Courageous

“What a pair,” he mused, smiling. “You look like socialites.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She grinned.

Grange chuckled. “Well, like impostor socialites, maybe. None of us working stiffs are likely to be mistaken for the real thing.”

“I like us just the way we are,” Ed replied. “Have a great time.”

“We will,” Peg assured him. “See you later.”

“We’ll be home by midnight,” Grange said complacently, smiling at Ed. “I’ve got a lot to get done tomorrow.”

Ed nodded solemnly. “Even more reason to enjoy tonight.”

“Yes.” He took Peg’s arm. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be too late.”

Peg winked at her dad on the way out.

Grange didn’t speak on the way to the civic center in Jacobsville. He’d lost control of himself entirely back there. It had been a very good thing that Ed had come home when he did. Only a few steps to the bed, and he’d gone without a woman for a long time, a very long time. Added to that were Peg’s visible feelings for him, and his weakness for her. All that, with her bedroom door standing wide-open and so inviting. Just as well that Ed had saved them from themselves, he thought.

Peg was nervous. His silence did that to her. She had no resistance to him. She wanted him desperately. But he wasn’t a playboy and he didn’t want to get married, so where did that leave them? He was going away in a few days. She might never see him again. It was devastating, after what had happened back at the house. Her breasts were still tingling.

She glanced at him covertly. Had she made him mad? Was she too responsive? Should she have protested? But, why? He was experienced enough at least to realize what she felt for him. But he kept saying she was young. Did he mean, too young for him? Was her age the barrier to anything more serious than some heavy petting?

“Stop torturing yourself over there,” Grange mused, glancing at her with twinkling dark eyes.

She jumped, and then laughed. “How did you know?”

“You’re twisting that evening bag into a very odd shape.”

“Oh!” She laid it flat and smoothed it, grimacing. “It’s a loaner, too.”

“A loaner?” he inquired.

“Yes. Like the dress and shoes. Cinderella gear.” She leaned toward him as far as the seat belt would allow. “It transforms at midnight into rags. Just so you know.”

“You’d be pretty even in rags.”

She flushed. “Really?”

He glanced at her warmly. “Really.” He forced his eyes back to the road.

She watched him, worried and curious. “Do you guys have automatic weapons and rockets and stuff, like in those merc movies?” she asked suddenly.

He glanced at her and chuckled. “Yes. But intelligence gathering and coordinating native groups with ours are my stock-in-trade.”

“Oh. Then you don’t have to, well, go in shooting, right?” she asked, just to clarify the point.

Why worry her unnecessarily? he thought. So he smiled. “Of course not.”

She relaxed.

And it was that easy. He didn’t tell her about the after-hours training he and his major assault team had been doing over at Eb Scott’s place, with state-of-the-art weaponry and some new toys that could be deployed at long range. It was going to be a bloodbath, even at its best, and a lot of his men weren’t going to come home. He was in it for noble reasons: to depose a dictator who was torturing innocent people. But there was a substantial cash reward in the offing as well, and he had plans for his cattle ranch. He wanted a grubstake to get him started, something that he earned and not something that Jason Pendleton out of gratitude had given him. He wanted to build an empire of his own, with his two hands. That would mean a great risk. But without great risks, there were no great rewards. Besides that, Machado had hinted about a cabinet position if and when he regained power. That would be something to consider as well, although Grange hadn’t thought about relocating to another country, in another continent.

“You’re very solemn,” Peg said, jolting him out of his mental exercises.

He glanced at her with something like consternation. Where would Peg fit into his plans? She was very young, at nineteen; perhaps too young. And taking her out of the country she’d lived in her whole life, to a new and very dangerous environment—it didn’t bear thinking about. Besides that, there was the possibility that this might take months or even years to accomplish. He was gathering intel even now on the opposition forces and their capabilities. His men were good, but he would have to ally with groups that had boots on the ground in Barrera and coordinate them for an attack. It meant a lot of work.

“I was just thinking,” he said after a minute.

She smiled. “Don’t,” she advised. “We’re going to the ball and there is no tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay.”

The Jacobsville Civic Center was decorated for the holidays, with holly and tinsel, golden bells and a huge Christmas tree with ornaments made by the local orphanage and the friends of the nearby animal shelter. The Cattleman’s Ball would benefit both charities.

The town citizens were decked out in their finery as well. Bonnie, who worked as a clerk at the pharmacy, was dressed all in red, one of the couture gowns provided by the local designer, and she was on the arm of a visiting cattleman who had arrived in, of all things, a Rolls-Royce. He was tall and dark and middle-aged, but very appealing.

He paused by Grange and seemed to know him. They shook hands. “Maxwell,” he introduced himself. “I’d like to speak to you before you leave.”

Grange nodded solemnly. “I’ll make a point of it.”

“Where did you meet him?” Peg asked in a hurried whisper.

Bonnie, blond curls very elegantly arranged, and grinning from ear to ear, said, “He came into the pharmacy to get a prescription for a friend, can you believe it? We started talking and he loves sixteenth-century Tudor history! So here I am.”

“Good luck,” Peg whispered.

Bonnie just shook her head. “I think I’m dreaming.”

The visiting cattleman took her hand, smiled at the others and led her onto the dance floor.

Nancy, the pharmacist, dressed all in green, was standing with Holly, her clerk, dressed in gold, and they were shaking their heads at Bonnie and her escort.

“I wonder if he has a couple of nice friends,” Peg whispered wickedly.

They both laughed.

“Well, it’s that sort of night.” Nancy sighed, looking down at her elegant green gown. “Can you imagine, all of us decked out like this?”

“It attracts men, too,” Peg murmured under her breath as one of the local ranch foremen, a real dish, came forward, actually bowed, and led Nancy onto the dance floor.

Nancy just shook her head.

“What were you talking about?” Grange asked Peg as he led her out to dance.

“Loaned dresses and holiday magic,” she whispered, smiling up at him. He was so handsome. She was amazed to find herself at a dance with him, when all her flirting had only seemed to chase him away. Now, here he was, holding her on a dance floor, and looking as if he couldn’t bear to leave her.

In fact, he danced with a couple of the elderly women present, but otherwise, only with Peg.

“People will talk,” he said with a wry smile, noting the interest from the other couples.

She shrugged. “People do. I don’t care. Do you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t care at all. But I’ll be gone.”

Her face fell.

He pulled her close. “Don’t think about it. There’s no tomorrow. We agreed.”

“Yes.” She pressed close and shut her eyes. But already she felt the separation. It was going to be agonizing.

They stayed until the last dance. He left her with Justin and Shelby Ballenger while he went outside with the visiting cattleman in the Rolls-Royce.

“Something big’s going on, huh?” Justin asked Peg.

“Something,” she agreed, with a shy smile. Justin and Shelby were co-owners, with Justin’s brother Calhoun, of the enormous Ballenger Brothers Feedlot. They were millionaires many times over, and Shelby was a direct descendant of Big John Jacobs, the founder of Jacobsville, Texas. It had been an epic courtship, not without its agonies. But the couple was very happy and had grown children.

Grange was back shortly, and he looked pleased. “Time to go. It was a great party. I hope we made lots of money for the orphanage and the shelter.”

“We did,” Justin said with a smile. He put an arm around Shelby and held her close. “Record sums, I hear.”

“Good, good.”

“You be careful where you’re going,” Justin said, extending a hand to shake Grange’s. “Noble causes are noble, but they come at a price.”

“Yes, I do know. Thanks.”

“We’ll keep you in our prayers,” Shelby said gently. “Keep well.”

Grange nodded, smiled and tugged Peg out the door.

They watched Bonnie drive off in the Rolls-Royce.

“Will she have stories to tell!” Peg exclaimed. “I have to get a prescription refilled so I can get all the news!”

Grange laughed. “You women and your gossip.”

“Hey, men gossip, too,” she pointed out.

He made a face.

She had hoped that he might stop along the way, maybe park on some lonely back road. But to her disappointment, he drove right up to the front steps. And her father was inside, with the lights blazing.

He walked her onto the porch. His face was very solemn. “We’ve already jumped the gun, Peg,” he said gently. “No need to make things more complicated. Not right now. I have to have my mind on where I’m going, and what I have to do. Distractions can be fatal.”

The reality of the future caught her by the throat. She’d tried not to think about it, but now she had to face facts. He was going off to war, even if it wasn’t some officially declared one. He might not come back. The panic was in her expression.

“Hey.” He put his forefinger over her lips. “I made major before I mustered out of the military. You don’t get those promotions unless you know what you’re doing. Okay?”

She swallowed, hard. “Okay.”

He smiled gently. “You have a wonderful Christmas.”

“You, too.” She grimaced. “I didn’t get you anything yet. Can I send you something? Warm socks, maybe?” she tried to joke.

“I don’t think warm socks and tropical jungles are a good mix, do you?”

She sighed. “Mosquito repellant and snake pellets?”

“Better. I’ll try to get word to your father about our progress, but it’s going to be slow. I’ll have phones with me, but they can be used by the enemy to call down air strikes. The military we’re up against isn’t going to be a pushover. Machado trained most of them, and we have to consider that only a few are likely to defect to our cause. People generally don’t like sudden change.”

“I don’t like it at all,” she agreed. “Stay here.”

“People don’t make history by staying home. Not my nature.”

She sighed. “I know. Well, be careful.”

“Count on it.”

He bent, regardless of her father’s presence in the living room, and kissed her with breathless tenderness. He looked into her eyes for a long time, until she felt shivers down her spine. “You’re the most special person in my life. I’ll come home. I’ve been alone for a long time. I don’t want to be alone anymore, Peg.”

She gasped at the way he was looking at her. “Me … me, neither,” she whispered.

He kissed her eyelids, touching them with the tip of his tongue. “My sweet girl. I’ll be back before you know it.”

She nodded, forcing a wobbly smile. “Okay. I’ll hold you to that promise.”

He smiled. “Good night, Cinderella.” He bent and kissed her one last time, hard, before he turned and she went inside.

Her eyes followed him with aching longing. She was the most special person in his life. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. That had to mean something. It sounded like a commitment. It gave her hope. Great hope.

The next morning, Grange was in Emilio Machado’s camp, gathering gear and talking to his men. Peg was as far from his thoughts as ice cream sundaes and television sports, because he couldn’t afford the distraction of remembering her soft, eager mouth under his.

Machado was grim. “We have men, and equipment,” he told Grange. “We have more financing, thanks to your efforts and those of Mr. Pendleton. But we have no air force and no carrier group …”

“Revolutions can succeed without either, as long as they have dedicated people and good intel,” Grange reminded him. “Military intelligence is my strong point. I know how to organize a resistance movement. I did it in Iraq with local tribesmen. I can do it in Barrera.”

Machado smiled. “You give me confidence. I know that the cause is good. I made a mistake. I left my country in the hands of a power-hungry traitor and many lives have been lost because of it. I worry for Maddie,” he added heavily. “She was my friend, an American archaeologist who had made a very important discovery in the jungle near the capital. I do not know her fate. If they caught her, she is most likely dead. That will be on my conscience forever. There were also two professors at the university, my friends, who have gone missing and are also probably dead. It has been a hard thing, to lose so many people because I was careless.”

“Don’t dwell on the past or anticipate the future,” Grange counseled. “Take it one day at a time.”

Machado sighed. “You are right. Oh. I have a communication from an American journalist with one of the slick magazines. She wishes to accompany us …”

He handed the magazine to Grange. “Her name is Clarisse Carrington …”

“Oh, God, no!” Grange ground out. “No! How did she find out about our mission? She’s like the plague!”

“Excuse me?”

“That damned socialite met me in the Middle East, when she was doing a piece for her magazine,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t fall at her feet at some damned cocktail party in Washington, and I guess it hurt her ego. So four months ago she started chasing me, after I went to a social gathering in Washington with some friends from the military. I gave her the cold shoulder. She was livid. After that, I couldn’t go to a damned hotel anywhere that she didn’t show up at.”

“I see.”

“She thinks she’s irresistible,” Grange said coldly. “She’s not.”

“She may have her ear to the ground about you. There must have been a leak. I will of course refuse the offer.”

“Thanks.”

Grange was looking at the magazine and he frowned at one of the cover stories. He opened it to a certain page, and grimaced. “Damn!”

“What?”

“You remember I told you about the officer who claimed my battle strategy was his own and got me court-martialed? The one I testified against?”

“Yes.”

“He committed suicide.”

“Goodness!”

“This is the story that hit the wires. I’d hoped it wouldn’t, for his family’s sake. He was caught out in another scandal involving blackmail and stolen funds earmarked for equipment,” Grange read. “But his son states here that the officer who testified against him is responsible for his death—me.” He sighed. “I know about the boy. He’s been in and out of therapy all his life. His father said he was bipolar, but his drug problems seemed to me to be the worst of them. His mother was rich. She died and the son inherited it all. She didn’t leave her husband a dime.” He put down the magazine. “So the kid is filthy rich and blames me for his father’s suicide. The socialite thinks she can seduce me over war coverage.” He looked at Emilio Machado with wide eyes. “Perhaps I’m more of a liability than you can afford.”

Machado just smiled. “My friend, we all have our burdens. I think you can bear these. Now, let us speak with your men and finalize our departure.”

They had arranged passage for Grange’s handpicked fighters. Machado had a friend with an old DC-3 who transported the core body of mercs to a small city on the coast of South America, a transit point to Barrera, which was north of Manaus, in Amazonas, a city in the Amazon jungle. Other troops were massing inside the border of Barrera, organized in small groups by Machado’s friends in the resistance. It wasn’t a battle group by any stretch of the imagination. But, then, small forces with the will and means could often overthrow countries. As Machado reminded the others, a handful of his men, defecting to the political leader, Sapara, had overthrown him by stealth and surprise. They could do the same thing to his former lieutenant. It would just require precise planning and good strategy.

On the DC-3 plane, bound for a small covert airstrip in Barrera, Grange outlined his plan of battle to Machado.

“A surprise attack is going to be the most effective means of recapturing your government,” he told the general. “Here—” he pointed to the very small capital city, Medina “—is the heart of the military, in the underground HQ in the city. We have an ally with bunker-busting bombs, but we only have two of them. It means that if we have to go with an all-out military assault, we’ll have to coordinate the strike at the military communications and tactical network with the simultaneous capture of all news media outlets, airfields and the three military command centers in Colari, Salina and Dobri, here, here and here.” He pointed to red marks on his waterproof map. “These cities are smaller than Jacobsville.” He chuckled. “So taking out those command centers could be accomplished by one man with a .45 Colt ACP,” he added.

Machado sighed. “The element of surprise will be difficult, my friend,” he said. “My adversary has agents. He is no fool.”

“I know.” Grange straightened, very somber. “The hardest part is getting everyone familiar with his own role in the attack. I’ve already done that. I sent two of my men ahead to contact your former military commander, Domingo Lopez, in Medina. They’re disguised as farmers, and yes, they’ll pass muster,” he added. “They’re Tex-Mex, some of my best men, and two of them are masters of demolition. They’re ex-Navy SEALs”

“I am impressed,” the general said.

“I also sent one of my former company commanders, who’s proficient in scrounging equipment and arms from unlikely places, along with a South African merc who’s one of the best I’ve ever seen, to set up a base camp. We’ve got a Native American tracker named Carson, a merc with a bad attitude who can speak all the native dialects. They’re accompanied, among others, by an Irishman who knows electronics like his own fingerprints. He can do anything with computers, and he’s a past master at writing virus codes.”

Machado’s eyebrows arched. “Virus codes?”

Grange grinned. “O’Bailey belonged to the British military before he found his way to Eb Scott’s group. He shut down the entire military communications network in an outlying area of Iraq with an old PC running obsolete software,” he informed. He shook his head. “Got a medal for it, in fact.”

“You have good people,” Machado said. “I hope that our endeavor will not result in injury or death to any of them.”

“So do I, but most wars cost blood,” Grange said. “We’ll all do the best we can. Thing is, we may not have an immediate victory. So our priority has to be taking out their communications, their SAMs and the national media.”

“Surface to air missiles.” Machado sighed. “I got them from Russia. They’re state-of-the-art,” he added grimly. “I thought they would give us protection from dangerous enemy states nearby. It was a lack of foresight on my part, as I never dreamed they might be used against my own people.” His expression was solemn. “My former commander will not hesitate to destroy whole city blocks, along with their inhabitants. He will kill anyone to keep power.”

Grange laid a big hand on the other man’s shoulder. “We’ll do what we have to do. Just remember that many innocent people have already died. If we don’t act, many more will.”

“I know that.” Machado smiled sadly. “I know it too well.”

One of the other soldiers came down the narrow steps from the deck above. “We’ll be landing in about an hour, captain said,” he told them. “It’s a few miles from a quiet little village on the river. Nothing much is there in the surrounding area except for a small landing strip just big enough to accommodate our plane. Our intelligence indicates that Sapara built the strip to accommodate landings by an oil corporation doing preliminary investigations in advance of setting up operations.”

“Yes,” Machado said grimly, “and Sapara began killing natives to force them out of the area. Some remain, despite his depredations … a situation I hope to resolve. However, it is a good place to land,” Machado said, and his dark eyes flashed with another brief smile. “It was where I landed on the day I invaded Barrera the first time. The nearby people are sympathetic to our cause.”

Grange shrugged. “So lightning will strike twice, in this case.”

“My friend, I sincerely hope so.”

They left the plane quickly, under cover of darkness, and sent it off to Manaus for the time being, with other members of the group. Grange hadn’t fought a jungle war in some time. His last theater of operations had been the deserts of the Middle East. But his men had the newest camouflage uniforms, and the computer-generated pattern blended perfectly with their surroundings.

They set up a base camp with tents and built a small fire for cooking. They weren’t expected, so there was not much danger of discovery at this point in time. Coffee was made, to exclamations of joy from the men in camp, and ration packs were passed around. The jungle sounds were alien, but the men would adjust.

Grange finished his meal and coffee and rose. “I’ll get in touch with my forward platoon and see what intel they’ve gathered,” Grange said, excusing himself.

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