CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He had no choice, MacGowan thought. The feigned rape had distracted the men – they never saw what was coming. He did what he had to do, quickly, efficiently, and one of the men cried out before he died, and he wanted to kick him. That sound would distress Beth, who had already been through enough. He’d come in hoping to spare her, and then he’d come all over her like the animal he was. She had every right to be disgusted with him.

He dragged the bodies into the kitchen, dumping them on top of each other. They’d left a smear of blood behind, and he cursed beneath his breath. He didn’t want her to see it, but there wasn’t time to clean it up.

He went back into the tiny room. She was sitting up again, huddled into the corner, hugging herself. He’d ripped the clothes off her, and she had nothing to wear.

“Stay there,” he said in his normal voice.

She looked up, in his direction, not meeting his eyes. “Are they . . .?” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Dead, or close to it. They won’t bother us. I need to find you something to wear.”

“Yes.” Her voice was lifeless, expressionless. Good. Shock would make things easier until they got aboard the Martha Rose. Dylan was already there waiting for them, unless he’d decided to exert his independence. If so, fuck him. He’d killed too many people for his little chicks, and he couldn’t do it any more.

He found an ancient, flowery dress in one of the other rooms, brightly colored and much too big for her, but it would provide some cover, and the cheap flip-flops would protect her feet, at least until they got to the ship. He threw it at her, but she didn’t move, simply sat there in stunned disbelief.

“There’s no time for this, Sister Beth,” he said, knowing kindness wouldn’t help. “I tried to get rid of as many of them as I could, but that doesn’t mean some of them might not come back to see what fun they might be missing. Put on the fucking dress.”

She fumbled with it, awkward, and he came over to her, impatient. She flinched, which ticked him off even more, because he knew he’d screwed up, but he hauled her up anyway, his hand rough, and pulled the dress over her head. He didn’t want to see her breasts. Small, soft, perfect breasts with pale nipples in the shadowy room. He wanted to put his mouth on them, he wanted to rip off those sensible panties and really take her. He made do with monosyllabic noises, shoving the flip-flops at her.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, heading for the door. If he moved her quickly enough she wouldn’t look in the tiny kitchen and see the bodies of the three men. She wouldn’t notice the blood smeared on the floor, or the stink of death in the air.

But the blood was the first thing she saw. She looked around her in a cold panic and saw the feet sticking out of the kitchen doorway, and she started to scream.

He had no choice. He slapped her, for real this time, hard enough to shock her out of her hysterics, not hard enough to hurt her. Her scream was cut off, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears and what he knew was fierce hatred. “We don’t have time for squeamishness,” he snapped. “Once we’re on the freighter you can scream all you want.” He reached for her arm, but she tried to avoid him, pissing him off even more.

He caught her in a hard grip, yanking her against him. The dress was huge on her, the neckline gaping, and he cursed, pulling it back over her shoulders so the sight of her breasts wouldn’t distract him. “Put your head against my shoulder and pretend you’re in love.”

The sound she made in response to that was reassuring. Her contemptuous disbelief was the sound of someone who was pulling herself together, and he wanted to pull her closer, to kiss her again. He didn’t.

“Vamanos,” he said in Alcista’s rough baritone. And they headed out into the stifling afternoon heat.

The heat wrapped around Beth like a shroud, thick and liquid. MacGowan had her clamped to his side, and if anyone looked too closely she sincerely doubted they would mistake them for lovers. In the late afternoon sunlight she took a good look at him. He hadn’t even bothered with a disguise; it was more the way he had carried himself. He was still underweight from his time in the mountains, but as Alcista he seemed hulking, menacing, a thick-set brute of a man. He was someone else now, not the Bull but not MacGowan either. He had the sunglasses covering most of his face, dirt smeared on his face, and his hair was slicked back with something that made it look almost black.

“Stop looking at me,” he growled, mashing her head back against his shoulder.

Son of a bitch, she thought, trying to summon up a righteous rage. He’d . . . he’d . . . the memory of his arousal under those awful circumstances was appalling. The fact that he’d . . . finished was even worse. She should be furious, and of course she was. What she couldn’t understand was the strange hint of something else in her reaction to his disgusting behavior. A feeling, almost, of tenderness.

She didn’t like sex. She didn’t make a habit of admitting that – women looked at her with pity and men decided they had a mission to change her mind. Not everyone was cut out for passion, and she knew her blood ran cooler than most people. Her emotions were reserved for friends, for children.

There was no question she’d fantasized about MacGowan. Even if she knew from experience that lovemaking wasn’t for her, she could still toy with the idea that if she were different, if things were different, if she were ever to take a lover, it would be someone like MacGowan. Someone tough and tender, someone with high cheekbones and flinty gray eyes and a lean, strong body.

It was no wonder that she felt a stray tendril of reaction from their simulated sex. Well, not simulated on his part.

Not that she was going to let him know that. She would spend the next day or two in offended dignity, enough so that he would never bring the subject up. And Dylan . . .

She yanked her arm away from him, coming to a dead stop. “Where’s Dylan? Did they kill him?”

“He’s already on the ship.” He tried to pull her back against him but she managed to skitter out of his way, yanking up the shoulder of the dress before it dropped perilously low.

“Is he all right?”

He looked at her. He’d been dragging her through a series of narrow alleyways, all of them deserted. This one was littered with trash and old boxes, the flies were buzzing loudly in the quiet afternoon, and it smelled like rotting meat. Rotting meat, she thought, picturing the dead men in that stifling apartment, and she almost threw up. “Now isn’t the time to hold a conversation,” he snapped. “He’s fine, but we won’t be if we don’t . . . fuck.” The final word was low and vicious, and she flinched.

It was insane, that words would still affect her after all the things she’d seen. But at that moment she was teetering on the ragged edge of control. One more curse, one more yank on her arm and she’d shatter. “Would you mind?” She was astounded at how icily calm she sounded. But then, she’d been perfecting her controlled mask for years. “I think I’ve had enough cursing for the day.”

He moved quickly, coming up to her fast, pulling her into his arms like a lover suddenly overcome with desire. In the middle of a trash-strewn alleyway. His hand was between their bodies, and she felt the heavy metal of the gun in his hand. It was cold – how could it be cold in this heat? He put his mouth to the side of her face, by her ear, and to an observer it would have looked as if he was kissing her. “When I tell you to, run,” he said in an undertone. “Even if I fall, just keep running. If I don’t catch up with you I’ll send someone else.”

She was as cold as the gun now. “What’s happened? Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer, simply turned, shoving her behind his back as he faced the figure at the end of the alleyway. There was a moment of silence, and she had the sudden image of two gunfighters facing off at high noon. “Long time no see, MacGowan,” the man said. American, and she knew she should feel relief. She didn’t.

“Sully. What are you doing here? Part of the welcoming committee?” He sounded cool, unconcerned. He wasn’t hiding the gun he held.

“You might say so. Put the gun away, Mac. I didn’t come alone, and I don’t necessarily have to take you alive.”

There was a pause. “What I’m wondering is why you have to take me at all? What’s the CIA want with a renegade Irishman? And don’t tell me it’s intel on the Guiding Light. This country doesn’t have oil – you have no interest in messing with their politics.”

“So cynical, MacGowan,” the man called Sully chided. “I hate to break it to you, but we don’t give a flying fuck about you. You’re simply the means to an end.”

“What end? No, let me guess. You want Serafin. What have I got to do with it?”

Sully grinned. “No one ever accused you of not being fast on the uptake. Isobel Lambert has always been loyal to her people, and she left you in the lurch when she ran off with our operative. She’s not going to stand by and let you kill Peter Madsen. She’ll want to make it right.”

“It was hardly her fault. Madsen should have followed through.” MacGowan’s voice was hardly more than a growl.

Sully shrugged. “None of my concern. If we knew they had you stashed in the mountains for the past three years then the Committee should have known as well.”

“The CIA knew I was a hostage?” Beth shivered at the tone in his voice.

“None of our business,” the man called Sully said.

“You didn’t think you should inform the Committee? Since we are, ostensibly, working on the same side?” Macgowan’s voice was deceptively casual, like a snake about to strike. Didn’t the man know how dangerous MacGowan could be?

“Not my concern. It worked out well in the end. We have you as bargaining tool and . . .”

MacGowan moved abruptly, sending Beth sprawling onto the filthy pavement. A shot rang out and she felt something go whizzing past her head as she fell. And then a volley of shots, as Sully went down, and he was lying at eye level, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Staring at her, out of blank, dead eyes.

MacGowan dragged Sully’s body into a corner, covering it with discarded cardboard boxes. They’d find him soon enough – in this heat the smell would start quickly. He cursed beneath his breath. This was so fucking useless. Sully hadn’t needed to die, not until he took the first shot at Beth, and then there’d been no choice. He was so bloody tired of death.

He hauled Beth up, allowing himself one worried look at her face. At least this time she wasn’t screaming. She’d had too much as well, and she had retreated into some quiet place. It made things easier. He needed to get her to the ship as fast as he could, and he hadn’t needed still another delay. Sooner or later the men he sent on a wild goose chase would realize they’d been had. They wouldn’t be finding the body of Alcista any time soon, if at all. He’d been afraid for Beth, and he couldn’t afford to take time finishing him, but there was still enough for payback for the hundreds of women he’d raped. He felt no regret for ending that piece of filth. He should feel no regret for the men who’d wanted to join in with Sister Beth.

Sully was a different matter. MacGowan had no choice. Once Sully aimed his gun at Beth he was a dead man. Still, it infuriated him. He had no illusions left – the taking of a life diminished him. It was astonishing there was anything left to him at all.

Beth said nothing as they moved through the teeming city. She limped, but there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t dare try for one of the ancient taxis that plied its trade on the narrow streets – taxis could be traced. He couldn’t even slow their pace. The sooner they got off the streets the better.

By the time they reached the docks he was wondering if he’d have to carry her. The Martha Rose carried coffee beans and maize, and he suspected a hidden cargo of coca, but that was none of his concern. All he cared about was getting Beth, and Dylan, to some form of safety.

She gave out when they reached the gangplank to the ship, and he scooped her up, ignoring her futile struggles. He carried her through the narrow corridors to the tiny cabin, kicking the door open and setting her down on the narrow berth. She tried to sit up, but he simply shoved her back down with a bit too much enthusiasm, and she stayed put.

“Yeah, I know,” he said in a rough voice. “What you need most is not to have to look at me. Dylan and I have the room next door, and if you need anything just knock on the wall. We’re sailing at midnight, and I can bring you food if you want . . .”

“Bathroom,” she said in a hoarse voice.

He hadn’t even thought of it. “You’re in luck sweetheart. You have the one and only en suite on the entire ship. Even the captain has to share.” She was off the bunk before he’d finished speaking, and a moment later the door was slammed shut in his face.

He didn’t wait to hear her start retching. He closed the door quietly behind him, then paused, leaning his forehead against the door for a long, empty moment, before going in search of Dylan.

Beth sank down on the bathroom floor. It was tiny – there as barely enough room for her, but she didn’t care if she had to wrap herself around the toilet. She couldn’t stand any longer. Couldn’t be around MacGowan any longer. She was filled with shame, horror and disgust, mostly with herself. It wasn’t so much a traditional bathroom as a wet room, and she turned on the shower spray, yanking off her clothes. Her underwear was stiff, and she remembered why as heat flushed her body and she began to shake again.

She could put everything in order, mentally, when she had time to breathe again. She’d shower, put on clean clothes and lie down on the bed. It would take time, but eventually her jumbled, insane reactions would make sense to her.

She showered quickly, knowing the water supply on a ship like this wouldn’t be endless. The towel was threadbare but clean, and the one small suitcase Finn had allowed her was sitting in the tiny room. She dressed quickly, certain her familiar clothes would bring a measure of security back to her.

She was wrong.

She had no strength. Her legs were shaking, barely able to hold her up, and her hands could barely manage the zipper to her baggy jeans. Baggier now, after the days of erratic provisions. Which didn’t matter; there wasn’t a woman alive who wasn’t happier ten pounds lighter. She just managed to crawl into the bunk, closing her eyes as she felt the slight rocking of the boat.

She should have warned him about her seasickness, but there hadn’t really been time. At least she had a room of her own to be sick in. What was another five or six days with an empty stomach? She’d look like a fashion model when she arrived in Spain. She needed to concentrate on that, not on all the blank, staring eyes she’d seen this day. All the men MacGowan had killed. It was too dark a horror to face, and she’d rather sleep and avoid it, avoid everything.

And she did, drifting in and out, glad of at least a few hours before they set out on the ocean. The cabin was stuffy, but she couldn’t stop shivering, and she burrowed under the blankets. What in God’s name was wrong with her? She could blame it on the violence, the death, the blood, the stink and sweat of it all. But that had nothing to do with the fierce rush of heat that had taken her when Finn was . . .

She shouldn’t be thinking about it. But pushing it away wasn’t working; she needed to put it all in perspective. It had to be the desperate nature of the situation. Death had been so close, and it was no wonder that some kind of life-affirming emotion had swept through her. That was all sex was, after all. The most elemental creation of life.

She was lying to herself and she knew it. It hadn’t been anything that pure or intellectual. It had been raw need. Maybe this was simply the female variant of the male’s need for sexual conquest in the face of death. Maybe a female needed to be taken.

She moaned, burying her face in the pillow. She was full of shit. Temporary insanity, brought about by stress. Temporary insanity that was lingering. She was shivering, but her skin felt hot inside her clothes, and she wanted his hands on her. She, who had never really wanted anyone in her life, wanted MacGowan to finish what he started.

It would pass. That was the definition of the disease – it was temporary, and it would be over. In the meantime, seasickness seemed an almost welcome diversion, and she looked forward to it.

Six hours later she’d changed her mind. Six hours later she would have put up with the tender attentions of the real Alcista rather than the dry heaves that were plaguing her. She could hear the rain beating against the porthole, feel the rough seas bounce beneath them, and she stifled the moan that was a far cry from what she’d been feeling earlier. She’d managed to drag herself to and from the bathroom at regular intervals, using the wastebasket as a substitute in between, but she wasn’t sure she could manage the crawl back into the berth. She lay on the floor, panting, hating the ocean, hating MacGowan, hating everything under the sun.

She heard the soft knock at the door, not for the first time, and she ignored it as the ship took a sudden lurch. “Sister Beth,” came Finn’s laid-back voice. “We’re going to have to talk about it.”

“Go away!” She kept her voice steady. At least she’d had the sense to lock the door. MacGowan was not the epitome of sensitivity, and she doubted he’d listen to polite excuses. The locked door would take care of it.

“Now, darlin’,” he said in a deliberately beguiling voice that she didn’t believe for a minute. “You can’t just keep ignoring it. Let me in, we’ll talk about it, and then we never have to think about it again.”

Fat chance, she thought, curling in on herself, her arms clasped to her stomach. Talking would only make it worse. She was perfectly capable of ignoring those moments in the horrible apartment, pretending it never happened. At least she would be once she was on solid land again, once she was able to even contemplate eating something, once she’d gotten away from the ridiculous temptation that was Finn MacGowan.

In the meantime she was going to suffer in private. As long as she could flush the toilet and splash her face and mouth with cold water she’d survive. Seasickness never killed anyone.

“Let me in,” MacGowan said again, his voice no longer so beguiling. She didn’t bother answering. Let him see what it was like to be ignored.

He shook the door knob. “Are you going to open it?”

There was no missing the threat in his voice. “Go fuck yourself,” she said, burying her face against the scrubbed wooden floor.

“Suit yourself,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. One that she choked on, when he proceeded to slam his body against the door, breaking the flimsy lock so that the door was flung open.

“Jesus H. Christ, Beth,” he muttered, kneeling down beside her. He scooped her up in his arms, and the sudden move only made her dizziness worse. Lucky for him her stomach was empty, or she would have proceeded to decorate him with its contents. He sat down on the bed, still holding her, and she was too sick and weary to fight it. She simply sank against him, her bones melting as every last bit of energy left her.

“Why didn’t you say something, you idiot?” he whispered in her ear.

“Wouldn’t do any good,” she muttered. He smelled good. Better than she did, at least, and she breathed in his scent. Sun-warmed skin, clean male sweat, something that was indefinably Finn MacGowan. She felt rather than heard someone else enter the room, and for a moment she stiffened, suddenly back in that filthy apartment, until she heard Dylan’s voice.

“Dude, is she okay?”

“Just seasick. It’ll pass.”

“No, it won’t,” she moaned.

“She’s not gonna die, is she?”

“Yes,” she said.

“No.” Heartless bastard. “Once we get some food in her she’ll feel a thousand times better.”

“I hate you,” she said weakly.

“Of course you do, baby,” he said with disgusting cheer. “Go see if you can get me some chicken soup, some crackers, and a bottle of whiskey.”

“Should she have whiskey on a bad stomach?”

“The whiskey’s for me, mate.”

She was too tired and sick to fight him. She settled back against him, closing her eyes, as she felt him stroke her hair, her back, murmuring incomprehensible things that somehow managed to soothe her. She even let him pour some soup down her throat, a little bit at a time, followed by dry crackers.

“Enough,” she muttered, and he leaned over, placing the food on the table.

“Now you need sleep, love,” he said.

She was past fighting him. He shifted, and she expected him to set her down on the narrow bed. Instead he simply lay down beside her, keeping her firmly in his arms, his hands still stroking her. She knew she should tell him to get the hell away from her, but for some reason she couldn’t loosen the grip she had on his shirt, and she gave in. Some things were just too hard to fight.

She woke once in the middle of the night, certain she was going to lose the small amount of food he’d managed to get in her. But he held her, whispering to her, calming her, and she was able to fall back asleep, safe in his arms. And when she awoke next the sun was shining, her stomach was calm, and he was gone.

Barringer was playing solitaire. With real cards, not on the computer. You couldn’t cheat on a computer, and he intended to win at any cost, even when he played against himself, even when there were no stakes at all but his knowledge that he was in control.

He felt the rumble in his chest pocket and he jumped. It was that cell phone they insisted he carry. He did his best to keep from giving out the number. He didn’t like it, and not even the knowledge that it could keep his operatives tethered to him was enough to make him comfortable with it.

He reached into his chest pocket and pulled it out. Even worse, it wasn’t a phone call but a text message, one he couldn’t read without his glasses. He grumbled beneath his breath, fished out the glasses and read.

It was from his man in Callavera. “Sully dead. Target escaped. Any orders?”

He didn’t know how to delete messages, so he simply put it back in his pocket, resisting the strange impulse to throw the phone. He never cursed, never lost his temper. It was a set-back, he told himself, but nothing was ever out of reach if you were patient enough. Not even Thomas Killian.

He’d need to make sure they’d gotten on the freighter. It was due to land in Spain in six days. Plenty of time to come up with a new plan.

MacGowan was instructing Dylan in some of the finer points of playing poker when Sister Beth emerged from her cabin, pale but stalwart. It looked as if the worst of her seasickness had passed, and she was nibbling on one of the hard biscuits he’d left in her room.

They were sitting on a small section of the deck that the captain had grudgingly cleared for them, and he had his sunglasses on, hiding his gaze from her. She didn’t need to see his eyes. If she did she’d know he was just a hair’s breadth from throwing her down on the deck and shagging the hell out of her, and she was in no shape for even the suggestion of his animal lusts.

Maybe it would have been better if he’d been able to spend a couple of hours with a cheerful professional, but La Luz had put paid to that idea. He’d been planning to go out once he’d gotten the paperwork done . . .

Who the fuck was he trying to fool? Himself? If he’d wanted to get fucked so badly he would have gone straight for that and not bothered with the steak. He may as well admit the truth. He hadn’t wanted just anyone to take care of the raging need that drove him. He’d wanted Beth.

He could have had her. He could have told her the men were watching too closely – he could have brought them into the room. He could have had her any way he could, with or without an audience.

But some stupid-ass strain of decency, that he would have thought was long-banished, had reared its ugly head, just as his cock had, and he couldn’t do it to her.

So instead he’d lost it and come all over her, no doubt completing her disgust of the male sex in general and him in particular. He’d felt her shudder in his arms, and while he would have loved to think it was nascent desire, he was probably wrong.

“You look like you’re feeling more human,” he observed in an even voice. He hadn’t dared stay with her, not after she’d rubbed up against him in her sleep like a hungry kitten looking for its mother.

She ignored him, as he’d expected, but to his surprise she went over to Dylan and put her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

Dylan turned beet red. “Dude!” he protested.

She released him, giving him the warm, open smile she’d never given MacGowan and probably never would, and he wanted to take the kid and pitch him over the side of the ship. “I’m just glad you’re alive,” she said. She finally looked at MacGowan, her blue eyes revealing nothing. “Is this a private game or can anyone play?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You think you’re up to it, Sister Beth? I’m already dealing with one rank amateur and I don’t usually make allowances for beginners.”

“Dude!” Dylan began.

“Shut up.”

“No quarter given?” Beth was unfazed. “Fine with me. You want to waive the reward you’re demanding for getting me out of that hellhole?”

“Hell, no. You may cheat. We’ll play for something a little less crucial to my future comfort. Strip poker?”

“Dude!”

“Not you,” MacGowan reassured Dylan. “Your scrawny ass holds no interest for me.”

“Good thing, since we’re sharing a cabin,” Dylan grumbled.

MacGowan hid his smile. “What do you say, Sister Beth?”

Her gaze was cool and unpromising. “I think I’d rather win something that interested me, and I’ve already seen you naked.”

“You have?” Dylan was clearly horrified.

MacGowan didn’t bother to hide his irritation. Dylan hadn’t needed to hear the down and dirty details of Beth’s rescue. “Don’t worry, kid. She’s still a virgin.”

“I am not!” she snapped, effectively goaded.

“Close enough.” He kicked the extra chair out for her. “Have a seat. When you come up with stakes that interest me I’ll deal you in.”

“Why can’t we bargain with food the way we were doing?” Dylan said. “You just won my dinner.”

“Because I want her to eat. She’s so thin a stiff breeze could blow her away,” he drawled, mentally cursing himself for using the word “stiff” in conjunction with Beth. He was having a hard enough time already.

“You’re assuming you’ll win,” she said in a dulcet tone.

“I cheat.”

“So do I.”

“Dude!”