Chapter 165
"What do you think I'm doing?"
Psssss.
A bullet whizzed by Jack's head, leaving an eerie ringing in his left ear.
People shouted and ran in every direction.
Jack stepped up his pace and they were nearly run over by a taptap when he charged ahead of her.
Purposefully, he fell a step behind, and she yanked him hard to the right and led him into the same alley she used earlier. A bullet hit the mural in front of them.
A woman screamed and pushed her child to the ground.
Kate took another sharp turn, this time to the left. She didn't bother glancing back to see how close the man chasing them was, and since Jack didn't want to lose his arm, he concentrated on keeping up with her. She was fast, and she was hardly out of breath. Jack, on the other hand, felt as if he was sucking in dust instead of air.
After a moment, the bullets stopped coming. Kate stopped and shook her wrist at him. "Unlock us. Quick!"
He had the cuffs off in less than ten seconds. The cuffs fell to the dirt. She scooped them up and shoved them into her pocket.
Jack's breathing was labored, his s.h.i.+rt drenched in sweat.
Kate handed him his gun. "Good luck," she said before she took off down another alley.
Grimacing, he took off after her. Within seconds, he was on her heels.
"I told you I can't help you," she shouted over her shoulder, slowing to a fast-paced jog. "And in another minute," she added, "you won't be able to help yourself either because that goon will come around the corner so fast you won't know what hit you."
"I'm not letting you out of my sight."
She stopped and took a couple of deep breaths. "I'm not going to get myself killed over some misguided rookie agent who doesn't know when to lay off."
Bullets ricocheted off the metal roof behind him. They both threw themselves to the ground and crawled inside the nearest hut. The empty hut smelled like dead rodents.
On all fours, Jack followed her across the dirt floor. He'd been hit, but he wasn't about to tell her. Following her lead, he squeezed through the small opening that served as a window and followed her into another hut on the other side of the path. As if she sensed him falling behind, Kate turned around and noticed the blood. "d.a.m.n it, rookie boy." She pulled him into the shadows of the hut, pushed him to the ground, s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun from him again and said, "Don't make a sound."
He was in too much pain to argue. Rookie boy? Clutching his side, he remained quiet. A dog's bark ended with a sharp squeal. Heavy footsteps and heavier panting replaced all other sounds.
Motioning for him to stay put, she crouched low behind the hut's entrance. At first glimpse of the goon's shadow, she sprang forth and used the gun to punch him in the jaw. His over-sized belly hit the ground with a thud, sending up a cloud of dust.
She gave her hand another shake and dug the toe of her boot into the man's side to make sure he was unconscious. "That's what was supposed to happen to the thug on the boat," she said with a huff. She c.o.c.ked her head for a better look at the man. "He's not one of the guys from the boat," she told Jack. "How many men did they send after us?"
She reached into her front pocket and tossed the cuffs to Jack. "Put those on him, will you?"
Ignoring the pain from his wound, Jack crawled to the man's side. He managed to get the cuffs around the guy's wrists while Kate searched the man's pockets and shoved a few items into a bag strapped around her shoulder.
She tossed Jack the man's I.D. "Like I said, you can't trust anyone."
Jack looked at the card. "Ben Sheldon. FBI." He pressed the man's thumb onto the I.D. Then he wrapped the card in a handkerchief and tucked it into his back pocket.
"What are you doing?"
"It could be a fake I.D. If the name Ben Sheldon doesn't show up on the agency's list of criminals, the prints will. I want to know who the h.e.l.l is trying to kill me."
"First you might want to work at staying alive." She went back into the hut. "Here," she said, throwing him a rag. "Hold this over the hole in your side."
"I was hardly nicked."
"Just do it. I don't need you leaving a trail of blood for his friend to follow."
"So, I guess this means you're going to cooperate?"
Her eyes sparkled. "I'm going to save your sorry a.s.s, if that's what you mean."
Jack smiled. "Ahh, you do have a soft spot after all."
"Let's get one thing straight, FBI man. There's nothing soft about me."
CHAPTER TWO.
Kate stayed off the road since it was pocked with craters two and three feet deep. Instead, she headed straight up the mountain. They had kept a steady pace for thirty minutes with no sign of the men with guns, but Jack was beginning to fall behind. "You're going to have to keep a faster pace," Kate said over her shoulder, "or they'll catch up to us before dusk."
When Jack failed to respond, she turned to look at him. Blood dripped from his side and down the front of his s.h.i.+rt. She frowned. "You said the bullet hardly nicked you. Why didn't you tell me you were bleeding like a G.o.dd.a.m.n sieve?"
"I didn't want to slow you
As she trudged back down the hill toward him, she shook her head. "And to think I was beginning to like you."
His body swayed, the loss of blood making him woozy.
"About slowing me down," she said, "what the h.e.l.l do you think you've been doing for the last half hour?"
None too gingerly, she eased off his jacket and tossed it aside. "I don't know why I'm helping you," she muttered as she tore apart his blood-soaked s.h.i.+rt. "You lied about having the keys to the cuffs, you lied about the gun, and now you lecture me about my use of profanity. Never mind your lying to me about being alone."
"I didn't know I was being followed."
She snorted. "What kind of FBI man are you anyhow?"
"Special Agent."
"Give me a break."
He shrugged. "Until they approached me two weeks ago, I was a Computer Specialist...Cyber Division, Unit One."
That explained it. She wiped the blood around his wound and examined his injury. "The bullet in your side is going to have to come out. Until we can get you help we're going to have to do our best to stop the bleeding. You've lost a lot of blood."
His face looked deathly pale, making her work faster. She ripped his already torn s.h.i.+rt clean off, and then tore the b.l.o.o.d.y cloth into strips. "You don't exactly fit the stereotypical special agent type," she said, taking inventory of his broad shoulders and rock-hard stomach. The suit had not done him justice. When she touched his side, he sucked in a breath. "And what would those characteristics be?" he asked.
Hoping to keep his mind off the fact that he could die on his first job as a special agent, she talked as she worked, efficiently binding his side with the strips of cloth. "I always pictured a special agent as the sort of man who could run miles in the heat without breaking a sweat-a weather-toughened Navy Seal or a gun-toting Terminator."
"Hmmm."
She tied two ends of cloth into a tight knot. "So, you're used to working on computers, huh? Behind the safety of your screen?"
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
She hit a sensitive spot.
"The guys I'm used to going after are a lot scarier than the two guys back there," he said.
She grabbed the jacket he'd been carrying and eased it back on. Next, she pulled his good arm around her shoulder and urged him onward. Although she didn't like the idea of taking him to the chief priestess, she didn't have much of a choice if she wanted to keep him alive. "Tell me about the guys you're used to chasing."
"They're called cyberstalkers, pedophiles, persons with grudges, criminals, young, old, white, black, short, tall-" He winced in pain, but kept moving.
Afraid he wouldn't be able to go on much longer, Kate stepped up their pace.
"Most cybercriminals think they're anonymous," he went on after a moment of silence. "They think they can't be identified." He inhaled. "I joined the agency to prove otherwise."
Kate listened as he talked about criminals who crept into people's homes without anyone ever knowing it. These guys didn't come through the front door or the window; they came through computer monitors, using words to entice. Thousands of children were disappearing every year. Chills crept up the back of her neck.
With each word Jack seemed to be losing ground. If she didn't get him help soon, he was going to die.
Jack felt like he was suffocating. Once again, he tried to wake himself. He gritted his teeth and moved his head from side to side, anything to stop the tickling sensation sweeping across his face. He wasn't sure what was worse: the never-ending thumping of his head as the beat of a thousand drums shook his skull or the light touch of the object brus.h.i.+ng across his nose and cheeks. Every movement, every twitch of his eye, felt as if hundreds of needles were being shoved into his body.
Something tickled his nose again. Somebody was trying to snuff out his life with a-he forced open an eye-feather.
Jack pushed the feather aside with his good arm right before he saw the sharp tip of a knife coming at him. He tried to escape, but two warm hands stopped him from falling off the cot. It was Kate.
On the other side of the cot was a woman holding a sharp blade, a big dark woman with an earring in her nose and wildly tousled hair. She used the knife to cut a string from his binding and set the knife to the side.
The walls, Jack noticed, were made of mud and sticks. He was inside a hut. In the far corner of the room sat a man beating drums. Sensing Jack's eyes on him, the drummer stopped playing and rose to his feet. Standing at about six foot six, the drummer had to stoop to keep his head from hitting the adobe ceiling. His dark body was a canvas of tattoos-twisted figures and hieroglyphic marks. Queequeg, the harpooner from Moby d.i.c.k, came to mind. Without saying a word, the drummer picked up his goat-skinned covered drums and left the hut.
The woman with the knife hovered closer. "We have established contact with the Iwa," she informed him. "You will not be joining the dead after all."
Jack didn't know what to say to that, although it sounded rea.s.suring so he nodded.
"This is Alourdes, Chief Voodoo Priestess," Kate told him. "She has called upon Gran Bwa himself to heal you."
The large woman's wide grin revealed yellow teeth. She replaced the knife with something that looked a lot like a snake's vertebrae and waved it over his body. When that was done she simply left the room.
"That was...interesting." His throat felt scratchy, parched.
Kate smiled. "She's a wonderful person."
"No doubt." Jack tried to remove the crick from his neck. "I feel like I've been to h.e.l.l and back. How long have I been laying here?"
"Two nights now, thanks to the concoction of herbs Alourdes prepared for you."
He lifted a skeptical brow.
"You needed the rest. It's morning now." She handed Jack a dented tin cup. "Drink this. You don't want to get dehydrated."
Jack put the cup to his lips. The water tasted bitter, but he finished it off in a couple of gulps. "I hope there weren't any animals sacrificed in my honor."
"There's much more to Voodoo than the usual cliches of 'animal sacrifices' and 'black magic.'"
"No kidding?"
"No kidding," she said. "It's a religion just like any other-an expression of the human spirit. Some say Voodoo is the power of the will to overcome oppression."
Jack nodded, entranced by her mouth, the way her lips moved, the sound of her voice. She had saved his life. An overwhelming desire to help her washed over him. She'd been running for too long. Whatever happened on that boat ten years ago had scared her enough to keep her in hiding for a decade. Many people speculated over her father's death. A few believed Kate had a hand in it, but he'd seen the shock in her eyes when she learned only one body had washed ash.o.r.e so many years ago. Somebody else had been on that boat and Jack was determined to find out whom. He reached for her hand. "I owe you my life."
She pulled her hand away, then moved to the other side of the cot and began to examine his wound. Obviously, she wasn't the sort to make a big deal out of saving one's life.
Jack watched her with growing interest. She wore cargo pants and a white tank top. Her long red hair was pulled back into a pony tail, making her eyes look larger, greener. Her skin, bronzed by too much sun, glistened with perspiration. She was pet.i.te and graceful. If he hadn't seen what she was capable of, he never would have believed she could shoot a gun with deadly accuracy or put a two-hundred and thirty pound man out cold with a couple of jabs of her elbow.
She expected a lot from herself; every muscle in her body worked to its maximum capacity, defined and lean. Ignoring his scrutiny of her, perhaps not even aware of it, she looked up and caught his gaze. Her fingers gently probed the skin around his wound. "How are you feeling?"
"Stiff. Sore. Basically like c.r.a.p."
"To be expected," she said with little sympathy. She retrieved a bottle of antiseptic from a rusty cabinet behind her and returned to his side. "Why don't you tell me what you know about Dr. Forstin?"
He raised a brow. "So, you did know him?"
"What do you mean 'did'?"
"He's dead."
Her face paled. "How?"
"Murdered while working in his lab."
"By the same man who killed my father," she stated more than questioned.
"Possibly."
"Definitely," she said.
"How do you know?"
"I listen to my instincts. Something you might want to work on."