertaining to make up for this abuse.”
“You don’t have to deal with Masenak,” Alisa said. “Not yet. You just have to be ready to get those students away from Masenak and his men. That comes first.”
“I know. I’m not going to rock the boat,” he said gently. “I can wait for Masenak, but I’m not sure that Korgan can. He’s been tracking him for the past two years.”
“That’s too bad. He’ll have to wait. We have a deal.” Alisa turned and was walking quickly away. “I just have to finish up doing this one thing for him with Baldwin, and he’ll be ready to go after those students. He promised me.” But he hadn’t really promised her, she thought. Not until he was sure that she would keep her own word to him. And now this entire clearing was filled with elite, hard-core military types who could probably take down Masenak’s entire army in a single lethal raid. Some of the firepower she was seeing unloaded was both unique and positively deadly. There was nothing really to keep Korgan from using it to take over the operation and go after Masenak now that he was sure of Masenak’s location.
And all she could really count on was that he had been angry at the thought that she might have been abused as a young girl, and she was sure that anger carried over to the brutality now being shown by Masenak. But how would that stack up in comparison with the fact that Korgan had such a hatred for Masenak, he had been after him for years? Just because he wasn’t a monster didn’t mean he would give up a vendetta that meant that much to him.
“Wait.” Korgan’s hand was abruptly on her shoulder, spinning her around to face him. His lips were tight as he stared directly into her eyes. “One. I did promise you. I have no intention of breaking that promise. But I won’t have you ordering me or my men around. Two. I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided that you need backup. You appear to know what you’re doing, so I’m not going to have Vogel designate a team to go in with you. They might get in your way. I’ll send Gilroy.”
“Indiana Jones?” she said scornfully. “No. We don’t need him. He’d get in our way.”
“That he won’t,” Korgan said with precision. “He’ll just make sure that you get out of that camp alive. We’ve fought together. I know what he can do, and that’s why I sent for him. I’m not going to lose our tethered goat because you want things all your own way.”
And he wasn’t going to back down, she realized in frustration. Why should he? Surrounded by all those elite soldiers and equipment, he had all the power; nothing could be more clear. “He’ll obey orders,” she said through set teeth. “He’ll keep up. And if he gets in my way, I’ll blow his head off.”
Korgan shook his head. “No you won’t. That would be entirely too noisy, and you want this to work as much as I do.” He smiled crookedly. “Though judging from your dossier, you’re very deadly at karate and several other martial skills and you might break his neck. But I’ll leave Gilroy to worry about that.” He turned away. “And then you can judge whether he’ll be of any value for yourself.”
“Korgan.” She took an impulsive step toward him. “All this firepower. And those weird drones…I’ve never seen anything like them. I’d guess that this was the experimental model you were using at the palace? And Vogel didn’t set this team up overnight. You’ve been preparing for a long time. Gilroy said two years?”
“A little longer. That’s why I know how elusive the son of a bitch can be. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten.” His lips twisted. “Isn’t it lucky for you that I was already prepared to go in after Masenak when your director had a crisis of
conscience about those students?”
“There’s no luck involved in this. All I have to know is that those men you’ve brought here are the best you have to offer and that they won’t make the mistake of killing those students because you’ve made the wrong choice.”
“It won’t happen. I’ll promise you that, too. You give me Baldwin and I’ll get your show on the road. What time are you leaving tonight?”
“Eleven. That will give us time to grab Baldwin and get everything in place before the camp starts rousing at dawn.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell Gilroy.”
“You do that,” she said dryly as she turned away. “I don’t know how we’d cope without Indiana Jones.”
* * *
Szarnar Jungle
12:05 A.M.
“How close?” Gilroy whispered as he glided suddenly out of the trees beside Alisa. “I’d judge we should be within fifteen minutes of the camp. Am I right?”
“You might be.” She shrugged. “If you’d stayed nearby instead of disappearing every few miles, you might not have to ask.”
“But that would have been boring and no challenge at all.” His white teeth gleamed in the darkness. “I wanted to keep an eye on Juno, and she’s moving very fast. It’s even hard for your friend Margaret to keep up with her.”
She stiffened. “And why do you want to keep up with Juno?”
“Because she’s leading the pack. You and Margaret are wonderful trackers and obviously familiar with where you’re going, but you’re ignoring me. It’s that exceptionally beautiful dog who’s going to tell me what I need to know.”
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