Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(29)
“Hop to.” He shooed her toward the jungle’s edge. “I want to make Thailand sometime before next year.”
“Thailand?” she asked as she brushed aside the fronds of a humungous fern, disappearing into the forest a second later. It was amazing how the jungle could swallow a person in one verdant bite. Gulp! But even though he couldn’t see her, he had no trouble hearing her crashing through the undergrowth. She was wearing a traditional straight-cut Malay skirt, and it wasn’t exactly made for roughing it in the backcountry.
“Sí,” he called to her. “How does homemade curry and a few hours of R&R while we wait on an extraction team sound, eh?”
“Like heaven,” she answered, her voice muffled and slightly distant.
Heaven. He knew a little about that. It’d been heaven to hold her in his arms back in that hut and know, no matter what, that he had her and come hell or high water, he wasn’t letting her go. Heaven to ride with her these last few miles, to feel her sweet breath huffing against the back of his neck, tickling the fine hairs that grew there.
“Will this extraction team be my Secret Service people?” she called from deep within the bush.
Damnit, he’d known the question was coming and had been wondering how to answer it. Taking a bracing breath, he gave her the truth. “No. It’ll likely be my people or else some SEAL team or Delta Squad force your father sends in.”
“Oh,” her voice drifted to him, and he could just make out the hesitation in her tone above the soft purr of the Ducati’s engine. She sensed he hadn’t told her everything, and he wondered if she’d push the issue. When a few seconds of silence stretched out into an even dozen, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Digging his phone from his hip pocket, he thumbed it on and noticed he had only three percent battery life left and absolutely zero cell coverage. No matter. If he was quick, he could use the maps he’d downloaded, along with his relative speed and trajectory since leaving the JI encampment, to get an approximation of their location.
Pulling up the detailed road atlas, he checked the compass on his watch, did some quick math in his head, and calculated they had roughly ten to twelve miles—as the crow flies—before hitting that border. Unfortunately, the logging trail they were on didn’t run due north, so he estimated they’d have to ride another fifteen miles, give or take, before he could finally heave a sigh of relief.
Switching to a different map, he studied the topography surrounding what he figured was their current location and wasn’t surprised to see nothing but miles upon miles of jungle split only by the sinuous brown length of a massive river. He’d just brought up another map, this one a hand-drawn reproduction of the Perak region along with the locations of all the tiny villages and native paths that’d been cut through the bush—Boss sure was resourceful when he wanted to be—when his iPhone suddenly decided it’d had enough. Its screen switched to the iconic swirling wheel before it dissolved to black.
But, no problem. It’d held on for long enough to—
A low rumble had his head whipping around. With narrowed eyes, he scanned the road behind him, but he could see no further than five or six yards back. After that, it was nothing but a vast canvas of multihued green.
Switching off the Ducati’s engine, he cocked his head, listening…
The steady hum of insects was the equivalent of a dull roar. The squawk of a nearby bird—probably the little one with brilliant plumage perched on the long leaves of a flowering bush—barely competed with the ruckus. Somewhere off to the left, a monkey called. And further still, another answered.
And then…there it was again! The unmistakable sound of a vehicle bouncing down the rutted road toward them.
He was off the bike in an instant.
Now, it was always possible that it was simply a logging truck ambling in their direction. But the good Madre María knew he couldn’t take any chances. That dickhead JI terrorist seemed the sort who wouldn’t take to heart the warning Steady had given him.
Pushing the Ducati off the rutted path, he wheeled the motorcycle a fair distance into the dense foliage. Far enough away so that its chrome components wouldn’t catch a stray beam of sunlight, flashing and drawing the attention of whoever was about to motor past them. He covered the bike with a few huge, fanlike leaves he yanked, roots and all, out of the soft forest floor, and whispered, “Abby? Abby, can you hear me? We’ve got company headed our way.” He didn’t dare raise his voice, and when she didn’t answer, he was left with no recourse but to prowl silently back to the road’s edge.
Proning out on the ground, blending into the flora surrounding him, he hoped Abby had either heard his warning or picked up the engine noise coming their way. This would all be for naught if she came tromping out of the jungle for the world to see.
And just in case that happened…
He reached into the holster strapped to his right thigh, removing his Beretta M9. The weapon was a familiar and comforting weight in his hand. Come on, Abby. Play it smart…
Then he realized he needn’t have worried about her when, a second later, her hand landed softly on his lower back. There she was, lying beside him, pulling the branches of a nearby bush over her for concealment, acting as though she spent every day crawling around jungle floors. Like…no biggie. Here were are bellied-out with the bugs and reptiles…