Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(57)

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 brass 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 passport 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 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.” God 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.

Fuck. “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 butt 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 helluva 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.