The Mission War Read online

  Chapter 2

  Night settled quickly and in a vast silver spray the stars seemed to shower out of the darkness. The bandits made their camp on a low, eroded mesa three miles south of the Canon del Dios. Jessie and Ki were fed beef and beans and then tied up again before the circulation had even had a chance to return to their numb feet and hands.

  Jessica Starbuck was thrown a blanket into which she managed to roll clumsily. She lay there then listening to the muffled Spanish voices, watching the figures around the campfire pass bottles of tequila from hand to hand.

  Ki was sleeping or pretending to sleep. They kept the two of them separated, just as they had during the short ride from the canyon. Jessie tried working her hands, attempting to loosen the bonds, but she had no luck at all.

  If she had gotten free, where would she go? What would she do? They were a hundred miles from help and the bandits would simply ride them down again. Still, it wasn’t in Jessica’s nature to give up. She had been through too much, fought too long, to give in.

  She watched and waited. The voices from around the campfire droned on for a long while as the stars shifted. One man rose, yawned and stretched, and went to his blankets, and then another did likewise. They staggered as they walked, and when they rolled into bed, they snored almost immediately. The tequila was doing its work.

  Mono was asleep now as was Carlos. Soon the fire had burned to embers and the night went darker still. No one moved in the outlaw camp and Jessica slowly stretched her arms toward her boot. They hadn’t found the slender knife she had taken to carrying there. Now her grasping fingers found the handle of the little knife and slowly she withdrew it.

  Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps as she sawed through the bonds around her ankles, feeling the rawhide ties fall free, feeling the rush of blood to her feet.

  She looked at Ki, who seemed to be sleeping. How in hell was she going to cross the camp to reach him?

  Jessica’s knife cut through the ties on her wrists and she lay there, trying to still her breathing. She rubbed her hands, bringing back sensation.

  If she could get into the brush behind her and circle to Ki’s position, silently cut him free ... It was dangerous, very dangerous, but what other chance did they have?

  The horses were up a narrow draw behind the camp. If she and Ki could reach them, there was a possibility they could escape.

  Slowly now she rolled over and worked her way across the hard earth, feeling the bristle of dry grass and small stones beneath her hands and knees. A bandit stirred; she froze, her hand clenching the knife. He simply shifted position, grunted, and resumed his snoring.

  Jessica went on, reaching the sumac and sagebrush beyond the camp. Her heart was hammering as she moved silently through the brush, gently turning aside branches as she worked her way toward Ki.

  A tall man stepped out of the high brush and grabbed her wrist. The silver blade of the knife flashed toward Diego Cardero’s face and Jessica saw that—how infuriating! —the Mexican was smiling. He caught her arm as the knife descended, twisted her wrist, and removed the knife from her angry, clutching fingers.

  “Damn you!” she said. Cardero had turned her, drawing her near. Now he pressed his lean body against her and kissed her. Jessica tried to fight free, but Cardero had her blond hair in his hand and he held her head still, kissing her again. Finally he let her go.

  “You shouldn’t wander around in the night alone,” Diego Cardero said. “It is very dangerous, Miss Starbuck.”

  He was smiling still.

  “Bastard,” she said sharply and Cardero smiled again, his face starlit and darkly handsome in the night.

  “We can be friends,” Diego told her.

  “With someone like you? With someone who wants to make a slave out of me—or deliver me to Brecht, which would be worse? Why are you doing this anyway? Money, I presume.”

  “Money.” Diego Cardero nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, money. There is a bounty on your head and Ki’s. A huge bounty.”

  “Blood money. Not a legal bounty. Do we look like criminals?” she asked.

  “No. But what you are is of no concern to me.”

  “Only the money concerns you,” Jessica Starbuck said bitterly.

  “Only the money.”

  He was still close and holding her wrist. He was a dark and evil thing, Jessie decided. He was also something else, something that she couldn’t banish from her mind—something that was in his kiss, the kiss that still lingered on her lips, causing them to tingle; something that had sent little fingers of excitement creeping down her spine.

  “What are you doing?” Jessie asked. He had turned with her, taking her with him along a narrow path toward a low knoll where a twisted, broken oak grew.

  “Come with me,” was all Diego said.

  They walked to the top of the knoll, and when Jessica refused to sit, Diego plopped her down. Jessie sat glowering, angry and frustrated.

  Diego stood over her with the small knife in his hand. His feet were spread widely, one hand was on his hip. He held the knife out toward Jessie.

  “This,” he said, “was a bad idea, very bad.”

  Before Jessie could move, Diego brought the knife forward and down. The point of the knife imbedded itself in the oak tree and with a twist of the wrist Diego snapped the blade off. He tossed the handle away casually.

  “Don’t you know what Mono would do if you tried to escape, Miss Starbuck?” Diego took a thin cigar from a narrow silver case and struck a match with his thumb-nail. He cupped the match flame and lit the cigar.

  “What would he do?”

  “You were not listening? He would cut your heads off—yours and Ki‘s—and deliver them to Kurt Brecht in a sack. Believe me, Mono would do this.”

  “And what’s the difference?” Jessie said. “Brecht will only kill us once he has us.”

  “I don’t know that for sure, but the possibility of death is better than its certainty.”

  “Death is certain,” Jessie replied.

  Diego shrugged. “I prefer to believe I am immortal. However, I must take you back to the camp and tie you again.”

  “What if we’re seen?”

  “What will Mono do? Nothing. I’ll tell him that I brought you out here... for a little amusement.”

  Jessie just glared at the tall, smiling man. She hated him, wanted to kill him, she thought. On another level Diego was appealing: tall, lean, handsome, and charming. He was also a slaver and an outlaw.

  “What is it you and Mono do when you’re not bullying women?” she asked sarcastically.

  Diego shrugged, examining the end of his cigar and blowing gently on the red ember. “Many things,” he replied at last.

  “Slaving?”

  “That is something new. It’s over now. Mono doesn’t like to work hard, and slaving is work. Mostly we live peaceful lives.”

  “Gentlemen bandits.”

  “Not exactly.” Diego’s smile was thin and a little pained. “We drink; we eat; we do as we please. Money is never a worry. We take from small villages in Mexico. When their food is gone, their tequila finished, their women exhausted, we move on.”

  “It’s a pretty picture.”

  “Not pretty. It is the way it is. Sometimes Mono will hear of a gold shipment, of a bank waiting to be robbed, of a rich hacienda where no one stands guard with rifles. Then we will ride out. This time,” he added, “we heard of you and Ki, of the bounty Don Alejandro has placed on your head.”

  “Don Alejandro? Who’s he?”

  “That is what this man calls himself.” Diego dropped his cigar and stepped on it. “I have never seen a Spanish nobleman who looked like this man, nor have I ever met one who speaks such paltry Spanish.”

  “He’s a foreigner, then.”

  “Assuredly. Perhaps he is the Kurt Brecht you mention, I don’t know. Last month he ventured across the border on some mission or other. Perhaps he was seen by someone who knew his true name.”

  “He
was,” Jessie said.

  “Yes? By whom?”

  “By a man who’s dead now,” Jessica Starbuck said coldly.

  “A friend of yours?”

  “No, a man who used to work for my father, a man who discovered Brecht’s name and paid with his life for it. Fortunately, he was able to write to me before being killed.”

  “Fortunately?” Diego said, pondering the word. “No,” he replied, “not fortunately at all, Miss Starbuck. It was most unfortunate for you that this man wrote to you because I fear that by that act he signed your death warrant—yours and that of Ki.”

  Jessica said nothing. Finally Diego bent over her, gripped her by both arms, and lifted her to her feet. “Hands behind your back, please.”

  “Diego, I wasn’t kidding when I said I could pay as much, more even, than Brecht.”

  “I did not think you were kidding. Hands behind your back, please.”

  “If you could get Ki out of camp—”

  “Will you give me your hands?”

  Jessie placed her hands behind her back and felt strong, sure fingers tie a secure knot. Then, just for a moment, she felt Diego lean against her, chest meeting her back, his hard thighs against her buttocks and that same, cold, inexplicable thrill ran up her spine.

  “Come now, silently,” he said, pulling away. “It is best if I do not have to tell Mono my little story, best if he does not know you were gone at all.”

  The entire camp still slept. Jessie was put to bed, her ankles retied, and silently Diego crept away, moving like a lean, dark cat. Jessie lay there, staring at nothing until she felt other eyes on her. She glanced across the camp, seeing Ki watching, silently questioning.

  He was awake, had probably been awake all along. Yet Ki had made no attempt to escape, none at all. Perhaps he knew they had no chance.

  Dawn was red and blurred by low clouds. The bandidos stumbled across the camp, heads full of tequila haze, reaching for the huge coffeepot that rested in the flames.

  Mono, squatting with a tin cup in his huge hand, was looking at Jessie when she blinked her green eyes open.

  “Get up,” was all he said, and Jessica looked down to see that she had been cut free. Ki was standing near the fire, his hands tied behind his back still.

  If Ki had wanted to, he could have slipped those ties. Ki’s body was a competent machine, a machine over which he had great command.

  But Ki hadn’t the will to make a move just now. There was nothing to be gained, nowhere to go. In the back of his mind, Jessie knew, must be the image of Jessica Starbuck’s severed head traveling south to the hacienda of Brecht.

  Mono wasn’t the sort of man to make idle threats, nor did he have a wisp of conscience to prevent him from doing just what he threatened.

  “There’s coffee,” Mono said to Jessie. Then he rose, turned his massive back on her, and stumped away.

  Diego was at the fire when she arrived, but the tall man looked past her, ignoring her. Carlos, his lips scabbed and swollen, hissed and turned away. He hadn’t forgotten, nor would he. His pride was injured. A woman had gotten the better of him in front of other men.

  Jessie poured herself a cup of coffee and stood watching the rising sun break through the clouds, feeling the eyes of the bandits running covetously over her legs, deliciously curved bottom, back, and breasts. She could almost feel their lust.

  Ki was motionless. A deep frustration was building within him and he refused to let the emotion conquer him, so he quieted his mind, his angry thoughts. He breathed evenly, rhythmically, slowing the racing flow of his blood.

  There must be a way out of this, he thought, some way, but not simple blind attack, not wild flight across the red desert.

  Ki let his eyes lift to the distances, to the rising sun, to the empty desert flats beyond. He could see the Gila River, flowing narrow, shallow, green toward the south. The south was where Kurt Brecht presumably waited for his henchmen to deliver the cartel’s troublesome enemies, Ki and Jessica Starbuck.

  Brecht could afford to be generous with his reward offers to Mono and his bandit gang. Whatever he paid Mono would be greatly rewarded by the cartel that had suffered many costly losses due to Jessie and Ki.

  Ki glanced at Jessica and then looked nearer, to the eroded highlands where only nopal cactus and stunted cedar, yucca and agave grew. He looked to where he had seen the lone man who was trailing them, who had been with them since Squirrel had led them into the Canon del Dios.

  He was gone again now, leaving not so much as a puff of dust to mark his location. But he was still there. It was no coincidence that he was following the bandidos. Who was he? What did he want?

  “Let’s go, Chinee,” Carlos said truculently. He gave Ki a hard shove. “We’re riding. Get on your horse.”

  Ki braced himself and then just nodded. There was no point in teaching this vicious half-wit a lesson. It would only lead to trouble for Jessica Starbuck, and that Ki would avoid at all costs.

  “Did you hear me?” Carlos demanded, and by the tone of his voice, Ki knew it was coming. Carlos wanted to hurt someone. His pride had been battered and he was determined to make someone pay for it.

  “I heard you. I am going,” Ki said.

  He turned toward his horse and Carlos struck. He kicked out savagely, driving his boot behind Ki’s knee. The pain was excruciating. Ki’s knee buckled and he fell to the ground, skidding on his face. His leg filled with fire.

  He came automatically to his feet, assuming an aggressive stance, but there was nothing he could do. There were too many of them, and Carlos, his eyes narrowing at Ki’s poised body, at the hands held loosely yet menacingly before him, lifted a rifle and cocked it, aiming at Ki’s chest.

  “What is this?” Mono demanded. The bandit leader stormed to where Carlos stood peering down the sights of his Winchester repeater at Ki’s heart.

  “He tried to attack me,” Carlos said.

  “Well, shoot him then. I won’t have that.” Mono might have been giving the order to swat a fly.

  “It wasn’t like that,” another voice said.

  Mono turned to find Diego Cardero, smiling and with a cigar between his teeth, standing there.

  “What did you say?” the bearded bandit leader demanded.

  “Carlos is a liar. He kicked the man because he needed to kick something. A dog would have served his purpose. Carlos is a small man. He is still angry because the American woman kicked him in the face.”

  Mono looked from one man to the other, from the assured, handsome face of Diego Cardero to the bruised face of Carlos who still stood, finger on the trigger.

  “Ah, do what you want,” the bandit leader said in disgust. “My head hurts.” Then Mono walked away heavily, leaving Diego and Carlos.

  “Leave him alone,” Diego said.

  “Tell me why, Cardero.”

  “We need the man.”

  “His head.”

  “We need the man. I am telling you that, me, Diego Cardero.”

  Diego seemed not to have moved, not to have quit smiling. But now Carlos could see that Diego’s hand was resting on the butt of his holstered revolver and that the dark eyes of the man had grown cold and threatening.

  Carlos hesitated. “What do I care about the Chinaman,” he said at last. But he did care. It was the second time in two days that he had been shown up: once on account of the woman, once on account of the Chinaman. Carlos wasn’t the kind to forget that.

  They would both die. And so perhaps would Diego Cardero.

  Ki watched the Mexican walk away, watched the swagger and stiffness of him. That was not the end of trouble with Carlos, he knew.

  Diego was still watching Ki. “Better get on your horse,” he said.

  Ki nodded. Just for a moment their eyes met and Ki sensed something. He knew already that this one was not like the others. There was a soul behind those eyes—perhaps a dark, killing soul, but some sort of spirit lived within the bandit.

  Maybe that would help. Maybe
.

  Ki swung aboard his horse and had his hands lashed to the pommel. Jessie was kept well away from him so that there was no chance of communication.

  Mono clambered aboard his roan heavily and sat there with a pained expression on his face. He looked around scowling and then said, “Let’s go. There is gold waiting and we have a long ride ahead of us.”

  They rode slowly from the clearing then, the day growing hot as the sun rose to torture the desert and its inhabitants. Buzzards sailed high against a white sky and Ki glanced at them hoping they were not a foreboding.

  They rode silently, slowly, through the long dusty arroyos and across the red desert flats, riding deeper into Mexico, farther toward the cartel lieutenant, Kurt Brecht, who wanted their heads.

  And behind them the lone man followed like a phantom, invisible to all but Ki who could only speculate and wonder.

  Chapter 3

  They rode deeper into Mexico, the sun always present, glaring and white. To their right a low line of chalky mountains lifted from the empty salt flats they now crossed. The horses’ hooves crunched the dry ground. Nothing moved on the desert; nothing made a sound but the drifting wind that pushed light sand before it and whispered eerily past the bandits and their hostages.

  Ki shifted in his saddle. His arms ached. His hands were still strapped to the saddlehorn of the bay horse he rode and it was impossible to get comfortable. Sweat trickled down his spine and it dripped into his eyes, stinging them.

  The bandits were even more uncomfortable. Ki smiled as he watched them. They bent over their horses’ necks, grumbling and cursing. The tequila still rode with them and it was making things miserable for Mono and his men.

  Ki turned a little to watch Jessica. She held herself erect in the saddle, the wind drifting her hair. She might have been out for a Sunday ride but for the grim set of her mouth.

  “Damn this desert, damn this heat,” one of the Mexicans said.

  Mono said, “Shut up, Arturo.”

  “Why don’t we follow the river?” the bandit asked.

  “Because I say not.”

  Arturo looked away, clamping his jaw shut. Mono was in no mood to explain his decisions. A second bandit, very dark with long black hair, said, “Yaquis, Arturo. They’ve been drifting north. They’ll follow the river.”