mistake.” He looked at Gideon. “And that young girl you were so concerned about would pay for it when Varak got spooked. Do you want that?”
“No. But I do want Varak.” He turned to Novak. “What do we do?”
Novak thought about it. Dammit, he couldn’t see any options at the moment. He muttered a curse, then said to Gideon, “Go back to the men and get them out of here and back to Robaku.” He whirled back to Quinn. “You said one man could do it. How about two? Can you take me back to that house so that I can verify that bastard is Nils Varak?”
Quinn gazed thoughtfully at him. “Maybe. You want to stake him out?”
“I want to see him move. And maybe there’s some way we can get in that house for DNA. If we can’t, I want to get a video to send to our lab for facial analysis and verification. They’d be able to determine if his basic facial structure would support that plastic surgery Zahra paid for. It’s not much, but I don’t want this all to be for nothing. Can you do it?”
Quinn was thinking about it. “You do know that it gets dark very early in rain forests like these. Those tree canopies block out all light. You’d have only a limited amount of time to stake him out. We’d have maybe three or four hours.” He added grimly, “And it’s hard as hell to avoid those land mines when I can see. Even at dusk, it would be a risk. I can’t use a flashlight because of the sentries.”
“Stop telling me about the problems. Will you do it?”
“Shit,” Gideon said. “Novak!”
“Answer me, Quinn.” Novak held his eyes. “Can you get me there?”
Quinn suddenly smiled. “Sure, no problem. I know the way now. Providing you can follow in my steps without a single deviation. Not even an inch.” He added dryly, “That would be nearly impossible for you considering that you don’t like to go any way but your own.”
“But not quite impossible,” he said curtly. “I’d have the comfort of knowing you’d be blown up before I would.” He turned away. “Let’s go, Quinn.”
Quinn nodded. “By all means. I was pissed off about having to stop and come back to you anyway.” He moved back into the palmetto bushes. “Stay close, Novak. I’m going to be moving very fast.”
* * *
Robaku
5:50 P.M.
“What do you mean they went back into that jungle?” Jill stared at Gideon in horror. “Gideon. Why did you just leave them there?”
“I had orders, dammit,” Gideon said. “I couldn’t go with them, but I could get the team safely back. That’s what I did.”
“Since when did you ever obey orders,” Jill’s voice was shaking. “You do what you like.”
“Not when it comes down to sacrificing thirty-two men by not obeying two men who have a hell of a lot more experience than I do.”
“No, you’d rather sacrifice—”
“Easy, Jill,” Eve said. “It’s not his fault. Would you like to go up against Novak or Joe?”
“Yes, I’d like to knock their heads together.” But she realized Eve was right. It was just the shock that had caused her to attack Gideon. Shock and sickening fear. But she had to control it. Eve was just as frightened as she was, and she mustn’t make it worse for her. She forced herself to nod at Gideon. “You did what you could. I’m just scared.”
“Me too.” He made a face. “I nearly flipped when Novak wanted to go back with Quinn to stake out Varak. I would have done anything I could to stop them. I was worried about Quinn’s being a wild card, but Novak was just as bad today.”
“Or just as good,” Eve said quietly. “They’re both professionals, and they wanted to get the job done. What can we do to help them, Gideon?”
He shook his head. “Not much of anything. Just wait. I left two men on the road that borders the property to send me word if anything…unusual occurred.”
“You mean if one of those land mines blew up,” Jill said.
Gideon nodded. “That was what Quinn was worried about. I told you that he told Novak he wanted to get out of that jungle before it got dark.”
“Yes, you did.” Eve was looking out the window at the fading light. “It should be dark soon.”
Gideon didn’t say anything.
Jill’s gaze flew to his face. “Gideon?”
“Not in that rain forest,” he said. “It’s probably been pitch-dark for the last thirty minutes.”