Hot Ice (35 page)

"
Vasbyt
. In about an hour," Coetzee told her. "When the sun starts going down and it gets a bit cooler. Plenty of animals where we're going."

She had no idea if he'd just called her a rude name or told her to wait. Both men had such heavy accents, it was hard to understand them when they deigned to speak. Scary, but she was starting to get used to the way these guys communicated in a sort of verbal shorthand, as if they were too busy to bother with complete sentences.

"About sixty miles from here we'll pass close by a waterhole. By the time we reach it, the animals will be coming down to drink. Here's our turn," Coetzee said, turning the wheel off the tarred road and into the long grass. The vehicle shuddered as he put it into four-wheel drive.

Here's our turn
? There wasn't a signpost or even a rock indicating any sort of road or trail. Taylor glanced back to see the other vehicles following in precision formation. Her teeth snapped together as the jeep bounced and thumped along over hill and dale. She missed that nice comfy road.

The incongruous sound of a fax machine hummed. She wasn't surprised. These guys had lots of interesting toys.

"Aerial photos," Viljoen muttered, hand hovering over the paper coming out of a fax machine cleverly built into the console between the seats. He passed the first sheet back to Hunt.

"Aerials confirm village head count, one hundred and sixty," Hunt said into the mic, then proceeded to read off a string of numbers to his men as Viljoen passed him the fax pages.

Taylor craned her neck and strained her eyes, looking for wildlife. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to one of the enormous conical mounds of dirt as they passed. There were hundreds of them, all over the place.

"Termite mound," Viljoen offered, in a vaguely British accent as he opened his window and lit a cigarette. "See how smooth is the sides? Elephants use them as scratching posts."

"
Ag
, man," Coetzee groaned. "Don't get him started—"

"I don't think we're looking at the same thing." Taylor peered back over her shoulder as they passed a mini mountain. "That thing is all of thirty feet tall." And there were a
lot
of them.

"Termites." Viljoen, elbow on his open window, blew out a plume of pungent smoke. "We's call them
rysmeer
—rice ants—around here, you know? But they're
termites
. Very interesting. Inside is a hella complicated series of tunnels that—"

Coetzee knocked Viljoen's hat off into his lap. "Nobody cares,
oke
."

"I'm interested," Taylor assured him as he grumbled and returned the felt hat to his head. But apparently Viljoen's loquacious moment had been quelled. When he didn't expound on the subject of termites any further, she went back to trying to spot wildlife in the long grass, or perhaps lurking in the shade of the wide, spreading thornbushes dotting the veldt.

They passed through the tiny, dusty town of Blikiesfontein. Population twenty-seven. The road they were on was Main Street, and actually ran through the middle of town. It was no more than two rows of houses, a volunteer fire department, medical clinic, a bar, and a little grocery store. The only sign of life was a dusty red pickup truck parked in front of one of the houses, a big ginger and black cat sleeping bonelessly on the sidewalk in front of the grocery store, and a large black bird perched in a Stephen King—like way on the railing nearby. The brilliant sunshine wasn't flattering to the little ghost town.

"Used to be miner's housing way back, you know?" Viljoen told Taylor as they drove through. "The Blikiesfontein mine played out back in '74. Morales bought it from DeBeers in '98 through a dummy company, which was incorporated through a succession of other dummy companies. Guy's as slippery as shit."

Tension knotted the muscles in Taylor's neck. A nice lion attack would get her mind off worrying that maybe she'd bitten off more than she could chew. What if she
couldn't
get into this frigging mine of Morales's? What then?

She'd be responsible for killing everyone for miles around. Not to mention over a million innocent people in Las Vegas.

"How many vehicles?" Hunt asked into the lip mic.

Coetzee said, "Four, not counting the red
bakkie. You
?"

"I only made three," Viljoen said, clearly put out.

Since all Taylor had seen—and she'd
looked
—was the red truck, she had no idea which town these guys had passed through.

Hunt listened for a few moments. "I counted six, seven with the pickup. Not a surprise that he's here. He'll keep a low profile. For now."

Oh, great! No pressure here.

Hunt gave her a reassuring smile. Her eyes were intensely blue, and filled with so much fear, Hunt felt it echo in his own gut. "You're going to gnaw a hole in your lip if you keep doing that," he said quietly.

"What if I can't do it?" she asked quietly. "What if we get there and I haven't a clue?"

I'll breathe for a change, and happily put your sweet ass on a flight to Paradise
, Hunt thought. Instead of voicing the concerns gnawing at him, he said calmly, "Then we'll be no worse off than if you hadn't come."

She swallowed, then resumed chewing her lower lip. "No offense, but we both know Francis doesn't have the experience to do it."

Francis? Who the hell
—
ah, Frank Fisk
. "My money's on you. You're the best, aren't you?"

"I'm the best," Taylor told him fiercely, "because retrieving stolen articles for Consolidated Underwriters is a
game
. Nobody's ever gotten hurt. It was
fun
. But this…" She waved at the bushveld as they passed. "People will
die
—millions of people will die if I don't—if I can't—"

"Maybe you're right," Hunt cut her off. "Maybe you
won't
be able to open whatever the hell it is we find when we get there. But you know what? No one on our team has a
tenth
of your skill. So at least with you here we have a shot, don't we? A chance that you'll know exactly how to do it, and because of that, perhaps
nobody
will have to die."

People
would
die. That was a given. Who, and how many, that was the question.

Taylor gave him a steady look. "Do you really believe that?"

Please God
, Hunt prayed,
keep Taylor safe
. Because the answer wasn't just no, but
hell
no. "Yes. I do."

She leaned over and brushed a kiss to his jaw. "I don't either," she whispered.

The sun streamed into his side of the vehicle. Even with the air conditioner blasting, it was too hot to be this close. But Taylor turned Hunt's face toward her with her cupped palm and softly kissed the grim set of his mouth.

"I'm going to ace this one," she told him firmly. "We're going to find that thing in time, and the good guys
will
win."

He shifted to wrap an arm about her shoulders, then pulled her tightly into his side. It was like cozying up to a blast furnace. She rested her head on his shoulder. He nuzzled the crown of her head with his chin.

Taylor stared out of the window, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. He was deep in thought, and clearly those thoughts weren't good. She wished she hadn't had to worry him further by telling him of her concerns. But better he be prepared now. Just in case.

Please, God
, she prayed.
Don't let him get hurt
.

For the next hour, she alternately dozed against Hunt's shoulder in the soporific heat or watched the countryside speed by beyond the windows. She was entranced by the grace and beauty of a small herd of deer—
springbok
, Viljoen told her—as they ran and jumped through the grass as if they had springs on their hooves.

She thought she spotted an elephant in the distance, but it could've been one of the soft, fluffy wisps of gray clouds on the horizon. Knee-high grasses on gently undulating hills went on for mile after mile as far as the eye could see, the line of sight only broken by the amazing termite mounds and a few sparse trees.

"There's your lion," Coetzee said, pointing to the right through his window.

She looked, saw a tree… "Oh.
Oh!" A
pride of lions lay in the shade under one of the thorn trees. Three females with half a dozen adorable cubs, and a male, young one in his prime. As the vehicles passed within a hundred feet of them, the big animal rose, all coiled strength and rippling gold muscles, to guard his harem. The ruff of his tawny mane framed cunning yellow eyes, narrowed to slits as he watched their caravan. He opened his mouth—
Lord, it was big
—and roared.

"He's telling us to bugger off and leave his ladies alone," Hunt interpreted.

She put a hand on Coetzee's shoulder. "Slow down. Please?"

Then, riveted and craning her neck as they passed slowly, Taylor whispered, "My God, look at him. He's absolutely magnificent. He must be at least eight or nine feet long. I had no idea…"

She actually felt a weird little clutch in her heart, seeing the animals. Not just because they were almost close enough to touch and were without the confidence-inspiring safety of zoo bars between them, but because of the incredible beauty of observing them here in their native habitat.

No need for a camera to remember this moment. Without thinking, she reached out her hand to take Hunt's, wanting to share the moment with him. His fingers curled around hers. Strong. Sure. Safe.

Taylor's heart skipped a hard beat. Then another. And another as their eyes met.

Taylor didn't know how to interpret the sensation that suddenly arced between them. It was wholly unfamiliar. Oh, God. She was in trouble here.

Big, big trouble.

The sensation was a heart-pounding mixture of delight and horror. The
very
last thing she wanted, damn it, or
expected
, was to fall in love.
Especially
with a man like Huntington St. John.

Emotional attachments didn't last; she knew that on the most basic level. She'd never been foolish enough to let a man get
that
close. Not Jörn, not even Daniel.

She broke eye contact with difficulty, half terrified, half exhilarated. Her heart beat fast and her vision blurred as she turned to look blindly out of her window. How had this happened? When? Was it his swift action in ensuring Mandy's safety, no questions asked? Oh, God. Perhaps it had been before that. When he'd held her head as she'd thrown up after the bad guys had gassed them? Hardly a romantic moment, and yet…

Oh, God. Oh, God. She couldn't be in love with this man. It was completely… improbable. Impossible. Insane.

She vaguely heard the
shsss
of a can being opened. "Here." Hunt thrust a cold soda into her hand. "What the hell happened? Suddenly you look pale as hell."

"Low blood sugar. Thanks." She took a gulp, then held the cool metal to her forehead. Maybe she was misinterpreting the feeling? she thought a little hysterically. Maybe it was something as simple and uncomplicated as
lust
. Lust was okay. Lust was manageable. Lust did not rip out one's heart.

She glanced at him under her lashes. It was lust, all right, lust deluxe. He was everything she'd never known she wanted in a man. Everything she'd never allowed herself to dream about on those long lonely nights alone in her bed when half-formed thoughts had been pushed ruthlessly back into her subconscious.

The swaying grasses outside Taylor's window blurred like a muted watercolor. She felt raw inside, stripped of her customary protective layers, which left her vulnerable to this avalanche of unfamiliar feelings.

Hunt squeezed her hand, and she turned like a sleepwalker. "Do you want to stop the car? Are you sick?"

She shook her head.

Fortunately, another long fax came through just then. The next hour was spent discussing thermal satellite imaging of the mine and what that might mean in geometry terms, something little more than a vague school memory for Taylor. She didn't want to start something with the manly men, but
her
way of doing a job required that she see the target for herself. They could technobabble themselves into a coma, she'd still do it her way.

As the sun slid with reluctance toward the horizon, they crossed a river over a wooden bridge so rickety, Taylor was amazed it could bear the weight of the cars. Fortunately, it was a short span. It was a long,
long
way down into the gorge.

"The wall's unusual," Hunt said into the lip mic as they approached the village Taylor had seen on the satellite pictures. The seven-sided wall built around the round huts blocked most of their view, but Hunt assured her that their approach had been noted and prepared for when the convoy was a good twenty miles away.

"Stop here," he instructed. "Fisk, Savage, Viljoen, Burton, and Gardner, with me. The rest of you, stand by."

Hunt opened his door, then glanced at Taylor. "Stay in the car."

"Not a prob," she said, happy to obey her first order. The grasses were thigh high, and insects buzzed and crawled everywhere. "I think there be snakes in them thar grasses."

"Don't look now, darling," Hunt said mildly, his attention concentrated over her shoulder. "But I think snakes are the least of our problems."

Taylor swung around to see what he was talking about.

Circling the vehicles were at least a hundred native warriors in full war paint, and nothing else. They all carried skin shields, long, metal-tipped spears, and looked extremely annoyed.

Chapter Thirty-seven