Page 50 of Hot Intent

But the soldiers looking for her and Alex—they were a different matter.

The moon hung low in the west when she reached a large pasture she would have to cross. She ended up crouching by thefield’s edge for nearly a half-hour while she waited for the moon to finally set.

At first, she was grateful to stop, catch her breath, and rest. But her pause rapidly morphed into a terrible fight to stay awake. Only being cold, damp, sore and terrified kept her eyes open.

At least she was too exhausted to dwell much on the terrible truth that Alex had abandoned her. She wasn’t skilled enough or strong enough to keep up with him, anymore. He’d realized she wasn’t in his league and had to get rid of her because she was holding him back too much.

She readily admitted she was no super spy. But what if her lack of spooky skills made him want to purge her completely from his life? What would she do without him?

It wasn’t as if he’d given her any choice in that matter, either. He stayed or went from her life as he pleased. He’d made no promises to her, and he could leave whenever he wanted.

She’d thought he needed that freedom to leave so he could choose to stay with her. But what if she’d been completely wrong? Should she have forced the issue of them getting married way back when they’d first adopted Dawn together?

Although, knowing Alex, a ring on his finger wouldn’t have tied him down one iota.

The moon finally slid behind the horizon, and only faint starlight lit the dark expanse of meadow she needed to cross. She briefly considered crawling through the knee-high grass, but it would take her hours to make it all the way to the other side that way.

For the first time, she was glad Alex wasn’t here. It would be totally like him to insist they both crawl the whole way across the pasture.

Wearily she pushed to a crouch and started across the open field. No one swooped in to arrest her, and the sky was quiet. Thehelicopters that had crisscrossed the jungle for much of the night were finally gone.

On the one hand, she was relieved as she reached a tree line and followed it around another pasture. But on the other hand, she fretted that the absence of the helicopters meant they’d found Alex. Captured him. Hauled him away for torture and interrogation until they broke him and killed him.

She was desperate to call André or her Uncle Charlie and beg for help, for someone to come save her and Alex from this waking nightmare. But Alex had the satellite phone in his backpack. All she had was the bag of samples…which she could only pray hadn’t broken in her mad flight and weren’t slowly killing her already.

Where are you, Alex? Are you okay?

How was he going to get all the way across Cuba on foot by himself? Yes, her brain knew he was a trained spy who could handle those sorts of things. But, it had looked like half the Cuban Army was after him back there. And she was allowed to worry about him, dammit.

At long last, the familiar iron gates leading to Oscar’s ruined home came into view ahead. The first gray light of dawn tinged the eastern horizon, and a sob escaped her throat. As tempted as she was to run for the shed, caution prompted her to kneel in the last tree line prior to the homestead. To wait and watch for signs of movement. For a trap. Alex’s paranoia had obviously rubbed off on her.

As the sky turned pink and wan light washed over the farm, she finally grew too sleepy to wait any more. She had to move or pass out.

She approached the shed cautiously. As she recalled, Alex had left a few surprises in place to discourage would-be looters. A glance at the garden plot behind the house, the final resting place of the last looters to pass this way, made her faintly ill.

She approached the shed door. Thank God. The trip wire was still in place. She stepped gingerly over it and opened the door an inch or so. Just enough to wiggle her fingers inside and detach the second trip wire from the latch on the inside. She eased the door the rest of the way open. The bulky tarp was still in place over the mo-ped.

Before she wheeled the motor bike outside, she searched the shed for anything that might be of help. Carefully, she stuffed a hand spade, an empty plastic water bottle, and an old flashlight into her bag with the samples. The batteries were dead, but maybe she could find some along the way.

And then she hit the mother lode. A rusty gas can. Perhaps a gallon of gasoline sloshed around in the bottom of it. She poured it into the mo-ped’s gas tank and prayed it would be enough to get her all the way to Gitmo.

Speaking of which, time was a’wasting. If she timed this right, she would hit Baracoa at the morning rush hours when people were most likely to be heading for work and be less likely to notice her.

She headed out.

As she neared Baracoa, she debated whether or not to look for gas there but decided it would call too much attention to herself. That, and she spotted a truckload of soldiers headed toward her as an operating gas station came into sight. That decided her. She kept moving.

Not far past Baracoa, the highway cut inland. The condition of the road was terrible and she was forced to pick her way painstakingly around ruts and washouts. Coconut plantations gave way to mango orchards and then to jungle. If Alex thought this wasn’t rough jungle, she would hate to see a bad one.

Eventually, the road came down out of the Sierra Maestra mountain range to hug the coast once more. Debris and theoccasional sandbar slowed her progress, but the sky was blue, the ocean breeze cool, and the day generally beautiful.

A hodge-podge of vehicles drove along the road—mostly military and police trucks. But a few farmers were returning to their homes in flatbed trucks piled high with kids and belongings. If the roads held up and she didn’t run out of gas, she would reach Guantanamo in the late afternoon.

Of course, the roads didn’t hold up, and she did run out of gas. But if her math wasn’t wrong, she was only a few miles from the American military base. She debated whether to push the mo-ped along or just walk, and she ended up opting for walking. Once she got to Gitmo, she wasn’t planning on ever coming back to this place.

The highway, which had run due west along the south shore of the island, started to cut inland across the last peninsula prior to Guantanamo Bay. The sun was setting as she stopped in front of what looked like it had once been a major intersection. A blown over road sign lay in the ditch with the words, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on it.

Great. Which direction would the sign have indicated she should go if it wasn’t torn off its posts and lying by the side of the road? Was this even the right intersection? Or had the sign flown for miles before landing here?

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