“Whistle.” He made a low steady sound through his teeth.
“I can whistle better than that,” she said with a sniff.
“Terrific. You watch through the glasses. If you see anyone coming back toward the huts, whistle.”
“If you think you’re going down there without me—”
“Look, I’m leaving the packs here. Both of them.” He grabbed her hair so that he could pull her face close. “I figure you want to stay alive more than you want to get your hands on the envelope.”
She nodded, coolly. “Staying alive’s become quite a priority lately.”
It had always been his. “So stay put.”
“Why’re you going down there?”
“If we’re going to pass ourselves off as a couple of Malagasy, we need to acquire a few more things.”
“Acquire.” She lifted a brow. “You’re going to steal them.”
“That’s right, sugar, and you’re the lookout.”
After a moment’s thought, Whitney decided she rather liked the idea of being a lookout. Perhaps in another time and place, it might’ve had a crude ring, but she’d always believed in enjoying each experience within its own frame.
“If I see anyone coming back, I whistle.”
“You got it. Now stay down, out of sight. Remo could come buzzing by in the copter.”
Getting into the spirit, Whitney shifted onto her stomach and scanned with the glasses. “Just do your job, Lord. I’ll do mine.”
With a quick glance toward the heavens, Doug began to scramble his way down the steep slope behind the huts. The steps, such as they were, would leave him in the open for too long. He avoided them. Loose pebbles bounced against his calves, and once the eroded slope gave out under him and sent him sliding five feet before he could gain another foothold. Already he was working out an alternate plan, in case he ran into someone. He couldn’t speak the language, and his French interpreter was now his lookout. God help him. But he had a few— very few, he thought grimly—dollars in his pocket. If worse came to worst, he might buy most of what they needed.
Pausing a moment, straining to hear any sound, he dashed into the open toward the first hut.
He’d have liked it better if the lock had had more character. Doug had always found a certain satisfaction in outwitting a clever lock—or a clever woman. He glanced up and around toward where Whitney waited. He hadn’t finished with her yet, but in the case of the lock, he had to make do with what there was. In seconds, he was inside.
Comfortable on the soft ground of the forest, Whitney watched him through the glasses. He moved very well, she decided. Because she’d been running with him almost since the moment they’d met, she hadn’t been able to appreciate the smoothness with which he moved. Impressive, she decided, and touched her tongue to her top lip. She remembered the way he’d held her in the water of the lagoon.
And much more dangerous, she reminded herself, than she’d initially believed.
When he disappeared into the hut, she began a slow sweep with the field glasses. Twice she caught a movement, but it was only that of animals in the trees. Something resembling a hedgehog waddled out into the sunlight, lifted its head to scent, then slipped back into the bush. She heard flies buzzing and the whine of insects. That’s what reminded her the sound of the copter had ceased. She kept her mind set on Doug, willing him to hurry.
Though the settlement below seemed sparse and dingy, this was a much lusher Madagascar than the one she’d passed through over the last two days. It was green and wet, thriving with life. She knew there were birds or animals overhead as she listened to the leaves rustle. Once through the field glasses she thought she spotted a fat partridge fly low over the clearing.
She could smell grass and the light fragrance of flowers that grew in the shade. Her elbows pushed through the springy moss to where the ground was dark and rich. A few yards away the hill sloped steeply, and erosion had washed soil down to rock. As she lay still, a fresh hush fell over the forest, a humming silence that was touched with the mystery she’d first anticipated when Doug had mentioned the country’s name.
Had it really only been a matter of days, she mused, since they’d been in her apartment, him pacing, impatient, trying to wheedle a stake out of her? Already, everything that had