He grabbed her hand, pulling her gently off the couch, guiding her
toward the bedroom.
He seemed so sure of himself, so she let him take the lead.
Quickly he stripped off all his clothing except his briefs.
Then his fingers went to the the ties of her blouse and the pace
slowed.
She closed her eyes, desperate to lose herself in the achingly sweet
pleasure of being with hiih like this.
He knew her so well.
He was I -taking her away from all the pain and sorrow and uncertainty
of the past few days-the past few weeks-to a haven in another universe
where only the two of them existed.
She knew that making love without being inside her wasn't what he would
have chosen.
But it wasn't second best, either.
They knew each other's bodies, knew how to please and tantalize.
Hands caressed, mouths sought.
Strong emotions surged like giant tides of feeling over and around and
through them both.
Shudders of pleasure racked her slender frame, pleasure rooted in her
deep and passionate response to this man.
In her deep commitment.
She was aware of nothing but him.
Of the two of them, making a safe, secure world of their own.
Even if it was only for a little while.
"Oh, Steve, I love you so much. I love you," she sobbed out.
' "Abby. Abby."
He was trembling, too.
His lips were feverish as they moved over her face, her brows, and then
back to her mouth for long, fierce, claiming kisses.
Finally, almost without warning, she was past the point of no return,
and he was holding her tenderly as a storm of fulfillment swept over
her body.
Then it was her turn to give that deep, abiding pleasure back to him.
Chapter Twelve
Abby let out a long sigh of relief as the plane taxied down the
runway.
Wu had come through with the location of the rebel camp, and Jason had
confirmed the coordinates through independent intelligence sources.
Now, after hours of frantic preparation, she and Steve were finally on
their way back to India.
As she'd anticipated, Steve had tried to persuade her to return to
Baltimore and 'wait for him there.
She'd convinced him he needed her t take c"are of Shannon while he
concentrated on getting them in and out of the rebel camp.
Asshe pretended to catnap in the copilot's seat, she watched Steve from
under lowered'lashes, marveling at how calm, confident, and efficient
he looked as he flew them toward their refueling stop.
"You're not really sleeping, are you?" he asked.
Abby opened her eyes.
"No. I was wishing we knew exactly where in the camp Shannon is being
kept."
"Somewhere in the women's quarters."
She nodded.
She wanted to ask him if he really thought they could pull this off,
but she wouldn't.
When she'd awakened in the morning, he'd already been on the phone for
several hours preparing to take off, ordering supplies, and making
arrangements with Jason for backup help.
As soon as they had Shannon, armed helicopters would swoop in and pick
them up.
The change in him was dramatic.
He'd been hitting his head against brick wall after brick wall since
Shannon had been kidnapped.
Finally he was in charge of the situation, and he looked as though he
was ready to go into hand-to-hand combat with Amarjit Singh.
She was praying it didn't come to that.
At the New Delhi airport, they had a meal delivered while the plane was
being serviced for the last leg of their flight.
Abby pushed some of the food around her plate, but when she saw Steve
watching her, she did manage to swallow a few bites.
She also tried, unsuccessfully, to relax.
They were so close now.
She kept picturing herself holding Shannon in her arms again, hugging
her, kissing her. She'd been doing it a lot. And she knew it was a
bad idea to get so involved in the fantasy. But she couldn't stop
herself.
Sometimes it was like the morning she'd stood outside Raj Sunduram's
house.
She felt as if she were really seeing Shannonreally watching her
sleep.
Then the baby would start to cry, and a woman whose face she couldn't
see would come in and pick her up.
Abby's stomach would knot.
The tantalizing image would dissolve like a desert mirage, and Abby
would press her fist against her mouth to keep from screaming.
An hour later they were cleared for takeoff from New Delhi.
The weather turned hazy as they left the city behind and flew westward
toward the desert.
Almost from one moment to the next, the ground disappeared from view
under a heavy cloud cover, and Abby felt all her muscles tensing.
"I can't see a thing," she blurted.
"Yeah, but if we can't see the rebels, they can't see us, either.
We'll start our descent in a few minutes," Steve tossed out.
Yet she caught an echo of her edginess in his voice.
"How far to the flats?"
He didn't answer, and she started to repeat the question.
Then she saw his rigid profile.
All his attention was riveted on a rapidly approaching amber cloud.
"What's that?"
"Big trouble! I think we're flying right into a sandstorm. Hold on,
I'm going to try to get above it."
Abby gripped the armrests as he nosed the plane upward abruptly.
Her ears popped, and she swallowed convulsively, praying that the
maneuver would work.
In the next moments, however, the cockpit was bathed in eerie brown
shadow as the storm swallowed them up.
The plane began to toss from side to side like a virtualreality ride at
a futuristic amusement park.
Only this was reality.
Steve's hands clenched the controls as he tried desperately to hold the
craft.
steady, but the little plane felt like a balsa-wood model caught in a
hurricane.
The engines- began to sputter and strain.
Abby listened to the unnatural grit in their hum.
Raw fear tightened every nerve in her body.
"Steve, what's wrong with the engines?"
Beside her, his tan face had turned sheet-white.
"Sand in the generator!"
All around them alarms were going off.
Fine grains of sand hit the windshield like a constant spray of
bullets.
"Get on the radio and holler Mayday, " Steve shouted.
Grabbing the microphone, Abby tried to hang on to it as the plane made
another dive.
"CL-6, Mayday, Mayday. Plane in trouble."
The only response was a loud crackle of static.
Frantically she tried again.
"Mayday, Mayday."
Again, there was no answer.
Despite Steve's efforts, the air speed indicator was falling rapidly,
and the vacuum gyro-their guide to the horizon-was spinning wildly,
like a weather vane in a thunderstorm.
Beside her, he uttered a pungent expletive.
"Put your hands over your face. We're going down."
ABBY FELT as if she'd ridden a tornado from Kansas to the Land of Oz.
Surprised that she could still move, she opened her eyes.
When she did, she found Steve bending over her, trying to unsnap her
shoulder belt.
Blood ran down his face from a dozen cuts.
"You're hurt," she gasped.
"Nothing serious. How are you?"
She flexed her shoulders and winced.
"Anything broken?"
Steve's hands traveled gently over her body.
"No. I'm just shaken up, I think."
Still a bit dazed, she looked around.
The instrument panel was scrunched up like an accordion.
Through the shattered windshield, she could see that the plane was
tilted sideways, the nose and one wing wedged in a sand dune.
But at least they'd passed through the worst of the storm.
Only a light wind blew a fine powder of sand through the jagged edges
of glass.
"Did we land or crash?"
"A little of both, I guess."
"Don't ... don't we have to get out of here?"
"There's one good thing about landing in sand. It absorbs any leaking
fuel."
Assured that the plane wasn't going to catch fire, Abby reached her
arms out to Steve, and he pulled her tightly against his chest.
For several heartbeats they held each other, rejoicing that they were
alive and in amazingly good shape.
"Oh, God, Steve, I was so scared."
"I was, too, sweetheart."
"But you saved us. I guess I didn't know how good a pilot you really
are! " "Well, now you'd be better off with an expert on Indian
geography."
"You don't know where we are?"
"With luck, within fifty miles or so of our rendezvous place."
"Maybe we should send out another Mayday."
Abby's gaze followed Steve's wry glance to the mangled radio.
"Then again, maybe Jason's men heard our first call and are on their
way to rescue us."
"Don't count on it, Abby," he said in a flinty voice.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"You remember on Mission Impossible how the secretary would always say
he'd disavow any knowledge of the operation if things went wrong?"
She nodded_ and wiped away the sand sticking to her forehead.
"Well, that's what I had to agree to with Jason's backup team. It was
risky enough mounting the operation without the CIA finding out.
The local talent wasn't willing to stick around if anything got screwed
up. I think we're on our own."
Abby was pretty sure he'd added that "I think" as a last-minute
palliative for her benefit.
"We can get out of here by ourselves," Steve murmured.
She raised her eyes to his and saw fierce determination-overlaying
troubling doubt.
He was damn worried.
So was she.
But whatever happened, she wasn't going to give in to hopelessness.
She squeezed his hand.
"We will."
He swallowed.
"We've got a lot to do."
He picked up one of her hands and inspected the back.
"Let's see if we can find something to put on your cuts."
"Yours, too. I packed a first-aid kit in the back, if we can get to
it."
Keeping an arm around her shoulders, he helped her maneuver over the
slanted floor and debris to the back of the cabin.
By the time they had attended to their injuries and taken stock of the
supplies, the sun had dipped to the horizon, and the desert heat had
dropped a few notches from broiling to merely sweltering.
Steve and Abby climbed out a hole in the side of the plane where the
right wing had once been attached, to check the damage.
The aircraft lay on its belly, its nose and the other wing wedged at a
forty-five degree angle into a steep sand dune.
"We were lucky as hell," Steve growled.
"But at least old CL-6 is still good for shelter. I know it's hard to
believe, but the temperature drops off pretty sharply when the sun goes
down."
Abby wiped a trickle of sweat from her neck, "Sounds good to me."
"We've of enough water and food for a couple of days, and tomorrow
we'll lay out a message in the sand."
"If someone heard my Mayday call, they could already be on their way to
rescue us," Abby added hopefully.
"Yeah."
Steve's tone was not as optimistic.
THE FULL MOON filtered through the cracks in the fuselage, casting
eerie shadows of black on gray around the walls.
On a makeshift bed of seat cushions, Steve lay with Abby cradled in his
arms, wishing he could sleep.
He'd been too damn confident that everything was going to fall into
place for him this time.
He'd also been a fool to let Abby persuade him that it was safe for her
to come.
He'd regretted the decision a thousand times since he'd first seen that
yellow cloud on the horizon.
His arms tightened around her, and he could feel her pulse beating
evenly against his hand.
At least she was exhausted enough to conk out.
God, he loved her so much.
And he'd felt so helpless to make things come out right for her.
When Wu had told them about Omega, he'd wanted to leap up and start
battering the man with his fists.
Instead he'd calmly continued with the interrogation.
And he'd thought it had paid off.
He'd thought he could finally rescue Shannon.
And maybe, just maybe, the three of them could go home and be a normal
family.
And now this.
His gaze swept around the crumpled plane.
If he'd thought he could walk out of here and find help, he would have
done it.
But it wasn't going to be so good for Abby if he ended up dead from
lack of water.
And he didn't even know whether it was safe to leave her in the plane
alone.
He cursed silently.
No matter how strongly he felt as if he needed to do something, there
was absolutely nothing he could accomplish until morning.
Finally he closed his eyes and tried to breath deeply and evenly.
He was so exhausted that it worked.
But even as he sank into a fitful doze, he kept wondering what their
chances were of saving Shannon and whether he could even get his wife
out of this alive.
Hours later, a noise outside brought Steve instantly awake, and his
eyes flashed open.
Above him, a large male body blocked out most of the moonlight.
"Who are you?"
"We come to rescue you."
Behind the speaker, two more men gathered around the hole where the
wing had been.
They were all dressed in shorts and loose-fitting shirts.
"How did you find us?"
Steve asked, maneuvering to get a better look at the trio.
"The radio call."
Abby looked from Steve to the men.
"Thank God!"
Sitting up, she wiped her hair back from her face.
"You are very lucky, I think," the spokesman responded.
"Get up, so we can be on our way."
Despite the congenial words, Steve noted
that all three men were
holding guns.