Hush (6 page)

“I've been called worse.” Zak turned away as his brother moved from the front of the van to the back, but he heard the small expulsion of air as the blonde let out the breath she'd been holding.

“What we got?” he asked Gideon, who was trying the doors.

His brother turned to look at him. “A blind man who never saw what was right in front of his nose.”

Ah, shit.
“Not this old refrain again. You want to speak ill of the dead now?”

Gideon gave him a dead-eyed snake look. “Couldn't speak when she was alive. Can't speak when she's … not. When
will
be the right time, Zakary?”

“How about fucking never? This is hardly the time or the place.”

“Got somewhere you gotta be?” Gideon leaned a shoulder against the doors. He needed a shave, and with his hair scraped back off his face he looked like a pirate. Or—hell—a hero. The role suited him.

Zak touched a finger to the bump on his temple. “None of your damned business. Told you then, repeating it now. Leave it the hell alone once and for all.”

“Was not your fault.”

He had heard this verse and chorus before. About a hundred times in the last two years. “I'll keep that in mind,” he said to pacify his older brother, as he always did when Gideon tried to convince him that he couldn't have done anything to prevent Jennifer's death.

Gideon ran his hand over his mouth in a familiar gesture of frustration. “I wish I could believe that.”

Zak's jaw hurt from clenching his teeth, which didn't help the hellish headache pounding through his skull. “And I wish you'd stop flogging a dead horse.”

Gideon, damn him, never would back down, and now wasn't the exception. “Funny how quickly you forgot afterward that it hadn't been working for a whi—”

“Shut up, Gideon. I mean it. I won't lis—”

“While it's vastly entertaining to hear you two bickering back and forth like two premenstrual schoolgirls,” the blonde said with annoyance, “maybe you could shelve
the argument to concentrate on the here and now. We just turned off onto a different-surfaced road. What are you guys going to do when we stop?”

Gid, who still wore his metaphorical superhero merit badge, gave the seam between the doors a hard kick, then glanced over to smile reassuringly at her. “Strategize until they open the doors.”

“Then I suggest,” she told him, “we do just that, and
quickly
.”

It was a given that they'd have to erupt out of the van and use the element of surprise to take their captors unawares.

He looked down at her. “Did you walk out of the roach motel under your own steam?” Zak hoped like hell they hadn't knocked her out as they had him, while she was naked, and …

She nodded. “There are five soldiers in front. Maybe more.”

Doable. If there were only that many when they got there.

Gideon rubbed the back of his neck as he looked around the empty space. Like Zak, he'd already ascertained there was nothing they could use as a weapon. “This make and model carries six passengers in the cab.”

Zak nodded. “Then we wait.” He slid down the hot metal wall to sit, knees drawn up, a few feet away from her. Gideon sat nearby. “Uzis,” Zak told his brother. “KA-BARs. Various handguns. More brawn than brain.”

“Yeah. Saw when they grabbed me on my way to see what all the screaming was about.”

Barbie screaming. Zak would have that earworm with him for a while. If he'd kept his dick in his pants, she wouldn't be here right now. So, whether he liked it or not, he was stuck being responsible for her for the duration. And he was going to be responsible for her death unless some fucking miracle presented itself PDQ.

A sheen of perspiration made her skin glow. She absentmindedly used the short sleeve of her T-shirt to wipe the sweat from her face. The smudged makeup beneath her eyes made them appear even larger and a lot more vulnerable. Her lips were the same color as her nipples, a soft defenseless rose color. Her mouth hadn't felt helpless surrounding his—

Zak wrenched his gaze from her mouth, from his visceral memory of where it had been the night before. Damn it to hell. Just looking at it was evocative and a turn-on.

He noted that she had a scratch on her upper arm. Another small one on her wrist. A fingerprint-shaped bruise on her wrist. They'd marked her. Zak's temple throbbed, and he had to consciously ungrit his teeth.

“Stop looking at
me
like that!” she told him crossly, the pulse at her throat, damp with perspiration, throbbing in time with his own rapid heartbeat. “I wonder where we are. They could've driven us in circles for the past three hours, although I—”

“No circles,” Zak said shortly. “If it's been almost three hours, at an average of fifty miles per, we've gone about a hundred and fifty miles.”

“You've been
awake
this whole time?”

“Not all,” he told her honestly, because she was clearly annoyed at what he was sure was some perceived moral infraction.

“Actually,” she said, looking quite pleased with herself, “you and your friend were unconscious for the start of this little road trip, and I believe we were going a little faster when we headed out of town. We only slowed down when we hit the country roads about, oh, maybe two hours ago? So I think we—”

“My brother, Gideon.” Jesus. What a sanctimonious little thing his fellow captive was. “And approximately twenty minutes works. We're certainly still within Canaima National Park.”

Situated in southeastern Venezuela, the park ran along the border with Guyana and Brazil. The vast area was mostly unpopulated and consisted of rolling savanna, dense jungle, palm groves, and sheer cliffs as well as steep, flat-topped mountains. They hadn't done any climbing; that just left them somewhere within a three-million-hectare area. Approximately the size of Maryland, most of it dense jungle.

Underbrush had been striking the sides of the vehicle for several minutes. This wasn't merely a dirt road; they were penetrating jungle. Fuckit.

She got to her feet, stumbled, grabbed his shirtfront, pulled away as if burned, then spread her boots for balance. It took a moment as she swayed, trying to find her center of gravity in the moving vehicle; then she gave him an earnest look.

Christ, she had pretty eyes. Big and soft with long dark lashes. Eyes that trusted him to keep her safe. He had news for her: he'd already failed that test.
I'm the last fucking man you should trust
, Zak thought savagely. Payback was a bitch. It was his own personal hell that had thrown them together, because Zakary Stark couldn't protect any woman. He knew it. His brother, despite his protests and excuses, knew it, and she was going to learn it soon enough. The hard way.

“I think if we put our minds to it we could figure it out exactly.” She frowned in concentration. “Give me a minute.”

He dragged in a breath, got a hint of hot jasmine, and blew it out. “I appreciate your confi—” The sound of the engine changed as the van slowed down. He met his brother's eyes and indicated he'd go left. Gideon nodded and moved into position on the right of the doors.

“Go crouch in back,” Zak told her. Nowhere to take cover. No way he and Gid could mitigate what was about to go down. “Keep your head down.”

Her chin jerked up and her soft eyes got flinty. “That's ridiculous. I can help y—”

“Barbie, unless you have a death wish, a secret skill, or a SAM hidden in a pocket, go back there and make yourself inconspicuous.” Zak didn't wait to see if she did what he ordered. He moved into position beside the sealed doors as the van shuddered to a stop.

Zak counted off. One … two … three … four …

A metallic scrape …

The doors were flung open, letting in a flood of
white-hot sunlight and exposing three armed guerrillas who stood in a row, blocking their way. With wild cries, Zak and Gideon leaped from the back of the van like unexpected ninja jack-in-the-boxes.

Zak took down the two on the left, Gid the guy on the right. It wasn't neat, and it wasn't finessed, but the element of surprise was damned effective. Zak knocked out the taller guy, who was wearing a blue bandana. The second man, shorter and stockier, was the guy who'd held him down for the knockout blow back at the hotel. A bonus.

As they scrabbled in the long grass, the guy struggled against the twisted strap of his Uzi and kicked and shouted invectives as Zak beat the shit out of him. Zak staggered to his feet, the guy's camo shirtfront clutched in his fist. The guerrilla was still yelling, still struggling to untangle himself from the webbed strap slung diagonally across his body. Zak grabbed the son of a bitch around his bull neck and brought up his knee in a swift move that broke his nose with a satisfying crunch. It was a twofer. The man fell into the long grass unconscious.

He and Gideon shot each other a grin, then split up to go around the van to see who else they had to deal with.

“Shit.” Zak stopped dead in his tracks, his way blocked by the butch commando guerrilla from the hotel.

“Sí.”
She looked Zak up and down; her unpleasant smile didn't reach her black eyes. “On your knees.”

Since he'd seen how accurate she was with the H & K when she'd blown a man's head off point-blank in the hotel room, he sank to his knees.

The vividly green vegetation, mostly grasses, closed around his thighs and came almost to his waist. The ground was spongy and damp, and smelled swampy.

On the other side of the van, his brother's loud curse was abruptly cut off, and the sound of a scuffle followed. Seconds later, Gideon was herded around the front of the van, Uzis pointed at his spine, ahead of two more guys dressed in camo.

“Loida—”

“¡Héctor! Joder chamo, que tonto eres.”
Clearly not happy that her man had used her name, the woman cursed him fluidly in rapid Spanish as he brought Gideon to stand beside a kneeling Zak.

Apologetically the man mumbled,
“Lo siento, lo siento, lo siento.”
Shoving Gideon to his knees, he sent a nervous glance in the direction of his leader and asked tentatively, “Piñero?”

“¡Húevon!”
Loida Piñero slugged him in the jaw with her elbow for using her either of her names, knocking the hulking guy on his ass. He got up, giving her a hot look.

She pointed the business end of the Heckler & Koch at him.
“¡Ya basta!”

He put up a hand, still nursing his jaw.
“Sí, jefa, sí.”

As they said in the local vernacular, she was the “goat who pissed the most.” The boss. Clearly the one in charge, clearly the one whom the men had been waiting for at the hotel, and just as clearly the one they were all afraid of. She'd taken out the man attacking Acadia without a moment's hesitation, without a blink. She looked like one
scary dude, with a bandolier of bullets slashing across her flat chest, a wicked-looking KA-BAR knife in the scarred scabbard strapped to her thigh, and an H & K G3K assault rifle held like an extension of her arm.

As Héctor used the side of the van to pull himself to his feet, the woman glanced coldly at the men watching from the sidelines. They too were armed to the teeth. She did not look happy as she shot fulminating glares at them. “I will deal with you later,” she snapped in low Spanish, clearly pissed about something. “Morales. Goito. López.
Asegure los presos
.”

She was okay about broadcasting
their
names.

Zak counted heads, weapons, and attitudes. The odds of breaking free of this lot were slim to none; bound, their odds plummeted. Shit. Where was Barbie? Still in the van?

He and his brother had their wrists bound with plastic restraints in front of them. Amateurs. Pros would've made sure their hands were secured behind them. It was almost a reassuring thought. The sheer size of this operation was grounds for concern, amateur or not. At least a dozen men milled about the vehicle. Nobody was going anywhere. He and Gid shared a quick speaking glance before the woman indicated they should clasp their bound hands on top of their heads. They both did so.

She had sharp, ferretlike features and soulless black eyes, and a crew cut of greasy black hair. Up close and personal, she stank just as bad as her men.

She cradled the H & K as if it were as light as a handbag over her arm as she addressed him.
“¿Hablas español?”

Zak gave her a blank look.

“You come to my country,” the guerrilla leader said scathingly, taking a menacing step forward so her combat boots were inches from his knees. “You Americans! So arrogant. So—
American.
You come to my country, and you cannot be bothered to learn my language?”

“A distinct oversight, under the circumstances,” Zak agreed. Beside him, Gid's breathing sounded labored. He was hurt. How badly? Zak wondered, knowing this fiesta was just getting started.

THREE