Page 29 of Hot Intent

They’d been walking maybe five minutes when Alex swore low under his breath and dived for the brush again. Echoing his sentiment, she followed him again. With the exception of the chorus of insects, the night sounded completely normal to her.

Her thighs prickled with pain and then shouted in agony, demanding that she let some circulation back into her legs, but still Alex crouched there. What was he waiting for? She sent him the hand signal questioningly for moving out, and he shook his head sharply in the negative. Confused and intensely uncomfortable, she held her position. In a few minutes, the sound of a vehicle approaching became audible.

It was a Jeep picking its way slowly along the remains of the road. Four soldiers sat in the vehicle, and the passengers were scanning the shore and jungle carefully. The two in the back had automatic weapons in their laps. The two in front were armed most notably with gigantic machetes attached to their belts.

The vehicle did not stop and rumbled by their hiding place. It retreated in the same direction the walking men had gone.

What the hell was going on? How was it the Cuban military had converged on nearly their exact position within minutes of their arrival and appeared to be searching for them? Had Pedro turned them in? Although she disliked that idea, she disliked the alternative more. Surely, they hadn’t been betrayed from within Doctors Unlimited. Or worse, the CIA.

As soon as the Jeep passed out of sight, Alex eased out of the brush and continued in the direction the men and vehicle had come from. She knew it was a good thing to have slipped through the search line like they’d managed to do. But it didn’t mean they’d seen the last of waves of incoming Cubans, nor did it mean the soldiers wouldn’t head back this way at some point.

She followed Alex for maybe ten minutes in cautious silence before she ventured to whisper, “How did you know the Jeep was coming?”

“The men on foot were talking about their district commander being headed this way.”

“At this time of night? Why?”

“No idea. But given that all this activity is taking place in the exact spot, at the exact time we arrived on the island, one has to wonder if we’re the cause of it.” Alex stopped and pulled out his cell phone. He fiddled with the GPS function for a moment. “Another quarter mile or so should bring us to the back-up rendezvous point.”

Funny, but a quarter mile of walking on destroyed asphalt felt like a lot further. Her calves ached like big dogs before the roofless hell of a small stone building came into view ahead. It sat high above the road on a rocky crag overlooking the ocean.

“Gaviota hut,” Alex muttered. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“What’s a gaviota hut?”

“Gaviota means seagull in Spanish. It’s a ruin where only the birds hang out.”

“Our contact is a seagull? Cool,” she replied lightly.

He smiled briefly and turned up a path that looked more like a washed-out gully at the moment. They wound up the hill about halfway when they reached a massive washout, maybe twenty feet across and at least as deep.

Alex screeched to a stop on its lip and she barely avoided plowing into him and pushing him over the edge. “Whoa,” she gasped.

They stared down into the ravine together. A raging torrent of water rushed down the mountain. If either of them fell into that it would smash them on the rocks before washing their broken bodies down to the sea.

She looked up the mountain, and the slash of the ravine was visible all the way to the top. She murmured, “Got a Plan C meeting point, Captain Preparedness?”

“No. We’re on our own for now.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

He shrugged. “I’m good at improvising. I suggest we head toward the area where the ships have been seen coming and going and scout around for ourselves.”

“Where is this area exactly?”

He shrugged. “Up the coast a little ways. I’ve got a map and GPS on my phone. We’ll find it.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, this island is trashed. It’s not like we can just take off hiking over hill and dale. We’ve got no food, no water, and worse, no bug spray!”

He arched an eyebrow at her.

“I’m serious! Think about the size of mosquitoes that are going to start breeding in this mess. In a week, they’ll be carrying off small children.”

“I have industrial-strength bug repellent,” he replied dryly.

“You do? Hand it over.”

“There aren’t any insects out to speak of.”

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