Till Death Us Do Part

“That’s right.”

He almost cut and ran. Then he figured he didn’t have anything to lose. If he didn’t want to, he never had to see Abby Franklin again. “There’s a reason why I might be putting Marissa in danger by taking this assignment. I mean, something in my background that might make me a risky choice.”

When Abby’s expression remained neutral, he continued. “Did Marissa tell you I used to be hooked up with a supersecret spy organization?”

“Yes. She didn’t tell me the name,” she added.

“She probably doesn’t know I was asked to resign.” He heard his voice turn gritty as he struggled to keep his face from betraying the depths of his humiliation.

“That was rough on you,” Abby murmured.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“So did you really come here to tell me you’re no good at your job?”

“I am good at it!”

“But you’re the wrong man for the rescue mission?” Abby persisted.

“Maybe.”

“I’m willing to give you my professional judgment.”

“I found out seven years ago.”

“Found out what?”

He clenched his hands on the arms of the chair so he wouldn’t bolt from the room. With his emotions under equally rigid restraint, he told Abby Franklin the secret that had been eating him alive.

* * *

ROUGH HANDS shook Marissa awake, and she couldn’t hold back a startled scream.

“Let’s go,” a gruff voice ordered in Spanish.

“Wh what’s going on?” she answered in the same language.

“El Jefe has sent for you.”

Marissa’s heart began to pound. With no warning, she was going to be interrogated by the man whose office she’d been caught burglarizing. Had he found the camera in the toilet tank? Was that why he was finally sending for her? She ran a nervous hand through her hair. “Would you let me have a minute alone?”

He shrugged and stepped outside the door, giving her some privacy.

Quickly she used the toilet in the corner of the cell and washed her hands and face, wondering how unkempt she looked after three days in a cell. She expected to be escorted upstairs to the general’s office, and braced herself accordingly. Her eyes widened as she was led outside to a gray Chevy van parked by the delivery entrance. Two guards hustled her inside. Yanking her foot to the right, they cuffed her ankle to a ring that had been welded to the floor. Hardly standard equipment from Chevrolet.

“You said El Jefe.”

“Silencio!”

She pressed her lips together as the man slid onto the bench seat beside her. He kept a machine gun cocked under his arm. His companion climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. After ten minutes it was clear they were heading out of the city. Going west, according to a road sign.

Marissa knew that Sanchez had a finca in Colorado Province. Calling it a farm was an understatement, since it occupied more than twenty thousand acres. Despite the heat and humidity, she shivered. In the capital El Jefe was a powerful man but not entirely above the law. At his outlying estate he was the lord of the manor. He could do anything with her that he wanted, and no one would ever dig up the facts.

A cold sweat broke out on her skin. Involuntarily, her foot jerked against the cuff.

“Sit still,” the man with the gun muttered.

She went rigid.

The scenery changed from overcrowded urban to jungle in almost the blink of an eye. However, she knew from her extensive research on Sanchez and the local area that the two-lane road they took was one of the best paved in San Marcos, undoubtedly for the general’s benefit. Marissa had come this way a few days ago on the trip she’d told Jed about to visit some newly discovered Mayan ruins being excavated by a team from the University of New Mexico.

What would Jed do if he were in a spot like this, she wondered. Somehow, on all the dangerous missions she’d undertaken for the State Department, she’d never pictured herself getting captured. Shot, maybe; put out of her misery with one clean bullet. But not abducted. She shuddered, admitting for the first time that she should have known better.

Every ten or fifteen miles the jungle gave way to a village of thatch-roofed, bamboo huts strung out along the road. More than once a stray cow or goat wandered onto the pavement, and the driver honked furiously. Each time Marissa tensed as she entertained the guilty hope that the speeding van might collide with one of the animals. If the vehicle was forced to stop, she might have a chance to escape.

There were no such fortunate incidents with the livestock. But Marissa’s lucky break came about a mile and a half past one of the villages when the van blew a tire. Cursing, the driver had to wrestle the vehicle to the far right side of the blacktop, since there was no real shoulder. When he opened the back door, he discovered there was no jack. He cursed again.

The two men who turned out to be named Jose and Jorge argued in rapid Spanish, each accusing the other of being responsible for getting them into this fix. Jorge, the one who’d sat with her in the back seat, lost the shouting match and ended up trotting back to the village. Jose climbed out and ambled into the shade of a kapok tree. Nearby several goats grazed.

It was only about eight in the morning, but the temperature in the disabled van was already rising to steam-bath proportions.

“You’re not going to leave me in here, are you?” Marissa called through the open window.

“He’s got the key.” Jose pointed in the direction of his retreating companion before pulling his cap over his face and settling down for a nap.

Thank God they’d been too confident to search her, Marissa thought as she slipped her hand into her pocket and extracted one of the items she’d hidden her spare manicure set. And thank God she knew a lot about the terrain, both from several previous jungle expeditions and extensive reading.

Working quietly and stealthily, she began to probe at the lock on the cuff that secured her ankle to the floor of the van. Every so often she glanced up at Jose. He looked as if he were asleep.

Her hands were shaking so badly that it took several tries to open the lock. Finally it yielded.

Her breath slowed as she looked through the window of the van. Was this whole thing a setup? An excuse to shoot the prisoner attempting to escape?

She didn’t know. But she’d made her decision. Considering what could be waiting for her at Sanchez’s estate, she had to try to get away while the getting was good.

After one last furtive glance at the guard, she ducked low and slipped out the open door.

The moment her feet hit the pavement she was crouching and running toward the safety of the trees.

Chapter Three

Marissa muffled her sob of relief as she reached the concealing foliage on the other side of the road. Quickly she slipped farther into the shadows.

She’d gotten free. But that was only the first step. Not a living soul in this part of San Marcos was going to risk Sanchez’s wrath by helping her. Her only hope was to reach the American archaeologists at the Mayan ruins, explain what had happened and hope they had the resources to get her out of the country.

That meant she’d have to get far enough away from the van to risk crossing the road, then head north. Going back seemed like a bad idea, since she might run into Jorge. So she continued toward Sanchez’s estate and tried to stay more or less parallel to the blacktop.

However, she soon found it was impossible to travel in a straight line without a machete to slash her way through the dense foliage. In addition, she had to move carefully, since she was trying hard not to leave a trail the guards could follow.

The jungle was alive with other dangers, too. The archaeologists had told her about killing a coral snake near the ruins. Since there was no antidote for their venom, a bite meant death within minutes. All she could do was break a dead branch from a small tree to use as a defensive weapon.

Her clothing was soaked with perspiration, but she kept moving at a steady pace, detouring around tarantula holes and the huge hills of the leaf-cutter ants, who could make mincemeat of human flesh as easily as they denuded trees.

When she judged she was half a mile from the van, she sprinted across the road. Then she headed north, using the position of the sun as a guide. Every time she heard a noise in the underbrush, she expected Jorge or Jose to lunge from behind a palm tree. But so far so good.

Marissa pushed herself as hard as she could through the bugs and heat and plants that seemed to grab at her clothing as if they had an agreement with the soldiers to slow her progress. Eventually she had to stop and rest. Wishing that she had a hat and some insect repellent, she reached out a hand to steady herself against a slender tree trunk.

It was an unfortunate move. The bark was covered with thorns. She yelped in pain, and high above her in the trees a colony of howler monkeys reacted. Mortally offended by what they considered the invasion of their territory, they began to protest loudly. She might as well have been standing next to an air raid siren.

She started off again at the fastest pace she could manage. But she was a whole lot less optimistic than she’d been a few minutes ago. She’d been counting on her pursuers not knowing where to look for her. The monkeys had given them a road map.

* * *

JED TRIED TO RELAX in the airline seat. At least he was flying to San Marcos first class this time, so there was enough room to stretch his legs.

Of course, there would be plenty of space to stretch out if he and Marissa came home in wooden boxes.

He grimaced. Abby Franklin could pay the funeral expenses, since she’d listened to his story and then made him believe he’d be okay if he took certain precautions. He’d left her office feeling better about himself than he had in years. After a little reflection, he realized how good she was at her job. What she’d really done was the equivalent of patching up a combat soldier and sending him back into battle. But he’d understood her motives. She was convinced that he was the only person with the right set of qualifications to extract Marissa from Sanchez’s clutches.

The flight attendant came by and asked him if he wanted a drink. He ordered a bourbon and water. Maybe the liquor would help him sleep—like the rest of the passengers on the red-eye flight to Santa Isabella. Most of them looked as if they were going to San Marcos to visit relatives or relax in an unspoiled tropical paradise. He was flying into one of the trickiest assignments of his undercover career.

And he might have to change the rules as he went along if things didn’t work out the way Marci’s friends thought they would.

Marci. Ever since he’d heard her sister use the nickname, he’d started to think of her like that. It was part of his changing image of her, as if he were dealing with two different women. Marissa was cold and aloof, tough and sophisticated. She’d taken plenty of undercover jobs, and she knew the risks.

Marci was another matter entirely. His face softened as he considered her. She was fragile and vulnerable, shy and a bit naive. She pretended she knew all the rules. In fact, she’d conned him pretty well over the past few years, and he was a damn good judge of people. But all along she’d been hiding behind Marissa’s tough exterior, hoping no one would notice her.

He pressed his knuckles against his teeth. Now that Abby and Cassie had given him the right clues, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t recognized the symptoms. She was like him, hiding some shameful secret she didn’t want anyone to know. Something so bad that it made her reckless—even a little foolhardy—as if she didn’t believe her life was worth much.

Too bad for her Abby had slipped and revealed more than she should. Or had she? His eyes narrowed as he went back over the scene in the psychologist’s office, examining the nuances. Abby had told him she thought he’d be good for Marci. Had that been a calculated maneuver? Part of her plan to get him on her side?

He sighed. Whatever it was, it had worked. It had even starting him wondering if he and Marci could help each other, since neither of them felt there was much to lose.

Of course, Marci was one thing. Marissa was quite another. Getting close to her could be a disaster. He’d always known that Marissa Devereaux and Jed Prentiss would be an explosive combination. Either it would be damn good or they’d end up tearing each other apart.

Still, he felt a sense of tingling anticipation that made it difficult to sit still in the airplane seat. One of the reasons he was going back to San Marcos was to find out once and for all what would happen if he let her know he was attracted to her. This time Marissa wasn’t going to be able to duck away from him or give him that cold look he now realized was a protective mechanism. Not if she was going to follow the script that the Light Street group had written for her. No, if she wanted to save her hide she was going to have to work with him—up close and very personal.

* * *

MARISSA KEPT PUTTING one foot in front of the other even though she’d long since reached the point of exhaustion. Yet she knew she had to put as much distance as she could between herself and the spot where she’d stirred up the howler monkeys.

So far Sanchez’s goons hadn’t shown. But she wasn’t going to breathe easy until she reached the relative safety of the archaeological dig.

She hoped she could get there before nightfall. The jungle during the day was dangerous enough. When the sun went down, it would be pitch-dark and twice as perilous. She’d have to find a tree she could climb and wait for morning before she could risk moving around again. And that wouldn’t save her from poisonous tree frogs or snakes. Or the predators that would smell her fear or hear her shivering. Aside from the dangers, when the temperature dropped, her perspiration-soaked clothing was going to feel like a cold compress.

But that was hours away. Her immediate problems were heat and thirst. She’d had nothing to drink but a few gulps of water in her cell that morning. And even with the high humidity, she was getting dehydrated from the jungle heat.

She hadn’t crossed any streams, and she knew they would be a risky proposition out here, where she could pick up some nasty parasite while slaking her thirst. But there were hollow vines that were full of water. When she found one, she slashed it off with her penknife and gratefully tipped the cup end to her lips.

She’d taken several swallows when the sound of a branch snapping behind her made her whole body go rigid. Dropping the vine, she made a dash for a nearby thicket. But she didn’t get more than a few feet before a muscular arm hooked itself around her neck.

Before her scream had died away she felt the point of a machete pressed against the small of her back.

“Be still, and you won’t get hurt,” a harsh voice she didn’t recognize instructed in Spanish. She’d been caught, but not by Jorge or Jose.

He was in back of her, so she couldn’t see his face or gauge his resolve. As she breathed in the acrid scent of his sweat, she struggled to keep a lid on her fear. It helped a little to remind herself of her martial arts training. He wouldn’t be expecting any fancy maneuvers on her part. And the first thing to do was make him think she was completely at his mercy. “What are you going to do to me?” she croaked.

Instead of answering, he called out loudly, “I’ve found the woman they’re looking for.”

Moments later he was joined by a friend dressed in the faded cotton trousers and shirts that San Marcos’s peasants wore. He, too, was carrying a machete.

“I’m nothing to you. Please, let me go,” she begged.

The one who held her began to march her toward the road.

“I just want to get back—home.” The last part came out as a choked cry.

“The soldiers want you,” he said, as if that settled the matter. “Vámonos.”

“I’ll pay you,” she tried in desperation.

“We don’t want your money,” the second one answered. “They will be angry with the village if I don’t bring you in. They might burn us out or kill our animals.”

She understood then that there was no use pleading with these men or trying to bribe them. If they didn’t obey the wishes of the soldiers, they would be inviting the wrath of El Jefe.

Her captors gave her no opportunity for escape.

In minutes they emerged from the shade of the jungle onto the hot surface of the road. The van from which she’d escaped was parked a hundred yards or so farther on, and she saw immediately that the soldiers had repaired the flat tire. Jose and Jorge were lounging against the vehicle, one on either side. It did nothing to lift her spirits to find out she’d been slogging through rough terrain half the morning, and they’d been riding along in comfort.

When the villagers delivered her up to Jorge, he gave her a look that was equal parts relief and anger.

“Puta,” he growled, his hands balled into fists. “What the hell do you think you’re doing causing so much trouble? You’re going to be sorry.”

She braced herself for a blow, but none came. Maybe he didn’t want to have to explain how the prisoner had gotten injured. Pivoting away, he honked the horn several times in rapid succession.

When he turned back to her, his anger was under better control. Methodically he began to search her, his hands lingering on her body in a way that made her want to throw up. When he found her knife and the other tools, he gave her a thunderous look.

“This will make the general very angry.”

She raised her chin. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell him your prisoner got away, would you?”

“Why not?” The question was from Jose, who had come around the van to stand behind her.

“Because he won’t be angry only at me. He’s going to wonder why you were careless enough to let a woman in a leg iron slip out of your hands.”

The two men exchanged a quick, whispered conversation. At least Marissa had the satisfaction of knowing she’d rattled them badly. And maybe her ploy would keep them from talking about the morning’s misadventure.

Jorge cuffed her wrists behind her back before he shoved her into the van. The vehicle lurched away in a cloud of exhaust that enveloped the villagers who were standing several yards away watching the spectacle.

* * *

AS JED pressed his foot down on the old Land Rover’s accelerator he was thinking about the two best features of the road to El Jefe’s finca. There were no potholes. And there weren’t any cops on motorcycles who were going to stop him for speeding. Which was a damn good thing, because he was driving as if the devil was in pursuit.

He slowed marginally as he approached a village, alert for cows with a death wish. But at this time of day they were all lazing in the shade while the egrets picked the bugs from their hides.

As soon as he’d cleared the populated area, Jed accelerated again. He’d shown up at Sanchez’s offices in Santa Isabella that morning pretending that he wanted to get together with his old buddy, since they hadn’t connected at the party the other night. He’d been told that the general was at his country estate.

Determining the whereabouts of the female prisoner being held incommunicado had been a little trickier. But he’d been lucky enough to run into one of the men he’d trained six years ago. The fellow had made lieutenant, and he attributed much of his military success to Jed’s guidance.

As they talked about old times and present duties, Jed asked if the general was loading them up with special assignments. He found out that two guards had taken a good-looking blond woman out to the hacienda the previous morning.

With his heart pounding, he’d gotten out of the conversation as quickly as possible. Five minutes later he had hit the road to Sanchez’s estate, trying like hell not to think about what he might find. But he couldn’t stop some pretty vivid pictures from jumping into his mind. He’d once walked into a session when El Jefe had been demonstrating interrogation techniques on prisoners captured from the revolutionary army.

As he sped west the sky turned to navy blue, and the wind began to blow. A tropical storm was rolling in. He hoped it held off until after he arrived at the finca, or the driving rain might slow him to a crawl.

Two miles from the main gate he was stopped at a checkpoint. Again he was damn lucky. It still wasn’t raining, and another of his old comrades was on duty. He was passed through on the assumption that Sanchez knew about the visit. He hoped he didn’t get the guard in too much trouble.

If things were the same as they’d been six years ago, an electrified fence and another guard station were ahead. Jed’s hands tightened on the wheel. Even if they were best buddies, it was doubtful that the sentry up ahead would allow him to pass without authorization from El Jefe.

But what if the general was interrogating his prisoner? If he was busy with Marissa, he’d probably left strict orders not to be disturbed because he wouldn’t want to break the rhythm of the session.

A sick feeling rose in Jed’s throat. Too bad this Land Rover wasn’t armor plated so he could steamroll the guardhouse and hope that Sanchez would come out to investigate the disturbance.

As it turned out, the sentry’s attention wasn’t focused on the road but on the nearby field that El Jefe used for disciplinary action. The trees at the edge of the parade ground bent and swayed. The wind tore at the shirts and trousers of soldiers in the field marching in formation as if preparing for a formal drill. Not likely in a gale condition. No, this was no practice session. He recognized the configuration. It was a firing squad.

His blood turned to ice when he spotted the prisoner being marched to a stake facing the troops. It was Marissa.

Chapter Four

Jed gunned the engine of the Land Rover and barreled through the checkpoint. The wooden arm on the barrier snapped like a fence rail in a hurricane. Behind him he heard the sentry bellowing in surprise, then anger.

“Basta! Or I’ll shoot.”

Jed didn’t stop. Half expecting a volley of machine gun bullets to plow into the vehicle, he kept his foot pressed on the gas. A few seconds later he decided the guard was no fool. El Jefe himself was in an open car on the field. Any shots would endanger the general’s life.

However, Jed was taking no chances. As quickly as he could, he put the troops between himself and the sentry. When the vehicle zoomed onto the grass, their precise formation dissolved into disarray. Some men stopped in their tracks, a few kept marching. Most broke into a run as if they’d been scattered by the rising wind. It would have been comical if Jed had been watching it on a movie screen. But this wasn’t make-believe. It was Marissa’s life.

The only soldiers who weren’t aware of the disturbance were the ones escorting her toward the wooden stake about fifty yards away. Marissa walked between the uniformed men with her head held high and the breeze blowing the hair back from her face. She made it look as if she was the one in charge, not they. What was it costing her to march to her death with such composure?

As he watched, he felt a hard knot of anxiety inside his chest burst into sharp pieces, sending pain stabbing through his lungs. Lord, what if he’d been a few minutes later?

Behind him he could hear Sanchez snapping out angry orders. Then a troop of running feet hammered toward the Land Rover. Jed didn’t wait for the squad to reach him. Screeching to a stop, he jumped out of the vehicle. Marissa wasn’t out of danger yet. Neither was he. But he proceeded with what he hoped looked like unswerving confidence.