To the Brink (22 page)

Her heart picked up several beats.

Manny? Manny spoke Filipino?

Then she heard another voice. One she recognized. And it wasn't Dallas.

She scrambled to get to the M-4. Before she could reach it, an AK-47 shoved aside the tangle of roots. The business end of the weapon was pointed right at the center of her forehead.

"Up. Up!"

Darcy recognized the voice ordering her to lift her hands above her head. It was one of the ringleaders of the rape squad. Standing at his side was a faint glimmer of hope.

"Ben," she said, an appeal in her voice.

"Quiet!" the other man yelled, and kicked the M-4 out of her reach.

He said something in rapid-fire Tagalog and spit at her feet.

Darcy didn't need to know the language to interpret what he said. But she did know. And that made it worse.

He blamed her for the death of his Abu Sayyaf brothers. And what he said next stopped her breath.

"Patayin mo na siya!"
he ordered Ben.
Kill her. "Patayin mo na siya!"

Ben's eyes grew large. He didn't want to do it. Darcy could see it in his dark eyes. In the way his Adam's apple bobbed jerkily when he swallowed.

"Gawin mo na o akong nang bahala nitol" Do it or I will!

Ben's gaze locked on hers in apology as he slowly lifted his weapon with shaking hands.

Everything became surreal then. Like watching a movie—without the popcorn and the cushy seat.

She was going to die. This boy was going to kill her.

Ben sighted down the barrel of the rifle.

Ethan was going to die. And it was all her fault.

Ben looked into her eyes.

Fixed his finger on the trigger.

And swung the gun away.

He fired three rounds dead center into the terrorist's chest.

Darcy flinched with each round.

And realized she was still alive.

Heart jackhammering, she looked in disbelief from Ben to the terrorist. Watched in stunned silence as the man looked down at himself, dropped his weapon with a clatter, and clutched his chest.

He just stood that way. It seemed like hours before he lifted his blood-drenched hands and stared at her as if he couldn't believe he was dying and not her before slowly lifting his faraway gaze to Ben.

There were tears in the young man's eyes as he watched his fellow soldier fall to the ground.

For the longest moment, Darcy felt numb. She couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.

And then the realization set in. Instead of killing her, Ben had killed
for
her. Because of him, she was alive. Because of him, Ethan was alive. She had no doubt he would have been next.

"Ben," she said in a thready voice. "Oh, Ben."

He forced his gaze away from the dead man. Searched her eyes like he was lost and was counting on her to show him the way.

"Thank you," she whispered as he slowly lowered his weapon.

A tear slid down his cheek. "I... so sorry, miss."

"No, no. It's okay. You did right, Ben. You did the right thing."

"I... I want to ... to go home."

She felt tears form in her own eyes for the boy who had wanted to be a man for all the wrong reasons but who had just become a man for all the right ones.

"Come here." She held a hand out to him, unable to quell the involuntary trembling. "Come sit by me. Someone's coming. He'll help us both get home."

Chapter 16

"I've got 'em."

"Thank you, Jesus." Dallas pressed a thumb and forefinger to his eyes as he listened to Manny on the SAT phone.

"Darcy contacted Manny," Dallas told Amy in an aside.

His relief didn't last all that long. Frowning, he held up a hand when Amy started to ask him for details.

He listened as Manny filled him in.

"Yeah. Wait. Let me get it turned on." Dallas snagged his GPS tracking unit, flipped it on. "Okay. It's on. Yeah. There it is. I've got a signal."

Manny broke the rest of the news about Ethan's wound and blood loss.

"The hell you will," Dallas said. "I'm on the way." He disconnected and started gathering gear.

"What? What's happened?"

Dallas looked up into Amy's anxious eyes. "Ethan took a round in the thigh. He's lost a lot of blood. Evidently he passed out for a couple of hours, got a little disoriented. Anyway, Darcy figured out how to use the SAT phone—once she knew he had one—and made contact with Manny."

"Is Darcy okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she's fine. Ethan, though—not so much," Dallas admitted, concern for his brother adding an edge to his urgency to get to him. "He's not going to be able to get out of there on his own power. And Manny isn't going to be able to carry him out." Not even with the help of the boy Manny had told him about.

He met Amy's eyes. They were more gray than blue and he knew she knew the score. Still, he pointed out the obvious. "You know I've got to go help them."

"I'll go, too."

He shook his head. This was going to be hard. "You need to save your strength for the rest of the trip."

"But—"

"You'd slow me down, Amy. I'm sorry. But that's the bottom line."

She gnawed furiously on her lower lip while he loaded up with extra ammo and tried not to think about how scared she was going to be waiting here all by herself.

"Look. You're going to be all right. You're well hidden—and this spot has already passed the tango test. But, just in case, I'm leaving this with you."

He handed her the M-4.

She shook her head. "You'll need that."

"I've got plenty of firepower and I'm not leaving you without it. Now let me show you how to use it."

Dallas walked her through the motions. "Got it?"

She gave him an absent nod.

"You're going to be all right," he insisted. "If I didn't think so, I wouldn't leave you here alone. Just lay low. Stay quiet and if any tangos chance by, keep your cool and they'll never spot you. You know that, don't you? Tell me you know that."

Another slow nod.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but I've got to go. Anything you need, it's probably in there." He nodded toward his ALICE pack. "Help yourself."

He checked his handgun. The 9mm Berretta was military issue and he'd been damn happy to get ahold of it. "Don't look for us until later in the afternoon. Probably closer to dark. It's going to be a long, rough trip."

Dallas's SAT phone rang just as he was strapping on his knife.

It was Nolan calling from Zamboanga. "I've got a fix on Ethan on the GPS."

"Yeah. I was just about to contact you. Manny's just located him. He's with Ethan and Darcy now. Problem is, they're a couple of hours from away from me."

"Is there like a rule that you guys can't stay within four Ks of each other?" Nolan sputtered.

Ignoring his brother's grumbling, Dallas filled Nolan in on Ethan's condition. "Better see if you can scare up an IV. We're going to need to rehydrate him. Maybe pump some blood."

"Yeah, sure. Why don't I get a triage team while I'm at it?" Nolan said, heavy on the sarcasm. "Who the hell do you think I am, Superman?"

"Yeah," Dallas said. "I do. He's in a bad way, Bro. Do what you can."

"Okay, right. I'll see what I can do. We adjusting the pickup time?"

"Negative. We're not staying on this mosquito-infested island a minute longer than we have to."

"Roger that. I'm outta here." Nolan hung up.

Amy's eyes were round and scared when Dallas turned to her. He felt a gut-deep urge to draw her into his arms, hold her close, and reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

But he knew what would happen if he touched her. At least he'd thought he knew—until she tentatively reached out and covered his hand with hers.

That simple, minor gesture damn near tore him up. He knew from encounters of the closest kind how she felt about physical contact. At least the male-female kind of contact. And he figured he knew she had damn good reason to be scared to death of the touch of a man.

That she would reach out, breach that divide with him, without coercion, without even necessity, undid him.

He covered her hand with his, looked into her eyes for any sign of discomfort—and found nothing but trust.

There were a lot of things he could have said to her then. There were a lot of things he wanted to say. Things like,
Another place .. . another time . . . if your life wasn't so screwed up... if mine wasn't just the way I like it.

Well... there were just a lot of things he wanted to say.

None of them appropriate. None of them wise. He didn't want her getting attached to him. Didn't want her to start thinking she meant any more to him than seeing her safely out of here. Because she didn't. She absolutely didn't.

And even if she did, he wouldn't let things go anywhere between them anyway. Present situation excluded, his life was nice, neat, and orderly, just the way he liked it. If he ever decided he wanted a woman to be a part of it, her life would have to be nice, neat, and orderly, too.

Amy Walker didn't have a prayer of nice, neat, and orderly for a very long time—if ever. She'd live with and struggle with and be tormented by what had happened to her in this jungle for the rest of her life.

No. Nothing neat and tidy there.

"Look," he said when he realized he'd been sitting here working damn hard on convincing himself of something that should have been a no contest. "Don't come out for anything. I'll give you a signal when we arrive so you'll know not to shoot us," he added with a grin, hoping to get an answering one from her.

"A signal?" she asked with that too serious face and those too worried eyes. "What kind of signal?"

"Don't worry." He'd do enough of that for both of them. "There won't be any mistaking it's me."

He rolled to all fours. "Stay strong. I'll see you later." Then he backed out of their cover and hightailed it out of there after his big brother.

For the first hour after Dallas left, Amy sat with the M-4 cradled on her lap, her finger poised on the trigger. A bird landed on the tangle of orchid vines and Amy startled, jerking the gun to her shoulder and taking aim before she settled herself.

She hadn't any more than drawn a steadying breath when some forest creature skittered through the jungle brush and had her flicking off the safety again.

This has to stop.

She'd have a heart attack or shoot herself in the foot if she didn't get a grip.

She hated being so jumpy. Was so tired of being afraid. So weary of becoming someone she didn't know and couldn't control.