Michael's Temptation

He could knock the Reverend out. It would be the sensible thing to do. Downright considerate, even, since then she’d be able to blame him instead of herself for the nun’s fate.

Of course, he’d blame himself, too.

When was he going to grow up and get over his rescue-the-maiden complex? It was going to get him killed one of these days. And, dammit, he couldn’t get killed now. He had to get married.

That wasn’t the best way to talk himself out of playing hero.

He’d reached the fallen tree that was his goal. He stopped and whistled—one low, throbbing note that mimicked a bird call. A second later, three men melted out of the trees. Even with his goggles, he hadn’t spotted them until they moved. His men were good. The best. Even Scopes, though Michael still intended to ream him a new one for his little joke.

He sighed and accepted the decision he’d already made, however much he’d tried to argue himself out of it. He couldn’t leave the Reverend to El Jefe’s untender mercy. Or the nun.

The Colonel was going to gut him for sure this time.

The wheeling of the earth had taken A.J.’s star out of sight. Now there was only darkness between the slits in the boards.

Getting her things together had been easy. They hadn’t let her bring any of her possessions, not her Bible, not even a change of underwear. She had a comb and a toothbrush tucked in her pocket, given to her a few days ago by a guard who still possessed a trace of compassion. Of course, he probably expected to get them back when she was killed. Still, she asked God to bless the impulse that had moved him to offer her those tokens of shared humanity.

Waiting was hard.

He was coming back. Surely he was. And if he did…when he did, he would take her and the sister away with him. He had to.

She touched the place between her breasts where her cross used to hang and wished she knew how long she’d been waiting. How long she still had to wait. If the sun rose and he hadn’t returned…oh, she didn’t want to give up hope. Painful as it was, she didn’t want to give it up.

Time was strange. So elastic. Events and emotions could compress it, wad up the moments so tightly that hours sped by at breakneck speed. Or it could be stretched so thin that one second oozed into the next with boggy reluctance. Slow as molasses, she thought. Into her mind drifted an image of her grandfather’s freckled hand, the knuckles swollen, holding a jar of molasses, pouring it over a stack of her mother’s buttermilk pancakes….

“Hey, Rev.”

Though the whisper was so soft it blended with the breeze, she jolted. “Yes.” It came out too loud, snatching the breath from her lungs. “I’m here.”

“In a few minutes there will be an explosion at the east end of the compound. Are you familiar with the setup?”

An explosion? Her heart thudded. “I didn’t see much when I was brought here, and I’ve been kept in this room ever since. Are you going to…Sister Maria Elena, will you…?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “We’ll take the sister. You ready? Got your things?”

“There’s nothing.” Her hand went to the place her cross used to hang. A soldier with pocked skin and a missing tooth had yanked it off her neck. “Just Sister Maria Elena.”

“Is she ready to go?”

“She doesn’t hear well. I didn’t want to wake her to tell her what was going on. I would have had to speak too loudly.”

“Explanations will have to wait, then. The sentries are taken care of, but there might be other guards inside the house.”

The sentries were “taken care of”? What did that mean? She shivered. “Why an explosion? Wouldn’t it be better to sneak out?”

“We need a distraction. One of my men is going to blow up the barracks at the other end of the compound. When it goes—”

“No.” In her distress she rose to her knees, putting her hands against the boards as if she could reach him through them. “No, the soldiers—they’re sleeping. You can’t kill them when they’re sleeping.”

“It’s a shaped charge, just a little boom. Noisy enough to get their attention, but most of the force will be dispersed upward, taking out the roof. It probably won’t kill anyone.”

He sounded matter-of-fact, almost indifferent. As if death—killing—meant little to him. “Probably?”

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered. “Look, this is war. A small one, but the rules aren’t the ones you’re used to. These men would shoot you and the sister without blinking. That’s if you’re lucky. They’ve done worse.”

A.J. swallowed. The area where she’d been working had been peaceful at first. She wouldn’t have come to San Christóbal if she’d known…but after she’d arrived, she’d heard rumors of atrocities in the mountains. Men shot, tortured, villages burned. In Carracruz, the capital city, they blamed outlaws. In the rural villages, they whispered of rebels. Of El Jefe.

“Maybe so. That doesn’t make it right to kill them in their beds.”

“You worry about right and wrong, Rev. I’ll worry about getting us out of here. Here’s the plan. There’s a helicopter waiting three miles away. While the soldados are busy worrying about the explosion, we get you and the sister out of here and run like hell. There’s a trail that runs into the road about half a mile from the compound. We’ll meet the truck there.”

“What truck?”

“The one my men will liberate. It will get us to the copter. If everything goes well, we’ll be airborne about fifteen minutes after Scopes’s bomb goes off. Got it?”

It sounded good. It sounded so good she was terrified all over again at the sheer, dizzying possibility of escape. “Got it.”

“One more thing. From this point on, I’m the voice of God to you.”

“That’s blasphemous.”

“It’s necessary. You have the right to risk your own life, but you don’t have the right to endanger my men. You do what I say, when I say. No arguing, no questions. If I say jump, I don’t want to hear any nonsense about how high. Just jump. Understood?”

“I’m not good at following orders blindly.”

“You’d better learn fast, or I’ll knock you out and make my job easier.”

She swallowed. She didn’t have any trouble believing Lieutenant Michael West would knock her out if he considered it necessary. “You’re supposed to be one of the good guys.”

“They don’t make good guys like they used to, honey.”

“A.J.”

“What?”

“You’ve called me Reverend, Rev, lady, and now honey. My name’s A.J.”

“Sounds more like—”

It was like being inside a clap of thunder—end-of-the-world loud, floor-shaking, ear-bursting loud.

His “little boom” had gone off.

Two

Michael had the first board popped off before his ears stopped ringing. He’d brought a tire iron for that chore, borrowed from the shed that held the truck Scopes and Trace were stealing at this very moment. He worked quickly, his SIG Sauer in its holster, the CAR 16 on the ground. He’d drugged the closest sentry before approaching the window; he could count on Hammond to take care of the other one.

The nun had let out a screech when the bomb went off. The Reverend was explaining things to her now—loudly.

A voice that was all bone-rumbling bass sounded behind him. “Do I get the one that’s yellin’?”

“Nope.” Michael pried off the last board and stepped back. “You get the one that screamed when Scopes’s toy went boom. In you go.”

“She’ll start screamin’ again when she sees me,” Hammond said gloomily. The team’s electronics expert did look like the Terminator’s bigger, blacker brother, especially in camouflage with night goggles. He sighed and eased his six-feet-six inches of muscle through the small window.

Michael tossed down the tire iron and picked up his CAR 16, keeping his back to the window as he kept watch. He heard Hammond’s low rumble assuring the Reverend she could trust him with the sister; seconds later, he heard the Reverend climbing out the window. He slid her one quick glance, then jerked his gaze back to the clearing and the trees.

She sure as hell didn’t look like any minister he’d ever seen.

That momentary glimpse hadn’t given him a lot details, and his goggles robbed the scene of color. But he’d noticed a slim, long-fingered hand that shook slightly. A tangled wreck of curls that hung below her shoulders. A wide mouth in an angular face, and big eyes fixed on the weapon he cradled. And about six feet of legs.

Lord, she must be nearly as tall as he was. And ninety percent of her was legs.

What color were her eyes?

Hammond was at the window, ready to pass out a blanket-wrapped bundle. Michael traded a CAR 16 for an armful of old woman.

Even through the blanket and the material of her habit, he felt the heat from her fever. She was tiny, so light Hammond could probably cradle her in one arm and still handle his weapon. She’d lost her wimple. Her hair was thin, short and plastered to her skull. Her face was small and round and wrinkled…and smiling.

She looked nothing like Sister Mary Agnes. Michael smiled back at her, told her in Spanish that they would take good care of her, then passed her to Hammond.

The scream of automatic fire shattered the night, coming from the other end of the compound. Good. The others were keeping the soldiers busy. His quick glance took in the preacher’s pallor and shocked eyes. He didn’t know if it was the gunfire that spooked her, or if she could see the huddled shape of the sentries a few feet away.

He didn’t have time to coddle her. “We’ll go single file. Reverend, you’re the meat in the sandwich. Hammond and I can see where we’re going. You can’t, so hook your hand in my utility belt. We’ll be moving fast.”

“A.J. My name is A.J.”

He turned away. “Hang on tight.” As soon as he felt her hand seize the webbed belt at the small of his back, he moved out.

They crossed the clearing at a dead run and didn’t slow much when they hit the forest. The ground was rough, and the night must have been completely black to her, but she didn’t hold them up. A couple of times she stumbled, but her grip on his belt kept her upright, and she kept moving.

Good for her. He blessed her long legs as he wove among the trees, listening to the diminishing blast of gunfire behind them.

“Where are we going?”

“This trail intersects the road. We’ll meet the truck there. There’s a log here you’ll have to jump.” He leaped it.

She followed awkwardly but without falling. “This is a trail? Are you sure?”

He grinned, pleased with the trace of humor he heard in her voice. “Trust me. It’s here.” He’d found and followed it last night. Fortunately, the canopy wasn’t as thick here as it was in some places—part of this forest was second-growth. But that meant that there was more underbrush.

“Hammond,” he said. “Anything?”

“No sign of pursuit, Mick.”

Everything was going according to plan. It made Michael uneasy. Yeah, it was a good plan, implemented by good men. Problem was, he’d never yet been on a job where everything went according to plan. The truck might not start, or any of a dozen things could go wrong with getting it out.

When they reached the road Michael’s pessimism was rewarded. The truck wasn’t there. A fistful of soldiers were. And they were coming up the road, not down it from the compound.

One second A.J. was running a step behind her rescuer, her hand locked for dear life in the webbing of his belt while plants tried to trip her. The next, he stopped so suddenly she slammed into him.

He didn’t even wobble. Just spun, shoved her down and hit the ground beside her.

She couldn’t see a thing. Her hip throbbed from her rough landing in the dirt. A stick was poking her shoulder, and she didn’t know where Sister Maria Elena was. The other soldier, the one with the face of a comic book villain and the Mr. Universe body, wasn’t beside them. When A.J. lifted her head to see what had happened to him, a large hand pushed it back down so fast she got dirt in her mouth.

He kept his hand on her neck. She felt breath on her hair, warm and close to her ear. His whisper was so soft she barely heard it. “Soldiers coming up the road. Not the ones from the compound.”

Oh, God. More soldiers. Now that she’d stopped running, she felt cold. So cold. Or maybe it was his thumb, moving idly on her nape, that made goose bumps pop out on her shivery flesh. Or fear. She tried to keep her whisper as nearly soundless as his had been. “The truck?”

“Listen.”

She heard it now—a motor laboring, moving toward them. And from the other direction, voices of the soldiers he’d seen, coming up the rough dirt road. How could they have gotten in front of the truck?

No, she realized, these soldiers weren’t from the compound. They must be some of El Jefe’s other troops. Was El Jefe himself with them? Fear, sour and brackish, mixed with the flavor of dirt in her mouth. She tried to breathe slowly, to calm her racing heart.

Headlights! They splashed color against the dense black backdrop of trees just up the road as the truck rounded a curve.

“We’ll have a few seconds before they realize the truck isn’t part of their team anymore.” His hand left her nape, and she felt him move, crouching beside her, his weapon ready. “I’ve signaled Hammond. When he moves, you follow. Head for the back of the truck.”

The truck was closing the distance rapidly. Its headlights picked out three men on the road ahead—ragged, but unmistakably soldiers.

“I’ll lay covering fire if needed, then—hell! Damn that Crowe!”

Shots—machine-gun fast and deafeningly loud—came from the truck. One of the soldiers jerked and fell. The rest scattered, leaping for cover. And firing back.

The gunfire hurled her back in time, to a place and moment she never wanted to see again—past blurring the present with horror and blood. Her ears rang. Terror spurted through her like flames chasing gasoline.

Someone yelled—it was him, Michael, the lieutenant—but she had no idea what he was yelling. He waved his arm and the other soldier leaped right over her, huge and dark and graceful. Then he was running toward the truck, the sister in his arms, with the roar and hammer of gunfire exploding everywhere.

The truck had slowed, but it hadn’t come to a complete stop. The soldier leaped again and landed in the back of the rolling truck, the sister still in his arms. Oh, God, it was still moving. It would pass them by. She had to get up, had to run—but noise and terror, gunfire and memory smothered her, pressing her flat in the dirt.

The lieutenant grabbed her arm and jerked her to her knees. “Run!”

She gulped and shoved to her feet. A shadowy form loomed suddenly up out of the darkness. Moonlight gleamed on the barrel of his gun—pointed right at them.

Gunfire exploded beside her. The shadowy form jerked, fell. Someone screamed—was it her? Shots burst out all over, seeming to come from every direction. Dirt sprayed up near her feet.

He seized her hand and dragged her after him at a dead run—into the forest.

Away from the truck.

She pulled against his grip and tried to make him let her go. Maybe she cried out those words, let me go, let me go to the truck—but he dragged her after him, into the forest. She stumbled, tripped, crashing into the loamy ground. He jerked her to her feet and growled, “Run like the fires of hell are after you. They are.”

She heard renewed gunfire. And she ran.

What followed was a nightmare of darkness and noise. The soldiers came after them. She heard them crashing through the underbrush, heard them calling to one another. And she heard their guns. Once, bark chips flew from a tree, cutting her cheek, when a bullet came too close.

They ran and ran. The lieutenant gripped her hand as if she might try to get away, but she no longer wanted to, no longer thought she could let go. She ran as if her feet knew the ground her eyes couldn’t see, trusting him because she had no choice, relying on him to steer them both through the trees. She ran, images of death following her, of the man he’d shot to save them both—the body jerking, falling. Images of another man, shot under bright lights, not in darkness. Images of blood.

She ran, grieving for the truck and the lost chance of escape, fleeing ever deeper into the forest instead of being in the truck rolling rapidly away from guns and blood and bullets. After a while her entire being focused on running, on the dire importance of not falling, on the need to drag in enough breath to fuel her. There was only flight and the strong, hard hand that held hers. Pounding feet and a pounding heart and the sound and feel of him, so close to her, running with her.

Gradually, she realized she could see the black bulks of the trees and the vague outline of the man who ran with her. There were grays now as well as blacks, and dimness between the trees instead of complete darkness. She had an urge to look up, a sudden hunger for the sky. If she could see a star, just one—receive the sweet kiss of the moon, or glimpse the power of the sun pushing back the night…

He was slowing. As he did, the fear came rushing back, making her want to run and run, to run forever. She made herself slow along with him. And stop.

They stood in the gray light, motionless except for their heaving chests. The sound of her breathing shocked her. It was so loud, so labored. How long had they been running? Where were they?

Then she heard something else. A distant, mechanical thrumming. Coming from above? From the sky? A helicopter, she thought with all the wonder of renewed hope.

She turned to him, seeking the paler blur of his face. “Is—that—yours?” She was badly winded, making it hard to get the words out.

“They’re looking for us. We have to get out from under these trees.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “C’mon. Unless I’m lost, the trees end up ahead.”

The air lightened around them. And it was lightest in the direction they were headed, as if they were walking toward morning. Another sound replaced the whir of the helicopter—the thrumming roar of water falling. She smelled it, too, the wild liquid scent of water.

So suddenly it shocked, they left the trees behind.

The air shimmered with morning and mist. The sky was slate fading to pearl in the east. There was dampness on her face, and she could see the ground she walked on, the spearing shapes of trees behind her, and the bulk of rocks—a short, blunted cliff—rising off to her left.

And she could see him. Not with much detail, but at last she could see the man who had rescued her. He was tall and straight and carried his gun on his back. His face was partly hidden by the goggles that had let him lead their flight through the trees.

The sight of him, which should have reassured her, made her feel more lost. Fleeing through darkness with only his hand to guide her, she’d felt somehow connected, as if she knew him in some deep, visceral way. The reality of him, so straight and military and unknown, shattered that illusion.

The water-noise was very loud now. In the muted grays of predawn she saw it falling from the top of the cliff. Her breath caught as her feet stopped.

A yard away the ground ended, sheared off neatly as if cut by a giant’s knife. And below—far below—was the destination of the falling water, dark and loud.

A river. Which one? She tried to summon a mental map of the country, but her weary brain refused to make pictures for her. Whatever the river’s name, it was hearty, swollen with rain from the recently-ended wet season. Hemmed in by stone banks, water churned and rushed far below.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Maybe he didn’t hear her over the noise of the waterfall. He was scanning the sky, the goggles pushed down. Was it getting too light to use them? Biting her lip, she looked at the sky, too, but didn’t spot the longed-for shape of a helicopter.

“Come on, Dave,” the man beside her muttered. “Where else would I be but—yes!”

She looked where he was looking and saw it—a dark shape flying low, coming out from behind the trees well down the river. Heading their way. She laughed, releasing his hand at last, wanting to jump up and down.

Safety was flying up the river toward them.

A.J. had excellent hearing. Her other senses were no better than ordinary, but her hearing was unusually keen. It was she who heard the shout over the racket the waterfall made.

She spun. There—coming out of the trees—a soldier. No, soldiers. She gasped and grabbed the lieutenant.

He was already in motion, turning, his gun lifting.

Again, the impossibly loud sound of gunfire. Bullets spitting up dust at her feet—the soldiers fading back into the trees, save for one, who lay still on the ground. And hands at her waist, digging in, jerking her off her feet—

Throwing her off the cliff.

She fell. And fell. And fell. It seemed to go on forever, or maybe it was only an instant before the water slapped her—a giant’s slap, stunning and vicious. Water closed over her head so quickly she had no time to get a good breath, though instinct closed her mouth as she plummeted, expecting rocks that would crush and break, tumbled by the water until up and down were lost.

But one foot hit the bottom, mushy with silt. She pushed off, her lungs straining. The current was strong, but she kicked and clawed her way up, up, and at last her head broke the surface. She gulped in air.

Stony walls rushed past. The river moved even faster than she’d realized, and it took all her energy to keep her head above the churning water—but not all her thought. Where was he? She could see little but the dark rush of water. A rock loomed ahead, and she struck out with legs and arms, trying to avoid it. It clipped her hip as she tumbled by, but speed, chill and adrenaline kept her from noticing the blow.

Where was he? He’d thrown her from the cliff—and she would have fought him if she’d had time to understand what he was doing, but he’d known. All along, he’d known what to do. Somewhere in the back of her mind, while the rest of her fought the current, fought to breathe and stay afloat, she knew why he’d done it. The two of them had been out in the open, nowhere to go to escape the bullets spitting around them.

Nowhere but down.

So he’d thrown her off the cliff—but where was he? Had he made it over the edge, too? Or was he lying back in the clearing, bleeding and dying?

Again, it was her ears that gave her answers. Faintly over the noise of the water she heard her name. She opened her mouth, swallowed water, choked and finally managed to cry out, “Here! Over here!”

But the torrent didn’t allow her a glimpse of him until it slowed, until the stony banks gave way to dirt and the river widened and her arms and legs ached with the fierce burn of muscles used beyond their limits. The sun had finished pulling itself up over the edge of the world by then. She glimpsed his head, some distance farther downriver from her. She called out again.

He answered. She couldn’t make out the words, but he answered.

That quickly, the energy that had carried her was gone. Her legs and arms went from aching to trembling. Weakness sped through her like a drug, and she wanted, badly, to let the water carry her to him, let him do the rest.

Stupid, stupid. Did she want to drown them both? She struck out for the nearest shore, her limbs sluggish and weak.

At last her foot struck mud when she kicked. Silty, slimy, wonderful mud. She tried to stand, and couldn’t. So she crawled on hands and knees, feeling each inch won free of the water as a victory worthy of bands and trumpets and parades.

The bank was narrow, a stretch of mud, twigs and rotting vegetation. She dragged herself onto it. And collapsed.

For long minutes she lay there and breathed, her muscles twitching and jumping. Never had she enjoyed breathing more. Birds had woken with the dawn, and their songs, cries and scoldings made a varied chorus, punctuated by the chatter and screech of monkeys.