Hot Ice Page 22

  She glanced at him under her lashes. It was lust, all right, lust deluxe. He was everything she’d never known she wanted in a man. Everything she’d never allowed herself to dream about on those long lonely nights alone in her bed when half-formed thoughts had been pushed ruthlessly back into her subconscious.

  The swaying grasses outside Taylor’s window blurred like a muted watercolor. She felt raw inside, stripped of her customary protective layers, which left her vulnerable to this avalanche of unfamiliar feelings.

  Hunt squeezed her hand, and she turned like a sleepwalker. “Do you want to stop the car? Are you sick?”

  She shook her head.

  Fortunately, another long fax came through just then. The next hour was spent discussing thermal satellite imaging of the mine and what that might mean in geometry terms, something little more than a vague school memory for Taylor. She didn’t want to start something with the manly men, but her way of doing a job required that she see the target for herself. They could technobabble themselves into a coma, she’d still do it her way.

  As the sun slid with reluctance toward the horizon, they crossed a river over a wooden bridge so rickety, Taylor was amazed it could bear the weight of the cars. Fortunately, it was a short span. It was a long, long way down into the gorge.

  “The wall’s unusual,” Hunt said into the lip mic as they approached the village Taylor had seen on the satellite pictures. The seven-sided wall built around the round huts blocked most of their view, but Hunt assured her that their approach had been noted and prepared for when the convoy was a good twenty miles away.

  “Stop here,” he instructed. “Fisk, Savage, Viljoen, Burton, and Gardner, with me. The rest of you, stand by.”

  Hunt opened his door, then glanced at Taylor. “Stay in the car.”

  “Not a prob,” she said, happy to obey her first order. The grasses were thigh high, and insects buzzed and crawled everywhere. “I think there be snakes in them thar grasses.”

  “Don’t look now, darling,” Hunt said mildly, his attention concentrated over her shoulder. “But I think snakes are the least of our problems.”

  Taylor swung around to see what he was talking about.

  Circling the vehicles were at least a hundred native warriors in full war paint, and nothing else. They all carried skin shields, long, metal-tipped spears, and looked extremely annoyed.

  Thirty-seven

  EARLY EVENING, OCTOBER 12

  DANTE’S INFERNO

  LEVEL ONE—LIMBO

  Taylor found it impossible not to look at the hundred or so gleaming, healthy, naked male bodies surrounding their vehicles. Most of the men didn’t have on so much as a loincloth, and their dark skin gleamed in the fading light as if oiled.

  Of far more concern, Hunt’s group were ridiculously outnumbered by at least three to one. He was the only one outside the vehicle, and her heart was pounding so hard, she couldn’t hear anything else.

  Each vehicle was surrounded, and the occupants were being impatiently motioned to leave their jeeps. The gesture was done with wild movements of the long spears. They didn’t appear to speak English. She hoped one of the South Africans, Daan or Piet or one of their team, could interpret.

  “Keep your hands where they can see them,” Hunt told them calmly. “And get out of the car.”

  With the sun setting, the temperature had dropped. It was not cold, but Taylor shivered as she swung her legs out and paused, looking to Hunt for direction. Vaguely, she heard other doors in their convoy open and shut.

  Hunt took her hand, pulling her to her feet in the dry thigh-high golden grass. The air smelled hot and arid, stinging her nostrils every time Taylor inhaled. Insects buzzed and hummed and droned as they darted and swarmed around the newcomers.

  As the two men emerged from the front seats, Hunt indicated that they should talk to the natives closest to them. Daan Viljoen sprouted a string of words filled with strange rhythms and many clinks of the tongue. The locals looked at him, puzzled. He tried another language. That one didn’t seem to work either, as the men looked at one another and then back.

  “You give it a try,” he told Piet Coetzee.

  None of Coetzee’s attempts brought understanding either, and the native men whispered among themselves.

  Other than the noise of the insects, an occasional screech from a bird, or a cry of an animal, the entire situation was eerily silent. Three men approached Hunt. They used the spears to point. He shifted her behind him, then held up his hands, showing they were empty.

  Taylor frowned. Why wasn’t Hunt carrying a gun? Why weren’t any of the T-FLAC people carrying a weapon of some sort? They’d known these people were here before they’d arrived.

  Clearly, Hunt knew something he hadn’t shared with her, because no one in his right mind would walk into a situation like this unprepared.

  A flying insect feasted on her sweaty neck. Taylor was scared that if she moved, one of these guys would . . . Do what? Throw a spear? Stab her with a spear? She presumed one could die from a spear wound, but it seemed pretty damn primitive. In fact, this whole situation seemed pretty damn primitive.

  At least these guys didn’t look as aggressive as she’d first thought, although they didn’t look superfriendly either. The fact that nobody was saying anything added to the creep factor.

  Down the length of their convoy, everyone was being asked for weapons. Boxes and crates were removed from the vehicles and piled together in the middle of . . . nowhere.

  Talk about a bloodless coup, she thought. Not that she wanted bloodshed, but for God’s sake—this didn’t make any sense at all. They were motioned to walk ahead of the men and into the village. Hunt walked next to her, and she darted a glance at his profile. He didn’t look worried. Fine. She was worried enough for both of them.

  “You knew these people were here,” she whispered as they trudged through the hot, smelly grass, their feet kicking up puffs of dust and more bugs. She’d seen the infrared pictures, had listened to the discussion.

  “No questions, remember?”

  Right. She remembered.

  They were escorted through an opening in the six-foot-high mud wall surrounding the village. Taylor glanced about curiously. She could see no women, no children, no livestock or food crops. She frowned. It was almost dinnertime. But there was no sign of food being prepared. It was as though they’d walked onto a film set.

  There were half a dozen T-FLAC guys ahead of them as they were corralled into a large round hut with a thatched roof. The others followed, shifting around when they got inside and moving away from the arched doorway.

  The hut was called a rondaval, Viljoen had said when they passed a small village of huts that morning. The enormous house was one large room, and all thirty-plus of them fit inside with plenty of room to spare. It was hard to make out anything in the semidarkness, just a dirt floor, dirt walls, and no door or windows. What was left of dusk came only as far as a few feet inside the arched doorway. The whole place smelled of musty soil and dried grass.

  Taylor glanced around at the T-FLAC guys, some of whom she’d seen briefly when they hooked up at the airport. They all appeared focused and intent, but none of them looked any more worried than Hunt. Were these guys communicating telepathically or something?

  Everyone migrated to the center, and she joined them there.

  “They’ll wait,” Hunt said. For what? Taylor wanted to ask, wondering how he managed to speak so softly and still be heard. It was a gift. He touched the face of his watch and it glowed a muted green. “Let’s give them five hours; 2300.” He scanned the men. They nodded.

  “This kraal is clearly the first level,” Hunt continued. “The seven sides of the outside wall, the rolling meadows, and so on, would represent Dante’s Limbo.”

  Taylor stepped up beside him, but he kept talking. “Navarro, description on Level Two?”

  “ ‘Mute of light. Wind. Hurricanes,’ ” the other man said, teeth gleaming in the semidarkness
. “It’s the ‘smite the lustful’ part of the program.”

  “No hurricanes in this part of the world,” Savage pointed out. “And hello? No hurricanes anywhere inside. So what does it mean?”

  “It means Morales will find a way to produce one,” Hunt answered. “Need something?” he asked Taylor softly.

  She was surprised he was aware of her standing beside him. “Actually, I have a quick question for Viljoen.” She turned to find him in the darkness, and trying to speak as softly as the men, she said, “What language were those guys speaking?”

  “You know, I’m not sure. Nothing I’m familiar with, anyhow,” Viljoen said meditatively. “But there are over forty African languages—”

  “But they barely said a word,” Taylor pressed. “Not even to each other, really. Did you notice? They must have a language. How would they communicate?”

  “How many words do they need for, ‘Should we boil them or fry them?’ ” one of the men joked.

  “What’s your theory?” Hunt murmured.

  “Is there anything in their vocabulary that sounds recognizable to any of you?” Taylor asked the group.

  “You know, not really,” Viljoen replied. “But like I said, there’re so many languages—”

  “This isn’t a language,” Taylor stated with conviction. “They look like they jumped out of a National Geographic photo spread. And did you notice? No women. No evening fires. This is weird. Something isn’t quite right.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Hunt agreed. “They walk the walk and talk the talk, but those men out there wearing beads and paint and toting assegais and oxhide shields are Latin.”

  “My thought exactly,” Daklin agreed. “We knew Mano del Dios would be waiting.”

  “Morales has a bizarre flair for the dramatic,” Hunt said, keeping his voice low.

  “San Cristóbal inflection?” Taylor asked quietly beside him.

  He nodded. “They’ve done an amazingly good job of coming up with gobbledygook that could be authentic. But they haven’t quite perfected the knack of sustaining an entire conversation. Hence the abbreviated noble savage dialogue. It’s to our advantage to play along.

  “Farrel, get us some light in here. Viljoen, go with him to ‘interpret.’ Daklin, Bishop, watch their backs.”

  The “natives” supplied them with food and water, and gave them free rein of the entire village. Of course they did, Hunt thought, amused. They wanted Taylor, and T-FLAC, to access the mine as quickly as possible.

  Over a wooden trencher of ostrich meat, Hunt assured the “chief” that they were merely here to see the country and they meant him and the village no harm. It was a lovely little play, one that both sides enjoyed. No harm, and so far, no foul.

  The fact that their weapons had been confiscated bothered only Taylor. Hunt’s people were trained in hand-to-hand combat and were as lethal without a gun as with one. And God only knew, if a weapon was wanted, they’d procure whatever they needed when the time came.

  It was a given that the moment the final level was breached, these guys wouldn’t be lobbing those theatrical-looking spears at them. Morales’s people had access to the best weaponry in the business. Hunt had already dispatched several men to ascertain exactly where that cache of weapons was and what kind of firepower they had.

  What Mano del Dios had, T-FLAC would take. Simple.

  So far, everything was running smoothly. Too smoothly.

  Hunt had had a persistent itch on the back of his neck since leaving Zurich. It was an itch he never ignored, and it concerned the hell out of him. His instincts when it came to tangos had been infallible so far. The itch was telling him that the smooth sailing they’d experienced to this point was about to come to a god-awful, and unholy, end.

  Soon.

  He had never felt this gut-deep fear before an op.

  He wasn’t afraid of death, in fact rarely gave it a thought. It was part of the life he’d chosen. He knew he sure as hell wasn’t going to die of old age. What he did while he was alive though, made a difference, but his own mortality didn’t concern him one way or the other. In this business, death would come sooner rather than later. The people he dealt with on a daily basis lived violent lives. One of these days his good fortune would run out and he’d die a violent death. That was a given.

  But having Taylor here—bloody hell. That fucking scared the piss out of him. He hated like hell playing Russian roulette with her life. Yet here she was.

  Thirty-eight

  BLIKIESFONTEIN

  A knock at the chapel door brought Morales back to awareness.

  The stone floor felt chill beneath his cheek. He blinked back the darkness. He must rise. Finish what he had begun. His back burned like the fires of hell as he pushed to his knees. The sticky cloth across his back pulled and tore away from the dried and still weeping wounds from his shoulders to his thighs, but he did not make a sound.

  He reached for the whip beside him.

  Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.

  The knocking turned to pounding. “Señor, señor. It is time, señor.” His first lieutenant pushed open the heavy steel and came hesitantly into the chapel. Aarón bowed his head as he shuffled forward. “It is time, señor.”

  “Turn your back! You are not worthy of seeing God’s glory!” Morales shouted. He did not permit anyone to witness his vulnerability to God’s instructions.

  “My apologies, señor,” Aarón replied deferentially, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “But you instructed that I tell you—T-FLAC has the girl. They are guests in the village. Señor, it has begun.”

  “Bueno. Leave me.” Morales knew he had work to do. Time ran on God’s clock, not his, and it slowly ticked away.

  “But, Jefe—”

  “Enough. Send my beloved Maria to me, and go.”

  The end of all things is near, therefore, be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.

  New beginnings awaited the faithful.

  José wiped his blood-wet hand down his thigh, then lifted the whip and began again.

  Thirty-nine

  BLIKIESFONTEIN

  Lisa Maki sat on the top step of somebody’s broken-down porch on the back of their decrepit house, smoking a cigarette and drinking a warm beer. It wasn’t late, but she’d sent her people to bed. She didn’t know them, and she didn’t fucking want to bond with them. They had their instructions. They could keep the hell out of her way until she needed them tomorrow.

  She’d just spoken to the head of Black Rose herself on a disposable cell phone. Was she out there somewhere, watching? Lisa wondered, glancing around the moonlit backyard consisting of dry, patchy grass and engine parts. The Black Rose herself seemed to have eyes in the back of her head.

  Lisa shook off the sensation of being watched. Her leader had sounded good. Upbeat. Pleased.

  And if her boss was pleased, Lisa knew she was in good favor.

  So. The girl and T-FLAC were in the village near the mouth of the mine. Tomorrow they should reach the missile. She’d let them do all the scud work. Then it would be a simple matter for her to take in her team, kill them all, and assume ownership of the Mano del Dios stash of goodies. The missile. The diamonds. The cash. The biochemicals, and whatever the fuck else the asshole had buried down there.

  In a few hours it would all belong to the Black Rose.

  Thanks, of course, to Lisa Maki.

  Forty

  Taylor sat cross-legged beside Hunt, pushing the food around on the wooden trencher. She’d barely tasted the stringy ostrich meat.

  “Force yourself to eat a little of the protein,” he told her. “You’ll need your strength later.” They’d all depend on her strength later.

  She shot him a look and picked up a hunk of meat, stuffing it into her mouth. “Mfappy now?” she said with her mouth full.

 
“Delirious. Chew.”

  She chewed with clear reluctance, but he waited for her to swallow, then picked up an apple wedge and placed it in her hand.

  “Thank you, Mommy.” She bit down with sharp white teeth and chewed with a little more enthusiasm.

  Hunt said an unfamiliar prayer to a god who, after many years of absence, had been hearing from him a lot lately: God, don’t let a damn thing hurt this woman. You hear me?

  Because their hosts ate with them, the conversation was general and vague. Don’t speak English, my ass. When Hunt rose, his people did too. They were led outside and directed to several smaller rondavals for the night. He’d have kept everyone together where he could see them. But hell, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’d already designated assignments, and he let everyone decide where they wanted to sack out.

  Bidding his team a casual good-night—they’d be together at 2300—he ushered Taylor toward the hut farthest from the others.

  He didn’t need his Maglite to see the way. The sky was a clear, black bowl dotted with the sparkle of a million brilliant white stars and a picture-perfect sliver of a moon. With the sun down, it was chilly, the air crisp and scented with the fragrance of wood fires and the unfamiliar smell of the surrounding vegetation. Insects buzzed and whirred, and in the distance a lion roared, calling its mate, reminding him that while their “native” hosts were faux, this really was the wild.

  And there were things far more dangerous nearby than wild animals. Somewhere beneath their feet lay a missile that, if it were a nuke, could take out a good chunk of the continent.

  “Is it safe for us to be separated?” Taylor asked, her voice pitched low.

  Hunt looked over his shoulder at the rest of his team slipping into the other huts. “Not much we can do about it at the moment.”

  “Thanks. That makes me feel better.”

  He dropped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “You’re doing great, love. Just hang on a few more days.”