Secret Agent Sam

life and let them pull him across. When the occupied chair reached its destination, an empty one would be back at the starting point, ready to be filled by the next person in line.

The chasm wasn’t wide; with someone to help with the pulling it would only take minutes to cross from one side to the other. But in those few short minutes, the person in the chair would be completely out in the open. Unprotected. Helpless. A sitting duck.

“Oh, my God,” said Sam.

Tony’s comment was more colorful but no less horrified.

“Ingenious,” Cory muttered, but his heart was tangoing around inside his chest and there was a growing queasiness in the pit of his stomach.

Seemingly unperturbed, Hal was already at the terminal, holding the bamboo swing steady. “Hurry, hurry, we must get started,” he urged, beckoning them on with a sweeping wave of his long arm. Then, looking past them: “Where’s Esther?”

“She told me she needed to catch her breath,” Cory said, his belly twingeing with an uneasy guilt. “She said she was coming right behind me.”

“I’d better go and see what’s keeping her.” Hal thrust the loop of rope and bamboo at Cory, saying as he brushed past him, “Don’t wait for us-start sending the others across.” And he crashed away into the trees.

Cory looked at Sam. She held up her hands and backed away. “Uh-uh, not me. You go first.”

Well, it had been worth a try. He couldn’t explain the fear that was creeping over him like a deep-down chill, but he knew it went way beyond any rational sense of urgency based on full awareness of danger and pursuit, or the very real need to hurry.

He took a deep breath and said, “Okay, Tony, you take the first shot.”

Tony groaned. “Why did I know you were gonna say that?”

“Hey-you’ve got the equipment, the tapes-let’s get that across, make sure it’s safe. And, when you get to the other side you can help pull-it’ll make it twice as fast. Come on, big guy,” he taunted, grinning, when Tony still looked like he might balk, “this can’t be any worse than those donkeys in Afghanistan.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t nearly as far to fall,” Tony grumbled, but he stepped forward reluctantly, shifting cameras and bags out of the way to allow Cory to slip the loop over his head and shoulders.

“All set?” Sam took hold of one side of the loop and Cory the other, and they held it steady while Tony, still blaspheming imaginatively, slipped the length of bamboo under his backside. “Ready…get set-”

“Wait, wait-” Tony dug in his heels while he shifted a camera to the front of his body so he could reach it more easily “-okay, now I’m ready.”

“Go!” Cory let go of the chair and hauled hard on the rope, and Tony swung out into thin air.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Sam asked nervously as she moved close to Cory’s side and took hold of the rope to help him pull. Even above the roar of the river they could hear a steady stream of profanity drifting back to them from the middle of the gorge.

“He’s a photographer,” Cory said, panting a little. “He’ll be fine once he remembers that camera around his neck. Those donkeys in Afghanistan? Didn’t want to get on those, either. Before it was over he was riding no-hands up these little narrow mountain trails, just so he could snap pictures of three-hundred-foot drop-offs. There-see? He’s clicking away already.”

They devoted their energies then to hauling on the rope, both of them watching Tony slide closer to the opposite bank and the empty loop swing toward them across the last few yards of the chasm.

“You’re next, Sam,” Cory said quietly between pulls, not looking at her. “No arguments.”

She didn’t reply. Together they caught the incoming swing and stood holding it between them as they watched Tony get his feet under him on the other side of the gorge, stand and wrestle the loop over his head, then give a triumphant wave.

Cory said, “Sam?”

She threw him a long dark look, one he couldn’t read. Then, moving jerkily with the anger that he knew really wasn’t anger, she thrust her head and arms through the loop and hitched herself onto the bamboo seat. “Any time, Pearse,” she said airily, her chin high, eyes bright with challenge.

He caught his breath…then cupped the back of her head in his palm and leaned down and kissed her. Just once, quickly and hard, but still he felt her lips tremble under his and a shaft of pain went through him, so acute he nearly gasped. “Hold on tight,” he mumbled, stepping back. Feeling as though his heart had lodged in his chest, he took hold of the rope and began to pull.

As she slipped out over the edge of the chasm, rotating slowly, almost lazily in midair, the sun rose at last above the mountaintops and, as if by some stroke of magic, a rainbow appeared between them, painted in the mist thrown up by the rampaging river. The incredible beauty of it-and at the same time an overwhelming sadness- caught at his throat. He wanted to call to her, wave…bring her back and touch her…hold her…kiss her one more time.

But she didn’t look back.

It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. Kind of cool, in fact-if she didn’t allow herself to think about al- Rami’s men back there, searching for them somewhere in the jungle, not that far away. And about Cory left behind in that same jungle, a few short yards and half a world away from her, on the other side of the chasm.

She could still feel the imprint of his mouth, a tingle of warmth and moisture that seemed burned into her flesh. She could still see his eyes, in that last moment before she’d turned away from him to lasso herself into this ridiculous swing…those deep, dark blue eyes that could see right through her. She’d be able to see him now, if she let herself, if she rotated that way just a little…but she didn’t do it. She couldn’t bear to see him getting smaller and smaller, the gulf between them wider and wider…couldn’t shake the panicky feeling that he was slipping away from her, that soon he’d be far beyond her reach. So instead she focused on Tony, hauling away on the rope on the far side of the gorge, grinning at her, his teeth white in his mahogany-colored face…

She was halfway across the gorge-she knew that because she’d just drawn even with the returning empty swing-when she heard the shout. From out of the jungle came a wordless bellow of anguish first, and then Hal’s voice, raw and broken, calling his wife’s name.

Sam got the swing turned around in time to see Cory straighten and let go of the pulley rope, then spin toward the direction of the shouts, lurching off balance like someone who’d taken a bullet. Yelling at Tony over his shoulder to keep on pulling, he plunged into the jungle.

No! She thought she must have screamed it out loud, but it was only inside her head, the word rebounding and resounding there in a nightmare of echoes and alarms. By the time she reached the terminal stump she was muttering and scolding furiously and slapping at Tony’s clumsy attempts to help her out of the rope swing, shaking and half-paralyzed with fear. All she could think about was that her worst nightmare was coming true, the gulf of misunderstanding between her and Cory had become tangible and real. Seeing him disappear into that jungle, the thought that she might not ever see him again was unbearable. Unthinkable.

“What the holy hell’s going on?” Tony’s face hovered over hers, shiny with sweat. He was breathing hard. “I heard shouting. Where are the missionaries? Where’d Cory-”

“I don’t know. I think something’s happened to Esther. She didn’t come, and Hal went to find her.” Sam spoke rapidly, her voice low and furious. Her chest felt tight, as though there were chains wrapped around it, so she couldn’t get a breath. “I don’t know what, but something’s wrong. Cory heard Hal shouting and went back to help.”

Her voice broke on the last word as she yanked the rope loop out of Tony’s hands and threw it back over her head. Of course he did. Doesn’t he always? Just like that day on the lake…he goes diving in after Dad…doesn’t stop to think he might die, too.

“What are you doing? Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Tony was tugging on the rope and trying to hang on to her at the same time, bracing his feet as if he was engaged in a child’s game of tug-of-war.

“I’m going back,” Sam said tersely, jerking ineffectively at the rope; she was shaking too hard to have any real strength in her arms and legs. “He’s-God knows what’s going on back there. Al-Rami’s men-they could be-they must have heard-Let me go, damn you-I have to help him. I have to-”

And then somehow she was enfolded in Tony’s arms, still shaking and muttering furiously against the solid wall of his chest, and his arms were more walls all around her, holding her in, holding her prisoner, yes, but holding her steady, too. Bracing her. Comforting her. Calming her. They were amazingly gentle, too, those massive arms, for