Chapter
5
DAKSHA PALACE
“They weren’t on the helicopter,” Brasden said as he strode into Kadmus’s library. “I’ve interviewed several of our men who had different vantage points, and none of them saw anyone but the pilot on board. That means they’re still on the mountain.”
“I told you that was what happened,” Kadmus said impatiently. “That pilot was behaving like an a*shole. He was trying to divert our attention.” He gazed coldly at Brasden. “And he was successful. You were a fool.”
“The helicopter was the biggest threat. I had to focus attention first on—” He stopped as he saw Kadmus’s expression. “I sent men to search every cranny of the mountain as soon as I suspected that they were—”
“And you haven’t found them.”
“Not yet.” He moistened his lips. “But we’ve started to question the villagers. So far we haven’t had any luck, but—”
“Luck?” Kadmus repeated harshly. “I don’t pay you to rely on luck. I want answers. Naturally, you wouldn’t get answers from those villagers. I’ve taken care over the years to make sure that they wouldn’t do anything that would be against my interests. They’d turn Erin Sullivan over in a heartbeat if she’d gone there.”
“I thought that boy you killed was—”
“He wasn’t from my village. I own this mountain.”
Kadmus believed he owned the whole damn world, Brasden thought sourly. And, if he had his way, given time, he’d do it. That was okay. Brasden would ride on his coattails and eventually find a way to steal it away from him. Right now, he’d have to play meek and subservient. He’d screwed up royally by letting Sullivan be taken away. “I thought as much, but I thought it would do no harm to interrogate a few villagers. There are a few monks and the old lama who are still there.” He paused. “I told you that it was a woman who got Sullivan out. The bitch was very, very tough. Do you have any idea who sent her?”
“I have an idea or two. Yes, she was tough. She made you look like a weakling.”
Brasden choked back his anger. “I know you’ve been questioning Sullivan about the man who gave her that necklace. Do you suppose he sent the woman and the helicopter?”
“It’s possible. Not likely. He would probably let Sullivan die before he risked himself. It’s rare that he makes any contact at all. Sullivan was the exception. If he’d sent two more people to free her, that would be two more people I could possibly break. He wouldn’t permit himself to be that vulnerable.” His hand knotted into a fist. “But I could have made Sullivan talk. I just needed a little more time.”
“I’ll get her back.”
“Yes, you will,” he said with soft menace. “Or I’ll toss you off this mountain.” He frowned. “It could be CIA who sent her. We’ve been hearing that they’ve been investigating her disappearance.”
“It was dangerous to take an American citizen. Naturally, it would cause an uproar.”
“It was safe enough for me. No one has been able to touch me in all these decades. I had to have her.”
“Why?” He paused, then said persuasively, “Perhaps it would help if I knew what value she has for you. Who are you trying to locate?”
“The only person that knowledge might help is you, Brasden. And I’m not sharing this with you.” Kadmus gave him a cold glance. “I’ve told you that my dealings with Sullivan are personal and private. Don’t ask me again.”
Brasden backed off. “Just trying to be helpful.”
“Then find her and the woman who took her. I want constant electronic surveys of the entire area. Send out patrols to monitor any possible transmissions.” He added through his teeth, “Bring her back to me. Now get out of here and find them.”
* * *
“That’s done,” Catherine said as she came back into the cave. She carefully rolled the boulders back in front of the opening. “It wasn’t that difficult. The path was almost pure stone and—” She stopped. “Were you sleeping? Is the cold getting to you?”
“No.” Erin struggled to a sitting position. “But I was dozing. I haven’t been sleeping lately.”
“I can see why, with Kadmus paying you midnight visits.” She walked over and knelt beside her. She lit her LED torch, and the cave was suddenly flooded with light. “But I’m surprised you were able to doze now. I couldn’t, not until I unwind. The situation isn’t exactly restful.”
“You told me to trust you.” Erin smiled faintly. “I do trust you, Catherine. I feel safe with you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Now that’s a responsibility.”
“Your fault. You got me out of that hellhole, and now you’re stuck with me.” Her smile faded. “It’s going to be hard to get out of here, isn’t it? How hard?”
“On a scale of one to ten, eight,” Catherine said. “But at least it’s not ten. But don’t ask me how we’re going to do it. We’ll worry about that when Kadmus’s first feverish search activity passes us by. Providing it does pass us by.” She took out her gun and her knife and laid them on the ground beside her. “And if it doesn’t, then we’ll worry about it.” She dug into her backpack and brought out the first-aid kit. “But let’s get your wounds fixed up so that you’ll be in better shape to face them. Shed that parka, and I’ll take a look at your shoulder.”
“Could you help me with it?” She unzipped the parka. “It’s still dislocated, and there’s a good deal of pain. Not as bad as the first time Kadmus did it.”
“Kadmus didn’t pop it back into the joint for you?”
“No, I did it myself the first time, but he dislocated it again. He liked the idea of constant reminder.”
“How did the dislocation happen in the first place?”
“He was using the ropes on me.”
Catherine’s gaze flew to her face. “Ropes?”
“He said it’s a torture he learned from the North Vietnamese. The arms are tied up and back until the elbows are forced together. It cut off circulation. The pain is excruciating, then he would rotate my arms until they dislocated.”
Catherine glanced away from her, trying to control her rage. She carefully pulled the parka off her. “Son of a bitch.”
“Oh, yes.” She unbuttoned her shirt. “Without question.”
“How did you manage to pop it back in by yourself? You have first-aid experience?”
“No, I’ve always thought I should go take a course. But then I kept putting it off.”
“Then how did you know?”
“Someone…” She grimaced with pain. “Told me … what to do.”
“Who?” Catherine was trying to keep her talking as she neared the final motion that would send it back into the socket. She could see the agony twisting Erin’s face. “Someone at the palace?”
“No.” She drew a deep breath.”Just do it.”
Catherine sent the bone back into the socket. Erin jerked, and cried out, “Cameron!”
“Are you okay?” Catherine asked. “I think it’s back in place.”
Erin nodded. “It will be fine. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Catherine said. “Now give me your hand.” Catherine quickly unbound the crude wrapping around the index finger. “Not a compound fracture. That’s good.” She quickly splinted it, then rebandaged. “But it’s a bad break.”
“Kadmus bent it backwards until it broke.”
“You’ll have to have it rebroken and set when we get you to a hospital.” She sat back on her heels. “Anything else? You mentioned burns?”
“Five. Breasts and thighs. I can do that myself. Do you have salve?”
Catherine handed her antiseptic salve. “If you can handle it, I’d just as soon you do. I’m getting angry. I want to go back to the palace and see how much Kadmus can take before he—” She stopped and fought for control. “But that would be stupid, and we’re not going to give him any chance of getting his hands on you again.” She dug into the backpack again. “There are always nutrition bars in these backpacks. I think we need them.”
“Perhaps we should save them in case—”
“Now. You’ve gone through hell, and you need to stoke up.” Catherine found a bar and handed it to Erin. “There are several.” She made a face. “Evidently, my pilot, Caudell, wasn’t at all sure of the best-case scenario for which I was hoping. Finished with the salve?”
“Yes.” She handed the tube back to Catherine. “It feels very cooling.”
“Only the best for the Company. Of course, only the CIA would put you into a position where you might need meds.” Catherine had been trying to avoid looking at the vicious burns Erin was treating. It made her too furious. “Before you eat that bar, bundle up in that cold-weather gear I gave you. You need to layer quickly.”
Erin picked up one of the garments. “They appear so thin…”
“Space-age and high-tech and wonderfully efficient. The sleeping bags fold down to the size of a woman’s small purse.”
“Kind of James Bond stuff?”
“If James Bond ever got himself into a situation like this. He was always too slick. But I have to be able to move without freezing my ass off, and Venable always has a way to make sure I move. You should be careful to keep that shoulder as warm as possible. Dislocations are particularly susceptible to frostbite.” She laid out the two sleeping bags. “We should sleep as much as possible during the day while the temperature is higher. Even with high-tech gear, it will be hard to fight off the cold enough to sleep once the temp plummets.”
“When do you think we’ll be able to try to get off the mountain?”
“Maybe a day or two. I’ll go out tonight and scout out what’s happening in Kadmus’s kingdom. But we’ll play it by ear.” She looked at her. “But you’re the one who knew about the village and this cave. You may be able to tell me more than this map they gave me.”
“I knew about the village because I heard Kadmus talking about it.”
“And this cave?”
“Someone told me about it.”
Catherine’s brows rose. “When it’s been lost for decades? Were you familiar with this mountain before Kadmus brought you here?”
“No. The closest I’ve ever come is the village on Milchang, the next mountain. I did a story on their herd of goats—”
“Then how did you know about this cave? Who told you?”
“Does it make any difference? I knew, and we’re here. Isn’t that enough?”
Catherine looked at her with frustration. It was clear Erin didn’t want to reveal her source. “It would be enough if I could be sure that what you said was true about this place being forgotten for all that time. It wasn’t forgotten by the person who told you about it. I don’t want Kadmus to be able to tap into the same source.”
She shook her head. “He won’t be able to do that.”
“I hope not.” Catherine sat down and leaned back against the stone wall. She was suddenly bone tired. She had been going on sheer adrenaline for too long, and now that there was a break in the action, strength was beginning to ebb away from her. “To help you, I have to know everything, Erin. It’s dangerous to keep me in the dark.”
“I know it’s not fair,” Erin said quietly. “I’m sorry, Catherine. There are things I can’t talk about.”
“I’m sorry, too.” She paused. “Who is Cameron?”
Erin stiffened. “Cameron?”
“You asked me if it was Cameron who sent me when I showed up at your room at the palace. And that was the name you screamed just now when you were in pain.”
“Did I?” She shook her head. “I didn’t even realize it. I must trust you very much to have done that. I suppose it was an automatic—”
“I accept that. But I know you remember asking me if Cameron sent me to get you away from Kadmus.”
“Yes, I remember doing that.”
“So who is Cameron?”
She didn’t answer.
“Another blank wall?” Catherine asked wearily. “Okay, but you’re making things more difficult than they have to be.”
“You’re wrong. Difficult or not, my refusal to tell you about Cameron is exactly what it has to be. It can’t be any other way.”
“Then I’ll have to work around it.” She bit into her nutrition bar. “But if I find that your silence is putting me at a disadvantage, I’m not going to be pleased.” She changed the subject. “You’ve spent years here in Tibet. Can you think of anyone here who might be willing to help us?”
“No one I’d permit to do it. A day before you came, a boy from a village on the next mountain came to try to rescue me. I’d helped some of his distant family members at the earthquake site. So brave … so young.” She tried to steady her voice. “Kadmus shot him. His body is still in the courtyard below my window. I won’t let that happen again. I’m on my own.” She suddenly smiled. “No, I’m not on my own. I have you, Catherine.”
“Yes, you have me. But under the circumstances, it might be better if you have a few more people in your corner.”
“Better for you, too,” Erin said, troubled. “You wanted so much to get home to your son.”
“I’ll still get home to him. It will just be a little later.” She finished her bar. “And it’s not as if he’s not being well taken care of. I have a friend, Hu Chang, who is extraordinary, and Luke adores him. My son probably isn’t even missing me.”
“A son always misses his mother.”
Catherine shrugged. “We have a rather guarded relationship. We were separated for nine years. There are a lot of bridges to mend.”
“But not guarded on your part.” Erin was studying her face. “You love him very much.”
“To the last beat of my heart.” She tilted her head. “What about you? I scanned your dossier but I saw no mention of immediate family. No children?”
She shook her head. “My parents are dead. I was married when I was in college. It was all sex and rock concerts and pot. But when we came down off the high, we found out that we wanted different things.”
Catherine suddenly chuckled. “It sounds weird to hear you talk about pot and sex. I was led to believe that you were some kind of Mother Teresa icon.”
“Not willingly.” She grimaced. “Look, all I did was what anyone else would do when faced with a catastrophe like Qinghai.”
“But not everyone did do what you did,” Catherine said. “You went beyond any reasonable limits.”
“I was there,” she said simply. “It had to be done. I knew some of the people in those villages. You would have done the same.”
“Perhaps. What happened after pot, sex, and rock and roll?”
“Charlie wanted to be a stockbroker, and I wanted to become a journalist and wander the world. We parted ways, and after a few years, I ended up in Tibet.” She smiled. “Sometimes I wish there had been a child, but I wasn’t prepared to be a parent anyway. It took me a long while to learn responsibility. How about you?”
“I wanted a child. I’d been alone all my life, and I wanted desperately to have someone of my own. Then when Luke was born, I knew that it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was what was best for him.”
“Your husband?”
“He was CIA, much older than me, a real good guy. He was shot by the same criminal who kidnapped my son.”
“And kept him for nine years?” Erin asked softly. “And you never stopped looking for him?”
“Not for a minute, not for a second.” Catherine took out her phone and pulled up the map of the mountain she’d already stored. “There doesn’t seem to be more than one very perilous road down this mountain, which links it to the next mountain in the range. Do you know of any other road? Do you remember Kadmus mentioning one?”
Erin shook her head.
“Then we need your mysterious source who told you about this cave to step up to the plate.”
“Sorry,” Erin said gravely. “I can’t promise that either.”
“I know you can’t. We’re hardly accessible for advice or anything else.” She knelt and wriggled into her sleeping bag. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”
“We could always parachute off the mountain. You seem to have everything else in that backpack.”
“Actually, that’s not too out of the question.” Catherine thought about it. “The Internet can give you directions to do anything. I’d have to see about the process you have to use to make—”
“I was joking.”
“I know, but some of the best ideas come out of the blue.” She smiled. “Would you jump off this mountain if I asked you, Erin?”
“Yes, why not? I promised you I’d do anything you told me to do.”
She meant it. Catherine was amazed and touched. “That was in a situation of immediate peril and emergency. I’m not perfect. I’ll do my best, but I believe you should draw the line somewhere.”
Erin shook her head. “You deserve to have my trust. You risked your life to come get me out of that hellhole. I might question. I might suggest. But in the end, I’ll do what you want me to do.” She sighed. “Though parachuting off the mountain may be a stretch.”
“I’ll see what I can do about avoiding it. With that shoulder, it could prove extremely painful.” She pulled the zipper of her sleeping bag up to her throat. “Crawl into your sleeping bag and try to nap. Don’t worry, I’ll hear anyone if they come down the path toward the cave.”
“CIA training?”
“Partly. Partly pure instinct. I’ve had to sleep with one eye open since I left the cradle.”
“Have you?” Erin was pulling up the zipper and settling as comfortably as she could. She closed her eyes. “Sad…”
“Life.”
“Not all life is sad.”
“Not if we try to help each other make it better.” Catherine waited a moment, then asked softly, “Who is Cameron?”
Even half-asleep, the question caused Erin to tense. “Not fair, Catherine.”
“I told you that I wasn’t perfect. Who is Cameron?”
“I’m going to sleep now.”
And Catherine would not try to keep her awake. Erin had suffered too long, and the escape had put her on the edge of exhaustion. Catherine had felt obligated to try to break through the silence that might be dangerous for both of them, but she would not pursue it. She had done what a good CIA agent would do. Now she would do what a decent human being would do.
“Sleep well, Erin.”
* * *
“Where the hell are you, Hu Chang?” Venable asked testily when Hu Chang answered the phone.
“Do you not know? You’ve been having me followed for some days.”
“Of course, I have,” he said bluntly. “You’ve always been the key to controlling Catherine. I couldn’t just let you wander around.”
“I’m disappointed.” He glanced at Tashdon, the pilot in the cockpit seat next to him, but the man was tactfully ignoring his conversation. “I thought I might have some small importance of my own. Since my self-love is seriously damaged, I believe I’m going to hang up.”
“Where are you? Dammit, I haven’t been able to trace you since you left the Golden Palace.”
“Because I didn’t wish your man to tail me. The situation has become very delicate, and I won’t have you sticking your far-from-subtle fingers in the mix. I only answered your call to make sure you knew that I will make myself available if you have any information I can use. Do you?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Good-bye.”
“Wait. Where are you?”
“At the moment, I’m in a helicopter flying over Kham Province in Tibet. That would make me approximately halfway to my destination.”
“Daksha.”
“Perhaps. I repeat, good-bye, Venable.” He hung up, and his gaze shifted out the cockpit window at the blinding brilliance of the snow-covered mountains.
“Hu Chang?”
He didn’t look behind him. “I thought you would be too curious not to eavesdrop. However, you should have exercised restraint considering the risk to life and limb I’ve taken in inviting you to be my guest.”
“I was curious, Hu Chang.”
He got to his feet. “Then I suppose I might as well come back there and decide if I’ll answer your questions, Luke.”
* * *
Cameron.
Darkness.
Cameron.
Swirling intensity.
Cameron!
“Good God, you’re a determined woman.” A man’s deep voice, half-impatient, half-amused. “I really didn’t want to do this, but it seems I have no choice.”
Cameron.
“I heard you. Now open your eyes and say hello properly.”
Catherine slowly opened her eyes.
No cave. No sleeping bag.
No cold.
A room furnished with rich Persian rugs, leather chairs, books …
A fire burning in a huge fireplace.
And a man in jeans and close-fitting black shirt standing before that fireplace, his body outlined by the flames. She couldn’t make out his features but they were framed by close-cut dark hair, and she got an impression of symmetry.
Beautiful, she thought drowsily.
Power.
Electricity.
Grace.
Energy.
All beautiful …
“Thank you.” He stepped forward, and she could see his face. “I think you’re beautiful, too, Catherine.” His brilliant blue eyes were glittering with humor, his lips curved in a smile, and his entire expression was alive with exuberant vitality. “But I don’t think either one of us prefers to rely on that particular asset.” He sat down in the leather armchair and stretched his legs out before him. “However, I admit I’ve been enjoying watching you since you entered into my life. You’re like a wonderful symphony with exquisite passages of pure serenity, then magnificent crashing drama.” He made a face. “Unfortunately, I seem to have become fascinated by you.”
Crazy, she thought hazily. All this was crazy.
“Not crazy,” he said. “Like almost everything else, it has a perfectly sane basis if you accept certain parameters.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m dreaming. I’m in the cave and sleeping. I will now wake up.” She opened her eyes.
No cave.
Fire, warmth, beauty. And that man was still here.
He shook his head. “I set the rules, Catherine. You called me, and I came. But you have to play my game. I didn’t really want to contact you. I thought it would be much better to work through Erin.” He chuckled. “But you wouldn’t stop, and I couldn’t resist you.”
“I called you?”
He nodded. “Richard Cameron, at your service. You were curious, and you thought that I was someone you should know about. So you kept turning it over and over in your mind, and you wouldn’t let me go.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, true.” He added softly, “Actually, I could have resisted you, but I didn’t want to. I thought it might be worth it to me to get to know you. You evidently thought the same, though not for the same reason. I’m delighted to meet you, Catherine Ling.”
“Cameron.” She tried to think, tried to reason. “A hallucination brought on by stress and my desire to—”
“Wrong. Take a step outside the box, Catherine. You’ve done it before.”
She was silent. Something was strange here that had nothing to do with dreams, and stress had never made her lose her mental balance. What else could it be? She went over the possibilities and came up with an answer. “Mental telepathy. We’ve been experimenting with it, and so have the Russians, Chinese, and half a dozen other countries. But if it’s mental telepathy, then you’ve brought it to a highly sophisticated level.”
“You have no idea. Very good, Catherine.”
“Two years ago, I was present at the testing of a young Italian girl who was the pride of the CIA think tank. They brought twenty-two agents to Rome to test her and teach us how to handle a possible mental infiltration. It turned out that she could read the minds of several of the agents, but I wasn’t one of them. And she couldn’t read those other agents from a distance of more than a football field. I take it that you’re not that close?”
“Correct.”
“And there have to be elements of hypnotic suggestion for you to have set up a scenario like this.”
“I wanted you to feel welcome. You’re accepting this better than I hoped.”
“I’m not accepting fact, only possibility. I know that mental telepathy has been tested and exists. It’s rare, but I’ve seen the experiments. But I also grew up on the streets of Hong Kong, where a belief in angels and devils is a way of life.”
“And which do you think I am?”
“You tell me.” She thought about it. “I think Erin believes you mean her well. She thought you might rescue her.” She was sifting through everything, trying to put the entire picture together. “Are you the ‘friend’ who asked Hu Chang to go after Erin?”
“I told him that it would please me. I left the decision to him.”
“Why didn’t you go after her yourself?”
“I couldn’t allow myself to do it.” He shrugged. “There are certain rules I have to go by.”
“Hu Chang said that you were the most dangerous man either one of us would ever meet. Why the hell couldn’t you go after Erin?”
“Rules.”
“But your rules didn’t keep you from sending Hu Chang out to do the dirty work.”
“No.” His lips twisted. “Unfortunately, that option is allowed and even encouraged. I just have to choose wisely and decide if it’s worth a possible death to accomplish the goal.”
“You decide? Yet you just said your hands were tied. Not consistent, Cameron. What government do you work for? What agency are you with? China? Russia? Great Britain? You sound American, but that doesn’t mean much. Kadmus was born American, and he works for everyone who has the cash to pay him. I don’t think Venable knows about you, or he would have told me. He doesn’t let me go in blind.”
“That’s good,” he said. “And Venable doesn’t know I exist. Though I think Caudell may have suspected at times. He knows there’s someone who was occasionally there before him.”
“Who do you work for?” she repeated.
“It’s an international organization with worldwide membership.” He smiled. “I assure you that you’ve never heard of it. I’m not going to interfere with anything the CIA is doing unless they interfere with me.”
“What do you do for them?”
“Too much and too little.”
“That’s no answer.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s a skill at which I’ve become an expert.” He was silent a moment, then added wearily, “Okay, I act as a sort of Guardian, troubleshooter, and executioner. In a way, our duties are similar in scope. I’m not going to go into details with you.”
“Is it some kind of commercial organization?”
“In many ways.” He held up his hand. “No more, Catherine.”
“Yes, there’s going to be more,” she said fiercely. “I’ll stop asking about your damn organization, but I have to know about Erin. She was being tortured because she wouldn’t tell Kadmus what he wanted to know about a man he was searching for.” She stared him in the eye. “Was that man you, Cameron?”
“I think you know it was.”
“Why does he want to find you?”
“Because I am who I am. Kadmus has been searching for me for a long time.”
“That’s vague as hell. And why did Erin feel she had to keep him from finding you?”
“Because she made a mistake, and she wouldn’t let us suffer for it.”
Catherine could feel her frustration rising by the minute. He was answering her, but the answers were totally unrevealing, and she knew if she delved any deeper, he would close up. “And yet you couldn’t go after her and get her away from that bastard?”
“I did what I could.”
“The hell you did.”
“It was a risk I wasn’t allowed to take,” he said quietly.
“You son of a bitch; I saw what he did to her.”
“And so did I. I was with her every time he touched her,” he said. “I taught her how to block out the pain. It was all I could do for her until I found the right person to go after her.”
“Hu Chang.”
“Yes.” He paused. “It was going to be Hu Chang. Until I found out about you. You were always there in Hu Chang’s mind. I became very familiar with you. And, to my regret, I knew it had to be you who went to get Erin.”
She stared at him in shock. “You’re telling me that you were pulling the strings? No way.”
“I’m very good at it. I could have lied to you about that. I know the idea of manipulation would be salt on a wound. But I’m trying to be as honest as I can be.” He leaned his head back on the leather armchair. There was a lazy, sensual, catlike grace in the movement. “You’ll probably never trust me, but you have to be able to work with me. As I said, I was going to deal through Erin, but you wanted to be in control.” The thread of steel in his voice suddenly belied his indolent position. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll always be in control. It’s what I do. It’s what I am.”
“Not when you hide away and just play around with these mental hijinks. When you come out in the daylight and do something with your own hands, then you can show me why you deserve to be in control.”
“Catherine.” For an instant there was a flash of anger in those glittering light eyes. Then he relaxed and smiled. “Hold your tongue. It’s sharp as that knife you carry in that sheath on your calf. For a moment, I actually felt pain. It’s been a long time since I permitted myself to get that annoyed. You’re arousing all kinds of emotions.” He held her gaze. “I’m tempted to arouse a few interesting emotions in you. That would be very … satisfying.”
A wave of heat.
Breathlessness.
A swelling and tingling in her nipples.
“And that’s only physical,” he said softly. “That’s satisfying, too, but emotional response can tear you apart.”
She drew a deep breath. She had been caught off guard, and she was still shaken. “You’re not in control. Not of me, not of Erin. As for that childish little display, next time I’ll be prepared, and it won’t happen.”
He was silent. Then he chuckled. “It was hardly childish. But I’ll try to keep it from happening again.” He paused. “Unless I decide to heed your suggestion and show up in person.”
“Show up for sex but not to save Erin from being tortured?”
His lips tightened. “You’re doing it again. I’m not going to make excuses. I had only two options with Erin. I’ve told you the one I chose.”
“What was the other option?”
“To kill her,” he said simply.
“My God.”
“You asked.” He sat up straight in the chair. “And now we have to deal with what’s important. I want Erin off this mountain.”
“So do I.”
“And I will help you in any way I can to get her away from Kadmus’s men and out of Tibet. But that’s not going to be good enough. Take her back to the U.S. and hide her until I send someone to kill Kadmus. She won’t be safe while he’s still alive.” He paused. “I admit I had hoped that you might take care of that when you went after Erin.”
“It was Erin who was important. I didn’t give a damn about Kadmus at the time.”
“I thought as much, but there was a chance.”
“In that charming little scenario that you said you contrived? Too bad. I did what I could.”
“And you did it brilliantly.”
“Then do some more contriving and come up with a way that we can skirt Kadmus’s men and find our way to a place where I can safely contact Caudell. It was you who told Erin about this cave, wasn’t it? Can’t you come up with something else useful?”
“I’m trying. It takes research … and consultation. But I’ll manage to do it given a little more time.”
“We don’t have time. Kadmus is on the hunt. Who’s to say he won’t find this cave and catch us off guard.”
“I won’t allow that. I’ll know long before he gets to you and warn you.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “I’ll warn you,” he repeated. “Relax. Try to sleep.” He smiled faintly. “And don’t try to pull me back here. I have Hu Chang to deal with, and I need to concentrate on keeping him from storming the mountain to get to you.”
“Hu Chang?” She stiffened. “He’s in Hong Kong. I told him to stay there and take care of Luke.”
“And I’m sure he will do it but in his own way. You might have had a chance of keeping him at bay if you’d been able to make that helicopter.” He got to his feet and moved toward the fire. “And we both have a good deal of trouble persuading Hu Chang to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
“He mustn’t come here.”
“Back to square one. Then we must get you off this mountain.” He was only a dark silhouette against the leaping flames again. But now she knew him, the power, the charisma, the hard edge behind that velvet, sensual surface.
And the danger of which Hu Chang had spoken.
“I hope not to you, Catherine,” he said gently. “I’m trying not to hurt you.”
Dammit, she had forgotten he could read her mind during the conversation that had transpired. “I wouldn’t let you hurt me.”
“It’s time for me to leave and let you come to terms with all that I’ve bombarded you. You’ve taken it extraordinarily well, but then I knew you would.” He chuckled. “I’m looking forward to our next meeting.”
“And I’m looking forward to you making it up to Erin for covering your ass and not going in and getting her away from Kadmus. I can’t see why—”
Cold.
No fire.
No cozy, book-lined room.
No Cameron.
She knew when she opened her eyes it would be to see Erin in her sleeping bag a few yards away and the stark dimness of the cave.
She wouldn’t open her eyes and face that reality yet. It would come as too much of a shock, and she had to assimilate all that Cameron had said and revealed. It was all weird and difficult and frustrating … and frightening. No, not frightening. She wouldn’t accept fear. It was just that she’d felt momentarily helpless when she’d realized that her thoughts were transparent, and he could create a scene for her that didn’t exist down to the last detail.
It shouldn’t have that effect on her. Mental telepathy was just a gift that had to be dealt with like any other weapon. She was sure Cameron was unusually adept, but she’d find a way to understand and learn to cope. It was only those damn marvelous good looks and powerful personality that kept getting in the way. He was undoubtedly the handsomest, most intensely sexual man she had ever met, and as a woman, she instinctively responded to it. She would have to ignore that—
She had a sudden thought that brought a smile to her lips. What if Cameron wasn’t what she had seen? What if he’d created his appearance as he had the rest of that inviting scenario? Hell, maybe he was really as ugly as Mr. Hyde or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
She definitely liked that idea.
“Nasty, very nasty, Catherine.”
She felt a ripple of shock. “Go away. Now. I won’t have this.”
Laughter. “I’m going. I was just staying to make sure you were all right…”
Was he gone, she wondered crossly a few moments later. How could she tell? One thing was certain—she could not count on keeping anything secret from the bastard.
Well, she would just have to learn to adjust until she found a way to close him out. Since he supposedly was on Erin’s side, anything he learned from Catherine should not be damaging to her.
Maybe. If he was telling the truth, if he was not twisting perceptions.
If she kept questioning, she would get nowhere. She would put suspicions aside and be wary but cooperative. She would work for a solution of her own to the dilemma but take help when given.
Decision made.
She turned over in her sleeping bag and settled down to nap. She wanted to wake Erin and ask her a hundred or so questions, which she probably wouldn’t answer. Not now. Let the woman sleep a little before she had to face the barrage.
Catherine doubted if she would sleep again, but she would try. She had to have all her strength and mental acuity for the next few days.
Hu Chang.
Don’t think of him now. She had enough to worry about without borrowing trouble. If she managed to get off the mountain, Hu Chang would have no reason to try to come and save her.
Stay away, Hu Chang.