Something had gone wrong. There wasn’t supposed to be a fight.
Audrey crept forward from her hiding place, listening for anything suspicious, hoping she would hear Brian calling to her. She had waited all night in the bushes for him to return for her. Instead, there’d been an explosion, then gunfire that moved off into the distance.
The only logical explanation she could come up with was that the soldiers had discovered Brian before he managed to make contact and they had pursued him. Not a large group, judging from the sound of their guns. She hadn’t dared move all night, fearing they’d left some men behind, not wanting to break the promise she’d given Brian about staying put and staying safe. But the sun was coming up now, and she needed to find out what had happened.
She moved in a crouch, careful where she put her feet, watching for small branches on the ground that would snap under her weight. If she did make noise, she stopped and waited several seconds like she had learned from Brian.
The overnight downpour had stopped at dawn, but now and then a fat splatter of water still landed on her hat or shoulders, making its way down from the leaves above. It startled her each time, but she kept quiet and focused on the woods ahead of her.
She heard no voices, no movement, no man-made noise of any kind. It filled her with unease. She was sure she was close enough and the soldiers would be awake by now. Surely there were at least a few left behind to guard their camp.
And then she could see them on the ground through the leaves, and they were obviously dead. All of them.
Had Brian done this? Confusion swept through her. No, he couldn’t have. He didn’t have a gun. But then what had happened?
She hesitated, unsure of what to do. The sun was up. Brian had said if he hadn’t returned by daylight she was to make her way to the river on her own. And yet she couldn’t make herself walk away.
Watching for the slightest sign of danger, she came out into the open. Whatever she decided to do, her chances of survival would be better if she had a weapon. Strangely, the first couple of men she looked over, didn’t have their rifles anywhere near.
Then she did see a gun, a pistol next to a body a little farther off. She walked among the dead and picked it up, tucked it into her belt. A few broken branches caught her eye. Somebody, a bunch of people, had rushed through this way. Had they been pursuing Brian?
Did she dare attempt to follow the track? Could she follow it? She knew nothing about tracking beyond the obvious. Right now she had a fair idea in which direction the river was and it wasn’t far away. But if she ran off blindly, got turned around, lost her way…
Brian was in trouble. If the tables were turned he’d be on his way by now to save her, instead of sitting around weighing his options.
There was an extra clip of bullets on the man’s belt and she reached for it, even though she had no idea how to put them in the gun. But by God, she would figure it out.
A slight sound reached her ear and she froze, almost dismissed it when it came again. Something was moving in the bushes on the other side of the field of bodies—something big.
She flattened herself to the ground behind a trio of basketball-size rocks, hoping those and some over-hanging vines camouflaged her enough. She saw a flash of yellow.
The tiger came out into the open and looked among the bodies, meandering, sniffing. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Audrey held her breath as the animal moved in her direction.
Stay still. Stay still. She repeated the words in her head, although they were unnecessary, her limbs truly and completely frozen with fear.
The tiger stopped a good thirty feet from her and let out a rumbling, coughing sound that scared her witless and squeezed her insides until she thought she would wet her pants. Then the animal locked his tremendous jaw over the shoulder of the man in front of him and dragged the body into the forest.
She began to shake, her stomach revolting at the sight of the soldier’s disappearing feet. She could hear the noise of the body being dragged on the ground for a while. Some time passed before she could get up, move. She took a few steps into the opposite direction, then leaned against a tree and threw up water, the only thing that had been in her stomach.
Survival instinct gave her strength and pushed her forward. She clawed her way through some vines, then saw another body a short way ahead. This one was dressed differently than the soldiers. She walked closer and paled when she recognized him.
He was one of the guerillas who had captured her in the village at the beginning of her journey.
And the dead soldiers made sense all of a sudden. The guerillas had won the fight with the army. They were the ones who gave chase to Brian.
She tipped the body over with the toe of her boot, saw the familiar knife sticking out of the man’s chest. Brian had gotten one of them. She pulled the knife, looked up to where she could barely make out a track in front of her and started forward again.
She’d gone no more than a hundred feet when she spotted a pair of boots sticking out of the bushes, similar enough to Brian’s to make her heart lurch. She moved closer to investigate, her hands shaking from relief when she pulled the branches aside and looked into the face of a stranger. He was a soldier, apart from the others. Had he run when it became obvious that they were losing the fight? Her gaze caught on the top of a backpack that peeked from under the body.
He was covered in blood, his whole chin missing, taken off by a bullet probably. She heaved again, but there was nothing in her stomach to bring up. She didn’t want to touch him.
Brian would.
He would leave no resource behind that might save their lives. Who knew what was in the bag—food, a map, matches. She took a deep breath and rolled the body, tried to pull off the backpack, but the man’s arms had stiffened into an angle that made it impossible for her to work the straps. She pulled her knife and cut them.
She dragged the backpack away from the body before she opened it, pushed aside the clothes on top and gasped at the sight of a compact radio unit. There was something else too, a smaller electronic device that looked like one of those handheld organizers. She pushed the red button and some kind of a picture came up with numbers. Not just any numbers, she realized after a moment—coordinates. She had a GPS unit, Global Positioning System, that showed exactly where she was.
She knew her location and had the means to call for help. She sank to the ground as tears of relief filled her eyes. But the feeling of optimism didn’t last long. Nothing but static came through the radio when she turned it on, no matter which way she twisted the dial.
Brian would know what to do with it. He could be even now lying somewhere in the woods, wounded. She turned off both units, threw them into the backpack and got up, started out again.
She didn’t have to go far before she came across the spot where the men had camped for the night. She had not found Brian’s body so far. But she knew his pursuers wouldn’t have rested unless they had caught him. Which meant, he was most likely once again a prisoner. God knew what they were doing to him. She pushed on.
She didn’t stop again until she had to relieve herself. She was weak with hunger, but at least no longer cold. Although her clothes were still damp, the temperature had risen enough to be comfortable. She opened the backpack and turned on the radio, turned the dial slowly, from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Then finally she found something, a man talking rapidly in another language.
“Hello.” She grabbed the speaker. “I need help,” she said, and realized there was probably a button somewhere she needed to push to transmit. She found a rubbery spot on the side of the receiver and pushed that in. “I need help,” she repeated, her heart in her throat.
Silence.
Oh, she probably had to let go of the button. She did so, and the response came after a few seconds.
“Identify yourself. Out.”
“I’m an American. I’m lost in the jungle. My partner was taken by guerillas.”
A longer period of silence this time.
“How did you get this radio? Out.”
“I found a group of dead soldiers a while back. They’re a few miles from the river.” She fished the GPS out, turned it on and read the displayed numbers to the man.
“Stay where you are. I’m sending a man to get you. Out.”
She thought of Brian, that he might be injured, what Omar’s men might be doing to him. “I’m going to follow the guerillas. I’ll let you know where I am again in an hour.”
To her surprise, the man didn’t protest or forbid her. “Let us know as soon as you spot them. Don’t try to approach them. We’ll be there as fast as we can. Out.”
She thanked him and turned off the radio and the GPS, wanting to save the batteries and not wanting the static from the radio to alert anyone to her approach.
Despite the shade the trees provided, the rising heat got to her more and more as the day wore on. Walking in the jungle was drastically different without Brian. It was much scarier and savage, and she had no one to distract her from it.
The sound of a single shot made her duck into the bushes before her brain registered that it came from far enough away not to pose an immediate threat. At least it confirmed that she was still going in the right direction. The tracks she’d been following had crossed an old animal trail a while back and since that point she no longer had broken plants to guide her. She hoped the guerillas had followed the trail, instead of having simply crossed it and covering their tracks.
When she saw a body slumped against a tree up ahead, she kept walking toward it, thinking it was another casualty, then his hand twitched, and she realized the young guerilla was sleeping, probably on guard duty.
She stepped off the trail, behind a tree, and waited. Nothing. She peeked out. It didn’t look like he’d moved. She crept forward in the woods, keeping the trail in sight, glancing back frequently at the man.
She didn’t have to go far before she heard noises up ahead. She radioed in her GPS location, not daring to raise her voice above a whisper, then shut off the radio. Bugs be damned, she got into the thickest of the brush for optimum coverage, moving forward one slow step at a time. Her progress was excruciating, not only because the dense vegetation held her back, but because she waited after each step to make sure she wasn’t discovered.
The closer she got to them the slower she went, until inch by inch she finally reached the edge of a clearing and, laying under a shiny-leaved bush, she was able to see the men. There were a lot of them. She counted about a hundred. Were the various groups uniting?
Then someone she recognized stepped into the clearing, and her heart tripped. Omar.
She watched as he talked to a couple of the men, then walked around. She inched forward another foot to see where he was going. And then she saw Brian.
Oh, God. The emotions that washed through her at the sight were strong enough to take her breath away. What had they done to him? He was hanging by his tied hands from a tree, his feet barely touching the ground. His pants on one leg were completely soaked in blood, and his face was bloody, too, on the right side. She watched helplessly, with fury screaming inside, as Omar walked over to him and smashed the butt of his rifle against Brian’s ribs.
He didn’t cry out. Instead, he lifted his head an inch or two and looked right at her.
Could he see her? She scooted back. If Brian could spot her, then so could the others. Not that anyone was looking hard. The men were eating and talking, lounging around camp as if they didn’t have a care in the world. No doubt they thought there was safety in their number.
Omar hit Brian over and over, then stopped to talk to him. She wished she could hear what he said as he played with the rifle. There was such a look of madness in his face.
He was going to kill Brian, she realized, and grabbed her pistol, closing one eye and concentrating on her aim. She pulled back what she thought was the safety and steadied her hand. There was a better-than-good chance that she was going to miss, but even if all she managed to do was cause a distraction, it could give Brian enough time to break free.
But just as she put her finger on the trigger, a hand came over her mouth, another pulled the pistol from her, the weight of a man pressing her to the ground.
Her first instinct was to struggle, but her brain kicked in on time and she held still. If a guerilla discovered her, he wouldn’t have held her mouth. He wouldn’t have cared if she made noise.
The army?
She glanced back at the clearing to see if they’d noticed anything and her blood froze. Omar had turned the rifle around and was resting the barrel against Brian’s temple. He was still talking to him.
The man half on top of her tugged her back, and she moved with him. He let go of her mouth, and she could turn at last to look at him. A soldier. It was the army. They were finally here.
“Are you the American?” he asked when they were at a safe distance.
“You have to save that man,” she said, and saw the rest of the soldiers.
The man gave them a signal and they moved ahead without a sound.
“You stay here. I’ve got many questions for you when I get back,” he said, and went after them.
Brian was tied up, immobile and defenseless in the middle of a shootout. And she was going to sit here and wait? Unlikely.
Audrey rushed back toward the camp, circling it, hoping to reach the other side and Brian in time. She didn’t have to be careful about noise now, the sound of gunfire was deafening in the air. Didn’t have to worry about wild animals, either. The ruckus was sure to scare them far away from the place. She ran as fast as she could.
Omar came out of the bushes at a dead run, looking backward, barreling right into her, sending them both sprawling to the ground. She grunted, the air knocked out of her lungs by the impact, struggled to get up and get away from him. But he made it to his feet first and had his knife pulled from his belt the next second.
“Move.” He dragged her up with the blade to her throat and yanked her forward, deeper into the jungle.
“No. Wait.” She fought him, her hands on the arm that held the knife, but he was the stronger one between the two of them. “You can go faster without me. You don’t need me.”
But then as he sunk to his knee, she realized he was injured. Blood gushed from his side above the right hip. And still, he kept a good strong grip on her.
He probably knew he wasn’t going to get far and wanted to use her as a shield when the army caught up with him. It wasn’t the army that reached them first.
“Let her go.” Brian stepped out from behind a tree. He had to be weak with blood loss, too, but he showed no sign of it.
His eyes were as cold as the blade Omar held against her throat, and the predatory flow with which he moved, closer and closer, more menacing than the tiger had been. She felt Omar shift behind her.
“Come one step closer and she’s dead,” he said.
“She gets as much as nicked and I’ll tear you apart from limb to limb.” Brian’s gaze was fixed on the man, his voice so deadly, it made her shiver despite the heat.
She’d seen him in rough-soldier mode before, but she’d never seen him like this. He was tightly controlled, yet there was a glint of madness in his gaze, a ferocious darkness.
The blade pressed against her skin. She didn’t dare move when Omar tightened his hold on her. He was breathing hard and sweating, not nearly as confident now that Brian wasn’t tied up and helpless before him.
Brian advanced on them, the sight as paralyzing as that of the tiger had been. And Omar must have felt the same, because he didn’t move, didn’t cut her as he had threatened, even as he repeated, “Stop. Don’t come any closer.” His words had little strength now, they were underlined with fear.
Then the next thing she knew, Brian lunged at them, flying through the air as he attacked. She was knocked aside, and rolled away. By the time she looked back, the two men were locked in a deadly battle. Omar still had the knife but Brian was gripping his wrist, as they wrestled for control.
Brian came to be on bottom somehow, holding Omar off, trying to shove away the sharp blade aimed at his throat. And then he did, twisting the knife and letting his arms go lax. Omar’s weight, suddenly released, pushed the blade through his own heart.
He died with a groan of disbelief torn from his throat, his eyes rounded as if in surprise.
Brian shoved the man off without another look at him and rushed to her. “Are you hurt?”
He looked her over, then when she shook her head, unable to speak, he crushed her to him.
“How is your leg?” she asked finally when the wave of emotions in her began to settle.
“Barely bleeding.”
She examined the wound at his temple that didn’t seem as bad up close as she had thought when she’d first seen it, a lot less damage than the blood suggested.
“A bullet got too close.” He lifted his fingers to the spot she was looking at. “Head wounds bleed like a bastard.”
“Hang on.” She walked over to Omar, ripped the flask off his belt and went back to Brian to wash the side of his face.
She used the corner of her shirt, and when she was done with his skin, she rubbed the dried blood out of his hair. He could have used a stitch or two, but probably he’d be all right without it.
Guns were still going off here and there, but the battle seemed to be nearing the end.
He ran a light finger over his temple. “When I saw you under that bush— Didn’t I tell you to head for the river?”
“If I didn’t follow you, I couldn’t have given the army your coordinates. I found a radio.” She smiled at the stunned look he gave her.
“You brought the army?”
Her smile widened into a grin.
“I should go help them,” he said after a moment, but didn’t move.
She burrowed against him, soaked up his strength, and gave thanks for the miracle that they were both alive. “Stay.”
And he did.
He gave a strangled laugh and held her closer. “I’ve changed more than I realized,” he said when she lifted her head and threw him a questioning look. “A couple of years ago, nothing and no one could have kept me from rushing back into the fray. Now, all I want to do is sit here and never let you go.”
She told herself not to read too much into that even as her heart leaped. They’d been through a lot together. She was the first woman he’d seen in four years, for heaven’s sake. A certain amount of attachment was natural and would probably wear off fast once he returned to the real world. She couldn’t fall for him. Not now.
She was going to become a mother in a few days, that’s what she needed to focus on. She couldn’t get entangled in a relationship that had started out of mutual need under extreme conditions. Not even if she could have sworn she was losing her heart to the man. She would get over it. They both would.
She pulled away just as the soldier she’d talked to earlier came walking from the direction of the fight, a couple of men behind him. He stopped by Omar’s body, then looked at them. “So who the hell are you?”
“Audrey Benedict. My sister is Nicky Brown, one of the tourists kidnapped by the guerillas.”
“Brian Smith,” Brian said, and smiled when the man drew up an eyebrow. “I’m a personal protection specialist hired by Miss Benedict.”
She tried not to act surprised at his new last name and the rest of his words, but wasn’t sure she altogether managed.
“What do you know about the hostages?”
“They escaped the guerillas two days ago and headed for an Orang Ulu village. I can give you a fair approximate location.”
The man nodded. “We’ll pick them up.” He turned to her. “You mentioned something about an attack in KL?”
She pulled the papers from her pocket and handed them to the man.
He looked through them. “Looks like you’ve been swimming.”
“I have. But they were bad even before that. We were able to make out Kuala Lumpur and the date August tenth. This part here—” she stepped next to him and found the right sheet “—used to be a list of embassies.”
“Call it in,” he said to one of his men before turning back to her. “And you came by this how?”
“We were both captured by Omar. He wrote this to another guerilla leader, and we took it with us when we escaped,” Brian said, pointing to one set of papers. “These I found at Hamid’s camp where the hostages were.” He indicated the rest.
“Right. We’ll talk some more about this.” He motioned to four of his soldiers and said something in Malay before switching back to English. “There’s a new logging road about two miles east of here with enough space for the chopper to land. I’m giving you an escort there and sending you to KL for further questioning.”
“And you’ll send someone for the hostages?”
He nodded. “If you’re cleared in KL, you’ll be having dinner with your sister tonight.”
She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Nicky would be safe soon, the whole nightmare over. They’d be together again. But she was pretty sure that as soon as they got to Kuala Lumpur, Brian would be gone. And as much as she knew that was for the best, she wasn’t ready for it yet, reluctant to see him go.
There were still things unsaid between them. She could not possibly put her gratitude into words, and there were other feelings that were perhaps best left unsaid. She looked at him, hoping for a gesture, something to tell her what to do.
He smiled. “It’s over.”
She blinked hard, hating the words.