"You ought to relax more, Casie," Julianna advised her. "You’ll exhaust yourself, give yourself ulcers."
"I’d like ulcers. I could take an antacid and do something about them." A particularly thick cloud of smoke obscured their view, and Acasia subsided into her seat with a frustrated laugh. "Hell, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t have any patience with ulcers, either."
Julianna grinned sympathetically. "Take five," she suggested. "We’ll be there soon."
Acasia snapped grimly, "Yeah, right," then resumed trying to see through the haze. She felt as though she, like Zaragoza, was waiting for an explosion that never came, for something final and decisive and irreversible, instead of this perpetual series of exhausting anticlimaxes: a grenade tossed here; a firefight there…
A love left hanging without a conclusion or a means to carry on.
There were so many things she wanted to say to Cam about need, hope, faith, but she couldn’t. Not until her loose ends were all tied up and the unfaced pieces of her history lay ready for burial. She didn’t want to forget, only to lay to rest. When she went to Cam again she needed to go clean and whole, looking forward to tomorrow.
She came instantly alert when Julianna swore under her breath and knocked her arm. Below, refugees pushing north toward the border clogged Fred’s village, milling around aimlessly. She knew this view. It meant Angelo was preparing a coup, gearing up to take Zaragoza from Sanchez. Her pulse quickened, and nausea filled her throat with the sure knowledge that the waiting was over, the explosion about to come. She wanted to look away and couldn’t. Above all else, she had to find Fred.
Even before the helicopter settled she was out of it, stumbling into a trot. Reaching the clinic, she grabbed the veranda railing, using it to speed her up the last step. A variety of blank faces and staring eyes greeted her when she stepped into the kitchen, and she steeled herself against them, forcing her way through to reach the door of the treatment room.
Fred turned and saw her without surprise. "You shouldn’t be here," he told her. "Scrub."
"Let me get you organized first. Jules and I brought blankets, food and clothing for us, and medical stuff’s on the way. Anything special you need?"
"Equipment… personnel… some way to move these people out of here… someplace to house them until they can leave." He rubbed the sleeve of his smock across his forehead and made a motion toward the infirmary. "There are a couple of burn cases in there need to be Evacced ASAP. They’re stabilized for the moment, but I can’t handle them indefinitely—and I need the beds."
A child with a long gash in the sole of his foot waited fearfully on the examining table. Fred bent over him. "I radioed the logging camp upriver for help, but they’re snowed under, too. At least they’ve got a chopper to get their worst cases out. Told me they asked for a relief effort three days ago, but so far, nothing. Hand me that—"
Acasia handed him the wrapped suture set he had pointed to and glanced at Julianna, who was standing in the doorway. "Your burn cases ready to go?"
Fred nodded without looking up. Acasia eyed Julianna, who pursed her lips and inclined her head.
"Let’s go," she said.
When the patients were situated as comfortably as possible behind Julianna, she leaned out of the helicopter. "You going to be here when I get back?" she shouted at Acasia.
Acasia shrugged. "I’ll be here until relief comes, then see what I can do about the journalists. There are also a couple things I have to see to on my own."
Julianna eyed her sharply. Futures and Securities’ first commandment was:
No heroes. Communicate. Don’t go it alone.
It was a rule each of the partners had broken often, and not without cost. "You’ve got somebody waiting for you this time, Jones. I don’t want to bring him any bad tidings. Stay here. Don’t push it. It’s not worth it."
Acasia smiled thinly. "Words of caution from a woman who puts her chopper down to collect refugees in the middle of a firefight? I fly with you, remember?"
She slapped the side of the helicopter twice and stepped away. Julianna hesitated for a fraction of a second, watching Acasia. Then she reached forward, and the helicopter lifted out of the clearing. Acasia watched it go, thinking how easily one pulled on old habits when the need for them arose. They fitted like a suit that should have been discarded long ago: the wrong size, but familiar.
She went back to the clinic and organized a brigade of villagers to keep boiled water available for scrubbing, then delegated others to keep Fred’s instruments sterilized, or to act as litter bearers, or to keep the clinic swept. She moved through the waiting sea of patients, assigning them numbers in descending order of need, making sure those who could eat were fed.
In midafternoon a doctor and nurse arrived, sent by the logging camp, which had received a four–person emergency team from the logging company’s owners. With the fresh help, the backlog of casualties waned enough by evening to allow the medical team to take a breather one by one.
When it was her turn, Acasia stepped onto the veranda, stretching, emotions carefully blank. She breathed deeply, accepting this temporary peace as it came, barely hoping it would last a minute, let alone hours.
Bracing herself against a roof support, she listened to the sounds of dusk that came with the sharp twitter of a bird in the jungle; the murmur of people being fed a meal that didn’t quite dull their hunger; the sniffle of a sobbing child bedded down in the infirmary. Out of years of nighttime habit, her mind flew to Cameron, then shied away. Who he was thrilled her, amazed her, took her breath away. There was nothing showy about him. He was only a man who did what he had to do, no less. Straight on and no regrets. She loved him without question, wanted to trust him without reservation. She needed to share her life with him, to grow old and wrinkled with him. But the intensity of her need frightened her. It wasn’t him she didn’t trust, it was herself.
A chorus of tree frogs shrilled, the noise echoing around the village in waves, then subsiding. Gratefully Acasia discarded thought for action and stretched, alert to the sudden silence.
Cigarette smoke, white in the twilight, curled with the breath Acasia drew into her lungs. She glanced in the direction of the smoke, and her mind froze. She pushed herself away from the roof support, letting her hands rest loosely on the railing in front of her as she eyed the pair of bandoliered, submachine gun–toting guerrillas mounting the steps toward her.
"You are Jones?" the smoker asked.
Acasia found her smile, put it on and nodded. "Let me get my gear," she said. She hadn’t really intended to look for Angelo until after Julianna returned, but…
* * *
Soldiers, haggard and unkempt, squatted around smoking fires waiting for plantains to roast, coffee to boil. There was a grunt, then the sound of a machete on wood, and fresh snake was added to the day’s breakfast menu.
Acasia sat on one side of a rude bargaining table, fingers steepled in front of her, studying Angelo, who sat opposite her. After two days of unrelieved talking, cajoling, ranting and bargaining, she was able to see him with respect. His views were not hers, nor was he in any way a gentleman, but he was a man of principle and honor. He believed heart and soul in Zaragoza, in his ability to free her and her people from Sanchez’s grip. And he was not insane. That fact alone salved Acasia’s conscience when she considered what she was about to do.
"You will steal the treasury for us?" Angelo asked. "Sanchez must not have time to escape with it. He knows we are close to him. You will take two of my men and steal it tonight."
"You have my word."
"The word of a woman—"
"The word of this woman is as good as any man’s."
Angelo regarded Acasia with humor. "Perhaps, sometimes, it is better."
Acasia nodded. "Perhaps."
They considered one another in silence while a subordinate poured each of them a metal mugful of coffee and placed a plate of baked plantains and snake between them. When the soldier retired, Acasia spoke.
"You will protect my brother?" she asked. "While I am stealing from Sanchez, your people will release the hostages I want from prison and bring them to me alive and unharmed?"
"You have my word."
"For as long as it’s convenient, or—"
"On the life of my son!" Angelo swore.
Acasia measured him for a long moment. Angelo returned her gaze steadily. She pushed herself up from the table and gave him a single clipped nod.
"Okay," she said. "Deal."
* * *
"Look at this!" Emilio Sanchez screamed at Dominic Mansour. "
Look
at it!" He flung the intelligence report Dominic had just handed him into the mercenary’s face. "You knew it was her—you knew she was alive. You told me you killed her. You swore you watched her die. You lied, and in lying you helped her take Smith from me. You betrayed me."
Hysterically, the Zaragozan leader launched himself at Dominic, only to find a hand planted squarely on his chest, throwing him backward into the chair behind his desk.
"I did everything you asked, you fool," Dominic said.
Sanchez’s eyes gleamed with delirium; his voice cracked, "You betrayed me! You helped my enemies dishonor me! You are in league with the subversives, and you will pay for dishonoring me." His voice rose to a wail. "You will suffer for it. You will die. Guards, guar—"
Dominic moved swiftly behind Sanchez’s chair, crooked an arm around his throat and snapped his neck in the middle of the word. The bellow rose in surprise, then died, Sanchez’s eyes registering shock, awareness, disbelief and finally fear in the instant before life fled. So easy, Dominic thought, meeting the other man’s sightless gaze without remorse.
A battering began on the locked office doors. Dominic pushed Sanchez face first over his desk and headed for the window. Time to hit the safe in the late president’s office and fund a new game plan.
* * *
Night fell sharply, dark and full of clouds.
Acasia ran the thin beam of her penlight over the dials of the wall safe in Sanchez’s palace office. There were two locks on it. The trick was not only to get the right combination for each, but also to open them in the proper order. It would be easier if she could simply wire a small load of plastique to the door and blow it open, but there were too many guards around. Angelo wanted no one to know she’d been here. Acasia rubbed the tips of her fingers over her pants, then leaned into the safe, concentrating. The click of the tumblers was loud in her ears.
Released by the clouds, the moon spilled light into the room. Acasia automatically shifted farther into the shadows, feeling the numbers falling into place. The moon drifted out of sight, making the darkness once more complete. The sheer drapes over the balcony doors whispered together when a draft of air struck them from somewhere. Acasia felt the breeze’s humid caress along the fine hairs of her neck and stirred uneasily, her concentration broken. She glanced swiftly around the room, but found no extra bulk, no new shadow, to explain the breeze. It had probably just been one of Angelo’s soldiers changing location. Her senses heightened, Acasia returned her attention to the safe.
The last of the tumblers connected, and the safe’s door swung open. She flashed her light over its contents, finding exactly what she’d expected: bearer bonds; several bundles of cash; some gold pieces; a passbook; and a slip of paper containing the number and PIN for an off–shore bank account. Quickly she slid everything into a courier pouch, closed the safe and spun the dials. She picked her backpack off the floor and dropped the pouch into it, and then the hairs on her neck stiffened. She turned, raising her pack like a shield, and Dominic’s knife slashed through nylon and into the heel of her hand. Acasia sucked in her breath in pain and scrambled around Sanchez’s desk, listening for Dominic’s pursuit, blinking in surprise when he switched on the desk light.
"This time," he said, "I want to see you die."
She dropped the pack, ignoring the blood dripping from her hand in favor of keeping Dominic in her line of sight.
"What I did to you last time wasn’t enough?"
He fingered the scar stretching from just below his right eye to the cleft of his chin. Memory was long and mostly vengeful. "Last time I was distracted. This time I am not."
He moved around the desk, but Acasia moved, too, keeping it between them, her attention fully focused, her nerves sharpened, rather than dulled by pain.
"Be careful of revenge, Dom," she cautioned him evenly. "It can blind you."
His eyes glittered in the moonlight, full of hatred. "I find it sweet."
He moved toward her, and Acasia moved, too, keeping in step with his fighter’s waltz. "I’m here for Angelo," she warned him, wondering exactly where her living proof of that had gotten to. "He didn’t let me come here on my own."
Dominic grinned. "Take a look in the garden. You didn’t come alone, but you are alone now—"
The drapes along the balcony billowed inward and four spectral shapes fanned out in an arc behind him. He spun halfway around in time to help the muzzle of a .45–automatic find his temple.
"Wrong," Cameron said coldly from behind the gun. "She’s not alone, and she never will be."
Dominic dropped his knife and straightened, raising his hands, palms open. "Take it easy, man, she’s all right."
"She’d better be."
"Cam?" Involuntarily, Acasia took a step toward him, barely recognizing him. She’d known he was capable of many things, but not this. Not himself. "Cam."
"Back away, Casie. If he twitches, I’ll kill him, and I don’t want to get you messy." His voice was flat, emotionless, and Acasia believed him.
"Don’t," she said softly. Oh, God, he was here. He was real. And she was glad, so glad, to see him. She loved him. "Cam, please."
Her hand was still dripping blood, was slippery with it. Without taking her eyes off of Cameron, she dragged the bandanna from her neck, wrapped it around her injured hand and used her teeth to help secure a pressure knot over the wound.