irritated, the Company man had muttered, “You’ll get your briefing in Italy, Cardone. All you need to know now is that Nova is uniquely qualified, that’s she’s needed urgently for this assignment, and a fucking lot of lives are at stake. I’d say, conservatively, millions of lives. Your job is to get her to do it. Get her involved again for the Company or expect to feel big heat from higher up. All the way higher up.”
Joe yelled to Katie over the helicopter’s racket. “No. She doesn’t know I’m coming. And if she’s like most women, she’ll probably be pissed when I show up.”
Grinning, Katie Donovan tilted her head, eager for his explanation.
“The last time I saw her we were about to spend a nice weekend together when I got called away. The usual thing, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And about the last thing I said to her was that I’d call. I didn’t.”
“Oh yes. You are in big trouble.” Katie used his shoulder for support as she pushed to her feet. He liked it. The feel of a woman’s hand. “We should be about there.” She made her way forward.
He gazed out the starboard door over the rolling sea of green, the earthy-smelling warm wind hitting his face, thinking, Why didn’t I call? He had intended to. But his next assignment kept him fully occupied for the first ten days, and when he finally caught his breath, he remembered how Nova, who was five years older, always treated him like a kid brother.
And König was an urbane sophisticate, quite the opposite of a Texas-ranch-raised, ex-Naval aviator jock. Calling Nova had suddenly struck him as stupid. Besides, they led crazy lives. When could they ever realistically get together? So at first he’d put off calling her, and then finally he’d quit even planning to.
Now he was going to have to pay the price.
But then, maybe not. Nova wouldn’t really have expected a call. What a monumental ego you have, Cardone. She would have assumed that his saying he would call was like a Hollywood producer saying, “We’ll do lunch soon.”
Nova Blair was one woman who wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for some man to call her.
Chapter 3
Nova halted on her traverse line immediately above Robin. The terror-stricken girl was still rotating, but more slowly now. Pale, she was gazing up at Nova.
“You hanging in there?” Nova said, wishing with an aching heart that she could be the scared one, not Robin. “Pun intended,” she said, forcing a reassuring smile.
Robin actually smiled back, but with thin, white lips. “Yep, ha-hanging in there.”
“I’ll attach a rescue pulley to your traverse line. Then I’ll let down a rope. Put the rope under your arms, and together we’ll haul you back up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Using the unipod, Nova pulled the girl’s carabiner, dangling at the end of Robin’s harness line, across the short space between the two traverse lines. The carabiner was fine, but somehow Robin’s thrashing had been enough to yank the metal ring off her harness.
Nova clamped the rescue pulley onto Robin’s traverse line. She fed one end of the thirty feet of half-inch nylon rope through the rescue pulley and tied a figure-eight knot. Feeding out rope, she said, “Put the loop under both arms and make sure the fit is good and tight.”
In less than a minute, Robin was ready. Nova ran the rope under both of her arms and across her back. “Here’s how we do this. I’ll count to three. When I say three, you pull yourself up on the security line as much as you can. That takes weight off the rope. We’re both dangling. I don’t have any real leverage. But if you pull yourself up on the security line while I’m pulling on the rope, we will hoist you back here. Okay?”
Robin nodded.
Please let this work right! “Okay. One, two, THREE!”
Nova pulled, and took in at least a foot and a half. “Good,” she yelled. “Perfect! Okay. Again. One, two, THREE!”
Nova took in another foot and a half.
“It’s working,” Robin called out.
Charles Scott yelled, “You’re doing it!”
It took maybe ten minutes, but finally Nova had Robin face-to-face. She immediately refastened a thick nylon strap on Robin’s sling harness to the carabiner of the harness line.
“You okay, hon?” Nova asked, squeezing Robin’s hand, elated and relieved.
“I have never been so scared in all my life.”
“You’re going to have a great story to tell your friends.”
Robin grinned. “Yeah.” The smile faded quickly. “I am so sorry to be such a wimp. My dad’s furious. I can never please him. I try, but I just can’t do this stuff.”
“Here’s a guarantee. Trust Bruce and me and yourself, and when you leave here ten days from now, you’ll be amazed. I know you want to please your dad, but the person you most want to please is you. I promise, you will have learned that you can always do more than you first believe. Just don’t give up.”
“If you’d said that an hour ago, I’d have laughed out loud.”
“Right!”
Robin’s brow wrinkled in a frown. “What’s that sound?”
Nova hesitated, listening, as she, too, heard a thrumming. “Helicopter,” she said.
They searched the sky, and within seconds a gray-green military-type helicopter—a Huey, Nova noted—appeared, moving directly toward them.
“Oh, it’s coming our way,” Robin said, her voice again in a quiver.
“It’s not going to shake us out of these slings. We’re fine.”
The blissful stillness of the jungle, already assaulted by the chopper’s blades, suddenly crackled with the sound of bullhorn being turned on.
Just wonderful, Nova thought. This cannot be good news. Why in the world would anyone come out here in a helicopter?
“I’m from Cosmos Adventure Travel,” rumbled a voice over the loudspeaker. “My name is Joseph Cardone. I need to speak to Nova Blair.”
Joe! My God! If Joe was here for her, whatever was brewing must be serious.
Her tour folks were pointing her way. The helicopter edged overhead. She and Robin swayed.
For a second, Nova was transported to a street in Germany and Joe was kneeling beside her, his face ashen. He’d just saved her from being run over, maybe even killed. She remembered the strength of his hands, the rich chocolate of his brown eyes, that football quarterback body.
She briskly hand-signaled the helicopter to back off, afraid the downdraft might break branches or topple nests. The
