Midnight Rainbow (2 page)

           
 
Kell
Sabin
was an even six feet tall, an inch shorter than
Grant, and the hard musculature of his frame revealed that he made it a point
to stay in shape, even though he was no longer in the field. He was dark—black-haired,
black-eyed, with an olive complexion—and the cold fire of his energy generated
a force field around him. He was impossible to read, and was as canny as a
stalking panther, but Grant trusted him. He couldn't say that he liked
Sabin
;
Sabin
wasn't a man to be
friendly. Yet for twenty years their lives had been intertwined until they were
virtually a part of each other. In his mind, Grant saw a red-orange flash of
gunfire, and abruptly he felt the thick, moist heat of the jungle, smelled the
rotting vegetation, saw the flash of weapons being discharged… and felt, at his
back, so close that each had braced his shoulders against the other, the same
man who sat across from him now. Things like that stayed in a man's memory.

           
 
A dangerous man,
Kell
Sabin
.
Hostile
governments would gladly have paid a fortune to get to him, but
Sabin
was nothing more than a shadow slipping away from the
sunshine, as he directed his troops from the gray mists.

           
 
Without a flicker of expression in his black
eyes,
Sabin
studied the man who sat across from him
in a lazy sprawl—a deceptively lazy sprawl, he knew. Grant was, if anything,
even leaner and harder than he had been in the field. Hibernating for a year
hadn't made him go soft. There was still something wild about Grant Sullivan,
something dangerous and untamed. It was in the wary, restless glitter of his
amber eyes, eyes that glowed as fierce and golden as an eagle's under the dark,
level brows. His dark blond hair was shaggy, curling down over his collar in
back, emphasizing that he wasn't quite civilized. He was darkly tanned; the
small scar on his chin wasn't very noticeable, but the thin line that slashed
across his left cheekbone was silver against his bronzed skin. They weren't
disfiguring scars, but reminders of battles. If
Sabin
had had to pick anyone to go after
Hamilton
's daughter, he'd have picked this man. In
the jungle Sullivan was as stealthy as a cat; he could become part of the
jungle, blending into it, using it. He'd been useful in the concrete jungles,
too, but it was in the green hells of the world that no one could equal him.

           
 
"Are you going after her?"
Sabin
finally asked in a quiet tone.

           
 
"Yeah."

           
 
"Then let me fill you in." Totally
disregarding the fact that Grant no longer had security clearance,
Sabin
told him about the missing microfilm. He told him
about George
Persall
, Luis Marcel, the whole deadly
cat-and-mouse game, and dumb little Priscilla sitting in the middle of it. She
was being used as a smokescreen for Luis, but
Kell
was more than a little worried about Luis. It wasn't like the man to disappear,
and
Costa Rica
wasn't the most tranquil place on earth.
Anything could have happened to him. Yet, wherever he was, he wasn't in the
hands of any government or political faction, because everyone was still
searching for him, and everyone except Manuel
Turego
and the American government was searching for Priscilla. Not even the Costa
Rican government knew that
Turego
had the woman; he
was operating on his own.

           
 
"
Persall
was a
dark horse,"
Kell
admitted irritably. "He
wasn't a professional. I don't even have a file on him."

           
 
If
Sabin
didn't have
a file on him,
Persall
had been more than a dark
horse; he'd been totally invisible.

           
 
"How did this thing blow open?"
Grant drawled, closing his eyes until they were little more than slits. He
looked as if he
were
going to fall asleep, but
Sabin
knew differently.

           
 
"Our man was being followed. They were
closing in on him. He was out of his mind with fever. He couldn't find Luis,
but he remembered how to contact
Persall
. No one knew
Persall's
name, until then, or how to find him if
they needed him. Our man just barely got the film to
Persall
before all hell broke loose.
Persall
got away."

           
 
"What about our man?"

           
 
"He's alive. We got him out, but not
before
Turego
got his hands on him." Grant
grunted.
"So
Turego
knows our
guy didn't tell
Persall
to destroy the film."
Kell
looked completely disgusted.
"Everyone
knows. There's no
security down there. Too many people will sell any scrap of information they
can find.
Turego
has a leak in his organization, so
by morning it was common knowledge. Also by morning,
Persall
had died of a heart attack, in Priscilla's room. Before we could move in,
Turego
took the girl."

           
 
Dark brown lashes veiled the golden glitter of
Grant's eyes almost completely. He looked as if he would begin snoring at any
minute. "Well? Does she know anything about the microfilm or not?"

           
 
"We don't know. My guess is that she
doesn't.
Persall
had several hours to hide the
microfilm before he went to her room."

           
 
"Why the hell couldn't she have stayed
with Daddy, where she belongs?" Grant murmured.

           
 
"
Hamilton
has been raising hell for us to get her out
of there, but they aren't really close. She's a party girl.
Divorced,
more interested in having a good time than in doing anything constructive.
In fact,
Hamilton
cut her out of his will several years ago,
and she's been wandering all around the globe since. She'd been with
Persall
for a couple of years. They weren't shy about their
relationship.
Persall
liked to have a flashy woman on
his arm, and he could afford her. He always seemed like an easygoing good time
guy, well-suited to her type. I sure as hell never figured him for a courier,
especially one sharp enough to fool me."

           
 
"Why don't you go in and get the girl
out?" Grant asked suddenly, and he opened his eyes, staring at
Kell
, his gaze cold and yellow.

           
 
"Two reasons. One, I don't think she
knows anything about the film. I have to concentrate on finding the film, and I
think that means finding Luis Marcel. Two, you're the best man for the job. I
thought so when I… ah… arranged for you to be brought to
Hamilton
's attention." So
Kell
was working to get the girl out, after all, but going about it in his own
circuitous way. Well, staying behind the scenes was the only way he could be
effective. "You won't have any trouble getting into
Costa Rica
,"
Kell
said.
"I've already arranged it. But if you can't get the girl out…" Grant
got to his feet, a tawny, graceful savage, silent and lethal. "I
know," he said quietly. Neither of them had to say it, but both knew that
a bullet in her head would be a great deal kinder than what would happen to her
if
Turego
decided that she did know the location of
the microfilm. She was being held only as a safety measure now, but if that
microfilm didn't surface, she would eventually be the only remaining link to
it. Then her life wouldn't be worth a plugged nickel.

           
 
So now he was in
Costa Rica
, deep in the rain forest and too damned
near the Nicaraguan border for comfort. Roaming bands of rebels, soldiers,
revolutionaries and just plain terrorists made life miserable for people who
just wanted to live their simple lives in peace, but none of it touched
Priscilla. She might have been a tropical princess, sipping daintily at her
iced drink, ignoring the jungle that ate continuously at the boundaries of the
plantation and had to be cut back regularly.

           
 
Well, he'd seen enough. Tonight was the night.
He knew her schedule now, knew the routine of the guards, and had already found
all the trip lines. He didn't like traveling through the jungle at night, but
there wasn't any choice. He had to have several hours to get her away from here
before anyone realized she was missing; luckily, she always slept late, until
at least ten every morning. No one would really think anything of it if she
didn't appear by eleven. By then, they'd be long gone. Pablo would pick them up
by helicopter at the designated clearing tomorrow morning, not long after dawn.
Grant backed slowly away from the edge of the jungle, worming himself into the
thick greenery until it formed a solid curtain separating him from the house.
Only then did he rise to his feet, walking silently and with assurance, because
he'd taken care of the trip lines and sensors as he'd found them. He'd been in
the jungle for three days, moving cautiously around the perimeter of the
plantation, carefully getting the layout of the house. He knew where the girl
slept, and he knew how he was going to get in. It couldn't have been better;
Turego
wasn't in the house. He'd left the day before, and
since he wasn't back by now, Grant knew that he wasn't coming. It was already
twilight, and it wasn't safe to travel the river in the darkness.

           
 
Grant knew exactly how treacherous the river
was; that was why he would take the girl through the jungle. Even given its
dangers, the river would be the logical route for them to take. If by some
chance her departure were discovered before Pablo picked them up, the search
would be concentrated along the river, at least for a while. Long enough, he
hoped, for them to reach the helicopter. He'd have to wait several more hours
before he could go into the house and get the girl out. That would give
everyone time to get tired, bored and sleepy. He made his way to the small
clearing where he'd stashed his supplies, and carefully checked it for snakes,
especially the velvety brown fer-de-lance, which liked to lie in clearings and
wait for its next meal. After satisfying himself that the clearing was safe, he
sat down on a fallen tree to smoke a cigarette. He took a drink of water, but
he wasn't hungry. He knew that he wouldn't be until sometime tomorrow. Once the
action was going down he couldn't eat; he was too keyed up, all his senses
enhanced so that even the smallest sound of the jungle crashed against his
eardrums like thunder. Adrenaline was already pumping through his veins, making
him so high that he could understand why the Vikings had gone berserk during
battle. Waiting was almost unbearable, but that was what he had to do. He
checked his watch
again,
the illuminated dial a
strange bit of civilization in a jungle that swallowed men alive, and frowned
when he saw that only a little over half an hour had passed.

           
 
To give himself something to do, to calm his
tightly wound nerves, he began packing methodically, arranging everything so he
would know exactly where it was. He checked his weapons and his ammunition,
hoping he wouldn't have to use them. What he needed more than anything, if he
was to get the girl out alive, was a totally silent operation. If he had to use
his carbine or the automatic pistol, he'd give away their position. He
preferred a knife, which was silent and deadly. He felt sweat trickle down his
spine. God, if only the girl would have sense enough to keep her mouth shut and
not start squawking when he hauled her out of there. If he had to, he'd knock
her out, but that would make her dead weight to carry through vegetation that
reached out to wrap around his legs like living fingers.

           
 
He realized that he was fondling his knife,
his long, lean fingers sliding over the deadly blade with a lover's touch, and
he shoved it into its sheath. Damn her, he thought bitterly. Because of her, he
was back in the thick of things, and he could feel it taking hold of him again.
The rush of danger was as addictive as any drug, and it was in his veins again,
burning him, eating at him like an acid—killing him and intensifying the
feeling of life all at once. Damn her, damn her to hell.
All
this for a spoiled, silly society brat who liked to amuse herself in various
beds.
Still, her round heels might have kept her alive, because
Turego
fancied himself quite a lover.