XXIII.

He was burning hot, and she was terrified. It was the middle of the night and he had started muttering and thrashing an hour before. Clara couldn't make out anything he said. The jumbled phrases made no sense. But once he called her name.

"I'm here, Jack. Lie still, darling. Please lie still. You'll reopen the wound."

But he hadn't given any indication that he had heard her. He continued to thrash, kicking off the covers she piled on top of him, flailing his arms about until she caught his hands and lay across his stomach to hold them still.

"Jack. Jack, please be still. Please." She was crying as she begged. She had never felt so helpless or so alone in her life. He was dying, right there in her arms. She knew he was. No one could burn so and live. And there was nothing she could do. No one she could call. No help she could give him.

"Please don't let him die!" She turned to G.o.d, that solace of her youth. As a child she had spent every Sunday morning in church, and said her prayers every night of her life. As an adult she was not nearly so conscientious, but now, when there was no one else, she turned to He from whom all blessings flowed. And she prayed as she had never prayed in her life.

Her arms were resting across the hard flesh of his stomach. His skin was so hot that it burned to the touch. He was groaning in pain, and she had nothing to help ease it. Then the groans turned to whimpers, pitiful helpless whimpers like a hurt child. There had to be something she could do for him, there had to be. She could not just let him die! Clara gritted her teeth. She would not.

His fever had to be brought down, and he had to be kept still. Those were her immediate priorities. Straddling him to keep him as still as she could, she reached for the torn top sheet, ripping long strips from it. Those she tied together to form a rope. That done, she scooted down so that she was sitting on his thighs, and quickly wrapped one end of the rope around his twitching wrists. His head thrashed from side to side as she wrapped the rope around him until he was bound like a mummy from his navel to his ankles. His hands were caught inside the binding. Knotting the rope at his ankles, she only hoped that her makeshift straitjacket would hold. Then she got up, grabbed the ice bucket, and ran outside to the ice machine in the little cubicle three doors down. In the quiet hours before dawn the area was deserted. Clara looked uneasily around at the shadowy darkness beyond the yellow motel lighting, but saw nothing out of place. Still, she thought of Rostov and her heart pounded.

When she let herself back into the room she forgot all about Rostov. Jack's entire body was jerking, rising off the green carpet in spasmodic heaves. Oh, dear G.o.d, don't let him die!

Dumping the ice in the sink, she filled it with cold water and soaked the fitted bottom sheet in it. When the sheet was dripping wet, she carried it back over to Jack, kneeling as she wrapped the icy wet cloth around him, leaving only a small opening for him to breathe and another around his wound. She wanted to keep the wound as dry as she could, but the priority had to be bringing down his fever.

She soaked and wrapped and soaked and wrapped, and at last he was still. His skin was still overly warm, but not as fiery hot as it had been. His breathing seemed easier. Clara was exhausted, but she could not leave him lying there soaking wet. He needed to be dry.

Every muscle in her body ached. She was so tired that she could barely lift her arms. Her left hand with its broken finger was killing her. Looking down, she saw that the splint Jack had made for her out of his underwear was soaking wet. But she was too tired to unwrap her finger and deal with what was underneath. Swallowing two aspirin, she set herself to untying and unwrapping the makeshift straitjacket she had put on him. Finally she had the last of it off. Still be lay without moving. She prayed that he had pa.s.sed from unconsciousness to sleep.

His pants were soaked, as was the open shirt. Unb.u.t.toned and unzipped, they still clung to him, the wet material loathe to leave his body. She yanked and pulled and tugged until she had them off. Then she cut off the shirt. He was naked except for the bandage, legs sprawled, left arm outflung, right arm, the one nearest the wound, close to his side. Carefully she dried him with a blanket. His nakedness seemed as natural to her as her own. When she was done, she pulled off her own sweater and jeans. Wearing just her teddy, she lay down beside him, pulling the rest of the covers over them both. Nuzzling her face against his side and wrapping her arms around his middle, she whispered another prayer for his life. In the middle of it she fell asleep.

Forty-five minutes later his restless mutterings woke her. For a moment she was groggy, not knowing quite where she was or what had happened. Then she felt the burning heat of his skin. The fever had returned. Groaning, she got up and repeated the process she had been through before, fetching ice and soaking sheets and wrapping him in them. And as before his fever went down, she dried him and went back to sleep.

Before morning she repeated the procedure twice more. By the time the sun rose she was sitting on the floor near his head, her own head flopped back on the mattress, back propped against the end of the bed. She was boneless with exhaustion. Bright spots of white floated in and out of her vision. She had never worked so hard or so desperately in her life, never prayed so fiercely nor willed anything so much. He was going to live. She would not admit any other possibility.

It occurred to her, in her half somnolent state, to wonder why it mattered so much. After all, she had only known him five days. How could a stranger- a violent, tormented stranger who played this horrifying game of kill or be killed like one born and bred to it- have come to mean so much to her so quickly? He was not her type at all. She wasn't sure what her type was, but she was sure it was not him. He wasn't even handsome, or at least she remembered she hadn't thought so at the beginning. Now she found him wildly attractive, but she suspected that it was the result of some kind of chemical effect he had on her hormones. With him she was as uninhibitedly pa.s.sionate as any of the heroines in her books. It was not something she had ever expected of herself, and she did not like it. Craving a man's body like an addictive drug just was not nice. Certainly it was nothing to make her fall in love...

Her mind winced away from the thought. She could not, would not, fall in love with him. It was ridiculous, impossible. He was crazy, for G.o.d's sake, and she wasn't referring to his past breakdown. He liked violence, liked danger; she knew he did, could see it in his eyes whenever they were in a tight spot. He had torn her from her home, endangered her life every half hour, been rude to her, insulted her, manhandled her- and he hated cats! She could not be in love with him.

She had always had the feeling that somewhere in the world was a man meant by fate just for her, her soulmate. A gentleman, a knight in shining armor, someone with whom she could fall madly, irretrievably in love. Someone with whom she would blissfully spend the rest of her life. Clara's head lifted from the bed and she stared down at Jack in a kind of horror. Pale, unshaven, breathing stertorously through an open mouth, black hair standing up around his head in spikes, he looked dearer than all the world to her. Her heart warmed, but her mind shuddered with horror. Please, dear G.o.d, she added an addendum to her original prayer, don't let my soulmate be him!

He was muttering. Clara sighed, pushing the unwelcome thoughts away. Whether he was one of life's little dirty tricks or not, he had only her to care for him. And his fever was up again.

It was late afternoon. Clara was sprawled wearily on the floor beside Jack, too tired even to sleep. She had battled the fever all day, and at last she thought she might be winning. He was sleeping now, really sleeping. She wished she could. But she had pa.s.sed beyond that point. She was tired to death, but sleep refused to come.

"Clara." The mutter was indistinct, and for a moment she thought she had imagined it.

"Clara." He was calling her! The knowledge banished her tiredness. Scrambling over beside him, she touched his cheek.

"Jack, I'm here. Right here, darling."

He opened his eyes. His green eyes were feverish and bright, but aware.

"What... happened?"

"Don't you remember? You were shot. When we were escaping from Rostov and his men."

"Ahh." He was silent for a moment, eyes closed. Then they flickered open again. "I see we... made it."

"Yes. We're safe. Don't worry." She wanted to soothe him. Impulsively she bent down to kiss his cheek. His eyes adjusted to look at her as she straightened. His lips moved in what might have been meant for a smile.

"You're a good egg, baby."

Clara didn't know what encomiums she had been expecting, but that brief compliment made her want to laugh and cry and bash him over the head and hug him at the same time. When she thought back over the battle with death she had waged for the last twenty-four hours, to be greeted with You're a good, egg, baby seemed like something of an anticlimax. But what had she expected, anyway? Protestations of undying grat.i.tude and devotion? Not from Jack.

"You're a good egg, too, Jack," she told him with a rueful smile, and gave him a thumbs up sign. This time his smile looked more like the real thing.

"You got the bullet out, didn't you?"

Clara blinked at him. "How did you know?"

"I know you. Nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it. Remarkable- remarkable woman." His speech was slurring. His eyes blinked once, then closed.

"Jack!" She was panic stricken, leaning over him. She hadn't known how much she needed his conscious presence until that instant.

His eyes flickered open again.

"Call Ramsey," he said. And then they closed. Clara called to him, even shook him a little in her fear, but to no avail. He was either unconscious or deeply asleep. She sat back on her heels, chewing her lower lip with worry. Call Ramsey, he'd said. He must mean General "Wild Bill" Ramsey from Camp Lejeune. But was General Ramsey on their side? True, he had not shot them down when they had been in the stolen helicopter, but he had not helped them other than that, as far as she could see. But Jack had told her to call him. Had he been out of his head? She didn't think so. Clara pondered a while longer. Then she made up her mind and picked up the phone.

"I want to place a call to Camp Lejeune," she said into the receiver.

XXIV.

General Ramsey arrived within the hour. Waiting for him, Clara had been so nervous that she had paced the room, alternating between staring down at Jack and peeping out the window. When she had placed the call to Camp Lejeune, Ramsey's secretary had answered the phone. Clara had almost hung up, but instead she had nervously given her name. The secretary had seemed to have no idea who she was. Clara had begun to doubt that the general would even speak to her. But in seconds he had been on the line.

"Where the h.e.l.l are you?" he had barked.

Far from being taken aback at such a greeting, Clara had felt relieved. He sounded almost as if he were scolding an errant soldier, not as if he were talking to one of a pair of wanted criminals.

"At a truck stop in Swansboro. I- I think it's called the Stop and Eat. At least that's what the sign says."

"Good G.o.d!"

Not sure whether this bellicose interjection had to do with the place they were staying or with some other matter, Clara had gone on.

"General, Jack told me to call you. He's quite badly hurt."

"What happened?" Then he had snorted. "Never mind. Save it. I'll be with you in an hour." He had paused. "Miss Winston, don't open the door to anyone else."

"No, I won't," Clara had agreed with fervor. And she had kept the pistol close at hand as she waited for General Ramsey to arrive. But she had spent the entire hour praying she wouldn't have to use it. She'd shot it once, in extreme terror, but she couldn't remember quite how she'd done it. And she wasn't sure if she could count on renewed terror to remind her.

When the two nondescript station wagons pulled up out front, Clara felt her heart pound so wildly that it was all she could hear. But her fear was a.s.sauged in an instant. There was no mistaking General Ramsey. Uniform and all, he was the epitome of a high ranking marine officer. He exited from the pa.s.senger door of the first station wagon while a balding, fortyish officer who was obviously his subordinate exited from the driver's side, and another, younger officer stepped out of the rear. As the senior officer moved around the car, Clara recognized more than his uniform and breathed a sigh of relief. She'd only had a brief glimpse of "Wild Bill" Ramsey, but there was no mistaking that leathery face or grizzled crew cut.

While General Ramsey and the other officers strode toward her, four other marines, ordinary grunts as Jack would doubtless call them, got out of the other car and closed ranks behind the general. It looked like the general had brought his own private army. Thank G.o.d! Clara moved quickly to pull the chair from beneath the doork.n.o.b. She had it open before General Ramsey and his men reached it.

"Miss Winston." He nodded his head. "Where's... Ah."

This last came as she stood back to let him enter and he saw Jack huddled beneath his pile of covers on the floor.

"What happened?' he asked grimly, surveying Jack and then the bloodstained towels and pieces of sheet and clothing littering the room. As Clara told him, jerkily, the second officer entered to be introduced as Captain Spencer. He was followed by the third officer, who was introduced as Captain Kryzanski, physician. Clara was so glad to see a real live doctor that she could have hugged him. General Ramsey called her sternly back to account as the ordinary grunts deployed themselves outside the door, which he then shut and locked. Feeling almost dizzy with relief at such reinforcements, Clara told him all that had occurred from the time they left Camp Lejeune.

"Jack's told the truth about everything, General, I swear it. The KGB is really after him, and there is a mole and microfilm and-" Her desperate attempt to convince General Ramsey of Jack's innocence before Jack could be carted off to some kind of prison was cut short with a brusque wave of his hand.

"I know that," he said curtly. Then, "McClain and I reached an understanding while he was at Camp Lejeune. No one was to know. But I think you're in it as much as anyone now. You may as well know what the h.e.l.l's going on."

"Why, thank you, General," Clara said, taken aback. Jack hadn't told her about any accord with the general. She cast a dark look down at him. He hadn't told her about the microfilm either, until he'd had to. She wondered what else he was keeping from her.

"Somebody did a good job of patching him up." The doctor straightened from where he knelt over Jack. "The bullet's out, and as far as I can tell it hit a dead spot. No vital organs. Missed the heart, lungs, liver, the works. He's a lucky SOB. Oh, sorry. He's a lucky guy."

"That's all right, doctor."

"You get the bullet out?" General Ramsey was regarding her with keen eyes. Clara nodded. "Well, he said you were a d.a.m.n fine woman."

Her eyes widened at that. But before she could reply Jack stirred, calling her name.

"I'm here, Jack," she said, moving toward him just as his eyes opened. They touched on her face briefly, then widened as they took in the doctor and Captain Spencer. She saw his muscles tense. Then General Ramsey moved forward. Jack saw him and seemed to relax.

"Good to see you, General." He frowned, concentrating.

"The hit's going to take place on Seabrook Island itself. First day of the summit, just as the eagle lands. The hit man's a sleeper in a position of trust."

The colonel was visibly excited. "How the h.e.l.l did you find that out?"

Jack tried another of those weak smiles. "I had a little conversation with Rostov. Ask Clara. She'll tell you all about it."

General Ramsey nodded, then jerked his head in the doctor's direction. Captain Spencer led the protesting man out of earshot. General Ramsey bent over Jack and spoke in a low tone: "I personally spoke to the president yesterday to brief him on what was going on. On my say-so he took it seriously. He's pa.s.sed the word on only to his most trusted aides. No one else knows. The security for all the president's senior advisors has been tightened so as not to let on that we're expecting something to happen to the secretary of state in particular. Now that we know precisely where the hit will be, and when, we'll take care of it. Security on that d.a.m.ned island will be tighter than a matador's pants. And we'll see that you're taken to a hospital, and later get your name cleared. Don't worry about a thing. Your part's done for now. And a d.a.m.n good job."

Jack shook his head. "You're not counting me out because of a little hole in my side." Concentrating for the length of his conversation with Ramsey had clearly taken a toll on him. His words were slurring. But he made an obvious effort. "You need me. The agency's no help while Bigfoot is on the loose. Even the secretary of state's own secret service guard is suspect. Everybody is suspect; the sleeper could be anywhere. I want to be there. At the hit. On the Island. It's my baby, General."

General Ramsey frowned. "There's no need. You're not up to it. And what about Miss Winston?"

"I go with Jack," Clara interjected. Jack looked up at her for a moment, hugging herself as she stood near his head, then his eyes shifted back to General Ramsey and he nodded.

"You heard the lady. She stays with me."

"It's d.a.m.n foolishness. You're wounded, you need to be in a hospital."

Jack shook his head. "I won't be safe in a hospital. Not at Lejeune, not anywhere. Not until Bigfoot's uncovered. And you know it, General. Besides, I have some more information for you. Might be vital. I'll give it to you when you get me to Seabrook Island."

General Ramsey looked angry. "That's blackmail!"

Jack's eyes narrowed. His shoulders moved in what might have been a shrug. "Whatever works."

General Ramsey stared down at him for a moment, his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows working furiously. Clara held her breath...

"You've got b.a.l.l.s, McClain, I'll give you that. You always did." He shook his head and suddenly grinned. "All right, boy, you've got it. We're going to Seabrook Island."

XXV.

Seabrook Island was gorgeous. It was a twenty-two-hundred acre private resort of lush flowers, moss draped trees and rain forest vegetation located off the South Carolina coast twenty-three miles from Charleston. Breakers crashed against the resort's white sand beaches. Three-story balconied villas of silvered timbers faced the ocean on one side and a central, porticoed lodge on the other. Other groups of villas were situated on the edge of the golf course fairway and in the maritime forest. Small inland waterways rife with birds and wildlife meandered across the island to spill into the sea. Manmade lakes glittered in the verdant setting like sapphires. A great salt marsh of tall rushes growing thickly on acres of mud and water separated the island from the mainland. The island paradise was the perfect spot for a dream vacation- or a very hush-hush summit meeting.

Three days after they had arrived with General Ramsey in rented cars (the military variety having been deemed too conspicuous), Jack was already sitting up in bed in the three-bedroom villa that had been provided for the two of them. He was an aggravating patient, but Clara was so relieved that he really wasn't going to die that she didn't mind. She fetched and carried for him uncomplainingly, feeding him his meals when he was too weak to eat himself, giving him sponge baths in bed when he very loudly preferred her ministrations to those of the doctor. When General Ramsey appeared for his twice daily huddle with Jack, she either sat in on the meetings or vanished for a walk along the beach, according to the gentlemen's preference. She could always tell by General Ramsey's eyebrows if he wanted to be private with Jack, and she had no objection to leaving the two of them alone. She loved walking along the lonely stretches of seawashed white sand, which were almost deserted now during the resort's off-season. She didn't like to leave Jack alone, and he didn't like being left to Captain Kryzanski's tender mercies, so the general's confidential visits were about the only free time she had. If Clara asked, she was sure that Jack would tell her what went on during those meetings, but Clara didn't ask. She didn't particularly want to know all the details of the plots the two of them were hatching. She had an uneasy feeling that whatever it was they were getting so excited about would end up involving a lot of bloodshed. Jack seemed to thrive on violence, and Wild Bill Ramsey wasn't much better. But Clara had had her belly full of death and guns and bloodshed. She just wanted Jack and herself safe and together, far away from the whole mess.

The notion that she might be falling in love with him unsettled her. He was too much of a loner, an outcast from all she'd been raised to hold dear. She wanted a nice, ordinary man with a nice, ordinary job so she could have a nice, ordinary life with nice, ordinary children. All of which seemed impossible with her crazy spy.

When they had first arrived on the island, they had no sooner gotten settled into the villa than General Ramsey came across the ten feet or so of scrub gra.s.s and sand that separated their villa from his, which was next door. Clara quite liked General Ramsey, helped no doubt by his p.r.o.nouncement that Puff, who was staying with his wife at Camp Lejeune until Clara could reclaim him, was a cat with personality. Jack had told her that General Ramsey was a cat lover, and described how Puff had reacted to him. In Clara's opinion, anyone whom Puff liked couldn't he all bad. So when he banged on their front door, Clara let him in with a smile. But the general obviously had something on his mind. With scarcely more than a grunt he took himself up to the bedroom where Jack was being examined by Captain Kryzanski, who along with Captain Spencer and a small platoon of marines had accompanied them.

"These kids I can trust," General Ramsey said when Clara had questioned their presence. And she could see the sense of that. In civilian clothes, as were the general and the other officers, the grunts were deployed around the villas to keep supposedly inconspicuous guard. Clara didn't think they were very inconspicuous, but then she knew they were there. She supposed if one didn't, they might pa.s.s for gardeners, or sunbathers, or whatever. As protection against Rostov and his men, if they should by some horrible mischance discover their prey's hiding place, Clara feared that the grunts would he outcla.s.sed. But Jack did not seem particularly concerned. He had laughed when he saw General Ramsey's own private security detail, and said old Wild Bill was a careful man.

"So where's the information you promised me?" General Ramsey bellowed as soon as Captain Kryzanski, in response to a scowl, had left the room. Clara had remained behind that first day, and stood, arms crossed over her chest, at the foot of the luxuriously appointed king-sized bed in the villa's master suite. She thought that Jack, who could not even sit up at that point, might need her. And so she stayed despite Ramsey's beetle-browed look.

That meeting took place less than thirty-six hours after General Ramsey had spirited them from the motel. It was Friday the ninth of October. The planned a.s.sa.s.sination of the secretary of state was exactly one week away. Jack was still very weak, but as General Ramsey gruffly told Clara there was no time to let him recover in peace. Matters were getting urgent. Time was growing short.

He was lying propped up on pillows, his aggressive chin clean-shaven and his hair neat. He was bare from the waist up, a professionally applied white bandage around his chest. His right arm was in a sling. His skin beneath its surface tan was nearly as white as the bed linen. But his eyes were bright, that familiar emerald green, and he even managed a weak grin.

"Good morning, General."

"Don't bother me with that malarkey. You promised me information. What is it?"

By way of a reply, Jack manipulated his tongue inside his mouth. He raised his hand to his lips, and seemed to spit something into his hand. While Clara watched wide-eyed, he held up a tooth with an air of triumph.

"What the h.e.l.l is that?" General Ramsey spoke for them both. Looking from Jack to the tooth in his hand, Clara saw a definite gap in his pearly smile where his right cuspid had been. Jack had a false tooth!

"You didn't think the furball was the only trick I had up my sleeve, did you, General?" Jack's eyes twinkled at Ramsey as he unscrewed the root from the crown section of the tooth. Nestled inside, a perfect fit, was a red and yellow capsule.

"Well, I'll be G.o.dd.a.m.ned!" The general sounded both amazed and affronted. Jack twisted the capsule to reveal a tiny microfilm, which he shook out into the palm of his hand. "Another microfilm? You've been holding out on me, McClain!"

"Sorry, sir, but I didn't know at that point if I could trust you or not. I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket. I've lived as long as I have because I'm a cautious man."

"Humph!" The general said, and took the microfilm from Jack's palm. "Where'd you get this one?"

Jack screwed the root back on his tooth and popped it into his mouth like a man taking a pill. He wiggled his tongue, and Clara was amazed to see the cuspid fit right into the dental arch as if it was as natural as the ones on either side of it. And maybe, she thought, frowning at Jack suspiciously, maybe it was. Her spy was chock full of surprises!

"It's half of the original microfilm Yuropov had. He cut it in two in case one half should be discovered, and I thought he had the right idea. No one was looking for two microfilms."

"By d.a.m.n!" Ramsey sounded excited, staring down at the tiny piece of brown film as if it were a holy relic. "I'll get Davey on this right away!"

"I'd like to get a look at it, too, sir."

Ramsey looked at him. "You don't have any more surprises, do you?'

McClain grinned. Clara could see that, as weak as he was, it cost him an effort. General Ramsey was tiring him. She frowned.

"That was my last one."