Along with the pictures, Remo produced a wad of bills and a smile. Both were met with awesome silence.
While Remo tried his bargaining powers on Louis, another of the helicopter crew wandered to the spread of food and began sampling. Helpless, Doug watched him come closer and closer to the packs.
“Ask her if she has a gun in here.”
“A gun?” Whitney swallowed. She hadn’t heard him use that tone of voice before. “But Louis won’t—”
“Ask her. Now.” Remo’s companion poured himself a cup of palm wine. He had only to look down to the left. It wouldn’t make any difference whose side the villagers ranged themselves on if he saw the packs. They were unarmed. Doug knew what would be tucked into a leather holster under Remo’s coat. He’d felt it prod into his ribs not too many days before. “Dammit, Whitney, ask her.”
At Whitney’s question, Marie nodded expressionlessly. After slipping into the adjoining room, she came back carrying a long, deadly looking rifle. When Doug took it, Whitney grabbed his arm.
“Doug, they’ll have guns too. There’re babies out there.”
Grimly, he loaded the gun. He’d just have to be fast, and accurate. Damn fast. “I’m not going to do anything until I have to.” He crouched down, rested the barrel on the windowsill, and focused the site. His finger was damp before he placed it on the trigger.
He hated guns. Always had. It didn’t matter which side of the barrel he was on. He had killed. In Nam he’d killed because a quick mind and clever hands hadn’t kept him out of the draft or the stinking jungles. He had learned things there he hadn’t wanted to learn, and things he’d had to use. Survival, that was always number one.
He had killed. There had been one miserable night in Chicago when his back had been against the wall and a knife whizzed at his throat. He knew what it was to look at someone as the life eased out of them. You had to know the next time, anytime, it could be you.
He hated guns. He held the rifle steady.
One of Whitney’s dance partners let out a high-pitched laugh. Holding a pitcher of wine over his head, he grabbed the man beside the packs. As the Merina whirled, leaping with the wine, the packs slid away into the crowd and disappeared.
“Stop acting like an idiot,” Remo shouted as his partner lifted his cup for more wine. Turning back to Louis again, he gestured with the photos. He got nothing but a hard stare and a rumble of Malagasy.
Doug watched Remo stuff the photos and money back in his pocket and stride off toward the waiting copter. With a roar and a whirl, it started up. When it was ten feet off the ground, he felt his shoulder muscles loosen.
He didn’t like the feel of a gun in his hand. As the sound of the copter died away, he unloaded it.
“You might’ve hurt somebody with that,” Whitney murmured when he’d handed it back to Marie.
“Yeah.”
When he turned, she saw a ruthlessness she hadn’t gauged before. There was an edge there that had nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with cunning. A thief, yes, that she understood and accepted. But she saw now that in his own way, he was just as tough, just as hard as the men who searched for them. She wasn’t certain she could accept that as easily.
The look vanished from his eyes when Marie came back into the room. Taking her hand, Doug lifted it to his lips as gallantly as royalty. “Tell her we owe her our lives. And we won’t forget it.”
Though Whitney said the words, Marie continued to stare up at Doug. Woman to woman, Whitney recognized the look. A glance at Doug showed he recognized it too, and loved every minute of it.
“Maybe you two would like to be alone,” she said dryly. Crossing the room, she pulled open the door. “After all, three’s a crowd.” She let it slam with more force than necessary.
“Nothing?” A puff of fragrant smoke rose up in front of a high-backed, brocade chair.
Remo shifted his feet. Dimitri didn’t care for negative reports. “Krentz, Weis, and me covered the whole area, stopped at every village. We’ve got five men here in town watching for them. There’s not a sign.”
“Not a sign.” Dimitri’s voice was mild, with richness beneath. Diction, among other things, had been taught relentlessly by his mother. The