Heart of Fire (6 page)

Rick's mad scheme was a godsend, in more ways than one. Kates had just enough money to finance this crazy project. If it panned out, then he could save his ass. At the very least, being in Brazil would give him a breather from looking over his shoulder every few minutes, waiting for his head to be blown off.

If Rick was right… damn, a deal like this came along once in a lifetime. The gems—especially that big red diamond—would bring in a pile of loot that would make his coke debt look paltry. He dreamed about that damn rock, dreamed about holding it in his hands. It was his ticket to easy street, if he could just get Sherwood to keep his stupid mouth shut. The sister wasn't a fool; from what Kates could tell, she'd gotten all the brains in the family. But she was keeping all the information to herself, and the instructions were written in some kind of code that only she could read. He wasn't worried about her, though. All he wanted was for her to get him there. Then he wouldn't have any use for her or any of the others. He had plans that didn't include them, big plans. He was tired of always being pissed on by the big boys; this was one time when
he
was going to get the lucky break.

The next day Steven Kates showed up at the bar alone. Ben hid his instinctive distrust of the man behind a facade of good-old-boy affability. A lot of people were fooled by his slow southern drawl and seedy, hard-drinking act; it was a useful disguise. Oh, the drawl was real, but people who knew him long enough gradually realized that behind it lay a sharp brain and ruthless determination. He doubted Kates was smart enough to figure it out.

"You nearly screwed things up bad last night, talking to Jillian like that," Kates snapped as soon as he sat down at Ben's table. "She's not one of your cheap whores. Keep in mind that we need her to find the site."

Theresa was working her regular day shift again, and Ben didn't like the way Kates had glanced contemptuously at her when he'd said "cheap whores." She was a warm, fun-loving, sensual woman who adored sex; she was not a whore. He kept his mouth shut, though, because now wasn't the time to get in Kates's face. After they were in the interior, there would be plenty of time to let the jerk know who was boss, and it sure as hell wouldn't be Kates.

"Buttoned-up lady archaeologists turn me on," Ben drawled.

"Well, keep your mouth shut and your pants zipped, at least until it's too late to turn back. Then you can do whatever you want."

"Sure thing, boss," Ben said, and grinned inside, knowing Kates wouldn't hear the mockery in the title. "Where's her brother?"

"I didn't need him this morning. I'll handle this part of it."

Which probably meant Kates was up to something. Ben pulled a pen and sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket. He'd already worked out what they would need and how much of it; he turned the sheet around so Kates could read it. "That's what I've figured for the supplies, and how many people we'll need. We'll go upriver by boat as far as we can. We'll need two boats; I'll line them up today."

"Fine." Kates handed him a brown envelope. "Twenty thousand for ten weeks. If the trip goes over that time limit, I'll pay you the rest when we get back."

"Fair enough." Ben took the envelope and pocketed it. He would count it later.

"I'll be hiring one man myself, someone who has been recommended to me. Now, how do we handle payment for the supplies?"

"I'll arrange for the supplies and bring you the receipts. Then you pay for everything and it'll be released for loading." Ben was highly curious about this one man Kates wanted to hire himself, but he didn't ask. Let Kates think he wasn't interested.

When Kates left the bar, Ben let the door close before he got to his feet. His pickup truck, a ten-year-old Ford, was parked in its usual spot outside the back door. He was out the door and in the vehicle before ten seconds had passed. He circled the building and pulled out into traffic just in time to see Kates getting into a taxi.

He hung back, something that was easy to do in the Manaus traffic. South American traffic, while it tended to be chaotic, lacked the grim purposefulness of its North American counterpart. He rolled his windows down and let the hot breeze blow through the truck while he wove in and out, dodging bicycles and pedestrians and always keeping an eye on the taxi several vehicles ahead of him.

Christus's bar wasn't in the best section of town, but the taxi was heading into the truly rough area. Ben reached under the seat and drew out a pistol, placing it beside him. It was a Glock-17, mostly plastic, with a seventeen-shot magazine, and it was one smooth-working piece. Just one look at it tended to effect an attitude adjustment in unfriendly individuals.

He shielded his eyes with a pair of very dark sunglasses, taking the precaution even though he suspected Kates was so sure of himself that he hadn't even considered the possibility of being followed. Stupid bastard.

The taxi pulled over to the curb and stopped. Ben drove past without looking directly at the vehicle, then turned the corner. As soon as he was out of sight, he parked and jumped out of the truck, smoothly tucking the pistol into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, with his loose shirt hiding it.

He didn't know in which direction Kates would go. He stood by the truck for a couple of seconds, waiting to see if Kates would come by, but he didn't dare wait any longer. When the man didn't appear, Ben strode quickly to the corner, walking close to the side of the dilapidated building. Kates had crossed the street; he was going into a bar, Getulio's, which was so seedy that Christus's place looked like a four-star establishment in comparison. Ben had been in the bar a couple of times several years ago, and hadn't liked the atmosphere. A man could get dead in a hurry in Getulio's.

Well, hell. He couldn't follow Kates into the bar without being recognized, for he'd have to remove the sunglasses in the dim interior. Frustrated, Ben looked around.

Less than a minute later he was the owner of a stained khaki safari hat, bought from a swaggering teenager for twice what the damn thing had cost brand-new, assuming that the kid had bought it rather than stolen it, which Ben didn't. It still wasn't much of a disguise, but it would have to do.

He ambled across the street and stepped aside when the bar's rough plank door opened and two burly dockworkers staggered out. Despite the relatively early hour, neither of them was feeling any pain. Before the door could slam shut, Ben slid inside, immediately reaching up to remove the sunglasses, both so he could see and so his hand would hide his face. Without looking at anyone, he moved to his left and took a seat at the table closest to the corner. There weren't any windows in Getulio's; there were a couple of naked low-wattage bulbs hanging from the ceiling and another couple of lights over at the bar, which was manned by a bartender who looked even meaner than the one Ben remembered. This one was a big bruiser who stood six and a half feet tall—easy—and probably weighed close to three hundred pounds. His left ear was missing.

Ben's butt had scarcely settled on the chair when a sullen-faced boy appeared beside him. "Drink?"

"Beer." He didn't want to give the kid anything to remember about him, so Ben limited his response to that one word and didn't even glance up. He also resisted the urge to look around. He just sat slouched in the chair, doing his best to look sleepy or drugged.

The kid brought the beer. Ben laid the money on the table, the kid's nimble fingers made it disappear, and then he was left alone to nurse the drink.

The glass probably hadn't been washed in a week. Mentally Ben shrugged and took a sip, figuring the alcohol would kill any germs. He shifted his position until he was hunched over, elbows resting on the table, his head dropped forward. The hat shielded his face. Ever so slowly he moved his eyes, trying to penetrate the shadows of the room.

There were fifteen, maybe twenty men there, half of them standing at the bar. No one was paying any attention to him. The conversation was the usual bullshit; the country and language changed, but the bullshit never did. A radio on the shelf behind the bartender blared out some Brazilian rock song. The singer wasn't any good. No one cared.

Kates was sitting at the very last table, his back to the door. Stupid move. But then Ben recognized the other man at the table and realized that Kates wouldn't have had any choice about where he sat. Ramon Dutra would automatically put his back to the wall, with good reason.

Dutra was a murderous thug. He was known to kill for hire, and took pleasure in being as brutal about it as he could. If Dutra was the one man Kates personally wanted to hire, then this was rapidly getting much rougher than Ben had originally thought. What was Kates planning? To leave everyone else dead in the jungle and keep all of the—what? —gold, maybe, for himself. But gold was heavy. One man couldn't carry out enough to make the trip worthwhile, and not only that, Kates wouldn't be
able
to make it out by himself. The man knew nothing about the jungle.

Dutra did, however. He regularly vanished upriver, probably to evade either some other thug or the law. Maybe Kates was fool enough to think he could hire Dutra to do his dirty work, then guide him out of the jungle with the loot before he himself killed Dutra. Probably Dutra was planning on roughly the same scenario, but with a different dead person at the end of it.

This made the situation a lot more serious than Ben had anticipated, and the prim, serious Ms. Sherwood was in over her head. Damn it, how had she gotten involved with a slime ball like Kates, anyway? Her brother, of course. Didn't the man care that he was putting his sister in so much danger? Obviously not, because he didn't seem to have an inkling that Kates was double-dealing all the way. Sherwood thought of himself as a full partner, when he was nothing but a patsy.

Once again Ben thought about bailing out, knowing all along that he wouldn't. Then he thought about dumping Kates and Sherwood while he and the sister did the trek on their own, but he discarded that idea because, for one, he didn't want to throw that much money into a project that might not pay off as big as he hoped, and for another, she probably wouldn't go along with it. She hadn't seemed overcome by his charm.

Not that he'd made any effort to be charming. He'd been deliberately crude and insulting. Well, she was just going to have to get over her distaste for him, because they were going to have to work together to get back from this trip alive and in one piece.

Having seen what he'd come in there to see, he slugged back the beer, wiped his mouth, and slid the sunglasses back into place as he stood. No one paid any attention to him as he walked out as unobtrusively as he'd entered.

Dutra's presence didn't simply mean that he would have to be more alert and take more notice of Jillian's safety; the men he had been planning on hiring would refuse to go if Dutra was one of the party. Now he would have to hire less reliable helpers, and that would increase the danger. There was a fifty-fifty chance that the helpers themselves would be in danger, if Kates was indeed after gold, he would need the extra manpower to haul it out of the interior. A small percentage of the money would keep them happy. Once Dutra got out with the gold, the helpers would be expendable. This sort of theft happened all the time; archaeological sites were continually being looted.

Ben crossed the narrow street and went around the corner to his truck. As usual, it was being swarmed over by a crowd of youngsters. He shooed them off and got inside. Even with the windows down, the heat had built up under the metal roof, but he had been in the tropics so long that he no longer even noticed how hot it was. Sweat trickled down his back as he sat there for a few minutes trying to put the pieces together.

He and the two Sherwoods were the three most in danger, Rick Sherwood less so than his sister. When they got to the site, assuming it existed, Kates would act. If they didn't find anything, then there wouldn't be any danger.

It was a crapshoot no matter how he looked at it.

But what the hell; he liked crapshoots. He hadn't chosen this life because of the safe nine-to-five routine. He didn't have anything else to do except keep Theresa's sheets warmed. Instead, he'd work on warming Jillian Sherwood. Now
that
looked like a challenge.

Jillian went back to her hotel room early that night, leaving both Rick and Kates still drinking in the hotel lounge. Tension was wearing on her nerves; she didn't trust Kates or that man they had hired to guide them, but Kates was financing the trip, so she had to go along with him. The temptation to call it off was getting stronger by the minute, but deep down she really wanted to continue, since she had come this far. If they could just get started, then it would be too late to call the trip off and she could forget about that and focus on the job at hand—finding the Stone City.

Just being by herself was a relief; as she unlocked the door to her room she could feel her face relax now that she didn't have to keep every reaction to herself, guarding every word and expression. Maybe she was in over her head, but she had to remember that she had no other course of action.

She switched on the light and turned to bolt and chain the door.

"Don't bother with that," a deep voice said. "Unless you want me to stay the night."

She jumped and whirled, automatically drawing back to belt the intruder with her purse even as recognition flared. Ben Lewis! Odd that she knew his voice after meeting him only that once, but she did, instantaneously. He was rising from the chair across the room and coming toward her, his darkly tanned face creasing in a smile.

"Whoa, sweetcakes. You could do some serious damage with that thing."

That deep voice was warm and teasing. Jillian looked up into his lazy blue eyes, and fury roared through her, clean and hot; without thought or hesitation she swung the purse like a major leaguer at the plate, hitting him square on the side of the head with it. He staggered sideways into the wall, his face registering complete surprise.

"That's for scaring me," she snapped and drew back for another go at him. "What are you doing in here anyway?"
Whap
! "You broke into my room!"
Whap
!

He threw one arm up to protect his head, and the second blow hit him in the ribs. He yelped as he caught his balance and turned toward her, but not in time to prevent taking the third blow full in the chest, making him grunt. Quick as a snake he darted his hand out, seized the strap, and jerked the purse out of her grip, pulling her forward at the same time. He caught her full against his body, the purse in his right hand, his left arm wrapped around her waist like a steel band. "Good God," he said incredulously. "You've got a black belt in purse attack, that's for damn sure. And here I've been worried about taking care of you, when it looks like I'm the one who needs protecting."

Jillian didn't find his remarks amusing. She put both hands against his chest and shoved, hard. He didn't budge. The wall of muscles beneath her hands was rock hard. "Let go of me," she growled.

Instead of doing as she said, he actually chuckled, his warm breath stirring the hair at her temple. "Now, now," he chided.

"Don't 'now, now' me!"

"What do you want me to do to you?"

Jillian took a deep breath and grimly regained control of her temper. She seldom lost it, but that didn't mean she didn't have one. She said very clearly, "If you don't turn me loose right now, I'm going to bite you,
hard
."

The arm around her waist loosened and he grinned down at her, totally unabashed. "Mind you, if we were both naked I probably wouldn't mind if you bit me, but under these circumstances I'll pass."

She stepped back and straightened her clothing, then ran a hand over her hair, searching for unruly strands. To her surprise, everything felt as neat as when she had walked in the door.

"You look just fine," he said, still grinning. "All prim and buttoned up. You sure had me fooled!" He began laughing.

She turned and wrenched the door open. "Get out."

He reached past her and flattened his hand on the door, closing it with a thud. "Not yet, sweetcakes. We need to talk."

"I can't imagine why."

His eyes sparkled at her acid tone, and he leaned closer to her. His breath was warm and smelled, not unpleasantly, of fresh whiskey. "Come away from the door," he murmured. "Kates or your brother might come up, and I don't want either of them to hear what we're saying. Are their rooms next door to yours?"

Jillian silently studied him, noting for the first time the shrewdness in those blue eyes. Despite the whiskey on his breath, he was sober and in perfect control of himself. Not only that, his comment had made it plain that he didn't trust the other two men, which was very perceptive of him. Instantly she saw that she had underestimated him, but that didn't mean she trusted him now.

Still, she answered his question. "No. Rick is two doors down; Steven is across the hall."

"Good. But just to be on the safe side, let's turn on the television and get away from the door."

He suited actions to words, moving to the television and turning it on. Rapid Portuguese filled the room. Then he settled comfortably into the room's one chair, lifting his booted feet to the bed and crossing them.

She shoved them off. "Keep your feet off my bed."

She had the impression that he wanted to laugh again, but instead he said, "Yes, ma'am," in a suspiciously meek tone.

She sat down on the bed. "All right, what did you want to talk about?"

He didn't answer for a moment, and she read the lazy interest in his eyes as he looked at her and at the bed. He made no effort to hide it, as if he didn't care that she knew what he was thinking. Jillian took her own satisfaction by refusing to give him any sort of reaction.

His mouth twitched a bit in amusement as he hooked his hands behind his head. She couldn't help noticing what a well-shaped mouth it was, wide and clearly outlined, with blatant sensuality in the curve of his upper lip. He was a raffish-looking scoundrel, with his hair tousled and his jaw already showing the need for a razor. His clothes looked as if they had never seen an iron, and maybe they hadn't. His lightweight khaki pants were stuffed into scarred brown boots, while his sweat-stained white shirt hung loose outside his pants. An even worse-stained khaki hat lay on the small table.

But she remembered that cool assessment in his eyes, and knew how alert he was behind the image he projected. This man knew
exactly
what he was doing.

That didn't mean she was going to trust him, or start this talk. He wasn't going to sucker her into telling him everything she knew without revealing anything himself.

The silence stretched between them for a few minutes, but it didn't seem to make him uncomfortable. If anything, the amusement deepened in his eyes.

"Not a blabbermouth, are you, sweetcakes?" he finally drawled.

"Should I be?"

"Well, it might simplify things, that's for certain. Let's start showing our cards."

"You first," she said politely.

Again the flash of that quick grin, but it quickly faded as a rather grim expression crowded the amusement out of his eyes. "Steven Kates is a crook," he said bluntly. "I saw him a couple of times back in the States a long time ago. He doesn't know me, but I make it a point to keep tabs on people. He's pure slime, and he sure isn't interested in going on any archaeological expedition to photograph burial grounds. As soon as he and your brother offered me the job, I figured they planned on doing some looting, assuming that this site is really there and we can find it."

"It's there."

"So you say. What you have to understand, sweetcakes, is that knowing it's there and finding it are two entirely different things. Hell, even knowing exactly where
you
are once you're in the interior is a pretty fancy trick. There aren't any maps or experienced guides, and global positioning devices won't work because of the triple canopy."

"I can get us there."

"Maybe. We'll find out. I figured I wouldn't mind seeing what's so all-fired interesting at this archaeological site, and I figured I wouldn't have any trouble keeping an eye on Kates and your brother. What about your brother, by the way? Do you think he's planning to loot whatever you find?"

Jillian had long since faced the truth about Rick. "Probably."

"Would he be willing to kill you to do it?"

Her breath caught in her throat at actually hearing the words said out loud, but the thought had been needling her for a couple of days now. "I don't know. I hope not, but… but I don't know."

He grunted. "He may figure that you aren't going to do anything to incriminate him, so he isn't worried about you. Kates is a different matter. I followed him today; guess I'm just a naturally nosy son of a bitch. He met up with a hired killer, a thug named Ramon Dutra, and hired him as one of our party. The way I see it, Kates doesn't plan on you, me, or your brother making it out alive."

She could call it off. The thought ricocheted in her mind. It wasn't too late to call it off. There was no expedition without her, though she had no idea what Kates would do if she backed out after he'd spent so much money.

But she might never get another chance to find the Anzar and their Stone City, or the Heart of the Empress. She might never get another chance to verify her father's theories and clear his reputation, and her own. She knew she could find the site. She had the map and the precise instructions, written in code, and she had committed the key to memory. Even if Kates found the map he wouldn't be able to read it.

Ben Lewis was closely watching her. She clenched her hands in her lap and forced herself to say calmly, "What else?"

He rolled his eyes a little. "The men I usually hire are honest and dependable, but they won't go on any expedition that involves Dutra. I've had to hire a different bunch, not as dependable, or skillful, and sure as hell not as honest. With my own men I wasn't much worried about anything Kates could cook up, but it's a different situation now. Since we can't depend on your brother, it'll be you and me against the rest of them. We'll have to call a truce, sweetcakes, and you'll have to cooperate with me."

"Why should I trust you?"

The corners of his mouth lifted in a mocking smile. "Because I'm all you have. Now I've spilled my guts, so it's your turn. Just what in the
hell
are we looking for out there?"

"A lost city."

He stared at her in disbelief before tilting his head back and letting deep, rich laughter pour out of that strong brown throat. "Don't tell me you've fallen for one of those fables that float around out there like pollen. According to the tales you'll hear, there are a thousand lost cities in the interior. You'd think no one would be able to step on the riverbank without kicking a bone, but it just isn't so."

"This tale is true."

"What makes you so sure?"

"My father found the city."

"Did he bring back evidence of it?"

"He died trying."

"So you don't have any proof."

"That's what
I'm
going to get" Pure stubbornness steeled her voice. "I'll find proof that he was right."

"Or die trying."

"You don't have to go, Mr. Lewis. But I am."

"I'm going, I'm going. This is better than a circus any day.

So why don't you tell me about this famous lost city. Just which one is it? I've probably heard about them all."

"It's possible," she said grudgingly. "Have you ever heard of the Anzar or the Stone City?"

He thought about it, pursing his lips and tapping them with his fingertips. Her gaze followed his fingers, lingered on his mouth, before she realized what she was doing and looked away. Had he done that deliberately, to draw her attention to his mouth? She wouldn't put it past him, but she didn't look at him to see if that wicked amusement was back in his eyes.

"Can't say that I have," he said. "Want to tell me about it?"

She quickly told him the legend of the Anzar and the warrior queen, and of her heart, which now guarded her lover's tomb. He began to look bored.

"That isn't all," she said. "My father was an archaeologist too, and he had a passion for investigating old legends like that, to satisfy his own curiosity. All of the others he dismissed as just that, legends. But not the Anzar."

"So what was it about that particular fairy tale that made such a believer of him?"

Anger glinted in her eyes for a second, but she tamped it down. If her father's own colleagues hadn't believed him, why should someone who had never known him?

"Do you know how the Amazon got its name?" she asked.

He shrugged. "From the jungle, I guess."

"No, the jungle was named for the river."

"What about it?"

"In 1542, a group of Spaniards set out to explore the river. It didn't have a name then. There was a Dominican friar with them, Gaspar de Carvajal. The friar kept a journal of what they saw. A lot of it is typical of the tales the Spaniards carried back to Europe: gold and treasure for the taking."

"It pretty much was," Ben said. "When they found it. Look what they did to the Incas."

"The friar told about gleaming white cities and royal highways paved with stone, which would describe the Incan empire pretty well even though it was a lot farther west. It's possible the friar was just repeating tales that
he
had heard. But then the friar mentioned something that was out of place, different from the rest of the stories being told. Carvajal said that they met a tribe of 'fair female warriors who fought as ten Indian men.'"