Erin shook her head. “And Cameron impresses me as being far more wonderful than you could ever imagine.”

“Wonderful? Oh, for God’s sake, Erin. Are you infatuated with him? I can see that anyone would be a little dazzled by those good looks, but this is a man who let you be tortured for weeks and didn’t raise a hand to help you.”

“He helped me. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about a person who could have a gift that strong and complex. I don’t know why Kadmus wants him bad enough to do what he did to you. So why don’t you tell me?”

“Because I promised Cameron I wouldn’t do it,” she said simply. “And I won’t, Catherine.”

Catherine drew a deep breath. “Cameron’s already told me bits and pieces. It seems that he’s going to deign to communicate with me until we get you away from Tibet.”

“I told you that he helped me.” Erin smiled. “And now he’s going to do it again. As I said, he’s wonderful.” She saw Catherine’s expression and shook her head. “And I’m not infatuated with Cameron. I admire him more than I can say, and I hope someday we can be friends. Right now, I’m sure he can only look on me as someone who’s brought him big-time trouble.”

“I’d say that the opposite is true,” Catherine said dryly. “And I’m not sure that you’ve not been influenced by a little mental manipulation. Can you deny that’s possible?”

“No, but I trust him. He wouldn’t do that to me without reason.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes,” she said with certainty. “As for that mental manipulation, I blessed it every moment I was with Kadmus.” She gazed at Catherine’s skeptical expression. “Listen, to me. After Kadmus kidnapped me and brought me to Daksha, I knew it was going to be terrible. I’ve never been more frightened. But that first night, Cameron came. I’d known he was capable of mental telepathy from our other encounter, but I hadn’t thought it was possible for him to be able to do it from great distances. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone any longer. Do you know what that meant to me? He told me he couldn’t come for me, but he would help me through it until he could get me away from Kadmus. By the time he left, the panic was gone.”

“He said he taught you to block the pain.”

“Yes, and when I couldn’t do it, he was there to do it for me. He stopped all pain and wrapped me in a kind of joyous peace.” She paused. “He was with me during the most terrible moments of my life. I couldn’t be any closer to anyone than I am to him. So don’t tell me that he shouldn’t have done a little mental hocus-pocus to help me to survive.”

“No, I won’t tell you that.” Her lips thinned. “But I will tell you that he should have tried to get you out himself.”

“He wasn’t permitted. I understood.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“It wasn’t his fault. I made a mistake. He could have just let me suffer for it. He didn’t do it. He came to help me. And, in the end, he sent you, Catherine.”

“He did not send me. I took the mission of my own volition.”

Erin smiled and nodded.

“It’s true.” And she wouldn’t be able to convince Erin that Cameron hadn’t influenced that decision. She might not be infatuated with him, but she obviously had a king-size case of hero worship. Was that how Cameron had planned it? She was fanatically grateful, and nothing could bind her closer to Cameron and his interests. Catherine might never know. The intimacy between them bred by those months of torture and captivity was probably unexplainable to anyone else.

“Worry about Kadmus,” Erin said gently. “Don’t worry about Cameron. He’ll help us, Catherine.”

“I have to worry about him. He’s a wild card.” She made a face. “That’s an understatement. But I’ll try to accept him the way you see him.” She thought about it. “No, that’s not going to work. I’ll just play it by ear.”

“You do that.” Erin settled back down in the sleeping bag. “It will be all right.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me about that first encounter you had with Cameron?”

“No, that would be breaking my word. Any information has to come from him.”

“I suspected that was going to be the way of it. And I’m not too sure that he can help as much as you seem to think. Since he managed to supply us with this home away from home, I asked him if he could find a way to get us off this mountain. He said that he’d have to consult someone or other. That didn’t give me a high degree of confidence.”

“He’ll do it.” She yawned. “I’m going back to sleep. I feel much better now that I know I don’t have to keep clamming up when you’re questioning me about Cameron. I hated closing you out.”

“But you did it. You’re still doing it.”

“Because I promised him,” she said drowsily. “But he took care of that, and now the two of you can work everything out…”

The next moment, Erin was back asleep.

She was glad Erin was so confident, Catherine thought ruefully. She wasn’t at all sure that she could work with that arrogant son of a bitch.

Too much power.

Too much charisma.

And far too much sexuality.

Erin may not have been influenced by that potent combination, but Catherine had been. He had been everything gentle with Erin, but she could not see him being that way with her.

Of course, she would work with him. She could overcome personal barriers. She just had to understand more about her antagonist. The only information she had received from her conversation with Erin was just a confirmation of what Cameron had told her. She needed answers to other questions.

The details of the encounter between Erin and Cameron would tell her a hell of a lot. Everything seemed to have stemmed from that meeting. Where had it taken place? Probably somewhere in these mountains since Erin seemed to work almost exclusively in the provinces of Tibet.

And what had happened then that caused Kadmus to have zeroed in on Erin?

Okay, concentrate on those two questions and forget everything else.

Except Richard Cameron. If she couldn’t solve his connection with Erin, she could search for answers about him. Should she call Langley and tell them to dig as soon as this present emergency was over?

No, Erin would regard that as a betrayal when she had suffered tremendously to keep his identity secret.

Catherine could just drop the subject of Cameron once she had Erin safe.

That wasn’t an option either. Kadmus wasn’t going to stop until he found Cameron, and he’d continue to search for Erin to use as the key. So that meant she’d have to deal with Cameron until Kadmus was dead.

Langley was out, but there was another possibility.

Hu Chang.

He considered Cameron a friend, and Hu Chang did not accept friends lightly. He would know everything, or as close as an outsider could come to everything, about who and what Cameron really was.

Hu Chang. She had been trying to keep herself so occupied that she wouldn’t think about him. As Cameron had said, if she had been able to extract Erin immediately, then there would have been no problem. But there was no way that Hu Chang would not come after her if she wasn’t able to get out of here within a short time.

Stay away, Hu Chang. I’m working on it. Just take care of Luke and give me a little more time.

*   *   *

“We are landing, sir.” The helicopter pilot, Tashdon, called back to Hu Chang. “We should be down in just a few minutes. And I can see Cameron coming across the plateau.”

“Indeed?” Hu Chang rose and came forward to the cockpit. “Where?” Then he saw Cameron striding toward the place where the helicopter would set down. The snow was swirling around his black-garbed body, but he moved through it with swift, athletic grace. There was a boundless energy, a burning vitality, to every step. He was everything Hu Chang remembered. It was good to know. He would need Cameron to be exceptional to get Catherine out of this quandary. “Our friend, Cameron, appears to be in good form, Tashdon.”