After he went about twenty feet or so bullets began pouring past him. They didn’t know he had her, he reasoned, or they wouldn’t be shooting. Then something slammed into his thigh, nearly breaking his leg. Another bullet hit him square in the back. As the pain electrified his body he realized the bullets were rubber and knew he had made a mistake. He dropped her to her knees and considered killing her. He listened, trying to locate them. She rose and stumbled into the brush. Only an instant of time flashed before discipline took over. More bullets poured past him. Never kill except exactly according to plan. The rule had kept him alive and free of the law.
“Later,” he said into the darkness. Then he ran as best he could with his bad leg.
Sam hadn’t gone twenty feet when he heard more movement. He charged headlong. The other men did likewise.
There were more groans. Quickly all the men crisscrossed through the thicket.
“Here,” one of them called. Sam burst into a little hollow and found Anna leaning on a tree near to collapsing. “Aussie,” she choked. Back a ways Aussie was lying completely still. Sam felt his carotid. He was dead. There didn’t appear to be a mark on him other than a broken nose. Then his instincts told him there would be a needle mark somewhere. Maybe the same needle mark that had been missed on Wes King.
Pepper spray. Gingerly Sam examined Anna, who was now on the ground. Like a parent checking a baby fallen from its crib, he felt her face and body. She was gasping horribly, panic in her eyes.
“You’ll be fine, I promise. Keep the others at the compound, nobody goes back toward the boat,” he said to T.J. He turned to Sanford, who had been watching Anna. “Carry her to the truck,” he said. The big man hefted her carefully. Sam looked at Yodo. “Let’s hope they left the key. Leave all the bad guys trussed on the ground. Give them a dose.”
If it was a setup, Jason could be anywhere. At that moment he heard a helicopter and figured they had lost the group’s leader, the man who’d killed Aussie.
“Chopper One,” he radioed.
“Yo.”
“Lift off and watch for a chopper down by the point. Probably low and fast. Follow it now.”
“Roger that,” the pilot said. The airport was less than a mile away. If they got airborne fast they might catch whatever just took off. Sam considered that they probably were keeping Jason away from the fighting and near his satellite dish in the compound.
“Back to the resort,” Sam said. They climbed into the truck and drove through the gate. Cuffed men lay everywhere. Most were out with an injection; those they hadn’t gotten to yet were in a lot of pain, judging from their cries.
“Search every building, especially the house,” Sam said.
The men went to work. T.J. remained in the central garden and began interrogating a couple of the conscious guards. Frenchmen and Arabs. By sheer luck, and maybe a tad of instinct, Sam had one man who could interpret some Arabic. French was not a problem. Sam went into the house. Nothing about the place looked like it might have been occupied by Jason. His men were systematically searching every closet and cupboard.
Sam walked out, through the lodge, and into the Honeymoon Burre. It looked like Jason’s place: a lot of books everywhere, a giant white board covered with equations, two computers, a world globe, and a model of a carbon atom.
So where was he?
Sam opened a few closets and then stepped out when two men came through to really search the burre. They would look for any place to hide, trapdoors, built-in cupboards that might house an entry or a secret space.
Sam walked out to the two burres that were supposedly not in use. On the way he noticed a window at the end of the main building. Walking up on the veranda and into the sitting area, he went to the only door, opened it, and walked in. An office with another door. Behind the second door, which he had to break for want of a key, was a long closet with shelves and a leather couch that looked completely out of place. On the couch lay a sleeping Jason, obviously drugged.
There were pills in a box and a blue liquid in a squeeze bottle. He remembered Anna’s story about Jason and the oil. He took both the oil and the medication.
In sleep Jason Wade looked content. Sam shook him. He groaned, but that was it. Sam checked his eyes. The pupils were dilated, the eyes rolled back. They had used strong stuff.
Sam clicked on his transmitter. “T.J., you have Bravo?”
“I do.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve got the goods. Meet you on the road. All hands meet me at the gate. Chopper, you there?”
“We’re here. We’ve got the bogey chopper headed to Venua Levu.”
“Damn,” Sam muttered. “Break off. Come and get us out of here.”
“Roger that.”
They jumped in the truck and arrived at the Taveuni Airport, where they learned that Anna had recovered sufficiently to curse the man who had killed Aussie. They put T.J., Jason, and three of the men on the chopper. Sam motioned to Anna to get in so he could send it off.
“I’m going when you go,” she said in a voice so hoarse she could barely make herself understood.
He picked her up and put her in the helicopter. “No plan B,” he said, ready to handcuff her to the seat.
She raised an eyebrow, but he couldn’t read the dark eyes or the emotion that she held submerged. For some reason what he did at this moment seemed to him very important. Whether he would stay and T.J. would leave or whether he would take T.J.’s seat beside her. All of her concentration was on him; she looked nowhere but into his eyes.
T.J. looked from one to the other.
“T.J., would you mind waiting for the second chopper?”
“Not at all.”
As he went past him, Sam turned.
“Do my cheeks look hollow?” Sam whispered.
T.J. looked puzzled for just a second, then began to laugh. “At least it’s a fine ass you’re kissing.”
Thirty-four
They flew at Mach. 9 in the Gulfstream planning a nonstop to Victoria, BC, where they were to meet Grady. Anna made it a point to sit beside Jason on a couch as they began the trip. By the time they took off, the pepper spray had largely worn off, although she found herself a little red-eyed and blinking.
Sam had given Anna the blue oil and she rubbed it into Jason’s back. He became unusually relaxed. Anna hoped they could make the oil last until they got to Nutka, who had a small supply. After that it would be a serious issue.
She put her arm around Jason and hugged him mercilessly while Sam watched and chuckled. Anna finally got a chance to lay out her apology to Jason. Sam noticed that she didn’t leave out any details and took more than her share of responsibility. Jason listened but said little until she was finished.
“Sis, you know when I make a bad equation, I spend my time trying to get it right. That’s what you’ve done. You’ve got it right so the way I see it, the old equation is outdated, lost in the dustbin of history.”
Anna had gotten her lip gloss on, and was now planting butterfly circles all over Jason’s right cheek.
“Most of the men in this country would just love what you’re getting, Jason.”
“She’s my sister.” Jason smiled. “She’s pretty but she’s my sister.”
Anna felt ebullient.
“I suppose the morons want me back,” Jason said.
“I would like to fight for you, Jason. Maybe get rid of a guardian of your person altogether or get me appointed. How would you feel about that?”
“No more Mr. Roberto? That would be grand. I think he’s gone over to the Nannites.”
