“Now I know why your mother named you Jack,” she said.
“Why is that?”
“It’s obviously short for Jack Ass. Do that again and you’ll need more than the Gran Bwa to save your hide.”
He reared back as she swept past him and out of the hut.
Damn. What was he thinking? He’d been chosen by the agency because he was professional, responsible. They knew they could count on him. Good old reliable Jack. He looked about the room for a shirt and grabbed the closest thing to it...a ragged looking tie-dyed T-shirt. It wasn’t easy getting the shirt over his head, but he managed. He felt achy and sore. He shoved his pistol into his waistband and pulled the shirt over it. After retrieving his wallet and the credit card with the prints, he pushed them deep into his pants pocket. Unlike Kate, he was certain the agency had nothing to do with jeopardizing the discovery of a cure to the AIDS epidemic. Regardless, he needed to talk to Harrison.
Pushing open the goatskin flap, he walked outside. The thick hot air stuck to his skin. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. To his right, beneath the shade of giant palm leaves, stood Alourdes, the Voodoo priestess who had called upon the gods to save him. She was busy teaching a group of children some sort of Haitian ritual, her voice nearly drowned out by the steady beat of many drums.
A breeze touched his face. Haiti was as poor as it was beautiful with its winding rivers, sandy beaches, and lush mountains that fell steeply into the sea. The view from where he stood was breathtaking, but that didn’t stop his thoughts from drifting to the dangerous road that lay ahead. He was going to leave now, call in the troops, and tell Harrison to send him some back-up. He needed to get Kate out of here in one piece. He would go to town without her, make a few calls, and return for her when it was safe.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kate heading his way. “I thought maybe I’d scared you off,” he told her as she approached.
“I don’t scare that easily.”
“I’m heading back to town. I’m going to make some calls and get to the bottom of this.”
Kate peered into Jack Coffey’s blue eyes and figured he had to be the craziest, most foolish man she’d ever met in her life. “You can’t be serious?”
“Perfectly.”
“For God’s sake, look at you.” She gestured toward his side. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re still weak. You can’t possibly go to town.”
“I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
“If you go waltzing down that mountain,” she warned, “sooner or later you’re going to run into more trouble than you can handle.”
He grinned. “Why is it I’m sensing you care about what happens to me?”
“Ridiculous.”
His smile broadened. “Whatever you say. I’ll come back for you, Kate. You’re no longer in this alone.”
She crossed her arms. He couldn’t possibly be for real. But he looked downright serious, bordering on gallant. “Thanks,” she said. “I feel much better now.”
“Good.”
She gave him a quick two-fingered salute. “It was nice knowing you, FBI man. Take care of yourself.”
Before she knew what he was up to, he stepped close, took her hand, and pulled her arm around his good side. Then he kissed her long and hard. Instead of jabbing a knee in his groin, she fell softly into his chest. Something more primitive than the island itself stirred within as his lips awakened a tingling so deep she found it hard to breathe. This time when he let her go, her eyelids felt heavy with desire.
Without another word, he began his long hike down the mountain.
“You’re a dead man,” she called out after him, referring to the kiss.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll miss you, too.”
Chapter 3
Twenty minutes later, Kate cursed with every step she took down the mountain, kicking up dirt and rocks as she went. “You’re no longer in this alone,” he’d said. Ha! What a joke. Jack Coffey had a death wish.
Five minutes after Coffey left, she started to worry about him. Fifteen minutes after that, she packed her things and headed after him. His tracks were easy enough to follow, but she never expected him to make such good time. She had to give the man credit. He was tougher than he appeared.
By the time she reached the bottom of the mountain, the streets were jam-packed with vendors selling everything from dried mushrooms to kitchen implements made from tin cans. The pickpockets and street kids were also out in full force, hitting the streets with a vengeance. After being in the mountains for a few days, the attack on the senses was total. The people of Haiti were loud and raucous and the fetid aroma of spices, rotting fruit, and urine was unusually suffocating today.
Kate huffed. Where was Coffey, anyhow? Few tourists roamed these streets. Street crime was a fact-of-life around Port-au-Prince and anyone who didn’t take sensible precautions was asking for trouble.
She pulled the brim of the straw hat Alourdes had given her low over her eyes and merged into the crowded street. It seemed Coffey had disappeared into thin air. The tie-dyed T-shirt he was wearing would be hard to miss. She’d only known him for a few days, and for most of that time he’d been out of commission, but here she was worrying about the guy.
Ridiculous
. She had enough problems without running after a suicidal FBI man. And yet something about him made her yearn for something more, telling her that maybe it was time to stop hiding. Time to return to the States and avenge not only her father’s death, but Dr. Forstin’s; Coffey was her quickest and safest means out of here. She needed to find him before he got himself killed.
She pushed her way up the street, weaving a path through the throng. The piece of paper she found in the pocket of Coffey’s torn shirt had
Rue Christ-Roi
scribbled on it. Rue Christ-Roi was a main street in the center of town, which meant his hotel must be somewhere in that vicinity. She’d look for him there first, and if she couldn’t find him, she’d head back to port.
She stepped up her pace, finally stopping in the shadow of a mechanic’s garage to watch the crowds. A traveling band pushed their way through the middle of the street, adding to the chaos. A string of dancers followed, kicking up dust as they went. Vendors shouted and waved sequined flags. The smell of simmering hot pork made her stomach gurgle. Through the haze of dust and smoke she finally saw it...swirls of a blue and maroon T-shirt.
An impaired gait and pale face made Coffey an easy target.
She watched him cross the busy street of Rue Christ-Roi and disappear inside the modest hotel next to the Hospice St. Joseph. She was about to follow after him when she saw a bearded man with a sling, the same man she’d shot in the arm three days ago when Jack had her cuffed on the boat. The bearded man grabbed hold of a young man standing next to him and pointed toward Jack. The younger man’s dark hair was slicked back into a ponytail. He, too, had been on the boat. Without hesitation, the younger man set out after Jack. The bearded man watched for a moment before he turned the other way and walked off.
Damn! The bearded man wasn’t the only one watching Jack. Ben Sheldon, the man whose ID they had stolen, stood a few feet away from the building where Jack was staying. These guys meant business. Sheldon flung his cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it with the heel of his shoe. He lifted his gaze, glancing about, prompting Kate to lean back into the darker shadows of the garage. What was Coffey thinking marching into the hotel as if he hadn’t a care in the world?
Sure enough, Sheldon walked into the same building Coffey had entered. Two against one. The odds were not in Coffey’s favor.
After waiting for a graffiti-covered car to pass, Kate made her way across the street and into the hotel, which was nothing more than a two-story guest house. The wooden floors creaked.
Before Kate reached the stairs, she felt a hard jab in the center of her spine. “Come with me,” a voice said from behind. “No funny business if you want to stay—”
Before the man could finish his sentence, she jerked around and took hold of his arm, twisting it with bone-jarring finality. Sheldon crumpled to the ground in agony. His gun hit the ground with a satisfying clank.
“You broke my goddamn arm!”
Kate tossed the straw hat from her head and knelt down, sinking her knee into his gut. She took a firm hold of his arm. “Definitely broken,” she said, dropping it to his side.
“Bitch.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like I’ve never heard that before.” She patted him down to see if he was carrying anymore weapons. He was clean. “So, you work for the FBI?”
He remained silent.
She pulled his cigarettes from his pocket, taking a moment to admire the burnished aluminum hinged box that doubled effectively as a cigarette case. “Made with the finest, most expensive Virginia leaf tobacco,” she read. She opened the flap with her teeth and took note of the silver foiled filter tips. “Impressive,” she said as she threw them to the floor and squished the box with the heel of her shoe. “Bad habit. So why, Jack Coffey?”
“Go to hell.”
She made a tsking noise and took hold of his good arm. “I guess I’ll have to break this one, too.”
“He was set up,” Sheldon sputtered.
“By who?” Kate squeezed harder.
“They call him Lou. That’s all I know.”
A loud crash sounded from the top floor of the hotel. The ear-splitting sound of shattering glass followed.
Kate jumped to her feet, snatched Sheldon’s gun from the floor, and headed upstairs. Loud thumps and bangs brought her to the second door on the right. She twisted the knob, but it was locked.
Another crash sounded. Kate stepped back and threw her weight into the door.
Shit, that hurt!
She yanked the pistol from her hip pocket and fired two shots into the lock. The door swung open. She stepped inside, weapon drawn, eyes wide.
Jack stood by the open window, his face made up of hard lines and suppressed fury as he held onto a pair of ankles, dangling the Haitian man with the ponytail out the window.
Jack’s chest rose and fell with each breath. “What took you so long?”
She ignored him and took quick inventory of the broken chair, tilted bed, and jagged pieces of glass scattered across the wood floor. “Nice.”
“Yeah, I thought the place could use a little redecorating.”
She smiled.
The thug hanging out the window grunted, his curses muffled by the crowds shouting to him from two stories below.
“So,” Kate said, “what’s the plan?”
Jack lifted a handsome brow. “It was the kiss, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That was a lie. Even now, their lives in danger, she wanted him to forget everything else, take her in his arms and kiss her again, long and deep, hard and soft all at once.
“I knew you’d miss me,” he said. “I just didn’t know how much.”
“Don’t get too excited. I followed you because I’ve decided it’s time I went back to the States. I have some unfinished business to take care of.”
“I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”
She shrugged.
Grimacing, Coffey struggled to hold on to the guy’s legs. “I talked to Harrison,” he managed, changing the subject. “He’s arranging for a private plane to pick us up.” Sweat trickled down the sides of Jack’s face. “Let me take care of Charlie here, and then we’ll go.”
“Here, let me help,” Kate said. She moved to his side and took hold of the man’s legs. “I’ve got him.”
As soon as Jack loosened his hold, she let go. Charlie dropped two stories to the ground. Somebody screamed. A loud crash followed.
“Okay,” she said, dusting off her hands. “Time to go.”
Jack looked out the window. “I wanted to question the guy.”
She lifted her shoulders. “Too late.”
Jack exhaled loud enough to express his exasperation with her. He grabbed a vinyl backpack from the floor and began to stuff his belongings inside. “You really are something, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
Coffey glanced at his watch. “We have thirty-two minutes to get to a runway a few miles short of the Port-au-Prince airport.”
“We’ll never get there in time without a car.”
“Then we’ll have to find a car.”
As Coffey packed, Kate noticed that he’d managed to change into a clean pair of jeans and boots before he was interrupted by the man he referred to as Charlie. Kate pointed to his boots, her brows slanting. “Are those alligator?”
He looked down his nose at her. “I didn’t kill the thing.”
“You may as well have.”
“See,” he said. “You do have a soft spot after all.”
She ignored that and instead watched him shuffle through a chest of drawers. “Your nose looks broken,” she said. “You look like crap.”
“Thanks.” He winced as he slid the tie-dyed shirt up and off wide shoulders, giving her a good view of hard, well-defined abs. Not usually big on creative imaginings, Kate was surprised to find herself wondering what he’d look like stripped naked. The rookie did something to her insides, making her nervous system zap and zing, throwing everything out of whack. She wasn’t the type to get thrown off balance by a man. Then again, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d met any man worth a second glance.
He pulled a clean white T-shirt over his head and when he saw her watching him, he winked, of all things. The man was full of himself in a big way. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
“We are.” He shoved a sleek compact case into his backpack before tying the drawstrings closed. “Let’s go.”
Kate followed him out the door and down the stairs. Ben Sheldon was gone. Outside, the bright cutting beat of maracas and wood claves added rhythmic chaos to the fans of heavy wires being scraped against metal grates. The passersby who happened to take note of Jack’s bruised face and the five-inch knife hooked to Kate’s waistband cut a wide circle around them.
The majority of people didn’t pay them any attention at all. They were used to living amongst hoodlums and gangs in the midst of steam and stench and smoke and refuse.
“Looks like our friends have disappeared,” Kate said.
“Friends?”
“Charlie wasn’t the only one after you. I had to break Sheldon’s arm in order to give you a fighting chance.”
“Thanks, but I could have handled it myself.”
“I’m sure you could have.” She stopped in her tracks when she saw the bearded man come around the corner. A group of ruffians followed close on his heels.
“Speaking of the devil,” Kate said. From the looks of things, the bearded man had wasted little time in gathering a small Haitian army of burly teenage boys. Judging by the fierce look in their young eyes, they were willing to do just about anything for a buck.
“This way,” Kate said, grabbing Jack’s arm before the group spotted them. “There’s a motorcycle with a for-sale sign at the garage across the street.” They bent low and shoved their way through the crowded street.
Kate wriggled her fingers in Coffey’s face. “Give me your cash,” she told him.
Hastily, he pulled a few hundred dollars in twenties from his wallet and slapped them into her open palm.
She took the money and disappeared inside the graffiti covered building. A minute later, she was running toward him with the keys. Jack snatched the keys from her. “I’ll drive.”
“I know the way to the airport.” She took the keys back.
He didn’t argue with her. There wasn’t time.
Kate grasped both handlebar grips, stood on the left foot peg and swung her right leg over the saddle. The engine sputtered and died, prompting Kate to jiggle the fuel valve, close the air shutter and depress both carburetor chokes.
Jack took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder. The thugs weren’t anywhere in sight. He glanced at his watch. Twenty-three minutes.
Kate pushed down hard on the start lever with her left foot. The engine fired up, emitting the smell of raw, unburned gasoline. Keeping the engine rolling with just enough throttle, she opened the air shutter and the choke. Jack jumped on back and slid his arms around her waist. If they weren’t in such a hurry, he might have taken a few moments to enjoy the sensation of holding her in his arms. Instead, Kate kicked the lever into gear. The engine sputtered and squealed before it finally came to life.
They were off.
Kate rounded the first corner a bit too sharp, prompting Jack to use his feet to keep them upright until they merged onto the main street. After a few blocks, Jack looked over his shoulder. They were being followed by a beat-up taxicab. Good ol’ Charlie had survived the fall from the second story window. Charlie sat in the passenger seat waving his hands like a madman. The man was like a cat with nine lives.
“We have visitors,” Jack told her.
Kate squeezed the throttle. “Come on baby. Give me all you’ve got.”
The engine growled and then screeched when she downshifted in order to swerve around a group of kids crossing the street.
Jack glanced behind him. The cab had been forced to stop and wait for the crowd to pass.
Kate hit the throttle again. The wheels kicked up dust. She made a sharp cut between an uncovered manhole and an elderly woman selling baskets of grain. The woman threw her arms in the air and let out a string of Haitian curses.
Once they gained some speed, the engine hummed to life. Kate’s long hair blew away from her face and into his eyes.
Thwack thwack thwack
. A spray of bullets hit the car in front of them, shattering the back windshield.
“Stay low!” Jack shouted.
Kate squeezed down on the throttle. The front wheel came off the ground before they gained momentum and circled around the car in front of them.
“We’ll never get there in time,” he shouted over the engine’s roar. “Stop at the next corner.”