Land of Fire (34 page)

"Calm down, can't you? Our clothes are drying by the fire. Of course I had to get into bed with you. Did you think I was going to freeze to death?"

"You took off my clothes?"

"No, I just whistled and they undressed themselves. What was I supposed to do? Let you catch pneumonia? Anyway," I added, "I owed you that much for saving my life back on the river."

She snorted. "That! I had no choice. We were chained together. I would have left you to drown otherwise!"

I felt suddenly angry. "Fuck you, girlie! You'd be lying dead out in the snow right now if I hadn't carried you to this place. Which makes the second time I've saved your skinny hide so a little gratitude on your part wouldn't be out of place."

"And fuck you too, disgusting English soldier. I know why you brought me in here, took off my clothes. So you can rape me like that marine wanted. I know about English soldiers and how they raped our women during the war."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your soldiers came ashore secretly and forced Argentinian girls for their pleasure. Everyone knows this."

I shook my head in amazement. "You're crazy," I told her. "We never even set eyes on an Argentine female, let alone raped one. It's just propaganda and lies."

She was silent for a moment. "Tell me," she said suddenly. "That day on the ship when you discovered me. I was your enemy. Your countrymen had died because of me. Yet you came back to set me free when the bombs fell. Why?"

I had puzzled over that question many times myself. "You were just a child."

"Old enough to be the cause of many deaths."

"What happened to you after the ship went down? How did you get ashore?"

"I pulled my hood up and climbed aboard a boat. It was dark. When we reached the land I jumped out and ran ashore. Later I was captured and taken on board one of the aircraft carriers."

"And then?"

She shrugged. "Interrogations. Questions. How did I get on board the Northland? Was I alone? What frequency did I transmit on?" She smiled sadly. "I was a student at Imperial College in London. A man from the Argentine Naval Attache's office in Vauxhall Bridge Road gave me the transmitter and asked me to smuggle it on board the fleet at Portsmouth. I never meant to stay with the ship but there were men everywhere and I could not get back to the land before it sailed."

"And so you made a hiding place down in the hold in one of the trucks."

"Yes, several places."

"And after the bombing of the ship? You escaped in a boat?"

"They took me for a man, one of the sailors." She gave a short laugh. "When we reached the shore I jumped out and tried to make my way to the front line but some soldiers caught me next morning."

So Jenny's story was right, I thought. "And what happened after they had interrogated you? Did they send you back with the prisoners?"

She nodded. "They sent me in a ship to Rio de Janeiro. The fighting was still going on. I was an embarrassment; they wanted to be rid of me."

She wanted to know from me what I planned doing about the Globemasters on the airbase. "Will you try to warn the English in Port Stanley?"

"If I can," I told her. "They'll send up fighters to turn the planes back."

"And if the message does not get through?"

I looked at her. "Then a lot of men will get killed like last time."

She nodded sadly. "My brother and yours too. So many lives lost, and all for a few pieces of rock."

I stroked her dark hair gently. She didn't seem to object. Four hours' sleep had restored some of my strength and I was suddenly conscious of how very desirable she was, a strange mixture of beauty and passionate anger. Lying naked beside her under the warm fleece was a severe test of my self-restraint.

I let my fingers slide down on to the soft skin of her neck. She sighed drowsily and stretched her back, her hip touching mine. I caressed her shoulder, skating over the upper slope of her chest. Her eyes were closed, her lips apart.

"Are you married?" I asked after a minute.

"For five years, to the son of a family friend a businessman who was proud to own a war heroine for a wife. When I told him I was now a pacifist and that the thought of all the sailors I had killed filled me with disgust, he called me a traitor and divorced me. And you?"

I shook my head. "I saw what it did to my brother's wife and kids when he was killed. I couldn't put a family of mine through that."

"But it does not stop you being a soldier and killing other women's husbands!" she snapped, brushing my hand away.

Fuck her, I thought. It looked like my luck was out. She was a hard woman to figure one minute warm and sexy, the next all spit and fury. "Get yourself dressed," I ordered. "It's time we were moving out."

She rolled over on her front. "We are no longer chained together. You can go by yourself

I gave a grim laugh. "No way, lady."

"What are you planning now to kill more Argentinian soldiers? Isn't that what you are here for?"

"I'm here to stop a war, for fuck's sake. Now put your clothes on."

"No!" She twisted round suddenly, arched her shoulder and launched a straight-armed punch at my eye with all the strength in her wiry body behind it.

"Christ!" I yelled. That really stung. It was the first time in my life I'd been hit hard by a woman. "You bitch! I'll teach you how to behave!"

I grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her on to her front. She bucked and kicked, spitting at me like a wildcat and trying to bite my left hand. I ripped the fleece down, exposing her tail and gave her a smack on her taut backside that echoed round the hut like a gunshot. She shrieked and tried to kick me off the bed, but I flung my weight across her, pinning her down. She twisted under me like an eel, bringing up a knee into my groin, then she pulled herself away and drove both feet into my ribs with a strength that made me gasp.

I eased off, thinking maybe we had gone far enough, but she launched herself at me again in a flurry of kicks and scratching. It was like fighting with a wild animal; she was a whirlwind of teeth and heels and nails. She fought with a manic fury, stabbing at me with her elbows, slapping and biting. Somewhere along the line she had learned unarmed combat, because now she was attempting some vicious stabs to the eyes and windpipe. She whacked at me with the cuff on her wrist, using it as a weapon, and in my mind I was taken back aboard the Northland twenty years ago, the darkness of the truck. She was fighting now as she had fought then, gouging and punching accompanied by a stream of spits and curses in Spanish.

Finally I caught her hands, flung a leg over hers to block more kicking, and forced her back against the fleece. She gnawed at me with her sharp teeth till I managed to move my knee across her stomach and straddle her, holding her arms above her head. Even then she refused to give up and continued to struggle, snarling at me like a cornered dog. I gripped her left arm in mine. Her wrist was as slim as a child's; I could have snapped it like a stick.

"Enough!" I shouted.

She spat in my eye and arched her back, trying to throw me off. "I will not go with you! Vete so hito de lag ran puta."

With my free hand I slapped her a couple of times across the face, blows intended to bring her to her senses, and she spat at me again.

Her olive skin was shiny with sweat. Her pointed breasts rose and fell as her chest heaved, the dark nipples fiercely erect. Her eyes were blazing, her teeth bared at me in hate. "Go on then!" she spat. "Rape me! Isn't that what soldiers do to women? Or are you just a mari conT

And by God I was highly aroused at that moment. She was a woman, all passion and heat, and I was still heady from the brandy I'd drunk. I could feel all the coiled strength of her body struggling underneath me, resisting and challenging me in the same breath.

"I'll show you what I can do!" And I flung myself down, crushing her mouth under mine.

She gasped and I felt her teeth grip my bottom lip. I let go her hands to grab her tits and her nails clawed my shoulders. Her body writhed under me. My skin was burning. I saw the muscles of her arms clenching, the veins standing out blue against the sweat-slicked flesh, her breasts rising under my hands. I rubbed them fiercely and she shouted aloud in Spanish. She was biting at my shoulders and chest. I could feel her hipbones sawing at my lower body, her legs clamping round my waist, heels drumming on my back.

Next instant she straightened with a jerk and she was fighting me off again, kneeing and punching like a boy. Then I pushed her down and kissed her again, forcing my tongue between her lips. Her nails dug into my back like spurs.

The glow of the fire made her skin look burnished. I sucked at her nipples. Her breasts tasted of salt. Her stomach was hard and flat; her pelvis thrust up at me and there were rivulets of sweat running between her legs. I scraped my hand down her back, feeling the muscles sliding over the bone. I pushed her legs apart and she clasped her hands behind my neck, pulling my head down. I kissed her on the mouth and with a cat-like squirm she was out from under me, laughing. I grabbed her again and we grappled, rolling among the wool. Her breasts swayed above me as she straddled my chest, taunting me. I could smell her hair and the heat of her body, and it was driving me wild.

We were beyond stopping now. I picked her up bodily and flung her down on her back, forcing her knees open. She clenched her teeth and pounded me with her fists. She cried out as I drove inside her, clawing at my back again, yanking at my hair. Again and again I plunged into her as she tightened her thighs around me. With each thrust I drove deeper and she gasped and dug her nails in, cursing me in Spanish. I could feel her hard pubis rising to meet me in spite of herself as her vagina clamped itself around my prick. She was shrieking and gasping and flinging herself about. Her body was plunging and thrusting with mine, sucking at me, drawing me deeper into her. Her legs were locked round me, her throat arched and she cried out in passion as I burst inside her like a volcano. Our bodies locked together and I felt the heat explode through me as her cries went on and on.

I rolled off her, and she turned away from me to lie facing the wall. I stroked her back softly, letting my fingertips glide over the satin-soft skin.

"Let me alone!" she snarled, shaking me off.

"Easy," I said, pulling her towards me, and in a flash she rounded on me again, sinking her teeth into the flesh of my arm, her fingers clawing. Hot tears dripped on my face as we wrestled in silence on the fleece.

I held her tight against me, not speaking, while she clawed and bit by the flickering light of the stove, hitting me with her fists, hating me and hating herself, It was all the same thing. When she subsided I turned her on to her back again and stretched myself out on top of her. She struggled and kicked, and as I entered her once more she clung to me with despairing strength, sobbing and gasping in her hunger while I moved inside, her till at last we were both exhausted.

We slept again then. When we woke next I reached for her, and this time she came to me as sweetly as a bird, hung on to me and called my name as she came with me.

Afterwards we lay in each other's arms, content.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

When we woke for the third time I told her it was time to be moving. It was fully dark now, the wind had dropped, and when I cracked open the door I saw the snow had stopped.

We dressed reluctantly. She kissed my neck in the process but there was no time for love now. "Get ready," I said. "We have to keep the rendezvous."

She grinned at me obediently. "Yes, my enemy lover."

Our clothes had dried out thoroughly, and so had our boots. We drank a final slug of the brandy each, then left our refuge. It was bitterly cold when we stepped outside, a clear night with a crescent moon riding up in the south-west. The lights of the town made a glow in the sky about a kilo metre away.

"The old mine is near the railroad on this side of the town," Concha said. "It is not far."

I led the way, my right hand on the pistol in my pocket. The snow was around a foot thick, but in places there were much deeper drifts. I went carefully, testing the ground at each step. There was enough ambient light to show up major obstacles, but I was wary of falling into a ditch again. We were leaving a clear track for anyone to follow, but with luck we wouldn't be coming back again this way. Still, if there were any patrols out they might spot us and it was essential to reach the RV quickly.

I was worried for the rest of the team, by now presumably under lock and key on the airbase along with Concha's companions. Maybe the British consul could negotiate their freedom. I wasn't very hopeful though. It would probably depend on how long the military junta remained in power.

The vital thing was to make the rendezvous and establish contact with Seb. He would be able to send a message to his controllers, telling them to warn Port Stanley of the impending assault. There was no time to lose. Judging by the haste with which the plane we had seen was being prepared, the attack was planned for the very near future, quite possibly dawn tomorrow.

We ploughed on through the snow for the best part of a kilo metre Several times we had to detour round frozen pools or thickets of gorse. Once I had to lift Concha over a wire fence.

The lights of the town were growing nearer. The long wail of a locomotive sounded in the distance and we heard the clank of wagons. "That will be the evening train from Ushuaia," Concha said. "The track can only be half a kilo metre away. The old mine is on this side, between us and the town."

"That's good. We should be able to spot the workings against the lights."

Another fifteen minutes of steady walking brought us to a shallow slope in the ground, and there ahead of us were the rails, gleaming in the moonlight. I pulled Concha down into a crouch and eased the pistol in my pocket.

"All we have to do now is walk in the direction of the town," she whispered. "The old mine is close to the track on this side. The railway was constructed originally to bring out the ore."