Force of Fire Read online

  FORCE OF FIRE

  By

  Rosa Turner Boschen

  Published by

  Misty Meadow Press

  Copyright 2012

  Rosa Turner Boschen

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN 978-0-9858225-6-9

  All Rights Reserved

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient, unless this book is a participant in a qualified lending program. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to export portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].

  All characters and organizations described in this book are fiction and figments of the author's imagination.

  Originally Published by

  Jacobyte Books, Australia

  Copyright 2001

  Cover by Dar Albert

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  American writer Rosa Turner Boschen is the award-winning author of twelve books, published under different pen names and in various formats, including mass market paperback, print-on-demand and electronic download. She’s additionally written editorials, nonfiction articles and essays for periodicals, literary journals and the Web, and has had her poetry appear in three paperback anthologies. She welcomes correspondence from readers at [email protected] and visitors to her website http://www.rosaturnerboschen.com.

  Also by Rosa Turner Boschen

  Volcano

  (Sequel to Force of Fire)

  Coming Soon!

  Six Short Tales: New Beginnings

  To my Father

  for his infinite patience and wisdom

  PROLOGUE

  The roadblock came out of nowhere. Deep in the steaming jungle where the lonely hills meet the razor-back mountains, a car obstructed their muddy path. Their driver proceeded slowly, silently checking the locks on the reinforced doors. Joe's face tightened as he lifted the faded Bible from the center seat beside him and adroitly withdrew his automatic from the hewn-out portion within.

  A pair of uniformed officers appeared from the underbrush and tapped at the driver's window. The driver lowered the glass a fraction of an inch. In a flash, a long, thin barrel pushed through the opening and crackled in recoil. Ana shuddered at the sudden blast of light going out of his eyes.

  Joe snapped up his pistol, futilely taking aim through the bulletproof panes of the jeep.

  Ana unbolted her door.

  She lunged from the car and tore through the velvet green bush.

  Joe scrambled after her. 'Parense! Parense!' ricocheted off the bare-barked trees. The jungle exploded in gunfire. A body clipped her heels, striking the forest floor. She dove through a leafy palm and into a wall of steel. Her head snapped back at the force of cotton closing in over her mouth.

  Ana clawed at the splotchy brown sleeve, writhing in its iron grip. Her throat was burning, swelling shut.

  A blur of others crushed toward them, trampling through a sea of ferns. She tried to discern the swirl of faces, but, when she looked up, the lights went out in the western sky.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ana Kane tightened the seatbelt around her slender hips and leaned back in her chair as the plane began its steep descent. In the stuffy confines of the cabin, tiny beads of sweat swelled into gentle streams under her crisp cotton suit. Though Ana had traveled to Costa Negra many times, this would be her first unescorted venture into the war-torn Central American country named for its ominous black sands.

  Her previous trips had been group efforts, assignments undertaken in conjunction with her project team. Now that her team had all been fielded on site at the office she’d helped establish, there was no one left to travel with her. Besides, no one other than the contract manager had the need to ferry back and forth between the capital, La Concha and DC. Ana’s role in assuring billing matters went smoothly between her firm and State, kept her mainly in Washington. But, from time to time, it was necessary to travel to various contract locales to ensure that all those consultants she’d hired were doing more than enjoying a third world vacation on the US Government.

  Ana worked for one of the numerous Washington, DC specialty firms that earned its livelihood by securing US Government contracts. For many of his admirable efforts, Uncle Sam was incredibly understaffed. In Washington, it seemed, every department, federal agency and his brother had big plans but no manpower, at least not enough to get the job done. When the time came to upgrade computer systems, provide technical or material support, or deliver detailed assistance to developing nations, federal government contractors stepped in.

  And so it happened that Ana Margarita Kane, theoretically employed by pharmaceutical contractor Health Tech Designs, was in fact an indirect employee of the US Department of State, Agency for International Development. In compliance with the terms of the $500,000 contract she’d negotiated with USAID, the State Department paid Health Tech Designs to establish a viable pharmaceutical distribution system in ailing Costa Negra. Ana made sure that all contract expenditures were reimbursed and checks got to everybody on her team. Though the cost of home office support was usually included in a contractor’s routine overhead expenses, in cases of contractual oversight (such as that supplied by Ana Kane), USAID often footed the bill.

  Ana pressed her raw shoulder blades into the seat behind her and tried to shrug off the tension that spiked from her neck to the small of her back. She’d been sitting in an artificial position of dignified corporate poise for one too many hours and now was paying the price.

  An airline attendant made her way through the cabin, checking seatbelts and advising passengers of their imminent landing. Ana strained to see out the window beyond the young couple seated beside her, but the tiny head of an infant cradled on her mother’s shoulder restricted Ana’s view to a wispy halo of clouds. The child squirmed and Ana felt a sudden urge, a taut longing in her breasts. Then the father turned and lifted the baby and the moment passed.

  This was not the kind of journey Ana would be making were she a mother herself. It was one thing to endure the danger, the uncertainty, alone. Another thing quite entirely to involve the life of a creature whose well being was totally dependent on your own.

  The young mother retrieved her child and settled the wriggling infant against her blanketed chest. Through the milky window, Ana could see the stark cinder block 't' of the airport approaching.

  Ana drew a breath and prayed the Embassy would remember to send the bulletproof jeep. Her current assignment meant a field trip into the jungle, a mission to audit pharmaceutical supplies at the children’s hospital in the northern territory. Though she had limited medical knowledge, as the contract manager, it was up to her to make certain the terms of the agreement between USAID and Health Tech Designs were being honored. In La Concha, there’d be project people to assist her, consultants she’d hired to staff the field office; in Tarrona, at the hospital, she’d be aided by local counterparts, medical personnel funded by the Costa Negran Ministry of Health.

  Ana gripped the cold, metal plates of her armrests as the plane rocked onto the runway. The big jet whined as it slowed and dragged to a halt. Palm trees lining the runway breezed into focus as stone-faced guards with machine guns lorded over prodigious streams of passengers making their way through double-paned doors. All at once, her stomach tightened. This was Costa Negra’s sunny side. Its darkness and danger lay just beyond these airport walls.

  Scott Denton leaned into the doorjamb of his dingy basement apartment. Just this morning, he’d stood in this same spot watching Ana climb into the cab that would take her to the airport. Scott shifted h
is gaze to study the scaffolding bracing the row houses before him. Though most of the townhouses in this Capitol Hill quadrant had been renovated, Scott’s aging landlord, a section’s editor at the city paper, had not seen fit to improve upon his dilapidated segment of building. That suited Scott just fine. He wasn’t into pretense the way that Ana was.

  She was such a poseur, with her neat Second Street efficiency in the posh Supreme Court district, hand-made tapestries from Ecuador and Peru hanging like markers of her success on freshly painted walls. Photos crowded end tables, a parody of the happy family she professed to have.

  She’d never accepted his need to furnish things sparingly, or why he thought it important to live within his meager means. He had to do it on his own, and wore his poverty like a badge of courage. So what if he did volunteer work thirty hours a week and waited tables ten? Ana said he had it backwards.

  Ana and her big ideas. Ideas of what he could make of himself if he only tried. It’s like she thought he could do better.

  In some ways he could. But he would never in a million admit it. His father, the sole proprietor of the most prestigious (read profitable) engineering firm in Louisville, could cut him a check at a moment’s notice. 'Just let me know, son, if there’s anything you ever need.' Well, there were plenty of things Scott needed, but not that his well-established father could supply. Not at this late date.

  Scott fought off the memory of Ana’s harsh words. 'You think you’re too old to care, but what you really are is too damn young to see you still need a father!'

  He’d raised his hand to strike her then, but had turned instead and walked out the door to the market where he’d bought her a small bouquet of fresh-cut flowers.

  Nobody quite saw through him the way Ana did. That was the scary part. He loved her dark side, the stormy personality it seemed only he could awaken. Scott wasn’t so sure this was something to be proud of. And yet it gave him a sense of power, a sense he sorely lacked in every other aspect of his life.

  He was in a town he didn’t like, in a job he didn’t like, nailed to a woman he didn’t like – half the time. The other half, he wanted to devour her completely, suck every ounce of her precious being into his own. They’d had so many good days, but the bad ones were coming more frequently. She was always on his case. Nothing he did was ever good enough. She was the savvy young professional and he was the total incompetent. She didn’t have to say it; it was written between the lines of every brain-picking question she asked. She didn’t used to ask so many questions. The Ana he had fallen in love with was the woman who was content to just let him be.

  Scott shook his head and looked up at the thickening sky. Yes, once who he was had more than satisfied her. There’d been a song in her eyes that said she’d cherished no one more. There was something to those unforgettable days in Seville. The nights he beheld her in that small, fragrant plaza beside her rooming house, his soft serenade on a Spanish guitar lacing orange trees with tender truths. She’d captured him but hadn’t known how badly he’d wanted to take her away. They’d gone to Portugal but that hadn’t been far enough. He’d wanted to escape it then – not just for himself, but for the two of them. But there were restraints that bound him tightly, more tightly than Ana knew, to Iberian soil.

  By the time Ana got to her hotel, the thin fibers of her suit had molded to her body like a glove. She dropped her bag onto the bed and pulled out a simple cotton shift. It was lightweight and sleeveless, and had just the right polish when she wore it with its matching white jacket. Things were informal in the tropics. None of the men here wore ties. Perhaps it was exactly for that reason she felt the need to maintain a professional appearance in this largely male-dominated hemisphere.

  Ana removed her sweat-drenched suit, draping the separate pieces over the wooden hangers permanently attached to the closet bar. A telltale onion-skinned envelope waited on the nightstand. She debated, then decided to read it later.

  He never failed to reach her, no matter how far afield she fled. At one time, she’d considered it a comfort, a warm tangle of emotion encircling her from afar. But now she wondered if what she’d once viewed as the gold threads of her existence had coiled into little more than a hangman’s noose.

  Ana removed the rest of her clothing and headed for the shower. She was not beautiful but had a reasonable figure. Reasonable, she supposed, for a twenty-nine-year- old woman who had never borne a child. She’d developed later than her sister but ultimately in better proportion. Still, she’d not been popular in high school. Too intense, the boys all said. It was her seriousness of purpose that had put them off, her way of looking at the world and what one could make of it, given the proper tools and ambition.

  College men had been an initial disappointment. For all her intellect, somehow she’d never considered that the boys she’d thought so little of in high school would move right up to college along with her. It wasn’t until Scott that she’d finally met a mind that could mingle with her own. He’d held something over her from the very start. Sucked her inwards and under as with no one before. The frightening thing was, it was becoming more and more apparent Scott had no intention of ever letting Ana come up for air again.

  These past six months had been terrifying. The rapid mood swings and violent temper. He’d never actually hit her, but once or twice had come close. On those occasions, she’d wondered if she really knew him, ever really had known him. Ana was growing weary of his unpredictable game. He could love her with undeniable passion on Tuesday but feel 'closed in by their commitment' by the time the weekend rolled around.

  At times she wondered if it was all still worth the constant bickering and heartache. And yet, she’d already invested so much – more than nine years. It seemed impossible to pull out now. Surely, he would change. It was the uncertainty that was driving him to these fits. Uncertainty about his job. Uncertainty about his purpose, his wants. His needs...

  Ana adjusted the water and stepped into the shower grasping the bittersweet irony. And, though there was no one around to see, she was grateful for the cascade of water concealing her burgeoning trickle of tears. She was too strong to deny the truth but too weak not to feel it. She’d spent nine long years with a Saturday man when what she desperately wanted – needed – was someone to love her with a Tuesday kind of passion every day of the week.

  Scott closed the latch on his suitcase, then carried his last piece of throwaway furniture through the gray drizzle to the curb. He tacked a sign to the bureau, Free to Good Home. Someone around here could use it, even if they couldn’t read.

  There was so much senselessness in the world. So many people who didn’t have a prayer. Scott couldn’t offer much in the way of money but hope was another story.

  He took one last look around his empty apartment, thinking of Ana. She would go on without him. She had too much to prove to too many people.

  Scott shut and locked the door, hefting his suitcase off the soaked concrete, and stepped, with determination, into the drowning rain.

  Through the heated rush of the water, the knocking was incessant.

  Ana stepped from the shower and wrapped her body in the soft terry cloth of her robe. 'Quien es?' she asked, cinching her waist tie and crossing to the outer room.

  'Ana, it's Joe. Come on now, beautiful, open up!'

  She coiled her damp hair into a loose knot at the base of her neck and slowly unlatched the door. He stood before her, disheveled as always, a cocky grin emerging from under his reddish-brown mustache. There was something urgent in his expression. Something she hadn’t seen there before.

  'I can see you’re half naked, but all things considered, sweetheart, you could at least ask me in.'

  Ana stepped back, remembering the soft, round cup of his lips. 'Yeah sure, Joe,' she said, struggling to remain unflustered. 'Come on in.'

  He eased past her, pausing to give her the customary Latin greeting of a peck on the cheek. Her still-warm skin tingled at the suggestion of his bristling m
ustache. She turned to relock the door and regroup. She was at his mercy and didn’t like it.

  'Is this a contracting call or is it pleasure?'

  A bright blush swept across his ruddy complexion. 'Sweetheart, this one’s on the level.'

  That’s a switch, she thought, motioning for him to sit and offering him a drink.

  He accepted, settling himself among the cushions of the worn rattan chair facing the window.

  Beyond the weathered glass, the glare of insurgent shellfire splintered the night air. A group of renegade guerilla fighters from the western province had been fighting to gain control of Costa Negra's central and coastal regions for the past eighteen months. For over a year now, shellfire and grenades had rocked the capital where the reigning military forces were still firmly entrenched. The signs of destruction were everywhere, even in this hotel where mortar fire had shattered two structural walls and caused searing vertical cracks in the lemon-colored plaster of Ana's room.

  She returned with two plastic glasses of bottled water and handed one to Joe.

  He took a tentative sip. 'It's not what you think. I can't stay.' She shot him an agitated look. 'Okay, okay, it's not what you don't think. Hell, I don't know.

  Fact is, I'm here to warn you.'

  'Warn me?' Coming from the most reckless man in Costa Negra, she found the idea absurd.

  'Ana,' he continued, strangely stubborn, 'you’ve got to listen. You’ve got to abort that trip to Tarrona.'

  Abort the trip? Abort the trip? What the crap was that? Some kind of State Department jargon? 'Uncle Sam is financing this deal. You know as well as I do the clock’s ticking.'