LITMIR.BIZ

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unnerving shock of his words caused her to gasp, a cold breath. Oh, David. Please, please don’t. You told me—we agreed.

      He hurried on. “We are so good together, Nova.” He leaned closer and wrapped her gloved hand in both of his. “I desperately care for you.”

      She pulled her hand free. She didn’t love him. Maybe she didn’t even love Joe since when he’d said the word marriage, she’d frozen, her feelings spinning, much like she felt right now. Joe was the only man in her life that she might…just might…love. But even for Joe, she hadn’t been able to wrap her emotions around giving up her dearly won freedom. She’d never do so for David.

      She clasped her hands together in her lap. “I told you up front that I’m a difficult person with a difficult life and that love and marriage were to be off-limits. We need to keep it that way.”

      “But you aren’t difficult, Nova. And your life, while it involves lots of travel and pressure, isn’t all that different from mine.”

      Oh, she thought, how wrong you are.

      “Please, David.”

      He shook his head and thrust himself heavily back into the seat. She could feel his hurt coming off him like body heat. If she stayed in the relationship, she was going to hurt David terribly. She had thought, wrongly, that she could set up parameters to keep it all safe.

      Her spirit, soaring for hours, deflated: a gay balloon slashed by a serrated Ka-Bar, a knife with which she was all too familiar. Sometimes life was good, but too often those times didn’t last long.

      “Okay,” he said. “We stay with our original agreement.”

      No. That isn’t possible now. You care too much.

      Later, when he snuggled up beside her in bed after they’d made love, her heart aching with every kiss, guilty, sad, knowing that she was saying goodbye but unwilling to utterly destroy their last night together, she closed her eyes and sighed, dreading what she had to say to him tomorrow.

      Chapter 2

      The Amazon—Ten Miles Downriver from

      Manaus, Brazil, near the Meeting of the Waters

      A birding tour group of ten Americans intending to cruise the great Amazon River for fifteen glorious days, stopping each night at a different site, had rented a two-decker, forty-foot boat. This afternoon they had anchored at a wide spot on the Amazon’s north shore. Half a mile down lay the Meeting of the Waters, the point where the black Rio Negro and the reddish-brown Rio Solimões joined to become the mighty Amazon. A little like pouring molasses and water together, the two feeder rivers didn’t mix right away. For many kilometers they ran side by side, black and red, although eventually the red color would win. That marvelous natural phenomenon thrilled and fascinated them all.

      But in the darkness, shortly before eight, their trip took a turn into nightmare. Fifteen heavily armed men boarded their boat.

      One of the men, Carlito Gomez, had until now never been much farther than fifty kilometers from his own home in southern Brazil. He stood, bloody machete in hand, over the corpse of the man he’d just killed. The dead man, identified to Carlito and the others by a photo they had brought with them, lay face down on the floor of the cruise boat’s main cabin surrounded by the nine other terrified Americanos, also sprawled on their bellies. They had stopped screaming, but most of the women were crying.

      The dead man’s arms were both pinned beneath him. Carlito reached down and pulled the left arm free.

      “No, no!” his boss, Felipe Martinez, yelled. “The Eagle says it must be his right hand.”

      Quick to obey, Carlito pulled the right arm free and used the machete to finish the job. The other passengers began screaming again. A woman, probably the dead man’s wife, shrieked, “Ellis!” so loudly it hurt Carlito’s ears.

      Using his body as a screen, Carlito snatched up what looked like a real gold watch from the dead man’s wrist. Felipe didn’t notice. Felipe’s big concern was the black boy, and he had turned his attention to securing the boy’s hands. The Eagle’s other men were also occupied with binding and gagging their prisoners. Carlito felt a quick flush of greed rev his already adrenaline-fueled pulse. It looked like he could get away with keeping and then selling the watch for himself. He stuffed it into his pocket.

      The other teenaged boy, the pretty blond one, attempted to be Mr. Macho and tried to stand. Felipe bashed him in the head with the butt end of his Beretta. The kid collapsed onto the deck, blood running down his forehead and dripping off the tip of his nose.

      “Get it up to the iced package,” Felipe commanded. “Now!”

      Carlito dropped the machete and gingerly plucked up the severed hand. He scrambled across the cabin, clumsily kicking the machete, and climbed the short flight of steps to the upper deck, which was covered but open on the sides. From the roof over his head came the heavy splatting of Amazon basin rain. He stepped around the boat captain, who was still out cold on the deck and now bound.

      Carlito opened the white, insulated box. Felipe had brought it with them, already prepared to deliver this message from Manaus, Brazil, to the office of the vice president of the United States of America. The package, delivered by an untraceable courier, should arrive in Washington no later than tomorrow afternoon.

      Carlito slipped the hand into a plastic bag and then took care, using a pair of gloves brought for the purpose, to arrange the dried ice around it before replacing the interior insulation. Finished, he taped the package shut. An address and postage were already on the top.

      Felipe emerged from the cabin followed by the other men, shoving hostages. One by one, the men walked the captives on a makeshift plank across the black water onto their own riverboat, stolen earlier in the day for this purpose.

      Carlito was now suffering a nagging worry about getting away. There were no roads between here and Manaus. In fact, there were no roads at all going south into Brazil from Manaus. The single road out went north to Venezuela. Plane fare being expensive, common folk left by riverboat, a trip to the coast taking four or five days.

      But with their prisoners, they would cruise ten miles back upriver, running under cover of darkness to the small port of Ceasá. From there, a lorry would drive them to Manaus’s international airport, where a plane chartered by the Eagle, using a false name, would return them home. There would be no record of their arrival to or departure from here. Felipe had made it clear, when Carlito had asked about it, that money could buy anything in Brazil.

      It would likely be some time, maybe not until midday tomorrow or even later, before anyone cruising the river became curious enough to stop at the boat. They would find the bound and gagged boat captain and notify the authorities, who would be pissed to learn they had a huge international mess on their hands: one dead American and nine missing tourists.

      Soaked to the skin but still warm in the tropical night, Carlito watched the heavy drops of rain pour from the boat’s roof to batter the gangplank and shore and pock the surface of the water. Once the Eagle’s other men had all the hostages aboard, Felipe quickly cast them off, heading them back to Ceasá.

      Their passage was slow, guided by three men at the front manning strong searchlights. The package would be on its way right on time out of Manaus, but, given the heavy rain, Carlito wondered as he wiped himself down with a dry rag if the visibility would be good enough for them to make their planned quick exit by air.

      Chapter 3

      S till sweating from a twenty-minute jog and anxious to find out if there were any last-minute disasters for the New York show, Nova made a final check of her answering machine. No new messages.

      This latest show of her award-winning photos of the world’s most beautiful coastal drives seemed to be progressing without serious glitches. Putting on this show was costing a bundle and although her agent, Deirdre, was enthusiastic about the photos—she always was—Deirdre

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