And the more she acted this way, the more he might start to wish it could be real…
Dammit, he didn’t have time to deal with Glenna and her tangled emotions now. He’d leave that to the army shrinks.
The six minutes were up. He pushed to his feet. At the change of position, the woundthigh throbbed suddenly, a reminder of the infection that was continuing to get worse. He took long, slow breaths until he brought the pain under control, then moved to the door.
It was quiet on the other side. He didn’t hear any conversation, but he didn’t hear snores, either. He couldn’t assume this was going to be easy.
He ran his palm down the door until he came to the lock. It was a run-of-the-mill hardware store dead bolt, keyed on both sides. Not much of a challenge if he had the right tools, but he hadn’t found anything useful on his previous survey of the storeroom.
He sensed Glenna’s presence behind him even before he caught a whiff of her perfume and felt the warmth that came from her body. Her voice was no more than a whisper in his ear. “What’s the plan?”
His pulse thudded at the tickle of her breath. That bothered him. He couldn’t afford to be distracted, he reminded himself. “We’re going to use the element of surprise. When I give you the word, start screaming.”
“Why?”
“Say you saw a mouse. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“No, I mean why do you want me to scream?”
“Distract the guards. Get them to open the door so I can jump them.”
“Wouldn’t they be expecting that?”
“I’ll move fast. I’ll make sure they don’t hurt you.”
“It would be easier to pick the lock and open the door ourselves, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure, if I had the tools, but—”
“What about some hairpins?”
He twisted to face her, lifting his hands to her hair. “Do you have some? I didn’t feel any when I…”
When I kissed you, when I ran my fingers through your hair as I wanted to do from the moment I saw you…
He dropped his hands. It was over. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. He couldn’t afford to think about it. “I didn’t feel any an hour ago.”
“I lost most of them on the trip here. I took the rest out before you regained consciousness because my hair was such a mess….” She drew in her breath unsteadily. “What a stupid thing to have worried about.” She caught his hand and tugged him forward. “Help me look. They should still be on the floor somewhere.”
Both guards were leaning back in their chairs, the olive-green caps they wore shading their eyes from the bare lightbulb that hung from the corridor ceiling. As soon as the door cracked open, the closest man jumped to his feet and swung his gun toward them.
Rafe was on him before he could pull the trigger. He knocked the gun aside and drove his stiffened fingers into the man’s solar plexus as the second guard was getting to his feet. As the first man toppled, Rafe spun around and struck a swift blow to the side of the second man’s neck. Within seconds, both guards were sprawled unconscious on the floor.
Glenna blinked at the en ferocity of Rafe’s movements, then hobbled toward him when he gestured her forward. Maybe escape wouldn’t be as impossible as she’d feared. Now that they’d gotten past these guards—
Instead of going by, though, Rafe was leaning over the fallen men.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, grasping the back of one of the empty chairs for balance. “They’re out cold, aren’t they?”
“Buying us some time,” he said. He reached for the man’s belt and yanked it off.
“What?”
He gestured to the unconscious man in front of her. “I’d prefer not to kill them, so I want to tie them up and gag them to keep them from raising the alarm when they come to. You can help by taking off his belt.”
It made sense. She should have thought of it herself, but she didn’t have any experience in matters like these. No, arranging a fund-raising banquet or coordinating a conference didn’t have much to do with the skills involved in breaking out of a drug lord’s basement prison…
She focused on Rafe and somehow managed to tamp down the bubble of rising panic. He was moving swiftly and purposefully as he bound one guard’s hands behind his back with his belt. He emptied the man’s pockets, coming up with a lighter, a small ring of keys and a folding knife. After he crumpled the man’s cap into a rough ball and wedged it into his mouth, he fastened the gag in place with one of the guard’s boot laces, then grasped him under his arms and dragged him into the storeroom.
Glenna bent over and reached for the remaining guard’s belt buckle. It was a challenge to open because her fingers were shaking. But she couldn’t fall apart. She would think of Rafe. He had promised he’d get them out of here. She believed him. He wasn’t like the other men she’d known. They had a bond…
I’d prefer not to kill them.
That’s what he’d said. That meant he would have killed them if he’d had to. Of course. He was a soldier. That’s what soldiers did.
But his touch had been so tender, and he’d given her what she’d needed and held her while she’d slept and—
Oh, God, she couldn’t think of that now. If she did, she’d be no help to either of them. She pulled the belt free from the belt loops just as Rafe returned.
He bound and gagged the guard the same way as the other one and dragged him into the storeroom. When he reappeared, he was carrying a pair of boots and the guard’s clothing. “I left the laces in these ones. Take them,” he said, holding them out to her.
“Why?”
He dumped them into her arms and stooped over to pick up the guards’ discarded rifles. “You don’t have shoes and that skimpy top and skirt you’re wearing aren’t practical for jungle survival.”
She juggled the bundle of clothing and grasped the boots before they could fall to the floor. “Jungle…”
“We need to cover every contingency. We’re not in New York, princess.” took the ammunition clip from one of the rifles and tucked it into another pocket on his jumpsuit. He slung the other rifle over his shoulder, slipped his arm around her waist and guided her down the corridor. “You can change later,” he said. “The first priority is getting us out of here.”
His tone was curt, his grip on her waist firm, yet he did his best to take most of her weight as they moved. She realized she had to be a burden to him. He had to be aware that he could probably get away faster without her. She stole a glance at his face.
Because of the wound in his left leg, he held her on his right side, just as he’d done when they’d been taken to meet Juarez. Glenna had a good view of his scars, but she still couldn’t see any ugliness. She saw his strength and his concern for her.
They reached the place where the corridor branched into three without encountering anyone. The corridor on the right led into the main part of the house. Rafe stopped and tilted his head to listen.
Glenna thought she heard footsteps until she realized it was the pounding of her pulse. She bit her lip and tried not to give in to the urge to run back.
He lowered his lips to her ear. “When they brought us here after they caught up to us at the airport, which way did they come?”
“From the left, I think.”
“Were there many twists? Changes in direction?”
“I don’t…” She swallowed hard and clutched her bundle of clothing to her chest. The image of Rafe’s limp body being dragged by two of Juarez’s henchmen rose without warning. Oh, God. She’d blocked that out. They’d been so rough. “Yes. Quite a few. It was awful. They kept bumping you into the corners and—”
“What else did you see? Any doors?”
“I saw a big room that looked like a lab.”
“What about the exit? How far is it?”
“There was a door that was set into a cement wall outside. It wasn’t wood like the ones upstairs. It was steel.”
“What was nearby?”
“It was dark and—”
“And you were scared out of your wits. I understand.” He spoke slowly, his words calm although she could feel tension humming through his body. “Think about where they parked. Picture that.”
She felt the truck jerk to a stop after it backed into place beside a platform, and she remembered Rafe sliding toward the tailgate… “A small loading bay with a set of steps. There were people all around. They might still be there.”
“Yeah. People in the drug business tend to work nights, especially if they’re running a refining operation in that lab you saw. That might not be the best way to—” He stopped abruptly and looked down the center corridor. “Someone’s coming. We can’t go that way.”
To her surprise, he started down the corridor on the right. “Rafe, this will take us into the house,” she said.
“I didn’t se guards stationed there. They’re probably more concerned with keeping people out than keeping them in. Could be our best bet.”
The sound of voices came from behind them, then gradually started to fade. They must have turned the other way. Rafe didn’t slacken his pace. Glenna did her best to keep up with him, but by the time they reached the thick wooden door that led to the house, he was essentially carrying her on his hip. He set her on her feet and shifted the rifle from his back to his hands. “Hang on to my shoulder and stay behind me,” he ordered. He took the keys he’d found on the guard from his pocket. The fourth key he tried unlocked the door.
The crystal chandelier beside the staircase had been dimmed. In the semidarkness, the slender legs of the delicate antique tables along the wall looked skeletal, the flowers ghostly. Glenna took a deep breath and followed Rafe through the doorway, then winced at the noise as the wooden door clicked shut behind them.
A light shone from beneath the door of the room where Juarez had met them. Glenna imagined him lurking there, his mustache lifted in that oily smile as he waited to mock their escape attempt and take them back to that basement cell with the rats in the corners and the guards outside and—
Rafe grabbed her hand and pressed it against his shoulder, snapping her out of her temporary paralysis. Keeping his gun ready, he moved along the curve of the staircase in the opposite direction from Juarez’s office. Glenna gripped his shoulder for support and followed. The marble floor was cold beneath her feet. She hadn’t had time to notice it before, but now she was noticing everything. Her pulse was accelerating, her senses becoming so acute she was imagining footsteps again.
No, it wasn’t her imagination. She looked to their left, squeezing Rafe’s shoulder as she whispered a warning. A large figure moved on the other side of the wrought iron entrance doors.
Rafe spun around, clamped her to his chest and dove into the shadow beneath the curving staircase just as the doors clanged open.
Glenna couldn’t see who walked past. She couldn’t see anything. Somehow Rafe had managed to place himself between her and the rest of the foyer, sheltering her completely behind his black-clad body. She didn’t even dare to breathe as heavy footsteps vibrated across the marble floor.
A door opened. She heard Juarez’s voice call out a greeting. “Hello, Captain Aznar. You’re late. I wasn’t sure you were coming tonight.”
“I got held up in a meeting with those damned soldiers,” a low voice grumbled. “We have to change our plans.”
“No need. Everything is still progressing…”
A door closed and the voices cut off.
Rafe slid backward quickly, dragging her with him. “The front door is out,” he whispered. “Juarez’s visitor probably has a driver waiting for him.”
“Then what—”
“We head for a room at the back and find a window.” He returned her hand to his shoulder and started forward again. “As long as we keep clear of that loading bay you saw, with any luck we’ll be long gone before anyone thinks to bring us breakfast.
He made it sound easy. It wasn’t. Three more times they had to make use of Rafe’s quick reflexes, his black clothing and the shadows to conceal themselves as they worked their way toward the back of the sprawling house. But at last they found an empty guest room that overlooked nothing but trees. Rafe detached the alarm wires that were around the window frame, opened the window and dropped to the ground with a grunt, then held out his arms to help Glenna.
By this time, Glenna’s ankle was too painful to allow her to do more than hop. She hadn’t realized that he was aware of her growing discomfort, since he hadn’t allowed them to slow down, but of course, he was. He pressed her into the wall under the window, using his body to shelter her and to hold her up as a pair of men with rifles walked past. As soon as the men disappeared around the corner of the house, Rafe scooped her into his arms. He carried her to a pale strip of a road that curved toward the blackness of the rain forest. “Stay here,” he said, setting her down behind the concealment of a bush. “I’ll find us some transportation.”
She grasped his hand. “Rafe, be careful.”
“Shh. It’s okay. Things are looking up. It seems Juarez is too arrogant to think he needs gates.” He faded into the night shadows and was gone before she could argue.
Glenna strained to listen for some sound that would tell her what he was doing, but all she heard was the rumble of vehicles at the other side of the house and the screech of some animal in the distance.
Shivering as the night closed around her, she looked back at the house they’d just escaped. Even though she wasn’t more than fifty yards away, it was practically invisible, its dark brick walls blending into the grove of palm trees that surrounded it. From this vantage point, it didn’t appear large enough to explain the size of the basement. The underground corridors had to stretch well beyond the actual house. It was deceptive. Everything appeared completely innocent.
Yet more proof that appearance was no indication of what lay inside.
She shook out the shirt Rafe had taken from the guard and slipped it on over her top. It smelled of cigarette smoke and a strange man, but she refused to be squeamish. Rafe had spent precious moments getting these things for her. She pulled on the pants next. The guard had been close to her height, so the length was good but the waist was hopelessly too large. She bundled up her skirt and shoved it into the waistband, then slid her feet into the borrowed boots. She laced the right one carefully over her swollen ankle. To her surprise, the extra support gave her a trace of relief from the pain. Rafe had probably realized it would help, she thought.