Operation Swift Mercy (14 page)

One minute she felt the man behind her, trying to shove her bodily into the backseat
,
and the next
,
he was gone. It took a second but that was all she needed—an opportunity to run presented itself
,
and she took it,
lunging across the seat to push open the
opposite door
, she
flu
ng herself through it, landing on the hard concrete floor of the car park
,
just as the vehicle peeled off in a protest of
burning tyres
echoing off the low roof of the building.

Everything hurt, and the
grounds was hard, were
the
first
two things that immediately registered,
before
she looked up and saw Chase pounding the living hell out of the gorilla who
was hanging half inside the car. She watched as the
d
river yanked the passenger inside the vehicle and tore off out of the car park.

Chase
stood, bent
over, his arms braced on his thighs, catching his breath
and
Mercy pushed herself to her feet, to rush across to him.

“Are you okay?” Chase asked,
straightening up at her approach,
running his eyes and hands along her arms, holding her head steady as he looked into her eyes—
unfortunately, she thought to herself,
in a purely professional capacity.

“I
’m fine, just a few bruises where I landed on my hip I think,”
she told him, pulling his hands away to look him over in return.
“I
heard a
gunshot
,”
she said fearfully.

“Yeah, it missed—I’m okay.”

Never had she felt
quite as much relief as she did at that
very
moment. “Thank goodness,” she breathed.

“Come on, we need to get our stuff and get out of here, in case they come back.”

Inside their room, they hurriedly shoved clothing into bags and were checking out within twenty minutes.

“I don’t want to take the car—they’ll already know what to look for.
We’re going to have to foot it,” Chase told her as they headed towards a rear exit door.

“What if they follow us?”
S
he asked more than a little anxious at the thought of a second visit from them tonight.

“We’ll go the long way around,” he said
, pulling out his phone and dialling Tupper. She listened as he briefly filled his friend in on what happened and
told him they’d checked out
, giving
him the name of the motel up the road they were going to and
asked
him to meet them there as soon as he could.

T
aking her hand
, they
ke
pt
to the shadows, trying to lose themselves in
the Saturday
night party crowds and dodging traffic to make it harder for someone to follow them. Every now and then they’d duck into a doorway and Chase would watch to make sure there was no one following and eventually once he was satisfied they weren’t being watched, they headed for the motel a lot smaller than the resort they’d stayed at before.

****

The men sat
at the table
in the small room, completely ignoring Mercy.

“The
Island,
”
Tupper
said, breaking the silence.

‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too,” Chase nodded slowly.

“That would be my first choice. It’s getting too
hard to
lay low here—and at least there we’re on familiar territory—gives us the home advantage.”

“What island?” Mercy asked, interrupting the two men impatiently. Really, she was right there and they were acting as though she wasn’t!

“Hope you don’t get airsick,” Tupper said, standing to walk towards the door. “I’ll get on the transport—see what we can do.”

When the door shut behind him, Chase looked down at Mercy and gave a long sigh. “Do you trust me?”

“I
think we’
ve already established that,” she said quietly, but her rising anxiety over what these men were deciding to do to keep her safe was beginning to make her nervous. “What island?”

“There’s a
place
we know. It’s called Los Cavernas. It’s remote and more important, it’s safe
.
We can stay there until we work out what to do about all this.”

Mercy silently mulled this bit of news over for a few moments before realising maybe he was right—they couldn’t stay
here
indefinitely and she’d already tried to do the out on her own thing and failed miserably. At least away from here, they might
be safer
. She was more worried about the others getting hurt than about herself now. She wasn’t sure she could handle the guilt of knowing someone trying to help her had gotten hurt…or worse
.
“But
won’t
they be able to track us if we travel overseas? The damn immigration department has people involved up to their eyeballs in all this mess. They’ll know where we are.”

“They’ll know we left Australia—there’s not much we can do about that, but once we get to Bali, we can disappear.”

“Disappear?” Why did she not like the sound of that so much?

“Trust me—it’s probably best not to ask too many questions,” he smiled gently. “Just know that you can trust us, okay?”

When he looked at her like that
with his gaze so damn steady and promising safety, how could she not trust him? She managed a nod, and tried to smile, but it came off as wobbly feeling as she felt inside.

****

Mercy felt her gaze constantly scanning the departure lounge as they sat and waited for their flight to Bali the next day. At any moment she was sure they would be all dragged off into an interview room and interrogated by immigration officials. S
he was sure
their whereabouts would
be well and truly known by now and reported back to Nikkos. Surely he’d do everything in his power to prevent them
leav
ing
the country
? Once they left Australia—Brisbane in particular
—h
e’d lose a lot of his advantage. The thought made her more than a little uneasy.

She jumped as a warm hand cover hers and turned her head toward Chase. He was reading the paper, seemingly cool, calm and not the least bit anxious. “Just relax. Everything is going to be fine,” he said without lifting his gaze from the newspaper
.
He moved her hand, still clasped inside his own, to rest on top of his denim-clad thigh and Mercy found herself momentarily distracted by the heat she felt running up her arm at his touch
.

Okay, well this was somewhat better than nervously twisting her fingers together, she had to admit
,
but
she was still worried. How could he remain so calm? She was freaking the hell out!

Finally, their flight was called and it was announced that they could commence boarding. Tupper was
somewhere further
back in the plane, she hadn’t really seen him since they cleared customs
, but she’d caught sight of him when they’d taken their seats. She remained uptight until she felt the plane begin to taxi down the runway, certain they were still going to be dragged from the plane and taken away.

“Better?” Chase asked as she finally relaxed back in her seat and let out a slow breath.

“I think so,” she said sending him a small smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” he promised and she nodded more to assure
him
than because she was completely reassured
.

“Get some rest, you haven’t slept much. Here, take a shoulder,” he said, slumping down in his seat so his shoulder was level with her head, and damned if it didn’t look too tempting to resist. Closing her eyes, she felt herself drift off despite her attempts to stay awake.

****

She’
d only been to Bali once before
and that was with Nikkos while he was on some kind of conference. She’d spent the three days by the pool, not even allowed to venture out into the street to go shopping. He’d been paranoid about her wandering around the place alone—even though everywhere she looked, people seemed to be doing it. However, she had to admit with things the way they were in the world at the moment, it probably wasn’t that paranoid. She still remembered how chilling it had been when she’d heard the news of the Bali bombings that had shaken Australians now so long ago.
88 Australians had lost their lives on that horrible October night in 2002.
Terrorism had always seemed such a foreign thing before then to most Australians, and although it hadn’t happened on Australian soil—it had hit them hard in one of the most popular Australian destinations.

They didn’t spend time hanging around the airport, collecting their luggage and heading outside where Tupper waved them over to climb in the back of a car outside the terminal
.
With Chase’s hand on her waist reassuring her, she slid into the back seat
and tried
to remain calm.

No one spoke
, and Mercy didn’t feel like asking questions. She looked out the window and tried to lose herself in the sights of a new place, watching the faces of strangers—people she didn’t know and who didn’t know her, move about their daily lives. Most were clearly tourists—stressed and tired from travelling, while others who had obviously been here a few days were happy and relaxed, strolling along the sidewalks and dodging traffic on hired scooters like seasoned professionals in what passed as driving in the kamikaze world of driving in Bali.

They drove for a long time, leaving the hustle and bustle of Kuta
,
far behind them
,
heading
deep into the country side. There weren’t any tourists here, just farmers and women carrying produce, children running and riding bikes—carefree and happy, a world away from the busy airport and down town district.

Eventually
they turned
off the narrow country road and into a long driveway, coming to a
stop in
a small clearing. Chooks scratched busily in the dirt searching for grubs to eat, and two scrawny, yet friendly looking dogs came sniffing around their legs as they climbed out of the car.

From
the as
Tupper and Chase both shook hands and gave the man a brief man-like hug. She hid her brief smile, this man was obviously a good friend—
she couldn’t
imagine these guys man-hugging just anyone.

“Pete, this is Mercy. Mercy, Pete,” Chase said doing the brief introductions. Mercy smiled and nodded at the man, who seemed to be eyeing her with a great deal of speculation
before giving her a broad grin and clapping Chase on the shoulder.

“And then there was one, “he said with a chuckle as he looked across at Tupper with a wink.

“Not in this life time my friend,” Tupper shot back, moving past his friend to enter the hut without further comment.

Mercy sent Chase a brief glance, but he just shook his head and smiled as though to say don’t worry about it
.
Well, it was fine for him to not worry about anything, she thought—he
knew
what all this secret men’s business was about
.
The smell of something delicious wafted through the air and Mercy realised just how hungry she was. They’d only had the rather meagre meals on the plane and she was suddenly very hungry for some real food.

“Come inside,
my wife
has
food ready,” Pete said, gesturing for them to enter.

“This is Made.
” Pete pronounc
ed the name
as Ma-day
, indicating
the shyly smiling woman who stood by a table piled heavy with food.

She left the room silently, returning with more food and Mercy heard her stomach growl in appreciation
.
They sat down and ate,  Mercy was thankful she didn’t have to contribute to the conversation very much, happy to try the tempting array of food on the table and listen.

It was clear the men had known each other a long time, there was an ease about them that she had immediately picked up on.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it to the wedding, but Ma-de’s mother had just passed away,” Pete apologised when Ma-de left the room later.

“Del and Willow got your message—it’s all good. How’s Ma-de handling it?”
Chase asked.

Pete shrugged, “You know the Balinese,
they’re a dramatic lot. We had the whole ritual to go through.”