Secret Agent Sam

Chapter 8

All hell was breaking loose behind them. Shouts, small explosions and the crackle of gunfire chased them as they zigzagged through the jungle growth, stumbling and tripping over vines and rotting logs, trying to dodge the stinging slap of ferns and fronds and branches. Then came a flash, and almost immediately after that the thump of an explosion-and then quickly two more. From the indescribable but unmistakable sounds of destruction that followed the blasts, Cory felt certain the unique bamboo house in the ravine was no more.

In the confusion he’d lost track of Fahad al-Rami, though he assumed the terrorist leader must be somewhere in the tangle ahead of them, no doubt surrounded and protected by his special cadre of security forces. Only three or four of the guards had been left behind to shepherd the three “guests,” and it was obvious the selected ones weren’t happy about it. Every time Cory tried to pause to see where Sam and Tony were, he felt the impatient thump of a rifle barrel against his back, and heard the same guttural command repeated harshly over and over. He didn’t have to understand Tagalog-or whatever dialect these people were speaking-to recognize “Go, go, go!” when he heard it. And go he did, with his head down, heart pumping, adrenaline squirting through his veins and his mind in useless turmoil.

He had no idea how long that headlong flight went on or how much territory they’d covered before he was ordered, with pushes and shoves and barked commands, to halt and crouch down in the dense undergrowth. Moments later, to his intense relief, Sam and Tony came crashing through the brush and dropped-or were pushed-down beside him. Tony’s face was glistening with a mixture of sweat and blood from a scratch over one eye. Sam’s face was unmarred but stony. The guards, meanwhile, had gone darting and leaping back the way they’d come and were hunkered down in cover a short distance away, rifles at the ready, avidly scanning the jungle for signs of pursuit.

As soon as he had his breath back, Cory rolled over, propped himself on his elbows and wheezed, “Everybody okay?”

He got all the reassurance he needed from Tony when the photographer began swearing as only he knew how. He left him muttering and fretting over his precious cameras and turned to Sam, who was sitting silently with her arms draped over her drawn-up knees, staring into the darkening canopy.

“Sam?”

She flashed him a glance that stung, and in a voice so low he could barely hear it, muttered, “Yeah, I’m fine.” She turned her face away from him then, but not before he’d registered, with a small sense of shock, the fact that she was angry.

Angry? Why in the world would she be angry? He sat without moving, the question spinning in his brain. Fear he could have understood-not that he’d have expected it, this was Sam, after all-but…rage? It didn’t make sense, but there it was: unless he was mistaken, Sam was about as furious as he’d ever seen her. And Sam-the Sam he knew-didn’t get mad. Oh, she had a temper, for sure, but she’d almost never let herself show it. She cared too much about keeping her cool, keeping it together. She’d just about rather die than let anyone see her upset, angry, hurt or scared. He understood that part of her so well, maybe because she’d developed her armor the same way he had, as a fatherless child learning to survive among unsympathetic strangers. It was, he realized, one of the things that had drawn him to her from the beginning, that intuitive recognition of a kindred soul. He’d understood her, then, better than she’d understood herself.

He wondered when all that had changed. Because he sure couldn’t say the same thing now.

Night fell with a crash, the way it does in the tropics. The guards returned from their reconnaissance, muttering amongst themselves, and the retreat through the jungle resumed, although in a somewhat more calm and orderly fashion than before.

It was the third night in a row of these moonlit treks, with only catnaps for sleep, but Sam was a long way from feeling tired. She was too angry to be tired.

Idiots!

The word had zapped through her mind when she’d heard the first spatter of gunfire, and it repeated there now like a drummer’s cadence keeping time with her plodding, crashing footsteps. Idiots-they were supposed to wait for my signal! Why didn’t they wait?

She’d given the message. She was certain it had been received and understood. Stand by.

Clearly, either the government forces hadn’t gotten the second message-the one after Target located-or they’d ignored it. Either way, they’d jumped the gun and attacked al-Rami’s hideout without waiting for her signal to move in. What were they thinking? We could all have been killed!

Even worse, Fahad al-Rami had escaped. The mission had failed. And all this-the risk of seeing Cory again, digging up old memories, stirring up so much pain-was for nothing.

In the singing, sweltering jungle night, she felt angry, and cold…and finally numb.

As nearly as Cory could tell, given the overcast skies, it was getting on towards noon when they came to the village. The smells of freshly turned earth and cooking fires assailed him the moment he emerged from the jungle into the open swath of cultivated fields, scents as rich and brown and mouthwatering as the aroma from a king’s banquet table. And carried on the breeze from somewhere out of sight, sharp and heady as wine, came the unmistakable salt tang of the sea.

“Lord, I hope that’s food I smell,” Tony said plaintively, pausing beside him to dip his head and mop his face on the shoulder of his T-shirt. “I’m so hungry I could eat a bug. Better yet-a whole lotta bugs.”

Cory grunted; his own stomach had been complaining loudly and painfully since before daybreak. Small wonder-they’d had nothing to eat or drink since the meal they’d shared with Fahad al-Rami the previous afternoon, other than some fruits they’d found growing wild in the jungle which Sam had assured him were safe to eat. He’d been hungry enough to take her word for that, but once again had been left to wonder where she’d come by such knowledge.

He looked over at her now, walking a little apart from everyone else, her gaze fixed straight ahead, her expression aloof and distant. “Any idea where we are?” he asked her in an undertone, with a wary glance at the nearest guard.

She looked up at the lowering clouds and shrugged. “We’re near the ocean. Can’t be absolutely sure, we’ve been doing quite a bit of circling and backtracking, but if I’m right, this would be the south side of the island.”

He gave her a long, meaningful look. “That would put us only a few miles from where we left the plane.”

“Yep.” She aimed an almost undetectable nod toward the right. “Wind’s coming from there, so I’m guessing that’s where the water is. That puts the plane-” she tilted the nod back toward the left “-over thataway.” She flashed him a stiff and humorless grin. “Just in case…”

Once again he didn’t question her conclusions, but as he returned her smile he felt the same nagging sense of unease that had troubled him since they’d left the house in the ravine. Truth was, for the first time since he’d known her she was a stranger to him. He couldn’t read this new Sam at all, and that bothered him. He’d always been able to tell when something was troubling her, and it had never taken much effort on his part to get her to spill what was on her mind. Which was so typical of Sam-didn’t mind telling you about her feelings, even if she did hate showing them. But now he felt certain she was shielding herself, evading, deliberately keeping secrets from him, and it came as something of a surprise to him that he found that so disturbing, and even felt vaguely wounded, as if he’d had a door politely but firmly shut in his face.

The village was as tiny and primitive as the others they’d seen, no more than a cluster of houses tucked away on the far side of the cultivated fields, nestled between the base of a mountain and a wide gully that had been cut by a river on its winding way down-to the right, Sam had been correct on that score-to a small sea cove. There wasn’t much water in the river now, this close to the end of the dry season, but when the monsoon rains began, Cory imagined it could become a raging torrent in a matter of minutes.

They crossed the gully on a swaying footbridge, their armed escort sandwiching them, two in front and two behind. As they made their way along a dusty road between haphazard clusters of houses, once again Cory saw few signs of life save for the usual placidly foraging chickens. But here, instead of a feeling of emptiness and abandonment, he had an uneasy sense of eyes watching avidly from shadowed doorways.

After passing through the village, the road narrowed to a footpath that zigzagged up a grassy slope to where a large house with a thatched roof perched, half-supported by pilings, on the side of the mountain. It had a large veranda that looked out over the village and cultivated fields, the fringe of jungle beyond, and probably even, off in the distance, a hazy glimpse of ocean.

A short distance away, to the right of the main house, Cory noted a smaller house sitting by itself in the shade of a large tree. He could just make out the figure of a man leaning against the wall in the shade on the near side of the house, cradling an automatic rifle in his arms.

He moved close to Sam and nudged her with his elbow, then nodded toward the smaller house. Without moving her lips she muttered, “I see it.”

As they approached the big house, Fahad al-Rami stepped out from the shadowed doorway and moved to the edge of the veranda. He was dressed in a white robe now, with a colorful open vest over it, sandals on his feet and on his head an Indonesian-style cap similar to the one he’d been wearing before. Above the graying beard his cheekbones looked gaunt, and his eyes were sunk deep in shadowed sockets.

“Now you see what I and my people must endure,” he said, his voice cold and austere, looking down upon them as he might an invasion of cockroaches. Al-Rami almost spat words as he continued, “Persecution by government forces, aided by your American army rangers, is constant and unrelenting. Every day my people mourn the slaughter of our innocents-old people, women and children. Where are your highly touted ideals? Your concern for human rights? Your so-called Geneva Convention? Pah-I would be entirely justified in holding you three as my prisoners-hostages, if you wish-to secure freedom for my people and the withdrawal of all invaders from our lands.”

He made an angry gesture with his hand as he turned, and said on a regretful exhalation, “But…I have given my word and I will honor it. Again, I offer you the hospitality of my house. Please-come. Rest and refresh yourselves. Food is being prepared for you. Tomorrow my men will return you safely to your plane.” With that, he stepped back through the doorway and disappeared inside the house.

“Well,” Tony said brightly, looking around at his companions, “I feel all warm and fuzzy-how ’bout you guys?”

Cory let out the breath he’d been holding. “We should probably consider ourselves lucky,” he said dryly. Lucky we’re here, and not in that other house-the one with the armed guard.

He was just glad he’d gotten the interview pretty much wrapped. Not that he’d wouldn’t have liked to spend more time with his subject, maybe get him to let his guard down and open up a little, maybe get some personal stuff. But it looked as though what he already had on tape and in his notes-and Tony’s photos, of course-was going to have to do, and he was grateful enough for that.

Yeah, and all I have to do is get the material-and us-safely out of this place. When I’ve done that, maybe I’ll be able to breathe again.

“Might not be the best time to bring up those other hostages again, either,” Sam said in an expressionless undertone as they mounted wooden steps to the veranda.

Cory wanted to glance at her to see if she was needling him, but he didn’t, and made do with a noncommittal snort instead. Yeah, breathe again, he told himself. And think about other things.

Once again Sam was taken to a room segregated from the men-not that she minded; the privacy was welcome, and she’d reconciled herself to these people’s attitude toward women. It was just that-and oh, how she hated to admit it-she was beginning to feel annoying twinges of anxiety whenever she had to let Cory out of her sight.

Childish. The hated word whispered derisively in the back corners of her mind. Maybe he was right about you, Sammi June.

Except she knew he wasn’t. Never had been, really, and especially not now. It wasn’t for herself she felt anxious, but for him-for Cory. For Tony, too, of course, but Cory was…well. Face it, Samantha June, you still love him. Okay, she did-but even if that wasn’t true, she’d have plenty of cause to be worried about two civilians running around in the middle of a fire-fight, getting caught in the crossfire. Not that both Cory and Tony weren’t experienced when it came to being in battle zones; they were war reporters, after all. But they hadn’t had the training she’d had. Not by a long shot. And if anything happens to him out here…how will I live with that?

Anyway, for better or worse she was alone again, in a room that looked less like something out of the Arabian Nights and more like your basic primitive jungle hooch, with a sleeping mat on the floor and a lashed-bamboo table and chair shoved against the wall under an open and unscreened window. A patterned curtain drawn across one end of the room hid the pre-indoor-plumbing equivalent of a private bathroom: a basin of water sitting on a low bamboo bench, and on the floor, an empty pail. There were towels on the bench, too, and a folded garment that turned out to be a robe, the wraparound kind that closes with a belt tie, made of a heavy white cotton material that reminded her of martial arts uniforms.

She stripped and made use of both the basin and the bucket, then dried herself and put on the robe. It felt stiff and unforgiving against her skin, and chafed her unprotected nipples. When, she wondered, had they become so sensitive? The time of the month, maybe? Hormones, or her mind wandering where it had no business being, poking into long-buried memories and reawakening old yearnings?

She’d just finished folding her dusty sweat-and grass-stained clothing into an untidy pile and was considering whether to ask someone for enough water to rinse them out with, when there came a discreet knock on the door. She opened it to find a young girl of maybe twelve or thirteen, dressed in a patterned wrap skirt and long-sleeved tunic, with her head covered by a scarf and a single long braid hanging down her back. She was holding a tray on which were several covered dishes and the usual teapot, bowls and eating utensils. With eyes carefully averted, she entered, crossed the room to the table and set the tray down, then turned and, before Sam could even thank her, bent and scooped up the pile of dirty clothes, gave a quick little bow and scurried out, all without saying a word.

“Huh-maid service,” Sam said aloud to herself as she went to close the door. Then she had to use all the self-control she had in her to keep from falling on the food tray like a starving wolf.

She felt much better after she’d eaten all she could possibly hold of the customary offering of rice and vegetables and fruit, washed down with several cups of tea. Well enough that her mind could begin functioning again on more than just the most primitive level.

She wondered if Cory and Tony had been given trays in their room-rooms?-or whether they’d been invited to dine again with their infamous host, Fahad al-Rami. She wondered if Cory would dare to ask again about the hostages-the Lundquists. She wondered whether it really was the Lundquists in that house the soldier was guarding.

She wondered if it was time to send another target-located signal. And if she did, whether this time the government forces would obey her order to stand by.

Ripples of anger coursed through her when she thought about what had almost happened back at the house in the ravine. If it hadn’t been for Fahad al-Rami’s sentries and a well-planned escape route, we might all be dead right now. Those idiots!

No. She wouldn’t send the signal, not yet. Cory and Tony were exhausted-so was she, though she hated to admit it. Tomorrow would be soon enough, after they’d all had a chance to rest. After they’d had a chance to find out whether the hostages were in that smaller house, and whether there was any chance at all Fahad al-Rami might be convinced to turn them over. Tomorrow would be soon enough to risk another government attack and headlong flight for their lives.

Though it was only midafternoon, a full stomach, clean clothes and sleep deprivation were beginning to have a predictable effect on her. The sleeping mat was looking a lot less austere-downright seductive, in fact. And she thought, Well, shoot, why not? Nothing was likely to happen today anyway, and she wasn’t going anywhere dressed in a damn bathrobe, so she might as well nap.

She lay down, expecting to fall asleep instantly, thinking as tired as she was, she ought to be able to sleep anywhere, no matter what-even on the floor. But instead she found that, now that she was lying down trying to sleep, she no longer felt sleepy at all. Her body felt hot and tense; her skin crawled and prickled, as though all her nerve endings had gone on full battle alert and, like nervous sentries, were overreacting to the slightest sensation. She felt her heart beating in remote parts of her body, and heard her blood whooshing through the arteries in her head. Her mind followed the path of each breath, through her nostrils, down into her lungs and back again; she was aware of every molecule of moisture that welled up through her pores.

The chafe of clothing was intolerable; she longed to throw off the stiff cotton robe and lie naked with only the caress of warm, humid air on her body…but there was no lock on her door and what if someone came in and found her like that? And anyway it wouldn’t be enough, because part of her would still be touching the mat. How wonderful it would be, she thought, to be weightless, if only for this moment…to float suspended, rocked by a gentle sea…and the cool kiss of water on her skin. She longed for…yearned for…

She sat up suddenly, then collapsed back onto the mat, arms over her eyes, writhing in chagrin. Oh, hell, she thought, I know what this is. It’s him I want. The caress I’m longing for…the kiss…it’s Cory’s.

It had been so many years since she’d felt like this, but she remembered it now-it all came back to her. The frustration…the yearning…the bewilderment. I want him so much…I know he wants me, too…why won’t he make love to me? And then the anger, too. I’m eighteen, damn it-a grown woman. Plenty old enough to know what I want!

Old enough, yes, but without the experience and confidence to take the initiative, to go after what she wanted. What if I fail? What if he turns me down? Her pride wouldn’t let her take that chance.

Until the day something awoke inside her-a voice scolding, Samantha June, your mama didn’t raise you to be a coward! If you want the man bad enough, you just might have to sacrifice a little pride.

She remembered it so well. It had been November, the weekend of her nineteenth birthday, her first birthday since her dad had come back from the dead. Her birthday was on Friday, and that afternoon Cory had driven over from Atlanta to pick her up from school and take her to Grandma’s house, where her parents were staying while their new house was being built over near Augusta. There’d been a huge party-naturally all the aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws had been there, because any excuse for a family get-together, right? It had been great, though, having both her dad and Cory there, one of the happiest days she could remember in a long, long time.

The only cloud in Sammi June’s sky that day had been the knowledge that it was Cory’s last weekend in Atlanta. On Sunday he was catching a plane to New York, and after that he’d be going off on assignment, back to the Middle East-and hadn’t he had enough of that place? She knew it was his job to be where the danger was, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible might happen to him over there, and if it did, she was never going to see him again. Never have a chance to know what it would be like to make love with him.

Or maybe that was just an excuse because she’d been wanting him to make love to her for months, and she was nineteen, now, and tired of waiting.

Whatever the reason, on Saturday afternoon when Cory was dropping her off at her dorm, she asked him to wait for her while she took her birthday loot up to her room, because, she said, she had a surprise for him. And boy, did she. When she came back downstairs she was wearing a little black dress that hit her about eight inches above her knees, and high heels made mostly of see-through plastic, and she’d put her hair up on top of her head. She even had on earrings, which she never wore. She’d spent most of the birthday money she hadn’t even gotten yet on that outfit, but it had been worth it, because the look on Cory’s face when he saw her in it was priceless.

She’d brought her soccer sports bag with her-which didn’t exactly go with her outfit, but it was all she had to put her overnight stuff in-and she told Cory, since it was his last night in Georgia for a while, she wanted to take him out and “do Atlanta.”

He’d said, “I didn’t know there was anything to do in Atlanta.” And she’d replied, with a sexy and wicked smile, “Have you ever been to Underground Atlanta?”

So they’d joined the Saturday-night crowds strolling the underground mall, and they’d eaten dinner and danced to live music, and Sam was careful not to drink anything except diet soda because she didn’t want Cory to think she was doing this just because she was drunk.

By the time they headed back to Cory’s apartment-the apartment CNN let him use whenever he was in town-her feet were killing her, and she’d taken off her high heels and was carrying them in her hand. Her heart was thumping and butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach as she rode up in the elevator beside Cory, his arm just brushing hers and her whole body vibrating nervously inside that little black dress.

The elevator doors opened, and she could hear laughter and music, with a thumping bass that crawled through the floors and walls and went in through the soles of her bare feet and joined up with the rhythms of her own pulse beat. Evidently, someone a couple of doors down the hall was having one hell of a party.

Cory had apologized for the noise while he unlocked the door and showed her inside the apartment. Then he’d closed the door, shutting out most of the racket-all but that bass. He turned back to her, and she could see it in his eyes-she just knew what he was thinking. And before he could even suggest making up that couch for himself to sleep on, she dropped her sexy shoes and her soccer bag on the floor and stepped up to him and laced her fingers behind his neck.

“Actually, the noise is good,” she’d murmured, her lips so close to his they tingled. “It makes a good cover.”

“Mmm…cover…for what?” His voice had sounded faint and shaken-and she knew that he knew. And she’d felt something inside herself grow strong and sure.

From that well of confidence a laugh bubbled up, one she’d never heard from herself before-husky and deep-throated…a woman’s laugh. “What do you think?” she’d said, and then she’d kissed him.

She’d kissed him until she’d felt his muscles begin to quiver and his breathing quicken, and his hands slip around her waist as though they didn’t have the will to do otherwise. Then, still kissing him, she took her hands from around his neck and reached behind her and pulled the zipper on the little black dress all the way down. The dress slithered to the floor, and she was wearing only a very tiny pair of black lace panties.

“My God…Sam…” His voice had sounded strangled. “Are you sure-”

She’d silenced him with a finger across his lips. “Shut up, Pearse,” she’d said fiercely. “Don’t make me have to kill you.”

He’d chuckled then, the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. “Not a chance,” he’d growled. And after that there was no more talking.

He kisses me and I know it’s going to be all right, I can leave it to him, now, and a good thing, too, because this is about as far as my vast knowledge and experience can take me. I’m shaking, appalled and amazed at this thing I’ve done, the tremendous risk I’ve taken. But proud, too, and glad, and so very, very relieved…

He kisses me and his hands are on my body, so passionate and sure, touching me in ways he never has before, but so gently, too, and his tenderness tells me as nothing else could that this is important to him, as important and momentous and miraculous and terrifying as it is to me. And I understand, finally, that the reason he hasn’t made love to me before is only because he loves me. I understand that by waiting for me to come to him, without pressure or hesitation, he has given me the most amazing gift, and my heart fills with so much love it overwhelms me and tears rush into my eyes before I can stop them. This is a very special man, I tell myself, awed. An incredible, wonderful, amazing man…and he is mine.

He kisses me, and I him, and my body shudders with joy and awe and wonder and fear, all of those, but at the same time I feel safe and cared for, and suddenly this-everything-every part of him seems so precious to me, I feel a terrible stab of panic at the thought of ever losing it. I rub my face against him and breathe him in, and I love the way he smells…run my hands over his body and tangle my legs with his, and I love the silky slide of his skin on mine…I wrap my arms around him and feel his body’s weight and warmth embrace me, and I love the thump of his heart against my breasts, and the quiver of his muscles, and the strong, solid feel of his bones. And I know that I can trust this man absolutely and without reservation, and that I always will.

I hear the belly-deep growl of his voice against my ear: “Sam…” Just that, and it’s a poem, a sonnet, a hymn, a prayer and a question.

I answer with only one word: “Yes…”

Cory woke to the crash of thunder. He lay for a moment, jangled and clammy, haunted by dreams already slipping beyond recall, the menacing shouts and thumps and bangs of the dreams so rapidly overtaken and usurped by the cracks and crashes outside his open window he forgot they’d ever been at all. Then, because they were sometimes in his dreams as well, he thought, Explosions! Mortar rounds! Incoming! But in the next instant the room lit with flickering blue-white light, and the crack and rolling rumble that followed a moment later sent a new fear racing through him like a cold wind. Monsoon.

It had been his greatest fear-hard to remember that, now-that the rains would come before he was able to complete the interview with Fahad al-Rami and get the hostages safely away and off the island. Discovering that Sam-his Samantha-was the person whose responsibility it would be to get them off the island safely had only deepened his sense of dread. Not that he’d ever doubted her ability to do so; it just made the stakes, in case anything did go wrong, that much higher. Now, though, as a wild rushing sound filled the night, he felt a strange, almost fatalistic sense of calm. That was the thing about weather, he thought-there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. Whatever disasters it brought simply had to be dealt with.

He lay with his eyes closed, listening to it, one forearm across his brow, the thump of his own pulse and the roar of the rain filling his ears, drowning all other sounds, even Tony’s snores from the other side of the room. So it was that he never heard the creak of the opening door…the soft brush of bare feet crossing the wood plank floor.