Line of Fire (20 page)

Charlie Squad had run a surveillance op on Ferrare a few years back and heard enough of a meeting between Ferrare and a bunch of Gavronese terrorists to conclude they’d asked him for money. With a lot of zeros in the sum. Enough to fund an army.

As Tex followed the rebel trail, he turned over the question of why some rich crime lord would buy himself an entire army? What purpose would it serve Ferrare to take over a tiny chunk of South America? Free money laundering? An ego rush? Something more sinister?

He frowned, pulling his mind back to the business at hand. He’d leave the analysis to politicians like Kimberly’s father. His job right now was to make sure the Gavronese rebels didn’t add the RITA rifle to their arsenal.

Around midmorning, his stomach began to rumble. “Hungry?” he asked Kimberly over her shoulder.

“Starving. With all this fresh air and exercise, I’m working up a big appetite.” She laughed.

He sat down on a high root and pulled out the smoked fish from the day before. It didn’t taste half-bad prepared that way. They ate their fill and he passed her the canteen.

He watched her slender throat work, recalling memories of pleasure so intense last night that he thought he might pass out from it.

Before yesterday, he only had to touch her to be so turned on he was ready to explode. Now, just looking at her did it. How in the hell was he supposed to get through the next few days in such a state? For her sake, he had to find a way.

He cast about for a topic of conversation that would take his mind off of throwing her down and making love to her until she screamed. “Tell me, Kimberly. What is it you have against your father?”

She stopped drinking abruptly. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you accused me of being like him, and you obviously hate his guts. I’m trying to avoid making the same mistake with you that he did.”

She stared off into the jungle. Her answer was a long time in coming. “Vietnam changed him.”

He snorted. “It changed everyone. Hell, any war changes a guy.”

“No, I mean really changed him. He was seriously messed up when he came home.”

“Physically or mentally?”

“Both. He got shot in the back and barely missed being paralyzed. That’s what got him sent home for good. It got him his fourth Purple Heart, too.”

Tex whistled. Not bad. “What did he do in Nam?”

“He’s never said a word about it.”

Tex frowned. Most vets eventually got the war out of their system and were able to at least talk about it. “He’s never talked about it because he can’t or because he doesn’t want to?”

Kimberly shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know he worked in some sort of special expeditionary force. I think he went to some weird places.”

Tex was intrigued. “Why do you say that?”

Kimberly seemed to withdraw into herself. He put a casual hand on her leg to let her know he was here for her. Eventually she continued.

“When he came home, my father had developed a bad temper. A really bad one. We never knew what was going to set him off. The silliest little things could completely freak him out. When he blew up, he used to yell in some Asian language. My mom taped it once and found out he was speaking Laotian.

Laotian? Damn. Most of the Americans who operated in Laos during Vietnam were Special Forces types doing very, very dirty work. No wonder the guy was messed up. Tex’s hand tightened on her leg. “Did he hit you or your mom?”

She shook her head in the negative. “He put his fist through a wall a couple times, and he used to throw stuff like chairs and books. When he got that wild, Mom and I would leave and go shopping or get an ice-cream cone or something. He probably would have gotten physical with us if we’d have stuck around.”

“How long did he stay mad?”

“A half hour, maybe. He was usually calmed down by the time we got home.”

Tex frowned. “I don’t mean to ask a strange question, but did he remember his episodes?”

Kimberly’s gaze snapped to his. “How did you know that? He rarely remembered getting mad.”

Tex shook his head. “Poor bastard was having flash-backs, wasn’t he?”

Kimberly shrugged. “We weren’t allowed to call them that.”

“Why not? Did he get help? Some decent counseling at least?”

Kimberly laughed shortly, without humor. “Are you kidding? He was a junior congressman in a tightly contested district. He didn’t dare go see a psychiatrist. It would’ve ruined his career.”

“So he ruined his family instead?” Tex demanded.

“It got better over time. By the time I was twelve or so, he’d pretty much stopped having his episodes.”

Tex ran a hand over his face. “It’s called post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Kimberly replied bitterly, “It was nice of Uncle Sam to give it a name twenty years too late. Meanwhile the government sent thousands of young kids like my father off to war and destroyed them.”

He stared at her in dawning understanding. “And that’s why you’re an antimilitary lobbyist on Capitol Hill, isn’t it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t believe any government has the right to put people in situations that will wreck their minds and souls.”

“What if someone volunteers to serve? Is it okay then?” he asked.

She shook her head in the negative. “It’s still wrong.”

He frowned, considering her. He flatly disagreed with her point of view. But given the emotional cost to her life already, he doubted he’d change her mind. “That’s why you’re so bent out of shape over me going after the RITA rifle. You’re worried I’ll crack up under the stress.”

“Something like that.” She frowned. “You’re an intelligent guy. How can you buy into the whole military brainwashing thing?”

“What brainwashing?” he asked, surprised.

“This business of being a hero for your country. Mom and apple pie and Fourth of July.”

“What’s wrong with that?” he challenged.

“It’s a lie. You don’t come home all proud and happy from war. You come home totally screwed up in the head.”

“Am I screwed up in the head?” he asked.

She glared at him. “Not yet. That’s why I want you to get out now, while you still can.”

“Kimberly,” he said quietly. “I’ve been on over thirty combat missions every bit as harrowing as this one, if not more so. And I’m okay. You said so yourself.”

“Oh, yeah? If you’re so fine, why do you keep going back out? What makes you go on the next mission? And the next? And the next? You’re chasing after some elusive dream that your own government has fed you of being a hero and saving the world.”

He jumped up and paced a few steps, then turned around to face her. “What I do is important. I make a difference. I
do
make the world a better place.”

She threw up her hands. “See? They’ve got you just where they want you. Believing your own press releases.”

He scowled and stuffed the canteen back in the web belt. She was wrong. He and the men he worked with
were
heroes. It
was
real. And it
was
necessary.

He wasn’t about to let her plant any insidious doubts in his mind. Doubt led to weakness and weakness led to hesitation. And hesitation led to death.

“Let’s go,” he said shortly.

They walked for most of the afternoon in silence. It was a little after 5:00 p.m. when he stopped abruptly, cursing.

Kimberly came up beside him, peering over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?” she murmured.

He pointed down at the ground in front of them. “The trail forks.”

“And the significance of that is…what?” she asked.

“Ten, maybe twelve, of the rebels split off from the main party and headed to our left, while the other thirty or forty guys continued on that way.” He pointed straight ahead.

“Oh.” She stared down the two convergent trails on the ground. “Which one are we going to follow, since neither one is the path not taken?”

He snorted. “Robert Frost ain’t gonna help us now, darlin’. We’re gonna follow whichever one has the rifle.”

“And how do you know which group that is?” she asked, her voice already impressed at his ability to read that from the tracks.

“I don’t.”

“You don’t?” she echoed. “Then which way should we go?”

He shrugged. “The main road’s still off to our left by a mile or two if I don’t miss my guess. The smaller group has no doubt peeled off to head for it. There’s probably a camp of some kind straight ahead of us, and that’s where most of the rebels are headed.”

Kimberly’s next question followed his thought process exactly. “Where would they take the rifle?”

“I can make an argument for either group. The smaller group takes its prize to the road where it can be picked up and whisked off to some overseas producer to be copied. Or, the main group keeps its find and takes it to the rebel bosses at their jungle headquarters to show it off.”

Kimberly frowned. “Either logic makes sense.”

“Agreed.” He looked at both sets of tracks and neither gave him any clue which way they should go. He looked up at Kimberly. “So. Which set of tracks would you follow?”

She looked down both trails. “If I had to choose, I’d head for the road. If we don’t find the rifle, then at least we can hitch a ride to a city and get out of here.”

He chuckled, genuinely amused. He had to give her credit for her persistence. “Problem is, if we don’t catch the rebels before they get to the road and get picked up themselves, we’ll completely lose their trail and we’ll have no way of following them. Then we’ll have to backtrack and pick up the trail of the guys who headed deeper into the jungle.”

“How much of a head start do the guys going for the road have on us?” she asked.

“Good question.” He walked several yards down their trail and knelt, examining the ground closely.

“They’re about an hour ahead of us,” he announced.

Kimberly lurched. “I had no idea we were so close to them after that long break we took!” she exclaimed quietly.

He stood up and rejoined her at the fork in the paths. “An hour is too big a gap for us to overcome before they get to the road. We’ll never catch them. And by the time we come all the way back here, the trail deeper into the jungle will be cold. We’re better off following the larger group of soldiers toward wherever they’re going and hoping they’ve got the rifle.”

Kimberly sighed. “Somehow, I knew you were going to say that.”

He grinned at her dismay.

And then a sobering thought struck him.

The smaller, splinter group of rebels had hacked a clear trail through the jungle that Kimberly would have no trouble following all the way to the main road. If she wanted to leave him now and head for home, she’d probably be able to do it by herself. Somebody was bound to stop and pick her up. Lord knew, she could charm a dead man into taking her wherever she wanted to go. Odds were she’d be fine. Even if there was a risk she could be assaulted or raped…

It crossed his mind not to mention it to her. He hated the thought of her being harmed, not to mention being away from her. It was more than the mind-boggling sex he’d miss. He’d gotten accustomed to her presence. He even liked arguing with her. She was smart and articulate, even if some of her ideas were full of crap.

Dammit, he felt protective of her. He wanted to take her all the way home to Washington by himself, to personally tuck her back into her safe little world before he left her side. In the meantime, he wanted to keep her right here with him where he knew she’d be safe.

Except he couldn’t promise to keep her safe in the days to come. His mission was an extremely risky one.

He cared about her too much to be selfish.

He sighed and looked her straight in the eye. “Kimberly, if you want to, you can follow that group of soldiers. They’ve made a clear path you’ll have no trouble following. If you take it slow, they’ll be long gone by the time you reach the road. You can flag down a truck or a bus and get the hell out of here right now if you want. It could be dangerous, but you could be home tomorrow.”

Her green eyes darkened nearly to black as she stared back at him. She swallowed convulsively. “Do you want me to go?” she finally whispered.

“Hell, no, I don’t want you to go!” he exploded.

She stared at him a little longer, her expression softening until he swore he saw tears glistening in her eyes. “If you don’t object,” she said quietly, “I’d rather stay with you.”

His chest felt tight but he managed to squeeze out an answer. “I don’t object.”

Sonofagun. Who’d have thought she’d voluntarily stay for more of the misery and danger she had to know was coming? Decidedly un-Emily. Relief flooded his gut and he avoided examining her motives too closely.
She wasn’t bailing out on him when she had the chance.

Their gazes locked and strong emotion swam in her gaze. Something passed between them. An awareness. An understanding. An acknowledgment that their relationship had changed. They were in this together now.

He didn’t know why in the hell she’d made that choice, but he wasn’t about to question it right now. All that mattered was that she’d chosen to stay. With him.

“Ready to go chase us an army?” he asked lightly.

He grinned at her answering look of dismay.

“Cheer up, darlin’. We should catch ‘em within twenty-four hours or so.” He added, “If you’re lucky, they won’t have the rifle and we can go home.”

She looked at him keenly. “Just out of curiosity, do you know what will happen if you go home without the gun?”

“Yeah, that’s easy. I’ll be court-martialed.”

Chapter 14

K
imberly gulped. “Really?”

He answered casually, “Yeah, really. Colonel Folly gave me a direct order over the phone. He was explicit. Get that rifle back. That’s my duty.”

“It’s not fair!” Kimberly exclaimed. “That’s too difficult a mission to assign to one guy. Isn’t there some law about not having to follow illegal orders?”

Tex grinned. “Yeah, there is, but this isn’t an illegal order. Like I keep telling you, I’ve got the training to carry out the order.”

She huffed. “I realize you’ve got the survival skills of Daniel Boone, and the rock-climbing skills of Spider-Man. But that doesn’t mean you can take on dozens, if not hundreds, of rebel soldiers by yourself.”