Commando (5 page)

Although he wore only drawstring pajama bottoms, Jake’s body was bathed in a sheen of sweat from the unrelenting humidity. Glancing at his watch, he realized it was four in the morning. He knew he had to get some sleep, but he was too tightly wound from being around Shah. Everything in the Amazon jungle seemed so quiet and serene in comparison to him.

There was no doubt that Shah loved children. He had seen it in her eyes, that special adoration she held for the little Tucanos girl. Shah was in touch not only with the soil beneath her bare feet, but also with the life she held in her arms.

With a soft curse, Jake slowly sat up, his bare feet touching the wooden floor. He buried his face in his hands. Why now? Why? He had to leave his past behind him, but it refused to be buried. Not that he tried to forget, but wouldn’t there ever be a reprieve from the loss and the cutting loneliness he felt twenty-four hours a day? Jake raised his head to stare out the open door. He could hear Pai Jose snoring brokenly in the room next to his. Red Feather slept on a grass mat in the room across the hallway. There were three patients recovering from an assortment of ailments in the mission’s small hospital wing, and Jake heard some snores drifting down the corridor from them, too. He was envious of the others’ ability to sleep while insomnia stalked him.

Getting up, he rubbed his damp-haired chest with his hand. Maybe he needed to take a quick walk around the premises—to get some fresh air. Jake tugged off his pajamas and put on trousers, boots, and a dark green shirt with short sleeves. He missed his knife and pistol, because Pai Jose had warned him that at night, even this more settled area of the Amazon came alive with predators. Jaguars hunted the dangerous wild pigs; cougars, cousins to North America’s mountain lions, also combed the tropical rain forest for unsuspecting prey.

Just as Jake came out of the mission doorway, he heard what at first sounded like a string of firecrackers popping. The sound came from the direction of the village, near the riverbank. Jake tensed—he recognized the sound of gunfire when he heard it. Running around the end of the building, he halted, his eyes widening. Fire erupted and exploded in the night sky. Some of the huts were on fire! Between the shadowy trees, Jake could see several men running with torches in hand through the Tucanos village.

Shah!
Jake dug his feet into the sandy ground and sprinted down the hill. The village seemed so far away. More gunfire erupted. The cries of the Tucanos, startled out of sleep, spilled into the night air. The gunfire continued.

Suddenly Jake realized that whoever these invaders were they weren’t Indian. No, they looked like the men Hernandez had hired. As he tore down the path, the wind whipping past him, Jake’s mind spun with options. He was unarmed—unable to defend himself, much less Shah or the unarmed villagers. Veering off to the left, tearing through the jungle itself, Jake decided to hide by skirting around the village. He had to get to Shah’s hut! His pistol was there, and so was she.

Shah groggily awoke, the sound of screams filling her ears. Sitting up, her hair cascading around her like a curtain, she smelled suffocating smoke. Firelight danced outside her window. What was going on? She scrambled to her feet, her knee-length cotton nightgown hampering her movement. Just as she reached the window, gunfire slammed through the hut.

With a cry, Shah dropped to the floor, covering her head with her hands. What was going on? Who was attacking?

As she began to get up again, a hulking figure appeared in the doorway, jerking the cotton barrier aside. Shah screamed.

“It’s me!” Jake rasped. He dropped to his knees. “Where the hell is my gun? We’re under attack.”

Frantic, the cries of the Tucanos shattering her composure, Shah groped for her trunk. “Here,” she told him, fumbling in the darkness. “They’re in here….”

“Get them!”

Obeying wordlessly, Shah’s hands shook as she located the holster and pistol. “Here—”

“Stay down,” Jake whispered savagely, and he forced her to lie on the ground. “Whoever’s doing this is playing for keeps.”

Sobbing for breath, Shah felt the strength of Jake Randolph’s hand in the center of her back as he forced her to lie flat on the floor. “Who is it?” she cried.

“I don’t know,” Jake breathed as he hitched the holster around his waist. He could take a Beretta apart and put it back together again blindfolded. Despite the lack of light, he quickly drew the pistol from the holster, snapped off the safety and placed a round in the chamber. Getting up, pistol in hand, he went to the entrance.

“Don’t you move,” he growled to Shah.

She opened her mouth to tell him to be careful, but found that she couldn’t speak. Her throat was choked with tears of outrage and terror over the attack. Who was setting fire to the village? Who was firing guns? Why?

Jake pounded down the bank of the Amazon toward five dugout canoes tied to the dock. Each of them had a small motor mounted in the rear, and Jake’s suspicion that Hernandez was involved grew. Ten men were fleeing the raging inferno of the village, running hard for the canoes. The shrieks of the Indians hammered at Jake as he halted, got down on one knee and aimed his Beretta.

Suddenly bullets whipped and whined all around him. Hitting the ground, Jake jerked his attention to the left, where the bullets were coming from. He couldn’t see who was shooting at him; everything was dark and shadowed by the roaring flames and smoke that clouded the village. More sand whipped up in geysers around him. Someone had targeted him! Jake knew the other men were getting away. He wanted to capture one of them, but right now he had to protect himself. Whoever was firing at him was serious.

Sliding down off the bank, Jake moved into the tepid river up to his waist so that he’d present less of a target and the bank could provide cover. In moments, the firing stopped. Jake turned on his side, his Beretta aimed toward the dock. All but one of the canoes had left. Damn! Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hulking figure of a man sprinting toward the remaining boat, followed by another, more slightly built man. The big man was the one who had grabbed Shah!

Scrambling out of the water, Jake leaped onto the bank. The big blond man was the one who had had him pinned down! Taking careful aim, he fired the pistol once, twice, three times. The man let out a cry and fell to the dock. Satisfaction soared through Jake as he scrambled to his feet and lunged forward. A tree root caught and captured the toe of his boot. With a grunt, Jake slammed down on the bank. Cursing, he got to his feet, but not in time. The canoe was leaving the dock, with both men in it. Damn!

Jake stood, torn between going after them and helping the Tucanos put out the raging fires that were consuming several of their huts. Shoving the pistol back into its holster, Jake decided to help the Indians. Many were running back and forth to the river with buckets. As he angled through the trees and headed for the first hut, he heard a moan. Looking to his left, he saw a Tucanos man writhing in pain. The light was poor, but Jake knew the man had been wounded in the fray.

He stopped, knelt beside the groaning Indian and tried to reassure him. He drew back his hand. It was covered with blood. Jake frowned. The wounded needed care first. Speaking to him in Portuguese, and trying to persuade the Indian that he was a friend, not his enemy, Jake picked the man up. The Indian was ridiculously light in his arms as he headed toward the hospital up on the knoll. Was Shah safe? Had a bullet found her, too? Jake hurried at a fast walk, weaving around the burning huts, dodging the running Indians who were trying to save their homes. He made his way up to the mission, where he handed the man over to Pai Jose for medical treatment. That done, Jake knew he had to locate Shah.

Jake’s heart pounded unevenly in his chest as he approached Shah’s hut.

“Shah?” he shouted as he neared it. “Shah? Are you okay? Answer me!”

His heart rate soared along with his anguish when only silence answered him. He broke into a trot, his face grim, his throat constricted, as he tried to prepare himself for the scene he’d see. He envisioned Shah wounded and bleeding on the floor of her hut. Other scenes, scenes from his ugly past, bludgeoned him. He halted at the hut and tore the cotton barrier aside.

Breathing hard, he stood in the doorway, looking frantically for Shah. She wasn’t there! Relief cascaded through him, and then, on its heels, sheer terror. What if Shah had been kidnapped by those men? What if she hadn’t listened to his orders and had run out of the hut? She could be hurt and bleeding anywhere in the village! The possibilities were too real, and Jake spun around.

Half running, half stumbling back toward the center of the village, he saw that the Tucanos had taken the brunt of the attack. Firelight danced and twisted in grotesque shapes as the huts continued to burn wildly out of control. The Indians were doing their best to put the fires out with the buckets of water, but Jake knew they needed to conserve their efforts for the nearby huts, which could easily catch fire from the sparks floating like red, winking fireflies in the night air.

He grabbed an older man, ordering him in Portuguese to use the water to save the other, vulnerable huts. It took a few minutes, but finally the Indian understood. Jake then raced to form a bucket brigade line, his arms waving, his voice thundering above the roar of the inferno for attention.

The new tactics spread quickly through the populace, and soon buckets of water were being thrown on the roofs and sides of nearby huts. Jake blinked the sweat from his eyes and looked around. He saw several men lying wounded. Gesturing to a couple of Indians, Jake got them to help him take the wounded up to the hospital. Where the hell was Shah? The bitter taste of fear in his mouth wouldn’t leave.

Dawn was crawling over the crimson-and-gold horizon as Jake made his last swing of the village looking for Shah. He hadn’t found her. Rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, Jake suddenly felt weary as never before. The fires had died down—but five of the huts had burned completely to the ground. Smoke hung heavily over the area, mingling with the humid mist that stole silently in and around the trees as dawn continued to push back the night.

The place was eerie, with the mixture of fog and smoke hanging at rooftop level, Jake decided as he tiredly tramped through the village looking for Shah. Perhaps he’d missed her. The darkness had hampered relief efforts, and the hysteria of the Indians hadn’t helped, either. Jake couldn’t blame them for their reaction, though. At least ten Indians had been wounded at the hands of Hernandez’s men.

Shah was nowhere to be found. Jake stood outside her hut, tears stinging his eyes. He tried to attribute them to the stringy smoke that hung in the air like a thick blanket. Glumly he headed back to the mission, where he knew he could be of some help. His steps were heavy, and he felt a bone-tiredness that reached clear to his soul. Jake didn’t try to fool himself; he realized it was depression and grief over Shah being missing. Had she been kidnapped? Why hadn’t he paid more attention to the men running for those dugout canoes? he chastised himself. But he knew the answer: he’d been pinned down by gunfire. He couldn’t possibly have watched the canoes, much less identified who occupied each one.

At the top of the knoll, Indians were racing madly around the mission buildings. The cries of women and sobs of children rent the air. Thick fog blanketed the knoll as Jake slowly made his way through the crowd of relatives waiting to hear about wounded family members.

Bright light from bulbs strung in Christmas-tree fashion around the perimeter of the hospital wing momentarily blinded Jake. He raised a hand to protect his eyes while they adjusted to the change.

“Jake!”

He froze. He pulled his hand away from his eyes. There, not more than ten feet away, working with Pai Jose, was Shah! Realizing his mouth was hanging open, he snapped it shut. Never had Shah looked so lovely, despite her haggard appearance. Her hair hung loose about her body like a raven cloak. Her face was smudged with charcoal, and her white nightgown was splattered with mud and blood. At first Jake thought she’d been wounded, but then he realized she was helping Pai Jose dress the injuries of the Indian lying on the surgery table.

He took a step forward, but then halted, relief surging through him. Euphoria rose in him, and all he could do was stand there helpless beneath her golden gaze. Her huge eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, he noted.

“We need help,” Shah pleaded, her voice cracking. “Do you know first aid?” She tried to deny the feelings racing through her, tried to ignore her overwhelming relief at seeing that Jake Randolph was safe. When he’d left her on the floor of the hut, Shah had feared for his life. And when she hadn’t seen him throughout the past three hours, she’d feared him dead. The look of astonishment and joy mirrored in his eyes now shook Shah.

“I can help,” he told her as he closed the distance between them. “Just tell me what you want done.”

Shah reached into a box filled with sterile surgical gloves. “Go scrub over at the sink. Pai Jose can use your help. I’ll go help some of the others who are hurt less. Hurry, please!”

Jake nodded to the old priest, whose hair was as white as the surgical gown that covered his clothing. For a moment Jake thought that Pai Jose’s silvery hair, glowing in the light, might be a halo around the old man’s head. The priest worked quickly over the man who lay on the table before him.

Jake’s hands shook beneath the thin stream of water coming weakly out of the faucet. The soap smelled clean and good amid the stench of sweaty bodies, the lurid smell of blood and the odor of antiseptics. Jake felt as if he’d stepped back a century in time. As he scrubbed up, he checked out the antiquated facilities. There was very little here except the most necessary of equipment and medicines, he realized as he gazed at the glass cabinet above the sink. He glanced around the room and saw with growing anger that whoever had attacked the village had hurt at least twenty people. Sickened, he hurried over to where Shah stood waiting for him. Expertly she slipped the surgical gloves onto his hands.