Across the River of Yesterday

Seven

The lobby of the Hotel Cartagena looked exactly like that of any other upper-middle-class hotel. There was the usual wine-colored carpet, green plants hanging in strategic places, and bellhops bustling back and forth. Serena didn't know quite what she had expected, but it wasn't this atmosphere of total matter-of-factness. She supposed she had assumed it would be something of an armed camp, with machine guns mounted on the reception desk.

Ross's hand was grasping her elbow and his words were a sotto voce stream in her ear as they crossed the lobby toward the bank of brass- trimmed mahogany elevators. "Now don't be belligerent with them. I don't think Medino would risk hurting you, but he's-"

"Unpredictable," Serena finished for him. "I believe I'm sick and tired of hearing about that particular characteristic of Mendino's." They entered the elevator and Ross Inserted a key and then punched the button for the Royal Suite, which evidently occupied the entire fifteenth floor. The heavy doors closed and the elevator began to move with snaillike slowness. "I'm not about to be belligerent."

A faint smile tugged at Ross's lips. "You save that for your friends?"

"I was upset," she said, and then admitted honestly, "and frightened."

Ross's smile widened as he nodded understandingly. "Just tone it down with Mendino." He hesitated and his gaze slid away from her face. "They'll search you. That's why we didn't dare arm Gideon. Hopefully, they won't be as thorough with you as they were with him." He paused again. "There aren't any women among Mendino's guards here, and Mendino and his officers are pretty rough. You're not going to like it."

"I know, Julio told me." She moistened her lips with her tongue. "It would be pretty stupid of me to let modesty weigh against saving Gideon." Her hands tightened nervously on the bamboo handles of her striped purse. "Don't worry, I won't give them any trouble."

"I made a big fuss about the two of you being lovers and you insisting on being with him. Mendino was very pleased to get another hostage and made no objection to your being in the same suite with Gideon, but he has none of the so- called gentler feelings where women are concerned." He still wasn't looking at her. "In fact, there were rumors about the death of his mistress last year.

You'll probably receive the same treatment he decides to mete out to Gideon."

"I didn't expect anything else."

"Julio has filled you in on our plans?"

"Yes, the bare outline. He didn't have time to go into anything in depth." Damn, this elevator was slow.

"You know that I won't be able to stay with you? I'll have to leave as soon as I deliver you to Mendino."

"Yes, Ross, we've gone over all this. Why repeat it?"

"Because I don't like the idea of you putting yourself in this kind of danger," he said with a scowl. "And Gideon's going to like it even less. To tell you the truth, I'm nervous as hell."

She smiled shakily at him. "Me, too."

His face softened. "It wouldn't hurt to show them you're a little tense. They'll expect it."

The elevator had finally stopped and Serena stiffened in apprehension. "No problem. I don't think I could hide it if I tried."

The doors opened with a whoosh, and Serena's heart jerked crazily and then began to pound in double time. Soldiers, guns-this was the scene she had expected downstairs. The elevator opened directly into the huge sitting room of the suite and there were at least twenty soldiers there.

Coming toward them was a golden-complexioned man in a dark green colonel's uniform. He was thin-faced, his pencil mustache a neat line over slightly pouty lips. A beaming smile lit his face, revealing a space between his front teeth. "Ah, Miss Spaulding, welcome. I am Colonel Pedro

Mendino. We are always happy to assist in reuniting lovers." His glance slowly ran over her, starting at the tips of her white high-heeled sandals, traveling over her slender figure in the slim white skirt and emerald silk blouse and ending as he met her eyes. The smile deepened as he read the apprehension she was experiencing and could not hide. He waved a hand. "There is only one minor formality to be gotten out of the way. Come this way, if you please."

Serena took a deep breath and stepped out of the elevator."

Gideon sat bolt upright in the morocco leather chair as she walked into the suite. "Serena?" he whispered.

She dropped her purse on the floor and ran across the room toward him. Then she was in his arms, pressing quick, loving kisses on his cheeks and throat between words. "Are you all right? I was so worried. What a stupid thing to do."

Mendino chuckled benevolently as he watched them from the doorway. "Is this not a wonderful surprise, Texan? Not only do we supply you with all the comforts, but your woman to warm your bed." He bowed with a touch of mockery and his voice took on a taunting note. "And she is ravishing, every single inch of her. I should know, I supervised the search myself."

Gideon's eyes darkened stormily as he opened his lips to speak.

Serena quickly covered his mouth with her own in a long passionate kiss. She heard Mendino laugh again and then the sound of the door closing behind her and the key turning in the lock. She lifted her lips to breathe softly. "Don't be crazy. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't bad."

"I bet," Gideon muttered. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She glanced quickly around the suite. "Microphone?" she mouthed.

He shook his head. "This was the same suite Dane occupied, and that certainly wasn't considered a high security operation."

"Good." She kissed him again. "You're such an idiot. Why do you have to be so damn noble?"

He frowned. "Why are you here? I'm going to draw and quarter Ross."

"He thought you'd only strangle him," she murmured. "And it's not his fault, it's yours. Did you think I was going to sit with my hands folded waiting for you to be either released or delivered back in a plastic sack? No way." Her arms dropped from around him and she took a step back. "There's something you'd better learn right now, Gideon-whenever you put yourself in danger, I'm going to be right behind you. You're so big on this sharing business, well, make up your mind we're going to share the bad too."

A reluctant smile banished his frown. "I thought I was doing what was best."

"You didn't even talk to me about it." She held up her hand to stop him when he started to speak. "Oh, I know, it's the pot calling the kettle black, but I'm going to change all that as soon as we get out of here. We'll share everything." Her gaze met his and suddenly her eyes were glittering with tears. "I was so frightened. Don't you ever do that to me again."

"I wouldn't dare," he said gently. "You're evidently a rip-roaring lady when you're riled." One finger gently touched her cheek. "Now, I gather you risked coming here for some reason other than the fact that you couldn't live without me."

"You're joking, but it's true, you know," she whispered. "I don't think I could live without you now. You might remember that the next time you're tempted to pull a stupid stunt like this." She forced herself to look away from him. She wanted to keep on gazing at him, touching him, just to assure herself he was really all right and they were together again. "What time it it?"

He glanced at his watch. "Nine twenty-six."

"Oh, Lord, the attack is going to take place in four minutes. We have to hurry. That search took much longer than we expected."

"Just how long did it take?" There was the timbre of steel beneath the silkiness of Gideon's tone.

"It doesn't matter." She hurried across the room to the door. "It's over now."

"It matters."

Serena snatched up the striped purse she had dropped on the floor when she had run into Gideon's arms. "Gideon, there isn't time for your possessive instincts to come to the fore. I need your help." She came back toward him.

"Who else was there besides Mendino?"

'A captain and a lieutenant," she said without thinking, then she saw his expression. "Gideon!"

"Very well, we'll drop it now. I know who they are." He smiled with cold ferocity. "I just didn't want to target the wrong men." He looked down at the purse in her hands. "I assume you're not looking for a compact to powder your nose. A weapon?" His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Intriguing. They must have searched your purse. It would be the obvious thing to do."

"They did." She pulled the two six-inch bamboo handles off the pouch bag and then tossed the purse aside. "These are hollow, see?" She showed him the hole through the center of each piece of bamboo. "It's a blowgun."

"And just what are we supposed to blow?" Gideon asked.

"Hold them for a minute." She thrust the blow- guns into his hand and rapidly unfastened her white skirt. She pulled her skirt and the half-slip beneath it down a few inches. "The appendix scar. It's rather large, but Julio said if anyone questioned it, I was to complain about what a butcher of a surgeon I had." She inserted her thumbnail beneath the top edge of the five-inch white scar and gently worked the adhesive loose. "It looks exactly like an old scar, doesn't it? Julio is really very clever." She had freed enough of the adhesive to gain a hold and with one strong pull she ripped the false scar from her abdomen. Four slender, needle-like darts fell to the carpet.

Gideon laughed helplessly as he bent to pick up the darts. "Only Julio would think of something like this."

"Be careful. Each tip is coated with a sedative strong enough to knock out a grizzly bear." She pulled up her slip and skirt and fastened the button at the waistband. She took one of the blow- guns and two of the darts from him. "Have you ever used one of these before?"

"No, have you?" His lips twitched. "It wouldn't surprise me if you had. You seem to take blow- guns, crazy colonels, and revolutions with amazing composure."

"I've never used one before, but the principle seems simple enough." Her tone was casual as she put one of the darts into the blowgun. "I imagine we'll have to be fairly close, though, and perhaps- Why are you laughing?"

"Because you look so damn beautiful, and you're talking like a cross between Sheena of the Jungle and a female James Bond." His eyes were glowing with warmth. "And because I'm so damn happy you're mine. I'd sure as hell hate to go up against-" He broke off as there was a sudden shout from the other room. "Right on time. Julio is to be congratulated." Then the rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire caused him to go tense. "I think we'd better get into position. I believe we may have a visitor at any moment." He crossed to the door and stepped to the side so that he would be behind the door when it swung open. "Come over here. I don't want you in the line of fire when Mendino barrels into the room."

"In just a second. I have one more thing to do." She set the blowgun and darts on the table beside her and ran over to the window. She drew back the curtains and struggled to open the window. It wouldn't budge!

"That's not a way out. It's fifteen stories down to the street and there's no fire escape."

"But I have to open it. Julio told me to do it."

"Well, Julio is going to be disappointed." Gideon put a dart into his blowgun. "This is a recently built hotel and the windows aren't constructed to open. The curse of an air-conditioned society is that fresh air is considered obsolete."

"Oh, damn, why didn't one of us think of this." Serena stopped tugging and looked wildly about the room. The desk chair! She rushed to the Louis XV desk and dragged its bowlegged chair back to the window.

"What are you doing?'

"I told you. Julio said I was to open the window. " She picked up the chair and swung it with all her strength against the glass. It shattered, spraying shards in a sparkling shower. "I'm opening the window."

"I see you are," he said dryly. "I wish I could get you to obey my orders with such enthusiasm. Now, will you come back over here behind the door?"

"As soon as I get rid of these pieces of glass." She was knocking the remaining slivers of glass out of the pane. "There, that should do it. It wasn't so difficult. I guess-"

A key was turning in the lock!

"Oh, Lord," she whispered, turning to face the door. "I guess he heard it."

"Of course, he heard," Gideon muttered. "It was louder than the damn machine-gun fire. Quick- drop to the floor."

There was no time. Mendino was standing in the doorway, his face flushed and very ugly. There was a pistol in his hand and it was pointed straight at her. The open door made a barrier between Gideon and the colonel. Move forward, she prayed silently to herself. But Mendino simply stood there, aiming at her. Oh dear, she had to do something.

"Don't just stand there," Serena cried frantically. "Can't you see? Gideon's going to fall. I tried to stop him, but he said it was our only chance. He was going to crawl along the ledge."

Mendino's expression was arrested and then confused as his gaze went to the broken window. He took two steps into the room. It wasn't enough, but one more step would do it.

Serena kept her gaze from straying toward Gideon. It wasn't terribly difficult. Mendino's pistol seemed to fill her entire field of vision. "It's so far down there. I'm afraid he might slip and-"

Mendino took another step forward.

There was a low, whistling noise and Mendino's eyes widened and then glazed over as a tiny silver needle embedded itself in his neck. He fell to the floor, unconscious.

Gideon stepped from behind the door. "Serena, I think I may break your neck," he said grimly. "Why the hell didn't you do what I told you? What if Mendino had remembered that there wasn't a ledge?"

"Isn't there? That was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. And Julio told me to-"

"Serena, this is too much." Dane stuck his head through the opening she'd provided in the window, his eyes dancing. "When you ordered me to help Julio, you didn't tell me I'd have to do windows. I don't mind vacuuming or a little dusting, but I never do windows."

"The hell you don't." It was Julio's voice from somewhere beyond the window, but he was outside Serena's line of vision. "Will you stop chatting and get them out here? The diversion Ross and my men are providing can't cover us much longer. We were only able to smuggle four men up on the service elevator. Besides, I'm getting a nosebleed out here."

Serena took a step closer to the window. A window washer's scaffold was hanging suspended by two slender metal cords like a fragile gondola over the street far below. Dane and Julio stood on the platform gazing at her with remarkably similar expressions-mischief, excitement, and tremendous joie de uivre. "Now I know why you told me to open the window, but you never mentioned what a challenge it would be."

Julio grinned sheepishly. "How was I to know? I'm just a naive plantation owner, a regular old country boy. Where I come from, windows open."

"This one opened too." Serena found herself smiling back at him. "With a little persuasion." She glanced over her shoulder at Gideon. "Julio and Dane are going to take us for a little ride."

Gideon threw down the blowgun and picked up the gun Mendino had dropped. "Get on the scaffold. I'll be right back." He turned toward the door. "I have a little unfinished business."

"Gideon!" Serena's protest was almost a scream, but he was gone. "Oh, damn, I'm going after him."

Julio shook his head. "You heard him. I told you Gideon could take care of himself, but if he has to worry about watching after you, it may add to the danger." He held out his hand. "Step into my parlor, milady."

"But they're still shooting!" Serena wavered indecisively and then took Julio's hand and let him pull her out onto the scaffold. "If he's not here in two minutes, I'm going after him."

"Would you know what was so important that Gideon had to go back?" Julio asked.

"I have an excellent idea," Serena said with a sigh. "That lieutenant and the captain… I told Gideon it didn't matter, but I don't think I got through to him. What a time for his protective instincts to surface."

Julio's expression was suddenly as hard and relentless as Gideon's had been. "They hurt you? I didn't think there was any chance they'd be so stupid or I'd never have let you come here." He smiled and it was a sharklike baring of teeth. "Stay with her, Dane. I think I'll go and see if I can lend Gideon a hand."

"Not you too?" Serena wailed. "Has everyone here lost his sense of proportion?"

"You stay with Serena," Dane growled. "She's my sister, dammit. I should be the one who gets to go after them."

"Look, no one hurt me. The search was humiliating and degrading, but I wasn't hurt. It's over-"

"Now it's over." Gideon stood at the window, the gun shoved into the waistband of his jeans. He took Dane's hand and climbed out on the scaffold. "Let's get out of here. Mendino's men are a little confused with only a corporal to give the orders, but they're still fighting."

"What happened to the captain and the lieutenant?" Julio asked with a grin.

"They're… indisposed."

"A permanent condition?"

"I don't think so." Gideon's smile had a touch of the tiger. "But definitely a painful one."

"Can we please leave now?" Serena asked, shaking her head. "And you told me you didn't have a macho image of yourself."

"There wasn't anything macho about it." Gideon slipped an arm about her waist and grabbed onto a metal cord as Dane and Julio began to hoist the fragile scaffold up with the pulley ropes. Serena shivered as a gust of wind playfully shook the scaffold as if it were a toy. She carefully avoided looking down at the street. She had always hated those outside glass elevators and this was even worse, with not even a protective wall around them. "It was revenge. You would have done the same, if it had been me."

"No, I…" She stopped and then smiled reluctantly. "Well, maybe, but I would have chosen a more convenient time."

"I decided I might not get another chance. You might say the people of Castellano are a bit upset with the military. Those two might not have been around once the government fell."

The scaffold was now even with the roof, and Julio jumped onto the black tarred surface and then steadied the metal cord, which was fastened around the huge air-conditioning pump, as the other three left the scaffold.

"What now?" Gideon asked.

"We wait." Julio checked his watch. "But not for long, I hope."

"As long as we're not doing anything, why don't I run down and help Ross?" Dane asked. "All of this was kind of tame compared to the job you gave him."

"Tame?" Serena echoed blankly. "Blowguns, and scaffolds swinging hundreds of feet in the air? Tame?"

"Well, there's no real contact involved." Dane frowned discontentedly. "I was a little disappointed in you, Julio. I thought you'd provide more interesting entertainment."

"I'll try to do better in future," Julio said solemnly. He smothered a smile as he turned away and shaded his eyes, "You don't have to worry about Ross. His orders were to make a diversion and then get out. There wasn't much risk involved. Besides, I'm afraid you won't have time to join Ross at present." He pointed to a blue and white helicopter on the horizon. "There's our transport."

"Thank heavens," Serena murmured. All they needed was to lose Dane again.

The helicopter zoomed in, hovered, and then landed with pinpoint accuracy on the roof.

"Beautiful," Julio said admiringly. "I couldn't have done it better." He started for the helicopter. "You haven't lost your touch, Jeffrey." He opened the passenger door. "Wonderful landing, considering the wind up here."

"Wonderful landing, period," the pilot said flatly. "I thought I'd show you how it's done by the real pros, kid." His curly brown hair was torn by the wind as he stuck his head out the window. "Gideon, get them into the copter and let's move out."

Gideon, Serena, and Dane were already hurrying toward the helicopter. Julio had climbed into the seat beside the pilot, and the other three scrambled into the rear. Then the helicopter was lifting, turning, and speeding off over the rooftops of Mariba.

"Serena, Dane, this is Jeffrey Brenden," Julio said over his shoulder. "Jeffrey and I were partners in the air charter business, until he decided to retire." He grinned teasingly at the older man. "I decided he needed his red corpuscles revitalized, so I asked him to make the pickup. I didn't want the old man to get stale, vegetating on his coffee plantation."

"You asked me to make the pickup because I'm the best pilot in the Caribbean," Jeffrey corrected. "Even you would have had trouble with that wind."

"Maybe," Julio admitted. "Now let's see if you can do as good a job landing in the glade by Kate's tree house."

"A piece of cake, my boy." Jeffery smiled and turned the helicopter with faultless skill. "Just watch me."

It was almost over. Serena leaned back and closed her eyes. They were all safe, and soon it would be over. Her muscles suddenly felt as if they had dissolved into gelatin.

"All right?" Gideon's hand covered hers.

"Yes." She opened her eyes. "I guess I'm suffering from aftershock." She smiled shakily. "It's been quite a morning."

"Did you see that helicopter land?" Dane's gaze was narrowed on Julio and Jeffrey quietly bantering in the cockpit and his tone was speculative. "Smooth as glass. I wonder how it feels to be able to do that."

Serena groaned inwardly. Knowing Dane, she was very much afraid he would soon be moved to find out.

She heard Gideon's amused chuckle, and felt his clasp tighten on her hand. "It could be worse," he whispered in her ear. "Jeffrey isn't exactly a sterling role model, but he's not a smuggler any longer."

"Smuggler?" Serena repeated faintly. "I don't know why I'm even surprised. You do have the most interesting friends."

He laughed again and settled back, as the helicopter took on added speed and left the environs of Mariba.