Midnight Rainbow (2 page)

But getting to her had been made ridiculously easy; as soon as he left
Hamilton's house, a new wrinkle had developed. Not a mile down the highway from
Hamilton's estate, he'd glanced in the rearview mirror and found a plain blue sedan on
his tail. He'd lifted one eyebrow sardonically and pulled over to the shoulder of the
road.

He lit a cigarette and inhaled leisurely as he waited for the two men to
approach his car. “Hiya, Curtis.”

Ted Curtis leaned down and peered in the open window, grinning. “Guess who
wants to see you?”

“Hell,” Grant swore irritably. “All right, lead the way. I don't have to
drive all the way to Virginia, do I?”

“Naw, just to the next town. He's waiting in a motel.”

The fact that Sabin had felt it necessary to leave
headquarters at all told Grant a lot. He knew Kell Sabin from the old days; the man
didn't have a nerve in his body, and ice water ran in his veins. He wasn't a comfortable
man to be around, but Grant knew that the same had been said about himself. They were
both men to whom no rules applied, men who had intimate knowledge of hell, who had lived
and hunted in that gray jungle where no laws existed. The difference between them was
that Sabin was comfortable in that cold grayness; it was his life—but Grant wanted no
more of it. Things had gone too far; he had felt himself becoming less than human. He
had begun to lose his sense of who he was and why he was there. Nothing seemed to matter
any longer. The only time he'd felt alive was during the chase, when adrenaline pumped
through his veins and fired all his senses into acute awareness. The bullet that had
almost killed him had instead saved him, because it had stopped him long enough to let
him begin thinking again. That was when he'd decided to get out.

Twenty-five minutes later, with his hand curled around a mug of strong,
hot coffee, his booted feet propped comfortably on the genuine, wood-grained plastic
coffee table that was standard issue for motels, Grant had murmured, “Well, I'm here.
Talk.”

Kell Sabin was an even six feet tall, an inch shorter than Grant, and the
hard musculature of his frame revealed that he made it a point to stay in shape, even
though he was no longer in the field. He was dark—black-haired, black-eyed, with an
olive complexion—and the cold fire of his energy generated a force field around him. He
was impossible to read, and was as canny as a stalking panther, but Grant trusted him.
He couldn't say that he liked Sabin; Sabin wasn't a man to be friendly. Yet for twenty
years their lives had been intertwined until they were virtually a part of each other.
In his mind, Grant saw a red-orange flash
of gunfire, and abruptly
he felt the thick, moist heat of the jungle, smelled the rotting vegetation, saw the
flash of weapons being discharged…and felt, at his back, so close that each had braced
his shoulders against the other, the same man who sat across from him now. Things like
that stayed in a man's memory.

A dangerous man, Kell Sabin. Hostile governments would gladly have paid a
fortune to get to him, but Sabin was nothing more than a shadow slipping away from the
sunshine, as he directed his troops from the gray mists.

Without a flicker of expression in his black eyes, Sabin studied the man
who sat across from him in a lazy sprawl—a deceptively lazy sprawl, he knew. Grant was,
if anything, even leaner and harder than he had been in the field. Hibernating for a
year hadn't made him go soft. There was still something wild about Grant Sullivan,
something dangerous and untamed. It was in the wary, restless glitter of his amber eyes,
eyes that glowed as fierce and golden as an eagle's under the dark, level brows. His
dark blond hair was shaggy, curling down over his collar in back, emphasizing that he
wasn't quite civilized. He was darkly tanned; the small scar on his chin wasn't very
noticeable, but the thin line that slashed across his left cheekbone was silver against
his bronzed skin. They weren't disfiguring scars, but reminders of battles.

If Sabin had had to pick anyone to go after Hamilton's daughter, he'd have
picked this man. In the jungle Sullivan was as stealthy as a cat; he could become part
of the jungle, blending into it, using it. He'd been useful in the concrete jungles,
too, but it was in the green hells of the world that no one could equal him.

“Are you going after her?” Sabin finally asked in a quiet tone.

“Yeah.”

“Then let me fill you in.” Totally disregarding the
fact that Grant no longer had security clearance, Sabin told him about the missing
microfilm. He told him about George Persall, Luis Marcel, the whole deadly cat-and-mouse
game, and dumb little Priscilla sitting in the middle of it. She was being used as a
smokescreen for Luis, but Kell was more than a little worried about Luis. It wasn't like
the man to disappear, and Costa Rica wasn't the most tranquil place on earth. Anything
could have happened to him. Yet, wherever he was, he wasn't in the hands of any
government or political faction, because everyone was still searching for him, and
everyone except Manuel Turego and the American government was searching for Priscilla.
Not even the Costa Rican government knew that Turego had the woman; he was operating on
his own.

“Persall was a dark horse,” Kell admitted irritably. “He wasn't a
professional. I don't even have a file on him.”

If Sabin didn't have a file on him, Persall had been more than a dark
horse; he'd been totally invisible. “How did this thing blow open?” Grant drawled,
closing his eyes until they were little more than slits. He looked as if he were going
to fall asleep, but Sabin knew differently.

“Our man was being followed. They were closing in on him. He was out of
his mind with fever. He couldn't find Luis, but he remembered how to contact Persall. No
one knew Persall's name, until then, or how to find him if they needed him. Our man just
barely got the film to Persall before all hell broke loose. Persall got away.”

“What about our man?”

“He's alive. We got him out, but not before Turego got his hands on
him.”

Grant grunted. “So Turego knows our guy didn't tell Persall to destroy the
film.”

Kell looked completely disgusted. “
Everyone
knows.
There's no security down there. Too many people will sell any scrap of information
they can find. Turego has a leak in his organization, so by morning it was common
knowledge. Also by morning, Persall had died of a heart attack, in Priscilla's room.
Before we could move in, Turego took the girl.”

Dark brown lashes veiled the golden glitter of Grant's eyes almost
completely. He looked as if he would begin snoring at any minute. “Well? Does she know
anything about the microfilm or not?”

“We don't know. My guess is that she doesn't. Persall had several hours to
hide the microfilm before he went to her room.”

“Why the hell couldn't she have stayed with Daddy, where she belongs?”
Grant murmured.

“Hamilton has been raising hell for us to get her out of there, but they
aren't really close. She's a party girl. Divorced, more interested in having a good time
than in doing anything constructive. In fact, Hamilton cut her out of his will several
years ago, and she's been wandering all around the globe since. She'd been with Persall
for a couple of years. They weren't shy about their relationship. Persall liked to have
a flashy woman on his arm, and he could afford her. He always seemed like an easygoing
good-time guy, well-suited to her type. I sure as hell never figured him for a courier,
especially one sharp enough to fool me.”

“Why don't you go in and get the girl out?” Grant asked suddenly, and he
opened his eyes, staring at Kell, his gaze cold and yellow.

“Two reasons. One, I don't think she knows anything about the film. I have
to concentrate on finding the film, and I think that means finding Luis Marcel. Two,
you're the best man for the job. I thought so when I…ah…arranged for you to be brought
to Hamilton's attention.”

So Kell was working to get the girl out, after all,
but going about it in his own circuitous way. Well, staying behind the scenes was the
only way he could be effective. “You won't have any trouble getting into Costa Rica,”
Kell said. “I've already arranged it. But if you can't get the girl out…”

Grant got to his feet, a tawny, graceful savage, silent and lethal. “I
know,” he said quietly. Neither of them had to say it, but both knew that a bullet in
her head would be a great deal kinder than what would happen to her if Turego decided
that she did know the location of the microfilm. She was being held only as a safety
measure now, but if that microfilm didn't surface, she would eventually be the only
remaining link to it. Then her life wouldn't be worth a plugged nickel.

So now he was in Costa Rica, deep in the rain forest and too damned near
the Nicaraguan border for comfort. Roaming bands of rebels, soldiers, revolutionaries
and just plain terrorists made life miserable for people who just wanted to live their
simple lives in peace, but none of it touched Priscilla. She might have been a tropical
princess, sipping daintily at her iced drink, ignoring the jungle that ate continuously
at the boundaries of the plantation and had to be cut back regularly.

Well, he'd seen enough. Tonight was the night. He knew her schedule now,
knew the routine of the guards, and had already found all the trip lines. He didn't like
traveling through the jungle at night, but there wasn't any choice. He had to have
several hours to get her away from here before anyone realized she was missing; luckily,
she always slept late, until at least ten every morning. No one would really think
anything of it if she didn't appear by eleven. By then, they'd be long gone. Pablo would
pick them up by
helicopter at the designated clearing tomorrow
morning, not long after dawn.

Grant backed slowly away from the edge of the jungle, worming himself into
the thick greenery until it formed a solid curtain separating him from the house. Only
then did he rise to his feet, walking silently and with assurance, because he'd taken
care of the trip lines and sensors as he'd found them. He'd been in the jungle for three
days, moving cautiously around the perimeter of the plantation, carefully getting the
layout of the house. He knew where the girl slept, and he knew how he was going to get
in. It couldn't have been better; Turego wasn't in the house. He'd left the day before,
and since he wasn't back by now, Grant knew that he wasn't coming. It was already
twilight, and it wasn't safe to travel the river in the darkness.

Grant knew exactly how treacherous the river was; that was why he would
take the girl through the jungle. Even given its dangers, the river would be the logical
route for them to take. If by some chance her departure were discovered before Pablo
picked them up, the search would be concentrated along the river, at least for a while.
Long enough, he hoped, for them to reach the helicopter.

He'd have to wait several more hours before he could go into the house and
get the girl out. That would give everyone time to get tired, bored and sleepy. He made
his way to the small clearing where he'd stashed his supplies, and carefully checked it
for snakes, especially the velvety brown fer-de-lance, which liked to lie in clearings
and wait for its next meal. After satisfying himself that the clearing was safe, he sat
down on a fallen tree to smoke a cigarette. He took a drink of water, but he wasn't
hungry. He knew that he wouldn't be until sometime tomorrow. Once the action was going
down he couldn't eat; he was too keyed up, all his senses enhanced so that even the
smallest sound of the jungle crashed against his eardrums like
thunder. Adrenaline was already pumping through his veins, making him so high that he
could understand why the Vikings had gone berserk during battle. Waiting was almost
unbearable, but that was what he had to do. He checked his watch again, the illuminated
dial a strange bit of civilization in a jungle that swallowed men alive, and frowned
when he saw that only a little over half an hour had passed.

To give himself something to do, to calm his tightly wound nerves, he
began packing methodically, arranging everything so he would know exactly where it was.
He checked his weapons and his ammunition, hoping he wouldn't have to use them. What he
needed more than anything, if he was to get the girl out alive, was a totally silent
operation. If he had to use his carbine or the automatic pistol, he'd give away their
position. He preferred a knife, which was silent and deadly.

He felt sweat trickle down his spine. God, if only the girl would have
sense enough to keep her mouth shut and not start squawking when he hauled her out of
there. If he had to, he'd knock her out, but that would make her dead weight to carry
through vegetation that reached out to wrap around his legs like living fingers.

He realized that he was fondling his knife, his long, lean fingers sliding
over the deadly blade with a lover's touch, and he shoved it into its sheath. Damn her,
he thought bitterly. Because of her, he was back in the thick of things, and he could
feel it taking hold of him again. The rush of danger was as addictive as any drug, and
it was in his veins again, burning him, eating at him like an acid—killing him and
intensifying the feeling of life all at once. Damn her, damn her to hell. All this for a
spoiled, silly society brat who liked to amuse herself in various beds. Still, her round
heels might have kept her alive, because Turego fancied himself
quite a lover.

The night sounds of the jungle began to build around him: the screams of
the howler monkeys, the rustles and chirps and coughs of the night denizens as they went
about their business. Somewhere down close to the river he heard a jaguar cough, but he
never minded the normal jungle sounds. He was at home here. The peculiar combination of
his genes and the skills he'd learned as a boy in the swamps of south Georgia made him
as much a part of the jungle as the jaguar that prowled the river's edge. Though the
thick canopy blocked out all light, he didn't light a lamp or switch on a flashlight; he
wanted his eyes to be perfectly adjusted to the dark when he began moving. He relied on
his ears and his instincts, knowing that there was no danger close to him. The danger
would come from men, not from the shy jungle animals. As long as those reassuring noises
surrounded him, he knew that no men were near.