Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,76
looking at her. The next he was rubbing his reddened palm with his left thumb.
Stunned by the force of the open-handed blow, Lucy stared for a moment at the floor. Then she jerked her chin up, her cheek stinging. “Is that all you’ve got?” she taunted, welcoming the heat of rebelliousness. She could do this. As long as he just beat her up, she would win. And Gus would be so proud, so relieved.
The captain drew himself to his full, indignant height. “No, señorita,” he answered through his teeth, his narrow moustache twitching, “that is only a taste of the punishment you will endure if you are not candid with me.”
“Sir, there is nothing in this sostén but wire,” Buitre interrupted, sounding disgruntled.
The captain looked briefly surprised. He reconsidered Lucy, stroked his chin again, then nodded. “Tie her hands,” he said to Buitre.
Lucy sucked in a breath. “Why?” she demanded. “I’m cooperating, aren’t I?”
“Use your belt,” suggested the captain, ignoring her question as Buitre hunted for something to tie her with.
With blood roaring in her ears, Lucy fought to keep panic from overtaking her. As Buitre approached her with his belt in hand, she kicked out, repelling him with a heel-strike that sent him barreling backward into the captain.
“¡Puta!” he swore, lunging at her even as the captain stepped into his path. “Let me question her!” Buitre raged. “I swear I will make her talk.”
Lucy welcomed the adrenaline that drove back her fear. She’d realized that once they stripped her of her clothing, anything was bound to happen, none of which she was prepared to handle. Her body belonged to Gus alone. She would fight to within an inch of her life to keep it that way.
“Patience,” insisted the captain, pulling a dagger from his webbed belt. “She’s a trained fighter. Beating her will accomplish nothing. Now tie her while I hold her still,” he instructed.
No! She sought to take the dagger from him, to secure her freedom by arming herself. Only he, too, was trained in hand-to-hand combat. Within seconds his blade pricked her jugular. She stilled, gasping for air, as she submitted to having her wrists bound.
Buitre cinched the belt tight, pricking a hole in the leather to keep it taut.
The captain stepped back to reconsider her. He looked at Buitre. “She was allowed to keep her own boots, yes? Remove them. The device may be hidden in the sole.”
Good thinking, Lucy thought, welcoming the reprieve. Wrong boots.
With rough, impatient hands, Buitre removed her boots. She stood in her socks, docile now, praying the search would end when her boots came up clean. Buitre turned them over. “I don’t see anything,” he muttered.
“Give them to me.” Starting with the right boot, he poked at the rubber sole with his knife, pried and sliced, but found nothing.
Tossing the boots to the floor, he hooked his thumbs in his belt and frowned, while Buitre circled behind her, salivating like a hungry dog.
“Remove the rest of her clothing,” the captain decreed at last.
Lucy’s skin seemed to shrink. No!
“Sometimes devices are planted under the skin,” he explained, causing fear to ripple up her spine in fluttering electrical currents.
“Like this?” Buitre asked, pointing out the cut on her hip, just above her baggy trousers.
“Where?” The captain edged around her to regard the angry slit, crusty with pus and blood.
Fear ambushed Lucy, strangling the casual explanation that she’d cut herself.
“Exactly,” purred the captain, shooting her a gloating look. “You will have to hold her down,” he said to Buitre, “while I will cut out the device.”
IMMERSED IN TOTAL DARKNESS, Gus still waited, straining to hear the distinctive flutter of the Little Bird, the OH-6A light assault helicopter, over the sonata of nocturnal insects.
He’d willed his teammates’ arrival with every beat of his heart, teeth chattering at the encroaching cold, for hours now.
What the hell was taking them so long?
Worry kept his muscles locked and aching. His eyeballs felt like they’d been hardboiled, he had stared at the sky so long and so hard.
Then, at last, with his patience about to snap, a flurry erupted overhead. He leapt to his feet in relief, searching the starry sky until he spied the silhouette of a miniature helicopter hanging a hundred feet above the field, no lights.
One, two, three, four dark figures fast-roped to the ground and scattered.
Gus hobbled into the field. With night-vision capabilities, his buddies would have spotted him already.
A shadow materialized from the darkness. Between the black knit cap and the greasepaint, Gus had