Betrayal (13 page)

She located a vein, closed her eyes briefly and prayed for success. Then, trying to remain clinically detached instead of terrified she’d hurt Kai, she carefully slid the needle into his skin.

By the time she’d stowed the needle and vial back in their pouch, she felt the warm glimmer of pride pushing through her nerves. She’d done it! And Kai hadn’t so much as twitched.

Now she could settle in. She pulled her bedding closer to Kai and sat cross-legged on it, prepared to keep vigil until his breathing regulated.

The minutes stretched into hours. Kai’s breathing remained too fast and too shallow. His breath stopped twice. Each time, Susana sprang forward ready to start CPR, but both times his breathing picked up on its own, leaving Susana sweating and weak with relief.

And struggling to moderate her own breathing.

Finally, as the sunlight peeking through the leaves lost its intensity, Kai began to sweat. Susana brushed tears off her cheeks. Sweating was malaria’s final phase.

He was going to be all right.

Chapter 11

Tuesday, Morning

Amazon Jungle

K
ai opened his eyes. Streams of daylight filtered through the leafy roof of the shelter, landing in bright patches along Susana’s body as she sat cross-legged a few feet away. Her eyes were intent upon him, her eyebrows lowered in concentration.

He couldn’t for the life of him read her expression.

This was the first time someone had been with him during a malaria attack and he was unprepared for the raw vulnerability of his position. Vague memories of ranting, of fevered dreams of blood, teased at the edges of his consciousness. Dammit, what secrets had he revealed?

He fought the urge to look away, to hide himself, as if by denying her now he could erase the memory of whatever he’d said during the fever.

Asking her what he’d said would only reveal his uneasiness. So he waited. Expecting to see pity, compassion, or even fear in her eyes. Instead, she wore the focused look of a scientist trying to unravel a puzzle.

But then her gaze met his and her face softened. Her eyes were filled with…tenderness?

“Welcome back,” she said softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Empty.”

Whoa.
Where did that come from?

The myriad meanings behind the word were too complicated for him to decipher, but Susana drew her own conclusion. The corners of her mouth slid into a warm smile. “That’s understandable. You were sometimes quite…energetic during your fever.” She reached into his backpack.

“Let me mix some energy drink for you. Once you’re rehydrated, I’ll help you outside. Unless you have an urgent need?”

He shook his head. Considering how damp his boxers were, he figured he’d sweated out most of his body’s water.

A faint breeze skittered across his skin and he shivered. That’s when it hit him that the rest of his clothes were missing. He had no memory of stripping. Which, God, meant that Susana had undressed him while he was unconscious. And there was no way she could miss his scars.

Anger and shame twisted inside him until he wanted to run away and hide.

Stay put, act normal and keep your mouth shut. Don’t give her any reason to pity you.

He looked around for his clothes and located them folded in a neat pile at the foot of Susana’s bedding. He tried to reach out an arm and snag his shirt, but his whole body trembled at the effort. His hand barely rose six inches off the ground.

He did manage to pull the survival blanket over himself, but even that small motion drained him. Shit. The mercenaries were still out there and he was in no shape to fight.

Susana tore open the packet of energy powder and poured it into his canteen. She scooted close to him, filled the lid with liquid, and held it to his lips.

“I don’t need you to feed me like a baby,” he protested. He started to raise his hands to take the cup from her, but she pushed them down.

“No. Save your strength for when I take you outside. If you’re up to it, I think we should bathe you in the river before you put your clothes back on.”

A laugh burst out of Kai, almost causing him to spit the energy drink out. Only sheer willpower kept him from wasting the precious liquid. After he’d swallowed the mouthful, he raised his eyebrows. “Are you implying that I stink?” he intoned, raising his eyebrows.

“I shouldn’t be throwing stones, because I reek of river water, sweat and dirt, but…yes, Kai, you stink,” she said with a grin. “You definitely need a bath.”

“Ah, well. Anything to please milady.” He bowed his head and was rewarded with an appreciative chuckle.

Wednesday, Morning

Somewhere over South America

R
afael Andros leaned back against the airplane seat and pressed his eyes closed. The absence of sight didn’t help his headache, but it lessened his nausea. Yet with the darkness came a jumble of images and fragments of remembered sound that he struggled to piece together into sense.

A cold, male voice, telling him to kill.

Seeing his hand jab a knife into his teammate’s chest, while his mind screamed at him to stop.

Worry in his brother’s voice as Niko called his name.

Rafe thought he’d phoned Niko. Told him about the mission. But he wasn’t sure. It might have been a dream.

The murmurs of the other men on the team abruptly shut off.

Rafe opened his eyes as a man in a white lab coat walked down the aisle. Everything within him went still as a rabbit trying to avoid the predatory gaze of a hungry hawk.

“It’s time for the next treatment, gentlemen.” Three more figures in lab coats stepped through the door from the forward compartment.

The air became so burdened with fear, Rafe almost choked on it. A little voice inside him started screaming, remembering the pain as the drugs spread fire through his veins. Then the cloud would settle over his mind, reducing everything but the doctors’ demands to nothing.

His eyes darted around the small compartment, desperately seeking a way out.

“Mr. Andros, we’ll start with you. Give me your arm.”

No!

Rafe tightened every muscle in his arm, ordering the limb to stay where it rested on his thigh. Just once he wanted to disregard the voice.

“Your arm, Mr. Andros. Now.”

Rafe watched in horror as his arm rose, offering itself to the doctor.

As the doctor prepared the syringe, Rafe felt the cold trickle of tears down his face.

Wednesday, Morning

Amazon Jungle

“W
e need to move out,” Kai told Susana the next morning.

“Are you sure?” Susana eyed him, looking for trembling in his hands and legs. Yesterday she’d helped him down to the stream for a real bath, figuring that since the water was moving well, the chances of them picking up a water-borne parasite such as shisto were minimal.

Her mouth quirked up as she remembered how adamant Kai had been about bathing on his own. In fact, like a shy little boy, he’d sent her farther downriver to take her own bath. She’d been afraid she’d return and find him passed out in the water, but instead he’d been dressed and propped against a fallen tree trunk, dozing.

By the time she’d gotten him back to their shelter, he’d barely had the strength to keep his eyes open. This morning his skin was pale and his movements were sluggish, but his eyes shone clear and steely with determination.

“Can’t we give you more time to recover?” she asked. She remembered being in bed for several days when she’d had malaria as a kid.

“I’m fine. We can’t waste any more time and risk the mercenaries finding us.”

“But—”

Kai didn’t bother arguing with her, he just turned away and started putting items into his backpack. Rolling her eyes at his stubbornness, Susana folded up the survival blanket and stuffed it into her pack.

Kai closed the flap on his backpack and lifted it off the ground.

“Wait. Let me carry the heavier pack today,” she said, reaching for Kai’s bag.

He pulled it out of reach. “No. I’m okay with it.” He slung the pack over his shoulders. For a moment he wobbled and she thought he might collapse, but he stuck his arms out to the side and rebalanced himself.

Susana bit her lip to keep from commenting. If the idiot wanted to wear his meager strength down by carrying a heavy pack, she couldn’t stop him. All she could do was take care of him if he fell.

Yet as the day progressed, she had to admit Kai had reserves of strength she hadn’t expected. He walked considerably slower than usual, but didn’t fall down or even stumble. True, he had to stop and take frequent rests, and one time he gave himself another injection of the anti-malarial drug, but he managed to last far longer into the day than she’d expected.

She led them back to the edge of the main river, but they still didn’t find any suitable place for crossing.

Finally, when Kai showed signs of exhaustion, she called a halt for the day. She chose a spot away from the river, so they’d be out of sight of predators heading to the water for a drink. Once again, Susana collected fruit and nuts for her meal. When she suggested Kai eat one of the nutrition bars to boost his strength, he gave her a withering look and grabbed a banana and a handful of nuts.

She didn’t fight him over that. Just opened a bar, broke it in half, popped one piece in her mouth and handed the other piece to Kai. He raised his eyebrows, but obediently ate his section of the bar.

Now, though, he was digging his heels in regarding who got the hammock and mosquito net.

“You take them,” Kai insisted.

“The hell I will.” Susana wanted to close her eyes and count to ten, so she could get a grip on her escalating temper, but she didn’t trust Kai. If she couldn’t see him, he’d probably do something that would guarantee she had to sleep in the hammock with the mosquito net.

“I’ll take the hammock if you’ll take the net,” she suggested. “You can string it between those bushes over there and sleep on the ground wrapped in the survival blanket.”

“No. I don’t need to be coddled. You take the net.” Kai started stringing the hammock between two sturdy trees.

“Stop it!” The cup from her canteen went winging toward Kai before she could stop herself.

He spun around and stared at her.

“Stop being such a goddamn martyr, Kai. You…have…
malaria
!” She heard her volume hit concert level, but she didn’t care. She had to make him listen. She couldn’t go through another nursing session worrying about whether he was going to make it. Listening to his anguished cries and knowing there was nothing she could do to ease his emotional pain, but wanting to try anyway.

“I have higher resistance to malaria because I grew up in the Amazon. So you’re using the goddamn mosquito net if I have to stand here and scream at you all night.”

“Er—” The wary look in Kai’s eyes was a familiar one. Most people got the same look when first faced with her temper. But Kai’s wariness was accompanied by a calm determination that only made her madder.

“You know what? Forget the damn hammock. You’re not really listening to me anyway.” She stomped over and grabbed the hammock out of his hands. “I’ll make us another shelter. We’ll both sleep on the ground. Underneath the mosquito net. Go sit over there until I’m done.” She tipped her head toward a moss-covered rock.

“Uh…sure.”

“And don’t talk.”

Kai, wisely, just nodded and sat where she’d indicated.

Wednesday, Evening

SSU Compound, Oregon

“R
afe was put through Kaufmann’s program?” Dr. Gabrielle Montague’s voice verged on hysteria.

Ryker watched her pupils expand slightly. She glanced away, quickly inhaled, then let her breath out between clenched teeth. Her reaction confirmed his theory that her relationship with Rafe had been more than professional. He had no problem with that. It made his decision easier. “Yes. His brother is going after him and expects to have Rafe back soon. But it sounds like Rafe is in bad shape.” He explained what Niko knew about his brother’s condition.

“I’m going to need a team of medical experts to work on Rafe,” Ryker said. “I want you to be part of the leadership team.”

“Yes!” Her reply pounced on him and held him down, ensuring he wouldn’t change his mind.

Ryker smiled. Oh, yes, Dr. Montague cared for Rafe. “I’d like your help picking a location for a lab and setting it up with the necessary equipment. I have some contacts at the CDC who are looking for unused labs we can use with complete privacy.”

She nodded, her brows already drawn down in concentration.

“Then I want you to do another review of the data you brought over from Kaufmann’s lab,” Ryker continued. “Rafe may not have much time left.”

Dr. Montague flinched. She was so easy to read, he wondered how she’d ever managed to sneak into Kaufmann’s secure lab and steal his data without giving herself away. “Once Kai has retrieved Nevsky’s microchip, our technical experts will decode the data and get you a full report as fast as possible. In the meantime, put together a tentative treatment plan based on counteracting the parts of Kaufmann’s drug regime you can identify.”

She nodded, but her mouth formed a grim line. Kaufmann had picked her for his program because he needed help mitigating the fits of lethal rage his subjects experienced. One of the aspects of Dr. Montague’s research focused on lessening the rage experienced by veterans exposed to biochemical agents.

Ryker had read her research papers and knew that the biggest component of her program was time. Months, sometimes even years, were needed for success.

“I’ll do my best,” she said. But tears shone in her eyes.

They both knew Rafe had mere weeks before the drugs claimed his life.

Thursday, Morning

Amazon Jungle

T
he next morning, Kai searched Susana’s face for lingering signs of temper. But she hummed contentedly as she helped break camp, so he figured her temper had settled down.

He turned away before Susana could see him smile. As mad as she’d been, he knew part of her anger had been a way to mask her concern. And he’d felt her hand on his forehead more than once during the night, checking for fever.