Yelling, "One," Dani dove and rolled across the floor. The figure in the entrance fired a shot at where Dani had been standing moments before. The bullet ricocheted twice, and then there was a sound like another gunshot from just outside the entrance.
Dani grinned at the yelp of pain that followed the blast of the detonator she'd placed on the ledge. There was a shuffling of feet and a muttered curse from the shooter, who tumbled to the floor, feet tangled in the rope.
Dani waited, lying still, holding her breath, watching. She saw the shooter stand, methodically scanning the inside of the cavern. Picking a moment when the person's head was turned away, Dani yelled "Two," and rolled again as a shot rang out, the bullet ricocheting off the floor inches from where she had been.
Then there was a buzzing sound, followed a second later by the explosion of the detonator inside the cavern. The shooter turned, firing three rounds in the direction of the sound, and Dani lunged, her weight driving the shooter to the floor. Worried, she wasted no time on finesse, grabbing the person's hair and smashing their head into the floor repeatedly, looking over her shoulder toward the entrance.
The person underneath her — a woman, Dani realized — went limp. Dani snatched the pistol from her hand and rolled away just as the second figure limped into the entrance. Dani stuck the pistol in the waistband of her shorts. Her rigging knife hung from her right wrist by a short lanyard. Deftly, she flipped her wrist and gripped the big knife.
She rushed the figure in the entrance — a man, this time, she registered, with a gun in his right hand. She grabbed his pistol with her left hand. Driving the point of her knife into the outside of his forearm just above his wrist, she leaned into it, putting her weight behind the knife and slicing his forearm open from wrist to elbow.
He screamed, releasing the pistol, and she stepped in and drove the butt of the knife's handle into the left side of his head with all her strength. He was unconscious before he hit the floor. She took a deep breath and stepped back, glancing at the pistol in her hand. She recognized it as a MAC-11, a machine pistol. She had just noticed that it was set for automatic fire when the woman she had thought was unconscious hit her from behind, knocking her down.
Dani rolled as she fell, avoiding most of the force behind the follow-up kick that the woman aimed at her ribcage. She scrambled to her feet as the woman struck again with another powerful kick aimed at Dani's torso. Dani shifted to the side, trapping the woman's lower calf with her left arm. She locked the woman's knee with her left hand and fell forward, her right forearm across the front of her opponent's thigh.
They crashed to the floor, and Dani heard the satisfying pop as the woman's knee bent the wrong way. To her surprise, the woman didn't scream. With a soft grunt of pain, she cupped Dani's chin in her right hand and grabbed Dani's hair with her left, beginning the twisting motion that Dani knew would break her neck. Dani stiffened her neck and drove the rigging knife into the woman's right hip, twisting and slashing.
Still, the woman was silent, but her surprise distracted her long enough for Dani to jerk her chin free. She trapped the woman's left hand, still gripping Dani's hair, with her own left hand. She got her right hand on the woman's left elbow, locked her arm, and rose to a crouch. Dani's continued pressure on the woman's extended left arm drove her to the floor, and Dani lunged to her feet, breaking the arm.
She released it and stepped back, delivering a vicious kick to the side of the woman's head for good measure. She swung her own head from side to side, working the kinks out of her neck and keeping an eye on her attackers for a few seconds.
Satisfied they were out of action for a while, she called, "Rick? Gerald?"
"Yeah," Rick answered.
"It's over. You guys come on out and help me tie these two up."
33
Bert reached through the companionway and set two cups of coffee on the bridge deck. After climbing into the cockpit, he handed one to Ashley. She took a sip and wrinkled her nose.
"Yuck," she said. "Instant?"
"I was in a hurry," he said. "No weapons below; I looked while the water was heating."
"This is terrible, Bert. It's not even good instant. Don't you guys have real coffee?" She looked at Liz.
"Yes," Liz said. "Should I make a pot?"
"No, that's okay. Just chalk up another screw-up for Bert." She smirked.
"Make your own damn coffee, then," Bert said.
Ashley took another sip and looked at her watch. She shifted her gaze to the cliff face, and then said, "Okay, Bert. Sorry for picking on you. Enough foolishness. Cover these two again. I need to make a call."
Bert drew his pistol and held it low, pointed at Liz and Shellie. Ashley stood, tucked her pistol in her waistband, and took a smartphone from her pocket. She went up on the foredeck and made a call, speaking briefly in a hushed tone. She was frowning when she came back to the cockpit.
"What's up?" Bert asked.
Ashley shook her head. "Not now. Let's secure these two. Then we can talk."
"That's what I thought," Bert said. "Want me to take them below?" He gave Liz a hungry look.
Ashley reached in her pocket and brought out a handful of cable ties. "I'll cover them; you cuff them — wrists behind their backs, and ankles together— okay?"
"Okay, but — "
"Hang on," she said, leveling her pistol at Liz. "Okay, Bert. Put your pistol away." She watched as he put it in his waistband at the small of his back. She handed him the cable ties. "We're going to do this one at a time, now, ladies. Bert, you go below and wait for Shellie."
Bert climbed down the companionway ladder. "Okay, come on, Shellie," he said.
As Shellie stood, Ashley said, "Go down the ladder and lie down on the floor, face down. If you don't cooperate, I'll shoot Liz in her knee, okay?"
Shellie nodded and went below, favoring her ankle, but doing as Ashley had instructed.
"Good girl," Ashley said, watching as Bert cinched cable ties around Shellie's wrists and ankles. She waited until he dragged Shellie back into a corner, then said, "Liz, it's your turn. Same drill."
Liz went below, and Bert secured her wrists and ankles. He shoved her back on top of Shellie, taking his time, letting his hands wander. Liz moaned softly as he fondled her.
"You like that?" He grinned.
She smiled and licked her lips. Holding his gaze, she blew him a kiss. "Come back when you're not busy?" she asked.
He gave her an evil smile. "Count on it," he said, climbing back into the cockpit.
In a low voice, he asked Ashley, "Did you get Ed or Leila?"
"No," she said, whispering. "Both phones went straight to voicemail — no ringing — like they were turned off."
"We should have been able to hear the blast," Bert said.
"Yeah. Something's wrong."
"Should I go look for them?" Bert asked.
Ashley chewed her lip for a few seconds. "No, I don't think so. Leila said if things went haywire, we should get under way and head due west until we're out of sight of land, then just wait. She and Ed will bring our boat and use the tracker to find us. No matter what happens in the cave, we can't leave these two alive. And this boat has to be sunk."
"So we just head out and wait for them? What if they don't show up?"
"One step at a time. They'll show up. The improvised detonators can be flaky, she said. She was half expecting that she and Ed would have to go into the cave and kill Everett and whoever was with him."
"What about destroying whatever's in there?"
"Not our problem. She and Ed will deal with it, I'm sure. Maybe set off the explosives manually, somehow. Let's get moving." She bent to the instrument panel and started the engine. "Go on up to the bow and drop the mooring pennant."
Dani was playing the beam of her flashlight over the two unconscious people when Rick crawled out of the tunnel, Gerald right behind him. Rick switched on his flashlight, and he and Gerald spent a few seconds looking at the two people.
"They're in bad shape, Dani," Rick said, dropping to one knee and feeling for a pulse in the woman's neck.
"Is she still alive?" Dani asked.
"Yes," Rick said, "but she's lost a lot of — "
"What about him?" she asked, swinging the beam of her flashlight.
Rick shifted his position and rolled the inert man onto his back. "Jesus!" he said, seeing the man's right arm, the white bone exposed in the light. "What happened? He's bleeding out, too."
"They made a mistake," Dani said. "Take that rope and — "
"We need to stop the bleeding," Rick said, "or they'll both die."
"If they wake up, they may not live long enough to bleed to death," Dani said.
Rick had begun to tear the man's shirt. He looked over his shoulder and saw the pistol in Dani's hand. "What do you mean?"
"Tie them before you bandage them," Dani said. "Especially her. If they recover consciousness and decide to fight, I'll have to blow them both away."
"Did you cut his arm like that?" Rick asked.
Ignoring the question, Dani stuck the pistol in her belt, picked up the rope, and used her bloody rigging knife to cut off four lengths, each about three-feet long. She knelt beside Rick, shouldering him aside, and pulled the unconscious man's wrists together. Using a length of the line she'd cut, she tied them in a matter of seconds.
Tugging the final knot tight, she said, "Go ahead and bandage his arm if it makes you feel better." She moved to the man's feet and lashed his ankles securely together.
She crawled to the woman, who moaned as Dani rolled her onto her stomach. Dani crossed the woman's wrists at the small of her back and secured them. She turned and tied the woman's ankles together.
As she finished, the woman groaned again. Dani squatted back on her heels and took the pistol from her belt, looking over her shoulder to check on Rick.
She realized that Gerald was nowhere to be seen. "Gerald!"
"Yes?" His voice came from the cave entrance.
She crouched and turned in that direction. "Where'd you go?"
"Out. Make sure nobody come. They got two frien's, mebbe come look for them. I watch. Nobody come now."
"Okay. Good for you."
Dani turned back to see that Rick had bound a pad made from the rest of the man's shirt over the wounds she had inflicted on the woman's hip. He had tied it in place with the rope. He looked up at her.
"Can you cut this off?" he asked. "The excess?"
Her rigging knife still hung from her right wrist. She slipped the lanyard over her hand and handed it to him, noticing that the woman was conscious, her eyes following the knife.
"Thanks," he said. "You weren't kidding about a knife fight in the dark, were you?"
"No, I wasn't. And trust me, they're still dangerous."
"You got that right, bitch," the woman said. "You're going to be sorry you ever saw me before this is over."
"I already am," Dani said, turning her flashlight on the woman.
"You should have killed me while you had the chance, Dani," the woman snarled, putting emphasis on the name.
"It's not too late, Leila. You looked much more attractive in your passport picture."
"So you stole them, then, not some petty thief. I thought so."
"It seemed only fair," Dani said. "I'm attached to my handheld radio, and you stole it. But I'd say we're about even, now."
"I'm enjoying getting to know you, shit-head, but you're wasting time you don't have."
"What am I missing here?" Dani asked.
"Ashley and Bert. They have your girlfriend and Everett's wife."
"Maybe," Dani said. "Maybe not. Liz is sweet, until you piss her off."
"Why don't you call her and check on her? Cell service is pretty good in here."
"I don't know about that. The phones you rigged didn't do a very good job. Or maybe you were as bad at that as you are at hand-to-hand combat."
"Keep talking, Dani. You'll find out the hard way that I'm not bluffing about Liz and Michelle Everett."
Dani shrugged and took her phone from her pocket. She touched the screen and listened as the call went to Liz's voicemail. She disconnected and put the phone back in her pocket.
"Well," Leila said. "What do you think?"
"The voicemail said she was busy kicking Ashley's ass. Bert's feeding the fish right now."
"Uh-huh, smart-ass. You'd better cut my hands loose and let me make a call, or you'll never see either of them again."
"You have a phone?" Dani asked.
"In my left front pocket. Cut my hands loose, Rick."
"Give me my knife, Rick," Dani said.
Rick looked down at his hand and saw that he still held the bloody knife. "Dani, I think we should do what she says."
"Give me the knife, Rick." She locked eyes with him until he looked away.
"I'll cut her loose. You can hold the pistol on her," Rick said.
"Don't make me ask again, Rick. If you make me take the knife from you, you'll get hurt."
Not looking at her, he extended the knife, handle first.
"Thanks," she said, taking it.
She put a foot on Leila's bandaged hip and rolled her onto her right side. Leila grunted in pain, but didn't say anything. Dani knelt in front of her and made a quick motion with the knife, slicing her pocket open. The phone tumbled to the floor of the cave, and Dani picked it up, powering it on.
"What's the unlock code?"
Leila laughed. "Funny. Now cut my hands loose, and I'll make the call. Liz may still be alive. I think Bert had the hots for Shellie, so she's probably okay, too. He can be a little bit of a sicko, sometimes, though. Better hurry."
Dani knelt and put the point of the knife in Leila's nostril. "The unlock code?"
"Fuck you. Cut me all you want. I'm not telling you anything."
"That's the only thing you've said that I believe." Dani reversed her grip on the knife and smashed the butt of the handle into the side of Leila's head, watching as her eyes rolled back. Leila slumped, unconscious again.
"Why'd you do that, Dani?" Rick asked. "She —"
"I could tell she was in pain, Rick. I didn't want her to suffer needlessly while we were gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes. Let's get out of here. We're going to see about Liz and Shellie."
"But … " Rick said, shaking his head.
"Rick, we don't even know if she was telling the truth about them. If she was, I'll guarantee that she wasn't going to set them free. And we don't know for sure where her two friends are; they may be coming after us, for all we know. Now, come on. Let's get moving. Shellie and Liz may need our help."
"What about them?" Rick asked, looking at Ed and Leila.
"They're not going anywhere. Go. I'm right behind you."
34
Rick was on the ledge, having just left the cave's mouth. He was about to come out of the crevice and go around the corner onto the cliff face when he saw an oversized, brown, scaly hand snake around into the crevice. He hoped it was Gerald, but he decided not to take a chance on it. Sidestepping back to the cave, he was looking back over his shoulder when he reached the entrance and bumped into Dani.
She was backing out onto the ledge. Startled, she whirled, in a crouch, ready to attack. Rick lost his balance, flailing his arms. She grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and pulled him toward her, into the cave.
"Somebody's coming in," he said, ducking his head and pushing past her into the cave entrance.
"Probably Gerald," she said, taking a pistol from her belt and stepping back into the shadows.
"Hallo, Miss Dani? Mr. Rick?" Gerald peered into the darkness, silhouetted in the opening.
"What's up, Gerald?" Dani asked, putting the pistol away again.
"Vengeance goes," he said.
"Goes?" Dani asked. "She's leaving?"
"Yes. Goes jus' now, few minutes past. I t'ink I bes' come tell you."
"Good. Thank you. Rick and I were just c
oming out; we're going to the dinghy."
"Then I stay here wit' the bad people, make sure they don' get loose, yeah?"
"Okay," Dani said.
He opened the pouch at his waist and took out one of the two cellphones he had found. "How I call you, Miss Dani?"
Dani reached for the scratched, blackened phone, surprised to see that the display was still working. "You found this on the ledge?"
"Yes, tha's right."
"Let's see if it survived the blast," she said, fiddling with it, finding the incoming call log. She saw her number in the received calls and copied it to the first speed-call button.
"Let's try it," she said, handing the phone back to Gerald, her finger pointing to the '1' key. "Press this button, and it should call my phone."
He took the phone and studied it for a moment.
"Go ahead. Try it," she said.
He touched the button and held the phone to his ear, grinning and nodding when he heard the ringtone from the phone's speaker. A split second later, Dani's phone rang in her pocket.
Taking it out, she accepted the call and said, "Hello, Gerald."
He cackled with pleasure. "He work!"
"Let's disconnect," she said, taking his hand in hers and showing him the 'end' button. "Say goodbye, and press that button."
"Goodbye." He pressed the button, a grin on his face.
As he started to put the phone away, Dani said, "Wait. I'll call you, now." She touched the screen of her phone, and the one in Gerald's hand began to ring.
He looked at it, frowning.
"Press the green button," she said.
He did, and raised the phone to his ear. "Hallo, Miss Dani."
"Hello, Gerald. Can you remember all that, or do you want to do it again?"
He shook his head. "Goodbye," he said, and disconnected. "No problem, thank you."
"You're welcome. Rick and I are going to get the dinghy and see if we can catch Vengeance, okay?"
Bluewater Quest Page 23
