Secret Agent Sam

Chapter 9

In the darkness and heat and humidity of the night he hadn’t felt her warmth or sensed her presence. The only warning he had came with the rasp of coarse cotton fabric against his side. Something brushed across his face, and instinctively he shot out a hand and his fingers closed around a wrist, one with strong and sturdy bones, but slender nonetheless. A woman’s wrist.

He heard the sharp hiss of indrawn breath, then a husky gurgle of laughter and a whispered, “Nothing wrong with your reflexes, Pearse.”

“Sam.” His heart was knocking so hard against his ribs he wondered it didn’t do itself damage, but he sought to keep his voice calm. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little storm.”

Her snort blew a puff of warmth across his cheek. “You know me better’n that-I’m a Georgia girl.” He felt her settle herself along his side, and her murmured drawl was smug. “Just thought…be a shame to waste all this noise. Makes a good cover…”

His mind lurched, spilling a memory from his distant past. He groped for it, his heart racing, his skin rippling where she touched him. “Cover?” he said weakly. “For what?”

Her hand skimmed lightly across his chest. “What do you think?” she replied, and her voice was not quite steady.

“My God, Sam…” The powerful sense of déjà vu made him wonder if this was real, or if he could possibly still be asleep…dreaming. “Are you sure?”

He heard a husky sound that might have been laughter. “Shut up, Pearse, don’t make me have to kill you,” she said fiercely, and the memory tumbled into his mind and unfurled in full light and living color.

No longer in doubt, he growled, “Not a chance,” and raised himself to meet her.

The kiss was fierce and wild, the clash of two hungry and frustrated souls-not like his memory of that first sweet, wondering time, when they’d touched each other with such awe, lost in a daze of happiness, like children discovering the gift of their dreams on Christmas morning.

And yet…there was something of the same feeling inside him…a remembered sense of amazement and disbelief, almost, that such a miracle should have been granted to him. Back then, the miracle was that this incredible woman had chosen to give herself to him, when he’d never dared to imagine such a possibility for himself-had certainly never looked for it, and had in fact spent his adult life to that point insulating himself against the likelihood that it might happen to him.

But now… Now, it seemed lightning had struck him again, because the woman he thought he’d lost forever was back in his life, and inexplicably had once again chosen to give herself to him. For reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, he was being granted a second chance. If only this time he could figure out how to get it right.

“You’re naked,” she whispered, pulling back a little as she combed her fingers down his chest, grazing his skin with her nails so that he rippled inside where she’d touched him, like water when the wind passes over it.

“And you’re not,” he whispered back, voice choppy with his fractured breath.

“No problem.” He felt a rasp of heavy fabric and a flurry of humid air, and then her warmth and softness covering him from chest to thighs, and his body was remembering her contours, their two bodies melding with the ease and gladness of two old friends meeting again after far too many years.

“Aren’t you afraid someone might see you?” he asked with a bump and a smile in his voice as he let his hands follow their well-remembered path over the dip of her waist…the swell of her bottom. Because he already knew the answer, even before he felt her jerk back like an affronted cat. Afraid? Not my Sam. Fearless Sam!

“Who’s going to see us-Tony?” she scoffed. “You said it-he sleeps through everything. Besides-it’s pitch-dark in-” And she gasped as, with magnificent timing, the room lit up with blue-white light and turned her lovely body to silver.

It looked, he thought, as though it should be hard and cold to the touch, like an elegant sculpture in marble or alabaster, but instead she was all firm and giving softness and a fierce, vibrant heat that radiated from somewhere inside her and reached deep into his very core.

In the flickering light her face seemed to come down to his bit by bit, in little jerks and starts that matched the uneven rhythms of his heart, and the rocky rumble of the thunder outside was a growling he felt deep in his chest and belly. Too impatient to wait for her to come to him, he lifted his head and found her mouth, then gasped as passions ignited inside him with a power that threatened to tear him apart. And somewhere in the chaos of his mind a thought flashed clear:

What made me think anyone could take the place of this woman in my life? This woman-Samantha-is the only one…the only one…for me.

He held her as tightly as he dared, quaking with the violence of his emotions, and felt her legs align and twine themselves with his, and her body flow up and over his like liquid fire. Then, with one strong and joyful surge he rolled her under him, and when he entered her, he felt like a lost traveler coming home.

He heard her sharp cry, quickly stifled, and then her body shook beneath him and he realized she was laughing, that broken little chuckle of sheer relief and gladness. Tenderly, he lowered his mouth to hers again and tasted the salty-sweetness of tears.

But when, overwhelmed, he pulled back a little with her name on his lips, she made a fierce growling sound and surged upward and claimed his mouth again with what seemed a terrible urgency. And he knew at once, as he’d always known in the old times, what she wanted to tell him.

Don’t say a word, Pearse. Don’t talk, don’t think, not about the past, or what happens tomorrow…just make love to me now.

So that’s what he did. And there was a sweet and desperate joy to their loving he knew he was going to remember for the rest of his life.

Sam slipped away from him sometime before dawn, in a silence that told him more than words that she was determined to make what had just happened between them an anomaly, an isolated incident under special circumstances, like a wartime one-night stand. There must be no word spoken of this tomorrow, no acknowledging glances, no remembering blushes, and above all, no expectations.

Cory let out a careful breath and smiled to himself in the darkness.

Think again, Sam.

He awoke to a gray, dripping morning and a state of mind that could best be described as chaotic. The rainy season had indeed begun. Outside the unshuttered window, clouds lay low on the mountaintops and instead of feeling weighed down by humidity, the air was lively with the sounds of water on the move-plops and whispers as it dripped from leaves and the thatched roofs of houses, and the muted and distant roar of runoff racing down the river’s course, past the village and down to the sea. And within Cory there was a similar restlessness, an urgent desire to be somewhere else, an itchy sense of things not done, missions not yet accomplished.

For starters, he had yet to learn the whereabouts of the missionary couple held hostage for nearly a year. And he had still to get himself and his crew, along with the material gathered from the interview with Fahad al-Rami-and, he hoped, Harold and Esther Lundquist-back to the plane and safely off the island. And although he couldn’t afford to forget, ignore or minimize the danger they were all in, at the same time he couldn’t deny the small glowing core of hope and optimism hidden away deep in his heart this morning like a secret treasure, and the name that repeated in his mind like a phrase from a well-loved song.

Samantha…

Of course, he knew last night hadn’t really changed anything, and that he and Sam still had big problems to work out, issues to deal with before there could be any real hope for them of a future together. Which was all the more reason why he was eager to put this assignment behind him, so he could concentrate on what he was beginning to realize might just be the most important mission of his life: winning back Sam.

To that end, his first priority this morning would have to be the Lundquists. Like it or not, he was going to have to broach that touchy subject with an already ticked-off terrorist named Fahad al-Rami.

He dragged himself up off of his sleeping mat and stretched away some of the inevitable stiffness-and a contradictory and slightly guilty sense of satisfaction and well-being-then dressed in his own clothes. He’d found them along with Tony’s, now clean and smelling strongly of lye and woodsmoke, lying folded and neatly stacked beside two pairs of mud-free boots just outside the door of their room. He fidgeted restlessly while he waited for Tony to get himself up and dressed, and was about to go in search of food and al-Rami-in whatever order he found them-when there was an imperative knock on the door. It was one of the guards, of course, summoning them at the order of their leader.

He and Tony were ushered, in the usual preemptory way, through the quiet house and out onto the veranda, where they found Fahad al-Rami seated at a small rattan table, a basket of fruit and the inevitable teapot arrayed in front of him. Sam joined them there a moment later, also dressed in her own clothes and looking wide awake and fully alert. Her hair was wet and beginning to curl in little dark commas on her forehead and behind her ears, and at the sight of her flushed cheeks and long, moisture-glazed throat, Cory felt juices pool at the back of his mouth, like a hungry man smelling good things to eat.

As he’d known she would, she took great care to avoid meeting his eyes.

Al-Rami waved them to the empty chairs that had been set around the table. When they were seated, he made casual morning small talk while he offered refreshment and served tea all around, inquiring like any good host as to the comfort of their quarters and the quality of their night’s sleep.

And even while he cringed inwardly with his delicious and secret guilt-and wondered whether Sam might be doing the same-Cory couldn’t help but marvel at the incongruity of the little scene: A man with so much blood on his hands-some would say an evil man, a monster, even-prim as an English spinster, calmly pouring out tea.

After an interval filled with chitchat that, given the circumstances, must to a casual observer have seemed downright absurd, Cory put down his cup, pushed it away and leaned forward, clearing his throat. “Sheik al-Rami,” he began, the title of respect coming easily to his lips, though he noted Sam’s small start-of objection, he wondered, or surprise? “Forgive me for introducing a serious subject into such a pleasant and congenial morning, but as I mentioned before, I am extremely concerned about the couple you are holding-”

Al-Rami cut him off with an imperious wave of his hand. “You refer, of course, to the so-called missionaries, spreaders of your Western propaganda-the Lundquists. I have given a great deal of thought to your…suggestion.” He picked up his teacup, eyes hooded, expression aloof. “I’m afraid what you are asking me to do-” And then he paused with the cup halfway to his lips, as if thinking about what he would say next.

Cory waited for him to go on, as did everyone else at the table. But al-Rami didn’t continue, and an instant later, in that listening silence, Cory understood why. The terrorist leader, too, was listening, to a faint and distant sound…coming steadily closer.

Next to him, Sam whispered, “Choppers,” on the gust of an exhalation. As she pushed herself away from the table Cory thought he heard her swear violently under her breath, and mutter, “Not again, damn you…”

On his other side, Tony was hurriedly draping himself with his bags and cameras, all the while blaspheming as only he could. Meanwhile Cory, though aware that al-Rami had placed his cup carefully in its saucer and was rising to his feet, kept his eyes fixed on the village, where people were erupting from the thatched-roofed houses like ants from a disturbed nest. He heard shouts coming from that direction, and the crackle of gunfire. Then…the steady thump of chopper rotors as two helicopter gunships lifted above the distant treetops. Across the cultivated fields, men began to emerge from the cover of the jungle.

Fahad al-Rami’s deep-set eyes swept over the three still seated at the table, lashing them with a cold black rage. Cory was sure the hatred in those eyes would haunt his nightmares in the days and weeks to come. Then al-Rami whirled, and in two long strides, crossed the veranda and vanished into the house.

“He’s probably got an escape route out the back.” Sam’s voice was low and urgent, more compelling than a shout. The pops and crackles of gunfire seemed closer already; some of al-Rami’s men were working their way up the slope, turning now and then to fire back on the advancing government forces. Small explosions had begun to blossom in the road leading to the village. Near the river a thatched roof erupted in flames.

“Come on, let’s go-quick-before we lose him.” Sam was already on her feet, lunging for the doorway. Tony was right behind her-though naturally he had to pause first to aim his camera and click away at the chaos breaking out below.

“Wait-” Cory caught Sam’s arm, stopping her in midstride. “What if they’re in there?” His voice was an urgent rasp as he jerked his head toward the small house perched on its stubby stilts fifty yards away across the hillside. The guard they’d seen yesterday was nowhere in sight. “The Lundquists-we can’t just leave them there. They could be hit-killed.”

She gave him a long, furious glare, then abruptly nodded. “Okay, dammit-you’re right.” She pivoted, and instead of ducking into the house, headed for the far end of the veranda.

Once again Cory caught her arm. “Wait-it’s too dangerous. You guys stay here. Let me go. If they’re in there, I’ll-”

“Like hell you will,” Sam snapped, jerking herself free of his grasp. “What if they need help?” And she was already jumping down off of the veranda, her voice bumpy and breathless as she landed in a crouch on the wet grass. She paused to glare up at him. “What if they can’t walk?”

“Fine-we’ll all go,” Cory grunted as he dropped down beside her, knowing it was no use arguing with her anyway. He looked up at Tony. “Unless you’d rather stay-”

Tony peered down at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Are you kiddin’ me, man? Here-hold this…” He handed down his camera, then lowered himself carefully over the side of the veranda, corralling his assortment of bags with one hand. He landed awkwardly, but was grinning as he reclaimed his camera. “You think I’m gonna miss a possible ‘Dr. Livingston, I presume?’ moment? What kind of photojournalist you think I am? Come on, man. I’m thinkin’ Pulitzer, here.”

“Think about staying alive,” Sam snapped. “Keep your head down and run like hell-zigzag! Okay, come on-let’s go, go go!”

And she was off, running like a flushed rabbit, leaping and dodging in an erratic course across the slope toward the little house under the tree. There was nothing for Cory to do but follow her, while trying his best not to think about the thump of explosions and the pop-pop-pop of automatic weapons’ fire all around him. Trying not to think about bullets tearing into the soft and lovely body he still carried in his memory the way he’d seen it last: lit by a flash of lightning to the pristine whiteness of marble.

Then they were there, all three of them, breathing hard and taking stock, backs flattened against the same wall where yesterday they’d seen the bored guard lounging in the meager midday shade.

“Everybody okay?” Sam asked. Barely waiting for two confirming grunts, she spun away again, disappearing around the uphill corner of the house. Cory followed, and found her crouched beside a narrow door. She looked up at him and nodded. He reached across her head to pound on the door with his fist, at the same time shouting, “Hello! Is anybody in there?”

He paused to listen, but the explosions and gunfire were almost continuous now, and he couldn’t be sure…

“I think I heard voices,” Sam said in a low, tense voice. She straightened up and moved aside while Cory tried the door.

He wasn’t surprised to find it locked. He knocked again, then said tersely, “We’ll have to kick it down.”

Sam gave him a sardonic look. “You ever tried doing that? Believe me, it’s not as easy as they make it look on TV.”

“You got a better idea?”

“No, dammit.”

“Okay,” said Cory, glancing over at her, “how ’bout we do it together-the two of us? You’re the athlete-your legs are probably stronger than mine anyway.”

“Okay.” She drew herself up tall beside him and threw him a grin, eyes bright with challenge. “On three-my count. One…two…three!”

The impact hurt in every bone and joint in his body. It jarred his molars together and made his eyeballs vibrate in their sockets. But when he was able to focus again, he saw the door hanging crooked on its hinges, the screws having come loose from the half-rotten frame. With a great surge of triumph, he shoved the door aside with his shoulder and stepped into the tiny house, his heart pounding now with dread at what he might see.

The single room was dim, but in the rectangle of light streaming past the broken door he could see two people kneeling motionless on a mat made of thatching. They appeared to be middle-aged, a man and a woman, both extremely thin and dressed in almost identical ragged dungarees and T-shirts. The woman’s hair was mostly gray-perhaps it had once been blond-and hung past her haggard face in two thin braids. The man looked as if he had once been strong and robust, with a tall frame and sturdy bones. Now his shoulders were stooped, and his gray hair, thinned to almost nothing on top, had been pulled into a scraggly ponytail. His full beard was scraggly, too, and more white than gray. The two knelt facing each other, hands tightly clasped between them, heads bowed…nearly touching…eyes closed, lips moving. Praying.

Something lurched inside Cory’s chest. As he moved toward the couple, still huddled on their mat of rushes, he could hear Tony’s camera clicking and whirring behind him, and was aware that Sam had pushed past them both and had gone to peer out the single tiny window that overlooked the valley.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lundquist?” he said huskily, his chest so tight he could hardly speak.

Two pairs of eyes flew open and two faces swiveled toward him…wide eyes in bewildered faces. They stared at him like people who’d been roughly awakened from a sound sleep.

Cory dropped down on one knee beside them, heart pounding. “Are you…Harold and Esther Lundquist?”

“Oh…my goodness,” the woman said, and her voice was faint but musical. “You’re real. I was sure I must be dreaming…”

“Praise God…” It sighed from the man’s lips like a breath of wind.

“Are you okay? Can you walk?” Cory spoke to them rapidly, urgently, touching each one on the arm, half-afraid they might break apart when he did that, they seemed so frail and fragile. “We need to get you out of here. The village is about to be overrun. By government forces, but I’m afraid right now they’re in a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later mode. Do you think you can-”

“Yes, yes-of course.” Harold Lundquist lurched to his feet and helped his wife up. He stood staring at Cory, still clutching his wife’s hand and swaying slightly, stooped over like an old, old man. “But…” he said in a puzzled voice, “who are you?”

“They’re Americans, Hal.” Esther Lundquist’s weathered face was beatific, wreathed in joy.

“Yes, but…surely not…military?” Her husband threw a doubtful glance at Sam, who was still standing vigil at the window in what struck Cory at that moment as a decidedly military manner, even though, oddly, her hair shone like an angel’s halo in the light.

“We’re journalists,” he explained, nodding toward Tony. “Sam over there’s our pilot. We came to do an interview with al-Rami. This is the second time he’s come under attack since we’ve been here.”

“Yes, that does happen quite a lot,” Esther said softly.

“The first time they hustled us away under guard, but I guess this time they must have had other things on their minds. Anyway, we seem to be pretty much on our own. So, if you’re-”

“I hate to break up this tea party,” Sam broke in, in a hard, brittle voice as she turned away from the window, “but if we’re going to get out of here, it’d better be now.” As if to punctuate that, something-a shell? a grenade?-exploded close by, bringing a rain of debris pattering down from the thatch overhead.

Harold jerked as if the explosion had jump-started his engine. Muttering breathlessly, “Oh-certainly-yes, of course…” he bent and scooped up a small bundle wrapped in what appeared to be large leaves and stuffed it into a metal pot with a wire handle. Tied to the handle was a section of rope, which he looped over his shoulder and around his neck, the same way Tony carried his camera bags. Esther, meanwhile, was doing the same thing, in nearly perfect concert with her husband and with an efficiency that suggested a routine they’d both practiced many times before. In seconds, both Lundquists had slipped into sandals that had been neatly arranged on the floor near the mat of thatching, and were following Sam and Tony outside past the precariously leaning door.

Cory joined them just as Harold reached out with one long spiderlike arm and caught hold of Sam’s shoulder. “Perhaps you’d better let us go first,” he said in his breathless way.

His wife was nodding eagerly. “Yes-we know where the booby traps are, you see.”

“Booby traps!”

“They have all their hideouts ringed with them,” Harold explained.

“But,” Esther chimed in, the lines on her face deepening with her smile, “we’ve been in and out so many times, we’re quite familiar with the safe route-aren’t we, Hal?”

“Well, yes,” Hal said, looking thoughtful, “unless they’ve changed something since the last time.”

“Uh…guys?” Sam said, as gunfire crackled and bullets spattered into the banana trees nearby.

“Well, then,” said Esther as she took her husband’s hand, “we’ll just have to let the good Lord guide our footsteps, won’t we?” And they beamed at each other as they set off through the chaos of battle, like children on an outing.

“Do you believe these two?” Sam’s voice was bumpy as she ran. “What do they think this is, a Sunday-school picnic?”

“They’ve survived this for nearly a year,” Cory reminded her. “Must have something going for them.”

“You know what they say,” Tony said, panting. “Who is it the Lord’s supposed to look after? Fools, drunks and little children?”

“Yeah?” Cory managed to gasp. “Which one do you think they are?”

“Or…angels. Okay, yeah, maybe it’s angels. Drunks, fools and-”

“Will you two shut up?” Sam yelled. “At least ’til we’re through bein’ shot at?”

Cory could see her point, since bullets were even then zapping into foliage and thumping into tree trunks not all that far away. Not to mention, there were those booby traps. For the next several minutes he concentrated on keeping his head down and following in the exact footsteps of the poor helpless hostages he’d just rescued.

Sam had gone way past angry. What she was feeling now was…well, she didn’t know what to call it-fatalistic disgust, maybe?

Dammit, she’d done her best. Done everything she was supposed to do. If everybody else involved had done the same, Fahad al-Rami would be dead or in the hands of Philippine forces-maybe on his way to United States custody-by now, his organization in disarray. Cory would be on his way back to Manila with one hell of an interview, Tony with some really great pictures, and the Lundquists…Well, she didn’t really want to think about the Lundquists, because if everybody had done what they were supposed to, they’d probably still be in that hut back there, and subject to whatever reprisals the remnants of his organization might choose to take for the loss of Fahad al-Rami.

Still, this morning was the last straw. Really. Dammit, she’d thought long and hard before sending that signal, wondering if she dared risk another screwup. Finally, she’d gone with her orders and sent the damn message-the same as last time: Target located. Stand by. And not half an hour later…

In fact…now she thought about it, half an hour wasn’t really enough time for her message to have made it to Will, then through all the layers of command, down to the special ops forces here on the island. More likely, then, the government troops had tracked them through the jungle from the ravine camp. Or, maybe it was just happenstance-this particular village hideout had been the object of a random raid.

Either way, the damage was done. God only knew where Fahad al-Rami was now; the quarry had flown, slipped through the net yet again. She had another job to concentrate on now. She still had to get four civilians, including the man she loved-yes, loved, dammit!-off this wretched island alive and in one piece.

They’d left the noise of battle far behind them when the rain came again. It fell hard and straight, with a rush that drowned all other sounds, and shrouded the jungle and everything in it in a veil of silver.

Ahead, through the curtain of water, Cory could see the Lundquists veering suddenly off the rough trail they’d been following to take shelter among the roots of an enormous tree-a banyan, he thought, or a strangler fig. He’d never really been sure which was which, but it had roots running like pillars from its huge spreading branches to the jungle floor.

“Come on in, make yourselves comfortable,” Esther called as they caught up with her, peering between the roots like a gracious hostess in a frilly apron inviting visitors onto her front porch. “It’s all right-we should be past the booby traps here.”

Cory would have been happier without that equivocal should, but with rain sluicing down the back of his neck and dripping off the end of his nose, he decided he was willing to take the chance.

“Find yourselves a dry spot,” Esther went cheerfully on. “Just poke around a bit before you settle in, to chase away any snakes that might be in residence.”

“Great,” Tony muttered, wiping water from his face with a swipe of his hand as he edged nervously between the roots. “Do you know how much I hate snakes?”

Howard Lundquist was still out in the downpour; having broken off a dishpan-sized leaf from a nearby plant roughly the size of a minivan, he was laying it out on the ground, turned upside-down to catch the rain. Esther, meanwhile, had unwrapped her leaf bundle and was taking out a section of bamboo that Cory could see had been fashioned into a cup.

“You must be thirsty,” she said kindly, offering the cup to Sam, with a gesture toward the rapidly filling leaf-basin. “Please-help yourself to a drink of water.”

The reporter in Cory was fascinated, thinking of all the questions he wanted to ask, eager to explore more of the contents of those intriguing bundles, wanting to find out how, exactly, these two middle-aged people had managed to survive in these conditions for nearly a year and keep not only their sanity but their humanity and good humor as well. He actually envied Tony, who had already taken a camera from its waterproof bag and was clicking avidly away.

But Cory had other questions more urgently in need of answers. Life-and-death questions. His journalist’s curiosity would have to wait.

Though-still thinking like a journalist for the moment-“You still got the tapes?” he asked Tony in an undertone.

“Yep-safe and sound.” Tony lowered his camera long enough to pat the camera case hanging at his side. “Got ’em right in here.”

His mind relieved on one score, at least, Cory nodded and made his way over rain-slippery roots to where Sam was sitting with her back against a section of smooth tree trunk. She seemed relaxed and at ease, for once, and was holding one of the giant leaves over her head like an umbrella.

“You look like an illustration for a book on elves and fairies,” he said. “All you need is a toadstool to sit on.”

“Hal gave it to me,” she explained with a shrug. “You should get yourself one-it does help a little. Here-have a drink.” She smiled as she offered him the bamboo cup. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

He took the cup from her and settled onto another jutting root, at an angle to Sam’s so that he could see her face. Her eyes. Then he simply sat for a moment, holding the length of bamboo in his hands, stroking its glossy surface with his fingertips…not drinking, although he was thirsty. Strange to be thirsty, he thought, when the world seemed filled with water. It took up all the space around him, occupied all his senses. The rain noise filled his ears; the smell and taste of it was on his tongue and in his nostrils; the wetness clung to his skin like cloth. The curtain of it enveloped him, shrinking around him so that he and Sam seemed in that moment like the only two people alive in a world of water.

The moment stretched. Sam stirred restlessly under his gaze, her smile fading.

“If you’re not gonna drink that, give it back.” She sounded testy, the way he knew she did when she was feeling ill at ease.

Silently, he drank the tepid water and handed her the cup. He wasn’t playing psychological games; he truly did not know where or how to begin. His suspicions quivered and knotted and lashed at his insides, and at the same time he felt weighed down with the knowledge-the certainty-he carried, and the dread that it was about to be confirmed.

She settled back against the tree trunk again, wiggling her shoulders as though she had an itchy spot there. “Wonder where al-Rami’s gone to earth this time,” she said, her relaxed mood gone, her tone sardonic now, and a little breathy, making nervous conversation, he thought. “Wonder why they didn’t take us along this time.”

“Last thing al-Rami wants is us anywhere near where he is,” Cory muttered.

Sam’s eyes snapped toward him. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” But that was cowardice. He leveled a look straight at her, took a breath and said, in a voice only a little less quiet than hers, “We’d all better hope they don’t come back looking for us.”

“Why?” But her body was still, no longer restless, and her eyes were watchful.

“You know why,” he said flatly. “Because if they find us they’ll kill us. Probably on sight.” God, at least he hoped so. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

Sam’s eyes widened with innocence. “Why would they kill us? Al-Rami’s been nothing if not cordial and cooperative up to now. I thought you and he had things all worked out.”

He had to admire her poise. He went on looking at her for a moment longer, then let out a breath and wiped moisture from his face with his shoulder. He leaned forward, staring at his hands, which were clasped between his knees. He noted the knuckles had gone white, and made an effort to relax them.

“A few years ago,” he said, in a conversational tone she would have to strain to hear above the rain, “I did a story on the latest in surveillance technology. Miniature bugs…tracking devices, cameras-things like that. Real fly-on-the-wall, sci-fi stuff, some of it.” He’d lifted his eyes and was watching her closely now. Her eyes didn’t flicker. He cleared his throat and plowed on. “One of the things they showed me was an implantable satellite tracking device. One that could be surgically imbedded in the body, becoming completely undetectable by any known scanners.”

“Oh, heck-” she made a dismissive motion with her hand “-they’ve had those for years. You can even put ’em in your pets so they won’t get lost.”

“Yeah,” he said, relentlessly holding her eyes, “but these could be used, not just as locators, but to send and receive coded messages.” He paused, waiting.

“Cool,” was all she said. And she lifted the bamboo cup to her lips, though he could have sworn the thing was empty.