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“But…but…why did she go to the prison in the first place?”
“I’ll get the answer to that question when I find your daughter,” Carlos promised grimly.
He’d get more than answers, he thought savagely as he strode down the Palace steps into the star-studded night. He’d bring her back safely and drag whatever information she had out of her. Then he’d either wring her neck for walking into this mess in the first place or tie her naked to his bed and keep her there until the blasted woman admitted she wanted him as much as he did her!
At the moment, the former option seemed infinitely more probable.
Within an hour he was back in uniform and had assembled his team.
Within two, he’d pulled together enough intelligence to indicate the escaped prisoner would in all likelihood head for a rendezvous point in the jungle, a cave hidden high in the mountains supposedly used as a way station by drug runners. There, he’d join forces with the heavily armed band that had reportedly been spotted crossing the border.
Worry for Margarita gnawing at his gut, Carlos sat beside his driver for the short ride to the military airbase just outside San Rico. Miguel and a small, handpicked squad of ten men followed in a half-ton truck. Although his aide had tried to hide his feelings behind a carefully blank mask, he hadn’t yet recovered from the shock of finding Anna clinging like a limpet to his superior. Carlos would have to explain that scene to him—later! When his mind was clear and fear for Margarita didn’t crawl through his belly.
The helicopter crew had their bird preflighted and ready to go when Carlos and his team arrived at the airport. The squad filed to the chopper, almost invisible in their dark jungle fatigues and blackened faces. Silently, they climbed aboard and strapped in. While the rotor blades whirred and the engine whined up to full power, Carlos pulled a plastic-coated map from his pocket and ran through his hastily conceived tactical plan.
“We’ll land here, a half mile to the west of the cave to avoid alerting anyone in the vicinity.”
Stabbing a finger at the map, he pointed to an area devoid of towns, of plantations, of any signs of human habitation. The closest village lay a good ten miles to the west.
“With luck, we’ll reach the cave ahead of the fugitive and his hostage and be waiting when they arrive. If by chance they get there before us, we’ll use the element of surprise to come at them out of the darkness.”
Either approach involved risk. To his men. To himself. To Margarita. Still, the plan was the best he could devise.
It might even have worked…if the helicopter hadn’t developed engine trouble while they were still two miles from their objective. Using the chopper’s powerful, million-candle-watt searchlight, the cursing pilot found a hole in the jungle canopy at the last moment and put them down with only a bent rotor blade. Carlos jumped out and surveyed the solid wall of blackness beyond the searchlight’s reach.
Two miles. They’d come down two miles from their planned landing zone, which put them two-and-a-half from the cave. On cleared terrain, he could run the distance in less than a half hour with full backpack. In the jungle, two and a half miles stretched to infinity.
Grimly, Carlos dug a pair of night-vision goggles from a pocket in his lightweight fatigue vest and led the way into dank, murky rain forest.
“Come on! Keep climbing!”
The gun barrel jabbed ruthlessly into Margarita’s spine, prodding her up the steep path. She winced at the bruising pain, but it soon blended with all the others into an indistinguishable ache. Narrowing her eyes against the bright dawn haze, she inched her way up the path toward the distant roar of a waterfall.
With every stumbling step, needles of fire shot up her bound arms. Her shoulder sockets burned. Cramps pulled like iron tongs at calf muscles straining from the hard climb. At that moment, she would have given almost everything she owned for a few sips of water.
They’d driven all night, each twisting turn of the road taking them higher into the mountains. For the first hour or two of that long ride, Margarita had listened with every sense straining for sounds of pursuit. Hope of rescue faded with each grind of the Jeep’s gears. She should have known the elusive criminal SPEAR had been hunting for months would have planned his escape well.
Well, she wasn’t going to make the escape any easier for the walking piece of slime behind her. Deliberately, she stumbled and went down on one knee. Sharp rock cut into the jeans she’d hurriedly thrown on before rushing to the prison. Her gasp of pain was only half feigned.
“Get up!” her captor snarled, panting even harder than Margarita from the arduous trek. He’d emptied his canteen early in the climb. Thirst and exertion put a rasp in his throat. “You’re not fooling anyone with this weak, helpless female act. I know the kind of training you’ve had.”
With an awkward twist of her upper body, Margarita propped a shoulder against the cliff face and pushed herself up. Her breath cut like razor blades into lungs starved for oxygen.
“How do you know what kind of training I’ve had? Who are you?”
A sneer twisted his lips. “You tell me.”
“All right.” Her chest heaving, she propped her aching shoulders against the vine-covered rock wall behind her. “You’re Simon.”
“Very good.” The sneer deepened, tugging at his scarred face. He stepped up beside her and dug the pistol barrel into the soft flesh under her chin. “And we both know who you are, don’t we? The bitch who’s been interfering in my operations in Central and South America.”
With her back against sheer rock and a gun barrel grinding into the underside of her chin, Margarita weighed the odds of taking him down right then and there. If she twisted her head just a few inches to the right, hooked her shoulder into his chest and shoved the bastard over the side of the path before he got off a shot…
“It took me a while to figure out who Jonah had operating in Madrileño.”
Jonah! The casual way he dropped the name froze Margarita in place. Dios! This man knew more about SPEAR than many of its own agents.
“What makes you think I work for Jonah?”
Vicious satisfaction laced his voice. “I have my ways of getting information…just as SPEAR does. You caused me considerable inconvenience, Señorita de las Fuentes. You and that bastard deputy defense minister.”
“Carlos?”
Her surprised gasp drew a parody of a smile. “Yes, Carlos. Between the information you supplied SPEAR and Caballero’s internal crackdown on the drug trade, the two of you just about destroyed my base of operations in this corner of the world.”
Carlos! For the merest instant, she could hear his voice. Feel his mouth on hers. Just the thought of his strong, solid form brought the craven wish she’d never left his arms. Then reality returned in the form of a vicious killer.
“Good.” Despite a throat parched with thirst, she managed a sarcastic smile. “I’m glad we inconvenienced you.”
“I wouldn’t look so pleased with yourself.” The gun barrel ground into her jaw. “Your interference will end as of today.”
Ignoring both the threat and the agony of steel against bone, she swept her captor a disdainful glance. His disfigurement had been startling enough in the dim prison interior. In the bright light of dawn, the puckered, angry flesh could weaken anyone’s stomach. His glass eye remained fixed. His good eye followed hers as they roamed his scars.
“Hideous, aren’t they?”
She refused to give him so much as a hint of sympathy. “I’ve seen worse.”
With the cosmetic techniques available today, he could have had the scars removed. That he chose not to told her he took some kind of perverse pride in his disfigurement—or that he wanted a bitter daily reminder of whatever cataclysmic event had caused it. When she suggested as much in a cool voice, something so evil flared in his one good eye that Margarita’s palms flattened against rock behind her.
“I want Jonah to see them. Which he will…and soon. Now move it, Señorita. I’ve wasted enough time in this stinking green cesspool you call a country.”
The slur to Madrileño only added to his hostage’s growing determination to shove his gun barrel between his teeth and make him eat his words along with a good six inches of cold steel. Laughing at the deadly promise in her eyes, he stepped back and motioned her onward. With her chin bruised and fire burning in her heart, Margarita resumed her climb.
Her chance would come.
It had to come.
The path twisted and turned. The sun crawled higher, a blazing ball visible through gaps in the vines and trees clinging to the mountain. Twice, Margarita stumbled to her knees, only to be jerked upright by a cruel hand in her hair. Once, the little locket stuck to the sweaty skin beneath her blouse began to vibrate.
The feel of it humming against her breasts made her want to weep with frustration. The tiny device hidden inside only received signals, didn’t send them. There was no way for SPEAR to pinpoint her location.
Gradually, the roar of the waterfall grew louder. When they rounded a bend and Simon dragged back a straggling curtain of vines to reveal a gaping hole in the cliff face, Margarita knew time was running out. She’d have to free herself quickly, before his accomplices appeared on the scene and her value as a hostage ended.
With a grunt, he planted a fist in her back and shoved her inside the cave. She made a frantic sweep of the dank interior for snakes or other inhospitable inhabitants before she hit the rock floor. The thud jarred her teeth. Cursing fluently in both Spanish and English, she twisted up and around.
“My friends will be here shortly,” he said with callous indifference to her curses. “While we wait, I’ll fill the canteen at the waterfall.”
Swiping his forearm across his sweaty forehead, he dragged another length of rope from his back pocket and tied her ankles. He seemed to take particular delight in yanking the knots until they cut almost through her boot tops. Margarita refused to so much as move a muscle at his rough treatment, even when he slid his palm up her calf and squeezed, hard.
“Be a good girl and I’ll give you some water.”
A smile dragged at his misshapen mouth. His hand roamed higher, to her thigh. She felt its damp heat through her jeans.
“Then again, maybe I won’t. Maybe you’ll have to beg for it. I like my women hot and desperate.”
“I imagine that’s the only way a scum like you can get them.”
His casual backhand snapped her head back. She tasted blood…and the absolute conviction that she’d see this man in hell before he touched her again.
“You’ll beg,” he predicted with a sneering confidence that ground her teeth together. “Long and hard.”
The son of a pig!
The moment he disappeared through the vines, Margarita dragged herself up and began searching the cave. All she needed was a ragged edge, a sharp protuberance of any kind to saw through her bonds. She’d wiggled her way out of worse situations than this during SPEAR’s brutal escape and evasion training.
That was training, a nasty little voice inside her head heckled. This is for real.
As if she needed the reminder! Ignoring the scream of protest from her shoulders, Margarita rolled over to the nearest wall and fumbled behind her with numbed fingers for its surface. Panic rose in waves when she felt nothing but smooth rock. Choking with frustration, she humped and stretched and humped again, propelling herself snail-like along the floor, searching the surface behind her with desperate fingers.
She’d almost given up hope when she scraped against a small, sharp crack in the rock. Praying its flintlike edge would do the job, she pushed up on one elbow to gain leverage and went to work. Her back arched at an awkward angle. Every back-and-forth movement caused a white-hot lance of pain in her shoulders. Sweat ran in rivulets from her temples. Blood dripped onto her balled fists from wrists scraped raw by rope and stone.
Straining, grunting, sawing, Margarita struggled to keep track of the passing seconds. Her heart hammered as she listened for the thud of footsteps, but she knew she’d never hear Simon’s return over the thundering falls and her jackhammering pulse.
When the ropes finally parted, what began as a fervent prayer of thanksgiving spiraled instantly into a silent scream. For several precious moments, Margarita could only writhe on the cave floor while her abused shoulder sockets exacted their revenge. Finally, the agony subsided enough for her to sit up. Panting, she fumbled at the ropes binding her ankles. When they, too, gave, she dropped her forehead onto her knees and allowed herself one moment of sobbing relief.
Not a heartbeat later, the faint scrape of rock on rock brought her head up with a jerk. Molten fury coursed through Margarita. This time, she wouldn’t hand herself over so easily. This time, she’d have a few surprises in store for a certain one-eyed bastard.
She was gathering herself for an attack when gunfire burst out in the valley below. Her heart contracted painfully as monkeys screamed and birds flapped noisily into the sky. In almost the same instant, a shadowy figure appeared at the curtain of vines draped across the cave’s mouth.
She caught the glitter of sunlight on a gun barrel. With a feral snarl, Margarita launched herself through the vines.
Chapter 3
Long afterward, Carlos would shudder every time he remembered the violence that suddenly erupted at the cave’s mouth.
One moment, he was feeling his way cautiously along the narrow path, searching for the entrance to the cave. The next, a burst of gunfire told him the squad he’d positioned to guard the approach to the steep track had engaged with a hostile force.
Then a dark fury exploded through vines straggling down the cliff face and catapulted into Carlos. Only the fact that he’d inched his way up the dangerous track with every sense on full alert kept him from being butted right off the path and over the sheer cliff.
In a purely self-protective move, Carlos grappled with his attacker and flung them both sideways, away from the edge of the precipice. Struggling furiously, they went down in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs. A vicious elbow dug into his windpipe. Choking, Carlos wrenched an arm free and pulled it back. His balled fist was in mid-swing when his attacker flung back a tangled mass of ebony hair and snarled a curse.
“Son of a motherless—!”
Violet eyes widened in shock. Just in time, Carlos pulled his punch. The blow slammed into her shoulder instead her jaw. With a small, helpless cry of agony, she crumpled onto his chest.
“Dios!”
Rolling them both away from the edge of the track, Carlos scrambled to his knees. His first instinct was to gather her writhing form into his arms and pour out a thousand apologies for the brutal blow, but the soldier in him needed to secure the area first.
Shaking his head to clear it, he performed a swift mental assessment of the situation. The stutter of guns behind and below them told him his men were engaged in a full-fledged firefight. He had no idea how many enemy were coming up the path and how many might already be in the cave. Given his vulnerable position on the narrow ledge, attack was his only defense.
With a warning to Margarita to stay low, he took a firm grip on his 9 mm Beretta, threw himself through the vines, and hit the floor rolling. An instant later, he was on his feet, sweeping the cave with savage eyes. Only after he was satisfied it held no immediate threat did he jam his pistol into its holster and rush outside. His throat closed when he saw the way Margarita had curled into a fetal ball against the cliff face.
“Rita! Sweetheart!” Gently, he rolled her over. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it was you.”
“Ob…viously.”
Biting down on her lower lip, she struggled to sit up. Tears streaked her dirt-smudged cheeks. Leaves and bits of debris clung to her tumbled hair and long-sleeved white shirt. When Carlos spotted the bright red blood staining her sleeves, his heart stopped.
“What did that bastard do to—”
Crack!
Rock splintered a mere six inches from his face. The shot was still reverberating when Carlos threw himself forward, shielding Margarita’s body with his own. A burst of fire followed the first bullet, each one sending vicious rock shards flying through the air.
It took less than a heartbeat for him to realize these shots came not from the path below, but from the direction of the waterfall he heard rumbling in the distance beyond the cave. In a lightning reflex, he banded an arm around Margarita’s waist and half dragged, half flung her around a bend in the path. A stone outcropping protected them from the shooter momentarily.
“It’s him!” she gasped. “The escaped prisoner! He’s got the submachine gun he took from the guard.”
On his own, Carlos wouldn’t have thought twice about tackling the man. But he wasn’t on his own, and the driving necessity right now was to remove Margarita from the line of fire.
His men were strung out along the path below, fighting a ferocious rearguard action from the sound of it. The dangerous fugitive was above and closing fast. They couldn’t stay in this exposed position. That left only one option.
“We’re going over the side.”
She shot a wide-eyed glance at the steep precipice, gulped and nodded. Whipping off his belt, Carlos slapped it around her waist and slid the tongue through the buckle. A quick tug yanked it tight.
“Grab the vines to break your slide,” he ordered, wrapping the loose end of the webbing around his fist. “I’ll do the same.”
Another burst of fire plowed into the rock less than a foot away. Carlos ducked, muttered an oath that was half curse, half prayer and dragged her with him over the edge.
Their plunging descent could only have lasted seconds, but to Margarita it seemed like a lifetime. Spongy vegetation shielded their bodies from the worst of the cliff face, and Carlos’s raw strength kept them from a disastrous free fall. Somehow, he managed to lock his fist around vines that stretched like elastic bands with their weight. Just as one vine reached the breaking point, he made a frantic grab for another.
Margarita heard him grunt with the strain of hanging onto both her tether and his precarious handholds while the two of them bumped and slithered down the slope. To her disgust, she could do little to help. Her right arm dangled uselessly, still numb from the combined effects of his savage blow and hours twisted behind her back. Her left arm had tangled in the belt anchoring her to Carlos.
At last the slope gentled enough for him to drag them both to a halt. They lay on their backs for a few seconds, panting. She couldn’t get her breath, could barely see for the sweat stinging her eyes. Twisting, she swiped her face on her sleeve and stared upward.
A multitude of green layers shielded them from observation. The thunder of the falls was the only sound that penetrated the dense stillness. His chest heaving, Carlos rolled to his feet and tugged Margarita up.
“Are you all right?”
“I will be.” She clawed at the belt cutting her in two. “Once I…can breathe…again.”
“Here, let me.”
His big hands fumbled with the buckle. When the tortuous constriction around her middle loosened, she gulped in long swallows of air.
His face grim, Carlos hitched the belt around his hips and swiped an arm across his face. For the first time, Margarita noticed he’d donned the mottled green and black of jungle fatigues. Over a similarly camouflaged long-sleeved shirt and black T-shirt, he wore a nylon vest with dozens of little pockets. Streaks of black and green face paint smudged to a muddy mask made him almost indistinguishable from the jungle around him.
