Driven by Fire (Fire 2)

“Come on,” he said finally. “We can argue about it later.”

“I have no intention of arguing with you,” she said.

“Tough shit. I intend to argue with you.”

He saw a flash of something in her eyes, and it could have been fear or anger. He hoped to God it was anger. He needed her to move past that slightly shell-shocked affect. She could be as pissed at him as she wanted, as long as she was alert and alive. Damn, he didn’t hurt her that badly, did he?

The airstrip was miles outside of the town, a run-down field that had once been the staging ground for the last violent government overthrow. Nowadays Calliveria had a supposedly democratic president and congress, but the dissidents, the Guiding Light, were strong up in the mountains and a force near the rain forests. They no longer bothered with attacks on military installations—they spent their time kidnapping Westerners and holding them for ransom, in between their lucrative coca business. The question was, had their forays into capitalism included human trafficking? He wouldn’t put it past them.

The ancient Buick was waiting for them, keys in the ignition, and Ryder headed straight for it, with Parker trailing along behind him. “What about the pilot?” she said when they arrived at the rusty vehicle.

“He’s got his orders. It won’t take him long to get back here if I decide to get rid of you.”

“If you decide to get rid of me you could just slash my throat and leave me to rot,” she said. “Why go to the trouble of sending me back if you’re just going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said irritably. “For what it’s worth I’ve decided you’re basically innocent in all this. You may have let a felon escape, but he was your brother. I can’t fault loyalty.” It was as close to an apology as she was going to get, but she didn’t look appeased.

“How generous of you,” she said with a trace of bitterness, and he felt encouraged. If he could get her to fight back, then she’d start to make peace with what had happened to her. What he had done to her.

“Get in the fucking car,” he said wearily. “If you’re waiting for me to come and open the door for you then I suggest you think again. You’re with me to find your brother’s missing telephone, and we’d better do it damned fast before they’re able to decode the damned thing.”

“Decode it?” Her laugh was derisive as she climbed in and slammed the door, hard. “What do you think he has on it—state secrets?”

“Why do you think someone wants it so badly? And that someone was willing to break into what should have been one of the most secure buildings in the city just to get it?” He started the car. Fortunately the engine didn’t meet the car’s battered appearance, and it hummed happily.

“I was wondering about that,” she said with a flicker of life. “You can’t be nearly as good as you think you are when it comes to security.”

“Someone had to have let him in. Since I know my people wouldn’t, I’m putting my money on you or Soledad.”

She immediately sprang to Soledad’s defense. “She’d hardly let her own kidnapper into the house!”

“So then one has to assume that either she wasn’t kidnapped, she went willingly. Or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or that you let him in, that you’ve been holding on to Soledad for your own reasons, and you sent your man off with the phone so he could start up the shipments once more.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, showing more signs of life. “What good would the phone do?”

Christ, she really was an innocent, he thought. “If people want it back so desperately, if someone was willing to break into Committee headquarters in order to get it, then I expect it would do a great deal. At the very least it would provide contact information for people involved in the human trafficking. They lost their kingpin and the crime family that ran it, leaving the human highway from South America empty for someone to pick up the slack. I’m guessing your brother’s smartphone will go a long way toward reestablishing the infrastructure.”

“Next thing you’ll tell is that it was my brother who took Soledad.”

“I don’t think anyone ‘took’ Soledad. But no, it wasn’t your brother. He was my first guess, but the intruder was too short to be your beloved Billy, at least according to our intel. Any ideas?”

She said nothing, lapsing into the brooding silence again. God, women were a pain, he thought. The silent treatment was one of the most effective weapons he’d ever run across, at least with this one.

He tried a few more times, then gave up. By the time they reached the outskirts of the small city, his temper had begun to fray. He would have been better off not sleeping at all on the plane—he was better off powering through with effective five-minute catnaps than a deep six-hour sleep. He was lucky Parker hadn’t stabbed him while he slept.

He glanced over at her as he pulled up to the small inn he’d chosen as their headquarters. Her face was averted, and shadows danced across her still expression. He was going to have to do something about it, he thought. Dragging an emotional zombie around Calliveria would attract too much attention, and that was one thing they couldn’t afford. If he was to find the people who’d taken the phone and Soledad, they were going to have to fly beneath the radar, and Parker’s stiff, touch-me-not demeanor would have everyone’s attention, especially the men. The last thing he needed was to have people sniffing at Parker’s heels, though he couldn’t honestly blame them. There was something about Parker, some incandescent spark, that drew people to her. Just because he was thankfully immune didn’t mean that everyone else was.

He put the car into park and turned it off. Time for Ms. Jennifer Parker, Esquire to come back to life.

They stopped outside an American-style hotel on the edge of whatever Calliverian town they had flown into, and Jenny surveyed their night’s lodgings. The building was long and low, with doors leading from each room onto a veranda. It had seen better days—the paint was peeling and there was trash in the yard, but that bastard seemed to think it was the perfect place to spend the night.

He was already out of the car, clearly waiting for her. She didn’t want to go inside with him—she didn’t want to do anything with him—but she didn’t have much choice. She’d insisted on coming this far, for Soledad’s sake. No, it was more than that. If Ryder found her brother’s phone, she had every intention of destroying it. She should never have held on to it—she’d thought it would give her some kind of leverage with Billy, but if she trusted his word she wouldn’t need it. If Ryder didn’t have it he couldn’t send her brother to prison, without proof he couldn’t kill him. Maybe. At that point she wouldn’t put anything past Ryder’s brutality.

She climbed out of the car and moved toward him, careful to keep her distance. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, really look at him, or she’d be reminded of the man who’d kissed her in the kitchen, the man whose hard, warm body had pressed up against hers with undeniable need. As long as she didn’t look into his face she could pretend he was someone else, some brutal bully who didn’t care who he hurt in his effort to get information. As long as he didn’t touch her . . .