Her Kind of Hero: The Last Mercenary

She followed her taciturn companion through the jungle growth, her eyes restless, her ears listening for any mechanical sound. The darkness was oddly comforting, because sound traveled so well in it. Once, she heard a quick, sharp rustle of the underbrush and stilled, but her companion quickly trained his light on it. It was only an iguana.

She laughed with delight at the unexpected encounter, bringing a curt jerk of the head from her companion, who seemed to find her amusement odd. He didn’t say anything, though. He glanced at his instrument again, stopped to listen and look, and started off again.

Thorns in some of the undergrowth tore at her bare arms and legs, and her face. She didn’t complain. Remembering where she’d been just before she was rescued made her grateful for any sort of escape, no matter how physically painful it might be.

She began to make a mental list of things she had to do when they reached safety. First on the list was to phone and see if Jack Steele was all right. He must be worried about her sudden disappearance. She didn’t want him to suffer a setback.

Her lack of conversation seemed to puzzle the big man leading her through the jungle. He glanced back at her frequently, presumably to make sure she was behind him, but he didn’t speak. He made odd movements, sometimes doubling back on the trail he made, sometimes deliberately snapping twigs and stepping on grass in directions they didn’t go. Callie just followed along mindlessly.

At least two hours passed before he stopped, near a small stream. “We should be safe enough here for the time being,” he remarked as he put down the backpack and opened it, producing a small bottle of water. He tossed it to Callie. “I imagine you’re thirsty.”

She opened it with trembling hands and swallowed half of it down at once, tears stinging her eyes at the pleasure of the wetness on her tongue, in her dry mouth.

He set up a small, self-contained light source, revealing his companion. He moved closer, frowning at her enthusiastic swallowing as he drew a first aid kit from his backpack. “When did you last have anything to drink?” he asked softly.

“Day…before yesterday,” she choked.

He cursed. In the same instant, he pulled off the mask he’d been wearing, and Callie dropped the water bottle as her eyes encountered the dark ones of her stepbrother, Micah, in the dim light.

He picked up the water bottle and handed it back to her. “I thought it might come as a shock,” he said grimly, noting her expression.

“You came after me yourself?” she asked, aghast. “But, how? Why?”

“Lopez has an agent in one of the federal agencies,” he told her flatly. “I don’t know who it is. I couldn’t risk letting them come down here looking for you and having someone sell you out before I got here. Not that it would have been anytime soon. They’re probably still arguing over jurisdictions as we speak.” He pulled out a foil-sealed package and tossed it to her. “It’s the equivalent of an MRE—a meal ready to eat. Nothing fancy, but if you’re hungry, you won’t mind the taste.”

“Thanks,” she said huskily, tearing into it with urgent fingers that trembled with hunger.

He watched her eat ravenously, and he scowled. “No food, either?”

She shook her head. “You don’t feed people you’re going to kill,” she mumbled through bites of chicken and rice that tasted freshly cooked, if cold.

He was very still. “Excuse me?”

She glanced at him while she chewed a cube of chicken. “He gave me to three of his men and told them to kill me.” She swallowed and averted her eyes. “He said they could do whatever they liked to me first. So they did. At least, they started to, when you showed up. I was briefly alone with a smaller man, Arabic I think, and I tried to make him mad enough to release me so I had one last chance at escape. It made him mad, all right, but instead of untying me, he…put his knife into me.” She chewed another cube of chicken, trying not to break down. “He said it was a…a taste of what to expect if I resisted him again. When you came in through the window, he was just about to violate me.”

“I’m going to take care of that cut right now. Infection sets in fast in tropical areas like this.” He opened the first-aid box and checked through his supplies. He muttered something under his breath.

He took the half-finished meal away from her and stripped her out of the T-shirt. She grimaced and lowered her eyes as her mutilated bra and her bare breast were revealed, but she didn’t protest.

“I know this is going to be hard for you, considering what you’ve just been through. But try to remember that I’m a doctor,” he said curtly. “As near as not, anyway.”

She swallowed, her eyes still closed tight. “At least you won’t make fun of my body while you’re working on it,” she said miserably.

He was opening a small bottle. “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” she said wearily. “Oh God, I’m so tired!”

“I can imagine.”

She felt his big, warm hands reach behind her to unfasten the bra and she caught it involuntarily.

He glanced at her face in the small circle of light from the lantern. “If there was another way, I’d take it.”

She drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes, letting go of the fabric. She bit her lip and didn’t look as he peeled the fabric away from her small, firm breasts.

The sight of the small cut made him furious. She had pretty little breasts, tip-tilted, with dusky nipples. He could feel himself responding to the sight of her, and he had to bite down hard on a wave of desire.

He forced himself to focus on the cut, and nothing else. The bra, he stuffed in his backpack. He didn’t dare leave signs behind them. There wasn’t much chance that they were closely followed, but he had to be careful.

He had to touch her breast to clean the small cut, and she jerked involuntarily.

“I won’t hurt you any more than I have to,” he promised quietly, mistaking her reaction for pain. “Grit your teeth.”

She did, but it didn’t help. She bit almost through her lip as he cleaned the wound. The sight of his big, lean hands on her body was breathtaking, arousing even under the circumstances. The pain was secondary to the hunger she felt for him, a hunger that had lasted for years. He didn’t know, and she couldn’t let him know. He hated her.

She closed her eyes while he put a soft bandage over the cleaned wound, taping it in place.

“God in heaven, I thought I’d seen every kind of lowlife on earth, but the guy who did this to you was a class all by himself,” he growled.

She remembered the man and shuddered. Micah was pulling the shirt down over her bandaged breast. “It probably doesn’t seem like it, but I got off lucky,” she replied.

He looked into her eyes. “It’s just a superficial wound so you won’t need stitches. It probably won’t even leave a scar there.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” she said quietly.

“It would.” He got up, drawing her up with him. “You’re still nervous of me, after all this time.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “You don’t like me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he burst out, letting go of her shoulders. He turned away to deal with the medical kit. “Haven’t you got eyes?”

She wondered what that meant. She was too tired to work it out. She sat down again and picked up her half-eaten meal, finishing it with relish. It was hard to look at him, after he’d seen her like that.

She fingered the rolled-up pair of camouflage pants she was wearing. “These aren’t big enough to be yours,” she remarked.

“They’re Maddie’s. She gave me those for you, and the shoes and socks, on the way out of Texas,” he commented when he noticed her curious exploration of the pants.

He worked with some sort of electronic device.

“What’s that thing?” she asked.

“GPS,” he explained. “Global positioning. I can give my men a fix on our position, so they can get a chopper in here to pick us up and pinpoint our exact location. There’s a clearing just through there where we’ll rendezvous,” he added, nodding toward the jungle.

Suddenly she frowned. “Who’s Maddie?” she asked.

“Maddie’s my scrounger. Anything we need on site that we didn’t bring, Maddie can get. She’s quite a girl. In fact,” he added, “she looks a lot like you. She was mistaken for you at a wedding I went to recently in Washington, D. C.”

That was disturbing. It sounded as though he and this Maddie were in partnership or something. She hated the jealousy she felt, when she had no right to be jealous. Old habits died hard.

“Is she here?” she asked, still puzzled by events and Micah’s strange skills.

“No. We left her back in the States. She’s working on some information I need, about the mole working for the feds, and getting some of your things together to send on to Miami.”

She blinked. “You keep saying ‘we,’” she pointed out.

His chin lifted. He studied her, unsmiling. “Exactly what do you think I do for a living, Callie?” In the dim light, his blond hair shone like muted moonlight. His handsome face was all angles and shadows. Her vision was still a little blurred from whatever the kidnapper had given her. So was her mind.

“Your mother left you a trust,” she pointed out.

“My mother left me ten thousand dollars,” he replied. “That wouldn’t pay to replace the engine on the Ferrari I drive in Nassau.”

Her hands stilled on the fork and tray. Some odd ideas were popping into her head. “You finished your residency?” she fished.

He shook his head. “Medicine wasn’t for me.”

“Then, what…?”

“Use your mind, Callie,” he said finally, irritated. “How many men do you know who could rappel into a drug lord’s lair and spirit out a hostage?”

Her breath caught. “You work for some federal agency?”

“Good God!” He got up, moved to his backpack and started repacking it. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

“I don’t know much about you, Micah,” she confided quietly as she finished her meal and handed him the empty tray and fork. “That was the way you always wanted it.”

“In some cases, it doesn’t pay to advertise,” he said carelessly. “I used to work with Eb Scott and Cy Parks, but now I have my own group. We hire out to various world governments for covert ops.” He glanced at her stunned face. “I worked for the justice department for a couple of years, but now I’m a mercenary, Callie.”

She was struck dumb for several long seconds. She swallowed. It explained a lot. “Does your father know?” she asked.

“He does not,” he told her. “And I don’t want him to know. If he still gives a damn about me, it would only upset him.”

“He loves you very much,” she said quietly, avoiding his angry black eyes. “He’d like to mend fences, but he doesn’t know how. He feels guilty, for making you leave and blaming you for what…what my mother did.”

He pulled out a foil sealed meal for himself and opened it before he spoke. “You blamed me, as well.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. It was cold in the jungle at night, just like they said in the movies. “Not really. My mother is very beautiful,” she said, recalling the older woman’s wavy jet-black hair and vivid blue eyes and pale skin. “She was a model just briefly, before she married my…her first husband.”

He frowned. “You were going to say, your father.”

She shivered. “He said I wasn’t his child. He caught her in bed with some rich man when I was six. I didn’t understand at the time, but he pushed me away pretty brutally and said not to come near him again. He said he didn’t know whose child I was. That was when she put me in foster care.”

Micah stared at her, unspeaking, for several long seconds. “Put you in what?”

She swallowed. “She gave me up for adoption on the grounds that she couldn’t support me. I went into a juvenile home, and from there to half a dozen foster homes. I only saw her once in all those years, when she took me home for Christmas. It didn’t last long.” She stared down at the jungle floor. “When she married your father, he wanted me, so she told him I’d been staying with my grandmother. I was in a foster home, but she got me out so she could convince your father that she was a good mother.” She laughed hollowly. “I hadn’t seen her or heard from her in two years by then. She told me I’d better make a good job of pretending affection, or she’d tell the authorities I’d stolen something valuable—and instead of going back into foster care for two more years, I’d go to jail.”

3

Micah didn’t say a word. He repacked the first-aid kit into his backpack with quick, angry movements. He didn’t look at Callie.

“I guess you know how to use that gun,” she said quietly. “If we’re found, or if it looks like Lopez is going to catch us, I want you to shoot me. I’d rather die than face what you saved me from.”

She said it in such a calm, quiet tone that it made all the more impact.

He looked up, scanning her drawn, white face in the soft light from the lantern. “He won’t get you. I promise.”

She drew a slow breath. “Thanks.” She traced a fingernail over the camouflage pants. “And thanks for coming to get me. Lopez said he didn’t have any plans to ransom me. He was going to let his men kill me because he thought it would make you suffer.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you were my worst enemy and you wouldn’t care if he killed me,” she said carelessly. “But he said you did care about your father, and he was the next victim. I hope you’ve got someone watching Dad,” she added fervently. “If anything happens to him…!”

“You really love him, don’t you?” he asked in an odd tone.

“He’s the only person in my whole life who ever loved me,” she said in a strained whisper.

A harsh sound broke from his lips. He got up and started getting things together. He pulled out what looked like a modified cell phone and spoke into it. A minute later, he put it back into the backpack.

“They’re on the way in.” He stood over her, his face grim as he picked up the small lantern and extinguished the light. “I know you must be cold. I’m sorry. I planned a quick airlift, so I didn’t pack for a prolonged trek.”

“It’s all right,” she said at once. “Cold is better than tortured.”

He cursed under his breath as he hefted the backpack. “We have to get to that small clearing on the other side of the stream. It isn’t deep, but I can carry you…”

“I’ll walk,” she said with quiet dignity, standing up. It was still painful to move, because she’d been tied up for so long, but she didn’t let on. “You’ve done enough already.”

“I’ve done nothing,” he spat. He turned on his heel and led the way to the bank of the small stream, offering a hand.

She didn’t take it. She knew he found her repulsive. He’d even told her mother that. She’d enjoyed taunting Callie with it. Callie had never understood why her mother hated her so much. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t pretty.

“Walk where I do,” he bit off as he dropped his hand. “The rocks will be slippery. Go around them, not over them.”

“Okay.”

He glanced over his shoulder as they started over the shallow stream. “You’re damned calm for someone who’s been through what you have in the past two days.”

She only smiled. “You have no idea what I’ve been through in my life.”

He averted his eyes. It was as if he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. He picked his way across to the other bank. Callie followed obediently, her feet cold and wet, her body shivering. Only a little longer, she told herself, and she would be home with Jack. She would be completely safe. Except…Lopez was still out there. She shivered again.

“Cold?” he asked when they were across.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him.

He led her through one final tangle of brush, which he cut out of the way with the knife. She could see the silver ripple of the long blade in the dim light of the small flashlight he carried. She put one foot in front of the other and tried to blank out what would happen if Lopez’s men caught up with them. It was terrifying.

They made it to the clearing just as a dark, noisy silhouette dropped from the sky and a door opened.

“They spotted us on radar!” came a loud voice from the chopper. “They’ll be here in two minutes. Run!”

“Run as if your life depended on it!” Micah told Callie, giving her a push.

She did run, her mind so affected by what she’d already endured that she almost kept up with her long-legged stepbrother. He leaped right up into the chopper and gave her a hand up. She landed in a heap on the dirty floor, and laughed with relief.

The door closed and the chopper lifted. Outside, there were sounds like firecrackers in the wake of the noise the propellers made. Gunfire, Callie knew.

“It always sounds like firecrackers in real life,” she murmured. “It doesn’t sound that way in the movies.”

“They augment the sound in movies, mademoiselle.” A gentle hand eased her into a seat on the edge of the firing line Micah and two other men made at the door.

She looked up. There was barely any light in the helicopter, but she could make out a beard and a mustache on a long, lean face. “You made it, too!” she exclaimed with visible relief. “Oh, I’m glad. I felt bad that you and the other man had to be decoys, just to get me out.”

“It was no trouble, mademoiselle,” the man said gently, smiling at her. “Rest now. They won’t catch us. This is an Apache helicopter, one of the finest pieces of equipment your country makes. It has some age, but we find it quite reliable in tight situations.”

“Is it yours?” she asked.

He laughed. “You might say that we have access to it, and various other aircraft, when we need them.”

“Don’t bore her to death, Bojo,” a younger voice chuckled.

“Listen to him!” Bojo exclaimed. “And do you not drone on eternally about that small computer you carry, Peter, and its divine functions?”

A dark-haired, dark-eyed young man with white teeth came into view, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Computers are my specialty,” he said with a grin. “You’re Callie? I’m Peter Stone. I’m from Brooklyn. That’s Bojo, he’s from Morocco. I guess you know Micah. And Smith over there—” he indicated a huge dark-eyed man “—runs a seafood restaurant in Charleston, along with our Maddie and a couple of guys we seem to have misplaced…”

“We haven’t misplaced them,” Micah said curtly. “They’ve gone ahead to get the DC-3 gassed up.”

Bojo grinned. “Lopez will have men waiting at the airport for us.”

“While we’re taking off where we landed—at Laremos’s private airstrip,” Micah replied calmly. “And Laremos will have a small army at his airstrip, just in case Lopez does try anything.”

“But what about customs?” Callie voiced.

Everybody laughed.

She flushed, realizing now that her captors hadn’t gone through customs, and neither had these men. “Okay, I get it, but what about getting back into the States from here? I don’t have a passport…”

“You have a birth certificate,” Micah reminded her. “It’ll be waiting in Miami, along with a small bag containing some of your own clothes and shoes. That’s why Maddie didn’t come with us,” he added smugly.

“Miami?” she exclaimed, recalling belatedly that he’d mentioned that before. “Why not Texas?”

“You’re coming back to the Bahamas with me, Callie,” Micah replied. “You’ll be Lopez’s priority now. He’ll be out for revenge, and it will take all of us to keep you safe.”

She gaped at him. “But, Dad…” she groaned.

“Dad is in good hands. So are you. Now try not to worry. I know what I’m doing.”

She bit her lower lip. None of this was making sense, and she was still scared, every time she thought about Lopez. But all these men surrounding her looked tough and battle-hardened, and she knew they wouldn’t let her be recaptured.

“Who’s Laremos?” Callie asked curiously, a minute later.

“He’s retired now,” Micah said, coming away from the door. “But he and ‘Dutch’ van Meer and J. D. Brettman were the guys who taught us the trade. They were the best. Laremos lives outside Cancún on a plantation with his wife and kids, and he’s got the equivalent of a small army around him. Even the drug lords avoid his place. We’ll get out all right, even if Lopez has his men tracking us.”

She averted her eyes and folded her arms tightly around her body.

“You are shivering,” Bojo said gently. “Here.” He found a blanket and wrapped it around her.

That one simple act of compassion brought all her repressed fear and anguish to the surface. She bawled. Not a sound touched her lips. But tears poured from her eyes, draping themselves hot and wet across her pale cheeks and down to the corner of her pretty bow mouth.

Micah saw them and his face hardened like rock.

She turned her face toward the other side of the helicopter. She was used to hiding her tears. They mostly angered people, made them more hostile. Or they showed a weakness that was readily exploited. It was always better not to let people know they had the power to hurt you.

She wrapped the blanket closer and didn’t speak the rest of the way. She closed her eyes, wiping at them with the blanket. Micah spoke in low tones to the other men, and although she couldn’t understand what he was saying, she understood that rough, angry tone. She’d heard it enough at home.

For now, all she wanted to do was get to safety, to a place where Lopez and the animals who worked for him couldn’t find her, couldn’t hurt her. She was more afraid now than she had been on the way out of Texas, because now she knew what recapture would mean. The darkness was a friend in which she could hide her fear, conceal her terror. The sound of the propellers became suddenly like a mechanical lullaby in her ears, lulling her, like the whispers of the deep voices around her, into a brief, fitful sleep.

She felt an odd lightness in her stomach and opened her eyes to find the helicopter landing at what looked like a small airstrip on private land.

A big airplane, with scars and faded lettering, was waiting with its twin prop engines already running. Half a dozen armed men in camouflage uniforms stood with their guns ready to fire. A tall, imposing man with a mustache came forward. He had a Latin look about him, dark eyes and graceful movement.

He shook hands with Micah and spoke to him quietly, so that his voice didn’t carry. Micah listened, and then nodded. They shook hands again. The man glanced at Callie curiously, and smiled in her direction.

She smiled back, her whole young face drawn and fatigued.

Micah motioned to her. “We have to get air borne before Lopez’s menge there. Climb aboard. Thanks, Diego!” he called to the man.

“No es nada,” came the grinning reply.

“Was that the man you know, with the plantation?” Callie asked when they were inside and the door was closed.

“That was Laremos,” he agreed.

“He and his family won’t be hurt on our account, will they?” she persisted.

He glanced down at her. “No,” he said slowly. His eyes searched hers until she looked away, made uneasy and shivery by the way he was looking at her.

He turned and made his way down the aisle to the cockpit. Two men poked their heads out of it, grinning, and after he spoke to them, they revved up the engines.

The passengers strapped themselves into their seats. Callie started to sit by herself, but Micah took her arm and guided her into the seat beside his. It surprised her, but she didn’t protest. He reached across her to fasten her seat belt, bringing his hard, muscular chest pressing gently against her breasts.

She gasped as the pressure made the cut painful.

“God, I’m sorry! I forgot,” he said, his hand going naturally, protectively, to her breast, to cup it gently. “Is it bad?”

She went scarlet. Of course, nobody was near enough to see what was going on, but it embarrassed her to have him touch her with such familiarity. And then she remembered that he’d had her nude from the waist up on one side while he cleaned and bandaged that cut.