Out of Control (48 page)
“And what’s in that case that Ken won’t let go of?” Molly asked.
“Money,” Savannah told her, and Molly turned to look at her face above the makeshift privacy screen.
She looked closer. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
She shook her head. “My uncle called. At least I thought it was my uncle at the time. Asking for money. Asking me to meet him in Jakarta. But when we arrived at the airport, these Russian men grabbed us, threw us into a helicopter and . . . They were going to kill us. I think because they were angry at my uncle.” As she said the words, the reality of their situation hit her like a punch to the gut. “They’re still looking for us. If they find us . . .”
“They won’t.” When Molly said it, it sounded so definite. She was older than Savannah by at least ten years and was beautiful in an Earth Mother sort of way that Savannah herself would never be. “Your Ken seems to know what he’s doing. He’s got the whole village on your side.”
Ken had made a very generous offer not just to show the villagers how to use the dynamite they’d salvaged, but to return in a month or so, with enough explosives to clear or reroute the road into town. The man with the weather-worn face, Tunggul, seemed to like and trust him. Which was really no surprise. Kenny was extremely likable. And his straightforward manner—which he described as being that of a jerk—was honest and refreshingly direct.
“Where exactly did you find him?” Molly asked.
“I met him while I was in college. I was afraid to come to Jakarta alone, and he . . . had some time off.” She rinsed the last of the soap from her hair. “He’s not my Ken, though.”
Molly nodded. “But he came here because of you. He’s not some Delta Force soldier on some top secret assignment, right? I mean, it’s kind of obvious he’s not your average tourist, but . . . He just wants to find a radio or a plane and get you both out of here, the end. Right?”
She was afraid of something, afraid of Ken. Savannah couldn’t figure out why, but all of these oh-so-casual questions were not so casual after all. The last of the water dripped onto her head.
“He didn’t even know he was coming to Jakarta with me until the day we left San Diego. Whoever or whatever you’re worried about is safe.” Savannah wrapped herself in a beach towel and stepped out from behind the screen. “I need you to help keep Ken safe by deleting the words special and operations from your vocabulary. Ken is just another tourist.” His very life depended on people believing that. He’d made that very clear to her, and now it was her turn to make it clear to Molly. She looked directly into the older woman’s golden brown eyes. “Do you understand?”
Molly smiled. “I do.” But then her smile faded, at the exact moment Savannah heard it, too. “Chopper.”
The throbbing sound was unmistakable. It was distant, but growing louder with each second.
Savannah grabbed her shorts and shirt, yanked them on while she ran toward the place she’d last seen Ken.
Get into the jungle. She knew Ken would want them in the cover of the jungle, but she was smack in the middle of the village, and she had no idea which way to run.
And then, thank God, she saw him, running full tilt toward her, case in one hand, gun in the other. “Savannah!”
“The church!” Molly shouted, and Savannah realized she was right behind her, running, too. The chopper was coming closer, just beyond the tree line. “Go under the church tent. Services!” she called to the other people—villagers and missionaries alike. “Quickly!”
She grabbed Savannah’s arm and yanked her underneath the cover of the tent, as she continued to shout to the villagers, this time in the local dialect.
“Savannah!” Ken was beside her, out of breath. She saw him gauge the distance to the jungle, saw him accept the fact that running and hiding was not an option now, with the helo directly overhead. “We’re going to have to fight.” He looked around the village for the the best place to have a standoff with the men in the helicopter. The church was undergoing renovations, but it was the only wooden structure to be found. He pointed to it. “I want you and the other women and children in there. Now!”
But then Father Bob was there, holding out a long religious robe. “How’s your hymn singing?” he asked Kenny. “Want to lead the congregation in a few tunes?”
Ken realized what Bob and the other missionaries were up to at the same time Savannah did. Villagers of all shapes and sizes had filled the benches beneath the tent. They were going to hide Ken and Savannah in plain sight.
Tunggul tugged the attaché case from Ken’s hands as Bob helped him put on the robe, the strap of the Uzi still over his shoulder, the gun hidden by the voluminous fabric.
Several of the other men lifted the cloth and cross and some candlesticks from the tent’s makeshift alter, and Tunggul put the case on top of it. The cloths covered it and the candlesticks and cross went back on top, and it was gone. Completely hidden.
“But there’s only one robe,” Ken shouted over the sound of the landing helo. It was coming down, right there in the center of town. “There’s no way Savannah can be passed off as a missionary. They know what she looks like!”
He didn’t want to do this, she realized. He’d prefer to stand and fight. He’d rather take action, even if there was a bigger chance of getting himself killed.
“The robe will hide you both,” Father Bob said calmly. “God knows, it’s worked before.”
“I only know Christmas carols.” Ken was the closest to panicked she’d ever seen him.
“Then we’ll sing Christmas carols.” Molly started the villagers in a rousing rendition of Joy to the World. “If they ask, tell them we’re planning to cut a holiday CD, sell it through the God-is-Love Project catalog.”
Father Bob led them both behind the pulpit, a carefully made wooden box with a slanting top. “Stand just so,” he said, positioning Ken’s feet and legs into a widespread stance. “Come quick.” He pulled Savannah down so that she was sitting on the ground between Ken’s feet. “I know it’s not the most comfortable thing for either of you, but the robe goes all the way to the ground and Savannah will be well hidden. Just don’t forget and start walking.”
“They’re going to take one look at me and know I’m not a missionary,” Ken said.
“Just smile,” Savannah suggested.
“Oh, great,” he said. “Yeah, just smile. Sure. Thanks for the tip.”
“And don’t swear.”
Father Bob zipped up the robe, but Ken stopped him halfway. She could see his face, looking down at her, tight with tension. “I promised I’d keep you safe.”
“I am safe,” she told him quietly. “As long as I’m with you, I’m the safest I’ve ever been.”
He stared down at her, as if she’d spoken to him in Chinese and was having trouble translating.
“Here we go,” Father Bob’s voice said.
“Just don’t fart,” she added.
And before Ken zipped the robe closed, she saw his face relax into a smile.
It was long past midnight before Heinrich fell fast enough asleep for me to creep from his bed without waking him.
A light still burned in the sitting room of his hotel suite, so I had no problem finding the jacket that he’d tossed aside so carelessly many hours earlier.
His holstered gun was no longer on the floor. I assumed he’d put it back into the safe at some point—probably while I was in the bathroom. His notebook, too, was gone from his jacket pocket.
His keys weren’t in the pockets of his pants. Of course not. He’d used them to unlock and lock the safe. But then what? Where had he hidden them?
I knew he wasn’t sleeping with them in his pocket—he was sleeping without pockets entirely.
Trust no one. It was a motto handed out liberally by both the Nazis and the Allies. I’d gone through both of their crash courses in espionage, and it was one of the things upon which they definitely agreed.
Don’t take chances. The people around you could well be working for the enemy. Never let your guard down, not even for a moment.
When hiding something that others might be searching for, put it in the one place they would never think to look. Put it on their very person.
In their pockets—I, too, had none. Or within their luggage.
I slipped into the sitting room, and quickly found my purse.
No keys.
The dinner we’d shared, sent up from room service, was still out on the table, the dessert barely touched as we’d eagerly returned to the bedroom.
I moved closer to the table, to take another bite of cheesecake. It was delicious and I was hungry.
And there they were.
Hank’s keys.
Next to the champagne bucket. He’d come out to get us more wine, I remembered. He must have set them down then.
Trust no one.
Obviously, he trusted me.
My appetite was gone.
I took the keys, slipped back into the bedroom, waited a moment to make sure he still slept, and then opened the safe.
I took it all—his notebook, his gun, and a very thick stack of American money—and locked the safe back up.
The gun went into my purse after I checked to make sure it was loaded.
The notebook, as I’d suspected, was filled with names—mostly prominent New York businessmen and society women. Hank had written brief descriptions of these people, followed by comments. Maybe. Definitely. Yes.
Were these all people who’d agreed to spy for Nazi Germany? If so, the United States was in deeper trouble than I’d thought.
There was no doubt about it, I had to get this notebook into Anson Faulkner’s hands as soon as possible.
I put Hank’s keys back next to the champagne bucket, and went into the bedroom to wake him.
I confess that despite my need for haste, I took my sweet time. He smiled as I kissed him, as he rolled me back with him onto the bed.
“God, how I love you,” he whispered and I kissed him harder, so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes.
I loved my country, but I loved this man, too. And I knew this would be the last time we would be together like this.
Because in just a few hours, he was going to hate me.
Jones heard them coming—people trying to move quietly on the trail from the village—and he put down Molly’s book.
Yeah, even if he wasn’t about to have visitors, it was probably time to end his morbid fascination with Rose, with her “I’m going to betray you, my darling, for a higher cause” mentality. Nah, he really didn’t want to read her account of how she turned von Hopf over to the authorities.
Maybe he was a Nazi, but the fool loved her. That much was clear.
Love sucked.
Trust no one.
She got that part right. Von Hopf should have paid more attention to that rule, too. Trust only in yourself. Look out for numero uno. You were the only person in the world you could ever completely count on.
Jones had learned that the hard way.
Whoever was on the trail was getting closer, and he checked his handgun to make sure it was loaded.
He’d heard the chopper overhead earlier and guessed it was Jaya on the trail, coming to deliver the part for the Cessna. And as frequently and successfully as he’d done business with Jaya in the past, it was always a good idea to be armed and ready for anything. The man did, after all, work for General Badaruddin—who had connections with the Thai, who wanted Jones dead. Scum, after all, tended to float together at the top of a pond.
Trust no one.
Yeah, Rose, that was his motto, too.
“Jones.”
Shit, that was Molly stepping into the kill zone of his gun. He put the safety on and tucked his piece out of sight, into the back waistband of his shorts.
His fool of a body gave its usual enthusiastic leap of excitement at the sight of her, at the sound of her voice. His pulse quickened, blood rushed around, and he knew instantly how long it had been since they’d last made love. Five hours and twenty-odd minutes. Which under normal conditions was an acceptable length of time to go without sex.
However, nothing about his relationship with Molly was even remotely normal.
He’d told her everything last night.
And here she was, already. Back for more, evidently. Go figure.
Except, she wasn’t alone. She had two people with her—a man and a woman. Both American.
The woman was blond and willowy, mid-twenties. Pretty in a porcelain, highly fragile, high maintenance way. He didn’t give her a second glance. She was not a threat.
But the man . . . Not particularly big in either height or build, he was one of those lean, wiry guys who could keep going forever. His hair was dark, his face angular beneath a scruffy growth of jungle stubble.
But it was his eyes that made Jones wish he hadn’t put away his handgun. They were hard. Intense. Whoever he was, this guy was driven. He was a man on a mission. He was definitely an operator, no doubt about that. Jones could tell within a half a second, just from the way he moved.
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