Escape Out of Darkness (2 page)

“Because a man and a woman traveling together are less conspicuous. And because I’m very good at what I do. Don’t be sexist, Pulaski. I’m a lot stronger than I look.” She turned back toward the welcoming light streaming from the doorway. “Let’s go.”

“Are you?” he said softly, almost to himself. A moment later she felt an arm swoop around her throat, cutting off her breath as she was yanked against a hard, implacable body.

She didn’t waste a moment on useless struggling. She knew exactly how long it would take for her to pass out from lack of oxygen, and she also recognized that he wasn’t using his full strength on her. She fought back, quickly, cleanly, efficiently, jabbing her elbow directly into his ribs, bringing her booted heel down on his instep, turning and raising her knee toward his groin and her freed hand toward his vulnerable throat.

But he was swiftly out of reach, far enough so that she had the time to recognize the attack for what it was, a test of her skills. “Satisfied?”

He nodded. “You’re fast and good.”

“And you pulled your punches. I could have taken you out even if you’d used all your strength.”

His smile was no longer cynical; it matched the warmth in his eyes. “I’m sure you could. Maggie, my fate is in your hands. Let’s go to Houston.”

“You want me to drive?” Mack paused by the big white American car parked down below the cabin.

“Later. Driving will keep me awake long enough to get out of here. Once we’ve been on the road for a few hundred miles and I’m sure we’re not being followed, I’ll let you take over.” She gave him a disparaging glance. “Maybe.”

“Do I get the impression your heart isn’t in this particular job?” He climbed in beside her, tossing his battered leather suitcase behind them and leaning back with a weary sigh. He’d grabbed a pair of mirrored sunglasses on the way out and a battered old hat, and he looked tired, grubby, and dangerous. “Or is my paranoia acting up?”

“You’re right. I don’t like drug cases, and I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I can’t imagine you’re in any danger—Peter doesn’t do anything halfway. He wouldn’t have left you out there if it wasn’t safe. If anyone has the faintest idea where you are, it would surprise me greatly. I think I’m doing make-work when I’ve more than earned a vacation, and I …” She let her voice trail off, flushing slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice more composed. “I don’t usually whine. I’m just damned tired.”

Mack pushed his shades down on his imposing broken nose, peering at her over them. There was no disapproval, no judgment in his hazel eyes. “No offense taken,” he said in his sexy rough voice.

Silence reigned in the air-conditioned confines of the rental
car as Maggie piloted it down out of the hills and into the scraggly town of Moab. But it was a comfortable silence. Maybe the trip to Houston wouldn’t be as awful as she’d imagined.

They were heading out Route 191 when she spoke again. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“About what?”

“About why you’re on the run. The details in the folder Peter gave me are sketchy, to say the least, and my contact in Washington wasn’t much help either.”

“What do you know? I’ll fill in the gaps.”

“You’re a record producer in New York, with Horizon Records. You were working on a recording session with a rock group when you went outside during a break and walked in on a drug deal. Am I right so far?”

“Completely.”

“Okay. So you recognized someone you shouldn’t, and you took off. That leaves a lot of holes.”

Mack slid down farther in the seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “So ask me some questions.”

“How long have you been in the recording business?”

The rusty sound coming from him might have been a laugh. “About eighteen years.”

Maggie took her gaze off the road for a moment to stare at him in surprise. “Well, then, you must have been around drugs before. You couldn’t have been in the business all those years without bumping into drug deals.”

“Sure, I’ve bumped into drug deals before.”

“Maybe been involved in a few yourself?” she hazarded.

There was a long, dead silence. “Maybe been involved in a few myself,” he agreed finally, his ragged voice flat and unemotional.

“Then what makes this so different? Who did you see, the President deliver coke or something?”

His mouth curved in a grim smile. “Something like that. I better explain something, Maggie. In my past I had more than a passing acquaintance with drugs. That was a lifetime ago, and
I’ve been clean for a long time. The people I work with know I don’t like drugs, and they keep them out of my sight. There’s no way I can stop someone from getting high during a session, but I don’t want to witness it. I figure what I don’t know won’t hurt me.”

He reached forward and turned the blasting air-conditioning down a notch before continuing. “Three weeks ago I went outside during a break in a recording session and saw one of the musicians, a guy I used to work with, buying a very large quantity of cocaine. He was buying it from someone I’d run into years ago, a man who’s become very powerful in organized crime. At first I couldn’t believe Mancini would be there doing the actual dirty work until I recognized who was with him. I’d seen the second man on Dan Rather just three weeks ago. He was one of the leaders of the rebels fighting the leftist government down there. The U.S.-backed rebels, I might add. It appeared they’d found a new way of financing their revolution.”

“Not a good idea,” Maggie said mildly.

Mack grinned. “Not a good idea at all. Mancini recognized me immediately, of course. He’s got a good memory, and I played a pivotal part in his rise to power in the early seventies. I took off, planning to hide out until I decided what to do about the situation. I spent the night with a friend, and when I got back to my apartment the next day a bomb had removed the top floor of my building. It also removed three people living in the other apartments.”

“And that’s when you went to Peter?”

“That’s when I went to find the musician who was the buyer in the drug deal. There wasn’t much left of him, I’m afraid. It was pretty effective as far as warnings go.”

“So you went to Peter?” she persisted.

“I went to Jeffrey Van Zandt.”

“Not everyone knows a friendly neighborhood CIA agent.”

“I know a lot of people,” Mack said. “Van Zandt put me in touch with Wallace and Third World Causes. He thought you guys might be interested because of the rebel connection.”

“He was right. That explains a great deal. So you’ve got the Mafia after you and the rebels. Not good, Pulaski.”

“Add the CIA to your list. They’ve been turning a blind eye to the rebels’ fund-raising efforts, what with Congress being so close-fisted about supporting them. According to Van Zandt, the Company wouldn’t mind if a little accident happened to me along the way. I’m something of an embarrassment. Every way I look I see trouble.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I’m not interested in heroics. I want to go back to work and be left alone. There’s no way I’m going to stop the drug traffic between here and Latin America, and I’m damned if I’m going to risk my butt trying. People can stuff whatever they want up their noses as long as they don’t involve me. Unfortunately, no one seems to believe that. Everyone wants to shut me up when I have no interest in opening my mouth in the first place.”

Maggie’s lip curled in disgust. “I guess you’re not out to save the world.”

“And I guess you are. Third World Causes, Ltd. sounds pretty damned noble. Do you get off on being a lady bountiful?”

She couldn’t see behind the glasses, but she could guess that those warm hazel eyes were now cold and hard. He hadn’t liked her judgmental tone, and while she couldn’t blame him, some little devil prodded her onward.

“I get off on making a difference,” she snapped back. “I think looking out for number one gets a little old after a while. But hey, it’s your life. You can live in a little bubble, and Peter and I will do our best to make sure that bubble is safe and no bad guys will get you.”

“You’re so goddamn smug, lady. You think you’re the expert on life?”

“I think …” She took a deep, calming breath. “I think we’d better not fight all the way to Houston. It’s about fifteen hundred miles, and we’re supposed to be a newly married couple on our first vacation. There are papers in the glove compartment. Credit cards, driver’s license, the works. You’re Jack
Portman, forty-one years old, an advertising executive from Phoenix. I’m Maggie Portman, your wife of two years. I’m in corporate law, working for an oil company.”

“Sounds repulsive.”

Her strong, slender hands clenched the white leather-covered steering wheel for a moment, then she relaxed them. “Sorry, you’re stuck with me. Have you been married before or am I your first?”

“You’re my third, and I hope to God you aren’t going to cost me as much as the first two.”

“You can count on that.”

“But I bet you’re going to be just as much trouble,” he muttered direly. “Listen, Maggie Whoever, I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when you want me to drive.” He began to slide down in the seat, the battered hat pulled down over his eyes.

Maggie casually checked her rearview mirror again. “You’re going to miss all the fun,” she murmured.

He straightened up. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”

“Not if you want to keep living in your safe little bubble,” she said sweetly. “I think we’re being followed. For Christ’s sake, don’t turn around, you idiot! You can see them in the rearview mirror, two cars back. It’s the requisite black sedan, two anonymous-looking men driving. They’ve been following us since we reached the paved road more than twenty miles back.”

“Maybe they’re just going in the same direction we are. This is the main route out of town.”

Maggie shook her head in disgust. “Do you want me to stop and ask?”

“I want you to drive like a bat out of hell. Better yet, let me drive.”

She grinned at him, the adrenaline pumping through her veins and temporarily wiping out the jet lag. “I don’t think we should stop long enough to change drivers. Granted they’re probably CIA rather than Mafia or the rebels, but I still haven’t
got a lot of faith in their sense of fair play. I think we’re better off outrunning them.”

“In this white elephant?” he groaned in disbelief.

“In this white elephant. It’s got a V-eight engine the size of Greater Miami, enough horses for the Russian Cavalry, and it’ll outrun any piece of garbage the CIA can come up with. The question is, can we take a chance in outmaneuvering them? I don’t know whether they saw us, whether they can put out the word and have someone a little more talented catch up with us. Maybe we can just keep driving, looking real innocent and …” She let the words trail off as she looked once more in the rearview mirror.

The black sedan had passed the two intervening cars and was now riding close enough on their trail for Maggie to see the expressions on the men’s faces. “Hell and damnation. They’ve made us.”

“So it seems,” Mack said mildly. “What are you going to do about it?”

“You’re pretty damned casual, considering it’s you they’re after,” Maggie snapped, keeping her hands resting lightly on the steering wheel.

“I have complete faith in you, Maggie,” he said, leaning back in the seat and pulling the hat down over his face. “Peter Wallace wouldn’t have sent you after me if you weren’t the best. Wake me when it’s over.”

Maggie allowed herself a brief, exasperated glance at his recumbent figure. “Some help you are,” she muttered.

“How could I help?” he mumbled from under the hat.

“What about moral support?” She took one last look in the rearview mirror, at the black sedan about to climb up on her tail. The stretch of highway wound straight ahead of them, dotted with RVs and trailers lumbering along like prehistoric animals looking for a place to die. “Forget it, Pulaski. We’re out of here.” And she shoved her narrow, high-heeled foot down on the accelerator.

As the speedometer climbed from fifty to seventy to ninety,
Maggie kept her eyes glued to the road. The RVs were looming up on her, but the sedan proved to have a bigger engine than she’d expected. Leaning forward, she pressed one of the switches on the dashboard and lowered the driver’s window. Reaching into the map compartment in the door, she flung out a handful of stuff and quickly ran the window up again.

“What the hell was that, Maggie?” Mack demanded, raising the hat an inch and trying to look unperturbed.

“Nails. It’s not foolproof, but a blowout would slow them down considerably.”

“Nails? I thought it was going to be something more exciting, like tiny explosives or an oil slick.”

“I’m not James Bond. Just a poor working girl, doing my best with everyday household objects. You’d be surprised what I can do with a can of tuna fish.”

“I’m beginning to think nothing about you would surprise me. Do you mind if I ask how you happened to come equipped with nails?”

“A friend of mine named Jackson suggested I buy some on my way out here. Just in case of unpleasant possibilities.”

Mack looked in the rearview mirror. “By the way, the nails seem to have worked. They’re slowing down.”

Maggie allowed herself a sigh of relief as she passed two huge Winnebagos and pulled back in line just in time to miss an oncoming BMW. “Thank God for that. A blowout might have killed them at that speed. A flat tire will just annoy the hell out of them.”

“You ever kill anyone, Maggie?” he inquired pleasantly.

“Not yet, Pulaski.” She smiled at him, a ravishing, delighted smile, and took great pleasure in his startled response. “But don’t push me too far. There’s a first time for everything.” And slowing the car to a sedate fifty-five, she drove on.

“I know,” Mack said five hours later. “You’re not human, you’re a new CIA secret weapon, and that scene outside of
Moab was just to curb my suspicions while you drive me straight into their clutches. Right?”

“What makes you say that?” The sun was sinking lower in the sky, casting ominous shadows that seemed to dart out at Maggie’s exhausted eyes, and she couldn’t even afford the energy to cast a glance at her previously silent companion.

“You don’t stop to eat, to go to the bathroom, to walk around. The damned car doesn’t even seem to need gas. I figure you’ve got to be the latest in advanced robotics. Or some sort of Superwoman.”

Maggie ignored the shaft of irritation at the latter name. “I’m the latest in advanced exhaustion, I’m starving, my bladder is about to burst, and the car’s on empty. According to my information, there’s a sleazy little motel another ten miles down the road. With a sleazy little cafe right next to it. We’ll stop there for the night.”

“Sounds wonderful. Maybe I’ll be able to get a sleazy little drink.”

“I doubt it. We’re still in Utah—the drinking laws are erratic to say the least.”

“Maggie,” he said, his low, rasping voice very steady, “I will kill for a drink. I have been living in a cabin that was little more than a cave for the last two weeks, eating canned chili and drinking warm bottled water with nothing for company but lizards and desert rats, and goddamn it, I need a drink. We can keep driving all night long until we get out of this state, but you’re going to find me—”

“Will Jack Daniel’s do?”

“Jack Daniel’s will do just fine,” he said with a grateful sigh. “Where?”