Take No Prisoners

“Let’s go,” he said once more, putting his hand under her elbow to urge her up the trail.

“You’re seriously proposing that we go over the mountain?” she asked as she automatically began to follow him.

“Not over the top. There’s a footpath that skirts around it. It won’t be easy, but…we don’t have a lot of other choices.”

As if to punctuate his words, from below came the sound of an explosion. It was clearly not the small-arms fire she’d heard the day the chopper had been brought down. This was ordinance, only she had no idea who could be firing it.

“What was that?”

“It sounds like an unexpected reception for our friends.”

Unexpected to him? Or only to the tribesmen he’d sent down the trail? Had they encountered the Special Forces operatives Landon had told her were in the area? The ones who had necessitated the expected change in location of the camp.

If so, then why were the two of them headed in the opposite direction? Why weren’t they attempting to make contact with the good guys?

“Is that—whatever’s happening down there—something you arranged?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I wish I had that much influence.”

“You said people were looking for us.”

“They are. Somewhere. Maybe even down there. The problem is I don’t have way of knowing who that is. And until I do, I don’t intend to initiate contact. Sorry to disappoint you, Gracie, but for the time being we’re on our own.”

“Don’t call me that.”

She was already beginning to breathe more rapidly with the pace he’d set, but she thought she heard him laugh. That had always been Landon’s reaction to anything that even remotely smacked of her trying to tell him what to do. He wasn’t a man who took direction. Not about anything.

“Anna Grace Chancellor,” he said, mocking her anger over the nickname only he had ever used for her. “So who the hell did you piss off enough to end up in Afghanistan?”

“The same people you did, I imagine.”

The words were a little breathless, her voice lacking force as she struggled to keep up. It didn’t matter how loud those words had been, of course. Even if they’d been whispered, they were cruel enough to carry their own impact.

Whatever had driven Landon James from the Agency had happened here in Afghanistan. That much she knew. But there had been a conspiracy of silence—at least as far as she was concerned—about the details.

He turned, looking at her over his shoulder. “You have changed.”

“Everybody changes. It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough, it seems, that you’ve forgotten.”

Or forgiven, she thought. “Have you?”

“Only the unimportant things. This is where we go across.”

He stopped, allowing her to catch up. Despite the gunfire from the valley below, in the nighttime stillness she could hear the labored sound of her own breathing.

The moonlight illuminated the path he was indicating they should take. Even in comparison to the steepness of the trail that led up to the plateau, the ascent looked impossible. It ran straight up the rock face, hand and toe holds invisible in the darkness.

“I hope all those years of sitting behind a desk haven’t taken too great a toll.”

Without waiting for a response to his gibe, Landon began to clamber over the rocks, seeming to locate the next hold intuitively. Grace watched him for maybe ten seconds before she admitted that, no matter how she might feel about him, she had no choice about this.

She could follow Landon, or she could wait here for her captors to find her. Mike Mitchell was dead, and Stern might be, as well. Although she had not felt the affinity for the colonel that she and the pilot had quickly found, he had been another American. Someone to talk to. Someone with whom to share her concerns about whatever was going to happen next.

If she broke with Landon, then she would be on her own. And very much alone.

It had already become evident that the tribesmen who’d captured her were unwilling to negotiate an exchange. She and the others had been held for some purpose, and without knowing exactly what that purpose was…

She put her hand on the rock, pulling herself up onto the slope Landon was climbing. She could hear him above her, but she refused to look up, fiercely concentrating instead on finding the next fingerhold.

After all, there would be plenty of time after tonight’s journey was over to wonder about what would come next. And time, too, to worry about the very different kind of danger being in such close proximity to Landon James would pose for her emotions.

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