Camouflage Heart (5 page)

“No. No, of course not.” She busied herself with brushing off her clothes.

He liked the way she moved. Even in the smallest tasks she managed to seem efficient and purposeful. He couldn't help but remember the long, slim limbs that had mesmerized him when she'd washed herself in the creek. His body responded enthusiastically to the memory.

To punctuate another corporeal need, his stomach growled, reminding him how little they had eaten. She had to be hungry, too. “We should be able to find
some more food if we keep our eyes open. If not sooner, then when we reach the river.”

She nodded, her features taking on an expression of steeled determination. She was obviously way out of her comfort zone, but no one could ever tell that by looking at her. Her clothes were soiled with dirt, and marred by a couple of small tears left behind by the thorny vines. But she had zeroed in on their goal and didn't waste time with complaining about things that couldn't be changed.

He had to stop keeping a running list of the things he liked about her. Hell, it was pretty much everything. Liking her and doing something about it were two different things, however. “Ready to move out?”

“Absolutely.” She regained her composure enough to flash him a cautious smile.

He really liked the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

 

H
AMID LISTENED
to his men report back, finishing his rice. No sign of the two that ran away. Where the hell were they?

If it were just the woman, he wouldn't have thought twice about it. But the man bothered him. Jamil's prisoner was a survivor. He had made it through malaria, beatings, years in that damn cage where Jamil had kept him like a pet. He could be
halfway to Miri by now. No, maybe not halfway, the woman would slow him down.

They hadn't gone on the river. Omar's men were watching day and night. That was good at least. The jungle would slow them even further, give him more time to act.

He set the bowl down and got up, walked to the crate in the corner. The bombs were ready. They were as powerful as he could make them. But they were no longer safe here. If the man made it out, he could give the army Omar's location. And if Omar was captured, he might give their plan up to save himself.

He called for his men, looked at the two that entered. Good. They were part of the old guard. “You two and your brothers—” he nodded to the taller one “—will take the crate now.”

“To the city?”

He nodded. It was too early, not what they'd planned, but at times like this, flexibility was the key.

“Is Muhammad coming?” the man asked.

“No.” Especially not Muhammad. He had caused enough trouble already by bringing western hostages to camp. “You will go quietly. Keep a low profile. Don't stop at any camps. Take enough food. Don't even stop to hunt.”

“Of course.”

“You stay with the bombs and wait for me.”

He would have to go. That part of the plan would have to change, too. Muhammad was too much of a man of impulse, he saw that now. Omar could have gotten the job done, he was eager enough to prove himself to volunteer for any mission. But if something went wrong, would Omar be willing to sacrifice himself for their cause?

Jamil would have, if he could have been talked into it, but too late to think about that now. Jamil was dead.

Hamid ran his fingers across the top of the crate. He would go. And when the time came, he would do whatever was necessary. First the bombs, to scare out of the country the foreign dogs who supported the current government and its malpractices. Then he would unite all the guerilla groups in the hills—he was making good progress with that—and go head-to-head with the military.

And then his country would finally be free.

 

T
HEY WALKED IN SILENCE
, picking their way over fallen logs and through leafy bunches of vines that were hanging from the canopy, blocking their way.

“This way,” Brian said, wincing at the stab of pain that flashed through his knee every time he put his weight on his bad leg.

The ground was waterlogged, extensive buttress root systems tripping them up, blocking their way.
“Look for game trails,” he told Audrey. “It's the easiest going, as long as you remember to get off them at dusk. You don't want to run into any night predators.”

“Have you ever come across a tiger?”

He glanced back. “The native tribes believe if you speak the word out loud one will appear.”

“Oh.” She looked around and stepped up until she was right behind him.

He hadn't planned on telling that story to anyone. Wasn't even sure what had really happened. But what the hell. What else did they have to talk about?

“Once,” he said, keeping a steady pace. “I think. I could have been hallucinating. I was fighting malaria at the time.”

“Was it after you were captured?”

He nodded. “I was pretty much out of it. The fever was so bad Jamil's men didn't even tie me up. I remember coming to in the middle of the night and deciding to escape. I made it about six feet before I collapsed behind some bushes and passed out.”

“Were you attacked?”

“It was the strangest thing.” He stopped to look at her. “I remember coming around, feeling a hot breath on my face—boy, did it stink. Think dog breath a hundred times over. I looked up into the face of this enormous beast. I thought, this was it, I was finished.
And it licked my forehead a couple of times then walked away.”

She stared at him, her green eyes round. “It licked you?”

“I'll never forget it. He had a big tongue, rough. Maybe he liked the salt in the sweat.” He shrugged.

“Maybe he was tasting you and decided there was something wrong with you and you might make him sick.”

“Could be, although predators usually pick the sick and weak of the herd.”

“True.”

They moved on, and he held a bunch of vines out of the way to let her pass through, brushed off a giant beetle that had fallen on her shoulder before she noticed it.

“Did the tiger get any of the guerillas?”

He shook his head. “They found me in the morning. Never figured it out that I was trying to escape. They thought I went to relieve myself and passed out.”

“They didn't keep you in the cage back then?”

“The first year they caught me, we spent on the trails, moving from one makeshift camp to another. Then we came across the place you saw, an abandoned poacher hideaway. It came with a handful of sheds and a tiger cage. Jamil took a liking to it.”

“Jamil?”

“The leader before Omar. Omar was the one writing by the fire—short guy with the broken nose.”

They walked on in silence for a while. She was probably thinking about the guerillas.

He was thinking about her lips on his.

She was a shock to the system, no doubt about it. He should have felt relieved that she wasn't scared of him, despite his appearance, but all things considered maybe it would have been safer for her if she were.

He would never consciously take advantage of her and their situation, but too much civilization had melted off him over the years, and even he wasn't sure what kind of man had walked out of that cage. He wasn't sure if he knew himself, if he could trust himself. At one point in his life he'd had principles, he had lived by a code. But while in captivity, all that had been replaced by a single objective: survival, for which he would have done absolutely anything.

He fought his way through some bushes and helped her. “We must be nearing the river. The closer we get, the more undergrowth there is.”

As bad as visibility was in the jungle—no more than fifty yards—here they could barely see six feet around them. The tall plants gave a feeling of claustrophobia, putting him on edge, on alert for what might jump out at them.

Thankfully, they didn't have to fight the over-
grown vegetation long. He spotted a winding trail a few minutes later.

“Deer and wild pigs.” He examined the tracks, a jumble of hoofprints pressed into the soft soil.

They still had to duck under vines that hung from the branches above, but the going was a hell of a lot easier.

“How far is the river?” She kept close, careful not to fall more than a few steps behind.

“Just ahead, can you hear it?”

“No.”

“Listen for the fishing birds.”

They moved forward at a good pace, the soil growing soggier underfoot as they progressed. With all the rain, the river probably had been flooding a lot lately. High water would make crossing more difficult. On the other hand, dangerous waters meant less river travel, less chance of somebody seeing them.

“This probably will be the most difficult part. Once we get to the other side, things will be easier.” He tried to give her something to look forward to.

Crossing a river was risky under the best of circumstances. Walking into floodwaters was sheer insanity.

They came around a bend in the trail and the water was in front of them, rolling slowly, brown with the mud it had washed down from the mountains. He
watched drifting wood to gauge the river's speed, looked for white water that would indicate rocks beneath the surface. He picked out a spot on the other side that looked like a good target for landing, considering the current and the thick jumble of plants that covered the bank.

“I didn't realize the river would be this wide,” she said behind him.

“It's the rainy season.” He turned around and found her watching the water, her face reflecting her doubts. He didn't blame her. Nobody with a smidgen of survival instinct would want to go anywhere near that river.

He hunted around until he found a fallen branch, as thick as his wrist and about six feet long, then looked some more and picked up another, about the same. He stripped off side shoots with his knife, then dropped the two poles at Audrey's feet.

“Shouldn't we look for a better spot to cross?” She eyed the rolling water.

If only they had that luxury.

“Can't afford to waste the time. And we might not find any.” He tossed her the rifle then picked a tree with a multitude of vines hanging from its branches and walked to it. “Better get to work,” he called back over his shoulder. “Keep your eyes open.”

They were on a well-traveled game trail used by
animals to get to the river. A prime hunting location for predators. He wanted to be gone from the spot before nightfall. As rare as tigers were these days, it was always better to err on the side of caution.

He climbed the tree, using the vines for leverage, and cut one thick stem after the other. They had to hurry, and not only so they wouldn't become supper for the local wildlife. They had to cross the river while they still had full daylight to guide them. Waiting until morning was out of the question.

Time was tight.

They couldn't afford to waste any of it if they were to save the hostages.

Sweat dripped from his eyebrows. Brian wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve without missing a beat.

Cutting the vines took serious effort, their woodsy fibers hard to sever with a simple knife. A good axe or a hatchet could have done the job in a third of the time. And the more he cut, the duller the blade got from the rough work. He sized up the pile Audrey had carefully uncoiled and stretched on the ground. Should be enough. He climbed down, careful where he stepped.

“Hang on to this.” He picked up a good length of vine and handed one end to her, pulled hard on the other to test it.

Now was the time to make sure there were no rotted sections, or areas where insects and rodents might have weakened the plant. They did the same to the next and the next until they were done, having to throw aside only two.

He sat by the pile and got to work. Audrey settled next to him, her thigh brushing against his when she leaned forward.

Being around her was like swimming in a tank full of electric eels. She zapped his senses, shorted his concentration with every move.

“Can I help?” Her luminous green eyes sparkled in the dappled light.

Go someplace where I can't see you, and take temptation with you.

No, that wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault that he had a hard time keeping his mind and hands off her. He focused on the work in front of them, pushed back the tide of primal urges rising in his blood.

“Like this.” He held the ends of two vines together, made a loop and tied them in a secure knot.

She tried with another one and managed pretty well. He tested her knot. It held.

When all the vines were connected, he rechecked every single knot one more time. Then he tied one end of the line around a tree, the other around his waist, grabbed his pole and waded into the water. The river was about a hundred feet wide; he had more than enough “rope” the get him to the other side.

“Feed the line to me little by little. Hold tight if I slip.” He walked farther into the murky water, using
the pole to probe for holes in the river bottom in front of him.

The silt was soft and slippery. It sucked his boots in, making the crossing difficult.

“When I'm across, untie the line from the tree and tie it around your waist. Use the pole for support,” he called back, then turned his attention to crossing.

He moved forward as fast as he could, not only because it was never a good idea to linger in water—too many nasty parasites that could make your life miserable for a long time—but because he hated to leave Audrey unprotected. The sooner they were both on the same side again, the better.

The water was all right, a few degrees colder than the air. In a few steps he was in to his waist, then his chest and his shoulders. Then the pole no longer reached bottom in front of him. He pushed away from the mud that was sucking his boots in, and began to swim, feeling the line pull tight, then loosen as Audrey gave him some slack.

The closer he got to the middle, the stronger the current grew. He let go of the pole and put everything he had into swimming, careful with the debris the river carried. In what seemed an eternity later, his feet touched semisolid ground again, and he was able to walk, losing his footing a couple of times, but making his way forward steadily.

Without the pole, the going was slower. He had to feel out where he was stepping before putting his weight on his foot. He couldn't afford to slip into a hole and break a leg.

But he reached shore soon enough, his clothes a soggy, muddy mess. He fought the plants that reached into the water and found a spot where he could climb the bank, and untied the line while he was catching his breath. Once he secured it to a tree, he waved to Audrey to follow.

The tight set of her mouth betrayed her nerves. Nothing but determination in her movements, though. She pushed herself to complete the task at hand, as always.

He pulled the line with each step she took forward, more nervous watching her than when he was in the water himself. She was doing well, keeping her head up, using the pole. Then she was swimming. He pulled the line, helping her. She drifted downriver, but the line held and kept her safe.

He only took his eyes off her to look for signs of danger every once in a while, keeping his ears on guard for the sound of approaching boats. They were lucky, it looked like she would make it. She was almost at the point where he figured her feet would start touching bottom again soon.

Then a log in the water upriver caught his attention, and he swore, pulling harder on the vine.

“Swim to shore,” he yelled, not caring now who might hear him. She was in more immediate danger from the log than from anyone. If her line got tangled, she'd be trapped. “Go with the current! On your back. Forty-five degrees to shore. Swim backwards.” It was the safest position for someone carried away by floodwaters.

He gave her back the whole length of the vine rope, and she understood, stopped fighting to reach shore where he was and let the current take her downriver, just trying to get across enough so the log would float by behind her. She almost cleared it. The log hit the line ten feet or so in front of her. He could see the patched length of vine tangle in the roots as the dead tree bobbed in the water, rolling in the current.

He pulled on the line, desperate. Maybe he could drag her in log and all.
Come on, baby.
But the vine rope didn't budge. He let it go. If it snapped, he would lose her.

Audrey was swimming for the log, probably hoping to hang on to it until they figured out what to do next.

“Keep away from it!”

It would be too easy to get tangled in the line and the roots. The log could roll and push her under. She heard him and stopped, paddling in place, waiting for him to save her.

He wasn't sure he could.

He rushed forward, blood drumming in his ears. Not many things scared him anymore, but watching her struggle at the end of the rope left him petrified.

He had to come up with something. Now.

She had a knife, but if she cut herself loose, without the line the water would carry her downriver. The current was too strong for her to make it to shore without help. If she stayed where she was, her strength would run out sooner or later and she would drown.

He scaled the nearest tree, slashed at the vines, made another line and ran through the forest. He had to reach her before her line snapped.

He was tying knots as he went, having a line less than half the size of the original ready by the time he reached the spot on the bank that was close enough, yet a little above her. That way he could let the current carry him instead of fighting it. He tied himself out and dived in, not bothering with a pole, swimming for her with everything he had. She swam toward him, both of them careful to avoid the log.

His lungs choked with the water he swallowed, but he reached her. “Hang on tight.” He cut the vine that held her trapped.

The current grabbed on to the extra weight and pushed them both under for a second. They came up spluttering. He kicked with his feet to stay afloat,
grabbed onto the rope, one hand over the other again and again, struggling to pull them in.

The progress was slow, swimming in the strong current with her hanging on to his neck damn near impossible. They spent as much time underwater as above it. But then his feet touched the muddy bottom, and soon hers did, too.

For a moment they clung to each other, standing together against the rage of the river that swirled around them. He barely caught his breath when he heard the spluttering sound of a motor then the next second spotted the boat that came from upriver.

Damn.

He pointed it out to Audrey, took a deep breath, and when he saw her do the same, pulled her under with him. He headed for an overhang of bushes by the bank, going by feel, the water so murky there was no point in opening his eyes. He held her hand tight, came up when he felt the branches with his other hand, pulled her farther in.

“Omar's men?” Audrey whispered against his ear.

Overhanging leaves hid them from view, but they could see the river through the small gaps between branches.

“Poachers.”

The boat stopped and the six men inside looked over the tied-out log. One of them killed the motor,
scanned both banks. Brian strained to hear what they were saying, but couldn't. Then they tensed, reached for their weapons.

He grabbed his knife under the water, knowing there was little he could do if they spotted his hiding spot. They had guns. Even if he threw the knife well and took one out, the other five would shoot Audrey and him into sieves.

But the men weren't looking at him. Soon they all turned their attention upriver. And then he could hear it, too, the sounds of a motor once again.

The boat that came around the bend was smaller than the poachers', but the four guerillas were better armed, holding semiautomatics instead of hunting rifles. The two groups watched each other warily, neither of them saying a word to the other.

For a moment, the tension was palpable in the air, every man gripping his gun. Then the guerillas floated by. Their small boat carried some kind of a crate, covered with tarp. The men were positioned two in the front, two in the back. He watched them carefully, but didn't recognize any.

The poachers waited a good ten minutes before they followed.

When they were out of sight, Brian waded from under the bushes and, once he made sure it was safe, he signaled to Audrey to follow. They made their
way to shore—not an easy task. There was no game trail on this side, the vegetation thick to the point of impenetrable, as the plants fought for light.

He was careful to select the thinnest spot, to bend the branches instead of breaking them, to trample as little as possible. Even when he got past that first barrier, he made a point to walk on moss that would spring back up fast, or on stones, instead of in mud that would leave tracks—in case the guerillas came back later to investigate. Audrey followed his example without having to be told.

Once he was sure they couldn't be seen from the river, he stopped. “Check yourself over.” He turned from her. “Let me know if you need help.” He ran the odd scene on the river through his mind again. It didn't add up. His instincts bristled.

“I'm glad they didn't get into a fight,” Audrey said behind him.

He peeled off his clothes and squeezed the water out, draped them over branches, careful not to put anything on the ground.

“That's just it. The poachers had a better boat and it was loaded. But the guerillas had better weapons. I thought they would attack.” His legs and torso were all right, but he had a couple of leeches on each arm, five fatties on his shoulders where they had sneaked under his collar.

Judging by the squeak that came from behind him, they had gotten Audrey, too.

“Help,” she said.

He turned and found her staring at two big ones just below the spot where her collarbones met. She still had her underwear on, and the soggy cotton tanktop that hid nothing.

“Don't pull,” he said. “Their jaws can get ripped. Anything that stays under your skin ups your chances for an infection.” A lighter or some salt would have helped, but they didn't have either. “If you can stand them for another minute or two, they'll get full and fall off on their own. It's the safest.”

“Oh, gross.”

“So tell me about your sister,” he said as one of his
friends
dropped to the ground. He kicked it away with his boot, then looked around for food. A profusion of palm trees grew around the river, but it looked like the wildlife had already gotten to them.

“She's great. She's younger than me, very pretty, very wild. And she is brilliant, working on her Ph.D. in mathematics. If she wasn't my sister, I could really learn to hate her,” she joked. “We missed spending time together and she decided to come with me for moral support. She's a teacher so she has the summer off anyway. Trev is always up to his neck in work. They got married last year. Actually, she met
Trev at my wedding.” The last words were said on a tone slightly different from the rest.

He shook the water out of his boots, scraped off the river mud. “Do you miss your ex?”

She gave him a small, wry smile. “No. I still see him from time to time. Trev and he are close friends.” She thought for a moment. “I miss the idea of true love, that it's supposed to last forever through thick and thin. I mean, I know now that the whole thing is just a fantasy. A couple is just two people, and people change, and sometimes they change in different directions. I guess I miss the innocence of believing that happily-ever-after is possible. My parents are divorced. I always swore that would never happen to me. I hate failing.”

He could understand that sentiment. Brian shook out his pants and put them back on. “My father used to say romance was invented by greeting card companies and Hollywood to sell merchandise.”

Pain was real, as was violence, the old man had said, and the struggle for survival. There were hormones and pheromones, and good old-fashioned primal sexual instinct, but that was all. Everything else was just stuff people deluded themselves into believing.

His parents had cared for each other and that made for a decent marriage and a fine home for him. But whatever their marriage had been before his father had gone off to war, it was certainly no passionate
love affair after. The war had changed him, he used to say. It had changed both of them.

“Here we go.”

Her leeches fell off almost at the same time as most of his, and she skipped to step away from them. She reached for the spot on her skin, but he stopped her. “Let it bleed for a while. The blood will cleanse the wound. It'll stop on its own.”

He nudged the last leech on his shoulder, and when it let go, he put on his shirt, just as Audrey finished buttoning hers.

“Aren't you worried about blood loss?” She looked at him.