The Heart of a Mercenary Read online

  “I know.”

  He sat still for a while. The sky began to darken and a hot breeze rippled the water. Sarah didn’t ask any more questions. She was giving him time to go at his own pace.

  Hunter ran his tongue over his teeth. “Kathleen went and got herself an abortion. In secret. She developed septicemia, and by the time she was admitted to hospital, it was too damn late to save her.”

  “Is that why you left Ireland to join the Legion?”

  “No. I left because they blamed me for killing her.”

  “What!”

  He nodded, slightly bemused at how easy it actually was to say these things to Sarah. It had been a secret bottled inside him for so long, he thought he’d never be able to talk about it, let alone feel this strange catharsis in doing so.

  “I was Catholic, remember. In Colin’s eyes that meant no one slept with his daughter until she was married. He immediately assumed I was the one who’d knocked her up, and he went blind with rage. He figured I was also the one who’d tried to take care of it. He thought I killed his daughter, my own fiancée, and he came after me with all the cash and power and fury he could muster. It started with my suspension from the hospital, and then the police came knocking. I was done for. Professionally. Emotionally. My life in Ireland was over.”

  She moved closer to him, just close enough so that her body lightly touched his. “I’m so sorry, Hunter.”

  He reached over and stroked the baby’s head. “I would have looked after the baby, you know? I would have accepted her child as my own. That’s the irony of it, Sarah. As much as her infidelity killed me, I would have protected her. She didn’t trust my integrity enough to tell me.”

  “Betrayed in love…and in death,” Sarah whispered. She lifted her eyes to his, as if seeing him—really seeing him—for the first time. “What did you do?”

  “I wanted to die.” He laughed softly. “The only thing that saved me was a book from my childhood library.”

  “Beau Geste…about the Légion Étrangère.”

  Startled, he stared at her. “How did you know?”

  “Smart guess.” She smiled. “It was one of my dad’s boyhood favorites. It’s the one that sparked his interest in the Legion.” She looked into his eyes. “He’d like you, you know?”

  “Your dad—he still around?”

  She nodded. “Not my mum, though. She died when I was fourteen. Cancer. My gran kind of stepped in and looked after us both. She was Irish, too. She came from this huge Catholic family, lots of kids, tons of stories. It sounded such fun, and being an only child myself, I…I always felt I was missing out on something.” She smoothed the blanket over the baby. “Maybe that’s why I always wanted to have children, to fill some subconscious hole in my psyche. Goodness knows, perhaps that’s even the reason I ended up working in a pediatric ward.” She smiled a little self-consciously. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I really realized that until now.”

  “Can I hold her?”

  Surprise, then delight rippled through Sarah’s eyes. She leaned forward, moving the baby away from her chest, and wrapped the flannel blanket carefully around the tiny body. She handed the crinkled bundle to him.

  He brought the small, soft, sleeping newborn up against the skin of his chest and studied the wrinkled face. The baby made a snuffling noise and her little mouth puckered and began to suckle at an imaginary breast. The sensation punched something so savagely primal through Hunter that for an instant, he couldn’t breathe. His eyes turned moist. How could such violent potency coexist with such tenderness in one overwhelming sensation? Was that what it felt like to be paternal, to be a father? Holding this little life in his hands made him feel like a god. It made him feel as if he could conquer the world, made him want to.

  He swallowed. “Sarah,” he said, gazing at the child’s face as it slept in his arms. “This is probably a really dumb question, given everything you’ve told me about your marriage, but why didn’t you and Josh have kids, back in the beginning when you thought you were still okay together?”

  She was silent for a while. “I can’t have children.”

  He studied her face. “Medical reasons?”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  He nodded in turn, saying nothing. He recalled her outburst at the plantation. It made sense now. Him telling her that he was dreaming of children, her children, must have cut her to the quick. He could only begin to imagine what it must be like for a woman who loved children with all her heart not to be able to bear them, and how a man like Sarah’s ex-husband might have used that to undermine her.

  Hunter turned his attention back to the coffee-skinned bundle in his arms. Her lashes were dark and silky, like her hair. She was so beautiful. So innocent, so very helpless. An orphan of war. “I always liked the name Branna,” he said softly.

  A mix of tenderness and unease crossed Sarah’s features. She hesitated. “What’s going to happen to her? She has no future.”

  He slanted his eyes to hers. “We can give her a future, Sarah.”

  Surprise flitted through her. She searched his face, looking for something, an answer to some unspoken question. Gunfire sounded in the distance, but her gaze remained steady, her eyes holding his, as if she desperately needed to know something. “Why did you join the FDS when you quit the Legion, Hunter? Why didn’t you go back to medicine? What made you want to keep fighting…killing people?”

  He could see where she was going with this. She didn’t believe a man like him could give anyone a future, let alone this child.

  “I was good at war. I excelled in the Legion. It became what I knew. And by that stage I was comfortably numb. I was with men who never talked about the past, never asked questions. I never had to think. I never had to feel. And that suited me fine. It made me good at what I do. And I didn’t join the FDS, I formed it. Ten years ago.”

  “Formed it?”

  “With three other guys who served in the Legion with me—Jacques Sauvage, Rafiq Zayed and December Ngomo. As our five-year contracts drew to an end, we began to look ahead. We saw a market for a small but highly efficient private force of professional soldiers modeled on the Legion’s paramilitary regiment. We got contracts and began to build our business. Our reputation grew, and so did the bank accounts. We were based out of South Africa at first, but a change of legislation there put our business on the wrong side of the local law, so we had to find another location. We eventually signed a deal with the government of São Diogo. The island economy was dying, and moving our base and our business there was an ideal economic solution for the small nation. Our soldiers and their families now support the local economy, and the islanders support us.”

  “Those men, the ones you formed the FDS with, have they been rectified?”

  He gave a wry grin. “We don’t talk about the past, Sarah. Ever. They’re men I will die for, and they will do the same for me. That’s good enough.”

  She studied him in silence. It was almost dark now, the clouds low and the air thick with hot electrical energy. Gunfire sounded again, somewhere to the north. Hunter handed the little bundle in his arms back to Sarah. “It’s time.”

  21:29 Alpha. Cameroon border.

  Thursday, September 25

  The night was pitch-black and hot. All Sarah could see was the oily shine of the rippling river and the dark shapes of trees along the shoreline. Water slapped lightly on the hull. She had no idea how long they’d been drifting northward. She figured they must be getting close to the border by now, and she thanked the Lord that she’d managed to stop Branna from crying. She liked the name Hunter had mentioned—Branna—and that’s who the baby had become in Sarah’s mind. She stroked her little head, drawing comfort from the contact. The baby was sleeping now. Sarah just hoped she kept on sleeping while they crossed into Cameroon.

  Hunter had helped her bind Branna to her chest using the blanket in the way the natives did. She’d be able to move faster this way.

  She felt Hu
nter’s hand on her knee, then his breath in her ear. “We’re almost at the border,” he whispered. “Don’t let her cry. Be ready to move when I tell you.”

  Sarah swallowed. Perspiration prickled along her brow, the baby against her chest making her even hotter. She wished she could see what Hunter was seeing through his night-vision gear. She heard the slight splash and swoosh of his paddle, and she felt the canoe turn. They began to move faster, picking up a stronger current.

  She heard another slight swoosh of his paddle and the canoe veered to her right. She felt a bump, then the brush of leaves over her face. He touched her arm, indicating that she stay still while he dragged the canoe higher onto the shore. She heard the slosh of water as his boots moved through it, felt the canoe jerk up onto the beach. He took her arm, helped her out.

  Relief spurted through her. If they were getting out of the canoe, they must have made it over the border without incident. They were safe.

  All they had to do now was move farther inland and Hunter would radio his contact. For the first time in days, Sarah actually began to think they might make it out alive.

  But he grabbed her arm suddenly, held her motionless. She blinked into the dark, seeing nothing. Then she heard voices drifting in snatches over the water. Her heart started to thud. Lights flickered in the distance, as if people were moving through the trees with flashlights. Sarah’s mouth went dry. Branna stirred against her body. She placed her hand over the infant’s head, willing her to be still, but she began to cry. The lights up ahead stilled, as if the searchers were listening. A wild terror clawed through Sarah. She placed her pinkie in Branna’s mouth and the baby began to suck. The flickering lights moved on and the voices began to fade.

  Hot relief swooped through her.

  They waited for what seemed like hours until they were sure the men were gone. “Looks like Congo militia crossed the border into Cameroon,” Hunter whispered against her ear. “And it looks like they’re hunting us. They know we’re in the area. We need to get farther inland. Fast.” He clasped his hand around hers, drew her deeper into the trees. They moved along what seemed like a winding path. Sarah tried hard not to stumble, worried she’d hurt Branna if she fell. The path widened and the surface under her feet began to feel much harder and smoother. The darkness was less complete here and she realized it was because trees had been cleared to make a dirt road.

  They followed the road in silence for what must have been at least an hour until they heard the distant sound of an engine.

  Hunter pulled her off the road and down into an overgrown ditch. She saw headlights flickering through the trees. Sweat trickled down her ribs. Branna moved against her and made a little noise. She was waking up again. The headlights came closer, the engine noise growing to a loud, rattling rumble. It was a truck, an old one. It clattered past them and Sarah’s mouth filled with the taste of dust and diesel. They waited until all was silent and until the red taillights disappeared into the darkness.

  “There’s a clearing up ahead, Sarah, on the other side of this road. The chopper can land there. I’m going to radio in now.”

  She heard Hunter fiddling with his gear. Then she heard the whine and crackle of static as he adjusted the frequency. The sound was oddly comforting, a link to the rest of the world. And even though she could barely see a thing in the velvet blackness of the equatorial night, her mental horizons were immediately expanded by the sense of connection. She heard him speaking low, very low. “Bongani, this is Jongilanga, over. Bongani—”

  The set crackled and a voice answered, the volume dropping as he turned it down. “Roger, Jongilanga. Coordinates? Over.”

  She heard him give their GPS coordinates. “We have hostiles in area, what’s your ETA? Over.”

  “Twenty. Clear.”

  Hunter swore softly. Then all was silent. Sarah swatted blindly at a cloud of insects she could feel hovering near her face. He took her arm, helped her rise, led her back up the road. They began to walk briskly. He then guided her down what appeared to be another path toward more trees.

  “I want you to lie low in the woods here until you see the chopper. Don’t move until it’s right over the clearing, then you run for your life, okay? There will be light, you’ll be able to see where you’re going.”

  A cold feeling of unease began to leach through her. “Where will you be?”

  He guided her into a crouching position in the trees. “Wait here,” he whispered. He took her wrist and wrapped her fingers around the handle of the biohazard canister. “And take this.”

  Panic ripped through her. “Why? Where are you going?”

  He cupped her face in his palms, turned it to face him. “If the militia crossed the border into Cameroon and are looking for us, they will pick up my radio signal, and you can bet your life they’re already on their way. I’m going to leave you and Branna here, and I’m going to try and engage them farther down the road, give the chopper a clear path in and you time to get out.”

  A cold dread took complete hold of her. “No, Hunter,” she whispered. “You can’t! You’ll be outnumbered. They’ll kill you!”

  “I’ll be fine. The FDS would’ve alerted the Cameroonian troops to hostiles in the area. With luck they’ll arrive in time to do the real dirty work, but I must leave, now, or they’ll be within shooting range of the chopper.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he muffled her words with a hard kiss. Then he pulled away, held her face, studied her quietly in the dark. “Wait for me on São Diogo, Sarah,” he whispered. “I need to talk to you. We…have some things we need to work out.” He hesitated. “I love you.”

  And he was gone, a shadow melting into the night, just the lingering, salty taste of him on her lips. Tears burned her eyes. Her heart thudded against her ribs. He loved her. And the notion that she might never see him again speared through her gut. She cradled Branna, rocking back and forth on her heels, trying not to let wild panic and desperation blind her.

  She forced herself to calm down, tried to conjure up Hunter’s comforting, grounding bass voice, imagine his eyes. Home. He was her sense of home. He’d said he loved her.

  She was going to get out of this. She was going to do this for him. For Branna. For a chance at a future. The notion filled her mind, and suddenly she was no longer alone with a newborn in the dark. A quiet determination filled Sarah, and she waited in silence, Branna making hot little snuffling noises against her chest.

  Then she heard it, a distant chop in the air, growing louder. Her pulse tripped into high gear. She could see the lights coming over the trees from the north.

  Then an explosion rocked the air and orange light flashed in the distance, to the south. She heard gunfire. Another explosion.

  Hunter!

  The helicopter materialized over the tops of the trees, a massive black blot in the sky. It banked sharply and hovered over the clearing, the whir of lethal blades drowning out the sound of gunfire. As it lowered, a searchlight flashed on, illuminating the ground with a halo of white light, instantly bringing her world into focus. Long grass flattened under the downdraft. One side of the chopper was open, a man waving at her from the doorway. Sarah grasped the handle of the canister, hunkered low over Branna and ran for her life.

  Somewhere beyond the trees she could see the faint orange explosions cutting through the blackness, but the sound of the chopper overpowered everything. She stumbled, almost fell, caught herself, ran a little more carefully, the blades of grass lashing at her legs. She couldn’t afford to fall. She’d hurt Branna. The violent downdraft forced a stream of tears from her eyes and whipped her hair around her head. She was vaguely aware that Branna was screaming under chin.

  As she reached the door, a giant of a man, in military gear with a pack on his back, jumped out, ran toward her. He took the biohazard container with one hand, her arm with the other. He guided her to the hovering craft, and another man reached down, hauled her up into it. She barely found her feet before the craft li
fted sharply and veered up into the air and over the trees, leaving the first man on the ground.

  A dark-skinned man with hooked brows guided her down onto a hard bench and began to strap her in. She realized she was shaking violently and Branna was screaming bloody murder.

  “What about Hunter?” she yelled over the roar of the engine as the helicopter rose higher in the sky and banked again.

  The man said something, but she couldn’t hear him above the deafening din of the blades. The door was still wide-open. She leaned forward, could see the black trees fading into the distance. Terror clawed at her heart.

  “You’ve got to get Hunter!” Hot tears streamed down her face. “He’s down there! You’ve got to help him!”

  The man motioned with his hand for her to calm down. She couldn’t. Hysteria was overwhelming her. She just could not think of leaving him down there in that place.

  The man leaned over her and she realized he was putting earphones and a mouthpiece over her head. She heard his voice in the set. “Sarah, I want you to stay calm. My name is Rafiq Zayed, I’m with the FDS—”

  “Where’s Hunter?”

  He raised his hand. “He’ll be all right.” He had a rich Arabic accent and his voice was deep, smooth, strangely calming. A sense of rationality began to diffuse through her and she began to pull her surroundings into focus. She was in a big, hollow military craft equipped with the bare minimum. Rafiq Zayed sat on the bench opposite her. He was leaning forward, studying her with intense, piercing dark eyes. His face was angular and his glossy black hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  Rafiq. That was one of the names Hunter had mentioned, one of the men he trusted with his life. The knowledge took the brunt off her panic. She began to rock Branna, trying to get her to suckle on her pinkie. Hunter had all the baby milk in his pack. “What’s going to happen to Hunter?” she asked, much more calmly, speaking into the mouthpiece.