Her Kind of Hero: The Last Mercenary

The big limousine ate up the miles. She had some vague sensation that she’d been on an airplane. Perhaps they’d flown to an airport and the car had picked them up. If only she could see out the window. There were undefined shadows out there. They looked like trees, alot of trees. Her vision was slightly blurred and she felt as if her limbs were made of iron. It was difficult to concentrate, and more difficult to try to move. What had they given her?

One man spoke urgently to the other and indicated Callie. He smiled and replied with a low, deep chuckle.

Callie noticed then that her blouse had come apart in the struggle. Her bra was visible, and those men were staring at her as if they had every right. She felt sick to her soul. It didn’t take knowing the language to figure out what they were saying. She was completely innocent, but before this ordeal was over, she knew she never would be again. She felt a wave of grief wash over her. If only Micah hadn’t pushed her away that Christmas. Now it was too late. Her first and last experience of men was going to be a nightmarish one, if she even lived through it. That seemed doubtful. Once the drug lord discovered that Micah had no affection for his stepsister, that he actually hated her and wouldn’t soil his hands paying her ransom, she was going to be killed. She knew what happened in kidnappings. Most people knew. It had never occurred to her that she would ever figure in one. How ironic, that she was poor and unattractive, and that hadn’t spared her this experience.

She wondered dimly what Micah would say when he knew she was missing. He’d probably feel well rid of her, but he might pay the ransom for her father’s sake. Someone had to look after Jack Steele, something his only child couldn’t apparently be bothered to do. Callie loved the old man and would have gladly sacrificed her life for him. That made her valuable in at least one way.

The one bright spot in all this was that once word of Callie’s kidnapping got out, Micah would hire a bodyguard for Jack whether he wanted one or not. Jack would be safe.

She wished she knew some sort of self-defense, some way of protecting herself, of getting loose from the ropes and the gag that was slowly strangling her. She hadn’t had time for lunch the day before and she’d been drugged for the whole night and into the next morning. She was sick and weak from hunger and thirst, and she really had to go to the bathroom. It was a bad day all around.

She closed her eyes and wished she’d locked her car doors and sped out of reach of her assailants. If there was a next time, if she lived to repeat her mistakes, she’d never repeat that one.

She shifted because her legs were cramping and she felt even sicker.

Listening to the men converse in Arabic, she realized her abductors weren’t from Mexico. But as she looked out the window now, she could see the long narrow paved ribbon of road running through what looked like rain forest. She’d never been to the Yucatán, but she knew what it looked like from volumes of books she’d collected on Maya relics. Her heart sank. She knew that Manuel Lopez lived near Cancún, and she knew she was in the Yucatán. Her worst fears were realized.

Only minutes later, the car pulled into a long paved driveway through tall steel gates. The gates closed behind them. They sped up to an impressive whitewashed beach house overlooking a rocky bay. It had red ceramic tiles and the grounds were immaculate and full of blooming flowers. Hibiscus in November. She could have laughed hysterically. Back home the trees were bare, and here everything was blooming. She wondered what sort of fertilizer they used to grow those hibiscus flowers so big, and then she remembered Lopez’s recent body count. She wondered if she might end up planted in his garden…

The car stopped. The door was opened by a suited dark man holding an automatic rifle of some sort, one of those little snub-nosed machine guns that crooks on television always seemed to carry.

She winced as the men dragged her out of the car and frog-marched her, bonds and all, into the ceramic tile floored lobby. The tile was black and white, like a chessboard. There was a long, graceful staircase and, overhead, a crystal chandelier that looked like Waterford crystal. It probably cost two or three times the price of her car.

As she searched her surroundings, a small middle-aged man strolled out of the living room with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t smile. He walked around Callie as if she were some sort of curiosity, his full lips pursed, his small dark eyes narrow and smugly gleaming. He jerked her gag down.

“Miss Kirby,” he murmured in accented English. “Welcome to my home. I am Manuel Lopez. You will be my guest until your interfering stepbrother tries to rescue you,” he added, hesitating in front of her. “And when he arrives, I will give him what my men have left of you, before I kill him, too!”

Callie thought that she’d never seen such cruelty in a human being’s eyes in her life. The man made her knees shake. He was looking at her with contempt and possession. He reached out a stubby hand and ripped her blouse down in front, baring her small breasts in their cotton bra.

“I had expected a more attractive woman,” he said. “Sadly you have no attractions with which to bargain, have you? Small breasts and a body that would afford little satisfaction. But Kalid likes women,” he mused, glancing at the small, dark man who’d been sitting across from Callie. “When I need information, he is the man who obtains it for me. And although I need no information from you, Miss Kirby,” he murmured, “it will please Kalid to practice his skills.”

A rapid-fire burst of a guttural language met the statement.

“Español!” Lopez snapped. “You know I do not understand Arabic!”

“The woman,” one of the other men replied in Spanish. “Before you give her to Kalid, let us have her.”

Lopez glanced at the two thin, unshaven men who’d delivered Callie to him and smiled. “Why not? I make you a present of her. It should arouse even more guilt in her stepbrother to find her…used. But not until I tell you,” he added coldly. “For now, take her to the empty servant’s room upstairs. And put the gag back in place,” he added. “I have important guests arriving. I would not want them to be disturbed by any unexpected noise.”

“My stepbrother won’t come to rescue me,” she said hoarsely, shocked. “He isn’t a physical sort of man. Aren’t you going to ask him to pay ransom?”

Lopez looked at her as if she were nuts. “Why do you think Steele will not come after you?”

“He’s a doctor. Or he was studying to be one. He wouldn’t know the first thing about rescuing somebody!”

Lopez seemed to find that amusing.

“Besides that,” she added harshly, “he hates me. He’ll probably laugh his head off when he knows you’ve got me. He can’t stand the sight of me.”

That seemed to disturb Lopez, but after a minute he shrugged. “No importa,” he said lightly. “If he comes, that will be good. If not, it will make him even more concerned for his father. Who will be,” he added with a cold smile, “next to feel my wrath.”

Callie had her mouth open to ask another question, but at a signal from Lopez she was half dragged out of the room, her pale blue eyes as wide as saucers as she shivered with fear.

2

Callie had never been in such danger in her life, although she certainly knew what it was to be manhandled. She’d been in and out of foster care since the age of six. On a rare visit home, one of her mother’s lovers had broken her arm when she was thirteen, after trying to fondle her. She’d run from him in horror, and he’d caught up with her at the staircase. A rough scuffle with the man had sent her tumbling down the steps to lie sprawled at the foot of the staircase.

Her mother had been furious, but not at her boyfriend, who said that Callie had called him names and threatened to tell her mother lies about him. After her broken arm had been set in a cast, Anna had taken Callie right back to her foster home, making her out to be incorrigible and washing her hands of responsibility for her.

Oddly, it had been Jack Steele’s insistence that he wanted the child that had pushed a reluctant Anna into taking her back, at the age of fifteen. Jack had won her over, a day at a time. When Micah was home for holidays, he’d taunted her, made his disapproval of her so noticeable that her first lesson in the Steele home was learning how to avoid Jack’s grown son. She’d had a lot of practice at avoiding men by then, and a lot of emotional scars. Anna had found that amusing. Never much of a mother, she’d ignored Callie to such an extent that the only affection Callie ever got was from Jack.

She closed her eyes. Her own father had ripped her out of his arms when she was six and pushed her away when she begged to stay with him. She was some other man’s bastard, he’d raged, and he wanted no part of her. She could get out with her tramp of a mother—whom he’d just caught in bed with a rich friend—and he never wanted to see either of them again. She’d loved her father. She never understood why he couldn’t love her back. Well, he thought she wasn’t his. She couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way.

She was still sitting in a small bedroom that night, having been given nothing to eat or drink. She was weak with hunger and pain, because the bonds that held her wrists and ankles had chafed and all but cut off the circulation. She heard noise downstairs from time to time. Obviously Lopez’s visitors had stayed a long time, and been quite entertained, from the sound of things. She could hear the soft whisper of the ocean teasing the shore outside the window. She wondered what they would do with her body, after they killed her. Perhaps they’d throw her out there, to be eaten by sharks.

While she was agonizing over her fate, the sky had darkened. Hours more passed, during which she dozed a little. Then suddenly, she was alone no longer. The door opened and closed. She opened her tired eyes and saw the three men who’d kidnapped her, gathered around her like a pack of dogs with a helpless cat. One of them started stripping her while the others watched. Her cell phone fell out of the pocket of her slacks as they were pulled off her long legs. One of the men tossed it up and laughed, speaking to another man in yet a different foreign language.

Callie closed her eyes, shivering with fear, and prayed for strength to bear what was coming. She wished with all her heart that Micah hadn’t pushed her away that last Christmas they’d spent together. Better him than any one of these cold, cruel, mocking strangers.

She heard one of them speaking in rough Spanish, discussing her body, making fun of her small breasts. It was like a playback from one foster home when she was fifteen, where an older son of the family had almost raped her before he was interrupted by the return of his parents. She’d run away afterward, and been sent to another foster home. She’d been saved that time, but she could expect no help now. Micah wouldn’t begin to know how to rescue her, even if he was inclined to save her. He probably wouldn’t consider ransom, either. She was alone in the world, with no one who would care about her fate. Her mother probably wouldn’t even be bothered if she died. Like Micah, she’d blamed Callie for what had happened.

Desperate for some way to endure the ordeal, to block it out, Callie pictured the last time she’d seen her grandmother before she passed away, standing in an arbor of little pink fairy roses, waving. Callie had often stayed with her father’s widowed mother when he and Anna were traveling. It was a haven of love. It hadn’t lasted. Her grandmother had died suddenly when she was five. Everyone she’d ever loved had left her, in one way or the other. Nobody would even miss her. Maybe Jack would. She spared one last thought for the poor old man who was as alone as she was. But with her out of the way, perhaps Micah would go home again…

There was a loud, harsh shout. She heard the door open, and the men leave. With a shivery sigh, she moved backward until she could ease down into a worn wing chair by the fireplace. It wasn’t going to be a long reprieve, she knew. If only she could free herself! But the bonds were cutting into her wrists and ankles. She was left in only a pair of aged white briefs and a tattered white bra, worn for comfort and not for appearance. No one had seen her in her underwear since she was a small child. She felt tears sting her eyes as she sat there, vulnerable and sick and ashamed. Any minute now, those men would be back. They would untie her before they used her. She knew that. She had to try to catch them off guard the instant she was free and run. If she could get into the jungle, she might have a chance. She was a fast sprinter, and she knew woodcraft. It was the last desperate hope she had.

One of the men, the one who’d asked Lopez for her, came back inside for a minute, staring at her. He pulled out a wicked looking little knife and flicked it at one shoulder strap of her bra, cutting right through it.

She called him a foul name in Spanish, making herself understood despite the gag. Her mind raced along. If she could make him angry enough to free her, which he’d have to do if he had rape in mind…She repeated the foul name, with more fervor.

He cursed. But instead of pulling her up to untie her, he caught her by the shoulder and pressed her hard back into the chair, easing the point of the knife against the soft, delicate upper part of her breast.

She moaned hoarsely as the knife lightly grazed her flesh.

“You will learn manners before we finish with you,” he drawled icily, in rough Spanish. “You will do what I tell you!”

He made no move to free her. Instead, he jerked down the side of her bra that had been cut, and stared mockingly at her breast.

The prick from the knife stung. She ground her teeth together. What had she been thinking? He wasn’t going to free her. He was going to torture her! She felt sick unto death with fear as she looked up into his eyes and realized that he was enjoying both her shame and her fear.

In fact, he laughed. He went back and locked the door. “We don’t need to be disturbed, do we?” he purred as he walked back toward her, brandishing the sharp knife. “I have looked forward to this all the way from Texas…”

Her eyes closed. She said a last, silent prayer. She thought of Micah, and of Jack. Her chin lifted as she waited bravely for the impact of the blade.

There was a commotion downstairs and a commotion outside. She’d hoped it might divert the man standing over her with that knife, but he was too intent on her vulnerable state to care what was going on elsewhere. He put one hand on the back of the chair, beside her head, and placed the point of the knife right against her breast.

“Beg me not to do it,” he chuckled. “Come on. Beg me.”

Her terrified eyes met his and she knew that he was going to violate her. It was in his face. He was almost drooling with pleasure. She was cold all over, sick, resigned. She would die, eventually. But in the meantime, she was going to suffer a fate that would make death welcome.

“Beg me!” he demanded, his eyes flashing angrily, and the blade pushed harder.

There was a sudden burst of gunfire from somewhere toward the front of the house. Simultaneously, there was shattering glass behind the man threatening her, and the sudden audible sound of bullets hitting flesh. The man with the knife groaned once and fell into a silent, red-stained heap at her feet.

Wide-eyed, terrified, shaking, Callie cried out as she looked up into a face completely covered with a black mask, except for slits that bared a little of his eyes and mouth. He was dressed all in black with a wicked looking little machine gun in one hand and a huge knife suddenly in the other. His eyes went to her nicked breast. He made a rough sound and kicked the man on the floor aside as he pulled Callie up out of the chair and cut the bonds at her ankles and wrists.

Her hands and feet were asleep. She almost fell. He didn’t even stop to unfasten the gag. Without a word, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder in the classic fireman’s carry, and walked straight toward the window. Apparently, he was going out it, with her.

He finished clearing away the broken glass around the window frame and pulled a long black cord toward him. It seemed to be hanging from the roof.

He was huge and very strong. Callie, still in shock from her most recent ordeal, her feet and hands almost numb, didn’t try to talk. She didn’t even protest. If this was a turf war, and she was being stolen by another drug lord, perhaps he’d just hold her for ransom and not let his men torture her. She had little to say about her own fate. She closed her eyes and noticed that there was a familiar smell about the man who was abducting her. Odd. He must be wearing some cologne that reminded her of Jack, or even Mr. Kemp. At least he’d saved her from the knife.

Her wounded breast hurt, where it was pressed against the ribbed fabric of his long-sleeved shirt, and the small cut was bleeding slightly, but that didn’t seem to matter. As long as he got her out of Lopez’s clutches, she didn’t really care what happened to her anymore. She was exhausted.

With her still over his shoulder, he stepped out onto the ledge, grasped a thick black cord in a gloved hand and, with his rifle leveled and facing forward, he rappelled right out the second-story window and down to the ground with Callie on his shoulder. She gasped as she felt the first seconds of free fall, and her hands clung to his shirt, but he didn’t drop her. He seemed quite adept at rappelling.

She’d read about the Australian rappel, where men went down the rope face-front with a weapon in one hand. She’d never seen it done, except on television and in adventure movies. She’d never seen anyone doing it with a hostage over one shoulder. This man was very skillful. She wondered if he really was a rival drug lord, or if perhaps he was one of Eb Scott’s mercenaries. Was it possible that Micah would have cared enough to ask Eb to mount her rescue? Her heart leaped at the possibility.

As they reached the ground, she realized that her rescuer wasn’t alone. As soon as they were on the ground, he made some sort of signal with one hand, and men dressed in black, barely visible in the security lights dotted along the dark estate, scattered to the winds. Men in suits, still firing after them, began to run toward the jungle.

A four-wheel-drive vehicle was sitting in the driveway with its engine running and the backseat door open, waiting.

Her rescuer threw her inside, climbed in beside her and slammed the door. She pulled the gag off.

“Hit it!” he bit off.

The vehicle spun dirt and gravel as it took off toward the gate. The windows were open. Gunfire hit the side of the door, and was returned by the man sitting beside Callie and the man in the front passenger seat. The other armed man had a slight, neatly trimmed beard and mustache and he looked as formidable as his comrade. The man who was driving handled the vehicle expertly, dodging bullets even as his companions returned fire at the pursuing vehicle. Callie had seen other armed men in black running for the jungle. She revised her opinion that these were rival drug dealers. From the look of these men, they were commandos. She assumed that these three men were part of some sort of covert group sent in to rescue her. Only one person would have the money to mount such an expedition, and she’d have bet money that Eb Scott was behind it somehow. Micah must have paid him to hire these men to come after her.

If he had, she was grateful for his intervention, although she wondered what had prompted it. Perhaps his father had persuaded him. God knew, he’d never have spent that sort of money on her rescue for his own sake. Her sudden disappearance out of his life would have delighted him.

She was chilled and embarrassed, sitting in her underwear with three strange men, but her clothing had been ripped beyond repair. In fact, her rescuer hadn’t even stopped to grab it up on his way out of the room where she was being held. She made herself as inconspicuous as possible, grateful that there was no light inside the vehicle, and closed her eyes while the sound of gunfire ricocheted around her. She didn’t say a word. Her companions seemed quite capable of handling this new emergency. She wasn’t going to distract them. If she caught a stray bullet, that was all right, too. Anything, even death, would be preferable to what she would endure if Lopez regained custody of her.

Half a mile down the road, there was a deep curve. The big man who’d rescued Callie told the man in front to stop the vehicle. He grabbed a backpack on the floorboard, jumped out, pulled Callie out, and motioned the driver and the man with the beard and mustache to keep going. The big man carried Callie out of sight of the road and dashed her down in the dark jungle undergrowth, his powerful body lying alongside hers in dead leaves and debris while they waited for the Jeep that had been chasing them to appear. Thorns dug into her bare arms and legs, but she was so afraid that she hardly noticed.

Suddenly, the pursuing Jeep came into sight. It braked for the curve, but it barely slowed down as it shot along after the other vehicle. Its taillights vanished around the bend. So far, so good, Callie thought, feeling oddly safe with the warmth and strength of the man lying so close beside her. But she hoped the man who was driving their vehicle and his bearded companion made a clean getaway. She wouldn’t want them shot, even to save herself.

“That went well,” her companion murmured curtly, rising. He pulled out some sort of electronic gadget and pushed buttons. He turned, sighting along it. “Can you walk?” he asked Callie.

His voice was familiar. Her mind must be playing tricks. She stood up, still in her underwear and barefoot.

“Yes. But I…don’t have any shoes,” she said hoarsely, still half in shock.

He looked down at her, aiming a tiny flashlight at her body, and a curse escaped his mouth as he saw her mangled bra.

“What the hell did they do to you?” he asked through his teeth.

Amazing, how familiar that deep voice was. “Not as much as they planned to, thanks to you,” she said, trying to remain calm. “It’s not a bad cut, just a graze. I’ll have to have some sort of shoes if we’re going to walk. And I…I don’t suppose you have an extra shirt?” she added with painful dignity.

He was holding a backpack. He pulled out a big black T-shirt and stuffed her into it. He had a pair of camouflage pants, too. They had to be rolled up, but they fit uncannily well. His face was solemn as he dug into the bag a second time and pulled out a pair of leather loafers and two pairs of socks.

“They’ll be too big, but the socks will help them fit. They’ll help protect your feet. Hurry. Lopez’s men are everywhere and we have a rendezvous to make.”

She felt more secure in the T-shirt and camouflage pants. Not wanting to hold him up, she slipped quickly into the two pairs of thick socks and rammed her feet into the shoes. It was dark, but her companion had his small light trained ahead. She noticed that huge knife in his left hand as he started ahead of her. She remembered that Micah was left-handed…

The jungle growth was thick, but passable. Her companion shifted his backpack, so dark that it blended in with his dark gear and the jungle.

“Stay close behind me. Don’t speak unless I tell you to. Don’t move unless I move.”

“Okay,” she said in a husky whisper, without argument.

“When we get where we’re going, I’ll take care of that cut.”

She didn’t answer him. She was exhausted. She was also dying of thirst and hunger, but she knew there wasn’t time for the luxury of food. She concentrated on where she was putting her feet, and prayed that she wouldn’t trip over a huge snake. She knew there were snakes and lizards and huge spiders in the jungle. She was afraid, but Lopez was much more terrorizing a threat than a lonesome snake.

She followed her taciturn companion through the jungle growth, her eyes restless, her ears listening for any mechanical sound. The darkness was oddly comforting, because sound traveled so well in it. Once, she heard a quick, sharp rustle of the underbrush and stilled, but her companion quickly trained his light on it. It was only an iguana.