On Thin Ice (4 page)

She was simply going to have to hope for the best, expect the worst, and just keep moving . . .

An arm came around her waist, a hand clamped over her mouth to keep her from screaming, and a moment later she was pulled back into the thick foliage, held against a strong male body. “Keep still,” he whispered in her ear, barely a ghost of a sound.

She had the sense not to fight him. A moment later someone walked by, one of the guerillas on nightly rounds. He was smoking something dubious and his rifle was slung carelessly over one shoulder, and as he moved past she let out her pent-up breath.

It wasn’t even a noise, lighter than the wind through the greenery, but MacGowan tightened his hand over her mouth, hard, and the stoned soldier spun around, the rifle at chest level.

And suddenly she was alone. MacGowan had released her, disappeared back into the jungle, leaving her at the mercy of the creep in front of her.

“Who’s there?” he demanded in Spanish. He speared the brush aside with the barrel of his gun, and Beth sank lower into the dirt.

She felt like a terrified rabbit, small and quivering in the dirt, and she crouched there, frozen, waiting for rough hands, pawing at her, waiting for a bullet, waiting for God knew what.

She heard a noise, a rustle, a thud, a crunching sound, and she lifted her head just a little. The gun had disappeared, as well as the man behind it. She sat up a little higher, then almost screamed as someone looked out of the darkness.

MacGowan. It was MacGowan’s rough hands on her, pulling her to her feet. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded in a breath of sound.

“You can’t leave me behind!”

“I can and I will, if I have to break your neck to keep you from following me.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” His voice was flat, unemotional, but even in the darkness she could see the faint flicker in his eyes. She looked behind her, at the crumpled body of the pot smoking soldier, his head at an odd angle, his eyes open and staring.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, horrified. What had seemed a strange kind of nightmare was suddenly, terribly real. “Did you kill him?”

“No, the tooth fairy came along and took care of him.” He stared down at her for a long moment, and she wondered whether he was thinking about how easy it would be to break her neck. He wasn’t the kind of man who was troubled by moral qualms.

And then he turned. “Come on,” he said. “Keep up, do what I tell you, keep your mouth shut, and if you lag behind I’ll leave you.” He was already moving down the narrow path again, so fast that her words of gratitude were eaten up in the night air. She took one last look at the dead man lying in the dirt, and on impulse she leaned down and closed his eyes, making the sign of the cross as she’d seen Father Pascal do. She wasn’t Catholic, but doubtless the dead man had been, at least in the early part of his life, and she could give him some brief benediction before she took off into the night after his murderer. All the while wondering if she was trading danger for outright disaster.

Right then, she didn’t care.

So what the fuck was he doing, taking her with him? He’d always been a bleeding heart. Isobel Lambert would laugh if she saw him now. Except that if she knew, he wouldn’t be here.

If Dylan and Froelich got the message they’d probably be waiting for him down by the bridge. They should have managed to sneak out hours ago, as soon as they saw the sign he left. The Guiding Light knew that neither of them were much of a threat – they didn’t have the
cojones
to try to escape. But the so-called rebels didn’t realize that Finn MacGowan would do almost anything for money at this point, reverting to survival mode and throwing all his idealist crap out the window. It was a dog eat dog world. So why had he told the bitch she could come along?

Maybe it was that simple. He wanted to get laid, and she was there. He was saving her life – she owed him, and he knew he could collect. She was pretty enough, from what he could see in the almost moonlit night, though right now he’d fuck any female between the ages of twenty and sixty who wasn’t a nun. Which wasn’t a given. She hadn’t given him a direct answer earlier.

“You’re sure you’re not a sister?” he tossed back at her, his voice little more than a growl on the night air.

She was closer than he thought, making decent enough headway on the steep hill. “I’m an only child.”

Stupid, he thought. “I’m asking if you’re a holy nun.”

“I told you, I’m not a nun, holy or otherwise.”

Okay, she met the criteria for fuckable. “Then what are you doing in this hellhole?”

“I’m an aid worker. Volunteer.” Her voice only wavered slightly.

“And what stupid-ass organization sent you into a war-torn country with a history of kidnappings?”

He heard her hesitation. “The Pennington Foundation.”

He snorted in disgust. “So you bought your way in here? You got a death wish, lady?”

“I wanted to be somewhere I could make a difference.”

“Doesn’t seem like you made much of a difference with Carlos there. He’s planning to rape you any which way to Sunday, and I’m thinking he’s been dreaming about it for a long time. You could at least have cut your damned hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” She sounded bewildered, which pissed him off even more.

“You’re a baby in a nest full of rattlesnakes. Don’t you know any better? Blondes are prime targets. In fact, that’ll be a fucking beacon if anyone trains a light in our direction.” He pulled the grungy kerchief from around his neck. He’d washed it out in a nearby stream any number of times, but that didn’t make it any cleaner. He turned, and she almost barreled into him.

He caught her before she smacked right into him, grabbing her by the arms. It had been thirty-four goddamn months, and he didn’t need her any closer. “Here,” he said, shoving the kerchief into her hand. “Cover your goddamn hair.”

“Is everything goddamn and fucking?” she said in her cool voice as she tucked the kerchief around her head. “This thing doesn’t have bugs, does it?”

“Bugs are the least of your problems. I’m in a bad mood. After you’ve been here a while you’ll know why everything is goddamn and fucking. Are you sure you’re not a fucking nun?”

“Not a holy one, not a fucking one,” she said. “I’m a teacher.”

“Christ,” he muttered.

“And a social worker,” she added.

That one silenced him. “Lady,” he said finally, “you’re an idiot.” And he turned and continued back down the narrow trail.

“At least I’m not a fucking idiot,” she said smartly.

Not yet
, he thought.

He half expected her to sound like a herd of cows making her way through the brush, but she was surprisingly quiet, following his lead. She picked up on the routine quickly without him wasting a word – letting branches fall back softly, moving lightly through the thick vegetation. There was no sound from back in the camp – Carlos and Izzy hadn’t built up enough courage to come for her, and by the time they did, he and the woman would be long gone. In fact, they would have discovered he’d gone when they came after her – he hadn’t lost anything by taking her along. She wasn’t even slowing him down. Much.

The ground was slippery beneath their feet. He was wearing the remnants of the boots he’d been captured in, bound together with strips of cloth as the sole had eventually parted from the rest of the boot. He’d been marched from place to place, covered hundreds of countless miles in such lousy conditions that his boots had given up the ghost long ago. He usually made do with the sandals they’d given him, but for a trek like this he needed all the covering he could find.

He halted abruptly, and this time she did slam into him, but at least it was his back absorbing the blow of her soft body. He could pretend to ignore it. “What have you got on your feet?” he growled.

“Shoes.”

He looked down, his eyes accustomed to the inky black. Light-weight sneakers, already soaking wet from the damp undergrowth. “Christ, woman,” he muttered.

“I didn’t exactly get a chance to choose my wardrobe when they kidnapped me,” she said.

Damned if he didn’t like her. He was doing his best to intimidate her into total compliance, and she was undaunted. As she had been in the hands of her captors. Of course she’d had Redbeard looking out for her, and she clearly hadn’t understood Carlos’ and Izzy’s plans for her, or she might have been a little less cheeky. But some part of him would have regretted that.

He moved forward with a grunt. The less he talked to her, interacted with her, the better. First things first. Hans Froelich and the kid would be waiting up ahead by the makeshift bridge if they’d gotten away. Once he caught up with them he could concentrate on how to get this motley assortment of people down through a deathly tangle of undergrowth, rocky outcroppings, and the pursuit of drug-fueled sociopaths. Piece of cake.

He heard her mutter something beneath her breath.
You son of a bitch
, she said, thinking he couldn’t hear. He could hear everything. She had no idea just how big a son of a bitch he could be.

It would be interesting to see if she was still that cocky after a couple of days of scrambling down the mountain and maybe, just maybe, a couple of nights beneath his lust-starved body. She’d go down fighting. But he’d make absolutely sure she went down.

Vincent Barringer was a handsome man on the edge of retirement, looking over his covert little world from a secret basement room in Langley, Virginia. He prided himself on being a warm, friendly man, a laid-back boss who nonetheless demanded excellence and invariably got it. He had the commendations and awards to prove it, and he’d been contemplating an early retirement on the comfortable investments he’d shepherded over the years, just as he’d shepherded some of the world’s most dangerous operatives through the deepest cover imaginable. Some had died, some had come through, failures had always been followed by triumphs, and he cherished his reputation, almost blemish-free. He was a good man who’d lived a good and honorable life, free from smoking and drinking, free from carrying on and foul language and the weaknesses of modern society. People laughed at him, calling him a prude, but they’d done so affectionately, he was sure of it, and he knew he was viewed with both admiration and gratitude for his spotless work. He could retire happily.

If it hadn’t been for Thomas Killian. There were times when he still couldn’t believe Killian would dare think he could simply walk away from the company. When you sign up for the CIA undercover wet work, you sign up for life. Unlike Barringer, you didn’t get to retire to a nice little estate in Virginia and play golf. You couldn’t walk away, and yet Killian had, with the kind of information that would topple governments, locked away in his razor-sharp brain.

No one had blamed Barringer, exactly. After all, people trained in wet work weren’t the most malleable of souls, and he was lucky only one of them had gone rogue. Only one that his superiors knew of, of course. He’d been able to see the warning signs in any of the others who seemed likely to break rank, and he’d dealt with them, calmly and efficiently.

He hadn’t had that chance with Killian. By the time he knew Killian was planning to leave the reservation he was gone, disappearing as only a high level operative could. If he’d gone alone, Barringer might have been able to find him. But he’d disappeared with the head of the Committee, Isobel Lambert, and it was only belatedly that Barringer discovered the long standing connection between Thomas Killian and the woman who became Isobel Lambert.

His intel had failed him badly that time, and he dealt with that problem as well. Perhaps a little too quickly, but he was seriously annoyed and Killian was out of reach.

He wasn’t a man to regret his abrupt actions. He always made certain the families were well taken care of in these cases, that they knew their husbands or wives were heroes, giving their lives for their country. Barringer believed it, and he would cry at the funerals. It made no difference if his hand had held the gun or he’d simply ordered it. Each death was still in service of the country he loved.

In the four years Killian had been gone Barringer had never given up. Sooner or later there had to be a sign. They’d surface, maybe in a neutral country in Africa, maybe in Australia or the Arctic; heck, maybe in Washington, DC. He wouldn’t put it past someone like Killian.

So he waited. Patience was one of his many virtues, and he knew the value of taking his time. His retirement package was waiting, his comfortable house on the sound was furnished and waiting. All he needed was Killian.

He couldn’t leave his career with a blot like that on his record. He couldn’t leave a loose cannon like Killian out there with all that knowledge. And Killian had been a loose cannon - ignoring orders, following his own head, refusing half the wet work assigned. He’d been brilliant, though, and Barringer had learned to let him go. He’d pulled victory from defeat so many times and those victories had gone on Barringer’s record. Killian had no record, very few in the company even knew of his existence or the few others he’d run.

The others had done what they were told, and done it well. But they weren’t Killian. His betrayal had felt personal, and Barringer had no intention of letting him get away with it.

Patient though he was he was almost ready to give up. The days were long, the commute, even with the car and driver he’d earned, was tiring. He needed to work on his golf game, he needed to join the R.O.M.E.O.s, the other Retired Old Men Eating Out, for their weekly luncheons. But the ghost of Killian kept haunting him.

But now it had happened, finally. He’d known he’d be most likely to track him through Isobel Lambert, and he’d had the shattered remains of the Committee watched very closely for any sign of her. So far there had been nothing, but the sudden reappearance of one of her operatives was likely to change the playing field.

He’d known the Guiding Light was holding one of the members of the Committee up in the mountains at the behest of Harry Thomason, but he’d decided it was none of his business. He’d always liked Thomason, though his language could be offensive, and he had no interest in anyone else’s operatives. But apparently no one else had known where the man was, and his escape from La Luz was causing ripples that would be felt all the way to wherever Isobel Lambert and Killian were living. MacGowan had escaped, and he’d be out for blood.