Bounty

Chapter 2

What's a little fungus in the scheme of things? I mean, sure I was a monster below the ankles, but I had recently gotten a great job as features editor in London for the snootiest magazine on the planet, along with a new wardrobe and a new apartment.

An apartment with fungus in the shower, obviously.

And before I got on the plane for my all-expenses-paid luxury working vacation, my assistant, Amy-I had an assistant. How mind-blowing was that! -sent me to the doctor, who diagnosed me with athlete's foot.

My feet were puffy and peeling with little bumps and blisters. Pustules. And they itched. "It's actually the worst case of tinea pedis I've ever seen," the doctor had told me. "You should be hospitalized, Miss Williams. We need to get you off those feet as soon as possible. Of course, I've never actually heard of anybody being hospitalized for tinea pedis, but for you I'll make an exception."

"I'm going on a really nice vacation. I'm going to an exotic island," I said.

"Miss Williams, if we don't treat you immediately, this mess is going to grow under your toenails, and we will be forced to remove every last one of them."

"But I just had them painted Princess Peach," I said, cursing the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes.

So, he let me go, and the itching had subsided with the treatment. I only half-wanted to kill myself, now that my feet were smeared with miracle cream and wrapped in thick athletic socks.

The plane was about one-quarter full, and I realized that I was the only woman on board except for the two flight attendants. The other passengers stayed busy, swigging back little bottles of booze and tapping away on their laptops. They dressed in shabby khaki and were intent on their work.

I could have spotted them a million miles away. Reporters. By the looks of them, they weren't going to the Simoros Islands to do a fluffy article on the country's centerpiece hotel like I was.

I reminded myself with a mental head slap that I was going to the scene of a violent coup, even if the hotel's brochure claimed the island's recent history of government overthrow was far behind them.

However, a planeload of reporters was on its way to cover a hot story. By not keeping current with the news, I was unwittingly flying into a possibly dangerous situation armed only with long layers in my hair and fungus on my feet.

The plane dropped from the sky in a free fall landing, pushing my stomach into my throat. We hit the ground with a bang and bounced twice. The brakes screeched for all they were worth, attempting to stop the plane before we slipped off the tiny runway and the sliver-sized island.

"Welcome to the beautiful Simoros Islands off the coast of East Africa," the flight attendant announced over the sound system. "Local time is 11:49 in the morning, and the weather is a balmy thirty-eight degrees."

The door opened, and I shuffled my way up to the front of the plane. "Thirty-eight degrees, thirty-eight degrees," I muttered, trying to remember the metric system. "That's thirty-two degrees plus thirty-eight multiplied by something. No, that's not it."

I went through several equations but couldn't make it out. Thirty-eight degrees sounded good, but I had no idea how hot that was in good old American degrees.

"The stairs! The stairs! Oh, sod it!" The perky flight attendant screamed out the door at someone below. The line stopped suddenly, and I bumped into the guy in front of me.

The flight attendant kept screaming. "The bloody, barking, sod it stairs!" she yelled.

She was getting pretty hot under the collar, and her hair started to escape from her tight little bun.

"Yes! Yes, that's it! No! We need the-Oh, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

She turned away from the door and straightened her blue polyester suit in an effort to compose herself. "A little problem with the stairs," she sang out to the passengers. "You'll have to do a little hop out of the plane."

She smiled as if all was right with the world and hopping out of planes took place every day.

Panicked whispers of "Hop out of the plane?" rushed through the line. A few of the passengers tried to ask her what she meant exactly, but it was no use. The flight attendant was all business and surprisingly strong for her little frame.

With a smile frozen on her face, she tapped each man as he approached her, and sure enough, he hopped out of the plane.

Drawing near to the door, I could see they were hopping onto a metal staircase and not, thankfully, into midair. But the stairs had been placed a good three feet away from the plane. It was a long way down if one missed, and it was my turn to hop.

The possibilities weighed heavily on me. If I overshot my hop, I would fly over the stairs to my possible death and probable maiming. If I undershot my hop, I would fall between the stairs and the plane to my possible death and probable maiming.

"I'm not really good at heights," I reasoned with the flight attendant. But her patience was at an end. Her hairstyle had fallen, and her lipstick leaked past her lips in small scraggly lines.

"Hop," she commanded, her effervescent attitude and welcoming smile now a thing of the past. Her hands clenched into little fists, and fear overtook me. Hopping out of a plane suddenly seemed less scary than a small woman with bad makeup.

I closed my eyes and hopped. I sailed through the air for what seemed like forever and landed with a heavy thud onto the top stair. I grabbed the railing for support and held on as my feet slipped under me.

I was going down quickly, off-balance from my new Hermès bag and heavy carry-on, which hung from my other hand, pulling me to my doom.

I thought I heard shouts of "Let go of the bags," from below, but I ignored them. Did they know how much a Hermès bag costs? No way was I going to get it smudged on the tarmac. For that matter, I didn't want to get smudged on the tarmac, either. The thought renewed my strength.

I managed to get my feet under me and planted on a step. I straightened out my body, locking my knees and finally finding my balance. Shaken, I walked down the stairs-against all odds-unscathed.

The man behind me was not so lucky. Just as I reached the bottom, I turned to see a tall, bespectacled young man ride down the stairs belly first. The sound of his grunts reached all the way to me, as he made impact with each stair. He, too, kept a firm grasp on his bags, but they were a standard computer case and nylon bag. He landed in a heap next to my feet.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I hate Africa," he mumbled and stood up, his shirt torn and one of his shoes lost somewhere on the runway.

Standing on the tarmac, eleventh grade math came rushing back to me. Thirty-eight degrees Celsius was over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

"Hot," I moaned. Beads of sweat erupted on my upper lip, and my shirt was becoming wet and sticky. The humidity was intense. It was almost as bad as New Jersey in July.

I followed the line of passengers, who walked from the plane toward the airport. The Simoros airport was tiny. Its terminal, or what was left of it, was unusable, lying in a mound of rubble, an obvious victim of war.

I was ushered around the destruction to the makeshift parking lot, a small patch of blacktop amid large potholes where a nasty battle had obviously taken place.

As if on cue, four men in uniforms wielding Kalashnikovs ran past me. I held my breath, waiting for the sound of gunfire. Then my survival instinct kicked in. I hightailed it away from the guns until I ran into a solid wall of muscle.

He was well over six feet tall with short hair and a scar that ran down the left side of his face from hairline to jaw. He looked like he ate nails for breakfast. He grabbed me by the arms and settled me away from him.

"Let go of me," I sputtered.

As soon as the words left my mouth, his arms dropped from mine. He stared at me, unblinking. His eyes were dark brown and fathomless. I had no idea what he was thinking, and I didn't want to stick around to find out. Nevertheless, I was rooted to the spot, and my mouth wouldn't stop moving.

"I'm with High Life magazine," I said, importantly. I told myself to shut up, but the words kept coming.

"From London," I explained. "Well, I'm not from London. The magazine is in London. And I work in London now. So, I guess I'm from London, too. But only for the past couple weeks. I'm new there. In London, I mean. Just a couple of weeks. I'm from New York."

He arched an eyebrow and c****d his head to the side. He had a nice head. A manly head. I felt my throat constrict and sweat roll down my face.

The soldier in front of me was hardly High Life magazine's demographic. I doubted that he had ever heard of it and couldn't care less about my travel piece. But I couldn't shut up. My mouth seemed to have a mind of its own.

"I'm going to a hotel," I croaked. "It's very nice, and I'm writing about it. You know, to show the world it's still viable after the-" I waved to the debris around me. "You know, the coup."

He squinted at me, as if he was trying to understand.

"I see. You don't speak English," I said.

He grunted, and the corners of his mouth curled up ever so slightly in what could have been mistaken as a smile. My eyes were drawn to his mouth, and I felt my uterus contract. He had a fascinating mouth, and I was tempted to run my fingers along his lips.

Uh oh.

"Well, gotta go," I said. "It was nice knowing you."

He squinted again, but this time he fixed his attention over my shoulder and nodded.

I jumped when a small man tugged on my sleeve.

"Miss Williams? Miss Williams? I am your driver, Solomon."

I turned toward him. He was much shorter than I was. The top of his head only reached my bra strap.

"Are you okay?" he asked, bending his head in the direction of the muscle-bound man, who had disappeared into the wreckage. I breathed a sigh of relief, but my body was a little sad to see him go.

"I'll take you to the hotel," he continued, uncertainly.

I was uncertain, too. Did the hotel look like the airport terminal? Was I walking into a firefight? I looked back longingly at my plane on the tarmac. I could swear it was beckoning me to come to my senses and hop back on board.

"I am the official driver," Solomon said, overjoyed with himself. He had gathered my luggage and was dragging it away, his little spindly arms straining under the weight.

I followed, unsure if I should offer to help or not. He headed around the corner at a pretty good clip, and it was all I could do to keep up with him, the sweat rolling off me in sheets.

"You are here for our nice hotel, yes?" he asked.

I nodded just as Solomon stopped at an official-looking stretch limousine. It was black with white trim and a flag on the radio antenna. It was a beautiful car, except for the intricate bullet holes design, which peppered its sides like really aggressive polka dots.

It was hard to imagine that the limo could still run, being so much damaged. There was more hole than car. Solomon didn't seem to take any notice. He busied himself with putting my bags in the trunk and opened the door for me.

Against my better judgment, I got in.

The inside wasn't any better. The seat was originally black leather, but it had been washed with a strong detergent like bleach and was faded in big spots. The floor's carpet was removed altogether, revealing the metal beneath it. It took my imagination one second to visualize the blood spatter that necessitated such a cleanup.

"This was the president's car," Solomon announced from the front seat. He looked at me through the rearview mirror as he drove. Somehow, he managed to steer clear of oncoming traffic while never taking his eyes off me.

I searched for a seat belt.

"The president before the coup?" I asked.

"Yes. He was bad, bad man." Solomon spat for emphasis, hitting the dashboard with a nasty splat.

"He did horrible things," he continued. Solomon explained that the former president turned out to be a real psycho. He ordered massacres, disappeared hundreds of people, and destroyed infrastructure on a whim. Simoros society broke down to complete chaos.

"He kill men, women, children. If he don't like your dog, your dog die, and he die not in a good way," Solomon explained.

"That's horrible," I said. I rooted around the seat for a belt. Solomon weaved in between cars, his hand locked against the horn, and his eyes never leaving the rearview mirror, watching me as he spoke.

"More worse than horrible," he said. "But the new president was smarter, and he brought us Les Terribles, and they killed the old president. Killed him dead!"

I had no idea who the Les Terribles were, but I wasn't about to ask, as the limo swerved past livestock and potholes. No problem. Solomon was eager to explain just who they were.

"The new president called the Frenchman, David Montou. He said, 'Mr. Montou, please come help me kill our horrible president.' Mr. Montou said, 'Sure,' and he brought his eighteen friends, and they kill him dead. Now we have the new President Ahmed and we have all Les Terribles to help us."

"Les Terribles are Mr. Montou's eighteen friends?" I asked.

Solomon nodded and smiled big. "Very good fellows. They like how I drive," he said.

I didn't know much about the coup, but I remembered reading that the new President Ahmed hired western mercenaries to take over the old government. According to Solomon, they did a good job, and he gave glowing reports about Ahmed's leadership skills.

Africa, coups, mercenaries, and a despotic tyrant added up to a juicy article, I had to admit. But those days were over for me. I had a new job as a features editor for a glossy magazine. Now all I wanted was to survive the trip with Solomon and survive my all-expenses-paid vacation, which I was quickly realizing was no great gift.

"Here we are," Solomon announced.

The Simoros Intercontinental Hotel greeted me with the sound of water splashing from marble fountains. The pristine building was a sprawling two-stories in shades of pink with a meticulously landscaped exterior. It had escaped the violence of the old regime and the coup. The normalcy and outright luxury had me feeling much more confident and ready to sit out by the pool.

Inside, I walked through the lobby, which was decorated with abstractionist masterpieces. The manager greeted me personally. "Ah, Miss Williams. We were expecting you," he said. "I'll have your bags sent up to your room."

It was finally the real start of my vacation, and my mouth watered at the prospect. "That sounds wonderful," I said, truthfully. "It's been a long day, and I want to rest awhile, head out to the pool, and get a daiquiri."

He nodded. "Of course. But first you have the press conference. You're just in time. It's beginning now in the Gold Room."

"Actually, I'm just doing a travel piece," I explained. I didn't need to attend a press conference to report on the hotel's poolside service.

The manager grinned at me like I was a child asking for dessert before dinner. "I would hurry in so that you can get a good seat," he said. "We have a lot of journalists with us today."

"Now, see," I pointed out. "They're here about the coup. Great story, but I'm writing about the hotel, you see, not the politics."

"Right this way," he said, his jaw set, and his expression grim. He held out his hand in the direction of the Gold Room. I took a deep breath.

Just a necessary evil, I told myself. My luxury vacation would start right after the conference. Besides, since I wasn't really there as a journalist, I wouldn't have to take notes or ask questions. I could sit and relax and decide what kind of daiquiri I would drink.

The Gold Room was set up with about fifty chairs facing a long table. The leadership sat at the table, answering journalists' questions. It was a full house. Sleep-deprived reporters chomped at the bit to get their story.

If Solomon was anything to go by, the Simoros citizens were overjoyed with the coup. Ahmed was now president, and his hired mercenaries-Les Terribles, and their leader, Montou-were put into positions of power to maintain the peace.

Montou, after doing a bang-up job overthrowing the former president for the current president, was enjoying his title as Minister of Defense, and his lieutenants were enjoying their titles of Minister of Culture, Communication, etc.

The Organization of African Unity was probably not amused by the European mercenaries taking over a sovereign African country with such ease, but President Ahmed and his Simoran subjects seemed to be thrilled with the outcome of the coup.

At least I suspected as much, looking at all the smiling faces. President Ahmed had a big fat ear-to-ear grin as he sat at the center of the long table. He was flanked on both sides by Montou, the head mercenary, and various members of Montou's mercenary group, Les Terribles.

The president was younger than I had pictured him, only about fifty years old and rail thin. He was most likely a devotee of the cigarette diet. He was the worst sort of chain-smoker-unfiltered, hand-rolled French cigarettes, taking long drags that burned up at least a third of the cigarette and then French inhaling, two long columns of smoke rising almost magically into his nostrils.

I was both disgusted and transfixed. I sat for a long time watching the smoke go up his nostrils. It had a hypnotic effect, and my eyes began to droop when I was wakened from my stupor by a familiar voice.

"...European mercenaries."

I caught only the end of the sentence, but I was sure I knew the voice. It was John Grant, a Reuters bureau chief I had done some stringing for years back but never actually met, only spoken with over the phone.

I craned my neck to get a look at him while the chief mercenary, Montou, answered the question.

"There are no mercenaries here," he said, his thick French accent booming through the room. "We are military technicians. Good ones at that."

I got up from my seat and moved next to John Grant to say hi, but my squeaking shoes on the linoleum floor attracted Montou's attention, and he paused to look directly at me.

He had piercing, murderous eyes. He had obviously been good-looking at one time but too much sun, harsh living conditions, and an overabundance of stress had aged him prematurely.

A hand pulled hard on my shoulder. John Grant yanked me down to the chair next to him. I had been crouching, staring into Montou's eyes, and indulging in an internal dialogue for who knew how long.

I introduced myself to Grant while questions and answers swirled around us.

"Tourist piece? That's a little unusual for you, isn't it?" John asked me.

"New job, John. New job and new life," I said, pretty proud of myself. "I'm features editor of High Life magazine."

"Well done, Abby. I always knew you'd make good. Does this mean you are based in London now?"

"Yeah, I didn't think about that, but we're neighbors now."

John smiled and raised his hand in a mock toast. "Here's to you, neighbor. America's loss is England's gain."

The press conference dragged on, and I let John get back to work and focus on the questions and answers. I scanned the room for other familiar faces and finally looked back up at the panel. One of Montou's lieutenants caught my attention. Mid-thirties, blond, blue eyed, muscular yet lanky, he had absolutely perfect features.

"Who's the Adonis?" I asked Grant.

Without looking up from his note-taking, he replied, "A Brit. Jake Logan. One of Montou's henchmen, now Minister of Finance. All of the Les Terribles mercenary group have titles now."

"He's number two, then?"

"No, Brodie's number two. Number one, according to some," he murmured, still deep in his notes.

I looked around. "Which one is Brodie?"

"Not here," he mumbled.

I sat back and allowed myself to stare at Jake Logan, the Adonis, and fantasize freely about him in order to pass the time until I could get out of there and get on with my vacation at the pool. I wasn't about to give up my planned schedule. I desperately needed a daiquiri.

"There he is. That's Brodie." John pointed his pen toward the side door. A tall man had walked through it. He was unshaven, more muscular than Jake Logan, with a face and body that looked like it was chiseled in stone. He didn't look happy at all. A shiver went up my spine. It was the man from the airport.

"s**t, I don't want to mess with him," I said out loud.

"I wouldn't think so," said John. "Not unless you're into that sort of thing."

I remembered my body's reaction to Brodie and wondered if I was into that sort of thing. Just my luck, I was pretty sure I was.

Brodie scowled at Montou, who was in the midst of a loud rant, yelling at the reporters. "Hey, I did a good thing here. A good thing!" He pounded the table with his fist, making it jump up a couple of inches.

John stood up. "Mr. Montou. John Grant, from Reuters. Mr. Montou, can you respond to reports that you executed the former president with two shots to the chest?"

"He had a summary trial first," said President Ahmed, answering for Montou. "Everything was completely legal and correct."

"But he didn't die right away. Isn't that right, Mr. Montou?" John asked.

"Sometimes it takes time to die. These things are complicated," the president said, answering again for Montou.

A reporter from The New York Times stood. "Amnesty International is calling that torture, Mr. Montou, and they're calling for you to be brought up on war crimes."

I could have sworn I saw steam come out of Montou's ears.

"War crimes? You say I'm a war criminal? You mean like a Nazi?" he roared, his French accent getting thicker with each word. "I am a Nazi now? My grandfather, he fought in the Resistance. I am no Nazi."

Montou sputtered and pounded the table with his fist.

"I shot the so-called president two times point-blank in the chest," he announced. "I used two bullets. Pow! Pow! And he don't die right away. What do you want me to do? Two bullets in the chest usually kills a man pretty quick. I'm not going to waste another bullet for nothing. I knew he would die. It just took a little time to do it. And I went to his mother and asked if we should bury him or feed him to the dogs. She want to bury him, and I bury him. I do what the mother want. There. Is that a Nazi?!"

"He made the mother pay for the burial," John whispered to me.

Brodie's scowl never left his face. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. Logan was smirking and staring at his hands.

"You guys call me mercenary, say I do bad things," Montou continued. "Now bad guy is out, and good guy is in. Everybody is happy!" He stood up to his full, over six-foot height. "You write that!"

Montou stomped out, and the rest of Les Terribles and the president followed him, signaling the end of the press conference.

John closed his reporter's notebook and gave me a big smile. "Don't you love Africa?"

"Why yes," I answered. "Especially with a luxury hotel and strawberry daiquiris."

"Good point, Abby. I'll buy the first round."

Turned out the hotel didn't serve daiquiris at all, but they did serve an awful lot of other drinks, and John and I took advantage of their supply. He bought the first round, and soon we were joined by hordes of other reporters who were all too glad to buy more. They pushed a bunch of tables together in the hotel's bar area, and we sat and were as rowdy as drunk reporters could be.

Funnily enough, I was the only female reporter on the island, and I felt it was my duty to be celebrated by my male counterparts. I accepted every drink I was offered with grace.

John was a sloppy drunk and tended toward melancholy and tears after a few drinks. He pulled out his wallet and showed me pictures of his family.

"My wife," he blurted out with a hiccup. "She's so beautiful, don't you think?"

"I do," I said, honestly. She was lovely, well dressed, and fit.

"Well, you're wrong!" He pulled the photo back and scrunched his face, ready to tell me just how wrong I was. Then, just as suddenly, his face slackened, and he searched for his thought, but it had gone into the ether with the alcohol vapors. He sat for a moment, staring into space and then grabbed for his wallet again.

"Here's a picture of my kids. They're cute, don't you think?"

I was unsure how to answer, didn't know if it was a test. I took another slug of my drink and stood up. "To Africa," I called out.

The reporters cheered and raised their glasses. "To Africa!"

The night was a blur after that. I remembered us singing "God Save the Queen" and clog dancing, but the alcohol pretty much wiped everything else from my memory.

The next morning the only thing left in my head was the pain that knifed through it with my every movement and every blink of my eyes. I moaned into my pillow. Despite the hangover and general debauchery, I mentally patted myself on the back because I had stayed fully dressed during the evening.

In fact, I didn't have to live down any embarrassing or disgusting behavior on my part. That was no small achievement considering the alcohol that ran through my veins.

Armed with a new sense of pride and four Advils, I showered and tiptoed down to the pool in my bikini, wrap, dark sunglasses, and tennis shoes with thick socks.

I was still following the doctor's orders to get rid of the nastiness on my feet. But even with my feet taken care of and despite various headache remedies, I was still murderously hungover.

I picked out a chaise lounge by the pool and lay down. With my eyes closed and wearing the dark sunglasses, I had almost succeeded in blocking out the sun, which was like a jackhammer against my frontal lobe.

I had begun to relax when I felt light, calloused fingers dancing up my leg. I opened my eyes to see David Montou, the head of the mercenaries, hunched over me.

"You are a very beautiful woman," he said. He spoke slowly, his accent dripping thick s****l innuendo with every syllable. He eyed me like I was a porterhouse steak.

In my previous life, I would have been excited by the opportunity to wangle an exclusive interview with the eccentric mercenary. But as features editor for a frilly women's magazine, the uninvited fondling was at best a nuisance, especially in my present state of physical agony. At worst, well, the worst could be pretty bad in David Montou's hands.

"No speaka the English," I said. It was the only strategy that popped into my mind.

"Oh," he said, elated. "Alors, vous êtes francaise?"

"No speaka the French," I said.

His face dropped in disappointment. "Deutsch?"

"No speaka the...whatever that was," I said. Geez, I was some kind of i***t. I was expecting Montou to get fed up and shoot me in the chest at any moment.

But Montou didn't get angry. He didn't seem to understand I was trying to get rid of him. He sat down next to me and brought my hand to his lips.

"Lovely," he said.

"Lesbian," I blurted out. I was clutching at straws. If it came right down to it, I didn't think he would take "no" for an answer, and if lesbian didn't work, I had a herpes excuse waiting in the wings.

"Huh? I don't understand," he said.

I didn't get the chance to explain s****l orientations to him because one of his underlings whispered something in his ear. By the looks of Montou's face, it was important.

He dropped my hand and rose to leave but not before he shouted orders at me. "You will have dinner with me. The hotel restaurant at twenty-thirty. I do not become very happy when I am refused."

I gulped and weighed my options.

No matter what was on the menu for dinner, I was pretty sure I didn't want it. Still, refusing Montou wouldn't be wise. After all, I wasn't too sure that the former president's mother would spring for my funeral expenses.