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Katie didn’t know whether to sigh in relief or panic as Alex leaned against her side.

He wasn’t sleeping—he was far too tense against her shoulder for that.

Worse, he was growing more tense by the minute, which panicked her, in turn.

What on earth had him so badly wired? What threat did he see that she was missing?

It had been pure luck that she’d overhead a couple of marines griping about the slowness of the shuttle bus into town while she’d been prowling through the operations center in search of Alex.

She’d absconded with a stack of files from a desk and had been carrying them around as if she were delivering them somewhere.

She’d also stolen a woman’s purse she’d found under the desk.

In addition to a wallet with a military I.D.

in it, the purse held some cash. Thank God.

It had taken a while to poke into offices and eavesdrop to get a bead on Alex. She’d been deeply alarmed to hear a guard talking about the batshit crazy doctor they were about to drug upstairs. She’d known immediately that it had to be Alex.

Once she’d climbed the stairs and slipped through a locked door behind a woman dressed in medical scrubs, it had been surprisingly easy to find the break room, don a pair of scrubs she found there, and literally walk into Alex’s room.

Taking the break room’s doorstop, a brick, and hiding it in a towel had been a spur-of-the moment improvisation.

Funny how inspiration could strike at the exact right time, now and then.

She could use a little more inspiration at the moment.

They had to get off the base somehow and hole up until Alex slept off whatever they’d given him.

But after that, she was without clue as to how to proceed.

She needed him alert and operating on all cylinders as soon as possible.

Although she did have to admit he made a surprisingly cute five-year old.

The bus passed off the Naval Station and she watched in minor disbelief as the huge fence retreated behind her. Surely, it couldn’t be that easy. Shaking her head, she watched the countryside pass by and worried as Alex’s body grew more and more taut next to hers.

Finally, she muttered, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he muttered back.

Bull . He felt ready to explode at any second.

The bus passed through a couple of small villages before it pulled into a decent-sized town that reminded her a lot of Baracoa. “End of the line,” the driver called in Spanish. “Guantanamo.”

Alex was practically vibrating with tension by the time they stepped off the bus. She looked around quickly and spied a coffee shop only a few yards from the bus stop. She knew they had to get off the street and out of sight, so she headed for the café with Alex in tow.

She ordered a pot of coffee and paid for it with cash from the stolen purse.

“Where’d you get the money?” he asked suspiciously.

“I liberated a purse from its owner before I rescued you,” she explained under her breath.

“Nice touch,” he commented.

Huh?

“What’s the plan?” he asked tersely.

She really didn’t like the way his gaze was darting around in constant motion like he expected a violent attack at any moment. “Relax. You’ll draw too much attention if you keep looking so uptight.”

If anything, his expression got wilder, but he did stop looking around so overtly. “Are you feeling all right, Alex? What did they inject you with?”

His eyes got that shuttered, stubborn look they got when he was refusing to tell her something. “I don’t feel so hot,” he announced.

“You need a restroom?” she asked in quick concern. “It’s down that hall.”

“Got it,” he said thickly. He rushed from the table in the direction she pointed, distinctly green about the gills.

She waited a few minutes for him to return, but he didn’t. Worried she rose to her feet, moved quickly down the hall to the restroom and knocked on the door. No answer.

“Alex?” she called quietly through the panel.

Still no answer. She tested the doorknob.

Locked. Crap. Had he passed out? Or worse?

What the hell had they drugged him with, anyway?

It was a simple lock. She fumbled in the purse, came up with a ballpoint pen and jammed its tip into the circular hole in the center of the knob.

The lock clicked open. She threw the door open?—

--Empty. The tiny bathroom was empty! Where had he gone?

She’d watched the hallway the whole time he’d been in here.

No way had he slipped back out into the café without her seeing him.

The window . It was closed but not locked.

He’d bailed out on her? What the hell was going on with him?

He’d separated from her back at the Zacara factory and now he’d ditched her in the middle of downtown Guantanamo while stoned out of his mind?

Equal parts furious and terrified, she threw open the window and looked down the alley. No surprise, Alex was long gone. In the loose gravel of the alley, he’d left no footprints that she could see. Not that she was any kind of trained tracker, anyway.

Crap. Now what?

It wasn’t like she could go back to the navy base and ask to be let in, again.

Not after she’d busted the two of them out like that.

Her brain felt wrapped in cotton candy. God, she was exhausted.

She tried to remember the last time she’d slept, and nothing came to mind.

Alex always said never to underestimate the power of food and sleep during an undercover op.

She retreated down the hall and asked the waitress where she could find a room to stay in, nothing fancy. Just a place to sleep. The girl named a place and gave her quick directions that Katie only half-understood. But she nodded her thanks and headed out.

Belatedly, it dawned on her that Alex would tell her the last place she should go was the one the girl had named for her.

Katie wandered the streets for a little while, searching fruitlessly for him until it occurred to her that there were likely soldiers out looking for her, too.

Not to mention Alex would never be dumb enough to roam around in broad daylight when he was a fugitive.

Clearly, she was way too tired to make smart decisions, right now.

She saw a cardboard sign in the window of a tiny, cluttered convenience store advertising a room for rent.

She swerved into the bodega and grabbed the sign out of the window.

It turned out to be upstairs, and the proprietor wasn’t thrilled about only renting it for the week.

He was looking for a long-term renter. But when she plunked down a credit card and told him to charge a full month’s rent for the week, he shut up quickly enough.

It wasn’t fancy. A single bed against one wall. A phone-booth sized toilet and sink. A hot plate that looked like a severe fire hazard siting on top of the lone dresser. That was it.

With a look askance at the cleanliness of the sheets, she laid down fully dressed on the bed.

She could not believe Alex had ditched her again!

She would figure out how to escape from Cuba later, when she could think straight.

One thing she knew: when she got home, she was going to find Alex and kill him.

And if she couldn’t accomplish the deed by herself, she would send her brothers after him.

Alex crouched in the ruined house, looking around in panic.

They were coming for him. He could feel it.

They’d turned Katie, and they were after him, now.

He crept into a small closet, pulled the warped door as shut as it would go and huddled in the corner, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth.

Katie had no idea how long she slept. She woke up a couple of times to go to the restroom, but that was about it. It was morning when she woke based on the sun streaming in her east-facing window. She finally felt human again. Alert. And ticked off.

How could Alex abandon her not once but twice? If the guy didn’t want to be with her, all he had to do was say so. But ditching her in a hostile country to sink or swim on her own…what total jackassery.

Something approaching actual hatred coursed through her veins, hot and acid.

First order of business, get home. Second on her to-do list, murder him.

She took stock of the contents of her stolen purse.

It held enough cash to buy food for a couple of days.

And the woman’s credit cards. Although, they were probably cut off by now.

Tucking most of the cash in her bra, she took the remainder downstairs to the bodega. She bought a couple of big bottles of water, a few apples, a box of crackers, and a can of tuna. The city’s food supply was still pretty limited, but it would do.

A woman was working behind the counter this morning. Katie approached the woman to ask where she could get access to a telephone with international service. The lady gave her a weird look and Katie added hastily that she could pay for the call.

The woman gestured with her head for Katie to follow and stepped behind a cloth curtain. Katie ducked into a tiny storeroom.

“Twenty dollars, U.S., for three minutes,” the woman said, fishing a cell phone out of her pocket.

That was probably double the going rate, but Katie wasn’t going to quibble about a little gringo gouging. “Done.”

She pulled a twenty out of her bra and traded it for the phone. She dialed André Fortinay’s number and prayed the call would go through and not be traced by the Cuban Secret Police in the next three minutes.

“Doctors Unlimited,” a female voice answered.

Ashley Osborne . The perky office assistant who’d sent her down here in the first place. “This is Katie McCloud. I need to speak to André.”

“He’s in a meeting. Can he call you back?”

“No. Interrupt him. I’ve got one shot at contacting him, and then I’m screwed.”