Chapter Seven
AMI KEPT HER EYES CLOSED, feigning sleep until he left the room.
At last she opened them and blinked to adjust to the pale dawn hues sifting through the wall of windows.
Her gaze went immediately to the chair where he sat each night and watched her.
She shoved the thin coverlet aside and sat up in the bed, the cool air easily penetrating the gossamer-thin gown she wore, making her shiver.
She stared down at the silky pale pink garment, wondering what had made him give it to her last night.
He’d stayed closer than usual since the incident with Carlos two days ago.
That memory sent a shudder quaking through her.
She consciously set aside the other memories related to that exchange, especially the one where she’d thrown her arms around Michal and held on tightly as if he were her only anchor in violent waters.
He had allowed the unexpected display for a few moments before pushing her away, his expression going instantly from tender to threatening.
No matter what she thought she saw as he’d tended the hurt Carlos had inflicted, he was still determined to have his vengeance. To make her pay for her betrayal two years ago. Ami trudged to the bathroom and took care of necessary business, including a change of clothes.
As she brushed her forever unruly hair she considered the face in the mirror.
Could she really have played the part of Amira Peres as Jack Tanner had said?
Was she really capable of those kinds of exploits?
The dreams she’d experienced night after night the past two years seemed to indicate a past with Michal.
But she couldn’t be certain. The dreams could be nothing but dreams. Just because his features were dark didn’t make him the father of her child.
She trembled with something totally unrelated to fear for her life at that thought.
If that were true and he ever found out about Nicholas…
She shook off the concept. For that matter Tanner could be the father. He’d insinuated that something had gone on between them while he’d trained her for the mission. His coloring was dark, as well.
Ami shook her head. Maybe Carlos was right. Maybe she had been nothing but a bought-and-paid-for whore who’d done the CIA’s bidding or anyone else’s, ultimately betraying Michal.
But he was a terrorist. Another shiver danced up her spine.
The single most ruthless terrorist on the planet, Tanner had said.
Somehow it didn’t fit. She had yet to see him harm another human being.
Not even when Carlos over-stepped his bounds did Michal use violence to control the situation.
It was true that he’d manhandled her to a degree, but he hadn’t actually hurt her.
She studied the fading bruises left over from her encounter with Carlos.
Now there was a man she was certain was capable of horrible violence.
Ami sighed and rubbed her hands over her face.
This was all insane. She was a nurse, for Pete’s sake.
A mother. She didn’t know anything about terrorists except what she saw in the news.
She barely kept up with politics. How could she be this Jamie Dalton, undercover agent for the CIA, that Tanner told her about?
How could she have played the part of Amira Peres and then orchestrated the murder of Yael Peres?
She shook her head. It just wasn’t possible.
Of course, the coincidence that the name Ami could be derived from both Amira and Jamie wasn’t lost on her.
When she’d been found wandering in that park two years ago the name Ami Donovan was all she’d known.
She’d stuck by the name, insisting that, despite her inability to remember anything about her past, she was indeed Ami Donovan.
The police and even the FBI had searched every data base available and found nothing on an Ami Donovan.
For all intents and purposes, she simply did not exist.
“But here you are,” she argued with the weary-looking reflection. “Caught in the middle of a nightmare.”
The dreams hadn’t relented, either. Each night the images played across the private theater of her mind. Nothing was ever clear enough for her to actually identify a face or place. But there was always, always the irresistible lure of the dark man who knew her so intimately.
Ami sagged against the sink and closed her eyes, summoning the face of her sweet baby.
At least seven days had passed since she’d held him in her arms. She replayed every moment of that last night they’d spent together.
She’d bathed him and they’d played until he’d scarcely stayed awake long enough to be tucked into bed.
What she would give to hold him now. An overwhelming pain arced through her, tightening her chest.
She straightened and forced her eyes open.
She hadn’t given up on her plan. Since Michal had warned Carlos about pushing her around, the other men had treated her a bit more kindly.
Perhaps kind was an overstatement, but their unsympathetic, hateful attitudes toward her had relaxed just a fraction.
One man, Kolin, had actually smiled at her.
She was certain she could befriend him if given the opportunity.
With this new relaxed attitude had come a little more freedom. She could now leave the room as long as the guard assigned to watch her accompanied her wherever she went. Her outside time was still quite limited. Michal didn’t want her outdoors unless he was with her.
But that could change if she played her cards right.
And if she stayed alive.
Determined more each day to make her escape plan a reality, Ami took a deep breath and exited her room. She smiled for the man who immediately stood at attention when she stepped through the open doorway.
“Good morning,” she said at a loss for his name.
“Senorita,” was his only acknowledgment.
She remembered then that they called him the Spaniard.
So far she had discerned that there were a dozen men in Michal’s group.
Two members whose native tongue was unquestionably Spanish, as the one guarding her, Kolin, from Ireland, Carlos, whose origin she couldn’t even guess, at least three Frenchmen, and four of Middle Eastern decent.
The whole group appeared to be multilingual.
She didn’t even want to hazard a guess as to the other talents they possessed.
Tanner’s words kept echoing in her head each time she considered what these men were capable of.
That she was a prisoner among them felt surreal, like a bad movie she’d been forced to watch over and over.
But it was real. And somehow she had to escape.
Had to get back to her son.
“I’d like breakfast,” she said to the Spaniard and smiled again, injecting as much sensuality as she could muster into it. The slight flare of his nostrils told her she’d been successful. Nausea roiled in her stomach, but she ignored it. Whatever the price, she reminded herself.
As Ami made her way through the house to the enormous gourmet kitchen she noted a curious tension in the air.
The men were hovered in groups in the great room conversing quietly, all were, as usual, armed to the hilt.
Their furtive glances as she’d passed through the room nudged at her, made her stomach tighten.
Something was up. She had grown accustomed to the Uzi machine guns and various handguns, but this was different.
With as much nonchalance as she could manage, once in the kitchen she sliced a piece of bread from the thick loaf and slathered it with butter. A cup of coffee and she was set.
Pretending to ignore the murmurings of the men, she strolled back into the great room and peered out the floor to ceiling windows facing the front of the property as she negligently nibbled on her bread.
The house sat high on a ridge above the valley below.
If she squinted she could see the profile of a city in the distance and the sea beyond that.
Miles away, she estimated. But even risking the journey through the unknown terrain that lay between here and there was not beyond her scope of comprehension.
Better to die in the wilderness than at the hands of one of these terrorists.
She suppressed a shudder. She needed to pay attention.
Something was definitely going on. Whatever it was it could be important to her.
Ami nibbled and sipped and watched the birds fly past outside the windows, but not for a second did her full attention stray from the quiet voices behind her.
Some of the conversation was carried on in a language she didn’t understand, but most of it was in English.
Kolin and another of the men had gone into town early that morning to deliver a package.
God only knew what the package contained.
Ami felt certain she didn’t want to know.
Kolin had spotted someone. She frowned, rolling the phrase he’d used over in her mind.
Traitre. He said it again, with fervor. Another of the men shouted, “Adversaire.”
Then she knew.
Traitor. Adversary.
Her throat went suddenly dry.
She gulped the cooled coffee. Kolin and the other man had run into an adversary, a traitor.
They’d brought him here. Her blood went cold.
At least these terrorists she knew, a stranger put a whole new bend in the situation.
She trembled with a new kind of fear, but forced herself to pay attention. She needed to know more.
In English, one of the men mentioned that Michal was interrogating the traitor in the cellar at that very moment.
Laughter rumbled through the group. Carlos had gone back into town with three other men to sweep the city just to be sure none of the traitor’s friends were hanging around.
Another thought that sent her tension to new heights.