Face Of Deception

“I’ll remember you, Grandfather. I promise,” he declared fervently. Then he tucked the coin into his pajama pocket.

No longer able to contain her sadness Ann hurried down the hallway to the privacy of her bedroom.

By rote, she went through the motions of preparing herself for bed and was about to retire when the door flung open with such force that it slammed against the wall. A scream burst past her lips at the sight of a man in the doorway waving a weapon at her.

“Out. Out,” he ordered sharply, gesturing wildly with the rifle.

“Ann! Ann! Help me,” Brandon cried out from the other room.

“Oh, dear God! Brandon!” In her hurry to reach the frightened child, Ann ignored the armed man and rushed past him. Another abductor was pulling the protesting child by the arm out of his bedroom into the living room.

“Take your hands off him,” she cried, rushing to Brandon’s defense. His captor shoved her away and she fell back onto the couch.

“Don’t you hurt her.” Brandon’s lower lip jutted out pugnaciously as he pounded the chest of his captor. He was sent sprawling next to Ann. She clutched him tightly as they huddled, terrified, while the two servants were herded into the room by more armed men. After a quick exchange, the abductors bound and gagged the servants and took them back to their room.

Several others went into her bedroom, and Ann could hear them ransacking it.

“Up. Up,” her captor ordered when they returned. His knowledge of English may have been limited, but his body language and the menacing gestures spoke an international language that was not difficult to interpret as he herded Ann and Brandon into her bedroom.

As frightened as she was, Ann refused to cower under their intimidating glares. “What is the meaning of this? What do you want from us?”

“No talk. You no talk,” he barked, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

She couldn’t believe the devastation their captors had created in such a short time. The room had been thoroughly sacked in their search for weapons and valuables. Bureau drawers had been pulled out and the contents strewn everywhere. Chairs were upended and pictures yanked off the walls.

After Brandon helped Ann put the mattress back on the bed and restore the bedding to a proper order she insisted he go to bed.

“I’m scared, Ann. I don’t want to go to sleep. When are these mean men going away?”

“Soon, honey. Soon,” she soothed. “Try to sleep. Maybe they’ll be gone in the morning.”

When he finally settled down, Ann went to the door and tried to hear what the men were saying. From the few fragments of sentences she was able to overhear, she grasped that they were waiting for further instructions before moving Brandon and her to a different location.

Good Lord! Who were these men? Were they responsible for Clayton’s death? Were they going to kill her and Brandon, too?

Her breathing came in quick, shallow gasps as her panic mounted. She felt she was choking. Rushing to the window, she raised it and drew several deep breaths. An armed guard outside waved his weapon to indicate she move back inside the room. Irritated, she slammed down the window.

Her nerves were raw, and she could feel herself coming apart. Her fright, Clayton’s death and not knowing the reason behind it all had driven her to the brink of losing her control. Brandon’s need for her was the only thing keeping her from breaking down.

To occupy herself Ann tidied the room. The task helped to take her mind off her misery until she picked up a framed photograph that had been knocked to the floor. Her eyes misted as she gazed at the cherished face of the distinguished-looking man in his sixties. She had snapped the photograph of Clayton Burroughs the day they met.

“Oh, Clayton.” Sobbing, she sank in despair to the floor.

Chapter 2

Mike Bishop awoke with a start when Cassidy nudged him with his foot. “I think I just saw the signal.”

Saturated with perspiration, he sat up and looked around hastily at the men stretched out on the deck. All were sleeping except for Dave Cassidy at the helm.

Mike pulled out his binoculars and trained the glasses on the shore. The infrared lenses distinguished a ragged coastline capped by a dense jungle. As the boat drew nearer, a light blinked three times from the shore, the prearranged signal from the local guide. They were on course.

Frowning, he lowered the glasses, removed a black wool cap and then wiped his brow on the sleeve of his sweater. He ran his fingers through the clipped hair matted to his head and rose to his feet to stretch his cramped muscles. He was hot and sweaty and would have liked to pull off the black sweater that clung to him in wet patches, shuck the pants and boots and dive into the inviting water.

Despite the undulating movement of the small craft, his step was firm, his back ramrod straight as he crossed the deck.

“We made good time.”

Cassidy nodded. “You think the woman and kid are still alive?”

“I’m not psychic! Your guess is as good as mine.”

“What’s chewing on your ass?” Cassidy asked. “You’ve been uptight since the briefing.”

“Nothing. Nothing’s bugging me,” Mike growled. He returned to his former seat, picked up a round tin and began smearing black greasepaint on his face. When he was through, only the whites of his eyes could be discerned in the darkness. Passing the tin to Cassidy, he settled back and began to reflect on the mission ahead.

From the quick briefing they’d received from Prince Charming, a British national had been murdered in French Guiana. A contact informed them that the man’s six-year-old grandson and American assistant, Ann Hamilton, whom the Agency assigned the code names of Boy Blue and Snow White, had reached a prearranged rescue site, but were now being held prisoners, presumably by those responsible for the Brit’s murder. And since his squad was on a training exercise in neighboring Guyana, they were immediately dispatched to go in fast and get the woman and kid. And not make it an international incident. That meant not to take out any of the abductors. What the hell was with the Agency? Did Baker and Waterman think they could just walk through the door and the bastards would hand them the prisoners?

For the dozenth time Bishop reached into his pocket and pulled out the faxed photograph given to him at the briefing. He stared at the woman’s face in the picture. Deep-violet eyes veiled with thick dark lashes stared out at him from the photograph. Shoulder-length golden hair feathered in soft curls around a flawless face blessed with a small straight nose and high cheekbones.

Man, she was hot!

He ran his finger absently across her wide, generous mouth. What in hell had been with this Burroughs? The guy had to have known the risks. Only a damn fool would bring a woman along on an assignment.

On second thought, he’d cut the guy some slack. Maybe the poor fool didn’t know. Baker had said that Burroughs wasn’t actually an agent. That Waterman had asked Burroughs for his help.

Why had Queen Mother asked this Burroughs for help? Espionage was no job for amateurs. So now the poor bastard’s dead for his effort.

Mike felt a tightening in his chest. And by this time, the woman and kid are probably dead, too.

When Cassidy began to rouse the men, Mike refolded the paper and returned it to his pocket. He was proud of this team. Known as the Dwarf Squad in the Agency, he, Cassidy, Bolen and Fraser were former Navy SEALs; Williams and Bledsoe had been with the British SAS. Each man was a specialist in a particular field. They had served together as a team for the past three years, and he trusted all of them. Would stake his life on the performance of any one of them. Mike smiled wryly—he’d often had to.

There was nothing to distinguish one of them from the other. They wore no identification. Dressed alike. On this mission, each of them carried an Israeli-made Uzi submachine gun. In addition they all carried a Silver Trident knife, a garrote, grenades and six extra clips of ammo strapped to their waists.

The team never carried survival rations. They survived on whatever the land offered.

The craft touched shore, and they slipped into the water and beached the boat. At the sound of a crackling leaf all six weapons swung toward the man who stepped out of the brush. He identified himself as the contact they were expecting.

“Burroughs’s house three kilomètre,” the man explained, holding up three fingers as he struggled with English. He pointed to a spot on the map that Bishop had extracted from a waterproof packet. “I see nine, maybe ten go into house.”

“Did they all have weapons?”

“Oui.”

“Automatic weapons?” Mike pursued.

“I not know, monsieur.”

“What about servants?”