Wild Orchids (39 page)

What was he stalking? Lora wondered again as she shut her eyes with the foggy notion that if she couldn't see him, he couldn't see her…

"Ouch! Goddamn it!" The shout and curse came from 'a man farther to the left. Lora's eyes popped open automatically to find that all the other men's attention was momentarily centered upon the cursor.

"What the hell's the matter with you. Jack?" This disgusted demand came from the man to their immediate left, the third man in line. The man on their immediate right, the one Lora had been studying as he approached closest to them, was shaking his head in disgust. Apparently, Jack's yell had startled the entire company, and they were only just now recovering from it. .

"Damn branch. Walked right into it. For a minute there, I thought it was a snake." Jack's sheepish response was barely audible to Lora as he and the others moved on past without breaking their careful formation.

"Keep it quiet!" came the stern warning from the man who was apparently in charge, and the footsteps moved off as the men melted into the jungle in the direction of the plane.

"Who do you think they are?'' Lora judged that it was safe to whisper once the men were out of sight. Max was crouched beside her, his shoulder brushing her arm. When he turned his head to look at her, Lora saw that his eyes were bright with an emotion she couldn't identify.

"Minelli's pals. They aren't Mexicans, that's for sure, so that pretty much rules out the
Federales
or Ortega's crew." He smiled, but the smile was as unpleasant as the hard, hot glitter of his eyes. "They think we're all there in the plane waiting for them like sitting ducks, with the dope and the cash ripe for the picking."

"What's going to happen when they find out they're wrong?" Lora's eyes were enormous as she tried to deny her own guess. After trekking all this way, she knew those men weren't going to just give up and go home.

"They'll start looking for us," Max said grimly, catching Lora's hand and rising into a half-crouching position. "Which is why we better get the hell out of here while the getting is good. Come on."

He moved stealthily off through the tangle of vines and plants, keeping low to the ground, pulling Lora after him. She tried to move in that half-crouch too, and discovered that it was murder on the back. Murder—that was a word that she wished hadn't come to mind. It seemed like a good possibility for her and Max's and Tunafish's ultimate fate at the hands of Minelli and DiAngelo and their friends. Lora thought about what Minelli and said in the cave earlier and shivered. Her fate at their hands would probably include more than murder. Minelli was the type to enjoy rape…

"Shit! Get down!" Max tugged her urgently down into the loam, and Lora dropped like a Raid-zapped fly. Her heart pounded in her ears as she looked fearfully over at Max. He was lying full-length beside her, his hand pressing her deeper into the earth. Here there was no convenient broad-leaved bush to shelter them. Here there was only the sparse cover of leafless vines and tree trunks…

Uniformed men on burros. Maybe a dozen of them, obviously Mexicans as they sat solemn-faced atop the long-eared animals. Lora would have laughed at the ludicrous picture made by men and beasts—the burros looked nearly as funny wearing saddles and bridles as the soldiers did riding such small, comical looking beasts—if the situation hadn't been so deadly serious. Because, unless she was very much mistaken, these were the
Federates,
the Mexican Judicial Police.

Lora scarcely breathed as the burros picked their way over vines and branches and around fallen tree trunks. The soldiers rode in stolid silence, never even glancing their way. Like Minelli's friends, they were being guided toward the plane by a beeping transmitter. Lora's eyes widened as she imagined the inevitable confrontation.

"What will they do when they run into the others?"

"God knows. I don't want to."

Max was on the move again, dragging Lora with him. They had traveled the equivalent of perhaps two city blocks when, from the direction of the plane, they heard the cry,
"Alto, Federates!"
and then, seconds later, the blast of weapons. Shouts and curses in English and Spanish punctuated the ear-shattering cacophony of exchanged gunfire. Max stopped, listening, then turned to Lora with a grimace.

"Wait here. Don't move so much as a nostril," he ordered, and without a backward glance, began to make his way back the way they had come.

Lora stared dumbfounded at that retreating back, looked wildly around the unfriendly jungle in which she had just been left alone, thought simultaneously of snakes and jaguars and stray bullets and capture, and took off after Max in a crouching run.

"I thought I told you to stay put!" he hissed angrily when she caught up with him.

"No way!" Lora answered with succinct though necessarily quiet force.

Max didn't argue, just shrugged and looked disgusted as he moved off through the jungle. Lora trailed him, imitating his movements, being as silent and inconspicuous as possible. The sound of gunfire had stopped. She didn't know if that should be reassuring or not. Did that mean that both groups had killed each other—or banded together and were even now moving back their way?

Max dropped to his belly, and Lora followed suit. They were lying behind a little thicket of inch-thick saplings—not a particularly good cover if it had not been for the leaves that had drifted to rest in a pile about two-feet high around the front of the grove. Peering over the leaves, following the direction of Max's eyes, Lora saw that the burros were tied to a rope strung between two vines. The soldiers were nowhere in sight.

"For God's sake, will you just stay here? I'll only be gone a couple of minutes."

Max's hiss in her ear made her jump. She turned her head to glare at him reproachfully, only to find her face on a level with his feet. He was already belly-crawling around their sheltering grove to slither through the undergrowth toward the plane.

Lora stared after him and debated. Should she follow? She argued with herself as she saw his long body moving snake-like over vines and piles of leaves and fallen branches. As soon as those white rubber soles disappeared into the trees, the issue was no longer in question. She was off through the trees like a shot, belly-crawling in a way that would have astonished her gym teacher, totally ignoring the assault to her bare arms and semi-protected knees.

Max was lying on his belly under a flat-leaved bush, and only looked briefly disgusted when Lora crawled up beside him. His attention was focusing on what was happening just beyond the sheltering leaves, and as Lora peered through the overhanging foliage, she saw why.

The
Federates
were lying on their bellies in a circle, their rifles uniformly pointed toward the ruined plane that lay half on its side, nose down and tail in the air in the circle's center. Through the ripped fuselage, Lora could see glimpses of movement inside the plane. She looked over at Max, surprised to find a grin splitting his face.

"The feds have Minelli's pals holed up inside the plane. Probably think they're us." His grin broadened, and he began to creep back away from his vantage point. "That should keep them both occupied for a while."

His hand on her leg tugged her back, too, and Lora followed him with many a painful grimace as he belly-crawled until he judged it safe to stand up. She stood up then, too, and would have examined her scratched and bruised forearms if he hadn't immediately grabbed her hand and dragged her after him as he jogged in the direction of the cave. She followed, willy-nilly, stumbling and wincing and trying not to gibber with fear at the sporadic outbursts of exchanged gunfire. When they reached the base of the cliff, Max sent her scrambling ahead of him over the crumbling shale while he followed just behind her.

Lora was breathless by the time she reached the ledge of rock just outside the cave. Her arms hurt, her knees hurt, and she thought she might be winded for life. She was really out of shape… The darkness of the cave coming right on the heels of the brilliant light that bathed the cliff where it rose above the trees blinded her. Lora blinked as she entered. Then she gave a little choked-off scream as she was grabbed from behind.

"Don't make a single funny move, or I'll blow the broad's head off."

The voice was Minelli's, and it was clear that the words were addressed to the dark shadow that was Max, slowly walking into the cave in her wake. As Lora's eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the arm that was hard around her throat, choking her, also belonged to Minelli. Her eyes rolled to one side to catch a glimpse of his sweat-beaded face. His eyes were fixed on Max, who had come to a poised halt, and his loose-lipped mouth curved in a triumphant grin. Lora felt something cold against her temple, and realized with a shock that he was holding a gun to her head.

"What makes you think I give a damn? You shoot her and I shoot you—takes no skin off my back." Max's tone was as casually indifferent as his words.

Lora's eyes goggled at him over Minelli's restraining arm. He was pointing his own gun straight at Minelli, his expression as untroubled as if he were contemplating the potential destruction of a fly. The gun at her temple pressed a little closer, and she felt sweat break out all over her.

"Come off it. Maxwell, you're not going to let me turn this little lady here to hamburger. Now drop the gun."

"You drop it." Max's voice never wavered. Neither did his hand holding the gun.

Lora stared at him with horror, felt the nose of the gun nuzzle at her forehead, and shut her eyes. If she was about to get her brains blown out, she wasn't going to look.

There was a moment of silence in which neither man backed down an inch. Lora felt herself wilting against Minelli's large frame. The classic Mexican stand-off—with herself in the middle! Dear God, she prayed, let neither of them decide to call the other's bluff!

"I'm going to count to three. Maxwell…" Minelli's voice trailed off ominously.

Lora's eyes flew open, to fix with helpless pleading on Max. He looked as cool as a Popsicle. She wanted to plead with him to throw down his gun, but her voice no longer seemed to work-

"One…"

"Better think about it carefully, Minelli. I can't miss at this range."

"Two…"

"You'll be hamburger right along with her. I'm aiming right between your eyes."

Lora shut her eyes again, squinching them up against the expected bang. Oh, God, she was going to die, she was going to die, and all because the pigheaded fool she was stupid enough to love thought he could play chicken with her life…

"Drop the gun. Maxwell."

Lora opened her eyes to find that DiAngelo had come noiselessly into the cave behind Max, and now stood with a pistol pressed to his spine. Max dropped the gun, and Lora sagged with relief. Thank God for DiAngelo… There was a clatter as Max's pistol bounced over the floor. Max grunted as DiAngelo jammed his gun harder into Max's spine.

"Over there. With your friend." Minelli released his chokehold on her throat as DiAngelo shoved Max in the direction of the stalagmite, fence. Lora saw that Tunafish sat on the other side, trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey and gagged with his own shirt. His face and bare torso glistened with sweat, and Lora could only imagine the roughing up the two thugs must have given him.

"Tie him up." Minelli's arm slid around her waist as he spoke, holding her so that her back was pressed against his stomach. "Then he can tell us what he did with the dope before Fat Frank and the boys get here. Fat Frank doesn't like to be kept waiting." This last was said with a malicious smile at Max, who looked back at him expressionlessly.

"What makes you think your buddies are here, Minelli?" Max spoke with cool dispassion as DiAngelo moved behind him.

Minelli grinned. "Blackie here let out a yell when he saw choppers overhead. Got so excited he forgot about us. So we made our move."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, Minelli, but those choppers belong to the feds. We saw them out in the jungle."

DiAngelo looked over Max's shoulder at Minelli. "Tony?" His voice was uneasy.

"Another bluff. Maxwell?" Minelli sneered, giving DiAngelo a hard look. "Get on with it."

Max shrugged. His eyes never left Minelli as DiAngelo carefully laid his gun down on a rock behind him and reached to pull Max's hands behind his back, one at a time and with considerable force to judge from Max's wince.

Minelli was staring undecidedly at Max. "You tell me,baby," he said suddenly to Lora, his arm tightening around her middle as he pulled her tighter against him. The strength of his grip threatened to crack her ribs. Lora silently sucked in air before she answered, praying that she would say the right thing. She had no illusions about the desperation of their position…

"Answer me, baby." He tightened his arm violently. "Are the cops out there?"

Lora gasped. "Yes, they're out there!"

"How do you know they're feds?" His voice was hard, suspicious. The arm around her middle was causing her physical pain.

"They wore uniforms. They were Mexican. They looked like police."

DiAngelo spoke up, sounding frightened. "What we going to do. Tony? The feds…"

Minelli considered a moment. "So the feds are out there. So what? We hole up here and we wait. Fat Prank and the boys will be along soon. Hell, they're probably right on the feds' tails. We just got to wait."

Lora watched in despair as DiAngelo began to wrap the very bindings that Max had used on him around Max's wrists. Soon she would be at Minelli and DiAngelo's mercy— she had no doubts at all about Minelli's intentions as far as she was concerned. And he would just as certainly kill Max and Tunafish. Tunafish was totally out of commission, and Max was just as helpless with a gun trained on him and his hands being tied. Once the restraints were secured, they would have no chance. That left only her to do something, anything… But what? If she could somehow manage to distract Minelli, Max might be able to overpower DiAngelo and get his hands on a gun…

Lora took a deep breath—or as deep as she could with Minelli's arm crushing her ribs.