The Heaven Trilogy (151 page)

She was as beautiful as the day he'd last seen her, swimming in the waters beneath the waterfall. His mind drifted to old memories. To tender moments that seemed grossly out of place in his mind. Snapshots from a fairy tale of happy endings. Pages filled with laughter and gentle embraces. Sweet delicate kisses. Windblown hair across a fair neck. Soft words whispered in his ear.

I love you, Shannon.

Tears blurred his eyes and he gave a grunt before clenching his teeth and shoving them back.

Abdullah, Abdullah, Shannon. Think of Jamal. Think of the plan.

Tanya, oh, Tanya. What has happened? We had paradise.

But Abdullah had snatched it away, hadn't he? And the CIA. They would all die. All of them.

Shannon ran under the canopy, desperately fighting the terrible ache lodged in his throat. Then years of discipline began to win him over to his mission. He had come to this jungle to kill. He had waited eight slow, agonizing years for the perfect timing, and now it was here.

Sula . . .

He lowered his head and replayed the brutal slaying of his parents, isolating each bullet as it spun through the air and landed into flesh. With each slap of his feet, another bullet bit deep. With each breath, the helicopter's rotors rushed through the air. A knife to the throat would be too good for Abdullah. His death would have to be slow—the blood would have to flow long.

When Shannon came upon the bank where he'd left Tanya, he was barely aware of himself. He swam through a black fog.

He entered from the south, through tall trees and scarce brush. The murmur of flowing water carried in the stillness. A gentle breeze played over the grass.

Tanya lay in the grass.

Shannon pulled up.

She was on her back in the middle of the grass. Not that he expected her up and working, but she lay folded with one leg under her torso—odd for sleep.

Shannon scanned the tree line quickly. He tested the air but the wind was at his back. She could be sleeping, still exhausted from the long trek.

He watched her chest rise and fall with each breath. For a long time, he watched her and the ache in his throat returned.

Dear Tanya, what have I done? What have I done to you?
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, his vision was blurred.

You are wounded, my dear Tanya
. Thinking like that—using those words,
dear Tanya
—released a flood of emotion in his chest.
A stake was driven into
your heart when you were a tender woman. And now I have pushed it deeper. I just
wanted to show you, Tanya. Can you understand that? Killing is all I have. It is
what Sula gave me. I meant to show you that. I didn't mean to hurt you.

Shannon leaned against the tall Yevaro tree beside him and let the pain roll through him. The jungle sounds fell away and he allowed himself to wallow in the strange sentiments. The field before him lay in surreal stillness, peaceful with Tanya resting on the grass. He stood at the perimeter, wreaking of blood. Like a foul monster peering from the shadows at a sleeping innocent beauty.

He clung to the bark and felt his torso buck with a dry sob.

It was the first time he'd ever felt such ravaging sorrow. She lay out there so innocent, breathing like a child, and he . . . he had nearly killed her.

Kill her, Shannon.

He blinked. The fog was washing through his mind and for a moment he thought he might be dying. Kill her? How could he even think of killing her?

Sula . . .

Shannon closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He stepped out into the clearing and then saw the dark stain in her hair when he was halfway across the clearing.

His instincts took over midstride, before he formed the clear thought that this was blood on her head. He dove and had the knife from his belt before he hit the grass.

“Stand up, you fool!” a voice sneered across the clearing.

That
voice. A chill flashed down Shannon's spine.

Tanya was still breathing—the wound hadn't been fatal. A blow to the head had left her unconscious. And now Abdullah was screaming at him.

“Stand up or I will shoot your woman!”

Abdullah had found his way here! In a thousand square miles of jungle he had stumbled upon Tanya. It was the river, of course. He had taken the river as most would. The crocodiles hadn't gotten to her, but Abdullah had.

Shannon's mind had already climbed back into its killing skin. Now he would kill Abdullah. And he would do it in front of Tanya.

He stood slowly and saw Abdullah step from the trees, dragging a man by the collar. The priest! He had Father Petrus.

Shannon cursed his own carelessness. He had given Abdullah the upper hand. It was the insanity plaguing him, the voices screaming in his skull, the foolish sentiments—they had made him weak. Now he faced a man bearing a gun at a distance of twenty meters without the least element of stealth in his favor.

The terrorist's white teeth flashed through a wicked grin and he forced the priest to kneel. Father Petrus's head lolled—he was barely coherent.

He shifted his gun to cover Tanya. “Throw your knives down. Slowly. Very slowly. And don't think that I won't kill her. If you even flinch, I will kill her, do you understand?” He held the gun three feet from Tanya's prone body, which still rose and fell in deep sleep.

Shannon ground his teeth. If he moved quickly enough, he could flip the knife backhanded and stick Abdullah in the throat. From this distance he could kill the man easily. Bleed him like a pig.

But Abdullah would have time to squeeze the trigger. If the gun had been trained on him, he might avoid the bullet, but Abdullah had the gun on Tanya.

“Throw them down!”

Every muscle in Shannon's body begged to hurl the knife now. He hesitated one last second and then tossed the knife. It landed with a soft thud. He clenched his jaw.

“The other one. Or are there two others?” Again that grin.

Shannon bent slowly and withdrew the Arkansas Slider from an ankle sheath. He threw it aside. It landed on the bowie and clanked.

“Turn around slowly.”

Shannon glanced about the perimeter, his mind racing for alternatives, but they came slow just now. He turned as Abdullah asked. If he could coax the man into arm's reach, he could kill him without risking the woman. Quickly, before the butcher had time to know he'd been outwitted. Or slowly to give him time to feel his death.

“Turn around.”

When Shannon turned back, Abdullah was kicking Tanya in the ribs.

Shannon flinched.

“Back!” Abdullah screamed. Spittle frothed on his lips. Bulging veins wrapped his taut neck.

“I told you to move slowly. Next time I will put a bullet in her thigh.”

The Arab was quick. Very quick. He had anticipated—possibly even provoked— the reaction from Shannon and snapped back with amazing speed. Like a snake.

Tanya stirred on the next kick to her midsection. She moaned and pushed herself to her knees. A thin trail of dried blood stained her temple.

Kill him, Shannon. Kill them both. Kill them all.

He hated the thought.

Tanya stood and faced Abdullah. She hadn't seen Shannon yet. The priest still knelt, between them, eyes closed.

“Turn and greet your visitor.” Abdullah grinned with childish pleasure at his cleverness.

Tanya turned. Very slowly. As if she were in a dream.

Their eyes met. Hers were blue and round, the eyes he remembered from the pool. Her lips sprang open. The same lips that had kissed him, dripping wet on the rocks. Something had changed in her face since he'd left her here. He saw more there than a cry for help. Actually, it wasn't a cry for help at all.

Shannon's heart stopped beating for a few long moments. She was pulling him back to the pool and he wanted to go.

The Arab stepped to the side and smiled at them. “You are reunited, yes?” He shoved a coil of fishing string at Tanya. “Hogtie him! Do you know what a hogtie is?”

She shook her head.

“Of course not. It's a tie for pigs.” He jerked his pistol toward Shannon. “Tie him.”

Shannon looked at Abdullah and saw that his eyes danced with fire.

He looked back at Tanya. She walked toward him, holding his eyes with her own. She stared at him like a child looking upon a magician performing an illusion—with utter awe. As if the last eight years were nothing more than one of her vivid dreams, and she was looking at him for the first time after finally waking.

A slight smile lifted the corners of her lips.

“Shannon,” she said, and her soft voice echoed through his mind.

“Shut up!” Abdullah screamed. His voice rang about the perimeter and a flock of startled parrots took flight with screeches of protest. Abdullah kept his gun trained on her, sidestepping to match her pace.

“Did I tell you to talk to him? No, I told you to tie him!” He made a crazy circular motion with his free hand. “Tie his hands behind his back, to his ankles.”

Stunned, Shannon watched her approach. She was hardly hearing the Arab—he knew that now. He had studied a hundred men under extreme trauma, more often than not trauma provoked by him. And he knew this: Tanya was barely aware of the man to her right. She was thoroughly engrossed with
him
, with Shannon.

The realization made him dizzy.

She had reached him and was gazing up at his face now. She lowered her eyes to his neck, his shoulders, his chest, studying each muscle as though for the first time. Tenderly, like a lover.

“Tie him!”

A voice was screaming in Shannon's mind, way back where his ears could barely hear it, but his mind was bending over in pain.

“Tie my hands behind my back and then to my ankles when I kneel down,” Shannon said, his voice trembling. He suddenly wanted to cry. As he had cried just a few minutes earlier. What was happening to him?

Tanya.

Sula.
Both names took hold of his thoughts, warring for dominance.

He was no longer thinking as clearly as he had a week ago.

Tanya pulled her eyes from him, still smiling softly. She slid around him and took his hands in hers. Spikes of heat ripped up his bones and he felt his fingertips quiver.

She was touching them gently; feeling his fingers, his palms. She ran her fingers down his arms. She was speaking to him with her tender touch. His heart raced.

Tie me, Tanya. Please, just tie me.

She wrapped the string around his wrists loosely, still touching his hands lightly, tracing his palms. She cinched her knots and he knelt. She knelt behind him and passed the line under his ankles.

He could feel her hot breath on his shoulders as she worked, leaning over him. The heavy aroma of flowers—gardenias—caressed his nostrils and he trembled once.

What's happening to me?

Kill her, Shannon! Kill her, you spineless worm!

He let his head loll to one side. Stillness settled over the clearing. Even the wind seemed to pause. Tanya's chin approached and then lightly touched his back, and his flesh quivered at her nearness.

A lump swelled in his throat, and for a terrible moment he thought he might burst into tears. For no reason at all.

Dear Tanya, what have I done to you? I am so sorry.

Kill her! Kill—
“Shannon,” she whispered.

He froze.

She whispered it again, barely audible yet tender. “Shannon. I love you.” Her breath played over his shoulder, and he could smell it. Musky and sweet. Gardenias.

The last of his control left when the scent of her reached his lungs. She was breathing love into him. He went limp—all but his heart, which was slamming against his chest desperately.

And then she was done with her tying.

“Step away from him,” Abdullah said.

Tanya did not move. Maybe she hadn't heard him.

Abdullah shrieked this time. “Get back!”

Tanya stood slowly and stepped aside. Abdullah swept in and yanked the ties tight. Shannon bit his lip against the pain and gathered his senses. Any illusion he'd harbored of freeing himself from Tanya's loose bonds fell away.

Abdullah jumped back and cackled like a hyena. “There, you pig. You won't be so difficult to kill now, will you?”

He grabbed Tanya and shoved her back toward the center of the clearing. She stumbled forward and spun to him, flashing a vicious glare. For a second, Shannon thought she might yell at Abdullah. But the moment passed and she returned her gaze to him.

Abdullah stood halfway between them and stepped back to study his victims. He spread his legs and grinned wide.

He licked the spittle from his lips and shifted the gun to his left hand and then back to his right. “Well, well.” He glanced at his watch. “We have time. Do you know what I have done, assassin?”

Tanya was staring at Shannon again, oblivious of Abdullah. Her figure distorted in the tears that hung in his eyes.

“I have detonated a nuclear device in your country, gringo. And another is set to go off soon. It's on a countdown that will end in less than an hour. A countdown that can only be stopped by me now.”

Shannon stared at the man without expression.

“I have the power, and the world can do nothing.” He tapped his temple. “The only code to stop it is locked in my mind.”

“Shannon.” It was Tanya, speaking in that soft, milky voice again. “Forgive me. I'm so sorry.”

Abdullah jerked his head toward her. “Shut up!”

Shannon blinked the mist from his eyes, feeling as though he might crumble from the insanity of her words.

Tanya ignored Abdullah. “I know some things now, Shannon. I know that I was made to love you. I know that you need me to love you. I know that I always have loved you, and that I love you desperately now.”

Abdullah took three leaping steps to her and brought a heavy hand across her bare cheek. The air resounded with the sound of flesh smacking flesh.