Darkness before the Dawn (15 page)

“We’ve already picked up our things from the hotel. I’m taking you to Saltash,” Leopold offered over his shoulder, his teeth a gleam in the darkness. “I don’t think Wadjowska knows about it, and if he does, it will still be too hard to find you. You can hide there overnight, and tomorrow I’ll take you over the border.”

“What the hell good will that do?” Maggie fumed. “We haven’t found what we came for.”

“Yes, we have,” Randall said, his voice a deep rumble in the chest beneath her. “The man at Red Glove Films was very cooperative.”

“You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen,” Leopold offered Randall with youthful enthusiasm. “Just the right amount of pain, and he was singing like a bird. You should teach me that little trick with the fingers—”

Maggie shuddered, and Randall snapped something in a foreign language at their driver. He turned to Maggie, and his voice was surprisingly soothing. “We found out who he was dealing with. It wasn’t Francis most of the time. The deliveries were arranged through someone else. A woman.”

“Damn you, Randall, Kate has nothing to do with it,” she said passionately, squashing down the sudden doubt and fear.

“I never said she did.”

“If you don’t mean Kate, who the hell do you mean?”

“Alicia Stoneham.”

Dead silence in the rattling old Fiat. “I don’t believe you,” she said finally. “Why, she’s as American as—as apple pie. She wouldn’t turn traitor.”

“She would to bail out her failing film company. Her husband had built it up from scratch, and she couldn’t bear to see it go down the tubes. So she sold classified information to support it, with Francis’s complicity.”

“Sounds like the plot for a movie,” she said in a doubtful voice. “Do you have any proof?”

“Not a speck. Just tons of circumstantial evidence, including motive and opportunity. Alicia’s brother is a retired admiral. A forcibly retired admiral who’s been very vocal about the shabby way he’s been treated. He’d have access to top security documents.”

Maggie shook her head, trying to clear away the cobwebs. “It seems awfully farfetched.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” he replied in a lazy voice. “Most spy scenarios are. But they happen, just the same. The first thing we do when we get back to the United States is have Bud Willis check into Admiral Wentworth.”

“He’ll love it,” Maggie said, wondering if she dared lean her head on Randall’s shoulder. Her lip was bleeding again, and Randall wouldn’t like blood all over him. No, she’d better stay upright. “That still doesn’t explain who killed Francis, or why he was dumped in Kate’s bathtub.”

“No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t exonerate your sister from murder at all, only from possible treason.”

“You’re so comforting, Randall,” she said with a sigh.

“I do my best.” His hand reached up and cupped the nape of her neck, and the decision about leaning was taken out of her hands. He pushed her face against his shoulder, forcing her to relax. She winced as her abraded skin rubbed against the rough shirt, and then she sighed, releasing all the pent-up tension that had been singing through her nerves. “Go to sleep, Maggie. Leopold’s going to go the long way around to get to Saltash, just in case we have anyone following us. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

“I’d sleep better if you let go of me,” she muttered grumpily, not even bothering to stifle the yawn that swept over her.

He didn’t say a word, but his hands kept her a gentle captive in his arms. Through the gathering dusk, she could just see the outline of his profile and the grim line of his lips and nose, and for one sleepy moment she wanted to press her mouth against his and see if she could soften that unsmiling face. But then exhaustion overtook her. Sometime, someday in the distant future, she would begin to understand Randall Carter. But right now she was too exhausted even to begin to make the effort. With a deep sigh, she gave herself up to sleep.

She felt light in his arms. Not like the solid mass of muscle and warm hard flesh that he knew made up Maggie Bennett, but curiously fragile, and it took all his resolve not to tighten his arms around her, hold her closer. Protective instincts were foreign to him, and the determined woman sleeping so soundly and so unwillingly in his arms wasn’t the sort to want or need protection.

He’d been ready to storm that dull gray fortress that housed the Gemansk government offices. But Leopold’s surprisingly cool head had prevailed, and he’d waited for the dusk to close around them. Then his planned heroics became totally unnecessary as Maggie crawled through that narrow window with her damnable self-possession.

He’d always avoided self-sufficient women. His wife, his lovers, even his one-night stands had been soft, pretty, dependent women who listened to his advice, waited for his decisions, and expected him to lead the way. Maggie had been the one exception. She refused to be led, refused to listen, refused to fit into the mold.

“We have company again, mister,” Leopold said cheerfully from the front seat, breaking into Randall’s thoughts.

Maggie awoke with a jerk, and he felt her wince in his arms. He had no idea how badly she’d been hurt crawling out of that window, but now wasn’t the time to ask. She scrambled off his lap before his hands could tighten.

“Who do you think it is?” she questioned in a slightly husky voice.

Leopold’s shrug was eloquent in the darkened car. “It
could be anyone. I would guess that it’s Wadjowska. He has a certain reputation, and he won’t like it that you got away. You’re lucky you got out so fast, miss, before he had time to question you. He likes to hurt women.”

Randall could feel her shiver in the darkness. “Does he?” she said coolly. “Then I’m glad I didn’t wait around for a white knight.”

“You missed your big chance, Maggie,” he drawled, his eyes intent, peering through the gloom at her. “It’s not often that I bother to rescue damsels in distress. It would have been worth the wait.”

She turned to him, and he could see her eyes, wide and curious. “That’s not true,” she said flatly.

“It wouldn’t have been worth the wait?”

“Randall, I had access to classified files when I was with the Company. I don’t know what you’ve been doing for the last six years, but before then, every mission you took was a rescue. Boat people from Cambodia, babies from Viet Nam, political prisoners in Chile and Nicaragua, kidnap victims in Italy. You came to Gemansk to rescue me the first time, remember?”

“I remember.”

“So why do you say you don’t rescue people?” she shot back.

“Maggie, have you suddenly decided I’m a saint?” he questioned, keeping his voice lightly amused. “It’s highly flattering, but I’m still the same man who sent you out to whore with Wadjowska and abandoned you.”

“Considering that you were being tortured, I think you have a good enough excuse,” she said. “Miroslav was talkative before he locked me in that room.”

Irritation and something else swept over Randall. The last thing in the world he wanted was her gratitude. He didn’t want her to feel she owed him anything; he wanted her to come to him because of the same deep, irrational, overwhelming need that rode him like a devil. Starry-eyed sentimentality was the last thing he needed.

He shrugged. “What of it? I’ve been tortured before, and even if I’m damned careful, it’s likely to happen again. Does that make me a good man, Maggie? Does that make me someone you can like, respect, and trust?”

She sat very still in the close confines of the rattling Fiat. “No,” she said finally, “it doesn’t.”

So where was his sense of satisfaction at making her see things as they were? Why wasn’t he pleased that he’d stripped her of her tentative illusions once more? “Good,” he forced himself to say, his voice light. “I want you to see things clearly.”

“I think I see things very clearly, Randall,” she said, her voice still and calm and very certain. For one rash moment, he wondered whether it would be worth trying. Whether he could trick her into thinking he was worth loving. But as swiftly as the thought came, he dismissed it. His illusions were long gone; such thoughts were only tempting pipe dreams.

“I’m going to take a short cut through the next field,” Leopold said from the front seat. “When I get to the bridge, I’ll slow down long enough for you both to jump out. There’s a row of abandoned houses there. The two of you hide while I try to draw Wadjowska away.”

“Will you be all right?” Maggie leaned toward the front seat, concern deep in her voice. Randall felt an unexpected surge of jealousy.

“Sure thing, miss,” he replied cheerfully. “They haven’t caught me yet, and they won’t this time, either. Hold on tight.”

He turned the wheel hard, and then they were racketing across the field at a dangerous pace. The bright lights of the pursuing car were no longer visible behind the turn in the road. Moments later, they turned back onto the rutted road, and Leopold slowed down to a crawl.

Randall saw the bridge looming up in the moonlit darkness, and without further hesitation he grabbed Maggie’s wrist and
opened the door. “Good luck,” he said tersely, and jumped out, dragging Maggie with him.

They landed on their feet, but just barely. The Fiat sped up and zoomed down the road, and the two of them began a breathless run toward a cluster of buildings that looked more like shacks than houses.

The moon was bright overhead, illuminating their path, illuminating their silhouettes. The sound of the pursuing sedan roared across the field; its headlights swept over the landscape.

“Keep down,” Randall muttered, his hand still clamped like a manacle around Maggie’s wrist.

“I am, damn you,” she shot back. “I’d run a lot better if you’d let go of my wrist.”

“Forget it. I don’t want to lose you.” He stopped short, grabbed her, and shoved her down into the dirt, covering her body with his. The strong beam from the headlights illuminated the spot where they had been standing moments before.

They lay quietly, barely daring to breathe, waiting for all traces of the sedan to be gone. It seemed to take hours although it was less than a minute.

It was a warm night. A soft summer breeze floated through the trees above them and the moon shone down on their entwined, motionless figures. Some other time, some other night, Randall thought, wanting to draw her against him, wanting to tip her mouth up to his.

But that wouldn’t happen. The woman lying motionless beneath him hated him—when she wasn’t trying to turn him into some plaster saint. And he’d sworn to himself that he wasn’t going to touch her until he had to. One day at a time, like an alcoholic keeping away from the drink that he craved. If he could just get through Gemansk without her. …

The secret police were long gone but still they lay there. He wondered if she could feel his erection, wondered if the warm night breeze were responsible for the hardness of her nipples against his chest. And then he pulled away, rising in one fluid movement and holding out his hand for her.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice even and unmoved.

She put her hand in his, and he felt her shudder as he pulled her upright. It was a shudder of pain. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said flatly. “Let’s get out of this damned moonlight. Which house do you fancy?”

“House? Hovel, don’t you mean?”

“Now isn’t the time to be fastidious. As long as we don’t have to share it with rats, I’ll take anything.”

“You’ll be sharing it with me.”

She looked at him, her eyes bright in the moonlight, the rest of her face shadowed. “You’re not a rat, Randall. No matter how hard you try to convince me.”

“No, I’m an absolute prince,” he drawled.

“I wouldn’t say that, either. I haven’t decided what you are,” she added, cocking her head to one side. Her hair was silver in the moonlight, rumpled around her shadowed, beautiful face, and he wanted to bury his mouth in that hair.

“Let me know when you figure it out,” he said in his coolest voice. “We’ll take the middle hovel.”

She nodded. “I’ll do that. The middle hovel it is.”

The hut was dark, too dark to see more than the outlines of furniture. There was a narrow, sagging bed in one corner of the one-room building, and a huge closet-cupboard, a fireplace filled with trash and rubble, and a three-legged table leaning against the wall. The windows were long gone; the openings let in enough moonlight to ease Maggie’s momentary panic. She looked around her as Randall shut the door behind them.

“Home sweet home,” she said.

“Don’t knock it. It’s better than Miroslav Wadjowska’s interrogation room,” he said, moving across the room on silent feet.

A small, errant shudder twisted through her body. “You’re right,” she said. “Anything’s better than that.”

She moved away from his too-observant eyes to stare out
the window. She wanted to keep her bruised face out of his sight, but the moonlight illuminated it with cruel clarity.

She heard a sudden, quick intake of breath, and then Randall was beside her, his hand on her chin, gently holding her face up in the bright moonlight. “What happened to your face?” His voice was rough; his own face was in the shadows.

“I look like hell, don’t I?” she said with a sigh, touching her cheek gingerly. “I wasn’t properly deferential to my captor.”

He was very close; she could feel his breath on her face, and she remembered the hardness of his body as it had covered her minutes earlier, remembered her own response. And she felt it happening all over again. His hands touched her face lightly, a benediction at odds with the hard and unyielding Randall she had once thought she knew.

“No,” he said, “you don’t look like hell.” He leaned down, and his lips feathered the scrape across her cheekbone. “You look”—his mouth danced across her bruised chin—“absolutely beautiful”—he gently brushed her eyelids—“and more than I can resist right now. I’m sorry.” The words were as soft as his mouth on her swollen lips. Slowly, gently he brushed his mouth back and forth across hers, and she stood mesmerized, motionless, her entire soul concentrated on the feel of his mouth on hers.

This was madness. They were on the run in a country that wasn’t known for its record in human rights; the secret police were within screaming distance; and all she could think about was his mouth on hers. Her mouth opened in response to the gentle pressure of his, and his tongue slipped inside, tasting, soothing, inciting, until she crossed the inches of darkness that separated them and moved into his arms, into the shelter of his body that was no shelter at all.

A sound ripped through her absorption—the scrape of a boot on a rough surface, a voice calling across the fields in a guttural, incomprehensible language. Randall’s hand replaced his mouth across hers, his long fingers stifling any sound she
might have made as his body pressed hers against the wall, holding her still.

It must be the secret police, but how did they know? They couldn’t have seen them jump from the car. But Maggie couldn’t bother with her questions now, because one voice was very close—and with a shiver of fear, she recognized it as Wadjowska’s.

Randall had recognized it, too—she could tell by the sudden stillness, the tension vibrating through his body. Slowly his hand moved away from her mouth, slowly he edged them both toward the closet. His firm hands gave Maggie no chance to resist. The flimsy closet door creaked open into the room. Inside there was velvet-thick darkness.

It was a big closet, an endless, pitch-black closet full of demons, and there was no way in hell that she was going to step inside it, into that dark tomb that would smother the last bit of breath from her. She struggled for a moment, a silent, terrified fight that Randall subdued with no difficulty at all. In moments, she was slammed up against his panting body, a prisoner in his merciless arms.

“You have no choice,” he whispered. “If you don’t move now, he’ll find us and kill us.”

She stopped her useless struggle. Even through her terror, she knew he was right, knew that even if death and darkness lay in that closet, it was still not as certain as the death that awaited them out in the moonlit street. She had no choice at all.

He must have felt the fight leave her body. His iron grip relaxed, and carefully he drew her into the closet. There was barely room for the two of them. She had to press up against his body as he shut the door after them, shutting the darkness around them, the silent black darkness of death and madness.

She was shivering and shaking all over; a cold sweat ran down her spine. Her teeth clamped down on her cut lip to drown the scream that fought to break free, and every muscle, every tendon, every nerve in her body was stretched taut.

Then Randall’s arms moved around her, gentle and comforting.
His warmth surrounded her, his hands kneaded her back with strong, soothing strokes, and his lips pressed against her forehead.

Slowly she began to release the panic, slowly she let go of the tension that held her rigid in Randall’s arms. The small, icy core of her began to melt, to melt and flow over him. His mouth moved from her temple down the side of her face to catch her upturned lips.

It was a kiss like no other she had ever received from him. It asked nothing, it gave her everything—hope and comfort and healing when the darkness threatened to suffocate her. She could feel unexpected tears in her eyes and felt their sting as they flowed down her bruised face. She shut her eyes, giving herself up to it, giving herself up to Randall.

When his mouth released her, she sank against him and pressed her cheek against the rough texture of his shirt, ignoring the pain of salty tears and bruised skin, feeling oddly content for the moment.

“Mister!” The word was a hiss of sound filtering into the room. “Hey, mister! Are you here? It’s Leopold.”

Without releasing his hold on her, Randall pushed the door open. The moonlit room was dazzling in its brightness after the coffinlike depths of the closet. Maggie drank it in like pure spring water, feeling it flow through her veins and bringing her strength and resilience back. With it came presence of mind. She stepped out of the closet and Randall’s arms with only a small, desperate pang of regret.