Deadly Promises Part 21

He could hear the smile in her soft southern voice.

"But it occurs to me that you practice avoidance better than anyone I've ever known."

He smiled, too, because she was not only beautiful and s.e.xy but smart and funny. "It's that occupational-hazard thing again."

She made a sound that was something between a snort and acceptance. "We grew up together," she said, giving him his way. "Stayed friends."

He opened one eye. "Define friends." That issue had been working on him since Wyatt had called him in Jakarta.

She c.o.c.ked her head and considered. "More than friends once. In high school we were an item item."

"And he walked away from you you?"

She leisurely traced a fingertip from his left collarbone to his right and back again. Her touch made him shiver and burn at the same time.

"Not so much away from me, as from Adel, Georgia." She lifted a shoulder. "Lotta people do. Not much excitin' goin' on around there."

He loved how her drawl had intensified as she relaxed.

"Were you heartbroken?"

She was quiet long enough that he opened his eyes again. And by the time she said, "For a while, yeah, but not anymore," he was pretty certain he didn't believe her.

She still had a thing for Wyatt.

Which probably answered his next question. "Why did you come to Myanmar, Carrie?"

Another hesitation. Another Ah ha Ah ha moment when she had to think about it a bit too long. moment when she had to think about it a bit too long.

The truthful answer probably went something like: Not long ago, Wyatt had come home to Adel with a new wife. It had stung. So Carrie Granger had gone looking for adventure. Something to help her douse the old flame and soften the blow.

He understood. Savage was a great guy. Carrie-worthy. Something he wasn't.

"I might have been a little disenfranchised," she said, breaking into his thoughts.

It occurred to him that these were the kind of moments he'd been missing for a long time. Quiet, intimate moments with a woman who mattered. Moments where barriers fell and truths came out. Dangerous moments for a CIA a.s.set. Moments he'd had to avoid at all costs, for more years than he wanted to count.

The same years that had brought him to the place he was today: a man who could not possibly be someone good for someone like her.

"Maybe I was a little hurt that Wyatt was once and for all off-limits," she admitted.

Her soft words drew his gaze back to her face.

Her smile was whimsical. "A girl never forgets her first love, you know."

Her candor didn't surprise him; it was who she was.

"But that was then. I'm over it."

Didn't change a thing where he was concerned. He was still no good for her.

If he was honest, he had to admit that he was teetering very close to alcoholic status. He couldn't count the number of times he'd wished he had a drink in the past twelve hours.

He was burned out and just plain tapped out of goodwill toward man. He didn't know if he had enough left to pull himself away from the abyss, let alone be the man that a woman like Carrie needed.

"Why did you come for me?" she asked.

At last, an easy question. "Because Wyatt asked."

"And he knew you'd do it."

He closed his eyes again. "Yeah. He knew."

Her hand lay flat on his bare chest now. Warm and light and the most sensual presence he'd ever known.

If she had thoughts or questions about why Wyatt hadn't come himself, she didn't voice them. She lay down close to him instead and rested her head on his shoulder as if she needed the contact to keep her grounded.

"How did you find me?"

He touched a hand to her hair, pulled her closer, and thought, f.u.c.k it f.u.c.k it. He was going to enjoy the moment. "Wasn't easy. Do you know why you were arrested?"

She made a sound of frustration. "No idea. I got out of the cab, saw a girl in trouble, and I tried to help her."

He knew the rest of the story. Had spent a lot of money and a lot of hours ferreting out the facts.

"That girl was a prost.i.tute who had stolen from a customer, who had sent a hired enforcer to punish her. As it turns out, that same customer was also a high-ranking military official-the judge presiding over your trial."

"Oh my G.o.d," she whispered.

"And since the girl was a known prost.i.tute, when the police saw you aiding and abetting a criminal, they a.s.sumed you were a working girl, too, and hauled you off to court."

"Some court." She shivered and snuggled even closer. "How did you find all of this out?"

"I have... sources," he said evasively, then laughed when she punched him. "My contacts checked out all the taxi companies in Mandalay, found a driver who remembered a fare for a blond English-speaking woman. He filled us in on what happened and that it was the military, not the city police, who made the arrest. After that, it was just a question of finding the judge."

A greenback still talked louder than the Myanmar kyat. A little grease on the palm had helped a court clerk remember the trial of a blond woman, possibly American, who had been sentenced and shipped off to the ruby mines.

"Did they really think they would get away with it?"

"They did," he said soberly. "You weren't going to get out of here through any diplomatic channels. The Junta military regime would never have acknowledged that you went through their system. We're talking international incident of epic proportions here.

"So once the top bra.s.s figured out what the judge had done, they went into full cover-up mode. Their intent was to leave no trace that you ever set foot on Burma soil. I'm betting some heads rolled over this, but they were in too deep to let you go."

She was quiet for a long moment. "The entire military must be looking for us by now."

He nodded. "That they are."

"How are we going to get out of the country?" She rose up on an elbow, her eyes intent on his. "My purse with my pa.s.sport and all my luggage were in the taxi when the driver saw the MP and took off. I don't have a shred of ID."

"You don't need ID," he promised her. "You've got me."

He didn't want her worrying; that was for him to do. So he pulled her down and kissed her. Not because she looked like she needed kissing but because he he needed it. Because he needed to feel her soft and giving beneath him one more time. Because he needed to feel the pulse of her body take him inside and remind him of the good things life had to offer. needed it. Because he needed to feel her soft and giving beneath him one more time. Because he needed to feel the pulse of her body take him inside and remind him of the good things life had to offer.

And because he needed, even more, to have one final memory of what it felt like to make love to her in this incredible moment in time.

Eleven.

Cav was pulling on his pants and making plans to get going when he heard an increase of activity outside the window.

He touched a hand to Carrie's shoulder to wake her.

She sat up abruptly. "What?"

"Something's happening. Get dressed."

An urgent knock sounded on the door. He opened it up a crack. "Soldiers have arrived," Tun said, sounding panicked. "They search the village."

"How many?"

"Two trucks. Two jeeps."

Cav swore under his breath. They hadn't skimped on the manpower. This was an all-out manhunt.

"We must go now," Tun said.

"No," Cave said adamantly. "You take the children and Thura to a safe place. I don't want you implicated in helping us." G.o.d only knew what the Junta would do to Tun and his family if they discovered they'd helped criminals.

"But-"

Cav laid a hand on Tun's shoulder, cutting him off. "We'll be fine." He checked his watch. The extraction team would already be in flight, so he had to come up with alternate transpo fast.

"Go take care of your family."

Tun hesitated. "You can find the way? You are certain?"

While Carrie was sleeping, Tun and Cav had gone over the map and he'd plugged the coordinates into his GPS. "I'll get there."

Tun finally gave in with a sober nod. "Be safe, my friend."

"You, too."

He shut the door and turned back to see Carrie had already pulled on her T-shirt and was zipping up her pants and toeing into her sandals.

"I take it we just lost our ride to wherever we were supposed to go, to meet whoever was supposed to get us out of here?"

"That pretty well sums it up." And since there were no cell phone towers for a hundred miles around, he had no way to contact the team to change the rendezvous point.

"I'll figure something out," he said, as he quickly tugged on his boots, then stuffed any shred of evidence that they'd been there into his backpack. "Ever fired a rifle?"

She paled.

f.u.c.k. "I'll take that as a no. Okay, let's give you a crash course. This'll be fast and dirty."

He set the AK's selector switch to semiautomatic so she wouldn't dump the entire magazine on a five-second blast. Then he showed her how to work the safety and warned her to keep it on until she knew she was going to fire.

"Put the front site on the target," he said, helping her position the b.u.t.t at her shoulder, "and squeeze the trigger. Thats it. Don't fight the recoil but be aware that it's gonna have some kick."

If she actually fired she was going to have a h.e.l.luva bruise on her shoulder, but the adrenaline would be pumping so hard that she'd never feel it.

"You're going to miss more than you hit and that's okay. Just keep your head and avoid yanking on the trigger, or you'll dump your ammo too fast. Like my old DI used to tell me, squeezing a trigger is like touching a woman's nipple. A caress is appreciated but a yank will get you slapped."

"Well, we can't have that," she said in a tone that told him she was way out of her comfort zone.

"You'll be fine." He wished he had a set of earplugs. If she ended up firing that puppy her ears were going to ring for a week.

He policed the room one last time relieved her of the rifle, and headed for the door.

"Got one more hide-and-seek game left in you, sweetheart?" He wanted to get a read on her frame of mind.

She gave him a brave smile. She was rock solid and steady. "Monopoly's more my style. But I suppose I'll let you choose the game, being you've got the gun and all."

He didn't know many women who could keep their sense of humor over a broken nail, let alone keep their head in a life-or-death situation. He was d.a.m.n proud of her.

"You're a pretty good time, you know that, Carrie Granger?"

"Oh, honey, wait till you see me when I'm not scared half out of my mind. I'll show you a real real good time then." good time then."

"It's a date."

He hoped to h.e.l.l he could keep it, because he needed to get them to the extraction point in less than half an hour.

THE SUN BURNED like a brand. Sweat trickled between Cav's shoulder blades as he hunkered down behind a small wagon hitched to a donkey and watched the military jeep parked across the street. like a brand. Sweat trickled between Cav's shoulder blades as he hunkered down behind a small wagon hitched to a donkey and watched the military jeep parked across the street.

The wagon was filled with vegetables and fruit, and the owner was currently relieving himself in an alley. For the most part, the street was as quiet as the rest of the village. Most of the residents were either napping out of the sun or loafing and shooting the breeze with friends. The only ripple in the pool was the military presence. Four Junta soldiers had just pulled up in the jeep, jumped out, and started working their way down the line of shops.

Cav gauged the distance to the jeep, the distance of the soldiers from the jeep, and the probability of reaching it without being seen. Doable. It wasn't as if they had a lot of choice. Of the dozen dilapidated vehicles he'd spotted in town, Cav didn't think he could count on a single one to transport them across a street, let alone over twenty miles of winding mountain roads.

But a sure thing sat just ten yards away, provided they could get to it. And provided he could start it once they did. He figured it for a 1988, maybe '90 model. No roof, no doors, just a roll bar and sprung seats. Strictly a bare-bones imported civilian model, which meant it would need a key that was most likely with the driver.

He drew the Warthog out of his leg sheath. There was more than one way to skin a cat.

"On my go, we head for that jeep," he told Carrie, who was mouse quiet beside him. "You dive for the floor in the back. Keep your head down and pray like h.e.l.l that I can get that sucker started before the nice men with guns come back for their ride."