Intimate Danger Read online

  “Fine with me.” She had places to go, people to find. She looked back and her eyes flew wide. “Troops!”

  Before she could draw her weapon, he swung around, aiming his.

  Clancy’s gaze filled with the sight of him. How fast he moved, how comfortable he looked with that weapon.

  “How’s your aim?”

  “Marksman.” But that was when she was young and stupid and really wanted to point a loaded weapon at a homicidal maniac.

  His sideways glance said he wasn’t expecting that. “Good. Get ready to fire.” He pushed his weapon in his waistband.

  He was going to make her defend them? “Oh shit.” Clancy aimed, the gun heavy as her gaze slipped over the bank. She tried remembering everything about her training as footsteps pounded the ground with orders in Spanish to “kill the woman.” Richora was being really pissy about a little bump on the head.

  Mike pushed the pole into the water, swiftly sailing them down the stream. The troops appeared, and a hail of bullets hit the water near the boat.

  “Fire back, woman!”

  Clancy pulled the trigger. Her aim was dead-on.

  Five

  Colonel Carl Cook laid down the phone and spun in his chair. The view outside the window was anything but interesting. More buildings housing laboratories and a hospital near the street side.

  She’d found the tracking chip. It was necessary, though opposed to by many on the medical board. Yet considering the top-secret value of the projects and the high price tag, he felt that monitoring his people was necessary. Especially those with a class-A clearance.

  To Carl, proof came when she slipped past the surveillance team tailing her. Why she went to a junky in a paraphernalia shop was inconsequential; by the time they reached the shop, she was gone and the owner was too doped up to be much help.

  Yet now McRae would be more difficult to locate. He’d known she was in South America since she’d hopped off the cruise ship. But that she was there now told him she knew far more than her pay grade allowed. How she’d learned it was a mystery and meaningless now. But she did know about the human candidates. For a brief moment, Carl suspected Francine of giving her the information, but he’d no evidence to back that up. Besides, Francine was looking for a promotion from this and the credit for the creation. McRae had given that up. Francine had not.

  He never considered informing his superiors. They didn’t put him in the position to come crying at the first sign of trouble. All else was going well. The test subjects were in cages, and although someone would retrieve the men, if they were still alive, it was already clear the technology could be accepted into human implantation.

  That was all he needed to further the study to help troops in the field.

  His concern was Clancy McRae. She was a righteous woman, making her feelings on rushing the testing clear to all who were authorized. Her sudden disappearance, though, gave Carl the opportunity to set things back on track.

  Permanently.

  Boris was alive and untouched by a scalpel.

  Francine had plans for him that Clancy wouldn’t consider, or approve; the reason she was kept out of the loop. She felt lousy about lying to her friend, but orders were orders—and Clancy was a bona fide rebel when she had a cause.

  The government wanted results, and Francine was ready to oblige.

  Francine stared at the orangutan, walking slowly near the habitat. He didn’t reach for her, didn’t shake the bars, only tilted his head, looking more human than primate.

  Clancy was right. It was the perfume.

  She held out the steel ball, and through the bars, Boris took it. Gripped in his big hand, he crushed the metal like a soda can. The orangutan let it crash to the floor.

  “Good boy.” Even if he didn’t understand the sign language Francine had used to communicate with the creature, he could tell by her tone that she was pleased. He postured for a bit and she offered him a treat. He ate the fruit whole, reaching for more. She obliged.

  “Appetite substantially increased,” she said into the Palm Pilot recording her notes. He’d already consumed his daily diet and took his meal up into the trees of the large cage that stretched the length of a warehouse. While titanium bars separated them, with a glass wall that slid over that, he had room to move from one branch to another inside the habitat painstakingly re-created with hydroponically grown fruit trees and bamboo to resemble his Borneo home. Though he’d never seen Southeast Asia. Boris had been bred for research. For neuroscience, he was perfect, his genetic match 90 percent to humans, yet differences in brain size and intellect were in thyroid and steroid hormones. Inject him with enough and his genome was nearly 100 percent. That didn’t increase his brain activity; the pod did.

  Getting him to do the testing wasn’t hard. His mental ability had increased as well as his appetite. The realization that the pod worked this well made her almost giddy with excitement.

  “Begin the game, Boris.” He just stared at her. “Initiate the game,” she said and still he did nothing. How did Clancy phrase it? “Let’s play with the toys,” she said.

  Boris climbed down the tree and went to the puzzle. He looked at the empty chair, and Francine knew that Clancy sat close to him and they competed with putting the puzzle together. She repeated the command. He sat in a chair like a human, and stared at the table. The surface was thick with shapes routered out of the wood, beside it a stack of wooden shapes that fit into the molds. Francine frowned when the orangutan gathered up the shapes to his chest. He’s going to throw them, she thought, but he studied the molds, then one by one, started putting the pieces into the slots.

  He didn’t once look at the pieces to see if he had the correct one, and put them in the right cutout without having to adjust. She glanced to be certain the camera was still running. This was spectacular. Despite being bred for research, he was still a wild animal and sedated often, but his increased intelligence overshadowed his calm.

  She praised him, offering this time a piece of chocolate. Clancy had rewarded him with it, and she hoped it endeared the orangutan to her. But he didn’t touch the chocolate and made a deep hoo-hoo sound, as if asking where Clancy was. She offered the chocolate again, but he just nudged it back out of the cage.

  “Fine, fine. I know you miss her.” Damn it.

  Boris leaped, brachiating from tree to tree and stopping in the tops some thirty feet high. She could barely see him if not for his reddish hair. He let out a long call, a series of sounds followed by a bellow that made her skin chill. Its meaning could be anything from calling to a female, to warning males off his territory, or staking his claim to the territory. He’d done that several times since she’d taken him from the main testing lab.

  Francine went to the console and keyed open a portion of the retracting wall inside the cage. The wall slid back like a pocket door, and a computer screen and simple keyboard slid out, the screen coming on. He made a loud noise and slowly descended, curious and hunched, his knuckles scraping the dirt floor. He looked at her, snubbed the air, drawing his lips back and showing large incisor teeth. She remembered those claw hands reaching for her, and quickly she keyed the program, then edged back to watch. If the nanopod was really doing its job, he should be able to do the next test without trouble.

  She was bending to pick up the chocolate when she heard the locks click. She turned as the door swooshed open. Colonel Cook strode in and her heart did a little trip. He really was a dashing man, she thought. Tall, erect posture, he had just a touch of silver in his dark brown hair. He was never without his uniform—well, almost never, she thought, smiling.

  “Have you found her?”

  “You asked me that this morning. Don’t you think I would have said something?”

  “I never know with you.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said and she moved toward him, tossing the data sheets on the table, then was against him, kissing him wildly. When she pulled back, her hand slid down the front of his trousers, molding h
is quick erection. All she did was arch a brow and smile as he trembled. She loved power over powerful men.

  “The camera is on,” he said, exhaling through clenched teeth.

  “It’s not panning here, only the cage.”

  He glanced to make certain. “How is he progressing?”

  “His skills and strength have increased measurably.”

  “Then he can break that cage.”

  “It’s titanium, Carl, and he’s been calm for days.” Almost sad, she thought, annoyed that he was so attached to Clancy.

  The computer chimed, and Francine whipped around, looking from the orangutan to her screen. It showed his attempts to complete the matching puzzle. “Oh my God.” She hurried across the room.

  Cook moved to her side. “What’s that?” He gestured to the screen and leaned over. In the corner it said Trials initiated. Beside it was the ratio.

  “He did it all.”

  “All what?” Carl asked.

  “All of the program, in ten minutes. He completed the whole thing.”

  “Certainly, he’s done the test before.”

  “No, not this one.” She told him about the primate doing the shape test without stopping and was keying up another level. “I tried another, a new one Clancy had just created for him. Look at his score.”

  In the lower right corner red numbers blinked: 100/100.

  “My God. Watch him, Carl, watch.”

  The animal stared at the screen, watching the instructions, which were simple patterns like the last one, but this was a rudimentary human IQ test. After a moment, the orangutan lifted one finger and started tapping keys.

  “Increase his steroid injections,” Cook ordered. That test was proof enough.

  While Francine was smiling like a parent at a piano recital, Carl was scowling. “This stays with you and me,” he said and she looked at him, frowning. “No more interns, no assistants.”

  “There’s Clancy.” He shook his head. She recognized the look and what it meant. “Oh no, Carl. You can’t cut her out, she created it.” When he just stared, her skin went pasty as she understood. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am and you’re either with me or not.”

  She looked at Boris. “I’m in.”

  Carl kissed her cheek and thought, this was going to be big. And now McRae was a true liability.

  Richora rushed to the other boat, climbing in and grabbing an oar from the bottom. He ordered two men to join him and they were barely inside when he pushed off. His gaze was on the pair moving past the slight curve of the stream, and he hurried to catch up.

  “Shoot them!” he ordered and they fired without true aim.

  The woman was low in the boat, taking her time and then firing. The bullet hit the side of his boat, passed through, and hit his soldier. The man screamed, sharp and abrupt, and Richora reached to check the wound, and realized his sister’s son was dead. I’ll torture the little bitch for this. And for what she’d seen, if anything. Then she fired again, wounding another, the impact sending a man rolling in pain in the bottom of the boat. Richora looked between the female and his troop, weighing his options. Then he ordered his men to row faster.

  Mike pushed the pole into the water, but it was useless. It was like stirring soup and he grasped an oar, digging in hard. “Good shot, McRae.”

  She just waved a hand over her head.

  Mike felt a twinge, something he didn’t want to examine, when she pressed her head to the rim of the boat. Shooting was easy for him, always cut-and-dry. But she’d done the job. He admired that push-comes-to-shove attitude in a woman, though he’d met a few who were far more ruthless. His gaze traveled over her dark reddish hair, choppy and wildly layered. She was a little thing, pixie compact, with beautifully expressive whiskey-brown eyes. His hands almost itched with the memory of her tight, firm shape under his palms. He wouldn’t mind exploring it a little more.

  He dragged his gaze from her to the terrain, shoring up his guard. No involvement with civilians, ever. Ditch her and get on with the mission. “Don’t relax your guard.”

  “Relax? I just shot a man.”

  “Two, but who’s counting?” She looked at him, horrified, and he regretted his bluntness. “Keep your hands out of the water. This is piranha country.”

  Clancy jerked back from the edge, staring at the water for a second.

  His gaze flicked to the shore, into the trees. “We’re too out in the open.”

  The boat suddenly shifted, moving faster and to her right. She looked around and spotted the bow of the other boat.

  “Shouldn’t he be sinking by now?” she said, aiming.

  “He should. Never mind shooting. Get an oar.” The water boiled hard beneath the boat as the river widened, and Clancy rowed.

  “Right, go right.” He was steering backward, watching Richora’s approach. They neared a sharp bend. “Time to get the hell outta here, Clancy. Stand up.”

  She did, rocking the boat.

  “Get ready to jump on my back.”

  “We’re in the middle of open water.” With things in it.

  “Not for long.” He gave the long oar a hard shove, moving the gondola-like boat into the dark overhang of trees. “Grab on.”

  Clancy hopped on his back a moment before he reached and caught a thick branch. Vines choked the gnarled twisted trees and Mike did a chin-up, his feet leaving the craft. The boat sailed down the river without them.

  She clung to his big shoulders, her legs around his waist. “I really don’t see how this is better.”

  “Give me a minute. I’m just glad you’re a lightweight,” he grunted.

  They dangled over the water, creatures slithering into the stream and heading toward the offer of fresh meat as Mike inched along the branch. It started to crack.

  “Grab the branch, my left!”

  Clancy reached, the limb so broad her hands scarcely wrapped it.

  “Can you hold on?” Her legs were still wrapping his waist.

  “If my choice is being piranha entrée? I think I’ll manage.”

  Beneath her, small broad fish stirred the water as if scenting a meal. Mike swung himself and hooked his legs on the branch. Then hanging by his legs, he reached for her, helping her get a better handhold, then a foothold at the trunk of the tree.

  She let out a breath and he grabbed her bag, pushing it into the foliage. He shushed her. They held still as seconds later, Richora’s boat slid over the glassy water. Right past them. They waited till he was downstream a bit, then Mike moved painfully slow to avoid shaking the trees. Clancy was closer to the trunk and started inching her way to the center. Then they heard gunshots, panicked voices laced with curses. Richora was sinking.

  Mike winked at her. “Timing’s a little off, but good enough.”

  She smiled and gripped the trunk of the tree like a favored doll. Mike worked his way toward her, his size not giving him many options. Then he was in the branches with her.

  “Now what?”

  “To shore.”

  She looked at the ground. Several feet below, it was a soggy, watery mess and several yards to higher ground. She hoped the baggies in her boots were still sealed. “You didn’t think of this before now?”

  “Nope, and not of him either.”

  She whipped to the right. A caiman, an Amazon alligator, slid into the water on the other side of the stream.

  “I can’t shoot it or all this daring will be for nothing.”

  Give away their position, she realized. “I get it, but if that thing starts chewing on my butt I expect you to wrestle him to the death.”

  “It would be my honor to save that behind from such a fate.”

  “And people call me a smart-ass.”

  He instructed her to the point that she looked up at him with sarcasm written all over her pixie face.

  “Ya know, if I look like a complete moron, tell me, because then I probably need to rethink my hairdo.”

  His brows shot up, a sexy
little smile curving his lips. “Message received, ma’am. Have at it.”

  Clancy concentrated, every muscle tense as she worked toward the ground, her gaze flicking to the gator floating in the water a few yards away. Stay there, she thought. I’ll taste really bad. When her feet touched the ground, she pulled her purse in front of herself and walked carefully across the soggy earth, wading through the knee-deep finger stream. It wasn’t easy, thick with algae-covered vines and water plants that clung to her pants and ankles as she passed, snagging her. Her feet sank deeper into the muddy bottom, and she tried pulling free and got tangled worse. Mike was there, slicing at the vines with his big-ass knife, then taking her with him to higher ground.

  He didn’t let her catch a breath. “Keep going, the gator wants to visit.”

  They ran, pushing at the underbrush, water flowing from her clothes and feeling like worms on her skin.

  “Personally I would have taken a road, but the end justifies the means?”

  “Most times.” Mike had been forced to live with that. He didn’t want to think about the times he’d killed several to get a few. “There should be a village up here.”

  The terrain rose steeply and Clancy’s thighs ached as she tried to keep up with him. “Village? I’ve been in a village. I want a town with a hotel and some room service.” She was whining, hating it, and really missed that cruise ship right now.

  “Come on, McRae, no muttering in the ranks.”

  Definite military, she thought and really wasn’t paying attention to where she was going and plowed into his back. He pulled her down to the ground with him and pointed. Ahead, the forest thinned out, sunlight penetrating the trees and showering on a little village. It wasn’t even a village, really, just a couple of wood homes that a good rainstorm would wash away.