Free Lethal Affairs by Kim Baldwin, Xenia Alexiou Page B

surprised her. A fifteen-year-old girl, naked, walked in from the bathroom and screamed.
    She put a hand on the girl’s mouth. Show no mercy, they had taught her. Nothing could compromise an operation. Break her neck. But she couldn’t. Not this child with huge brown eyes, already abused in so many ways.
    She froze, uncertain, then heard footsteps—someone running toward the bedroom. The girl started to scream again, and Domino ran for the balcony, back to her own room. But she knew the girl would tell. Any minute they’d come to her door. She already had her gun, tucked into her jeans. So she dashed in long enough to retrieve her passports and vaulted over the balcony, one hand on the waist-high railing, and dropped thirty feet onto the patio one floor below.
    She landed badly, on a bamboo chair, breaking two ribs then crashing onto the pavement on her hip.
The wind was knocked out of her, the pain so immense she wanted to scream but couldn’t with no air in her lungs. Tears sprang to her eyes as she struggled to her knees, clutching her side and fighting to breathe.
Domino couldn’t hear, see, or think beyond the pain. But her instinct for survival pulled her to her feet and sent her running into the jungle.
They hunted her all night, but she ran forward through the absolute black only the jungle canopy can create, falling again and again, sweat pouring off her. At times the pain was so intense she moved on her knees, pushing forward by lurches, fear driving her until she could rise to run again.
Occasionally she paused, for she had to be absolutely still to distinguish the sounds of her pursuers from the cacophony of bird calls and the constant shrieks and cries of the other creatures.
The T-shirt she fled in provided no protection against the undergrowth, so by the time dawn broke, cuts covered her arms, hands, face, neck, stomach. And the sweat that poured into them burned like acid.
In the morning, helicopters joined the search. One spotted her, and they opened fire like she was an animal. But she kept running, diving under cover when necessary, every labored breath an effort through the ache of her broken ribs, her leg stiff from the pain that radiated from her injured hip.
She surprised one of her pursuers and broke his neck, took his rifle. At least now she had more than just her gun.
Finally, she made it to Binjai. Hudson had taken children from the village, so they knew of him—feared and loathed him.
By then she was ready to collapse, filthy and bleeding. An old man with a five-year-old grandson agreed to help her when she told him who was chasing her.
He gave her meager food and water and hid her in a tiny shed already crowded with his cow, goats, and chickens. She lay hidden under hay and manure for two days without moving, always afraid they were outside. Every morning and evening, the old man would open the door to let the animals out and then back in again, but she had told him he wasn’t to acknowledge her presence, and he complied.
On the third day, she emerged from her fetid sanctuary and, dressed in clothing she plucked from her benefactor’s clothesline, made it to Medan disguised as a local, hitching occasional rides in local farmers’ pickups.
In Medan, she knocked on the door of a home. In Dutch and in English, she said she’d had an accident, and they could see she was in trouble—dirty, hurt. They let her in and left her alone to call her husband at a nearby hotel to come get her.
When Pierce picked up his phone, she identified herself. “Book a room and wire money under ID B.”
“Call me back in five minutes,” he replied, “and I’ll tell you when and where.”
She informed her hosts her husband wasn’t in their room but would be back—she needed to try again soon. When she did, Pierce gave her the name of the hotel where the arrangements had been made.
At last she could have a long, hot shower and a calm, safe moment to gather her thoughts. She took out her backup passport and