"No word?" Devon Wallace
answered the call from Dino
without even the politeness of a
'hello'. His cousin Terry had
gone missing on an operation two
weeks before. Dino had finally
admitted as much to Devon after
several futile efforts to go in
after his partner and head
negotiator had failed. He had
to admit it - Devon was
threatening to come up there and
personally strangle Dino and the
whole crew if he didn't at least
tell him something - anything!
"Nah - sorry, Dev. Wish I had
better news." He sighed, chewing
on an unlit cigar, listening to
the former skinhead's pithy
silence crackle down the phone
line. "There is one thing - "
"Oh, I'm sure this is gonna be
good," Devon interrupted. If he
knew what to do, he'd be up
there doing it. After all,
hadn't Terry played a big role
in rescuing him when he'd been
kidnapped several years before?
"I was just going to say, we're
overdue for some kind of contact
from them - radio message, maybe
even a proof-of-life. I'm hoping
for the latter but would be
happy with just the message at
this point." He peered outside
the tent where he stood using
the cell phone. It was raining.
Again. Gloomy, chilly and darkly
gray. He fucking hated summer in
the Antipodes - nothing was as
it should be. Cold instead of
hot. Rainy and damp instead of
sunny and beachy - everything
fucking upside down. Typical
Aussie bullshit. "What?"
Devon repeated himself, aware
that Dino's attention had
wandered. "I said, you'll keep
me apprised, won't you?" The
unspoken promise being that if
he didn't, Devon would be up
there like a shot. It was good
to be rich - paid for all sorts
of things like private jets,
helicopters, a sense of
authority. Devon would have
given a good chunk of that money
right now to know his cousin was
safe. Besides, their
grandmother, a formidable woman,
would have his hide if there
wasn't word pretty soon.
They rang off and Devon sighed,
steeling himself to go update
their grandmother. Gram was
going to rip a strip out of his
hide from sheer impatience any
day now. He didn't particularly
blame her.
Valentina Harcourt - aged
thirty, she of the brilliant
dark eyes and thick curly hair
that resisted the attempts of
even the most accomplished
hairdressers to do anything but
spring, like a Boticelli
angel's, all over her head; she
of the cream-and-roses
complexion, the body somewhat
inclined to much more
curvaceousness than was
currently fashionable; stubborn,
well-educated, independent -
sneezed loudly and wished for
the umpty-umph time she had
never EVER heard of the Red
Mountains.
She had come on a whim, thinking
a nature hike in the mountains
would do her some good. Get away
from Sydney and the pressures to
be social just because she was
the daughter of General Harcourt
and his silly society butterfly
wife. Rowena McNabb Harcourt,
heiress to an American
manufacturing fortune, born to
the purple, married to the
dashing Aussie officer when she
was 21 and fresh out of Smith,
simply did not understand why
she had been cursed with a
daughter who regarded society
events with a disdain that
bordered on hatred. Of course,
Val mused, her mother had been
slim as a reed since birth,
seemed to know instinctively
which shoes went with which
designer outfit and which
jewelry would be just right and
not clank too self-importantly.
Whereas she, apparently a
changeling, sometimes had
difficulty seeing why she
couldn't wear her scuffed old
Blunderstones with her tatty
britches to go to some society
equestrian event.
That was another thing - why
couldn't her mother's circle
just go riding for the fun of
it? No, everything had to be for
a cause - some charity or other
- mentally ill pygmy children,
mixed-race orphans of the Timor
war,
send-a-heifer-to-a-poor-family
in X country - nothing could
just be for the sake of itself.
It annoyed the shit out of her.
She sighed and turned onto her
left side, listening to the
incessant rain dripping on the
tin roof of the shed where the
pseudo-military goons were
holding her.
Some kind of rescue would come -
she was sure of that. In fact,
she thought one had been
attempted about 8 days earlier.
There had been sudden excitement
throughout the stronghold on the
mountainside - a lot of comings
and goings, whispered
conversations that stopped when
she peeked her head out the door
to see what was going on, and
she'd been pretty much kept
locked in the fucking cabin
since then. Well, actually since
she'd decided to boldly walk out
the door and seen a group of
muddy men in varying kinds of
camo fatigues dragging an even
muddier man into the main shed
that served as headquarters for
Idiot Borden and his group of
Merry Men, as she had christened
them.
She hadn't recognized the
dragged person - and the next
time she saw him, he was being
prodded to walk from a nearby
outbuilding to the headquarters.
He had seemed tired, perhaps
hurt since he was limping
slightly, and he had suddenly
turned an intense green gaze on
her that hit her like a jolt of
electricity. He knew who she
was! Before she could say
anything, though, one of the
guards had suddenly seen her on
the rickety steps and come
running over to shove her inside
and slam the door, standing in
front of it until she gave up on
getting out again. That day,
anyway.
So. She pondered now. Who was
Mister Green Eyes? Further - if
he was come to rescue her, it
seemed he'd botched it. What
next? She sneezed again, uttered
a profanity, and subsided onto
her thin old pillow. May as well
nap. Nothing else to do. Maybe
answers would come sooner if she
slept.
The hand throbbed incessantly.
He'd gotten the bleeding to stop
by dint of applying pressure
with the towel he'd found in a
heap on the floor. It was
wrapped around the hand now, but
it wasn't clean and he knew the
wound was infected. He didn't
need to look at it to know that
- the tendency to shiver,
alternated with periods where he
was so hot he thought he'd melt
told him that much. It also told
him he needed to get it seen to
soon or risk the infection
growing worse. If that happened,
he'd be of much less use to
himself, and Harcourt's
daughter.
Terry Thorne sat huddled on the
damp stone floor. He was being
kept in the old gatehouse of a
once-grand mountain retreat
formerly owned by a wealthy
Englishman who had grown bored
with the utter remoteness of the
place and abandoned it to the
elements. And Colonel Borden.
He was naked, alternately
shivering and sweating, still
highly annoyed with himself for
getting caught, and wondering if
Dino was going to lead in the
cavalry before Christmas or just
abandon him to his fate for
being such an idiot. He wouldn't
really blame him if he did the
latter.
Terry sighed, wished again for a
blanket or his muddy shirt at
least, but they only gave him
his clothes when they were
walking him over to have another
session with Borden. He resigned
himself to waiting it out. He
fucking hated waiting things
out. Idiot, clumsy, bungling
idiot. . .
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Click on the sword
for Part Three
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