The child sacrificed to evil and buried beneath a rockfall with gold jewelry and a holy icon.
Karen looked down at her hands. She held her coat clutched tightly in her fists, and she groped for the pocket. She felt the hard, small square . . . the child had pa.s.sed the icon on to her for safekeeping.
"I donat want you to use me for target practice. " Karen had to live to keep that icon safe. So she would have to wait for a propitious moment and surprise this monster with a kick that would knock him out or, better yet, kill him.
"Then put on the clothes." The gun remained steady on her. "And your coat and ...............boots. Leave the rest of that stuff here. You wonat need it again."
She did as she was told, dressing in silence, knowing shead had no choice but to let him rescue her, yet cursing herself for being such a fool and giving herself to him.
The jeans were loose around her rear, and she rolled up the hems four times so she could walk. As she shrugged into her coat, she slipped her hand into the pocket and smoothed her fingers along the iconas edge. The memory of the Madonnaas gentle face gave her the courage to ask, "Who are you?"
"Warlord. Iam Warlord."
"Youare a warlord?" One of the ruthless murderers who preyed on the locals and the tourists?
Could her situation get any worse?
It could. He looked straight at her, his obsidian eyes empty of emotion. "Not a warlord. I am Warlord."
As the sun set, the man who called himself Warlord drove his motorcycle up the steep, narrow path and straight toward a sheer rock face. Karen wanted to hide her eyes, but at the last second the path swerved, Warlord followed, and the motorcycle roared into a camp protected on three sides by cliffs and on the fourth by a dropoff that tumbled away into s.p.a.ce.
The smoke of a dozen campfires twisted into the clear air. A hundred men, dressed like Warlord, with hair and beards as wild and knotted, squatted in groups around the flames, cooking, chatting, playing video games on their handhelds, drinking, and reading.
Every head turned in their direction. Silence fell. The men observed thema"observed hera" with acute interest. Then they turned back to their meals, their conversations.
It was as if the couple on the motorcycle were invisible. As if . . . she were invisible.
Warlord slowly drove the bike through the camp, twisting and turning among the men. They drove past a huge central fire pit, now cold and blackened with charcoal.
Karen clutched Warlordas leather jacket with sweaty palms. She heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of English spoken with every accent, of French, of German, of Asian languages, and of languages she could not identify. In a low voice she asked, "What is this place?"
"Our base."
"For what?"
"Our raids."
Warlord. He said he was Warlord.
"You canat be the only warlord," she said.
"Iam successful. Iam brutal. Iave vanquished all my rivals. Iam the only Warlord who matters in this part of the world."
Like a dumb animal, shead blindly run with him, trusted him to keep her safe, and shead stumbled into this trap.
"Theyave all seen you now," Warlord said. "They know what you look like. They know that if you run, theyall get to stop you. I would suggest that you not run. They would enjoy it too much."
He made her sick with his threat, but she answered steadily enough. "When I run, I wonat let them catch me."
For a second he let go of the handlebars, caught her hands, and jerked her forward until she rested against his back, cheek to groin. "Then Iall catch youa"and I promise you wonat like that."
"Are you under the quaint impression that Iam having a good time right now?" she snapped. "Put your hands on the bars, you fool."
He laughed, a rumble deep in his body, and took control of the motorcycle again.
She squinted through the deepening dusk, trying to guess which tent would be hers. Hers . . . and Warlordas. Until she could escape.
Because no matter what he said, what threat he made, she would escape. She was smart, in good health. The winter she was sixteen her father had sent her out into the Montana mountain wilderness with only minimum gear, and she had survived a brutal week alone. And Warlord couldnat watch her every minute of the day.
Yet the farther they went into camp, the more her hopes sank.
Perhaps Warlord couldnat watch her, but unless the camp emptied when the troop went on raids, she would be watched.
As they approached the end of the valley, he stopped the bike and pointed. "Thatas where I live."
Her gaze traveled up and up.
A wooden platform was built twenty feet above the valley floor, and into the cliff. Atop the platform was a tent larger than any she had ever seen, and shead seen plenty.
"Itas custom-made, warm in the winter, cool in the summer. I live therea"and now you do, too," he said. "Youall be comfortable."
"No, I wonat."
"Then youall be uncomfortable. Your choice." He drove the motorcycle into a cleft in the rock and got off, then steadied her as she stood.
Her legs were shakya"from hunger, from fear, from the long trip to this place. Leaning against the stone, she realized how truly trapped she was. While they rode she should have twisted off his ears or gouged his eyes. Yes, they would have wrecked, but she would have had a chance of leaping free. . . .
"Come on." He took her hand and tugged her after him.
She dug in her heels.
Without looking back he said, "Do you want me to carry you? That would provide the men with entertainment." With his free hand he gestured up the rickety stairway that led to the tent. "And if we fall, itas a long way to the ground."
She stumbled forward under the pressure of his grip.
He pushed her the first few steps up the stairway.
It was steep, almost a ladder, and to steady herself she bent to clutch the wooden treads above her.
"Donat step on the third step. It will break under your weight." When she hesitated, he pushed her again. "Go on. Iam not interested in you now. Exhausted women have no life in them. Iall wait until tomorrow, when youave eaten and slept and youare able to fight."
He was such a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Such a completely right b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
She was hungry, thirsty, and tired. The pants head given her were drooping, the cuffs shead made unfolding. She used one hand to keep the waistband up, and kept the other on the ladder, and her eyes resolutely lifted to the platform and the tent.
If he did as he promised and left her alone tonight, tomorrow she would have the energy and intelligence to find a way out of this.
It would probably include a ransom.
Eerily, he echoed her thoughts. "I imagine your father would pay well to get you back."
"What do you know about my father?" she lashed.
"I know he owns the company you work for."
At last she understood his motivation for taking her.
Ransom. Of course.
Nothing else made sense.
"You ought to do a little more research on your intended victims, because my father wouldnat pay a dime to get me back." There. Shead given him the unvarnished truth.
"Are you asking me to believe he doesnat care about his only child?"
"I donat give a d.a.m.n what you believe." She wished the steps had a handrail, anything to give the illusion of protection from a hard fall.
He laughed, a low sound of amus.e.m.e.nt that licked along her spine. "If your father is truly indifferent to you, thatas good to know. I wonat have to worry about him sending help."
"No," she said bitterly. "You donat have to worry about that."
"Donat step on the fourth from the top."
She wavered, counting, then took a long step up. "If youall get me a hammer and some nails, Iall fix that for you," she said sarcastically.
"In case of attack from a mercenary group with aspirations to my valley and my territory, those steps will give me the extra seconds I need to slaughter a few more of them."
"Oh." She used her elbows to inch her way up on the platform. The two-by-eight boards were springy, the nail heads were rusty, and when she looked down she could see the ground through the gaps in the boards.
He grinned as he watched her get as close as possible to the tent and stand, half stooped over, ready to drop in case the platforma"or the worlda" tried to send her tumbling over the edge.
She looked out. "Is that likely? An attack? And slaughter?"
"Slaughter is a time-honored tradition on the border." Lightly he sprang up to stand beside her, observing every minuscule movement down in the valley and up in the mountains. "But donat worry. The valley is almost impenetrable. Attackers have to climb the mountain that surrounds it before they can rappel down the cliffs, and while they do, weall pick them off like ducks in a shooting gallery."
"What if they use helicopters?"
"No mercenaries here are so well funded." Catching her wrist, he pulled her along the narrow ledge toward the entrance.
For one alarming moment she looked over the edge and all the way down. Just as in her nightmares, the ground rushed up to meet her. She took an unwary step back, stumbled on a tent peg, and almost went over onto her rear. As her arms windmilled, she swallowed a scream.
Warlord dragged her forward, into his arms, and steadied her. "Youare afraid of heights."
"No, Iam not." At least, she shouldnat be. Not when there was so much more immediate to be afraid of.
"Thatas the nightmare that wakes you from sleep."
She denied it automatically. "No, itas not."
"These are the highest mountains in the world. The most dangerous. If youare afraid, why did you take this job?"
"Iam not afraid," she said, her teeth gritted.
The sun was gone. The starsa light barely glistened. The campfires flickered far below, and she couldnat really see his face. But by the tilt of his head she knew he studied her, and just as it had been on those nights when he visited her tent, she thought he saw clearly in the dark.
She didnat want him to see her afraid. Fear always unleashed that awful mockery, so she tilted her chin up and smiled tightly. "I have a question. Will you share me with your men?" She shouldnat have suggested it, but she had to know.
There were too many men out there, and shead take that nosedive off the mountain if it came to a choice between that and them.
Catching the front of her shirt in his fist, he leaned close to her face, and when he spoke, his breath caressed her face. "I do not share what is mine. And you are mine; make no mistake about that. Mine forever."
"Forever is a very, very long time."
"An eternity." Unseen and unantic.i.p.ated, he swept her into his arms, and in a symbolism that wasnat lost on Karen, he strode to and through the opening in the tent.
Chapter Eight.
Warlordas arms tightened around Karen.
Welcome home, my bride."
Yes. Head laid his claim to her, and treated her like a bride, but a bride from the days when men captured their women and held them by force until they trained them to be docile.
He would have a h.e.l.l of a wait. "You might want to keep an eye on your bride, or sheall stick a knife between your ribs."
"Every relationship has its small difficulties to work out." He let her slip down and onto her feet.
"Wow." In all her years of roughing it, Karen had never seen anything like this. Two LED camp lanterns hung on hooks up by the ceiling and shed a white light on the tentas s.p.a.cious interior. The outer sh.e.l.l would attract no notice at all in any American camp-ground, but inside . . . a sumptuous handcrafted wool carpet covered the floor, and huge tapestries hung along the walls. To insulate against the cold, Karen supposed, but also to lend the richness of their beauty to a wandereras abode.
Yet a mana"a raidera"had seized what he liked. When she faced one direction a graceful tree of life grew on a green background. Another direction and a medieval knight pranced across a field. One wall was a modern rendering of a blue lake at twilight, and the other a graceful arch with pink roses spilling onto a path. The carpet was a glorious Kashmiri rug in cream, burgundy, and black.
"I guess the term afeng shuia means nothing to you, huh?"
"Iam not into Chinese food."
Was he being funny? She couldnat tell, and she sure as h.e.l.l wasnat going to laugh.
The rest of the furniture was as much of a hodgepodge as the tapestriesa"there were two chests, a French provincial desk, an ergonomic desk chair, a coffee table with cushions tossed around it for casual seating, or maybe for dining, Karen didnat know which. She didnat care. For there was also the bed. . . .
Ah, the bed.
It was nothing more than a queen-sized mattress set on the floor on a bed frame without legs, with a bra.s.s headboard and footboard and a canopy of mosquito netting. The posts shone as if someone polished it daily, a narrow leather holster was strapped to one upright bedpost, pillows billowed flirtatiously, and the whole glorious contraption should have whispered of sin and seduction.