Free Dangerous Lover by Lisa Marie Rice

from his head to his toes. His fatigues were clean and freshly pressed. The baby blue UN helmet that was such an attraction, practically a beacon, to snipers the world over firmly on his head, boots spit-shined.
    “Hello, Mr. Deaver,” Axel said. His English was excellent. “How are you today?”
    The light from the open door filled the room. Since hisback was to the door, Deaver’s eyes were able to accommodate quickly to the light pouring into the room from behind his back. Going from darkness to tropical light could blind a man for minutes.
    “Hi, Axel. Close that door, will you?”
    “Certainly.” Deaver heard the snick of the door closing and turned around. By now, Axel had become used to what he considered Deaver’s fetish for darkness.
    Floor-to-ceiling bars divided the shack in half. Deaver considered his cell a personal affront. The bars were loosely planted in the wooden planks and fixed by screws to the stucco ceiling. The lock was a joke—it would fall apart if you blew on it too hard. How the fuck did they think a cell like that could hold a man like him?
    The problem wasn’t getting out, the problem was what to do afterwards. They were about twenty miles from the Sele River. Even if he could make it through the jungle to the river, he’d need to steal a boat and motor his way down to Freetown. It would take three days, at least. Everyone knew there was only one place to escape to, and that was Freetown.
    By the time he made it to the capital, Freetown and, worse, Lungi Airport would be crawling with UN troops with his photograph in their hands, itching to capture the American renegade.
    So he needed to make sure no one would be looking for him. He needed a body that looked like Vincent Deaver they could bury.
    Axel was sympathetic to him, he’d made that clear. Axelloved America and his tidy Finnish soul had been horrified at what he’d seen in his two-year tour of duty in central Africa. “Hell on earth,” he called it.
    Axel had made it plain more than once that he thought it a ridiculous waste of time and effort to keep Deaver in detention.
    He was right, of course. This part of the world had been on a rampage for fifteen years, tribe against tribe, with brutally ferocious massacres on a daily basis. On the Revolutionary Army scale, what Deaver’d done was the equivalent of a slap in the face.
    So Axel was definitely on his side. Deaver had even thought about bribing him for travel documents. Might have worked, but he needed something else from Axel, besides documents.
    His body.
    Pity, because he liked the guy. But what can you do?
    “Merry Christmas, Axel.” Axel’s head swiveled to follow the source of his voice. Deaver sat on his cot, legs spread, forearms on knees, hands clasped. Utterly, totally nonthreatening.
    Axel’s eyes would slowly be adjusting to the dark shed after the bright tropical light outside.
    Deaver’s body was a still statue slowly taking shape, like a film in the developing pan.
    “Merry Christmas, Vince. I came to say good-bye.” Axel walked toward Deaver and wrapped his hands around the bars.
    Deaver let his gusty sigh fill the room. He lifted his head.Axel would be able to make out his movements by now. “Man, oh man, I’m going to miss you. Miss our talks. I’m just happy you’ll be out of this shithole and with Maja.”
    “Oh, yeah.” Predictably, Axel’s face creased in a smile at the mention of his girlfriend. Axel was slated to leave this afternoon for a two-month rotation back to Finland. He hadn’t even tried to hide how glad he’d be to get out of Africa and back to his computer, snow and Maja, probably in that order.
    Axel pulled up a stool and pulled out a little magnetized travel chess set. They had spent the past three days playing through the bars. Deaver had been letting him win two games out of three.
    “Hey,” Deaver said, putting on a shy, abashed expression. “You’ve been really good to me, here, you know?” He put a little