Page 28

“You have the best?—“

A noise behind them made him shove away from her, whirling into a defensive crouch.

A motorboat was coming around an outcropping of rock at the end of the tiny beach.

“Get down,” Alex bit out.

Katie threw herself down to the sand. Crap. That looked like a military patrol boat of some kind. The half-dozen men on board wore military uniforms and were using binoculars to stare at the shore.

“Don’t move,” Alex muttered. “As long as we don’t call attention to ourselves, they won’t see us here in the shadows.”

She made like a lump of driftwood to the best of her ability as the vessel cruised slowly, ominously, past. Was this a routine patrol? Or had these guys spotted Pedro’s fishing boat on radar, maybe?

The military vessel rounded the point at the north end of the beach and disappeared from view. Alex scrambled to his feet, dressing fast. She followed suit, too terrified to brush the sand off herself.

Sticking to the shadows, Alex headed down the beach in the opposite direction from the patrol boat, and she followed closeon his heels. Tension vibrated in his movements, which alarmed her mightily. Why was he so on edge after seeing that boat?

Without warning, he plunged into the pile of debris. What the heck?

She followed after him, surprised to come into a tunnel of sorts. It looked to have been hacked out by humans. It was barely wide enough for her to pass through, and she had to turn sideways to slip through the worst of it. But in a few seconds, she popped out the other side.

“Now what?” she whispered at Alex.

“We head for the alternate rendezvous point,” he whispered back.

“Let me guess. More hiking.”

He shrugged and gave her a hand signal to be silent followed by the signal to move out.Oh, joy.

They crossed what might at one time have been a paved road, but now it was a smooth drift of sand. Alex hugged the edge of the drift, sticking to the patches of exposed asphalt wherever he could. They’d walked perhaps a mile when he threw up a fist abruptly, signaling a halt.

She stopped, listening intently. Only the swish and crash of the nearby surf were audible at first. But then she heard voices.Crap.

Alex plunged into the brush at the side of the ruined road and she followed suit. Her t-shirt caught on something and she gave it frantic jerk. It tore with a sound of rending cloth, and she froze, horrified.

Alex grabbed her arm with his left hand and yanked her down beside him. She mouthed a silent apology and he nodded tersely as he quickly tied a piece of dark cloth over her blond hair. A pistol appeared in his right hand.

Were they really in so much danger? She thought the whole point of sending him down here was that the Cubans wouldthink he was on their side. Why was he so freaked out at the prospect of running into Cuban soldiers? Shouldn’t he wave hello to them, introduce himself, and let them know he was going to be rendering first aid to locals for a while?

Waiting breathlessly, she crouched in the tangle of brush. Who was out there? More soldiers? Locals? Looters? A line of uniformed men on foot drew even with their position, six across, all wielding automatic weapons. They looked like they were expecting trouble.

The two on the end closest to her and Alex were muttering something about footprints in the sand and she caught the fractional wince that crossed Alex’s face. Was that why he’d been making her stumble along on the torn-up asphalt?

Someone called out an order low in Spanish. Something about fanning out. She glanced over at Alex in panic. Shouldn’t they run or something?

He shook his head in the negative so infinitesimally that she nearly missed the gesture. Instead, he sank lower by slow degrees. She mimicked the sinking movement until she lay flat on her belly beside him. By inches, his arm came over her shoulder blades. Whether it was meant to protect her or hold her down if she panicked, she had no idea.

Crashing noises shockingly close to them indicated the soldiers were pushing out into the bush. She tensed, and Alex’s arm went iron hard across her back. The message was clear.Don’t move.

She’d heard her brothers talk about close calls when hostiles walked right by them in the dark, but none of them had ever described the throat-paralyzing terror of it, the roaring helplessness of having to just wait and hope you weren’t spotted while the bad guys crashed past your position.

A soldier passed maybe four feet in front of them, moving left to right. But at the exact moment when the guy had a clear sightline down to where they lay between two dead logs, a spider web or something similar brushed against his face. The guy sputtered and waved his right arm impatiently while he used his left hand to wipe his face. The soldier took the next step, disappeared from a direct sight line, and the threat was past.

Alex held her down while the line of soldiers gradually drew away from them, moving south down the road and beating their way through the brush beside it.

Eventually, Alex’s arm lifted away from her and he rose to a crouch beside her. She scrambled upright somewhat less quietly in spite of her best efforts to be stealthy. He gave her a hand signal to hold her position, and then he rose to his feet.

Her thighs were killing her before he finally held a hand down to help her stand. He headed toward the road and turned in the same direction the soldiers had gone, which shocked her. She did note that Alex was careful to stay off of the sweep of sand covering most of the roadway, now.