so obviously hadn’t known who he was, despite the fact that he could have picked her out of any size crowd and at any distance simply by the way she carried herself. That hadn’t changed, in spite of the primitive conditions she’d been living in and his suspicion that she hadn’t had a real bath or a mirror since her capture.
Or maybe, he acknowledged, his response had been prompted by what he’d read in her face when he’d told her the pilot was dead. It was clear she’d been devastated, although, judging by the condition of the man in the back of the cave, she couldn’t have been surprised.
He had allowed himself a few seconds to wonder about her relationship with Mitchell before he’d forced his full attention back to the mission. Whatever—if anything—had been going on between the pilot and Grace, it was certainly over now.
His infamous luck had apparently held. It would have been hell trying to get the injured man out of the encampment and through the pass to where their transport was waiting. Thank God, Grace and Stern appeared to be in good physical condition, considering the circumstances.
“I hope you both ride,” he said, his gaze still focused beyond the entrance of the cave on the sleeping camp.
Deliberately he didn’t look at them. Nor had his comment been phrased as a question. He knew that Grace was an excellent horsewoman. If Stern couldn’t ride, he would have to manage the best he could.
It had been impossible to get any kind of vehicle to the plateau where their captors had set up their camp. That was the intent in choosing this location, of course. If Landon couldn’t figure out a way to get a truck or a Hummer up here, then neither could the Special Forces units who were searching the border for the missing Americans.
“I have ridden,” Stern whispered, “but…I’m afraid it’s been a long time.”
“Like riding a bicycle.” Landon had no idea if that was true, but there was no point in discouraging Stern. Not now.
He watched the silhouette of the guard assigned to the perimeter of the camp cross in front of the central fire. He was patiently waiting for him to reach the most distant point of his patrol before they made their move.
“We go to the right when we leave,” he instructed in a whisper. “Keep close to the rocks and watch your footing. Make any noise, and we’re all dead. The horses are in a rope enclosure about a hundred yards away.”
“Won’t they follow us?”
Obviously, the colonel hadn’t seen enough John Wayne movies. Their captors might try, but once he freed the horses, taking them along as they rode away, any tribesmen who followed would be doing so on foot.
“We take the horses with us,” Landon said, watching the steady advance of the perimeter guard.
He had already dispatched the one stationed at the entrance of the cave by the simple expedient of breaking his neck. Despite the obvious preparations the group had made for leaving the encampment, all of which he’d watched at sunset, the sentinels had been surprisingly lax.
Or maybe they were overconfident. After all, they had managed to avoid everyone who’d been sent to find them. Why should they believe that tonight would be any different?
“Now.”
As he whispered the command, Landon slipped out of the entrance. In a crouching run he headed toward the corral where the movements of the grazing horses had hidden his approach tonight.
The clothing he’d bought in a village more than a hundred miles away carried in its fabric the same smells as the robes worn by the men with whom those animals were intimately familiar: sweat, smoke and dust.
He hadn’t worried about Grace and the colonel betraying their presence among the horses. After three weeks of living in a cave, they, too, would undoubtedly smell the same to those sensitive noses.
Landon glanced back to track their progress. The flickering firelight, enhanced by shadows cast from the peaks surrounding the encampment, made it difficult to follow their movements. Which was exactly what he’d been counting on.
He took time to check the remaining guard, who, having reached the point most distant from camp, had taken the opportunity to smoke. Landon watched him raise the cigarette to his mouth, the tip growing brighter as he drew on it and then brought it down again.
He felt Grace ease to a stop beside him. He could hear her breathing, soft but irregular from the run she’d just made. He waited until Stern joined them, knowing it would be better if they made their raid on the horses together. Hopefully, by the time the sleeping tribesmen were aware anything was amiss, they would be mounted and away.
Hopefully.
“What about saddles?” Stern leaned across Grace to whisper.
He sounded worried, as he probably should be. Landon had anticipated from the first that the colonel could be the weak link in the escape, but after all, Stern wasn’t his chief concern.
He had known Grace could easily pull this part off. She had almost made one of the Olympic equestrian teams when she’d been a teen. He had remembered that when this rescue had still been in the planning stages.
Actually, he remembered everything she’d ever told him. That particular piece of information had been revealed in a conversation about their childhood memories. One they’d shared during a long rainy afternoon they had spent mostly in bed.
And of course conversation hadn’t been all they’d shared that day. Which was something it would be better not to think about right now.
“They leave them saddled,” he assured the colonel.
Most of the time that precaution made sense. It provided a means for a fast getaway, in a region that was rife with conflict. Although the soft saddles were probably like nothing either of them had ever ridden before, the fact that the horses were kept saddled was one of the things Landon had believed would make success possible when he’d come up with the idea to steal them.
He watched as the sentry’s cigarette was carried upward again. Then suddenly its red tip disappeared from sight. There had been no arching glow that would indicate he’d thrown it down. Apparently the guard had turned to look out over the sheer rock face that guarded the mountainside approach to the camp.
“Now,” Landon whispered, making his move toward the horses.
He didn’t look back, not even when he found the rope that had been stretched across the mouth of the narrow fissure where the animals were penned. Entrapped by that and the rock walls at their backs, the animals were effectively corralled for the night and yet ready at a moment’s notice.
The three of them were about to do exactly what Grace’s captors would have done if the camp had been raided. Once mounted, they would jump the low rope barrier and ride across the plateau and start down the steep, winding trail these same animals had been brought up only days ago.
As Landon moved among them, searching for the brown and white mare he’d chosen for Grace, the horses began to mill, trying to avoid the humans in their midst. He finally captured the mare, grasping her simple rope bridle to draw her with him. He turned, looking for Grace, and realized she was attempting to help Stern catch the lead of one of the others.
“Grace,” he hissed.
