Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes) (9 page)

MI-5 on vacation? MI-6, not on vacation?

Hildy’s bandaging wasn’t as skillful as her cleansing. When she was finished, Mr. Black and Blue looked more like a burn victim, more than half his face swathed in gauze, with just a slit open for his eyes. But since neither eye was functioning well at the moment, the problem seemed moot. I helped him lean back against one of the rolled-up sleeping bags. “Take it easy,” I told him, “while we figure out how we’re going to get you out of here.”

“
I’ll walk out.”

He’d seemed only half-conscious while we worked on him, yet now he was saying he’d walk out of here. And in the strongest voice we’d heard from him yet.

“
Short rest, and I’ll be fine.”

Sure he would. Leaving Hildy to sit with him, the rest of us went into a huddle about a dozen feet down the trail.

“
He is strong, this one,” Puma said. “By morning he will be able to do as he says.”

“
How far are we from Huinay Huayna?” I asked.

“
Two hours, maybe less.”

No doubt in my mind about what had to be done. No matter what my suspicions, we couldn’t go off and leave him. Yet we were already behind the schedule we had to meet in order for the Arendsens to see the sun rise over Machu Picchu from the Intipunku, as guaranteed in the Dream Plan created by Fantascapes.

“
Here’s what we’ll do,” I said to Puma. “You take the Arendsens on to Huinay Huayna, as scheduled. I’ll stay here with Mr. No-Name. Hopefully, he’ll be able to walk out in the morning. There’s a hostel, a visitor center there, right? So there’s got to be someone in authority to leave him with. Then I’ll hike on to Machu Picchu, only another couple of hours, if I remember correctly. Where you,” I said to Max, will be enjoying the luxury of your room with a view of the ruins and getting ready to explore the most beautiful place on earth.” I smiled. I, the Fantascapes troubleshooter, had decreed it. Let it be so.

Puma, a wise man, made only a token protest. Max, ever the chivalrous mid-westerner, was more vocal. He could not possibly leave me alone with a perfect stranger in the middle of nowhere.

And I could not possibly allow him to miss his reservation at one of the most solidly booked hotels on earth. At six hundred a night.

“
Urqu will stay,” Puma declared. With food and three sleeping bags. Raymi, he said, sacrificing his boss’s child without a qualm, could do without his bag. He was young and tough and could sleep in the hostel at Huinay Huayna. And the next night they would be back in Cuzco, having taken the train from Agua Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu mountain.

I thanked Raymi, who seemed quite cheerful about his sacrifice, adding, “Just don’t leave the snake,” I added. He flashed me a white-toothed grin that reminded me that while the Incas may have been the Romans of South America, ruling a vast empire that stretched from the top of the continent to the bottom and creating buildings of enduring beauty, they were also very human.

I thanked Puma, Yanay, and Raymi from the bottom of my heart, for it was unlikely I would see them until my next trip to Peru. Their generous tip was included in our contract, so that was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. And no doubt Max would add something extra. After solemnly promising the Arendsens I would find them at Sanctuary Lodge the next day, I returned to our wandering Brit to tell him the news. He was out. Oh, God, wasn’t there something about keeping concussion victims awake? Too late. I should have paid more attention to my first-aid classes. A natural nurse, like Hildy, I most definitely wasn’t. My bedside manner was nil.

While Urqu searched for a space wide enough to set up two tents and build a fire to ward off the mountain chill, I sat beside Mr. Black and Blue and wondered where I’d gone so wrong that I could be suspicious of a man found bruised and beaten on a trail high in the Andes mountains. And yet . . . so much had gone askew lately. What if Arlan Trevellyan wasn’t behind the glitches in the Arendsen’s schedule? What if . . . No, couldn’t be. Why would anyone want to get me to Peru? This could not possibly be a set-up. If my unconscious vic was part of a conspiracy, he’d hadn’t managed it very well. Or else something had gone badly wrong. No one would set themselves up for such a beating.

Pretty damn depressing that my Halliday upbringing forced me to think like this.

I didn’t trust the Brit, yet here I was, about to share a tent the size of a postage stamp with him. I supposed I should leave him to Urqu’s tender mercy, but I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t.

And if I waked to find I was sleeping with a dead man?

I placed my fingers near a pulse point on his throat. An iron grip nearly broke my wrist. “Sorry,” I muttered. “You were so still I was worried.” The grip relaxed. He grunted, and went back to sleep.

So much for dead or unconscious. I was beginning to think he knew what he was talking about when he said he’d walk out of here in the morning.

A while later, while our vic lay cocooned in Raymi’s sleeping bag, trying to catch his breath after being shifted into the tent, I sat beside him, my chin on my knees and decided he had to have a name. “Hey, you” or “Black and Blue” were a trifle awkward. Especially if I was going to sleep with him. Beside him. Practically on him—it was a very small tent.

I was still thinking about it—the name, not the proximity (well, not entirely)—when he got his breath back. “Do you have a gun?” he demanded. I stared. He stared right back. “A gun. Do you have one?”

“
Yes, a .22.” He scowled. “It was good enough to kill a fer-de-lance,” I told him a bit defensively. “Your mugger got what he wanted, why should he still be around?”

“
Don’t know. I just have a feeling a gun would be good.”

I thought about it and felt the hair on my arms rise. “I don’t suppose you recall if you’re a good guy or a bad guy?”

A pregnant pause while he thought about it. “Sorry. Haven’t a clue,” he said at last. “Except I don’t
feel
like a bad buy.”

“
Great. That’s really re-assuring.” A faint snort came out of the descending gloom. My sarcasm hadn’t missed the mark. “You’re such a Brit, I’ve decided to call you Darcy,” I added.

“
You bloody well won’t!”

“
I beg your pardon.” I drew out the phrase like a Regency lady who’s just had her foot stepped on at a formal ball. “And why, if you can’t remember anything, should you object to a perfectly good name like Darcy?”

“
I’m real, dammit, not some character out of a book. And, besides, wasn’t he the one who had a stick up his ass?”

I stared. “How on earth can you remember that if you can’t remember your own name?”

“
The mind’s a strange thing.”

He was little more than a shadow now, a disembodied voice. The whole scene was weird. I couldn’t possibly be sitting on a mountain in the Andes, discussing a Jane Austen novel with an amnesiac stranger who could as easily be a cocaine dealer or a secret agent as the innocent victim of a robbery.

“
How about Dickens?” I offered. “Or Sherlock?”

“
How about Churchill?”

“
Flying a bit high, aren’t we?” I inquired sweetly.

“
Make it Sherlock. Darcy’s an effete snob.

“
Women through the ages love him.”

After a long moment of silence, I heard a hopeful, “Does that include you?”

I heaved a long-suffering sigh. “It’s just a name, something to say instead of ‘Hey, Brit! I suggest you spend your worry time on the bad guys. You know they haven’t packed up and slunk away. Why else would you ask if I had a gun?”

“
Tough gal, right? I noticed who was giving the orders out there.”

“
Don’t change the subject.”

“
I may or may not be a Darcy, but it’s certain you’re no fictional heroine, my girl. Which is just as well, because I have a bad feeling about all this. Fever, paranoia? No way to tell. But my gut says someone’s after me. Could be watching us right now. Waiting. And I’m effing sorry about it,” he added with considerable sincerity.

“
Señorita Laine?”

I unzipped the tent flap and accepted a steaming bowl of quinoa from Urqu, who informed me my own meal would be ready whenever I wanted it. And did I need help with the señor? Urqu looked so solemn, so aware of his responsibility that I vowed on the spot to recommend him to Roberto as a guide.

“
Well?” I demanded as soon as Urqu left. “Which is it—Darcy or Sherlock?” They were both certainly arrogant enough to match my Brit.

“
The way my head feels,” he murmured, voice fading to a whisper, “I’d better settle for Darcy. Sherlock would roll in his grave at the effrontery of a my claiming his name.”

Sherlock, who was as much a work of fiction as Darcy. I sighed. “Fine, Darcy it is.”I switched on my flashlight so I could see well enough to feed him.

Darcy made a rude noise. “What’s that?” he demanded. “Tell your bearer to take his effing invalid porridge and stuff it.”

“
That’s quinoa, the grain that kept the Inca empire strong. And, believe me, it’s tastier than our packaged trail meals.” I shoved a spoonful toward his mouth. “So eat up and like it.”

The gray eyes, slitted though they were, flashed. I would almost swear his bandage glowed. But he opened his mouth, testing the contents of the spoon suspiciously before swallowing. When he didn’t gag or choke, I offered another spoonful. I knew he’d never admit quinoa was ambrosia on a cold night in the Andes, a stick-to-the-ribs meal worthy of kings. As I shoveled in another bite, I wondered if Urqu had enough left for me.

He did. But if Darcy had secretly hoped for seconds, he was going to be sadly disappointed. Later, after saying goodnight to Urqu and a discreet retirement behind a boulder while visions of fer-de-lances and muggers flicked through my head, I returned to the tent, expecting to find Darcy sacked out for the night. Instead, I was greeted with an abrupt demand to see “my bearer.”

“
We don’t use that word,” I told Darcy. “It conjures visions of empire. Brit, not Inca. Urqu is a porter.”

“
Whoever the hell he is, get him in here.”

“
Why?”

A few mutters out of the darkness, including “idiot female,”and ending with a desperate, “I’m bloody well not going to have you help me take a piss.”

Oh. O-kay, I should have thought of that. This whole situation was just odd-ball enough that my wits must be nearly as scrambled as his. I called to Urqu, then hid in the tent while the two of them did what had to be done. It had been a while since I’d felt so stupid, so alone.

And yet . . . alone was good. I should be praying that Darcy and Urqu were the only other people here in Phuyupatamarca. Unexpected visitors we didn’t need. I did a rapid inventory of our weapons. My .22, a small knife in a specially built sheath inside my boot. Urqu carried a knife big enough to qualify as a machete. And that was it. Other than a few handy rocks scattered here and there.

No satellite phone, no cell service. No handy helicopter rescue service in mountains where air currents were notoriously treacherous. We were reduced to doing things the Inca way. Communication was by shank’s mare over a road once traveled by runners who kept messages flowing throughout the Inca empire. So I’d sleep lightly tonight, if at all. Darcy might not remember his name, but his concern seemed genuine. There might be someone out there who wanted him dead.

But if so, why was he still alive when he’d obviously been lying there, beaten, unconscious, and perfectly helpless, for some time?

I decided to sleep with my boots on.

Darcy returned, crawling awkwardly into his sleeping bag with nothing more than a grunt, while I scrunched into a ball in the corner in order to give him room. I’d had the luxury of this tent all to myself. Now, suddenly, it seemed if I breathed, I was using up Darcy’s air. Or inhaling the carbon dioxide expelled from his lungs. I couldn’t wiggle into my sleeping bag without touching him. If I rolled the wrong way . . .

In the dark he grew to enormous proportions, a nightmare Hulk in black and blue instead of green. And I wasn’t even dreaming. My imagination had gone amuck. Darcy was a complete stranger, who could be absolutely any one or any thing, no matter how despicable, and I was so cozied up with him we might as well have been Siamese twins.

“
You’ve got your gun, right?” My whole body jerked at the words out of the darkness, movement Darcy had to feel as clearly as I did. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Just checking.”

Dad would not be proud of me. My brothers would laugh their heads off. Little Lainie spooked by some guy who couldn’t even take a piss by himself.

“
Fantascapes aims to please,” I told him, not giving a damn whether he understood me or not. “Never fear, you can sleep well. I’ll protect your battered Brit butt.”

I should have bit my tongue. I was conjuring phantasms out of thin mountain air. Ridiculous. All I had to do was settle in, forget why my left side was extra warm, and, like every other night on the trail, I’d sleep the sleep of physical exhaustion and wake to the glory of Inti, the Inca Sun God, rising in the east.

But it didn’t happen. I lay there, still as a rock, wondering at the sounds of night in the high Andes. Wondering who might be out there. Wondering what Darcy looked like under his cuts and bruises. Wondering why I was so certain danger would come from outside, not inside, our tight little tent.