Love Inspired Suspense September 2015 #2 (25 page)

“Grant...” Maddie sucked in a breath of air. “There's someone behind us.”

“Hang on.” Grant pushed on the gas, still fighting to keep the tires in the ruts.

“The main road has to be just ahead of us,” Antonio said. “It not paved, but you'll be able to drive a little faster.”

“Maybe it's not them,” Maddie said. “Maybe it's just another driver.”

“Not out here,” Antonio said. “The only vehicles you'll see belong to them.”

Grant glanced in his rearview mirror. “Maddie, I want you and Ana to stay down.”

He didn't have to verbalize what he was thinking. The other car presumably had weapons. All they had was a stolen Jeep.

He leaned forward as the headlights caught the turnoff onto the main road up ahead. The Jeep fishtailed as he made the turn, then jerked to a stop as the engine died. Grant quickly restarted the engine and tried to move forward, but the wheels started spinning. He banged on the steering wheel and then quickly threw the car into Reverse and backed up. The quickest way to get completely stuck was to let the tires spin. They didn't have time to dig the Jeep out of a hole.

He eased off the gas. “Come on...come on...”

“Grant...” Maddie's voice was laced in panic.

“How close are they?” Grant asked.

“I don't know, but they're gaining on us,” she said.

Antonio jumped out of the car.

“Antonio!” Grant shouted, still trying to get the vehicle unstuck.

“Give me ten seconds.”

“We don't have ten seconds,” Grant shouted, but Antonio was already gone.

Grant shifted into first again and then eased on the pedal. This time the car moved forward enough to get them free.

Antonio jumped back into the car, slamming his door shut. “Get us out of here.”

Grant eased down slowly on the gas, then sped onto the main road. The headlights were still behind them.

“What did you just do?” he asked, picking up speed on the packed dirt road.

Antonio gripped the dashboard. “There were a couple fallen palm tree fronds on the side of the road. They happen to have these sharp thorns on the back of them that can be extremely painful if you step on them. They've also been known to puncture a tire or two. I thought if I laid them across the road it might delay our friends. With a little luck, they won't even see them.”

“I knew there was a good reason for bringing you along.” Grant chuckled.

“It looks like they've stopped,” Maddie said a few seconds later.

“Which means you, my friend, just bought us some more time.” Grant looked back in his rearview mirror as the other vehicle's headlights began to fade into the distance.

But while they might have lost them, this was far from over. They were unarmed in a territory that was not only unfamiliar, but run by local drug traffickers. How many more second chances to get out alive were they going to get?

FIVE

A
pinkish glow along the horizon signaled another African dawn, allowing Grant to finally catch his first glimpse of the Atlantic beyond the thick jungle interior and surrounding green coastal plains. Beyond the waves lapping up the shoreline, fishermen bobbed along the water in dugout canoes.

He glanced in his rearview mirror, looking for signs that they were being followed, something not too difficult to do on the current flat terrain. In the past hour he hadn't seen any other vehicles. Maybe the other driver had simply given up his pursuit, but he knew this wasn't over. He had to get Maddie off this island.

According to Antonio's calculations, the closest fishing village was now only a few kilometers away. While still off the typical tourist map, for those looking to venture off the beaten track the dozens of islands sprinkled along the Atlantic coast were a perfect choice. For someone trying to run, though, options suddenly became severely limited. A flight off the island, if even possible, was still their quickest and best chance. Otherwise they were going to have to secure a boat.

He glanced over at Maddie, who had switched seats with Antonio thirty minutes ago and now dozed beside him in the front seat. Her plan had been to keep him awake, but both the physical and emotional toll of the past few days had clearly stretched her to her limits. He forced himself to keep his eye on the road and not on her. Because he'd forgotten how beautiful she was. Even after all she'd been through, there was still a healthy glow to her cheeks, coupled with her long dark hair and tan skin, thanks to her Brazilian mother.

But he shouldn't be thinking about how pretty she was. He was only here to repay a debt to a friend. Nothing more. And besides, once he got her home, her life would continue on without him. She'd go back to her own world, and he'd go back to his. Experience had taught him that. Women tended not to fall for men who constantly put their lives at risk. And while some might call him a hero, when it came to marriage he couldn't forget that they also wanted someone who would settle down and give them a sense of stability.

He'd spent the past ten plus years living everywhere from Sierra Leone to Bosnia and educating soldiers on how to detect and deactivate mines. Not to mention he himself was out in the field helping to remove the live explosives. The word
stable
didn't exactly describe his life.

Maddie shifted in her seat beside him as he swerved to avoid a pothole on the narrow dirt road.

“Sorry.” She tugged on her seat-belt strap and sat forward. “I must have fallen asleep again.”

“Don't worry about it. You're exhausted.”

“Yes, but I'm supposed to help you stay awake. You should have woken me up.”

“I don't know...you looked so peaceful.”

“Was I snoring?”

“Just once or twice.”

“Sorry.” She yawned and shot him a sleepy smile. “I feel like I'm back in med school with this sleep-deprived fog over me. What time is it?”

“Close to seven. The sun will be coming up soon, though yesterday's storms seem to be picking up strength today. There are a lot of dark clouds rumbling out there.”

She leaned back into her seat and groaned. “Normally I love a good thunderstorm, but here the rains just add to the humidity.”

“The weather here takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it?”

Maddie laughed. “That's an understatement. Especially for someone used to cold winters and lots of snow. Between the rains and the high humidity, I don't know... I can't say it's something I'll ever get accustomed to. I remember when I first arrived here with our team. We'd left Chicago in the middle of a blizzard but then landed in the middle of a heat wave. No electricity meant no fans or air conditioners. I would gladly have given a month's salary for a bag of ice and a liter of Coke.”

“I admit since arriving here, I've dreamed of a couple feet of snow outside my back door more than once.”

She let out a low chuckle, but he didn't need to look at her to know she had more on her mind than just the changes in weather.

“So what happens now?” She stared out across the shoreline beside him and tapped her fingers against the armrest. The colors of the sunrise spilled out across the water. “We might have managed to lose them, but somehow I don't think they're the kind of men who just give up.”

“I don't, either. As soon as we get to town, we'll need to find a way to contact the embassy in Dakar and your aid organization. And I need to see if I can get ahold of my pilot friend again. Hopefully we can come up with another rendezvous point. If not, we'll see if we can hire a speedboat, which will be a lot faster than a fishing boat, assuming we can come up with a driver and enough cash.”

He hated making plans on the fly, but that's all he was working with at the moment.

He glanced at the side-view mirror. There were still no signs of anyone following them, but he knew there was only one way across this island. If they decided to come after them, tracking down where they were wouldn't be hard.

“What about contacting the local authorities on the island?” she asked.

“You might not have noticed, but it's a bit like the Wild West out here.”

“What, there isn't any 911 service out here?” She laughed, but he didn't miss the sarcasm in her voice.

Even if they wanted to contact the local authorities from the mainland, the drug-trafficking hub had no police and no communication equipment. And it wasn't a whole lot better on the mainland. They only had a handful of detention centers, and no long-term plans to keep criminals locked up.

“Things are slowly changing,” he said, hoping to reassure her. “Both Portugal and Brazil are helping with the training of police units as well as improving surveillance equipment and phone links between the islands and the mainland. But in the meantime—”

“We're pretty much on our own,” she said, finishing his sentence for him.

“That's a pretty fair assessment. And at the moment, not much of a rescue plan, I'm afraid. Especially when plan A—that included a plane ride out of here—might prove to be impossible.”

“And plan B?” she asked, turning back to him. “Do you think it's going to be any more reliable?”

Grant tapped the steering wheel. “You mean driving this secondhand—stolen, I might add—vehicle?”

“When you put it that way, the reliability factor kind of loses its punch.” Maddie laughed, but her smile quickly faded. “What happens if we can't find one of those speedboats?”

“Then we go to option C. Haven't you ever taken the ferry to one of these islands?”

“I was planning to before all this happened, though somehow this wasn't exactly the way I pictured it. I've heard, though—minus the whole abduction part, of course—that it's an experience that shouldn't be missed.”

“Yeah... I'm thinking most tourists would prefer to avoid that whole abduction scenario.” He chuckled, liking the fact that despite everything she'd been through, she'd still managed to hold on to her sense of humor. “I took the ferry once, on a long weekend off between projects. It was slow, but relatively safe and cheap.”

The four-hundred-dollar one-way ticket for a speedboat had been way out of he and his friends' price range, and the third option, one of the long wooden boats the locals used, had a disturbing tendency to sink when overloaded with people and goods. He'd decided that idea was out of the question as well, and settled on what turned out to be a seven-hour ride that only set him back a few dollars.

“What were your first impressions?”

“Besides the long ferry ride that turned out to be an adventure in itself, the people were friendly, the food fantastic and I stumbled across some of the most beautiful beaches I'd ever seen. I even hired a bike and rode to see a pod of rare saltwater hippos.”

A smile played on her lips again, as she turned around to check on Ana. “Maybe when this is all over I'll discover this place my way, though I'm thinking the next time I'm in the mood for a bit of sun and beach, I just might head for the Caribbean.”

“I wouldn't blame you at all.”

Ana shifted in the backseat.

“Is she still asleep?” Grant asked.

“Both of them are.”

Grant snagged another glance at Maddie's profile and caught the determined tilt of her chin. Her hands sat clenched in her lap, as she continued to check the side mirror for signs they were being followed. She was strong yet vulnerable at the same time. So much the same woman he remembered. And all the things that had impressed him back then continued to impress him today. Her determination and confidence. Her professionalism and yet at the same time her ability to be completely down-to-earth.

But as much as he was enjoying talking with her—and as much as he wished they were here enjoying those pristine beaches and not in the car fighting for their lives—the reality of their situation couldn't be dismissed.

“There's something I need to talk to you about,” he started cautiously, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he kept driving past acres of mangroves and palm trees. Beyond the beach to his right he caught glimpses of other islands in the distance. Maybe his fears were based on nothing, but they couldn't afford to make any assumptions. Not yet anyway. “I've been thinking about Sam. I'd like to know more about him and what he said to you.”

“I'm not sure what else to tell you.” A touch of concern laced her voice. “He was admitted into the hospital around seven when I treated him for a gunshot wound. I checked on him a couple times after his surgery while doing my rounds that night. The first time he was still unconscious. Weak, but stable. The second time is when he spoke to me. Two hours later he passed away. We did everything we could, but the internal damage was too severe.”

“What exactly did he say to you?”

“At first I thought he was just rambling, because nothing he said made sense. He just sputtered words about drug flights, rebels, trafficking. Then he seemed to have a moment of clarity.”

“And that's when he mentioned the evidence he had?”

“Yeah. He told me about someone high up in the State Department who's profiting from the drug trafficking in this country. And he had evidence to prove what he had discovered.”

“The flash drive.”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“He mentioned some girl, but I can't remember her name. Kristen... Christine...something like that. He wanted me to find her.”

“To tell her what happened at the end of his life?” Grant asked.

“That's what I assumed, but I don't understand. Why all the questions?”

“It's just this...nagging feeling I can't shake.”

The smell of salt water tinged the air through the open window. Now that they were closer to the nearest town, they were beginning to pass mud-walled, thatched-roof huts surrounded by palm and mango trees. Even at this early hour, people were already up. A woman was hanging laundry on an old electric line. A couple boys played soccer in the dirt. Women walked along the side of the road carrying buckets of water on their heads, while men rode rickety bicycles toward town.

“Okay, explain what you mean,” she said.

He nodded, appreciating the fact she wasn't ready to dismiss his concerns. “I've assumed from the beginning—and perhaps you have as well—that you were kidnapped because they needed a doctor in the camp. Which makes sense. But the more I think about it, the more I'm not willing to simply ignore the possibility that you having that flash drive doesn't somehow figure into all of this.”

* * *

Maddie tugged on the seat-belt strap and weighed her response. It wasn't the first time she'd questioned why they'd taken her, but up until this point it hadn't seemed to matter. All she'd really known was that her skills as a doctor had been keeping her alive.

“So you're saying I was—am—a target because of Sam and the information I have.”

“I'm saying it's a possibility.”

“I agree that when you look at everything involved, it does seem like too much of a coincidence that Sam and this flash drive aren't somehow a part of my abduction, but I'm still not sure how it's possible. I don't know how anyone could have overhead our conversation.”

“You're positive that another patient, or nurse or a visitor couldn't have seen the two of you talking? Someone who knew Sam had this information, and realized it was something he might pass on knowing he was dying?

She stared out the window as they passed a large green peanut field. Muddy brown paths lead away from it, disappearing into forest beyond. “No... Yes... I don't know... I guess it's possible. But I'm not sure why it matters.”

“Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. But it would be nice to know who or what we're up against. If we're dealing with local drug traffickers, they might not come after you, because they prefer to keep a low profile. But if we're dealing with someone powerful who's trying to cover his back...”

The conclusion she hadn't wanted to acknowledge swept through her. If some high-up government official thought she could put him behind bars, he would come after her.

But still...

“I can't deny the validity to what you're saying, but I still don't think anyone knows what Sam told me.”

“Then lets go through the facts of what happened the day they took you.”

Maddie paused as they passed an old abandoned hotel. She didn't want to remember that moment again. Like the mainland, apparently even the isolated islands held glimpses of the Portuguese influence on the country. Many of the once-impressive colonial buildings, abandoned after independence, were now nothing more than crumbling relics from the past. Like the road of mud and shells they were driving on now.

She fought to keep her mind focused. She wanted to believe that he'd rescued her and now everything was going to be okay again. And because every night since that afternoon when they'd taken her, she'd woken up in a sweat from nightmares. The terror of being shoved into a car. Watching Gavin slump to the ground. And feeling the blindfold slip over her eyes.