Captured in Croatia (18 page)

Fight or flight kicks in and without coherent thought I
step up and perch myself on the ledge. It’s dark. Really dark. I can just make out the water below. I hear angry shouting behind me and the pounding of boots on the stairs.

If I don’t do this,
if I don’t jump now, they will shoot me, or rape me, or most likely both
. With those horrifying prospects as motivation, I push back hard with my arms braced against the windows and take off, trying to land far out, in the deepest part of the water.

For four full seconds I’m flying. It would be amazing if I wasn’t terrified. I land hard, mostly on my right side. It feels
as if I’ve been tossed out of a plane onto a tarmac, and I struggle to right myself in the freezing water. It’s disorienting in the dark, and the rush of water twists me all around. My lungs are burning as I finally surface, gasping for breath.

The fight has just begun because the swift current is pulling me along
. I have to get out, now! There could be another waterfall or rock cropping nearby. I swim frantically for the closest shore, my strained wrist exploding from the pressure of each stroke.
Come on, girl ….

I grab for a leafy branch that is barely illuminated
by the shadowed moonlight. Ever so slowly, I haul my body against the pull of the cold water onto the grassy bank. Forehead pressed to the ground, I struggle to recover from the harrowing encounter. I have to get it together and find B. He’s shot and needs help.
Oh God, I hope he didn’t drown!

To my horror
, a spotlight illuminates me and loud shouting breaks out. Terrifying, angry male voices rush toward me from across the lawn. I shuffle backward into the cold water.
I’ll take my chances rather than face these monsters!
Before I can make it all the way back in, one reaches out and grabs my wet hair, hauling me roughly to a standing position before him. After looking his fill, dark eyes raking over me like I’m a cut of meat hanging in a butcher’s window, he says in Croatian, “I can see why Juric wanted her alive.”

I freeze at the caustic statement
.
Now I’m really going to have to pay up.
My stomach clenches hard at the nauseating thought. I begin to tremble as angry words spew from their mouths while all three men use their Mag lights to search the dark water for B. I hope he made it downstream.

They drag me
, shivering, to the car and shove me in the back.

This is
a monumental disaster. Oh shit, Carew, what will you do now?

***

We’ve driven for nearly an hour, and thankfully they’ve ignored me. I can’t stop thinking about B. I hope he was able to escape and get help. Maybe the shot was a through and through? I hope to God Zoran is all right. He is going to go insane when he finds out that his brother has been shot.

By the time we rea
ch Juric’s mansion, I’m mostly dry but chilled to the bone. The clock reads five a.m. As soon as the car rolls to a stop, guards waiting for us outside pull me roughly out of the car.

I shudder in the cold air, my bare feet
taking me up his stone steps to meet my fate. I almost wish that I bit it in the waterfall, because for Juric to go to this much trouble to get me here alive, he must want to hurt me. Badly.

I’m led by the
upper arm into an opulent parlor decorated in gold and dove gray-blue. It is so glitzy in its Art Deco design that I feel visually assaulted. At that moment, I see Zoran and cry out in despair.

“No, no! Oh God! What have you done to him?”
The words spill from my lips as my brain tries to make sense of what I’m seeing.

I’m crazed as I lur
ch for Juric, who steps away from my attack and lets out a cruel laugh. The big guard shoves me down into a Louis XIV-style chair right before tethering me to the ornate gold arms. He’s rough, tying my injured wrist down with unnecessary tightness. My eyes never leave Zoran.

He
has been beaten so badly that if it wasn’t for the rise and fall of his chest, I would think he was dead. Fresh blood covers his face and his once white shirt now matches his scarlet tie. Both of his eyes are swollen to slits and his lips have two bad splits in them. His arms are tied behind his back and his legs are bound to the posts of his chair. At his feet is a spray of blood, shockingly pronounced against the cream and gray Aubusson rug.

I look to Juric,
my eyes narrowed into an accusatory stare.

My words drip venom as I s
eethe, “You fucking coward. You beat him while he was tied down to a chair? You are nothing but a two bit loser, Juric!”

“Ah, Zoran, I see
what attracts you to her. She is quite brazen to be saying such things to a man in my position, but Zoran knows how spirited I like my women. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save you, darling. You see, Carew, I was fortunate enough to receive a call from a man named Kreshmir. I nearly didn’t take it; however, after he mentioned he was an acquaintance of Zoran’s and that a blonde American was staying with him, well, let’s just say that I was most intrigued. As I see it, he knew that our Zoran here worked for me and he saw a way to get back at him and make a bit of cash at the same time. Now, Carew, I want to know how you got into my computer and what you took. You have five seconds to talk before I begin shooting.”

I gasp as he pulls out a pistol and points it at Zoran’s left leg. Zoran
barely manages to lift his head and look at me with one eye slightly open. He shakes his head back and forth.

“Wait, I’ll tell you, just don’t hurt him anymore
, all right?” My voice is high and reedy with desperation.

“Ah, I see that you two sad excuses for human beings have fallen for each other
. Well, if this isn’t my lucky day?”

I
cast about, noting the three armed guards. My heart sinks. It will take a miracle to get us out of here alive.

“I was hired by a designer to see if you stole his concept. It’s obvious that you didn’t. There you have it.”

His eyes narrow in fury. “Where is the design?”

I lean forward and
seethe, “How the hell should I know? I was in a crash, remember? It was lost in the wreckage. I had it on my person and after the crash it wasn’t there.”

“No matter
. It has already been patented. Now, on to the business at hand—how to handle traitors. You see, I knew when Zoran and I had a chat about you the day after the crash that he was hiding something, but then again, with Zoran, there is always a mystery. But he is the best, or should I say,
was
the best in his business. Now, just to show him how I operate, I believe that I will kill the one thing on the planet that he loves. Actually, let me correct myself, I already had his brother shot. I heard that he drowned trying to save you. Did you see it happen, Carew? I hope that it was a slow and painful death.”

A
tortured growl floods the room.
Oh God! He didn’t know!
There is little he can do but sit tethered to the chair as the pain of knowing that his brother was shot and perhaps drowned engulfs him.

“Zoran, look at me.”
His tortured, swollen eyes find mine. “Whatever happens, it’s okay. I love you. Just hold on. Don’t you believe a word he says. He’s a fraud, a coward, and a liar!”

Juric breaks out into a mean laugh
as he looks at Zoran. “Perfect. With that so elegantly said, I’m going to put a bullet into your mouthy bitch first, just to rub salt in the wound.”

Juric stalks
over to me, his pistol leveled at my forehead as Zoran shouts out in a strangled voice, “No! No! Not her! Do me!”

With the pistol still an inch from my face, my heart thundering in my ears, he turns to tell Zoran, “I don’t think
—”

Before he can get the
last word out, the arched windows behind Juric explode from deafening gunfire. I watch in horror as Juric jerks spastically several times before falling heavily, his blood spraying me as his weapon clatters to the floor.

I scream loudly as a
tactical recovery team led by Breck, clad in full fatigues, rushes in, shooting anyone that is armed.

I nod my head frantically to Zoran
. ‘Not him! Not him!”

Bre
ck reaches me in a heartbeat, pulling a very dead Juric off my lap by his starched collar before dropping him face first onto the floor. He quickly goes to work on the ropes with his black Sog Seal team knife.

“C’mon
, Carew, we need to get the fuck out of here! We’ve been monitoring this place since you disappeared. Got a chopper on the back lawn. Gotta motor like fucking yesterday, doll.”

I’m desperate
. “Wait! He’s coming with us!”

“Negative, you’
re our only authorized recovery. Chopper’s full anyhow. House rules. You know the drill.”

“I’ll take the heat for it,
Breck, please. We have to at least get him to a hospital. He could die!”

“Negative, we are in boiling
water as it is. This place will be crawling with police soon.”

He starts to pick me up in a fireman’s carry.
“Wait! For God’s sake, Breck, at least cut him loose!”

“Get
out to the chopper. I’ll free him up.”

I hesitate,
making certain that he keeps his word.

He crosses to Zoran,
his imposing knife in hand. “Fuck me, buddy, did these assholes do this to you?”

He cuts him free of the bindings as Zoran grunts out his answer.

Breck glares at me over his shoulder. “Damn it, Carew, get on the fucking chopper now!”

I call out to Zoran, “Timberline street! 503 Timberline street!” I know he’ll find me once he gets out of this mess and searches for his brother.

I take one last look at Zoran. He’s craning his neck to peer around Breck’s large frame. Our eyes lock for a second before my feet become unglued and I turn to race across the back lawn out to the chopper.

Breck is right behind me
, along with the four other armed mercenaries Wade Garnett must have hired to retrieve me. Inside of ninety seconds, the black chopper lifts off the ground. I want to wave goodbye, but he’s still inside, no doubt trying to shake off his injuries. My heart breaks. I wipe the streaming tears off my cheeks and try my best not to feel. It’s the only way I can get out of this with my sanity.

***

After touching down at an airport in Turkey, I am given a hot drink along with a change of clothing.

While waiting for our
private jet to arrive from London, we catch the news of Juric’s “assassination.” An older man sitting nearby translates for us that the police investigation is ongoing but it’s suspected that the bloody hit was carried out by one of the leading Croatian Mafia families. We show nothing but casual interest, but it’s clear that the diversion of blame bodes well for us. My company made a nearly fatal mistake with this one, the most colossal one that I know of, in fact. When I get our senior director on the line my first question will be to ask how they could have suspected Juric. Someone’s going to pay for the shitty intel that led to this disaster.

I excuse myself to get up, needing to go to the ladies room to collect myself. Thankfully there is nobody inside. I splash fresh water on my face
.

S
taring into the mirror, I pray,
Please, please let Zoran survive his injuries!

I
t’s a sunny Saturday morning and I’m singing Sia’s sweet song, “Soon, we’ll be found,” while making yummy maple pecan pancakes. Upon my return, I was given two choices: either take a desk job or receive a severance from the company. I took the severance and made the decision to take some time off from work to sort through everything that happened. I’ll never give up cryptography, but it’s time for a change of pace. My director refused to apologize for the mistake, stating almost arrogantly that they pay through the nose for their intel and it’s always sound.
Bullshit.
You can’t be so cavalier when people’s lives are at stake. He might think of our team as disposable but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Operatives like me don’t come along everyday. However, I’m happy to have gotten out, knowing that I’ll find something better soon enough.

Movement through the
front sitting room window of my small, craftsman-style home catches my eye. A red and yellow uniformed man is jogging across my lawn, headed to the front door. I check the little glass security window and see the he is a DHL driver with an envelope in hand.

As I open the door he begins in a rush, “Lady, I’m really sorry, this was priority, was supposed to be delivered
yesterday but my brother got hit last night in a baseball game ….”

Smiling,
I hold up a polite hand to stop him. “No worries, it’s all right. I’m sure that whatever it is could wait until this morning, anyhow. Where do I sign?”

He breathes a sigh of relief
. “You mean you’re not gonna call my boss or anything?”

“No, why should I? My envelope has been delivered. Thanks.”

“Okay, cool. Have a great day!”

He jogs away and I shut and lock the door before flipping
over the large envelope. My heart stalls. In the return address box I see the name Zoran Vranic. I nearly faint.

I ha
ve not heard from him since returning to the states. With his security background and the address I shouted to him, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could contact me if he wanted to. I thought about trying to reach out to him, but each time I hesitated. What we went through together was so intense that I decided to wait, give things additional time.

I rip open
the envelope and find a plane ticket, a piece of paper, and a key. As I open the white sheet of paper with trembling hands, I read, “Care to go for a swim with me in the Dalmatian Islands,
princeza
? I’ll be waiting for you in the water.” Below it is a foreign address. I cling to the simple silver key and read the ticket.

Oh no!
It was supposed to be delivered yesterday because the first class flight that I’m booked on out of ATL leaves in just three hours!

I race for the bedroom
and stuff everything that I’ll need into a simple carry-on.

I can’t stop smiling. I can’t believe that we will see each other again. Now I have the opportunity to sort everything out with Zoran. 

***

The
multiple flights seemed to take forever. I have mulled over what I would say to him endlessly. Now, vibrating with adrenaline, I make my way down the long flight of stairs from the white-washed cliffside rental house. He is in the turquoise sea, arms splayed wide. He looks so fine—larger and darker than I recall.

I quickly step out of my long white maxi
-dress and race for him, clad only in a white string bikini. The warm, powdery sand caresses my feet. He makes his way to me as I enter the warm water, running headlong for him. Lifting me up in his arms, he smiles and kisses my face all over. His injuries are healing nicely but they are still apparent, a visible reminder of how close we both came to perishing that night.

“You came. Carew, I can’t believe you came. This is a dream.”

“Your brother, did he make it?” I whisper the question that has been running through my mind for several weeks now.

“
Da
,
princeza
, he swam to the opposite bank and hid. After they left with you he got to his truck and was able to call for help. He’s on crutches for another month but is already back to work at the school. My two guards were also found alive, though badly beaten.”

I lower my head
to his shoulder and begin to cry in open relief. A gentle finger placed under my chin tilts my face up to meet his.

I can’t hold back
. I stand on tiptoes and press my lips to his full, lowered mouth as I let all my feelings for him come to the surface. The kiss quickly turns sensual, needy, as our tongues plunge and explore each other, as if for the first time.

He groans
before pulling slightly back to devour me with his eyes. Those steely eyes are so mesmerizing in their beauty.

“You
’re far more beautiful than I remember,
princeza
. Jesus, baby, you’re glowing.”

I twine my arms a
round his neck and gaze deeply into his gray eyes. “That’s because we both love you so very much.”

I wait. H
is first look is one of confusion, as if he misunderstood me, swiftly followed by hope.

“Carew
 ….”

“Yes?”

“Are you telling me that you’re carrying our child?” He is so awestruck that he can barely get the words out.

I smile brightly
. “Yes, my Tigar, I am.”

His smile is blinding in its radiance as he twirls me around in the
crystalline water.

“Oh God
, Carew.
Volim te
, I love you so much, baby. I wanted to tell you before I left the house that night. I never thought I could love someone the way I love you. Thank you,
princeza
, for saving me.”

I touch his warm cheek softly and say,
“I love you, my Tigar, and we saved each other, remember?”