HardWind (20 page)

person’s libido. Do you remember how uncontrollable you were that night,

sweetheart?”

The memory of a night filled with wild, unbridled sex he could never have

imagined ever participating in with Gentry—of all people—brought a heated flush to

his face.

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Gentry nodded. “I had slipped some tenerse into that strawberry milkshake you

enjoyed just before you snatched me up and literally raped me right there on the deck.”

Disgust filled him and he looked away again.

“I was bruised all over when you finished with me, but I loved every moment your

hands were on me and that delicious cock of yours was pressed right up against my

womb.”

“Go away,” he managed to say between clenched teeth. Once more the room was

canting away from him and there was a very unpleasant feeling of falling washing over

him.

“The more tenerse you get, the more you will want it,” Gentry said. “Once you

acquire a dependency upon it though, only one shot a day—administered directly into a

vein—is sufficient to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay.”

“Leave me alone, Gentry,” he said, fighting the fog that was invading his mind.

“Tenerse is not a drug you can get on the black market or from some little drug

dealer out on the street. The only place you can get it is through me,” she said, and once

more smoothed the hair back from his suddenly sweating forehead. “You will want to

keep in my good graces, Dáire, believe me. When you experience the agony of

withdrawal the first time, you’ll be sure to do as you’re told the next time.”

“And that’s your plan,” he whispered. “To addict me then allow me to find out

firsthand how bad it can be without the drug.”

She stroked him gently. “You have always been a very astute man, Dáire. I knew

you’d grasp the situation right off.”

He was clenching and unclenching his hands, trying desperately to hold onto

consciousness.

“Stop fighting it, brown eyes,” Gentry said. “The longer you fight, the harder it is

going to be. Just give in to the peace, my handsome lover, and then go with the flow.”

“I hate you,” he said as he pitched over the side of the wildly whirling room and

into darkness.

* * * * *

It was an inner circle of hell into which he’d been forced that gave new meaning to

the word agony. He had hurt before—from wounds, from torture—but nothing he’d

ever suffered until then could have prepared him for the ragged depths of intense

physiological pain and mental anguish he was living through now.

Restless beyond all reason, he continually paced the tiny room into which he’d been

placed two days earlier. With hot and cold flashes alternating down his limbs, he was

sweating profusely, his nose running, his eyes watering. Now and again severe muscle

cramps forced him to the bare floor and he would huddle in the corner of his cell while

goose bumps peppered his flesh and nausea prodded at his raw throat, rocking back

and forth in his agony. Chills racked him from time to time and his teeth would chatter.

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He shook. He trembled uncontrollably. He alternated between vomiting bile and feeling

his bowels loosen with diarrhea that caused severe stomach cramps.

The cell was foul with body odor and spilled waste.

He could not remember the last time he slept, yet he continued to yawn repeatedly,

needing sleep, but so irritable, so jittery, so filled with panic he could not slip into

unconsciousness.

The pain of the bone marrow donation had long since left him, but his body still felt

as though he’d taken one hell of a fall. He felt bruised, battered, his muscle and bones

aching as though he’d taken a vicious beating. The pain in his feet seemed to intensify

and he relived the caning of the soles of his feet over and over again as he hunkered

against the wall, reliving every pass of the bamboo, every split in his skin.

He had no appetite for the clear soup and gelatin that was passed through a slot in

the door. The contents of the Styrofoam containers were strewn across the cell,

splattered the walls. He did drink the water that was given to him in plastic bottles but

he took very little of it. He’d learned that drinking too much only heightened the

nausea.

Drawn in upon himself, he sat against the wall, his knees up and in the protection

of his arms. His chest was bare but he still wore the white pajama bottoms. They stank

so badly he could barely stand the stench, and he was tempted to rip them off himself

and would have if chills had not started up again.

As miserable as he was, the only thing that kept him from pleading with Gentry,

begging her to end his torment, was his stubborn pride. He was forcing himself to

endure, to take whatever she dished out for as long as he could humanly stand it.

“Seventy-two hours is when the withdrawal symptoms will peak,” Gentry had told

him. “When they begin to lessen and if I don’t believe you have been appropriately

chastened, we’ll start all over again and again and again until I feel you have learned

your lesson.”

He knew he’d never be able to go through those first forty-eight hours again

without losing what sanity he had left. Before he allowed that to happen, he’d do

whatever he needed to do. If it meant getting on his knees before Gentry, he would. He

had no illusions that the time would come when he could no longer tolerate what she

was doing to him.

The slot in the cell door opened and he looked up fearfully. Gentry was standing

there as she did every day and there was the same brutal smile on her flawless face.

“I thought you might like to know your daughter is doing much better than

expected. The transplant has helped tremendously and there was no problem with

graft-versus-host disease. I thought you’d want to know.”

“H-how is Star?” he asked, his voice rusty and hoarse.

Gentry’s smile faded. “The bitch is fine. Don’t ask about her again or I’ll have

Waverly give you another dose of tenerse. Do you understand, Dáire?”

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He nodded. His lips were trembling from the intense chills that were rippling over

his body.

“Two more days,” Gentry pronounced. “Let’s see how much of a man you are.”

The slot slid shut and Dáire could not stop the whimper that pushed from his

mouth. Tears fell down his cheeks as severe aches settled in his legs. He pushed his

back up the wall to stand, needing to walk the cramps from his limbs. With his shoulder

pressed to the wall, he began stumbling along the perimeter of the room, moaning with

every painful step, his arms crossed over his stomach.

* * * * *

Time had ceased to have any meaning to him. He was in so much agony nothing

registered except the cramping, the nausea, the chills and profuse sweating. His jittery

restlessness kept him from sitting down or lying down in a heap on the cold floor. He

kept moving—like a shark—his muscles twitching with spasms. His shoulder was

bruised, rubbed raw in places where he kept it tight against the wall as he walked.

When the door opened, he stilled like a deer caught in the headlights of a hunter’s

truck. His dilated pupils let in far too much light and the brightness from the hallway

beyond his cell cut through his head like a rusty knife.

Two men came toward him and he pressed as close to the wall as he could get, his

paranoia, his panic making him whimper as they grabbed his arms and pulled him

forward. He stumbled along in their wake, mumbling to himself as they half-dragged

him down the long corridor.

An overly bright room. A hard, wooden chair. His escort shoving him onto the bare

seat and yanking his arms up to strap them to the chair arms. One man knelt in front of

him and lashed his ankles to the chair legs.

“Man, this fucker stinks,” the man at his feet snarled as he stood up.

“That’s the least of his worries,” the other man quipped, and then they left.

Being confined to the chair was an agony unto itself. Unable to move, to pace, to

give in to the overpowering strength of the muscle cramps squeezing him, Dáire began

to pant with the discomfort. Sweat was dripping down his cheeks, matting his hair to

the nape of his neck, his forehead, trickling down his chest.

A cool breeze wafted in front behind him where the door to the cell was located. He

caught a whiff of her perfume and groaned, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as he tucked

his chin to his chest.

She came to stand in front of him. He could sense her standing there. Feel her

staring down at him. He clenched his jaws together, striving hard not to beg, although

every instinct in his body screamed at him to do just that.

There was a movement to his right and then warm fingers on the deep bruises

along the inside of his forearm where one of the cannulas had been. He didn’t need to

be told what was about to happen. His whimper was heartbreaking.

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Gentry stepped forward and took his chin in her hand, forcing his head up. “Open

your eyes,” she ordered.

A length of tubing was tied around his arm just above his elbow.

“Don’t make me say it again.”

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and looked right into the merciless gunmetal gray

depths of Gentry’s uncompromising stare.

It was Waverly’s fingers that were slapping at his veins, bringing one up for the

injection she had prepared for him. As she worked, all hope fled from Dáire Cronin.

With one hand on his chin, Gentry put her other hand out to push the lank hair

from his forehead. “Your punishment is over, sweeting,” she said. “This is just the daily

dose of tenerse you will need from now on to keep the withdrawal symptoms away.”

He didn’t dare believe her, didn’t dare hope. The sting of the drug rippled through

his veins and brought intense pain.

“It would actually be better if this was given in his neck,” Waverly commented. “It

would hurt more but it would work faster.”

“Yes, but he couldn’t give it to himself and that is what he must do,” Gentry

replied.

He felt the drug flowing over him like a warm blanket and every ache, every pain,

every twitch, spasm and cramp magically disappeared. Peace set in for the first time in

days and he relaxed, unclenching his jaw to run his tongue over his lips.

“Are you thirsty?” Gentry asked.

He croaked an answer and magically a tall glass of iced water was handed to

Gentry. She held it to his lips, some of the icy liquid spilling down his chest as he

gulped.

“Not too much,” his tormentress declared. “You don’t want to get sick.”

She took away the blessed refreshment then dabbed at the water on his chest with a

rag Waverly handed her. “You need a nice, long bath and some sleep.”

To him, both things sounded too good to be true.

“After your nap, we’ll go over your assignment,” Gentry said, and frowned when

he laughed. “You find that amusing?”

It was difficult for him to get the words out but he managed.

“I’m in no condition for any assignment,” he said and his eyes filled with hurt. He

hung his head. “You made damned sure of that.”

“Oh I’ll give you time to recondition, Cronin,” she said. “I can’t send you after

Jackson like you are now.”

The mention of Jackson made Dáire lift his head. He saw triumph flaring in

Gentry’s wintry eyes. “Jackson?” he repeated, already feeling the dread deep in his

soul.

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Gentry shrugged. “I should have known better than to pair him with Harrelson.

Mick was a fair enough operative but he tended to think only of himself.”

He didn’t miss her use of the past tense in speaking of Harrelson. “Where is

Jackson?” he asked.

“In Iran. He was captured the day you decided to ignore my telephone calls. You

have no one to blame but yourself for everything he’s suffered since then.”

Dáire flinched. “How long?”

She put her hands on his bare forearms and leaned toward him, putting her weight

on his aching arms, her face mere inches from him. “If you had taken my telephone call,

I would have sent you to retrieve Jackson that very day. You could have gotten him out

and been back in time to donate the bone marrow. It wasn’t as though it was a matter of

life and death with your daughter as it is with poor Jackson.”

“How long?” He had no idea how many days he’d been locked in her hellhole.

“Two weeks.”

Two weeks was an eternity in a place like Iran. Jackson—if he were still alive—

would be a mess by now.

“He’s alive,” Gentry said, pushing away from him. “Just barely, but alive. I’ll give

you five days to get back in condition. That’s all intel thinks he has left.”

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Chapter Twelve

The crosshairs of the scope bisected the dark face in the moonlight. It was a young

face—far too young—but it was an enemy face. The M40A3 rifle bucked as it pumped

the 7.62mm armor-piercing cartridge into the target three hundred yards away, the

straps wrapped around Dáire’s forearm tightening as the weapon fired.

The young face would get no older.

At seventeen pounds, the rifle was a bit heavier than Dáire liked, but it had the