A Highlander for Christmas (50 page)

“Do as he says, Maggie.” Jared gave her a steadying look and prayed she would trust him. The odds were getting worse fast.

“You need to leave now.”

Maggie hesitated, then rose shakily and moved to the door with stiff, angry steps.

“Nothing happens until she reaches the car,” Jared said tensely. “I’ll be watching.”

In the same instant, he shoved Maggie through the open door, out into the swirling snow, then whirled to face Preston.

“I’ll kill her,” Preston rasped, lunging toward the door.

But Jared was outside one stride before him. “Not while I’m here, you won’t.”

Their shoulders met. Wrist to wrist, flesh met flesh and in that instant Jared saw other details that hadn’t surfaced in the psychiatrist’s mind: a trail of dead on four continents. A secluded farmhouse where twelve men had met to decide the fate of the world they would carve apart between them. Finally he saw the rest of Preston’s plan.

After all useful information had been squeezed free,
Ja
red would be bound and gagged in the car they had driven from the abbey. Then he would be sent to the bottom of the loch, with Maggie beside him.

From the corner of his eye Jared saw movements against the stark landscape. A gray shape perched on top of a stone outcrop. Other figures huddled nearby, almost obscured by the heavy veil of snow.

“Get back,” Preston snapped. A bullet exploded into the snow inches from Maggie’s foot. “Otherwise the next one lands in her stomach, and that’s a damned painful way for anyone to go.”

Jared heard Maggie cry out at the sound of gunfire. She was nearly at the car, her face white. He felt a wave of relief as she slid behind the wheel, slammed the door and locked it.

She would be safe for the moment, while he dealt with Preston. And it had to be fast, if he hoped to save Daniel Kincade’s life.

“I need those stones,” Preston circled warily in the snow. “Give me answers, MacNeill, or I won’t hesitate to take you down. I have a chopper expected any moment, and I’ve sent a man to be sure they find us here.”

“Stop.” Groaning, Kincade stood braced in the doorway, his face ashen. “I h-had to hide them,” he rasped. “Couldn’t take chances until after I disappeared.” His eyes seemed to glaze.

Jared knew the old man didn’t have much time left. “The stones are hidden in his car,” he said to Preston. “He’s wrapped them in canvas and jammed them beneath the spare tire.”

“Where did he leave the car?”

Jared frowned as he saw Kincade struggle to stay upright He was losing blood fast, and every minute was precious. But their only hope was to keep Preston guessing. “He left his car behind a hedgerow near the northern side of the village. The stones are there.” In a flat voice, Jared gave Preston the detailed location. “But you’ll have one hell of a time finding the car in this snow.”

Preston lurched forward. “That will be
your
job, Commander.” Preston gestured angrily with his gun. “The chopper has a medical team and they can take care of Kincade, but first you’ll drive us back to the village. If you don’t find the stones, I’ll kill you and Kincade’s daughter myself. Her father will be going with us—for obvious reasons. Now move.”

Jared assessed his choices and decided he had none. Grimly, he helped Kincade to his feet, all but carrying him to Preston’s car.

“Hurry.” Preston gave him a sharp push. “We’ve spent too many years establishing our network to fail now.” He gave Jared another jab, and this time his wrist slammed against Jared’s neck.

Even as he struggled to keep Kincade’s heavy body upright, Jared felt the sharp burst of images.

Jungle.

The rumble of distant explosives.

The sound of marching soldiers.

Realization struck him with deadly force. “It was you, Preston? You and your infernal network were behind that explosion in Thailand?”

“I wondered when you’d fit the pieces together.” Preston smiled smugly. “We had a successful network in Thailand, and the money was crucial to our growth. Too bad you couldn’t be swayed to join us. The local police were delighted to see the last of you since you complicated their business arrangements. When new contacts in
Myanmar
needed an English prisoner for a political campaign, you became the obvious choice.”

Jared fought back fury. He had been traded off without a second thought, part of a mad plan for power? “What about the bomb outside the Bank of China? Was that one of yours?”

“It suited our ends. Things were growing entirely too peaceful in Asia. The communists hadn’t attacked as the population feared, and we needed discord. In times of chaos, civilians inevitably seek out those who are equipped to deal with death and destruction, which is us. The soldiers whose names are always forgotten.” Preston’s jaw worked hard. “But no more. Now open the car door and get Kincade inside.”

Wind lashed down from the cliffs as Jared moved through the blinding world of white. Even Preston was shoved back by the unpredictable gusts.

Jared knew once they were in the car, he would have no more chances. As he touched the door, wind whipped snow around his shoulders, and the ghost of an idea took shape.

He tugged on the door, feigning irritation. “I’ll have to go around. The door is locked.”

“Make it fast,” Preston growled. “The chopper will be here in less than fifteen minutes.”

Jared leaned Kincade against the car and crossed to open the other door. Kincade’s eyes fluttered as Jared eased him into the seat.

“M-Maggie?” he rasped.

“Fine.”

“My pocket—take the stones,” the old man rasped. “It’s too late for me now. Whatever happens, Preston and his kind must never have them.” He held out a small canvas bag, which Jared slid into his pocket. Then he straightened the old man in the seat, in the process sliding the door latch down until it locked.

“What’s taking you so long?” Preston was only feet from the car, his face set in a mask of anger. As he spoke, something streaked over the snow and darted between his feet. He spun hard, cursing, and a line of bullets bit into the white slope.

A cat—or what looked like a cat, Jared thought.

And with Preston distracted…

He sprinted forward, ignoring the rain of gunfire in the drifts around him. With luck, he could lead Preston out of range, on toward the steep rocks to the north.

“You can’t escape.”

Two more bullets hissed through the snow. The next shot dug fire across Jared’s right thigh, but even then he didn’t stop. Snow whipped around him, and he prayed that he could keep his sense of direction. But then he heard Preston gaining on him.

Jared tossed his heavy coat down into the swirling snow and kept on running.

“You never could play the game properly, MacNeill. Too bad. You might have been an asset in the new world we are creating.” Preston stopped, eyes narrowed on the shape stretched before him beneath the swirling flakes. He shoved snow out of his eyes, laughing in triumph. “But you chose the wrong side. And now you’ll die for that.”

He was still laughing when he sent a bullet through the dark shape at close range.

But there was no lurch of muscle, no groan of shock and pain. Cursing, he kicked at the coat, which tangled around his feet. Jared lunged at him from behind, knocking his pistol into a drift.

Though ten years older, Preston was in peak condition. He burned with the fervor of a zealot, twisting and dodging. But Jared was fighting for the woman he loved, not for abstractions, power or governments. With every breath, he drew a strength that surged beyond normal limits.

He parried once, slammed Preston to the side, and gripped his neck. “Do you know what it’s like to be crouched in a box in searing heat? Have you heard the screams of tortured men around you and smelled the sweat of their fear? You will, Preston. Right now there is a special box being made for you and your kind in hell.”

With a shout of rage, the rogue officer twisted free and slammed his boot into Jared’s bleeding thigh. Jared stumbled sideways, blinded by the impact. Over the whine of the wind he heard the drone of engines and the whir of powerful blades.

Preston sprang forward, searching for his fallen weapon while Jared struggled to clear his vision. Through a haze of pain, he saw Preston dive forward toward the snow, his head thrown back in triumph.

But before the Englishman could reach his goal, a cat sprang from the skeletal bough of a pine tree with claws bared, knocking the officer off stride and away from his gun. Snow gusted up around them as the engine roar grew louder and the dark blades of a military helicopter whined overhead, moving north.

Preston followed, snaking past huge boulders and a row of skeletal trees. Jared heard the restless slap of water somewhere to his right. He could not allow Preston to reach the helicopter.

Racing up the rocky slope, he closed the gap.

Suddenly the ground fell away into a hollow ringed by trees. In the center stood a gray boulder surrounded by lichens. Above it rose a snow-covered tree with a single forked branch.

The same tree.

The same dark rock that Jared had seen in a dozen nightmare visions.

Before him, the world seemed to snap into two images, one white with snow, the other dream-like, the core of too many nightmares. He tried to shake off a sense of unreality, frozen by the familiar images.

Knowing his own death lay close enough to touch.

A tall figure loomed out of the blanketing white. “I’ll tend to Kincade and his daughter, man.” Ronan MacLeod glared at the retreating aircraft. “You had best go after the others.”

A pistol cracked.

Jared squinted into the white wall of snow.

He stumbled forward, only to stop as he felt his boots sink deep into a layer of peat. From a boyhood spent beside loch and glen, he knew the deadly significance of the soggy land that hissed and rippled beneath him. But a city-born Englishman like Preston was not so lucky. He sank deep, cursing. Then with a manic energy he pulled free and struggled on, hands flung forward.

Above him the helicopter circled. In clumsy strides, Preston followed the edge of the peat bog and clambered up a rocky slope that rose out of sight in the banked clouds.

As the wind howled he was caught in a horizontal gust. He fell sideways, unable to find his footing in the snow and ice.

“Preston, wait.” Jared felt his words snatched away by the wind.

Too late.

The English officer cried out in fury. His body toppled forward off the sharp ridge, then catapulted out through space. The wind amplified his cry of terror in agonizing waves as his feet thrashed vainly in the lashing snow. Then he plunged down to meet his death in the waters of the loch far below.

~ ~ ~

Trembling, Maggie stumbled over the white slope, following Jared’s ragged tracks.

As soon as Preston disappeared, she had gone to her father in the car. He was now in the capable hands of
Perpetua
Wishwell, who assured her that he would not be lost to her for a long while yet. Hope MacLeod had already gone to fetch the local doctor from Glenbrae, and her husband was expected back any moment.

But Maggie couldn’t forget Jared’s grim certainty of his death, and that forewarning drove her over the snow with wind and gravel clawing at her face. Preston’s fallen gun was a reassuring weight, dug from the snow and now shoved inside her coat pocket.

A cry echoed on the wind, bringing new dread. With tears blurring her vision, she clambered on toward a small clearing where snow drifted around a weathered boulder. Nearby stood a tree with a broken branch.

Maggie’s mind screamed. She could not let Jared’s nightmares turn real. She refused to lose him in this bleak place he had seen in so many dreams.

Metal blades beat over her head, and a dark shape loomed from the turbid gray clouds. At the same moment Maggie saw the flash of Jared’s bright plaid. She struggled up the slope to his side while the helicopter hovered low. Maggie saw the blood that stained the snow beneath him, and she gave a broken cry.

Closing her eyes, she shoved him forward and covered him with her body, shielding him in blind refusal to allow fate to tear him from her. Somehow she would cheat his grim visions.

She’d had a few visions of her own in the last days. This time she would not lose him.

She crouched, tightening her grip on his shoulders, refusing to surrender to fear and madmen. Preston and his followers would never harm him again. Ronan MacLeod would follow shortly, and after him would come a score of villagers from Glenbrae. She had only to keep Jared safe until they arrived.

Jared rolled, his eyes narrowed against the wind, taking her with him, away from the surging blades into the shelter of the lichen-covered rock. Hard hands gripped her. She heard his voice and its smoky tones plunged deep into her soul. “Stop fighting me, woman.”

“They
won’t
get you. Not again. Preston can shoot me, but I won’t move.”

“Forget about Hugh Preston,” Jared growled. “He’s fallen to the loch and he’s beyond any human help now.”

He struggled to rise as the helicopter pitched, whirling snow up in sheets.