Dangerous Desires (12 page)

“Oh, my God,” Madeline breathed, the words hardly more than a whisper.

“Come on,” Drake urged, pulling her to her feet. “Focus. We’ve got to move. Now.”

Together they sprinted through the undergrowth, pushing through the heavy leaves and vines, running back the way they’d come. Behind them, the sound of di Silva’s men carried across the whispering silence of the jungle.

Just ahead, the undergrowth thinned as it opened out onto the main pathway. Drake pulled Madeline down. “Stay here,” he whispered. “They won’t see you, and I need to make sure there’s no one coming from the other direction.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he shook his head, and she nodded once, her expression resigned. Leading with his gun, he stepped out onto the pathway, searching both directions for di Silva’s men. When he was certain the way was clear, he motioned for Madeline to join him and they started back down the pathway, moving as quickly as they dared.

As they came up on the leftward turn, Madeline suddenly stopped, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the shadows of the trees.

“Down there,” she said, motioning toward the curve. “I think there’s someone coming.”

Drake pulled out the binoculars and focused on the bend, the glasses revealing a second group of men, also armed, heading their way.

“Damn it,” he whispered, more to himself than to Madeline. “We’re caught between the two groups. We’ll have to make a break for it.”

“No.” Madeline shook her head. “There’s another way. We can head for the stream. Use the water to cover our tracks. You said it leads to a river.”

“Won’t work,” he said. “They’ll be able to track us to the stream, which means they’ll know what we’re up to.”

“Not if we don’t leave a trail.” She glanced down at the ground beneath their feet. “Look, the rain’s washed away most of our footsteps from earlier. So if we disappear here, they’ll have no idea where we’ve gone.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” he asked, the sound of di Silva’s men growing closer.

“We go up,” she said. “That way there are no tracks and then when we’re sure we’re clear, we can make our way to the stream.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“The saman trees.” She nodded toward a grove of ancient rain trees stretching down toward the distant stream. “If we use the roots, it’ll give us a buffer between the pathway and any signs we’ve left behind us in the jungle.” She leaped across the path onto a large, twisted root. “Come on, it’s easy.”

The noise level grew as the two groups drew closer. Drake nodded, already following Madeline as she crossed the thick roots of the tree, the ancient wood providing crude but workable stepping stones. Leaping from root to root and tree to tree, they managed to traverse the jungle for fifty yards or so before the enormous rain trees gave way to smaller mata ratons and fledgling wax palms.

Drake stopped to listen. In the distance, muffled by the trees, he could still hear di Silva’s men, but it was obvious that they hadn’t yet picked up their trail. And the vegetation in this part of the jungle was too dense for them to be able to see them, even with scopes or field glasses.

“It might just have worked,” he said, as he dropped down beside Madeline onto the jungle floor. “How the hell did you know to do that?”

“I grew up on a bayou. And the cypress trees that
lined our swamp weren’t that different from samans. My sister and I used to make a game of it.” Something dark passed across her face, but before he could comment, she’d already moved off in the direction of the water. “If memory serves, it should be just up ahead.”

They worked their way forward another ten yards or so, the vegetation so thick here that every step was an effort, the humidity bearing down on them as if it were corporeal.

“It can’t be much farther,” she said, her breathing labored as she ducked under a low-hanging tree branch. “I can hear the falls.”

“Which might not be a good thing,” Drake responded, as he used his knife to cut away the tenacious stems of some kind of overgrown thorn bush.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her brows drawing together in concern.

“Probably nothing,” he was quick to assure. “It’s just that we don’t want to come out too close to the ruins.”

“It shouldn’t matter.” She shook her head. “As long as we can get to the water.”

He nodded, not willing to argue further. Besides, wherever they wound up, it was a far sight better than being caught by di Silva’s men. With a last slice, he cleared away the thorns to push through the overgrowth, Madeline following on his heels.

On the other side, the jungle gave way suddenly to a rock-strewn escarpment ending in a sheer cliff wall rising out of the jungle. Orchids and heliconias clung to its crevices, while some kind of vine stretched upward, its red-veined leaves disappearing into the overhanging trees. In the center, a thin stream of water splashed down from somewhere far above them.

“It’s a dead-end,” Madeline said, sinking down onto a boulder.

“No.” Drake shook his head. “There has to be a way out. Can’t you hear the falls? They’ve got to be just beyond the cliff wall.” He pointed toward the right, as he walked over for a closer look.

“Well, even if you’re correct,” she said, “we can’t very well move through solid rock.”

“Who said it’s solid? There’s an opening here.” He smiled at her and then stepped into what amounted to the narrow mouth of a cave, surprised to find that there was dappled light at the far end of what appeared to be a natural tunnel.

“What is this place?” Madeline asked, coming to stand beside him.

“Hopefully a way out.” They moved underneath the rocks, stopping for a moment to accustom themselves to the gloom.

The passageway was about three feet wide and mostly tall enough for them to pass without bending over. At the end it opened into a wider cavern with three solid walls and the sheer curtain of the waterfall forming the fourth.

“I was right, it is a dead-end,” Madeline sighed, reaching out a hand to cut through the water. “We’ll have to go back and figure out another way down.”

“There’s no time,” Drake said. “By now there’s a good chance they’ll have seen through our ruse with the saman trees, and if they’ve discovered our tracks they’ll have figured out which way we’re headed.”

“So what do you want to do?” She frowned up at him, hands on her hips. “Surrender?”

“Not likely.” He shook his head, resisting the urge to smile.

There was little sign of the cultivated woman he’d first encountered at di Silva’s hacienda. Her hair was matted with leaves and twigs, her camisole stained with dirt and mud. Her shiner had turned a lovely shade of green, and the sweats sported holes in both knees. Any other woman would have been whining and complaining, begging him to get them out of here. But Madeline Reynard was giving him attitude. And quite surprisingly, he found that he liked it.

“All right,” she said, lifting her hands with impatience. “So what’s the plan?”

Drake looked back down the tunnel, satisfied to see that it was still empty. “How deep is the pool below the falls?”

She shook her head, clearly surprised at the question. “I don’t know. I only swam in it the one time. Nine, maybe ten feet? It’s deeper near the falls and then starts getting shallower as the pool narrows and becomes the stream again.”

“And the current?”

“It’s really fast. Almost too fast to swim there. The stream is wider and deeper here than it is above in the ruins. More of a river. Why?”

“Because I think it’s our best way out,” he said, watching the confusion play across her face. “I assume you’re a good swimmer?”

“Of course.” She frowned. “I told you, I grew up on a bayou. But I don’t see what the hell that has to do with—” She cut herself off, understanding dawning. “You’ve got to be kidding. You want us to jump?”

“Yeah, and then ride the stream. It’ll be like tubing.”

“Only without the inner tube.” She glanced doubtfully at the sheet of falling water. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “But I still think it’s our best option. All we have to do is jump, push off the bottom, and let the water carry us forward.”

“Right into a school of piranhas or crocodiles.”

“Crocs don’t school, and even if they did you won’t find them up this high. Piranhas either. The worst that can happen is that you’ll bang into some of the rocks.”

“And drown.”

“I won’t let you.”

Madeline searched his face and for a moment there was nothing in the world that mattered but the two of them—and her believing in him.

Then she shook her head and walked to the edge of the ledge. “I must be crazy to even be considering this.”

“Well, if you’d rather, we can always go back the way we came…” he trailed off, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to resist the gauntlet.

“Fine,” she sighed. “We’ll jump.”

U.S. Military Hospital, Eloy Afaro Air Base, Marto, Ecuador

H
ow’re you feeling?” Nash asked as he settled in the chair beside Tyler’s hospital bed.

“Like someone shot me.” She smiled. “But since I’m lying here talking to you, I’m figuring the prognosis is good.”

“The doctors worked their magic,” he said, returning the smile. It had been touch and go, as the bullet had lodged perilously close to her aorta, but after long hours in surgery, the doctors said she’d make a full recovery.

“So where are we?” she asked.

“Ecuador. It was our closest base. We couldn’t risk landing in Colombia, since technically, we weren’t even supposed to be in-country. And for the same reason, we couldn’t risk using a civilian facility.”

“Hey, I’ve got no complaints. And no memory of what happened after I got shot. Everything’s a big blur. Did you manage to detonate the explosion?”

“Yeah, went off like a charm. Created some pretty amazing fireworks, too.”

“Between my jury-rigging the explosives and the amount of ordnance di Silva had stockpiled, I’m not surprised. I’m guessing the explosions were visible for miles. So what’s the fallout? Have you talked to Hannah?”

“So far the chatter has been minimal, but she said it’s still too soon. Overall, though, she seems to think that it’ll be downplayed. The ruins were fairly remote, and di Silva isn’t going to want to draw any more attention than necessary to what happened. And since his network in Colombia is pretty extensive, I’m guessing that downplaying the explosion won’t be that much of an effort.”

“So where’s everyone else?” she asked.

“Jason’s on his way back to Sunderland to debrief the rest of the team. And Avery’s in an office down the hall. Conference call with the brass.”

“Glad it’s him and not me.”

“No kidding. After everything that went wrong out there, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” Nash agreed.

“At least we destroyed the weapons stash.”

“Yeah, but we lost Madeline Reynard.”

“So what about Drake?” she asked, wincing as she shifted positions in the hospital bed. “Did you guys manage to get him out?”

“No.” Nash shook his head. “I kept thinking he’d show up. But once we blew the stash there wasn’t much chance he’d make it back. And it was probably just as well; the evac was dicey enough as it was.”

“Thanks to me,” Tyler sighed.

“It’s not like you shot yourself.” Nash’s smile was gentle.

“So do you think something happened to Drake?”

“Obviously there’s no way to know for sure.” He shook his head, sobering. “But he’s resourceful.”

“But you haven’t heard anything.” She frowned. “I thought maybe he’d call in after the explosion. When it was safe to communicate again.”

“I had the same hope. There was some static—Jason said it could have been Drake, but it could also have been nothing. Anyway, my guess is that if he did try, the mountains and the jungle would have interfered with reception. Anyway, now even if Drake does manage to find a clear spot, with us gone, he’s out of range.”

“And I guess there’s a very real possibility that even if he figured out a way to try to contact us, he couldn’t. I mean, di Silva’s men were crawling all over the place. We can’t ignore the possibility that he’s been captured.”

“Hannah thinks she’d have heard something. And so far nada. So I’m betting Drake’s moving cross-country even as we speak.”

“Through some really rugged terrain. That part of the Andes is pretty remote. Some of it hasn’t even been accurately mapped.”

“He knows what he’s doing. We’ve just got to keep the faith.”

“And Madeline Reynard?” she asked. “You think he found her?”

“My money’s on Drake. If anyone can run her to ground, he can. Although he might be better off without her. Especially trying to make it through the jungle. Besides, none of this would have happened if she hadn’t bolted. Hell, this whole fiasco’s on her head.”

“Well, regardless of who’s at fault, we can’t just leave
them out there,” she said, reaching for the glass of water on her bedside table. “Maybe we can call on someone in-country. Someone who knows the area.”

“No can do,” Avery said, striding into the room, his frown fierce. “Langley wants the whole thing to stay off the books. As far as anyone in Colombia is concerned we were never there.”

“But we can’t just leave him,” Tyler protested.

“I didn’t say we were going to.” Avery shook his head. “I just said we can’t call in outside help. In fact, I’d prefer that whatever we decide to do, it doesn’t go beyond this room.”

“I’m not sure I’m following.” Nash frowned. “What about the rest of the team?”

“For the moment, I want to leave them out of it, at least beyond generalities. Look, you two are my next in command. You’ve both been with me since the beginning and I know I can trust you.”

“And you don’t think you can trust the rest of the team?” Tyler asked, shooting a questioning look in Nash’s direction.

“I’m not saying that either.” Avery held up his hands. “I’m just saying that something doesn’t feel right here. And until we figure out what it is, I think the fewer people in on it the better.”

“You’re talking about the sabotage,” Nash said.

“In part. It’s definitely something we need to get to the bottom of.”