Operation Swift Mercy (16 page)

She glanced down at her hand when she felt him take hold of it, threading his fingers through her own and holding firmly
.
And then he went and did that
, she sighed silently.
How was she supposed to think logically when he did that
?

The trip wasn’t long, but the terrain they travelled through was rough and it was slow going. They seemed to be heading up into the mountains, through dense jungle like growth and more than once she sent Chase a curious frown, but he just smiled reassuringly and squeezed her hand gently. Apparently it was best not to ask questions.

Eventually they came to a clearing and Pete stopped the jeep, indicating they’d reached their destination.

Mercy climbed down and looked around. There wasn’t anyone else
there
, the clearing was surrounded on all sides by thick vegetation. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as the
muggy air and
un
u
sual scented bushland filled her senses. It wasn’t like the bush
back home—there wasn’t any eucalyptus scented gum trees and banksia, this was more exotic—nice, but not home.

A sound caught her attention and she opened her eyes, scanning the sky as a drone like sound grew louder. A speck in the sky materialised, and she turned to look at Chase. “Is that for us?”

“Yep. Ever been in one?” H
e asked, coming to stand close beside her.

“Never.”

“Well, I think you’ll like it.”

“Do we have far to go?”
S
he eyed the aircraft as it grew bigger, now almost overhead, warily. It didn’t look terribly big.

“No, not far. It’s just transporting us to our next mode of transport.”

“Exactly how many modes of transport do we have left?” How many more could there be? They’d already flown on a commercial aircraft, travelled by car, and now helicopter…
she was
almost scared to find out.

“
No
t that many,” he told her.

“I’m drawing the line at camels—I don’t like camels,” she added, only half joking.

She heard his warm chuckle and smiled
in return
. H
e really did have the nicest laugh…the nicest pretty much everything, she amended, when her gaze travelled down the column of his tanned neck and across his chest, nicely defined in a not too tight t-shirt, and
down to where his hips narrowed slightly to fill a pair of denim
jeans.

“I can promise there’ll be no camels.”

She held his gaze then, and felt her stomach do a flip flop as she fell into
that damn
intense, smouldering look he sometimes got. It wasn’t too hard to work out what he’d been thinking about—the same thing that had been distracting her as well. “We’re going to talk about it,” he told her, in a voice that was more promise than warning but she couldn’t decide which she preferred.

The
helicopter began
its decent, whipping the dirt and vegetation around them into a frenzy. Chase circled his arms around her and pulled her face into his chest to protect her from the worst of the stinging debris.

Mercy breathed
deeply, filling her head with his scent. And for the briefest of moments she allowed herself to simply relax and enjoy the sensation. It was a small luxury but in her present predicament—it could be the last chance she got so she decided not to waste it.

All too soon it was over and they were heading toward the chopper to climb aboard.

They flew out over the dense jungle, a sea of green beneath them, as  mystic looking volcanic mountainsides rose up to greet them
before being replaced with fields of patchwork farmland and  narrow valleys of intricate rice terraces.
Cliff faces of
coastline appeared
as they swung out over the
sea
,
and beyond
and Mercy
watched
fascinated
by the
colours of the water below
as they
changed
in shades of turquoise, blue and emerald
.
It was breathtaking.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d been flying out across the ocean, but eventually she heard the pilot talking into his mic and she caught sight of a blob in the water growing larger.

“A boat?”
S
he asked, turning to Chase uncertainly.

“It’s a ship. A cargo ship
,
to be more accurate. We know the captain. He’s going to take us some of the way.”

Some of the way?
It was too noisy inside the helicopter to hold the lengthy conversation she wanted to have, so
frustrated;
she turned back to the window
and waited
until they landed…

“Where the hell are we going to land?”
S
he asked alarmed. It was a big boat—ship—whatever, she had to admit, but still, it was moving and there wasn’t a lot of room for error.

“It’s fine. Just watch,”
Chase told her calmly.

I don’t think so,
she thought, clamping her eyes shut
and clutching the locket around her neck tightly
as she felt the chopper begin to lower itself onto the back of the ship. She held Chases hand tightly, waiting for a bone shattering th
um
p as they landed—she couldn’t make herself think about what she’d feel if they missed the
landing spot. However the slight bump that she
experienced
was nowhere near as bad as she had been expecting and she opened her eyes and let out a loud sigh of relief when she found they’d landed safely and could climb out.

“Oh ye of little faith,” he said, reaching across her to open the door.

He lingered
slightly
longer than was necessary, and for a moment Mercy’s lips itched to feel his brush across hers, but he pulled back slowly and gave a small grimace. “Not the right place or time, but soon,” he whispered.

Slightly dazed by the too close encounter, Mercy climbed from the chopper and out onto the deck. She didn’t get much time to look
around;
Chase took her hand as he strode past, and moved her along. She did have time to glance up and saw a group of men looking down over a railing at them—seeming surprised by their arrival, before they spotted her and began pointing and calling out some rather crude suggestions and cat calls
. It soon became clear why Chase was practically dragging her along behind him, and s
he had to admit
she didn’t feel altogether comfortable being the focus of such blatant sexual innuendo either.

They were in under the top deck, thankfully out of sight of the crew when a tall man in uniform came out to greet them. She watched as Chase and Tupper shook his hand, her smile of greeting vanishing though as he raked her with a stern glance from head to toe.

“You said nothing about bringing a woman aboard,” he snapped.

“She won’t be a problem.” Tupper told him and his tone had lost its usual laidback casualness. This was a side of Tupper she hadn’t seen before.

“She already is. My men have seen her.”

“Then you better make it clear to your men that she’s off limits. We’ll deal with the woman—you just keep your end of the bargain,”
Tu
pper snapped, handing over an envelope, not releasing it immediately until he had the
captain’s full attention. “We have an understanding, Captain?”

The man’s lip
curl
ed
in a snarl, but he lowered his head in a nod of agreement,
yanking the
envelop
e
from Tupper’s hand
with a
cold expression.

T
he captain toss
ed
his head in the direction of an arched doorway and a man in a similar white uniform wordlessly
led the
way through a maze of corridors, eventually coming to a halt before two doors and leaving them.

“Get inside,” Chase said opening the door and waiting for her to proceed him.
His clipped tone brought home to her the fact the men were not as comfortable with this arrangement as they seemed and their obvious caution knotted up her insides with anxiety.

He paused before following her inside
and
she heard him exchange words with Tupper before he shut the door behind him.

“What was all that about?” S
he demanded in the silence that followed him.

“It’s a long story, but
let’s
just sa
y
there’s not a lot of love lost between the captain and ourselves.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because there wasn’t much choice in the time frame we had to work with. We’ll be alright. He
’s getting paid well, he’ll do his job.”

“So why
the elaborate
helicopter
arrival
?
Why couldn’t we’ve got on while it was in port?
”

“We don’t want to leave a trail for anyone to follow from here on in. Hopefully ours will go cold from the airport in Kuta. The longer we stay invisible, the safer we’ll be.”

“But what about customs and all that? Isn’t boarding a ship in the middle of the ocean illegal?”

Chase sent her a swift grin, “
o
nly if we get caught.”

Great.
Now s
he was some kind of fugitive.

“We won’t get caught,”
he told
her, coming across to stand before her.
“I
told you, I’ll take care of you.”

She stared up at him, once again
trapped
in the spell of his smouldering gaze.
How did he do that?
One minute they were having a conversation, and the next they were a breath away from jumping
each other’s
bones and damned if she could be bothered summoning up a justifiable reason why she shouldn’t.

A loud thump on the door made her jump, and Chase swore as he dropped his head in apparent defeat,
sighing loudly
before turning to open
it
with what seemed enough force to rip it off its steel reinforced hinges.

“Got Ox on the phone—you better come out here,” she heard Tupper tell Chase outside in the corridor.

Chase turned
to
face her, “Stay in here—do not leave this room until I get back,” he ordered and disappeared through the door without a backward glance.

Mercy frowned and made a salute at the closed door, “Aye aye capin
’
” she muttered. Truth was after the reception she got from the crew when she boarded there was very little that would prise her from this room, and certainly not alone. She’d had enough drama and adventure in the last few days to last her a life time.

She sat down on the edge of the bunk style bed in the room and glanced around. It was small—train sleeper
type small, but it did have a
shower and toilet
—e
qually
miniscule
, but there
was a shower! Quickly digging through her bag, she
grabbed her bottles of shampoo and
conditioner and
headed for the bathroom. She turned the taps and a pathetic
looking stream
of water came out
,
but it was water and it was
hot!

Lathering up her hair, she almost groaned in sheer delight
at
finally
being
able to wash
it
.
She really was easy to please, it was the simple things that sometimes made everything okay—like washing
your
hair. If she was clean, she felt like not everything in her life was going wrong. This was normal…this was
comforting.

Turning the taps off, she squeezed the excess water from her hair and turned to grab a towel from the rack, just as the bathroom door burst open and a scream left her lips.

Chapter
Fourteen

Chase had just
ended his conversation
with Tate, confirming their arrival at the island and relieved to hear that he’d be following within a day
or two
. Handing the phone back to Tupper, he was about to turn away when a blood curdling scream reached his ears. “Mercy!” he yelled, running
back toward
the room he’d left her in, charging through the
doorway without
pausing to assess
the danger
first.

His fear turn
ed
instantly to rage as he caught sight of a large shape
inside the
bathroom
, pressing Mercy back against the wall of the shower stall.