Secret Agent Sam

Chapter 5

Still reeling, his senses glutted with the taste, the smell, the feel of Samantha, Cory watched the men slip into the room, seeming to fill it with their silent menace and the threat of violence in their weapons and their hard, cold eyes. His eyes leaped from one impassive face to the next, looking for the one he’d come so far to meet. He wasn’t there, of course. These were the messengers, he realized; the retrieval squad, nothing more.

One of them, the designated “spokesman,” apparently, motioned with his weapon. Come.

Cory nodded. So far, so good, he thought as he picked up his laptop and tote bag.

But as he stepped toward the waiting cadre of armed men, the leader again motioned with his weapon, this time holding it up to bar his way, and his hard black stare had gone shooting past Cory to something behind him. Turning, Cory saw Sam, waiting to follow him, her face calm, body relaxed, one hip canted and the straps of the backpack slung over one shoulder.

The terrorists’ leader spoke, his voice sharp and unexpected in the stillness. “Who is this?” The rifle in his hands jerked toward Sam.

“She’s the pilot,” Cory explained, and it took all the self-control he had to say it calmly with every nerve twanging and his heart thumping. When the man’s face remained blank, he hooked his thumbs together and made flapping motions with his hands, and for good measure added, “She flies the airplane.”

The man jerked half around, and several of his companions leaned closer to confer with him in unintelligible mutters while Cory waited in silent agony, cursing the fates that had conspired to bring Sam into harm’s way. This harm he’d created. If anything happens to her, he thought…

The spokesman turned back, and with yet more jerking motions of his rifle to emphasize his words, said sharply, “She stay here. I am told to bring only you-” the gun barrel pointed toward Cory “-and you-” now toward Tony. “Come, now.”

Fear flooded Cory’s body and prickled his skin like frost. His heartbeat was a distant booming in his ears. Horrifying images, reports of extraneous captives being beheaded flashed through his mind. He could feel himself screaming, “No!” inside his head in the silent, chest-burning, throat-tearing way of nightmares, and again it was a shock to hear his own voice, sounding calm and in command. “No. She’s needed. She’s also my interpreter. She comes with us.”

The gunman thrust his chin upward in a manner that was both arrogant and dismissive. “I speak English. No need for interpreter.”

“She goes,” Cory said flatly, “or I don’t.” To demonstrate the conviction of his declaration he lowered his laptop and tote bag to the floor and folded his arms on his chest. “Tell your leader there will be no interview.”

The silence that followed shrieked in his ears. The ultimatum was, he knew, a ridiculous, utterly meaningless display of bravado; he had only as much bargaining leverage as these gunmen…terrorists, rebels, insurgents- whatever they might choose to call themselves tonight-decided to give him. And that, he was sure, depended solely on how much their infamous leader desired this interview. Or, putting it another way, how compelling was his need to get his message out to the world.

The spokesman’s face darkened as he turned once more to consult with his companions in clipped and rapid phrases. Cory couldn’t look at Tony or Sam. Literally could not; tension had him paralyzed. He felt as if his neck would crack if he tried to move his head. I’ve put us all in jeopardy, he thought. My best friend…the woman I love. They may kill us all right now. Or take Tony and me hostage and kill Sam…

What else could he have done? The only thing he had to balance against the terrible weight of responsibility for the lives of two people he cared about was the utter certainty that if he left Sam behind in this place he’d never see her alive again.

The suspense became unbearable. He began to wonder if he would ever dare to breathe again.

The spokesman turned back suddenly and rapped out a sharp and grudging, “Okay.” Then, with a series of gestures-more pointing with the rifle barrel-and barked commands, ordered them to leave everything they’d brought with them behind.

“Hey, man, not my cameras!” Tony took a step backward, clutching his bags to his chest like a mother protecting her young.

Cory thought, Oh, Lord, here we go again… as he remarked in a languid drawl, “Hey, look, I was instructed to bring a cameraman. Not much point if he doesn’t have a camera.” Fading adrenaline had left him drained…he felt loose and weak and much too warm, as if he’d just emerged from a long hot bath.

The spokesman looked at him with hatred, and his words came grudgingly. “Okay. Cameras can go. Everything else-stay here.”

“What about my computer? I can’t very well-”

“No. No computer. We have tape recorder. No need for computer. Leave everything here. Come. Now.”

“They think we might be carrying tracking devices,” Sam muttered in an undertone from behind him. “Better do as he says.”

Cory nodded in grim acceptance. Hell with it-he’d won the important battle. And he’d done interviews before laptops were invented; he could do without one now. It definitely wasn’t worth getting killed over. Getting Sam killed over.

With yet more poking and waving of rifle barrels, the three of them were herded outside, through the lanai and into the deserted village, which seemed frozen in silence under the silvery light of the almost-full moon. Nothing stirred as they made their way along the pale ribbon of road, heading in the opposite direction from which they’d come. The only sound was the muffled scuffing of their footsteps in the dusty dirt.

Just outside the main cluster of buildings where more planted fields began, the terrorist leader turned sharply away from the road. The rest of the band followed, then Tony, Sam and Cory behind them, picking their way single- file along the banks that bordered the rice paddies, with two more of the armed escort bringing up the rear. The air was warm and heavy; rain seemed to hover a breath of wind away, like a secret bursting to be told.

Cory felt a familiar exaltation rise inside him, one he could neither explain nor deny. He wondered if it was the sort of thing a hunter feels as he closes in on his quarry, or a scientist as he nears the discovery of a lifetime, a mountain climber approaching the summit. He only knew it was what had him returning again and again to the world’s most perilous places in spite of the various dangers and discomforts involved, in search of answers…the truth…a story. He couldn’t imagine himself ever doing anything else. Like the explorer seeking one more horizon or the prospector the elusive gold nugget, he knew there would always be new questions to ask, new truths to be revealed, more stories to be told.

Ahead, the jungle loomed like a dark maw, and even as it swallowed him, Cory felt his heart lift and excitement shiver along his spine.

Sam had been in jungles before. The nighttime sounds and smells were familiar to her, and in spite of uneasy thoughts of the kinds of creatures that might be making those sounds, she welcomed the darkness for the chance it gave her to pull herself together, shielded from Cory’s all-too-perceptive eyes.

She needed time to process what had just happened to her-and she didn’t mean being taken into custody by armed terrorists. Cory’s kiss, his touch, and the way she’d responded-not just her body’s responses, she could have dealt with those-but, dammit, with her heart. Yes-her wretched, pathetic, stupid heart, which apparently had no memory of being broken into tiny pieces by that very same man. She needed to face up to that, push against it, hard, the way she’d test a twisted ankle to see if she could stand the pain.

He’s just like a patch of quicksand, she thought with a shudder. I knew it was there…let myself wander a little too close…just one tiny slip, and already I can feel myself sinking…

After a time, they emerged from the darkness of the jungle onto a moonlit grass-and-dirt road that wound like