Gates had no such compunction. If there was a chance, even the slimmest, slightest chance that Dav was in Belize, he was going. If Ana's contactâand he still needed to hear more about that phone callâwas to be trusted, Belize was the place. He'd sent the yacht to the Gulf already. Now, with more intel, he shot off an e-mail that would have the yacht meeting them in Punta Gorda. He wanted a haven for Dav and Carrie if they found them alive. They couldn't be taken to a hospital in Belize. The media would be all over that, and so would Niko if he was their kidnapper.
To bring them home safely, private transportation was the only way, so he made sure it was available.
If they were right about this shadow enemy, then they were flying blind. Not knowing left them unprepared for matching any subsequent actions if they got Dav out alive in the first place.
Meanwhile the private lab with the ransom materials, including the hair and the gold chain and locket, would forward results to Gates, Geddey and the various agencies as soon as they came through. The lab was being paid handsomely for putting everything through immediately, and it had promised results. He hoped that something in the box, on the hair or materials or the letter, would lead back to the mastermind, to someone who could be held accountable. He seriously wanted someone to pay, and pay dearly for taking his friend.
“Fifteen minutes, be ready to roll,” he said, sticking his head into the team's locker room. He didn't wait for an assent before leaving the room to pack the last of his own gear. There was enough on the estate that he could utilize; he'd bought it for Dav and the team, after all. Ana already had their personal gear sorted, he'd add some extra firepower to it.
Â
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When they landed at Goldson International Airport in Belize City, there were two cars waiting for them, along with three large black SUVs, their windows tinted both for privacy and to ward off the tropical sun. It was barely into April and he could feel the humidity weighting the air. Off to the side, Gates spotted the two motorcycles he'd requested. As the jet taxied to a stop near general aviation, a man stepped out of a dark blue Mercedes sedan. Ana's CIA contact.
Gates watched as Ana went down the plane's steps and approached him. They shook hands. Even watching for the exchange, Gates nearly missed it. He knew there would be keys, but whatever other items were passed over put a look of intense excitement on his wife's face.
She hustled back onto the plane and demanded a laptop.
“Quick, quick,” she said, waiting impatiently for the computer to boot up. She inserted a portable thumb drive and began flicking keys.
Maps, satellite images, road markers, and a series of codes marked with cryptic names popped up on the screen as she opened the files.
“Printer?”
“Check the list, should be
EleniOne,
for this jet.”
“Got it,” she said, and was already printing files before they finished the exchange. Gathering the packets, she pulled the drive and strung it on one of the key rings. She passed that one to Gates. “Anything happens to me, make sure that disappears.”
“Right. Where are we headed?” Gates asked, snagging a gear bag as he followed her out to the tarmac.
“Small airport, south and west of Belmopan. That's the capital,” she replied, pulling open the door to the Suburban.
Two of their team stepped up, strapping on motorcycle helmets. Gates gave them their direction, and Ana walked with them to the bikes, her animated hand motions indicative of whatever plan she was imparting.
“I thought Belize City was the capital.” Callahan put on her shades, got into the backseat of the same vehicle. “It's the only city I know the name of, and isn't the major airport usually in the capital?”
“âWas' being the operative word in terms of the capital,” Holden said as he got in the backseat on the other side, behind Gates. “A hurricane wiped most of the city off the map in nineteen sixty-one. They retired the name of Hurricane Hattie after that one. Relocated the capital inland, named it Belmopan.”
“And you know this because?” Callahan asked the question, but Gates was listening. It was always good to know about your team. Even if they weren't your team anymore.
“I'm a weather nerd,” Holden answered with a sunny smile. “Used to chase tornadoes in high school.”
Callahan slumped down in the seat, getting comfortable. She'd once told Gates she could sleep anywhere at any time, and did, knowing that in their line of work you sometimes had to go without it for long stretches.
“Explains a lot,” she muttered.
“What?” Holden stared at her. When she didn't answer he looked toward the front, meeting Gates's eyes in the rearview mirror. To Gates's surprise, he grinned. “Hey, it was something to do.”
Grinning back, Gates nodded, then focused on the road. It was going to be a long drive on roads that weren't as well maintained as U.S. roads, nor as wide.
“Let's do it,” Ana said impatiently, giving him a pointed look. He could tell she was amused by the discussions as well, but her anxiety won out.
“Right. On it,” he said, gunning the engine.
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“We're disgustingly dirty,” Carrie muttered, hours later when they woke. “And I do mean disgusting.”
Since he felt grimy and sweaty, he didn't disagree. He was used to hot showers and clean clothes, like most, and having to live in the same clothes for days on end did qualify as disgusting.
“I think showers would be a great improvement to a place like this, underground palace that it is. We must speak to the management,” he said, struggling to wake up and force himself to get moving. He loved having her there, spooned next to him, small and flexible and beautiful, even in the dark.
“Hmmm, yes, if they weren't so long-dead, it would be a good complaint. However, since I don't think showers were invented when people were last here, I'm guessing they wouldn't care to hear it. Besides, I think they beheaded trespassers.”
“Unpleasant thought,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. “I know we should get moving, but I'm not eager to get up. My body is saying we just went to sleep a minute ago.”
“Mine too, but that can't be right. I can see a little bit of light, way up above us.”
Now that she mentioned it, he could see it too, a small round, bright spot. When he looked across the floor of the open area, he spied a soccer ballâsized circle of golden light. Not enough to illuminate the area, just enough to alleviate the unremitting blackness.
“It's nice to see it,” he said, “but it doesn't help us much.”
“No, not really. But maybe this will.” She sat up, though she still stayed next to him. He heard the rustling of their belongings and a snick of sound as she opened something. She tilted the mirror this way and that until she got the right angle, then, using the mirror to spread the light, she illuminated a section of the wall.
Slowly turning the mirror, she played the light along the curve, stopping at the first doorway. It was more of a hole, a broad, black hole. He could probably squeeze his shoulders through it, but not by much.
Carrie resumed her turning, only to stop when the reflected light hit the second hole. When the light penetrated the opening, they immediately spotted rubble. At some point, that path had caved in. He immediately found himself praying that it wasn't the only way out.
“Oh, God, I hope that wasn't the exit,” Carrie echoed his thought as she continued the turn. The third hole was just as dark and narrow as the first, but it was taller, more like a door than a window.
“I think we should try that way first,” Dav said, hoping it was the right path. He was having enough trouble with the dark. Squeezing through tight spaces made the journey even more unpleasant.
“That seems logical,” Carrie agreed. “Let's get moving. I think some of our sluggishness is due to hunger and thirst. The sooner we go, the sooner we get out.”
“From your mouth to God's ear.” He muttered the old saying, just as popular in Greece as it was in America.
Carrie stood, and so did he. “I think I will have to carry our makeshift knapsack by hand, rather than on my back. The passage looked very narrow to me.”
“I think you're right. I'm going to turn on the flashlight, okay?”
“Good. Let's go.”
Two hours of scraping and crawling and pressing through narrowing tunnel walls found them at a dead end. The tunnel's terminus was as round as the area in which they'd spent the night, but littered with old, small bones, like those of rodents or small animals.
“Oh, Dav.” Carrie wept his name as she sat down on the bone-littered floor with a thump. “Are we mad? Are we going to wander in here until we just fall down and die?”
He wanted to slump down with her. He even wondered the same thing, but if they both gave in to the despair, they
would
die. So he continued to stand, determined that he would find a way to get them out.
“No. We are going to go back to the round, and take the other tunnel. We will see where it leads.”
“I don't think I can make it.” She said it flatly, with the calm that came from sheer exhaustion and the dejection that failure brought in its wake.
“You can and you will. As will I. What was it you said? About life and hope?”
“While there's life, there's hope,” she answered wearily.
“Then let us drink the other half of the canteen and go back. We know there are no pits in the tunnel, so we will use the light sparingly.”
“Feel our way?” She shuddered. “I'm not sure I can do that either.”
“Better than wasting the light.” Dav was certain that if the light failed, he would not be able to move a muscle. Even if they could find materials for a torch, use the matches they had, he still might not make it. He wondered if he should tell her that.
No. They were both too close to the end of their physical and emotional resources as it was. He didn't want to think about the light failing. At all.
“Okay,” she sighed, and got up, fumbling through the pack he'd laid down for the last canteen. When they'd shared it out, they started back. The return trip seemed longer, darker and narrower than it had before. Only the knowledge that Carrie was behind him, and that her survival was his highest desire, kept Dav moving.
As it was, he was so distracted by the sound of her panting breath and worrying about her that he fell out of the tunnel when they reached the end.
“Aaaahhhh,” he cried, trying to turn the fall into a roll, trying to protect his hands and face. He was only partly successful.
His ears rang as his head hit the stone, and he heard the crack as one of his fingers bent back when he landed on it incorrectly. He felt the hot tear of flesh and the wet pulse of blood as the bone sliced through the skin.
Chapter 13
“Sir?” The flight attendant knew the penalty for waking her boss, but the penalty for his missing a call from an associate was usually worse.
Usually.
She waited a heartbeat and spoke again, a bit louder. “Sir, you have a call from your specialist.”
He sat up so abruptly she gasped. Regaining her equilibrium as quickly as she could, she presented the satellite phone on a tray.
He glared at her, but evidently this was one of those times when missing the call was the worse choice. He took up the phone and spoke.
“You're in place?”
“Yessir.”
“Have you seen anyone?”
“The older one, his pal. No sign of the younger, or the girl.”
A simple code, but effective. They both knew who they were talking about. “Then stay on wait-and-watch. If it looks like he's pulling out, going underâyou know what to do.”
“Yessir. And the woman and her man?”
“Same goes.”
Kill them all.
“Understood.”
He hung up and handed the phone to the flight attendant. “Thank you, Marjorie. Please bring me something light to eat, perhaps a glass of white wine. A mineral water.”
“Of course, sir. Would you like the
Wall Street Journal
as well? We picked it up before we left.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.” He turned and looked out the window, studying the clouds, thinking how wonderful it felt to see long-term plans coming to fruition. Interestingly enough, it wasn't as much of an issue now, if either of the men died. They had been stripped of their status.
Their humanity, their ethosâone disgustingly honest, the other determinedly criminalâwas broken. The thought of Davros stuck in a cell or a cave with the woman he'd lusted after for so long but wouldn't touch... ahhhh, priceless.
“It's better, really. Knowing they're doomed,” he murmured to the clouds. “It's been a long time coming, waiting for them to grow up, doomed children of a bastard father.”
“Beg pardon, sir?” Marjorie was back, her tray holding a light salad, an elegant quiche on china with a beautiful golden wine in a crystal goblet.
“Nothing, nothing.” He smiled at her, thinking she would never understand the joke, the sheer deliciousness of it. “Just appreciating the view. This looks good. Thank you. Ah, and the
Journal
as well. Good. Well done.”
She soaked up his praise like a dry sponge; he could see her cheeks flush and her eyes sparkle. “Thank you, sir. If there's anything else?” she asked hopefully.
He waved her away. “No, no. Just peace and quiet to read the
Journal
you've so efficiently procured me.”
“Very good, sir. Ring if you need me.”
He waved her away, but with a smile. It was always good to acknowledge superb service. Marjorie was excellent at her job.
He worked solidly through the meal, smiling the entire time, thinking of Dav, trapped with his frigid female, pining for her, but unable to break through. It was such a terrible torture that he chuckled out loud. They were making his revenge so easy, so thrilling, he was almost sorry to end it.
Almost.
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The curses flew in four languages as he huddled on the floor cradling his hand. He covered it, gripping it hard to clamp the pain and bleeding. He didn't want Carrie to see the sheared end protruding through his flesh. It was severely broken, that was obvious. A compound fracture. Carrie was calling out to him, but he didn't want her to see the break, so he followed his first impulse and with one strong jerk, he pulled the finger straight.
Agonizing pain shot through him and blurred his vision to black. His sight wavered in and out as he gripped his fingers, pressing them together to apply pressure. Nausea threatened to choke him.
“Dav? Dav? Are you bleeding? Where are you hurt?” Carrie's hands were a flash over his body, and he moaned when she touched the side of his head.
“Oh, my God, did you hit your head?”
“Yes, a bit, but I broke my finger when I landed.” He ground out the words, fighting back the blackness and the pain. “It is all right, Carrie-mou. I am not bleeding badly, nor am I likely to die from these stupid mistakes.” He might not die, but he surely was in pain. The grating when he'd straightened the finger told him that he'd probably fractured other pieces of the bone as well.
She huffed out a breath, but he couldn't tell if it was pique or relief. “What the hell were you doing?”
“Finding the end of the tunnel,” he managed, blocking out the waves of blackness as he shifted his jaw, ran his tongue over his teeth, and gingerly stretched his neck to one side and then the other, checking for other injuries. When no sharp pains or twinges followed the action, he sighed with relief. Stupid he had been, but not mortally so, he hoped.
“You felt you needed to find the end of the tunnel with your head?” she demanded, her voice both scared and irritated.
“Not the best choice, I agree,” he answered. “I must be more careful, yes?”
Another huff, and then she answered in a lighter tone. “Yes, you must. I'm going to turn the light on it now, and see what's up.”
He closed his eyes, knowing that they would be blinded by the beam.
“Wow, that's bright,” she muttered, and then she gasped. “Oh, my God, your head is bleeding.”
“Really?” He felt no blood, no warmth or trickle. Then again, his hand was screaming so much, he wasn't sure he'd have felt anything else.
“Not much, but it's in your hair, and on your face.”
Now, he thought he detected a laugh. Was she hysterical? He opened his eyes, just a slit of vision so he could see her.
“You are laughing at me,” he accused. “Why?”
“I've never seen you look so terrible,” she giggled, and he could hear the edge of hysteria in her voice. “Oh, Lord, Dav, you should see yourself. You're bloody and filthy and you have nearly a full beard. I've never seen you with a beard.”
He narrowed his eyes, squinted almost to see her. “I have marked your skin terribly,” he growled, reaching with his uninjured hand to run a finger down the soft, reddened skin of her neck. “I have hurt you.”
“No.” He could see the faint gleam of her smile, and some of the calm and sanity returned to her eyes. “You haven't hurt me. But your beard looks...”
“Yes?” He gritted his teeth on the word, still gripping his finger to staunch the bleeding and dull the pain.
“Piratical.”
He frowned, trying to make sense of the word in his befuddled, pain-riddled state. “Like a pirate?” he guessed.
“Yes, with your skin and your beard and the blood on your forehead, you look like a pirate.”
“I feel like a wrecked ship,” he managed, shifting off his legs and onto his rear. He moved his head in the wrong way, making pain shoot along his arm once more. His knees were protesting all the crawling, and his back hurt from stooping. More than anything, however, he needed to get comfortable so he could wrap his hand. He hoped wrapping it would prevent further injury and keep it from bleeding more. “I think I'm going to need to tie up my hand, bandage the fingers together. Otherwise I will hurt it more.”
She frowned. She hadn't asked to see his hand yet, and he decided she hadn't heard him say he'd hurt it. She'd seen the head wound and focused on that.
“Your hand?” she asked, confirming his guess. “What did you do? Let me see.”
“I broke the little finger.”
“What? How? Let me see,” she demanded.
“I broke it when I fell, and it is badly broken. I have pulled it straight, and the bleeding is stopping,” he said, seeing her eyes widen in the light of the flashlight. “But it is not a good thing.”
She gulped and nodded. “No. No injury is. Okay.” She seemed to gather herself, collect her wits. “Hang on. Hereâ” She handed him the flashlight, which he took in his good hand as she delved into the coat-pack. She used her tool to cut a wide, long strip out of the lining of his coat. He had wanted to leave the heavier coat behind, but she had argued against it. Now he was glad. “Let me see it now.”
Reluctantly, he held out his hand. With the pressure off, it began to bleed again, but more slowly this time.
“Oh, my God,” she said, staring as she took his hand with gingerly care. “This looks really scary, Dav. I'm going to use the last of this hand-wash stuff to try and clean it off, but it's bad,” she said.
All laughter had fled now.
He gritted his teeth and agreed. The gel stung in the wound, but if the gel prevented infection, the pain would have been worth it. With a great deal of tender care, she wrapped his last two fingers together, tying the wrapping with another strip cut from the bag.
“It's swelling a lot,” she said. “I hope that wrapping it tight may help, but it could make it worse. I have no idea. I don't know anything about broken bones or medicine.”
Dav was white-lipped and sweating profusely again by the time she finished. Carrie could see the pain written all over his face.
“Here.” She thrust the light at him again. She'd taken it and held it under her arm as she worked, but now she needed him to take it, shine it away from himself so she didn't see his pain. “Hold this while I get you some aspirin.”
“Aspirin? You have that?” he asked with a note of relief in his voice.
“In my purse. You have no idea how much of a headache the gallery can be sometimes,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “I always have aspirin.”
She made him use more of the water to swallow three of the pills, though he claimed he could do it dry. She'd seen the sheen of sweat, felt it dampening his arms as she bandaged him. He was losing far more liquid than she was. She was perspiring, but he was truly sweating. With his fear of the dark, and now an injury, she could certainly understand. She wished there was more she could do for him, more ways to help.
“We need to keep moving,” he said, grunting as he shifted to his knees. He stayed there, panting for a moment before struggling to his feet. “If I sit much longer, I will be like those who die in the snowâI will not get up.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling panic in her gut. The thought of him sitting there, unmoving and comatose, flashed into her mind. The image was far too real for comfort.
“Let's see how tight the squeeze is.”
“Don't say that,” he ground out. “Just show me where the tunnel is.”
“Right. Got it.” She wanted to scream. She wanted to pound on the floor and tell him to make it all go away. It was one of the things he did best. He liked to fix things, make them better. She realized it must be killing him to not be able to do anything. To have to depend on her, and the lone flashlight, to lead the way.
Hell, it was killing her and she wasn't afraid of the dark. She probably would be from here on out, if they ever got out of this hellhole.
“I will go first.” He said it tersely, a sharp clipped order.
Even as she understood his need to maintain control, she snapped back, “Yessir, your majesty.”
“Huh,” he growled. “I am exalted now? I am king of dirt and tunnels. Yes.” He grunted again, pulling himself into the narrow, round tunnel opening. “Ahh, that hurt,” he cursed again. The Greek was flowing more rapidly now, and she suspected the curses were getting nastier and more foul.
“What does that mean?” Asking about it kept her from thinking about another dead end and another long, dark tunnel.
He didn't answer for a long time.
“Dav?”
“I was going to say, it is not for a woman to hear, but that doesn't seem like a nice thing to say to you, in these circumstances. You have more courage than I, Carrie. Yet I guess saying these things in English would beâ” he hesitated, stopping his forward motion.
“Crude? Rude? Lewd? Socially unacceptable?”
“All that and more.”
“Keep moving, Dav. Please,” she begged, knowing they couldn't stop or she would die. Just die.
“Ah.” Again he hesitated. “I am trying to decide if I can get through.”
Tears sprang into her eyes and she closed them against the horrible thought of going back to the cell, waiting to die. No. This couldn't be happening. She heard him grunt and the sound of tearing cloth. Her eyes flew open, and she saw that he was five feet farther down the tunnel, but lying on his stomach.
“Dav? Dav?”
“I am okay, Carrie-mou, but my back is now marked as well. Keep your head down as you come through; there is a sharp place in the middle of this part of the tunnel.”