Talons of the Falcon (18 page)

“All right, hands in the air,” another voice from the shadows advised.

Marshall whirled as Dr. Hubbard stepped out from under the trees. His face was grim. The service revolver he held was leveled at the sergeant’s stomach.

“I caught them trying to escape,” Marshall tried.

“He’s going to kill us,” Eden cut in urgently.

“Don’t worry, I’ve heard enough to know whose side I’m on,” the doctor said. Hubbard took several more steps forward. “Drop the knife now.”

The sergeant tossed the blade to the doctor’s right. Hubbard stooped and picked it up. Then he glanced at Eden, his eyes focusing for a moment on the ruined suit that gaped open. His jaw was set in an angry line. “Are you all right?”

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes.” Her head swam in confusion. The doctor was the last person she would have expected to come to their rescue tonight. “How...how did you know to come here?”

Hubbard edged toward Mark, his gun still pointed in Marshall’s direction. “Followed my esteemed colleague following you. He was in the infirmary—supposedly on guard duty. Eden, I’m sorry, I could have saved you some of this. But I wanted to be sure what was going on before I jumped in.”

As he spoke, he pulled the tape off Mark’s mouth and removed the gag.

“Thanks.”

Hubbard moved to the back of the tree, intending to cut Mark’s bonds. It was the chance Marshall had been waiting for. The big man dived for the revolver he’d tossed on the ground earlier. Without bothering to take careful aim, he fired off several shots in the direction of the tree. At such close range, the explosions were deafening.

Eden screamed as a bullet struck inches from Mark’s head, and wood splinters filled the air. The second round was closer to Hubbard’s crouched form. An answering volley flashed from the doctor’s gun.

One of the doctor’s shots hit Marshall in the chest and the nurse doubled over in pain, his hand still clutching the pistol.

All the stiffening seemed to drain out of Hubbard’s spine as he got shakily to his feet. He looked as though he had aged twenty years in the last minute.

“I’d better see if this traitor’s still alive,” the physician muttered to himself, crossing to Marshall. As he turned the heavy form over, the sergeant’s eyes flew open.

“You’re dead,” Marshall said. Drawing on some inner strength, he pulled the trigger on his own revolver one last time and shot Hubbard at point-blank range.

Eden screamed again. Incapable of rational thought, she thrashed wildly back and forth trying to free her hands. Both Hubbard and Marshall lay unmoving on the ground in front of her, and she was still caught like a victim in a medieval torture chamber.

Mark’s reaction was quite different. All his senses were sharpened now, his efforts bent toward freeing himself and Eden. On the ground Marshall moaned and stirred. The bastard was still alive. What if he got the strength to sit up? He was sure to finish them off.

Desperately, Mark sawed and pulled at the ropes. His wrists were on fire, and then all at once the cord gave. He had done it!

Eden didn’t hear Mark’s shout of triumph as he finally freed himself, didn’t see the mingled victory and relief on his face. She didn’t know that he had lifted the doctor off Marshall and was quickly checking the male nurse’s pockets for the key to the handcuffs.

Marshall stirred again and Mark gave him a quick, reflexive right to the jaw. He would have liked to finish him off, but the U.S. government would want to interrogate him. Mark had never hit a wounded man before, but he had never seen a woman tortured like that, either. No, not just a woman—Eden. The thought made his guts twist again. He was astounded at the way she had been able to keep Marshall talking. It would have been so much easier for her simply to give in to hysterics, but she had bought him the time he needed to free himself.

When he reached her side with the key, he put his arms around her, trying to calm her. “God, Mark! Oh, God,” she sobbed.

“I’ll get you down,” he murmured. When she could finally lower her arms, she collapsed against him.

“It’s over,” he said soothingly. “It’s over.”

Eden struggled to pull herself together. It took an immense effort of will.

“Dr. Hubbard,” she finally gasped. Kicking off the jeans that trapped her legs, she hurried to the doctor’s side. He was still breathing, but the wound in his chest told her that he wouldn’t be alive for long.

“Eden.”

She could barely hear the faint whisper.

“Eden.”

She grasped his hand. “I’m here.”

He seemed to be gathering his strength. “Bradley?”

“Right here.”

“Forgive me...”

“You saved us.”

“I should have...” He never finished the sentence.

Mark gave Eden a moment to close the doctor’s eyes. Then he touched her arm. “We’ve got to go. Someone may have heard the shots.”

* * *

T
HREE MILES OFFSHORE
, Michael Rome sat in the cabin of a small, high-speed cruiser staring at the radar screen on his receiver. He was a tall, angular man with the close-cropped brown hair and no-nonsense manner of a seasoned police officer. That was no accident. He was, in fact, an undercover agent, assigned to drug enforcement. He was also a long-time Peregrine operative.

His gray eyes narrowed as he watched the tiny green blinking dot on the radar screen. Was it his overactive imagination, or had that dot moved? The transmitter had leapt to life four hours ago. For the first three, the blinking dot had remained stationary, and he’d assumed Bradley and Sommers were waiting to make their escape. Then he’d followed their progress across the island.

But the blip had stopped moving an hour ago and he had started to get worried. From the distance covered, he supposed they’d reached the shoreline, but why were they waiting? Had they been intercepted? Had the transmitter gotten lost or started malfunctioning? Or was Mark too weak after all to make it to the boat?

Michael shook his head. If anybody had tried to tell him he’d be bailing out Mark Bradley, he would have laughed. Mark was indestructible. Or that’s how he’d always thought about his old friend.

On a rescue operation, he wasn’t usually given more than he needed to know, but when he’d found out the name of the man he was going to pick up in the water off Pine Island, he’d pressed the Falcon for details. He’d watched the old buzzard do a mental tap dance and then capitulate and break his own rules.

When Michael had been a raw recruit fresh out of counterinsurgency training, Mark Bradley had almost single-handedly brought him and a handpicked team of covert operatives back alive. They’d volunteered to try to spring a group of American “advisers” from the clutches of the Khmer Rouge in war-torn Cambodia. But the enemy had somehow gotten wind of the operation and had been waiting with a full-blown reception committee. The whole rescue squad would have ended up as numbers on a fatality sheet if Mark hadn’t somehow held the panicked squad together and gotten almost all of them out of there.

They’d learned when they’d returned to headquarters that the prisoners had been moved a week before their planned raid. So the whole operation had been doomed before it started. The brass had been duped. The only hero as far as he was concerned was Mark Bradley. After that the two of them had worked together a number of times. In fact, they’d been surprised to find they’d both been recruited by the old buzzard, Amherst Gordon, himself. The Falcon had always recognized talent when he’d seen it. Maybe that was why he had bent the rules to explain the full picture now. The horror of what had been done to Mark set Michael’s teeth on edge, and he was going to do his damnedest to get his old friend out of here.

Right now he wanted to move in closer to shore. His hand reached impatiently for the throttle and then moved away again. Damn! Making for shore was expressly against the Falcon’s orders. And he knew why. Besides the security devices, the island was ringed with sandbars. He could end up stuck on one and turn into a sitting duck, and that meant nobody would get out of here alive.

He glanced at his watch and then back at the screen. The green dot had moved. It wasn’t just wishful thinking. They were on their way.

* * *

T
HE WATER WAS A
cool shock against Eden’s skin. It also felt cleansing—as though it were washing away the invasion of Marshall’s hands. She tried not to think about what might have happened. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on any of that now—mere survival was still too much in question. She half expected to see armed men running toward the beach at any second. It seemed impossible that the gunshots weren’t heard by the security staff in the main house, but perhaps because of the distance the noise hadn’t reached them.

She could see Mark ahead of her, making surprisingly fast progress in a steady crawl through the water. His swimmer’s body seemed to be in its element. She herself was a good swimmer, but she’d never gone in for long distances, and she was definitely out of practice.

Except for the moonlight, there was no illumination. The water was black and eerie, and now and again a salty wave hit her in the face. Thank God the bay is calm tonight, she thought, as they pressed on in silence. They were two figures alone in an ebony sea, swimming because their lives depended on it.

Time seemed to pass in strokes of her arms. She knew she shouldn’t expect to see their contact yet, but she couldn’t help looking for the outline of a boat or straining her ears for the sound of a motor. Her feet hit a sandbar and she looked up to see Mark standing shoulder deep in the water.

She could hear his breathing. It was beginning to be labored.

“Let’s rest,” she suggested.

“For a few minutes,” he agreed. “But I want to put some distance between us and them.” They both turned and looked back toward Pine Island. It was a low dark shape without intrinsic meaning, but the recent memories belied the calm image. Involuntarily, Eden shuddered, and Mark clasped her shoulder. They stood in silence for a while.

“Let’s go,” he finally prompted.

“Could we slow the pace a bit?” Eden suggested, as much for herself as for Mark.

He nodded and then struck out again toward the Georgia coast. They swam on, but Eden found she was tiring fast. It was almost too much of an effort to lift one arm and then the other. The episode with Marshall had already stretched her muscles painfully. Now she was suffering from the effects.

“Mark,” she called.

He was at her side almost instantly. “What is it?”

“My arms. I just can’t...”

“We’ll tread water here.”

She was grateful for the respite. “I thought you were the one who wasn’t up to the marathon swim,” she gasped.

“I wasn’t trussed up with my arms above my head. Besides, I need another rest, too.”

They were both silent then, saving their strength. Were they far enough from the island? Or would they have to strike out again in a few moments? Eden didn’t know how much farther she could go.

“Please, Lord, let that boat get here.”

She didn’t know that she had spoken aloud until Mark replied, “It looks as though your prayers have been answered.”

In the next moment she heard the throb of a motor.

“Over here,” Mark called.

The motor cut to quarter power, and then a dark shape was looming beside them. A light flashed briefly.

“Water taxi service,” a pleasant baritone called out. The words were light and joking, but Eden caught the undertone of profound relief.

“Michael Rome, is that you?” Mark questioned eagerly.

“That’s right. Just paying back an old debt,” the voice replied. A hand appeared over the side of the boat.

Mark reached out and grasped it. “I wasn’t keeping score, but I’m damn glad to see you.”

Eden sensed the bond between these two men. They must have been in tight spots together before.

Mark hauled himself up on the rope that had been thrown over the side. Minutes later he pulled Eden up to the deck and folded a thick terry robe around her. It matched the one he was already wearing. Now that the immediate danger was over, she could see that he was quickly giving in to the fatigue he felt.

“I was worried,” the man called Michael Rome admitted gruffly, “when you were stalled on the beach.”

“Tell you about it later.”

“The two of you stretch out down in the cabin,” Michael advised. “I’ve got coffee, brandy, angel dust, pot, hash, coke.”

“You’re kidding,” Eden said.

“Yeah, except about the brandy and the coffee or sandwiches. Help yourselves.”

“He’s a narcotics agent,” Mark explained as they descended the stairs. “Warped sense of humor.”

Again Eden sensed the easy camaraderie between these two. On the surface things seemed almost back to normal. But she knew the terrors of what Mark had been through, and what they had been through together would take months, years, maybe a lifetime to heal.

Michael revved up the engine. “We’ve got an appointment with an old bird named the Falcon ASAP,” he called out over the noise.

“Knowing him, he probably heard that,” Eden pointed out.

“He won’t lose any sleep over it. He’ll probably just chop off the little finger of my left hand when we get back to the Aviary.”

“You’ve been reading too many macho adventure stories,” Mark advised.

“Could be, buddy. Could be.”

Chapter Eleven

A
mherst Gordon settled back in his petit point Queen Anne chair and riffled through the written transcript of Eden’s midnight debriefing. “You seem to have omitted some important information when you were reporting from Pine Island.”

She shrugged. “That makes us even.”

It was midafternoon and they were sitting on either side of a leather-topped library table in the Falcon’s private study.

Gordon had the grace to give a little self-deprecating cough. “That’s all past history. What concerns me now is the state of Colonel Bradley’s mental health.”

“He’s going to be all right. I know it. But he needs time—and therapy”

“Unfortunately, those are luxuries we can’t afford. We still have to plug up the Russian leak in the Orion defense system—quickly. Too much is riding on this.”