FOURTEEN 
FOURTEEN Wow. That was loud,” Acadia uncurled her legs and rose to her feet. “I wonder wha—”
Familiar with the sound, Zak jumped from his chair. “Car bomb!” He grabbed her by the arm and spun her toward the other room. “Get dressed. Now.”
He’d heard car bombs in Ireland, in Yemen, hell, even in Bangkok. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the other shoe he’d been waiting for had just dropped with a very loud percussion and a billow of smoky flames.
She gave him a startled look but didn’t ask questions. She turned on her heel and sprinted so fast, he glimpsed long bare legs as her robe flapped behind her body like wings. Zak clicked off the desk lamp, then raced over and switched off the two other lamps, plunging the living room into semidarkness.
It stood to reason that since he’d just been kidnapped and held for ransom, and his brother was still MIA, Zak was the target. His gut told him to stop messing around and move before whoever was behind the bombing crashed into the suite to finish what they’d started once and for all. His best guesstimate was that he had less than five minutes before they’d have uninvited guests.
One alive. One dead. Did this mean they had Gid, and wanted Zak silenced? Or had Gid evaded them and now they were after Zak instead? He hit all the lights. Click. Click. Click. Once an assailant’s eyes adjusted to the difference in brightness from the outside hallway, it would be easy enough to see with the illumination from the city lights streaming through the window. Zak would have about fifteen seconds before their sight adjusted and he lost the home-team advantage.
Grabbing two chairs, he flipped them on their sides, leaving them in the middle of the room, then dragged out an ottoman as well. Everything low to the ground, more an obstacle course than a trap. Anything to slow them down. For good measure, he dumped out the two bowls of mushy dessert into slippery puddles in a couple of places on the floor. Adrenaline sped through his veins as he saw the computer, screen lit and displaying the research they’d done.
Slamming the computer closed, he didn’t bother crawling beneath the desk, just yanked the cord to unplug it, then tucked it under his arm like a football. Once in the bedroom, he closed and locked the door. Another flimsy deterrent that wouldn’t keep anyone out, but might add the few precious minutes he and Acadia needed to get free.
Acadia sent him a brave grin as she shoved her feet into her boots and then slammed a clip into the SIG-Sauer they’d bought that afternoon. Both her pants and her shirt were unbuttoned and flapping open over her nude body.
“Good girl,” he whispered, tossing off his robe and hastily pulling on his pants and shirt. Thank God Acadia was such a methodical woman; she had distributed the weight evenly, and his movements weren’t hampered at all. He stuffed his bare feet into his boots.
He grabbed up several more guns, tucking them into the back of his waistband and one cargo pocket, then added the rest to the bag and shoved the computer into an outside pocket. He hated guns, but he’d never had more reason to carry one. Or two. Or three. “Take only what we can carry,” Zak whispered, although there was no one to hear him. Yet.
She nodded, then held up a hand in a wait motion. Grabbing the pillows and their robes, she formed lumps on the bed under the pulled-back covers, then threw the comforter over everything. Her shirt still hung open, and she gave him an inquiring look just as a sound alerted him to the presence of someone breaking down the front door. Zak carefully opened the door into the adjoining suite, slipped inside, and held it open. “Shh,” he breathed, letting Acadia duck inside under his arm before silently closing and locking it behind her.
Ear pressed to the thick wood, Zak heard stumbles and curses as his obstacle course tripped up at least one member of the hit team. Acadia’s fingers tightened on his arm as she listened.
Next, the bedroom door was kicked in, and Zak heard at least couple of footsteps. Immediately followed by two distinct pops.
Silencer.
“Make sure the wife’s dead.” The voice was male. And American.
“Sí, jefe.”
The bed was on the wall beside the door to the connecting suite they’d reserved for Gideon. The sound of the covers being drawn back was indistinct, but the American cussing was loud and clear. “You goddamn dickhead. You said she was in the room.”
“Sí. Sí. She come to take out the carrito de alimentos. The old food, ¿sí? I see her.”
“Well she’s not here now, you fucking moron! We got the car they borrowed, so wherever she is, she’s meeting up with Stark. Obviously he knows we’re after them, but they’ll be on foot. Let’s go.”
Zak kept Acadia standing by the door in the dark room for a good twenty minutes, until he was sure the two men were long gone. Not a hundred percent sure, but they couldn’t stand there forever.
Zak figured Buck’s security specialists should’ve landed about now. They’d show up at the hotel to find him gone. He added, to the growing list, calling Buck to give him their new location.
He indicated her undone clothing. “Finish getting dressed. Don’t forget your bootlaces; we’re going to have to run.” And run like hell.
The sound of emergency vehicles, fire engines and police cars, was faint but unmistakable, even eighteen stories above the street. The cavalry had arrived—although, in this neck of the woods, the cavalry was just as likely to be in cahoots with the bad guys.
He finished buttoning and zipping. “Empty most of that crap out of your pockets; it’s going to slow you down.”
For once, she didn’t argue. He noticed she looked paler than usual, but with thin-lipped determination, Acadia laid the SIG on a nearby chair and quickly started emptying some of her pockets. She tossed the heaviest item—the tent—behind the upholstered chair in the corner. “I need everything else I’m carrying.”
“Sounds like whoever hired the guerrillas is American. And they aren’t happy to find us alive and well and not here.”
“Did you hear what the American guy said? ‘Make sure the wife is dead.’”
“Yeah. Got that.” That little bit of business added yet another unpleasant layer to the miasma that was this whole clusterfuck. Who else would know about his “wife” except hotel staff, the sister at the mission, and the son-of-a-bitch chief of police she’d beaten at poker?
She took a deep, steadying breath. “That Spanish voice, that was one of the guerrillas.”
“What? Who?”
“The kidnapper in the hotel room who sounded like he had a cold? That was him in there. I recognized his voice. Kind of high,” she explained, “like he had to talk through his nose.”
Or has a nasty coke habit, Zak thought. Damn. If it was the same guy, and Zak was inclined to believe it was, then Loida Piñero had finally caught up with them. How she’d found them, he had no idea.
“Okay. We’re going to slip out, turn left, and haul ass down the hallway to the emergency exit. Don’t stop, no matter what happens. If we get separated—”
“We’re not getting separated.”
“If we get separated,” he repeated, fighting the inane urge to smile, “I want you to find somewhere to hide. Then call Buck and have his security people meet you. They’ll make sure you get back home. Promise me.”
“Fine.”
Zak grabbed her by the front of her shirt and kissed her quick and hard. He touched his fingers to her soft, warm cheek. “Don’t do anything stupid. You hear me, Acadia Gray?”
Her chin came up, eyes shadowed. “Ditto, Mr. Stark.”
“Keep that gun pointed, and be ready to shoot without asking questions. These assholes mean business. I don’t want any extra holes in you, got it?” Her lips twitched as if she found that amusing. She nodded.
Zak eased open the door, hand held up to keep her behind him. There was no one in the hallway. The floor indicator showed that all the elevator cars were in the lobby. He waved her out. Together, they stuck close to the wall, running toward the exit sign. No one stopped them, but Zak waited for a tap on the shoulder at any minute. Or, worse, the muffled report of silenced gunfire.
He eased open the door to the stairwell, and Acadia passed through. He closed the door behind them, then peered through the small window to see if they’d been followed. No one out there.
“Eighteen flights,” he reminded her. “Pace yourself.”
SHE NEEDED TO RENEW that gym membership. Eighteen flights of stairs at a jog just about gave Acadia respiratory failure by the time they reached the bottom. Her knees ached. Her legs were rubbery, and she felt light-headed.
“Catch your breath,” Zak said. He wasn’t even breathing hard. They were in a small area at the foot of the stairs, still inside, but the metal door was marked Salida. “I’m going to get transportation.”
She held her hand to the stitch in her side. “I-I n-eed a-air.”
Zak hesitated, then pushed open the door onto the muggy night. They stepped outside into a narrow alley, where flashing red and blue lights of various emergency vehicles bounced off a nearby wall in a disco effect, but thankfully they were hidden behind a low outbuilding. “Okay. Stand right here.” Here was comprised of two large, noxious-smelling trash bins. “Stay put.”
Hands on her knees, head down, she grunted an affirmative. She felt the brush of his hand on her neck. “You’re a hell of a—” Suddenly Zak’s phone beeped. “Jesus—”
Acadia would’ve liked hearing the rest of that sentence. She straightened as Zak turned on the phone, saying a brisk “Yeah?” He paused, his features relaxing while he listened to whoever it was. “They are? Good to know. Where’s the jet?” Zak listened for several seconds. “The kidnappers broke into our hotel room. Yeah. No, we’re both fine. Have the pilot stay where he is. File a new flight plan. I’ll be there in twenty. Yeah. Thanks, Buck.” He disconnected.
“The security guys are on the ground,” he told her. “Plane’s being refueled as we speak. Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He lifted her chin and gave her a searching look. “You okay?”
“Terrific. Oh, wait!” She reached out and cupped his face with both hands. Standing on her tiptoes, Acadia kissed him with all she had left, a longer and wetter kiss than the one he’d given her upstairs, but she was a whole hell of a lot needier than he was. And she knew it.
It was still too quick. She released him and smoothed her palm down his crumpled shirt. “Hurry back.”
His grin said he would, especially if more of that was on the way. He melted into the darkness, and she was alone. Adrenaline was pumping hard and fast in her system, making her temples throb. This, this right here, was the reason she and Zak were never going to be together. He took it all in stride—the car bomb, the gunmen, being on the run—as if he were getting a cup of coffee and reading the Sunday-morning paper.
A cat meowed plaintively nearby. A sheet of newspaper, teased by the hot breeze, fluttered down the alley where she waited. A car horn bleated in the distance. And the voices of the emergency personnel over on the other side of the building were crystal clear as they tried to figure out whom the car had belonged to and if there had been any occupants.
Thank God, no.
Wheels crunched loudly on gravel, and she backed against the wall as a police car, lights off, pulled up in front of the trash bins. If she could see the vehicle, the occupants could obviously see her. Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. Another adrenaline spike made her dizzy for a moment, and she pressed her sweaty palms to her temples. Breathe, Acadia, breathe; this is not the time to pass out.
The passenger door popped open. “Get in!” Zak straightened from opening the door as she jumped in and slammed it behind her.
“Oh my God!” Acadia stared at him in awe. “You stole a police car?”
He turned on the lights. “No one was using it,” he said dryly, driving at a sedate pace down the alley, away from the public parking lot on the other side of the buildings and the growing assortment of officials. “Buckle up.”
“They’re going to miss this sooner than later.”
“Probably. We’ll blow up that bridge when we cross it. Keep the SIG on your lap and take the safety off. We won’t dick around should anyone give chase. Be ready to use it.”
Acadia swallowed hard, then curled her fingers around the butt of the gun. “Where are we going? Airport?”
“The company plane.” His jaw in profile was tight, his fingers white-knuckled on the wheel, and he kept a close watch in the rearview mirror as he drove. Acadia was doing the same in her readjusted side mirror.
The police radio crackled with incessant Spanish.
“Buck instructed the pilot and two security men to stay onboard,” Zak explained. “The rest of his people are on their way to meet me at the hotel with the money. As soon as you take off, I’ll have Buck coordinate with the security team, then I’ll take them back with me to find Gideon.”
A neat plan. One that excluded her completely. Well, of course it did. Acadia knew that. Her time with Zak was finally at an end. But still, she wanted to help. “Want me to show you what I figured out on the map at the hotel?”
“Yeah, sure.”
She reached over and slid the folded map from Zak’s breast pocket, then took out a small penlight from her own. The map was enormous, but she folded it to the area she needed to make it more manageable, then traced a line from the hotel near the falls where they’d been taken to the approximate location of the mission, then made an educated guess as to where they’d been left after they’d gone downriver. Then drew a line with her finger to Caracas. She jotted down the numbered coordinates from each stretch on the white edge of the map.
“What do you have?”
“Hang on,” she muttered as she found Angel Falls on the map. She finished writing the last digits and skimmed over her neat figures. “Okay, I have a list of coordinates of all our known locations, and then an estimation based on time and approximate distance traveled.”
She handed over the list, which Zak held to the steering wheel, eyes dropping down periodically to her organized column of numbers as he drove.
His brow furrowed. “Acadia.”
Her gaze flew to the rearview mirror. “Are they—What?”
“What’s the last set of numbers?” Acadia checked the map. “Angel Falls, why?”
“Jesus! The coordinates are identical to the numbers I see.”
She pictured the list of coordinates. Her mouth dropped open for a long moment before she said slowly, “The GPS coordinates for the area around Angel Falls?”
“I get it.” He shot her a frowning glance. “But how—”
“Road!” she warned quickly, and he jerked his attention back to the traffic, swinging them back into their lane. The driver of the van they’d almost hit leaned on his horn and stayed on it, turning on his high beams even after they’d passed him. Acadia caught a glimpse of his face and was grateful she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“You concentrate on driving like a bat out of hell to avoid the bad guys, and I’ll make sure.” She returned to the map on her lap, double-checking her figures. “There’s no doubt. They’re the same.”
“How’s that possible?” Zak demanded. “Hell, why is it possible? And what does it mean?”
“Since we got to the hotel, have you been seeing the numbers continuously, or have they stopped occasionally?”
Zak smiled, his gaze sliding to her briefly. “Honestly, there were a couple of times that I wouldn’t have noticed if the numbers were ten feet high and in neon.”
She focused on not getting swept away in that smile. “When we’re together, you mean? In the shower? In bed? Where?”
“I suppose …” His eyes flickered to the rearview mirror.
“Okay. Let’s backtrack a bit. You started seeing the numbers precisely when?”
“At the mission.”
“The second you woke up?”
“No … The nun came in to check up on me. I insisted she take out the IV. I took a shower. I don’t remember seeing anything odd. Sister Clemencia came back in all pissy because you were out drinking and carousing …” Zak frowned as he took a right at the sign for Maiquetia Simon Bolívar Airport. Traffic was light at this time of night. No one was following them. Good. They were getting close to the plane. Even better.
But Acadia didn’t relax her guard; her hand was still under the folded map, her fingers wrapped around the handle of the gun.
“She had a dinner tray. She put it down … No, my watch was in the way. I put it on to get it—” His frown deepened. “My watch.”
“Take it off!”
“Hard to steer with my knee; you’ll have to undo the strap.”
Acadia reached for his wrist, then paused, her hand on the steel band. “Are you seeing the numbers now?”
“Yeah.”
She unsnapped the clasp and let the heavy watch drop into her hand. “How about now?”
“I—Jesus. No. The numbers are completely gone. Put it on me again.”
She did so, laying the multifunctional watch over his strong wrist as he drove. She didn’t even have it fastened before he said, incredulously, “And they’re back. Jesus. This is just plain fucking weird.”
Acadia plucked it off him and turned it over. She flashed her penlight on the underside, and read out loud, “‘Gideon Stark. August 2008.’ This is your brother’s watch, Zak.”
“Oh, shit.” His voice was incredulous, his expression intent, as he juggled driving with wrapping his mind around the … visions? What were they?
Whatever they were, Acadia thought, it was unbelievable. “Do you each have the same one?”
He nodded. “Our maternal grandmother gave us each a watch for our birthdays that year. Mine in May, Gideon’s in March. I must’ve grabbed the wrong one when we lit out of the guerrilla camp. Jesus, that’s—” Crazy? “Stunning.”
“What if your brother’s watch is somehow giving you his GPS coordinates?”
Zak eyes narrowed. “How is this even possible?”
Acadia bit her lip. How would it be possible? Unless … St. Christopher protected travelers; maybe he—or some other saint or power or, hell, she didn’t know, the bond between brothers—protected him still? “Zak, I know this sounds …” She hesitated, staring down at the map. “Well, it sounds crazy. But I think when you died in surgery at the mission”—her voice cracked—“you flatlined and were pronounced clinically dead. I think when you were shocked back to life, somehow you developed this amazing new sense.”
“Come on, that’s ridic—”
Acadia leaned over, using both hands to refasten the watch on his wrist. “Say that again.”
He blinked. The airport was coming up, a low white building brightly lit, with a full parking lot of coming-and-going traffic. And the numbers instantly materialized to move from left to right in the lower quadrant of his vision. “Read off the coordinates again,” he demanded tightly. “Without the degrees or spaces.”
Heart pounding with excitement, Acadia carefully ran one finger across the top of the map and another down the side. “55836232859675625355565? That’s it, isn’t it?”
He heard the numbers said out loud and mentally read them as they scrolled in his head. It was … God. He didn’t know what to think. But … “Jesus, Acadia! I know how to find Gideon—we’ll be able to go right to him.”
She placed her hand on his thigh and squeezed, and Zak realized he didn’t need to vocalize the amazement and heartfelt relief he felt. He didn’t need to tell her that what he was experiencing was profound. Terrifying. Overwhelming. Inexplicable.
He knew he didn’t need to say any of it, because she got it. All of it. She got him. And more amazing, she wasn’t hysterical or crying or freaking out in the slightest. She just accepted him, as he was, without reservation.
Zak wished with everything in him that he didn’t have to put her on a plane. Wished he didn’t have to kiss her good-bye. Wished … Hell, he wished a lot of things; that didn’t mean any of them were going to come true.
“Aren’t we going through the terminal?” she asked, her palm stroking up and down his thigh in a comforting gesture that somehow soothed his soul. More, it calmed the fear he’d been carrying around inside him since Gid had insisted they split up in the jungle a lifetime ago.
“The company jet will be at the auxiliary terminal,” he explained. “It’s only about a quarter of a mile from here. Don’t worry. No one followed us.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“I’ll be fine. Now that I know where Gideon is, I’ll go and retrieve him right away, whether he’s free or a prisoner.”
“You have a propensity for getting into trouble, Zakary Stark. What are you going to do without me and my magic pockets there to help you?” She said it teasingly, but there was an undercurrent of fear in her voice.
Jesus, he didn’t want her to go. Didn’t want to be parted from her, but couldn’t allow her to stay.
Zak was surprised to see that Buck had sent the Falcon. It was a small jet that seated only twenty. Admittedly, twenty in absolute luxury. But not the plane he would’ve chosen to transport a bunch of ex-military guys and their equipment. Still, the plane was here, the pilot was onboard, and Acadia would have two trained, professional bodyguards to escort her home.
The situation he was going back to was going to be fraught with danger, even with skilled personnel on hand. He had no idea what condition he’d find Gideon in. No idea how many men Loida Piñero would have with her this time. The extraction was going to be a bitch, and he didn’t want Acadia anywhere near it.
Or anywhere near him, when he hit the boiling point and bullets went flying. “But I’ll be much better able to do what I need to do if I know you’re home in the States,” he added, and knew that wasn’t a lie. “Safe and sound.”
She glanced out of the window as Zak drove out on the tarmac to get closer to the Falcon. “I could wait here,” she offered. “You said there are two guys plus the pilot. Look around. No one can get near the plane without us seeing th—”
“Acadia?” He pulled the police car up near the stairs, the interior lights turned on in warm, civilized welcome.
She glared at him. “What?”
Zak bit back a smile at her belligerence. “Does flying make you nervous?”
“No.” She opened her door and got out of the car, and he followed suit, walking around to stand toe-to-toe with her.
He cupped her face between his hands. Even though it was a warm, muggy night, her skin was cool. Her gray eyes were dark and stormy as she looked up at him.
Zak stroked his thumbs across her cheekbones, his chest tight and constricted. Fuckit. He didn’t like good-byes. “Then why are you scared?”
“Scared? Me? No, I’m not.”
“Very chatty and lying.”
She gave him a cross look, but brought her hands up to cover the backs of his fingers against her face. “Nobody has ever made me as nervous as you do, Zakary Stark.”
He brushed a kiss over her soft, trembling mouth, and said against her lips, “You make me nervous, too.”
“I make you nervous?” She huffed out a laugh. “There’s nothing in this universe that makes you nervous.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair as she stood on tiptoe to meet his mouth. “You’d be surprised.” He couldn’t begin to tell her how he felt; he was having a hard enough time admitting it to himself. So he let his kiss do what he couldn’t: tease her, tempt her. Praise her. Thank her. His tongue touched the very corner of her mouth, slid over her lower lip, as she staunchly tried to remain unmoved.
He liked her melting in his hands, too, and backed her against the car. She shuddered, lips opening under his gentle assault, as he fitted her lush curves against his body, sliding his hands into her loose hair to deepen his kiss.
She tasted sweet and sad and like heaven all at once. The numbers slid through his mind, but all he could smell, taste, feel was the woman in his arms. He heard her uneven breathing, felt the rapid beat of her heart against his chest as her tongue rubbed sleekly against his. Or maybe that was his heartbeat.
Fuckit.
He reluctantly broke away. “The engine’s running; they’re ready to take off. Come on.”
Acadia put her hand on his arm, her gaze steady despite the flush in her cheeks. “I’m a big girl. There’s no need. Go find Gideon.”
Zak wrapped his good arm around her waist. “Come on. I want to strap you in and”—have a few more moments with you—“get you settled. You can sleep all the way to Kansas.” They walked up the stairs together. He didn’t say he’d call her, and she didn’t ask. Until he found Gideon, he couldn’t and wouldn’t think of anything else.
The door was open, and he wondered briefly why none of the men had at least come out to see why cops were parked out on the tarmac.
He ducked under the lintel and stepped inside the plane he’d been on dozens of times. Camel-colored plush leather appointments, polished teak. All the luxuries of home, thousands of feet in the air. The air-conditioning was on full, breathing a cold blast of air on their faces as Zak held Acadia right inside the door opening.
The hair on the back of his neck lifted as he noticed a faint reddish-brown handprint on the cockpit door.
Tightening his arms around her, he pivoted and dragged her back down the short flight of metal stairs in a flat-out and noisy run. “Get in the car! Go. Go. Go!”
Yanking open the driver’s side door, he practically threw her across the seat, leaped into the car, and cranked the engine even before his door swung shut. He put his foot on the gas and hauled ass, the tires screeching as they raced across the tarmac.
“Zak? My God, what … I don’t—”
She gave a muffled protest as Zak grabbed the top of her head and forced her down, her face on his thigh.
In the rearview mirror, the jet exploded. A ball of black smoke and orange fire rolled into the sky. Seconds later, the sonic impact slammed into the car.