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Authors: Elizabeth Jennings

Tags: #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Fiction

Darkness at Dawn (10 page)

BOOK: Darkness at Dawn
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And now they were somewhere in the Nicaraguan jungle.
The pilot!
Lucy turned over and tried to rise, but fell back to her knees. Her head was thumping with pain, her shoulder, too. She looked at her palms and arms, red with burns. She couldn’t feel the burns yet, but she knew she would.
It was hot, sultry, the jungle a nightmare of damp earth, wet branches of low bushes slapping in her face as she tried to drag herself around to the front of the plane.
Part of the plane was burning, the stench of burning electronics and plastic wiring rising sharp and acrid in her nostrils. The cockpit was too high to see the pilot. She couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.
Gray black smoke was rising from the body of the plane. If the pilot was alive, she had to somehow help him get out.
A huge tree had been nearly felled by the plane driving into it. Thick branches hung over the cockpit. Lucy knew how to climb trees. Two years in Indonesia had taught her everything about jungle trees. The thick rough bark abraded her burned palms and knees, but she ignored the pain and scrambled out onto the thick branch right over the cockpit.
She clung to the branch swaying with her weight, inching her way farther until she had a clear view of the cockpit and the pilot.
McMurdogh, his nameplate had read. He was now a charred mass of shrunken black flesh. The blackened fingers of his hand with the bones showing still clung to the radio attached to the dashboard by a curly cord. His face had burned so badly the eyes were gone, the lips burned back to reveal his white teeth.
She stared at the blackened ruins of what had once been a nice man, now a mass of flesh emitting the stench of charred meat ...
Lucy broke away from Mike’s supporting arm to turn and retch miserably on the tarmac, her stomach clenching in painful spasms so strong she couldn’t even straighten up.
Nothing but bile was coming up. Her stomach had been too roiled to even think of eating breakfast, though Mike hadn’t had that problem. He’d happily vacuumed up coffee, pancakes, scrambled eggs and the four muffins left in her freezer.
A strong arm went around her stomach, holding her tightly. Lucy straightened, slowly coming up.
Another gust of frigid air and jet fuel and she bent forward again, her stomach trying to crawl out through her esophagus, pumping out a thin gruel of stomach juices.
When she could concentrate on something other than the pain in her stomach, Lucy realized that she had created a little tableau.
Still Life of Mission Launch
. Her partner, dressed like a harmless businessman, behind her, holding her by the stomach, pilot and driver frozen at the top and bottom of the stairs.
Lucy coughed. She felt so chilled, so goddamned cold, inside and out. The only source of heat in the world was Mike Shafer’s arm around her middle. They both had on winter clothes, but it seemed to her that his arm not only held her up but heated her up.
Finally, her stomach stilled and she was able to stand upright, head bowed, ashamed and embarrassed. Mike’s deep, low voice was in her ear. “Better?” He spoke softly. No one could hear over the gusting wind.
She nodded. A huge cotton handkerchief appeared before her face, and he wiped her mouth with it. Again, a deep voice in her ear. “You can clean up better inside.”
She nodded, infinitely grateful for that warm, hard arm around her middle. She could almost feel his hesitation as he said, “Do you want me to carry you up the stairs?”
“No!” A flush of shame ran through her body and she moved away from his arm.
The driver, the pilot and doubtless the cameras watching them were all CIA. She was sorry beyond words that they had caught her weakness, live and on film. Doubtless some young drone in a basement reviewing the tapes would find her vomiting her guts out on the tarmac endlessly amusing.
But she was back in control, and by God, they wouldn’t have anything else to report to Uncle Edwin. Certainly not that Brad and Marie Merritt’s daughter had to be carried into a mission.
Lucy looked up at Mike’s face, dark and grim. She pitched her voice just loud enough for the pilot and driver to hear. Even if the directional mikes couldn’t pick up her voice, tapes were habitually reviewed by people trained in lip reading. She even managed a smile. “Sorry about that, darling,” she said lightly. “It’s either the beginning of stomach flu or those two martinis I had last night.”
“Gotta watch those martinis, sweetheart. They’re killers.” Mike knew full well she hadn’t had two martinis the night before. He clearly forced his face to lighten up as he took her arm. It looked casual, but she could feel the strength, feel that he was willing to bear most of her weight, just as she could feel he understood that she didn’t want to show any weakness.
They crossed to the steps. The pilot and driver sprang to life like the castle inhabitants in “Sleeping Beauty,” suddenly busy with getting their luggage up the stairs and into the cabin.
Mike kept his pace with her exactly, though his legs were much longer than hers. He immediately caught her rhythm as they crossed the tarmac and ascended the stairs.
As one, they turned left to the plane’s toilet.
Lucy locked the door behind her, slumping with relief. She shivered and shook with released tension, clinging to the border of the small sink. Finally, she looked up and winced at the ice white face she saw, her lipstick looking like a slash of blood, the blush an unnatural spot of color.
She eyed the toilet, consulting her stomach, but there was nothing left to empty out. Her stomach lay like a cold rock inside her, though fortunately it showed no tendency to clench and rid itself of its contents. Probably because there were none left.
Lucy always carried with her a travel toothbrush and a tiny tube of toothpaste, and she was able to get rid of the god-awful sour taste of bile. She held her wrists under hot water for a full minute and felt warmth at least on the inside of them. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing and trying to relax her muscles. In, out. In, out.
When she opened her eyes again, the woman in the mirror had a tiny touch of color to her face. Blotting her lips and applying a lighter shade of lipstick made her look a little less like Dracula’s Bride. A quick run of a comb through her hair, a spritz of a springlike scent she’d designed herself, and she felt human again, if not normal.
At the sound of the toilet door opening, Mike turned away from inspecting the darkness outside the windows and moved toward her. It was amazing. His movements were relaxed, easy, but in an instant he was beside her, bending down to sniff. “Hey,” he said with a smile. “You smell nice.” The words were casual, but his dark eyes were sharp as he scrutinized her face.
“Thanks.” Thank God her voice was firm. “I designed the scent myself. I never gave it a name. Now maybe I should call it eau de plane.”
He laughed, his eyes still sharp and all business as he accompanied her to the middle of the cabin.
He only released her arm once she took her seat—one of two very comfortable-looking chairs separated by a table. The seats were wide and soft, covered in creamy taupe leather. In no time at all Mike had her coat off, had seated her in the forward-facing seat, buckled her in and taken his place across the table from her.
As if on cue, a garbled message came over the intercom and the plane’s engines fired up, a low rumble of vibrations under her feet. The plane started taxiing toward the runway, and Lucy closed her eyes, preparing to endure the next terrible quarter of an hour, immensely grateful that her stomach had already emptied itself.
“Give me your hands.”
Her eyes popped open just as she was about to put herself under. His huge, rough hands were extended on the tabletop.
“There’s no one to see,” he said softly. “Hold my hands.” Oh God. She felt so raw and defenseless. Her terror was so uncontrollable and so damned
visible
. If she’d just been on a plane with anonymous strangers, she could have sat near a window looking blindly out and tried to put herself in that place of meditation she’d been taught as a child.
She’d schooled herself to control as much as possible the trembling of her hands and voice, but she couldn’t control her stomach and the color of her face. They were beyond her reach and betrayed the panic boiling inside her.
Of course, what was happening inside her was clear to
him
. To Mike, a soldier, who probably didn’t know what fear was, certainly not fear of flying. He belonged to an elite unit. He’d parachuted countless times out of planes, had rappelled out of helicopters, for all she knew was a pilot himself.
And even if somehow the smell of jet fuel triggered the smell of burned human flesh to him, too, he was probably used to it.
Lucy had spent the last fifteen years of her life keeping herself away from these terrible triggers. Enclosed spaces, planes, the jungle, the mountains. Even stress.
She’d been scared witless throughout much of her childhood, waiting while her parents went out regularly on dangerous missions, always hiding the knee-weakening whoosh of relief when she saw them again, safe and sound.
She’d had enough stress for a lifetime. Two lifetimes. So she kept her own adult life low-key, choosing a niche profession where few people could do what she did; she chose her coworkers carefully, keeping complicated people out of her life.
And now look at her. Stepping right into the heart of danger, flying back to where she’d watched her parents mowed down by gunfire in front of her horrified eyes, traveling with a soldier who could probably only feel contempt for her.
“Your hands,” he said again.
You can do this
, she told herself sternly. She willed her hands steady and slid them across the tabletop.
“Good girl.” She looked at him hard, but there was no censure in his gaze, no sarcasm in his voice.
Well, he was going on a mission with her. It was very much in his interest not to antagonize her. She didn’t know what he really thought and didn’t care.
His huge hands enveloped hers. It was the same temperature in the cabin for him as for her. And yet though she was chilled to the bone, his hands were warm. Hot, even, as if he had some kind of heat generator inside himself.
Of course, not being scared out of his wits probably helped.
The plane swerved onto the runway and stopped, engines revving, waiting for word from air traffic control.
Her hands started trembling in his. However much she tried to hide it, she couldn’t. She swallowed heavily, sick and humiliated.
He tightened his own hands around hers. Holding on to the crazy lady, trying to reassure her. For a soldier, going on a mission with a lunatic afraid to fly must seem like suicide.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
A slight crease appeared between his black eyebrows. “My sister’s afraid to fly,” he said. “Terrified.”
It was totally unexpected. She’d been expecting him to either acknowledge her terror—
Wow, you’re a complete whack job and I’m sorry I’m here with you
—or, worse, totally ignore it—
What? What are you talking about? Doesn’t everyone shake at takeoff?
“Your . . . sister?”
“Yeah.” His voice had turned grim. “Sweetest kid on earth. Smart and brave. She once climbed a fifty-foot tree to get her kitten back. She was seven at the time. Champion swimmer. Runs like the wind. Can’t get on a plane without being sedated. And she’s never crashed like you have.”
Another garbled message over the intercom, and the pilot released the brakes. The plane rolled down the runway, picking up speed. Lucy’s heart thumped wildly. She couldn’t breathe through the black terror rising in her chest.
“Look at me.” Mike’s voice was loud and forceful.
“What?” She could barely catch her breath to say the word.
“Look at me. Watch my eyes. It’s going to be okay.”
Yes, of course it was going to be okay. Lucy knew that. She was crazy, but she wasn’t stupid.
She was split entirely into two personalities. There was the calm, reasonable adult, who knew every flying statistic there was. Knew that flying was infinitely safer than driving—
particularly
driving in DC traffic—safer than almost any other mode of transport. Knew that pilots were dedicated professionals who flew planes for a living and did nothing else. Who understood the mechanics and the physics of flying intimately. Knew, further, that this particular pilot was undoubtedly CIA and therefore one of the best-trained pilots on earth, probably capable of landing in a hurricane on one wing and no prayer.
Then there was her inner Lucy, who was seven years old and terrified and couldn’t listen to the adult Lucy because she was screaming too loud.
The engines’ thrust was so powerful, the frame began to shake . . . they were a minute from takeoff.
Lucy had been taught meditation by a famous Indian guru in Indonesia. She only found out later that he was world-renowned. To her he was only Uncle Babu. She’d had bad panic attacks when small. Her parents left continually, never letting her know when they’d be coming back, and she never knew
if
they’d be coming back.
BOOK: Darkness at Dawn
12.6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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