Escape Out of Darkness Read online

  They were heading out Route 191 when she spoke again. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “About what?”

  “About why you’re on the run. The details in the folder Peter gave me are sketchy, to say the least, and my contact in Washington wasn’t much help either.”

  “What do you know? I’ll fill in the gaps.”

  “You’re a record producer in New York, with Horizon Records. You were working on a recording session with a rock group when you went outside during a break and walked in on a drug deal. Am I right so far?”

  “Completely.”

  “Okay. So you recognized someone you shouldn’t, and you took off. That leaves a lot of holes.”

  Mack slid down farther in the seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “So ask me some questions.”

  “How long have you been in the recording business?”

  The rusty sound coming from him might have been a laugh. “About eighteen years.”

  Maggie took her gaze off the road for a moment to stare at him in surprise. “Well, then, you must have been around drugs before. You couldn’t have been in the business all those years without bumping into drug deals.”

  “Sure, I’ve bumped into drug deals before.”

  “Maybe been involved in a few yourself?” she hazarded.

  There was a long, dead silence. “Maybe been involved in a few myself,” he agreed finally, his ragged voice flat and unemotional.

  “Then what makes this so different? Who did you see, the President deliver coke or something?”

  His mouth curved in a grim smile. “Something like that. I better explain something, Maggie. In my past I had more than a passing acquaintance with drugs. That was a lifetime ago, and I’ve been clean for a long time. The people I work with know I don’t like drugs, and they keep them out of my sight. There’s no way I can stop someone from getting high during a session, but I don’t want to witness it. I figure what I don’t know won’t hurt me.”

  He reached forward and turned the blasting air-conditioning down a notch before continuing. “Three weeks ago I went outside during a break in a recording session and saw one of the musicians, a guy I used to work with, buying a very large quantity of cocaine. He was buying it from someone I’d run into years ago, a man who’s become very powerful in organized crime. At first I couldn’t believe Mancini would be there doing the actual dirty work until I recognized who was with him. I’d seen the second man on Dan Rather just three weeks ago. He was one of the leaders of the rebels fighting the leftist government down there. The U.S.-backed rebels, I might add. It appeared they’d found a new way of financing their revolution.”

  “Not a good idea,” Maggie said mildly.

  Mack grinned. “Not a good idea at all. Mancini recognized me immediately, of course. He’s got a good memory, and I played a pivotal part in his rise to power in the early seventies. I took off, planning to hide out until I decided what to do about the situation. I spent the night with a friend, and when I got back to my apartment the next day a bomb had removed the top floor of my building. It also removed three people living in the other apartments.”

  “And that’s when you went to Peter?”

  “That’s when I went to find the musician who was the buyer in the drug deal. There wasn’t much left of him, I’m afraid. It was pretty effective as far as warnings go.”

  “So you went to Peter?” she persisted.

  “I went to Jeffrey Van Zandt.”

  “Not everyone knows a friendly neighborhood CIA agent.”

  “I know a lot of people,” Mack said. “Van Zandt put me in touch with Wallace and Third World Causes. He thought you guys might be interested because of the rebel connection.”

  “He was right. That explains a great deal. So you’ve got the Mafia after you and the rebels. Not good, Pulaski.”

  “Add the CIA to your list. They’ve been turning a blind eye to the rebels’ fund-raising efforts, what with Congress being so close-fisted about supporting them. According to Van Zandt, the Company wouldn’t mind if a little accident happened to me along the way. I’m something of an embarrassment. Every way I look I see trouble.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’m not interested in heroics. I want to go back to work and be left alone. There’s no way I’m going to stop the drug traffic between here and Latin America, and I’m damned if I’m going to risk my butt trying. People can stuff whatever they want up their noses as long as they don’t involve me. Unfortunately, no one seems to believe that. Everyone wants to shut me up when I have no interest in opening my mouth in the first place.”

  Maggie’s lip curled in disgust. “I guess you’re not out to save the world.”

  “And I guess you are. Third World Causes, Ltd. sounds pretty damned noble. Do you get off on being a lady bountiful?”

  She couldn’t see behind the glasses, but she could guess that those warm hazel eyes were now cold and hard. He hadn’t liked her judgmental tone, and while she couldn’t blame him, some little devil prodded her onward.

  “I get off on making a difference,” she snapped back. “I think looking out for number one gets a little old after a while. But hey, it’s your life. You can live in a little bubble, and Peter and I will do our best to make sure that bubble is safe and no bad guys will get you.”

  “You’re so goddamn smug, lady. You think you’re the expert on life?”

  “I think …” She took a deep, calming breath. “I think we’d better not fight all the way to Houston. It’s about fifteen hundred miles, and we’re supposed to be a newly married couple on our first vacation. There are papers in the glove compartment. Credit cards, driver’s license, the works. You’re Jack Portman, forty-one years old, an advertising executive from Phoenix. I’m Maggie Portman, your wife of two years. I’m in corporate law, working for an oil company.”

  “Sounds repulsive.”

  Her strong, slender hands clenched the white leather-covered steering wheel for a moment, then she relaxed them. “Sorry, you’re stuck with me. Have you been married before or am I your first?”

  “You’re my third, and I hope to God you aren’t going to cost me as much as the first two.”

  “You can count on that.”

  “But I bet you’re going to be just as much trouble,” he muttered direly. “Listen, Maggie Whoever, I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when you want me to drive.” He began to slide down in the seat, the battered hat pulled down over his eyes.

  Maggie casually checked her rearview mirror again. “You’re going to miss all the fun,” she murmured.

  He straightened up. “Do I want to know what you’re talking about?”

  “Not if you want to keep living in your safe little bubble,” she said sweetly. “I think we’re being followed. For Christ’s sake, don’t turn around, you idiot! You can see them in the rearview mirror, two cars back. It’s the requisite black sedan, two anonymous-looking men driving. They’ve been following us since we reached the paved road more than twenty miles back.”

  “Maybe they’re just going in the same direction we are. This is the main route out of town.”

  Maggie shook her head in disgust. “Do you want me to stop and ask?”

  “I want you to drive like a bat out of hell. Better yet, let me drive.”

  She grinned at him, the adrenaline pumping through her veins and temporarily wiping out the jet lag. “I don’t think we should stop long enough to change drivers. Granted they’re probably CIA rather than Mafia or the rebels, but I still haven’t got a lot of faith in their sense of fair play. I think we’re better off outrunning them.”

  “In this white elephant?” he groaned in disbelief.

  “In this white elephant. It’s got a V-eight engine the size of Greater Miami, enough horses for the Russian Cavalry, and it’ll outrun any piece of garbage the CIA can come up with. The question is, can we take a chance in outmaneuvering them? I don’t know whether they saw us, whether they can
put out the word and have someone a little more talented catch up with us. Maybe we can just keep driving, looking real innocent and …” She let the words trail off as she looked once more in the rearview mirror.

  The black sedan had passed the two intervening cars and was now riding close enough on their trail for Maggie to see the expressions on the men’s faces. “Hell and damnation. They’ve made us.”

  “So it seems,” Mack said mildly. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “You’re pretty damned casual, considering it’s you they’re after,” Maggie snapped, keeping her hands resting lightly on the steering wheel.

  “I have complete faith in you, Maggie,” he said, leaning back in the seat and pulling the hat down over his face. “Peter Wallace wouldn’t have sent you after me if you weren’t the best. Wake me when it’s over.”

  Maggie allowed herself a brief, exasperated glance at his recumbent figure. “Some help you are,” she muttered.

  “How could I help?” he mumbled from under the hat.

  “What about moral support?” She took one last look in the rearview mirror, at the black sedan about to climb up on her tail. The stretch of highway wound straight ahead of them, dotted with RVs and trailers lumbering along like prehistoric animals looking for a place to die. “Forget it, Pulaski. We’re out of here.” And she shoved her narrow, high-heeled foot down on the accelerator.

  As the speedometer climbed from fifty to seventy to ninety, Maggie kept her eyes glued to the road. The RVs were looming up on her, but the sedan proved to have a bigger engine than she’d expected. Leaning forward, she pressed one of the switches on the dashboard and lowered the driver’s window. Reaching into the map compartment in the door, she flung out a handful of stuff and quickly ran the window up again.

  “What the hell was that, Maggie?” Mack demanded, raising the hat an inch and trying to look unperturbed.

  “Nails. It’s not foolproof, but a blowout would slow them down considerably.”

  “Nails? I thought it was going to be something more exciting, like tiny explosives or an oil slick.”

  “I’m not James Bond. Just a poor working girl, doing my best with everyday household objects. You’d be surprised what I can do with a can of tuna fish.”

  “I’m beginning to think nothing about you would surprise me. Do you mind if I ask how you happened to come equipped with nails?”

  “A friend of mine named Jackson suggested I buy some on my way out here. Just in case of unpleasant possibilities.”

  Mack looked in the rearview mirror. “By the way, the nails seem to have worked. They’re slowing down.”

  Maggie allowed herself a sigh of relief as she passed two huge Winnebagos and pulled back in line just in time to miss an oncoming BMW. “Thank God for that. A blowout might have killed them at that speed. A flat tire will just annoy the hell out of them.”

  “You ever kill anyone, Maggie?” he inquired pleasantly.

  “Not yet, Pulaski.” She smiled at him, a ravishing, delighted smile, and took great pleasure in his startled response. “But don’t push me too far. There’s a first time for everything.” And slowing the car to a sedate fifty-five, she drove on.

  “I know,” Mack said five hours later. “You’re not human, you’re a new CIA secret weapon, and that scene outside of Moab was just to curb my suspicions while you drive me straight into their clutches. Right?”

  “What makes you say that?” The sun was sinking lower in the sky, casting ominous shadows that seemed to dart out at Maggie’s exhausted eyes, and she couldn’t even afford the energy to cast a glance at her previously silent companion.

  “You don’t stop to eat, to go to the bathroom, to walk around. The damned car doesn’t even seem to need gas. I figure you’ve got to be the latest in advanced robotics. Or some sort of Superwoman.”

  Maggie ignored the shaft of irritation at the latter name. “I’m the latest in advanced exhaustion, I’m starving, my bladder is about to burst, and the car’s on empty. According to my information, there’s a sleazy little motel another ten miles down the road. With a sleazy little cafe right next to it. We’ll stop there for the night.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Maybe I’ll be able to get a sleazy little drink.”

  “I doubt it. We’re still in Utah—the drinking laws are erratic to say the least.”

  “Maggie,” he said, his low, rasping voice very steady, “I will kill for a drink. I have been living in a cabin that was little more than a cave for the last two weeks, eating canned chili and drinking warm bottled water with nothing for company but lizards and desert rats, and goddamn it, I need a drink. We can keep driving all night long until we get out of this state, but you’re going to find me—”

  “Will Jack Daniel’s do?”

  “Jack Daniel’s will do just fine,” he said with a grateful sigh. “Where?”

  “In my suitcase in the backseat. You can wait till we get to our motel room. Another fifteen minutes won’t kill you.”

  “It might,” he said grimly. “Did you say motel room, singular?”

  “Don’t be coy. We’re married, remember? You’re not going to pull any nonsense about who’s sleeping where, are you?”

  “All I want is a bed, Maggie.” He’d shoved the hat to the back of his head, but he still kept the sunglasses in place despite the twilight landscape. “I know better than to make a pass at Superwoman.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said tightly.

  He grinned then. “Listen, kid, it’s a compliment. You leave me breathless and in awe.”

  “I’ll leave you unconscious if you don’t watch it,” she warned. “I’m not in the mood to be teased.”

  “Maggie, you may look like Miss Sweden and act like Superwoman, but you’ve got the personality of a king cobra. Don’t you ever lighten up?”

  She thought about it for a moment. Every muscle in her body ached, her eyes were gritty and stinging, and she would have given anything to be able to dump Mack Pulaski at the nearest airport. But it wasn’t his fault, and normally she would have responded to his teasing with better temper. But she was too damned tired to make the effort.

  “Pulaski, if anyone could ever die of jet lag, I’m going to be the one. I was in London twenty-four hours ago, and I didn’t get more than three or four hours of sleep a night while I was over there. I am so tired I could cry, and I’m sorry if I’ve been less than gracious, but that’s life and you’re going to have to put up with it. I’ll keep you safe but I’m not going to flirt with you. And it’s Denmark.”

  “What?”

  “I’d be Miss Denmark. My father’s Danish.” She pulled off the road in front of a low, rambling motel that had clearly seen better days. “You stay put—I’ll go register.”

  His hand reached out and caught her arm, and she noted its strength with absent relief. He’d be able to hold his own if it came to that. “You stay put,” he said. “When married couples travel it’s the husband who registers, not the little woman.”

  “Little woman!” she roused herself enough to snap.

  “A definite misnomer in this case, but the idea’s the same. I’ll be right back.”

  She watched him go with her mind in a fog. Someone could leap out of the bushes, shoot him in the back, and she’d just be sitting in the car like a zombie. Well, too bad. Until she got a few hours of sleep he was going to have to fend for himself. He was strong, so surely he could manage for just a few minutes while she sat here and closed her eyes. …

  three

  “Hawkeye, incoming wounded …” The voice blared into her unconsciousness, and she burrowed deeper, away from the sound. “Hawkeye …” Maggie rolled over, away from the noise, and then suddenly her eyes shot open, all her senses alert.

  “Not Superwoman after all,” Mack’s raw skeleton of a voice came from a few feet away. “Have you decided to join the living again, Maggie?”

  Maggie raised her head, looking around her in complete disorientation. She was
lying on a double bed in a motel room that had clearly seen better days. The paint was peeling, the color scheme was mud, the air-conditioning was complaining loudly enough to be heard over the black-and-white television with its interminable M*A*S*H reruns, and the bed beneath her closely resembled a sack of potatoes. Mack was lying stretched out on the second double bed, which filled the small room to bursting. He’d taken a shower, and drops of water still beaded his shaggy blond hair. The two weeks’ growth of beard was scraped clean from his chin, the sunglasses were reposing on the bedside table, and he was lying there in faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and bare feet. There was a very dark amber glass of Jack Daniel’s in his hand and an amused smile lingering around his mouth and lighting those warm hazel eyes of his.

  “Wake up, little Maggie. I’ve got a sandwich for you from the sleazy little cafe. You won’t like it much, but I don’t think it’ll kill you. But I’m not sure if I’ll survive their chili.”

  “Why did you eat chili? I would have thought you’d be sick of it by now,” she said wearily, pulling herself into a sitting position on the lumpy bed.

  “I’m a glutton for punishment. Do you always sleep like the dead?”

  “Not usually. What’d you tell the motel manager?”

  “That we were on our second honeymoon and I was going to carry you across the threshold. I don’t think he even bothered to look.” He reached down on the floor beside him and tossed her a paper bag. “Eat hearty, and don’t ask me what’s in it. Figure it’s just one more price you have to pay.”

  Maggie swallowed the mystery sandwich dutifully, washing it down with the glass of whiskey Mack provided. “You want to call a truce?” she said when she’d finished.

  “I was never fighting, Maggie,” he said. “You must be feeling more human after your nap.”

  “I am,” she said, leaning back against the headboard. “And more observant too. Who are you, Pulaski?”

  “I’ve already told you who I am.”