Dangerous to Hold Read Free Page A

you’d better keep moving and keep your mouth shut.”
    She swallowed and clutched the boy’s hand.
    â€œStay in front of me from here on, where I can keep an eye on you,” he ordered. “Don’t step off the path, and keep a tight hold on the kid. There are a few surprises along the trail for anyone unwise enough to try to follow us. Now move it, lady…Sister.”
    Gripping her skirt with one tight fist and the child with the other, she turned and fell into line.
    As the small group traveled in heavy silence, the night sounds of the jungle they’d disturbed slowly resumed. Leaves rustled in the tall trees. Whistles and chirps seemed to come from every direction. Bats whirred through the branches high above, while whining mosquitoes circled Jake’s ears. The crunching, tearing sounds of small animals and insects feeding drifted to him through the darkness. Once, far off in the distance, a jaguar screamed.
    Jake managed a grim smile.
    As the echo of the animal’s cry died away, he mentally reviewed his options. There weren’t many at this point.
    He could abandon his mission right now and try to take out the dozen men with him on this botched operation. He calculated the risks to the woman and the children and abandoned the idea. It wasn’t any more feasible now than it had been back in the village.
    That left trying to brazen it out. When this little band got back to camp, Jake would have to convince the desiccated fanatic who led them that the aborted airdrop and the proximity of government troops were both just coincidence. That Jake himself had nothing to do with either—which he didn’t.
    At the same time, he’d have to find a way to protect thisnun and her charges without blowing his cover. That might be a bit tricky, given the fact that he was supposed to be a conscienceless mercenary.
    Still, he had no choice. There were already two other women in camp, one hard and pitiless and as dedicated to the revolution as the intense leader she slept with. The other was the vacant-eyed wife of one of the men, who didn’t mind sharing her, for a price. Jake’s gut wrenched at the thought of the games the men played with the uncomprehending, unresisting woman. His fingers clenched around the gun barrel at the thought of what they could do to the woman stumbling along ahead of him.
    At that moment, he heard her call a strained reassurance to the little girl atop the plodding packhorse. Despite her own fears, and what she must know was a very uncertain future, she managed to soothe the whimpering child. A reluctant admiration for the woman’s ragged courage tugged at him.
    Maybe, just maybe, they could pull it off, Jake thought. More than just their lives was at stake here, he reminded himself. An entire country teetered on the brink of civil war, and all the horror that came with it. Cartoza was a small nation, but one of the United States’ staunchest allies in Central America. Its government was dedicated to wiping out the drug traffickers whose insidious products were destroying the social fabric of all the Americas.
    The U.S. President himself had activated an OMEGA response based on the information that the drug lords were financing shipments of stolen U.S. arms to the insurgents. The shipments had to be stopped before the friendly government toppled.
    There was still a chance, a slim chance, of accomplishing that mission. If his controller at OMEGA didn’t jump the gun and send in an extraction team, Jake might yet take down the middleman who was supplying the arms.
    His lips twisted in a small, grim smile at the thought of his controller. By now, Maggie Sinclair would be pacing the floor, those long legs of hers eating up the cramped space inthe communications center. Her brown eyes would be narrowed in intense concentration, her dark cloud of hair would be tangled from her unconscious habit of raking a hand through it whenever she was deep in