Bounty

Chapter 8

"Princess!"

I jumped around in no discernible pattern, trying to outwit the bullets that flew around me and avoid the mines in the ground. I heard Brodie call me, but it took a moment to realize that he was hiding behind a nearby tree. I hopped around toward him.

"Serpentine, serpentine," I muttered to myself, zigzagging.

"What on earth are you doing?" Brodie pulled me down next to him and shielded me with his body. The sound of bullet fire was constant and getting louder.

"A lot of trees in this forest," I said, my face in the dirt and Brodie on top of me. "Lots of green trees and trees that aren't green. You know, because of the cold. No, cold is not good for green trees. All the leaves fall. Bye-bye leaves."

"'I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree,'" I recited. "Yada, yada, yada. 'Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.' Ain't that the truth? You can make a tree out of cardboard and tissue paper, you know. I did that once for a play in fourth grade, but that wasn't really a tree. You know what I mean? A tree! A tree is not cardboard and tissue paper. Well, maybe cardboard and tissue paper used to be trees. Ha! Yeah, because we get cardboard and tissue paper from trees. Get it? But they're not actually trees. They're something we made, and we cannot make a tree. I feel a little sick."

"You're in shock," Brodie said, matter-of-factly, letting me up to a sitting position.

"You!" I came out of the fog and recognized him as if for the first time. "You left me! You ran, and you left me! You were never going to save me!"

"They were trying to kill me. I had to run, and you ran after me. That was smart, Princess. Good job."

"You should have taken me. What kind of man are you?"

"I killed four armed men by myself," he said, his hackles up at the attack on his manhood. "All weapons were aimed at my head. I took the attention away from you. All you had to do was run. And now here you are with me. So, stop complaining."

"Does this mean you're going to save me now? You're going to get me home?"

"Not a word, you follow my every command, and then I'll take you with me."

"Deal," I said, not hesitating.

"And you forget about the kidnapping. No mention of it to anybody."

"Deal," I lied. I planned to get to safety and tell the police, FBI, CIA, and Oprah all about it. Anybody who wandered by, I was going to tell them about my kidnapping. I was going to see Brodie in jail, and I was going to see Gurzhikhanov's compound firebombed or better yet, nuked.

Brodie eye me with suspicion. "It's for your own safety, Princess. No good will come from you mentioning this to anyone."

"Uh huh," I said.

"Trust me. Silence is your friend. Besides, I was always going to save you. I was going to take you out tonight after the wedding."

"After the wire transfer," I said.

"Yes."

"I don't believe you," I said. "You wouldn't have risked your money, your position, your life."

"I was going to get my money and slip you out of there. I was going to make it look like you escaped on your own. No one would have known."

I studied him. He was stone, unblinking. "I don't believe you," I said.

"It's the truth. I'm not the monster you thought I was. Now come on."

He pulled me up, and we crept back in the direction of the compound. "Hold on," I said. "We're going the wrong way."

"I have some unfinished business to do."

"Are you crazy? You can't go in there."

I looked down. He was holding my arm. "You certainly can't go in there with me! They have big guns and big grenades and big everything. And there are a lot of them. And you're just you. And me! Having me with you dragging you down is like having half of you. That makes only one-half of one person against all of them! Do the math, Brodie!"

I grabbed the front of his jacket and shook him.

"Hush. Listen. Remember who I am? How do you describe me?" he asked.

"Well, the word 'motherfucker' comes to mind."

"Nice, Princess. Very nice. No, remember I'm Superman. You've never seen all that I can do. Let me show you a bit of Superman. Now hush or I'll have to leave you here."

"And that's a threat?" I muttered under my breath, but I followed him. He was my only chance at survival, and I had to trust him.

Brodie held a black gun in his left hand and me in his right. The compound's main building was in sight. Men were running around in confusion and panic. In the middle, a furious Gurzhikhanov screamed orders and waved his grenades around.

Brodie pushed me to the ground, holstered his gun, and pulled out three grenades of his own from his jacket. He pulled the pins from them one after another and threw them in the middle of the compound. There was a loud noise and a blinding light.

The men were stunned, but Gurzhikhanov miraculously escaped unscathed and was being driven off in a Humvee. Brodie walked toward it, as it barreled toward us. He brought out a gun, a bigger one than the last. He aimed and shot at the Humvee. It was like a canon firing. He hit his target, the enormous bullet tearing through the Humvee's engine block and cracking it in half.

The Humvee stopped dead.

Brodie aimed again and took out the driver. It was total mayhem. Men came out of the woodwork to get their leader to safety. Brodie grabbed my arm and walked purposefully toward the building. I closed my eyes and stumbled behind him.

"It's going to get loud," he said to me.

"Going to get loud?"

We ran around the compound, me behind him, clutching onto his jacket in order not to lose him. Brodie put explosive devices in strategic areas. When everything was in place, he rushed me back toward the forest.

"Wait," I urged, recalling something.

"We don't have time to wait," he said. "It's going to get very loud."

"The bus. We have to free the guy in the bus."

Brodie studied my face a moment and then rolled his eyes. We ran to the bus, and he shot through its door, tearing it to pieces. "Stay here," he told me, while he entered. A few seconds later, he carried out the unconscious man over his shoulder.

Halfway to the forest, it got loud, just as Brodie had warned me. He had programmed the charges to go off in a row, and the explosions followed us as we ran. They also revived the man on Brodie's shoulder.

"Spasiba. Spasiba," he said, rolling off Brodie's shoulder once we got to the forest. He pumped Brodie's hand in thanks. He smiled, revealing fewer teeth than he had the day before. Nevertheless, he kissed my hand. "Spasiba," he repeated.

"I feel much better," I said, and then all hell broke loose.

The blasts reached a crescendo. It was the finale of a Fourth of July fireworks show, but it was far more dangerous, and it came awfully close to us.

"Duck!"

We dropped to the ground, and Brodie rolled on top of me. The explosions went on forever. I could feel the heat come close, and I figured it was just a matter of time before the trees lit up and took us with them. I waited for the searing pain that would come with being burned alive, but it didn't come. Instead, it became eerily quiet, and Brodie rolled off me. I crawled to a seated position.

"We're going to die!" I yelled out, my voice slicing through the new, explosionless silence.

Brodie ignored me. He put all his focus on his weaponry, methodically checking chambers and filling the magazines with ammunition.

His calm fueled my hysteria.

"We're going to die! Die! Die! Die!" I screeched and pulled at my hair. I screeched again when I saw the handful of hair in my hand. "I'm going to die, and I'm going to be bald! Nobody loves a dead, bald woman!"

As proof, I shoved the handful of hair in front of his face. Sudden awareness washed over me. I was hysterical, and if I didn't shut up soon, the Chechens would find us, and I would be dead, tortured, or even worse, married.

I grabbed onto Brodie's lapels and yanked. "I'm hysterical! I'm hysterical! Help me!"

The Russian sat in the dirt, staring out into space, no help at all. Brodie sighed but kept his focus on his guns. "Calm down, Princess. The worst is over. The boom boom is over."

"That's it?" My voice sang out, two octaves higher than normal. "You can't calm me down like that. You're supposed to slap me or kiss me or something. I'm hysterical!"

There, I had done it. I put it out there that I wanted him to kiss me, and there was no going back now. I braced myself for the touch of his lips on mine. It was a long time coming, but I knew it was bound to happen. Finally, a kiss between the two of us. Wasn't that what I had been waiting for? Hadn't I been attracted to him since the first moment I laid eyes on him?

I could feel the energy bouncing off his body, the smell of his musk invading my senses. The tension between us was palpable. I stared intently into his brown eyes, sure that my pupils were fully dilated. My lips parted slightly, and my body shifted toward him.

The movement was lightning quick. His hand made contact with my cheek with a loud crack, and I was pushed back a foot from the impact. My cheek began to throb immediately, and I felt around my mouth with my tongue, searching for loose teeth.

The shock must have shown on my face.

"Hey, you gave me a choice, and I went with the wiser alternative," he said. His lips curved up in a rare smile.

I opened my mouth, but no words came.

"And it worked," Brodie said, clearly proud of himself. He stood and put his hand out to help me up. "Abigail Williams without words," he said, as if he was speaking to himself. "Who would have thought it could be this easy?"

Goose down pillows and a goose down comforter. Sheets that had to be 100,000 thread count and pure Egyptian cotton. I was in heaven. Warm and finally well rested, I didn't know what country I was in, but I was sure I was in a five star hotel, and I was in my own bed. No Chechen warlord. No Brodie. No goat.

I stretched and turned onto my side. The silver belts and necklaces clanged with the movement. "I've got to get changed," I said, aloud.

"What's that?"

I sat up in bed. "Brodie?"

"Were you expecting somebody else?" Brodie sat in a chair in the corner of the hotel room. He wore a white robe, which gaped open enough to draw my attention. He had a lot of chest and thigh. I wondered idly if his skin was rough to the touch. He was typing on a black laptop and took little notice of me.

"I can't begin to tell you how strange it is to watch you checking your e-mail. It's such a normal thing to do. So unlike you."

"How do you know I'm not hacking into the Pentagon," he said, not looking up from the monitor. "Or better yet, perhaps I'm only looking at porn."

"Whatever. I don't care. I want to get cleaned up. I've been dying to take off these slippers."

"There's another robe in the bathroom," he said, pointing.

I dropped the jewelry onto the nightstand and padded my way to the bathroom. It was a palace of marble and gold fixtures. There was a bowl of embossed toiletries on the counter. I opened one of the shampoo bottles, smelled it, and caught my reflection in the mirror. I was a few notches below a wreck. My hair was bunched around my head like a frizzy rat's nest. It was more or less gray, a leftover of the flour that was thrown at me.

My face looked old. I looked dirty and scraped up, but worse than that, I looked worn. I wasn't sure it could be washed away in a marble tub with hundred dollar bubbles. But it was worth a try.

I ran the bath and peeled off my ceremonial dresses. They were filthy and sticky with blood that wasn't mine. Last were my slippers. I hadn't been allowed to remove them because my feet were being "medicated" by the goat poop, and I hated to see what had become of them. I imagined worms growing out of my toenails, and when I finally removed the slippers, I was not far off in my predictions.

I pre-washed in the shower and finally stepped into the bath with a sigh of contentment. It was boiling hot and piled high with lavender-scented bubbles. I was submerged up to my earlobes. The heat went everywhere, through my bones and deep into my muscles.

Getting to this place was a blur. Brodie effectively blew up the compound, throwing the militants into complete chaos and allowing us to make our escape without fear of them searching us out.

Brodie walked the Russian soldier and me through the forest at a leisurely pace until we reached high into the mountains, where he called for help on a satellite phone that he had hidden under a bush.

In a matter of minutes, a helicopter picked us up. We dropped the soldier off, and two planes later, in the middle of the night, we arrived at a luxury, European resort hotel.

I scooted down a little more in the bath and let the warmth and comfort take me over. In a little while, I was asleep.

I don't know how long I slept, but when I woke, the water was cold. I reluctantly got out. My feet grabbed my attention, and I screamed.

The door burst open, broken off its hinges, and Brodie was there, ready to do battle. "Are you all right?" he asked, concern etched on his face.

"My feet," I said. "My feet are cured. Look at them."

They were pristine, like a newborn baby's feet. Gone was the fungus. I was no longer a foot monster. But Brodie didn't look at my feet. He was too busy looking at me in all my naked glory, which I had forgotten about in my excitement over my feet.

My hands flew to my breasts and then thinking better of it, I covered myself lower down.

Brodie's look of concern changed to a man on fire. His pupils were almost completely fixed and dilated. His jaw was tensed, and his hands hung down by his sides, his fingers splayed as if he was preparing to grab onto something.

"Um," I said, feeling a bit overheated myself. "You should probably leave."

Brodie stood, unblinking, unmoving. I stepped forward and snapped my fingers in front of his face. "Go," I said. "Go. Now."

Brodie moved to leave but stopped suddenly and smiled. "Wait a moment," he said, scratching behind his ear. "Wait just a moment." He took a step toward me, and I could feel his breath on my wet skin.

"What are you doing?" I asked, stepping back.

"I want to taste you."

"You want to what?" He bent his head down and grazed his lips over the side of my neck. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I tried to grasp onto any strings of sanity I could find. His lips were warm and softer than I had imagined, and wherever they touched, a tiny jolt of electricity went through me.

Oops. This wasn't a good thing, I reminded myself. He wasn't a good man, and he wasn't good for me.

"This can't happen," I moaned.

"No, of course not. I agree, wholeheartedly. You are trouble. I knew it the first time I saw you." He moved to the spot just below my ear and made long, liquid strokes with his lips.

"Me? You're the trouble. I knew it the first time I saw you. Besides, you drugged me and kidnapped me," I said. My head flopped to one side, giving him better access to my neck.

"That was just part of the job." His tongue followed his lips, licking my earlobe and down my neck. I gasped and rose onto my tiptoes.

"You threatened me and Tased me," I reminded him after a while.

"I didn't want to Tase you. That was unfortunate." He put his arms around me and pulled me close.

"You sold me to a Chechen warlord and left me there to rot." My breasts pushed against his chest. The terry cloth robe was all that stood between us. My n*****s grew hard with the friction.

"I was going to slip you out that night. No harm. No foul."

"Oh, that's true. I forgot." At least I hoped it was true. I felt his hardness against my belly. I moaned. The sound seemed to spur him on. He slipped his thigh between my legs, and I leaned against it.

"You slapped me," I said. I was on fire. It dried my wet skin from the bath, but it made me wet between my legs. I felt my insides melt. I reached up and parted his robe and caressed his chest.

"I have to admit," he said, hoarsely. "I sort of enjoyed the slapping. Later, I'll let you slap me back."

My arms slipped around him and rested on his buttocks. He bucked forward a little and groaned.

"And you bit me," I said.

"No, Princess. There you have it wrong. You bit me. Come and bite me again."

Brodie cupped my face in his hands and lowered his head. His mouth was on mine, and my lips parted, allowing his tongue to enter. The kiss deepened and went on forever. He possessed me utterly.

There was a statement in the kiss. I was his, at least for this moment. My head swirled, and I relied on him for balance, relied on him for everything in that instant. He said he wanted to taste me, but it turned out that it was I who was greedy for the taste of him. My tongue danced with his, but it wasn't enough. I pulled back and licked his lips and bit them ever so gently.

Brodie groaned and pulled me tighter to him, pressing my breasts against his hard chest and allowing me to grind against his thigh.

"Brodie."

My brain said "Slow it down" to me repeatedly, but I was having trouble hearing it over the rush of blood in my ears.

"God, you're beautiful," he said. I couldn't argue with him there. At the moment, I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.

"I'm burning up," I said. And I was. I was going to explode if we didn't either accelerate the event or dip me in ice water. As if on command, Brodie swept me up in his arms and carried me into the next room and deposited me on the bed.

He leaned over me and laved my n****e with his tongue. I touched the back of his head, urging him on. With one hand, he cupped my breast and with the other, he touched me between my legs.

"I'll never get enough," he growled.

He was right. Just then there was a pounding on the door.

"Iain, it's me, Jake!"

The knocking continued, and Brodie stopped what he was doing.

"Damn it to hell," he said.

"I brought lunch," Jake Logan called out.

"I have to open the door," Brodie told me. "He can't know there's anything between us."

His comment snapped my brain back to reality, like a slingshot pulled back and let loose. Brodie wanted to keep our attraction secret. He was out for a quickie.

I realized with a start that perhaps I wasn't. My brain knew our little romp in the bathroom was a casual thing, born out of attraction and the aftereffects of adrenaline, danger, and trauma. But I couldn't deny I felt something stronger between us, and I had hoped that Brodie had felt it, too. Obviously, he didn't. I rolled off the bed and retrieved my robe from the bathroom. I heard Brodie answer the door.

"Hey, Iain," Logan said. "I brought lunch. I thought we could brainstorm over the Taylor matter. I had a good talk with Gairloch."

I returned to the room, and the conversation stopped dead. Logan looked at me like he had seen a ghost.

"I guess there's something I don't know about," he said.

"There was a slight hiccup in the mission," Brodie explained.

Logan looked back and forth between Brodie and me. We were both in our robes. Brodie looked weatherworn, his lips swollen and red. I probably looked even more obvious. My hair was almost certainly standing on end.

"I guess there's something else I don't know about," Logan said.

"You said you brought lunch?" Brodie asked. "Good. I'm famished."

Brodie managed to eat two helpings without giving me so much as a glance.

I was less hungry, fuming over Brodie's rejection. It galled me that I fell for him and let my guard and my clothes down.

Brodie gave Logan a rundown of the Chechnya debacle.

"But Gairloch said the money was wired," Logan said.

"Well, the lunatic wanted me dead anyway."

"So, I guess that's done then." Logan eyed me briefly.

"She escaped on her own," Brodie said. "So, as far as Gairloch and we are concerned, our job here is done. We delivered Abigail Williams. They couldn't hold her."

"So, they'll be after her," Logan said.

"Probably."

I looked up. "What was that? What do you mean?"

"This is a determined, scary person," Brodie said without looking at me.

"I'm sure Iain has a plan, Abby," said Logan. I wasn't so sure. I thought Logan was confusing my tousled hair for attachment on Brodie's part. Logan turned his attention back to Brodie. "On to more pressing matters. Taylor."

"I'm thirsty," I said and headed for the mini-fridge.

"I know all about it. I spoke to Gairloch last night," Brodie told Logan.

I brought a handful of mini-bottles back to the table. "Gairloch this. Gairloch that. Would someone please tell me who Gairloch is?"

Logan grabbed one of the small scotch bottles and opened it. "Do you want to field that one, Iain?"

"Let's just say that Gairloch shows an interest in us," said Brodie.

"A papa bear's interest," Logan added.

"And he's heading up a committee to track down Iain Brodie for murdering this Taylor guy," I said, remembering their conversation in Africa.

"A murder I didn't commit."

"Because you were busy kidnapping me at the time."

"Something like that."

I took a swig of the vodka bottle. "But Gairloch is not really trying to track you down. He's a friend and trying to figure out what's really happening."

"We're all trying to figure out what's really happening," Logan said. He pointed toward another scotch bottle, and I passed it to him. I was on my third, and he was trying to catch up.

"You shouldn't worry about this at all," Brodie told me, pointedly. "It turns out Taylor was a bad guy. He was siphoning weapons from the British government to sell to the Democratic Republic of Georgia. He probably got in too deep and got killed because of it. He was trampling on Russia's toes, Georgia being their former territory. They don't want weapons going to Georgia. So, it's a simple story of political corruption. It happens every day."

I opened another bottle. "I'm not worried, Mr. Brodie. I'm sure it's just a simple story of political corruption. Taylor was selling weapons on the side, and he got bumped off because he was selling to Russia's enemy."

Brodie leaned back in his chair and c****d his head to the side. I slugged back the bottle and choked as the liquid burned all the way down my throat.

"Of course, there's the added bit of whoever's framing you in a complicated CSI kind of way," I said with a hiccup. "Fingerprints, DNA samples, maybe semen. Shouldn't leave semen around willy-nilly, you know. Maybe James Bond is on his way right this very second to come take you to jail."

Sure, I was being snarky, but it was well deserved. As usual, there was no reaction from Brodie. He studied his food and took another bite.

"But I'm sure you got-what did you call it, Logan?-a plan," I continued. "Yes, that's right. I'm sure Brodie has a plan. Poor Iain Brodie picked on by the bad guys. What on earth did you do to deserve such behavior?"

The table was silent. I guessed they were going down a mental list of all the things Brodie had done to provoke being picked on by bad guys. I lost my train of thought through the slosh of mini-bottles in my brain.

"Speaking of more pressing matters, I have worse problems," I said, finally. "I've got a psychopath on my heels. I guess I'm on my own on that one." I slouched in my chair and rested my head in my hand.

"Dang, Logan, you've got some pretty eyes," I said. They were shinier than usual and spun around like they were dancing. Or maybe it was my eyes that were spinning around. I wiped at my eyes with my hands.

Logan smiled, obviously pleased at how pretty he was. "Hear that Iain? She thinks I'm pretty."

Brodie growled low in his throat. "It must be your shirt. It brings out the color of your eyes."

"And I've been working out. Notice?" Logan flexed his biceps, and I touched it daintily, as if I was picking out a ripe piece of fruit. Nice.

"Big and hard," I gurgled.

"Hear that Brodie? Big and hard."

"Too easy, Logan. Only she was talking about your head. All right, grab your stuff and get going." Logan swayed a bit on his feet but made his way to the door without bumping into anything.

Brodie walked out with Logan. I could hear them talking, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. I dropped onto the bed and wormed my way under the covers. After a few minutes, Brodie came back in, alone. He made himself busy, but I felt his eyes on me.

"I know I shouldn't point this out, and I know I'm going to kick myself for saying this," he said after about ten minutes. "But you're awfully quiet."

I turned over in bed and put the pillow over my head. The bed moved with Brodie's weight, as he sat down. I felt his closeness, and I did my best to ignore the pull of his magnetic field.

"I'm going to be there for you," he said. "I swear it. I won't let anything happen to you."

"I knew you were lying," I said from under the pillow.

"Lying? I rarely lie, Princess."

"You lied about the mines," I said, sitting up. "You said the forest was mined, but it wasn't. We ran all over that forest, and there wasn't a single mine."

Brodie smiled. "Ah, that. I have an eye for that sort of thing. And we were very lucky."

"Oh," I said. He caressed my cheek, but I pulled back out of his reach. "Are you really going to be there for me?"

"I'll make sure you're safe."

"Oh."

"I assume that I'm sleeping on the couch tonight."

"Very astute. Does MENSA know about you?" Brodie grabbed a pillow and threw it onto the couch.

"Hey, Princess," he started, his voice unusually sheepish. "Do you really like Jake's eyes more than mine?"

Iain Brodie, insecure and jealous. Who woulda thunk it? It was the nicest thing he ever said to me. Maybe there was hope for him yet.