"We don't have much farther to go; stay
right behind me, and don't say a word."
"Wait!" Jane whispered frantically.
"How can I follow you when I can't see you?" He took her hand and
carried it to his waist. "Hang on to my belt." She did better than
that. Acutely aware of the vast jungle around her, and with only his presence
shielding her from the night terrors, she hooked her fingers inside the
waistband of his pants in a death grip. She knotted the material so tightly
that he muttered a protest, but she wasn't about to let go of him. Maybe it
didn't seem very far to him, but to Jane, being towed in his wake, stumbling
over roots and vines that she couldn't
see,
it seemed
like miles before he halted. "We'll wait here," he whispered. "I
don't want to go any closer until I hear the helicopter come in."
"When will that be?" Jane whispered
back, figuring that if he could talk, so could she.
"A little after
dawn."
"When is dawn?"
"Half an hour."
Still clutching the waistband of his pants,
she stood behind him and waited for dawn. The seconds and minutes crawled by,
but they gave her the chance to realize for the first time that she'd truly
escaped from
Turego
. She was safe and free… well
almost. She was out of his
clutches,
she was the only
one who knew what a close call she'd had.
Turego
would almost certainly return to the plantation this morning to find that his
prisoner had escaped. For a moment she was surprised at her own lack of
elation,
then
she realized that she wasn't out of
danger yet. This man said that her father had sent him, but he hadn't given her
a name or any proof. All she had was his word, and Jane was more than a little
wary. Until she was actually on American soil, until she knew beyond any doubt
that she was safe, she was going to follow poor George
Persall's
ironclad rule: when in doubt, lie.
The man shifted uncomfortably, drawing her
attention. "Look, honey, do you think you could loosen up on my pants? Or
are you trying to finish the job you started on me with your knee?" Jane
felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and she hastily released her hold. "I'm
sorry, I didn't realize," she whispered. She stood stiffly for a moment,
her arms at her sides; then panic began to rise in her. She couldn't see him in
the darkness, she couldn't hear him breathing, and now that she was no longer
touching him, she couldn't be certain that he hadn't left her. Was he still
there? What if she was alone?
The air became thick and oppressive, and she
struggled to breathe, to fight down the fear that she knew was unreasonable but
that no amount of reason could conquer. Even knowing its source didn't help.
She simply couldn't stand the darkness. She couldn't sleep without a light; she
never went into a room without first reaching in and turning on the light
switch, and she always left her lights on if she knew she would be late
returning home. She, who always took extraordinary precautions against being
left in the dark, was standing in the middle of a jungle in darkness so
complete that it was like being blind. Her fragile control broke and she
reached out wildly, clawing for him, for reassurance that he was still there.
Her outstretched fingers touched fabric, and she threw herself against him,
gasping in mingled panic and relief. The next second steely fingers grasped her
shirt and she was hurled through the air to land flat on her back in the
smelly, rotting vegetation. Before she could move, before she could suck air back
into her lungs, her hair was pulled back and she felt the suffocating pressure
of his knee on her chest again. His breath was a low rasp above her, his voice
little more than a snarl "Don't ever—ever—come at me from behind
again."
Jane writhed, pushing at his knee. After a
moment he lifted it, and eased the grip on her hair. Even being thrown over his
shoulder had been better than being left alone in the darkness, and she grabbed
for him again, catching him around the knees. Automatically he tried to step
away from her entangling arms but she lunged for him. He uttered a startled
curse, tried to regain his balance, then crashed to the ground. He lay so still
that Jane's heart plummeted. What would she do if he were hurt? She couldn't
possibly carry him, but neither could she leave him lying there, injured and
unable to protect himself. Feeling her way up his body, she scrambled to crouch
by his shoulders. "Mister, are you all right?" she whispered, running
her hands up his shoulders to his face, then searching his head for any cuts or
lumps. There was an elasticized band around his head, and she followed it, her
nervous fingers finding an odd type of glasses over his eyes. "Are you
hurt?" she demanded again, her voice tight with fear. "Damn it,
answer me!"
"Lady," the man said in a low,
furious voice, "you're crazier than hell. If I was your daddy, I'd pay
Turego
to keep you!"
She didn't know him, but his words caused an
odd little pain in her chest. She sat
silently,
shocked that he could hurt her feelings. She didn't know him, and he didn't
know her—how could his opinion matter?
But it did, somehow, and she felt strangely
vulnerable.
He eased himself to a sitting position, and
when she didn't say anything, he sighed. "Why did you jump me like
that?" he asked in resignation.
"I'm afraid of the dark," she said
with quiet dignity. "I couldn't hear you breathing, and I can't see a
thing. I panicked. I'm sorry."
After a moment he said, "All right,"
and got to his feet. Bending down, he grasped her wrists and pulled her up to
stand beside him. Jane inched a little closer to him.
"You can see because of those glasses
you're wearing, can't you?" she asked.
"Yeah.
There's
not a lot of light, but enough that I can make out where I'm going.
Infrared lenses."
A howler monkey suddenly screamed
somewhere above their
heads,
and Jane jumped, bumping
into him. "Got another pair?" she asked shakily.
She could feel him hesitate,
then
his arm went around her shoulders.
"Nope,
just these.
Don't worry,
Pris
, I'm not going
to lose you. In another five minutes or so, it'll start getting light."
"I'm all right now," she said, and
she was, as long as she could touch him and know that she wasn't alone. That
was the real terror: being alone in the darkness. For years she had fought a
battle against the nightmare that had begun when she was nine years old, but at
last she had come to accept it, and in the acceptance she'd won peace. She knew
it was there, knew when to expect it and what to do to ward it off, and that
knowledge gave her the ability to enjoy life again. She hadn't let the
nightmare cripple her. Maybe her methods of combating it were a little
unorthodox, but she had found the balance within herself and she was happy with
it.
Feeling remarkably safe with that steely arm
looped over her shoulders, Jane waited beside him, and in a very short time she
found that she could indeed see a little better. Deep in the rain forest there
was no brilliant sunrise to announce the day—the sunrise could not be seen from
beneath the canopy of vegetation. Even during the hottest noon, the light that
reached the jungle floor was dim, filtered through layers of greenery. She
waited as the faint gray light slowly became stronger, until she could pick out
more of the details of the lush foliage that surrounded her. She felt almost
swamped by the plant life. She'd never been in the jungle before; her only
knowledge of it came from movies and what little she'd been able to see during
the trip upriver to the plantation. During her days at the plantation she'd
begun to think of the jungle as a living entity, huge and green, surrounding
her, waiting. She had known from the first that to escape she would have to
plunge into that seemingly impenetrable green barrier, and she had spent hours
staring at it.
Now she was deep within it, and it wasn't
quite what she'd expected. It wasn't a thick tangle, where paths had to be cut
with a machete. The jungle floor was littered with rotting vegetation, and
laced with networks of vines and roots, but for all that it was surprisingly
clear. Plant life that lingered near the jungle floor was doomed. To compete
for the precious light it had to rise and spread out its broad leaves, to
gather as much light as it could. She stared at a fern that wasn't quite a
fern; it was a tree with a buttressed root system, rising to a height of at
least eight feet, only at the top it feathered into a fern.
"You can see now," he muttered
suddenly, lifting his arm from her shoulders and stripping off the night vision
goggles. He placed them carefully in a zippered section of his field pack. Jane
stared at him in open curiosity, wishing that the light were better so she
could really see him. What she
could
see gave wing to hundreds of tiny butterflies in her stomach. It would take one
brave
hombre
to meet this man in a
dark alley, she thought with a frightened shiver. She couldn't tell the color
of his eyes, but they glittered at her from beneath fierce, level dark brows.
His face was blackened, which made those eyes all the brighter. His light
colored hair was far too long, and he'd tied a strip of cloth around his head
to keep the hair out of his eyes. He was clad in tiger-striped camouflage
fatigues, and he wore the trappings of war. A wicked knife was stuck casually
in his belt, and a pistol rode his left hip while he carried a carbine slung
over his right shoulder. Her startled eyes darted back up to his face, a
strong-boned face that revealed no emotion, though he had been aware of her
survey.
"Loaded for bear, aren't you?" she
quipped, eyeing the knife again. For some reason it looked more deadly than
either of the guns.
"I don't walk into anything
unprepared," he said flatly. Well, he certainly looked prepared for
anything. She eyed him again, more warily this time; he was about six feet
tall,
and looked like… looked like… Her mind groped for and
found the phrase. It had been bandied about and almost turned into a joke, but
with this man, it was deadly serious. He looked like a lean, mean, fighting
machine, every hard, muscled inch of him. His shoulders looked to be a yard
wide, and he'd carried her dead weight through the jungle without even a hint
of strain. He'd knocked her down twice, and she realized the only reason she
wasn't badly hurt was that, both times, he'd tempered his strength.
Abruptly his attention left her, and his head
lifted with a quick, alert motion, like that of an eagle. His eyes narrowed as
he listened. "The helicopter is coming," he told her. "Let's
go." Jane listened, but she couldn't hear anything. "Are you
sure?" she asked doubtfully.
"I said let's go," he repeated
impatiently, and walked away from her. It took Jane only a few seconds to
realize that he was heading out, and in the jungle he would be completely
hidden from view before he'd gone ten yards. She hurried to catch up to him.
"Hey, slow down!" she whispered
frantically, catching at his belt.
"Move it," he said with a total lack
of sympathy. "The helicopter won't wait forever; Pablo's on the quick side
anyway."
"Who's Pablo?"
"The pilot."
Just then a faint vibration reached her ears.
In only a moment it had intensified to the recognizable beat of a helicopter.
How could he have heard it before? She knew that she had good hearing, but his
senses must be almost painfully acute.
He moved swiftly, surely, as if he knew
exactly where he was going. Jane concentrated on keeping up with him and
avoiding the roots that tried to catch her toes, she paid little attention to
their surroundings. When he climbed, she climbed; it was simple. She was mildly
surprised when he stopped abruptly and she lifted her head to look around. The
jungle of Costa Rica was mountainous, and they had climbed to the edge of a
small cliff, looking down on a narrow, hidden valley with a natural clearing.
The helicopter sat in that clearing, the blades lazily whirling.