Spy Hard (12 page)

Jase didn’t respond. And as Melanie popped up for a quick peek, she could no longer see him in the spot behind the palm tree.

“Show yourself!” Alejandro screamed, enraged, as if he, too, just noticed that his opponent had gone missing.

He got no response. An eerie silence settled on the jungle around them. The shouting had quieted the animals around. They were smart enough to sense the danger in the air.

Melanie kept hidden. But she could hear as Alejandro began moving, making the bushes rustle. A minute passed before she realized that the man was moving toward her. Still, when his head popped out from behind the leafy branches, she gave a startled cry. Then he lunged forward and landed next to her behind the rock, got down immediately, holding his gun ready.

She crouched low, unsure whether she could get up without help. Jumping up and running away from the man was out of the question. She held Mochi’s arm to make sure the boy wouldn’t bolt, either. She wouldn’t have put it past Alejandro to shoot at the kid.

He called out again without showing himself. Smarter than he looked, obviously. “I got the woman and the kid. How you gonna sell them now?” He jeered. “I got your money.”

Mochi burrowed his head against her shoulder, obviously scared of Alejandro as he’d never been of Jase, making her wonder if the man next to them had given the boy reason to fear him. She folded her arms around the little boy who’d stolen his way into her heart with his cheerful smiles and resilience. Nobody would hurt Mochi, not if she had anything to do with it.

Then something moved in the bushes to their right.

Alejandro aimed his gun that way. She held Mochi closer, her heart lurching into a mad rhythm.

Oh, God, don’t let Jase get hurt.

Endless minutes ticked by. No other movement or sound came from that direction. It might have been just a snake or some other small animal.

Maybe Jase had taken off. The dark thought hit her out of nowhere. Mochi and she had nothing to do with his mission. Saving them was nothing but an inconvenient detour for him. He didn’t have to risk his life for two strangers.

One of whom had been less than grateful, admittedly. She’d stolen his supplies and left him in the jungle just this morning. She’d been nothing but trouble, slowing him down, mistrusting him.

Yet, something deep inside her told her that he wouldn’t abandon them. Ridiculous. She hardly knew the man well enough to predict what he would or wouldn’t do.

She peeked over the rock and looked at the machete again, at least six feet away, out in the open. Too far. The second she moved, Alejandro would pull her back.

She glanced at Mochi on her other side and caught him looking at the machete as well, pulling away from her. She tightened her hold on him. No way would she let the boy risk his life. They would wait for a better opportunity to break away.

Mochi sent her a pleading look. She gave her head a barely perceptible shake. The boy sat back on his heels, understanding the message. But a minute later he was pulling away from her again, inching toward the bushes behind him.

She was ready to stop the boy, but then noticed at last what had gotten his attention this time. A line of ants was marching along the layers and layers of dead leaves that covered the ground. The small, reddish insects moved in an endless line, one following the other.

She had no trouble recognizing them: fire ants. She’d seen them in Texas growing up, had been taught to avoid them since their stings hurt like the devil.

She knew from one of the lectures her older sisters had given her that once the first ant bit, it sent some signal to the others and they all attacked at once, en masse. She pulled as far from the line as possible without drawing Alejandro’s attention. She had enough painful stings already.

Mochi silently placed a small stick in their path. After a moment of confusion and a minor pile-up, the ants crawled over it.

She glanced at Alejandro, but the man was busy scanning their surroundings for a sign of Jase, his gun ready to shoot the second he spotted his enemy.

She went back to watching Mochi from the corner of her eye, careful not to direct Alejandro’s attention to him. The boy picked up the stick and gouged a line in the ground, filled it with water from his canteen. The ants didn’t like the water. They went around that.

Which seemed to make the boy happy. He extended the miniature ditch all the way to Alejandro’s boots. While the man stared straight forward, Mochi poured out the rest of his water, creating a handy little moat. And there the ants went, looking for a way around the water, marching toward Alejandro.

They reached his boots pretty quickly. Since that was a dry land obstacle, their tactic was to climb it. Up and up in a neat row. They couldn’t get into the man’s pants. He’d tucked in his pant legs as anyone who knew anything about the jungle did, but up they climbed onto his back, until they reached his collar. Then in they went, one after the other.

Mochi shot her a pleased, impish smile.

She gave him a big grin.

They waited, looking anywhere but at the man. She didn’t want him to suddenly turn and catch her staring, and realize that they were up to something. An agonizing minute passed. Then suddenly Alejandro jerked and whacked his back with his free hand. And then the next second, he was jumping up and vaulting over the log, dropping his second gun so he could rip his shirt off as he swore like a bandit.

For a moment nothing else moved, and her fears that Jase had left seemed confirmed. But then he swung out of the trees on a jungle vine, knocking Alejandro off his feet, and she started to breathe again.

The two tangled in a snarl of limbs, each trying to get the upper hand. They both still had their guns, so she stayed in cover and kept Mochi with her in case one of the men got off a shot and it went wide. But Jase had Alejandro’s right wrist in a firm grip, and Alejandro had Jase’s. Since they couldn’t use their weapons, they butted heads, kicked, elbowed and generally tried to break each other’s ribs instead.

Alejandro rolled Jase over a small pile of sharp rocks that ripped his pants. And his skin, she realized a second later when she saw red spreading on the fabric. Jase barely grunted at the injury. He focused completely on his enemy as the two rolled toward the creek.

Then rolled right into the rapid water.

Jase held Alejandro’s head under for a long minute, before Alejandro heaved him off and returned the favor. And kept Jase under way too long. A dark, demented smile began spreading on the man’s face.

She worked herself up to her knees, fear coursing through her, quickly growing into panic. The fight between the two men would decide her fate. And Alejandro looked to be winning. She couldn’t bear thinking what would happen to her, to her baby, to Mochi…

No,
a determined voice bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her.
You can take control.

For a second, she fought that voice. That she could do anything in the current situation sounded crazy. She wasn’t like Jase, hadn’t been trained for this, had never been in a fight in her life.

But hadn’t she resolved to take charge of her life?

Then do it.

So this was a rough situation. Yes, she had a better than good chance of getting hurt. But the price of remaining passive was even greater.

She gestured to Mochi to stay put, hoping he would understand what her upheld palm meant. Then she slipped around the rock as quietly as she could with her big belly, went for the machete and hid it behind her back. She approached the men from behind.

And then she was close enough, had made it to within reach. Alejandro was too focused on Jase to notice her.

So far so good. Now what? She balked at the actual violence part of the deal.

She didn’t dare use the blade. If she missed Alejandro, she could easily slice something off Jase. But she had to do something. She’d gotten this far. She was going to fight, dammit.

She lifted the weapon over her head, meaning to bring the handle down hard on the back of Alejandro’s head and knock him out, except Jase had made his move at the same second and came up from the water to roll Alejandro under again.

So the butt of the machete glanced off Alejandro’s cheek, and she hit Jase in the eye with all her strength. She could have easily blinded him but, thank God, the machete had a wide handle and his cheekbone took the brunt of the hit.

Alejandro roared and shoved her back, into the water, then went for Jase, but the sound of a gunshot had him whipping his head in the direction of the sound. That moment of hesitation was enough for Jase to wrest control of the situation again.

He grabbed Alejandro, going for the man’s throat.

Melanie struggled to stand, but her feet kept slipping, her considerable weight pulling her back. She floundered in the middle of the creek where the water was deeper and the current swifter. Swift enough to move her.

She stifled a moan of panic, but Jase heard her anyway and looked at her.

Alejandro used the distraction and tore away from him, lurching toward the opposite bank.

She struggled for control. “I’m fine.”

Jase threw himself after the man.

Then the hand she braced herself with slipped and she suddenly lost the fight. The rapid flow of water washed her downcreek. She did her best to protect her belly with her arms, cried out on instinct, without meaning to. “Jase!”

The current rolled her to the side and she swallowed some water, her ungainly body impossible to maneuver.

*

J
ASE GAVE UP
on Alejandro immediately and leapt back into the water, sloshed to where she struggled with the current. He pulled her up carefully, making sure she didn’t slip again, didn’t hit her belly. “Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”

He looked for cuts and bruises, silently swearing at himself for not paying closer attention to her. She could have been hurt. Her baby could have been…

It was the first time he thought of the baby as a real person instead of a remote concept. A baby that might have her eyes. The thought made him feel all weird.

“He’s getting away!” She pulled away from him to point at the spot where Alejandro was running for the bushes on the opposite bank. He no longer had his weapon. Must have dropped it in the water. He dove into the forest, and judging by the way the branches were moving, he didn’t stop. Probably heading back to camp.

Jase grabbed his gun and aimed. Too late. The dense vegetation swallowed his target. He didn’t want to squeeze the trigger blindly. He hadn’t forgotten that shot in the distance earlier. Better not draw attention to himself until he knew who was out there.

He helped Melanie to shore, careful that she wouldn’t slip again and hurt herself. He tried not to notice how nice it felt to have her tucked into his arms. She fit perfectly.

“So do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” he asked, not knowing why exactly, as he tugged her toward dry ground. Her baby was none of his business.

“Boy.” She smiled even as she gasped for air and braced her back, dripping wet and leaning on him. “I’m going to name him William. For my grandfather.”

Not for the boy’s father. Maybe her brief marriage had been… What? What was he hoping for here? That she wasn’t still in love with Julio? What difference did it make to him?

Don’t be stupid.

Just because he’d had a few hot dreams about her, a new one last night, and because the more time they spent together, the more he was starting to like her gentleness with Mochi and Chico and her grit of never uttering a word of complaint while other women would want to be fussed over and spoiled at this stage—

Fine. He liked her. Nothing wrong with that. For the next few days, they were in this together. They were teammates.

But then he was going to drop her off, put her from his mind and focus on the op again.

“Sorry about your eye.” She looked up at him, wincing.

“Forget it,” he said, but then he grinned. “We must make an odd-looking couple.” Her eyes were getting better little by little, but were still plenty swollen.

“The best thing about the jungle is that it doesn’t have any mirrors,” she told him. Then she asked, “What was that gunshot earlier?” Apparently she hadn’t forgotten, either. “Who else is out there?”

“No idea. But whoever they are, they’re not our friends.” He knew that for a fact because he had no friends in the jungle. He’d been dropped in on his own, on a solo mission, no team to back him up. You didn’t take an entourage with you when you went undercover.

Mochi came to help, the puppy jumping around at their feet. Jase turned in the direction where the gunshot had come from, but could hear nothing else. So, as he lowered Melanie down to a fallen log, he turned his attention back to the spot where Alejandro had disappeared.

He could probably still catch up with the man. He’d always been able to outrun him.

He looked at Melanie, her tortured eyes and soggy clothes, which, oddly, detracted nothing from her beauty. She was such a lovely mess. Her eyes filled with trust as she looked at him, and that strange fluttering feeling started up in his chest again.

No time to think about that now.

He considered the distant gunshot. Someone or, most likely, a whole group of people walked the jungle not far from here. Maybe half a mile to the north. Could be poachers or illegal loggers.

Either way, he couldn’t leave Melanie and Mochi to chase after Alejandro.

“I should have shot the bastard when I had the chance,” he said under his breath, mostly to himself. Should have taken aim when the idiot had jumped from behind the log, ripping at his shirt. But the man was jiggling around so much, he’d been afraid that a bullet could go astray and hit either Melanie or Mochi.

He raised an eyebrow. “What did you two do to him?”

“Fire ants.” Melanie grinned. “Mochi did it.”

He nodded at the boy with appreciation.

“You should have shot him,” she said.

“I thought about it.” But even beyond not wanting to take the chance that a shot would go wide… “I was hoping to ask him a few questions first.” You never shot someone without first trying to gain useful intelligence. The U.S. was desperate for information about the Don’s terrorist contacts.