Raven's Prey

scoffed, not looking at him.
    “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be alone in the cabin of a small aircraft for up to eighteen hours straight? No one to talk to, nothing to keep you going except coffee and sandwiches? It’s quiet, all right! The world feels empty.”
    “I didn’t think small private planes carried enough fuel for that long a trip,” Honor muttered, telling herself she really didn’t want to start a conversation with him. Now that she had decided to use the gun she realized she didn’t want to talk to him at all. Talking brought the danger of communication, and communication meant a risk of understanding. She didn’t want to understand or communicate with a man she might have to shoot later.
    “The planes are outfitted with special long-distance tanks for the ferrying trips.”
    “Oh.”
    “It has its compensations, you know,” he went on softly. “My business, I mean.”
    “It sounds pretty damn frightening to me! I can’t imagine being alone in a small airplane out over the middle of the Atlantic. If things went wrong…” She shuddered, an image of lonely terror streaking through her mind.
    “Yes.” He was silent for a moment. “But there are other times. Times when the sun is coming up and you feel like you’re the only person alive in the world to see it. Or when you’re flying over a deserted stretch of jungle and you realize what the world must have been like when it was younger.”
    She risked a quick look at him, her gaze sliding off his hard profile as soon as it touched. “You’re a real loner, aren’t you?”
    “Most of the people in my line of work are,” he said dismissingly. “I guess that’s why we get into the business in the first place.”
    “It must be strange feeling closer to an airplane than to other human beings!” Honor didn’t attempt to hide the scorn in her voice.
    “It must be strange to need the attention of other human beings so badly that you resort to things like fake suicide attempts and running off to deserted Mexican villages.” There was no scorn in his words, only a kind of aloof disapproval.
    Honor bit back the angry, useless protest that rose to her lips and lapsed into sullen silence for the rest of the walk into town.
    Judd bedded down by the door, blocking the only means of escape from the one-room shack. Honor watched him resentfully as he put out the single light and slid between the thin blankets. He didn’t bother to undress and neither did she. As far as she could tell he went to sleep at once, his head pillowed on a rolled-up towel.
    Lying tensely on the cot that had served as her bed for the past month Honor felt each minute that passed as if it were an eternity. For her own protection she had to make certain Judd Raven was asleep before she reached for the gun in the drawer beside her. With that swift, gliding way he moved he could be upon her before she could get her hand into the drawer if he realized her intentions in time.
    She waited fifteen minutes and then she waited another ten. During that time Raven never moved. How could he sleep so easily on that hard board floor?
    At last, when the moonlight outside had shifted a few degrees on the windowsill, Honor told herself that the time had come. It was now or never. She had to get hold of the gun and then wake her captor, letting him know he was no longer the one in charge.
    Moving with a slowness that was almost painful, Honor slid her arm out from under the old sheet and groped blindly for the drawer pull. Her heart pounded with the tension of the moment and she wondered briefly how Judd could keep from being awakened by it. It took an effort of will to control her breathing. Thank God she had taken the time to practice with the weapon after she’d bought it off that sleazy street vendor just across the border into Mexico. But she’d never used it on any living thing, Honor reminded herself. It wasn’t going to be easy this first time.
    And then her fingers closed on the old wooden knob of the drawer. Holding her breath tightly in her throat, Honor tugged cautiously. The slight scrape of the wood didn’t cause any response form Judd. He really was sound asleep.
    With a swallowed sigh Honor touched the cold metal of the gun. It came into her hand like an alien thing, chilled and deadly. For an instant she almost lost her nerve.
She had never used it on a living thing. Not even a field mouse!
    Gripping the weapon tightly Honor sat up slowly in bed. She