Wade (13 page)

That made sense. Not too many automobile parts stores or even wrecking yards in this neck of the woods. “Looks like we're stuck.”

The verdict was pretty much complete as Kemal returned to lean in the open door with his hands braced on either side. With fatalism in his face, he spoke to Freshta, and she sighed as she translated verbatim, “She does not go.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Wade opened his door and unfolded himself to his full height.

Kemal turned and put his back to the brace between
the doors while he took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a kitchen match.

Taking that for permission, Wade took a step toward the front of the vehicle. The damn burqa tangled around his ankles, and he stopped, ripped the thing off and slam-dunked it into the back seat. Then he walked with his own free and natural stride to where the wagon's hood yawned open.

The head was cracked, all right. The valves had seized up as well. From the heat still rising off the engine, he wouldn't be surprised if the whole, blessed thing wasn't half-melted.

They were on foot.

One of the other doors opened and closed. Chloe moved from behind the screen of the hood, coming to stand beside him. “Well, what do you think?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “She's most definitely not going to go.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Right. Where's all the GPS monitoring and cell phone wizardry when you really need them?”

“Put those out of your head,” she said. “Try to think as if we'd gone back in time a couple of decades.”

“Or more,” he agreed, nodding toward where a man led a donkey burdened with a rolled rug, two clay water jars, and three bright-eyed youngsters under six years old along the opposite side of the road. “So what do we do now?”

“Don't ask me.”

“It's your party.”

“It wasn't supposed to end this way,” she said in brooding irritation. “Besides, I know nothing of this area.”

“Well,” he drawled, glancing around him in the fading light that was drenched in sunset colors, “we might flag down a passing camel. Or maybe you could show an ankle so we could hitch a ride—that's if you can pick out a driver who isn't a psycho with a grudge against Americans.”

“This isn't funny!”

“Who's joking?” It was a serious business in all truth, though he was painfully aware of an odd euphoria running like wine in his veins. He wasn't sure if he was light-headed still from loss of blood, exhilarated at being out of Hazaristan, or if it had something to do with the woman beside him. Whatever the cause, he liked the feeling.

“There are four of us. We'll have to wait for a truck at least.”

“Or we can start walking. But if we're going to strike out on foot, it's time to lose the burqa.”

“Not that again!”

He wasn't going to be deterred, not this time. “You aren't on Hazaristan soil anymore, and no one is looking. Take it off.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“We had a bargain.”

She gave a long-suffering sigh before she said, “Pakistanis aren't a lot more progressive about
women and their bodies than the Hazaris. Besides, half the men passing on this road are either Hazara or Afghans, as is Kemal.”

“What's that got to do with it?” Wade thought he knew, but was in no mood to be helpful.

“You might want to think twice about setting up a situation where you have to defend my honor.”

She did have a point, as much as he hated to admit it. Before he had to capitulate, however, Freshta made her way around the station wagon's hood to stop beside them.

“Kemal and I have been talking,” she said without preamble.

“That right?” Wade glanced to where the driver had moved into view. The Tajik's features were grim behind his beard, which might or might not mean anything. “And?”

“We see no reason for the two of us to go forward when we will only have to retrace our steps again.”

“Freshta, no,” Chloe protested.

“Hear me out, please,” the Afghan girl said, her gaze earnest through the mesh of her burqa. “This is no easy decision.”

“If it's what I think…”

“Please,” Freshta said again, then went on as Chloe fell silent. “The way to Peshawar is clear. You have no need of a guide. It will be easier for only two people to find someone to take them, as well, so we four would likely have to split up into separate
vehicles. We will leave you here, then, Kemal and I, while the two of you go on together.”

It made sense to Wade. As he shot a look at Kemal, the driver gave him a nod as though to say the plan suited him, too.

Chloe didn't appear to see it. With her gaze on Freshta, she asked, “You would leave me to care for a wounded man?”

“He isn't so bad, I think. You must trust that he can manage this short journey.”

The Hazari girl was on to him, Wade thought, though he wasn't sure how he'd slipped up.

“And what of being caught alone with him?”

“You are in Pakistan where such things may be frowned on but not punished by death,” Freshta said evenly. “Soon you will be in the United States where they don't matter at all.”

“What if Ahmad learns of our leaving and follows us?”

“You must trust your American to protect you.”

Chloe's expression showed little confidence, but she didn't pursue it. Instead she asked, “And what of your mission?”

“That I will entrust to you.” As Freshta spoke, she lifted the skirt of her burqa and took a small flat package from the sash that was wrapped around her waist. She held it in her hands for a second, then extended it as if completing a ceremony.

Chloe made no move to accept it. She gave him a brief glance, Wade saw, as if she doubted the wisdom
of allowing him to see the transfer. That sharpened his interest so he looked more closely. The package seemed about the size and shape of a video, but could be anything, even a nice, neat bundle of explosives. If it was dangerous, however, Kemal didn't seem worried. The driver stared down the road as if bored with women's chatter.

“Take it, Chloe. You must.”

“I can't,” she said. “I have no idea who I should give it to, or how to find them.”

“I could tell you what has been done in the past, but it no longer matters,” Freshta said quietly. “It will be much better if you take it to the States with you. There you may find a respected journalist who cares enough to make it the sensation that it deserves.”

“Oh, but I didn't intend…”

“I know. I am aware of your dedication, your many good deeds and great heart. We have spoken of you among us, Ayla and I, and also Willa who is mother to your dead stepsister's husband. We have thought long and well, and this is what we decided between us. This mission was never mine, Chloe. It was always to be yours.”

“No.”

“Yes. Attend me, my sister in our cause.”

“But if I go now, I may never be allowed to return.”

“So be it. Some things are meant in this life, and perhaps it was kismet that brought you to my country,
to suffer with its women so that you might do this thing now. No, truly,” she said in haste as Chloe tried to speak. “If you return to Hazaristan you will die. You are too different to escape notice for long. Someone, somewhere, will betray you for favor, money or hope of paradise, and that will be the end. If women like me wish to risk our lives, this is as it should be. This is our land, the country of our birth and our hearts, and we have no wish to leave it for another. But it is not your country, our Chloe. You belong to America. Go there where women are free, and do what you may to help us be free also.”

Chloe lifted her head. With what sounded like tears clogging her voice, she said simply, “If it pleases you, sister of my heart.”

It was then that Kemal gave a grunt of impatience and pushed away from the stalled vehicle. His attention was not on the women, however, but fixed on the road ahead where a truck, indistinct in the growing dimness except for the twin beams of its headlights, came toward them on its way up the pass. Striding out onto the pavement directly in its path, the Tajik held up his hand like a traffic cop in a silent movie.

For long seconds, there was no sound except the whine of the diesel engine. Then came the hiss and squeal of air brakes. The truck was stopping.

With an imperious wave in Freshta's direction, Kemal called out to her.

“Yes,” she replied, though with little obedience in
her tone. Turning back to Chloe, she thrust the package into her hands. Then she enveloped her in a swift hug that included the ritual kisses on the cheek of farewell. With the glint of tears in her eyes, she murmured softly, “Allah keep you, my friend. Live well and be happy.”

“And you,” Chloe replied.

Freshta looked at Wade. “Keep her safe.”

Where the impulse came from, Wade wasn't sure, but he lifted a hand to his heart and inclined his head in a gesture he'd seen many times in the Middle East but never thought to copy. It seemed right at the moment.

Freshta smiled, for the brilliance of it shone behind her mesh screen. Then she turned in a whirl of cloth and ran for the truck that was rolling to a halt. Kemal helped her into the cab, probably for the sake of speed and because he wanted the window seat, since he slammed the door and draped an arm outside it. Then the truck pulled away. It picked up speed, grinding off with a clash of gears toward the Azad Pass and all that lay beyond.

Wade looked at the woman beside him. She stared back, her gaze unreadable.

So here he was, Wade Ethan Benedict, in the middle of a foreign country with no plan, no transportation, and no idea what to do next. He had about two-thirds of his normal strength, a single weapon with limited ammo, and he was stranded alone with a woman who considered him a liability and wanted
desperately to be somewhere else. Night was coming on like a freight train, and the only shelter in sight was a crippled vehicle that, come good dark, was going to be a magnet for every thief and bandit in these hills.

On top of all this, he had a strong suspicion that he'd lost it, gone over the edge to stare lunacy in its grinning face. Because the main thing he felt bubbling up inside him was not gloom or doubt or even worry, but an enveloping tide of pure, outrageous joy.

God, but he was happy.

“W
hat's so funny?” Chloe demanded.

“Nothing, nothing.” The smile that curved Wade's lips vanished. He turned away from her, gazing around with an appraising stare at the darkening shapes of the rolling hills and the ever-present saw-toothed line of the Hindu Kush behind them.

She wished that she'd been less waspish. It wasn't his fault that everything had gone so terribly wrong, or that she felt forsaken. Of course, none of it would have happened if he had never come, or even if he'd left her alone when she'd asked.

Freshta and Ayla were sure the chain of events that had been set in motion was fate's hand at work. Chloe wished she could believe it. It seemed to her more like the hand of Wade Benedict.

Abruptly he moved with a lanky stride to the rear of the station wagon. Opening the cargo hatch, he rummaged inside, taking out and stacking what he found on the ground. The first thing was a bag made of carpet scraps that clanked with the dull metallic sound made by tools or cooking equipment, or both. On this was stacked a prayer rug and a stained wool
blanket. Rolling the last two items together, he handed her the bundle.

Chloe took it automatically and tucked the video package that she still held into one end. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of goat and old cigarette smoke that clung to the wool and leather, she asked, “What is this?”

“Camping gear.” He removed the five-gallon water jug that Kemal had used earlier, then closed the hatch door.

“Camping,” she repeated in flat tones.

“Call me chicken, but getting into a truck with some stranger on a deserted road at night, like your friend, just doesn't seem too bright. I might chance it on my own, but not with a woman.”

“I can take care of myself, thank you.”

“Famous last words. And I'm in no shape to ride to the rescue like some hero in the movies, thank you very much. Good old Kemal carried survival gear, as most folks do that live in mountain country. We'll camp for the night, and try for Peshawar in the morning.”

“Let me guess, you were a Boy Scout?”

“My brothers and I practically lived in the woods around our house when we were kids.”

“This isn't Louisiana.”

“That just means there are no mosquitoes and we won't be panting for air-conditioning.”

The last was certainly true. The air had grown noticeably cooler since the sun dropped behind the
mountains. “We could sleep in the station wagon,” she said with a troubled glance at the dust being chased across the road by the evening wind.

“Yeah, but the bandits and strip thieves might disturb your beauty rest.”

“Strip thieves?”

“With car parts being scarce around here, I think you'll find this heap a skeleton of its former self come daylight.”

“You're forgetting the nasty habit they have of cutting off the hands of thieves.”

He gave her a judicious look. “First you have to catch the thief. And I'd say the prospect of losing a hand makes leaving witnesses out of the question. Do you really want to chance it?”

Camping suddenly didn't seem such a bad idea. “I suppose you've got the perfect site all picked out?”

“Over there.” He tipped his head toward a stand of deodar cedars a fair distance away. The trees, ghostly in the fading light, clustered on a slope that was protected from the rear by a steep outcropping of rock but open on the remaining three sides.

“All the comforts of home,” she said dryly. “Carry on, O Fearless Leader.”

He picked up the water jug and the tool bag. With a hint of challenge in his eyes, he said, “After you.”

If he thought she was going to argue with him, he was in for a surprise, Chloe thought. With a single speaking glance, she tucked the rolled blanket under
one arm, picked up the skirt of her burqa and set out for the cedars.

By the time night had fallen around them, they sat on either side of a small fire sipping tea. Wade had built a fire pit of stones and kindled the blaze inside the concealing ring. It was Chloe who found the matches to start it with, however, in the bag of tools and utensils. She also discovered the packet of tea, tin can used for boiling water and plastic cup. And it was she who laid out the prayer rug on one side of the fire and the blanket on the other.

“Not exactly home,” Wade said in wry comment as he glanced at her across the flames, “but not too uncomfortable, either.”

Firelight reflected in his eyes and glinted for an instant on the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled. Abruptly she was aware of just how big and masculine he was, how attractive, and how alone they were there under the cedars. He seemed more relaxed than at any time since they'd met, as he lounged across from her with one knee drawn up to support his wrist and the hot tin can of tea that he held between his thumb and forefinger. He'd regained his normal color, so his skin appeared sun-burnished, and the rough, windblown waves of his hair shone with vitality. He didn't look at all like the man who had been lost in a feverish nightmare only the night before.

Realizing she was staring, she looked away. Her gaze fell on the leather bag that lay beside her.
“Would you like a snack? I found this with the other things.”

“What is it?”

“Walnuts, seeds, dried fruit and maybe bits of meat, the Hazara version of trail mix, though a good bit older as a tradition.”

He held out his hand, and she poured half of what was in the bag into it. “Interesting,” he said as he stared down at it. Then he piled it carefully on the rug beside him. “Maybe later.”

She wasn't really hungry, either, but sorted out a piece of what she thought was apricot. It was hardly a gourmet treat since it had been sun-dried without benefit of sugar or preservatives, and had dark spots whose origins she didn't want to speculate on. Still, she tore off a small piece with her teeth and began to chew it. The concentrated scent of apricot blended with the smells of burning cedar and wild sage from the mountain slopes, creating an incenselike fragrance.

“I expect camping out when you were a kid was never quite like this,” she commented.

An odd expression crossed his face, then was gone. “Not quite. For one thing, no girls were allowed. Not that any ever applied.”

“No girls in your family?”

“Not back then. Boys only, Adam and myself, Clay and Matt. The last two were twins.”

“Were?”

“Matt died, killed in an oil rig explosion.”

“I'm sorry.” Her voice was soft as she spoke, perhaps in response to the spasm of pain that had crossed his face.

“It was a long time ago, over ten years. He has a daughter, a neat kid named Lainey. She had a kidney transplant a while back, but is doing fine so far. Clay gave her one of his, since he was the best donor match.”

“That was…kind of him.”

“Pure self-preservation, if you ask me. He loves that kid as if she was his own, would die tomorrow if anything happened to her. Doesn't hurt that he feels the same about her mother.”

“Meaning…”

“He married the woman Matt loved, yeah. As twins, they always did have the same tastes in food, cars, women and so on. Stands to reason, I guess.”

“What about your other brother?”

“Adam? His wife's psychic, reads his mind. It's downright weird, or might be if he didn't enjoy it so much.”

“Enjoy?”

“You don't want to know.”

From the hint of a salacious twinkle in his eyes, she thought he was probably right. On the other hand, talking seemed more comfortable than silence. Searching for something to keep it going, she asked, “No other nephews and nieces?”

“Not so far, but lots of baby cousins.”

She sat listening as he went on to tell her of his
cousins Kane, Luke and Roan and their wives and offspring. He spoke also of the town of Turn-Coupe, the people who lived there, the courthouse square with its Confederate and Vietnam Veterans Memorials side by side, the annual pirate's day festival and the lake and its swamp areas. She paid attention to what he said, but most of all she listened to the rich timbre of his voice with its warm edging of nostalgia and affection. Whether he knew it or not, he loved his people and the place he had been born, and he missed them.

“Why did you leave Turn-Coupe?” she asked when he finally fell quiet.

He lifted a shoulder. “It's a long story and not especially interesting. Besides, I've talked enough.”

“What else do we have to do, after all. I'd like to hear it.”

He met her gaze through the blue streamers of smoke that shifted between them. Their depths were dark, yet alive with rigorously suppressed inclinations. An odd shiver moved over her, while deep inside she felt the rise of something similar to anticipation. Her heartbeat accelerated, and her lips parted for a quick, sharp breath.

He switched his gaze to his tea, swirling it in the tin can. His expression hardened, becoming distant.

“Of course, if that's too personal…” she began.

His lips flattened for a second. Then he twitched a wide shoulder. “Not especially. It's the usual family saga. Adam was the oldest son, the steady, hardwork
ing one who did well in school and tried his best to please. Being the second son and middle child, I had to be different. I was the rebel, stubborn, touchy, a sore-headed pain in the…well, a pain. Our dad wasn't an easy man. He was a perfectionist, with a highhanded conviction that there was only one way to be, one way to do things, and that was his way. The twins were younger and had each other, so were able to get by. All of us spent a lot of time in the woods and swamps, keeping out of his way. Didn't always work. To say Dad and I butted heads would be an understatement. His best way of trying to make me see reason was with a belt. That was the main reason my mom left him when I was a teenager, I think, and the only person stunned by it was Dad. Instead of trying to work it out, he did his best to make the breakup her fault. And of course we all resented him for it, especially me.” He paused. “See, I told you it was boring.”

“No, really it isn't.” She was intrigued by that glimpse of what he'd been like before he'd developed the tough exterior that he'd worn when she'd first met him. It helped, too, to know that seemingly perfect families, as she'd somehow pictured the Benedicts when she'd stayed at their camp with her father, could have problems. The fact that his parents had been divorced as her own had been gave her a feeling of common ground. “So is that why you left, because you couldn't get along with your dad?”

“That was the biggest part of it. But I was sick to
death of Turn-Coupe, too, and dying to see the world. I lived with my mom in New Orleans for a while, but didn't get on too well with her friends—she's an artist and seems to collect weird types the way some women collect china plates or figurines. I got an apartment, took a job tending bar at night, earned a degree. About the time I graduated, a recruiter came around offering premium salaries for engineers willing to live and work in the Middle East. So off I went.” He glanced at her. “You sure you want to hear this?”

Instead of answering, she asked, “You didn't join the military?”

“What makes you think that?”

“The way you act now and then. Well, and you had nightmares about some kind of plan or operation that went wrong. It sounded as if it might have a military connection though it was confusing because there was a woman involved.”

“Jeez,” he whispered, raising his free hand to his face, rubbing it with a force that distorted his expression, for a second, into a mask of tragedy.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned it.”

“Hell, why not?” He expelled a short, hard breath. “Could be you have a right to know the quality of the protection you're getting here.”

She didn't like the self-contempt she heard in his voice, or the force with which he flung the remains of his tea into the fire. Still, she wasn't sure she could
stop him now if she tried. She was silent, waiting for him to go on.

“What I joined was the Diplomatic Security Service, a division dedicated to the protection of diplomatic personnel and their families abroad, with sometimes the occasional senator, congressman, head of a multinational corporation or heavy campaign contributor who takes a notion to visit foreign posts. I was recruited for that, too, on the basis of a little skirmish in Saudi Arabia between a diplomat's teenage son and what I thought were a couple of pickpockets. They turned out to be terrorists, and I happened by in time to keep him from getting blown to bits in a car bomb attack. The kid made sure I got a formal thanks and an informal visit from the director of security at that time, a guy named Nathaniel Hedley.”

She had a feeling that there'd been much more to the encounter than he was telling, but she let it go. “You had an oil-field position by then, I imagine,” she said. “Why did you agree?”

“Ego, I suppose,” he answered with a twist of his neck, as if trying to relieve its stiffness. “I was young enough to be flattered by all the fuss and glamour, rubbing elbows with the moneyed folks and political movers and shakers. Then there was the high-flown language about a career dedicated to serving and protecting the men and women who furthered U.S. interests at home and abroad. I was a sucker for ideals, of one kind or another, back then. Of course, the briefing from veterans and the training I had to go through
knocked a lot of that out of me, but it took a real mess to get rid of what was left.”

She thought it was possible that some remained, or else why would he have ventured virtually alone into a country like Hazaristan at the behest of a friend? Why would he risk so much to carry out a mission that had been useless from the start?

“What kind of mess?” She drank the rest of her tea and set the cup aside.

“An ugly one,” he answered quietly. “A Texas oilman flew in to visit the ambassador and, not incidentally, get some kind of angle on an upcoming meeting of OPEC. He brought his wife with him, a former model that he sent to Switzerland every year for the latest nip, tuck and mud bath. Oh, and decked out in Paris and Italian originals that he set off with a tasteful dollar sign made of diamonds pinned smack dab in the middle of her chest. I don't have to tell you, I'm sure, that he was old enough to be her grandfather and she was his second, or maybe third, trophy bride. He was busy making more money, she was bored, and so she entertained herself by swimming in the nude and asking unattached men to dance. But it turned out that she'd had a former lover who was a lawyer draw up her prenuptial agreement, and if the rich old coot she'd married decided to throw her out, it was going to cost him ten million.”